Hey folks before I get started with the slides. I just wanted to thank everybody personally for coming out here There's a lot of great speakers a lot of good stuff going on So I really appreciate that you find this topic interesting enough to come listen to me speak about it The talk is migrating to IDM in a large Linux environment and we're gonna start by Basically going over what the environment currently looks like And just in case there's somebody in the crowd that doesn't know what IDM is it's basically a tightly coupled product that Red Hat is offering that combines Kerberos and some DNS and Pki and also Like a missing some lots of other things as well, but People like to kind of lovingly refer to it as ad for Linux So Red Hat as a whole has different pillars inside that do different things I work for what I'd call the IT pillar and Underneath the known knowns are things that I know about Inside of IT and things that I can help contribute to then there's other pillars. So says the engineering group that Actually writes most of Red Hat software But Red Hat as a company is kind of interesting in that there's lots of different groups that Sometimes consume the services that IT is putting out there. So like we offer email We offer the corporate LDAP people will consume that stuff But the other groups also kind of set up their own things and go off in their own world And I really have no idea what most of those other people are doing a lot of the time And that kind of stuff's listed on the known unknowns under this slide. So first off We know that there's about 3000 IT managed VMs at least 800 cloud instances We're getting close to 12,000 employees now with about a hundred SSO integrations And on the IT side of the house almost everything is built using configuration management whether that's Ansible or Puppet 90% of our server base is rel. We have a very complex account life cycle management process right now. So onboarding You know different managers have to approve different steps There's other systems involved that run specific scripts and create stuff on our back ends and also calls out to SAS vendors and creates things there Same for termination Our current LDAP servers have a tremendous load on them all the time So these are just kind of things that we know about and things we have to be careful with as we start moving to IDM The unknowns that I know are out there is engineering and labs I know that there are some of them are consuming the Kerberos and LDAP stuff that we've set up But I have no idea how they've configured their systems to do that Additionally kind of getting the word out to all of the different pillars at Red Hat is a little bit challenging You know, there's like wide swaths of mailing lists and stuff like that But it's just hard to find all the right people that need to know what you're going to do There's also different pillars that have some shadow IT stuff again We have no idea what those folks are doing people are running containers everywhere and I don't know what that means for them moving to other systems like IDM and We have people running like mission critical applications under their desks So there have been situations in the past where IT's made a big change Something broke. Nobody could figure out why they track it down. Okay. Well this guy that used to work here Left this running here. Nobody knows what it's doing. But okay. Well, it's doing something important So now we have to figure out what broke There's also vendors using our LDAP servers, so we offer Secured TLS endpoints using certificate based off so that specific vendors can query a reduced set of attributes from our employees To provision accounts on their systems and things like that But I'm also relatively certain that there's people inside of Red Hat business owners and other tech like teams that are gathering information from our LDAP servers Because I mean it's easy to do and then feeding that to vendors in ways that we're not aware of whether that's Jumping LDAP to a CSV and SFTP net to a vendor or whatever Getting it out of LDAP and calling API's. I know some of that stuff's happening. I don't know who's doing it and Once we switch to IDM things will just slowly but surely break through those situations So this is going to go over kind of what our current configuration is So we have multiple data centers running a MIT Kerberos master That propagates to the other data centers. We have dog tag, which is RHCS, that's Red Hat's certificate project so you can you know cut TLS certs for servers and clients We also have 389 or RHDS, which is Red Hat's LDAP server implementation Those dog tag and 389 are both Multimaster copying from all the data centers and then we have a DNS master of bind that sends data to slaves everywhere So currently on the IT side of the house The servers that are running RHEL6 are doing NSSS, PAM, LDAPD, PAM Kerberos 5, NSLCD and NSCD Kind of your your legacy setup with Auth config if people are familiar with that and our RHEL7 boxes are using SSSD and Almost all of those servers are puppet managed So my group has already started writing the code that will help people migrate from the old systems to SSSD and to free IPA That we're standing up. There's also IT supported clients. So we have a service desk and a help desk style thing We have a desktop team that puts together corporate standard builds of laptops to do out to our employees So they support RHEL7 Windows and Mac OS X And Then there's also all kinds of people bringing pretty much anything you could imagine to Red Hat and running it and however They feel like it and the perfect world. This is what we would move to So in a couple slides back Each one of these systems are kind of you know, they're all related people use them They're all identity and access management based but each one of those requires a cluster and every data center and Each one of those is not tightly coupled. So basically Our PKI system kind of sits off in its own little corner people access it through APIs People end up cutting certs and then laying them down on their servers in various ways Whether that's through Ansible or puppet or just SCP files over But that that dog tag instance doesn't really have any tie-ins to our directory server and Same similar stuff goes for the Kerberos systems There's automation in place right now that will allow people to get host key tabs and server key tabs and help them copy them To their systems But all of that's kind of like custom bolted on code that we've written in-house Some of the stuff that IDM offers is ways to streamline that and make it a lot easier using commands built into the IPA CLI So instead of having to script getting a key tab I could run a run a command that's something like a IPA get key tab or get cert for getting a TLS cert and It just all magically happens So in addition to reducing our footprint and having less to manage you can see that We're reducing those four or five things into just one cluster. So IDM is Serving all of those purposes DNS Kerberos LDAP PKI So it's really a management win and this is where we're trying to get to because it's a lot easier Handle and it has the built-in abilities as I mentioned before that kind of make automation easier Where we're trying to get the the systems to and the new perfect world config is EL6 and EL7 servers using SSSD and IPA clients again puppet or Ansible managed and then those remote clients That service desk takes care of We want to work with them to make sure that they can release RPMs for the rail seven laptops that they support And then I think they use big fix or something for Windows people and Mac people but basically Make sure that they have all of that stuff in place So once we switch to IDM they can push out changes and the clients that are out there Will start consuming them without you know hundreds of people bombarding service desk one day and saying this stuff doesn't work anymore The other thing I'd like to see us do better is writing instructions for common bring your own devices set up So a lot of people will run for the war on their laptops, and we do have some documentation around that But you know, I've seen people running to lack where I've seen people running a bunch who so Kind of trying to figure out what people use the most and writing instructions so that they can Configure their own systems to use the stuff that we're going to offer through IDM So getting there is going to be a multi-year and multi-phase process The first thing we're going to do is we're going to keep our existing infrastructure, and we're going to add an IDM Cluster as well, then we're going to establish a cross realm Kerberos trust between the two Systems so between MIT Kerberos and IDM then we're going to do a DNS zone delegation to the free IPA free IPA servers Then comes the long and arduous task of getting all the systems and all the users To migrate over to start using Kerberos on IDM and stop using Kerberos on the MIT stuff that we have set up today Once we accomplish that we're going to shut off MIT Kerberos So then phase three is RHS cutoff and reduced so part of this process is taking all of the data that's in LDAP or all the data that we can that's currently in 389 server and moving that to IDM so people can still see their Their user information and LDAP and use it for you know user look user lookups or NSS lookups or whatever They're doing with that Phase four is going to be RHS cutoff So again IPA offers some great features with certmonger and get cert so that it's very easy for people to be able to pull certs from IDM and That's going to be a lot nicer than the RHS stuff that we have now, which is still great But again, it's it's more tightly coupled and easier to use than having something standing off in the corner by itself Which is what RHS is for us right now phase five is kind of exploring the OTP functionality of Free IPA and then also exploring the DNS offerings of free IPA more so this talks mainly on phase one we haven't gotten any further than that but known limitations of things that we've already hit is The IDM migration is still rough around the edges So cross realm Kerberos support is not directly supported it works, but it we have encountered some bugs The out-of-the-box migration scripts are also somewhat limited They're built more to do kind of like a one-and-done approach Like I want to take everything out of LDAP put it into IDM and then the next day Everybody's going to talk to IDM and we're just going to cut off the old systems. Let's talk more about that in a minute It's not really built or we haven't been able to use it in a fashion where we just keep refreshing data on the new systems Some of our internal applications at Red Hat are currently using data in LDAP for their specific application needs So we've developed custom OUs and custom schemas So that a team could for instance look up a product number and an attribute for a product entry things of that nature That meets the applications needs But IDM is really built and optimized for standard users and groups data So whenever we get to this point we have to decide if we want to dirty up what IDM is offering by Including a bunch of custom OUs and schemas there and seeing what kind of performance impact that would have or if it makes sense for us to basically scale down our RHS infrastructure now so that it just offers that Custom work that custom schema and custom OU stuff for the internal applications Our current RHS system uses an HSM for key storage IDM doesn't support that yet, but I know that it's on their radar So if we want to kill off RHS, we either have to get that into the product or we have to be okay with a slightly less secure setup For OTP, I know some of our networking gear uses radius to talk to our current OTP solution And I haven't done any research yet to know if they can talk LDAP to free IPA and if not Then I don't know what we do. We might end up having to keep the current OTP solution There's also our DNS infrastructure right now is very large And it's managed in a way that people are used to so people do get checkouts and get commits and merges and stuff like that And that rolls out across the system So if we want to completely get rid of bind, it's going to be not only do we need to check and make sure that You know, it's going to be able to handle all the records and all the stuff we throw at it and all the changes that we make It's going to be kind of a political battle to get people to change their minds about how they want to update DNS So some of the phase one challenges we've already hit are password migration So in our HDS or in 389 directory servers are really awesome feature called pan pass through and what that's allowed Us to do for several years now is Not keep user password hashes on user entries in LDAP So whenever somebody does a bind to our LDAP servers The LDAP servers Transparenly in the background will reach out to Kerberos and authenticate that person Or we can set it up to do that with any pan module We also have LDAP servers set up to talk radius to our OTP solution So people can again bind with their pen and token and that would off to an OTP set Solution all that's really awesome because that limits how much How much exposure your passwords are, you know, they're stored on one system. They're not stored in multiple places but the IDM really wants you to have a user password hash whenever you're going to go ahead and do migration so they support SSSD and When they support SSSD the user tries or it basically tries against the user password hash and Then if that's there, it will go ahead and update the Kerberos password hash Same with the web UI migration utility that they offer it checks the user password hash and then updates the Kerberos principal hash so Again, we don't have user password in our LDAP. So that's kind of a non those are non starters for us the other thing that they offer or that they suggest doing is mass setting users passwords and That's kind of a management nightmare So, you know, you have to set somebody's password and then okay, how do I contact that person? I don't really want to email passwords. So then we have to do PGP keys and You know, you try to explain to a finance person how to read an email That's PGP encrypted and you don't get very far. So That's not really a good solution either So we've come up with a different solution IPA offers a special Config variable and a special entry where you can list out UIDs that are allowed to set other people's passwords And not only are they allowed to set other people's passwords. They're allowed to bypass password setting restrictions Meaning that this password service account can update a person's password and then the next time that person logs in They're not required to change it immediately So we've set up account and we've set out up a service account like that and then we've written a basic web app that's going to bind to IDM using that credential and People will authenticate to this web app using legacy credentials and SAML and then that web app will use that IPA service account to make a call out to the IPA API and set that person's password So that's that's pretty neat. It's pretty slick. It works So people will log in using their legacy credentials. They'll choose their new password It'll be set immediately in IPA underneath the user password record in LDAP and in the Kerberos hash Other big thing we're hitting is data synchronizations. This is what I hit or what I Hit on a little bit earlier. So IPA migrate DS is Great for kind of a one-and-done approach We used it for our initial data import, but red hat again is a very Widely dispersed company. So and there's a lot of employees We can't just do a one-import and then you know, we do that on Friday Everybody comes in on Monday and all their stuff's working I don't know how to tell people to configure their stuff because I don't know what they're running and On top of that again, you'd would you would run into people that don't understand and we would have to staff like a huge help Desk for weeks that would just receive phone calls and things To help people through that process But with that said if you're a smaller company or if you can do anything to prevent what I'm about to show you The solution is I strongly advise it because what we're doing here is really nasty So we have a data synchronization script and It's running out of cron and it compares entries on a per attribute level Taking into account differences in OU structure So the OU is different and the IPA world than it is in our current RHS system or than our current MIT Kerberos realms Or yeah, and side of the LDAP structure as well And if the attributes don't match with what we've defined as the source of authority for that attribute then the downstream system get up gets updated so what this means is there's business logic and RHS or legacy systems that say This new data anytime this new data is up added here or changed here I want you to replace that information and IPA with that But then there's also the reverse business logic whenever something new gets created an IPA I want you or updated an IPA. I want you to go back and update that stuff and the legacy RHS systems so This business logic will change over time and it's going to be a disaster because It's going to end up with people changing something and not realizing that that's going to impact other people using the legacy systems or the new systems and Yeah, we're going to do the best with what we can with this and then hopefully Get people to migrate quickly so we don't have to keep this kind of hacky solution in very long Other thing we hit was poor bi-directional trust support and apps So some applications are basically Expecting you to use the at old of realm So it's looking for in our case at redhat.com and that's our old MIT Kerberos realm And it does that I'm not sure why but some applications are actually doing that hard in code So one of our own applications RHS. So is looking for at redhat.com because you've configured that as its key tab and all that stuff So it knows what the realm is But it should never be checking for that exact realm because people could have trust Other applications we've hit one with Zimbra. You have to make changes on a per user basis to support principles from different realms and Then we've hit some of the same things where you know bi-directional trust and Those two realms don't necessarily play nice with settings that are out of the box with SSH or a mod-off curb But those were pretty well documented on how to fix those and you can just change those settings globally and those Applications and go about with your day So what we've done to fix that is we filed RFEs for the code issues as people are migrating We're going to work with them to change per user configs And we're putting together documentation on what needs to change in KRB5 comms or and mod-off curb setups so we've kind of fixed or addressed this on the IT side of the house But again with there's different pillars at redhat. I have no idea what those people are doing so the best we can offer is here's documentation on what you might want to do and Kind of distribute that out and let them handle it as they can or You know after the drop dead date and all their stuff breaks, whichever one they feel like doing We hit a couple other issues along the way. These are Minor and more annoying than they are real issues like the other two So one thing we were really looking forward to is auto-membrane and what this allows you to do is Add members to a group in LDAP Based on an attribute that they have so redhat reorgs pretty regularly and with that We have issues where? You know if I used to work on dev team a and then I get moved to dev team b I'm still in all the dev a or dev dev team a's LDAP groups And I still have all the permissions that I had whenever I worked in dev team a So that's something that we would like to solve And auto-membrane is how it is being able to do that But unfortunately it does not currently remove users from groups when you change the attribute I think it does the auto-membrane when things are created, but not necessarily on changes And they're working on that so that will hopefully be fixed in the near future another thing we fit is limited limited look-through limits and That's basically If somebody does an LDAP search and they want to go ahead and pull down all the records from LDAP Eventually there's there's a set limit that says okay You can only get like 10,000 records, and then we're not going to give you any more So we've tried to change that to infinite because that's what people are used to and I know that people are running scripts that Download everything in the LDAP directory and then process it locally and then do stuff with that I'm not super fond of those people doing that, but at the same time like It's a give-and-take because otherwise I've seen people come to me and or people have come to me and ask you Mind if I download the entire LDAP directory like yes, please don't do that But then they say okay.  We could also tinker around with things on it use it kind of like as an admin box for our team Unfortunately, though whenever you stand up a node Or join it as a replica and free IPA currently It's assigned to serve record and a priority and that priority matches all the other systems and Basically what that means is as people start using IPA the backup server will be advertised to them And they will try to connect to it So we've submitted some bugs and RFUs around that because otherwise While that server is doing a backup people's clients will at least suffer a little bit of lag as they have to try another system Or if it's a poorly written application, it would just be broken until you know the net that specific node comes back online Thank you So like I said, we've filed bugs and RFEs for those things and That's basically all I have. Does anybody have any questions or anything? Yeah Management Sure, so the question was Free IPA has kind of a flat OU structure. How am I planning to move? Specific OUs with specific like ACI style stuff to IDM The answer to that is to be determined at this point So yes, we do have in our legacy RHDS system We have several OUs that are specific to apps and we have specific ACI set on that So we'll basically if a group comes to us and say hey We've written this awesome app and we want these people to be able to access it and we want to Authorize them based on group membership and LDAP Okay, cool So we create the group and then we give them a service account so that they can update that group membership So that they can control who's able to access their app in different fashions I'm not sure how we're going to approach that and IDM yet Any other questions? Yeah, so the question was how do I deal with Windows clients so the answer is my team does not But Yeah, that's somebody else's problem, but that's only going to be somebody else's problem for a bit So it's on our radar as we start to take over DNS more and more with free IPA They run AD DNS and other people run other DNS devices There's been talks about us taking over there at least some of the DNS aspects and then probably most likely the active Directory components as well, but we're going to have to explore some before some and figure out exactly what we're going to do with that But yes, we do have a Windows base current legacy RHS has Replication agreements so RHS supports Basically AD replication. So we have it set up. So if you get an account in LDAP it will replicate that to active directory Correct yeah, not vice versa. I believe you can set up both But we haven't because I don't trust what's an AD or the people running it to be honest. So Then there's Yes, exactly Now if you have Windows stuff and I haven't looked into this much at all because it's not a problem We really have here at Red Hat because there's very few Windows systems, but Free IPA has amazing options to integrate with active directory and Windows things I think that's kind of some of their bread and butter that they push a lot of is being able to take this Linux system And now let's make it use AD easily Yeah Yeah, that's a good question All right, so the question was you I have a picture of the migration plan with all the different phasers What about a time frame so phase two? I hope will be done within the next year Phase three and phase four could probably be completed in the next year So I'm guessing 2020 To be done with everything I don't like that timeline, but I just know that it's going to take a while Alternatively We can push people to move faster, but we also need Lots of different manager buy-in and stuff like that So again, I can get that relatively easy on the IT side of the house and move those systems But in all the other situations where I have no idea what people are doing We need to be more cautious Any other questions? Thank you. No, thanks everybody


Income tax 2023-2024, alimony and IRA deduction. Get ready and some coffee so we can recognize the code cracks when doing income tax preparation 2023-2024. Most of this information can be found in the Instructions for Schedule 1 section of the Form 1040 Instructions tax year 2023, which you can find on the IRS website at irs.gov, irs.gov, looking at the income tax formula. We're focused on line 2 adjustments to income, which you might hear called above the line deductions or Schedule 1 deductions. Remember in the first half of the income tax formula is basically a funny income statement. Typically income statements having income minus expenses resulting in net income. Here having income minus various deductions resulting in taxable income deductions being good for taxes. Therefore we're constantly looking for more of them noting the primary categories of deductions being the above the line deductions or adjustments to income. And the below the line deductions the greater of standard deductions or itemized deductions. Recognizing that with the above the line or adjustments to income deductions we don't have to clear a hurdle like the standard deduction hurdle before we can utilize the deductions in this category. So we're on the first page of the Form 1040 income section. We're looking at line number 10 adjustments to income from Schedule 1 line 26. This is a Schedule 1 part 2 adjustments to income. We're focused on line 19 alimony paid and 20 IRA deduction. Alright for tax years 2019 and onwards due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act the tax treatment of alimony payments has changed significantly. So we're back to this alimony which might sound familiar because you saw it before on the income side of things because we have this symmetry between the taxpayers that we often see. Remembering the general idea from the IRS is that if someone is going to get a benefit of a deduction then they have to rat out who they gave the money to. So the IRS can go after the person that received the money which we can see most clearly in an employee-employer situation where if the employee-er wants the deduction of wages paid to the employee they have to not only rat out the employee in that case with a W2 not just going to the employee but also to the IRS but also withhold the taxes and pay it to the government on the employee's behalf. Not all systems are that stringent because with a 1099 situation you don't have to do the withholdings but you're still telling the IRS the income that has been earned by someone else in order to facilitate the deduction. If you have a situation where two married couples that's what this alimony is going to be. We had a married couple. They break apart is the general idea or process that could happen in a divorce or something like that. And then there's going to be an agreement possibly payments going from one spouse to the other because when they were married as one entity the typical family structure would be that one of the spouses would be doing less work in earning and taking care of the home while the other one would be earning the idea then would be when they break up the person. First a word from our sponsor. Yeah, actually we're sponsoring ourselves on this one because apparently the merchandisers they don't want to be seen with us.  Like our accounting rocks product line. If you're not crunching cords using Excel you're doing it wrong. A must-have product because the fact as everyone knows of accounting being one of the highest forms of artistic expression means accountants have a requirement the obligation a duty to share the tools necessary to properly channel the creative muse. And the muse she rarely speaks more clearly than through the beautiful symmetry of spreadsheets. So get the shirt because the creative muse she could use a new pair of shoes. If you would like a commercial free experience consider subscribing to our website at accountinginstruction.com or accountinginstruction.thinkific.com That was not increasing their career during that time because they were sacrificing the time to take care of the home. Should be entitled to payments because they help build and support the career of the other person and therefore you should have alimony payments. Now they've classically have broken out payments between alimony payments and a child support payments which for taxes was a huge deal because the child support payments were considered non-taxable meaning they weren't deducted for the one paying it and they weren't taxable to the one receiving it whereas the alimony payments were deductible for the spouse paying it and therefore you had to include it in income for the one receiving it. So under the old structure you could make the argument that it was favorable to the payer of the alimony because they got to deduct the alimony and the recipient got to have to include the alimony as income which could possibly increase their income taxes. Now in reality I don't think the change is really favorable either way as long as they don't put it in place retroactively meaning change the deal on the contracts that have been made in the past because it's just going to simplify the negotiation. So you would think contracts in the future would not have to get into the weeds of taxes to try to split out the payments which are going to be child support or alimony and they can just reflect what was the tax benefit in the past and the new deal going forward. So I think it's possibly a good change but they couldn't make the change to the deals that had already been made because they already made the deals under the old law and so it's only going to go in a certain timeframe going forward. So the basic idea is in the current timeframe if it's a more recent divorce situation we don't have as much of a difference between alimony and child support and we just don't have to put it on the taxes which is good generally because we don't want to be combing through divorce agreements to try to figure out how they worded things to see if it's child support or alimony and then if it's prior to that date then we could still have the legacy agreements that were put in place before the changes to the law. Okay so if your divorce or separation agreement was executed after December 31st 2018 alimony payments are no longer deductible for the payer nor are they considered taxable income for the recipient. So this marks a significant shift from the previous tax law where alimony payments were deductible by the payer and taxable to the recipient. This change does not affect agreements executed before January 1st 2019 which means that for those earlier agreements the old rules still apply. So alimony payments remain deductible by the payer and taxable to the recipient. So if you're dealing with a client or yourself where the agreement has been in place for some time now then you're probably going to keep on going with what has happened in the past and not change the system that's how the law was set up but if it's a more recent agreement or if there was a change to the divorce settlement agreements in which case you changed it to be under the consideration of the new laws then it's going to be different. Then you won't have to deal with the deduction or the inclusion generally is the idea. So it's crucial for individuals paying or receiving alimony to understand how these changes affect their tax situation. For pre-2019 agreements alimony paid should be entered on form 1040 schedule one with the recipient's social security number included to avoid penalties. So notice how this works and this is a big problem when you have people that are separated especially if they're not really communicating well and they've got lawyers that are just putting a wedge in between them and making it impossible to communicate so they can profit on their misery. What will happen then is that if you put something that doesn't mirror properly the IRS is going to have an issue with it. So if the person that paid the alimony takes a deduction for it they're going to have to rat out the other person by putting the other spouse's social security on the return and say that they got income in a similar way as giving a W-2 or a 1099 kind of thing and if the spouse who received the money doesn't include it in income then you have this incongruity which will likely trigger some kind of audit which again will cause problems basically going forward. So the idea would be obviously we'd like the divorce agreements and what not to be as clear as possible so that you don't get into arguments with regards to the benefits and problems of taxes and part of that is to mirror kind of these payments. So recipients of alimony under these agreements must report the amount on their tax return along with the date of the original divorce or separation agreement. So lines 19A, 19B and 19C alimony paid. So let's just look at the line items, line 19A. If you made a payment to or for your spouse or former spouse under a divorce or separation agreement entered into on or before December 31, 2018, you may be able to take this deduction. So you can't take a deduction for alimony payments. You made two or four spouse if you entered into your divorce or separation agreement after December 31, 2018 or if you entered into the agreement on or before December 31, 2018 and the agreement was changed after December 31, 2018 to expressly provide that the alimony received is not included in your former spouse's income. So make sure that you understand the new laws whenever making updates to any kind of divorce agreement or any kind of or going into any current kind of divorce agreement. But it should be easier because it's it's not on the taxes, right? So it should be an easier thing to do. Hopefully. So line 19C, on line 19C, enter the month and year of your original divorce or separation agreement that relates to this deduction for alimony paid. Line 20. So now we have the IRA deduction. So if you made contributions to a traditional IRA for 2023, you may be able to take an IRA deduction, but you or your spouse of filing joint return must have had earned income to do so. So the IRA we've seen before the idea of a 401k plan and the idea of IRA as well in the terms of when you get the money out, when you're pulling the money out doesn't have to be included in income. So the general idea for these types of plans where you're going to get a benefit for using these tools by putting money into normal investments, typically mutual funds, but under the umbrella of a retirement structure such as a 401k plan or in this case an IRA. When you put the money in the question is do you get a tax benefit when you put the money in such as reducing your income or taking a deduction. And then when the money grows over time, hopefully it will grow in the form of dividends, interest, capital gains, do you have to pay taxes at that time. And then when you take the money out, is that a tax triggering event when you take the money out and or could it also trigger the penalties. Those are the questions that we have now we're looking at the point in time of these investment tools when we put the money into the account. And that of course is when we're asking the question, do we get to reduce income at the point in time that we put the money in. Now, notice that if it was a 401k plan or a 403b something through your employer, you would get a benefit of not having to include it in income and exclusion. But it would be reflected on the form W2. And therefore the employer will already have done it for you and you just have to enter the W2 information and everything should be correct because box one will be reduced properly, hopefully by that amount. And it might differ than what's on box five and box three, which are all income line items. If, on the other hand, you do an IRA deduction, that means it's not being taken out of your wages typically by an employer. Therefore, it's not going to be reflected in your W2 income has to be somewhere else, such as the adjustments to income. So for IRA purposes, earned income includes alimony and separate maintenance payments reported on schedule one line to a. If you were a member of the armed forces, earned income includes any non taxable combat pay you received. If you were self employed, earned income is generally your net earnings from self employment. If your personal savings were a material income producing factor. So for more details, you can see publication 590 a statement should be sent to you by May 31st 2024 that shows all the contributions to your traditional IRA for 2023. So we're going to use the IRA deduction worksheet to figure the amount if any of your IRA deduction, but read the following list before you fill in the worksheet. So you can figure that basically IRA deductions now with the IRA deductions, there's going to be a cap in terms of how much that you can put into an IRA. It's usually going to be significantly less than like a 401k plan or a 403 B plan. That's why it's usually way better off if you have the ability to put money into a 401k or 403 B. It's usually that's usually the first place to go because you can put more money in and you might get a matching kind of benefit with it as well. That's also why when people don't have access to a 401k or 403 B possibly because they're sole proprietors and they have a schedule C business, they might want to set up their own 401k or possibly a more simple plan that we talked about before like an IRA. I mean a simple which is a simple type of retirement plan or a Roth IRA. Those are going to give you more ability than just a normal individual IRA for a sole proprietor. We touched on that before as well. When we put money, also just note that when you put money into a normal IRA, it can be a little bit complex if someone does have access to a 401k plan such as you or say your spouse. Then the question is, well, can I still put money into an IRA? And that gets complex. It'll depend on different factors. Fortunately, however, it is something that can be done kind of as a last minute tax planning because with the IRA, oftentimes you don't have to actually put the money in the IRA in the tax year. So if we're talking about tax year 2023, for example, you can do the tax return and then possibly be able to do the last minute tax planning move of putting as much money as you can given your tax situation at that time into an IRA. So that's often the last kind of move that you can make for tax planning, which can happen actually after the year has ended. So that's something we want to keep in mind when doing tax preparation. We'd also like to have some cash on hand in order to take advantage of being able to do that when we file the tax return. Okay, so number one, you can't deduct contributions to a Roth IRA, but you may be able to take the retirement savings contributions credit, savers credit, see the instructions for schedule three, line four. Now the Roth IRA is kind of the inverse of a normal IRA. So the idea of an IRA would be, I want to take the deduction now. So this would typically be ideal in a situation where you have the max amount of money that you think you're going to make in your lifetime. So if I'm making more money than I'm spending right now, I'm probably in a higher tax bracket than I will be in the future. When I retire, because when I retire, I'm only going to be taxed on the money I take out of the retirement account is generally the idea. So if everything remains the same, I'll be at higher tax brackets now than when I take the money out. And therefore I want the deduction at this point in time to defer the taxes. Typically that's the way you want to do things, defer the taxes. But what if you think that the government is overspending and they're going to just bankrupt the government and at some point they're just going to have to tax, really tax everyone. Well, then you might think, or if you don't have much money right now in earnings, then you might think, hey, I just rather pay the taxes now. And then when I take the money out, that's when I don't pay the taxes. And in that case, you'd have a Roth IRA, in which case the growth of the money might be a tax-free situation, but it's not going to be taxable when you take the money out. So that means that you're not getting a tax benefit when you put the money into a Roth IRA because that's the point of a Roth IRA, it's inverted. Number two, if you're filing a joint return and you or your spouse made contributions to both a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA for 2023, don't use the IRA deduction worksheet and these instructions instead see publication 598 to figure the amount. So obviously it's a little bit more complex, different worksheet to use. Tax software is of course greatly helpful for these types of calculations. Number three, you can't deduct elective deferrals to a 401k plan, 403b plan, section 457 plan, simple plan or the federal thrift savings plan. These amounts aren't included as income in box one. So in other words, you might say, well, isn't the IRA the same thing as like a 401k plan or a 403b plan or a simple or something like that? And the general idea is like, well, yeah, it's the same idea. But if you had W2 income and a 401k plan, it would be reflected by the employer in the W2. They would have already lowered box one and therefore your taxable income would be lowered when you just input the W2. So it's already basically taken care of. You can see that because you'll see it in box 12, I believe. And box one will typically be different than box three and box five because it will possibly be a reduction for federal income taxes, but possibly not for Medicare and Social Security in terms of income. Number four, so if you made contributions to your IRA in 2023 that you deducted for 2022, don't include them in the worksheet. Number five, if you received income from a non-qualified deferred compensation plan or a non-governmental section 457 plan that is included in box one of your form W2 or in box one, a form 1099NEC, don't include that income on line eight of the worksheet. Similar scenario we talked about before. The income should be shown in A, box 11 of your W2. B, box 12 of your form W2 with code Z or C, box 15 of form 1099 miscellaneous. So similar type of scenario it should be reflected in those cases on the W2 form and therefore you shouldn't get a deduction because it will already be reduced in line one of your 1040 box one of W2. So if it isn't contact your employer, okay, six. So you must file a joint return to deduct contributions to your spouse's IRA into the total IRA deduction for you and your spouse online 20. So note that if you're married, you have to file joint or separate. If you file separate, the IRS is going to be skeptical on many kinds of deductions because it's likely that you might be trying to manipulate. If they weren't, then people would manipulate the system between joint and separate in ways that would not be good. So seven, don't include rollover contributions in figuring your deduction. Instead, see the instructions for form 1040 or 1040 SR line 4A and 4B. So rollovers are basically when you're taking money out of one account that's under the umbrella of a retirement and putting it into basically another one. Possibly, for example, if you had to move from a 401k plan to like an IRA because you quit your job or something like that. And so you take the money out of the 401k plan and you try to roll it into like an IRA which has similar restrictions. The goal there being that you don't want to count it as a distribution in which case it might be subject to taxes. Now, you might also try to say, people might try to say, well, it's a contribution and I should get a deduction for the contribution. Well, no, it's not a contribution. It's a rollover. It was already under the umbrella of a retirement type of account so you don't really get a deduction for it. One of the problems, of course, with this incentive program or process to put money into these accounts to get a deduction is they actually favor more affluent people. These are more wealthy individuals are the ones that really drive the increase in these deduction amounts that they can put into a 401k plan in IRAs and whatnot because they have the money to put the money in there. If you don't have the money to put the money into those accounts, you're not going to get a benefit. But of course, the argument is going to be that they're trying to incentivize people to save for retirement. That's the argument. But when you get into these high amounts of dollar amounts, most people don't have thousands of dollars, like tens of thousands of dollars to put into a retirement account. So you have to have the funds to put into the account in order to get a benefit for them. Anyways, number eight, don't include trustees fees that were billed separately and paid by you for your IRA. Number nine, don't include any repayments of qualified reservists distributions. You can't deduct them for information on how to report these repayments. You could see qualified reservist repayments in Publication 590A. Number 10, if the total of your IRA deduction on line 20 plus any non-deductible contributions to your traditional IRAs shown on form 8606 is less than your total traditional IRA contributions for 2023, you can see Publication 590A for special rules. So where you cover by a retirement plan? So here comes the other complexity. If someone doesn't have access to a 401K plan with work, then it's fairly straightforward that you would qualify to be putting money into an IRA.  Then could you still put money into an IRA? That's the question. So if you were covered by a retirement plan, qualified pension, profit sharing including 401K, annuity, a SEP, simple, etc. at work or through self-employment, your IRA deduction may be reduced or eliminated. All right. So because that makes sense, right? Because the IRA is there. This is kind of like the health insurance where traditionally the 401K was set up for people that spent their whole life working at one company. And basically they would save for retirement through the 401K plan. But of course these days people are working in different areas and changing jobs all the time and having self-employment and so on and so forth. So you would think they want an ability to have an IRA in case you don't have access to a 401K plan. But it would be cheating if you could max out the 401K plan and max out the IRA. Again, that would be kind of excessive for people that have a lot of cash flow to be able to do that, right? But if you still make contributions to an IRA even if you can't deduct them. But you can still make contributions to an IRA even if you can't deduct them. In other words, you put money into an IRA even though you can't deduct it. You might ask, why would I do that? Because I'm putting money into a retirement account which is going to restrict my capacity to take the money out. Why would I do it if I can't deduct it? Well, you still might get a tax benefit because the growth of the money in there might still be beneficial. Meaning dividend interest capital gains, the accumulation of the value of the stock that are going up might not be taxable or could be deferred. In other words, until you pull it out. So in any case that the income earned on your IRA contributions isn't taxed until it is paid to you. So the quote retirement plan, end quote box inform in box 13 of your form W2 should be checked if you were covered by a plan at work. Even if you weren't vested in the plan. In other words, when you look at the W2 form, there's going to be a checkbox for the retirement plan, which will show you that you had access at least to the plan even if you were not yet vested in it. And so that will help you determine and that's crucial to check off in software to help you to properly determine whether or not you can put money into an IRA. So you are also covered by a plan if you were self employed and had a set simple or qualified retirement plan. So if you're not covered by a plan in work through your employer reflected on a W2, but you have a schedule C, then you might try to put money into an individual IRA, but you might try to get more of a benefit putting money into like a SEP plan or a simple plan. In which case, again, you would think you can't max out the SEP and the simple as well as get an individual IRA that would be kind of doubling up. So if you were covered by a retirement plan and you file form 2555, I believe that's for foreign earned income or foreign income or 8815, or you exclude employer provided adoption benefits, see publication 598 to figure the amount if any of your IRA deduction, married persons filing separately. So if you weren't covered by a retirement plan, but your spouse was you are considered covered by a plan unless you lived apart from your spouse for all of 2023. So if you're married, then married is usually the best way to file. But if you file married filing separately, it's not like going back to head of household or single the IRS might restrict some of the deductibility of certain things because again, they're skeptical of people game in the system bouncing back and forth between married and married filing separate. So deduction worksheet. So before you begin, be sure you have read the instructions figure any right in adjustments.  So you've got your IRA and your spouse's IRA. So B if married filing jointly was your spouse covered by a retirement plan. So next, if you check no online one a and no online one B if married filing jointly, skip line two through six, enter the applicable amount below on line seven a and line seven B if applicable and go to line eight. So 6500 if under the age of 50. So that's going to be like the max contribution in general if you don't have any of these restrictions and 7500 if they age 50 or older at the end of 2023. So otherwise go to line two. So line two, enter the amount shown below that applies to you. So you have a single head of household or married filing separately and you lived apart from your spouse for all of 2023 83,000 qualified surviving spouse enter 136,000 married filing jointly 136 married filing separately and you lived with your spouse to do that. So that's a 10,000. Line three, enter the amount from form 1040 or 1040 SR line nine. And that's the total income line. Line four, enter the total the total of the amounts from schedule one line 11 through 19 plus 23 and 25. Line five, subtract line four from line three if married filing jointly enter the result in both columns. And six is the amount on line five less than the amount online to if no stop if yes, subtract and so on. I won't go through the whole thing from here going forward but just know to get some it can get somewhat complex right. So what you want to do from a general data input standpoint is get the basically the general rules. Can you deduct an IRA? Generally if you have access to a 401k plan or something else that's what you want to maximize first. And then in some cases you might still be able to deduct some but it gets complicated. So that's going to be the last minute tax planning. If you don't have access to a 401k plan or something through work and your spouse doesn't have access and you have earned income and you don't have any other kind of retirement plan like a simple or something like that. Then you have maximum contributions of the individual IRA of six thousand five hundred and seven thousand five hundred. But the best way to go about it is to to at least not cap off these amounts but rather wait till you do the taxes so that you can do that last minute tax planning to see the maximum amount that you might still be able to put into an IRA, which you can typically do as long as you're not basically on extension, meaning you have up until the time of you file the return, not including extensions typically.


So I've always had this hopeful almost romantic view of the world with respect to climate change And I've always thought as things get worse Human beings are going to be forced to come together like it or not You're gonna have to acknowledge that we all have a common interest in saving this planet and maintaining the habitability of this planet So even if you see the others as your enemy or your rival Like it or not, you've got to work with them Unfortunately, I'm realizing how naive that vision was especially after seeing headlines like this quote This is where the first climate wars will break out military strategists are now preparing for imminent warfare sparked by the effects of climate change Yeah, so if there's any aliens that have discovered us and you're more intelligent and you know, you have just been waiting for the right time to intervene I mean, we're on the verge of killing ourselves quite literally So now would be a really good time to intervene. So we're gonna get into the article here And they do describe how the climate change crisis is Going to lead to increased tensions and part of the issue is this designation of climate change as a national security threat Now at face value, it makes sense because climate change is a threat That's akin to a foreign invader, right? We're looking at portions of the United States that will succumb to the ocean in a way that, you know Other countries take territory from others. I mean, how is this any different our resources are at threat? Our populations are vulnerable So of course it makes sense to think of climate change as a national security threat But that designation is actually very very problematic, but let's get to the article here So this is from Mike Pearl of the Daily Beast who explains climate-related warfare is a near-term reality Not some far-off boogeyman according to leading defense thinkers and military strategists They are still talking about the importance of fighting climate change But they're also making plans to fight other human beings because of climate change So where will these climate-related battles take place? Some people argue they already have with controversial academic reports claiming recent conflicts were directly spurred by the effects of climate change Other military advisors and strategists have identified specific new wars that could erupt in Asia Africa or the Arctic The Atlantic Council and American think tank suggested in March that as Russia and China looked to new shipping routes through previously frozen Impassable waters around Greenland, Iceland and the Arctic Circle There could be a new era of great power competition in the region Britain and the US have responded to a huge increase in Russian and Chinese activity in the area with a beefed-up military and naval Presence of course an American aircraft carrier recently ventured into the Arctic Circle for the first time since the end of the Cold War Matthew Rendell a lecturer at the University of Nottingham whose research focuses on climate change and international relations argues that it is more likely that less stable more Disaster-prone places like Syria or Somalia will become the climate battlefields quote They are already hot most of them are also a lot poorer as a result They're more likely to suffer acute resource shortages mass migration of refugees and political instability Moreover Rendell said China and Russia have nuclear weapons They may quarrel over the Arctic, but they are unlikely to fight World War three over it. That would just be too costly Oh, well, thank God. That's a relief. I mean World War three would be terrible But just you know a bunch of different conflicts Scattered throughout the world perpetually possibly Definitely a relief now the issue aside from the conflict itself, of course, which in and of itself is bad is that you know if climate change is going to lead to More conflicts and conflicts will become a more common phenomenon as a result of climate change That of course is going to lead to bigger militaries more militarization globally speaking And if there's one thing we know at least with regard to the US military It's that the US military emits more CO2 than many industrialized nations so we have the United States with a military that emits more CO2 then Lots and lots of countries But if a bunch of countries now start militarizing even halfway to the point where we're at currently then that means More CO2 so I decided to hand draw an image that kind of demonstrates this cycle of Death that we've put ourselves in so as you can see climate change creates conflict which in turn leads to bigger Militaries which then leads to more CO2 emissions which worsens climate change which then creates conflict I mean do you see the issue here? It's a death spiral and the only question is what's going to kill us first climate change or War now I want to go back to the beginning of the video where I talked about climate change as a national security threat and We need to really look into that and what the United States government says that that means because to us Individually we can think about it in a certain way But the way that we view climate change as a national security threat is not the way that the United States government and the Department of Defense Views climate change as a national security threat now in the Department of Defense's lengthy climate adaptation plan they do in fact identify climate change as a national security threat and Yes, that's technically accurate But it's not like they view it as a threat in the sense that it's akin to a foreign invader threatening to annex South Florida It's viewed in the sense that it threatens military operations and makes us less capable of dealing with foreign threats if We don't adapt so It's not a national security threat in that it's going to lead to you know our population being vulnerable because of food shortages and you know Extreme weather conditions. It's a national security threat in the sense that it makes us less ready militarily it makes it makes us less capable of effectively doing war and killing others I mean, there's also food and water shortages which they cite as a reason to expect more terrorism and cyber attacks and Countries more generally speaking not just the US are viewing climate change as a national security threat And so far as it's going to make them less effective in combat and more on this as John Kerry special presidential envoy for climate Tweeted shortly after the election of Joe Biden America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat that it is Corey the University Leeds professor has said it carries tweet was an example of climate Securitization which he defined as making something understood through the lens of security Corey questioned this approach Asking why is it national security and not human security or an ecological security crisis? The military strategy is being generated to confront these new issues focus on adapting to the new challenges Not massively reducing their own carbon footprints. The Pentagon's climate change plan does talk about reducing greenhouse gas emissions But mitigation is third on the plans list of guiding terms after Adaptation and resilience if the rich countries the chief causers of global warming start pouring money into their national security apparatus Instead of decarbonization and helping vulnerable countries adapt it will add insult to injury Corey said so understand whenever a Democrat and liberals say that climate change is a national security threat They don't mean that it's a national security threat and we have to stop climate change They mean climate change is a threat because it's going to hinder their military exercises, which they will continue and Likely ramp up as a result of climate change, which will cause more conflict again. We'll put up the death spiral Circle that I drew because I'm very proud of it because I think that it represents the situation Absolutely perfectly. Unfortunately. So, you know, I think that now we just need to be a little bit more cautious Whenever we see someone say climate change is a national security threat We have to ask them what they mean by that because it's probably not gonna mean what we hope it means It means we don't want to be more or less effective rather at killing people We want to be as effective as ever We want to be combat ready and you know, even if there's climate change We're still gonna make sure that we have the biggest baddest military that is fully capable of Going anywhere to kill people if need be That's not what we should be doing currently. We should all be scrambling to find a way to save the planet but unfortunately we're just Expecting climate change to be catastrophic and they're thinking of ways to deal with that rather than just stopping that They're just accepting it as an inevitability and Not trying to mitigate it further It's certainly a little bit Depressing to think about it that way But it's important that we know about this because no more applauding for liberals when they say climate change is a national security threat That should get your red flags up because it doesn't mean what you think it means


Yes, come in. Good afternoon. Please sit down. You are from UP and now? Yes sir. I was born in now. Where do you live? Lucknow sir. Why do you wish to join civil service? Sir, civil service is because I believe the scope and the level of impact this service has is is incomparable and a direct contact with the public. Sir, then how is the quality of security? Both the constitutional security and the national security. I believe that if you work honestly with integrity, there wouldn't be any problem in this country. What qualities will you bring to this job? So the first and foremost quality would be that of hard work and second would be sympathy or if I may emphasize a sense of empathy. Anything else you can think of? So dedication and work would come under hard work. So this is your first attempt? No sir, this is my third attempt. Third attempt? What happened? Sir, first two attempts I couldn't clear up to give you an example. Ms. Gujar, you have heard of the Right to Information Act? Yes sir. Now what would you say were the major objectives of this act? So the major objective of the RTI Act was to increase transparency and the increase awareness when it comes to the citizens. Now what is the procedure which has been prescribed for getting information on RTI Act? Sir, the people have to file an RTI application and there is a nominal fee for a certain section of the people. And I believe for poor people it is for free. And then there is a time period that if it is an urgent case the information has to be provided within 48 hours. 48 hours in case of life and death is concerned. But tell me, are there any exemptions under which the government department could deny information? Yes, there are a few exceptions, specifically in the case of national security. National security, personal information, foreign relations, all those kinds of things are there. Then there are certain organizations, are there any organization of the government exempted from the RTI Act completely? Sir, the cabinet board meetings, they are... That comes under the exemption clause. I am saying, are there any organizations of the government which are exempt from the purview of the RTI Act? Sir, I will do recollect, but if you don't let me try. Yes, tell me. Sir, there is an issue that the Supreme Court does fall under the purview. No, basically intelligence agencies are exempted. Except, they say that except where violation of human rights or corruption is concerned. So, which means if you are seeking information, say from the intelligence bureau, if it relates to the reporting or anything they are given, then that will be exempt. It will be an exempt organization. But if it relates to violation of human rights violations or the corruption, then the organization is obliged to provide the information. Now, if you have seen the papers last several days, some people have filed a petition in the Supreme Court against appointment of information commission. Have you read about it? Sure. Okay, now there is a central information commission also. Yes. What is the role of the central information commission? Sir, central. It's under the RTI Act itself. Yes, sir. Sir, that would be a guess. Okay, sure. Okay, now on the low punch, what are the directions of the Supreme Court? Very recent directions. Giving a deadline for, so what is the issue involved? Why is this delay happening? Sir, the delay is that the low punch is not being pointed. True. So, what are the directions that the Supreme Court has given recently, any idea? Yes, sir. Okay. The low punch should be ultimately pointed by a selection committee. Who are the members of the selection committee? Sir, it is the Prime Minister, the leader of the opposition, the speaker. And the M&N duels. Five members are there. Okay. Right. Have you heard of a term called extradition? Yes. What is that? Extradition means, as another, through a treaty, the other country would let a person who's in conflict with the law to be allowed to come in India. So, is it a judicial process or is it a political request? Sir, it involves, it is a political process, it is a political process. Not a judicial process? Sir. Think of Vijay Malia. What's happening? Definitely, it is a judicial, it is both ways. So, primarily a judicial activity, isn't it? After all, Vijay Malia's case, he had challenged it in the city back in the magistrates' court in the UK. So, that is how it works, right? Okay. Recently, certain students of the Jawaharlal University were charged with sedition. Are you aware of that? Yes, sir. What was the reason for this? Sir, the reason given was that they were, there were certain slogans which were... Anti-national slogans. Anti-national slogans. Yeah. But then, what was the occasion when they organized this event? The name of the observed guru is coming up. Who is the observed guru? Sir, the observed guru was involved in the parliament, he had attacks. Yeah. Sand hand. And he was hand. Right. Yeah. So, it was in remembrance of this event that they organized this rally. That is why this thing, right? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. You were president of your college? I'm president of the college hostel. So, what activities were you involved with as students? My foremost task was monitoring and coordinating all the activities. The various activities that were done at the hostel were a little bit cultural activities. Like, during many festivals or occasions, we used to organize little competitions, or do competitions. The major event of the hostel was a guest night where we were allowed to invite our friends and relatives of our students. So, that was important. Now, you mentioned hobbies, drawing, mantras and journaling. What is this? And mandal literally means a circle. So, basically it's a drawing involving concentric circles. Free hand? Free hand. Free hand as well as we do use equipment. So, it depends from person to person. A crude example would be rangoli patterns. And journaling. What's journaling? Ma'am, basically it is journal entries. Journal entries. Yes, ma'am. But it is a follow specific technique of journal writing, which is called the bullet journal mandal. And the process is sent two years back. So, that is one issue. So, a bullet journal means a calculated form. Yes. Actually, bullets, there are several bullets. And every bullet has its own meaning. For example, a dash would mean a task. A circle would mean an event. So, it helps you organize your thoughts and activities. Okay. Also, you've written your work for women development. Yes. What was the work you did here? And I was a volunteer in the women development centre. So, this was part of the NSS NSO? Yes, ma'am. It was a part of the NSS. And specifically for which I did a part was a collection drive. It was held on a voluntary basis because I was the president of the hostel. So, I ensured that everybody in the hostel who wants to donate something. So, you've got so many hobbies and interests. What exactly is the role of hobbies in your life? I mean, the two hobbies that I have mentioned in this case of preparation, it has helped me to stay calm and composed. To stay relaxed? Yes. Recreation? Yes. Recreation. Yes. Okay. Now, you're from UP. Yes. One years of the partner distance. So, what is the government doing to meet the problems of the partner? I'm the first and foremost. The most short-term measure that the government adopted was a farm don't build up. Farm don't build up? Yes.  Well, I would say it is bad politics and bad economics. Actually, we did their work. So, it's not bad politics. It's good money. But in the program, it becomes a most valuable product. What else? It is just a suboptimal solution. Because it checks farmer's suicide and it provides little income support to them. But it is not a system. But the loan which has been taken is not taken by the small platform. So, this is the big farmers plan. So, the small farmers still has to support the problems. Although there were certain restrictions laid that who all would be allowed to avail this farm don't build up. The major problem it creates is that of a moral hazard. So, as your schemes which are similar to a loan waiver but not loan waiver, two of the states are talking about it. They haven't implemented it but the schemes are going to come up. I know where all these schemes are coming from. One is the Red Bantu scheme of Telangana which is the input support model. The second is the recent one that we saw. It was called Alia and Tisha as a cultural replacement which is the income of my teacher. Now, how has brand and house looked up? What has been their purpose? Ma'am, has it affected the farmers? Ma'am, it hasn't affected the farmers. As an alternative to farming, a lot of them used to keep cows and there is a certain age in which cows provide milk to a profitable level beyond which farmers used to sell them in the butcher houses through which they used to earn their income as well. Now that is not allowed in butcher houses and the slaughterhouses are being shut down. So, what would they do with those cows? It becomes very expensive for them to take care of them. So, they are just leaving them strong. So, this is a major problem. So, what are the ideas of this? So, the cows are also becoming? Yes, it's becoming more of a nuisance. How can the streets as well as for the farmers because now they are even eating away their produce? Okay. You look at Jenny for some time. So, suppose I asked you to suggest anything which you think would make Jenny a safer place for you. What steps would you suggest? Take me a few seconds. Any practical steps? Yes, the first, the most practical step is to increase the petroleum. Okay, good. No matter what the petroleum, just look at the steps. The second step, that would be a long term, would you increase the civic sense? Despite the fact that this is the capital, there are several reasons because of immigration. That people don't have civil sense. The third is ensuring that whosoever is convicted doesn't escape. You do justice. Speedy justice. These three. Don't you think crime takes place where there are dark spaces? Yes, but that's a finite object. Okay. And production. Production is another major factor. What can be done to prevent pollution levels in Delhi? In Delhi, we should promote public transport. Like I saw today, there were a lot of cars. It was just a single person driving. Okay, fine. One initiative was laid down by the government which was odd in its name. Which was a good, but it created a good message. But the second would be all the construction activities that are there. They should be regulated. No open dirt piles. And third would be the industries that are there inside Delhi. Maybe they could be visual law for a visual agreement. All right. Thank you. David and Eve. Yes, sir. Each of them is business. From where this concept originated? It's a work-band concept. They bring out a ranking of different countries. Yes, sir. And on the basis of the ranking, where does India figure? Sir, India is on the 77. 77. Which marks an improvement over the earlier ranking. Yes. Earlier, we were around 100. So, I think it was better. What are the factors that has contributed to this? Sir, one very important piece of us was the way India conducts its trade across ports. Easy clearances. Which has to do with easy clearance. Second was construction permits. Now they are available at a very short span of time. GST and IBC, although they are ready to move. I don't mean so they accounted for this. IBC, yes. But it didn't. Sir, earlier this before, it was not taken. Okay. It's still in that kind of phase. Yes. But it will improve India's ranking. It will improve. Sir, these two are not taking anything like that. Tax, administration has also... Sir, GST has mentioned. Okay. In terms of relations, it is one of those things, right? Yes, sir. Venezuela is in the news. What is happening there? So Venezuela is going through an economic crisis. What happened? The leader, a member from the opposition... Is that the... The economic crisis can't be the immediate crisis. Yes. The immediate crisis is one of the opposition members. It's said that he declared himself as the interim president. And he was backed by the support of the United States and several European countries. Yes. On the other hand, there are initial precedents of Maduro. He said that this is a constitutional and I stand to be the president. So basically, a failed coup. It's a recent coup. It can't be sort of a coup. But of course, I think there is a convergence of international... Yes. And today, if you have read the news report, they said Trump has announced certain measures. Sir. You haven't gone through that. Okay. Something different. What is the role of NHRC? The National Human Rights Commission. So sir, regarding the human rights of the civilians... What are human rights? Human rights are certain inalienable rights that every human being has, by the virtue of being a human being. And NHRC is a judicial body. What kind of powers or authority it has? It has a power as what was said before. It has to take up the matter in a span of a year. On the other hand... The role of police is undergone certain change over the years. Yes. What kind of change has come in the role of the police? I don't understand. No. Say, about 100 years back, the role of the police or even before independence, I'm sure it is undergone a lot of change. So that means police was there to open up to say that it has to be a judicial body. Basically, police is there for law and order and internal security. Earlier it was used more as a force, but now the development role and the... This concept of service is also... Is there anything... Are you familiar with an institution called... Security Council? Yes. What exactly... Sir, it provides a security framework for the country, security policies that was voted. Okay. And it comes under which ministry? Not ever. Anyway, doesn't matter. Demonetization. It was referred to demonetization for a couple of years. And what were the objectives of demonetization? Sir, the major objective was to curb lack of money. Second was the counterfeit currency. Right. Counterfeit currency. Yes. In relation to these objectives, have they been met now that two years had passed? What is your assessment? Sir, the foremost benefit of demonetization was the amount of money which was given as lack of money. It has come back in the economy. The taxes are being paid for it. But this is the advantage. Second is that it has given a boost to e-commerce and digitization. But if I argue that the earlier black money has now become white money, so to that extent it's very, you know... Sir, but it has come back in the economy. Now the taxes would be paid for it. It is not that it was just brought in the economy without paying the taxes. Taxes were paid. Other than that, any other advantage is that digitization, e-commerce has been given. And it takes place as well. Number of income takes place. Right. Okay. Central government gives a lot of subsidies. Are you aware of what are the subsidies given by the central government? What are the major subsidies given? There is also... There was an attempt to target the subsidies to the mini-series. Divity. Divity is given in the book of what? Sir, it is given in this book. No, no. No, no. Thank you. You read news chapters. Sorry, I couldn't read now. Alright, never mind. Maybe some important issues in the international arena and in the national sphere which you can see the heart of this. Sir, I wonder in the national arena if you talk about region's technical issues in the West Asia, Trump has announced that the troops would be gradually withdrawn from Syria and Afghanistan. Second, when it comes to Europe the Brexit is a major issue when it comes to North America. The recent issue which involved the arrest of the Chinese U.S. CEO from Canada has created a major issue in the international arena. The reference would have paid. Venezuela? Yes, sir. Is Venezuela becoming your problem? Major issue? Yes, sir. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves. The economy is suffering badly. Not that. The issue is something different. The issue is how America is looking at the internal situation that has created the real crisis. You know what is good governance? What are the features of good governance? Sir, timely implementation. No. It's a World Bank concept. Very well defined features. Are you aware or not? What is the U.P's growth rate? Complete to 4%. You must check. 6.4%. It's not so bad. And in the World Development Index where does it stand among European territories and states? No idea. You know there's a lot of talk of universal basic income. You think this is a feasible thing? Sir, it would definitely have a lot of money. And if you have a lot of money. Is that so? No, sir. On the government I meant. The government has a lot of money. It doesn't have a lot of money. But it would be a good measure. So what are the things which are being thought about? Mostly in respect of UBI. Sir, the issue is proposed by the economic survey. The economic survey is dedicated as a specific target. The government is giving it very serious thought. Niti Ayo is giving it some thought. Rahul Gandhi has said that we will provide income. But the question is how do you implement it? So are you reading reports on that? Yes, sir. I have read about UBI. So those reports do they make sense to you? You haven't even talked to me. Sir, I am aware of UBI. All right. You know, poverty has a definition in India. Which committee has defined poverty in recent years in India? Sir, it was the Rangar Rajan Committee. That was the latest. Do you know what was the parameter which they fixed as to people who are earning this much of money or who have the capacity to spend so much of money will be below the poverty line or above the poverty. What is the Tendulkar limit? Sir, it was around 32 fees for urban areas. It would be against this. You are almost right for urban area 32. And Rahul? It was 27 and 29. 27.2 or something. And Rangar Rajan? Sir, it increased the amount to 33 and 43. 47. 47. So, how many, what percentage of the population according to Rangar Rajan committee came under the below the poverty line? Sir, it was 29.5%. 29.5, very good. And Tendulkar? 22%. Which of these is being considered by the government for UBI? Tendulkar. You have another concept of separation of powers. Who propounded this? It was the United States of America. No, I think Montesquieu. Yeah, Montesquieu. Now, does India have separation of powers? Sir, we have, when it comes to the legislature and the executive, there is an audio relationship but there is separation of power. Do we have officially separation of powers in our constitution and our scheme because we have, right? You know basic structure concept. Name three most important or four most important basic features which cannot be altered or tampered with. So the secular framework, rule of law, separation of powers and distribution of powers. Distribution of powers. No, there is nothing like distribution. Then we are going to check. Most important of federalism, separation of powers, parliamentary form of government, independence of judicial, then come all these signatures in the rule of law and securities. Who said this nasty, human nature is nasty, brutish in short? Which are critical thinkers? Sir, it was ops. In what context? In the context of state of nature. Nature. And what did it disguise, what form of government? Absolute form of government. Absolute. Alright. What is the Westphalian Treaty? So the Westphalian Treaty in the year 1648, it laid down the concept of sovereign nation states. Right. Supreme Court is seized of a matter currently which concerns Uttar Pradesh. Two matters rather, which concern Uttar Pradesh, name those matters. Two cases are before, important cases are before, in terms of Uttar Pradesh. Baurima Singh and 1100 police encounters. Both have come up before the Supreme Court. Now, we close the interview I'll give you a little feedback. You want to show? Yes, as many as. Now, most of the questioning would be based on the provided and that is there. Then all current affairs, constitutional issues and Supreme Court judgments or issues pending before Supreme Court. Okay. So these are the areas we must strengthen. In February, we still have about 90 days, 90 days which is about about 70 days a day and a quarter. Political science will be refreshing knowledge. So is international relations. In international relations, I think you should also think of some major initiatives which the government of India is taking. For instance, a government first act east are relations with China, Pakistan with Afghanistan. These are some important things. Indo-Pacific region. Next is UP, Uttar Pradesh. Problems of Uttar Pradesh, you were asked a number of questions. Farmers distress, load waivers. Can we also discuss what havoc it is causing. I told you two cases which are pending before Supreme Court. Its growth rate, why its human development is so good. That is about UP. Then come your extracurricular activities like drawing, mandalas, journals. You were a secretary of political science department and also political science important subject. After that, current affairs. You were asked about no power extradition. CBC. Is it in current affairs? So, you also asked about UY, when is the line, you also said about important issues, etc. Then we asked you some questions about police role, national security council, demonetisation etc. Talking of dbt some questions can be what are the important achievements of that day. In which you can name Ujwala scheme well, Ujwala dbt scheme it has saved about 80,000 crores. Good governance are offered here.  A question can be if you are made a collector somewhere how will you bring about good governance? Supposing it's a situation question which you can get. Then we came to some constitution issues like separation of powers, basic structure and there are certain other areas where I think you should also work like how much hunger prevails in India and hunger, malnutrition, what are the facts and what is the government doing about this? Hunger, malnutrition, poverty and abortion these are the four important basic things and what are the governments efforts to alleviate these problems right? If you do this much you will have a lot of material. You have to read systematically one hour of political science one hour of information one hour of hobbies then you will see which time you will require your knowledge that is what will give you a lot of benefit it is knowledge which will give you a real traction right? Everything else is in your favor you have very nice personality you can speak very well strengthen your knowledge this is the real secret good luck


A magnetar is a spinning neutron star with an intense magnetic field. Magnetic field strength is measured in units called Gauss. A refrigerator magnet is about 50 Gauss. MRIs use up to 70,000 Gauss. A magnetar's field strength is a thousand trillion Gauss. It's enough to tear atoms apart at a thousand kilometers away. Only around 1 in 10 neutron stars start out as magnetars. We do not yet know what makes their magnetic fields so strong. But it looks like they don't last long. They settle into normal neutron star status after around 10,000 years. On June 22, 2016, an instrument aboard NASA's SWIFT telescope captured the release of a short burst of X-rays from 1E1613, a star in the middle of the supernova remnant, RCW103, indicating that it may be a magnetar. Seeking to investigate further, astronomers had the Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes follow up with observations of their own. They confirmed that 1E1613 has the properties of a magnetar, making it the 30th magnetar ever discovered.


Actually, Adory came to Sarah High School to run track. That was his first reason to come here. We have a great team, a nationally ranked track team, and he came out here as a track guy. Football was practicing over on the football field, obviously, and someone threw him like a back corner feet, and Adory jumps in like one motion, turns, like one hand snatches the ball, I mean out of midair, with a defender jumping in front of him. And I'm walking out of the weight room and I see this happening, and I'm like, wow, like, that was terrific. Everyone else on the field, including like the parents that were sitting there watching practice, no one said anything. Everyone was just kind of like, oh, okay. And I was like, he must do that regularly. Jaxu gets outside, down the sideline, stays on his feet. My mom and dad, they thought it was a good idea for me. I wanted to stay back in Illinois and, you know, be with my friends, be out there in high school with them and do that journey. I know I was super homesick, like I hated California for a while. So my sophomore year here, it was whatever, I didn't really like it.  And then once that happened, I started thinking like, okay, maybe this is the right move, this is the best decision for me. Adory coming from another state, you know, I think football did help him, but Adory is just, he's someone that people gravitate to. I mean, that's just who he is. Football, during the fall, they actually practice out on the baseball field. And so we were like in the infield or in the cage just doing some different little drills. I saw Adory make a few plays and I was just saying to myself like, wow, like, who is that kid right there? And he's like, oh, that's Adory Jaxu. Looking at what Adory's skill set was as a high school player, it was kind of evident the first day I met him. He came in as a freshman and he said that, you know, he played running back or this or that, he wanted to play cornerback. And I had mentioned that, yeah, we had two returning, you know, all league cornerbacks and there was a tough position, he said, sorry coach, I still, I still am going to do it. And so I thought originally he was going to play JV or something, but it took about 20 minutes before I realized that this, this young man is not going to be playing JV. I mean, and, and the other corners better start looking for another job. It was unbelievable because he was like, he was doing like kick return, but he was also punting. He was playing DB, he's playing receiver. He literally impacted the game at every position that he, he played. Adory Jaxu. Adory was always raising the ball, you know, and he was looking at and saying, okay, I did that. That's exciting, but I think I can do better. Jaxu has a shot. Here comes Adory Jaxu. Adory Jaxu, there goes Adory. I didn't see him very much because he was always in a different sport, you know, and I barely, I would barely see him in off season. It's a very good early season jump, five of six jumps over 25 feet. When I was doing something, I wanted to do it. Like it wasn't the thing where I was doing football and I went to track a basketball and I was just having it. After we played freshman football, my freshman year of basketball, I played, went to the championship and won it. And then track, I ended up winning that. Well, I went to the state, I got second. So they seen how hard I worked and how I wanted to do it. So I never know like conflict and interest like, okay, let me pull them back for this because they knew I was so dedicated to doing that and it was just helping me be a better athlete and be a better person and getting a different discipline and being in shape for football, basketball on the track or three different types of shapes. So having that and be able to go out there and still perform and still play, they knew like I was serious and I was going to be dedicated. You look at NFL guys, you look at anyone at the highest level. The multiple sports, I think is a big deal. I think that really helps him. I think for Adory, the fact that he just, he went from season to season. He never just said, I'm a football guy.  Everything he did kind of moved towards what he is today as a football player. He's just a fantastic athlete. He literally jumped all the way over the kicker. Oh, my goodness. Allen under pressure firing, ball batted up in the air and it is intercepted, Jackson at the 40. If you come from a certain background like Texas, California, Florida to have that background of football players because you know you're in such a great class, it's such a great history of players that came out and you understand the grind and the work and the sweat that you got to put in to get to the next level because it's not going to be sweet. Because like they say, Cali cool and that's real. Like you can be too cool and you think stuff is sweet out there but it's really not. So you always got to have that grind and that grit with you. Throwing deep down the middle for Hopkins into double coverage and I believe it's intercepted. Adory Jackson, his first career, INT.