 A very good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankar Ayes academy for the date 8th of June 2022. Displayed here are the list of news articles that I have chosen for today's discussion. See today, whatever topic I have chosen, I had linked it for both your preliminary preparation as well as your mains preparation. Okay, so pay attention to each and every topic and I will let you know how to utilize these points or these discussions in your mains answers as well as how to utilize it for your prelims preparation. Okay, so now without wasting much time, let's get into the first news article discussion. Take a look at this news article. See this news article talks about NSG that is the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Today while talking about government's decision on foreign policy, our external affairs minister said that India is looking forward to join the NSG. So this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context, let us quickly go through what is NSG, then its members and then we shall see the advantages for India if it is becoming a part of this NSG group. Okay, before that the syllabus relevant to this news article is given here for a reference. Please go through it. Firstly, what is this NSG? The Nuclear Suppliers Group is nothing but a group of nuclear supplier countries that seek to contribute to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. How is this done? This is done through the implementation of two sets of guidelines for nuclear exports and nuclear related exports. So it consists of nuclear supplier countries and they seek to prevent nuclear proliferation. How? This is by controlling the export of materials, equipment and technology that can be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. See the NSG guidelines call this principle as the non-proliferation principle. That is, a supplier can only authorize a transfer if the supplier is confident that it will not contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. See, NSG is not a treaty based organization so the term member or member state will not be used. Instead, they are called participating governments. There are currently 48 participating governments. You can see the list of the participating governments in this image given here. Here you can see that India is not a participating government in the NSG. If you are wondering why India is not a participating government in NSG, the answer is very simple. It is because of China. Here in this image you can see that China joined the grouping in the year 2004 and it is currently a participating government. China has been opposing India's NSG bid primarily on the grounds that New Delhi is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. See its opposition has made India's entry into the group difficult as the NSG works on the principle of consensus. Now what is this Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty? See the NPT or the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty is a landmark international treaty. What is its objective? See its objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapon technologies. Thereby it helps to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Also it helps to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and in general a complete disarmament. So here comes the question. Is this participating government status in NSG that important to India? Now let us see how exactly India will benefit from being a participating government of the NSG that is Nuclear Suppliers Group. Firstly the status will essentially increase India's access to state of the art technology from the other 48 participating governments of the group. Secondly India will have far greater access to uranium than it does currently under its 2008 agreement with the US. Next by being a participating government in NSG India can begin to commercially produce nuclear power equipment. See this can even be sold to other countries. With access to state of the art nuclear technologies it can maximize its production benefits. Apart from this access to technology and being allowed to produce nuclear equipment in turn will give a boost to the Make in India program. That will in turn boost the economic growth of our country. Lastly but importantly see as per India's NDC under the Paris climate agreement we have committed to reduce dependence on the fossil fuels. And we had also been committed to ensure that 40% of India's energy is sourced from renewable and clean sources. In order to achieve this target we need to scale up nuclear power production. This can only happen if India gains access to the NSG that is Nuclear Suppliers Group. Now let us take this discussion further. We will see the conditions that favor India's inclusion in the participating governments of the NSG. Firstly France got membership in the Allied Group without signing the NPT. Yes France even though it signed NPT 1992 even before signing NPT France was a participating government in NSG since 1974. The second factor is commitment to the non-proliferation. See India's commitment to bifurcate its civilian and military nuclear programs along with its non-proliferation record ensured indigenously developed technology is not shared with other countries. And this is a favoring factor here. Third factor is transparency. See India has also ratified an additional protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Here it means that its civilian reactors are under the International Atomic Energy Agency's safeguards and open for inspections at any time. So that's all about this news article. And here this is a very important news article for an upcoming means examination. Also don't worry all these points know will be very very useful for your problems also. When you take four main snow you will be asked like what is the benefit of India joining NSG or what will be the factors that are guiding India towards joining NSG. For that you need to know some basic about NSG and the answer for the above two questions. See this is a very important discussion. Go through it again and there will be a main practice question related to this. Try answering to that question with this discussion. Okay. So these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Now look at this news article. See the news here is that Tamil Nadu has topped the State Food Safety Index this year. This is followed by Gujarat and Maharashtra. Among the smaller states know Goa stood first followed by Manipur and Sikkim. Talking about the Union Territories, Jamun Kashmi, Delhi and Chandigarh secured the first, second and third ranks. See Health Minister felicitated the winners yesterday. So this is what the news article is about. And today we are going to see in brief about this State Food Safety Index in our prelims perspective. See the State Food Safety Index measures the performance of states towards establishing a proper food safety ecosystem in their jurisdiction. Or in other words the index is a dynamic quantitative and qualitative benchmarking model that provides an objective framework for evaluating food safety across all states or union territories. See the measurement is on the basis of five parameters that is set by the Health Ministry. The five parameters along with their weightage is given here for your reference. So what are they? They are Human Resources and Institution data, then Compliance, then Food Testing, Infrastructure and Subviolence, then Training and Capacity Building and lastly it is Consumer Empowerment. See note down the weightages it may be put as a preliminary type of question. Remember the rating is done by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India that is FSSAI. Who is this Food Safety and Standards Authority of India? See this Food Safety and Standards Authority of India is a statutory body. It was established under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare which is under the Government of India. See this authority has been established under the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 which is a consolidating statute related to the Food Safety and Regulations in India. And the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India releases this State Food Safety Index annually for each financial year. Now talking about the ranking as I already said Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal topped the rank. And the last five ranks were secured by Chattisgarh, Assam, Telangana, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. Then the top five ranks for the smaller states were secured by Goa, Manipur, Sikkim, Tripura and Meghalaya. In the Union Territories, the first five ranks were secured by Jaman Kashmir, then the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Chandigarh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Ladakh. Uttarakhand in large state category, Tripura in small states category and Ladakh in the category of Union Territories have shown significant improvement in ranking during the last year. See states have an important role in ensuring food safety and healthy food practices. And so this index is seen as a tool to encourage the states and Union Territories to improve their performance and work towards establishing a proper food safety ecosystem in their jurisdiction. So that's all about this news article. So you can expect a preliminary type of question directly from this kind of topic. Also, how can you utilize these points in mains? See it's very simple. When this kind of government based index or report are being released, you can directly put them in your mains answer. See for example, when the government is asking about how to encourage a state based upon the food safety and healthy food practices, you can just put this as an example. See this is the way the central government is pushing the state governments to perform in a better way. This is what we call it as competitive fatalism. Am I right? See always connect your prelims preparation with your mains preparation. This is the way you can easily crack this examination. See if you just take this as a prelims topic, you will just end up clearing the prelims alone. But if you know to connect or utilize this information in your mains answer, then you will be able to crack the mains also very easily. Okay? So with these key points in mind, now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Now look at this editorial article. This editorial article talks about the economic turmoil throughout the world. For the past two years, no world economy has endured a difficult situation in the health and economic sectors. And now recovery from these difficulties is avoided. Even though last year recovery process started, it was again affected by the Russia-Ukrain War. Due to these, author has pointed out two major factors that is affecting the global recovery and growth. He has also suggested steps to be taken to boost the growth. These observations and suggestions are valuable as author is an advisor to the EACPM. That is economic advisory council to the prime minister. See this is an independent body constituted to give advice on economic and related issues to the government of India and specifically to the prime minister. Okay? So let us see the factors affecting the global recovery and growth and the suggestions mentioned. Okay? The syllabus relevant to this news article is given here for your reference. Please go through it. Now let's start our discussion. The first factor affecting the global recovery and growth is a fast and forceful price pressure. That is the rise in economic pressure due to the rise in prices. Yes, we are talking about the inflation. Because inflation refers to the rise in general level of prices of goods and services. It means prices of most of the goods have gone up. We know this is the scenario now. Inflation has reduced highest levels. According to some estimation, inflation has reached its highest level in the last 40 years. See this is even in advanced economies. When you take the IMF that is the International Monetary Fund has predicted that this situation will continue for some time now. This is due to two contributors. One is high inflation in energy such as oil and gas prices. What causes this high oil and gas prices? See first is tight supply of commodity whether it is oil or gas. The supply was initially affected due to the lower production by oil producing states. This was a result of travel and export restrictions imposed due to the pandemic. The lower production of oil was also due to the lower demand that existed before pandemic and in the year 2020. See before pandemic oil demand was already falling because one factor is the US-China trade war prompted an economic slowdown. And also there was over production of oil which led to drop in demand. What happened was before pandemic at the end of 2019 and in the first half of 2022 there was a standoff between Russia and Saudi Arabia. So they started procuring oil in large quantities and flooded the market. Here remember Saudi Arabia is an OPEC member and Russia is not the OPEC member. The over production led to less demand for oil by March 2020. Realizing the situation Saudi Arabia proposed a cotton oil production but Russia refused to cooperate. As you know when the supply of a commodity exceeds its demand the prices are lowered to make the commodity more attractive. This was what done by Saudi. It further cut oil prices and increased the production. Angered by this no Russia further lowered its prices. This tit for tat resulted in crude oil prices falling more than 60% aged from the start of 2020. The standoff was solved after few weeks when the OPEC that is OPEC and Russia agreed to cut oil production levels to stabilize prices. But the problem was by then the COVID already hit and lockdowns were beginning imposed all around the world. So this again disrupted the supply. The second cause for high oil and gas prices now is due to high demand coupled with low production. See don't get confused. As just now I said there was low demand. See when there were lockdowns no demand was low. Conversely when lockdowns were slowly lifted and economies reopened the demand increased manifold. But before the pandemic and in the pandemic period up to 2021 the production of oil remained low as we saw already. So the supply could not meet the demand which led to inflation in oil prices. But why demand increased this happened as oil and gas consumption increased. See the industries that rely on oil and gas for the production started operating after lifting of lockdowns. Then along with this demand was other commodities was also rising. So normal supply of communities started. This increased the use of oil by transportation industry. In short recovering from pandemic lockdown has led to a situation where demand for oil has outpaced production. Now apart from the demand and supply factors another reason for high oil and gas prices is the geopolitical tensions. We already saw the US-China trade war standoff between Russia and Saudi. Similarly in 2020 also we have Russia-Ukraine war. This has further increased oil prices. Why because Russia is a major oil exporting country and the war has disrupted this supply. So now again the supply could not meet the demand leading to higher price of oil. So that is all about the first contributing factor to high inflation. Now the second factor is high inflation in food prices. See according to the World Economic Forum global food prices reached their highest ever level in March 2022. This happened because of few variables such as firstly take the COVID lockdowns which led to decreased production. It largely affected agricultural activities also so it caused low supply of food commodities. And even when food commodities were available for supply it couldn't be done due to the travel restrictions from one state to another and export or import restrictions. Secondly when recovery from lockdown started the food commodities transportation cost was higher due to the high oil and gas prices. This raised the price of essential food grains. Third factor is the geopolitical reason that affects the supply chain. Here I am talking about the Russia-Ukraine war. As we have seen many times the war disrupted the supply of major food grains resulting in their deficit. See combinedly Russia and Ukraine supply around 30% of the global wheat exports and around the fifth of the world's maize. Plus Ukraine is the world's leading exporter of sunflower seed oil and the fourth largest corn exporter. So shortages of these are sending food prices soaring. So overall high price in both the oil and gas and food prices has contributed to the high inflation. Now let us come to the second factor that is affecting the global recovery and growth. It is the capital outflows and the tightening of financial conditions. What is meant by capital outflow? It is the movement of assets out of a country. That is there is flight of assets which occurs when foreign and domestic investors sell off their holdings in a particular country. For example if you remember in March foreign portfolio investors pulled out 17,537 crores from Indian markets. This is called capital outflow. But why this happens? Some of the major reasons include political unrest, introduction of restrictive market policies, threats to property ownership and low domestic interest rates. Overall capital outflow is the result of perceived weakness in the nation's economy and the belief that better opportunities exist abroad. But know that capital outflow is considered undesirable because it exerts pressure on macroeconomic dimensions within a nation. It also discourages both foreign and domestic investment. Now if there is no investment how can there be a growth pandemic resulted in restrictive market policies which led to capital outflows in many major economies also. But when markets started reopening after lockdown other reasons contributed to capital outflow. What are they? One is again the Russia Ukraine war. It has intensified global uncertainties. It also led to the fear of economic sanctions by the West. And since India is an ally of Russia the foreign portfolio investments pulled out from Indian markets fearing sanctions. The second reason is the more liberal policies introduced in other countries. For example US Federal know, decided to introduce a stimulus measure and increase the interest rates. This attracted investors who pulled out from the other economies to invest in USA. Now particularly for India the capital outflow resulted in currency depreciation and tighter external sector conditions. This resulted in tight monetary policy. See for controlling inflation also tight monetary policy is an option used by RBA. Because tight monetary policy implies that RBA is seeking to reduce the demand for money and limit the pace of economic expansion. Such policy also involves increasing interest rates. But we know higher interest rates lead to slow down in the rate of economic growth. So in this way both the factors of inflation and capital outflow along with the tight fiscal conditions has affected the global recovery and growth. Then now let me take this discussion further. What is the need of the R? First globally central banks should carefully monitor the rising international prices transmitting to domestic inflation. Second the policy tightening should be in pace with the prevailing economic situations. Third along with policy tightening a readiness to shift the monetary stance should exist with central banks. See this will communicate the need for inflation stabilization and thereby not fearing the investors. Then the country should aim for fiscal consolidation along with prioritized government spending. This is to protect and help vulnerable populations. So that's all about this news article. See this is a very important topic for your mains preparation. This is a holistic approach like I had covered what is the reason for the slower economic recovery in India. In that itself I had covered what are all the reasons and what are all the sub reasons. And then we went to what can be done at present to increase the recovery rate. See each and every point that we had discussed know can be straight away utilized in your mains answers. There is no need of doubt whether it can be used or not because this is a very authentic source. Since this article which talks about this whole global recovery growth and the suggestions is written by the advisor to the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. See this is a very authentic source right. So you can utilize these points to enhance your mains answers. With these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Look at this picture. This picture shows a friendly fight between the Rabha tribal women and men during the Baikha festival. It took place at the Chakabaha village in Kamrub district of Assam. In this context let's learn about the Rabha tribe and Baikha festival. See Rabha is one of the most popular and indigenous tribe of Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh and India. In India they are present in the state of Assam, Meghalaya and Visbingol. The Rabhas belong to the Indo-Mangaloid group of people. The language spoken by this community are mainly Rabha. It is a Tibetan-Berman language as well as Assamese. Rabhas are mainly considered themselves as coach community and they believe that they got the assert connection with the great coach kingdom. Rabha are similar to the Borokachari and coach communities. In some places Rabha refer themselves as Rabha but some of them often declared as coach. See the Rabha people traditionally practice animistic ritual where they also worship the nature. However today their religion got blend with Hinduism and few animistic religions. See there are two types of Rabhas. Who are they? They are Forest Rabha and Village Rabha. The Forest Rabha follow authentic traditional animistic practice. On the other hand the Village Rabha have mixed the native religion into Hinduism and the local Hindu deities. But the main and the common deities for both the Rabhas are known as Rishi or Mahakal. It is generally believed that Rishi or Mahakal may be Shiva. The women of the Rabha tribe are greatly attracted in ornaments. They used ornaments as a marker of social status, personal status, signifier of some form of affiliation to ethnicity. Then they also used it in artistic display. See the ornaments are often prepared with gemstones, coins, silvers or other precious materials. The Rabhas are called efficient weaver in making traditional dresses. They use various kinds of dress in day to day life. In the antique times both male and female together worship different deities and celebrated different festivals. And in that occasion they must be in their traditional dresses. Now that the Baiko is the principal deity of the Rabhas which is associated with the crops. It has worshipped only once in a year with great ceremony during the month of April and May. The literacy meaning of Baiko is here the Bai means deity and the Co means great. Hence the name indicates a great deity. See it is celebrated as festival for her ability to bring forth rains. In addition to this it also shows her ability to bring abundant crops and health for the community. It takes place annually to ward off evil spirits through puja ahead of the spring harvest. See during this time the community people offer animal sacrifices, play traditional music. Then in the festival four goddesses are worshipped such as Susari, Nakati, Tamai and Taduri. The Rabha people consider the Baiko Goddess as the national heroines and worshipped in a fixed date in a scared place of jungle. In the ancient times the festival continued for seven days and nights. But now the festival is celebrated only three days or three nights. A significant song is sung during the puja which is called as Hai Maru. See that's all about this news article. In Prilam's perspective in this topic there may be a direct question regarding the tribes or their festival. When you take it from Main's perspective you can utilize this point that is discussed in this whole tribe or tribal festival. It can be utilized to quote it as an example to show the diversity that is present in India. So these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Now look at this data point. It talks about Edebris. The data shows that about 1000 kilo tons of e-waste was produced in the year 2019 to 2020 across India. But only about 10% of the waste generated was collected. See generating e-waste without disposal mechanism contaminates the environment with hazardous metals which have long term toxic effects on the human body. The third graph note shows that India is the third largest producer of e-waste behind China and US in the year 2019. See this fourth table here. It shows the hazardous metals present in human body and its long term effect. Just go through it. It will be really helpful. So taking this as opportunity let's learn about e-debris that is e-waste. See e-waste or electronic waste e-scrap or e-debris and the end of life electronics are terms often used to describe used electronics that are nearing the end of their useful life. Electronic waste are discarded electrical or electronic devices. Used electronics which are destined for refurbishment, reuse, resale, salvage recycling through material recovery or disposal are also considered as e-waste. See we have serious concerns about unsafe handling of used electronics and e-waste because this results in harm to the human health and the environment. For example there are problems with open air burning and acid baths being used to recover valuable materials from the electronic components. See this exposes the workers to harmful substances. There are also problems with toxic materials reaching into the environment. These practices note can expose workers to high levels of contaminants such as lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic. See these contaminants can lead to irreversible health effects including cancer, miscarriages, neurological damage and diminished IQs. In India the existing e-waste disposal facilities lack environmentally sound technologies. This is mainly because consumers owing to the lack of awareness about the hazardous impact of the inappropriate e-waste recycling or sell their electronic waste to informal recyclers for quick money. Now that about 90% of the total e-waste recycle is done informally in India. Another is recyclers extract profitable metals such as gold, copper and aluminium. But what they do is they dump toxic substances like lead and mercury which continues to be a problem. How can this be addressed? See India has a distinct advantage. We already have waste collectors and scavengers working at the grass root levels. They will be collecting and separating the waste. We just need to give them the technology and deploy e-waste micro factories and teach them how it works. Instead of burning e-waste these people will be working in a sustainable and safe environment. And here they will be not producing any toxic waste. As per the new e-waste management rules 2016 it has become mandatory for bulk consumers, producers and manufacturers of all the electrical and electronic equipment to abide by their extended producer responsibility that is EPR. See these rules clearly indicate that a target is set for a bulk producer as per their market share to channelize their e-waste for responsible recycling. So that's all about this news article. So you know what is e-waste from this and you know what are all the harms they are creating and what are all the issues they are creating. And then I said how can it be addressed and the way that I told how it can be approached is more sustainable and safe for the environment. Okay, see when you take in prelims perspective if you just know about e-waste and the harms created by it and what is the extended producer responsibility mean that is enough. And when you take it for mains perspective you can utilize these points to enhance your mains answer. How can e-waste be addressed? When such kind of questions are being asked you can pick points from these and just put it in your answer and enhance it. See remember whenever you write such kind of application oriented question your answer should be more practical and more sustainable. And that is the case you can utilize the points that we discussed today here. So with these key points in mind now let's move on to the next part of the news article discussion which is the preliminary practice question discussion. See today I have three questions for you. Two I'll be discussing and one I'll be giving as a quiz question for you. See whenever you get a quiz question try answering that question it will be really helpful for your preliminary preparation. Okay and don't worry the correct answers also will be posted in the common section as soon as possible. Now let us take the first question. See now this question is regarding the famous tribe and their festivals. Four pairs of tribes are given and in this you are asked to find the correctly matched pairs. The answer here is option D all four pairs are correctly matched. See this variety of question is newly introduced in our current preliminary exam. If you had attempted in this 2022 you will be knowing that this model of question was asked in the exam. So that is why we framed in this model a question today. Okay now let me explain you why each and every pair is correct. Okay take pair one that is Garos who are celebrating Vangala festival. See Vangala is also called the festival of the 100 drums. It is a harvest festival celebrated by the Garo tribe who live in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Assam. In this post harvest festival they give thanks to the Mrs. Aljong the sun god for blessing the people with a rich harvest. Okay so Vangala which is a kind of harvest festival is celebrated by Garos. So pair one is correct. Now coming to the second pair see the Baiko festival this is the festival that we saw in today's discussion and it is celebrated by the Rabhas so it is definitely correct. Okay if you want to know more about this festival and tribe just go through the discussion one more time. Then you will be definitely understanding that this pair is correct. Okay now look at this third pair the Apathanis who are celebrating the dream festival. See the Apathanis inhibitor lower Subhansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh and they are famous for their unique practice of wet rice cultivation and they have an agricultural festival which is very famous and it is called as Dree. Okay so this pair is also correct. Now coming to the last pair Badugas who are celebrating the Hithai Haba. See this Hithai Haba is an annual festival of the Baduga community in the Nilgiri hills. It is a festival of the ancestors goddess of the Badugas. Okay so this pair is also correct. Remember this is a new model introduced in the current year of UPSC preliminary examination. That is why this framing of question is also being introduced to you in our practice questions. Okay so your answer for this question is option D all four pairs are correctly matched. Now coming to the second question it is a two statement question. See as I said whenever you get two statement question go through both the statements before arriving at your answer. Now look at the first statement India's first e-waste clinic was set up at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. This statement is correct. See India's first e-waste clinic for segregating processing and disposal of waste from household and commercial units has been set up in Bhopal Madhya Pradesh. So this statement is correct. Now coming to the second statement most of the e-waste in India is recycled by the formal sector. See if you had carefully observed my discussion today regarding this e-waste or e-debris I would have mentioned in my discussion itself that most of the e-waste in India is recycled by the informal sector. So this statement is incorrect. In my discussion I had clearly mentioned that 90 percentage of e-waste generated in India is recycled by the informal sector. Okay so that statement will be incorrect. Now coming to the question the question is demanding for the correct statement. So your answer here will be option A one only is the correct statement. Now coming to the third question which is a quiz question for you. Go through the question and post your answers in the common section. The correct answer for this will be posted within 24 hours in the common section itself. Okay and now displayed here are two practice mains question. Please go through the question and post your answers in the common section. See try writing the answers for the practice question. It will be very much useful for your mains because answer writing is a very much needed skill for your mains. Okay so that's all for today's discussion. If you like this video do like share and comment and don't forget to subscribe to the Shankar Iyer's Academies YouTube channel. Thank you for listening.