 A very good evening everyone. Welcome to the Hindu news analysis brought to you by Shankara A.S. Academy. Before we go into the news analysis, we have a very important announcement to make. We have received numerous comments and requests asking us to provide online glasses on Yojana. And catering to the requests, we at R Academy have decided to release videos on the Yojana analysis. And we have titled them Yojana simplified. And we will be analyzing the Yojana magazine in parts for the benefit of the students. And the first video for the same has been released already today at 5 p.m. And in case if you have not watched it, please go and watch. It's very important from the preliminary and the main exam point of view. And for the new aspirants in case you're wondering what is this Yojana. See Yojana is her monthly magazine released by our Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. And it centres mostly around the social and the economic issues of the recent origins. And they are penned by experts in India. And that is exactly why it is important for our exam point of view. So with that, let's move on to our discussion today. We have six articles chosen for our discussion today. And after the six articles, we'll be discussing some practice preliminary questions. And we have a main exam question also for which you can write the answers and post it in the comment section. So in our discussion, we'll have two pieces of legislation that we'll be discussing. The first one will be the Electricity Amendment Bill of 2021. Another one will be the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority Act, which will be receiving presidential assent very soon. And apart from that, we will also be discussing oil bonds, which has been making news very recently with respect to the petrol prices. So that is a very important topic that you'll have to pay attention. And apart from that, we have three quick takeaway topics. And one will be based on green mermaids. So we'll have to know what is a green mermaid. And apart from that, we have a small discussion on turmerics. And we will also have a discussion on Madhur Maths from West Bengal. So these are the articles that we will be focusing in today's discussion. So with that, let's move on to today's discussion. Take a look at this FAQ article. See, recently our Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman gave an explanation regarding the high prices of petroleum products. And according to this, the high prices of petroleum products are due to oil bonds issued by the previous government. And because of these oil bonds, our government has been financially burdened. And that is exactly why our central government could not reduce the excise duty and other central levies on petroleum products. And this is the reason that has been furnished by the central government recently. And this is the official explanation given by our Finance Minister as well. So let us understand what are these oil bonds and why is this explanation being given? Is the explanation prudent? Is the explanation correct? So let us analyze that in this particular article. So here is the syllabus relevant for this particular discussion. So let us first address the question as to what is an oil bond? See, oil bonds are a long time dated special securities issued by our government. See, what is this long time dated securities or long dated special securities? Let us understand this. See, securities are nothing but a kind of bonds. And when some entity issues these kind of bonds, say I issue a bond to someone. It means the other person gives me some kind of money in exchange of the bond. And what I do is I pay the other person some constant interest for every year or every month as mentioned in the bond. And after some time I repay the amount that I have been given. So this is the condition for any bond. But when it is a long dated bond what happens is I may retain the amount for a longer period, say for a period of 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. So that is what we mean by long dated bonds. And why is this called long dated special securities? Because normally a government may not give out this particular bond. Only under special circumstance the government may choose to give out such a bond. And that is exactly why these oil bonds are called as long dated special securities. Understand this, the government has issued these bonds to someone for a very long period and the government in turn pays the money as interest for every year or every month as mentioned in the bond. And this particular mechanism is what is called as long dated special securities and oil bonds are a long dated special security, okay. So they were issued between 2005 and 2010 to the oil marketing companies like Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and all. So why were they issued? See during those times around 2005, 2010 and all these oil marketing companies were selling petroleum products at a loss. Why were they selling at a loss? Because during those times the petroleum prices were actually not free. They were not market determined. They were regulated by the government under certain conditions. So owing to those particular conditions, the oil marketing companies were selling the petrol at a particular price and thereby they incurred some kind of losses which means that they were just selling it below the purchasing cost. So in order to recover the under recovery these bonds were issued. See understand this under recovery also. The under recovery is a term used in the Indian petroleum sector to denote the notional losses that oil companies incur due to the difference between the subsidized prices at which the oil marketing companies sell certain products like the diesel LPG and kerosene versus which they should have received for meeting their cost of production. See the LPG kerosene and all, they are essential for the households. Especially kerosene is still being utilized as a prime source of cooking fuel in the rural areas. So in order to meet the expenses of the people who cannot meet these particular expenses, the government tries to sell these products at a subsidized price and it forced the oil marketing companies as well to sell them at a subsidized price under the regulation. Remember we saw that petrol prices were all regulated. So what happened was the oil marketing companies had to sell it at a subsidized price and this particular difference between the actual price and the subsidized price will be borne by the government and this particular difference when it is borne by the government it will be paid by the government either regular intervals or at a lump sum at a later date. So when government pays it regularly it took away a cost from the government coffers very often. So in order to minimize this what the government did was the government issued oil bonds. So the government had to pay some money instead what the government did was it gave bonds. The government said I will give you a bond instead of a money that I have to pay. So you can get the money from me at a later date. So that was the promise given by the government. So when the government gives out a bond what will the government do? The government will also have to pay the interest at a regular interval okay and this particular amount that the government has to give to the oil marketing companies in place of the subsidies that the oil marketing companies provided the consumers was what was covered by the oil bonds. So basically the oil bonds were issued instead of cash subsidy to cover the under recovery of the oil marketing companies and these bonds paid an annual interest from 6.35 percentage to 8.4 percentage to the oil marketing companies. Let us refresh because the government issued the bonds to the oil marketing companies the government has to pay some interest isn't it and that particular interest is what is 6.35 percentage to 8.4 percentage and also on maturity the face value of the bonds would be paid to the OMC and we saw that oil bonds are long dated right. So it could be for 10 years 20 years 30 years once the 10 or 20 or 30 years gets over the maturity that is the total amount that the government owes to the oil marketing companies will be paid. So this is why the previous government opted to issue these bonds. It covered the under recovery of the OMCs and it also temporarily reduced the annual financial burden of the government. Remember it temporarily reduced because at some point the government has to pay the amount to the oil marketing companies and almost 1.34 lakh crore worth of oil bonds were issued by the previous government. See these bonds were issued up to 2010 only because until 2010 the petrol prices were regulated and after 2010 the petrol prices were deregulated that is the petrol prices were free to be determined by the market based on the demand. So the OMCs under recovery was brought into control and these bonds were no longer necessary. Understand this before the deregulation the oil marketing companies were forced to sell petrol at particular price based on certain conditions and after the deregulations the OMCs were free to sell all the price based on the demand. So basically they did not incur losses that they used to incur and that is exactly why the oil bonds were no longer necessary. Now look at this graph we can observe the reduction in the under recovery after the deregulation of the prices that is they no longer needed to be covered by the government. So though the petrol prices were deregulated we still had to pay the interest we saw that they were long dated security right we saw that they are long term security. So the government has issued the bond and the OMCs still retain the bond and the government still owes the interest for those bonds that were issued before 2010. Although the bonds are not issued after 2010 so the interest that we are owing right now is for those bonds that were issued before 2010. Now coming to the explanation according to our current government because of the financial burden of the issued oil bonds we are in a situation of paying high prices for the petroleum products. See our current central government is charging high excise duties and other levies on petroleum products because of the financial burden caused by the issued oil bonds. See understand this at some point of time the government has issued some kind of bonds and the government is in the obligation of servicing those bonds. See servicing the bonds means paying the interest and the principal okay. So government every year shells out some money to pay the liability on those particular bonds and because we are spending on those bonds the government apparently is not in a position to reduce the money on the petrol prices and that is exactly why they are charging high prices on petrol. This is the explanation given by the government. So this particular article has analyzed it further. See the government has so far paid 70,000 crore only as interest on the oil bonds in the last seven years. See 70,000 crores in government terms is very less understand this and they have paid it over last seven years which means that they have only paid 10,000 crore per year and it has also paid about 3,500 crore as capital. So that is also very less. So the principal amount remaining is 1.3 lakh crore. See this principal amount is due for payment in 2025-2026 we have to finish paying off all these by 2025-2026. So our government has to repay about rupees 10,000 crore in the current fiscal year, another 31,000 crore in the 2023-2024 year and another around 53,000 crore in 2024-2025 and about 37,000 crore in 2025-2026. So these are the targets and if you add up these numbers it will come around the remaining principal amount and the interest that the government owes to the OMCs. So according to the government they are collecting high excise duty and other levies on petroleum products to repay this particular amount. So that's what the government has said. Look at the graph. We can observe the increase in the charges on the petrol products. So the blue colour is the actual collection that we have got. For example, take 2020-2021. See in 2020-2021 alone we have approximately collected 3.71 lakh crore as central excise revenues from petroleum products alone and the amount is nearly three times what the government has to pay to the OMCs. So the government had to pay about 1.34 lakhs we just saw but the collection is 3.71 lakh crore. So we can observe that the government is using the oil bonds as an excuse to collect higher amounts from petroleum products. So this is what the article is trying to convey and according to many economic experts our government is using high charges on petroleum products to balance out the loss of revenue caused by COVID-19 pandemic. Not to balance the OMC expenses but to balance out the losses caused by COVID-19 pandemic. Also globally the price of crude oil keeps coming down and still we charge high prices for petroleum products. Look at the graph for better understanding. So the blue colour is the crude petrol price. So it went up but still the petrol prices kept rising, rising, rising but despite the crude prices coming down our petrol prices have kept rising. So far there has been no proper justification for the price increase of the petroleum products and this particular article says that the government explanation could be biased. That is the opinion given by this particular article. See basically this article is important because this mentions about oil bonds. You may have to know what is oil bonds, who is the issuer of the oil bonds, who is the recipient of the oil bonds. So that is very important from the exam point of view. So you'll have to understand that particular concept thoroughly and the rest of the part of today's discussion is more of an explainer of the government's stand and this particular article given in the paper. So with that let's move on to the next part of today's discussion. Now look at this particular article titled Powerplay. See the draft Electricity Amendment Bill of 2021 has been creating some noise recently and it has also made to news in our newspaper today. Let us look at it very briefly and the issues surrounding it for our understanding. Alright so let us first understand what does this bill try to do. Now let's go back to the electricity act. So what did this act do was initially the power generation and the distribution were bundled up together. They lied with the same entity and this particular act the electricity act it unbundled this vertical integration. That is the electricity generation was separated from the distribution companies. So basically it was tried and incorporated to improve competition in the electricity distribution. But however if you remember the distribution companies right now are mostly state owned in India. There are some exceptions like Delhi, Mumbai and all in Delhi and all the distribution is still done by private players and in Mumbai also. But however and otherwise the distribution companies are still largely state owned and the distribution companies which is commonly called as discoms. They also incur a lot of losses. They have a huge debt right now and to bail them out so many government schemes were also brought in. If you remember in 2015 there was a scheme broad called Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana. Just to bail out the discom companies. So discom companies are right now running in losses and all and this is the background of this issue and in this scenario the electricity amendment bill of 2021 has been introduced. So basically what does this bill aim is? It is trying to de-license power distribution. That is it is largely state owned. So they are trying to bring in a lot of private players into the discom business. So this will allow the private players to compete with the state owned power distribution companies and therefore this would allow the consumers to choose between the power distribution companies. That is they can decide which company has to supply power to dire houses. It can be a government company. It can be a private company or it can be a private company which they like. So basically it is left to the choice of the consumer. So what is the rationale behind this move? See during distribution power distribution lot of losses happen that is people don't install meters so the amount of power supply to one particular house goes unaccounted that is one issue. There are issues of leakages in the power lines and there are issues of power theft that happens. So all these combines and adds up to the reason for losses of the discom. But when private players enter there is possibility that the state players will also become more responsible in a competitive environment and that is exactly the rationale behind this particular amendment bill. But there are some objections as well. Consider that private players are entering and in India if you see the government distributes power to your house, my house and also to a household which cannot afford power and the government also distributes power to the industry which can actually afford power. So basically what the government does is for an agricultural sector it gives power free of cost to extract water. Whereas for an industrial sector it gives power at a higher tariff. So a person doing agriculture pays almost nothing for the power whereas an industrial sector pays a lot for a power compared to an average Indian. So this particular phenomena is called as cross subsidization that is the industrial sector kind of pays for the agricultural laborer by paying higher tariff and this particular phenomena is called as cross subsidization. Save in private players enter. They want to distribute electricity. In that case the private players motive will always be to maximize the profit. They will not want to help the agriculture person who will not be able to pay. They will only want to supply power to an industrial sector who can actually pay them a lot of profit. So what they would do is they will try to supply power to these big businesses only whereas a common man like you and me a common agricultural person will be left out from the private players books. So the government will be left with the responsibility to supply power to us as well as to the agricultural person. So the government might actually face a net loss whereas the private player might actually gain by supplying electricity to the industries and this is what the experts call as cherry picking. So the entry of private players could lead to cherry picking with private players providing power only to commercial and the industrial consumers and not to residential and the agricultural consumers. So basically the cross subsidy that has been in place regarding the electricity distribution can be completely dismantled. So the common man or a agricultural consumer will be left at the mercy of the government and the government will be ready to of course supply electricity but the government will run into loss whereas a private player will end up profiting. So this is one objection that has been raised. Then another objection is that higher penalties for failure to meet renewable purchase obligations. See basically the discord companies are at an obligation to purchase a part of the electricity from renewable sources. See most of our electricity consumption in our country close to 55 percentage is from coal okay. So this is not a renewable source and the rest of it are from other sources and a small fraction is from renewable source. Just to ramp up the production and the use of renewable sources we have renewable purchase obligations for the power distribution companies. A fraction of it has to be bought either from solar or wind or hydropower in their bundle alright. So if they don't meet this particular obligation they are being fined and this amendment bill seeks to increase the penalty if a discord company fails to meet this particular obligation alright. So this higher penalty has been a source of contention in the recent times in the context of the electricity amendment bill of 2021. And now the next obligation is that the requirement of the regional load dispatch center and the state load dispatch center to follow the instruction of the national load dispatch center. So basically the national load dispatch center says something then the state load dispatch centers and the regional load dispatch center should follow. Basically the national load dispatch center is made as a head of these other regional offices. So basically the amount of power vested with the national center is higher and what many states especially West Bengal feels is that this is something counter to the spirit of federalism. That is a national body is vested with more power compared to the regional body and that is exactly why it runs counter to the spirit of federalism alright. So these are the issues that are making news with respect to the electricity amendment bill. And some experts give one particular way forward for this cross subsidy issue. They say universal service obligation is something that can be imposed on the private players in order to avoid cherry picking. So what is this universal service obligation? Say it can be made compulsory on the private players to have a mix of consumers. Say the private player has to supply power for one particular city. The private player cannot choose to supply only to the industries of the region. But it has to supply power to a normal resident, a normal agricultural consumer as well as to the industry. So giving such a service obligation on that particular private entity can solve the problem of cross subsidy that we just discussed. So that is one way forward that many experts are giving. But anyways this is still an bill. This is not an act. So we should wait and watch as to what is going to happen with this particular issue. So with that let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion. Now look at this FAQ article. This FAQ article provides a detailed discussion on a bill concerning the aviation sector. It is the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India Amendment Bill 2021. It is commonly called as AERA Amendment Bill 2021. So the bill has been passed by the parliament in the monsoon session that ended few days ago and it is awaiting presidential assent. So today let us have a comprehensive discussion on this particular bill including its purpose, need, benefits and worries surrounding it. Here is the syllabus relevant for this particular discussion. Have a note. First remember that this bill aims to amend the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India Act of 2008. So this act provides for the establishment of an independent economic regulator called the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority. So under the Act the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority regulates the tariffs and other charges for the aeronautical services which are rendered at the airport. So what are these aeronautical services? They are those services with respect to air traffic management, landing, parking of an aircraft, ground safety services or cargo facilities at an airport and others. So this act applies to all the airports including the private airports, the leased airports, all service enclaves and major airports. But this does not include those airports or airfields that belong to or which is under the control of the armed forces or the paramilitary forces. So in your preliminary exam if a statement says that the AERA Act that is AERA applies to all the airports in India. So that statement will be wrong because those airports that come under armed forces and paramilitary forces of the union will not be under AERA control. So coming back to the discussion, so here we just saw that AERA controls major airports and here major airports means any airport which has or is designed to have an annual passenger throughput in excess of 3.5 million or in other words 35 lakhs. So if a passenger aggregate is more than 35 lakhs then it is a major airport and apart from this the central government is also empowered to notify any other airport as a major airport that is irrespective of the passenger throughput. So remember the general criterion to be a major airport is the stipulated passenger throughput. So the general criterion and remember our country has 24 to 25 major airports as of now and particularly AERA has been mandated to determine the tariffs for the air and article services rendered at the major airports. So we are clear there. Now coming to the bill what are the changes that has been proposed? See the sole purpose of the bill is to amend the definition of the major airports so as to encourage the development of the smaller airports and it wants to insert the statement or a group of airports and the courts remember or a group of airports after any other airports part of the definition. Look at the definition for better understanding the amendment wants to insert the statement or a group of airports after any other airports part in the definition. So that means the central government will be empowered to group airports and notify the group as a major airport as well. So until now a single airport on stand-alone basis was declared as a major airport and if the bill receives presidential assent a group of airports can also be notified as a major airport. Now one particular airport will can be declared as a major airport depending upon the passengers and based on the central government's discretion but based on this particular bill a number of airports can be grouped together and this group can be called as a major airport. Here the government will club or pair airports to be named as a major airport and the group will also include smaller airports which are at present in the remote areas. So why is the government doing this? Let us understand that. See the smaller airports are small not only in size but their traffic potential is also low that is the number of passengers who may approach the airport to fly out will also be low or the number of passengers who approach the airport to fly into the destination will also be low. Therefore they become quite non-profitable and they run at loss. So such airports do not attract reasonable competitive bits even if you try to privatize it nobody will want to take over the airport right. Therefore the demand originated for the development of these smaller airports. On the other hand with respect to major airports and all the airport authority of India was experimenting with the probably private partnership mode if you remember and initially in 2019 the airport authority of India awarded six airports for operation management and development under PPP and additionally another six airports were approved for the same. So based on this a suggestion was given for the joint development of both major and smaller airports. So the suggestion was to club or pair each of this PPP airports with the nearby smaller airports that is the non-profitable airports that is the smaller airports where to be clubbed with the profitable airports that is the major airports and after clubbing or pairing they will be given as a package to the prospective bidders or the investors. See understand this see when PPP was implemented these private players they were all interested in the major airports only the ones that gave profit but they were not interested in the smaller airports that is the airports located in the suburban or the rural areas they were not interested in taking those airports. So it is more to attract the private investments that this particular change is being made. But there was no provision for determining tariff for such a group of clubbed or paired airports and that is why this amendment is brought about right now. Here you may ask instead of this group idea simply the term smaller airports could be added in the definition of the major airports. See this cannot be done because if tariff is set for smaller airports on a standalone basis then tariff will be unreasonably high. So what are the benefits here? One it will ensure the integrated development of smaller and non-profitable airports with profitable airports and further smaller airports would be developed faster through professional efficacy of the private operators and this in turn will enhance the air connectivity in the far flung areas. So these are the benefits that we can envisage in this particular bill. So what are the concerns about this particular bill? See there is a lack of clarity regarding the criterion for clubbing the airports. See the bill is ambiguous about the criteria that will be used to rule airport as a major or a minor airport. We don't know if the passenger throughput will be the rule or some other rule can be used. So that is a ambiguous area that has created contention. The second is regarding the fear of monopoly by the private players in the aviation sector. So it has to be ensured that more than one or two group of airports is not given to the same entity or the private player but this intention counters the one of private players. So we have to wait and see how government balances its objective with the interests of the private players. So this is all about the recent amendment to the era act. So remember this particular topic can be a main question in itself and it can also be a potential area for preliminary exam. So with that in mind let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion. Now look at this small snippet. So this is about a discovery of a new species of a algal. See regarding the discovery of new species you'll have to know about where they have been discovered what is the name of the species if at all species name is something interesting and what is the new species that has been discovered. So this particular snippet is about a discovery of a new species of green algae a marine green algae and it has been discovered from the Andaman and Nicobar islands and these two are very important information and interestingly it has been named as acetabularia jalaqanayake. See jalaqanayake is a word derived from jalaqanayaka and in Sanskrit jalaqanayaka literally means mermaid and interestingly the researchers were influenced by the fairy tale the little mermaid and that is exactly why they have named this particular species as acetabularia jalaqanayake. So basically a new green algae has been discovered in the Andaman and Nicobar islands so it's a marine green algae and it has been named as acetabularia jalaqanayake and this is a quick takeaway snippet important from the preliminary exam point of view. With that let's move on to the next segment. Now let us take up this news article for our next discussion. See recently two women from West Bengal have been given national handicraft award on our independence day. So this award was given to honour their skills in making Madhur floor mats that are very unique to West Bengal. So in this context let us know how Madhur floor mat is made, its historical background mentioned in the article and their importance as well. See Madhur mats are made up of natural fibres that is their specialty and if you see it is produced on a simple bamboo frame loam as you can see in the picture and people use cotton thread as warp and single reeds as weft. See follow this pencil based diagram see reeds are tall plants like grasses that grows in or near the water and warp and weft. Let us understand this. These two are the basic components used in weaving to turn threads or yarn into fabric. So on a frame or a loom the lengthwise or the longitudinal warp yarns are held stationary and when they are held stationary they are also held tight that is in tension while the transverse area is drawn through and inserted over and under the warp like how you do in normal sewing and all. So with that now let us understand the origin of this particular mat. See the origin of the craft in West Bengal dates back to the Muslim period when the mass land mats were produced under the royal patronage and remember that the mass land are the fine quality Madhur mats in which the fine cotton is used as weft and mats were collected as revenue of the Jagirdari system as well and in 1744. Now up Alivar di Khan issued a charter to the Jagirdars regarding this and as a result it was obligatory to supply the mass land mats for use in the collectorate. So this is how the Madhur mats came into vogue. Now coming back to the present times today the price of the Madhur mats can range from 100 to 1 lakh. So depending upon the fineness of the material the price range varies and the mat weaving is the primary source of income for 77 percentage of the craft persons. So you can imagine the importance this Madhur mats occupy in the present day period in the people's life of West Bengal and around 74 percentage of the weavers make hand woven mats and the remaining develop loom based mats. So the 74 percentage is hand woven it means either the technology has not penetrated to those 74 percentage or they chose to keep it hand woven just to keep the quality or the tradition intact and the loom based products are only a minority and besides making folding mats these units have diversified into making various utility items and accessories such as bags, folders, tables, runners, coasters, boxes etc. So basically using the same material and the same technique they have just made different products based on the current needs. So this is called as innovation to the traditional technology and this value addition is something very important in the modern day supply chain of the country. So keep that in mind and this particular article also talks about Madhur Kathi let us also know about that. See Madhur Kathi are mats woven in West Bengal from a reed called Madhur Kottir or the Madhur Kathi and this Madhur Kathi is a rhizome based plant found abundantly in the alluvial tracts of Paschim, Medinpur and Purba. See the Madhur Kathi was awarded the GI Tag by the GI Registry of India in April 2008 itself. So you will have to remember that. So that is exactly why this piece of information is very important from the exam perspective and apart from that you should remember the state in which this particular mat is being made famous. Besides you will also have to remember what are massland mats which were famous during the Mughal period and how it was associated with the Jagirdari system. So this can also be a part of the preliminary exam question and you can remember the fact regarding the mat weaving in West Bengal that can come handy in your main exam preparation. So with that information let us move on to the next segment of today's discussion. Now look at this article. This article is regarding the medicinal value of turmeric. See turmeric has been known for over 4000 years in the Indian subcontinent and it is used as an essential part of our daily food and it is used as a medicine because of its antibacterial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. See an inflammation is caused in a body when any injury happens or when any foreign body enters the body inflammation happens. That is any swelling or any pain is what is called as an inflammatory reaction and turmeric is known to have anti-inflammatory property and coming to antioxidant property an oxidant is nothing but a reactive molecule. A reactive molecule is capable of causing some kind of injury to the internal organs that is at the cellular level and turmeric is known to have antioxidant property and antibacterial as the name goes it can act against bacteria. So it has all these three properties and that is exactly why turmeric is celebrated as a medicine and besides it has been used by many as a treatment for diseases like arthritis, joint stiffness and joint pain as well because arthritis and pain are all inflammatory symptoms we have been using turmeric for treating all these symptoms and apart from that it is also used to cure accurate kidney injuries as well. Now we have a question where does turmeric get its healing properties? See according to medical experts the healing and the protective power of turmeric comes from two component molecules one is curcumin other is piperin. See curcumin is a polyphenol diketone and piperin is an alkaloid and both these molecules give turmeric its multivariate healing and protective powers. See we have known about the medicinal values of turmeric for many centuries but initially western world was skeptical about its medicinal value. Now even the western scientific community has adopted the medicinal values of turmeric and they have started using it as well for example take the website healthline.com see it's a very famous website this website lists the evidence-based benefits that turmeric and its products offer the body and according to the website curcumin that is the active molecule in the turmeric has powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. So it can be used to treat arthritis and joint inflammation and it can also better the action of conventional drugs like prozac. See this prozac is an antidepressant medication so we can say that turmeric can be useful for treating depression in people as well and apart from that the curcumin reduces the build-up of insoluble proteins in our brains. See this is important build up of certain insolvent proteins in our brain can cause diseases like Alzheimer's. So we know Alzheimer's is an irreversible disease that is caused in aging people and it causes life threatening and disabling symptoms like dementia and others. So curcumin can be used to prevent Alzheimer's disease or at least delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Also curcumin can boost neurons that is nerve cells and thus helping in memory and learning. So this benefit was also proved by a paper published in the University of California United States and according to this paper daily intake of curcumin can lead to improved memory and attention in adults. So we can observe that the scientific community is finally appreciating the medicinal values of turmeric and they are also exploring the possibility of treating COVID-19 patients with turmeric. For example recently an exciting paper was published in the frontiers in pharmacology journal. According to this paper turmeric can be used in treatment of COVID-19 patients and it has shown to reduce the morbidity and mortality among the COVID-19 patients. So basically the turmeric has been useful even in the latest of diseases. So these are the important points highlighted in this news article. Basically you will have to know what is in turmeric and what is in turmeric is curcumin and piperin. So you should know these two facts for the preliminary exam and apart from that you should also know the uses of turmeric for the preliminary point of view. So with that information let us move on to the next segment of today's discussion. So here we are at the last segment of today's discussion practice preliminary questions. In that direction we have three questions for discussion today. Let's go over it one by one. So the first question is about turmeric. So turmeric can be used to treat which of the following medical conditions. So we are given three conditions it is arthritis, Alzheimer's and depression. See in our discussion we saw that turmeric has anti-inflammatory properties and we also saw that it prevents protein build up in the neural tissues and it also acts in synergy with the antidepressant drugs. So going by that we can say that option D is the right answer that is 1, 2 and 3 that is turmeric is used to treat all these three conditions. Now moving on to the next question we have been given three pairs and we have been asked to identify the correctly matched pairs. See the first pair is this saffron jamwan kashmir. Yes we all know that jamwan kashmir has saffron so the first pair is correctly matched. Now come to the third pair madhur katti. See in our discussion we spoke about the madhur match so madhur katti yes belongs to west Bengal that is the right match. Now coming to the second pair see a lot of us know the west Bengal has rasagulas and they even have a GI tag for their rasagulas and if you think rasagulas belong to west Bengal I'm sorry you're wrong because it's an interesting thing in 2018 the Odisha government applied for a GI tag for their own rasagulas and in that effort they succeeded in 2019 and they got the GI tag for the rasagulas of Odisha. So the rasagulas are also famous in Odisha don't forget that if you skip the fact and think of rasagulas as a sole property of west Bengal you might actually go wrong in this particular question. So the right answer is option D 1, 2 and 3 that is all the pairs are correctly matched. Now going to the third question so it's a three statement question so this is inspired from the airport's economic regulatory authority amendment bill that has been passed in the monsoon session. Let's go over the statements one by one we have been asked to identify the correct statement. So the first statement is this airport economic regulatory authority determines the tariffs for aeronautical services of both major and non-major airports. See this statement is wrong because the airport's economic regulatory authority determines the tariffs only for the major airports it is the airport's authority of India that determines the tariffs for the non-major airports and this is legally sanctioned under section 22 of the airport's authority of India Act as well. So this statement is incorrect and coming to statement two ERA is chaired by the union minister of civil aviation. See this is also incorrect because airport's economic regulatory authority's chairperson is appointed by the central government from amongst the persons of ability and integrity having adequate knowledge and experience in aviation, economics, commerce or consumer affairs. So it does not necessarily have to be a union minister of civil aviation it can be anybody. So statement two is incorrect as well and coming to third statement an airport having a passenger throughput in excess of one and a half million is designated as a major airport. See we saw this in the discussion see initially when the act came into force it was one and a half million but later it was amended to three and a half million in 2019 only. So three and a half million is nothing but 35 lakhs so statement three is incorrect as well. So the correct answer is option D none of the above. So with that we have come to the end of practice preliminary question session. So that is all for discussion today here is the main question and in my last video I had asked you type the answers and post it in the comment section and one viewer had raised a concern. Yes if at all you want to write the answers yes you can write the answers in that case you will have to write the answers and share your drive link in the comment section for peer review. So writing few answers every day will give you a significant edge in your preparation. So do not forget to write main answers every day. So if you like the video like share comment and subscribe. Let us wrap up our discussion today stay home stay safe good day.