 Welcome to the Hindu news analysis by Shankar Iyer's academy. The list of topics chosen for today's discussion along with the page numbers is given here for your reference. Here is the first news article. Say this news article titled India cannot abandon us says Sri Lanka. So in this news article it is mentioned that the secretary to Sri Lanka's foreign affairs ministry has asked for India's proactive support at the UN Human Rights Council. So what is happening is a resolution on Sri Lanka's human rights violations will be put to vote in the UNHRC in the coming days. So Sri Lanka is expecting India's support to win over this vote. In this context let us discuss in brief the latest UN report on Sri Lanka and other ongoing issues. The relevant syllabus is given here for your reference. So the most recent UN report on Sri Lanka has highlighted the alarming path towards the recurrence of grave human rights violations. The report even warned that the failure of Sri Lanka to address past violations has significantly heightened the risk of human rights violations being repeated. See as most of us know Sri Lanka's present is haunted by memories of islands decades long civil war. The war was mainly a clash between Sinhalese dominated Sri Lankan government and an insurgent group called Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam that is a Tamil community. So the mainstream narrative or the government narrative suggests that civil war was derived from tensions between Sinhalese and Tamil ethnic groups. However the war also represented the legacy of British imperialism. Almost three fourths of Sri Lanka is the Sinhalese people and the remaining is Tamils who are a minority. And within these two groups Sinhalese tend to be Buddhist and Tamils are Hindus. So the significant both linguistic as well as religious divisions were worsened during the colonial rule. So Sri Lanka which was formerly called a Ceylon gained independence from Britain in 1948. In the post independent period the tensions arose between Sinhala majority and Tamil minority in the island nation. So this resulted in a bloody civil war in Sri Lanka. So the civil war started in 1980s and ended only in 2009 with the assassination of its leader Prabhakaran. So in 1980s and 1990s India proactively tried to contain this war because there was an immense pressure from Tamil Nadu government to support the Sri Lankan Tamils. So in 1987 then the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Jai Vardhani signed Indolanka Accord. So this accord was expected to resolve the Sri Lankan civil war by enabling the 13th amendment to the constitution of Sri Lanka and the provincial councils of 1987. So what is this amendment about? This amendment mainly aims at creating provincial councils in Sri Lanka and enable Sri Lanka and Tamil as national languages while preserving English as the link language. So basically it includes devolution of powers from central government to provincial government. But as we all know things didn't went in the right way when India sent a peacekeeping force to Sri Lanka and after that India completely came out of this issue by bringing back all the forces of India in Sri Lanka. So in 2009 when war is about to end the president of Sri Lanka was Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the president now. So this is why the concerns of human rights violations have popped up again. So coming back to UN report it highlighted the worrying trends of human rights violations in the last one year that is after new president came. So nearly after 12 years of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka ended impunity for grave human rights violations and abuses by all sides are more established than ever. Apart from all of these the current government headed by Gotabaya Rajapaksa is proactively obstructing the investigations and trials thus reversing the limited progress that had been previously made. So why is government obstructing the investigations? The current president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was defense secretary during this civil war period. So he was accused of grave human rights violations during the armed conflict and so now he has become the president of Sri Lanka. He is accused of giving impunity or indemnity to all the war criminals. So the report urges enhanced monitoring and strong preventive action by the international community to prevent grave human rights violations in the future. So the important issues in the report are accelerating militarization of civil governmental functions, reversal of important constitutional safeguards, political obstruction of accountability, exclusionary rhetoric and the use of anti-terrorism laws etc. So this is the basic info regarding the Sri Lankan issue in Human Rights Council. So coming to Human Rights Council it is consisting of around 47 member states which are elected by the majority of members of General Assembly of UN. As we all know India was elected to UNHRC for a period of three years from 2019. So currently the new development is a draft resolution has been submitted by UK, Canada etc. to the Human Rights Council to discuss and debate issues in Sri Lanka. So if it is proved that human rights violations are on increase in Sri Lanka, sanctions may be imposed on Sri Lanka. So Sri Lanka is asking India for proactive support as India is one of the important members in Human Rights Council. This is why India is in a dilemma whether to vote for or against the resolution or abstain from resolution. In this context also note that India recently urged Sri Lanka to implement the 13th amendment to its constitution that is Provincial Council's Devolution of Powers. Also in this context India's representative to the UN also said that India remains committed to aspirations of thermals of Sri Lanka for equality, justice, peace and dignity. So the main issue popped up because the relations between India and Sri Lanka were not good in the recent days. If you remember Sri Lanka scrapped a deal to develop a port which was jointly signed by Sri Lanka, India and Japan. So people are expecting that what if India goes against the Sri Lanka in Human Rights Council. So foreign secretary of Sri Lanka has asked India for its proactive support in helping Sri Lanka in Human Rights Council. So let us wait and see what India is going to do when the resolution comes up to vote in Human Rights Council. Have a brief idea on all these aspects in the context of Indo-Sri Lanka relations. Let us move on to next news article discussion. See this article titled the Biden touch to sober yet substantive ties. As the title suggests this article talks about the foreign policy approach of Joe Biden's government and what are the consequences for India. So the relevant syllabus is given here for your reference. So the previous president Mr. Trump was a very close friend of our current prime minister. So it was expected that when the new president Joe Biden took over the administration, the relations between the new president and our prime minister may not be as warm as they used to be before. But contrary to all these expectations, even the new administration in U.S. is taking the right steps with India when it comes to foreign policy. For example, the president Joe Biden continued the development of closer ties with India, including the promotion of Quad dialogue, Indo-Pacific policy, etc. Additionally, the U.S. government decided to lift the restrictions over visa's green cards has been very significant because it reduced the tensions between India and the U.S. Also, the priorities listed in the White House website included climate, healthcare, immigration. So it is showing that in most issues, India and U.S. are already engaging each other. So though it is too early to decide on the new president Joe Biden's administrative policies towards India, because hardly it has been only one and a half months since he took over the office. So but when we carefully analyze, we can sense a few problematic issues between India and the U.S. So let us try to understand one by one. Obviously the first one will be the China factor. So China knowingly or unknowingly contributed in bringing U.S. and India closer through its aggression along line of actual control in the last year. But as we said in the recent days, both countries have been disengaging from their position at Bangangso and so there are chances for Biden's to approach China in a strategical manner for their benefits. So unlike Trump who sees China as a hostile agent, Biden is carving a strategical path to manage both benefits and challenges. See for example, China is seen as a competitor to U.S. in fields like defense, trade, technology, but still U.S. needs Chinese cooperation in areas like climate change. So the China factor, we have to see how America is going to play a role to manage India interests in South Asia. And second issue is latest executive order signed by Biden regarding America supply chains. So America is pushing for localization of production. For example, if U.S. decides to localize the production of pharmaceuticals, then it will be a great blow to India since we are the major producers of pharmaceuticals. Additionally, India, Japan and Australia came together to develop a supply chain resilience initiative to counter their dependence on Chinese goods. But as of now U.S. is not a part of this. So if U.S. is going for protectionism, that is protecting its national interests through localization, the resilience initiative of India, Japan and Australia may not be so fruitful. So in this issue, more deliberations are required between the Quad partners, India, Japan and Australia with U.S. And the next issue is most talked one, that is human rights. See the new President Joe Biden has placed human rights at the center of his foreign policy. Moreover, he noted that shared commitment to democratic values is the bedrock for U.S.-India relationship. Further, U.S. expects India to partner them in ensuring human rights in South Asia. If you see this in the light of ongoing coup by army in Myanmar, U.S. has been very vocal like even ordering sanctions on Myanmar. But India played very diplomatically by just speaking about rule of law and democratic processes and has emphasized on India's interests in the region. So from this you can understand that India cannot really match with U.S. expectations when it comes to human rights issues. So there are chances for a similar situation to arise even with Sri Lanka as well. In the other article we talked about the upcoming human rights violations vote on Sri Lanka in Human Rights Council. So if U.S. is taking a tough stand over Sri Lanka, it expects a similar stand from India as well. But India being a neighbor of Sri Lanka may feel reluctant to take a tough stand on Sri Lanka. So this human rights issue may be another problem between India and the U.S. And the next issue will be India's purchase of S-400 from Russia. As we all know, S-400 is an anti-missile defense system developed by Russia. So the purchase of this missile system from Russia can attract Khatsa sanctions on India. See Khatsa is America's act which is abbreviated as countering America's adversaries through sanctions act. So according to this act U.S. can impose sanctions on Iran, Russia and North Korea. So it is expected that the Biden administration will be implementing this law more stringently. So it is expected that this purchase may disturb the relations between India and the U.S. Then comes the problem of trade. See during the entire Trump administration even though India and U.S. moved together, but when it comes to trade they moved very far away. For example U.S. cancelled GSP status for India. So GSP which stands for Generalized System of Preferences provides duty-free entry of products from India. So this was cancelled during Trump administration for India. So as a result the cost of India's exports to U.S. will increase because after the canceling of GSP status even the India's products will attract the same custom duties like other countries' products. Obviously we lose that competitiveness over the other countries' products. So in this context India is expecting the U.S. to take back its decision of canceling GSP to India. And as we said before America is going for localization that is protectionism. So again the interest of one country has been conflicting with the other. So this issue needs to be resolved very diplomatically and without affecting the bilateral relations between India and the U.S. In the last part of the article author talks about Taliban issue. Here India took an independent stand from the U.S. in case of Taliban. So India is firmly supporting the Ashraf Ghani government that is civilian government in Afghanistan. While America is even ready to mediate with Taliban's India is not wishing to directly deal with Taliban's. So U.S. continues to see India's not part of problem and not part of solution when it comes to Taliban issue or Afghanistan issue. So U.S. may seek more support from Pakistan to liberate itself from the Afghanistan war crisis. So here again the interests of India and the interests of U.S. are slightly different. So all these issues might be causing discomfort between India and the U.S. in the coming days. So we have to wait and see how India and U.S. are going to course their diplomacy in the coming days. So in this context have a brief idea on what are the possible contentious issues between India and the U.S. So having a brief idea on all the current developments between two big powers like India and U.S. is necessary for exam. So we will be having bilateral or international relations questions in G.S. paper too. So to answer those questions we will be needing more awareness regarding the global happenings. So have a brief idea on all these aspects. Let us move on to next news article discussion. See this article from today's editorial page titled imparting direction to science in India. So this article was written in the context of Science Day which is celebrated every year in India on February 28th to mark the discovery of Raman effect by Sir C.V. Raman. So in this context other talks about the progress India made in the field of science and technology and also the issues which India needs to address so that we can establish ourselves as a leader in industrialization and technological development. So before going further the Raman syllabus is given here for your reference. So basically for any country to have a clear vision the government devices science and technology policies and so far since independence India had four such policies. One in 1958 followed by 1983 and then after liberalization that is 2003 and later in 2013. If you see the first policy titled the science policy resolution of 1958 it is aimed to provide a reasonable amount of economic social and cultural amenities and services to every citizen through industrialization investment in science and technology. So here motivation factor includes nurturing scientific enterprise scientific temper and as I said before science and technology is seen as an instrument of socio economic transformation and nation building. It also included cultivation of scientific enterprise in pure and applied science research and capacity building as well as providing opportunities for scientific activity discovery and dissemination of new knowledge and the impact of this policy has been emergence of several scientific organizations and national laboratories and strong foundation in research and development and higher education was also a byproduct of this policy. So coming to second policy named technology policy statement of 1983 this focused primarily on meeting people's aspirations through technological development while strengthening research in fields like electronics and biotechnology. So similar to first policy the motivation here is technology seen to influence lives and bolster societal expectations. Coming to sale and features it included maximizing utilization of local resources strengthening technological self-reliance in new sectors like information technology electronics biotechnology etc. The impact was establishment of technology development fund establishment of technology information forecasting and assessment council etc. So here key terms are utilization of local resources and self-reliance establishment of technology development fund as well as technology information forecasting and assessment council and third policy came in 2003 after the economic liberalization of 1991. So the third policy aimed at encouraging research and development and innovation in areas that impact the economy and society as well as developing mechanisms to facilitate interaction among various stakeholders within the science and technology ecosystem. So this policy called for cross-pollination of industry and scientific research that is cross-utilization of resources of one industry with the other using scientific research to help industry as well as using industry to promote funding for scientific research. It also provided for the establishment of intellectual rights regime to protect and incentivize investors. The features included investing heavily into R&D goal to increase investments in R&D to up to 2% of GDP modernizing S&T infrastructure and coming to impact it helped in significant rise in research and development investment in the country also it helped in rising the India's publication ranking etc. And fourth policy came recently that is in the last decade titled science technology and innovation policy. So a new word came that is innovation. So the last decade 2010 to 2020 was announced as decade of innovation. This policy intended to synergize science technology and innovation to transition to a knowledge based economy. And very importantly this policy was aimed to position India among top five global scientific powers and the impact was a step in right direction towards building a robust national innovation ecosystem and it also helped in putting India's leadership and participation in global mega science initiative like laser interferometer gravitational wave observatory that is LIGO as well as large hadron collider that is LHC and also international thermonuclear experimental reactor that is ITER that is nuclear fusion reactor and also square kilometer array. This policy helped in India positioning itself in many global scientific initiatives and very recently a new policies draft was released in 2020 titled science technology and innovation policy 2020 draft. So this policy aimed to make India one among three top scientific superpowers. So we have discussed this draft policy in detail on Jan 28th so please watch that video to get detailed understanding of this draft policy. So the major question has been why India is unable to lead the world when it comes to science and technology. The key reason for India's modest performance in science and technology is low funding in research and development and even to the worst private sectors participation in R&D has been even low. So in this regard the new policy is aiming to double the private sectors contribution to gross domestic expenditure on research and development that to every five years. So what is this GERD as the title suggests it is the total expenditure on the research and development performed in a national territory during a given period. So this includes both current as well as capital expenditures and also includes research and development performed within a country and funded from abroad etc. So India needs to increase its GERD to position itself in the top scientific communities. But here are the notes that the measures to increase private investment as mentioned in the draft policy should not become a pretext to reduce union and state governments of their primacy in funding research. As we just said as of now in R&D spending government is playing a crucial role. So author says that while increasing private investment government should not decrease it it should be more complementary with private investment. And then other talks about the other developments in the field of science and technology in India. According to a report published by National Science Foundation of the US India was the third largest publisher of peer reviewed science and engineering journal articles and conference papers in the world and very importantly average yearly growth rate was around 10% since 2008 and also note that this growth was greater than China's 7.8%. So year on year the increase in journal articles from India has been 10%. But when it comes to absolute numbers US and China are far ahead of India. And author also notes that the publications from India are not impactful. So there is something called most cited publications index according to which India's score was 0.7. Has it been more than one then we could have said that India's publications are more impactful. So in this regard US China and European Union have outperformed us. Then other talks about the patents filed in India. And as we all know in the current century the IPR regime has become more dynamic and more significant with many more inventions coming from the developing countries. In this regard parliament of India has made many statutes like patents act, trademarks act, designs act, copyrights act etc. And very recently in 2016 government of India has also come up with national intellectual property rights policy to foster innovation and increase quality patent filing. So these are the basic information regarding patent regime of India. But what are the issues here? See author takes the example of 2019 report of World Intellectual Property Organization. According to which India filed just 2000 patent applications in 2019. This is almost negligible compared to patents filed by China and US which are more than 50,000. So author is opining that India has a long way to go when it comes to IPR regime as well as impactful publications when it comes to science and technology. So IPR regime should be made more efficient to support and promote innovation in the country. So this is all about the discussion of this news article. Have a brief idea on science policies in independent India. This will help in writing main answers as well as answering the questions in personality test. Let us move on to next news article discussion. See this article titled current inflation target band apt for next five years says RBI report. So this news article is talking about RBI's recent report on currency and finance for financial year 21. That is the current financial year. So it states that the current inflation target of 4% with a 2% tolerance band is appropriate for the next five years. So this comes as a backdrop of next review of flexible inflation targeting framework which will come up soon in this year. So we will try to understand this in detail. So basically inflation means persistent increase in general price levels. So it refers to continuous rise in general price level which reduces the value of money or purchasing power over a period of time. So this is inflation. Then what is inflation targeting? It is a monetary policy strategy used by central banks that is RBI for maintaining inflation at a certain level or within a specific range. So the process of maintaining inflation within the limits is called inflation targeting. So in general central banks normally follow a policy of keeping inflation sufficiently low. If inflation is too high there will be too much of public uproar and public disorder in the country lot of protests etc. However in India inflation targeting is a preset publicly declared target that is 4 plus or minus 2% as of now minimum 2% inflation should be there maximum it can be 6%. So how is this targeting done? So generally central bank that is reserve bank of India seeks to readjust its monetary policy by doing inflation targeting. As we all know monetary policy committee meets every two months to make changes to repo rates reverse repo rates etc. So the primary objective of monetary policy is to maintain price stability while keeping in mind the objective of growth. So this is done by raising or lowering interest rates based on inflation targets. So generally when there is inflation RBI increases the interest rates. So when RBI increases the interest rates people won't get money easily that is they have to pay more interest. So then they won't borrow more money so less money less spending which means less demand automatically inflation comes down. But when inflation is not there that is prices are low then what RBI does it cuts down the interest rates. So public for cheap interest they can get the loans so they can spend more automatically more demand which leads to demand pull inflation. So RBI cuts the interest rate to improve the price level RBI increases the interest rate to bring down the price level. So have this brief understanding of how economy works. So how inflation targeting is done in India? It is through amended RBI Act which provides for inflation target to be set by government of India in consultation with Reserve Bank once every five years. So now in India we have a flexible inflation targeting framework. Flexible means we are having tolerance level 4 either plus 2 or minus 2. So this is made possible after amending RBI Act of 1934 in 2016. So while the government of India in consultation with RBI sets this flexible targeting framework it is the RBI which operates monetary policy framework of the country that is by changing the reports every two months. And in this regard through this FIT framework central government has notified 4% of CPA inflation as the target for the period from August 2016 to March 2021 with the upper tolerance limit of 6% and lower tolerance limit of 2%. So by this March this target set by government in 2016 will expire. And in this regard in the recently released report of RBI it said that the current inflation target of 4 plus or minus 2 is appropriate for next five years also. So let's wait and see what government does after March 31st whether it increases the tolerance limit or decreases the tolerance limit. But if you remember while speaking about budget in the starting of this month we have said that government needs to relax the tolerance limits so that more money can be sent into economy to push the growth rate. So have a brief idea and what is inflation, what is inflation targeting, what is the current targeting limit in India, who sets the target and who operationalize the target. In India target is set by government in consultation with RBI while the target is operationalized by RBI through its monetary policies every two months. See this article titled India out of recession GDP grows 0.4%. So this article says that India's economy came back to growth trajectory. So as per the national statistical office the GDP for third quarter of 2020 and 2021 that is October, November, December of last year increased by around 0.4%. So due to the pandemic we all know that GDP for the first two quarters from April to September had shrunk by around 24% in the first quarter and 7.3% in the second quarter. So to understand this further let us have a brief discussion on business cycle. See as we all know that the output of an economy usually increases over time but growth in economic output fluctuates. So this fluctuating growth will form a business cycle where there are peaks and troughs in economic activity. So simply sometimes economic growth will be increasing and sometimes it will be decreasing. The increasing part is called peak and while decreasing part is called trough. So during this trough part of business cycle the output growth can be weak or negative, output means the production. So this usually results in job losses and increase in unemployment rate as happened during COVID-19. So generally it is said that recession occurs when there is a period of reduced output and significant increase in unemployment rate. We have witnessed the fall in output as well as more unemployment during COVID-19 period. So the business cycle refers to fluctuations in growth in economic output taking into account the steady growth in the potential output of the economy. So what is this potential output? See potential output is the level of output that economy can achieve using all of its resources like people, equipment, natural resources and technology in a sustainable way. So without much increasing the prices, so generally if we increase the prices the GDP looks increasing. Why? Because the absolute pricing increases therefore compared to previous year the GDP looks increasing in the current year. But the potential output means without increasing the prices much but by using all the resources available if we increase the output it is called potential output that is the potential of our economy. So as the name suggests cycle means it is a circular path. So it has four phases expansion, peak, contraction and trough. So what happens during expansion after COVID-19 you can relate this. Household demand more goods and services. So businesses hire more workers to meet the demand obviously wages and prices typically increase. So this phase ends in a peak in economic activity as happened during festivals of Diwali, Christmas, Pongala, Sankranti. When it comes to contraction households demand fewer goods and services. Businesses reduce the number of workers because there is no demand so production can be reduced. So number of workers can be reduced. So automatically the wages and prices will also come down. So this phase ends with a trough in economic activity. So this is peak and this is trough and as you can see this phase where economy speaking is called expansion and this phase where economy is falling is called contraction and again if you see expansion come. So this is why we called as cycle expansion then comes contraction again expansion then again contraction. So far we understood that economic activity in any country forms a circular path. So what is recession then? So generally a recession can be defined as a sustained period of weak or negative growth in real GDP accompanied with weak output and rising unemployment rate. There are many other indicators of economic activity for recession. For example the levels of household spending and investment by businesses are usually low during recession. In addition during this period number of households and businesses that are unable to pay back loans are also unusually high. All these factors we have seen during strict lockdown periods in the first half of last year. And today's article denotes the recession India has seen in the last year as technical recession. So what is this technical recession? So during this technical recession there will be two consecutive quarters of negative growth in real GDP and as we said at the start India experienced fall in GDP in the first quarter by 24 percent and second quarter by 7.3 percent. So we can conveniently conclude that India has experienced technical recession in the first half of financial year 2020 and 2021. So in this context just try to understand how economy is functioning also try to understand what is recession and what will be the consequences when a recession happens like unemployment, falling demand, increasing unemployment etc. Just have a link between all these aspects to answer plumes questions. Let us move on to practice questions discussion session. Consider the following peak, trough, recession, recovery, expansion. Select the correct order of business cycle from the code given below. So we have to find out the correct order. See this figure first comes expansion it will meet the peak followed by recession then it comes then it gets through trough and again it comes to expansion. So the correct order is 5, 1, 3, 2, 4. So option B is the correct answer but you might get it out. This is a business cycle so even we can start from contraction as well. But if you see the options the first one is 1 or 5. So we have the competition between peak and expansion. So logically we can pick expansion from the options after expansion it will meet the peak of economic activity. Then slowly the demand goes down then economic activity slowly comes down which is recession followed by again recovery. So the correct option is 5, 1, 3, 2, 4 which means expansion, peak, recession, trough and recovery as you can see in this graph. Consider the following statements with reference to inflation targeting in India. Statement 1. The Reserve Bank of India has the sole responsibility to set the flexible inflation targeting framework for India. This statement is incorrect because it is not the RBA it is the government in consultation with RBA which sets the FIT framework in India. Second statement. Currently the upper tolerance limit of inflation target is 6% and lower tolerance limit is 2%. Yes this statement is correct because the current inflation target is 4 plus r minus 2 so maximum 6 minimum 2. So statement 2 is correct so correct answer is option B 2 only. At present which of the following countries from Asia-Pacific region are members of UN Human Rights Council India, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh. The correct answer is India and Bangladesh that is 1 and 4 so option A is the correct answer. If you see other countries like Bahrain, Fizzy and Philippines are also part of Human Rights Council from Asia-Pacific region as of now. Consider the following statements with reference to gross domestic expenditure on research and development. Two statements are given we are supposed to identify correct statements. Statement 1. It is the total expenditure on research and development performed inside the national territory of a country during the given period. Statement 1 is correct. Statement 2. It includes research and development performed within a country and funded from abroad but excludes payments from R&D performed abroad. Yes this is also correct. So whatever the payments made for research and development performed abroad will not be included in GERD. So here the keyword is domestic expenditure. So whatever the expenditure made inside the country is calculated. So statement 2 is also correct. So correct answer is option C both 1 and 2. See this main question. A shift in US Presidentship has got a significant impact in bilateral policies of India. Comment. So here we can take a broad view like talking about trade climate change towards a foreign country like policy towards China, policy towards Russia, also policy towards human rights violations. You can comment on all these aspects and end with a proper or act conclusion. See one more main question. Analyze the major initiatives taken by the government of India to promote the development of science and technology in the country. Importantly don't write all the points of every science policy. You try to take out the aim of each policy and you have to analyze the initiative. Analyze in the sense whether the policy has been successful or not. What are the shortcomings of the policy? How can we improve those policies? This is what we have to do in the analysis. So analyze the policies and end with a relevant conclusion. Write the answers for the both questions and post them in the comment section. Thank you for watching our video. 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