 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Iyer's Academy. Displayed are the list of news articles selected for today's analysis and their page numbers in Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram editions of the newspaper. The link for the handwritten notes and the time stamping of the news articles are provided in the description box and the time stamping for the benefit of smartphone users is been provided in the comment section. Now let us move on to the first news article. The first news article talks about the clearances obtained by DRDO for setting up a missile testing launch facility. The analysis of this news article will be relevant in prelim syllabus under current events of national importance and in Indian polity and governance, then in sustainable development and also in general issues on environmental ecology. The analysis will also be relevant in main syllabus under GS Paper 3 in conservation, environmental pollution and degradation and more importantly in environmental impact assessment. Now this news article states that the defense research and development organization that is the DRDO has been granted environmental clearance and coastal regulatory zone clearance for one of its projects. The project is setting up of a missile testing launch facility and technical facility. The launch facility is proposed to be set up on the Bay of Bengal coast and the technical facility is proposed to be set at Gulala Moda village in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh. The environmental clearance and the CRRZ clearance are granted by Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Why the clearance is required see the DRDO has proposed to set up the missile test launch facility in around 154 hectares and the technical facility will come up in around 130 hectares out of this 154 hectares and the test facility will be developed in 6 hectares of the area. So this project occupies this much space and it is also said that the project is exempted from the public hearing of the environmental impact assessment or EIA. This is because this project is a strategic requirement and is of national importance. Also it cannot be located anywhere else other than this particular location and this exemption is given under environmental impact assessment notification of 2006. The newspaper has mentioned it as EIA notification 2016 but it is not 2016 it is 2006 notification. Therefore with this recent clearance the DRDO has obtained all the necessary clearances to begin the construction work for the particular facilities. So now you may think why there is a need for environmental clearance and coastal regulatory zone clearance for a defense project. To understand this we first see about this environmental impact assessment. We can say that every anthropogenic activity or every human activity will have some impact on the environment and the activity is found to be more often to be harmful to the environment than being beneficial to the environment. However these activities have to be done for the food, security and other needs of human beings. At the same time there is also a need to harmonize the developmental activities with the environmental concerns. This environmental impact assessment is one of the tools that are available with the planners to achieve this harmonization of developmental activities with the concerns of environment. So the environmental impact assessment is a planning tool and it is generally accepted as an integral component of a sound decision making with respect to a project with respect to an environment. The objective of environmental impact assessment is to predict or to foresee the potential environmental problems or concerns at an early stage of project planning and project design. Next is to deal with how to address the same potential environmental problems or concerns. So the environmental impact assessment should assist the planners and the government authorities in the decision making process with respect to a particular project. This will be done by identifying the impacts or the issues and also by formulating mitigation measures for the impact reduction measures. So we can say that this environment impact assessment is a process that is used to identify the environmental impacts of a particular project prior to its approval or before its approval and this impact assessment systematically examines both beneficial and adverse consequences of the proposed project. It ensures that the environmental impact and the mitigation measures are taken into account during the project design itself at the early stage itself. There are many benefits of considering environmental effects and mitigation early in the project planning cycle. The benefits such as protection of environment, optimum utilization of resources and saving overall time and also saving the cost of the project is also possible by having a environmental impact assessment. See during the environmental impact assessment if we find that a particular project is having huge harmful effect on environment, the project can be immediately dropped. By dropping this project we are protecting the environment, we are saving resources, we are saving overall time and also we are not wasting money. If we take India, the environmental impact assessment was started in 1970s that is in 1976-77. It was started when the planning commission asked the then department of science and technology to examine the river valley projects from an environmental angle. At that time this assessment lacked a legislative support because there was no law talking about environmental impact assessment at that point of time. So for giving it a legal background, the government of India enacted the Environment Protection Act in May 1986. This act in section 3 has given the power to the central government to take measures to protect and improve environment and under section 6 of the act the central government may by notification make certain rules with respect to the matters mentioned in section 3 of Environment Protection Act of 1986. Thus to achieve the objectives of environment protection, one of the decisions taken was to make the environment impact assessment as a statutory. So a notification was issued on January 1994 and it was subsequently amended in 1994, 1997 and 2000. These notifications and amendments made the environmental impact assessment statutory for around 30 activities. This is the principal piece of legislation or a statutory provision that is governing the environmental impact assessment and it derives its power and authority from section 3 and section 6 of Environment Protection Act of 1986. In addition to this, the government of India issued a number of other notifications under the Environment Protection Act of 1986 that are related to environmental impact assessment. But these notifications are limited to specific geographical areas. One among them is regulating the activities in the coastal stretches of the country by classifying them as coastal regulation zone and prohibiting certain activities. So that is the reason why the DRDO project had to get a coastal regulatory zone clearance. Also know that the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is the nodal agency for making rules or regulations pertaining to environmental clearance or EC. The ministry has made the environmental impact assessment and environmental clearance mandatory for certain development projects through its notification of environmental clearance and post clearance monitoring in the year 1994 under Environment Protection Act of 1986. Then subsequently, after keeping in view the experience gained in the environmental clearance process over a period of 10 years or a decade, the ministry has brought out another notification that is environmental impact assessment notification in September 2006. This is the notification which the news article refers to. That is environment impact assessment notification of 2006. The 2006 notification actually defines the process of granting environmental clearance for projects. This process comprises of four stages. They are screening, scoping, public consultation and appraisal. The screening is done to see as per the statutory notification whether a project requires environmental clearance or not. The screening criteria are based upon scales of investment type of development and the location of development. Scoping is a process that details the terms of reference of environment impact assessment. That is what are the things that the environment impact assessment has to look into. Then the third stage is public consultation. Public consultation refers to the process. This process ascertains the project as appropriate by taking into account all the material concerns in the project or in the project's design, the activity design. This public consultation actually settles the concerns of local affected persons and others who have a credible stake in the environmental impacts of the project. This means that anyone who is likely to be affected by the proposed project is entitled to know that the project is appropriate. The affected persons may include local residents, local associations, environmental groups that are active in a project area. It also includes any other person who is located at the project site or sites of displacement. Within this public consultation it has two components. One is public hearing. A public hearing at the project site in a district twice manner is to be carried out. This is for ascertaining the concerns of local affected persons as we have discussed. The public hearing in all cases is to be conducted by State Pollution Control Board or the Union Territory Pollution Control Committee with respect to Union Territory. They have to forward the proceedings of the hearing to concerned regulatory authority. Here the concerned regulatory authority is Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. This ministry at the national level and at the state level the regulatory authority is State Environment Impact Assessment Authority. Now the next component within this public consultation is to obtain responses in writing from other concerned persons who are having a credible stake in the environmental aspects of the particular project or a particular activity. Now many projects or activities have to undertake public consultation but six projects or six activities are exempted from this public consultation process and one among them is the project with respect to defense. Under the exemption or under this exclusion the notification states that all projects or activities concerning national defense and security are the projects involving other strategic considerations as determined by the central government. So this is the reason that the project of DRDO which is a defense project has been exempted from the public hearing which is a very important component of public consultation and this is because as the news article says it is a project of strategic requirement and a project of national importance. With this we conclude the analysis of this news article the displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. This news article is about India's second lunar mission. The analysis of this news article will be helpful in prelim syllabus under current events of national importance and international importance. In mains it will be relevant under GS paper 3 in achievements of Indians in science and technology indigenization of technology and awareness in the field of space. When we say lunar mission it means a mission to moon. This is because in Latin the word luna means moon. The news article says that ISRO has conducted the full rehearsal for the second mission for moon. In one of the sentences of the article they have used the word dry run to communicate the meaning of the word rehearsal. The launch is scheduled on July 15 early morning 2.51 am. The time we are mentioning is not to take note but if possible you may see the launch which will be from ISRO's launch center that is from Satish Dhawan space center at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The article says that Chandrayaan too has been designed to have a robotic rover inside the lander and the composite module will also have a orbiter. When we say composite module it consists of lander and orbiter inside the lander we can see robotic rover. One of the major objectives of this mission is to soft land Vikram near the lunar south pole. The name of Vikram is for the lander. So far only three countries have demonstrated the soft landing capability on moon. They are United States, the former Soviet Union and also China. If India becomes successful in the mission India will become the fourth country in the world to demonstrate the soft landing capability on the lunar surface. India may not be the permanent member in United Nations Security Council but India has a chance to become one of the top five countries to display soft landing on moon. Recently Israel's mission attempting for soft landing on moon has become unsuccessful and this happened in the month of April this year and Israel's lander crashed while attempting to soft land on the moon and that is one of the reason why Israel has postponed the mission Chandrayaan 2. For India Chandrayaan 2 is the first space mission to conduct soft landing on the moon and one speciality is that this attempt is to be with indigenous technology or with homegrown technology. It is also Israel's first mission to land on any celestial body. Usually it observes the celestial body from the particular body's orbit and India aims to soft land closer to the south pole of the moon. If successful, India will become the country in the world to reach the south pole closer than any other country in the world. Therefore it is expected that Indian mission will provide more insights into the completely unexplored section of the moon. Thus India has the possibility of discovering something new through this mission. Also the south pole of the moon holds the possibility of presence of water so the payloads will carry out necessary tests to verify that and the area near the south pole of the moon is supposed to have ancient rocks and craters. By studying these ancient rocks there is a possibility to decode the origin or the history of the moon. These are some of the reasons why the lunar south pole has been chosen for landing. The mission plans to conduct detailed topographical studies and comprehensive mineralogical studies and other experiments and it will help to know better about the origin and evolution of the moon. Overall the mission has around 13 Indian payloads which will conduct scientific experiments to widen our knowledge about the moon. It will carry one payload of NASA. The robotic rover will have some three scientific payloads or scientific instruments that will analyze the content on the moon's surface. And after analyzing the content on the moon's surface the rover will send back the data and images back to the earth. After the launch on July 15 it is expected to take around 35 to 45 days to reach the moon. That is one of the reasons why the expected date of landing Vikram or the lander on moon is on September 6, 2019. The composite module will get out of earth's orbit in around 16 days after the launch. Then it will reach close to moon's orbit by another 5 days. From then it will take another 27 days to man over and to orbit the moon and once it reaches the orbit of moon at 100 km altitude from the surface of the moon after entering the moon's sphere of influence then at a right time the lander will separate from the orbiter and perform soft landing. That is after entering the moon's sphere of influence once it reaches the orbit at 100 km altitude from the surface of the moon at the right time the lander will separate from the orbiter and perform soft landing. And once soft landing is done the robotic rover will come out of the lander and start conducting experiments. The launch vehicle for this mission is GSLV Mark III, the heaviest launcher and the cost of the entire mission is close to 1000 crore. So approximately 1000 crore to be accurate news article says 978 crore. And it has been said that the budget is lesser than the budget for many Hollywood movies. ISRO's first mission to moon was called as Chandrayaan 1 and it was launched in the year 2008. The launch vehicle was PSLV Rocket The launch vehicle for Chandrayaan 2 is GSLV Mark III Rocket and Chandrayaan 1 carried a moon impact probe that hit or made an impact on lunar surface near lunar south pole. See it had an impact it did not soft land on lunar surface which the Chandrayaan 2 will attempt. We will get more news on the newspaper either on July 15 or 16 and we will revise again probably on September 7 on the day after the scheduled landing of Vikram in moon. With this we conclude this news article. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the final session. This editorial article is about the recent measures announced in the budget to make a transition to electric vehicles. The author also mentions other requirements with respect to electric vehicles. The analysis of this editorial article will be relevant in prelim syllabus under current events of national importance and also under economic development. The analysis will be helpful in mains in GS paper 2 under government policies and interventions for development for various sectors and the discussion can also be linked to GS paper 3 under Indian economy and changes in industrial policy and their effects on industrial growth and also in infrastructure with respect to energy for charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Firstly the author talks about the recent initiatives announced in the union budget 2019. We know that the phase 2 of fame India scheme has commenced from 1st April 2019 and outlay of rupees 10,000 crores have been made for a period of 3 years under the scheme. The government has committed to encourage faster adoption of electric vehicles by way of offering upfront incentive on purchase of electric vehicles. When we say upfront cost generally means the cost of a product at the time of purchase that is the cost just before purchasing. When we say upfront incentive it means that financial incentive that will help reduce the price of electric vehicle. The upfront incentives also act as demand incentives. Now demand incentives are those financial incentives that help to generate demand for electric vehicles by reducing the cost of purchase price of electric vehicles. The author says that the initiatives under the phase 2 of the scheme will be a great boost to the commercial electric vehicles and also for the setting up of charging stations. Then under mega investment in sunrise and advanced technology areas the government has announced that it will launch a scheme to invite global companies through a transparent competitive bidding. The purpose is to set up mega manufacturing plants in sun rays and advanced technology areas. So of several areas two sun rays and advanced technology areas are linked to electric vehicles that is setting up mega manufacturing plants for lithium storage batteries and for solar electric charging infrastructure. The government has also announced that some kind of direct and indirect tax benefits will also be given to the companies participating in this mega investment. Now in addition to the above the government has also exempted the customs duty on certain parts of electric vehicles. Now when we say customs duty it is nothing but tax paid on imported goods. These steps are being taken to incentivize electric mobility. The union budget for 2019-2020 has envisioned India as a global hub of manufacturing of electric vehicle. For such a vision the government has reduced the GST or the goods and services tax for electric vehicles from 12% to 5%. Also it was announced that the government will provide income tax deduction of 1.5 lakh on the interest paid on loans taken to purchase electric vehicles. But to avail the benefits of the income tax deduction the loan is required to be taken on or before 31st March of 2023. That is why the author is saying that the government has announced a tax incentive for the early adopters. Because the tax incentives can be availed only if the loans are taken before 31st March 2023. So that is the status as of now according to the recent budget. The income tax deduction is in addition to the GST tax rate reduction. These steps are being taken to make the electric vehicles affordable to the consumers. All the above measures announced in the union budget are called as bold move to make a transition to electric vehicles from the present petrol and diesel based vehicles. These petrol and diesel based vehicles are also called as fossil fuel based vehicles. The author says that the measures announced in the budget to leapfrog into an era of electric mobility and domestic electric vehicle manufacturing is forward looking policy. And this will be led by public transport and commercial vehicles. The author here mentions public transport maybe because under phase 2 of FAME India scheme if you see the top allocation of demand incentives given by department of heavy industries it is to electric buses. That is the highest allocation of demand incentives is to electric buses under the phase 2 of FAME India scheme. It has allocated 3545 crores out of the 596 crores as demand incentives for electric buses. The numbers are not important but what you have to keep to know is the top allocation has been made to electric buses. That is why the author is saying the forward looking policy to be led by public transport and commercial vehicles. The budgetary measures will also have an immediate impact on pricing of electric vehicles and it will also bring in more new models of electric vehicles that is what the author thinks. With these measures the government has accepted some of the demands of automotive industry to popularize the electric vehicles. In the FAME India phase 2 the government has decided to undertake a suitable information education and communication program for creating consumer awareness with respect to electric vehicles and also for the promotion of FAME India scheme. The author feels that to achieve the goals related to electric mobility deadlines are necessary and also a market driven approach is also necessary. Both the deadlines and market driven approach are required so that India does not trail behind China in terms of capabilities and infrastructure with respect to electric vehicles. The Indian market driven approach is a different approach of providing non-fiscal incentives to the vehicle manufacturers. Generally when we say fiscal incentives it refers to exemption from payment of local taxes fees and charges or providing subsidies to the manufacturers. But we saw Indian approaches to provide non-fiscal incentives. When we say non-fiscal incentives it refers to services and assistance provided to the manufacturers which do not have any connection with respect to taxes and subsidies by the government. For electric vehicle manufacturers India offers credits. These credits are based on carbon dioxide emissions per kilometer and also based on vehicle efficiency. The manufacturers who exceed the emissions target will have to purchase credits but those manufacturers who meet the emission targets will be rewarded. Thus this market driven approach will have significant impact because this approach will make electric vehicles with low emissions as a cheaper vehicles and the polluting electric vehicles will become expensive or costly. The author calls for fixing a realistic time frame for scooters, motorcycles and three-wheeler carriages with 2030 as the outer limit. We know that India has targeted to achieve 30% of electric vehicles by the year 2030 in the overall composition of vehicles. In the next five years it aims to achieve 15% of electric vehicles in the overall composition of vehicles. In the article in the second paragraph the author talks about enabling a fast rollout of charging infrastructure. Already the operating cost of electric vehicles is far lesser than what it requires for petrol and diesel based vehicles. But this alone will not make the electric vehicles to look attractive so that the consumers will buy and purchase and use it. So there has to be charging infrastructure where the charging is also affordable. There should be both normal and fast charging. In December 2018 the Ministry of Power has set some technical standards for public charging stations to enable normal and fast charging. And this fast charging should be available in parking lots and in addition to this there should be retrofitted fuel outlets new public charging stations and charging facility should also be available in hotels, offices and also in homes. These things are also required. By retrofitting the meaning is to fit the electric vehicle adaptation technology in the petrol or diesel based vehicles so as to convert them into electric vehicles. This is also another requirement when the country moves into an era of electric mobility. The government should also consider while setting up the charging infrastructure to enable swapping of drained battery with already charged battery at various locations. And there has to be a policy priority for a longer term to set up the lithium battery production and also solar charging infrastructure. And this infrastructure should meet the demands of the number of electric vehicles to be adopted or those number of electric vehicles that we are planning for all the demands of such vehicles has to be met by the charging infrastructure. So these are the things that are required and we can expect speedy spread of electric two-wheelers with the presence of price competition. See with price competition the purchasing price of electric vehicles will come down. And this will result into larger adoption of electric two-wheeler vehicles. This is because around 79% of conventional vehicles sold in our country are two-wheelers. So with these measures in place the consumers will move from a fossil fuel based vehicle to electric two-wheelers. And we should know that around 4% of the vehicles sold in last six years are three-wheelers, 12% are economic or cheaper four-wheelers and 2% are costly or premium four-wheelers and 3% of the composition are buses and large goods vehicles. The adoption of these electric vehicles is necessary because of the pressing health concerns due to poor air quality and noise pollution caused by petrol and diesel based vehicles. These are the things that the author has mentioned in the article and we have analyzed it. With this we conclude the analysis of this news article. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. This article is about plan B. The analysis of this news article will be relevant in prelim syllabus under current events of national importance and also in general issues on environmental ecology and biodiversity. The analysis will also be relevant in main syllabus in GS paper 3 under biodiversity and environment particularly under the area conservation. Indian Airways has awarded the best innovation award for the financial year 2018-19. The best innovation award has been won by the Northeast Frontier Railway shortly called as NFR. A cash award of Rs. 3 lakhs have been awarded to the winner. This award is for the adoption of unique strategy by Northeast Frontier Railway to keep wild elephants away from the railway tracks. The Northeast Frontier Railway serves the northeastern region of India. When we say northeastern region it comprises of 8 states that are Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Misuram, Tripura and Sikkim. The unique strategy adopted by Northeast Frontier Railway is Plan B. Under this Plan B devices were installed at several level crossings in the state. These devices play to imitate the sound of swam of buzzing honey bees. Swam means a large or dense group of flying insects. In our context it is dense group of honey bees. This sound will drive away the pachyderms. Pachyderms are nothing but very large mammal with thick skin especially an elephant or rhinoceros or hippopotamus. Pachy means thick. Derm means skin. So Pachyderm means thick skinned animals. This Plan B was implemented to save the wild elephants. It is because large portions of rail tracks pass through the forest areas of Assam. So elephants would often come in the way of speeding trains and that results in the death of elephants. And it was found that around 67 Pachyderms were killed by trains from 2013 to June 2019. And therefore there was a huge need to find an elephant repellent. And most of these 67 deaths were reported from Assam and northern West Bengal. And this is because there are 29 earmarked elephant corridors within the operating zone of Northeast Frontier Railway. This is spread across the northeastern states and parts of Bihar and West Bengal that is the elephant corridors. Trains are required to slow down at these corridors and they have to adhere to a particular speed that is specified on the signboards. But despite the reduction of the speed elephants have traveled into the paths of trains even in the non-elephant corridor areas. And this has often led to accidents that has resulted into death of the elephants. So it was found necessary to have a particular plan to drive away the elephants from the tracks and also to save them. This was successfully carried out by the Plan B of Northeast Frontier Railway. They have actually done some test runs or dry run or rehearsal prior to the installation of these devices many test runs or trials were carried out. A team tested the Honey Bee Bus on a domestic elephant in northeastern Assam's Ranga Para. The second test was carried out at a tea estate near Rangia division of Assam. It was found that wild elephants started to move away once the sound was generated. So following the successful trial the equipment was designed to generate an amplified sound of Honey Bee. Here when we say amplified it means making the sound louder. This amplified sound is audible from a distance of about 700 to 800 meters. The first instrument was installed at a level crossing on a track adjoining Rani Reserve Forest. And it is an important elephant habitat in the country. This Rani Reserve Forest is in the state of Assam. Presently Northeast Frontier Railway has some 46 devices that are installed at various vulnerable level crossing points. You may cite this Plan B as the best practice that can be adopted nationwide at various vulnerable level crossings. And therefore it is a measure to prevent possible man-animal conflict. And we can avoid deaths of elephants and we can protect this environment. With this we have come to the end of this news article discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. This news article is about the Kartarpur Corridor. The analysis of this news article will be relevant in prelims levels under current events of national importance and in Indian polity and governance. The discussion is also relevant in main levels in GS Paper 1 under salient features of Indian society, diversity of India. And in GS Paper 2 the discussion will be relevant in India and its neighborhood relations. It can be linked to GS Paper 3 under roads in the infrastructure heading. The news article states that India has asserted or declared that the construction work on Kartarpur Corridor will be completed in a fast pace or expeditiously. The construction work includes construction of a passenger terminal building, a four-lane highway and other amenities. It is said that these were being built at a fast pace. This response from Indian government that work will be completed as soon as possible has actually came after the report stated that India is actually lagging behind Pakistan in the construction work of Kartarpur Corridor. The particular report also stated that Pakistan has completed 70% of the work while India is lagging behind. In India a four-lane highway connecting the zero point of Kartarpur Corridor up to national highway 354 is being constructed. It is constructed by national highway authorities of India. The zero point is the meeting point of Indian side of the corridor and the Pakistan side of the corridor. And it is said that nearly 45% of the work has been completed from the Indian side and according to the article the road is scheduled to be completed by September 2019. So what is the importance of Kartarpur Corridor? It is important because the corridor will help or let the Sikh pilgrims from India to visit the iconic Gurudwara Darbar Sahib which is situated at Kartarpur. This Kartarpur is located in Pakistan on the banks of river Ravi. When we say Gurudwara it means a Sikh temple or a Sikh shrine. Gurudwara Darbar Sahib is important because the founder of Sikh religion Guru Nanak Dev Ji had assembled the Sikh community at Kartarpur and he has lived there for 18 years till 1539 AD. The Gurudwara Darbar Sahib is built where Guru Nanak Dev Ji took his last breath. That is the place where he died. So this Gurudwara is a sacred holy place and spiritual heritage of the fraternity belonging to the Sikh community. It's a place of spiritual attachment. Hence visiting this pilgrimages spiritually and culturally important for them. To realize this wish from the Sikh community the government of India is building the Kartarpur corridor from the Indian side. The same is also being carried out by the Pakistan government for the Pakistan side. And one another thing is that this year is the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji. So to mark this event the government of India decided in November 2018 to build the Kartarpur road corridor. This corridor is up to the international border between India and Pakistan. It is being carried out as an integrated development project by both the countries. So it is necessary that the facilities on both sides of international border have to be ready by the time the celebrations begin in November this year in Kartarpur to mark the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji. This is the reason the Indian government has stated that the work will be completed expeditiously. See both India and Pakistan had announced in November 2018 that they will build corridors on their respective sides to let Sikh pilgrims to visit the holy shrine without visa. So this will help the pilgrims to walk across and come back without having to secure a visa. Therefore this will enable the Sikh pilgrims to visit the Gurudwara throughout the year with much ease. Because there is no need to secure visa. So as you can see in this picture the Indian side of corridor starts from Dhera Baba Nanak town in Gurudaspur district in the state of Punjab in our country. It extends up to the international border between India and Pakistan. The international border is represented as a dotted line and then the road extends to Kartarpur Saheb which is located in Pakistan on the banks of river Ravi. As we already saw this project corridor or this corridor is to be developed by national highways authority of India and will be funded by government of India. And this corridor will have four lane corridor along with the service road. When we say service road it is a subsidiary road that runs parallel to a main road and it gives access to houses, shops or businesses. And it is considered that this corridor will be a historical landmark between India and Pakistan and it will also boost tourism as more pilgrims will visit the holy shrine throughout the year between two countries. With this we come to the end of the analysis of this news article. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. First question is with respect to environmental impact assessment. They have given two statements and are asking which of the above statements are correct. The first statement National Green Tribunal is the nodal agency for making rules or regulations pertaining to environmental clearance. Now the statement is incorrect because the nodal agency for making rules or regulations pertaining to environmental clearance is not National Green Tribunal but the ministry of environment, forests and climate change. Therefore first question is first statement is wrong. The second statement Public hearing under the environmental impact assessment is conducted by the State Pollution Control Board. The second statement is correct because the public hearing in all cases has to be conducted by State Pollution Control Board or the Union Territory Pollution Control Committee. If the statement had the term only that is it is conducted only by State Pollution Control Board then it would have been a wrong statement. It does not has the term only. So the second statement is correct. So the correct answer for this question be two only. The next question is with respect to Chandrayaan two mission of ISRO. They have given three statements and are asking which of the above statements are correct. The first statement the second lunar mission of India aims to orbit the moon and also to soft land on moon surface any one of the poles. Now this statement is partly correct partly wrong because the second lunar mission or the second mission to moon the Chandrayaan two aims to orbit the moon and also to soft land on moon surface. But not on any one of the poles but it is very categorical on closer to soft land on a location that is closer to South Pole. So that is the correct statement. So the first statement here is wrong. The second statement it aims to soft land the lander at a location so far been unexplored by any other country in the world. This statement is correct because the location where ISRO has planned to soft land has not been explored by any other country in the world. That is why we saw therefore India has a chance to discover something new. The third statement it is ISRO's first mission to land on any celestial body. This statement is correct. Earlier we have mission to Mars and we have one earlier mission to even moon. Both missions are orbiter missions but now it is both orbiter and at the same time landing soft landing. So the third statement is correct. So the correct answer for this question is option B two and three only. Now this question is with respect to plan B. They have given four options and are asking which among the following best describes the objective of plan B. We know that plan B is related to the flying insect B. So by looking at the options you can eliminate option B since it talks about the efficiency. If you take first statement it is also wrong because it talks about conservation of bumble bees. If you remember the discussion you can recollect that we discussed the plan B under the innovation award given by Railway Ministry and this award was awarded to Northeastern Frontier Railway and was related to saving elephants by getting them driving away from the railway tracks. Otherwise they will meet an accident due to the running train and they will be dead. So our answer should mention about rail tracks which is given in option C. So the option C it aims to install devices that play or imitate the sound of swarm of buzzing honey bees to drive away the packy derms from the rail tracks. Packy means thick, derms means skin, thick skinned mammals such as elephants, hippopotamus and rhinoceros. So the correct answer for this question is option C. Now this question is with reference to Kartarpur Corridor. They have given two statements and are asking which of the statements are correct. If you look at the first half of the first statement it states that the Kartarpur Corridor will facilitate the Sikh pilgrims to visit the Gurudwara Darbar Saheb. Yes this part of the statement is correct and remember it is Gurudwara Darbar Saheb. The second part of the statement states that the visit will be without visa. During our analysis we saw that India and Pakistan had announced in November 2018 that they will build corridors on their respective sides to let the Sikh pilgrims to visit the Holy Shrine Gurudwara Darbar Saheb without visa. So this means that the entire first statement is correct. Now let us come to the second statement. It states that it is constructed by government of India to mark the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh. Note that Guru Gobind Singh is the 10th Sikh Guru. The purpose is to celebrate the birth anniversary of 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji who is the founder of Sikh religion. So the given second statement is wrong. Therefore first statement only is correct. So the correct answer for this question is option A, one only. Now let us see the main question. India has set ambitious target of achieving 30% of total vehicles to be electric vehicles. In the light of the above statement discuss the measures taken and challenges of realizing the target. Now we know that India has kept this target to achieve it by the year 2030. Now regarding the measures you can mention the recent announcements from the union budget 2019 from our today's analysis. Points such as giving income tax deduction of 1.5 lakh on the interest paid on loans that are taken for purchasing electric vehicles reduction of GST tax rate from 12% to 5% to further incentivize the consumers and provision for a scheme to invite global companies to set up mega manufacturing plans for lithium storage batteries and also for solar electric charging infrastructure. In addition to this the government has also plans planned to provide direct and indirect tax benefits to such companies and then the commitment of the government to encourage faster adoption of electric mobility by providing upfront and demand incentives. The government has also decided to provide exemption of customs duty on certain parts of electric vehicle to promote manufacturing and for other purposes. For challenges you can write points such as difficulty in market acceptability and challenges with respect to non availability of technology with respect to electric vehicles. When such technologies are not domestically available this will obviously increase the price of the vehicles because the technology will be imported. So obviously it will increase reflect on the price of the vehicles because of the import duty and also challenges with respect to setting up of charging infrastructure and one another point is that industries are already in trouble transforming from Bharat 4 standards to Bharat 6 emission and fuel standards. In addition to this now there is a target to transform to electric vehicles from fossil fuel based vehicles that too within 10 years to contribute 30% of overall composition is really tough. These points you can address challenges and we have also seen the measures. Thus you can take some points from our today's analysis to answer this question. With this we have come to the end of our today's news analysis. If you like the video press the like button, comment, share and subscribe to Shankar Ayes Academy YouTube channel for daily updates and content on civil service exam preparation.