tle bit of a mission statement. So because of what I talked about segregation being so intentional, we think that that same level of care has to come with the undoing of unharm. So here it goes. And centering the historically oppressed through empathetic community based design is necessary for overcoming systemic inequities at territorial empathy we work with people in places often overlooked to co create just in resilient places.  So anyone that comes on board to work with us, me and interns or anyone at all people donate their time. And what we do is we have serious conversations about the biases and racism that we all experienced the micro aggressions that we experienced the privilege that we experienced, and we make that a forefront. So we do and we take anti racism and anti bias training before we work with any communities to really question our privilege to question all these different assumptions that we may or may not have before engaging in the work. And so as I mentioned, through working in that space with my desegregation of schools and finding that the work was being was really performative, but also having some understanding from that. After Territoryland with you was created. One of the first main projects that we worked on, which is what I'm talking to you about today as segregation is killing us. So from my understanding and my work with the Department of Education, the New York City. DOE has a million point one students in 70, 70% of those students are low income students. And so that means that essentially what's happening now as gentrification happens. And the reason that our schools are so segregated is because of the admissions metrics that we allow to let people into middle schools and high schools. So, some of you may not know because this is a very diverse group in New York City students have to apply to go to certain middle schools and high schools public public schools. And so this system of screening, which is what is called, and I'll show you a little video about it that was co produced with some of the student activists that we work with from this phenomenal organization called integrate NYC that I encourage you to look at. Just breathe out. There we go. So this, this video will quickly talk about how we got to be so segregated in our public schools.  Because I think many of you aren't parents and haven't had to deal with the public school system. This is a little video and more enlightened kind of what this process is like. These are the students of New York City public schools. There are one point where they are racially diverse economically diverse. They speak hundreds of different languages, come from different countries, and lead different lives. Every year, eighth graders go through the high school admissions process to discover which school they will attend in the fall. Like this school here, it looks like it has a lot of opportunities. A swimming pool, a baseball field, advanced classes, there's so much. Wouldn't you think a lot of kids would want to go there? Well, yes, a lot of students do want to attend, but decisions are based on screens. They can't just walk in there. This school screen is that it accepts students who can afford a tutor, have sports teams in their middle and elementary school, and live in the wealthier part of the city. With all that, I don't think this school is for you. Back on the admissions bus, everyone. Hopefully the next school will be a bit more attainable for you. Here's the next school coming up ahead, and look, no screens. There may not be a field, pool, or that many advanced classes, but in this one, the teachers are amazing and the cafeteria has windows. Those seats are going to fill up quickly. Quickly, everyone, back on the admissions bus. We saw some great students looking to learn. Where will they go? This is our last school. Driver, is this a school? It is? Okay. Let's take a look at all the students we enrolled along our journey. These screens select, sort, and separate us, and not just in high school. There are middle school screens that select, sort, and separate 10-year-olds, and make New York City one of the most segregated school systems in our country. These screens make it easier for students with privilege to access more resources. The students who are screened out are often low-income students and students of color. The same students are filling the most impact on COVID-19 right now. But students from these schools across the city have been joining together to form and mobilize a movement for real integration and real youth power. Our integration isn't about movement of bodies, but movement of minds. We are those students. In 2020, 66 years after Brownview Board of Ed, our schools are still segregated. We can change that. Join us in calling for an end to discriminatory screens. Our future is integrated. These phenomenal students are essentially the clients where segregation is killing us. Segregation is killing us was born from what was happening during the pandemic. So essentially very early on, there was no data as to how communities of color were being impacted because these mapping tools are always very dependent on privilege in some ways. And so what we started doing was working with different folks and the students to map what was happening in the pandemic and to see which communities were more affected. And as I've been working in New York City systemic issues for the last seven years, I found that the map tends to look the same. The same areas are disproportionately affected and connecting to Adam's work. I had an inkling that it was related to redlining. But what the data found in our work, which was kind of guerrilla mapping and guerrilla activism connecting to a drive stream. The health department to map this information before anyone was mapping it was how disproportionately the impact of the pandemic was on communities of color. If you're a prison of color in New York City or two times more likely to catch COVID and three times more likely to die. And we went on a fact finding mission to figure out why that was the case. And I think one of the most important animations and I and again, I encourage you to look at the work on our website. When you look at the cases by race, you start to see all these different patterns, predominantly white communities worn as as affected, and that comes from generational wealth and comes from access to different issues. And we started essentially going off of clues of what the students were telling us and eventually segregation is telling us leads to a policy proposal. I don't know if we'll have time to get into it today, but I'll just show you one of the most, I think to me during this work, one of the most telling animations. And so during the pandemic, everyone was talking about flattening the curve, but no one had studied the curve by median income. And so I'll show you all also all of the work that is that happens here is narrated and animated and designed by students from integrated and I see they're all young people from middle school to college years who came to us with these issues. And so the way that we talk about territorial empathy is that we're really doulas that have a skill set that allow people to manifest the work and the curiosities that they have. So I'll show you a little bit of this animation, which I think is very telling and it's narrated by Secura Mustafa, a phenomenal young student at the time, and now she's a freshman at Columbia, which is really great. Contrary to popular belief, COVID-19 does not impact every New Yorker the same. It is in no way an equalizer. There is troubling inequity when it comes to the virus passing through New York City and who it affects. The phase one COVID-19 data showcases that communities of color and lower income communities have been hit the hardest by this pandemic. The data clearly shows that wealthier, less diverse neighborhoods of our city were less impacted by the pandemic. While slow income communities of color were devastated, leaving hundreds dead and thousands infected, we can clearly see these discrepancies. They are due to income, economic standing, the ability to quarantine and preserve social distancing, privilege and wealth play an important part in the ability to isolate and therefore be less exposed to infection. Communities of color and lower income communities have been hit the hardest by this pandemic. Whilst wealthier, less diverse neighborhoods of our city were less impacted. The inequity is clear. Essentially the curve is applying to everyone else, except hiring from New Yorkers, which let us down this other road of inquiry, which is really about, all right, so what's happening with these wealthy New Yorkers? And that led us to a collaboration with this company called Terralytics, who is telecom adjacent and they do some phenomenal, well, they do essentially, I mean, everyone knows that our data from our phones is sold to marketers and, you know, when you say something, like two minutes later you're getting an ad for it, but instead of using this data for evil and Terralytics sometimes have has these partnership programs. And we essentially went to them and we're like, look, could you donate this data to us so we could see what happened and why these people weren't getting infected in the same ways. And that started a series of conversations that led to this animation. Essentially, that is asking where did the wealthier and white New Yorkers go, and why weren't they affected as much. So this is a timeline and as you can see, it's from the, from the time that we started recording data. And, and this is all the first phase of the pandemic. So it was the first series lockdown. This is a time-lapse showing where wealthier New Yorkers went during phase one of quarantine. The privilege of a mobility during the peak of this pandemic left neighborhoods empty and facilitated the spread of COVID across this country. The empty neighborhoods house 68% white residents. 55% of the neighborhoods left empty have a median income over $100,000 per year. 29% of these neighborhoods have a median income over $200,000 per year. The median rent of the apartments left empty is $2,223 per month. Work, we found out that there was some unsavory decisions being made about social distancing and some were a privilege. And so then we started looking into our city's essential workforce because we heard the story of this woman who was a cleaner who was part of our community. She's an undocumented person. Then went to clean a home while the owners were away. And then the neighbors asked her, Clara, what are you doing here? And she was like, well, I'm just doing the regular cleaning. And they say this family all has COVID in their second home in Connecticut. And so they literally sent her in to clean up after them so that everything could be nice and tidy by the time they came back, not giving any window for anything. And so that's what we left. And the next station was in there. And so this is when we talk about the privilege of being able to social distance, trying to expose essentially why we have these disparate metrics. So 62% of the city's essential workforce is black and Latino. So that's something that we forgot about in the ability to social distance, who is available to get the PPP loans, who is available to get the $1,000, you know, different credits that some folks got at different points. And what is really important is that not only a 77% of our essential workforce people of color, but a lot of them are foreign born and 19% are citizens. And we try to estimate to the best of our abilities, because this work has been used time and time again to support different undocumented organizations. But it comes also with a with a danger that we don't want to be able to pinpoint people too much because that information can be used to harm people. And so, with that, I will quickly show you a video of the admissions proposal that we came up with. Because during the pandemic, and because of our communities don't really have the backing to think about spatial information to change policy. We knew that the DOE would fall asleep at the wheel and we said, All right, there's already screens that are used like attendance, test scores, all these different other metrics like portfolios to get into middle school and a high school. And what the research shows is that those metrics are a reflection of privilege, because if you have three jobs, and you have many kids, and the ability for them to get to school on time changes completely radically differently.  So all these metrics that are used to allow kids into the different middle schools and high schools reflect privilege and what we said is, at least during the pandemic, let's give these families a break because they've been going through so much. And they are the backbone that keeps the lights of the city on an isolated issue. Let's understand the system. Rather than looking at COVID as an isolated issue. Let's understand the systemic inequalities that made COVID worse for some communities. Our proposal addresses identified variables that are based on hardships exacerbated by the pandemic. COVID score, household size, linguistic isolation, child poverty, lack of medical insurance and computer access are all hardships that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Each of these variables was assigned a weight that reflects its urgency and magnitude, delivering us a composite map that shows which communities lack the resources to bounce back from COVID. The resulting map has a corresponding priority score that uses the students home address to determine the admissions priority based on community impact. Additionally, we consider individual student circumstances that may also increase the need for priority consideration in the admissions process. This way, both community impact and individual burdens are taken into consideration to allocate each student on a priority admission scale from one to three that best reflects its particular needs. In response to the deep impacts of COVID-19 on our communities, the admissions impact score heavily weighs COVID-19 data. Because the pandemic is exposing and exacerbating long existing inequities, we propose that over time the weight of the COVID-19 specific criteria changes as the other criteria may increase, maintaining a system-wide priority for those who have been historically marginalized. We aim to support resilience for all through equitable policies. Rather than looking at COVID as an isolated issue. We created a metric that essentially instead of looking at test scores, attendance, all of these different things that during the pandemic became so impossible to track is we had all of these community meetings with students and they designed their new educational policy. They said, we don't have access to internet. We can't socially distance because there's 10 people living in a one bedroom apartment in Queens. We, our parents are not native English speakers. And so we took all of the burdens that the students had, and then we had workshops with them and they assigned weights to different, to the different categories. And we created this core that essentially operates by census tract that allows them for that community score to be more indicative of what they're going through to that be used in the admissions process instead of these screens that are kind of arbitrary. And so right now the policy is in the process of being studied. We essentially the way that admissions works is I don't know if anyone's familiar with medical school, the stable match process that links the residents to the hospitals. It's a similar process that we use here. So the simulation of that is being done right now by MIT and hopefully we'll be able to implement this policy in three pilot schools the next academic year. But this would be the first of us kind to look at community impacts and the burdens of systemic issues like redlining like community impacts and be used in an admissions policy instead of these metrics that essentially reflect the ability of a family to hire a tutor or So I welcome everyone to take a look at it segregation is killing us right now we're in a big fight because this research was used to remove middle school screens, which were halted during the pandemic and then you administration would like to bring them back. So this work keeps coming up and I've been I just want to thank Leslie and the incubator staff and Esther and everyone that made this happen because a lot of the funding from the GSAP incubator grant went to the outreach and to the mobilization of community organizing to use this research to fight for equity in our public schools. Thank you. Um, Zareth, I, you know, I, I thank you so much I love this tangible like solution that you are able to propose and put forth to the DOE. And I will be rooting for you as a parent of children in the DOE, but I was able to join the zoom launch of the website, where you presented alongside integrate NYC and I can testify to the amazingness of these children, the children, young, young people that you are working with, I mean, even over zoom their energy and compassion was palpable it was it was amazing and just so happy that GSAP can be a part of supporting this work and I encourage people to go on territorial empathy because Zareth has a way of working with each community that she partners with in a very unique way unique to to to that project. Before we open the reception I'd love to open the floor to anyone with a question for Zareth, just in awe of your work. Um, and I, okay, so I, you know, Zareth will be in the reception so please say hi to her as well as Cheryl and Nelson Louise, Fabrizio Catherine and did I miss anyone else who presented in person. But also the next incubator before we wrap as we're wrapping up I just want to say that the next cohort will be announced, hopefully in a matter of weeks. So you'll be hearing from us about that and really excited to to work with the next cohort, as much as I've enjoyed working with this one so please say hi to everybody and enjoy the reception. Thank you.


Hey there friends, thanks for checking in at the range now We're going to do a range comparison with the canik TP9 elite subcompact versus the Rex Delta Now I had no intention of doing this, but I posted these Rather close to the page on Instagram a lot of people said that would make a great range comparison So we're going to go ahead and do that today Let's take a look at the slide length very close Rex Delta has a four inch barrel TP9 elite subcompact 3.6 inch barrel You can see they both have striker fire indicators Okay, those red dots on the back of the slide and then the Delta Grip goes down a little bit further carries 15 rounds as where the canik carries 12. There are so many Commonalities with these two guns, but let's start with the TP9 elite subcompact Canik's smallest handgun is right here.  It is optic ready making it very nice for those who love optics and Changeable back straps and be slide stop. It does have a magazine release on the left side can be switched over 12 round magazines.  I mean it's endless What can it gives you in the case? I think it's pretty amazing. I've got nine rounds loaded up Let's go ahead and take a few shots, and then we'll check out the Delta Love it one of the things that makes this very unique is that all you do is pull the tab back a little bit and Off comes the slide. It doesn't slide off the gun Like so many others do you get it in this position here and move it back in It's already reassembled very cool. Now here. We have the rex Delta Eric's arms came out with a winner here MSRP 399, you know, so we look at the the cost of each of these is the gun store price It's very similar as well. This also has ambidextrous controls both the slide stop and the magazine release 15 round mags you get a couple interchangeable back straps a little different texturing on there a Little heavier trigger pull. We're looking at closer to six pounds Hardly noticeable very short reset front serrations serrated black Rear sights front dot load of chamber indicator bar a Phenomenal gun. I love the rex Delta. It's not Optic ready like the canik is but this in its own right Has so much going for it accessory rail. I just I think it's a great deal for An MSRP of 399 I hold this gun in high esteem and I couldn't wait to get one since I've owned it I've loved it All right, one of the things that the Delta offers Very similar to the canik is a disassemble pull slide back a little bit and then It just pops off very unique very Cool and both these are fine handguns Now at the end of these videos I usually pick which one I would choose if I had to choose one and that's what I'm asking the viewers to do is out of These two handguns which one Would you choose? I know Eric's arms has the rex zero one and a lot of people Haven't warmed up to the Delta as much as I thought they would or as much as I have a lot of people love Mechanic models and for good reason both these are phenomenal handguns if I was a guy who Loved red dots on handguns I would certainly choose the TP 9 elite subcompact because it offers that but I also like the 15 round mag It's actually very light with the rex Delta and it's actually lighter than the TP 9 sub elite So if I had to choose one it would be so close, but I would take the Delta I just think this is a fine handgun. I love everything about it having said that and I'm kind of playing the middle of the road here I don't do this intentionally, but these are these are outstanding handguns. I love canik I think their handguns are amazing and I love this model as well. So that's what I'm going with This is not easy for me ever and I want to know which one you would choose. You know, are you a red dot guy? I'm going to try them again, but right now I would take the Delta I just think it's a fine handgun and both are excellent guns for The price at your local gun store if you like videos like this, please subscribe and share I always appreciate thumbs up button. Thanks for watching and you guys be safe


Good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankara Ace Academy for the date 4th July 2019. The list of articles which has been chosen for today's analysis along with the page numbers of Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Tiruvantapuram Medicines are provided here. The link for the handwritten notes in the PDF format and the time stamping for the news articles has been provided in the description box below. And for the benefit of smartphone users, the time stamping is also provided in the comment section. Let's move on to our first article discussion. This article is about the scope and implementation of PM Kisan scheme. The discussion based on this article will be useful in preliminary examination under current events of national importance and also under economic and social development, particularly in poverty, inclusion and social sector initiatives. And this article is also relevant in main syllabus under GS paper 2 in the areas welfare schemes for the vulnerable sections of the population by the centre and states and the performance of these schemes and then also in issues relating to poverty. This article is about the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana scheme that is PM Kisan scheme. The author in this article talks about the scope and implementation of the PM Kisan scheme. So, to understand the article, let us first know about the scheme. Here Pradhan Mantri as you know means Prime Minister, Kisan means farmer, Samman means respectful or dignified and Nidhi means fund. So, in short, it is a scheme for farmers that provide a dignified fund for the welfare of the farmers. This scheme is an income support scheme for the farmers. It was launched by the Prime Minister in February 2019 in the interim budget. It is a 100 percent centrally sponsored scheme. It aims to provide a benefit of Rs. 6000 per annum per family. This benefit will be provided in three equal installments of Rs. 2000 every four months. The scheme is implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare and the scheme incurs an annual expenditure of Rs. 75,000 crore. Initially, the scheme aimed at providing income support to the small and marginal farmer families who have combined land holding or ownership of up to 2 hectares, that is approximately 5 acres. But now the ambit of the scheme has been extended. Presently, all the land holding eligible farmer families can avail the benefits under the scheme irrespective of the size of the land. Under the scheme, the fund will be transferred directly to the account of the beneficiaries by the direct benefit transfer method, that is, DBT method. And also know that the beneficiaries will be identified by the respective state and administration of the union territories. So, now let us know what are the benefits or the positives of this scheme. Firstly, the scheme ensures an assured supplemented income to the vulnerable farmer families. Secondly, it aims to fulfil the emergent needs of farmers before the harvest season. This is because before the harvest season, the farmers need money for employing labourers to manage the input cost, etc. Now, if they do not have this money to meet their needs, they are compelled to borrow money from the local money lenders, which in turn pushes them into a debt trap. Thirdly, the scheme paves the way for farmers to earn and to lead a respectable living in the society. And also under the scheme, the fund is transferred directly to the beneficiary account, so it avoids leakages and ensures timely delivery of funds. Hence, it helps the poor farmer families to recover from the distress due to poverty. So, now this is the basics about the PM Kisan scheme. Now, let us get into the article discussion. The author has noted that the broadening of the scheme to include all land-holding eligible farmer families as a welcome step, as it will benefit an additional 10% of rural land-holding household. And as we discussed earlier, the scheme offers Rs. 6000 per year per household. The author says this amounts to only one-tenth of the production cost or consumption expenditure that has to be spent by the poor farmer. Look here, the consumption expenditure is nothing but the spending by any household on goods and services. The author calls this amount of Rs. 6000 as meager amount. That is very inadequate amount. But even though it is meager, the amount promises some relief to poor farmers by partially supplementing their spending on input costs or consumption needs. Then the author calls the scheme as a response to assuage or relieve the agrarian unrest. See whenever we use the word agrarian, it means agriculture or it is related to agriculture. So according to the author, the scheme is a response to relieve the problems related to agriculture which is faced by the farmers. Then the author also notes that the scheme has a long way to go in terms of both the implementation of the scheme and also in terms of the scope of its coverage. We will see why the author says this later in this discussion. Then if you see the article in the beginning of the article, the author says that the PM Kisan scheme is based on major initiatives by two state governments. The initiatives which the author mentions here are, one is Raithubandhu scheme of the Langana state government and the other is the Kaliya scheme of Odisha state government. The Raithubandhu scheme is an investment support scheme. The beneficiaries under the scheme are land holding farmer families who are given financial assistance of rupees 8000 per acre per year. And if you note, there is no upper limit on number of acres to get benefit under the Raithubandhu scheme. Next, if we consider the Kaliya scheme, Kaliya is the acronym for Krushak assistance for livelihood income augmentation scheme. It is a financial assistance and interest free crop loan scheme. It provides a financial assistance of rupees 10,000 per family per year. The beneficiaries are land holding farmer families, landless agricultural labourers and landless agricultural households also. Now for the landless households, the financial assistance is rupees 12,500. And the scheme also provides an interest free crop loan of rupees up to rupees 50,000. Now if you look at these two schemes, you can say that the PM Kisan scheme is based on these. So the shortage in implementation and scope of PM Kisan scheme which we mentioned earlier is based on these. The author says that the cash transfer under the PM Kisan scheme is not linked to the size of farmer's land like the Raithubandhu scheme. The landless tenants have been left out in both the schemes that is in both PM Kisan scheme and the Raithubandhu scheme. But as the Raithubandhu scheme provides the financial assistance based on the land size, the author calls it as more substantial or meaningful than the PM Kisan scheme. Then if you compare the PM Kisan scheme with the Kaliya scheme, the Kaliya scheme also includes or supports the poor rural households that do not own land which the PM Kisan scheme does not do as of now. So we can say this is one of the drawbacks of the PM Kisan scheme. Then one another problem with the scheme is that even though two installments have been provided after the implementation of the scheme, the benefits did not reach the farmers in most parts of the country. As the cropping season that is the Karif season has already started, the benefits have not reached the farmers. So this is a problem. As the farmers who did not get the benefits will be forced to take loan from local money lenders and in turn this loan will push them into the debt trap. So the author questions whether the scheme has the potential to deliver or not. The author says it is still unpredictable because we saw in the beginning that one of the main objective of the scheme is to stop farmers from borrowing money from local money lenders which pushes them into the debt trap. So if the benefits have not reached the farmers who are in need, it directly hampers the potential of the scheme. Then if we see the statistics, the scheme was originally framed to benefit 12.5 crore farming households who own small and marginal lands. But at present only 32% of the 12.5 crore have been benefited so far. Majority of the farmers are yet to receive even the first installment that is they have not received the first installment yet which they should have been received before the elections itself. The author says only 27% of the intended beneficiaries have got the first installment and only 24% intended beneficiaries have received the second installment. Now this totally amounts only to 17% of the estimated total expenditure that is it amounts only to 17% of the 75,000 crore which was the estimated total expenditure. Then another problem of the scheme is that the implementation of the scheme has been prioritized in certain states. If you take Uttar Pradesh it accounts for one-third of total beneficiary households that is around 1.11 crore of the farmers out of 3.4 crore who have got the first installment. And around 1.08 crores of the farmer families are beneficiaries of the second installment from the Uttar Pradesh out of the total 3 crore beneficiaries of the nation. On a whole about half of the states small and marginal farmers have been covered under the scheme so far. And even the states of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh have gained a prominent share in the implementation of the scheme. But about 17 states have received only a negligible share of the first installment. And this amounts for less than 9%. So the author says for the scheme to be effective the scheme has to be uniformly implemented. That is every state should have an equal number of beneficiaries which will happen only if the scheme is implemented uniformly without giving priority to any particular state. But this is not a fix or not a solution for the structural issues of the PM Kisan scheme. This is because the author is worried that if the budget allocated to the agricultural sector is shifted to cash transfer that is only to this PM Kisan scheme it will create a great concern. And the scheme will also not be effective because if the budget allocated for the agricultural sector is shifted to cash transfer only then other long term budgetary commitments will be withdrawn by the government. The other budgetary commitments provide stability to the agricultural production. This includes the schemes for irrigation subsidies for input and the procurement assurances. Then also the food security which is provided through the National Food Security Act. And all of these will get affected. If these schemes are hampered then it will affect the agricultural production and in turn it will affect the farmers. So the author says the government should not only concentrate on providing cash transfers but it should also allocate a required budget to other agricultural schemes. And should give equal importance to the schemes which are required for the stability of agricultural product. The next structural problem or issue with the PM Kisan scheme is that the PM Kisan scheme recognizes the land owning farmers as beneficiaries and not the tenant farmers. The author says that the tenant farmers constitute around 13.7% of farm households. Further they have an additional input cost other than the input cost faced by land holding farmers. That additional input cost is the rent for the land. Since the tenant farmers do not own any land they do not gain anything from this scheme. So the author says if the government really wants to help the farmers then the PM Kisan should be broadened again to include the landless tenants and other poor families like the schemes provided by the state governments of Telangana and Odisha. And then another structural issue with the scheme is that the scheme is not based on the scale of production. That is the farm size is not taken into account to provide benefit under the PM scheme. The scheme is conceptualized to supplement the cost spent by the farmers on the agricultural inputs. But the size of the land is not included. So the author feels that the scheme will be ineffective. That is it will not benefit the farmers. This is because many farmers hold many acres of land. And now the scheme has also included all the land holding eligible farmers. So the input cost for all the acres of the land will be high as the land size increases and the input cost also increases. This is why the author says that the meager amount of rupees 6000 which is provided under the scheme will not benefit the farmers. Because it will not help to cover the input cost. Hence the author concludes by saying that if the objective of the scheme is to provide income support to the farmers then the most deserving should be given precedence. The most deserving includes all in the farmer community which includes small and marginal farmers, tenant farmers and landless farmers also. So all should be benefited from the scheme. Let us hope that the government will exchange the scheme to benefit all the farmers. With this we have come to the end of this discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next article discussion which is about the constitutional crisis in Puducherry and the concerns with respect to federalism. This article discussion will be a part of your prelim syllabus under the area current events of national importance and then also under Indian polity and governance. Then the discussion will also be helpful in your main syllabus in general studies paper two under the area Indian constitution, its evolution, significant provisions and the basic structure. Then the discussion is especially relevant under the issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure. In this article the author highlights some instances when the present ruling alliance at the central government has went against its proposed ideal of cooperative federalism in the last five years. First it dismantled or destroyed the planning commission and transferred the powers of planning commission to make state grants to the union finance ministry. Then the author talks about the introduction of certain provisions in the terms of reference of finance commission which is constituted under article 280 of Indian constitution. The author says that these terms threaten to lower the revenue share of southern states and thus affects federalism. The author here is referring to one of the terms of reference that is given to the 15th finance commission because the 15th finance commission was asked to use the population data of 2011 while making its recommendations. It reads the commission shall use the population data of 2011 while making its recommendations. Let us see how it will affect the revenue of southern states. Earlier the recommendations were mostly based on 1971 population data. Between 1971 to 2011 particularly the southern states of India have taken various progressive measures to contain the population growth. It has been found that the northern states have not made any strong measures or have poorly implemented the family control programs. As a result the population in northern states have increased between these years in comparison with the population growth in southern states. In such a situation if a finance has to be allocated based on the population of 2011 census then the southern states would lose their share because their population growth is relatively less in comparison with the northern states between 1971 to 2011. So introduction of this particular term of reference was therefore seen as an action against the federalism by this author. Also know that the 15th finance commission was constituted in the year 2017 for the purpose of making recommendation for a period of five years from 1st April 2020. Then the author talks about the misuse of the office of governor in calling an elected leader to form the government in case of hung assemblies in various states. Some of the states that had hung assemblies recently are the state of Karnataka, Jamun Kashmir, Goa, and even Tamil Nadu almost has an hung assembly like situation. The author says that the imposition of a president's rule in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand was the most open or blatant action of abuse of power. These decisions of imposing president's rule in both the states was called as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The author uses the sentence, president's rule imposed in a position ruled Arunachal Pradesh to symbolically highlight that if the central ruling party was in power in that state, it would not have imposed president's rule. Then the author says that the central government almost brought the administration of Union Territory of Delhi into a deadlock or stalemate. This they have done by having a protracted or prolonged war with the elected Delhi government through the left and in governor. The central government waged the war against the elected chief minister and council of ministers in Delhi through an unelected nominee of the central government, who is none other than the left and in governor. This matter of deadlock was taken to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, which is the highest court of appeal, affirmed the primacy or superiority of the elected government in Delhi above the unelected left and in governor. The Supreme Court gave the primacy to the elected government respecting the federal rights of the concerned elected government of the Union Territory. That is why the title of the article is the primacy of the elected. Then another long run battle affecting the federal provisions is going on between the unelected left and governor of Puducherry and the elected chief minister and the council of ministers of Puducherry. This matter is presently in the Supreme Court and the author says that this case will further test the strength of Indian federalism in the present era. These are some of the instances highlighted by the author that has happened in the last five years and some of them are still continuing. These measures threatens the federalism, which is the basic structure of the constitution in our country. Then in the article the author says that there are two different distinct provisions in the constitution, one for Union Territory of Delhi and the other for the Union Territory of Puducherry. The term or the statement Union Territory of Delhi is mentioned in the Government of Union Territories Act of 1963. The author says about these two different distinct provisions based on two articles. One is article 239AA and the article 239AA. Here article 239AA deals with the scope and limits of the powers of the legislative assembly and the council of ministers of the Union Territory of Delhi. It restricts the legislative assembly of Delhi from enacting laws in subjects of police, public order and land. Next the article that deals with the Union Territory of Puducherry is article 239AA. Article 239AA enables the parliament to enact a law to create legislature and council of ministers for the Union Territory of Puducherry. Unlike the article 239AA, this article 239AA does not restrict the legislature of Puducherry enacting law in any specific subjects. Also the section 18 of the Government of Union Territories Act of 1963 allows the legislative assembly of Puducherry to make laws with respect to any of the matters enumerated in the state list or the concurrent list in the seventh schedule to the constitution. Therefore, the author says that the legislative and executive powers of Puducherry are broader than the Union Territory of Delhi. Also under article 239AA of the constitution, the left-wing and governor can promulgate an ordinance when the legislature of the Union Territory is not in session. That too only after obtaining instructions from the president. Article 239AA deals with the powers of the administrator of Union Territory to promulgate ordinances during recess of legislature. And also know that left-wing and governor is the administrator in the Union Territories of Puducherry and Delhi. Hence the tussle between the unelected nominee of the central government and the elected council of ministers led the matter to be challenged before the Madras High Court. The Madras High Court ruled that the left-wing and governor must act on the aid and advice of the council of ministers and she should not interfere in the day-to-day affairs of the government of the Union Territory. One of the main reasons behind the decision of a Madras High is the decision of Supreme Court. In the case law between Union Territory of Delhi and Union of India. In that case the Supreme Court helped that the chief minister is the executive head of the government of National Capital Territory of Delhi with respect to the powers under clause four of article 239AA. And the left-wing and governor is bound by the aid and advice of the council of ministers. Also the left-wing and governor must follow the decisions of the cabinet on all matters where the legislative assembly has the power to make laws. Also article 239AA states that when there is a difference of opinion between the left-wing and governor and the council of ministers in Union Territory of Delhi the administrator may refer the matter to the president and act according to the decision of the president. The author says that the same type of reference can also be made by the left-wing governor of Puducherry also. So with the pronouncements of Supreme Court in the case related to Union Territory of Delhi the Madras High Court has given its verdict on the matter between the administrator of Puducherry and the chief minister of Puducherry. The central government has now challenged the decision of a Madras High Court in the Supreme Court. So in an interim order the Supreme Court has asked the cabinet of Union Territory of Puducherry to take no important decisions before next hearing in the court. The Supreme Court has not given its final judgment on this matter yet. The author states that the central government should respect the principles of democracy by giving primacy to the elected government. It should also give respect to federalism by respecting the rights of the elected legislative members of the Union Territory. Otherwise the purpose of the legislative assembly and council of ministers of Puducherry Union Territory would be defeated. The author asks the Supreme Court to uphold the verdict given by the Madras High Court so as to ensure that the lieutenant governor to act only on the aid and advice of the elected government. The Supreme Court should adhere to its verdict in NCT Delhi case to extend the same purposive interpretation of the constitution where the Supreme Court has held that the representative government is a basic structure of the constitution. The Supreme Court should do this also because the Puducherry has lesser legal restrictions on its powers. Also, the principle of federalism is not only for states but also for legislative assemblies of Union Territories and councils of local governments. Finally, the author calls for reaffirming the values of federalism at every forum with increasing centralizing tendencies these days such as proposal for simultaneous elections. With this, we come to the end of this article discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next discussion which is about the breach of a Tiwre Dam in the state of Maharashtra. This article discussion will be relevant in prelim syllabus under the area of current events of national importance and then also under physical geography of India. The discussion can also be linked to your main syllabus in general studies paper one under the area important geophysical phenomena. Then also in general studies paper three under the area disaster and disaster management. The news article mentions that because of breach in Tiwre Dam almost 11 persons have died. It was feared that a total of 23 persons could have died. This dam is in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. Also, the southwest monsoon rainfall has reached Maharashtra after delay of almost 11 days. It is reported that usually by June 10, the state receives the rainfall from southwest monsoon. Then also recently a portion of a compound wall of a housing society in Pune has collapsed during heavy downpour of rainfall in southwest monsoon. More than 15 people died in this incident. There was also another wall collapse in Pune where around six people have died. With these incidents happening, yesterday there was a breach of dam in Ratnagiri. When we say dam breach, it means opening or a breakthrough of a dam caused by rapid erosion of water. As a result of this, a huge volume of water will breach out through the opening and will cause flooding if appropriate preventive mechanisms are not made. This is what has happened yesterday. Flooding has happened in seven nearby villages in the Ratnagiri district. The state police and the National Disaster Response Force have launched the search and rescue operation. It was said that the villagers, along with the elected representatives of local bodies, have asked the district administration to repair the dam after they spotted cracks in the dam in the November last year. But still preventive mechanisms have not been taken. Then as a response to this dam breach incident, there is also an editorial based on this. The editorial is titled as Mumbai Maroud. The author of this editorial reminds about a flood that happened in July 2005. This flood was caused by 94 centimeter rainfall in one day. The state government of Maharashtra has also failed to prepare for floods, keeping the 2005 floods as a baseline disaster. It has failed to upgrade the infrastructure. It is because of this failure, there is loss of human lives and damage to property. And Mumbai has been trapped into an unmanageable situation because of such reason. That is why the title of the article is called Mumbai Maroud. This time it was just 37 centimeter rainfall in a day. And the state government is still unable to manage it. The inability to manage, despite spending massive expenditure on management projects means there is lack of resolve among political leaders. There is rampant inefficiency and there is lack of effective coordination in the administration machinery. The comptroller and auditor general of India has found that there are prolonged delays in upgrading storm water drain infrastructure in Mumbai. Also, after the floods in 2005, it was decided to increase the flood carrying capacity in the Mithi River. But it is still not achieved to tackle the present challenges. Mithi River runs through the city of Mumbai. It runs through densely populated areas and industrial areas. And it finally meets the Arabian Sea at Mahim Creek. It travels through a length of about 18 kilometer. It carries overflow discharges of Powai and Vihar lakes. It is a natural drainage channel that carries excess water during monsoons. This is the river that experienced flooding in the year 2005. So in addition to management of floodwaters by relying on storm drains, the author calls for a new standard. Even within Maharashtra, in places such as Mumbai, Thane, Ratnagiri and Raigad, the monsoon rainfall happens for a small window period, but brings lot of rain. Whereas in the central districts of Maharashtra, there is a steady prolonged rainfall. By this, the author means to have a site-specific response mechanism to flood or flood-like situation. With climate change, what is normally expected is fewer days of torrential rain and erratic or irregular and unpredictable monsoon. If the rainfall is more than 35 centimeters in one day, then the rainfall is called as torrential rainfall. If it is more than 50 centimeters in 24 hours, then it is called as extremely torrential rainfall. So managing such climate change-influenced rainfall requires new ecological approach. In this approach, the top priority should be given to the restoration of existing urban wetlands, rivers and canals and the creation of reservoirs and water channels also. The reservoir is to be constructed for the purpose of regulating floods and excess runoff water. With the water question being the biggest challenge for cities in India, with both drought on one side and floods on the other, state governments should give priority to managing water-related challenges and also should make the urban planning as people-centric. A plan that prevents and minimizes damage for flood and maximizes the water supply to meet the demands should be implemented. With this, we have come to the end of this discussion. Displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next discussion, which is about the status of education of children with disabilities in India. The article is relevant in prelim syllabus under inclusion in social development. Then the discussion is relevant in main syllabus under general studies paper two, particularly in issues relating to development and management of social sector of education. Then the discussion can also be linked to general studies paper three under inclusive growth. Very recently, a report titled as the state of the education report for India 2019, children with disabilities was released. This report was released by UNESCO and the report was prepared in partnership with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. According to census 2011, there are more than 78 lakh children with disabilities in India. They are in the age group of five to 19 years. The report states that of the 78 lakh children, 27% of them had never been to school at all. The report also finds that girls with disabilities are lesser in number compared with boys with disabilities in school. From this, we could infer that a greater number of boys with disabilities are attending schools. In other words, a smaller number of girls with disabilities are attending schools. The report also notes a significant school dropout rate among the differently able children with each successive level of schooling. We can find around 13 to 15 lakh children with disabilities in primary school. But if you have a look at children with disabilities in higher secondary school level, it will be just around 70,000. So among the children with disabilities, the drop rate varies heavily with each successive level of schooling. Experts in this field say that the real situation is much worse than what has been stated in the report. The article states that if a parent of a child with disability opts for home-based education under Sarvaseksha Abhiyan, then a teacher is supposed to visit the child and check the child. The experts argue that this does not happen in real sense with the required level of commitment from the teachers. The article also states that the Right to Education Act of 2009 actually mandates the enrollment of children with disabilities in this school. But the Act lacks the provision for the required resources to attend these special needs for the education and development of children with disabilities. The absence of such provisions means there is a lack of understanding of these special needs of children with disabilities. And then absence of care-taking of special needs is one of the reasons why there is a huge dropout with successive levels of schooling. The report recommends to amend the Right to Education Act of 2009 to make it aligned with Right of Persons with Disabilities Act of 2016. The report also recommends for structural changes in education system for children with disabilities. It also recommends for better and enough funding. And then, attitudinal change among various stakeholders is also required to ensure that no child is left out of Right to Education. With this, we have come to the end of this article discussion. Moving on to the next discussion, which is based on the minimum support price. The discussion based on this article will be relevant in prelim syllabus under the area, current events of national importance, and then in economic and social development, and also under sustainable development. The discussion is also relevant in GS Paper 2, in the area government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation. Then, next in welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the center and states, and the performance of these schemes. And next, the discussion is more important in GS Paper 3, under the area major crops, cropping patterns in various parts of the country, marketing of agricultural produce, and issues and related constraints. Next, also under minimum support prices. Before getting into the article discussion, let us first understand about the minimum support price. We know that the prices of agricultural commodities are inherently unstable. And this is primarily due to the variation in the supply of agricultural commodities, lack of market integration, and also because of information asymmetry. So, a very good harvest in any year results in a short fall in the price of that commodity during that year, which in turn will have an adverse impact on the future supply of that commodity, as the farmers withdraw from showing that crop in the next or following years because it does not yield any profit. This then causes scarcity of supply of that commodity the next year, and hence it will lead to increase in price of that commodity for the consumers. So, to counter this cycle, MSP or minimum support price for major agricultural products is fixed by the government. It is fixed every year. MSP is a tool which gives guarantee to the farmers prior to the sowing season that a fair amount of price is fixed to their upcoming crop. In other words, minimum support price is the picture at which government purchases crops from the farmers. Also know that minimum support price is an important part of India's agricultural price policy. This MSP is provided to encourage higher investment and production of agricultural commodities by the farmers. The MSP is in the nature of an assured market at a minimum guaranteed price that is offered by the government. Also, the MSP helps to incentivize the farmers and it does ensures adequate food grains production in the country. It gives sufficient remuneration to the farmers. It provides a proper food grain supply to buffer stocks also and it supports the food security program through PDS or public distribution system and other programs also. So, you may think who fixes this minimum support price. The minimum support price is fixed on the recommendations of the commission for agricultural costs and prices which is in short called as CACP. The CACP is a statutory body and it submits separate reports recommending prices for Khareef and Rabi seasons. Then after considering the report and then considering the views of the state government and then also keeping in view the overall demand and the supply situation in the country, the central government takes the final decision. In case of sugarcane, you should know that MSP has been assigned a statutory status and so the announced price is termed as statutory minimum price which was rechristened or renamed as fair remunerative price or FRP. So, keep in mind that fair remunerative price is related to sugarcane. In case of sugarcane, there is a statutory binding on sugar factories to pay the minimum announced price and all those transactions or purchases at prices lower than the announced price are considered illegal. Then MSP for the different agricultural crops namely food grains, oil seeds, fiber crops, sugarcane and tobacco are announced by the government of India before their sowing seasons. This makes it possible for the farmers to have an idea about the extent of price insurance cover which is provided by the government for the crop. At present, the MSP covers 24 crops that includes seven cereals that is paddy, wheat, barley, jovar, bajra, maize and ragi and five pulses namely gram, arhar or tur, moong, urad and lentil and then eight oil seeds such as groundnut, rapeseed or mustard, toria, soya bean, sunflower seed, sesame, safflower seed and Niger seed. Then other commercial crops such as cobra, cotton, jute and dehusked coconut. So, now let us discuss the news article. The news article mentions that there is a marginal rise or hike in the minimum support prices for the kharif crops of 2019-20. So, from the 24 crops the kharif crop or the summer crops are paddy, jovar, bajra, ragi, maize, tur or arhar, moong, urad, groundnut, sunflower seed, soya bean, sesame, Niger seed and cotton. The government has increased the MSP of soya bean by Rs. 311 per quintal and then MSP of sunflower has been increased by Rs. 262 per quintal and for sesame it has been increased by Rs. 236 per quintal. This is a major step towards increasing the income of farmers. Then the government has also increased the MSPs of tur dal by Rs. 125 per quintal and urad dal by Rs. 100 per quintal. Now, this increase will help to address the issues related to requirement of pulses. The requirement of pulses are in need to meet the nutritional security and protein requirements of a large section of the population. Then MSP of jovar has been hiked by Rs. 120 per quintal while in case of ragi it has been hiked by Rs. 253 per quintal. This move comes in the backdrop of the need to promote cultivation and consumption of nutri cereals. Nutri cereals are nothing but the millets. The three major millets which are grown in India are jovar, bajra and ragi. And also know that India celebrated the year 2018 as the national year of millets. Further the food and agriculture organization that is FAO council has approved India's proposal to observe an international year of millets in the year 2023. Then next for cotton the MSP has been increased by Rs. 105 per quintal. These numbers are not important. It is just to show how much has been increased. These increase of MSP for the curry crops of 2019 to 2020 season is in line with the principle of fixing the MSPs. The principle is to fix a price at a level of at least 1.5 times of the cost of production. Here the cost of production includes all paid out costs such as those costs incurred on account of hired human labor, bullock labor or machine labor, rent paid for lease in land, then expenses incurred on use of material inputs like seeds, fertilizers, manures, irrigation charges, then expenses incurred on depreciation of implements and farm buildings and then interests on working capital. Then the expenses on diesel or electricity for operation of pump, et cetera. And the cost of production also include miscellaneous expenses and contributed or imputed value of family labor also. So under this MSP policy the farmers are assured of a minimum of 50% as a margin of profit. It is one of the important and progressive steps towards doubling farmers income and to improve their welfare substantively. We saw that the price is fixed at a level of at least 1.5 times of the cost of production. But some crops even have the highest percentage written to farmers over their cost of production. This trend is seen in three crops. They are Bajra which has 85% written which is followed by Urad. Urad has 64% written and then Tur which has 60% written. With this we have come to the end of this discussion. The spirit practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the last session for the day that is the practice questions discussion session. The first question is about the article 239AA of Indian constitution. Four options have been given. The question is that article 239AA of Indian constitution deals with the special provisions with respect to which among the following. So four unit territories have been given here. Today in one of our discussions we discussed about this article. The discussion was about two unit territories. One is the unit territory of Puducherry and then national capital territory of Delhi. So based on today's discussion you can eliminate options C and D directly. Then one confusion may arise about which option option A or B is correct. Remember that article 239AA of Indian constitution deals with the national capital territory of Delhi. The article 239AA deals with unit territory of Puducherry. When there is AA it deals with Delhi. When there is single AA it deals with Puducherry. This article has been inserted by the 69th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1991. It deals with the provisions of legislative assembly and council of ministers of NCT Delhi. And according to this article the unit territory of Delhi shall be called as the national capital territory of Delhi. Now if you see the next question it is based on the Mithi river. It has asked the Mithi river is associated with which of the following cities. Now today we discussed about this river in one of our discussion. The discussion was related to the state of Maharashtra. So from that you can easily recollect that Mithi river is directly associated with the city of Mumbai because it is the only city given here which is in the state of Maharashtra. Now you may think this is a very simple question but in this year's prelims question there was one question in the match the following format. They have asked to match the name of the rivers with the famous places they are associated with. So whenever you read about one river in newspaper try to know which state it belongs to. And this Mithi river flows through the densely populated city of Mumbai. It drains in the Arabian Sea at Mahimkri. This river is known for carrying excess water during monsoon. So you can remember whenever we talk about Mumbai you can easily remember Mithi M for M. Now this next question is based on minimum support price. Two statements have been given and we have to choose the correct statement. The first statement is it is fixed by the central government based on the recommendations of the commission for agricultural costs and prices. They are saying that minimum support price is fixed by the central government. Yes it is fixed by the central government. So this part of the statement is correct. Then the second part states that it is based on the recommendations of the commission for agricultural costs and prices. This is also correct. Even the name itself says commission for agricultural costs and prices. So from this you can remember that minimum support price is recommended by the commission for agricultural costs and prices that is CACP. Now in the second statement four crops have been given. They are saying which of the crop is covered under minimum support price. Now in this you can see that paddy, cotton, sunflower seed we all discussed about these crops during our discussion but we did not discuss about rubber because rubber is not included in the minimum support price. Rubber is a plantation crop and no plantation crop has been included in the minimum support price. The plantation crops are like coffee, tea, rubber. So the second statement is wrong. So the correct answer to this question is option A1 only. Now let us see one main question based on GS paper 2. Discuss the benefits and challenges of PM Kisan scheme. Now for answering this question first you can talk about the benefits of the scheme like how it is providing a benefit of rupees 6000 per annum per family and how recently the ambit of the scheme has been extended to all the land holding eligible farmer families irrespective of the size of the land. And you can also say that the benefit is given through the direct benefit transfer method. So there is no leakages and you can also add that this benefit is given to the farmers before the harvest season. So they can use this money for their needs such as employing laborers and to manage input cost, et cetera. Then for the challenges of the scheme you can say how the scheme is lacking to include the tenant farmers and how this 6000 amount given by the government is such a meager amount and how it will not help the farmers to meet their needs. Then you can also mention about how the benefits did not reach the farmers in most parts of the country and you can also talk about how the scheme is prioritized in certain states and how certain states have not even received the first installments. And you can also talk about what happens if the budget allocated to the agricultural sector is totally shifted to the cash transfer of PM Kisan scheme. How it will affect the other budgetary commitments which provides stability to agricultural productions such as the schemes which gives subsidies for input and which gives procurement assurances and which gives food security to the National Food Security Act. With this, we have come to the end of our all sessions. If you like the video, don't forget to like, comment and share. Do subscribe to Shankar Ayes Academy YouTube channel for more updates on civil service examination preparation.


So, we've just released the results of our global systems for intellectual property at the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2016. So, the first of those is the Patent Corporation Treaty, which is really the international patents filing system. We received some 233,000 international patent applications. So, I'd say in this area, as well as in the trademark area, the trends to which we could draw attention are, first of all, that this area is performing much better than the world economy. So, we have consistent reports of rather sluggish performance from the world economy, disappointing performance, but here we had 7% growth for international patent applications, 7% growth for international trademark applications, and some 35% growth for international design applications. So, this is a small measure, if you like, of the fact that the technology-based economy, the knowledge-based economy is, in general, still performing quite well. The other thing to say about the results is the quite exceptional performance of China, so the number of international patent applications filed from China grew by 44%, and that is an extraordinary growth rate. So we now have the United States as the principal source of filings, followed by Japan, followed very closely by China, and then you go to Germany. So, the Chinese performance continues to be, as in previous years, quite exceptional, and more generally one could say that it's interesting that in the course of the last 10 years, from 2006 to 2016, the number of the, rather, the composition of international patent applications is such that from Asia it accounted in 2006 for 27%, 2016 it accounted for 47%. So this is a very dramatic trend really, of course China is a big part of it, but not the only part, it's also Japan, the Republic of Korea, amongst others.


is there this feeling though like the fan base is desperate for them to get starting pitching how many more pitchers do they need to pass on they didn't give the extra year to Corbin didn't work didn't give 1.8 million to to get Dallas Keichel that gap they just let Strowman go to the Mets is it possible because they refuse to pay anything extra that we're gonna get past the deadline and they would not improve the starting pitching yes it's very possible I think if the right deal is not there for them they're not gonna press anything because that is you know the beauty of what the Yankees do Don is that they don't deviate from their plan now when you don't deviate from your plan and from your organizational philosophy over the long haul that is absolutely the right thing to do if it let's just think about it if you are making optimal decisions at all times in the end you are going to wind up in the positive now the problem with that philosophy is that sometimes making a quote-unquote bad decision actually will behoove you in the short term it's just a risk management game right and in the longer it's almost like playing blackjack you know the the people who play blackjack at the casino you have a process and if you follow that process you have better odds doing that than anywhere else the casino the Yankees are following the process right now and there there is a really good argument to be made that when you have a chance to win a world series you short circuit your process and and you change things up but you can always give yourself an excuse to short circuit the process you can always give yourself rationale well you know where this close well why don't we just go for it and and I think they're really good arguments on both sides because what if it like hypothetically what if the Yankees do go out and acquire a starting pitcher and he stinks were they wrong or because they went for it does the process itself make them right question I don't know the answer to and and it's a difficult question to answer yeah it's it's tough and listen you're hearing some rumors about mad bum to Houston so I don't know maybe the Giants are reconsidering that the Mets will never trade with the Yankees so I guess Noah Cindergart is off the table but of the Robbie Rays and the Roe arcs and the minors are any of these guys guarantee me better than Domingo Herman in Game 4 that's just what I was gonna say you really think that Tanner Roe is better than the options there right now no and also even if you got mad bum if Tanaka and Hap and Herman and CeCe and Paxton are gonna continue to be awful you're still gonna lose I think you know when Aaron Boone said there are a lot of different ways to skin a cat I think what he was you know reading between the lines here he was saying we can go out and get some relievers and we can both have them sucker and look I know the Cleveland Indians two years ago had Corey Kluber at the front of the rotation that is a pitcher who the Yankees don't have anything close to at this point but it was Corey Kluber and a bunch of relief pitchers and in 2019 guys with a number of off days that there are in the playoffs you have one after game two you have one after game five and then you have however many there are in between the series with all those days off if your bullpen is that deep in that good you can bullpen your way through the playoffs if you have an offense like the Yankees do and I know that's a very weird thing to come to terms with and to hear and it's especially weird when placed in contrast with the Houston Astros who have Garrett Cole and who have Justin Berlander and who are going to ride starting pitching as far as they will take them but Aaron who's not wrong yeah can do that in baseball these days and I think we're just waiting for the first team that we see to bullpen themselves to a world series because it has not happened yet it's going to


Thank you very much to the organizers for this beautiful day. So I will be talking to you about some results I found on Bessel processes, but the initial motivation was in studying some solutions to stochastic PDEs, or SDEs with the drift which is singular. So here is the motivation, so we have solutions to some complicated equations and we're interested in some properties of the corresponding semi-group. In particular we want to know if we have some continuity of the semi-group with respect to the initial condition which translates formally in the notion of strong-feller property which I'm going to explicit later on. So my plan is the following, I'm first going to explain what the strong-feller property is, then I will explain to you a very efficient tool to prove strong-feller bounds which is the Bismuth-Edward-Ely formula and in the last part I will explain to you how one can obtain such a formula in a very non-dissipative setting which is given by the Bessel processes. So the setting is the following, consider any Polish space E and Markovian semi-group PT over E. So I will be considering two test, two spaces of test functions, the space of Borel and bounded functions in E which I've been denoted by B sub B and the space of continuous and bounded functions in E. Now the semi-group PT said to have the fellow property E for all t and all phi which is continuous, PT of phi would also be continuous and bounded. So this is a property which holds in very general cases but the property that I will be interested in here is the strong-feller property which says that PT of phi will be continuous for any phi which is only Borel. So it may be very discontinuous I priori but for any time t which is positive PT of phi should be continuous. So it is strong-feller if the semi-group creates continuity in positive time. So in the sequel I will focus on the case where E is given by the real line and then the semi-group is given by expectation of phi of xt of x where xt of x is the solution of some SDE with drift given by B and diffusion coefficient given by sigma which I suppose to be smooth functions on R and initial conditions given by x. And so here are two examples so first consider the case where sigma is 0 and B is equal to 1 then we are just in the case of an ODE and in that case clearly the semi-group is just given by translation of the initial condition by t and obviously it is not strong-feller because it does not create any regularity of the function. On the other hand consider the case where B is 0 and sigma is equal to 1 so it is the case of random motion then in that case the semi-group is given by convolution by the heat kernel which is given here and this is a smooth kernel so pt is not only strong-feller but even better pt of phi will be smooth for any phi which is Borel for any positive t. So here are two cases that are very different and we see that the important fact is that in our SDE here the stochastic part should be non-degenerate enough for the solution to have some smoothing property here and so the PDE interpretation of that is that in the first example I gave to you we have a hyperbolic PDE so a transport equation whereas in the second example we have an elliptic PDE which creates regularity and what happens in general coefficients? Well we have very sharp criteria for example Hermander's criterion which says that if sigma is sufficiently non-degenerate in some sense then for all t strictly positive pt of phi will be smooth for any phi which is Borel so in particular strong-feller property holds but what I'm interested in is for some quantitative versions of the strong-feller property my problem is for any given t to quantify the difference pt phi of x minus pt phi of y when x and y are close. So the question is how to obtain a bound of this quantity. So the very efficient tool to do that is the bismutal worthily formula I'll explain to you now. So to understand this formula we'll suppose that sigma is equal to one here but it's not necessary just to simplify the notations and I suppose that B satisfies Lipschitz bound with the constant c but the important assumption I'll make is that B satisfies this one-sided bound of the derivative that is B prime is uniformly bounded by some constant l which is a real number. Now the idea of the bismutal worthily formula is to look at the dependence of the solution of the sd with respect to the initial condition. So consider the derivative of the solution with respect to the initial condition that I'll call eta then by differentiating the sd with respect to x it is not difficult to see that eta t solves the variational equation given by this differential equation. So this is an ODE with an explicit solution eta t of x and we remark that it is first it is non-negative which shows that x of t is an increasing function of x and moreover it is bounded by e to the power l t. Why? Because I have made the assumption here that B prime is bounded by l. So this gives us boundedness of the derivative eta. So what we can say is that for phi which is c1 bounded by the dominated convergence theorem the derivative of the semi-group PTF phi is given by this formula here. But the problem here is that we have a derivative here and we would like to get rid of the derivative because we want a strong fellow property so we should have an expression here which only involves phi instead of phi prime and the way of getting rid of this derivative is by using the integration by part formula and that's the idea of the Bismut-Elwetely formula so we have the following equality the derivative of the semi-group PTF phi of x is given by 1 over t expectation of phi of x t of x and multiplied by this stochastic integral integral from 0 to t of eta s dBS so here as you can see we got rid of the phi prime here we have no more derivative but there's the cost that we have this new random variable here which we have to bound. So the corollary of this theorem is that we have the following strong fellow bound because if we integrate this formula here we obtain that for any x and y we have a bound in the supreme norm of phi and we have this constant e to the power L where L was the bound on B prime and we have 1 over square root of t and we have a global Lipschitz bound in x and y so that's a very nice answer to that question here in a nice setting and the crucial remark is that this bound here only involves L it does not involves the Lipschitz constant on the drift coefficient B and that's the reason why this Bismuth-Arwathili formula is very interesting and very successful for example when studying more complicated systems as SPDEs so the history of this formula started by formula particular form of this formula discovered by Jean-Michel Bismuth in 1984 and 10 years later the formula as I presented it to you was derived by David Alworthy and Shremé Lee and so they proved this formula and also gave variance for higher order derivatives for the semi-group of solutions of SDEs on some manifolds and later on there were other so there were generalizations of this formula but all these generalizations were made on the assumptions mainly that as I said above B' was bounded now the question is what happens when B' is not bounded above by some constant L because there are very important SPDEs where this assumption does not hold so last year there were two articles about some semi-linear SPDEs that have very exotic drift term B that is hardly dissipative so this means that the bound that I gave above was really not satisfied and so these authors proved that nevertheless there was a strong fellow property although they did not prove Bismuth-Alworthy formula but they used methods close in spirit to the Bismuth-Alworthy formula but now these articles did not answer the problems encountered when I studied SPDEs as the following so I'm interested in evolution SPDEs with a drift term in 1 over U-Cube so when C is positive we have no problem actually my PhD advisor Lorenzo Zambotti proved well-posedness for these SPDEs when the drift term is of the form C over U-Cube with C positive and he proved that also we have strong fellow property and this relied on the fact that the function C over U-Cube is decreasing on R plus so we have some dissipativity and the question was what happens if C is negative because in this case we don't have dissipativity anymore so this problem is very difficult and I still don't have any solution so I said let's look at some one-dimensional example which has similar difficulties but which is easier to handle this example is the example of Bessel processes so Bessel processes are the following processes so it's non-negative processes with real value which satisfies this SDE with a drift term in 1 over X and we require that the 0.0 is instantaneously reflecting so it turns out that there is a unique for all delta which is positive there is a unique solution to this equation which is a delta-dimensional Bessel process and so a remark is that if delta is an integer this process has the same law as the Euclidean norm of a delta-dimensional Brownian motion and so when delta is bigger than 1 here the drift is dissipative so actually it is decreasing so we have no problem we have existence and unicity result but the problem comes when delta is smaller than 1 and to obtain well-posedness of this equation we actually resort to some transformation of the square and we see that the square satisfies some well-posed SDE this is the way we obtain the well-posedness for this SDE for any delta and okay so the question is do we have a strong follower property for the Bessel semi-group so in order to answer this question we can use we have an explicit formula of the semi-group with a density with respect to Lebesgue measure on r plus and so we can compute the derivative of the semi-group with respect to X and we obtain the following so for all t positive the semi-group of the delta-Bessel is differentiable on r plus and the derivative involves so it's X over t times the difference of the semi-group of the delta plus 2 Bessel minus the delta Bessel so there's a nice interplay between the delta Bessel and the delta plus 2 Bessel and as a consequence we have a strong follower bound here which is given by Lebesgue so we have a Lebesgue bound here Y minus X which is not global it is local but yet it is very nice formula and my question is can we interpret this equality as a Bismuth-Edouard-Hilly formula so the answer is yes but it's really not easy to see why? because as I said we don't have dissipativity when delta is smaller than one so for example if we compute the derivative of the solution with respect to initial condition eta t here so remember here the drift what I called B is given by delta minus 1 over 2 X so the derivative is given by 1 minus delta over 2 X2 so you see that the supremum over r plus star of B prime so it's zero if delta is bigger than one but it's plus infinity if delta is smaller than one so we see that when delta becomes smaller than one we get into trouble and this can be seen when we look at the derivative of rho because we have this we can see that when delta is smaller than one eta t will go to infinity as t goes to t0 where t0 is the first hitting time of the origin nevertheless we have a nice proposition which is a variant of results of by Pitman Yor which says that the delta plus 2 Bessel is absolutely continuous with respect to the delta Bessel on any finite interval and we have an expression for this Radon-Nikodym derivative and okay then we can use some nice formula on rho and eta I will not detail here and as a consequence we finally obtain this Bismuth-Arworthy formula which holds for any delta positive so it looks like the formula we had before but the difference is that here this martingale is not in L2 actually it will be an LP martingale for some p depending on delta which may be smaller than 2 and I can obtain a better bound on the better Lipschitz bound than before I can improve them using this representation here I can improve the exponent on t I had before so I can obtain an exponent 1 over t to the power alpha of delta where alpha of delta is smaller than 1 depending on so its value which depends on delta so okay so the conclusion is that we obtain the Bismuth-Arworthy formula in a very non-dissipative case so which is very surprising and so okay there is something not very satisfactory in the fact that we use very particular properties of the Bessel processes but so we should try to develop more conceptual tools to treat more general processes but we have some partial results that suggest that at least the strong feller bound of the type I've shown still hold for more general systems and that's all and I have here some references for you and I thank you for your attention Thank you Is there a question? Henry, do you have a question? A question for me A question? No Yes, do you have other applications in mind besides showing that these are feller? The Bismuth-Arworthy formula Yes In fact, why am I speaking in French? Because you can speak in English So the application is Are we interested in strong feller property? So I didn't mention that but for example if you have the strong feller property Actually, that was not my question My question was do you have other applications in mind? For SPDEs, for example Yes, so we would like, for example to use similar to find similar results for SPDEs of the kind that was here when C is smaller than zero So in that case here this is the function C over X cubed will be increasing so we do not have any strong feller results yet and actually we don't have well-posed results of such SPDEs So these SPDEs are interesting because they have some scaling properties but we still don't know how to define them when C is negative Another question How to make a small informative change for questions Thank you Henri


What's going on everyone Sam here with late in sports cards, and I'm ripping one by our three boxes excuse me of 2022 tops tier one Bundesliga soccer for Han S. So good luck Han See we could yank out of here for you buddy Vaughn did you get your Roy Hibbert auto yet? All right. We've got 4 out of 25 Anzgar Knopf for Frankfurt nice one there low number it on the patch Got purple auto 4 out of 50 for Bochum that is Sebastian polter another nice hit there and Last up we've got for Hoffenheim Florian grill itch that is a bookend one out of 106 one out of 106 Haha appreciate that Jess We've got another low-numbered patch this time for group their fruit or a group their fur this is Bronimir her go to Really sick patch on the bottom there like part of a logo almost that's really cool nice when they're Han got Marvin Frederick For Barusha mom that is 33 out of 50. Heck. Yeah, and we've got Stefan Ortega one of one For Beal field there you go Han congrats, buddy. Heck. Yeah one of one We'll get that one in a mag for you right after the break. Let's go Nice hit on heck. Yeah, it's not expecting a one-on-one to pop out of there. That's sweet Right. We've cut Another pet three out of three with patches to 25 mahad to hard for Or my mood to hard for Dortmund Nice one there got Anton Stach for mines. That's rookie auto 25 out of 100 and Last hit of the break is Maximilian Eggstein for Freiberg that is 24 out of 75 There you go that'll do it for your break there Han congrats on the hits especially the one-on-one. That was awesome I'll get them right out to you. Thanks again, buddy


When he was a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Caldwell Osselstyn published a controversial paper in the American Journal of Cardiology. Heart bypass operations carry significant risks, including the potential to cause further heart damage, stroke, brain dysfunction. Angioplasty isn't much better, also carrying significant mortality and morbidity, and often doesn't work, in terms of decreasing risk of subsequent heart attack or death. So it seems we have an enormous paradox of the disease that is the leading killer of men and women. In Western society, Western civilization largely untreated. The benefits of the invasive procedures are at best temporary, with most patients eventually succumbing to their disease. In cancer, we call that palliative care. Or we just kind of throw up our hands, throw in the towel, and give up actually trying to treat the disease. So why does this juggernaut of invasive procedures persist? Well, one reason is that performing surgical interventions has the potential for enormous financial reward. That's considered one of the barriers to the practice of preventive cardiology, adequate return. Diet and lifestyle interventions loses money for the physician. Although the practice of preventive cardiology is not as lucrative, this article was hoping to nudge cardiologists in that direction by appealing to less tangible benefits. Another barrier is doctors don't think patients want it. Physician surveys show that doctors often don't even bring up diet and lifestyle options, assuming the patients would prefer, for example, to be on cholesterol-lowering drugs every day for the rest of their lives. That may be true for some, but it's up to the patient to decide. According to the official AMA code of medical ethics, physicians are supposed to disclose all relevant medical information to patients. The patient's right to self-decision can be effectively exercised, only if a patient possesses enough information to enable and inform choice. The physician's obligation is to present the medical facts accurately to the patient. For example, before starting someone at moderate risk on a cholesterol-lowering statin drug, a physician might ideally say something like, you should know that for folks in your situation, the number of individuals who must be treated with a statin to prevent one death from cardiovascular events such as a heart attack or stroke is generally between 60 and 100, which means if I treated 60 people in your position, one might benefit and 59 would not. As these numbers show, it's important for you to know that most of the people who take a statin will not benefit from doing so, and moreover, that statins can have side effects, such as muscle pain, liver damage, upset stomach, even people who do not benefit from the medication. I'm giving you this information so you can weigh the risks and benefits of drugs versus diet and then make an informed decision. Get it? I mean, how many physicians have these kinds of frank and open discussions with their patients? Non-disclosure of medical information by doctors, that kind of paternalism, it's supposed to be a thing of the past. Now physicians are supposed to honor informed consent, unless the patient's in a coma or something, or it's an emergency. But too many physicians continue to treat their patients as if they were unconscious. At the end of this long roundtable discussion on angioplasty and stents, the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Cardiology reminded the participants of an important fact to place it all in context. Atherosclerosis is due to high cholesterol, which is due to poor dietary choices, and so if we all existed on a plant-based diet, we would not have even needed this discussion.


We found this really cool vintage store so dynamite was the store. We just went into get the nice warm chocolate in the middle Hey guys, welcome to vlogmas day 14. It is currently noon. I'm guessing. I think it's like around noon Ryan needed his beauty sleep Yeah, so he was he was Recovering from his finals, but he's not done yet. We are gonna have like a fun day today Hopefully we don't really know exactly what we're gonna do. So I definitely want to go to downtown Athens tonight because I Feel like it always looks so pretty What yeah, they decorate for Christmas. So I want to see that and Maybe we're gonna go to Paulie's tonight. It's like a crepe bar I went there with Brooke last time and she showed me this Caesar crepe chicken Caesar crepe And it was so good and I've actually been craving it so I really really want to get that I'm currently broke right now College problems, but like literally because I didn't really know how to like pay my January's rent without like doing the online fee So I gave the check early and I didn't think they would like take it out Now I thought they would like wait and like take everyone's out for January if that makes sense But they did so it got cashed and you can probably guess what happened from there I'm gonna get changed and we're gonna go mail my package finally. Oh my god Like I think I told you guys in this previous vlog, but basically first time I left my lens at home that I have to return in the mail center Then the second time I left the paper at home that I needed to like wrap around it was like my claim and then Yeah, so we went to Walmart last night and finally got like Bubble wrap and stuff. So we're all set. I hope I hope we're all set. I swear if I forget one more thing And we get there I'm gonna be so pissed because yesterday the line was so long I hope it's not as long today because we did go like towards closing out or so that's probably why I don't know What to wear today. I feel like I want to wear like a sweater. I don't know which sweater. What are you whipping up? Some wings and some raspberries. Do you want us to show them your new present that you just got? Chicago cutlery Let me go flock turn around so cute. I love the back. I think it's so cute That shirt was from My semi-formal we had like a flamingo flock type thing. So it's really cool. Hey, and we all had to wear pink No, I know I'm breaking out I know that's from the wax though. It's not it's like a rash. It's not like pimples. Let's hope I got everything now It was a success sending my package it was six dollars and eighty cents, which I thought it would be more I just like don't know how like works And It is gonna get there in two days, and I thought it was gonna get there in like five, so I'm really happy about that So hopefully they can repair it really soon. It's just so inconvenient with this lens But I'm just I'm glad I have this lens like that would suck if it didn't have a second lens You know, I'll probably like put some clips with the phone When I'm in on public and stuff from now on, but I just feel like the phone like audio is really terrible And I just think the quality isn't that great I don't know 145 we have no BF yet. It's a good time no matter time before Because the cream isn't on hot sun You're so mean We're going downtown at golden hours, so hopefully I can get a cute picture She just fell asleep about two hours in the couch. We're watching Fred Claus Shouldn't trust me with movies If you want to simply want to watch a movie too I tried No, I didn't he gave me the good blanket. So so after we go downtown we're gonna go to Where are we going? So we're gonna get Mexican food tonight. We found this really cool vintage store called dynamite in downtown Athens They have like really cool vintage stuff like look at all these jean jackets Plannels Then they have these like ski jackets from like 1980s. That's cool. I love that That's really cute. How much is that but it's kind of expensive Oh 18 that's not bad but the other ones the ski jackets were like 48 So that's kind of expensive, especially if you can find it at Goodwill, you know This place is cool. Look at the fanny packs. Do you like these sunglasses on me? I actually like them. I broke the ones I got from Francesco's that look exactly like these Brian look Do you like them? So dynamite was the store we just went into and it's like super vintage You can see that. I mean look to your left for mine a little bit and that's a strip club. Hey Pretty lights I didn't know We were taking pictures and I told Ryan that this sky looks like a fake set Like I've never watched Gilmore girls But for some reason like the coffee shops the Christmas lights just reminded me of like that like kind of set I guess tour guide Ryan. Where are we? We're here in town hall and it's the wonder bar It's a video game bar sports head It's a live music here. Nice We just turned HIV in an alley We're in an alley since you can risk your life to get pictures in life We're here at the merry chrysler tree Not sponsored by chrysler. We're at takariya laparria So I got fish tacos. I got like a fried one. He got the girl So we're skiing juices like that All right Say hi, this is Evan You're gonna play with his little virtually virtual reality thingy glasses Like do you have like a roller coaster app? Like I don't get it I want roller coaster No, roller coaster. Yeah, which one are you doing? Is it cool? Wait, so how do you how do you get the other ones? So you can pay for them or you just have to download them look down and up and So we can look down. It looks straight everywhere It's ruining the fun of it Follow the roller coaster. You're like, there's no way just going in a straight line No, but it's like going up for a really long time No, it's like going upside down It's literally like green grass and a blue sky and a roller coaster.  Yeah smile What are you doing with that Wait, I'm actually confused. I thought you bought the starter log thing I don't know how it works that fire bender That's the next log that's going in All right, let's hope this one burns. It's too wet.  Did I shoot it to you? Yeah Yeah, I'll get to you at how much it went up Oh, it's cute Is it warm? Barely Can't feel anything So ryan doesn't like marshmallows and his s'mores, so I just want to know what What he calls it because that's not a s'more Hey, can you hold this? Yeah Just in the other What the stick? Yeah Hold it Yay There's some chemicals inside some wood burning some marshmallows Hey Oh, can I do the toasty thing? Yeah I'm scared What if it like melts too fast?