 A very good evening everyone. Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis brought to you by Shankara A.S. Academy for the date 11th of August 2021. Before we proceed into our analysis today, I have a very small announcement to make. See in our academy this Friday we are live streaming a current affairs discussion scheduled from 2.30 to 5 which will be covering up to fundamental duties. So with preliminary exam approaching this particular discussion will be very useful for your exam. So don't miss it. It will be on 13th of August from 2.30 to 5. It will be live streamed. So don't miss it. So with that let's go on to our analysis. Let me quickly run through what are the topics that we are going to discuss today. See first and foremost we will be talking about two important topics that has made headlines in all the newspapers. First will be the bill that seeks to modify the amendments brought about by the 1st or 2nd Constitutional Amendment Act. We will be talking it in detail right from the Mandel case to the recent development as a timeline and apart from that we will be also talking about criminalization of politics based on the recent judgment by the Supreme Court. These two are the burning issues. We will be laying the foundation for these two issues and apart from that we will also be discussing a very important economics based editorial. This is called unpacking the resiliency of the global trade yet again and while we are discussing this particular editorial we will be discussing it under three verticals. The first vertical will be based on protectionism in the global trade and the second vertical will be based on technology that can shape up the future of the global trade in the post pandemic era. Basically it will be based on big data in the global economic parlance and apart from that we will also be talking about India's economic recovery. So these are the three verticals that we will be covering in this particular editorial. See this particular editorial is very important from the main exam point of view. We will be clarifying a lot of concepts here. So pay attention to this particular editorial and we will also have a map based, we will also be having a map based discussion which is based on Saudi Arabia and apart from that we will be taking a quick discussion on something called Navajeevan project. This is a quick takeaway and apart from that we will be discussing one particular editorial called choppy waters. You know India has been heading the United Nations Security Council debate this time and this particular editorial will be a quick analysis on that and later we will be proceeding to the practice preliminary questions. In that also we will be discussing about a small topic which is the micro financial institutions and later we will be moving on to the main questions and after that we will be wrapping up our discussion for today. Now look at this particular editorial. This editorial talks about the global and Indian economy in the post COVID-19 world. So we have seen a lot of editorials that covers the impact of COVID on the economies and the current status of the economies across the world and this article is unique because it tries to throw light on the post COVID world. So very important topic from the main's perspective so pay attention. We'll be focusing more on the points mentioned in the editorial and this particular discussion is separated into three verticals. In the first part we'll talk about the protectionist policy. In the next part we'll talk about the new technology which is big data and in the last part we'll talk about the Indian aspect of the economy and here is the syllabus for your reference. See the entire world is devastated by the COVID pandemic and the economic impact is manifold and in response to this particular adverse effect on the economy many countries have resorted to protectionist policies. See understand what is protectionism first. See strictly speaking protectionism means a government policy that restricts international trade to help domestic industries. Say for example we in India we want to save the farmers and in order to give a boost to our farmers if at all we place some embargoes or we place some restrictions in the import of the grains or import of some particular material from the outside so that we don't have a glut in the domestic market. Then that particular policy is called as protectionism. Basically we want to protect our own farmers our own industries and that is exactly why we are facing restrictions on the trade with the other countries and that is what is called as protectionism. So if you want to protect rice farmers so we place import duties on the rice from the other countries. So the amount of rice in India will be optimal and the price will not fluctuate and if at all we say there is high imports from the outside. Okay there'll be surplus of rice in India and the price of the rice will fall and ultimately our farmers will suffer right and to prevent that if at all we keep the import duties on these rice at very high rate. The rice that comes inside India from outside will be placed at a higher rate and Indian rice will be placed at a optimal level and the demand for the Indian rice will be higher and the demand for the foreign rice will be much lesser and this will save our farmers and this can be called as a protectionism. So understand this. So many countries have opted to protectionist policies in the hope of reviving their domestic economy. But the problem is protectionism has the potential to disrupt the complex cross-border supply chains. How? Say India is placing embargoes on the rice coming inside. What will the other countries do? See India is not letting us export rice into their market. So let me not allow India to export something into my market as well. Say US thinks that I'm not allowed to export something into India. Then I will not allow India to export something into my territory. So that particular delicate balance can go for a toss if at all this protectionism picks up and in the long run you can say that it can affect the global economic recovery because everything will be based on competition and there will be no win-win situation and this will affect the global economic recovery. All right. See this is not something new and even before the pandemic itself many global political readers have blamed the globalization, trade openness and trade agreements for the domestic economic problems. See understand this globalization can be seen as an opposite to protectionism. See because protectionism means we are trying to safeguard our own people and we don't really want contact with the others. We just want to develop all by ourselves. On the other hand, if you see globalization, trade openness and all, we want to trade with the outside world and that is what globalization and the trade openness means. Okay. So the leaders who advocated protectionism blamed the globalization and the trade openness. All right. So whenever there is a slowdown in the domestic economy, these leaders usually attack the global trade with protectionist policy. So this is not new, but the problem is that they are going for the same approach in the post COVID-19 world as well and given that the economy is already sluggish, this can prove really dangerous and this can slow down the global economic recovery, which in turn will affect the people adversely. So what can we do? See author wants us to look at the past for the answers. What happened in the past? In the past, whenever we had a major global issue, we used it as an opportunity to form new global links. That is we used it as an opportunity to create new institutions for fostering cooperation among the nations. See, let us understand it better with an example. For example, take the Second World War. The Second World War caused huge damages to the global economy. So that was also a devastating situation. So in order to counter these damages, we created very significant multilateral institutions. So the notable was the United Nations, World Bank, the IMF, the international trade organizations. So these were the institutions that were created after the devastating events and these institutions helped us to rebuild the shattered post war economy and not just institutions. You can also think about GATT, that is general agreement on tariffs and trade. So you may recollect that this GATT agreement is nothing but the only agreement that regulated the trade in the aftermath of the Second World War. And so we can see that after a major global economic crisis, the global links have increased and they have increased and strengthened these institutions and agreements. Let us understand it with more examples. Take the oil shock of 1970s. See, during the 1970s, what happened was many countries of the world faced substantial petroleum shortages due to the elevated prices of the petroleum and this particular crisis is known as the oil shocks of the 1970s. And in order to solve this particular issue, we created the International Energy Agency and this International Energy Agency was established to manage the oil supply disruptions and to create awareness on the need for the global energy security. And similarly, take the financial crisis of 2008. This crisis led to the creation of G20 and see the first G20 summit was hosted by the US President in Washington in 2008 to counter the financial crisis. So we can observe that in the past, whenever we had a global economic crisis, we created many significant institutions and agreements to overcome this problem and these measures and developments had a consequential impact on the global level and it helped in the revival of the global economy and trade. So increasing and strengthening the global links and the global trade should be our approach in the COVID era and only through the revival of the global economy and international trade we can attain prosperity during these testing times. Basically, we'll be able to forge some kind of unity, some kind of consensus if at all some forum of this sort takes birth. So how can we do that? See, as I already said, multilateral institutions can play a huge role in the global economic recovery and they can take strong measures to promote globalization and deter protectionism. Take the WTO. See, we can expect the WTO to take strong actions against countries that promote protectionism. It can discipline misbehaving nations that are known for dumping goods and erecting trade barriers and this WTO can also negotiate mutually beneficial trade agreements as well and these trade agreements will promote deeper economic integration and they will also lower trade barriers and harmonize standards. See, such agreements will lead to an increase in the global trade and the global economic recovery but we have to know that the economic recovery will not be uniform so global commons should also be able to reconcile to this particular fact. As I said in the beginning of this particular discussion, we are going to discuss it under three verticals. So the first vertical is going to be the global economy and this particular vertical is done and our next particular vertical will be based on big data. See, what is big data? In the modern era, the data that is generated at huge quantities is what is called as big data and this big data being used to identify the trends and patterns has been the new tool that can actually define the future and according to the author, big data will be the main driver of the economic growth in the 21st century. So countries which can harness the technology of big data will lead the development in the post-COVID-19 world but this also creates problems. See, increasing use of new technologies like big data will cause job losses. See, understand this. I had already in a previous session mentioned about this. Say, before 1990s, if you talk about data entry, it means writing the data in a notebook. We'll have tons and tons of notebooks that holds data and which will be used for further references. But right now, if you think about data entry, what will you think? That is, transferring the data in a digital format is what is called as data entry. So, as you can see, there is a perceptible difference for the same particular job. So, big data is one such aspect. That is, it is a new technology and when this particular technology starts occupying the job space, there will be job losses for those who are redundant, who have not undergone upskilling. So, the workers who do not have the skills to handle big data will lose their jobs. So, what can be done? See, in the upcoming days, we should focus on stronger safety nets for workers. We should protect their income. We should provide their healthcare and we should also provide educational support to the families and more importantly, reskilling these people is also important. So, this will be the way forward in the post COVID-19 world for a world that is adopting a new technology. So, so far we have been talking about big data technology, the world economy and now coming to the third vertical, this is about India. See, India is also facing some tough challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and India's GDP has contracted by 7.3 percentage due to the COVID-19 pandemic and India has lost almost 10 million jobs due to this pandemic. But now the tides are changing. In the last few months, our economy is showing signs of recovery as well. If you see the International Monetary Fund, it has also given some positive projections for India which is a fact to rejoice for us and our merchandise export has also increased by 6 percentage for the second quarter of 2020. So, this is also very encouraging but we should also know that the most of the increase in the merchandise exports came from the products like refined petroleum products, pharma, gems, jewelry, textiles and engineering items. So, if you see most of these are very basic, most of these are raw materials. They're all unprocessed without any value addition and value added products are still struggling when we talk about exports. That is, they're not contributing much in terms of merchandise exports. So, understand this better. Value added products are those that have been modified or that has been enhanced to have a higher market value and longer shelf life. If you think about jams, jam is a value added product made from fruits. So, when you're simply exporting fruits, you will sell it for one particular price. But if you make it into a jam and sell, you will be able to sell it for a higher price. So, exporting a value added product is always beneficial, one from the price level. So, when value addition happens within the Indian economy, the employment is also generated. So, when a fruit is exported, only a farmer gets job but when the fruit is processed and value added, more people are getting job in the process of value addition. And that is exactly why exporting value added products is very important part of the export import balance. So, we have been exporting more of raw materials and value addition is very little from our end. So, we should be able to add value and export and that is where we have to focus. So, what can be done to increase their exports? See, according to the author, our government should build an ecosystem that incentivizes value added manufacturing and technology. We should also promote schemes which increase our exports in value added products. Besides, MSMEs should be supported in production of the value added products and the MSMEs are the ones that hold huge potential in the value addition. And apart from that, we should also create a good relationship between big industries and the MSMEs. And this relation will have a huge impact to the production and the export of the value added products. Why? See, the MSMEs are smaller units, okay? They will be short in capital. They might not have access to the new technologies but a big industry might have. So, a big industry might be able to provide them with capital and technology whereas the MSME can provide the big industry with that of manpower and the production process. So, this kind of synergistic relationship is very important to create an ecosystem of value addition. And as we already saw, in the long term, we should also upskill our standards of the workers and all these measures should form a part of India's strategy in the post COVID-19 world. So, these are the three verticals that was discussed. That is first is the economic situation across the globe and how multilateral institutions can be a potential game changer. The second one is about the new technology that is big data that can shape up the world economy in the future. And third is the India specific aspect and how we should be going about in the post COVID-19 world. So, this formed the essence of today's discussion from this particular editorial. With that information in mind, let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion. Now, look at this particular article. See, recently the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia arrested a lot of their garment employees. So, according to the official sources, these arrests were made on corruption charges and these arrests were made by the National Anti-Corruption Commission known as NASA. And see, it is important to note that it is not the first time these kind of arrests are being made in Saudi Arabia. These anti-corruption arrests began in 2017 and it is still going on. And this particular happening is related to a power transition that is happening in Saudi Arabia. So, this is the gist of the article. This is just to know about the four story. But for our exam, we will know Saudi Arabia from the map perspective. So, as I talk, just have a look at the map. Just follow the map as I talk. See, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an important country situated in the southwest Asia. See, it is the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula. Remember that. And now, let us discuss the countries and water bodies surrounding Saudi Arabia. This is very important from the preliminary point of view. Let's start with the west. See, the west side of Saudi Arabia has Red Sea as a water body bordering it. Now, look at the north. It is bounded by Jordan, Iraq and Kuwait. Now, look at the east. At the east, we have the Persian Gulf as a water body. We have the small Qatar and we have United Arab Emirates in the eastern side. Now, finally, look at the southern side. In south, it is bordered by Yemen and the Oman. Let's go over it again. In the south, we have Yemen and Oman. And in the east, we have Persian Gulf, Qatar, UAE. In the north, we have Jordan, Iraq and Kuwait. And in the west, we have the Red Sea bordering it. See, why are we discussing Saudi Arabia? Because Saudi Arabia kingdom occupies one of the important strategic positions in the world. If you see, it is surrounded by one of the busiest trade route that is the Red Sea. See, Red Sea is in proximity to the Suez Canal and this is one of the busiest trade route. And apart from that, of course, Saudi Arabia has a lot of oil reserves and it is one of the most powerful countries of this particular region and has a great say in determining the oil prices and all. So, coming back to the exam perspective, see, the majority of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a desert. See, on my fourth of August discussion, when we were discussing the practice preliminary question, we also spoke about the desert in Saudi Arabia. If you remember the name, just keep it in mind. I'll come back to it by the end of the discussion today. See, because it is majorly covered by desert, we don't have any rivers there and we have something called vades. See, what are the vades? The vades are the riverbeds that are either permanently or intermittently dry and these vades are an important source of water in Saudi Arabia. So, these are the important basic information regarding Saudi Arabia from map and geography perspective. Yes, I'll come back to the name of the desert by the end of this segment. If you can recollect, just go for it. Alright, and see, we are talking about Saudi Arabia. Another development with respect to Saudi Arabia is this. Al-Mohad Al-Hind. See, what is this Al-Mohad Al-Hind? It is the India's first-ever naval combat exercise with Saudi Arabia. So, this joint naval combat exercise is expected to strengthen the India- Saudi bilateral relations. See, India's relation with Middle East is largely shaped by its energy security interests. That is our energy security interest. We really don't have oil in our soil. So, we rely on the Middle East largely for our oil requirements. So, strengthening India- Saudi Arabia relations or strengthening India-Middle East relation is always good for our energy security. So, on those lines, Al-Mohad Al-Hind is a positive development. So, as I promised, what is the desert in Saudi Arabia? It is called Rubal Kali. So, it basically means empty quarter and this Rubal Kali occupies one of the major regions in the Saudi Arabia. It's one of the biggest desert as well. So, keep that in mind. With that, let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion. See, now look at this article. So, this particular article that is Lok Sabha Clearers Bill Restoring States Rights to Specify OBC Groups. So, this particular article has made headlines not only in our Hindu but in every other newspaper. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you why this particular news has made headlines. That is, why is it so important? I'm not going to analyze the article for you. I'm going to tell you what has made it so important that it has hit the first page and the detail analysis will be done in the subsequent sessions when the editorials on this particular topic comes up. All right? So, pertaining to this, just listen to what I say and I will also tell you about the relevant constitutional provisions, the amendment acts, the Supreme Court cases, which you just have to follow. Okay? In our channel, few information will be very familiar to you and this will make it easy for you to follow this particular development in the news as well. All right? So, let me begin by telling you about the reservations for the backward classes. Now, let's go back to 1992. So, that your famous case called the Mandel case happened. So, what happened in that case is the reservation for the backward classes was set at 50 percentage ceiling. That is, if there are 100 seats, only 50 can be reserved or 50 or lesser can be reserved. More than that cannot be reserved for the backward classes and that is the 50 seats of the 100 seats should be open for open competition. That is, anybody should be able to compete in this particular 50 percentage and the rest 50 can be reserved for the backward classes in India. All right? This is in 1992. Now, fast forward to 2018, what happened was the government recognized that the society still has a lot of classes of people who need social upliftment. So, it passed the 102nd Constitutional Amendment Act and through this particular act, few articles were inserted and the most notable change that this particular amendment act brought was that it established the national commission on the backward classes under article 338b. Remember the 102nd Constitutional Amendment Act 2018 established the NCBC under article 338b. See, when I say established, it was constitutionalized. All right? Before that, it was a statutory body and now it was constitutionalized. See, when you constitutionalize something, it means the body gets an upgradeation. Okay? Say, in terms of power and importance. So, this particular commission was established as a five member commission and when it was established, it was said that the center and the states shall consult the commission on all policy matters concerning the SCBCs. All right? Apart from that, it inserted another article. That is, article 342a and through this article, it was said that the power of the president to notify a particular caste as a SCBC. Okay? And what is meant by the power of the president? It means the parliament can alter the backward classes list nationally and by that, I mean that the parliament could only make inclusions or exclusions in the list by law. See, pay attention to this part, article 342a is very important. Now, the another article that was incorporated was article 366, clause 26c. It defined what is social and economically backward class. So, article 338b is important, article 342a is very important to understand this particular recent development and apart from that, we also have article 366, clause 26c. All right? So, this is another development that happened in 2018. So, first Mandel Commission happened in 1992. Now, we have this new development under 102nd Constitutional Amendment Act of 2018. All right? Now, next what happened was recently say on May 5th, the Supreme Court struck down Maratha Reservation. I hope you remember this particular case. See, what the Maharashtra government did was it identified a particular community called Maratha community as backward and provided them with reservation at 13 percentage for education and 12 percentage in employment. Okay? And the high court of that particular state upheld the move by the state government. All right? And this matter was taken to the Supreme Court. And in the Supreme Court, a Constitution bench of Supreme Court overruled the reservation because it thought it breached the 50 percent ceiling set by the Supreme Court in 1992. Remember the Mandel case, right? Because the Supreme Court believed so, it struck down the Maratha Reservation that was provided by the Maharashtra state government. Okay? Keep that in mind. And another justification what the Supreme Court said was that the states do not have any power to identify the social and educationally backward classes. Because it said only president can publish a list of backward classes in relation to each state. Now recollect the 102nd Constitutional Amendment Act. What happened? It vested the power on the president through the parliament for the modification of the list of the OBCs. That is any inclusion or exclusion could be done only by the parliament or the president. What was inferred through that particular amendment and that is what the Supreme Court said during this particular verdict. Okay? And you can see that this particular amendment, 102nd Constitutional Amendment, infringed upon the powers of the state on modifying the backward classes list. So they said this particular move by the government in 2018, that is creation of the NCBC, has infringed on the federal structure of our country. But then the union government said it was never the intention. We never thought to infringe upon the state's powers. We just wanted to create a body that would actually take care of the issues of the backward classes in India. But intentionally or unintentionally, this was the consequence that evolved out of the 102nd Constitutional Amendment Act. See how did this mix up happen? See what happened was the text that created the National Commission of Backward Classes looked very similar to the one that created the National Commission of Schedule Classes and National Commission of Schedule Tribes. See both these two bodies are also constitutional bodies. So it was more like a cut copy paste. Okay? So the National Commission of STs and National Commission of Schedule Castes, both these bodies are entitled with so much power and they recommend what are the communities and classes of people can be included or excluded from a Nationalist. That is the Schedule Tribalist and the Schedule Cast List is a Nationalist. So it was more like an adoption of the text from the NCST and the NCSE to the NCBC. So it kind of mimicked the functions of the NCST and the NCSE. So it was implied that the backward classes list has also been made as a Nationalist. That is only the center can modify with states having no power or no say on the list of the other backward classes alright? So that was this particular confusion and this matter came for discussion and all and the Rajya Sabha Select Committee earlier had recommended including a line which said states would continue to have the power to identify the NCBCs but the center had rejected it. So the Supreme Court came to a conclusion that the center had already deliberated the roles of the state and the center when they drafted the one or second constitutional amendment act itself they thought about all these things and they thought it is only right to have it as a central list. So this deliberation and all has happened so I'm not going to touch upon this and the Supreme Court said yes the OBC list is going to be a centralist okay? And it was made as a judgment which is a court law right? But center always held that this was not the intention. We always wanted to retain the powers with the states only and a product of this particular thought process is what has resulted in this particular one or seventh constitutional amendment bill okay? Now let's quickly refresh the articles relevant that was introduced in one or second constitutional amendment act was Article 338 that covers the structure and the functions of the NCBC Article 342A that covers the powers of the president to modify the NCBC list and article 366 clause 26C which defines the NCBC and I already said article 342A is the contentious one that vested the power to identify or exclude a community or a class of people into the other backward classes list okay? And this particular article 342A was the one which apparently vested the powers with the center. So the government right now through the 127th constitutional amendment bill seeks to make a clarification that is it is trying to restore the powers of the state to amend the NCBC list or the OBC list as it was previously called okay? And one unique feature is this okay? You know the parliament is seeing a lot of ruckus regarding the Pegasus issue okay? Nothing has been happening and all and it was presumed that the entire session was a washout only but for this particular bill something unique happened even the oppositions that was creating ruckus regarding the Pegasus issue they joined hands with the center despite it being a politically sensitive issue to pass the bill with a special majority in the Lok Sabha okay? That is something very interesting about this particular issue. So summing up you should remember about the Mandel case judgment in 1992 that set 50 percentage ceiling for reservation any reservation. So when I say 50 percentage it also includes other backward classes the schedule cast and the schedule tribes and apart from that all the horizontal reservations all included in the 50 percentage. I hope you remember what is horizontal reservation from my previous sessions so everything included will be 50 percentage or less. So that is what Mandel case set and next you should know about the one or second constitutional amendment act of 2018 and the articles that is article 338, article 342a, article 366 clause 26c and especially article 342a which is contentious and about the Maratha reservation issue and what did the supreme court say and in response the parliament has reacted with the 127th constitutional amendment bill. So this is all about the issue and the implications and the repercussions that this particular move by the government might cause will be discussed in the subsequent sessions when the editorials start coming up on this particular article all right? So with that information let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion. So now look at this news article this is another front page news article that is very important from our example perspective. So this is basically about criminalization of politics. See criminalization of politics is nothing but when criminals take part in the political sphere and it has been found that more and more criminals are taking part in the politics in the recent times. So this can be viewed in two angles okay first the criminals might themselves get elected that is also criminalization of politics. Another thing is when there exists a nexus or connection between a politician and a criminal that is the politician accommodates the interest of a person with criminal antecedents and this is also called as criminalization of politics and the second point that we discussed also entails an angle of nepotism right? See this particular trend in Indian politics has been extensively researched by an organization called Association of Democratic Reforms which is commonly called as ADR. So what does the data show? It shows that about 30 percentage of the members in the Lok Sabha in 2009 had criminal cases against them that is almost one third and this gradually increased. See it increased to 34 percentage in 2014 and if you see in 2019 it came close to 50 percentage about 43 percentage of the members had criminal antecedents and about 29 percentage of the 43 those who have been elected to the Lok Sabha have declared serious crimes and serious crimes means it can be rape, it can be murder and many others okay. Before we get into the Supreme Court's decision that has made headlines right now let me run you through some of the important judgments that are relevant for us from the exam perspective so that you will have a continuity when you are writing an answer on criminalization of politics all right? So the trend towards criminalization of politics was identified as early as 2002 itself and one such important case or the foremost of the cases that dealt with criminalization of politics is the association of democratic reforms case 2002. Here what happened is the election commission directed the contesting candidates to disclose the information about them especially the criminal background if any but this was challenged by the union government in the courts saying that the election commission apparently does not have so much power to direct us to do certain disclosures but this contention by the union government was broken down by the high court and on appeal the Supreme Court also stood with the high court's decision and said that the election commission has powers under article 324 and it can obtain and disclose the background information of the contesting candidates. So this was one of the foremost cases that infused transparency into the background of the contesting candidates and this particular case is also important because the Supreme Court identified this particular dimension as a fundamental right that is it incorporated it as a right to no under article 19 that is freedom of expression. So that is exactly why this case is important and apart from that we also have cases like people union for civil liberties versus union of India which was a 2004 case and the next year itself we had a case called K Prabhakaran which is J. Rajan case and these two cases also supported the cause against the criminalization of politics. I'm not going to go into the details of these two cases but I'm going to go into the detail of the next very important landmark judgment that is the Lily Thomas case of 2013. Under this particular judgment it was said that any member of parliament or any member of legislative assembly who's convicted for a sentence involving more than two years will be automatically disqualified. Before this judgment it was said in the representation of people at that if at all the MP or the MLA has filed for an appeal or if the matter of appeal is subjudiced they can continue to hold the position but this was squashed under the Lily Thomas case of 2013 and any MP or MLA who's convicted for a sentence of more than two years by any court will be immediately disqualified and this is what Lily Thomas case said in 2013. Further the cause against the criminalization of politics that was Manoj Narula versus Union of India and another important law commissioned report that you will have to know is a 244th law commissioned report regarding electoral disqualification also advocated against the criminalization of politics and in 2018 the public interest foundation versus Union of India is another landmark case so these cases I'm not going to go into detail but the next case that is Ram Babu Singh Thakur which is Sunil Arora case the judgment that came out in February 2022 is an important aspect for you to understand the current case in hand so I'm going to tell you in brief about this particular case according to this particular case the political parties have to mandatorily upload in their website the criminal antecedents either pending or those that have been given judgments in their website that is the website should be updated about the criminal antecedents of the contesting candidates and this information should be uploaded along with the reasons for the selection of such candidates that is why is the person with a criminal background has been selected by the political party and it should also be mentioned as to why not an individual without a criminal antecedent why not a individual with clean records could not be selected as a candidate so basically the court sought some kind of accountability to field candidates who have a clean track record and this judgment was passed in February 2020 and after that the ADR conducted a survey again and this survey was conducted in the 2020 Bihar elections and based on this survey it tailed about 648 candidates and of the 648 candidates 342 candidates had declared their criminal cases so you can see that this is more than 50 percentage and apart from that what the parties have done is they either published frivolous information or they have twisted the information and they have published that is they have tried to find a loophole in the judgment to publish frivolous information and this has angered the court and this is for the exact reason the recent judgment has called for the candidates with the criminal antecedents to declare about themselves within 48 hours of their selection that is within two days of their selection the criminal antecedents the reason for their selection and the reason for not selecting a clean candidate all should be uploaded within 48 hours of selecting a particular candidate with criminal antecedent and this is what the judgment has said so the significant of the judgment is this first of all it will infuse transparency in the electoral process and second of all it will bring accountability from the parties to the people and next of all is that the people can make an informed choice as to who is going to rule them and who they are going to vote so this is in line with article 19 and together everything will culminate in good governance and that is the essence and significance of this particular judgment okay so talking about criminalization of politics remember what is criminalization of politics remember some of the important data is that we have furnished in the in the notes and quoting judgments is also very important for a polity answer and especially the judgments like adr case lily thomas case and of course the recent rambabu singh takur versus sunila rora case is all very important and they have to be in the paper that asks you to write about criminalization of politics all right so with that piece of information let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion now look at this particular article so this is a quick takeaway article from the preliminary perspective we'll have two three pieces of information and from the main perspective this entire article can be quoted as a case study okay see this particular scheme that is mentioned in the news that is never even program has been implemented by the kerala government see if you see kerala or for that matter many sadhan states they do not have a very youthful population a lot of the population percentage is in the aging bracket so they have been focusing more on harnessing the potential that an aging population has see generally an aging population is viewed as a liability for the government that is they may have a lot of health issues they may need a lot of support so the government has to pitch in to take care of them but this never even program is such an innovative program that tries to harness the skills from the aging population the experience from the aging population and putting it to a productive use for the benefit of the economy that is one aspect and apart from that the aging population is also made to be self-sufficient through this particular program so what they do is they choose the people in the age brackets of 50 to 65 and they provide employment opportunities for these people their work and experience is being converted into an asset in the benefit of the economy okay so from the preliminary point of view what you'll have to remember is Navajeevan is a program that is being implemented by the Kerala government to provide employment opportunities for the aging population okay so this is what is important from the preliminary point of view but if you see the main exam point of view for any question that demands you an answer on the aging population or the old age people you can always quote the scheme as a case in point relevant to the question see like I already said in my last class writing more and more case studies writing more and more quotations from the committee is relevant to the question asked furnishing facts from reliable sources will make your paper stand out in comparison to the other papers because analysis is something every person who is crossing the hurdle of problems can do whereas these value additions is a rarity in a GS paper so in order to mop up your scores you can quote these kind of facts and figures all right so with that piece of information let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion now our next news discussion is going to be based on this particular editorial article if you remember recently our Indian prime minister chaired a high level UN Security Council open debate day before yesterday you might have come across this in Gautam sir's class and this editorial article is written in that particular backdrop so in this light let us have a comprehensive coverage of the recent debate and also the important points mentioned in the editorial the syllabus covered by this editorial article is highlighted below for your reference see recently our prime minister chaired the UNSC debate and that was titled enhancing maritime security a case for international cooperation so basically the debate centered around maritime security just remember that so this can come in handy if at all a problem's question was asked based on this and note that this was the first time for an Indian prime minister to preside over a meeting of the united nation security council this debate is also very important for your preliminary exam and this virtual debate was attended by the Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin and also by several other heads of the government of the united nation security council members and the focus of the debate was on the ways to effectively counter maritime crime and insecurity and also on the ways to strengthen the coordination in the maritime domain so basically they want to coordinate and also tackle the crimes in the maritime area so that was the aim so in order to take the discussion in the right direction a concept note was already circulated so basically it was going to be centered around the maritime crimes in security and to strengthen coordination so they are all very fancy issues very high level issues that could have been discussed but what happened in reality was the countries just started trading barbs on each other what is trading barbs they just started arguing over the pre-existing issues in the maritime domain for example the Black Sea is a very contentious issue the Crimean peninsula issue happened in the Black Sea the Azov Sea is a very contentious area and of course the South China Sea is a very contentious area these kind of topics took the center stage rather than coordination and maritime crime being discussed so that is something of a missed opportunity for India because we might have steered the conversation for India's interest given that we are the chair so that is one thing but another notable takeaway if you see is that our Prime Minister managed to push a five pronged plan that was relevant for this particular topic see I'm not going to say what are these five principles see these five principles you just have to brush through to just to identify if at all asked in the preliminary exam and if you are talented enough you can of course memorize these five and produce it in your mains paper for a value addition but of course producing all these five can also reach the word limit if at all you're attempting a question based on that but just remember this five pronged maritime plan was pushed by our Prime Minister in this particular forum especially pertaining to the maritime area okay and another notable achievement is that UN clause has been accepted by the United Nations Security Council and as we know it is a legal framework that is applicable to the activities in the ocean including countering illicit activities at sea and this is considered to be an important achievement during India's month at the helm of the council and many experts say that this particular five pronged approach and all is in line with the Sagar vision plan so you should know what is Sagar vision plan it is an acronym for security and growth for all in the region in 2015 and this vision mainly focuses on the cooperative measures for the sustainable use of ocean among the maritime countries and it also aims to provide a framework for safe, secure and a stable maritime domain in the region so you just know that Sagar pertains to India's maritime vision that you should remember for mains as well as problems and we also saw about UN clause and how it was accepted in the United Nations Security Council and apart from that you should also remember that our prime minister managed to push for a five pronged strategy in the maritime domain and apart from that in the initial part of the discussion we saw that in the meeting the countries simply ended up trading barbs regarding the already existing issues rather than some productive conversation so with that information in mind let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion so now we are at the last segment of today's discussion that is practice preliminary questions for today's discussion we have two questions and the first question will not be from our discussion but it is based on a news article that appeared in the business page today so that particular article will form the basis of this question we are not discussing the article in detail because of the relevance in mind but we'll still know the essential part through this particular quest look at this question see this is a two statement question and we have been asked to identify the correct statement so first statement goes like this microfinance is an economic tool designed to promote financial inclusion enabling the lower income households to come out of poverty say microfinance understand this as the name goes split it micro means small and finance means money microfinance is where small amounts of money or credit is given to the households in need see generally a low income household who's looking to open a business or a low income household who is requiring some credit to invest in something would generally not require a huge sum of money a small so in order to cater to these small amount needs microfinance as a concept was conceived and institutionalized so with that understanding we can say that statement one is correct see the microfinance as a concept when it was conceived so many institutions were brought under it to disperse the money and in those lines schedule commercial banks cooperative banks the non-banking financial sectors and apart from that exclusively microfinancial institutions are authorized to disperse microcredits apart from that if you remember from yesterday's discussion nabad nabad also disperses microfinance credits and if you also think about it mudra m-u-d-r-a they also do microfinancing functions so with that understanding let's look at the second statement as per the rba regulation microfinance activities in india can be carried out only by microfinance institutions registered as nbfcs see this statement is wrong and that is exactly what we just saw because microfinance is dispersed by a lot of financial institutions not just nbfcs so with that the statement one is right so basically you will have to know these kind of fundamental informations about microfinance institutions which we just discussed with that let's move on to the next question this question is about Saudi Arabia that we discussed in our session today see this is again a two statement question and the first statement is this Iran is one of the countries bordering the kingdom of Saudi Arabia see we saw the countries bordering the Saudi Arabia so that included Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Yemen and Oman as the borders and apart from that we also had two maritime borders that is Persian Gulf and Red Sea on the either side so with that information we can say Iran is not a bordering country of Saudi Arabia and apart from that you can also eliminate this option from our discussion on 4th of August because we saw the countries bordering Iran and Saudi Arabia was not one now coming to the second statement Persian Gulf is an important water body bordering the kingdom of Saudi Arabia see statement two is correct because Persian Gulf borders Saudi Arabia on the eastern side so with that we can say the correct option is option B2 only so here are some of the main questions inspired from the discussion today I've always said write answers and post it in the comment section some of you have raised queries about posting the answers in the comment section the simple thing to do is type it out and post it in the comment section for peer review so with that let us wrap up our discussion today if you like the video like share comment and subscribe stay home stay safe good day