 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar A.S. Academy, displayed are the list of news articles taken for today's analysis and their page numbers in different editions of the newspaper. The link for the handwritten notes and the time stamping of the discussed articles are provided in the description box and it is also provided in the comment section for the benefit of mobile phone viewers. Now let us move on to the analysis of first news article. This article is with reference to fixing a minimum wage or a floor wage. The syllabus 11 for the analysis of this news article has been highlighted here for your reference. We have known that the Ministry of Labor and Employment has taken several steps to formulate four labor codes and these steps are taken based on the recommendations of Second National Commission on Labor and some of the codes that are drafted are codon wages, codon industrial relations, codon social security and welfare, and codon occupational safety, health and working conditions. See these four codes are aimed at simplifying and rationalizing the various provisions in 44 central legislations with respect to labor. These codes contain provisions relating to wage, social security, safety, health, grievance, redress mechanisms for workers and other labor provisions. Overall, these initiatives or these codes are expected to provide wage security, social security, occupational safety and decent working conditions for the workers. Now this codon wages 2019, it aims to consolidate the laws relating to wages and bonus matters and this codon wages was already enacted by the parliament and it has become an enforceable legislation after receiving the president's assent on 8th August of 2019. Now the remaining three codes, the codon industrial relations, codon social security and welfare and codon occupational safety, health and working conditions, they have not yet become an enforceable legislation because they are at different stages of enactment. Now this codon wages 2019, it aims to regulate the provisions of minimum wages and the provisions of bonuses and also timely payment of wages for all kinds of employees, say for example unskilled employees, semi-skilled employees, skilled employees, highly skilled employees and these provisions has to be adhered by any industry, trade or business or a manufacturer. Now this codon wages has subsumed four central labor laws, they are minimum wages act of 1948, payment of wages act of 1936, payment of bonus act of 1965 and equal remuneration act of 1976 and once code of wages has become an enforceable legislation all the four central acts stands repealed. Now this codon wages is significant because it seeks to fix the statutory floor wage for minimum wages so as to ensure minimum living standards for workers all across the country. Now here when we say floor wage it means a level below which minimum wage should not go. For example if government decides to fix floor wage at say 10,000 per month then the minimum wage for the month should not go below the floor wage. So now there are various consultations being carried out by ministry of labor and employment regarding fixing the national floor wage and as per codon wages recently the ministry has released draft rules to implement the provisions of codon wages and it has asked to give suggestions and feedback by 1st December 2019 and this draft rules that are released recently are called as preliminary draft of central wages rules that are coming under the steps to be taken based on section 67 of codon wages 2019. This code asks this code states that the minimum rate of wages shall be fixed on the day basis keeping in view of certain criteria and these are one the standard working class family includes a spouse and two children apart from the earning worker or in other words an equivalent of three adult consumption units then a net intake of 2700 calories per day for one person then 66 meters cloth for one year for one standard working class family then house rent expenditure to constitute 10 percent of food and clothing expenditure then fuel electricity and other miscellaneous items of expenditure to constitute 20 percent of minimum wage and then expenditure for children education medical requirement recreation and expenditure on contingencies and these things to constitute 25 percent of minimum wages. So this is with respect to minimum wages under the draft rules regarding floor wages the draft rules are saying that in rule 11 that the central advisory board constituted by the central government has to be consulted for fixing base rate of floor wage it has to take into consideration minimum living standards for at least three adult consumption units and it should take care of food needs clothing needs housing needs and other factors considered appropriate by the central government but for floor wages they have not clearly earmarked these are the criteria similar to how we saw for minimum wages in the draft rules under rule three earlier an expert committee was constituted by the labor ministry and this committee in February this year they have recommended a need-based national minimum wage for India and they sought to fix it at rupees 375 for one day so it will come to around close to 10,000 per month to be accurate 9,750 per month here when we say month it refers to 26 working days so 375 into 26 9,750 and in 2015 there was one another recommendation this was from the 7th central pay commission it recommended setting rupees 18,000 per month as minimum pay for government employees so fixing minimum wages or fixing this floor wage would require consideration of various parameters across various sections and across various category of workers also now let's see how this national floor wage will affect the economy as a whole see the minimum wage system in our country has to be designed considering the aim of achieving inclusive growth even this was stressed by one of the economic surveys released recently by the government a statutory national minimum wage or a statutory national floor wage this will have multiple impacts for example it will help to elevate or to lift the wage levels of the workers and it will reduce wage inequality and it will also reduce poverty levels in our country and therefore it will propel inclusive growth and if the wages of the workers increase it means the purchasing power parity of the employees will also increase if the purchasing power parity increases then it will create demand in the economy therefore higher wages or at least a statutory minimum wage or a guaranteed minimum wage will induce consumption led economic growth while at the same time a standard family could maintain its requirements without much trouble now if you see the demands of workers associations after the release of draft rules on november 1 2019 they are saying that there is still lack of clarity with respect to the definition of nine-hour working day whether this nine hour will include leisure time of taking breaks or lunchtime or tea break or not it is still not clear and there is still lack of clarity about upgradation of workers skill whether it is the responsibility of the organization so as to pay for upgradation of skills of workers or it is totally the burden of the workers to upgrade their skill for enriching their skill to benefit company or a factory or whether it is based on contribution from both sides there is still lack of clarity and they are also saying that there is lack of representation for trade unions in the wage fixation committee what is this committee if you see section 8 of code of wages 2019 it talks about fixing minimum rates of wages for the first time under this code of wages 2019 wherein a committee has to be constituted and this committee will hold inquiries and this committee will recommend fixation or revision of minimum wage rates in this committee and there shall be members representing employees but note that the workers or the employees shall be equal in number with respect to the members representing employers and there shall also be independent persons but these persons should not exceed one-third of total members of the committee that is they should not exceed 33 percent of total members of committee now the workers associations are demanding representation for trade unions in this committee now if you see the concerns raised by employers associations they are talking about if we have a statutory minimum floor wage or if the floor wage is higher then that will erode the revenues of a company or a factory or a unit and they have also raised concerns if we increase the wage level it will also lead to inflation because now there will be increased purchasing power parity more people will be chasing towards less number of goods as a result there will be inflation so this is also being highlighted by the employers associations so these are some of the information with respect to the analysis of this news article now the success of the code on wages will be determined by the extent to which the minimum wage is set or the floor wage is set and this floor wage has to be fair and it has to be actually implemented to benefit millions of workers particularly in the unorganized sectors of our country now let us move on to the analysis of next news article this news article is with reference to the recently released the wastelands atlas of india 2019 the syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article has been highlighted here for your reference first let's see few information with reference to the wastelands atlas of india 2019 see this is the fifth edition of wastelands atlas we already have four editions in the years 2000 2005 2010 and 2011 and this recently released atlas is the fifth edition this atlas is prepared by department of land resources in collaboration with the national remote sensing center here the department of land resources comes under ministry of rural development and the national remote sensing center comes under department of space now this 2019 edition it provides district and statewide distribution of different categories of wastelands area comparing to previous editions this edition has covered those areas that were not covered under previous editions particularly those areas under the erstwhile jammu and kashmir state atlas presents the changes in the wastelands between 2008 9 and 2015 16 the atlas presents the extent and scenario with respect to around 23 categories of wastelands for example a land affected by moderate salinity or moderate alkalinity it is also a wasteland and a land affected by strong alkalinity or strong salinity it is also a wasteland so what is a wasteland what do we refer when we say wasteland see it refers to degraded lands which are currently underutilized and these degraded lands are deteriorating because of absence of or because of lack of appropriate soil and water management strategies or these lands are degrading or being currently underutilized because of natural causes for example flooding or for example permanent water logging and various other reasons so according to this atlas wastelands occupy around approximately 17 percent of the total geographical area of our country for the year 2015 16 and when we compare to the year 2008 9 there is a decrease of wastelands and this decrease of wastelands is to the tune of around 1.45 million hectares that is around some 14,500 square kilometers and the decrease is because much area of wasteland category has been converted to non-wasteland categories since 2008 9 to 2015 16 the news article talks about some of the wastelands that have reduced in terms of their area because of conversion for example dense scrubs waterlogged and marshy land sandy areas degraded pastures in other words degraded grazing land and gullyden ravineous land here when we say dense scrub it refers to very thick vegetation of standard trees or bushes these degraded lands with dense scrub will have shallow and skeletal soils and mostly they have chemically degraded soils when we say marshy land or waterlogged land this is a type of wetland where water covers the ground for a long period of time as a result we cannot utilize this land for various purposes in the wasteland at least these sandy areas are classified into riverine sands coastal sands desert sands and two categories of semi stabilized to two stabilized dunes one greater than 40 meter height than the other 15 to 40 meter height and when we say degraded pastures or degraded grazing land this refers to those lands which are used by cattle for grazing but have become unfit for use and gully and ravines are two extreme forms of soil erosion here gully is a narrow channel when surface water flow increases in response to clearing and excessive use of land in the terminology of wastelands because of clearing and because of excessive use of land when surface water flow increases because of erosion a narrow channel is formed it may be in the form of v-shaped channel this channel is called as a gully and an intricate network of gullies is referred as ravines and there are two categories of ravines medium ravines and deep ravines based on their depth the depth is between 2.5 to 5 meters they are called as medium ravines and deep ravines are those ravines that are more than 5 meters deep and the news article mentions that more than 50 percent of the entire wasteland that has been converted between 2008 9 to 1516 of the converted land 50 percent is in the state of Rajasthan here large areas of scrub and sands they have been converted to cultivable crop land and Rajasthan has also set up solar parks in the wastelands so that the wastelands can be converted to industrial use for the protection of renewable energy a few other states that have seen largest conversion of wastelands are you know Uttar Pradesh Bihar and some other states now see this picture it mentions some of the wasteland categories that have been converted most into productive use between 2008 9 to 1516 so here you can observe that most conversion has taken place in the wasteland category land with dense scrub followed by snow covered or glacial area then sand areas then underutilized or degraded forest and then shifting cultivation and followed by other categories now with respect to conversion of wastelands say for example it could be into a solar parks or it could be into a cultivable crop land there are two opinions mentioned in this news article one from the side of government and other from the side of environmental policy researchers and environmentalist and persons fighting for environmental rights now from the side of government it states that there is an urgent need to improve productivity of existing cultivated lands and we also require additional land for cultivation this is required to feed the entire population of India see our cultivation has to support our population with the limited land resources it is mentioned that we are having more than 16% of world's population but our land area is just 2.4% of world's geographical area and in terms of grazing lands it is said that our country has just 2.5% of world's grazing lands but we have more than 18% of world's cattle population so there is tremendous pressure on land resources so to bring additional land under cultivation the government has been encouraging wasteland conversion at the same time the wastelands can also be utilized for any other productive use those wastelands which have the potential to produce food grains they can be used for cultivation and those wastelands would have potential to generate solar energy they will be converted into solar parks and some wastelands will be just converted to provide vegetation cover here the news article also mentions about the government's target to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land or wasteland by the year 2030 now with respect to restoration earlier we had a target of just 21 million hectares by 2030 but in the recent 14th session of COP to the United Nations Convention to Compact Desertification the prime minister has increased the target to 26 million from 21 million hectares of degraded land we know that the 14th session of COP to UNCCD held in New Delhi in September 2019 now this target of restoration comes under target under bond challenge and also under land degradation neutrality now on 10th September we have discussed about bond challenge land degradation neutrality and few other issues with reference to the developments regarding the 14th COP of UNCCD you may refer the analysis on 10th September for more information now this news article presents a fact that in some areas wastelands conversion is happening unmindfully that is these areas where some conversion has happened impacts the livelihoods of certain communities for example pastoral communities who depend on common grazing land environmental policy researchers saying that the pastoralist communities and there are some communities and nomadic farmers who depend on scrub forest and open scrub land for the purpose of shifting cultivation and with respect to wastelands coming under the category of water logging you know fishermen depend on such marshy waterlogged areas for catching fishes and generating revenue and some of the wastelands protect some unique biodiversity resources and the article mentions that even these locations that come under the classification of wastelands are also converted and that makes the dependent communities at risk and some category of wastelands act as buffer against flood for example marshy areas near the coast or backwaters and some wastelands act as buffer against droughts and pollution so that the impacts of droughts and pollution may not reach the wider population opinions of the researchers is that some of the wastelands have been common areas for centuries so considering them as unproductive is not right these common areas in southern india have been traditionally called as porambok land they are saying that these lands are owned by the community and these lands cannot be bought sold or built on and in karnataka common grazing areas are called as gomal lands and similar characteristics have been played by several village forest pastures and even lands of grand panchayats since the medieval time period so who categorized these lands as wasteland so it was carried out by the british east india company who categorized these common areas as wasteland because they thought these lands produce no tangible revenue that is they literally cannot feel some some revenue being generated out of these lands with the colonial interest we can say that here the revenue they meant is for them that is for the british east india company the news article also mentions some examples from the city of chennai wastelands for example pallikarni marshland or enur creek backwaters these areas have been converted into industrial or you know built up residential and office areas and conversion of these wastelands into industrial areas or residential areas is one of the reason why chennai was affected the most during the 2015 flood situation and the backwaters they protect inland water resources from the salinity of seawater and these backwaters also protect inland water resources or inland from seawater inundation also these marshy lands and backwaters they store water for dry seasons so these lands when they converted for some other use it means the role of these lands as buffers from the environmental viewpoint has been totally neglected so end of the day this article suggests that in those areas which come under present wastelands category under the wasteland at less whichever having bearing on environment or bearing on certain communities these lands should not be converted for other uses and the government has to adopt some standards with respect to conversion of wastelands so these are some of the information with reference to this news article now let's move on to next news article this news article provides answer to the puzzle why the temperature of corona is higher than the temperature of sun's outer surface the syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article has been highlighted here for your reference first we have to know that sun is classified into three broad zones one is the core then radiative zone then convection zone the surface of the sun is located in convection zone and from the top of convection zone till 250 miles above the surface of the sun that is above the convection zone it is called as photosphere then from 250 miles to 1300 miles is called as chromosphere and the area from 1300 miles to furthermore is called as the corona see this news article is based on a research study which focused on surface temperature of sun and also the atmospheric temperature of the sun here atmospheric temperature of the sun refers to the temperature of the atmosphere of the sun and this research study aimed to find the reason why sun's atmosphere particularly the corona is hotter than its surface the temperature of core of the sun is around 15 million degrees Celsius but if you see the temperature of the photosphere it is just 5700 degrees Celsius but if you see the temperature of corona it is higher than the temperature of the photosphere the temperature starts increasing outside the photosphere and it reaches a value of about one million degrees or even more in some cases in the corona but if you see logically we would expect that when we move away from a hotter body or a hot object the temperature has to steadily decrease because there is no extra source of heat involved but with respect to sun the temperature rises to one million degrees in corona when compared to the sun's surface where temperatures are comparably much lower so this implies that there should be a source that heats up corona many scientists have attempt to solve this puzzle however recently a team of solar physicists they have made observations and have matched it with an analysis that explains the puzzle or the conundrum they are saying that there are solar spicules if you see this picture it looks like tiny hair like projections these jets are called as solar spicules in reality these spicules are having the width of around 200 to 500 kilometers and they shoot up to heights of up to around 5000 kilometer above the solar surface news article mentions that it has been suspected that these spicules act as conduits that is how it can act like a channel that can carry mass and energy from sun's surface to corona by bypassing photosphere that is how these solar spicules act as conduits or channels through which hot plasma from the sun is carried into the corona region here when we say plasma we are referring to a stream of charged particles that are ejected from the upper atmosphere of sun and while carrying out this research scientists have used one principle to arrive at a conclusion and this principle is that objects emit light of different wavelengths when they are at different temperatures that is objects at different temperatures emit light of different wavelengths so using this principle the scientists have observed the temperature changes so now let us see how the scientists were able to observe various changes that are happening at the sun's atmosphere and also in sun's surface scientists were able to do this by the help of solar telescope the telescope used by the research team for their observations is called as good solar telescope and it is said that this is the world's largest solar telescope a telescope which absorbs sun and it is located at big beer solar observatory in california of united states this solar telescope has nasa's interface region imaging spectrograph instrument which is also called as the near infrared spectro polarimeter this instrument can measure optical properties of sunlight or solar light using this instrument in the telescope they were able to observe the spikeules and they even confirmed that the temperature in the corona is higher when compared to sun's surface after carrying out observations of the changes in the spikeules using this good solar telescope they matched these observations with the simultaneous observations from the atmospheric imaging assembly that is located in nasa's solar dynamic observatory spacecraft see this solar dynamic observatory spacecraft of nasa is located in the space it also absorbs sun so from this news article you know the layers of sun's atmosphere and the reason why the corona is having higher temperature compared to the surface of the sun and about good solar telescope and also about the nasa's solar dynamic observatory spacecraft now let us move on to the analysis of next news article now this news article has appeared in the newspaper in the backdrop of recent snooping activities that were carried out on journalists some lawyers you know some persons working for the welfare of oppressed sections and persons working for the development of persons belonging to the schedule cars and schedule tribes and the persons who are human rights defenders and human rights activists so simply we can say the snooping activities were carried out among persons belonging to civil society organizations so the spyware that was used has been allegedly developed by an Israeli technological firm called us the NSO group the name of the spyware is Pegasus and this spyware was introduced into the personal mobile phones of the attacked persons through a vulnerability in whatsapp call feature so the syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article has been highlighted here for your reference now that the snooping activity has come to light whatsapp and its parent company facebook has filed a lawsuit against the NSO group that is the Israeli cyber intelligence firm for using whatsapp platform to use the malaysian software Pegasus Pegasus is a malware malware is the short form for malaysian software where Pegasus is actually a spyware it is said that once the spyware takes control of your mobile phone it can auto record videos or audios and it can carry out other functions without the knowledge of the user but NSO group claims that it sells the spyware only to governments across the world to fight terror and crime so if we go by the words of NSO group this means that some government agencies only have snooped on the activities of persons of civil society however Indian government has denied purchasing or dealing with Pegasus and it has also asked whatsapp to explain the security breach in the interest of Indian citizens so in this context let's first discuss the status of surveillance in India two important legislations govern surveillance in India one is the Indian telegraph act of 1885 and the other is the information technology act of 2000 the Indian telegraph act deals with interception of calls whereas the information technology act deals with the interception of data see both the legislations permit only the government to conduct surveillance that too under special circumstances so in India surveillance by private players or private actors is an offense and section 43 of information technology act mentions the penalty and compensation for causing damage to a computer system this section 43 mentions that any person who accesses a computer system or who extracts any data from a system or who introduces any virus to the computer steals destroys or deletes any information from a computer system and few other situations if such an activity is carried out without the permission of the owner of the system then the person shall be liable to pay compensation to the affected persons so according to this national legislation the person or the entity which carried out the snooping activity on Indian citizens they have to pay compensation and section 66 deals with the punishment for this the punishment is imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with fine which may extend even to five lakh rupees or with both imprisonment and fine so this is about the person who carries out this activity now what about the person who receives the information from the person who carried out this activity the section 66 capital B of IT act it mentions punishment for dishonestly receiving stolen computer resource or communication so there is imprisonment fine and both imprisonment may extend to the tune of three years now the question is whether these legislations have enough checks and balances against arbitrary surveillance see earlier 1996 supreme court has said that there was a lack of procedural safeguards in the indian telegraph act so in this line the government had later introduced the indian telegraph amendment rules 2007 now these amendment rules introduced one rule called as rule 419 capital A to the indian telegraph rules of 1951 this rule talks about who can issue a direction for interception this can be normally issued only by the union home secretary at the central government and a state home secretary at the level of states and later the government also introduced IT rules in the year 2009 under the information technology act this rules is called as IT procedures and safeguards for interception monitoring and decryption of information rules wherein rule 4 states that competent authority that is secretary of home affairs at the central government or state home secretary may authorize an agency of the government to intercept or monitor or decrypt information for various purposes mentioned in section 69 of IT act know that section 69 empowers central government and state governments to issue directions for monitoring interception decryption of any information that is transmitted received stored through a computer resource which also includes mobile phones so in line with section 69 and in line with rule 4 of IT rules the central government has recently released a notification in December 2018 the ministry involved is ministry of home affairs here the government has authorized 10 security and intelligence agencies for the purposes of interception monitoring and decryption of any information that is generated transmitted received or stored in any computer resource and these institutions are intelligence bureau narcotics control bureau enforcement directorate central board of direct taxes directorate of revenue intelligence central bureau of investigation national investigation agency cabinet secretariat that is the research and analysis wing in the cabinet secretariat then directorate of signal intelligence for the service areas of jammu keshmir northeast and asam and finally the commission of police of tally here we may say that central bureau of investigation is just an investigating body but this notification mentions all these 10 agencies as security and intelligence agencies so this notification was criticized heavily in the civil society and also in the media reports many sections stated that the government is building a surveillance state where the surveillance takes supremacy over the individual rights of citizens with respect to private matters or privacy so what about right to privacy in India what about its status we know that in 2017 the highest court of appeal that is the supreme court gave a verdict in justice ks puttaswamy versus union of india wherein supreme court stated that right to privacy is a fundamental right under article 14 article 19 and article 21 of indian constitution well that is a statement made by the supreme court which becomes a case law according to article 141 of indian constitution the reality or the current ground situation is that there still remains a gray area between right to privacy and the state's concern over the national security in 2017 the government also constituted a data protection committee under the championship of justice b and sri krishna this committee has held a number of public hearings across india and has finally submitted a draft data protection law in the year 2018 but even though they have submitted a draft law for data protection a law on this matter has not yet been enacted by the indian parliament and even there have been some criticisms that the law suggested by justice sri krishna committee also having some loopholes as it does not deal adequately with surveillance reforms one of the very important parameter that is required in whatever law that deals with data protection is the punishment and the responsibility and accountability for a person who is from the government and who is found guilty of misusing the provisions of a data protection law such a provision has to be included in any data protection law for that matter so these are some of the existing mechanisms existing provisions with respect to surveillance in our country now let's discuss the situation in few other countries if you take united states in united states the government has to obtain a warrant from a court of law in case of electronic surveillance the agencies need to submit a cause to justify that a surveillance is required and they have to mention how much time they will be carrying out the surveillance activity and they have also described the nature of conversation that is to be intercepted however even in united states there are few exceptions or emergency circumstances under which a government may proceed without a warrant but recently since 2013 the US government have been heavily criticized by its civil society because of the revelations made by the whistleblower edwards noden who was formerly a contractor of the united states national security agency he leaked certain reports which gave enough information that the US government has been collecting information on millions of its citizens and even some of the foreign nationals and in fact it also has used the legislation called us US patriot act which it enacted after 9-11 2001 attacks this USA patriot act is the short form for uniting and strengthening America by providing appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct terrorism edwards noden criticized that this legislation has been used by the US government to snoop on its citizens so we can say that in us there is no clear balance between right to privacy and concerns over national security then the article talks about a survey that is conducted by a UK based security firm called us compare it now this firm has surveyed 47 countries to see where governments to identify those countries where the governments are failing to protect privacy that is where the governments are creating surveillance states and the survey has found that only five countries of these 47 countries had adequate safeguards against arbitrary data breach and these five countries are Norway, Ireland, France, Portugal, Denmark so India has to adopt the best practices from these five countries whenever it is to enact a data protection law and in striking a balance between national security concerns and the right to privacy now let's see two three reasons why Norway is called as a country that has adequate safeguards one reason is that it has a law to address data protection issues that is it has a law for data protection then Norway is known for finding companies that are not protecting data of individuals that is if a person's data somehow leaks from a private company that company will be fined enough that they will not be repeating that mistake again then Norway is also known for protecting freedom of speech know that it has been ranked number one in world press freedom index continuously for a period of three years till 2018 similarly there are some provisions why Ireland or France or Portugal or Denmark are called as those countries which have adequate safeguards with respect to protecting privacy against arbitrary data breach however three countries having very weak framework and India features among these countries and also its neighbor China along with Russia the main reason why India could not fare better in this survey is because of absence of a personal data protection legislation to protect its citizens so anyway assume a legislation for personal data protection has to be enacted and a competent authority for data protection has to be appointed so this will ensure right to privacy as a fundamental right to be upheld in letter and spirit of course it will also help the government to strike a balance between right to privacy and national security so these are some of the information with reference to the analysis of this article that appeared in FAQ section this question is with reference to the code on wages 2019 the code seeks to regulate the provisions of minimum wages bonuses and timely payment of wages of which of the following employees unskilled employees semi-skilled employees managers any members of the armed forces of the union now note that the code on wages defines for the provisions under this code employee refers to any person employed on wages who may be a skilled employee or who is employed to do unskilled work manual work operational work supervisory work or managerial work or administrative technical or even clerical work they come under the definition of employee even those persons who work under state government also defined as employee but note that the employee definition according to this code for the provisions under this code does not include any member of armed forces of the union also it does not include an apprentice engaged under the Apprentices Act of 1961 so the correct answer for this question is option b 1 2 and 3 this question is with reference to the wasteland atlas of India 2019 two statements have been given they are asking which of the above statements are incorrect the first statement the total area of wastelands in India has increased in 2015-16 when compared to 2008-9 data they have given exact wrong statement the total area of wastelands in India has decreased in 2015-16 comparing to 2008-9 data so the first statement is incorrect now you can eliminate option b and option d now the second statement it is prepared by the department of land resources in collaboration with the national remote sensing center now this statement is correct it is prepared by department of land resources which comes under ministry of rural development in collaboration with national remote sensing center which comes under department of space second statement is correct answer is asking for which of the statements are incorrect only the first statement is incorrect therefore the correct answer is option a now this question is with reference to the terms spikule and corona the terms spikule and corona recently seen in news are related to which of the following celestial body it's a simple question the answer for this question is option d it is sun and these terms have appeared in newspaper with reference to explaining why in corona that is in the atmosphere of sun has higher temperature compared to the sun's surface the reason told was because of the solar spikules from the sun these solar spikules are like hot springs that emanate from the surface of the sun or act like jets that transfer mass and energy like a channel into the corona so the correct answer for this question is option d now for the given mains practice question you may post your answers in the comment section or you may hand write or you may post the link of the hand written answer sheets after taking a photograph and uploading it to your drive and changing the sharing settings says anyone with the link can view with this we come to the end of today's the hindu news analysis if you like the video click the like button comment share and subscribe to shankaray's academy youtube channel for more updates and content on civil service example preparation