 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Reyes Academy. The displayed articles have been chosen for today's analysis from Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Tiruvananthapuram Editions. Now let us start our discussion. This news article speaks about the evolution and the application of randomized controlled trials and their effectiveness in the field of social sciences. The syllabus linking of this news article is given here for your understanding. Note that the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences in 2019 was awarded jointly to Abhijit Benerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kramer for their experimental approach to alleviate global poverty. Note that they have introduced the new experiment-based approach in the field of development economics. It is to be noted that the development economics focuses on improving the economic and social conditions in the developing or low-income countries. So what was their approach? In simple terms, this approach breaks down broader questions about any issue into smaller and more manageable questions. Therefore, rather than relying on big-picture questions, they divided the issue into smaller, more manageable and measurable questions. The new method involves randomized controlled trials, in short known as RCTs. In a RCT, the subjects of study will be randomly allocated into two different groups, then they will be separately treated and analyzed, and the final outcomes are compared. The randomized stars, who are the proponents of RCT, claim that this method helps to analyze the cause of the problems and formulate the interventions that are required to achieve desirable outcomes. The article mentions the evolution of RCT. According to the author, the instances of RCTs can be traced back in the 16th century. However, the statistical foundation of RCT was developed about 100 years ago by the British statistician Sir Ronald Fisher. The author discusses the two important constraints of RCT, such as control and randomization. The control is essential to get an unbiased effectiveness of a treatment, such as a clinical trial. For example, the group of people under the study of a new treatment would be compared with the another group of people receiving no treatment or receiving an existing treatment. The next is randomization. It means the task of allocating the patients among two treatments. The author says that if the patients are aware of the treatment they are going to receive, they would be biased. In randomization, the patients are allocated using a random mechanism. It ensures that neither the patient nor the doctor would know the allocation. The article also discusses the application of RCTs in social sciences. The social sciences have slowly converted from non-experimental to experimental methods of understanding. The article also mentions that the randomized tasks took the control of development economics since the mid-of-1990s. Note that this year, Nobel laureates have done about 1,000 RCTs in about 83 countries, including India. Their main areas of focus were to study various dimensions of poverty, including microfinance, access to credit, behavior, health care, immunization programs, and gender inequality. This shows that now RCT is an established technique in social sciences. Now, RCT is regarded as the simplest and the best way of assessing the impact of a program. For better understanding, now consider the basic income experiment of Finland, which was conducted in 2017-18, in that case, few unemployed Finns between the age group of 25-58 years were randomly selected across the country. They were paid an amount monthly instead of basic unemployment benefits. Then the outcomes were compared with the control group comprising the individuals who were not selected to know the effectiveness of the scheme. Now let us discuss the criticism of using RCTs in economic and social experiments. As we have discussed earlier, RCT involves breaking up of a broader problem into smaller ones. Here, the criticism is that the conclusions obtained are questionable because of limited sample size and its opaque necks, considering only limited variables and neglecting other factors. Therefore, with reference to this news article, we have discussed the evolution of RCT and its application in clinical trials and also in economic experiments. Note that though its application in economic experiments is being criticized, but its effectiveness in alleviating the poverty will be visible in the years to come. With this, we have come to the end of this discussion of this news article. The displayed practice question will be discussed at the end of this session. Now let us move on to the next news article. These news articles mention about Future Investment Initiative Summit. Here the syllabus relevance for the analysis of these news articles is given here for your reference. First, we will be discussing about Future Investment Initiative. Then we will be discussing these news articles in brief. Note that the Future Investment Initiative is an international platform for debates that happened between the global leaders, investors and innovators. They are the experts from various fields and they have the power to invest money. So this Future Investment Initiative is focused on utilizing the investment to drive growth opportunities then to enable innovation in order to address the global challenges. The main aim of the summit is to explore the new trends, opportunities, challenges and emerging industries that will shape the whole economy and investment environment over the coming decades. Kindly note that this initiative was launched by the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2017. The Future Investment Initiative is being organized in the context of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030. The core principles of the event are aligned with the strategic objectives and the targets of the Kingdom's National Transformation Plan which is the key to achieving Saudi Arabia's ambitious vision 2030. The Future Investment Initiative summits are connected every year to attract investments this year's summit that is Future Investment Initiative Summit 2019 is happening at Riyadh which is the capital of Saudi Arabia. This summit is also known as Davos in the Desert. This is because every year old economic forum summits are held at Davos which is a place in Switzerland. It is in this forum the world political leaders and business people meet. Similar to old economic forum this Future Investment Initiative Summit is being held every year in Saudi Arabia which is a desert nation hence it is called as Davos in the Desert. This forum is also seen as the most important economic forum in the Middle East. Now look at the front page news article. Here note that the Prime Minister of India has delivered the key note address at this summit. The Prime Minister Modi has announced the formation of strategic partnership council between India and Saudi Arabia. It will be led by the leaders of both the countries. This strategic partnership council will have two parallel tracks. One track will focus on political, security, culture and society. This will be headed by the foreign ministers of both the countries. The next track is on economy and investment. This will be headed by the Minister of Commerce and Industry of Government of India and the Energy Minister of Saudi Arabia. Note that India is the fourth country to form a strategic partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The other countries are United Kingdom, France and China. Now look at the news article that appears in the business column which mentions the address of the business personalities in this Future Investment Initiative Summit. They have noted that the slowdown that has happened in the growth of Indian economy is temporary only and also shared their opinions that the reforms brought by the Government of India will reverse the slowdown trend in the coming months. Therefore, with respect to this news article, we have seen about Future Investment Initiative Summit and the strategic partnership council between India and Saudi Arabia. Now have a look at the practice question which will be discussed at the end of the session. Now let us move on to the next news article. This news article is based on contract forming and legislations based on contract forming. The syllabus that can be linked to the discussion is given here for your reference. The news article mentions that the state of Tamil Nadu has enacted a law on contract forming and President of India has given his assent to it. With reference to this news article, we will be discussing why this law is required and its important provisions. Kindly note that the law is named as Tamil Nadu Agricultural Produce and Livestock Contract Forming and Services Promotion and Facilitation Act 2019. Note that Tamil Nadu is the first state in our country to enact a law in contract forming. This act will provide for improved production and marketing of the agriculture produce, livestock and its products. This will be done through comprehensive contract forming. The act will facilitate the contracting parties to develop a mutually beneficial and mutually efficient contract forming system. The act will also promote services contract. Note that the services contract means the agreement between the former or former produce organization or former produce company and the services contract purchaser. In this services contract, the producer supplies the produce and the purchaser provides the post-arvest management and the marketing services to the produce. The post-arvest management and marketing services include storage, primary value addition, marketing linkages to organized retailers, processors, exporters and so on. Now you should note that this legislation is based on a model law prepared by the central government. Note that Union Finance Minister announced the preparation of a model contract forming act in the 2017-18 budget. Based on this, the final model act was prepared. It is named as the respective state or union territory agriculture produce and livestock contract forming and services production and facilitation act 2018. Now let us see some of the salient features of this state legislation. In line with the model act, under the state legislation, the ambit of former is extended to all kinds of formers. Under the act, former means a person who is engaged in production of agriculture produce or rearing of livestock by himself or by hired laborer or otherwise. Formers also include former who have leased a land, then tenant formers and sharecropper are also included under the act. Then the term agriculture produce includes all produce of agriculture, horticulture, apiculture, sericulture, animal husbandry or forest or any other such activity identified for contract under this act. Kindly note that here horticulture means is the branch of plant agriculture dealing with garden crops, generally fruits, vegetables and other ornamental plants. Apiculture is the scientific method of rearing honeybees. Then sericulture is also known as silk forming. It is the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk. As envisaged by the model act, this law will safeguard the interest of the formers during the times of bumper crop or when market prices fluctuate. Here bumper crop means a crop has a yielded and unusual agriculture productive harvest during the peak arrival period that is during the peak harvesting period and the prices will fall to very low level because of this unusual yield. So normally formers are affected by this bumper crop and the price fluctuations in the market will happen and as they get paid very less for their produce. Now this act tries to mitigate this loss as according to the act a pre-titanmin price or pre-aggrid price will be paid to the formers. This pre-aggrid price will be fixed during the time of signing the contract forming agreement between the formers and the buyer. This agreement is only valid when it is resisted with the designated registering and agreement recording officer and another feature of this act is that the act mandates the support of the formers for agriculture production and the rearing of the livestock. This support will be provided by the contract forming purchaser by way of inputs, feed and fodder and such other technological support. Next feature of this act is that it provides for establishing an authority as demanded by the model act. The authority here is known as Tamil Nadu State Contract Forming and Services Promotion and Facilitation Authority. This authority will ensure proper implementation of the act and it will make suggestions to the state government for the promotion and the better performance of the contract forming. The next important feature is that the contract forming produce or the contract forming product is also covered under the crop insurance or livestock insurance scheme of the central government or either the state government that is in operation. As envious by the model act, this legislation also prohibits the contract forming purchaser from rising any permanent structure on the contract forming produces land and premises. In addition to this, the ownership or the possession of the land and the premises cannot be transferred to the contract forming purchaser and the purchaser has no vested rights on the land and the premises. This provision will help the farmers to save their land from getting occupied by the purchaser. So far we saw the silent features of this state legislation for contract forming. Now you may be thinking about what is meant by contract forming. As per the model act and the state legislation the contract forming means forming by a contract forming producer as specified by the written agreement with contract forming purchaser. In this the agriculture produce includes livestock or its product shall be purchased by the contract forming purchaser or by his duly authorized agent. In other words contract forming refers to forming under varied formal and informal agreements between producers and the processes or buyers. Now based on the legislation it is a formal agreement only. The essence of such an arrangement is the commitment of the producer or seller to provide an agriculture commodity of a certain time at a time and a price and to provide the agriculture commodity in the quantity that is required by the buyer. Then in turn the purchaser who is usually company will undertake to support the farmers production and agrees to buy the product at a price which is established in advance. So contract forming usually involves some basic elements such as pre-agreed price, pre-agreed quality, pre-agreed quantity and time to provide the produce. Now let us discuss why we need contract forming. First is that it is needed to reduce the load on the central level and the state level procurement system. As now private entities can procure the goods for their use. Second is to increase private sector investment in agriculture. Next is to generate a steady source of income at the individual farmer level. Then it is also to promote processing and value addition to the commodity. Then to generate a gainful employment in rural communities in particular a gainful employment for landless agricultural labourers. Now let us discuss what are the advantages to the farmers and the purchaser. With respect to farmer, this type of forming gives exposure to old class mechanized agro technology. The farmer obtains an assured upfront price and assured market outlet for his produce. The farmer can sell bulk supplies as compared to small supplies which is required by the fresh market. Then the farmer has the advantage of crop monitoring on a regular basis and also the farmer will get technical advice free of cost. Now with respect to trader, the advantages are that the trader will get uninterrupted and regular flow of raw material and the trader will have protection from fluctuations in market pricing because he has to pay the pre-agrid price even the price of that commodity increases in the market. Then it gives a possibility to make long term planning for the trader as he can expand his business. And finally the trader will have a dedicated supplier base. With this we have come to the end of the analysis of this topic. With respect to this news article, we have discussed what is meant by contract forming, why it is required and its advantages with respect to the farmer and with respect to the traders and with respect to the purchaser and also some of the important aspects of Tamil Nadu Contract Forming Act. Now let us move on to the next news article. This news article is about the new estimates on the number of people who could be affected by climate change and rising sea level. This article is based on report appeared in a scientific journal. Before discussing this news article, now let us discuss few terminologies like high tide line, low tide line and the definition of shoreline for better understanding of this news article. Now let us understand the high tide line. The high tide line can be defined as the line of intersection of the land with the water surface at the maximum height that can be reached by a rising tide. Now the low tide line can be defined as the line of intersection of the land with the water surface at the minimum height reached by the falling tide and the land between the high tide and the low tide is known as shoreline as shown in the figure. This means that people living below the high tide line are prone to the flooding and the rising sea level due to global warming. This news article reports that at present estimates on risk posed by the flooding are based on the maps of earth taken by the shuttle radar topography mission in short SRTM. Note that SRTM is a mission of NASA that is national aeronautics and space administration. The objective of the mission is to get high resolution digital elevation data of the entire earth. So it will give high resolution topography data of the earth. It was launched by the space shuttle Endeavour of NASA in 2000. Now let us look into the news article. It says that the recent study is based on the new modeling approach for measuring the topography of earth. The study used a new software called coastal dem meaning coastal digital elevation model. Kindly note that a digital elevation model of a surface gives the three-dimensional graphical image of the surface. The authors of the study claim that the mapping based on SRTM overestimates the elevation of land surfaces. This means that the actual elevation of the land surface is actually less than what is shown in the maps based on SRTM. They also claim that the data based on coastal dem is more accurate as it uses more variables such as vegetation cover, population indices to estimate the actual land surface and more sophisticated modeling techniques. Note that the study says that globally about 110 million people live on land below the current high tide lines and about 250 million population lives on a land below annual flooding levels. Kindly note that this data is in contrast with the SRTM based estimates of about 28 million and about 65 million respectively. If this data is accurate, then many more people are prone to the rising sea levels. Now let us come to the India specific facts. According to the author, the number of Indians who could be affected by rising sea levels may have been underestimated by as much as about 88 percent. Because if global emissions continue to rise, in India almost 36 million people would face annual flooding by 2050 and about 44 million by the end of this century. According to the author, earlier estimates reported that about 2.8 million Indians are expected to be living below the high tide line. But the new study says that this figure is around 21 million. It is to be noted that this report is in line with the draft report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in short IPCC of United Nations on Oceans and AIDS Frozen Jones, which was published earlier this year. The report has emphasized on the impact of global warming on melting of glaciers and the resulting floods. The report also mentioned that even if the oil manages to limit global warming at 2 degrees Celsius, the global ocean water line will rise enough to displace more than 250 million people. It also said that this large scale displacement could happen before the end of this century. Now let us come back to the news article. It mentions that due to climate change, the global mean sea level could rise by about 11 to 16 centimeters in the 20th century and is expected to rise as much as about 2 meters by the end of this century. This indicates the potential of rising sea level to inundate the low-lying areas and displace the people living there. This shows the potential of human activities that causes climate change to destroy themselves by reshaping the coastal areas, cities, economies and the entire globe. This is not far away as some reports tell that this might happen by the end of this century. So what can be done? First is to adhere to the Paris climate agreement. The important aim of the agreement is to keep the rise in global temperature well below 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level and pursue efforts to limit it to about 1.5 degrees Celsius. Then we have to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. And this is the most effective solution to tackle the climate change. This can be done by shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, shifting to electric vehicles, creating more carbon sinks through intensive afforestation, increased water use efficiency, formulate adaption and mitigation policies to help the most vulnerable and sustain the agriculture and use of climate resilient crops to ensure food security. So with respect to this news article, we have discussed the important terminologies like high tide line, low tide line and the definition of shoreline and the recent study about the potential impact of global rising sea levels. So with this we have come to the end of this discussion of this topic. The displayed practice question will be discussed at the end of the session. Now let us discuss the practice problem questions. Now consider this question. This question is given with reference to randomized control trials. And they have given three statements and we have to choose the correct option. And one says that it involves the randomization of the trials under controlled parameters. You know that RCT is mainly revolving around the randomization of the trials. Here the trials means experiments which are conducted under controlled parameters. Here controlled parameters mean considering the limited sample size, considering only the limited parameters that are influencing the experiment. Therefore the statement one is correct. And it is to be noted that the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences in 2019 was awarded jointly to Abhijit Benerji, Esther Dufflo and Michael Kramer for their experimental approach to alleviate global poverty. You know that they have introduced the new experiment based approach that is known as RCT in the field of development economics. Thus the second statement given is also correct. Also look at the third statement. It says that the government of India now using the RCTs in order to reduce the number of 100 trials in the jails. Here the third statement is given to confuse the aspirants and nothing relevant to the RCT. Therefore option A that is one and two are correct. Now let us proceed to the next question. Now consider this question. This question is with reference to future investment initiative summit. They have given two statements and you have to choose the correct option. The first statement mentions the aim of the summit. And the second statement mentions about who has launched the summit. Now see the first statement. The main objective of summit is to explore the new trends, opportunities, challenges and emerging industries that will shape the whole economy and investment environment over the coming decades. This statement is correct. This is the aim of future investment initiative summit. Note that this initiative was launched by the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Arabia in 2017. And it has not been launched jointly by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of Government of India and the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as given in the second statement. Therefore the second statement is incorrect. Note that this summit is also called as there was in the desert. Now for this question you have to choose the correct option. Since the second statement is incorrect and first statement is correct therefore option A one only is correct option for this question. Now consider this question. This question which is based on IPCC here two statements are given and you have to choose the correct option. And the first statement reads that the objective of IPCC and second statement it is an intergovernmental body of United Nations. Note that IPCC was established by United Nations Environment Program and all meteorological organization in 1988. Therefore it is an intergovernmental body of United Nations. Thus second statement is correct. You know that IPCC provides reports on climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts. Also note that the important objectives of IPCC are assessing the scientific information that is very relevant to human induced climate change and its impacts on options for adaptation and mitigation. Here the first statement reads that the objective of IPCC is to assess scientific information that is relevant to human induced climate change and its impacts. Thus the given first statement is also correct. Therefore for this question option C that is both the statements are correct. With this we have come to the end. Thank you.