Okay, good morning. This is Friday, February 26th. It's 830 in the morning. And this is the house health care committee. This morning we are going to hear testimony from a number of witnesses regarding a proposal to expand Dr. Dinosaur to pregnant women and children of Vermonters whose immigrant status does not make them currently eligible for pregnant women and children of Vermonters. So I'm going to turn this over to, well, first I want to say I appreciate Representative Black helping to take the lead on working on this. And I'll join by Representative Cortis, who I understand representative Cortis, you are going to guide us through the testimony this morning. Yes. Thank you, chair Lippert. Representative Black for leading this. I'm happy to help in whatever way I can. So just a time check we have until what time? We have 50 minutes. Five oh minutes. Okay. So we're going to start with the executive director of the office of the healthcare advocate, Michael Fisher. Good morning. I think they call me chief healthcare advocate. I think they call me things. But good morning. Thank you. I really want to appreciate the. The health committee. And I'll echo and apologize. Representative Black, I'll echo representative Black for stepping up and taking leadership. The committee is recognizing that we have neighbors in our myths who, who are locked out of healthcare because of their immigration status. And this is a proposal for a very modest, small change to crack open the door for a small set of people who would have a really tremendous impact. Tremendous positive impact in gaining access to prenatal care and care for children. And so our goal here is to listen directly as much as we can from people who would be impacted by this and, and listen to people who work directly with them. These moments happen from time to time where, where the moment is right. This is not a new issue, but the moment is right. And not only because of our current recognition of the needs of racial justice. But also because of COVID. If there is ever a time when we need to make sure that people have access to care. All people. Or as many people as we can manage. Now's the time. So with that, I will get out of the way and, and, and let people who, who know this popular, know people who would be impacted by this. Speak. So if I may jump in for a moment as the chair and just say that. I'm going to suggest that we hold committee questions until all witnesses have been heard. Thank you, chair. And I'm. Representative black and I second that. Thank you. Chief and my apologies for the, the misnaming you. Next we have good morning. Marisela. We're so happy to have you. In our committee this morning. And I'm very grateful that you were able to take the time. And may I, may I call you Marisela. And I'm very grateful that you were able to take the time. And may I, may I call you Marisela. Hello. Good morning, Marisela. The lady Marie Cordes, Representative, I was giving her the welcome. And I asked her if she was okay. Marisela, is your name. Yes. Good morning to all of you. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Marisela. So please feel free to share with us this morning. And so, yes, very good. When it's this list, feel free to share with us this morning, your testimony. I think we can do it now. Yes, my, well, I think you know my name. Hello, my name is Marisela. And. I live in Vermont, but I'm from Guatemala. I think you've already heard my name, but hello everybody. My name is Marisela. And I live in Vermont, but I'm originally from Guatemala. We live in work on a dairy farm here. And I live with my husband and my children. And I have four kids. Two kids were born here and two were born in Guatemala. And I have four children, two who are born here and two who are born in Guatemala. Well, in my experience here, well, well, if there's a difference and it's a bit complicated for us as immigrants, And in my experience here talking about my children's health, there's a big difference between my children and it's it's a difficult and it's a complicated experience for me. So I recently had a baby, my baby is now nine months old. And then in the hospital or in the doctor, I went, I was going but after I was born, some very high bills have been sent to me that according to the hospital covers it, but this time it's not. They've been sending me a bill of, they're giving me a lot of money. So it's difficult for us and sometimes it makes us not go to the clinic because it costs us, that is very difficult to earn money and to be paying a lot is difficult. And during my pregnancy, I would go to the hospital I would get medical attention and after the birth of my child, then I started to get the bills really high bills and I thought that maybe the hospital would be would be covering those expenses but I'm getting charged lots and lots of money. And that sort of experience makes it so that my family and I decide that in the future we can't go to the clinic when we need to because it's really hard to make money here and then to be spending money that you don't have on health care is very difficult. Sometimes they've had diseases like this, not serious, but it also costs us to pay the bill because it's a lot of money that they always send and sometimes they say that we didn't want them to have serious diseases but it costs us a lot because we're afraid to take them because they send us very big bills or quite a lot. And then with my children from Guatemala, they don't have health insurance either and so when they've been sick and thankfully they haven't had any severe illnesses yet, but even with the illnesses they have had it's really hard to pay the medical bills because the bills that they send us charge us a lot of money. And so we think what would happen if one of them did have a serious illness and we'd be scared to bring them to the clinic or the hospital because of the bills that would come afterwards. It's complicated to know that we don't have anything and it's already for the state or for the community, as I could say, not only us, but there are more people who need it as immigrants. And for those reasons, we would like to ask you today to expand access to health insurance to cover our children because as immigrants, it's hard knowing that you don't have access to anything. But this change would be something that benefits not just us, but the entire community and the entire state. And at the same time, we'll continue to do our part, working on the farms and I think that's something that the state benefits from as well. Thank you, Marisela. I want to clarify something about. Do you have children that are that do have insurance and children that don't? Thank you very much, Marisela. So to clarify, do you have children that do have insurance and children that don't have insurance? Yes. The children born here do have, but my two children from Guatemala don't. Yes, my two children who are born here do have health insurance, but my two children who are born in Guatemala do not. Thank you again, Marisela. I am so grateful that you took the time with us this morning to share the extreme difficulties. And this time that you spent with us will be helpful for our committee to continue working on fixing this, this problem. And I also want to acknowledge your labor and the time that you took away from your family to spend time with us. I very much appreciate it. Well, thank you very much, Marisela. I thank you very much and I appreciate the time that you have taken to share these difficulties and the time that has passed with us. It is very important for our committee to be able to work to fix this problem and finally I want to acknowledge the labor and the time that you have taken from your family to be with us this morning. Yes, it is a pleasure to be able to communicate with you and it is a joy for us as immigrants to know that they want to do something to be able to have some benefits here in that country. It's a pleasure to be able to be here with you this morning and to speak with you all and I also want to say that as immigrants it also gives us great pleasure to know that there are people like you who are looking to do something so that as a community we can have benefits here in this country. Bueno gracias Marisela. Adios. Adios. Thank you very much Marisela. Alright, now we have Naomi will cut McCausland who will be sharing a video with more testimony, experiential testimony for us, and Colleen Kent, are you able to give Naomi. So she can share the video. Yes, we should have those now. It looks like I am able to. Okay. All right. Thank you. Good morning everyone and thanks for the opportunity to join. Can you just be sure to state who you are. And for the record, thank you. Yes. So my name is Naomi woke up McCausland. I work with UVM extension as the migrant health coordinator. We support access to health care services for immigrant farm workers across the state. We cover 13 counties and work closely with the open door clinic who covers the 14th County and hideous on the call representing them today. So I, you know, as I do work for the university, but just want to say that this testimony doesn't necessarily reflect the views of the university, but are my experiences. Anything I want to just be able to pass my time on to two individuals who are going to speak about how this particular issue has or would impact them. And so it will take a second, but I'm going to get to just pull up a video. They weren't unfortunately able to join today, but felt compelled to share this with all of you. I may want Naomi is preparing the video. I want to express my appreciation to will limb back for offering translation services to our committee today. Thank you will. Yeah, thank you chair. If someone can just give an audio response that they can see the screen. I can see it. Hello, I'm Yadira. I live here in the state of Vermont. My family is integrated by my husband and nine-year-old son and one year and two months. For us as an immigrant family, it's very complicated to go to the hospital for the bills that arrive at home. Every visit to the hospital, they raise the amount of money. I am Yadira. I live in Vermont. My family is made up of my husband, my son who is nine and my son who is one year and two months. For us as an immigrant family, it is really complicated because of the bills that later arrive at the house. Every appointment or visit to the hospital brings an additional cost. For me, during my pregnancy with my son, I had a lot of problems. I had a surgery. And with every visit, the bills increased. You get to the point where you don't even want to go to the hospital because you get to thinking. How am I going to pay for the large amount of debt that appears? With my son who was born in Mexico, if he goes to the hospital or to the pediatrician or emergency room, every time he goes, because he isn't a citizen, every visit could be $2,000 or $3,000 or $4,000. It turns into enormous quantities that are just too difficult for us to pay. And then when we are there, they ask us about paying. And if you cannot, you get these looks like, why are you here if you can't pay? And when they begin pressuring you about a family member's immigration status, you become afraid. You don't know the rules of the hospital. So you think that maybe they'll call immigration. And then you no longer want to go because you're afraid. And it ends up being so much money. I think about the big difference between my son who was born here and my son who was not. For my son who wasn't born here, I can call to try and get him seen. But it takes days in contrast for my son who was born here. It's quick. Sometimes I get to the point where I don't even want to bring him in instead try to bear it to avoid racking up the bills. Because if you can't pay the debt, they send it to collections and the people call you and send letters demanding payment. If we had the money, we would pay the bills, but we don't. It's difficult, stressful, and depressing. Hello. Good morning. To all who are watching this video. My name is Annalie. I live in Vermont and want to thank the people who are thinking about the well being of my family. It is for that reason that I'm recording this video. I'm unable to participate in the call due to work. So it was easier for me to make videos for you to see and for me to tell you a bit about my story. Two years ago, I came to Vermont and thank God have been working on a few dairy farms. I have a son and he's always falling ill. So I have to bring him to the hospital. It's very expensive because he doesn't have any health insurance. So I've been receiving bill after bill after bill for us one visit to the emergency room. And we are charged a great deal. And without all of that money, the bills keep coming. One day I called them up and told them they could just come and get me because I don't have that kind of money. The bills come $1,342 and they didn't do much of anything for my son. Without health insurance as immigrants, they charge a lot. And what can we do? I would be very appreciative if there were an opportunity to have health insurance at the very least for my son. There are so many others like us who suffer the same. I thank the person who invited me here to speak by video, to ask the legislators to expand insurance, because it would be a pleasure, something special, if my son could have access to health insurance here in Vermont. I hope it is possible. In advance, I'm thankful. God bless you. Thank you. I hope I can do it. In advance, I'm very grateful. Thank you very much. I didn't hear anything, so I'm assuming that you are all able to watch that. So these experiences that we've seen over the past decade plus are not unique. I think something that sticks out for what we have seen with women who need prenatal care and children without insurances that their experiences really vary across the state. Certainly the experiences of receiving large bills and fear about payment are consistent, but in some cases hospitals are covering that cost through financial assistance programs. I think one of the things that we have seen in our experiences, care at the hospital is not able to happen with a financial assistance plan. And so we have seen many scenarios where a family is traveling maybe an hour away to go to an FQHC when there's a hospital, 10 or 15 minutes away from where they live. And so we have experienced difficulty accessing transportation. And so certainly we have seen delays in care as a result of long distances that people have to travel as well as the fear of cost. So I'm going to leave it at that and pass it back. Thank you. Thank you. Naomi. We'll move on now to Alicia Rodriguez. And we have just a time check we have a little over 20 minutes for Alicia Erin and Heidi. Hello everyone. Good morning. My name is Alicia or Alicia Rodriguez. I'm the communications coordinator with the office of the healthcare advocate. And I think the first thing I want to do is just genuinely thank the committee for giving space to hear testimony from the folks that we've gotten a chance to hear from this morning. I think that those voices are very, very powerful in this conversation. It's really important to put them at the forefront of this issue. And essentially what I'm here to do this morning is to just tell you all a little bit about Vermont's complex rules related to immigrant eligibility for insurance. So I'm hoping to just kind of contextualize some of this information and tell you a little bit more about the legal framework that exists here. And I just hope to demonstrate how our current system is failing to meet the comprehensive healthcare needs of undocumented pregnant people and children in Vermont. These individuals are members of our community, obviously, as you heard this morning. And fundamentally, I think we have a duty to reduce the inequities in our healthcare system. And specifically so when they disproportionately impact people of color in our state. So the HCA or the office of the healthcare advocate has both a policy team and an advocacy team. Our advocacy team operates a free legal helpline that enables any Vermonter to connect with a paralegal that can help them untangle their legal questions about health insurance. We've been working over two years connecting with hundreds of Vermonters as a member of this team. And while serving as a healthcare advocate, I had the opportunity to learn a significant amount about the complexities and shortcomings of our healthcare system as it currently exists. The advocacy team witnesses Vermonters struggle with a multitude of affordability and access related challenges every day. And the cases that really highlighted the disparity in our current system are those related to access to care for undocumented individuals. Today you've you've heard from these people themselves and you'll also hear from providers who do a lot of fantastic work to serve these members of our community through their clinics. The lack of access to care in these situations is really often dependent on your geographic location in the state. And there's very limited access to comprehensive care for undocumented pregnant people and children within these particular settings. I believe that this deficit exists in part because of the lack of access to affordable health coverage for these individuals. And it is my hope that by highlighting these complexities in our system that can it can give you all a better understanding of how inaccessible our current system is and how these inequities really play out when we talk about access to care. And specifically a lot of these inequities really shift the cost of this care onto hospitals and these low income Vermonters.  So, I want to start talking about qualified health plans and Dr. Dinosaur so these are traditional health benefits that both citizen Vermonters and some non citizens that lawfully reside here are able to enroll in. If they meet those financial income criteria. So undocumented Vermonters currently cannot enroll in health insurance programs through Vermont Health Connect. That means they can't get any help related to financial costs of their health insurance. They can enroll in a direct enroll with Blue Cross Blue Shield or MVP for the full pay the full price for her health plan. However, for most Vermonters, regardless of your income level, these prices are unaffordable between the monthly premiums and then the cost sharing that would be associated with that. And really the only system that we have for covering some of these outstanding medical expenses is through a program called emergency Medicaid. And emergency Medicaid has some really complicated coverage criteria. And in addition to that the application process is very, very complicated and by virtue of that really inaccessible. So emergency Medicaid coverage is only available to Vermonters who are ineligible for Medicaid because of their immigration status. Recipients of this benefit must meet all other eligibility criteria for Medicaid, meaning they must reside in Vermont and they have to meet the income qualifications as well. Emergency Medicaid also has a very limited coverage criteria. It only covers the treatment of sudden emergency medical conditions. Labor and delivery is considered a covered service for this benefit. However, organ transplants follow up care and routine prenatal and postnatal care are not covered under this service. And despite the existence of this benefit, it's significantly underutilized within our state, considering what we know about this population. And Diva reports that between 2016 and 2021, this type of coverage has only been granted 10 times. And in that period, only one labor and delivery was covered, and there were no children under 21 that received payment for those covered services. And as I mentioned before, the application process for this benefit is very burdensome. It's actually more burdensome than any other health program that I'm aware of. So to apply for emergency Medicaid, a person must fill out a document, a very long application called a 205 all med. And then after that, both that individual, in addition to the provider, have to fill out another application called a 201 EM form. And when both of these applications are complete, the provider and the individual client or applicant within that circumstance also has to submit documentation related to their medical bills and their medical claims. And once all of this is done, and it's then submitted to Diva's clinical team, and they're the ones who have the opportunity to retroactively approve or deny this kind of request. So I think that you can get a sense of how complicated this application process is from that application, from that explanation. Again, it's burdensome. It's more burdensome than any other program that I'm currently aware of. And I'm also not aware of any language appropriate applications or outreach material for this particular type of coverage. So I think all of that is to say that currently many Vermonters who need access to care, you know, rely on going to hospitals for this kind of care. And one other inequity I just want to highlight in the system is that often people rely on patient financial assistance within the circumstance. However, Vermont does not have a comprehensive framework to really understand and receive patient financial assistance in the state, meaning that you can go to one hospital and they may have particular eligibility criteria that you meet. However, other hospitals may find you ineligible for any type of assistance, even though you have the same household income in the same household size. So there really is a huge geographic issue to access to care within our state that I think is really important to highlight in these conversations. So as we continue to address racial equity and healthcare on a state level. I think we have to improve our systems with these community members in mind. Many children and pregnant people in our state don't get necessary care because they don't have health insurance and don't have the money to pay for their medical costs out of pocket. Some children struggle to obtain necessary vaccines and primary care and pregnant people often give birth and fear because they're never going to be able to cover the cost of that care. Prenatal and childhood access to care are really undisputed on building blocks for better health throughout life. And as Vermont's current health reform efforts really focuses on the principle of providing primary care to everyone as reduced as a means of reducing the risk of long term, undetected and non treated illnesses. So we really think that we need to keep access to care for this population and all Vermonters in mind as we continue to reform the system. Thank you so much. Thank you so much Alicia. Now we'll move on to Aaron Jacobson. You're muted Aaron there you go. Sorry about that. Thank you everyone I'm going to try to keep it brief. So first of all my name is Aaron Jacobson and I am a professor of law at Vermont law school. I teach immigration law in the classroom and I also run the immigration clinic. Where in we work with law students to help non citizens obtain status in the United States so they can stay here permanently. And our caseload is made up of humanitarian immigration cases so though that's people who are seeking asylum, because people who are fleeing persecution or torture, people who might be applying for trafficking visas, you visas because someone is a survivor of a crime, domestic violence cases, and cases for special immigrant juveniles who are kids who've experienced abuse, have been abandoned or neglected by one or both parents. So those are the, those are the people that we work with day in and day out and almost all of our clients at, at one point or another are ineligible for health care. I just want to add to Marisela and Yadira and Aline's testimony here and talk a little bit about some other, another category of non citizens who are carved out of the eligibility categories for Dr. So, in addition to the broad category of undocumented individuals who are not eligible for health care. There's, there's this other category of people who might be, but might not be, and it's very complex and I'm not going to try to explain all of the ins and outs and the next four minutes. But I do want to make a quick point about the fact that this is very complex and that is that oftentimes even those people who might actually be eligible under our current laws, children and pregnant women were lawfully present. There are we often see denials and error by the agency because the, because the rules are so complex and confusing. And then oftentimes, you know, sometimes I might hear about this, or someone like Alicia and maybe we can help those individuals access health care, but oftentimes I suspect we're just not hearing about it. People are being denied health insurance access to health care and they don't know that it's a denial and error. So, to be able to simplify who has access by just saying all Vermont children and pregnant individuals have can have access to health care would be an enormous benefit obviously both to those individuals, but then to to that to the decision makers here. So, the category of people that I want to to talk about are those who are lawfully present. And if you are lawfully present. If you're a lawfully present child or a lawfully present pregnant woman, you do have access to health care under Dr. Dinosaur. However, what is lawfully present. Like I just said is very complex and confusing and who is not lawfully present are people who might be seeking asylum but have not yet applied for asylum. The other thing about an asylum seeker is that you have to have applied for asylum, and that application has to be pending for six months before you're eligible eligible for health care. The abused, abandoned or neglected child who is seeking special immigrant juvenile status under the federal immigration laws but has not yet applied for that status is not considered lawfully present under our laws. So you have this group of very vulnerable individuals, people who are fleeing torture, people who are fleeing persecution, people who are fleeing abuse. And their children and their pregnant women and they are not eligible for health care and they won't be eligible for health care until they can apply for a very complex, difficult to obtain humanitarian immigration status and even if you can pull that off. And that process in and of itself is very challenging and takes a long time so those individuals are often also new arrivals, and they're here in a very vulnerable situation, both in terms of what they're, they're fleeing, but in terms of their legal status. Again, then they do not have access to health care so I just want to give one example. So that hopefully we have some time for questions and I'm not taking up any more of anyone else's time, but I think this will help illustrate the, the people are facing and the and then another this other category of folks that we're talking about that isn't that's in addition to our undocumented farm workers. So, this is a person who came to our office recently. She is from Africa, she is fleeing horrific torture. She has been in the US for about a year. She came with her husband, who then in the United States he became severely abusive. She fled him and that relationship, and she is, she has now found herself in Vermont. She is with her young child who's three years old, and she is eight months pregnant, and she is homeless. And she ended up at one of our sister organizations, the Association for Africans living in Vermont, they called us, they're trying desperately to find her health care, because of the fact that she is eight months pregnant. She hasn't had any health care in the United States since her arrival, her three year old does also does not have access to health care. And she also has a very complicated medical history connected to her torture in her home country, and the fact that when she was living there, when she had her first child her now her three year old, she had a very complicated and difficult birth. And at that time, her care providers told her that if she were ever to have another child she would need a cesarean. And so now she's in the state of Vermont, with no access to benefits, and it's the nonprofits who are trying to scramble and quickly get her some care. Another complicating layer to this story is that a lot of these individuals. As I mentioned there, they are new arrivals, there's language barriers, and there's also an immense amount of fear about whom to trust in our government. And when you when she presents herself to try to get some care. There are a lot of questions about her immigration status, and she fears that she could get arrested, that she might be separated from her, her child, because everyone is hearing about these things happening in the news. And so there's a lot of barriers built up toward for allowing these people to access health care. And yet this could be a very. This is a life and death situation for her. My last point is that when we're talking about these individuals, people who aren't yet lawfully present, but will be for so for this woman, for example, when we help her, and we, we send in her asylum application, she will then become lawfully present, once later. So it's, while she is in an extremely vulnerable difficult situation now, it's also a relatively limited amount of time that she is excluded from that lawfully present category. So I think it's important to know that for many of the people we're talking about. First of all, it's a limited number of Vermonters, and then also for many of them it's for a limited amount of time. Thank you so much. You're welcome happy to answer questions. Well, before we do that we're going to move on to Heidi Sue list. Thank you. And thank you for this opportunity to testify. My name is Heidi Sue list and I'm the executive director of the open door clinic in Middlebury. We're a free clinic for the uninsured and underinsured. And we're a member of Vermont's free and referral clinics. There are nine free clinics in the state of Vermont. We provide a tiny bit of context. Last year we saw 948 unduplicated or distinct patients, and almost 400 of those patients were either undocumented workers, or h2a, h2b, or asylum seekers. I have concluded testimony among the sustained group of people this morning and the brave women who provided their testimony, which I think is, you know, stories are always the most compelling means by which we can learn of real circumstances. And I think that perhaps the most important point I can make today is that by the time patients reach our doors, they are most often frustrated, sick, and desperate for care because they've hit one barrier and dead end after another, and trying to find help. My humble opinion and I've worked in healthcare since 1985. We are now in a multi tiered broken system of healthcare that's riddled with inconsistencies and a multitude of barriers to basic access to care that include but aren't limited to language, culturally appropriate care, transportation, daunting bills, prohibitive costs, and last but not least insurance status. There are so many types of tickets that you have to have in your pocket to get in the door, and they all have to be there at the same time.  It's actually a recipe for disaster and we see it all the time from the inside out at clinic. And unless we have blinders on now, we're also seeing it from the outside in as the pandemic has really ravaged this global community. So while in a different day, I would proudly talk about all the good that we do in our community and what a gem we are within an integrated system of healthcare. And one of the things that really matters is pre clinics are safety net organizations, and by the time community members reach us we're often working in a reactive mode. We're working to shore up all of the places that have been neglected by via lack of equitable systems. We provide care we provide case management we connect people to resources. And what we know in 2021 to be optimal health care, optimal and consistent health care, optimal care means equitable access for all. And as the pandemic has harshly shown us, none of us is healthy until we're all healthy. Simply put access to care and basic preventive care are the greatest indicators of excellent outcomes. As executive director I do a lot of fundraising because our services are free. We can't charge for any of our services and that's a world I comfortably live in. And when I was talking with Mike yesterday about what what would this actually cost. Julia, my colleague Julia and I just did some admittedly very quick research and math. And if we in fact are talking about a small number of women right now I'm just looking at pregnant women alone. I would just like to offer this for some, some thought to you all. You know, we learned yesterday in our Google search that the average cost of a vaginal birth in Vermont is without insurance is just over $12,000. The median birth is over $17,000. And then I threw in having been a childbirth educator for many years. Well we have to include some high risk women and some high risk pregnancies. And I literally pulled that number out of a hat. But if we were to assume that 10% of let's say we have 20 women we're talking about right now to put this in concrete terms. And 10% of those are high risk at $100,000 apiece 20% are cesarean and 70% are normal vaginal birth. I came up with a cost of care of just over $400,000 for these women, which in my view is peanuts for care. So, I guess, and I'm very happy to take specific questions about what we see and how we work at clinic and either care for people or connect them to resources. But I'd just like to leave you with I think that it's in the best interest of our society to take care of each and every one of us. And I really encourage you all to move forward, so that the human beings behind these categories of people that we often throw out in our discussions. But the real women that you've seen today who have shared their stories and who have taken huge risks to try to do better for their families and come here and contribute to our communities. Let's do it so they can be more equitably and optimally served. Thank you. Thank you so much Heidi and before I pass this over to our chair. I wanted to again thank all of you for your powerful testimony and encourage you to, if you have it written testimony to please send that to us so that we can. Our committee assistant can put it on our website. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mari and each one of you who brought testimony to us this morning. We are at our time limit but I'm going to, I'm going to indulge myself with one question and I see representative Houghton as a question and then I think we're going to finish for the morning we will return to this, possibly another point in time. This is very, very important and helpful testimony. My, my one question before hearing from representative Houghton is am I understand and I maybe direct this to Alicia and Aaron. In terms of barriers, I found myself on a number of occasions asking if the barriers were federal or state. Whether we have the ability under state law to make available to make Dr. Dinosaur. Available on a to make it more more available to pregnant women and two children of non citizen Vermonters. I realize this is a complex issue but if I guess I'm asking in a broad sense, whether you see us having the authority and the ability to do this. Yeah, I'm happy to address this question a little bit further and the answer is it's a little bit complicated but I'm happy to simplify some of the language. So under chip. So the Children's Health Insurance Program which is a federal benefit. They actually give states the option to extend prenatal care so it wouldn't be as comprehensive as Dr. Dinosaur coverage but prenatal care to those pregnant women. So that would mean that that individual coverage related to pregnancy care and labor and delivery can be potentially expanded under that benefit for a state option. When we talk about coverage for undocumented youth within the state of Vermont, that likely would have to be something that would be state only funding, just because there are certain federal restrictions related to immigration status and enrollment and Medicaid. So there is an option for expansion under chip and there may be some flexibility with state funding to expand coverage for those children. But there's not a federal barrier to states choosing to do that that I guess that's part of my question as well. I would need to be a little bit precise about language here but what I will say is there's not a federal barrier to extending pregnancy care so that prenatal care to undocumented pregnant women. And if I can jump in other states have done have extended coverage with with state only funding. And clearly, we will need to ask many questions and come back to this but I wanted to just have that broadly on the table for us to be thinking about representative Houghton and then we're going to then we'll stop because we need to be on the floor, our speaker to ask us to be on the floor promptly at 930 which is when we convene this morning. Good morning representative Houghton. Thank you and I just thank you everyone. I mean I sit here and and and listen to everything that you all are doing to help Vermonters and it's very impressive and I'm sure very difficult for each of you so thank you. I just, I, you know, when I think about all of this I go back to all the things we talked about with social determinants of health and how important it is for young children to be treated early to have a good outcome or be able to have a better outcome in life. And so it was any of these programs or lack of programs. I'm just asking for clarification so right now there is nothing available for the early years of care would only be during if we were able to do something it would only be that that pregnancy piece is that accurate. Heidi I don't know whether you can jump in from the provider perspective. I'm not sure if this is going to answer your question clearly but one of the things that we do with undocumented. So, if we are serving families who have undocumented families who have children, let's say who were born in Mexico, and therefore don't qualify for services. So what we do representative Houghton is to work with them to apply for Porter financial assistance and see, and that is by income, see where they qualify. So do they qualify for 100% free care 8060 etc, and then try to place them into, for instance, Porter pediatric practice so that their children can get care. I unfortunately don't know beyond that, if they can then access a multitude of other programs, you know that, depending on what their needs are. Anyone else here can that. So that's how we'll try to get them access to health care. Thank you. Complicated and Okay, well again. I want to thank Mike Fisher in the office of the health care advocate for bringing this issue forward on behalf of others who And to thank each of our witnesses and especially those who provided direct testimony about their own personal situations it takes courage, both to create a video, or to come before this committee. I recognize that and I want to expand extend my as the chair of this house health care committee extend my personal appreciation for that. I'm going to stop here this morning. This has been a full but fruitful morning. And thank you all, and for members that's run down the hall and get to the house chamber.


What is going on guys welcome back to the channel and I appreciate you being here today I have some interesting information on what could possibly be legit news on the next DLC for destiny 2 now I say might even though this seems 100% legit to me It's a might because until it's actually confirmed. I won't say it's 100% legit, but it does seem it So thanks to dark soul on reddit who states he was browsing the destiny to expansion pass on the Xbox store and Decided to check out the web page for the second DLC He states it had details of the DLC which he quickly took screenshots of before they wiped it So the screenshots if you do want to check them out can be found linked within the video description Obviously, I ain't stupid enough to showcase them in this video, but I will read through them all So the description for this from what looks to be from a legit page from the Microsoft store states this about the second DLC for destiny 2 destiny 2 expansion to Guards of Mars sends your garden out to investigate a mysterious signal Originating from Mars's northern point a brand new destination with all new story missions and adventures Rasputin the last of the ancient war mines has been alerted to a dark threat from beyond the solar system He has betrayed humanity and plans to construct a powerful weapon Capable of detonating the traveler itself Work alongside Anna Bray who has emerged from the shadows after being missing for years and destroy Rasputin before his Machinations are realized now before we get into the features Let's talk a little about this now We know or I've seen from past leaks that this makes sense But this is the description you'd expect to read from an official source from an official place like the Xbox store Now we knew Anna Bray was going to be a big part of the DLC and we knew it surrounded Rasputin So it's making sense now onto the features explore Mars and uncover Rasputin's secret new store missions and adventures New theme weapons armor and gear to earn new cooperative activities new cooperative multiplayer arenas new cooperative red-layer activity new cross splicer and Construct enemy factions and more so real interesting now like I said It seems legit to me But until it's confirmed we will take it with a pinch of salt that being said I expect to see over the coming Weeks more info on the next DLC for destiny 2 so as we know we will be exploring Mars to uncover Rasputin's secret This is obviously something we already knew new story missions and adventures new theme weapons and armor and new gear to earn You'd expect this from a DLC I'm not gonna lie new cooperative activities and interestingly states new competitive multiplayer arena Could this be the hint? Christopher about dropped when asked about things such as the court of Oryx prison of ours and Arkansas returning to destiny 2 and he confirmed features as such will be returning I think this might be out of three though I did prefer the Arkansas in every way now whatever this multiplayer arena is if the basics of its core elements are built upon a Returning activity from destiny one. Let's hope they did choose Arkansas I speculated about this in a past video and I believe the infinite forest would be a great place to hold Such an activity that place in my opinion although a great concept is a little underwhelming It then states new cooperative raid layer this we knew was coming confirmed ages ago But the most interesting part here is the new crawl splice that and construct enemy factions I've done a little research to try and find anything to do with these factions and come up with nothing not really Anyway one thing which we'll talk about in a second if you love folks out there have any details to spare Please do them below in that comment section, but I do love the idea of enemy factions Hopefully I doubt you but eventually hopefully we're getting new enemy race I mean all we have had since D1 is new factions Crawl splice though does sound cool, but sounds kind of falling ish The only vote I could find which you will see on screen now when search for related terms that being crow and destiny The destiny PDA stated the following troll may refer to the following Crow device converts surveillance drones employed by Prince Yildrin south of the reef Crow title members of the reefs intelligence service and Yildrin south Queen Mary's brother and the master of crows now all these are interesting But the last line is most interesting for sure Prince Yildrin south is a character We do know from the D1 days Queen Mary's brother and the master of crows Yildrin south was initially named cruel This could somehow tie into the origins of this new faction, but I will leave that with you But yes for sure guys It's around these times where details of the next DLC starts to drop and I believe this may be the first Destiny 2 at the moment isn't in the best place But for sure with recent updates and patched details things do seem to be under up Let's just hope most the core problems are sorted before the second DLC release if they ain't then I think it will really impact This DLC, but that's just my opinion But yes guys that is it for another video if any other info drops I will have you covered here on my channel, but a few interesting things to talk about for sure Let me know your opinion on this down below within that comments section Thanks as always for stopping by if you enjoyed the video leaving like really does help me out and hopefully people I will see you on that next one


Good evening aspirants, welcome to daily news analysis by Shankar A.S academy. Today's date is 30th August 2023, displayed here are the list of topics we are going to see today. Now before we get into the discussion, I have an important announcement. Shankar A.S academy's pre-storming test series is about to begin on 11th September. The first test will happen on 18th September and other details regarding the test series are given here, you can go through it. I also have another important announcement, Shankar A.S academy's All India Open mock test is going to start on 1st September. Other details regarding this mock test is given in the link in description, you can check it. Now let us get into the discussion. Have a look at this news article. This news article is an update on India's Chandrayaan 3 mission. The article says that Pragyaan rover has discovered the presence of sulphur in lunar south pole. So this is about the news article. In our discussion, we will see how sulphur was discovered and what is the significance of this discovery. First know that Pragyaan rover is equipped with two payloads. They were alpha particle x-ray spectrometer and laser induced breakdown spectroscope, also known as LIPS. Both these instruments are used to find the mineral and elemental composition on lunar surface. The thing is that they use different methods to find the elemental composition. So it is the LIPS payload that discovered the presence of sulphur in lunar south pole. So in our discussion, we will mainly focus about LIPS. This LIPS payload uses a scientific technique that analyzes the composition of materials by exposing them to intense laser pulses. In the first step of the technique, a high energy laser pulse is focused on the surface of the material such as rock or soil. The second step is a plasma formation. The energy of the laser pulse will be so intense that it will vaporize small amount of material on the surface. This will create a micro plasma. Here a plasma is a distinct state of matter that exists at high temperature or energy. So basically a plasma is a partially ionized gas that contains equal number of positively charged ions and free electrons. One of the important properties of plasma is that it emits light. So the last step of the process is analyzing the emitted light from the plasma. Here you have to note that each element has a characteristic emission at specific wavelength. So by analyzing the wavelength of light emitted by the plasma, scientists can deduct which element is present there. So using the above mentioned steps, the LIPS payload has made some discovery. It has identified the presence of aluminum, sulphur, calcium, iron, chromium, titanium on the lunar surface. It also revealed the presence of manganese, silicon and oxygen. So the Pragyan rover is undergoing investigation to detect the presence of hydrogen. Now why is the discovery of sulphur is significant? This discovery is significant because it gives us lot of insights into lunar surface. See sulphur is a volatile element meaning it typically evaporates at relatively low temperature. Its presence on the lunar surface suggests that there might be process on the moon that preserved sulphur containing materials, possibly volcanic activity or impact events. So studying the lunar sulphur will help us decode the moon's volcanic activity. Next the discovery of sulphur will help us understand the impact of solar wind. Sulphur is known to be affected by solar wind. As we all know the moon lacks a significant atmosphere. So the elements on the surface are directly impacted by the solar wind. Here the discovery of sulphur and its interaction with the solar wind can contribute to our understanding of space weathering process on air less bodies. Finally sulphur compounds could be used as resources for future lunar activities. It can be used for activities such as producing oxygen, sulphuric acid or other valuable materials that could support human presence on the moon. So this is the significance of finding sulphur on the moon. So this is all regarding this discussion. Let us move to the next topic. Take a look at this news article. According to the article a senior IAS officer has alleged irregularities in Jaljiwan Mission in Jammu and Kashmir. So the mission has a total budget of 14,000 crore in Jammu and Kashmir and he has accused several irregularities happened in the mission. So in this background let us quickly go through Jaljiwan Mission in prelims point of view. See the Jaljiwan Mission is a flagship initiative of Government of India in 2019. The mission aims to address the water scarcity and contamination of water by providing safe drinking water to every rural household in the country. So the mission is implemented by Ministry of Jal Shatthi and its aim is to achieve the goal of Hargar Jal which means water to every home. The primary objective of Jaljiwan Mission is to ensure every rural household with tap water connection. It also ensures the grey water treatment and its reuse. Here the grey water means the water collected from sink and kitchen waste water. So basically the mission aims to improve the health and well-being of rural communities by removing the burden of water scarcity and water contamination. Now let us see some key features of the Jaljiwan Mission. Firstly the mission emphasizes community engagement and participation in implementation of this mission. So in that line the Pani Samithis were created at village level. These Pani Samithis will involve in planning, operating and maintaining the village water supply systems. These Samithis consist of 10 to 15 members with at least 50% of women members. The members from self-help groups, health workers, Anganwadi teachers are also included in these Pani Samithis. The committee prepare a one-time village action plan and this plan will be approved by Gram Sabha. Next we shall see the funding pattern of the scheme. For Himalayan and Northeastern states the funding pattern is 90 is to 10 and for other states the funding pattern is 50 is to 50. The union territories have 100% funding from central government. Here 90 is to 10 means 90% of funding is done by centre and 10% of funding is done by Himalayan and Northeastern states. 50 is to 50 means 50% of funding is done by central government and other 50% is done by the respective states. So this is the funding pattern of Jheljiven mission. Thirdly the mission places importance on capacity building initiatives. So at the rural level the mission aims to enhance the managerial skills of communities. Apart from this regular monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are also established to track the progress of the mission. Ultimately Jheljiven mission has ambitious target of providing tap water connections to all rural households by 2024. In order to understand the significance of this mission let us see a report submitted by World Health Organization. Recently in June 2023 World Health Organization conducted a study on the impact of Jheljiven mission. The study has shown that Jheljiven mission has a potential to prevent 4 lakh death from diarrhea. So this highlights the life saving impact of providing tap water connection to rural households. Currently 5 states and 3 union territories have reported 100% coverage of the scheme. That means these 5 states and 3 union territories have provided tap water connection to all their rural households. The 5 states are Gujarat, Telangana, Goa, Haryana and Panchap. And the 3 union territories are Andaman-Nikubar islands, Daman-Dayu and Dhadra-Nahar-Haveli and Pondicherry. So these 5 states and 3 union territories have reported 100% coverage of Jheljiven mission. In 2021 the central government also introduced Jheljiven mission for urban cities. So this scheme was implemented by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. So this is all we need to know about Jheljiven mission. Now let us move to the next part of our discussion. Take a look at this editorial article. This article talks about the Appointments to Election Commission of India. See the Election Commission should be a neutral and independent body. But recently the central government has introduced a bill in parliament which is criticized for diluting the independence of election commission. So in this discussion we will understand the appointment process of election commission, issues with the appointment process and what are the suggestions made by the author of this editorial. Before that the syllabus regarding this topic is highlighted here. All this started with public interest litigation filed in 2015. The petition said that current process of choosing election commissioner is illegal. This is because article 324 of constitution clearly mentions that parliament has to make a law for the appointment of chief election commissioner. But until now no such law has been made by the parliament. Currently the Appointments to Election Commission are made by president on the recommendation of prime minister. So the petitioner made a case that election commission members must be chosen in a fair and transparent manner. Several similar petitions were also made in supreme court regarding this matter. Here the supreme court expressed its concern about the lack of separate law for this appointment process. But it did not order the government to make a law under article 324. Instead the constitution bench of supreme court itself decided to change the election procedure. So it established a three-member committee consisting of prime minister, leader of opposition and chief justice of India. The purpose of this committee is to make recommendation to the president regarding the appointment to election commission. This judgment by supreme court is significant because the procedures of appointment to election commission has been a much debate from the past. Now let us see a brief background of this appointment procedure for election commission. At the beginning the constitution assembly debated the appointment process of election commission. Some of the members of constitution assembly suggested that the chief election commissioner should be appointed by a joint session of parliament. He has to be elected with two-third majority vote. This was proposed to prevent any biases in appointment process. However this provision was not included in the constitution. Ultimately the parliament was interested with the responsibility of making laws regarding the appointment process of election commission. Then four important commissions were constituted regarding this matter. V. M. Tarkunde committee, Dinesh Goswami committee in 1990s, second administrative reforms commission in 2009. All of these committees recommended that appointments to the election commission should be based on a broad system like Collegium than by sole decision of ruling government. Then in 2006 a suggestion was made by former chief election commissioner Mr. B. B. Tandon. He suggested that a seven member committee headed by prime minister should choose the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners. But no action was taken by the government regarding this suggestion. In 2012 the opposition party also insisted that a Collegium should be formed with the prime minister as its chairman in order to decide the appointment procedure for election commission. Considering all this the supreme court established advisory committee to ensure the independence of election commission. But this month government introduced chief election commissioner and other election commissioners bill in Rajasabha. If this bill gets passed it will nullify the earlier verdict of supreme court. This is because the bill has introduced a search committee and a selection committee. The search committee will be headed by cabinet secretary and have two other members. The selection committee will also have three member body headed by prime minister. It also include leader of opposition in Lok Sabha and a union cabinet minister. Note that members of judiciary are not represented in this election committee. So the author of the editorial criticizes two important things in this new bill. Firstly including the union cabinet minister and excluding a member of judiciary gives advantages to ruling party. This is against the recommendation of all committees which we have seen earlier. Second thing is the bill was intended to remove biases of ruling party from election commission. However in reality the bill only increased the government control over election commission. So this has led to concerns that bill is weakening the Indian democracy. So the author suggests that changes should be made in the bill to make election commission an autonomous institution. Independence of election commission is very important to ensure the public confidence in democracy. And for that government should review the composition of selection committee and make it more balanced. Here the government can involve independent experts, jurists, civil society representatives in the search committee. Their presence could help maintain the integrity of selection process. So these are the important points mentioned by the author in this editorial. So this is all about this discussion. Let us move to the next topic. Look at this editorial article. This article was written in the backdrop of recently concluded G20 trade and investment ministers meeting. At the end of the meeting the ministers issued Jaypur call for action. This initiative aims to enhance various access to finance and market related information for MSMEs. So this is the background of the article. Now in the discussion let us understand the important points provided in the article. And we will see some important measures taken by Indian government to promote small businesses in India. Now first let us look at the points provided in this editorial. Recently G20 trade and investment ministers meeting was conducted at Jaypur for two days. There is 24th and 25th August. As India is now holding the G20 presidency, the meeting was led by Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Mr. Piyush Goyal. In the meeting the ministers discussed various trade related issues. The ministers also issued some action plans to enhance trade opportunity for G20 nations. One such important decision is Jaypur call for action. This action plan is aimed at enhancing access to information for MSMEs. As MSMEs are smaller in size they are not able to access information about finance and market sensitive data. So the Jaypur call for action recognizes this challenge and it aims to upgrade the existing databases to provide trade related information for MSMEs. For this purpose the ministers of G20 countries have called for international trade center to work on the implementation of this plan. They will work together on the upgradation of existing databases. So these are the important points mentioned in this editorial. Now we will look at important measures taken by government to promote small businesses in India. See the most of small businesses in India are being run by MSMEs. The MSMEs play very important role in Indian economy as well as the economies of many developing nations. The MSMEs account for 90 percentage of global business and 50 percentage of world GDP. Most importantly these MSMEs generate 60 to 70 percentage of jobs worldwide. Now let us see India specific information. In India the network of MSMEs is very vast. They account for 45 percentage of manufacturing output in India and also account for 40 percentage of direct and indirect exports. So we have seen earlier that MSME is the second largest employer in India after agriculture. Now let us look at the important steps taken by Indian government to promote MSMEs. Indian government has established National Small Industries Corporation in 1955. It is working under Ministry of Micro Small Medium Enterprises. The main task of NSIC is to support and grow micro and small scale industries throughout the country. The NSIC currently provides two important schemes to support the small business. They were marketing support scheme and credit support scheme. Under the marketing support scheme the NSIC provided market support to expand the reach of products developed by small businesses. Then the credit support scheme provides financial assistance to small businesses for getting raw materials and marketing etc. So this is an important step to promote small businesses in India. Another important step is credit linked capital subsidy scheme. It was launched in 2000 under the Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises. Under the scheme a subsidized loan is provided to small businesses. To put it simply this scheme help MSMEs to improve their technology which in turn enhances their revenue generation. Apart from this we have Small Industries Development Bank of India, SIDB. This bank offers direct loan to MSMEs who are in need of funds. The bank also provides direct loan schemes to NBFCs and small finance banks and they in turn provide funds to small businesses. So these are the important measures taken by Indian government to promote small businesses in India. So we have seen the Jaipur call for action which was taken in G20 meeting and some important measures taken by Indian government to promote small businesses. So this is all about this discussion. Let us move to the next topic. Now take a look at this article. It says that opposition party has raised concerns about inaction of SEBI against Adani group. So they are accusing that SEBI is not taking NF actions against Adani group in recent controversies. So let us use this opportunity to revise about SEBI. See in order to understand the role of SEBI first we should understand how a stock market functions. See there are stock exchanges which enables buyers and sellers of the shares to meet in a common place and transact with each other. See this image. You can see how a stock market functions. It seems very simple. The securities are listed by the companies. The investors then buy them. But there are lot of issues with this mechanism. Frauds such as unofficial private placements, insider trading, non-inherents to the provisions of companies act, market manipulation, violation of rules, manipulation of prices etc. So these problems occur frequently. So this happened in India during 70s and 80s when the stock market started blooming in India. Therefore in the year 1992 the Securities and Exchange Board of India that is SEBI was established as a statutory body. Basically SEBI was introduced to develop transparency in Indian stock market. It has to protect the interest of investors, issuers of securities and other market participants. In this light SEBI has authority to check the account books of stock exchanges and audit the books of market intermediaries like companies, banks and registered brokers. So the main objective of SEBI is to make stock market safe for investors. Now let's see the structure of SEBI. SEBI comprises 9 members. A chairman selected by union government. Then 2 representatives from finance ministry. One representative from reserve bank of India. And remaining 5 members are selected by government of India. Now coming to the powers of SEBI. SEBI has 3 key powers in stock market. Firstly it is a quasi-judicial body. It means it has authority to deliver judgments related to fraud as well as unfairness activity. Then it is a quasi-executive body. This means it can execute rules and regulations to safeguard the interest of investors. Moreover it can also take legal proceedings against the violators of its rules and regulations. Then it has the functions of quasi-legislative body. Here it has rights to frame guidelines such as trading guidelines, disclosure requirements and listing obligations. Now let's see the functions of SEBI. Firstly it encourages the development of stock market and controls the market. It also offers a platform for investment advisors, portfolio managers, merchant bankers and other associated participants in market. It also regulates the working of dispositories and importantly the foreign portfolio investors, the FBI. It prevents the insider trading and any unfair trade practices in stock market. Here what is insider trading? It means trading of public companies stock or other securities based on material or non-public information about the company. Say for example you are an employee at the stock exchange. You know some inside information about the company's share. So you buy or sell them based on the information you know. So this is called insider trading and SEBI works to prevent this insider trading. It also prohibits price manipulation of stocks in securities market. Then it also updates investors about various cautions through media. It also educates investors by conducting online and offline classes to provide market insights. Finally the SEBI regulates the merger and acquisition of companies. So these are the important functions of SEBI and this is all about this discussion. Let us move to the next part of our discussion. Now take a look at this article. Recently the central government cancelled the FCRA license for an NGO called Center for Policy Research. This is due to an alleged violation of laws by the NGO. The CPR made a plea in Delhi High Court challenging this suspension. This is about the article given here. In this context let us revise about FCRA. First let us start the discussion by looking into some important features of FCRA. That is Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. The NGOs act as a link between government and people. Most of the NGOs help in bringing the government schemes to the grassroots. For example, consider the Polie vaccination program. Various NGOs played a significant role along with the government in Polie vaccination. And eventually they made India a polio-free country. So in a large country like India, the NGOs play a significant role. So in order to function effectively, NGOs need funding, right? Since they are most of non-profit organizations, they depend on donations for their day-to-day functioning. Donations can come from fellow Indian citizens or Indian government and in some cases from foreign countries also. Since India is a sovereign country, unmonitored inflow of foreign funding could potentially weaken the India's sovereignty. So the foreign funding for NGOs should be regulated. This is where the FCRA comes in. That is Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. So the only NGOs who are registered under this FCRA can receive foreign funding. In essence, FCRA helps in regulation of foreign funding. Now what is the objective of this FCRA? The main goal of FCRA is to prohibit acceptance and utilization of foreign contributions for any activities that is detrimental to national interest. In this regard, FCRA is meant to ensure two things. Firstly, FCRA ensures that foreign contributions are received from legitimate sources. Secondly, FCRA ensures that received foreign contributions are utilized only for the legitimate purposes. We should know that this act is an internal security legislation. So despite a law related to financial legislation, it comes under the Home Ministry and not the Reserve Bank of India or Ministry of Finance. So we have seen the objective of FCRA. Now let us see what constitutes a foreign contribution. According to section 2 of FCRA, Foreign Contribution means the donation made by foreign source to India. Remember that it does not include gifts for personal use. Also note that if the market value of such gift is more than the value specified by central government, then it will be considered as a foreign contribution. Some other exceptions are educational fees and business transactions. If someone in India is receiving money to pay educational fees or to make business transactions, then it is excluded from regulation under FCRA. Also note that contributions made by NRI from his personal savings are not treated as foreign contributions. So we have seen what constitutes a foreign contribution. Now let us see who can actually receive foreign contributions under FCRA. Any person or association can receive foreign contributions in India. But there are certain conditions that must be satisfied. Firstly, the person or association must have a definite cultural, economic, educational, religious or social program. Secondly, the person or association must obtain the FCRA registration and prior permission from the government. Finally, the person or association must not be prohibited under section 3 of FCRA. So basically any person or association satisfying the above condition is eligible for receiving foreign funding from other countries. In addition to this information, let us see who cannot receive foreign contributions. Here comes the section 3 of FCRA which defines the entities which are prohibited from receiving foreign contribution. It includes election candidates, correspondent, columnist, cartoonist, editor, printer or publisher of registered newspaper, then a judge, government servant or employee of any corporation or body controlled by government, member of any legislature, political party or office bearers or organization of political nature as specified by central government, then public servants, finally association or company engaged in the protection or broadcast of audio news or current affairs programs through electronic mode or any other electronic form. So these are the entities that are prohibited from receiving foreign contribution under the Foreign Contribution and Regulation Act. So we have seen who can receive foreign contribution and who cannot receive foreign contribution. So as per section 1 of FCRA, the provisions of this Act is applicable to whole of India and also the citizens of India living outside the India. So it is also applicable to foreign branches and foreign subsidiaries of corporate bodies or companies that are registered in India. So these are the important provisions of FCRA Act. So this is all regarding this discussion. Now let us move to the next part of our discussion. Now we have come to the prelims practice question discussion. Look at the first question, it is about Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. So according to the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, who among the following cannot receive foreign contributions? Look at the four options, election candidates, cartoonist of registered newspapers, public servants, political party. So we have to select the correct code. As we saw in the discussion, all these individuals cannot receive foreign contribution according to Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, FCRA. So the correct answer is option D. Now look at the second prelims question. Consider the following statements. How many of the statements are a significance of discovery of sulphur by Pragyan rover in lunar surface? Decoding the volcanic history of moon as it is correct. Understanding the impacts of solar wind on atmosphere-less celestial bodies? Yes, it is also correct. Help establish moon as a base for future space exploration? Yes, this is also correct. So the answer is option C, all the three. Now look at the third prelims practice question. The word cryptocracy, which is often seen in the news, is related to which of the following? Look at the first statement. It is a government whose corrupt leaders use political powers to misappropriate government funds at the expense of wider population. So this statement refers to kleptocracy. Yes, this is the correct answer. Now we shall see other three statements. A form of government in which decision makers are selected based on their expertise in given area of responsibility, particularly with regard to scientific or technical knowledge. This statement refers to technocracy, which is also a form of government. Look at the third statement, a form of government that is loosely defined as a part democracy and part dictatorship or as a regime that mixes democratic with autocratic futures. So this describes anocracy. Look at the fourth statement. It is a system of government in which absolute power is held by the ruler. So this statement refers to autocracy. So the four statements refers to four forms of government. So our correct answer is option A. This describes the kleptocracy. So this is the quiz question for you today. Try to answer it in comment sections. And these are the main practice questions for you today. Try to write an answer and post it in the comment section. So we have come to the end of the discussion. If you like the video, please share it with your friends. And don't forget to subscribe to Shankarai's YouTube channel. Thank you.


what's good y'all it's your boy Ross back again with another video so uh we gotta talk about this i saw this on my timeline on instagram and i couldn't believe this was a real thing now if you guys don't know there is a popular dating app called tender and uh for the longest time um it was relatively a free app yes you could pay for like extra features you can still get on there if you wanted to swipe left or right on someone that was relatively free for a while when it first came out it was pretty popular a lot of people were on it at one point i was on it back in the day but apparently they've come up with a new uh membership subscription where you have to pay $500 a month to use the app i beg your pardon couldn't believe it didn't want to believe it when i initially saw this uh on instagram and looked it up and this is a real thing a real uh membership that they are trying to implement in the tender and i just my mind can't even fathom paying that much for a dating app so we're gonna check this out this is just insanity this is on uh the shayroom.com it's on multiple websites as well talking about this love for $499 that's what tender is proposing with their new tender select membership this is insanity let's see what the hell is going on here it looks like that little saying love don't cost a thing doesn't apply when it comes to tender the app based dating platform announced a new plan for its users that will cost those interested $499 a month users will have uh access uh users with access will be able to message people they have not matched up with to twice a week a complete swerve away from one of their most known features those using regular tender can only message those who have matched with them wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute so you're telling me the one of the benefits is now if i didn't match with you i can send you a message but before it would have to be a match before you can send a message so you're just bypassing the whole matching part are you serious that that's that's an extra feature that's worth $500 well this person didn't match with you but fuck all that you pay us $500 a month now you'll be able to message that person and it doesn't even mean that person will message you back what are we Jesus bro what is this what is this um the new subscription tier will also allow users to be seen more frequently particularly by people on the most sought after list oh my god bro and tender is also offering a solution to users looking to be more discreet with their pricey search for love the new subscription tier will give users the option to display or hide their select badge on their profile what is i'm so cute so now you'll be put on this little tier list this most sought after list and you'll be able to get seen more so you're basically paying $500 a month to be seen more potentially and if you want to message someone that didn't match with you now you can do that and i think they only said you can do it twice a week huh i'm still trying to figure out the benefits here what what are the benefits here because all you've told me is just miniscule stuff that's not worth $500 a month is it's not what is this let's continue to keep reading because this is this is insanity here's how the tender select works but tender select is exclusive the company has made it invite only per the verge and bloomberg it is reportedly only offering the premium plan to uh less than one percent of the users right now and that's for those most active in the app which is insanity on its own users get invited fill out an application and undergo a five point screening process at a minimum a user's profile must have a verified picture a biography five interests four images and details about what they seek to gain from using tender hypebeast reports that tender selects um users must show relationship intent so if you're if you're there just looking for a quick nut then you gotta put hey i'm just here to bust a quick nut if you're there to find true love and happiness then you gotta put that on there this is crazy um however that application will only be available on a rolling basis perverge tender chief product officer mark van i'm not even gonna try to pronounce that last name spoke about uh the development we know that um there is a sub a subset of highly engaged active um users who prioritize more effective in efficient ways to find connections um my guy said so we engaged in extensive tests and feedback with this audience over the past several months to develop a completely new offering for context the dating app already offers different tiers um with some starting at 2499 the point of tender select is piling on more features across the three plans this new launch comes after tender parent company match group reportedly brought the uh bought the invite only dating app the league on that platform searching for love with uh assistance of human matchmakers versus algorithm cost users about a thousand a week it seems like the match group is trying to tap into the ready to pay market with tender wow so apparently they're modeling this off of some other matchmaking uh app and they're paying like up to a thousand a week yo there's big money in this there's big money in finding lonely desperate individuals there's big money in it clearly and i'm willing to bet they're doing this small rollout but people are gonna pay that five hundred dollars a month now i'm there's also another uh tier that you can subscribe to instead of paying five hundred dollars a month there's an option and i'm gonna put it on the screen where you can pay up to a thousand uh five thousand dollars a year so if you don't want to do five five hundred a month you can pay up to five thousand a year which is just ridiculous i i don't what uh there's no way i talked about this a little bit on instagram but i had to make a video about this because this is this is insanity i was onto it i used the free version when i was doing the online dating stuff i used the free version i would i wasn't about to pay for nothing they had options to pay for stuff i'm not doing all that shit it's not that serious and even so i deleted the app because there's nothing going there for me personally so now people are paying five hundred up to five thousand dollars a year to have little and extra features that honestly not worth that much now you get the option to message people twice a week that didn't match with you that that's what you're telling me that that that that's what that's worth nah bro i'm sorry there's that's that's not enough or to be put on the most sought after list that don't guarantee anything that just means people will see you more what the how's that guarantee you anything it doesn't it it gotta come it gotta come with a lot more incentives i need i there needs to be a contract you know what i'm going on a date want with you know we we're gonna get married and the date needs to be fucking free because i'm gonna have to pay for it so no that should be a part of the membership package the date should be free we go on the date date is paid for i get to choose where we go we'll be the most expensive restaurant doesn't matter paid for because i'm using the tender membership after we go out on that date we need to be able to get a nice hotel room five-star nothing less and we enjoy each other's company get a little close get a little sensual and after that after we perform safe sex after we do that then it needs to be like you know what we're gonna move in together so y'all need to provide us some places where we can move in together get us a house you know that needs to be provided and then after that then you need to go ahead and help us with the wedding so tender needs to provide us a wedding planner so we can get the wedding going and they need to be able to provide a little bit of funds to the wedding and then some funds to the marriage license and then at that point now we live in together you need to provide the funds for when we have a child because having a child is expensive when we go to the hospital like i'm mapping all the next 20 years need to be mapped out by tender the 20 years me spending with this person 20 plus years the rest of my life need to be mapped out by tender if i'm paying this fucking much money y'all need to be mapping out the rest of my love life and it needs to happen ain't no fucking way ain't no fucking way that's crazy comment down below let me know does this sound insane to you am i the only one that thinks this is just wild am i the only one that thinks that they are praying on the lonely individuals out there and i just feel like it's just it's kind of messed up it's it's a good marketing scheme but it's still messed up they're praying on people being so lonely and desperate let me know if i'm the only one that thinks this kind of fucked up because i think this whole thing is just it's it's it's scummy yeah it's gonna make them good money but you're praying off of people's loneliness at this point there's no fucking way let me know how y'all feel about all of this but i appreciate all the love as well you guys shown on channel wrote 250k and i'm still young speedy you two rest in jeopardy world appreciate y'all kicking it with me see y'all on the next one peace man