Hello. Hello. My name is Esther De Leon. I'm an associate librarian at Texas Tech University Library and co-lead of the TT research team. Our team consists of myself, James Sabaton as lead, Sarah Schumacher, Kimberly Bartiman and Donnell Callender. We'd also like to acknowledge phase one contributors, Marina Oliver, Hillary Veter and Laura Heinz. My co-presenter today is Sarah Schumacher, architecture image librarian at the architecture library here on campus. Our research and presentation is entitled educating and empowering a diverse student body, supporting diversity equity inclusion research to library collections. And so for the most part we like the way we are going to present today is more of an organic kind of feel. We'll start off by talking a little bit about what we were trying to do. And so what our team tried to do was try to explore methods for assessing the collections related to DEI and discoverability by the users within our own library within the main library because we have two other sections. The two part project surveyed user needs, collections, usage, cataloging and discoverability, user behavior and researching for and evaluating DEI resources. And although it was a lengthy process, we were not able to really grasp a good way to assess our collections. And so for large, because we have a large scale collection, we have over 40,000 students here at Texas Tech and so our collection reflects that. So the key findings indicate a potential for partnering with various colleges and departments. And we also had a need for, showed a need for increased intention on cataloging and metadata particularly the table of contents and abstract summary fields which sometimes are not included in the records whenever you're downloading those records for cataloging. So our objectives, I guess, were to explore methods for measuring library collections to support curricular goals and DEI related courses, better understand our users behavior when searching and evaluating libraries resources related to DEI, identify successes, challenges and areas for improvement related to libraries, DEI related collections and their usability. And our hypothesis was the library's collector provides necessary resources for teaching and study of DEI across disciplines and so this is some of the things that we've tried to accomplish and find out if we really do need those, meet those needs. Users can effectively find and evaluate DEI research resources from the teach you library website. And so Sarah's going to continue with our phases. So I'm going to go over our findings and some of our recommendations and conclusions. So in phase one, we really tried to take a very holistic approach kind of attack it from various aspects, trying to figure out our collection and how it supports the study of diversity equity and inclusion. We encountered a lot of problems and in, you know, our literature review we saw a lot of other librarians encountered some of these same issues and problems. But the kind of two key findings I wanted to bring up is one thing we did is looked at ILL requests and ebook usage and really tried to see if there were any trends in there that were linking to specific disciplines. So the two disciplines we kind of saw some trends for were women's agenda studies and Mexican American and Latino studies. So kind of looking at their usage and requests and then kind of looking at kind of their population within the university as a whole and we kind of identified them as areas that may want to collaborate with libraries that would be a good source for that. Now, a lot of the literature and a lot of the problems we faced was because of the discoverability of these resources, you know, DI titles are, you know, kind of hard to track because they can come from, you know, various disciplines they can be looking at a whole wide range of ideas and topics. And so one thing we did do is look at award lists for DI related awards, tracked which ones we had, but then also looked at our catalog records to see if they were robust enough. So two things we looked at was the 505 at the table contents field and the 520 which is the abstract summary field. And we were, you know, not happy with the percentage of the records that especially had both the 505 and the 520 fields, and that was for both print and electronic resources. So that really shows an impediment to discovery from our users. And we used those findings as we went into phase two. Originally, we were going to do more of an instruction focus, but we put it to do kind of an online Zoom user experience study. And so we had 32 participants, and we asked them from the library page to conduct searches from their field of study, looking at topics on diversity equity and inclusion. So some of the findings we had was, we actually had a lot of grad students in this study, which I think does may impact that they were doing multiple searches for these items. However, a lot of them still kind of were a bit confused about what was a DEI topic in their area.  I also asked them for recommendations for ways that we could make things easier for them to search and evaluate. So a lot of them talked about search enhancement, you know, like filters, and other tags within the search that would be helpful. But a lot of them also asked for help from librarians, things like specific areas on the library website, or research guides or even just help with them try to identify what is DEI in their field of study, or even just like promotion of resources that they may not be aware of. So we did ask them at the end to gather kind of three resources that they thought would be good for them, and then ask them, how did they evaluate the suitability of those resources. So 17 out of the 32 we're looking for that description abstract or abstract. So that kind of goes back to that earlier finding where we weren't seeing often that description abstract so that really does go back to that discoverability potential issue. So overall the recommendations for both phases is, you know, looking to in the future, setting up some mutually beneficial partnerships with faculty, you know, having them help us look at some better ways of developing criteria or identifying gaps in the DEI research, and then building, you know, curated research guides, looking at better strategies for helping faculty and students search and identify DEI resources, you know, improving that suit engagement and having more targeted instruction. We would love to rerun the UX testing kind of after we've implemented some of these recommendations like the research guides, you know, and maybe targeting different things to discover and intrigle that we would be able to do that the participants suggested. But also there's some kind of higher level ideas about research advocacy to improve discoverability specifically for DEI related materials that would definitely have to go beyond just Texas tech. And I think the two common threads really identified are these kind of big overarching questions. You know, how does the complexity of DEI research stymie researchers, because it manifests differently according to the field of study. And then the second, how does current collect cataloging practices impact effective access and discoverability of DEI library resources. And then to wrap up, I'm going to have Esther go over some of the challenges and lessons learned that I think really come back to those concluding questions as well. Yeah, so we had a lot of challenges. One, the for the first phase was we had low survey participation no matter what iteration of the survey, which I think we tried to three iterations of the survey targeting specific emails specific areas and we still had low participation with our faculty who were DEI, who represent underrepresented areas and or we're teaching anything related to DEI. And then the other iteration, or one of the iterations was targeting the department chair so that way we could get the DEI faculty to participate, participate, and that was very low. And so I don't know. It was because it was during the beginning of the fall. If they were not understanding what we needed or lack of, I don't know. I don't know what it could have been but it was, it was kind of I wouldn't say in my own words depressing because you know we want we want our faculty we want to do do good for our faculty want to give them resources that they need for the for for teaching. Another challenge was identification searchability of the resources materials. Even, even to this day, it's hard to find the I just because you don't know what you're looking for if you're looking for, you know, do those words need to specifically be in those cataloging records. Or what, how do we go about doing that lack of DEI subject headings, many records without added descriptive fields. We, we are in Alma right now. And I know when I was in, in that area at the time, a lot of the records are up, whatever records they get, whenever we get new ebooks or whenever we get new items in. You just grab whatever is in, you know, Alma the, the, the community where you just grab the records and a lot of those records do not have, you know, descriptions or descriptive subject headings or, or any of those things. And we are not in the, that I know of, since I changed over to Rio. And I know that, you know, they're including those, or asking those are, are people to do do it manually, because I know that's a lot of work. IRB process the navigation of IRB process and campus policies procedures training involved. We just had a lot we just hit a lot of challenges along the way. And then of course our funding was not included at the start of research. We thought that we needed funding until after COVID and we had to switch gears and then you know to get funding after the fact was, you know, a little bit taxing because just just having to reach out to our, our IRB people and getting you know in the middle of the process is like, you know, it's a big long process that you have to do. And then changes in direction of research of course we had to stop where we were at because we're not getting anywhere and then jump on to the face to, and then even change that direction to from instruction to doing, working with Kimberly Varderman and with UX, a user usability. So that way we can get our survey done. And that pretty much wraps up what we did. Sarah, did you have any last minute remarks. No, just happy to take any questions about what we found and kind of some of our, our conclusions and recommendations. So I'm happy to read out any questions in the chat if, if you would like to put a question in the chat. I did have a couple of questions for you guys if, if you don't mind. I'd like to remember, I think the survey was before the pandemic. At least the first time that you were trying to implement it, is that correct. Yeah, that that is correct we tried it pre pandemic. Kind of. Yeah, it must have been ball. As I remember, yeah, I think I was talking about it. We did get some responses that even in a lot of the responses. There was some confusion about, you know, what was the I in their area even because we were even asking kind of those fascinating kind of maybe identify some topics or would you like to talk to us about kind of the resources you use in the field. And I mean, even we got low participants so we couldn't really say anything generalizable about because we had digital participation, but the responses we got back we did get a lot of, I don't I don't know, or I'm not the person to ask that. You know, that may have changed intervening years as di has gained a bit of traction. Right. So it might be worth trying again, but it was a very frustrating process. How, how, how fascinating though, I think that that kind of speaks to some of your like lessons learned so when you were describing that that user that user study where students are having trouble kind of expressing what or or identifying what even is a di topic and and maybe leveraging a library instruction to help with that as well as the catalog. I mean that the, it seems like that's might also be the case with with with faculty at least at the moment but that's kind of an interesting thing to witness. Yeah, I had not been expecting that that amount of kind of hesitancy about being able to identify something that is di related. Yeah, I would have thought like after after COVID, something like that would have been, you know, hesitant. I'm interested to find out whether or not they would be more willing to participate now. Everything that's going on. Yes, like I want my voice to be heard or and or be the same, like I'm scared I don't want to, I don't want to put my foot in the, you know, in there and then just get dragged along because I asked this question or I wanted this input. So I would, I wouldn't know. Yeah, it was interesting. Great. That's a great observation I interested in that as well. I have actually I have a question for you asked or so I know you've, you've transitioned from two different parts in the library. So I think when you started you're in, it looks like that that systems area and then you're transition you've transitioned into that reference and instruction. Has that changed your perspective on this particular, this particular project. You know, I've always worked. I've always worked with diversity and always pushed for for things like this. I just didn't realize how bad it was with regards to actually teaching people that there is a library that we do have books. Like I knew, but I didn't really know until I came over to this side and, and met with people and faculty that don't use the library and you're like what. And so I don't know if that also you know that they know that there's a library, but, you know, once a lot of the times faculty or some faculty now faculty. Once you can't help them with something they're like, I don't want to work with library at all. I'm going to do my own thing. And, or they just they're so busy they're so you know high level thinkers that they just don't even realize that that we exist and that we have these resources and they don't we've you know they don't know to come and check us out. So, yeah, I mean, there's it's been the same thread of thought for myself like I always I always believe that the library can do a lot better. We do good, but we could do better. That's, that's fascinating I love that kind of insight. It looks like we do have a question in the chat. So, where would you recommend your institution begin addressing some of the issues that you outlined, and are some of these being addressed in the larger institution. And I know in your draft report you've, you've a little bit about that so I wanted to, to throw that out to you. So our institution. More recently, and especially after. No, it was during COVID because during COVID there was a lot of things happening as well. There's been a more push for diversity di efforts. We do have the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. And there, they began just separated so that way there's people who focus on the students and there's people who focus on the faculty and staff. And then created these lead fellows which I, which I am, I represent the library in that. And what they were, I think what they're trying to do is, is have that feed, you know, this is the diversity and then we're going to feed through and bleed through so that hopefully it will represent everybody and everybody's represented. It's slow going. If you know those are my thoughts. Nobody else is my thoughts to me it's kind of slow going. However, I think for myself, I would recommend that our institution, you know, if, if you are a supporter of the library be a supporter of the library. Give us that funding help us with funding help us find funding. So that way we can meet your needs. You know, don't just say oh we're diversity where you know you're doing diversity work. No, like give us have that backbone give us that backbone give us that money, so that way we can provide the resources and materials and the spaces that you know are underrepresented representative minorities need. And that, you know, all of that would be bleed through everybody would you know, I don't say we would be all happy, but you know it's, it would be a start, you know have that backbone give us that funding help us with whatever that we need to that way we can help you. Here here. I agree. I mean I could go on, but Sarah did you want to say something. I can say is kind of from my perspective working in the architecture library. And with with the lead fellow so you know architecture has its own kind of diversity committee and I have, I've been invited to speak with that group, which was great. And that was kind of my own initiative I created a research guide on social justice in the built environment that was trying to kind of from some of the things I saw from the study about faculty and students not really understanding what topics were available so I kind of started with some broader questions and pulling together resources. And I think that that has been a good outreach and engagement with both faculty and students and for courses. And I've used that in instruction as well. I think that that has has really helped me as library to help us help college as well. One of the things that I really love about your project is using you've got that that catalog kind of technical services piece and then you have that reference and instruction piece together. You pull these two facets together to kind of help with that. De I work that discover ability. And one of the things that I really enjoyed is is your recommendation to go back to the catalog and and implement some kind of tagging or some sort of work in the catalog to help with that de I work. I, I love that it's not. It is not just instruction, but it is also that kind of technical services piece coming together. Yeah, I think we had a lot of former catalogers including me on this group. It's great. Yeah, but I think that's been a fight for a little while now that you know, to change the language first. And then, you know, that's one that's just even one aspect of it just to change some of the terminology that is used when you're cataloging. And then to include more, you know, robust descriptions.  But again, these are things that we have to work on and work on with different people within the library and then to get admin and then not just admin, you know, it all starts to you know with. It's just to just, you know, it's a lot of work, and then to include, you know, this is LC cataloging and so it's just a lot of work to be done with record and it's never it's never done the work is never finished. So yeah, I love that. That's such a great summative thought that it truly does never end. So, I think we are approaching the end of our time. So, I just want to say thank you again. Your entire team has worked so hard on this and I've seen your, your, your work where you have gone back to the, to the drawing board and yet you persist. Thank you so much. I was so honored to kind of be witness to that journey. And I really appreciate your work. I'm so glad that we're able to to celebrate the work that you've done as well. So thank you to you and thank you for the opportunity to do this kind of research. All right. So, thank you so much. I hope that this kind of inspires all of us to to also engage in this work. I've got one kind of concluding thought. A lot of these projects were started prior to the murder of George Floyd and this crescendo of black lives matter movements in the summer of 2020. I know we're asking different kinds of questions now than we were a couple of years ago. I love that our teams are brave enough to continue to persist in these questions. And it's definitely inspired me to persist as well. So, thank you again. I'll hand it back to you soon. Thank you.


A very good evening as friends, welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankar Ayes Academy for the date 6th of December 2022. Displayed here are the list of news articles that we have chosen for today's discussion and you can see that today we have 8 articles and all the articles are from different topics. So it is really going to be interesting and helpful for your preliminary and mains preparation. Now without wasting much time, let's get into the first news article discussion. Now have a look at this news article, the news is that yesterday the Supreme Court questioned the central government regarding demonetization. The court asked that whether the government rejected the objections from the Reserve Bank of India regarding demonetization policy. So this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context, let's learn about RBA and its main functions. First, let's start with RBA Reserve Bank of India is the central bank of India and it was established on 1st of April 1935. See it is in accordance with the RBA Act 1934. Yes, you are hearing it right only. This RBA was formed before India's independence itself. So RBA is a statutory body since it is formed according to the RBA Act 1934. And know that RBA is functioning under the Ministry of Finance. For that, during the initial days the RBA share were mostly held by the non-government shareholders. So in order to prevent the centralization of the shares in few hands, the RBA was nationalized. It was done on January 1, 1949. So this is a brief about RBI. Now let's talk about its composition. See the affairs of the RBI are managed by the Central Board of Directors and it is the apex body in the Reserve Bank's organizational structure. See the central board is appointed by the government under the provisions of the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934. The central board consists of governor, then four deputy governors of the Reserve Bank, then four directors who are nominated by the central government from the four local boards of RBA, then rest in directors who are nominated by central government. And finally, two government officials will be there who are also nominated by the central government. See know that the governor is the chief executive of the Reserve Bank of India. This is about the composition of the RBA. Now we will see about the important functions of the RBA one by one. Firstly, the RBA acts as a regulatory body and it regulates the Indian banking system. Secondly, the RBA acts as the banker to the government of India and states. See it performs all the banking functions of the state and central government. The RBA also provides useful advice to the government on matters related to economic and monetary policy. Know that the RBA only manages the public debt of the government. And thirdly, RBA has a monopoly for printing the currency notes in the country. See RBA has a sole right to issue currency notes of various denominations. Then fourthly, the Reserve Bank lends money to all the commercial banks of the country. For this reason only we call RBA as bank hose to bank. And finally, the Reserve Bank buys and sells foreign currencies then it also protects the countries foreign exchange funds. See RBA sells the foreign currency in the foreign exchange market. When its supply decreases in the economy. Then the RBA buys the foreign currency in the foreign exchange market when its supply increases in the economy. So this is how the foreign exchange is maintained. So these are all some of the important functions of the RBA that you have to know. So in a brief note we are known what is RBA and what are all its major functions. This will be really helpful for attending any type of preliminary questions. So these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Now have a look at this news article. This news article is about a petition filed in the Supreme Court and in the petition the petitioners seek to unearth the correct history and the age of Taj Mahal. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition seeing that let the history of Taj Mahal continue as it is. So this is about the news article and in this context let us see some important facts about Taj Mahal. See as we all know Taj Mahal was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to honour his wife Mumtaz Mahal. It is one of the seven wonders of the world and it houses the tomb of both Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan and it is located in Agra on the banks of Yamuna. See the Muslim architecture takes inspiration from Indian, Persian and Arabic architecture. It was built out of white Makrana marble that was sourced from the Indian state of Rajasthan. See the Taj Mahal is located on top of an elevated square plain that features four minarets standing at each of the four corners of the structure. The interior of the architecture was decorated with marble jelly works. Not only that it also included calligraphy and Piatra Dura. Here Piatra Dura is a decorative art. In this coloured materials are inserted into depressions that are formed in the base object and jelly or pierced screens involves creating perforated slabs of stones that is slabs with holes in it. That is it. So this was done during those times to ensure privacy and allow for airflow. Then another important feature of the Taj Mahal is its garden or the char bug. See the uniqueness of Taj Mahal is that the majority of Mughal char bar are rectangular with a central toe that is the important piece of attraction is placed in the centre and there are gardens on all the four sides. Bad in the case of Taj Mahal it is situated at the far end. This gives the Taj Mahal its magnificent look. See these are important features of the Taj Mahal. Now let us see the importance of Taj Mahal. Know that the Taj Mahal was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. Then it is also a part of the seven wonders of the world. All these official recognition and its marvelousness has made Taj Mahal an important tourist attraction. See a lot of local and international tourists visit Taj Mahal every year. So the Taj Mahal generates a lot of revenue for the government every year. Then in addition to this by attracting foreign tourists the Taj Mahal helps the country earn a lot of foreign exchange. It also helps in driving the local economy of Agra. So this is all about the importance of Taj Mahal and these are all some of the important facts that you have to know in exam perspective. So with these key points in mind now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now take a look at this text and context article it talks about Ambedkar's educational details. The article traces the history of Ambedkar's education from the city of New York to London. See the article reports that it was with the help of a scholarship granted by the Maharaja of Baroda Ambedkar joined Columbia University, New York in a year 1930. After completing his MA there he was admitted to Grace Inn which was located in London to appear for the bar. Subsequent events following Ambedkar's journey from New York to London is what the article is about. In this context let us learn about Ambedkar in detail. See Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891 in the town and military containment of Moe which is now located in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Being born in a low caste he was subjected to innumerous discriminations during his school days itself. After the initial year of struggle Ambedkar's family moved to Mumbai in Maharashtra. There he was put into the famous Elphinstone High School and after graduating high school he got admitted into Elphinstone College which was affiliated to the University of Bombay. Later according to his writings it was found out that Ambedkar was the first among his cast to get admission into the Elphinstone College and by 1912 no he completed his degree in economics and political science from Bombay University. The turning point of his life came in the year 1913. See in that year he was presented with a scholarship to study in the world famous Columbia University which was located in the New York. Note that Ambedkar was presented with this opportunity by the princely state of Baroda. The article given in today's newspaper tries to trace the events after Ambedkar set foot in New York. After graduating from Columbia University he went on to study at London School of Economics where he simultaneously started working on a doctoral thesis. At the time of doing all this he enrolled in Gray's Inn to obtain a law degree. See how much Ambedkar studied simultaneously in economics degree with a doctoral thesis attached with it and a separate law degree. Then in the year 1917 no he finally returned to India and this was after his scholarship from the Baroda State got entered. So this is all about Ambedkar's educational history. See today's news article only talks about the brief period of Ambedkar that is from 1913 to 1917 but I discussed about the previous 20 years of Ambedkar to give you all a better understanding about him. See now let's shift our attention to the next part of Ambedkar's life. This part of his life was primarily dedicated towards the upliftment of scheduled classes in India. After returning to India in the year 1917 he worked in different jobs to take care of his family. Being a recipient of caste based discrimination all through his life his attention shifted towards welfare of the scheduled classes. See by 1927 Ambedkar had desired to launch active movements against untouchability. He began with public movements and marches to open up public drinking water resources. Then he also began a struggle for the right of scheduled classes to enter Hindu temples. See the famous Mahat Sathya Graha took place in the year 1927 and in the year 1930 Kalaram temple movement took place. Mahat Sathya Graha and Kalaram movement are the two major mass movements led by Ambedkar in his initial years okay. Then after leading these two mass movements Ambedkar tried to obtain representation for the scheduled classes in the legislative assemblies. He stressed the need for separate electorates for them in the second round table conference at London. This led to the famous Pune pact between him and Gandhi ji. In this pact with Gandhi Ambedkar even though not wholeheartedly but accepted joint electorates with reserved seats for scheduled classes in place of separate electorate. Now coming to the political career of Ambedkar. See Ambedkar had found two political parties. In 1936 Ambedkar founded the independent labour party which contested in the 1937 Bombay election to the Central Legislative Assembly. This is the first political party founded by Ambedkar. Then after 20 long years in the year 1956 Ambedkar had announced the establishment of the Republican Party of India. This party contested in the 1957 Lok Sabha elections and won six seats. This is the second political party founded by Ambedkar okay. Now coming to the role of Ambedkar in the constitution making. See as you all know Ambedkar was selected as the chairman of drafting committee. See drafting committee was the most important of all the other committees created during the constitution making of India. And the drafting committee and its members were very influential in Indian constitution making during the committee stages. And also in the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly. The majority of the debates in the Constituent Assembly revolved around the draft constitutions prepared by the drafting committee. See out of 166 sittings of the Constituent Assembly nearly 114 were spent debating the drafting constitutions. This shows the importance of drafting committee in the constitution making of India. Then after all this in the month of October 1956 just before his death Ambedkar converted to Buddhism with the majority of his followers. Finally Ambedkar died on 6th of December 1956. With this we have come to the end of the news article discussion. See through this discussion we learned some important points regarding Ambedkar. And these all know you can directly utilize it in your main senses. Whenever you are asked with roles of Ambedkar you can place these points to enhance your answers. So these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Now have a look at this editorial news article. See this news article says that a number of public interest litigations have been filed in the supreme court. And it is all regarding forced religious conversion. According to the editorial these PLs are clogging up or slowing down the functioning of the supreme court. The editorial later goes on to talk about anti-conversion law of Gujarat and the issues in it. This is about the editorial but in our discussion today let us first cover the basics that is the constitutional provisions regarding freedom of religion. After that let us see the points mentioned in the news article. Okay now I have highlighted the syllabus regarding this discussion you can just go through it. As you all know in India the freedom of religion is one of the fundamental rights. It is explicitly mentioned in the article 25, 26, 27 and 28 of the Indian constitution. First let us take article 25. Article 25 guarantees freedom of consigns, profession, practice and propagation of religion. To put it in simple words this article guarantees people's right to believe in a religion, right to express the religious belief, then right to take part in a religious ritual and ceremonies and finally to propagate the religion of their choice. See an important thing that you have to remember about this article is the right provided by this article is available to both citizens and non-citizens. And the freedom guaranteed by this article does not come without any restrictions. See the first major restriction on rights guaranteed under article 25 is while people practice their freedom of religion they must not violate public order, morality, health and other provisions relating to fundamental rights. This restriction is placed because without this restriction people will practice social evils like sati and untouchability under the eyes of freedom of religion. That is why there are some restrictions. Okay then the second restriction is that the state can make laws to regulate any economic, financial, political or other secular activity associated with religious practice. Okay so this is about article 25. Now moving on to see article 26 it guarantees the freedom to manage religious affairs. See according to this article every religion denominations has the following rights. First one is that every religion has the right to establish religious institutions. These religious institutions can manage their religion and also the charitable activity of the religion. The second one is these religious institutions can manage their own affairs in regards to any religious matter. See the third one is straightforward. Every religious denomination has the right to acquire both mobile and immobile property. And finally the religious denomination can administer their property according to law. Okay so these are the rights guaranteed to the religious denominations according to article 26. Now moving on to restrictions. See rights guaranteed under article 26 have restrictions based only on public safety, morality and health. Here if you notice article 25 has one additional restriction regarding other provisions relating to fundamental rights. This is the difference between article 25 and 26. Then another difference is that when article 25 deals with the right of an individual, article 26 deals with the rights of a religious denomination. Okay and I have used the word religious denomination a number of times while discussing. So what does this word religious denomination mean? This word is not defined in the constitution. It was defined by the Supreme Court in the SP Mithal versus Union of India case. So according to this judgment a religious denomination is a group of people who have a shared faith and who are identified by a distinct need. Okay so in the future if we aspirants form a group and start worshipping a mythical being like a centenar and call ourselves centenarians then we would be granted the status of religious denomination. Then our religion can also enjoy the rights guaranteed under article 26. So this is about article 26. Now moving on to see article 27. This article is also very straightforward. According to this article no one can be compelled to pay any taxes for the promotion or preservation of any religious denomination. This provision is inserted to prevent the government from favoring one religion over another. Also if you notice carefully the wording of this article 27 it mentions that no person shall be compelled to pay any taxes. So charges can be imposed. Okay for example the government imposes some entry fee on religious sites. This is not violative of article 27. As the charges like entry fee are used mainly for the secular management of the religious site and not for the promotion of the particular religion. Okay this is all about article 27. Now let us take article 28. See the article says that no person can be compelled to receive religious instructions or perform religious worship in certain educational institutions. See this article no classifies the educational institutions into four types. They are institutions wholly maintained by the state, institution administered by the state but established under any endowment or trust. Then institutions recognized by the state and institutions receiving aid from the state. Here in the educational institutions wholly maintained by the state no religious instruction can be given. Okay then if you take the educational institution recognized by the state and those receiving aid from state religious instruction can be given but the students can either choose to attend the instruction or they can choose not to do. Okay then finally take the case of the educational institutions administered by the state but established under any endowment or trust. See in such kind of educational institution no religious instructions are allowed to be disseminated. These are the rights to freedom of religion that are mentioned in our constitution. Now having seen this let us take up the editorial article. According to the editorial the issue is around the Gujarat freedom of religious act specifically section five of the act. Section five of this act says that for anyone to change their religion either directly or indirectly they must get the prior permission of the district magistrate. Here directly means if someone takes up a new religion on their own and indirectly means if someone changes their religion due to interfaith marriage. See the Gujarat High Court put a stay on section five due to its controversial nature. So public interest litigations have been filed in the Supreme Court to bring back section five of the Gujarat freedom of religion act to curb dissentful religious conversion. See we already saw that Gujarat High Court has put a stay in section five. It has taken this decision based on the following reasons. First one is prior permission requirement would force someone to disclose one's religious belief or any change of faith. This is against the right to privacy guaranteed under article 21 of the constitution. Then the second one is as we saw earlier article 25 ensures freedom to practice prefers the religion of one's choice seeking permission from district magistrate before making a conscious choice of conversion of religion is against the rights guaranteed under this article 25. So these are the two reasons provided by the High Court before placing a stay on section five of the Gujarat freedom of religious act. So these are some of the points mentioned in the news article. So that's all regarding this news article. See through this editorial we covered the static portion which is regarding the freedom of religion articles under which it is guaranteed. Then we came to the news article and we saw what is this Gujarat freedom of religious act and why it is under stay by the High Court. Okay. So these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Now have a look at this editorial article. In this article the author speaks about the issues in the climate negotiation process that is in the COP 27 or the conference of parties 27 of the UNFCCC. Then he highlights the need for a scientific approach towards climate change mitigation and finally he speaks about the climate injustices brought by the negotiation process. So in this context let's learn about the points given in the news article in detail. Before that the syllabus relevant to this news article is highlighted here for a reference kindly go through it. Now first let's understand about conference of parties 27. As we all know the conference of the parties that is COP is the global decision making body of the UN that is United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. See 198 countries who are parties to the UNFCCC meet every year to review the progress towards mitigation of climate change. In November this year no Egypt hosted the 27th session of COP. On 20th November the COP 27 was concluded with the historic decision to establish and operationalize a laws and damage fund. See regarding this laws and damage fund also we saw in our discussion itself right. Know that the laws and damage fund aims to provide the financial assistance to most vulnerable nations who are impacted by the effects of climate change. So this is a brief about the COP 27. With these basics now first let's understand the problems with the current negotiating process in the COP 27. See the author says that there are three problems with the current negotiating process. Now we will see them one by one. Firstly the author says that the citizen in developed countries are not aware about certain factors. See in developed countries two-thirds of their national emissions of carbon dioxide come from their diet, transport and residential and commercial sectors. These consumption sectors together constitute the major share of their GDP and it reflects the urban lifestyles of citizens in developed countries. See this is the first problem that the current negotiating process does not take into account. Then secondly the author says that the negotiating process ignores global well-being. See the global well-being also depends upon the urbanization of the developing countries population. This process requires fossil fuels for infrastructure and energy but the negotiating process did not address this point also. And thirdly the author says that the developing countries are in need of vast quantities of cement and steel for their infrastructure development. See during this process of infrastructure development the emissions are seen as an essential one. But the problem here is the current negotiating process is not considering this also. Overall the author says that the developing countries are in the phase of late urbanization and they account for more than half of the annual emissions. But in such a phase of urbanization the developing countries cannot afford many of the new technologies that help in quick decarbonization. So this will result in shrinking of policy space and human rights of the developing countries. And this endanges the effort of them to achieve comparable levels of well-being with those of the developed countries. So here the author says that the just concerns of the developing countries are not taken into account in the climate negotiations. And the reason for that is there is no proper agenda for the meetings. See these are the problems with the current negotiating process as said by the author. Now moving on now let's see about the need for a scientific approach towards the climate change mitigation process. See the main objective of the global climate treaty is to avoid a concentration of cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide. The climate treaty also prevents dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system and it enables sustainable economic development. But the problem here is that there is no scientific approach towards emission reduction. See as we all know in the 2015 Paris Agreement the world countries agreed to a 1.5 degrees centigrade global temperature goal. And in the year 2018 also the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommended that net emissions needed to zero out around 2050. See these agreements and recommendations are based on scientific analysis by the experts. But in 2021 at COP26 in Glasgow the negotiators advocated for zero coal use and this is to reduce future emissions. See the author says that this initiator was not based on science and it ignored the key findings of the IPCC. See the IPCC found that the centrality of emission reduction is based on the carbon budget that is cumulative emissions are scientifically linked with the temperature goal of the particular nation. But the negotiations made in the COP are abruptly focusing on zero coal use. See this creates problems for the developing nations which rely on coal for their energy production. So overall the author advocates for a scientific approach towards the climate change mitigation process. Okay now moving on let's see what are all the climate injustices made to the developing nations by the climate negotiating process. See the author says that climate injustice flows from the negotiation process and it does not flow from the text of the climate treaty which was made through common consensus. See the author also listed out four major injustices. Now we will see them one by one. Firstly the author says that the negotiation process rejected the historical responsibility of the emissions by the developed nations and he said that they are shifting the burden to developing countries like China and India. So this is the first injustice. Secondly the author says that the climate negotiation agenda was set around globalized material flows and that causes global warming right. See it focuses on the material flows in the developing countries like coal and other fossil fuels. But it does not focus on the wasteful use of energy by the developed nations. So this is the second injustice. Then thirdly the author says that at the COP 21 in Paris the developed countries agreed to 100 billion dollar for the developing countries. See it acts as an incentive for developing countries to reduce their emissions. But the goal of 100 billion dollar has not materialized and it constitutes a breach of trust. This is the third injustice. And finally the author says that the longer term trend of emissions has been ignored. See it is estimated that in 2035 with one sixth of the global population the developed countries share in emission will still be 30 percentage. But Asia's emission with half the world's population will only rise to 40 percentage. This rise in Asia will remain over the limits. But the pressures on developing countries to further reduce emission will displace their human rights. See these are all the four main climate injustices brought through negotiation process. So the author advocates for climate justice by keeping in mind the aspirations of the developing countries. And finally the author appreciated India's initiative of life or you can say lifestyle for environment. See life is an India led global mass movement. This movement nudges the individual and community action to preserve the environment. The author says that this initiative will help in reducing the wasteful consumption of natural resources. To conclude the climate negotiations should focus on diverse solutions rather than shifting the emission burden towards the developing nations. So that's all regarding this news article. So through this news article discussion we analyzed what are all the injustices or what are all the burden that is put on the developing nations. See these points all you can use in your mains to highlight when you are asked a question like analyze the COP 27. Okay so with these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Now have a look at this news article. The news article reports about a petition filed in Madras High Court. The petitioners have requested to upload the motor accident related documents on the Crime and Criminal Tracking Networks and Systems Portal that is CCTNS Portal. Okay so how is this portal related here to know that let us have a brief discussion about CCTNS. See it was started in the year 2009 and it aims at creating a comprehensive and integrated system for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing. For this it adopts two tools. One is the principle of e-governance. Second is a creation of nationwide networking infrastructure for evolution of IT-enabled state of the art tracking system around investigation of crime and detection of criminals. See based on this its objective are manifold. Mainly to make the police functioning citizen friendly and also more transparent. This is by automating the functioning of police stations. See it aims to improve delivery of citizen centric services through effective usage of ICT. Then it also aims to provide the investigating officers of the civil police with tools technology and information. This is to facilitate investigation of crime and detection of criminals. Okay then by doing this it aims to improve police functioning in various other areas such as law and order traffic management etc. See facilitating interaction and sharing of information among police stations, districts, state or unilateritary headquarters and other police agencies is one of the major objectives. And it also aims to assist senior police officers in better management of police force. See not only this it will facilitate keeping track of the progress of cases and above all the aim is reducing manual and redundant records keeping etc. So by fulfilling these objectives know the CCTNS system facilitates a pan India search of crime and criminal records of individuals. How? This is through a national database. Okay and the system envisages nationwide networking. So it covers 35 states or union territories and links 14,000 police stations and 6,000 higher officers across the country. Such a networking enables seamless sharing of information between police stations, state officers and security agencies. Okay have a look at this image it represents the networking. So in short this system modernizes the police force in the country. Are the police force only beneficiaries? No the citizens also get benefited. How? Because CCTNS provides citizen interface also. This enables them to register complaints and to avoid citizen services. Here note that the main project implementation agency is National Crime Records Bureau that is NCRB which works under the overall guidance of ministry of home affairs. Okay also the CCTNS is a mission mode project under national e-governance plan. See a mission mode project is an individual project within the national e-governance plan and it focuses on one aspect of electronic governance. Okay such projects have clearly defined objectives, scopes and implementation timelines and milestones. Then it also has measurable outcomes and service levels. Okay so overall the CCTNS fulfills the basic principles of national e-governance plan which is a centralized planning and decentralized implementation. Okay so that's all about this news article. See in this news article we saw about an important topic which is CCTNS that is crime and criminal tracking network and systems. So with these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion. Have a look at this news article. This news article provides us an interesting fact about the presence of leopards in Bengaluru. See already 40 leopards are found in Banargata National Park in Bengaluru but now it is estimated that around 30 to 35 leopards are also present just in the vicinity of Bengaluru city. Why this is interesting because even though previously outskirts of Bengaluru used to be a leopard habitat but the expansion of the city affected these habitats. So the recent estimation shows that leopards are still surviving in these areas. Now before moving to next news article let us revise few facts about leopards. Okay say it is actually scientifically known as panthera padus. It is the most widely distributed and adaptable member of the family Philly Bay. Historically the species range spanned across various areas and it covered wide area. You can see that in this map. See it included all of the sub Saharan and North Africa, the Middle East and Asia Minor, then South and Southeast Asia and it even extended to the Amur valley in the Russian Far East. Then it also include the island ranges of Sri Lanka, Java, Zanzibar and Kanjian. So what kind of habitat it prefers? From the range of countries itself we can say that it prefers almost every kind of habitat. From the rainforest of the tropics to deserts and temperate regions. But how is it possible for leopards to exist in all these habitats because leopards are quite adaptable with respect to habitat and food requirements. This is one of the reasons why they are founded intensively cultivated and inhabited areas as well as found near urban developments. Note that the Indians of species of panthera padus is the panthera padus fusca. Among all the subspecies Indian leopard ratings in largest population size and range outside Africa. Then it is found in all the forested habitats in India. But it is absent only in the arid deserts and above the timber line in the Himalayas. In the Himalayas the Indian subspecies occurs within the same geographical range that of snow leopards but up to 5200 meters only. See the report called status of leopards in India 2018 provides the exact numerical data. According to this report of Ministry of Environment India now has 12,852 leopards. This is an increase from the year 2014 when the leopard population in India was just 7,910. So more than 60 percent increase in population has been recorded. You can see that right. Also look at this table. Among the states Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra recorded the highest leopard estimates. But even though the population of leopards is widely distributed, still the species face many threats. It includes habitat loss, prey depletion, conflict and poaching. For saving the species on the leopard has been recorded highest protection in India. It is protected under the Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. Then it is also listed vulnerable in the IUCN red list and included in the appendix 1 of the size. So that is all regarding this news article. See through this news article discussion we saw about the species leopard clearly and this will be much helpful for a preliminary examination. And with these key points in mind now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now have a look at this news article. The article reports about the findings of recent PMI survey. We will understand what PMI is first. Then we will see the data. See the PMI stands for Purchasing Managers Index. It is a survey based economic indicator and it is designed to provide a timely insight into the business conditions and the health of the global economy. Where this PMI is used? It is widely used to anticipate changing economic trends in official data such as GDP. See it is also used as an alternative to know about economic performance and business conditions. Thus, PMI data are used to buy financial and corporate professionals to better understand where economies and markets are headed and it helps them to uncover opportunities. So the index is produced for more than 40 economies worldwide and it is compiled and produced globally by a company called IHS but then why news mentions as SNP Global India Manufacturing PMI. It is because IHS market has merged with another company called SNP Global. Therefore, this IHS market is now part of SNP Global and together they deliver data, technology and expertise that accelerates process. Now coming back to PMI, know that originally PMI was compiled for manufacturing sector only. Later it was extended to include other sectors such as services, construction and retail. We have seen about manufacturing PMI many times and also news is talking about services PMI only. So let me tell you what is the services PMI. See the services PMI was introduced in 1996 and it was introduced to accompany the existing manufacturing PMI. But why set a need for this? It is because the business analyst wanted a better understanding of the changing business conditions in the wider economy and we know that globally service sector accounts for a larger proportion of GDP than manufacturing for most of the developed economies okay. So they realized the need for services PMI. See the services PMI measures the changes in total services business activity. Basically the sectors covered include consumer, excluding, retail transport, information, communication, finance, insurance, real estate and business services okay. Now in this list you can find the sub-indices under services PMI. See now let us see what the news says. The service sector recorded the fastest output growth in three months. This shows that the services sector continued to rebound in number also and this expansion happened due to demand strength, successful marketing and a sustained upturn in sales. Because of this the services PMI increased to 56.4 from 55.1 in October. See as per the findings note the sub-index of input cost increased at the second fastest rate since July. Input cost refers to the average price of all the inputs this month compared with the situation one month ago. Here purchases of goods and services, staff cost, rents etc are all included. The worrying factors the rise in the input cost burden is partly transferred to the consumers. So the prices charged for the provision of services in India continue to increase in number also. What this denotes is inflation. Second notable finding is new business from overseas so an increase in number since the onset of COVID-19. More importantly the finding shows that employment rules that is job creation increased then employment has risen at a solid pace and it was also the quickest to rise in over three years. This rises attributed to rising demand and sharp improvements in business confidence. Okay so that's all regarding this news article. See in this news article we covered about an important topic for your problems because this PMI topic can directly be put into a preliminary type of question and today we covered regarding the services PMI. See regarding manufacturing PMI we had covered many times just go and search for it and watch it. So that's all regarding this news article. With these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion. So with these key points in mind now let's move on to the next part of the news article discussion which is the preliminary practice question discussion. See today we have five questions in which four I'll be discussing and one will be a quiz question for you. Okay now look at the first question. See it is regarding the Banargatta National Park. Here three statements are given and you are asked to find the correct statement. Okay now look at the first statement. It is spread over two districts. See know that Banargatta National Park was declared in 1974 initially with an area of 106.83 kilometers square and it had then comprised two reserve forests spread over in the districts of Bengaluru, urban and Bengaluru rural. So subsequently in 2011 know Kodihalli range of Ramanagara territorial division was added to the national park then the total area of this national park is now 260.51 kilometers square. So it is comprising of 13 reserve forests spread over the districts of Bengaluru urban and Bengaluru rural and Ramanagara. So statement one is incorrect because it is spread across the three districts that I mentioned now. Okay see as I always say when you have multiple statements if you know that one statement is incorrect and the question is demanding for correct statements you can directly go for elimination technique. So what is the answer for this question? Yes it is option B two and three only but still let us verify whether the other two statements are correct or not. Now look at the statement two it shares border with Kaveri wildlife sanctuary this statement is correct because this Banargatta National Park is situated in southeastern corner of the state of Karnataka and borders with Kaveri wildlife sanctuary in the south then the sanctuary also borders with the Thali, Thali extension and Jawalgiri reserve forest of Tamil Nadu on its southeastern boundaries. Okay now look at statement three it is one of the natural habitats of Asian elephants see this statement is correct also note that the boundary of this national park no has highly irregular shape. So the forest of the national park are mostly of scrub type with mixed dry deciduous patches in the sheltered valleys. See there are some very good patches of Medri bamboo then animals found in the park include Panther, Elephant, Slothbird, Spotted Deer, Grey Langour, Bonnet Makuk, Wild Boar etc etc occasional sighting of a tiger is also reported here okay and as I said regarding the Asian elephants this Banargatta National Park has breeding population of elephants that is why I said statement three is correct okay so what is answer for this question option b 2 and 3 only is the answer okay now take the second question see it is regarding the cultural world heritage sites that is in India okay here two statements are given so you have to go through both the statements to arrive at the answer now take the statement one there are in total 40 cultural world heritage site in India see this statement there are 40 world heritage sites in India in that 32 are cultural world heritage sites and seven are natural world heritage sites and one is a mixed site which is the Kanchenjanga National Park okay so that is why statement one is wrong now moving on to the second statement Maharashtra is the state with most number of cultural world heritage site see this statement is correct Maharashtra has five cultural world heritage sites and it is the highest for any state in India see the cultural world heritage sites located in Maharashtra Ajanta caves Ellora caves Elephanta caves then Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus and Victorian Gothic and art and deco ensembles okay so these are the things that are found in Maharashtra now coming to the question it is demanding for correct statements so your answer here will be option b two only easy correct statement okay now moving on to the third question see it is regarding the Reserve Bank of India first statement it is the regulatory body for the capital market in India see this statement is incorrect because SEBI is a regulatory body for the capital market in India whereas RB is a regulatory body for the financial market in England see keenly note that here the question is demanding for incorrect statements so you cannot just go for elimination with statement one okay you know that statement one is incorrect now moving on to see whether statement two is correct or not the governor of the RBI is appointed by the president on recommendations of the union government see this statement is also incorrect see the governor of the RBI is appointed by the union government strictly okay so with this itself you would have found that the answer is option a one and two only but still let's see the third statement it manages the foreign exchange reserves in India yes regarding this also we saw in the discussion right so statement three is correct since the question is demanding for incorrect statements your answer here is option a one and two are incorrect now moving on to the last question it is regarding the CCT in this description see look at the first statement crime and criminal information system and common integrated police application are precursors to the CCT NS see this statement is correct yes these two are the precursors to the crime and criminal tracking network and systems note this information this we did not discuss in the discussion okay now look at statement two interoperable criminal justice system integrates the CCT NS with the e-codes and e-prisons databases see this statement is also correct because this interoperable criminal justice system no is an initiative to enable seamless transfer of data and information among different pillars of the criminal justice systems like codes polis jails and foreign six science laboratories from one platform and this icjs or the interoperable criminal justice system no is aiming to integrate the CCT NS project with the e-codes and e-prisons databases this is in the first instance and with the other pillars of the criminal justice system like forensic prosecution juvenile homes and a nationwide fingerprint database of criminals in a phased manner okay so that second statement is also correct now since the question is demanding for correct statements your answer here is option C both 1 and 2 are correct so that's all for today's preliminary practice question discussion and here is your quiz question see go through the question we have already discussed this in our discussion itself so if you have keenly observed the discussion it is very much easy for you to answer this question find the answer and post it in the comment section and the right answer will also be posted in the comment section itself and displayed here our mains practice question for you see go through each and every question and try writing answer for these questions it is going to help in your mains preparation okay and that's all for today's discussion if you like this video do like share and comment and don't forget to subscribe to the Shankar Ayaz Academy's YouTube channel thank you for listening


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