 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar IA's Academy, displayed at the list of news articles taken up for today's analysis along with the page numbers of Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Trivandrum editions. The handwritten notes in PDF format and the time stamping of all the news articles taken up for today's analysis will be available in the description section and also in the comment section for the benefit of the smartphone users. Let us now start our analysis. This news article is about Nilgiri Thar, the syllabus relevant to the analysis of this news article is given here for your reference. This news article states that the population of Nilgiri Thar has increased in Mukurti National Park. First, let us see some facts about Thar. Thar means it is a goat-like mammal. They usually have short and coarse fur. Coarse means hard and fur means hair. If you see there are three types of thar species across the world. One is the Nilgiri Thar, which is endemic to Western Ghats, India. Next is the Himalayan Thar. And the third one is the Arabian Thar, which is found in Oman. Now let us see about Nilgiri Thar. Nilgiri Thar is the state animal of Tamil Nadu. Remember this. It is called as Varayadu in Tamil. Varayadu means cliff goat in English. As the name indicates, the Nilgiri Thar can be seen in steep rocky cliffs. And this Nilgiri Thar is endemic to the southern portion of Western Ghats, especially in the state of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It is also called as Nilgiri Ibex. As per IUCN Red List of threatened species, Nilgiri Thar is listed as an endangered species because only around 2000 Nilgiri Thar are known to exist in the wild. And also know that Nilgiri Thar is listed under Schedule 1 of Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. Now let us come to the news article. This news article tells that Nilgiri Thar population in Mukurthi National Park has risen this year when compared to the previous year. Know that Mukurthi National Park is located in the state of Tamil Nadu in the district of Uttakamun. So this national park borders the state of Kerala and it also forms a part of Nilgiri's Biosphere Reserve. Last year the population of Nilgiri Thar within this national park was 568 and this year the population has increased to 612. So the officials who have conducted the survey have said that this was the second consecutive year that the population of Nilgiri Thar had seen an increase in Mukurthi National Park. But in the same park in the year 2017 there was a decrease in Thar numbers. Only a population of 438 was recorded and in 2016 it was 480. So why we are seeing the numbers is because to tell that the population of Nilgiri Thar has seen a 27 percentage increased in this year when compared with 2016. Now let us see some of the key findings of the census activity which was organized in June. The first key finding is that many juvenile that is many young Nilgiri Thar were seen during the census and there was also a healthy sex ratio which was seen among the Nilgiri Thar especially the female population was more. Also this news article mentions about the conservation policies taken by the national park officials like keeping the national park close to tourists and also free from poaching. Apart from this the park officials have also taken measures to prevent the spread of invasive flora. Here flora means plants so the invasive plants spread was prevented by the park officials because generally if you see Nilgiri Thar feeds on the grass species and if the population of invasive plants become more then these grasses will not grow so it will affect the food chain of Nilgiri Thar. So this is why the park officials have taken measures to prevent the spread of invasive flora. They know that the habitat of Mukurthi National Park is contiguous that is it is continuous with Silent Valley National Park and the Manarkat Forest Division in the state of Kerala. From this we can tell that Nilgiri Thar has a large habitat and they can keep expanding their population so we can tell that this population will not remain saturated that is full only within Mukurthi National Park. Now have a look at the practice question let us move on to the next news article. This editorial is about the Chandrayaan 2 mission of the Indian Space Research Organization. The syllabus that is relevant to the analysis of this editorial is given here for your reference. The author of this editorial states that Chandrayaan 2 has failed in one objective that is it has not become successful in soft landing on the moon and just because this was not achieved one cannot say that this mission is a failure. This is because there are certain other successful objectives of this second mission to moon say for example the orbiter because whenever we studied about Chandrayaan 2 we saw that there is an orbiter then there is a lander and a rover inside the lander so this orbiter is also an important part of this mission. Though the mission life of orbiter as said by Isro is one year but due to the precise launch and the mission management the lifespan of the orbiter will extend to almost seven years so the orbiter will spend the next seven years in making high resolution maps of the lunar surface then it will also map the minerals and most importantly it will look for water molecules in the polar regions and the payloads that are in the orbiter will conduct remote sensing observations then the experiments will also help in understanding the origin and evolution of the moon. Note that India has achieved success in orbiter missions in both Chandrayaan 1 and Chandrayaan 2. The article talks about the expected location where water could be found in the moon and also the utility of the lunar water. Regarding the location it is expected by the scientific community based on the lunar missions that frozen water or water ice deposits could survive in cold dark craters that are at the moon's south pole. They are saying that the lunar water will be helpful for drinking water as a life support and also as a fuel for future lunar bases so this is the utility of the lunar water. With respect to the difference between the lunar water and water on earth the scientists are saying that it is difficult to tell the difference this is because the isotopes of oxygen that exist on the moon are the same as those that exist on earth. So as of now 90 to 95 percentage of the mission objectives have been accomplished and the mission will continue to contribute to lunar science though the communication with the lander Vikram has been lost and we know that the landing process of the lander including the slowing down of lander and everything went as per the plan till the altitude of 2.1 kilometer above the moon. We should know that only half of the soft landing missions which have been conducted by various nations have become successful. See the erstwhile USSR which is the present day Russia plus few other countries has added its first lander based mission in the year 1963. USSR failed in almost 11 such missions to achieve soft landing on the moon so finally it soft landed on the moon in the year 1966. This mission was the lunar 9 mission so this was also the first soft landing on a world beyond earth by any other country and after success of USSR in February 1966 by this lunar 9 the United States have also achieved lunar soft landing in June 1966 that is within four months from the success of USSR. USA achieved soft landing in their very first landing mission this mission is also called as Surveyor 1 but prior to this USA have failed in three moon impact missions and they also failed in seven orbiter missions. All the learning and the impact on other missions has helped NASA in achieving in its very first try for soft landing. So as NASA puts it that space is hard India will also learn from Chandrayaan 2 and it will achieve the feat in coming years. Note that India successfully has demonstrated orbiter and impact in its very first mission itself. Then the author of this editorial also talks about two-bone missions that happened this year and also about a future mission of United States. Out of the two missions the first one is China's Changi 4 mission this mission as landed on moon in January 2019. Some special achievements of this mission are that it is the first mission to land on the far side of the moon and this is China's second successful soft landing after the first one which was carried out by Changi 3 mission in the year 2013. See this Changi 3 mission also carried a rover which is called as U2 and it was the first non surveyed rover in moon. Also note that the Changi 4 mission has deployed a rover which is named as U2-2 and this U2-2 will explore the Aitken basin in the South Polar region. The second mission is the mission by Israel which is named as Beresheet. The term Beresheet means in the beginning. Another information about this mission is that it is the first attempt by a private company to land on the moon. So landing was the only objective of this Beresheet mission and they achieved lunar orbit but they could not soft land on the moon. Next the editorial talks about the mission of United States to send astronauts to South Polar region of moon by the year 2024 and this mission is called as Artemis 3 mission and this Artemis 3 mission will also take the first women to the moon. NASA will study and learn by sustainable moon missions till the year 2028 and it will use the knowledge that it has gained from these missions to send astronauts to Mars. So from this editorial the author has tried to convey that Chandrayaan-2 is not a total failure. In fact India is one of the nations where in its very first attempt was able to carry successful experiments in moon. Now have a look at the practice question. Let us move on to the next news article. This news article is about the status of Chandrayaan-2 mission. The syllabus relevant to the analysis of this news article is given here for your reference. This news article mentions that the lander Vikram which is housed with the robotic rover Pragyaan has been spotted or located by the orbiter. We know that when the lander was about 2.1 kilometer above the moon surface the Indian space research organization lost communication with the lander. The news article has mentioned that the chairman of ISRO has said that it must have been a hard landing on the moon's surface. That means the lander might have fell or hit or struck or impacted on the moon's surface and the lander was located around 500 meters away from the intended touchdown or landing point. The news article also states that the original choosing landing point is in the South Polar region at a latitude of 70 degrees south to the lunar equator and about 600 kilometer from the moon's south pole. The information 600 kilometer above the lunar south pole is incorrect. According to government sources the landing site is actually 350 kilometer above the lunar south pole and they have planned to land on a high plane on the lunar surface between two craters. One is Manzina's sea and the other crater is Simpelius N. But India has not soft landed on the moon as per the statement given by ISRO chairman. So far only three countries have achieved soft landing on moon. All the three countries are permanent members of United Nations Security Council. They are the countries of United States, the erstwhile Soviet Republic, USSR and the third country is China. The news article states that the orbiter has spotted the lander. This orbiter of Chandrayaan-2 mission is special because the orbiter has the high resolution camera than any lunar mission so far. It is a 30 centimeter orbiter high resolution camera which is one of the payloads in the orbiter and this orbiter will orbit from pole to pole. Now what happened to the lander is a big question. If at all ISRO has to establish the communication with the lander it has to do so within 14 Earth days that is one lunar day because the lander is designed to function only for one lunar day which is equivalent to about 14 Earth days. Let us move on to the next news article. This news article discusses about the increase in malaria cases in Delhi and it also tells that some 96 cases of vector-borne diseases were reported last week. So first we will be seeing about vector-borne diseases and what is meant by vectors. Before that the syllabus that is relevant to the analysis of this news article is given here for your reference. Now let us see what is meant by a vector. Vectors are living organisms so they can transmit the infectious diseases between humans that is from one human to other human or from animals to humans. If you see many of these vectors are blood sucking insects. So they usually suck the blood from the human beings which is their food. So we can tell that as a blood meal. Now when they are having their blood meal they will transmit the disease producing microorganisms. So it can be from any infected host say a human or an animal and it will be transmitted to humans. So human to human or animal to human. So this is how humans are affected by the vectors and the best known disease vector are the mosquitoes. Apart from this we also have some other vectors like ticks, flies, sand flies, fleas, triatomine bugs and some fresh water, aquatic snails as well. So we just saw that mosquitoes are the best known disease vector and in these there are three types of mosquitoes. One is the aides mosquito, next is the anophilus mosquito and third is the culex mosquito. Aides mosquitoes act as a vector for these diseases chicken guinea, dengue fever, lymphatic filariasis and zika and anophilus mosquitoes for malaria and lymphatic filariasis and culex for Japanese encephalities and lymphatic filariasis. So you can see all the three types of mosquitoes act as vectors for lymphatic filariasis. So keep this in mind. Next if you see the burden of these vector-borne diseases is highest in the tropical and subtropical areas. Because the temperature is also high, the humidity is also high which favours the growth of the mosquitoes. So the disease burden is highest in tropical and subtropical areas of the world and it also affects the poorest populations to the maximum because majority of the poorest population of the world is concentrated in tropical and subtropical countries. So it is affecting the poorest population. Now if you see the distribution of vector-borne diseases is determined by complex factors. So demographic factors are taken into account. That is the population-related factors. Then the environmental factors are taken into account. Also the social factors that is the way of life of the people is also taken into account. Sometimes you also see in the news that a new disease has attacked or emerged in a new country. This is because of the global travel and trade. Because of this the pathogen is likely to transmit the disease to an unknown country where that particular country did not even have that disease even for once. So even this will affect the distribution of the vector-borne diseases. The next factor is the environmental challenge which is nothing but usually climate change also acts as a reason for the varied distribution of vector-borne diseases. Then also the change in agricultural practices again because of the variation in temperature and rainfall will affect the transmission of vector-borne diseases. And the most important factor is the unplanned urbanization because urban slums keep growing and there will not be proper pipe water access and there will not be proper solid waste management in the urban slums. Because of this the mosquitoes are likely to thrive and they will keep acting as vectors for the diseases that we saw and because of this the disease burden will also be more. So together all these factors influence the reach of the vector populations and also the transmission patterns of the disease causing pathogens. This news article states that this year the number of malaria cases have increased when compared to last year in Delhi. Also the overall cases of vector-borne diseases have increased since the onset of the monsoon. So we saw some of the vector-borne diseases previously just have a look at it. Now let us focus on malaria because this news article is about malaria. So malaria is also a vector-borne disease. It is mainly caused by plasmodium parasites and the vector here is the anophilus mosquito. If you see there are five parasite species that cause malaria in humans and out of these five only two of the species pose the greatest threat. These two species are plasmodium falciparum and plasmodium vivax. Next if you see plasmodium vivax is very common in American continents and plasmodium falciparum is common in the rest of the world especially if you see in African continent then in Southeast Asia and also in Western Pacific countries. Next let us see how malaria is transmitted to human beings. In most cases malaria is transmitted through the bites of female anophilus mosquitoes. So if you see the mosquitoes bite between dusk and dawn that is late evening from late evening to early morning that is after the sun sets till the sun rises the next day. The intensity of the transmission depends on number of factors which is related to the parasite that is plasmodium and the vector that is the mosquito and it also depends on the human host and it also depends on the environment. So these anophilus mosquitoes lay their eggs in water and these eggs hatch into larvae and they eventually emerge into adult mosquitoes and the female mosquitoes require blood meal to nurture their eggs so they bite the human beings for blood. So this is how they act as a vector transferring the malaria parasite into human body. In rare cases malaria can also be transmitted through blood transfusion then also through organ transplant or the shared use of needles or syringes that is contaminated with blood but know that sexual transmission of malaria is not at all possible. Malaria is an acute febrile illness. Acute febrile means severe fever condition if you see in an individual who is not immune to malaria the symptoms usually appear 10 to 15 days after the mosquito bite. The first symptoms are fever headache and chills all these symptoms may be very mild and it will be very difficult for the physicians to recognize it as malaria but if these symptoms are not treated within 24 hours then malaria can progress to severe illness and often it leads to death. If you see people residing in those malaria endemic areas they develop partial immunity and because of this it causes asymptomatic infections that is infections without any symptoms. Next the children with severe malaria frequently develop one or more of the following symptoms like severe anemia respiratory distress or cerebral malaria and in adults multi organ failure is also frequent. Here anemia means a condition where there is a deficiency of red blood cells or the hemoglobin in the blood and cerebral malaria is a neurological complication which is characterized by coma and asexual forms of the parasite on peripheral blood smears. So we saw that malaria is a vector bond disease so vector control is the main way to prevent and reduce malaria transmission. Now WHO the World Health Organization recommends protection for all people who are at risk of malaria with effective malaria vector control. There are two forms of vector control majorly which are insecticide treated mosquito nets and the next one is the indoor residual spraying. So both these are found to be effective for preventing malaria. Also know that there are some anti-malarial drugs which are available in India for curing malaria. They are chloroquine, primaquin and artemisinin combination therapy. So from this news article know what is meant by vector bond diseases and which are those living organisms which act as vectors especially the mosquitoes and we also saw what is meant by malaria. Now have a look at the practice question. Let us move on to the next news article. This news article discusses about the trends of consumption of iodized salt in India. The syllabus that is relevant to the analysis of this news article is given here for your reference. This news article has mentioned that first of its kind national survey has been done to measure the coverage of iodized salt in India. First let us see why iodine is important for human body. Iodine is an important micronutrient. If you see there are two kinds of nutrients which we usually consume one is a macronutrients. The macronutrients are carbohydrates, proteins and fats and the rest of the minerals and vitamins form the micronutrients. So they are required only in very small amounts but their requirement is quite essential that is they are very much required for the human body to function normally. So iodine is also an important micronutrient. It is required for optimal mental and physical development of human beings. So iodine is essential for healthy brain development in fetus and also for the young child. So keep this in mind but usually if you see there is significant proportion of population who have iodine deficiency or who are suffering because of iodine deficiency. Now the deficiency of iodine can result in a range of disabilities and disorders like goiter, hypothyroidism, chretinism, abortion, stillbirths, mental retardation and psychomotor defects. Here the term goiter means the spelling of the neck which is resulting from the enlargement of the thyroid gland and hypothyroidism means a condition where the thyroid gland is not able to produce enough thyroid hormone. So hypo means low so less secretion of thyroid hormone and chretinism is called as congenital iodine deficiency syndrome. So when we tell congenital it is something which is being transmitted from the mothers to the newborns. So if the mother is hypothyroid then the newborn child is also likely to become hypothyroid. So it will cause severely stunted physical growth and also mental growth because of this congenital deficiency of thyroid hormone and psychomotor defects means slow down of the thought process and also detection of the physical movements in any individual. So these are some of the disabilities and disorders which is caused because of the deficiency of iodine. And there is also one fact that children who are born in iodine deficient areas may have up to 13.5 intelligence quotient points that is IQ points less than those children who are born in iodine sufficient areas. So it means that people who are iodine deficient will have less intelligence quotient. And iodine deficiency negatively affects the health of women as well as economic productivity and also the quality of life. Because if the health of the women or health of any individual is affected automatically they will not be in a position to do their normal jobs and when there are no jobs it means they do not have any money to survive. So it will affect the quality of their life. We saw that a significant amount of population in India suffering because of iodine deficiency. It is because very small amounts of iodine is found in the normal diet. So most people need an additional source of iodine in their diet. Now how can we add iodine in their diet? So this addition is called the process of fortification or we can tell iodization in case of iodine. So iodization means the process of fortifying the salt for human consumption with iodine. So this is an effective strategy to increase the iodine intake at the population level. And very recently we also seen news that vitamin A fortification, calcium fortification, vitamin D fortification, etc. So iodization or iodine fortification is one such step. See the world health organization recommends average consumption of salt per person per day at 5 grams. So it limits the average consumption at 5 grams and according to the world health organization guidelines a daily iodine intake of 150 microgram is required in order to prevent the iodine deficiency disorders. So in one day a person or any individual has to intake at least 150 micrograms of iodine. So that is why we are calling iodine as a micronutrients because the consumption will be in very minute amount but it is quite essential to consume iodine. India made a fortification of salt with iodine mandatory for direct human consumption in the year 1992 but the rule was relaxed in the year 2000 and again it was reimposed in the year 2005. Also in 2011 the Supreme Court also mandated the universal iodization for the control of iodine deficiency. So we can see that iodine is quite essential in a human diet. Now let us come to the survey. The survey which was conducted was titled as India Iodine Survey 2018-2019. This survey was conducted by Nutrition International in collaboration with All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences New Delhi and then Association for Indian Coalition for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders in short ICC, IDD and Kanthar. So this survey basically tested the iodine content in the samples of cooking salt from the households in order to estimate or in order to know the coverage of iodized salt in each households. And this survey covered around 21,406 households which was spread across 29 states and 7 union territories and the time period when the survey was done was between October 2018 and March 2019. So this survey has found out that 76.3 percentage of Indian households consumed adequately iodized salt. So adequately iodized salt means the salt with at least 15 parts per million of iodine or 15 micrograms of iodine. From this picture you can see the states like Jammu and Kashmir, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya are those states where the household coverage with iodine content is quite high. And here you can see the bottom five states which are the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha and Jharkhand and the news is that Tamil Nadu ranks lowest in the coverage of iodized salt. Now we can see the irony here in those states where salt is not available like in the states of Jammu and Kashmir and in majority of the Northeastern states the household coverage of iodized salt is more. But in those states where salt is available in abundance like in the state of Tamil Nadu the coverage is quite less. It is because the salt is quite commonly available in those states which produce salt. So they have access to common salt. Common salt means the non-iodized salt. So because of this the iodine intake in those population is quite low. This is the reason why Tamil Nadu ranks lowest in the coverage of iodized salt. And in those states where the salt is being shipped it is being ensured by the government that they are fortified properly with iodine. So this is the reason why these states have high household coverage of iodized salt. And there is also a statistics which is given in the news article regarding the production of salt in India that is those states which produce salt in India. So Gujarat is the state which produces 71 percentage of the total salt in India and this is followed by Rajasthan which produces around 17 percentage of the total salt of India. Next is the state of Tamil Nadu which produces around 11 percentage of salt in India. And you can see that both Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan which are one of the leading producers of salt have low household coverage of iodized salt. This survey has also put forward some key recommendations. The main recommendation is that the same momentum has to be sustained so that the iodine coverage does not fall below the current levels. The current level is around 76 percentage which we saw. And the next recommendation is that the central government and all the state governments should work together to address the current gaps. And they must also look into issues which are state specific. So each state might have its own challenge in increasing the household coverage of iodized salt. So both the center and the respective state governments should work together in order to address the gaps. From this news article we have seen why iodine is important and what happens when there is an iodine deficiency in human body and also about the survey. Now have a look at the practice question. Let us move on to the next news article. This news article talks about India's revised target for land restoration under the bond challenge, under the land degradation neutrality and also under the sustainable development goals framework. The syllabus relevant to the analysis of this news article is given here for your reference. Let us now see the news article. The 14th conference of parties for the United Nations Convention to combat desertification is being held in New Delhi and it will be in the news for at least until 14th of this month because the conference of parties will come to an end only by 13th of September. See the Indian Prime Minister has inaugurated the high level segment of this conference of parties 14th. In short the COP 14 study that is on 9th of September in his speech the Prime Minister has stated that India would raise its ambition of the total area that would be restored from its land degradation status. Earlier India stated its ambition to restore land from the degradation status in the year 2015. This was during the COP for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which was held in Paris and the Government of India stated this ambition as a part of bond challenge pledge. This challenge or the pledge announced by India in the year 2015 was to restore 13 million hectares of degraded land or 130 lakh hectares of degraded land in India. This is to be done by the year 2020 and after this an additional 8 million hectares or 80 lakh hectares to be restored by the year 2030. So overall by the year 2030 India's pledge to restore 21 million hectares or 210 lakh hectares of degraded land. Now the news is that under this bond challenge India has decided to increase its ambition to additional 5 million hectares to the already existing 21 million hectares pledge till the year 2030. This means overall till the year 2030 India's pledge to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land. This target under bond challenge also becomes a part of land degradation neutrality target. Know that bond challenge includes the land degradation neutrality targets as well. This means that India has made a target under bond challenge which will also be considered as a part of land degradation neutrality target. This is because the objectives of both are one and the same that is regarding the restoration of degraded land. That is the restoration of degraded land is part of objectives of both the bond challenge as well as the land degradation neutrality framework. The concept of land degradation neutrality emerged from the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development which happened in the year 2012. Land degradation neutrality responds to intensifying the production of food, fuel and fiber to meet the future demand without further degrading a finite or limited land resource base. In other words land degradation neutrality demands the world to be a place where human activity has a neutral impact on the land. See in the year 2015 the 12th session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations convention to combat desertification was held. At that time the Conference of Parties of this UNCCD adopted 35 decisions related to desertification land degradation and drought. This also included how to pursue land degradation neutrality within the framework of the sustainable development goals and it also included how to align UNCCD goals and how to align the action of parties with the sustainable development goals. As a follow-up the UNCCD secretariat launched a new initiative which is called as land degradation neutrality. Now let us see how land degradation neutrality or restoring degraded land is a part of sustainable development goal. We have a sustainable development goal number 15. Under this there is a goal which is halting and reversing land degradation. In this goal there is a target called target 15.3. This target 15.3 states that every nation shall restore degraded land and soil and every nation should strive to achieve a land degradation neutral world by the year 2030. We are finding that the targets are being set with the end year as 2030. This is for the purpose of aligning the targets under UN sustainable development goals. If you ask about bond challenge it is a global effort to bring 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested land in the world into restoration by the year 2020 and to restore 350 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by the year 2030. So the increased and the extra commitment announced by the prime minister comes under the interrelated framework of bond challenge, land degradation neutrality target and also under the sustainable development goals target. But this we come to the end of the analysis of this news article. Have a look at the practice question. Let us move on to the practice questions discussion session. See the first question. The question is consider the following statements about Nilgiri Thar. They have given two statements and have asked you to choose the correct answer. The first statement states that Nilgiri Thar is endemic to western guards and eastern guards. The statement is wrong during our discussion we saw that Nilgiri Thar is endemic to western guards. It is found especially in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. And in today's news article there was a mention about Mukurti National Park. So the news was regarding the census that was conducted in Mukurti National Park in the state of Tamil Nadu. So the first statement goes wrong. The second statement tells that it is classified as vulnerable under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. This statement is also wrong. We saw that it was classified as endangered under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The questioners ask for the correct statements but both the statements are wrong. So the correct answer is option D neither one nor two. Moving on to the next question consider the following pairs. They have given the moon mission and the respective country and we need to choose the correctly matched pair from the above. The first pair is Surveyor 1 by USA. This pair is correct. Surveyor 1 is the landing mission of NASA of USA. It is the first landing mission of USA and it was successful. So this pair is correct. The second pair given is Luna 9 USSR. Know that Luna 9 is the mission to moon by the Soviet Union or the USSR which is called as Union of Soviet Socialist Republic. This is the first mission ever to successfully demonstrate soft landing on moon. So this pair is also correct. The third pair is Chandrayaan 2 India. We know that Chandrayaan 2 is our Indian mission that is ISRO's mission. So this pair is also correct. The fourth pair is Bereshi by Space IL or Israel Space Agency. Bereshi mission to moon is the landing mission to moon by a private and non-profit organization in Israel called as Space IL with contribution from Israel Space Agency. Space IL as a non-profit organization was established in the year 2011 aiming to land the first Israeli spacecraft on the moon. But we know that this year in the month of April the mission was unsuccessful as it could not soft land on the moon. So the fourth pair given here is also correct. The fifth pair that is given is Changi 4 China. This pair is correct. It is China's landing mission to moon. The mission is the first mission to land on the far side of the moon. So all the five pairs that are given are correctly matched. The questioner is asked to choose the correctly matched pairs. So the correct answer is option D 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Moving on to the next question which of the following are vector burn diseases. They have given five diseases. Number one malaria. Number two measles. Number three dengue. Number four chicken gunia. Number five tuberculosis. During our discussion we saw some diseases which were vector born diseases. That is those infectious diseases that can be transmitted between humans or from animals to humans by living organisms. That is certain living organisms. These living organisms are called vectors and we saw that mosquitoes are the best known disease vector. And we also saw some list of diseases caused by different types of mosquitoes which are aides mosquito, anophilus mosquito, culex mosquitoes. Those vector born diseases caused by aides mosquitoes are chicken gunia, dengue fever, lymphatic fileriasis and zika. And those caused by anophilus mosquitoes are malaria and lymphatic fileriasis. And those diseases which are caused by culex mosquitoes are Japanese encephalities and lymphatic fileriasis. So here malaria is correct, dengue is correct and chicken gunia is correct. Know that measles and tuberculosis are not vector born diseases. Measles is caused by a virus called measles virus which belongs to the family paromyxobiridae. And tuberculosis is caused by a bacterium called mycobacterium tuberculosis. So the question is asked to choose the correct answer from the options given below. The correct answer is option B, 1, 3 and 4. Moving on to the next question. The question is goiter is a medical condition which is caused by deficiency of which of the following micronutrient. We saw during our discussion what is the difference between micronutrient and micronutrient. Micronutrient are mostly the essential vitamins and minerals that the humans need for proper functioning of their body. And we saw that the deficiency of iodine causes a condition called goiter. Goiter means spelling of the neck which is resulting from an enlargement of the thyroid gland. So the correct answer to this question is option D, iodine. Moving on to the next question. Consider the following statements. They have given three statements and have asked you to choose the correct answer. The first statement is India is committed in restoring degraded land under the bond challenge. This statement is correct. As of today, India has pledged 26 million hectares of degraded land to be restored under the bond challenge. The second statement tells that the 14th COP United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification is held in New Delhi, India. This statement is also correct at present the 14th COP or the 14th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification is being held in New Delhi, India. And India has taken the presidency for a period of two years till the year 2021. Statement third tells that halting and reversing land degradation is part of the Sustainable Development Goals framework. This statement is also correct. We have seen during our analysis that it comes under the goal number 15. The question is asked to choose the correct statements. All the statements are correct. So, the correct answer is option D, 1, 2 and 3. With this, we come to the end of today's discussion of all the news articles and also the practice questions discussion session. Do like, comment and share the video and do subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel for latest videos and updates. Stay focused and motivated friends. Thank you.