 Good evening, aspirants. Welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankar IA's Academy for the day 25th of February 2022. Displayed here are the list of news articles chosen for today's discussion. See as I showed you there is an exclusive economic topic which is about GDP or gross domestic product. See today whatever articles that I have chosen is very much important for both your mains as well as problems. Kindly pay attention and make note of all the articles and the points that I have mentioned in the discussion. Okay. Now without wasting much time let's get into the discussion. Look at this first news article. See this editorial article here says that the UN Food System submit called for action by governments in five areas. The five areas include nourish all people, boost nature-based solutions, advance equitable livelihoods, decent work and empower communities, then build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stresses. Also accelerate the means of implementation. See this is done in an effort to stimulate national and regional action to deliver the United Nations 17 sustainable development goals through transforming food systems. So this is the background of the article given here. In this context the article covers the agricultural policy of India and its implication and some of the changes that are to be done to achieve the sustainable development goals. So we will cover all these aspects in our discussion today. But before that the syllabus relevant to this news article is given here for your reference. Please go through it. See also look at this question. It is a 2017 UPSC mains question. It is from GS paper 3. So in order to show you how relevant is our discussion is going to be with the UPSC mains questions I have displayed this question here for you. Now let us begin our discussion. First of all let us see about agriculture in India. See the history of agriculture in India dates back to inter-sales civilisation era and even before that in some parts of southern India. Today India ranks second worldwide in form output. Agriculture has always been the vital for Indian economy since independence. See the gravity of the sector is due to the fact that nearly 55% of population of the country derives its livelihood from the agriculture. It meets the food and nutritional requirements of 1.3 billion Indians. It also contributes significantly to production, employment and demand generation through various backward and forward linkages. Moreover it plays a crucial role in elevating poverty and ensuring the sustainable development of the economy. Since independence Indian agriculture has come a long way. From the state of food deficit it has come to being the state of food surplus. Now let us see about the agricultural policy since independence. See when India became independent in 1947 the agricultural productivity was very low that was about 50 million tons. The agriculture was mainly rain food and was being done as subsistence farming using mainly animate sources of farm power and traditional tools and equipments. More than 80% of the population living in rural areas was dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. See in the year 1928 the Royal Commission on Agriculture in its report had laid stress on harnessing science to develop and spread new agricultural technologies for the irrigated arid and semi arid areas. However the quantum of efforts generated in agricultural engineering research and education till 1947 was microscopic. After independence India followed an agricultural development strategy that focused on self sufficiency in staple foods like wheat and rice. See the agrarian reforms were undertaken in the form of consolidation of holdings, abolition of land lordism etc etc. See after independence when 5 year development plans were prepared in 1950 agriculture was given priority. However it was only during 60s when a number of major schemes and programs initiated in the country. In 60s Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri coined the popular phrase Jai Jawan Jai Kisan and successfully launched the milk cooperatives which later brought in the white revolution. See after that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sowed the seeds of the green revolution. The government imported high yielding seeds of dwarf wheat from Mexico and made available irrigation along with the external inputs like chemical fertilizer and pesticides. See know that in India the transformation in agriculture would involve enhancing interfaces between the spears of science, society and policy and focusing on sustainability, resource efficiency and circularity. In these lines India's green revolution in the 1960s enabled food security and addressed widespread hunger and poverty. See it was achieved not only through science and technology in the development of improved high yielding varieties of rice and wheat but also through policy measures and development of institutional structure. The training and visit TNV system introduced in the 1970s with the World Bank assistant was the key to the science society interface as it established a cadre of agriculture extension specialist at the local level. Having seen this now let us see an overview of the policy at present. See agricultural policy can be divided into phases. The first phase is from 1947 to mid 60s. See it witnessed the tremendous agrarian reforms, institutional changes, development of major irrigation project and strengthening of cooperative credit institution. The most important contribution of land reforms was abolishing of intermediaries and giving land titles to the actual cultivators. See the incentive price policy was adopted in 1964 and the Agricultural Price Commission was set up to advise the government on the fixation of support prices of agricultural crops. Despite the institutional changes and development programs introduced by the government during this phase, India remained dependent upon foreign countries for food to feed the rising population. Now let us see the second phase. See it started in mid 1960s with adoption of new agricultural strategies. The new agricultural strategy relies on high yielding variety of crops, multiple cropping, the package of approach, modern farm practices and spread of irrigation facilities etc. See the biggest achievement of this strategy has been attainment of self sufficiency in food grains. See the agrarian reforms during this period took back seed while research, extension, input supply, credit, marketing, price support and spread of technology were the prime concern of policy makers. Now coming to the third phase, see it began in the early 1980s. This period started witnessing process of diversification which resulted into fast growth in non-food grains output like milk, fishery, poultry, vegetables, fruits etc. And this accelerated the growth in agricultural GDP during 1980s. See the agricultural policy started after initiation of economic reform process in 1991. Economic reform process involved deregulation, reduced government participation in economic activities and liberalization. Although there is no direct reforms for agriculture, the sector was affected indirectly by devaluation of exchange rate, liberalization of external trade and this production to the industry. See during this period opening up of domestic market due to new international trade accord and WTO was another change that affected agriculture. This raised new challenges among policy makers and this phase is largely considered as stagnation phase. Now the last two decades which is said to be the neglected phase in agriculture. See about 20 years after the green revolution began and somewhere in the early 1990s the global economic thinking shifted to shrinking agriculture and boosting industry. See World Bank or IMF and international financial institutions began to propose that economic growth can only take place when few people are left in agriculture. In 1996 the World Development Report of the World Bank suggested moving 400 million people equally to twice the combined population of UK, France and Germany from the rural to urban areas in India in the next 20 years that is by the year 2015. Meanwhile the emergence of World Trade Organization in 1995 also shifted the focus to trade. The main line economic thinking shifted to reducing support for agriculture and importing highly subsidized cheaper food from the developed countries. Subsequently the World Bank and multinational corporations have been pushing for land acquisitions and contract farming and then creation of supermarkets or in other words paving the way for corporate agriculture. In other words the neglect of small scale agriculture is a part of a design. So that's all about the overview of agricultural policy in India. Now coming back to the article see talks about the status of India in different aspects we'll see them all one by one. See although India is now self-sufficient in food grain production in the macro sense it has about a quarter of the world's food insecure people. See the calorie target is 2400 kilocalories in rural and 1200 kilocalories in the urban setup. Am I right? And the article says that macro and micronutrient malnutrition is widespread. This is because 18.7% of women and 16.2% of men are unable to access enough food to meet basic nutritional needs. And note that 32% of children below 5 years are underweight as per the recently released fifth national family health survey that is 2019 to 2021 report. See apart from this India is ranked one out one out of the 116 countries in the global hunger index 2021. See the country faces the dual challenge of achieving nutritional security as well as addressing declining land productivity, land degradation and loss of ecological services with the change in land use. So these are the prevailing challenges in agri-sector according to the article. So in these lines now let us see what are the transformational measures needed to make changes in the agricultural sector in order to achieve sustainability that is in order to achieve sustainable development goals. First thing is the approach of agriculture serving food security needs must be changed to food systems for sustainability and better nutrition. The next change that should be brought is that it should embrace the change of activities and actors involved in food production, aggregation, processing, distribution and consumption. Thirdly an agro-climatic approach to agricultural development is important for sustainability and better nutrition. See the review of agro-climatic zones could make the farming of small land holders a profitable business. It will help in enhancing agricultural efficiency and socio-economic development as well as sustainability. It will also reduce the adverse consequences which are the loss of indigenous land races, soil nutrients depletion, then groundwater stress, excessive use of agrochemicals and its residual presence in foods and environment. Even income gap between large, marginal and small farmers in the gap between irrigated and rain-fed areas can all be reduced. Fourthly the focus should be on improving farmers competitiveness, supporting business growth in the rural economy and incentivizing farmers to improve the environment. Fifthly priority research and investment should be on strengthening and shortening food supply chains, reinforcing regional food systems, food processing, agricultural resilience and sustainability in a climate changing world. And lastly infrastructure and institutions supporting producers, agree printers and agree micro-small and medium enterprises in their production value chain are central to the transition. And this should be aligned to the national and state policy priorities such as the National Policy Guidelines 2012 of the Ministry of Agriculture for the promotion of farm up producer organizations and the National Resource Efficiency Policy of 2019 of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. See these transformational measures would encourage a resource efficient and circular economy for production, processing and storage techniques of food products through renewable energy solutions, reduction of supply chains and inputs like materials, water and energy. Say to do also ensure the efficient use of by-products thereby creating value while using fewer inputs and generating less waste. And the different agro-climatic zones will help understand the micro as well as MISU level interventions needed with regard to technologies, extension activities and policies. So with these we have come to the end of our discussion. So far we saw about the agriculture policy since independence and how all this agriculture policy is evolving and what are all the measures required in order to attain these sustainable development goals. So utilize these transformational measures suggested here for enriching your mains answers. With these key points in mind now let us move on to the next article discussion. See this article here it is about the dance form job. So here we are not going to see about the article instead we are going to use this as an opportunity to learn about the dance form in detail. See it will be helpful in your problems. We know that UPSC has given considerable importance to the arts and culture part of the history in problems each year. So when it comes to the matter of one or two marks to clear the exam covering such topics will give you an edge. If such a question is asked in the exam. So aspirants pay attention to this discussion. First of all let us see about the dance form. See the word Chow originates from Chaya meaning shadow. It is a form of mask dance that uses vigorous Martian movements to narrate mythological stories. Chow is a major dance tradition of eastern India. See it is prevalent in the tribal belt of the bordering areas of the provinces of Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal in the eastern India. Now the three distinct forms of Chow are Cerecula Chow of Jharkhand, Mayurban Chow of Orissa and Purulia Chow of West Bengal. Now let us see about the characteristics of the dance and some other important points from Pralim's perspective. See masks are an integral part of the dances of Cerecula and Purulia. Chow dance has a significant role in the celebration of the spring festival Chaitra Parva being innately connected to its rituals. It is a people's art as it involves the entire community. It is performed by male dancers from families of traditional artists or those trained in the gurus or ustajs who are another than masters. See it raises its origin to indigenous forms of dance and martial practices. See kill which is nothing but the mock combat techniques, charlies and topics which are nothing but the stylized gates of birds and animals and the oofless which are nothing but the movements modeled on the daily course of a village housewife constitute the fundamental vocabulary of Chow dance. Generally the knowledge of dance, music and mask making is transmitted overly. It is performed in an open space called Akkadha or Asar and lasts throughout the night. See the dancers perform stories that explore a variety of subjects like local legends, folklore and episodes from the epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The vibrant music is characterized by the rhythm of indigenous drums like the Dol Damsa and the Karka and it also includes the melody of Mohori and Senai. That's all about the dance form. With these key points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion. Take a look at these two news articles. See this first news article says that the Indian tea industry is facing uncertainty. This is because of the war which broke out between Russia and Ukraine yesterday. See India ships 40 million kg of tea a year to Russia and 15 million kg of tea to Ukraine. In contrast to this the second news article states that India will be able to export more wheat as a result of this crisis. See more than a quarter of the world's wheat export comes from Russia and Ukraine. In this Russia is the world's largest exporter of wheat accounting for more than 18% of international exports. See in 2019 Russia and Ukraine together exported more than a quarter that is 25.4% of the world's wheat. And as per the article this Russia-Ukrain crisis might give India an opportunity to export more wheat in the global markets and the domestic exporters should tap this opportunity. So this is the crux of the news articles given here. So in this context let us quickly go through some of the important facts like India-Russia trade and how the Russia-Ukrain crisis affect the trade between India and Russia. See the syllabus relevant to this news article is given here for your reference. Please go through it. Now let's start our discussion. Russia has been a long-standing and time-tested partner for India. Hence the development of their bilateral relations has been a key pillar of India's foreign policy. Since the signing of declaration on the India-Russia strategic partnership in October 2000 that was during the visit of President Putin India-Russia ties have acquired a qualitatively new character with enhanced levels of cooperation in almost all areas of the bilateral relationship including political, security, defence, trade and economy, then science and technology, culture and people-to-people ties also. See under the strategic partnership several institutionalised dialogue mechanism operated both political and official levels. This is to ensure regular interaction and follow-up on cooperation activities. See during the visit of the Russian President to India in December 2010 the strategic partnership was elevated to the level of special and privileged strategic partnership. See despite COVID-19 related challenges India-Russia relations have continued to deepen with enhanced cooperation in all areas of the bilateral relationship including political engagements, security, defence, trade and economy, science and technology and culture. The cooperation was further strengthened through joint efforts in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic including in the field of vaccine trials and production, supply of drugs and repatriation of citizens of both countries. See now let us specifically talk about the impact on Indian exports. See we know that Russia is India's 25th largest trading partner with exports of $2.5 billion and imports of $6.9 billion in the first nine months of the financial year 2022. See India's key exports to Russia include mobile phones and pharmaceuticals then while India's key imports from Russia are crude oil, coal and diamonds. Note that tea is a major export item from India. Now looking into India's exports to Ukraine it was about $372 million in the April to December period led by pharmaceuticals and mobile phones while imports worth about $2 billion are dominated by sunflower oil and urea. See together exports to both countries accounted for under 1% of India's exports in the first three quarters of this fiscal year. Exporters believe sanctions on Russian exports including crude oil are doubtful because crude oil prices are already at an eight year high and crossed the $100 per barrel. See experts noted that exporters are delaying execution of orders from both countries over concerns that shipments may be stuck during a conflict. So what are the exporters concerned about experts noted that while India's exports to Russia could continue largely uninterrupted despite the US sanctions, potential sanctions from the UN could have a much more significant impact on exports to the region. See in the first round of sanctions the US imposed sanctions against the web that is Russia's state development bank and the Russian military bank. With more measures likely after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized a special military operation in the Donbass region of the eastern Ukraine on Thursday that is yesterday. See the exporters are especially concerned about the impact of a conflict on global trade recovery because of the size of the region's exports that is they are meaning here Russia and Ukraine's exports. See there is a greater concern that if the conflict widens it would have a worldwide impact and at this point in time any setback in trade will postpone the process of global trade normalization. See that's all about this news article. You can utilize these key points of how a Russia-Ukraine crisis will affect Indian trade for your main questions. Okay, so what all we saw in this news article we mainly saw about the impact that the Russia-Ukraine crisis would have on the Indian exports and imports. Now with these key points in mind let's move on to the next article discussion. Now take a look at this last news article. See this news article talks about GDP projection as per the news article Modi's investor service has raised India's 2022 GDP outlook to 9.5% from 7%. So this is the crux of the news article given here. In this background let us quickly go through basics of GDP and how it is calculated. Finally let us see the significance of GDP. Okay, firstly what is this GDP? See gross domestic product or GDP is one of the most common indicators used to track the health of nations economy. It is the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's border in a specific time period. Note each word what I said here. GDP is the total monetary or market value. Here the market value means the price what the consumer pays. Market value actually includes indirect taxes such as sales tax, excise tax but excludes production subsidies and grants provided during the production. There is another term called factor cost. See factor cost is the actual production cost at which goods and services are produced. It includes the cost of all factors of production such as land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship. So GDP at factor cost is the total value of goods and commodities produced in a year in a country by its all production units. This value calculated here is inclusive of depreciation as well. Look at this formula here GDP at factor cost is equal to sum of all the gross value added at factor cost. Now for your better understanding look at this formula GDP at market price is equal to GDP at factor cost plus product taxes plus production tax minus product subsidies and minus production subsidies. In other words to get market price we have to include all taxes and subtract the subsidies from the factor cost. Am I right? Now coming back we saw that GDP is a total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders. So here note these two points market value for all goods and services and that must be produced within a country's boundary. Remember that all these must be calculated within specific period of time here the time period is also important. This includes not only goods and services that were produced by domestic firms but also the output generated by foreign companies in India as a result of foreign direct investment. As long as output is generated within a country's borders the government will count it towards the GDP. See there are three ways to calculate a country's gross domestic product or GDP and in theory no matter what method you use the end result should be the same value. Now look at this image it shows the three methods used to calculate GDP which is nothing but the expenditure method income method and production method. See it is also shown how all it is calculated and what are all included in each method. Now let me tell you how significant is this GDP. See as I said GDP is important because it gives information about the size of the economy and how an economy is performing. Secondly the growth rate of real GDP is often used as an indicator of the general health of the economy. Lastly if you look in broader terms an increase in real GDP is interpreted as a sign that the economy is doing well. So that's all about this news article. I hope you got the basics of GDP and how all GDP is calculated and remember this is very important topic under prelims perspective. So with these key points in mind now let's move on to the next part of the discussion that is the prelims practice question discussion. Now look at this first question it is about the Chow dance. See here the question is asking that whether the different dance forms of Chow is correctly matched with the particular region where it is followed. So now look at the first pair Sarai Kala Chow, West Bengal it is absolutely incorrect. And look at the second pair Mayurban Chow, Orissa yes it is correct. And look at the third pair Purulia Chow from Jharkhand no it is also incorrect. See the question here is demanding for incorrect pass. So your answer here will be option C 1 and 3 only. So now let me tell you the correct pass. Sarai Kala Chow of Jharkhand, Mayurban Chow of Orissa and Purulia Chow of West Bengal. These are the three distinct forms of Chow and the regions where they are performed. Now look at the second question it is about the Gross Domestic Product or GDP. It is a two statement question so you have to go through both these statements before answering this question. See first statement says as long as output is generated within a country's borders the government will count it towards the GDP. It is correct because we already saw that GDP does not distinguish its calculation based on nationality as long as the output is generated within a country's borders. Now look at the second statement GDP can be calculated on quarterly basis as well. Yes the statement is correct because they say that it can also be calculated on quarterly basis. Generally we calculated it on annual basis but sometimes we calculated depending on the quarterly basis also. The question here is demanding for correct statements. So your answer here will be option C both 1 and 2 are correct statements okay. Displayed here are two main practice questions please go through both the questions and write your answers and post it in the comment section. If you like this video do like share and comment and don't forget to subscribe to the Shankar IAS Academy's YouTube channel. Thank you for listening.