 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar IAS Academy for the date 1st of June 2019. Displayed are the list of news articles taken up for today's analysis, along with the respective page numbers of Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Thiruvananthapuram editions. The handwritten notes in PDF format and the time-stamping of all the news articles taken up for today's analysis will be available in the description section and also in the comment section below for the benefit of the smartphone users. Let us now start our analysis. The first news article is about the decision of the state government of Nagaland to conduct an exercise similar to the update process of national register of citizens in the state of Assam. Now the analysis of this news article will be relevant in your problems preparation under current events of national importance and also under rights issues in Indian polity. Then the article will also be relevant in your main preparation under general studies paper 2 in functions and responsibilities of the states. We know that there is an ongoing update process of national register of citizens in the state of Assam. On 8th of May we have analyzed an editorial article titled as National Register of Cruelty. During the analysis we have seen what is meant by NRC and the other information pertaining to the current update process in the state of Assam. Now the link for this editorial is attached in the description box for your reference. Just have a look at it for the subject clarity. The update process of NRC is happening only in the state of Assam and the Supreme Court has set a deadline of July 31st 2019 to publish the final NRC. It is expected that the names of more than 30 lakh people will be left out of the final NRC to be published. Meanwhile, we have also witnessed several requests among some sections of people in northeastern region in the states to have such an exercise to identify the illegal immigrants and to take necessary actions. These measures are demanded to protect the indigenous people who are living in the states of northeastern region. Now the ruling party of the present government has also said that it will actively consider the extension of the update process in NRC in other states. This one can see in the election manifesto of 2019 published by the BJP party. The manifesto also says that the party will implement the NRC in a phased manner in other parts of the country. We also know that the state legislative assembly of Manipur has taken some measures to address the concerns of indigenous people by passing the Manipur People Protection Bill for at least two times in the last five years. But the president has not given assent to this bill. With these developments happening in one side, this news article states that the state government of Nagaland has decided to initiate its own version of NRC. We know that Nagaland is not going to update NRC. It is just going to undertake a similar exercise. The Nagaland government is going to set up a register called as Register of Indignous Inhabitants of Nagaland. The planned exercise in Nagaland is going to identify the non-indignous inhabitants of Nagaland. Now, these non-indignous inhabitants could be those who have come from other states of India and also those who have come from other countries as well. The exercise that is going on in Assam identifies illegal immigrants who have entered Assam from other countries. Now, this exercise in Nagaland is expected to begin by the 10th of July this year. The state government is expected to release the provisional or tentative list in around two months that is within 60 days. After the publication of the provisional list, there will be process of claims and objections and by 10th of December the entire process is planned to be completed with the publication of the final list. The newspaper also gives a few other details about the state of Nagaland. Know that the population of Nagaland is around 19.8 lakhs and people belonging to 16 major tribes constitute around 90 percentage of the population. The population of Nagaland was decreased by 0.47 percentage in census 2011 with respect to the census 2001. Now that is a picture of person belonging to the Konyak Naga tribe. This Konyak Naga tribe is one of the major recognized tribes of Nagaland and they speak Konyak language. Know that no tribal population from the state of Nagaland has been declared by the Ministry of Home Affairs as particularly vulnerable tribal groups. Now look at this 2019 UPSC Prelims question, previously on 25th of April 2019, we have discussed a regional news article which was found only in the Thiruvananthapuram edition that particular news article was discussed because of national importance. We had discussed that day that Irular community was declared as PVTG by the Ministry of Home Affairs and on October 2018, there was a discussion by Ms. Renu ma'am about particularly vulnerable tribal group. Now the link for that particular video has been given in the description. If one would have gone through both these videos, you could have answered correctly for this year's Prelims question on this particularly vulnerable tribal groups correctly. On 25th of April, we discussed that Irular tribal community is one among the several tribal communities that were declared as particularly vulnerable tribal groups. This statement has come as one of the statements in this four statement question. In fact, it was the last statement in that question. And on October 8, the criteria to be declared as this PVTGs, the number of states that have PVTGs and the number of PVTGs notified so far were also discussed. So such questions are possible from examination point of view. So we advise you to give adequate importance to current affairs, negotiate through various topics through the help of current affairs. Now have a look at the practice question. Let us move on to the next news article. Now let us see about the editorial which speaks about higher education in India. The analysis of this editorial will be relevant in your main preparation, in your general studies paper two under government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation. And also under issues relating to development and management of social sector services relating to education. The authors tell that the new government has begun to rethink the educational policies. We have recently seen many news articles on the draft national education policy then on equip the education quality, upgradation and inclusion program. The authors feel that these are yet another reports in an endless series of official reports and programs which are aimed at improving the higher education in independent India. They tell that the Radhakrishnan commission of 1949, then the national education policies of 1968 and 1986, then the Yashpal committee of 2009, then the national knowledge commission in 2007 and the draft national education policy of 2019 have all basically said the same thing. Now know these committees and commissions from exam point of view. The authors tell that all the reports tell the same thing again and again which the government and the academic community already know. They tell that instead of spending the energy and resources on these committees the government can focus on implementing the recommendations. So everyone agrees that higher education needs significant improvement in India. Now it is possible only when the education levels are high but higher education is severely underfunded in India. So the first problem is underfunding of higher education. Money is required for improving the quality of higher education and making the higher education accessible to all. The authors tell that India's expenditure on education is less than most other BRICS countries on higher education. So the other countries in BRICS are Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa. They tell that in the previous budget the government allocated only around 37,461 crores for the higher education sector. So other related ministries and departments such as space, scientific and industrial research, then your skill development and entrepreneurship, then your Ministry of Science and Technology, then health research and agriculture research have also been allocated only with the nominal budget. We can see that there is insufficient or inadequate funding present at all the levels. The authors tell that both the central and the state governments are underfunding the higher education sector. The funding for basic sciences research which is given by the central government is also less. They tell that contribution or the funds from the private sector is also less like apart from some trusts and foundation like the Tata Trust, Infosys Foundation and Pratikshar Trust. So India needs adequate resources that have to be provided by the center, the state governments and also the private sector. The next problem which the authors discuss is about the gross enrollment ratio in higher education. Now this gross enrollment ratio is nothing but the total enrollment in a specific level of education which is regardless of any age and it will be expressed in percentage terms. The present gross enrollment ratio of higher education sector in India is 25.8 percentage whereas if you see China's gross enrollment ratio of 51 percentage and then Europe and North America has more than 80 percentage. Now India has to ensure higher gross enrollment ratios in higher education sector and also they have to ensure that the students have to graduate because some students do not complete their higher education completely and this is the biggest problem that India faces. Along with these both the authors suggest that the quality of higher education also needs to be maintained. They tell that the higher education sector in India is of relatively poor quality and this has been universally recognized. If you see the employers often complain that they cannot hire graduates without some additional training. And also many engineering colleges even today have to offer some finishing programs to their graduates. It is basically like some skill upgradation program for the graduates. So all these show that there is a poor quality of higher education in India. Next the authors suggest that India needs a differentiated academic system. At present if you see India does not have a differentiated academic system. Now what is this differentiated academic system? It means we need different institutions for different purposes. To focus on research the authors suggest that some world class research intensive universities are needed. Then to focus only on quality teaching some colleges and universities are required. If you see the draft national education policy is also recommended for a differentiated academic system like research universities, teaching universities and colleges. However the authors feel that the ways which is suggested to achieve these objectives in that particular draft policy are impractical. Next the author speaks about the private sector which is involved in higher education. They tell that the private sector is an equal stakeholder in the higher education. If you see India has the largest number of students who are studying under this private institutes in the world. But much of the private higher education is of very poor quality and they are also mostly commercial minded or they are commercially oriented. So the authors call for increasing the quality of higher education in the private sector. Next the authors propose for major reforms in the structure and governance of the higher education system. They feel that there is too much bureaucracy at all the levels and in some places even political pressures and also some other pressures exist. The authors also tell that professors have little authority in the colleges and in the universities also and the government and management are dominating the academics. Instead the academics have to dominate the academics. Also the authors tell that the accountability is lacking in the higher education sector. Now after discussing all these problems the authors have given very crisp and clear recommendations for improving the higher education sector in India. Now if you see they have given around some eight recommendations. Let us see them now. First India needs a dramatically increased funding from diverse sources. The authors tell that the national education policies recommendation for a new national research foundation is a welcome step with regards to funding. Next India needs to significantly increase the access to post-secondary education. That is nothing but the higher education. Careful attention has to be given to both quality and affordability of higher education. Also the government should make sure that the students complete their degrees because we saw that the students are not completing their graduation. Next the authors have recommended that India should carry out longitudinal studies on student outcomes. Now what is this longitudinal studies? There are nothing but observational studies where the students are observed for certain parameters for a fixed time period. Now based on this longitudinal studies policy decisions can be taken by the government. Hence the authors have recommended that India should carry out longitudinal studies. Next the authors have recommended to develop world class research intensive universities so that India can compete for the best brains of the world. Like by producing the top research minds and also India can be fully engaged in the global knowledge economy. Next the authors have recommended that India should ensure that the private education sector works for the public good and not for commercial interests. Next the authors have recommended that India should develop a differentiated and integrated higher education system where the higher education institutions should serve numerous needs of the society and also the academic needs. Next the authors have recommended that India should undertake reforms in the governance of college and universities such that they are made to function in an autonomous way that is in an independent way and also promote innovation at the institutional level. Finally the authors have recommended for a better coordination between the University grants commission and ministries and departments who are involved in higher education, skill development and research. So ultimately the authors have stressed the point that implementation of the policies is the immediate requirement instead of appointing new committees or commissions and spending unwanted money on them. Now have a look at the practice question. Let us move on to the next news article. This news article discusses about the advantages of tapping energy from oceans over the nuclear energy that India currently has at present. The analysis of this news article will be relevant in your problems preparation under current events of national importance and next under general science. The analysis will also be relevant in your mains preparation in General Studies Paper 2 under government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation and next in your General Studies Paper 3 under infrastructure energy and next under indignation of technology and developing new technology. The author of this news article tells that nuclear energy is losing its prominence or importance in contributing to India's energy needs. If you see India's nuclear power plants that can generate 6,780 megawatts of power but nuclear power has contributed to less than 3 percentage of the country's total electricity generation. The author tells that this contribution will further come down as other sources will generate more electricity. Now whenever you're studying about nuclear energy try to know about the important treaties at the global level regarding nuclear energy one by one. So today we'll see about the non-proliferation treaty which is mentioned in the news article. Now the main objective of this treaty is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology then to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further to achieve nuclear disarmament that is withdrawal or reduction of the nuclear weapons. Now know that India is not a signatory to this treaty which means India has not signed this treaty. In the 1950s Dr. Homi Baba gave a roadmap for India in the development of nuclear energy. He came up with a three-stage nuclear program. If you see India's huge thorium reserves almost a quarter of world's thorium reserves are found in India and the monosite soils of the South India in particular. So in order to utilize this thorium reserves India came up with this three-stage nuclear program. Now the first stage involves the creation of a fleet of pressurized heavy water reactors which will use scarce uranium to produce some plutonium. Now the second stage will see the setting up of several fast breeder reactors. If you see the fast breeder reactors will use a mixture of plutonium and the reprocess spent uranium from the first stage and this will produce energy that is electricity and more plutonium as the uranium will actually get converted into plutonium. Now since more plutonium is being produced it is called as breeder. So the name is the fast breeder reactor. Now along with this these fast breeder reactors would also convert some of the thorium into uranium 233 as you can see here which can also be used to produce energy or electricity. So this particular uranium 233 is the input for the stage three. After three to four decades that is after 30 to 40 years of operating these fast breeder reactors they would have produced enough plutonium for the use in the third stage and in the third stage uranium 233 would be used in specially designed reactors to produce energy and convert more thorium into uranium 233. As you can keep adding this thorium endlessly because we have huge thorium reserves. So our ultimate aim is to use the thorium resources to produce uranium 233 for more energy generation that is more electricity generation. Now we saw that this three stage nuclear program was conceived in 1950s. Now it was almost 70 years over now but India still stuck in the first stage. For the second stage as we saw we need the fast breeder reactors now the construction of a prototype fast breeder reactor began in the year 2004 that is before 15 years but it is yet to be launched. So we can see that we are still in the starting of the second stage of our three stage nuclear program. If you see we have an existing nuclear capacity of 6,780 megawatt as we saw during the starting of the article then the nuclear plans that are currently under construction will contribute to some 6,700 megawatt capacity. Then the government has sanctioned another 9,000 megawatt and there is no knowing when the construction works would begin. Here the author means to tell that in the next two decades India's nuclear capacity is not likely to exceed 20,000 megawatt. To move on to the second and third stage with the existing nuclear capacity is going to be a very tough job. Apart from this India has planned to expand the nuclear facility by signing the India-USA nuclear deal in the year 2005 but soon after in the year 2010 India enacted the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act of 2010. Now this act fixed liability for nuclear damage and it also specified procedures for compensating the victims. So if a civilian or a citizen of India is affected because of a nuclear crisis then they are subjected to liability which means the companies have to pay some money for the damages that they have caused to the individuals. Now because of this act the foreigners were not ready to invest on nuclear energy in India so this is also a reason for the present lower nuclear capacity in India. Next the author asks if the nuclear energy is worthy enough to be continued and there have been three arguments in favor of nuclear energy that is nuclear energy is clean then nuclear energy is cheap and then the nuclear energy can also provide electricity 24 cross 7 nothing but the base load. But if you see nuclear energy is not a clean energy since disposal of the spent fuel for producing this nuclear energy is a very difficult task. So the disposal is a very difficult task. Then it is also not cheap because the average cost of electricity produced by the existing 22 reactors in India is around rupees 2.80 a kilowatt hour here kilowatt hour is nothing but one unit of electricity. Generally we see in our homes that 200 units of electricity has been consumed so it is basically 200 kilowatt hour and if the new nuclear plants are set up now which would cost like around 15 to 20 crore per megawatt then the electricity that is going to be produced from this nuclear plants cannot be sold commercially below at least rupees 7 a unit. So we can see a difference of at least more than 4 rupees. So we can tell that the nuclear power is costly. Now the third argument was that the nuclear plants can provide the base load that is 24 cross 7 electricity wind and solar power plants produce much cheaper energy when compared to nuclear energy but their power supplies irregular since it depends on the natural factors such as wind and sun. So sometimes nuclear energy is regarded as the savior which means that it provides a necessary base load but the author tells that there are better energy options when compared to nuclear energy. Here the author refers to the energy that can be generated from the oceans. He tells that there are several sources of energy in the seas or the oceans. One way is to generate energy from the moving waters in the seas. As you can see in this picture we can place a flat surface on the waters with a mechanical arm attached to it and then it acts like a pump so that it can be used to drive water or compressed air through a turbine so that the electricity will be produced. Now another method is tapping energy from the tides or nothing but the tidal energy. Tide here refers to the cyclic rise and fall of sea water. So the sea water will rise and sea water will fall down. So it is like a cycle. Now tide flows during one part of the day and ebb in another the incoming tide along the coast and into the bays and estuaries and delta is called as the flowing tide. So we can see tides flow during one part of the day and in another part of the day the ebb means the outgoing tide. Now if we can channelize this tide by placing a number of turbines in its path we can generate electricity as you can see in this picture. One more way is to keep the turbines on the seabed that is at the seafloor at places where there is a current that is a river within the sea as you can see in this picture. Yet another way is to get the waves dash against pistons as you can see in this picture. Say a pipe can be used so because of the push by the rising wave the air gets compressed at the other end. If you see sea water is very dense and heavy and when it moves it can punch hard and if you see the sea water never stops moving so electricity generation is naturally possible in this method as well. If you see all these methods are very costly for example India's Gujarat State Power Corporation had a tie up with the United Kingdom's Atlantic Resources for a 50 megawatt tidal project in the Gulf of Kacharia in the state of Gujarat but this project was given up after they discovered that they could sell the electricity only at rupees 13 a kilowatt or nothing but rupees 13 a unit. If you see even the solar energy costed rupees 18 a unit in the year 2009 but when the technology improves and more production happens then we will be having economies of scale nothing but when the availability is more the price will automatically come down. The author suggests that initially the ocean energy needs to be incentivized similar to the solar energy. He tells that the government can divert the money allocated to the department of atomic energy which is around 13,971 crores for the financial year 2019-20 plus the wind and solar energies are sustaining now so those subsidies that are given to these development of wind and solar energies could be now given to the ocean energy for developing the ocean energy. Now have a look at the practice question let us move on to the next news article. This news article is about the World Health Organization norms on self-care interventions, the analysis of this news article will be relevant in your prelims preparation under current events of international importance and then also under general science. The World Health Organization has launched guidelines on self-care interventions for health. Now this guideline is the first of its kind and also it particularly focuses on sexual and reproductive health and rights or we can call it SRHR. The guidelines were released as a response to an estimate about the shortage of healthcare workers worldwide. The estimate is that worldwide an estimated shortage of about 18 million health workers is anticipated by the year 2030. Now it was estimated by World Health Organization in the year 2016 in one of its report which is named as working for health and growth investing in the health workforce. Now if you see the newspaper article it mentions a different value as shortage no need to get confused here because the newspaper has wrongly taken an old estimate that was given by the World Health Organization. Now the estimate which is mentioned in the news article is by 2035 the world will face a shortage of nearly 13 million healthcare workers. This estimation was given by WHO in the year 2013 in a report named as a universal truth no health without a workforce. One point that you have to take note here is while answering the main question always mention the most recent estimate. Now coming back to the discussion as we saw the guidelines were released as a response to an estimate that a shortage of about 18 million health workers is anticipated by the year 2030 and about 130 million people that is 13 crore people are currently in need of humanitarian assistance. Moreover disease outbreaks are a constant global threat. In addition to this according to World Health Organization at least 400 million people that is 40 crore people worldwide lack access to the most essential health services and also every year 100 million people that is 10 crore people are pushed into poverty because they have to pay for healthcare from their own money. So these issues trigger an urgent need to find innovative strategies that go beyond the conventional health sector response. Hence as a part of this innovative strategy comes the self-care interventions. So first let us see what is this self-care. According to World Health Organization's working definition self-care is the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, to prevent disease, to maintain health and to cope with illness and disability and all this with or without the support of a healthcare provider. The scope of self-care as described in this definition includes health promotion, then disease prevention and control, next self-medication, then providing care to dependent persons, next seeking hospital care or specialist care or primary care if necessary and finally rehabilitation which also includes palliative care. Here palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families who are facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness. This will be done through the prevention and relief of suffering of the patient by means of early identification of illness, impeccable or flawless assessment and the treatment of pain and other problems that may be physical, psychosocial or and spiritual. Also self-care is practiced by everyone. The emerging new self-care interventions have the potential to benefit even the most vulnerable populations if you see. According to World Health Organization self-care is also a means for people to have access to sexual and reproductive health services who are negatively affected by gender, political, cultural and power dynamics. It also includes the individuals who are forcibly displaced. Hence the purpose of this guidelines or the guidance is to develop a people-centered evidence-based normative guidelines so that the guideline will support individuals, communities and countries with quality health services and self-care interventions. And this should be based on primary health care strategies, comprehensive essential service packages and people-centeredness. So what are the specific objectives of this guideline? The objective is to provide evidence-based recommendations on key public health self-care interventions which includes the advancing of sexual and reproductive health and rights or in short SRHR. This should be done with focus on vulnerable populations and focus on settings with limited capacity and resources in the health system. Next is to provide for good practice statements on key programmatic operational and service delivery issues that needs to be addressed. Now this is to promote and increase safe and equitable access to uptake and use the self-care interventions which also includes the advancing of SRHR. So based on its objectives, the guidelines provide some recommendations on self-care interventions for SRHR. Some of the interventions include health education for women, childbirth training workshops, then it also recommends self-administered injectable contraception, then self-sampling for human papilloma virus and sexually transmitted infections. Here the self-sampling requires an individual to obtain a kit then they have to collect one's own sample and then they can send the specimen to a laboratory. Now this specimen will be tested and then the results will be returned to the individual. Next is the home-based ovulation predictor kits, then human immunodeficiency virus self-testing and then finally self-management of medical abortion. Now have a look at the practice question. Let us move on to the practice question discussion session. The first question is which among the following states have at least one of its populations belonging to particular tribe notified as particularly vulnerable tribal group and they have given four Northeastern states as the options Manipur, Nagaland, S.M.N, Arunachal Pradesh. Now know that to be notified as a particularly vulnerable tribal group there are four criteria that is that a particular tribe should have a pre-agricultural level of technology then that tribe should be facing a stagnant or a declining population then the tribe must be having extremely low literacy levels and then they would be practicing a subsistence level of economy. Now out of all the Northeastern states only two Northeastern states have the tribes which are listed under this PVTG group. One is the Maramnagar tribe from the state of Manipur and second is the Raing tribe from the state of Tripura. So remember in the Northeastern states only two Northeastern states have tribes that are listed under this PVTG and they are Manipur and Tripura. Now know that 75 tribal groups have been categorized by the Ministry of Home Affairs as particularly vulnerable tribal groups in India and these 75 tribal groups reside in 18 states and in one union territory which is the Union Territory of Annaman and Nicobar Islands. So the correct answer for this question is option A Manipur. Moving on to the next question which of the following reactor will be used in the second stage of India's three stage nuclear program and they have given four types of reactors here the correct answer is option B fast breeder reactor. Now we saw that the second stage of India's three stage nuclear program would see the setting up of several fast breeder reactors. If you see these fast breeder reactors would use a mixture of plutonium and the reprocess spent uranium from the first stage and we saw that this will produce energy that is electricity and more plutonium as the uranium will convert into plutonium since more plutonium is produced it is called as breeder. Then we also saw that along with this these fast breeder reactors would convert some of the thorium into uranium 233 which can also be used to produce energy or electricity and that this uranium 233 is the input for stage three. So here the correct answer is option B fast breeder reactor. Moving on to the next question this question is about the guideline released by WHO on self-care interventions for health in 2019. Now this is a direct question if you regularly follow the newspaper or a news analysis you easily know the answer because during our discussion we said that it is a first of its kind of guideline and the guideline focuses on sexual and reproductive health and rights that is SRHR. So here the correct answer is option C but here you have to keep in mind one thing presently the World Health Organization has released the guideline on self-care interventions for health focusing on sexual and reproductive health and rights but in future it may release guidelines on self-care for any of the given options. This is because self-care can be particularly effective in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights due to the stigma and difficulties people often face while accessing the information and services in that field but self-care is not just limited to sexual and reproductive health and rights. For example with the increase of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cancers, cardiovascular and chronic lung diseases self-care can play a vital role in preventing and reducing the underlying risk factors optimizing the treatment and managing complications. So it is suggested to regularly follow the newspaper then only you will know when World Health Organization releases some new guidelines on self-care on a different field. Now let us see the main question the question is discuss the problems associated with higher education sector in India and suggest suitable course corrections for the same. Now this question has two parts the first part asks you to discuss the problems that is associated with higher education sector in our editorial analysis we saw various problems that were discussed by the authors like underfunding of higher education then low gross enrollment ratio then poor quality of higher education and also the commercialization by the private sector in higher education. Then the second part of the question asks you to give the suggestions for course corrections that is policy level suggestions to turn around the higher education sector. Now if you can mention some suggestions like increased funding and setting up of national research foundation as per the draft national education policy recommendations then the need for differentiated and integrated higher education system then the need for providing autonomy to institutions etc all this we saw in our editorial analysis. And finally conclude that the interventions by the government will help improve the scientific temper of the country. With this we come to the end of the analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion and also the practice question discussion session. Do like comment and share the video and do subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel for latest videos and updates. Stay focused and motivated friends. Thank you.