A very good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindi news analysis brought to you by Shankar Ayesha Academy for the date 3rd of January 2022. Now these are the list of articles I have taken today for discussion. Now this first discussion is going to be based on this editorial article where we are going to discuss the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. And the second discussion we will see about the draft national air sports policy. And then in this next discussion we will see what do you mean by ODF status and ODF plus status. And in this next text and context article we will see what do we mean by single board computers. And then in this fifth discussion we will go through open market borrowings and what do we mean by it. And then in this last discussion we will see about this monument called as Org de Trompe and we will also see about India Gate. And then I have the practice questions discussion session for you and we will also have one main practice question for you today. So without wasting much time now let us get to the discussion. So we are going to start our discussion with this editorial article. Here author of this editorial has pointed out the under performance of this scheme called as Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. As you know it is a maternity benefit scheme. So today we are going to focus on this scheme, its limitations and even its under performance as compared to other state government schemes. And then finally we will also see what needs to be done to improve the schemes performance. Let us see all these aspects now. Before that the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. So let us start with understanding the scheme first. Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. Now here the term Matru means mother in Hindi and then Vandana in Sanskrit means worshipping. And then Yojana as you know it means scheme. So this is a scheme for worshipping the motherhood by providing maternity benefits. That is it is a maternity benefits program. Now this scheme is being implemented by the Ministry of Women and Child Development and it is a centrally sponsored scheme. So what is the maternity benefit actually provided by it? It provides cash benefit. There is a cash benefit of Rs 5000 which is provided in three installments under this scheme. And it is provided to the pregnant women as well as lactating mothers. They receive these installments when they fulfill certain conditions for their first child. And these conditions include early registration of pregnancy. Then when they complete antenatal checkup and then when they complete registration of the birth of the child along with this they should also complete the first cycle of vaccination for the first living child of the family. So after fulfilling these conditions each installment will be given as you can see here. Now in addition to this Rs 5000 under Pradhan Mantri Matruvandana Yojana the eligible beneficiaries will also receive cash incentive of Rs 1000. This Rs 1000 is given under the Jananish Suraksha Yojana. So on an average the benefit received under this scheme is Rs 6000 and these cash benefits are provided to pregnant women in their bank account directly. So that means Pradhan Mantri Matruvandana Yojana is a direct benefit transfer scheme. Now the purpose of this benefit is twofold actually. The first aim is to meet the enhanced nutritional needs of pregnant women and lactating mothers because we know that during pregnancy and even after delivery they need additional nutrition. So this money will help them to get that nutrition. Secondly the aim is also to partially compensate for the wage loss that happens during pregnancy and after childbirth. We know that after a certain period during pregnancy the woman may not be able to go to office or do any other job for a wage. This is also difficult after childbirth for a stipulated period of time. So there is a wage loss during this period. Now to partially compensate this wage loss government is providing this cash benefit. So from the above discussion itself we would have understood who are the main beneficiaries of this scheme. They are the pregnant women and lactating mothers. But note that women who belong to certain categories are excluded from this scheme. For example those who are in regular employment with the central government or the state governments they are excluded and even those who are receiving similar benefits under any law for the time being enforced they are also excluded from this scheme. So this is the basics about this scheme. Now what are all the limitations in this scheme that the author has pointed out. The first limitation is with respect to the coverage of the scheme. See there is a problem with the target coverage fixed by the government. The target set by the government was 51.7 lakh beneficiaries per annum. And this is the target since the scheme became effective in 2017. But if you see according to the available data for example according to the data from Centre for Policy Research the estimated eligible population of pregnant women and lactating mothers in India is much higher than this count. For example according to the data given by the Centre for Policy Research for the period of 2017-18 the population of pregnant women and lactating mothers was 128.7 lakh. But the government has fixed the target as 51.7 lakh only in that same year. So we can see that the target fixed is itself 40% of the eligible population. So it doesn't focus on the remaining 60% of the eligible population. And the worrying factor here is that even after 4 years the target has remained unchanged. So overall since its inception in 2017 the scheme has covered 2.01 crore women nationally and around 8700 crores have been dispersed under this scheme. So the first limitation was coverage of the scheme. Now the second limitation is with respect to the failure in disbursements of incentives under the scheme. So according to the data in the year 2020-21 itself more than 50% of the registered beneficiaries did not receive their 3 instalments. And thirdly if you see even the enrolment under the scheme has witnessed a downward fall in the last 2 years. Particularly in 2020-21 there was a 9% drop in enrolment under the scheme. So these 2 limitations show the poor performance of the scheme. Apart from these there is also an issue with respect to the tedious process involved in the implementation of the scheme. See if you take registration the current registration form requires the mother and child protection card. It requires husbands Aadhar card. It requires bank passbook and also registration form. And all these documents are required for all the 3 instalments. So according to the author this increases the delays and there are also many rejections due to this and this results into pending applications. Actually this tedious registration process is also one of the reasons for failure in disbursements of incentives and reduced enrolment under the scheme. And final issue with the scheme is as usual the budget allocation. You know that central government is continuously emphasising on maternal and child health but the overall budget for women and child development was reduced in the last budget. And particularly for the Pratan Mantri Matruvantana Yojana scheme the allocation has been reduced from 2500 crores to 1300 crores. This data is as per the budget estimate of 2021. And according to the author this issue primarily happened because the Matruvantana Yojana has been clubbed with other schemes under Samarthya. So what is this Samarthya? The last year that is in 2021 all major schemes of the Ministry of Women and Child Development have been classified under three umbrella schemes. As you can see here the three umbrella schemes are Mission Portiaan 2.2, Mission Vatsalya and Mission Shakti. Now this Mission Shakti has two sub schemes. One is the Sambhal scheme and the Samarthya scheme. Now under this Samarthya scheme only the Pratan Mantri Matruvantana Yojana is clubbed along with other multiple schemes such as Beti Bachao, Beti Padau scheme. Now after this clubbing the overall budget of Samarthya was fixed at 2522 crores. So that means we can say that the overall budget of all the schemes under Samarthya has been drastically reduced. And particularly this is more pronounced in the Matruvantana Yojana because as we just saw the budget estimation for 2021 was 2500 crores. But here we can see that for 2021-22 period the Samarthya scheme itself has 2500 crores only and the Samarthya includes many sub schemes. So there was a time when one particular scheme was given this much amount but now a school of schemes have been given only this amount. So the budget allocation is also a major problem and this was the fifth issue. So by pointing out these limitations author is suggesting the central government to learn from the state governments because the maternity benefit schemes of state governments are much better and much better performing than Pratan Mantri Matruvantana Yojana. So to explain this fact author has given two examples. One is the example of Tamil Nadu and then Odisha. So first if we take Tamil Nadu its maternity benefit scheme is called Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy Maternity Benefit Scheme. Now under this scheme a maximum incentive of 18,000 rupees is provided and we can see that this is three times higher than Pratan Mantri Matruvantana Yojana because it only provides 5000 plus 1000 rupees under Janani Suraksha Yojana. Along with this this scheme of Tamil Nadu also covers two children but we saw that Pratan Mantri Matruvantana Yojana covers only the first child. Now second example is Odisha. Odisha has the Mamta scheme which is performing way better than Pratan Mantri Matruvantana Yojana. See here Mamta means love of mother. This scheme was launched by Odisha government in 2011 for the pregnant women and lactating mothers. And like the Matruvantana Yojana this is also a conditional cash transfer maternity benefit scheme and this also provides rupees 5000 which is transferred to the bank account of the mothers. And this amount is provided in two installments after fulfilling conditions like the Matruvantana Yojana. Now here the conditions include anti-natal checkups, institutional delivery, post-natal checkups, attending counseling sessions, full immunization etc. But this scheme covers the first two live birds like the Tamil Nadu scheme. But this limit is also not present for a particular category of beneficiaries that is it is not applicable to the beneficiaries from the particularly vulnerable tribal group communities. And we said that this Mamta scheme is performing better than Matruvantana Yojana. It is because this scheme showcased a 57% increase in women who received all the installments. But in Matruvantana Yojana scheme 50% of the beneficiaries did not receive all 3 installments. So this shows the efficient implementation of the maternity benefit program by Odisha government. And that is why the author is asking the central government to learn from Odisha. Now apart from learning from other states, author has provided certain suggestions to address the current issues in Pradhan Mantri Matruvantana Yojana. First suggestion is to extend the scheme to the second live birth like the state governments. This is important because out of the total live birds in India 49.5% each comprises first order birds. And 29.9% are second order birds. So that is why it is important to include second live birth under the maternity benefit cover. And particularly if this inclusion is done it will help the women in unorganized sector because they are more vulnerable to economic shocks and nutrition loss etc. Now second suggestion is increase in the maternity benefit amount. Now this suggestion is first necessary because the primary objective of Pradhan Mantri Matruvantana Yojana is to provide partial wage compensation. But the 5000 provided under the scheme is a meager amount and it covers only one month's wage loss. So this compels most women especially the women in vulnerable category to go to work even during pregnancy and post pregnancy because they cannot afford the wage loss. Now secondly increasing the amount is necessary because definitely all the maternity related costs are not going to be fulfilled by this amount. There will be also out of pocket expenses particularly for the delivery there will be more out of pocket expenses. So here author suggests that increasing the amount is important and according to the author it should be increased to 15,000 rupees. Now this amount was arrived based on the wage rate under MG Narega currently the wage rate is 202 rupees per day plus our maternity benefit act of 1961 mandates 12 weeks of maternity leave for women. So if you round this amount to 200 so 200 into 12 into 6 days of working days will include 14,500 rupees. So that is why author is suggesting 15,000 as the amount. Now apart from these two suggestions author is also suggesting to simplify the process of registration and increasing awareness about the scheme is also important because these will enable increased registration of beneficiaries. So these are the points that we need to take from this editorial discussion. In today's discussion we saw about the Pradhan Mantri Matra Vandana Yojana. We saw that it is a maternity benefit scheme. It provides direct benefit transfer of 5000 rupees plus 1000 rupees is provided under Janani Suraksha Yojana and this amount is given in three installments after fulfilling certain conditions and we saw certain issues with the scheme. First was the coverage of the scheme. Second was the failure in disbursements of incentives under the scheme. Third was the reduced enrollment under the scheme. And fourth is the difficult registration process under the scheme. And finally we saw that budget allocation is also very low for the scheme. And then we compared it with the maternity benefit schemes of Tamil Nadu and Odisha. We saw that these two schemes covers two life births plus we also saw that Tamil Nadu scheme provides three times higher cash incentive than Matra Vandana Yojana. And then we saw that Odisha scheme is performing way better than Matra Vandana Yojana. Then apart from this we also saw some of the suggestions given by the author such as extending the benefit to the second life births. Then we saw increasing the maternity benefit amount will also help. And the third suggestion is simplifying the registration process along with increasing awareness. So these are the points we saw today and I hope you understood all these points. Now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now our second discussion for today is going to be based on this news article which talks about the draft national air sports policy that is introduced by the government. So today we will first understand about air sports and then we will see some of the important provisions in this draft policy. See first of all as the name suggests air sports includes various sports activities involving the medium of air. And such air sports can be broadly classified under three categories. The first category is the motorized air sports. Second one is the wind which is also called as gliding air sports. And the third category is the gravity air sports. Now if you take motorized air sports we have air racing aerobatics, ultra light aviation, aeromodelling, drone racing. And then under wind or gliding air sports we have hand gliding, kite surfing, paragliding, ballooning etc. And then under gravity air sports we have sky surfing, parachuting or skydiving etc. So here I have given the names of major air sports. You can just go through the definitions. But out of these air sports the draft national policy only covers about 10 air sports. These are aerobatics, aeromodelling, amateur built and experimental aircraft, ballooning, drones, gliding, hand gliding and paragliding, micro lighting and paramotoring, skydiving, vintage aircraft. Now you have to remember these 10 air sports definitely. So now let us see some of the important provisions in the draft policy. Now the first important provision is about the vision of the policy. Its vision is to make India as one of the top air sports nations by the year 2030. So therefore through this policy government aims to provide a safe, affordable, accessible, enjoyable as well as sustainable air sports ecosystem in our country. And through this it aims to promote air sports culture in India and also to develop India as a preferred global hub for air sports. Along with this the policy also aims to encourage schools and colleges to include Air Sports India curriculum. Now next it provides a governance model for the air sports. It proposes a two tire governance model. One will be at the apex level. In the apex level there will be an Air Sports Federation of India. This will act as the governing body. And then along with this there will also be associations for each of the air sports that will handle day to day activities. For example there will be separate associations like Paragliding Association of India or Skydiving Association of India etc. So one will be at the apex level and one will be at the different air sports level. Now in this the apex governing body that is Air Sports Federation of India will be an autonomous body under Ministry of Civil Aviation. This body will represent India at the global platforms that are related to air sports. It will also provide governance over various aspects of air sports such as it will regulate, it will provide certification, it will conduct competitions and it will also provide with awards and penalties. And this body will be chaired by the Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. So remember Air Sports Federation of India will not be chaired by Union Minister for Civil Aviation, rather it will be chaired by the Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Now in addition to this the each Air Sports Association they will also lay down safety standards. They will lay down safety standards for equipment, infrastructure, personal and training. And the associations will also specify the disciplinary actions that are to be taken in case of non-compliance to the rules. And in case of non-compliance the penal action will be taken by the apex governing body that is Air Sports Federation of India. Now along with this those persons and entities who are providing air sports services they will be required to register as members of respective Air Sports Association. This is to ensure regulatory compliance along with the registration of members the key equipment used in the air sports will also have to be registered. So this will help in ensuring safety of the equipment. And most importantly this policy proposes a control zone for air sports. These control zones will be the popular air sports attractions in the country such as we have Beer Billing in Himachal Pradesh, Gantok in Sikkim, then we have Hadapsar in Maharashtra and then we also have Vagamon in Kerala. So these places along with other air sports attractions in our country will be declared as control zone. This will ensure the safety of the other manned aircrafts. And then the policy also aims to encourage domestic manufacturing of certain high value air sports equipment and this will be done in the way of production linked incentive scheme. Further to make the air sports more affordable to the common public the government is also planning to request the GST council to consider rationalizing the GST rate on air sports equipment. It is considering to bring it to 5% or less. And the government will also consider allowing import of air sports equipment without any import duty for a particular number of years. This is mainly because currently most of the complex equipment that is required for air sports are being imported. For example aircraft, specialized parachutes, helmets, batteries, GPS trackers and radio aids these are all being imported as of now. So if there is no import duty the cost of these equipment will come down. So along with all these measures the government will also provide support for boosting innovation, research and entrepreneurship in air sports. And this will be done by providing targeted programs to the aspiring sports aviators. So these are some of the crucial points from the draft air sports policy. Take note of these points we will wait for the finalized policy. So with these points in mind let us move on to the next discussion. So our next and third discussion is going to be based on this news article which talks about the open defecation free status. Now the news is that Telangana has become the first in the country in the list of higher number of open defecation free villages. And this has been declared under the Swachh Bharat Mission Grameen phase 2 program which was operational till December 31st, 2021. So in this context we will discuss about open defecation free status and ODF plus status, its criteria and targets. See first of all understand that the Swachh Bharat Mission it was launched in October 2014. And one of its main objectives is the achievement of open defecation free status. And this was to be achieved in all villages in India by October 2019. And the Swachh Bharat Mission Grameen comes under the ministry of Jalshakti. We also have Swachh Bharat Mission Arban. But today we are only going to focus on the criteria under Swachh Bharat Mission Grameen. Actually there are two important criteria for declaring an area as ODF. First criteria is termination of fecal oral transmission and no visible feces found in the villages or in the environment. And the second criteria is that every household should use safe technology option for disposal of feces. So if these two criteria are met then that area is declared as ODF. Therefore to achieve this status the Swachh Bharat Mission phase 1 targeted constructing over 10 crore toilets in rural India. It was done at a projected cost of over 1.3 lakh crores. And according to the government data from 2014 to 2019 over 10.28 crore toilets were constructed across 36 states or union territories. So according to the government it has achieved the ODF India that has opened defecation free India in a stipulated time. So by this the Indian government is claiming that India has attained the sustainable development goal of 6.2. So this goal is with respect to sanitation for all and under target 6.2 the aim was to achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation and this was to be done by 2030. So now the Indian government is claiming that since it has constructed 10.28 crore toilets by 2019 itself so it has achieved the SDG target before the UN target. But just achieving this status is not important but keeping up that ODF status is also important. Therefore to step up the pace of ODF achievement the ministry also stepped up its process by putting in place additional parameters to ensure the sustainability and long term impact of ODF status. Now this additional parameter is what is called as ODF plus. So therefore ODF plus villages are those villages which sustain its ODF status and which ensures solid and liquid management along with this it should also be visually clean. Now in addition to this criteria other criteria for achieving ODF plus villages include grey water management, plastic waste management, fecal sludge management and biodegradable waste management. The full criteria is given in this table you can just go through it. So we saw the phase 1 of SBN Grammin. Now the phase 2 started from 2020 it is up to 2025. Now this phase 2 is aimed to support over 2 lakh villages to achieve the solid and liquid waste management arrangements and this will be done with an investment of over 40,000 crores and this has separate targets such as it targets the construction of over 50 lakh individual household toilets then 1 lakh community toilets will also be built under this then plastic waste management units will be set up in over 2400 blocks of India and in addition to this the other targets also include grey water management in around 1.82 lakh villages then go burden projects in 386 districts then fecal sludge management arrangements in over 250 districts. So these are the targets under SBN Grammin phase 2 which is from 2020 to 2025. Now according to the news article as of December 2021 Telangana is at the top of the list of having open defecation free villages and that too in this phase 2 of SBN Grammin. So these are few of the points that you should know about open defecation free status and open defecation free plus status under Swachh Bharat Mission Grammin. Notice more to the next discussion. So our next discussion is going to be based on this text and context page article. This article talks about single board computers. See this single board computers is a news since they recently launched SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket included one of these. If you remember this rocket carried Dragon 2 spacecraft which was loaded with various equipments for the astronauts on the International Space Station. Now among these equipment a pair of single board computers about the size of a setup box was also present in it. So that is why today we are going to learn about single board computers and its benefits and we will also see one example of this single board computer at the end. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for reference. See these single board computers are becoming popular among both the consumers and developers with the advent of technology in the consumer electronics domain especially. This is mainly because right from the mobile phones in your pockets to rockets like SpaceX rocket everything basically uses a single board computer. So what is it? See it is a complete computer that is built on a single circuit board and this single circuit board consists of microprocessor or microprocessors memory input or output and other features that are required for a functional computer. Now it has some special features for example the first and major feature of single board computer is portability that is you can carry around the single board computer because it is a small computer. You can carry it around like a smartphone in your pocket and you can carry it everywhere you go and these devices are also pretty intuitive to use that is they are easy to understand and use. The second major feature is that they consume less power and energy as compared to traditional computers and most importantly they are cost effective that is they are low cost. So these products can reach a much larger part of the community. Now its cost also makes it suitable for developer applications as well as its use for development of new apps for testing debugging hardware development etc. So because of its cost it finds many applications. Now when you talk about single board computers we also need to understand cluster of single board computers or SBC clusters. See here a cluster is a group of interconnected whole computers which are working together as a unified computing resource and they can create the illusion of being one machine as you can see in these images and these clusters are micro scale data centers and because of this particular feature the SBC clusters can provide many relevant experiences for students in terms of hardware installation and software frameworks. For example it is used in routers, racks, blades, networking cable and it is also used in the software frameworks like Linux etc and that is why SBC clusters are typical components in the state-of-the-art data centers and in this manner these clusters provide a hands-on educational and learning experience. See generally educational exposure to real clusters is difficult and they are often limited to using a handful of personal computers or simulated environments but as we saw SBC itself is low cost and particularly this SBC cluster is very easy to build. So in this manner let us understand few important benefits of these single board computers. See mainly they can run mainstream operating systems and workloads and the SBC clusters can replicate data center features as we just saw. So this can reduce bandwidth requirements and it reduces latency. Latency means the delay that happens before the transfer of data. So these reduces latency it also helps to improve privacy and it decentralizes the architecture and most importantly these SBC clusters they facilitate the internet of things and it also facilitates computing like fog and edge computing. See in simple terms if you want to understand what is fog and edge. Edge computing is data computation that happens at the network's edge. This happens in close proximity to the physical location that is creating the data but on the other hand fog computing it acts as a mediator between the edge and the cloud and it provides various purposes such as it helps in data filtering etc. Now one of the famous examples of the single board computer is the Raspberry Pi. Why because this Raspberry Pi single board computer was only used in the SpaceX rocket. See this Raspberry Pi is a credit card sized single board computer. It was developed by a UK based foundation called as Raspberry Pi and this foundation developed this single board computer for the sole intention of teaching programming and basic computer science to school students and even the Raspberry Pi computers they range in size. The largest one is about the size of a deck of cards and the smallest one is about the size of a stick of a chewing gum. Now if you see this Raspberry Pi it runs Linux on a 700 megahertz ARM processor and it also has two USB ports. This will be used to connect the keyboard and mouse. Apart from this it also supports video via HDMI or RCA and then it also connects to internet via the Ethernet port and particularly the storage in this Raspberry Pi is handled by a SD card. So here in these tables you can see the models of Raspberry Pi and the specifications of these models but here you should remember that the Raspberry Pi computers are just not limited to running experiments in space but they have other applications also like they have been deployed widely to build robots and also for building other internet of thing devices. Now here you can see other different applications of Raspberry Pi computers and in this manner Raspberry Pi also acts as an effective tool for learning in schools and colleges in the countries including India. So in short the single board computers they create an avenue for experiential learning in the information and communication technology. So with these facts in mind about the single board computers now let us move to the next discussion. Now our next discussion is going to be based on this news article which mentions about open market borrowings. So the news is that Telangana government is planning to rely on open market borrowings to meet its financial requirements and to meet its commitments regarding welfare programs and this open market borrowing will involve issuing the state development loans. Actually the Telangana government is planning to raise 13500 crores through state development loans. So today let us understand what is this state development loan and what is the state's borrowing limit under open market borrowings and we'll also see what do we mean by open market borrowings. First let us see what are state development loans. So these are similar to the government securities. We know that government securities are issued by the central government but this state development loans they are bonds which are issued by the state governments and this is mainly issued to fund the fiscal deficit and here you should note that the SDLs or state development loans are normally issued for a period of 10 year and the interest on these SDLs are paid at half yearly intervals but the entire principal amount of the SDL is repaid on the maturity date of the bond only. So interest is paid at half yearly intervals but the principal is paid at maturity. So we can say that states are raising money from the market through state development loans but can states raise unlimited amounts of money from the market through SDLs? Actually the answer is no. There is a limit for how much the states can raise from the market. This limit is called as the net borrowing ceiling for the states. This is fixed by the union finance ministry and for the financial year of 2021 to 2022 union finance ministry has set four percentage of GSDP as the net borrowing ceiling for the states. So what is GSDP? It is the gross state domestic product. Now this GSDP is the final money value of goods and services which are produced within the geographical boundaries of a state. So this is the counterpart of national gross domestic product. So the net borrowing ceiling is set at four percentage of GSDP. For example, assume that Tamil Nadu has a GSDP of hundred billion dollars and as per the four percentage criteria the four percentage of hundred billion will be four billion dollars. So Tamil Nadu can borrow four billion dollars from the market by issuing state development loans. Now why do we have a limit like this? Why there is a net borrowing ceiling? See it is set by the union finance ministry to improve the fiscal discipline of the states and in a way such limits also prevent the states from undertaking reckless market borrowings. So what is this market borrowing or the open market borrowing? As the name suggests it is a borrowing made from the market. But the central or the state governments they cannot directly borrow money from the market. Rather RBA does this borrowing on behalf of these governments. So market borrowings are raised by the Reserve Bank of India. And along with raising this money RB also makes sure that the government securities and the state development loans are serviced that is they are paid in a timely manner and this is done by monitoring the payment of interest and principle on these government securities and bonds. So then what do we mean by open market operations which we often see in the news? See these open market operations are also conducted by the RBI. It is a market operation only and here RBI either purchases or sells government securities to and from the market. And this is done by RBI to control the liquidity in the economy. So when the RBA feels that there is excess liquidity in the market it resorts to the sale of securities.  On the other hand when the liquidity conditions are tight here the RBI may buy securities from the market. So through this RBI is releasing liquidity to the market. So when there is excess liquidity RBI sells securities but when the liquidity conditions are tight then at that time RBI buys securities. So we can say that open market borrowings and open market operations are similar in a way that both involve RBI selling or buying government securities. But their aim is different. Open market borrowings are done to raise money for the government. But in case of open market operations as we just saw it is done to control the liquidity conditions. So that is all in this discussion we saw about state development loans. We saw that they are bonds they normally issued for a 10-year period and the interest is paid at half yearly intervals. And we saw that there is a net borrowing ceiling which is of four percentage of the gross state domestic product. And we also saw that open market borrowing and open market operations are similar but their basic objective is different. So these points in mind now let us move on to the next discussion. Now our next discussion is going to be based on this news article. It talks about the Arc des Troyes in France. See this is a news because recently the European Union's flag was raised in this Arc des Troyes. This was raised to mark France's return to the presidency of European Union Council. But this flag hoisting was opposed by many. So now the flag is removed from the Arc des Troyes. But if you look at this Arc you can remember India Gate and that is well today we are going to see about Arc des Troyes as well as about India Gate. See first this Arc des Troyes is a triumphal arch. Triumphal arch means it was erected to commemorate a significant event. Now in case of Arc des Troyes the significant event is the French victory in the battle of Austerlis. Now in this battle the French army was commanded by Napoleon and this French army defeated the combined army of Russians and Austrians. So after this great victory Napoleon commissioned the triumphal arch in 1806. And just note that this arch is designed by John Francois and Thérèse Cholgren. Now if you can see this image this is where this Arc des Troyes sits. It is in a circular plaza and from this circular plaza 12 grand avenues radiate. So this forms a star and that is why it is also called as Arch of Triumph of the Star. Now beneath this arch there is a tomb of unknown soldier. This was added in 1921 and then in 1923 a flame of remembrance was first lit here and every evening the flame is lit on the tomb of unknown soldier from the Great War. Apart from this an annual ceremony is also held at this arch. This ceremony marks the anniversary of 1918 armistice that ended World War I. So in this manner Arc des Troyes is very important. It was commissioned by Napoleon and it also holds an annual ceremony to mark the anniversary of end of World War I. Now let us get to the India Gate. Actually previously India Gate was known as All India War Memorial Arch in Delhi. Its foundation stone was laid in 1921 by the Duke of Canard. And this India Gate is located in the eastern end of Rajpath in New Delhi. And the official name of India Gate is Delhi Memorial. This memorial gate was designed by Sir Edwin Lutians. If you remember he was the main architect of New Delhi. And as I just said it is also a memorial gate. So this arch commemorates the British Indian army soldiers who laid their lives fighting in various parts of the world during the First World War. And it also commemorates the Indian soldiers who laid their lives during the Third Anglo-Afghan War of 1990. So therefore over 13,000 servicemen's name including the names of some soldiers and officers from the United Kingdom are inscribed on this India Gate. As you can see here these are the inscriptions. Now here you can see the Amar Javan Jyoti which translates to the flame of immortal soldier. This Amar Javan Jyoti was added after the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971. This structure was added to commemorate Indian soldiers martyred in the War of Bangladesh Liberation which happened in December 1971. And this Amar Javan Jyoti was inaugurated by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 26 January 1972. And as you can see this Amar Javan Jyoti it has a black marble plinth and on this plinth we have a reversed rifle. This is a L1A1 self-loading rifle and this rifle is capped by a war helmet. And on the four sides we have four urns and these urns have permanent light that is Jyoti. And this light or flame is the compressed natural gas flames. See even though I said that when we see Arc de Tromp, remember India Gate, even many say that India Gate resembles Arc de Tromp. But note that Arc de Tromp was inspired by Arch of Titus but this India Gate was inspired by the Arch of Constantine. And note that both these arches that is the Arch of Titus and Arch of Constantine are in Rome. So these are few facts that you need to know about this memorial that is news that is Arc de Tromp. It is in France and it is a memorial arch like the India Gate. So with this news article discussion we have come to the end of articles discussion session. Now we are moving to the next one which is the practice questions discussion session. Now let us take up this first question. It is about single board computers. First statement, SBC are heavy devices fixed in a particular working location. Now this statement is incorrect because as we saw in the discussion they are small light devices and they can be carried anywhere. They need not be fixed in a particular working location. So first statement is incorrect and the moment you know that first statement is incorrect you can easily arrive at the correct answer which is option B to only because we have eliminated A, C and D. Now second statement says Raspberry Pi is an example of single board computers. Now remember this Raspberry Pi because now it is in news often. It is a single board computer. Now the third statement states SBC does not have a USB port. This is incorrect because during discussion itself we saw that SBC has USB ports particularly Raspberry Pi has two USB ports one for the mouse and one for the keyboard and that is why the correct answer is option B to only. Now let us take up this next question. Consider the following statements regarding Federation Aeronautic International FAI. First statement it is the world governing body for air sports. This statement is actually correct. Now since we talked about the air sports with respect to Indian context I have taken this question based on international context. Now this is the world governing body for air sports. Remember this name. It is also called as the World Air Sports Federation. It was founded in 1905. Now second statement it is located in Switzerland. This statement is also correct. See this FAI is a non-governmental non-profit making international organization and its basic aim is furthering the aeronautical and astronautical activities worldwide. It also coordinates the organization of international competition and it is recognized by the International Olympic Committee. So the third statement is also correct. FAI is recognized by the International Olympic Committee. So that means here the question asks for the correct statements therefore the correct answer is option D all of the above. Now this next question it is based on Swach Bharat Mission Grammar. We have to identify the correct statements regarding this Swach Bharat Mission Grammar. First statement it comes under Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. This statement is incorrect because the Swach Bharat Mission Urban it is implemented by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Whereas the Swach Bharat Mission Grammar it comes under Ministry of Jalshakti. So first option is incorrect. Now the second option. ODF plus villagers are villages that sustain its ODF status along with ensuring solid and liquid waste management and is visually clean. This statement is the correct statement. We saw this during discussion. They should have ODF status plus they should ensure solid and liquid waste management along with this they should also be visually clean. Then only they will be designated as ODF plus villages. Now here we also have an option both B and C. So let us look at the option C. Swach Bharat Mission Grammar in phase 2 will be implemented from 2025-2030 coinciding with SDG target. Now the SDG target was to be achieved by 2030 but actually the phase 2 is from 2020 to 2025 not in this period and that is why this statement is incorrect. So the correct answer to this question is option B. Now this next question asks consider the following statements regarding National War Memorial New Delhi. Now before attending this question let us see few facts about National War Memorial. Then we will come back to this question. Look at this image. This is the National War Memorial. It is in New Delhi. It pays tribute to our Indian soldiers who laid down their life defending the nation post independence that is who martyred post independence defending our nation. Along with this this war memorial also commemorates the soldiers who participated and who made the supreme sacrifice in peacekeeping missions and counter insurgency operations. And note that the layout of National War Memorial comprises of four concentric circles. They are the Amar Chakra circle of immortality. Then the Virtha Chakra circle of bravery. Then the Tiag Chakra which is the circle of sacrifice and then the Rakshak Chakra which is the circle of protection. Now other than this the National War Memorial complex also includes a central obelisk and eternal flame and a six bronze murals depicting famous battles fought by Indian army, air force and navy. So now look at the statements. First statement it provides tribute only to Indian soldiers who martyred defending the nation post independence. The statement is incorrect because here there should not be only. We saw that it also commemorates the Indian soldiers who martyred in peacekeeping missions and counter insurgency operations. Now the second statement the National War Memorial complex includes a central obelisk and eternal flame and six bronze murals depicting famous battles fought by Indian army, air force and navy. The statement is actually correct we just saw it. And here be careful because the question asks for the incorrect statements. So the correct answer is option A one only. So with this prelims practice question now let us take this main question. It has been framed on our first discussion that was based on Pradhan Mantri Matruvandana Yujna. You have to answer this question in 250 words. Interested aspirants can write answers in the comment section and whenever we get time we will review your answer. So viewers we have come to the end of today's Hindi news analysis. If you like this video don't forget to like comment and share and to subscribe to Shankar IS Academy YouTube channel for more updates related to civil services preparation. Thank you.


Hello, CMC traders. Welcome to this RRG video for Monday, the 21st of March. I'm recording this on Friday, the 18th before the market opens. My name is Julius de Campanar and I'm presenting to you from Amsterdam in the Netherlands. For today, I want to focus on the rotation of various market indexes, market country indices. You see the weekly RRG on your screen here. There are actually two tails that I want to focus on. The first one is for the Hang Seng HSI. The second one is for the Australian market for the ASX200, that's AS51 code here. As you can see, the tail on the Hang Seng index is inside the improving quadrant, it's rolling over and it's starting to head lower, more south towards the lagging quadrant again. That's a type of rotation that we know is quite negative. The rotations through all the quadrants, they're always clockwise but not necessarily always sequentially through all quadrants. We can see rotations taking place completely on the left-hand side or completely on the right-hand side of an RRG. When that happens, it pretty much indicates a very strong trend. On the left-hand side, those are relative downtrends. By the way, the benchmark that we're using here is the MSCI World Index. All these countries are compared to the world. When you're on the left-hand side, those tails, those markets are in a relative downtrend versus the MSCI World. On the right-hand side, they're in a relative uptrend. What we have here at hand in Hong Kong is a market that is already in a relative downtrend. The move up was a recovery within that downtrend and it looks as if that downtrend is now starting to pick up again. You can see that when we scroll back the RRG through time, which we can do, and you can see that, for example, a good example is the US market, the S&P. If you focus on that, you can see this short tail here, that's the S&P. If I scroll forward, you can see that it rotates clockwise, but it stays on the right-hand side of the plot. That is strong. That makes the US a strong market over the last few weeks, even months, relatively speaking. A similar thing on the left-hand side is happening, for example, for the Nikkei and for the Russell and the NASDAQ to a lesser extent. We're seeing that now in the Hang Seng Index. The Australian market is moving into the leading quadrant, has crossed over and is now starting to move further right into the leading quadrant. That is positive because it has picked up a relative uptrend versus the MSCI World Index. If we bring that to a daily RRG, which is giving you a similar picture only with more granularity, and we try to find the tails for the Hang Seng, which is deep inside the red lagging quadrant here on the left bottom. You see HSI, and you see Australia on the far right. It's the tail here that has just hooked down. That is interesting because this is sort of a weakness, but you can see that on the scale of the RS ratio, the JDK RS ratio, is still the strongest reading. Basically telling us that the Australian market is in a relative uptrend on a longer-term basis, and it is going through a little corrective period with a very good chance that it will go into weakening and then pick up again and rotate back into leading. The opposite is happening with the Hang Seng Index where it's already starting to roll over. It is in a relative downtrend and on the daily that relative downtrend is confirmed, but it's sort of taking a little break. I will always tell you that RRGs in itself are not a tool to take decisions. They are a great tool to give you a big picture overview. We say that RRG gives you the big picture in one picture, and that's exactly what you're seeing right now. You're seeing the major stock market indexes across the world captured in one graph. But ultimately you need to draw a price chart, or at least that's my opinion, to pull the trigger. That's going to give you the ultimate information because in the end of the day, price is the only thing that really counts. If we bring that to the Hang Seng Index, and this is a weekly chart, and I did that on purpose because we've got to go back many years to see what's going on. Very recently, of course, market sold off. It's been very, very weak. I think what a very important event was two weeks ago that we broke below this really long-term, horizontal support level that connects a couple of major turning points over the last few years. Then we dipped, and you see that the market is now recovering. We're now pulling back to this old support level, and there is a saying in technical analysis, old support becomes resistance and vice versa. I think that that's exactly what we're seeing now inside the Hang Seng Index. If we bring that to a daily chart for the Hang Seng, then you see that even more clearly. We even have a gap up. There is a little bit of a gap area here. I think that 21.480, let's round that off at 21.500, is a resistance level. Maybe it can be stretched toward 23,000, but that's probably it. The Hang Seng is bouncing upward while the long-term trend is still going down, and that's for both the relative and the price. If we go to the Australian market, the ASX200, here's the daily chart and you see that it is a lot stronger than the Hang Seng Index. It's actually putting in higher lows already, and we're working on resistance in that 7300 area for the ASX200. You can see the RRG lines being very, very high, but plenty of room to maneuver. For the ASX, as we saw on the daily RRG, it looks as if it's going through a little bit of a correction, and we can see that back on the chart where we are running into trouble. Once the market is able to clear this overhead resistance around 7300, I believe there is new upside potential for the Australian stock market to move a little bit higher, probably towards the older highs here around 7600. I'm going to wrap it up here, and I hope to see you again at a new episode for the RRG charts in the future.


Like most good stories, this one starts in a tavern, as the party finds out about an ancient magical sword that was stolen from the local temple. The main suspect was a roved man with magical talent. With this information, the party agrees to retrieve it and stop whatever plans he hopes to achieve. Locating the study of the main suspect, a wizard, the party must seek out any clues regarding the stolen sword. As they enter the study, they find a packed library filled with books and scrolls. Undead servants shamble about the study, patrolling for any intruders. The party could sneak and avoid the undead, or simply fight their way through the guards. With luck, they find a map on his desk, with the possible location of a portal, and a plan to bring forth an ancient dragon into this plane. A non-perceptive party may not be aware, however, that the wizard had left another countermeasure, in the form of an owl familiar, spying on their every move. The party moves towards the portal site, however, the owl has relayed information back to its master. To help buy him some time, the wizard has acquired the skills of a band of orcs who have set up camp in the valley. With the promise of power and more importantly gold, they guard the entrance to the cave. Using his knowledge, the wizard ordered traps placed to hinder the party's progress. Pushing through, the party finds the portal room, but they appear to be too late as the dragon steps through. With his powers not fully restored, the party must act now if they hope to save the city. With a hard fought battle, the party defeats the wizard and the dragon, closing the portal by retrieving the sword just in time before its unstable magic destroys the cabin. With the wizard defeated, the party has one more job to do. Help themselves to his horde of treasure, payment for a job well done.