 A very good evening to all our friends and welcome to the Hindu News Analysis of Shankar IAS Academy for the date 31st January 2021. Before we begin our news analysis, we have an announcement. Shankar IAS Academy is launching a special program called Prefit to help the aspirants to navigate the timeline for the run up to UPSC preliminary examination 2021. Before we describe the program, know that the entrance exam for joining this new initiative will be conducted online on 7th February 2021. In this program, the Academy will provide a micro schedule that is broken into monthly, weekly and daily targets. The program will provide high intensity interval training for preliminary examination. It will help you not only to complete the syllabus, but also to enhance your skills in solving questions. The program is modeled on the scientific principle of active recall and spaced repetition to ensure maximum output. The participants will solve around 4000 questions in the period from February 15 to May 16. In the training, the participants would be given 50 questions on a daily basis on 6 days in a week. The 50 questions will be based on the steady target of that particular day, and each test will be followed by a daily detailed discussion. Once a particular subject area is completed, the daily tests will be followed by a full test of 100 questions. Under this program, the students will develop a daily routine which is specific to prelims preparation. We have also used gamification principles to incentivize regular test taking and improvement of performance. By enrolling in this program, you will get a detailed schedule for 3 months. The schedule will cover both micro and macro targets for your preparation. And you will be getting 5 weekly half tests from Monday to Friday for general studies topics. As stated already, one full revision test will be there upon the subject completion. After completion of the syllabus, you will get 4 Gs and 4 C-SAT mock tests. And in order to ensure that the participants should qualify the C-SAT paper for sure, the program includes a C-SAT test every week. And this test will be of 50 questions. In addition to this, you will be given access to detailed solution and discussion upon the completion of each test. To understand where you stand, there will be a daily and monthly leaderboard. For the assessment of performance, Shankar IAS property test analytics will also be shared. The program also covers current affairs. See Prefit divides current affairs for past one year into monthly or weekly and daily targets. And these targets will be covered across multiple tests. And know that this is a totally different program from that of pre-storming prelims test series of Shankar IAS Academy. And if you have already registered for pre-storming and now say you are enrolling in Prefit, then the tests under Prefit are in addition to the tests taken under pre-storming. The link for the brochure and detailed schedule is given in the description box and also in the comment section. Now how does Prefit work? Firstly, an entrance exam will be conducted on 7th February 2021. The syllabus and other details of the examination will be provided to you by 1st February 2021. The entrance exam will be conducted online and it will have a registration fee of 99 rupees. Students who secure top 100 ranks will be eligible for Prefit Prime. Under this Prefit Prime, the top 100 rankers will be given 50% subsidized monthly fee structure of 750 rupees plus GST. Students other than Prefit Prime will have a monthly fee structure of 1500 rupees plus GST. And subsequent months of access to Prefit Prime will be subjected to securing a position in the top 100 in the previous month. Students who secure a position in Prefit Prime will be eligible to avail 25% discount on main storming 2021 upon the qualification of prelims 2021. For more details, please visit the links which are given in the description box and also in the comment section. With this, let us move on to today's news analysis. The list of the relevant news articles taken up for today's discussion from five different editions of The Hindu newspaper along with their page numbers are given here for your reference. Also, the handwritten notes in the PDF format and timestampings for all the news articles taken up for today's discussion is given in the description box and also in the comment section for the best interest of the viewers. Let us now begin with our first news article. Now this FAQ article talks about the upcoming green tax policy of the Government of India and its efficiency in attaining clean air objectives. Let us discuss this article in detail. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. See the Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways has approved the proposal for leaving a green tax as a means to prevent vehicles from polluting the environment. It is said to be effective from April 1st, 2022. So in this regard, let us see some of the major features of this green tax. First one is that the transport vehicles which are older than eight years will be charged a green tax at the rate of 10 to 25 percentage of the road tax at the time of renewal of the fitness certificate. Second, the green tax on personal vehicles will be imposed at the time of renewal of the registration certification after 15 years. Third, a lower green tax is to be imposed on public transport vehicles such as buses. And finally, higher green tax of about 50% of road tax will be imposed on vehicles that are registered in highly polluted cities. So these are the major features. However, this green tax is exempted for farm vehicles like tractors, harvesters and tillers and also for vehicles like strong hybrids, e-vehicles, etc. and those that are powered by alternate fuels like ethanol, LPG and CNG. See the minister also approved the policy of deregistration and scrapping of government and PSU vehicles which are older than 15 years. Note that commercial vehicles comprising 5 percentage of the total vehicles contribute to about 65 to 70 percentage of the total vehicle pollution. And those vehicles manufactured before 2000, which include 1% of the vehicles cause 15% of the total pollution. So this shows that old vehicles pollute around 10 to 25 times more when compared to new vehicles. And know that the funds from green tax will be kept in a separate account and will be used by states in measuring and tackling pollution. Now what are the benefits associated with this green tax? See it includes preventing people from using vehicles that pollute the environment, then motivating people to switch to new less polluting vehicles and also to reduce the pollution levels by making the polluter pay principle. That is the polluter should pay for the pollution which they create. Now here comes the question of the benefits associated with the scrapping of old vehicles. See it is true that the policy has got the potential to boost the automobile and its related industries by increasing the demand and can also pave the way for the recovery of steel, aluminum, plastic and others through recycling. However, the challenge lies in ensuring that the newly manufactured vehicles are more environment friendly with modern safety measures and are in accordance with the emissions and fuel efficiency standards. See in the year 2016, the Minister of Power notified the first set of corporate average fuel economy that is CAFE standards. It covered motor vehicles which run on petrol, diesel, LPG, CNG, et cetera, with a weight of 3,500 kilograms and not more than nine seats including the driver's seat. The consumption standard for such vehicles was prescribed to be less than 5.49 liters per 100 kilometer. The second set which is expected to come into force from 2022 to 2023 is said to have more stringent efficiency norms with separate standards for light, medium and heavy commercial vehicles. Also it is assumed that in the second set, cars with an average weight of 1,145 kilograms will be prescribed an average fuel consumption of less than 4.77 liters per 100 kilometers. And note that the CAFE standards are prescribed by the Ministry of Powers Bureau of Energy Efficiency with an expected reduction of 22.97 million tons of fuel consumption by the year 2025. See the Bureau of Energy Efficiency was set up in March 2002 under the provisions of Energy Conservation Act of 2001. Its main function is to help in developing policies and strategies to reduce the energy intensity of Indian economy along with the active participation of all its stakeholders within the overall framework of Energy Conservation Act of 2001. So in order to help those who cannot afford a replacement of their vehicles, many countries including India have brought in vehicle replacement schemes. An example for it would be the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission under which the center provided funds to the state governments in order to increase the buses and to aid the bus industry that faced a recession back in the year 2009. Now on analyzing the scrapping policy, it was said that the owners on selling their old vehicles would be issued a certificate which can be used for availing a discount of around 30,000 to 50,000 rupees on buying new vehicles. And in the case of commercial vehicles, the estimations went up to 1.5 lakhs. However, it was in progress. Here it should be noted that not everybody would be ready to give up their old vehicles, mainly due to the high capital cost which is not affordable by many. Though in the earlier draft proposals, there were mentions on tax discounts on exchanging old vehicles. Presently the objective is limited to encouraging the owners to sell their old vehicles instead of being a green tax penalty. And it is important to understand that without a proper framework of the incentive or penalty and a careful target of vehicles by knowing their condition, the tax penalty wouldn't be effective since the tax would be lower than the resale value of the vehicle and there will be no strong compulsion to retire the old vehicles. And if the old vehicles continue to stay in operation, then it will not make any contribution to the clean air objective of the Government of India and also there won't be any boost to the automobile industry. So this is all about this news article. With this information, let us move on to the next news. Now see this article which talks about supernova, neutrinos and how neutrinos help in the death of massive stars. So in this discussion, let's try to have a very brief understanding of these concepts. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. Basically, all stars burn nuclear fuel in the cores in order to produce energy. And this heat generates internal pressure which pushes outwards and prevents the star from collapsing inwards due to the action of gravity on its own mass. A star is in balance between these two opposite forces. That is, the star's gravity tries to squeeze the star into the smallest, tightest ball possible. But the nuclear fuel which is burning in the star's core creates a strong outward pressure. And this outward pressure resists the inward squeeze of the gravity. But when the star ages and runs out of fuel to burn, it starts to cool inside and deprived of energy production, which is needed to support it, the core begins to collapse into itself. And it becomes much hotter. But hydrogen, that is the fuel, is still available outside the core. So hydrogen fusion continues in a shell surrounding the core. The increasingly hot core also pushes the outer layers of the star outward, causing them to expand and cool, transforming the star into a red jade. So this cooling causes a lowering of its internal pressure and therefore the force of gravity wins. So the star starts to collapse inwards. And this builds up shock waves because it happens very suddenly and the shock wave sends the outer material of the star flying. So this is what is perceived as supernova. And this happens in very massive stars. In very big stars, this supernova is accompanied by a collapsing of the inner material of the dying star. And this is also known as core collapse supernova or type 2 supernova. And this collapsing core may form a black hole or a neutron star according to its mass. See, if it is a very large star, it collapse to form a black hole. If the star has about the mass of the sun, it becomes a white dwarf. A star with a mass of about 1.5 to 3 times that of our sun will collapse even further, ending up as a neutron star. So remember, very large stars collapse to form black holes. Then stars about the mass of the sun will become a white dwarf. And stars with 1.5 to 3 times mass of the sun will end up being a neutron star. In neutron stars, the force of gravity has overleamed the resistance of electrons to compression and has forced them to combine with protons in order to form neutrons. For stars that end the life weighing more than a few times the mass of the sun, even the resistance of neutrons is not enough to stop the unstoppable gravitational collapse. And the star ultimately becomes a black hole, a region in the space so massive that no light or no matter can ever escape from it. Now further, the news article says that neutrinos aid the death of massive stars. So what is a neutrino? See, a neutrino is a subatomic particle that is very similar to an electron, but it has no electrical charge and a very small mass, so negligible that it is even considered as zero. So neutrinos are one of the most abundant particles in the universe. And because they have very little interaction with matter, they are incredibly difficult to detect. Here note that you should not confuse neutrinos with neutrons. See, there is no relationship between neutrons and neutrinos except that both carry no or neutral charge. That is, both have zero charge. They are separate particles in almost every other way. And know that neutrons along with the protons form the nucleus of the atom. Now talking about neutrinos, it comes in three flavors or types and each flavor is associated with a light elementary particle. For instance, the electron neutrino is associated with the electron, the neon neutrino is associated with the neon, and the tau neutrino is associated with tau particle. As they come out of the raging supernova, the neutrinos can change from one flavor to another in a process known as neutrino oscillation. So try to remember the process a star goes through while dying. It is the mass of the star which determines whether the star become a white dwarf or a neutron star or a black hole. So in this discussion, we saw about supernova, black hole, white dwarf, then neutron star and also about neutrinos. With this information, let us move on to the next news. See, now this news article mentions that a union minister has urged the center to send an archeological survey of India team to carry out a detailed study and excavation at the Ekamrak Chaitra. See, this is because two days ago, the archeological survey of India has unearthed a stone structure during the excavation near the Sri Lingaraj temple in the Ekamrak Chaitra. And this structure is suspected to be the remains of an ancient temple from the 10th century. So what is Ekamrak Chaitra? See, Ekamrak Chaitra represents the old city core of Bhuvaneshwar. As you know, Bhuvaneshwar, called as the temple city, is the capital of Odisha, which is the evidence to an ancient architectural and historical heritage covering almost 2000 years from 3rd century BC to 15th century AD. They represent a complete record of the Kalinga architecture, almost from its nascent to its culmination. And in this, the Ekamrak Chaitra comprises the area of the old city of Bhuvaneshwar that forms the center of this temple architecture. It is considered as a Hindu holy city. See, in Odisha, there are five different Chaitras or religious centers celebrated for the so-called Panchadevata, which include Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Durga, and the sun. And they are the Vinayaka or Ganesh Chaitra at Maha Vinayak Hills in Katak. Then Vishnu or Sankar Chaitra at Puri. Then Shiva or Ekamrak Chaitra at Bhuvaneshwar. Durga or Viraja Chaitra at Jaipur or Yajnapur. And Surya or Arka Chaitra at Konark. In this, the Ekamrak Chaitra started being celebrated as a Shaiva center at least from 7th century AD. And this is because it is the seat of Tribhuvaneshwara. See, Tribhuvaneshwara is another name for Lord Lingaraja of the famous Lingaraja temple of Odisha. And according to some sources, the Lingaraja temple was the center of Ekamrak Chaitra. Also note that Ekamrak Chaitra was divided into Ashta Ayatana, which means eight sacred precincts. And these precincts are ritualistically and symbolically connected to the Lingaraja temple. See, if you take the name Ekamrak Chaitra, in this, Chaitra means simply area or a religious center in our context. And Ekamra means mango tree. So Ekamrak Chaitra can loosely be translated to mean an area adorned with mango trees. And according to Ekamrapurana, which is a 13th century Sanskrit treatise, the preceding deity of Lingaraja was originally under a mango tree. Hence the name Ekamrak Chaitra. Further note that Ekamrak Chaitra is an outstanding example of Hindu city planning based on the application of the Mandala concept. See, Mandala concept is a unique system of planning. It is a spiritual and ritual symbol of Hinduism and Buddhism that represents the universe. So graphically it denotes any plan or chart which symbolically represents the cosmos. Hence the basic form of most mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point. You can see this in an image. Now the present heritage zone of Ekamrak Chaitra consists of around 140 temples, which vary in size as some are gigantic structures like the great Lingaraja and some are miniatures. And these temples are still functional and they are home to numerous intangible living traditions, rituals, festivals and other observances that are believed to be centuries old. Also note that Ekamrak Chaitra is the synthesis of multi-religious systems namely Brahminical, Buddhist and Jain. Also note that it has been included in the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. So this is all about the Ekamrak Chaitra. With this information, let us move on to the next news. See this news article which says that China is the largest source of critical imports for India. China remains the largest source of critical imports for India from mobile phone components to pharmaceutical ingredients. And India is working on a multi-pronged strategy in order to reduce this reliance on China. For example, 85% of mobile components are coming from China. And even in the health sector, if China stops the active pharmaceutical ingredients or APIs for penicillin, then we would not be able to produce penicillin in our country. So in order to overcome this dangerous reliance on China, the Indian government is working on a multi-pronged strategy. For example, India has started the production-linked incentive or PLI scheme to boost domestic manufacturing and a global effort involving India's foreign missions to find alternatives to China and also the use of free trade agreements with other trading partners. The article noted that COVID-19 pandemic has helped to accelerate this change. See when production in China was hit early in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, India shared the list of items critically dependent on China with its foreign missions. The foreign missions linked up with supplies in other country resulted in diversification of sources. And in addition to PLI scheme, there's the hope to capture that particular diversification. PLI for large-scale electronic manufacturing proposes a financial incentive to boost domestic manufacturing. It also aims to attract large investments in electronic value chain, including mobile phones, electronic components, and also assembly, testing, marking, and packaging units or simply ATMP units. Now under the scheme, an incentive of 4 percentage to 6 percentage on incremental sales of goods manufactured in India and covered under targeted segments will be given to eligible companies over five years. The base year is financial year 2019-20. And in this regard, Apple has started manufacturing in India utilizing this PLI scheme. Further, the steel imports have fallen from a high of 2.8 billion US dollars to less than 1 billion dollars. And this is with South Korea replacing China in India's steel imports. See, this is because of an FDA and this FDA resulted in diversification of steel imports for free. Now coming to figures, China still remains the biggest source of India's imports. But imports last year fell 10.8 percentage, which is the lowest since 2016. The two-way trade reached 87.6 billion US dollars in 2020 down by 5.6 percentage. While the trade deficit declined to a level which is 5 year low of 45.8 billion US dollars. So this figure of economic survey 2021 summarizes India's import dependence. Among the top countries for import origin, China continues to be the largest import source for India in April-November 2020 with the share of imports rising to 17.7 percentage up from 14.5 percentage in April-November 2019. And not that while Switzerland does not appear to be among the top 10 import sources, Germany is the new addition in the list, accounting for 3.7 percentage share of total imports. So this is all about this news article. With this, let us move on to the next news. Now this news article talks about a statement made by the Andhra Pradesh State Election Commissioner on free and fair elections, which would pave way for the downtrodden to be a part of governance. In this context, let us have a brief understanding about the State Election Commission. Before that, you should know about Election Commission of India. The Election Commission of India is an autonomous constitutional authority that is responsible for administering the union and state election processes in India. It administers elections to the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, state legislative assemblies, then the legislative assemblies of union territories with the legislature and the offices of the president and vice-president in the country. So similarly, at the state level, we have the State Election Commission which performs the duty of conducting municipal and Panchayati Raj elections. Note that Article 243K of the Indian Constitution deals with the State Election Commission and its powers. Due to the lack of responsibility shown by the states in empowering the Panchayati Raj institutions and because of the irregular conduct of elections, the powers were given to the local rural bodies or Panchayati Raj institutions by the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act of 1992. And according to this, the Article 243K close one provides the State Election Commission with the powers to conduct the elections for the Panchayati Raj institutions. It also mentions about the State Election Commissioner who will be appointed by the governor of the state. As per Clause 2 of the Article 243K, the conditions of service and tenure of the State Election Commissioner will be determined by the governor. And regarding removal, the State Election Commissioner will be removed from the office in the similar manner and grounds as prescribed for the removal of judge of a high court. As mentioned in Clause 3 of the article, on the request of the State Election Commission, the governor of the state is entitled to provide the State Election Commissioner with the available staff that are needed to disturb the functions which are vested upon it. And the Clause 4 gives the state legislatures the powers to make laws with respect to all the matters relating to the elections to Panchayats. Now, when we talk about State Election Commission, you should remember the case of Kishan Singh Thomas versus Municipal Corporation of the city of Ahmedabad case. Since in its judgment, the Supreme Court stated that the state governments need to follow or abide by the laws which are provided by the State Election Commissions in the conducting of municipal and panchayat elections. And this is just like how the states follow the instructions of the Election Commission of India during the assembly and parliamentary polls. And note that even though the Central and State Election Commission has got a similar mandate, they are independent of each other and they draw their powers from different laws. So in this discussion, we are so about the State Election Commission. Now, with this, we have analyzed almost all the relevant news articles from today's The Hindu Newspaper. Now, let us move on to the Practice Questions Discussion section based on today's news analysis. See this first question. Consider the following statements about the State Election Commissioner. Here, three statements are given and you have to identify the correct statement or statements. The first statement reads, he or she is appointed by the governor of the state. Yes, this statement is correct. So you can easily eliminate option B. Now, the second statement reads, his or her terms of conditions and tenure is determined by the governor. Yes, this statement is also correct. And the third statement reads, he or she is removed similar to the manner or grounds as prescribed for the removal of the judge of a high court. Yes, this statement is also correct. So the correct answer for this question is option D, all of these. So in this regard, we have a previous year prelims question which was asked in 2011. The Constitution 73rd Amendment Act 1992, which aims at promoting the Panchayatiraj institutions in the country, provides for which of the following. Here also three statements are given. The first statement is, constitution of district planning committees. The second is, state election commissions to conduct all Panchayatiraj elections. And the third statement, establishment of state finance commissions. Here you would know that the first statement that is the constitution of district planning committees is incorrect, because it comes under the 74th Amendment Act and not under the 73rd Amendment Act. Then statement two and three are correct. So the correct answer for this question is option C, two and three only. Now, see the second question. The term Ekamra Chetra, recently seen in news, is associated with which of the following? Here the correct answer is option C, an old city core of Bhubaneshwar. Now there is another question with regard to Ekamra Chetra. With reference to Ekamra Chetra, consider the following statements. Here three statements are given. It represents the old city core of Varanasi. See this statement is incorrect. As we have seen Ekamra Chetra represents the old city core of Bhubaneshwar in Odisha. Now the second statement reads, it is the synthesis of Brahminika, Buddhist and Jain religious systems. Yes, this statement is correct. And the third statement reads, it is an example of Hindu city planning based on application of Mandala concept. Yes, this statement is also correct. So in this question, we have to identify the correct statement or statements. Since statement one is incorrect and statement two and three are correct, the correct answer for this question is option B, two and three only. Now see this fourth question. Which of the following is the correct order of sequence of a big star at the end of its life? Here option A is the correct answer. The correct order is, first the star becomes a super giant, then it becomes a supernova, then a neutron star. Now see this question. The following countries are the largest import sources for India in April to November 2020. Arrange them in decreasing order of the value of imports. Here four countries are given, China, USA, UAE and Hong Kong. And the correct decreasing order is one, two, three and four. That is option A. Now we have this mains practice question. Please write your answers and post it in the comment section. Now we have come to the end of analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion and also the discussion of practice questions. 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