Hello, my name is Benjamin Boudreau and I am a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. My work primarily focuses on technology policy and includes, for instance, recent reports on the Internet of Bodies, on data privacy regarding COVID, mobile surveillance platforms, and on military AI ethics. Prior to joining RAND, I was at the State Department where I worked on international cyber policy issues. Prior to that, I completed my PhD in philosophical ethics and political philosophy. In addition to acting as a researcher at the RAND Corporation, I'm also a core professor at the Party RAND Graduate School, which is the nation's oldest and largest public policy PhD program, founded actually 50 years ago. And it is a PhD program that offers a PhD in public policy housed within the broader RAND Corporation. And my teaching at the Party RAND Graduate School has focused on ethics where I am the co-instructor of the core ethics course that's required for all first-year Party RAND graduate students. And currently, I'm also teaching a studio design course focused on some of the policy challenges associated with online social media platforms. And in addition to my teaching, I also have a role in seeking to integrate ethics throughout the broader Party RAND Graduate School curriculum. And the PITUN challenge grant I receive help foster those efforts to integrate ethics throughout the curriculum. And the main objective was really to identify opportunities to integrate ethical thinking into AI-related coursework and research at Party RAND Graduate School and to facilitate discussion of AI ethics across the entire RAND Corporation more broadly. And ultimately, our goal was to enable the students, many of whom will go on to be AI researchers and policymakers to consider the ethical implications of AI technology and to practice developing risk mitigations. And this objective is very much aligned with this broader mission I mentioned of Party RAND to integrate ethics as a cross-cutting thread across all of its various policy engagement streams. Unfortunately, in many cases, AI technology is research developed and brought to market without reflection on the potential harms or risks associated with the technology. And AI technology researchers and developers are not normally trained to reflect on the ways the researcher products might be misused or abused or in the longer-term implications of AI, especially for vulnerable and marginalized populations. And in addition, these technologists are often from homogenous demographic groups, and they aren't really prone to include a diverse set of perspectives that would help them identify potential risks. And I believe this is a systemic problem that we have sought to begin to address by identifying opportunities in the curriculum to inject ethics and execute an activity that required ethical reflection about a real AI application. And so in particular, we conducted three distinct activities. The first is we analyzed existing AI university courses across college and universities around the country to identify gaps and key barriers to integrating ethics into the curriculum. And we of course had a specific focus on the Party RAND graduate school. We worked from a dataset developed by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, so I want to give a special shout out to Professor Casey Feisler for her great work. But we went a little further and sought to identify other gaps within AI curriculum. And although there's a burgeoning effort to integrate ethics into AI coursework, we identified several key issues that are not currently discussed at sufficient strength. This includes diversity in AI, has to do with accessibility of AI systems, the human element in AI development, environmental issues related to AI, and military AI applications beyond lethal autonomous weapons systems. And when we looked at the courses offered at the RAND corporation, we found that approximately 19% already integrated AI ethics topics, but that's not enough and that there are opportunities for further embedding ethical topics into coursework through especially increased collaboration among professors and students. And so we used all this analysis to build an annotated syllabus that's designed as a modular model that professors can draw from to better integrate ethics into their existing coursework. And it also could provide a foundation for a standalone course or even independent AI ethics self-study. And what we did in this annotated syllabus was we presented a variety of topics and a breadth of readings that included an overview of key issues and additional references. And what we tried to do was initiate reflection by raising important questions and putting the readings in dialogue with one another. And they really are focused on three big questions, the first being how should we balance innovation and technical exploration with ethical considerations, especially those related to responsibility, equity, and well-being. Second, who's responsible for considering the ethics of technological developments in their application and how should this be done? What are the mechanisms for ensuring that critical ethical engagement is integrated in the development, testing, and application of new technologies? And what should be done when harms are not recognized until after development and products are brought to the market? And lastly, how do the cultural, political, demographic, and economic contexts in which these technologies are developed, designed, and deployed shape the benefits, risks, and harms? And how do they prompt the ethical, legal, and social responses to these technologies? So those were the major questions and we developed modules on privacy, bias, and fairness, diversity in AI, the environmental implications of AI, policy and governments, and a host of other topics. The third and final thing we did with our challenge grant was we wanted to organize an actual practical activity that brought students, professors, and researchers at the RAND Corporation into the discussion. So what we did is we piloted a concept of an ethics hackathon which involved a team-based competition between members of the party RAND Graduate School. And to conduct this, we partnered with the nonprofit COVID Alliance, which is a nonprofit coalition focused on developing a coordinated response to COVID-19. And it consists of epidemiologists, virologists, policy experts, medical informaticians, data scientists, and software engineers. And we worked with the COVID Alliance's research management platform, which is intended to aggregate and analyze data to be used for research that assists in COVID response. So the ethics hackathon included a dozen student participants, along with four faculty advisors, and we divided the students and the faculty into three teams. The work occurred over four weeks and involved an initial kickoff meeting, weekly office hours with the COVID Alliance, and a final meeting where teams showed the results of their efforts. Now the primary tasks and questions posed to each team were, one, what are the potential ethical harms of this COVID management platform, and how can these harms be mitigated through design features, visualizations, and use restrictions? And we put that broader question into two specific tasks. First, we asked the students to demonstrate the potential harms of data bias or other challenges with the platform and ask them to broadly reflect on the short and long-term ethical implications of unrepresentative data or how the platform might be used to contribute to inequity or social injustice. And then secondly, we asked them to propose and demonstrate an actionable recommendation to address those harms and to include, for instance, data visualizations or other technical features of the platform that would help end users ensure that the platform could be used equitably. And some of our outcomes were that we identified a range of data representation concerns with the Pratt platform, in particular with the under-inclusiveness of certain key demographic groups into the underlying data. We identified a set of data privacy concerns and the risk of potentially re-identifying users from the data that the platform ingests. And we identified a set of data use concerns that the data that the platform makes visual for policymakers might be interpreted or used in ways that potentially could have long-term and unfortunate implications to include targeting shutdowns to certain marginalized or vulnerable communities. And so what we did is we identified these potential risks and then offered some actionable recommendations and a checklist that the COVID Alliance should consider as they move forward. And in general, this was our pilot attempt at an ethics hackathon. I think it's a really valuable approach to enable students' ethical thinking related to AI and develop some of these actionable proposals and something we do hope to replicate in the future. And so that does turn to some of the future of the project. We will continue to work to integrate AI ethics topics across the party ring graduate school curriculum. We're going to continue to develop this ethics hackathon concept and continue to explore collaboration both with the COVID Alliance but also other external actors. And we're just going to continue to try to integrate ethics into distinct coursework at the party ring graduate school. Thank you very much. My name is Chris Berry. I'm a professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago and I'm also one of the founders of our program in computational analysis and public policy. And hi, I'm Nicole Marwell. I'm a professor in the School of Social Service Administration also at the University of Chicago. And Chris and I are here to talk about our PITUN project, which is a course that we've been developing entitled Big Data and Public Policy. And just to get us started, I'll tell you a little bit about the broad overview of the course. The motivating question is how does the 21st century data explosion change the task of governing? The course is designed to provide students with a conceptual foundation for thinking about how they deploy data and advanced analytics in pursuit of the public good. And in particular, we're looking to integrate ideas from both data science and social science in order to pose questions and solve problems that are relevant to policy making and policy implementation. And we want to tell you a little bit about how we got to this to this point of working together on this on this course. So as I said, I have been involved in our joint degree program in computational analysis and public policy for a number of years. And one of the gaps I have seen in our education has been courses that unify sort of social science and data science. So we have a lot of students who are taking courses in parallel in both of these two subjects, but relatively fewer that bring them together. And in particular, in my area of interest, we have relatively few courses that bring together what I would call the traditional program evaluation approach or causal inference approach with the machine learning and predictive approaches. And so a lot of students learn these kind of techniques without really ever being taught about how they work together and what sort of questions each is appropriate for. So I had a long-standing interest in trying to produce a course that would teach students about how these ideas work together. And my entry to this project was rather different. I am an ethnographer by training, a sociologist who hangs around with people watching what they do and talking to them about what they do. And in my research, which is really a lot about the intersection between government and non-profit organizations in terms of the production of welfare state services, I've been noticing over the last few years that there is really a mania for what everyone refers to as data-driven analysis. And so watching folks in the field on the ground doing data-driven analysis, talking about data-driven analysis, I really started to wonder, what exactly are these folks doing? And what is it that they think that they're doing? And so this became a real interest for me. And when the opportunity arose that I saw the announcement for the PIT-UN grant, I decided that I wanted to try and figure out if we could do something that would address these questions. And I found Chris, Chris and I didn't know each other in the beginning, but Chris was heading up the PIT-UN activities at the University of Chicago. So we sat down, we had an initial meeting. I think Chris might have been a little skeptical of me, but we ended up deciding that we actually had a lot in common in our viewpoint and that we wanted to move forward with the application. And fortunately we were successful and we've been working on developing this course since we got the grant. Yes. And so I think the course is going to reflect these two different kinds of perspectives that we bring to bear. And that's really what makes it interesting. And so let's give you a little bit of an overview of the course and how it's going to work. The course begins with an introduction to data in public policy analysis and really the rise of this paradigm of, as Nicole described, evidence-based policy. So we start by asking, how did we get to this point? How did we get to a point where everyone has this mantra of evidence-based policy as distinct from past generations where there might have been more reliance on things like expertise, for example. And after talking about that, we talk about what constitutes evidence and knowledge, particularly in what we see as two dominant paradigms of analysis, which are the causal inferential program evaluation approach and predictive data science approach to public policymaking. So following that initial introduction, we move on to an initial section where we address questions of ethics. Now, even though we begin this early in the course, we are not segregating the ethics content into just one week, but rather we'll see it come up over and over again over the course of our quarter. We really want to lay a foundation early on in the course though about how to think about ethical problems in general, as well as exploring ideas about ethics that are specifically related to the use of big data and the use of big data in policymaking. One of the really important ideas that we'll be pushing forward in the course is that regulation may happen around the use of data, and big data in particular, and in relation to policymaking more specifically. But we're pretty sure that the technology is always going to run ahead of the regulation, and thus it's extremely important that students develop their own ethical compass for thinking about these issues as they're doing practice in the field. And so we're going to be looking at those issues consistently over the course. Oh, sorry, this is me again. So then as we move into the next section of the course, we're going to be looking at the issue of what we're referring to as datafication or data production. And what we want to do here is really focus students' attention on the many different ways in which new forms of data are produced and then become available for analysis. The course is really going to be interrogating this claim that some big data evangelists make, which is that the present day volumes and velocities of data actually allow a truthful and frictionless representation of the world. We will consider this claim as well as the many critiques of this claim that are out there and encourage students really to be critical consumers of the data sets that they might encounter or that they might in fact be producing themselves. The process of data production, and this is particularly my view, that process is at bottom a human process and a social process, and thus it's shot through with many social constructions and biases. And it's very important that users of data be aware of this fundamental reality and also be equipped to think about how to address it prior to the stage of analysis. So after talking about the data side of things, we then begin a section of the course that we call epistemologies of quantification. And this part of the course is really focused on understanding what kind of knowledge is produced in policy analysis within the two paradigms we're discussing, which is the causal inference approach and the predictive analytics approach. And we want to ask for each, how is knowledge produced within that framework? What kind of knowledge is produced? And what kind of policy problems and questions is that sort of knowledge useful for addressing? And along the way, we also want to talk about the limitations of each and when to use them or what kind of problem and maybe when not to use one or the other of them. And after having this discussion of the epistemologies and principle, we then move to the final section of the course, which is a more applied or interpretive section where we ask, okay, presuming that you have taken an appropriate technique to ask an appropriate type of policy problem, you're still not done. There's a lot of questions about interpretations of the results that you've gotten and what sort of claims are or not justified as a result of that analysis. And so we're going to talk about issues that relate to both disparate impact, algorithmic fairness and various ways in which there may be bias associated with our results, whether that bias comes from the data or the analytical side. And we'll consider these things from both a legal perspective and a technical and ethical perspective. And then we'll want to move on towards responsible communication of your results, including and particularly communicating the uncertainty about what you've learned, both understanding uncertainty yourself and communicating it to the likely consumers and policymakers who will use your work. That's the end of the formal instructional part of the course. And we then conclude with students giving their own work based on their own projects trying to apply a lot of these ideas to whatever the topical area of interest to them. That's our course. Just one more point I'd like to add in terms of the audience for the course. We struggled a bit about how to think about who the audience was. We ultimately settled on a sort of larger framework. So the course is open both to advanced undergraduate students and both masters and doctoral students. We're going to run the course this first time around as a relatively small seminar of about 20 students. We're really hoping to get a wide variety of perspectives in the room so that all the students can really learn from each other depending on sort of where they're coming from and what their strengths are and therefore to produce students who are really thinking very broadly about these critical issues as they think about a future in public interest technology. And as one final point we'd say that, you know, we began preparing the course by surveying courses that are related to this one at other universities including many of the Pitt UN member institutions. We now have our own syllabus that we look forward to sharing and getting your feedback on and we're very much eager for the discussion that will come at the upcoming conference and we look forward to talking with all of you. We'll be there. Thanks a lot. Hi my name is David Eves. I'm going to present about teaching public service in the digital age. Before I get going I just want to thank there are a number of people but maybe specifically Enos Marguel who's a professor at University of Constance and Tom Steinberg who's a former chief digital officer and a real pioneer of using technology and government in the UK who've been really close collaborators on this project with me. And of course I'd love to thank the Pitt University Network who've been very generous in funding this work and helping a collaboration with practitioners and faculty from schools all around the world. My own background is I'm a lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School where I teach students really kind of policy and public administration students about what is the knowledge they need to understand about technology to be effective when trying to deliver services to create public goods. My history in doing this is I've trained all the Code for America fellows. I've done trainings for every cohort of the Presidential Innovation Fellows of the White House and numerous other groups around the world and I've really been at the intersection of public administration and policy and technology for the last 15 years. My own experience and that of many others has shown that there is a real struggle inside government on how to use technology effectively to deliver public goods and one great example of that is the Standards Group has a report every year where they talk about how successful technology projects are and they including government technology projects. And here you can see that the statistics are not fantastic. You know a huge number of projects fail or are challenged every year. You know a quarter I think actually number has dropped a little bit it's more like 20% now fail outright. That means like literally we have nothing to show for it and challenge means they went over budget they didn't deliver the value we expected. And here in the United States we see lots of that. I mean famously everybody knows the healthcare.gov debacle but it's really just the tip of the a much bigger iceberg which includes you know during the COVID crisis the number of states that had challenges with websites that would offer core public services to people who were furloughed or unemployed those falling over and you can imagine a parent not being able to get benefits not knowing where their money is going to come far to pay for rent or the next meal because the government wasn't able to deliver the service and they of course could not go in person and do that. Even just sharing data about COVID between agencies often sometimes resorting to faxing it around so you can imagine the data entries errors and you know even just policymakers not having the most up-to-date and effective data and maybe most tragically was this image which is you know two young students sitting in the parking lot of a Taco Bell because they've been told they have to go to school remotely and there's no broadband policy there's no way for them to get connectivity and so the only way they could do that was go free reload off of the fast food chains Wi-Fi as that's totally heartbreaking photo and what I'm trying to show with all this is that in a modern era every service by the government is at some level a digital service even the garbage collector who comes around and picks up the recycling the route they take is almost dictated by a computer everything we do is intermediate by technology and one of the Titans in our field Helen Marguess talks about how you know as policymakers and politicians as they try to make decisions those decisions are increasingly constrained by what the technology infrastructure is that allows them to make choices and so if you want to impose a new tariff or do something if the technology doesn't support it then it can't be done or it can only be done at vast expense so the mission of our project is to try to figure out how do we increase the number of public servants and public leaders with some minimum set like fundamental skills of digital and when we did a survey looking around to see how like the public policy public administration schools were doing in this space it was really not particularly positive as you can see here the number of schools that have a required course in technology and digital technologies is low and in fact interestingly the requirement from that from the certification agency NASPA that certifies public policy schools was actually removed a few years ago and I think very interestingly was moved because no one can define what digital was and I think if you go back to those earlier slides where talked about the failed projects it's because now digital is part of everything we do and so it's challenged us to figure out well how do we describe what the discrete skills are here that somebody needs when it's part of everything and that's what our project's trying to do the good news is is there's actually lots of being taught in the space and many schools actually are looking at these various issues but often they're doing like they have a data science program or a cyber security program so they'll do a deep dive the critical thing is how are we going to teach a minimum of each of these skills to equip our public leaders for the future again more good news there's a rich academic history of thinking about this in a public administration perspective that we're able to draw on so our approach has been quite simple we're going to build a community of practitioners and faculty members look at the research and then figure tied to practice figure out what are core competencies that public leaders need to have and then define those build a support network with teaching materials and community so people can go and teach those in policy and public administration schools and civil service colleges all around the world that work's been ambitious but incredibly fun here's a photo of people who are collaborating right now on some of this work and you can see they're coming from universities and countries from all around the world what has resulted after the first year of work is we managed to zero in on eight core competencies that we think are critical for leaders in a digital era and those you know those range from focusing on users so how do we understand what users needs are when we no longer see them face to face so how do we get into their shoes have empathy for them understand their needs and then design digital services for them all the way to how do we iterate how do we create you know governments where we don't create plans on budgets that are one year or five year cycles but actually cycles where we can learn in weeks or even days about whether something's working something something small and adapted over time like you see happening in the private sector I won't go through all eight competencies that you can find those on our website I'm teaching public service in the digital teaching public service digital what's been really exciting is when we announced these we did an initial form we had 200 people sign up now we have over 16 universities and civil service colleges in our network with actually this higher now probably about 20 to 30 faculty members who are active collaborators we've interviewed over 200 academics and talked to at least 40 50 deans from public policy schools getting a very positive reaction and and our mailing list now is over 2000 strong from 50 different countries just a multitude of schools that are that are reflected in that so what are we working on next really now what are we working on now now that we have these digital era competencies we're starting to build out a syllabus so a modular syllabus that will allow people to teach those here we're going to use that to pair with faculty who've already emerged that want to teach this in numerous colleges around the world including places like in the Philippines in Singapore and equip them so we probably even run a summer program next summer I'm kind of a teach the teacher for how to teach these competencies in your schools what we're really interested is if you're come at a civil service college or a public administration or a public policy school we'd absolutely love to talk to you learn more about what you're already doing in the space and see if there's anything we can do to support you in teaching this to your students we know that there's a lot that students like you know that are required courses so we're really trying to keep this to an absolute minimum and we recognize in some places this probably will just be an optional course but we'd love to talk to you nonetheless and see is there somewhere that we could fit this material in or is there someone at your school who's interested in talking to us for more information you can hit our website here or of course just send an email to any of the three of us on the PI so happy to talk to you but there's many people all around the world who could engage with you I hope this was fun and interesting look forward to hearing to you and thank you so much hello I'm delighted to be with you here today to talk about public interest technology research that's been taking part place in the southeast as a collaboration between Georgia State and Georgia Tech two universities that are part of the public school system in the state of Georgia I'm Ellen Zagura and I'm a faculty member at Georgia Tech let me start by highlighting the work of Beth Minet a region's professor in the school of interactive computing at Georgia Tech and Christy Seelman an associate professor in the school of social work at Georgia State these two together exemplify the goals of the public interest technology project that Georgia Tech and Georgia State embarked on over this past year in that they both come from two very different fields one where there's a excels at Georgia Tech that is in the college of computing interactive computing and then from Georgia State the area of social work which is a discipline that we do not have represented at Georgia Tech so this this is bringing together the skills and strengths of both universities this project is about COVID and in particular it's about trying to capture the voices of resilience and coping mechanisms amongst the LGBTQ community during this difficult time of COVID this brings Christy's expertise in understanding and supporting LGBTQ communities and Beth's expertise in doing user centered research and and qualitative methods projects so the objectives of this of this are to document strategies for not just surviving but also thriving during the COVID-19 pandemic and to do so among adults LGBTQ plus adults by by prompting them to take diary entries that allow a multimedia record of the ways in which they are responding to the COVID-19 challenges one of the key ideas here is to counter the narratives of LGBTQ plus people as being at risk and and and being deficit suffering from deficits but instead to try to demonstrate and document creativeness and strength of the population there's also an opportunity here by coupling the diary studies with other kinds of survey data to see how these strategies for coping differ based on generation race ethnicity status of health and disability etc and so on track to produce some really interesting insights in how to support and create resilient strategies amongst LGBTQ community under times of stress some of the prompts that the diary entries are responding to are you know positive terms like hope and adaptability sort of terms that that could be positive could be challenging like health and then identity a kind of persistent theme for LGBTQ plus individuals second project I want to highlight is very very different kind of project this one is joint between Mary Kim who was an associate professor in policy and government at Georgia State and has recently moved to George Mason University Mary and Calton Poo a professor in the school of computer science at Georgia Tech have collaborated on what's called a non-profit organization research panel so the idea of this project is to improve the quantitative evaluation of non-profit effectiveness that is what helps nonprofits become effective what are the management and over other overhead elements of their work and what is their actual and perceived social impact so overhead and impact and with a better understanding of non-profit effectiveness that will point to ways to improve the actual effectiveness of nonprofits pointing them in in directions for change and directions for best practice this is a data project this is a data heavy project in order to quantify non-profit effectiveness this team will draw on diverse datasets including those that come through public sources like the IRS 9090 form us census data and then surveys being administered by Georgia State George Mason and another collaborator one real highlight of this project is that the collaboration has already and recently produced a national science foundation research award in excess of eight hundred thousand dollars to fund the work of the of the co-pis here the third project I want to highlight is one that brings together computing and the criminal justice and criminology department at Georgia State so this is a this is a collaboration that started when Ben Shapiro was a research scientist at Georgia Tech in the interim six months nine months Ben actually has taken a faculty job at Georgia State so he's now an assistant professor in learning sciences so while this began as a Georgia Tech Georgia State collaboration it will move forward as a Georgia State Georgia State collaboration and the the idea and focus that Ben and Marie have is to look at novel ways to interact with crime data novel ways to to navigate and move around within crime data especially with a spatial and time-based component to it so to give you an idea of what the project objectives are here they're asking questions like how do new interactive representations particularly around the mobility of crime lead to new insights and what do those new insights about crime suggest about effective deterrence to crime allocation of resources and fair policing and as a somewhat of a meta question but key underlying both of the first two questions is what kind of information navigation tools are natural for criminal justice scholars and practitioners so these are domains criminal justice domains where information visualization and especially these novel new tools have the potential to really change practice and change research questions and research answers but that only happens if the navigation tools are comfortable and natural and familiar or learnable by practitioners so what's depicted here is two visualizations one is a traditional map based visualization of crime where there's a dot for each location where crime occurred the one on the lower right though is a novel representation where space is represented about not with a map but on a on a 2d grid space and then time is actually moving across the x-axis so if you take a slice vertically you have a point in time and a representation across space so Marie and Ben I believe that revisions to traditional visualizations are really going to make a difference in the way that crime and especially mobility of crime can be understood there are a number of additional collaborations that have been made possible with the generous funding and under the pit you and program I just wanted to mention two more very briefly one that's close to my work and that is a collaboration with Luisa Nazarino a phd student in public management and policy around internet access and covid and what is changing in terms of internet access during times of work at home and school from home and how is internet access the capability to connect to the internet changing as we see rapid additions to infrastructure to try to make it more possible especially for people who are in regions that are underserved by the internet to get online we're focusing our work in Georgia where we have counties with relatively low access rates as well as of course urban regions which are excellent access rates and then finally a collaboration between Bill Sable a professor in criminal justice and criminology and Jonathan Balak a phd student in robotics at Georgia who has expertise in video analysis so Bill and Jonathan are also looking at a topic that could be a covid topic but also could be relevant even in non-covid times and that is what is the difference between video and in-person contact between officers and probationers and how does that ability to meet in person change those interactions and what can be replicated well with video in terms of improving outcomes for probationers I'd like to close by sharing a couple of images from our kickoff workshop which happened in January on the what you'll see here is we had a very dynamic interactive get-together with I think more Georgia Tech and Georgia State faculty in one room together than had actually potentially ever happened in the history of the two universities we all shared our information about ourselves as well as what we were hoping to get and what we were bringing to the table and I just captured here the two information sheets that Ben Shapiro and Christie Seelman made and just thinking about how far these collaborations have come under the constraints of covid where many of these collaborators actually had never met before we got together in January and I have to say I'm incredibly proud of the work of all of these faculty and students across the two universities and I'm delighted to be able to share it with you today thank you


E-Circuita, Maikitai, Ekei Mika Onadzuawe, Onadzutupata That's on Y254 Channelama The E-Circuit on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram So right now I want to sample some of your requests and your answers As you remember, our question for the day ni What useless thing did you learn in high school? Lama, whichever school you went to be at What's those are the schools, the universities and they're like So let us know how Brian Anasema, Brian Kimteranasema I couldn't believe a female DJ could make up my day like this Pick up DJ Lil Russian Thank you, thank you Brian, kwen bia, hz dm, hz na kastakwen, liit la Hz inasulite So I became sey, anasema, tuned from Facebook Jeeni Gitahi, she has the same name as me Hmm, maybe we're related, I don't know Anasema, find X in Mathematics, it truly wasted my time Wow I never found X, who's it? I don't even, the camera people Anyone has ever found X? No one has ever, have you ever found X? X, no, we've never found X Where is X? I don't know where X is We're still looking for X, apparently Mungine, Breezy Tomilin Asama logarithms Mi hata lukumisawa, there's such a word by the way Logarithms came the whole of it Akina, kishanzi huru What is kishanzi huru, AC Gracie? I have no idea I have no clue what that is I think it's part of kiswahili, I don't know Kiswahili, definitely, it's not French But we have to judge you, I know it's contactions Adi, Kim saya meru, ditana nasama, nicheze teteima na kondani I think that's directed to DJ Lil Russian So tamcheze teteima ama isha teseza Bado, we're coming through Inakam Nyasimi, petero, insomoka Facebook names na kumbia Anasama, being my first time to watch the program, I'm glad And I regret I've missed what I... I regret that I've missed so far That's nice, that's nice Every 8 to 12, on the 2nd part Apa on Y244 channel, well on this TV as well Channel 376 On Twitter omto nasama Ihandoliakini at Joshua Mwega 5, nasama tuning live from Webuye Mngi nasama, Hagei Kimongi Good morning Y244 channel, tuning from Mombasa County Whato Mombasa representing So Natakatuwanzi, our first interview With AC Gracie Welcome Thank you for having me You're not new to the scene No You're not new to Y244 channel Although you're new to E-Circuit Yeah, I guess so, yes Yeah So welcome Pleasure being here History lianza, vizuri sana In the music industry You like to do covers On Facebook and YouTube as well Then you got the attention of someone in particular Pascal Tokodi Yeah And I believe there was like a cash prize in the world Can you tell us the story? So in 2016 Pascal Tokodi chakta a song called Sitaki So the idea was he said People should do covers of this song And then the best cover gets 50,000 Plus you get to do the acoustic version Of the same song with him So I just tried it out Why are you nervous when you won? Because you were like her Now I have to do this cover with this guy Ah, so I see No It's exciting Because that's like My music is everything to me I wasn't nervous Because initially I just did it because my friends were in church I was like doing the cover here Hard to win It's because I was actually in studio Then someone called me And they were like Hey you guy Kuna this thing About this song Considering like the fact that I was in studio already So I just wrote the lyrics And I told my guys Because we were with the band Like let's just do this To cover posts And I mean didn't see it coming But after that You just blew up You were everywhere Yeah after that I think season 2 I decided to just go So because I wasn't really taking music That serious So after that I was like kumbe There's something What do you mean by that What do you mean by you once taking music seriously Yeah I was But I think I was just doing it as a hobby Because I was also in school So I was just doing it like Passing time Free time I never really thought about it as a business Something you can actually brand yourself So after the cover I was like If I can actually get money out of this man Yeah Did you feel like It was more pressure Than a calling Because once If I knew a cover People are now expecting something else from me It's something that AC Actually fun fact We'll get to this later on You're no longer AC Gracie You're now officially AC Yes AC Okay it's AC It's just AC I just wrote it as officially AC cause On Instagram There's so many ACs So then I had to find something that has AC on it So I couldn't use official AC anything So I just used officially AC Okay we're going to find out Why you had to remove the Gracie Yeah But did you feel more pressure to Release something I have never felt pressure To be honest For me music Any music is my My happy place So I do not Anything that's not That does not make me comfortable I just don't Like I don't take it where music is So maybe any I was just doing things where I do that I never feel pressure I refuse to feel pressure Cause I feel like Pressure will just make you do things Sometimes you don't want to do Release songs you don't even want to release So yeah I'm just doing me I'm just doing you Yeah Kulikwana watu na kudasama I want to sign this check Yes Definitely But As to re-signing Patrick's At least yon elijua kitambo Actually I'm asking you Because I noticed When I was looking at your videos online Most of them Actually some of them Just some of them They are on Urban Scorches account Yeah So I wouldn't call it being signed But That's why I was recording And like I just didn't have experience I didn't I didn't know what I was doing sana Compared to now In terms of Cause music I think it's like any other job You need time to learn And understand what you're doing So he's like your mentor Yes He's my producer I call him pups He's my dad So At that point It was easy For him to do these things for me Cause he was like doing Most if not everything So me I was just recording And then he does everything But since I at least I've been learning So yeah I can Do most of these things on my own What do you think is the biggest challenge To break out in the music industry Wow Well I think getting Usually getting airplay Or that Attention Is a problem Cause people have good content By having someone Who can get that content Out of there to the right people Is usually the biggest problem Ju And it's not easy It's not easy I'm sure it's easy It's a problem How do I get on it? Exactly It's so hard Cause people have content actually You use money You make a video You do an amazing audio Like me say you have it And you say what's next So usually that's the problem Cause once you're out there That's it But With Aban's coach He taught you the ropes So he showed you how to Did you teach your marketing Because I hear That's the biggest problem Yes exactly Because people have to resort to You know Cloud chasing Instead of actual marketing For the music Well he didn't I'm glad by the way He kinda taught me I'm glad there's no There's no story about you Somewhere in the tabloids I'm glad about that I hope you keep it that way Keep it that way I could say he taught me Yes Not everything But he Let's just say he tries his best Like we're not I wouldn't say he's at A position where he can do He can make you know Magic like this Like the big artist maybe we have But the kidogo he can do He's done And shout out to so many other people Like When they have people supporting me And yet are sometimes injury Cause sometimes I get interviews From people I don't know They just call you for the interview Yes someone just use your song And they DM you And they tell you how And they hook up Exactly So Maybe it's the way you write your music Actually that's something I needed to ask you With one in particular Redzwa I need to speak for the boy child now Name kutoka Liko nika una tu bashi nawe Was it a personal experience Ya nife kutoka Was it a personal experience Who's this guy? I have no idea He is I wrote a toki tamo I recorded it in 2017 But I wrote it way back It was just a sad story But got over it You got over it I hope so Cause ya nike another one Kutubashi we are good people We are good people Ya we are Wait we are I know We are good I was like we are good Speak for yourself I am a good person Boy child is in Iwatuwa Zuri But then there's one Me and my producer Actually bumping to this one Before we started Of course there's a new one Sugar But this came Can you tell us about that It was you know kind of raunchy So this game And it was a little bit different From the regular AC So this game was A song I wrote When I was I was talking to my Girlfriends So we realized All of us are complaining About things you guys do No no You guys Who is this pastor Ya no no It wasn't even about me really I realized We realized every time we link up People are complaining Siju my guy has done what Siju my guy has done what Hey Sasa we are here wondering Kwa ni Madem ni pake Lani sisi pake jumlotuna Chiazwa Buona sisi Why are we the ones who keep crying about Siju Ah so after that I just went and wrote Kus the song talks about Ukin ni chiazwa nakuchiazwa So we were talking about If we decided to play The game you guys play We'd probably do it way better Because we choose to Chip it off the low Laki ni pia sisi tunumizu Kwa na Lil Russian onaka play Ata ditu Buona pake They were so nice That's really Lil Russian onaka wali Mimitu na mziki angu I'm here just playing music Ni ni ni Ah kwa na Ni wini kwenili They all say that No good No no no no Until proven guilty Until proven guilty But for now that is amazing Ata ni wini na tuktamangu Masia kutete aboicha Let us see you are becoming oppressed But let me ask you this In terms of your music Is that the direction Is it more empowerment Or I wouldn't say that For me music is An outlet Yes it's like It's an expression It's how you wake up in the morning And just look at the sun And think wow The weather is amazing I wouldn't even want To put myself in a box That's why when people ask me I say you are about the genre of music I do not want to say I feel like I'm still trying to figure myself out And then there are so many things To talk about So many things to sing about So many things I usually don't want to say I don't want to put myself in a box Maybe I'll sing about I think things that people Won't expect me to sing about Which is like Now from this game to sugar It was almost totally different And I like that you're not Being defined by a genre Before we talk about sugar You're a vocalist You're not just an artist So I want to give The people back at home A nice treat You know You know I'm going with this Treats to kiddo Any song Yeah camera number 4 I've got nothing This game Baby so can I 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 You think you can share baby So can I To can play this game To to play this game Yeah it's not for a treat again Na kwa mbe kali kali kali Thank you And you want taking music seriously That's what you're telling me No I was not For some reason This is funny Mama you always knew you could just sing No that's a funny part I thought In my mind everyone Everyone could see So if someone told me That you can sing I'm like thanks you too Mama I never really Whether I never thought of music As A talent, as a kid Yeah or like Atia was good Because if someone told me That I was good Like I don't know what I'm saying You know Yeah I'm like sure You just tell me something nice To make me feel nice or what's going on Yeah Awesome Now sugar Dogum dogum Can you tell us the inspiration Between Behind the song Man sugar is a love song I think people are like Kudembo na nashina kima song Sad sad apple Like sad bashing So I decided Let me just check A love song man So it's just a song to a guy Does this mean now There's a A new person in your life Now treating you the way You're supposed to be By all means Do tell Do tell Just feel Kudembo na nashina kima song This is an emotional area Give us the key Wow That's very Okay There's nothing much to say Yeah But there's someone There's someone na jana ona Yeah and dear Yeah very Man absolutely So we're expecting like Nothing but love songs now No No no no Apana I think Miki nikiwa nyebom tabuweka Mita chokana mimi man I want to Like I'll be checking Things that are just unpredictable But definitely love songs Juve Me realize this is a sad song Spear man Naki kwa depressed They're taking you somewhere else Where you don't want to go Yeah mimi emotions are everything man Because I Good feel to your music I So I think I read somewhere That people express Hat breaks More than They express Like Better than how They'd express love If someone tells you they hate you It's You'd feel it more than If they told you they love you For real Because if someone sang about They love you then Oh But if someone wrote a full song About how You pissed them off Just feel like Where? When you really fall in love Nile kukosia wa Ajima na ya So that's the main direction I don't wanna say anything Like I don't have a main direction You're open to anything Any and everything Yes But I like that you write your own songs And they're fueled by your personal experiences I think that's a rare thing Yeah because You need to keep doing it Kabisa That's very awesome We're about to play a sugar AKM dogom dogom By officially AC Or AC I'm AC Gracie Kwa Or my fans would love a tenet like us Is this AC? Or just AC But when I was in Kenya Just AC Just AC Just is the first name No, no On Instagram Yes, it's at officially AC Also on YouTube But I'm not using that as my My name My name is just AC Just AC But because you can't Like the social media handles Kunata You can't use Sometimes you can't use a kawan word They tell you too short All those things That's what I'm using At officially AC But I'm just AC Yes Sasa That's awesome Now Obviously I'm not using AC Officially AC everywhere So make sure you go and subscribe And subscribe and subscribe But there's a question I needed to ask you To me What is your name? Or Is it useless in high school? Sorry? What subject Did you say was useless in high school? Mathematics Subjects Not just subjects What thing did you learn? And it's useless to your life right now Personally This thing is to make Koko and Blue band And Mkorogo Yes Mkorogo is not useless No, now That thing is useless to me No, now Now it's useless Of course now it's useless Why would you make that at home now? Why would you just take blue band and koko? There's a survival skills na kovia You never know There could be an apocalypse And you're rushing in your stuff So You make Koko and That was There was that Mkorogo And there was the other one With Roiko Yes, Roiko You came with some Roiko Ritongo and all that You never did that? I didn't do that You never did that? All in a group of school kids Now it's useless to you You need to survive No, it's useless to you I'll tell you after the show I'll explain it And give you the ingredients What's your last question? What useless thing did you land back in high school Or even college And you're not really using it right?


A very good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankara IAS Academy. Today's date is 18th of October 2023. Displayed here are the list of news articles that we are going to discuss today. So without much delay, let us get into the news article discussion. Look at this image in the front page of Delay Edition. The image portrays a senior Puducherry turning red due to algal growth. Some of the critics say that this condition was due to the abundance of algae as a result of more nutrient in the water. See this phenomenon is only called red tide or algal bloom. So in this news article discussion, we shall see in detail about what is this red tide. So what is a red tide? See red tide is also called algal bloom. Since the algal growth causes the water to appear red, it is known as red tide. Now the red color in the water is due to the red color of dinoflagellate algae. When this red colored dinoflagellate algae grow in excess, they make the water to appear in red color. This is why this excess algal growth is called red tide. So what causes this red tide? See basically it is caused by excess accumulation of nutrients in water bodies. This excess nutrient lead to explosive algal growth. This process of nutrient enrichment in water bodies is called eutrophication. Excess nutrients from sources like agriculture runoff, sewage discharge and industrial processes provides enough nutrient base for the rapid growth of harmful algae. So the eutrophication is the major cause of algal bloom. See usually red tides occur more in the west coast of India than the eastern coast of India. Why this phenomenon occurs like this? This is because of several reasons. We shall see them one by one. First is the upwelling zone. See the west coast of India near the Arabian Sea experiences seasonal upwelling. Here upwelling is nothing but a process where cold nutrient rich water from the deep ocean rises to the surface. These nutrients like nitrate and phosphate support the growth of phytoplankton. This in turn encourages algal bloom. Second important reason is the influence of monsoon. See during the southwest monsoon the west coast receives heavy rainfall which leads to the runoff of nutrients from the land into the sea. This further contributes to the nutrient load in coastal waters and favor algal blooms. Third reason is temperature and salinity. See the west coast generally has warmer and less saline water compared to the east coast. This combination of temperature and salinity in the west coast waters is suitable to algal growth. Lastly geographical features also influence the growth of algal bloom. See the west coast has many coastal indentations and self areas than the east coast. This enhances the retention of nutrients and favors the development of algal blooms. These are all some of the important points that I have to remember about redtide what causes it and why redtide occur more in west coast of India than the eastern coast. So these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this news article. It talks about the Theosophical Society and the Related Controversies. We all know that Annie Besant was a prominent leader of this organization. She played an active role in our freedom struggle. Know that the home role league movement was the brainchild of Besant. So through the home role league movement Annie Besant also played an important role in our freedom struggle. So instead of learning about home role league movement in a usual way we shall try to understand home role league movement in a mains perspective. For that I have a question for you. Let me read out the question. The question is focus the objective of home role movement and it's a major contribution to the freedom struggle of India. Why did the movement fade out by 1919? Explain. See whenever the keyword explain is given in the question you are expected to give a clear account as to how or why something happened. So as a candidate here you are expected to clear with relevant facts and implications. So in the introduction you can write about the basics of home role movement. You can also mention a brief history of the movement in the introduction part. For example you can say that the home role movement 1916 to 1918 in India was an important milestone in the Indian freedom struggle. It was India's response to the first world war and its associated miseries like inflation poverty etc. Moreover it demanded the right to self-rule or home rule within the British Commonwealth. The movement took inspiration from the Irish home role league. Some of the important leaders of the movement are Bala Gangadhar Tillak, Annie Besant, G.S. Kapparday, Subramanya Ayer and Mohamad Ali Jena. So this could be your introduction. So now moving to the main body of the question. Here you can see that the question is very simple and structured. In the first part the question asks you to enumerate the objectives of home role movement and the significance of the movement. Now in the second part we are asked to write about the decline of the movement. So we are going to write the body of the answer in this way as well. First we shall see the objectives of the home role movement. Some of the objectives of the home role movement includes first to achieve self-government or home rule in India. Secondly to promote political education and discussion in India. Thirdly to increase self-esteem among Indians so that they will speak against the government's oppression. And finally to demand a larger political representation for Indians from the British government. Now this demand is very natural because Indians actively supported British in World War I. So these are all the objectives of the movement. Now after mentioning all these objectives you can write about the significance of the movement. Firstly this movement was at the centre of transition India's freedom struggle that is the movement was at the centre of changing from prayer petition based struggle of the moderators to Gandhian face of struggle which are broadly mass based. So to put it in simply it shifted the movement towards the common people and served as a base for future Gandhian struggles. This is the first major significance of the movement. Secondly it was widespread than any previous movement. Know that with the setting up of two leaks by Balagangadrathalak and Anipasant this effectively covered the whole of India. It also bridged the rural urban divide. So this is the second significance. Thirdly the movement helped spread political awareness across the country. Know that Anipasant through writing in New India advised members to promote political discussions, establish libraries, create awareness among the people of India in the support of home rule. This is the third important significance. Fourthly the movement gained significant support from educated Indians with approximately 40,000 members in the combined leak by 1917. Then many members of Congress and the Muslim League joined the home rule leak. It includes many important leaders like Mothilal Nero, Jawaharlal Nero, C.R. Das, Mohammed Ali, Jinnah and etc. So the movement briefly united moderators, extremists and the Muslim League and created a solidarity. Sixthly it created the cadre of leaders like Nehru who led the future movements of Indian freedom struggle. Finally the significant achievement of the movement was influencing the Montague Declaration of 1917. See this declaration recognized the inclusion of more Indians in the government and the development of self-governing institution and etc. So the home rule movement forced the British to accept the rights of home rule of Indians. So these are all some of the significance of the movement that you can mention in the first half of the answer. Now coming to the second part of our answer, this part asks us to write about the reasons why the movement declined in 1919. See the first and foremost reason was the lack of effective organization of the movement. As we know that the movement has two branches and it got subdivided to even grass root levels. But the problem was with their lack of coordination, common ideology and structure. It was evident in the success of various Gandhian moments like non-cooperation movement, civil disobedient movement and etc. Secondly, retraction of more rates. See the more rates joined home rule movement after the arrest of Annie Besant. But when the government announced the Montague statement of 1917, the more rates were appeased by the reforms of the government and withdrew from it. This is the second reason. Thirdly, the Montague Chelmsford reforms of 1918 further divided the leaders of the country. Know that Annie Besant herself had doubts regarding the continuation of the league. It was because of the announcement of the reforms. So this is the third reason. Fourthly, lack of effective leadership. See Balagangadra went for England in September 1918 due to a liberal case and Annie Besant was not able to provide clear leadership due to her dilemma regarding the reforms. Since both the leaders are not functioning effectively, the home rule movement was left without a leader. And finally, the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi and his methods of Ahimsa attracted a large section of people. It ultimately led to the sidelining of home rule movement from the Indian politics. So these are all some of the important reasons why the home rule movement declined. So, with the conclusion, this question will be completed. In the conclusion part, you can write about the significance of the movement. Like it played an active role in politicizing the people of India. Moreover, it bridged the rural urban divide and it did spread the message of home rule to all parts of India. So overall, home rule movement created an environment which was the base for all Gandhian mass movements, which ultimately led to the freedom. So this could be a better conclusion. If you could write the answer even more better than this model answer, you can post that in the comment section so that your peers will also get another perspective. So with this, we shall wind up this main answer discussion and we shall move on to the next news article. Take a look at this news article. This news article talks about landslides. According to the news article, Kerala Forest Department is planning to prevent landslides along the Kurchi, Danuskodi National Highways in Munar. For this purpose, they are going to plant bamboo trees along the road and mountain sides. So this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context, let us quickly revise about what are landslides, their types and important measures to prevent them. So what are landslides? See landslides are a geologic phenomenon where large masses of earth, rock or debris move down a slope. Landslides can vary in size from small localized slides to large catastrophic events that can destroy entire communities. They are largely relevant in hilly or mountainous ranges where the risk of landslides is higher. Landslides are a major cause of natural disasters worldwide. They are responsible for an estimated 25,000 deaths each year. So what are the types of landslides? See there are various types of landslides depending on the type of movement of materials. Firstly, slump. It is the slipping of one or several units of rock debris with a downward rotation. See this backward rotation is with respect to the slope over which the movement takes place. Second is debris slide. It is the rapid rolling or sliding of earth debris without backward rotation of mass. Third is creep. It is a very slow and continuous down slope movement of soil and rock. It is often unnoticed but can cause long term damage to structures. Fourthly, rock fall. See these are suddenly and fast moving events where individual rocks or boulders detach and fall from a steep slope. They are fast movement of rocks down a slope and the fifth type is rock slides. In rock slides, a mass of rock either with or without soil, they slide down a slope. It is typically slower than a rock fall. Okay. Apart from this, there is one more type in this landslide which is called lahar. It is the mud flow or debris flow that originates on the slope of a volcano. This is usually triggered by heavy rain eroding volcanic deposits. Sudden melting of snow and ice due to heat from volcanic bends or the breakout of water from glaciers. So these are all some of the important types of landslides that you have to remember. So now moving on to the measures to prevent landslides. See the first important measure that we can do is slope stabilization.  Secondly, bringing vegetative cover like promoting the plantation of vegetation on slopes. This can prevent landslides. This is because the roots help to bind the soil and stabilize the slopes. So in today's news article, we saw about Kala Forest Department's idea to plant bamboo on the roadside, right? So bringing a vegetative cover will prevent landslides. That is why they are planning to plant bamboo trees. Now the third way to prevent landslide is erosion control. See implementing erosion control measures like silt fencing and mulching can also prevent the removal of soil by water runoff. Finally land use planning will be a better preventive method. We can enforce land use regulations and restrict construction in landslide prone areas. This can prevent the damage caused by landslides. So these are all some of the important points that you have to remember about landslides. This can be asked as a question in disaster management. So just make note of it. So these learned points in order to move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this front page article. Yesterday a five judge bench of the Supreme Court delivered a judgment on the legality of same sex marriage. The judgment was delivered with a three is to two majority. Majority of judges held that only legislature has the power to regulate and recognize same sex marriage. The judges observed that there is no fundamental or any other legal rights in India that allows the same sex marriage. Therefore majority of judges said that the legal recognition to same sex marriage can only be granted by enacting the law. This is the crux of the news article given here. So in this news article discussion, we shall understand the arguments for and against same sex marriage. So what is the same sex marriage? It refers to marriage between two people who belong to the same gender or six. For example, a marriage between two men or two women. Know that same sex marriages have been legally recognized in more than 30 countries across the globe. Some of such countries include US, England, Canada, Australia, Brazil, France and so on. But in India, the same sex marriage or not currently legal. The legal system of our country does not recognize same sex marriages. This is because our Indian law defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. See before 2018 same sex relationship that is the homosexuality was a criminal offense. This provision was provided in section 377 of the IPC Indian Penal Code. However, in 2018, the Supreme Court stuck down this provision and decriminalized homosexuality. But the Supreme Court did not legalize same sex marriages at that time. So several petitions were filed by the LGBTQ plus community for the legality of same sex marriage. But yesterday Supreme Court refused to provide legal status to the same sex marriage in India and the legal recognition to such marriage can only be granted by enacting the law. So this is the current situation. Now moving on to say about the arguments for and against same sex marriage. Firstly, we will look at the favor arguments. Firstly, legalizing the same sex marriage would reduce the social stigma faced by the LGBTQ plus community and it will promote equality and inclusivity in society. See currently the people of LGBTQ plus community in India are facing several social and legal challenges. The denial of same sex marriage aggravates these challenges rather than resolving it. Therefore, if same sex marriage gets legalized in India, it will allow the people of LGBTQ plus community to obtain social recognition. This in turn promotes equality and inclusivity in society. Secondly, legalizing same sex marriage would have a positive impact on the mental health and well-being of LGBTQ plus individuals. See the LGBTQ plus people in India are currently facing high rates of discrimination, harassment and violence. So legalizing same sex marriage will allow them to form legalized family, which in turn promotes mental health and well-being of such community. Thirdly, legalizing same sex marriage will help to fulfill the promises made in the Constitution.  By giving legality to the same sex marriages, these principles in the Indian Constitution will be met by the government. Fourthly, it would allow the homosexual people to get basic rights and privileges that are currently enjoyed by heterosexual couples. For example, heterosexual couples in India are currently enjoying shared ration, health and pension benefits. Apart from this, they are also enjoying joint property rights.  These are also most important points for the same sex marriages. Now we will see the arguments against the same sex marriages. Firstly, such marriages undermines the traditional family values and the institution of marriage. See, in India, marriage is considered as a sacred institution and marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman. So changing the definition of marriage to include the same sex couples would undermine traditional value of our country. Apart from this, the primary purpose of marriage, which is to raise children, cannot be fulfilled by the same sex couples. This further creates difficulties. Secondly, same sex marriage would have a negative impact on children who are adapted and raised by same sex couples. See, some of the opponents argue that children need both a mother and a father to have a well rounded knowledge. But the same sex couples are more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems. So it would be detrimental to the child's well-being. Thirdly, same sex marriage would lead to a breakdown of social norms. See, India is traditionally having a set of cultural and religious beliefs that are respected by many other countries. So if India allows same sex marriage, it would erode India's culture and religious traditions.  As we all know, majority of Indian population does not support the same sex marriages as they believe that legalizing same sex marriage would affect traditional value of our country. So this will bring a hatred mindset and it further encourages discrimination. These are all some of the arguments against the same sex marriages. So to conclude, India is a democratic country where each and every individual of the country has certain basic rights, including the right to choose sexual orientation. So to promote equality and integrity, the government should enact a suitable legislation to address the concerns of homosexual couples. Apart from this, the society also should need to understand the feelings and emotions of LGBTQ plus community. The society should change its mindset to live along rather than discriminating them. So these are all some of the important points that I have to remember about same sex marriages. With these learned points, now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this news article. It talks about the debate of inclusion of the Métis community under scheduled tribes ST list. The article says that the proposal to include the Métis community in the ST list has been already examined and rejected twice over the last four decades. This information has not been publicly disclosed by the union government during the ongoing ethnic conflict in the state. See, this issue of granting ST status to the Métis community has caused divisions and opposition among tribal groups in Manipur. So the debate on this matter continues to be a sensitive issue in the region. This is the crux of the news article given here. In this context, we'll know what is the basic process of including a tribe under ST list and what are the benefits after inclusion in the list. First, we shall see the process of including tribes in the ST list. See, initially the state government identifies the tribe that deserves ST status. Then it recommends the list to the union government. These recommendations are reviewed by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs at the national level. The reviewed recommendation are then sent to the Registrar General of India for further evaluation and approval. After this, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes NCST verifies the recommendations to ensure their validity. The NCST may conduct consultations with various stakeholders including the tribal community, government agencies and experts. So once approved by NCST, the list is submitted to the President and his decision is final. President may issue a notification for the inclusion of tribe by the powers vested in Article 341 and Article 342. So this is the overall process of including a tribe under ST list. Now we'll look into the benefits of inclusion under the ST list. First is the reservation in education. See, the ST individuals have reserved seats in educational institutions ensuring better access to quality education. It is ensured under Article 15, Clause 4 of Indian Constitution. Next is reservation in employment. ST communities are provided with reserved positions in government jobs and services including promotions. This is ensured under Article 16 of Indian Constitution. Then there are various safeguards for ST population under Article 244 along with the 5th and 6th schedule of the Constitution. These provisions safeguard the rights and promote the socio-economic development of scheduled tribe communities living in tribal areas. Finally is the political representation. See, Article 243D ensures the reservation of seats for scheduled tribes in panchayats promoting their participation in local governance and Article 330 reserves a seat in the Lok Sabha for scheduled tribes allowing their representation in the national parliament as well. So these are all some of the important points that I have to remember about. The process of including tribes in the ST list and the benefits after inclusion in the list. So these learned points. Now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this news article. According to the article the speaker of Lok Sabha referred the compliant against MP Mahua Moetra to the ethics panel. This complaint is called bribe for inquiry. See here the acquisition was that she was taking bribes from a businessman to ask questions in parliament. So this is the crux of the news article given here. So in this context let us discuss about the powers of speaker from the preliminary perspective. So what are the sources of power of the speaker? See the speaker derives power from three sources. They are Constitution of India, Rules of Procedure of Lok Sabha and Parliamentary Conventions. So now let's briefly see about the powers of speaker. See with respect to the proceedings of the House the powers of the speaker are firstly as a presiding officer of the House he or she maintains the order and decorum of the House. Know that this order is very important for the smooth conduct of business of the House. To ensure this the speaker is made as the final authority with respect to any question of order and decorum. Secondly the speaker adjourns the session of the House. Know that he or she can also suspend the meeting of the House in the absence of a quorum. Here quorum is nothing but a minimum strength of the House. Thirdly the speaker does not vote in the first instance of a bill but in case of a tie of votes he or she can execute their vote. This is called as casting vote. Fourthly he or she can preside over a joint session of the two Houses of Parliament. Know that the joint sitting happens when there is a deadlock of the bill between Lok Sabha and Rajesh Sabha. And finally the most important power is that he is the final interpreter of the Constitution, the rules of procedure of Lok Sabha and the Parliamentary Conventions within the House of Lok Sabha. Now let us see the powers of speaker in case of money bills. See firstly the speaker decides whether a bill is a money bill or not. In this question his decision on the bill is final and it cannot be challenged in any court of law. Moreover the endorsement of the speaker is necessary when it is sent to Rajesh Sabha or the President. Now talking about the powers regarding anti-defection law. See the speaker decides on the question of disqualification of a Lok Sabha MP. This question will be generally under the anti-defection law and the provisions of the 10th schedule. Now regarding the parliamentary committees the speaker appoints the chairman of all the parliamentary committees of the Lok Sabha. He also supervises the functioning of the committees. Know that the speaker is the chairman of the business advisory committee, the rules committee and the general purpose committee. These are all some of the powers of the speaker that you have to recall in Praline's perspective. So these are the points. Now let us move on to the next part of the news article discussion which is the preliminary practice question discussion. Now take a look at this first question. This question is about speaker of Lok Sabha. Statement one says the source of power of the speaker is from the constitution only. This statement is obviously incorrect because the speaker derives power from constitution of India, rules of procedure of Lok Sabha and parliamentary conventions. Statement two says the speaker appoints the chairman of all committees of the parliament. This statement is incorrect because he can appoint only members of the Lok Sabha not the entire parliament. Statement three says the decision of the speaker on the money bill is final and cannot be questioned in any court of law. This statement is also incorrect. It is open to judicial review since other case verdict of Supreme Court. Okay, so the correct answer here is option D none of the statements are correct here. Moving on in the process of inclusion of drives in the scheduled drive list in India. What is the role of the registrar general of India? See the correct answer here is option C reviewing and approving the recommendations. It is the role of registrar general of India when it comes to the process of inclusion of drives in the scheduled drive. So here the correct answer is option C. Now moving on look at this question. Three statements are given. First statement says algal bloom or always red. This statement is actually incorrect. Algal bloom or not always red. Now statement two says growth of cyanobacteria can lead to formation of algal bloom. This statement is correct. Third statement says algal blooms increases the biological oxygen demand of the water body. This statement is also correct. So the correct answer for this question is option B1 lead 2 because the first statement is incorrect. Moving on look at this question. Which type of landslide is characterized by a slow downslope movement of soil and rock material often triggered by heavy rainfall and saturation of the ground. The correct answer here is option D creep. So the questions displayed here are the main practice questions for you today. Just go through the question try to answer it in the comment section. With this we came to the end of the news article discussion. If you like the video hit like, do comment and don't forget to subscribe to Shankara ES Academy YouTube channel. Thank you for listening.


So with the revenge of the cartels event we see new additions in terms of the legendaries added into the loot pool. Today we check out one of the best so far, the OPQ system. How's it going guys my name's DPG and today I bring you another BR3 video. If you do enjoy it leaving a like really helps out. If you guys want to see more Borderlands be sure to subscribe. So fans of the Q system will be more so interested in this, over others maybe. I was to say the OPQ system is this game's legendary variant of the Q system and well it does not let you down. Man oh man I am absolutely loving this thing, best assault rifle in the game but it's kind of too early to make that kind of a judgement but it's definitely up there people. So this OPQ system is an exclusive drop to the revenge of the cartels event. As far as I am aware it's a random drop upon the Villa Ultra Violet on Joey's planet. I could be mistaken and it could drop elsewhere or there might be other sources for this but asking around and doing a little research. In these early days it seems everyone who has had this drop has had it upon Villa Ultra Violet. If you know otherwise please let us know down below in the comments section. So what does this weapon do? Well are its party tricks. While people after playing with it for a couple of hours I have found it does some unique things. As upon hitting shots it has a high possibility of dealing additional shot damage which is at about that 50% mark of its standard damage output and it also doesn't matter if it's a body shot or a crit shot. Now this additional damage I'd say is probably 1 in 2 or 1 in 3 of every shot you fire which is a great addition for sure but it also has a second firing mode called OPQ system in which you fire at the weapon itself and it acts like a turret that follows you around and basically does what this weapon does. So in reality doubling its power or in the case of Zayn people out there using that plain dirty skill it can triple its power because it seems as though the skill comes into play with this to when firing it in that OPQ mode you can spawn two of these turrets which is kind of nice. But although this is a great addition it isn't for the most part as efficient as you'd expect. Taking everything aboard though with what this weapon offers this is just an added bonus for the most part and I feel you won't even need to use it and I say it's because this weapon utterly mounts all. Now I got this plane on mayhem mode level 10 struggling through the ultraviolet dying left right and centre but as soon as this weapon dropped I equipped it and tore through the entire thing. This is on a standard mayhem 4 build by the way and this weapon just absolutely obliterated it all including the bus and it's because like we see like the OPQ system it is a two times variant but it doesn't use two ammo per shot so this variant and mayhem 10 version deals over 14k per shot 14k people from an assault rifle and then we have this anointment which I am still testing by the way but it does help an absolute ton and I feel this may just take the place for that classic zane sentinel cryo damage anointment but a little more testing needs to be done there so yeah people the OPQ system is a true monster it's everything the Q system is it's everything you'd want from the Q system but it just adds onto that and I mean like I said it easily carried me through the villa ultraviolet without me even breaking a sweat on mayhem level 10 it's because it feels super snappy it's got a great great sight it's accurate it deals amazing damage and great possible anointments too what more do you want people go and get this thing in my opinion it is the best assault rifle in the game right now I mean I know it's a bit too early to judge that but I find it kind of hard to think there will be a better one amongst this event but hey we will see I could be wrong but yeah the OPQ system dropped for me up under the ultraviolet and as far as I'm aware right now that's the only place it does drop you know otherwise let us know down below in that comment section also guys if you are new to my channel or never really make it this far into a video who want to join amazing borderlands community join my discord which is linked within that video description I have dedicated trading sections for all platforms dedicated looking for group channels for all platforms and much much more again join my discord linked within that video description but yeah guys these are my thoughts on the OPQ system a true monster of a weapon which you need to get on that note we have come to the end if you guys enjoyed it leaving a like really helps out your new rant here want to see more borderlands be sure to subscribe and if you never want to miss a video upload you can turn notifications on by hitting that bell button but guys thanks as always for stopping by hopefully you enjoyed the video and hopefully I'll see you on that next one