 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Reyes Academy. Displayed are the list of news articles selected for today's analysis and the page numbers of Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram editions of the newspaper. The link for the handwritten notes and the time stamping of the news articles are provided in the description box. And for the benefit of mobile phone viewers, the time stamping of the news articles are also provided in the comment section. Now let us move on to the first news article. This news article is an open editorial which is based on a discussion with a member of Rajesh Saba and one of the founding members of Association of Democratic Reforms. Now this will be relevant in your prime syllabus under current events of national importance and under political system in Indian polity and governance. And it will also be relevant in GS paper 2 under parliament and state legislature and also in important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability. This discussion can also be linked to the salient features of representation of people act because it talks about elections. One of the main issues with respect to regional or state parties with respect to holding simultaneous elections is that as long as there is article 356 in Indian constitution, the state government can easily be removed by the central government. Article 356 deals with the provisions in case of failure of constitutional machinery in a state. We are discussing about the possibility and the feasibility of one nation, one pole issue. Now imagine we are having simultaneous elections because of some reasons the Lokshaba is dissolved before the completion of its full term that is five year term. In such a situation, though there are stable governments in the states, the central government may use article 356 to dissolve the state legislative assemblies for the purpose of conducting simultaneous elections. And therefore the regional parties are demanding the removal of article 356 from Indian constitution if there has to be simultaneous elections. Now when we talk simultaneous elections or when we talk about one nation, one pole, we actually mean conducting elections for the Lokshaba, the state legislative assemblies of all states and also elections for local bodies. Now the Rajeshabha member has highlighted four instances when Lokshaba was not able to complete its full tenure of five years. The sixth Lokshaba lasted only almost some three years that is from 1977 to 1980. Ninth Lokshaba lasted only for two years that is from 1989 to 1991. The eleventh Lokshaba lasted only one and a half years. Twelfth Lokshaba 13 months. So the opposition parties are saying that there is no solution to the question what if the Lokshaba is dissolved and the elected state governments are stable. Under part six of Indian constitution which deals with the states. States are independent constitutional entity and they also have independent constitutional existence having their own rhythm of elections. The article says that to forcibly change the natural progression of a constitutional entity is unconstitutional and it violates the federal structure which is protected as basic structure by the supreme court. Here natural progression could mean two things. One forcibly changing the normal course of state government to conduct simultaneous election when Lokshaba is dissolved. Or it is now not time to hastily quickly carry out the simultaneous elections without finding solutions to all the concerns expressed by various political parties, civil society, researchers, academic community and also prudent citizens. The article states that the present form of elections is the most effective and most representative democracy and simultaneous elections will paralyze the best practices we have been following so far. Because at present people vote for state level or regional issues when the state elections are conducted. People vote for national issues during the general elections or when the elections to the Lokshaba is conducted. In the present system of elections there is possibility for better representation of national parties along with the regional parties. But if simultaneous elections are conducted it may lead to reduction and elimination of regional smaller and minor parties. In other words this could mean there won't be an opposition. Opposition is important for a democracy to thrive. So if simultaneous elections are implemented there won't be possibility for better representation of regional parties in the parliament and there won't be an effective opposition. Thus it hurts the sentiments of democracy. And we have some instances that prove that if simultaneous elections are conducted there are greater chances that the situation will help a party to remain in power both at the centre and also in the state level. Since 1989 there were instances at which the general elections coincided with the state legislative assembly elections for few states. Even during the recent general election for the 17th Lokshaba we saw state legislative elections happening for the states of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim. If we look at such simultaneous elections since 1989. Out of 31 instances in 24 instances the same party was elected to the parliament and also to the state legislature. So this means there is 77% chance for a national party to take advantage of the simultaneous elections or the one nation one election policy. Now let's see the view on the question of saving money by conducting the simultaneous elections. By having simultaneous elections the government is trying to put a monetary value on democracy and elections. It is also trying to give the cheapest possible democracy rather than having the most effective and representative democracy. Also the public money that is spent for the conduct of such present form of elections is miniscule compared to the money that is spent by the political parties and the candidates. So the article says that the questions and the reforms should instead be focused at or aimed at putting a limit on election expenditure that can be made by a political party during elections. Right now we have limit for spending by a candidate and not a limit for the spending of a political party. The article says that had all parties been internally democratic there is no need for parties to spend money for elections and those parties who oppose this simultaneous elections actually they want to know how much money could be saved if we have a concept of simultaneous elections. Now some of the supporters to the idea of one nation one pole are saying that the model code of conduct is an obstacle or a hindrance to the governance. To this argument the experts express that model code of conduct only says that if the government wants to introduce a program or a policy which may have a bearing on the result of elections then the government has to get clearance from the election commission. There are a number of cases when the election commission has given such permission to various programs and policies and election commission gives permission when it has felt that such program or a policy will not have any bearing on the election result. Model code of conduct also does not say that all existing schemes should be stopped. So the member of association of democratic reforms finds the argument to say that development stops because of model code of conduct that argument as something strange. He also adds that the parties the political parties are saying that development comes to halt because of model code of conduct because the ruling parties think about development programs only in the last six months or last three months just before the elections in order to win the election. Actually this adds to unfair elections and therefore we have model code of conduct. Also they say that ministers are thinking about the state elections, local body elections and then general elections throughout their tenure as ministers for a five year term. Therefore they don't have time or patience to focus or concentrate on the development of the people. For this the article suggests that there should be some kind of rules or norms so that ministers of central government should not go for campaigning for state elections and if they go and do campaigning for state elections they have violated their oath of office which requires them to fulfill the ministerial duties and responsibilities. This provision should also apply to the prime minister as well. In such an arrangement they will be focusing only on ministerial duties and not on state elections or local body elections. There is also an understanding among various sections of population that the present ruling party wants to have an absolute control over all the states and that's why they are pitching for one nation, one election so that gradually it can take it from parliamentary form of government to presidential form of government. These sections feel that if that is the case that has to be directly discussed simply by saying one nation, one election they are actually trying to circumvent or override the discussion for presidential form of government. Also the electoral bonds were introduced or brought into picture by the NDA government during its regime during 2014 to 2019. The article says that this is a better way to convert black money into white money. Also these electoral bonds did not ensure transparency. This is because no one other than banks can know the details of who is funding the political parties. This makes the election expense issues even more opaque or even more non-transparent. The article states that the electoral bond scheme has only helped the ruling party because 95% of the bonds were received by the ruling party. So this electoral bonds has also to be seen as an attempt by the NDA government to choke the funding of the opposition parties. So these are all the views expressed in the news article. So there was also one more criticism with respect to electoral bond scheme because it was passed as a money bill under the finance act of 2017. It was stated that it does not fall under the ambit of money bill according to article 110 of Indian constitution. They have passed it as money bill just to circumvent or override the command of Rajesh Abba over this matter. Because if it was not passed as money bill such a scheme would not have been passed by Rajesh Abba because at that time the ruling party did not have a thumbing majority in Rajesh Abba. We know that Rajesh Abba has no control over the money bill. Now this is because Rajesh Abba can only recommend the amendments to a money bill and Lokshaba is not bound to accept the recommendations of Rajesh Abba and the bill is deemed to be passed by both the houses of parliament. Now these are some of the points discussed in the news article with respect to the idea of one nation, one pool. So the overall notion is that for India this idea will not work. Therefore the title of the news article reads as will the idea of one nation, one pool work in India. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Now let us move on to next news article. This news article is about the mission on natural language translation. Now this is a proposed mission that is yet to be placed before the cabinet. Now this article becomes part of your prelim syllabus under current events of national importance and also in social development. In main syllabus this article can be relevant in GS paper 2 under development and management of social sector or services relating to education. It can also be linked to general studies paper 3 in science and technology, developments and their applications and effects in everyday life. This mission on natural language translation was identified or proposed initially by the prime ministers, science, technology and innovation advisory council which is shortly called as PM STIAC. We have the office of the principal scientific advisor to the government of India. This office was set up in the year 1999. Now the important functions of this office of principal scientific advisor is to evolve policies, strategies and missions for the development of support systems for multiple applications. And also to generate tasks in science and technology particularly in critical infrastructure and in economic and social sectors with partnership with government departments. See now let us come to this PM STIAC council. This council actually facilitates this principal scientific advisor's office to assess the status of science and technology in various specific domains. And another role of this council is to understand the challenges with respect to the domains of science and technology. After understanding the challenges the council has to formulate specific interventions. And finally it also advises the prime minister on matters of science and technology. The chairperson of this prime minister's science and technology and innovation advisory council is the principal scientific advisor to the government of India. Now this council PM STIAC has identified that there is a requirement of high level English knowledge to understand science and technology or to learn science and technology. So as a specific intervention this PM STIAC has suggested a mission. This mission is called as the mission on natural language translation. Now the purpose of this mission is to make the knowledge of science and technology accessible to all by removing the barrier that the English knowledge is required to understand or to learn science and technology. So this mission aspires to enable access to teaching and researching material in two languages one in English language and the other is in the native language of a particular person. That is native Indian language of a particular person. It is proposed that this will be done by a combination of machine translation and human translation. For machine translation they will be using speech to speech machine translation and also text to text machine translation. And a budget requirement of about 450 crore has been proposed for carrying out this mission for a initial period of three years. There are three lead agencies for this mission and they are Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology shortly called as MAITI and Ministry of Human Resource and Development and Department of Science and Technology. See this mission deals with learning so normally human resource and development will come. It deals with learning of science right so department of science and technology will also come learning of science and technology. And it is based on machine translation technology that is linked with IT and IT enabled services. So Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is also one of the three lead agencies. With this we come to the end of this news article. See the displayed practice prelims question will be discussed in the last session. The next news article is about the revision of wholesale price index and about the team that carry forwards this activity. Now the analysis of this news article will be relevant in your prelims preparation under current events of national importance and under economic development. It could be relevant in your minds in GS paper three in Indian economy. The news is that the government has reconstituted the wholesale price index revision team. See this team is given the task of revising the WPI that exists at present. The working group will be chaired by Nithya Yoga member Ramesh chand. This work will also have members from Central Statistical Office and also from Ministry of Finance and from Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Recently on 15 June we have seen in detail about WPI. So have a look for it for further subject clarity on WPI. The government has mentioned the terms of reference for the working group know that terms of reference will include the scope of the activity. Which means what exactly are the activities the particular team has to carry out. Now let us see the terms of reference of the reconstituted working group. The first activity of this working group is to select the most appropriate base year. This is to be done for the preparation of new official series of index numbers of WPI. The current base year for WPI is 2011-12. This base year change was introduced in May 2017. Since 2011-12 significant structural changes have taken place in the economy. So it is now almost the time that these changes should be reflected in WPI. So the government has initiated the change in the base year. Next the working group will also have to review the commodity basket of current WPI series. See this group has to suggest additions or deletions of commodities. When we say commodity basket it refers to a fixed set of consumer products and services. That is valued on an annual basis. This commodity basket of WPI covers various commodities under three major groups. One is primary articles, another is fuel and power group and then manufactured products. Then the working group must also review the existing system of price collection and has also suggest improvements in the price collection methods. See price collection surveys are carried out to know the price trends. Currently the price collection surveys are carried out by National Sample Survey Office. Once the data is collected it is compiled and released on monthly basis by the Office of the Economic Advisor. This Office of Economic Advisor comes under Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade. Now this department comes under Ministry of Commerce and Industry. So you know the difference that data collection is done by a different agency and the compilation and release is done by another agency. The working group should also come with a new computational method that will be adopted for the WPI and PPI. Now what is this PPI? In the news article it was also mentioned that a new base year for PPI must be recommended by the working group. This PPI is nothing but producer price index. It measures the average change in the prices of goods and services. It excludes indirect taxes so they are called as output PPI when they leave the place of production and they are called as input PPI as they enter the production process. Say you are a producer of cocoa powder. Now you supply this powder to your friend who is a chocolate maker. So when you sell the good you receive some money which is nothing but the price of the product which you have sold. Thus the output indices measure the average change in prices that producers receive for their outputs which leave their place of production. Think that you are one of the producer out of many producers. Now the cocoa powder which is the output of your industry is the input for your friend's chocolate industry. So the input indices measure the average change in prices that producers pay for their inputs which enters the place of production. The main difference between WPI and PPI is that WPI does not consider services whereas producer price index includes services. Producer price index removes the multiple counting biases which are found in WPI. Producer price index indices can be compiled separately for out PPI's input PPI's and export and import PPI's but WPI captures the price changes at the point of bulk transactions which is at the early stage of transactions. Plus taxes were taken into WPI calculation once. So it amounted to multiple counting. Now let's see the purpose of producer price index. See the PPI's are used by the government and private sector for variety of purposes. They are used as deflaters in national accounts. Deflaters are a figure that is used to better compare the current prices to past prices. Then PPI is used as a short term indicator of inflationary trends. Then the producer price index values are used to inform business and government policy decisions and they are also used by international organizations such as IMF for economic monitoring and comparison. As of now the government uses both WPI and producer price index. Slowly the government may move towards producer price index in the future and the present WPI calculation is conceptually closer to producer price index. Since in 2017 WPI also started measuring the average change in the prices and also indirect taxes are not taken into calculation of WPI since 2017. See that was the time the new series of WPI was introduced with 2011 told as the pace year. One of the terms of reference for the working group is that the working group may recommend roadmap for switchover from WPI to PPI. So we may see the government switching over completely from WPI to PPI in the future. Next we will be seeing about an editorial on BIMSTEC. Now this article will be relevant in prelims levels under current events of national and international importance and it remains in GS paper too. It could come under India and its neighborhood relations and also under bilateral and regional groupings and agreements involving India and or affecting India's interest. The author has stressed the fact that BIMSTEC is a viable option or a feasible option when compared to SARC for more regional cooperation. Firstly the author has mentioned an event that shows India's commitment to neighborhood first policy. She has mentioned that the first foreign visit of the external affairs minister of India was to Bhutan. So this neighborhood first policy is nothing but giving first preference to India's immediate geographical neighbors in the matters of India's foreign policy. The author tells that this rekindling or reviving of India's neighborhood first policy started with the Indian prime minister inviting SARC leaders to his wearing in ceremony in 2014. Now two regional groupings are mentioned here. One is SARC and the other is BIMSTEC. The SARC or the South Asian Association for regional cooperation consists of eight members. They are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. SARC was formed in 1985. Afghanistan joined in 2007. Next we'll see about BIMSTEC. BIMSTEC or Bay of Bengal initiative for multi-sectoral technical and economic cooperation consists of seven members. See as the name indicates it consists of members that surround the Bay of Bengal such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. BIMSTEC was formed in 1997. Bhutan and Nepal joined in the year 2004. Now let us see some members that are common in these two organizations. Five countries that are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka are members of both these regional groupings SARC and BIMSTEC. Now let's go back to the editorial. See the author tells that India's focus on regional cooperation has shifted from SARC to BIMSTEC in the last five years. She tells that SARC has failed to promote regional cooperation in these five years. She has stated some facts why SARC failed. Firstly SARC grouping has not met since 2014. Next the author tells that in 2016 terror attacks happened in India and these attacks were allegedly sponsored by Pakistan. So India boycotted the SARC 2016 summit which was scheduled in Islamabad. Also three other member states boycotted the summit along with India in support of extending solidarity to India. These three countries were Afghanistan, Bhutan and Bangladesh. Now because of this the author tells that India had shifted its focus to other regional initiative called BIMSTEC. If you see the present government invited BIMSTEC leaders for the oath taking ceremony. Next the author wants that India needs to be cautious in its approach towards BIMSTEC otherwise it may meet a fate which is similar to the previous attempts of cooperation in the region like SARC. Because she tells that the dynamics in the regional cooperation and relationship have changed from time to time over the past few decades and this change in regional cooperation that is the way the countries interact in a region has also been agreed by those countries. If you see this statement in the editorial where the author tells that there tends to be an acquiescence to the way states interact in the region. The author simply means that the countries go with the flow of changing regional dynamics. The author gives an example of this changing dynamics. She has compared SARC and BIMSTEC here. SARC is more on the strategy and security cooperation whereas India looks BIMSTEC for regional, economic, cultural and social cooperation. The simple reason is the absence of Pakistan in BIMSTEC. The author tells that Pakistan has been an impediment meaning an obstruction for the success of SARC. Pakistan has kept SARC's focus more on security and strategy. We can see that the geographical concerns of India and the mistrust among India and Pakistan have led to the failure of SARC. This is the author's opinion here. When we say geopolitics, geopolitical concerns or geopolitics it means the politics that is influenced by the geographical factors. The author gives one more reason why BIMSTEC could be successful. The main reason is the absence of China. The author tells if China is present in a regional grouping then there may be many obstacles or issues that would hinder the achievement of any organizational goals. This is because China will bring up many bilateral and contentious issues. Also the author tells that India and China have conflicting world views and sometimes they clash or fight on regional goals. So the absence of China ensures that BIMSTEC would be successful. So as of now it is unlikely that SARC will be revived. So the author tells that BIMSTEC might be a viable option for India to maintain its foreign policy discourse. She also suggests that India will have to take into account the fact that economics and politics have historically been deeply integrated in Asia. So both economics and politics go hand in hand or together. And India should not agree blindly or go with the flow of regional dynamics. Now let's move on to the next news article. The practice question will be discussed in the last session. We are in our last session. The practice come revision session. The first question is with respect to money bill. Which article of the Indian constitution deals with money bill? So we have seen in our analysis that article 110 deals with the definition of money bill. Therefore the correct answer for this question is option B article 110. Now see article 75 talks about the appointment of prime minister and other ministers of council of ministers. And it also talks about the collective responsibility. And article 319 talks about the prohibition of holding offices by the members of UPSC and state public service commission. And article 47 talks about the duty of the state to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living and also to improve public health. Article 47 comes part of this directive principles of state policy. The second question is with respect to the national mission on natural language translation. There are two statements and they have given and they are asking which of the statements are correct. The first statement, the national mission on natural language translation aims to remove the barrier of requirement of high level faculty in English to learn science and technology. Now this statement is correct and that is one of the objective of the mission on natural language translation. Here the word faculty will take the meaning of the word knowledge in this context. And the second statement, the ministry of human resource development ministry of information and broadcasting and the department of science and technology or the lead agencies in this mission. Now this statement is wrong because we seen that HRD ministry is involved department of science and technology is involved but the other ministry that is not ministry of information and broadcasting but the ministry of electronics and information technology. And this mission on natural language translation helps to provide access to teaching and researching material in two languages. One is in English and other is in the native Indian language of the particular individual. So the correct answer for this question is option A one only. In respect to BIMSTEC and SARC now the first statement Bay of Bengal initiative for multi sectoral technical and economic cooperation was formed before the formation of south Asian association for regional cooperation. Now this statement is wrong. We have seen that BIMSTEC was formed only in the year 1997. SARC was formed before some 12 years that is in 1985. So SARC precedes BIMSTEC. So the first statement is wrong. India, Bhutan and Nepal are members of both BIMSTEC and SARC. Now this statement is correct and two more countries are also members of both these organizations and they are Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. So the correct answer for this question is option B two only. With this we come to the end of today's the Indu news analysis. 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