Welcome to this conversation with Professor Kim Hammond at New Mexico State, and he's also one of the co-founders of Pivot to Peace, a very important voice in the peace movement, and a very, you know, a studied scholar when it comes to the history of Asia, the history of the world, and US militarism. Kim, welcome. And thanks for contributing your time to breaking down Kurt Campbell's record in the new arms race. Sure, then glad to be here. So, you know, I want to start by essentially spelling out, you know, why you think the Biden administration is tapping Kurt Campbell to be Deputy Secretary of State. And what kind of politics Campbell represents? I mean, a lot of it revolves around the pivot to Asia. Of course, you know, the pivot to Asia has its roots in the Obama administration. And, you know, one can argue the US has long been targeting Asia, you know, from Millard, Phil Morrison, Dink, Kamara Perry to threaten Japan with gunboat diplomacy. Colonizing the Philippines in 1898 and for decades after and the Korean Vietnam Wars, but there's been an understanding maybe since the start of the 21st century that the US, from the point of view of militarists in Washington that they put the Asia Pacific on the back burner. And they had this pivot to Asia, which Kurt Campbell is a big part in orchestrating so walk us through what that exactly meant the pivot to Asia and what was Campbell's role in it. Sure. I mean Kurt Campbell is often seen or at least certainly sort of represents himself as well as sort of the intellectual side of the neoconservative, you know, foreign policy perspectives here in the United States. And he really played a very significant role in the in the, you know, pivot to Asia as it was called. In fact, wrote a book called the pivot a couple of years after that all got launched. He's he is often referred to as the architect of American policy contemporary American policy towards towards Asia and of course when they say Asia what they really mean is primarily China. It looks at Asia, but primarily the focus is China and the and the objective is to sort of mobilize other resources including primarily American military resources around Asia and redeploy them in Asia from elsewhere, in order to, you know, contain and constrain China's development. And this, you know, this of course takes place back around 2011. President Obama at that time announces the pivot to Asia. Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton writes an article in foreign policy advocating for a new American Pacific century the idea of, you know, revising or reviving American dominance, especially in the western Pacific and again what that means is encircling China, focusing on China. And I think, I think, you know, sort of the macro context in which that you know this makes sense and we can we can understand kind of where they're coming from what their motivations are has sort of two tracks. One, as as you alluded to there is that right at the beginning of the 21st century, of course, with with the events of 911, you know, American strategic activity shifted really intensely to the so called war on terror. You know, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, other kinds of military ramping up in the Middle East. And the focus for a while was primarily on on, you know, attacking Islamic radicalism so called and all that. But at the same time that was a period, the end of the 20th century and the first decade say of the present century, where the United States felt American political elites felt fairly confident in how their efforts to integrate China into the global capitalist system we're working out. You know, China had launched its program of reform and opening to the outside bringing in allowing foreign capital to come in collaborating with international organizations joining the World Trade Organization, things like that. All that had gone on through the 80s and the 90s and carrying on into the early 21st century. And the objective really for the United States was to have China become a kind of subordinate integrated cog in the global capitalist machinery dominated by the United States. And down to the early 21st century it appeared in some ways that that that objective was was being attained. China in order to gain access to technology and capital and all these kinds of things had adopted a fairly accommodating stance towards the United States towards the global capitalist system. Deng Xiaoping had urged back in the early 90s he urged the Chinese leadership, as he put it to buy their time and build their capacities build their capabilities, meaning not to not to push not to not to be confrontational with the United States to sort of de emphasize, or at least not, you know, foreground the socialist nature of China's development and China's economy, but to sort of go along and get along in order to, you know, achieve the developmental objectives that they that they had prioritized. That begins to change in the first decade of this century because China had successfully pursued its development we all know that there were 20 years of double digit growth every year 101112% annual growth and gross domestic product. And so, by the early 21st century China was able to begin to sort of stand on its own two feet again, and no longer felt the necessity to, you know, completely kind of kowtow to to the West. And that gets demonstrated in 2008 when China weathers the global financial crisis without without too much difficulty they have disruptions in the domestic economy but they deal with those they the socialist core of their system buffers that in terms of workers, and they're able to redirect economic resources in ways that got China through that much better than than the economies of the West. And I think that some of the analysts and leaders in Washington saw that and realized or began to have a glimmer that maybe China wasn't going to have a color revolution or take the capitalist road or just become a, you know, as I said, a cog in the capitalist machinery, it really was going to pursue its own sort of agenda. And I think that's what leads Obama and Clinton and certainly Kurt Campbell to to push for this this pivot to Asia, saying you know look we kind of got the the Islamic terrorist thing down we know we were occupying these countries where we have major forces in the area. Let's get back to the real critical issue going forward, which is China. And the focus is back on now, you know, well, if China's not going to obey us if China's not going to, you know, subordinate itself to us then what are we going to do about it we're going to have to isolate them try to slow down their development if we can't just totally derail it and and and you know keep them keep them boxed in and that's what the pivot to Asia is all about. And so when when when Kurt Campbell says he's not, you know, trying to to attack China, or, or you know have an antagonistic thing in China he's just trying to, you know, maintain the the rules based international order. That is of course an order which is based on rules that the United States makes in order to perpetuate its own leadership and its own power and the Chinese aren't playing that game anymore, especially now since Xi Jinping has been in the government. And so, you know that that antagonism has only deepened, and that makes Kurt Campbell one of the key figures, because he is, you know, he's the sort of as I say the sort of intellectual articulation of that policy making it sound, you know, sort of real politic or pragmatic or whatever but it's really about perpetuating American dominance in the global system. I appreciate you laying that foundation in that historical context. You know, in particular I think about how, you know, Campbell, you know co founded the Center for a new American secure your CNAS, and that think tank, they simulate war games between China and the United States. And, you know, this is essentially contributed to a new arms race. And, you know, there's like, you know, historical, I think, scenarios which are very worrisome and precedents which were really worrisome, like, you know, there's the history of World War one help for Germany and Russia, sorry Germany the UK, where in arms race like that and then that ended with a with a World War and then also the World War arms race the one you know from the, you know 1940s to the 90s that one was also devastating especially for the global south. So, you know with those precedents, what can this new 21st century arms race lead to Well, I think I think those are important historical examples to bear in mind, especially the 1980s arms race the Reagan era arms race because when when Ronald Reagan becomes president you know he really was a quite violent anti communist and even though, you know he was happy to shake hands with Gorbachev and have pictures taken and all that really his his overline objective was to destroy the Soviet Union to destroy socialism, and to, you know, try to open up as much of the planet as possible to American capital, American capital was already in a kind of crisis in the 1970s, you know, a competition with Japan and Germany, the saturation of American markets, you know, and, and so the idea of sort of opening up new areas for investment for capital, you know valorization. This was really critical for if the American economy was going to try to you know, get back into a more dynamic phase. So he launches this arms race with the Soviet Union. And what's amazing about it is in many ways it was kind of a, it was kind of just a facade, you know that that a lot of the systems these you know Star Wars laser weapons and all this stuff. Most of that stuff never worked, you know, they invested billions and billions of dollars in development but that wasn't really the point the point wasn't to have systems that worked. The point was to drive the Soviet Union into a competitive posture, which forced them to divert resources from the civil society from the consumers, you know, the consumer standards of living had been rising in the Soviet Union since the 1950s pretty steadily. But that gets derailed because the leadership there decided that they had to compete with the United States they couldn't get the United States get, let me know get this strategic edge. And so that undermined support for the for the government support for the party. And it led to the crisis that eventually does bring down the the East European social estates the the Soviet Union, and, and you know, gives rise to this triumphalist end of the Cold War. And that, you know, from from strictly a neutral sort of historical perspective Reagan strategy worked Reagan's approach to that work. But there's a fundamental difference between that historical moment, and the one in which we find ourselves now, which, which is simply that China is not the Soviet Union. You know, China has already reached levels of material development and levels of of economic equity, I suppose you would say raising, you know, 800 million people out of poverty. You know, not that everybody's living high off the hog but but you know, people's basic needs are taken care of and they've they've developed an amazing health care system as we saw that saved literally millions of lives during the COVID pandemic. They've got an educational system that now is world class their research and development is the best on the planet. They're leading in the fight against climate change and global warming. There's all these things that China has achieved. And it has, you know, the government and the party leadership there have massive support from ordinary people in China. In a way that that certainly by the by the height of the arms race with the Soviet Union that the Soviet leadership lost right they lost that mass support. And that's the fundamental difference that China is not going anywhere, you know, this these efforts this arms race it's it's classic strategy it's like we're going to, you know, we're going to ramp things up we're going to spend money we're going to you know engage in all this activity and of doing the existing stockpiles of old weaponry at places like Ukraine or, you know, given it to Israel or whatever we're doing with it to make sure that we have as many wars going as possible. You know, all that this is this is just party time for the for the military industrial complex that that's one strategy and that's something that you know they're the Cold War leadership that we have like like Joe Biden who is one of the last true players they think they're going to replay that same scenario but that is not it's just that's not who the players are now that's not that's not what's going to happen now, which makes it an extremely dangerous policy because China. You know, they're certainly their military capabilities have been enhanced in recent years. They're not an aggressive military but they are certainly prepared to defend themselves in ways that I think the United States is only beginning to to take So that makes it a very, very dangerous kind of moment because war could break out all these provocations in the South China Sea and around Taiwan and all this stuff all the hateful rhetoric that gets directed about China. You know it creates a situation where you know as as Chairman Mao used to say in a very different way, a single spark can start a prairie fire. It means that you know things can run off the rails. The lesson maybe from World War one is that if you're at that level of intense confrontation and intense militarization, even if it's only largely on one side, a minor event can trigger things that lead to a global conflagration. And now, of course, you know, we all know that with nuclear weapons what that means is is not just a lot of people, you know fighting on battlefields but potential destruction of much of the human race. So it's a dangerous strategy. And again, there's Kurt Campbell right at the heart of that you know the Center for New American Security his time at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All of these have been efforts on his part to articulate a rationale, a justification for these policies that doesn't take seriously the kind of existential threat that they pose. Yeah, I feel like, especially with regards to, you know, the strategy of proxy wars as a way to provoke conflict, you know, at China as our enemy we've spoken to folks from Okinawa folks from around the age of Pacific folks from Guam. And the strategy, Campbell's strategy of militarizing these places creates fears amongst people who live there that they're going to be targets, they're going to be the first casualties. And these are people like what if it's in the case of, you know, US occupied Guam, people who are colonized and have no wish to be part of, you know, cold war power rivalry. And also in cases like the Philippines or Japan or in Korea, you know, they also don't want to be in the middle of something like this something like a conflict between two powers so, you know, as if Campbell actually becomes Deputy Secretary of State, what does policies mean for those communities and places like US occupied Guam and places like the Philippines where, you know, we've just set up new military bases or set up an agreement to create more places like Papua New Guinea in Okinawa. What are those places? Well, I think that the, you know, the pivot to Asia, the whole, I suppose we could call it sort of the Campbell doctrine almost, is one of deploying more and more military assets as they like to call them military resources, whether that's weapons systems going to Taiwan or actual bases being established or expanded and to get as many places as possible, you know, with a kind of, you know, they talk about the first island chain and then there's a sort of second line of all this, because there's an understanding at some level, especially on the part of, you know, serious military people over at the Pentagon, that, you know, a war with China isn't going to be something that is going to be a walkover, you know, and so, you know, they want to have, I suppose you would say some depth. So, you know, yeah, bringing in places like Papua New Guinea, bringing in, you know, there's been so much anxiety recently on the part of the foreign policy elites about, you know, China's activities in the western Pacific, you know, developing better relationships, for example, with the Solomon Islands. You know, the United States has been ignoring those countries, those island countries in the western Pacific, who, incidentally, of course, find themselves among the most vulnerable places in the world to rising sea levels, global warming, climate change, all this, about which the United States is doing nothing. In fact, less than nothing continuing to ramp up its carbon production. But, you know, now suddenly, the United States is interested in the western Pacific again, we've got an embassy in the Solomon Islands again, which we haven't had since the 1970s. You know, and it's, you know, people out there understand that this is completely a function of wanting to use them as buffers against China, and that, you know, whether it's frontline situations like Japan or Okinawa, Korea, Taiwan, or, you know, a little bit further back, it's all part of a package, it's all part of a network of bases and assets of other kinds. And some of it is, of course, it's like intelligence assets, listening stations, listening posts, things like that, which are scattered around in Southeast Asia. It's trying to create an all-encompassing net, if you will, that they can then sort of tighten to try to constrain in China. And once again, it's a fool's errand, China is going about its business, it has its own international engagements, it's been very successful in developing its relationships with countries in other parts of Asia and Africa and Latin America. And, you know, this is, the United States is kind of desperately trying to hang on to its hegemonic position. And, you know, so a figure like Kurt Campbell, you know, becoming deputy secretary of state for Asia-Pacific, on one level it makes perfect sense because that's what both the major political parties want. That's what the Biden administration wants, that's what, you know, that's what the Republicans want. You listen to Republican senators and congressmen, they're, you know, if anything trying to push even harder on those things. So having Campbell come into that position, you know, in some ways it's the logical culmination of his whole career and this whole process of developing this. But it's a very dangerous prospect for the American people, for the Chinese people, for people in other parts of Asia and the world. And, you know, what we need is not just, I mean, we certainly would be great to block Kurt Campbell's appointment. But also, it's, we have to find ways to get the Biden administration or whoever comes in in January of 25 to take seriously the idea that they need to find ways to cooperate and collaborate in the construction of a new and better world rather than trying to hold on to the power and the privileges that they've enjoyed for so long. Yeah, that's a very, I think, prescient understanding of, you know, what exactly the Campbell legacy amounts to and where it's headed. And, you know, I also, you know, would be remiss for like not bringing up how when I attended Campbell's nomination hearing, he really also echoed a pan-global foreign policy vision that really includes a lot of the same failed policies of armed intervention. You know, he said that he wouldn't place conditions on sending arms to Israel, even though they're currently inflicting a genocidal war in Palestine. He said that, you know, he, you know, proudly talked about his academic background studying Soviet policy in Africa and said that he'd also be focusing on, you know, minerals in the African continent. And of course that has lots of implications with AFRICOM, what's happening in Somalia, what's happening in, you know, Congo and other places. So he even said that he wouldn't get back into the Iran deal. And I just have to ask, like, from your perspective, you know, is there any kind of like, why do you think Campbell is rejecting diplomacy and opting for militarism on all of these fronts when he's supposed to be, you know, essentially auditioning for a diplomatic position? Well, diplomacy, you know, diplomacy works if you have sort of shared interests and what you're trying to do is find a path forward that both parties or however many parties are involved in negotiations or in building an organization or a relationship. If they have a common agenda, they may have disagreements about how to pursue it, but you know, those are things that can be worked out. And that's what diplomacy historically has largely been about. Even if it's a situation where you have, you have, you know, states that perhaps have conflicting interests in a particular area, you know, the objective there should be to go in and figure out, OK, how can we, how can we resolve this in a way that's going to yield the maximum benefit for both sides in a realistic sort of way. That's one kind of diplomacy. That's what diplomacy perhaps really ought to be. But the United States has sort of forfeited its position as a country that other countries are going to see as having their interests at heart. The United States, especially as our domestic economy has eroded and declined. And as our global capital efforts have kind of faced some challenges, faced some stalling out here and there. As other centers of wealth production have emerged and have grown so that the US no longer is in its dominant position. What we have still, we have two things. We have two major weapons to deploy. One is financial control. All these sanctions, this sanction regime that we run, you know, trying to hurt people in countries around the world so that they will be under their governments and force them either to be overthrown or to change. That system hasn't worked, but we remain dedicated to to sanctioning everybody we can possibly think of. But the real muscle, of course, is is military and the United States remains a tremendously powerful military society. We have our military industrial complex, of course, gets, you know, billions and billions and dollars in money from the American taxpayers to to, you know, build all these weapons and they got to go somewhere. If those companies are going to be profitable, somebody has to buy them and ideally use them, you know, so that they'll be in demand for more. So on the one hand we have we have that driving policy, the idea that that we got we got to keep cranking this military stuff out there. But also the only thing the United States has to persuade other countries to do what we want them to do is military force or the threat of military force. And so, you know, we see that playing out in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. We see that playing out in Syria and the Middle East we see it playing out in Africa we see it playing out in other parts of the world and of course right now. You know, the most horrifying stuff going on with with Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people and and the Biden administration and the Republicans in Congress seem absolutely dedicated to pouring as many billions as they can possibly come up with into the Israeli war machine. And that's just, you know, it's it's obviously it's it's so wrong, but it's consistent with the idea that that's all we've got that's the only real card that we have to play. And so, you know, this organist this focus on security and security is just a code word for the military for militarization. That's been the focus of Campbell's that's been the backdrop the underpinning of Campbell's approach all along the pivot to Asia wasn't about let's redeploy economic development resources let's redeploy humanitarian assistance. It was about military assets and building this this ring of containment around China. That's, that's what they've got and that's what they, they have demonstrated they're willing to to use that they're willing to sacrifice, especially other countries, people, but also, you know, if necessary, you know, we'll send we'll send 10s of 1000s of American troops over. As we did in Afghanistan and Iraq, even if in the end the outcome is is completely counter to what we said we were going to try to do what happened to state building what happened to humanitarian assistance it's it just that those programs were totally sidelined in the in the foregrounding of the deployment of brutal force. Yeah, I really appreciate that perspective. Professor and you know, for me it just really is a good reminder of why it's so important that we mobilize to block Kurt Campbell's nomination for Deputy Secretary of State at a time when there's escalations happening around the world US militarism is targeting so many people targeting a country of 1.4 billion people like China. Another nuclear armed country is very, very dangerous and I think, you know, it's of the utmost importance that we actually work as you were saying before towards reconsidering our policy towards China and actually embracing diplomacy cooperation. Human centered security and, you know, I have to say that your perspective is a light in these very harrowing times. So, thanks so much for for sharing everything you shared with us today. Well, it's been a pleasure being here and nice nice talking with you.


We recently covered the astonishing rock-cut structures known as Madin Sala. Located within modern-day Saudi Arabia, they are largely attested by most modern-day academia as being rock-cut tombs made by a civilization 2,000 years ago. However, the precision involved in the cutting of such a remarkable collection of buildings will not have escaped the astute-minded among us. But how did these civilizations, two or even 3,000 years ago, manage to create such awe-inspiring structures, with the tools available at that time within known history? Just as the pyramids in Giza are attributed to the Egyptians, it is highly possible these claims of ownership were but mere inhabitations of sites far older. Many people who have investigated these rock-cut tombs have come away with a conclusion that some of the architecture is so precisely cut to recreate such straight angles would require the use of laser technology, a presumption also shared by us. It is therefore delightful when one stumbles upon something such as Al-Nazla. Located within Tamiya Oasis, also within Saudi Arabia, was this utterly perplexing stone left as a lasting signature of the tool used to create Madin Saya? Found by Charles Hoover in 1883, was this amazing megalith cut in twine with a laser? Or indeed some form of highly advanced, highly ancient precision equipment of some form? If not, what could have created such a miraculous split so finely made and so straight within such an enormous rock? A perfect line straight through the center left perfectly balanced upon two separate bases for untold millennia. Interestingly, in 2010, the SCTH or Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage announced the discovery of a rock near Tama, with a hieroglyphic inscription of Pharaoh Ramses III upon it. Researchers have therefore hypothesized that Tama was a part of an important land route between the Red Sea coast of the Arabian Peninsula and the Nile Valley. Was Al-Nazla, along with Madin Saya, constructed by the same individuals as the Great Pyramids of Giza? Furthermore, archaeologists have discovered cuneiform inscriptions, possibly dating from the 6th century BC, pertaining to a legendary ancient civilization known as Oasis City. Mentioned within the Old Testament, it was said to have been a highly developed civilization with complex buildings and an advanced knowledge of waterworks. The oldest mention of Oasis City appears as Tiamat in Assyrian inscriptions, dating as far back as the 8th century BC. Were these mysterious people the culprits? With such precisely made rock-cut structures found within the same landscape, structures that many have reluctantly concluded display evidence of advanced stone cutting technology, we find the existence of Al-Nazla highly compelling. We recently covered the astonishing and largely unexplained ancient temple, known as Kailash, which quietly sits within India. A temple cut out from a solid rock with such precision, such vision and accuracy, it is a feat we would struggle to recreate even to this day, clearly demonstrating an ancient high technology that has undoubtedly been lost over the millennia. Could this temple actually be evidence left by a far older group of people? A remnant left by a far more advanced civilization than that which academia will allow us to publicly discuss within many modern fields of study. Within the Bharabha and Nagarjuni Hills of the Jihannabad district of India sits another series of rock-cut features, six crudely cut caves carved into large stones which litter the surrounding hillsites. They could be seen as crude and possibly more modern attempts to recreate what can be found on the top of the hill. Known as the Lomas Rishi Cave, cut into an enormous rock, it is the only one out of the many within the area, which demonstrates a level of refinement which literally boggles the mind. The only cave in the area that has a delicately cut entrance, but also an interior which has seemingly been protected from the elements, perfectly preserved in its original state, demonstrating a state of rock-cutting which has left the rock polished to a mirror-smooth finish. Evidence reinforcing the postulation that this cave and additionally Kailash temple are remnants left by a far older and once far more advanced culture than officially accepted. The hut-style facade at the entrance to the cave is officially accepted as the earliest example of the ogie-shaped Chaitra Arch or Chandrashala that was to be an important feature of Indian rock-cut architecture and sculptural decoration for centuries during its post-catechlysmic development. The example here is largely accepted as the specific influence for later examples of which there are many at later Buddhist sites such as Zajanta Caves and Kala Caves in Maharashtra. How or indeed who cut the Lomas Rishi Cave? How did they achieve such an amazing finish to the stonework? Were these same people responsible for the construction of the Kailash temple, also another structure exquisitely cut out of a giant solid stone? Although modern academically accepted views state that they were created during the reign of the Mayan emperor Ashokhi, a Buddhist ruler from the 3rd century BC who ruled over almost the entire country of India, caves known as Sat-Gaava were carved into the hills for the use of the monks, Lomas Rishi Cave being said to have been one of them. Yet due to its exquisite quality, it's hard to see just how they can claim this. India is a place littered with incredible ancient yet unexplained ruins. Intricate ancient carvings can be found dotting the cliff faces, seemingly laser cut caves hewn from enormous rocks, and perhaps the most impressive of its collection, the rock temples hewn straight from bedrock which can be found all over the country. We recently focused our attention on one of these sites in particular, perhaps the most impressive of these ancient temples. Known as Kailash, it is a structure drenched in sculpted animals and religious idols. Many others also exist, somehow carved straight out of stone hillsides. The accuracy in which these structures were carved, the refined finish achieved, has allowed these structures to evade explanation to this day. There is, in fact, another site within India, another temple that, just like Kailash, was somehow hewn from a solid hillside. However, what is particularly interesting regarding this temple is that it was mysteriously abandoned leaving the apparent different stages of its construction for all to see. Known as Vettavan Coil, it is located within Kallagumalai, a panchayat town in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, intriguingly, upon the structure and the carved walls, which it is now framed by, is the same telltale chisel marks found at so many other sites around the world, an anomaly we have already covered in depth. However, what is particularly interesting regarding Vettavan Coil is the fact that these crude marks are also accompanied by the seemingly impossible perfect finished sculptures, which mystify all who peer at them to this day. It is a visual chronological timeline cast in stone, possibly left by an as-yet-unknown people using unexplained yet amazing artistic skills. The temple seemingly displays the methods used to carve it. The artist responsible crudely chiseled the design, presumably somehow from the mind's eye, then somehow professionally worked into the refined, astonishing art, which adorned so many of these ancient Indian structures. Who Built Vettavan Coil? How did they achieve such perfection, with such hard stones, at such an early time in history? Is it like academia would have, you believe, a mere 1400 years old? Or is it a far more ancient structure, built using as-yet-unknown stone-working techniques used by an unknown group of artists? As research mounts surrounding such sites, the answers will inevitably be discovered. The Giza Plateau undoubtedly holds some of the most profound secrets ever left by the ancient world. Once lost beneath the sands of time, some of the most astonishing structures ever to have been rediscovered by our modern civilization. One of these astonishing, yet little-shared sites is a Sarian temple. Not only is the name uncannily similar to the constellation Orion, but the similarities with this supposed tomb to the many other structures which have subsequently been unearthed over the years is undeniable. Constructed with the same 100-plus-tonne pink granite blocks as many other temples found upon the plateau, its stone was too sourced from the once mysteriously abandoned Aswan quarry, a distance of 300 kilometers away, an astounding distance to transport such blocks that, according to academia, were moved with no advanced technologies. Hidden upon one of the structure's enormous megaliths is what can only be described as a machine-accurate image of a flower of life. These two engravings, created with such precision, were somehow left upon the stone. We recently covered the claims made by John Anthony West regarding the water controversy of the Great Sphinx, relating to its theory of it once being a lion, aligned with Leo some 10,000 years ago. We uncovered overwhelming evidence which West must have been aware of to prove his theory not only untrue, but seemingly conspiratorial. What's peculiar regarding the actual connections with the flower, if of course authentic, is that other researchers such as Thrivemaker Foster Gamble related it to the Taurus design, which he now believes is a signal from advanced beings on how to tap free unlimited energy, a claim eerily reminiscent of our own recent research into a possible arc, regardless of others' hostile reception. We find his claims highly compelling.


What's going on y'all? Chris from Jazzy's Case Breaks.com doing our first of three R&Bs for 2021 flawless break PYT number three our two box case break. So this first group will be KC, Buffalo, and Green Bay We're gonna give away our tenth spot for our numbers. So here are our nine so far One two three four five six seven eight and nine. We'll give away our last spot That's what this first. Make sure you read the description Who's winning that? Who's getting the giveaway? Oh, yes, it'll be the number one spot number one spot on top. We'll get the We'll give away a spot a free spot somebody, right? Yeah, that's what we're doing for that everybody Everybody who bought a full spot my apologies. Thank you, Joe. So everybody bought us a full We'll do it for practice then Just so I get the reps because it's Matthew Matthew Matthew bought a full spot So I'll just do it for practice. Thank you Matthew. Congrats. So we will do that real quick want to make sure Give away a spot and this is someone by a full spot the rest of a randomizer. So let's do this real quick two dice Three and eight three and five is eight times so eight times for Matthew. Good luck Matthew one two three four five six Seven and our last one eight. Good luck. It is Matthew Matthew at the top no last spot mojo for Matthew So Matthew will be put in Right here Thank you, Joe So we're grabbing all ten right here now And put this I'll do it an arrow to make sure this is the This is the the spot one at the end our one to zero. We will randomize Both with one dice roll good luck any We're right here any spot So if you got any live one-to-ones that will go to spot one any redemption any knowledge go to number zero Something like two forty three goes to spot three and so on and so forth for every number, but good luck Our fresh dice are two lists What one five and one is six six times for both good luck one two three four Five and the last one six Five and one is six. We are our players Six times and then for our numbers once again six times six times one two three four Five and last one six There we go. So we will do a quick one real quick quick read off Matthew with two and eight Carl with seven Steven with nine Matthew with five Sean W with four Sean M with three Matthew with that last spot mojo gets zero Michael R gets Six and Steve Herrick gets one So what time here we go and do the quick Eight is he and there we go. That's RMB number one like I said for this Kansas City Buffalo and Green Bay spots so congrats to Matthew who won that spot And here our teams again Matthew with zero that last spot mojo Steve with one Matthew with two Sean With three Sean four Matthew five Michael six Carl was seven Matthew with eight and Steven with nine All right, we'll be right back with R&B number two Which will be the Dallas and Houston and Denver, right just just use case breaks calm


Welcome to your new sports cards and we are live on the national and we are ripping 321 ppc balls football hobby 2 blocks smoothies 3-1 with 64 figure T. You can go to the teams and then we'll get started here. We've got Brandon K. Texans, Shet, Stan Bucks, Brian S. Chargers, Dan M. Excuse me, the Lions and Eagles, David M. Bikings, Don Cheap, the Ravens, Broncos, Seahawks and Landers, Dale D. Hackers, James D. Bangle, Joe B. Bills, John L. Ranny T. with the Raiders and Titans, Max B. Hulkins, Mike T. Niners, Mitchell S. Cowboys, Patrick T. Dolphins, Pechette B. Bears, Ronald R. Chief, Sean T. Washington, Simon L. Cardinals, Taylor Pultz, Ben P. with the Patriots and T. W. Brown, and Travis Mead. All right, best of luck everybody. Thanks so much for joining. Here we go. All right, Law Rich. You need Team Simpex. I'm sorry, why me? Team Simpex. We're not trying to end the supply. Oh, you're not selling? No. It's got to be. Here we go. Lawlestone, baby. You want to stand as we go? Yeah, that works too. What do you mean after that? Team Simpex. Some briefcase? Do you want one of the briefcases? I don't have any of those. All right. You can put them out there. Yeah. There's not much space. I'll put them on the briefcase. Okay, we're good there. All right, we've got rookie patch 2020. We want a Mitchell for the Niners.  We've got triple, two of two. Wait, man, increase triple patch there.  Two color, one color, and two color. Of the sheriff, player worn on that. Wow.  One of one, Nike Swoosh Auto, to Sean Watson. Nike Swatch, one of one, player worn on the Watson. Is that from? That is from 2020. Yes. Wow. Great start. One of one symbolic. One of one, player worn on the Watson. We'll mag that one for you. And we've got to 25, dual patch rookie auto, two, two out well ramps. Nine out of 20 Patriots, rookie auto, Ramon J. Stevenson out of 20 on the Ruby and rookie auto, Rashad Bateman. And 13 of 25, rookie auto, four duck bears, Justin Fields. Boom. Pichette P with the bears. 13 out of 25. That's crazy, it's not a case. That's what I'm saying. Wow. We won't mag that one. What's going to get in case then? We're going to start over here. We've got Ruby to 20, George Kittle for the Niners. And then we'll go over here. Diamond guarantee is going to go with that. Because these next two don't have a gem on them. 10 of 10. Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes patch. There you go, KC. Ronald B. Player worn on that one, two polar. Nice look at 10 of 10.  Traylands. Boom. I'm going to lose my voice. This is just the first box, too. Mike T on that one. Oh my. Woo. That's insane. That is very insane. My goodness. One second. Wow. How was this one? When I boomed it went to red, so I didn't know if it was on the low quality still enough. Yeah, of course. Alright. There's that special on the pretty loud. I don't know how, I still don't understand this. Bad box. It's a good bandsmasse a little bit. We'll patch you in a 25. Barry Sanders and Deandre Swift. That's a cool one. Yeah. Old school, new school, there you go, Detroit. I can't hear you. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was Barry and Emmett. We've got four of 15 rookie patch. He has two for the Broncos. Five Chiefs at Jamal Charles. We've got a patch on him. She's also got that in the homes. There you go. 16 of 20 patch auto. Oh, Dallas. Bob Milley on the disenguage. A little string there, Nina. The pen shipped at 20 for the Seahawks. Sean Alexander. The first inscription on that. 18 out of 20.  I love the flawless flyers. We've got raiders. 20 Marcus Allen. This has been a great case of fun. Such good cards. We've got dual laundry tags that have the Nike Swoosh and the NFL Shield logo. Four out of five. Rocky for the Broncos. Javante Williams. Bongees. Wow. That is nasty. But that is nasty. A very good thread. Yes, we'll bag that of course for you. Javante has been in sync. We're not done yet though. Guarantee here. It's time for 45. The Sheriff is back in town. It's time with his OG team. Simon L. Nice panning on the diamond. Dual patch. Yeah. Chicago Pachepe again. Some feminists. Come on.


Yeah, thank you buddy. Okay, thank you for the very interesting, you don't get any bit of fiction. Because it is all true. I didn't win the Pulitzer. There were no gaps in this, you see. Otherwise it would have been... So yes, Martin has given you a brief background of where I come from and I suppose that I'm in the company of experts. I am not the technical expert on law or environment. I am under the names kind of person. As Martin said, I was an investigative journalist, a business journalist. I'm now a political economy lecturer here at SOAS and I think I've carried on a few of those traits from my past life as a journalist into the kind of work that I do. And I have to say that this is actually a part of a book chapter that... Here it is. Rahul and Anurag are two researchers who work for Brookings India. So this is a very interesting anthology really brought up by Brookings on, as you can see, the bumpy road ahead. Most of the contributors in this book chapter are its bureaucrats. There is the ex-chairman of Coal India, some of you are aware of what Coal India is. It is the behemoth in the mining industry in India. It's a public sector company. Some senior personnel from some of our plants really taking a look at the sort of more technical issues in terms of the technology for mining coal, what it means for the power sector. They kind of invited me to come and give a sort of non-technical perspective as wearing my ex-journalist hat. And of course they were cutting corners in a manner because there was no funding for primary research. All of this was desk-based research and based on some of the travels that I've done in India and they've been dated. The last time I visited a coal mine or an iron ore mine was about 15 years ago, but nothing much has changed in a lot of... In a manner of speaking, a lot of interesting legislation has happened whereas we talk about in the chapter in India and indeed as in most developing countries we have a huge implementation deficit. The formal policy says something, the enforcement is something completely different. And so that is something that we talked about here. And the idea is now we know that mining is extremely disruptive. It's extremely disruptive from livelihoods to communities who reside there to the environment around the bit head. But given the fact that for whatever policy induced reason India's energy mix, and I'm sure all of you are aware of what the energy mix is, right? Everyone obviously knows what the energy mix is, great. You know the energy mix in India is about to change around here. India's had some very sort of, I wouldn't call it a hard one strength but has some interesting commitments made from Paris. And the mix of RE to coal, the ratio has been slowly going up. And of course RE has gone up from a really, really tiny base and the growth is going to be much faster. But there are going to be some substitution effects. And what we tend to forget is while the lives and livelihoods of those affected by mining is something that's been talked about. You'll find lots of articles, very excellent, very relevant articles by academics on mining affected communities. There is something to be said for what is going to happen to people whose livelihoods depend on mining. This is not about people whose lives are being disrupted by mining. That's a big part of the story. There is equally a story of the lives of people who depend on mining and there are a lot. I'll give you a sense of the figures here. Direct employment in the mining sector, 3 million. Indirect employment, 8 million. Induced employment, I really cannot give you a clue because you have no idea where the chain of induced employment begins and ends. Directly, of course, people who work within the mines. Indirect transportation, logistics, all kinds of services related to that. Induced isn't... Well, it just takes me back to some of the work that I did around some of the biggest political mobilizations and community mobilizations against land acquisition that took place in India. And I can see from a quick look around the room, most of you were sort of just in class with standard 6, standard 7 when all these were taking place, but land acquisition was in the state of Odisha against a big Korean steel plant. It was, you know... Yeah, well, we've got background music. That's even better to TSF. We had soas. Indeed we had soas. This is why I never left Martin. Just grew roots here. Exactly. Yes, so coming back to that, I visited a lot of mines in my time, coal mines as well as iron ore mines. And the one thing that tends not to get picked up is the fact that there are a lot of livelihoods that actually depend on mining around there. From the tea seller to the guy who's selling cheap household goods around there, a retail chain, that's, you know, supply chain, that's just built up around the mining community there. It is a genuine community of another kind. It's not the indigenous community, but it is a community that depends on mining. And that is something that we wanted to look at in terms of what costs we are talking about and what compensation should be talked about. I can see someone shaking his head, but I'm hoping to drown that out, but it's not bad at all. I think it's sort of South Asian from what I can make out. The windows are properly closed, because that would probably make difference. It is actually quite properly closed. She's got a really strong throat. Are you sure that this is... Yeah. That's okay. It's through the wall, but that's absolutely fine. And the other point that I wanted to bring up, we're used to it. The other point that I wanted to bring up, when I say decolonize, I'm not really talking about the old binary of the west versus the west, or the global north versus the global south. A lot of the space in that decolonize, I think in that decolonize conversation should actually take place between the state now and those who are affected. So what is the decolonize about that I am talking about here? And I have to say much as I think it's an important player in my mining ecosystem. And in the economics of India, indeed, coal India is in part, a big part of that decolonize effort. But more than coal India right now, and I'm pretty sure all of you know what coal India is about, more than coal India, it's actually the entire network of private sector operators who have now taken up mining. And I'm somebody who's a big believer in private sector participation. I used to be a business journalist. I don't come here as a Luddite but I come from Kalkata as Martin said and that has a huge Marxist history but that is in sectors which are monopoly sectors like mining in sectors which require large or big government contracts, the private sector has certainly taken roots and not always for the better. So, by the way, how many of you have watched this film back in the day called Kala Pathar? Anybody has heard of this film? Anyone? Oh, you know what? Have you heard of this director called Yash Chopra and you're wondering why I'm bringing in Hindi films because this is South Asia society. Anybody's heard of the director Yash Chopra? He's famous for putting his heroines in chiffon saris but this was a film on coal mining before privatization. Incredible film, one of Amitabh Bachchan's best performances, nobody's talked about it if you find it on Netflix, watch it. Kala Pathar was the sector before privatization and then for all of the faults this is Gandhi brought with her. She nationalized the industry and for whatever it is what, coal India was born out of that effort of nationalization and we actually have an energy sector that's completely self-sufficient now. So coal India, remember, for whatever fault we did at its doorstep it's much better than the mix of really extracted private operators that there were in the coal mining sector at that time and of course if you want a modern rendition of coal mining in India that's possible. Again, must see, it's a modern classic. It is an absolute modern classic. Both these films have to do with coal mining so I also have a background in mass communication and filmmaking so films are also part of the language that I talk in and these are two of the best films that you will actually get to see on the social contract of mining. Do watch it, highly highly recommend it. So future of coal in India that's renewable energy commitments coal will continue to be a key part of the energy mix there's no running away from that despite all the optimism about renewable energy despite all the policy commitments there is no running away from the fact that coal is going to stay important. I'm not going to say increasingly important but it's certainly not going to go out of the sort of policy space as most people have been hoping it will. What does that mean? Which means that anybody who thought that this move to RE will actually mean less mitigating focus of the consequences of coal is going to be very very disappointed. We actually need more policies of mitigating the effects of coal but the point that I make here is coal growth will happen as a result of PLS or plant load factors it's a technical term that you use in electricity generation it means how efficiently a generation plant is actually producing electricity they are actually at a fairly low point of growth which means coal demand is going to grow but at a much slower rate that actually means that in a lot of sectors because renewable energy is giving power produced from coal a run for its money and this is important coal is actually becoming far more mechanized or coal mining coal mining is becoming far more mechanized coal India alone employs about 500,000 people that says a lot for what that might mean in terms of the effects of coal mining becoming more and more capital intensive rather than labour intensive you could almost think of it for those of you who are aware of South Asia you could also think of coal India as a sort of lesser twin of the Indian railways it is the largest employer in the world the Indian railways coal India doesn't come very far behind and there is a huge political heft for the Indian state to be able to say well here is a champion the country was listed on the Indian forces about 7 or 8 years ago here is a champion which is the darling of the stock markets but it is also actually providing a lot of employment to a lot of people across the country but that is going to be under some kind of pressure right here is so in this lecture what I am trying to present to you as I said is not something very technical not something very theoretical but a series of contradictions to the energy mix so the share of coal in terms of capacity 60% that is in stock capacity but actually when we generate electricity in India the share of coal is 80% that is a whopping amount despite what people have been telling you about R e and the growth of R e in India so that about that for a while however and this government is extremely worried about in certain cases in these sort of good governance issues how the rest of the world looks at it and it is that there is a sort of hard constraint and the Indian government actually runs of course subsidies for setting up R e projects but it also has a policy of must run which basically means that state governments or basically state governments and distribution companies must pick up R e generated electricity from renewable energy sources so that is a policy of must run so it is pretty much mandated by the central government so whether you like it or not you can pick up electricity generated through R e sources now this is something that I had actually spoken about earlier coal India employs half a million people the mining sector three million eight million indirectly and a bit about induced employment but what is very very interesting about this employment that is being generated again something that doesn't get picked up when we are talking about costs and compensations and livelihoods is that these are in some of the most states of India I am talking Jharkhand, I am talking Udisha I am talking Chhattisgarh, I am talking Mathya Pradesh even West Bengal doesn't really do very well in terms of economic growth so these figures are in some of the most impoverished states in the country these figures add up to the number of non-farm employment in India which is extremely important you are trying to look at an economy which needs to move away from farming employment simply because it is such an example of what I mean by low productivity agriculture contributes just 15% to India's GDP in terms of employment it still contributes to about 50 to 55% just the very ratio of it will tell you how unproductive agriculture is and this is actually very good or bad I don't have a normative position here like I said I am putting up facts on the table there are some interpretations to be made here however you want whatever standpoint you can parse at it this is non-farm employment in some of the most precarious states in the country let me give you some figures which I haven't put here the average monthly salary of a minor who cuts or loads in Jharkhand is about between 40 to 45,000 rupees you can change it into pounds it's divided by 91 the per capita income of Jharkhand is about 56,000 rupees now this is a state where about only 10.2% of the workforces employed in the formal sector so this minor who has a job is actually lucky in the Indian context and certainly in the eastern Indian context that's manna from heaven so once we talk about and I am only saying this because we hear a lot about the disruption that mining causes and a lot of the mining community especially the miners come from indigenous communities around the mines but it is also a kind of not a kind, it is the only solid employment opportunity around for mines over there forget the individual minor in terms of what it does to the state coal accounts for 65 to 90% of the royalty of these Indian states and these states are not known for their manufacturing or for their agricultural success mining is important to these states I did touch upon the political economy of coal India which is this huge Indian government run behemoth it has at one point of time of course when you gave coal contracts it was extremely important and we know that it's not the last government anymore this was the UPA government when was the last election 2014 when the UPA government was voted out of power it cost the UPA government coal allotment scams as they called it for some reason they called it the coal gate scandal and it didn't stand but anyway it cost that government's job but a lot of that was funneled and challenged through coal India limited coal India has a very important role to play in the macro and micro political economy of sort of the Indian Indian political settlement and of course at the local level and this is something that I've seen in Jharkhand and Odisha very very clearly in my sort of work as a journalist is this is a very very important in local electoral politics how you are going to upend that balance is something that I don't think our policymakers have grappled with if you're going to start charting down mines it is an intense source of election financing across these these Indian states and that's what makes it so difficult to shut down so it's not just about the livelihoods there's also a hard political constraint that we are talking about and I'm an economist at the very basic level something called in economics we call structural transformation exactly as I said agriculture in India is very low productivity you need to move an economy from a low productivity space to a high productivity space very simply and that's called structural transformation you change the structure of the economy no economy in the world has managed to process a structural transformation unfortunately without having recourse to coal this is just a small statistic this is not industrial this is commercial news right at the same level of work capital income China's commercial space the air conditioning and these are proper figures in the chapter when it comes out I have references to all of this was 26% in India at the same level of work capital development it's just 7% and it is likely to grow now whether that comes from new coal or existing plants is a different matter that will have an effect on more mining employment but this is about the fact that coal is here to stay because fancy reports and optimistic reports that say that India's energy mix is changing drastically there is just absolutely there has been no example and I'm giving you a small example what do you mean by a slip space being yet permission and how does that count as an indicator for the kind of what you are really talking about economy growth because in China's case it's like much the national capital coming in a number where you might say the commercial space is 26% condition but in India's case the multinational capital might come up especially in the coal and other sectors I'm just trying to understand no but this is nothing to do with this is about organic growth of demand for electricity you build malls, you build residential houses you build office spaces, you need to air condition them there has to be a demand which will only come from generating electricity through coal and fossil fuels at the level of per capita income that India is now back in the day when China had the same per capita income of $2000 China had 26% of 26% of Chinese commercial space was air conditioned in India it's just 7% so this is an indicator of how there is room for so much demand of fossil fuel that's what I'm saying it's not got to do with multinational investment but this is about the room to grow this is the demand of fossil fuel I'm putting up a figure for commercial space because we didn't find anything for manufacturing nobody's done that kind of computing but if you want to look at China again their growth has been driven by coal this country where the industrial revolution began this is where it is it began with coal that's, is that clear now? correct do stop me if you have a point if there's something confusing etc so why are some of India's commitments here slightly untenable and there is mind your difference between renewable energy and electricity energy and electricity are not the same thing and that's extremely important to understand if you're doing anything energy related electricity is literally electricity generation so what your power plants are producing energy is your heating in the house what fires a cement plant what your cars are using and this has renewable electricity and renewable energy it's not the same that's a very important thing to keep in mind but all said and done Germany is probably 25 times the level of India's per capita income it only reached 30% of renewable energy consumption in 2015 India is wanting to do that at a level of a lower middle income country by 2030 40% of electricity that's really something that looks very good when you put it on paper but how you achieve it I honestly don't know what the policy levers are the political economy is so complex and really I am pretty much at a loss for words but there is another very interesting thing if we are talking about a shift to India and some of it will happen employment is going to drop off the fact is most of the employment that comes from coal mining is instituted there's no migratory labour companies who live around there they are employed around there in the states where coal is found all the renewable energy jobs are in states that are investing in renewable energy which are on the other side which is Tamil Nadu which is south Gujarat which is the west there is very very little scope for labour to migrate from these states which are the eastern frontier of India and bear in mind another thing for whatever the problems of the sector this sector is for employment it's a very low scale sector right where is RE employment requires a fairly high level of skills and even in terms of employment generation the RE sector does exactly generate a lot of employment simply because of the capital intensity nature capital intensity of this so mapping this on in terms of some of this can be absorbed by RE is also not going to happen and I am really looking at the 2030 year trajectory because that's what policy makers need to look at what we are talking about not something that changes in the next five years but for which you need a 20 to 30 year policy horizon and in that policy horizon these kinds of changes are going to happen so in the book the one thing that we say is that if you need a collective social contract and it's an interesting social contract I don't mean it in the larger roles sense John Rawls but as an organising principle of consent and compensation both are extremely important in the mining sector consent as well as compensation you have two contradictory challenges one as I have said and this is without a doubt extremely critical you cannot deny the nature of this challenge that we have which is faced by mostly indigenous communities and as it happens across the world most of our well most of the worlds I don't say are most of the world's valuable fossil fuels are located in areas which are populated by indigenous communities so challenges faced by communities mostly indigenous and coal mining water and air pollution and land issues displacement is the most important issue I'll spend a little time on displacement when we talk cost and compensation and the upcoming challenge of employment lost due to shift in our years I said this is the 2 to 3 decade horizon that we are talking about and why because one is of course communities around the pit have become much more sensitized some of you might be aware of the anti Vedanta agitations in India. How many of you have heard of Niyam Giri Hills, the agitation around Niyam Giri Hills anybody? Okay, I've actually was that a hand up? Okay, I mean the things that Vedanta has done especially to the indigenous community and you know they've been exploiting a lot of that so I've just heard about like in general Okay, I've actually visited those areas and so aloo, bauxite mining is a completely different animal from coal mining. There's absolutely no two ways about it. It's far more polluting it's far more poisonous but they won a supreme court order at one level against Vedanta which is a sort of darling mining company listed at the LSE Anil Agarwal who's the promoter I can't even say Chathamaz because you're recording all of this Anil Agarwal who's a promoter of Vedanta is quite both stock market darling and but this was one area where he actually lost out and it was a sort of you're loyal and I don't even know whether I'll be pulled up for libel here but the supreme court had actually a sort of broader view of development back in the day. The past was really another planet when I'm talking about 10-15 years ago and the Niyam Giri movement gave a shot in the arm to protest movements by indigenous communities affected by mining in India so current policies and also let's face it for whatever it is well in terms of electoral politics it matters quite a lot how the indigenous community votes so there has to be some kind of balancing policy for this population not least because it's just fair, it's just the right thing to do but on the other hand as I've said given a policy skew towards RE policies for compensating communities whose livelihoods depends on coal is going to be extremely important. How policy makers square up these two contradictions is going to be extremely important so one aspect that I just quickly wanted to look at is this element of inter-temporality and what do I mean by this element of inter-temporality it essentially is the fact that if I'm a coal miner today I give away my land, I get a fairly good compensation from coal India to be told and to be fair, I get a fairly good amount of compensation, I get lifetime employment as a government sector worker which in a country like India most of you might be knowing it's the best kind of security that you can hope for from a certain segment of society you get a good profit and fund but you also know that when you walk down that coal shaft you are exposing yourself to silicosis which is one of the biggest issues that afflicts miners in the country today and thankfully accidents in coal mines become less and less than India since coal India took over there's absolutely no doubt about it but it is not a career choice without its consequences, right? So when I'm a miner today and I generally have a sort of time horizon of 25 to 30 years as a miner if silicosis doesn't get me before that I agree to these negative consequences and then 10 years later if I'm told that I am surplus to need there has to be a compensatory element in the fact that I'm actually giving up all of this in the hope that I get a lifetime of secure employment in the hope that I get a profit and fund at the end but my employment is actually being truncated with me not being able to look for a job anywhere else because there's nothing else I can do. So this inter-tell corralogy of not knowing how many miners are going to be affected, remember 500,000 just in coal India and there are also a lot of private contractors in mining and I'm going to come to that so that's one element of the compensation. The other is land acquisition. Now till about 5 years ago coal India used to compensate those whose lands they were acquiring by providing them jobs because it was easy. You don't really in the kind of mining technology that India uses which is still fairly old and labour intensive for very very political reasons because it provided employment. You actually provided jobs to people who were losing their land that has started coming down now. Coal India is very very slowly but surely moving away from compensating people with jobs within the company. So where does that leave people who are now losing land and that's something to be said. The other bit is and this should come as no surprise for you these are actually figures from IIT Roorkee which is the Indian Institute of Technology and presented to the Indian Parliament the Lok Sabha. This is quite stunning that in the past 50 years displacement due to development projects has been at 50 million of which 2.55 million have been due to mining. Most of it mining is not mining related it's actually dam dam related. Dam as in not dam them but the dams for hydroelectricity and irrigation but that's a fairly warping number and this was presented to the Indian Parliament and here is a very important fact that I just want to spend a little time on which is how do you compute costs for land acquisition. How do you compute costs for displacement. Now in standard economic theory you have a lot of ways of doing it. You have net present value, you can do pay, you can do shadow pricing but what it actually does is it reduces things which have no market value or rather let me get I want to say it reduces it's sort of diminishes diminishes concepts which actually have not been produced for the market which are much more a product of who you are, your identity a livelihood and gives it market value. It's something that a very famous economist called Carl Polanyi. Anybody heard of Polanyi? Said it's creating a fictional commodity. It has nothing to do with the market but you're actually making it suitable for the capitalist economy and you're commoditizing it. How do I mean this? Let me see if this is it. Absolutely. Sacredness In a lot of studies around mining affected communities especially in terms of displacement the idea of sacredness comes up and really it's a belief system that for a lot of us sitting around here quite alien. That tree is sacred. For a general capitalist society that tree is a tree. That tree has wood, that tree has leaves that tree has fruits you can impute a cost to that. What is my cost for sacredness? And that sacredness is linked to my identity. How not to even begin computing costs there? So this is the other element of cost and compensation that we wanted to talk about. How do we begin compensating or costing these elements? This is what I meant by creating a market for fictional people. I can't create a cost or therefore a value and therefore a strength of value to this idea of sacredness. And this has happened with project after project not just in coal across in iron ore. It's not something that gets talked about. I would actually say and I know Rupa you work in iron ore and I used to work by the way do you know that it's a segue but there is this town in the southern state of India called Bellery. Anybody has heard of Bellery? Why? I used to be in Bangalore So you know the Bellery brothers? Okay so these guys owned iron ore mines at one point of time the demand for iron ore from India to China was so high they actually funded the elections and rise in the south of India in a particular political party which is currently power. This mining family they were called the Bellery brothers because the mine was based in this town of Bellery it was an incredible transformation which touched no lives. In that sense mining, coal mining if it's a battle between two bands I've chosen my side but you know Bellery well enough. Have you been to Bellery? No, why would you? Why would anybody even think of going to Bellery if you weren't involved with the sector? But it's just a segue as to the kind of sort of insidious linkages mining has in developing countries like India and India not even a particularly resource rich country I do a lot of work in Africa and you can't even imagine what the linkages are. This is a tiny bit of the economy still having these kind of outsize what we call in economics externalities, right? So how do you assign an economic valuation to firewood of a certain kind soil, fertility of the soil and the other bit that a lot of mining projects used to compute costs is something called net present value. Net present value is a very standard stock and trade financial measure which it is really what is my money worth the money that I have today, what is it going to be worth tomorrow? That's really net present value and a lot of valuations of project and that works if I am setting up an automobile plant it doesn't work if I am going to be computing costs like sacredness. It just simply does not work. Marginal costs don't work net present value doesn't work because again what you are doing is you are just basically valuing a lot of things on the basis of a capitalist market system which is land and that's it. It's the value of land and nothing more but the associated value the imputed cost is not something that actually gets sort of locked into calculations and one sort of reason for writing this chapter was is there a way to look at costs in another manner when you are computing costs and when you are computing compensation and when you are talking about the social contract what is the way to look at costs when somebody loses a part of his or her identity and you know we know that these kind of projects are important for development and nobody is going to doubt that we kind of played around with this sort of thought experiment in the book for a lot of the same people who will say but this is important, this is necessary for development and if you say yeah absolutely but your house is in the middle of the freeway that is going to be built can we please demolish your house we know what the answer is going to be for a lot of people in most cases so there is unfortunately definitely a class divide playing here and the bargaining power of those around mining communities is absolutely the indigenous mining, indigenous community is at its smallest in India in the current circumstance why and this is something that I wanted to bring up you despite all this feeling about finding the right kind of compensation and consent the backbone of the Indian legal system actually doesn't allow for compensation for coal mining and this is where it is right the land acquisition act of 2013 makes very limited provision for taking the consent of displaced populations but this does not apply to coal India limited and in substitute days even today so the very fact that we were writing this chapter of mail that we were pushing against a door that's really fast shut but something needs to be done because it's not mandatory what coal India does today is under some kind of public pressure and because it's a public sector company but actually the Indian legal system doesn't allow for it was that your hand up the lady from Bangalore no worries at all okay who's lived in Bangalore no worries at all so the legal architecture itself isn't there so how do you then make policy space in a situation where the legal architecture is not there who do you pressure what are the policy levers you might have these are extremely difficult questions that aren't really considered when we are talking about cost and compensation because people aren't aware of the legal structure in India when we're talking about all of this and the other bit that comes in is even if you're talking about land being acquired we all know that ownership of property is a designation of a social relation ownership or not of property let me put it that way what is ownership of land it's a property right the more property rights you have in our kinds of context the more power you have and particularly in the Indian context those without access to property rights tend to be those from the marginalised costs so even when you're talking about who you are bargaining with Columbia is going to talk to the person who has the largest parcel of land what does that do to the smallholder and Indian agriculture is replete with small holding farmers who are actually just landless labourers how do you factor that in because you're just looking at this parcel of land somebody's got six hectares of land somebody's got none how is that person going to find a place at the table that's the other which is why I've said that those not owning land are even more precariously placed and they tend to be in the lower realms of India's horrible caste order but I also wanted to leave you with this it was very interesting when I was doing my desk based research that there were two reports on two similar kinds of issues in Odisha now Ungul, again one of the most impoverished districts in the country Ungul is genuinely poor Ungul also has some of the largest mining investments in the entire country it's got aluminium plants, it's got coal mines and a report by McKinsey actually said that there was a tremendous positive multiplier effect it had a poverty alleviation effect and poverty had actually gone down so when you were in the forest and climate change in 2010 actually called Ungul the most polluted one of the most polluted districts in the country why? because of polluted water from the coal mining operations the same thing that McKinsey said had led to a multiplier effect is being picked up by this report, Terry Terry is somebody I've forgotten the full form of it senior moment energy research institute? no anyway Terry well reputed energy research institute they did this study I think they did this study for the Ministry of Environment and you just flipped the coin and they said well this was one of the most sort of notionally poor districts because it was one of the most polluted districts that you would ever find in the country and this is the nature of the contradiction both are true actually both are true and I have done a fair amount of travelling in Odisha very close to the city that I grew up in and I did quite a lot of work in which is Calcutta you can just drive down yes poverty levels have gone down yes it's ridiculously polluted from all the runoff from the coal mine and what does not get computed into costs in most of these cases is the cost of water pollution you do get you do get a lot of composition mainly that's around land water is at least a lot more tangible but water pollution very very few people get compensated for water pollution and again very interesting fact this whole sort of issue is repeated with contradictions we all know that if you wash coal then that coal being used in a power plant is clean coal and the pollution that then is emitted is cleaner great but that washing from coal is going to the areas around the ground water gets depleted the ground water gets poisoned so you come and say that policy is just telling us these things but what do we do about them? very honestly unless you see both sides of the coin it's very difficult to know what to really do about them I'm not a policy maker if I had that kind of money I'd be selling that consultancy but I don't I have absolutely no idea why I'm here but the fact is both these are truths they are not but frankly very very personally speaking I veer towards the theory part of the truth stand the McKinsey part of the truth there is absolutely no doubt about that there is absolutely no doubt in my mind my mind about that and this is interesting studies estimate that 13% and 9% of the pollution from power plants in the state of N.P. and Odisha was from power generation meant to be consumed in other states so there's a spatial consideration in a federating union like India does a Gujarat which pulls power from these places or maybe not a Gujarat so much anymore but a Tamil Nadu or another Pradesh which pulls power from these places what should the compensatory system look like in a federal union like India because Madhya Pradesh and Odisha didn't ask to be polluted in this manner they don't have the capacity to use the electricity that's being produced somebody else is using it right so the way forward Filipe told me 45 minutes I think I'm getting on to about that you could thank you thank you that sounds nice now utilization of the DMF this was actually a very very interesting financing compensatory model that the Indian government had come up with it's called the district mineral fund it was some of the funds the royalty that you were getting states were getting from the coal mining activities were going to be put in a trust and the local government body which in India is called the panchayati system which is a local government system was supposed to look after the running of the trust and identify beneficiaries in theory it's a great thing and it's the first step that we've taken towards doing something for the local community with royalty money but what is happening is it's being used in a fungible manner which is in an interchangeable manner money from the DMF is going into other pet projects it's going into things like Swach Bharat it's going into things like there's a thing called Ujwal you know what Ujwal is? Swach Bharat is to build toilets which definitely needs needs building but it wasn't meant to come from the DMF that's what I'm saying Ujwal is this last mine electricity connection so it's being used for these other larger more more popular programs which definitely have very important beneficiary communities but the DMF wasn't used for that purpose there was a different pot in the budget for that so the DMF while a really good idea is now being used for completely other things it's just being used as a sort of little piggy bank for other kinds of projects not for the intended beneficiaries and beneficiary communities India has a minor's profit and fund mind you but it also needs to do more on the profit and fund so mainly create a specialized silicosis related health related profit and fund and it does have an insurance scheme but more needs to be done which is something that actually renders you incapable of doing anything once you've been afflicted with it much much much more needs to be done and we did not look at that aspect of coal mining in terms of the compensatory aspect some interesting experiments have happened in Canada which is actually is one of the leaders in terms of how mining companies interact with indigenous communities first nation the non-indigenous community in Canada is called the first nation and Sankor which is a I think it's a natural gas company has actually provided equity stakes to members of the first nation community wherever it's set up that's something that can actually be replicated in India if possible now here's the interesting thing we don't tend to talk about trade unions in India that sort of discourse is completely cleared from the country it's another matter and I'm chatting house or not, I'm just going to put it out there it's quite something while doing research for this is how I came across it shocked me that the largest trade union body in the country the Bharati Ammas Dursam is actually affiliated to the right wing fascist RSS the largest trade union in the country does not belong to the communist party of India it belongs to the Rashi Oswaiya Sehbaksha it genuinely shocked me but well here we go or it is one of the largest I think it's the largest but I'm not off the mark when I say it is one of the largest the traditional communist parties have lost even that space out to the RSS which gives you an idea of how far the countries come and where the labour movements have gone but however the trade unions have played an extremely important role in negotiating just compensation and to be again very fair to coal India and to get the trade unions out of the table and yeah and then the other bit that I just wanted to end with is this contradiction of the continued need and heightened need for indigenous communities affected by mining to be compensated and how you value the compensation and how you compute the costs there and the other of course is as the mix changes towards RE in the next 20 to 30 years how is the community directly linked to mining for its value how is that going to be compensated so I'm just going to end on that note of a happy contradiction actually quite an unhappy contradiction but thank you and happy to take questions that you might have