 A great evening to the viewers and aspirants. Welcome to the Hindina's analysis brought to you by Shankarai's Academy. Today we'll be covering the Hindi news edition dated 24th of May 2022. These are the articles I have taken for discussion today. Some of these sessions are going to be quite interesting and at the end I also have a quiz question for you as usual. I could not cover a previous equation today but don't worry I'll cover it in my next session. So now let us get to the news articles discussion session. So we are going to start our discussion with this text and context article as it talks about a research paper which provides a solution to deal with hidden hunger. See this paper is about the genetic modification of tomato to make it produce pro vitamin D3 so as to address vitamin D deficiency in humans. So in this manner that text and context article discusses about the procedure involved in the genetic modification of tomato and it also discusses some issues with it. So today we are going to discuss in detail about what do you mean by hidden hunger and then we'll see about the rule of GM crops in addressing hidden hunger and other benefits of GM crops. Why I have chosen this topic is because genetic modification especially GM crops is our favorite topic of UPSC. See so far many questions have appeared on this topic particularly if you take GM crops there were direct questions on the crops itself. As you can see in 2011 there was a question on BT Brinjal which is a genetically modified Brinjal then in 2018 there was a question on GM Mustard and then in 2021 that is last year there was a question which talked about Volgaard 1 and Volgaard 2 which is related to genetically modified cotton which is BT cotton. So time and again UPSC prefers to ask question in this area. So that is why it is very important for us to know genetically modified crops that are often in use and also we should have a basic understanding about the process involved and in the mains perspective we know that hunger and malnutrition is a favorite topic in JS paper 2 and 3. So in this manner also this discussion is going to be quite important for you. So pay attention to this discussion who knows we may get a direct question about GM crops in the coming prelims also. So these are the syllabus that we can relate this discussion to let us get to the discussion now. First let us start with understanding hidden hunger. We all know hunger. See hunger is nothing but the state of not having enough food to eat. So not having enough food to eat leads to hunger. So then what do we mean by hidden hunger according to the definition of food and agriculture organization. Hidden hunger is also called as invisible hunger and it is nothing but the micronutrient deficiencies that is the deficiency that occurs when the quality of food eaten by people does not meet the nutrient requirements. So the people are not getting the essential vitamins and minerals which are needed for their growth and development and this leads to micronutrient deficiencies. So in short we can say that deficiency in food itself leads to hunger but deficiency in micronutrients leads to hidden hunger. I hope you got the difference. Focusing on hunger and eradicating it is quite important globally especially we also have a target under sustainable development goals. We know that goal number two deals with ending hunger achieving food security and improving nutrition and also promoting sustainable agriculture and the deadline for achieving this target is 2030 but the problem is at present the scenario is very depressing. If you see certain data that is mentioned in the article according to it in 2020 itself nearly 8.9 percentage of the world's population which is about 690 million people were hungry and most importantly in the last five years the number of people who are hungry has increased that to by 60 million. So if this trend continues then by 2030 will not be eradicating hunger rather there will be more people who are hunger in the world according to certain estimations the number of people who are hungry in the world will increase to 840 million by 2030. So that means serious measures are needed to address hunger and for this purpose in our country we have many measures like the National Food Security Act public distribution system we have midday meals and even the green revolution was aimed at addressing hunger only and we can say that we have been fairly successful in addressing hunger in our country but again the problem is our country primarily focused only on addressing hunger but we neglected malnutrition or hidden hunger and as a result of this in India hidden hunger has been on the rise according to UNICEF's 2019 report. So this report is titled as adolescents diets and nutrition growing well in a changing world this report states that in India over 80 percent adolescents suffer from hidden hunger so you can understand the prevalence of hidden hunger and if by 2030 hunger is going to increase that means hidden hunger will also increase so that is why several steps are taken globally and also in our country we are also taking many steps to address hidden hunger one among them is mentioned in the news article we'll come to that also let us see other steps now one of the main steps is diet diversification see malnutrition is nothing but deficiency in micronutrients right so through diet diversification the quantity and range of micronutrients rich food can be increased so taking an adequate quantity of fruits and vegetables in our diet can address micronutrient malnutrition and this is why our government is providing course cereals and pulses as a part of pds this helps in ensuring diet diversification and also addresses hidden hunger so rather than just eating rice and wheat as staples we should also be consuming other core cereals and pulses so first step is diet diversification which we can do on our own now the second one is food fortification see this food fortification is a process which adds micronutrients to our food recently we saw about food fortification some four five days back and we saw that in India various food items like rice, wheat flour, salt, edible oil and milk are fortified to address hidden hunger and then another important measure or step that can be taken to address hidden hunger is providing food supplements see the food supplements deliver nutrients directly to the population through syrup or pills see in food fortification such kinds of supplements are added to the food and then we eat that food but in case of food supplements we directly the supplement itself for example you would have heard about weekly iron folic acid supplementation scheme of the minister of health and family welfare under this scheme ministry provides folic acid tablets to women so it helps in addressing many iron deficiency related problems so this is another method of addressing invisible hunger and now comes the solution that is mentioned in this article which is addressing hidden hunger through genetic modification how this genetic modification is done it is done by genetic engineering what is genetic engineering now it is the process by which the genetic makeup of an organism can be altered using recombinant DNA technology so remember that genetic engineering involves recombinant DNA technology now this process involves the use of laboratory tools to insert alter or cut out pieces of DNA that contain one or more genes of interest so through genetic engineering GM crops are made so what are these GM crops see they are also known as transgenic crops it is a plant that has a novel or unusual combination of genetic material which is obtained through the use of modern biotechnology for example you know in a GM crop there can be a gene that has been artificially inserted instead of that plant acquiring it through pollination so the resulting plant after genetic engineering is what is called as genetically modified crop so generally genes of commercial interests are transferred from one organism to another and such commercial interests could mean best management improving the yield etc so in the beginning we saw certain genetically modified crops like bt brinjal bt cotton gm mustard and on those lines you would have also heard about golden rice see this golden rice is a genetically modified rice that is made to produce beta carotene this beta carotene is a pro vitamin a here this pro vitamin a is converted into vitamin a in our body so on those same lines the text and context article mentions about genetically modified tomato the researchers are genetically modifying tomato to make it produce pro vitamin d3 so what is this pro vitamin d3 see this pro vitamin d3 is nothing but 7d hydrocholesterol in short 7d hc this 7d hc or pro vitamin d3 is a precursor to vitamin d what happens is in our body this 7d hc is converted into vitamin d in the presence of sunlight which contains ultraviolet b light in this way it helps in addressing the vitamin d deficiency in humans but why do we need vitamin d see it is needed for a process known as calcium hemostasis calcium hemostasis is a process that helps in the maintenance of constant concentration of calcium ions in our body see our body must maintain a sufficient level of calcium because calcium is needed for bone development and a deficiency of calcium causes many health related risks like rickets osteoporosis it also causes cancer parkinson's disease and dementia so that means for our body to maintain sufficient calcium levels vitamin d is required and that is why addressing vitamin d deficiency is quite important now one of the methods of addressing this deficiency is direct intake of the food items that are rich in pro vitamin d3 or 7d hc such food items include oily fish like you know salmons sardines herring and mackerel it also includes red meat liver and egg yolks as you can see all these food products and items are classified as non-vegetarian so people who are following vegetarian diets are mainly susceptible to vitamin d deficiency so what they do is they can address this deficiency by taking supplements but it may not be possible for everyone who is following vegetarian diet to take supplements and that is why the alternative method is taking vegetarian food rich in pro vitamin d and this is where the genetically modified tomato comes in and tomatoes are in all rounder because it is used in almost all recipes so if the 7d hc levels that is the pro vitamin d3 levels are increased in tomato by genetic modification then vitamin d deficiency can be addressed easily so how scientists enhance this 7d hc levels in tomatoes see initially the tomato plant has 7d hc in it but what happens is when the tomato fruit ripens this 7d hc is converted into cholesterol so scientists have devised a way to prevent this conversion and through this they are making the ripened tomatoes rich in 7d hc or pro vitamin d3 so what is the process they have used here they have used the gene editing tool CRISPR Cas9 and they have modified the genome of tomato to make the plant produce a substance called as steroidal glycokeloid this steroidal glycokeloid in short can be called as SGA this SGA plays a vital role in preventing the conversion of 7d hc or pro vitamin d3 into cholesterol so based on this the research paper claims that through this method one tomato fruit that is produced from genetically modified tomato plant can contain pro vitamin d3 levels which are equivalent to 2 eggs or 28 grams of tuna fish and researchers also report that GM tomatoes showed a reduction in the levels of a substance called as alpha tomatine so this alpha tomatine is anti-neutral in nature so reduction in alpha tomatine is considered an added advantage in genetically modified tomato but this has been considered a concern by certain scientists because this alpha tomatine may be anti-neutral but it is believed to have a role in tomato plants resistance to viral attacks, fungal attacks, insect and herbivore attacks so scientists believe that reduction in alpha tomatine in GM tomatoes may not necessarily be a good thing so what is actually needed is further research is needed in this GM tomato before the process is commercialized so these are few facts that you need to know about GM tomatoes and we also saw one of the concerns and this GM tomatoes so through this discussion now let us summarize the applications and benefits associated with GM crops the first benefit is nutritional enhancement so like we saw in the discussion plants can be genetically modified to enhance vitamin content along with this healthy fatty acid profiles and other micronutrients can also be enhanced secondly through genetic modification the stress tolerance levels of plants can also be enhanced that is they can develop high tolerance to high and low temperature salinity and drought this is particularly important due to climate change right because now we are in need of drought resistance and saline resistant crops already there are certain crops in our country which are under development to address these issues it includes the drought resistant transgenic wheat and saline resistant rice then another major application of GM crops is the development of disease resistant crops see here the most common example is bt cotton bt cotton is the first genetically engineered or GM crop which was commercialized in India see this bt cotton is created by adding genes from bacillus thuringiensis so that is why bt is added to this bt cotton b from bacillus and t from thuringiensis and by adding these genes the cotton plant is made resistant to ballworm which majorly affects the cotton plant then another benefit of GM crops is they can also be genetically modified to enhance their biofuel production capabilities see through genetic modification plants with altered cell wall composition can be produced and these are more efficient in ethanol production and finally GM crops are also used in phyto remediation see phyto remediation basically refers to the use of plants and associated soil microbes to reduce the concentrations or toxic effects of contaminants in the environment so GM crops helps in phyto remediation also so because of all these applications and benefits scientists support GM crops but in India only GM cotton that is bt cotton is commercially available other GM crops are waiting approval of genetic engineering appraisal committee such crops include GM mustard bt brinjal and protato see here protato is the genetically modified potato with enhanced protein content so even though GM mustard and bt brinjal is not commercially available there was a question based on this so that is why you should focus on genetically modified tomato also so this was a lengthy discussion and we almost covered all the points important from the monetization perspective and also from the GM crops perspective with these points in mind now let us get to the next discussion so let us take up this news article which says that interstate council has been reconstituted along with this council the government has also reconstituted the standing committee of this interstate council now the chairperson of this standing committee is the union home minister therefore from exam perspective it is important for us to know about the interstate council we'll start with knowing how it came into existence see as you know the constitution of India provides for a polity which clearly defines spears of authority between the union and the states to be exercised in the fields assigned to them so in consistent with this purpose constitution has made an elaborate distribution of powers between the union and the states in the areas of legislative powers administrative powers and financial powers now when it comes to legislative power it has been classified into three lists and these three lists exist under the seventh schedule to the constitution we know the three lists what are they union list state list and the concurrent list apart from the subjects under these lists there is also respiratory powers of legislation which has been vested with the parliament see even though there is a clear cut classification of these powers still from time to time the center in the states have certain issues in the areas of distribution of powers so the union government has taken several steps to look into such contentious issues and as one of the measures the union government even constituted a commission in the year 1988 it was constituted under the chairmanship of justice r sarkarya yes we are talking about the sarkarya commission and this commission reviewed the working of the existing arrangements between the union and the states and that is why we say it is a commission related to center state relations now this commission made two important recommendations that is relevant for our today's discussion first recommendation was a permanent interstate council called as the intergovernmental council igc and it has to be set up under the article 263 and the second recommendation was the igc should be charged with the duties set out in clauses b and c of the article 263 other than socio-economic planning and development so that means we need to know what this article 263 is so this article deals with the provisions with respect to an interstate council under this article the president of India is empowered to establish a council to deliver certain duties these duties include enquiring into the disputes between the states and advising upon the same and then investigating and discussing subjects in which some or all of the states have a common interest then it also includes investigating and discussing those subjects in which the union and one or more states have a common interest and it also includes the duty of making recommendations upon any such subject and in particular making recommendations for the better coordination of policy and action with respect to that particular subject so these are the duties defined in this article 263 and for delivering these duties if the president thinks a council is needed then she can establish such a council and can define its nature organization and procedure so based on this article sarcaria commissions adjusted for the establishment of interstate council called as the intergovernmental council and this recommendation was accepted by government of India and thus the council was notified through a presidential order india 1990 that means the interstate council is established based on the recommendations of sarcaria commission this is a correct statement now coming to its composition see this council consists of a chairperson and members the prime minister of india as the chair person and members include the chief ministers of all states and even the union territories that have legislative assembly the administrators of union territories not having legislative assembly are also members of this council in addition to them six ministers of cabinet rank in the union council of ministers is also nominated as members now they are nominated by the prime minister that is the chairperson of this council apart from the chairperson and these members the council also provides for the participation of governor in the council but it can happen only when a state is under a president's rule and then there are also permanent invitees to this interstate council as per the presidential order 10 union ministers will be permanent invitees to the council so initially this council was constituted in the year 1990 and then it was reconstituted in the year 2019 and now the news is it is being reconstituted again in the year 2022 so what are the duties and functions of this interstate council as we saw in the article 263 it also has the same duties like you know this interstate council is a recommendationary body and it can investigate and discuss the subjects of common interest between the union and the states or the subjects of common interest between the states and it also makes recommendations particularly for better coordination of policy and action on these subjects apart from this the council also deliberates upon other matters of general interest to the states which is referred to them by the chairperson to the council that is which are referred to them by the prime minister so through these duties the council works to promote and support cooperative federalism in the country so this is the main purpose of this council these are the few facts that need to know about interstate council with these facts in mind well let us get to the next discussion our next discussion is going to be based on this news article it says that Indian Prime Minister on Monday met with the number of top representatives of the Japanese corporate sector and according to the article a prime minister has noted that Japan and India are natural partners so India has chosen destination for Japanese people for spears such as faith, adventure sports etc and on the sidelines of this visit to Tokyo an agreement was signed by India not with Japan but with USA this agreement is the investment incentive agreement we are going to see about this agreement in our discussion see as i just said this investment incentive agreement is signed between India and USA it was signed by the foreign secretary of government of India and the chief executive officer of US international development finance corporation which in short is called as DFC see this investment incentive agreement of 2022 supersheets the agreement that was signed between India and USA in the year 1997 the new agreement was signed because significant developments have taken place since the signing of that agreement in 1997 and one of the main developments is the creation of a new agency called DFC see DFC is the US international development finance corporation and the CEO of this corporation only has signed the agreement with India now this DFC is the development finance agency of government of USA it is a successor agency of erstwhile overseas private investment corporation in short OPIC this OPIC was a development finance institution of USA that was founded in the year 1971 itself and among other things OPIC assisted the private businesses that wanted to invest abroad but with changing time the US development finance capabilities were reformed and strengthened by forming the new federal agency of DFC and it was done by a landmark legislation of USA the legislation we are talking about here is the better utilization of investments leading to development act of 2018 in short build act of 2018 see you have to remember these names you know international development finance corporation and then overseas private investment corporation and all because there might be a simple question problems stating the corporations like this exist in which country so you should know that they are US federal agencies now coming to DFC see it will help to address the development challenges and foreign policy priorities of the USA and for this DFC partners with the private sector to finance solutions to the most critical challenges that are faced by the developing world today and in this manner it also invest across various sectors like energy health sector critical infrastructure and technology and it also provides financing for small businesses and women entrepreneurs in order to create jobs in emerging markets so even the India signed the investment incentive agreement in 1997 itself and even has been signed now to keep pace with the additional investment support programs that are offered by this DFC these additional programs include debt equity investment investment guarantee investment in insurance and reinsurance then feasibility studies for potential projects and grants etc and furthermore IAA agreement is a legal requirement for DFC to continue providing investment support in India and that is why the agreement was signed see under the last IAA agreement that was signed in 1997 DFC particularly its predecessor OPIC was active in India since there 1974 and it has provided investment support worth of 5.8 billion dollars out of this 5.8 billion dollars 2.9 billion dollars is still outstanding and there are also proposals worth four billion dollars which are under consideration by the DFC for providing investment support in India additionally DFC also provided investment support in sectors that matter for development such as COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing healthcare financing renewable energy SME financing financial inclusion etc and now by signing off a new IAA agreement it is expected that this would lead to enhanced investment support by DFC in India so this will further help in India's development so these are some of the crucial facts that we need to know about investment incentive agreement and DFC now let's get to the next discussion so now let us take up this opiate article this article is about deemed forest let us see what this opiate article says first see in an order the Karnataka government has denodified almost 67 percentage of its deemed forest so the deemed forest area has been reduced from 9.94 lakh hectares to 3.3 lakh hectares see even though the Karnataka government has denodified deemed forest this decision is subject to the approval of supreme court supreme court's approval is mandatory because Karnataka government's move is contrary to Indian government's commitment to restore 26 million hectares of land by the year 2030 and also this is because of an important 1996 case law in addition to all this we know that Karnataka is being battered by extreme climatic events and in such a moment this move has been taken by the Karnataka government but it has justified its move saying that the land released from deemed forest areas will be transferred to the revenue department and such lands will be utilized for infrastructure development so this is the argument put forward by Karnataka government so from example's perspective we need to understand the meaning of deemed forest and the 1996 case law see these deemed forest comprises about one percentage of India's forest land and it is a controversial subject because these deemed forest are not properly defined it generally refers to the land tracks that appear to be a forest but they have not been notified as forest by the government or in historical records see generally what happens is the freedom of defining which track of forest and land qualifiers forest has always been the prerogative of states since their 1996 that is after the 1996 case but however this applies only to those forest lands that has not already been historically classified as forest in the revenue records or which has not been categorized as forest by the government saying that as protected forest or reserve forest so what you need to understand is defining any track of land and forest as forest is the power of states but they can only define those forests and land as forest which have not already been classified in the revenue records or classified by the central government as protected or reserve forest so these deemed forests are those areas that are like forest but they are neither recorded nor notified so we can say that they are thickly wooded land and they have considerable tree cover and forest cover in addition to this you should also know that the concept of deemed forest has not even been clearly defined in any law including the forest conservation act of 1980 and because of that only the 1996 case law is important it is the T. N. Godavarman thermal pad case in this case law supreme court accepted a wide definition of forest under the forest conservation act here supreme court also held that the word forest must be understood according to its dictionary meaning so such a description covers all statutorily recognized forest so it includes the tracks of land that are designated as reserved protected or otherwise and supreme court considered this definition especially for the purposes of section 2 of forest conservation act see section 2 puts some restrictions on the de-reservation of forest or use of forest land for non-forest activities what are the non-forest activities it broadly includes the breaking up of forest land or clearing of any forest land for the cultivation of tea coffee spices rubber palm horticultural crops or medicinal plants etc and also breaking up or clearing of any forest land for any other purpose other than the purpose of reforestation so we call all these purposes as non-forest purposes or non-forest activities now coming back to deemed forest you should also remember that these deemed forests are lands having the characteristic of a forest irrespective of the ownership but there are also certain other characteristics of a deemed forest this was defined by an expert committee constituted by the karnataka government based on supreme court's order in the 1996 case law here the committee aimed to classify forest land and also provided certain defining characteristics of a deemed forest so according to the expert committee a deemed forest is a thickly wooded area with the revenue department but not handed over to the forest department and it also held that deemed forests are inclusive of 23 types of land and some of them include lands that are classified as forest or jungle in revenue records it also includes thickly wooded lands distributed but not cultivated it includes trees and plantations on government land outside the reserve forest areas so all these come under the deemed forest category according to the expert committee so just know that they are under the definition of deemed forest but now the karnataka government has denodified the deemed forest so there are certain negatives of declaring an areas deemed forest first because the classification itself is subjective so it results in conflicts between the forest department and the other departments like revenue department irrigation department etc see as i already said thickly wooded areas are managed by revenue department and they are not under forest department control so it creates problems in the management of forest land which are classified as deemed forest and second issue is the land is randomly classified as deemed forest by officials and it causes hardships to the farmers in some areas why farmers are affected see because as per the forest conservation act prior approval is needed from the central government through the ministry of environment to utilize any forest land for non forest use and this prior approval is what we call as forest clearance so that means if the farmers want to cultivate tea coffee spices palms horticultural crops medicinal plants then they need to get forest clearance from the central government if that land area is a forest land and we know that a deemed forest is also a forest land so this created problems to the farmers and it affected their agricultural activities and thirdly there was also a commercial problem because there was commercial demand for mining in some regions that were designated as deemed forest but again mining was not permitted so the commercial value of the place came down so all these created issues in the state of kanataka and taking cognitions of these matters kanataka government has denodified certain deemed forests but as i said this is subject to the approval of supreme court because in the case law supreme court held that clearance from supreme court should be obtained if any changes is made to a land classified as deemed forest so now since the deemed forest has been denodified kanataka government is waiting for the approval of supreme court so these are few points that you need to know about deemed forest don't get confused because even the government is not clear on the definition of deemed forest the expert committee has given some clarifications now let us wait and see what the supreme court responds so with these points in mind now let us get to the next discussion the last discussion for the day is going to be based on this news article which is about a report the report is world of work report it is published by the international labour organization iLO yesterday the ninth edition of this report was published and today we are going to see about certain important findings of this report so you can use the findings of this report in your main sansa writing particularly when you talk about the problems caused by covid-19 pandemic and its lockdowns you can also use this report data while talking about the disparity that exists between low income countries and high income countries i talked about covid-19 pandemic and lockdown because it created an unprecedented labour market crisis in the year 2020 and then again in the year 2020 when the world experienced a second wave of covid-19 so this resulted in a lower than expected recovery of the economy but then again in the current year that is in 2020 labour markets are getting affected because of these shocks that stem largely from the russia-ikrain conflict we know that the conflict has significantly disrupted trade and commodity markets so this has resulted in rapid increase in prices especially the increase in the prices of essential goods including food and energy therefore the overall economic and political environment is considerably more uncertain than what it was at the beginning of this year and this uncertainty has affected the low income countries and lower middle income countries more than the high income countries according to the report see if you look at this graph it shows the change in hours work in relative to the 2019 fourth quarter from this graph you can understand that while high income countries experienced a recovery in hours worked the low income countries and lower middle income countries they suffered setbacks they have suffered setbacks in the first quarter of this year with a 3.6 percent gap and 5.7 percent gap respectively so based on this the report states that there is a growing divergence between richer and poorer economies in addition to this the report also focuses on gender gap and employment for this if you look at this gap here this cyan line that is the greenish blue line represents the gender gap so you can see that despite significant improvements in the year 2021 the gender gap in hours worked has expanded during the first quarter of 2022 here also there is a growing divergence between the high income countries and low and middle income countries particularly the report notes that women and men in high income countries have both experienced a strong recovery in hours worked whereas on the other hand the gender gap in low income countries and middle income countries remains larger than the pre-pandemic level so this is another crucial finding of this report and then the report also talks about labor income levels regarding this the report mentions that the labor incomes have not yet recovered for the majority of workers see as of 2021 three out of five workers lived in countries where average annual labor incomes had not yet recovered to their level of fourth quarter of 2019 that is what existed in the fourth quarter of 2019 was not present as of 2021 and here also if you look at this representation you can find a disparity between high income and lower and upper income countries as you can see here compared to quarter four of 2019 labor income as of 2021 has increased by 0.8 percentage in high income countries but if you look above the high income countries in the low middle income countries and upper middle income countries the labor income has decreased by 3.7 percentage and 2.7 percentage and then finally the report also talks about the impact of pandemic on the formal and informal sector here you can see the red one it represents the informal employment and the blue one is the formal employment and the dotted line is the status that existed during 2019 reference period so through this you can understand that informal employment was affected a lot during the pandemic you can see the plunge in the red line right here but at the same time recovery was also rapid in the informal sector so you can see that in quarter two of 2021 it was the recovery was better than formal employment but even though the recovery of formal and informal employment was much better in quarter four of 2021 it was still lower than what was before the pandemic that is why it never crossed that dotted line so based on all these observations the report also talks about inflation say we know there is a world over inflation which is happening due to two main factors one is the russia ukrain war and second one is the cheap money policy followed by central banks all over the world due to the pandemic so the report in this regard states that global inflation is adding further risks to the economic recovery process see this increasing inflation is always a problem for us because it impacts the real incomes of households now when there is a reduction in real income the aggregate demand also decreases and when there is reduction in demand it leads to delay in economic recovery so pandemic was an issue but the issues in 2022 is furthermore like russia ukrain war and the cheap monetary policies of central banks all these are fueling the delay in economic recovery these are some of the major findings of this report you can just go through the findings and use these data in your main sansa writing so with this news article discussion let us move on to the next session of practice questions discussion now in this session i have taken a previous equation for discussion first look at this question it was asked in 2012 and the question is about genetically engineered plants yes as i told you this is a favorite topic of your pacy let us see the question now other than resistance to pests what are the prospects for which genetically engineered plants have been created statement one to enable them to withstand drought statement two to increase the nutritive value of the produce statement three to enable them to grow and do photosynthesis in spaceships and space stations statement four to increase their shelf life so basically the question asks for the purposes for which plants are genetically engineered or the objective behind it during discussion we saw about enhancing the tolerance level and this included withstanding drought also so we saw about one it should be in the answer now second one is about increasing nutritive value this was what we discussed today in the mutant tomato discussion so two is also correct now on on a guest basis you'll also think that four is also correct to increase their shelf life yes it is correct only but what about three many of you will have doubt in three actually this is also one of the objectives for which plants are genetically engineered so three is also correct and hence the correct answer to this question is option D one two three and four now let us take up the practice question for interstate council topic which of the following statements are correct about interstate council let us see the statement is given first statement it is not a constitutional body see you may think this is a correct statement but it is an incorrect statement because even though interstate council was initially created by a presidential order but it was established under article 263 of the constitution so when you establish a body under a certain article it is a constitutional body only so interstate council is a constitutional body do not forget this fact but note that these are not permanent constitutional bodies and that is why it has been reconstituted many times but in case of you know other constitutional bodies like UPSC election commission and all they are all permanent constitutional bodies so one is incorrect now second statement president serves as its chairman this statement is also incorrect because prime minister is the chairperson of this council so the moment you know both these statements are incorrect you can easily arrive at the correct answer because here the question asks for the correct statements but if you look at the options given there is no just three only in the option so the correct answer is option C none of the above all the three statements are incorrect why statement three is incorrect because generally governors are not its members governors are allowed to attend the meetings of interstate council only when a particular state is under president's rule that is why this statement is incorrect now let us move to the next question which of the following agreements are signed between india and united states of america options given are general security of military information agreement logistics exchange memorandum of agreement communications compatibility and security agreement basic exchange and cooperation agreement the first one is gso m i a second one is le moa then third one is komkasa and fourth one is bekka see all these four are foundational agreements of usa which it signs with its allies so did india sign all these yes that is why the correct answer is option d one two three and four see as you know gso m i a the first one it was signed in 2002 it facilitates the sharing of military intelligence between india and usa now if you talk about le moa that is the second one it was signed in 2016 under this both the countries can use each other's military bases to carry out repairs and for resupplying and then if you come to komkasa this is often in use you should know this by heart this was signed in the year 2018 and the main purpose of this agreement is to share and secure communication exchanges between two nations during training exercises and operations and the fourth one is bekka this was the one that was signed recently and the last one to be signed among these four it was signed in 2020 it is about the exchange of geospatial information between the two nations and also enhancing the operational efficiency of usa's platforms that are currently operated by india so all the four are correct now let us take up this next question which of the following reports or indices are published by international labour organization the options given are the global risks report global wage report global gender gap index social dialogue report well actually this is not a tricky question you may not heard about global risk report or global wage report or social dialogue report but often we see about global gender gap index right this index is not released by yellow rather it is released by world economic forum so the moment you know three should not be in the answer you can eliminate b c and d and hence the correct answer is option a two and four global wage report social dialogue report both are published by i lo whereas the global risk report is also published by world economic forum now there are also other two reports that you need to know world employment and social outlook and then world social protection report both these are published by i lo so these were the practice questions for the day now let us take up the quiz question for the day read the question carefully and post the answer in the comment section i'll tell you whether your answer is right or not and this is the main question you have to write answer to this question in 150 words try writing answer this question for developing the habit of writing so that is all for today we have come to the end of hindi news analysis dated 24th of may 2022 if you like this video click the like button and also subscribe to our shankar ice academy youtube channel for receiving regular updates regarding civil services preparation thank you