 Hello, a very good evening to all of our friends and welcome to the Hindu News Analysis of Shankar IAS Academy for the date 26th March 2021. The list of the relevant news articles taken up for today's discussion from five different editions of the Hindu newspaper along with their page numbers are given here for your reference. Also, the handwritten notes in the PDF format and timestampings for all the news articles taken up for today's discussion is given in the description box and also the comment section for the best interest of the viewers. Let us now start with our first news article. So this news article is with reference to the Pendency in High Courts across India. It says that 55 recommendations from the Supreme Court Collegium are still pending with the Centre. The Collegium has made recommendations for the judicial appointments to the High Courts six months to nearly one and a half years ago. So in this context, let us discuss in detail about the Collegium system and the news article. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. See the appointment of judges in the judiciary is an important aspect of judicial independence. The independence of judiciary from other arms of the government is very important so that the judges can be impartial and also perform their duties effectively without any sort of fear or favour. So now let us see how judges of the High Courts are appointed. See the judges of a High Court are appointed by the President of India. The Chief Justice is appointed by the President after consultation with the Chief Justice of India and the Governor of the state concerned. And for appointment of other judges, the Chief Justice of the concerned High Court is also consulted. In case of a common High Court for two or more states, the governors of all the states concerned are consulted by the President. And it should be noted that the Supreme Court has given different interpretation for the word consultation. In the first judges case that is in 1981, the court held that the consultation does not mean concurrence and it only implies exchange of views. Then came the second judges case in 1993. Here the Supreme Court ruled that no appointment of a judge of a High Court can be made unless it is in conformity with the opinion of the Chief Justice of India. And in the third judges case that is in 1998, the Supreme Court opined that in case of the appointment of High Court judges, the Chief Justice of India should consult a Collegium of two senior most judges of the Supreme Court. Thus the sole opinion of the Chief Justice of India alone does not constitute the consultation process. Now the Collegium system is headed by the Chief Justice of India and four senior most judges of the Supreme Court. So we must understand that the word Collegium is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution of India. It has come into force as per judicial pronouncements. Now another important development in this direction is the 99th Constitutional Amendment Act of 2014 and the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act of 2014. See they replaced the Collegium system of appointing judges to the Supreme Court and High Courts with a new system or a body called the National Judicial Appointments Commission or NJAC. And after this came the fourth judges case in 2015 and here the Supreme Court opined that the National Judicial Appointments Commission would affect the independence of the judiciary. So in 2015, the Supreme Court declared both the 99th Constitutional Amendment Act as well as the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act as unconstitutional and void. And consequently the earlier Collegium system became operative. Now with this let us discuss the news article. See we have already said that 55 recommendations made by the Collegium are pending with the government and among them 44 were made to fill the vacancies in the Calcutta, Madhya Pradesh, Guwahati, Rajasthan and Punjab High Courts. The article says that the total sanctioned strength in the 25 high courts is 1080 but as of March 1 the working strength is 661 with 419 vacancies. So with the Indian judiciary already struggling with huge delay in delivering justice, rising vacancy will further cripple its functioning. And that is the reason why the Chief Justice of India said that these vacancies are a serious matter of concern. Now have a look at this image so that you can understand which high courts has the highest and lowest vacancies. For example in Patna High Court the vacancy was 60%. While there were no vacancies in Manipur, Meghalaya and Sikkim High Courts. So in this discussion we saw about the Collegium system and the National Judicial Appointments Commission. Now before we conclude the discussion of this topic we have a clarification regarding yesterday's content on appointment of Supreme Court judges. See in the yesterday's analysis we have told that there are totally 31 judges in Supreme Court including the Chief Justice of India. But we forgot to mention an update regarding this matter. See in 2019 an act was enacted by the parliament to increase the number of judges in the Supreme Court and it is the Supreme Court Number of Judges Amendment Act of 2019. And this act amends the Supreme Court Number of Judges Act of 1956. So before this amendment the 1956 act fixes the maximum number of judges in Supreme Court at 30 judges excluding the Chief Justice of India. So this means at that time the maximum number of judges in Supreme Court was 31 including the Chief Justice of India. And now this has been increased to 33 by this amendment. So currently the maximum capacity for the judges in the Supreme Court including the Chief Justice of India is at 34. So please note this correction in yesterday's content and with this information let us move on to the next news. And now let us take up this editorial article. Recently the Supreme Court has reserved its orders relating to the stay of the Electoral Bond Scheme or ABS ahead of the upcoming state elections. So in this regard the editorial talks about the constitutional objections associated with the Electoral Bond Scheme and also the critical role to be played by the judiciary of India. So in this slide let us see in detail about the Electoral Bond Scheme or ABS and the important points mentioned in this article. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. First let us talk about the Electoral Bond Scheme. See Electoral Bond is an interest-free banking bearer instrument which is in the nature of a promissory note. See a promissory note is a financial instrument that contains a definite sum of money by the issuer to be paid to another party on demand or at a specified future date. Now know that EB can be purchased for any value in multiples of 1000, 10,000, 100,000, 10,000,000 and 1 crore from the specified branches of the State Bank of India. But here it is to be noted that the purchaser can buy Electoral Bonds only on due fulfilment of all the KYC norms and by making the payment from a bank account. And see this Electoral Bonds has a lifespan of only 15 days and within this stipulated time it should be used to make donations and only to the political parties. And no payment will be made to any payee political party if the Electoral Bond is deposited after the expiry of the validity period. But remember a political party can receive Electoral Bonds only if it is registered under the section 29A of the People's Representation Act of 1951. Also the party should have secured not less than one percentage of the votes which are polled in the last general election to the House of the People that is Lok Sabha or to a Legislative Assembly. Now the Bond can be encached by any eligible political party only through a designated bank account with the authorized bank that is SBA here and they will be made available for purchase for a period of 10 days each in the months of January, April, July and October as may be specified by the Central Government. And an additional date of 30 days shall be specified by the Central Government in the year of the general election to the Lok Sabha or House of People. So with this information let us move on to the editorial article but before that please remember these details in mind. As we know the Electoral Bonds will be issued in multiples of 1000, 1001 lakh, 10 lakh and 1 crore. So with this we can understand that the minimum amount of donation in these Electoral Bonds is 1000 rupees, 1000 rupees. But no mention is made on the maximum limit of donation and this shows the absence of an upper limit for donations. And next comes the feature of anonymity. If you remember in the beginning we saw that the purchaser can buy an Electoral Bond only on due fulfilment of all the KYC norms and by making payments from a bank account. Note that the payments will not carry or include the name of pay. This means that the donor and the party details will be available with the bank but it will not be disclosed. Now having this in mind let us move on to the article. In the first part of the editorial the author talks about how Electoral Bonds violate the essence of Indian democracy by allowing limitless and anonymous corporate donations. First and foremost the Electoral Bond scheme is denying the right to know to the citizens and also the voters. See being in a democracy every Indian citizen is entitled to be aware of the election related information particularly the knowledge of political funds. Generally we all hear about the effective role which is played by money in fulfilling one's desire at the political forum. Be it in buying policy or to engage in regulatory capture or even in using the level playing field in favour of one's gain. In such a scenario if the citizens are not disclosed of the political funding then it becomes really impossible to assess the authenticity of government policy as held by the Supreme Court. The right to know is an integral part of the right to freedom of expression which is a fundamental right given in the Indian constitution. Now this feature gets violated when the information related to political funding is not disclosed to the citizens. Now apart from this the Electoral Bond scheme has removed all pre-existing limits on political donations and this paves way for corporates to buy politicians in return of money. So at such a juncture the essence of democracy as pointed out by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar which is not just to guarantee one person one vote but one vote one value becomes a question and secondly note that the limitless and anonymous donations to the political parties is not the only problem in the Electoral Bond scheme because the practice of asymmetrical or unequal political funding also becomes a major problem. As we saw earlier the donations are routed through the state bank of India. So this shows that the government can find out on who is donating to which party. This can also be interpreted in another way that is every donor is aware that the central government can trace their donations back to them. So the author notes that there are chances of the governments to influence this funding process. So the author notes that there are chances for the government to influence this funding process. Say for example they can squeeze the rival donations by redirecting the funds to the ruling party and now these constitutional objections not only affect the political morality or public policy but they also affect the guarantee of equality before law. Now as per the government the purpose of Electoral Bond is to prevent the flow of black money into elections. Even then the role played by the donor anonymity and limitless donations continues to be a question. Also there are reservations within the government as well as the election commission of India to the Electoral Bond scheme which is not properly defined. Remember the scheme allows even foreign donations to the political parties which has got the potential to enhance the already existing institutional corruption to further levels. Now the author shifts his focus on the prominent role which the judiciary has to play in this issue. Know that one of the most critical obligations of the judiciary is to keep a watch over the fundamentals of democratic process. See the governments get their legitimacy from elections or in other words elections offer the government the right to pursue their policy goals without undue interference from courts. So at least for this reason the policies for government formation should be framed with extra care and concern because if the electoral process is found to have some shortcomings then the entire electoral legitimacy of the government is put to question. Remember the judiciary has to play an important role in this issue since the government itself cannot regulate the process to which it will be subjected in every five years. So this is the reason why the judiciary has to be extra sensitive over issues like the democratic process, level playing field and the attempts of one party rule over multi-party democracy. So to conclude as per the author the performance of Supreme Court in this regard is not so effective and this is evident with the petition filed in 2018 challenging the constitutional validity of electoral bond scheme which has been left unheard for three years. However a light of hope is finally visible when the court heard the application for a stay on this electoral bond scheme before this round of elections. So in this discussion we saw about the electoral bond scheme and the issues with respect to these electoral bonds and the opinion of the author regarding this. So with this information let us move on to the next news. And now this news article talks about the appointments made by the central government to institutions like the Unique Identification Authority of India or UIDAI then Food Corporation of India or FCI, the Employee State Insurance Corporation or ESIC and the Government E-Marketplace or GEM. So let us have a brief understanding about these institutions from Prillim's perspective. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. First when we talk about the Unique Identification Authority of India know that it is an agency under the central government of India mandated to collect demographic as well as biometric information of the country's residents. In addition to that it also stores the data in a central database and issues each resident of the country a 12 digit unique identity number which is nothing but the Aadhar. Know that UIDAI was established as per the Aadhar targeted delivery of financial and other subsidies benefits and services act of 2016 under the ministry of electronics and information technology and prior to its establishment as a statutory body UIDAI was functioning as an attached office of the then planning commission which is now Neethi Ayog. It should be noted that UIDAI has so far issued more than 124 crore Aadhar numbers to the residents of India. It is headquartered in New Delhi with eight regional offices across the country. Now when it comes to the composition of UIDAI it consists of two part-time members and a chief executive officer. The post of chairman of UIDAI is vacant so far so this is in brief about UIDAI. Now let us see about the food corporation of India. See FCI is a public sector undertaking and it functions under the department of food and public distribution which comes under the ministry of consumer affairs food and public distribution. Know that FCI is a statutory body which was set up in 1965 under the food corporations act of 1964. See it was set up to fulfill the following objectives. Its first objective is to ensure effective price support operations for safeguarding the interests of the farmers. Second one is distribution of food grains throughout the country for the public distribution system. And third one is maintaining satisfactory level of operational as well as buffer stocks of food grains to ensure national food security. And know that its top official is designated as chairman who is usually a civil servant of the IAS cadre. Now since its inception the food corporation of India has played a significant role in India's success in food security. So this is in brief about FCI. Now let us see about the Employee State Insurance Corporation. Know that ESIC is a state-run organization which was set up under the Employee State Insurance Act of 1948. It functions under the ministry of labour and employment and know that it is responsible for the administration of the Employee State Insurance Scheme or simply the ESI scheme. See ESI scheme is a self-financed comprehensive social security scheme and it aims to protect the employees against financial distress arising out of many events like sickness, disablement or death due to employment injuries etc. Now finally let us see about the Government E-Marketplace or GEM. See Government E-Marketplace is a one stock portal to facilitate the online procurement of common use goods and services which are required by the various government departments, government organizations or PSUs. Know that GEM operates under the Ministry of Commerce and Industries and it aims to enhance transparency, efficiency and speed in public procurement. It provides tools for e-bidding and reverse e-auction so that to facilitate the government users to achieve the best value for their money. See here a reverse auction is a type of auction in which sellers bid for the prices at which they are willing to sell their goods and services. And know that the purchases through GEM by government users have been authorized and made mandatory by the Ministry of Finance. So in this discussion we saw about the Unique Identification Authority of India or UIDAI then the Food Corporation of India then Employee State Insurance Corporation and also about the Government E-Marketplace. So with this information let us move on to the next news. Now we all know that our Prime Minister is in Dhaka so in this context this editorial is a comprehensive assessment of Indo-Bangladesh ties. The article traces the history from the birth of Bangladesh to the current problems faced by India and Bangladesh in our bilateral relations. So let us discuss them in detail. The relevant syllabus is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. See initially Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan and it was commonly referred as East Pakistan and due to the internal issues the Bangladesh Liberation War was fought in 1971 and subsequently the country gained independence from Pakistan. Now it is to be noted that India's role was indispensable in the Bangladesh Liberation War. Many Indian soldiers lay down their lives fighting shoulder to shoulder with their Bangladeshi counterparts and the relationship between India and Bangladesh since then has been going through many ups and downs. So let us understand that through this timeline. Firstly the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975 so deterioration in Indo-Bangladesh relations. See Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the first president of Bangladesh and the relations between India and Bangladesh deteriorated because after the death of Mujibur Rahman Bangladesh was under military rule but the relations recovered again under General H.M. Harshad during the period of 1982 to 1991. So we can see that until 1991 the relations between both the nations so many ups and downs. Now that said we should know that the Indo-Bangladesh relations have warmed up in the last decade. Now let us look at the bright side of this. See the foremost is the feat of achieving a peaceful resolution of boundary disputes between India and Bangladesh in 2015 and this resulted in the 100th constitutional amendment act of Indian constitution and with this the land boundary agreement was signed. Secondly Bangladesh today is India's biggest trading partner in South Asia. It should be noted that the exports to Bangladesh in financial year 2018-19 was at 9.21 billion US dollars and importers and imports are at over 1 billion US dollars. So we can see that India enjoys a favorable trade balance. India has also offered duty-free access to our markets for various Bangladeshi products. For Indian imports from Bangladesh the import duties have been removed for some products and besides this India has also extended lines of credit amounting to 8 billion US dollars. So here what is a line of credit? See line of credit is a long-term loan which one country offers to another with meager interest rates and in tourism friend Bangladeshis seem to be exceptionally fond of India. About one in five tourists are Bangladeshis and connectivity between both India and Bangladesh have also been improving. We should know that Bangladesh gives access to the landlocked northeastern states of India like Tripura through its Chattogram and Mongla ports. Now have a look at this map for clear understanding and notably they have been declared as port of coal under the costal shipping agreement between India and Bangladesh under Sagar Mala project. See we all know that Sagar Mala project is a project of Indian government for achieving port-led development. So bringing Bangladeshi ports into this framework that is into Sagar Mala project is a significant step. Now all that said India-Bangladesh relations also have some problems. See the first and foremost is the Teesta water issue. Now let us take a moment to understand this issue. For this have a look at this map. See Teesta is this river that originates in Sikkim and it is a tributary of Brahmaputra. You can see that from India it flows through Bangladesh. Now India for its part has built many dams on this river and this is in order to utilize the flow of this Teesta river during the dry seasons that is when there is water scarcity in our nation. So Bangladesh alleges that these dams which are built by India on Teesta river prevent the river from supplying irrigation water to Bangladesh. Here remember that around 100 million Bangladeshis rely on the river Teesta and Brahmaputra during the dry season. But for India about the interior of northern Bengal depends on this river. So in that issue recently Bangladesh turned to China seeking 1 billion US dollars long to restore Teesta river and also for its subsequent management. Now let us see the other issue. We saw earlier that Bangladesh is India's largest trading partner in South Asia. But for Bangladesh China is the largest trading partner. Recently China also exempted 97 percentage of Bangladesh imports from duties. So the author of this editorial notes that India should also work to rebalance and rejuvenate trade with Bangladesh. Now next issue is with respect to the border shootings of civilians of Bangladesh by the border security forces of India. See this is a serious area of concern for the relations between India and Bangladesh. Here India has not claimed responsibility for these shootings. But Bangladesh is alleging India and the last issue is with respect to India's exercise to formulate the national registry of citizens through the Citizenship Amendment Act. And Bangladesh alleged that India is trying to do this by excluding Muslims. And this has fared poorly in India-Bangladesh relations. Now summing up the author of this editorial opinions that India seems to be loosing the traditional allies like Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal etc. And they are also increasingly tilting towards China. Now here it should be noted that China is banking on its checkbook diplomacy that is. China is spreading its influence in South Asia by lending huge amount of loans to these countries and also through its Belt and Road Initiative. Here we may recollect that Bhutan had pulled out of India's proposed PBIN agreement. See it is nothing but a transport agreement involving Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. So the author concludes by saying that India should swing into action so that we can sort out issues with our friendly neighbors and also minimize the Chinese influence in the region. Rising above symbolism, India should implement its neighborhood-first policy in letter and spirit. So this is all about this editorial article. Now let us move on to the next news. And now have a look at this question. It is based on this news article. As we know the budget session of the parliament was going on. And the article says that both the houses of the parliament were adjunct Sainadai before the schedule. And this is because of the request made by the MPs from West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Asam, Puducherry and also from Kerala owing to the assembly elections. The article also says that the Lok Sabha session clocked 114% in productivity with 24 sittings which lasted over 132 hours. And the productivity with respect to Rajya Sabha was 90% with 23 sittings which lasted for 104 hours. So in this context, let us discuss some of the important terms related to Indian parliament which are important from Pillan's perspective. First let us understand article 85 which is about the session of parliament prorogation and its dissolution. It says that the president shall from time to time summon each house of the parliament to meet at such time and place as he thinks fit. But six months shall not intervene between its last sitting in one session and the date appointed for its first sitting in the next session. So the parliament should meet at least twice in a year. Apart from this, the president may from time to time prorog the houses and dissolve the house of the people or Lok Sabha. See usually there are three sessions in a year. The budget session which is conducted from January or February to May then the monsoon session from July to September and the winter session from November to December. Now when we talk about a session of parliament, it is the period spanning between the first sitting of the house and its prorogation or dissolution in the case of Lok Sabha. The period between the prorogation of a house and its reassembly in a new session is called as a recess. Now it should be noted that a session of parliament consists of many meetings and each meeting of a day consists of two sittings. A sitting of parliament can be terminated by adjournment or adjournment sign at eye or by prorogation or dissolution in the case of Lok Sabha. Remember only Lok Sabha can be dissolved and in case of Rajasabha dissolution is not possible. Now when we talk about adjournment, it suspends the work in the sitting for a specified time and adjournment sign at eye means terminating a sitting of parliament for an indefinite period. And here note that the power of adjournment and adjournment sign at eye lies with the presiding officer of the house. Now after declaring adjournment sign at eye within few days the president issues a notification for the prorogation of the session. Here remember that the president can also prorog the house while the house is in session. Now talking about dissolution, as you have already seen only the Lok Sabha is subject to dissolution and not Rajasabha because Rajasabha is a permanent house. Now while prorogation ends a session, dissolution ends the very life of the existing house. Here the dissolution of Lok Sabha may be automatic when its normal tenure of five years comes to an end. And dissolution can also happen when the president decides to dissolve the house as per the provisions of the article 85 of Indian constitution. So in this discussion we saw about the various terms associated with the Indian parliament like the session of the parliament, adjournment, adjournment sign at eye, then prorogation and also dissolution. So with this information have a look at this question with reference to the functioning of the parliament of India consider the following statements. It is a two statements based question. The first statement reads the president of India is constitutionally mandated to someone both the houses of the parliament. See this statement is correct as per article 85 of Indian constitution. The president shalt from time to time someone each house of the parliament to meet at such time and place as he thinks fit. But six months shall not intervene between its last sitting in one session and the date appointed for its first sitting in the next session. Now the second statement reads when a Lok Sabha session is disrupted frequently the president can issue a notification for adjoining the session. See this statement is incorrect. We have seen that the power of adjournment and adjournment sign at eye lies with the presiding officer of the house. So in case of Lok Sabha it is the speaker or the person who is acting as the speaker. So in this question we have to identify the correct statement or statements. We know that first statement is correct and the second statement is incorrect. So the correct answer for this question is option A one only. So now let us move on to the next news. And now have a look at this second question. It is based on this interview article titled Vaccines effective in preventing several illness caused by variants. See it is a refreshing reminder about the importance of vaccine in preventing COVID-19 infections. The author also talks about the mutation of the coronavirus in this interview. So let us see them in brief. See our yesterday's discussion focused on the double mutation and the mutant variants. So in today's discussion we will focus on the vaccine aspects of the scene. First let us see the basics. Here know that mutation is any alteration in the genome of the virus. So due to this alteration in the genome the characteristics of the virus also get altered. Here this altered characteristics can be favorable or it can be adverse. That is it can make the virus more dangerous or less dangerous. And in the current context various mutations have been reported from UK Brazil and South Africa. And the mutations have made the virus spread potency very much higher. Here know that the prevalence of mutation is estimated to be around 7 to 8 percentage among the inbound travelers. That doesn't mean that 7 to 8 percentage of the population of patients have the mutants. It only means that the prevalence of this mutation is simply higher among the travelers. Now that said two terms seem to be appearing in the news. One is the variant of interest. It means some mutations that is new and requires research. And the second one is variant of concern. This means some mutations that have adverse characteristics like increased virulence or increased spread tendency as was associated with the South African UK and Brazil strain. So these mutations are also important in understanding the pandemic. Because this helps in creation of efficient vaccines against these mutated versions. And the fortunate finding is that these variants are not associated with increased virulence that is they don't carry increased risk of death or post recovery complications. But it should be noted that the three variants unfortunately are found to have to make the vaccines less effective. But on the bright side the vaccines still prove to be effective in mitigating the severity of the diseases. And this is especially for those patients with comorbid conditions like diabetes, cancer and also the elderly patients who are carrying the risk of needing hospitalization, ventilators, oxygen supports etc. So here the vaccine proves to be useful for preventing such needs and also the deaths associated with them. It should be noted that in countries like UK where the vaccine coverage is very high the disease incidence and the deaths have seen a sharp downward spiral. Here the author notes that the surge in the cases of COVID-19 infections is worrisome and this surges largely because people started being less serious about the infections. People have stopped observing social distance when mask usage have come down. So the author reminds us that vaccines, masks and social distancing are the keys to fight the pandemic. So with this information have a look at this question which of the following statements accurately describes mutation. The first option reads mutation is the change in the cell wall sequence of a virus cell. This is incorrect. Now the second statement reads mutation is the man induced change of genome sequence using CRI SPR. Now this option is also incorrect because it refers to genome editing. Now the third option reads mutation is the sudden heritable change to the genome structure of a cell. Yes this statement is correct. So here the correct answer for this question is option C. So now let us move on to the next news. Now have a look at this question. It is based on this news article which talks about the supply of Krishna river water from Andhra Pradesh to Chennai. As per the news article the supply of Krishna river water to Chennai will be assumed in April in order to meet the demand for drinking water during peak summer. So in this regard let us have a brief understanding about Krishna river. See Krishna is a mighty east flowing river of Peninsular India that rises from the western Ghats in Maharashtra. The total length of the river from its origin to its outfall in Bay of Bengal is 1400 km. The Krishna basin extends over Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra and also Karnataka and it covers nearly 8% of the total geographical area of the country. The river is bounded by Balagat range on the north, the eastern Ghats on the south and the east and by the western Ghats on the west. See there are about 13 major tributaries which join river Krishna along its 1400 km course. And out of this 6 and right bank tributaries and 7 are left bank tributaries. Among the major tributaries the Ghat Prabha, the Malaprabha and the Tunga Bhadra are the principal right bank tributaries. Whereas the Bhima, the Moussi and the Munneru are the principal left bank tributaries. And also note that the major hydropower stations in the basin are Koina, Tunga Bhadra, Srisailam, then Nagarjuna Sagar, Almatti, Narayanpur and Bhadra. It is also to be noted that the basin is said to possess rich mineral deposits which creates a good potential for industrial development. Iron and steel, cement, sugarcane, vegetable oil extraction and rice milling are some of the important industrial activities at present in the Krishna basin. And the major urban centers in the basin are Pune and Hyderabad. Note that the hydrological observation in the basin is carried out by the central as well as state governments. And the Central Water Commission maintains 53 Gauch discharge sites in the basin. So this is in brief about the Krishna river and the Krishna basin. Now have a look at this question. Consider the following statements. The first statement reads Krishna is a mighty east flowing river of Peninsular India that rises from the western Ghats of Karnataka. See this statement is incorrect because we have seen that Krishna river rises in the Krishna river rises in the western Ghats of Maharashtra state. Now the second statement reads Moussi river is one of the tributaries of river Krishna. Yes this statement is correct. So in this question we have to identify the correct statement or statements. Since statement one is incorrect and statement two is correct, the correct answer for this question is option B, two only. So with this we have analyzed almost all the relevant news articles from today's The Hindu News paper. Now let us move on to the practice questions discussion section based on today's news analysis. See this first question. Which of the following statements about Tista river is correct? The first statement reads Tista originates in West Bengal and flows into Bay of Bengal through Bangladesh. See this statement is incorrect. We have seen that Tista river originates in Sikkim and not in West Bengal. Now the second statement reads it is a tributary of Brahmaputra. Yes this statement is correct. So in this question we have to identify the correct statement or statements. Since statement one is incorrect and statement two is correct, the correct answer for this question is option B, two only. And now we have two main questions. Please write your answers and post it in the comment section. Now we have come to the end of analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion and also the discussion of practice questions. 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