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For more details and for registration visit the link given in the description box and comment section. With this let's move on to today's Hindi news analysis by Shankar IS Academy. These are the list of news articles chosen for today's analysis. It has been provided along with the page numbers of different editions of Hindi newspaper. Let's move on to the first article discussion based on this picture and this article which talks about the folk art of Puli Gali. And this folk art is associated with the Onam Festival of Kerala. We discussed about the Onam Festival on 27th August. And on that day we said that various cultural forms are presented in all important towns in the Kerala state during the Onam Festival. So important events like Phukolam that is Flower Rangoli then Puli Gali then Uri Adi that is Breaking the Pot etc. also takes place. And among these the most important folk art is the Puli Gali or the Tiger Dance. And note that this Puli Gali is very common in Trishur district of Kerala. As you know Trishur is also known as the cultural capital of Kerala. So let us discuss in brief about this folk art. See in this Puli Gali, Puli means leopard and Gali means play. So Puli Gali is a dance form based on the human recreation of the movement of tigers to a particular rhythm. See as you know Onam is a 10 day festival between Atam and Thiruvonam days. And according to some sources Puli Gali is mainly celebrated on the 4th day of this Onam Festival. Now the most interesting part of this folk art is that the Puli Gali artists paint their bodies like tigers with stripes of yellow, red and black. Then they dance to the rhythm of traditional percussion instruments such as Thakkula or Thavil and then Udukkha and then Chenda as you can see in these pictures. So simply we can say that human tigers dance to a rhythm. And during the festival human tigers appear in various unique hues and masks. And the locals and the visitors join along with the artists in this festivity. Now the main theme of this folk art is tiger hunting. And in this the participants play the role of tiger and also the hunter. As you can see in these pictures leopard faces are also drawn on bellies. And the makeup for the same is applied using oil paints. And it is said that removing this oil paint is extremely hard. Even then every year during Onam festival the streets of Thirushur attract people from across the state and also across the world to witness this special event. Now here you should note that this folk art of Puli Gali was mainly performed by men. But the festival has made headlines in the last few years with participation of women also. But still the group comprises predominantly of male leopards with few female and child leopards also. And as we have said already Puli Gali is a massed festival. Hence there is no significance for facial expressions in this folk art. So that is all you need to know about this folk art. That is the practice question will be discussed in the last session. Let's move on to the next discussion. Now this discussion is based on this oped article which discusses about the recent issue of the central government's plan to raise the age of marriage for women. So in this context today we will see what are the issues pertaining to increase the age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 years as discussed by the authors. And we will also see some of the suggestions given by authors to tackle the underage marriage. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. If you remember on August 21st we discussed about the legal provisions in the prevention of child marriage act pertaining to the age of marriage both for men and women. And we saw that central government has set up a task force in June 2020 to examine matters pertaining to the age of motherhood and some other issues. So in this regard only the age of marriage for women has come under debate. Because Prime Minister has announced that after the task force submits its report the government will consider increasing the age to 21 years for women. Currently it is 18 years. So now what are the issues related to increasing the age of marriage for girls or women. According to the authors the increase in the minimum age of marriage to 21 years will be counterproductive. This would mean that girls will have no say in their personal matters until they are 21 years old. Moreover here author notes a crucial point that in an Indian society even adults women do not have much say in their personal life. This could be seen in the case of Hadia case if you remember where an adult woman's decision to marry was challenged by her parents. Because she wanted to do a interfaith marriage. See this case involves the marriage of a 24 year old Hindu girl Akhila who converted to Islam before wedding a Muslim man. This was against her parents wishes and girl's father argued that his daughter has come under the influence of radical Islamists. Based on this the girl's father went to High Court to had their marriage annulled. And shockingly even Kerala High Court had annulled their marriage earlier condemning it as a love jihad. But subsequently this matter was taken to Supreme Court and Supreme Court ordered NIE probe that is National Investigating Agency probe into this case. And finally in its verdict Supreme Court directed Hadia to resume her education and Supreme Court noted that she was free to meet whoever she wanted. And in this regard Supreme Court also restored Hadia's marriage. So this is the situation of women in Indian society where they have equal to no say in their personal matters more often. And the next issue is with respect to the prohibition of child marriage act 2006. Now in this you should note that this act treats underage marriages as valid but voidable. It means that an underage marriage is valid as long as the minors involved in the marriage want it to remain valid. But at the same time the prohibition of child marriage act also treats those underage marriages as void or having no legal validity where they involve trafficking, enticement, fraud and deceit. Now here we said that an underage marriage is valid as long as the minors involved in the marriage want it to remain valid. Now this is according to section 3 of this PCMA act which mentions that every child marriage shall be voidable at the option of the contracting party who was a child at the time of a marriage. And the clause 3 of this section allows the minor party to repudiate the marriage or to have the marriage nullified right up till 2 years of attaining majority. See here repudiation means rejection or invalidation. This means both girls and boys get 2 years time after their age of marriage to invalidate their underage marriage. Now with respect to this provision authors point out a major drawback that is a boy gets time until he turns 23 because the valid legal age for marriage for men is 21 years. So after those 21 years the boys get 2 more years to invalidate their underage marriage. But for a girl the time she gets is only till she turns 20 years and as we know at the age of 19 or 20 a girl is at very young age to have the maturity or capacity to annul the marriage. And sometimes they do not even have the legal knowledge that they can annul their marriage. But now if the legal age of marriage for women is increased to 21 then like men women will also get until 23 years of age to invalidate their underage marriage. Now with respect to the increasing the age of marriage author talks about a crucial amendment which was made by Karnataka government in their prohibition of child marriage act. And this amendment made the marriages wide up in issue. This means such marriages will be treated as invalid from the outset itself. This amendment was brought in 2017 based on the recommendations of Justice Shivraj Patil committee and this committee's report was particularly on the prevention of child marriages in the state of Karnataka. Now this committee recommended to bring awareness on the consequences of child marriage to prevent its occurrence and then it also recommended to reform legislative and legal framework such as the amendment to the existing prohibition of child marriage act and the state rules. The committee also recommended for effective implementation of PCMA but according to the author these amendments did not bring much impact because Karnataka government failed to advertise this amendment to create any awareness. So by this authors just tries to note that whatever may be the amendment to the prohibition of child marriage act until or unless awareness is created among the public the social evil of child marriage will prevail. So these were some of the issues noted by the authors. Now what are the suggestions given by the authors to tackle underage marriages? The first suggestion is that the age of marriage should be uniform for men and women but here by uniform authors does not mean that women's age of marriage should be increased to 21 rather they want both men and women's of marriage to be brought down to 18 years. In this regard they take the example of the law commission report which was on reforming family law. According to the law commission report regarding the age of consent for marriage it said that maintaining the difference of 18 years for girls and 21 years for boys will simply contribute to the stereotype that wives must be younger than their husbands. But we know that a universal age for majority is recognized in India and it grants all citizens the right to choose their governments through right to vote. So surely they must then also be considered capable of choosing their spouses. So for equality to exist in true sense the law on different ages of marriage between consenting adults must be abolished. So the age of marriage must be recognized uniformly as the legal age for marriage for men and women alike. Like it is determined by the Indian majority act of 1875 because under this act the age of majority is 18 years. And not only the law commission report but also supreme court, national human rights commission then convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women's committee that is CEDAW committee. All these important organizations in different scenarios have recommended that there should be a uniform age of marriage for boys and girls. So based on this authors also suggest the same. The next suggestion is ensuring an increase in the scope of right to education for girls up to vocational studies. By this authors mean that the girls should be empowered first to take care of themselves and also so that they know the legal backgrounds like the legal age to get married, like their right to get annulled etc etc. Then the third suggestion of the authors is even the girls who marry as children should be given legal protection like how a woman who marry as adults is given legal protection. It is because simply criminalizing child marriage and declaring the marriage as void won't have any major impact on the lives of young women. So here what should be focused is the rights of the young women should be preserved and these rights include matrimonial rights, widow pension in case of a widow. Then the right to stay at marital home etc. Now this point is important because even if the marriage is declared void in Indian scenario if you notice the girl or the woman may not get remarried but the men they easily get remarried. So here finally the one who gets affected is the young woman. So it is very essential to preserve the rights of married women whether they are young or they are adults. So that is all about this discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Now this discussion is based on this editorial in which the authors discuss the pros and cons of national digital health mission. So in this discussion we will first to see some of the salient features of national digital health mission and then we will discuss the editorial. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. First let us see the salient features of this mission. See this mission aims to develop the backbone that is necessary to support the integrated digital health infrastructure in our country because it will bridge the existing gap amongst different stakeholders of health care ecosystem through digital highways. As you can see these are the different stakeholders of health care ecosystem. In between we have the citizens and patients and this ecosystem consists of administrators, policy makers, providers, allied private entities such as health tech companies also. Here providers include labs, pharmacies, wellness centers and then health care professionals include doctors obviously and also other practitioners and then non-profit organizations. Now this national digital health mission aims to bridge the gap between all these stakeholders and this will be done by creating a seamless online platform through the provision of wide range of data, information and infrastructure services. So this NDHM will open an interoperable standards based digital systems and at the same time it will also ensure the security, confidentiality and privacy of health related personal information. And one of the core features of this national digital health mission is the unique health ID. Now this is a digitally verifiable health identity. It will work as each Indian's health account. Now this unique ID will be provided to every citizen and it will contain the details of the diseases of the patient, the diagnosis, then report, medication etc in a common database. So these are the some important features of this mission. Now if we discuss the editorial, first authors discuss about the advantages of this mission. The first advantage is it provides for digitization of health data and this would help patients, their doctors and the health care facilities where the patients seek treatment. Because as we saw already the health data will contain the medical history of the patient. So it will be easy for the doctors to know whether the patient was affected with any other kind of illness and what kind of treatment was given, what medication was prescribed etc. Now with respect to this particular digitization of health data, authors note that many states have digitized most public centers which provide health services and this has been even done in tribal areas under the national rural health mission and national health mission. But here the problem is in most cases digitized health data is limited to the primary health care level only. So this new mission that is the national digital health mission will help to integrate health data at all levels of treatment that is at the secondary level and also at the primary level. See in this just simply know that primary health care denotes the first level of contact between individuals and families with the health system and secondary health care refers to a second tier of health system in which the patients from primary health care are referred to specialists in higher hospitals for treatment. And in our country secondary health care services are provided by the district hospitals and community health centers. And in the tertiary health care specialized consultative care is provided and this is provided after the referral from primary and secondary medical care. This includes the specialized intensive care units, advanced diagnostic support services etc. And this national digital health mission aims to integrate all the health data at all these levels. Now this kind of complete digitization will also enable the health care providers for planning the treatment for procurement of medicines and consumables. In addition to this the unique health ID will help patients seeking intra-state health services and inter-state health services also. Then it will also be helpful while availing telemedicine support from specialists. See telemedicine literally means healing at a distance. And this telemedicine signifies the use of information and communication technology to improve patient outcomes by increasing the access to care and medical information. And this is the broad description of telemedicine according to world health organization. You can note it for your mains answer writing. Then apart from this this complete digitization will also help in settling the insurance coverage because all the data will be available in one place. So because of this availing of insurance may become more easier. See even though this national digital health mission has all these advantages there are also certain disadvantages. And one such important criticism which is raised by the authors of this editorial regarding this mission is the lack of clarity about national digital health mission and also the inadequate time given for the discussion of this mission. See according to the authors only less than two weeks have been given for public feedback on this national digital health mission and this time is insufficient for meaningful feedback. Then another issue is that many tertiary hospitals and medical colleges they actually do not care about the diagnostic reports from peripheral centers or even previous doctors. Even if you now go to a tertiary level hospital they will say we will again take all the tests and scans freshly. They usually do not view the previous reports and previous prescriptions. So here authors feel that the complete digitization of health data of the citizens may not be that much of help. The next is with respect to the security of data. See even though the policy makers ensure that data will be confidential it will be stored locally and consent will be taken every time before sharing. Still the security of data is a concern. You just know that under this mission the digitized data will be available to all stakeholders in health sector such as government, private hospitals, diagnostic centers, laboratories and individual practitioners etc. Now with respect to the storing of data authors note that the mission intends to create a software with a central processor to extract the relevant data from individual records. But medical data in each patient's file might not be accurate because already we have seen errors associated with the data in other card and voter ID. So inaccuracy is another problem with respect to this mission and it could even become fatal because if the health history of the patient is inaccurately provided and the treatment may vary according to it. Which could be fatal to the patient and apart from this independent practitioners are there in our Indian systems of medicine and they run small dispensaries especially in the rural areas. So they will find it difficult to digitize the medical data. Now with respect to the security of the data and digitization of the data another issue is the huge financial burden associated with this mission. Because the entire health care sector has to undergo a paradigm shift from the current practices of data maintenance. They will have to update their hardware, they have to replace their current software with the new software. They have to do skilling for their staffs that is they have to train their staffs and they have to again entry the data freshly and the overall cost for all these might be in thousands of crores if you consider the population of our country. And further there might be assurances of data security from the government but storing of transferable data of millions of people in a decentralized system while ensuring security is not an easy task. Because if there is a medical emergency the patients or the relatives of the patient will not think about informed consent and especially if the patient or the relative of the patient is vulnerable, poor or illiterate they might not know what informed consent means and they might not even care because at that time their focus will be getting the patient treated. So at this point of time authors worry that there will be more chances of data leakage. So finally authors note that the digitization is not the immediate problem in our country's health sector rather the focus should be on making the health care facilities more reliable. That is making the both private and public health care facilities reliable by giving timely care by ensuring the availability of beds and by hygienically maintaining hospital premises then ensuring the availability of doctors and promoting preventive and community health initiatives etc. Because in this COVID-19 pandemic already we have seen the drawbacks in our health sector. So first government should ensure all these services then government should go for digitization of health data. That is all about this editorial. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Let's move on to the next discussion. Now this next discussion is based on this news article which talks about the opinion of Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat. He has noted that India wants the Quad to become a system to ensure freedom of navigation and freedom of navigation operations both in the Indian Ocean and around. He also stated that the communications compatibility and security agreement signed in 2018 that is the Comcast agreement which was signed in 2018 with USA enables Indian military to get a better picture of the maritime activities in the Indian Ocean region. So in this context today we will see about freedom of navigation and freedom of navigation operations. Already we have discussed many times about the Quad. So today we will focus on these two only. See freedom of navigation simply means freedom of movement of ships. It is a principle of customary international law that ships flying the flags of any sovereign state shall not suffer interference from other states. But there are also some exceptions provided under the international law. Now here note that states have the responsibility over their ships even when the ship is outside their territorial waters. Now when we talk about territorial waters oceans we immediately think about the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea that is the UN clause of 1982. This UN clause has many provisions regarding freedom of navigation. For example article 36 of this UN clause mentions freedom of navigation in strates that are used for international navigation. Then article 58 mentions freedom of navigation in the exclusive economic zone. Then article 78 and article 87 deals with the freedom of navigation in high seas. So simply remember freedom of navigation is freedom of movement of ships. Now the next is freedom of navigation operations. Now see they are one of the principle tools by which United States challenges the maritime claims which are deemed excessive by it under international law. So we can take the example of the ongoing dispute in South China Sea. As you know China is claiming most of the South China Sea as its territory. Now in this regard most of the nations are against China due to the fear that there will be monopoly in the region by Chinese in the South China Sea. And they fear about monopoly because South China Sea is one of the busiest trade routes in the world. So due to the ongoing Chinese aggression in the region countries like France, USA and UK has started conducting freedom of navigation operations in the disputed South China Sea. See here know that even though US Navy has conducted freedom of navigation operations all over the world for nearly 40 years but the recent operations has gathered unprecedented publicity and is seen as a point of friction with China. And now the chief of defense staff of India has suggested that the freedom of navigation operations should also be conducted in Indian Ocean and around. So that is all about this discussion. Our next discussion is based on one of the current topics in Indian polity which is the question of this issue has been discussed in these articles and this editorial and this editorial is important as it is authored by former vice president of India. So let us see the important points from the editorial and from these news articles. The syllabus relevant for this discussion is given here for your reference. We have discussed about this question over yesterday also and also on 29th August. So you know the basis of it such as the first hour of parliamentary sitting is devoted to the questions and this hour is called as the question hour. And this hour has special significance because asking questions is an inherent and unrestricted parliamentary right of the members of parliament. So once the questions are raised the concerned minister answers it either orally or in written format depending on the type of the question which is asked. And as we discussed yesterday the question hour is suspended for the monsoon parliamentary session which started today. So in this context author notes that the suspension of question hour is an obstruction and it is curtailment of the right to question the government. See author is stating this because our Indian democracy is a parliamentary form of government and in this the executive is accountable to the electorate through a legislature. That is this legislature is periodically elected by the electorate which means the government is accountable to the public through the legislature. It can also be said that the members of parliament help the public to hold the government accountable. Now this accountability lies at the heart of democratic government and it is implemented through procedures which are put in place by the legislature. And as you know the functions of legislature include lawmaking controlling the national finances then approving taxation proposals then having discussions on matters of public interest and concern. And each of these functions is discharged either daily or periodically also and these functions are discharged during the sittings of the legislature which includes question hour sometimes adjournment motion calling attention half in a discussion etc. So among all the devices that is available to hold the government accountable the daily question hour has an utmost significance in the function of parliament. This is because of its regularity and its availability on a basis of equality to every member of the house in both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. It also has special importance since it covers every aspect of government activity. And here you should note that the questions generally asked are pointed specific and they are confined to only one issue. So such questions tend to elicit or extract specific information from the government. In our discussions also we have discussed many news articles which appeared because of an answer given by the members of parliament for a question asked in the parliament. And there are also instances in the parliamentary history where the answers given to the questions has led to wider debates they have led to enquiries and even exposure of administrative scandals. For this reason the members of parliament and the interest of citizens attach more importance to questions in parliament. But this question hour has been suspended for this session citing the extraordinary time of COVID-19. Now since there was criticism from the opposition and public the government has clarified that the unstarred questions will be allowed. See unstarred questions are answered in written format and hence no supplementary questions can follow. But on the other hand the starred questions are answered orally by the concerned minister in the floor of the house. So supplementary questions can be asked. So you can understand that the starred questions have more significance as they extract the direct answer from the minister. And further if the MP who asked the question is not satisfied by the answer or if the MP has any doubts regarding the answer she or he can fire supplementary questions in case of a starred question. But this cannot be done in case of an unstarred question. And one of the reasons given by the government for setting aside this question hour is that the time allowed to the question hour has been lost due to disruptions in the last 5 years. The Rajasabha research wing has noted that nearly 60% of the time allowed for the question hour has been lost due to disruptions in the years 2015-2019. But here we should note that the instruments which help to hold the government accountable cannot be simply suspended based on past disruptions. It is just like removing the right to vote by saying that people are not voting regularly. So like how right to vote is an inherent part of a democracy, this question hour is also an inherent part of democracy and a part of parliamentary form of government. Our Indian democracy is built on the basis of transparency, accountability and the supremacy of people. So by suspending this question hour the accountability towards legislature will be undermined. This is mainly because there are many issues where public are expecting answers from the government in the current session like poor handling of COVID-19 pandemic, then slowing economy, then high rates of unemployment etc etc. And the public can get answers only through the elected representatives and the elected representatives can get answers through the question hour only. And now the representatives have lost their opportunity to ask such questions due to the suspension of question hour or due to the suspension of starred questions in this current session of parliament. So let us wait and see whether through unstarred questions the members of parliament can extract answer from the government for the main issues prevailing in our country. That is all about this discussion that is paid practice question will be discussed in the last session. Now we have come to the last session for the day the practice questions discussion session. This question is a previously asked question in Prelims 2017. The question asks the parliament of India exercises control over the functions of the council of ministers through option one, Adjournment motion option two questions our option three supplementary questions. Now see in this you know about question hour and supplementary questions. Both of these options allows parliament to exercise control over the functions of council of ministers or the government. So two and three should be an answer. Now the first one is adjournment motion. See this adjournment motion is introduced in the parliament to draw attention of the House to a definite matter of urgent public importance. And this motion needs the support of 50 members. Now such urgent matters of public importance are taken which has serious consequences and with regard to which a motion or a resolution with proper notice will be too late. So in that scenario adjournment motion is introduced. Now this motion interrupts the normal business of the House so it is regarded as an extraordinary device. And this device involves an element of censure that is condemnation or criticism against the government and hence Rajasubha is not permitted to make use of this device. And here note that the discussion on an adjournment motion should last for not less than two and a half hours. So an adjournment motion should raise a matter which is definite factual urgent and it is of public importance. And it should not cover more than one matter and it should be restricted to a specific matter of recent occurrence and it should not be framed in general terms. So that means through this adjournment motion also parliament can exercise control over the functions of the government or the council of ministers. So the correct answer is option D one two and three. Now this next question is also a previously asked question. It was asked in Prillams 2019. The question is which article of the Constitution of India safeguards one's right to marry the person of one's choice. And here the correct answer is option B article 21. Because in the Hadiya case in 2018 Supreme Court held that the right to marry a person of one's choice is integral to article 21 of Indian Constitution. And as you know article 21 deals with right to life and liberty. So along with many other rights under article 21 such as right to livelihood, right to live with human dignity, right to speedy trial etc. The right to marry a person of one's choice is also a right under article 21. Now this next question describes about an art form. It mentions it is an important folk art in Kerala celebrated during Onam. The artists paint their bodies like tigers with stripes of yellow red and black and dance. The important instruments used are Thakil, Udukku and Chanda. The art form is mainly performed by males with women and children participating in recent years. It is a masked festival and hence there is no significance for facial expressions. Now all these features belongs to one art form and as we discussed during analysis it is pulikali. So the correct answer is option D. Now there are other three options. The first one is kumatikali. It is a masked dance usually performed in the northern districts of Kerala. In this dance the dancers in painted wooden masks they sport branches of leaves and also grass and they go dancing from house to house. Now the next option given is onathallu. It is also known as kayamkali. It is a martial art form of central Kerala. It is performed on festive occasions to show the strength of a group or of a village. Now the third art form given is kudi attam. It is an ancient Sanskrit theatrical art form in Kerala. It is around 2000 years old and therefore it has also been accepted as one of the masterpieces of oral and intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO. So UNESCO has given it the status of intangible heritage. Let us take two main questions based on GS paper 2. Now this question asks the national digital health mission aims to develop the backbone necessary to support the integrated digital health infrastructure in India. But for its successful implementation several concerns need to be addressed. Now this next question asks discuss the various procedural devices available to the members of parliament to hold the government or executive accountable. Now for both these questions you can write answer and post it in the comment section. We will review it and appropriate suggestion will be provided within a reasonable time frame. With this we come to the end of today's Hindi news analysis. If you like the video don't forget to like, comment and share and do subscribe to Shankara IS Academy YouTube channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation.