 A very good evening aspirants. Welcome to the hindi news analysis brought to you by Shankar Aiz academy. In today's analysis we are going to cover two days newspaper. We are going to cover the hindi news editions for the day 26th and 27th of October 2021. And from these two editions I have chosen these news articles. So today we are going to cover about northeast monsoon. Then we will see about greenhouse gas emissions. We will also talk about the India Sri Lanka fishermen issue. We will talk about the emissions by thermal power plants. And we'll also talk about the infant mortality rate. So along with these news articles we also have the problems practice questions and main practice question sessions. And I do have a quiz question for you today. So pay attention to the news articles discussions and the areas covered. The quiz question has been framed based on these discussions. So this introduction now let us move on to the hindi news analysis for today. So this news article talks about the onset of northeast monsoon. So this is the time when the southwest monsoon has simultaneously withdrawn from the country. And now the northeast monsoon has started in the peninsular India. Especially it has started in the regions of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. And according to the India Meteorological Department the favorable weather system may influence widespread rainfall till the end of October. Additionally the southern districts of India and districts along the western guards are likely to receive heavy rain during this monsoon season. So in this discussion let us see about the northeast monsoon. We'll see why it has started in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. We'll see the required favorable conditions for that monsoon. And we'll also see some important facts regarding northeast monsoon. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. See this northeast monsoon it occurs during the months of October to December. So remember October to December is the northeast monsoon. Here we should recall that the Indian southwest monsoon this monsoon season is from June to September. So northeast monsoon is from October to December and southwest monsoon is from June to September. Now this June to September period is the chief rainy season for whole India because about 75 percentage of the country's annual rainfall is realized during southwest monsoon season. And here we can see that the northeast monsoon starts at the end of southwest monsoon. And because of this earlier this northeast monsoon season was also referred to as the post monsoon season or retreating southwest monsoon season. And just note that the normal date of onset of northeast monsoon is around 20 October. It could vary you know plus or minus a week. It could start either a week earlier or even a week later. So now to understand this northeast monsoon we first need to understand the intertropical convergence zone that is ITCZ. See this intertropical convergence zone is the region that circles the earth. As you can see in this representation it circles the earth and it is a low pressure zone that is located near the equator. Now this ITCZ exists because of the convergence of trade winds. Here you can see that the trade winds are converging here and this is the region of ITCZ. This conversion zone lies more or less parallel to the equator and that is why we say ITCZ is located near the equator. Now for example if you take in the northern hemisphere the northeast trade winds converge with the southeast trade winds from the southern hemisphere. Another fact to be noted is that the point at which the trade winds converge this condition forces the air up into the atmosphere and this forms the ITCZ. So this ITCZ is a low pressure zone and it is a zone where air tends to ascend. Now you should also remember that this ITCZ follows the sun. So its position varies seasonally. It moves north in the northern hemisphere summer and it moves south in the northern hemisphere winter and this is the reason for ITCZ being responsible for the wet and dry seasons in the tropical regions. Now particularly if you take during July the ITCZ shifts and it is located around 20 degrees north to 25 degrees north latitudes. As you can see in this representation and as you can see here in India it is over the Gansetic plain during July. Here you can remember a fact that in India ITCZ is sometimes called the monsoon trough and this monsoon trough or the ITCZ encourages the development of thermal low over north and northwest India. So what is thermal low? It is an area of low pressure due to the high temperatures caused by intensive heating at the surface. So the ITCZ leads to the development of thermal low over north and northwest India and we saw that ITCZ has shifted so due to this shift the trade winds of the southern hemisphere cross the equator between 40 degrees and 60 degrees east longitudes and then they start blowing from the southwest to northeast due to Coriolis force. They start blowing from southwest to northeast due to Coriolis force. Remember this fact now these winds are the southwest monsoon winds bringing the southwest monsoon to India. So this is how ITCZ is responsible for southwest monsoon. Now on the other hand during the October to November period the sun moves towards the south. So ITCZ also moves southward that is the monsoon trough or the low pressure trough moves southward and therefore over the northern plains the low pressure trough becomes weaker and this condition is gradually replaced by a high pressure system and this causes the southwest monsoon winds to weaken and it starts to withdraw gradually. So by the beginning of October the monsoon withdraws from the northern plains as you can see in this representation that means in winter the ITCZ moves southwards and therefore there is reversal of winds from the northeast to south and southwest. Here reversal of wind is fine because here southwest monsoon is withdrawing but how it flows from northeast to south and southwest? How does this happen? See you should remember that northeast monsoon is the retreating southwest monsoon. So the southwest monsoon winds they are returning from the Indian landmass and blowing towards the Bay of Bengal. So that means they should directly blow towards the Bay of Bengal but here the Coriolis force plays its role. What it does is this Coriolis force deflects the wind that was blowing towards Bay of Bengal and it makes that wind to blow from northeast. So it was flowing like this due to Coriolis force it has been deflected like this. So strictly speaking these winds are the planetary winds and hence they are called the northeast trains. Why northeast? Because the wind is flowing from the northeast to the southwest and that is why this is called as the northeast monsoon. But here you should note an important fact that here the wind blows from the land to the sea. So for most part of the country this monsoon brings a dry season but it causes torrential rainfall to the Peninsular India. It is because when the winds cross over the Bay of Bengal they pick up moisture and they bring rainfall over the Tamil Nadu coast, southern Andhra Pradesh, southeast Karnataka and southeast Kerala. And due to this only we say that the Indian northeast monsoon is a monsoon that is confined to parts of southern Peninsular India and this region includes the regions of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karikal, Kerala and Mahi, Koshilanda Pradesh and Yhanam, Rael Seema and South interior Karnataka. The Indian northeast monsoon is confined to this region. Now apart from these facts you should also remember that certain other global climate parameters also influence this northeast monsoon rainfall. For example Enzo, Indian Ocean Dipole, Madden Julian Oscillation, these influence northeast monsoon. When you say Enzo it means El Nino or La Nina and Southern Oscillation Index. For example among Enzo, IOD and Madden Julian Oscillation, the El Nino, positive IOD and Madden Julian Oscillation these are generally associated with good northeast monsoon rainfall. So when there is positive IOD we'll have good northeast monsoon rainfall. Additionally even the La Nina and positive Southern Oscillation Index during the second half of the season is also favorable for good northeast monsoon activity. Apart from this you have to remember two facts that is very important with respect to northeast monsoon. The first fact is that northeast monsoon season is the chief rainy season for the subdivision of Tamil Nadu and because of this the agricultural activities of the region depend on the northeast monsoon rainfall. Therefore northeast monsoon rainfall plays an important role in agricultural planning of Tamil Nadu and this fact is important because we know that Tamil Nadu comes under the rain shadow region. So during the southwest monsoon season the western guards form a complete geographical barrier and it does not allow any monsoon winds from Kerala to pass through towards Tamil Nadu and that is why during southwest monsoon season only 35 percentage of annual rainfall of Tamil Nadu is realized. But around 48 percentage of Tamil Nadu's annual rainfall is realized during northeast monsoon season. So here the takeaway point is in the beginning we saw that southwest monsoon is the chief rainy season for whole India but the northeast monsoon is the chief rainy season for Tamil Nadu. Now the second important fact is that this northeast monsoon season is also the chief cyclone season for the north Indian Ocean region. This north Indian Ocean region comprises of Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Now during this season cyclonic disturbances form over Bay of Bengal and they move either westwards or northwestwards. So here you can understand that the low pressure area that was lying over northwest India during the southwest monsoon is transferred to the middle of the Bay of Bengal by the end of October and this creates unstable conditions and as a result of this severe cyclonic storms originate in the Bay of Bengal and these cyclonic storms strike along the eastern coast of India and they cause widespread rain in the coastal regions. So these cyclonic storms affects the coastal areas of southeastern Peninsula India and they also contribute significantly to the northeast monsoon rainfall or we can also say that northeast monsoon is responsible for the cyclonic storms originating from the Bay of Bengal. So the passage of cyclones and depressions over the north Indian Ocean region significantly affects the performance of northeast monsoon and this is the reason why this monsoon season assumes significance from the disaster management perspective. So it is important from the agricultural perspective with respect to Tamil Nadu and it is also important from the disaster management perspective of the peninsula India. So these are the important facts that you should remember regarding northeast monsoon. We saw how it differs from southwest monsoon, what are the underlying conditions and some important facts about northeast monsoon. Now let us move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is based on this news article. This article is written based on the recent release by world meteorological organization. The organization has released its greenhouse gas bulletin. So in this discussion let us see briefly about this bulletin and the findings of this report. See this greenhouse gas bulletin of world meteorological organization is titled as the state of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere based on global observations through 2020. So this bulletin shows the globally averaged surface mole fractions for three greenhouse gases. They are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Here the term mole fraction is the preferred expression for the abundance or the concentration of mixture of gases or fluids particularly in atmospheric chemistry if you see. The mole fraction term is used to express the concentration as the number of moles of a compound per mole of dry air. So simply remember that this mole fractions gives you the concentration of these greenhouse gases. Now the bulletin also compares the concentrations of these greenhouse gases with the mole fractions during the previous year and it also compares it with the pre-industrial levels. Pre-industrial level means before 1750 levels. Apart from this it also provides insights on the change in radiative forcing caused by long-lived greenhouse gases. So what is radiative forcing? See this term is said with reference to the physical and chemical changes that force changes in the earth's climate. Now some of these changes are natural while many of these changes are influenced by humans that is they are anthropogenic. Now these changes are measured by the amount of warming or cooling which these changes can produce and this amount of warming or cooling is what is called as radiative forcing. Now when these changes have a warming effect it is called as positive forcing and when these changes have a cooling effect they are called as negative forcing. So when these positive and negative forces are out of balance then it results into a change in the earth's average surface temperature. That means greenhouse gas concentrations and this radiative forcing are linked and the changes in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere affects radiative forcing and that is why this bulletin also provides insights on the changes in radiative forcing caused by the long-lived greenhouse gases. So in short we can say that this report provides estimation of the increase in greenhouse gases. So with this background let us see the findings of this bulletin or this report. See these findings are very important from the preliminary perspective and it is important from main's perspective also because you can use these facts to substantiate your points in GS3 paper and also in your SA paper. So focus on these facts. Now the first finding is that the abundance of heat trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has once again reached a new record last year and the annual rate of increase is also above the last decade average that is it is about the 2011 to 2020 average. This means that the economic slow down caused due to the lockdowns imposed by COVID-19 did not have any visible impact on the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases and the lockdowns for the COVID-19 pandemic did not even affect the growth rates of greenhouse gases but the report notes that there was a temporary decline in the new emissions due to the pandemic but this decline was temporary. So that means there was increase in the greenhouse gases. So let us take each greenhouse gas now that is covered by this report. So if you take the concentration of the most important greenhouse gas that is the carbon dioxide the report has found that its concentration has reached 413.2 parts per million in 2020. Now this level is 149 percentage of what existed during the pre-industrial level but there is a relief in the carbon dioxide concentrations according to the report. The increase in carbon dioxide between 2019 to 2020 is said to be lower than what was observed between 2018 to 2019 but however their concentration was still higher than the average annual growth rate that was estimated over the past decade. So compared to past decade their annual growth rate was higher and this could be observed despite reduction in fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 and this reduction happened due to the restrictions related to the pandemic. So we can say that the pandemic did not have any visible impact on the greenhouse gas levels. Now next if you take methane this is another greenhouse gas it is found to be 262 percentage of the pre-industrial level and the report also found that the concentration of methane has increased between 2019 to 2020 and this increase is higher than the estimation between 2018 to 2019 and their overall average annual growth rate is also higher if you compare it to the past decade. Now next if you take nitrous oxide it is 123 percentage of the pre-industrial level. Now its increase was also higher than the previous year and it is also higher compared with the past decade. So overall CO2, methane and nitrous oxide all these three has increased compared to the past decade but we can find some relief in the concentration of carbon dioxide if we compare it with the previous year. Now apart from these findings the bulletin also talks about radiative forcing as we already saw. So according to the bulletin it covers the warming effect of our climate that is the positive forcing so it has found that from 1990 to 2020 the radiative forcing by long-lived greenhouse gases has increased by 47 percentage and among the long-lived greenhouse gases carbon dioxide accounted for about 80 percentage of this increase. So the majority of the increase is caused by carbon dioxide and this particular observation is based on the annual greenhouse gas index released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of USA. Now based on these important findings the report has flagged two important concerns regarding climate change and global warming. First it has raised concerns that the ability of land ecosystems and the oceans to act as sinks may become less effective in the future. This is because already half of the carbon dioxide emitted by the human activities today they remain in the atmosphere and the other half is taken up by the oceans and land ecosystems. So this continued increase in greenhouse gas concentrations will lead to reduction in the ability of land ecosystems and oceans to absorb carbon dioxide and then they will not be able to act as a buffer against larger temperature increase. This is the first concern raised by this bulletin. Now the second concern is regarding the Paris Agreement targets. It mentions that based on the current rate of increase in greenhouse gas concentrations it is more possible to see a temperature increase by the end of this century itself and this increase will be far in excess of the Paris Agreement targets. You know that as per the Paris Agreement we had a goal to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels or preferably below 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels but this report notes that if the greenhouse gas concentrations increase at the current rate then we will not be able to achieve this target. Now the findings of this WMO report is quite important at this time because we know that from next week the COP26 is going to start that is the conference of parties 26 is going to start so it is expected that based on these findings now the countries will be setting new carbon neutral targets and there will be a dramatic increase in the commitments agreed by the countries. So let us wait and see what happens. Now regarding this particular article and the facts which we saw take note of the facts and wisely use them in your main sensor writing. So with this notice more to the next discussion. Our next discussion is going to be based on this news article which appeared in today's newspaper. See this news article provides us with another set of important findings by an important report in the environment sector and this report pertains to the state of Tamil Nadu. The report basically talks about the thermal power plants in the state of Tamil Nadu and the emissions caused by these thermal power plants. This report is titled as emission watch status assessment of sulphur dioxide emissions and flue gas desulphurizer installation for coal based power plants in Tamil Nadu. So this report has given many important findings but we are only going to discuss the two important findings that is relevant to our examination and as the name of this report suggests we are going to discuss about the sulphur dioxide emissions and also about the installation of flue gas desulphurizer. Now the first finding is about the level of toxic emissions that are created from the thermal power plants operating in Tamil Nadu. Here you should note that around 40 thermal power plants are currently operating in Tamil Nadu and they have an installed capacity of 13,160 megawatts. Now the report has found that sulphur dioxide emissions are exceeding the permissible limit at several state-owned and central government-owned thermal power plants and this is causing irreparable damage to the environment. Now why sulphur dioxide emission is a concern? To understand that let us see briefly about sulphur dioxide see sulphur dioxide is an acidic gas it can easily react with other substances which results in the formation of harmful compounds like sulphuric acid, sulphate particles and sulphurous acid. So in such a case if we breathe such gases we end up with complications like irritations in nose, throat and airways that is we will develop health complications. Apart from this sulphur dioxide will also lead to severe problems over prolonged exposure. In addition to this sulphur dioxide is also a major air pollutant so it impacts all forms of life and it also harms the environment. Particularly you have to remember that sulphur dioxide is the precursor of acid rain and we know that acid rain has significant adverse impacts on forests, fresh waters and soils. See acid rain results when the sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are emitted into the atmosphere and they are transported by wind and air currents. Now these sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides react with water, oxygen and other chemicals in the atmosphere to form sulphuric acid and nitric acid. Then these mix with the rain water and other materials before falling to the ground causing adverse impacts on the environment. So due to these reasons only sulphur dioxide emissions are carefully monitored. Now let us look at the second finding. This finding is about the status of installation of flue gas desulphurization. So first let us understand what is flue gas. So it is the word which is used to refer to the gas that emanates from combustion plants. So such flue gas generally contains the reaction products of fuel and it also contains combustion air and it also contains the residual substances such as particulate matter, sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. So now what about flue gas desulphurization? As its name suggests this is regarding a compound of sulphur only. See this flue gas desulphurization in short FGD is a kind of technology which is used to remove the sulphur dioxide from the flue gases. We just now saw that these flue gases are produced from industrial combustion at the power stations. So this technology is related to the removal of sulphur dioxide from the flue gas. Why we are removing it? Because of the adverse impacts which we saw before this finding. So this is one of the important technologies. Keeping this in mind the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in 2015 itself gave a direction to the coal based thermal power plants to control sulphur dioxide along with nitrogen oxide pollution. It asked the coal based thermal power plants to retrofit the plant with flue gas desulphurizer. But according to this report it has been found that this direction of the ministry has been violated by the thermal power plants in Tamil Nadu. Particularly the report has highlighted the failure of the state power utility to install flue gas desulphurization. See here you should understand that the thermal power plants in Tamil Nadu are operated by state government, central government and some are even operated by the private players. For example the state and central corporations involved are the tangent co that is Tamil Nadu generation and distribution corporation and then the NTPC limited that is the national thermal power corporation limited. So the report has found that only two out of the 40 thermal power plants currently operating in Tamil Nadu are equipped with FGD and unfortunately these two plants are operated by private sector as you can see here. So that means no thermal power stations operated by either tangent co and NTPC have installed FGD so far. In this regard the report notes that even the thermal power stations operated by these corporations did not even call for a tender to set up FGD in their plants. So this is the level of seriousness shown by these power plants operated by the state and the central level corporations. So we can see that how much importance is given to an important direction given by the ministry of environment for controlling sulphur dioxide along with nitrogen oxide pollution. So these two are the important findings that you need to know with this notice more to the next discussion. Now our next discussion is based on this oped article. It talks about the India Sri Lanka fisherman issue. See recently a fisherman from Tamil Nadu's coastal district died after his boat collided with a Sri Lankan navy patrol vessel. So this has led to public outcry but we know that the conflict between Indian fishermen particularly Tamil fishermen and Sri Lankan navy is not new. So in this backdrop this oped article has been written and the author of this oped article throws light on the issue of fishing that prevails between the fishermen of India and Sri Lanka. Here the author also suggests some measures to overcome this issue in the long run. So let us see these aspects now. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. See the primary issue between the fishermen of both nations happens on the basis of three reasons. Let us see these reasons one by one. The first reason is the international maritime boundary line. See when you closely analyze the deaths of fishermen we can find that these fishermen while trying to earn a living through fishing they are said to have crossed the international maritime boundary line. So what is this international maritime boundary line? It is an invisible demarcation between India and Sri Lanka and this maritime boundary line between both nations is not a well-defined one. So when the Indian fishermen cross this imaginary boundary they are intercepted in the Sri Lankan waters by the Sri Lankan Navy and then they're accused of illegal fishing. And citing this sometimes these fishermen are also killed by the Sri Lankan Navy without any repentance. So the first issue is the crossing of international maritime boundary line, a line which is just an imaginary line without a well-defined demarcation. Now the next reason is the issue of bottom trawling. Now to understand this issue let us briefly understand the events that happened so far. See the death of the fishermen recently has brought the conflict in the park straight which still remains unresolved between the two nations that's between India and Sri Lanka. Actually this problem has now existed for more than a decade now it started in 2009 at a period when the Sri Lankan civil war ended. What happened was in the past the fishermen from Rameshwaram which is a place in Tamil Nadu and it is nearer to Sri Lanka and the fishermen from this region and its nearby coasts they used to sail towards Talimannar and Kachethivu coast for fishing. This Talimannar and Kachethivu are islands of Sri Lanka and these region they're rich in maritime resources. So the Indian fishermen they wanted to exploit the resources here and this was possible due to the ongoing Sri Lankan civil war at that time. See because of the civil war the Indian fishermen could easily gain access to Sri Lankan waters because the Sri Lankan government was occupied due to its civil war and even the northern province and the nearby maritime boundaries of Sri Lanka were never tightly guarded. So these situations enabled Indian trawlers to routinely enter Sri Lankan waters for fishing and here we should note that during the war the Sri Lankan northern Tamil fishermen. We know that Sri Lanka also has Tamil people and these northern Tamil fishermen of Sri Lanka they were displaced during the war and they were denied access to the sea. So this absence of poor Tamil fishermen of Sri Lanka also favored the Indian trawlers because now they did not have any competition also. But this situation changed entirely in 2009 that is after the end of the civil war because after the war they displaced fishermen once again returned to their homelands and this marked the beginning of new tensions between the fishermen of Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. Now the major reason for this is because the Tamil fishermen are working on mechanized fishing vessels using bottom trawling. So what is this bottom trawling? Bottom trawling is a fishing practice that herds and captures the target species by towing a net along the ocean floor. As you can see in this image we have a mechanized boat that is attached with a fishing net. Now one end of this net is open and the mesh used in this net is designed to confine fish inside the net and this net is dragged across the ocean floor whereby the fish is caught without a way to escape. Now this particular method of fishing is favored because this bottom trawling can catch large quantities of prawns small fishes and other marine organisms in one go. So it is highly exploitative and it leads to depletion of marine resources. But as we saw the Indian fishermen they use bottom trawling and they are causing depletion of marine resources. But unlike them it is said that Sri Lankan fishermen they rely on traditional fishing methods which are non exploitative. So here the allegation is that this bottom trawling by Indian fishermen has impacted the Sri Lankan fishermen because it has led to drastic reduction in catch by the Sri Lankan fishermen and it is causing huge losses to them. In addition to this this bottom trawling is also causing certain varieties of fishes to vanish. So it is leading to depletion of marine resources. And this is the reason why the Indian fishermen who enter Lankan waters are arrested and they are even attacked by the Sri Lankan people and the Sri Lankan Navy. But here the Indian fishermen argue that they are daily wage fishermen and their wage depends on the catch which they bring back. So this method of fishing helps them to have a big catch which helps them to earn more. So even though this method is deemed to be destructive it has maximized the profits made by the vessel owners in Tamil Nadu. Along with this the Indian fishermen also face the risk of being attacked, arrested or even being killed. So bottom trawling is the second issue. Now the third reason is the issue regarding Kachethiva Island. We saw that Kachethiva Island is Sri Lankan territory. Now whenever we talk about the Indian Sri Lankan fishermen issue we talk about Kachethiva Island because this entire conflict is not just about Tamil fishermen entering Sri Lankan waters. But it is also about the ownership of this particular island. Here you should remember that the Tamil fishermen had traditional fishing rights in this Kachethiva Island for centuries. But this island was ceded to Sri Lanka in 1974 and this was done through an agreement that was signed by the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with the Sri Lankan government. And the main issue with this agreement was that it was done without consulting the Tamil Nadu government who had traditional fishing rights in the Kachethiva Island. So Kachethiva Island issue is also a reason for the fishermen issue. So these three are the major reasons for the existing conflict between the Indian fishermen and the Sri Lankan navy and Sri Lankan fishermen on the other side. But this is a long pending issue. So you may ask whether both the countries did they take any measures to overcome this issue? Yes, actually many rounds of bilateral talks were held regarding this issue between India and Sri Lanka. But no significant measure has been taken yet. It is because generally those talks end up in deadlocks as Tamil Nadu refuses to give up bottom trolling. But even then a proper close solution was reached in November 2016 for the first time. It happened when a joint working group was constituted to expedite the progress towards ending the practice of bottom trolling as soon as possible. So that is why the author of this open article has suggested certain measures to overcome this issue. The first step suggested by the author is for the Tamil Nadu government. Author has asked the government to come up with a moratorium on bottom trolling in the Park Street. And while implementing such a moratorium, author has asked both nations to substantially support the respective fishing communities in their countries because if bottom trolling is suspended, then their income will reduce and we know that they are already suffering from the impact of pandemic. So here the conclusion is that at the end of the day strong bilateral ties are not just about shared religious or cultural heritage, but it is also about sharing resources responsibly. And they should be done in a way that ensures the protection of lives and livelihoods of the people. So in this discussion we had a brief understanding about the Indian fishermen issue. We saw the reasons behind the conflict between Indian fishermen and the Sri Lankan Navy. Then we saw some of the suggestions given by the author. Now let us move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is going to be based on this news article. It talks about the launch of a book titled Gandhi Vinoba A Memoir. See basically a memoir is a kind of non-fiction narrative and this narrative is written based on the author's personal memory. And the author of this book is Mr. T.D. Thirumalai. According to the news article the organization that launched this book has urged the state government to include this book in the school curriculum. So this is the background. So taking this opportunity let us have a brief understanding about Gandhi's principles and we will focus more on Vinoba Bhave. See there are two important principles of Gandhi. They were truth and non-violence. This non-violence is also known as ahimsa because violence is called as himsa. So this non-violence is the absence of overt violence. According to Gandhi this non-violence denotes active love or a path which is opposite to violence in every sense. Gandhi believed that ahimsa is the most powerful force in existence. And apart from this another central concept in Gandhi's philosophy is satyagraha which again is the philosophy of non-violence. So what is the link between Mahatma Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave? See Mahatma Gandhi declared Vinoba Bhave as his spiritual heir. His full name is Acharya Vinoba Bhave. He is one of India's best known non-violence activists, freedom activists, social reformer and also a spiritual teacher. She would have guessed that he is widely known for being a respected disciple of Mahatma Gandhi. Vinoba Bhave considered Gandhi ji to be his guru from both political and also spiritual point of view. So on those lines Vinoba Bhave also participated in satyagraha as one of the foremost satyagrahis and he was also one of the advocate of Gandhi's concept of Gram Swaraj. Now his affiliation to Gandhi's ideology was in such a way that even after Gandhi ji's martyrdom Vinoba Bhave undertook padhyatra that is he undertook symbolic foot march to spread Gandhi ji's message and he covered almost the entire country. Now two important movements are very important with respect to Vinoba Bhave. It is the Bhutan movement and the Gramdan movement. It is together also called as the Bhutan-Gramdan movement. See Vinoba Bhave was the founder of Bhutan movement. It is also called as the land gift movement. This movement actually originated in Pochampalli in Andhra Pradesh. At that time he was delivering a lecture at this place and some poor landless villagers demanded some land for their economic well-being. So as a part of it Vinoba Bhave assured to talk to the government of India but he said he will talk to the government only if the landless villagers undertook cooperative farming. So hearing this a landlord named Sri Ramachandra Reddy he benevolently offered 80 acres of his land to be distributed among 80 landless villagers and this move of that landlord was known as Bhutan. So later Vinoba Bhave while he was traveling he introduced this idea widely all over India. So Buddha movement attempted to persuade wealthy landowners to voluntarily give a percentage of their land to the landless people. Now while doing so some jamin dars who were owners of many villages even offered to distribute some villages among the landless people and this particular act was known as Gramdan. So when they offered a particular area of land to the landless villagers it was called as Bhutan and when the villages itself were offered to the landless people it was called as Gramdan. But however you should remember that many landowners chose to provide only some part of their land to the poor people and farmers due to the fear of land sealing act. So this Bhutan Gramdan movement was initiated by Vinoba Bhave and it was a successful movement and therefore it is called as a bloodless revolution and because of this Vinoba Bhave became the first recipient of international Ramon Maksese award for community leadership. He received this award in 1958 and later he was even conferred with Bharat Ratna which is India's highest civilian awards in the year 1983 and he was awarded this posthumously that is after his death. So these are few points that you need to know about Vinoba Bhave and the important Bhutan Gramdan movement that is associated with him. Now let us move to the next discussion. Our next discussion is based on this data point. It talks about the infant mortality rate that is IMR and according to this data point the infant mortality rate has improved in all the states of India between the years 2014 and 2019 and the data also cites a wide variation among the states with respect to the rate of decline of infant mortality rate. Further it also compares the IMR of all states with 185 countries. So first let us understand what is infant mortality rate then we will see the data point. First you should understand that we have two definitions of IMR one is the definition provided by world health organization and second one is the Indian definition. Now according to the definition of world health organization IMR represents the probability that a child born in a specific year or period will die before reaching the age of one year. This probability is calculated by taking eight specific mortality rates of that period and it is expressed as a rate per thousand life births. So simply IMR is the probability of dying between birth and age one per thousand life births. So it is a probability actually and not a rate because it is not calculating the number of deaths divided by the number of population at risk during a certain period of time. Now if you come to the Indian definition according to it IMR is the ratio of newborn deaths to life births per thousand and this value is calculated for a given year and the Indian IMR comprises two parts one is the neonatal mortality rate and second one is post neonatal mortality rate and this neonatal mortality rate is further divided into two parts. They are the early neonatal mortality rate and the late neonatal mortality rate. So as you can see here the neonatal mortality rate is the number of infant deaths who are less than 29 days and the early neonatal mortality rate calculates the number of infant deaths who are less than seven days and the late neonatal mortality rate is the number of infant deaths between seven days to less than 29 days. So if the infant who has died is less than seven days then it will be computed under the early neonatal mortality rate then if it is seven days to 29 days it will be among late neonatal mortality rate but overall less than 29 days will be neonatal mortality rate but more than 29 days and less than one year will be post neonatal mortality rate. Now in these definitions you have to see two things first whether it is calculated per thousand births or per one lakh births as you can see both the definitions calculate per thousand life births and secondly WHO definition calculates you know the mortality rate between birth and the age one whereas the infant mortality rate is much detailed and subdivided so overall infant mortality rates measure child survival so keeping these facts in mind now let us look at the ranking and the performance of Indian states as we already said the ranking includes 185 countries and 21 Indian states so totally 206 regions have been considered for computation and here each Indian state has been considered as an entity and as you can see here the best performing state is Kerala whose IMR rate is just six in 2019 but we can see that from the 2009 to 2014 period Kerala performed poor as its rate didn't decline but it compensated this in the 2014 to 2019 period and this rate and rank of Kerala with respect to infant mortality is nearest to the high-income countries like USA and China similarly you can see that Tamil Nadu has also performed better if you exclude Delhi from the list on the other hand Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh has performed the worst as you can see here UP and MP have performed similar to poor income countries such as Sudan and Afghanistan and they have relatively poor IMRs it is around 41 and 46 so you can take note of the performance of the state you belong to we can use it as an example in your main sansa writing so overall the best performing states are Kerala Tamil Nadu and if we take Delhi as a state then Delhi is also in the list and the worst performing ones are Uttar Pradesh Madhya Pradesh and then Chattisgarh in the recent times so in this discussion we saw the two definitions of infant mortality rate and you also saw the rankings of Indian states compared with other countries notice more to the next discussion our last discussion for today is going to be based on this editorial article that appeared in today's newspaper this news article talks about the connections between Buddhism and we are Ambedkar see if you remember recently a prime minister inaugurated Kushinagar international airport in Uttar Pradesh this international airport will assist in connecting significant Buddhist pilgrimage sites and this Kushinagar itself is a popular Buddhist pilgrimage site and we have extensively covered Kushinagar on our October 21st hindi news analysis now while inaugurating this international airport our prime minister praised Buddhist sites and teachings as symbols of India's ancient civilizational heritage and based on this the author of this editorial article has highlighted that our prime minister has failed to acknowledge Ambedkar's role in reviving the Buddhist faith in India author feels that always the ornamental spiritual component of Buddhism is frequently highlighted and Buddhism's ties to Dalit emancipation movement are usually ignored so on the basis of these points this editorial has been written so in this context today let us discuss about Buddhism in India and the contributions of Ambedkar for the upliftment of Dalits using Buddhism and also some other important points from this editorial article the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see Buddhism is one of the major world religions and as you know it began in India around 6th century bce now the teachings of Buddhism spread through central and southeast asia it's spread through china korea and japan and today there are Buddhists all over the world and Buddhism is based on Buddha's idea which applied to people regardless of their rank in life or their position in life Buddha stated that individuals are in charge of their own destiny so on these lines Buddhist ideology and philosophy was unique and these ideas were in stark contrast to the ideas that were dominant during Buddha's lifetime particularly the ideas that were dominant in India during Buddha's lifetime here we should acknowledge that Buddha was born during a time when brahmanism was dominating in India and we know that among other practices brahmanism also encouraged the sacrifice of animals it encouraged it encouraged the offerings of gifts to brahmanic priests for salvation and it also allowed the societal divide based on varnas see varnas system was quite prominent at that time it determined who should marry whom and what kinds of people belonging to each varnas should do so it delineated caste based on the varnas system but Buddhism differed in all these aspects it did not believe in social distinctions between human beings and it also fought against the claims to superiority based on birth additionally Buddhism was also accessible to anyone it did not support animal sacrifice in fact Buddha believed that compassion should be cultivated among all living beings including animals now because of all these features Buddhism as a religion and as a way of life was gaining prominence in India but however with time everything fades away like that this situation also changed Buddhism in India gradually declined and by the 20th century it was even on the verge of extinction and according to the author of this article Indian followers of Buddhism were a small minority until October 14th of 1956 but why author citing this particular date it is because on this date Babasaheb Ambedkar embraced Buddhism in a grand ceremony that was held at Nagpur in Maharashtra and he also offered Buddhism to millions of his followers and based on this move of Ambedkar many significant portions of his followers who belong to you know the formerly untouchable caste in the Hindu religion they abandoned their damaged caste identity to find peace in Buddha's teachings and deliver way of life as professed by Buddhism but why did they do this see as they already said the Hindu religion had Varna system and the untouchables were viewed as second-class citizens in the traditional Hindu social order so they were hated and discriminated against unjustly here you should also remember that despite significant social changes to address such kinds of historical wrongs the overall social mindset of dominant caste Hindus in India did not change so still even in 20th century the Dalits were oppressed and they were discriminated but this position changed this situation changed it changed with the rise of Ambedkar to the national political stage after that Dalits realized their own potential and they began a campaign for a fair share of power in modern institutions for example even the important cities in our country especially in Maharashtra such as Mumbai, Arangabad and Nagpur they witnessed the rise of powerful Dalit movements and social events and such movements and their followers they also ardently followed Ambedkar so at such a period of time Ambedkar started professing Buddhism through a series of books and articles it was because he realized that Buddhism was the only way for the so-called untouchables to gain equality it is because Buddhism proclaimed moral and social values without any social distinction and as a next step in this direction Ambedkar publicly converted to Buddhism on 14th October 1956 he converted to Buddhism in a grand ceremony that was held at Deeksha Bhumi that is situated in Nagpur so here we should note that due to such affiliation offered by Ambedkar to Buddhism two things happened first it revived the religion itself because the religion was declining at that time as you already saw and Buddhism became a component of India's cultural and civilizational legacy secondly Buddhism also became a means of escaping caste hierarchical cultural oppression and the social hatred that was prevalent at that time but here we have to remember one important fact that Ambedkar did not urge the Dalits to follow the existing Buddhist branches rather he offered his own version of Buddhism and he called this new version as Navayana or the Neo Buddhism so this Navayana is the reinterpretation of Buddhism by Bhima Rao Ambedkar so this is how Buddhism has gained prominence in our country now the conversion to Buddhism and following the Neo-Buddhist identity or the philosophy was responsible for many political implications let us see these political implications one by one firstly it led to the Dalit movement in Maharashtra to be constituted as an autonomous political force this was possible due to the creative use of Neo-Buddhist identity and philosophy see the Neo-Buddhists they attained many educational achievements and acquired a new middle class position so through this they started providing essential leadership to the Dalit politics and they even organized many social and cultural battles even in the post-Ambedkar period so this became a reason for the Dalit movement to become an autonomous political force secondly the conversion to Buddhism aided the community in substantively appreciating the constitutional ideals of secularism and social justice this happened mainly because Buddhism helped them to maintain a distance from the ideologies that justified the use of violence and secondly the Neo-Buddhist movement was seen as a revolutionary initiative that is brought to enlighten the entire Bahujan population and it was not seen as a sectarian mission that is just aimed at the emancipation of so-called untouchables so this Buddhist movement was not only about liberating the Bahujan population but rather it was also about enlightening them and according to the author the conversion to Buddhism helped the Dalits to connect to their rich historical heritage and it also helped them to exercise their constitutional rights as secular citizens the third major thing that happened was this conversion aided the Dalits in making a sense of their cultural history see they reimagined Buddhist cultural symbols rituals and practices and used these as proud markers of their own new social identity so they used these symbols rituals practices that is the cultural declarations to establish their rejection of Hindu cultural hegemony so these were some of the important political implications that happened due to the embracing of Neo-Buddhist identity by the Bahujan community therefore as a conclusion author calls to protect the autonomous cultural space created by the Neo-Buddhist intellectual class it is because it is necessary according to the author to build the united people's movement to defend on the authoritarian politics and sectarianism that is happening in India this is because according to the author even though Buddhists are one of the smallest minorities in India they are just about 0.8 percentage of our total population but still the Neo-Buddhists they are acting as an ideological and political force and they present a different interpretation of history because they portray Buddhism as the primary challenger to the discriminating Brahmanical Hindu traditions caste hierarchy and traditional ritualism so author believes that if the new Buddhists are given their own space then the majority in politics and sectarianism that is gaining traction in India could be properly controlled so in this discussion basically we saw about Buddhism how it evolved in India and the relation between Ambedkar and Buddhism and how he used it for Dalit emancipation and finally we saw the views of the author so with this news article discussion we are moving to the next session the practice questions discussion session and you're going to start this session with the previous question this question appeared in 2014 let us read this question the seasonal reversal of winds is the typical characteristic of option a equatorial climate option b Mediterranean climate option c monsoon climate option d all of the above climates now during discussion of a northeast monsoon we saw that there is seasonal reversal of winds so the correct answer to this question is option c monsoon climate now let us take up this practice question it asks which of the following are synthetic greenhouse gases ozone hydrofluorocarbons nitrous oxide fluorofluorocarbons so before discussing about synthetic greenhouse gases let us have a brief understanding about greenhouse gases itself so greenhouse gases are the gases that trap heat in the atmosphere these gases since they are present in the earth's atmosphere they have an influence on earth's energy balance also particularly these gases cause a greenhouse effect that results in global warming and climate change so what is this greenhouse effect see the greenhouse effect is a natural process that warms the earth's surface generally what happens is when the sun's energy or when the sun's radiation reaches the earth's atmosphere some of this energy or radiation is reflected back into the space and some of this energy is also absorbed and re-radiated by the greenhouse gases so what is happening is the sun's energy is absorbed by the land and the oceans which is leading to heating of the earth now this heat radiates from earth towards space now some of this radiative heat is trapped by greenhouse gases that are present in the atmosphere now these greenhouse gases keeps the earth warm enough to sustain life so in this way you have to understand that greenhouse gases are important for sustaining life so they have a useful purpose but actually what is happening is that the human activities are increasing the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere now these extra GHG created by human activities are trapping extra heat so this is affecting the environment ecology such as it is causing the earth's temperature to rise like this it is causing many problems and the human activities which we are referring is you know burning fossil fuels agriculture and land clearing etc so in this regard there are certain gases which are considered as greenhouse gases they are carbon dioxide methane nitrous oxide ozone chloroflurocarbons hydrofluorocarbons perfluorocarbons hexafluoride etc now among these carbon dioxide methane nitrous oxide water vapor ozone these are all naturally occurring in the atmosphere but the remaining that is the chloroflurocarbons hydrofluorocarbons perfluorocarbons hexafluoride these are all synthetic greenhouse gases so what are these synthetic greenhouse gases see these are man-made chemicals that do not occur in the nature and generally these gases have a much higher global warming potential than other greenhouse gases so cfcs hfcs pfc are human made and they are not produced by any other process but our own activities now among these hydrofluorocarbons these are the gases that are most commonly found in refrigeration and air conditioning systems aerosols fire protection and foam blowing equipment then pfcs that is perfluorocarbons these gases are most commonly found in refrigeration and air conditioning systems then if you take sulfur hexafluoride it is used in gas insulated switch gear it is used in circuit breaker equipment and also in scientific applications then the most famous chlorofluorocarbons as you know these are non-toxic non-flammable chemicals and it contains atoms of carbon chlorine and fluorine that is why it is named as chlorofluorocarbons and these cfcs are used in the manufacture of aerosol sprays they're used as solvents and they are also used as refrigerants so this is the basic that you need to know about greenhouse gases particularly naturally occurring greenhouse gases and the synthetic greenhouse gases so keeping these in mind if you look at this question you can easily read the correct answer which is option b 2 and 4 only 2 has hydrofluorocarbons and 4 has chlorofluorocarbons now even if you do not know in detail about synthetic greenhouse gases you can assume the correct answer because synthetic itself means it doesn't occur naturally but we know that ozone is naturally occurring at higher elevations in the atmosphere so if you remove one from the given options then also you can easily arrive at the correct answer which is option b 2 and 4 only so this is how you use the elimination method now let us take up this next question which of the following are the components of flue gas recently seen in news particulate matter sulphur oxides nitrogen oxides carbon monoxide and during discussion itself we saw that all of these are components of flue gas so the correct answer is option d 1 2 3 and 4 now this next question is a direct question it asks the 1951 budan movement which is associated with acharya venova bhave is related to tax reforms land reforms educational reforms social reforms and the correct answer to this question is option b land reforms because budan movement translates to land gift movement now this next question is based on infant mortality rate discussion first statement imr has shown a considerable decline since 1971 this statement is actually correct see if you take the census 2011 it mentions that there is a considerable decline of infant mortality rate from 1971 to 1981 it was around 129 per thousand live births in 1971 it declined to 110 per thousand live births and this has further improved to 44 in 2011 so first statement is correct second statement as per 2011 census imr for rural was the highest in madhya pradesh and lowest in kerala this statement is also correct because this data is given in our 2011 census and madhya pradesh has the maximum imr at 75 as you can see here and kerala has the minimum imr at 12 and in today's discussion we saw that as of 2019 kerala's imr stands at 6 so this statement is also correct and the question asks for the correct statement so the correct answer is option c both 1 and 2 now we have come to the last question this question is a quiz question for today this question has been framed based on the northeast monsoon and southwest monsoon it is a two statement question read the statements carefully and arrive at the correct answer if you're unable to arrive at the correct answer listen to the discussion again and then you can attend this question you can pose the answer to this question in the comment section and i will tell you whether your answer is right or not if possible also pose the reason as to why a statement is right or wrong so this question now let us take up two main practice questions one is based on our buddhism discussion and another one is based on the india shri lanka shaman conflict you can write the answers for these questions and post it in the comment section so aspirants and viewers if you like this video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to shankar eyes academy youtube channel for more updates related to civil services preparation