 A very good evening everyone. Welcome to the Hindu news analysis for the date 8th of August 2021. So here are the list of news articles chosen for discussion today. The first article will be based on the digital voucher payment recently introduced by the government which is called as E-Rupai. We will see how it works and how it is beneficial for the public and we will also see some limitations of the same and then we will jump into the discussion on the retrospective taxation issue that has been making headlines recently and next we will look into the passport issues in the cashmere especially with respect to stone pelting incidents associated with it and next we will also have a very brief discussion on the nanotechnology based on one particular news article that is new technique to study ultra small particles in the cells and then we will have two very brief discussion on the lines of know something about everything. So first will be about Zen dense and next thing will be about the automatic information system and we will also have a brief run through about the Sundarbans which was discussed earlier in one of our sessions on May 30th and then we will have a comments and clarification section based on our previous session as well and we will conclude our session today by discussing some of the preliminary questions and we will also see some of the main questions inspired from our discussion today as well. So this is a brief run through for today's discussion so with that let's move on to the article discussion for today. Now look at this news article see recently our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a new digital payment system the name of the system is E rupee platform that is E R U P I platform this new digital payment system has the potential to send the government's monetary benefits or any service benefits directly to the beneficiaries mobile phones. The platform has been collaboratively developed by the national payment corporation of India and this department is under the department of financial services and apart from that the national health authority under the ministry of health and family welfare is also a part of this initiative when they were developing this E rupee platform. So now let us discuss how the system works and how the system is helpful in delivery of the services and apart from that we will also look into the challenges associated with its implementation. So this is the syllabus relevant to this particular discussion see E rupee is a digital voucher that can be redeemed by beneficiaries to avail themselves of a specific services that is it is a voucher for which you can avail some benefits from the government so it is a contactless prepaid payment system as well. So a voucher can be a physical or a digital instrument in the current era but this E rupee will be a digital voucher that can be produced and availed benefits from the government or from the issuing authority alright and these digital vouchers can be issued by both the government agencies as well as corporate entities to a specific individual to a targeted service. So the beneficiary does not require a card or app or internet access to redeem the E rupee digital voucher see we'll see that in detail how it works see the beneficiary does not even require a bank account to redeem the voucher only a mobile phone is required and this system is accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. See I'll give you a working example look at this chart as I explain say we have a beneficiary called Sita okay and our government wants to give a free COVID-19 vaccine to Sita so what does the government do it sends a digital voucher for the COVID-19 vaccine to Sita through the E rupee platform and this digital voucher is sent in the form of QR codes or long string SMS to the mobile phones of the Sita and what will Sita do Sita will take the QR code or the SMS to a government approved hospital Sita will produce the SMS or the QR code to the hospital and in turn she will get the vaccine and all she has to do is to show the QR code or the SMS in the hospital nothing else and not even a printout is needed for this procedure so just the QR code or the SMS will be enough so this is how the E rupee platform works so as you can observe from the example this platform does not require a bank account does not require a card does not require a app it does not even need an internet connection so basic mobile phone will be more than enough see as I already said E rupee digital vouchers can be issued by both the government as well as private agencies but it cannot be issued by one person to another that is it is also non-transferable that is if Sita receives some kind of SMS or if Sita receives some kind of QR code only she can use it in place of Sita you and me cannot use it even if Sita approves of it okay and if the digital voucher is given to one person the person is only entitled for that particular service so this platform can curb the leakages in the existing welfare payment disbursement system so what is this leakage see when the government is intending to send some 100 rupees to some person X what happens is it goes through various government offices and few government offices might end up trimming down the 100 rupees in favor of their own department or the department staff and then comes the transfer charges that infringes on that particular 100 rupees and the net beneficiary that is X what he or she receives is only a fraction of that 100 rupees say only 20 or 30 reaches from that particular 100 rupees so the net benefit is only 30 and the 70 percent or the 70 rupees goes out as leakage and that is what we mean as leakage in the governance system so this particular mechanism where the beneficiary is directly notified from the government and directly gets the service from the government can prevent the leakages in the existing welfare payment disbursement system and this can enhance the transparency and accountability of distribution of the welfare schemes okay so how does transparency and accountability increase through a digital wire what happens is the government is sending some kind of digital communication to Sita and this gets registered in both the ends be with Sita or be with the government so ultimately a data is created and made public thereby transparency is achieved and apart from that when transparency is achieved the accountability also comes into play all right but there are going to be some challenges in the implementation of E rupee platform let us understand this in India if you see many of us do not own a mobile phone and according to the online data portal status tab in India's smartphone penetration rate is at 42 percentage in the financial year 2020 and it is estimated to reach 51 percentage by 2025 which means even half of our population do not have a mobile phone or a smartphone and even by 2025 that is like four years from now only 50 percentage will have mobile phones in their hand and also another study from the hardware university says only 71 percentage of men owned a cell phone in India and when we take women this number gets way worse this is because there is a huge gender gap in the mobile ownership in India and compared to men the number of women owning mobile phone is much lesser so what happens is you can see the digital divide generally only 42 percentage have a smartphone so the rest of the 58 percentage of the people are left out they cannot avail this kind of services provided by the government or any private entity and apart from that it also runs deeper in a gender for example of the 100 men 71 percentage of men can actually avail the data but for a woman it could be less than 50 percentage so a lot of women are left behind okay when the digital divide translates into a governance gap okay this can result in the slower empowerment of the women okay and see mobile phone is the basic requirement of the e-rupee platform so this platform can exclude many potential beneficiaries because many in India still do not own a mobile phone so what can be done see we have to close the gender gap that is especially the digital gender gap and we have to enable a large proportion of citizens to own a mobile phone so this requires a lot of social empowerment as well as economic empowerment because only the rich own a mobile phone in India and only the socially empowered own a mobile phone in India whereas the disadvantage and the vulnerable they still are excluded from the benefits of the mobile phone so only when this problem is solved a service of this sort say rupee platform can be a success all right with that information in mind let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion see next I'm going to take up this FAQ for discussion see this FAQ discussion this segment is going to be little lengthy we are going to discuss two three concepts and I've also included some stories in between so that you will understand the concepts better at the same time it remains interesting but this entire discussion is going to be very much valuable for your preparation all right now pay attention so this FAQ is important from the perspective of India's investment relations with other countries the FAQ talks about a recent decision of government regarding retrospective taxation regime in our country so today let us understand what is this retrospective taxation and the decision regarding it and also about bilateral investment treaties which is all commonly called as BITS okay so here is the syllabus relevant for this segment see Indian government has decided to nullify the retrospective taxation see what is this retrospective taxation first see at 2020 say for example the government decides that they have to tax something so imagine they wanted to tax the biryanis okay so what they do is at 2020 they pass a legislation saying let's tax biryanis but the clause that they keep is any biryani consumed after 2015 will be taxable so here from 2020 to 2015 all the biryanis sold will be taxed so it is not from 2020 to 2025 it is not such but 2015 to 2020 and there on all the biryanis that is being consumed will be taxed so when the tax law is applicable to a previous date it is called as retrospective taxation whereas when the tax law is applicable from the date to the upcoming days then it is called as prospective taxation all right so retrospective taxation is where a 2020 law probably imposes a tax say from 2015 or 2016 and that is what is called as retrospective taxation all right and this decision by Indian government recently is a result of careful deliberation only but why to nullify this retrospective taxation because India faced backlash in the international arena and regarding its draconian retrospective taxation this backlash was a result of the disputes that arose out of bids that India has with other countries see why is this retrospective taxation bad because we'll assume one biryani is hundred and we'll end up having the biryani and that is how we would have planned our income and the expense and in 2020 and all of a sudden the government decides to tax so the biryani that we ate in 2015 from 100 it has been pushed up to say 150 say 52 rupees we are going to pay us tax so we'll end up shelling out the money that we have right now for an action that we have already completed based on some kind of planning right so a retrospective taxation creates an environment of uncertainty remember that so consider it for a business also say it is trying to tax a business transaction that was carried out previously so the business entity might have a budget sorted out and because they have to pay tax all of a sudden they'll have a huge setback in their business as well and that is exactly why retrospective taxation could be bad it creates a atmosphere of uncertainty especially for the businesses all right and in the current context let us understand the issue beginning by understanding what are the bilateral investment treaties and what are the retrospective taxation issues associated with this particular concept all right see conventionally bilateral investment treaties are treaties between two countries which are aimed at protecting the investments made by the investors of both the countries imagine two countries we have india and uk there are two countries and say a uk company is trying to invest some one million into india and that one million needs to be protected isn't it because india should not tax it extensively or india should not place unfair obligations on that particular one million just to protect that particular investment these kind of bilateral investment treaties are signed so basically it'll involve conditions expropriating investments imposing obligations on whole states to accord fair and equitable treatment to the foreign investments and then allowing for transfer of funds subject to conditions given in the treaty and if you see most importantly BITs allow individual investors to bring cases against the whole states if the whole states sovereign regulatory measures are not consistent with the BIT so such cases are disputes cover wide array of sovereign regulatory measures what is sovereign regulatory measures say india is a sovereign country and india will have some kind of regulations for doing business in its own soil and this is what is called as sovereign regulatory measures so these cases cover a wide array of sovereign regulatory measures which are challenged by the foreign investor as potential breaches of the investment treaties or the bilateral investment treaties and these include whole states environment policy monetary policy and policies related to taxation as well say environment policy might not allow the UK investor to do business which will not be a fair condition so in that case a BIT will be a protection for that particular one million brought in by the UK investor into the India now in the instance of such cases if the foreign investor is successful in the claims against the host state then the investor state dispute settlement process comes into play see the investor state dispute settlement process involves arbitral tribunals which could order the host state to pay monetary damages to the foreign investor see host state is nothing but that state that is receiving the investment okay so the ISDS process involves arbitrary tribunals which could order the investment receiving state to pay monetary damages to the foreign investors so you may ask what about India see after India adopted economic liberalization in 1991 India initiated an extensive BIT program so it wanted to become a more attractive investment destination so a new BIT program was formulated and it was launched and was first first signed with United Kingdom in 1994 and note that in India BITs are also known as bilateral investment promotion and protection agreement and later India drafted the 2015 model Indian BIT for adhering with the relevant international precedents and the practices and its objective is to provide appropriate protection to the foreign investors in India and the Indian investors in the foreign country while maintaining a balance between the investor's rights and the government obligations see when we are talking about protecting investors it is also true that the investor also has some obligations to the government see it has to pay the taxes and India might have some environmental loss and the investor should abide by the environmental laws and this aspect is also covered by the BIT and this objective clearly states that Indian agenda behind the BITs and so overall what are the benefits of BIT so let's see one by one first is the benefit to the investor right so the treaty increases the comfort level and boosts the confidence of the investors as it assures a level playing field and a minimum standard of treatment and a non-discrimination in all matters is ensured by these BITs all right and additionally it also provides for an independent forum for dispute settlement by arbitration and next to the host country the benefits are that the above mentioned helps to project India as a preferred foreign direct investment destination as well and apart from that it also protects the outbound Indian FDI that is the Indian investors like the big players may also invest outside India so the BTIs also protect these investors and also by providing a more open and secure environment for investments BITs also promote private sector development right so keep these in mind now let us talk about the retrospective tax that is involved in this particular issue see this refers to a 2012 amendment of income tax act which enabled a tax demand by the government under section 9 plus 1 of the act see the tax demand mentioned here is the capital gains tax so let us quickly understand what is capital gains tax see capital gains is any profit that arises from a sale of a capital asset imagine you are buying a land for 1 lakh okay and after two years the price of the land becomes 4 lakhs so the net gain for you will be 3 lakhs from that particular capital asset and the profit of 3 lakhs is being taxed and that is what is called as capital gains tax so generally the tax is paid in the year in which the transfer of the capital takes place and this is also of two types it is called as short term capital gains tax and the long term capital gains tax a short term capital gains tax happens when it is under 36 months whereas a long term capital gains tax happens when the transaction takes place after the 36 months and this is also true for the shares that we buy in sale as well so that is a entirely different discussion but just understand this is what is capital gains tax so the tax demand in the issue we are discussing is a capital gains tax so under this section the government was enabled to generate tax demands on a certain income so this is the income through or from the transfer of an asset or a capital asset situated in India pay attention it is situated in India then that is when the capital gains tax comes into play and this income is a consequence of a transfer of a share or interest in a company or entity that is registered or incorporated outside India so understand this this means the offshore deals resulting in income through transfer of capital assets situated in India will be taxable so imagine there is a land in India say somewhere in Delhi and two individuals are exchanging money for assets situated in India and this particular transaction even if it does not take place in the Indian soils this particular transaction for that particular land situated in Delhi will also be taxable all right and the main issue with this amendment was it was made applicable retrospectively we saw what is retrospectively right so this means it was applicable even to a retrospective event that is a past event and that is why it is known as retrospective tax so you should remember that such retrospective taxes are against the principle of tax certainty and what is tax certainty so a business ventures into one particular area thinking that the tax is 10 percentage but all of a sudden the government keeps changing the taxes say it increases to 15 it increases to 20 so it will try to manufacture a product at one particular price when the tax keeps increasing the price of the goods also go on increasing and the demand for that particular goods will subsequently get affected so the entire business depends on the tax that they pay on the government as well so save a government says 10 percent is the taxation it should remain so for some considerable amount of time if not if it keeps changing these kind of tax rules it'll adversely affect the business environment and this is what we call as principle of tax certainty that is the business certain that some amount is the tax always and apart from that this kind of move by India also damages India's reputation as an attractive destination for investment so why such an amendment see it is said that the Indian government brought this amendment to justify its demand of capital gains from Vodafone for buying a controlling stake in another company in 2007 so controlling stake means holding majority of a company's voting stock and see in 2007 a Vodafone bought Hutch so you may remember Hutch the small dog who runs up behind the owner in all the ads remember so Vodafone bought Hutch controlling stake in the subsidiary company called Hutchison SR okay so Hutchison SR was a telecom business it was based in India only and the transaction that took place then in 2007 between Vodafone and Hutch was about 10.9 billion US dollars okay and the transaction took place in the Cayman Islands where Hutch had another unit called the CGP investments and the CGP was based in Cayman so that is why they made the transaction there and now the controlling stake was acquired by the Vodafone subsidiary again and this Vodafone subsidiary was in Netherlands and it is called as Vodafone's international holding so after acquiring the stake what happened was the Hutch was renamed as Vodafone India Limited so after the transaction that took place in Cayman Island the Vodafone bought Hutch and Vodafone after buying the Hutch in India renamed the Hutch that was originally it was to Vodafone India so here the transaction happened between the companies in the Cayman Island and Netherlands but the impact was in India because the Hutch transformed into Vodafone India so by the item which was sold and bought was a company based in India so we can see that the sale of telecom business was through complex web of subsidiaries across the countries so Cayman Islands was involved Netherlands was involved and India was involved right and this 2007 transaction escaped the capital gains tax in India because it didn't happen in Indian soils it happened in offshore deals but the income tax department saw this so it didn't take it easy and what happened was it brought an amend went which made the offshore deal taxable in India that too with a retrospective applicability that is it amended the law to tax the deal that happened previously so Vodafone opted for international arbitration against the Indian government under the India Netherlands bilateral investment treaty and this Vodafone challenged it in the permanent court of arbitration at the Hague and the case went against India as the permanent court of arbitration ruled that the retrospective legislation was in clear breach of the guarantee of fair and equitable treatment that was guaranteed under bilateral investment treaty and the tribunal also directed India to reimburse about 4.3 million pounds along with 3000 euros as a legal cost to Vodafone so totally it was about 1.7 billion dollars so India had to pay and it didn't stop that was not the only issue India also raised similar claims with Kairan energy limited and many other countries as well and the verdict of this came in 2020 regarding the Kairan energy and this verdict was against the Indian government as well and the PCA held that the tax demands against the Kairan energy is inconsistent with the BIT so it relieved the company from the obligation of paying the taxes but the Indian government in utilize the continuing effect of the demand by permanently withdrawing the demand that is it should not tax anything retrospectively then that is the condition that was laid down by the PCA alright and it ordered the Indian government to pay up over 1.2 billion in damages plus interest and the legal cost so this again here India had to pay so the Indian government did not stop with these two companies similar claims were raised in 17 other such cases but these two were the cases where the companies went for international arbitrations under the PITs and these two cases led to huge loss to the Indian government and even though the verdicts have been appealed now the government has taken this progressive step so what is this step the Indian finance minister has introduced the taxation laws amendment bill in the Lok Sabha so what does the bill say the bill aims to do away with the retrospective taxation on the sale of assets in India by the foreign entities the sales of which were executed before May 2012 so the government will also refund any taxes that were being paid under this particular law and this particular move has been hailed by many that is many have appreciated this particular move and the limitation is that the companies that will benefit from the amendment they must withdraw all the legal cases against the government and they should also forfeit interest cost and any damages so this is the limitation under this particular act so in essence what we saw was the move by the government and why did the government come to this particular move and what is retrospective taxation and what is the Indian history with the retrospective taxation and how far we have gone to collect the taxes and what were the consequences we saw all these in this particular discussion so this brings us to the end of the FAQ so we just have to wait and see whether the companies agree to these limitations so with that let's move to the next segment of today's discussion now this discussion is going to be based on this FAQ article see this article talks about the role played by a person's past record when it comes to the processing of getting a passport for a travel or a government job so first let me brief you the reasons why this issue has been brought to light see what happened is recently the Kashmir police issued a circular and in that circular they have directed the field intelligence units what is field intelligence units the intelligence units on the ground say the basic intelligence gatherers in the police department say constables and civilian intelligence inputs they are the field intelligence units so the police have directed the field intelligence units to examine the past record of the applicant who applies for a passport or a government job especially whether the applicant has any previous records related to acts like stone pelting incidents or other such street protests and on examining if the police finds evidence of any criminal activity in the record such as the one that I just said then the security clearance can be denied to that applicant so this is the background of the issue so why is this contentious briefly because we know Kashmir has been a very contentious place lot of protests have taken place there and stone pelting incidents are very much known in that place in the past so this particular act can prove to be discriminatory on those people who were a part of protests that is one thing and second thing false implication of individuals saying that they to part in some kind of protest is also very much possible and this can affect their employment opportunities there are travel opportunities and basically it can affect their lives adversely so this is why this point is very contentious so this is the background and this has brought to light the discussion on the circumstances in which an applicant can be refused a passport or a government job based on their past records so in this context we are going to have a comprehensive discussion on the issues mentioned see we'll split this discussion into two parts in the first part we will talk about the role of criminal records in the recruitment process of a government job and in the second part we'll focus on its role in getting a passport all right so we'll cover all the two facets of this particular issue the syllabus relevant for this particular article is highlighted below so first let us discuss the role played by a person's past when it comes to a government job see most of the recruitment process be it in private or public it involves the process of verifying the conduct and especially of the criminal records of the applicant and all and it is a part of a recruitment process for the government jobs as well you may all know and usually what happens is in a government job verification procedure it is based on a form filled up by the applicants themselves so it's more of a self-declared procedure so what will happen is they will mention about their past criminal history like the arrest or any pending criminal proceedings and so on so through the presence of a criminal record does not mean an automatic disqualification but it can still be used as a ground to cancel the applicant's candidature in fact the case laws from various high courts and supreme courts show that the employers are not bound to appoint anyone with a criminal record it is not compulsory for them but even then if a employer decides to appoint someone of a criminal background it is completely the employer's discretion and if the employer decides against appointing someone with a criminal background that is also completely okay and that is what the supreme court and the high court have held time in again and in case if the applicant fails to furnish her past records or the person tries to deliberately hide it then it will be considered as a grave mistake and this can lead to both criminal prosecution as well as the cancellation of the candidature and if the person is already in work then his or her work also may get dominated so during such occasions if there happens to be a delay between the appointment of a person and the surfacing of the tooth then an inquiry will be required and supreme court has prescribed some guidelines in that particular context on avatar Singh versus union of India case 2016 and all see i'm not going to get into the case just remember the case so that you can quote it in your answers just remember that this case deals with the procedure for criminal records in the appointments of government jobs and that is how much is relevant for your exam now now let us move on to the second part which is going to be about the role of criminal record in the passports so far we saw about the criminal records in the government job and how it is done in India and now we are going to talk about the passports see according to section six of the indian passports act of 1967 the act lists down the circumstances in which the passport authority can refuse the issue of a passport see in addition to the listed circumstances a person can be denied a passport based on his or own past records as well and remember that if a person is convicted of any offense involving moral turpitude with a sentence of not less than two years in the five preceding years then the person can be denied a passport so what is moral turpitude see this is just a fancy word to say any kind of wrongdoing okay so any person involving any kind of wrongdoing who has been sentenced to imprisonment of two years or more and in the past five years then the person can be denied a passport and this is also applicable in the case of pending procedures or arrest warrants or even summons so in simple words a person can be denied a passport or travel document if in the opinion of the central government it is not in public interest so already the central government has the final say in issuing a passport to an individual okay and know that section 2f has been criticized as being unreasonable and arbitrary as well because this particular clause makes no distinction between the serious and the non-serious offenses or it does not even say between the bailable and non-bailable offenses so someone who is being sentenced even for a simple offense will be denied a passport and this was even challenged in the court but however the Delhi High Court had upheld the validity of this particular contentious section because this is much more contentious because this also involves the case of a pending procedures and arrest warrants also and this particular section has been upheld by the Delhi High Court and that is a very disputed decision but it does not end there see there exists a legal remedy for such situation which is mentioned in section 22 of the passports act see this section empowers the union government to exempt any person or class of person from its provisions by way of notification and on that time say in 1993 the ministry of external affairs issued a notification that provides relief to citizens in this particular regard and according to this a passport or a travel document can be issued if the person produces an order from the concerned court permitting them to depart India and if in case the court prescribes a particular time then the passport will be made valid only for that period and if the period is not specified then it could be given for one year so this section 22 is a small relief from the previous provisions that we just discussed but still this decision by the central government to rely on the field intelligence input is very contentious and it is made much more draconian based on section 6 2f and section 6 of Indian Passports Act of 1967 and that is exactly why the government needs to revise its decision for issuance of passport and the central government because it can affect the lives of an average citizen in Kashmir very adversely so with that we have come to the end of this particular FAQ discussion let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion see look at this news article this article mentions that researchers have developed a new method to study ultra small particles in the cells and the method uses special nano sized particles and these particles can absorb the light that is being shown on them and they can re-emit red blue and green light so through this emission the insides of ultra small particles in the cells get eliminated and then they can be easily detected so this is the essence of the news article but our focus today will be about nano particles and the nanotechnology which is very important from the exam point of view alright see nano particle is a nano material so what is this nano material see it refers to a nanoscale material that contains nanoscale structures internally or the materials that contain nanoscale structures on their surface so either it should be in the inside or in the surface right so basically nano means 10 power minus 9 and keep that in mind we'll just see the dimensions little accurately later in the discussion and depending on the shape application or the components the nano materials may be called by a variety of different names and this includes nano particles nano tubes nano films nano shells nano spears nano wires nano clays and we also have nano concrete and nano polymers as well so in this note the nano particles nano tubes and nano films are engineered or man-made nanometer scale objects so it is very important you should know that they are man-made according to the human needs and more importantly nano materials also include naturally occurring nano particles such as volcanic ash sea spray and smoke see we are using the normal size particles of these at a nano scale to our advantage so now what exactly is this nano particle so it is a particle having one or more dimensions of the order of 100 nanometer or lesser nm is nanometer and one nanometer is equal to one billionth of a meter or 10 power minus 9 of a meter remember this figure nano means 10 power minus 9 then what is the technology associated with it what is nano technology see nano technology is the understanding and control of matter at the nano scale that is at dimensions between 100 nanometer all right keep that in mind so it refers to the development and the use of techniques to study the physical phenomena and to develop new devices and material structures in the physical range of one to 100 nanometer so if we can only say that nanotechnology is the science engineering and technology connected at the nano scale therefore it can be used across all the other science fields such as chemistry biology medicine physics material science engineering and others and do you know who is the father of nanotechnology see it is physicist Richard Feynman okay remember this just a fun fact that you'll have to remember okay and coming back to nanotechnology see one major benefit of nanotechnology is that the materials can be made much stronger than they actually are more lighter and more durable more reactive and better electrical conductors etc for example see the nano scale additives are used in fabrics and when they are used they can provide lightweight ballistic energy deflection in personal body armor and it can also help them resist wrinkling staining and bacterial growth and you should remember one important nano material that is graphene and it was synthesized from graphite so actually graphene is nothing but a single layer of carbon atom okay so the single layer of carbon atom is arranged in a graphite kind of structure that is a little amorphous and that is exactly why graphene was named so which is very similar to graphite so graphene is a single atom thick nano sized two-dimensional structure so it has a large specific surface area high intrinsic mobility and high thermal conductivity as well and if you see the graphene is also considered as hydrophobic because of the absence of oxygen group and it has many applications as well so most important is the biomedical application of graphene so it can be used to detect early stage cancer it can be used in the genes and smaller molecular drug delivery and others and they have also have some formidable properties like anti-corrosion so they are also used in the coatings and paintings as well and apart from that they can also be used as precise sensors also apart from that you have very wide-ranging application electronics and they're also having application in DNA sequencing as well and recently they are making news for their role in efficient solar panels because solar energy is gaining traction isn't it but the most important achievement of graphene was identified in 2018 and in 2018 graphene set the physics world ablaze when it was discovered that it was a very good conductor that is to the effect of superconductor as well so this is some of the major achievements and importance of graphene and we also saw about the nano materials with that let's conclude the discussion on nanoparticles let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion now let us take up two small articles for discussion so this is very important from the preliminary point of view and i'll also tell you how to use this piece of information for your mains exam as well now take up this news article okay so according to this news article the state government has taken some proactive step keeping in mind the mental well-being of the police personnel and that particular initiative is what is called as zen then see the police personnel they can go to this place and they can do meditation so that they can calm their minds see if you see the police job in itself is a very stressful activity they see a lot of crimes and they see a lot of violations they see a lot of violent situations so the job in itself can get very stressful and apart from that their free time is also very less and this has adversely infringed on the efficacy of this law enforcement agency so to enforce that to correct that the Tamil Nadu government has set up something called as these zen dens so this is a very small concept you just have to know what is zen dense it is more like you have to know something about everything so that is what i'm trying to push here so this particular question can be a relevant question with respect to this so recently zen then was conceptualized to improve the mental well-being of the police personnel which of the state has conceptualized so the answer is option a Tamil Nadu so this is from the preliminary perspective now imagine a mains question which talks about the police reforms okay when you talk about police reforms it is very imperative to talk about the well-being of the police personnel who are always or most always overburdened with work so in that case you can always quote this zen den as a case study in your mains answers see let me tell you a person who's qualifying problems and reaching the mains can always analyze anyone who's qualifying problems can analyze but what will make your paper stand out is the amount of facts you furnish the amount of case studies you remember and amount of the committees that you refer all these things are the ones that make your paper stand out and which can push your JS mark up so remember these small pieces of information and incorporate these things in your exam paper so that will make a very significant difference all right now this piece of information can be quoted in a mains answer demanding you to write about the police reforms all right so with that let's move on to the next discussion so this is about the automatic identification systems so what does this news say apparently the Kerala fishermen they are using automatic identification systems procured from the Chinese sellers rather than the Indian made ones so what happens is they suffer from a lot of glitches and this is apparently compromising the security see at this can be going over your head let me tell you the concept as to how it works so that you will understand what is an automatic identification system see imagine a ship or a boat that is sailing in the ocean so take a look at this map this is an actual depiction of a marine traffic at some particular point of time in a day so you can see so many ships and so many boats going across and there is always a risk of collision see this is not like olden times where one person say Vasco to Gama said sailed and he found something so it is not like that so many people travel across the oceans and there is always a risk of collision and that is exactly why a system was brought in to communicate between the ships and with the landways and in recent times it is being done with the help of GPS okay now take a look at this infographic so we have a space station or a satellite here and we have like two ships that are sailing and we have a shore station as well so information is transmitted from space station to the ship that is sailing and the shore station also receives and sends information to the space station as well as to the ship okay and this has been made mandatory for certain kind of ships by the international telecommunication union as well so what are the things that is being identified what is the ship that is sailing what is the speed what is the tonnage so all these will help someone to assess how far is another sailing ship in the proximity all right so this is what is called as automatic identification system and in India after the Mumbai attacks which was carried out by the terrorist who sailed from an elimination through the sea it was made mandatory to install automatic identification systems in all the boats and the fishermen what they do is because of the cost and everything they end up buying the Chinese version of the automatic identification system and this apparently is proving threatful for the national security and not only that the fishermen also suffer because they are not being told about this ship that is approaching they're not being told about the fellow boat that is being approaching so there are risks of collision as well so because of the cheap Chinese products that carry glitches these kind of adverse events are being happening so and that is exactly why the government has subsidized the automatic identification systems for them so generally apparently it costs about 1 lakh and now it costs about 26 grand after the subsidy that is 26,000 after subsidy so why am i telling you all these stories see i'm telling you all these stories for you to remember what automatic identification system is okay the all these stories may or may not be important but knowing what automatic identification system is very much important so look at the question automatic identification systems recently seen in news is relevant to which of the following and we have four options and our correct option is a maritime navigation all right so with that information keep in mind that you will have to absorb the lot of small things that you come across in your day-to-day life in the news so that it can be helpful for you to solve your preliminary questions and with that let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion now let us take up this news article for our discussion see the article reports about the union government's denial about a committee that was set up to oversee the medical oxygen supply during the pandemic in 2020 basically the government is denying that there even existed a committee to oversee the oxygen supply in the country so as per the news article the statement has come after an argument before the central information commission so in that context we are going to see some important freelance related facts about the central and the state information commission see i'll give you a heads up the upcoming discussion is going to be quite fact intensive just pay attention if you've already read the information commissions just listen to us so that it'll be a good recap of the knowledge that you already have all right so let's start with the central information commission see the central information commission was constituted in 2005 and this commission was set up under the right information act of 2005 and remember this is a high powered independent commission which looks into the complaints made specifically to it and generally it entertains complaints and appeals pertaining to offices financial institutions and public sector undertakings which function under the central government and the union territories so this is about central information commission so we are sticking to central government and union territories and on talking about its composition note that the commission consists of the chief information commissioner and not more than 10 information commissioners they are appointed by the president on recommendations of a committee see we'll see what does the commit consist of see this is a very confusing aspect because many other high offices also have a committee to appoint its members so just pay attention here so the recommendation committee consists of first the prime minister second the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha and then we have the union cabinet minister who was nominated by the prime minister and note that the committee is chaired by the none other than the prime minister now coming to the federal level it is very similar to the central information commission and this particular body was also appointed under right to information act of 2005 and similar to the central information commission the state information commission also deals with complaints and appeals of bodies but only the bodies that function under the concerned state government and they also consist of a state chief information commissioner and not more than 10 state commissioners and they are appointed by the governor on the recommendation of the committee and this committee consists of the chief minister as a chairperson along with leader of opposition in the legislative assembly and the state cabinet minister appointed by the chief minister so if you recollect the central information commissioner was appointed by the president whereas the state information commissioner is appointed by the governor and recommendation committee in central level consisted of the prime minister as the chair and we had leader of opposition of Lok Sabha and we had cabinet minister nominated by the prime minister at the central level but here we have the chief minister at the chair and we have the leader of opposition at the legislative assembly and the state cabinet minister nominated by the chief minister so with this we have come to the end of this particular discussion this is very important from the preliminary point of view we just brushed upon the central information commission and the state information commission so with these facts let's move on to the next part of our discussion today now look at this news article finally for today so this is about Sundarbans so apparently Sundarbans is also suffering from plastic pollution and ironically pollution is not due to the people living in and around it it is largely because of people from outside who generally visit these Sundarbans and this particular act of people is creating some environmental disaster over there it is polluting the environment and affecting the environment adversely over there so that is the essence of the news article but for an exam point of view this news article is very much relevant from the Sundarbans perspective that is the features of Sundarbans what are the adaptation features of Sundarbans where on all it is located but I'm not going to discuss this today because on May 30th Ketna mam had discussed the very same topic I'm not going to repeat the discussion again to save you some time so for someone looking for revision on Sundarbans I request you to refer to the May 30th article so with that let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion see now I would like to make a small clarification from my previous class see it was brought to our notice that in one of the questions that I discussed I had discussed Iraq instead of Iran so that was a mistake it was supposed to be Iran in the options if the second option is to be rightly matched so given that it is Iraq we can eliminate option two and in that case our right option will be option C one and three so let me rephrase it so in the given slide on 4th of August the first match is Rubal Kali with Saudi Arabia Dashti Kavir is with Iran it is not with Iraq so the second pair is not correctly matched and third one is Ramlattavak which is a tourist spot situated in Oman and so the right option is option C because we are eliminating option A, B and D because option two is wrongly matched and I thank you souls for bringing it to our notice please make the necessary corrections in your notes as well so with that let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion so here we are at the last segment of today's discussion practice preliminary questions so on the questions will be based on nano materials so this is a two statement question that is displayed before you so the first statement is this Richard Feynman is considered the father of nanotechnology see during the discussion itself I told you to remember this as a fun fact so Richard Feynman yes indeed is the father of nanotechnology and he introduced the ideas and concepts behind nanotech in a 1959 talk titled there is plenty of room at the bottom so Feynman when he did so did not use the term nanotechnology he just discussed the concept but described a process in which the scientists would be able to manipulate and control the individual atoms and molecules at that small levels so and that is exactly why he's called as the father of nanotechnology and then the second statement the second statement is this graphene is a nano material which is used to detect early stages of cancer see let me tell you graphene has wide ranging applications and in the exam if they ask you saying graphene is used for something it is more likely that the statement is right rather than it's wrong so that's a juga small juga that i'm telling you and yes in the discussion we saw that this statement is correct so the correct answer is option c both one and two so with that we are at the end of practice preliminary question session so here are some of the main's question inspired from our discussion today write the answers and post it in the comment section for peer review see writing few main's answers every day will give you a very significant edge in your main's preparation so if you like the video like share comment and subscribe stay home stay safe good day