 Very good evening to all our friends and welcome to the Hindu News Analysis of Shankar IAS Academy for the date 13th December 2020. We are happy to inform you that the second test batch of Pre-Storming 2021 program of Shankar IAS Academy has started from 11th December 2020. It is the prelims test series for the upcoming UPSC preliminary examination, that is, prelims 2021. Our pre-storming program is India's first full-fledged artificial intelligence-supported preliminary test series. All the required details are provided in the description of this video and also in the comment section. With this, let us start our news analysis for today. The relevant news articles taken up for today's discussion from five different editions of the Hindu newspaper along with their page numbers are displayed here. Also, the handwritten notes in the PDF format and timestampings for all the news articles taken up for today's discussion is given in the description box and also in the comment section for the best interest of the viewers. Let us now start with our first news article. Now, this news article talks about the fifth edition of the National Family Health Survey, which was recently released by the Union Health Ministry. So, let us discuss some of the important findings of this survey. The relevant syllabus is highlighted here for your reference. See, the National Family Health Surveys are conducted under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. NFHS-5 covers 22 states and union territories in Phase 1. The Phase 2, which covers the remaining 12 states and two union territories, had their fieldwork suspended due to COVID-19 pandemic. And this was resumed in November and it is expected to be completed by May 2021. See, over the years, the National Family Health Survey has expanded its scope and coverage in order to fill the gap in the data requirements of the government, entities outside the government and researchers in the field of population and health. Like in the previous round, NFHS-5 has adopted a modular approach to elevate the estimates of crucial indicators at the state and union territory levels. And also a subset of these indicators at the district levels. The contents of NFHS-5 are similar to NFHS-4, so that it allows comparison over the time. However, the NFHS-5 includes new topics such as pre-school education, disability, access to a toilet facility, death registration, bathing practices during menstruation, and methods and reasons for abortion. Now, over the years, the National Family Health Survey data has played a crucial role in providing reliable inputs to monitor the progress of various flagship programs as well as the vision of the National Health Policy. The NFHS-5, with a reference period of 2019-20, would also provide wider information on reproductive and child health, fertility and family planning, health insurance, nutrition, data on HIV or AIDS, then non-communicable diseases, and many other related issues. Another significant contribution of NFHS-5 is to provide the recent estimates of over 30 sustainable development goal health indicators for tracking the progress made, and it would also help the central and the state governments in planning towards achieving the sustainable development goals by the year 2030. Now, let us discuss the news article. As per the NFHS data, there is considerable improvement in the supply of vaccine for childhood immunization, and this is compared to the fourth round which was held in 2015-16. For example, in Andhra Pradesh, the percentage of fully vaccinated children in 12-23 months of age jumped to 73 percentage from 65 percentage. The survey also measured treatment of childhood diseases for children under the age of 5 years. An important indicator for this was the prevalence of diarrhea in the two weeks preceding the survey. As per the survey, in Andhra Pradesh, this figure jumped to 7.2 percentage from 6.6 percentage in 2015-16. And under the survey, an important indicator for measuring delivery care for births in the five years before the survey is the percentage of institutional births. See, in West Bengal, institutional births of children increased from 75 percentage to 91 percentage. Now, when coming to anemia among children and adults, in Gujarat, the proportion of anemic children sharply increased from 62.6 percentage to 79.7 percentage. But it is to be noted that this data varies widely across the states. Now, according to the union health minister, the NFHS fire recorded substantial improvement in maternal and child health indicators over the NFHS4. For example, the fertility rate has further declined and contraceptive use has increased and unmet need has been reduced in most phase 1 states. Also, the survey found considerable improvement in the vaccination coverage among children aged 12-23 months across all states and union territories. Then women's improvement indicators such as women with bank account, women participating in household decision making process, then women owning a house or having a mobile phone have all shown considerable progress. So this is about NFHS5. With this, let us move on to another article and it is based on a survey called hunger watch which was conducted by right to food campaign. See, it is an informal network of organizations and individuals which is committed to the realization of right to food in India. The article says that after the lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic, people continue to go to bed hungry, they skip meals frequently and are unable to afford nutritious diets due to loss of income. The worrying fact is that nearly 66% of the surveyed people, they were having less than the quantity they used to eat before the onset of the pandemic. Not just that, there was also discrimination on the lines of caste and religion while accessing food during the lockdown. The article says that Dalits, scheduled tribes and also Muslims reported that they faced discrimination. Also sex workers, domestic workers as well as single women faced additional difficulties. Now this is because of the economic precariousness which was caused by the pandemic. Also many of these vulnerable groups lack access to the public distribution system or any other document and this made them entirely dependent on charity from civil society organizations for the food requirements. All these indicate the need for extending the help under the schemes like the Pradhanamantri Garib Kalyan Annyojina. See, the Garib Kalyan Annyojina is a part of Atman Irbhar Bharat to supply free food grains to migrants and poor. So this is all about the two news articles. One was about the findings of the fifth edition of national family health survey and the other was one of the findings made by a survey called hunger watch which was conducted by right to food campaign. With this, let us move on to the next news article. Now this news article talks about the threats posed by the exotic species to the endemic species of western ghats. In this context, let us see in detail about western ghats, its biodiversity, the threats to it and finally the news article. The relevant syllabus is displayed here. Please go through it. See the western ghats are internationally recognized as a region of immense global importance for the conservation of biological diversity. Now let us see why it is so. See, western ghats are older than the Himalayan mountains. It is a chain of mountains which run parallel to India's western coast. It marks the western edges of the Deccan Platyre whereas the eastern ghats mark the eastern edges of the Deccan Platyre. As you can see in this map, the ghats traverse six states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat. The mountains of western ghats cover an area of around 1,40,000 square kilometer in a 1,600 kilometer long stretch. And this stretch is interrupted by the 30 kilometer Palgaard gap that is the Palgaard gap. The highest point in the western ghats is the Anemodi peak which is at 2,695 meters and is located on the Anamalai hills. The Dodabeta on the Nilagri hills which is about 2,600 meters is also one of the highest peaks. Here note that the height of the western ghats progressively increases from north to south. Also western ghats are higher in elevation and more continuous than eastern ghats. See western ghats average elevation is 900 to 1,600 meters but the average elevation of eastern ghats is just 600 meters. Note that the eastern and western ghats meet each other, the Nilagri hills. Now know that locally the western ghats are known by different names such as the Sahyadri in Maharashtra, Nilgiri hills in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and Anamalai hills or Cardamom hills in Kerala. They are also important from climate perspective as the mountains of the western ghats mediate the rainfall regime of Peninsular India and this is done by intercepting the Mansoon storm systems. That is the western ghats cause orographic rain by facing the rain bearing moist winds to rise along the western slopes of the ghats. Thus the areas to the west of the highest elevation of western ghats receive the greatest annual rainfall. They receive 3,000 millimeters of rainfall on an average. Also note that the annual rainfall levels decrease considerably along the eastern slopes of the western ghats and the rainfall decreases from south to north especially north of the Palakkad Gap. Most of the rivers in the Peninsular India originate in the western ghats and flow towards the Bay of Bengal. For example the Godavari the largest peninsula river rises from the slopes of the western ghats in the Nasik district of Maharashtra. A significant feature of western ghats is the exceptionally high level of biodiversity and endemism. If we discuss about the habitats the western ghats include a diversity of ecosystems ranging from the tropical wet evergreen forests to montane grasslands which contains numerous medicinal plants and important genetic resources such as the wild relatives of grains fruit and spices. Also the forests of the western ghats include some of the best representatives of non equatorial tropical evergreen forests. They also include the unique shawla ecosystem which consists of montane grasslands intermixed with evergreen forest patches. Now coming to biodiversity a number of flagship mammal species occur in the western ghats including the parts of the single largest population of globally threatened landscape species such as the Asian elephant, gaur and tiger etc. Endangered species such as the lion tailed macaque, nilgiri tar and nilgiri langur are also unique to these areas. According to the UNESCO western ghats are home to at least 325 globally threatened flora, fauna, bird, amphibian, reptail and fish species. Now this table is a representation of the endemic species in western ghats. Please go through it. So because of its ecological importance western ghats enjoy a high level of formal protection by the government. That is the western ghats have the highest protected area coverage on the Indian mainland of about 15 percentage. So they are in the form of 20 national parks and 68 wildlife centuries. It also includes the biosphere reserves like the nilgiri biosphere reserve and agastiamala biosphere reserve. Thus because of its biodiversity and its ecological importance this mountain chain is recognized as one of the world's eight hottest hot spots of biological diversity and it is along with Sri Lanka. Also the western ghats has been declared as a natural world heritage site and it was given this status in 2012. There are seven sub clusters in the western ghats which are included in the world heritage. They are the agastiamala, teriyar, anemala and the nilgiri in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Then talakavari and kudremukha in karnataka and sahiyadri in maharashtra. Under these sub clusters these are the 39 protected areas. You need not remember all the protected areas but you can take a look at it. So beyond all these ecological and biodiversity importance western ghats also has many threats. The first one is the tremendous population pressure. See this also leads to unsustainable extraction of pure food and also non-timber forest producers which is another threat. Second one is urbanization together with agricultural expansion, livestock grazing and infrastructure development. See infrastructure development includes wind power and hydropower. So all these are posing serious threats to the species and habitats of the western ghats. Loss of forest, forest fragmentation for roads etc are also threatening the migrating species including the asian elephant. Also it is to be noted that coffee being one of the important tropical crops in the terms of global trade is grown in several areas in western ghats and these areas include kurk and chikamaglur in karnataka state. The expansion of coffee plantations has been a major threat to the forest biodiversity in the region. Another important threat is the abundance and proliferation of invasive and inedible plants. See invasive alien species are considered as the second major threat to the native flora. Such invasive plants are both native and exotic to the region and they are the reason for the reduction of the habitat quality for wild ungulates and they also force the species such as elephants to search for foods in agricultural fields. The dominant invasive alien species in western ghats are Lantana camera, Cromalena odorata, Agaratum coinesoids and Senatora etc. Further today's news article talks about this threat only. Here the researchers have found that the tropical montane grasslands of western ghats have suffered big reductions and this is due to the invasion by exotic trees such as acacia, pines and eucalyptus. It is reported that 23% of the montane grasslands have been converted into invasive exotic tree cover and it happened over a period of 44 years. Thus it has become a novel threat to the grasslands of western ghats and this is because it is shrinking the ranging sizes of endemic species to the extent that some species are being driven to local extinction. This means due to this many species are on the verge of extinction. So as a remedy to this the researchers have focused on identifying the grassland restoration sites using satellite images. They have recommended careful removal of young and isolated exotic trees at the invasion front and they also recommended the restoring of grasslands. Additionally tourism is increasing the disturbance to sensitive areas in the region. Now this is because tourism has been promoted beyond the carrying capacity of the settlements and this has led to scarcity of water increased sewage and solid waste and also forest degradation. So this is all about western ghats, its biodiversity and the threats to it. Now in this regard we have another news article which is also related to environment. The news talks about the Kerala government's plan to augment its wildlife rehabilitation capabilities by establishing a dedicated facility to treat and nurture, injured and orphaned big cats and other large carnivores that are rescued from the wild. In this regard we will see the types of biodiversity conservation. See primarily there are two types of conservation. One is insider conservation and the other one is exciter conservation. See insider conservation is the on-site conservation that means the plant and animal species are conserved on the naturally occurring areas. And insider conservation includes sanctuary, national parks, conservation reserves and community reserves. See sanctuary is an area which is of etiquette, ecological, faunal, floral or geomorphological, natural or zoological significance. The wildlife sanctuary is declared for the purpose of protecting, propagating or developing the wildlife and its environment. And it is to be noted that certain rights of the people living inside the sanctuary are permitted. Now talking about national park it is also declared for the same purpose but the difference between a sanctuary and a national park mainly lies in the vesting of rights of people living inside. Unlike a sanctuary where certain rights can be allowed in national park no rights are allowed. For example no grazing of livestock should be permitted inside a national park while in a sanctuary the chief wildlife warden may regulate control or prohibit grazing. In addition to it while any removal or exploitation of wildlife or forest produce from a sanctuary requires the recommendation of the state board for wildlife the same from the national park requires the recommendation of the national board for wildlife. So this is about national parks and sanctuaries. Now we have conservation reserves. See it can be declared by the state governments in any area owned by the government particularly the areas adjacent to the national parks or sanctuaries and those areas which link one protected area with another. And it is to be noted that such declaration should be made after having consultations with the local communities and the rights of the people living inside the conservation area are not affected. Now talking about community reserves they can be declared by the state government in any private or community land but it should not comprise within a national park sanctuary or a conservation reserve. See it can be declared when an individual or a community has volunteered to conserve wildlife and its habitat and as in the case of conservation reserves the rights of the people living inside a community reserve are not affected. So these are some of the examples of insight to conservation. Now in case of excite to conservation the threatened animals or plants are taken out of their natural habitat and they are placed in a special setting where they can be protected or given special care. See the examples for excite to conservation include zoological parks botanical gardens wildlife safari parks and seed banks. So these are two types of conservations. Now with this let us move on to the next news article. Now we have this news article which tells that the Pune based Serum Institute of India and Hyderabad based Bharat biotech have been advised by India's drug regulator that is the Drugs Controller General of India or DCGI to furnish more evidence that their vaccine candidates were safe and capable of preventing COVID-19 pandemic. Here more evidence were sought because the Serum Institute of India's vaccine that is Kovishield is a version of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine candidate whose early results from its phase three trials are being scrutinized by the United Kingdom's drugs regulators. It is to be noted that neither company has finished testing its vaccines and had instead approached the DCGI seeking emergency use provisions. So in this article we will see three things. The first one is what is emergency use authorization and the second one who is the drug regulator in India and how they work and the third what system is used in India for emergency use authorization of vaccines. First let us see what is emergency use authorization. See generally for a drug or vaccine to be used on a population it undergoes a rigorous preclinical and clinical trials and the clinical trials consist of three phases that is phase one, two and three. See first the medicines are given to laboratory animals and the efficacy of the vaccine is tested and this process is known as preclinical trial and when the drug is approved after the preclinical trials then the clinical trials are conducted by testing the vaccine on humans and only after a drug passes all the three phases of clinical trials successfully it is administered to the general population but this is a very lengthy process and it takes a lot of time usually in years but in times of emergency or a pandemic such as the one right now several of these steps are bypassed. Now what are the situations when these steps can be bypassed? See when a larger number of people are suffering from an illness and there is no drug available immediately or no enough volunteers are available to conduct the clinical trials and another possible situation is when a drug or vaccine has been properly tested in one country and not to save lives and it will be useful in another country which has neither the resources nor the expertise to subject it to a similar evaluation. So it is under such circumstances that the health regulators allow accelerated approvals of drugs under the emergency use authorization. See the term emergency use authorization and its process is used by the United States Food and Drugs Administration. So this is all about trials and emergency use authorization. Now let us see about the drug regulator in India. See the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization or CDSCO is the drug regulator in India. It works under the Directorate General of Health Services which is intern under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and it derives its power from the Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940. Now know that it is responsible for approval of drugs conducting the clinical trials and also laying down the standards for drugs and know that the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization is headed by the Drugs Controller General of India. So this is about CDSCO and DCGI. Now let us see if there is any process for emergency use authorization of drugs in India. See as the article tells India does not have an explicit EUA provision. However the new Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules of 2019 mentions an accelerated approval process. Now what does it mean? See depending on the severity of the disease, urgency, rarity or lack of alternative treatments etc the drug regulator has the right to waive local clinical trials if a drug has been approved elsewhere. For example local clinical trial may be waived for approval of a new drug if it is approved and marketed in any of the countries like the European Union, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and US. Now since we have seen that the clinical trial especially the phase 3 takes a longer time, so if the results from phase 1 and 2 are satisfactory then phase 3 can be bypassed. So these are the provisions which we have for accelerated approval process. But keeping in mind of the health of the population a fail-proof process needs to be established and at the same time we need to quicken the process of finding a suitable vaccine and do away with the needless processes of trials. So this is all about this article with this we'll move on to the next news. Now have a look at this question. It is based on this news article which says that Bhutan and Israel had established formal ties. It was marked with a formal ceremony in New Delhi where the ambassadors of both the countries to India exchanged the agreements. The article says that the two sides will coordinate through their missions in Delhi. So in this context let us discuss in brief about Bhutan, its political history, geography etc. See Bhutan is a country of southern Asia located between China and India with its capital at Thimphu. Now coming to its political history Bhutan signed the Treaty of Sinchulu with Britain and it was signed after the Britain's victory in the 1865 Dhuvar war and under the treaty Bhutan would receive an annual subsidy in exchange of seeding land to the British India. In 1907 Ugyen Wangchuk who had served as the de facto ruler was named as the king of Bhutan. In 1910 a treaty was signed whereby the British agreed not to interfere in the internal affairs of Bhutan and in return Bhutan allowed Britain to direct its foreign affairs. Bhutan negotiated a similar agreement with independent India in 1949. The Indo-Bhutanese Treaty of Friendship returned to Bhutan small piece of territory which was annexed by the British and it also formalized the annual subsidies that the country received and defined India's responsibilities in defence and also in foreign relations. And under a succession of modernizing monarchs which began in 1950s Bhutan joined the UN in 1971 and slowly it continued its engagement beyond its borders. In 2007 India and Bhutan renegotiated the treaty eliminating the clause that stated that Bhutan would be guided by India in conducting its foreign policy. And in 2008 Bhutan held its first parliamentary election in accordance with the constitution. Now coming to Bhutan's political system, see it is a constitutional monarchy. Know that the chief of the state is the king and the head of the government is the prime minister. Bhutanese cabinet consists of the council of ministers or the members nominated by the monarch in consultation with the prime minister and approved by the national assembly. These members serve a five-year term and know that the monarchy is hereditary but can be removed by a two-third vote of the parliament. And after every election, the leader of the majority party in parliament will be nominated as the prime minister. And here she will be appointed by the monarch. See an important issue which is faced by Bhutan is the lack of any treaty describing the boundary between Bhutan and China. So territorial disputes arising from substantial cartographic discrepancies are often seen in news. We all remember the 2017 Doklam standoff between India and China which is located at the tri-junction between India, China and Bhutan. And recently there were reports that the Chinese have constructed a village in Bhutanese territory in Doklam. So this is all about Bhutan. Now see this question, consider the following states West Bengal, Assam, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh which of the Ebo states share border with Bhutan. See the correct answer is option D. All the four given states that is Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Sikkim shares border with Bhutan. With this let us move on to the next news. Now have a look at this question. It is based on this news article which talks about the achievements of India regarding the targets agreed under the Paris Agreement of 2015. Yesterday also we had a brief discussion about it. Remember yesterday the climate ambition summit happened on the 5th anniversary of the Paris Agreement and this summit marked a major milestone on the roads to the crucial UN climate conference that is COP26 which will happen in Glasgow next November. Leaders from all continents outlined new commitments at this summit but India did not announce any new commitments. In this summit the Indian Prime Minister has listed the India's achievements as per the agreed targets under the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs. First let us see what are these INDCs which are committed for the period 2021 to 2030 by India. See it includes to put forward and further propagate a healthy and sustainable way of living based on traditions and values of conservation and moderation. Then secondly India committed to adopt a climate friendly and cleaner path than the one followed earlier by others at a corresponding level of economic development. Now third India committed to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33% to 35% by the year 2030 from 2005 levels. Now fourthly to achieve about 40% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non fossil fuel based energy resources by 2030. So this is to be achieved with the help of transfer of technology and low-cost international finance including the finance from Green Climate Fund. Now fifth India committed to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tons of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by the year 2030. And finally India committed to better adapt to climate change by enhancing investments in development programs in those sectors that are vulnerable to climate change particularly in agriculture, water resources, Himalayan region, coastal regions, health and disaster management etc. So in this regarding the third commitment India has reduced its emission intensity by 21%. Then regarding the fourth commitment that is the commitment related to renewable energy India's installed solar capacity had grown to 36 gigawatt in 2020. And according to our Prime Minister India's renewable energy capacity was the fourth largest in the world. Here note that India has set a target of increasing the renewable energy capacity from 35 gigawatt to 175 gigawatt by 2022. Now since India's installed solar capacity had grown it is expected that India would reach the 175 gigawatt target before 2022. And thus India is on track to fulfilling its climate commitments. So this is all about this news article. Now see this question. Consider the following statements the government of India has set a target of installing 175 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity by 2022 which includes 100 gigawatt of solar, 60 gigawatt of wind, 10 gigawatt from biomass and 5 gigawatt from small hydropower. See this statement is correct. India has set this target and further has the ambition to achieve 450 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity. Now the second statement reads under the Paris Agreement India aims to achieve about 40 percentage cumulative electric power installed capacity from fossil based energy resources by 2030. See this statement is incorrect. The target is for non-fossil fuel based energy resources. So here the question asks for identifying the incorrect statement or statements. We know that statement one is correct and the statement two is incorrect. So the correct answer is option B two only. With this we have discussed all the relevant news articles from today's The Hindu newspaper. Now let us move on to the practice questions discussion section based on today's news analysis. Now see this first question. The National Family Health Survey provides information on which of the following sectors here four sectors are given family planning, reproductive and child health, nutrition and non-communicable diseases. See the correct answer for this question is option D one two three and four. Remember we have seen that the fifth edition of National Family Health Survey which was with a reference period of 2019-20 provides vital information on reproductive and child health, fertility and family planning, health insurance, nutrition, HIV or AIDS, then non-communicable diseases and many other related issues. So the correct answer is option D for this question. Now we have a main practice question. Please write your answers and post it in the comment section. Our feedback will be given in a reasonable time frame. Now we have come to the end of analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion and also the discussion of practice questions. If you like this video, please press the like button, comment, share and do subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel for more videos and updates related to civil service preparation. Thank you.