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The syllabus that is relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Now let us move on to the news article. We all are aware of the current protest that is happening at the borders of Delhi where the farmers are protesting for more than two weeks against the controversial new farm laws. Please note, we have extensively covered on the three farm laws which recently got their scent from the president of India and the three controversial farm laws are given for your reference. Now let us see why the farmers are protesting. First of all, the farmers produce trade and commerce act for the first time permits trade in agricultural produce outside the APMC regulated Mondays. Before we continue, let us understand what is an agricultural produce marketing committee or APMC. Remember, as per the seven schedule of the Indian constitution, agriculture is mentioned in list two, which means it comes under a state subject. Under this, the agricultural markets or Mondays in most parts of the country are established and regulated as per the state APMC acts. So these APMCs are marketing boards that is established by state governments in order to provide a platform for farmers to sell their produce. Since they are set up by individual state governments, there is a lack of uniformity among them. So with an objective to bring uniformity across agricultural markets in India, the center proposed the model APMC act in 2003. But note, not all the states adopted the entire provisions of this model act. So in order to overcome this, the current act enables private Mondays to be set up across the country where anyone can buy produce from farmers. And the license is that the buyers are required to process in the APMC are no longer made necessary. And this aspect creates a fear among the farmers since it can pay way for private companies to establish private Mondays with no proper government regulation. The second aspect is with regard to the farmers agreement on price assurance and farm services act, which establishes a national legislative framework to enable contract farming. Now based on the past experiences, contract farming in India is not always been beneficial for farmers since it involved many malpractices against farmers, which includes one sided contract agreements, then delayed payments, quality based undue rejections and also outright cheating. And the third reason for protesting is against the proposed changes to essential commodities act. This law aims to remove the arbitrary and periodical stocking limits on agricultural commodities that was imposed on traders by the government. This creates a fear of hoarding among the farmers. Hoarding is nothing but a situation where the private players will buy the produce in harvest season when the prices are generally lower and they release it later when the prices are high. The fourth concern of the farmers is that they believe that these bills are the first step towards elimination of MSP regime. See, minimum support price or MSP is the price at which the government will purchase crop from the farmers and this MSP guarantees a minimum and a fair amount for the farmers produced before the sowing season. We know that the MSP was approved by the cabinet committee on economic affairs that was chaired by the prime minister, but please note it is fixed based on the recommendations of CACP which is also called as the commission for agricultural cost and prices. This CACP will submit separate reports recommending prices for cariff and rabi seasons. After considering this report on the views of the states and the overall demand and supply of the country, the center takes the final decision. Remember, the CACP recommends MSPs for 23 commodities which includes 7 cereals, 5 pulses, 7 oil seeds and 4 commercial crops. Now, in order to resolve these ongoing protest, the government has proposed certain amendments to the 3 acts. These proposed amendments are found to be in respect with the registration of private traders with the taxes on trade outside these APMC Mondes and certain assurances on the continuation of the MSP mechanism. Now, let us see what the author conveys in this editorial. First of all, the author remarks that the latest amendment proposals that is made by the government are unlikely to resolve these issues and even if they are resolved, this will only be a temporary solution. Moreover, even their withdrawal is unlikely to change the ground reality and the author puts forward the crux of the real issue or the real concerns in agricultural sector which includes the declining farmer income, the lack of remuneration for the producers, an unpredictable government policy, then comes stagnant wages, the withdrawal of state support to the instable prices. When we focus on the price instability, the author points that increased dependence on markets as contributed to increasing variability in output prices. Similarly, the government has always failed to intervene by establishing or stabilizing the prices through MSP-led procurement operations. Say for example, crops other than rice, wheat and for some pulses, most of them suffer from inadequate intervention from MSP operations. In order to justify his point on price instability, the author takes an example of a steady decline in year-on-year inflation of wheat based on WPI. And the decline in prices was seen despite record procurement by the government. This highlights that the procurement operation failed to arrest the decline in prices. Before continuing further, let us refresh our knowledge on WPI. See, it measures the average change in the prices of commodities for bulk sale or old sale at early stage of transactions. It accounts for changes in price at an early distribution stage which is before the retail level sale. It is calculated using the base year 2011 to 2012 and it is compiled and released on monthly basis by the Office of Economic Advisor which comes under department for promotion of industry and internal trade in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The index further covers commodities that is falling under the three major groups, primary articles, fuel and power and manufactured products. These three categories of WPI, it covers prices of products or commodities from four sectors and these four sectors are agriculture, mining, manufacturing and electricity. Here it is to be noted that the services sector is not covered under WPI. Now coming back to our article, another important problem which farmers face is poor institutional mechanisms for agricultural loans. We all know that farm input costs are rising for which the author takes the example of NBS for fertilizer scheme. This NBS or nutrient based subsidy led to an increase in fertilizer prices. See NBS program for fertilizers was initiated in the year 2010 and it was meant to contain fiscal subsidy on fertilizers which had increased dramatically after 2006 to 2007 and under the scheme a fixed amount of subsidy is decided on an annual basis based on the nutrient content present in the fertilizers. But the immediate result of this NBS was a sharp rise in fertilizer prices. Also the withdrawal of diesel subsidy and the rise in electricity prices it further contributed to making agricultural unviable and to add to this the farmers meet most of their cash requirements from non-institutional sources which includes middlemen who have contributed to the rising cost of cultivation and to the increase in loan defaults. Now coming to the end of this article let us see what the author prescribes. According to him the agricultural sector it needs a more comprehensive policy to recognize a new challenges for which a better understanding of the structural issues and an innovative thinking to protect farmers livelihood is found to be necessary and required. More fiscal support and revamping of institutional structures to support the agricultural sector are the need of the R and only when we achieve all this the vision of government on doubling farmers income can be achieved. With this we come to the end of this news analysis. Let us move on to the next news article. This oped article focuses on the building of China's major hydropower project on the Yarlang Sangbo river. Now let us see in brief about this Yarlang Sangbo river. This river is referred with the name Brahmabutra in India and Sangpo in Tibet which is the place of its origin. Its major source is the Chema Yungdang Glacier or the Kailash range which is at an elevation of about 5,150 meter and its source is very close to the sources of Indus and Sutlage. Now let us see why this hydropower project is being built. This hydropower generation station is expected to provide 300 billion kilowatt hour of electricity annually. So China feels that this project will help the country to realize its goal of reaching a carbon emission peak before 2030 and also to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. On the other hand India is also considering building a 10 gigawatt hydropower project near the Arunachal Pradesh. The other projects in Himalayan region include the two other hydropower projects in Arunachal Pradesh or the tributaries of Brahmabutra and they are the 600 megawatt calming project on the big home and Tengar rivers and the 2000 megawatt Subhansiri lower hydro electricity project. Experts feel that the two countries are over estimating their economic potential at the same time they are totally underestimating the earthquake vulnerability of this region. Well let us talk about why this rush for dam building in Himalayan region will be a misadventure. First comes the high seismic zones which coincide with areas of high population concentration in the Himalayan region. Next is the common occurrence of landslides and floods due to glacial outburst. Here it is to be noted that about 15% of the great earthquakes of the 20th century with a magnitude of more than 8 have occurred in the Himalayan region. The northeast Himalayan bend has so far experienced several large earthquakes with a magnitude of 7 and above in the last 100 years which is more when compared to the share from other parts of the Himalayas. Now let us discuss why there were so many earthquakes in the Himalayan region. Consider this map firstly the Himalayan region lies in zone 5 which is highly vulnerable to earthquakes. Next the Himalayas are among the most seismically active regions in the world which is the result of an ongoing collision between the Indian and the Eurasian continental plates. The Indian plate continually marches northward a few centimeters each year thereby going under the Tibetan plateau with each of its advance it causes earthquakes of varying intensity. Now let us see some examples of the devastating earthquakes that has occurred in this region. Now let us consider the 1950 earthquake of 8.6 magnitude which just happened south of the Mehmohan line. It was the largest continental event ever recorded which devastated Tibet and Assam. It also paved way for massive landslides and widespread land level changes along with gaping fissures. It also led to water and mud oozing out in the Himalayan ranges and the upper Assam valley later the dams were breached generating flash floods in the downstream sides which silted the drainage systems and the earthquake was felt over most of the subcontinent. This is an evidence to prove how fragile northeast Himalayas is. Another example would be the 2015 Gorka earthquake of Nepal with a magnitude of 7.8. It caused damages to the hydropower projects in Nepal because of which Nepal lost about 20% of its hydropower capacity consequent to this earthquake. About 30 projects with a capacity of 270 megawatts which were mostly located along the steep river valleys were damaged. The cost of physical damage is calculated to be about 200 million dollars. The loss was huge in this earthquake because it triggered a landslide which wiped away the hydropower projects. Constant landslides causes heavy siltation of dams and this will eventually lead to the reduction in the water holding capacity of dams and further lead to frequent flooding from the dams. So experts are of the view that dams in these places do not serve their full purpose. So we can say the northeast Himalayan bent with its deep gorges is the most unsuitable spot within the Himalayas for giant dams. Some of the other threats to the fragile ecosystem includes global warming, territorial disputes leading to increased infrastructure activities, then comes deforestation, land use changes and also military activities. So some experts are of the opinion that these fragile ecosystems should be announced as a nature reserve by an international agreement and not used for such activities. Also, Himalayan river commission should be established to get the opinion of all stakeholders from places where rivers originating in the Himalayas flow. With this, we came to the end of this particular news article. Now let us take up this news article which talks about an upcoming virtual bilateral summit between the Prime Ministers of India and Bangladesh. The virtual summit will be held on 17th of December 2020. The major topics to be discussed in the summit would be with respect to connectivity projects regarding the water sharing management for the T-star and other common rivers and about the construction progress of the petroleum friendship pipeline from Silguri to Bangladesh's Dinajpur that began last week. We all know that the initiation of NRC and CAA had ignited popular resentment in Bangladesh. So in this regard, issues relating to them will also be discussed in the meeting in order to restore the momentum in ties. We had already made an elaborate discussion regarding the issues related to CAA and NRC in many of our news analyses during November and December 2019. In this context, let us have a brief understanding about India-Bangladesh relations in recent times. We will also briefly see about the issues with respect to CAA and NRC. Usually, we can say that India and Bangladesh share a warm and friendly tie or a warm and friendly relationship with each other and this is evident with the recent bilateral engagements which includes various visits at senior official levels. The multi-dimensional cooperation between the two countries ranges from traditional sectors of tourism, health and education to frontier technologies of nuclear science, space and information technology. India has so far signed many bilateral development projects with Bangladesh in 2019 and these includes projects on the supply of commercial vehicles, on the extension of national knowledge network to Bangladesh, in the establishing of community clinics and water treatment plants in Bangladesh, in the import of bulk LPG from Bangladesh and in the inauguration of Bangladesh India Professional Skill Development Institute at the Institution of Diploma Engineers. When it comes to the field of defence, recent high-level exchanges were held at the level of services chief of Indian Navy, Bangladesh Navy and Indian Air Force. The other happenings include the conduct of second annual defence dialogue and inaugural tri-services staff. All these aspects have contributed to the significant improvement in the bilateral defence cooperation between India and Bangladesh. Coming to the economic ties, it is to be noted that Bangladesh is the biggest development partner of India at present. India has so far extended three lines of credits to Bangladesh in the last eight years which amounts to 8 billion US dollar and this was done for the development of infrastructure in various sectors including road, railways, shipping and ports. But despite all these, there have been frictions over the relationship between the two nations on certain issues say for example the issues related to CAA and NRC. Talking about CAA, it was an amendment that was done to the Citizenship Act of 1955 and the basic objective of this amendment is to facilitate the granting of Indian citizenship to members of six minority communities who had migrated to India from three countries namely Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh before 31st of December 2014. The minority communities mentioned in the Act includes the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians. Now talking about NRC, it is a register prepared after the conduct of 1951 census. These registers they cover each and every person enumerated under the census of 1951 but the problem is it was updated only for the state of Assam. Remember the objective of updating NRC in Assam was to segregate the Indian citizens living in Assam from those who had illegally entered the state from neighboring countries like Bangladesh on or after March 25, 1971. At present there is a proposal to conduct a nationwide NRC. This had created problems in the relationship between India and Bangladesh and it is in this regard that the prime ministers of two nations that is India and Bangladesh would discuss the issue in the upcoming conference. Now let us take up this prelims practice question. Consider the following statements regarding T-star river. Option 1. It is a tribute to the Brahmabutra river. Option 2. It originates in Tibet and flows to the south through Sikkim and West Bengal. Before entering Bangladesh. Option 3. The flow of the T-star is greatest during the summer. Which of the above given statements is or are correct? Statement 1 is correct since T-star river is a tribute to Brahmabutra. Coming to statement 2 regarding the origin of the river. Please remember that the river rises in the Himalayas near Chuntang in Sikkim, India and it flows southwards to West Bengal before entering Bangladesh. Therefore statement 2 is incorrect and statement 3 which states that the flow of T-star is greatest during the summer is also correct because during summer that is between June to September the monsoon rains are heaviest and this leads to the glaciers to supply abundant water. Therefore the right option is option B that is 1 and 3 only. With this information let us move on to the next news article. Moving to the next discussion have a look at this question that is based on the news article. The article talks about the regulated transport services inside the Kajiranga National Park and Tiger reserve for exploring its ecosystem. Please note already the jumbo or the elephant safaris and the jeep safaris exist for exploring the park and now boat and bike cycles are also permitted for the same excluding the core area of the park and this initiative is expected to generate enough revenue to take care of the habitat as well as the communities that depend on the park. In this context let us see about the Kajiranga National Park and Tiger reserve. This Kajiranga National Park is located in the state of Assam and it spreads across two of its districts namely Kalyabor which forms a subdivision of Nagawan district and Bokakart which is a subdivision of Golakart district. This national park lies at the cusp of Indo-Malayan biological realm. The park is circumscribed by the Brahmaputra river which forms a northern and eastern boundary and the southern boundary is formed by the Moradiflu river. Other notable rivers in the park are Diflu and Moradansiri. Now coming to the geology the park has got flat areas of fertile alluvial soil that was formed by erosion and silt deposition by the Brahmaputra. The landscape also has sandbars, beels, riverine islands and riverine tracks known as chaporis. These chaporis provide retreats and shelter for animals during floods. Kajiranga National Park is known for its big five which refers to one-horned rhinoceros, helifence, Bengal tigers, Asiatic water buffaloes and swarm deer. It is also notable for hosting two-thirds of the world's great one-horned rhinoceros which marks the world's largest population of one-horned rhinoceros. It also possess the highest density of tigers among the protected areas in the world and that is the reason why it was declared a tiger reserve in 2006. The national park is also important for wetlands and birds are water fouls in those wetlands. The park is also an important area for migratory birds. For this reason, it was declared as an important bird area in India by the Bird Life International and due to its outstanding significance, the Kajiranga National Park was included in the list of world heritage sites by the UNESCO in 1985 under the natural category. Further, being one of the largest tracks of protected land in the sub-imalian belt and also because of the presence of highly diverse and visible species, the Kajiranga National Park was described as a biodiversity hotspot. With this information, let us look at this question. Consider the following statements with reference to Kajiranga National Park. Statement one, it is known for big five namely one-horned rhinoceros, elephants, Bengal tigers, Asiatic water buffaloes and swamp deer. Statement two, seasonal flooding and river migration are threats to the national park. Which of the statements are incorrect? So, you have to find the statement which is incorrect. Now, when you look at the statement one which talks about the big five, the statement is found to be correct because we saw the same information in the article. And coming to statement two, we often hear about flooding in a S.A.M. and when it floods in a S.A.M. it also affects the Kajiranga National Park. So, such seasonal flooding causes many animals to migrate outside the park where they are found susceptible to hunting and are also counter attacked for crop damage. So, other than this, river migration is also a threat as it is also resulted in the loss of some 5000 acres of land from 1925 to 1986. Additionally, the presence of the busy national highway number 37 along the southern border of Kajiranga has brought increased settlements which disturb the wildlife moments in this landscape. And other key threats include rhino poaching, riverback erosion, inbays of species, tourism pressure, heavy traffic and livestock grazing. When viewed in this perspective, we find that seasonal flooding and river migration proves to be a threat to the national park and therefore statement two is also correct. Now, on looking at the question which of the statements are incorrect, since both the statements that are statement one and two are correct, the right option is option D that is neither one nor two. With this, we come to the end of this news article. Now, let us look at this main question that is in regard to the editorial that we discussed earlier. The question is, with an aim to double the farmers income by 2022, the government is brought out many initiatives aiming at reforming the farming sector and improving the livelihoods of the farmers. But many a times they fail to gain the trust of the farmers on the system, critically analyze. Let us take another main question. Elaborately discuss the geomorphological characters of the Himalayan ecosystem, why a lot of hydroelectric projects are taking place there? What are the perils in this development? You can write the answer in 250 words and post it in the comment section below. With this, we come to the end of today's analysis. If you like the video, don't forget to like, comment and share. And do subscribe to Shankar Aya's Academy YouTube channel for updates regarding UPSC civil service preparation.