 is Hindu newspaper analysis. The list of articles chosen for today's discussion is displayed here for your reference. So let us first start our news article discussion by discussing about an article regarding Maoism followed by that we will be seeing a new scheme which will be launching today which is called as PM Digital Health Mission. We will be seeing the components involved in the mission and followed by that we will be seeing two important articles. First will be based on the B.H.R. flooding and the second will be based on the caste census. Finally we shall end our news article discussion by discussing about an article regarding Fort St. George. Now without wasting much time let us move on to the first news article discussion. Now look at this news article. The news article mentions about a review meeting on left wing extremism that is LWE and according to the data presented in the meeting there is a reduction in the number of left wing extremism affected districts. So let us see about left wing extremism and the area affected by it. The syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference. First know that left wing extremism is nothing but Maoism. See Maoism is a form of communism that was developed by Mao Zedong. See Mao was the leader of Chinese revolution and Maoism is a doctrine to capture state power. This is to be achieved through a combination of armed insurgency mass mobilization and strategic alliances. So they carry out mass mobilization by using propaganda and disinformation about state or government institutions and to make this happen they recreate professional revolutionaries. They use these professional revolutionaries for the underground movement to raise funds for insurgency etc. And this doctrine is based on the central theme of Maoist ideology which is military line that is the use of violence and armed insurrection to capture power. This ideology glorifies violence. So this is a brief introduction about Maoism and for fulfilling their purposes Maoists have people's liberation Gorilla army. They are recruits in these cadres or trained specifically in the worst forms of violence so that they can evoke terror among the population. So for keeping people under their control they kill civilians and also resort to attacking schools and economic structures. To put it in simple words Maoism is a doctrine to capture state power and they use propaganda and disinformation against state or government institutions to mobilize masses and they recreate professional revolutionaries to raise funds for insurgency. Apart from this they kill civilians and also resort to attacking schools and economic structures in order to keep people under their control. So now coming to India in India the Maoist movement is more than 40 years old. This movement primarily survives on aggravating the societal issues such as poverty disparity and discontent among the masses. Particularly the origin of Maoist movement in India could be traced to the Telangana appraisal of 1946 to 51. This was an armed peasant uprising and it is said that the real movement was spearheaded by the then Maoist party. At that time the party was called Communist Party of India Marxist Leninist or CPI ML. See its leader was Charu Masumdar and the party wanted to bring communist revolution in India and for that they followed Maoist ideology but the party split into many factions due to the differences in the opinion and then in 1990s the factions came together to form a unified party called Communist Party of India that is Maoist or CPI M and according to Indian government CPI M is the largest and the most violent Maoist formation in India. Therefore CPI M and all its front organizations and formations are banned terrorist organization under the unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967. So the CPI M and all its supporting organizations and formations are banned terrorist organization under the UAPA 1967 Act. So which are the states considered to be left wing extremism affected states? See the several affected states are Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar. The partially affected states are Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh etc Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are considered slightly affected and totally more than 90 districts across 11 states were left wing extremists affected. Now note that many of these districts are base area of Maoist for example South Buster and Abhutmath areas of Chattisgarh act as base areas of Maoism. Such base area provide occasions to Maoist to wage mobile war against the security forces and these base areas enable Maoist military formations to move freely. Just for your understanding know that mobile warfare is a war in which they wage war by concentrating forces in a vast area. They have fluid battle friends and deployments and they often change their location from one place to another. Such a warfare and its forces have the mobility of attacking the enemy at their relatively vulnerable spots and at the same time they withdraw quickly and this warfare also provides them the potential for changing tactics when the conditions change. This specialty of mobile warfare renders dangerous to the enemies and since Maoist use this it is high risk for the government armed police and that is why special battalion or needed to tackle these Maoist and in India central armed police force battalion or deployed for this purpose along with CRPFs specially trained COBRA unit. Know that COBRA means commando battalions for resolute action. See the idea behind deploying more forces is that more area will be dominated by security forces which in turn will restrict the Maoist movement and their retreat after an attack. Additionally more forces also improve the intelligence network of security forces. Additionally various measures were taken by government to control left wing extremism because of it there has been a steady decline in left wing extremism related violence and there is a decline in geographical spread of LWE influence in the country. According to the review meeting mentioned in the news the LWE areas have come down by 23 percentage. Therefore the geographical influence of Maoist has been a sharp prediction from 96 districts in 2022 41 districts in 2021. This is the news today and with this we came to the end of this news article discussion. In this discussion we saw about left wing extremism we briefly saw about Maoism and we saw about Maoism movement in India and also we saw about the Maoism affected states. So now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now let us take up this article for discussion. See this article is about PM digital health mission. This is also called as Aishman Bharath digital mission. See this mission will be launched today and the scheme is already being implemented in few districts on pilot basis. So in this context let us know the important aspects of the scheme from exam point of view and the merits of the scheme. Let us start by knowing some of the key features. See this will utilize the foundation laid down by Jandan, Aadhar and Mobile trinity that is jam trinity of the government. In case you are wondering what this jam trinity is, let us quickly get through it. See jam is short for Jandan, Aadhar, Mobile. This trinity refers to the government of India initiative to link Jandan account, Mobile numbers and other cards of Indians. See if you remember Jandan account or nothing but the free bank accounts created for every Indians by the government to ensure financial inclusion. In 2015 preliminary examination we had a question regarding this Jandan Yojana and the main objective of this Yojana is to promote financial inclusion in the country and this jam nexus was created to plug the leakages of government subsidies. Now look at this blue figure. This describes the working of the jam trinity. The beneficiary will provide his or her identity that is the other card to the government and the government will transfer money to banks through this Jandan Yojana and the beneficiaries can access these informations through the mobile phone. So this is how the jam trinity works and now coming back to Aishman Bharath digital mission. See the next unique feature includes a unique health ID for every citizen. See this ID will also work as their health account and through this account personal health records can be linked and viewed with the help of a mobile application itself. So every citizen will be provided a health ID card and a health account will be created based on this ID number. In this health account the personal health records of the person will be linked and this can be viewed with the help of a mobile application. This is one of the unique feature of the mission. Besides this a health care professionals registry HPR and health care facilities registry that is HFR will also be created. This will act as a repository for all health care providers across both modern and traditional system of medicine. So in this repository you can find the details about the health care providers also another unique feature that you should remember is the Aishman Bharath digital mission sandbox. See it is created as a part of the mission. Now what is this sandbox see sandbox is a software and it is a testing environment that helps us to isolate untested code changes that is sandboxes are used to safely execute suspicious code without risking harm to the host device or network. So with this sandbox the details contained in the repository will be safe and it will act as a framework for technology and product testing. This in turn will help organizations including private players who are intending to be a part of national digital health ecosystem. Through this one can become a health information provider or health information user. These are the basics of the scheme. Now let us see some of the advantages. First is that the scheme will allow a citizen to access her health records from any corner of the world. See health which is tied to time shall not be denied based on logistical delays. So this is one of the most important and very useful advantage. It helps a citizen to access her own health related details from any corner of the world so that he or she can access the health care without any delay. Second is that of transparency. Since we rely on e-governance for this all the transactions get transparent. So there will not be any misinformation spreading and the process will be more transparent. Third we use direct benefit transfer. So there will be minimal corruption and leakages. Fourth and most important is citizens will only be a click away from accessing health care facilities. It solves the question of access of health care and thereby bringing in inclusivity. So this is the most important advantage. In essence this mission will create interoperability within the digital health ecosystem and this in turn will reduce delays access challenges and corruption. So these are some of the points you have to remember and you can use the scheme as an example in your main exam also. So in this discussion we saw about PM digital health mission and we saw some of the important key features of the mission and we saw how the mission works and we saw some of the important advantages of the mission. So with this we came to the end of the discussion. Now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now look at this editorial article. See this editorial article speaks about the frequently occurring Bihar flooding. See over the years many of Bihar's districts have been facing serious challenges with recurrent and massive flooding This year too the flooding has been serious. Now we have a question. Why does this flooding happen? See some of Nepal's biggest river systems originate in the Himalayan glaciers. These rivers after flowing through Nepal enter India through the state of Bihar. So during the monsoon these river systems flood and causes many problems for the state of Bihar. So this is the context behind this editorial. Now let us discuss some of the important points mentioned in this editorial. The syllabus relevant to this article is displayed on the screen. Interested aspirants can go through it. See Nepal and Bihar share many rivers. For example river Gantak, river Bahamadi, river Kamla and river Kosi or some of the important rivers shared by Nepal and Bihar. Now coming to the editorial the author of the editorial begins the discussion by talking about joint project office that is JPO situated at Pirat Nahar. See as part of the long-term measure to address the problem of massive and recurrent flood in Bihar the joint project office that is the JPO was established in Nepal in August 2004. See this office was created to prepare a detailed project report to construct a high dam on the Nepal side. For example construction of high dams on rivers like Kosi, Kamla and Bagmadi on the Nepal side. So what is the purpose of constructing a high dam on the Nepal side? See by constructing high dam on the Nepal side we can control flooding in states like Bihar but this project is getting delayed. The government of Bihar has raised this matter at regular intervals and apart from this the Water Resources Department of Bihar has repeatedly requested the Ministry of Jalsakthi to expedite the progress of the detailed project report. That is both the state government and the Water Resources Department of the Bihar. Both of them have requested the Ministry of Jalsakthi to make a progress but despite the best efforts made by the government of Bihar the task remains unaccomplished even after 17 years. See our central government is consistently persuading the Nepal government to expedite the progress of the detailed project report but the Nepal government is not showing proper reciprocation. It is essential that Nepal shows the required will to find a long-term solution with India in ending a perennial disaster. So this is what the author tries to convey in the first segment of the editorial. As we know flooding is a natural disaster and only through cooperation we can reduce the impacts caused by the flooding. So to make this happen first we need a report to construct a high dam on the Nepal side and which is delayed for a period of 17 years. This is what the author is trying to say in the first segment and after discussing the joint project office the author talks about the flood protection work in the context of Bihar and Nepal. See according to the existing India-Napal agreement on water resources the state government in India is authorised to execute flood protection works up to critical stretches inside Nepal territory along the India-Napal border. So based on an India-Napal agreement on water resources India can execute flood protection works up to certain stretches inside Nepal territory and our state government are doing great flood protection work in spite of increasing local resistance in Nepal. For example take the water resources department of government of Bihar see this department actively engages with the local Nepalese authorities to carry out flood protection works in Nepal. So we are talking all the necessary efforts to mitigate flooding but there have been hurdles in the flood protection works due to the strain in India-Napal relations. See in recent years Nepal has become less collaborative when it comes to mutual issues like water sharing, flood control etc. So this is affecting our flood protection works. So what can be done? How can we mitigate the serious challenges of recurring and massive flood in Bihar? See in the best spirit of friendship Nepal and India should restart the water dialogues. We should also come up with policies to safeguard the interest of all those who have been affected on both side of the borders. In addition to that both these countries should come together and assess the factors that are causing unimaginable losses through flooding every year. So in the second segment the author is trying to say that many steps have been taken to mitigate and to reduce the impacts caused by flooding but there have been hurdles in the flood protection works due to the strain in India-Napal relationship. So here the author suggests to restart the water dialogues between Nepal and India and we should also come up with policies to safeguard the interest of all those who have been affected on both the sides of the border. So apart from this what else can be done? See we should optimize the infrastructure better. Also more priority should be given to management of Himalayan glaciers and the green cover. See water resources are priceless assets. So in the next big India-Napal dialogue water cooperation should take the center stage. By controlling the flooding and using the water resources for common developmental users, controlling the flooding and using the water resources for common developmental users such as hydroelectricity irrigation and waterways. By these steps India-Napal relation can be strengthened even more further. So these are some of the important points highlighted in this editorial. In this discussion we saw about Bihar flooding and we saw about the reason for this recurrent and massive flooding and we also discussed about the joint project office which is situated at Birat Nahar. In addition to that we talked about flood protection works and finally we discussed the way forward. With this we came to the end of the discussion. Now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now look at this article. See this article is about the demand for caste based census. The author have explained it by taking the case of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. You can include it as case study in your main exam as well as essay papers. Besides we will also know the background of the caste census. So this article shares opinions about the demand for caste based census. To favor the argument the author have explained the context by taking the case of Tamil Nadu and Kerala and we will also see the foreground of caste census in this discussion. The syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference. First let us know about what is a caste based census. See caste census means inclusion of caste wise tabulation of India's population in the census exercise held once in 10 years. So the census exercise is held once in 10 years and the caste census means inclusion of caste wise tabulation of India's population. So what is census first? See census is an official count of the people who live in a country including information about their age, job and etc. So when a caste based tabulation is included in the census it becomes caste census. As simple as that and from 1951 to 2011 every census in India has published the population of scheduled caste and scheduled tribes comprising the Dalit and Adivasis along with the complete scale of data including religions, language, socioeconomic status etc. But the problem here is it has never counted OBC's population which roughly constitute about 52% of the country's population. So far they have published only the population of scheduled tribes and scheduled caste and all caste other than scheduled caste and scheduled tribes are marked in the general category. See a systematic and modern population census in its present form was conducted non synchronously between 1865 and 1872 in different parts of the country. So census is an age-old practice and it started before the independence of India itself. See every census until 1931 had data on caste but in 1941 British government suspended the exercise to cut cost. This is because the world war II was happening at the time and they were running out of money. So this is the reason why the British government suspended the exercise of calculating the data on caste in order to cut the cost. So in the absence of such a census there is no proper estimate for the population of OBC's and there is no proper estimate for the population of various groups within the OBC's and others. A very important point to note here is the Mandel commission estimated the OBC population at 52% and there are some other estimates based on national sample survey data. Besides political parties make their own estimate in state and Lok Sabha and assembly seats allocation during elections. See don't confuse it with SECC. SECC or socio-economic caste census was sanctioned in 2011 when demand for caste census popped up before that census. Note that SECC or the socio-economic and caste census is a study of socio-economic status of rural and urban households and it allows ranking of households based on the predefined parameters. And very important point note here is SECC was conducted as a separate exercise from the normal census which occurs once in every 10 years. See the SECC was conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development in rural areas and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Elevation in urban areas. We know that the usual census is conducted by the Registrar General of India. You have to note this difference. The socio-economic caste census in rural area was conducted by Ministry of Rural Development and the census in urban area was conducted by Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Elevation. And the usual census which happens once in every 10 years is conducted by the Registrar General of India. See SECC data excluding caste data was finalised and published by the two ministries in 2016 and note that the caste data of SECC wasn't made public but many schemes have been based on this data though. That is many schemes have been formulated based on the data finalised by the ministries in 2016. So this takes us to the question as to why do we need a caste based census. First argument is that OBC population is not monolithic. That is they might have a different level of development over the years right. Therefore by calculating the OBC population at different levels of development can make targeted policy delivery possible. So by knowing the actual data of the OBC population and who is in the backward position and the group of population within OBC who are still in need of government aid can also be favoured. Basing the policy on caste based data might achieve a targeted approach. So this is the first reason why we need a caste based census. The second argument is a weak one. See census collects large or excessive amount of data. Why not collecting this as well. So we can collect the data of OBC population also right. So these are the two important arguments placed by the author and the arguments placed against caste census is political. See it is said that caste based census is against the idea of a casteless society envisaged by leaders like Ambedkar in the constitution. Besides this there is a good possibility that political parties may also use the data to side with a communal group. This will further create a long deep crack in the unity of the communally divided society. So this is the first problem and now coming to the article the author have compared Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The author have concluded that caste based targeted policy making is of little use. See Tamil Nadu had adopted a caste based approach for the scheduled caste people of the state whereas Kerala had adopted a universal developmental model. See universal developmental model is nothing but a model where development is a matter for everyone everywhere and it includes mutual learning in all directions and Kerala especially adopted this universal developmental model for scheduled caste people of the state. But the scheduled caste people of Kerala show high literacy and low infant mortality compared to Tamil Nadu. So this proves that a targeted group approach need not necessarily be a good measure to target public welfare and therefore caste census may be of little use. This is the view of the author. So keep this in mind and you can use this as an case study. So in this discussion we saw about the foreground of the caste census. We discussed two arguments which favored the caste based census and we also saw an important argument against caste census and we also discussed about why target policy making is of little use. So with this we came to the end of the news article discussion. Now let us move on to the next news article. Now look at this article. See recently a heritage work for college students children and adults around Fort St George was conducted on the occasion of World Tourism Day. This article is regarding that and in this context let us learn about Fort St George. See Fort St George is a fortress built by the British East Indian Company in Madras which is now called as Chennai in India. Now we have a question why the name George. See this fort was named in honour of Britain's Patron St St George. See the East India Company's original trading station in South India was at Masuli Patinam. This station was established in 1611 but later the British people moved to Madras. So what is the reason for this shift? Why did they move to Madras from Masuli Patinam? See the Britishers mainly moved to Madras because the location of Madras was near to the weaving centres. The East India Company can easily obtain goods from these centres and can export it to Persia and the East Indies. This is why Madras was selected and finally Madras became the headquarters of the company in South India in 1641. So after moving to Madras they wanted to build a fort in it. They finally got permission to build a fort in Chennai from the Raja of Chandragiri in 1639. This is the history behind Fort St George. After its construction Madras became the first company settlement in India to be fortified. See Fort St George has an interesting history. This fort was built by the British as we already saw and it is important to know that the fort was captured briefly by the French in 1746. This fort was again recovered by the British in 1748. After its recovery by the British this fort was largely rebuilt and this rebuilt enabled the Britishers to defend the fort successfully against the French invasion in 1758-59. See not just the French this fort was thrice threatened by Hyder Ali the ruler of Mysore. See Hyder Ali both in 1769 and in 1780 tried to capture Fort St George but the Britishers were able to successfully defend it. This is the rich history behind Fort St George and this fort was really significant. This fort became the centre of British South Indian administration. Now this fort is well preserved by the state of Tamil Nadu. Also this fort currently houses the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and other official buildings. So these are the important point regarding Fort St George. So in this discussion we saw about Fort St George when it was built and the reason behind the name George and we briefly saw about interesting history of Fort St George. See historical facts like these are very important because they help you to to either eliminate a statement in the preliminary exam or it helps to write a mains answer and the very important point about Fort St George is that it is the first company settlement in India which was fortified. With this we came to the end of the news article discussion. Now let us see some of the preliminary practice questions. Now look at this first question. See this question is related to left wing extremism that is LWE. Consider the following statements with reference to left wing extremism LWE. The first statement is their doctrine is to capture state power through a combination of armed insurgency mass mobilization and strategic alliances and the second statement is in the last decade there is a steady race in geographical spread of LWE which of the statement given above is or or correct. Option A one only option B two only option C both one and two and option D neither one nor two. See statement one is correct as we discussed in the news article discussion already and statement two is incorrect because according to the data released by recent review meeting of government on left wing extremism in the last decade there is decline in geographical spread of LWE and LWE area have come down by 23 percentage. Therefore the geographical influence of Moist has seen a sharp reduction from 96th district in 2020 to 41 districts in 2021. So these data are released by the recent review meeting of government of India on LWE which makes the second statement as wrong. So the correct option for the question is option A one only. Now moving on to the next question this question is about PM digital health mission with reference to PM digital health mission consider the following statement first statement it aims to provide health ID for every citizen second statement health care professionals registry is a part of this mission which of the statement given above is or or correct option A one only option B two only option C both one and two and option D neither one nor two. See from the discussion we know that both the statement are correct and the main objective of PM digital health mission is to provide health ID for every citizen and using this health ID health account will be created and this will allow a citizen to access his or her health records from any corner of the world. So this makes the first statement as correct and coming to the second statement two registry will be created the first registry is health care professionals registry and the second one is health care facilities registry. So both are created in which all the details of health care providers will be uploaded. So both the statement one and two are correct now moving on to the next question see this question is regarding the 4th St George the question is with reference to 4th St George consider the following statements first statement it is a fortress built by the French second statement currently the sport houses the legislative assembly of Tamil Nadu which of the statement given above is or or correct option A one only option B two only option C both one and two option D neither one nor two. See 4th St George was built by the English that is the fortress was built by the British East India Company in Madras which is now called as Chennai know that Madras acted as the headquarters of the company in South India in 1641 and this 4th St George became the first company settlement in India which was fortified. So the first statement is wrong and coming to the second statement currently the sport houses the legislative assembly of Tamil Nadu obviously the statement is correct it currently houses the legislative assembly of Tamil Nadu. So the correct answer for the question is option B two only. Main questions are displayed here interested aspirants can write answer and post it in the comment section with this we came to the end of the news article discussion if you like the video like comment and share and do subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel thank you