 A very good evening aspirants welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankaraya's academy for the rate 25th of January 2022. Before getting into the list of news articles we have an announcement for you. See Shankaraya's academy has designed a refresher course called as CSAT plus. Some aspirants though they score good marks in GS paper in prilams they find it very challenging to qualify in the civil services aptitude test shortly called as CSAT paper. So to help students to easily qualify for the CSAT Shankaraya's academy has come up with this course which starts on 27th of January 2022 yes only two days or left over the class time will be 5.30pm to 8pm the program is also available in online mode. See the admission is now open and by joining we will get the benefits which I am going to mention. Firstly complete overview of CSAT course will be provided. Secondly shortcuts for time management and accuracy will be provided. Third important thing is you will be provided with topers interaction strategy to select easy and eliminate difficult questions which fetch more marks. Then you will be guided with the strategy to improve and manage the English skills to understand the question. Finally you will be provided with previous year's CSAT paper analysis that too in topic wise so just join now and use the benefits. To register for the program visit the link given in the description below with this piece of information now let us move on to the list of news articles. Today we have four distinct news articles. In the first news article discussion we will be discussing about what is rights, what are duties and the issues arising from combining rights and duties. Second we will be seeing an article from editorial regarding macroeconomics. Third we will be seeing about NATO in problems perspective and finally we will end our discussion by seeing an important article about CGHs. So without wasting much time now let us move on to the first news article discussion. Have a look at this news article. This news article is taken from the text and context page. See this news article gives us an insight about which is greater rights or duties. Before that why are we discussing it? See recently in a virtual summit our Prime Minister Narendra Modi he has stated that the country has wasted a lot of time fighting for rights and neglecting one's duties. See this statement portrays a contradiction between citizens rights and duties. So in this discussion let us understand what are rights, duties and we'll also see the issues arising from conflating or combining the rights and duties. The syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. First of all let us start our discussion with the origin of fundamental duties of the citizen. See during the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's government 42nd amendment to the constitution was made. See there were several controversial changes made by this amendment. Here I will give two such changes from this 42nd constitution amendment. First is curtailing the power of judicial review and writ jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and High Courts. The other is empowering parliament to pass laws to combat anti-national acts. Apart from this such laws were permitted to take priority over fundamental rights. See many such controversial changes which either directly or indirectly put down the fundamental rights of the citizens were removed or limited by the 44th constitution amendment act. But remember there are few noteworthy changes made by the 42nd constitution amendment. One such change was the inclusion of part 4A which talks about the fundamental duties of the citizen. As we know the fundamental duties enumerate the duties that must be followed by a citizen and the citizen of the duties stated in part 4A of the constitution to both the state and other individuals. So by 42nd constitution amendment act the fundamental duties were included in the constitution. This part enumerates the duties which must be followed by the citizens and the citizens owe the duties to both the state and other individuals. See some of them or moral duties while other or civic duties. For example cherishing noble ideals of freedom struggle is a moral duty whereas respecting the constitution national flag and a national anthem is a civic duty. So here a moral duty is an action that is required by morality or responsibility as a human being. It is more related to our behavior. In contrast a civic duty is an action required by law for a citizen to perform. In other words civic duty is the main duty of a citizen to run and develop the nation. Note that though these fundamental duties cannot be directly enforced by the courts the parliament is free to enforce them by suitable legislation. In addition to this we have legal duties. Here law and rules formulated by the government come under the legal duties which help people to use their rights. Let me give few examples for this. First one is to pay our taxes. The next one will be to refrain from committing violence against our fellow citizens and then to follow other laws that parliament has enacted. Note that breach of these legal duties triggers financial consequences such as fines or even a jail term. So the citizen are already following a host of duties. This includes all the three duties like moral duty, civic duty and legal duty. A moral duty is related towards our behaviors, laws and rules formulated by the government come under the legal duties which help people to use their rights. Whereas civic duty is the main duty of a citizen to run and develop the nation. All these come under part four of the Constitution of India. Now what is the core need of all these duties? See the duties of every citizen is important in order to maintain peace and harmony in the society. So the fundamental duties and other legal duties create a feeling that the citizens are not mere spectators but active participants in the realization of national goals. So far we saw how fundamental duties evolved. Now we'll move on to discuss the origin of fundamental rights. See India has seen the worst of dehumanization during colonialism itself. During those times the voices of many were unheard. For example the criminal tribes were treated as less than humans. Apart from this from the long and brutal colonial history the constitutional framers of India they took holocaust as an example. See holocaust is nothing but a state sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany. By looking at all these examples the constitutional famers of India they understood the importance of guaranteeing the citizens some basic rights called as fundamental rights. See these rights were mainly framed to ensure basic dignity and equality to each and every citizen. So the fundamental rights in part three of constitution stand as a bulk walk against dehumanization. For example take article 19 which gives all citizens the right to freedom of speech and expression to assemble peacefully and without arms to form association or unions to move freely throughout the territory of India to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India to practice any profession or to carry on any occupation trade or business. So firstly the fundamental rights were formulated based on the principle of anti-dehumanization. Secondly the constitutional framers of India were also aware of the deep stratification of the society based on gender, caste and religion. See all these had kept the people in permanent conditions of subordination and degradation. For example there was forced labour, untouchability, discriminatory access to public spaces etc right. So in order to stand against such cruel hierarchy the fundamental rights were engraved in the Indian constitution. For example take article 17 which is a fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution of India. This article 17 talks about the abolition of untouchability. Also its practice in any form is forbidden under article 17. Additionally this article mentions that the enforcement of any disability arising out of untouchability shall be an offense punishable in accordance with law. So the second principle based on which the fundamental rights were enumerated is the anti-hierarchy. So the purpose of part 3 fundamental rights is revealed by the twin principles that is anti-dehumanization and anti-hierarchy. Because of this fundamental rights were meant to play an equalizing and democratizing role throughout the society. Now considering the importance of the fundamental rights or the constitutional framers they made them justiciable that is they can be enforced by the court. If you can recall we have a separate article for this also. It is article 32 which provides right to constitutional remedies. So so far we had discussed the reasons and importance behind the inclusion of duties like fundamental duties, legal rights and the fundamental rights in the Indian constitution separately. Now let us discuss the major problems mentioned by the author which is the conflation of rights and duties. To understand this let me give an example. See when we look back at the Supreme Court's judgment from the early 1980s they upheld the differential treatment of male and female flight attendants. This was on the ground that women had a duty to ensure the good upbringing of children. Also it upheld that it is the women's duty to ensure the success of the family planning program in the country. Here we can understand that without the moral compass of rights the burden of duties will only be forced upon the already vulnerable and marginalized section of the citizens. See fundamental duties and other duties in Indian constitution serve as a source of inspiration for the citizens. They also promote a sense of discipline and commitment among the citizens. But it is very important to combat hierarchy which can be ensured by the enforcement of fundamental rights. Why? Because this fundamental right will further aid in understanding duties in its proper context. It is for this reason the constitution which is a Charter of Liberation is fundamentally above rights. So the author says that it is only after the guarantee of humanity, dignity, equality and freedom one can expect the duty from a citizen. Because these fundamental rights ensure transformation of the society from the cruel hierarchy and dehumanization. If all these goes on well and when the society is completely transformed ensuring democracy and equality we can then update to the stage where real duties are the result of the fulfillment of rights. See these quotes were mentioned in Mahatma Gandhi's book named Hind Swaraj. So make note of these points you can use it as value addition in your main sansa writing. So that's all about the article. In this article we saw about what are duties, what are rights. We saw about the origin of duties and rights separately and then we saw about the issues which arise from combining rights and duties. Finally in the conclusion we saw that the fundamental rights must ensure transformation of the society from the cruel hierarchy and dehumanization which will further lead to a situation where the country can expect the duty from a citizen. That's all about the news article. Utilize these points to enrich your main sansa. With these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. See this editorial article is written in the backdrop of upcoming union budget for the next financial year. It will be submitted next week to the parliament. So in this article the author explains what is the macroeconomic status of our country and what stands should be taken by the government on the policy front. So in this discussion let us see about India's macroeconomic status and the suggestions given by author for stimulating growth. The syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. First of all what is this macroeconomics. See when we say macroeconomics it means a wider picture of the economy. Particularly it focuses on how an overall economy behaves. That is how the market or other systems that operate on a large scale actually behaves. And for this economic wide phenomena or taken into consideration such as inflation, price levels, rate of economic growth, national income, cross domestic product. That is the GDP and change in unemployment. This is why to know the macroeconomic situation of India author has talked about all these indicators in the editorial. Today let us see some of these indicators. First indicator is as usual inflation. I hope you are all aware about the term inflation. Inflation means there is a rise in general level of prices of goods and services. That is prices of most goods have gone up. This erodes the purchasing power of money. It leads to rise in the cost of living and ultimately affects the poor. We know that right. Now the rate of inflation can be measured using either the wholesale price index WPI or retail price index RPI. Now that RPI is generally known as consumer price index or CPI. See CPI is more important here because it is used as a tool by government and RBI for targeting inflation and for monitoring price stability. What does this word targeting inflation mean? It means the announcement of official target ranges for the inflation. See it is announced by the central government in consultation with RBI. Currently government has notified 4% CPI inflation as the target for the period April 2021 to March 2026. See note these points very very important and also remember this target has an plus or minus 2 tolerance range. That is CPI inflation could be maximum of 6% or minimum of 2%. So as per government inflation should not go beyond this target. If it appears to go beyond it then RBI adjusts its monetary policy in such a way to keep inflation close to the agreed target. See as you know monetary policy actually deals with the supply of money in the economy and the rate of interest. So adjusting its monetary policy would also mean that RBI will change its interest rates. The interest rate we are talking here is about the repo rate. For those who are not aware repo rate is the interest rate at which RBI provides overnight liquidity to banks against the collateral of government securities and other approved securities. So RBI increases its interest rate or repo rate when there is rise in inflation or decreases it when there is low inflation. So to decide what will be the monetary policy RBI looks at inflation numbers first. According to the recent data WPI inflation rose to a record high of 14.32% in November 2021 but there was decrease in December 2021. In December 2021 WPI inflation came down to 13.56%. On the other hand CPI inflation is at 5.03%. So we can say it is within the target range but it is still in the upper limit of the target. Based on these data we can say inflation is high but according to experts this inflation is transitory or temporary in nature as it is caused by disruption in supply chain and volatile energy and food prices. See when there is disruption in supply chain this means the supply is not meeting the demand. This disruption here is caused by pandemic and then the energy and food prices are actually volatile because their supply can vary due to weather or geopolitical events. Further energy and food are important components while calculating CPI. So their volatility affects CPI also. So this was about the inflation. So far we saw about inflation and how inflation must be taken into account to formulate policies as an indicator. Now the next important indicator is bond yield. See bond yield is the return an investor realizes on a bond. The return occurred by holder or measured by the yield. Here the return is the rate of interest paid as coupons. Fact to be noted here is bond yield is inversely proportional to the current value of the bond. The greater the yield the lower the current market price of the bond or as bond price increases the bond yield falls. See bond yields are important because they are used by economists to diagnose the health of a country's economy such as inflation, lending rate of the central bank, growth rate and national income. Plus bond yield are also a very predictive means of estimating the trajectory of an economy. See as investors sell government bonds prices drop and the yield actually increases. A higher yield actually indicates greater risk. If the yield offered by a bond is much greater than what it was when issued, there is a chance that the company or government that issued it is financially stressed and may not be able to repay the capital. So this is an issue that you have to make note of. Another important issue is higher bond yield will mean that the government will have to borrow at much higher rates. So what is the current situation regarding bond yield? See according to the author the bond yield are increasing ahead of the union budget. When we talk about higher bond yield we also need to look into the fiscal deficit. See fiscal deficit means the total expenditure minus the total receipts except the borrowing and other liabilities. That is it means the deficit that arises when the government's expenditure exceeds its revenues. So to bridge this deficit government will borrow more through bond. According to the revised budget estimates fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP rose to 9.5% in 2021 to 22 and the news is government is planning to bring down fiscal deficit in the range of 6%. So for this unfortunately government will have to borrow at much higher rate due to higher bond yields. Apart from this government may also have to borrow to finance its social sector schemes and health sector requirements. So by taking these two indicators into consideration as a suggestion author recommends a medium term fiscal consolidation employing critical measures. See fiscal consolidation is defined as the concrete policies that are aimed at reducing government deficits and debt accumulation. Author is suggesting medium term fiscal consolidation because a full blown instantaneous fiscal consolidation would mean aggressive measure by government such as reducing capital expenditure. Here by reducing this capital expenditure deficit can be overcome. But the problem is capital expenditure is important in the pandemic situation scenario to spur growth. See capital expenditure refers to the money spent by the government on the development of machinery, equipment, building, health facility, education etc. If government stops spending for these it will drastically affect these sectors which are trying to revive. So through a medium term fiscal consolidation government can aim to bring down fiscal deficit in a phased manner. So now based on the above observations author suggests the government to take an accommodative fiscal policy stance. See fiscal policy refers to the government's decision about taxation and spending. Now author wants it to be accommodative rather than restrictive. Accommodative would mean government should not stop spending worrying about fiscal deficit because it is necessary to spur growth. So we have to wait for the budget and see the policy stance of the government. These are all the important points that you have to make note of very very important points with the budget upcoming. These points will help you in value addition in your main sensor. So in this discussion we saw about two important indicators. First thing is about inflation. Second one is about bond yield. We saw how these two indicators influence the policy making and finally we saw the suggestion given by author. With these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Look at this news article. It talks about the different support ensured by NATO to Eastern Europe. Since Russia's military is building up around Ukraine NATO has ensured its different support by providing standby forces ships and fighter jets. Today we are not going to get into the issue of what is happening around Ukraine. Instead let us use this opportunity to discuss in detail about this NATO. See the North Atlantic Treaty Organization abbreviated as NATO is a transatlantic alliance. This alliance consists of the like-minded North American and European countries. It is the world's largest peacetime military alliance. Now let's have a brief discussion on the history of NATO. See NATO was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada and several other Western European countries in order to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. Note that this NATO was the first peacetime military alliance that the United States had entered outside the western hemisphere. See after the destruction caused by the Second World War the nations of Europe struggled to rebuild their economies. Also they struggled to ensure their security. At that time United States thought that Europe should become economically strong, re-oam and integrate because it is vital for US to prevent the communist expansion across the continent. So all these led to the creation of NATO. See we discussed about NATO which is against the Soviet Union. So to counter-attack NATO Soviet Union started an organization called as Warsaw Treaty Organization or Warsaw Pact. Know the difference between these two organizations. Now coming to the membership of NATO. See NATO's membership is expanding since it is open to any European state which can further the principles of NATO treaty. NATO currently has 30 members. I have given you the member states in this image given here. Note that all the decisions of NATO are taken by consensus. Thus it is an expression of collective will of all 30 member countries. Now let us know the purpose of NATO. See politically talking NATO promotes democratic values and enable members to consult and cooperate on defence and security related issues. It also enables to solve problems and build trust and in the long run it helps to prevent conflict as well. Secondly NATO utilizes its military power to undertake crisis management operation when diplomatic efforts fail. Thus under NATO's collective defence clause its military aspect comes into play. That's all about the article. So we saw what is NATO. Its history in brief and its purpose. See try to remember the member states of NATO with the map provided here. We will now move on to the next news article discussion. This news article mentions that union health ministry has revamped the website and app for central government health scheme which is nothing but CGHS. So let us see some crucial informations about the scheme the website and its app. See CGHS is a welfare scheme introduced under ministry of health and family welfare. It is a contributory health scheme. It is the nodal health care provided of certain categories of beneficiaries. The beneficiaries include central government employees, prisoners and certain other category of beneficiaries who are enrolled under the scheme. The scheme also includes the eligible dependents of these beneficiaries. So basically CGHS carters to the health care needs of eligible beneficiaries in all four pillars of democratic setup namely legislative, judiciary, executive and press. Note that it was initially introduced in Delhi in 1954 itself. Since then it has grown all over the country and now more than 70 CGHS units function across the country. Now let us see some of its features. First thing is it provide medical service at the level of wellness centers or polyclinics, government hospitals and private recognized hospitals. Second thing is it provides health care through allopathy as well as indigeno system of medicine. That is it also provides service in homeopathy, ayurveda, unani, yoga, siddha and naturopathy. Third important thing is it also provide the family and child welfare services like immunization, anti-natal and post-natal care and issue of conventional contraceptions. Fourthly prescribed medicines are also issued from the pharmacies of wellness centers and finally it also provides domiciliary or home visits to severely ill patients and elderly immobile patients. And in 2020 CGHS also started tele-consultation. See here tele-consultation means consulting beneficiaries through virtual mode without physically visiting a health care facility. CGHS facilitates tele-consultation with specialist. It is provided using the existing eSanjeevi platform of the union health ministry. Note these points very important for preliminary examination. Note that its mobile application is called My CGHS. Now this app has been linked with the CGHS website and it has several updated features. Let us see them one by one. Firstly it provides real-time information. See this enables the ease of service delivery for the beneficiaries who can avail it within their home especially during the covid pandemic time. So this will benefit more than 40 lakh beneficiaries of CGHS. Secondly the website is universally accessible and has been made bilingual. As of now it provides information in English and Hindi. In the future government is planning to make it a multilingual platform. Next it now includes features like audio play of the text and option to increase the phone size. This is to provide access to visually impaired persons. And finally it also provides facilities such as tracking of medical claims, status and downloading of CGHS card, accessing history of medicines, online appointment systems, etc. So these are some of the important points that you have to make note of. In this discussion we saw about CGHS. We saw that it was introduced under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and it is a contributory health scheme. We saw some of the features of the scheme. Followed by that we saw that in 2020 CGHS also started daily consultation. We saw what is a daily consultation and then we saw about my CGHS app and we saw some of the updated features of my CGHS app. With these learnt points now let us move on to the next part of the news article discussion which is nothing but the preliminary practice questions. Now look at this first question. This question is about NATO. Consider the following statements. Statement 1. The US created Warsaw Pact to counter Soviet Union. Statement 2. Destructions caused to European nations by World War II is one of the main reason for creation of NATO. Which of the statements given above is correct? Option A 1 only, Option B 2 only, Option C both 1 and 2 and Option D neither 1 nor 2. See the correct answer is Option B 2 only. First statement is incorrect because the Soviet Union created Warsaw Pact to counter NATO created by US, Canada and several western European nations. Second statement is correct because European nations they struggled to rebuild their economies from the destructions caused by World War II. So US thought Europe must be economically strong, re-armed and integrated to prevent communist expansion across the continent. Thus created NATO. So the correct answer here is Option B 2 only. Now moving on to the next question. This question is about Central Government Health Scheme. Who among the following are eligible under the Central Government Health Scheme CGHS? Statement 1. Pensioners of Central Government Statement 2. Ex-governors, ex-vice presidents and their families. Statement 3. Freedom fighters. Statement 4. Sitting and retired judges of High Court. Select the correct answer from the code given below. Option A 1 3 and 4 only, Option B 1 2 and 3 only, Option C 2 1 4 only and Option D 1 2 3 and 4. See in our discussion itself we saw that CGHS actually includes all the four pillars of democratic setup like legislative judiciary, executive and press. So the correct answer here is option D 1 2 3 and 4. The main questions are displayed here. Please read it, 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, like, comment and share and do subscribe to Shankar IS Academy YouTube channel. Thank you.