 Welcome to the Hindu news analysis for the date 8th May 2019, displayed are the list of news articles selected for today's analysis and their page numbers in Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram editions of the newspaper. The link for handwritten notes and the time stamping of news articles are provided in the description box and for the benefit of mobile phone viewers, the link of handwritten notes and the time stamping of news articles are also provided in the comment section. Now, let us move on to the analysis of first article. This editorial article appears on page number 9 in Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram editions of the newspaper. The author states that, replicating NRC update process to all states of the country is an unwise proposal. See the contents of this article will be helpful in your problems preparation under current events of national importance, Indian polity and governance, and it remains preparation under functions and responsibilities of the union and the states in GS2 paper. The National Register of Citizens is the register that contains the names of Indian citizens. It was a register prepared after the conduct of the census 1951 under the directive from Ministry of Home Affairs. These registers covered each and every person enumerated during the 1951 census and these registers were kept in the offices of deputy commissioners and sub-divisional officers. Register in early 1960s, these registers were transferred to the police authorities. Now for the first time, the update process is taking place in the state of Assam for NRC 1951. This update process means enlisting the names of those persons or their descendants whose names appear in any of the stipulated admissible documents issued on or before the midnight of 24th March 1971. The process of updation is carried out based on Citizenship Act of 1955 and Citizenship Rules 2003. Now why the update process is being carried out to include only the name of genuine Indian citizens who are original inhabitants of the state of Assam and to check the illegal immigration to detect and deport the illegal immigrants in the state of Assam and thereby protecting social, cultural, economic and political life of genuine citizens in Assam. Note that any illegal immigrant who came on or after 25th March 1971 will have to be detected and deported from our country to the country of origin. And the updation is being done to carry out what was agreed between the All Assam Student Union and the State Government of Assam and the Central Government in the Assam Accord of 1985. The Accord marked the end of violent anti-foreigner movement which was launched in 1979 by All Assam Student Union and also to fulfill the first tripartite agreement on Assam Accord of 2005. In the year 2005 the three parties were see the Central Government, State Government and All Assam Student Union. This update process in the state of Assam is implemented by the state of Assam coordinated by various authorities under the state coordinator for NRC Assam Update. The supervision and control is being exercised by the Registrar General of Citizenship Registration who is also the Registrar General of India in Ministry of Home Affairs. The entire process is monitored by the Supreme Court of India. Now this update process started in the year 2015 by distributing application forms for inclusion of name from 27th March 2015 and the applications were received till 31st August 2015. Note that around 3.29 crore people have filed the applications. Then after due verification both field and document verification at the insistence of Supreme Court a part of the draft updated NRC was published on 31st December 2017. Now this draft covered about 1.9 crore applicants. The complete draft NRC was published finally on 30th July 2018. Note that this is a draft not the final NRC. Now after this followed the process of submitting claims and objections. Submitting is to claim for inclusion of name and objection is to object for the inclusion of a person's name in the updated NRC draft. Now this process of submitting claims and objections came to an end by 31st December 2018. And now the process of adjudicating or hearing or disposal of the submitted claims and objections is going on and the Supreme Court has given a deadline of 31st July 2019 to publish the final National Register of Citizens updated. Note that around 40 lakh applicants did not find their name in the final draft NRC published last year. The author states around 90% of these 40 lakh people have submitted claims and there were around 2.65 lakh objections. The author calls this part that is adjudicating the claims and objections as the most sensitive face in the entire update process. There are no clear plans about what the government is going to do with those people whose names are rejected. The author fears that this process will make several people stateless just because they were unable to produce right documents. See redressal mechanisms to these people in the complex update process is also unclear. If final NRC is published then the rejected persons have to approach foreigners tribunal but the author says that the number of foreigners tribunal required for this much population is still not yet constituted and the same is also the case with detention camps. Right now there are six detention camps operating within jail premises in the state. Regarding deportation legal experts say that deportation is possible only if the country of origin accepts the persons to be deported. In our case if the country of origin that is predominantly Bangladesh if not cooperating then the declared stateless population has to be in detention camps indefinitely. That is for a long time. The author notes that only 4 out of 46,000 declared illegal immigrants were deported by the state of Assam since 2015. The author also highlights some proposals that were summarily dismissed by the government. Some of the proposals are to give them refugee status, work permits or releasing them under surities or with ankle bracelets. Now these bracelets are also called as ankle monitors or electronic devices that are wore around the angle of illegal immigrants. The device uses a radio frequency signal to communicate with the monitoring station and if the device is tinkered with or damaged or removed an alert immediately gets sent to law enforcement officials. Thus these monitors are programmed to allow its wearers to travel a specified area only. The author points out two problems here even before the completion of this mammoth task of updating the NRC-1951 in Assam. The present government has tried to push through citizenship amendment bill that had provisions to allow citizenship to illegal immigrants of almost all religions except Muslims. The author states this idea corrupts the very spirit of the updating process. Another problem that some expressed that the NRC update process should be replicated in all other states of India. Author states this experience of Assam cannot be replicated because of reasons such as the Assam NRC update is a direct response to a unique history of state of Assam since the days of partition of India. Supreme court in one of its orders states that there was a large influx of people from east Pakistan into the state of Assam till 1971 which increased even further after 25th March 1971. 25th March 1971 is the day when Pakistan launched Operation Searchlight in present day Bangladesh fearing which many people left the place. Indian government has enacted a legislation way back in 1950 itself which is known as the Immigrant's Expulsion from Assam Act of 1950. The history also includes signing of Assam Accord in 1985 that ended Assam-Andolan or anti-foreigner movement. Also majority of population in the state of Assam were more than willing to undergo the update process which may not happen in other states. Thus the author states since there is no such history attached with any other states the Assam experience of updating the NRC cannot be replicated in other states. And if replicated in other states the author predicts that it will lead to huge social cause and unrest, street violence and may trigger a needless humanitarian crisis, millions of poor and marginalized sections of the population who could be illiterates and may not have the ability and understanding and knowledge to comply with excessively specific or hyper-technical demands of national register of citizens. Also the measures recently attempted to provide citizenship to illegal immigrants other than Muslims will tear the secular fabric of India and thus the process may become a threat to secular India. And asking the people to prove Indianness after 72 years of independence is simply horrific and undemocratic and even though some states may think in beginning about update process they will eventually push their positions back thinking all the above mentioned problems and issues states the author. Therefore the proposal to carry out update process in NRC throughout India is an unwise proposal that will make the national register of citizens a national register of cruelty. The above mentioned opinions are author's personal opinions. Now the displayed mains question will be discussed in the last session. Now let us move on to the next article. This article is about loss of habitat due to cyclone phony. Now this article has appeared on page number one in Chennai, Bengaluru and Delhi edition and page seven in Thiruvannathapuram edition. The information under this article will be relevant in films preparation under current events of national importance, Indian physical geography, general issues on environmental ecology, biodiversity and in mains under GS paper one in important geophysical phenomena such as cyclone, geographical features and flora and fauna and effects of such changes and also in GS paper three under conservation. Cyclone phony has not only damaged human habitat in Urusa but also wildlife and forest resources in the region. It has mainly affected the Balukkand Wildlife Sanctuary which had tree lined marine drive and after phony it has now become a wasteland with hardly any tree left untouched. As many as 20% of the trees were uprooted while the rest were found snapped and broken and the devastation has left around 400 spotted deers homeless and the cyclone has also affected the Nandan Kanan Geological Park in Bhupaneshwar. After the cyclone had uprooted decades old trees and several animal enclosures have been affected. This forced the authorities to shut down the zoo for an indefinite or an undecided period. Then the Chandaka Wildlife Sanctuary has also been impacted. Thousands of trees in the sanctuary have been uprooted. Now let us focus in the prelims perspective on wildlife sanctuaries and zoos of Odisha that finds mention in this article. The about Balukkand Konark Sanctuary it is situated in Poori district. This sanctuary is situated at a convenient location along the sea coast between Poori and Konark. The sanctuary is filled with lush green vegetation, cashew and casuarina plantations and mangrove forest. The region is famous for the occurrence of a large number of black bucks and spotted deer. It is home to monkeys, jungle cat, hyana etc. All you really see turtles are seen nesting in the beach. Now let us see about Nandan Kanan Zoological Park. See it is located in Korda district of Odisha. This Zoological Park is a premier large zoo of India. Unlike other zoos in the country, it is built right inside the forest and set in a completely natural environment. And diverse variety of plants, orchids, creepers, cacti, palms and about 750 species of plants are seen here. This premier zoo was the world's first captive crocodile breeding center where gorillas were bred in captivity in 1980. Nandan Kanan is the first zoo in the world to breed white tiger and melanistic tiger. Since then white tigers have been regularly bred here. It has been internationally acclaimed for the zoo's highest collection of white tigers in the world. It is the only conservation breeding center of Indian pangolins in the world. And it is the only zoological park in India to become an institutional member of world association of zoos and aquariums. Now let us know some facts about Chandaka Wildlife Sanctuary. See it is situated partly within Korda and partly in Katak district in Odisha. Elephant is the keystone or flagship species in this forest ecosystem. Spotted deer, mouse deer, leopard, sloth deer, hyena, russells, viper, pangolins or important species in this sanctuary. Now as a part of this discussion let us also see some important protected areas in Odisha. See the state of Odisha has 19 sanctuaries including Gahirmata Marine Wildlife Sanctuary. The Gahirmata Marine Wildlife Sanctuary is the world's largest nesting beach of olive ridley sea turtles. The state of Odisha includes Bittarkanika National Park and one proposed national park that is Simlipal Sanctuary. All these have been notified under the provisions of Indian Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 for in situ conservation. Odisha has many natural wetlands including largest wetland of Asia that is Chilika Lake. Chilika Lake and Bittarkanika were declared as Ramsar sites under Ramsar Convention and these sites mean that they are wetland of international importance. Now let us move on to the next article. The displayed prelims question will be discussed in the last session. Now the next article of the day is about Fall Army Warm. See this article has appeared on page number 2 and 5 of Delhi edition only. This article will be relevant in prelims preparation under current events of national importance, general issues on environmental ecology, bio-biodiversity and in general science as well. Relevant in main syllabus under GS paper 3 in major crops cropping patterns in various parts of the country and issues and related constraints. The first article talks about the crop loss of rupees 20 crore that has been estimated by the state government of Mizoram. This loss has been caused by the outbreak of Fall Army Warm in the state of Mizoram. It has affected the maize cultivation in more than 1700 hectares in 122 villages of Mizoram. The government has, the state government has constituted a rapid response team to monitor the situation and also to monitor the outbreak and to take measures to mitigate or to slow down the loss of crops. The next article talks about the same Fall Army Warm outbreak in the former undivided Adilabad district of Telangana. Agricultural scientists and environmentalists have predicted that the deadly pest could turn out to be a scourge or plague for farmers in the coming crop seasons. The pest had primarily attacked the maize crop in the district and has damaged 90% of the crops. It is expected to attack even cotton and soya bean crops. The district agricultural advisory has warned to take precautionary and preventive measures before the commencement of sowing in Karif season. It has advised the farmers to go for deep plowing which will expose more soil to the sun to avoid staggered sowing. Staggered sowing or staggered planting is growing the same vegetable but planting the seeds on different dates throughout the season so that a cultivator can have an overall longer period of fresh vegetables. This is because if an entire village goes in for sowing within a short time frame, the growth of crop would be uniform and the distribution of the pest will also be uniform and this will help in effective control and management of the pest and will thus reduce the crop damage. Now let us know about this Fall Army Warm in the examination point of view. See this Fall Army Warm or Spodotera frujiperda in short FAW is an insect. It is native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas. Its larval stage causes more damage to crops as it feeds on more than 80 plant species including maize, rice, sorghum, millet, sugarcane, vegetable crops and cotton. FAW can cause significant yield losses if it is not well managed. FAW was first deducted other than Americas in Central and West Africa in early 2016. FAW is a dangerous transboundary pest with a high potential to spread continually due to its natural distribution capacity and due to its flying ability and international trade. This map illustrates the spread of the pest till date. Today it is present in all countries of sub-Saharan Africa except Lissotho. At the end of July 2018 FAW was detected in Yemen and in India and it was the first occurrence in Asia. As on Jan 2019 it has been reported in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand and China. And this Fall Army Warm has several characteristics that make eradication extremely difficult. First it is very mobile. Adult moths can travel 100 kilometer in a single night and individuals can fly over 1000 kilometer in a lifetime. Secondly it is very poly-fagus that is it feeds on many different species of plants and can reproduce on many different species of plants. This means that it can rapidly spread across many environments and cropping systems and it is not restricted by diet. Finally as the damage caused by FAW is sometimes confused by farmers with damage from other pests. Therefore reporting about the presence of FAW may be slow. This allows this warm to spread before some action is taken. The reality is that FAW rapidly moves across millions of hectares of maize and other plants and quickly becomes a problem for farmers. Now farmers need significant support if they are to be able to manage this FAW sustainably in their cropping systems through integrated pest management activities. This IPM or integrated pest management is an integrated strategy of pest control which aims at prevention of pests and its damage through a combination of techniques such as chemical, biological, new cropping system, modification of cultural practices, use of resistant varieties and through mechanical methods. IPM emphasizes the growth of a healthy crop with the least possible disruption to agro ecosystems and it encourages natural pest control mechanisms. Let us see some of the measures based on this. Firstly, sowing of treated maize seeds and they're intercropping with them with red gram. And secondly, use of pheromone traps because early detection of FAW can be efficiently done using this pheromone traps. Pheromones are chemicals used by insects and other animals to communicate with each other. Insects send these chemical signals to help attract maize, warn about predators or to find food. So this pheromone trap will help to lure insects and pests and these traps are used for monitoring purposes and not controlling the pest. To understand the ecology of this fall army worm and to take sift action and to disperse early warnings, this food and agriculture organization or FAO has developed the fall army worm monitoring and early warning system to help farmers, communities, local authorities, as well as national and international leaders to make the best use of resources to manage this army worm. It is a mobile app and should be used every time an infested field or a pheromone trap is checked for this fall army worm. Infested is the word used for insects or pests occupying a field. See, this app uses artificial intelligence and integrates data from many sources, including satellites to provide farmers with offline advice and recommendations. Next, FAW has many natural enemies, that is those organisms that are naturally in the environment and can kill this FAW eggs, larvae, and pupae. These organisms include predators such as ants, eovics, birds, et cetera. Then parasitoids, which are tiny wasps and then pathogens like bacteria, virus, fungi, and nematodes. The cumulative or the collective effort effect of these agents on FAW can be very high. Farmers can take actions to conserve and attract these organisms to their fields to increase the mortality or death rate of fall army worm. And then another measure can be the use of sand and lime mixture in the worlds of the spiraling part of the maize plants. See, this methods, along with above methods, were suggested by Food and Agriculture Organization, states the article. Now, the displayed primes question will be discussed in the practice come revision session, which is the last session of the today's analysis. Now, this article is the data point on India's oil trade, and it has appeared on page number nine in all the editions for analysis. The statistics mentioned in this data point and the relevant analysis will be helpful in your primes under current events of national and international importance. And you can also use these statistics discussed in your main census in GS paper two, under bilateral regional agreements involving India and affecting India's interests and effect of policies and politics of developed countries on India's interests and in GS paper three under Indian economy. In this data point, two statistics are about oil trade with respect to India, and the other two are about oil trade of USA and Iran. The main takeaway from the data point is that India is likely to suffer because of USA's decision to end the waiver given to some countries that import crude oil from Iran. This waiver is named as significant reductions exception. Now USA imposed economic sanctions on Iran because of its assumption that Iran is developing nuclear energy for non-peaceful purposes. But under these exemptions, USA allowed some countries, including India, to import oil from Iran till second of May 2019. Now the USA has not extended this waiver further. Now note that Iran is India's preferred source of crude oil. The first graph mentioned in this data point is about India's crude oil imports from different countries of the world. The crude oil supplier's name and the quantity of the crude oil imported is mentioned here. We also have given a table that contains India's crude oil imports from these countries for the previous two fiscal years. This data is sourced from the Director General of Commerce, Intelligence, and Statistics, which comes under Ministry of Commerce and Industry. In this table, if you see in the last fiscal year, that is in 2018-19, Iraq is the leading supplier of oil to India. And Iran's share to India's crude oil imports is around 11.5%. Now in the data point, it has been mentioned 10.9%. Also from this table, if you see, there is almost a three-fold increase in USA's oil exports to India. Coming to the second table for the year 2018-19, Iran's crude oil is cheaper for India to import when compared to USA. USA oil is one of the most expensive for India. In the third table, the crude oil exports of USA and Iran has been compared. This table tells that there has been a 734% increase of global crude oil exports from USA to other countries between 2013 to 2017. Now if you see in this table, Iran's oil exports have decreased or dipped in the year 2013. That was the year when USA imposed sanctions on Iran, which affected Iran's exports. But Iran's exports recovered once USA lifted sanctions on Iran, that is in the year 2015. Now once again, USA has imposed sanctions on Iran, which will again affect Iran's global oil exports. The last table explains about the statistics of USA's global oil exports. Since 2015, the oil exports of USA to major countries of the world have significantly increased. This includes countries such as India, Japan, South Korea, China, and Italy. Now one of the sources mentioned in this data point is OPEC. Now let us know about OPEC in short. See the OPEC stands for Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. It is a permanent intergovernmental organization of 14 oil exporting developing nations. The members of OPEC are Algeria, Angola, Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Equatorial Guinea, and United Arab Emirates. Now the other oil exporting nations join the meetings conducted by OPEC as observers only. Note that Qatar left OPEC on January 2019, and Indonesia left this OPEC forum in the year 2016. The headquarters of OPEC is located in Vienna in Austria. Note that Austria is not a member under OPEC. Also, World Oil Outlook is released by this OPEC organization. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Now let us move on to the next article. Now this news article has appeared on page number one and 10 in all the editions for analysis. The discussion under this article will be relevant in the prelims preparation under current events of national importance and in Indian polity and governance. The news article states that the Supreme Court has dismissed the petition to review its earlier judgment on increasing the physical verification of water verifiable paper audit trail. This review plea was submitted by 21 opposition parties led by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister. The April 8th judgment of Supreme Court rejected the 21 opposition parties' demand to increase the random physical verification of EVMs using VVPAT to 50%. But instead, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission of India to increase physical counting of VVPAT slips to five random EVMs in each assembly segment or constituency. It is to be noted that before this April verdict, Election Commission of India guideline required physical counting of only one electronic voting machine in every assembly segment or constituency. Now this has been increased to five, which has increased the verification percentage from 0.44% to less than 2%. It was done to ensure a foolproof Lokshaba election. The plea was about the reviewing of Supreme Court's judgment of April 8th. As the opposition found, this verdict far from what they wanted, that is, they wanted VVPAT verification in 50%, or 125 polling booths in each constituency, but got verification increased only to five polling booths. In the review petition, the opposition parties decreased their demand from 50% to 33% or 25%. They have asserted that Indian democracy could not be left to the mercy of EVM programmers, which is prone to faults according to them. The review petition also pointed to large-scale tampering and selective malfunctioning of EVMs in the Lokshaba polls so far. Let us know some facts about VVPAT in the prelims perspective. See, VVPAT is the acronym for Auto Verifiable Paper Audit Trail. It is an independent system which is attached with electronic voting machines. It allows the voters to verify their votes that their votes are cast as they have intended. A printer is attached with EVM and is kept into the voting compartment. The printer prints a slip that contains the serial number, name of the candidate, the symbol of the candidate for whom the voter has casted the vote. This printed slip remains exposed for seven seconds under a transparent window and then gets cut automatically and falls into a sealed drop box which remains sealed. These VVPATs with EVMs were used for the first time in the by-election at 51 Noxon Assembly Constituency of Magala. We are in the last session, the practice come revision session. The first question, which of the following protected areas are situated in the state of Odisha? They're asking to select the correct answer. We have Vedantangal Bird Sanctuary, Bittarkannika National Park, Khaaziranga National Park, Bandipur National Park, Gakhirmata Wildlife Sanctuary. Let's try to solve by elimination. See, we know Gakhirmata Wildlife Sanctuary is in the state of Odisha. And Bittarkannika National Park also in the state of Odisha. You try to find an option that has both two and five or at least two. If you know that Bittarkannika National Park is in the state of Odisha, you can easily eliminate option A, B and C. So you will come to answer option D, two and five only. You can also attempt this question directly if you know where all these areas are situated. Know that Khaaziranga National Park is in the state of Assam. Bandipur National Park is in the state of Karnataka. Vedantangal Bird Sanctuary is in the state of Tamil Nadu. So the final answer is option D, two and five only. Now the second question is with reference to Fall Army Worm. Now they're asking which of the above statements are incorrect. They're not asking which of the statements are correct. They're asking statements that are incorrect. Now the first statement, it is an insect native to the tropical and subtropical regions of India. Now the statement is wrong because we learned that the insect is native to tropical and subtropical regions of Americas, North America and South America. So it is not native to India. So the first statement is incorrect. The second statement, it affects crops such as maize, rice, sorghum, cotton, et cetera. Now we know this Fall Army Worm is polypheagous. That is it feeds on many different species of plants and we also saw that it can affect more than 80 plant species. So the second statement is correct. We are asked to find the statements that are incorrect. So the first statement only is incorrect. So option A, one only. Question three, they are given two statements and are asking which of the statements are correct. Now the first statement, as per the recent data from Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Iran was the leading supplier of crude oil to India in the fiscal year 2018-19. See this statement is wrong. So as per 2018-19 data, Iraq is the leading supplier of crude oil to India. Iran is the third largest crude oil supplier to India after Saudi Arabia. So the first statement is wrong. Now the second statement, Iran and Qatar are the members of OPEC. Now we saw that Qatar left OPEC in January 2019 and also saw that Indonesia left OPEC in the year 2016. Second statement is also wrong. Iran is still a member of OPEC but Qatar is not a member. So for the second statement is also wrong. So the answer for this question will be option D, neither one nor two. Now the main question, practice question, discuss the desirability and feasibility of extension of updating NRC for the rest of the country. That means they mean that other than the state of Assam. Now for this question, you may inculcate points from the discussion and analysis of today's editorial article titled National Register of Cruelty. All right. So with this we come to the end of today's analysis and don't forget to press the like button. If you like the video, share it with your friends, subscribe to our Shankarayas Academy YouTube channel for more updates and content on daily news analysis.