 A very good evening aspirants as you know the UPSC announced the preliminary examination results day before yesterday And we are very happy to announce you that more than 927 candidates from Shankarai's Academy has cracked the examination In that 70 of them has cleared the examination in their first attempt. We congratulate all the candidates who have cleared the examination So with this happy announcement, let's move on to the newspaper analysis. Today's date is 24th of June 2022 So these are the list of news articles that we are going to discuss today. We have four different news articles Now without wasting much time, let us move on to the first news article discussion Now let's take up this news article for our discussion Look at these graphs these graphs shows the level of participation of women in rural local bodies in Tamil Nadu In Tamil Nadu more than 50 percentage of elected post or held by women So in this context, let us discuss some of the important points mentioned in the news article See now look at this graph these graphs shows the data of 118,978 elected representatives in rural local bodies out of these 67,756 or women representatives thus they account for about 57 percentage This is an encouraging sign because the women are politically empowered, right? But there are certain issues associated with it Let's understand the issues with the help of some case studies See in the article the author talks about the phone calls received by these representatives The author states that most of the calls to the official mobile numbers of select women village Panchayat presidents are answered by men These men were the husbands of the women village Panchayat presidents So these gives the impression that the women representatives continue to work as proxies for their male family members This is an issue that provides the country and plagues female elected local government representatives everywhere So here you must note this point the problem of interference by husbands or immediate family members Is not confined to Tamil Nadu but to entire India Also in other cases functioning of women representatives has been hampered not by her husband Or any other family member but by her party colleagues For example mlas or panchayat union chiefs have a feeling of apprehension that their future prospects in politics will be disturbed If women are allowed to work freely So what can be done to address these issues? See firstly awareness and education should encourage women towards politics and wipe out gender stereotypes Which perceive women as weak representatives Secondly women's leadership and communication skills need to be enhanced by increasing female literacy Especially in rural areas they should be empowered in order to break social cultural barriers and improve their status in the society Thirdly internal democracy in all political parties is needed. We require inclusive political institutions Fourthly India should pass a bill granting 33% reservation in parliament for women So that women leaders at higher levels will help their local counterparts Apart from this political mentoring and skill training will enhance their political knowledge See this is the need of the hover Apart from this there should be a provision to give honour and financial rewards to the women members for their exemplary works And finally the rotation term of reserved seats should be made after regular intervals It would help women representatives to fix their feed in the panchayats See despite the issues the author also talks about positive side of women local representatives in Tamil Nadu See we already saw that calls to the official mobile numbers of women village panchayat presidents or answered by their husbands But calls to women panchayat union chairpersons or district panchayat presidents are mostly answered by the women Functionaries themselves and in the last 10 to 15 years there have been strong positive changes in the representation of women in PRS The general trend is that these women are no longer controlled by their husbands Though the influence of their husbands are still there For example be subalakshmi chairperson of the latur panchayat union in chengalpatti district is a post graduate in english And belongs to the ruling dmk party. She asserted that her husband has never interfered in her functioning She added that her husband is also a local party functionary But there is a clear cut boundary between her work as a panchayat union leader and that of her husband In another case k naharani who heads the kinnath kadav panchayat union in koemthur district Points out that in 34 village panchayats under the jurisdiction of her panchayat union She has been able to get repaired and to 10 school buildings and have five fair price shops opened These are small yet very significant achievements So the author concludes that though women reps face certain challenges the trend or improving in tamaladu The government is also trying to improve the communication and and managerial skills of the representatives Also special attention needed to be paid to remove the bottlenecks being faced by women leaders So that's all you have to know about this news article discussion See women representatives continuing to work as a proxy for their male family members is not something new happening today So the suggested steps must be taken soon or earlier So that women can be truly represented in politics So these learned points now let us move on to the next news article discussion Now let us take up this text in context article for our next discussion See this article is about a new initiative of the government called the ONDC which stands for open network for digital commerce The article analyzes the features needs benefits and issues associated with this initiative So let us see all these one by one now Before that the syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference. Just go through it See ONDC that is open network for digital commerce is the first of its kind initiative to pave the way for reimagining digital commerce in India It was conceived in 2020 by the department for promotion of industry and internal trade under the ministry of commerce and industry It was commenced through the quality council of India that is QCI See basically ONDC will be a not-for-profit organization that will offer a network That is it aims at promoting open networks for all aspects of Extains of goods and services over digital or electronic networks. See it is developed on open source methodology Here open source means that the code or the steps of that process is made available freely for others to use Redistribute and modify we can take the example of apple's operating system. That is ios and android operating system That is os see apples ios is closed and this cannot be legally modified or reverse engineered Whereas android's os is open source and is possible by smartphone manufacturers to modify it for their hardware This is why any phone like samsung xiaomi etc can use android os but not ios And also ONDC will be using open specifications and open network protocols that is independent of any specific platform See these open protocols would be used for Establishing public digital infrastructure in the form of open registries and open network gateways They will enable exchange of information between providers and consumers That means providers and consumers would be able to use any Compatible application of their choice for exchange of information and carrying out transactions over ONDC So in short what ONDC does is it will establish an open and interoperable digital commerce network Such a network will allow all the buyers and sellers to be digitally visible and transact through the open network Regardless of what platform or application they use Therefore it will enable local commerce across segments These segments could be mobility, grocery, food order and delivery hotel bookings and travel See various local businesses will be discovered across these segments and will be engaged by any network enabled application You may think that this process of ONDC looks familiar Yes, of course it is like the unified payments interface that is UPI system for digital payments See UPI powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application and merges several banking features This enables seamless fund routing and merchant payments Now similarly ONDC will function but not for digital payment rather for digital commerce This is why many news articles call ONDC as UPI of e-commerce An important feature is ONDC will be compliant with the information technology act 2000 And in the later period will also be compliant with personal data protection when their regulation for the same will be created by the government Also remember presently ONDC is in its pilot stage It is currently running in five cities namely New Delhi, Bengaluru, Koyamathur, Bhopal and Shillong But later it will be launched in 100 cities over a period of six months So now what is the overall use of ONDC? Firstly, it is expected to digitize the entire value chain Secondly, it will standardize operations that is operations like cataloging inventory management order management and order fulfillment Thirdly, it will also promote inclusion of suppliers. Fourthly, efficiencies will be derived in logistics And finally, there will be enhanced value for consumers also Because consumers will be able to match demand with the nearest available supply But what actually necessitated such an initiative? It was the COVID-19 pandemic See after first wave ensuring essential supplies to reach across container zones was difficult, right? There was huge impact on small sellers and hyper local supply chain functioning due to lockdowns Pandemic showed a disconnection between the scale of online demand and the ability of the local retail ecosystem to participate Because only bigger players are able to take advantage of e-commerce and small players are still out of it Therefore, it was realized that an interoperable network was needed to solve this issue Also, India has a fast expanding digital economy and India is operating three largest public digital platforms in the world They are Aadhaar, which is the largest unique digital identity platform Then the UPI the largest digital payment ecosystem, then the Covin the largest vaccination platform So an e-commerce platform was an awaited one So now let us see some of the benefits associated with it First it will create new opportunities as local commerce will be a part of it Secondly, it is a step to move from platform centric model to an open network So far we have amazon flipkart. They are platform centric That is if you want to buy something then you have to visit the amazon or flipkart platform Same for selling also, but now in case of ONBC, no such thing is needed From now onwards, buyers registered on one particular e-commerce site may purchase good from a seller on another participating e-commerce site So this open network model provides us a major benefit of curbing digital monopolies by e-commerce behemoths such as amazon And ending their unfair trade practices because it extends support to micro small and medium enterprises and small traders So from now on these online traders will also be available on online platforms Therefore ONDC creates a level playing field for both online and offline traders that by democratizing digital commerce Hence a boost for small businesses In short, we can say ONDC is a network of several small and large-scale e-commerce players Plus it encourages easy adoption of digital means by those who are currently not on digital commerce networks So it increases freedom of choice for consumers and ONDC will also make Largest segment of buyers available to all the sellers on the network Also it is a government backed platform So due to the benefits it is expected that ONDC will bring on board 90 crore users and 12 lakh sellers on the network Thereby enabling 730 crore additional purchases It is also expected to bring in an additional gross mercantising value of 3.75 crore rupees So now to achieve this the issues around the ONDC have to be solved Like it should be a seamless network which is user friendly and capable of giving a better shopping environment Than e-commerce behemoths like amazon and flipkart It should also have a shift dispute resolution And the government should convince enough number of e-commerce platforms to sign up to ONDC So as to attract customers So if these issues are solved then ONDC will be a success like UPI So that's all you have to know about this news article So in this news article discussion we saw in detail about what is this ONDC ONDC is nothing but open network for digital commerce It is a first of its kind initiative to pay the way for reimagining digital commerce in India It was conceived in 2020 by the department for promotion of industry and internal trade under the ministry of commerce and industry And it was commissioned through the quality council of India So we saw some of the basic features of ONDC Then we saw some of the uses of this ONDC And finally we ended our discussion by seeing some of the benefits associated with this ONDC So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion See this article here It says that the silver anklet manufacturers have been demanding that a geographical indicator That is GI tag to be approved for the Salem silver anklets to prevent duplication by bigger jewelry manufacturers using mass manufacturing techniques The anklets which are produced in Salem are sold to some of the largest jewelry sellers in India through middlemen And the article also says that the recent announcement by the government to set up a production center for silver Anklets will lower the manufacturing cost by bringing together producers of different components that go into making a silver anklet So this is the cracks of the news article given here in this context Let us quickly understand about GI tag from prelims point of view First of all, let us see what GI is See a geographical indication or GI is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin And possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin In order to function as a GI a sign must identify a product as originating in a given place In addition, the qualities characteristics or reputation of the product should be essentially due to the place of origin Typically such a name conveys an assurance of quality and distinctiveness, which is essentially attributed to its origin So basically GI is or location specific Remember geographical indications are typically used for agricultural products foot steps wine and Sprit drinks handicrafts and industrial products So this basic info now let us see some of the significance of GI See a geographical indication right enables those who have the right to use the indication to prevent It's used by a third party whose products does not conform to the applicable standards For example, producers of Darjeeling tea can exclude use of the term Darjeeling for tea not grown in their tea gardens Are not produced according to the standards sit out in the code of practice for the geographical indication But however a protected geographical indication does not enable the holders to prevent someone from making a product using the same Technics as those set out in the standards for that indication Now for the legality of it see geographical indications or covered as an element of IPRs and an article 1 clause 2 and 10 of the Paris conference for the protection of industrial property They are also covered under trade related aspects of intellectual property rights That is trips agreement, which was part of the agreement concluding the Uruguay round of GATT negotiations See as you know India is a member of WTO that is World Trade Organization It enacted the geographical indication of goods registration and protection act 1999 to award GI tags Now that the act has come into force with effect from september 2003 So that's all you have to know about GI tag in this news article discussion We saw about what is this GI tag and some of the significance of it GI tag is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin We saw that and one of its most important significance is that it prevents the usage by a third party whose product does not Confirm to the applicable standards Geographical indications are typically used for agricultural products food steps wine and spread drinks Handicrafts and industrial products we saw that so these learned points now Let us move on to the next news article discussion Now take a look at this news article see it says that India's government will not be able to cut its budget deficit This fiscal year as previously projected But it will seek to cap the shortfall at last year's level to prevent a major deterioration in public finances And this is the essence of this news article In this context, let us see some of the important points that are mentioned in the news article about fiscal discipline First of all, what is this budget deficit? See a budget deficit occurs when a government spends more in a given year than it collects in revenues Like taxes bills, etc So as a simple example if a government takes in 10 billion as revenue in a particular year and it's expenditure for the same year or 12 billion Then it is running a deficit of 2 billion And this is when the government will borrow to bridge the deficit and this is called as fiscal deficit See as per the article efforts to maintain fiscal discipline reflects concern around risks to its sovereign credit rating This is because the credit rating of a government will become low if it borrows more And at the same time if the government maintain fiscal discipline Then it limits the government's power to check inflation and provide relief to households and businesses Hope you can understand the situation here See in february the government set a fiscal deficit target of 6.4 percentage of gdp for the year 2023 Here know that the fiscal deficit for the fiscal year 2021 is 6.7 percentage But the increased spending to provide relief from inflation will make the government miss this year's target of 6.4 percentage So if you're wondering why this is happening See this is because the surging cost forced India to cut fuel taxes and change duty structures And this affected the revenue by about 19.16 billion dollars And adding to this the fertilizer subsidies lifted the expenditure See the government and central bank have made efforts to contain prices through fiscal measures and monetary tightening after inflation jumped to multi-year high Now as we already saw Government is aware of the risk that fiscal slipper age poses risk to its sovereign credit ratings The depth to gdp ratio is standing at 95 percentage which is significantly higher than the 60 to 70 percentage levels for other similarly rated economies And as per the article the situation leaves the government with little room to provide additional relief As the measures that are already taken or expected to increase the deficit by more than 30 basis points If revenue collection does not exceed the budget target But if more steps are taken it will require additional market borrowing and that will increase the yields and eventually cause higher inflation So these are all some of the important points that you have to make note of See topics like these are very important because these articles reflects the government's decisions on particular issue So in this news article discussion we saw about budget deficit And we saw why the government is missing this year's target of reaching 6.4 percentage of gdp So these learned points now let us move on to the next part of the news article discussion, which is the preliminary practice questions See today we have three practice questions in that i'll solve two questions and the last question is the quiz question for you Now look at this first question this question is about open network for digital commerce You have to choose which one of the following is or are the benefits of ondc statement one interoperable digital commerce network Statement two platform centric model statement three curbing digital monopolies statement four democratized digital commerce Select the correct answer from the codes given below option a one two and three only option b two and four only Option c one three and four only and option d one two three and four See all the statements except statement two is correct here because in the discussion itself We saw that ondc is not platform centric rather it is an open network model So here statement two will not be in the answer if you can eliminate statement two you can easily arrive at the answer Which is option c one three and four only now moving on to second question See this question is about gi tag consider the following statements regarding geographic indication Statement one geographic indications can be provided only to agricultural and food products Statement two gi tag is awarded by the secretary of the ministry of commerce and industry Which of the above statements is or are incorrect? So you have to choose the incorrect statement Option a one only option b two and the option c both one and two and option d neither one nor two See the correct answer for the question is option c both one and two Both the statements given here or incorrect Statement one is wrong because gi is primarily an agricultural natural or a manufactured product originating from a definite geographical territory So the tag can be given to handicrafts and industry products also which makes statement one is incorrect Now moving on to statement two statement two is also incorrect here because gi tag is awarded by the geographical indications registry which is under the department of promotion of industry and internal trade that comes under ministry of commerce and industry And it is as per the geographical indication of goods registration and protection act 1999 gi tag is valid for 10 years and it can be renewed afterwards for another 10 years Know that first product that was awarded gi tag in India was Dazzling tea Tamil Nadu and Kannada has the highest number of gi tags in India just for your information So the correct answer for this question is option c both one and two because both the statements are incorrect here Now moving on to the quiz question See this question is about deficit. We saw about deficit in our discussion, right? So find the correct answer and post the correct answer in the comment section I'll tell whether your answer is right or not. So displayed here is the main's question for today's discussion Just go through the question write an answer and post it in the comment section With this we came to the end of the news article discussion If you like the video hit like do comment and don't forget to subscribe to Shankara's academy youtube channel. Thank you