 Good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar A.S. Academy for the date 17th of March 2023. Displayed here are the list of news articles we will be going through today. Now without wasting time, let's start our discussion. Take a look at this snippet displayed here. It talks about the reopening of Zojila Pass by the Border Road Organization that is PRO. Zojila Pass links the Union Territory of Ladakh with the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. This is what is given in this small snippet displayed here. So through this discussion we will see about the important passes located in India. As many of you already know, UPSC asks location-based questions in prelims examination very frequently. Location-based topics are not only limited to rivers, mountains and volcanoes, so it becomes important for us to learn about the location of mountain passes also. High altitude mountain passes are located exclusively in regions where there is a presence of Himalayas. So the mountain passes present in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarkhand and Himachal Pradesh becomes important for us to learn. The mountain passes present in the Union Territory of Ladakh and Jammu are also important. Now let's start with the state of Arunachal Pradesh. From this map we can see that there are huge number of passes present in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. The important passes present here are Deeper Pass and Bumla Pass. Deeper Pass is located in the tri-junction of India, China and Myanmar border. And Bumla Pass is the pass which connects Lhasa that is the capital of Tibet with the Thuang Rangern present in India. Now moving on to Sikkim. The two important mountain passes of Sikkim are Jilipla and Nathulapas. Jilipla connects India, Bhutan and Tibet. And Nathulapas is located close to Jilipla Pass. It connects the town of Gangtok which is the capital of Sikkim and the Chumbi Valley. Here Chumbi Valley is a small region of Tibet autonomous region which lies between Sikkim and Bhutan. These are the two main passes present in Sikkim. Now coming to the state of Uttarkhand. Here you can see that most of the passes present here connect Uttarkhand with Tibet. The pass to note here is the Lipulek Pass. It is the primary pass used by the pilgrims to go to Kailash Mansarovar lake present in Tibet. Now coming to the passes present in Himachal Pradesh. From this map provided here you can see that the passes present in Himachal Pradesh are mostly intra-country passes. The Shibkila Pass is the only pass which is the inter-country pass located in the state of Himachal Pradesh. It connects Tibet and the Kinno district of Himachal Pradesh. Now moving on to Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The important pass present here is the Kardungla Pass. It connects Nubra valley with Leh. Zojila Pass which the news article reports about is yet another important pass located here. As I already said it links the Union Territory of Ladakh with the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Now moving on to Binihal Pass. It connects Srinagar with Jammu. This is all with respect to the passes present in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Other than these high altitude passes, India also has passes present in the Western Guards region. I have displayed the map showing all the important passes present in the Western Guards here. The Palgad Pass is the important pass. It is located here and it connects Coimbatore city with Kerala. Asingad and Hildagadi are other important passes which are well known for their historical significance. Preparation for map based or location based questions cannot be done in a single day. So my suggestion is daily spend at least 20 minutes to prepare for map based question. As a part of this discussion I displayed many passes but discussed only about a few. So take it upon yourself and spend 20 minutes with each maps that was displayed as a part of this discussion. This will help you create long term memory about the location of the important passes. So that's all regarding this discussion. With this let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Look at this editorial article. It says that what we are today and what happens in today's world can be attributed to the colonial past. Now you may wonder how is our past still relevant. See we know that colonialism is not unique to India. It happened almost everywhere from Asia to Africa and even in the Latin American countries. Here the author gives various examples from the current experiences of different countries for substantiating his argument. His argument being colonialism is the reason for many problems that many countries experiences even today. So in our discussion today we will see the cases quoted by the author before getting into our discussion. I have highlighted the syllabus regarding this discussion. You can pass the video and go through it. First we will briefly see what is colonialism. This will help you understand the context of this article more clearly. Technically colonialism is an act of political and economic domination involving the control of a country and its people by settlers from a foreign power. The main goal of the foreign settlers is to make profit by exploiting the human and economic resources of the country they colonized. We all know how Britain colonized India and sucked out all the wealth. This is what is called as colonialism. It is not like waging war and using force to capture a land. See imagine a scenario and a neighbor comes to your house and asks if he can use your backyard for growing some potatoes. You allow him to do so because he promises to pay you some rent. Lured by this you let him do that. But days later he says he wants to stay in your house so that it will be easy for him to look after his field of potatoes. This time he has lured your mom using some tricks. So now your mother insists that you allow the neighbor to stay in your house. The neighbor stays in your house and uses all your things and manipulates your family members and turns one against the other. How does this feel? This is what colonialism is all about. However we got rid of the colonial powers many years back and many countries who were under the colonial powers followed suit. But the author says the colonial powers have left to begin scars that irritate us even today. Now we will see some of the examples quoted by the author one by one. Firstly he talks about the untidy departure made by the colonial power when British left India they left hastily. They did not ensure that all the past decisions they made are acceptable to the people of the country. If you can remember we had two contrasting parties namely the princely states and the British Indian states when British left India. Did they ever wonder how will an independent princely state survive in the middle of the large British Indian territory? See the British actually did not care. They developed the political system of the country as per their convenience. So while leaving it is their duty to see that everything is properly put in place. Luckily we had many strong leaders like Sardar Vallabhai Patel at that time who could negotiate with the princely states and build a unified country. But our Indian leaders were also not entirely successful and the result is the Kashmir issue with Pakistan. Other example that the author quotes here is the Israeli-Pakistani conflict. These are some direct effects of colonial legacy. Then the author talks about the indirect effects of colonial legacy. One example the author quotes here is the racial discrimination that is still prevailing in the country of Rwanda. During the colonial era the European scientist claimed that a race called Hamidic race is superior to the native population of Negroid and they concluded that this Hamidic race has close links with the Europeans. Besides this they also believed that Tutsi population of Rwanda had their origin traced to this Hamidic race and the Hutu population of Rwanda was considered inferior. So the Belgians who were ruling Rwanda at that time concluded that the Tutsis and Hutus composed of two fundamentally different ethnoracial groups. They viewed the Tutsis as more civilized, superior and more importantly as Europeans. As a result they started placing societal control in their hands of the Tutsis at the expense of the Hutus. Eventually every Rwandan was officially branded a Tutsi or a Hutu. This distinction did not exist before and happened only during the colonial era. Today this distinction continues to haunt the country of Rwanda. To know more about the Hutu-Tutsi conflict and the Rwandan genocide watch the movie Hotel Rwanda. It is a heart-wrenching but a beautifully crafted movie. Now coming back, the author of the article quotes another example like this from our own home country that is India. The British considered some communities in India as martial race. They thought these people are more suitable for military services and because of this the military recruitment were skewed to take in many people from these branded communities mainly from Punjab. Even today these communities bear the burden of militarism. These are examples of how poorly the colonial powers understood the societies they colonized. Due to the poor understanding of the colonial powers and the poor decision making, many countries are still experiencing many problems due to their colonial past. Moving forward, thirdly the author talks about the policy of dividend rule which was used by the colonial powers. We all know how the British created political divisions between Hindus and Muslims in our country and this eventually led to the partition of India in 1947. Another example of their policy of dividend rule is how the colonialists successfully favored the Tamils over the singleist population. This resulted in discriminatory policies against the Tamils in Sri Lanka post the independence of Sri Lanka. This in turn led to the Tamil revolt and the Sri Lankan civil war. Then the author also says that countries which had more than one colonial powers ruling them are facing problems of so-called ethnic divide. But these are not problems of ethnic divides as it is labeled now. Rather it is because of the differences of their colonial experiences. The author here quotes the example of Eritrea and Ethiopia. The countries of Ethiopia and Eritrea have a long history of border issue. See Eritrea was once part of the Ethiopian Empire and it was colonized by Italy from 1869 to 1941. After Italy's defeat in World War II the united nation determined that Eritrea would become part of Ethiopia but Eritrea would maintain its autonomy. However in 1961 Ethiopia removed Eritrea's independence and Eritrea became just another Ethiopian province. But in 1991 Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia after a revolution. However the borders between Ethiopia and Eritrea had never been clearly marked. Now how could we say that problem here is because of ethnic divide? The problem here can be clearly traced back to the Italian colonization of the part of Eritrea. So the problem is not ethnic divide but the problem is colonialism. See even today we see that boundaries that were drawn during the colonial era still pose a problem of national unity for many countries. This is very apparent in the continent of Africa. The colonial powers drew boundaries for their own convenience. They did not take into account the cultural link between the population. Say tomorrow someone comes and draws a line in your house and says people across both the lines are different because now you belong to different countries. Will it be acceptable? No right. Older tribal and clan loyalties still hold together the people of Africa. Say for example a border clash arises between two cities A and B. But your family lives in city A and you live in city B because of your work there. Now just because of this line that demarcates you can the leaders of city B make you fight against your own family? No. We consider our family and then only we have the patriotic allegiance. So city B will never be able to develop the feeling of patriotism in their people. This is exactly what is happening in many African countries. And due to the ill advice to borders drawn by the colonial powers many African countries are still struggling to create a unified nation and imbibe the feeling of nation building among its population. Then the author also talks about how the governance of the colonial powers brought in inequality. The colonial powers constructed infrastructure only in places that helped their economic objectives. They did not have the idea of inclusive development. This under development of some neglected regions from the colonial times has resulted in skewed benefits to only some people. For example in India the British focused mainly on the cities of Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi and Madras. They neglected the rest of the country. The infrastructure disparity between these four countries and the rest of the country is still very evident. Although colonialism has long gone many countries are experiencing the scars of the colonialism even today. Many problems these countries face are the result of the decision taken by the colonial powers during the period of colonialism. See this discussion is very important for your GS paper one. UPSC can just ask you a question like this. The scars of the colonialism still lingers today. Substantiate. For this question you can quote all the examples that we saw as a part of this discussion. So I hope this discussion was useful and informative. With this let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Look at this article. Did you know the world glaucoma day is on March 12th? This article is written on this context to create awareness about glaucoma which is the second most common cause of blindness globally. However people in the developing countries are not aware about the disease. So in our discussion today we will learn about glaucoma. Glaucoma is an eye disease that causes vision loss and blindness by damaging the nerve in the back of our eyes which is called as the optic nerve. The optic nerves are those that send visual information from your eye to your brain and it is vital for good vision. Damage to the optic nerve is often related to high pressure in your eyes. But note that glaucoma can occur even in people with normal eye pressure. The symptoms can start so slowly that we may not even notice them. The only way to find out if we have glaucoma is to get a comprehensive dilated eye exam. Know that there is no cure for glaucoma. But early treatment can often stop the damage and protect your vision. However once someone has gone blind the blindness due to glaucoma is irreversible. The article also gives us the risk factors associated with the disease. First one is aging. Although glaucoma can occur at any age older people are more prone to glaucoma. Secondly if you have a family history of glaucoma it is good for you to have a check up for glaucoma because people with family history of glaucoma are more vulnerable to the disease. Thirdly people with high minus power that is people who are short-sighted are more vulnerable to glaucoma. Also indiscriminate use of steroids can put you at a high risk of getting glaucoma. These are some of the risk factors that increases the probability of getting affected by glaucoma. Moving forward let us see the types of glaucoma. Actually there are many types of glaucoma. The article particularly mentions two types we will see about them now. First is the open angle glaucoma. It is the most common form of glaucoma. It is a lifelong condition and it accounts for at least 90% of the all the glaucoma cases. In open angle glaucoma the ice drainage canals becomes clogged over time and this can damage the optic nerve. The second one is the angle closure glaucoma. In this type of glaucoma the angle in many or most areas between the iris and the cornea is closed reducing the fluid drainage and causing increased eye pressure and this increased eye pressure affects the optic nerve resulting in blindness. Moving on let us see the symptoms associated with glaucoma. The symptoms of the glaucoma depend on the type and stage of your condition. In case of open angle glaucoma there are no symptoms in early stages but gradually patchy blind spot will develop on your side vision. In later stages there will be difficulty in seeing things in your central vision itself. In case of angle closure glaucoma there can be severe headaches, severe eye pain, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, hollows or colored rings around lids or some of the symptoms associated with angle closure glaucoma. Moving on we will see about the treatment. The damage caused by glaucoma cannot be reversed but the treatment and regular checkups can help slow or prevent vision loss mainly if you catch the disease in its early stages. Glaucoma is treated by lowering the intraocular pressure that is pressure inside your eyes. Treatment option include prescription eye drops, oral medication, laser treatment, surgery are a combination of these four. There is no proven method to prevent glaucoma but there are ways to lower the worsening of the disease that is there are some lifestyle and home remedies that we can follow to improve our eye health. The first one is sleeping with your head at around 20 degrees so that intraocular pressure does not increase when you are sleeping. This is a very simple approach which we can easily follow at our home. Secondly we have to follow a good exercise routine to reduce the eye pressure. This step is highly recommended if you are having open angle glaucoma. Always consult your doctor before making changes in your exercise regime. Finally consuming food that is rich in vitamins and nutrients are key to prevent the occurrence of glaucoma. These are some simple lifestyle changes that we can adopt to prevent glaucoma. Okay and as you listen to this discussion please do not take this only as a science fact. Please make sure you create awareness about this disease among your friends and family and please have them checked for glaucoma. So that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion we discussed various facts about glaucoma. Now let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Look at this text and context article. As the title itself hints, this article talks about the supreme power given to the Shilankan president. We all know about the recent plight of the Shilankan people who went on strike to protest acute shortages of essentials and long power cuts. While some blame the country's most powerful leader for their plight, others blame the executive presidency system which gave the president unchecked power. Meaning believed that the semi-presidential system of government followed by Shilanka is the root cause of the problem. This is about the article given here. In this context let us quickly go through the three system of government that is the presidential system, parliamentary system and the semi-presidential system of government. We will also see the points discussed in the article. Before getting into the discussion I have highlighted the syllabus regarding this discussion you can go through it. Let us begin with the presidential system of government. In a presidential system the head of the government leads the executive that is distinct from the legislature. Here the head of the government and the head of the state are one and the same. That is as the head of the state the president occupies a ceremonial position and as the head of the government he leads the executive organ of the government. So in this system the office of president is very powerful both in theory and in practice. President is elected directly by the people. The president in the system is not accountable to the legislature. President has a fixed tenure and he cannot be removed by the vote of no confidence in the legislature but there is a procedure for the removal of president which is nothing but the impeachment. Similarly president also cannot dissolve the house of the representatives or the lower house in the presidential system of government. Lastly people outside the legislature can also be appointed as the ministers in the presidential system of government. These are some of the important points about the presidential system of government. Now coming to the parliamentary form of government. In this system the government is headed by the prime minister. The cabinet headed by the prime minister is the true power center in the system. The prime minister and the cabinet are accountable to the parliament. This is why the parliamentary form of government is also called the responsible form of government. Unlike the presidential form of government the head of the state in the parliamentary form of government is usually a person distinct from the head of the government. A head of the state is mostly a ceremonial position in parliamentary system of government. When a monarch occupies the ceremonial executive position then the form of government is called as constitutional monarch. Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Belgium, Sweden, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Spain and Cambodia are the examples of constitutional monarchs. On the other hand when the president occupies the ceremonial executive position then the form of government is called as parliamentary republic. Countries with such a system include Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India and Iraq. In both the cases prime minister along with the cabinet wields the ultimate executive power. Secondly in this form of government as we already saw the executive is accountable to the legislature that is the executive is answerable to the legislature for its action and its authority. There is a provision for checks and balance in the parliamentary system of government. The executive continues to be in power as long as it enjoys a majority in the lower house of the parliament. Thirdly the president has a fixed tenure but he can be impeached anytime due to the violation of the constitution. Fourthly ministers can only be chosen from among the MPs. So the prime minister and the cabinet are present both in the legislative and the executive arm of the government. And finally remember that in the Indian parliamentary form of government the lower house of the parliament that is the Lokshaba can be dissolved by the president on the recommendation of the prime minister. These are some of the important points about the parliamentary system of government. Now moving on to the semi-presidential form of government. A semi-presidential system is a republican system of government that combines the elements of presidential democracy and parliamentary democracy. Here the head of the state is the president. The president is directly elected by the people. Due to this the president enjoys a larger degree of power over the government. The semi-presidential system also has a prime minister who functions as a head of the government. The prime minister is usually nominated by the president in this system. Although the prime minister is nominated by the president the prime minister can be dismissed only by the legislature. An agreement is reached over between the two heads that is the head of the state and the head of the government in regards to the areas of policy. For example in France which follows semi-presidential system the president leads the foreign policy and the prime minister leads the domestic policy. So likewise the head of the state and the head of the government differentiates between them the areas of their policy control okay. The semi-presidential system may sometimes experience periods in which the president and the prime minister are from differing political parties. This is called as cohabitation and this term of cohabitation originated in France. Cohabitation can create an effective system of checks and balance or a period of pitter. Everything is dependent on the attitudes of the two leaders the ideologies they believe and their political parties. Countries with such a system that is the countries which have semi-presidential system of government include France, Russia and Sri Lanka. This is about the working of the semi-presidential system of government. As we already saw Sri Lanka also follows the semi-presidential system of government. But the thing is Sri Lanka has modified the semi-presidential system of government a little bit to suit its nature and this is where the problem lies. From the time of its independence that is in 1948 Sri Lanka was a parliamentary democracy. It adopted a republican constitution in 1972 in which parliamentary democracy continued. But in 1978 the second republican constitution changed it to a presidential form of government and vested the president's office with enormous powers. Under the system of executive presidency that is a type of semi-presidential system that is followed in Sri Lanka the people directly elect the president. According to their constitution the president can choose the prime minister from the party that has majority in the parliament. Though the ministers must be from the parliament the president has the power to remove the prime minister and the ministers at his will. This is a small deviation from the semi-presidential system that we discussed above because we just now saw in a semi-presidential system though the prime minister is appointed or nominated by the president the removal of the prime minister lies in the hand of the legislature. But in Sri Lanka both the appointment and the removal of the prime minister and the council of ministers is in the hand of the president. So the president in Sri Lanka enjoys maximum power and this is the root cause of the issues faced in Sri Lanka. So that's all regarding this discussion in this discussion we saw some points about the presidential system of government then we saw some points about the parliamentary system of government then finally we saw some points about the semi-presidential system of government then we saw the unique feature of the semi-presidential system of government that is followed in Sri Lanka and we also saw why this system is faulty okay with this now let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Take a look at this article it talks about the battle of Takkolam. This battle was fought between the Cholas and the Rashtrakuttas. The battle is said to be taken place in the year 949 CE. The Cholas were defeated at the end of this battle. The defeat in the battle of Takkolam acted as a check for the Chola imperial expansion and it took another 50 years for the Cholas to re-emerge as imperial rulers again under the able leadership of Rajaraja Chola. This is what is given in this article. In this context let us learn about the battle of Takkolam and the Tirvalangad plates which provides information about the said battle. We will cover both these in the prelims perspective. Rashtrakuttas as a regional power emerged in the second half of the eighth century. While their adversaries Cholas emerged nearly a century later in the second half of the ninth century. The rise of two regional powers in the peninsular India brought both of them into direct conflict. Rashtrakuttas with their capital at Manyaketta under the leadership of Krishna III challenged the Cholas through continuous battles. In a series of battles Krishna III defeated the Chola ruler Parantaka I bringing large parts of Chola country under the Rashtrakutta rule. One among the battles fought between Krishna III and Parantaka I was the Battle of Takkolam. In this battle only the eldest son of Parantaka I that is Raja Dithya was killed. As I already said the battle took place in the year 949 CE near the present day town of Arakonam in Tamil Nadu. As a result of this battle Krishna III occupied the region of Tundainadu which was previously under the control of Cholas. Here Tundainadu is a historical region located in the northernmost part of Tamil Nadu which lies adjacent to the southernmost part of Adnrapadesh. Here note that it was Sundra Chola the Grandchen of Parantaka Chola who reclaimed the territory of Tundainadu from Rashtrakuttas. Subsequently Cholas under the leadership of his son Raja Raja Chola extended the boundaries of Chola Empire till the southern boundary of modern day Urissa and the Chola Empire reached its zenith under the leadership of Raja Raja Now coming to the Battle of Thakkolam. The information about the Battle of Thakkolam was mentioned in the Tiruvallangadu copper plates. Now before ending our discussion let us see few points about the Tiruvallangadu plates. The inscriptions on the plates say that the Battle of Thakkolam was a fiercely fought battle between the forces of Rashtrakuttas and Cholas. Here note that the copper plates of Tiruvallangadu were inscribed during the reign of Rajendra Chola who was the son of Raja Raja Chola. The Tiruvallangadu plate inscription also talks about the Chola chieftain called Vallabha and Vallabha turned into an aesthetic that is like a saint after the defeat in the particular battle that is Battle of Thakkolam. So that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion we saw about the Battle of Thakkolam and we also saw few points about the Tiruvallangadu copper plates. With this we can conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. The article here recalls the memory of the legislative council of Tamil Nadu which existed some 37 years ago. It is suddenly making headlines because in its 2021 election manifesto the DMK promised voters that it would take steps to re-establish the legislative council in Tamil Nadu. Even though the contents of this article is not relevant for our examination, let us take this as an opportunity to revise about the legislative council. The legislative council is also known as Vidhan Parishith. It is the upper house of the state assembly. It is presided by the chairman of the legislative council. But remember not all states have legislative councils. The states having both legislative assembly and legislative council are called bicameral states and under article 168 class 1 sub-class a it mentions about the legislative council. Currently the states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have legislative councils and the rest of the states do not have legislative council. This Uniformity exists because some states believe that the existence of the legislative council delays the legislative process and they think it is an expensive institution to maintain. And the legislative councils only perform a very little function. So it is cost effective to not have the entire institution itself. So some states prefer not to have legislative council. One inference can be made from this. That is legislative council can be created or abolished. It can be created where it doesn't exist and it can be abolished where it does already exist. This is provided by the constitution under article 169. Now what is the procedure involved in the creation and abolition of legislative council? As per the constitution, the parliament has the power to abolish or create the legislative council by parliamentary law. But this can happen only if the legislative assembly of the concerned state passes a resolution to that effect. This resolution must be passed by the state assembly by a special majority. Special majority here means majority of the total membership of the assembly and the majority of not less than two-third of the members of the assembly present and voting. Moving forward, let us see some of the features of the legislative council. The legislative council is a continuing body or a permanent body. That is, the legislative council, unlike the legislative assembly, cannot be dissolved. Secondly, the legislative council exists to check the defective and ill-considered legislations made by the legislative assembly. The legislative council just revises and provides his opinion about the legislations passed by the legislative assembly. The legislative council also facilitates representation for eminent professionals and experts who cannot face direct election. And governor used this provision to nominate eminent professionals into the legislative council. The composition of the legislative council is as per article 171 class 1. The maximum strength of the council is fixed at one-third of the total strength of the assembly and minimum strength is fixed at 40. This means the size of the council depends on the size of the assembly of the concerned state. But remember, even though constitution had fixed the maximum and the minimum limits, the actual strength of the council is fixed by the parliament. Moving forward, let us see some of the other facts about legislative council. The members of the legislative council, that is, five-sixths of the legislative council. Because we already saw one-sixth of the legislative council are nominated by the governor. So, the remaining five-sixths of the legislative council are indirectly elected. They are elected in accordance to the system of proportional representation by means of single transverbal vote. Then the tenure of the legislative council is six-year, but one-third of the legislative council members retire on expiration every two years. These vacant seats are filled by fresh elections and nominations by the governor at the beginning of the third year. So, this is all about the legislative council. In this discussion, we saw some of the important facts about legislative council. Now, let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Take a look at this article. It reports about the proposal to set up a low-temperature thermal desalination plant of the coast of Lakshodip. This plant is going to be set up by the Chennai-based National Institute of Ocean Technology. This is about the article given here. In this context, in our discussion today, we will learn about the low-temperature thermal desalination technology and the National Institute of Ocean Technology. Let us start with the term desalination. Desalination is the process by which dissolved mineral salts in water are removed. It is largely used to remove salt from seawater. Many different methods are used for running a desalination plant. One such method is the low-temperature thermal desalination mechanism. This mechanism tries to bring in a new method of desalination which is done without any emissions. In this type of desalination, the differential temperature of water in the upper and the lower surface of the ocean is used to desalinate the seawater. The difference in temperature of water at the top of the sea surface and the water at the depths of around 600 feet can be as high as 15 degree Celsius. When the water at the depth of 600 feet is brought to the surface, it starts vaporizing. That is, it starts turning into water vapor due to the temperature difference that we just saw. Once water turns into vapor, it leaves behind the salt particles. This pure water vapor can be easily converted into clean drinking water if it is made to come into contact with the cold surface. The low-temperature thermal desalination technology tries to make use of this principle. The technology uses this principle by redirecting the water which is present below the surface of 600 feet in the ocean to come in contact with the warmer surface water. When the water vapor from the upper reaches of the ocean starts to evaporate, the cold water from the lower reaches of the ocean is made to come in contact with the water vapor. This results in the water vapor condensing and turning into clean potable water without any salt residue present in it. But this process is not purely self-sustaining. This is due to the fact that water pressure at the top surface is reduced using vacuum pumps and this vacuum pumps use diesel energy. So, although there is no emissions from the technology per se, the diesel energy used to run the vacuum pumps will account for some emission. This is all about the working of the low-temperature thermal desalination technology. Moving on, we will see about the National Institute of Ocean Technology. National Institute of Ocean Technology is an autonomous society functioning under the Ministry of Earth Sciences in India. The institute is located in Chennai and it is headed by a director. One important point to note about National Institute of Ocean Technology is that it is the nodal institute which is manufacturing India's deep sea submersible called Matsaya 6000. The said submersible is manufactured according to the objective of Mission Samudrayan launched by the Union Government a few years back. We will cover about this Samudrayan Mission of India in some other video. So, that's all about this discussion. In this discussion, we saw about the technology behind low-temperature thermal desalination. We also saw some points about National Institute of Ocean Technology. With this, we have come to the end of the news article discussion session. Now, let us take up the practice prelims questions. We have five practice prelims questions today. Let us see them one by one. Let us take up the first question. It is a two-statement question. Two statements about the Bragadishwara Temple of Thanjur is given. We have to find the correct statements. Let us take up the first statement. It was built by Rajendra Chola. This statement is wrong because the Bragadishwara Temple of Thanjur was built by Rajaraja Chola in the year 1012 CE. Moving on to the second statement. It is one of the 40 UNESCO World Heritage sites located in India. This statement is actually correct. So, statement one is incorrect and two is correct. So, the correct answer here is option B2 only. Moving on to the second question. Let me read out the question. The polymetallic nodules found at the bottom of the seabed contains which of the following elements? The elements given are iron, manganese and rare earth metals. Actually, all three that is iron, manganese and rare earth elements are found in the polymetallic nodules that is found in the bottom of the seabed. See, polymetallic nodules are small rounded accumulations of manganese and iron-hydroxides. Polymetallic nodules are also called manganese nodules. They also contain small amount of rare earth elements also. They are found at the bottom of the seabed. To extract this only, India is building the Matsaya 6000 that we saw during our discussion. So, here the answer is option D 1, 2 and 3. Moving on to the third question. This is a previous question asked in the 2015 prelims paper. Two statements about legislative councils are given. We have to find the correct statements. Let us take up the first statement. The legislative council of the state in India can be larger in size than half of the legislative assembly of the particular state. This statement is wrong. This we saw in the discussion itself. Because the strength of the legislative council cannot be more than one third of the strength of the legislative assembly. Not half. So, statement one is wrong. Moving on to the second statement. The governor of the state nominates the chairman of the legislative council of that particular state. This statement is also wrong. Because the chairman of the legislative council is elected by the council of members and not nominated by the governor. So, since both the statements are wrong, the correct answer here is option D neither one nor two. Okay. Moving on to the fourth question. This is also a two statement question. Two statements about the seal pass is given. We have to find the correct statement. Let us take up the first statement. It connects Twang and Guwahati. This statement is correct. You can look at the map here. The map highlights the route between Guwahati and Twang and here you can notice the seal pass. Moving on to the second statement. It is the highest motorable road in the world. This statement is wrong. Umlingla in Ladakh has the highest motorable road in the world. So, statement one is correct and statement two is incorrect. So, the correct answer is option A one only. Moving on to the last question. This question is based on our glow comma discussion. This is the quiz question for today. Interested aspirants can post the answer for this question in the comment section. The main questions based on today's discussion are displayed here. Interested aspirants can write the answers for these questions and post it in the comment section. If you like today's video, like, comment and share it with your friends. For more updates regarding UPSU preparation, subscribe to Shankar AIS Academy's YouTube channel. Thank you.