 A very good evening. Welcome again to the Hindi News Analysis by Shankara AS Academy for the date 29th March 2021. This is a list of topics along with the page numbers listed for your reference. The description box is timestamped for your convenience also. Let's move to the discussion. This editorial talks about the recent Supreme Court judgment on the Loan Moratorium case. From the title, Sakkar means help. Here, Limited Sakkar indicates that the judgment of Supreme Court in the moratorium case, although helpful, is not adequate. In this context, let's understand the issue, the Supreme Court judgment, and its relevance. Here is the syllabus for your understanding. First of all, let us discuss the background of the issue. You might remember that on 23rd March 2020, the Reserve Bank of India had announced a moratorium on loan installments due between March 1st and May 31st. The moratorium period was later extended by three months till August 31st 2020. See, in this context, moratorium period refers to the period of time during which you do not have to pay an EMI or interest on the loan taken. Please note that it is not a waiver, but it is a mere postponement. The moratorium was intended to provide borrowers relief during the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling them to defer payments on the EMI's and the loans. The RBI had to clarify that such treatment will not lead to any change in the terms and conditions of the loan agreements, which will remind the same as announced in and for the previous moratorium extension period. While the moratorium was only a deferral of EMI's and not a waiver, there were demands that banks should also waive off the interest amount during those six months. Banks, however, refused a total waiver, saying the cost will be huge. There were also petitions in the Apex Court seeking extension of the moratorium period beyond six months. Last week, the Apex Court rejected the pleas from various trade associations and corporate bodies to extend the six-month loan moratorium period offered by Reserve Bank of India. It also said that complete waiver of interest during the moratorium could not be granted because it can have repercussions on the economy. Another important observation made by one of the judges is that the top court cannot do judicial review of center's financial policy decisions unless it is Malafide or arbitrary and understand this in the context of separation of powers and due process of law. However, on the bright side, the Supreme Court said no one can levy interests on interest or penal interests. Earlier, central government had given waiver on penal interest for small loans for two crores or less. So the Supreme Court observed that there is no rationale in the center's policy to limit the benefit of waiver for a certain category of loans. So the Apex Court has expanded the ambit. The Apex Court has directed that there should be no interest or penal interest on any amount during the loan moratorium from any borrower. Hence, it directed a refund of all compound interests only levy during moratorium period. This is a welcome step. The author also appreciates this decision. Why? Because in reality, compound interest is a penal interest. That is, it is intended to impose a cost on willful or deliberate default. In this case, however, the borrower's decision to defer payment of installments by availing of the moratorium could not be considered as willful default. So this decision is a welcome relief to borrowers across categories and loan sizes. The author says that it adds an estimated burden of about 7500 crore on the lenders. Earlier, the central government had told the Supreme Court that waiving interest on all the loans to all categories of borrowers for the moratorium period during the pandemic would result in about rupees 6 lakh crore in foregone amount. So waiving the amount would have wiped out a substantial part of the net worth of the banks. You know, rupees 6 lakh crore is a huge amount, right? So that is why economic experts cited the Supreme Court judgment as prudent. And let us also not forget that the government had also spent and taken measures such as providing transportation to migrants, etc. And even its tax revenue had fallen during the pandemic. So it's a huge burden on the exchequer. But we all agree that pandemic was an unprecedented disaster. So it is unprecedented in terms of health and economic cost. It has imposed on all sections of the society as well. So it is the responsibility of the state to cushion the businesses and the banks in the crisis situation. So policy makers should come up with urgent measures to mitigate the debt crisis faced by all sections of the society, especially for the small, formal, and informal enterprises and also for the lower income households. This news article mentions that Tamil Nadu has the highest revenue deficit among the election bound states. So in this context, let us understand what is a revenue deficit. As you know, when expenditure exceeds revenue, it is deficit. Similarly, when a government spends more than what it collects by way of revenue, it incurs a budget deficit. And there are various measures that capture government deficits and they have their own implications for the economy. And one such measure is revenue deficit. It refers to the excess of government's revenue expenditure over revenue receipts. In other words, revenue deficit occurs when government's total revenue expenditure exceeds its total revenue receipts. Here, revenue expenditure is expenditure incurred for the purpose other than the creation of physical assets or financial assets of the central government. That is, revenue expenditure relates to those expenses done by the government for the normal functioning of the government departments and the various services and expenses incurred for, say, interest payments on debt incurred by the government. And this also includes grants given to the state governments and other parties. Pay attention to this part. So revenue expenditure will also include the grants given to the state governments and other parties. And any expenditure that doesn't result in capital formation or asset creation is revenue expenditure. So revenue expenditure will not contribute to the future of the economy. It will only cater to everyday expenditure. So revenue receipts, by definition, are those receipts that do not lead to claim on the government. They are therefore termed as non-redeemable. Simply put, these receipts or incoming wealth need not be paid back by the government to the source of the wealth from where it originates. It can be people or anything else. And the revenue receipts are divided into tax revenues and non-tax revenues. Tax revenues comprise those of direct taxes, indirect taxes, custom duties, basically revenues from the tax collection. Non-tax revenues mainly consist of interest receipts on account of loans by central government, then dividends and profits on investments made by the government. For example, in public sector undertakings and all, then fees and other receipts for services rendered by the government. And finally, the cash and grants from foreign countries and international organizations. Say for example, India is receiving money from UNDP for some projects as a grant, which need not be paid back. Based on this formula, the revenue deficit is calculated as revenue expenditure minus revenue receipts. This means revenue deficit includes only such transactions that affect the current income and expenditures of the government. And today's news is that, as per the report, TN has the highest revenue deficit among the polebound state. So when government incurs revenue deficit, what does it mean? It simply implies that the government is dissaving. Dissaving is nothing but spending money beyond once available income. So for the government, dissaving means that it is using up the savings of the sectors of the economy to finance a part of its consumption expenditure, that is non-productive expenses. This situation also means that the government will have to borrow for financing its investments and for fulfilling its day-to-day requirements. Now, this in turn will lead to increase in debt and interest liabilities of the government. Then eventually, this will force the government to cut the expenditure. Where will the government cut the expenditure? Often in the long run, the government will be forced to reduce expenditure on productive capital like building roads, school, etc., or for welfare expenditure, say for health, education, etc. It is because a major part of revenue expenditure is committed expenditure, that is the payment of which cannot be defaulted at any circumstance. So it cannot be reduced at all. For example, consider defense expenditure. It is a committed expenditure, that is it is related to national security concerns so it cannot be reduced. It has very little scope for reduction also. This means that higher revenue deficit would lead to lower growth and adverse welfare implication. So in this context, there is a risk that TN's welfare oriented expenses comma asset creation may dwindle in the long run, which in turn will affect the economy of the state. This open article is written in the wake of a recent notice issued by Supreme Court to the central government and asking it to respond to a petition challenging the Places of Worship Special Provisions Act 1991. So let us see what was the issue and the views of the author who is a senior advocate in the Supreme Court and a former president of Supreme Court Board Association. This is the syllabus for your reference. First know that the petition challenges certain provisions of the 1991 Act and it has sought to declare the sections two, three and four of the Act as invalid. See the objective of the Act is to prohibit any conversion of any place of worship that existed on the August 15 1947 that is on our Independence Day. It also provides for maintenance of a religious character of any place of worship that existed on that day that is August 15 1947. Now the section two provides for definitions where it states that an alteration or change of whatever nature constitutes the term conversion. Further the term place of worship means all the places of public religious worships of any religious denomination or any section without any exceptions. So it covers temples, mosques, gurudwaras, churches, monasteries, etc. Then section three explicitly imposes bar on the conversion of places of worships. This means as per the definition the mosques or the temples that existed on 15 August 1947 shall not be converted at all. Then as per section four these places of worship religious characters should be maintained as maintained by the Act. So even any mosque or church converted to temple or vice versa before that date cannot be converted back. This is why petitioners challenge these sections. Petitioner controversially uses strong language and argues that these sections validate the places of worships that were illegally made by barbaric invaders. So this is a strong language and this has created controversies. Here clearly the petitioner is taking about the Muslim invaders of India especially the Mughals. During Mughal rule many historical monuments including the places of worship that is mosques were built in India. Petitioners argue that due to foreign oppression and invasion the Hindu temple and other places of worships of other religions had certain significance was converted to places of worship belonging to another religion. They argue that the challenges section of the Act are taking away the rights of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs to reclaim the places of worships through court. So what does the author think regarding the issue? Author feels that this petition gives rise to the issue of Hindu-Muslim communal conflict. See previously such a conflict existed due to Ayodhya issue which is a classic example of conversion of places of worship of one religion to another. So let's see about this issue in slight detail. See the issue was Hindus and Muslims both claimed ownership of a piece of land in Ayodhya. So this land was claimed by Hindus saying it is birthplace of Rama. As per Hindu mythology Lord Rama is said to be an incarnation of Lord Vishnu but at this claimed site Babri Masjid which is a mosque existed. Here Muslim community claimed that this mosque was built by the first Mughal emperor which is Babur and Hindus claim that the mosque was built over the Ram temple but this was denied by the Muslim community. Further under the noise of this conflict Babri Masjid was unfortunately demolished by some followers of Hindu community in 1992. Finally this conflict was only settled by Supreme Court and in as late as 2019 in the case law M. Siddik v. Mahant Suresh Das and which is popularly called as Ram Janambumi temple case. But note that the act expressly exempts Ram Janambumi Babri Masjid from the act under section 5 of this act. Now in his judgment Supreme Court permitted the construction of Ram temple at this disputed site at Ayodhya and based on the evidence submitted by the Archaeological Survey of India and it said there was a temple below the destroyed structure of Babri Masjid. Additionally Supreme Court also directed the center to allot about a 5 acre plot to Sunni Vakav board for building a mosque and Supreme Court also directed that the destruction of mosque was a shocking violation of the rule of law. So this is a historic judgment that addressed the issue of conversion of place of worship of one religion to another. So that is why Aadha has pointed out many excerpts from the judgment to establish the fact that the judgment is a clear expression of approval of the act. So let us see how firstly the law imposes unwavering or steady and mandatory norms where it preserves the religious character of every place of worship as it existed on the independence that is 15th of August 1947 and for this under section 4 the act provides for the removal of suits and legal proceedings with respect to the conversion of religious character of any place of worship that is first. Secondly the act protects and secures the fundamental values of the constitution and it is intrinsically related to the obligation of a secular state that is he just says the act has a very secular character. So it reflects the commitment of India to the equality of all religion which is nothing but secularism. Thirdly the act is an affirmation of a solemn duty of the state to preserve and protect the equality of all the faiths as an essential constitutional value and this is a basic feature of our constitution. So most importantly court noted that historical wrongs cannot be remedied by the people taking the law in their own hands. So based on this author establishes that the petitioner's arguments were already repealed by the supreme court in its Ayodhya judgment itself. So author supports the 1991 law stating that it was enacted to satisfy the feelings of the Hindus and also to reassure Muslims about protection of their places of worships. So only exception was Ayodhya has existed on August 15 1947. Now before concluding the article the author has provided the views of framers of constitution on article 25 and article 26. So which is nothing but the right to freedom of religion especially freedom to profess, practice and propagate religion. In short the leaders acclaimed the idea of secular state which is complemented by these articles that is article 25 and 26. So author concludes that supreme court should uphold the views of the leaders and the communal conflict which was subsided and settled in supreme court in Ayodhya issue should not be rekindled by the petition which can prove harmful for the communal harmony. Now this news article is with reference to the ongoing legislative assembly elections of Sam. It talks about the citizenship amendment act which is CAA and this has appeared to have psychologically divided the Bengali majority, Bharatwali and the Assamese majority Brahmaputrawali. It also talks about the national registry of citizens. So before seeing the connection between CAA and NRC let us first have a good understanding about CAA and NRC. This is the syllabus for your reference. So first let us see the basic objective of this. The CAA is an amended version of citizenship act of 1955. Let us pay some close attention to the forthcoming information. The basic objective of this amendment act is to facilitate the granting of Indian citizenship to members of six minority communities who migrated to India from three countries before 31st December 2014. These countries are Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The minority communities mentioned are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians. These persons who migrated to India without valid travel documents or the members whose travel documents validity had expired will be given Indian citizenship based on this amendment act. Here you need to know that two major amendments which helps in facilitating and fast-tracking the citizenship status of such persons whom we saw now. Firstly section two of the citizenship act of 1955 was amended by inserting a new clause for not treating these persons as illegal migrants. Have a look at this and the next major amendment is to reduce the time period in acquiring citizenship or in other words to fast-track the citizenship through naturalization for these persons. We know that citizenship act of 1955 prescribes five ways of acquiring citizenship. They are one by birth, two by descent, three by registration, four by naturalization and five by incorporation of territory. Here the term naturalization literally means the admittance of a foreigner to the citizenship of a country. For these persons from six communities from three countries which we saw a provision has been inserted in the third schedule as per this amendment. As per this provision the already existing period of not less than 11 years for acquiring citizenship through naturalization has been reduced to not less than five years for these persons. So we can see that the CAA helps in facilitating and fast-tracking the citizenship status for these specific set of people. So remember only for these set of people the time period to acquire citizenship by naturalization has been reduced and for every other person who wish to acquire citizenship through naturalization the time period has not been updated. This is all about this amendment act that you need to know. Now you can see that the Muslim community is excluded from this amendment but know that these persons from Muslim community from these three countries can also acquire Indian citizenship by naturalization but it will take 12 years for them. So remember that after CAA came into force in 2020 it saw widespread opposition from across the country especially the exclusion of one particular community from this citizenship act has become a major concern among the Indian society. It is believed to be violative of article 14 and that it contravenes the secular spirit of the Indian constitution. Many petitions were filed in Supreme Court to stay this act also. Here the protesters of CAA also say that this act will make the national registry of citizens which was published for Assam as ineffective. Now let us have a brief understanding about the NRC which is National Registry of Citizens. See NRC for Assam was a promise made in Assam Accord to identify and deport foreigners from Assam. Know that section 14A1 of Citizenship Act of 1955 the central government may compulsorily register every citizen of India and issue national identity card to him or her. So as you can see there is a word may which means that it is the discretion of the central government to have a NRC and section 14A2 of the act provides that the central government may maintain a national registry of Indian citizens. As we can see NRC is legally sanctioned. So NRC is the registry that contains the names of Indian citizens. This is completely different from the national population registry which contains the names of usual residents. We saw about that in a discussion few days ago if you recollect. So coming back to NRC, NRC the register was prepared for the first time after the conduct of census of 1951 under the director from Ministry of Home Affairs. These registers covered each and every person enumerated during the census of 1951. Ever since NRC is being updated for the first time only now but it has been already updated for the state of Assam. Now let us discuss the issue specific to Assam. It is to be noted that during March 1971 Assam witnessed massive migration from Bangladesh following the liberation war. This led to huge protests in Assam. Finally Assam Accord was signed between the Government of India and the protesters in 1985. One of the important provision of Assam Accord was to find out the illegal migrants from the country of Bangladesh. Note that an NGO also filed a petition in the Supreme Court in 2009 demanding the updation of NRC in order to find out the illegal migrants in the state. The Supreme Court in 2013 laid down the process to update the NRC in Assam. So in accordance with the Supreme Court order the exercise began in 2015 under the supervision of the Supreme Court itself. Note that the objective of updating NRC was to segregate the Indian citizens living in Assam from those who illegally entered from Bangladesh. The final NRC was published in August 31st 2019. Out of 3.3 crore applicants, 3.11 crore figured in the final list about 19 lakh people were left stateless. And by the time NRC was published it became evident that majority of these denied citizenship were Hindus or indigenous tribes. So at this time the CAA came into force. Which means CAA bestows citizenship on illegal immigrants who were identified by NRC. And this was another reason why CAA saw opposition. So this brings us to the conclusion on the discussion of NRC and CAA. This article says that 27 migrated birds were reported dead due to avian influenza in the Pong Dam wildlife sanctuary of Himachal Pradesh. And most of the victims were barheaded goose. So we will have a quick look into what is barheaded geese, Pong Dam and avian flu. Now look at this picture. This is barheaded goose. They have these grey bars on their head. They are known to be one of the highest flying birds in the world and they can fly at altitudes of 25,000 feet. They migrate over the Himalayas where oxygen and temperature levels are extremely low and their IUCN status is least concerned. In India, the barheaded goose breeds at Sokar Lake in Ladakh and at Pong Lake in Himachal Pradesh. They even migrate to Kalidio National Park in Bharatpur and at a Surasarovar birth sanctuary in UP. Last year it was also spotted in Kerala. Coming to Pong Dam and it is a reservoir constructed on the river Bees in the wetland of Shivallik Hills of Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. Pong Lake now called as Maharana Pratap Sagar Lake came into existence with the construction of earthen management dam at a place known as Pong across the river Bees. It was built in 1975. This reservoir or lake is a famous wildlife sanctuary and one of the international wetland sites declared by Ramsar and also know that Pong reservoir is the most important fish reservoir in the foothills of Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh. So the government of Himachal Pradesh proclaimed this wetland as wildlife birth sanctuary in 1983. This sanctuary was declared as a wetland of national importance by Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in 1994. So the Pong Dam is a major wetland which offers a transitory winter ground for several migratory birds. So what is that? It simply means that they rest during winter's year and this includes bar-headed geese, radish shell ducks, pin tails, coots and many others. Coming from the Trans-Himalayan zones in the winter season when the wetland in the Europe and the North and the Central Asia become frozen in the winters. You can browse through the pictures of these birds. They are brilliantly colored and beautiful that way you will remember them better. So finally let us see about avian influenza and infectious viral disease of birds commonly known as bird flu. Wild water folds such as ducks and geese and poultry birds are susceptible to avian influenza and these outbreaks results in epidemics in poultry. Humans are generally not affected by them however some types of avian influenza such as H5N1, H7N9 have caused serious infection in humans as well. Other avian influenza subtypes are H7N3, H7N7, H9N2. Moving on to the next article. Now this news article is with reference to Mandipur National Park. It says that two tiger cubs from the region died apparently due to starvation and the condition of another is critical and is under observation at the Mysuru Zoo. So in this context let us have a brief understanding about Mandipur National Park which repeatedly makes news making it a very important topic. So you can locate the Mandipur National Park here. So Mandipur National Park is also an important tiger reserve located in the village called Bandipur Karnataka. The tiger reserve is situated in the contiguous landscapes between two districts. One is Mysore, another one is Chamarajanakar. Know that it is a distinctive landmass located in the tri-junction areas of the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. So in this regard it is a part of the western guts and the tiger landscape consisting of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, Nagarhole Tiger Reserve and Vayanal Wildlife Sanctuary. Together all these four create the India's biggest biosphere reserve which is popularly called as Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. The Bandipur along with Nagarhole, Mudumalai, Satyamangalam and Vayanar landscape is the source population in the western guts for the tigers which is estimated to be about 382 around 354 to 411 a variable estimate which constitutes the single largest wild population of tiger in the entire world. Also the landscape of Bandipur, Nagarhole, Mudumalai and Vayanar is home to single largest Asian elephant population in the world. So it is very lush green and it has rivers and forests into it and the park is situated between Kabini River which is a tributary of Kaveri to the north. So Kabini flows to the north and Moyar flows in the south and Nugur river runs through the park. Now look at this news article it talks about the expansion of unique land parcel identification number scheme that is going to be implemented across country by March 2022. See this ULPIN is a 14 digit identification number that will be given to every plot of land in the country within a year. Note this is one of the initiatives under Digital India land records modernization program and this program began in 2008. So in this slide let us see about DIL, RMP and ULPIN scheme. But before that we'll know why is there a need to modernize land records. So under the British Raj the farmers did not have ownership of lands. The land lordship of the land lied with the zamindas, jagirdars etc. Land was concentrated in the hands of a few and there was a proliferation of intermediaries who had no vested interest in self-cultivation. So land records were an extremely bad shape giving rise to mass of litigation and community ownership of land was also common. Land transactions were not recorded and they were carried out based on trust. So fixing ownership legally became a challenge and that is why land records are being modernized. The Digital India land records modernization program is a central sector scheme by the department of land resources and a ministry of rural development. The program began in 2008 and since then has been extended several times as its scope grew. DIL, RMP aims for a modern administration system and it attempts to develop an appropriate integrated land information management system across the country on which different states can also add state specific needs as and when needed or relevant. So here is the components of DIL, RMP have a look at it for the reference. Now coming on to ULPIN system, it will be a 14 digit alpha numeric unique ID for each land parcel. What is the alpha numeric? It will have both alphabets and the numeric. The 14 digit thing will have alphabets and numeric and this code will uniquely identify every survey land parcel of land and helps at preventing land fraud especially in rural India where land records are outdated and disputed. Know that this identification will be based on the longitude and the latitude of the land parcel and is dependent on detailed surveys and geo-referenced maps. The benefits associated with the scheme as enumerated for your reference so we'll go by it one by one. First and foremost is it will ensure uniqueness in all the transactions and will keep the land records always up to date because updating a digital record is much easier. Link of all property transaction will get established so thereby fixing ownership will also become easier. Delivery of citizen service of land records through a single window so this is an effort to bring transparency in land transaction and sharing of land records data across departments financial institutions and all stakeholders so this will give rise to a legitimate data that is very reliable and apart from that effective integration and interoperability across departments by standardizing the data and the level of application. So from department to people also everything is integrated this is what this tries to imply. Apart from ULPIN national generic document registration system linking of code to land records integration of consent based Aadhaar number with land records are some of the other initiative of DI LRMP for your reference. Now let us move on to practice questions first question. Consider the following statements revenue deficit is the difference of government's revenue receipts and revenue expenditure this statement is correct in other words revenue deficit occurs when the government's total revenue expenditure exceeds its total revenue receipts that is revenue deficit is revenue expenditure minus revenue receipts statement one is right revenue expenditure is the expenditure incurred for the purpose other than the creation of physical assets or financial assets of the central government statement two is also correct so the correct option is option C consider the following statements the protected area is located at the tri-junction area of the state of Karnataka Tamil Nadu and Kerala the second statement is the protected area along with its adjoining landscape constitutes the single largest wild population of tigers in the world and the third statement goes dry deciduous forests in the dominant type of the biome in this protected area the statements given above refers to which of the following protected areas so all these statements mentioned here are about bandipur national park that we saw in the discussion today so the correct option is B so here is another factual question the Pong dam which was named as Maharana Pratap Sagar is a famous wildlife sanctuary and a Ramsar site the dam is constructed on which of the following rivers so this is a factual question the correct option is option A we saw this in the discussion also today with reference to places of worship special provisions act 1991 which of the following statement is or are correct the first statement is it declass that the religious character of a place of worship existing on the 26th the day of January 1950 shall continue to be the same as it existed on that day this statement is incorrect because it should be 15th of August 1947 as per section 4 1 of the act so consider the second statement it allows conversion of any place of worship of any religious denomination to a different section of the same religious denomination statement 2 is also incorrect because the act imposes a blanket ban conversion of places of worship as per section 3 no person shall convert any place of worship of any religious denomination or any section thereof into a place of worship of a different section of the same religious denomination or of a different religious denomination of any section that is any sort of conversion is not allowed so the correct option is option D so consider the following statements with reference to digital India land records modernization program the first statement is it is a centrally sponsored scheme by the department of land resources statement one is correct because it is under ministry of rural development under this mentioned department consider the second statement national generic document registration system is a initiator under this this statement is also correct the national generic document registration system aims to provide one nation one software for registration of documents and properties to empower the citizen it is a move to enhance transparency in the governance and the national generic document registration system is under the broad ages of digital India land records modernization program so the correct option is see both one and two in 2019 the final update of national registry of citizens was published by the government of India so in this context consider the following statement so first statement is it was the first time the nrc was updated statement one is correct nrc was prepared for the first time after the conduct of the census in 1951 under the directive of ministry of home affairs these registers cover each and every person enumerated during census of 1951 ever since nrc was never updated and this was the first time it was updated in 2019 it was updated for the entire nation this statement is wrong because it was updated only for the state of Assam and consider the third statement the objective of updating nrc was to identify illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and statement three is factually right so the correct option will be option b one and three only so this is a main question for your reference you can write the answer for this main question and post it in the comment section so that brings us to the end of today's analysis the period of links are given below for the notes if you like the video kindly like share and subscribe good day