 more on to today's in the news analysis for the date 26th of September 2021. So these are the news articles that has been chosen for today's discussion and today we are going to start our session with this important terminologies session. In this session we are going to discuss about three important terminologies that appeared in last week's newspaper. These three terminologies are the first one, artificial reef and the second one we are going to discuss about the bio decomposer and the third one is unpowerment upper and then we have a discussion on the FAQ which talks about orcas and then we will discuss safe harbor rates and then we will also see about Mars and the Martian water and in this discussion we are going to discuss about an important scheme called as SEIS, services exporters scheme and today we have two problems practice questions and one main practice question and as usual I do have a quiz question for you today so listen to today's analysis carefully because the quiz has been framed on today's analysis only. So with this introduction let us move on to the first session which is the important terminologies session. These terminologies appeared in last week's newspaper. So the first terminology which we are going to start with today is the artificial reef. See we often discuss about the natural reefs that is the coral reefs and their importance and we also have something called as an artificial reef. So what is this artificial reef? See it is a man-made structure. This artificial reef may mimic some of the characteristics of a natural reef. We know that natural reefs are habitats for reef organisms such as softens, tonicorals, they are habitat for the fishes and invertebrates that live among them. So in a similar manner these artificial reefs and structures they also enhance the habitat for the reef organisms. So like how a natural reef acts as an habitat, this artificial reef also acts as an habitat. So this man-made structure which we are talking about could be anything from a submerged ship wreck, oil and gas platforms, bridges, lighthouses to other offshore structures. And among these structures the submerged shipwrecks are the most common form of artificial reef. And apart from these structures the marine resource authorities also create artificial reefs in underwater areas. These are the areas that require a structure to enhance the habitat for reef organisms. And these artificial reefs are typically created or constructed from dense materials and these dense materials include rocks, cinder blocks or even wooden old tires, limestones, steel, concrete etc. And it is important to note that these artificial reefs are planned and permitted by the state and federal government agencies only and it is illegal to dump anything into the ocean without a permit. So based on this some countries even prohibit using of old tires as artificial reefs. So on a whole when we say artificial reef it means one or more objects of either natural origin or human origin and these objects are intentionally placed on the sea floor to enhance marine life for human use and this is done through the creation of new reef habitat. So what are its overall benefits? First of all the artificial reefs provide local economic benefits because they attract fish to a known location. So they become popular attractions for commercial and recreational fishermen and then it also enhances recreational and diving opportunities also. The divers are motivated to visit these artificial reefs to witness the habitat of corals, fishes and invertebrates and thirdly as we already saw it increases the reef fish habitat and fourthly and more importantly it also provides shoreline protection. For example it addresses the coastal erosion and it also protects the islands from erosion and submergence due to sea level increase. How? Because these artificial reefs they act as natural breakwaters as they reduce the wave energy. So this reduces the opportunity of erosion. So overall the artificial reefs can enhance fish habitat, they can increase access to quality fishing grounds, they benefit fishermen and the economies of shore communities and they increase the total fish biomass within a given area and overall they also provide shoreline protection. So these are the important facts that you need to know about artificial reefs and its benefits. Now let us move to the next important terminology. Now the next important terminology which we are going to discuss is the bio decomposer which we are often seeing in news nowadays. So let us see what is this. See officially this bio decomposer is called as PUSA decomposer. We will see why it has the name PUSA. See actually this decomposer has been developed at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute that is situated in PUSA of Delhi. See the journey of this institute is in the way that initially it began in the year 1905 at PUSA in Bihar. So at that time it was known as PUSA Institute. But later it was transferred to Delhi and it was given the name of Indian Agricultural Research Institute and this is the reason why this decomposer is named as PUSA decomposer. So actually what is it? See it is a set of four tablets. These tablets are made by extracting fungi strains. So these tablets they are a microbial consortia of eight types of microorganisms. So it consists of eight types of microorganisms. Now what is the use of these microorganisms or the fungi strains? See they help the paddy straw to decompose at a much faster rate than usual. So here the paddy straw or stubble is turned into manure. And since these tablets helps to decompose faster it is known as a decomposer. And since it was developed at the PUSA Institute it is known as PUSA decomposer. And why we are saying it as bio decomposer? Because whenever we add the term bio as a prefix it implies that it is related to a living organism. So now how this PUSA decomposer works? See first the farmers they have to shred the straw and stubble from the crop that are left behind on fields after harvesting. So after paddy harvesting the straw and stubble are left on the field. Now these straw and stubble have to be shred. After that they have to prepare a solution. The solution is made with this tablet which contains the fungal strains and some other organic inputs are also added to the solution. These organic inputs include jaggery and chickpea flour. Now once the solution is prepared they have to spray the solution over the field or they have to mix it with the soil. And once it is mixed with the soil it is left for decomposition. So here what is the role of the fungi strains? They assist in producing enzymes which are essential to quicken the decomposition of the biomass. Here the biomass is the straw and stubble. So now how faster is this decomposition process? See normally a paddy straw takes around 3 months to decompose but this solution or these tablets they reduce the decomposition time of shredded and watered paddy straw from 3 months to below 25 days. So this is one of its main benefits. Now it has also some other additional benefits. It is completely organic and chemical free because it uses fungi strains only. Secondly it works as biomanure and it improves the fertility and productivity of the soil. How it does this? See this solution does not kill microorganisms in the field which improve the productivity when they are sprayed on. Which is not the same in the case of chemical fertilizers. So in this regard this solution also eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers because it itself makes the biomass as a biomanure. Another basic advantage to the farmers is that the cost of these four tablets is quite low. It is said that it could be around 5 to 20 rupees. So this decomposer is cheap and also environment friendly and also this can be used for a decomposition of crop residue over a hectare of field also. So even the field is large enough then also this method can be used for decomposition. There will not be any limitation because of the total area of the land. Now finally and more importantly if methods like this become successful then it will be a new revolution in farming because the paddy straw now they are currently burnt by farmers and this burning is what is called as the stubble burning and this stubble burning causes air pollution and it kills the microorganisms in the soil which are needed for productivity and the scenario is prominent in the northern regions of our country like Delhi and this is the reason why air pollution is severe in Delhi during winter. So that means a solution like this bio decomposer has the potential to reduce air pollution as well as to increase the soil fertility and that is why this solution has been suggested by the Delhi government to use it in the neighbouring states also and this is the reason why this topic becomes important from Pram's perspective. Now from Main's perspective it is important because if you have a question that asks how to mitigate stubble burning or the question asks suggest an alternative to stubble burning then you can suggest this solution or the question could even ask how to reduce air pollution in Delhi. So then also you can write this example because one of the major reasons for air pollution in Delhi is stubble burning. So once stubble burning can be avoided then the air pollution can be reduced. So this information now let us move to the next terminology. Now our next terminology is Anubhava Mantapa. Let us see what is the background for this term. See recently the Legislative Council Chairman of Karnataka has appealed to our Prime Minister and to the Lok Sabha speaker regarding naming the building of New Parliament House. He has suggested to name one of the buildings in the New Parliament House after Anubhava Mantapa. So we have to see the genesis of this term. See this term is related to 12th century. It is related to the social reformer Basaveswara or Basavanna. He is a social reformer from the Karnataka region. So this Anubhava Mantapa was established in the 12th century. So what it means? It actually means a spiritual parliament. Remember Anubhava Mantapa means spiritual parliament. Now this spiritual parliament was based on the principle of democracy. So anyone irrespective of their caste they were allowed to be a member of this spiritual parliament. And women were also part of this. So what was the purpose of this Anubhava Mantapa? In this place hundreds of Sharanas men and women they took part in spiritual discussions. See when they say Sharanas it means those who had dedicated themselves to serve humanity and God. So the Sharanas men and women they took part in spiritual discussions in this spiritual parliament. And all of them they together condemned the categorization of the society based on caste, sub-caste and its various connotations including untouchability. So they were against caste, sub-caste and untouchability. Now along with having discussions in this place the members also gave wisdom to everyone through their vachana writings. Here vachana means poetry. So through their poetry they gave wisdom to everyone. And by doing this they established a Kalyana Rajya. Here Kalyana means welfare and Rajya means state. So the members of Anubhava Mantapa along with Basaveshwara they established a welfare state. And remember this Anubhava Mantapa was established by Basaveshwara or Basavanna. So it is related to him only. And it was based on his ideologies. See he had egalitarian views. That is he believed in the principle that all people are equal and they deserve equal rights and opportunities. He also believed in enlightenment and welfare of all including the people who belong to the so-called low caste and outcasts. At that period of time outcasts were the persons who were rejected by the society as untouchables. So he believed in enlightenment of those people who were termed as untouchables at that time. And also remember he also proclaimed another important reform in the society. It was the remarriage of widows. So Basavanna had egalitarian views and he proposed an equal society. He proclaimed remarriage of widows and he even established this spiritual parliament where everyone can be a part of it. And due to this social significance only now the Legislative Council Chairman of Karnataka has asked to name one of the new parliament house as Anubhava Mantapa. So let us wait and see what the government decides. So with these important terminologies now we are moving to the news articles discussion session. Our first discussion is going to be based on this FAQ article and this article is regarding AUKUS. See this AUKUS is making a lot of ruckus nowadays. If you remember last year in the same period QUAD was making the headlines. And now in the recent times AUKUS is making the headlines. So in this discussion we are going to see what is this AUKUS, what are its terms, what are the apprehensions, what are the takeaways for India etc. So this is going to be a comprehensive discussion. Let us get into the discussion. Before that the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. So first let us start with knowing what is this AUKUS. So it is a new trilateral security partnership that was recently announced by USA, Australia and UK. So in this term AUKUS, A stands for Australia, UK stands for United Kingdom and US stands for United States of America. It is a trilateral security partnership. Remember this. So what are the terms of this grouping? See the main aim of AUKUS is to preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific in the long term. We know that in the recent years Indo-Pacific region has been under a lot of contention and one of the main reasons for this contention is China. Because China has been increasing its aggression in this region, mainly in the South China Sea and China's territorial ambitions across the Indo-Pacific are also on the rise. So this contention forms a major reason behind the announcement of this AUKUS. So what is the reaction of China actually? See as expected China has strongly criticized the formation of AUKUS. China says that AUKUS will undermine regional peace in the Indo-Pacific region and it will also intensify the arms race in this region. So actually why China feels this way? It is because one of the key proposals of AUKUS is to transfer technology. Now this technology transfer includes nuclear submarine propulsion and manufacturing technologies and according to AUKUS, these technology transfer will be done by US and UK to the Australia and that too it will be done within 18 months. And the purpose of such technology transfer is to build a fleet of nuclear powered submarines. Here the major point to be noted is that if Australia acquires this technology then it will be the first such instance where a non-nuclear nation is acquiring such capability. And if Australia gets this technology it might lead to other countries aiming for similar technology transfers. And that is why according to China this proposal to transfer nuclear technology can lead to an arms race in the region. Now apart from this concern of China this AUKUS is also leading to some geopolitical tensions. One of the examples for this geopolitical tensions could be the problems between France and the members of AUKUS. See there is an increasing tension between France and the members of AUKUS due to this partnership. Why because before AUKUS Australia was actually planning to buy submarines from France only. And for France this was a profitable deal of 90 billion dollars. But after the announcement of AUKUS this deal has been called off and this has irritated France. So it has created a ruptured and diplomatic relations between France and the members of AUKUS that is Australia, UK and USA. So some of the important issues around AUKUS are first it might lead to an arms race in the region and second it gives rise to some geopolitical tensions. But beyond all these issues there is always a question of whether AUKUS will turn out to be a game changer. The answer is no according to many experts. See USA as we know is a leading global military power. It already has a strong presence in the Indo-Pacific region. We can take the example of a quad itself we know quad stands for Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and this is a grouping which includes India, Australia, USA and Japan. And one of the main aims of quad is to preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific. So we can observe that USA is already having a strong presence in the Indo-Pacific through quad partnership. And as we know this partnership involves joint military presence and a wide range of war games in the region. Now secondly in addition to quad US and UK also have five eyes. So what is this five eyes? So it is an intelligence sharing alliance. This alliance has countries like USA, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. This alliance evolved during the Cold War and it was used as a mechanism for monitoring the then Soviet Union. And through this mechanism they shared classified intelligence. And under this alliance the members engaged in ocean surveillance, covert action, human intelligence collection and they even engaged in counter intelligence. And this five eyes alliance is often described as one of the world's most successful intelligence alliance. And as we just saw US and UK are already part of it. And since ocean surveillance is also a part of five eyes Indo-Pacific is also a part of it. So here also US already has a strong presence in the Indo-Pacific through the five eyes partnership. So we can see that regarding Indo-Pacific region we already have the quad and we also have the five eyes. So there is no need for new partnership called AUKUS. And as of now it is also unclear about what additional signaling could be achieved through this new trilateral security arrangement. Here you should remember that AUKUS does not fall within the ambit of other partnerships like quad. So its position and functionality are not clear yet. And this is one of the reasons why experts feel that as of now AUKUS is not a major game changer. Another reason cited by experts is that AUKUS will not deter China's maritime ambitions and territorial expansionism. They rather believe that AUKUS will only lead to an increase of nuclear submarines in China's fleet. So you already China has 12 nuclear submarines. So if Australia gets the technology needed for nuclear submarines through AUKUS, then China will definitely try to increase its number of nuclear submarines. So we can see that China will not get deterred by AUKUS and this will lead to an arms race in the region as we saw in the beginning. And this is also one of the reasons why AUKUS could not be a game changer according to the experts. So now what about India? Will India gain something from AUKUS or India loses something from AUKUS? So according to experts, there might be some gains to India, especially India may derive secondary benefits from this partnership. That is because USA, UK and Australia who are part of this AUKUS are the three advanced nations with the most sophisticated military. So their presence in the Indo-Pacific through AUKUS may increase the freedom and openness of this region. And this can be beneficial to India. How it will be beneficial? See in the recent years, China has been trying to encircle India. For example, if you take the Belt and Road Initiative of China, under it, various infrastructure developments are being carried out by China in the Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and Maldives. And through these projects, China has been trying to encircle India. And now this AUKUS can partially mitigate this encirclement by China because already, US and Australia are quad members of India. So it is expected that this AUKUS will strategically benefit India in some arenas. But here, what we have to remember is that AUKUS will take a long time to be fully executed. And Australia will also need a lot of time to have a proper nuclear-powered fleet. So that means until AUKUS is fully established and until Australia has its nuclear-powered fleet, we have to wait and see how the power is shifted in the Indo-Pacific region, to what extent and in what direction the balance of power will be shifted, has to be seen by then. And considering this reason only, India has been indifferent to AUKUS. So regarding AUKUS, the situation is not clear. It has a lot of ambiguities. And right now, India is more interested in working with quad grouping rather than worrying about AUKUS. So that is all. In this discussion, we had a brief understanding about AUKUS. We saw what are its terms. We saw what are the concerns regarding AUKUS and what gains India has with respect to AUKUS. Now, let us move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is going to be based on this article about safe harbor rates. So recently, the tax department has notified the safe harbor rates for 2020 to 21. And that is why we are going to discuss about these safe harbor rates. See, whenever we say safe harbor, it refers to a provision in a law or regulation which affords protection from liability or penalty. And it reduces liability if certain conditions are met. So with respect to India, the safe harbor provision is provided with respect to transfer pricing. So what is transfer pricing? It implies the prices at which various overseas divisions of a company transact with each other. That is, if a subsidiary company sells goods or renders service to its holding company or a sister company, then the price charged between these companies is referred to as the transfer price. So here the holding company is getting services from its subsidiary company. So what about safe harbor rates? These are the rates which are used for calculation of transfer pricing by foreign companies or firms in India. So under the existing provision of safe harbor in our country, the circumstances in which the tax authority shall accept the transfer price declared by the taxpayer is called as the safe harbor. Here the tax authority agrees to the transfer price declared by the taxpayer because the tax authority wants to minimize its interference in the taxation process. So that means if a company complies with certain calculation methods and if it follows certain check boxes, then the IT department will accept the transfer price as adopted by the company. This reduces the administrative burden on the department. And this safe harbor and the rules associated with it is one of the best tax practices around the world because it increases the ease of doing business in a country. It brings clarity to taxation rules. It brings down ambiguities. It also increases the certainty in transactions. And also it eliminates the possibility of litigation between the taxpayers and the revenue authorities. Because what happens is when the tax department fixes the tax based on its own calculations, sometimes they are challenged in the court saying that they have followed wrong methods to calculate the tax. But in the safe harbor provision, the company themselves calculate their own route and method of paying the tax. But remember these methods are to be based on certain check boxes that have to be fulfilled by the company. And these safe harbor rules also favours automatic approvals and self-assessment procedures. It also eases the compliance to taxation rules. And finally, it also reduces the compliance cost. So the safe harbor methods, they reduce taxes. So because of this, safe harbor rules are one of the best tax practices around the world. And that is why India also wanted to follow this practice. And based on this, India introduced the concept of safe harbor rules in finance act of 2009. After that, India introduced the first round of safe harbor rules provisions in August 2013. And this was announced for a period of three years, which was later revised in the year 2017. After this revision, these rules were applicable till financial year 2019 to 20. And now again, through a notification, the Central Board of Direct Taxes has extended the applicability of safe harbor rules. And this time period has been extended to 2020-21. I note that as per the latest notification, the rates under safe harbor rules are applicable from 2016 to 17. And they are going to continue till 2020-21. And this has happened only due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So the pandemic comes under control. Then we can expect a reduction in the safe harbor rates also. So what are the rates fixed under it? See, actually different rates are prescribed for different categories of international transactions. For example, the category of software development will have a different rate. The category of information technology-enabled services will have a different rate. So it varies from category to category. So on a whole, the safe harbor rules and rates, they are bound to business. And it brings certainty in transactions. It is also used by many taxpayers as a dispute resolution mechanism for transfer pricing issues. Just remember these facts don't go into much technicality. That is not required for our examination. We have to remember the benefits. You have to remember what it means. Now let us move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is going to be important from the science and technology areas of our syllabus. And this discussion is going to be based on this article from the science page. It is actually a question corner. And this question corner talks about the presence of Martian water. We know that Mars has no liquid water on its surface today. But this article talks about a recent study regarding this non-existence of water on Mars. According to this study, one of the major reasons for this is that the size of Mars is small to hold on to large amounts of water. So maybe due to the size of Mars also, there is no liquid water on its surface according to this recent study. So taking this opportunity, today let us have an understanding about planet Mars. And let us also discuss important missions that discovered the presence of Martian water. So this topic is important from a problem's perspective because you may get a match the following question. And it is also important from the main's perspective where a question may directly, you know, ask you to write the missions regarding discovery of Martian water. So let us dive into this discussion without wasting much time. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. So first let us have a brief understanding about Mars. So Mars is the last planet of the inner four terrestrial planets in the solar system. It has two natural satellites. These are named as Deimos and Phobos. And we know that Mars is popularly known as the red planet. Why it is called as a red planet? It is because its soil looks like rusty iron. And we know that that rusty iron has a rusty red color and this red dust covers almost all parts of Mars. And this makes the planet look like it is covered in red color. And if you talk about its topography, Mars is generally rocky. It has canyons, volcanoes and craters all over it. Then it also has clouds and wind just like that of Earth. And if you compare Mars with Earth, you should note that Mars is about half the size of Earth and Mars has about one third the gravity of Earth. The next, what about its atmosphere? See this Martian atmosphere is composed primarily of carbon dioxide. This is an important fact from Prelim's perspective. Additionally, also note that Martian atmosphere is very thin. And due to this, the planet is subjected to a continuous attack of cosmic rays and it also produces very little greenhouse effect. Then if you talk about the climate there, Mars is usually very cold. In fact, the average temperature on Mars is minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit, which is way below freezing. And also, as we saw in the beginning, Mars has no liquid water on its surface today. So there were some explorations to space which hinted about the presence of water in the Mars in the past. Let us see them one by one. Now among this, the first one are the Mariner series, especially the Mariner 8 and 9. These were the final pair in NASA's Mariner series. So Mariner series is a NASA mission. Now among these two, Mariner 8 failed and only Mariner 9 was successfully launched. And it became the first artificial satellite of Mars. Now this Mariner 9 revealed pictures of a Grand Canyon on Mars and it also revealed pictures of remains of ancient riverbeds on Mars. So Mariner 9 is important. Now the next one is also a NASA's mission. Actually, today we are going to focus on NASA's mission only. And the next one is the Viking project. This mission consisted of two spacecraft. They were named as Viking 1 and Viking 2. Now each of these spacecrafts consisted of an orbiter and a lander. And these spacecrafts, they produced images of volcanoes, lava planes, immense canyons, crater areas, wind formed features on the Mars. And most importantly, they also had images that reveal the evidence of surface water. See actually, the orbiter images had striking evidence for ancient riverbeds and vast flooding on Mars. And you should remember that the results from Viking experiments gave almost a complete view of Mars. Now the next important mission is NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. This mission studied the entire Martian surface, atmosphere and interior. Now one of the most exciting observations made by this mission is that it revealed the repeatable weather patterns that was prevalent on Mars. And it also produced high-resolution images of the documented gullies and debris flow. These were present at the surface of the Mars. See these debris flow were similar to an aquifier. We know that aquifier is a body of permeable rock which contains groundwater. So based on this, again it was hinted that there either is presence of water in Mars or there was presence of water in the past. Now next mission is the Mars Pathfinder. Now its findings included evidence of conglomerates which were generally formed in the running water during a warmer past. And at this period of time, the liquid water was stable and this mission also observed early morning water ice clouds in the lower atmosphere of Mars. And more importantly, the mission also provided evidence of an active water cycle in the past. And it is said that this could have leached out the iron from the materials on the crust of Mars. Now the next mission is Mars Odyssey Mission of 2001. See this mission consists of the Odyssey spacecraft which is the NASA's longest-lasting spacecraft at Mars. And in this mission, scientists used Odyssey's gamma ray spectrometer instrument to detect hydrogen. And this indicated the presence of water ice in the upper meter of soil in a large region surrounding the south pole of Mars. This mission also enabled scientists to create maps of minerals and chemical elements and it helped them to identify regions with buried water ice. So Mars Odyssey Mission is quite important regarding the Martian water. Now the next important mission is the Mars Phoenix Lander. So this lander also confirmed the existence of large amounts of water rise in the northern regions of Mars. Then we also have some important rovers. These also made significant discovery of water. These rovers are named as opportunity and spirit rovers. Here the opportunity rover revealed evidence for past lakes that evaporated to form sulphate-rich sands on Mars. And the spirit rover found a variety of rocks indicating subsurface water. So both of these rovers found evidence for past wet conditions that possibly could have supported microbial life on Mars. Now the next important one is the Mars reconnaissance orbiter of NASA. This orbiter revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars. Now we're not going to get into the technicalities of how they found evidence of Martian water. Just note that all these missions found some evidence of Martian water. They either hinted that Martian water was present in the past or they also hint there is frozen ice beneath its land. So further research and exploration will tell us more about the Martian water. In this discussion, we saw about Mariner 9 series. We saw about Mariner 9 mission, Viking project, Mars Global Surveyor Mission, Mars Pathfinder Mission, Mars Odyssey Mission, the Phoenix Lander, Operation T-Rover, Spirit rover, and finally Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. So we saw about nine important missions of Mars that were linked to the presence of Martian water. Let us move to the next discussion. Our next discussion is going to be based on this news article from the business page. It talks about service exports from India's scheme. So recently the benefits for this scheme for the year 2019 to 2020 has been notified. And regarding this notification, several service sectors and even service exporters have raised concerns. So in this discussion, let us first know about this scheme and then we'll see what is the issue. So now let us get into the discussion. First note that this service exporters from India's scheme, it was launched by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry through its directorate general of foreign trade. So what is the purpose of the scheme? The purpose is to provide an incentive to the service exporters who are based in India. So the scheme provides incentive to the service exporters. And what is the main objective of the scheme? The objective is to boost and maximize the export of notified or selected services from India. Or simply we can say that its main goal is to promote the export of services from India. This scheme was actually introduced in the year 2015. It was introduced as part of foreign trade policy of India 2015 to 2020. And just note that this scheme replaced a past scheme called as served from India scheme. Now when it was introduced, the validity of the scheme was up to five years. That is it was up to 31st March of 2020 only. But due to COVID-19 outbreak, the Commerce Ministry and Industry announced extension of the foreign trade policy up to March 2021. And based on this, this scheme has also been extended. So now let us see how does this scheme work. Under this scheme, the service exporters are granted benefits in the nature of transferable duty credit scripts as a percentage of net foreign exchange earned on export of the eligible services in a financial year. So in the sentence, I have said many technical terms. Let us understand it in simple words. First, let us understand what are these eligible services. See among the services exported in a financial year, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade notifies a list of eligible services under this scheme. And this list is notified so that the eligible service providers or service exporters, they can earn benefits in the nature of transferable duty credit scripts. So what is this duty credit scripts? See when we say scripts, it means a provisional certificate of money. So this certificate entitles the holder to a formal certificate and dividend. And this duty credit script is the most popular export promotion incentive that is provided by the government to the exporters. And what is the incentive provided here? The incentive provided is the import tariff concessions to the exporters. Here you may get confused as to we are talking about boosting the exports. Then why import tariff is provided? Let us take an example to understand why this is happening. See exporters may have a need to import machineries and components. This could be some specialized machineries and components which are not available in our country or which are developed in other countries. And this could be used by the exporters for producing exportable goods. So if you take certain services such as services related to health, education, communication, et cetera, the exporters can get import tariff concessions towards specific percentage of their export value. Here the import tariff we are talking about is the custom duty. So some concession is provided in the custom duty. And this concession depends on the specific percentage of their export value. So now there is a question of how much tariff concession is provided. See under the scheme, exporters of selected services are entitled to about 3% or 5% or even 7% incentive. And this incentive is provided on the net foreign exchange which is earned in the form of duty credit scripts. So that means this 3%, 5%, 7% these incentive rates are computed on the total foreign exchange earned by an exporter by exporting a service in a financial year. So on one hand, these SCIS scripts can be used to pay import duty, as you already saw. And sometimes it can also be encached by selling it to any importer. So when it is encached, this behaves as a cash incentive scheme also. And based on this, these duty credit scripts are also called as transferable duty credit scripts. So that means the entire idea behind the scheme is to increase the forex reserve of India by promoting the export of services. And one of the important facts that you need to note about the scheme is that here the government is not providing concession discount or deduction in the export duty. But it is providing concession in the import duty. This is because the government has already fixed the export duty at a very low price so as to promote the exports. So by reducing the import duty, the logic applied here is that the exporter will export even more when the import duty is reduced. Because this import duty will help the exporter to buy machineries from other countries, which will boost production in our country. And since this import duty is set at a very high rate, the reduction provided by this scheme actually helps the exporters. So here, the government doesn't want the exporters to think about stopping or reducing their service export just because of high cost import of machineries. So through this scheme, the government wants to achieve a win-win situation where government will get reasonable export duty on one hand. And on the other hand, the exporter will also be incentivized by the concession in import duty. So now what is the issue mentioned in the news article? See, initially we saw that recently the government has notified benefits for 2019 to 2020 under this scheme. And it has made certain changes in the benefits that have been announced. The first change is that in the recently released notification, certain services, which were eligible before, has been excluded from the list. So the excluded services include management consulting services, technical testing and analysis services, support services for maritime transport, and cargo handling services, et cetera. So these services were eligible before. And now they have been excluded from the list. So they cannot avail the benefits under this scheme. Apart from this, the benefit rate has also been reduced in case of tourism sector. That is earlier, 7% incentive rate was fixed for tourism sector. And now it has been reduced to 5%. Other than that, the new notification has set a cap on the benefits claimed. See, the benefits are usually claimed based on the IEC. IEC stands for importer-exporter code. This is a key business identification number. This number is mandatory for exports or imports. You know that we have GSTIN for goods and services tax. So similarly, for import and exports, we have the IEC. So based on this only, one can claim the benefits under this scheme. But now a cap has been set on the benefits. According to the cap, each IEC can claim only benefits up to 5 crore. So even though if they have more than 5 crore, net foreign exchange earned in the form of duty credit scripts, they can only claim up to 5 crore rupees. So on a whole, many changes has been brought down by this notification, especially it has reduced the overall benefits. And already in this pandemic scenario, industries are going through a tough phase. And a notification like this affects the continuance of services even more. So in this discussion, we understood about the services exports from India scheme. We saw how it works. We saw what are the concessions provided or the incentives provided under the scheme. And finally, we saw the issues based on the recent notification under the scheme. Notice more to the next discussion. So viewers and aspirants, with this news article discussion, we are now moving to the next session. In this session, we are going to see three news articles. And these news articles talk about the topics which we have already covered in our news analysis. So I'm just going to say what is the news and where can you find those discussions. So this first news article, it talks about the National Mission on Cultural Mapping. The news article mentions that this mission has now been handed over to the Indira Gandhi National Center for Arts. This mission was introduced in 2017 itself, but much has not been done under this mission. And now, this center is planning to have a trial run in 75 villages. And as you know, under this mission, government is building a comprehensive database of artists, art forms, and other resources from organizations. So we had a detailed discussion on this mission on our 27th May Hindi News Analysis. You can find that discussion on that day. Now this next discussion, it mentions that a warning has been given in Odisha regarding the Cyclone Gulab. Now according to the Indian Meteorological Department, this cyclone is expected to hit Andhra Pradesh and certain districts of Odisha also. And that is why now alert has been given. So whenever we talk about cyclones, you have to know what are these and what are the favorable conditions for the formation of the tropical cyclones or tropical storms and how it is formed. These facts are very important from the problems and main's perspective. And recently on August 31st, we had a detailed discussion on tropical cyclones. You can view that analysis to know more about tropical cyclones. Now this next news article has appeared in the Delhi edition. This news article talks about the right to be forgotten. It mentions that an individual has filed an application based on his right to be forgotten. Actually, this is an important right which is often in news nowadays. We have discussed about this right in detail. On our June 17th, 2021 Hindi News Analysis. Please refer to that analysis because there is a chance in this problems itself that might be a question based on this. So with these reference news articles, now let us move on to the next session on practice questions. These questions have been framed based on the discussions on news articles. Now this first question is a pair based question on one side Mars mission is given and on the other side, the country to which the mission belongs to is given. The first pair is hope USA. This is first pair is incorrect because the hope is a mission of United Arab Emirates. It is not a mission of USA. That is, it is not a mission of NASA. This mission is also known as Emirates Mars mission. So one should not be in answer. If you eliminate that, you can easily arrive at the correct answer which is option B, two, three and four only. This hope mission was recently in use and it is very important for the prelims 2021. Now among the remaining pairs, Mangalyan is India's Mars mission which is also called as MOM that is Mars Orbiter Mission. It was launched by Indian Space Research Organization India 2013. Now the next pair is Tianwen-1 China. This is also a correct pair. This is an interplanetary mission by China. It was launched in 2020. Now the fourth pair is also correct as you already saw, Phobos grunt. This is also called as Phobos grunt with a pH. It means Phobos ground in Russian. It is launched in the year 2011. This mission aim to study, collect and return samples from the Martian moon Phobos. We saw during discussion that Deimos and Phobos were the two moons of Mars. So this mission studied Phobos. And remember that this spacecraft also carried China's first Mars Orbiter. This Mars Orbiter is called as Yinghuo-1. So Phobos grunt belongs to Russia. Yinghuo-1 belongs to China. Now let us take this next question. It is based on safe harbor rates. First statement is it is used for calculation of transfer pricing by foreign firms in India. This is a correct statement. With respect to India, it is used for calculation of transfer pricing. Second statement, it eases the compliance to taxation rules. This is also correct. This is one of the major benefits of safe harbor provisions. And here the question asks for the correct statement. So the correct answer is option C both one and two. So with these two problems practice questions, now I have this quiz question for you. This question has been framed on the artificial reefs discussion of today. Four statements are given and you have to choose the incorrect statement. So be careful before mentioning the correct answer. You can post the correct answer in the comment section and I will tell you as usual whether your answer is right or not. And if possible, also try to say why your answer is the correct answer. This will show your real understanding of the topic. So with this, we have this main practice question. It is based on the AUKUS discussion. You can write the answer to this question and post it in the comment section for peer review. So aspirants and viewers, with this we have come to today's in the news analysis and practice questions discussion session. 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