 Good evening as friends, welcome to the Hindu News Analysis Discussion Session by Shankar I.S. Academy for the date 28th of March 2022. These are the list of articles we will be discussing today. Now let us get into the discussion. First, let us take up this news article. As the title suggests, India has tested two surface-to-air missiles. It is the army version of the medium-range surface-to-air missiles, in short MR-SAMS. So, in this context, let us see about surface-to-air missiles and MR-SAMS. See, basically, missiles are of many kinds. They can be classified on the basis of their types, launch modes, range, propulsion, warhead type and even based on its guidance system. As you can see here, depending on the launch mode that is based on the method of launching the missiles, it could be classified into eight kinds and one among them is surface-to-air missile. This missile is designed for launch from the ground to destroy aerial targets. The aerial targets could include enemy aircrafts, helicopters and even ballistic missiles. So, surface-to-air missiles are also called as air defense systems because they defend any aerial attacks by the enemy. So, with these basics, now let us see about MR-SAMS. See, it is an advanced network-centric combat air defense system. It is a supersonic missile with a medium range. It provides air defense against aerial target strike, fighter aircrafts, unmanned aerial vehicles, guided and unguided munitions and cruise missiles. See, it was jointly developed by the DRDO, that is, Defense Research and Development Organization of India and Israel Aerospace Industries. They also collaborated with the Indian industries comprising of both public and private sector, including MSME in the manufacturing of the MR-SAMS. So, note this point. And this missile is one of the best state-of-the-art missile systems in the world. Let us see why. First, it provides both point and area defense for both ground assets against wide range of threats. So, what is point and area air defense? The air defense could be employed in two different postures. They are area defense and point defense. Here, area defense is the coordinated defense of a specific area by a variety of systems. But point defense is a posture designed for the protection of a specific and usually a small area such as a vital installation or an individual unit. See, for example, area defense is used to protect a city like Chennai. And point defense is used to protect a specific installation like Kalpaakam nuclear power plant. Now, coming back. See, the MR-SAMM provides both point and area air defense. This is why MR-SAMM is one of the state-of-the-art missile that is available in the world. Now, let us see the second reason which makes the MR-SAMM unique. MR-SAMM is capable of engaging multiple targets at the range up to 70 kilometers. It is also capable of engaging targets from extreme low altitude to high altitude and also targets from very close range to medium range. So, this is the second uniqueness of MR-SAMM. Now, the third reason that makes MR-SAMM unique is that this missile is powered by the indigenously developed rocket motor and control system. This enables the missile to achieve higher maneuverability during the terminal phase. See, a missile has three phases, namely booster phase, mid-course phase and terminal phase. This terminal phase is the portion of the flight of the missile that begins in the warhead or the payload re-enters the atmosphere and ends when the warhead or the payload detonates or impacts. If it is a missile that does not exit the atmosphere, then the terminal phase begins when the warhead or the payload reaches the apogee or the climax position and this phase ends when the warhead or the payload detonates or impacts. So, during the terminal phase, an incoming missile's trajectory descends through the lower atmosphere towards the targeted aiming point. Therefore, this is the most important phase in the whole trajectory of the missile because it is even the missile with the target. By employing an indigenously developed rocket motor and control system, the terminal phase of the MR-SAMM is highly maneuverable. This makes MR-SAMM a deadly weapon. So, along with this MR-SAMM has high response and quick reaction times. Also, this missile is networked in the modern IACCS system of the Indian Air Force. IACCS stands for Integrated Air Command Control System Projects. It is an automated air defense system. It is capable of synthesizing and presenting information from various radars, satellites, mobile observation posts, airborne early warning centers and aerial drone videos. See, basically, IACCS was conceived for the air defense of Indian borders. Now, the networking of MR-SAMM with IACCS will help in defeating all type of hostile targets. This includes targets that have extremely low RCS. What is RCS? RCS stands for Radar Cross-section. See, RCS is the area that could be seen by the radar. So, lower the radar cross-section, lower the detectability by a radar. Therefore, RCS is the primary measure of stealth or lower observability of an aircraft missile or ship. And MR-SAMM could hit targets having extremely low radar cross-section also. Finally, note that there are different variants of MR-SAMM that are used by the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force. That's all about this discussion. In this discussion, we saw about the MR-SAMM, which is the collaboration between India and Israel and the unique features of MR-SAMM. With this, let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Look at this text and context article. It mainly talks about the dependency of the European nations on Russia for its natural gas needs. It also gives a clarification of how far the liquid natural gas exports from U.S. will help the European nations to reduce the dependency on Russia. So, this is about the article. So, in this discussion, let us cover all the important points mentioned in this text and context article, because these points will really help you in answering your main questions. The syllabus regarding this discussion is highlighted here. You can go through it. Now, let us start our discussion. First, let us start our discussion by seeing the dependency of the European nations on Russia, mainly when it comes to its natural gas needs. Russia supplied over 150 billion cubic meters of gas to the European Union last year. Just have a look at this pie chart. This pie chart represents the natural gas imports of Europe from various source countries. From this, you can see how much the European nations are depending on Russia for their natural gas needs. So, presently, Europe relies on Russian exports to meet 40 percent of its natural gas requirements. Also, it relies on Russia to meet a quarter of its crude oil needs as well. This is regarding Europe's dependency on Russia for its natural gas. When you move towards Eastern Europe, the dependency on Russian natural gas is further high. When you take Germany and many countries in Eastern Europe, they depend on Russia to meet more than 80 percent of their natural gas needs. I hope you have understood how much Europe and mainly Germany is depending on Russia to meet its natural gas needs. This is about Europe's dependency on Russia. Now, let us see what are the problems Europe faces because of this dependency. Firstly, Europe has a fear that Russia could cut off its energy exports. Since Europe is at the mercy of Russian energy exports, Europe has limited its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. See, the next thing is that when Russia limits its gas exports to Europe, gas prices in Europe will increase. This is because when Russia limits its exports, there will be a demand-supply mismatch in Europe. The second problem is that recently, the European Union has aimed to become carbon neutral by the year 2050. The European Union has been heavily investing in renewable technology like wind and solar. But as you know, the renewable source of energy is undeniable. So, the European Union must have some source of conventional energy production to complement the non-renewable energy transition that it is about to make. And of all the conventional source of energy production, it is the gas-based power plants that are less polluting. So, to effectively become carbon neutral by 2050, cheap natural gas supply from Russia is required. So, Russia plays an important role in the European Union's energy transition. The third problem arises out of the indefinite stopping of the Nord-to-Pipeline project. See, this pipeline project was mainly planned to ensure direct supply of gas from Russia. See, the other gas pipelines that connect Russia to Europe passes through Ukraine. Once completed, Nord-to-Pipeline ensures reliable supply of natural gas to the European Union. But this project was stopped because of the Russia-Ukraine issue. This is the third problem for Europe, as the project once completed could have ensured reliable supply of natural gas has now stalled. This is a problem for Europe. As a solution to all these problems, the European Union came up with a plan. The plan is to cut down its reliance on Russian gas completely before 2030. How is it planning to do so? It is planning to do so by importing liquefied natural gas from the United States of America. Now, let us see about the US-Europe deal on liquefied natural gas and how this will help in addressing the above problems discussed. See, the United States and the European Union have made a liquefied natural gas deal. This deal says that the United States will supply 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas to the European Union this year. Further, the European Union will import additional liquefied natural gas of at least 50 billion cubic meters until 2030 from the United States. Just have a look at this graph and observe that the US is ensuring more LNG supply to Europe on an year-on-year basis. Now the questionaries, will this reduce Europe's dependency on Russian energy exports? Will this help in utilizing the Kremlin's influence on Europe? Now, have a look at these two graphs and compare. You could see that when the import from the US is increased, the dependency on Russia can be gradually reduced. While in 2019, Russia supplied 44% of Europe's natural gas needs in 2020 that has declined to 39%. So, with increasing liquefied natural gas imports from the United States, slowly Europe's dependency on Russia for natural gas needs will decline. So, we can say that the United States-European Union deal on liquefied natural gas will reduce Europe's dependency on Russian energy exports to a significant extent. See, this deal that is the US-EU deal on liquefied natural gas marks the beginning of the efforts by the European Union to diversify its energy source. This will help Europe to end its reliance on Russia. Further, to bring significant change, gas imports from the United States have to be made cheaper, because as we know, gas imports from Russia were cheaper. So, by building a efficient supply chain, the LNG imports from the United States can match the price of cheap Russian natural gas. Another important effort Europe could make to reduce the dependency on imports of natural gas as a whole is by increasing the reliability of renewable energy resources like wind and solar energy, because this will help the European Union meet the target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. That is all about this news article. See, in this segment, we discussed about the dependency of the European nations on Russia mainly when it comes to natural gas, that we saw the problems faced by Europe because of this dependency on Russia. Finally, we saw how the United States-European Union deal on liquefied natural gas will help Europe in reducing its dependency on Russia for its natural gas needs. That's all about this discussion. Now let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Look at this editorial. This editorial talks about the level of unemployment in the country. The author discusses the reason for unemployment and thereby discards government's claim of employment generation. So, in this discussion, let us see these reasons. The syllabus regarding this discussion is highlighted here. You can go through it. Now let us get into the discussion. See, many of us think that unemployment has risen due to the pandemic, but India's unemployment rate was high even before that. Even one of the official sources such as the Periodic Labor Force Survey released by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation provides proof. As per the Periodic Labor Force Survey, which was carried out in 2017-18 period, the unemployment rate in the country was 6.1%. Even the private think tanks reveal that unemployment rate was further worsened due to the pandemic. If you look at the data by Center for Monitoring Indian Economy in December 2021, nearly 53 million, that is, 5.3 crore Indians were unemployed. Among them, a large proportion was unemployed women. But on some scale, the government is claiming that employment generation has widened due to its various schemes and programs like Atmanirbar Bharat, Rojga Riyojana, Prime Minister's Employment Generation Program, Dean Dayal, Anthodaya Yojana, that is, National Urban Driblihood Mission. The author of this editorial does not agree with the views of the government. According to the author, unemployment has only risen during the pandemic. The author says that, due to the increased unemployment, many youths are focusing on government jobs. So, first, why do people aspire for a government job? It is because government job lacks the negatives that a private job has. For example, private jobs have poor basic pay and long working hours. Particularly, the private jobs have high job insecurity because of their easy hire and fire policy. This is not present in the government job. Particularly, due to the pandemic, many realized that the situation can worsen any time affecting businesses, which ultimately leads to the closure of business or laying off of employees to save the business. So, this has brought more attention towards the government jobs. But the issue is, according to the author, there is no employment generation even at the government level. Now, let us see a visible indicator of unemployment crisis in India. First, such indicator is the influx of overqualified youth in government jobs. Here, the overqualified individuals or youth would be those who have post-graduate degree or a PhD degree and apply for matriculation level job in the government. These overqualified individuals put pressure on the existing level of employment, mainly in government jobs. How? Look at this example. The Himachal Pradesh Secretaryate called applications in September 2021 for the post of Pune Gardener and Cook, and many of those who applied had a doctorate or post-graduate qualification. Now, these middle and lower-run government jobs only provide modest pay. Why are the overqualified candidates still applying for such a position? They apply because it will offer them greater job security, which is not available in the private sector. See, this influx of overqualified applicants or individuals in lower-run and middle-run government jobs create three issues. The first is that individuals with minimum eligibility are forced to compete with candidates who have higher educational credentials. So, obviously, this will lead to more faces or more levels of recruitment process. And if the job has qualifying exam like in the case of SSE, then it will also increase the cutoff. The individuals with minimum eligibility will find it difficult to achieve such increasing cutoffs with their very limited means and limited educational credentials. So, this is the first issue. Now, let us move on to the second issue. The second issue is that overqualified applicants are crowding the jobs of those with minimum eligibility. See, basically the jobs eligibility criteria are kept at a certain level to ensure only those with that eligibility can apply. But when overqualified applicants are applying, then those with minimum eligibility have to compete with a much larger proportion of applicants. So, it eliminates a large number of applicants or aspirants from that job. This is the second issue. Now, let us move on to the third issue. The third issue is that in the future, the eligibility of medium and lower level government jobs will increase. That is, there will be arbitrary enhancement of educational qualification for recruitment into better paid jobs, including the government jobs. For example, already in the public funded higher educational institutions, the eligibility is quite high even for entry-level teaching positions. Currently, they mandatorily require a PhD in addition to a master's degree under UGC-NET qualification. Then, what about those with just a master's degree and UGC-NET qualification? Even though it is a high-level qualification, still they are not eligible for the teaching position since they lack PhD degree. So, arbitrary enhancement of educational qualification affects those with medium qualification and they will be left unemployed leading to increased unemployment rate in our country. Now, these are the issues that the influx of overqualified applicants in entry-level government job create. See, until now we saw one indicator of increasing unemployment. That is, influx of overqualified applicants in entry-level government jobs. Now, let us see the reasons for increasing unemployment rate. See, there is only limited government jobs. Why is it limited? Mainly because of limited number of posts with the government. But in the recent time, we can also see another cause for this, which is increased contract jobs and outsourcing of several substantive and permanent jobs. So, this is further limiting the number of government jobs available. Although the number of available government jobs is decreasing day by day, those competing for those jobs is increasing day by day. This is the reason for increasing unemployment rate in the country. The next reason for increasing unemployment rate is the decline of state regulation of labor-capital relations in the formal sector. Formal sector means where jobs have specific working hours, regular wages, and workers' job is assured. The decline of regulation could be seen since the liberation of economy in 1991. Along with the economy, during the LPG reforms of 1991, labor markets were also deregulated, which provided opportunities for employers to cut excess costs by firing employees. So, even though job creation was high, but they included only lower wages and uncertain terms. Why lower wages and uncertain terms? It is because of the excess labor supply of less skilled workers in our country. This excess labor supply has kept the wages low. This also leads to unemployment and the reason for individuals choosing government jobs over private jobs. The next reason for soaring unemployment is due to government cutting down its expenditure on social security sector. See, currently, government expenditure on social sector mainly education is reducing. Expenditure on education remains around 3% of GDP as per the Economic Survey 2021-22. This leads to shortage of government schools and public-funded universities. Government schools and public-funded universities play an important role in the education of those near or below poverty line. See, in this case, less education means less qualification. So, this less qualification finally leads to unemployment. See, these are all the reasons for the current state of unemployment in India. In addition to this, post-1991 LPG reforms, we are facing jobless growth. Only fewer jobs are created. It also leads to unemployment and ultimately also burdens and exploits the existing employees by overworking them. See, overworked employees are unhappy, right? This is why the author says a tired India and an unemployed India are simply two sides of the same coin. So, the way forward as always in this scenario is government intervention. Government must not only take measures to increase the number of government jobs available, but the government should also take measures which will make the private jobs more dignified, regulated and less exploitative. This is all about this article. Now, let us do a quick recap. In this discussion, we first saw that unemployment in India was not just due to the pandemic and the problem of unemployment existed even before the pandemic. In that, we saw that according to the periodic labour force survey which was carried out in 2017-18 period, the unemployment rate in the country was 6.1%. Then, we saw why people are aspiring for government jobs. There, we saw that people are aspiring because in government jobs, they are receiving manageable working hours, job security and social security coverage, which is not available in private employment. According to the author, the influx of overqualified aspirants in middle and lower level government jobs is an indicator of worsening unemployment in the country. Then, we saw the issue associated with the entry of overqualified aspirants in middle and lower level government jobs. The issues are, first is people with minimum eligibility are forced to compete with people who are overqualified. Second is, the entry of overqualified applicants will increase the cutoff beyond the reach of those with minimum qualification. The third is that there is the possibility of increasing the minimum qualification level altogether, which will make the jobs inaccessible for most of the population. And finally, the entry of overqualified applicants will lead to increase in the number of levels in the recruitment process. This will make the recruitment process more difficult. Okay. See, after this, we saw about the reasons for increasing unemployment. In that, we saw that government job is limited and no new jobs are being created due to increasing contract jobs in the government. The next reason for increasing unemployment is government cutting down its spending in social sector, mainly education sector. And finally, government post the 1991 LPG reforms reduced the state regulation of private sector. This resulted in easy fire and higher policy in the private employment. This resulted in people choosing modest paying government jobs over high paying private jobs. This is all about this discussion. With this, let us conclude this discussion and move on to the next news article. Look at this article. This article is taken from the text and context page. This article briefly discusses how NRAs can register their vote without being physically present at their respective constituencies. This article also discusses postal ballot and electronically transmitted postal ballot system, that is ETPBS system. In this context, we will briefly discuss about the voting procedure that is available for NRAs and we will also discuss about the electronically transmitted postal ballot system. Now, let us start our discussion. Firstly, you should know how overseas voters can currently vote in Indian elections. See, PR2 2010, an Indian citizen who is an eligible voter and was residing abroad for more than six months, could not vote in elections. See, this was because the NRAs name would be deleted from the electoral rolls if he or she stayed outside the country for more than six months at a stretch. After passing the representation of people amendment act 2010, eligible NRAs who had stayed abroad beyond six months have been able to vote, but they can vote only in person at the polling station where they have been enrolled as an overseas elector. That is, they must be physically present while they cast their vote. Their address mentioned in the passport is taken as the place of ordinary residents and chosen as the constituency for the overseas voter to enroll in. See, in 2014, there was only 11,846 overseas voters, but this number went up. Right now, there are about a lakh overseas voters. This is according to the 2019 figures. Note that nearly 90% of these voters belong to just one state that is Kerala. But currently of these one lakh registered voters, only 25,606 have turned up to vote. So, clearly, a very low percentage of eligible overseas residents actually registered and have turned up to vote. NRAs having to be physically present at the polling booth have discouraged them from exercising their franchise even after registering to vote. Okay, so to address this, in the winter session of parliament in 2017, the government proposed to remove the restriction imposed by section 20A of the representation of people act. That is, the restriction which required them to be physically present to vote in their constituencies. The bill was later passed in 2018, but lapsed because of the dissolution of the 16th Lokshapa. The election commission of India then approached the government to permit NRAs to vote via postal ballot similar to a system that is already available to the service voters. Here, who are service voters? Service voters are the members of the armed forces of the union or members of a force to which the provisions of army act 1950 applies. So, currently, this postal ballot is applicable only for service voters and since the bill to remove section 20A lapsed, this provision of postal votes is not available to NRA voters. So, having discussed about the present scenario, now we will discuss about the ETPBS, that is, electronically transmitted postal ballot system. See, the conduct of election rules 1961 was amended in 2016 to allow the service voters to use the ETPBS, that is, the electronically transmitted postal ballot system. Under this system, the postal ballots are sent electronically to registered service voters, that is, the postal ballots are sent via email. After this, the service voters can download the ETPBS along with the declaration form and covers. After this, they can register their mandate on the ballot and send it to the returning officer of the constituency via ordinary mail. So, the postal ballot will be sent via email, then the voter will register his vote in the ballot and he will send the ballot via ordinary mail. This is the process. This is about the ETPBS system that is available for service voters. See, currently, the election commission of India proposed to extend this facility to overseas voters as well. But for these two comments, the law ministry has to amend the conduct of election rules 1961. In the case of NRA voters, those seeking to vote through ETPBS will have to inform the returning officer at least five days after the notification of the election. The returning officer will then send the ballot electronically via ETPBS. What is ETPBS? It is electronically transmitted postal ballot system. See, the NRA voter can then register his or her mandate on the ballot printout and send it back with an attested declaration in a process similar to the service voter. See, this method, that is the ETPBS method, allowed for greater turnout among the service voters in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. So, when ETPBS is extended to NRA voters, voter turnout will definitely increase. When more people participate in the election process, our democracy will become more vibrant and inclusive. Okay, that's all regarding this news article discussion. With this, we have come to the end of the news article discussion session. Now, let us take up the practice prelims question. Today, we have four practice prelims questions. Let us see them one by one. Let us take up the first question. See, this is a map-based question. Five countries are given. We have to find which of the given countries has a land border with Ukraine. See, if you know Germany does not come near Black Sea, you can eliminate two options, that is B and D. What I am saying here is, if you have learned countries bordering Black Sea, you can use it to eliminate options here. Now, two more options are left. See, here you very well know that Russia borders Ukraine, and we have discussed a lot about Russia-Ukraine issue in our analysis. So, now we can conclude that the answer here is option C, 1, 2, 3 and 5. So, the countries bordering Ukraine are Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Belarus and Russia. So, moving on to the next question. This question is about Nord 2 pipeline. Four options are given. We have to find the correct option. See, from our discussion, we know that Nord Stream 2 pipeline is a natural gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea to take gas from Russia to Germany. So, the correct answer here is option B. Now, moving on to the next question. This question is with reference to electronically transmitted postal ballot system, that is ETPBS. Two statements are given. We have to find the incorrect statement. Let us take up the first statement. ETPBS enables the entitled service voters to cast their vote. Let us take up the second statement. It is developed by the Election Commission of India. See, here both the statements are correct. We have seen in our discussion that the ETPBS enables the service voters to cast their vote. Note that ETPBS is developed by the Election Commission of India with the help of Center for Development of Advanced Computing for the use of service voters. So, both the statements are correct. But in the question, they have asked us to find the incorrect statement. So, here the answer is option D neither one nor two. Now, let us take up the last problem's question. Which of the following statement is correct with reference to the medium-range surface-to-air missile recently seen in news? Four options are even. Let us see them one by one. Let us take up the first option. It is indigenously developed by Defense Research and Development Organization and Bharat Electronic Limited, that is BEL. See, this is incorrect because in our discussion we saw that MR SAM is jointly developed by DRDO and Israel Aerospace So, option A is eliminated. Since option A is eliminated, naturally option D, that is all of the above, is also eliminated. Now, let us take up option B. It is capable of engaging multiple targets at ranges up to 70 kilometers. See, this is correct. From our discussion, we saw that MR SAM is capable of engaging multiple targets at ranges up to 70 kilometers. So, the correct answer here is option B. See, even though we know the correct answer, let us see the other option also. Let us see option C. MR SAM can defeat all type of hostile targets except the one with extremely low radar cross-section. See, this is incorrect because in our discussion we saw that one of the uniqueness of the MR SAM is that it can even defeat targets with extremely low RCS, that is radar cross-section. So, in conclusion, the correct answer for this question is option B. The main question based on today's discussion is displayed here. Write the answers and post it in the comment section. With this, we have come to the end of the video. If you liked today's video, like, comment and share it with your friends. For more updates regarding UPSC preparation, subscribe to Shankara IS Academy YouTube channel. Thank you.