show the number we're okay welcome everyone we're having a to our pizza work session planning session not really planning session it's a listening session with this is going to be pretty informal and I know that folks there's number of folks online and and I'm gonna apologize up front the experience that you're gonna have being remote is not going to be as full as you would have in the room because we are going to be noting things on boards or on papers in the back and so it's going to be sort of a free-flowing process I'm going to encourage you to put notes in the chat because we will even if we don't see them during this meeting we will get them collated and pulled and collated and added to the various categories that either Josh or Kent will will present in a few moments the idea that tonight really is that we want to get your thoughts and your ideas we're not here to solve problems we're not here to make decisions we're here to listen to and get your input so that it's more of a free-flowing situation we are charging for chairs tonight Betsy just a few dusty we have a telephone number online okay so whoever is a telephone number online if you could maybe drop your name in the chat so that Sharon can capture it for the notes that go along with this again this is not a regular planning commission meeting me we we don't have a quorum so this is not we're not taking minutes per se we're gonna be taking notes a little bit different with that Josh are you ready as ready as I'm going to be we've got two kids fighting over a glider airplane right now so my my own participation will be very short but I think that's a good thing because as you said this is there's the airplane now this is a listening session and this came out of two things basically thing one was we had some listening sessions for the town plan over the winter so we're framing it sort of in that same kind of context and setup and secondly obviously this came from the last two meetings where we heard a lot of citizen concern about the RPDI in general so the basic idea for this evening is listening but specifically I mean listening from our perspective but what we would really like and I think Kent will have the categories there but the idea is to focus on sort of specific categories broadly speaking we've heard a lot about noise and traffic and the buffer which I also sort of call that congestion broadly speaking and then recreation trails land management as another head then industrial uses economic impact as another head and of course the idea of just miscellaneous if there's something we didn't talk about that people wanted to talk about the objective such as it is in the session is to go through each category somewhat systematically asking what people see the challenges as and then what people see as solutions after we've talked about after you rather have talked about the challenges and then to sort of wrap it up at the end because this will all be I'm not in the room but it'll all be sort of visual Kent will be able to put up Sharon will be able to put up here's what the challenges are visually here's what the solutions are suggested and after this the idea is potentially to hold more of these depending on how this one goes it is altogether possible as dusty said that there are since isn't a quorum nothing can be done tonight but it is possible that people will see oh the challenges that we're facing can be solved by a solution that actually has nothing to do with the planning commission whatsoever that is that that is a possibility that certainly it's a possibility that zoning doesn't need to be involved there's also a possibility that zoning absolutely would be people's requests and that the planning commission would be deeply involved my point there is this is an open process so we don't know we don't know until we get your input and feedback where this will go next necessarily so with that I am going to hand it over to Kent and I think I still have two sons somewhere on the in the neighborhood so I will take it from leave it to Kent and everyone have fun hang on and Kent's gonna you're jumping ahead of us oh and would you would you like to have comments from the economic development committee and the conservation trails committee near the beginning or kind of at the end later they're both invited to participate what's your timing for that I wasn't necessarily envisioning any specific one I think if anyone has commentary this is this is going to be an open night so if conservation trails EDC want to make an offer comments then you can recognize them and and have them have them be heard but I think it might be better if you introduce the format on how we're going to record things and then and then go from there yeah let me do that first and again for folks online I'm you know it's it might be a little bit tougher to to see everything but we'll we'll do the best we can and this will all be captured and I think we can post it on the planning commission site where we normally put agendas sorry no that's okay that gives her and I'm going to start out by coming up with some bullet points and just ideas thoughts that we have we're going to start with me kind of taking this off up here first with our favorite thing let the RPDF what are our favorite things go through here put in some of kind of our highlights write this down document this and then there are four other boards in the back that have the topic areas that Josh was just mentioning where we have kind of a topic area of noise traffic the buffer we have another one that's recreation trails land land management that kind of team another one that's the industrial use of the economic impact sort of the jobs perspective how this fits into the community that area and then of course miscellaneous anything that doesn't fit there and if you put things in the wrong column fine but it would be helpful trying to put the bullet points in the kind of grouping that's possible if you want to write a lot of information you can either send emails later or I have two little tablets of paper over here and some pens so if you want to write pages of information that's fine too but let's try to keep these other ones the kind of bullet points so I'm going to try to do this for not more than like five minutes or so so we have plenty of time this pizza and food here and we have a chance to just like mill around them to just to kick this off what are your favorite things what are your favorite things about the RPDI area we have okay okay okay the good point let me step back so the the Saxon Hill area that's in the resident the resource preservation district industrial is the RPDI sorry not that and yes yes yes so that we have kind of a defined boundary around that area that has the industrial uses that are in there it has you know and even if you have comments that are around the periphery of it the neighborhood areas for rounded traffic issues around it that's fine it's it's just kind of all blended together but that but that area does everybody else know where we're talking about yeah so do you mean my favorite things that we like and or dislike let's stick with your favorite things that you like unless you like things that you don't like but these in the back are kind of more focused on the negatives but there's a lot of really positive things over there too so this seems like a good way to kick it off if you don't want to add favorite things you don't want to talk about that that's fine but walking up Saxon Hill to the hill part on the top okay I'm just gonna say the hill because I know what that is and I will expand on that the hill in the walking area the hiking area can I say that the hill might be the 90 acre parcel maybe the 98 good part okay excellent and there's a map on the screen now the bike trail yeah the hill the 90 acres somebody said the bike trails the trails the walking trails is very flexible okay it's a great thing okay if that's all we yeah well I live peripheral to that across and you know and what I value is the quiet residential area that is seems to be endangered by what the industrial development that seems to be on the date you like the neighborhoods that are nearby the way they are yeah that's why yeah quite safe neighborhoods okay have your name please John Larkin thank you they have a six Saxon Hollow Drive right across Sand Hill road from all of these things quite neighborhoods nearby mm-hmm yeah trees every time you put a building in they cut down trees keep the tree yeah I like the 200 foot buffers between the industrial park and the residential zoning district okay specifically the 200 foot buffers okay okay okay looking at the IBM site that's off across the road I really like how they kept it in with the trees and everything they have a nice green area they have made it so the IBM building is a good example of kind of development you'd like to see you like the type of because you've got you're going from this harsh but the harsh area where you've got all the industrialized things and all of a sudden the parks and everything where all the activity goes on public and it just seems like it's more of the buildings that were there were spent in a way that it was more pleasing to me okay you're right that I used to look in 617 yeah so the fact that you can go from work to the trail is convenient it's close to where you work you like the snowmobile trails okay and it connects to Willis it's strong enough it was true those past reels okay he's going up in northern Vermont right now real real it's being generated on that real trip excitement tourism because obviously situation oh if we can get some landowners together that's trail goes from dollars for us nice you got two property owners you got a way underneath the syrup and you're saying that it's already a vast trailer that you like or you'd like to see improve no there's a bastard you already love okay fantastic is there anybody else who hasn't spoken already otherwise I'm feeling this is a great start and it might be a good time anybody online have look anybody online yeah there's some hands up okay thank you can I love the trails I love the trees I love the vernal pond I love that there's wildlife in there I love every buffer including the 50 foot buffers I love when you go down corporate drives that there are perfectly scaled businesses that feel like they fit in the resource preservation district and when other people I hope drive down corporate drive because it all seems to fit except for revision where when you drive past revision where it's starkly different because it's not only big but also there's sound that continues to come out of their vent I think at the top so any I like the quiet and I'm not happy that there's businesses that are going in there that have caused a lot of heartache for the quiet neighborhoods surrounding it I really love that we surround RPDI with a number of neighborhoods that are quiet and I would love to continue and build upon recreation for the economic development of our town because I'm seeing in terms of where this next generation is recreation is a huge draw to bring in people and people that in terms of the jobs I also like the ones that have jobs that are easy to fill because I think there's some businesses in there that are struggling to fill positions and I'm not sure how we're checking on that so yeah I think that's a lot for you Kent sorry that's great thank you and for your other your other comments that making more of concerns about specific thoughts and for other people online make sure you include comments in the chat and then we'll we'll be able to save that and document that so we did put things in the chat and I just want to make sure I just want to make sure also that people understand when we talk about buffers it's not just the big animals we're talking about insects and things that feed birds so that that's part of knowledge for the water filtering and other reasons the trees are so important and the history behind RPDI that I love as well is they used to they used to make revenue off of the trees so I like that part of the history that we actually it became a revenue varying area so I like that and I also love that the portion of it that's educational for our school kids I think that's very important the educational aspects that we do I think that's here and who is the other person and how do you Davis made a comment in there and Irene is the next one Irene you're up thank you um I saw someone had typed in the chat history I don't know if you've already got that recorded they like the history of this area yeah um I like that it's generating some energy there on some of the really bald parts that have been sand extracted in the past we now have some solar panel generating electricity some solar panels I like its aspirational goal 50 years ago it was to be in harmony with nature I think that's still a really great goal to have and I love that residents are involved you know some of us weren't born yet some of us were little kids when when this was actually put together as a plan some of us lived here some of us didn't but um new people same old people like people still come to meetings like this and plead for nature and I just think that that's a wonderful thing in this day and age when so often it's only money and power that talks thank you okay thank you um maybe kind I'll go with you today I was there yesterday and I was very happy 40 cars in the parking lot bike or bike trail I haven't been there very much I don't remember last time I went there police office you just saw a recreation story that kind of that in about eight years 27 weeks parcel of big sand extracted okay and do I have a next person who hasn't spoken so you have a comment in the chat from Patty Davis area across the side circle for cross-country skiing directly across our foot okay Sam likes hiking and biking that's in hollow park that's in hollow park across open opening to that's why we access trails from our house in your second and we can capture those and okay so I think that we're 20 minutes into the meeting we have pizza and four big pieces of paper in the back people online have the comments in the chat that they can do there are tablets up here if you want to write a lot more um and then let's try to take let's say 20 minutes maybe 30 minutes kind of go around and do this I'll get your question before we break to do this and then we'll come back together at the end to kind of wrap everything up kind of summarize everything that'll get a chance from the representatives from the conservation and trails committee and from the economic development committee get a chance to say something about the area too we'll just kind of wrap it up then at the end and we'll just kind of see where we go with the time and but I think now will be a good time to break but first your question or comment yes thank you milky and town resident um just thought since there's been an extensive evolution the various parcel planning the colored map to get everybody on the same page might be worthwhile for somebody who really knows the color coding to go through that there've been residential tract proposals within or abutting the parcel there uh there have been changes and I just wondered whether it might be good to have everybody eat in on what exactly we're talking about what we're not talking about and where there may be areas of ongoing discussion I think that's a great point and there are a lot of thank you um I think I'm I'm kind of feeling like for our conversation that we're at right now that's important but not kind of what we're mostly focused on here so I think I would have a preference of continuing forward with with this part and then come back to that either later or at a different I don't know if you have a similar I would agree with that because kind of like shifting to a different way of looking I think we need that we're we're trying not to get into the detail where the measurements are what what's the space tonight really this is we want to hear what some of your ideas are and and I think to you what I'm hearing is you would like to know more detail about what's actually on the table that would to me would be a takeaway that we would provide either of the written summary or a night to discuss really what's on there actually I'm just trying to understand whether what we're talking about is all the way to river road no okay so it would be okay can we have the scope of what we're talking about tonight outline so let's keep it general for tonight and how many acres it is it's not necessarily detail we have to nail down tonight but we would take it a while because the acreage is there and we could we could pull out the the whatever the is it a hundred eight just give me a second and show you here that everything in blue is the rpbi like like like like the checkered blue so it's five hundred eight and and of which and I'll probably can speak to this but roughly speaking the entire the entire rpbi district the total is 750 acres of which the portion that I am requesting this don't change is only 130 acres which is part of the 406 acres that I previously owned and gave up 270 acres to the top when we made the deal so that's the portion of land that we're talking about right now the 400 acres of which 270 that I gave 130 that I kept and I'm not going to give you the exact acreage it might be plus or minus six or five or four whatever but it's around 270 versus 130 to make and that's the land mass that we're talking about because the rest of the rpbi district has been either built or is very close to build out but specifically we're talking about the rpbi all all of it from the conservation area and right and that we go with all in the big blue includes residential and Saxon Hill itself which has the tree in it yes that's going to do with this for the last thing is the 90 acres shown that the top right but no we don't believe in 90 acres apart with the tree all right right open space yeah there that's the school so yeah so when all of you talking about bike trails and hills walking you're talking about this parcel owned by the school district as well as well yeah that's on the other side of the little dirt yes thank you thank you for the water tower so that's what we should now try to bring it back to focus and say you know the area we're talking about gives you a visual that good nails for you yes but are you are you saying tonight we're not supposed to really be thinking about the school parcel no what we're saying is I just wanted to clarify when Sally had said oh I like the hills the trail I wanted to call out that's not part of the RPDI which this is a RPDI listening session okay that's helpful yes yeah I just want to comment that um people living next to that blue area in the residential in the grace like like hillside and Saxon Hollow Drive we are impacted by anything that goes on there the truck traffic is growing we're getting dust in the house all the time it's the noise is decreasing and I'm thinking about safety too there's a children's park right next to our house and and and more and more trailer truck pack of traffic and traffic of every sort is going by that part and behind all of our houses and that's an impact on us even if we're not in the eight reach you're talking about I totally agree and that's a perfect segue into that right there so you talked about noise traffic of the trucks that would be perfect put on the on the first one over there there are pens right behind you on the on the stool I think what we should do is this is more of a writing session not a listening session of this part of it well this part is you know we're trying to collect all of your thoughts and I could I mean alternately I could have each of those up here and we could now do this for another 20 minutes for the next sheet and then another 20 minutes for the next sheet another 20 minutes we have four other sheets over there we've only gotten through one if you can all write on it we'll get much quicker and then at the end of the meeting we'll get back together we'll review this it seems like a more efficient time and everybody can kind of talk with each other too so it seemed like this would be a good way to start out kind of like you can you could you could put up this this isn't so much you're talking to us right this is this is you're talking to your neighbors you're talking to the other members of the community that's what this is going to provide but it's not a discussion just to us it's a discussion amongst everybody the workshop yeah thank you people online yes they can hear but like I mentioned in the beginning that the experience is not going to be quite as rich the pope's online and that's where they're going to be able to put their comments for each of these in these headings and can't you just read them off again yeah but put their comments into the chat for industrial use I'm concerned about x y and z traffic it's x x y and z and so forth and we can then memorialize the bull goes out of that chat and add them to these sheets so that when we're done with what we do in the room and what they commit to online or present to us online we'll have four five sheets of bullet points that we can then represent and say these are these are what we've heard now how do we start what what can we address what do we do is accept to do do I hit that yeah that's perfect because then that'll lead into what's our next step that we do you know we had a meeting last time we started off on this this is the next meeting this will lead to the the the following meeting but this will give us such a wealth of of information here and really be able to document so that you know for each meeting we don't have to put this down again we'll we'll have this documented and then we can just move to the next step yeah right how about an idea I'm gonna throw out is is we we ask you to take 15 20 minutes to do this and then you mentioned earlier we wanted the economic or and or trails to to speak to us so let's let's do this and get your thoughts down and then let's let's circle and and get the comments that from the from the other groups that were here that and then yeah we'll bring it all back together as best we can and hopefully we'll start seeing you know if not patterns at least things that we can act you know maybe be actionable people online can you're going to repeat the topic yeah so if I can see the people online for just a second and josh can josh can help you with this thank you so josh is online he can help you with this too the main four categories to be thinking about well fifth what are your favorite things that you can write in the chat area the other four categories are dealing with noise and traffic is a category to provide information with the recreation trails the land the nature of the area is another category the industrial uses and the economic perspective of the area is another category and then the last one's miscellaneous whatever you want to add anything that's been in the folks that are online that would be great let me first say that you know we don't have a warrant today so this really isn't an official statement from the committee we have it discussed amongst ourselves and said something which is more of a personal thing that works I don't I've never really spent much time in this area I think I probably did here three times maybe I went yesterday and today and and what drives me the most about the area at conservation trails communities particularly interested in the recreational aspect there was a tremendous amount of use on a weekday evening 40 odd cars in the parking lot I was really quite surprised at how many bikers were actually using it and many of them were not from the area it would be nice I think the conservation and trails committee would like to speak that become a little bit more of a revenue generator for the town either directly for the town as in park passes like to have it in the in brook for example there are people that are using the facilities and not contributing at all some are they're paying into the trail maintenance via the fellowship of the wheels but many aren't I think it's a lost opportunity for sure and I think that that's a market that also needs to be served I think one of the new uses that's being requested is convenience source which I would think a lot of the folks that are there could take full advantage of I think but I think the other members of the committee see and that we should mainly speak for themselves as well we have some beautiful trails throughout the town that area is so underutilized I mean when you really hike in there you can buy some hiking trails and you can kind of invent your way around you quickly become aware of the fact that the biking trails don't lend well to hiking and they're all over the place so I mean if you follow the trail you're just you know backtracking yourself but my my real point is that there is so much land there concentrated land away from the bike trails that just yet to be developed the idea that we have enough land or too much land that just that makes no sense in Vermont that's not the Vermont way it's we we have just not realized we haven't involved enough people we haven't realized the potential area and and just as the bike trails point out if you open it up and you develop it and you make it friendly for people to go there they will go there and they will hike in there and it will become either more of a popular spot people go to Indianbrook because it's easy to find the trail okay beautiful okay but just plot away I mean there are ponds there are all kinds of things and then the people are unaware okay we can we can do a better job with that I would agree with that I'm bent to go I think that you have the ponds that we're talking about and the open spaces through the excavation that we have the sand pit and that's going to be reclaimed but we can reclaim it in a way that we create a beautiful park and the park would be a energy source for its growth and yesterday when we were over there looking the some of the guys said you said convenience store and they said how worry in there you know a lot of people going in you know and that's probably true some kind of kind of nice restaurant could be on the next parcel but and they would make it attractive and the one fella said it's just from up you know you'd come along and you're going through all this steel and metal but all of a sudden you've got beautiful green stuff well how about we don't just make it so harsh or you just leave that and then you're at the green stuff and let's make it pretty as you come into it there's no reason we can't do it and the trails of the hiking trails it's a little bit of a store point because you had the kiosk for people to look and there's no map of the trails doesn't even say it and then you go to the other to other town trails and there's no maps of the trails and a lot of that is due to the fact that there are people who have easements on different parts of trails and then there's an easement there you really can't map can't put it on because then you're attracted to a lot of people you know and so and that there's a couple of that we have so that's one of the things that I think we need to do is be a little more assertive about looking at how do we get those easements and what can we do to help them see that this is something that people want and won't be abated so then that's conserving we do have a Saxon Hill management plan already written by our Chittin County forester Ethan Tapper he may mean that this point it was done he did his work in 19 and the result of that came out in 2020 and since then a lot has changed and there's a lot of more growth that's there in areas that was too dense to walk through so maybe he needs to come back and refresh that that assessment but I think that we need to consider the uses that we're putting back there and we can instead of adding uses we can take away uses if it is so harsh and hard for people because where the trucks come in and idle all night quite noisy I remember that I don't have that now but I do remember it in my living in a place where we did have a lot of change and it's it's just a sort point you know just a sort point and I don't want to lose the buffers I want those buffers buffers are important yeah um would you like to see anything from the economic development I'm hoping if Rebecca or if anyone from our committee on because they're all other than the good Ray oh yes he's on come here hi I just joined though so I'm I'm just trying to catch up to see what everybody's Rebecca I don't believe Rebecca is on I just sent her the link we didn't have the right link um Jane we have the teams oh darn okay um well do let me do a quick overview of what we talked about track backs okay okay I'm staff so I'm not um from an economic development standpoint in this district and let's let's address light manufacturing first we are a town that lost close to 40 percent of our grand list recently light manufacturing goes a long way to building up our grand list it's wonderful the other thing like manufacturing and I'm not selling like that manufacturing against everything else I'm just saying the other thing it does and as we rebuild manufacturing in this country and in particularly in this town it provides jobs for our high school graduates jobs that will pay them enough money to raise a family jobs that companies will send them to college and will give them a career back in the day when I was you know back in the 70s you all graduated from high school and you went to IBM and you're and you retired from IBM and you lived happily ever after everything was paid for us no we're never going to see the those states but light manufacturing and these companies will bring that to us so in the economic development we want to support that however light manufacturing is not residential and there are conflicts with light manufacturing and the trucks are a big issue so we in the committee want to do everything we can to facilitate solving these problems and working with the businesses and working with the residents because yes it's a problem yes we should look at it let's figure a way of addressing it and finding a solution so that's a big part of it um and then the giant part which is really exciting for me to hear and and I'm I'm telling you I can't because Kent went to this Kent went to a um a meeting on recreational development economic development but you all are hitting the exact the sweet spot this is a gold mine for recreational development and it can put Essex on a map and you want that you want to be why are you going to Essex you're going to Essex because it's a recreation you know I'm a tourist why am I I'm in Burlington why do I want to go to Essex because there's insane recreational facilities and hiking and biking and everything we want or ice skating and all the wonderful things we can do vast and and and and cross-country skiing so we have all of this available and as we build that up conceivably we could put in a bike shop somewhere that would help that would both make us money in the grand list and arrest and when um representative time was talking about um restaurants that we are a we are a a well we are a state of small businesses we are populated 90 of our businesses have under 30 people working for about 10 of our business base has that has to have those large populations of employees so we want so this kind of a recreational economic development plan really lends itself to building and growing small business and then advertising all of the other businesses that are here to the people who are coming and then we become a destination so I think so from our point of view it's recreation is economic development destination point light manufacturing and rebuilding is crucial to our economy and crucial to our kids we've got to marry them together and then when we get that we're going to have a sustained we'll have a sustainable situation where hopefully our kids will graduate go to work in one of our wonderful light manufacturing have enough money to raise a family and also go to college and also stay here and live instead of fleeing because there's no place else to go so that's um that's my story and i'm sticking to it thank you do you have anybody else from the EDC that would like to say anything or i'm hoping um ray yeah i'm here hi thank you sorry i'm off camera um just because i was in the yard and i'm not presentable so to be on camera positive and meeting back to back and then i had an hour to get out in the yard um you know i agree with a lot of what gene has said i will also say that the EDC is in kind of transition right now so we're you know losing some members and with the separation there's there's been a lot of vacancies so we are really committed and have talked a lot about spending a lot of time uh as soon as you know the new members are appointed to talk and do some strategic planning on prioritizing and actually Rebecca at the last meeting uh or last meeting or the one before brought up this idea of capitalizing on the trails and you know bringing food trucks and really making the amazing resource that we have a destination here and marrying it with everything else we have an effort that's going on i mean i have friends from Burlington that are now coming to Essex so we're i think we have started something that we can build on um so i'm really hopeful that there's a lot of opportunities here i i hear the challenges with the manufacturing but as jean just stated there are benefits too so how can we check a balance to use the benefits but also make sure we're protecting our resources our natural resources and the tour you know of the tourism industry that Vermont is so well known for and becoming a destination so i'm excited about the opportunities we have but we need a little bit of kind of forming time in this next month or two we have we're planning a full day strategic planning session in the fall to kind of early fall to kind of get set our priorities and a lot of what i'm hearing talks about are going to be included in those great thank you anybody else from the edc and i'll see any hands up okay fantastic so maybe what i'll do um we're um quarter after seven right now i think what i'd like to do is get a chance to read through what everybody wrote that will also make sure that can read it and i know what you've written yes that's that better thank you um so i'm gonna read through it i'm gonna try to do this pretty quickly um make sure that i have it right and if it's given a chance to share it with everybody and um maybe we'll have a couple minutes at the end if i think there's an ad or anything like that um this will also give a chance for the people that are doing online that they can hear what was discussed maybe after we get through this really quick um josh if maybe you or somebody else online wants to look at the at the chats and supply anything else if you want to and we'd have a little bit of time or we can just save that and compile it later i was gonna say kent let's let's let's target 730 because if we've been here for about an hour and a half and this is this has been a really productive session let's go through it like you said to get clarity on what's written and then i'd like to ask you know you and Sharon and maybe josh to take a look at everything and bring this back together and then we'll pick the time and we can present this again and present it as a as these are these are what we for this is what we've heard um and we can figure out what we can what we might be able to come up with some action items from some of that some of it's going to be harks and rec you know we can hand it off to them some of it's going to be what do we need what do we need to know more in order to to address some of these comments right here we go so for the noise traffic buffer concept area um the first comment is increasing traffic especially larger truck the result of noise pollution lot to dust in the residential areas um safety concerns because heavier of the truck truck traffic near the children's park over at sandhill road great topic i think that encapsulates a lot right in there um that was pretty clear to me and i was able to read it great so that was good um concerns about traffic increases the roads that were not designed for the semis that's a great topic we have a lot of roads that are functioning now really way above how they were originally designed to be uh how they were designed to be functioning in the beginning so that's a good good topic to have there um air pollution noise water pollution uh new roads built uh to town standards um designed to handle the increased traffic that's a good good point um buffers in the zone um are larger than any others in the town um and in the town plan that's just making a statement that these are very large buffers that are here all right um pedestrian friendly ways to avoid heavy traffic for example year-round um cleared paths i'm sorry paths along allen martin and serving residents along route 15 i think it's really important that we figure out a way that we have the network of pedestrian facilities so that you can safely get through there um whether you're going along the road or crossroads um that did somebody wrote that down traffic light needed at route 15 and sandhill road and at route 15 and allen martin i'm gonna look into i think there may be a couple traffic signal projects that are kind of in the pipeline i don't know exactly details but i'll have that information for the next meeting so that i'm ready to say something about that and expect to some of these some of these topics are going to go to public works you know because they're the folks we start talking about roads and traffic lights so that's outside of the pc's per view and frankly it's outside of the you know this group of staff they collate but expect that some of these topics are going to go out to the other departments and get some you know factual information coming back in but the planning commission is able to going forward in a town plan to say these are the things we want like if we had said the forester said our town forester tree warden said that most of the green belts are too small that three foot size green belt is so small that a tree cannot be supported in that and that's why you get the buckling on all of our sidewalks because the tree actually needs more room that's why we're putting trees now on the inside on the side of the landowners but those are the kind of regulations that you could make to make the green belt bigger or smaller not use it and just that's that's true be aware that many of the recommendations for when we start talking roads roadways right-of-ways don't come from the planning commission they come from the public work specs so there's more there's more layers to this than just this roof you know the plan is a vision and this is you're helping to craft that vision but there are regulations obviously that we have to fall under and they're not just ones that we obviously can change so you're right this is this is a vision step and i would add to that but when we do have trees planted on private property we have to get an easement that's there for the life it's lifetime so if we don't grab that incident and we don't require them in the right way so people can come through and it's worth remembering too tonight we're not trying to solve things tonight right just trying to get a list of bullet list and i think that's a good topic and i wrote down for miscellaneous the road design standard because that is an important topic and we'll make sure we don't forget about it for the recreation trails land land management topic these were the things on here um adventure park idea biking for mountain bikes um open the park keep all the trails this is just supporting that they're keep the park keep the park going i need to add anything else they're encapsulates it um early crafted bike trails involve public investment in the maintenance and development good okay um since the conserved land has been turned over the town recreation has increased for the good of the community good point because of ethical development the town has benefited from a place for recreation okay up to that um use as a part of a designated trail system from sx to jericho etc that's great trying to link what we have to all the other um mountain biking um vast trail hiking trails that's a great topic and there's an another whole thing on the side that i've been trying to work on with that so that's on my radar screen um thoughtful and professional forest uh reforestation management great i'm glad that was in there and improved finish that's that's last and it's written small but that's that's actually super important so i'm glad that's there that's easy to forget about those little details that actually make a limited impact when somebody's trying to use it like so for instance i'm going to actually just add um online too right before you go somewhere how do you know what you're getting when you get you know having something ahead of time so you have trouble walking or even a wheelchair you know before you get there is that something i can participate in or or not so that's really helpful to have information ahead of time okay next topic industrial uses and the economic impact the conserved area is too large exactly what are we conserving the area is not particularly beautiful we need to focus on other areas in the town okay good okay that's that's uh good to have i think that brings that rounds out sort of the range of comments that we're getting and that is a very wide spectrum of how people feel about land so that's fantastic to have that comment if we get the park brewery across the street um and a built at a built-in easement for the trail that goes through the vast trail industrial development and uses have increased the tax space for the town thank you yes of course um if potential businesses are forced to relocate in other towns because uses aren't allowed uses aren't allowed okay so this is my uses aren't allowed you have to read that one again yeah negative we'll let you restart okay wait aren't you business the potential businesses are forced to relocate in other towns because the uses aren't allowed this has a negative economic impact for all the citizens yeah okay no that's okay it's it is it is starting to write on that's and do you want to explain if that person is talking about that i think that's yeah fine thanks i think for for every one of these is a conversation every every one of them so i don't want to i don't want to this is how to i just want to make sure we get we get through this but those um i want i'm i'm glad that i made sure i understood those um for miscellaneous okay i wrote it on i wrote the road design standards that you mentioned that's an important one um air pollution from the tracks uh solar panels should be on the flat roofs i'm assuming it's wanting to see more i'm guessing not that that's a bad thing people want to see more um better landscaping in front of buildings ethical development with a combination of conserved land and increase the potential uses can benefit citizens economically and the natural environment yeah finding that right that right development balance um and truck idling especially at night that's been definitely a concern um that has come up um okay so that wraps up the comments that people have made we are about five minutes before let's see if josh has anything to wrap up josh do you have anything um one thing i did want to say is i wanted to assure everyone who's online and you may have already seen it ken and Sharon i have made a google doc of all the online comments and shared it with you great fantastic thank you i did i wasn't following yeah that's no no other closing thoughts than that so i guess i'd like to just say thank you for everyone that's participated this is a departure for us from our normal process this is this is a new hopefully an ongoing way of doing it getting some information up front i believe that our next step is to totally these things get these lists established and then see what we can do see if there are areas in the staff that can look at these whether it's public works parks and rec you know and see what there are folks that can provide commentary internally on it um we're going to be looking for economic input more maybe more specifically based on what we see in these documents this is not the last time that any of us are going to see this um we're doing this for the town plan so this is the visionary staff from that will be coming potentially any regulation changes or no regulation changes again it all depends on what the vision goes to dry we have requests to make some changes maybe we'll have some requests from from from the town to make other changes not just you know not just a developer and a landowner's request but also the folks who are using that's what part of what this process is open to drive so we want people vested in this we want people participating in this and we have the folks online i would just encourage you i know this is probably not been the the most engaging meeting that we've had but in this sort of form really lended itself well to to exchange there's a lot of conversations going on in the room which were great and i would just encourage the next one of these that we have i would encourage anyone who can be here to please be here and it's we're going to all be better out from whatever we get out of this we're all going to be better for it um so yeah i think this is our next next round is to move forward and see where we get any last questions or thoughts real quick before we go anybody on line want to add something real quick you know hands the comment from patty it's great event online thank you for doing this okay okay so let's wrap it up for tonight again this is a great workshop and really thank you folks for coming out thank you thank you thank you adjourn 7.20


Welcome to the solar plexus healing meditation. Your solar plexus in many ways is your third chakra and it has to do with motivation, intentions and goals. It's where your gut feeling comes from. The location of the chakra is two fingers above the navel and encompasses a lot of the physical organs of the digestive system. It's called Manipura. This meditation and our long music will help to balance your solar plexus. If our solar plexus is imbalanced the physical symptoms could be digestive issues, stomach problems, problems with overeating, unbalanced body temperature, being lethargic weight gain. The emotional symptoms can be the inability to fill your goals. You might have feelings of pangs of jealousy or resentment or you may be too aggressive. A balanced third chakra and balanced solar plexus will allow you to have a clear vision of your path with confidence for you to be able to pursue it. You feel in control. It's about you being able to do the things that you thought you may not be able to do but now be completely empowered and visualization and meditation are the keys to that and adopting the mantra for your solar plexus of Ram. Spend time outside, outside of this meditation or do this meditation outside. Whatever it is, it's about you now time and spending some time with me now as we work through this wonderful solar plexus meditation. Your solar plexus is an energy powerhouse. It holds the keys to activating your true authentic and higher power.  Breathing in and breathing out and just letting go of any stress, tension and anxiety in the body or the mind. Breathing deeply and breathe out completely feeling all the tension dissolving as you leave your mind and your body for now. Surrendering to a much deeper state of consciousness with every breath allowing the cool wave of the inhale clear your mind and the warm wave of the exhale to soften, melt and relax deeper into physical cells of your body. You fully into your body, relax, surrender and as you inhale your belly balloons and expands 1, 2, 3 the sensation of I am home and when you exhale the body relaxes and contracts 1, 2, 3, I am home 1, 2, 3, visualising the breath with the fire of the solar plexus travelling all the way down to the pit of your stomach and on the exhale following the journey of the breath as the fire travels up from the pit of your stomach through your chest and out through your nostrils continue following each and every breath remaining alert and attentive so as not to miss a single breath be the observer, it's time to watch, it's time to pay attention and as and when your mind wanders gently just guide your awareness back to the fire and the flow of the breath with loving kindness and compassion fire is an element of the solar plexus chakra and as you breathe out become conscious of the fire within your solar plexus affirming to yourself every time you're breathing now I want you to be saying I am confident I am passionate and I am full of energy I am full of energy allowing this fire to burn out any toxicity within the solar plexus transmuting any stuck blocked or stagnant energies engulfing in this blazing passion of confidence and energy and just see this fire now in your solar plexus clearly the yellow flames burning like the sun radiating a spark of magnificent yellow in and out of the chakra with each breath every time you breathe in or every time you breathe out this yellow radiates energy up through your spine this life force energy is filling up every part of your body the energy is growing more and more powerful as powerful as the energy of the sun filling every cell of your body flooding your mind and body with vibrant yellow as it turns into this wonderful golden yellow every cell is feeling alive every cell being fed with this powerhouse of energy exuding from the golden sunflower located in your solar plexus and in the distance I want you to hear the sound and vibration and allow this sound vibration to move closer towards you keeping your attention and your focus on the solar plexus chakra as you now start to chant this sound come with me deep breath in focus on the solar plexus chakra just allow yourself now to marinate in this vibration as it raises your frequency higher and higher to align with the powerful energy of the sun smile as you meditate feeling this softness this vulnerable yet golden sunshine this ball of energy vibrating pulsating and shifting to the vibration of happiness to confidence and to personal the sound and the colour to heal clear away any obstacles any energies any beliefs that's holding you back from your truth and I want you now just to repeat out loud may I know my true power, my worth and my potential may I feel safe and secure in my power, my worth and my potential may I feel loved and loved in my power, my worth and my potential may I find freedom from any fears holding me back from my power, my worth and my potential hands on to your solar plexus I just want you to affirm and say out loud after me I now break any contract I have ever made with another consciously or unconsciously that has given me or given them power over my sense of self giving them the authority to approve or reject anything about me including my voice my creativity, my spirituality and my way of living I break that contract now of my own free will I will now choose to directly receive and perceive my own inner power and turn within the kindness and compassion to see myself through the eyes of unconditional love you are now connected you now feel the unconditional divine love allow this energy just to be around you I leave you to feel the calm, feel the rejuvenation


All right. Hello everybody. Can you hear me okay? All right. My name is Rebecca Genscher, and I am a fourth-year medical student as Adam mentioned. I'm at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey and today I'm going to be talking a little bit about trans-courney electrical simulation, which is a technology that I learned a lot more about while doing about six months of research at Will's Eye Hospital. And I'm just going to give you a brief overview of the technology and some of its applications. So in terms of the history, electrical treatments have been explored sort of throughout the ages. We know that there's some evidence to support that the ancient Greeks were using these electrical currents to treat diseases as early as 1st century AD and maybe even in BC times. And this is an example here. This is a torpedo fish, which exerts some amount of electrical current, which was used to treat patients with headache long, long time ago. There were also applications of similar types of electrical treatments, going in patients with arthritis and pain relief and an improving circulation. So once we sort of got past that initial sort of wonder with, oh, there's natural producers of electricity and we started making our own electricity, we started to replace those sort of natural producers with man-made devices. Once we developed static electrical currents and pulse electrical current that could be applied directly to the skin, the treatments moved along this way as well. And once we got to the early 20th century, sort of an about face, people started to say, oh, this electrotherapy is quack medicine. We have, you know, we have drugs that we can take. We have analgesics that are up and coming on the market. Why would I take an electrical shock when I could take a pill? And as we continued on in time, some understanding, increased understanding of the neurochemical pathways and the neurochemical compounds and how those relate to different types of electrical stimulation sort of became more apparent and people started to, again, begin to accept these treatments. And we get to the modern day where we have lots of examples of these types of treatments, such as transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, which is used for pain relief. We have deep brain stimulators for Parkinson's. We have cochlear implants, et cetera. So one of these novel types of electrical stimulation used as a therapeutic modality is called transcorneal electrical stimulation. And this is pretty new probably within the last 10, 15 years that this has been sort of tested and developed. So the idea is you're delivering a low voltage signal that goes directly across the pornea into the retina. You're resulting in a, it's a noninvasive way of stimulating the retina directly. So you're sort of bypassing the traditional light activation pathway where light causes a change of those photons into electrical signal. You're instead getting a direct electrical signal to the retina. And in some initial studies looking at PET scans, what's been found is that there's some activation of some of the same types of the brain that are activated in traditional light signaling. And here you can just see this is the PET scans during light signal, and this is PET scans during transcorneal electrical stimulation treatment. And you can see some of the same areas in the visual cortex lighting up, and some of these secondary visual areas as well. So what does the device look like? Well, it comes in sort of two flavors. The initial development was looking more at this contact lens type electrode, sort of modeled after what we used for the electroretinogram. And this is a gold electrode that's applied directly to the cornea. And you can see there's a lot of surface area to cover the cornea, a lot of sort of potential for problems. So as time has gone on and we've gotten better technology, we've moved on to more of this silver type electrode, which is just a very thin wire that sits right on the lower lid and essentially just grazes the inferior limbis of the cornea, delivering the electrical signal equally as effectively and with a much less corneal contact. In terms of potential risks of transcorneal electrical stimulation, it's really not too bad. It's very well tolerated. Most complaints are minor. People complain of a little bit of a foreign body sensation, like having an eyelash in your eye. And some of the potential risks that we really pay attention to are corneal abrasions and corneal agarosis. These are a little more serious complications that we want to make sure to deal with. Corneal agarosis, in case you're not familiar, sort of this brownish gray darkening of the cornea and sclera that can happen with repeated exposure to silver particles. And as I mentioned, these electrodes are coated with a silver particle that can sometimes be released into the eye. Most of these effects are totally mitigated and even prevented by just being really careful to wash out the eye with a buffered saline solution after each treatment. And most protocols include this as a standard operating procedure. So I'm going to talk just very briefly about some of the preclinical work that's been done in TES, which has been in the area of retinitis pigmentosa. And just a general overview, retinitis pigmentosa is a degenerative disease. We know that it affects the rods and the cones, essentially results in a loss of the outer nuclear layer of the retina, which is the layer of those photoreceptor nuclei.  And then as that progresses, you get tunnel vision and you ultimately develop central vision loss. And this progression happens somewhat predictably over the years. There are some ongoing trials. They've looked at retinal implants. They've looked at different types of gene therapy. But basically, there's no definitive treatment that's FDA approved that's sort of commonly accepted. So this is an area where really better treatments are needed and something like trans-corneal electrical stimulation, which is non-invasive and as I'm going to show pretty soon, seems to target those photoreceptors directly, might be able to be a benefit to patients. So this group out of Japan, Morimoto, they sort of got the whole excitement going for this type of treatment. And they looked at the Royal College of Surgeons rat strain, which was a model developed for retinitis pigmentosa. And first, they injured the optic nerves and they wanted to see what happened to the retinal ganglion cells. And they found that with applying the trans-corneal electrical stimulation, those rat cells, they survived longer than the patients who had not been treated with trans-corneal electrical stimulation. Sorry, the rats who had not been treated with trans-corneal electrical stimulation. In another set of experiments, which was done a few years later, they looked at causing direct damage to the retina. So exposing the retina to light, what happens to the photoreceptors? And again, they found that the rats that were treated with trans-corneal electrical stimulation, those photoreceptors, although they were injured, survived longer than the ones that had not been exposed to the treatment. And they also delayed the loss of retinal function in these rats. And then in another series of experiments, they considered, you know, sort of, is there anything beyond the direct effects on the optic nerve and on the photoreceptors themselves, sort of going further up into the brain that's going on with this treatment? And what they found is that there was some increase in these regulatory growth factors, these neurotrophic factors. So there may actually be some sort of neuroprotective effect induced by the treatment. So this was all pretty exciting. And there were a couple of groups who put together some very small clinical trials. I'm not even sure I would call them clinical trials. But looking at a few patients, one study looked at NAION and traumatic optic neuropathy, and they found some improvement in visual acuity. They didn't find any improvement in any of the other measures that they looked at. Another study in a very small study in three patients looked at patients with long-standing retinal artery occlusion and found some improvement in their visual acuity as well. So again, although these were underpowered studies, not randomized, it gave us some initial sort of propulsion for getting people interested in this treatment and thinking about whether it might be effective for some other types of applications. So this is sort of the big trial in looking at TES. This was done by Shatz et al. in 2011, and they looked at a sham-controlled prospective study. So half of the patients got sham treatment, which was just the electrodes were replaced, but no treatment was applied, and half of the subjects received the TES treatment, and 24 patients with retinitis pigmentosa. And what they found was that when you look at... These are four example patients here who had retinitis pigmentosa. When they looked at their baseline visual fields and compared after 16 weeks of treatment, they found some increases in the area on the kinetic visual field. And these increases or sort of expanding areas here you can see a little bit. Didn't really follow a clear pattern, but they definitely found a numerical increase in those areas. And again, this just shows increase in visual field area. Numerically, this is the treatment group here, and this is the control. This is sort of a low treatment group. You can see that those... That visual field area was increasing over time, so we're essentially getting back some visual field. And then they also looked at the scotopic B-wave amplitude and found that that was increasing as well for the patients who had treatment. And essentially what we found is that treatment was well tolerated. There were improvements in the visual field, again, as we showed with the kinetic area. And as I mentioned, the scotopic B-wave amplitude increased. And this just tells you that these patients were better able to adapt in the dark. And so, again, kind of trying to pull back to this hypothesis that there may be some effects from the transcorneal electrical stimulation on the retina and on the optic nerve itself. But there may also be some downstream effect on expression of neurotrophic factors. All of these sort of small experiments and clinical trials have been trying to dig at this hypothesis. So just to give you a summary of sort of where things are going, there's a lot of clinical trials going on in this area. A lot of these are completed, so it'll be interesting to see their results coming down the pipeline. A few of these studies are in retinitis pigmentosa. There's another study here which looked at a whole host of retinal diseases. And then this study is the one that I was sort of peripherally involved in during my time at Wills. And they were actually looking at patients who had combat-induced trauma to their eye and also NAION. And then this study down here is actually pretty exciting because they're doing it in the UK. It's a multi-center study. It's the first for transcorneal electrical stimulation to really get a good safety profile of the device and understand, you know, if these sort of effects that we saw in these early trials are, you know, really, really coming true. So I'd just like to acknowledge the group that I worked with at Wills, and thank you for your time. Any questions? So it isn't fascinating the area that's interesting. It is. It is. Japan took off with that. We immediately saw, and it was a lot of choreography. I mean, there was a lot of crazy stuff going on. I was really interested in this. The first time I realized that I went into a Japanese bathhouse and accidentally got into one of their waters in which they... I said, yeah, we use that all the time for rejuvenation. The people who are careful is going to kill somebody. Yeah. They are. They've been into it for a long period of time. But there is evidence. I know that some of our people have looked at this and apparently the general feeling on the car... The idea is that you'll get a little pickup from this. There seems to be some sort of ideal window of treatment, especially for other diseases. There was another more recent study that I didn't talk about here where they looked at patients with retinal artery occlusion and they actually didn't find much benefit when it was much further downstream from when the initial occlusion was discovered. But some of those early studies found some benefit and the difference between the two was the time after the artery occlusion was discovered. So if you treat sooner, you might be able to take care of some not functioning but haven't completely died. Whereas if you wait too long, your window may be gone and you may not be able to get the treatment. They also call that one TES, but it's transcranial. So how well can you keep such a... Yeah, so that's sort of tricky because if you're... So the phosphine level, basically, you're testing to see how much current you need to deliver or how much stimulation you need to deliver for the patient to detect a signal to the retina that is as though there were light coming in. And if they're at 150% of that level, then they're going to feel like there's light coming in. So, so far, I mean, my experience with the patients that were in the study at Wills is that there may be some ability to detect that they're in whichever group. But there's not really a way to avoid that. If somebody can come up with some idea, that would be wonderful. But it's the closest that we could get to a sort of placebo-controlled or sham-controlled. It's a big issue. So these visual fields and other percepts are going to be very suggestive? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, so the Traumatic Optic Neuropathy Study is a DOD grant. And actually, while I was there, we had applied for another grant looking at TBI, which I thought was really interesting. Unfortunately, it didn't get funded, but we'll see they might keep pursuing it somewhere else. All right, so our next two presenters, we'll first hear from Nate Lamberg, who's a fourth-year student here at the University of Utah. Nate is originally from Logan, Utah, where he studied business...


Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Iyer's Academy. Displayed are the list of news articles taken for today's analysis. We have taken these news articles from the website of the Hindu as today we do not find both the print edition and the online edition of the Hindu newspaper. Now let's move on to the analysis of first news article. This news article is in connection with National Register of Citizens released by the State Government of Assam. The news article discusses the claims made by an independent think tank that is based in New Delhi called as rights and risks analysis group. Now this think tank it conducts risks analysis to prevent human rights violations and to prevent violations of fundamental freedoms with specific focus on threats to rule of law and threats to democracy. Now this think tank has claimed that more than one lakh people belonging to scheduled tribes have been excluded from the Assam's updated National Register of Citizens. They claim that these populations are original inhabitants of Assam. We know that the updated National Register of Citizens was released on 31st August this year. National Register the updated register contained names of around 3.11 crore people from around 3.3 crore people who have applied for this. So it means the population who are excluded from the updated NRC is roughly 19 lakhs. Out of these 19 lakh people around 5% that is more than one lakh people are belonging to the scheduled tribes. They are saying based on a preliminary survey of these one lakh population 25,000 persons belong to Bodo tribal group, 9,000 persons belong to Riyang tribal groups and 8,000 persons belong to Hajang tribal groups and thousands of persons belonging to other tribal groups have been excluded from National Register of Citizens. They are saying that the exclusion of these populations belonging to scheduled tribes is connected to rejection of land ownership under the Forest Rights Act. When we say Forest Rights Act it means a forest rights act of 2006 called as the scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers recognition of Forest Rights Act of 2006. Traditional families who have lived in forest land have filed claims to the forest land under the Forest Rights Act of 2006. When we say other traditional forest dwellers it means any member or community who have primarily resided in forest land and who depend on the forest or forest land for their livelihood needs. They have primarily resided and dependent for at least 3 generations prior to 13th December 2005. According to this Forest Rights Act one generation means 25 years. If they are not able to prove their residence then their claims will be rejected.  So what happened here a significant number of population who are not able to prove their residence where the persons belonging to scheduled tribes. So there is a widespread criticism that the very legislation which was introduced to protect the rights of scheduled tribes is in fact against them. Now one reason why they could not prove their residence is because of lack of literacy and lack of knowledge of storing documents given from the government and it is very difficult to maintain the documents that are given before 1971 or that could prove their primary residence in a particular area for 3 generations that too for a tribal population. And in connection with this issue on February 2019 the Supreme Court has asked 21 states to give affidavits to explain why those persons whose claims are rejected and these persons are not evicted from the forest land. Why this is not carried out by the state governments. In this regard Assam government also filed an affidavit. According to that affidavit Assam government has stated that it has rejected the claims of around 22,000 persons belonging to scheduled tribes because of their inability to prove residency in the forest land prior to 13th December of 2005. So here we can observe the difficulty in proving the residence even the time prior to 2005 but the NRC asked them to prove prior to 1971. So there is a lot of issues with respect to this and we should know that these persons are not illegal immigrants from the state of Bangladesh. The director of this think tank has also said that about 25% of 36,000 people belong to Riyang tribal population who live in Hyalakandi district. They are also excluded from NRC. This amounts to roughly around 9,000 persons and majority of these 9,000 persons are women. They are also excluded from NRC because they are unable to prove that they lived in Assam from 1971. The women from the Riyang tribal group they have educational degrees and land documents but they do not have independent identity documents. This is because they are always identified as daughter or wife of a male member of the family and once they are married their legacy or heritage is lost. This is because their names will be deleted from the family ration cards after marriage and their names are also not registered in the new ration card that will be obtained afterwards. So their names are missing in any of the family ration cards. This is one of the reasons why overwhelming majority of women from Riyang tribal population are being excluded. The director of the think tank has also said that none of the people belonging to scheduled tribes of Assam have been listed as original inhabitants of Assam. Here when we say original inhabitants of Assam we mean those people whose names are in the National Register of Citizens. See the director has mentioned the Supreme Court order July 21, 2016 dated. But it is actually July 21, 2015. In this judgment the Supreme Court has ordered that the expression original inhabitants of state of Assam would include T tribes. The news article mentions that T tribes is a loose term used for workers in T plantation but they actually prefer to be called as Adivasis and also there are more than 90 communities among the Adivasis and as per the government of Assam T tribes are those people who work in the tea gardens of Assam. It mentions that they have come from states like Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. But Assam government has recognized them as other backward classes with respect to the issue of NRC after the Supreme Court judgment in 2015, July 21. Though people belonging to the tea tribe they were included as original inhabitants of Assam. All the members of the tea tribes are covered under original inhabitants of Assam category under clause 33 of Schedule of the Citizenship Rules of 2003. But in the light of this article the Schedule tribe population in Assam were not included as original inhabitants in the state of Assam. So the think tank has urged the state government of Assam and also the center to issue a notification to include all the Schedule tribes in NRC as the original inhabitants of the state. So we saw many persons from Bodo, Hajong and Riyanga tribal groups were excluded from the updated NRC. The Bodo tribal group is also referred as Boro, Boro Kachari. All these three tribal groups are listed as Schedule tribes in the state of Assam. And other than Assam these tribal groups are also listed as Schedule tribes in few other nearby or adjoining states as well. For example in Meghalaya Boro Kacharis are listed as Schedule tribes. In Mizoram and Meghalaya in these two states we can find Hajong tribal population being listed as Schedule tribes. Riyang tribe has been listed as Schedule tribes in the states of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Thirupura as well. And coming to Riyang tribal group we should know that they are classified as particularly vulnerable tribal group in the state of Thirupura and they are reportedly known to have extremely low literacy rate and it is said that they involve in shifting cultivation. When we say shifting cultivation we mean to say first they will clear natural vegetation in a particular area and then they go for cultivation in the cleared place. After carrying out cultivation they will leave this land abandoned so that it will restore its fertility naturally. Now they will shift to some other location they will clear natural vegetation there then they will carry out cultivation thus they will be moving from one place to another carrying out shifting cultivation. So these are some of the information with respect to the analysis of this news article. Now let's move on to next article. This news article discusses about the councilor access given to Mr. Kulbushan Jadhav. We know that Kulbushan Jadhav was convicted by Pakistan military tribunal in April 2017 on the charges that he was performing acts of spying and terrorism on behalf of India. The syllabus relevant to the analysis of this news article has been given here for your reference. Before entering to the news article let's see a brief background of the matters pertaining to Kulbushan Jadhav. He is a former Indian naval officer but he has been in the custody of Pakistan since March 2016. Indian government says that he was running a legitimate business in Chabahar port in Iran and he was kidnapped from Iran and was transferred to Pakistan. The Pakistan government claims that he has illegally entered the Pakistani territory that is he was in the territory of Pakistan in Balochistan and he continues to be in the government service of India and Pakistan claims that he was arrested and he has been in the custody on charges of spying and espionage. And after his arrest the High Commission of India in Pakistan immediately requested consular access to Mr. Jadhav. This request was made to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan government. See when we say consular access it means giving access to the consul in a foreign country. In this case the foreign country is Pakistan and the consul will be an ambassador of Indian government who is present in Pakistan which is the foreign country. Indian ambassador here Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan will be in Pakistan to protect the citizens of India who are living in Pakistan and also to protect Indian interest in Pakistan. So in this context since Indian citizen Kulbushan Jadhav was in Pakistani custody so Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan requested consular access to Kulbushan Jadhav but Pakistan denied the request and denied the consular access of India to Kulbushan Jadhav. We saw that since March 2016 he has been in the custody of Pakistan but know that in April 2017 he was sentenced to death by Pakistan military court. Subsequently in May 2017 India filed a case against Pakistan in the International Court of Justice. On 17th July 2019 judgement has been delivered by the International Court of Justice in regard to the matters pertaining to Kulbushan Jadhav and we have discussed the entire background of this judgement on our daily news analysis of 18th July 2019. The judgement said that Pakistan has to inform Mr Jadhav about his rights immediately without any further delay and Pakistan has to give access to Indian consular officers. This access should be given to Kulbushan Jadhav and then Pakistan has to review and reconsider the conviction and sentence pronounced to Kulbushan Jadhav by the military tribunal. And one significant outcome of this judgement is that it has stayed the death sentence given by Pakistan military court until there is review and reconsideration of the pronounced judgement of execution. Here when we say execution it means death sentence. It is in line with this judgement or acting in accordance with this judgement Pakistan has said that it would grant consular access to Kulbushan Jadhav on 2nd September and we should know that though Jadhav has been in the custody of Pakistan since 2016 it is only after the ICJ judgement Pakistan has granted the consular access on September 2. So the consular access has been given after a period of around 3 years. So on September 2 Mr Jadhav has received the consular access by way of meeting with the Indian Chargedy Affair Mr Gaurav Akhluwalia. It is said that he has met Mr Jadhav at a sub jail in Islamabad and when we say Chargedy Affair it means he is the deputy of the ambassador. Here the ambassador refers to Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan and we know that after India has revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and also the temporary provisions to Jammu and Kashmir that were given in article 370 Pakistan expelled Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan and therefore Mr Akhluwalia has been acting as a substitute or a deputy of Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan. So that is why he has called us Chargedy Affair. After the consular access the statement from Pakistan's spokesperson from its foreign ministry is that Pakistan has provided unimpeded and uninterrupted consular access to Kulbushan Jadhav. This access lasted for around 2 hours but in the presence of officials of government of Pakistan. It also stated that there was also no restriction on the language of communication between the Kulbushan Jadhav and the consul. Deputy of external affairs of India has also published an official statement after the meeting. It stated that Pakistan is compelling Kulbushan Jadhav to narrate a certain version of events that will help Pakistan in this particular case. So future course of action will be taken based on the report that will be given by the Indian consul. It is said that Mr Kulbushan Jadhav appeared to be under extreme pressure to parrot that is to narrate a false narrative to bolster Pakistan's untenable claims. That is Pakistan has pressurized Mr Jadhav to tell a wrong story so that Pakistan will be in the advantageous position to support its false claims. In the official statement India has stated that Pakistan had committed a gross violation of Vienna Convention 1963. Now this violation is because the Vienna Convention allows for prompt or immediate consular access in such cases. But even though India has been demanding since 2016 only almost after a period of three years Pakistan has given consular access and that is also not on its own but because of binding obligations of Pakistan based on the verdict given by the International Court of Justice. When we say Vienna Convention of 1963 it means Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963. This convention established consular relations between the states or between the countries. It came into force on 19th March of 1967. The article 2 of this convention states that the consular relations takes place by mutual consent. With respect to this convention know that both India and Pakistan have accession to this convention. Now when we say accession it means that both the countries have not signed this convention but expressed their consent to become a party to this convention. This consent is expressed by depositing an instrument of accession. When we say accession it has the same legal effect as ratification to this convention. So therefore both these countries are bound to the rules mentioned in the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963. So these are some of the information with respect to the analysis of this news article. Now the Indian government has also asked the Pakistan to effectively review and reconsider the death sentence as asked by the International Court of Justice. India has also criticized the trial that has happened with respect to the case by the Pakistan's military tribunal as farcical because of the absurd nature associated with the trial process. This is because we do not know whether Mr. Jadav was given a fair hearing during the trial. So these are some of the information with respect to the analysis of this news article. Now the future course of action would be Pakistan has to carry out this review and reconsideration. Now let's move on to the next article. This news article talks about India's first manned mission to space that has been proposed by ISRO. This mission is called as Gaganyan. We know that Gagan means space and Yan means vehicle. The news article mentions that India and Russia are to cooperate in the space sector with respect to Gaganyan project. Russia will be helping India in some four or five critical areas of this ambitious mission. One such cooperation will be extended to training Indians in Russian facilities. In other sectors Russia will be helping India to adapt Russian technologies to Indian requirements. We know that Russia have huge experience in human spaceflight programs and the cooperation is also expected therefore to reduce the time consumption in executing the Gaganyan project and also eliminating the margins of error in the successful completion of this project. The deadline for the completion of Gaganyan mission has been given by the Prime Minister of India during the Independence Day speech in the year 2018. He said that by the year India celebrates the 75th Independence Day celebrations that is by the year 2022 India would have sent its first manned mission to space. Then ISRO has outlined a roadmap so as to put a three man crew in the low earth orbit for a duration of around five to seven days. ISRO has announced that the launch of Gaganyan will be carried out using GSLV Mark III rocket. When we say low earth orbit it is an orbit around earth with an altitude above earth surface from 160 kilometers to around 2000 kilometers. Some scientists say this orbit starts from the altitude of 180 kilometers also. The news article mentions that the Gaganyan program is already on track and the process of selection of astronauts will begin shortly and by the end of 2019 they will be taken to Russia for training and after a period of around 15 month training another selection will be made at the end and those who are selected after the training will get advanced training in India before the actual launch. With the experience of Russia particularly in human spaceflight for over some last 50 years India sees Russia as a reliable and long term partner with great experience and therefore to further facilitate increased cooperation between India and Russia particularly in Gaganyan program a special ISRO unit will be established in Indian embassy situated in Moscow and it is expected that in few days Indian prime minister and Russian president will be meeting in Vladivostok in Russia during the bilateral meeting it is expected that the space cooperation will be reviewed at the highest level here at the highest level means at the levels of heads of government with respect to Gaganyan program we know the cost expected is to be under 10,000 crore less than the budget of several films or movies and there will also be two unmanned missions prior to the manned mission now this is because normally when we send satellites even if there is some damage there will not be any loss of human lives but when we send a human spacecraft they have to go to space and they have to safely return back to earth therefore ISRO is sending two unmanned missions to validate the critical technologies that are required to make a manned mission successful if it becomes successful India will become the fourth nation in the world to successfully launch a human spaceflight mission and with regard to this program ISRO has also commenced its work in human spaceflight center which was inaugurated in January this year in Bangalore it will be responsible for the implementation of Gaganyan project particularly it will deal with end-to-end mission planning development of engineering systems for the survival of the crew in space it will also play a very important role in crew selection and training and it will carry out the activities for sustained human spaceflight missions that is it will continue activities for more human spaceflight missions so these are some of the information with respect to the analysis of this news article now let's move on to next article this news article talks about eight core industries and it also talks about index of industrial production the article mentions that during the period of April to July the eight sectors that is the eight core sectors have grown only by three percent compared to the same period in the previous year that is in 2018 where the growth was around 5.9 percent these eight sectors are called as core industries or core sectors because they impact every economic activity and they serve as a backbone of all other industries and within the index of industrial production these eight core industries constitute 40.27 percent of total index now these eight core industries are coal crude oil natural gas refinery products fertilizers steel cement and electricity now coming to index of industrial production it measures short-term changes in the volume of production this change is measured for a given period with respect to the same period in a particular base year the base period for index of industrial production is 2011-12 and these short-term changes are measured for a basket of industrial products simply we can say it is a composite indicator that measures short-term changes in the volume of production of a basket of industrial products during a given period with respect to that period in the base year it is compiled and published on a monthly basis by central statistics office but with the time lag of around six weeks from the reference month say for example if they are going to publish for the month of july after the completion of the month there will be a time lag of six weeks for publishing the index for the month of july we know that central statistics office come under the ministry of statistics and program implementation this index captures the performance of three sectors manufacturing mining and electricity and we can find of these three sectors manufacturing has the highest weightage one of the reasons for the highest weightage of manufacturing sector is because of the number of items taken from manufacturing sector in the basket and IAP also accounts for several goods within the sectors of manufacturing mining and electricity and these goods are classified as basic goods capital goods intermediate goods consumer durable goods and non-durable goods basic goods symbolize raw materials or products used in manufacturing and capital goods refer plants and machinery intermediate goods refer those goods that are used for manufacturing another products when we say consumer durable these are durable items say for example a television or a computer and when we say consumer non-durable these are goods that cannot be consumed after a particular short period or these goods cannot be used for long time say for example newspapers milk powder etc and simply we can say an all-india index of industrial production single representative figure to measure the general level of industrial activity in the economy on a monthly basis these are some of the information with the analysis of this news article now let's move on to the practice questions discussion session now this question is with respect to the tribal group of ryang they have given two statements and are asking which of the above statements are not correct now the first statement they reside only in the states of mesoram and tripura but during our analysis today we discussed that they also reside in the state of asam and are listed as schedule tribes in asam megalaya mesoram and tripura so this makes the first statement incorrect now the second statement they are listed as particularly vulnerable tribal group only in the state of tripura we saw that though they are listed as schedule tribes in four states they are listed as particularly vulnerable tribal group only in the state of tripura so this makes the second statement a correct statement and from the state of tripura they are the only tribal group who are listed under particularly vulnerable tribal group so the question has asked for incorrect statements so only the first statement is incorrect therefore the correct answer for this question is option a one only now this question is with respect to vienna convention of 1963 we might have heard of vienna convention of 1961 and there is also vienna convention on the law of treaties vienna convention on 1961 means vienna convention on diplomatic relations when we say vienna convention of 1963 it means the vienna convention on consular relations that is consular relations between the states so this convention of 1963 establishes consular relations between states the statement is correct the second statement says that india is a signatory to this convention if you see as of now there are 48 signatories and around 180 parties to this convention and during our analysis we saw that india is not a signatory rather it has accession to this convention we saw that accession means the country has not signed the treaty rather it has expressed its consent to become a party to that treaty by depositing an instrument of accession which has same legal effect as ratification or acceptance or approval so note that india is not a signatory but india is a party to this convention through accession this case applies true for both india and pakistan pakistan has accession to this convention in 1969 and india has accession in the year 1977 so the second statement is incorrect so the question asks for the correct statement so the correct answer is option a one only because only the first statement is correct this question is with respect to the gaganyan mission they have given two statements and are asking which of the above statements are correct the first statement gaganyan mission will take the first indian citizen to space this statement is incorrect because way back in 1984 an indian citizen has entered space through a joint indo-soviet space mission and he is squadron leader rakesh sharma so he is the first indian to orbit in space he was also awarded asoka chakra award in the year 1984 itself if the question is given us gaganyan mission will take the first indian citizen to space through a indian spacecraft it would have made the statement a correct statement otherwise the statement is wrong the second statement the launch vehicle used will be gslv mark 3 the statement is correct the gslv mark 3 launch wake will be made provisions to carry a crew of around three astronauts and they will be in space for a period of five to seven days and this feat has to be achieved or realized before the independence day in the year 2022 so only the second statement is correct therefore the correct answer to this question is option b two only they have given three statements in this question this question is with respect to index of industrial production they're asking which of the above statements are correct first statement index of industrial production measures the short-term price changes of a basket of industrial products compared to a base year now this statement is incorrect because iip measures short-term changes in the volume of production for a basket of industrial products so it does not measure the price changes so the first statement becomes incorrect now the second statement central statistics office releases iip on a monthly basis now this statement is correct it is compiled and published on a monthly basis by central statistics office however with a time lag of six weeks from the reference month the third statement it shows the general level of industrial activity in the economy now this statement is true because it provides a single representative figure to measure the general level of industrial activity on a monthly basis so here we find only the second and third statements as correct so this means option b two and three will be the correct answer for this question


Anti-retreat snipers drive Russian 155th Marine Brigade to meet assaults. The 155th Marine Brigade is perhaps the most unsuccessful unit of Russian troops in almost two years of full-scale invasion, Forbes reported. The brigade was sent several times to storm the fortifications of the armed forces of Ukraine, it suffered significant losses and was later renewed. In March 2022, the 3,000-strong brigade suffered 20% of the losses during the battles near Chenehiv. Eight months later, in November, the reconstituted brigade was losing about 100 people daily during the assault on the Ukrainian garrison in Pavlyfka-Donetsk region. Three months later, the brigade was deployed north under Volodar. They managed to capture several quarters of the Ukrainian stronghold in February 2024 due to the fact that Russian snipers left the marines no choice but to move forward. Now, the unit is trying to capture Novomoj Kailivka, Donetsk region, where the 116th Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces and the 79th Air Assault Brigade are based. According to journalists, the brigade is used as a consumable. On the published record, the Russian military complains that they are used as meat. The attack in Novomoj Kailivka is a one-way ticket, Russian marines said. The 155th Brigade stumbled upon minefields and fell into the impact zones of drones when moving along the main road to Novomoj Kailivka from the east. During February, several dozen tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, MT, LB, tracked armoured fighting vehicles and presumably dozens of servicemen were lost. One of the three assault groups, approximately 10 men each, was destroyed. Only three survived. The wounded were not evacuated, the occupiers say in the video. As a result, the 155th seized several quarters on the eastern outskirts of the settlement, approximately 10% of the total area. The marines marched forward only because they had no other choice. During recent assaults, the brigade was followed by a so-called anti-retreat detachment with snipers who were ordered to shoot at the retreating.