Hey everyone, welcome to the webinar hosted by Product School, how to be a 10x Product Manager. Before we start, let me introduce myself. I'm Abhishek. I'm a Product Lead at Square. At Square, I manage standard operation for Square Online's e-commerce product. I moved from engineering into product management in 2016, and all I can say, I've been loving every second of it. I'm extremely passionate about the craft of product management and continue to spend time in investing and learning more about product management. In my free time, I love to coach junior PMs and mentor them, telling them how to be more effective product leaders in their organization. For today's webinar, what we will cover. We'll cover why being a 10x effective PM. Always start with why. Then we'll cover different ways to be 10x effective PM. If you stick to the end, we have a bonus which is how you can grow in your current role. Before we start, a strong disclaimer. Product management is a well-balanced mix of science and art. The reason why this is important, and I always like to start with it is, when you're talking about pure science, you basically, if you have predictable inputs, you would get the same output always. But when you're talking about art or product management, what happens is you have people involved and their emotions involved. Even if you have all the same variables lined up, the incentives for people, your stakeholders, your customers, market dynamics may all change.  The long tail 20% is determined by a lot of other factors outside your control. So whenever you're trying to implement something, just make sure and use your own judgment, whether this is applicable in your specific scenario, for your specific organization, or if you have to tailor that advice or the framework that you have learned slightly differently so that it works for you. Having done with the disclaimer, let's just go ahead. Now, a question when I talk about this topic to others, they asked me is, why be a 10X effective PM? Why can't I just continue the way I work and just be happy about it? Definitely that's a choice. But if you aim to be a 10X effective PM, it'll help you to be a better product manager every day and your improvement and growth will not be linear and bound by time you spend on it, but by the amount of investment you make on it. You will earn respect from your colleagues and you will be seen as a leader in your organization, bringing in that strategic product leadership thinking, getting work done, and definitely that's very helpful as it opens up various paths for your growth. And finally, the most important thing for me personally is it actually frees up a lot of time to upscale, to pursue your hobbies and other passions. A lot of time people think that in order to be effective, if I'm effective, I'll be able to do a lot more. My thinking is a different, if I'm effective, I'll be able to do the tasks that I want to do and I get a lot of free time to pursue things other than work. That's my personal motivation to be 10X effective PM, you may have totally different one. But let's dive in and see how one can actually be a 10X effective PM. A lot of people again ask me about, hey, can you give me some hacks or shortcuts on how you can navigate certain things? Those hacks and shortcuts are good, but I have seen them work only for a small duration of time. If you want to have sustainable growth, if you wanna have a sustainable learning, you have to build strong foundations. And this is the number one criteria. Anything apart from this won't work. Once we have strong foundations, then you can definitely amplify your learning, incorporate hacks, incorporate shortcuts, incorporate frameworks, but this is a prerequisite before you go ahead. How do you build strong foundations? Number one, you have to master your product. Now, what if I mentor told me one thing, like in order to be a good product manager, it has to become your second nature. If I wake you up from deep sleep and ask you about your product, you should really know how it works. So get that level of comfort with your product. How your product works, what its limitations are, know the numbers of your product really well. What's the activation, adoption rate? What's the PNL for your product? And then finally, dog food your product. You cannot build empathy for your users. You cannot really, really understand your product well, unless you experience it yourself.  The challenge with not mastering your product is, every time a new opportunity comes, every time a new question comes from your stakeholders or others, I see product managers go back to the product, fiddle around with it, try to understand, try to learn it a little bit better, come back with an answer. And that consumes a lot of time. Imagining building out the next gen strategy for your product or your problem area and not knowing your product in depth, you will definitely have a lot of loose ends in your strategy, which will not make you look professional or good. Secondly, understand your customers really, really well. Know what are the customer's jobs to be done? What jobs are they trying to achieve and why would they need the use of your product? This is the number one prerequisites. But then if you take it one level up, you would find the unsaid needs. These are the needs of the customers that are not directly reflected either to customer service in your qualitative feedback, in your quantitative feedback. These are the hidden intrinsic needs that they want to perform the job for, but they haven't expressed. This requires a little bit of deeper understanding of your customers to understand what they actually want to achieve versus what they are asking for. And finally, if you take one level up, understand how your customers are interacting with the ecosystem. A lot of PMs just restrict the customer knowledge and understanding to how they interact with your own product. But understand customers really don't care about your product. They care about their problems and how they're interacting with the ecosystem of products. Knowing how your customers are interacting with products outside your area within your company would help you understand their overall needs and it will also give you a lot of ideas on how you can really, really expand your products. A lot of innovation happens on the peripheries of your own product and its implications. So understanding the broader need of customers would really help you be more effective. And finally, taking your strategic hat to one level up, knowing your company's goal. What are your company's goal and priorities for that year? And how does your product fit in there? You can call yourself the CEO of your product, but understand the real power of the investment lies with the venture capitalists who are basically your product leadership in the organization.  Understanding your company's goals and priorities and how your product fit in there will help you better prepare. If there's lesser investment for the area, you can find creative ways on how to do that. Or you can figure out a way how to align your product's mission and goal towards your company's goals and priorities and seek for better investment. As a PM, definitely there's a lot you can do, but you can't do everything. If you're not getting the right level of support from your leadership and cross-vertical stakeholders. Secondly, amplify your impact. In order to be 10x effective PM, one thing that I always stress is you cannot aim for linear growth. You cannot aim for linear impact. You have to be exponential. By doing a lot of things by yourself, you will definitely gain linear benefits, but what you should aim for is exponential benefits. And in order to amplify your impact, there are a few things you can do. Number one is aim for global maximum. And a very easy way to do that is just choose the right problems. A typical product journey looks like you start with problem discovery, then you try to prioritize those problems, and then you do a solution discovery, prioritize those solutions, and go ahead and implement that and do discovery throughout the whole process. Your very first step here is the kind of problems you prioritize. I see a lot of PMs try to figure out, hey, this is a low-hanging fruit for me. This is an easy one to implement. I can do it within a quarter and then probably just talk about it in my preference cycle or my promotion cycle next month. While that may be a good strategy, but it will always help you get just a local maxima. You can do multiple AB testing, but all that will help you is just improve and choose between two different things. Again, local maxima, whereas what you should be aiming for is a global maxima.  And to do that, you have to choose the right problems. Of course, I'm not saying that, hey, just totally forget the low-hanging fruits. Your roadmap should be a well-balanced of some good immediate wins that you can talk about and de-risk your long-term bets, but it should always have a few long-term bets that would give you rewards in a year's timeframe, two years' timeframe, working on that that can actually change the trajectory of your product. Second thing is solve for your customers and not your products. A lot of PMs put a blinker zone that, hey, this is my product, this is my limitation, this is the boundary, and here is where I try to innovate and get the answer. They, in fact, try to bring out different use cases on how their product can be adopted by customers, and that's totally a wrong thing. You should always think about your customers and what problems do they want, and then figure out if your product is the right solve for that problem or not. If the problem is meaningful enough, you can always expand the scope of your product or try to introduce a totally new product, but start with customer problems first. And they may both be the same thing, trying to solve for the product which will solve customer needs or thinking about customer needs and then solving through your product, but it's just a mindset shift. The more you grow in your role, the more strategic you become, you would try to overcome again from the limitations and the boundaries different org structures or products put into constraint. Break free from those constraints and think about the end customers and the needs and how you can solve them. And finally, in order to achieve a global maxima or in order to achieve exponential impact, you have to be a rebel. A lot of PMs say, this is what my leadership expects of me. This is what my manager expects of me. This is what my product mandate is. Let me go ahead and do that. And they do really well, really good job at execution, but that's not why organizations have product managers. If you keep doing what you're being asked for, you might get linear results. You might be good at that, but you cannot achieve global maxima. Think about bringing a contrarian thinking into your daily mindset. When you're building out your annual plans or plans for the quarter, think about what are some of the bets that I'm super bullish on, but everyone is not. How can I build a case for that? How can I bring an investment for that? And how can I just get it done? And I agree, this is not easy. This is tough. And a good way to learn that would be look at product leaders and look at product managers who have been there, done that, who have built and scaled zero to one products. How did they go about evangelizing their product or their idea? How did they go about asking for investment? How did they basically align everyone to work on their idea and get it to execution? Again, in your career, you might get a couple of opportunities to do something like this from zero to one. It's not a norm in the industry. It's not a norm everywhere, but if you want to have exponential growth, always look out for these opportunities. And when they strike one, just hold them strongly and go ahead and full blast with them. Secondly, to amplify your impact, you have to leverage your team. I know PMs are busy always and they're trying to do a lot of things. Big respect for that. But understand that you cannot achieve everything on your own. You have to leverage your team. Focus on the highest leverage activities and delicate the risk. If there are certain actions that your engineering manager can take over or your design can lead, delegate them. If there are certain organizational updates that needs to come, delegate to them. You don't always have to be the forefront of communication. You can delegate a part of it, maybe to your program manager or to the other people in your team. Figure out what are the activities that you can delegate and figure out what are the highest leverage activity that the product input is needed and you just do that. A lot of time people think that product manager should be very innovative. They need to bring the big ideas to the table and work for that. As a PM, you are responsible for bringing the vision but bringing innovation is not just your responsibility. Leverage your team for innovation. Engineers are best candidates who understand the real constraints of the product and how to improve that who can tell you about the different challenges. Designers are the other stakeholders that you should involve. So in short, try to do things like brainstorming sessions. As PM, you don't have to be the creator of ideas, I would say, but a good person who can just amalgamate those ideas, who can curate those ideas. So don't be a creator of ideas but be a curator of ideas and leverage your team for innovation and see how you can leverage what others are trying to do. And if something is of great importance, build a good case around it and get it done. And finally, this is a very hot take but my own personal philosophy, rather than doing something wasteful, I would prefer to do nothing. A lot of my PMs feel that, hey, I have some bandwidth left, I have some time left, let me just go ahead and clean up the JIRA or let me just go ahead and do these other work. I would just probably not do that. In the moment when I'm doing nothing, I'm recharging my brain, I'm recharging my thinking, I'm getting a fresh perspective of things and maybe my mind is free enough to strike the new idea or to strike about how I can solve some of the more complex problems. Again, that's personally my hot take. You're free to do otherwise. And finally, evangelizing your impact. With a lot of coaching and networking and observing other successful PMs, a lot of PMs are able to achieve the first two, like thinking about global maxima, taking big bets, prioritizing the right problems, leveraging the team. But personally, in my experience, having talked to so many PMs, I feel the third part is where a lot of PMs lack and struggle, which is evangelizing their own impact. A lot of PMs personally feel that, hey, it's just pumping my own chest for just talking about my own success, et cetera, and they just ethically feel bad about it. Let me tell you, it's not that. Imagine you build out a product for customers out there and you're providing a lot of value, but then you're not charging them money. You're not charging them enough money. You're leaving a lot of value on the table. Can that company sustain or can that company grow? No. Similarly, value creation is important. Number one, I'm not asking you to just go and bulge it around, but definitely create value. But once you create that value, make sure that you are able to talk about it and make sure that value is available to the rest of the organization. Value realization is as important as value creation. And it's not a selfish act. You're not doing it just for yourself. Think about if you're able to evangelize your product well in the org, how it is solving customer needs, the results that you have gotten, it will definitely help you get more funding and more investment for your product area. It will definitely be a moral boost for your teammates to figure out and realize that, hey, they're working on something that's really valuable, that the organization cares about, and their work is being rewarded. So do yourself and your teammates a favor. Make sure the great work that you're doing, the rest of the organization knows about it. The rest of the organization knows about what your product is, what's the future for it, what's the vision for it, what's the roadmap. And this will help not only you and your teammates personally, but help gain a lot of alignment, investment for your product and the future. And finally, in order to be 10x effective, you have to master communication influence. I haven't seen a successful PM who's bad at communicating. In order to be a great PM and have a great influence, you have to master communication. And when you talk about communication and storytelling, these are big topics in themselves. You can read a lot about effective storytelling, effective communication online, and there are many good courses and many good resources and books out there. But if I break down and condense everything to just one point, that would be bring extreme clarity. PMs are the only one who know the end, full picture end to end. You would know the technical constraint from your engineers or you can bring them to the table. You would know the design constraints. You would know the constraint from legal implications, compliance, you would know what the sales want. Sitting at the intersection of everything, PMs understand what every stakeholder wants, what the constraints are and how you have to operate and navigate with them. So as a PM, your number one job should be to bring extreme clarity. Why are we doing this? Who are we targeting? What are we trying to build? Be very clear and crisp in your communication with everyone. Quick, meaningful alignment is an underrated skill. A lot of people just think that, hey, PMs only do meetings. They just chat and they just talk. But as the organization grows big in size, it becomes more and more important. Different organizations within your company would have different incentives, different KPIs and different metrics. Bring them all together on a table, aligning them for a single solution, aligning them or focusing on one problem is definitely is a big task. And as a PM, in order to be successful, you have to do that. Bring extreme clarity to the table. And finally, influence. You might have heard that nobody reports to PMs and SPMs, you work with engineers, but they don't report to you. You work with designers, they don't report to you and you have to influence them. Not only your own team, you always also have to influence your stakeholders on why they should try to ask your ask, why they should just drop everything they're doing and do what you are requesting them. Influence by itself is a bigger topic, but if you condense again influence, it basically aligns to one thing, understand your stakeholders, KPIs and needs. If you're going forward with an ask to someone, understand why is this asked important to you and the company, but how it would benefit that team, like how it aligns to the work that they are doing, how it aligns to the incentive they are doing. And finally, why is your ask important? Maybe that team or that platform team or stakeholder team is getting thousands of requests every quarter, every year, why they should prioritize your stuff. What would be the benefit of the company, to the customers, to their own organization when we're trying to do it? So influence is not just about good effective communication. It is definitely a part of it, but it's also doing your groundwork and doing your research to understand what the person ahead of you you're talking to wants and how you can basically answer your questions. Never go to such meetings unprepared. Never try to influence someone without understanding them, what they are doing, what they are thinking, how they think, et cetera. So make sure you do your groundwork and then you go ahead and influence that. Influence is a very important skill. At the end of the day, as a PM, you will be responsible and ask for the impact you bring to the table. And often to bring that impact, you would have to take a lot of big bets. You would have to work cross vertically with different stakeholders and the ability to influence them would really help you meet your goals much, much faster. And that's a key difference between LOXA PMs and average PMs. The LOXA PMs are able to bring extreme clarity to the table. They are able to influence people around there and they're able to get the job done. And finally, learn how to navigate your organization. Understand how your organization is structured. Who are the key decision makers? How is the other organization structured? What do they care about? Be crisp and cut the fluff. When you're talking to leaders, when you're talking to people out there, they have very limited time. They have limited attention span and limited memory. You have to really cut the fluff, cut to the chase and just talk about in very crisp and clear bullet points. Often, ICPMs just get entangled into the web of organizational structure, going from team A to team B to team C or for trying to request something from someone or not even the decision makers. And you may spend hours influencing them, but at the end of the day, it's not their call and all your efforts are futile and wasteful. So in order to not have that kind of situation, understand your organization structure. Who is the decision makers? How is it structured? What do they care about? And make sure that you contact the right people to get the right stuff done. And finally, a bonus tip. Thank you for staying towards the end. This bonus tip is about growing in your role. This is not talking about specifically promotion, but how can you grow as a team better and seen and respected as a leader in the organization? And of course, this is a precursor to promotion and this will help you grow ahead in your role. But understand that, you know, promotions are dependent on a lot more variables than just your own performance. There are several dynamics at play, which is a topic in this. But let's talk about how you can grow as a PM in your role. The number one thing I would say is, always do what you commit. Always, always. If you say I'm gonna do something, if you say I'm gonna get back, always do that within the timeframe that you have specified. It will help you gain trust from your peers and the leaders from your org. As a leader, I would care about if I'm giving this job to Abhishek, will he get it done? Will he do it? And it's a predictable pattern. If I approved myself like five, six times, they would definitely trust me. And slowly, the kind of opportunities I'll be getting will grow in size. Like you will get from one opportunity to the bigger opportunity. But in order to gain that bigger opportunity, you have to prove yourself starting from the down. The next thing is attention to details. I love PMs. I love PMs who just go deep into the craft. If you are talking about something, if you're proposing something, the amount of details you give, the amount of attention you give to them is really a determining factor between a very well-polished PM versus someone who is very strong. Earlier in your career, try to go as deep as you can. As you grow in your product role, as your sphere of influence increases, you would also have to go broad and probably might have to adopt an eagle eye view where you fly above and see the entire landscape from birds eye view. But your capability and your skills that you've learned to go deep will also help you dive down like an eagle and catch your prey. So start by getting a depth, giving attention to details and as you grow, start giving a breadth perspective to what you're doing. And finally, ask for more and do that well too. Once you have proved yourself that you can do a certain things, ask for more. And this can be through innovative ideas that you're proposing and trying to gain investment for that or asking for a broader role or broader opportunities. This is how a good linear growth and exponential growth in the future can be like. Do what you commit, gain trust, show yourself that you're a very well articulated PM who go in depth and then finally expand your sphere of influence by asking for more from your leadership. And once you have established yourself, this would not be very tough. A lot of things about success is doing the same consistent, boring things over and over again, over and over again. A lot of people just give midway. They say, like, yeah, I've done this multiple times and they just try to slack around the cut corners. And in order to establish a great trust and do well in your career, I would advise just be very perfect with what you're trying to do. Raise the bar high for yourself and for the people around you. Finally, observe PM leaders around you. A lot of things I talked about earlier in the webinar, you know, a very few of that you can actually learn from books in here and there. A lot of actual learning comes from observing people who have been there and done that. Try to find out PM leaders in your organization or even in different companies around you who you respect and admire. Notice how they solve complex problems. Notice how they resolve conflicts, how they give presentations, how they talk, how they're able to align themselves, how they basically master storytelling. Product management is a craft that you learn a lot by doing. So you have to be around smart PMs, you have to learn and you have to observe how they're doing. Another good way would be read the PRDs that they have written, read the docs they have written. Try to see how they bring clarity to the table, how they respond to comments, how they align everyone together. This will definitely amplify your learning. You can learn all of this by yourself. You can make mistakes on the way and then learn from your mistakes. But the problem is this whole path of learning by yourself making mistakes is effective, but it takes a lot of time. While you can accelerate your learning by learning from others mistakes, observing these PMs, learning how they do, understanding where they failed and how they rectified that would definitely accelerate your learning. And finally, network and build relationships. Network with other PMs and leads in your organization and even outside your organization. People love to work with people they love and they like and that's true for bigger organizations, companies, startups, looking for your co-founders, et cetera. Understand that growth is a lot linear. A lot of PM things that, hey, this is my org chart and org structure. I'm starting with an APM, my next step would be to be a PM at a senior PM, group PM and grow in this organization or change companies or be in this line of work. Growth actually is like a jungle gym. There are multiple, multiple open paths and always keep your eyes open for that path. Maybe you realize that, you know, like growing from a PM, you might want to transition into a general management role or a different kind of role or you want to try to go into an industry which is totally different from what you're working on. Maybe you are a mobile PM but want to explore artificial intelligence or platform PM. Keep all the options open for you. Understand that growth is not real. And the way to gain this divergent perspective is to network really well within your organization, talking to PMs who are doing different things from you and building good value for them. Networking again is a bigger concept but if I can't enter into one small thing is people offer network and they think about networking as, hey, talking to them, introducing yourself and just connecting on a fewer topics. I would focus on building deeper relationships and broader relationships. Like network with few people but network really, really well. Don't just think about what value they can bring to you but figure out what value you can bring to them. How is something you can help them? And that basically is the foundation of a longer lasting relationship. Catching knowing someone may only bring you shallow opportunities but deeper opportunities only come with people who know you really well who admire and respect you. Thank you for sticking around. Just in short, what a good Chris old age knowledge about how to be a tennis effective PM and how you can grow in your role, in your organization. Thank you, everyone. Have a great day.


A very good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindi newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankar IIS Academy. Today's date is 4th of January 2024, displayed here are the list of news articles that we are going to discuss today. So without much delay, let us get into the first news article discussion. Take a look at this text and context page. Recently the Uniter Liberation Front of Assam, in short called as ULFA, ULFA has signed a tripartite peace deal with government of India and state government of Assam. Here know that Uniter Liberation Front of Assam or ULFA is an armed militant organization operating in Assam. It aims to establish an independent sovereign state of Assam for the indigenous Assamese people. Central government banned this organization citing it as a terrorist organization. Currently a peace pact has been signed with this organization. So in this news article discussion we shall understand the highlights of the peace pact and its significance. I have chosen a main question for this purpose. Let me read out the question for you. The enduring insurgency created by ULFA has remind a persistent security concern list out the highlights of recent peace accord signed with ULFA and analyze its potential impact. See this question can be asked in G.S. paper 3 under the syllabus, role of external state and non state actors in creating challenges to internal security. Now if you look at the question, the question demands to write about two things. First, we have to write about the highlights of recent peace accord. Second, we have to analyze the potential impact of this peace accord. So let's right away move on to the introduction part. In the introduction part, you can give some of the basic information about ULFA. You can write that ULFA is a militant group in Assam. It has been involved in an armed struggle for creating an independent nation of Assam. After about 12 years of negotiation, a significant peace deal has been signed between a pro-talks faction of ULFA, the government of India, and the Assam state government. So in this way, you can give a brief introduction in three to four lines. Now coming to the main body of the answer, here in the first part, we have to highlight the significance of signing the peace pact. So in the first point, you can mention that this pact will lead to the end of armed struggle in Assam. See according to the pact, ULFA armed faction will disband within a month. Ultimately, the ULFA representatives agreed to renounce violence, surrender weapons, vacate camps, participate in democratic process and uphold national integrity. This is a huge success for India. Secondly, the pact approves indigenous rights. The agreement addresses ST status for certain communities, reservation in education and employment, and identity, culture and heritage issues. Out of the 126 assembly seats in Assam, 97 seats would be reserved for indigenous people and future delimitation exercises will add her to this principle. Thirdly, a time-bound program will be made by the Ministry of Home Affairs to fulfill the demands of ULFA and a committee will also be formed for its monitoring. Fourthly, concerns about the national register of citizens and illegal immigrations are covered. Fifthly, there were provisions for land rights, forest conservation and prevention of encroachments. Rehabilitation of armed cadders, a special development package and planned state development was also covered under the pact. Lastly, a monitoring committee was formed. This will be a joint body including representatives from ULFA, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and Assam's administration. This monitoring committee was created to oversee the implementation of the pact. So these are all some of the very important provisions of the peace pact. Now let us quickly go through the impacts of this historic peace accord. Firstly, it will lead to reduction in violence. There will be significant decrease in violence death and kidnappings in Assam after the ULFA renounces its arms and indulge in democratic process. Secondly, the Indian government has committed to a substantial development package and projects for Assam. So ULFA will no longer be an obstacle for development in Assam after the implementation of this pact. Thirdly, the accord includes an understanding on delimitation based on principles used in the 2023 exercise. This will ensure the representation of indigenous peoples. So these are all some of the significance of the peace accord. Now remember we have signed a pact with only the pro-talks faction of ULFA. We did not sign a pact with independent faction of ULFA. So currently the stance of ULFA independent faction remains unclear and it has potential implication for the overall peace process. Okay, remember this with this note. Now we shall move on to the conclusion part. Here you have to give a positive outlook. You can write that the signing of this peace accord is seen as a significant step towards achieving lasting peace and development in Assam. This will pave the way for a new era of stability in the region. However, the response of ULFA independent faction and the practical execution of the agreement's points will be crucial in determining the long-term impact of this accord. So by this way, you can conclude the answer for this article. Now considering the violence created by ULFA, signing of this peace deal is a very big achievement for India. So we have to wait and watch how the peace accord is going to be implemented. So with these learnt points, now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this news article. This news article talks about antimicrobial resistance or AMR. The article specifically focuses on a recent survey conducted by the National Centre for Disease Control in CDC. So in our discussion today, we shall see about the basics of AMR, then about the NCDC and finally the content of the article. So let's first begin with what is AMR. To understand AMR, you have to know what is an antimicrobial is. Say antimicrobials or medicines used to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals and plants. Actually antimicrobial is a broader term that includes antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasites. So when bacterias, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time due to mutation and no longer respond to medicines, then AMR is said to be have developed. Due to AMR, antimicrobial medicines become ineffective and infections become increasingly difficult or impossible to treat. Now let's quickly understand how AMR actually develops. See, due to random mutation, some microbes might develop resistance to a drug. When a person takes the drug to cure a disease, it kills all the non-resistant microbes except the ones that have developed drug resistance due to mutation. These drug resistant microbes multiply and pause on their drug resistant genes to future generation. This is how drug resistance or antimicrobial resistance develop. The microbes that are resistant to common drugs are called superbugs. Remember this term superbugs? Currently AMR has developed into a global health and development threat. WHO has declared that AMR is one of the top 10 global public health threat faced by humanity. So this is about AMR. Now let us see few points about NCDC. See the NCDC was established so that it would act as a center of excellence for control of communicable diseases. This is why the NCDC was earlier called the National Institute of Communicable Disease. It was only in 2009 the NIDC was renamed as NCDC. In 2009 its mandate was extended to control the outbreak of emerging and re-emerging disease. Here emerging diseases includes COVID-19, SARS, H1N1 infections and etc and re-emerging diseases includes a plague, scrub kyphus, leptospirosis and etc. The NCDC is under the administrative control of the Director General of Health Services which comes under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The NCDC has its headquarters in Delhi. Apart from this they take up certain medical services, healthcare manpower development and research, the functions of NCDC under these three subheadings are given here you can quickly go through it. Now let us look at the points mentioned in the news article. See the article provides the findings of the survey conducted by the NCDC on around 10,000 patients from across 15 states in India between November 2021 and April 2022. The first finding is that most of the antibiotics prescribed in India were for disease prevention that is for prophylactic use rather than treating a disease that is therapeutic use. The survey concluded that over half of the patients that is 55% were given antibiotics preventatively without a confirmed diagnosis of infection. Only 45% received antibiotics for therapeutic purposes meant to treat existing infection or diseases. Now this is the first major finding. The second major finding is related to limited confirmed diagnosis. See even among the patients for whom antibiotics were prescribed for therapeutic use only a small percentage that is only 6% received their prescription after a confirmed diagnosis. The vast majority nearly 94% received their antibiotic prescription based on the doctor's clinical assessment of the lightly cause of illness. This is also a worrying trend. The next finding of the survey is that 86.5% of antibiotic prescriptions were administered through non-oral routes that is through injections. The last finding is related to the type of antibiotic prescribed in India. See in 2017 an expert committee of WHO classified the antibiotics into three groups namely the assess watch and reserve. This classification is called as aware classification of antibiotics. Here the assess group includes antibiotics that provide protection against some of the most common infections. The watch group includes some of the critically important antibiotics. These antibiotics must be prescribed after a lot of scrutiny as they are very likely to develop EMR. The reserve group includes antibiotics that are only prescribed as a lost result after every other antibiotics has failed in proving a cure. Now coming back to the survey the NCDC survey found that 38% of antibiotic prescriptions were from the assess group while a large percentage nearly 57% were from the watch group and only 2% prescribed antibiotics belonged to the reserve group. The high usage of watch group antibiotics raises concern due to their increased potential for developing antibiotic resistance. So these are all some of the findings of the NCDC survey. Now all these findings indicate that India is heading towards an AMR epidemic. So steps must be taken to control the upcoming disaster. These are all certain important facts that you have to remember about AMR and NCDC. So with these learned points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this text and context article. This article tries to answer for the question why upskilling of rural youth is paramount for the development of India. So let us understand some of the important points given in this news article discussion. Firstly the article talks about a group discussion held by Life Skills Collaborative Institute. In this discussion questions were asked to the rural youth about their aspiration for the future. Surprisingly most of the rural youth preferred staying in their village than going to cities. This may be due to many factors like low income, cost of living, attachment towards village and etc. We all know that there is an increasing trend of urbanization in the country according to United Nations almost 50% of the Indian population will be living in urban area by 2047. So in this scenario this reply by the youth of the villagers is really surprising and if it is their choice it is also crucial to take care and upskill the youth who want to stay back in the villages. This will make them live a decent life in their locality. So to improve their livelihood first we have to understand about the main sources of rural income. As we all know forming is the main source of rural livelihood. In villages there will be family owned forms where even children supplement the family's income by working on family owned forms. This was the common future lately but this model is changing rapidly with more farmers quitting agriculture to join non-forming jobs. Now this is hinting a major agrarian crisis in the country especially in rural area. Know that the National Sample Survey Office data shows that 34 million farmers leaving their farms and transitioning to other sectors like construction during 2004 to 5 and 2011 to 12. So from this data it is very clear that India should work on two objectives firstly making agriculture an aspiring occasion among rural youth secondly creating alternative employment opportunities in villages. Now to achieve both the objectives the only way is to upskill the rural youth. In other words it means providing occasional training to students with relevant rural skills. Know that various studies show that students in the villages are having a limited choices for improving their lives. So now let's quickly go through what are all the current occasional education opportunities of rural youth. See the current occasional education architecture of rural India is based on industrial training institutions that is ITIs but the issue is they are providing little or no placement opportunities to villagers. This is an issue now let us see what can be done to improve this situation. See an effective rural education which is designed to provide both technical as well as life skill is the need of the heart. To make this happen India can learn from the best practices around the world for example India can learn from Mexico's tele school and Bhutan's well-being infused curriculum. See these tele schools in Mexico will provide lessons on various subjects including values among rural youth. This has shown various trickling benefits in the rural economy as well and it has improved attitudes and increased aspiration among children's and parents in rural youth. So India can learn from these best practices of the world. Apart from this within India also there are various skill development programs working for rural youths. For example Delhi government is trying to provide skill development training by its skill on wheel initiative. This aims to provide skill training at the door steps of students not only government but the third sector like NGOs are also working in this area. For example NIIT foundation and Pratham Institute are working in such areas. One of such example is the hybrid life skilling program offered by NIIT and UNICEF. Also the Pratham offers courses in industry specific skills like health care electrical construction and life skills to rural youth. So in essence by offering skills in fields of agriculture nursing and other digital technologies through e-learning we can boost the employability of rural youth. This will help them to upskill themselves and be employed within the rural economy. So these are all certain important facts that you have to remember about this news article. Remember upskilling of the rural youth is very important for our country to achieve developed status by 2047. So these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this news article. The news here is that the NHAI has called for tenders for widening a certain section of the Chennai Tirupati National Highways or the NH716. So in this context let us revise some of the basic points about NHAI. See the NHAI or the National Highways Authority of India was set up in the year 1995. It is the statutory body. It was constituted under the National Highways Authority of India Act 1988. Note that NHAI is functioning under the administrative control of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Its headquarters is located at New Delhi. Talking about the composition of NHAI, the NHAI consists of a full-time Charman and not more than five full-time members. Here both the Charman and the full-time members are appointed by the Central Government of India. Apart from this, NHAI also consists of four part-time members. The part-time members include the Secretary of Road Transport and Highways, the Secretary of Expenditure, then the Secretary of Planning and the Director General of Road Development. This is about the composition of the body. Now let us see some of the important functions of NHAI one by one. See NHAI is responsible for the development, maintenance and management of national highways which are interested to it by the Government of India. Secondly, NHAI advises the Central Government on matters related to highways in India. Then thirdly, they regulate and control the plying of vehicles on the highways and this is done for the proper management of highways. Fourthly, NHAI provides consultancy and construction services in India and also in abroad. Apart from this, they provide facilities and amenities for the users of the highways for the smooth flow of traffic on highways. Finally, NHAI establishes and maintains hostels, mortals, restaurants and restrooms near the highways for the users of the highways. So these are also some of the very important, problems-relevant facts that you have to remember about NHAI. So with these learnt points, now let us move on to the next news article discussion. According to the news article, the Supreme Court has focused its interest on Hindenburg research case regarding the Adani Group, the Court Instructed Securities and Exchange Board of India that is SEBI and the Central Investigation Agencies to investigate the matter. They should investigate if Indian investors suffered losses due to Hindenburg's action in Adani Group issue. This is the crux of the article given here. In this context, let us revise about SEBI in the problem's perspective. See, the Securities and Exchange Board of India was constituted as a non-statutory body on April 12, 1988 through a resolution of the Government of India. Later on, in the year 1992 only, SEBI was established as a statutory body. This is under the provisions of Securities and Exchange Board of India Act 1992. So here, you have to understand why SEBI was established. Firstly, it was introduced to develop transparency in the Indian stock market. Secondly, it was established to protect the interest of investors, issuers of securities and other market participants. To protect them, SEBI is provided with the authority to check the account books of stock exchanges and audit the books of market intermediaries like companies, banks and registered brokers. So these are all the objectives of SEBI. Now, let us see about the composition of SEBI. See, SEBI consists of a chairman, two representatives from the Union Finance Ministry, one representative from the RBI and the remaining five members were selected by the Union Government of India. Talking about the powers of SEBI, SEBI has three key powers in the stock market. They are legislative powers, executive powers and judicial powers. Firstly, let us see about the powers of SEBI as a quasi-judicial body. Since a quasi-judicial body, it has the authority to deliver judgment related to fraud and unfair activities. Secondly, as quasi-executive body, SEBI executes rules and regulations to safeguard the interest of investors. Thirdly, as a quasi-legislative body, SEBI has the right to frame guidelines like trading guidelines, disclosure requirements and listing obligations and etc. Now, let us see the powers of SEBI one by one. Firstly, SEBI encourages the development of stock market and controls the market activities. Secondly, it offers a platform for investment advisors, portfolio managers, merchant banks, underwriters, bankers and other associated participants. Thirdly, it regulates the working of depositories and foreign portfolio investors. Fourthly, it prevents insider trading and any unfair trade practices in the stock market. Then, it prohibits price manipulation of stock in the securities market. Apart from this, it updates investors about various cautions through media. They also educate investors by conducting online and offline classes to provide market insights. Finally, SEBI regulates the merger and acquisition of companies. So, these are all some of the very important facts that you have to remember about SEBI. So, with these learned points, now let us move on to the next part of the news article discussion, which is the preliminary practice question discussion. Now, take a look at this first question. Three statements are given about NHHAI and you have to find how many statements given here are correct. Now, look at this first statement. The NHH 44 is the longest national highway in India connecting Srinagar and Kanyakumari. This statement is correct. Second statement says that NH966B is the shortest national highways in India connecting Kundanur and Wellington Island in Kochi. This statement is incorrect because currently NH548 and NH118, they are all the shortest highways in India. NH966B was once upon a time a shortest highways in India. NH548 connects Kolamboli with NH348 in the state of Maharashtra and NH118 runs between the cities of Asambani and Jamshitpur. Now, look at this third statement. This statement is incorrect because Goa is the state with shortest expanse of national highways, but it is Maharashtra that has the longest expanse of national highways, nearly 17,757 km of national highways. So, here the correct answer is option A only one. Now, look at this question. Which of the following are the reasons for the occurrence of multi-drug resistance in microbial pathogens in India? Four statements are given and you have to find which statement is correct here. Statement one says genetic predisposition of some people. The statement is incorrect. Genetics has nothing to do with multi-drug resistance. Second statement says taking incorrect doses of antibiotics to cure disease. Third statement says using antibiotics in livestock farming. Both the statements are correct. Four statement says multiple chronic disease in some people. See, this is something irrelevant to the multi-drug resistance. So, here the correct answer is option A 213 only. Moving on, this question is about Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana. Three statements are given and you have to find which statement given here is correct. See, here the first statement is incorrect. Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana is a flagship scheme of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. It is not under Ministry of Labor and Employment, except that statement. Other two statements are correct here. So, the correct answer for this question is option C 213 only. So, with this, we came to the end of the news article discussion. 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