Good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu Daily News Analysis for the date 13th of December 2022. I have an announcement for you all regarding your problems preparation. This is about the next batch of pre-storming. See the next batch of pre-storming is going to commence from tomorrow. Interested aspirants can use this opportunity to register. The registration link for this batch is given in the description. With this information, now let's get into the today's article discussion. These are the articles taken up for today's discussion. With this, let's start with our first news article for the day. Take a look at this news article. It reports that India has imported coal worth of Rs. 2.3 lakh crore in the April-September period of this year. It also states that India mainly imported coaking coal and high grade coal from the foreign countries. We all know that the prices of coaking coal and the high grade coal are higher than that of thermal coal. Here seeing this news article, you might have a question. We know that India has a number of coal fields, but why does India, even after having the coal fields, import coal? In this discussion, we will try to find the answer for this question. Before getting into the discussion, I have highlighted here the syllabus relevant for this article. You can go through it. Now, let us start the discussion by first looking at how coal forms. See coal forms through a process called carbonization. Let me explain to you all how the process of carbonization works. Millions of years ago, our earth had thick dense forest in low-lying areas. These forest in these low-lying areas got buried due to some natural calamities like flooding etc. As the low-lying areas got flooded, the dense forest in these areas got buried under the soil due to the process of sedimentation. Here sedimentation means soil sedimentation. Normally, what happens when a plant dies? It will decompose right, but as the forest got buried under soil, the natural decomposition stopped. As more and more soil got deposited, the pressure started rising and the organic matter of the forest started getting deeper and deeper inside the ground. As the depth increased, the temperature also started rising. Now, coming to the question, what is the chemical composition of plant organic matter? See, it is made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and small amounts of other trace elements. Due to increasing pressure and temperature, the elements like hydrogen and oxygen are forced out of the dead plant material. Over time, more oxygen and hydrogen is pushed out and the carbon content in the dead plant increases. In addition to this, physical changes also happen due to high pressure and temperature. In time, material that had been previously dead plants became coal. So, to put it short, high pressure and high temperature makes the organic matter of the dead plants to convert to coal. This slow process of conversion of dead vegetation into coal is what we call as carbonization. If you have carefully listened to what I discussed till now, you would have noted high pressure and temperature makes the elements like oxygen and hydrogen getting forced out of organic matter resulting in increase in carbon composition. We know that the quality of coal depends upon its carbon content. So as a thumb rule, we can say that older the coal, the more time the plant material will be placed under high pressure and temperature and more hydrogen and oxygen will be forced out. This will ultimately result in higher carbon content in it and higher will be the quality of the coal itself. Having seen the process involved in the formation of coal, now let us see the types of coal. See, coal is classified based on the amount of carbon content in it. And as we saw earlier, the older the coal, the amount of carbon content in coal increases. With this understanding, now let us see the different types of coal. First one, which we are going to see is anthracite. It is the best quality coal with a carbon content up to 80 to 95 percentage. They are called as carboniferous coal as these coal are formed during the carboniferous period. The carboniferous period occurred somewhere between 300 to 350 million years ago. In India, we have only very limited anthracite coal deposits. It is located in the Jammu and Kashmir region. Now moving on to the second type of coal. It is known as bituminous. The carbon content in this coal varies from 40 to 80 percentage. It is also called as gondwana coal. It is called as gondwana coal due to the fact that this coal formed mainly during the gondwana period. This period occurred about 250 million years ago. So bituminous is younger than anthracite, which is the reason for its lower quality. Here note that about 80 percentage of the coal deposits in India is of bituminous type and is of non-coking grade. The first commercial coal mine in India was Rani Ganj in West Bengal. The major coal producing states in India are Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Magarastra. Important coal fields that produce gondwana or the bituminous coal include Zarya, Bokoro, Giridh, Karanpura in Jharkhand, Talchar and Rampur coal fields in Odisha, Singaruli coal field in Madhya Pradesh, Singarini coal fields in Andhra Pradesh and Kamti coal fields in Magarastra. This is all about the second type of coal which is nothing but bituminous coal. By saying it once again, bituminous coal is the coal present in India, which is nearly 80 percentage of the total coal deposits. Now moving on to the third type, this is known as lignite. See, it is also called as tertiary coal. Here note that this period occurred somewhere between 50 million years ago. From this, we can say that lignite is the youngest coal. So, the carbon content in this coal is very low and the monster content is high. Lignite is also known as brown coal due to its color. In India, tertiary coal is mainly found in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland. The famous coal fields of Neyveli in Tamil Nadu have deposits of lignite in it. The last type of coal which we are going to see today is peat coal. It is the lowest grade coal. It has a lot of moisture and impurities. So, when we burn peat, it leaves a lot of ash behind. In India, peat is found in Neelgri hills and the Zeelam valley in Jammu and Kashmir. This is all regarding the types of coal and its distribution in India. Now coming to the main question of our discussion, why does India import coal even though after having so much so coal reserves within its territory? The first major reason is non-availability of coking grade coal. We already saw that India's coal fields mainly produce bituminous coal and bituminous coal is non-coking grade coal. Metallurgical industries like steel mills require high quality coking coal for their functioning. So, India has to import this high quality coking coal from countries like Indonesia, South Africa, Russia and Australia. This is the first reason. Now coming to the second reason. See, it is about the demand supply mismatch. The bituminous coal produced in India is mainly used in thermal power plants. Post pandemic, the electricity demand in India started skyrocketing. Our domestic coal production was not sufficient to meet the demand. This demand supply mismatch was bridged by importing coal. The third reason is infrastructure bottlenecks. See, there is no proper network connecting the coal fields and the power plants. Many thermal power plants are located near the coasts in India. They usually find it cheaper to import coal rather than get coal from India's coal fields. The last one is the policy bottleneck. In India, the majority of coal is found in tribal and ecologically sensitive areas. India currently lacks a sound land acquisition policy. So, even though India has huge reserves of coal, its production capacity is still low. These are some of the reasons that pushed India into importing coal even after possessing huge amount of coal reserves. With this, we have come to the end of this discussion. Through this discussion, we have seen about the information of coal, the different types of coal present and also about the reason why India imports coal even after having numerous coal fields in it. With this information, now let's move on to the next news article. Take a look at these two articles given here. One article is from yesterday's editorial column while the other article is from today's foreign page of the Hindu. The yesterday's article talks about the outster of the former president of Peru. While today's article talks about the after-effects of the outster of the president from the office. See, Peruvian Congress has impeached the former president from his office. This has resulted in violent protests across Peru. See, there was a constant tuzzle between the Peruvian parliament and the executive. This has resulted in this outster. Let's not get deeper into this issue but we will take this opportunity to learn about the concepts of separation of power, fusion of power and also about the division of power. Unlike India, Peru has a semi-presidential form of government, which means that it has some kind of separation of power between the three organs of the government. The three organs as you all know are legislature, executive and judiciary. The function of the legislature is to make laws while the function of the executive is to implement the laws effectively while the function of the judiciary is to adjudicate disputes based on the law. Countries which follow separation of power principle generally have a presidential form of government. In the presidential form of government there are more chances for disputes between the executive and the legislature. The perfect example of the country which follows presidential system with absolute separation of power between the three organs of the government is United States. Here the executives are not a member of the legislature unlike India. In India we all know that executives are part of the legislature and they are responsible to the legislature while in the presidential form of government executives are not part of the legislature and he is not answerable to the legislature. In this type of system there is always a chance for dispute between the executive and the legislature. This case can be explained by taking an example which happened in the earlier years of 20th century. The year was 1919 then US president Woodrow Wilson wanted to join the new League of Nations which was formed as an international organization of sovereign countries after the First World War. But due to his dispute with the legislature he was not able to join the League of Nations. The American Congress didn't pass the bill which would have allowed Woodrow Wilson to make America a member in the League of Nations. See this is a perfect case of example of a tussle between executive and legislature which is bound to happen in the presidential form of government. Now coming to the exact opposite of this system. This system is known as Parliamentary system. India and UK follow this form of government. As I already said India and UK have executives who are members of the legislature. Here the legislative members can question the ministers in the questioner. Since executives both member of the executive and the legislature there exist a fusion of power between the two organs of the nations. This is what we called as fusion of power. In the parliamentary system of government there exist separation of power between the executive and the judiciary and there is no separation of power between the executive and the legislature. If you can recall article 50 of the Directive Principles of State Policies of Indian Constitution talks about the obligation of the state to separate the judiciary from the executive. This is all regarding the term fusion of power. Now let's see about the advantage of having a parliamentary system with fusion of power. The greatest advantage of the parliamentary system is that it ensures harmonious relationship and cooperation between the executive and the legislative organs. As a result of this there is very little scope for disputes and conflicts between the two organs. With this now let's move on to see the term division of powers. See division of powers is nothing but the concept of federalism. Here the political power is divided between a government at the center and a government at the state level. Here note that India follows a three-tier governmental system. The first tier is the union government the second tier is the state government and the third tier is the panchayatiraj institutions and municipal bodies. However note that India doesn't have a strict division of powers and there exist certain concurrent powers between the state legislature and the parliament of the union. This is done through concurrent list of Schedule 7. And also note that India cannot be called as a perfectly federal country. It can best be termed as a quasi-federal system. Some of the unique traits of this structure or single constitution of separate constitution written for state and the center. Also the system is biased towards the center with the power majorly concentrated with the center. This is all about the term division of power. With this we have come to the end of this discussion. Through this discussion we have learned about three different terms. First one is the separation of power, second one is the fusion of power and the third one is the division of power. In India we have only separation of power between the executive and the judiciary and there exist a fusion of power between the executive and the legislature while the division of power is present between the union government and the state government. With this let's move on to the next news article discussion. See this image here. It shows the aerial view of London city. If you can notice we can see the famous Thames river and also the London tower bridge located on it. If you can look closely we can also see snow scattered all around the city. Here note that this is a rare scenario because London hardly gets any snowfall even though it is located at a latitude of 50 degree north it gets only a very minimal amount of snowfall. Through this discussion we will try to see the reason why London gets very less snowfall when compared with the cities which are even located below the latitude of London. Also we will see about the broader British type of climate. With this now let's start the discussion. Climate holds an important place in our life. Various economic activities like agriculture, manufacturing or directly affected by the climate of an area. See there are many types of climate around the world and one among them is the British climate. Firstly let us see about the distribution of British climate. See the British climate is experienced in the country of Britain so it gets its name. Then this climate is also experienced in regions such as northern and western France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, western Norway etc. Now coming to the southern hemisphere British type climate is experienced in southern Chile, Tasmania of Australia and most parts of New Zealand. This is all about the distribution of British type climate. Here note that British type climate is also called as cool temperate western margin climate. This is due to the fact that British climate is always under the influence of Westerlies all around the year. Here the term Westerlies denotes the wind which flows from the western direction. Now moving on to see about the climatic conditions of the British climate. First let us take temperature. See in Britain the mean annual temperature are usually between 5 degree and 15 degree Celsius. The summers are not very warm in the Britain climate and the winters are also mild. There won't be any extreme slow fall in the British climate. Now moving on to see about the precipitation. See the Britain type of climate has adequate rainfall throughout the year. The rainfall is slightly less during the winter and in the autumn the rainfall reaches its maximum level. This maximum rainfall in autumn is due to temperate cyclones. Since the rain bearing winds come from the west the western margins have the heaviest rainfall and the amount of rain decreases when we go towards the eastern side. This is all about the climatic conditions. Now we will see about the natural vegetation in the British type climate. The natural vegetation of this climatic zone is mostly deciduous forest. The trees normally shed their leaves in the cold season. This is due to the fact because since the temperature goes near to 0 degree Celsius the trees in this region have evolved a technique to protect themselves against the winter. Here note that the shedding of leaves by the tree begins in autumn season which is also known as fall season. Some of the common tree species of British climate would work, birch, beech, poplar and horn bean. This is all about the natural vegetation. Now coming to the important question why Britain doesn't receive too much snowfall when compared with the territories which are located adjacent to it. Normally when we move up from equator towards poles there must be an increase in snowfall but it doesn't happen with respect to Britain. Let's take the case of London. It is located at an latitude of 50 degree north. Now let's take the case of New York City. It is located at an latitude of 40 degree north. Technically speaking London must be getting a larger amount of snowfall when compared with New York City but it doesn't. This is due to the fact that United Kingdom is surrounded by warm ocean currents which tend to keep the climate of the region warmer when compared with the countries which are adjacent to it. Here what I mean by adjacent countries is nothing but countries like Norway, Sweden, Denmark. These countries receive much of the snowfall but Britain doesn't. This is due to the fact that Gulf Stream, North Atlantic Drift, Norwegian Current, all these currents surround United Kingdom and all these currents are warm ocean currents. So this is the answer to the question Britain doesn't receive too much snowfall due to warm ocean currents. With this we have come to the end of this discussion through this discussion we learned about the British type climate and also about why London receives less snowfall when compared with the adjacent cities and countries which are located close to it's latitude. With these learnt points now let's move on to the next news article. Take a look at this editorial article here. It talks about the need for competition commission of India to evolve an ex-ante regulatory framework to curb the anti-competitive behaviour of big tech companies in India. Here ex-ante regulations aims at identifying issues in the market before and through this framework regulators will tell the stakeholders about the measures and responses they need to adopt even before any problem has occurred. Now coming back this article here is written in the backdrop of competition commission of India imposing a staggering 1300 crore fine on Google for its anti-competitive behaviour. See in last October the Indian anti-trust body that is the competition commission of India imposed this penalty on Google. Now let me explain the issue in brief. As we all know the android operating system is owned by Google and majority of our phones has android as its operating system. So what Google doing is it is imposing mandatory pre-installation of entire Google apps on the mobile phones which are operating on android operating system. See because of this behaviour of Google the competition in the marketplace of apps gets affected and this is the exact reason why competition commission of India imposed heavy fines on Google and that's why today we have an article related to competition. Now coming back to the article the author of the article says that the Indian competition act 2002 and the competition commission of India don't have necessary framework for the anti-competitive behaviour of big tech companies like Google. He is also of the view that competition commission of India is generally suited to deal with the physical marketplace and not the digital one. From this we can say that there is a lack of effective mechanism to deal with digital marketplace in India. So the author advocates a revision of law to deal with the digital marketplace. The author also noted that European Union already has brought up a separate law to deal with the digital marketplace and that is known as digital market act. This is the crux of the news article given here. In this context let's learn about the evolution of competition law in India and also about competition commission of India and finally we will also see one of the new initiatives by the government of India to promote real competition in the digital marketplace. The syllabus for this discussion is highlighted here. Now first of all let's see about the significance of competition in a country's growth. See competition is the best means to ensure that the common man has access to the broadest range of goods and services at the most competitive price. Here note that when competition increases in an economy the producers of goods in that economy will become more innovative and this innovativeness will ultimately result in reduced cost and it will provide wider choices to the consumers. This signifies that a fair competition in the market space is essential to the country's growth. Now let's move on to see the evolution of competition law in India. See the monopolies and restrictive trade practices act 1969 was the first law enacted in India regarding competition. This law was shortly known as MRTP act. Now coming to the goal of the act see the main goal was to ensure that the functioning of the market structure in India did not result in the concentration of economic growth in a few hands. See this act also prohibited monopolistic and discriminatory acts that are harmful to public at large. This is about a brief background of MRTP act. Now let's see briefly about what happened to this act. As we all know in 1991 economic liberalization was introduced in India. Due to this the trade barriers were eliminated and India began to face competition from both within and outside the country. So in order to pave the way for globalization India implemented plenty of new economic reforms. See the reforms reduced government's interference and progressively started opening opportunities for industry and international investment. In line of new economic plans plenty of changes were made to India's competitive system. The central government also amended the Monopolis and restrictive trade practices act. However this amendment did not meet all the requirements of the time. And the government was in urgent need to establish a more comprehensive competitive law system. So the parliament of India repealed the Monopolis and restrictive trade practices act in September 2009. And this act was replaced by competition act of India. This is all about the reason why MRTP act was repealed. Now we will see about the competition act 2002. See the competition act 2002 was brought as a result of India's drive for globalization and economic liberalization. Here note that the competition act 2002 was amended twice in the years 2007 and 2009. Now coming to the goal of this act. The primary goal of competition act is to control the anti competitive behavior of a company. Then it also encourages and maintains healthy market competition. It tries to safeguard the interest of consumers and it also safeguards the market freedom in our country. This is all about the evolution of competition acts in India. Now before concluding our discussion let's see in brief about competition commission of India. See the competition commission of India was established in March 2009 under the competition act 2002. Therefore it is a statutory body. It was established for the administration, implementation and enforcement of competition act. Moving on to see the important functions of competition commission. See the commission is required to give opinion on competition issues on a reference received from any statutory authority. So in this way the competition commission also functions as a quasi-judicial authority. Then the commission also strives to create public awareness and also it tries to import training on competition issues among the larger public. This is all about the competition commission of India. Now let's see about an initiative which the article mentions about. See government of India is trying to improve competition in India through bringing in various initiatives. One among them is open network for digital commerce which is abbreviated as ONDC. It is a private non-profit section 8 company established by the department for promotion of industry and internal trade. See ONDC is developed as an open e-commerce marketplace to connect both sellers and buyers. If successful this platform will challenge the American giants like Amazon and Walmart backed Flipkart. Now coming to the conclusion. The author is of the view that Indian government should take into consideration its local economy while making any framework to regulate marketplace flooded by foreign based entities. He is of the view that local Kirana stores competing with e- retailers such as BigBasket is an example of unfair competition between legacy businesses and their digital counterparts. Thus the author ends the editorial by asking for an ex-ante based framework that promotes competition by ensuring level playing field for everyone. With this we have come to the end of this discussion. In this discussion we saw about the significance of competition in an economy. We also saw about MRTP Act and the Competition Act. We also saw about the term ex-ante framework and also about the new initiative of government which is abbreviated as ONDC. With all these points in mind now let's move on to the next news article. Take a look at this news article. It says that 3.89 percentage of the loan provided under the emergency credit line guarantee scheme has fallen under the NPA category. In this context let's learn about the term non-performing assets. See non-performing assets are abbreviated as NPA. It refers to those loans and advances that are in default or in arrears. That is principal and interest payments are late or missed. You may note that for a bank the loans given by the bank are considered assets asset. As per the RBI an asset becomes non-performing when it stops and rate income for the bank. So if the principal or the interest or both the components of a loan is not being paid back to the lender that is to the bank then it would be considered as a non-performing asset. To simply put it NPA can be any type of asset of a bank which is not producing any more income. Here note that NPA are declared by those concerned banks. Suppose the state bank of India gives a loan of rupees 10 crore to a company named ABC. Consider that they agreed upon an interest rate of say 10 percentage per annum. Initially everything was good and the market forces were fine so the borrower was able to pay the interest amount. Later due to some reasons suppose the company is not able to pay the interest amount for 90 days the loan given by the bank to the company ABC can be considered as an NPA. As per the RBI there are 4 conditions to declare a non-performing asset. The conditions are given here you can pause the video and go through it. Now we will see the classification of non-performing assets. Based upon the period to which a loan has remained as NPA it can be classified into 3 types. First type is known as substandard assets. It is an asset which remains as NPA for less than or equal to 12 months. Second type is doubtful assets. See it is an asset which remained in the substandard asset category for 12 months. And the third type is loss asset. A loss asset is one where loss has been identified by the bank or internal or external auditors. Even this type of asset has some recovery value so it is not completely written off by the bank. This is all about the classification of NPA. With this we have come to the end of this discussion. Through this discussion we learned about the term non-performing assets and also about the different classifications of non-performing assets. With this let us move on to the next news article. Now for our next discussion let us take this news article. It says that Rajasabha on Monday passed the Energy Conservation Amendment Bill. Here note that the Lok Sabha had already passed the bill in August 2022 itself. As per the article it is said that the bill will give an impetus to India's government to go for greener sources of energy. This is the crux of the news article given here. In this context let us understand about the important provisions of the Energy Conservation Amendment Bill 2022. But before that the syllabus relevant for this discussion is highlighted here. Interested as parents can go through it. First of all note that the bill amends the Energy Conservation Act 2001. See the 2001 Act has numerous specifications related to energy conservation in India. Here note that Energy Conservation Act provides a framework for regulating energy consumption and promoting energy efficiency and the energy conservation. The Act has set up the Bureau of Energy Efficiency to recommend regulations and standards for energy consumption in India. This is about a little brief about Energy Conservation Act 2001. Now let us directly go to the important features of the amendment bill. Firstly, the bill empowers the central government to specify a carbon credit trading scheme. Here the term carbon credit implies a tradable permit to produce a specified amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions. Here the issuing authority will be the central government or any other authorized agency. The carbon credit certificates issued will be of tradable nature. Secondly, note that the 2001 Act empowers the central government to specify energy consumption standards. Now the new bill adds that the government may require designated consumers to meet a minimum share of energy consumption from non-fossil sources. Here the term designated consumers include industries such as mining, steel, cement, textile, chemicals and petrochemicals. Other than this, transport sector including railways and commercial buildings are also brought under the term. Also note that failure to meet this obligation will be punishable with a penalty of up to Rs. 10 lakh. Thirdly, note that the 2001 Act empowers the central government to specify energy conservation code for buildings. The code prescribed energy consumption standards in terms of area. But now the amendment bill amends this to provide for an energy conservation and sustainable building code. This new code will provide norms for energy efficiency and conservation, use of renewable energy and other requirements for green buildings. The introduction of the new code is the first major change regarding the energy conservation code for buildings. There is also one another change regarding the code. See, under the 2001 Act, the energy conservation code applies to commercial buildings. But now under the bill, the new energy conservation and sustainable building code will also apply to the office and residential buildings. And the criteria is same as that of commercial buildings. This is the second major change regarding the code. Fourthly, note that under the Act, the energy consumption standards are specified for equipment and appliances which consume, generate, transmit or supply energy. But now the bill expands the scope to include vehicles as defined under the Motor Vehicles Act 1998 and vessels which includes ships and boats. Here also failure to comply with standards will be punishable with a penalty of up to Rs 10 lakh. The vehicle manufacturers who violate the fuel consumption norms will be liable to pay up to Rs Rs 50,000 per unit of vehicle sold. And finally the 2001 Act provides for setting up of the Bureau of Energy and Energy. The Bureau has a governing council with members between 20 and 26 in number. The composition of governing council include secretaries of 6 departments, representatives of regulatory authorities such as the Central Electricity Authority and the Bureau of Indian Standards and up to 4 members representing industries and consumers. But now the bill amends this provision to increase the number of members between 31 and 37. The bill increases the number of secretaries to 12. It also provides for up to 7 members representing industries and consumers. Previously in the 2001 Act members representing industries and consumers were up to 4 only. This is all regarding this discussion. Through this discussion we have seen some important provisions of the Energy Conservation Amendment Bill 2022. See this is a preliminary discussion of the bill. We will see the issues associated with the bill in the coming days. With this let's move on to the next news article. Take a look at this article. It says that more than 11,000 children were killed or wounded in Yemen since 2015. We through this discussion will try to learn about the ongoing crisis which is going on in Yemen for the past 10 years. To know about it we have to know about the background of the issue. See, Yemen has long struggled with religious cultural differences between its North and South Territory. The modern Yemeni state was formed in the 1990s with the unification of the US and Saudi-backed Yemeni Arab Republic in the North and the Soviet-backed People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in the South. Ali Abdullah Saleh who had ruled North Yemen since 1978 assumed leadership of the unified country in the year 1990. But later the Houthi movement rose up against Saleh's government. Now coming to the important part of a discussion who are these Houthis? See the Houthis are a large clan originating from the Yemen's Sardar province. See, it is a province located at the northern part of the Yemen. They belong to the Shia faction. They literally make about 35% of Yemen's population. See, these Houthis are fighting Yemen's sunny majority government since 2004. Apart from the Houthis, human rights group also charged that Saleh ran a corrupt and autocratic government. Meanwhile the popular protests of the 2011 Arab Spring broke out in Tunisia. The protest subsequently spread to Yemen and Saleh was ousted as a result. This famous revolution is called as Yemeni Revolution of Dignity. To fill this position, the Vice President Mansur Hadi assumed office as interim president. Hadi enjoyed little popular support in Yemen and the Houthis took advantage of the power vacuum in the north. From the year 2012, they gained followers and allies. Here the allies means the Shia-backed Iran government. See, Shia-backed Iran government supplies weapons to the Houthi rebels. Because of the support from Iran, in September 2014 the Houthis took control over the capital. However, Hadi proclaimed himself as a legitimate leader of Yemen. See, he currently backed by the Saudi-led military coalition which supplies ammunition to the government forces. So, now we can say that this war has become like a proxy war between the Saudi-backed government in Yemen and the rebel groups which are backed by the Iran-based government integral. This is all about the background of the issue. And due to this continuous fighting between the Houthi and the government forces in Yemen, it has led to an economic catastrophe in the region. The children are not able to get enough food. So, this has led to around 11,000 children dying of hunger. This is what the article also says about. With this, we have come to the end of this discussion. Through this discussion, we learned about Houthis and also about the proxy war which is happening in Yemen between the Saudi-backed government forces and the Iran-backed Houthis. With this, let's move on to the second part of our discussion which is nothing but the preliminary discussion. Today, I have taken four different questions for our discussion. Three will be discussed by me and one will be the quiz question for you. Coming to the first question, let me read out the question for you. Which of the following conditions leads to increase in non-performing assets? Condition 1. Increase in demand in the economy. See, when the demand increases in the economy, there will be economic growth. When there is economic growth, there will be decline in non-performing assets. So, statement 1 is wrong. This will not lead to increase in the NPA in the economy. Now, coming to the second condition. When the economy is going through a recession. See, this is the exact opposite of the first condition. When the economy is going through a recession, there are high chances that there will be an increase in NPAs. So, statement 2 is correct. Now, coming to the third condition. Diligent lending by the banks. Here, when the banks lend diligently, only the qualified people will get loans. This will ultimately result in decline of NPA. So, condition 3 is wrong. Now, coming to the fourth condition. Policy paralyzes. When there is policy paralyzes, the private sector cannot carry on with their business activity. So, they will not be able to pay back their loans to the banks. Which will ultimately result in increase in NPAs in the economy. So, condition 4 is correct. Now, coming to the correct answer. The correct answer for this question is option C 214 only. Now, moving on to the second question. Let me read out the question for you all. With reference to the British climate, consider the following statements. Statement 1 In this type of climate, the rainfall is experienced only in the winter season. See, the statement is incorrect. The British type of climate has adequate rainfall throughout the year. So, statement 1 is wrong. Now, coming to the second statement. The natural vegetation of this climate is mostly deciduous forest. See, the statement is correct. Regarding this, we have seen in the discussion itself. So, the correct answer for this question is option B 2 only. Now, moving on to the third question. Let me read out the question. Bobby Mandup straight conducts which two water bodies? See, from the map here, we can see that Bobby Mandup straight connects Red Sea with the Gulf of Edon. So, the correct answer for this question is option A. Here also note the straight of hormones. Comment in the comment section which of the two water bodies that this straight connects. The quiz question for you is displayed here. Interested aspirants can post the correct answer in the comment section. With this, we have come to the end of preliminary practice question discussion. The main practice question is displayed here. Interested aspirants can write the answer and post it in the comment section. With this, we have come to the end of our discussion. If you have liked our video, please hit the like button. Do comment and share it with your friends. Thank you for listening.


I have Mate 40 here listening to Richard Spence's conversation with his philosopher David Scrobina. So he's talking about when the Romans took control of Palestine, they took, they stole, they murdered, they raped. Right, so in the Gospels, the Romans are these kind of shadowy figures, right? Even though they're the ones who are actually running things in the first century Palestine at the time of Jesus. Yeah, obviously a lot of resentment and a lot of anger there by the people who were in charge, which was the various Jewish tribes.  Really? Yeah, so the Kingdom of Heaven from a Jewish perspective 2000 years ago meant self-rule, right? Jews in control of their own destiny, right? It wasn't another worldly thing, it wasn't, you know, salvation to another world. It was about salvation in this world, away from the barbaric Romans and their cruel regime. So yeah, there are many different Jewish responses to the Romans, right? Some just tried to make the best of things. Right, just a seed to the power. Another approach was like revolution and assassination, right? So many different Jewish approaches 2000 years ago, there are many different Jewish sects, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Zealots, the assassins. There are a lot of, you know, renegade killers trying to assassinate individual Romans as a way to attack them, you know, to get back at them, okay? Of course you're facing the largest military in the world, so you have limited options at that point. But obviously individual small-scale attacks were working, so there was more movement on the foot there. But I started speculating, you know, the intellectuals like Paul, who was an intellectual, he was, you know, a well-educated elite Jew. And, you know, he would likely have known that, hey, this little stabbing to killings would probably not going to really do it in the long run. So Paul had a tremendous imagination. There's no evidence that he was much of a scholar. No evidence that he could even read the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew. So he was not a scholar of things Jewish. His claims about having studied Rabban Gamliel are lies. Because to study with Rabban Gamliel, you'd have to speak Hebrew. All evidence we have is that Paul could not speak Hebrew. Like he was relying upon Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh. What Christians call the Old Testament. So from everything we know, Paul didn't speak Hebrew. Paul, I think, was from Tiberias. There were no Jewish academies there. Right, so he was Jewishly ignorant, but had a superficial understanding of the Hebrew Bible, gained through the Greek translation Septuagint. And he had ambition and imagination. Okay, I don't think it holds up to see the apostle Paul as being primarily motivated by trying to take down the Romans. There isn't a lot of anti-Roman sentiment in the apostle Paul. There are some, but there's plenty of render under Caesar, that which is Caesars. There's some anti-Jewish sentiment. Right, so it's not unknown that a person with an above average intelligence such as Paul will sell something to the masses that he thinks will get the masses moving in a direction he likes. See the same kind of phenomenon with Donald Trump. He's the great parole whisperer. Now he knows how to speak to the 95 IQ crowd, like almost no other politician in the last 20 years. Yeah, Paul was not a systematic thinker, he was not a systematic theologian. He was someone with a tremendous imagination. Yeah, right. If you understand your religion, you're not really religious. So of course most people don't have a profound understanding of their own religion. It just happens to be the social club that they were raised in. Ideology, you know. Well, these weren't sects of Christianity. They were sects of the Jesus movement. There wasn't really a Christianity in the first century. So he's a kind of movement organizer is the best way of describing it. But the other thing that I was stressed is that Paul found Jesus in the Old Testament. So again, there's the story of the trip to Damascus and Epiphany and so on. But he never met the historical figure Jesus. If he existed, he kind of found him in the text. And so Christianity is profoundly Jewish in that sense. Christianity isn't profoundly Jewish because Paul was able to read Jesus into the text of the Hebrew Bible. Any more than Buddhism would be profoundly 40. Just because I'm able to say read the sacred text of Buddhism and see myself foretold there. Islam is not profoundly 40. If I can read the Quran and see myself prophesied there. Your ability to read your imagination into some ancient text doesn't mean that it's really there in the text. It doesn't make Christianity profoundly Jewish. He just created this whole new thing. It has nothing to do with the Old Testament. No, the myth of Jesus and even the story of Jesus emerged from the Old Testament. Now, that doesn't mean that there are important differences. But of course there are. But it is profoundly Jewish in its inception. No, that doesn't make it profoundly Jewish. There are claims wanting to take on the mantle of things Jewish. But reading Jesus into the Hebrew Bible doesn't make Christianity profoundly Jewish. He's going to think in a Jewish term like Jews do today. It has changed in 2000 years. Paul was not educated Jewishly. He couldn't even read Hebrew. There's absolutely no basis to believe that he was literate in Hebrew. All evidence shows that he couldn't read Hebrew. Ogo, he was a Jewishly ignorant Jew. He didn't know the Hebrew Bible. He relied on a Hebrew translation.  He can clearly draw from those morals and fables as best he can. He wants to construct a Jewish friendly theology as much as possible because that's the objective. But I think there was an actual guy, an actual rabbi. Maybe he was called Jesus. Maybe he was from Nazareth. We don't know. Probably he was agitating on behalf of the poor and the impoverished against the Romans. He might have been sort of a political agitator and trying to drive those invaders out and so far. He probably had a little bit of a moral backbone there. He was imposing the Romans.  And that was the punishment for political agitators. So I can imagine all that probably actually happened. Probably wasn't Jesus agitated, back crucified, and then a few years later, Paul comes along and maybe he's drawing from this actual story. Again, this is sort of my speculation. But of course, it's obvious. If you want to construct a hoax to deceive people, it's always best to include as much truth in it as you can. Sure. Because it's going to sound more or very mobile and verifiable. It's going to sound more and it's going to be true. Right? If anybody checks anything. Yeah, there actually was that Jesus guy. Yeah, I remember him. Yeah, he was a great guy. He was a great teacher. Okay, he really didn't exist. Paul would have drawn from an actual person, a life and probably death, and then gone back to the Old Testament and drew bits and pieces that kind of seemed to mesh with that story. You know, from what I've seen, it's very, it's typically biblical. It's very cryptic sort of stuff. When you look at people say, oh, the Old Testament anticipated Jesus coming. We look at this very obscure sort of passages and say, well, that sounds a little... Yeah, you'd have to, you can read anything you want into a text according to the Hebrew Bible. So that's Isa Jesus. When you read a meaning into the text, Exa Jesus is when you deduce a meaning from the text. So Christianity is engaged in Isa Jesus, not Exa Jesus. This could be interpreted as this, and I, you know, okay, that's very useful when you want to make your story. So I can imagine that Paul did that. He took little bits and pieces, maybe not even a bit, maybe more than he did in the Gospel, where he was the Paul himself. But he could have even, Paul could have taken little elements of the Old Testament and attached it to this guy's life and then started to use that to build this, you know, the three days. People talk about the three days in the cave. Well, it sounds like three days. You know, one of those three days in the whale. You know, these kinds of stuff. You can sort of construct parallels that were there in the Old Testament. And sort of weave. Yeah, and you can do all that from a translation. You don't need to know the Hebrew to come up with these imaginative roaming. Interesting and compelling. New story. Right, and in Daniel, there is the image of a suffering Christ, a suffering Messiah, which I think would go against other versions of the Messiah who would be more David-like that they would be a warrior king who would come out with nowhere and start kicking out. Okay, the notion of some suffering Messiah who takes the world's sins upon his shoulders is unknown in Judaism. As, obviously, Jesus doesn't do that at all. But again, there is very strong precedent. I mean, and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 refers to the Jewish people, right? It refers to Israel. It doesn't refer to an individual. I mean, I've been exposed also to Daniel in the sense of many particularly Protestant Christians will say, you know, this is the text that the Jews don't want to know about Let me just fast-forward through this nonsense. Yeah, it was a hard sell then. It was a hard sell 100 years later. It was a hard sell 200 years later. Like Jews who know anything about Judaism and the Hebrew Bible simply don't buy the claims of Christianity. They don't buy the claims made for Jesus.   This is all repellent from a Jewish perspective. Jews have never looked for a Messiah who's a suffering victim, right? First of all, the doctrine of the Messiah plays very little importance in the way that Jews lead their lives. It's an esoteric piece of storytelling that doesn't have much practical significance. And then to the extent it does have a significance it's ever some individual suffering for the world's sins. Yeah, it was an easier story to sell to Gentiles. Not an easy story to sell to Jews. Jews are a tough audience. They were spoken to a group of Jews that they're kind of feisty and have one very nice Protestant friend who had a lot of Jews at her event. Like, right in the middle of her talk someone stood up and said, some Jews stood up and said, I've never heard such nonsense in my whole life. Jews are a tough audience. They don't just sit back and passively buy into things. Yeah, that wouldn't sell to Jews. That would sell to more credulous non-Jews. Paul had a tremendous imagination. He had a gift with words. He had a high verbal IQ. I don't think you need to go deeper than that.


Today we're here to talk about ICBC and the review that was done on ICBC and of course our goal is to make sure that government ensures that ICBC is making every effort possible to keep controllable cost to a minimum and that it is aligned with government priorities. I do want to point out that ICBC has done I think a very good job in keeping rates low for drivers in British Columbia. You can see here these are the combined basic and optional rates for drivers in British Columbia every year in terms of increases or decreases and over the 10-year period ICBC has kept rate increases averaging less than 1 percent. It's about 0.8 percent on average and that compares quite favorably to the decade in the 1990s when the increases averaged more closely to about 4 percent increase per year. However what causes me the most concern with what we found on ICBC is something that I want to highlight here today with a slide. What you'll see here is that there has been a significant increase in both the number of management staff and also the compensation since 2007. Now in 2008 as you know we started heading into that was the first sort of signs that we were seeing some significant economic tremors around the world. In 2009 we were in the midst of a global economic meltdown. The scale and scope was such that certainly something I hadn't seen since I've been around and unfortunately during that time what we see here at ICBC is that in spite of what was going on around the world we saw increases in the senior management and managers and in professional staff non-unionized staff at ICBC and that is something that the combination of more people in higher wages is both unacceptable and something that is going to change and change very quickly. To put that into context in 2009 in government as we started realizing just how serious the downturn was management staffing in government fell by 7% and total compensation was down by 1%. Well at the same time over that same period from 2009-2011 ICBC's management staffing actually increased by 23% and their compensation increased by 15%. So you know clearly that is not taking into account the realities of what's going on in the world all around us and it shows a real disconnect in my view between what British Columbians and those around the world are really feeling in the economy and what was taking place at ICBC. The review highlights identified a number of opportunities for improvements and provided 24 specific recommendations to address these. The bottom line is we want to make sure that ICBC is a corporation is making every effort to keep controllable costs to a minimum and that they make sure that rates are going to be affordable for the public.