 A very good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Ayes Academy for the day 24th of August 2021. So displayed below are the list of news articles that we have chosen for today's discussion. So even in today's discussion we will be having two editorials and three articles discussed in the prelims perspective and among these three articles we have one article from the defence sector, one article from Medieval India and one article from Interstate Relations. And for additional information we have started the Yojana series based on your request and the series started on 22nd of August. So we also request you to go back and watch it in order to boost your preparation for prelims 2021. So without wasting much time let's move into the discussion. Now look at this news article, the news is that the government has made some changes to the information on the Mughal dynasty in the official website. So this is basically the crux of this particular news article. Now based on this context we are going to discuss some important points about the Mughals that might be a frequent area of interest for UPSC question setters. So come let us move into the discussion. See to begin with just quickly go through the timeline of Mughal rulers. After Aurangzeb we did have other rulers but then they occupy a less significant space in the history compared to these mentioned rulers. Now let us begin by understanding who are Mughals. See the Mughals were descendants of two great lineages of rulers. So from their mother's side they were the descendants of Genghis Khan. See this person Genghis Khan was the great Mongol ruler who ruled over parts of China and Central Asia. So from the father's side these Mughals they were the successors of Timur who was the ruler of Iran, Iraq and modern day Turkey. See the Mughals were known for their military conquest which has got very interesting stories. But then in today's discussion we are going to limit our learning only on exam relevant aspects. See the Mughals they acquired territory extensively through war and peace. So their war equipments were modern when compared to India of those times. Now consider this cannons were an important addition in 16th century warfare and Babur used them extensively in the first battle of Panipat and gunpowder was used as well. But when they acquired territory through peace it was mostly through marriage alliances with the Indian rulers. So as the empire expanded Mughals recruited diverse bodies of people and those who joined Mughal service were enrolled as Mansabdas. Please pay careful attention to the next few minutes. See this term Mansabdar it refers to an individual who holds a Mansab. See this Mansab means a position or rank and see the rank and salary of these Mansabdas they were determined by a numerical value called Zat and the higher the Zat the more prestigious was the nobles position in court and the larger would be his salary. See the Mansabdas military responsibilities required him to maintain a specified number of Savar. Savar is nothing but Kevalry men. Now besides this in order to collect the revenue as taxes the Mughals also used zamindars. See the main source of income available to Mughal rulers was tax on the produce of peasantry. So in most places peasants paid taxes through the rural elites that is the Edmund or the local chieftain and they were mostly zamindars. In some areas the zamindars exercised a great deal of power and sometimes the exploitation by Mughal administrators could even drive them into rebellion and sometimes zamindars and peasants of the same caste they allied in rebelling against the Mughal authority. So these peasants revolt they challenged the stability of the Mughal empire from the end of the 17th century and note that administratively the empire was divided into provinces called Subbas and each Subba was governed by a Subbadar who carried out both political as well as military functions. So for the maintenance of peasants and ordered in that particular province the Subbadar was supported by other officers such as the military pay master or the Bakshi the minister in charge of religious and charitable patronage also called as the Sardar the military commanders or the fowch does and the town police commander or the Kutwal and apart from this each province they also had a financial officer separately was called the Divan. Now let us briefly focus on Akbar his achievements are an important area for the exams as well. See the broad features of administration of Mughals were laid down by Akbar and they were elaborately discussed by Abul Fasil in two of his books namely the Akbar Rama and the A&I Akbari. Now another important thing about Akbar is that he was interested in the religion and social customs of different people. So due to this interest Akbar happened to interact with people of different faiths and this Akbar's interaction with people of different faiths led Akbar to the idea of Sulaykul or the universal peace. See this idea of tolerance it focused on a system of ethics which includes honesty, justice and peace that was universally applicable and Abul Fasil helped Akbar in framing a vision of governance around this particular idea of Sulaykul or universal peace and this principle of governance was followed later by Jahangir and Shah Jahan as well. So with this we have come to the end of this discussion. So these are some important points that you need to retain in your memory whenever you learn about the Mughal administration. So now let us move on to the next part of our news discussion. Now let us take up this opiate article for our discussion. The article throws light on India's phase of economic recovery. See recently the International Monetary Fund has released its July version of the World Economic Outlook and in that the global economy is projected to grow at 6% in 2021 and note that this growth rate has remained unchanged from the IMF's April forecast and this particular article is written on that background. The syllabus covered by this article is given below. Now before moving into the discussion let us briefly know about the International Monetary Fund shortly known as IMF and also the World Economic Outlook. Since this particular article is written based on that context. See the International Monetary Fund is an international financial institution that fosters economic growth and employment. And this particular institution does that by providing temporary financial assistance to countries in order to ease the balance of payments, adjustments and also for technical assistance. So as of now currently the institution has got 190 countries and it is headquartered in Washington and for your additional information countries first need to join the IMF in order to be eligible to join the World Bank Group. See remember IMF releases a report called the World Economic Outlook and in that report it analyzes and forecasts the economic developments and policies of its member countries and this particular report summarizes the current state of the global economy and it also highlights the risks and the uncertainty that can potentially threaten the growth of global economy. Now here you should also note that this particular report is usually prepared twice a year and the report specified here or discussed here is just an update on the April 2021 publication. Now moving on to the editorial. See the current report has highlighted a huge difference in the economic prospects between the advanced countries and emerging economies and as per the forecast the growth prospects for the advanced countries have been revised upwards while on the contrary the prospects for emerging countries especially those in Asia were projected to be somewhat worse. Now the author here is citing two main facts or two main reasons to be attributing to this particular divergence in the phase of recovery from the pandemic. Now the first reason is related to the vaccine rollout mechanisms. See a huge difference is spotted in the phase of vaccine rollout between the advanced and the low-income countries. Now this is because the advanced economies have allocated a large amount of money for procuring COVID-19 vaccines on a priority basis. Now say for example United States they indulged in pre-ordering the vaccines and this pre-ordering in turn enabled the US to fully vaccinate over half of its total population while over 60 percent have received at least one dose. The second main reason is associated with stimulus packages. See advanced economies have used their superior fiscal position to implement significantly bigger stimulus packages. So on that line apart from the allocation of funds to directly support the domestic industry and growth such big companies they also provided sizable income support measures and these sizable income support measures they indirectly increased the customer demand and they reduced the extreme hardships to thousands of people. Now talking about India's performance in this regard see the Indian economy were found to be slower in progress when compared to other emerging market economies. So know that after the first COVID-19 wave our Indian economy contracted by over 7 percent during 2022-21 and this contraction made India one of the worst performing countries among all major world economies and not only that the retail inflation of India has crossed 6 percent. Now this is a concern since this particular estimate is above the reserve bank of India's safe level. Also the food prices too have played their part in contributing to the overall rate of inflation and apart from all this there is no sign of increase in consumer spending as well. So all these factors together contributed to a foreign investment and this has also led to the reduction in the credits given out for investments by the banks and moreover the cut in government spending also affected the domestic demand adversely. Now coming to the last part of the OPER article see as we know most experts at percent they claim that a third wave of COVID-19 is likely to hit us soon. So at such a juncture it becomes really important for India to carve out suitable vaccine strategy because this not only helps us to curb the spread of the virus sooner but it also helps in showing some positive signs towards our economic growth and though India is called the vaccine capital of the world still there is very poor spread of vaccines within the country so there is an urgent need for us to accelerate the production facilities and companies like the serum institute of India. Now another major issue surrounding vaccination is the sense of doubt that is prevailing about the long-term efficacy of existing vaccines especially in its role against mutations. See as we know due to mutation the virus is becoming clever and clever and it is evading the defenses created by the vaccines and because of this several people are being infected even after vaccination say for instance even after implementing a very successful vaccination campaign Israel is witnessing an alarming rise in new infections so this has prompted Israel to offer a third dose of the vaccine to anybody above 60 years who has vaccinated at least five months earlier so this is also a matter of concern when you take India even if India tries to provide a booster dose that is like a third dose then that again may affect the vaccine drive in India which may lead to even more shortages in vaccine so these should also be addressed so these are some important takeaway points from this opiate article now with these details in mind let us move on to the next part of our endo news analysis now we have taken this editorial article for our discussion this is an article that talks about the increasing instances of cyclone and also the cost borne by us for the same and the article also briefly talks about Odisha's model and the way forward so come let us move into the discussion the syllabus covered by this editorial is given below see before getting into the article let me tell you this there are a lot of facts quoted in the article but then i'm going to filter only the important and easy to remember figures that you can quote for your main exam so let us begin by discussing the devastations that cyclones cost and also the cost that those devastation impose on us see it is now a known fact that global warming has led to extremes of events and on that line the cyclones have become more frequent and also more severe as well now say for instance take toktay and yas if you remember they battered india earlier this year and both these storms they caused massive damage to infrastructure agricultural sector and also to the houses and settlements and as per the government report these two cyclones have put the economic losses had 320 billion and also an estimated 199 people have lost their lives due to this tragic event and not only that besides this the cyclones have also uprooted the already depleting three covers and most importantly let us not forget that all these were happening at a time when we were already battling with the corona pandemic so all these events together cod piled up and it added to the financial burden of our country see this is just the case with two cyclones and this is a specific picture but if you take the bigger picture then india lost around two percent of its GDP and also 15 percent of the total revenue over 1999 to 2020 decade that is such is the economic cost that this particular calamity is inflicting upon us see this is not all the cyclones have also become more frequent as well because increasing sea surface temperatures in the northern indian ocean have led to a rise in the frequency of devastating cyclones in the coastal states and this accounts for around seven percent of the global tropical cyclones according to a data released in the year 2013 by the india meteorological department now think about this we have a 7500 kilometer coastline and we have 96 districts along this 7500 kilometer so a long coastline means that we have to face a lot of cyclones as well and proportionately the damage that we will be facing will also be higher so higher the damage means higher the expense so as a result the expenses that we will be facing will also be higher now all this leads us to the question of what next right so in that odisha leads the way see odisha had a super cyclone in the year 1999 and following that the government of odisha they woke up to the reality and they took up various cyclone mitigation measures and that included measures like installing a disaster warning system in the coastal districts and they also constructed evacuation shelters in cyclone front districts to relocate the coastal residents temporarily when a cyclone is and similarly other steps where the setting up of the odisha state disaster management authority the conducting regular cabinet meetings for disaster preparedness and also building the odisha disaster rapid action force see all these activities have helped to minimize the toll from cyclonic storms in the state but you see even then odisha's disaster management model is inadequate because it could not minimize the economic losses that result from these cyclones so on that line in order to minimize the said economic losses the following needs to be done a first is that we need to improve the cyclone warning system because only then we will know the event in prayer and knowing the events in prayer will definitely help us to prepare in a better way so secondly the government must widen the cover under the shelter belt plantations and should help in regenerating mangroves in coastal region in order to lessen the impact of cyclones see always remember natural measures are the best see in addition to natural measures mad made measures will also be needed so on that line adopting a cost effective long-term cyclone resilient infrastructure is very essential so what is this cyclone resilient infrastructure see cyclone resilient infrastructure includes constructing storm surge resilient embankments canals and improving river connectivity in order to prevent the water logging in low lying areas and then the next most important step is to preserve the quality of life of the coastal residents and this vitally includes installing disaster resilient power infrastructure in the coastal districts and also to provide concrete houses to poor and vulnerable households so to conclude apart from all these measures there needs a robust coordination between the center and the concerned state because only a collective approach can minimize the loss of life and property so with this we have come to the end of this discussion so in this news article we saw the devastating impacts that cyclone is causing in India the increased frequency of cyclones odisha model and also the ways in which India can brace for the cyclones so now let us move on to the next part of our news discussion now look at this news article the news article mentions that the Tamil Nadu Water Resources Minister is going to visit the Mulla Periyar dam for increasing the dam's water level so with this context in this discussion let us discuss about this particular dam which is often in news due to the dispute between two southern states now first know that the name Mulla Periyar is derived from the combination of two rivers namely Mulleyar river and Periyar river now among these two rivers river Periyar is the longest river in Kerala and it has a drainage area of five thousand three hundred and ninety eight square kilometer and out of this around one hundred and fourteen square kilometer lies in the Anamalai fold which lies in Tamil Nadu now next the Mulla Periyar river joins the Periyar river at about 48 kilometers downstream of Periyar and after this confluence the river flows westwards and it reaches the Mulla Periyar dam now below this dam the river flows in a north westerly direction and it flows through the territory of Kerala and it finally falls or it finally empties into the Arabian Sea so where exactly is this dam located see the dam is located at the downstream of the Mulla Periyar and Periyar river confluence and it is exactly located in the Iduki district of Kerala and more importantly it lies inside the Periyar tiger reserve and the Periyar wildlife sanctuary additionally know that the reservoir of this dam is a major wildlife tourist destination known as the Kadi lake or the Periyar lake note that the dam was constructed by the British engineers in the year 1895 so this shows that it is a century old dam and the oldest one in Kerala see this particular dam is having a catchment area of 624 square kilometer which lies entirely in the territory of Kerala and the 75% dependable runoff from this catchment is about 21 TMC or 21,000 million cubic feet and around 93% of this that is around 19.5 TMC out of the 21 TMC is being diverted from the reservoir to the Waigai river basin in Thamarnadu so this shows that Thamarnadu is a main beneficiary of this dam and its waters especially these waters they act as a as a lifeline for several arid rain shadow districts of Thamarnadu like that of Taini, Madurai, Sivaganga and Ramnath districts further it also provides water for irrigation and drinking to these districts see this is stated as the primary purpose of constructing the dam therefore the Mulla Periyar Dam project is an interstate inter basin scheme and it is one of the earliest trans basin projects in India and Oda Tali's agreement was signed for this purpose in their 1886 itself which mean the two states and the agreement diverted all of the dam waters to the then British territory of Madras Presidency for a period of 999 years and the agreement also added over the operational rights to the state of Thamarnadu so therefore have in mind this particular dam is operated by the Thamarnadu government and not by the Kerala government but then the dam is an issue according to Kerala because Kerala argues that the dam has become a constant threat to the lives and properties of thousands of people were residing in its downstream and because it is old and constructed with primitive methods this particular dam is subjected to natural deterioration due to aging so as a result leaks were said to be detected in the dam so in 1979 the reservoir level was brought down to 136 feet from 152 feet so therefore has a conclusion Kerala desired to replace the old dam with building a new dam at downstream and later decommissioning the old dam but this decommissioning and the construction of the new dam and the water level of the dam has been challenged by the Thamarnadu state because Thamarnadu wants to raise the water level back to its original height and this was even supported by the Supreme Court which in its orders in the year 2006 permitted Thamarnadu to raise the water level to 142 feet but then this was opposed by Kerala but till now final resolution could not be attained between the two states in this regard so therefore control and the safety of the dam and the validity and the fairness of the agreement have been a bone of contention between Kerala and the state of Thamarnadu for more than four decades now so this is basically the background of this said Mullah Periyar Dam so whenever you read this particular article just remember these facts so now let's move on to the next article now we have taken this article for our discussion as per the article one of the two additional Krivak Klaus stealth frigate are expected to be delivered to India in the middle of 2023 and these Krivak Klaus stealth frigates are being built by Russia and the article reports about the delay in the execution of some of the stages of construction due to the covid pandemic see in October 2016 India and Russia they signed an intergovernmental agreement for four Krivak or Talwar class stealth frigates and among these four stealth frigates two are directly procured from Russia and two are built by Goa Shipyard Limited so these are the basic details that is mentioned in this particular news article now based on this context let us learn some important features of this Krivak Klaus stealth frigate see the Krivak Klaus is a Soviet designation which is a series of frigates which is a type of warship and guardships that is built in Soviet Union since the year 1970 now the Krivak Klaus is divided into four type as Krivak 1, Krivak 2, Krivak 4, Navy and Krivak 3 that is coast guard classes now the Indian Navy has ordered six frigates of upgrade Krivak 3 class as a Talwar class and at present the Navy operates six Krivak three frigates and with a current contract the number will be increased to 10 Krivak frigates now as we saw already the Talwar class of frigates of Indian Navy have been built in Russia under an Indo-Russian joint production now see this Talwar class has a displacement of four thousand tons and a speed of 30 knots and know that one knot is equal to one nautical mile per hour and also it is capable of accomplishing a wide variety of naval missions know that its main purpose is to find and eliminate enemy submarines and large surface ships as the frigates use stealth technologies it could reduce the radar cross section as well see if you know the meaning of these words you can easily understand it's working the stealth technology is also termed as a low observable technology and it is not a single technology that is it is a set of technologies that is used in combinations to make warships or missiles nearly invisible to enemy radar or any other such electronic detections and using this particular technology the Talwar class frigate reduces the electromagnetic acoustic and infrared signatures as well now apart from this some other examples of Russia's military equipment deployed by India includes the Indian Navy's only active aircraft carrier that is INS Vikramaditya the S-400 Triumph missile system and also the Sukhoi SU-30 MK1 now with this we have come to the end of this news discussion now having done with the articles for today let us now move into the next segment of our inter-news analysis that is the practice question discussion now let's take this prelims practice question with reference to the Mughal administration in India consider the following statements statement one A&I Agbari by Abul Fassil deals extensively about Akbar's administration and statement two the idea of Sul Haikul was followed by Shah Jahan as well so based on our discussion we can infer that both the statements given below are correct and since both the statements are right the correct answer here is option C that is both 1 and 2 and both these statements are about Akbar's administration now look at this practice question discussion consider the following statements with reference to River Periyar statement one it is the longest river in Kerala and consider the lifeline of Kerala statement two Iduki Arch Dam has been constructed across Periyar River statement three the Mulla Periyar Dam diverts the upper reaches of the Periyar River in Kerala to the eastern plains of Waigai river basin in Tamil Nadu now we need to find the correct answer see the first statement is correct that is river Periyar is the longest river in Kerala and it is also the largest and this particular river has got a length of 244 kilometer and it originates in the Shivagiri group of hills in the western guards at an elevation of about thousand eight hundred and thirty meter and also this river basin is the second largest basin of Kerala state and it has got a drainage area of five thousand three hundred and ninety eight square kilometer now out of this five thousand three hundred around 114 square kilometer lies in the Anamalai fold which lies in the state of Tamil Nadu now next see the Mulayar River it joins the Periyar River at about 48 kilometer downstream of Periyar now after this confluence the river flows westwards and after this the river reaches the Mulla Periyar Dam now below this dam the river flows in a northwestern direction and after this the river takes a meandering course and flows calmly and majestically through the territory of the state of Kerala now after that only it finally falls or empties into the Arabian Sea so remember that the entire length of the Periyar River flows through the territory of the Kerala before reaching Arabian Sea and this is one of the reasons why the river is considered as the life line of Kerala so second statement is also correct and the Yiduki Arch Dam is the first arch dam that is constructed in India and this particular dam is constructed across the Periyar River and it is got a height of 168.91 meters and this is a second highest dam in India now coming to the third statement as we saw in that in our news discussion the Mulla Periyar Dam diverts the upper reaches of the Periyar River in Kerala to the eastern plains of Vaigai river basin in Tamil Nadu so this statement is also correct and since all the statements given here are right the correct answer here is option D that is 1 2 and 3 now look at this question stealth technology helps in reducing which of the following signals statement 1 electromagnetic signals statement 2 acoustic signals statement 3 infrared signals and statement 4 radar cross sections so from our discussion we can infer that statement D that is 1 2 3 and 4 is the correct option here because stealth technology helps in reducing all of the given signals the list of mains practice question is displayed below so in interested aspirants please write your answers and post them in the comment section so with this we have come to the end of today's inter-news analysis and if 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