 A very good evening aspirants, welcome to Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankarae's Academy for the date 10th of March 2022. As you all know Shankarae's Academy has launched an app, see it is a multi-faceted application. In this app current of his materials and notes are available. If you want to make use of it, download this app and if you want to take a quiz also after studying the materials you can do that and if you want to watch the Hindu newspaper analysis videos or the toppers videos or special videos that the Shankarae's Academy releases, you can do that also in the app and you can get information such as admissions for online courses, pre-booking and if you want to get the study materials of the Shankarae's Academy, you can do that also through this app. So it is a very useful app, download it and make use of it. And with that note let's take a look at the articles that we are going to discuss today. These are the list of articles, we will discuss them one by one and without any delay let's get straight into the article discussion. See this news article here, it is from the text and context page. See it talks about the new UPI payment solution for the feature phone users. Here UPI means Unified Payments Interface. See this solution was launched by RBI on 8th of March 2022. In this context let us briefly look at what is UPI and then let us see the difficulties faced by the feature phone users and what is meant by a feature phone. Following that we will see the earlier digital transactions platform used by them and finally about the new UPI payment solution that is launched. Also we will see some of its pros and cons. But before that the syllabus relevant to the article is given here for your reference. Please go through it. First of all let us see what is meant by UPI. See Unified Payments Interface is a system. This system powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application. This may be of any participating bank. Here it merges several banking features then helps in seamless fund routing and merchants payments into one hood. It also caters to peer to peer collect request. See interesting thing that you have to note here is that the payment can be scheduled and paid as per the requirement and convenience. Now let us see the benefits the customers are enjoying using this UPI. See the first one is it is available 24-7. The second benefit is that single application is used for accessing different bank accounts. The third benefit is the use of virtual ID which is more secure and the fourth benefit is single click authentication and the fifth benefit is you can raise complaint of any issues are there through the mobile app itself. See although this UPI which was introduced in 2016 has become one of the most used digital payments platforms in the country. The difficulty faced by the feature phone users in this should be addressed. This is because there are more than 40 crore feature phone mobile subscribers in the country. Here let us take a detour and find out what does a feature phone mean. See a feature phone is a type of mobile phone that has more features than a standard cell phone but it is not equivalent to a smartphone. See using feature phones we can make and receive calls and we can send text messages also but it lacks the advanced functionality of a smartphone. For your better understanding see this picture here this is how a feature phone looks like. Now let us see what are all the difficulties faced by the feature phone users. Firstly the need of internet facility for using UPI. Secondly the unavailability of scanning facility for scanning QR code or the QR based payments. We have all used GPay or Paytm or PhonePay or Beemapp right. What we do in that we scan the QR code and we make the payment. So people who are using the feature phones find it difficult because they don't have the scanning facility in their phones right. See when I talk about these kind of facilities you may say that they have the national unified unstructured supplementary service data or the NUUP. This is a USSD platform. So what does this mean. See this USSD platform is a mobile banking service. See through this financial and non-financial transactions can be done without the internet. This is popularly called as star double nine hash by the national payments corporation of India that is NPCI. Now if you want to know more about star double nine hash see the analysis of January 4 2022. In that analysis we have discussed elaborately about this star double nine hash which is the offline payment. See we saw there is a facility of making payment without internet which is this star double nine hash. So what is the necessity of this new UPI payment solution. That's because there are certain drawbacks of this star double nine hash. We'll see what is that. See this USSD based process is considered cumbersome. Cumbersome means difficult because users are required to send multiple messages and they are charged for the same. Also note that it is not supported by all the mobile service providers. So this is exactly why new UPI payment solution is launched by the Reserve Bank of India. Now let us see about the new UPI payment solution. See as a payment solution for the feature phone users RBI has taken an initiative. This initiative is called as UPI one two three pay. Now how will it facilitate financial transactions without the internet connectivity. See with this UPI one two three pay. Firstly they have to undergo an onboarding process. Here they have to link their bank account to their feature phone. Secondly they have to set a UPI pin using their debit card for authenticating the transactions. Once they have completed this initial process users will be able to use the new UPI facility for person to person as well as merchant transactions. This is done through one of the four distinct payment options. We'll see what they are. But before that remember the main advantage here is that the payment does not require an internet connection. Now coming back to the four options to make payments without the internet connectivity. The first one is interactive voice response that is the IVR. In this uses would be required to initiate a secured call from their feature phones to a predetermined IVR number. Then they can complete the UPI onboarding formalities to be able to start making financial transactions like money transfer, mobile recharge, EMI payment, balance check etc. Now moving on to the second one. The second one is app based functionality. Through this app several UPI functions available on the smartphones can be done in the feature phone also. Here the exception is these can and pay feature which is currently not available for the feature phone users. Other than that everything can be done through feature phones also. Third option is missed call facility. This option allows the users to access their bank account and perform routine transactions such as receiving, transferring funds, regular purchases, bill payments etc. by giving a missed call on the number displayed at the merchant outlet. The customer will receive an incoming call to authenticate the transaction by entering the UPI pin. We saw previously right we have to create the UPI pin using the debit card. So once you make the missed call you will receive a call during which you have to enter your UPI pin to authenticate the transaction and this is how a payment is completed. Now moving on to the final option. See the fourth option is proximity sound based payments. This uses sound waves to enable contactless offline and proximity data communication on any device. We'll see more about it once this UPI 123 pay comes to regular use. So these are all the four options through which payment can be done without internet connection. Thus the launch of UPI 123 pay makes facilities under the UPI accessible to the section of society which was so far been excluded from the digital payments landscape. In that way it is promoting great amount of financial inclusion in our economy. So that's all about this article discussion. We'll have a quick recap. We saw what is UPI. It is a system which powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application. We all have used GPay or Beemaprite. It is a single application through which many bank accounts are integrated and we moved on to see about the benefits the customers are enjoying which is round the clock availability, single application for accessing different bank accounts, virtual ID, single click authentication, complaint through mobile app and after that we moved on to see about the feature phone. It is nothing but a phone which has more features than a standard phone but it is not equivalent to a smartphone and after that we saw the difficulties faced by the feature phone users which are the need of internet facility and the unavailability of scanning facility and we saw about the unified unstructured supplementary service data USST which is a mobile banking service through which financial and non-financial transactions can be done without internet. This is popularly called a star double nine hash by the National Payments Corporation of India and after that we saw the drawback of this star double nine hash and we finally moved on to see about the new UPI payment solution. In that we saw it is an initiative taken by the RBA and it is called as UPI123Pay. We saw the procedure under the UPI123Pay which is undergoing an onboarding process and setting a UPI pin using debit card for authenticating transactions and after that we saw the four options to make payments without internet connectivity. The first one is interactive voice response. The second one is app-based functionality. The third one is missed call facility and the fourth one is proximity sound-based payments and with these points in mind let's move on to the next article discussion. See this open article here it is about one of the rarely discussed topics which is the geriatric care. On those lines the author discusses the issues faced by the geriatric community and the interventions needed to make their lives better. See these kind of articles are very important. I'll show you a question that was asked in the year 2020 in the GS2 mains paper. The question is this in order to enhance the prospects of social development sound and adequate health care policies are needed particularly in the fields of geriatric and maternal health care. Discuss. So the points that we are going to discuss under this article discussion will be helpful for you if such a question is asked in the mains. So pay close attention to it. In this discussion we are going to see what is geriatric care. It's need issues in it and the way forward but before that the syllabus relevant to the article is given here for your reference. Please go through it. First of all the geriatric care means elderly care or the care of elders. So the word geriatric indicates elder people. Here elderly would be persons of age 60 and above. This care of elders encompasses the care at the individual level as well as at the community level. Further the geriatric or the elder care is a broad term that encompasses everything from assisted living and nursing care to adult day care, home care and even hospital care. See here the word encompasses means it includes everything. Now we'll see why do we need it. See today we may be youngsters but tomorrow we'll also become elder people right? So at that time the aging affects the health. There will be physical problems, cognitive and emotional problems. Cognitive in the sense mental related issues. Particularly health will decline as various diseases and physical limitations accompany old age. This increases their need for enhanced health care in all levels. That is exactly why geriatric care is important. Now let's move on to the second reason. See aging people have economic deprivations. This can't be more true right? Because now we are categorized among the working population but once we age we cannot be economically independent. That is financially independent. This is because aging people will either be retired or not be earning at that point of time. Moreover they may not be in the right health to make a living. So geriatric care is of great value around the world particularly in India. To understand why we are going to take the help of a data here. See India is poised to become home to the second largest number of older persons in the world. Actually as per 2011 census elderly population was 8.6 percentage of the total Indian population which is around 103 million. But projection studies indicate a rapid increase. They state that the number of 60 plus in India will increase to 198 million in 2020. And this is expected to increase further. And this is according to the World Population Prospects 2019 which is released by UN Population Division. And the prospect says that the share of the elderly population in India is projected to further rise by 2050. It will increase to 19.5 percentage of the total Indian population which will be 319 million. You can see the increasing gap in the graph here. And now let's see about the aging index. See the aging index also does not hold any promises. See the aging index refers to the number of elderly persons aged 65 years and above per 100 children. These are the children in the age group of 0 to 14 years. The aging index for India was 8.4 in 1950. And it is expected to increase to 74.5 by 2050. See the drastic difference. And this shows a rapid pace of aging. See additionally India's elderly population have some distinct features. First one is around 80 percentage of the elderly population in India are in the rural areas where the service delivery is already a challenge. And the second feature is that more than 50 percentage of the elderly population is female. So there is feminization of elderly population. And the third one is the increase in the number of older old. Older old means older amongst the elderly population particularly persons above 80 years. And the last feature is a large percentage of elderly that is around 30 percentage of the elderly people are below the poverty line. These are the features of Indian elderly population. So all these necessitates the need for geriatric care in India. But in the nuclear family era the geriatric care is not managed by families. One of the reasons behind this is our homes are not elderly friendly structures. Many of us live in apartments or cannot stay around the clock to take care of the elderly. This is where the professionals come into play that is the geriatric care is managed by voluntary organizations or NGO or even by religious organizations. We know they provide the care through the old age care homes or the retirement homes or the assisted living homes. These are the places that are called as residents where elders get nursing and care in a clinical setting. So often they provide paid services. Some organizations also provide free or subsidized service. But unfortunately only a smaller number of elderly populations are willingly residing in these homes and the others are forced to stay by their own families. Even though these homes offer timely services they still lack in many areas. See the quality of service depends on whether it is paid or not. This is due to the fact that there is no proper regulatory mechanism or established standard operating procedures in these homes. So many a times they only offer informal healthcare. This again affects the mental health of those who are residing in these homes. So author has suggested that there is a need for a formal approach in managing these homes for the elderly. These homes should be linked to the public health facilities so that the screening, diagnosis and prognosis of any illness could be taken care of and timely support could be given. This should also include assessment of mental health and the government can open private or public hospitals to provide these services. Only if government interferes we can take care of the elderly in a cost effective way. And overall this mandates a proper planning and policy by the government that is focused on the support for the homes for the elderly. And that's it for the article discussion. We'll have a quick recap. What all we saw? We saw about geriatric care which is elderly care or care of elders and elderly people are the persons of age 60 and above. Why do we need geriatric care? Because aging affects health, it creates physical problems, cognitive and emotional problems and aging people have economic deprivations. And after that we saw India is going to be the home to the second largest number of older people in the world. As per 2011 census elderly population was 8.6 percentage which is one or three million and it was expected to increase 198 million in 2030. And after that we saw about the world population prospects 2019 released by UN population division and according to which there will be 19.5 percentage increase in the elderly population in India. And we saw about the aging index and according to it India is expected to increase to 74.5 by 2050. And we saw some distinct features of India's elderly population which is 80 percentage of them are in the rural areas and 50 percentage of them are female that is feminization of elderly population. And there is a larger number of older old which is older amongst the elderly population particularly persons above 80 years. And the large percentage of the elderly are below poverty line. And after that we saw that geriatric care is managed by voluntary organizations or NGOs and they provide care through old age care homes, retirement homes, assisted living homes. And finally we saw the need for a formal approach in managing these homes for the elderly. We saw that the home should be linked to public health facilities and we saw the mandate for a proper planning and policy by the government that is focused on elderly for supporting the homes. With these points in mind let's move on to the next article discussion. Have a look at this news article As per the article an e-waste refinery is being set up by Ramke Enviro engineers. See Ramke Enviro engineers is a leading waste management company with a new brand identity called resustainability and it is expected to be ready in two months. So this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context let us quickly go through what is e-waste and composition of e-waste. Firstly what is e-waste? See e-waste refers to all trash generated by electronic and electrical appliances that have reached the end of their useful life or they are no longer suited for their original purpose and they are designed for recovery, recycling or disposal. Therefore e-waste or electronic waste broadly refers to loosely discarded, surplus, old or malfunctioning electrical or electronic devices. See it is nothing but the electrical appliances which are of no use any longer. Now talking about its composition as I already said electronic waste refers to abandoned and end-of-life electronic items. It actually ranges from computers, information and communication technology equipment, home appliances, audio and video products and all of its accessories. So the composition of e-waste is diverse and if we classify e-waste based on the hazardous nature e-waste can be classified into hazardous and non-hazardous categories. See the non-hazardous category consists of ferrous, non-ferrous metals, plastics, glass, wooden plywood, printed circuit boards, concrete, ceramics, rubber and other items. Among them iron and steel constitute about 50 percentage of the waste followed by plastics which constitute 21 percentage and non-ferrous metals which constitute 13 percentage and other constituents. Note that here non-ferrous metals consist of metals like copper, aluminium and precious metals like silver, gold, platinum, and so on. Now on the other hand the presence of elements like lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, selenium, hexavalent chromium and flame retardants beyond threshold quantities make e-waste hazardous in nature. It includes about 1000 distinct components many of which are poisonous and when disposed of it causes significant pollution. See among the e-wastes outdated computers post the greatest environmental and health hazard. Now that's it for the composition of e-waste. Now let's see its management. See after knowing its hazardous nature just to regulate the generation of e-waste the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change issued e-waste management rules 2016. This rule replaced the previous e-waste management and handling rules 2011. For the first time the rules brought the producers under the extended producer responsibility which is nothing but the EPR along with the targets. See EPR is a policy approach in which the manufacturers are assigned significant financial and physical responsibility for the treatment and the disposal of post-consumer products. In simple terms producers have been made responsible for the collection of e-waste and for its treatment and exchange. See state governments have also been tasked with ensuring the safety, health and skill development of workers involved in dismantling and recycling activities. Apart from this a provision for a penalty for rule violations have also been added. So with this we have come to the end of our discussion. Now let's have a quick recap. What all we saw? We saw about e-waste which is nothing but trash generated by electronic electrical appliances that have reached the end of their useful life or they are no longer suited for their original purpose. And after that we saw about composition. See electronic waste refers to abandoned and end-of-life electronics and it ranges from computers, information and communication technology equipment, home appliances, audio and video products. So from this we can say composition of e-waste is diverse. It means it includes many things and after that we saw about different categorization of e-waste. Under that we saw about the non-hazardous category which consists of ferrous, non-ferrous metals, plastics, glass, wood and plywood, printed circuit boats, concrete, ceramics, rubber. And we moved on to see about the hazardous e-waste which includes elements like lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, selenium, hexavalent chromium and flame retardants. See these components they are hazardous because they are poisonous and they cause pollution which eventually lead to environmental and health hazard. And finally we saw about the management of e-waste. See the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change issued the e-waste management rules 2016. The rules brought the producers under the extended producer responsibility EPR. See it is nothing but producers have been made responsible for the collection of e-waste and its treatment and for its exchange. With these key takeaway points let's move on to the next article discussion. See this news article here it talks about a new form to monetize land assets. See the cabinet has approved for setting up of National Land Monetization Corporation as a special purpose vehicle. This is for undertaking surplus land monetization. In this context let us discuss about what does it mean by monetization. Then we'll see about NLMC which is National Land Monetization Corporation. Also we'll see about the National Monetization Pipeline. First of all what is this monetization? See monetize refers to the process of turning a non-revenue generating item into cash. In many cases monetization looks to novel methods of creating income from new sources. The term monetize also refers to liquidating an asset or an object for cash. Now what is monetization of land? Firstly asset monetization is a process of creating new revenue sources. This is for the government and its entities. This is done by unlocking the economic value of unutilized or underutilized public assets. And when the asset is a land it is called land monetization. Now let us see a brief about National Monetization Pipeline. See the union finance minister launched the asset monetization pipeline of central ministries and public sector entities. This is called as National Monetization Pipeline. This was then developed by Niti Ayog in consultation with infrastructure line ministries. This was done based on the mandate for asset monetization under the union budget 2021 to 2022. Now we will see what is the estimated potential of this national monetization pipeline. The aggregate value for four-year period that is from financial year 2022 to financial year 2025 is rupees 6 lakh rupees. And the top five sectors include roads followed by railways, power, oil and gas pipelines and telecom. Roads constitute 27 percentage, railways 25 percentage, power 15 percentage, oil and gas pipelines 8 percentage and telecom 6 percentage. Now let us finally see about the national land monetization corporation. See in the pursuance of the budget announcement for the year 2021 to 2022 the NLMC that is the National Land Monetization Corporation is established as a wholly owned government of India company with an initial authorized share capital of 5000 crore. See at present the CPSCs that is the central public sector enterprises they hold considerable surplus unused and underused non-core assets in the nature of lands and buildings. So what this NLMC will do? It will support and undertake the monetization of these assets. This will also enable productive utilization of these underutilized assets to trigger private sector investments, new economic activities, boost local economy and generate financial resources for economic and social infrastructure. See also NLMC is expected to own, hold, manage and monetize surplus land and building assets of CPSCs which are under strategic disinvestment. See this will speed up the closure process of CPSCs and smoothen the strategic disinvestment process of government owned CPSCs. See NLMC will have necessary technical expertise to professionally manage and monetize the land assets on behalf of CPSCs and other government agencies. The board of directors of NLMC will comprise senior central government officers and eminent experts to enable the professional operations and management of the company. See a chairman and non-government directors of the NLMC will be appointed through a merit-based selection process and also note that NLMC can hire private sector professionals with expertise. Thus the government would be able to generate substantial revenues by monetizing unused and underused assets from these. And that's all about this article. What all we saw in this we saw about monetization which is a process of turning a non-revenue generating item into cash. And after that we saw about monetization of land. See asset monetization is the process of creating new revenue sources and when the asset is a land it is called land monetization. And after that we moved on to see about national monetization pipeline. And after that we saw the potential of national monetization pipeline which is 6 lakh crore and we saw the top five sectors which includes roads, railways, power, oil and gas pipelines and telecom. And finally we saw about the national land monetization corporation which is a wholly owned government of India company and it will support and undertake the monetization of non-core assets in the nature of lands and buildings which are the assets of the central public sector enterprises. And these are considered to be surplus unused or underused non-core assets. See we saw that NLMC will speed up the closure process of CPSCs and smoothen the strategic disinvestment process of government-owned CPSCs. And with these points in mind let's move on to the next article discussion. Take a look at this news article as per the news article United States have described the reason conflict between Russia and Ukraine as a military biological program. So in turn on Wednesday Russia had demanded the United States to explain to the world why it had supported such description. This is the crux of the news article given here. Now we are not going to get into the details of the issue but instead let us use this opportunity to know about biological weapons. So what are bio weapons? See biological weapons or weapons which disseminate disease causing organisms or toxins to harm or kill humans, animals or plants. To be specific biological weapons or microorganisms like virus, bacteria, fungi or other toxins that are produced and released deliberately to cause disease and death in humans, animals or plants. Apart from this biological agents such as anthrox, butulinum, toxin and plague can pose a serious public health problem by killing a huge number of people in a short period of time and they are very difficult to contain. See bioterrorism attacks could also result in an epidemic. Imagine using Ebola virus as the biological agents. It will obviously result in epidemic right? See these biological weapons they are a part of a larger class of weapons known as the weapons of mass destruction. They also include chemical, nuclear and radioactive weapons. Remember these biological weapons generally consist of two parts, a weaponized agent and a delivery mechanism. Here agents considered for the weaponization are known to be weaponized as known as the weaponized agent. The delivery mechanism means the method by which the virus spreads itself. So that's all about the biological weapons. Now let's see what are all the applications of it. Talking about its application, they have strategy called tactical military applications. Biological weapons can be used for political assassinations. The infection of livestock or agricultural produce to cause food shortages and economic loss. The creation of environmental catastrophes and the introduction of widespread illness, fear and mistrust among the public. Don't worry to combat these ill effects of the biological weapons. The biological weapons convention BWC or the biological and toxin weapons convention BTWC came into existence. It is a disarmament treaty that effectively bans biological and toxin weapons by prohibiting their development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use. Having entered into force on 26th March 1975, the BWC was the first multilateral disarmament treaty to ban the production of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. The convention is of unlimited duration. As of January 2022, 183 states have become party to the treaty. But what is important here for us? Yeah, exactly. See, India is a party to this treaty and it has ratified it also. And with this we have come to the end of a discussion. What all we saw? We saw about biological weapons which disseminate disease-causing organisms or toxins to harm or kill humans, animals and plants. They include microorganisms like virus, bacteria, fungi or other toxins. See, they are a part of larger class of weapons known as the weapons of mass destruction. They also include chemical, nuclear, radioactive weapons. They consist of two parts, a weaponized agent and a delivery mechanism. And we saw about the applications which include strategic tactical military application, political assassination, infection of livestock, agricultural produce, food shortages, economic loss, environmental catastrophes, widespread illness, fear and mistrust. And finally, we ended our discussion with the Biological Weapons Convention. It is a disarmament treaty that effectively bans biological toxin weapons by prohibiting their development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use. And we saw that India is a party to this convention and it has ratified this convention also. With these points in mind, let's move on to the next part of a discussion that is the practice prelims question discussion. See here, today we have four prelims question for us to practice. We'll see them one by one and I have a one quiz question for you as usual. Now the first question, consider the following statements with reference to Unified Payments Interface UPI. Statement one, new UPI payment solution supports only merchant transactions. The statement is incorrect because in our discussion we saw that new UPI payment solution supports both peer-to-peer transactions as well as merchant transactions. Now the second statement, new UPI payment method UPI123Pay requires internet facility. The statement is also incorrect. See the entire initiator is to promote transactions without internet facility. So the statement is also wrong. So the correct option here will be option D neither one nor two. Now moving on to the second question, extended producer responsibility sometimes seen in news is with reference to waste management, defense sector, exports and imports, agriculture sector. See this is a very easy question. The answer here is waste management. We saw in our e-waste discussion, right? We saw that EPR refers to the approach in which manufacturers are assigned significant financial or physical responsibility for the treatment, disposal of post-consumer products. Producers have been made responsible for the collection of e-waste treatment and its exchange. So the correct option here will be option A, waste management. Now moving on to the third question, this is the quiz question for you guys. Question 3 is the quiz question. Consider the following statements with reference to national monetization pipeline NMP. Statement 1, it estimates aggregate monetization potential of rupees 10 lakh crore. Statement 2, top five sectors having estimated potential in the national monetization pipeline are roads, railways, defense, oil and gas pipelines and power. So which of the following statements given here is or are incorrect? The aspirants, you have to be very careful. The question is asking us to find the incorrect statements. So accordingly try to attempt this question post your answer in the comment section. Now moving on to the final question, consider the following statements with reference to biological weapons convention BWOC. Statement 1, India ratified the convention. The statement is true. We saw in our discussion itself. See India signed the convention on 15th January 1973. It ratified the convention on July 15 1974. So obviously India is a part of the convention. Now the second statement, the state parties review the operations of this treaty at the review conferences. See the implementation support unit is responsible for the administration of official BWOC meetings that is the biological weapons convention meetings. One such meeting is the review conference. During the review conference the state parties review the operations of the treaty. So far eight review conference has been held. So here the statement 2 is also correct. See the question asked us to find the incorrect statement. You have to be very careful while attempting a question like this. See both the statements are correct. So what will be the answer here? Yeah exactly. The option is option D neither one nor two because both of the statements are correct. There are no incorrect statements in this question. I have given a main question for your practice or interested aspirants. Write it and post it in the comment section. And don't forget to attempt the quiz question. Try to attempt it and post the answer for the quiz question also in the comment section. And if you have any queries related to the articles that we discussed today, post that also in the comment section. And with this we have come to the end. If you find the video useful, like, share and comment. And do subscribe to Shankara A.S. Academy's YouTube channel for further updates. Thank you.