 very good evening aspirants welcome to the hindi news analysis by shankar eyes academy for the date 8th of july 2021 these are the list of news articles taken for today's discussion they have been provided along with the page numbers of these articles in different editions of hindi newspaper now let us start our analysis with this news article so our first discussion is based on this oped article which is written by the united nations population fund representative and this article is about the reproductive choices and the rights of women and their implication in demographic control so let us see these aspects today the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see we all know about India's demographic story right now our total fertility rate has approached 2.2 see here a total fertility rate in short tfr in a specific year is nothing but the total number of children that would be born to each woman if she lives to the end of her child wearing years that is until menopause and you note that an ideal tfr is 2.1 that is two children per couple which means the father and mother are replaced by the two children in the next generation so when a tfr is lower than this it can indicate that population is declining and the value greater than 2.1 indicates that population is growing so India is soon expected to reach the ideal tfr that is population would stabilize soon however population momentum would still be there so it would make it longer for Indian population to stabilize see here to understand population momentum imagine a vehicle that is accelerating and it is being brought to halt so here the vehicle would take some time to halt so similarly our population was growing exponentially so the growth would take time to slow down this is what is termed as the population momentum let us understand it better see we have a population where more than 50 percent of the population is under the age of 29 that is our population is youthful and is in the reproductive age now in this situation a relatively youthful age structure in the population also promotes a more rapid growth this is because of the birds being produced by the relatively large number of people belonging to reproductive age and this happens even if the fertility of the average woman stands at the replacement level but on the contrary if you take China the population momentum won't exist now because the majority of its population is aging and they are past the reproductive age so initially we saw that India is near 2.2 tfr and in order to achieve this India has a lot of merits in its hand to flaunt one of such merits is the progressive policies for maternal health these policies have resulted in improved rates of institutional delivery this in turn has caused the maternal mortality ratio that is MMR to decline see as per the data from sample registration system the MMR has declined from 327 in the period 1999 to 2001 to 113 in the year 2015 to 2018 and this value is per 1 lakh life births and next important data is from the national family health survey 5 for the year 2019 to 20 that is NFHS 5 it shows how contraceptive prevalence has improved in most states this has also translated into better population control because contraceptive prevalence means population control now apart from that initiatives such as beti vachow beti padau has also made some efforts to challenge the existing social norms and the schemes like this have also underlined that improvements in social causes is important but on top of all that India still faces lot of challenges in combating the population problem and thereby we are also facing problems in achieving the SDG target so in this regard author has listed certain problems or challenges the first challenge listed by author is regarding the knowledge about contraception and early age pregnancy see a study by a US organization called gutmacker institute says that 2 million adolescent girls each year in the age bracket of 15 to 19 years had a pregnancy and out of this 2 million nearly 63 percentage were unwanted or unintended pregnancy apart from this the national family health survey 4 has also said that in the girls who are aged between 15 to 19 years 22.2 percentage had an unmet need for contraception so this is pointed towards either lack of access to contraception or lack of knowledge about contraception now both of these can prove detrimental to population control as well as they're detrimental to the sexual and reproductive rights of women now another challenge is that girls are married off too young so according to the available data 26.8 percentage of women who are aged 20 to 24 years married before they turn 18 and worryingly most often these women have their first child within the first year of their marriage this also adds to India's population problem now besides this too many girls and women's face gender-based violence and harmful practices and what is worse is that most of these harmful practices are socially permitted now all of these practices are rooted in our social norms beliefs and practices and they deny women their bodily autonomy that is a woman is denied the freedom over her own body or in other words she does not have a say in her pregnancy along with this the widespread negative social norms and gender inequality has hindered the universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights in short SRHR and on top of all this we have the health system barriers where the rural areas have very little access to reproductive health and knowledge as you can see this is not only a statistical problem or a gender-neutral population problem the problem is social as well it is deeply entrenched in gender bias this has been repeatedly reflected in the world economic forums global gender gap report even in the 2021 report if you have noted India has slipped 28 places to the rank of 140 among the 156 countries and by this India became the third worst performer in South Asia so we can see that the problem is social and cultural so the solution to this should also go beyond the numbers that is policy should take the social factors into consideration especially regarding the reproductive rights for women now in this regard author notes that what research and practical experience actually show is that when women can make informed choices about their sexual and reproductive health and when they can have access to services to support their choices then the resultant societies are healthier and they are more productive so this fact is crucial for India because India has entered a demographic sweet spot that is it has a young age population and this trend will continue for another two to three decades and these young people must not only be healthy knowledgeable and skilled but they must also be provided with the rights and choices to develop to their fullest potential and all this can be harvested as economic gains for the nations and to achieve this social change is the key so these are some of the important points noted by the author of this opiate article where we discussed about the sexual and reproductive rights of women and how it is important to achieve population control now let us move to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article it mentions that the state cabinet of Assam has decided that the traditional food items will be only served at government programs in Assam from Nawan and the cabinet has also decided to make use of hand woven gamosa at the government programs mandatory and this decision is said to have been taken in sync with a prime minister's initiative of vocal for local which promoted indigenous food products so in this context let's discuss the hand woven gamosa and the handloom reservation of articles for production act of 1985 see gamosa is a cloth it is a unique identity of Assamist society it is generally a white rectangular piece of cloth with primarily a red border on the three sides and a red woven motif on the fourth side and note that Assam has traditionally two types of gamosas one is okra or plain this kind is used to wipe the sweat or dry the body after a bath and the second is phulam gamosa this is decorated with floral motifs to be gifted as a momentum or during festivals such as Bihu and cultural historians say that gamosa came to symbolize Assamist nationalism in the 1916 when a students organization named Assam Chattrasamilan was formed see wearing the phulam gamosa around the neck became a standard for cultural identity also the gamosa rose as a symbol of protest during the anti-foreigners Assam agitation from the year 1979 to 1985 and later the gamosa also saw a comeback as a political statement when the protest against citizenship amendment act was happening in December 2019 see over the years cheaper machine made gamosas from Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have threatened to push Assam's weavers out of business so based on this according to an estimate by state government that was made in 2018 Assam has more than 13 lakh looms out of a total 28 lakh looms in the country hence in order to protect the hand loom weavers of Assam the sales of machine made gamosas was prohibited and this was done under the hand loom reservation of articles for production act of 1985 but it is said that this act had very little impact so in this context let us discuss some features of this act see this act provides for the reservation of certain articles for exclusive production by hand looms and this act also prohibits the production of articles which are exclusively reserved for hand looms by any other means so as a measure it gives the central government the power to summon information or to summon samples of the textile articles and it can also inspect and seize those articles if it is found to violate the law here note that an order from ministry of textiles has reserved a class of articles for exclusive production by hand looms and these include sari dhoti towel and gamosa or gamosa then angavasthram lungi bedsheets duris or durates and then funic so these are some of the points that you need to know with respect to preservation of hand loom products and the gamosas now let us move on to the next discussion this discussion is based on this editorial article which discusses the issue surrounding the unlawful activities prevention act and the judicial standards see the recent death of tribal activist father stan swami during his jail term has invited severe criticism of several government institutions and this news article is based on that issue only so in this regard let us know about the epa act for better understanding and then we'll also discuss the issues with it and in the course of discussion we'll also see about the vatali judgment the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see the unlawful activities prevention act or in short ua pa was enacted in the year 1967 and the purpose of this act is to provide for more effective prevention of certain unlawful activities of individuals and associations in addition to this that also deals with prevention of terrorist activities and related matters so accordingly the section two subsection o of the act defines unlawful activity according to it any action taken by an individual or association that leads to session of a part of territory of india or the action which questions the sovereignty of india or which disrupts the integrity of india all of these shall be termed unlawful and the act gives power to the union government to impose all india bans on associations which are declared unlawful under this act and most importantly one of the recent amendments to the act gave power to the union government to even declare a person or an organization as a terrorist or terrorist organization and this will happen if she or he commits certain offenses such as if they participate in acts of terrorism or if they prepare for terrorism or if they promote terrorism or is otherwise involved in terrorism and you should note that under this act cases can be investigated by both the state police and also the national investigation agency so this was the purpose and objective and some of the important provisions of ua pa so now what are the issues in it see the main issue is that the act does not define what is terrorism and if you see even the definition of unlawful activity is such that it covers almost every kind of violent act be it political or non-political so this was the first issue and secondly there is no objective criteria for categorization of an individual as a terrorist so this gives the government enormous power to designate anyone as a terrorist if it deems fit additionally the act does not provide any opportunity to the individual who is termed as a terrorist to justify his or her case before the arrest and there is also provision in the act under which the information which declares a person a terrorist can be withheld from that person for six months so that means if someone is arrested under ua pa act you may not even know what is the reason for your arrest and then those who are arrested under the act can be imprisoned up to 180 days even without filing a charge sheet and these are some of the areas which the editorial article also mainly focuses on see we are already aware of the delays in the judicial system and in addition to it the data available with the union home ministry which was presented to the parliament in march highlighted the irrational use of ua pa act and according to this data only 2.2 percentage of the cases registered under this act between the years 2016 and 2019 actually resulted in conviction by courts along with these issues we also have the problematic vatali judgment which even added more harsh treatment to the accused person who is arrested under this act see by mentioning this vatali judgment author of this article observes that judiciary suffers from many flaws besides weakness so in this regard it is important to know about this judgment and why is it so important this vatali judgment we are talking about is nothing but the case law national investigation agency versus zahoor Ahmad Shah vatali in this case law supreme court's interpretation of ua pa has affected all later judgments involving this act we can say that this decision even created a new doctrine see in this case law supreme court held that an accused person must remain in custody throughout the period of trial even if the evidence produced against the accused person is invalid so by this what supreme court has done was it has essentially excluded the admissibility of evidence at the stage of bail also while considering the bail applications under the ua pa courts must presume that every allegation made in the first information report that is FIR to be correct that is they must presume that whatever the allegations mentioned in the FIR are correct and supreme court also held that bail can be obtained only if the accused person produces material to contradict the prosecution in other words we can say that the accused can be acquitted only if the accused person proves his or her innocence that is the burden of proof rests with the accused person they have to disprove the allegations so because of these important interpretations this judgment of supreme court in this case has set a precedent in cases related to the ua pa act and its bail applications and this has also led to a situation where the hands of the high courts are also tied and which in turn has led to the unavoidable refusal of bail by the high courts here remember that the provisions that we discussed in the ua pa act and the judicial interpretation in the vatali case all these led to the denial of bail for the activist father stands for me which eventually led to his death so based on these instances only author of this editorial mentions this incident as the result of a systemic abuse of majority and authority and disregard for the rule of law so as a conclusion author of this editorial who is a former chief justice of delhi high court has raised the issue regarding the judicial precedent see a precedent is nothing but a rule or a procedure that is established in previous cases so by talking about this issue author questions whether only the supreme court can provide statutory interpretations and whether such statutory interpretations can be termed as precedence because we saw that even the high courts are not granting bail based on this vatali judgment which was given by supreme court and this acts as a precedent to the decision of high courts so based on this author concludes that it is irrational to deny high courts to examine interpretate and validate the constitutional laws so these are some of the points that you can take note from this editorial article which was regarding the ua pa act and the issues with it and we also discussed about the vatali judgment precedent which is very much important from the mains perspective because this vatali judgment is an example of how draconian this ua pa act is now let us move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about the pegasus spyware see according to this news article an online database regarding the use of pegasus spyware was launched by a collaboration this collaboration is between the forensic architecture amnesty international and citizen lab and this database was launched to document attacks of spyware against human rights defenders see the recent times spyware is like pegasus is used to illegally gather information against lawyers, activists and other civil society figures for example it was even used on the nine human rights defenders who were accused in the beema koregano case we discussed about this case few days back so to document such attacks this collaboration has established a database so in this context let us discuss about pegasus spyware and to understand that first we need to understand what is a spyware see a spyware is a malware as you know a malware is short for malicious software and it is a programmer file that is designed to disrupt damage or gain unauthorized access to a computer system and since a spyware is a type of malware it is nothing but a software that is installed on a computing device without the knowledge or consent of the end user and after it is installed it gathers information from the infected system and it sends such information to another entity without the user's consent and this is one of the prevalent forms of cyber attack so in this regard the pegasus spyware has become famous see this pegasus is a spyware program that allows the controller that is the person who has injected the spyware to gain access to the infected smartphones microphone camera and they can even gain access to messages emails and they can collect location data also and this spyware can affect both android devices and ios devices and this spyware program was developed by nsso group technologies which is an israeli technology cyber security firm see basically this pegasus spyware is a powerful surveillance program as per a report by casper ski pegasus even allows you to listen to encrypted audio streams and it can allow the controller to read encrypted messages also as you know here casper ski is a multinational cyber security and anti-virus provider so that means once pegasus is installed the hacker or the attacker has access to the entire phone that is the target user's phone but here the issue is that as per the nsso group technologies pegasus is sold only to the government agencies who are concerned with fighting terrorism and crime but now this is not the case it is said that pegasus is now also used by various government agencies to spy on lawyers activists and other civil society figures so we can see that this pegasus spyware has become a huge menace in the cyber world so these are some of the points that you need to know about pegasus spyware notice more to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article and this discussion forms the judiciary part of our syllabus and it mainly focuses on the recusal of judges so first let us see what is the issue then we'll see about the recusal of judges see the background of the issue is that earlier the chief minister of west pengal had filed an election petition in june 2021 before the high court the petition was alleging irregularities in the counting process in the nandigram assembly poll this matter came for hearing before justice kaushik chanda but the chief minister of west pengal urged the judge to recuse himself from hearing the petition she alleged that the judge had links with the political party so the judge decided to recuse and while doing so he found the allegation inappropriate and he also charged a fine of rupees five lakh so now to understand why he recused we need to know about recusal of judges see recusal of judges is also known as judicial disqualification it is the practice of a judge to step down from being a judge of a case and this recusal of judges stems from one of the three principles of natural justice which says no man can be a judge of his own case so recusal happens generally when there is conflict of interest and when there is conflict of interest a judge can withdraw from hearing a case to prevent creating a perception that she carried a bias while deciding the case and this conflict of interest can arise in many ways for example there could be a conflict of interest if the judge is holding shares in a company that is a party to a case or it could be even a prior association or personal association with the party who is involved in the case for example if i am the judge and one of my family members is being accused of a crime then i cannot be the judge of that case because here we have personal association or personal relationship and there is another instance for recusal it is when an appeal is filed in the supreme court against a judgment of a high court and here this judgment may have been decided by the supreme court judge when she or he was in the high court so they cannot hear an appeal against their own judgment in the supreme court so these are some of the areas where there is conflict of interest now if you see this decision to recuse generally comes from the judge herself it rests on the conscience and the discretion of the judge to disclose any potential conflict of interest in some instances lawyers or parties in the case also bring it up before the judge like how the chief minister of a spring hall brought up the issue and when this is done it is not mandatory for a judge to recuse but if a judge recuses then the case is listed before the chief justice of that high court for the allotment of that case to a fresh bench here you should note that there are also some instances where judges have recused even if they do not see a conflict and there have also been several cases where judges have refused to recuse that is they have refused to withdraw from a case for example if you remember in 2019 justice Arun Mishra had controversially refused to recuse himself from a constitution bench this constitution bench was set up to re-examine a judgment which had been delivered by him previously but despite several requests from the parties justice Arun Mishra refused to recuse himself so now what is the process for recusal see there is no formal rule governing the recusal process and because there are no formal rules the judges need not record reasons for recusal it is the discretion of the judges so some judges disclose the reasons in open court and in some cases the reasons are apparent and in some cases the judges don't disclose the reasons see this judicial recusal has two implications one is the ethical aspect which is regarding the conflict of interest for a judge the personal and professional interest may come into direct conflict in a judicial institution where justice has to be accurately served so if that is conflict of interest ethically the judge has to recuse and the second aspect is that of the judicial independence and transparency see in order to uphold the judicial independence it has not been made mandatory for the judge to step down from a case when a party in interest demands so and as we saw already the reason for recusal also need not be disclosed for the same reason and one of the reasons stated for this is that if the judges ought to recuse on demand then parties may deliberately target judges or even ask judges to recuse just to merely make the judicial process more slower so in this regard there has been growing demands to democratize the institution and to infuse transparency and on those lines two landmark cases are worth recalling first landmark case is Ranjit Thakur versus unit of India 1987 case in this case law the supreme court has emphasized the importance of the interest of the parties who are involved in the case that is in this case law supreme court held that the tests of the likelihood of bias is the reasonableness of the apprehension in the mind of the party in simple words the proper approach for the judge is not to look at her own mind and ask herself that whether she is biased or not but the judge has to look at the mind of the party in interest that means if I am the judge I cannot just simply think whether I am biased or not and decide whether or not to recuse rather I should consider the person or the party in interest and I have to decide whether that party will consider me as a biased judge or not and that is why we say justice should not only be done but it should also appear to be done so this was pointed out by this 1987 case law and the second important case is the 2015 case which is the national judicial appointments commission case in this verdict supreme court batted for judges to disclose the reason for recusal and this verdict wanted to infuse more transparency in the judicial process so based on these considerations justice kaushik chanda recused himself from hearing the election petition filed by chief minister of his pangol so these are some of the points that we should know regarding recusal of judges and the implications of such a move now let us move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article which reports about the release of a mega shipping vessel which is named as mv ever given if you remember few months back this mega shipping vessel was in news for disrupting the global economy see this vessel blocked the su s canal for nearly a week in the month of march and as a result of this this vessel was held by the su s canal authorities and it was held at the canals great bitter lake so this vessel has been held for more than three months because there was a financial dispute the su s canal authorities were demanding compensation and now the news is that this vessel has been released and this was a result of the settlement reached between the ship owner and the canal authorities over a compensation amount so in this slide let us discuss in brief about the su s canal and also the canals important lakes and we will also see why it was a reason for the disruption of global economy see this su s canal is a human made artificial sea level waterway it runs north to south across the islamus of su s in egypt see an islamus is nothing but a narrow strip of land that connects two larger land masses and it separates two bodies of water and this islamus of su s is in the eastern egypt it connects the continents of africa and asia and it separates the mediterranean sea and the red sea and the su s canal is across this islamus of su s only and that is why it also connects the mediterranean sea and the red sea see this canal provides the shortest maritime route between europe and the lands lying around the indian and western pacific oceans so for this reason su s canal is one of the world's most heavily used shipping lanes and it is also the most important waterways in the world and once the mega shipping vessel of mv ever given blocked this canal the canal could not be used for shipping purposes and that is why it led to losses see here you should note that the su s canal is of a straight length but it has got eight major bends and the other two sides of the canal that is the west of the canal is surrounded by the low-lying delta of nile river and to its east the snipe peninsula is situated so as a result of its importance this canal is extensively used by modern ship as it is the fastest crossing from the atlantic ocean to the indian ocean and also note that the tolls paid by the shipping vessels represent an important source of income for the egyptian government now coming to the lakes in the canal you should note that the estimates of su s is not uniform it has got three shallow water filled depressions and these water filled depressions are termed as lake and these lakes are the lake manzala lake thimsa and the bitter lakes the bitter lakes are further distinguished as great bitter lake and little bitter lake and we saw that mv ever given was held in the great bitter lake before its release so let us see a few facts about this see before the construction of su s canal the bitter lakes were relatively small and they were hyper saline inland lakes but once these lakes were connected with both the Mediterranean sea and the red sea by the su s canal they became a single marine body and this led to the increase in their size and it also led to decrease in their salinity and the toll charges go to the egyptian government because it constructed this canal between 1859 1869 in partnership with the french su s canal company so since then the egyptian government is exercising complete control over the canal through its su s canal authority and this authority manages operates uses maintains and also improves the su s canal so these are some of the points that we need to know about su s canal from example specter now let us move to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about nitrogen dioxide pollution see our country imposed a nationwide lockdown last year and this year also various state governments imposed lockdown restrictions to contain the spread of COVID-19 pandemic so many experts believed that these lockdown restrictions will bring down the air pollution because there will be less movement of vehicles and there will be decreased functioning of industries but this was not the case in spite of these continuous lockdowns air pollution levels remained high in major cities in the country and this was based on a report which we will be discussing now see this report is released by Greenpeace India Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization it is working for the betterment of our environment and society now according to a new report from Greenpeace India nitrogen dioxide pollution has increased in all eight most populous state capitals of India so these state capitals are Mumbai Delhi Bengaluru Hyderabad Chennai Kolkata Jaipur and Lucknow now among these cities Delhi saw the most dramatic increase in nitrogen dioxide levels between the period April 2022 April 2021 according to this report in this period nitrogen dioxide was higher by 125 percentage similar was the case with other cities also for example the anodic pollution in Bengaluru has increased by 90 percentage in the same period and there was 52 percentage increase in Mumbai and in Hyderabad increased by 16 in percentage Chennai by 94 percentage Kolkata by 11 percentage and in Jaipur it increased by 47 percentage so this shows that the lockdowns did not lead to the reduction of air pollution so this was the major finding of the report in this context let us see certain facts about nitrogen dioxide see it is one of the group of highly reactive gases known as oxides of nitrogen or simply nitrogen oxides other nitrogen oxides include nitrous acid and nitric acid and this nitrogen dioxide is a dangerous air pollutant it is released during the fuel combustion in motor vehicles that is it is released during the burning of fuel so in two forms from emissions from cars trucks and buses also from off-road equipment such as construction vehicles and lawn and garden equipment apart from this it is also emitted during power generation and industrial processes now this pollution is discussed because exposure to nitrogen dioxide is dangerous it can severely impact people's health at all ages it can severely affect the respiratory and circulatory systems it can also cause brain damage it can also lead to an increase in hospital admissions and mortality so in this regard only greenpeace has pointed out that emission of these pollutants must be reduced the report also notes that there is growing evidence that the polluted cities have suffered disproportionately more coronavirus cases so what is the conclusion see now our economy is in the recovery mode so in this situation certain steps are suggested by greenpeace also it has stressed that the economic recovery from the pandemic must not come at the expense of air quality so it has recommended the government's local administration and city planners to initiate the transition from privately owned vehicles to an efficient clean and safe public transport system they should be using clean energy and the report believes that this will aid in the economic recovery as well as it will reduce the air pollution so these are some of the points that you need to know about the greenpeace report and also about the nitrogen dioxide pollution now let us move to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article and this news article talks about indemnity see if you remember last month USA announced a donation of 80 million doses of American made COVID-19 vaccine to many countries and India was one among them that is India was also in that list of 80 countries this was a great news as we were suffering from vaccine shortage now we had shortage of vaccines because our production of vaccines could not match up to the rising demand so this donation of vaccines was seen as a life saver but there was a problem India was not allowing the import of vaccines due to regulatory issues over indemnity and this was confirmed by the US officials recently and this article is a discussion on that only see the issue arise to when the US vaccine companies like Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson started demanding an indemnity for the supply of vaccines so what is this indemnity it is the security against hurt loss or damage it gives the companies exemption from incurred penalties or liabilities in simple words indemnity is nothing but a waiver of liability so if anything goes wrong with the vaccines the companies won't be held accountable but India is not ready to give this indemnity and because of this issue the US companies are not donating the vaccines to India here you should remember that so far USA has already distributed 40 million doses to about 12 countries and this includes Pakistan and Bangladesh also but India is yet to receive its vaccine lot and according to official sources India wants to review the legal provisions and consequences before giving indemnity to these companies so why is India reluctant to provide indemnity see India fears that an indemnity will make these companies unaccountable for the mishabs and it will make them unaccountable for the possible side effects of the vaccine in addition to this if the US companies are given indemnities then all other vaccine makers such as the serum institute then the Bharat biotech and also the russian manufacturers of sputnik vaccine they will all demand indemnity and this will create a huge problem why because here accountability will take a backseat that is it will become less important if indemnities are offered to all the companies but even then US companies want this and the reason stated by them is that they worry that a country like India will have a lot of infrastructural lapses for example they fear that India will have lapses in cold chain management and we could even face transportation problems so this will affect the working of the vaccines therefore the companies argue that they do not want to face legal issues because of the mishabs within India so this has created a logjam that is an irresolvable issue when it comes to vaccine imports from the US companies so one thing is clear here India is facing a severe vaccine shortage so we have to find a way to import vaccines without affecting the accountability the right balance between these two has to be found and this could be done only through persistent diplomatic talks between the countries so that is all you need to know from this news article discussion where we discussed about the indemnity issue with respect to the vaccines now let us move on to the next discussion so with this news article discussion we have come to the end of this part of our session now we are moving to the practice questions discussion now this first question is based on gamosa the question asks consider the following statements with reference to gamosa recently seen in news gamosa is a food stuff representing the unique identity of gujarati society now this statement is incorrect because during discussion itself we saw that gamosa is a unique identity of asami society and moreover the news was regarding the fact that state cabinet of asam has decided to make use of hand-woven gamosa at government programs so this statement is incorrect now the second statement is in 2020 it has been issued geographical indication tag by the geographical indications registry that is it states it has been issued gi tag this statement is incorrect because as of now gamosa has not received gi tag rather only an application has been filed and accepted under the geographical indications of goods registration and protection act of 1999 and this application is still in pre-examination stage and let us hope that in the near future it will receive the gi tag to preserve its unique identity so here the question asks for the correct statements but both these statements are incorrect so the correct answer is option d neither one nor two now this next question is a two statement question first statement is nitrogen dioxide is emitted during the fossil fuel combustion of motor vehicles this statement is correct second statement in order to inhalation can affect the respiratory and circulatory systems of humans this statement is also correct we discussed these two points during the discussion and here the question asks for the correct statements and both the statements are correct so the correct answer is option c both one and two as next question is a direct question it asks which one of the following is the best description of pegasus that was in the news recently nuclear powered warfare ship high-power supercomputer spyware malicious program interstellar starship and the correct answer is spyware malicious program this pegasus was in news throughout 2020 and now it is again in news in 2021 so you should know that it is a spyware now this next question is based on swiss canal first statement is it is the shortest maritime route from americas to oceania so as you know oceania is the geographic region that includes australia malinatia micronesia and polynesia and this is not the shortest distance between these two rather it is the shortest distance between asia and europe so this statement is incorrect second statement is the tolls paid by the passing vessels represent an important source of income for the egyptian government this statement is correct we saw this during discussion third statement the government of india framed a four-point plan to deal with the swiss canal blockade this statement is also correct see the blockage of swiss canal is always seriously hitting the global trade so in this regard the indian government chalked out a four-point plan to deal with the situation which is arising from the blockage of this swiss canal and this plan included the four points that is the prioritization of cargo freight rates advisory to ports and then rerouting of ships and this plan mainly focuses on the reduction of indian trade losses due to the blockage so this statement is correct and the correct answer to this question is option a one only because the question asks for the incorrect statements so be careful before marking the correct answer so we have seen four practice problems questions now let us take four practice main's questions based on today's discussion see practicing more main's question will help you in answering your gs papers and these questions have been framed based on today's discussion only so listen to the discussion carefully and try to answer these questions and don't forget to add your own viewpoints with this we have come to the end of today's in the news analysis if you like this video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to shankar is academy youtube channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation thank you