 A very good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankarae's Academy for the date 8th of December 2021. So these are the list of articles that we have taken today for a discussion. Before going into the discussion, I will give you a brief about them. So the first article here, it talks about an incident that had happened in Nagaland recently. So under this article discussion, we will see what that incident is and we are going to take this discussion forward in two aspects. One is we are going to cover the AFSPA Act and the other is we are going to cover Hornbill Festival and about the bird Hornbill. Moving on, the next article is about election commission warning officers for violating model code of conduct. So under this article discussion, we are going to discuss about the election commission and basic details about it such as its composition, functions, etc. And moving on, the third article, it is about the SBM Urban 2.0. It is nothing but the switch Bharat mission. So under this guidelines, we are going to see the components of the mission and the funding part. And finally, this article is about the sessions of the parliament getting adjourned. So under this article discussion, we are going to see what are all the sessions in the parliament and what are all the important proceedings that are happening in the parliament. Okay, without any delay, let's get into our discussion. This front page article talks about the request by Nagaland people to repeal the Draconian AFSPA Act i.e. Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958. So in this discussion, let us understand which tragic incident led to this demand. The syllabus related to the topic is given here for your reference, please make a note of it. First of all, let us see what was the tragic incident. Last Saturday, the Army's Assam Rifles Unit conducted an operation in Nagaland. This operation was based on the intelligence inputs received about insurgents belonging to a banned terrorist organization called NSCNK or also called as National Socialist Council of Nagaland Kaplang. In the operation, Army ambushed a vehicle and they opened fire on civilians. But only after this, it came to the light that the intelligence input received was false. So when they were attacking the vehicle, they thought that it was the insurgents who were travelling in that vehicle. And as a result, 14 civilians have been killed and many are injured by Army's operation and these civilians belong to the Konya tribe. Now the Army was able to conduct this operation due to the AFSPA Act which gives the Army enormous powers. So the Nagaland State Government asked the Central Government to repeal the Act. So in this discussion, we will see everything about the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958. So what is this? See the genesis of the AFSPA 1958 can be traced to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act of 1948. This 1948 act was enacted to replace four ordinances and was based on the Armed Forces Special Powers Ordinance of 1942. These ordinances were promulgated by the British to suppress the Indian freedom movement especially from the start of the Quit India movement. So for this purpose, the ordinances gave special powers to certain officers of armed forces of British India to deal with an emergency. Let us see what are those special powers. They included the use of force on any person if that person doesn't obey the forces or damages any property or resists the arrest. The force could be used even to cause the death of that person. Most importantly they provided complete immunity to the officers as the actions of the officers could not be challenged in court except with the prior approval of the Central Government. So now you can understand the draconian nature of these ordinances that were used by the British on Indian people. So following those ordinances promulgated by the British to restrict the Indian freedom movement, after the independence of India, another AFSPA Act was enacted by the Central Government. It was modelled on the 1942 Act. The Act was used by the Central Government to deal with the internal security situation in the country after independence in 1947. Later in 1957 this 1948 Act was repealed. It was struck down. But again it was resurrected as AFSPA 1958. According to the Central Government, 1958 Act was enacted to handle the fast deteriorating internal security situation in Assam and Manipur. See at that time the Nagas from the Naga Hills of Assam and Manipur opposed the merger of their area with the Indian Union. This slowly emerged into a severe insurgency situation in the region. So the Central Government argued that the Act will enable the armed forces to function effectively and deal with any kind of such insurgency situations. Here note that at that time the Act was called as the armed forces Assam and Manipur Special Powers Act 1958 but now it is just referred as AFSPA. Aspirin should also remember that our country has another similar law for Jammu and Kashmir region which is called as Armed Forces JNK Special Forces Act of 1990. After the reorganization and downgrading of the erstwhile state of JNK, this Act is now operational in both JNK and Ladakh Union Territories and it is under the administration of Ministry of Home Affairs Government of India. So basically the AFSPA 1958 was enacted with the objective of providing certain special powers to the members of the armed forces in the disturbed areas. These disturbed areas are the ones in the Nord-Eastern states of Arnachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. So far we saw the historical background of AFSPA Act which is the ordinances promulgated by the British to suppress the Indian freedom movement. Independent India in the year 1948 enacted AFSPA Act 1948 to deal with the internal security situations immediately after independence. In 1957, the 1948 Act was repealed but again it was enacted to handle the fast-ditoriating internal security situation in Assam and Manipur. And we also saw that there is another similar law for Jammu and Kashmir region which is Armed Forces JNK Special Powers Act 1990. Having seen that, now let us move on to understand what are the special powers. Before that let us first see what is a disturbed area. It is any area which is for the time being declared as a disturbed area under the Section 3 of the Act 1958 and it is done through a notification. We will see who can declare a disturbed area. This power is vested with the governor of the respective state or the central government. They can declare a whole of a state or any part of such state as disturbed area if in their opinion that the state or its part is in a disturbed or dangerous condition. So if the governor of a state or the central government in their opinion feel that a particular region is in a disturbed or dangerous condition they can declare that particular region as disturbed area. And in their opinion to handle the condition the use of armed forces in aid of the civil power is necessary. So currently whole state of Assam, Manipur and Nagaland have been declared as disturbed area. And in Arunachal Pradesh, Thirap, Changlang and Longding districts have been declared as disturbed area. So who exercises this special power? We will see who is given this special power. It is given to certain officers in the disturbed area. The officers include any commissioned officer in the armed forces or warrant officer in the armed forces. Non-commissioned officer or any other person of equivalent rank in the armed forces. Now we will see what are the powers given to them. First of all after giving due warning the officer can fire upon or use force against any person who is acting in contravention of any law or order in the disturbed area. Such firing or using of force can even be done for causing death of that person. As per the act the officer can act in this way if she is of opinion that it is necessary for maintaining public order. So we can now see how similar AFSPA Act 1958 is to the ordinance of colonial era we saw already. Second power is that the officer can destroy any place if it is used for armed attacks or if it could be used for attacks. The officer can also destroy the training camps or hideouts of armed gangs. The next power is very important. They have the power to arrest any person without warrant. They can arrest a person who has committed a cognizable offence. Cognizable offence is the one where a police officer can arrest without warrant. But the issue here is the arrest can be made even if a reasonable suspicion exists on that person. That he has committed or is about to commit a cognizable offence. Further the officer can also use force to arrest that person. And additionally the officer can enter and search any premises without warrant to make the arrest. So these are the most important powers that are given to the officers under the AFSPA Act. Adding to these powers the act also protects the officer like the colonial era ordinances. Against the officers no prosecution, legal suit or other legal proceedings can be instituted for using the powers under the act. There is an exception to this protection. The legal proceedings can be instituted only with the previous sanction of the central government. Now let us see what are the issues with the act. First of all it provides immunity from prosecution to the officers. So they have no fear of being held accountable. Secondly it provides enormous powers to officers which are often misused. Because they can shoot to kill, they can arrest any person without warrant. They can search any place without warrant. They can destroy places. The recent Nagaland tragedy is a great example here for this. And while exercising these powers the soldiers have raped, tortured and killed the citizens for more than half century. So there is violation of many human rights and fundamental rights. And thirdly the act functions on the discretion of governor of a state or the central government. As we saw the power to declare a region as disturbed area is vested with the governor of a state or the central government. And fourthly there is no definite criterion to declare any area as disturbed. Because from what we saw before it is evident that governor or the central government they can declare an area as a disturbed area. If in their opinion that particular region is in a disturbed or dangerous condition. So here there is no definite criterion or definitions for declaration of any area as disturbed area. So this leads to the declaration of any area as disturbed area and armed forces can use their power. And due to these issues now the Nagaland people and the government is asking to repeal the act. And with this we have come to the end of our discussion. Let's have a quick recap. We saw the historical background of the act which traces back to the British period. The act was enacted in the year 1948 to deal with internal security situation immediately after independence. And it was repealed in the year 1957 and in the year 1958 it was again enacted to handle the fast deteriorating internal security situation Assaman Manipur. There is a similar law for JNK region which is AFSPA 1990. And after that we saw a particular region can be declared as disturbed area under the section 3 of the act through a notification. Governor of a state or the central government is vested with the power to declare a particular region as disturbed area. And we saw the states which are declared as disturbed area right now which include Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and in Arunachal Pradesh 3 districts. And we saw the ranks of the officers who enjoyed the special powers. And after that we saw in detail about the powers given to these officers which is the officer can fire upon or use force against any person. He can destroy any place. He can arrest any person without warrant. He can enter and search any premises without warrant. Adding to this he also enjoys immunity from prosecution or any legal suit. The only exception is that the legal proceedings can be instituted with the previous sanction of the central government. And finally we saw the issues regarding the act which are the immunity from prosecution and the enormous powers given to the officers and the violation of human rights and fundamental rights and the non-existence of definite criterion for declaration of any area as disturbed area. With this learnt points in mind let's move on to the next article. The news article talks about the election commission cautioning Telangana chief secretary to issue warnings for the officers violating model code of conduct which plays an important role in conducting free and fair elections. So what we are going to do here is we are not going to go deep in this issue. Instead we are going to take this article as a background. And in that context we are going to discuss about election commission, its composition and some of its functions. And finally we will have a brief look at what is model code of conduct. See election commission it is a constitutional body. It is understand why it is called as a constitutional body. See constitutional bodies they are nothing but the bodies that are mentioned in the constitution and they derive their powers from it. For example UPSC, national commission for SCs and STs. They are specifically mentioned in the constitution meaning they have dedicated articles under which these bodies are mentioned. There is another category which is called a statutory body. These are non-constitutional bodies and they are not mentioned in the constitution. For example National Human Rights Commission, Central Information Commission. These bodies are established under respective acts. Take for example Human Rights Commission it is established under Protection of Human Rights Act 1933. And the Central Information Commission it is established under the RTI Act 2005. So from this you can clearly understand election commission comes under the category of constitutional body. Because it is mentioned in the constitution under the article 324. The purpose of election commission is to ensure free and fair elections in the country. Now let us take a look at the provisions of the article mentioned in the constitution. So the article 324 class 1 says that the superintendents direction and control of the preparation of electoral roles for and the conduct of all the elections to the parliament and to the legislature of every state and of elections to the offices of the president and vice president held under this constitution shall be vested in a commission referred to in this constitution as the election commission. So basically election commission conducts elections to parliament, legislature of states, elections to the offices of president and vice president. An important point to be remembered here is election commission is not concerned with the elections to panjayats and municipalities. They are conducted by state election commission. Moving on, we'll look into the composition of election commission. Before seeing the current setup we'll see some details about how it evolved into the current setup. See the election commission of India was a single member body when it was established in the year 1950. Later in the year 1989 the election commission transformed into a multi-member body. Let us see why the transformation occurred. See the minimum voting age of the voters was reduced from 21 years to 18 years. So to cope up with the increased work of election commission the president appointed two more election commissioners. So coming back to the current setup as of now election commission is a multi-member body with three election commissioners. They include one chief election commissioner and two other election commissioners. They are appointed by the president of India. See here under the article 324 class 5 the conditions of service and tenure of the office of election commissioners and regional commissioners are given. So according to this clause the conditions of service and tenure are determined by president. So based on that the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners have a tenure of 6 years or up to the age of 65 years whichever is earlier. And also know that the election commissioners enjoy status similar to the judges of the supreme court in terms of salary, allowances and perks. As given in this clause when it comes to the removal of chief election commissioner he or she can be removed only on the same grounds as of a judge of supreme court. And other election commissioner or regional commissioners are removed on the recommendation of chief election commissioner. So far we saw the constitutionality of the election commission so it is mentioned under the article 324 which makes it a constitutional body. And we also saw that it administers elections to parliament both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, state legislature and the office of president and to the office of vice president. And after that we saw the composition of EC as of now it is a multi-membered body with one chief election commissioner and two other election commissioners. In the constitution it is given that the conditions of service and tenure are determined by the president. And we also saw that the chief election commissioner can be removed on the same grounds as a judge of supreme court and other election commissioners are removed on the recommendation of chief election commissioner. Now let us see how the election commission is functioning as an independent body. See it is ensured in the constitution itself. We will see what they are. The first one is that the tenure of the chief election commissioner is secured. The chief election commissioner can be removed by parliament only on the same grounds as a judge of supreme court that is on the grounds of proved misbehavior or incapacity. So to make it clear the chief election commissioner can be removed only by the president on the basis of a resolution passed in the parliament. This resolution for impeachment should be passed by a special majority in both the houses of the parliament. Special majority is nothing but a majority of total membership of the house not less than two-thirds present and voting. So from this we can safely say that the chief election commissioner does not hold office till the pleasure of the president though he or she is appointed by the president. Moving on the second one is when looked into the service conditions of the election commissioner it is clearly mentioned in the article that it cannot be varied to his or her disadvantage after the appointment. So this provision will help in avoiding the external manipulation and the third one is the other election commissioners or regional commissioners they can be removed from office only on the recommendation of the chief election commissioner. So these are the three provisions in the constitution that ensures the independence of election commission. Now let's look into some of the functions and powers of election commission. See in India the election commission is responsible for a free and reasonable fair elections. It ensures that the political parties and candidates are there to the model code of conduct. It regulates the parties and registers them to contest in the elections. In the election commission they also propose the limit of campaign expenditure per candidate to all parties and they also monitor the same. It guarantees that all political parties regularly submit audited financial reports. Now we'll see some of the duties of election commission. So they supervise, control and conduct all elections to parliament and state legislatures. They conduct general rules for election and they prepare electoral roles. They determine the territorial distribution of constituencies and they allot election symbols to the political parties or individual candidates for that matter. And they also appoint tribunals or offices for the decision of doubts and disputes arising out of an election to parliament and state legislatures. Apart from this they advise the president on matters relating to the disqualification of members of the parliament. And they also advise the governor on matters relating to the disqualification of members of state legislature. And they request the president or the governor for the appointment of the staff necessary for conducting elections. And they also advise the president whether election can be held in a state under president's rule. So these are some of the functions of the election commission. Now let's move on to see about model code of conduct. Election commission first issued a model code of conduct for political parties in the year 1971. Since then the code has been revised from time to time and lays down guidelines as to how the political parties and candidates should conduct themselves during elections. So it is nothing but a set of norms to be followed by the political parties and the candidates contesting the elections. And it means that these norms evolved with the consensus of the political parties. The model code of conduct is enforced from the date of announcement of election schedule and it will stay operational till the process of elections are completed. One of the main roles of election commission is to ensure that all the political parties and the contesting candidates follow this model code of conduct. Given here some of the provisions under the model code of conduct, we just go through it to have an idea about what they are. Now let's have a quick recap. We saw about the constitutionality of the election commission, the article 324 under which the election commission is mentioned. And we saw that election commission conducts elections to the parliament, state legislature, office of the president and vice president. And after that we saw about the conditions of service and tenure of office for election commissioners. And after that we saw how they are removed and we saw some of the provisions under the article 324 that ensured the independence of the constitutional body that is election commission. And we saw the functions and main duties of election commission and finally we saw what is model code of conduct. With this we have come to the end of our discussion. Let's move on to the next article. For our next news discussion we have taken this editorial article. See recently in the month of October our union minister for the ministry of housing and urban affairs launched the operational guidelines of Swetch Bharat Mission Urban 2.0 and this particular editorial article is written in this background. So in this context let us learn about the SBM 2.0 which is nothing but Swetch Bharat Mission Urban 2.0 and also the other important points mentioned by the author. The syllabus covered by this editorial article is highlighted here for your reference. As we all know the Swetch Bharat Mission, the Swetch Bharat Abhyan or the Clean India Mission is a country-wide campaign. It was initiated by Government of India in the year 2014. The main objective of this campaign was to eliminate open defecation and to improve solid waste management. This is actually a restructured version of Nirmal Bharat Abhyan that was launched in the year 2009. See the phase 1 of the Swetch Bharat Mission lasted till October 2019 and phase 2 will be implemented between 2020-21 and 2024-25. So currently we are in phase 2 of the mission. The second phase of the mission aims to sustain the open defecation free status and also to improve the management of liquid and solid waste. So we saw the main objective of the campaign is to eliminate open defecation and to improve solid waste management. In the phase 1 we have achieved to an extent open defecation free status. So in the second phase what we are going to do is we are going to sustain the status and also improve the management of solid and liquid waste. Now let us see about the recent SBM 2.0 guidelines. See the objective of SBM 2.0 is to continue to make progress in the aims of SBM which was launched in the year 2014. But then one important fact about this phase is its increased focus on the dimension of solid waste management. So in this phase importance has been given to solid waste management. We will have a brief about what is that. See solid waste management is nothing but the process of collecting, treating and disposing solid waste. Some popular types of solid waste include residential wastes, industrial waste, commercial waste, institutional waste, waste from construction and demolition areas and then municipal services and the waste from treatment plants and sites. And they also include agricultural and biomedical waste. So solid waste management is we are collecting all these waste from different areas and we are treating them in a particular place and then finally disposing them safely into the environment. See this procedure between the collection and the disposing of solid waste includes a lot of processes that are happening in between. For example one of the process is collection. We are collecting the waste and the other is transportation. The collected waste is transported to the treatment plants to the area where the treatment is going to happen. And the third process is treatment. We are applying different techniques and we are treating the waste to convert them from hazardous state to non-hazardous state. And there is this process called analysis in that we are analyzing the state of the treated waste. And finally the process of disposal. We are disposing the treated waste into the environment which is safe to be disposed of. Okay now coming back as I told you SBM 2.0 is paying more attention to solid waste management. This 2.0 phase actually aims beyond the efficient collection and transportation of waste. Especially brings focus on the processing of all types of waste like plastic waste, construction waste, demolition waste, e-waste, biomedical waste etc. And on that line it is providing the required budgetary support for remediating old waste. Which are already disposed in dump sites across 4372 cities in India. And this task of remediating old waste is planned to be achieved before March 2023. Just remember that the components involved in this project includes source segregation, door-to-door collection of waste, separate transportation for different types of waste and the processing of wet waste, dry waste, construction and demolition waste. Now let us see what all we saw so far. So we saw about Swach Bharat Abhyan. It was launched in the year 2014 with the main objective to eliminate open defecation and to improve solid waste management. See two phases are there. Phase 1 lasted till October 2019 and phase 2 will be implemented between 2020-21 to 2024-25. And we saw about Swach Bharat Mission 2.0 guidelines whose focus is on solid waste management. And we saw the processes that are happening in the solid waste management procedures from collection to transportation to treatment to analysis to disposal. And we saw some of the types of solid waste. And finally we saw the components involved in this project which is source segregation, door-to-door collection, separate transportation for separate waste, processing of wet waste, dry waste, construction and demolition waste. Okay now moving on to the funding part. See the total funding dedicated for the implementation of this SBM 2.0 is 1.41 lakh crore rupees. And in this 1.41 lakh crore rupees an amount of 39,837 crore is set aside for solid waste management. So under phase 2 of this mission financial assistance will be provided to set up fresh waste processing facilities and also for bioremediation projects across all urban local bodies. See the term bioremediation which is mentioned here refers to the process of dismantling old waste heaps. This process makes use of living organisms to remove contaminants, pollutants or unwanted substances from soil or water. Note that this technology mainly utilizes microbes that is why the name itself is called as bioremediation. Using microbes or using living organisms we are remediating the waste. Okay now coming back. Apart from this 39,837 crore fund allocation it also provides financial assistance to set up waste processing facilities for the construction and demolition waste. But then this provision is limited to only a chosen 154 large cities. See this provision of financial assistance is expected to bring in a huge change in the entire process. Let me explain to you why. As per the SBM 2.0 guidelines the total quantity of waste generated by urban areas in India is about 1.32 lakh tons daily. If you add this 1.32 lakh tons for a year it will come up to 4.8 crore tons. But the sad fact here is of this 4.8 crore tons of waste only 25% is being processed which means only 25% is being treated and disposed in a safer way. And it also means that the rest is disposed off in landfills every year without getting treated. The remaining amount couldn't be processed due to the lack of poor infrastructure and funding. In fact many urban local bodies in several states prepared detailed project reports that is DPR for setting up waste processing systems for wet and dry waste and it was done as a part of SBM which were approved during the first phase that is till 2019. But then the process of setting up these facilities got delayed due to inadequate funding and techno process knowledge. And this eventually delayed the DPR approvals. This ultimately ended up with unprocessed waste being dumped in several cities. And those waste had to be processed through bioremediation. In Karnataka all the 200 plus municipalities had planned to take up bioremediation over the last 2 years. But then even these projects did not happen due to the lack of funds. So when viewed in this manner this financial assistance provided under SBM 2.0 is expected to bring an important intervention. See the financial assistance committed by the mission is not uniform. Not uniform in the sense it varies by state. But the important point to be noted here is SBM 2.0 allocates funding only to set up waste processing facilities. But when you take SBM that is during the first phase it provided funds even to buy efficient vehicles for door-to-door collection, transportation of waste and then to provide bins for segregation of waste at source and also to set up waste processing facilities. But that is not going to happen in SBM 2.0. Because here it specifically allocates funds only to setting up of waste processing facilities. So to conclude, lack of funds was one of the main reasons for the partial success of SBM in the solid waste management sector. But this problem is expected to be addressed in the SBM 2.0 since this mission is committing to pay a significant portion of the project cost to solid waste management facilities. It has also got the potential to achieve the Government of India's target of waste disposal sites being free from old waste by 2023. Another major positive aspect in this regard is that the transformation of waste disposal sites to the processing sites leads to the production of organic compost. Note that the organic compost recovered from the wet waste can be used to enrich the soil quality and not just that it can meet about 10-12% of the country's fertilizer demand. And in turn it will reduce the amount of chemical fertilizer that is being imported thereby saving about 2600 crore of subsidy paid by the government. So with this we have come to the end of our discussion. Let's have a quick recap. We saw about Swach Bharat Abiyan which was launched in 2014 with the main objective of elimination of open defecation and improvement of solid waste management. It came under two phases, one till 2019 and the second phase will be implemented between 2020-21 to 2024-25. The SBM 2.0 focus mainly on solid waste management and after that we saw different processes involved in the solid waste management procedure and from that we moved on to see different components of SBM 2.0 from source segregation to door-to-door collection to separate transportation to the processing and finally disposing of the treated waste and finally we saw the funding part. So in SBM 2.0 a significant part of the project cost is going to the solid waste management and the important factor is that it will fund only waste processing facilities unlike SBM which funded vehicles for door-to-door collection, transportation, segregation and also waste processing facilities and we saw about the government target to reduce old waste in the dumping sites by March 2023 and we saw about the process bioremediation. So with this structure in mind let's move on to the next article. This news article here is about the protests of the opposition leaders of Rajya Sabha against the suspension of 12 members for misconduct and as a consequence of it the session was adjourned many times on Tuesday. We are not going to touch the political issue here instead in this context let's discuss about different sessions of parliament and its proceedings like summoning, adjournment, adjournment, sign die and prorogation. First of all let us see about the sessions in the parliament. See it is the president who summons each house of parliament to meet from time to time. Parliament should meet at least twice a year because the maximum gap between two sessions cannot be more than six months. This is as per article 85 of the Indian constitution. There are usually three sessions of parliament in a year one is budget session which is held in the period from February to May and then there is monsoon session which is usually held in the period July to September and then there is winter session which is held in the months of November and December. When we say a session of parliament it refers to the period spanning between the first sitting of the house in a session and its prorogation. So prorogation here is nothing but the termination. We will understand what it is in detail later in the discussion. So here session is nothing but the period between first sitting and its termination. When we say recess it refers to the period spanning between the prorogation of a house and its reassembly in a new session. So here recess is nothing but the time period between the termination and the reassembly in a new session. Now let us see some terms that are associated with sessions of parliament. These are adjournment, adjournment signed by prorogation, dissolution and a quorum. See a session of parliament has many meetings. Each meeting in a day consists of two sittings. A sitting of a parliament can be terminated by adjournment. So adjournment is nothing but the termination of the sitting of the house. After the termination of the sitting the house meets again at a time period appointed for the next sitting. Now let us move on to see what is adjournment signed by. It refers to the termination of a sitting of the house without any definite date being fixed for the next sitting. So the major difference between adjournment and adjournment signed by is adjournment meets again at a time appointed for the next sitting. But adjournment signed by is the termination of a sitting without any definite date or time. The power of both adjournment and adjournment signed by lies with the presiding officer of the houses. So it lies with speaker when it comes to Lok Sabha and chairman when it comes to Rajya Sabha. Now come to prorogation. It refers to the termination of a session of the house by an order made by the president. So it is not done by the presiding officer but by the president of India. Now let us move on to dissolution. As we know only Lok Sabha is subjected to dissolution. Why is that? Because Rajya Sabha is a permanent house. It is not subject to dissolution. While the prorogation terminates a session of Lok Sabha, dissolution terminates the life of the existing Lok Sabha. So once in five years dissolution happens or in exceptional cases in between also dissolution happens in Lok Sabha. So what happens after the dissolution? General elections are held and new Lok Sabha is constituted. Now let us see about the quorum of the house. It refers to the minimum number of members required to be present in the house so that the house can transact any business. Article 100 in the Indian constitution deals with the quorum of the house. As per the article the quorum to constitute a meeting of either house of the parliament shall be one-tenth of the total number of members of the house. If there is no quorum at any time during a meeting it shall be the duty of the chairman or the speaker either to adjourn the house or to suspend the meeting until there is a quorum. So these are some of the information on terms pertaining to the session of the parliament. Now let us come to two important devices of the parliamentary proceedings. They are the question hour and the zero hour. First let us see about question hour. Generally the first hour of a parliamentary sitting is devoted to questions and that is why this hour is called as question hour. It has a special significance in the proceedings of the parliament. Asking of questions is an inherent and unfettered parliamentary right of the members of parliament. During question hour members can ask questions on every aspect of administration and governmental activity. During the question hour every minister whose turn is to answer questions has to stand up and answer for his or her acts of omission and commission or his or her administration's act of omission and commission. So the particular person here the minister is answering for their actions as well as their administration's acts of omission and commission. It is through these questions in the parliament the government reminds and touch with the people. This is because through the question hour the members are enabled to ventilate the grievances of the public in matters concerning the administration. Question hour is dealt by rules of procedure of both the houses of the parliament. Therefore question hour is a formal device. There are three kinds of questions under this. They are start questions, unstart questions and short notice questions. A start question requires an oral answer and therefore supplementary questions can follow. An unstart question requires a written answer and therefore supplementary questions cannot follow. To an unstart question a written answer is deemed to have been laid on the table after the question hour by the minister to whom the question is addressed. Now let's come to the short notice question. A member may be given a notice of question on a matter of public importance and of urgent character for oral answer at a notice less than 10 days. So the notice is being given before 10 days. Such a question is known as short notice question. 10 days is prescribed as the minimum period of notice for asking a question in ordinary course. See in this question hour questions can be asked to private members also. So it is not just asked to ministers it can be asked to private members. This is done when the subject matter of a question is related to some bill or other matter connected with the business of the house for which the private member is responsible. And finally let's see about zero hour. Zero hour is not mentioned in the rules of procedures of the houses therefore it is an informal device. Using this device members of the parliament rise matters without any prior notice. The zero hour starts immediately after the question hour and it lasts until the regular business of the house is taken up. The specialty of zero hour is that it is an Indian innovation in the field of parliamentary procedures and it has been in existence since 1962. So with this we have come to the end of our discussion let's have a quick recap. What all we saw in our discussion we saw about summoning the house of the parliament and we also saw that it is the president who summons each house of the parliament. And after that we saw the three sessions of the parliament which include budget session, monsoon session and winter session. And after that we saw adjournment which is nothing but termination of a sitting of house and we saw adjournment sign die. It refers to the termination of sitting of house without any definite date being fixed. Following that we saw prorogation which is termination of a session by the president. And after that we saw dissolution which is applicable only to Lok Sabha. So dissolution is nothing but dissolving the Lok Sabha before the general elections for new Lok Sabha. And after that we saw quorum of the house which is nothing but the minimum number of members required to be present in the house to transact business which is one tenth of the total number of members of house. And finally we saw two important devices of parliamentary proceedings question are and zero hour. To learn points in mind let's move on to the next article. Now let us take up this news article. See recently an army operation in Nagaland resulted in the death and injury of civilians. Following this unfortunate event the state government has called off the Hornbill Festival as a mark of respect to the deceased. So this is the news here. With this as a background let us learn some important facts about the mentioned Hornbill Festival and also about Hornbills in general. First of all let us see Hornbills. They are nothing but birds. In fact they are a family of birds which are found in tropical and subtropical Africa and Asia. They are typically large headed with thin necks, broad wings and long tails. And they have brown or black plumage usually with bold white markings. So this is the description of the bird hornbill. Now let us see some of its other characteristics. These birds they nest in cavities of large trees. And they play a key role in dispersing seeds of tropical trees. And they play a role in indicating the prosperity and balance of the forest they build their nests in. So for this reason they are called as the farmers of the forest. But unfortunately the population of these birds are significantly impacted by deforestation, habitat fragmentation and hunting. And myth about the medicinal value of their meat makes them frequent targets. See there are about 62 hornbill species world over of which Nayan reside in India. And out of which four species are found in western guards. They include Indian grey hornbill which is endemic to India. The Malabar grey hornbill which is endemic to the western guards. And the Malabar pied hornbill which is endemic to India and Sri Lanka. And the widely distributed but endangered the great hornbill. So these are the four species that are found in the western guards. So note that the great hornbill is evaluated as vulnerable by the IUCN. IUCN is nothing but international union for conservation of nature. It was founded in the year 1964 and it is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The great hornbill that we are discussing now is under vulnerable conservation status. So the species categorized as vulnerable are considered to be facing a high risk of extinction in the wild. In India it is given the highest level of protection under schedule one of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. India also has one species that has one of the smallest ranges of any hornbill. It is the Narcundam hornbill. It is found only on the island of Narcundam. Note the north-eastern region of India has the highest diversity of hornbill species. Remember that the great hornbill is the state bird of Arunachal Pradesh and also Kerala. Here the hornbills are seen as cultural symbols among certain ethnic communities especially in the northeast. So far we saw about the bird hornbill. Now let's move on to see about the festival which is hornbill festival. This festival of Nagaland is named after the bird hornbill which is actually the most revered and admired bird for the Nagas. See the hornbill festival also known as the festival of festivals is a 10 day annual program that attracts tourists from many parts. The festival starts on the 1st of December the day Nagaland attained statehood in the year 1963. This festival brings all the 17 tribes of the state on a general platform and it facilitates the promotion of their tribes culture to the rest of the world. The first edition of the festival took place in the year 2000 and over the years this festival has contributed significantly to enhance the states tourism brand. Know that hornbill festival is organized by the state tourism and art and culture departments and it is held at the Naga heritage village Kisama. Some of the major highlights of this hornbill festival includes the sale of arts and crafts, herbal medicine stalls and flower shows. In addition to this songs, dances, fashion shows, indigenous games and music concerts are also conducted. Note that one of the major highlights of this festival is the hornbill international rock festival which is held at the Indra Gandhi stadium where the local and international rock bands are roped in to perform. So these are some of the important facts about the bird hornbill and the hornbill festival of Nagaland. Now let's have a quick recap. We saw about the bird hornbill which is mostly found in tropical and subtropical Africa and Asia. They are large headed with thin necks, broad wings and long tails. They play a key role in dispersing seeds of tropical trees and are called as farmers of the forest. Their population is significantly impacted by deforestation, habitat fragmentation and hunting. And after that we saw that out of the many species of the hornbill, India alone has 9 of them and out of which 4 of them are found in western Ghats alone. The IUCN status of the great hornbill is vulnerable and in India it is protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. We also saw that it is the state bird of Arunachal Pradesh and Kerala and it is considered as cultural symbols of some ethnic communities. And after that we saw about the hornbill festival which is a festival in Nagaland and it is named after the bird hornbill. It is also called as festivals of festivals. The festival has created an opportunity to facilitate the promotion of their tribal culture to the rest of the world. The major highlights of the festival are sale of arts and crafts, herbal medicines, stalls and flower shows. See this article is important from Prillam's perspective. In any question they can ask in any statements. Now with this take away points in mind, come let us move on to the next part of our discussion. Here I have given some Prillam's questions for your practice. We will discuss them one by one. You also try to answer them on your own. Let's take up the first question. With reference to election commission of India, consider the following statements. Statement one, it is a single member body. Statement two, parliament nominates chief election commissioner. Statement three, the chief election commissioner can be removed only by president of India. So which of the statements given above is or are correct? So from these four options we have to select one which is the correct answer. I hope by now you would have found the answer but still I will explain it to you. Statement one, it is a single member body. This statement is incorrect because as of now election commission is a multi-membered body. It consists of chief election commissioner and two other election commissioners. We saw in our discussion that election commission was a single member body when it was established in the year 1950. But when the minimum voting age of the voters reduced from 21 to 18 to cope up with the increased work of the election commission, president appointed two more election commissioners. So now the election commission is a multi-membered body which makes the statement one incorrect. Statement two, parliament nominates chief election commissioner. The statement is also incorrect because as per the constitution of India, president appoints election commissioner. The president appoints chief election commissioner and other election commissioners. So statement two is also incorrect. Statement three, chief election commissioner can be removed only by president of India. This statement is true from our discussion. We can say that chief election commissioner is removed by a resolution of parliament on the grounds same as judge of supreme court. And finally, if the resolution is passed in the parliament with special majority, president removes chief election commissioner. So here statement three is only correct. So the correct option here is A3 only. Moving on, second question, with reference to the sessions of the parliament, consider the following statements. The presiding officers summon each house of the parliament. Statement two, parliamentary sessions can be conducted only when all members are present. Which of the following statements given above is or are correct? So we will discuss the statements one by one. The presiding officers summon each house of the parliament. The statement is incorrect because president summons each house of the parliament. The power of adjournment and adjournment signed only lies with presiding officer of the house. So the statement one is incorrect here. Parliamentary sessions can be conducted only when all members are present. This statement here is also incorrect because in our discussion we saw that the quorum which is the minimum number of members required to be present in the house to transact any business is one tenth of the total members of the house. So the statement here which says all members should be present is incorrect. Because what we need is the presence of only one tenth of the members of the house to transact the business. So the correct option here would be option D, neither one nor two. Moving on to the third question, consider the following statements about horn bills. They play a key role in dispersing seeds of the tropical trees. They are cultural symbols of some ethnic communities in northeast. They indicate the prosperity and balance of the forest they build nests in. See if you had carefully paid attention to our discussion about horn bill, we saw these under the characteristics of horn bills. Then you can easily infer that all the statements given here are correct. Hence the option would be option D which is one, two and three. I have given here some of the main questions for your practice. Interested candidates, write it and post it in the comment section. If you have any queries also please post it and I will address them in the upcoming video. So if you find the video useful, please like, share and comment. And do subscribe to the Shankaray's Academy YouTube channel for further updates. Thank you.