 Good evening aspirants. Welcome to the daily news analysis by Shankara A. Sakadami for the date 17th October 2021. These are the list of articles we will be discussing today. We will be discussing five articles today. In that three will be from today's newspaper. One article will be from 16th October newspaper and another article will be from 14th October newspaper. We will be having two problems questioned and three main questions today. So stay till the end of the discussion to get the full impacts of the discussion. Without wasting much time let us get into the today's news analysis section. Let us start today's discussion with this article. This is an open article taken from the 14th October newspaper. This article gains relevance in relation to the recently published global hunger index. Through this article the author proposes a solution to the rampant malnutrition prevalent in the country. This article is a well structured one. This is how we must write our main censor. See the introduction part of this article. Here the author gives two nutrition related data. First he quotes the fifth national family health survey here. This survey has covered 17 states of our country and indicated that the nutrition related indicators have worsened continuously. To substantiate his claim of nutrition deficiency in India further he quotes comprehensive national nutrition survey 2016-18. This survey too highlights the micronutrient malnutrition among Indians. See this is how you must write your introduction. It must have three features that is it must be relevant to the question. It must be to the point and crisp and it must have some valid data most preferably from a government organization. When the introduction addresses these three points your introduction will be more attractive and will help you fetch more marks. Now moving on to the article. Let us see the views of the author regarding the nutrition security in our country. To help provide a better nutrition security the author gives various steps that must be taken. Let us go over this one by one. First is improving dietary diversity. This is mainly done to address malnutrition in our country. Next is promoting kitchen gardens for decentralized vegetable production and addressing the nutrition deficiency problem locally. Next is reducing post harvest losses which will in turn make the food mode affordable. We can also make programs like PDS more nutrition sensitive. See currently our PDS program tries to address only the hunger part and not the malnutrition part. So more focus must be given to addressing the micronutrient deficiency. Next important feature to ensure nutrition security is focusing on human empowerment. See human empowerment is not an end in itself. It has very many positive effects like by focusing on human empowerment we can lower TFR that is the total fertility rate. We can also provide better nourishment to the children and focusing on human empowerment will also help in providing better nutrition security. This is what the author is trying to address. Next comes nutrition education and using digital technology to identify target groups and better manage the resources in ensuring nutrition security. Other measures that the author suggests to ensure nutrition security includes the enforcement of standards and regulation and improving water sanitation and hygiene. See here the author has given an all-incompassing solution to address the nutrition deficiency holistically. All these points will be helpful in your main sensor. From this article you can have an idea how we must have a more aerial view of all social problems. See UPSC mainly in the mains GS part expects from us a more wider understanding of a problem rather than a more deeper view. To help you understand this better see how the author incorporated digital technology enforcement of standards as a solution for addressing nutrition deficiency. This is what I mean when I say we must have a wider view. Hope you guys are getting the point that I am trying to deliver here. No moving on. Later in the article the author focuses on the agricultural food system to address nutrition deficiency. See for the population to eat better we must sow better that is we must produce good quality crops and to help the population in switching to a healthy dietary pattern we must focus on shifting the agricultural production pattern as well. Currently we are following monocropping of rice and wheat that must be replaced with mixed cropping. This will ensure diversity in dietary pattern and it would also be a good for the environment. Here in this part the author dives deep into the issues with the agricultural food systems that hinder in achieving the goal of nutrition security. So before looking at the problems in India's agricultural food system let us see some facts about the India's agriculture sector. See India produces sufficient food, feed and fiber to sustain about 18% of the world's population. Agriculture contributes about 16.5% of India's GDP and employs 42.3% of the workforce but still India faces small nutrition rate. So there must be some problems in the agricultural food system. According to the author there are four problems facing the agricultural food system of our country. These problems are economic sustainability, ecological sustainability, poor adoption of agricultural technologies and the extreme vulnerability to climate events which is becoming more frequent with the rapid climate change. So we saw the problems that the Indian agri-food system is facing. The author also proposes some solutions to the problems. So to address the problems the author suggests that the long-term goal of the agriculture must not be to enhance farm incomes but also to ensure better access to safe and nutritious foods. Additionally the agricultural food system needs to be reoriented to minimize the cost on environment and climate. So having discussed about the measures that need to be taken to ensure nutrition security and the challenges the agri-food system faces, let us discuss a little bit about World Food Day. See the World Food Day is celebrated on 16th of October every year. World Food Day marks the establishment of food and agricultural organization. The theme of World Food Day 2021 is our actions are our future. Better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life. See these four betters that is the better production, better nutrition, better environment and better life represent the food and agricultural organizations contribution to the sustainable development goals. See FAO that is the Food and Agricultural Organization was established in 1948 and have been an active participant with India. This organization has helped India mainstreaming agro-biodiversity, greening agriculture, promoting nutrition-sensitive agriculture and strengthening national food security. In January this year that is 2021, FAO in collaboration with Nithya Yoke and the Ministry of Agriculture convened a national dialogue to evolve a framework for transition to a more sustainable agricultural food system by 2030 and identify pathways for enhancing farmer's income and achieving nutritional security. This helped India in both enhancing our farmer's income and to make our agricultural system more resilient. To conclude a sustainable agricultural food system must have the following features. First is sufficient nutritious and safe foods must be made available to all people at a affordable price. Second is nobody must be hungry or suffer from any form of malnutrition. Third is food wastage must be minimal and the food supply chain must be more resilient to shocks. Fourth is food system must help combat environmental degradation or climate change. So when a agricultural food system has the above mentioned features the sustainable agricultural food system can deliver food security and nutrition security for all without compromising the economic, social and the environmental basis. So in this segment we discussed various aspects of nutrition security how by evolving a sustainable agro food system we can address nutrition deficiency we also saw how to write a good mains introduction and how having a bird's eye view will help us write a better mains answer. Hope it helped everyone. So let us conclude this discussion and move on to the next article. Now look at this editorial article that appeared on yesterday's newspaper. See very recently on October 13th our Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Gatti Shakti national master plan. This Gatti Shakti national master plan is nothing but a national master plan for multimodal connectivity. To put it in simple words Gatti Shakti is a digital platform which will bring 16 ministries together for integrated planning and coordinated implementation of infrastructure connectivity projects. See as an umbrella integrator of 111 lakh crore worth of projects under national infrastructure pipeline for 2020 to 25 this initiative aims to appeal to the national integration. The syllabus covered by this article is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. We will go through the Gatti Shakti national master plan in more detail a bit later before that let us briefly go through the national infrastructure pipeline. See the key to any successful economy is a robust infrastructure with an equally strong supply chain. This is also true for our country which has a goal to become a 5 trillion dollar economy by 2025. The national infrastructure pipeline is a step in that direction. See the national infrastructure pipeline is a initiative that will provide world-class infrastructure across the country in order to improve the overall quality of life for all citizens. The initiative will provide improved project preparation and attract both domestic and foreign direct investment in our economy. That is its main aim is to improve the project preparation and attract investments into infrastructure sector. The national infrastructure pipeline has been made on the best effort basis by putting together informations provided by various stakeholders including various ministries, departments, state governments and private sectors across infrastructure sector as identified in the harmonized master list of infrastructure. The national infrastructure pipeline will fulfill all the crucial factors that will help India in achieving its target of becoming a 5 trillion dollar economy by the financial year 2025. It will cover both economic and the social infrastructure projects as well. So now coming back to the Gatti Shakti national master plan. See the infrastructure creation in India has suffered for decades from multiple issues. There was a lack of coordination between different departments. For example, once a road was constructed, other agencies dug up the constructed road again for activities like laying of underground cables, gas, pipelines, etc. This not only caused great inconvenience but was also a wasteful expenditure. To address this, efforts were put in place to increase the coordination so that all cables and pipelines and etc. could be laid simultaneously while the road was being laid. This is the core feature of Gatti Shakti national master plan. See the Gatti Shakti national master plan will address all these past issues through institutionalizing holistic planning for all the stakeholders for all major infrastructure projects. See the focus here is on holistic planning instead of planning and designing separately in compartments with no real-time sharing of information. The project will be designed and executed with a common vision that is a holistic vision. It will incorporate the infrastructure schemes of various ministries and state governments like Bharatmala, Sagarmala, inland waterways, dry or land ports, Udaan, etc. and economic zones like textile clusters, pharmaceutical clusters, defense corridors, electronic parks, industrial corridors, fishing clusters, agri zones will be covered to improve connectivity and make India more business competitive. To put it in simple words, Gatti Shakti national master plan will aid concerned ministries or departments to prioritize connectivity enhancement for ensuring last mail connectivity to economic zones in different time frames. In collaboration with Bhaskar Acharya national institute for space application and geoinformatics, the development of a GIS based enterprise resource planning system will enable all stakeholders and the network planning group which consists of infrastructure connectivity ministries to participate in spatial planning, evidence based decision making, administration and effective monitoring of the plan on a periodic and real-time basis. The portal which has over 200 layers will enable visibility of all essential network linkages and assist national planners in making better decision in the logistic sector. So, we have a holistic understanding about what this Gatti Shakti national master plan is about. Now, let us see what are the positive sides of the plan. First is it will help in reducing wasteful expenditure. See, due to lack of planning and coordination, there was wasteful expenditure in the past like we discussed So, through this plan, there will be holistic planning so the wasteful expenditure can be minimized. Second is it will help lower the cost of logistics as a percentage of GDP. Presently, the cost of logistic as a percentage of GDP is at 14 percent. When properly imprimatined, this can be brought down to 8 percent of GDP. Third is it will attract major investments which in turn will boost job generation, which in turn will increase demand for goods and commodities. Understand this, when the transportation cost decreases, the cost of goods and commodities will also decrease. This will induce demand in the market and indirectly boost the protection which will again contribute to GDP. The fourth and the most significant positive of this plan is land acquisition. See, most of the projects in India are stuck due to land acquisition delays. So, in this the government is using GIS that is the geographic information system to identify waste and polluted land with no prospect for agriculture and develop these lands as industrial parks. Now, having gone through the positive sides of the Kartishatni National Master Plan, let's see some challenges that this plan might face. The first challenge is environmental. See, there is a challenge for reducing vehicular emission from the road freight growth in order to meet the climate change commitments. Apart from this, keeping input prices in check due to exorbitant diesel tax also poses a challenge. The second challenge is the role of active center state partnership for infrastructure building. See, since states have an important role in all this, center can convince the states and states in their part can ensure port connectivity, land availability for motorways, trains, industrial clusters and corridors and rely on a political agreement and active collaboration. Though this center state partnership might act as a hindrance through active communication between the center and state, this challenge could be overcome in the future. So, in this section of the discussion, we discussed about the national infrastructure pipeline, the newly launched Kartishatni National Master Plan, its salient futures, its advantages and the challenges it might face. With this, let us end this discussion and move on to the next article. Now, for our next discussion today, I have chosen this FAQ article. As we know, the cold crisis is continuously making headlines in recent times. So, in this discussion, we are going to learn about the ongoing cold crisis which our country is facing and we are going to learn about the intensity of the issue and then we will move on to the factors that led to the crisis and we will end our discussion with a brief note on the way forward. That is how we are going to address the issue. Now, with this idea in mind, let us get into our discussion. The syllabus covered by this FAQ article is highlighted below for your friends. Please go through it. See, as of now, the amount of cold held in India's thermal power plants are going down to a very low level. In fact, many power plants are operating with nearly zero stock reserves or the stocks that could last only a very few days. So, basically, this shortage has put India in the edge of a power crisis and now the intensity of this issue has started to gain ground because already some Indian states are witnessing partial load shedding in order to save power. That is, in some states, the power companies have already began to reduce the electricity consumption by switching of the power supply to customers since the entire system is at risk. Note here that this is happening at a time when there is a broader energy crisis across the world. That is, a sharp price is witnessed in the prices of natural gas, coal and oil in the international market. So, I hope this gives you a brief background of the issue at hand. Now, let's briefly see about the current status of coal in India. See, when you take India, around 70% of our power needs need to be met through coal and on that line, the coal India limited supplies over 80% of the total coal consumed in our country. Note that the government usually mandates the power plants to hold the stock that could last for at least two weeks. But the crisis has made it almost impossible because according to the data released by Central Electricity Authority, the average coal stock in 135 thermal power plants in India is capable of lasting for just four days. And of that 135 thermal power plants, 112 thermal power plants are currently operating with stocks that are very critical or at an extremely critical level. Due to this, the government has reduced this stock requirement. That is, from 14 days of stock requirement to just 10 days. And the main intention behind this is to avoid hoarding and also to ensure a more equitable distribution of coal among the power plants. So, by now we have a broad picture of the ongoing coal crisis that is faced by our country. Now, let us move on to see some factors that have contributed to this ongoing crisis. See, the first and foremost reason for the current crisis is the un-energetic or the unexciting domestic production of coal. And according to the BP Global Energy Statistics, the domestic coal production is said to be stagnated since the year 2018. During 2018, the total coal production in India peaked at 12.8 Exa Joules. See, we know that Joules is a unit of measurement of energy and here Exa means 10 to the power of 18. So, in 2018, when the coal production reached its peak, we produced 2.80 Exa Joules worth of coal. Now, moving on to the second reason for the current crisis. For the past three years, the coal imports have been continuously declining. That is, the amount of coal imported from other countries to meet domestic demand has also come down. For example, the import of coal has dropped from a peak of 6.46 Exa Joules in 2016 to about 4.22 Exa Joules in the year 2020. If you notice here carefully, despite the shortage or stagnation even in previous years, the coal crisis has begun to gain intensity only at the present time. One major reason for this is because last year we had our economy shutdown to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, because of which there was not much power usage. But then when the situation changed and when we came back to our normal lives, the demand for power had once again resumed. So, now the effect of coal supply and demand mismatch has manifested into the present crisis that we are facing. Adding to this, there exist some deeper structural problems that have plagued the power industry in general as well. For instance, it is said that the price paid for power is not equal to the total production costs. Similarly, as pointed out in the news article, the revenue of distribution companies for the financial year 2019 covered only about 70% of their total costs. This situation here is counter-intuitive and such issues have led to the decrease in private investment in the power generation. Despite there is a raising demand for power, see the number of people added to the middle class is continuously increasing. So, the power consumption, that is the demand for power also is continuously increasing. But still then the private investment is decreasing in the power production and the power distribution sectors. Another important factors that led to the present crisis is the monopoly in the mining of raw material by power sector companies like coal India limiters which are in run for profit. More importantly, there is not much financial incentive available for the major producers across the supply chain to ramp up production. Apart from these, other factors have led to the insufficient supply of coal including short-term issues like flooding in coal mine areas, transportation issues, labor disruption in coal mining countries and also sudden raise in power demand as the economy revived back from the pandemic. So, we saw about the brief background of the current issue and the major factors that led to the current issue. Now, let us see the way forward. That is, let us see some solution that will help in addressing the present issue. See at present, countries are trying to cut down their fossil fuel consumption. But despite that, India being one of the top two consumers of the coal in the world is planning to further increase the production of fossil fuels. But to power a country that is as huge as India, it is important for India to ramp up its production in order to meet the raising coal demand and also cut down the country's reliance on imported coal. But for short term, it is good to ease restriction on imported coal as well to overcome the crisis for a temporary period. Also, a fundamental pricing reform in both coal production and in the power sector is the need of the HAR to make investment in coal production and thermal energy production more lucrative. Let us recap a little bit. Here we discussed about the present coal crisis in India, what are the reasons that have led to the present situation and some measures that can be taken to address the issue. So, with this, let us wind up this news article and move on to our next article. Now, let us take up this news article. The article here reports about the Adavaleshwara temple which is situated in the Vilipuram district of Tamil Nadu. Due to lack of proper maintenance, this temple is in a bad condition and vegetation has grown on the mandabam over the sanctum sanctorum. Due to this, the temple is leaking inside during rains and its structure is also deteriorating. So, on that line, the Hindu religious and the charitable endowments have been requested to take necessary steps to preserve the temple. So, this is the basic crux of the news article here. Now, based on this context, let us learn about some important points about the Adavaleshwara temple. See, this Adavaleshwara temple is a Hindu temple which is dedicated to Lord Shiva. The presiding deity here is Adavaleshwara and the mother of the deity is Periyanayaki. As per the inscription found here, the temple is believed to be more than 1300 years old. As per the sources, Kulothunga Chola has contributed to the development of this temple which was already famous back then. Following him, later, the Kulothunga Chola II has also contributed even more to the temple and made it huge and grand. Note that there are about 52 inscriptions in the temple and they all majorly talks about the contribution made to the temple by various kings, especially the Chola kings. And this list includes Rajendra Chola, Kulothunga Chola I, II and III and also Raja Raja Chola. One among the inscriptions also talks about the Kidaram Kundat Chola in Sali, where food was regularly served. And note that it belonged to the period of Rajendra I. In fact, the earliest inscription found on the wall of the temple relates to the 11th year of Raja Kesari Varman, who is identified with Kulothunga II. Kulothunga II here is praised as Pu Mevu Valar. Keep in mind, the temple is a rare south-facing Shiva temple dating from the Chola period because most of the Chola temples are north-facing. Now, coming to the structural aspects of the temple. See, the temple has a Balipidam, Javasthambam and Nandi situated in a raised platform. And this platform is built in a way that it is facing the sanctum located outside the temple. The temple has also got a tank situated on the right side of the temple. And when you take the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, it consists of a sanctum, antarala, arthamandabam, 16 pillard muhamandabam, a mahamandabam and also a front mukhamandabam. It has a sanctum, antarala, arthamandabam, 16 pillard muhamandabam, a mahamandabam and also a front mukhamandabam. So, these are the important facts related to Adavaleshwara temple. So, with these facts in mind, let us move on to the next article for our discussion. Now, let us take this news article. This article says that after many delays in its upgrading process, the army air defense expects to make significant progress in terms of acquisition and trail in the coming months. According to the defense authorities, these include additional indigenous akash surface-to-air systems, the underdevelopment medium range surface-to-air missile systems and the Russia's IGLA-S short-range air defense system. That is, V-Sharad systems. See, air defense functions at three levels. First is the gun missile system. Second is the medium range system. Third is the high range system. Within this, air defense guns are of two types. They are air defense gun missile system and the air defense self-propelled guns. The army is looking for guns in both these categories. IGLA-S very short-range air defense system comes under this category. In the medium segment, army has the indigenous akash surface-to-air missile, while the medium range surface-to-air missile, that is MRSM, fits in the high range. So, in this context let us briefly know about Russia's IGLA-S very short-range air defense system in the preliminary point of view. Know that short-range air defense is a group of anti-aircraft weapons and tactics that have to do with defense against low-altitude air threats like helicopters and low-flying close air support aircrafts. IGLA-S man-portable air defense system is a Russian origin very short-range air defense system. Make a note here, it is a man-portable surface-to-air missile. This system is the latest variant of IGLA man-pads developed before this. The IGLA-S version has a larger range than the previous variants as well as it has sensitive seekers and effective resistance to new defensive measures. It is designed for use against visible aerial targets at very short range such as tactical aircrafts, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles that is UAVs, cruise missiles, head-on or receding in the presence of natural background clutters and countermeasures. Talking about its specifications, see the missile is powered by a solid fuel rocket motor engine. It has contact and grazing fuse detonation mechanism. See, a fuse is a part of the device that initiates function. In some applications such as torpedoes, a fuse may be identified by function as the exploder and a contact fuse is nothing but a fuse that is placed in the nose of the bomb so that it will detonate or explode on contact with the hot surface. This new variant has a operational range of six kilometer altitude of three kilometers along with all weather capability. So horizontally it will cover six kilometers and vertically that is altitude it will cover three kilometers. The maximum peak speed of the missile is about Mach 1.6. For guidance purposes it uses a dual waveband infrared guidance system that is it has a infrared seeker and a guidance system which gives it the capability to lock into infrared light waves given off by the engine of the aircraft. As per the manufacturer this system is having a heat probability of 0.8 to 0.9 that is 9 out of 10 launches will be successful. See whenever you come across a new military equipment you have to concentrate on some aspects for the plumes. So here in case of iglias we must give more attention to its type which is v-sharad that is very short range surface to air different system then comes the range. So in this case it is six kilometer horizontally and altitude it will cover three kilometers. Then we must focus on how it is launched. Here iglias is launched using a man portable model okay and it can also reach a speed of Mach 1.9. Additionally this missile like we discussed has a infrared seeker and a guidance system with a heat probability of 0.9. This is a general template. This template can be used whenever you see a military hardware make news okay. By using this template you can cover any news article holistically for plumes okay. So with this let us conclude the news analysis segment and move on to the practice plumes question section. We have two practice plumes question today. Let's take up the first question. Which of the following statement is not correct about adavaleshwara temple. First is it is dedicated to larchiva. Second statement it is a rare south facing temple from the chola period. Third statement karigala cholan has contributed to the development of this temple. Fourth statement its inscription talk about the kidaram konda cholan salai. See based on our discussion we can infer that the second statement given here is incorrect because as I said earlier kulottunga cholan has contributed to the development of this temple which was already famous and following him kulottunga chola 2 contributed even more to the temple and made it huge and grand therefore the right answer here is option c since the question wants us to identify the wrong answer only so now moving on to the next question it is a two statement question first statement is the akash is a mid-range air-to-air missile built by the India state-owned defense research and development organization. Second statement the akash system can employ multiple air targets while operating in fully autonomous mode they have asked us to find the incorrect statements okay here the statement one is wrong because akash is a mid-range surface-to-air missile not a air-to-air missile this missile is built by India's state-owned defense research and development organization so statement one is wrong see it is a anti-aircraft missile and it can employ multiple air targets while operating in fully autonomous mode so the second statement is correct so the correct answer for this question is option a one only because the question asks for the wrong statement the main question based on today's discussion is displayed here we have three main questions today okay go through the questions completely first question will be based on the recently announced gathisakthi plan second question will be based on the nutrition security and the third is based on the current coal crisis okay go through the question completely and write your answers following the structure it must have a pattern starting it must have an introduction then you must address the question and it must have a good conclusion it must it can be a recommendation or a way forward so that's all for the discussion today if you like this video do like and comment and share it with your friends and subscribe to Shankara IS Academy YouTube channel thank you