Good evening viewers and aspirants. We have a small announcement for you. Shankara Ace Academy is going to start a new exclusive batch under the Prefit program. This new batch will start from 22 March 2021. The new batch is because of the numerous requests received by us after the launch of first Prefit batch which started from February 15th of 2021. This batch one will conclude by 16 May 2021. Now with respect to the new batch Academy is conducting free entrance exam on 14th March 2021 that is on coming Sunday. The syllabus for this entrance exam will be the UPC Civil Services Problems syllabus for general studies and CSAT and it is a free entrance exam but registration is mandatory. Students who secure top 100 ranks in the entrance exam will be eligible for subsidized fee structure of Rs 800 plus GST per month. For other students that is for students who find it challenging to come in top 100 ranks and for direct admissions the fee structure will be 1600 plus GST per month and there is one important modification in this new batch which is the availability of longer daily test window that is in this batch students can take daily tests in the 4 hour time frame from 7 am to 11 am. Numerous working professionals who are aspirants have requested for such extended window therefore to accommodate varied circumstances of the aspirants in taking daily tests this extended time window is provided under the new batch. The links for the detailed brochure of this new batch, the plan summary and schedule are available in the description box and in comment section. With this let us move on to the Hindi news analysis for the date 11th March 2021. The list of news articles chosen for today's analysis along with the page numbers of different traditions of Hindi newspaper is given here for your reference. Now let us start our first discussion with this oped article which focuses on the type of diabetes which is the gestational diabetes. So in this discussion let us see about diabetes, gestational diabetes, then India's disease burden with respect to diabetes and important points from the oped article. The syllabus that is relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. Note that diabetes is the common name we know but medically it is called as diabetes mellitus or in short DM. Basically diabetes is a chronic health condition that is a long lasting health condition that affects how our body turns food into energy. So it is a metabolic disorder in this a person has a high blood glucose level or high blood sugar level. This happens either due to inadequate insulin production or also because the body cells do not respond properly to insulin or even maybe due to both of these reasons. That is diabetes mellitus occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin which is produced by pancreas.  Now because of these two reasons or factors or because of the combination of these two factors the blood glucose levels becomes very high and this condition of high blood glucose or blood sugar is called as hyperglycemia and this is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and over time it leads to serious damage to many of the body systems especially the nerves and blood cells. See what happens is most of the food we eat is broken down into sugar or glucose and it is released into our bloodstream. So whenever the blood sugar goes up it signals our pancreas to release insulin. So here insulin acts like a key to let the blood sugar into our body cells for use as energy. So if someone has diabetes then their body either does not make enough insulin so that it can work as a key or they cannot use the insulin which the pancreas makes like it actually should. So now what happens is too much blood sugar stays in the bloodstream and over time this too much blood can cause serious health problems such as heart disease, vision loss and kidney disease also. But being a serious health problem even yet there isn't any cure for diabetes it can only be controlled. So certain treatments are available to keep the blood sugar levels in check. Treatment of diabetes involves diet and physical activity along with the lowering of blood glucose and lowering the levels of other known risk factors that damages the blood vessels. So a precautionary measure to avoid diabetes normally includes losing weight, eating healthy food and also being active. So what about the disease burden caused by diabetes? According to WHO in 2014 itself about 422 million people that is 42.2 crore people worldwide had diabetes and majority of them were living in low-income countries and middle-income countries such as India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Indonesia. Apart from this diabetes is also directly attributed to around 1.6 million deaths each year. Also both the number of cases and the prevalence of diabetes have been steadily increasing over the past few decades and according to recent WHO reports deaths from diabetes increased by 70% globally between the period 2000 and 2019. This report also notes that there is an 80% rise in deaths due to diabetes among males. So what about India? India is among the top 10 countries in the world and India stands second with 69.2 million people with diabetes that is 6.92 crore people have diabetes. So that means for people living with diabetes access to affordable treatment including insulin is critical for their survival. Here you should also note that as part of global non-communicable disease targets that provide a vision for progress by 2025, WHO has a globally agreed target to halt the rise in diabetes and obesity by the year 2025. But today our focus is on a type of diabetes which is gestational diabetes. See there are three main types of diabetes. The first one is type 1 diabetes. It is thought to be caused by an autoimmune reaction that is the body attacks itself by mistake and this autoimmune reaction stops our body from making insulin. So type 1 diabetes is caused due to body's malfunction to produce insulin in the body and it requires the person to inject insulin. Then there is type 2 diabetes. In this type our body doesn't use insulin well and it can't keep the blood sugar at normal levels and this is due to insulin resistance which is a condition in which cells fail to use insulin properly and about 90 to 95 percentage of people with diabetes have this type 2 diabetes only and then comes the third type which is the gestational diabetes. See gestation is nothing but the time between conception and childbirth that is the time between getting pregnant and childbirth and in this gestation period a fetus grows and develop in the womb of the mother. So this gestational diabetes occurs during pregnancy. It is the impaired glucose tolerance with onset or first recognition during pregnancy that is it develops in pregnant women who have never had diabetes. The pregnant women without previous diagnosis of diabetes develop a high blood glucose level under this gestational diabetes. So this gestational diabetes is hypoglycemia with blood glucose values above normal but below those diagnostics of diabetes. That is why author calls pregnancy as a diabetogenic stress. Diabetogenic means the one that produces a persistent elevation in blood glucose concentration but here also note that this gestational diabetes usually goes away after the baby is born. But there are major issues with this gestational diabetes which is first it may lead to type 2 diabetes malitis and second women with gestational diabetes are at high or increased risk of complications during pregnancy and also at delivery. Additionally these women and possibly their children are also at increased risk of type 2 diabetes in the future. The baby could be also at higher risk for other health problems and the mother could also have these high risk health problems. Now all these conditions or the high risk health problems contribute to high maternal morbidity and mortality and newborn morbidity and mortality. So it ultimately leads to high maternal mortality rate and child mortality rate. So in this regard only author provides certain facts related to gestational diabetes. First is movement of Indian origin particularly South Asian origin are considered to be at highest risk of gestational diabetes. According to the estimation by International Diabetes Federation up to 25 percentage of pregnancies in South Asia itself may be affected by hyperglycemia in pregnancy. In particularly in India gestational diabetes is present in 10 percentage of pregnancies in rural areas and it is present in 30 percentage of pregnancies in urban areas. So in total approximately 2.7 crore to 3 crore pregnancies each year in India is affected by gestational diabetes. See even though it is this much common awareness regarding gestational diabetes is very less. Author even criticizes that there is also low awareness and capacity within the health system itself regarding gestational diabetes that is there is lack of capacity for testing and providing care when it comes to gestational diabetes. So this is the scenario despite the fact that there is availability of national guidelines in this regard and there is also diagnostic and management guidelines for gestational diabetes and these are all provided by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of Government of India. So to increase awareness or to tackle this lack of awareness author provides a suggestion. This suggestion is based on the recommendation of various organizations such as Diabetes Study Group of India, the South Asia Initiative for Diabetes in Pregnancy etc. All these organizations have recommended to observe a national gestational diabetes awareness day and this is to be observed on March 10th. This day is chosen as it is the birthday of Dr. V. Sheshaya who has provided recognizable service and contribution to the field of diabetes and pregnancy for more than 40 years. So they believe that if one day is observed for the awareness of gestational diabetes then people will be more aware of it and more testing facilities will be developed and provided and appropriate care will be taken. This will not only enhance the awareness about gestational diabetes but it will also increase the capacity for testing and providing care. So these are some of the points that you should know with respect to diabetes and gestational diabetes. Now let's move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about the report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education. In a significant development this Standing Committee has recommended that all government schools may start providing free break first in the coming academic year and this will be a part of an expansion of the midday middle scheme as envisaged by the national education policy. According to the article the school education department under the ministry of education had proposed two new components to the midday middle scheme during 2021-22 and these two components are first one is expanding the coverage of the scheme that is they want to expand the scheme from the current class of one to eight students to include pre-primary students also and the second component is the provision of breakfast but the issue is this much needed initiative is unlikely to happen in the near future as there is a severe fund crunch in the ministry. So in this context let us discuss about the midday middle scheme. See the midday middle scheme in schools has a long history in India. First it was started in 1920 by the government of Madras Presidency. Madras Presidency was then ruled by the Justice Party and this midday middle scheme was the idea of Pityaagraj Chetty who was the then president of Justice Party. Based on his idea the government implemented the midday middle scheme in a corporation school in Chennai and under the scheme breakfast was provided. So based on this more students started joining the school but British government at that time discontinued the scheme because however later in 1925 the scheme was re-implemented to cover more schools. Then in 1956 the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu K. Kamarajar he introduced the midday middle scheme for school children throughout the state for the first time. So initially a midday middle program was introduced for disadvantaged children in Madras Municipal Corporation only and slowly this idea started spreading to other states and by the mid-1980s three states namely Gujarat, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and even the UT of Pondicherry had universalized a cooked midday meal program and they started these programs with their own resources for the children studying at the primary stage. Then later in 1990 to 1991 the number of states implementing this program with their own resources on a universal scale or a large scale had increased to 12 that is 12 states started to implement this. So in their 1995 a centrally sponsored scheme was launched by the government which is the national program of nutritional support to primary education. The objective of the scheme was to enhance the enrollment pretension and attendance and simultaneously improve the nutritional levels among children. So under this scheme the central assistance of free supply of food grains at 100 grams per child per school they was provided then subsidy for the transportation of food grains was also provided. Then in 2004 the scheme was revised to provide cooked midday meal scheme with 300 calories and 8 to 12 grams of protein to all children studying in class 1 to 5 in government schools and government-aided schools. At this time the scheme also provided central assistance for cooking cost at rupees 1 per child per school day and it also increased the transport subsidy. Then later in the year 2007 the scheme was further revised to cover children in upper primary that is children in classes 6 to 8. Then from the year 2008 to 2009 the program covers all children studying in government schools, local body schools and government-aided primary and upper primary schools and even in the madrasas supported in the sarosiksha abhyan. So here the calorific value of a midday meal at upper primary stage has been fixed at a minimum of 700 calories and 20 grams of protein by providing 150 grams of food grains per child per school day. Here the food grains include rice or wheat. So we can say that the proper implementation of midday meal scheme has several advantages. First it improves nutrition status of children. Second it also encourages poor children belonging to the disadvantaged sections of our country to attend school more regularly and this will ultimately lead to increase in literacy rate. So these are some of the points that you should know about midday meal scheme and its development. Now let's move on to the next discussion. This discussion is based on this editorial article and this article which appeared in yesterday's newspaper. Both of these articles deal with Supreme Court's order with reference to creating a national environment regulator. This order is the judgment of Supreme Court which was made in July 2011 in a case law called as Lafarge-Umiya Mining Private Limited versus Union of India. This case law is being commonly known as the Lafarge Mining Case. So in this analysis we will discuss in brief about Lafarge Mining Case, important points or observations from the judgment. Then we will also see the status of implementation of the verdict and then other relevant points discussed by the author in the editorial. See Lafarge Surma Cement Limited is a company incorporated under the laws of Bangladesh. It has set up a cement manufacturing project at Chathok in Bangladesh. For this purpose it had a captive limestone mine of 100 acres. Now this mine is located in the Nongtrai region of East Khasi Hills district in Meghalaya. The mine is leased out in favor of Lafarge-Umiya Mining Private Limited. This private limited company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lafarge-Surma Cement Limited and it is also an incorporated company under the Indian Companies Act of 1956. Now the entire produce of the mine is used for the production of cement at the manufacturing plant in Chathok Bangladesh and this is based on the agreement or arrangement between the Government of India and Government of Bangladesh. So the Lafarge which is mentioned in the news articles is this company only. Now here Umiyam refers to a river valley in Meghalaya. Now this river valley is associated because the leased area of Lafarge-Umiya Mining Private Limited lies on the west side of Umiyam River valley. So what is the case? This case pertains to a series of processes followed by the company in relation to obtaining environmental clearances and site clearances and this case is connected with various communications which the company had with Union Ministry of Environment, the state government and with the local authorities and all these are related to processes that happened in the late 1990s and in the first decade of 21st century. At that time till 2006 the EIA notification that is Environment Impact Assessment Notification which was dated January 1994 was in operation. Now this notification was slightly amended by the April 1997 notification. So here the company made an application in September 1997 for granting environmental clearance for limestone mining project at Nongtroy in the East Khasi Hills District in Meghalaya. Now the application was returned by Ministry of Environment and Forest as the application did not follow the procedure that was modified by the 1997 April amendment. So mainly the case pertains to the alleged dishonest disclosure of facts while applying for clearances. The project proponents had allegedly hidden that some parts of the site includes forests for which the additional clearances required under the Forest Conservation Act of 1980. This detail was hidden by the company. In addition to this some conditions imposed by the government were also not followed by the proponent. So that is why the case was filed and in relation to this case only the judgment was given by Supreme Court. And in this judgment Supreme Court has given some guidelines to the Union Government. Here the guidelines are important for our examination but the technical details of the case is not important. So let us see the important guidelines given by the Court. The first guideline is that the principles or guidelines mentioned in the National Forest Policy of 1988 should be read as part of the provisions of Environment Protection Act of 1986 which is led together with the Forest Conservation Act of 1980. Here the Court observed that this direction is required to be given because there is no machinery established for the implementation of the National Forest Policy of 1988 read with Forest Conservation Act of 1980. The Court further observed that section 3 of the Environment Protection Act of 1986 confers a power coupled with duty on the central government. So this power coupled with duty is nothing but to appoint an appropriate authority preferably in the form of regulator and this regulator should be appointed at the state level and at the central level for ensuring implementation of the National Forest Policy of 1988. And finally the Apex Court also stated that under section 3 clause 3 of the Environment Protection Act of 1986 the central government should appoint a national regulator and this national regulator is for uprising projects for enforcing environmental conditions for approvals and also to impose penalties on the polluters. So mainly the regulator among other functions will deal with the regulation related to environmental clearances and broadly it was envisaged to deal with enforcement of environmental laws rules and regulations. So these are the three important guidelines given by the Court. Some other important guidelines are given here for your reference. So now why we are talking about this order now. See this order was delivered by court in July 2011. So it is more than 9 years but till now the central government has not constituted the national environment regulator as directed by the Supreme Court. So the matter is now before the Supreme Court through a public interest litigation which had raised the issue of lack of credibility in the environment impact assessment process. Now when Supreme Court asked why national environment regulator is not yet constituted the center has responded that it was just a guideline given by the Supreme Court so it may not be binding on the central government. So here some environmental rights defenders say that the central government since 2011 have been focusing more on development and not on sustainable development. See here difference is that development is at the cost of environment but sustainable development is by balancing the needs of the present and the future and by properly giving required weight to environment in the decision making process. So environmental rights defenders comment that since the successive governments since 2011 are more focused on ease of doing business they have not yet constituted this regulator as ordered by Supreme Court. See here you may think that we already have a national green tribunal then why we need a regulator. It is because a regulator is for enforcement but a tribunal or a court is for adjudication when a given situation is brought to the notice of such tribunal. So this is the issue going on with reference to the Lafarge mining case and about the national environmental regulator. So in this regard the author of this editorial has stated that even though a national environmental regulator is established for the regulator to regulate properly the central government must do three things. First one is that the government should recognize its limits to extractive growth. Here extractive growth refers to the growth that is attained by extensive extraction of natural resources without provision for their renewal. Then the second thing that has to be done by central government is that it should respect the body that is the national environmental regulator as a neutral and independent body and thirdly government must be committed to preserve the integrity of the environment. So before establishing the national environmental regulator author has asked the government to keep these three points in mind. So these are some of the points that you should know about the recent issue regarding Lafarge mining case and the national environmental regulator. Now let us move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about a new fund approved by the union cabinet chaired by the prime minister. The union cabinet has approved the Pradhan Mantri Swastya Surakshanidhi. Here Swastya Surakshanidhi means health protection fund. This fund will be a single non-lapsable reserve fund for health. See non-lapsable means if the fund amount is unspent from the capital budget of the ministry then it will not lapse and it will continue in the next fiscal year also. And this Pradhan Mantri Swastya Surakshanidhi will be from the proceeds of health and education says that is levied under section 136 B of finance act of 2007. That is the proceeds of share of health in the health and education says will be credited into this fund and the accruals into this fund will be utilized for the flagship schemes of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare such as Ayushman Bharat, Pradhan Mantri Jhana Rogyo Jhana, then Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centers, then for National Health Mission, then for Pradhan Mantri Swasti Surakshya Yojana and it will be also used for any future programs or schemes of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. So the administration and maintenance of this fund is interested to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Now its major benefit is that this fund will enable enhanced access to universal and affordable health care through availability of earmarked resources at the same time ensuring that the amount does not lapse at the end of the financial year. So that is all about this Pradhan Mantri Swasti Surakshya Nidhi. Now let's move to the next discussion. Now this next news article mentions about the floating solar power plant that is India's biggest floating solar power plant till date is said to be commissioned by May to June of this year. This is the biggest floating solar power plant based on its generation capacity and this is a 100 megawatt plant which is being developed by NTPC Limited across 450 acres of water surface area in a reservoir which is a part of NTPC's thermal plant in Telangana and this is how a floating solar power plant looks like and these floating solar power plants are an opportunity to generate power with low cost because land acquisition of at least five acres per megawatt of capacity involves huge fixed cost but since there are large number of major reservoirs in the southern region including Telangana using the floating solar method is a huge opportunity to go for renewable energy. So in this regard let us discuss in detail about the solar energy the syllabus that is relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see solar energy is nothing but the energy obtained from sun it is simply the light and heat that comes from the sun see the amount of sunlight that strikes the earth's surface in an hour and a half is enough to handle entire world's energy consumption for full year but we are not harnessing this energy to its full potential so that is why these kinds of floating solar power plants which does not require land is a benefit in this regard now how can we harness this sun's energy it can be harnessed in few different ways first by using photovoltaic cells these are also called as solar cells they convert sunlight into electricity then we can also use the solar thermal technology in this heat from the sun is used to make hot water or steam then there is passive solar heating also which is nothing but letting the sun shine through windows to heat the inside of a building and today our focus will be on photovoltaic cells because this thermal plant in Telangana is using photovoltaic cells only so let us see how it works see when light shines on a photovoltaic cell or in short PV cell that light may be reflected or absorbed or it can also pass right through the cell now this PV cell is composed of semiconductor material and there are different kinds of semiconductor materials that can be used in PV cells now when the semiconductor is exposed to light it absorbs the light's energy and then it transfers it to negatively charged particles in the material called as electrons this extra energy allows the electrons to flow through the material as an electrical current so in this representation you can see what is happening inside a photovoltaic cell so what is the efficiency of a PV cell it is simply the amount of electrical power coming out of the cell compared to the energy from the light shining on it now the amount of electricity produced from PV cells depends on characteristics such as intensity and wavelengths of the light available and even the multiple performance attributes of the cell so this is where the semiconductor becomes an important part of PV cell because it helps to increase the efficiency of the PV cell and know that silicon is by far the most common semiconductor material used in solar cells it represents approximately 95 percentage of the modules that are sold today it is also the second most abundant material on earth after oxygen and it is the most common semiconductor used in computer chips so here what they do is crystalline silicon cells are made of silicon atoms they are connected to one another to form a crystal lattice or grid this grid provides an organized structure that makes conversion of light into electricity more efficient and that is why solar cells made out of silicon currently provide a combination of high efficiency low cost and long lifetime long lifetime because modules that are made of silicon are expected to last for 25 years or more and even after this long period of usage they still produce more than 80 percentage of their original power so you should remember PV cell is related to solar energy and silicon helps to increase its efficiency so what does india stand on solar energy see since solar energy is a renewable energy india has set a target of installing 175 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity by the year 2022 this you all know now in this 175 gigawatts there is 100 gigawatt from solar energy then 60 gigawatt from wind energy and then 10 gigawatt from bio power and also 5 gigawatt from small hydropower in addition to this recently our prime minister has also said that india would achieve the target of 450 gigawatt of renewable energy generation by the year 2030 so the 175 gigawatt target is for 2022 this has been increased to 450 gigawatt by the year 2030 so in this regard india has made several initiatives let us see some of the initiatives with respect to solar energy as you know india is the leader of international solar alliance this international solar alliance is a coalition of solar resource rich countries and then we also have the javarlal narrow national solar mission or simply the national solar mission then we have the scheme of p.m. kusum scheme which is kisan urjashraksha evam utthan mahabyan scheme then we have the development of solar parks scheme then grid connected solar rooftop scheme and then small solar power plan scheme etc so government is initiating many such schemes for encouraging the installment of solar renewable energy so these are some of the points that you should know about solar energy now let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about a program called as upsurge this program will happen in collaboration with the australian government and note that this program is an initiative of v hub so in this context let us know about v hub and its upsurge program v hub stands for women entrepreneurs hub it is an initiative by the telangana government it was set up in 2018 and it has been registered under the indian companies act of 2013 and remember that this v hub is india's first and only state led incubator see when you say incubator it means a place especially with support staff and equipment and this place is made available at low rent to new small businesses so this is the first and only state led incubator of india and its primary goal is to promote and foster women entrepreneurship through incubation through government access and through a collaborative system so through incubation v hub wants to empower women entrepreneurs from various sectors to start and scale up their businesses by providing support in funding mentoring strategy and growth it ensures that all indian women entrepreneurs have got the access to technical support financial support governmental and policy support that are necessary to grow and sustain with the global market access now in this regard it has started an initiative called upsurge it is a three month pre incubation program that focuses on inculcating the knowledge of entrepreneurship and it aims to help the aspiring entrepreneurs to develop their business models so it is a pre incubator program where in the entrepreneurial ideas are analyzed and reviewed for market growth so as to prevent the greater costs and failures of setting up a new company and presently v hub is carrying out this program in partnership with the australian consulate general that is present at chennai this program will be happening for 12 weeks and in that stipulated time it will provide the required tools for entrepreneurs to translate their ideas into sustainable business models so the aim of the program is to mitigate the drop off rate from entrepreneurship by women and it also aims to reduce the percentage of women entrepreneurs who are hesitating to enter entrepreneurship so it is believed that this program will play a key role in providing different forms of assistance to amateur entrepreneurs in the idea development stages itself so this is one of the measures taken to empower women you should take note of these kinds of initiatives which will be helpful for you in writing a mains answer and remember that even though it is a state led initiative it is important because there are already questions and mains examinations which are focused particularly on state led initiatives so now let us move on to the next discussion now we have come to the last session the practice questions discussion this question asks forests is a subject matter enumerated in state list concurrent list union list not mentioned in 7th schedule to the constitution it is mentioned in the 7th schedule so option D is incorrect and note that forests as a subject was inserted by the constitutional 42nd amendment act of 1976 into the list 3 that is the concurrent list and these are the other subjects that were also inserted along with this so the correct answer is option B concurrent list now this next question asks at present it is the most common semiconductor material used in solar cells it is the second most abundant material on earth and the most common semiconductor used in computer chips the above paragraph best describes option a germanium option b silicon option c gallium arsenide option d bismuth and the correct answer is option b silicon we discussed this during the analysis now this next question is about midday meals scheme the question asks the midday meals in schools was introduced due to address two of the pressing problems for majority of children in india that were hunger and education it was launched for the first time in india in option a bombay option b bengal option c united provinces option d medras and the correct answer is option d medras as we saw it was launched in the 1920s by the government of medras presidency based on the idea of p tyagar i h 80 so correct answer is option d now this next question is based on diabetes first statement is type 1 diabetes is more common than type 2 diabetes now this statement is incorrect because during discussion itself we saw that about 90 to 95 percentage of people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes only and only around 5 to 10 people have type 1 diabetes so this statement is incorrect it should be other way round now the second statement is gestational diabetes occurs in diabetic women who are pregnant now this statement is also incorrect you should read this statement very carefully it states it occurs in a diabetic woman who are pregnant but during discussion we saw that gestational diabetes occurs during pregnancy but it develops in pregnant women who have never had diabetes and we also saw that usually it goes away after the birth of the child now the third statement is whho has globally agreed target to halt the rise in diabetes by 2025 this statement is correct and here the question asks for the incorrect statements so the correct answer is option b 1 and 2 only now this next question is a direct question among the following states which is the only state to initiate a state led incubator to develop and promote women entrepreneurship and the given options are Maharashtra, Telangana, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and the correct answer is option b Telangana well let us take one main question this is based on gestational diabetes and you have to comment on this statement you have to answer this question in 150 words and you can post the answer in comment section with this we come to the end of today's in the news analysis if you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and to subscribe to shankar is academy youtube channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation


Welcome to the Vermont house government operations committee. We are meeting to consider the bill h 48 that was introduced and referred to our committee earlier today. This is a bill that that has had a great deal of time and attention paid to it as we are trying to very quickly get some certainty out to our municipal entities about how they can safely. Attend to their annual meeting business during this pandemic so we are going to meet right now until noon. And then we need to break it noon for for folks to go to caucus and to attend to other duties. And then we will come back as scheduled this afternoon, recognizing that that there may be some uncertainty with the house floor schedule this afternoon. So we want to try to get through this as quickly as possible. So first I'm going to ask Tucker Anderson to walk us through the bill. I don't know if you want to share screen or if you'd like one of us to call up the bill and share screen or if you just want us to be able to see your, your freshly shorn face. And we appreciate you being with us. Thank you and good morning for the record Tucker Anderson with the Office of Legislative Council. I'm going to share my screen and start by walking through h 48 is introduced. And if there's time we'll move on to some general questions that have come up since the inception of the bill and try to work through some of the general answers. So let's test my technological competence here. All right. The first section of the bill that we're going to move through details the legislative findings intent and purpose. This is going to provide some background framework for the operative provisions of the bill, and T up those operative provisions in case there is a need for legislative interpretation around them. There are two general findings in the bill. First, that the continued spread of COVID-19 has the potential to jeopardize the health and safety of Vermonters were voting at the 2021 annual municipal meetings. That despite some of the work that this committee, the House and the Senate did together in the fall to pass Act 162 concerns persists around 2021 annual meetings. In particular, that in municipalities that choose to apply the Australian ballot system to their voting general law will still require that voters apply for an early absentee ballot. Or otherwise that the municipality provide polling places. And to refresh everyone's recollection Act 162 was the act that permitted municipalities to convert through vote of their select board to the Australian ballot system for the 2021 annual meeting. Additionally, there are many municipalities that want to continue their custom of conducting annual meetings using floor votes. The intent here is to protect the health and safety of Vermonters while allowing voters the opportunity to participate in annual meetings, and that second part really tease up why the operative provisions were designed the way they were. The purpose is first to permit municipalities to move the date of the 2021 annual meeting to a date later in the year. Second to permit municipalities to mail out 2021 annual meeting early voter ballots to all active registered municipal voters. And third to authorize the Secretary of State to order a permit supplemental elections procedures related to these provisions. Section two contains the operative provisions of the bill. I would note that starting in subsection a first these are temporary provisions that apply to the year 2021. And a second important thing to note about that lead in in subsection a is that it is setting aside any law to the contrary. A point of confusion that has come up is that this applies additionally to municipal charters. This is setting aside any contrary provision of law that is contained in a municipal charter or general law. The first operative provision a municipal legislative body may vote to move the date of the municipalities 2021 annual meeting to a date later in the year 2021. Second that the legislative body may require the clerk to mail out ballots to all active registered voters in the municipality for the annual meeting. The third piece here is specific to the town of Brattleboro. The town of Brattleboro is the only municipality in the state that holds its annual meeting as a representative annual town meeting. And subdivision three here permits them to do so through electronic means in 2021. The fourth subdivision provides authority to the Secretary of State to permit as applicable alternative elections procedures that supplement and relate to any municipal authority under this subsection. So again, it allows them to supplement and permit alternative procedures relating to these subdivisions and the authority contained within some examples to help clarify what that might be. And of course this does not mean that they will be used but they are examples that may have come up in the past, creating ballot collection stations, allowing clerks to begin counting ballots in a window proceeding the annual meeting, or potentially permitting drive through collection of ballots. These are some of the supplemental procedures we're talking about. Subsection B, we have a bit of a saving clause here. In any municipality that moves the date of their 2021 annual meeting, municipal officers that are currently in office shall serve until the annual meeting and until successors are chosen. This makes sure that no terms will expire if the municipality moves their annual meeting date to later in the year. And for some reason there is a charter provision or a piece of general law that specifies a specific date when officers shall take office. And an example of that that comes to mind whenever this is discussed is that all officers of an incorporated school district are mandated to assume their positions on July 1. It's very specific. Subsection C provides that for any election procedure that the secretary of state orders or permits under the section that the secretary shall also adopt corresponding procedures that ensure that the public can monitor polling places and the counting of votes. I have to stop sharing hairs that I can click on the next tab. Give me one moment. Are there any questions that have come up so far? I've lulled you all into a false sense of security. Representative Higley has a question. Yeah. And again, you know, I haven't been involved with this bill up to this point, but one of the questions I've got is when it talks about allowing the municipalities the time to move the date later in the year. Is there an end date to this? Is there a must stop date to this, which I don't see in the bill? H48 does not contain a deadline or a must stop date as you put it. That was discussed during the early discussions around this bill, and ultimately the decision was made to leave as much freedom as possible with the understanding that there are very serious practical limitations on how far out a municipality can push this. So there are a lot of other deadlines associated with the annual meeting date that will not be extended. And some of the more serious ones that were discussed early on are those related to education property tax liabilities to the state. Okay, thank you. I guess if I could follow up, maybe. So is there is there going to be any word that goes out to municipal elected officials regarding that saying that, you know, you need to make sure that you understand there are other dates that are critical in your making a decision as to when to hold your town meeting. H48 does not direct any state agency or group to put out that word, but you do have quite a few groups in our virtual room right now who could potentially do that and you could coordinate with them. Okay, thank you. I think that would be very important because my select boards are pretty much up in the air as to what's being considered or what they can and can't do. And anyway, I think that would be helpful. Thank you. So I'll move through a set of frequently asked questions that we put together. Okay, can I just interrupt you for a moment to say that Mike Marwick he has his hand up. Was that a cue for me to ask my question. Madam chair.  Not sure if this is the time but it's a question I raised yesterday that at least I want to put in a parking lot here. What I'm hearing from the three towns I represent is that there's confusion about the idea of meeting signatures to get a ballot question on the town meeting warning. I don't have any candidates, but for instance, should this or that nonprofit be allowed to operate as a without paying tax for the year, or should this question be put to the voters about whether the town supports an idea. In the past, they've had to get X amount of signatures. My understanding from last session was that this had been waived, and that select boards do have that. But I'm not clear about that. And I'm looking for clarity I see Jim condo shaking his head. I'm looking for clarity that I can bring back to my select boards on this concern. So, thank you for putting that in the parking lot. I will meet you there. It is the last question and the frequently asked questions document, but I will quickly note that what was waived and act 162 was signature requirements for candidates for local office. No waiver of signature requirements for petitioning an article to be added to the warning at the annual meeting those signature requirements remain in place. However, there are other avenues for an article to be put on the local ballot. And when we get to the bottom of the FAQ, we can discuss that. And I'm assuming that there will be lots of input from others who are with us. The first frequently asked question that came up which is, which municipalities are authorized to use these alternative annual meeting procedures. So the bill authorizes broadly palities through their municipal legislative body to use the alternative procedures in the bill. The general definition of a municipality includes a city town town school district incorporated school or fire district or incorporated village and all other governmental incorporated units. So we can say broadly that any incorporated unit of local government has the authority to use these alternative annual meeting procedures. If a municipal legislative body votes to move the date of the annual meeting. Is there any requirement for meeting to be held on the first Tuesday and March. So this question did come up a surprising amount. If we vote to move the annual date do we still have to meet on the first Tuesday and March and do something. Whether that is open a meeting and then hold any questions in the meeting until the later date. The answer is that the temporary authority that is provided here does not require the legislative body or the voters to gather on the first Tuesday of March, if it has been extended to a later date. No need to meet. Does the bill automatically extend other municipal deadlines. And there is a two part answer to this. First, if the municipal legislative body votes to move the annual meeting date deadlines that are tied directly to the annual meeting date will be adjusted as well. And an example of a deadline that is tied directly the annual meeting date is 24 vs a section 1681 a one, which requires town and auditors to meet 25 days before each annual town meeting to examine and adjust the accounts of all town officers. If the annual meeting date is moved to a date later in the year, the auditors would be required to meet 25 days before that later date. This deadline moves with the annual meeting date. It is not likely that age 48 will extend or suspend municipal deadlines that have specific dates established by statute and that do not directly reference the annual meeting date. As an example, 32 vs a section 5402 sub b3 automatically triggers the calculation of an interim homestead education tax rate. If a district has not voted a budget by June 30. That June 30 specific deadline is set and this bill would not extend that express deadline. Who is responsible for holding the annual meeting and budget vote of an incorporated district. If the member municipalities have different annual meeting dates. This was the most frequently asked question. In general, the district is responsible for conducting its own annual meeting and administering a district election or budget vote. And this answer is going to be a bit general because we have many kinds of districts in Vermont. And prior years incorporated districts have been able to coordinate with their member municipalities to administer district elections or budget votes on their statutory annual meeting date. Under the temporary provisions in age 48 member municipalities may have different annual meeting dates. Municipalities are going to be able to set their own meeting date. It's going to be a decision that may end up staggering the meeting dates of member municipalities. The law directs municipal officers to assist an incorporated district with all or part of an annual meeting or budget vote. The incorporated district and its officers are responsible for conducting the meeting and the vote throughout the district. So it falls to the district and the district officers unless there is something else that directs municipal officers to assist. The deadline by which a municipal legislative body must vote to apply the Australian ballot system to the annual meeting. So under Act 162, any municipal legislative body can vote to apply the Australian ballot system to its meeting. Neither age 48 what you have in front of you or Act 162 contain a deadline for the vote of the legislative body. However, general law sets the deadlines for the preparation of local election ballots and an example of one of those deadlines 17 vs a 26 to 81 a requires that local ballots shall be prepared not later than 20 days before the local election. If you want an idea of the scheme of deadlines associated with ballot preparation, I encourage you to ask those that are here from the Secretary of State's office. Does age 48 suspend signature requirements for petitioned annual meeting articles. No, age 48 does not suspend signature requirements for those articles that are set by 17 vs a section 2642 a three a. However, any voter may ask the legislative body of a municipality to place an article on the warning on the legislative bodies own motion. The legislative body of a municipality has the authority to add an article on its own motion to the warning. This is one of the avenues that is available. There was discussion around potential conflicts of law here, tension between the potential inability to gather to collect signatures and the requirement in place for wet ink, as we call it physical signatures on petitions. In those discussions, it became clear that there were voters and groups in municipalities that had come up with alternative ways to collect signatures mailing out petitions posting petitions. And that in many municipalities, it was the case that the legislative body was going to on its own motion, add articles to the ballot. And age 48 does not contain a waiver of the petition signature requirements. That is all I have unless you have more questions. Thank you for listening to my monotone for so long. I'm sure it's a great way to start the session. It feels like we never left. Thank you Tucker. Samantha Lefebvre has a question. So I'm not sure if this is also the right spot to ask, but a couple of my towns all have the same questions. The first one would be is if you know this goes out with the secretary of state be able to override what the town wants to do it would that be part of that the secretary of state has the power to change some of the stuff. And also is in person voting or gathering going to be forbidden. If this is passed. And then is there a penalty or what would the penalty be if the town is not apply. Sorry to take a second to write down the questions. I'll start with the secretary of state peace the powers that are being granted the secretary of state to are to supplement the alternative procedures here. And to support them. There is not authority within that subdivision for the secretary of state to override or suspend the authority that is being granted to municipal governments. Second, can you repeat the question about in person voting. If this is successfully passed will in person voting be forbidden. So, or gathering so I know the town of Orange does all floor votes, and like, and so would they be forbidden for gathering. I would not be forbidden, unless there is an ongoing prohibition on some sort of large gatherings. The purpose of one of the powers that's being granted here is to allow the municipality to move their annual meeting date to a later date in the year, when it may be for people to gather and hold their floor votes. If you go back to the purpose and intent section one of the things that's covered there is that the General Assembly is acknowledging that there are many municipalities that want to continue their practice and custom of meeting in person and holding floor votes. So that's one of the interests that the General Assembly is trying to protect here. And you asked what is the penalty for what's the non compliance with if they didn't, I think it was more of if the secretary of state could say, you know, could shut down like let's say they wanted to remain in person. Let's see if that does occur. I guess they, I guess I should have asked for more clarification, but I think they were going off of the basis. If it was forbidden to meet in person. What is the penalty for them, if they do so. Moving away from, you know, we resolved in the answer to the first question that the secretary of state under the provisions of this bill doesn't have authority to override the municipality's decision. I'll highlight. It's not a penalty but it is a risk. One of the risks of not appropriately conducting your annual meeting is that you could have a challenge to one of the votes or decisions that's made. That's something that municipalities always have to be aware of. And here when they're choosing what they're going to do for this particular particular annual meeting, something that may want to pay more attention to. And you have the secretary of state's office in the room. I'm sure you could speak with them connect them with your municipalities and try to figure out a safe, non risky path. We haven't had an opportunity to really do some of that baseline committee testimony about how all of these parts fit together. I think I would just ask Tucker for clarification that a challenge to to a meeting that was held, perhaps in person when, when there was a state of emergency would be made by a citizen of that town. That's not something that that necessarily a state entity would would be able to do. I would say that would be the most likely source of a challenge. Yes. Great. Any questions for Tucker on either the FAQ sheet or the bill language. All right, feel free to put your hand up if you do. And I'm going to go now to Secretary of State Jim condos. Thank you for being with us. Thank you also for spending time and and bringing your staff members with us so that we could develop the language. In order to allow municipalities to safely hold their annual meeting so share your thoughts please. Thank you. Thank you representative Copeland answers with me today is will sending our director of elections and Chris Winters, the deputy secretary of state. I will be brief, and then I have to get off because I've got another call that I have to make. So I'll let them pick up where I leave off. First of all, let's just back up a little bit for a little bit of background here act 92 and 135 were the two acts last year in the spring that allowed the secretary of state's office to adjust as we went forward with the election season, recognizing that we had the election and I think at that time, nobody thought that this would go beyond the end of the year. But I think what what's happened since that and by the way, we had two overarching goals that we were following. And some of you have heard me say this before but the two overarching goals were one to ensure that we protected from the Monters right to vote and to protect the health and safety of not only our voters, but also our town clerks and our volunteers who help at the polls, our poll workers. So those were the two premises that we used for every decision that we made. And as the year went on. And frankly, it was a very successful election, it was probably are one of our safest and most secure elections that we've ever held. We had a lot of work that we put into it. Literally, we Vermont has the smallest elections team in the country. We have five people in our elections team. I think my deputy myself and chief of staff were made honorary members of the elections team, because we were literally working six and seven days a week, 1012 hours a day, starting back in April right through to November, and actually since November. This has not ended for us. Going forward, we've had many discussions with the LCT with town clerks with legislative leaders with the administration about what do we do about town meeting day. Now, of course you guys in act 162 did, or the previous legislature did take care of signature verifying signature, I'm sorry, signature requirements for candidates, and not for articles of for the ballot. And that was determined because there was already law that allowed for that to occur. So we've, we've got these pieces in place, but what we didn't do through no fault of anybody is, is decide what to do with town meeting day as it as it started the fast approach. So I'm just going to give you some quick dates. Town meeting day is March 2. We have to do a lot of this stuff. Before that time, the deadlines come upon us very quickly. For instance, ballots have to be prepared by the towns by Wednesday, February 10. That's in statute. The last item has to be published by January 31. That's the end of this month. Candidates filing to get on the ballot have to be have to file by January 25. The last item is the article petition filing. So if there's an article that wants to be added to the ballot. That is January 14. Well that's next week's folks, and we knew we recognized as we were discussing this with Tucker with with legislative leaders with the administration that we didn't have a lot of time so we had to come up with a bill as possible that would be as brief as possible to try to get something through that we could all agree on so that we could move it as quickly as we can. This literally has to be on the governor's desk sometime next week. And we took steps as as representative Copeland hands this is aware, we took steps to add some funding for reimbursements to towns. The joint fiscal committee just this week met and approve $2 million to come to our office. It was funded by VLCT by legislative leaders by the town clerks to help us reimburse town clerks and their various towns and entities around the around the state. I will ask after much discussion was a 1.5 million. The joint fiscal committee felt it was it was prudent on their part to add an additional 500,000 so we now have $2 million that have been deposited from CARES Act money CRF money to ensure that we have the funding available. I'm going to tell you, we don't know if that's enough. If we had added money into this bill. Then it would have had to make at least two more stops would add to gone to have gone to the appropriations committees in both House and Senate. So it would have held up the ability of this bill to move forward in a timely manner. We are ready to take this upon ourselves to work to meet the requirements that the towns have. Obviously, probably the best solution is to move town meeting day further out to provide a little more funding a time timeline for the towns, but we know that that's not going to happen across the state. I also want to bring up the different types of Tucker did start to bring up the types of districts that are out there, or what we call municipalities. You have town and cities departments, you have school districts, you have water sewer, even waste districts. Some of those are local. Some of those are multi town. And for instance, with some of the waste districts, it could be 40 to almost 50 towns in a waste district. So the, well, what we are going to encourage. I don't know that we commanded it, but we, we are certainly going to encourage all these municipal entities that want to take advantage of this to try to consolidate and coordinate their deadlines and their, and their, their ballot can be on one ballot. If we have 14 school school districts and all the towns in the state. And then we have solid waste districts and water and sewer districts, because they're multi town start to want to do this on their own. We're out of money. We won't have enough. So it's going to be imperative that that all these different municipal districts try to coordinate and bring their, their votes together. I was a former solid waste district representative and actually vice chair for the chicken and solid waste district. We had 18 towns in our district. And we always put it so that we could have one vote. One ballot question on the individual ballots. Just trying to think what else our office, and I think that you've got a couple of town clerks on this call as well. But our office does not have administrative responsibility over cities and towns or any of these municipal districts. It's just provides advice, we provide interpretations of law, we let them know what, what the requirements are. And that really is, is the extent of it. And so we're actually taking a further step here. And there is no authority at the Secretary of State's office that oversees and regulates the city's towns and municipal districts. So, with that, I'll entertain any quick questions. I think representative Mariki your, your question about articles for the ballot. It's one that we've, we've had. There are other options. There are also options that someone in order to get those wet signatures that they could email out a petition to a list of folks and have them sign it and then mail it back in or drop it off to get the required number of signatures and I don't know what the size of your towns are but I know there are some towns where in order to get a ballot question they only need, they need less than 100 signatures. So I think, I think there's ways to get to that. We're not ready to take this to the next step where we allow for electronic signatures. That's starts to bring us into a different realm and a different area of possibilities that have to be looked at requirements, basically. So I'll stop there, answer any questions and, and then I'm going to have to go and Chris and will can fill you in from there. Secretary condos, I don't see. Oh, I see rep Merwicky, but I just want to remind folks that we do have some committee members who need to go to caucus at this moment. So if it's a quick question go ahead and otherwise we'll come back to it at one o'clock. All right, Mike. Could be a question for Tucker to is this session law, or will this go in the green books. This is session law. Thank you all for your flexibility this morning I apologize for the for the up and down but it's the nature of the business and we will see you all back here at one the same zoom meeting invitation that got you in here we'll get you back at one o'clock and we'll pick up where we left off.


This is one of the biggest human rights crisis. Call for an immediate ceasefire, release of all those held as hostages, and to end this war as soon as possible. There are 1.9 million Palestinians who are displaced. 25,000 Palestinians are killed. Over 65,000 are injured. Several thousand are still under the rubble. We see people in hospitals outside desperate for medicines, you know, medical attention, hospitals and clinics. These places have been attacked. There are very few hospitals that are functioning. There are no proper shelters, big scarcity of tents. I think for a civilian waking up in the morning and trying to just feed one meal a day for the family is the biggest challenge and really being alive. Because every time I ask a person how he or she is doing, all that they say is, we're just grateful that we are alive, but they're extremely worried about what's coming. Call for an immediate ceasefire, and it's urgently needed to stop the suffering of the people that we are seeing, we are documenting, we have been highlighting. But the High Commissioner is also called for the release of hostages, and that is also something I echo. We need to act on ending this conflict as soon as possible. We are the voice of human rights. We have to document what is happening on ground. We have to raise alarm, raise voice and bring it to the attention of the international community about what is going on. Tell the story that's going on there to make the changes and to influence, and hopefully to end this war as soon as possible.