I think it's time to get started. I just have one announcement before lecture today. Those of you that own the seventh edition of the textbook, they are now posted readings for the seventh edition on the syllabus page. They're not incorporated directly into the syllabus there. But if you click on the link up at the top of the column about the readings, it'll take you to a page where you can see the seventh edition readings that correspond with the eighth edition readings for each week or each lecture. So please check that out if you have the seventh edition. And I hope everyone's found the B-space lecture notes that I've been posting for each lecture afterwards. They're basically these keynote presentations I've been giving with additional notes down below that are incorporated. So please have a look at that because that's the main material that I'd like everybody to study for the exam. Any questions about any of that? Okay, so today we're gonna finish off the fungi. And we'll basically just today be talking about their ecological and economic significance, which is what I started in at the end of last lecture. And then we'll start talking about the algae and the origins of photosynthesis, which is something that we really just come to appreciate in the last few years to figure out. So last time at the end, I mentioned the importance of lichens, which are these associations between fungi, usually Ascomi seeds, and a unicellular alga, a green alga, a eukaryotic green alga, or a cyanobacterium, a blue-green bacterium. And their important pioneering role in primary succession in the development of soils, of substrate that other organisms can utilize on barren surfaces like rock faces or barren wood, areas that are just beginning for successional stages are really just beginning. And those that have associations with blue-green bacteria can actually fix nitrogen. And this is really important, as I mentioned earlier, as a limiting nutrient in a lot of ecosystem situations. So that's the lichens. And even though they're really pretty adept at dealing with environments that have very harsh conditions in terms of very few resources available, they're at the same time really vulnerable to air pollution. So for example, if you go to the LA basin and try to find lichens, you're not gonna find very much. But a hundred years ago, there were a lot of really great collections of lichens made there. And this is the case in other parts of the world. So these really ecologically important organisms are greatly diminished and threatened in areas where there's bad air quality. Sulfur dioxide, especially, really nails them. So this is a real problem. And we already talked about mycorrhizae, so I just wanna throw it in here just to mention again that most plants, with the exception of very few families, mustards and carnations, just a few families that don't have these associations, the others that do benefit in terms of their growth and fitness from this association. And presumably the fungus does as well, but the evidence there is not as well-established experimentally as it is with plants. So here you can see some plants where there is no mycorrhizal association, closely related individuals where it is well-established. These are of the same age, grown under same conditions otherwise. So mycorrhizae are really critical to plant success. And as I mentioned earlier, we're probably crucial to the original success of land plants in general, just getting established and diversifying. So, Fungi play a big role there. Now, one thing I hadn't mentioned is this association, which is more recently appreciated. And this is that there are fungi that actually live inside the leaves of most plants. And these are called endophytes, which literally means inside plants. So these are actually, the whole fungus is inside the leaf. And these are fungi that become established in the environment. They aren't present in the plant from the original seed stage up. They infect the leaves of the plant. And where this infection of the leaf by endophytes has been prevented, it's been seen, for example, in the cocoa tree here at Theobroma cacao, from which we get chocolate, that the plants that were prevented from being infected by these fungal endophytes actually were more vulnerable to disease, to pathogens than those that weren't. And it's not quite clear why. It could be that the fungus is producing something that is preventing pathogens from becoming established. It could also be that the plant is actually responding to the fungi in a way, some sort of defensive way, possibly, that's also preventing really serious infection by disease-causing organisms. But in any case, they appear to gain some benefit in terms of disease prevention from these fungi. And in grasses and some herbs where this has also been studied, the fungal endophytes appear to help repel herbivores and to increase the plant tolerance to physical environmental extremes as well. So it's uncertain, again, how this operates, but this is an important association that appears for plants as well. So we have associations with the leaves and the roots involving fungi that seem important to plant fitness. And the ecological importance that everybody's aware of, probably, that I've already mentioned, is that fungi are important decomposers. And of course, there are other organisms that are important decomposers, bacteria, et cetera, microbes. But some of the fungi, like this bracket fungus here, have enzymatic activity that actually can result in breaking down of substrates that are very difficult for other organisms to digest. And most significantly here is lignin, which is the substance in wood that imparts rigidity. And of course, cellulose is also pretty resistant to digestion. And some of these wood decaying fungi are really important for bringing the carbon and wood back into the ecosystem as far as availability goes. So these are particularly noteworthy. All right, so one thing you're probably also aware of is that fungi can cause diseases. And about 30% of described fungal species are parasites or pathogens. And most of these infect plants. So plants actually suffer, to some extent, from fungi as well as benefit. The most significant disease outbreaks we've had are the result of fungi being introduced into an alien environment where the plants hadn't been exposed to them previously. And some of the really serious diseases we have in North America, for example, are the chestnut blight, which causes these big cankers. And it's actually the result of a fungus that attacks chestnuts in Eurasia. But there, the trees have co-adapted with the fungus. Whereas in North America, they didn't have exposure. And our American chestnuts, which were one of our most important hardwoods in the Eastern deciduous forests back in the 1800s, this disease was introduced in the late 1800s. And now they're all gone. The American chestnuts, essentially biologically extinct except for stump sprouts that arise persistently from old stumps before they finally succumb. There are some isolated stands down in the southern Appalachians, where they're isolated. But for the most part, this is a functionally extinct plant in North America. And also an elm disease that affects our American elm was transmitted from Eurasia as well. And it's decimated our American elm. And here on the West Coast, we have pitch canker, which is a fungal disease that infects our pines, our closed cone pine forests, like the Monterey pine along the coast. And it's only been introduced in recent years. It's not quite clear what the outcome will be there. Oh, actually, I'm going to back off here for a second. I want to mention that also fungi can attack animals. And the consequences can be severe for an individual animal. But for taxa, those fungi that have co-evolved with animals or have been in the presence of particular species for long periods of time, of course, it doesn't behoove them to destroy their host. And in cases where we have fungal diseases that actually routinely kill the host, the infection rate tends to be fairly low. So the host isn't exterminated. And there are some really interesting fungal diseases that attack specific organisms. In particular, cordyceps, which is a genus in the Ascomyseeds, has undergone an amazing adaptive radiation, a diversification, across insects. There are about 400 species of these cordyceps that are known. And what happens is they get ingested by the insect. They germinate inside the insect body. And then they basically replace the insect tissue with mycelium. And eventually, the insect is so heavily infected that the fungus essentially takes over even its psychology. And the insect will climb up into actually in its last dying stages, exhibit a behavior that's beneficial to the fungus in terms of where it dies. And here's a victim here of one of these cordyceps fungi that's climbing up a grass stem. And eventually, or actually it's not a grass, but it's a tree stem here. And it's died, and it's now clinging to this stem. And you can see that the fungal fruiting body is starting to sprout out of its head. This is time-lapse photography, but you can see the fungal body growing out. It's just slowly working its way up, and it's eventually formed. This is an asco carp, fruiting body of an Ascomyseed. It'll form these ascii and release sexual spores. And then the life cycle will start over again. Spores are released, and another unfortunate victim will ingest them. And here you can see a number of different cordyceps. You can see their distinctive fruiting bodies that allow them to be easily identified morphologically as different species, attacking different ants, in this case, different groups of ants that have different behaviors. They end up dying in different situations that are beneficial to the fungus. So this is just one of the sort of perverse things that fungi can do. And there are other cases as well. So in terms of their importance to humans, fungi are, of course, critical to us in terms of these ecological services they provide. But they're also important in more direct ways, for example, as food. And these are some ways in which fungi are important as food that you may not think about every day. Everything in this table setting here is possible because of fungi. Basically, alcoholic beverages are the result of fermentation using brewer's yeast. And the raising of bread is the result of CO2 production by yeast under anaerobic conditions during the fermentation process. And also, cheeses, of course, are made using various fungi that are critical in regard to cheese production as well. So basically, having wine with bread and cheese wouldn't be possible without fungi. So that brings it home a little bit. But also, of course, fungi are edible in their own right just directly. The fruiting bodies truffles are ascomycetes that have underground fruiting bodies that are incredibly valuable. And choice, delicacies, morels as well among ascomycetes. And then among basidiomycetes, we have a large number of different edible fungi that range from our typical store-bought mushrooms, which are cultivated, to a lot of wild-collected mushrooms that are not cultivated. And of course, I'm sure you all know from not having been born yesterday that you don't just go out into the environment and start eating mushrooms because a lot of them produce some nasty secondary compounds that are extremely poisonous. And it sometimes takes some effort to distinguish edible mushrooms from absolutely deadly ones. And this is a case in point where one of these is a choice edible, and the other one is a deadly mushroom. And unfortunately, individuals who harvest this mushroom from the wild in some parts of the world will come here and think that this is the same species. And you can tell them apart by their spore prints. This one has a pink spore print. This one has a white spore print. But if you don't go to that trouble and you're not too careful, you can end up having a meal of the death cap, which is the world's most dangerous mushroom.  The aminite and the toxin basically just kills your liver. But it doesn't happen immediately. It can be hours to some period of time afterwards. And there is an anecdote. And one of the most effective ones is milk thistle, which is a plant. And the extract from milk thistle can disable this toxin. But once the damage is done, it's done. A more esoteric type of poisoning is from this organism, which isn't a basidiomycete, but an ascomycete. And that's claviceps purporea. And you can see it here on rye. So this is an organism that infects rye, which is, of course, a grain that's milled. And if you mill rye that's been infected with claviceps, it can result in widespread poisoning of the people that ingest that milled cereal. And it's happened numerous times in recorded history, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people. And what happens is the chemistry of this fungus is really insidious. It has a number of different effects that can cause vasoconstriction, resulting in gangrene. It also can cause seizures and some psychological effects, temporary insanity, and hallucinations. And one of the ingredients of this fungus are one of the chemicals it produces is lysergic acid, which is the raw material from which LSD is produced. And it's thought that, well, there's some speculation, at least, that the individuals accused of witchcraft, of being witches back in colonial America, back in the late 1600s, during the Salem witch trials, were actually victims of ergotism, as it's called, of having ingested this fungus. And their behavior led people to think that they were basically exhibiting satanic influences. So unfortunately, that was the end of several of them. They were hung, so an indirect cause of death there. So also, fungi can cause diseases, as I mentioned, in plants, but also in people. And some of these are incredibly insidious. But the more common ones that you're probably familiar with are things like athlete's foot, ringworm, and jock itch. And these are caused by different groups of Ascomycetes that are actually pretty closely related to one another. And these are typically not very dangerous and can be treated pretty readily. Nail fungi and things like that, fungi imperfecti here from Ascomycetes that cause these diseases typically. But there are some fungal diseases that are more serious. And one of them is actually endemic here to western North America, the valley fever. You might have heard of valley fever, which is found out in the San Joaquin Valley and in the deserts. It's an Ascomycetes that's pretty happy to live in the soil. But if it gets airborne and you inhale the spores, it can take up a pretty happy existence in your lungs and cause a serious lung ailment that can potentially lead to death, especially in immunocompromised people. And I have a whole series of slides that I won't show you this morning because you'll either lose your breakfast or possibly pass out. We've had an individual pass out in the past in this course from showing these slides of what can happen to people with some of these tropical fungal diseases where basically the mycelium takes over to the extent that it did in that ant that I showed you. And the fruiting bodies form out of the person's face, for example, out of an eye socket or something like that. So that's not typical, though. What's that? I could show those slides to people in office hour, but I won't post them. I don't think. They're really disgusting. And I don't want to, somebody might accidentally look at them that shouldn't see them. But I make that point at the same time as making this one that on balance, fungi are more important as disease-preventing agents for us than they are as disease-causing agents. And most significant in this regard is penicillin, which is a bactericidal compound produced by the ascomycea penicillium, which is a member of the fungi imperfecti. It's an ascomycea, but it's asexual exclusively. And here you can see a mycelium of penicillium radiating out from its central point here. And you can see this zone of death here where it's killed the bacterial colony that's been swabbed out on this petri dish. And it operates by destroying the cell, attacking the cell walls of bacteria. And of course, we don't have cell walls, fungi don't either. And so this was a real lifesaver, saved millions of lives beginning in the early 19th or early 20th century. OK, so that's really, yeah. Oh, right, I didn't mention there are mushrooms that have chemistry that can result in psychotropic effects that are like cellosabee that has LSD-like properties and also aminida muscaria, which is in the same genus as that death cap that I showed you, that has a red cap with little white inclusions on it that was used by Vedic priests back in early hundreds and hundreds of years ago as a way to induce religious states. I don't know exactly how to put it, but the problem with aminida muscaria is that you have to concentrate it for it to really become potent. And so the priests would actually drink their urine and the way to concentrate it is to drink your urine. And there's actually still a tradition of urine drinking that goes back, we think, to that original practice that's no longer connected to aminida muscaria. But in terms of what the benefit to the fungus is, it's potentially an herbivore defense, a defense against being eaten. I mean, some people find these effects desirable or beneficial, but that's not necessarily true with the most important potential herbivore that would attack the fungal fruiting body. And you want to protect these fruiting bodies. I mean, these are how you're reproducing. They're very exposed to the environment. They're easy to digest in terms of they're not particularly tough and difficult to digest. So poisons are a good way. OK, so any other questions about fungi before we move on? All right, so I want to talk now about algae. And this should be in quotes, actually, because algae are not a monophyletic group. They're not a natural group. And if we look at their distribution across the tree of life, this is the tree of life, the three major domains I showed earlier, the archaea, the bacteria, and the eukaryotes. Here's how they're distributed. I think I showed this earlier. But we have the cyanobacteria that are photosynthetic among the bacteria. And then we have several different groups of photosynthetic eukaryotes that are not each other's closest relatives in many cases. So the question arises, did photosynthesis evolve multiple times independently? And it's quite a complex process. It's quite interesting to think about that possibility. Certainly when you look at the different groups that have the ability to photosynthesize, they have radically different morphologies and ecologies. These major groups that are coming out in different parts of the tree of life based on molecular data, they certainly don't appear to be closest relatives. And I should mention that algae, the term basically applies to all photosynthetic organisms, except for the land plants that we'll talk about for most of the rest of this semester. And they generally occur in aquatic habitats, freshwater or marine situations rather than on land. But there are some exceptions. OK, and so if we look at their distribution again in a little more careful way, here's where the fungi are in the overall. This is the eukaryotic clade. These are all the eukaryotes here. That's the root of the eukaryotic part of the tree. Here you can see the fungi. Here you can see the animals. And here are the slime molds to just put you into the perspective of where we've just been talking about this clade. Now we're going to talk about each of the four of the five, the remaining four major super groups, as they're called, super groups of eukaryotes. So we have botanical organisms in all five, but in four of the five we actually have photosynthetic botanical organisms. And the ones that are photosynthetic are shown here in dark highlight. So one idea that was actually proposed almost a hundred years ago, but really came into its own in the 1960s in terms of explaining how this happened, how photosynthesis became widely distributed among different eukaryotes, is called endosymbiotic theory. And endosymbiosis basically just refers to the process of incorporating one organism within the cell of another. So we're not talking about the kinds of symbiosis that we were talking about earlier with mycorrhizae or lichens, where you have organisms living together, but separately in terms of their cells. Here we're having a case, in this particular idea we're talking about an organism becoming completely contained within the cell of another organism. So this was thought to, proposed initially to have happened as a multi-step process. And the first step in this process, and I should mention Lynn Margulis was the one who really provided the best evidence for this theory where it really took off. She's still a living biologist, it's not been that long ago, but the ancestral eukaryote envisioned as something like this that already has a nucleus, but doesn't have mitochondria or plastids, doesn't have these membrane-bound organelles. And the earliest eukaryotes would have already had a cytoskeleton, presumably of microfiberals and such that would allow it the ability to engulf other organisms. And we see this kind of ability in a lot of unicellular eukaryotes, and I should mention it in the slime molds as well, where they can actually surround and completely engulf another organism. And so this happened presumably initially with a bacterium, it turns out it looks like a proteobacterium, a true bacterium in this case. And rather than digest this potential food item, the bacterium survived the ingestion, and eventually this became a mutually beneficial relationship, and after evolutionary time we have exchange of genes between the genomes of the original prokaryote here, the bacterium, and the nucleus of the eukaryote. That's what these arrows are referring to is the exchange of genetic material. And once that had gone far enough, these two organisms could no longer live separately from one another, and they became inextricably bound together as a single organism. So it's one organism that originally started out as two, and they became totally integrated. So here it is in a little more detail, this is from your textbook, and you can see here a ancestral prokaryotic organism, and here we see the origin of the nucleus, which is not thought to be due to endosymbiosis, but instead of unfolding of the plasma membrane around the outside of the cell, and formation of a new membrane around the chromosomes, and also the formation of the endoplasmic reticulum in the same way. Okay, and then at some point after that happened, here we have the bacterium that became the mitochondria being engulfed here, and eventually incorporated. And then we have evolutionary diversification following this event. And in one of the lineages of early eukaryotes, then we have the ingestion of a cyanobacterium, a photosynthetic bacterium, a blue-green bacteria, that ultimately became the chloroplasts. And this didn't happen in some lineages.  And I've used this term plastid a lot. A plastid is any kind of organelle that ultimately descends from a cyanobacterium. There are plastids, for example, in roots that don't have a photosynthetic function. Chloroplasts are the ones that have a photosynthetic function. We find typically in the leaves, but all plant cells have some plastids, but they're all descended from the same ancestor from this original engulfed cyanobacterium. So the cool thing about the endosymbiotic theory is it really provides us this perspective, if in fact it's true, that it's this amazing cooperation between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, specifically bacteria and eukaryotes, that was probably key to the development of multicellular life on this planet and the world as we know it in terms of the biota. And one can ask then, is this really a true theory? Is this, what is the evidence for this theory? We can never absolutely prove a theory, but we can garner evidence in favor of it, or we can potentially shoot it down if we have evidence against it. And here you can see the tree of life with the proteobacterium being incorporated prior to the diversification of modern eukaryotes, and the plastid being incorporated after the beginning of the diversification of eukaryotes, just in one of the main lineages here. Okay, that's more or less what we just showed in a different perspective. So here's some of the evidence. The one thing that was brought up early on is the size of these organelles, their size and shape and their internal structure. When you look at that in the case of mitochondria and plastids, they look amazingly similar to a lot of putatively closely related bacteria. And if you, for example, compare a plastid, a chloroplast, in terms of its internal structure, these thylakoid membranes and all, they look very similar to what you find in a cyanobacterium in a blue-green algae. Another line of evidence is the way that they reproduce. So the nucleus of the eukaryotic cell does not code for the production of mitochondria and plastids. Plastids and mitochondria reproduce on their own by binary fission, which is the same process by which bacteria reproduce. And if you actually purge all of the plastids out of a cell, that cell is incapable of regenerating plastids. So you wouldn't want to do that with the mitochondria, the cell couldn't survive. They need the mitochondria for respiration, but there are some organisms that can withstand the loss of their plastids and they'll go on reproducing, but you'll never see another plastid in that cell line. So this is a pretty interesting line of evidence that suggests that the mitochondria and plastids came from an outside source they weren't generated from within. Another line of evidence is from the ribosomes that are found inside of mitochondria and plastids. So we actually have protein synthesis going on inside mitochondria and plastids. This involves their own machinery. They have their own ribosomes that are different from the ribosomes you find out in the main cytoplasm of the cell, of the eukaryotic cell that they're contained within. So ribosomes, to remind you, is basically a complex of ribosomal RNA and protein that's involved in translation of messenger RNA into polypeptides, which are the raw material for making proteins. And these ribosomes, both in their DNA sequence and in the proteins, are more similar to the ribosomes of bacteria than they are to the ribosomes of the eukaryote. So this is a pretty amazing line of evidence too that these things were not generated from the eukaryotic cell, the mitochondria and the plastids. And also there are some antibiotics. We just talked about penicillin, which is a bactericidal compound that attacks the cell wall. There are some bacteriostatic antibiotics that target protein synthesis in bacteria. So they're going after the ribosomes. And those same antibiotics, if they're applied correctly or can be poisonous to the ribosomes of mitochondria, for example, and not to the ribosomes of the eukaryotic cytoplasm at large. So this is another suggestive line of evidence that the ribosomes of mitochondria and plastids are of external origin. And genomes, you may not know it, but the mitochondria and the plastids have their own genomes separate from the nuclear genome and the nucleus. And if you look, here's a couple of these, or actually here you see two circular genomes. Here's a chloroplast genome here. And here we have the, I believe this is a bacterial, cyanobacterial genome. Bacterial genomes are circular as are both chloroplasts and mitochondrial genomes. Of course, nuclear chromosomes are not circular. And their structure and sequence of both mitochondrial and chloroplast genomes is indicative of a closer relationship to these different lineages of bacteria than to the eukaryotic nucleus that they live with, with the eukaryotic genes that are found in the same cells. You can do phylogenetic analyses based on genes in the chloroplast genome and mitochondrial genome. They don't come out in the phylogenetic analysis, they come out with bacteria, not with any eukaryotes. So that's a really powerful line of evidence that's been more recently acquired. Okay, so one of the more recent understandings that's happened with regard to endosymbiosis is that it looks like it's happened more than once, although the initial endosymbiosis that involved the incorporation of a cyanobacterium into a eukaryotic cell may have just happened one time or at least one common origin for all photosynthetic eukaryotes. But what's happened subsequent to that is photosynthetic eukaryotes that had acquired their plastids ultimately by an endosymbiotic event were engulfed by other eukaryotes in what's called a secondary endosymbiosis. So here you can see a photosynthetic unicellular eukaryote, a green alga in this case, being engulfed by an herbivorous protist of some kind and being incorporated into that cell. And the evidence for this in part is that if you look at these plastids that you find inside of some alga groups, rather than just two membranes around the plastid like you would expect based on the membrane constitution of a prokaryote, you can find three or four membranes. One of these membranes outside the original two would correspond then to the plasma membrane of the eukaryote that was engulfed and then the fourth membrane would correspond to the vacuolar membrane of the organism that engulfed it. So we have a serial process of a prokaryote, a prokaryote being engulfed, I mean a photosynthetic prokaryote being engulfed and then subsequently a photosynthetic eukaryote that descended from those ancestors that engulfed the prokaryote being engulfed by another eukaryote. And there are some cases where there's actually a vestigial, a remnant nuclear genome that resides in between the membrane, one of these outer membranes and the two inner membranes of the plastid that pretty much demonstrates convincingly that that was a eukaryote that was ingested that gave rise to that, the presence of plastids in that particular group of organisms. So there are any questions about that, that's a relatively recent understanding, yeah. Yeah, that's the next slide, yeah. We're gonna get right, thanks, that's a good lead in. So here's the tree basically of endosymbiotic events. And what we start out with here is the primary endosymbiosis where we're engulfing the cyanobacterium, this is from your textbook. So after this happened, based on molecular data, it appears that, and also based on the actual anatomy of the plastids, it appears we had a divergence event, just an evolutionary divergence that led to the green algae, the eukaryotic green algae on the one hand, and the red algae, which are mostly marine organisms, saltwater, taxa, these both just appear to have, they have two membranes around their plastids and they appear to be each other's closest relatives based on molecular lines of evidence. So this appears to be just a regular evolutionary divergence and that accounting for photosynthesis in green eukaryotic algae and red eukaryotic algae. Then next we have three different, a minimum of three different secondary endosymbiotic events that can be estimated based on molecular evidence and other evidence. Two of these involve green algae and they led to lineages that are found in two different parts of the overall eukaryotic tree, the chloroarachneophytes, which are really an obscure group of marine unicellular organisms that we're not gonna talk about anymore, and the euglenids, which I'll show you again later, which are distantly related to all these other algae based on their nuclear genome. And then there was a putative single endosymbiotic event involving red algae that led to the bulk of a large number of different groups of algae. The stromenopiles includes the brown algae, the diatoms, and the golden algae that I'll talk about in a minute. And then the dinoflagellates I'll talk about in a minute is a really important planktonic group, unicellular group for the most part. But I wanna mention the apicomplexans right here because this is a group that's not photosynthetic, but they have a vestigial plastid. So this is a group that appears to have lost the photosynthetic ability, but still has a remnant little body there that wasn't really appreciated as a plastid until these data became available. And this group includes the malaria vector, the malaria agent, the genus plasmodium, not to be confused with plasmodial slime molds, completely different. But the malaria disease, of course, once you catch malaria, there's no known cure. But having made this discovery that this thing actually contains a plastid, there's interest in trying to target that plastid since it's of cyanobacterial origin. It's something that if its destruction led to the death of the organism, we could target that and it wouldn't affect human cells. So this understanding of secondary endosymbiosis might actually end up having some important medical outcomes. That's still up in the air at this point. That's a bit of an aside actually, but I just wanted to point that out as a potential fringe benefit of having made this discovery. Okay, so here we are again with all of the various algal groups. Now I want to introduce you to those groups and give you a sense of this diversity, which is pretty amazing and pretty important for life on earth. So we can break these things down, these major groups of algae into ecological groups. These are not phylogenetic groupings by relationship but by ecology. Here again is the photosynthetic bacteria, the blue-green bacteria, the cyanobacteria, and then a number of these eukaryotic groups. These are all the results of secondary endosymbiosis here. And these constitute most of our phytoplankton, our photosynthetic community that occurs in open water and is responsible for fixing the bulk of carbon from our atmosphere, the major primary productivity of our environment, absolutely critical for oxygen production and for taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, which of course is getting more and more important. And then we have some groups here that are primarily multicellular, not all of them, I mean, there are unicellular organisms in these groups, but all of our so-called seaweeds are in the brown algae, the red algae, and the green algae. As I mentioned, the reds and the greens are each other's closest relatives. The browns used to be thought to be closely related to these, but they're very distantly related, secondary endosymbiants, and we'll see those in a moment. So here's blue-green algae again, the cyanobacteria. These are unicellular organisms like other bacteria. But they commonly occur as filaments, and these filaments can get up to a meter in length, in some cases or more. And even though they're commonly found in aquatic habitats, there are some important terrestrial ones that I want to mention. And some of these are incorporated into what are called cryptogamic crust, which it's not an important term, but they occur in association with other microorganisms on the surface of soils and help to hold down the soil from wind erosion and also the blue-green bacteria in these associations. These crusts are fixing nitrogen, and so they can be important in developing soil as far as nitrogen content. Okay, and as I mentioned, these are a fairly diverse group in terms of recognized taxa, but only one of these lineages, we think, was involved in the initial endosymbiosis that gave rise to the plastids and all of the other algae, either by the primary endosymbiotic event or the secondary events. So these are the guys that invented photosynthesis, and everybody else just basically borrowed it from them. Okay, so the dinoflagellates are one of the weirdest of the algae, and these are mostly unicellular, and you can see they're strange, they have all kinds of strange confirmations that are the result of having this armor on their outside, this cellulose armor that protects them to some extent. These cellulose plates, they have a couple of flagelli, and the distinctive thing is that one of their flagelli actually encircles their body like a belt, and it's a ribbon-like thing that causes them to spin as they move through the water column. So they have the spinning motion as they move, and it's very distinctive. These are secondary endosymbiants. They, remember, these are the ones I showed in that tree, you can go back to it later in the notes, but they share a common secondary endosymbiotic origin of the plastid with the brown algae and the diatoms and some other groups. No, I'm sorry, that's not right. It's with the, yeah, that's right, of course. All of these red algal endosymbiants, these guys have an incorporated red alga, all the red algae have been incorporated from a single endosymbiotic event. And one of the things you might have heard before here on the Pacific Coast are things called red tides, and here you can see this orange coloration from the carotenoids, these pigments that they produce in their plastids from the red algal plastids that they've incorporated. And these tides are not only visible to the naked eye, but they also are often associated with the production of a lot of toxins. When these things are in high concentration, it can be a real problem because they do produce toxins that they potentially use to ward off predators or to stun prey. Some of the dinoflagellates have lost their ability to photosynthesize and they're heterotrophic and they can even kill fish with these toxins, even though there's tiny microorganisms, they can kill fish and then just swarm in on them and consume them. So they're a pretty amazing, amazingly diverse group. They also include some of our most important photosynthetic algae in terms of the amount of carbon they fix from the atmosphere. So they're really important ecologically, but they can, as I mentioned, kill fish and we can have mass fish kills from these red tides. And also they can poison shellfish. The shellfish can ingest these toxins.  So you have to be careful when you harvest shellfish that this is done at the right time and more it can be serious consequences. Now this may look a little bizarre at first. Dynaflagellates also have bioluminescent capability. They have compounds that they can enzymatically degrade to produce a flash of light, a really brief burst of blue light like this.  But this guy here is just lying in the water, moving his arms and that much disturbance is enough to freak out the dynaflagellates to produce this bioluminescence, which you can see at night really well. And this may help to startle predators and allow them to get away while things like copepods and small predators are still trying to understand what happened. Okay, so the last group I wanna talk about today in the last few seconds here are the euglenoids. And these are one of these secondary endosymbionts that captured a chloroplast from, I'm sorry, they captured a unicellular green alga. This is one of the results, the only one we're gonna talk about that actually engulfed a green eukaryote. And these are very diverse. Some of them are heterotrophic and can engulf prey. Some of them can do both, photosynthesize and engulf prey. So this is a diverse group of unicellular algae, or green algae essentially, that have a unique flagellum. Here you can see their flagellum and you can just see them move there. But their plastid looks very much like a green alga. Other aspects of their cell are completely different and they represent a different origin, of a different origin in the eukaryotic lineage. Okay, so next time we'll talk about diatoms which are really amazing and get on to some of these other alga groups. So we'll see you on Friday. Thank you.


Good evening aspirants. Welcome to the Hindi News Analysis by Shankar IS Academy for the date 13th June 2019. The list of articles which has been chosen for today's analysis along with the page numbers of Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Tiruvannapuram Medicines are provided here. The link for the handwritten notes in the PDF format and the time stamping for the displayed articles is given in the description box below. And for the benefit of smartphone users, the time stamping is also provided in the comment section. Let us move on to our first article analysis. This article is an editorial which is with respect to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The article discussion will be helpful in problems under the area current events of national and international importance. The discussion will also be helpful in main syllabus in general studies paper 2 under the area functions and responsibilities of the union structure and functioning of state legislatures. The discussion could be linked to GS paper 3 in the area linkages between development and spread of extremism and role of external state and non-state actors in creating challenges to internal security also. In this editorial, the author asks to hold these state assembly elections as soon as possible in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The author finds two statements which was made by the prime minister of the country contradicting with the non-conducting of timely state assembly elections of Jammu and Kashmir. One is when the prime minister stated in April 2019 that the problem of terrorism in the state of Jammu and Kashmir was contained from about 9 to 10 districts to about 2 and a half districts. Now know that there are 22 districts in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The second statement made by the prime minister is during the conduct of local body elections for Panchayats in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in December 2018. There were zero violence in election and he added that this Panchayat election has also indicated that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are enthusiastic for democratic process. Then the author's point is that when prime minister has made such statements why the state assembly elections were not conducted for almost 12 months. Lastly, state assembly elections were conducted in JNK in the year 2014. The full term of the government would have ended by November or December 2019 but in June 2018, BJP withdrew its support for the coalition from the state government in Jammu and Kashmir. So, now it has been almost a year since the resignation of leadership of the state government. So, the state government of JNK is under governance rule now. Therefore, the author says that the prime minister and his advisors are suffering from a syndrome called as Alice in Wonderland syndrome. If a person is affected by the syndrome, it means that the perceptions of the person who is affected by the syndrome are wrong. The person will see a straight line and say that it is a wavy line. The author uses the syndrome to suggest that the PM and his advisors do not say what is in reality. Also, that they are significantly distorted or diverted from the reality of what actually happens in Jammu and Kashmir. A recent development in the state heavily affected the local masses that is one and a half months after the Pulwama terrorist attack, the government passed an order that banned civilian traffic movement for two days a week in the national highway between Baramulla and Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir. This was done to facilitate the orderly conduct of the Lok Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir and for the movement of security troops. There were remarks from the people of Kashmir that such extreme steps were not even taken during the Kargil conflict of 1999. We have discussed this issue in our analysis in 23rd April 2019 video. The link has been provided in the description box. Please have a look at it. This banning of civilian traffic affected over 69 lakh of local people because this highway is the lifeline of the local population. It is called as lifeline because the people will get their basic amenities and fast-moving consumer goods by using this highway only. The highway has several lateral roads and passes through more than two and a half districts. It was found that sometimes the armed forces exclusively used the roads even more than the stipulated two days. So the ban was lifted in the last week of May. The author says that the ban was lifted because it was untenable that is the government felt it is difficult and unsustainable to maintain the ban as there was criticism among the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Then the author shares how the Panchayat elections took place in November-December period of 2018. He says that the mainstream political parties did not even participate in the elections. Election authorities say that the voter turnout in Panchayat elections is around 74 percent but if you see in Jammu division it was 83.5 percent in Ladakh it was 67.8 percent but in Kashmir division and Kashmir valley the voter turnout was just above 40 percent in the Panchayat elections which was held in nine phases. Particularly in phase six in the Kashmir division the voter turnout was just 17.3 percent. Also in many words according to the author lower voter turnout was seen and there were no representatives in hundreds of wards also. Even in the Lok Sabha elections there were less interest or less enthusiasm from the people of Baramulla, Srinagar and Anantnag and also no interest or enthusiasm was found among the local population of Chopin and Pulwama areas also. The author highlights that the lack of enthusiasm is not because of pressure from separatists. There is no enthusiasm simply because people do not want to vote or does not want to be a part of democratic processes. This is because the people of Jammu and Kashmir feel rejected and alienated to be a part of democratic processes of our nation. The prime minister is saying Insaniath, Jamhuriyath, Kashmiriyath. These words were coined by the then prime minister of India Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the doctrine of Kashmir. Here Insaniath means humanity, Jamhuriyath means peace of the people through democracy and Kashmiriyath means the secular and friendly cultural values of the people of Kashmir. In such a case integration should happen but what is happening is alienation. The author says there should not be any delay in holding these state assembly elections. For delaying elections till November small reasons are being told such as tourism season and Amarnath Yatra etc. But these reasons are nothing before the greater role of democracy. The article states that in November Jammu becomes the capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Know that Jammu is the winter capital of the state and the Srinagar is the summer capital of the state. For remembering this you can just use a small trick like there is S in Srinagar and summer. So Srinagar is the summer capital of state. Also governance rule should not continue in Jammu and Kashmir. This is because during the seven-year period of governance rule in 1990s militancy and separatism has increased. So to save Jammu and Kashmir, governance rule should be ended by holding assembly elections. If the election was further delayed this will lead to taking up of militancy by many young and educated people who already feel alienated. The author concludes the article by saying that the prime minister should bring a sense of inclusiveness in the Kashmir Valley. So for people to feel they are included in a democracy the first and foremost thing is to conduct the elections. With this we have come to the end of this article discussion moving on to the next news article which is also an editorial. It is about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit. The discussion will be relevant in main syllabus under GS paper 2 in the area India and its neighborhood relations. Then in bilateral and global groupings and agreements involving India and or affecting India's interests. Then also in effect of policies and politics of developed countries on India's interests. In this editorial the author discusses about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit. Then what to expect from the summit and what will be India stand. The 19th Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit will be held in Bishkek which is the capital of Kyrgyzstan Republic. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization that is SEO is a permanent intergovernmental international organization. It strengthens the mutual trust and neighborliness among its member states. It also promotes the effective cooperation of its member states in politics, trade, economy, research, technology and culture etc. Currently the SEO comprises of eight member states namely India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Very recently on 11th June we had a very detailed discussion about SEO. The link for that video is given in the description box. Please go and have a look at it. It was said that the issues related to terrorism, Afghanistan, regional security, multilateral dialogue and global scenario will be a part of the discussion at the summit. The author states that the summit is also likely to have a muted agenda that is it will have a low key agenda also. This is because SEO's secretary general has indirectly implied about adopting agreements regarding the deepening of multilateral cooperation among member countries and also implied about discussing non-conventional issues such as the fight against drug trafficking, cooperation in the field of IT, environmental protection and healthcare. The author mentions about the important meetings of Indian prime minister with the presidents of China and Russia and what can be expected from these meetings. Firstly the meeting with the Chinese president is important especially because our prime minister is now being guided by his new external affairs minister and also this meeting comes after China's decision to withdraw its technical hold on listing the Jaish-e-Mohamad chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist at the United Nations Security Council. Then meeting with the Russian president Vladimir Putin is also important. This is because India wants to save the S-400 contact deal with Russia. This save is against the threat of USA to impose sanctions on India under USA's Cards are Act. US has warned India to not to go on with the deal otherwise sanctions will be imposed on India. Then it is expected that the Russian president might invite our prime minister to be the chief guest at the Eastern Economic Forum of Russia which will be held in September. The Eastern Economic Forum was established by a decree of the president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin in 2015. The objectives of the forum include strengthening ties between the international investment community, Russian businesses and federal, regional and local government bodies of Russia. Then conducting a comprehensive export assessment of the economic potential of the Russian Far East and improving the region's competitiveness and attractiveness to investors both nationally and internationally. So the author says this would be a good opportunity for India to explore Russia's Far East region. This is not just for developing economic cooperation but also for exploring the prospects of transferring skilled laborers. This is especially to balance the Chinese demographic threats in the Russia's Far East region. Next the author lists what are the concerns of India on the summit. Firstly the author says that India will have to navigate between two contradictory factors. It means factors that are opposed to each other. One is India has to act as a willing partner of the regional cooperation which will be led by China and Russia during the summit. Then the other is it must avoid being seen as a part of anti-American gang. This indicates that because of the regional cooperation India has to maintain the same regional cooperation with Pakistan also as Pakistan is a member state of SCO. Then already there is a trade war going on between China and USA and along with the age-old Cold War between Russia and USA. So the actions of India in this summit are very crucial so that the world especially USA does not perceive that India is a part of the anti-American gang. Then another concern is in the summit Russia and the Central Asian countries are likely to express broad support for China in its escalating tariff fight between US and China. Tariff means tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports. Actually what happened is US put tariffs on Chinese imports and then as a response China imports retaliatory tariffs on American goods. This has already led to the cut of bilateral trade between China and USA. Now India is equally concerned about this trade war because India is unclear whether it will join the other member countries in the broad support for China or not because the broad support would mean a severely criticizing the US protectionism. So this may lead to increase in distance between India-US bilateral relationship also. Remember whenever we use the word protectionism it means the practice of shielding a country's domestic industries from foreign competition by taxing imports which USA is doing with China. The author says that India is willing to fight against terrorism with the cooperation of SCO member states is a paradox that is it is absurd. This is because SCO also includes countries like Pakistan that pose the biggest threats to Indian security. Then another concern is that except India all SCO members are enthusiastic supporters of the Belt and Road Initiative of China. The Belt and Road Initiative or BRI is an ambitious effort of China to improve regional cooperation and connectivity on a transcontinental scale. The initiative aims to strengthen infrastructure trade and investment links between China and some 65 other countries. However there are certain disagreements between India and China on BRI because of lack of transparency, debt burdens, etc. In addition to this India is also objecting the China-Pakistan economic corridor due to sovereignty concerns. This is because the China-Pakistan economic corridor passes through Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Then next concern is that the tourism discussion is likely to be approached from the angle of improving the situation in Afghanistan. The author says the discussion may not necessarily include curbing the terrorist elements emerging from Pakistan. Now what does India stand in the SCO? The author says that India seems to be committed to work within the SCO so as to first develop a cooperative and sustainable security framework then to make the regional anti-terrorist structure that is rats more effective and also to participate in the efforts of SCO to bring stability in Afghanistan. Then the author says that the member countries support India's proposal for a comprehensive convention on international terrorism. It was proposed by India in 1996 but the ratification of this convention is in an unfinished state due to the opposition from the US and the organization of Islamic cooperation countries that is the OIC countries. The significance of this convention was to ensure state support to prosecute or extradite those who have committed acts of terrorism in a third country. Then the author says that the topic of India's resolution to fight terrorism will be brought up by our Prime Minister. This will be done by drawing the SCO's attention to the terrorist attacks in Pulwama and Sri Lanka but China would not like this idea of India because it may dislike the use of SCO to shame Pakistan for the attack. Then the author says India may stick to its position on the Belt and Road Initiative as we mentioned above and there is a possibility in progress on the international north south transport corridor the Shabahar port the Ashgabat agreement and the India Myanmar Thailand trilateral highway also. These are of high importance to India on the economic front. We will discuss these in detail in the coming days. Then the meeting of Indian Prime Minister and his Pakistan counterpart may happen in the summit and the author says if it happens India might chart a new policy course in favor of making the ties normal with Pakistan. As a conclusion the author notes that so far the institutional level measures of SCO including the joint SCO military exercises have not given any satisfactory results. This is in view of jointly fighting against terrorism but the author concludes that the SCO is relevant for India because this will help India to get support for demanding the reform of United Nations Security Council. The reform is the expansion of permanent and non-permanent membership at UNSC. India along with a majority of UN members support this expansion so as to make the UNSC more representative and effective. Also India has been lending support to the SCO member countries for non-permanent membership of the UNSC for a long time. With this we have come to the end of this article discussion. Moving on to the next news article which is about the acute encephalitis syndrome. The analysis of this news article will be helpful in your political inspiration under current events of national and international importance and also under general science. The analysis will also be relevant in your mains preparation in GS paper 2 under issues relating to development and management of social sector relating to health. Acute encephalitis syndrome is a serious public health problem in India. Acute encephalitis syndrome or AES is commonly called as brain fever in India. The terms encephalitis means inflammation of the brain. Let us see the symptoms of this syndrome now. The individual affected by this syndrome will first have fever then there will be a change in the mental status of that affected person. Like the individual may have a mental confusion, disorientation, delirium or coma. Here know that delirium is an abrupt change in the brain that causes mental confusion and emotional disruption. It makes it difficult to think, remember, sleep, pay attention etc. Then the person affected by encephalitis may also suffer from seizures. The syndrome most commonly affects children and young adults and this syndrome can also lead to considerable morbidity and mortality. Here morbidity means the condition of being diseased meaning the individual will suffer from the disease. Then mortality means leading to death. AES mostly occurs due to viruses but in recent years other sources such as bacteria, fungus, parasites, chemicals, toxins and non-infectious agents have also been reported to cause acute encephalitis syndrome. Out of the viruses Japanese encephalitis virus is the major cause of AES in India. If you see at least 5% to 35% AES cases are caused by Japanese encephalitis virus. Japanese encephalitis is a mosquito-borne zoonotic viral disease. Zoonotic means passing from animals to humans. If you see Japanese encephalitis virus can be seen in animals and birds also. There is no antiviral treatment for patients with encephalitis. The treatment is generally to relieve the symptoms. Know that there are vaccines available to prevent Japanese encephalitis. Next Streptococcus pneumonia which is a bacteria also causes acute encephalitis syndrome in India. If you see even Nipah virus and Zika virus are also found to cause AES. However the causes for a large number of cases still remain unidentified. So, it is really tough for the health administration to find the reason for acute encephalitis syndrome if it spreads in a new area. And the treatment for the syndrome also depends on the type of a causative agent. During 2018 at least 10,000 cases of AES and 632 deaths were reported from 17 states in India. So, we can see that the fatality rate is around 6%. The cases were reported mainly from the states like Assam, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Although the AES cases other than Japanese encephalitis continue to be reported throughout the year, there is an overall increase of total AES cases in the month of June. It peaks during the months of July and August and declines in September, October months. So, we can see in today's news that there are many deaths reported in the states of Bihar due to AES. Before seeing the news, know that India also has a nationwide program to address this acute encephalitis syndrome. It is called as the National Program for Prevention and Control of Japanese Encephalitis or Acute Encephalitis Syndrome. In short, it is called as N-P-P-C-J-A. A multi-pronged strategy has been adopted under this national program in 60 high-priority districts in five states namely Assam, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. This program will be implemented with the participation of six central ministries, which are Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Housing Urban Poverty Elevation, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of Women and Child Development and finally the Ministry of Human Resource Development, especially the Department of School Education and Literacy. Now, these measures mentioned here are parts of the National Program for Prevention and Control of JE or AES. First measure is the strengthening and expansion of Japanese encephalitis vaccination in affected districts. Next is it will focus on the strengthening of surveillance and vector control. Vectors are those living organisms which transmits disease pathogens. Next is the focus will be on strengthening of case management like having a proper hospital infrastructure. Next is focus will be on providing access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation facilities to the target population in affected rural and urban areas. Then next is the provision of adequate facilities for physical, medical, neurological and social rehabilitation. Then finally the program will focus on the improvement of nutritional status of children at risk of Japanese encephalitis or AES. Now, let us see the news article. The news article mentions that central teams have arrived in Bihar to fight the increase in encephalitis cases in Bihar. The news mentions that there were at least 11 deaths between January and June 8 of this year in Bihar due to AES, but 48 cases were reported. So, the center has deployed a multi-speciality team to understand the situation in the state. The central team will review the increase in cases of encephalopathy and encephalitis and assist Bihar in containing or controlling the disease. This team is in addition to a central team that is already in Muzaffar put district of Bihar. The team will also visit various hospitals to assess the situation and support the state government.  The news also states that Bihar has registered a rise in cases of AES in Muzaffar put district and Japanese encephalitis in Gaya district. There is one more news box within this news article which mentions that Muzaffar put district has admitted 22 cases who are suffering from fever, hypoglycemia and unconsciousness. Here know that hypoglycemia causes abnormally low levels of sugar in the blood or a deficiency of sodium or potassium in the body. With this we have come to the end of this article discussion. The displayed problems question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next news article which is about the retail inflation and growth in the industrial sector. The discussion will be relevant in privileged preparation under the area current events of national importance and also in economic development. The discussion can also be linked to main syllabus under GS paper 3 in the area Indian economy. The article states that retail inflation in the month of May 2019 has moved marginally or slightly increased to 3.05%. This has happened mainly due to the rise in food prices especially the rise in the price of vegetables. This 3.05% high is seen after seven months. It was 2.19% in the month of April 2019. Now what is this retail inflation? In simple words the inflation that is the increase in price which is experienced at retail shops. This gives the actual reflection of the price rise in the country. In India the inflation rate at retail level is given by the consumer price index that is CPI. CPI is used to measure the changes over time in general level of retail prices of selected goods and services. These goods and services are those which the households purchase for the purpose of consumption. So, these changes affect the real purchasing power of consumers income and their welfare. The CPI measures price changes in a period of time by comparing the cost of a fixed basket of commodities. Whenever we say basket in economics it refers to a fixed set of consumer products and services which is valued on an annual basis. The basket is based on the expenditures of a target population in a certain reference period. The basket contains commodities of unchanging or equivalent quantity and quality. So the index reflects pure price only. Over the years CPIs have been widely used as a macroeconomic indicator of inflation or headline inflation. It is also used as a tool by government and central government that is RBI for targeting inflation and monitoring the price stability. Then CPI is also used as deflator in the national accounts. A deflator is used to convert the data compiled over a period into the prices that prevail at an earlier point in time. This means a deflator removes the effect of inflation from data making it comparable across periods. For example, it is used as a GDP price deflator. It measures the difference between real GDP and nominal GDP. So, it signifies whether the gross domestic product has happened on account of higher prices or because of increase in output. Therefore, CPI is considered as one of the most important economic indicators. Also know that CPI is released by Central Statistics Office which works under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. The overall combined CPI is given by computing CPI Rural, CPI Urban and CFPI which means Consumer Food Price Index. CFPI accounts to more than 50% of weight. Finally, these are the six components of CPI. They include food and beverages, barn, tobacco and intoxicants, clothing and footwear, housing, fuel and light and lastly, miscellaneous. Miscellaneous include health, education, transport, recreation, etc. Out of all, food and beverage has the highest weightage. In the month of May, the inflation in the food and beverages segment accelerated to 2.03% from 1.38% over the same period. However, the fuel and light segment saw inflation of 2.48% in May from 2.56% in the previous month. Barn, tobacco and other intoxicants and the clothing and footwear segments saw slight inflation in May. Then the article also talks about the rise in the industrial growth front for the month of April 2019. This is because the factory output is rising by 3.4%. The 3.4% is a 6 month high. This growth was mainly driven by the electricity and mining sectors. The mining sector saw accelerating growth to 5.1% from 0.8% over the same period. Also, the manufacturing sector is growing by 2.8%. So, the growth in the index of industrial production has returned to a positive territory in April because it was declining at 0.1% in March. The recovery in the IAP is mostly due to the fact that the government might have been able to spend more. This spending might have happened through the approvals of the interim budget as the new financial year started. Experts say in the first few months of the new financial year, there will be more government expenditure and so this growth can continue for about 3 months. So, what is this index of industrial production? The All India Index of Industrial Production is a composite indicator that measures the short term changes in the volume of production of a basket of industrial products. This is calculated during a given period with respect to that in a chosen base period. The base period for IAP has been changed from 2004, 5 to 2011 to 2012. It is compiled and published monthly by the Central Statistics Office that is CSO. CSO is under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. This compilation is given with a time lag of 6 weeks from the reference month. It is calculated based on the performance of 3 sectors which are manufacturing, mining and electricity. Here, manufacturing has the highest weightage. It takes into account the following types of goods into account from the above sectors. They include basic goods, capital goods, intermediate goods, consumer durable and non-durable goods. The following are the 8 core industries of IAP. They are considered as core because they impact every economic activity and serve as a backbone of all other industries. The 8 core industries constitute 40.27% of the total index of industrial production. Finally, let us see the significance of IAP. The All India IAP provides a single representative figure to measure the general level of industrial activity in the economy. This is on a monthly basis. It is free of any influences like price changes. With this, we have come to the end of this discussion. The displayed prelims question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next news article which is about early childhood education proposal under the right to education framework. This article discussion will be relevant in prelim syllabus under the area current events of national importance, then in public policy under Indian policy and governance. The article discussion will be helpful in mains in general studies paper 2 under the area government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and also in issues relating to development and management of social sector or services related to education. Whenever you hear about early childhood education or early childhood care, immediately article 45 of Indian constitution should come to your mind. This is because this article deals with the early childhood education. It states that the state shall endeavor to provide early childhood care and education for all children until they complete the age of six years. This is not a fundamental right, but it is a part of directive principles of state policy. Now let us discuss the article. The draft national education policy proposes that the provisions of the right to education act of 2009 be extended to the children in the age group of three years up to six years. Till now the right to education act applies to all children in the age category of about six years of age. That is why article 21a states that the state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to 14 years. This obviously means from class 1 to class 8. The author states that the proposal is to put the children of three years up to six years of age in a stimulating nursery environment. The author comments that this proposal is a holy or totally positive move and also a welcome logical measure. The class is taken before the completion of six years of age and before the class 1 are called as preschool classes. According to pedagogical view that is according to teaching standards, preschool is important for two reasons. One, this preschool phase is crucial for stimulating a child's curiosity. Curiosity is a desire to know things. Without curiosity, one cannot learn properly with deep understanding. And the second reason is that this preschool will help to prepare a child for schooling at age six. Here schooling starts from learning at class one. The draft national education policy also proposes to infuse learning component with the basic nutrition oriented child development programs. Some of the nutrition oriented child development programs are national nutrition mission, integrated child development services scheme and integrated child protection scheme. Now, these are the nutrition oriented schemes. The draft national education policy wants to make these programs complete by adding the learning component also. The author feels that the preschool learning component in right to education will be a big step forward. But if such measure is not made equitably accessible, then the RTE law will not make any remarkable and transformative changes. The author feels that India's right to education act is a far-sighted legislation that provides for 25% of seats in classes of 1 to 8 in schools, free and compulsory for children belonging to the weaker and disadvantaged group. But the legislation is making slow progress in mainstreaming equity in many states because of absence of strong political commitment. This is because only if strong political commitment is there, those who violate the RTE law can be penalized. Strong political commitment is required to punish those who run schools for making profit and not making education accessible to all children. According to the author, 87.3% of the schools do not comply with the requirements of the right of children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009. In such a scenario, the achievement of full coverage of children under the Act will take many decades. Decade is a 10-year period. One decade means 10 years. Two decade means 20 years. So, in such a scenario, it will take many years to achieve the coverage of all children. Then the author states that there are certain prerequisites that have to be taken, only then giving education to all children of age 3 and above can become a reality. Firstly, more financial resources should be allocated and timely disposal of reimbursements by the state governments is necessary. Central government, which has concurrent responsibility, also has to give more timely financial resources to all the states and union territories. Right now, we are spending only around 2.5% of the GDP for education. The author suggests spending up to 6% to transform the education sector. There shall be addition of special section that is an early childhood section in Ministry of Women and Child Development to monitor and implement the early childhood care and education. The Anganwadi centres that are now available for early childhood care should be reformed and given necessary advancements in infrastructure and others. This will help the learning component of small children with nutrition-oriented programs. The central government should play a leadership role in persuading states that are implementing RTE Act poorly to take up urgent reforms. Then, mission mode implementation or fast plan-based implementation of completion of well-designed school complexes should be set up. This is more important for government schools as they lag behind infrastructure quality compared to private schools. The state governments should fill the vacancies of teachers in a timely manner and the recruited teachers has to be trained based on scientific and child-oriented teaching methods. The author states that these education reforms are very important to prepare children with cutting-edge skills which will be necessary for continued economic progress. Then changes should be carried out in the RTE Act to prepare all children for a more productive schooling phase. When all children get more productive schooling phase, India's educational system will become morally fair and more egalitarian. Egalitarian means all people are equal and all people deserve equal rights and equal opportunities. Don't confuse egalitarianism with utilitarianism. Utilitarianism means greatest amount of good for the greatest number. With this, we have come to the end of this article discussion. The displayed practice problems question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the last session for the day that is the practice questions discussion session. If you look at the first question, it is about the acute encephalitis syndrome. The question says which of the following statements is wrong about acute encephalitis syndrome which is often seen in news. Here if you see the first statement is correct because Japanese encephalitis virus is the major cause of acute encephalitis syndrome in India. And if you see at least 5 percent to 35 percent acute encephalitis syndrome cases are caused by Japanese encephalitis virus. So, this statement is correct. Now, if you see the second statement, it is also correct because acute encephalitis syndrome is also caused by bacteria, parasites, chemicals and toxins. Now, you may get confused by seeing the first statement thinking that only virus causes acute encephalitis syndrome. But if you had carefully reasoned to our discussion, we saw that other sources such as bacteria, fungus, parasites, chemicals, toxins and non-infectious agents have also been reported to cause acute encephalitis syndrome. So, statement B is also correct. Now, if you see this third statement, it tells that there are no fatalities reported generally due to acute encephalitis syndrome. But if you see today's news article, it is about the fatalities in the state of Bihar. And we also saw during our discussion that the fatality rate recorded in 2018 due to acute encephalitis syndrome is around 6 percent. So, this statement is wrong. Here the question asks us to find the wrong statement about AES. So, here the statement C is the wrong statement. So, the correct answer to this question is statement C. But also know that India has a nationwide program for prevention of and control of acute encephalitis syndrome. And the name of the program is National Program for Prevention and Control of Japanese Encephalitis or Acute Encephalitis Syndrome. In short, NPCJA. Now, if you look at the second question, it says which among the following index or indices are released by the Central Statistics Office? It has given five indices in which the first one is Consumer Price Index, Urban, then Index of Industrial Production, then CPI for Agricultural Laborers, then Wholesale Price Index, then CPI for Industrial Workers. Today, in our discussion, we talked about CPI, Index of Industrial Production. We know that CPI and Index of Industrial Production is given by Central Statistics Office. So, the answer should contain Option 2. But if you see the given codes, every option contains Option 2, which means 2 is correct. Then here in this question, there are three types of CPI given. The first one is Urban, then Agricultural Laborers, then for Industrial Workers. Today, during a discussion, we discussed that the Consumer Price Index is given by the compilation of CPI, Urban, CPI, Rural and CPI combined and which is given by Central Statistics Office. So, which means Option 1 is also correct. So, the answer should contain Option 1 also. But here three options contain Option 1. So, you cannot solve this question by the use of Elimination Method. So, for this, you need to know some basic concepts like CPI for Agricultural Laborers and Industrial Workers are compiled and released by the Labor Bureau in the Ministry of Labor. And Wholesale Price Index is released by the Office of Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. So, which means 3, 4 and 5 are not released by Central Statistics Office. So, the correct answer to this question is Option 1 and 2, which is in Option A. So, the correct answer is Option A. Now here, this next question is based on Article 21A. If you look at the first statement, the first statement states that Article 21A of Indian Constitution deals with free and compulsory education to all children of the age of 3 to 6 years. We know that Article 21A of Indian Constitution deals with free and compulsory education. We normally know that. But what is the age group? Is it from 3 to 6 years? No. At present, Article 21A deals only with the state providing free and compulsory education to all children of the age group of 6 to 14 years. This 3 to 6 years is proposed by the draft national education policy, which is still a draft not yet implemented. So, the first statement here is wrong. Now, if you look at the second statement, it states Article 21A is enshrined in the Constitution since 1950. Note that whenever you see a section in an act or an article in the Constitution with a capital letter, this means a section or article is inserted after coming into force of the act or the Constitution. That is, it has been inserted by an amendment. So, here the A in 21A is a capital letter, which means it has been inserted by an amendment, which makes statement 2 also the wrong statement. Note that Article 21A has not been present in the Constitution since 1950. It was inserted by the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act of 2002. As both these statements are wrong, here the correct answer to this question is neither one nor two. Let us see one main question based on GS Paper 2. Comment on the proposal by the draft national education policy of 2019 with respect to the extension of right to education to early childhood education. Now, here note that this is a specific question with respect to early childhood education. So, first you state the proposal to extend the RTA benefits to all children of age 3 up to 6 years to get free and compulsory education that is free preschool education. Then you can say that this is a welcome logical measure, a big step, wholly positive move like how it may help in generating curiosity and preparing children for schooling at or after the age of 6. You can also add that for achieving the objectives of full coverage, more financial resources, strong political commitments are required. You can also add your own viewpoints based on today's analysis. With this, we have come to the end of today's newspaper discussion. If you like the video, don't forget to like, comment and share and do subscribe to Shankar ASA Academy YouTube channel for more updates on civil service examination preparation.