 A very good evening aspirants welcome to the hindi news analysis brought to you by Shankar ice academy and today i have chosen these news articles for discussion and as you can see we have topics from international relations and today we will see about chili cultivation we'll see about financial stability report about atel innovation ranking and also about the agreement that india is planning to sign with australia so let us get to the discussion now so this discussion is going to be based on this editorial article it is about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline this pipeline is often in news nowadays it is a news since the Ukraine issue started and this particular editorial it highlights the uncertainty around this Nord Stream 2 pipeline and here the author has also pointed out the importance of this pipeline to various countries like Russia Germany USA because all these countries are using this pipeline as an economic tool as well as a geopolitical tool so that is why today we are going to see about this Nord Stream 2 pipeline and its geopolitical significance the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference you can take note of it so first what is this Nord Stream 2 pipeline and why is Russia keen on completing this project see first note that this is a natural gas pipeline this pipeline seeks to connect the russian city of east luga to the german city of libmin so the pipeline runs from russia to germany but particularly this pipeline is important for russia why because see russia has the highest gas reserves in the world it has 38 trillion cubic reserves and this is roughly equivalent to 19 percentage of total natural gas reserves that is found in the world and according to world integrated trade solutions russia actually exports around eight billion dollars worth of natural gas so that means many countries depend on this exports actually europe is the biggest market for russia's gas exports here you can see that 72 percentage of russia's gas exports goes to europe and among these european countries you can also see that germany actually accounts for 16 percentage of russia's gas exports so that means europe is the largest customer for russia and in the europe germany is the largest customer now for transporting this natural gas there are many natural gas pipelines from russia here in this image you can see all these pipelines which are marked in various colors these are the important pipelines that connect russia and europe and these transport natural gas now note that currently two land-based pipelines are functional this is the brotherhood pipeline here and the yamal europe pipeline apart from this one offshore pipeline is also functional this offshore pipeline is the nord stream one pipeline so here pay attention we have two nord stream pipelines one is the nord stream one and the other one is nord stream two in this representation you can see that nord stream one is depicted in this blue line and nord stream two pipeline is depicted in pink line now this nord stream two is what is under construction but nord stream one is already functional now in this map you can also notice that yamal europe pipeline which connects russia and europe it actually passes through belaris and this brotherhood pipeline it passes through ukraine so that means for these pipelines to be functional there should not be any uncertainty in belaris or ukraine otherwise they can easily block the pipelines passing through their country and if they do so then it would be a major blow to the russian economy and to counter any such instance russia focused on the nord stream pipelines because it is an offshore pipeline as we already saw so these countries cannot use it as a leverage against russia in case there is a crisis situation and this is the main reason why russia is pushing for nord stream two pipeline also so due to these reasons russia is saying that this pipeline is a purely economical project for it but on the other hand some countries like usa and most of the european countries they are little concerned about this project they are mainly worried that russia could use this pipeline as a political weapon see you should understand that russia currently supplies around 50 percentage of europe's natural gas so already 50 percentage of europe's natural gas needs are met by russian imports so when the nord stream two pipeline gets fully operational then this figure will rise so this will give more bargaining power to russia while dealing with europe and its energy market and that is why european countries are concerned with this along with this some countries are also worried that russia might use this particular project to undermine the resilience of democratic institution of europe but as usual the russian president mr putin has dismissed all these claims he's saying that these claims are nothing but foolish propaganda even in the recent international economic forum 2021 mr putin has claimed that nord stream two is purely a commercial project which is shorter cheaper and economically more viable compared to the gas transit through multiple european countries so according to him this pipeline doesn't have any geopolitical side but we can clearly see that the concerns of european countries are valid to some extent so so far we saw the importance of nord stream two to russia and its economy and we also saw why european countries are against it now what about usa because we saw that usa is also against it actually usa is keen on stalling this project this is mainly because of usa's shale gas reserves see we know that us has a large amount of shale gas reserves what is a shale gas see basically shale is nothing but a finely grained sedimentary rock and the gas that is trapped along the cracks and fractures of shale can be extracted using hydraulic fracking or hydraulic fracturing now this natural gas which is obtained from this method is what is called as shale gas now as i already said us has large reserves of shale gas and its production has particularly increased from 2005 and it is increasing since then due to the extraction of natural gas from the shale reserves you can see in this representation here the blue line represents the the production of natural gas and the red line depicts the consumption pattern and the green line represents the net imports of natural gas and if you look closely presently usa does not import natural gas because here the value is zero and also the production has crossed the total consumption in the recent years here you can see that the consumption is lower than the production so that means now usa has to sell its surplus natural gas and that is why it is looking for a market to sell this surplus gas production and europe is a huge market for natural gas and that is why usa is also focusing on europe but to capture the european market usa has to take several steps why because already europe is dependent on russian supplies so first usa has to reduce europe's dependence on russian supplies then only it can supply its natural gas to europe and for this several steps were taken by the u.s administration and already during mr trump's administration in 2019 they signed a law this law imposed sanctions on the european companies that was involved in completing the nord stream 2 pipeline but this move was particularly opposed by the former german chancellor angela michael she claimed that the european countries must be allowed to make autonomous decisions regarding their imports so she also asked the us to withdraw its extra territorial sanctions so we can see that this move of mr trump's administration actually strained the u.s germany relations but now we have mr biden's administration usa so in july 2021 itself the current u.s administration and germany they came to an agreement through this agreement both countries decided to allow the completion of the nord stream 2 pipeline along with this they also signed an agreement to invest more than 200 million euros in energy security in ukraine and they also plan to invest more on the sustainable energy across europe now this agreement will also restore trust and it will enhance the close cooperation between usa and germany so that means even after usa's continuous effort to stall the nord stream 2 pipeline this july 2021 agreement actually gave a go ahead for the completion of this pipeline so as of now usa cannot do anything so now what about germany how is this pipeline important to it now to understand that we need to understand about the installed power generation capacity in germany this graph represents its installed power generation capacity now here you can see that the nuclear power and coal contribute a significant amount to germany's energy basket but we know that germany has set out a plan to shut down its nuclear and coal power plants because they have taken decision to move towards renewable resources but we know that renewable energy is unpredictable so germany is thinking that power produced from natural gas could act as a buffer because this is less polluting than coal and even according to a data from 2015 germany actually imported about 40 percentage of its natural gas from russia it imported 29 percentage from the netherlands and 34 percentage from norway that means only 10 percentage of its natural gas consumption was got from its own fields so this data shows that germany is heavily dependent on russian natural gas so that means if this nord stream 2 pipeline is completed then it will enable germany to get cheaper and reliable natural gas from russia so this will also help in germany's smooth transition to renewable energy but this is a problem for germany also why because this will make germany more dependent on russia and this will lead to rise in energy prices say actually right now also in europe the whole sale energy prices have more than doubled this is mainly due to the limited supply of fossil fuels and even for this current increase in price the european countries are blaming russia they're saying that russia is intentionally decreasing its gas supplies to europe which is increasing the current price and if this happens then its controversial nord stream 2 gas pipeline will be completed ahead of its time so that means based on these facts now germany cannot only rely on russia and that is why it is now planning to diversify its natural gas supplier base actually germany is building its first liquefied natural gas terminal to receive natural gas from other countries such as usa and katar and apart from this germany is also using the current crisis to increase its investment in the renewable energy and the production of green hydrogen so it is trying to diversify its energy needs so regarding the nord stream 2 gas pipeline the current new german chancellor has to make a tough decision we know that it took administration in this month only mr olof schaltz became the german chancellor in december 2021 so now he has to make the tough decision because on one hand russia is increasing its military posture against ukraine because it wants to prevent ukraine from getting closer to the nato countries and this particular stance of russia is seen as a threat in europe so because of this many european leaders or of the opinion that germany should cancel the pipeline altogether in case of any military escalation happens in ukraine due to russia so on one hand mr schaltz should make a decision that will satisfy germany's energy needs and on the other hand he should also ensure the geopolitical stability of the region and he should also ensure that this nord stream 2 pipeline is not used as a geopolitical tool but it will be used as a balancing tool which will be used to balance germany's energy needs as well as solve the geopolitical issues so let's wait and see what he decides and whether this nord stream 2 pipeline gets completed or not so in this discussion we saw the importance of this pipeline to three countries mainly it is important to germany and russia we saw that and we saw why usa is opposing to it because then usa will not able to make european assets energy market and finally we also saw that how the current german chancellor has to make a tough decision which will balance both germany's energy needs and solve geopolitical issues in the region so with these points let us move on to the next discussion this discussion is going to be based on these two news articles and these articles talk about the national ranking which ranks the most innovative educational institutions in our country yes here we are talking about the utter ranking of institutions on innovation achievements therefore from prince perspective and also from main's perspective it becomes important for us to know about this national ranking its parameters because based on this only the institutions are ranked and you'll also see the ranks of various top notch institutions in our country let us see them now before that the syllabus relevant to this discussion is highlighted here for your reference now first note that as its name suggests this utter ranking of institutions on innovation achievements which in short is also called as aria basically focuses on innovation so when we say innovation we refer to converting ideas into new or improved products processes and services this means translating the scientific knowledge into products services and offerings and then taking these inventions to marketplace and bringing economic growth and social development so overall innovation is linked to economic growth and social development and remember that the decade of 2010 to 2020 it was declared as the decade of innovation by our prime minister this decade was announced to foster innovation and also to unleash the creative potential of every Indian so basically this decade was aimed at making India as a global innovation hub now in the process of becoming a global innovation hub higher educational institutions they play a crucial role therefore these higher education institutions they need to create a sustainable innovation ecosystem so that they can unleash the creative potential of youth now here the role of government also comes into play because it becomes the duty of every government to ensure that innovation is primary central role of all higher education institutions in our country because we want to make our country a global innovation hub and to ensure this particular objective this national ranking of aria was started in the year 2018 it was introduced by the then ministry of human resource development which is now called as ministry of education so the basic objective of this ranking is actually manifold it aims to measure innovation and startup ecosystem based on input process output and outcome based parameters and along with this this ranking all to aims to measure the impact that is created by these innovation and startups from the higher educational institutions in society and in the market so we can understand that having innovation is not only important but understanding its impact in the society and market is also important and this is also done by this ranking and ultimately all of these given objectives aim at the ultimate objective of uplifting India's position in the global innovation index and according to aria's objective it aims to raise India's ranking in global innovation index from 48 to top 30 in a time period of five years so here let us briefly understand what is this global innovation index so it is an annual publication of world intellectual property organization and as you know this world intellectual property organization or WIPO it is a self-funding agency of united nations and this organization and this global innovation index it focuses on the recent global innovation trends and it also ranks the innovation ecosystem performance of economies around the globe now by this ranking it also highlights the innovation strengths and weaknesses of economies and the gaps in their innovation metrics so these are the indicators of global innovation index 2021 now if you take india india has gradually performed better and its ranking has improved in this global innovation index here you can see that in 2016 we ranked 66 and in 2021 we are at 46th position so in six years we have improved 20 ranks and as we saw one of the objectives of aria is improving india's ranking from 48 to top 30 so the 48th rank was in 2020 but every year we are improving our ranking actually india has done so better that in 2021 india is also among the top three innovation economies in central and southern asia along with this india is also ranked among the top three innovation economies in the lower middle income category also and a national ranking such as aria will also assist in improving india's rank to top 30 in global innovation index so for this purpose what does this aria ranking do see it also systematically ranks education institutions and universities but it ranks these institutions and universities primarily on innovation related indicators or parameters so what are these indicators and parameters see it has nine primary parameters and these include the patent filed and granted then under the ventures established you also have these are parameter of number of registered students and faculty startups then it also has the parameter of fund generation by incubated startups then the specialized infrastructure created by institutions to promote innovation and entrepreneurship like this it has many important parameters from patent to startups so just go through these parameters now along with this you should also note that the 2021 ranking classifies the participating high education institutions under two heads they have been classified as technical higher education institutions and non-technical higher education institutions and then each of these class is then categorized as publicly funded institutions and privately or self-financed institutions so totally we have six categories in the aria ranking and the one which we are concerned with is the category of institute of national importance and central universities or centrally funded technical institutions and in this category the top ranking institution in 2021 is the indian institute of technology of medras that is iat medras and here you can see the top ranking institutions in the remaining categories you just go through the names of these universities and institutions now another fact that you should focus from exam perspective is that it is the third time that iat medras has been ranked the most innovative education institution in our country so among the iat itself iat medras has been ranked the top innovative institution and overall if you see also in the institute of national importance category as usual the seven iat and the indian institute of science in bungalow they are the top eight central institutions this means that these institutions perform better in promotion and support of innovation so these are some of the crucial facts that you need to know about aria ranking and also about the global innovation index and india's ranking in it remember that aria ranking is based on fostering innovation and our prime minister declared 2010 to 2020 as decade of innovation and then we saw that in the global innovation index india has been performing better in the last six years india has improved 20 ranks india has improved from 66 to 46 and now india is aiming to go to the top 13 global innovation index and here only aria ranking also helps the institutions in achieving this goal and this aria ranking has parameters that cover various areas such as patents fun generation entrepreneurship startups etc and then finally we saw that iat medras has been ranked for the third time as the top innovative institution in our country so with these facts in mind now let us get to the next discussion now our next discussion is going to be based on this news article which talks about the recently published report of rba which is the financial stability report this was published yesterday and it is the 24th issue of financial stability report and this particular news article talks about the status of gross non-performing assets mentioned in this report so today we will see what is this financial stability report and few facts relevant for examination we'll also see the effects of increasing gnpas first what is a financial stability report see it is a report which is published by rba as we already saw and it is published biannually that is it is published once in every six months and this report is approved by the financial stability and development council subcommittee so first let us see about the financial stability development council see this council is chaired by the union finance minister and its members are governor of rba finance secretary or secretary to the department of economic affairs then it also includes secretary of department of financial services as its members chief economic advisor is a member then chairman of security and exchange board of india that is sebi is also a member chairman of irdai and pfrda is also members of this financial stability and development council now this council mainly deals with issues relating to financial stability financial sector development it also deals with interregulatory coordination financial literacy financial inclusion and it also exercises supervision of large financial institutions so now what about financial stability development council subcommittee that is fsdc subcommittee see this committee is chaired by governor of rba so remember that fsdc is chaired by union finance minister but the subcommittee is chaired by rba governor this is an important fact from problems perspective now this subcommittee meets more often than the full council and all the members of fsdc are also members of the subcommittee now in addition to this all four deputy governors of rba and the additional secretary to the department of economic affairs are also members of this subcommittee so now why is this financial stability report published what is its purpose see this report as we saw is a biannual exercise and this exercise reviews the nature and magnitude of macroeconomic environment along with this it also reviews the implications of risks and stress on the macroeconomic environment on the financial institutions markets and infrastructure more importantly these reports also assess the resilience of financial sector through stress tests so now what does this report say about gnpa there is gross non-performing assets before knowing that let us see what is the non-performing asset see we know that loans or advances are made by banks and these are called as assets and these assets they generate income for the banks in the form of interest but what if the loans turn bad or what if the banks are not getting the interest or what if they don't get the principal amount from the borrower after the due date now if these happens then the loans are no more assets for the banks and this is when they become the non-performing asset and according to rba all the advances where interest or principal remains due for more than 90 days then such advances will be classified as non-performing assets now this gross npa is nothing but the sum of all the assets that are classified as npas now according to the news article the gnpa in september was 6.9 percentage and now in this financial stability report it is predicted that by september 2022 that is by next year this gnpa may rise to 9.5 percentage under severe stress conditions now this increase is a cause of concern for many reasons let us see why it is a concern see when the gnpa rises the banks won't have sufficient funds for development projects so this will delay the recovery from the pandemic and secondly when the banks have reduced funds with them which happens due to the increase in gnpa then at this juncture they will be forced to increase their interest rates to maintain their profit level so this increased interest rate will bring down credit supply in the economy and this will directly impact the private investment so that means with no funds for developmental projects and with reduced private investment the employment rate will also come down so this will in turn bring down the private consumption expenditure and we know that already the private consumption is below the pre pandemic levels so if the gnpa further rises in 2022 then the private consumption will come down further and this will make the economic revival difficult so we can see that how gnpa affects one thing and that one thing affects the other thing it is like a butterfly effect so in this discussion we saw about financial stability report what is its purpose about the financial stability and development council its sub council we saw that fsdc is chaired by the union finance minister but the fsdc subcommittee is chaired by the rba governor and then we also saw what do we mean by non performing assets and gross non performing assets and finally we saw why rising gnpa is a cause for concern so with these facts in mind now let us move on to the next discussion now this discussion is going to be based on two articles one is this article in the main newspaper and this article is in the text and context page now these two articles talk about opening of india's dairy sector to australian dairy companies this will happen if the comprehensive economic cooperation agreement is signed between india and australia see actually india and australia have been discussing a full comprehensive economic cooperation agreement by the end of 2022 but now both parties have been working quickly to secure an interim agreement before that and according to this news article the bharti kisan union it has said that the indian farmers will oppose this agreement between india and australia if it opens the country's dairy sector to australian dairy companies so today we are going to understand about this agreement and why indian farmers are opposing it and we'll see how the issue is similar to the arsep agreement and we'll also see some of the important points mentioned in these articles the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see first of all what is comprehensive economic cooperation agreement or in short sika it is nothing but a trade agreement which is made between two countries that aims to improve bilateral trade see whenever we use the term trade agreement it refers to an accord between two or more countries for a specific term of trade commerce transit or investment and such trade agreements mostly involve mutually beneficial concessions now depending on the conditions and concessions which are agreed by the participating entities actually there are several types of trade agreements so the conditions and concessions decide the type of trade agreement so the types include the free trade agreement preferential trade agreement comprehensive economic partnership agreement and comprehensive economic cooperation agreement etc but today our focus is going to be on comprehensive economic cooperation agreement only that is sika see basically this agreement consists of an integrated package on goods services and investment and it also focuses on other areas such as intellectual property rights competition etc but most importantly this agreement cover negotiation on trade tariff and tqr rates only see a tqr stands for tariff rate this tqr allows a predetermined quantity of a product to be imported at a lower import duty rate see this lower import duty rate is called as in quota duty which is lower than the usual duty rate so that means if we assume that a country has agreed tqr for a predetermined quantity x and let us assume that the tqr is 30% is here so now the importing country will import that product in this tqr only up to that x quantity but once this x quantity is filled or once the trq has been filled it doesn't mean that they should not import they can import even after that but here the problem will be they have to pay higher tariff rate because now the trq has been filled so if before that they have been paying 30% now they will be paying more than 30% for the remaining imports so the benefit of such a trq is that it allows for access to a market that might have been close to exports so in this way it benefits the exporters and also consumers in the importing country because there the consumers will be getting product in a cheaper price see remember the details about tqr because we will see why this is an issue later in the discussion now with respect to the sika agreements you should note that india has already made sika agreements with malaysia singapore and japan and in that line only india is now going to sign an agreement with australia also actually india is planning to do it not yet decided so now what is the issue in this sika agreement see first of all this sika eliminated tariff barriers double taxation duplicate processes and regulations between two countries but along with this the sika also enhanced bilateral collaboration related to education science and technology information technology finance fields intellectual property etc etc that means it has enhanced bilateral collaboration in many sectors and this includes the dairy sector also so that means the india concludes a sika agreement with any country then india will be required to open its sectors including its dairy sectors to the companies of that other country so here we are talking about australia and signing an sika agreement with australia so that means if india concludes this agreement with australia then india will be required to open its dairy sector to australian dairy enterprises this means that then india will be required to allow australian dairy farms to operate or to grow in india's dairy sector so you can understand why this sika agreement is an issue for the farmers in the dairy sector now apart from this india might also be forced to phase out or remove the high tariffs in order to provide a liberal tariff rate quota and this is a deep concern for the indian industry so the farmers representative organizations have already raised concerns to open the indian dairy sector to foreign dairy companies and particularly this opposition was already given when the discussion of rsep was in the air see if you remember rsep it is the acronym for regional comprehensive economic partnership now this rsep is considered as the world's biggest free trade agreement because it proposes free trade agreement between 10 asian countries with its six free trade agreement partners and these six free trade agreement partners are china australia new zealand japan south korea and it also includes india so when rsep was being discussed and when the problem was you know whether india will sign rsep or not at that time many issues were cited in it and one of the prominent issues that was cited again and again was the dairy sector issue because at that time farmers argued that india's dairy sector would be destroyed if the rsep is implemented so now we are going to see what were the reasons given by the farmers for opposing rsep now these reasons are similar to the concerns in seek agreement so if you understand these reasons we will be easily able to understand the reasons for opposing seek agreement so let us see them one by one now firstly the issue was of the tariff clauses for agriculture so this included dairy industry also it was cited that in the rsep agreement the tariff clause was much more severe compared to the existing world trade organization agreement now to understand why it is stated as severe we need to understand the existing norms under wto see basically wto allows a country to fix tariffs up to a certain maximum level for a given commodity line so such maximum level of tariff allowed by wto is known as bound tariff so that means bound tariff is the highest allowable rate that a wto member can impose on a country so we can say that it is the upper limit but note that the actually applied rate may vary so if assume a bound tariff for a product for example for orange if it is 43 percentage then that doesn't mean that that country has to impose 43 percentage tariff it can impose any number of rates but it should be not higher than 43 percentage so countries can impose tariff rates up to this level so you can understand that bound tariff is generally more than the applied tariff but in case of rsep what was the condition was that it tries to reduce the level of bound tariff to zero within the next 15 years so this means in 15 years it will be without any tariff this means it will become a free trade between the both countries and as we already saw rsep is a biggest free trade agreement so you can see how it is trying to impose this free trade criteria so this was an issue for the dairy farmers in our country because as of now if you see India's average bound tariff for dairy products is about 63 percentage but our average applied tariff is about 34 percentage so just imagine if this bound tariff is brought to zero then it will affect the domestic dairy farmers in our country because then they will be also forced to reduce their rates to those levels and as we know our country has more small and marginal farmers who are engaged in agricultural activities including the dairy farms so they will be more affected by this criteria in addition to this I said that TRQ is an issue why because under TRQ a particular quantity has to be imported in that tariff rate but the problem is that in the dairy sector the other major players in the world they are providing subsidies to their domestic dairy players for example if you take USA according to some sources it gives around 28 billion dollars of subsidies to its dairy sector per annum so if after that subsidy if this TRQ is also applied then that dairy product will be more cheaper than the Indian product so here again the Indian farmers will not be able to equalize with that subsidized product and that is why TRQ is an issue particularly in the dairy sector other than this you should also remember that India is largely self-sufficient in milk production we don't import or export milk in any significant quantity but if we consider the global milk trade other countries import and export actually developed countries account for 79 percentage of the total world export of milk and here the major players are as you can assume obviously USA then European Union Australia and New Zealand so for example a country like New Zealand it exports 93 percentage of its milk production on the other hand if you take the developing countries they actually account for 80 percentage of the world's total milk imports so these countries export and it is imported by the developing countries and even though India is a developing country as of now we are largely self-sufficient in milk production so in such a situation if India would have accepted the RCEP deal then it would have affected the local small dairy farmers because of the competition because again they will be forced to provide the product for cheaper rates now apart from this you should also remember that over the last 25 years Indian policy has actually consciously encouraged the growth of private milk companies Indian policy has actually favored the entry of multinational dairy corporations into the Indian dairy sector through joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions that means the multinational dairy firms has been building a strong presence in India even prior to the RCEP talks but here the main criteria that you should notice that at present these multinational dairy firms are forced to buy milk from Indian farmers only why because if they import from other country then the applied tariff or the actual tariff will be applied on that dairy product and as we already saw this is around a 34 percentage so this 34 percentage will be applied on that dairy product so those multinational dairy firms that are present in India they will have to pay 35 percentage more for those products so that is why they are now forced to buy milk from Indian farmers so this in a way has a positive effect on the Indian dairy sector but what will happen if we sign RCEP as we already said RCEP wanted to bring the bound tariff to zero so that means this 35 percentage will not be applicable anymore and this means that then the multinational dairy firms would have been able to import milk from other countries they will be more profitable if they import milk from New Zealand or Australia rather than buying it from Indian farmers so Indian farmers will lose their business so this is also another reason why Indian dairy farmers are against RCEP deal and we can see that similar conditions and similar problems will arise if Sika agreement with Australia is signed because they also feared that because of TRQ the imports will be in a subsidized rate so here in the competition the Indian farmers will be on the losing front so you can understand how as well as Sika will affect the Indian dairy sector if they are signed now apart from these points the article also mentioned about some of the arguments that actually favored signing of RCEP agreement we'll see two of the major arguments here and we'll see whether these arguments are valid or not see one of the major argument was that India will be milk deficient country in the future and will be forced to import milk so it will be better if India enters RCEP today rather than later this was the argument put forward but according to Nitya Ayog's forecast this argument is false see Nitya Ayog has forecasted that in 2033 India's milk production would rise to 330 mmt but our milk demand would be 292 mmt only so that means by 2033 India is likely to be a milk surplus country not a milk deficient country now another argument which was put forward was the quantity of milk imports from New Zealand it was argued that this quantity is unlikely to exceed 5 percentage of the total exports of New Zealand so they argued that the impact on Indian prices would be insignificant but this argument is also false because according to the data compiled by Amul which is a dairy company in India even this 5 percentage of New Zealand's exports is sufficient to flood India's domestic market so that means this argument is also incorrect so as of now we can say that Indian government does not have any plan to sign RCEP agreement but we have to wait and see how this Sika agreement issue unfolds so that is all in this discussion we saw about Sika agreement what is it and how it will affect Indian dairy farmers so with these points let us move to the next discussion so last discussion for today is going to be based on this news article from the Chennai edition of hindu newspaper this article mentions that the farmers in Tamil Nadu are cultivating a specific variety of chilli and they are cultivating this mainly to turn their chilli grown land into a pesticide free land so today let us see briefly about chilli cultivation and its important characteristics and few steps followed by the farmers for pesticide control see this is a rare discussion we have never discussed about chilli as a commercial crop so today let us see about see basically chilli is a spicy fruit it is used in cuisine preparations and it is mostly added as an ingredient in foods to make it spicy we know that now this chilli is a tropical plant and also a subtropical plant so it requires a combination of a warm humid but yet dry weather so India has a favorable climate for chilli cultivation and because of this in India chilli is considered as one of the most important commercial crops and it is also grown almost throughout our country and they are found in different colors also they are found in green color orange white yellow and red yes we do have white chilli and the pungency in these chilli varies according to their varieties now these red chilies get their color from a coloring compound called as capsaicin so remember the coloring compound is capsaicin now they have a hot and pungent taste we know that and this is due to a chemical compound called as capsaicin and the numerous small chilli seeds they also contain capsaicin and that is why they also have that pungent taste and make the food spicy see if you remember we discussed about this capsaicin when we discussed about the 2021 Nobel Prize particularly when we saw the Nobel Prize awarded in the field of physiology or medicine in 2021 we saw about capsaicin if you remember in this field two US scientists received the award they were David Julius and Adam Pataputian and they received award for their individual discoveries regarding receptors for temperature and touch we discussed about Nobel Prize and about this particular discovery in our October discussion now among these scientists David Julius wanted to have a fundamental insight into the mechanism of pain and for this he actually studied capsaicin that he got from the chilies so this is where we heard the term capsaicin remember this so now coming back to chilli cultivation let us see what type of soil is required for its cultivation see chilies need moisture for growth and black soil that retains moisture has been found to be ideal for chilli cultivation if they are grown as rainfed crops now under irrigated conditions the crop needs well drained sandy loam soil which has rich organic content in areas such as Uttarakhand soil is mixed with gravel and coarse sand before undertaking chilli cultivation now here you should know that the pH of the soil should be neutral because this plant cannot tolerate acidic or alkaline soil and this particular crop is grown as both kharif crop and rabi crop and around the world if you see it is produced throughout the world and the top 10 chilli producing countries are India China Ethiopia Myanmar Mexico Vietnam Peru Pakistan Ghana and Bangladesh and in India the top 10 states that produce chilli are Telangana Karnataka Madhya Pradesh Odisha Gujarat Assam Punjab Rajasthan Uttar Pradesh and Mizoram so these are the few facts that you need to know about chilli cultivation now the news article also mentions about some of the methods used by the farmers for pest control now one of the methods used is intercropping that is they grow chilli along with other crops to divert the pests this is called as intercropping now other than this they also use some organic materials such as punga oil and neem oil this is also proved to be successful apart from this they also use light traps these light traps they attract the insects so they are kept away from the crops so these are few of the methods used by the farmers for pest control you can use these facts in any of your mains answer writing where you need to mention about pest control so with these facts in mind let us get to the last session which is the practice questions discussion session so now let us take up this first question with reference to national rankings of 2021 adult ranking of institutions on innovation achievements and India rankings 2021 under NIRF consider the following statements NIRF ranking ranks higher education institutions in different domains of knowledge whereas aria ranks higher education institutions on the basis of innovation see second half is correct we know that we saw this today now if you talk about NIRF see it was launched by the ministry of education in 2015 and this national institutional ranking framework outlines a methodology for ranking higher education institutions across the countries especially it ranks these institutions in different domains of knowledge these domains include universities engineering management medical law architecture pharmacy etc but in case of aria we have only the domain of innovation other than that the institutions are classified as technical non-technical here the question doesn't say about it so this statement is correct now the second statement IIT mattress has ranked the top institution for the third consecutive term in both rankings now if you look at the question this question talks about the 2021 rankings in these two national rankings and today we saw that for the third time IIT madras has ranked the top innovative institution in our country now you should also note that in NIRF ranking also for the third consecutive year IITM was ranked the best higher education institution in the country so this statement is correct so here both the statements are correct so the correct answer to this question is option c now this next question is based on monetary policy committee first statement is it is institutionalized under banking regulation act 1949 so this statement is incorrect because the monetary policy committee is institutionalized under rva act of 1934 and the main aim of MPC is maintaining price stability while keeping the objective of growth in mind now the second statement is governor of rba is ex-officio chairman of MPC this statement is actually correct and here the question asks for the incorrect statements so the correct answer to this question is option a one only today I have one main question so interested viewers can write answer and post it in the comment section and whenever we get time we'll review your answer and with this we have finally come to the end of today's in the news analysis and practice questions discussion session if you like this video don't forget to like comment and share and also subscribe to our channel shankarai's academy to get more updates related to civil services preparation thank you