 A very good evening aspirants welcome to the hindi news analysis by Shankara's academy for the date 6 november 2020 the list of news articles along with the page numbers of different editions of hindi newspaper is given here for your reference let's move on to the first article discussion our first discussion is based on this news article which is with reference to a supreme court judgment in the connection with a provision in the schedule cast and the schedule tribes prevention of atrocities act of 1989 that is in short the prevention of atrocities act so we will discuss the related aspects in this analysis the relevant syllabus is highlighted here for your reference so what was the case actually see the primary subject matter in the case is an allegation of intentionally insulting or intimidating with the intention to humiliate a member of schedule cast or a schedule tribe in a place that is within the public view so the case pertains to the section 3 subsection 1 are of prevention of atrocities act because it deals with the intentional insults or intimidations with the intention to humiliate a member of schedule cast or schedule tribe in any place within a public view now simply if we see the background after this allegation the police filed FIR on the matter and charge sheet or final report was also submitted to the trial court after the investigation now the trial court passed an order taking cognizance of the charge sheet in connection with the above provision that is section 3 subsection 1 are of POA act but the accused challenged the charge sheet the order and a summon under section 482 of code of criminal procedure before the high court this is the section 482 of CRPC but the challenge of the accused went unsuccessful at the high court and hence the accused appealed to the supreme court and this is where now the supreme court has given its verdict yesterday now here the point to be noted is that while filing the FIR under section 3 subsection 1 are of POA act the police has noted that the reported insult has taken place within four walls of the building of the victim this is because the victim has alleged that the accused has passed cast colored insulting abusive words against her in her building so for passing the verdict the supreme court has mainly focused on two elements of this provision the first element is whether the remarks were made intentionally to insult or to intimidate with intent to humiliate the member of a schedule cast or schedule tribe then the second element which was seen was whether such incident took place in any place within public view or not now here just to know that the insult was in connection with the property dispute between the accused and the victim so here the supreme court has said that the appellant that is the accused person is not claiming land of the victim because she is a member of schedule cast or schedule tribe and also everyone is entitled to approach courts to avail their remedies in accordance with the law thus in this regard the court has concluded that since the abusive remarks were not passed for the reason that the victim is a member of schedule cast so the first element that was taken to decide the verdict is negated or nullified or it is invalid now regarding the second element the court has said that the reported incident did not take place in any place within public view it is because as we already said the incident has happened within the four walls of the building so here the supreme court has quoted it's another verdict where it drew a distinction between the expression public space and the expression in any place within public view in that verdict it was held that if an offense is committed outside the building like in a lawn outside a house and if the lawn can be seen by someone from the road or lane outside the boundary wall then the lawn would certainly be a place within the public view additionally even if the remark is made inside a building but some members of the public are there then also it would be an offense since it is in the public view that means a place can be a private place but yet it could be within the public view now on the contrary the court has observed that if the remark is made inside a building but only relatives or friends of the victim are there then it would not be an offense since it is not in the public view that is relatives and friends of a victim cannot be considered as public under the section 3 subsection 1 r of poa act and this is the definition of the public place as given by supreme court under the another case law we have given it here for your reference and then in the end the supreme court has concluded that the charges against the appellant under this section are not made out consequently the charge sheet to that extent is quashed however supreme court is allowed to proceed with the complaint of the victim under relevant provisions of Indian penal court such as a section 504 and 506 but not under the poa act so based on this judgment the experts are calling for a review petition from the appropriate government in this regard now this is because as we can observe that with regard to the second element the court has focused only on the words given in the law and not on the alleged actions of the accused here the court could have simply struck down the expression within the public view but it did not do so and this is like if an offense under this section happens within four walls and if there is no one to witness then such interpretations and insults are not to be considered as offenses under the concerned section so this is what is being interpreted by the experts also and that is why they are asking for intervention by the appropriate government now here we also suggest another option that is the union government can introduce an amendment bill to modify the expression in the section 3 subsection 1 or and the subsection 1 is here the expression of in any place within the public view can be modified to just in any place so that even if the intimidations and insults happen within four walls they will be considered as offenses under the poa act so these are some of the points that you should take from this verdict of supreme court now let's move on to the next discussion this discussion is based on these two articles which are with reference to the online gaming that has gained more attention these days if you notice even the title sponsor of this year's IPL is an online gaming site only which is dream 11 so there are a lot of concerns regarding the online gaming especially in online gambling which is a part of online gaming there are many concerns because many people are either losing money or they are being cheated in the online platforms so today let's have a discussion on all these issues the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference first what is online gaming when games are played over the internet where in the game progresses with the inputs from other players or from online server then it is called online gaming and the examples could be pubg then online ludo etc now next question arises then what is online gambling as the name suggests when gambling is done over internet it is called online gambling for example there are many websites where one can play rummy online with real players in different locations there are even cricket betting sites where the players in the sites can bet their money for a certain outcome for example assume that a player is betting that Mumbai Indians will win IPL trophy so if really the team Mumbai Indians wins then the player will get more money this is online gambling there are a lot of concerns in this because online gambling is unregulated and moreover the gambling is done online so it can be done anytime and anywhere that is it can be done at home at work or anywhere and the only thing that is required is internet so especially during this COVID-19 pandemic many fake sites have emerged which are cheating the players and this has resulted in multiple suicide especially across the Tamil Nadu state and that is why now the Tamil Nadu chief minister has announced that the state government will take steps to ban the online gambling now a crucial question arises which is do we have any existing regulatory mechanisms and the answer to this question is both yes and also no now before discussing the existing regulatory mechanisms you should know that gambling is a state subject and thus gambling in India have laws which differ from state to state this would mean that what is permitted in one state may be an offense in another state actually we have a central act which is the public gambling act of 1867 and this act has been adopted by certain states like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh etc then there are also states which have enacted their own legislation to regulate gaming or gambling within its territory and here you should note that most of the state legislations have been enacted prior to the arrival of these virtual or online gambling in India and the examples for this could be Sikkim and Nagaland which have introduced regulations pertaining to the online gaming so as a whole you have to just note that betting or gambling is illegal in most of India but there is no law that makes online betting an illegal activity so this loophole is used by offshore betting companies and they lure Indians to bet on pretty much everything now we said that gambling is illegal in most of India and this is as per the public gambling act of 1867 according to all kinds of gambling in India are illegal and as we saw the problem is we do not have any legislation for online betting or gambling but if you take USA there is an American Internet Gambling Prohibition Act which bars online gambling apart from the lack of legislation there is also one another difficulty with the online gaming or gambling because the offenders are internet gambling offenders and if they are using websites which are hosted by servers located in countries where betting is legal then it becomes difficult to catch these internet gambling offenders now before moving further in the discussion you should know about another problem which is the game of skill versus the game of chance a game of skill is the one in which the element of chance predominates over the element of skill and in a game of skill the element of skill predominates over the element of chance so that means it is the dominant element of either skill or chance which determines the character of the game or in simple words we can say that in game of skill the game's result is dependent on the skill of a player and it is not based on the luck or other uncontrollable factors here you should note that most of the state laws have exempted the games of skill from the applicability of its respective gaming or gambling laws and here the important issue is with the arrival of new methods of betting and gambling because it has become even more difficult to differentiate between a game of skill or game of chance so on a whole we can say that with respect to the regulatory mechanisms the regulation of online gaming is still a gray area in India so this leads to another question which is does the online gaming needs regulation or it should be banned completely in this regard few experts have the opinion that rather than banning the online gaming completely it should be regulated because it has certain benefits so what are these benefits first one is the revenue argument since the online gaming is happening largely underground currently it is a huge source of black money so if it is legalized and taxed in a reasonable manner then it can be a huge source of revenue for the government then the second argument put forward is with regard to the sports betting where there are a lot of allegations of match fixing so here we can take the examples of united kingdom and many european countries which have regulated and licensed betting regimes uk and many european countries have strong mechanisms to monitor each of the betting sites and they also mechanisms to track and investigate the suspicious patterns if there is a sudden spike in betting for certain events then apart from this one of the main benefits is the employment so in this regard author provides certain suggestions for the legal framework the first suggestion is expanding the already existing legislations in these states for example we have regulations in goa and sikkim where there is a licensing regime to allow certain types of casino games then if you take naga land it has a separate legislation which prescribes what are the games of skill so we could expand these kinds of legislations or we can also come up with the gambling act like that of united kingdom uk has a gambling act of 2005 and this act divides games into four or five categories like casual gaming mid-level gaming serious gaming high-stake gaming etc and then based on these categorization they have licensing regime and this applies across all games whether they are games of skill or games of chance a few moments before we saw that the games of skill are exempted from the purview of the state laws on gaming or gambling so who regulates it in case of India the games of skill are largely self-regulated there are bodies such as the online rummy federation that is torf which have developed the self-regulation codes for advertisements they have developed codes for the way of playing taxation etc here just note that torf is a not-for-profit society that is established under the societies registration act and it has been established to guide and support the online rummy industry in providing sustainable and healthy entertainment to players across India so based on this there are arguments that a basic level of licensing regime is enough but the operational regulation should always be with the industry well there are also other arguments that self-regulation is not satisfactory because there won't be any penal measures for any violation or for not following the set standards so that means we have both sides of arguments that is there are arguments also for and also against the government regulations but on a whole both sides support for licensing regime and they support to have a record of all the gambling events and to record all the monetary transactions so the conclusion is now it is up to the government to decide and enact a legislation to ban or regulate or license this gray area in the Indian law structure and as we saw in the beginning gambling is a state subject so states also need to make their own laws in this aspect so these are some of the points that you should know with respect to online gaming and online gambling let's move on to the next discussion this discussion is based on this oped article which talks about the important role played by the central armed police forces during the COVID-19 pandemic the oped article has been authored by a former inspector general of police of CRPF so let us see the important role which was played and which is continuously being played by the CAPFs in the combat against COVID-19 pandemic the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference first know that the central armed police forces is a group of seven forces which are under the control of ministry of home affairs that is CAPF is a group of seven forces and they are armed rifles that is AR then the BSF which stands for border security force then CISF that is central industrial security force then CRPF which stands for central reserve police force and then we have the Indo-Tibetan border police that is ITBP then we have the NSG that is national security guard and finally we have the SSB which stands for Shastrasima Bell now in this table the roles and responsibilities of the forces are given for your reference you can take note of it now keeping this in mind let us discuss the oped article as you know the CAPF gallantly or bravely protect the borders of the nation from external aggression and also from infiltration of antisocial elements and terrorists this is not only their main role but they also assist the state governments like by aiding or assisting in internal security and this includes the law and order then they provide assistance in actions against the insurgency anti-nuxilism and they also play a crucial role in counter-terrorism apart from all these the forces assist the civil population through various area development programs community awareness programs community policing programs and mainly they also assist during the disasters and one of the classic example for this is the COVID-19 pandemic so first let us see the role played by ITBP that is Indo-Tibetan border police see ITBP was the first initiator of efforts against the coronavirus among the forces as a quarantine center was set up in Delhi to test and treat passengers who were arriving at Delhi's international airport from all over the world and this quarantine center was the ITBP's Chawla quarantine center in Delhi then ITBP was also the first to create standard operating procedures for hospital and quarantine and they also shared this SOP with other forces as a part of this ITBP formations are providing food drinking water and medicines to the local population in their area of operation then ITBP has also helped local authorities in the enforcement of the lockdown and according to the author the expertise acquired by ITBP personnel and the standard operating procedure prepared by them has helped even the states and other police forces in establishing their own quarantine centers and COVID-19 hospitals so that is why we have said that ITBP was the first initiator of efforts against coronavirus then similarly all other central armed police forces have been following a procedure like if we take the BSF that is border security force they started various measures for the welfare of the people in their area of operation they have also distributed ration and essential items among daily wage laborers they help the needy in remote areas they also organized medical camps for coronavirus and they distributed masks that were prepared by BSF tailors and they finally also created awareness about social distancing the next if you talk about CRPF that is central reserve police force the force set up helplines and they also created quick reaction teams to ensure the welfare of their force personnel and their families because since all the force personnel are assisting the government and the public in tackling this COVID-19 pandemic someone has to take care of their families also so this role was assumed by CRPF and even the CRPF began a new work from home regime and this regime was followed by the personnel who were on leave so even when they were on leave the extended helps like undertaking community help work some even use their limited savings and resources at their hometowns etc you would have heard about the constable who provided yoga classes to children and who distributed food packets in a village in Assam district and this was done as a part of their work from home regime only so like this many personnel used their own savings to help the people then if you talk about CISF that is central industrial security force they are augmenting COVID-19 protective gear and healthcare equipments for all its personnel who are deployed at the airports and the metro they are also following social distancing protocols without compromising the security additionally isolation facilities in all CISF units have also been created now while we are talking about all these forces we cannot forget the role played by national disaster response force that is NDRF here you should note that NDRF has 12 battalions and they comprise of around 1150 personnel who are drawn from CAPFs only and these NDRF personnel are equipped and trained to respond to the natural as well as manmade disasters they are also equipped for response during chemical biological radiological and nuclear emergencies or in short CBR and emergencies and thus they are the best suited to tackle a biological disaster like COVID-19 that is why they have been training personnel at land sea ports even at ad ports to handle the inbound passengers and to create awareness not only this the NDRF teams were also deployed on the routes that were taken by the migrant workers who are heading to their hometown such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and the NDRF teams have also helped the standard people to establish coordination with the state administrations so these were all these some crucial roles which we could point out in this small discussion that was played by the CAPF personnel now one of the main reasons for this oped article and why we are discussing is that these services by the CAPF personnel have not been adequately mentioned in the media so while we are hailing the care provided by healthcare professionals and the civil servants during this pandemic we should not forget about the important role played by the CAPF forces so we can say that CAPFs with all their heart and soul have been untiringly working to tackle one of the greatest disasters in 21st century so let us hope that the patriotic warriors of the forces shall emerge undoubtedly successful in the battle against this pandemic so here remember that if there is a question which talks about the role played by the security forces in handling disasters you can provide the example of the CAPFs and their role played during the COVID-19 pandemic there is played practice question will be discussed in the last session let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about the investments proposed by STPI so in this context first let us discuss about STPA and then we'll discuss about the news article STPA stands for software technology parks of India it is an autonomous society under the ministry of electronics and information technology it was set up in the year 1991 with the objective of encouraging promoting and boosting the software exports from India see STPA maintains internal engineering resources to provide consulting services training and implementation services and its services cover network design system integration installation operations and maintenance of application networks and facilities in varied areas so we can say that STPA has played an influential role in making India an information technology superpower so what are its objectives firstly it promotes the development and export of software and software services including the information technology enabled services then it also provides statutory and other promotional services to the exporters by implementing the software technology park or electronics and hardware technology park schemes it also implements other such schemes which may be formulated and entrusted by the government from time to time then its third objective is to provide data communication services including value-added services to the IT or IT enabled services related industries finally it also promotes micro small and medium entrepreneurs by creating conducive environment for the entrepreneurship in the field of IT or IT enabled services so the software technology parks of India that is STPA performs all functions that is necessary to fulfill these objectives and this includes establishing software technology parks or centers at various locations in the country it also performs financial management functions such as accepting grants donations and gifts from the government and corporations so with this let us discuss the news article it mentions that STPA is investing around 400 to rupees in setting up office and connectivity infrastructure across several cities in India and this incubation infrastructure would offer small technology firms a facility called as plugin play facility first you know that incubation infrastructure refers to the centers where transitory and facilitative assistance is given to these small enterprises or startups and the plugin play concept refers to the ready facilities in terms of building power water sewage connectivity then road connectivity besides other basic things like clearances in hand that is required to start the industry etc so in simple terms the incubation infrastructure of STPA will provide all the necessary ready services that is required to start a industry now in this manner the news article also mentions about a scheme which is the next generation incubation scheme in short ngis ngis is STPA is comprehensive incubation scheme its vision is to drive the rise of India as a software product nation this will make India a global player in development production and supply of IESSPs that is innovative efficient and secure software products this will further facilitate the growth across the entire spectrum of information and communication technology sector as envisioned in the national policy on software products of 2019 we'll discuss about this national policy on software products some other day now let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on Ethiopia which is with reference to this news article it mentions that a six month state of emergency has been proclaimed in Ethiopia the emergency has been proclaimed in the northern region of Ethiopia that is in the Tigray region and this move is a part of an attempt of the government of Ethiopia to assert federal control over this region because the ruling party of this region has openly disobeyed or defied the federal authority and the prime minister of Ethiopia and that is why you know state of emergency has been proclaimed so this is the news today in this context let us have a brief discussion on Ethiopia and its geographical location Ethiopia is located in the northeastern part of African continent or we can say it is located in what is known as horn of Africa Ethiopia is bounded by Sudan and south Sudan on the west it borders with Eritrea and Djibouti in the northeast and it borders with Somalia in its east and southeast and it also borders with Kenya on the south so Ethiopia is a landlocked country but here remember that previously Ethiopia was not a landlocked country because the now existing Eritrea country was a former province of Ethiopia so when Eritrea was a province of Ethiopia it was bordering Red Sea also but after the 1993 cessation of Eritrea Ethiopia became landlocked country also remember that Ethiopia lies between the equator and the tropic of cancer that this country is rich in geographical diversity also because a large percentage of the country consists of high plateaus and mountain ranges and the country is dissected by major rivers such as Blue Nile, Tekeze, Awash, Omo and Wabi Shabel etc. Now in this as you know the Blue Nile is the chief head stream of the Nile River and this Blue Nile rises in the Lake Thana in the northwest of Ethiopia and remember the Nile River is the longest river in the world its length is about 6670 kilometers and its important tributaries are Blue Nile and White Nile and as you can see here the Blue Nile and White Nile merge in Sudan and they pass through Egypt and finally empties into the Mediterranean Sea then another fact that you should remember with respect to the river Blue Nile is that Ethiopia is building one of its largest dams in the world on this Blue Nile River it is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam which is being built on the Blue Nile River near the Sudan border so these are some of the points that you should remember regarding Ethiopia the displayed practice question will be discussed in the next session which is the practice questions discussion session this first question is regarding the schedule cast and the schedule tribes prevention of atrocities rules 1995 it is not based on the act but it is based on the rules of 1995 the first statement is the state government shall constitute a high-power vigilance and monitoring committee at state level headed by the chief minister this is a correct statement such state vigilance and monitoring committee is headed by the chief minister at the state level now second statement is the committee shall meet at least twice in a calendar year in the month of january and july to review the implementation of the provisions of the POA act now this statement is also correct the committee has to meet twice in a calendar year and in these months see here you should note one point that even though the rules were notified in the 1995 it is criticized that even though many ruling parties give election promises to tackle the oppression against the members of schedule cast and the schedule tribes but their track record after forming the government regarding the convening the mandated meetings as per the rules is extremely poor so based on this second statement condition that is at least twice the committee has to meet that means from 1995 to 2020 at least 50 meetings should have been conducted by the state governments but if you take the example of Tamil Nadu government it has conducted only four meetings so far since 1995 so there is a blatant disregard among the states over conducting the mandatory meetings of state vigilance and monitoring committees that are provided under the rules of 1995 and here both the statements are correct statements so the correct answer is option c both 1 and 2 now this next question is a map based question first statement is Ethiopia is a landlocked country and lies south of equator now this statement is partially correct Ethiopia is a landlocked country but it does not lie south of equator it lies north of equator as you can see here remember Ethiopia lies between tropic of cancer and equator now the second statement is it is located along the west coast of Africa now this statement is also incorrect because Ethiopia lies in the horn of Africa which is to the east of Africa and here the question asks for the correct statements and both the statements are incorrect so the correct answer to this question is option d neither one nor two now this next question is with reference to next generation incubation scheme first statement is its objective is to make India a global player in development production and supply of innovative efficient and secure software products the statement is correct it is the objective of ngis now the second statement is it is implemented by the ministry of science and technology now this statement is incorrect because ngis is implemented by software technology parks of India which comes under the ministry of electronics and information technology and this question also asks to choose the correct statements so the correct answer to this question is option a one only now if you take this next question consider the following forces national security guard railway protection force indo tibetan border police national disaster response force which of the above forces are part of the central armed police forces now during discussion we saw that CAPF consists of seven forces that are under the control of ministry of home affairs and this includes a some rifles border security force central industrial security force central reserve police force indo tibetan border police national security guard and shastra sima bal so that means only one and three should be in answer so the correct answer is option b one and three only you can also attend this question in another way that if you know that national security guard is a part of central armed police forces then you can easily arrive at the correct answer which is option b because one is present only in one option now when this know that the railway protection force was constituted under the railway protection force act of 1957 and it functions under the ministry of railways and then the ndrf it was formed under the disaster management act in 2005 and it functions under the ministry of home affairs and it has 12 battalions three each from bsf and crpf and two which from cisf itbp and ssp now let us take these two main questions one question is based on gs paper 2 it is about the online gambling activities and this question is based on gs paper 3 which is about capf so you can write the answers and post it in the comment section we will review it and appropriate suggestions will be provided within a reasonable time frame whether if you come to the end of today's engineers analysis if you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to shankar eyes academy youtube channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation