We're here for another video for my creative year. We are here within my muse video. My muse is all over the place. If you've been following my vlog, you already know this. She's just dancing around, having a good old time, and having trouble focusing on the task at hand basically. The one thing she's adamant about right now is that I continue my daily practice of drawing and doodling and painting occasionally. Mostly she is loving the drawing and doodling right now. Yes, I know I'm talking about myself in the third person. Yeah, I know. Anyway, one of the things we're loving doing continually is drawing on black paper. Now, this has been a journey for me, so semi-fustrating journey. So this is a makeup case I picked up actually not long ago. I think I talked about it in a vlog at Fred Meyer, which is a store here locally in Oregon. They have them other places. They're part of Kroger. Anyway, this was in the beauty department. It says Mascara Maniac on the front and it's by Modella.  It's not in with the rest of my daily drawing stuff because drawing on black paper requires special tools and also I don't necessarily use them on other things.  Let's open it this way. So right here in the front, there is a zipper pocket which I actually don't have anything in, but you could put inspiration photos in there or if you have a journal that's a little bit smaller, you could put it in there. My journals are a little bit big, but that being said, these are homemade journals. They fit right in here. Perfect. So these are made with a file folder type cardstock for the cover and then drawing paper pages. I have a blank one in here and I always have a couple of, here's your first tip, I always have a couple of just plain pieces of black cardstock to try pens on. When I'm working with a pen or wanting to work with a pen that I don't know how it's going to show up on black paper. We're going to go over that in just a minute. I also have another one in here. There we go. That's where you can see I've been trying pens. And at some point, if it's interesting enough, that'll become a piece of collage paper on another project. So then I have everything in here that I need to create these interesting drawings, some of which have shown up on my business cards. That one might show up on something soon because I really like that one. So then it has two zipper pockets and it has this pouch in the back, which is probably for makeup brushes, but I have my basic pens here.  These are the basics. Why the black? For fixing mistakes.  And those are for all for helping me pick fixed mistakes. Then I have the basic doodling tool for working in a black journal, which is white. So I have a white gel pen, a Uniball Signo, and a jelly roll pen. Honestly, they're the two best gel pens on the planet. The jelly roll comes in more colors than the Uniball Signo, but they are the two best gel pens on the planet, as far as mark making on any paper, but especially black paper. There are cheaper versions out there, but I would always choose quality over quantity, to be honest. I have a white paint pen. This is a Sharpie paint pen. It's cheap and expensive. It does the job. I'm not a super big fan of paint pens in general. I usually only have black and white to begin with. I have a few of the big, I think they're Liquitex paint pens. I'm going to be using them up and then I'm not buying them again. They're just, they're not my favorite. And if I'm going to make marks with paint, I'm going to do it with a paint brush. I also have a Molotow marker, which is also a paint pen. Now if I was going to have a lot of paint pens, it would probably be this brand. The paint in their pens is super opaque, nice and thick. They don't generally clog up. That being said, I have let some of my pens of all brands sit for too long and then the nibs get dried up. But the nice thing about the Molotow markers is it's easy to get new nibs for them. So you can take the cap off, pull the little nib out, and then put a new one in. They're also refillable. So when they're empty, you don't have to throw it away, unlike the Sharpies, which are not refillable. In this front pocket, I have various metallic markers I've discovered work great on black paper, or at least well enough to make me happy. And I'm going to show you what I mean. Where's my unmarked black paper? Okay, so first we'll start with the Sharpies. So Sharpies in general, the regular Sharpies, they're not going to show up on black paper. They're just not opaque enough. And I'm going to get a color Sharpie so I can show you what I mean. Okay, and we're going to do a couple tests so I can show you what I mean. So this is Sharpie. This is a neon blue Sharpie. It's nice and wet and juicy. This is how it looks on white paper. Really pretty color, right? But this is how it looks on black paper. Yeah, yeah. This is a permapake marker. And this is technically, I guess, this is an opaque pigment marker. I love these markers. Actually, I replaced some paint pens with these. I love these. These are my some favorites of mine. This particular one comes with a chisel tip on one end and a bullet tip on the other end. I usually use the chisel tip. But it's a really pretty blue color on the white paper, as you can see. It shows up on the black paper, sort of. But it's much better than the Sharpie. This is the metallic one. They're much better than the Sharpie pens. The only reason they're not in the case is because I use these mostly upstairs and not in the black journal. But when I am upstairs with the black journal, I do sometimes use these. That being said, I also have these markers. These are from the Japanese dollar store Daiso. If I can link some of these for you in the description below in my Amazon shop, I will be doing that. They come in sets of three for $1.50. And I bought them before the Perma-Pake markers. So you can see that's almost the same color as the Perma-Pake metallic. And it looks very similar on the black paper. Because I have these, I need to use them up. These, unlike the other Sharpies, these are Sharpie metallics, which they only make gold, bronze, and silver, as far as I'm aware. And unlike your other Sharpie up there, look at that. Look at that. So I love those. So those live in my black journal bag. And then you have these gel pens. So I really have two brands. So I have Jelly Roll Moonlight. Is it Moonlight? I think it's Moonlight. I'll link it in the description. Gel pens. And all the Jelly Rolls show up best on black paper. And then these are Uniball Signo gel pens. They do come in colors. They don't come in nearly as many colors as the Jelly Rolls, but they do come in colors. I have found on the Uniball Signos that the metallics show best other than the white on black paper. So I have mostly the metallics in the bag up here. The only other one that's in the bag is a white one. And we'll take a green one here. So this is the green Uniball Signo metallic pen on white paper. Let's zoom in just a little bit. There we go.  And all of these metallic colors look equally beautiful on black paper. And then this is a similar color in the Jelly Roll. So this is a Jelly Roll Moonlight pen. This is not metallic, but it is a similar color. And it just looks wonderfully opaque on black paper without having to put white underneath it. So that's the other thing you can do is put a white design and then you have to color over it. I am lazy and I don't want to do that. If you know of other pens that look beautiful on black paper, I would love to hear about them. I will be linking the pens that I recommend. Like I said, I'll be linking them in my Amazon store and I will be linking the ones I can find at least. The ones that might be challenging are these ones from Daiso. And I might have to just give you a Daiso online store link. I know a lot of you are like, I don't have one of those close to me. Japanese dollar stores, they have an online store. You can order from there. It's a little more expensive, but if you have metallic markers and you have gel pens, test them on black paper. If you want a doodle on black paper, test them out. I was surprised by the ones that did and didn't work. So that's one of the things I'm completely like, enamored and fascinated with this month. I hope it gives you some ideas of what you can do doodling and doodling on black paper. It's a wonderful thing. I'm going to put all these away and we're going to be back with one other thing really quick in just a minute. Okay, there's one more thing I wanted to share with you all and let's zoom out just a little bit. So I know this month's My Muse video is going to be a little long, but oh wait, shaky camera. It's going to be a little long, but sorry about that. Okay, so daily drawing.  My drawings are always prompted by lists of inspiration words. I've been getting them over the years from a few different places. Of course, we have those kind of creative words over in my creative year and you're welcome to join. The link is in the description below if you're not already a member. Also, this one is from Sketchbook School. Yes, that says August 2018 because I'm behind. So I'm doing four of these little sketchbooks a month right now until I catch up. If you don't know, I moved last year and the whole house hunting and moving process completely derailed my daily art practice. I didn't start doing it again until, I don't know, November maybe? I don't know. It was, yeah, so anyway. So I'm completely behind, but that being said, I have different size of these little notebooks. This one is, again, this is one of those homemade ones. I do have these in my Etsy shop. I occasionally do have them for sale. I'll make a big lot of them. I'll save a few out for myself and put the rest in Etsy.  The others have craft card covers generally printed with my artwork on them and then they're filled with either white, tan or gray drawing paper. Paper, I prefer nice, thick, 60 pound or heavier drawing paper so that I can, if I want to put a little water on it, the paper holds up because I do a little bit of scrubbing. I'm going to show you exactly what I do. We're going to have a little daily drawing tutorial here in my muse bonus. So anyway, so I have different sizes. I also have some store-bought journals and that I'm trying to use up. These are from Scoutbooks. I think are the people who make the books for this sketchbook project. If you don't know what that is, again, I'll leave it in the description below. And then this one is one I picked up when I was doing, when I was speaking at the NPR event in San Francisco last year and we got a bag of goodies including this little journal. And I've been filling this one up this month for February for my creative year. And in my creative year, at the end of the month, I take the words and I actually have to. I'm not done with the month yet so I'm going to have to go back to the beginning and go to the back side. So that's another thing that I do. It's going to confuse somebody someday. Anyway, at the end of the year, I try to make a list of the words that people can download and print and put in the front of their sketchbooks if they so choose. I also have all of last year for my creative year that's already been done this way that's printable for the folks over in that Facebook group. If you got behind on your words like I did, you can print them out and I'm doing them simultaneously. So I'm doing February this year, February last year. How I do them is I have this bag. It lives downstairs. I've, it's too big for camera. I've shown it recently. People are like, Oh my God, where did you get that bag? I made it. It's not my pattern. It's called a sew together bag. Now the original sew together bag is very small. It's probably half the size and not nearly as tall. I hacked it to make it larger to fit my drawing tools. This is version two. Version one was not quite tall enough to close very well for the things I needed to store in here. So I made a new one. And yes, I know the jingle bells annoy some people. Sorry. I like them. So this is the new one and it's perfect. In it, when you open it and it's kind of, I don't know why, but when it's closed, it kind of like reminds me of a football. I just tuck it into my arm and I can take it up and downstairs. I don't know. It's the one thing during the move. I could get my hands on and I knew, I knew where it was all the time. So in the back, I've put two elastic loops with buttons so that it stays up like this and forms a pocket back here. Otherwise it would be flat like this in the front. And back here, I have a journal where I'm working on some concept designs for a project for a business right now. This is my daily pages book. Where I just write three pages of however I'm feeling. And then my sketchbooks also fit back here. In this pocket, I have a few extra sketchbooks, generally because I don't have a lot in here. Generally, I have a few though because especially like right now because it's the end of the month and I'm almost done with some of these and I don't want to have to run up and down the stairs to get the sketchbooks. There's also one that I've been working on since beginning of last year that's unprompted. So when I just feel like drawing something, for instance, okay, here we go. So when I was at the photo shoot for Yahoo Small Business, they asked me at part of the shoot, can we catch you drawing something? And so I said, sure. I was the subject of the photo shoot. So, you know, that was why I was there. So I opened the sketchbook and I just, this was the lamp that was on the table in the studio where we were filming. And this is my jar of paint tools. There we go. So I was drawing in here. I haven't really done anything in here since then, but I do like to have the pages like be inky, splattery in the background. So one thing I did do not long ago was I went ahead and did that to the rest of the pages so that I could do more like drawings like that.  So these are all of them. So at the end of the month when I finish up the journals that are up here, I'll randomly reach in here, grab a couple, glue them into the front of the new journals. And those are the ones I use for the month. And when new ones, I'm probably never going to empty this because when the new ones come out, I don't remember if it was draw right at daily or sketchbook school. I think it was draw right at daily that's not doing them anymore. But one of the two of those is still doing the daily prompt list. And so I've been printing theirs out. Plus, of course, we have them for my creative year. And then also I have all of my creative year in here from last year. Well, I have all of them. So I have lots to catch up on. In front of each of the zipper pockets, I have pen loops with elastic. So back here are marker and colored pens. And I also have one multi pen because these markers, these are again from the Japanese dollar store. There's no yellow though. You notice that? There's no yellow. It's very weird. But I have this multi pen that has yellow in it. And this is just a ballpoint colored ballpoint pen with, you know, multi your standard multicolor pen. These I think are just these are from Muji. These I think are just all colored ballpoints. But they're Muji, which is another Japanese store. It's not the Japanese dollar store, but it's another store. If I can find the link for these, I'll link them below. In this third pocket, I have a bunch of rulers and mark making guides, little small ones. Every now and then I acquire a few too many tools or something in the bag. And then of course I have to clean it out that standard. I also have this tin, which is my graphite drawing kit, my smaller one. I do have two of them and have a few blending tools, some different kinds of graphite pencils, different hardnesses and a rule. That's not a ruler. An eraser, a sharpener, and I have the one blending stuff, but then I have these two eyeshadow things are great for blending. So when I want to do a drawing that's just pencil, I have this downstairs. I don't have to come upstairs for the other one. And that all lives right there. I'm using the pencils right now, mostly in the concept drawing journal on FYI. We'll go into this pocket in a minute. On the front of, again, on the front of each pocket, we've got pen loops. And on this one, I've got all my favorite black pens that I use. My two favorites right here, big crystal, plain old, big crystal. I don't do lots of drawing first in pencil, and then erasing. I just go straight in with the big pen. That being said, when I'm doing some things like the concept drawings, I will go first in pencil. I did discover recently that one of the things I needed to add here was a white pencil because I was doing some sketching on a black background in the concept journal for the business. That being said, these may come out of here when I'm done with that. These don't necessarily need to live in here because I've got that other pencil box in here. For right now, I need these in here. One of my other favorite black drawing pens is this graphic liner from Oto, OHTO, and I prefer the number 10. It's a nice gel pen drawing pen. I love it. And then I also like the Pilot Varsity Disposable Fountain Pen. There is a ink precision pen. This one, an R2 pen. This one might be from Dollar Tree actually. There is a black and a brown uniball signal and also a permaball, pilot permaball pen. My favorites are the big crystal. I have two white jelly roll pens because inevitably one is done or almost done. And this one is, well, they're both pretty close to done, so I'm going to have to get a new one up here soon, in here soon. And then I have two water brushes. My favorite is the Pentel Water Brush in Medium. This pocket here is where I keep all the other miscellany. So my reading glasses because, you know, I'm not young anymore. A rag, need that. A glue stick for gluing those prompt lists in the front of the journals. My fancy Dancy. I love it. Pilot Vanishing Point Fountain Pen, which is one of my favorite pens, and I will occasionally do writing or drawing with this pen. Some ink for that pen. And also, this is the Pentel Brush Pen, which I also love, but I'm worried about it leaking, so I keep it in this little Ziploc bag with the extra ink for the Vanishing Point. And those live in there. Zips up nicely. Now, for the most part, the color on my drawings comes from these, and these are Bible Gel High Gliders, Highlighter Pens. A couple of different brands. One is Bible High Glider, and the other one is, I think, Recollections? Maybe not. This one just says Bible Journaling. Somebody gave me these, and I love these. And if you put a water brush to them before they dry, they do move around, and you can spread the pigment out a little bit and make them less sticky. So when you first put them on, they're a bit sticky. But if you take a water brush to them, they're less sticky, and also you can go over them a little bit with white gel pen, which, by the way, before it dries, you can also move it around with a water brush. The other one in here is this black. This is Target Up and Up. It's a watercolor crayon. It's from the Kids Twistable Watercolor Crayon. It's from the Kids Art Department.  My favorite's the black, so I keep the black in here.  And what happens here is my phone usually goes here. My watercolor kit or the journals that I'm... There's Linton here. Oh, the journals that I'm getting ready to work on are here until I'm done with them, and then they go in the back. When I am looking for inspiration for the words and what to draw, this is the important part that you're all... I think some people don't understand. So what's today's word in this one? Yesterday's word was wet, garden. So I will go to Google Images or Pinterest. I will type in garden drawing, and I will find something that I think is interesting, and I'll take inspiration for that from my drawing in my journal. Now it's not about copying the other artist's work or stealing their design. This is about just daily art practice and taking inspiration from their work without having to go around, in my case, walk around outside in a little bit of snow that we do have. It's a little cold outside. And trying to find inspiration for something. Now see, I would go to this one, and I would pick one of these, and I would do a drawing inspired by one of these illustrations, because those are really pretty. So think about what you can do to incorporate some daily art practice into your life, into your work. I really think it's beneficial for your creative journey. Whether you're doing daily inspired drawings or you're just doing doodles on black paper or white paper for that matter, could be newspaper. It doesn't matter. Do something and share with us what you're doing over in the group. We would love to see your posts inspired by the prompts, inspired by the videos over in the group. Now I will caution you, over in my creative year, your posts have to be group related. You can't just post randomly. They need to be related to something in the group or a conversation that we're having. That being said, I would love to see a conversation on daily practice startup over in the group. That's it for now. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe. If you would like to be a part of the Facebook group, you can join it using the link in the description below. I'll link what supplies and materials I can find in my Amazon shop. I will also put a link for the Sew Together bag and the hack for the pattern alterations.  Maybe you know how to sew and you can make yourself one. If you have questions about the bag in particular, you can private message me outside of my creative year and outside of the YouTube comments. You can DM me or you can Facebook message me and I'll answer your questions. That's it for right now. Don't forget to go out and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later. Bye guys.


A very good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankara A's Academy for the date 18th of December 2021. We have a diverse list of articles that we have taken today for a discussion. I will give you a brief about them. The first article here, it is about the data given by National Statistical Office that is nothing but NSO. Under this article, we are going to see what are all the constraints that India have for achieving the growth rate of 9.5 percentage. The second article, it is about India-China relationship. Under this article discussion, we are going to see the historical, economical and political perspective of India-China relationship and we will see the possibility of Russia being a mediator between India and China. The third article, it is an environmental article. Under this discussion, we will see the diversion of forest land for non-forest purposes and we will see the pros and cons of forest diversion. And finally, the fourth article, it is about the federal structure. Under this article discussion, we are going to discuss about the features of federal system of government. So without any delay, let's get into the article discussion. Look at this editorial. This editorial is written by Mr. C. Rangarajan who was the former governor of RBI. It is about the recently released data by National Statistical Office. See the NSO on November 2021 released GVA that is gross value added and GDP data that is gross domestic product data for the second quarter of the financial year 2021-22. Second quarter is nothing but from the month June to September. So this is the general introduction about the editorial. The syllabus regarding this discussion is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. Before starting the discussion, I have given here the definitions of various economic terms that are used in this editorial. I request the aspirants to go through it so that you will understand the discussion better. I'll also explain them wherever it is needed. See the general idea behind taking this editorial is it consists of data from National Statistical Office. So the data that is provided in this editorial will help you in enriching your main's answer. So go through these definitions. The first one is GDP, GVA, base effect, gross fixed capital formation, final consumption expenditure, gross tax revenue, tax buoyancy, purchasing manager's index, fiscal deficit. So these are the definitions. I'll also explain them wherever it is needed. You also go through them once before. Now let us start the discussion. See due to the COVID induced lockdown, the economy contracted. In the first quarter of the financial year 2020-21, due to this contraction and the associated base effect, the first quarter experienced a real GDP and GVA growth rates of 20.1 percentage and 18.8 percentage respectively. See here the base effect is nothing but the effect that occurs whenever two data points are compared as a ratio. So in this ratio, the current data point is divided or expressed as a percentage of another data point, which is nothing but the base or the point of comparison. The base effect can lead to an apparent understatement or overstatement of figures such as inflation rates or economic growth rates. If the point chosen for comparison has an unusually high or low value. India's GDP for the first quarter of 2021-22 grew at 20.1 percentage compared to a contraction of 24.4 percentage in the same period a year ago, that is 2020-21. So this is the base effect here. So while comparing 2020-21 and 21-22, the GDP growth rate is 20.1 percentage. But the base effect reduced in the subsequent quarter due to the weekend base effect, the GDP and the GVA growth in the second quarter was only 8.4 percentage and 8.5 percentage respectively. So to remove the distortion caused by the base effect, it is only fair to compare the GDP and GVA data to the pre-COVID days that is financial year 2019-20. Now we understand how the base effect has created an illusion of growth here in the first quarter of 2021-22. Since the GDP was 24.4 percentage in 2020 and 2021, the base effect has caused the figure to stand at 20.1 percentage irrespective of the contraction. So only when we compare the first quarter of financial year 2019-20 and the financial year 2021-22, we can see the fact that the economy has actually contracted. Compared to the first quarter of the financial year 2019-20, the GVA for the current financial year has contracted by 3.7 percentage and the GDP has contracted by 4.4 percentage. As the base effect will further weaken in the third and fourth quarter to achieve a higher growth, compared to the financial year 2019-20, a strong growth momentum is needed in the third and fourth quarters according to the author. And according to the editorial, in the first half of the financial year 2021-22, only the following sectors that is agriculture, electricity, gas, mining and quarrying, public administration and different services has actually grown. Compared to the pre-COVID levels that is financial year 2019-20, mainly public administration has grown by 5.8 percentage and different services grew by 17.4 percentage. According to the editorial, this growth is mainly due to central government capital expenditure which grew by 38.3 percentage during the first half of 2021-22. So according to this article, the growth in these sectors is due to the increase in central governments capital expenditure. Now coming to the demand side that is the consumption expenditure. See the private final consumption expenditure that is nothing but the expenditure incurred on final consumption of goods and services by the resident households or non-profit institutions. So it is nothing but the resident spending on goods and services. So according to this article, this PFCE in the first half of 2021-22 has contracted when compared to the level in 2019-20. To experience a strong growth momentum in the third and fourth quarters, the consumption must pick up. According to the editorial, the private consumption demand would pick up with employment and income growth. So it is obvious right when people have money in their hands and they have job to do then only they will spend on goods and services. This can happen only when the small and medium sectors fully recover. The recovery is happening and will continue to happen in the second half of the financial year 2021-22 provided that the new COVID variant does not cause any disruption. Here Omicron is the new COVID variant that we are talking about. See the RBI and the IMF, IMF is nothing but International Monetary Fund. They have forecasted India's growth rate for 2021-22 to be 9.5 percentage. To achieve this growth rate, India has to grow at a pace of 6.2 percentage in the second half of the current financial year. This is not an easy task given the base effect. Hence, achieving the projected growth rate is going to be a big challenge for India. Now let us see some of the measures suggested by the author to achieve the 9.5 percentage growth rate. Firstly, the government must increase its capital expenditure. Capital expenditure is nothing but the expenses that are incurred by an organization to improve its assets, that is nothing but equipments, machinery, buildings, etc. So the first measure is government should increase its capital expenditure. See in the first half of the current financial year, the government's gross tax revenue grew by 64.2 percentage and also presently the tax buoyancy is at 2.7 percentage. Let's go back and see what is tax buoyancy. Tax buoyancy is nothing but the relationship between the changes in the government's tax revenue growth and the changes in the GDP, that is the responsiveness of the tax revenue growth to the changes in GDP. So when a tax is buoyant, it means the revenue increases without increasing the tax rate. So now according to the article, the tax buoyancy is at 2.7. So what can be done? The government can leverage this aspect and profit and provide a strong fiscal support in the form of government capital expenditure. So the first point is nothing but government is having tax revenue and it grew in the first half of the current financial year. So what the suggestion is? Government should utilize this revenue for forming capital expenditure. The second measure is the government must increase its infrastructure spending. See recently the amount allocated for food and fertiliser subsidies MNREGA has been increased. In addition to that, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anayojna has also been extended. So the editorial mentions that in spite of this spending, the government must continue to increase its infrastructure spending. Thirdly, the centre's incentivization of state capital expenditure through additional borrowing limits would also help in this regard. This is nothing but incentivizing states' capital expenditure measures. See the states are having particular borrowing limits. So by increasing those limits, the state can utilize more funds for capital expenditure which in turn will help in achieving the growth rate of 9.5%. See compared to the financial year 2019-20, the government is now placed in a better position. I'll tell you why. In the year 2019-20, only the first half experienced a growth in the gross tax revenue. The second half actually experienced a contraction. The first half experienced a growth rate of 1.5% and the second half experienced a contraction of 3.4%. The financial year 2019 also experienced a reduced real GDP growth of just 4%. Now compare this with the current financial year. There are lot of positive signs in the current financial year. The growth in the tax revenue in the first half was 64.2%. The Purchasing Managers Index is at 10 month high which is 57.6%. We'll see what is Purchasing Managers Index. It is nothing but a survey-based measure that asks the respondents about key business variables. See the main purpose of this index is to provide information about the current and the future business conditions to the decision makers and the investors. See they are conducting a survey here and based on the outcome of the survey, the company's decision makers or the investors plan the business. It is calculated separately for manufacturing and service sectors. So this is what is Purchasing Managers Index. So that is also high now and the gross GST collection has been consistently above the benchmark limit of 1 lakh crore rupees. And note that IAP which is nothing but Index of Industrial Production which consists of core industries. It is also growing compared to the 2019 level and the growth was recorded at 7%. And even the merchandise exports grew by 35.9% in 2021 compared to the 2019 level. So all in all the government is better placed. So unlike in the financial year 2019-20 when the government could not give a proper fiscal stimulus now it can increase its spending. So the key to attaining a 9.5% real GDP annual growth in 2021-22 lies in the government's ongoing emphasis on infrastructure spending as reflected in government's capital expenditure. This is nothing but if the government has to achieve a growth rate of 9.5% then it has to increase its infrastructure spending and it should increase its spending in capital expenditure. And not just that the government must take steps to sustain this momentum for the rest of the fiscal year. So with this we have come to the end of our discussion. Let's have a quick recap. We saw the data from National Statistical Office. We saw how the economy contracted and how the base effect played a major role in that. And we saw what are all the sectors that has improved which includes agriculture, electricity, gas, mining, enquiring, public administration and defence services. And we also saw that the consumption expenditure is very low. And we moved on to see the forecast of India's growth rate which is nothing but 9.5% and we saw what are all the constraints in achieving those. And we saw some of the measures that will help India in achieving the growth rate of 9.5%. So what are they? Increasing capital expenditure, increasing infrastructure spending, incentivising state capital expenditure and increasing the borrowing limits for the states. And finally we saw some data which shows that India is better placed now and it should sustain this momentum to achieve the growth rate of 9.5%. With these points in mind let's move on to the next article. See this news article here it is an editorial article. This article is with respect to the bilateral relations between India, China, India, Russia and Russia and China. This article also gives some insights about Russia being a facilitator between India and China. So in this context we are going to analyse Indo-China relationship and the constraints or in other words the challenges in their relationship. And at the end of the discussion we will also briefly discuss why Russia as a mediator should be thought twice. The syllabus relevant for the analysis is given here for your reference. Please go through it. Okay first of all we will see about Indo-China relationship. See historically the written records of contacts between India and China date back to at least 2nd century BC. With the commerce between the two countries it got a boost with the advent of Buddhism into China from India in the first century AD. So this is because monks from the two countries they travelled to the other country and visited the place and they wrote books which help the countries to know about one another. For example a Chinese monk Fazian visited India in 402 AD and stayed in India for 10 years. And after his return to China he translated many Sanskrit Buddhist texts into Chinese. So by this way Chinese people got to know more about India. Zvanshan visited India during Harshavardhanas reign in the 7th century AD in search of Buddhist scriptures and wrote a book called A Journey to the West. And yoga is now becoming increasingly popular in China. China is also one of the co-sponsors to the UN resolution designating June 21 as the International Day of Yoga. So this shows the cultural significance of both the countries. Now economically there is a rapid expansion of India-China bilateral trade. China emerged as one of the largest goods trading partner for India in the year 2008 and even now China continues to hold that position. In 2017 and 18 the bilateral trade has registered robust two-digit growth. In 2020 India became the 16th largest trade partner of China. The total bilateral trade witnessed a reduction of 5.64% year on year to reach 87.65 billion dollars due to COVID-19 implications. See the flourishing trade has broad with it advantages such as availability of low priced items in India. But at the same time it has also led to the biggest single trade deficit we are running with any country. During the first half of 2021 the trade deficit rose by 56.12% that is 28.10 billion dollars. In parallel with the increase of bilateral trade during the same period. Refer the table here just remember that India has a huge trade deficit with China. You don't have to remember the data given in this table. And now let's move on to see the political perspective. On April 1, 1950 India became the first non-socialist bloc country to establish diplomatic relations with People's Republic of China. Prime Minister Nehru visited India in October 1954 and established ties with China. Though the border conflict that had happened in 1962 was a setback to the ties, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited China in the year 1988 and this visit marked the beginning of improvement in bilateral trades. In the year 1993 the agreement on the maintenance of peace and tranquility along the line of axial control on the India-China border was signed. But the bilateral relations between China and India have been impacted by the situation in the border areas along the LAC that is nothing but line of axial control. This is in the Ladakh region. See LAC is nothing but the demarcation that separates Indian controlled territory from the Chinese controlled territory. LAC is not fully agreed by both the countries. Here in this map LAC is given and politically an informal summit has been held between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping in Chennai on October 2019. In that summit it was decided to establish high level mechanism on economic and trade dialogue and this was done to strengthen the bilateral trade and investment cooperation and better promote the balanced development of bilateral economic and trade cooperation. See this dialogue is important because India is having a trade deficit with China but based on this dialogue it is said that it will promote the balanced development of bilateral economic trade. But however there has been no progress on this front due to COVID-19 outbreak and one more reason is that the border tensions in the Galvan Valley. See both India and China have been involved in a military tussle in Galvan Valley which is situated along the line of axial control. So no dialogues under the existing institutional mechanisms have taken place between the years 2020 and 21. So this is the skeleton of India-China relations so far. Now coming back to the editorial so we all know that India, Russia, defence and bilateral ties have considerably strengthened. We have signed a treaty of friendship with Russia and the government went on with the purchase deal of S-400 missile defence systems despite the US threat of sanctions. And also note that Russia is the largest arms supplier to India. On the other hand Russia also have consolidated their support for China in many cases. They have consolidated their support in the face of US concerns and China's action on Taiwan. And in turn China also extended its support to Russia over its action against Ukraine. This is nothing but the seizure of Crimea by Russia from Ukraine in the year 2014. And also note that Russia is also deeply dependent on Chinese investment particularly in the $400 billion gas pipeline infrastructure. So under this project Russia will deliver 1 trillion cubic meters of natural gas to China over the next 30 years. Analyzing the above factors we can conclude that Russia is in close ties with both India and China. So in this context India should think twice before involving in any trilateral relations that is RIC which is nothing but Russia, India and China. So with this we have come to the end of this discussion let's have a quick recap. So what all we saw? The cultural significance of both the countries and the bilateral trade between the two countries and we saw some facts relating to that and we are having trade deficit with China and we also covered the political perspective of India-China relationship and finally we saw why India should think twice before involving in any trilateral relations that includes India, Russia and China. So with these take away points let's move on to the next article. See this article here it deals with the diversion of forest land for non-forestry purposes. The article gives us data regarding diversion of forest land to non-forest purposes in the past five years by various states. I have given the data that I mentioned in the article in the table form here for your reference. See first of all you should understand that the forest lands are diverted using the Forest Conservation Act of 1980. The article also mentions that 206 proposals involving around 4,118.1 hectare area for the conversion into non-forest use during 2020 and 21 and this 4,000 hectare area is within the protected areas which includes national parks and sanctuaries which has been recommended by the Standing Committee of National Board for Wildlife for the conversion. So in this context let us see some points regarding the conversion of forest lands for the non-forest use. So first of all let us see what are the cons of diverting forest land. The first one is that it destroys the complex food web. We all know that forests have a complex food web and this will be destroyed if forest is converted. Every afforestation cannot exactly regenerate the complicated food chain associated with the natural forest. The second and the most important con is loss of habitat. See the forests are associated with biodiversity. So many plants and animals will lose their natural habitat if forests are being converted. Forests are nature's lungs. They will help sequester carbon. Carbon sequestration is nothing but capturing carbon from atmosphere. So once these forests are diverted carbon gets released into the atmosphere leading to global warming. See one of the main consequences of converting forest to non-forest land is land degradation. Land degradation happens due to soil erosion. Once the forest trees are removed the top soil becomes loose and it is easily eroded. The next point is tribal communities who depend on forest are extremely affected by this act. They lose their identity, their livelihood and it will create a traumatic effect. And the next point is forests actually act as sponges and help retain water. Forests mainly in the watershed area help in diverting water to the river which in turn are a lifeline for an agricultural country like India. If the forest is destroyed the water in the rivers are also affected. And finally forests are the storehouses of natural pollinators. The pollinators help in increasing agricultural productivity in areas around forests. Once forests is destroyed the pollinators lose their home. This in turn affects the agricultural productivity. So far we saw the cons. Along with the cons there are also some pros regarding conversion of forest into non-forest land. We will see what are the pros regarding the conversion. The first one is to support India's growing population agricultural production must be increased. One way of increasing agricultural production is by increasing the size of available arable land by clearing forest. A arable land is nothing but land which is capable of being plowed and they are used to grow crops. The second point is in India many forest areas are rich in natural resources. Mining these resources will help increase India's GDP and also provide employment opportunities to the people. This will help attain demographic dividend. The next point is in some of the cases converting forest areas into non-forest use can be advantageous in the long run. Laying highways will bring down the travel time and the carbon dioxide emission which in turn reduces global warming. The next point is by laying railway lines or metro projects people will be incentivized to use public transport. This also helps reduce the number of private vehicles on the road thus reducing carbon dioxide emissions. See we cannot completely ignore the resources of the forest and we cannot go on exploiting forests like there is no tomorrow. We must take a balanced approach. We must take steps to sustainably use forest resources to uphold intergenerational equity. Here in this news article it mentions about the capital accounting and valuation of ecosystem services. We will understand what it is. We have to calculate the monetary value of the ecosystem services provided by the forest. When there is a proposal to convert the forest land for non-forest uses. First of all we should see the monetary value of the ecosystem services and we should also see the monetary value associated with the conversion. And after doing that we have to compare it. If the monetary value associated with the conversion is higher than the monetary value of the ecosystem services, then we must proceed with the conversion. If it is not higher than the monetary value of the forest ecosystem services, then we must stop the conversion. This will help us balance development and the ecosystem. So, with this we have come to the end of our discussion. Let us have a quick recap. What all we saw? We saw that the forest lands can be diverted for non-forest uses under the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 and we saw some of the cons of diverting the forest land. And after that we saw some of the pros regarding the conversion of forest land. And finally we saw about capital accounting and valuation of ecosystem services. So, with this key takeaway points, let us move on to the next article. See, yesterday that is on 17th December 2021, one of the national parties, BJP announced an alliance with the Punjab Lok Congress. So, the article is about this alliance. We are not going to discuss the article here. So, in this context, let us understand some of the important points regarding the features of the federal structure. First of all, let us have an understanding on the basis of nature of relations between the national government and the regional governments. See, the government, it can be classified into unitary and federal systems. We will see what they are. By definition, a unitary government is one in which all the powers are vested in the national government and the regional governments, if at all they exist, they derive their authority from the national government. So, this is how a unitary system of government works. Let us see some examples for this system of governments. The examples are Britain, France, Japan, China, Italy, Belgium and Norway. Now, let us see what a federal government is. A federal government, on the other hand, is one in which the powers are divided between the national government and the regional governments by a mechanism. In most of the cases, it is the constitution. So, these governments, which are the national government and the regional governments, they both operate in their respective jurisdictions independently. We will see some examples, US, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Russia, Brazil and Argentina. So, we saw two types of government based on the nature of relations between the national government and the regional government. What are those two types? They are unitary system of government and federal system of government. In this discussion, we are going to concentrate on the federal system of government. So, let us understand how a federation is formed. A federation, it can be formed in two ways. That is, by the way of integration or by the way of disintegration. In the first case, a number of militarily weak or economically backward states or just independent states, they come together to form a big and strong union. For example, the United States of America. We all know that independent states, they came together and they formed a union, that is the United States of America. This is one way of federation formation. In the second case, a big unitary state is converted into a federation by granting autonomy to the provinces to promote regional interest. Here, the example is Canada. So, from this we know that a federation can be formed in two ways. One is by the way of integration. For that, we saw United States of America as an example and by the way of disintegration. For this, we saw the example of Canada. So, here the question arises, what about India? See, in India, the constitution of India provides for a federal system of government in the country. However, the term federation has nowhere been used in the constitution. So, note this point. Our constitution provides for a federal system, but the word federation is not used in the constitution. It is very important to remember this fact. Instead, article one of the constitution describes India as a union of states. According to Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the phrase union of states has been preferred to indicate two things. One is Indian federation is not a result of an agreement among states like the American federation. So, we saw American federation is formed by the way of integration. Independent states, they came together and formed a union. So, Indian federation is not formed by that way. And the second point is that the states have no right to secede from the federation. Seced is nothing but becoming independent. So, for these two reasons, the phrase union of states is used in Indian constitution under article one. So, to put it in simple words, the Indian federation resembles the Canadian federation in three ways. So, the first point is it resembles the Canadian federation in its formation. How Canadian federation is formed by the way of disintegration. So, the Indian union, it is disintegrated into several states to promote regional interest. The second resemblance is in its preference to the term union. The Canadian federation is also called a union. And the third resemblance is in its centralizing tendency. That is nothing but wasting more powers in the center. That is exactly why Indian federation is also called as federal structure with the unitary bias. Okay, since we have discussed some of the important points, let's move on to see the unique features of federal structure. What are all the features that should be there if a system should be called as a federal system of government? The first point is dual polity. It should consist a union at the center and state at its periphery. And each should be endowed with sovereign powers to be exercised in the field assigned to them by a constitution. The second point is having written constitution. So, the written constitution eternally specifies the structure, organization, powers and functions of both the central and state governments and it prescribes the limit within which they must operate. Thus it avoids misunderstandings and disagreements between the two. The third feature is separation of powers, which is also called as division of power. See, if you take India, the constitution divides the powers between center and the states in terms of union list, state list and concurrent list in the seventh schedule. Both the center and states can make laws on the subjects of concurrent list, but in the case of conflict, the central law prevails. The center has exclusive powers to make laws on the subjects of union list and the states have exclusive powers to make laws on the subjects of state list. But the subsidiary subjects, that is the subjects which are not mentioned in any of these three lists, they are given to the center. So, this is exactly why Indian Federation is called as the federal structure with a unitary bias. Moving on, the next feature is supremacy of the constitution. The constitution, it should be the supreme or the highest law of the land. The laws enacted by the center and the states must conform to its provisions. Otherwise, they can be declared invalid by the courts through their power of judicial review. Thus, the organs of the government that are nothing but legislator, executive and judicial organs, they must operate within the jurisdiction prescribed by the constitution. The next feature is having a rigid constitution. See, having a rigid constitution is very important because the division of powers that are established by the constitution as well as the supremacy of the constitution, it can be maintained only if the method of its amendment is rigid. Because it is obvious, right? If the constitution can be amended with a simple procedure, it will undermine the ideology based on which it is written. Hence, the constitution should be rigid to the extent that those provisions which are concerned with the federal structure, that is nothing but, which involves the state and center relations, it should be amended only by the joint action of central and state governments. In India, such provisions require a special majority of the parliament and also an approval of half of the state legislatures for the amendment. And the next feature is having an independent judiciary. So, the courts at the center and state level should deal cases regarding the provisions related to its jurisdiction. So, with this, we have come to the end of our discussion. Let's have a quick recap. We saw different types of governments based on the relation between the national government and regional government. They are nothing but unitary and federal system of governments. And after that, we saw a federation can be formed in two ways. One is by the way of integration and the other one is by the way of disintegration. And we saw examples for that. And finally, we saw some of the features of the federal system of government. What are those features? Dual polity, written constitution, separation of powers, supremacy of the constitution, rigid constitution and independent judiciary. So, with this, learn points in mind. Let's move on to the next part of our discussion. We have finished discussing the articles today. So, now let's solve some practice prelims questions. The first question here, it is about Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act 2016. We'll solve it. Statement one, the Act was enacted to manage the funds collected for compensatory afforestation. The second statement as per the rules, 90 percentage of the compensatory afforestation fund money is to be given to the center while 10 percentage is to be retained by the states. Select the correct answer using the code given below. One only, two only, both one and two, neither one nor two. See this first statement here, it is correct because the main purpose for enacting this act is to manage the funds collected for compensatory afforestation. See the compensatory afforestation means that every time forest land is diverted for non-forest purposes, such as mining or quarrying or for road construction, the user agency pays for planting forests over an equal area of non-forest land. So, this fund which is paid by the user agency is called as Compensatory Afforestation Fund. For maintaining this fund, the Act of Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act 2016 was enacted. Statement two, as per the rules, 90 percentage of the money is to be given to the center. Is it right? No, because as per the rules, 90 percentage of the money is to be given to states while 10 percentage is to be retained by the center. So, it is given in reverse order here. So, the statement two is incorrect. So, what is the correct answer here? Option A, one only. Moving on, the second question, with reference to Indian Federation, consider the following statements. Indian Federation is a result of an agreement among states like the American Federation. Statement two, the Federation is union because it is indestructible. Which of the following statements given above is so or incorrect? See, the question asked for incorrect statements. So, our purpose here is to find those incorrect statements. We will solve the question. The first statement says that it is an agreement among states like American Federation. We saw in our discussion that American Federation is formed by the way of integration. Independent states came together and formed a union. But in case of Indian Federation, it is not like that. Indian Federation resembles Canadian Federation. It is formed by the way of disintegration. The union, it is formed into separate states for regional development or for convenient administration. So, the statement one here is incorrect. The second statement, the Federation is union because it is indestructible. So, this statement is correct because this Indian Federation, it is called as union. The states have no right to secede. That is, no right to become independent. So, it means it is indestructible. Indian Union cannot be destroyed. So, the statement two here is correct. So, what is our purpose here? It is to identify the incorrect statements. Which is the incorrect statement here? It is statement one. So, the right answer here is option A, one-only. Here, I have given some of the main questions for your practice. Interested candidates, write it and post it in the comment section. So, if you like the video, please like, share and comment and do subscribe to Shankar Iyer's Academy's YouTube channel for further updates. Thank you.


Winterfest on Lake Bemidji will not take place this year. Lakeland News has learned that the Bemidji Chamber of Commerce has decided to take a one-year hiatus with the plan to return in 2019. The chamber is expected to make that announcement tomorrow. Winterfest is an annual winter event on Lake Bemidji that has included curling and ice fishing tournament, pond hockey, the Bemidji plunge and many other events and music. Some of those events may still go on, but as smaller events on their own. Lakeland News has learned that with the new permitting process in place this year, organizers were worried about not having time to organize and plan a well-orchestrated festival. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


Thinking of doing work to your home. Here are our planners' top tips for getting your planning application right first time. Do you know the difference between permitted development, planning permission, listed building consent or a tree works order? Depending on what you plan to do and what kind of building you own, you might need a different kind of application, or more than one. The rules are set by national government. If you submit the wrong type of application, we can't assess it, and we have to ask you to go back and start again. Most people use an architect, a surveyor, a planning consultant or another building professional to act as their agent. These people know what kinds of permission you will need and can get all the right documents together so the process goes smoothly. We need drawings that are to scale and fairly detailed. They need to show all of the features of your property accurately. Most people get a surveyor to do a measured survey so that they know exactly how much space they have to work with. Some people don't send in all the drawings we need. We don't just need a floor plan. We need drawings of the external elevations and drawings that show the relationship to the other buildings and features around the site. Think about trees. If your proposal affects any trees, you might need a specialist tree report to ensure that it won't cause any damage. If your property is a listed building, we need a heritage impact assessment to show that you won't damage any important historic features. We have checklists to tell you what to submit. Until we have all the information we need, we can't start assessing your application. If you use an agent to help you, we can work with them to iron out as many potential problems as we can beforehand. You can follow the progress of your application on our website and we have lots more advice there too.