 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. This article talks about the commitment of India and the US in scaling up its troop contribution for United Nations peacekeeping missions. So in this context, let us have a brief understanding on UN peacekeeping missions and some other important statistics which are relevant. The syllabus is given here for your reference. See, firstly know that UN peacekeeping helps countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace. It means whenever there is a conflict, the UN peacekeeping missions help the countries to resolve the conflict and to maintain the peace. So compared to individual countries, the UN has several unique strengths like legitimacy, burden sharing and ability to deploy troops and police from around the world. So in a peacekeeping mission, the UN integrates this force with civilian peacekeepers to address a range of mandates set by UNSC and General Assembly. See, apart from as a tool for maintaining international peace and security, the UN peacekeeping operations has three basic principles. They are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. See, first one, consent of the parties. So it means peacekeeping operations are deployed with the consent of main parties in the conflict. And second comes impartiality. Here impartiality means not supporting only one party. So impartiality is crucial to maintaining the consent as well as cooperation of the main parties. And third comes non-use of force except in self-defense and defense of the mandate. So generally the peacekeeping missions do not engage in conflicts. They only try to maintain the peace by acting as a barrier between two conflicting parties. So they are not an enforcement tool. However, in some circumstances like self-defense or to protect the defense of the mandate, the force may be used at the tactical level with the authorization of only Security Council. So what are the different steps involved in a peacekeeping mission? See, when a conflict develops or worsens, UN begins consultations with relevant UN actors, parties on ground, members contributing to peacekeeping, regional organizations, etc. And then the UN secretariat usually deploys a technical assessment mission to the country to assess the vorage situation. So based on the findings of this assessment mission, the UN secretary general will submit a report to UN Security Council. And so if UNSC determines that deploying a UN peace mission is most appropriate step, it will then formally authorize this by adopting a resolution. So this resolution of UNSC contains the operations mandate, the size, the details of the task to be performed, etc. And the budget and the resources are then subject to UN General Assembly approval. So here it is very important to know that UN has no standing army or police force of its own. So member states are asked to contribute both military and police personnel required for each operation. And here peacekeepers wear their own country's uniform, but identified as peacekeepers only by a UN blue helmet as you can see here. And coming to civilian staff of peace operations, there are international civil servants recruited and deployed by UN secretariat. And know that out of entire peacekeepers, in 2019 the women contribution is around 4.7% of military contingents and 10.8% of police units. So this is just to say that how women are also a part of peacekeeping operations. And as you can see here, the top contributors of peacekeeping missions are Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Nepal, India, Pakistan. So it might be a surprising as most of these countries are either developing or underdeveloped countries. So some of the ongoing missions are Western Sahara, Central African Republic, Lebanon, Middle East, India and Pakistan. That is Jammu Kashmir, there are peacekeeping operations. But how are these missions funded? See according to UN Charter, every member state is legally obligated to pay their respective share towards peacekeeping. So the top contributors to peacekeeping operations are US, China, Japan, Germany and UK. Here it is very important to know that India's contribution is just 0.16% of entire peacekeeping budget. Though India is fifth most contributor in terms of troops. It means we are giving personal for peacekeeping operations but the money we are giving to peacekeeping missions is very less. That is just 0.16%. So this is all about the discussion of this news article wherein we try to understand what is peacekeeping mission in UN and who are the biggest contributors in terms of troops and in terms of funds. So let us move on to next news article discussion. This news article is with reference to Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. The news is that the RCEP has come into force from a study without India as a partner. In this analysis we will see the background and India's decision related to agreement and the consequences of not joining the RCEP. The relevant syllabus is given here for your reference. See the idea of having an RCEP agreement was first promoted by ASEAN that is Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2012. And this agreement was proposed among 10 ASEAN countries and 6 free trade partners of ASEAN. So 10 plus 6 total of 16 countries. The 6 free trade agreement partners of ASEAN are India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. So it means that ASEAN is already having free trade agreements with 6 of these countries. Now ASEAN proposed a free trade area among all these 16 countries which is called RCEP. So these negotiations were started in 2012 in Cambodia at 21st ASEAN Summit and the negotiations were continued for almost 8 years since 2012. So these ASEAN countries have made this RCEP deal a key priority and they have been working for that very seriously in the last few years. So the ASEAN countries wanted this deal to be finalized and to be enforced at least from this year that is 2020. When talking about India, India was an active participant in the negotiations in this RCEP agreement until 2019. But last year in November Prime Minister Modi has conveyed that India won't join RCEP in its present form. However the remaining 15 countries have moved forward and finalized the deal and as we said before the agreement came into existence yesterday. There are two mysteries surrounding the origin of COVID-19 and due to failure of China in containing the spread there was an international perception that after COVID-19 China will be isolated in the international and regional arenas. However today's news counters that opinion as RCEP which is the world's largest trade block came into existence yesterday. Even surprisingly two coordination Japan and Australia and even the close partner of US that is South Korea is also part of RCEP where China is a major player. So the question is why India did not join RCEP? The primary reason is if India joins in the current format it will destabilize India's local economy and ruin India's manufacturing industry. And not just that even the farmers will be the most suffered community if India is a part of this partnership. And the present format of RCEP is highly beneficial and tilted in favor of China. Not just India even the former Prime Minister of Australia has said that India's concerns regarding RCEP are genuine and this RCEP appears as a trade arm of China's Belt and Road Initiative. So various concerns of India in this regard have been covered in detail in our 5th November 2020 Hindu news analysis. So watch that video to know more about the concerns of India with respect to joining of RCEP. So we would like to remind you a few concerns like widening trade deficit. See India is already having trade deficit with countries like Korea, Japan and after India signed FTA with these countries the trade deficit has increased a lot. And even regarding the base year of tariffs India wanted 2019 as base year for reduction of tariffs while the other countries are pushing for 2013 as base year. And even regarding to services the ASEAN nations are not much cooperating with India to open their services industry. It means they are keeping some objections or restrictions with respect to opening of service sector to India. And that is the main important concern which is rules of origin. See India wants stricter rules of origin mainly to prevent the dumping of goods from China through other countries. See rules of origin means if India is importing goods from a free trade partner like Japan that goods should be primarily made in that country. See India and South East Asian countries are in free trade agreement. So it means if India is importing goods from South East Asian countries the tariffs or import duties will be very minimum or non existent. So what China can do is China can send it goods to India through South East Asian countries to avoid paying of tariffs to India. But if India puts stricter rule of origin with respect to South East Asian countries which means say at least 50% of the product which you are importing should be made or developed in the South East Asian countries. So if a imported product is manufactured in China and send to India through South East Asian countries because of this rule of origin concept China's product will be imposed tariffs. So India is pushing for stricter rules of origin. This was not accepted in RCEP negotiations. So because of these reasons India has left the RCEP negotiations in the last year. So this is the brief background about RCEP. And today let us focus on the consequences or implications of not joining RCEP. First one is staying out of RCEP may interfere with India's bilateral trading with RCEP member countries. Suppose South East Asian countries are importing goods from India. Now that South East Asian countries have formed a regional trade bloc that is RCEP other countries may provide better alternatives or cheap alternatives to Indian products. So bilateral trade may get affected. And in terms of trade almost all the priorities of RCEP countries will be within RCEP and not outside of that. So for example if Japan wants to import some goods from outside it prefer importing from a RCEP country than from non RCEP country like India. So this may affect India's trade relationships and associated benefits in the Asia Pacific region. And by signing RCEP India had the possibility to become a base for more foreign firms with Indian employees. Such arrangement had the potential to increase exports providing more employment giving more chance to make in India initiative. But now India has missed this opportunity by staying out of RCEP. Next if India had joined RCEP some exports say that India could have been effective counterbalance to China. While joining could have added our importance in the Asian political picture. It is to be noted that only if the deal benefits India India could play a counterbalance to China. But we should know that India has more challenges than opportunities in terms of joining RCEP and for that reason India has stayed out. So we have to wait and see how RCEP develops in the coming days. And as far as predictions by some experts some of the countries could be dominated by China and such countries could come out of this trade partnership. This is because earlier many countries thought they will have India as a huge market which will not be the case as India is out of RCEP now. And not just that. We also know that Japan and Australia are not having good relations with China and they have partnered with India and US in form of Quad, Malabar exercise etc. So we have to see how the trade relations are going to be between these countries and China. Or if RCEP works well and if India is accorded with specific safeguards which India request India may join RCEP in the future. And the RCEP signatory states that are 15 countries said that they will commence negotiations with India at any time once India submits a request of its intention to join RCEP. So this is all about the discussion of this news article and we are expecting more editorials and op-eds on this topic in the coming days. So have a brief idea of what is RCEP and why India did not join and what are the implications. Let us move on to next news article discussion. This news article is with reference to a report released by Registrar General of India titled vital statistics of India based on civil registration system of 2018. This report provides an overview of working of civil registration system in the country which means it contains the data of registered births, deaths, infant deaths and even stillbirths. And importantly for today's discussion the report presents data compilation of sex ratio at birth based on registration records. So today we are going to discuss the sex ratio at birth status in the country and who are the best performers and the worst performers. So what do we mean by sex ratio at birth? It refers to number of female children born per 1000 male children. As per this report sex ratio of registered birth is equal to ratio of number of female births during a year to the male births during that year multiplied by 1000. In this regard the most recent data is available for the year 2018. So according to the report highest sex ratio at birth based on registered events for 2018 has been reported by Arunachal Pradesh with over 1084 females born per 1000 males. This is followed by Nagaland, Mizoram and Kerala etc. And as you can see here Manipur and Lakshadweep are the worst performers with the lowest sex ratio at birth. And if you see this chart we could say that sex ratio at birth in our country among the states vary from as low as 757 to as high as 1084. So there are many reasons for such dismal performance of few states. For example in states like Punjab male children is most preferred. So obviously the child sex ratio at birth is less for females. So area specific interventions are required to correct this anomaly which is favoring the males as of now. While this is the case for the year 2018 we would like to provide you the scenario among the states and UTs from 2007 to 2016 to capture the trends and to appreciate the efforts taken by some of the states. So just observe here from 2007 to 2017 the sex ratio at birth at national level was at 903 in 2007 but significantly declined to 877 in 2016. And for 2018 taking average is difficult as few states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, West Bengal did not provide the required data. So find the performance of your state in the table given here and also try to find out the reasons why your state is performing well or why your state is performing bad. So the decline in sex ratio at birth between 2007 and 2016 raises serious questions related to female feticide, sex selective abortion and even up to some extent having a single child. So this is all about the discussion of this news article wherein we have talked about what is sex ratio at birth and performance of different states in the country and the trends of sex ratio at birth in the last 15 years. So these statistical values can be used in the main examination. So with this let us move on to next news article discussion. Let us now take this news article which says that the claims of over 1200 tribals in Mysore under scheduled tribes and other forest dwellers act of 2006 were rejected by local authorities. This act is also famously called as forest rights act of 2006. So in this context let us have a brief understanding of forest rights act and what are the issues pertaining with this act. See we know that many scheduled tribe people live and today live in the forest and if you see a few generations back mainly before arrival of British many of the tribes were living in the forest. But after British came into power in the country many acts were brought in to curb the rights of forest dwellers. So this is mainly to produce timber for government purpose and also to protect the forest from being exploited. This even continued even after the independence of country. After that we have seen many acts like environment protection act, wildlife protection act. So these acts even prohibited or curtailed the rights of forest dwellers. So it shows that for generations that forest dwellers have been met with injustice in the name of protecting environment and the forest. So to reverse this injustice government has brought in scheduled tribes and other forest dwellers recognition of forest act of 2006. As said before this is also called as forest rights act of 2006. So this act was enacted to recognize and to give the forest rights and occupation in forest land to the forest dwelling scheduled tribes and traditional forest dwellers. This act also gives the responsibility and authority for sustainable use, conservation of biodiversity and even maintenance of ecological balance to forest dwellers. So primarily this act gives ownership of land to the forest tribals to a maximum of 4 hectares and very importantly know that the ownership is only for the land that is actually being cultivated and no new ownership or no new lands will be given. And coming to rights the forest dwellers can extract minor forest produce like bamboo, waxes, resin and cutting of timber is not allowed. When we say minor forest produce it is mostly forest produced without timber. So this act also provides for a framework for recording the forest rights vested and the nature of evidence required for such recognition and wasting in the respect of forest land. But what happened was in 2019 the Supreme Court ordered to evict those people who were claiming as forest dwellers if their claims were rejected under this act. The Supreme Court even asked the states to ensure their eviction in few months of time. So this eviction ordered by Supreme Court resulted in nationwide uproar as one time estimate tells that around 12 lakhs claims have been rejected until then. So civil society organizations also claimed that many of those rejected people were indeed traditional forest dwellers but unfortunately they are not in a position to prove. So central government has asked the Supreme Court to modify its order and the Supreme Court had stated its previous order asking for eviction. And coming to the process of framework regarding the forest rights the act says that Gram Sabha is the authority responsible to receive claims and to determine the nature and extent of an individual or community's claim. Here note that Gram Sabha means not Gram Panchayat here Gram Sabha relates to all the people living in that Gram Panchayat. So here a resolution will be passed by the Gram Sabha on a claim made by the forest dweller and the resolution of this Gram Sabha will be scrutinized at two levels. One is subdivitional level and later at district level and any person left out with a resolution given by Gram Sabha can appeal to subdivitional level or district level. So in this context the decision of district level committee on the resolution of Gram Sabha is final and binding. So this very hard legal procedure requires legal awareness and legal literacy and obviously most of the forest dwellers do not have this legal knowledge. And another issue is that under this FRA 2006 any member to claim the forest right has to prove that they are primarily residing in that area for at least three generations or 75 years. So if a tribal family has to claim a land under FRA 2006 they have to prove evidence for their residence for last three generations or 75 years. So this makes very difficult for even a real forest dweller to prove this residence criteria due to lack of documents, education or legal literacy. So even if their rights are violated they don't know who to approach or how to approach. So because of this reason as many as 12 lakh claims were rejected by the concerned authorities up to 2019. And not just that the apathy of government servants or less political interest of politicians when it comes to the World Bank of tribes have made the claim of forest dwellers even more difficult. So this is all about the discussion of this news article wherein we have talked about the forest rights act and how the tribals met with injustice for centuries. And even though government has brought in an act to recognize the rights of people the difficult legal procedure and the requirement of 75 years or three generations evidence to prove the claim is still making the rights of forest dwellers violated and unattended. Let us move on to next news article discussion. This article is about the Code on Social Security 2020. See we know that the Ministry of Labor and Employment had introduced four labor courts to simplify and rationalize the central labor laws. And in the recent months we have discussed these four labor courts multiple times which are code on wages, code on social security, code on occupational safety, health and working conditions and code on industrial relations. And coming to social security code its main objective is to amend and consolidate the laws relating to social security and to extend the security to all employees and workers either in organized or even in unorganized sectors. So in order to simplify existing legislations this code has subsumed existing acts like employees compensation act, employee state insurance act, maternity benefit act, unorganized workers, social security act etc. And coming to today's news article it says that Union Labor Ministry has notified the draft rules under the Code on Social Security. This code is going to benefit previously neglected sections like unorganized workers, gig workers, platform workers, building and other construction workers. See we have elaborately explained the gig work and platform work and the impact of this code on gig workers in our second November Hindu news analysis that is two weeks back. That day we have clearly explained what is gig work, what is platform work and why social security for those workers is very important. So why is this code so important is the social security is essential for every human being. See it indicates the measures of protection to ensure access to health care and to provide income security. This is particularly very important in cases of old age, unemployment, sickness, injury caused during work, maternity or loss of bread window. See we had something called provident fund as well as employee state insurance wherein employees and the employer will contribute some money which will benefit the employees at the end of their work or whenever required. And even some companies provide health benefits to their employees as well. So these are called social security benefits. So in this context let us discuss an important provision of the code regarding building and other construction workers. So this code says that a says shall be levied and collected for social security and welfare of building workers. So this says will be around one to two percent of entire construction cost incurred by an employer. The proceeds from this says collected shall be deposited by the local authority or such authority to the building workers welfare fund. And if any employer fails to pay any amount of says payable such employer shall be liable to pay interest at the rate prescribed by the central government. So this is all about the discussion of this news article wherein we have talked about draft rules of code on social security. So once this draft is finalized government will release the rules. So then we may have more news articles we will discuss the other important provisions in the coming days. Let us move on to practice questions discussion session. Consider the following statements. Three statements are given here. Statement one that UN General Assembly is empowered to deploy a UN peace operation in a country by formally adopting a resolution to that effect. This statement is incorrect because it is not General Assembly. It is Security Council which is empowered to deploy a UN peace operation. So as statement one is incorrect you can eliminate options A and C. Coming to statement two one of the core principles of UN peacekeeping operations is non use of force except in self defense and defense of the mandate. Yes the statement is correct. The other two core principles are consent of the parties and impartiality. And coming to statement three at present India is the largest force contributor to UN peacekeeping operations. This statement is incorrect because India comes at fifth position after Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Nepal in contributing to UN peacekeeping operations. So correct answer is option B two only. Next question which of the following are ASEAN member nations. So six countries are given here. We should identify which of the given countries belong to ASEAN group. The given countries are Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh. See we all know that Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are part of South Asian group and not South East Asian group. So if you remove five and six you can arrive at the answer that is option D one, two, three and four. The other six countries are Cambodia, Laos, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Correct answer option D. With reference to schedule tribes and other forest dwellers act of 2006. Consider the following statements. Statement one. Gram Sabha is the authority responsible to determine the extent of an individual's claim on forest rights. Yes the statement one is correct. Statement two. The decision of Gram Sabha on the record of forest rights shall be final and binding. The statement is incorrect because the decision of district level committee on record of rights is final and binding. We also said that after Gram Sabha gives its recommendations it will be scrutinized by subdivision level as well as district level. If any person's claim is rejected by Gram Sabha they can appeal to either subdivision level or district level. So statement two is incorrect. We are supposed to identify correct statements. So correct answer is option A one only. Consider the following statements. Two statements are given here and we should identify correct statements. Statement one. Sex ratio at birth at the national level has consistently improved in India in the last 10 years. The statement one is incorrect because sex ratio at birth has not been consistent in the last 10 years. We have seen that in the year 2016 the sex ratio dipped to 877. Statement two. Sex ratio at birth do not vary significantly among the northeastern states of India. This statement is also incorrect because we have seen that Arunachal Pradesh with sex ratio of 1084 is at the top of table while Manipur which is also other northeastern state with sex ratio of 757 is in the low performing states. So sex ratio even in northeastern states vary significantly. So correct answer is option D neither one nor two. Let us take up main questions now. India's decision of not to join the RCEP partnership is a life saver for India's manufacturing and agricultural sectors. Analyze. So in this question we have to analyze how India's decision of not joining RCEP will benefit India's manufacturing and agricultural sectors. You can take various examples or the shortcomings of RCEP agreement with respect to India. And in the conclusion end the question with a proper or relevant discussion like how this decision of India will benefit manufacturing sector, agri sector and also some shortcomings of India not joining RCEP. Let us take up one more main question based on sex ratio. Discuss the reasons for the skewed sex ratio in India. Suggest the measures to improve the sex ratio at birth. So in the first part of the question we have to write what are the reasons for biased sex ratio in the country. So for example we can write reasons like gender bias and female feticide and also the son preference. There is also a concept called meta son preference. Try to know about it and include in the answer. So these can be few examples and come into measures to improve sex ratio. So a behavioral change is required and stricter regulations with respect to female feticide and with respect to pre-conception and pre-natal diagnostics. And we can also talk about different government schemes like beti bachao, beti padao, sukhane samriti yojana, balika samriti yojana. You can include these examples and end with a proper conclusion. With this we conclude today's news analysis. If you find this session resourceful click on the like button, show your appreciation in the comment section and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel.