Hello fellow followers of Christ and welcome to the show that introduces you to the men and women behind history's greatest works of literature. Come along every week as we explore these renowned authors, the times and genre in which they wrote, why scholars praise their writing and how we as Catholics should read and understand their works. I'm Joseph Pearce and this is The Authority. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Authority where this week we're going to be talking about the authority of the Holy Bible. So, you know, this is a series about authors and about literature. So you might think it's a little bit odd that we're going to have an episode on the Bible in terms of importance. Of course, it should have come first. But we're doing this at least at the moment. We're going through a little history of Western civilization. So beginning with the earliest great epics of Western literature by Homer and taking it chronologically. It's then Sophocles and then last time we did Virgil. But now in terms of chronology, the Bible is something which was born out of the Gospel, born out the incarnation about God becoming man. So we need to talk about the centrality of the Bible as a text, but also as a literary text, not just an historical text. So our theological text or philosophical text is also a literary text as we shall see. So we mentioned in previous episodes about the Virgin Muse awaiting the bridegroom. But with the coming of Christ, the Virgin Muse meets the bridegroom, right? The marriage is consummated in the life, death, resurrection, ascension of Jesus Christ, the founding of his church, the mystical body, which continues to be his incarnation mystically throughout the centuries thereafter. So what we see is the Virgin Muse in some sense Jerusalem, the faith of the Virgin awaiting the coming of the Messiah in the covenant, being fulfilled in the marriage with the bridegroom with the coming of Christ. So that's Jerusalem and Athens, the path of reason, the great Greek philosophers, the path of storytelling with both the the epics of Homer and the plays of such esophagus that we've discussed. And then they come together. The faith of Jerusalem and the reason and myth of Athens come together in Rome, in the Roman Catholic Church, as the synthesis, the marriage, not just of the bride and the bridegroom, but through that marriage, the marriage of faith and reason, where faith and reason are now melded together. They come together. They're no longer seen as being in conflict or as being distinct. They are basically synthesized in the person of Jesus Christ and in the teaching of his church. Now the Holy Bible, of course, is the author, so therefore the authority is God himself, the Holy Spirit. But it was, if you like, what was canonical, what was put into the Bible as seen as being definitive and true, was a decision of the mystical body of Jesus Christ, which is the Catholic Church. It was the Catholic Church that decided in the early years of the church, certainly by the first, second century, which books were canonical, which ones were authentically the voice of God and which were not. So we have this authority, both ultimately of the Word of God himself in the words of the Bible, the Holy Spirit as being the one who inspired, for instance, the Gospel, the writers of the Gospel and the other books of the Bible, but also this understanding of the authority to bind what's bound on earth and what's bound on earth with bound in heaven, what's loosed on earth with loosed in heaven, that power which Christ gives to his mystical body of the church is actually the authority by which we get what is the Holy Bible. So we have the Holy Spirit in league with the mystical body of Jesus Christ, the church, and that's how we know what is authentically part of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit inspiring human writers in an infallible way. Now I talked about the Bible being a literary text, right? It's a work of literature. And we're going to get scandalized if you think literature means nonfiction and nonfiction means something which is not true. That's what we're going to discuss now about that's not what literature is. It's not something which is not true.  You have bad philosophy means philosophy, the love of wisdom. But something could be a philosophy which is leading people astray, Karl Marx, for instance, Marxism, Friedrich Nietzsche. So you have philosophy which is evil, that doesn't teach people the truth, but on the contrary, teaches them error. You have theology, which teaches people error, that's called heresy. So literature can either be either reflect the truth, or it cannot, just like just like theology or philosophy. So Bible as a literary text, first of all, is historical narrative. But the Bible is different, different genre, right? It's not just one genre. So there's historical narrative, right?  So, so it's a historical narrative, they're also, it's a songbook. The book of Psalms are songs, the song of songs, the mystery stories, a book of Job is a mystery story. There are fictional narratives within it. So fictional narratives. Is there fiction in the Bible? You bet. I'll give you an example. When Jesus Christ teaches some of his most powerful lessons through the telling of fictional stories. It's not, should not be core scandal if I would say to you that the prodigal son never existed. The prodigal son is a product of our Lord's divine imagination. The prodigal son is a figment of Christ's imagination, his brother, his father, the servants, the pigs. It's a fictional narrative. And yet that story, although it never took place in history, is so true that every time anybody has heard that story or read that story in the 2000 years since it was first told, does not say the prodigal son is like me. We say we are like the prodigal son. So paradoxically, this fictional character who never existed in history is more real as an archetype of the repentant sinner who returns to the father. And of which we are only types. That's the archetype. We are types. We are types of the prodigal son. The prodigal son is the real thing told by Christ in the story. So this is an example of the power of fictional narratives used by Christ himself in scripture through the telling of parables. One of the most powerful ways that he teaches us lessons is through the telling of fictional stories. And then of course there's proverbs, there's a book of proverbs. There's something which might almost be seen as surreal, a dreamscape in the apocalypse and in the book of Revelation. So that the Bible is a whole collection of different literary genres forged together by the will of God as the word of God. Now, how do we read the Bible? Well, insofar as the Bible is a literary text, it has to be read literarily and not merely literally. And you don't have to take my word for that. Take the two greatest doctors of the church, St. Augustus and Thomas Aquinas, and what they teach about this. And this is, this is something we really do have to understand. So in his, in his book, They Doctrina Christiana of Christian doctrine. So Augustine says that we perceive reality through signs. And a sign is something which signifies, right? It's something which signifies something else. And the word allegory, by the way, also from allegoros in Greek means a thing that points to something else. So you could say that a sign and an allegory are synonyms, right? They mean essentially the same thing, a thing which points to something beyond itself. So St. Augustine gives some examples of what he calls natural signs, signs that that that exist in nature, that we read, we have to read the sign to see the truth that that we can't actually see directly. So he uses the example of smoke, that when we see smoke, we don't see fire. But we know that smoke signifies fire. And therefore, we do see fire in the sense that we know that where there's smoke, there is fire, even if we can't physically see it, we know we can be see it now in our mind's eye. We should have mentioned it, by the way, that the imagination, this is important for us to know, we are made in the image of God, we are the Imago Dei. And what does that mean? I mean, in some sense, everything that God makes is made in the image of God, right? They're the fruits of his creativity. So a horse is made in the image of God, because God created it from his own mind, right? He thought of it and thought it into being brings it into being. So a horse is made in the image of God in that sense. But we made the image of God in a much deeper sense. We are divine in some sense, in a way which the other creatures are not. And so how do we detect that? We detect that by looking what it is in us, that we don't see in the other creatures. And ultimately, we see the good, the true and the beautiful, the goodness of love, the truth of reason, and the beauty of creativity and creation. So the good, the true and the beautiful. So these ancient Greek understandings of transcendental, these three things are really one. So at their triune, their eternity as an image of the divine, the image of God. So let's, when Christ says, I am the way, the truth and the life, he is saying, I am the good, the true and the beautiful. I am the way of goodness, love. I am the truth of the true, the truth of reason, that the source of reason and where reason leads back to. And I am the life. Because beauty is the life in the things. If we don't see the beauty, it's not the life in things necessarily biologically, by the way. It's not that sort of, it's not midi biological. It's the life of God in things. So if we don't see the beauty of a sunrise, I mean, there's nothing biological in the beauty of sunrise, it's physical matter or inorganic matter, no light going through the atmosphere, etc. and sun. If we don't see the beauty of that is not because it's not beautiful because there's a life in it, which is the life of creation that God has, has, has breathed his life of beauty into that. And if we don't see it, it's because we are dead. Right? We are not alive to the life in it. So this beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. It's in the thing beheld. If we don't behold the beauty, it's because we're blind. So, so this is very important. So the way it's with the life is the good, the true and the beautiful. So how does that manifest itself in us as the Imago Dei? Well, we have to be able to be good as God is good. We have to be able to love the way of goodness. We have to be true as God is true by by by being true to reason to the Logos reason himself. And we have to be beautiful. We have to have the life of beauty in us both by seeing the beauty of creation, but also then producing that beauty creatively by using our own creative gifts, unlike all the other creatures we can love, we can reason and we can create, we are creators. So these are marks of God. Another one, by the way, is we can laugh, but that's another subject. Only humor is something also, which is part of the divine image in us. So now we understand the imagination as part of the divine image, the Imago Dei in us, the imagination. We can see that we're meant to see the the goodness, truth and beauty of reality imaginatively, right? By using imagination. And one way we do that is to see not just the thing literally, but the thing it signifies. So we see smoke and we use our imagination and we see the presence of fire, even if we can't physically see it. Another example some Augustine gives is animal tracks. Now, literally speaking, an animal track is a shape, an indented shape in the mud. That's what it is, literally. But it signifies the fact that a certain type of animal, and if you know the shape, you can read the sign, right? That the sign signifies which which animal what sort of animal walk past here. And if you're good at reading the signs and that the soil and what have you can probably work out how long ago it was. And whether it was running or walking. So you animal signs as another natural sign. But then he said there are conventional signs. These are signs which we create to signify other things. And the most commonly used creative signs are conventional signs to use Augustine's words are words what we're doing now. If if we don't read the sign, we will not understand what it signifies. So for instance, if you do not speak English, and I use a word such as dog, you will it would just sound like a monosyllabic noise or grunt. If you read the signs, if you speak the language, you will have an image presented into mind by that verbal sign I've made of a four legged canine. If I reverse the letters, letters are also signs as words are the components by which we make the word. If we reverse that instead of having dog we have God we see something at least hopefully very different from a four legged canine mammal. So this is conventional signs. The most common conventional signs are words. Every word is not the literal thing. It's not the sound or the visual thing. It signifies something beyond itself. It's an allegory, something which signifies something beyond itself. So we can't even think because we think by using words. We can't even communicate to ourselves through thoughts led on to other people through words without reading the signs. So we have to be literary and not merely literal. Now, Thomas Aquinas takes things further when talking about the Bible. He says the Bible has four distinct levels of meaning. One levels the literal meaning and the other three are three different types of allegorical meaning. And bear in mind that that that Thomas Aquinas is the angelic doctor. He's the greatest and most authoritative authority in terms of theology. We should be listening to him. This is the way the church reads the Bible. It's the way that God intends us to read the Bible. One literal level, three allegorical levels. So the literal level is the literal meaning of the words. I mean, obviously you have to understand the literal meaning of the words. What's happening? What's being said? But he said the next level of meaning is the allegorical level. And that is how the Old Testament serves as a prefigurement of the New Testament. In other words, I talked about the Virgin Muse meeting the bridegroom. Well, the Old Testament meets the bridegroom. And when the Old Testament meets the bridegroom in the coming of Christ, the Old Testament is fulfilled in Christ. So the whole of the Old Testament is made sense of by Christ. And we therefore have to read the Old Testament through Christ. And that means that the whole of the Old Testament is an allegory of Christ, of the coming of Christ, the whole covenant, the whole of the story of the Old Testament, all of the Psalms point to the coming of God as man in Jesus Christ. So we have to read the Old Testament as an allegory of the New Testament, the New Testament as a fulfillment of that allegory to which the Old Testament points. So that's the first level of allegorical, literary meaning in reading the Bible, the allegorical level. And then above that, as well as that is the moral level. It's another allegorical level, but the moral level. So how does our understanding of the allegorical connection of the Old Testament and New Testament reflect in what I should be doing? How does this pertain to me? How does the reading of the Bible hold up a mirror to show me myself and not just show me who I am, but show me who I should be and also who I shouldn't be? A magic mirror. That's the moral level of meaning. And then the fourth level meaning, the third allegorical level is the anagogical level. And the anagogical level of meaning is that how the allegorical connection with the Old New Testament, how that shows itself to me as a magical mirror that shows me who I am, who I should be and who I shouldn't be, how all of that ultimately comes to fulfillment and fruition in eternity. So the anagogical level is how all of this relates to eternity, how everything in time somehow points to eternity.  That somehow the reading of the Bible, that focus should always be there also. That we're mortal, but we are destined for eternity, either in the good place or the bad place. So we're mortal, death. Once we die we will be judged. So death, judgment.  Purgatory of course is a one-way street to heaven. So only heaven or hell. So Thomas Aquinas and Augustine both teach us of the necessity of reading the Bible literally. Seeing the signifiers, seeing the allegories in it. So what, in what sense is the Bible a true mirror and all other literature is a true mirror in relation to it, relative to this. In other words, to the extent that other literature reflects biblical truth, gospel truth. It's also a true mirror and of course no mirror is as perfectly true, capital T, capital M, as the true mirror which the Bible is, which the gospel is. So what we've learned about ourselves by holding up this magic mirror, who we are and who we should be and who we shouldn't be, is that we're at three aspects, three dimensions of who we are as human persons. Homo viator, homo superbus and anthropos to Latin phrases and the Greek word. We'll start actually with, we'll start with anthropos because it's the older word, it's the Greek word for man and anthropos. And etymologists argue about the the root of the word, where the word comes from originally, but Plato and the great philosopher, and he's a good enough authority for me, said that it means he who turns upwards. So, so how do the Greeks distinguish who we are as as as as human persons from every other creature? Well, we look up. The way I sometimes put it is that the animal grazes man gazes. That the animal is confined and constrained by instinct. We can transcend that instinct in in the quest for that which is transcendental, in the quest for goodness, truth, beauty. We can do it in various ways, we can do it for one of a better word scientifically or we can do it for what a better word artistically or poetically. So, we can look up at the sun, obviously not presumably midday without protection, look up the sun and we can work out how far the sun is from us. We can work out how long it takes light to get to us from the sun. So, we can look at it in that scientific sense or we can look at the sun and be astonished at its beauty and be moved to to employ the Imago Dei in us the imagination to write a sonnet to the sun. So, for instance, at the beginning of it at least a sonnet by Roy Campbell to the sun. Oh, let your shining orb grow dim of Christ the mirror and the shield that I may gaze through you to him see half the miracle revealed. So, the poet doesn't just see the ball of gas, he sees something which signifies that the one who created the sun and created the one who can look up at the sun and write a poem to the sun. So, anphropos and then we have homo viator. So, we now went into Latin. Homo viator means man on a journey or man on a quest or man on a pilgrimage and this is that I understand all of us in our individual lives are on a journey. The only purpose of life is to get to heaven. If we fail that quest for heaven, we are literally miserable losers for eternity. The quest is for heaven. We're all on a journey homo viator and if the quest is for heaven it's not just a journey of course it's a pilgrimage. It's also a quest in the sense that we would have to fight dragons on the way and yes dragons exist most of them are inside us in our hearts demons, evil thoughts, evil thoughts, temptations and if we don't defeat the dragon the dragon defeats us and we can't defeat the dragon without the help of god and we'll see how obviously holy scripture shows us that great works of literature show us that so homo viator the man on the quest for heaven pilgrim man the bible shows us antropos also shows us homo viator this is who we should be right we are but we can refuse as we should talk a minute so we should be he who looks up in wonder in praise at the beauty of the cosmos and the beauty of the creator of the cosmos we should be those on the appointed journey the pilgrimage of life the quest for heaven but we also third aspect of us homo superbus we are proud man man who refuses the journey we refuse to choose the path of self-sacrificial love we refuse to to look up in wonder we're too self-absorbed with our own shrinking shriveling ego centrism and there's a wonderful verb which comes from a wonderful work of literature called the lord of the rings uh well tokin doesn't use it as a as a verb uses a noun that the character of gollum but the verb is to gollumize that if we choose to be homo superbus instead of homo viator we are choosing to gollumize ourselves we're choosing instead of growing in wisdom and virtue instead of taking the the the the quest for heaven we choose instead to just disappear into this malice of ourselves thinking we're big that's the irony the more that we think we big the more we shrivel and shrink into a pathetic wretch pathetic wreck a pathetic remnant of the good person or hobbit we were called to be we become a gollumized shadow of that that's the power that's the power applied to destroy ourselves and destroy others so the bible shows us who we should be homo viator and a thlopos who we shouldn't be homo superbus and it shows us the consequences of choosing one or the other as regards the relationship between between uh gospel truth and literary truth there i i can go no better than to go back to september the 19th 1931 to oxford to the rooms of c.s louis in mortland college oxford and to a long night talk as louis called it between um uh himself j r r talking the author lord of the rings and their friend hugo dyson and in that uh long night talk c.s louis said but myths are lies and therefore worthless even though breathed through silver so myth stories you know the iliad the odyssey the ineared lord of the rings uh that that that that that these stories these myths are lies and therefore they're worthless they have no power uh because they don't tell the truth even though they breathe through silver we love them because they're beautiful but they don't tell us the truth and talking said no they're not lies he said all myths all stories contain splintered fragments of the one true light that comes from god and he says that the gospel is a story like all the others except it's a true story it's the it's the myth that really happened where god tells the story not with words but with facts and when god himself enters the story the gospel is the true myth the true story and that was that that understanding of reality the understanding of art literature and truth so powerful to see us louis that within a few weeks he was declaring himself to be a christian he converted to christianity because of that long night talk and he said that I definitely started believing in in in god and christ and the long night talk with Tolkien and Dyson had a great deal to do with it see us louis learned the lesson we need to learn the lesson the authority of the bible is that it's the true myth that makes sense of all the other myths and to read it literally is to read reality realistically that's the authority of the bible thanks for joining me on the authority next time we'll be going to look at the authority of the bear wolf poet this has been an episode of the authority with joseph pierce brought to you by tan for updates on new episodes and to support the authority and other great free content visit the authority podcast dot com to subscribe and use coupon code authority 25 to get 25 percent off your next order including books audio books and video courses by joseph pierce on literary giants such as Tolkien chesterton louis shakespeare and bellach as well as tans extensive catalog of content from the saints and great spiritual masters to strengthen your faith and interior life to follow joseph and support his work check out his blog and sign up for email updates and exclusive content at j pierce dot and thanks for listening


I do a lot of writing and over the last four or five months or so I've been searching for the perfect markdown editor and I've not found it because nothing is ever perfect and I'm kind of picky but during that time I've tried quite a few different markdown editors and what I thought I'd do today is talk about the five favorites that I found over the last few months. Now just because an application did not make this list doesn't mean that it's not good. There are a few that I've tried. There are also really good markdown editors but I wanted to kind of narrow it down to five so that's what I've done. Let's go ahead and talk about the five best markdown editors for Linux. Let's go and jump in. So the first one I'm putting on the list is Vim. Now Vim is my favorite text editor overall but when it comes to markdown it's probably towards the bottom of the list and that's the reason why I'm putting it number five. It does a pretty good job of doing the regular markdown stuff but because you can only use one font size it doesn't do a very good job of showing you where like the editors are and stuff like that so it doesn't really perform well in that aspect. What I like about it the most is that it's Vim. I know that sounds silly but if you're used to using Vim if you're used to writing in Vim doing markdown in Vim makes a ton of sense because you are already familiar with all the wonderful keybindings being able to move around using the Vim movements and things like that and it just works really really well. Now obviously not everyone likes Vim because of the Vim keybindings and stuff like that that people just don't really care for but if you are already a Vim user and you are interested in starting running or if you're a writer or whatever Vim is a good option or if you're already a writer Vim is actually a really good option for markdown specifically because it has a ton of the stuff that makes Vim grade itself. The next one on the list is called apostrophe. Now apostrophe is the simplest application on this list. It does markdown and that's basically it. Now obviously it does have a few other features but at the end of the day what it does is markdown and it does it fairly well. It allows you to do headings links all that stuff that you'd expect in a markdown application and it does have live preview if you want it. So if you want to preview your markdown alongside your editing screen you can do that or you can have a full screen preview window however you want to do it. It works fairly well. It doesn't do the best auto transitioning your text from markdown into the final form right inside of the editor whereas some of the other editors do a good job of when you write a heading it transforms into a heading almost immediately. Apostrophe does not do that but that's not a big deal for a lot of people. People for the most part really don't care what the markdown looks like until the end. That's one of the things about writing about markdown. Now for me personally this one was a little bit too simple but if what you're looking for is a pure markdown app that doesn't have a lot of frills no synchronization between different applications or anything like that apostrophe is a good option for you. The third application on the list is an application called ghostwriter and ghostwriter is a fantastic app in any other situation this may be the best application on the list. It comes with a ton of different features and one of the neatest things is if you're writing like a novel or something long form in markdown ghostwriter actually does a really good job of counting your words and counting your productivity while you're using ghostwriter. So for example once you open up ghostwriter and start working it's going to actually time your session and it can tell you how many words you've written since you set down and started writing. It'll also tell you what level your writing is whether it's very easy to read or very hard to read it will tell you how many characters you've written all this stuff and the sidebar in ghostwriter is one of the most useful things of all the applications that I'm going to cover today. It gives you all this extra information plus there's a cheat sheet so if you're not as into markdown as a lot of people are and you don't know it as well the little cheat sheet that comes with ghostwriter can really help you kind of realize what the power of markdown actually is. It gives you all of the stuff that you need to know in order to do the basics when it comes to markdown which is really nice. Ghostwriter does have a lot of options but the best one in my opinion is that it lets you create your own themes. So if you are into kind of creating your own writing space ghostwriter is probably the best one because it allows you to tweak what everything in the application looks like. So while it may not have the most settings out of everything on this list. So that is ghostwriter. It's one of my favorites and honestly like I said on any other day this would probably be the application that I consider the best because it really does a fantastic job of being a markdown editor without getting a ton of stuff in the way. The next app on the list is called mark text and mark text is the application that I've been using for the last few months when it comes to actually doing my writing. And the things that I like about mark text is that it really does a good job of handling very large documents. It obviously does all the markdown stuff really well. It has customizable key binding. So if you are into into customizing your key bindings you can do that. It also one of my favorite things about it is that if you have a specific folder or directory where all of your writing stuff happens you can open that file in mark text and then it will remember that file always or at least until you change files. And that's really nice if you do all of your writing in one specific directory. So when you next time you open up mark text the file that all of your stuff is in is right there ready for you to go inside of the tree and you can just navigate to the document that you want to start editing or you can create a new one if you want whatever you need to do and that kind of saves you a little bit time. You don't have to go open up a directory to find where your stuff is as long as all of your stuff is in that one directory that you always work with mark text does have a few themes. It doesn't have the customizability of ghost writer. It comes to themes. It just has like four or five just regular themes that you can choose from. They're all very pretty but they're beyond those themes. There's not much customization when it comes to look and feel obviously you can do the font and stuff like in all these applications but the theme is kind of set between those three. Not a big deal but something to keep in mind. It does have a ton of settings. So if you are a tweaker when it comes to trying to make your application your own mark text is full of settings that you can tweak to your heart's content to determine how markdown functions how spelling functions how the editor looks and feels the key bindings as I mentioned before things like that and it's really nice especially like I said if you are into customizing how your editor looks and feels the last thing that I will mention is that it also has tabs now if you follow the channel for any amount of time you know that I'm a sucker for tabs and mark text has tabs it means that you can have multiple documents open up at the same time and you can just flick between them in tabs and it just works really really well I can't even there was a point there where I had like 12 or 14 documents open at the same time and I can just you know flip between them and it was simple as that now tabs really aren't all that special because a lot of markdown editors have tabs but mark text was the first app that I use that has had tabs and it's really nice though one of the coolest things is that you can have a whole bunch of documents open at the same time and then there's a little button when you hover over the open files that let you save all of them all at once that's really nice especially like I said if you use a whole bunch of tabs and you want to save them you can do so all with that just one button it's perfect though now the last application on the list is an application that I haven't actually used all that much and I didn't really care for when I first used it and that is obsidian now a lot of people swear by obsidian and at one point I would have told you those people were kind of crazy because it really is just kind of felt bloated to me like there's so much stuff going on here and for the most part if you're just looking for a markdown editor that's not really I mean it does mark down really well don't get me wrong I'm putting it number one on the list for a reason it does mark down fantastically well but when I first opened it up many many months ago I did not care for it because it is a knowledge base editor meaning that it's more of a one note replacement something like that maybe ever know something like that and it's you know it does really well for that but when you're searching for a markdown editor you don't really need all of that note taking stuff I mean maybe you are looking for a note taking application in which case maybe you also want to mark down editor and you're kind of putting those things together but for obsidian it always just felt more like a note taking application than a markdown editor but over the last couple weeks I've been trying it and obsidian is actually I mean it is fantastic it gives me a lot of the things that mark text and ghosts writer do and then kind of combines them my favorite one is that not only does it have tabs but allows you to do split screen so a lot of markdown editors will allow you to have one side be your editor one side be your live preview most of them actually do that and I think every single one on this list does that but with obsidian you can actually have two editors side by side so you can work on two different documents so kind of like splits and Vem or Emacs or something you can do that instead of obsidian and it is really really good so when it comes to actually using markdown in obsidian it does just as good a job as mark text you can do links lists all that stuff it works really well it has support for every part of markdown that you could possibly want including math tables forms things like that it works just fine with all that stuff you can also use the html block the code block all that stuff will work here just like it does in the others and on top of that you get all the stuff that works really well when it comes to note taking so you could use this for both your markdown editor and your note taking stuff now I'm never going to use the note taking stuff because I don't need it I use something else for notes but if that's something that appeals to you having both of those things in the same place that's really nice now the one thing about obsidian as I said is that it's a bigger thing than just a markdown editor so when you go into the settings you might be overwhelmed a little bit because there's a ton of stuff there that not only has to do with markdown but all of the other things that obsidian can do and it can do a ton of stuff it stores all of your stuff in a vault and that's probably my least favorite part of this is that yes you can open up documents you know that you have stored elsewhere you can easily do that it's really meant to be used with your vault and you can think of your vault as kind of a notebook in like one note or something like that it's kind of like that thing it's a it's a collection of all your documents in one place but if you don't use that you don't want to use it obsidian is really not the greatest when it comes to doing documents outside of that vault so it does allow you to do it so that's the reason why I didn't really know you know take points away for that but it's one of the things that I noticed it's really meant to be work with that vault now in terms of themes and customization it's has a light and a dark theme so it's not in turn it doesn't have the most themes but you can choose whatever accent color you want which does add to some of the customization it also has a very large selection of plugins so if you want to do things other than just markdown you can scroll through the plugins and it will do a fantastic job of you know giving you extra options and those can all be downloaded and installed right inside the app so you don't have to go to a github page or something and then transfer an XML or whatever file somewhere on your system it just downloads it right inside the application installs it it works really well if that's something that you need so those are the top five markdown editors that I've tried over the last few months and every single one of them does something really really well if you're looking for utter simplicity apostrophe is probably the one that you want to go with if you're looking for something that is much more complex obsidian is the one that you want to go with if you're already entrenched in the them ecosystem use them if you are less interested in the note-taking aspects of obsidian marktext is probably the best so when it comes to declaring the best of the best my selection is still going to be mark text simply because I don't need all the extra features of obsidian and mark text does a better job of handling documents outside of the vault now I put obsidian number one on this list simply because a it's it is really really good if you need a note-taking application or a knowledge-based application and you also want a markdown application it does all three of those things really really well and it has a ton of features and just the idea of being able to have two editors side-by-side in a split mode it just tickles the nerd in me I guess I really like that feature and I like their management of tabs the best of any of the applications here that just does a really good job of tab management and that's just kind of my thing it really just made me happy to see all that stuff and that's the reason why I got the number one spot despite the fact that I really do like mark text better in many different ways so that's it for this video if you have comments on these applications or if you have other applications that you'd like to suggest when it comes to mark down leave those in the comment section below I'd love to hear from you you can follow me on Twitter at the Linux cast you can follow me on masted on our odyssey those links will be in the video description along with all my other social media stuff the link to the website link to the store all that stuff in the video description below check it out you can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash the Linux cast just like all these fine people thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon YouTube you guys are all absolutely amazing without you the channel just would not be anywhere near where it is right now I mean seriously thank you so very very much we just went over 22,000 subscribers and that's just again mind blowing every single time I increase a little bit it blows my mind my mind has been blown thanks everybody for watching I'll see you next time


A very good evening aspirants welcome to hindi newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankar IAS academy for the date 9th of february 2023 and displayed here are the list of articles that we are going to discuss today without any delay let's get into the article discussion. Today we are going to start our discussion with this friend page news article it reports about the death toll caused due to the earthquakes which hit Turkey and Syria earlier this week and according to the article the death toll has now crossed 11,000 and it is nearing towards 12,000 mark and this is the content of the news article given here so in this context let's learn about the science behind the earthquakes see in yesterday's Hindu daily news analysis we saw about the basics of the earthquakes and this is the continuation of that discussion okay so if you haven't watched that video go and watch it first because it contains basics of earthquakes and after watching that video only you will get a complete understanding of this video. Now coming to today's discussion as we saw already earthquakes causes two types of waves one is body wave and the other one is surface waves and further body waves can be divided into two types one is P wave and the other one is S wave okay now let's see about the P waves see P wave is a type of longitudinal wave and just like sound waves it can also travel through all three mediums that is it can travel through solid liquid and gas now take a look at this picture here see this picture shows the shadow zone of P waves generated by an earthquake see just now I said P waves travel through all three mediums right but the velocity and the direction of the wave changes if there is a medium change in which the wave travels okay from the picture here we can notice a shadow region that is a shadow zone and this shadow zone does not receive any P waves now what is the reason for that now observe carefully the inner surface of the earth can be divided into two mediums one is liquid medium and the other one is solid medium when the P waves enter the liquid medium from the solid medium it undergoes refraction again when it comes out of the inner core it further undergoes a second set of refraction and this is the exact reason why there is a shadow zone of P waves and just now we saw when there is a medium change then the velocity and the direction of the wave also changes right and all these factors only leads to the creation of a shadow zone of P waves now let us say an earthquake is taking place near Chennai the P waves generated by the earthquake would travel in all directions around the globe but due to the refraction there will be a shadow zone in some other part of the world where P waves from the Chennai earthquake would not be recorded in the seismographic which is kept there and know that the shadow zone of P waves is 80 degrees this means that 40 degree in one side and 40 degree in another side of the travel of the waves now let's move on to the S waves see S waves they travel in transverse motion and know that they cannot travel in liquids so there will be a larger shadow zone for S waves when compared with the P waves now let us take this image here in this image here only earthquake is happening and because S waves cannot travel in the liquid medium this entire region is S wave shadow zone and this is all about the shadow zone of two types of body waves now let us see about the surface waves see surface waves are caused due to interaction of body waves with the surface of the earth and they develop in the immediate neighborhood of the epicenter and they affect only the surface of the earth which is closer to the epicenter and know that there are two types of surface waves one is called as love wave and the other one is called as Rayleigh waves see love waves are types of surface waves which move the ground side to side and it is the fastest of the two types of surface waves now coming to the Rayleigh waves see Rayleigh waves moves along the ground like how a wave rolls on a lake or a ocean so its movement is both up and down and also side to side so the Rayleigh waves causes the most shaking and the damage from the earthquake and this is all about the two types of surface waves and with this we have also come to the end of this particular article discussion in this discussion we saw about body waves and surface waves in body waves we saw about the P waves shadow zone and the S waves shadow zone and after that we saw about surface waves in that we saw two types one is love waves and the other one is Rayleigh waves now with this let us move on to the next article discussion now take a look at this snippet here it says that former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the historic Ellora caves which is located in the state of Maharashtra and this is what is given in this small article here in this context let's learn about Ajanta and Ellora caves in Prillim's perspective firstly let us look at the location of both the caves see both the caves of Ajanta and Ellora they are located in the Aurangabad district of Maharashtra even though both the caves are located in the same district the distance between one and the other is 100 kilometers so if a statement comes in the prillims saying that Ajanta and Ellora are adjacent cave systems which are located under the same rock complex then that statement is wrong see these Ajanta and Ellora caves both are separate caves with a 100 kilometer gap between them here note that Ajanta caves are located in the gorge of river Vagora and this is about the location of Ajanta and Ellora caves so where they are located they are located in the same district in the state of Maharashtra and the district is Aurangabad are they nearby each other no they are two separate cave systems with the 100 kilometer gap between them now moving on to the formation of these caves know that Ajanta and Ellora caves were formed due to volcanic eruptions when the Indian plate started moving towards the Eurasian plate which happened approximately 100 million years ago it passed over a hotspot region in the southwestern Indian ocean and this mantle plume hotspot region is nothing but the present day reunion hotspot system and this led to the volcanic activity in the present day Maharashtra region which resulted in the creation of decontraps and some adjacent cave systems located around it and this is how the cave systems of Ajanta and Ellora came into being so what caused the formation of these caves volcanic activity because of the movement of Indian plate towards the Eurasian plate and the mantle plume hotspot region it is located in the southwestern Indian ocean now coming to the most important part see both the caves have huge cultural significance and this is because of the carving that was done on them and these carvings were done during the ancient period now first of all let us see about the Ajanta caves see Ajanta it is a series of rock cut structures with over 29 caves see out of these 29 caves 25 functioned us Buddhist viharas and four functioned us Buddhist chaityas see here viharas are the resting places of Buddhist monks and chaityas refers to the prayer halls of the Buddhists so from this we can see that rock cut caves of Ajanta are exclusively Buddhist and the time period of development of these rock cut structure in Ajanta stretches ranges from 200 BC to 650 AD see the painting inside the caves were done using fresco painting technique fresco is a type of mural painting see mural paintings are nothing but any paintings done on the walls or the ceiling of a structure fresco paintings are done on coating made up of moist lime pasta and this allows the pigments to seep in and create a long lasting image on the rock surface and lime plaster is a traditional type of paste used to cover the surface of internal walls and ceilings before painting it's like making the surface smooth and even for the painting to be done on them okay so for this process they used lime plaster at that time now this is all about the Ajanta caves now moving on to Elora caves see unlike Ajanta which was predominantly an exclusive Buddhist cave Elora caves houses the rock cut structures of all the three major religions of ancient India it houses 17 Hindu structures 12 Buddhist structures and five are dedicated to Jain religion here note that the rock cut structures inside the Elora caves were considered to be built between 5th and 11th century AD so Elora cave structures are newer when compared to Ajanta caves and these are the two major differences between Ajanta and Elora cave systems okay now with this we have come to the end of this particular article discussion in this discussion we saw about the location of Ajanta and Elora caves and how they are formed and finally we ended our discussion by seeing the significance of Ajanta and Elora caves and differences between them now with these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion for our next discussion let us take this editorial article this editorial is about the Indonordic relation currently Indonordic relations are in news because the trade ministers of Norway and Finland are visiting India together on February 9 and 10th see the editorial highlights various ongoing cooperation between India and the Nordic countries and it also highlights various areas with potential for growth in the future and this is about the editorial so in our discussion today we'll see the points mentioned in the editorial in detail and also we'll discuss about the significance of Nordic countries for India but before getting into the discussion go through the syllabus that I have highlighted here for your reference now let us start our discussion first of all let us understand about the Nordic region and the countries in the Nordic region now look at this map here see this map highlights the Nordic countries the Nordic countries include the sovereign states of Denmark Finland Iceland Norway and Sweden it also includes two autonomous territories of Faroe Islands and Greenland one autonomous region of island islands and two unincorporated regions of Janmayen and Svalbard here Greenland and Faroe Islands belong to Denmark and Island Islands belong to Finland and Svalbard and Janmayen belong to Norway see these Nordic countries are geographically and culturally little identical they share a common way of life common history religion and social structure and this is the reason these countries are clubbed together via the term Nordic see to ensure cooperation between the region the countries have established the Nordic council and the Nordic council was established in 1952 and it is a formal inter-parliamentary Nordic cooperation body see the Nordic council has representatives from all the Nordic countries apart from this know that the countries in the Nordic region have established stable secure and welfare based societies the Nordic countries are at the forefront of developing new green technologies like hydrogen energy offshore wind farms battery storage and carbon capture and it is due to this reason India is trying to engage with the Nordic countries on one hand India is aiming to become the next superpower which can learn from the Nordic economic model and develop a welfare based socially sustainable society and on the other hand India plans to become a carbon neutral society by 2017 and to achieve this India can get green technology solutions from Nordic countries so these are the two main reasons why India is trying to engage with the Nordic countries one is to develop a welfare based socially sustainable society and the other one is to learn green technology solutions from Nordic countries so to systematically engage with the Nordic countries the Indo Nordic summit was established see the first India Nordic summit was held in Sweden in the year 2018 and the summit created a ground for exchange of ideas between India and the Nordic region see the Nordic region shared their expertise in the culture of innovation clean technology maritime solutions life sciences and agriculture India on its side shared its expertise on creating a strong skill pool and digital solutions and after that the second Indonodic summit was held in Copenhagen Denmark in May 2022 and in the second Indonodic summit various common interests between the countries were discussed firstly the second summit which happened in the year 2022 gave an opportunity for the participating countries to review the progress of India Nordic relations since first India Nordic summit so it was like a review of the relationship of India and the Nordic countries since the first summit secondly as the summit was held in the post-pandemic phase discussions were held between the countries regarding the economic recovery in the post-pandemic era so secondly they talked about the economic recovery thirdly the discussions between the countries focused on cooperation in the maritime sector see the Nordic countries have expertise in sustainable ocean management and India with its long coastline has to adopt this sustainable ocean management for both stable economic growth and the environmental sustainability so as a part of this discussion our prime minister also invited the Nordic companies to invest in blue economy in India mainly as a part of India's Sagar Mala project so the third discussion factor is the maritime sector and the sustainable ocean management and fourthly there was this discussion regarding cooperation between the countries in the Arctic region see India's ministry of earth sciences last year unveiled India's Arctic policy and the main aim of India's Arctic policy is to make India's presence felt in the resource rich and rapidly transforming Arctic region and as a part of this policy India aims to counter the climate change in the Arctic region so in the second Indo-Nordic summit our prime minister mentioned that India's Arctic policy provides a good framework for expansion of India Nordic cooperation in the Arctic region now fifthly our prime minister also invited the sovereign wealth funds of Nordic countries to invest in India now here what is a sovereign wealth fund see sovereign wealth fund is the surplus money that a country accumulates over time basically sovereign wealth fund is the money owned by a nation which is invested in various financial resources know that the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund has 1.15 trillion dollars so our prime minister invited the sovereign wealth fund to invest in India because as we all know India has a huge potential for growth but the problem here is that there is a lack of sufficient availability of capital so if the sovereign wealth fund is invested in India Indian companies will get the much needed capital investment and using this capital they can grow very fastly on the other hand the sovereign wealth fund can also make huge profits due to India's growth potential so it's like a win-win situation right Indian companies will get the much needed capital investment and the Nordic countries they will get the huge profits from India's potential growth I'll tell you an interesting fact here the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund has already invested over 17.6 billion dollars and it is one of the largest single foreign investors in India and finally the most important agenda of the summit which is the exchange of ideas here the focus areas are combating climate change sustainable development innovation digitalization and green and clean growth see the Nordic countries have expertise in these fields and India can learn from the Nordic countries experience in these areas and India can accelerate its growth many fold by implementing these ideas so by doing this India can ensure that the economic growth is sustainable and green and this is about the second Nordic summit now let us quickly recap what all we saw just now see firstly they reviewed the relationship since the first summit secondly they discussed about the economic recovery thirdly they discussed about cooperation in maritime sector especially sustainable ocean management fourthly they discussed about cooperation in Arctic region and fifthly our prime minister invited to invest the foreign wealth funds of Nordic countries in India and finally the agenda of the summit is the exchange of ideas and this is about the second Indo Nordic summit now finally let us conclude our discussion by seeing the significance of Nordic cooperation and benefit that India can derive from this cooperation see we have covered some of the significances of Indo Nordic cooperation while covering the outcome of the second summit itself that is points like Nordic countries role in aiding India's green growth cooperation in combating climate change aiding the green transition in India lessons in sustainable and stable economic growth lessons in establishing a welfare state lessons in establishing a successful sovereign wealth fund ocean management and cooperation in the Arctic region now in addition to this the Nordic countries is supporting India's bid for the UNSE so the cooperation with these countries will ensure their continued support for India's bid for the permanent membership in the UNSE so while concluding this editorial the author suggests some steps to further the cooperation with these countries here the author suggests the establishment of a free trade agreement see finalizing the free trade and investments agreement which is fair equitable and balanced between the Nordic countries and India will ensure continued cooperation between the India and the Nordic countries and this is what is the suggestion given by the author in this editorial now that is all for this discussion in this discussion we saw about the Nordic region and the Nordic countries and we saw about the relationship between India and the Nordic countries we saw first Indonordic summit 2018 and we saw the second Indonordic summit 2022 we saw some of the outcomes of it and finally we ended our discussion by seeing some of the significance of Nordic countries for India and the suggestion given by the author to further this cooperation now with these points let us move on to the next article discussion now take a look at this news article it reports about a new study conducted by Newcastle University this report is the first global assessment of areas and people who are at greatest risk of glacial lake outburst floods see as per the report nearly three million people in India are at risk due to glacial flooding and this is the essence of the article given here in this context let's learn about glacial flooding see the term glacial flooding refers to the flooding caused due to sudden melting of glaciers here glaciers are nothing but massive bodies of slowly moving ice they are made up of fallen snow which gets compressed into ice over many centuries so the flooding is due to sudden melting of glaciers and glaciers are massive bodies of moving ice and this ice is formed by compression of snow particles now coming to the reasons for glacial flooding see the primary reason for glacial flooding is the phenomenon of global warming as global warming is increasing day by day there is an increase in the temperature of the atmosphere and due to increase in temperature of the atmosphere glaciers in most part of the world are melting at a high rate and it is due to this melting huge human population who are near the glacial lakes are at high risk of facing a flood here the term glacial lake refers to the lake which primarily gets its water from melting glaciers see when the threshold of the lake gets filled then there will be flooding right which means overflowing of water from the lakes and this resultant flood is only called as glacial lake outburst flood so it is self-explanatory right from the name itself we can easily understand that it is the flood which is caused by the outburst of glacial lakes see the study estimates 15 million people to be at risk from flooding caused by glacial lakes and out of this 15 million nearly 3 million people are from India itself here note that people living in the countries of India Pakistan Peru China account for over half of those at risk of facing glacial floods and according to the report in Asia alone nearly 1 million people live within just 10 kilometer of a glacial lake and this is the most vulnerable population which needs to be closely looked at and the report suggests that policy measures need to be brought to safeguard this vulnerable population and this is all about this glacial flooding and glacial lake outburst floods and the study conducted by the Newcastle University now with these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion now for our next discussion let us take this text in context article it is about the disinvestment by government as we all know the government has set a disinvestment target of 51,000 crore in the union budget of 2023 to 24 and this value is nearly 21 percentage lower than the budget estimate for the current year and only thousand crores higher than the revised estimate see it is also the lowest target in the seven years here budget estimates represent the idea of upcoming government projects and their progression see the revised estimates explain the expenses that are going to happen moreover the surprising fact here is that the center has not yet achieved the disinvestment target for 2022-23 so far so in this background let us quickly go through what is disinvestment and the advantages and disadvantages of it but before that the syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference please go through it now what is disinvestment see the shares of various government companies that are held by the government acts as the earning assets at the disposal of the government what does this mean these assets or shares they can be sold at any time to generate capital so when these shares are sold to earn capital this process is only called as disinvestment which means government is selling its shares of various government companies disinvestment typically includes the sale or liquidation of assets of an organization or government but know that in all cases the government share should never go below 51 percentage know that there are three main approaches to disinvestment they include minority disinvestment majority disinvestment and complete privatization in minority disinvestment the government tries to preserve the majority stake in the company which is around 51 percentage so the government share will never go below 51 percentage in case of minority disinvestment so by doing this the government has the control of the management now when it comes to majority disinvestment the government gives up the majority stake in the government held company which means the government's share will be less than 51 percentage so when the government retains a minority stake in the company after the disinvestment it is known as majority disinvestment so majority shares are disinvested now the third approach is complete privatization see it is a type of majority disinvestment in which the company's entire ownership is transferred to a buyer as a result 100 percentage control of the company is passed down to the buyer and these are the types of disinvestment see i have given here the means of disinvestment you can pause the video and go through it okay now coming to the major question who will carry out this disinvestment process see the union finance ministry has a separate department for undertaking disinvestment related procedures and this department is called as department of investment and public asset management now we saw about disinvestment how it is done different approaches and the ways in which disinvestment is done by the government now you should know why government does disinvestment see the main reason is to reduce the fiscal burden of the government and it is also done to bridge the revenue shortfall for that particular year secondly the government uses the disinvestment proceeds to finance the fiscal deficit the government also uses the disinvestment proceeds to invest in the economy or social sector programs or to retire the government debt other than this disinvestment encourages private ownership of assets and trading in the open market so what does this mean if the disinvestment is successful then the government do not have to fund the loss making companies additionally disinvestment indirectly increases the investment scenario in the economy to stimulate spending just now we saw that with the disinvestment proceeds government will invest in the economy or the social sector programs right this will stimulate the spending so this is one another reason and finally disinvestment might be used for funding various large-scale infrastructure development projects and know that there are some indirect advantages to the disinvestment process they include maintaining and promoting competition in the market building competence strengthening R&D depoliticizing essential services rationalizing and retraining the workforce and these are all the reasons why disinvestment is done see everything has its own advantages and disadvantages right so if disinvestment has advantages then it also means it has disadvantages also now let's see them one by one firstly the selling of profit-making PSUs result in the loss of regular income to the government this is the major disadvantage see the government may think that it is a loss making PSU but what if it is just because of the economic cycle and what if after some time it will be a profit-making one then it is a loss to the government right so this is the first disadvantage secondly complete privatization may result in changing from public monopoly to private monopoly see if private monopolies and all came into existence then it would turn into exploitation only they will exploit their position to increase the cost of various services and they will earn higher profits this is the second disadvantage thirdly private sector governed by profit motive has a tendency to use the capital intensive techniques to further the production see it is obvious right in an economy if a company want to make profit it has to increase its production to increase the production what will the company do they will buy missionaries heavy equipments to increase the production and as a result of this the unemployment problem in India will be affected very much so privatization may lead to laws of jobs of many workers because their place will be replaced by heavy missionaries now these are all the major three disadvantages of disinvestment now with this we have come to the end of this particular article discussion in this discussion we saw about what is disinvestment we saw different types of it we saw different ways in which government disinvest a government-owned company and after that we saw the advantages of disinvestment and the disadvantages of disinvestment now with these points let us move on to the next article discussion now look at this article here this news article says that RBI has decided to provide UPI access to non-resident Indians who have international mobile numbers linked to their NRE or NRO accounts see there is also a proposal to permit all inbound travelers to India to access the UPI for their merchant payments while they are in the country and this facility will be first provided to travelers from the G20 countries arriving at select international airports see this is done to expand the scope of the unified payments interface and this is about the news article given here in this context in our discussion we'll see about the NRE and NRO account first of all let us take the NRE account here NRE means non-resident external account see it is an account of an NRI to transfer his or her foreign earnings to India now let us understand this with an example see person A is a non-resident Indian living in USA and he is working in a software firm and making a good amount of money and person A has a brother B in India who is preparing for UPSC and to support his brother B person A is establishing a NRE account in India and transfer his dollar earnings to India so from the NRE account now the person B who is preparing for UPSC can withdraw cash denominated in rupee here if you notice person A is depositing the money that is the US dollar in the NRE account so what does this mean this means that if more people create NRE accounts India's forex reserve will increase so to aid this the principal and the interest from the NRE account is not taxed and also if you notice carefully the NRE account is prone to the exchange rate risk but how let me explain as we already saw person A is depositing dollars in NRE account he is depositing his dollars to help his brother who is preparing for UPSC now let us say he deposits thousand dollars at the current exchange rate the NRE account will have around 80 to 1000 rupees in it but in a few months if rupee depreciates further and the exchange rate becomes 100 rupees per dollar now what will happen this will be reflected in the NRE account let us say that person A who has deposited the money is having some money problems and he is trying to withdraw money from the NRE account now what is the current exchange rate it is 100 rupees per dollar so initially when he deposited thousand dollars it amounted to 80 to 1000 rupees now he is having 80 to 1000 rupees in his account now due to the depreciation of rupee he will get only 820 dollars the exchange rate is 100 rupees per dollar so 80 to 1000 divided by 100 is equal to 820 dollars so even though person A has deposited thousand dollars due to rupee depreciation he has lost 180 dollars so this is what I meant when I said NRE account is prone to exchange rate risk so this is all you have to know about the NRE account which is non-residential external account now there is this another account called as NRO account here NRO means non-resident ordinary account see here NRO account is an account of an NRI to manage his or her income that is earned in India see what we saw in the NRE account it was to deposit earnings from the foreign country but NRO account it is to manage the income that is earned in India for example person A who is working in the USA has some ancestral property in India and through that property he is earning some income in India and this is the income of person A that is earned in India and this amount can be deposited in the NRO account so unlike the NRE account where the deposit is made in dollars the deposit in the NRO account is made in rupees and that is exactly why both the principal and the interest earned from the NRO accounts are taxed but what we saw in the NRE account the principal and the interest earned will not be taxed but here both will be taxed and also since the deposit is made in rupees the deposit made in the NRO account is not vulnerable to exchange rate risks and these are some of the differences between NRE and NRO account now with this we have come to the end of this particular article discussion in this discussion we saw about NRE account and NRO account NRE account is for transfer of money that is earned in foreign to India NRO account is to manage the earnings that is earned in India by an NRI so this is the key difference of NRE and NRO accounts now with these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion oh yes how can we miss this article here see viewers this article was on the friend page of today's newspaper now according to this article animal welfare board of India wants to name February 14 as cow hug day see we all know February 14 for some other reason right I don't have to tell you what day it is so on that day animal welfare board of India wants to encourage people to hug cows and the board said that this action would bring emotional richness and increase the individual as well as collective happiness and I couldn't miss this article so this is the cracks of the news article given here see we are not going to discuss whether February 14 should be named as cow hug day or not we are going to use this opportunity to see about the animal welfare board of India okay first of all the animal welfare board of India is a statutory advisory body on animal welfare loss see this board it promotes animal welfare in the country as we already saw it is a statutory body so it was established in 1962 under section 4 of the prevention of cruelty to animals act 1960 and know that Srimati Rukmini Devi Arundale pioneered the setting up of the board with its headquarters at Chennai she even guided the activities of the board for nearly 20 years till her death in 1986 and this is about the board now coming to its composition see the board consists of 28 members it includes six members from the parliament two members from Rajya Sabha and four members from Lok Sabha and the term of office of these members that is these 28 members is for a period of three years so this is about the composition and term of office of members of the animal welfare board of India now with this information let us move on to see the important functions and roles of the board firstly the board ensures that the animal welfare laws in the country are diligently followed secondly the board provides grants to the animal welfare organizations here grants means financial assistance okay thirdly it advises the government of India on animal welfare issues fourthly it encourages or provides for the construction of sheds water troughs and these only aid in providing veterinary assistance to the animals okay and fifthly the board aids in imparting education in relation to human treatment of animals and not just this the board also encourages the formation of public opinion against the inflection of unnecessary pain or suffering to animals and finally it also aids in promoting the animal welfare by means of lectures books posters cinematographic exhibitions etc see here i have listed only some of the important functions okay now go and read about the other functions if you want in the website of animal welfare board of India okay but you have to have a broader picture of what the board does and that is all is enough okay now with this we have come to the end of this particular article discussion in this discussion we saw about animal welfare board of India its establishment its composition term of office and finally we ended our discussion by seeing some of the important functions and roles of animal welfare board of India now with these points in mind let us move on to the next part of the discussion that is the practice prelims question discussion see today we have five questions I'll solve four of them and one of them is a quiz question for you now let us take this first question with respect to earthquakes consider the following statements statement one earthquakes occurring along the convergent plate margins are stronger than those which are occurring in the diversion margin see the statement is correct convergent margins earthquakes are the strongest because it only creates lot of friction statement two deep focus earthquakes generally cause huge damage when compared with shallow focus earthquakes see shallow focus earthquakes are the ones which cause huge damage when compared to deep focus earthquakes see I have displayed here the range of shallow intermediate and deep focus earthquakes just go through it and know that the earthquake which hit turkey on early hours of monday had its focus at the depth of 18 kilometer from the surface of the earth so we found out that statement one is correct and statement two is incorrect so the correct answer here is option a one only now moving on to the second question see it is a previous question which was asked in the year prelims 2021 which of the following statement is correct agenda caves lie in the gorge of vakora river sanchi stupa lies in the gorge of chambal river pandalena cave shrines lie in the gorge of narmada river amravati stupa lies in the gorge of gothavari river see the correct answer here is option a from our discussion you know this answer now let us look at the locations of all the other three structures also see sanchi stupa lies in an upland plateau region just west of betwa river in the state of madhya pradesh and pandalena caves it is an ancient rocket sculpture located near gomai river you note that this cave structure is also known as nashik caves and it is located in maharashtra now amravati stupa it is located in the gorge of krishna river so it is not gothavari river krishna river so the correct answer here is option a ajanta caves lie in the gorge of vagora river now moving on to the third question with reference to national disaster management authority consider the following statements statement one president is the ex-officio chairperson of national disaster management authority the statement is incorrect because we all know that prime minister is the ex-officio chairperson statement two headquarters of national disaster management authority is located in kolkata the statement is also incorrect headquarters is located in delhi so the correct answer to this question is option d neither one nor two now moving on to the fourth question consider the following statements regarding foreign currency non-resident accounts statement one fcnr is an account that allows you to save money earned overseas in a foreign currency in a term deposit statement two the account holder can maintain deposits in foreign currency statement three fcnr deposits are taxable in india see here statement one and two are correct fcnr account is a term or fixed deposit account which is held by nri in india in foreign currency since fcnr account is maintained in foreign currency it is not prone to exchange rate risk so from this we know that statement one and two are correct now coming to statement three see fcnr deposits they are not taxable in india so statement three is incorrect so the correct answer to this question is option a one and two only now moving on to the next question see viewers this is only the quiz question for you read the question and post your answer in the comment section see aspirin's i have given here the main practice questions so if you are interested write it and post your answer in the comment section if you have any queries related to the articles that we discussed today post that also in the comment section and with this we have come to the end if you find the video useful like share and comment and do subscribe to shankarae's academy's youtube channel for further updates thank you