 Good evening aspirants welcome to the hindi news analysis brought to you by shankar ice academy for the date 7th of december 2021 these are the articles i have taken up today for discussion so without wasting much time let us get to the first discussion so we are going to start our discussion with this opiate article it focuses on the survey results regarding one of the important health indicators in the national family health survey five and that indicator is malnutrition so in this opiate article author has discussed India's performance in this indicator and author has also suggested some measures to improve the malnutrition status of India so let us see these aspects today the syllabus relevant to this discussion is highlighted here for your reference so first let us understand the term malnutrition to understand this discussion see malnutrition refers to the deficiencies excesses or imbalances in a person's intake of energy or a person's intake of nutrients see if a person has energy intake deficit or nutrient intake deficit then that person is undernourished here you should remember that this term malnutrition is a general term and it refers to all forms of poor nutrition but we should also remember that most often the term malnutrition refers to the under nutrition that is resulting from inadequate consumption of nutrients or poor absorption of nutrients or even excessive loss of nutrients that means malnutrition most often refers to under nutrition or we can say that under nutrition is one of the forms of malnutrition now particularly under nutrition actually includes wasting, stunting and underweight we know that wasting means having low weight for height and then stunting means having low height for age and underweight means low weight for age so under nutrition is a form of malnutrition and it is calculated by the prevalence of wasting, stunting and underweight among the population especially children now here you should not forget that this term malnutrition also encompasses over nutrition so what is over nutrition it is the opposite of under nutrition it is defined as the abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health of a person so here the individual is actually getting more nutrients than what is needed and this is a result of excessive intake of specific nutrients that means what is happening here is some nutrients are excess and some are lacking so this results in an imbalance in energy intake or nutrient intake and this imbalance results in overweight, obesity and diet related non-communicable diseases among the persons now the diet related non-communicable diseases include heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cancers so malnutrition includes under nutrition and also over nutrition now coming to the open discussion as we said author has discussed the malnutrition component from the national family health survey 5 but here you should note that the NFH is 5 actually focuses on the under nutrition form of malnutrition particularly it covers wasting, stunting and underweight and that too in the children who are under the age of 5 so today we are going to see the server results regarding wasting, stunting and underweight among the children under the age of 5 so if you look at this table here you can see that in the period 2019 to 20 there is 35.5 percentage stunting among the children under the age of 5 and wasting is 19.3 percentage and similarly you can see the data for underweight overweight also and here for comparison I have given you the NFH is 4 survey results also so from this comparison we can understand that whether there is improvement in the nutrition status of children or not so if you can see here here the orange shaded indicators they have shown some improvement when compared to the previous survey that is NFH particularly as you can see here there is no improvement in the indicators of severely wasted and over weight rather in these indicators the prevalence have increased so that means this indicates that malnutrition is still prevalent among the children under the age of 5 and if you can see here even the other indicators show not much improvement so we can say that in the period of 2019 to 20 India has performed moderately or worstly in the malnutrition indicators now particularly this malnutrition component is linked to other components so let us see two of these important components now the first component is anemia and this also includes childhood anemia see as you know anemia is a condition in which the number of red blood cells or the hemoglobin concentration is lower than normal in the person now particularly anemia can be seen in pregnant women and also in the children now among the pregnant women anemia is associated with many adverse reproductive outcomes and these include preterm delivery low birth weight of infants then it also leads to decreased iron stores for the baby now this is an issue because decreased iron for the baby leads to impaired development of the child and we discussed about anemia yesterday also you can go through that analysis to know more facts about anemia now coming to the nfhs five survey results we can find that childhood anemia has worsened from the previous survey period you can see that almost there is a 10 percentage increase and anemia among adolescent girls and women who are aged between 15 49 has also increased or we can say it has worsened in the nfhs five survey period see this age bracket of 15 to 49 is important because it includes reproductive and child bearing age of women and just now we saw that how anemia and pregnant women affects the child also so the poor performance of india in the malnutrition category is also caused by this anemia condition now the second important component that is related to malnutrition is breastfeeding see we know that breast milk is the ideal food for infants it is safe it is clean and it also contains antibodies which help the baby to protect against many common childhood illnesses this breast milk provides all the energy that is required for the growth of the infant it provides the required nutrients also here we should note that this nutritional need is not only satisfied during the first few months of the child but it also satisfies the nutritional need during the second half of the first year of the child and it also satisfies the nutritional needs of the children up to one third of the second year of the child so breastfeeding is important for ensuring childhood nutrition and according to the survey early initiation of breastfeeding is static that is there is no improvement as compared to the last survey period so that means there is a hindrance in providing nutrients to the children in the first few months of their life and this is particularly shown in this indicator total children in the age group of 6 to 23 months receiving an adequate diet and as you can see here the data is only 11.3 percentage and it was 9.6 percentage in 2015 to 16 so that is not much improvement so this shows that only 11.3 percentage children in this particular age group actually receive an adequate diet so here also it has performed poorly so due to these meager and worst performances in many health indicators author says that if we are serious about a healthy new generation then we must ensure proper nutrition and growth by considering all the above indicators so for this author has given some suggestions based on the needs now the first need is ensuring nutrition from childbirth that means early breastfeeding is required see already there is a program for the promotion of breastfeeding this program is named as that is mothers absolute affection this program is being implemented by the ministry of health so according to the author programs and initiatives like these should be increased so in this manner author has suggested to initiate an exclusive breastfeeding monitor this means monitoring the breastfeeding activity till the baby is six months old so it includes that breastfeeding should be monitored after the successful initiation of breastfeeding in hospital and then it should also be monitored till the infant is six months old and they should be monitored by Anganwadi workers Asha workers and auxiliary nurse midwives now along with ensuring exclusive breastfeeding they should also record the timely initiation of complementary feeding and this complementary feeding can be done with soft gruel see soft gruel is nothing but the food that is given to the children like fruit puree cereals cereal puree etc so this is the first suggestion that is initiating a breastfeeding monitor now the second need is nutrition for under three children that is children who are under the age of three years see here there is a need to ensure that there is regular supply of supplementary nutrition and this could be ensured by the take home ration that is provided through the integrated child development services so what is needed here is that according to the author we should check whether the programs are properly functioning that is it should be ensured that the Anganwadi's are not intermittently closed without any valid reason and particularly we need a mechanism to monitor the movement of rations to the Anganwadi centers and schools for the midday meals then it should also be ensured that whether the vegetables grains millets and eggs are provided regularly to the children see these are important to ensure dietary diversification and its monitoring is important to note whether there is any refusal in providing these diets due to some socio-political reasons in the region see in many regions we have heard that eggs are particularly not provided so even though we have midday meals scheme some nutrients are not provided under it due to some socio-political reasons now these reasons should be identified and they should be resolved now the third need is focus should be on the nutrition provided by families but we know that this is directly linked to what parents earn and what is their purchasing capacity so that means people who are below poverty line they may face problem in this fact because they earn less money and their purchasing capacity is very low so they may not be able to provide the required nutrients for the growth of the child therefore to overcome this issue author is suggesting to monitor the Mahatma Gandhi rural employment guarantee scheme and here the work days under the scheme should be monitored because more the work days then more the workers will be paid along with this the wages earned in certain areas should be monitored particularly this includes the areas where droughts are common where mass migration is common where high malnutrition is prevalent so in these areas the wages earned by the families should be monitored because if they earn a particular amount then only they can spend for adequate nutrients so according to the author here there is a need for a body like the national nutrition monitoring bureau see this bureau used to conduct a diet and nutrition survey and it used to evaluate the nutrition programs I'm saying used here because this bureau was shut down some years ago so as of now government has no data on what families can afford to cook and actually what they are cooking so author is pointing to the fact that the bureau that existed before is no more so either that bureau should be reinstated or a new body should be created for this purpose now apart from all these suggestions author is also stressing on the point of monitoring the existing schemes like the Poshan Abhyan scheme and the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Anneyo Juna scheme according to the author these schemes can be monitored with the help of community and the next important suggestion is the real-time monitoring of PDS that is public distribution system this is important because PDS helps to ensure food security at the household level but there is no data across India regarding the functioning of PDS because only in few states web-based portals are functioning that monitor PDS system and these web-based portals they provide an idea about whether the shops are open or not or whether the quantity and quality of dry rations that is supplied is up to the mark or not so monitoring of PDS system is also important to ensure that nutrition arrives at the household level so under PDS rather than just focusing on ensuring food security or just eradicating hunger the government should also focus on providing enough nutrients using the grains that are provided in these shops so these are some of the suggestions of the author as we can see author has given certain new suggestions and author has also stressed on the fact of you know monitoring the existing schemes and practices so we can say that India has the mechanism to perform better in the malnutrition indicators but there is a lack of ensuring their implementation so this problem should be addressed first and then in addition to that we can implement some of the additional suggestions provided by the author so these are few points that will be helpful for you in your mains answer writing regarding the issues in our country with respect to malnutrition and the status of India's performance in the malnutrition indicators particularly these suggestions will help you in providing points for improving India's status in the malnutrition indicators now let us move on to the next discussion now our next discussion is going to be based on this news article which appeared in the Tiruvannandapuram edition of Hindines paper this news article talks about the seagrass racks that were found on the Kovalam beach in Kerala see here focus on the term rack it is spelled as WRACKS it is nothing but the loose seagrass patches that accumulate on beaches due to wave action so these seagrass racks were found on Kovalam beach in Kerala so now a biodiversity team from the University of Kerala has identified the racks and they have said that these racks belong to two seagrass species and these seagrass species are said to be unfamiliar to the Kerala coast so this is the crux of the news article now in this context let us discuss in detail about seagrass its importance and also about these two seagrasses that have been mentioned in the news article see first of all what is a seagrass see seagrass are underwater plants and they have evolved from the land plants so when we compare these seagrasses with the terrestrial plants they have few things in common for example they also have leaves like a terrestrial plant they have flowers seeds roots and connective tissues and they also make their food through photosynthesis process but there is a main difference between seagrasses and terrestrial plants which is that these seagrasses do not have a strong stem to hold themselves up as you can see here they do not have a stem and they swing like this so instead of stems these seagrasses are supported by the buoyancy of water that surrounds these seagrasses so now why these seagrasses are important see ecologically seagrasses are very important especially for the marine environment first of all these seagrasses help to lessen the effects of strong ocean currents so through this these seagrasses provide a place for eggs and larvae to attach to them so therefore seagrasses become a good nursery area for many fish and invertebrates now secondly we saw that seagrasses produce energy through photosynthesis it means that they are very sensitive to water quality why because only when the water is clear and when more sunlight can penetrate through the water photosynthesis can happen so that is why seagrasses directly linked to the water quality and that is why it is said that seagrasses are an indicator of overall health of the coastal ecosystems now in addition to all these factors seagrasses also provide food for herbivores like sea turtles and manatees see manatees is nothing but a sea cow and particularly seagrasses are important for the survival of dugongs we know that dugongs are the sea cows that are found along the coast of many countries including the countries around the indian pacific oceans they are found along the coast of india also and these dugongs they depend on seagrass for food so presence of seagrass beds are directly linked to the survival of dugongs other than this one more important use of seagrasses that organisms like plankton algae and bacteria they grow on these stems of these seagrasses and as we know plankton algae bacteria these are crucial source of food to many small and large aquatic organisms so that means seagrasses also indirectly support the survival of other aquatic organisms but an interesting fact is that these seagrasses not only provide food when they are alive but they also provide food when they are dead see these dead seagrasses provide food for decomposers like worms sea cucumbers crabs and filter feeders we know that filter feeders are the animals that obtain food through the process of filter feeding so what is filter feeding it is a form of food procurement in which food particles or small organisms are randomly trained from the water and then finally these seagrasses also improve the water quality how see these seagrasses they trap sediments they absorb nutrients and they also stabilize the sediment with their roots so in this manner they also improve the water quality so these are all the uses and significance of seagrass so now let us come to the seagrasses mentioned in the news article these two seagrasses are the oceana serulata and syringodium isotifolium now the syringodium isotifolium is also called as nodal grass now just note that these two species are listed as least concerned in the icin red list and these two seagrasses are reported to be from the laxodip islands gulf of mannar and even the andaman and nicobar islands now these we saw that these seagrasses have been found in the kerala coast and this might have happened due to extreme currents tides and wave action so other than extreme currents tides and wave action pollution sedimentation excessive nutrients storms disease and even overgrazing by herbivores these are all threats to the seagrasses so that is all in this discussion we had a comprehensive analysis about seagrasses and their significance and finally we saw about the threats faced by these seagrasses also so with this now let us move on to the next discussion okay now this discussion is based on this editorial article it talks about a major problem prevailing in the judicial organ see it focuses on the pendency of cases that is the unresolved cases particularly the editorial article also focuses on a different aspect of the pendency of cases so in this discussion we are going to see about the issues regarding the pendency of cases as pointed out by the author and in addition to that we also see the inevitable outcomes of such unresolved cases the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see first of all remember that judiciary in our country is considered as the guardian protector of the constitution and also the guardian protector of the fundamental rights of the people so this makes the judicial organ more respectable than the other two organs of the government which are the legislative organ and the executive organs so what happens when such fundamental right is breached by the state a solution for this was suggested during the framing of the Indian constitution it was proposed that any petition alleging a breach of fundamental rights by the state should be judicially decided and that too it should be decided within one month but this suggestion was not added to the text of the Indian constitution but here we can understand the importance of deciding the rights based questions within a specified time frame this specified time frame is important because this violation is costless for the state whereas it is the individual who pays the price so in this regard author has given some examples regarding the cases that revolve around or that include crucial questions about the state power accountability and impunity so let us see these examples one by one now the first example given by the author is regarding the constitutional challenge to the presidential orders of august 5 2019 yes you are right august 5 2019 the moment you hear this date you can understand which case we are talking about we are talking about the case regarding the dilution of article 370 of Indian constitution so we know that this presidential order effectively diluted article 370 and it also bifurcated the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories so now the Jammu and Kashmir region is controlled by the central government through the union territory administrations but the concerning factor here is that there is a fundamental question about the power given by the constitution to the center and also the accountability of the center see it raises the question of whether the center can bring changes in a state under an article 356 situation so what is this article 356 situation we know that article 356 is nothing but the president's rule under this article if a state government is unable to function according to the constitutional provisions then the union government it can take direct control of the state missionary so here the question is that whether it is possible to bring changes at a time when no elected government or assembly is in existence in that state because article 356 is in motion and particularly a permanent and irreversible alteration in the very structure of itself could be allowed in this state is another big question see providing answers to these questions are important because it will have important ramifications not just for the Jammu and Kashmir region but also for the entire federal structure of her country see these questions need to be answered because india has a long history of controversy about misusing this article 356 so resolving this matter will provide a solution to the JNK problem and it will also help to address the misusing of article 356 in the future so this was one question so now another important constitutional question regarding this constitutional order is the power of parliament to alter state boundaries see it is a power granted by the constitution under article 3 so the question here is whether the parliament has the power to degrade a state into a union territory under this article 3 now the need to address this question is based on the fact that this action amounts to huge power shift to the center so to maintain the federal structure of our constitution Indian courts should look into this matter as soon as possible we know that federal structure is a basic structure of our constitution so resolving the matter regarding the dilution of article 370 is important so this was one example now the another example is the constitutional challenge on the electoral bonds this challenge is pending for almost four years now see we know that as per the provisions of electoral bond scheme the bonds may be purchased by a person who is a citizen of india or who is incorporated in india or a person who is established in india now we have discussed about electoral bond scheme in detail on our june 16 2021 hindi news analysis viewers can view that analysis for understanding the electoral bond scheme now if you listen to that discussion we can understand that the electoral bond scheme authorizes anonymous corporate donations to the political parties so that means it makes the election funding entirely opaque to the people in addition to that this scheme makes it possible to be structurally biased towards the party that is in power at the center so that means this scheme impacts not only the integrity of the election process but it also impacts the constitutional right of citizens to an informed vote so even though these many challenges are there in the electoral bond scheme a full hearing to this constitutional challenge has not happened yet so here you may ask a question about what is challenged in this electoral bond scheme particularly the anonymity clause has been challenged so this anonymity clause actually hinders the informed vote clause and that is why it is important for the supreme court to address this issue sooner but other than passing two interim orders supreme court has not accorded a full hearing to this constitutional challenge as of now so this is another example we can also take the example of the constitutional challenges to the citizenship amendment act then we can also take the example of the constitutional challenge regarding the unlawful action prevention act so there are many such examples where the cases deal with the questions about states power accountability etc and such cases are still pending with the supreme court see what happens is such kinds of unresolved cases or pending cases they result in violation of rights of the people in certain cases it also amounts to the questions challenging the very nature of the constitution itself and this problem of pending cases is quite extreme in our country if you can see these data you can understand this fact easily in this image you can see the number of cases pending in supreme court high court and subordinate courts and it is not in thousands or lakhs it is in crores in the district courts and subordinate courts and in these images we can see that the pendency of cases has increased with the years and even the pendency of cases varies according to the states for example in Uttar Pradesh the pendency of cases is quite high in the subordinate courts and the same is with the Allahabad High Court also but in case of high courts we can see that almost you know the high courts of Allahabad Medras High Court Rajasthan High Court Bombay High Court they have similar number of pending cases so these data provide you you know an idea about the grave nature of pendency of cases in our country you can cite these data in your mains answer writing it will enrich your answer so far we saw the issues and data relating to the pendency of cases and even some examples for it now let us see what are the consequences of such pendency see the first and foremost consequence is the delay in justice see actually there are two aspects of delay that need to be considered in the context of criminal trial the first aspect is it time taken to complete a trial and to give a judgment and the second aspect is related to the pendency and this pendency pertains to the consequences of delay and its effect on under trials see you should know that the criminal law is based on the presumption of innocence that is an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty but however during the pendency of a criminal trial the liberty of the accused person is restricted and their presumption of innocence also has a substantive impact especially if they are put in prison during the trial period here you should note that the under trials in Indian prisons have increased in the recent years it was 67 percentage in 2015 and in 2019 it increased to 169 percentage this data is according to the Britain statistics India 2019 as released by the national crime records bureau but if you look on the civil side then we can see that there are consequences to the constitutional rights see high pendency and delays have economic costs due to the last days and due to the state of suspension of business why there is state of suspension of business see if that case involves a company then that means that company and its business could be suspended in the time period so it has some economic costs also apart from all these there are consequences to the judicial system also for example it leads to high cost of legal fees then it leads to the loss of memory of witness and thereby it affects the quality of justice that is delivered and then it also leads to disappearance of witnesses it leads to repeat offenses then it also causes economic loss to the judiciary then also the corruption within the judicial system increases in this time period and particularly there is wastage of limited resources when there is pendency of cases so why our government has not addressed this issue of pendency of cases see here we should remember that already there are two law commission reports in this matter in 1958 itself the 14th report of law commission dealt with the issue of delay and arrears and this law commission identified the root cause of this problem it identified the inadequate strength of judges in the courts as the root cause of this problem and then most recently the 230th law commission report has made certain suggestions to reduce arrears in the areas of adjournment in the areas of clubbing cases in curtailing vacations and strikes etc that is certain judicial reforms were recommended by the law commission but we can see that these recommendations have not yet been fully implemented by the government otherwise this pendency of cases would have started to reduce so what is the solution what is the way forward to address this problem see one solution to this problem could be you know automation wherever possible automation will help to increase the speed of justice and we also have a scheme for this purpose the scheme is the e-codes scheme it is being implemented by the government and once it is fully implemented and operationalized we can hope that there will be a solution to the pendency of cases in the courts apart from this there is a need for greater push for the ADR mechanism that is the alternative dispute resolution mechanism this will help in not only reducing the burden of judiciary but it will also provide quicker access to justice to the matters which cannot wait so you know that our constitution encourages settlement of international disputes by arbitration the same can also be you know used for solving the domestic disputes also at least to some important cases apart from all this a rationalization is needed on the creation of resources and allocation of resources to the special courts and administrative tribunals so that they can function efficiently so from this what author is trying to say is that for the judicial organ to guard the constitution and to protect the fundamental rights of citizens it is important first to look into the impediments that is causing the dependency of cases and then we have to provide solution to overcome such impediments so in this discussion we saw about the pendency of cases we saw the pendency of cases where there is a constitutional question and we saw the consequences of such pendency etc now let us move on to the next discussion so our next discussion is based on this news article it talks about the compensatory afforestation fund see the news is about the dispersal of funds by CAMPA under the CAF Act of 2016 here CAMPA stands for compensatory afforestation fund management and planning authority and the term CAF stands for compensatory afforestation fund act of 2016 so according to the article CAMPA has dispersed around 48 000 crores to 32 states so far and under this the states of Chhattisgarh and Odisha have got the maximum amount which is close to 5700 crores each and the states of Jharkhand and Maharashtra have received 3000 crores each so this is the data given in the news article in this context today let us see about compensatory afforestation fund and also the CAF act of 2016 see first you should note that under the forest conservation act of 1980 it is allowed for diversion of forest land for non-forest purpose but the central government was of the view that simply the diversion could not be approved so rather for this purpose it stipulated to realize a particular amount this amount is to be realized from the user agencies and this amount will be used to undertake compensatory afforestation and such other activities that is related to the conservation and development of forest and these are the forests that have been repurposed for non-purpose use so what does compensatory afforestation mean it means the afforestation that is done for the diversion of forest for non-forestry use under the forest conservation act so now the amount which is collected by the central government it helps to mitigate the impact of diversion of this forest land this is the main purpose of collecting that amount so for this purpose supreme court ordered for the creation of compensatory afforestation fund that is CAF now this would be the fund in which all the money is received from the user agencies for the purpose of compensatory afforestation and other similar activities shall be deposited but there were discrepancies in the implementation of compensatory afforestation and therefore for this in 2004 itself central government issued a notification for the constitution of an authority in the name of CAMPA we already saw that CAMPA stands for compensatory afforestation fund management and planning authority even though a notification was issued there were delays in constituting this authority therefore in 2006 supreme court took the matter into its hand in 2006 supreme court constituted an ad hoc CAMPA that is a temporary authority until the CAMPA constituted by central government is operationalized so this ad hoc CAMPA was established with the objective of promoting afforestation and regeneration activities as a way of compensating for the forest land that has been diverted to non-forest uses in addition to the supreme court also directed to centrally pool the money into this ad hoc CAMPA this is the money that is recovered on behalf of the said authority that is the CAMPA authority and this is the fund that is lying in the states and union territories then what happened was in 2009 union government formulated guidelines for a state CAMPA and this state CAMPA will be an agency for utilizing CAMPA funds in the states and the state CAMPA was intended as an instrument to accelerate the activities for preservation of natural forest management of wildlife for infrastructure development in the sector and also for other allied activities but the problem was there was still an absence of permanent institutional mechanism for the utilization of the funds that are collected under the compensatory afforestation fund so this resulted in accumulation of huge unspent funds in the ad hoc authority itself and accordingly more than 40,000 crore rupees were accumulated in the ad hoc body so in order to manage these funds finally central government introduced an act which is the compensatory afforestation fund act 2016 now this act established the national compensatory afforestation fund under the public account of India along with this it established a state compensatory afforestation fund also under the public account of each state now these funds will receive the payments for three purposes one is the compensatory afforestation second is for net present value of forest and third other project specific payments now here we'll see about the net present value of forest some other day it is a detailed topic just today know that the funds will receive payments for this purpose also and totally know that the fund whatever is received from the user agency it will be divided between the national fund and the state fund the national fund will receive 10 percentage of the fund and state fund will receive the remaining 90 percentage and these funds will be primarily spent on afforestation to compensate for the loss of forest cover and it will also be spent for regeneration of forest ecosystem for wildlife protection and for infrastructure development now in addition to establishing the national fund and state fund the act also established two important authorities at the national level and state level these are the national compensatory afforestation fund management and planning authority and state compensatory afforestation fund management and planning authority these authorities will manage their respective national and state funds so initially there were issues in utilizing the funds that was being collected under CAF because of the administrative reasons because initially there was no authority to manage those funds now apart from this there are also other factors which affect the compensatory afforestation and forest conservation mainly let us see the two important factors the first one among these is the lack of capacity in the state forest departments see these departments lack the planning and implementation capacity to carry out compensatory afforestation and forest conservation this is an issue because we saw that around 90 percentage of the funds received are transferred to the states so their effective utilization totally depends on the capacity of state forest departments only now the second problem was procuring land for compensatory afforestation see this is quite difficult because land is a limited resource and it is also required for multiple purposes such as agriculture industry etc so overall we can say that while making efforts to conserve and develop forests through afforestation all these factors should be taken into account so in this discussion we saw about the compensatory afforestation fund we saw what do we mean by compensatory afforestation we saw about camper about the ad hoc camper and what are the issues utilizing the funds accumulated under CAF now let us move on to the next discussion so our next discussion is going to be based on india-russia relations and for this i have taken three articles from today's newspaper now among these three two are news articles and one is editorial now these two news articles they talk about the 21st annual india-russia summit that happened yesterday and it talks about its outcomes see in this summit you should remember that for the first time india-russia two plus two ministerial meeting happened and this two plus two ministerial meeting was between the foreign ministers of the two countries and between the defense ministers of the two countries so in this summit many areas of cooperation were discussed such as a common fight against organized crime drug trafficking and terrorism were discussed in the summit and particularly both countries have renewed their military technical cooperation agreement now this agreement has been renewed for another 10 years till 2031 along with this a deal was signed for the manufacture of ak 203 assault rifles in addition to this many agreements were concluded in this summit according to the news articles both sides concluded 28 agreements in total so based on this summit this editorial has been written and in this editorial the author talks about the recent developments in the india-russia relations so for that purpose author has discussed about the india-russia special and privileged strategic partnership so today we are going to see about this partnership in detail and we'll see the expected outcomes of this partnership and also its significance for india and finally we'll see the suggestions given by the author regarding the areas of development in the india-russia relations the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference now let us get into the discussion see as we know russia has been a long-standing and time-tested partner for india so the development of bilateral relations between the countries has been a key pillar of india's foreign policy and this development was made possible by the india-russia special and privileged strategic partnership let us see what is this see this partnership started with the signing of declaration on the india-russia strategic partnership this declaration was signed in october 2000 it was signed during the visit of russian president put in to india after this declaration india-russia ties acquired enhanced levels of cooperation that is there were qualitative enhancement in almost all areas of india-russia relations and some of the areas of cooperation where there was improvement include the political aspects security cooperation defense cooperation trade and economy science and technology and even cultural cooperation and then came the next level in india-russia relations this next level came when the strategic partnership was elevated to the next level and this next level is called as a special and privileged strategic partnership this elevation was done in the year 2010 and now through this 21st annual india-russia summit the countries have provided impetus to the india-russia special and privileged strategic partnership see in 2010 when this partnership was achieved there were certain expected outcomes of this partnership so now let us see whether these outcomes have been achieved or not or what are the efforts taken to achieve these outcomes so first let us see the expected outcome it is in the realm of developing economic relations between india-russia see it was observed that the trade and investment relations between india-russia are not up to the mark therefore a target was set in this regard the target was to achieve 30 billion u.s. dollars in trade by the year 2025 and an additional 50 billion u.s. dollars in investment by the year 2025 so to achieve these targets greater efforts were needed so what were the efforts taken in this regard see both countries have taken certain measures to achieve this economic target for example if you take the indian side we have the initiative of make in india program now this make in india program has welcomed russian companies from the public and private sectors to invest in india on the other hand if you take the russian side these russian firms they have shown willingness to invest in india in various fields these fields include construction engineering services etc so on these slides a second effort was also agreed in the summit it was continuing the engagements of india-russia intergovernmental commission on trade economic scientific technical and cultural cooperation so through this intergovernmental commission india-russia is planning to achieve their 2025 targets for trade and investment so this was the first expected outcome now the second expected outcome is regarding the cooperation of india in the russia far east policy see in this regard india has taken certain efforts for example indian prime minister has promised in 2019 to operationalize one billion u.s. dollars line of credit and these credits are to be used for russian far east development projects so in this summit measures were discussed for operationalizing this one billion u.s. dollars line of credit now the third expected outcome is regarding the energy sector see in the summit it was agreed that india-russia cooperation in hydrocarbons will be strengthened by the year 2024 along with this the sourcing of crude oil from russia to india will also be increased at a preferential price this was also agreed in the summit so here we should understand that already there is a roadmap for cooperation in hydrocarbons for the period 2019 to 2024 between india and russia so under this roadmap efforts have been taken and one of the recent notable efforts is opening of barat energy center in moscow or it is also called as indian energy office in moscow this office represents five indian oil and gas public sector companies these companies include oil india limited ongc limited gale india limited indian oil corporation limited and engineers india limited and this center was set up to enhance the engagement with russian stakeholders in the energy sector so now let us come to the next expected outcome this is in the political relations between india and russia in the summit russia has ensured its support for india's permanent membership in the united nation security council it said that russia support will continue along with this we also know that india and russia are engaged in several multilateral efforts that are greatly favored by russia particularly and these multilateral efforts include the brix organization and even shanghai cooperation organization so this was the fourth expected outcome now these two are the expected outcomes regarding counterterrorism and cultural cooperation you can just go through it so far we discussed about the expected outcomes of india russia special and privileged strategic partnership so now why this partnership is important for india see first it is important for india to get critical technology such as nuclear submarines from russia so india needs this partnership now secondly it is important for india to secure itself and its borders and this is particularly important in the emerging relationship between russia and china we know that russia and china's partnership are enhancing and at the same time india-china relations are declining so india's good relations with russia is necessary at this moment now mostly russia's partnership is important for india regarding the permanent seat at unse we know that russia is a permanent member of unse so its support to india is an additional benefit in addition to all these russia's support is needed for india to get nuclear supplies group membership see in addition to this both india-russia have mutual benefits in supporting struggle in afghanistan and also efforts regarding climate change so in all these arenas india requires russia's partnership but in addition to all these areas of cooperation that is other than defense trade and investment energy science and technology author has discussed few other areas which require development these areas are important as it will help you in your main sansa writing let us see these areas now the first according to the author india-russia needs to work together in a trilateral manner that is they should include a country from south east asia or central asia so this in a way will also strengthen the multilateralism and here if you take the example of usa india is already engaged in a quadrilateral relationship with usa so a similar kind of trilateral relationship can be maintained with russia also in addition to this author has suggested for the enhancement of people-to-people relations and this can be enhanced through exchange of youth and by using their skills in a productive manner other than this certain areas require improvement these areas include sports culture spiritual and religious studies and finally in the area of Buddhism also india and russia can expand their relationship according to the author so that is all in this discussion we saw about the recent india-russia summit and we saw about the india-russia special and privileged strategic partnership and its expected outcomes and what were the efforts taken for achieving these outcomes and finally we also saw some of the areas suggested by the author where improvements are needed in the relations between india and russia so with this news article discussion we have come to the end of news article analysis session now we are moving to the next session of practice questions discussion today we have two problems practice questions let us take the first one this first question is based on the compensatory of forestation fund act of 2016 now let us take up the first statement it established the compensatory of forestation funds under the public accounts of india and of each state actually this statement is correct we have the national compensatory forestation funds it has been established under the public accounts of india and we also have the state compensatory forestation funds which have been established under the public accounts of each state now the second statement is national funds receive 50 percentage of funds received under the Act. This statement is incorrect because during discussion we saw that the national funds receive 10% of the funds whereas the state funds they get the maximum amount which is around 90%. So here the question asks for the correct statement so the correct answer to this question is option A1 only. Now let us take up this next question. It is a three statement question based on our seagrasses discussion. Now the first statement is they have stems that support them under water. This statement is incorrect because during discussion itself we saw that seagrasses do not have strong stems rather they are supported by the buoyancy of water which surrounds them. Now second statement they are an indicator of overall health of the coastal ecosystems. This statement is correct we saw this during discussion itself. Now the third statement declining seagrass beds threatens the existence of the gongs. This statement is also correct we saw that existence of the gongs is directly linked to the seagrass beds because seagrass beds they provide food for the gongs and other herbivores like sea turtles. So this statement is also correct. Now here the question asks us to choose the incorrect statements. So since only statement one is incorrect the correct answer to this question is option B1 only. So this practice question let us take up the main questions for today. We have three main questions for today based on the discussions. Interested aspirants can write answers to these questions and post it in the comment section and whenever we get time we will evaluate your answers. So with this we have come to the end of today's hithid use analysis and practice questions discussion session. Viewers and aspirants if you like this analysis don't forget to like comment and share. 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