 A very good evening aspirants. Welcome to Hindu News Analysis brought to you by Shankara A.S. Academy. Today is 29th December 2021. Here are the list of articles we are going to discuss today. Please go through it. Let's start our discussion. Friends, look at this news article. This news article talks about a firm that applied for GI DAG for Appatani Textiles of Arunachal Pradesh. See, Appatani Textiles are made by Appatani tribes. These tribes live in Subhanshi district of Arunachal Pradesh. Look at this picture here. This is an Appatani fabric. You can look at the geometric and zigzag pattern and angular designs. See, these are some unique features of Appatani textiles. The tribes don't use chemicals for dyeing their cotton yarns. Instead, they use leaves and plant resources for organic dyeing. The Appatani community weaves these textiles mainly during the occasion of ritual or cultural festivals. The textiles are woven by women, folks of Appatani community. The Appatani tribe mainly weaves shawls known as zig-zero and gilan or jackets called supuntari. Look at this image here. This is an image of an Appatani woman wearing a zig-zero or shawl. And this is an image of an Appatani man wearing a supuntari or jacket. So, with this background, let's learn about Appatani tribe. Where are they located? Like we have already discussed, the Appatani tribes are located in the zero valley in the lower Subhanshi district of Arunachal Pradesh. Now, let us see some interesting facts about Appatani tribes. The Appatani's are very interesting tribe friends. Unlike the other tribes, they are non-nomadic in nature. They practice permanent wetland cultivation in hilly terrain. They practice this by carving the hills. See, the other tribes practice cultivation in dry land by cutting down forest. That is unlike other tribes, the Appatani tribes don't practice slash and burn agriculture. See, the Appatani community has evolved a unique set of rice fish cultivation. The community along with paddy rear fish on the fields. This is further supplemented with millet reared on elevated partition bunds between the rice plots. Look at this image here. You can clearly see millets grown on the bunds separating the rice fields. The millet production also supplements their income. For retaining soil nutrition, they use crop residues and organic wasters of the villages. This helps in sustaining the soil fertility. Now, let us see two important festivals celebrated by the Appatani community. The two major festivals are Dree and Myoko. First, let us take Dree. Dree is an agricultural festival. It is celebrated with prayers for good harvest and prosperity of all humankind. Look at this image. It captures the women folk of Appatani tribe celebrating Dree festival. Now, moving on to Myoko. It is a festival to celebrate friendship. This is like modern friendship day. Unlike the modern friendship which is celebrated for a day, the Myoko is celebrated for a month. That is from the end of March to end of April. This is a springtime festival. See, the Appatani people are one of the few remaining followers of animistic religions. Animistic in the sense, they worship plants, animals, forests and ritual sacrifices. So, the Myoko festival mainly focuses on ceremonial peak sacrifice. Look at this image here. Here, you can see peaks ready for ritualistic sacrifice. Now, moving on. See, the Appatani are known for their effective traditional village council called Bullion. See, this traditional village council supervises, guides and has a legal oversight over the activities of individuals that the community affects as a whole. The Bullion work by addressing the concerns of the people rather than by infusing the fear of law. The Bullion mainly focus on promoting prevention of unlawful activities rather than by punitive actions. Now, look at this image. You can clearly notice the large nose plug and face tattoos. This face tattoo is called tippai. Do you know women in the Appatani community are made to wear the nose plug and have face tattoos? See, actually, this practice was followed to prevent the men from neighbouring tribes from abducting Appatani women. This age-old tradition was observed until 1970s when the government imposed a ban on the nose plug incisions. Friends, now let us recap. In this segment, we discussed Appatani textiles, how they are made and then we discussed about the Appatani tribes, their location and their unique agricultural practices, their important festivals and their traditional village council. With this, let me add the list of tribes found in Arnachal Pradesh. Friends, I have given the list here. Just go through it. Just remember one or two names. If you can, it will be highly helpful. Now, let us move on to the next article. Look at this article. This news article talks about the death of a whale shark close to the Pondicherry coast. It died when it got trapped to the fishing net. The length of the whale shark mentioned in this news article is 15 feet. Thus, the whale sharks are the largest non-mammalian vertebrate in the world. Now, in this context, let us discuss about the whale shark and its distribution. And finally, we will see the conservation status. Let's begin our discussion. Whale shark, whose scientific name is Rincodon typus is a gigantic but harmless shark. It belongs to the family Rincodon today, that is the largest living fish. They make up the only species of genus Rincodon. Now, let us see the body structure of these whale sharks. They are capable of reaching a maximum length of about 18 meters, that is, 59 feet. Do you remember the length of the dead whale shark mentioned in this article? It is 15 feet. See, the whale sharks are enormous species waiting about 15 tons, that is about 14 metric tons. The average length is 12 meters, which is about 39 feet. Hence, the body coloration is distinctive. They have light vertical and horizontal stripes that form a checkerboard pattern and a dark background and light spots mark the fins and dark areas of the body. You can see this in the picture that the head is broad and flat with a somewhat truncated snout and an immense mouth. There are five large gill slits on each side of the head region. See, the special spongy tissue inside the gill slits that is supported by the shark's gill arches forms a unique filter used in feeding. See, these whale sharks are found in marine environment, worldwide, but mainly in tropical waters, that is, tropical oceans. They inhibit warm waters around the world. Now, let us see its distribution. Whale sharks are found in the western Atlantic Ocean in Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea and in the eastern Atlantic. They also occur in Gulf of Guinea. They also inhibit the Indian Ocean on the western and central Pacific. They have also appeared off the coast of South Africa and in the Red Sea as well as near Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, New Seledonia and Hawaii. In the eastern Pacific, they can be found from Southern California in the US to North and Chile. Now, let us see the feeding habit of whale sharks. The whale shark is one of the three large filter feeding sharks. The others are, that is, the other filter feeding sharks are mega mouth shark and the basking shark. See, the whale sharks forages for food at or near the surface of the ocean. Its large mouth is well adapted to filter feeding and contains more than 30 rows of small pointed teeth in each jaw. See this image to understand how it feeds itself. As the shark swims with its open mouth, sea water enters the mouth cavity and filters through the gill slits. The mesh-like tissue of the internal gill slits acts like a sieve, catching plankton and other small organisms while allowing the water to pass through and return to the sea. Periodically, the shark will close its mouth to swallow the trapped prey. The captured prey includes both zoo plankton, that is small animals such as shrimp and phytoplankton such as algae and other marine plant material. See, many individual whale sharks have been approached, examined and even written by divers without showing any sign of aggression. See, they may out of curiosity approach and examine people in the water. Thus, they do not harm humans. But as a reaction to the bait being dangled by the anglers, they have occasionally bumped sport fishing boats. Also, the sharks are sometimes stuck by boats as they swim at or near the surface. Remember, we saw in this news article that the whale shark was accidentally caught in the net. Finally, let us see the threat posed to these whale sharks and its conservation status. See, whale sharks are of little interest in commercial fishing. However, they have been caught accidentally as by catch in some areas and they have been caught for food in Pakistan, India, Taiwan, Philippines and China. They are eaten fresh or dried and salted. Since 2016, the whale shark has been listed as endangered by IUCN. Also note that it is protected under the Schedule I of Indian Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. And it is also protected under Sites Appendix II. Sites is nothing but convention in international trade in endangered species of fauna and flora. In this discussion, we have seen about the whale shark, its habitat, threats including accidental catching and its conservation status. With this learning, we will move on to the next article. Friends, this is the column from the text and context page. It provides details about NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. So, to understand the speciality of this telescope, today we will know about how a telescope functions, how its atmospheric turbulence related to it and the importance of lag range points. The syllabus relevant for this article is displayed here. Kindly go through it. Friends, scientifically, telescope is an optical instrument which uses large lenses and mirrors. It is an instrument that is used to gather light which is radiated from distant objects. This is called as light gathering ability because the large lenses and mirrors of the telescope can collect much more light than the human eye. This is what makes it possible to see even very faint things using a telescope. Also, telescope is used to provide the angular magnification of distant objects. See, magnification simply means the tool makes the distant things look much bigger than what the human eye can see. Magnification is done so it is easier to study details of those distant objects. So, basically two important properties of a telescope are its light gathering ability and magnification. And the main application of telescope is terrestrial observation and astronomical observation. Therefore, telescope is a tool which makes the objects in the far to seem closer and larger when we look through it. Now, there are two types of telescopes. First one is refracting telescope. When the telescope is made with the lenses, it is refracting telescope. A lens bends light passing through it and makes the far away things seems closer. Remember that the refracting telescopes use convex lenses but these lenses for telescope have disadvantages like they are big and heavy and difficult to hold in the right place. And making it extremely smooth is also very difficult. If it is not smooth, images will be blurry. Other than this, chromatic aberration is a major problem in the lens. The picture depicts chromatic aberration. It happens as the lens is unable to bring all wavelength of the color to the same focal plane. Because of these constraints, nowadays mirrors are used in the telescope. And when the telescope uses mirrors, it is called reflecting telescope. They use a primary concave mirror. Remember that it was convex lens for reflecting telescope. See in a mirror, light is concentrated by bouncing of the mirror. So it needs to have a right curved shape. And basically mirrors have many advantages like it can be very thin, lighter and it is easier to make perfectly smooth large mirrors. And there is no chromatic aberration. So these properties of mirror or reflecting telescope makes it a lot easier to launch them in the space. Also note that both refracting telescope and reflecting telescope are called optical telescopes. And basically they collect visible light. Visible light is a light that human eye can see in the electromagnetic spectrum. Additionally, the reflecting telescope is also used to explore both the shorter and longer wavelength regions in the electromagnetic spectrum, such as from gamma rays to radio waves. Based on this feature also, telescopes are classified as long wave telescopes and short wavelength telescopes. The long wavelength telescopes include infrared telescopes, microwave and radio telescopes. The short wavelength telescopes include the ultraviolet telescopes, x-ray telescopes and gamma telescopes. Details about these are given here for your reference. But know that these telescopes are affected by atmospheric turbulence and desertion. So what is it? We know that atmosphere is a mixture of gases that surround our planet. So it is made up of shifting pockets of air. These air pockets cause the twinkling appearance of stars in the night sky. And these shifting air pockets motion blurs the image captured by a telescope on the ground. Along with blurring, the motion also blocks some of the light that comes from space. This blocking and blurring by atmosphere is what is called atmospheric turbulence or desertion. Therefore, even though long wavelength light passes through the earth atmosphere, but it is still affected by atmospheric turbulence to some extent. So these telescopes are placed at the mountaintops help to avoid some part of the atmosphere. On the other hand, short wavelength light cannot penetrate the earth atmosphere due to atmospheric turbulence. That is, atmospheric turbulence blocks short wavelength light. Therefore, these telescopes must be located above the atmosphere. That is, in space. This is the basics you need to know about telescopes. Now, how a Lagrange point is relevant here? First, understand that Lagrange points are positions in space. And it is around a planet's orbit. These are the positions where objects center tend to stay put. Why? Because this is the place where the gravitational forces and the orbital motion of the spacecraft, a sun and the planet interact. They interact in such a way that it creates a stable location because the gravitational forces and the orbital motion of a body balance each other. Therefore, they can be used by a spacecraft to hover. Now there are five Lagrange points. They are L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5. Among these, L1, L2 and L3 are unstable. These three lie along the line connecting the two large masses, as you can see here. The remaining L4 and L5 are stable Lagrange points and each point has some speciality. But our focus is going to be on L2, which is related to the James Webb Space Telescope. L2 is located 1.5 million kilometers directly behind the earth if viewed from the sun. It is ideal for astronomy because it has many advantages like a spacecraft in L2 is close enough to readily communicate with the earth. And a spacecraft in L2 can keep sun, earth and moon behind the spacecraft for solar power. L2 provides a clear view of deep space for our telescopes. Now because of this, L2 is chosen to place the James Webb Space Telescope in space. Let us see about it now. It is shortly called Webb. It is NASA's largest and most powerful space science telescope. It is so big that its sun shield itself is the size of a tennis court. This Webb is the result of an international collaboration between NASA, European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. Webb was launched into space this week from French Guiana in South America. And this is when each instrument will be deployed in Webb. Also Webb is an infrared telescope. See infrared telescopes follow the same design as optical reflecting telescopes. But they also use an infrared light detector. Now this Webb has a 6.5 meter primary mirror. It is designed to see the infrared light with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity. But from where this infrared light comes, see when the very first stars and galaxies formed after Big Bang, it also included the very first luminous objects. These luminous objects emitted ultraviolet light and visible light. But this ultraviolet light and visible light have been stretched by the universe's continual expansion. As the universe expands, space stretches. Now when the light travels far in this stretched place, the wavelength of the light elongates and it turns red. And this has made them to reach today as infrared light. This infrared light will be captured by Webb. This will help in exploring the origin of the universe and our place in it. So its main objective is to study every phase of cosmic history. It will study within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe. Its elaborate objective is given here for your reference. Please go through it. Also Webb is better than Hubble telescope because Webb's mirror diameter is larger than Hubble telescope. So Webb has much light gathering capability. This will help it to observe even fainter stellar objects that Hubble cannot deduct. Now we will have a quick recap friends. See in this article we have seen about light gathering ability, what is magnification and about refracting telescope. It uses convex lenses and we have seen about reflecting telescope which uses concave mirror and we saw black range point especially L2. Then we have seen James Webb telescope. It is in collaboration between NASA, ESA and Canadian Space Agency. With this learning we will move on to the next article. Now look at this news article. This news article says that the Ministry of Civil Aviation has written to Indian airlines and airports in the country asking them to play Indian music. The Ministry of Civil Aviation has made this request following a request from ICCR which is Indian Council for Cultural Relations. So in this context let us revise about Indian classical music and also we will see the difference between Hindustanian Carnatic music. Before talking about the classical music we should know about the history. See in India the origin of music pattern can be traced back to the melodic pattern of Vedic chanting. That is the oldest music which is possessed a grammar can be traced back to Vedic period. Rig Veda which is said to be nearly 5000 years old had a number of psalms or rishas which were nothing but religious poems. Along with this Yajur Veda also has religious chants. Then the Sama Veda. See the Sama Veda is considered as the root of Indian classical music and dance. The Sama Veda is considered as the storehouse of melodious chats. After the Vedas, Bharadas Natya Sastra is considered as the earliest treatise of music, drama and dance. Natya Sastra provides information about scales, melodic forms, tala and musical instruments. The Vedas and Natya Sastra mainly deals with the music of North India. In South India the ancient Tamils developed a highly evolved system of music. The Tamil classic of the 2nd century A.D. titled the Silapadigaram contains a very detailed description of the music of that period. The contribution of the Sai Vets and Vaishnavets signs that is the Nayanmas and Alvas of 7th and 8th century A.D. also serves resource material for studying South Indian musical history. Over the time classical Indian music saw the emergence of two different subsystems as Hindustani and classical music. The terms Karnataka and Hindustani are found for the first time in Haripala's Sankita Sudhakara. The Sankita Sudhakara returned in the 14th century A.D. Now let us see the difference between Hindustani and classical music. Friends then Hindustani music originated in North India that you know. It was influenced by foreign traditions whereas Karnatic music originated in South India and it was not influenced by foreign traditions. The origin of Hindustani music is earlier than the Karnatic music. Its origin can be traced back to Vedic Jants and Islamic traditions. And the Karnatic is comparatively pure and was developed in the 15th and 16th century during the Bhakti movement. See the Hindustani form provides more importance to vocals than instruments whereas the Karnatic music provides equal importance to vocal and instruments. Friends this is an important creative fact. Please note it. Finally in Hindustani music there is a prevalence of significant number of gharanas. In the case of Karnatic music there is no such gharanas. So what is a gharana? A gharana is a system of social organization linking musicians or dancers by lineage and by adherence to a particular musical style. Friends here I have displayed famous gharanas, their places of origin and they found us. Kindly go through it. So with this let us conclude this discussion and take up the next article. Friends look at these two articles which are about FCRA. It talks about the non-renewal of FCRA registration of certain NGOs. See FCRA stands for Foreigners Contribution Regulation Act. Friends FCRA regulation is mandatory for any NGO or association in order to receive foreign funds or donations. Note that the controlling authority of the FCRA is the home ministry. This not the finance or external affairs ministry because students often tends to make mistake here. FCRA contacts, inspections and audits of NGOs to establish if the NGO accounts are maintained correctly. See now the issue is that 80% of these NGOs fail to renew the license before they due date. See in this context we will learn about FCRA and important provisions of FCRA Act 2010. We will also see the amendment made to this FCRA in 2020. First let us start our discussion with what is FCRA. See it has been passed by the parliament in order to regulate the flow of foreign contribution to India. This means to consolidate the law to regulate the acceptance and utilization of foreign contribution by certain individuals or associations or companies. It aims to prohibit acceptance and utilization of foreign contribution or foreign hospitality for any activities detrimental to national interest and for that matters concerned with it. So the provision of this Act apply to whole of India, citizen of India outside India and associate branches or subsidiaries of Indian companies or Indian corporate bodies present outside India. Now we will see what is foreign contribution according to this Act. According to FCRA foreign contributions means the donation, delivery or transfer made by any foreign source. It may be in the form of any article, any currency whether Indian or foreign and any security as defined in the Securities Act 1956 and any foreign security as defined in the Femma Act 1999. Now we will see who can receive and not receive foreign contribution. See individual or a Hindu undivided family or an association or a company registered under the company's Act 2013 can receive foreign contribution but they are subject to three conditions. What are they? Firstly, the receiver must have a definite cultural, economic, educational, religious or social program. Secondly, the receiver must obtain the FCRA registration prior permission from the central government. The last condition is that the receiver must not be prohibited under section 3 of FCRA 2010. Note that all the applications for the registration under this Act should be made only through online mode. Friends, we saw what is considered as foreign contribution and who can receive foreign contribution. Now we will see some of the important changes and amendments made in this Act in 2020. See the central government may make such inquiry as it deems fit before renewing the certificate. This is done in order to satisfy itself that such persons has fulfilled all conditions. Every person who has been granted certificate or prior permission under this Act shall receive foreign contribution only in an account designated as FCRA account by the specified branch of SBI at New Delhi. Also note that such person may also open another FCRA account in any of the scheduled bank of ISARA choice for the purpose of keeping or utilizing the foreign contribution which has been received from ISARA FCRA account in the specified branch of SBI but there is only one condition that is no funds other than foreign contribution should be received or deposited in any such account. The person with FCRA account should report the prescribed amount of foreign remittance source and manner in which the foreign remittance was received and other particulars as may be prescribed. This report is given to such authority as may be specified by the central government. Now we will briefly see the difference between FCRA and FEMA. See the FCRA we discussed today is about foreign contribution and FEMA deals with foreign exchange. FCRA deals with charitory or social work and FEMA deals with commercial purposes. FCRA is under home ministry whereas FEMA is under ministry of finance. Friends just know the difference because students often get confused with FCRA and FEMA. See FCRA regulates NGOs and FEMA regulates foreign exchange. That's all about this article friends. Friends with all this learning we will now move on to prelims practice questions. See the first question. Consider the following statements regarding PVTGs. PVTGs have declining or stagnant population, low level of literacy, pre-agricultural level of technology and are economically backward. Second statement is there are 75 PVTG in India. And the third statement is the highest number of PVTG are found in Odisha that is 13 followed by Arunachal Pradesh. Which of the following statement here is correct? 1 and 2 only, 2 and 3 only, 1 and 3 only and 1, 2 and 3 only. Friends just know that the criteria followed for determination of PVTGs include pre-agricultural level of technology, stagnant or declining population, extremely low literacy and a subsistence level of economy. So statement one here is correct. In 1975 the government of India initiated to identify the most vulnerable tribal groups as a separate category called PVTGs and declared 52 such groups. While in 1993 an additional 23 groups were added to the category making it to total of 75 PVTGs. It spread over 18 states and one union territory. So this second statement is also correct. The third statement is wrong friends. Odisha has 13 PVTG that is correct and Andhra Pradesh not Arunachal Pradesh has 12 PVTGs. So the correct answer here is option 1 and 2 only. Now look at the second question. With reference to the whale sharks consider the following statements. First statement is it is the largest mammal. Second statement is its IUCN status is extinct in the wild. The third statement is while whale sharks are found in warm water. Which of the following statement here is correct? One only, two only, two and three only, three only. See friends this is a statement type question but it's a kind of factual question. But if one knows about the whale shark it's quite easy to solve this question. See the first statement is incorrect. Why because whale sharks are the largest non-mammal species. Now look at the second statement. It is also wrong friends because we saw in our discussion that the IUCN status of this whale shark is endangered. Now let us see the last statement. Whale sharks are found in warm water. Yes it is correct. The question here is to find the correct statement only. So the answer is option D, three only. Now see the third question. Consider the following Hubble, Herschel, Ice Cube, Webb and Mace. Which of the following are PACE observatories? Option A, two, four and five only. Option B, three and five only. Option C, one, three and four only. And option D, one, two and four only. See friends the correct answer is option D. We will see the explanation. Hubble Space Telescope were the first astronomical observatory to be placed into the orbit around Earth. It was launched in 1990 by NASA. It has the ability to record images in wavelength of light standing from ultraviolet to near infrared. Hubble is still operational. Herschel Space Observatory has the largest telescope than Hubble. It has a main mirror of 3.5 meters. It was launched by European Space Agency in 2009. It collected long wavelength radiation from some of the coldest and most distant objects in the universe. In addition, Herschel was the only space observatory to cover spectral range from the far infrared to submillimeter. So it was previously called first telescope or far infrared or submillimeter telescope. But note that its operational phase ended in 2013. See Ice Cube is a neutrino observatory. It is situated in the South Pole and not a space observatory. Webb is a space observatory launched this week. We saw about that in our discussion right. And Mace stands for Major Astronomical Cherenkov Telescope. It is not a space observatory. Rather it is a ground-based gamma ray instrument. It is India's largest and world's highest gamma ray telescope. It is installed in Ladakh at an altitude of 4,270 meters above the sea level. So the answer here is one to one phone only. Now look at the fourth question friends. Which of the following pairs are correctly matched? Mando, Goa, Billu Pot 2, Tamil Nadu, Hori, Punjab, Alha, Uttar Pradesh, Dandiyaras, Rajasthan. Friends, in this question, if you know that Hori belongs to Uttar Pradesh, you can easily arrive at the answer C, 1, 2 and 4 only. See Mando has its origin in Goa. It has a slow voice. It focuses on social injustice and political resistance during Portuguese presence in Goa. Billu Pot is a popular folk music of Tamil Nadu. The lead singer also plays the role of the main performer. The lead singer handles the dominating instrument which is bow shaped. The songs revolve around theological themes and the conquest of good over evil. Hori folk music belongs to Uttar Pradesh. It is based on the stories of Radha and Krishna. Hori singing is basically associated with the festival of Holi. In India, tradition of singing Hori during spring season Holi has been continuing since ancient times. Alha belongs to Uttar Pradesh. Alha narrates the heroic deeds of Alha and Udal, the two warrior brothers who served Raja Parmal of Majoba. Tandiyaras belongs to Gujarat friends. It is associated with Holi. The theme mainly focuses on Lila of Krishna and Radha at Vrindavan. So here third and fifth pairs are wrongly matched. Hence the correct answer is option C, 1, 2 and 4 only. This is our last question friends. With reference to FCRA, consider the following statements. It is an international act erected by United Nation. And the second statement is it is the will of Indian NGO to register under this FCRA to receive international funds. The third statement is only one FCRA account can be maintained by the receiver. Which of the following statements are incorrect? See the question is asking incorrect statement. Option A 1 only, option B 2 and 3 only, option C 1 and 2 only and option D all the above. See this is also a statement of question. It is with reference to FCRA. Look at the first statement. It is absolutely wrong as this FCRA act is erected by the Indian parliament. Hence it is not an international act. Now see the second statement. It is also incorrect because FCRA registration is mandatory for any NGO or association to receive foreign funds or donations. Now look at the last statement. It is also incorrect friends because in the amendment of this FCRA in the year 2020, it was mentioned that any number of FCRA account can be maintained by the receiver subject to the condition that only international contributions can be received in such accounts. Now carefully read out the question they have asked for incorrect statement. So the answer here will be all the three. That is option D all the above. The main question is displayed here. Write an answer, post it in the comment section. If you like the video, hit like, post in the comment section and please subscribe to Shankar IS Academy. Thank you.