barrage of rockets fired into the south of Israel and there are reports of some back-channel talks of the ceasefire but there is no ceasefire. Israel is expecting a new barrage of rockets. This comes after the assassination of the commander of the Palestinian Islamic jihad's rocket brigade. We have a team of reporters found all across the region. Let's first now go to Pia Sahaba, I-24 news correspondent. She's joining us live from Tel Aviv. Pia, the Islamic jihad put Tel Aviv right in its crosshairs. Right, Albert. We have seen quite some propaganda images and videos throughout the day where the Palestinian Islamic jihad announces that it will target Tel Aviv sooner or later that the residents should be ready for some kind of reaction. What we're expecting to see what we're already seeing in the south is of course the retaliation for the commander that was assassinated by Israel earlier in the morning. Ali, he was the one responsible for launching rockets from Gaza. Now we're also hearing reports that only shortly before our conversation, Albert, another senior commander responsible for launching rockets from Gaza, Ali's deputy was assassinated as well. So we are waiting for some form of retaliation that, as Pij announced, might reach as far as Tel Aviv. Now we've also seen some video footage released by the Palestinian Islamic jihad showing long range rockets that could even reach further north than Tel Aviv. Here in the city, Albert, you don't have the feeling that there is some form of tension among the residents. As you can see, people are out and about. They're enjoying their time at the beach. It is the beginning of summer. It is a Thursday afternoon tomorrow, the weekend begins. So people here don't really share that sense of tension that residents in the south feel. Although there is a warning, the shelters are open. They have been open for the past 48 hours. The loudspeakers here appear. We've had some sort of audio difficulties with her. We'll check back in with her. Everything's fine. We'll check back with her in just a few minutes. I just want to now come in back in studio now. Guy Azrael, I-24 News Correspondents joining me as is Avi Pazner. Avi Pazner is the former Israeli ambassador to France and Italy and the former world chairman of Karen Haseo. But let me first start with you, Guy. This seems to be contained to just Gaza, to just the Pij. Talk about that. Yes, but let's recap to our viewers because there's some interesting and important developments with the assassination of this another major Pij commander, Ahmed Abu Dhaka, is now the fifth senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad member to be taken down by Israel. Now three days into this operation and it happens amid all these talks of a ceasefire that we've been hearing already since yesterday. Well, the situation is such that Israel has managed to continue the pressure on the Islamic Jihad as it understands that these negotiations for now are not going anywhere that they're being stalled that the Islamic Jihad is not ready to sign that agreement. And it was highly important for Israel to keep the pressure on and the message is very clear. If the ceasefire will not arrive anytime soon, more senior commanders could be targeted. And the thinking is that it is Iran in backstage that prevents the Islamic Jihad or at least convinces the Islamic Jihad to continue with this operation. As you can see, the results for these organizations are not good. We're seeing this major damage, not just to the senior officials, also to the infrastructure. This organization is in chaos right now. Hamas on its side voices some support, but we're not seeing any participation of Hamas members in the rocket fire. We're also not seeing other arenas. This was the major fear that was spoken about so much. We're not seeing the West Bank. We're not seeing East Jerusalem. We're not seeing Israeli Arabs, which are certainly not seeing any launches from Iranian factions in Syria, sorry, or in Lebanon. The PIJ, the Islamic Jihad, is alone in this battle and it is making a very badly calculated risk here continuing with this escalation as more and more of its commanders are being targeted unless they agree to ceasefire. And they're going through a list. They go, here's the top, here's number two, here's number three, and they're going down their list. I mean, it's a one by one. They're being plucked off. Look, I think the great success of this operation so far is the very tight cooperation between the Shin Bet, the Secret Security Service, and the IDF, the members of this PIJ. Their identity is known. Their location is known. The whereabouts are known at any given time and we saw this. It was one thing to target them in the middle of the night without any preparation. It's another story to hit both these officials, both overnight and just an hour or two ago. You're looking at pictures of that, just that strike right there. Right. It's another story to strike them in the middle of the day in broad daylight when they already know that the operation is ongoing and that is a great success for the IDF. Ambassador Pasa, there's been quiet, relative to quiet, by the international community. Why so? Why do you think? I would put emphasis on relative because, for example, in the media, in the international media, it's not quiet. There is quite a lot of criticism of Israel because some civilians were killed when we took out those terrorists, but we managed with the help of our good friends in the United States to prevent a debate at the Security Council because Russia, China and the Emirates, who are now the representative of the Arab League in the Security Council of the UN, wanted to have a full-fledged debate at the Security Council and the Americans said, okay, you want to debate. We want you to know that there will be a veto. So there was no debate. So I can say that for the time being, the reactions are muted. We are used to that, that when we engage in military operation, we have a limited time. We have a few days until there is a big wave of negative reports and negative comments and negative reaction from the international community. So we have to take that into account. And from this point of view, I think we did well, we took out now five heads of the Islamic jihad of Palestine. This is an important blow to this organization. And I think that we will continue as long as there is no ceasefire. And I completely agree with Guy, we have no ceasefire because the Iranians don't want a ceasefire. We don't, we have not to forget what the Islamic jihad is. It is an arm of Iran, more than the Hamas, more than other organization. This is an organization which is completely identified with Iran. And if Iran doesn't want now a ceasefire, then we have no ceasefire. What do you think, why is Egypt getting involved? Egypt wants to quiet things down. It is Egypt's interest not to have a flare up near her borders with Israel. It has become, I think, a traditional role of Egypt. Go back, Albert, 10 years. It's a traditional role. Egypt and Qatar, they are the go-betweens. Qatar, because they are engaged with the Hamas. And Egypt, because Egypt is interested to have quiet on its border, not to have the situation in Gaza coming down into Sinai like they had a few years ago, when they had a lot of trouble with the Islamic extremists. So Egypt is really investing efforts. And yesterday we almost were there. Yesterday we almost were there. But at eight o'clock, one hour before the ceasefire, there was a new demand by the Islamic jihad that we do not do any more targeted killings of leaders. Of course, we refuse, because this is what this operation is all about, to get rid of the heads of this murderous organization. And we're hearing from the commander of the IDF's southern command just over the past couple of minutes. He says the IDF will continue with this policy of targeting PIJ officials, this policy of implying the pressure on PIJ will continue in the country. That's the whole point. Great. We're going to continue our live team coverage of Operation Shield and Arrow as I-24 news continues. We have correspondents fanned all across the region. There are sirens going off right now in Karim Shalom in some other towns in the southern part of Israel. We'll have live team coverage right after the break. Hey, it's you again. Ready? Let's go. One show a whole lot of perspectives. He is part of the problem. Do you want to talk about deep platforming? People are losing their lives. Not just what happened, but why does it matter? I'd like to finish my point. You're the one switching terms. You could be a fantastic CNN reporter. Join us every night. 8 p.m. Eastern on Global Eye. The global conversation starts here. Imagine being able to see into the future. What innovations will change the world as we know it? Join us as we meet the people changing our planet and discover the inventions shaping tomorrow. Israel Business Beat. Sundays and Wednesdays 9 30 p.m. GMT. The Middle East is changing. Old alliances make way for new partnerships. Bigger threats lead to new relationships and shared goals, meaning new opportunities. We speak to those who know the inside story and are at the heart of the changes. Don't get caught up with the same old story. Find out what's happening in Middle East now. Middle East now. All right, please. I'm Albert Lewitt in the I-24 newsroom. We're continuing our live team coverage of the Operation Arrow and Shield. I'm joined here in studio by Guy Azrael and Avi Passner, the former Israeli Ambassador to France in Italy. Guy, we have always been worried that if there wasn't the missiles, there'd be something else here within Israel. There would be an internal, there would be a terrorist attack of some sort. Talk a little bit about, like, why was it so important to contain this to where it is? Yes, this is one of the fears, perhaps, definitely the main force of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza is, of course, the rockets and they also presented a new long range rocket today, the Burak 85, 85 kilometers, that's the range of this new rocket, so that is the primary concern when it comes to the Islamic Jihad, but of course one of the officials that was assassinated that night three days ago was the one in charge of inflaming the situation in the West Bank, and of course that is the secondary concern. We have seen a growing wave of violence in the West Bank for the past several weeks and months, so this is nothing new, but of course for the PIJ, if you look at this operation so far, we certainly hope this situation continues this way, but there have been very few achievements for the PIJ. Obviously, no bodily damage to Israeli civilians from all these rockets that were fired, over 550 rockets fired towards Israel so far, not one Israeli injured directly from a rocket, and there's certainly not any major injuries, 400 of those rockets crossed into Israel, 175 of them have been intercepted, so the IDF is already a very high alert in the West Bank as it is on other fronts, that is certainly something that the defense establishment is well aware of, prepared for, and this is also part of the reason why the Israeli government wishes to end this operation as quickly as possible. The longer it takes, the more chances for achievements for the PIJ, for more casualties on the Israeli side, this is not something that Israel wants to do, and Israel said already after the first day, our goals have been accomplished. If the PIJ stops firing rockets as long as it continues and it continues every single hour on the day, until that those stop Israel will continue to target, continue to apply pressure, we're hearing of more IDF strikes inside Gaza as we speak, after taking down this fifth senior PIJ member just an hour ago, the pressure continues, the question is what will the PIJ decide, continue to suffer losses, or listen to Iran and make the life of people not just here in Israel but also in Gaza miserable for another day. I'll hold that thought for just one second, we have some breaking news coming in. I just want to, before I get to you Ambassador, I want to go to Pierre Klosch Lender, who's joining us live from Sterot, Israel, where there were sirens going off very recently. Pierre, tell us a little bit what's happening where you are. Well right now it's calm, Albert, it's been an hour and a bit since the last rocket interception over Sterot. I'm here with a rabbi from Sterot, his name is Dov Fender, Dov, Rabbi Dov. How do you take care of the people you're responsible for? Well, they have many hundreds and they really, they know how to do it themselves. They're young, energetic, idealistic, they realize they're also on reserve duty to be first rescuers and to run and try to help people and to learn and to pray and they feel that's their responsibility and we, unfortunately, it's not our first time. And what's different from this time, from the previous times? I think we're even more energized that they should not have any ceasefire. We should make sure that they seize their fire. Doesn't mean any type of agreement. They have no, this isn't fair. We can't live like this for 30 years. We're willing to wait. The hideous mistake of the disengagement has to be corrected. There's no reason not to go back to the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Palestinians thought they'd make this place into a ghost town. We're not letting them. We're turning into a capital of Zionism and Torah. They thought to destroy, they can't keep up with the base of all the building that's going on. They try to break our spirit. They didn't realize that there's a spirit that's invincible, unbreakable, thousands of years old. We're here to stay.  Well, last week there was a round of tit for tat and I saw you after that round last week demonstrating with the far right party Jewish power and Zionist religious party. Now, what will happen after this round of violence? You think that you'll have again to demonstrate at the junction? We're very proud and it's a beautiful thing that the Israeli government in a very special way, almost like an operation, was able to reach the heads and they deserve not to be here with us and it could be that many of the people would rather live with us in peace and they're gonna have to live with us in peace. So that's what we asked for and we got it. We'd like them to continue. This boost the resilience of the people? 100 percent. People went away, they're enjoying themselves, they didn't run away. They left temporarily as if you're fixing up your house. Sometimes you leave the house for operations. That's what's happening. We as students and as Talmud scholars felt it's our responsibility to continue staying here. Thank you very much Rabbi Dov. So as you see, there is some sort of satisfaction about what's going on. Last week there was another round of violence for 24 hours and the people were very frustrated because they thought that the Israeli government was acting passively in response to rocket fire and this time since Israel took the initiative, many of the people and this Rabbi is very, I would say, representative of the population of this city of 30,000 inhabitants. People are more satisfied with this particular round of violence because Israel took the initiative. Great, Peter Klosch under joining us live from Sterone Israel. Stay tuned. There are some alerts that were going off just moments ago. Within 12 minutes ago there were some alerts going on in Karim Shalom. So we'll come back to you a little bit later on in the broadcast. Ambassador, if I can come back to you for one second, something that the Rabbi mentioned that there was a lot of criticism that the government wasn't doing enough last time around. What changed? What do you think changed? I think that the government did more than enough, reserved the right of surprise, which is maybe one of the most important secrets of a good success in war. In Hebrew, you say how do I translate that into English? A success in war would be through tricks. So surprise. This is exactly what the government did. Stay put for three, four, five days and then act vigorously. And we took out three, on the first night, three of the main leaders of the terrorist organization. What is maybe even more important and more difficult, much more difficult, that the last two we took during the military operation when they are aware that they were targeted, when they were extremely cautious, and still we found them. So I have absolutely no criticism about the way the government conducted this affair. I know that there are criticism from right and from left. It's normal, but you know I have seen so many rounds of fighting for so long a time. I think for the time being, this one is extremely successful. I don't think we should wait too long to get a ceasefire if we can get a ceasefire, because there is a danger of spreading, but until we know it is successful. But there's an issue here, Guy. And you and I talked about a moment ago that the fact that they have gone through number one, number two, number three, it's like a multi-headed hydra.  There's that guy over there. Now he's been moved up, he's been promoted. How do you stop this one by one? Look, the IDF is saying that this policy of targeted killings is proving itself. We can see the fact that the PIJ is in disarray. There is so much chaos in the organization over the past three days. The PIJ, unlike Hamas, which is a much more established and an organized group, is a lot less so. And after these major strikes, after the damage to the infrastructure, to these so many senior commanders, the pressure is on. And I think we will see the results of that very soon. Great, Guy. Give me one second. We're getting some more just in right now to I-24 that there are some rocket attacks going on right now in the towns of Sufa. And also, let's see, in another town near it's khak that's also in the south. So they are not stopping. The barrage continues. I'm going to go now right now to Pia Sakhabakh. She's back with us live from Tel Aviv. Pia, one question I have for you. I was speaking with some tourists today on the Tayela and they said to us, what do we do? How do I know? Like, how do I know things happen? Tell us, what are the people there being told as to what to happen in the event they hear a siren? Well, in the event of a siren, of course, people need to get to the next public shelter as soon as possible. Here in Tel Aviv, you have about one and a half minutes to get to a shelter. Here, the people who are spending their time on the beach here on that very warm and sunny day. There are quite a lot of them outside that do not seem to bother. As of now, you there's no tension that you can feel here. They are advised to run close to the hotels here that are closed by the hotel. As you can see right now, it has a shelter inside that needs to be open in the case of an alert. So people have to run there from the beach within one and a half minutes. Of course, this is also the start of the tourist season right now and tourists might not be sure as in terms of what to do. There are also the municipality has also tested the loudspeakers also throughout yesterday to make sure that everyone is really informed, especially here at the beach. And we also had the chance to speak to some tourists or to better to say businessmen who came to Israel from Kenya for the first time. And they were also not too concerned. They said that they were told that it is relatively safe in Israel. Albert, let's take a listen to what they told us. We all felt that Israel is safe enough. You have the Iron Dome. People are on the beach, so if they can be on the beach, why can't we be here having a nice holiday and learning about Israel? It's our first time, so we're really excited. Well, so far we came this morning. We don't feel any tension so far. We feel safe. We spoke to a few of our Israeli friends in Kenya, and they said you have to be careful, but nothing to worry. We'll try back in with Pia. Just stay tuned to where you are, Pia. We'll come back to you a little bit later on in the broadcast. I want to go to Ambassador for just a while. We have 30 seconds, 45 seconds left. There was a specific mention of the Americans by the PIJ. When they sent out a statement, they said Israel plus the help of the Americans. Why make mention? This is completely ridiculous, and here you can see the trace of the Iranian influence, because with the Iranian there is the big Satan and the small Satan. The small Satan, it's us. We cannot act alone. We have to act with the big Satan. So you can see here the Iranian influence on the Jihad thinking. I can assure them they can be completely confident we are doing all this alone. And no involvement by the Americans? No involvement whatsoever by the Americans. Nothing, zero. And what about the UN? You have 30 seconds. Yeah, at the UN. Yes, diplomatically, we do get help from the Americans. They are good friends. And yesterday they prevented a Security Council debate, which was sponsored by our enemies. And this is very important. This is diplomatic support. This is not military support. Military support. We do it all alone. Great. Ambassador Abi Pazzo, thank you so much for joining us. I also thank you for joining us. We're going to continue on live. Let me give you a little bit of an update. Over 500 rockets being lobbed into Israel, sirens going off in the south with the expectation that this will not end anytime soon. Stay tuned on air and online on I 24 News dot TV. The I 24 News app in Tel Aviv. I'm Albert Lewin tonight. 24 News that continue the news continues right after the break. I 24 News team of talented correspondents are working hard for you. They're in the markets on the streets in the battlefields getting the pulse of the story. Tune in for beyond the headlines to see how the top stories of the week are affecting real people. 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Jumpstart business deals with the leaders in tech. Discover cutting edge innovation. Meet the brightest minds changing the world. Is it worth it? Weren't you listening at the number one startup and tech event in Europe? Be there. This is I 24 breaking news. I'm Albert Lewitton at the I 24 news headquarters in Tel Aviv continuing our live team coverage of Operation Shield and Arrow. The fighting between Israel and Palestinian Islamic jihad in Gaza is continuing into its third day. 500 plus rockets have been lobbed in the last few minutes. There was a new barrage of rockets fired into the south of Israel. And there are reports of some back channel talks of the ceasefire, but there is no ceasefire. Israel is expecting a new barrage of rockets. This comes after the assassination of the commander of the Palestinian Islamic jihad's rocket brigade. We have a team of reporters fan all across the region. Let's first now go to Pia Sahaba 24 news correspondent. She's joining us live from Tel Aviv. Pia, the Islamic jihad put Tel Aviv right in its crosshairs. Right, Albert. We have seen quite some propaganda images and videos throughout the day where the Palestinian Islamic jihad announces that it will target Tel Aviv sooner or later that the residents should be ready for some kind of reaction. What we're expecting to see what we already seeing in the south is of course the retaliation for the commander that was assassinated by Israel earlier in the morning. Ali, Ali, he was the one responsible for launching rockets from Gaza. Now we're also here in reports that only shortly before our conversation, Albert, another senior commander responsible for launching rockets from Gaza. Ali's deputy was assassinated as well, so we are waiting for some form of retaliation that SPIJ announced might reach as far as Tel Aviv. Now we've also seen some video footage released by the Palestinian Islamic jihad showing long range rockets that could even reach further north than Tel Aviv. Here in the city, Albert, you don't have the feeling that there is some form of tension among the residents. As you can see, people are out and about. They're enjoying their time at the beach. It is the beginning of summer. It is Thursday afternoon. Tomorrow the weekend begins. So people here don't really share that sense of tension that residents in the south feel. Although there is a warning, the shelters are open. They have been open for the past 48 hours. The loudspeakers here. Hi, Pio, we've had some audio difficulties with her. We'll check back in with her. Everything's fine. We'll check back with her in just a few minutes. I just want to now come in back in studio now. Guy Azrael, I-24 News Correspondents joining me, as is Ali Pazner. Ali Pazner is the former Israeli Ambassador to France in Italy and the former world chairman of Karen Haseyo. But let me first start with you, Guy. This seems to be contained to just Gaza, to just the PIJ. Talk about that. Yes, but let's recap to our viewers because there's some interesting and important developments with the assassination of this another major PIJ commander, Ahmed Abu Dhaka, is now the fifth senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad member to be taken down by Israel now three days into this operation. It happens amid all these talks of a ceasefire that we've been hearing already since yesterday. Well, the situation is such that Israel has managed to continue the pressure on the Islamic Jihad as it understands that these negotiations for now are not going anywhere that they're being stalled that the Islamic Jihad is not ready to sign that agreement. And it was highly important for Israel to keep the pressure on and the message is very clear if the ceasefire will not arrive any time soon more senior commanders could be targeted and the thinking is that it is Iran be in backstage that prevents the Islamic Jihad or at least convinces the Islamic Jihad to continue with this operation. As you can see, the results for for these organizations this organization are not good. You know, we're seeing this major damage not just to the senior officials also to the infrastructure this organization is in chaos right now. Hamas on its side voices some support but we're not seeing any participation of Hamas members in the rocket fire. We're also not seeing other arenas. This was the major fear that was spoken about so much. We're not seeing the West Bank. We're not seeing the East Jerusalem. We're not seeing Israeli Arabs which are certainly not seeing any launches from Iranian factions in Syria or in Lebanon. The PIJ, the Islamic Jihad is alone in this battle and it is making a very badly calculated risk here continuing with this escalation as more and more of its commanders are being targeted unless they agree to ceasefire. And they're going through a list. They go here's the top here's number two here's number three and they're going down their list. I mean it's a a one by one. They're being plucked off. Look, I think the great success of this operation so far is the very tight cooperation between the Shin Bet the secret security service and the IDF the members of this PIJ their identity is known their location is known their whereabouts are known at any given time and we saw this. It was one thing to target them in the middle of the night without any preparation. It's another story to hit both these officials both overnight and just an hour or two ago you're looking at pictures of that just that that strike right there right. It's another story to strike them in the middle of the day in broad daylight when they already know that the operation is ongoing and and that is a great success for the IDF. Now Ambassador Pazzo there's been quiet relative to quiet by the international community. Why so? What do you think? I would put that emphasis on relative because for example in the media in the international media it's not quiet there is quite a lot of criticism of Israel because some civilians were killed when we took out those terrorists but we managed with the help of our good friends the United States to prevent a debate at the Security Council because Russia China and the Emirates who are now the representative of the Arab League in the Security Council of the UN wanted to have a full-fledged debate at the Security Council and the Americans said okay you want to debate we want you to know that there will be a veto so there was no debate so I can say that for the time being the reactions are muted we are you know we are used to that that when we engage in military operation we have a limited time okay we have a few days until there is a big wave of negative reports and negative comments and negative reaction from the international community so we have to take that into account and from this point of view I think we did well we took out now five heads of the Islamic jihad of Palestine this is an important blow to this organization and I think that we will continue as long as there is no ceasefire and I completely agree with Guy we have no ceasefire because the Iranian don't want a ceasefire we don't we have not to forget what the Islamic jihad is it is an arm of Iran more than the Hamas more than other organization this is an organization which is completely identified with Iran and if Iran doesn't want now a ceasefire then we have no ceasefire what do you think why is Egypt getting involved? Egypt wants to quiet things down it is Egypt's interest not to ever flare up near her borders with Israel it has become I think a traditional role of Egypt go back Albert 10 years it's a traditional role Egypt and Qatar they are the go-betweens Qatar because they are engaged with the Hamas and Egypt because Egypt is interested to have quiet on its border not to have the situation in Gaza coming down into Sinai like they had a few years ago when they had a lot of trouble with the Islamic extremists so Egypt is really investing efforts and yesterday we almost were there yesterday we almost were there but at eight o'clock one hour before the ceasefire there was a new demand by the Islamic jihad that we do not do any more targeted killings of leaders of course we refuse because this is what this operation is all about to get rid of the heads of this murderous organization and we're hearing from the commander of the IDF's southern command just over the past couple of minutes he says the IDF will continue with this policy of targeting PIJ officials this policy of implying that pressure on PIJ will continue that's the whole point great we're going to continue our live team coverage of Operation Shield and Arrow as I-24 news continues we have correspondents found all across the region there are sirens going off right now in Kerem Shalom in some other towns in the southern part of Israel we'll have live team coverage right after the break the Middle East is changing old alliances make way for new partnerships bigger threats lead to new relationships insured goals mean new opportunities we speak to those who know the inside story and are at the heart of the changes don't get caught up with the same old story find out what's happening in Middle East now Middle East now on I-24 news I'm Albert Lewitt in the I-24 newsroom we're continuing our live team coverage of the Operation Arrow and Shield I'm joined here in studio by Guy Azrael and Avi Passner the former Israeli ambassador to France and Italy Guy, we have always been worried that if there wasn't the missiles there'd be something else here within Israel there would be an internal there would be a terrorist attack of some sort talk a little bit about like why was it so important to contain this to where it is yes this is one of the fears perhaps definitely the main force of the Islamic jihad in Gaza of course the rockets and they also presented a new long-range rocket today the Burak 85, 85 kilometers that's the range of this new rocket so that is the primary concern when it comes to the Islamic jihad but of course one of the officials that was assassinated that night three days ago was the one in charge of inflaming the situation in the West Bank and of course that is the secondary concern we have seen a growing wave of violence in the West Bank for the past several weeks and months so this is nothing new but of course for the PIJ if you look at this operation so far we certainly hope this situation continues this way but there have been very few achievements for the PIJ obviously no bodily damage to Israeli civilians from all these rockets that were fired over 550 rockets fired towards Israel so far not one Israeli injured directly from a rocket and there's certainly not any major injuries 400 of those rockets crossed into Israel 100 and 75 of them have been intercepted so the IDF is already a very high alert in the West Bank as it is on other fronts that is certainly something that the defense establishment is well aware of prepared for and this is also part of the reason why the Israeli government wishes to end this operation as quickly as possible the longer it takes the more chances for achievements for the PIJ for more casualties on the Israeli side this is not something that Israel wants to do and Israel said already after the first day our goals have been accomplished if the PIJ stops firing rockets as long as it continues and it continues every single hour on the day here until that those stop is well will continue to target continue to apply pressure rehearing of more IDF strikes inside Gaza as we speak after taking down this fifth senior PIJ member just an hour ago the pressure continues the question is what will the PIJ decide continue to suffer losses or listen to Iran and make the life of people not just here in Israel but also in Gaza miserable for another day I'll hold that thought for just one second we want we have some breaking news coming in I just want to before I get to you ambassador I want to go to Pierre Kloschlender who's joining us live from Steroid Israel where there were sirens going off very recently Pierre tell us a little bit what's happening where you are well right now it's calm Albert it's it's been an hour and a bit since the last rocket interception over Steroid I'm here with a rabbi from Steroid his name is Dov Fender Dov Rabbi Dov how do you take care of the people you're responsible for well they have many hundreds and they really they know how to do it themselves they're young energetic idealistic they realize they're also on reserve duty to be first rescuers and to run and try to help people and to learn and to pray and they feel that's their responsibility and we unfortunately it's not our first time and what's different from this time from the previous times I think we're even more energized that they should not have any ceasefire we should make sure that they seize their fire doesn't mean any type of agreement they have no way and this isn't fair we can't live like this for 30 years we're willing to wait the heaviest mistake of the disengagement has to be corrected there's no reason not to go back to the northern part of the Gaza Strip Palestinians thought they'd make this place into a ghost town we're not letting them we're turning into a capital of Zionism and Taro they thought to destroy they can't keep up with the base of all the building that's going on they try to break our spirit they didn't realize that there's a spirit that's invincible unbreakable thousands of years old we're here to stay so we don't mind waiting another few days till there's a ceasefire because there's no fire left well last week there was a round of tit for tat and I saw you after that round last week demonstrating with the far right party Jewish power and the Zionist religious party now what will happen after this round of violence you think that you'll have again to demonstrate at the junction we're very proud and it's a beautiful thing that the Israeli government in a very special way almost like an operation was able to get reach the heads and they deserve not to be here with us and it could be that many of the people are would rather live with us in peace and they're gonna have to live with us in peace so that's what we asked for and we got it we'd like them to continue this boost the resilience of the people a hundred percent people went away they're enjoying themselves they didn't run away they left temporarily as if you're fixing up your house sometimes you leave the house for operations that's what's happening we as students and as as Talmud scholars felt it's our responsibility to continue staying here thank you very much so as you see there is some sort of satisfaction about what's going on last week there was another round of violence for 24 hours and the people were very frustrated because they thought that the Israeli government was acting passively in response to rocket fire and this time since Israel took the initiative many of the people and this rabbi is very I would say representative of the population of this city of 30 000 inhabitants people are more satisfied with this particular round of violence because Israel took the initiative great pair close under joining us live from Israel stay tuned there are some alerts that were going off just moments ago within 12 minutes ago there were some alerts going on in Karim Shalom so it will come back to you a little bit later on in the broadcast ambassador if I can come back to you for one second something that the rabbi mentioned that there was a lot of there was a lot of criticism that the government wasn't doing enough last time around what changed what do you think changed I think that the government did more than enough reserved the right of surprise which is maybe one of the most important secrets of a good success in war in Hebrew you say how do I translate that into English a success in war would be through tricks so surprise so surprise this is exactly what the government did stay put for three, four, five days and then act vigorously and we took out three on the first night three of the main leaders of the terrorist organization what is maybe even more important and more difficult Albert much more difficult that the last two we took during the military operation when they are aware that they were targeted when they were extremely cautious and still we found them so I have absolutely no criticism about the way the government conducted this affair I know that there are criticism from right and from left it's normal but I have seen so many rounds of fighting for so long a time I think for the time being this one is extremely successful I don't think we should wait too long to get a ceasefire if we can get a ceasefire because there is a danger of spreading but until now it is successful but there's an issue here Guy and you and I talked about it moments ago that the fact that they have gone through number one, number two, number three it's like a multi-headed hydra they'll pop up somebody new there's that guy over there now he's been moved up he's been promoted how do you stop this one by one? look the IDF is saying that this policy of targeted killings is proving itself we can see the fact that the PIJ is in disarray there is so much chaos in the organization over the past three days the PIJ unlike Hamas which is a much more established and an organized group is a lot less so and after these major strikes after the damage to the infrastructure to these so many senior commanders the pressure is on and I think we will see the results of that very soon great Guy give me one second we're getting some more just in right now to I-24 that there are some rocket attacks going on right now in the towns of Sufa and also let's see in another town near its khak that's also in the south so they are not stopping the barrage continues so I'm going to go now right now to Pia Sachaba she's back with us live from Tel Aviv Pia one question I have for you I was speaking with some tourists today on the Tayela and they said to us what do we do how do I know like how do I know things happen tell us what are the people there being told as to what to happen in the event they hear siren well in the event all the siren of course people need to get to the next public shelter as soon as possible here in Tel Aviv you have about one and a half minutes to get to a shelter here the people who are spending their time on the beach here on that very warm and sunny day there are quite a lot of them outside that do not seem to bother as of now you there's no tension that you can feel here they are advised to run close to the hotels here that are closed by the hotel that as you can see right now it has a shelter inside that needs to be open in the case of an alert so people have to run there from the beach within one and a half minutes of course this is also the start of the tourist season right now and tourists might not be sure as in terms of what to do there are also the municipality has also tested the loudspeakers also throughout yesterday to make sure that everyone is really informed especially here at the beach and we also had the chance to speak to some tourists or to better to say businessmen who came to Israel from Kenya for the first time and they were also not too concerned they said that they were told that it is relatively safe in Israel Albert let's take a listen to what they had told us we all felt that Israel is safe enough you have the iron dome people are on the beach so if they can be on the beach why can't we be here having a nice holiday and learning about Israel it's our first time so we're really excited well so far we came this morning we don't feel any tension so far we feel safe we spoke to a few of our Israeli friends in Kenya and they said you have to be careful but nothing to worry we'll try back in with Pia just stay tuned to where you are Pia we'll come back to you a little bit later on in the broadcast I want to go to Ambassador for just about we have 30 seconds 45 seconds left there was a specific mention of the Americans by the PIJ when they sent out a statement they said Israel plus the plus the help of the Americans why make mention this is completely ridiculous and here you can see the trace of the Iranian influence because with the Iranian there is the big satan and the small satan the small satan it's us we cannot act alone we have to act with the big satan so you can see here the Iranian influence on the jihad thinking I can assure them they can be completely confident we are doing all this alone and no involvement by the Americans no involvement whatsoever by the American nothing zero and what about the UN you have 30 seconds yeah at the UN yes diplomatically we do get help from the American they are our good friends and yesterday they prevented a security council debate which was sponsored by our enemies and this is very important this is diplomatic support this is not military support military support we do it all alone great Ambassador Abbey Pazer thank you so much for joining us guys I also thank you for joining us we're going to continue on live let me give you a little bit of an update over 500 rockets being lobbed into Israel sirens going off from the south with the expectation that this will not end anytime soon stay tuned on air and online on i24news.tv the i24news app in Tel Aviv I'm Albert Lewin to i24news the news continues right after the break


So one common use of hypergeometric probabilities is in calculating the probabilities of poker hands. And this was great when everybody knew how to play the game of poker. But not everybody does, so here's a quick introduction, not to the game itself, but to the probability space we're talking about. In a standard deck of 52 cards, there are four suits, spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds. Spades and clubs are black, hearts and diamonds are red. And each suit has 13 cards, which we can think about as being numbered 1, which is the ace, through 10, and then Jack, Queen, King. And given this setup of the cards, we can compute poker probabilities. For example, one of the most notorious hands in the game of poker is known as a dead man's hand, because according to well-documented myth, this was the hand that was drawn by Wildville Hickok when he was shot and killed in the middle of a poker game.  So if we assume that all sets of five cards are equally likely to occur, this is a combinatorial probability. So first we note there's 52 choose five, about 3 million possible draws of five cards. Now to select such a hand, what we need to do is we need to select the two black aces, select the two black aides, and select a fifth card. Now while we can make these selections in any order that we want to, it's helpful to work from the most specific to the least.  So I have to choose both of them. And so there's two, combined two, one way to select the two black aces. To select the two black aides, well there's again only two black aides so I have to select both of them. So there's two, combined two, one way to select the two black aides. Now, that 5th card, I've already selected a total of 4 cards, 2 black aces, 2 black 8s, and so there's only 48 cards left, and so there's 48 combined 1, 48 ways to select that 5th card, and these are permutations. I can't use the 2 black aces that I selected as the 5th card, and so I can multiply these three numbers together, 1 times 1, times 48, and so there's 48 possible dead man's hands, and so the probability of selecting that is about 1 in 54,000. How about some more conventional poker probabilities? So a flush consists of five cards in the same suit. What's the probability of drawing a flush? And so let's think about this. We choose a flush by choosing a suit, and there's four ways of choosing a suit. Now, if we want all of our cards to be from the same suit, we've got to choose five of the 13 cards in the suit, and so there's 13 combined 5, 1,287 ways to do that. And again, these choices form a permutation because we can't switch our answers around, so we can determine the number of flushes by multiplication. So again, there's 52 combined, about 3 million possible draws of five cards. There's 5,148 possible flushes, and so the probability of a flush is about 1 in 500. Now there's a number of poker variants, so instead poker, players receive seven cards and choose five. What's the probability of a flush, which is again still five cards of the same suit? Now, assuming we're playing to win, we would actually choose the five cards of the same suit that we got. And this means that our seven cards could have five, six, or seven cards of the same suit. So this time there's 52 combined seven, or about 133 million different ways to choose seven cards. Now to get five cards of the same suit and two cards of different suits, we select a flush, and there's still 5,148 possibilities. But we need to select two more cards of a different suit. And in particular, there's 52 minus 13, 39 cards of a different suit. And so we can pick two of them in 39 combined two, 741 ways. And again, because the flush that we select and the two cards of a different suit that we select are not interchangeable, we can multiply these two numbers and see that there are 51,48 times 741 hands of five cards of one suit and two of other suits. Now to get six cards of the same suit and one card of a different suit, we'll select a suit. There's four ways we can select a suit. We'll select six cards from the suit. That's 13 choose six. And that works out to be 1,716 ways. And so there's four times 17, 16, 6,864 ways to select six cards from one suit. And that last card can be any of the 39 cards left to choose from. And again, what we're describing is a permutation. And so there's 6,864 times 39 hands with six cards of one suit and one card of another suit. And finally, to get seven cards of the same suit, select a suit. Four ways to do that. Pick seven cards from the same suit. That's 13 combined seven. Again, 1,716 ways. And so we get four times 17, 16, 68, 64 ways. And so all together there are a lot of different ways of getting a flush. And so if all of our hands are equally likely, the probability of getting a flush is about 1 in 33.


Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Iyer's Academy. These are the list of news articles chosen for today's discussion. We are given along with the page numbers of different editions. The link for the handwritten notes in PDF format and the time stamping for the discussed articles are provided in the description box as well as in the comment section for the benefit of mobile phone viewers. Let us now move on to the analysis of the first news article. Now let us take up this editorial article written by the Minister of State for Home Affairs. In this article the author tries to analyze the recent amendments of the GNCTD or the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Amendment Act in a positive light. For your information we have discussed the amendments of the GNCTD Act in great detail in a March 20th video so we humbly request the aspirants to go through it for a better understanding of the issue. The syllabus relevant for this news article is given below for your reference. Now to begin with the author illustrates the ongoing tussle between the Delhi government and the Lieutenant Governor of NCT Delhi by citing an example of bill passing. See in 2017 a bill called Delhi Netaji Subhash University of Technology Bill of 2015 was written by the President of India back to the legislative assembly of Delhi and one of the reasons stated for the return was the inconsistent definition of the term government in the bill. See when the legislative assembly of Delhi had passed the bill and sent it for the President's Ascent it had defined the term government as a government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. But this was considered inconsistent with the definition of the term government and therefore the bill was written. Now after the returning of the bill the Delhi assembly sent a modified version of the bill for the President's Ascent again and here the definition of government was described as Lieutenant Governor of NCT Delhi appointed by the President and after this the bill was accepted. Now this example shows the lack of consistency when it comes to defining the basic term government. So according to the author the recent amendments in the GNCTD Act will help in bringing consistency and in the formalization of the term government and he also stresses that these amendments would also clear the ambiguities in the role of various stakeholders and it will help in providing a constructive rule-based framework which will help the government of Delhi to work in tandem with the union government. Know that we are in the era of cooperative federalism and the chief ministers of states are partners in the national agenda. See cooperative federalism is a concept of federalism in which national, state and local governments interact cooperatively and collectively to solve common problems and the creation of NITI IOC and the establishment of the Goods and Services Tax Council, the restructuring of central schemes and accepting the 15th finance commission's recommendations for greater devolutions are clear examples of this cooperative federalism. Now you should note that cooperative federalism can only work in an environment of trust and mutual cooperation. Now this is because it requires distant delineation of roles and responsibilities and also the removal of ambiguities and in addition to all that it requires the definition of a clear chain of command among these stakeholders. Now according to the author in this regard it was therefore important to define without doubt who represents the government in the unique case of Delhi. Next the author moves on to the discussion of encroachment of legislative matters. See the Legislative Assembly and a Council of Ministers for the National Capital Territory of Delhi was created in 1992 by adding two articles to the constitution and these two articles are 239AA and 239AB. Now the additions of these two articles gave the government of NCT Delhi the power to enact laws regarding matters that are specified under the state list and concurrent list to the extent that is applicable to a union territory. But here you should remember it gave no legislative competence in matters pertaining to the police, public order and land. Now the main reason for this is because the national capital hosts the country's legislature, the seat of the union government, the judiciary, the diplomatic missions and all other institutions of national importance. So therefore its safety and smooth functioning is of great and utmost importance and that is why subjects such as police, public order and land are still under the control of the union government. Now according to the author this clear demarcation of subjects should be respected and that there must be no encroachment of subjects and legislative matters. So when we view the issues in this slide these amendments will hate the above cause and it will also help the government of NCT Delhi to work in complete sequence with the union government. And further he also says that by making the Delhi assembly rules to be consistent with that of the rules of Lok Sabha or by ensuring that the opinion of the lieutenant governor is taken the act is ensuring clarity and it is fostering an environment of cooperation and in addition to that the author also stresses that in no manner do these amendments will dilute or they will affect the powers of the Delhi legislative assembly but rather they seek to remove the ambiguities and the lack of clarity that is existing. And finally he concludes the editorial by saying that just like how the people of Delhi deserve a functioning government similarly the amendments aim in creating such an environment. Let us take up this news article. This news article is regarding the heat waves in Tamil Nadu. It says that though summer season is yet to reach its peak in Tamil Nadu severe interior places are already suffering from heat waves. And now the meteorological department has warned that the heat wave may continue to sweep several parts of Tamil Nadu till April 4th. So in this context let us discuss in detail about heat waves the criteria for heat waves etc. The syllabus covered by this article is given below. So what is a heat wave? See in terms of quality heat wave is a condition of the hair temperature which becomes fatal to human body when exposed and when you view it in terms of its quality then it can be defined based on the intensity of the temperature over a region in terms of actual temperature or its departure from normal. And in certain countries it is defined in terms of the heat index based on the temperature and humidity or based on extreme percentile of the temperatures. So therefore a heat wave is a period of abnormally high temperatures which is more than the normal maximum temperature. See this usually occurs during the summer season mainly in the northwestern parts of India. Note that heat waves typically occur between March and June and in some rare cases they may even extend till July. These extreme temperatures and its resultant atmospheric conditions adversely affect the lives of people residing in these regions as they cause physiological stress sometimes resulting in death as well. Note that the Indian Meteorological Department has given several criteria for heat waves. The first and foremost criteria is that the heat wave need not be considered till maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 40% in the case of planes and at least 30% in the case of Ili regions. Next consider a case when the normal maximum temperature of a station is less than or equal to 40 degree Celsius. Then heat wave departure from normal is 5 degree Celsius to 6 degree Celsius and severe heat wave departure from normal is 7 degree Celsius or more. But take another case when the normal maximum temperature of a station is more than 40 degree Celsius then the heat wave departure from normal will be 4 degree Celsius to 5 degree Celsius and the severe heat wave departure from normal will be 6 degree Celsius or more. And also when the actual maximum temperature remains 45 degree Celsius or more irrespective of normal maximum temperature then heat wave should be declared and in order to declare her severe heat wave then the actual maximum temperature has to be 47 degree Celsius or more. Know that the peak month of the heat wave over India is usually May but higher and longer daily peak temperatures and more intense heat waves are becoming frequent globally due to the climate change. And India too is failing the impact of climate change in terms of increased instances of heat waves which are more intense in nature when compared to each passing year. Know that the heat waves have got a devastating impact on human health. They by increasing the number of heat wave casualties and the health impacts of heat waves typically involve like dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and also heat stroke. Know that in India heat wave generally occurs over plains of northwest India in the central India and also in the east and north Penunsular India during the month of March to June and this covers states such as Punjab, Ariana, UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana etc and sometimes it occurs over Tamil Nadu and Kerala as well. However the maximum temperatures that is temperature more than 45 degree Celsius are observed mainly over Rajasthan and in the Vidarbha region in the month of May. With this information we will see what are the favorable conditions for heat wave. See the first and foremost is the transportation or the prevalence of hot dry hair over the region. Next comes the absence of moisture in the upper atmosphere. Now this is because the presence of moisture will restrict the temperature rise. Another favorable condition is that the sky should be practically cloudless to allow maximum insulation over the region. In addition to all this large amplitude anti-cyclonic flow over the area also favours heat waves and in India heat waves generally develop over northwestern India and is spread gradually eastwards and also southwards. But on some occasions heat wave may also develop over any region under the favorable conditions. So with this we'll move on to the next news discussion. This news article states that the Madurai bench of Madras High Court has issued anticipatory bail to a minister in Tamil Nadu. On looking at the background this minister allegedly resisted checking of his vehicle by the election flying squad and this incident reportedly took place on 12th of March 2021 following which the police registered a case against a minister under sections 353 and 506 of the Indian Penal Court. See section 353 of the Indian Penal Court deals with the offence of assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging his or her duty. And section 506 prescribes punishment for the offence of criminal intimidation. See the offences under 353 of the Indian Penal Court is a cognisable and non- bailable offence whereas the offence mentioned under 506 of the Indian Penal Court is a non-cognisable and a bailable offence. See the main difference between a cognisable offence and a non-cognisable offence is that in the case of a cognisable offence the police can arrest the accused without arrest warrant from a magistrate or an appropriate court. Since one of the offences is a cognisable offence the accused minister was anticipating that he might be arrested sooner or later and therefore he sought anticipatory bail from the court. So in this regard let us now discuss about the anticipatory bail. See the procedure for the anticipatory bail is spelled out in section 438 of the Court of Criminal Procedure and as per the section whenever a person has got a reason to believe that he may be arrested on an accusation of having committed a non- bailable offence then he or she may apply to the high court or the court of session for a direction under this section and the concern court may direct that in the event of such an arrest he or she shall be released on bail. Here we can know that while an anticipatory bail application can be made in a high court or in a court of session such application cannot be made before a magistrate court or in other words if a person gets anticipatory bail then he or she will not be arrested by the law enforcement authorities and therefore anticipatory bail is a court direction that is issued even before a person is arrested to release a person on bail and while issuing anticipatory bail the court can also include some conditions say for example that the person shall make himself available for interrogation by a police officer when required and also that the person shall not leave India without prior permission of the court etc so these are some of the information with reference to the analysis of this news article to have a quick recap we discussed in brief on the background of the issue mentioned in the news then we discussed about what do we mean by cognizable offence and then we mainly discussed about the anticipatory bail in probation with this now let us move on to the next part of the discussion now look at this editorial article this article titled still no recognition of the third tyre is a critical appraisal of 15th finance commission recommendations especially with reference to local self-governments that was submitted in parliament on the 1st of February the syllabus covered by this article is highlighted below for your reference now before getting into the editorial discussion i just have a brief outline on finance commission as sanctioned in the constitution see finance commission is a constitutionally provided body under article 280 and it is a quasi-judicial body whose recommendations have a non-binding character on the executive and the legislature see it is called a quasi-judicial body because it is got the power of a civil court under the civil procedure code of 1980 and this finance commission is constituted every five years by the president and in cases where the president deems it necessary then he may constitute it earlier as well now let's look at its functions see the constitution outlines the following functions as the functions of the finance commission and it is mandated to provide recommendation to the president on the following matters which includes the distribution of the net proceeds of taxes to be shared between the center and the states and the allocation between the states the respective shares of such proceeds etc which is commonly referred to as the vertical and the horizontal devolution next comes the recommendations on the principles which should govern the grants in a to the states by the center out of the consolidated fund of india and also recommendations on the measures that are needed to augment the consolidated fund of a state to supplement the resources of the panjaites and the municipalities in the state on the basis of the recommendations made by the finance commission apart from the above any other matter referred to it by the president in the interests of sound finance can also be recommended by the commission see the recommendations made by the finance commission are laid before the parliament by the president along with the action taken report and the government is bound to provide an explanation in the parliament if it fails to absorb any recommendations of the finance commission now let's move on to the article know that the finance commission was entrusted with responsibilities with respect to local government only through the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendment acts we know these two acts constitutionalized local self-governance in india through the incorporation of part 11 and part 11 here and the 15th finance commission has made some remarkable contributions and financially strengthening the grassroot level institutions now let's see some of them see the vertical devolution that is the devolution from the center to local self-government through states is raised remarkably high see earlier home ago share of 0.78 percent of the divisible pool was recommended by the 11th commission and the 15th commission has now raised it to 4.23 percent with a reasonably estimated amount of 436361 crores now next the author talks about the performance-based grants see what his performance-based grants see these are grants that are given for achieving certain social or governance-based targets and as you can see grants are used as incentives for local governments and the performance-linked grants were brought in by the 13th finance commission and it earmarked 35 percent of local grants if the panjaitz fulfill six conditions and urban local bodies fulfill nine conditions like that of the establishment of an independent homebid's man to notifying standards for service sectors such as drinking water and solid waste management etc then the grants were to be provided next the 14th finance commission however cut the performance grant share to 10 percent of the grant panjaitz and 20 percent to the municipalities with the conditionality that all local governments will have to show improvements in its own source revenue and municipalities are additionally required to publish service level benchmarks for basic services but the 15th finance commission reduced the performance-based grant to just 8000 crore and that too for building new cities thereby leaving out the panjaitz raj institutions altogether so that's the transformative potential that is the potential of performance-based grants to rejuvenate the functioning of the local self-governance has been missed by the 15th finance commission now next comes the issues with entry-level grants see entry-level grants are the one-time achievements or commitments that the local bodies need to fulfill to gain access to a specific grant and 15th finance commission has made a case for this entry-level grants for panjaitz the condition is online submission of annual accounts for the previous year and audited accounts for the year before and for urban local governments two more conditions apart from the above set criteria are specified one is the fixation of minimum floor after 2001 to 2002 that is the basic ceiling for property tax rates by the relevant state second is the consistent improvement in the collection of property taxes and tandem with the state's own gross state domestic product now this is a welcome step because the local governments have been evasive in maintaining the audits and accounts and it has been viewed as opacity in governance but the author here feels that the two additional conditions laid down for the urban bodies could have also put to policy in rural areas as well now besides these the absence of sound database to support policy formulation on finances has also been critiqued by the author and further the author talks about the equalization principle see under the principle of equalization transfers aim to equalize fiscal capacities thereby enabling the states to provide it they make comparable tax effort after taking into account the cost and use disabilities and on referring to the Alma Arta declaration the 15th finance commission talks about the equalization between the center and the state in which the local governments have been left out now here it is to be noted that although the 15th finance commission outlines nine guiding principles as the basis of its recommendations to local governments but still there is no integrated approach as it is forgotten that public finance is an integrated whole and further the author is also critical of the use of census 2011 at 90 percentage and area weight age of 10 percentage here we may recollect that use of 2011 census gave a high huge jump in the share of popular states like that of Bihar and UP whereas states that have fared well in population control measures like that of Kerala and Tamil Nadu were given reduced share and further the use of only 10 percentage weightage to area also was criticized and the author believes that this can affect the efficacy and equity as a conclusion the author infers that finance commission does very little to strengthen the local self-governance institutions financially with this we have come to the end of this particular news discussion let's move on to the next news article look at this article the news article mentions about a panel discussion and food corporation of India in which efforts taken by the fci to ensure food security during the pandemic was discussed so in this regard let's see about this fci or the food corporation of India see it is a statutory body as fci was set up in 1965 under the food corporations act of 1964 and this body works under the department of food and public distribution in the ministry of consumer affairs food and public distribution and it was set up against the backdrop of major shortage of grains especially wheat so therefore its vision is to ensure availability accessibility and also affordability of food grains to all people and at all times so that no one nowhere and at no time should go hungry remember it is a main agency for implementation of food management policies of the government of India and therefore its objectives are to provide effective price support operations to farmers see this is for safeguarding the interest of farmers and then to procure and supply grains that is to distribute food grains throughout the country for public distribution system see this is for distributing subsidized staples economically vulnerable sections of our society now the third objective is to maintain satisfactory levels of operational stocks and buffer stocks of food grains in order to ensure national food security see to keep a strategic reserve of basic food grains is to stabilize markets for those basic food grains note that the primary duty of fci is to undertake purchase to store to transport to distribute and also to sell the food grains and other foodstuffs and its functions are also based on this mission only now let's see in brief about its functions see its first function is procurement so fci along with other state agencies they undertake procurement of wheat or paddy under the price support scheme in order to ensure remunerative prices to farmers for their produce see this also works as an incentive for achieving better production now after procurement comes storage and the management of food grains for future use which is also an important function of fci as all the grains will not be used in one day so therefore fci will store food grains in its own go downs and also in go downs hired from the central warhousing corporation the state warhousing corporations and from various state government agencies and also from private parties now following this comes the duty of stocking or maintaining the stock and for this fci will maintain operational stock and strategic stock now you should remember buffer stocks are a part of this strategic stock and finally comes distribution or movement of the food grains remember fci undertakes transportation of food grains like that of wheat or rice from surplus states to the deficit states and also at times within the states by rail road or even river see this is done to ensure availability of food grains for targeted periods and also other welfare schemes and also to maintain reasonable levels of buffer stocks at various strategic locations throughout the country so with this information let's now move on to the next news article look at this news article titled polis man votes in postal ballot which talks about the police men and home guards casting their vote through postal ballots so in this light let's have a brief understanding about the postal ballot system in India first what is postal voting see it is a facility through which voter can cast his or her vote remotely by recording a preference on the ballot paper and by sending it back to the election officer before counting note that it is exercised by a restricted set of voters now let's see who can avail this facility first is service voters that is voters who are having service qualification and the relevant service qualification is given under section 20 clause 8 of the representation of people act of 1950 and this includes members of the armed forces like that of the army navy and air force and also members of the state armed police force who are serving outside the state and also government employees who are posted outside India and their spouses are entitled to enjoy this postal voting also special voters such as the president of India the vice president governor's union cabinet ministers the speaker of the house and government officers on poll duty have also got the option to vote by post now adding to them the people in preventive detentions can also cast their vote through postal ballot note that recently in 2019 the election commission of India has given postal ballot facilities for absentee voters of essential services and also to senior citizens of more than 80 years see an absentee OT is a person who's belonging to such class of persons as may be notified under section 60 clause C of the representation of people's act now let's see how this postal ballot system works see the postal ballot papers are sent to the eligible voters by the returning officer and this is done after printing the ballot for each and every voter of the constituency who are eligible to cast the postal ballot and then the ballot is put in an envelope which is inscribed with the address of the record office of each service otters and it is sent on receiving it the otter will mark his or her preference with a tick mark or a cross mark against the candidate's name and they also have to fill up a duly attested declaration to the effect that they have marked the ballot paper and this ballot paper and the declaration are then placed in a sealed cover and it is sent back to the returning officer before the time fixed of the commencement of vote counting now the shortcomings of the postal ballot system is that it takes a lot of resources efforts and time thereby increasing the chance of mistake and this brought the electronically transmitted postal ballot system which is a one-way electronic transmission of the postal ballots where the eligible otter can cast their vote and sent it to the respective returning officer through post so these are few informations which you need to know about the postal ballot or postal voting now let's move on to the next part of the discussion look at this news article recently Pakistan has decided to resume trade with India after nearly two long years of ban and this article is a discussion on that see Pakistan has decided to lift the 19 month old ban on imports of Indian sugar and cotton when it comes to India we are the biggest producer of cotton and the second biggest producer of sugar a prior to this ban Pakistan was one of the leading buyers of cotton from India but Pakistan decided to ban the imports of goods from India after India revoked the special status of cashmere and this here there have been some positive talks going on between India and Pakistan say for example the militaries of India and Pakistan recently announced that they have agreed to strictly observe all agreements on ceasefire along the line of control in Jammu cashmere and other sectors and in addition to that letters were also exchanged between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistan counterpart Imran Khan with these positive developments and soaring prices of goods Pakistan decided to resume trade with India and since the article mentions about sugar and cotton let us now see about these crops in brief first let's see about cotton see cotton is a tropical or subtropical crop that grows in semi-arid areas of the country mainly in the Deccan Plateau this crop requires high temperature and light rainfall between 50 to 100 centimeters in addition to a bright sunshine for its growth remember frost is the biggest killer of cotton crops so therefore at least 210 frost free days is essential for its proper growth in addition to that black soil is also preferred for cotton's growth because black soil is a well-grained soil which is capable of retaining moisture now on moving to sugarcane which is a long duration crop that requires at least 15 to 18 months to mature depending upon the geographical conditions see sugarcane requires a hot and humid climate with an average temperature of about 21 to 27 degree Celsius and 75 to 150 centimeters of rainfall note that too heavy rainfall results in low sugar content and a deficiency in rainfall produces fibrous crops and therefore irrigation is required in those areas which receives less rainfall than the prescribed limit remember sugarcane can be grown on all types of soils ranging from sandy loam to clay loam it however thrives best in well-grained soils which are rich in nitrogen calcium and phosphorus in addition to that the soil should not be either too acidic or too alkaline because sugarcane exhausts the fertility of soil in addition to that the soil should not be either too acidic nor too alkaline remember sugarcane exhausts the fertility of the soil quickly and extensively and its cultivation requires a heavy rows of manures and fertilizers and also it is a labor intensive cultivation which requires ample human hands at every stage and therefore cheap abundant labor is a prerequisite for its successful cultivation with this information let's move on to the next news discussion now look at this article regarding a pronouncement made by the kerala high court we all were about the diplomatic gold smuggling case in kerala and during the investigation it was alleged that the enforcement directorate forced the prime accused to give a false statement against the kerala chief minister and so cases were filed against the enforcement directorate officers and now the kerala high court asked the crime branch not to proceed with any coercive action against the enforcement directorate officials so in this context it is discussed in brief about the enforcement directorate see the directorate of enforcement or the enforcement directorate was established in 1956 with its headquarters at new delhi it is a specialized financial investigation agency which comes under the department of revenue under the ministry of finance remember enforcement directorate is responsible for the enforcement of the foreign exchange management act of 1999 and it is also responsible for certain provisions under the prevention of money laundering act or the pmla 2002 note before this foreign exchange management act of 1991 became effective in 2000 the directorate was enforcing regulations under the foreign exchange regulation act of 1973 see this foreign exchange management act is a civil law and it empowers officers to conduct investigations into suspected contraventions of the foreign exchange laws and regulations and also to adjudicate contraventions and to impose penalties on those adjudged to have contravened the law but when you take the case of the prevention of money laundering act of 2002 it is a criminal law and it empowers the officers to conduct investigations to trace those assets that are derived out of the proceeds of crime and also to provisionally attach or confiscate the assets and also to arrest and prosecute offenders who are found to be involved in money laundering now here we must know one thing as we said the enforcement directorate is under the administrative control of the department of revenue for operational purposes but the policy aspects of the foreign exchange management act and its legislation and its amendments are within the purview of the department of economic affairs and also the policy issues that are pertaining to the pmla or the prevention of money laundering act are the responsibility of the department of revenue now coming to its composition this enforcement directorate has one director and two special directors at headquarters and one special director at Mumbai and the directorate has got 10 zonal offices each of which is headed by deputy director and 11 sub zonal offices each of which is headed by assistant directors now with this information see some important functions of this enforcement directorate the first and foremost function is to collect develop and to disseminate intelligence relating to violence of the fema act of 1999 and then to investigate the suspected violations of the provisions of this fema act and these violations may include activities such as havala foreign exchange non-realization of export proceeds and also non-repartition of foreign exchange etc another important function of this ed is to process and to recommend cases for preventive detention under the conservation of foreign exchange and prevention of smuggling activities act and in addition to all this it also undertake survey search seizure arrest prosecution etc against those offenders of the prevention of money laundering act offense and it also provides and seek mutual legal assistance from contracting states for the attachment or the confiscation of proceeds of crime and also for the transfer of accused persons under the pmla act so these are some of the information that you need to know about enforcement directorate with this let us now move on to the practice question discussion look at this question an offense for which a police officer may arrest a person without warrant from an appropriate magistrate or court is called bailable offense petty offense non-cognizable offense and cognizable offense see the correct answer is option d that is cognizable offense and very often we can find the term cognizable offense in the newspaper see an offense for which a police officer may arrest a person without warrant from an appropriate magistrate or court is called as a cognizable offense and bailable offenses are those offenses which are mentioned as bailable in the first schedule of the criminal procedure court and these are offenses for which easily one can get a bail order from a court as a matter of right and non-bailable offenses are those offenses which are mentioned as non-bailable in the criminal procedure court and for these offenses also one can get a bail but only a court can issue bail and for such offenses bail is not a matter of right and in case police do not complete investigation on time then even in such cases after the period of investigations the accused have the right to bail even in non-bailable offenses so therefore the right option here is option d that is cognizable offense now consider the following prevalence of hot dry hair over a region large amount of moisture in the upper atmosphere cloudy sky anti-cyclonic flow over the sea which of the above conditions is favorable for the formation of heat waves see as we saw earlier in the discussion some of the favorable conditions for heat waves are the transportation of prevalence of hot dry hair over the region and the absence of moisture in the upper atmosphere and the sky should be practically cloudless and the large amplitude of anti-cyclonic flow over the sea now when you look at the options you can find that option 1 and 4 is correct whereas option 2 and 3 are incorrect this option 2 is incorrect because the presence of moisture will restrict the temperature rise and it will not facilitate the rise in temperature similarly the cloudless sky will allow maximum insulation over the region more than a cloudy sky so therefore the right option is option c that is 1 and 4 only now which of the following statements is not correct with a reference to the food corporation of india statement 1 it is a statutory body set up by the national food security after 2013 statement 2 its objective is to maintain satisfactory levels of operational stocks and buffer stocks of food grain to ensure national food security statement 3 it stores food grains only in its own grounds and statement d both a and c see when you look at statement 1 or statement 8 is incorrect because the fci is set up under section 3 of the fci act of 1964 similarly when you look at statement 3 it is also incorrect as fci will store food grains in its own go downs and also in go downs hired from central warehousing corporations state warehousing corporations state government agencies and private parties so whereas when you look at statement b which says about its objective we can find that the objective is right because the fci's main objective is to maintain satisfactory level of operational stocks and buffer stocks of food grains to ensure national food security and since the question asks for the incorrect statement the right option is option d that is both a and c next with reference to the postal ballot system in india consider the following statement statement 1 union cabinet ministers and persons who are employed under the government of india and posted outside india are eligible to cast postal ballot and a person subjected to preventive detention under any law for the time being enforced is not eligible to give his out by the postal ballot see we look at statement 1 it is incorrect because as we have seen service orders as per section 20 clause 8 of the representation of people act of 1950 are eligible for casting wards through postal ballot system and service orders includes members of the armed forces like that of the army navy and air force and also members of the armed police forces of a state who are serving outside the state in addition to the government employees who are posted outside india and their spouses now we also saw that the special orders such as the president of india vice president governors then union cabinet ministers speaker of the house and the government officers on poll duty have also got the option to vote by post and all that the election commission of india has also given postal ballot facilities for absentee orders of essential services in addition to senior citizens of more than 80 years and marked now when you look at statement 2 it says that the preventive person subjected to preventive detention under any law for the time being enforced is not eligible to give his vote by postal ballot is incorrect because a person subjected to preventive detention under any law for the time being enforced can give his or to the postal ballot and since the question was the right option the answer is option a that is one only now with reference to the directorate of enforcement consider the following statements it is a financial investigation agency under the ministry of home affairs it is responsible for the enforcement of the foreign exchange management act of 1999 and while implementing the prevention of money laundering act enforcement directorate may provisionally confiscate the assets derived out of the proceeds of the crime now you should identify the correct statement when you look at statement one you can find that it is incorrect because enforcement directorate is a specialized financial investigative agency that comes under the department of revenue under the ministry of finance and not under the ministry of home affairs and when you look at the second and third statement based on our discussion we can arrive at a conclusion that both the statements are correct and therefore the right option is option b that is two and three only now the crop is subtropical in nature her hard frost is injurious to it it requires at least 210 frost free days and 50 to 100 centimeters of rainfall for its growth a light well-drained soil capable of retaining moisture is ideally suited for the cultivation of the crop which one of the following is the crop from the discussion of the article we can identify that the crop which is having the above mentioned characteristics is none other than cotton so therefore the right answer is option e that is cotton note this was the question that was asked in the recent prilams that is in prilams 2020 the list of mains practice question is displayed here you can write your answers and post them in the comment section below with this we have come to the end of today's hinder news analysis if you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to Shankar Aya's academy youtube channel for more updates regarding upsc civil services preparation


Gepard against Shaheads. Expert explains anti-aircraft guns importance for Ukraine. German self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, Gepard, enabled Ukraine to make the use of Shaheads economically disadvantageous for the Russians, states military expert Valery Ryabik in a comment to RBC Ukraine. He emphasizes that during the defense against drone attacks conducted by Russian occupiers, the Gepard anti-aircraft guns are particularly vulnerable. According to the expert, Russia is attempting to exhaust Ukrainian air defense by using Shaheads. The adversary anticipates that the Ukrainian armed forces will expend a significant number of missiles on drones. The use of Gepard allows for relatively inexpensive drone interceptions. If a Shahead costs tens of thousands of dollars, one or two rounds from the Gepard cost up to a dozen. If the air defense is saturated with such systems it becomes economically disadvantageous for the Russians to employ Shaheads clarified Ryabik. Germany has repeatedly provided Ukraine with self-propelled Gepard anti-aircraft guns as part of its military aid. As reported by RBC Ukraine, these anti- aircraft guns had to some extent replaced short-range air defense systems in Ukraine. According to media reports, the United States has purchased an additional 60 such anti-aircraft guns from Jordan for Ukraine.


If we could just start by by introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about how you got into the black chain community And how you've gone from there to where you are now correct good So yeah, I actually have a background in management consulting spent 11 years with a company called cap Gemini and Somewhere along the way decided, you know started looking at blockchain a couple of years ago and then decided to take the plunge and venture out myself and That's when I started my venture one of them called block armor where we're doing cyber security using blockchain technology With one of my co-founders who's the former chief information security officer of India's National Stock Exchange And then here in Singapore. I have a blockchain design studio where we help enterprises basically design and Develop next-gen next-generation networks using blockchain technology Last but not the least I'm I advise that you brought the stock exchange and and they are chief blockchain officer It's interesting, right? When was the last time you heard a stock exchange do something exciting an official stock exchange, right? So you've mentioned cyber security so blockchain technology looks like the best idea for cyber security But how does that work? Very interesting, I'll share with you what we are doing really so what we do is we focusing on critical systems Now what is a critical system for a stock exchange? It's the main trading platform For an airport. It's the air control towers for you know for a bank is the core banking application these are the 20 or 30 percent of Applications or the golden nuggets the crown jewels in an enterprise that you want protected at all cost So that's what we focused on and then we use a technology Which has been originally developed by and used by the US military and we render those servers invisible So how can some how does someone attack a system that they can't even see? How do you DDoS a server that you don't even know exist and then we use blockchain technology to do Identity and access management because you need to have genuine users access to serve us. So yeah, we use digital identity on the blockchain and for both humans and devices and Basically provide secure access to that critical infrastructure So it seems like you're systematically building almost like the economy of the future Because you have the stock exchange and and so what does because I know you spoke today about the token economy And I want to know what what does the the future token economy look like to you? Correct I think it's interesting times right and and there are two or three things when you look at the token economy number one is the whole Decentralization right today you have a lot of centers at power and if you see Blockchain or Bitcoin the original thing was how do you disintermediate all these gatekeepers, right? And so that's exciting and today You don't have to go to a stock exchange to kind of do a token sale You just say I want to do a token sale You don't need so much permission. Of course, hopefully that gets regulated to some level because and and and that's where we step in right? What we think is you're not regulating it, but hey, we play that one step In front right so let's say today you're on one side. You've got the guys doing ICOs so how You know, how do they know and and let me take a step back One thing I mentioned today is today if you look at the ICO space of the tokenization It's just the blockchain companies companies that are core blockchain But going ahead tomorrow, you'll see e-commerce companies that will start to doing token sales Going ahead. You'll see simple Cafes and all sorts of brick-and-mortar companies that will also start to tokenize right so we're right at the start Now the blockchain companies well, they know it but cafe on Commerce stop they have questions. How do we tokenize? How do we know whether a token is a utility or is it a security? How do we know what's the right way to go about doing a token sale on one side on the other side? You've got participants today. You don't need to have a stock exchange account or Whatever to participate in a token sale You have an Ether wallet and you instantly start to participate. You can have tokens. You can buy tokens you can invest you can pick up utility coins and But people need to know how do I know that this these guys are genuine? How do I know that no someone's not going to vanish, right? If I have 1,000 coins today How do I know which is the top 25 that suits what I'm really looking for and so that's where we come in and say hey Now you've got a traditional stock exchange that's doing also going to have a blockchain exchange and we're tying the two together and and so Here's what we say what we think is good stuff and so people can start to follow that follow through on that You've mentioned regulation. It seems like the token economy is a bit in a gray area with regulations Yeah, so we've seen Chinese that I see open we have in a lot of issues and difficulties with the regulation How do you think the regulation will look like for the talk? So here's the thing Yes, you've got countries and you've got nation states that says hey, no Absolutely zero right, but I believe that's temporary tomorrow Again, it's today because what they can see and there are a lot of reasons that they're things like KYC Anti-money laundering CFD that they also need to protect against and that's why you're seeing that stop because otherwise, it's this crazy rush and the herd mentality and then everyone and then you've got scammers you've got you know people doing poems these humans so Tomorrow if somebody gets scanned he's going to say hey regulator. What were you doing and so so till we figure out this and how We can protect the small investors. Let's just put a stop to that We'll come back to it on the other side. You've got places like Gibraltar I think Switzerland's put out something recently and and places where the regulator is saying great guys You want to do tokens that great and here is some framework here is some guidelines to make sure that you are dear to A, B, C and D and then we are okay with it and we take care of investors of not just invest But the common man who's now who's now without a central regulating piece or a central System simply going and investing in you simply going and buying your tokens, right? So I see you guy Just make sure you are there to these things and then you're fine and So I think that's a great start and there are a few nations that are picking the lead and then Again, we are still at the very beginning of this. It's got a long way to go So I think it's already a good start the guys who've stopped it will of course come around and the moment they figure this out They'll they'll put in their guidelines. They'll put in their risk and risk controls and things like that and then This will evolve