 A very good evening aspirants. Welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankar IA's academy for the date 7th of October 2022. Displayed here are the list of news articles that we have chosen for today's discussion. See today we have five articles for our discussion and it is very much useful for both your preliminary as well as main examination. Okay now without wasting much time let's get into the first news article discussion. Have a look at this news article it says that Vaimutra the humanoid designed and developed by ISRO is undergoing pre-flight ground test and this is at the ISRO inertial system unit. As per the article the IISU that is ISRO inertial system unit has successfully integrated it with the computer brain. This enables it that is this enables the Vaimutra to read the control panels about the unmanned test flights and communicate with the ISRO ground stations. So this is the crux of the news article given here and in this context let us understand about Vaimutra in detail. So who is this Vaimutra? See Vaimutra is a half humanoid. She was developed by the Indian space research organization and if you know the meaning of the name then it is easy for you to understand its purpose. In Vaimutra, Vaima means space and Mitra means friend. So she was designed and developed to fly aboard unmanned test missions ahead of the Gaganian human space flight mission which is expected in 2024. See this is like a test run or the trial for the Gaganian mission which is going to carry humans and to simulate the conditions of carrying a human. This humanoid is designed and it will be sent in the test missions. Okay now coming to the question of what is a humanoid? See humanoid is basically a robot and it is with the appearance of a human being. Like any robot a humanoid's function are determined by the computer systems to which it is connected. Now why is Vaimutra called as half humanoid? Is it because Vaimutra is half human and half animal in appearance? See it is a big no. See she is called as half humanoid because she will only have a head, two hands and a torso and she will not have lower limbs. See the image here this is not the sitting pose of Vaimutra. She really does not have lower limbs. Okay and why ISRO has developed Vaimutra for the test mission? As we all know India is planning to send humans into space that is only the Gaganian mission and this is expected to be done by 2024. So ISRO is trying to develop a crew model and rocket systems that will ensure the safe travel and return of the Indian astronaut. See other countries know they have sent animals for conducting tests of their rockets and crew recovery systems. But India is using a humanoid to test the efficacy of the GSLV MK3 rocket to transport a human to space and back. Once flown into space Vaimutra will be able to test systems in the crew model meant for the survival and safe travel of the first Indian astronaut. Okay and apart from this the rocket and the crew model they are undergoing improvisation to ensure that it is human-rated that is declared safe to transport a human being to space. Now coming to the task that will be performed by Vaimutra in space to understand easily know try to remember the science fiction movie Interstellar. It is about space and time travel and the central character in the movie is an artificial intelligence and robotics powered computer system called TARS. It will talk to the astronauts assist them in mission functions and even rescue them in times of crisis. So the Vaimutra humanoid which will test the ground for the human spaceflight will be a very basic version of a TARS. The activities performed by Vaimutra include studying procedures to use equipment on board the spacecraft's crew model such as safety mechanisms and switches then receiving and acting on commons sent from ground stations then attaining launch and orbital postures then responding to the environment generating warnings replacing carbon dioxide canisters operating switches then monitoring of the crew model then receiving voice commands responding via speech etc etc all these are the activities that are going to be performed by Vaimutra. Apart from this she can also provide audio inputs on aspects like the health of the spacecraft during the launch then landing and orbital phases of the manned mission. She will also report back to earth on the changes occurring in the crew model during the spaceflight and return such as you can say heat radiation levels. See all these functions performed by Vaimutra will help to enable ISRO to understand the safety levels required in the crew model that will eventually fly a human being. So this is the significance of the humanoid. So that is all about this news article. In this news article we had covered a very important science topic which is about the Vaimutra and it will be very much helpful for your upcoming preliminary examination as well as you can utilize these points in mains to enhance your answer and show how our scientific mission and vision is growing okay. So these key points in mind now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this news article it says that India's thermal power plant operators were unable to comply with norms that required them to mix coal with a certain proportion of biomass. See the reason cited for this inability is the inadequate supply chains. So this is the crux of the news article given here and in this context let us understand about the biomass in preliminary perspective. First of all what is biomass? See in ecological terms biomass refers to any type of organic matter when it comes to energy biomass is any organic matter that can be used to generate energy. So broadly it includes materials such as wood, forest and agricultural residues or plant materials. Specifically the biomass materials used for power generation include bagasi, rice husk, cotton stock, coconut shells, soya husk, de-oiled cakes, coffee waste, jute waste, ground nut shells, sawdust etc etc. Now what is the significance of this biomass? See biomass has always been an important energy source for the country considering the benefits that it offers. It is renewable, widely available and carbon neutral and apart from this it has the potential to provide significant employment in the rural areas and the main significance here is the power generation. Now you may wonder how rice husk and coconut shells can be converted to electricity. See it is in the same way how coal is converted to electricity. Yes exactly it is done by thermal conversion. Now what is the basis behind this thermal conversion? See biomass contains energy derived from the sun. As we all know plants observe the sun's energy through photosynthesis the energy from these organisms can be transformed into usable energy through direct and indirect means. Direct way includes burning the biomass to create heat and convert it into electricity. Then the indirect way includes processing the biomass into biofuel and then generating power or burning in automobiles. Now coming back to thermal conversion see as we saw earlier thermal conversion includes burning of biomass to produce energy. Different methods are used to extract energy from biomass. They include direct firing, co-firing, pyrolysis, gasification etc. Through these methods know both direct and indirect means are achieved. See indirect firing biomass is burnt and the heat is utilized to produce electricity. In the pyrolysis bio oil is produced and in the gasification process sin gas is produced and which is then utilized to produce energy. Apart from thermal conversion anaerobic decomposition also provides ways to convert biomass into useful energy. In this process biogas is produced. It consists of methane and carbon dioxide which is utilized for energy production. In today's article we saw about co-firing right? See biomass can be co-fired or burned with a fossil fuel. It is most often co-fired in coal plants. Why it is done like this when we have the option of directly burning the biomass? See co-firing eases the demand for coal. This reduces the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels. These factors are very crucial for us because global warming is causing n number of disasters. And that is why India has set a target of replacing 5% of coal demand of coal power plants through co-firing. And the article today says that several operators not meeting the target of replacing 5% of their coal with biomass. Only 39 power plants had co-fired biomass pellets. Now coming back to energy conversion of biomass. Wait a minute did you notice the fault here? We saw that biomass is burnt and energy is extracted right? But biomass contains moisture. Then how can it be used? For this reason only biomass is processed before it is utilized. The processing of biomass includes drying. It involves a chemical process called torfaction. During torfaction biomass is heated to about 200 to 320 degrees Celsius. The biomass dries out completely such that it loses the ability to observe moisture or rot. It loses about 20% of its original mass but retains 90% of its energy. And during torfaction biomass becomes a dry blackened material and these blackened material is compressed for the convenience of usage. It can be compressed into pellets or briquettes etc. See these are made using missions. For example pellets are produced by compressing the biomass by passing it through a hammer mill to provide a uniform daft like mass. This mass is fed into a press where it is squeezed through a die having holes of the size required. And I have given the benefits of the biomass pellets here. You just go through it. Okay so that's all about this news article. So through this news article we saw about what is this biomass and what are the benefits of biomass. Then we saw how it is co-fired with coal. See all these can be directly asked in your preliminary examination. As well as you can use these points to enhance your main sciences whenever environment related questions are asked. Okay so these key points let's move on to the next news article discussion. Look at this editorial article. This article talks about the corporate social responsibility. In short we say it as CSR. The article says that even though CSR spending has risen from 10,065 crore in 2015 to 16 to 24,865 crore in 2020 to 2021 there is no data to confirm whether this growth is proportional to the increase in earnings of Indian and foreign companies or not. See according to the article there were 2,926 companies in 2020 to 2021 with zero spend on CSR. While companies spending less than the prescribed limit of two percent have also increased the number of companies participating in CSR has declined as well. So this is the crux of the news article given here and in this background let us understand what is this CSR and the issues regarding the CSR and we will end up this discussion with a way forward. Okay and it will be very much helpful for your preliminary as well as means examination. Okay before that the syllabus relevant to this news article is given here for a reference just go through it. Now let's begin with what is CSR. See the corporate social responsibility broadly refers to the work and activities undertaken by corporates towards issues related to social causes and development then environment disaster relief and community support. The CSR was made mandatory for companies in India by the Companies Act 2013. Okay and this act also made it mandatory for companies to publish their CSR report along with their annual report and business responsibility report. Okay remember the Ministry of Corporate Affairs keeps a track of CSR related expenditure done by those companies which fall in the ambit of Companies Act 2013. Now how does it work? Why the government of India made spending on CSR mandatory? We shall find that now. See CSR is not charity or mere donations. It is a way of conducting business by which corporate entities visibly contribute to the social good. See we know that companies take resource in the form of raw materials, human resources etc etc from the society. Am I right? So by performing the task of CSR activities the companies are giving something back to the society. So here the concept of CSR rests on the ideology of businesses giving back to society as they grow and benefit. Some companies even use CSR to integrate economic, environmental and social objectives with the company's operations and growth. So this is how it works. Okay and here comes the question who needs to spend on CSR? See the companies which fall in the ambit of the three criteria displayed here are required to spend on CSR. First is net worth of the company to be rupees 500 crore or more or the turnover of the company to be thousand crore or more or you can say the net profit of the company to be five crore or more. So these are the three criteria to spend on CSR. Okay remember such companies are required to do CSR, spend amounting to two percent of their average annual profit over the last three years. Okay so having this basic understanding about CSR now let us see some of the issues associated with this CSR in India. Firstly the author says that the CSR spending of two percent of their average annual profit over the last three years is minimal. See there is this provision also that is if a company spends an amount in excess of the minimum two percent the extra money is liable to be deducted from expenditures in the following three financial years. So this provision no further weakens the idea behind CSR because two percent itself very minimal and if it is set off against spending in the succeeding three financial years then the spending will be very very minimal. See ideally companies should be encouraged to spend more than this but many private companies have established their own foundations or trust to which they pass the required CSR funding for use. Whether such act is allowed under the company's act or CSR rules is also unclear. And the second issue is geographical bias. See the first provision to section 135 under clause 5 of the act says that the company should give preference to local areas or areas around it where it operates. But a report by Ashoka University Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy says that 54 percentage of CSR companies are concentrated in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat and they receive the largest CSR spending. While the populous Uttar Pradesh and Vagya Pradesh receive little. So here there is absence of clear percentages of local spending and other area spending which is an issue here. And the third issue is the percentage of spending on environment is low. See item 4 of schedule 7 of the act deals with broader environmental issues to create a countervailing effect. But an analysis of CSR spending that is from the year 2014 to 18 says that while most CSR spending is in education that is nearly 37 percentage and health and sanitation is 29 percentage and only 9 percentage was spent on the environment. And the fourth issue is with the monitoring system. See under the existing regulation monitoring is by a board led disclosure based rigid that is companies just report their CSR spending annually to the corporate affairs ministry. This is through filing of an annual report you know that okay. Whether these reports are reviewed and the corporations involved are held accountable is a question here. So here the major issue is it focuses an output rather than quality of the expenditure and its impact. So which is an issue here. Now let us see some of the way forwards. First is identification of where CSR funds would have the greatest impact across India. And for that it is necessary to create a national platform centralized by the MCA that is Ministry of Corporate Affairs. In that platform all states should be able to list their potential CSR admissible projects. This might also be guided by the corporate social responsibility projects repository. And this is maintained by Invest India on the India investment grid. Okay. Secondly companies need to prioritize environmental restoration in the area where they operate. They should allocate at least 25 percentage for environmental regeneration. Since the government itself have started its own independent programs for education water supply and sanitation action to prevent fraud and duplication is imperative. Okay. And the third way forward is community participation. See all CSR projects should be selected and implemented with the active involvement of communities district administration and public representatives. Okay. And finally to enhance the current monitoring and assessment system recommendations made by the high level committee in the year 2018 should be included into the current CSR framework. Such recommendations include enhancing reporting mechanisms with enhanced disclosures regarding project selections, locations, implementing agencies etc etc. Then bringing the CSR within the purview of statutory financial audit with the details of CSR expenditure included in the financial statement of a company. And then mandating independent third party impact assessment audits is also very much helpful to enhance the current monitoring and assessment systems. Okay. So that is all about this news article. So in this discussion we saw what is the CSR and what are all the issues under the CSR and how the CSR is helpful for the society. And finally we ended up with the way forward to address the issues that we saw in this discussion. Okay. So through this discussion I have taken a holistic view of the CSR for you. So with these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Now have a look at this news article. This news article talks about G20 and the news article says that the President Biden did not rule out meeting with Russian leader Putin during the G20 summit next month in Asia. So in this background let us quickly go through the G20 in preliminary perspective. See the group of 20 or G20 is a grouping of the world's 20 largest economies. Its members include 19 countries, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, then India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, then South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America and the European Union. So G20 members represent almost 90% of global GDP, 80% of international global trade and two-third of the world's population lives in G20 member countries. And note that 84% of all fossil fuel emissions are produced by G20 countries. It was formed in the year 1999 and the primary mandate of the grouping is for international economic cooperation with particular emphasis to prevent future financial crisis that is about to occur across the world. Remember India is one among the founding members of G20. The presidency of G20 rotates annually among its members and do you remember we have discussed about a grouping within G20 called as Troika. See Troika refers to the top grouping within the G20 that consists of the current, previous and the incoming presidencies. Also note that the G20 has no permanent secretariat. The agenda and work are coordinated by representatives of the G20 countries known as Sherpas and the Sherpas work together with the finance ministers and governors of the central banks. G20 plays a significant role in shaping the global economic agenda. So that's all you got to know about this G20 and this is much more enough for your preliminary perspective. So with these key points in mind, now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Now have a look at this image that is taken from the Hindu newspaper. It says that army personnel are proceeding towards the Avalanche site in Uttarkashi. Using this as an opportunity we are going to see in detail about the Avalanche. First of all what is an Avalanche? See an Avalanche is a mass of snow that slides rapidly down an inclined slope. The inclined slope is mostly mountains, hills and even the roof of the buildings etc etc. And the major factor here is the slope gradient. Most of the times Avalanches occur on slopes of 30 to 45 degrees and this degree varies with the location. See generally Avalanches are called as snow slides. Avalanches of rock or soil is considered as landslides. Now let us see what are the factors that are causing these Avalanches. See Avalanches are triggered by either natural forces or human activity. The factors that come under the natural forces include precipitation, wind-drifting snow, then rapid temperature changes, earthquakes etc etc. Human activities that cause Avalanches include skying explosives, mines, snow mobiles, even walking can trigger an Avalanche. Now you may wonder how walking can trigger such a massive disaster. To know that you must know how an Avalanche occurs. See for an Avalanche to occur there should be a surface bed of snow, a weaker layer that can collapse and an overlying snow slab. See the underlying snowpack overloaded by a quick accumulation of snow can cause a weak layer beneath to fracture naturally. See I will tell you in simple words. Here a snowpack is layers of snow that build up in an area in the mountain. In winter no repeated snowfalls build a snowpack dozens of meters thick. This is only the quick accumulation of snow. See the bonds between the layers of a snowpack may be weak. This only causes the weak layer beneath to fracture. So when the condition is like this even a small change can trigger an Avalanche. That's why I said even walking can trigger Avalanche. See when somebody walks or rides over a slab with an underlying weak layer then it will immediately trigger an Avalanche. What happens here is that the weak layer collapses causing the overlying mass of snow to fracture and start to slide. Now an Avalanche has been triggered. What happens next? See a typical Avalanche contains three main features. The starting zone, the Avalanche track and the run out zone. Firstly the Avalanche is launched from the starting zone. The starting zone is the most unstable part of the slope and generally it is located at the top of the mountain. And once the Avalanche starts to slide it continues down the Avalanche track and this track is the natural path it follows downhill. And finally the Avalanche comes to a stop at the bottom of a slope. And this is in the run out zone. This is where the snow and debris pile up. And see when an Avalanche stops the snow becomes solid like concrete and people who are caught inside will be unable to come out. That's why people caught in Avalanche's die from suffocation, trauma or hypothermia. So this is the reason why people are advised to dig the snow as soon as the Avalanche stops. So that it won't settle and become solid. That's all about this news article. See in this news article we had known what is Avalanche and what is causing Avalanche and how this Avalanche will occur. So with these key points in mind now let's move on to the next part of the news article discussion which is the preliminary practice question discussion. See today we have four questions in which three I'll be discussing and one will be a quiz question for you okay. Now look at this first question. See it is regarding the Avalanche discussion okay. Here three statements are given and you are asked to find the correct statement okay. Now look at statement one. A slab Avalanche occurs when the weak layer of a snowpack is on the top. See this statement is incorrect because slough Avalanche's occur when the weak layer of a snowpack is on the top. A slough is a small slide of dry powdery snow that moves as a formless mass. Sloughs are much less dangerous than slab Avalanche's okay. And now look at the second statement. A slough Avalanche occurs when the weak layer lies lower down in a snowpack. See this statement is incorrect. We just now saw that right. See a slab Avalanche snow occurs when the weak layer lies lower down in a snowpack. This layer is covered with other layers of compressed snow. When the Avalanche is triggered the weak layer breaks off pulling all the layers on top of it down the slope. These layers tumble and fall in a giant block or slab. Once a slab Avalanche starts the slab shatters into many separate blocks. These snow blocks break up into even smaller pieces. Some of the pieces rise into the air as a moving cloud of icy particles. The cloud races downhill at a very high speed so it is very dangerous. The thickness and speed of slab Avalanche's make them a threat to skiers, snowboarders, mountaineers and hikers okay. So this two statement says that the definitions of both are just interchanged okay. Now coming to the third statement, global warming causes Avalanche's in Himalayas. See just by seeing this itself you can understand that this statement is correct. Am I right? Because the warm winters in Himalayas that is occurring due to the global warming is one of the reasons for the occurrence of Avalanche's. The transformation of dry snow packs into wet snow packs is a cause for the release of snow Avalanche's in the region. Specifically the rise in liquid water content of the snow pack makes it unstable and thus prone to trigger wet snow Avalanche's okay. And apart from this other reasons include earthquakes in Himalayas, the plate movements that is occurring so that one then the large slope gradient that is Himalayas is home to many highest peaks am I right? And the sudden precipitation etc are the reasons for Avalanche's in Himalayas okay. Now coming back to the question, see the question is demanding for correct statements so your answer here will be option A 3 only is the correct statement okay. Now moving on to the second question, see it is a two statement type question and they are asking for incorrect statement okay. Now read the first statement Gaganian program envisages undertaking the demonstration of human spaceflight to LEO that is lower earth objects. See this statement is correct. Yes the Gaganian is the first project taken up by the ISRO for demonstrating the human spaceflight capability. This task necessitates three major components namely human rated launch vehicle, crew escape system and orbital module with human presence. And the main objective of the Gaganian program is to achieve autonomy in access to space providing both tangible benefits. As per the mandate of Gaganian two unmanned missions will be undertaken prior to the manned mission okay. So statement one is correct. Now coming to the second statement ISRO's vayumitra is the first of its kind to be developed for space missions. See this statement is incorrect because there have been many missions featuring humanoid robots like vayumitra. And the most recent mission was in March 2019 a mannequin called replay was flown on the dragon crew capsule launched on a SpaceX Falcon rocket. It was sent to the international space station and replay was fitted with sensors to measure forces that act during spaceflight as part of SpaceX preparations. That is preparation of SpaceX to send a human into space in 2020 for NASA okay. And other instances you can take an artificial intelligence robot ball called Simon crew interact to mobile companion was deployed on the ISS by Airbus. Then the int ball a floating camera robot was deployed on the ISS by JAXA space agency. Then the crew boat a humanoid robot astronaut built in Japan was flown to the ISS along with the first Japanese commander of the ISS Koichi Wakata. And this is to serve as the astronauts assistant in conducting experiments on the space station. See the crew boat was equipped with the technology such as speech recognition facial recognition then language processing and telecommunication capabilities. Then I can remember a Russian humanoid robot FIDAR was sent to the ISS in the year 2019. This is to carry out mechanical functions on the space stations okay. So what is the answer for this question? Since the question is demanding for incorrect statements your answer here will be option B 2 only is the incorrect statement okay. I am moving on to the third question which of the following constitute the applications of biomass pellets. See here seven applications are given am I right. All are the applications of biomass pellets okay. So your answer here will be option D 1 2 3 4 5 6 and 7. See pellets are burnt in cooking grilling home heating animal bedding then biomass gasifiers and power plants and even in industrial boilers. In animal bedding pellets are laid down in the shelter soft pellets are best choices compared to grass or hay okay. Because they would not absorb moisture and regarding this biomass pellets if you want to know more about it just go back and listen to the discussion once more we would have explained clearly about this biomass pellet okay. So what is the answer here option D and now displayed here is a quiz question for you see go through the question these kind of questions are very frequently asked in your preliminary examination okay. And if you had found the correct answer for this question post your answers in the common section and the correct answer from my side will be posted within 24 hours in the common section itself okay. So that is all for today's preliminary practice question displayed here is a main practice question for you interested aspirants go through the question and try writing answer for this question okay and post your answers in the common section and that is all for today's discussion. If you like this video do like share and comment and don't forget to subscribe to the Shankar IS Academy's YouTube channel. Thank you for listening.