 A warm welcome to the Indian news analysis by Shankar Iyer's Academy. These are the list of news articles that is chosen for today's discussion. They are given along with the page numbers of different editions. Also the link for the handwritten notes in PDF format and the timestamp ink for the discussed articles are provided in the description box as well as in the comment section for the benefit of mobile phone viewers. So now let us move on to the analysis of the first news article. Now our discussion is going to be based on this editorial article. See a criminal justice system is an instrument of state and also a key index of the state of our democracy. So according to the author of this editorial, criminal law should be used only as a last resort and only for the most reprehensible wrongs. But unfortunately in reality this is not the case. For example acts like the terrorist and disruptive activities act which is shortly called as the TADA and also the unlawful activities prevention act of 1967 are nowadays being used to punish even the ordinary criminals and this editorial is a discussion on that. So with this idea in our mind let us see what the editorial has got to tell us. The syllabus covered by this article is given below for your reference. See the terrorist and disruptive activities prevention act that is the TADA and also the unlawful activities prevention act of 1967 are anti-terror special laws. So using them to punish ordinary criminals seems unjustified. If you take the period between 2015 and 2019 as many as 7,840 persons were arrested under this draconian unlawful activities prevention act. But only 155 persons were convicted by the trial courts and this shows the gross misuse of the act and when we are talking about this terrorist and disruptive activities prevention act till the year 1994 around 67,000 people were detained by this act but only 725 of them were convicted by it. So from this we can see that both these acts are equally misused and abused and even our Supreme Court of India in the Kartar Singh case of 1994 they had observed that in many cases the prosecution had unjustifiably invoked the provisions of this terrorist and disruptive activities prevention act with an oblique motive of depriving the accused persons from getting bail and it also added that such an invocation of the terrorist and disruptive activities act was nothing but the sheer misuse and the abuse of the act by the police. Now let us see why these acts are being misused. See these acts are grossly misused because there is no consensus or a kind of general agreement on the definition of the term terrorism. Though there are more than 100 definitions of terrorism available globally there is no universal definition of the term terrorism either in India or at the international level and the UN General Assembly has yet to reach a consensus on the meaning of terrorism. So accordingly neither the terrorist and disruptive activities prevention act nor the unlawful activities prevention act has got a clear definition of the crucial terms like terror and terrorism and these acts only have a wide and vague words when it comes to these crucial terms. Now say for example when you take section 15 of the unlawful activities prevention act it merely defines a terrorist act as any act with an intent to threaten or lightly to threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of India or with an intent to strike terror or likely to strike terror in the people. Similarly this act states that terrorist acts are acts which are committed by using bombs, dynamite or other explosive substances or inflameable substances or firearms or other lethal weapons or poisonous or noxious gases or by any other means of whatever nature to cause or likely to cause death or injuries. But what is the clear meaning of the expression by any other means? See there is no clear meaning of the expression by any other means and it is this usage of such wide and vague terms which leads to the abuse of the act. So whenever these acts were grossly misused due to the lack of clarity, hard judicial system had interfered to provide some sort of clarity on these wide and vague terms. For example when you take the Yakub Abdul Razak Vaman case of the year 2013 the Supreme Court said that terrorist acts can range from threats to actual assassinations, kidnappings, airline hijacking, car bombs, explosions, mailing of dangerous materials, use of chemical, biological, nuclear weapons etc. Similarly in Hitendra Vishnu Thakur case of 1994 the Supreme Court defined terrorism as a use of violence when its most important result is not merely the physical and mental damage of the victim but rather the prolonged psychological effect it produces on the society as a whole. And its main objective is to overall the government or disturb the harmony of society or to terrorize people. Thus what distinguishes terrorism from other forms of violence is the deliberate and systematic use of coercive intimidation. And also in Kartar Singh case of 1994 the Supreme Court held that a mere disturbance of public order that disturbs even the tempo of the life of community of any particular locality is not terrorist act. So from these interpretations of the Supreme Court of India we can say that the local protest like the CAA protest but they were termed as terrorist activities by the concerned authority and the anti-terrorist special laws were used to prosecute them. See in the Ram Manohar Lohia case of 1966 the apex court explained the distinction between law and order, public order and the security of the state. See law and order represent the largest circle within which is the next circle that represents public order and the smallest circle represents the security of the state. And accordingly an act may affect law and order but not public order. Similarly an act may adversely affect public order but not the security of state. So according to the author of this editorial in most unlawful activities prevention act cases the police have failed to understand these distinctions and they have unnecessarily clamped the UAPA charges for simple violations of law and order. So what is the way forward? See the author of this editorial hopes that a police will be far more cautious in charging people under special laws like the unlawful activities prevention act and the terrorist and disruptive activities prevention act and he also believes that no anti-terror law how so have a stringent can really end the problem of terrorism. And the author further stresses on the need for us to remove injustices in our society to combat terrorism and only the creation of a truly just egalitarian and non oppressive society would be far more effective in combating terrorism. So with this we have come to the end of this editorial discussion with these ideas in mind let us now move on to the next news article. Now look at this editorial article see recently the draft cinematograph amendment bill of 2021 was put out for public comments and it is expected to be introduced in the Monson session of the parliament. See this draft has introduced some major and contentious amendments and this editorial is an analysis of that. So in this slide we will look into the analysis the provisions of the draft and also the criticisms that it has invited. The syllabus covered by this editorial article is highlighted below for your reference. See in our country cinematograph act of 1952 deals with film certification and censorship in India and the same act it established the central board for film certification has a statutory body and it functions under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Remember that this is the body that censors and certifies the films and films can be publicly exhibited in India on cinema halls and TV channels only after they have been certified by the central board of film certification and this board is appointed in Mumbai and all the members of the committee are appointed by the central government including the chairman. Note that earlier an expert committee under justice Mukul Muthkal was constituted in the year 2013 and it was constituted to examine the issues of certification under the Cinematograph Act of 1952. Later another committee of experts was set up under the chairmanship of Sree Shyam Banegal in the year 2016 and this committee was set up to evolve broad guidelines for film certification within the ambit of the Cinematograph Act and Rules and the recommendations made by both the committee of experts have been examined by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and with that consultation the ministry has proposed to introduce the Cinematograph Amendment Bell of 2021. Now let us see about the proposed changes in the amendment bill. First unrestricted public exhibition category is proposed to be amended. See let us understand this unrestricted public category means films that are certified as U and the films certified as A means only adult scanned watch. See initially there were only two categories of certificate one is A and one is U. U refers to unrestricted public exhibition and A refers to those movies that are restricted to adult audiences but two other categories were added in the year 1983 and they are the U, A and S. When you take U, A this is for unrestricted public exhibition subject to parental guidance for children below the age of 12. So basically any age group can view these films but children below 12 are recommended to view under the guidance of elders because these films may contain mature content with crude language and another category is yes and yes means the film is restricted to a special class of audience therefore at present there is fourfold categorization that is U, A, U, A and S. So now the draft bill proposes to further subdivide the existing U, A category or the U, A category into age-based categories like U, A, 7 plus, U, A, 13 plus and U, A, 16 plus and next is the amendment of subsection 3 of section 5A which is regarding the validity of the certificate. See as per the provision of the present act of 1952 the certificate issued by the central board of film certification is valid for 10 years only and according to the amendment the certificate will be valid in perpetuity that is the 10 year bar on certificate validity is removed and the third proposed amendment is that to add a provision to the subsection 1 of section 6 and this says that when the central government received any complaints for violation of section 5B clause 1 on any film that is already certified by the central board of film certification then in that case the central government may ask the chairman of the central board of film certification to reconsider the certification. Note that this amendment has received the widest backlash and we will see about that in the later part of a discussion. See the fourth amendment deals with the film piracy. See film piracy rose to around 62 percent in India in the last week of March 2020 compared to the last week of February 2020 following the COVID lockdowns and at present Cinematograph Act of 1952 has got no provision to check this privacy. So taking note of the rising menace the ministry has added this amendment to that effect the draft bill proposes to insert section 6A which prohibits unauthorized recording and prescribes punishment as well and this section prescribes an imprisonment for a minimum of three months and maximum of three years and it also finds the individual with minimum of rupees three lakhs. So these are the proposed amendments. Now let us look into the popular criticism surrounding this draft act. See the proposed amendment says that the central government can direct the chairman of the central board of film certification to reconsider the already given certificate. Now this is invited criticism because various media sources have called this as an attempt by the union government to act as a super sensor body that is the central government is trying to act as a super sensor body over and above the central board of film certification and if you note that earlier in the year 2000 the supreme court in K. M. Shankarappa vesses the union of India case held that the union government cannot exercise revision powers on films that are already certified by the CBFC or the central board of film certification. That is central government cannot revise the certification of the films that are already certified by the CBFC or the central board of film certification but despite the supreme court judgment this is an attempt to add another layer to quell freedom of expression through films. See earlier already the government had scrapped the existence of film certificate appellate tribunal through an ordinance and it was a statutory body that was set up to hear appeals of filmmakers against decisions of the central board of film certification. So these attempts are seen as a way to stiffen the free speech as expressed through films and that is why this draft a bill is being criticized. So these are the takeaway points from this editorial article. With this let's move on to see what the next news article has got to tell us. Now let us take up this news article. See we all know that climate change is on the rise and we can see its devastating impacts everywhere. So what is this climate change? See climate change is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define earth's local regional and global climates and this climate change has caused more frequent and intense drought it has also increased the frequency and the intensity of storms and heat waves and it has also caused the rising sea levels melting of glaciers and the warming of oceans and all these can directly harm flora and fauna destroy the places they live and also cause havoc on people's livelihoods and communities. See this climate change has also affected the Himalayan glaciers and the concerns were mounting over the impact of climate change on Himalayan glaciers. So in order to ease such concerns the Ministry of Jalsakthi has released an updated atlas of glacial lakes that are part of the Ganga river basin and about 4,707 glacial lakes have been mapped in the Ganga basin and it is important to note that last year a similar inventory of glacial lakes was prepared for the Indus river basin. Now for this present Ganga study glacial lakes with water spread area greater than 0.25 hectares were mapped using resource sat 2 linear imaging self-scanning sensor for satellite data and based on its process of lake formation location and type of damming material glacial lakes are identified in nine different types majorly grouped into four categories and this mapping of Ganga river basin covers part of India and trans-boundary region. The atlas is available on the Bhuvan portal of National Remote Sensing Center ISRO and the expected utility of this atlas is to create a comprehensive and systematic glacial lake database for Ganga river basin. Since the article mentions about the Ganga basin, let us see about the river Ganga in brief. See the Ganga rises in the Gangotri Glacial in the Himalayas in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarkand at its source the river is called the Bhagirathi it descends down the valley up to Dev Prayag and it joins another hill stream Alaknanda and from there it is called as Ganga. See the principal tributaries joining the river from right are the Yamuna the Sone and the Damodar and the Ramganga, Gagra, Gomati, Gandhak, Kosi and the Mahananda join the river from the left. Note that the Chambal and the Betwa are the two other important subtributaries of river Ganga. Remember the river Ganga passes through the states of Uttarkand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal and the river basin extends to the state of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Chhateshgarh, Imachal Pradesh and the Union Territory of Delhi. With this we have come to the end of this news article. Now let us move on to the next part of the discussion. Now let us take up this news article which reports about the Chamoli disaster. As we know a flash flood in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand had killed several people and now the Geological Survey of India says that it was caused by a large mass of snow, ice and rock avalanche and it crashed into the Rishi Ganga valley, triggering a deadly flood in the Rishi Ganga river that damaged the Tapovan Vishnugad Hyderal Power Project. A contributory factor for the avalanche was the unusually warm weather in the region and the heavy snowfall followed by a sudden warmer climate is also said to have triggered the huge snow and rock avalanche and the article says that there was no evidence of a glacial lake outburst flood causing the flash flood. Now let us understand what an avalanche is. See an avalanche is a large amount of snow that is moving quickly down a mountain typically on slopes of 30 to 45 degrees. So when an avalanche stops the snow becomes solid and people are unable to dig out and those people who get caught in avalanches can die from suffocation, trauma or hypothermia. Now coming to flash floods it is caused by heavy or excessive rainfall in a short period of time which is generally less than six hours and usually these flash floods are characterized by raging torrents after heavy rains that drip through the riverbeds, urban streets or mountain canyons etc and they can occur within minutes or a few hours of excessive rainfall and they can also occur even if no rain has fallen like for instance after a dam is failed or after a sudden release of water by a debris or high jam. Now let us see about the glacial lake outburst flood. See glacial lakes are bodies of water that is influenced by the presence of glaciers. So when glaciers move they also carry a field of dirt and rocks or debris which is known as moraine and once the glacier melts it will change into a lake where these moraines act as a dam to that particular lake. Sometimes when this moraine dam fails the water will be drained through the subsurface tunnels of moraine and so a glacial lake outburst flood is a release of melt water from a moraine or an ice dam glacial lake due to dam failure. You can have a look at this figure in order to understand the process in a better manner. Now finally let us see about cloudburst. See a cloudburst is a sudden very heavy rainfall which is usually localized and brief and it is to be noted that most so-called cloudbursts they occur in connection with thunderstorms and you can have a look at the figure given below. Remember cloudbursts they usually occur in high altitude areas due to the formation of a low pressure zone on the top of the mountains and this zone attracts clouds to the top of the mountain with great force. So these are some of the takeaway points from this article. Now let's see the next news article. Have a look at this news article. This is about the famed Nambinara in case who was a ISRO scientist and was falsely accused of espionage. So in that context let us know about a space organization ISRO and also about some of its important achievements. See a space journey began after Dr. Vikram Sarabhai formed the Indian National Committee for Space Research which is also called as the INCOSPAR in the year 1962. Later in 1969 INCOSPAR was renamed as ISRO or the Indian Space Research Organization. See now ISRO is a space agency under the Department of Space of Government of India and it is at watered in the city of Bengaluru, Karnataka. See ISRO has come a long way since its formation and from launching small rockets of just 30 to 70 kilogram payloads to carrying around 4,000 kilogram of payloads to outer space, ISRO has a lot of space achievements. Now let us see some key achievements of ISRO's space journey. The first important achievement in Indian space program is the Arya Bata. So the Arya Bata was India's first satellite that was built by ISRO and it was launched by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1975 and the next important achievement by ISRO is Rohini which is the first satellite to be placed into orbit by an Indian made launch vehicle that is the SLV-3. However the most important achievement which shifted the scale of Indian space program was the launch of Chandrayaan-1 and this was done by ISRO in the year 2008. See Chandrayaan-1 aimed to send an unmanned lunar orbiter into orbit and we did it successfully as well and the next important achievement was the launch of Mars orbiter mission. See ISRO launched the Mars orbiter mission on 5th November 2013 thereby making India the first nation to succeed on its maiden attempt to Mars and also ISRO became the fourth space agency in the world as well as the first space agency in Asia to reach the Mars orbit. Another important achievement is the Astrosat which was launched on September 28, 2015 by PSLV C-30. See it is a space observatory and it is the first dedicated Indian astronomy mission for studying celestial sources in X-ray, optical and UV spectral bands simultaneously. That is the payload enables the simultaneous multi-wavelength observations of various astronomical objects with a single satellite. Now adding to these in 2017 ISRO launched 104 satellites in a single rocket that is the PSLV C-37 which was a world record and to crown its all achievement ISRO on 22nd of July 2019 launched India's second moon mission that is Chandrayaan-2 and this Chandrayaan-2 aimed to conduct a soft landing on the moon's south polar region and though this was unsuccessful this mission achieved a partial success and it succeeded in placing an orbiter around the moon and in the coming years ISRO is planning for Chandrayaan-3 the successor to the Chandrayaan-2 mission. Now besides these in order to meet the user requirements of the positioning navigation and timing services based on the indigenous system ISRO is establishing a regional satellite navigation system and it is called as the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System or the NAVIC and it provides the navigation details in the Indian Ocean regions. Adding to this ISRO has also planned to send its first human spaceflight Gaganyan into seal its deal as a key player in international space programs. So with this we have come to the end of this discussion let's move on to the next news article. Now let us take up this news article which speaks about a nationwide survey on religious attitudes behaviors and beliefs that was conducted by the Pew Research Center. So in this light let us see some important observations of the survey. The syllabus covered by this article is highlighted below for your reference. So first of all know that Pew Research Center is a US based fact tank that informs the public about the issues attitudes as well as the trends shaping the world and they conduct public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis as well as other data-driven social science research. Now let us see the key findings of the survey about religion in India. See the observation is based on nearly 30,000 face-to-face interviews of adults conducted in 17 languages between the late 2019 and early 2020 and as we know India's massive population is diverse as well as devout and most of the world's Hindus, Jains and Sikhs they live in India and also India is home to one of the world's largest Muslim populations and also to millions of Christians and Buddhists. Now across the major religious groups most people say that it is very important to respect all religions to be truly Indian and tolerance is a religious as well as a civic value and Indians are united in the view that respecting others religions is a very important part of what it means to be a member of their own religious community. Now say for example around 91 percentage of Hindus they felt that they have religious freedom whereas 85 percent of them believed that respecting all religions was very important to being truly Indian and further 80 percent of the Hindus they stated that religious tolerance was a religious value and respecting others religions was an integral part or an integral aspect of being Hindu and the survey also found that 89 percent of Muslims and Christians they said that they felt free to practice their own religion in India and you can have a look at the below figures in order to understand the estimations better but Indians commitment to tolerance is accompanied by a strong preference for keeping religious communities segregated. Now for example Indians generally say that they do not have much in common with members of other religious groups and that's true not only for the 86 percent of India's large Hindu population but also for smaller groups like Sikhs and Jains and another finding is that for many Hindus national identity religion and language are closely connected and among them 80 percent also say that it is very important to speak Hindi in order to be truly Indian. Know that Hindus who strongly link Hindu and Indian identities they express a keen desire for religious segregations and among them 76 percent say that it is very important to stop Hindu women from marrying into another religion and as we know the northern and central regions of India cover the country's Hindi belt where Hindi is most prevalent and the vast majority of Hindus in these religions they strongly link Indian identity with being able to speak Hindi. Another major finding is that Muslims favor having access to their own religious courts but whether or not Muslims should be allowed to go to their own religious courts remains a hotly debated topic and the survey finds that three quarters of Muslims they support having access to the existing system of Islamic courts but the followers of other religions are far less likely to support the Muslims to have access to this separate court system so these are some of the major findings of this report. Now with this let's move on to the next news article. Now let us take up this news article which reports about the demolition of two houses in Kavarati. With this background let us discuss in brief about the Lakshadweep islands covering the geography and polity aspects from prelims perspective. Firstly let us cover the geography aspect. See Lakshadweep is an archipelago consisting of 36 islands and it is known for its exotic and sun-kissed beaches and lush green landscape. See the name Lakshadweep in Malayalam and Sanskrit means a hundred thousand islands and know that it is a uni-district union territory and comprises of 12 atolls, three reefs, five submerged banks and 10 inhabited islands. See the islands have a total area of 32 square kilometers and the capital is Kavarati which is also the principal town of the union territory and remember all islands are at a distance of 220 to 440 kilometers away from the coastal city of Kochi in Kerala in the Arabian Sea and the natural landscapes, the sandy beaches, abundance of flora and fauna and the absence of a rushed lifestyle enhance the appeal of Lakshadweep. Few important islands of Lakshadweep are given below for your reference, the aspirants can have a glance of it. Know that the Minikoy Island is the southernmost island of Lakshadweep and the eight-degree channel separates this Minikoy from Maldives. Now coming to the polity aspect, know that like most other Indian states and territories the governmental structure of Lakshadweep is determined by the national constitution of 1950 or to be more specific article 240 clause b in the Indian constitution deals with the administration of Lakshadweep and accordingly the territory is led by an administrator who is appointed by the president of India and as a very small territory Lakshadweep consists of a single district with 10 sub-divisions and note that the territory of Lakshadweep falls under the jurisdiction of the Kerala High Court. So with this we have come to the end of the article discussion. Let us now move on to the practice question discussion. Now let us take up this prelims practice question with reference to glacial lakes. See the first statement says that the glacial lakes are formed when glacial eyes or moraines or natural depressions impound water and statement 2 says that in India maximum number of glacial lakes are found in the Ganga river basin and we need to find the incorrect statement. See when you take the first statement it is correct because glacial lakes are common in the high elevation of glacialized basin and they are formed when glacial eyes or moraines or natural depressions impound water. Now coming to the second statement this statement is incorrect because as you can see in the figure displayed below the maximum number of glacial lakes are found in the Brahmabutra river basin or not in the Ganga river basin and since we need to identify the wrong statement or the incorrect statement the right option is option B that is 2 only. Now look at this prelims practice question. Consider the following statements with reference to gadgetic river dolphins. Statement 1 says that gadgetic river dolphins are the national aquatic animal of India and statement 2 says that they are the only freshwater river dolphins found in the world and we need to find the correct statement. See the national Ganga river basin authority shared by the prime minister declared gadgetic river dolphins as a national aquatic animal of India in the year 2009 and this was done to save the river dolphins from extinction and as we know the numbers were diminishing at a faster rate in the recent past. Know that gadgetic river dolphins are found in Ganga and its tributaries in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. So this makes the first statement to be correct. Now coming to the second statement see there are four freshwater dolphin species in the world and they are found in Ganga in India, Amazon river in South America, Yangtze river in China and also in the Indus river. So this makes the second statement to be incorrect and since we need to identify only the right statement the correct option is option A that is 1 only. Now let us take up this prelims practice question discussion. See which one of the following pairs of islands is separated from each other by the 8 degree channel and the options are Andaman and Nicobar, Nicobar and Sumatra, Maldives and Lakshadweep and Sumatra and Java and the right answer is option C that is Maldives and Lakshadweep. See Maldives islands are situated to the south of the Lakshadweep islands and as discussed earlier there are two important facts which you need to keep in mind. One is related to the 8 degree channel and the other is related to the 9 degree channel. When you take the 8 degree channel or the 8 degrees north latitude it separates the islands of Minikoi and Maldives. Similarly when you take the 9 degree channel or the 9 degrees north latitude it separates the island of Minikoi from the main Lakshadweep Archipelago. The list of main questions is given below for your reference. Aspirants can write your answers and post them in the comment section below.