 A very good evening aspirants welcome to the hindi news analysis by Shankar Ayes academy for the date 10th and 11th of September 2021. So today we have taken news articles from two days that is from yesterday and also from today but kindly note that today there is no Hindu edition. So we have taken news articles from the Hindu website so as you can see here we have taken five news articles from yesterday's Hindu edition and we have taken three news articles from the Hindu website and we have one editorial discussion and the second discussion is going to be based on an important civilisation in the South India and the next discussion is going to be based on this term emerging fuels and the next discussion is going to be focused on an important fundamental right which is the right to privacy. So do not miss this this is important from mains perspective it will help you in your essay answer writing also and then this next discussion is going to be based on an interface that has been introduced by Covin and this next discussion we are going to discuss about NIRF ranking we will see what is it and we will see the rankings of institutions and in this last discussion it has been clubbed with this discussion these two news articles are based on the 9-11 attacks so in this discussion we will have a brief introduction about 9-11 and we will also see about some of the important terrorist organisations in the world. So along with that we have three problems questions today we will discuss that three problems questions and I have one special problems questions for you for which you can answer in the comment section. So with this introduction let us move on to the first discussion which is based on this editorial article. So this editorial it is written in the wake of a recent approval by the cabinet to a particular scheme this scheme is the production linked incentive scheme see this scheme is now introduced for the textile sector and it mainly targets the segments like man-made fibre and technical textiles here you should remember that PLA scheme for textiles is a part of an overall announcement of PLA schemes that was for 13 sectors this announcement was made during the union budget 2021-22 so as a part of this scheme the scheme for one sector that is for the textiles sector has been announced now so in this discussion let us see about the scheme its benefits and we'll also see what do we mean by man-made fibre the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference first let us see why there is a need for our government to introduce such a scheme see there has been a wide shift in the global textiles trade in the past few decades and this shift in the global textiles trade is due to the shift in consumer preferences and fashion trends because their preferences have changed now many industries and consumers are preferring man-made fibre almost 75 percentage of worldwide textile consumption is man-made fibre only it has even surpassed cotton and this is why now the government has introduced this initiative so first what is this man-made fibre or in short MMF see this is a type of fibre whose chemical composition structure and properties are significantly modified during the manufacturing process these man-made fibres are spun and woven and they are spun and woven into huge number of consumer and industrial products for example garments like shirts scarves and hosiery are made from man-made fibres then home furnishings like upholstery carpets and drapes are also made from this and then industrial parts such as a tire cord flame proof linings and drive bells they are also made from this so all of these can be made from man-made fibres see when we are talking about man-made fibres you should also remember that there are actually two types of man-made fibres one is the synthetic fibre and the other one is the regenerated fibres the regenerated fibres are made from cellulose polymers that occur naturally in plants such as cotton wood hemp and flax for example if you take rayon and acetate fabrics these are all man-made fibres and these two are produced from cellulose polymers only and these cellulose polymers are taken from plants and then made into fibres and that is why these two are regenerated fibres now the next type is the synthetic fibres these are made only from polymers that are found in natural gas and the byproducts of petroleum so this is an important fact it is made from polymers that is found in natural gas and the byproducts of petroleum and these synthetic fibres include nylon acrylics polyurethane and polypropylene also know that these synthetic fibres can be mass produced to almost any set of required properties and this is why millions of tons of synthetic fibres are produced every year so this is the basics that you need to know about man-made fibres regenerated fibres are made from cellulose polymers that occur naturally in plants and synthetic fibres are made from polymers found in natural gas and the byproducts of petroleum remember these facts they are important from plume's perspective and also from the mains perspective because you may have a mains question like what do you mean by man-made fibres and how production linked incentive scheme for textile sector will boost the production of man-made fibres so simple question like this can also come in mains examination and that is why it is important to know such kinds of facts now let us move to the editorial discussion now only the government has introduced the scheme that focuses on man-made fibres so what about before see India's textile and clothing exports generally have continued to remain dominated by cotton and other natural fiber based products only MMF was also a part of it but it contributed less than 30 percentage of India's textile and clothing export and this is why now we have introduced the PLI scheme so what is the aim of the scheme it is to specifically focus investment attention on 40 man-made fiber apparel product lines 14 MMF fabric lines and 10 segments are products of technical textiles so totally 64 items have been chosen these have been chosen mainly because they are among the top traded lines in the global market and secondly they are chosen because India is having less than a five percentage share in each of these items so to increase India's share in these items now this scheme has been introduced now apart from focusing investment attention on these 64 items the eligible producers will also receive incentives under this scheme and such incentives will be given in two phases first it will be given over a five-year period and for this purpose the firms should satisfy certain conditions first condition which they have to satisfy is that the firms should invest at least 300 crore rupees into plant and machinery over two years and second condition is that such an investment should be made for making a special product and another condition is that that firm would need to hit a minimum turnover of 600 crore rupees now once all these conditions are satisfied then that firm becomes eligible to receive the incentive over a five-year period now this is the first level now the second level here also two conditions have to be satisfied to be qualified for the incentive first condition is an investment of 100 crore rupees should be made along with this a preset minimum turnover of 200 crores is needed so if these two are satisfied then it will enable the firm to be qualified for the incentive so these are the two levels of incentives so now what are the overall benefits of this scheme or the expected benefits of this scheme see the first benefit is that there will be an increase in investment and also employment it is expected that the scheme will lead to fresh investment of more than 19,000 crore rupees in the textile sector and this will also lead to a cumulative turnover of over three lakh crore rupees in the sector and therefore there will be additional employment opportunities of more than 7.5 lakh jobs in this sector in addition to this it will also benefit several lakhs of people who are involved in the supporting activities in the textile sector another important thing is that the textiles industry predominantly employs women we know that so therefore this scheme will empower women and it will also increase women's participation in the formal economy now apart from these two there is also a big advantage with this scheme see this scheme gives priority to backward areas for example priority is given to the aspirational districts tire three towns tire four towns and even priority is given to the rural areas and the priority is given for the investment under this scheme apart from this industries will also be incentivized to move to these backward areas so this will lead to the development of these backward areas and therefore it is expected that this scheme will positively impact states like Gujarat Uttar Pradesh Maharashtra Tamil Nadu Punjab Andhra Pradesh Telangana and Odisha so on a whole you can say that this initiative or the scheme will increase the support for the man-made fiber segment in the textile sector and it would also enhance investment in the capacity creation and this in turn will increase our textiles exports and on the face of which we can say that this scheme appears to be designed with a fair deal of thought but its operational success is likely to depend on how new entrepreneurs and existing companies are going to use the scheme profitably they have to make fresh capital expenditure during this pandemic trying times to make the scheme a success so now it is in the hands of the entrepreneurs and the existing companies in the textiles sector to make good use of this scheme so in this discussion we discussed in detail about the production linked incentive scheme for textile sector that is mainly targeting the man-made fiber segment and the technical textiles segment we saw about man-made fibers also and finally we also saw the benefits of this scheme now let us move on to the next discussion this discussion is going to be based on this news article from yesterday's newspaper it talks about an ancient civilization in South India actually this news article is about the statements made by the Tamil Nadu chief minister regarding the civilization he actually talked about the poronai civilization so in this discussion let us see about the civilization and along with this we'll also see some of the important archaeological excavations in Tamil Nadu first of all let us start with the sites of excavations we know that in Tamil Nadu many archaeological excavations are going on and it is going on in Kerala, Adichanallur, Sivagalai, Korkai, Kodumanal, Mailadumparai and Gangekonda Cholapuram and in these places many ancient items or objects were unearthed so remember these places these places are situated in the present day Tamil Nadu and currently archaeological excavations are going on in these places and after objects were unearthed from these excavation sites carbon dating have been done on these objects and based on this several findings have been made and these findings have been listed by the Tamil Nadu chief minister and these findings are expected to provide insights into the Tamil civilizations that existed way before other prominent civilizations so first we are going to see about the site of Sivagalai which is situated in Toothukudi district of Tamil Nadu in this site a burial urn was found in this urn rise with soil was found and it was found to be belong to the Tamirabarani civilization and after this the rise and the soil was sent for analysis and now the carbon dating of this soil and rice has indicated that they belong to some 3,200 years ago that is around 1,155 BC so that means this civilization of Tamirabarani civilization existed way back in 1,155 BC now why it is named as Tamirabarani civilization see it is a river in Tamil Nadu Tamirabarani is a river in Tamil Nadu and this civilization existed along this river this river flows in southern Tamil Nadu and also note that this civilization is what is also referred to as the Porunai civilization which we saw in the beginning and why it is named as Porunai civilization it is because the historical name of this Tamirabarani river is Porunai and according to historians Tamirabarani word is a Sanskritized word whereas Porunai is the actual Tamil word for this river now apart from calling it as Porunai this river has been referred with many other names also in the Tamil literature that existed from Sangam era to Naikara era that is from 6th century BC to 17th century CE and the other names include Tan Porunai, Porunal and Porundam so since this river is gaining prominence let us see some facts about this Tamirabarani river or the Porunai river so it is considered as a perennial river that prosperous Tamil Nadu it originates from the Agastya Koodam peak this peak is situated in the Periyapudigai Hills which is a part of western Ghats and this river flows through two districts of Tamil Nadu these are the Tirunelveli district and Tootukudi district and then finally joins the Bay of Bengal through the Gulf of Manar. Now some of its important tributaries are Karayar, Servalar, Kadanaanadi, Manimuttar, Varahanadi, Ramanadi, Jambunadi, Kallar, Karunayar, Pachayar, Chittrar, Gundaar, Aindarviyaar, Hanumanadi, Karuppanadi etc. So just go through these names now what you have to remember is that this Tamirabarani river and the region around it is a symbol of Tamil culture and civilization and it is an identity of the far south of India even if you see in the Tamil and Sanskrit literature of earlier times the Pandyas who ruled Tamil Nadu they were referred to as the rulers of the land where the Tamirabarani flowed. So the land itself was referred using this river only and that is why this river is very important. So this was about the objects that were unearthed from the Sivakalai site that is situated in Tootukudi district of Tamil Nadu. Here they found a burial urn which consisted of rice and soil and it was found to be from the Tamirabarani civilization. Now let us move to the next site. This site is the Kiriradi site. In this site a silver coin was found and this coin had sun and other symbols. So after analysis archaeologists have dated this coin to be belonging to pre-Maurian period. Along with this in the Kiriradi certain scriptures were also found and the carbon dating of these scriptures showed that they belong to 6th century BCE. So this proved that the Tamil society had achieved literacy in the 6th century BCE itself. Now the next important site is the Korkai. In this site black pottery of Ganchitic valley was excavated. That is this black pottery belonged to the Ganchitic valley and remember that this Korkai was a port city and after carbon dating the unearthed pottery was dated to 6th century BCE and since the pottery belonged to the Ganchitic valley it showed that this Korkai port definitely had vibrant trade links with the Ganchitic valley and even other countries. So we can say that there might have been contacts between the South India and North India in the 600 BC to 700 BC or even earlier to that period. So so far we saw about three sites. These three sites were the Kiriradi site, the Korkai site and the Sivakalai site. Now you just remember that here the Sivakalai site, Kiriradi site and even the Adichanalur site they have served as habitations to the civilizations whereas this Korkai which we saw it was a port. So this is a major difference between these sites. Now apart from this several other statements were made by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister regarding the archaeological excavations. He said that to search for the Tamil roots in various states and countries archaeological excavations would be carried out in these states and countries. So according to his statement mainly the first phase would concentrate on the states and especially studies would be undertaken at the ancient port of Musiri. So remember that this Musiri port is now known as Pattanam and it is situated in Kerala and this Musiri was a Sangam age port town. So once excavations begin here it is expected to provide the insights into the ancientness and the culture of Chera empire at that time. We know that Chera, Chora and Pandya empires were notable empires of the Southern India and apart from excavations at Musiri similar studies would also be conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Odisha and it is said to be conducted at Vengi in Andhra Pradesh, Talikad in Karnataka and Palur in Odisha. So remember that these places are important with regard to the South Indian civilizations. Remember these states where these places are situated. A match the following question can be asked in problems examination. Now we saw that archaeological excavations will also be carried out in countries in search of Tamil roots. So why countries will also be focused? It is because several objects were even unerged in these countries and these objects have found to be having Tamil roots. Particularly the pot sherds were found and these were bearing Tamil Brahmi scripts and these pot sherds have been found in many countries. And because of this it is believed that the Tamils had trade relations with several countries. And based on that now the Tamil audit chief minister has said that excavations will be carried out in many countries and this includes Kusair, Al-Kadim and Parnika Anike which is situated in Egypt and then another place is in Oman. It is the Kaur Rory and along with this certain Southeast Asian countries were also included in the list because if you remember during our previous discussions regarding Cholas, we have learned that King Rajendra Chola he ventured into other countries and he established supremacy there. And that is why excavations in these countries have to be carried out to find out the Tamil roots exactly and these countries includes Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. So remember all the places we saw in Tamil Nadu, it was the Keeradi, Adichanallur, Sivakalai, Korkai, Kodumanal, Myladumpare and Ganga Kondachoraburam. And then we saw about the Tamarberne river and then we saw about the Musri port city and then we saw about the Vengi in Andhra Pradesh, Thalikade in Karnataka and Palur in Odisha in these places excavations will be carried out. And then we saw certain places in the countries where Tamil roots could be found and these countries are Egypt, Oman, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. So remember these places it is important from prelims perspective. So with these facts in mind, let us move on to the next discussion. Now let us move on to the next discussion. It is going to be important from the prelims perspective as well as from the mains perspective. In this discussion, we are going to discuss about a new category of fuels. So pay attention. First, let us see what is the news. See the news is that India and USA have agreed to expand their energy partnership and they are going to do this by adding another category to the list of areas of cooperation. This category is emerging fuels. Now this decision was taken recently at the Ministerial Meeting of US India's Strategic Clean Energy Partnership, ensured US-India SCEP. So remember this SCEP was launched in accordance with the US India Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 partnership. It was announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden. It was announced at the Leaders Summit on Climate that was held in April this year. And now a new category has been added to the areas of cooperation. So with this there are five pillars of cooperation. First one is power and energy efficiency. Second, responsible oil and gas. Third, renewable energy. Fourth, sustainable growth. And the fifth one is emerging fuels. The fifth category has been included now. So now what is this emerging fuels actually? See it is an alternative fuel. It is an alternative fuel that are under development or already in use. See like other alternatives, these fuels can increase energy security. It can reduce emissions. It can also improve vehicle performance and it can stimulate the economy in this way. So our focus should be on the examples of emerging fuels. Today we are going to see about four examples, biobutanol, drop in biofuels, methanol and then biomethane. First one is biobutanol. See it is also called as butyl alcohol. This can be produced from the feed stocks like corn, sugar beads and other biomass waste. See this biobutanol can be blended with other fuels for use in conventional gasoline vehicles. It has many benefits such as it has higher energy content and it provides increased energy security and it also has fewer emissions. So it is environment friendly. Now the second example is drop in biofuels. See these are hydrocarbon fuels that are substantially similar to the petroleum based gasoline diesel or jet fuels. These drop in biofuels can be produced from various biomass feedstocks. Such feedstocks include crop residues, woody biomass, dedicated energy crops, vegetable oils, fats, greases or even algae. Now the next example is methanol. See it is also called as wood alcohol. It has similar chemical and physical fuel properties to ethanol. So methanol has similar chemical and physical fuel properties to ethanol. Now this methanol can be produced using various feedstocks including the carbon based feedstocks such as coal. But you should note that however natural gas is currently the most economical feedstock for producing methanol. Now methanol also has many benefits such as it has lower production costs, it has improved safety and it also provides increased energy security. Let us see how. See this methanol is cheap to produce compared to other alternative fuels and therefore it has lower production costs and there is also improved safety when dealing with methanol because it has lower risk of flammability than gasoline. Apart from that methanol can be manufactured from a variety of carbon based feedstocks as we already saw such as coal. So its use can help to reduce India's dependence on imported petroleum and it can increase India's energy security. Now the last example we are going to see is biomethane. It is also called as renewable natural gas. See this biomethane is a pipeline quality gas. It is fully interchangeable with fossil natural gas. This biomethane is typically composed of 50 to 80 percentage of methane. It has 20 to 50 percentage of carbon dioxide and there are some trace gases also such as hydrogen, carbon monoxide and nitrogen. Now this biomethane is produced by decomposing organic matter such as sewage, animal byproducts and agricultural, industrial and municipal solid waste. So where it is used? This biomethane can be used as transportation fuel. So make note of it and it also has similar benefits to other emerging fuels such as this also has increased energy security, fewer emissions, better economics and it also enables a cleaner environment. So that is all. In this discussion we saw about US-India strategic clean energy partnership and we saw about the fifth pillar that has been now added by India and US. This fifth pillar is emerging fuels and we saw four examples of emerging fuels in detail. Now let us move on to the next discussion which is based on this news article. This is also from yesterday's newspaper and the title is allow spying without approval. So what is it about? See apparently Kerala has introduced a bill called as Kerala control of organized crimes bill. This bill obstructs the privacy of an individual. So let us see about this bill and what implications it has on the privacy of an individual. So before moving on to the discussion you should remember that the topic of privacy is often in the limelight. Last time it was in the center stage when the Pegasus issue was going on. As you remember Pegasus is a spyware which was developed by an Israeli surveillance firm. This spyware helps spies to hack into phones and that way it also hampers the privacy of individuals and it was said that this spyware was used by the government to spy on journalists, judges, etc. So now we have this new bill that is creating a problem. So first what is this bill saying? See this is a draft bill which suggests that an officer known below the rank of additional director general of police that is ADGP can authorize an application made by the investigating officer within 48 hours of interception. So that means by authorizing this application the ADGP is permitting the interception of wired communications, electronic or oral communications and the ADGP can do this if she reasonably determines that there is a need to intercept some communication line. So what does this mean? It means that if this bill passes then police will easily get access to intercept any phone calls in the state of Kerala and this has a direct implication of privacy because here intercepting is nothing but tapping such communications and frankly we can say that the police wants to eavesdrop on people's communications and they want to spy on people and that is why it impedes privacy. But what is the rationality given by the government for introducing this bill? See the rationality given for this eaves dropping is national security and state security that is they are saying if you have nothing to hide then why cannot a security agency listen to your conversation? They are basing this argument based on the belief that privacy is sought only by criminals and only by those who surpass law but is it so? Is privacy only necessary for criminals and is privacy only needed to surpass law? No it is not the case because privacy is a basic right that everyone cherishes in their lives. Let us see how now see primarily you should understand that privacy is based on the argument that every human being is a king or queen in their own house and no one should dare to breach it. So an individual is entitled freedom of thought and action inside his or her own fort and this interpretation was recognized by an English statesman William Pitt as early as in their 1963 itself. So basically what he means is that privacy is a fundamental right that means violation of privacy is a violation of fundamental right and this has been time and again emphasized by other authorities also and fortunately it was also concretely put down in our country by the supreme court and it was emphasized in the famous 2017 Justice Putta Swami case. In this case law supreme court recognized that right to privacy is a fundamental right under article 21 of Indian constitution. So based on this we can say that since the bill challenges privacy it is also a challenge to the fundamental rights under article 21. So this is one argument which says that privacy is a fundamental right. Now another argument which favors privacy especially in a democracy is that it limits the power of government that is privacy dictates the government to not enter a person's life beyond the boundary. So this privacy actually draws a line between the state and the individual by emphasizing on individual freedom and that is why privacy is important and we can see that this bill is a direct infringement into this argument. So the next argument is that privacy will ensure a free and unhindered development of an individual. So let us take an example to understand the statement. Consider that someone is constantly watching you or simply assume that you're writing an exam and the teacher or invigilator is watching your paper while you're writing in an exam national. So what happens here even when you know the answer you wouldn't want to write it. So that means under watchful eyes one fails to perform to their full potential. Here the efficacy and the creativity of the individual goes for a toss because that is absence of privacy. That is we are trying to say that the efficacy and creativity of the individual diminishes when there is absence of privacy and that is why privacy is important for an unrestrained development of an individual and this bill of Kerala aims to put the individuals in the constant watchful eyes of the state. So this is another implication of this bill. Now besides all these arguments there is also another possibility that an overheard conversation could be taken out of context and it can be used against an individual. See here assume that two people are playing PUBG and they're connected over phone during the course of this game and we know that in PUBG game players tend to shoot other players. So they tend to say let's shoot him but if someone is listening to this conversation they can interpret this conversation out of context and the individual can be sued for provocative talks easily. So that means when such kind of interceptions are allowed then a sentence or a statement can be easily taken out of context. So on a whole basically this bill of Kerala is trying to make spying easier thereby diminishing the value of privacy. So far in this discussion we saw about the implication that the bill will have on the lives of people especially with respect to privacy. So what is necessary is that it should be subject to careful scrutiny before it can be made into a law. So that is all about this discussion. In this discussion we saw about the Kerala bill that wants to make interception of communications easier by the police department of Kerala and we saw what implications it will have on privacy. So now let us move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is going to be based on this news article. This article has been taken from the Hindu's website because as we said already the Hindu newspaper edition is not available today. So this article has been taken from its website and this article is titled as Coven launches new interface to show vaccination status. So we all know about Coven. Let us have a quick revision about Coven. Coven stands for Covid vaccine intelligence network. It is a cloud based IT platform and it is supposed to handle minute details for India's Covid-19 immunization program. So what are these minute details? It includes registering beneficiaries, allocating vaccination centers, sending text messages with names of their vaccinated beneficiaries and also live monitoring of the vials containing vaccines in the cold storage. So that means Coven is an online platform for the citizens of India to register for Covid-19 vaccination and to schedule their vaccination slots at the nearest vaccination centers. Now apart from all this, Coven also monitors the vaccine stocks in the cold chain and note that this Coven portal is an extension of even. Even stands for electronic vaccine intelligence network. Now coming to today's news, the news is that Coven has launched a new interface. This interface is called as know your customers or clients vaccination status KYCVS. So what is the purpose of this interface? See through this KYCVS, a public entity or a private entity can know whether a person has been vaccinated against coronavirus or not. So to use this interface, first an individual needs to enter his or her mobile number and name and thereafter they will get an OTP then they have to enter this OTP in the portal. Now in return Coven will send a response to the verifying entity on the individual status of vaccination and this response is coded in a specific way. For example, if the response is zero the person is not vaccinated and if the response is one it means the person is partially vaccinated that is they have only got the first dose and if the response is two then it means the person is fully vaccinated or in other words they have got the two doses. I note that this response will be digitally signed and it can be shared instantly with the verifying entity. Now let us see where it works and how it works then only we will understand the purpose of this interface. First let us consider an example. Assume that your booking railway ticket. Now at the time of booking an individual will put the necessary details for buying the ticket. So if required the concerned entity will also get the vaccination status in the same transaction. Here the good thing is that this will be done with the due consent of the individual only and secondly it can also be used when an enterprise or employer maybe you know they want to know the vaccination status of their employees so that they can decide whether they can resume functions in offices and workplaces and it can also be used by hotels when they want to know the vaccination status of the residence at the time they are checking in or at the time of making online bookings and based on this vaccination status they can provide the booking or they can refuse booking also. So that means this measure will help to curb the further transmission of virus and it will also ensure that those who are vaccinated are actually traveling. So that is all about this interface of no-year customer or clients vaccination status. This is an interface of co-win. Now let us move on to the next discussion. Now let us take up this news article. This appeared in yesterday's newspaper. It mentions that again the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras has been ranked the best higher education institution in the country. So this ranking has been provided in the India rankings 2021. As you know the India rankings 2021 is released under the national institutional ranking framework or in chart NIRF. So now let us have a brief discussion about this framework about the parameters involved and then we'll see the 2021 rankings. CNIRF that is National Institutional Ranking Framework was launched by the Ministry of Education that is it was launched by the then Ministry of Human Resource Development which is now called as the Ministry of Education. It was launched in the year 2015. This framework outlines a methodology for ranking higher educational institutions across the country. Especially it also provides ranking in different domains of knowledge. We'll see these domains later. Now note that this methodology of ranking is drawn from the recommendations by a core committee that was set up by the Ministry of Education. Now on what parameters these rankings are given see for the overall category broadly five parameters have been chosen. The first parameter is teaching learning and resources then research and professional practices then graduation outcomes then outreach and inclusivity and then perception and these five broad parameters have been further elaborated into suitable subheads. It has been given here for your reference. You just take note of it. No need to buy heart it and all. Just go through it so that you'll have an idea about what are the parameters they are taking into consideration for ranking these institutions. Now we said that NIRF ranks institutions from different domains. So how many domains? There are totally 10 domains plus an overall category that is you have a separate overall category and then 10 different domains are there. They are university, engineering, management, medical, law, architecture etc. Based on these domains the institutions are ranked. Now before getting into the 2021 ranking why such a ranking is needed. What is the significance of it? See it is important because these rankings act as a guide to students for selection of universities based on a set of criteria. For example you want to study in the best college or in the best university in our country. Then this ranking will tell you where that institution was placed in the NIRF rankings. So based on that you can decide whether you can go for that institution or not. Now apart from this these rankings also help the universities to improve their performance on various ranking parameters and it helps them to identify their gaps in research and it provides them with an idea about the areas of improvement. And further most importantly ranking in any sector will mean it will instill a competitive spirit. So in the same manner ranking of institutions at national level also instills a competitive spirit amongst the institutions and this encourages them to perform better and secure higher rank in the international ranking. So first they have to rise up to the national level ranking and then they have to aim for the international ranking. So now let us get to the 2021 ranking. As we saw in the beginning IIT Madras has topped in the ranking and note that this is for the third time and that to third time in a row IIT Madras has topped this ranking. So that means it has been ranked for the third time in a row as the best higher education institution in our country. And even if you take the overall rankings of all the institutions barring their domains you can see that IITs actually dominate the overall rankings. As you can see in this list seven IITs are in the top 10 positions. The Indian Institute of Science which is situated in Bengaluru has been ranked second and then we have the IITs in Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Karakpur, Roorkee and Guwahati. Then in the ninth and tenth position we have the Javarlal Nehru University and Banaras Hindu University. Now what about universities in particular which university has been ranked the number one? It is the Indian Institute of Science. JNU has got the second place. Now among the engineering institutions again IIT Madras has secured the first position and if you take the management institutions then Indian Institute of Management Ahmadabad has been ranked the number one. And what about medical institutions? The AIMS in Delhi that is the Alindya Institute of Medical Sciences has gained the top position among the medical institutions. So just remember these names. It will also help you in your state public services examination and in banking examination. So that is all. In this discussion we saw about the NIRF rankings, why it is needed and we saw the 2021 rankings in particular. Let us move on to the next discussion. Our last discussion for today is going to be based on these two news articles. They talk about the 9-11 terrorist attacks that happened in USA because today is the 20th anniversary of 9-11 attacks. See this term 9-11 is shorthand for four coordinated terrorist attacks that was carried out by Al Qaeda. As you know Al Qaeda is an Islamist extremist group. This terrorist attack occurred on the morning of September 11, 2001. So it has been 20 years since this attack. So what happened was 19 terrorists from Al Qaeda they hijacked four commercial airplanes in USA. Now among these four airplanes they deliberately crashed two of the planes into the upper floors of the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center complex. These North and South Towers are famously called as the Twin Towers. So they crashed two planes in these two towers and a third plane was crashed into the Pentagon that is situated in Arlington, Virginia and these twin towers ultimately collapsed because of the damage sustained from the impacts caused by the airplanes and they also collapsed due to the resulting fire. And there is one more plane in these planes the passengers tried to fight back after learning about the other attacks. So because of this the plane was crashed into an empty field in western Pennsylvania which is about 20 minutes away from Washington DC. So overall these four attacks killed 2977 people from 93 countries and majority of them were killed in the Twin Towers. Around 2700 people were killed in New York. Now since these attacks it has become important to know about the terrorist organizations also. So today let us have a brief understanding about the term terrorism and the terror groups and where these terror groups are active. So first let us understand the term terrorism. So it has been derived from the French term terrorism. This French term has been derived from a Latin word called terrorio. This term terrorio means I frighten. So United Nations has given a definition for the term terrorism. According to its definition terrorism is any criminal act or acts that are intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public or to provoke a state of terror among a group of persons or among particular persons for a particular purpose. Now note that such a purpose in any circumstance is unjustifiable even if whatever political consideration philosophical ideological consideration racial ethnic religious consideration or any other nature may be invoked to justify them. So from the definition it is clear that terrorists indulge in a variety of activities for primarily three things. First one is to generate fear among people second to create publicity for their goals or causes and third they try to convince people that the government is powerless against them and you should also note that there are various types of terrorism also like we have the state sponsor terrorism we have cross-border terrorism we have the revolutionary terrorism etc and you would have heard that India is a victim of cross-border terrorism. So now let us come to the terrorist organization and their basis. Here the base means the country or the region where they are active in. So the first and foremost terrorist organization in this list as you can see is the Taliban and we all know that it is active in Afghanistan and now they have taken full control over Afghanistan and then al-Nusrah they're active in Syria and then Boko Haram is active in Nigeria Hamas is active in Israel Jaish-e-Mohammad is active in Pakistan then Tariq-e-Taliban is active in Afghanistan and Pakistan and then Lashkar-e-Taiba is active in Pakistan then Islamic jihad union is active in Uzbekistan then Al-Qaeda is active in Arab Peninsula and in Africa and we also have the Islamic state of Levant which is active in the Levant countries. See here the term Levant country denotes a vast geographical region as you can see in this map it is situated in the eastern Mediterranean this area which is termed as Levant it does not have any fixed boundaries but it includes the countries which have similar linguistic cultural and religious traits these countries and regions are that is the Levant countries and regions are Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Turkey especially the Hathay province of Turkey then Israel, Jordan and Palestine but here you should remember that the entire country does not form the 11th region whereas roughly some regions of these countries are part of the 11th region so that is all in this discussion we saw about the 9-11 attacks and we saw about the terrorist organizations and their active basis so viewers with this news article discussion we are moving to the next session which is the practice questions discussion session we are going to discuss three practice questions now and one practice question is set aside for you to analyze your understanding of today's discussion so we will see that question in the last let us start with this first question consider the following statements regarding strategic clean energy responsible oil and gas is one of the pillars of cooperation under SCP this statement is correct we saw that there are five pillars now the fifth pillar of emerging fuels has been added now and the remaining four pillars are power and energy efficiency responsible oil and gas renewable energy sustainable growth so first statement is correct now the second statement SCP was launched in accordance with the US India climate and clean energy agenda 2030 partnership this statement is also correct we saw this during discussion so this is a very simple question and here the question also asked for the correct statements only so the correct answer is option C both one and two now this next question is an interesting question it asks which of the following are 11 countries Iraq Syria Jordan Iran Palestine now in this question you can arrive at the correct answer based on the odd one out which is Iran Iran is not a Levant country why because during discussion itself we saw that Levant countries are the countries that borders eastern Mediterranean Sea but we know that Iran doesn't border Mediterranean Sea so from that itself you can easily eliminate Iran from the option and if you eliminate that that is if you eliminate four from the options you can easily arrive at the correct answer which is option D one two three and five only Iraq Syria Jordan and Palestine along with Lebanon Cyprus Turkey Israel these are Levant countries now this next question is with reference to KYC VS that is know your customers or clients vaccination status first statement is it is an interface within coven this statement is correct this is an interface within the coven we saw this during discussion second statement only public entities can verify the vaccination status of individuals this statement is incorrect because both private and public entities can use this interface to verify the vaccination status of individuals so the moment you know that statement two is incorrect you can actually arrive at the correct answer because the question asks for the incorrect statements and two is present only in option B so without knowing whether statement three is correct or not you can arrive at the correct answer so what is statement three it is based on consent and privacy the statement is also correct regarding KYC VS so option B two only is the correct answer to this question because it is the only incorrect statement regarding KYC VS in this question so viewers with this practice question we have discussed three problems practice question now i have one more practice question for you this question is based on the tamir bharani civilization discussion which we had today here three places are given adhichan allur kodum anal and sevakalai so you have to match these places with one of these given options you can write the correct answer in the comment section as usual and i will tell you whether your answer is right or not so with this problems practice question now let us move on to the mains practice questions today we have two mains practice questions based on gs paper two interested viewers can write answers to these questions and post it in the comment section for peer review so viewers with this question now we have come to the end of today's Hindi news analysis and practice questions discussion if you like this video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to shankar is academy youtube channel for more updates related to civil services preparation thank you