 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Reyes Academy for the date 18th April 2019. Displayed are the list of news articles selected for today's analysis and their page numbers in Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram editions of the newspaper. This news article appears on page number 8 in all the editions. This is also an editorial article written by a former chief election commissioner of India. Now Arthur suggests that election commission needs few institutional safeguards which are the needed course corrections to be made so as to save the election commission of India from the crisis of credibility. The aspects of this news article could come under current events of national importance and Indian polity and governance in the preliminary examination syllabus and under the salient features of the representation of People Act 1951 and the appointment to various constitutional posts, powers, functions and responsibilities of various constitutional bodies under the syllabus of GS paper 2 in main examination. Recently, we saw that the election commission of India submitted before the Supreme Court that it is helpless and toothless, meaning it is weak in enforcing rules for free and fair elections, particularly with respect to hate speech by the political leaders. Also, a group of retired bureaucrats and diplomats have submitted a letter to the President of India wherein the letter talks about the weak need conduct of the election commission or the attitude of lacking courage and with full of fear. According to the author, the present appointment procedure of election commissioners is a flawed one which is the core of the problems with election commission and the appointment process requires to be fair, just and transparent. As of now, the appointments are made unilaterally by the government of the day. This issue can be settled by depoliticizing the appointments by making this appointment process through a neutral and independent collegium consisting of the Prime Minister, Leader of Opposition and Chief Justice of India. Such a procedure was also recommended by the law commission in its report on electoral reforms also called as 255th report submitted by the law commission to the Ministry of Law and Justice in March 2015. Secondly, the author talks about the flaw in the removal of election commissioners. The Election Commission of India consists of a Chief Election Commissioner and two election commissioners. The Chief Election Commissioner is appointed by the President and enjoys a tenure of six years. This tenure is given in the Election Commission Act of 1991. The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed from office on the grounds of proved misbehavior or incapacity in the same way as a judge of Supreme Court. That is, an address to remove the Chief Election Commissioner has to be supported by a majority of the total membership of a house and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of both houses present and voting separately for each house and then an order of the President will be passed for removal. Note that the address has to be presented to the President in the same session, but this procedure of removal is not the same for the two election commissioners. They also have the tenure of six years, but they can be removed on the recommendation of Chief Election Commissioner. Now, this lack of protection enjoyed by the Chief Election Commissioner and the uncertainty in the elevation by seniority may make the election commissioners to yield up to the pressure of the ruling government. Therefore, the election commissioners should also be removed only in the manner of removal of a judge of a Supreme Court. This change has to be made. Thirdly and finally, see under section 29 capital A of representation of people act 1951, the election commission of India is a registering authority to register the political parties, but at present the election commission does not have the power to deregister any political party. See, deregister means cancelling the registration of a political party for the grave violations committed by the members of a political party. This recommendation was given by the then Chief Election Commissioner in 1998, but the recommendation is still pending. Thus, the author concludes saying that the elections are bedrock or foundational principle of a democracy and the credibility of an election commission is central to democratic legitimacy or conducting free and fair elections. The election commission, which is the guardian of elections, require urgent safeguards to protect its autonomy and to restore the public faith in the institution. While these steps may be debated, the election commission, which under article 324 of Indian constitution is responsible for superintendents' direction and control of elections and thus it already has the power to act tough because of the constitutional mandate under article 324, irrespective of the above mentioned safeguards which are yet to be brought in law. With this, the author concludes and the practice prelims question will be discussed in the last session of the video. We have displayed you the questions asked in previous years in the main exam for GS paper 2 in the year 2017 and 2018 with reference to the election commission of India. Kindly go through these questions. With this, let us move on to the next article. Now, this news article appears on page number 7 in Chennai, Delhi and Bangalore editions. The article is based on a report titled The Face of the Disasters 2019, released by a non-profit voluntary organization called as Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society. Shortly called as SEEDS, whose main goal is to protect the lives and livelihood of the people exposed to disasters. The information given in the article could be part of current events of national importance and Indian physical geography in prelim syllabus and in salient features of physical geography and important geophysical phenomena in GS1 of Maine's written examination. Indian meteorological department in its first long-range forecast for southwest monsoon has predicted a normal southwest monsoon. Normal southwest monsoon means when the actual rainfall of the country is from 96% to 104% of long period average. Long period average is the average rainfall received by the country as a whole in southwest monsoon for a period of 50 years from 1951 to 2000. Now, the report states that one cannot be happy about having a normal monsoon forecast because it hides the real extremities in terms of weather such as droughts and floods as wide variations were found. Usually measures of central tendency in statistics such as average median mode have certain disadvantages as they do not highlight the range or maximum or minimum such extremities. In order to substantiate, the report states that for the state of Punjab, overall state is a normal southwest monsoon last year. But even within Punjab, there were extremities. For example, in Ropar in Punjab, it was 71% excess rainfall in the southwest monsoon last year whereas in Ferrospur in Punjab, it was 74% less rainfall in southwest monsoon. Again in northeast region by the end of September 2018, the rainfall deficit was found to be more than 20%. The report thus also predicts that floods and droughts or the impending disasters in certain hot spots in our country. In 2018, we received overall a below normal monsoon only which triggered droughts in various parts of around eight states in our country. This can be identified. In Maharashtra, the drought relief claimed by the chief minister for less rainfall in southwest monsoon was around rupees 7000 crore. In Karnataka, the claim was for rupees 2434 crore and in Jharkhand, around 819 crore. And we have seen in our previous current affair classes that IMD predicted this year's monsoon to be normal having considering a weak lino neutralized by a positive Indian dipole moment. Now let us move on to the next article. Now this news article appears on page number five in Delhi edition and page number six in Bangalore and Chennai edition of the newspaper. The next topic thus discusses about the beliefs of people belonging to Senju tribe in domesticating fox which is a protected animal under the wildlife protection act. Also, a superstition exists among these tribes which is meditating on the fox skin would bring them fortunes. In this context, let us discuss about the people of Senju tribe, about particularly vulnerable tribal group status for these tribes and in brief about the animal fox. The contents of this topic will fit into your preliminary examination syllabus under current events of national importance and in specific about the social geography of India. Let us now see in detail about this population. They are the nomadic tribes of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Nomadic tribes are those community of people who travel from one place to another place constantly for their livelihood. Chenju tribes are notified as schedule tribes in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha and Karnataka in accordance with the schedule caste and schedule tribes amendment act of 1976. These Chenju tribes are also categorized as particularly vulnerable tribal groups in short PVTG of the state of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as well. We shall know more about the term PVTG in the later part of our analysis. These nomadic tribes largely involve in hunting and gathering which is their main source of livelihood. Attempts by the state government to involve Chenju tribes in the farming occupation has not yielded desirable results. The language of Chenju tribes is Chenju. It is a Dravidian language with a Telugu dialect. They largely decide in and around the hills and forest of Nalla Mala Range which is situated in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Chenju tribe population practice Hinduism as their main religion. Their main deity of worship is Bhagawan Tharu. They also worship the fire goddess. These are some of the facts about Chenju tribes. Let us now know about PVTG or the particularly vulnerable tribal groups. They are categorized by the Ministry of Home Affairs. The main criteria for classifying a particular tribal population residing in India as a PVTG are that number one they should practice a pre-agricultural level of technology and two the tribal population should be stagnant or declining down the years and number three the literacy level of particular tribal group must be extremely low and finally they should live a subsistence level of economy which means an economy that is non-monetary and one that completely relies on natural resources for ones basic needs. We have seen that the particularly vulnerable tribal groups are categorized by the Ministry of Home Affairs but the development schemes initiated for improving the living conditions for these PVTG groups are implemented by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. The development schemes mainly focus on improving the aspects of education, health, housing and habitat, livelihood and skill development and also the aspect of culture conservation of the tribes particularly categorized as particularly vulnerable tribal group. This news article also discusses about Fox that is being domesticated by Chenju tribes. Let us know in brief about Fox its scientific name is Vulpis Bengal lenses. Indian Fox is also called Bengal Fox. This animal is endemic to the Indian subcontinent and is found widely across the length and breadth of the country from Himalayas to southern India. Fox is listed in Schedule 2 of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. The hunting is classified as an offense under the act that would attract punishment. With this we come to the end of this discussion have a look at the practice problem question we shall discuss at the end of the session. Now this article talks about zinc deficiency among citizens of India. Now this article appears on page number 10 in Delhi edition. The various aspects of this article could come under current events of national and international importance and under climate change and general science in problem syllabus and in minds it could be discussed under issues relating to health in general studies paper 2. As we know zinc is an essential micronutrient for every living organism and its deficiency causes severe problems in human. Recent study in adequate zinc intake in India past present and future that was conducted by Harvard T.H. Cannes School of Public Health reveals that cases of zinc deficiency have been rising in the country in the last three decades with thousands of new additions every year. As per the data prevalence of inadequate absorbable zinc intake has increased from 17.1 percent in 1983 to around 24.6 percent in 2011-12 equivalent to an additional 82 million people becoming zinc deficient through the years. This is because there has been an ongoing demographic shift in India with reduced fertility leading to a higher proportion of adults to children. The aging of the population has caused zinc requirement for the average Indian to increase by 5 percent because adults need more zinc than children for proper physiological function. And adding to this burden higher carbon dioxide levels of around 550 parts per million which has been projected to potentially occur within decades could reduce the zinc content of many staple crops. Reaching 550 parts per million carbon dioxide by 2050 could potentially increase the prevalence of inadequate zinc intake by another 3.9 percentage points corresponding to 65 million additional people having inadequate zinc intake. Now this is because the rising carbon dioxide levels can accelerate zinc deficiency in crops which in turn will be consumed by humans and resulting in zinc deficiency in humans. Now this has been going on for decades and the highest rate of inadequate zinc was more in the states where rice is a dietary staple that is the south and north eastern regions of the country such as the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Manipura and Meghalaya because white rice is poor in zinc. Now the main causes for this zinc deficiency can be pointed to the rural population which is moving to white rice from traditional core cereals such as jova or sorghum or sholam in Tamil. Another cause is the problematic public policies that give subsidy on white rice over other cereals and also the climate changes that cause deficiency in nutrients in crop. Now the consequences of this deficiency are severe like retarded growth, mental disturbances, decreased immunity, hair loss, impaired memory, poor wound healing, leading to recurring infections, slurred speech, diarrhea and in young children it leads to vulnerability to malaria, diarrheal diseases and pneumonia and severe problems like child stunting which means low height for age. And to slow or reverse this cause of zinc deficiency firstly it is important to have national food fortification programs. Fortification means the addition of key vitamins and minerals such as iron, iodine, zinc, vitamin A and D to staple food such as rice, milk and salt to improve their nutritional content. These nutrients may or may not have been originally present in the food before processing or in simple words fortification is a practice of deliberately increasing the content of an essential micronutrient for example vitamins and minerals in a food to improve the nutritional quality of the food supply and to provide a public health benefit with minimal risk to health. Secondly increased dietary diversity and bio fortified crops that is the process by which nutritional quality of food crops is improved through agronomic practices, conventional plant breeding and modern biotechnology. Bio fortification differs from conventional fortification in that bio fortification aims to increase nutrient levels in crops during plant growth rather than through manual means during processing of crops and reduced carbon dioxide emissions and right food choices with this we come to the end of this article. This news article appears in page number 12 in all the editions under consideration. The article states that China has not changed its position or stand with respect to its previous position about listing Masood Azhar as global terrorist in 21267 sanctions committee or it is not ready to change its position by even by any parallel initiative taken by other countries to list Masood Azhar. The information in the article could come under current events of national and international importance in the syllabus for preliminary examination. The stand up China is to resolve by consensus only within the framework of 1267 committee of UN Security Council. Any parallel initiative by other countries to list Masood is a measure to bypass the 1267 committee says China whereas US, UK and France have prepared a draft resolution to directly put to vote in the UN Security Council itself as it is now the fourth time the China is putting a hold in designating Masood Azhar as a global terrorist. See it is the fourth time in last 10 years. In 2009 India listed a proposal by itself to designate Masood. At that time also China put a hold and again in 2016 India moved a proposal with United States, UK and France again blocked by China. In 2017 the United States, UK and France again moved a similar proposal China put out a hold and now recently in March 2019 China put a technical hold for the fourth time. In the present initiative of putting a draft resolution for voting before Security Council China could veto the move. In this method there is no time limit for expressing objections. See the difference is that in 1267 committee once the proposal is listed within 10 walking days if no one files objection then the proposal will have its effect. In voting in United Nations Security Council there is no definite time period for showing objections and all but if the voting date is decided China may be fearing that all 14 nations other than itself may support the resolution leaving it all alone and this would dent the image of China in fighting terrorism in global arena. In this context let us see what impact will it be on Masood Azhar if he would be designated as a global terrorist. Firstly all member states of United Nations will freeze or make inactive the funds financial assets of Masood Azhar. Secondly Masood Azhar cannot enter or leave or transit through any member state of United Nations. Thirdly all member states are required to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale and transfer of flag vessels, aircraft, arms and related material of all types, spare parts and technical advice assistance related to military activities to Masood Azhar. All these are prevented with this let us move on to the next article. This article appears on page number 13 in all editions. The article talks about fast moving consumer goods. The aspects discussed could come under current events of national importance and economic and social development in problems and in Indian economy in GS paper 3 in main exam syllabus. First let us know what we mean by fast moving consumer goods. These are products that sell quickly at relatively low cost and these products are also called as consumer packaged goods right and they have a short self-life because of high consumer demand and therefore they come into non-durable category and these are also mostly perishable for example meat dairy products such as milk etc and these goods have low profit margins whereas in contrast slow moving consumer goods they have longer shelf life and they are purchased over time and for example optical appliances furniture these come under slow moving consumer goods. This news article is based on a prediction or a projection given by global market research firm called as Nielsen. The projection is that for the year 2019 the year on year growth of fast moving consumer goods segment will be lower with respect to the year 2018. Now the growth outlook for the segment in 2019 is around 11 to 12 percent whereas in 2018 the actual growth was 2 percent higher than the current projected outlook for 2019. Now the reasons for this lowering lowered projection for 2019 are the slowdown in rural and urban demand, rising inflationary pressure and overall expected growth slowdown. See the report also highlighted few other factors that may have bearing or some impact on the sector. See the rising input prices and rising crude oil prices will increase the cost of production of the fast moving consumer goods and this will have a bearing on the price of the goods and thus that will have a negative impact on the demand side and the policy dynamics may have a neutralizing effect if any new government or the government in continuation that becomes to ruling after the election changes the policy decisions to address the current problems faced by the fast moving consumer goods segment and the exchanging rate if there is depreciation of rupee imports will become costlier which leads to increased cost of production and thus a negative effect on the demand side and if the slab rate of the goods were kept favoring to propel the demand particularly the rural demand alright then there will not be much a matter of worry in demand and if there is reduction in repo rate to infuse liquidity then banks will receive loans from RBI at less rate of interest and thus pass on the benefits to the consumers thus people will have more money to buy the goods but at this point of time the supply should match the demand else there will be inflationary pressures. Now with this we come to the end of this news article displayed problems question will be discussed in the revision come practice session the last session now we have come to the end of news analysis and let us now move on to the last session the revision come practice session. Now the first question consider the following statements with reference to the election commission of India they have given two statements and are asking which of the given statements are correct now the first statement the chief election commissioner and the election commissioners can be removed from office in the same way as the judge of a supreme court in India. Now the statement is incorrect because only for the removal of chief election commissioner the procedure is in the same way as the judge of a supreme court this is not in the case of election commissioners for the election commissioners the removal procedure is on the basis of recommendation of chief election commissioner. So the first statement is incorrect coming to the second statement section 29 capital A of representation of people at 1951 explicitly provide for the election commission to deregister a political party that commits grave violations against the principle of free and fair elections now this statement is incorrect because as far as now section 29 capital A only talks about registering of a political party it does not explicitly talk anything regarding the power of the election commission of India to deregister a political party so statement 2 is also incorrect so the correct answer is neither one nor two are correct with this let us move on to the next question. Now the next question is with respect to Chenju tribes they have given three statements and are asking which of the statements are correct the first statement the Chenju tribes are the notified scheduled tribes of the states of Andhra Pradesh including Telangana the first statement is correct and the second statement they are listed as particularly vulnerable tribal group by the ministry of tribal affairs now this statement is wrong because the listing of or notifying a tribe as a particularly vulnerable tribal group so far been done by ministry of home affairs only whereas the program related to particularly vulnerable tribal group has been carried out by ministry of tribal affairs therefore the second statement is wrong third statement the Chenju tribes population from Chenju tribes mainly involved in hunting and gathering which is their primary occupation now this statement is correct therefore from we have identified statement one and statement three is correct therefore the option C one and three only is the correct option for this question next question the next question they are asking which among the following form a part of fast moving consumer goods now we study today that fast moving consumer goods have short shelf shelf life right rather slow moving consumer goods have long shelf life and for example we saw perishable goods such as dairy products meat they come under fast moving consumer goods and furnitures appliances they come under slow moving consumer goods therefore milk bottled water television electrical appliances milk and bottled water are part of fast moving consumer goods therefore the correct answer is a one comma two only now the practice mains question in the light of recent controversy regarding election commissions in adequacy to tackle growing violations of model code of conduct suggest few changes that are to be carried out in election commission of India to restore the public faith in the institution now for the first part of the question write a paragraph in five to six lines about the controversy about the problem for the second part for the suggestions you may include the three valuable points suggested by the former chief election commissioner in the editorial article today that are with regards to the procedure of appointment procedure of removal of chief election commissioner and election commissioners and under article twenty nine eight to include the power to deregister a political party for violating the model code of conduct or violating provisions related to free and fair elections right while at the same time asserting election commission of India should assert its powers to act tough even whether the safeguards are carried out or not to fulfill the constitution mandate given under article three twenty four of Indian constitution with this we come to the end of today's Hindu news analysis do press the like button if you like the video share the video comment and also subscribe to our Shankar A.S. Academy YouTube channel to get daily updates about content related to the Hindu news analysis and the current affairs