Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis, Vaishankarayesh Academy, displayed a list of news articles selected for today's analysis and their page numbers in different editions of the newspaper. The link for the handwritten notes in the PDF format and the time stamping of the discussed articles are provided in the description and also in the comment section for the benefit of the viewers. Now, let us move on to the analysis of the first news article. This editorial article talks about the first Prime Minister of Independent India and the first Home Minister of Independent India. It is relevant for us to discuss this editorial as today, May 27, is the death anniversary of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. He died in the year 1964 and we also know that his birthday is celebrated as Children's Day as he was born on 14th November 1889. Now, before discussing this editorial, you should keep one point in mind, these kinds of articles are important from the main's perspective as we may have questions on secularism, communalism, ideas on nation building, ideologies followed by leaders of freedom struggle, etc. Approaches of leaders have been earlier asked in examination, particularly main's examination. See in the year 2015, they asked Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, despite having divergent approaches and strategies, had a common goal of amelioration of the downtrodden. Elucidate. In 2016, we had a question, highlight the differences in the approach of Subhash Chandra Bose and Mahatma Gandhi in the struggle for freedom. In 2006, in GS1, they asked the question, regardless of distance and time, there were lots of similarities between Lord Kersen and Jawaharlal Nehru Discuss. So it is in this context, we take this editorial that compares the ideology of Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhai Patel. Let us discuss the article from examination point of view. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this editorial article is highlighted here for your reference. The author of this editorial is of the view that in the current political scenario, Nehruvian ideology is projected as a myopic. That is, Nehru's ideology is projected as something that cannot be imagined or unimaginative or something that lacks intellectual insight. Jawaharlal Nehru was also criticized with reference to dilution of article 370 of Indian constitution as well. We know that the temporary provisions and the special status for the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was abrogated in August last year. There was criticism that Prime Minister Nehru mishandled the Kashmir issue. And those who criticized also believed that if the issue would have been handled by Sardar Vallabhai Patel, then the results would have been different or been far better. They say this based on the fact that Vallabhai Patel was given the task of joining the princely states to the union of India. Know that Sardar Vallabhai Patel was India's deputy prime minister and the home minister during the crucial period that immediately followed independence. We know that he played a historic role in negotiating with the rulers of princely states diplomatically but also firmly and bringing most of the princely states into the Indian union. Therefore, he has the reputation for his firmness and ruthlessness in some times. Now, in the matter of Kashmir's integration with India, the author notes that there was a friendly understanding between Nehru and Patel. So here, Arthur attempts to provide clarity about the historical context and the time of Kashmir's integration with India. While most say that the decisions are the prime minister's decision, Arthur notes that the correspondence between Nehru and Patel during the crucial period captures a sense of mutual trust and friendship among them. For example, he notes that a letter drafted by Nehru, which was addressed to Sheikh Abdullah regarding integration of Kashmir, was sent to Sardar Vallabhai Patel for his examination of Peruzel. And one more thing to say that Patel also handled this matter along with Nehru and this was when the prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehir Chand Mahajan, was asked to come to Delhi to discuss the accession of JNK to India and according to the author, Patel was in charge in India at this time as Nehru was in the United States. And all this had led to initiation of administrative proceedings in the Constituent Assembly for Article 370 and according to the author, even minor changes in the draft of Article 370 were informed by Patel to Prime Minister Nehru. And know that even though a constitutional provision was added with respect to Jammu and Kashmir, it was because of Kashmir's geography and its implications for India's national security and this constitutional provision was only deemed temporary by both Nehru and Patel. So by these points, author tries to establish that Nehru and Patel had the same view regarding Kashmir and they took the steps after proper correspondence with each other so there was no mishandling by Nehru regarding Kashmir's integration. Therefore according to the author, he implies that even if the task would have been carried out by Patel, the result would have been same only. Note that though the instrument for accession was signed in October 1947 for Jammu and Kashmir, most of the legal statements, legal provisions regarding the special status, the constitutional order from the President, the document of Jammu and Kashmir constitution, these things happened in 1950s, you may say that upon these matter, Prime Minister Nehru could not get the opinions of Sardar Vallabhai Patel as Sardar passed away in 1950. But most of the things happened in 1950s pertaining to JNK. When the author touches the main crux of this article that is about secularism, here note that the author tries to establish Nehru's sincere commitment to secularism and his commitment was also criticized as pseudo secularism that is Nehru's secularism or Nehru's ideology on secularism is biased in favour of minorities. The author states that this criticism is marketed on the basis as if Patel and Nehru had divergent opinions on the meaning of secularism. Some historians say that there is no evidence to say that there is diverging opinions. The author says they meant the same thing regarding secularism that there is one difference, Sardar's view on secularism is moderate. But Nehru was committed to keeping the government at a distance from religion and this was clear from the historical fact while there was lot of demands from some traditionalist leaders to build Indian nation around Hindu population or as a Hindu nation. Jawaharlal Nehru strongly opposed this idea and Nehru used every available opportunity to propound benefits of socialistic democracy and many a times reassured India's Muslim minority about their future in India. And this is because Nehru felt that India needed to favour science and logic instead of orthodox religiosity. He believed that education is meant to free the shackles of human mind and not to imprison the human mind in preset ideas and beliefs. According to the author, Nehru had the motto of cultivating scientific temper and nurturing the spirit of tolerance and these are the foundations of Nehru's concept of secularism or Nehru's ideology on secularism. If you see article 51A of Indian Constitution inserted by 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act of 1976, it is fundamental duty of every citizen of India to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood against all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic, regional or sectional diversities and also to develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform. But in spite of Patel's moderate view on secularism, author states that Patel was sometimes or is sometimes identified as a Hindu traditionalist. It is because of some instances where Patel showed favourable inclination towards Hindu ideology. One of such instance was pointed out by author with reference to matter of reconstruction of Gujarat Sonnath temple which was tabled in parliament. The temple was damaged by the army of Mahmudgasini in 11th century. When the matter was tabled, according to the author, the then deputy prime minister Sardar announced that the government would provide funds for rebuilding the temple. The conclusion author states that Nehru has dreamt for a modern India rising above sectarian politics and divisive forces and this modern India would have an ideal position on the world stage. Therefore, he states that in this manner, Nehru weird ideology continues to remain very essential even today to fight against Communalism and to uphold secularism. So his idea on secularism is not something that is unimaginative or something that lacks intellectual insight, rather it is still relevant and essential. That is why the editorial is titled as continue India's terrorist or love with Nehruvian ideology. Now, let's move on to next news article. This news article is with reference to Prime Minister Matsya Sampada Yojma. See Matsya means fish and Sampada means wealth, therefore this scheme is pertaining to the fisheries and aquaculture sector. Fisheries and aquaculture sector is an important source of food, nutrition and even employment and income for India as this sector provides livelihood opportunities to more than 2 crore fishers and fish farmers at the primary level and when we come to the value chain it gives livelihood opportunities to more than 4 crore individuals and here when we say value chain it refers to processing, other value addition, marketing etc. So in order to boost this sector fisheries and aquaculture the union cabinet has approved the Prime Minister Matsya Sampada Yojma. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. See the main objective of this scheme is to bring blue revolution through sustainable and responsible development of fisheries sector in our country. For this purpose they are going to invest more than rupees 20,000 crore and this investment will consist of a central share, state share and contribution from the beneficiaries of the scheme and this scheme is to be implemented over a period of 5 years from the financial year 2020-2021 to financial year 2024-25 in all states and union territories. Coming to the scheme first and foremost it aims to harness or leverage the potential of fisheries in a sustainable, responsible and inclusive and equitable manner. It aims to enhance fish production and fish productivity through expansion, intensification, diversification and productive utilization of land and water. Another objective is to modernize and strengthen the value chain that is to strengthen the post harvest management and quality improvement. The scheme also focuses to double the income of fishers and fish farmers and also aims generation of employment opportunities. See it's an umbrella scheme it has two separate components one is within the scheme there is a central sector scheme and the second component is centrally sponsored scheme. If you see around 1700 crores have been earmarked for the central sector scheme component and around 18,000 crores has been earmarked for centrally sponsored scheme. As an umbrella scheme the Pradhan Mandri Matsya Sampada Yojana will give more focus or will give focused attention for fisheries development in Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, island regions in India, northeastern region and aspirational districts. This is to be achieved through area specific development plans. Now who are the intended beneficiaries of the scheme? Fishers, fish farmers, fish workers, fish vendors, then fisheries cooperatives, then fish farmer producer organizations, then fisheries development corporations, self-help groups and individual entrepreneurs. Here priority will be given to persons belonging to the schedule cast and the schedule tribes, then women and differently abled individuals. Majority of the activities under the scheme would be implemented with active participation of states and union territories. The scheme will create state program units, then district program units and sub-district program units also in high fisheries potential districts. The scheme will have cluster or area-based approach with appropriate forward and backward linkages. We saw in the beginning that the scheme aims to strengthen and modernize the value chain. Therefore the scheme will focus on infusing new and emerging technologies like biofloc, aquaponics, cage cultivation, then re-circulatory aquaculture systems etc. It will promote activities like mariculture, seaweed cultivation and ornamental fisheries. Here when we say mariculture it refers to cultivation of marine plants and animals in their natural marine environment. One more important part of the scheme is that it aims to establish a national network of brood banks for all commercially important species. See brood stock fish. These fishes are parent fishes from which young fishes are produced or fry and fingerlings are produced. Fry and fingerlings are terms associated with newly hatched fishes. See a sound genetic base is important to maintain the quality or to improve the quality and reliable supply of healthy fry and fingerlings. For this purpose brood banks will be very helpful. Then the scheme aims to establish a nucleus breeding center for self-reliance in shrimp brood stock. Then it also focuses to use end-to-end traceability from catch to consumer. Then how to use blockchain technology in the fishery sector. Then also aims to bring in global standards and certification. And one of the saline feature of this scheme is that for the first time it introduces insurance coverage for fishing vessels. As a result it also aims to ensure the safety and security of fishers at sea. Then acquisition of technologically advanced fishing vessels for promotion of deep sea fishing and providing communication and tracking devices and even bio toilets in fishing vessels. And one more thing is that during ban period or during lean season or lean period the scheme seeks to provide annual livelihood support for fishers. Now to the question whether the scheme envisages any private sector participation the answer is yes. In addition to participation of private sector it also aims to include development of entrepreneurship, business models, promotion of ease of doing business and startups and incubators in fishery sector. And to increase the bargaining power of fishers. The scheme aims to collectivise fishers and fish farmers through fish farmer producer organizations. The news article reports that this scheme does not contain any component for immediate financial assistance or immediate financial relief to the fishery sector that is hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. So these are some of the important points with reference to the analysis of this news article. We saw in detail about the Prime Minister Matsya Sampada Yochanan. We saw the objectives, we saw the components, we saw the timeline, we saw how it is to be implemented, who are to be prioritized, which areas are going to be given focused attention etc. Now let's move on to next news article. This news article is with reference to a clinical trial to test the combined efficacy of two antiviral drugs Favi Piravir and Yumi Fenovir. The announcement was made by Glenmark Pharmaceutical Limited which is a research led integrated global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Mumbai. It has announced to conduct a new randomized open-label study to test the combined efficacy of these two antiviral drugs. On hospitalized patients of moderate COVID-19 see the possibility of arriving at a potential COVID-19 cure. And this clinical trial is to be called as FAITH. FAITH stands for Favi Piravir plus Yumi Fenovir, efficacy and safety trial in Indian hospitals sitting. See these two antiviral drugs have different mechanisms of action and their combination is believed to have improved treatment efficacy particularly during the early stages of COVID-19 disease because it is reported that high viral loads of COVID-19 is experienced in patients particularly during early stages of the disease. Before going for clinical trials both the drugs tested in vitro meaning that the test was performed outside of a living organism wherein both antiviral drugs inhibited or worked against the viral infection and have shown efficacy. Favi Piravir is an oral antiviral drug that was approved in Japan since 2014 for the treatment of novel or re-emerging influencer virus infections. It has a unique mechanism of action using that it inhibits viral replication. It is known for inhibiting RNA polymerase activity that is crucial or is required for viral replication. So simply we can say Favi Piravir works against viral replication. Now coming to Yumi Fenovir it is another oral antiviral drug licensed for the treatment of influencer A and B infections in Russia and China. It acts against the viral attachment to cells and it acts as a viral entry inhibitor. It induces production of interferon. Interferon is a protein released by an infected cell to work for antiviral defenses or to prevent viral attachment to nearby cells. After the in vitro test the Glenmark Pharmaceutical Limited is now thinking that combining two agents may have a good safety profile and could act on different stages of viral life cycle and may become an effective treatment approach to rapidly suppress the initial high viral load and also to lead to overall improvement. Under the study patients will be randomized into two groups. One group will receive Favi Piravir and Yumi Fenovir with standard supportive care whereas the other treat will receive only Favi Piravir with standard supportive care. With the treatment duration of 14 days this clinical trial called as faith trial is to test the combined efficacy of these two drugs. So this is all about the faith trial. With this we come to the end of the discussion on faith trial. Now let's move on to the analysis of next news article. This news article mentions that Indian Prime Minister has reviewed the current situation on the line of actual control and the ongoing standoff with China. He has reviewed the situation with National Security Advisor, Chief of Defence Staff and the three service chiefs that is the Chiefs of Indian Army, Navy and Air Force. We have been discussing about the standoff between India and China particularly in the Union territory of Ladakh and also in the state of Sikkim and we have several times discussed also about the Chief of Defence Staff as well. So today let us focus our discussion with respect to National Security Advisor. See there is a Cabinet Secretariat Resolution of 1999. This document stated that the National Security Council shall have a National Security Advisor who shall function as the channel for servicing the National Security Council. The first National Security Advisor is Mr. Brijesh Misra and he was also the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. But know that in 2004 the posts of Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and National Security Advisor were separated and NSA continues to be a part of the Prime Minister's office. And in the year 2002 the National Security Council Secretariat was formally designated as a special unit that comes under the direct charge of National Security Advisor in the Prime Minister's office. Now National Security Advisor has a very important role or a pivotal role when it comes to formulation and implementation of National Security Policy. Now because of the importance of various areas or fields related to national security the National Security Advisor assists the Prime Minister on foreign policy, defence, atomic energy and also on space issues. And we have to know that National Security Advisor chairs two important groups called us Intelligence Coordination Group and Technology Coordination Group. The role of Intelligence Coordination Group is to provide systematic intelligence oversight to take decisions on allocation of resources to intelligence agencies, to task intelligence agencies and to evaluate their output on the basis of feedback from users of intelligence. Now coming to Technology Coordination Group, the purpose of this group was to oversee technical intelligence, tech-int capabilities of intelligence agencies and it will also coordinate acquisition of new costly major strategic equipment or major strategic facilities and then it also works to maximize technical capabilities with reference to technical intelligence. Note that the National Technical Research Organization functions under the supervision of National Security Advisor and the chairman of Strategic Policy Group is National Security Advisor. This strategic policy group it assists the National Security Council. In addition to this recently in 2018, Defence Planning Committee was constituted under the chairmanship of National Security Advisor. Now this Defence Planning Committee it helps, it facilitates comprehensive and integrated planning for defence matters. It will analyze and evaluate inputs related to defence planning. It also draws a roadmap for defence manufacturing ecosystem and also brings strategy to boost defence export. So these are some of the important points with reference to National Security Advisor. We saw about National Security Advisor since the Cabinet Secretariat Resolution of 1999. Then we saw how the posts were separated and we saw about what are the important groups which are chaired by National Security Advisor and also about Defence Planning Committee. Now let's move on to next news article. This news article talks about a mobile application developed by a startup in Kerala called as Farcote Technologies Private Limited. The application is called as BEVQ, in other words BEVERHQ. It is a mobile virtual Q management application. Rather than getting physical tokens by physically visiting a facilitating point, this application works on a token system and based on the generated virtual tokens, Q will be managed in compliance with physical distancing norms. Therefore it clears debts for the reopening of liquor outlets in Kerala. The news article states that Google has given its approval to this mobile virtual Q management application. Initially this application was chosen among few other applications by a committee chaired by IT secretary with the Kerala startup mission and then it was subjected to a two-level testing by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team and then it was forwarded to the Google for approval. In this context let us see about certain our Indian Computer Emergency Response Team. See it is in operation since 2004 under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the objective being to secure Indian cyber space. It provides incident prevention and response services and also security quality management services. It aims to prevent cyber attacks against India's cyber space and also aims to respond to cyber attacks and minimize damage and recovery time. Therefore to reduce national vulnerability to cyber attacks and to increase security awareness among common citizens. For Prilim's perspective it is important as it is the national nodal agency for responding to cyber security incidents. Certain has statutory functions as inserted in the IT Act by IT Amendment Act of 2008. It carries out collection analysis and dissemination of information on cyber incidents then it forecasts and gives alerts of cyber security incidents. It takes up emergency measures for handling cyber security incidents and it also coordinates cyber incident response activities and it issues guidelines and advisories with respect to information security practices, procedure, prevention, response and reporting of cyber crime. So these are in brief with reference to certain. Now let's move on to next news article. This news article reports that Border Roads Organization has achieved a milestone in the construction of a strategic tunnel in Uttarakhand which is part of Chardham Pariyojana. The strategic tunnel in Uttarakhand is located below the densely populated Chamba town on the Rishikesh Darassu road NH 94. The reason why we call this tunnel as a strategic tunnel is because it will provide faster mobility to troops and equipment to the border with China. So the tunnel is expected to help troops and vehicles to quickly reach important places along the border with China such as Nalong valley which is called as the Ladakh of Uttarakhand. Now coming to Border Roads Organization it's a leader in the arena of infrastructure development in border areas of the country working under Ministry of Defense. In this context let us discuss about Chardham project or Chardham Pariyojana. See under this project Border Roads Organization is constructing 250 kilometer of national highway so as to lead to four holy shrines of Uttarakhand. In addition to this it also aims to improve and develop around 889 kilometer of national highways to provide all-weather connectivity to the four holy places in Uttarakhand. Now what are these four holy places? See these are from west to east Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath. Char refers to four and Dham refers to abode or holy shrine or seats. Chardham refers to four pilgrim destinations Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath. Traditionally the pilgrimage begins from the west and ends in the east. So the Chardham Yatra it commences from Yamunotri then proceeding to Gangotri and finally to Kedarnath and Badrinath. See each of these four sites is devoted to a specific deity. If you take Yamunotri it is dedicated to Goddess Yamuna as in the name itself. Gangotri is dedicated to Goddess Ganga. Kedarnath is dedicated to Lord Shiva and Badrinath is dedicated to Lord Vishnu. Now with respect to Yamunotri it is said that Goddess Yamuna goes along with pilgrims to the high altitudes of Ravayi valley and Kedarnath which is dedicated to Lord Shiva is also a part of Punch Kedar. So what is Punch Kedar? See Punch Kedar refers to five most important temples of Lord Shiva in Garhwal Himalayas in Uttarakhand. One of the temples is Kedarnath others being Rudranath, Tunknath, Kalpnath, Madh Maheshwar and of these Kedarnath is said to be located close to the source of river Mandakini and coming to Badrinath it is situated on the bank of river Alaknanda. It is said that Lord Vishnu had carried out meditation here and therefore the temple here in Badrinath. These are the four temples associated with specific deity collectively called as Charatham. Now let's move on to next news article. This news article talks about an interim arrangement arrived by the Supreme Court with reference to LG Polymers factory in Vishakhapatnam. At the factory a styrene gas leak was reported in the early hours of May 7 2020 and has killed 12 people and affected more than 1000 people in the nearby area. On 12th May 2020 in our daily news analysis we discussed about this gas leak we discussed about styrene in detail uses and health impacts of styrene and we also discussed legal provisions connected with the issue of manufacture storage and import of hazardous chemicals. For more information we request viewers to have a look at this topic discussed on 12th May. This news article is with reference to recent protests in Hong Kong. The chief executive of Hong Kong special administrative region Carrie Lam says that there is no need to worry when it comes to the proposed measure of a security law being considered by China's national legislature. The news article also mentions that Hong Kong is a former British colony which was returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Also relatively liberal civil legal and economic systems are followed in Hong Kong in contrast with much more centrally controlled and authoritarian system in mainland China. In other words this is what we refer to one country two systems policy. Now we would like to inform our viewers that on 25th May 2020 Hindu news analysis we discussed in detail about the connection of Hong Kong with the British with China and the present dispensation in Hong Kong. We discussed about Sino-British joint declaration of 1984 then what exactly do we mean by one country two systems policy and the recent developments. For these areas we request viewers to watch that analysis. This news article is in connection with virtual courts that were set up for trying petty offenses in the state of Tamil Nadu. In connection with this we discussed about eCourts mission project services under eCourts the current status then we discussed in specific about virtual courts and advantages of virtual courts in yesterday's Hindu news analysis. So with respect to these parameters we request the viewers to watch yesterday's analysis with reference to the particular topic. You can reach the particular topic analysis using the time stamping available in the description of yesterday's video. This question is with reference to faith trail. The term faith trail often seen in the news refers to an international clinical trial led by WHO to help find an effective treatment for COVID-19. This option pertains to the solidarity trial which is an initiative of WHO. Option B a clinical trial to test the combined efficacy of two antiviral drugs as a potential COVID-19 treatment by Glenmark Pharmaceutical Limited a Mumbai based pharmaceutical company. This option is correct it is the right description of faith trial. They're going to test the combined efficacy of the two antiviral drugs called us Fabi Pyravir and Yumi Fenovil. Now this question is with reference to Indian computer emergency response team. They have given two statements asking which of the statements are correct. Statement one certain started its operation in 2015 as the nodal agency for responding to cyber security incidents in response to the massive data breach of Aadhaar details from unique identification authority of India database. This statement is incorrect certain started its operation in 2004 and the massive data breach of Aadhaar details was reported in the year 2018. Now second statement it functions under the ministry of electronics and information technology. This statement is correct. First statement is incorrect. Question asked for correct statement therefore the correct answer is option B two only. This question is with reference to national security advisor with reference to NSA which among the following statements are correct. NSA chairs the intelligence coordination group and the technology coordination group. This statement is correct. Also note that NSA national security advisor is also the chairman of strategic policy group that assists the national security council and the national security advisor is also the chairman for the defense planning committee. Therefore the second statement defense planning committee constituted in 2018 has been set up under the chairmanship of national security advisor is correct. Both the statements are correct. Correct answer option C both one and two. The Char Dham project sometimes seen in news refers to a river linking project between India and Nepal to link four major transparent rivers. A project under inland waterways authority of India which aims at the capacity augmentation of navigation on national waterway one. A project under land ports authority of India for sitting up of integrated check posts at major entry points on India's land borders. A project to improve and develop national highway leading to four holy shrines of Uttarakhand. The correct answer is option D. The four holy shrines are Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Bhatrinath. This question is with reference to Pradhan Mantri, Matsya Sampada Yojana. Three statements are given which of the statements given above are correct. First statement it aims to bring about blue revolution through sustainable and responsible development of fishery sector and to double the income of fishers and fish farmers. This statement is correct. Eliminate option B and option D. Now second statement it provides for insurance coverage for fishing vessels and also envisages and annual livelihood support for fishers during ban or lean period. This statement is also correct. Therefore the correct answer is option C one and two only. By elimination method we easily arrived at the correct answer without worrying about statement three because we are sure that the first statement is correct. Coming to the third statement it says it comes under ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare which is not true. It comes under ministry of fisheries, animal husbandry and dairy. So the correct answer here is option C one and two only. With this we come to the end of today's the Hindu news analysis. If you like the video if you would have enjoyed the content don't fail to click the like button and share this resource among your friends and those who are in need of such resources and subscribe to the Shankarai's Academy YouTube channel to get notified about new updates.


Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president, is presently in the United Arab Emirates. Ghani had fled Kabul, the country's capital, last Sunday, after Taliban fighters surrounded the city. In a Facebook post after his departure, Ghani said he believed countless patriots would be murdered and the city of Kabul would be destroyed if he had stayed behind. According to a statement issued by the UAE foreign ministry on Wednesday, the Afghanistan president and his family were welcomed on humanitarian grounds. Joining us is Pyotr Kuzin, an independent geopolitical analyst. Hello Pyotr Kuzin. Hello, great to be here. Thank you for having me. How are you doing? Yes, very well. Stressful given these circumstances, haven't had much sleep in the past couple of days, but hopefully things will begin to calm down in the next few days, but we'll have to see. Okay, so what is your general overview of what has played out in Afghanistan? Oh wow, that is the question of the hour I think. I would say that the fact that the United States did pull out is not a surprise. That was always the intention given the administration that came before Biden with Donald Trump. I think what has surprised everybody is the rate at which they increasingly did so. Obviously Biden delayed the registered departure of May to September, but then decided to still ramp up the evacuation over the past couple of months and that's sort of, should we say emboldened the Taliban to increase their advancements and we've seen one of the fastest captures of a country, I think, in recent memory, going from July 8th when Biden and the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson both said independently of each other that there wouldn't be a military takeover by the Taliban to here we are today and with seeing the events on Sunday that the Taliban have indeed taken Kabul is significant. Not just for the country but for the broader region and of course the international community. What kind of future do you foresee for Afghans under the Taliban regime? Well, there are many caveats to that.  We've seen obviously in the past couple of days including, you know, even on a very own news anchor, women supposedly being allowed to work as news anchors, but, you know, we have to question whether or not that's a legitimate thing or whether or not it's just a PR stunt by the Taliban for the time being until the sort of world's attention shifts back to, you know, other issues and things become a little bit more sort of stabilised in the country. I think it's going to be very dependent upon the type of government that the Taliban forms. Namely whether or not they might, there's discussions on going with previous leaders of the country who were leaders after the Taliban fell. And so maybe we could see either an entire Taliban government or maybe some kind of combination of previous Afghanistan government members and the Taliban members. And that will obviously very much to influence how many people are able to, you know, just live normally, the freedoms that they have and so on. So I think the next week, two weeks is going to be crunch time to see how and what way the Taliban wants to sort of try and rule the country. What do you expect to see from the world's different power blocks in the coming days, the U.S. and the West on one hand, Russia and China on the other? That's a good question. So I focus a lot on great power politics now given that the United States and its allies have fully pulled out or in the process of completing their final vacations from Kabul Airport. I would say that this is the this is their golden opportunity for so we say countries that have always been slightly belligerent or antagonistic to to the Western countries. So Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan are all going to be looking at this as an opportunity to have a big influence in the region. Counterbalance against, you know, the U.S.'s interests. India is a very interesting one because it is also the largest democracy, the only real existing democracy in the country. They have obviously a long standing history of Afghanistan and given its its history like Afghanistan, sort of oppression, colonial rule, interference by other powers. I think there's going to be a lot a lot to play from India. Russia has been an important player for peace-broking. It was one of the first countries to sort of allow a group of Taliban members to come to Moscow to to sort of discuss the idea of establishing peace in the country. And then China is obviously there, given its international influence, but also its treatment of the Awakens, which is a small Muslim group in the northwestern part of the country. And when I say small, it's a few million. But yes, that's still something that the Taliban have been aware of. So the CCP will be wanting to sort of, shall we say, be on the better side of the Taliban to avoid sort of unnecessary destabilisation potential, you know, terrorism. Do you think... That's more my projection. Sorry. Yeah, while you're making that projection, do you think that the Taliban's hold on Afghanistan will breed terrorism across the globe? Well, the Taliban was created, you know, to fend off the invasion of the Soviets in the 1980s out of, you know, the Mujahedin. But they quickly became a place that extremist groups or people with extreme ways of thinking could sort of exist coexist and develop. There is a there is an existing faction within the Taliban group called the Haqqani. And they are the main sort of, shall we say, military and financial aim. And the head of that group is one of the most senior members of the Taliban. As to what now in an agreement with the Doha argument that signed by the United States and Taliban back in February 2020, the it was agreed that the United States would pull out as long as the Taliban didn't allow Islamic extremists to to re, you know, reemerge in the form of predominantly Al-Qaeda, but also Islamic State have had pockets in Afghanistan. Now, the US pulled out, but not in the way that it was originally agreed by the Taliban. So the Taliban may well think over time, depending upon again, type of government that they get and how easily they can secure the rest of the country, because we're seeing protests at the moment. That may well be a source for Al-Qaeda to resurface. There is a potential that the country could become a hub for sort of, you know, terrorism. But that is something I don't want to assume. I've been asking beyond Afghanistan, do you see that breeding terrorism across the world beyond what we already see today? I don't know about breeding, but it's certainly emboldened existing terrorist groups. I mean, we've heard of reports of Boko Haram. The terrorist group in Somalia, I forget the name for a minute, both have been emboldened and there were reports. I've read that the terrorist group in Somalia, forgive me for forgetting the name, was celebrating. Yes, thank you. We're celebrating the the the win, if you like, the the the victory of the Taliban, and it gives them a certain belief that, you know, they they can increase their operations again. Or, you know, that the West is really retreating from its from its role as sort of preventing terrorism or engaging in counterterrorism. So it may well read Islamic sentiments around other parts that have had it before. But that being said, Afghanistan is a particular case. And even what we've been seeing discussing in recent months in the UN Security Council about counterterrorism efforts, which is supported by all countries, irrespective of whether they're in, you know, on the side of the US or not, Russia, China, the US is the three major powers at the moment, sort of all agree that terrorism is something that they want to come down. So hopefully they won't. But who's to say? Well, do you think that world powers, the international community, can prevent or limit any kind of spread of terrorism across the globe? So one of the three main topics that the Indian delegation have wanted to focus on this year this month was there in the presidency is counterterrorism. I think that was a preemptive move to a certain extent by the Indian government because they could see it wasn't going on in Afghanistan and because, obviously, it's very near much the sphere of influence or interest. So whether or not we can actively prevent any form of terrorism is, you know, we can't stop pockets of extreme people just popping up. And unfortunately, but we can certainly create better frameworks and collective coordination to to prevent terrorism. Terrorism is a transnational issue, much like climate change or covid. And given how poorly we've seen the international community respond to covid, you know, I hope that we could do a best job with terrorism. And as we move forward in the world, more and more issues are going to be transnational, transcending traditional boundaries. And so I think I think we will be able to I don't want to be unrealistic either. All right. Well, thank you. I'm trying to call your name. Can you just call yourself? No, it's pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. Thanks for your time and insight and all the best. Thank you. And to you. And don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


introduce to you one of the co-hosts for today's webinar, Mr. Eric Porsche, excuse me, Eric Porscheo from the foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. Eric, please go ahead whenever you're ready. Okay, well thank you so much. Welcome everybody to today's Connecting to Collections Care webinar. Really thank you all for joining us today, where we're going to give you an overview of some of the changes coming to Connecting to Collections, an opportunity to hear from you what resources, features, and webinar topics you'd like to see in the coming months, and I would like to thank Learning Times for facilitating this program and especially to Mike Morneau for working with us today. So I'd like to introduce Errol Wentworth, who is the Executive Director of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, and its foundation FAIC. Greetings everyone. Thank you all for participating in the webinar today. All of us at the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, that is FAIC, are delighted to be working with you to provide information and training in collections care. We are so grateful to the Institute of Museum and Library Services for providing the funding to keep Connecting to Collections alive and growing, and we thank AASLH and in particular Heritage Preservation for all of their work to establish this community. As of January 1st, FAIC assumed responsibility for the C2C community and webinars. You'll learn more details about the transition during today's webinar, but please know that any changes will be small and incremental. The webinars, discussion forums, and online resources you rely on will remain available to you and will continue to be improved and added to. And to ensure continual improvement, we will be relying on you for suggestions about future programs and services that can enhance the community. Please be sure to make suggestions about any improvements we might be able to make. I'm so excited that we're joining you on the C2C community. And now, so that you can learn more, I'm pleased to turn the program over to FAIC's institutional advancement director, Eric Porscheau. Good afternoon again. Today's program basically is trying to do three things. First, we want to tell you a little bit about AIC and FAIC and why we are involved with Connecting to Collections. Second, we want to let you know about some changes that are occurring with the online community and the webinar series. And third and most importantly, we wanted to get your advice on future topics for webinars, additional resources that might be added to the website, and how the discussion forums can best meet your needs. Although FAIC, the foundation, is the lead organization for the project, we're relying on a lot of partners. And in particular, the Collections Care Network of the American Institute for Conservation, the Collections Care Network, or CCN, is contributing key advice and leadership. AIC is a membership organization that supports the professionals who care for America's treasures through research, exchange of knowledge, and upholding professional standards. FAIC, the foundation, is a 501c3 non-profit foundation. And it has a somewhat broader focus of supporting projects that help preserve our global cultural heritage. FAIC provides education and information for conservation, but also recognizes that preserving cultural heritage involves many other dedicated professionals and volunteers. FAIC encompasses several projects and just broadly, including the operation of the Collections Emergency Response Team, or AIC CERT, supporting publications, we offer a wide range of grants and scholarships, and we operate a robust program of continuing education, which includes live hands-on workshops, online courses, as well as webinars. FAIC has received funding from IMLS to continue the Connecting to Collections Care online community and the webinars for the next two years. Other projects have been funded by the foundations and agencies that we're showing here. But it's important, I think, to say that none of these projects, including Connecting to Collections Care, would be possible without additional support from individuals and corporations that help pay our electric bill, the office rent, staff salaries, accounting services, and other necessities of doing business. So now we get to the big question of the day. What is happening to the Connecting to Collections Community and Webinar series? And I hope that we're reassuring you that only good things are coming. So first of all, please know that the webinars, the website, the forums are all going to be continued to be offered to everyone free of charge. And that's possible through the two-year grant from IMLS to FAIC to continue to support the community and the programs. And you may start to notice some small changes. We'll change the copyright notice, for example. You'll see the FAIC and AIC logos, probably some small design tweaks. But the intention is to build on the good work done by AASLH and HP to develop this community and the rich array of resources it offers. One small change that will be instituted pretty soon is to change the name of the site slightly to Connecting to Collections Care. We felt that better reflected the purpose of the community. And we're going to be doing a lot of listening in this webinar and beyond, as well as some more formal research that will help identify directions for improving and expanding our resources in the future. The AIC Connecting, I'm sorry, Collections Care Network has helped to put together an advisory group to help guide Connecting to Collections Care. So the goal here is to be sure that voices from a wide variety of professions and types of institutions are included to better reflect the users of C2C. And you'll hear more about the advisory group in a moment. Now, if she's ready, I'd like to introduce Ms. Susan Barger, the C2C Care Coordinator, and she'll be managing the community and the webinar series. Morning to everyone. It's morning where I am. So I want to welcome you and let you know that I am passionate about small museums. In my career, I've been a museum scientist. I've been a professor teaching scientists to become museum scientists. I've done a lot of professional development work. And for the last, oh, 15 years, I've mostly worked with small museums in New Mexico because when I came home to the West, that was the biggest need. Who knew I was really good at it? So I've done lots of different things. One of the things that I did was start this small museum pro program, which is now part of ASLH. So and I really look forward to listening to you and helping to make this a program that will work for you and that provides services that you want to see continue and also provide services that you'd like to see new ones. So we're going to begin now and look at some, begin asking you some questions. These are the people that are on the advisory group. There's also two sub-committees, the forums chair, the forums committee and the webinar committee. And those are still being formed, although they each have about four or five members. And then there's Eric and me. And so there are a lot of people contributing to this. There are a lot of people that can provide support for you in small institutions. And we want to do that. So we're going to ask you, what are your dreams and how can we help you achieve them? So let's start with polls five and six. So first we want to know, regardless of whether, if you're looking for information about caring for your collections, where do you go to find those regardless of whether or not you're connecting to collections or not. And then we want to know how you prefer to look for information on the C2C website. And so we're going to give you some time to look at it, at these polls. We're really interested in figuring out the best way to provide information in the most useful way for you. One of the things that we'll begin doing is, well, have conservators who are monitoring the forums and they will be able to, hopefully, answer questions very quickly for you. And so we want to know how you need to get this information. It's pretty striking how many people rely on webinars for information so far. That's right. And we're seeing going to be asking you what kind of webinar topics you are. So get your fingers ready because we're going to have some discussion questions that are coming up. Also, just to break in here a little bit, in addition, the polls are mostly set up with fixed answers, obviously. But we certainly welcome any other suggestions you have. And if any of these trigger something in your mind, please feel free to use the chat box to give us more information or elaborate on what you're thinking. Now you should be able to, in poll number six, you should be able, oh, Mike, can you make poll number six? He's changing it so you can put in whatever. There you go. So now you'll need to fill in poll number six again. Thank you. And then we'll give people a few more minutes to fill in poll number six. And then polls number seven and eight are asking about when you're most likely to look for an answer from that, connecting to collections care community, and how quickly you need that. And so we'll slip those in in a few minutes. It's like we're still putting in, yeah, I agree with you, Connie, in Fort Smith, that having an easier way to search through the webinars would be a nice feature. And we will work on that. Okay. It's like we're still having people fill in poll number six. All right, are you ready to look at poll number seven and eight? Okay, we're going to do those. Here we go. Pulse number seven and eight have to do with, as I said, when are you most likely to look for information from the connecting to collections care community? And how quickly do you need an answer? Remember that if you have an emergency, you can always go to AIC cert. And on the AIC website, there is a 24 hour poll number. And if you have an emergency, definitely call them. We do have people that are trained and to work with emergencies. And I don't know how many people are in the cert network, Eric. There are 107 responders. Yeah. And then the other thing that we want you to know is that connecting to collections, the collections care network in AIC, are anyone in AIC can belong to it. And they are people who are interested in assisting institutions with collections care. So that works. So it looks like we've gotten a pretty good response to poll seven and eight. Interesting that people can wait one to three days. I'm glad to see that because I don't know that we could promise anything faster. Yeah. Yeah. And then poll number nine is just asking what kind of webinar features you'd like. And so it's just kind of general. We want you to we want to know how we should organize information for you in a way that it will make it the most useful. And then the poll number 10 has to do with what new features you might like. And I believe on both of these you can certainly choose more than one selection. Yes. Yes. And let's see. It looks like we have most people have answered in those. And then let's go on. The next four questions how to do with if you might do multi session webinars, how you might like to have them and or if you would like them. And if you would if you had preliminary assignments before a webinar, if you do them. So that's what these are looking at. Just so that we can begin to plan webinars in a way that makes sense for you. So poll number 11 is really asking about having a very focused discussion. So maybe we say on next Wednesday and Thursday we want to talk about storage of clothing and textiles. And it would be a sort of a free for all discussion during that given time period. Poll number 12 is a little more structured in that we're talking about a series of webinars specifically on a different topic. And I think probably a lot of you have participated in C2C webinars. I know there have been several I've participated in that were offered over a series of months. Oh good. Yeah. So let's see how are we doing for filling in things? It looks like people have quit responding. So let's go on. Now we're going to do the discussion questions. And these questions, let's look at them one by one. So the first one is, and you can just type in what you want and we all, we really want to have your input. And that's really what this session is about. So what would encourage you to log into the C2C care community if you had a question and needed help finding an answer? So we want to make sure that we like this to be your first trusted place for information. And we're going to have a nice group of qualified experts to help you. Yeah, I think that seeing if people have had the same issue. The one thing that I've learned in the last week or so about the forums is anyone can use the C2C website and coming up the C2C care website. But you need to be a registered user with a password if you want to ask questions in a forum or respond to questions. But you can look up what's gone on in forums, whether you've logged in or not. And you can expect that over the next few weeks or the next month we're going to be asking, we're going to be checking on email to make sure that we have correct emails in our database. So if you get something, we want to make sure that it's correct. So if you get it, just respond. We know that people have signed in who were students and they may not be students anymore. They may not have that same email. So we want to make sure that we have those correctly. So how are we going on this? Let's go for another few minutes on this. We're getting a lot of good answers. Oh, I'm so glad that Marcia, that the community is your first trusted place. That's very nice. We certainly want it to be, I'm very pleased to be doing this because I think that the CTC program has been very good and we really want to see it continue to provide quality information as it has. Okay. So let's go on to the next question. Is what kind of additional resources would you like to see on the Connecting to Collections Care Community website that haven't been mentioned before? So is there anything that you've wished might be there that hasn't been or something? Or perhaps topics that have not been covered as fully as you would like them to have been? Yeah. Yeah, Collections Mover really is a really tough and a big project and I think that would be a good one to do. I think I see questions about labeling artifacts on a lot of listservs. That seems to be a perennial issue. Yes, email archiving. Yeah, and this thing about libraries, archives, and museums, we really want to serve that whole community, especially in smaller, for smaller institutions because what smaller institutions can do is not always the same as what a large institution can do. We certainly understand that if you've got one or two or even 10 people or 100 volunteers but knowing who's paid staff still has issues that people who are paid and in a larger institution with money can do. Lots of lots of good ideas coming in here and I think a lot of these we definitely could find some experts to come and address. Elizabeth Trond, what do you mean by Collections Discovery? Oh and somebody wants photograph chemistry. We just happen to be working on a program of that exact nature. It should be launching soon. Okay, I see that Elizabeth, thank you.  I was just going to point out that this discussion question is really about general materials and information for the site. The next discussion question is actually on specific webinar topics so if we do change the screen before you're finished you can put it into the next one if necessary. Right, and also know that these last discussion questions, some of them are sort of overlapping but we thought it would be useful to ask things in different ways because sometimes when you ask something in a different way you get something that someone was talking about but we're afraid to ask. Okay, so why don't we move on to the next question which is what webinar topics would you like to see? So we're very interested in producing topics that you're interested in. We're interested to know if you'd like to see things about case studies where other people have accomplished something that might be useful to you. We're, ah yes, humidity control. And just to be clear we are planning to continue to offer approximately 12 webinars each year so approximately one a month and so there's lots of room for lots of ideas. Yes, Lynn Ireland asked if we can put up the polls one through four for people that came late and I think we can do that at the end. I see lots of policies showing up here, security, conservation, collections, legal issues. Legal issues. I'd really like to see something on legal issues. There are a lot of legal issues that have to with collection care that people usually don't think about. Oh my God, moving 7,000 toys. Oh my. Some of these in this question and last question had to do with storage and I just wanted to bring up another resource that's available from FAIC which is Stash.  Storage techniques for art and oh I've lost it. Anyway, it's storage for collecting institutions and it can be found at stashc.com. We had to add the C because we ran into some other meanings of the word stash that were unfortunate but right now that's stash.com. It will be moved to one of our websites eventually when it's completely done but there's a lot of information there about storage techniques and specific storage tips as well. There's also a fabulous website about storage from I think UNESCO. We'll make sure that we'll put these in the resources. Getting buy-in, yes, that's always important. Okay. So, military collections. You can continue putting in things in the side conversation box if you want and we will go on to the next poll. I was going to ask you, Susan, do you think there are enough suggestions there to keep us busy? No, I don't think so. I think that would keep us busy for a long time. Thank you. I mean, we want to work on problems that are problems for you, not things that we think are problems for you. So, that's really important to us and at the end of this, there'll be an email address if you think of something tomorrow or next week or next month. Just send email and we'll put it on our list and we'll respond to it. Okay, so we would like to know what professional meeting breakout sessions do you mean on Linda that we would have something at professional meetings? So, if we went, okay, fine. Yeah, we'll try and do that. That would be, that's a good idea. And this is certainly something that the, our advisory group will be looking very carefully at of, you know, not just the webinars, but the forums and other online activities and how those can really draw on, you know, this massive knowledge that everybody who uses the site has collectively that no one person would ever be able to provide. So, it really is the strength of the community and how to make that work for you, how to make sure people feel safe and trusted, both in asking a question and in answering a question. And Rachel Benkowski, I just have been handed over the CGC Facebook and Twitter account, so I'll try to get those more active. And you can like the Facebook page and you can be active too, that'd be great. Michael, just curious if you can elaborate on member guest blogs. I'm not sure I understand what you're looking for there. And on D, our things are free. So, we do have free, everything on the Connecting to Collections Care is free. So, that's for you. The only thing, as I said, you need to be registered in order to participate in the forums, but you don't need to be registered to participate in the webinars. I mean, you need to register for a specific webinar, but you don't need to have a password. Thank you, Dee. Yeah, Lynn, Ireland, I think that's a really good idea. And I agree with you about combining C2C and steps. Oh, what is steps? Steps is a fabulous program on, from ASLH. And you can become a member of it for a small fee and you get a workshop, you get a workbook that has fill-in-the-blank stuff so that you can go through and check off things that you've done. It's a very good program. Eric is adding lots of information over here. Yes, thank you, Connie, for putting that in at the site. And I see Eric is answering a question about the website. We've been in the process for the last couple of weeks of transferring the website from one IP to another. And so, there's been a little bit of, it was down for a few days, but don't worry, it's not going to go away. On the, Dee, the website for steps is over in the chat board. How many of you are participating in steps? I think let's go on to the last question, which is, is there anything else you want us to know? You've let us know a lot of stuff already. Yes, the responses have been terrific. This is a lot of food for thought and things for us to start looking at. And also very useful because later this year we will be doing a more formal emailed survey that will try to reach as many users of connecting to collections as we can. And this kind of feedback right now really helps us shape that kind of survey. So we ask the right questions, we include the right answer choices, have a little better chance of really getting to what the needs of the community are. Yes, that's right Connie. We know that especially in smaller institutions that people come in and are caring for collections when they were a banker beforehand or something else. And so we really understand that. Oh, Jessica used C2C for her thesis project. I like that. Yeah. Yes, we will be keeping the recordings of past webinars. Everything that's or most everything that's been on the website will continue and be there and be available for you. So what we see in connecting to collections care is not going to go away. And I noted in that earlier surveys we were interested in or we asked if people were interested in digital badges, which are it is not exactly continuing professional. It's continuing professional education, but it's not continuing education units which require some kind of accredited institution. And I know some people have said that they like that. Does anybody want to take a hack at why they might be interested or not interested in that in this question? These are all great comments here. Could I repeat that question? My question is if you had the possibility of getting a digital badge, which means you participated in three or four webinars and answered brief questions about them, would you like, is that something that's useful to you? We had in one of the first polls we asked you about this. This is a feature from the early, from C2C. And we wanted to know about continuing that or not. Well, this is so nice. Everybody likes C2C. I think it is too. Yeah, the badges are, digital badges are becoming a way that that people can get credit for education and many people are accepting them now as something to show that you've done something. Okay. Yeah. Interesting suggestion on sharing program from regional labs and other institutions. Yeah, certainly something that, you know, there is a calendar feature on the site and we could certainly start using that to make sure people know about other events. Yes, and there are other programs, the Library Association has a program on certain things that may be helpful to this community and we can list their things too. Yeah, Jessica, that's right. People put digital badges on their digital resume. And I gather this is a growing movement. So Eric, do you have anything to add here? Well, I mean, I think we're kind of coming to the end of most of the comments and suggestions. We can certainly leave these up a little bit longer, but we had allowed, you know, some extra time in case this discussion merited, but I think we maybe had a good point to start wrapping up. Yeah. Now, we want you to, so we'll leave these and you can continue answering them. And we will, let's show our final slide here that has our contact information. Let me get down here. Okay, so we want to know what you want. Please get in touch with us and we're listening. So this c2cc at conservation-us.org is a way to reach me and to reach us and we really do want to hear from you. And now we're going to put back on the polls from the beginning. And if you didn't answer them before, please do. And while those are going up, we're going to look to the things that we need to, that maybe we need to follow up on. And just a reminder, this program is recorded and it will be available in the webinar archive. So if there are colleagues who have questions, obviously they won't be able to take the polls, but they can at least, you know, hear what was going on and know what the next steps are going to be. Yeah, I see that we have several questions about searching through the website. And that's something that I feel we definitely need to look in. So that would be like an abstract of discussions. We can see about that. And we missed the question about Caroline's question about passwords. Let me see if I can find it. I hope I answered that to tell you that we will be checking on emails. You do need a password if you're going to check into the forums. And you just go to the website and sign in. If you've done it before and you've never used your website, you are likely to get an email over the next probably month. We have a lot to check on. Over a thousand email addresses. I hope that answers that question. I don't see it. Okay. And it looks like we're still filling out polls. So Eric, we'll leave this up for what, another 15 minutes? And Mike, can we put up the maybe the last discussion poll and let people work on that for the next 15 minutes or so too? Looks like he's going to do that. It's going to be up in the left hand corner. So, oh. We've, sorry to interrupt. We've put it up at the top left of your screen. It sort of overlaps the general chat question. I'm just going to modify the window size here for the general chat so that it's still available. Yeah. So this other one is. Polls 9 and 10. Right. Right. Discussion five. Right. And Sonia, do you mean more webinars offered in the morning your time? We have a lot of people talking. Oh, okay. All right. We can put up 9 and 10 too, I think. Well, yeah, I think we can probably take down one through four. It looks like people have had a chance to fill those in. Yeah. Sonia, the problem with offering, we could probably offer programs in the late morning that, you know, we go to all over. So if they're not towards midday central time, it means that they're at, you know, say if we started at nine o'clock central time, it would be seven o'clock in the west. So we have to make things so that they are kind of spread out and it's reasonable for people to do that. This one started at 8 a.m. in Hawaii as Malia points out. Yeah, right. So, yeah, let's see. Late a.m. is okay. Yeah. We get people from all over the world, which is really exciting. So we want to make sure that we don't have anyone trying to sign in at midnight or something. Oh, a comment from Lynn reminds me to put in a plug. This is sort of the last couple weeks for responses to the Heritage Health Information Survey that went out to a lot of museums and collecting institutions and typically would have gone to your director or the director. And if you haven't seen that or if it's still sitting on somebody's desk, it's very important to get that into Heritage Preservation. And if your museum didn't get it, you can go to Heritage Preservation to their website, which is heritagepreservation.org, and you can get a link to it. There we go. Jessica just put it in. Yeah, because that Heritage Health Index is a really important survey. For one thing, it's important for helping to provide for funding, governmental funding. And so we want to have a really good idea of what's out there. And we're going to put up, we really would like you to do the evaluation of this webinar. And so we're going to just put the link to that down below here. Yeah. Okay. And, oh, did I lose you? No. Yeah. If your system allows pop-ups, we've just pushed the URL out to participants. And so if a browser window appeared on top of your screen, we're still there. We're just behind it. Yeah, I'm back. Yeah. So we'll leave this up for another few minutes and probably until noon. And, you know, please feel free to contact us to let us know what's going on. Ah, architectural and yeah, those are important. I spent several years working on Adobe preservation. Another question I know we had and we'll be asking later in the year is about living collections and, you know, how many people are dealing with animals, plants, fish, and need more information about caring for living collections as well? And I think Eric and I will say goodbye. But we're going to leave these up for what, Mike, about another five or 10 minutes? I think, yeah, until the top of the hour, if anybody has any last brainstorms, if that's okay with you, Mike. Yep, that's fine. I can leave it up for easily another 15, 20 minutes. And as soon as I see that there's no more typing, I'll close them off. Okay. And as we said before, I mean, certainly please feel free to email us if you have other thoughts at any time. And we really appreciate your input and your commitment today and hope that we can live up to your enthusiasm. Yes, we hope so. And if we don't, poke us. Tell us so we're not doing what you think we should do. And it's great to have all this input. Thank you so much.


from the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. It's theCUBE, covering Hoshokon 2018. Brought to you by Hoshokon. Okay, welcome back everyone. We're here live in Las Vegas for theCUBE's exclusive coverage of Hoshokon. This is the first inaugural event of its kind. It's the first security blockchain conference where all the top minds in the security blockchain decentralized world come together to try to work on, solve and enhance the security profile of how the world's running. As we know, blockchains run in the infrastructure and we need security. I'm John Furrier, coast of theCUBE. I'm here with David Johnson as the CEO of Latvium. Welcome to theCUBE, thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me, John. So you're one of the brain trusts in the industry here, this event, trying to solve the security problems. Let's get into it. But first, take a minute to explain what you guys do. What does your company do? What's your purpose to exist? Why are you in business? Well, our main goal is trying to help get the message of crypto out and increase adoption in the space. We do a lot of things. We're a multifunctional platform. We're trying to make, just make it easy by putting everything in one place. We believe that there's a lot of complexity. There's a lot of technical knowledge required. I mean, I've been technology for 30 years and it's really complexity is crypto. And we just think everyday people probably will not learn that. It's like, they don't know why their car moves when they press the gas pedal, but they know that it does and we're trying to solve that for crypto. And it's like a car. Imagine having to open the hood up, throw a switch, put your finger, put the screwdriver on this, get a charge, go back in, run in. I mean, just turn the key. It's asking a bit much. Yeah. At least that's not for us. So when you're saying moving a lot of complexity in the platform, are you talking about custody? You talking about tech stack? What specifically are you guys doing? Is it technology stack? Is it a framework? Is it software? Is it, it's a platform. It's a platform, it is a community where they can come in. It's a multi-currency wallet. It's an exchange. They can work for crypto. They can hire for crypto. So again, we're taking it from the client side. Anything they would want to do with crypto, we're trying to put that in one place. So you're trying to build a multi-purpose platform where someone can run turnkey. Exactly. A full end to end life cycle of crypto. That's correct. And why would they do that? Build an app. Marketplaces is a business model driven. So what's your target customer looking to do? Are they developers? Are they big businesses? Well, our target market is the everyday person who wants access to crypto. They're hearing about crypto, but they don't know how to participate. So it starts off easy for them. They can come into the platform and they can perform a task on a platform and now they're immediately a crypto holder, right? So we just want, we want to expose that space and make that access point as easy as possible. That's where they get people into cryptos. Give a crypto away. And that's kind of what we're doing. We're giving them crypto for their production. All right, so give me an example. We're into crypto. We're doing a little cube crypto. How do we get involved? What do we do? How do we use you? Well, one way you could use it is you could use us if you were trying to, say, promote something. That would be one way to do it. You want the community to get behind something. You want feedback. Say you have a website and you want feedback. You need beta testers, right? You could list a task on our platform. Our community base would see that listing. They could decide I want to perform this task and be paid in crypto. So you guys looking at the, you know, the upwork like crypto model. So WorkCoin is another, is they a competitor to you guys? I don't really feel like anybody in this space is a true competitor. There's crossover and some functionality, but because we're approaching the whole solution as a wallet and exchange and a tasking platform, I don't really see anybody's direct competition. It's good. I like the platform approach. So having platforms that are open versus closed is what people are concerned about these days. How are you handling the open versus closed question? You guys let these people own their own data. How's that working on the platform? Well, as it stands right now, you know, we're a hybrid between blockchain and centralization. And the reason for that is for scalability purposes. Blockchain tech is just not there. I know we all want it to be there. That's true. It's fair. But if we're honest, you know, we're not there. So we're trying to build an enterprise application and we know that if that's 100% pure blockchain right now that you're going to run the scale issues. So as far as- And reliability, many issues. Yes. We all know that, yes. And data, you know, data ownership is definitely a sensitive topic. As far as our approach on that, you know, we're pretty open on what we're storing. Our biggest data point is really a trust score and you have full control over that by how you participate within the system. You know, good actors get the benefits of being a good actor and there's consequences if you're a bad actor in the system. And the way that we do that is we have a verification system that's using biometric data off of your face and we're creating a unique digital profile tied back to the user. So unlike other platforms where they can just make a new account, become a bad actor, you can't do that in our system. So that's one space that's very unique. I think crypto's got a lot of opportunities to manage bad actors. Yes. If you can make the incentive costly. Yes. That's an interesting and dynamic. And that's kind of what you guys are thinking too. Like, yeah, bad actors always the problem is and web is easy to be anonymous. That's it. You just start a bot and get killed, create a new one and spawn, you know. Yeah. I always say that the internet gave us this amazing platform for communication and networking and opened up a whole new world. But it removed trust. Totally removed trust. There is no concept of digital trust. Reputation and trust. Reputation and trust are scattered. A lot of people when crypto are trying and struggling with two things, I want to get your thoughts and reaction to. One is community. Yes. And the other one is marketplaces.  If you're doing tasks, gig economy, we know what that means.  It's open. So check on the marketplace. Community is another one. How do you build a community? Sure. People raise these big ICOs and they say, hey, I need a community. You can't buy a community. No, no, you have to have something people want. And so that's the question. I mean, in any business model, you're looking to, you got to find what it is that you're building that someone wants. If you can't define that, then you don't have a business. All right, so here's a pressure question for you. What's the hallway conversations like that? You're overhearing and also you're participating in. Here at HoseoCon, a lot of smart people.  I just want to bust in and listen. I feel rude by like listening, leaning in. Interesting people here. Sure. Great to ask. What are some of the hallway conversations that you're overhearing and some that you're participating in? Well, I think there's a lot of focus on the security levels of the contracts. There's been quite a few hacks just over the last couple of days. So that's been a buzz. And I think it's kind of interesting that we're at a security conference and then we have hacks there going on. So there's been a lot of buzz around that. People have been traveling on the planet and attacked whenever all the security guys would travel. Social engineering at its best. Yeah, right at the gates. All right, anything else, sessions you've been to? You know, as far as the sessions go, I mean, I think that Max put on a great session today. I thought, you know, he's always an eloquent speaker. And so that was a great speech as far as I was concerned. You know, I think that it's nice to see that we're moving in the direction of acknowledging that security is a big deal in the space. And I think that's great that Hoseo's bringing that out. What's the biggest surprise this week for you here? I would say that the biggest surprise for me is just how well organized the event is. You know, been to quite a few events and the Hoseo team has done a great job organizing this event. Yeah, and it's not too crowded either. It's the right mix of people, of course. You know, they're videotaping all the sessions. So just let everyone know, we'll put those videos up in the cube cloud and make them searchable for Hoseo console. We're going to help get those videos out as well. Cool, so what's new with the business? How's things going? What's the update, funding, status, employees? These are going really well. I mean, we've actually seen really exponential growth this month. We're registering between a thousand, 3,000 registrations a day now. We've got about 22,000 verified members in our system. And when I say verified, it means that they've actually gone through a verification process so they can't duplicate accounts. And they got a wallet. They're downloaded. They got the wallet. Exactly, it's all in one. You register, you get multi-currency wallet off the bat. So we've seen a lot of growth and a lot of attention in so far in the smart system. And which blockchain are you using? Well, again, we're a multi-currency. So we're tied in. You don't care. Well, our token is ERC-20. But as far as how we deal with other blockchains, right now we have Bitcoin integration, Tether integration, Ethereum integration, and we're going to be adding ERC-20. So you're using the ERC-20 mainly for the smart contract on the transaction? Yeah, we're using ERC-20 for our own tokens. Yes. Okay, got it. The tokens for the gigs, the work, the utility token. The utility token. Yes, that's our token. That's your token, okay, got it. That's correct, that's correct. Yeah, so they're getting, but they can take that immediately and they can change it up for Bitcoin if they like or they can hold our token or anything. Hence the exchange piece. Correct, it's all there. So multi-purpose, yeah, that's interesting. Great, well hey, congratulations. David Johnson, CEO of Latium, check them out. And to end exchange, getting work done tasks. We certainly could use some UI on our project. So can we put that in there? There you go, there you go.  We got two days of wall-to-wall coverage. We'll be back with more after this short break.


This video is best viewed in High Definition and Full Screen. Under the right side of the video player, please click the Change Quality icon and select 720p or 1080p and then the Full Screen icon. This video describes how to search for and order items from BLDSS. We will start with straightforward examples, but we recommend that you watch the full video as there are hints and tips later on how we may be able to supply material even if you can't find it using the simple search techniques we start with. Log in to the system. To search for an item, enter keywords from the item description. Any part of the bibliographic data can be entered, including very specific data such as an ISSN. The results screen is very like a Google results screen showing summary information for each item, ranked according to relevance. Information on whether or not an item is held electronically and is therefore available for immediate download is shown against each record. If the item is not held electronically, we will either scan it and supply it from our physical collections or source it from one of our partner suppliers. To view further details of an item, click the title. From this screen, you can continue on to order the item or return to the search results. Because of the way that BLDSS has been built, we recommend that you use the navigation options from within the system rather than your own browser options for navigation. The ordering process is a four-stage operation. The full details screen is the first page. If this is the item you are interested in, click on the next step, check availability prompt, to the bottom right of the screen. In step two, you can check availability of the item and what supply options are available to you. Supply options can be quite complicated and depend on factors such as the agreement you have with BLDSS and the copyright and collection rules we have to apply to them, so options may vary depending on the item selected. What you can be sure of is that you will not be offered options that may breach rules. As you make selections from the options offered, you will see the cost details and dispatch estimate adjust. If you are eligible for library privilege or fair dealing, as it's sometimes known, where you can order items copyright free for pure research purposes, then the library privilege tick box will be shown. The tick box will untick itself if you choose options which are not allowed under library privilege, such as two-hour processing option. If you intend to use an item for any commercial purpose whatsoever, you should select to pay full copyright by making sure that the library privilege tick box is unticked, regardless of selected delivery options. If ordering under library privilege, you should also complete and sign the appropriate declaration form at your library. If in doubt whether you are eligible for library privilege or to find out how to take advantage of library privilege, please consult your library before ordering. Where the date available is not today's date, then an item may be on loan and, if you order, you will be placed on a waiting list. The date shown is an estimate of when we expect the item to be available. When encrypted download is selected, a reminder appears to highlight that you will need appropriate software to view the item. Please make sure that you have this software installed and operating before ordering from BLDSS. Make all of your selections, and when you are happy with the dispatch estimate and cost, select Next Step Delivery Details. In Step 3, you can choose a delivery address from those offered from your address book, or where individual item rules allow, you can specify an alternative delivery address. Where the selected delivery format is electronic, the address will be an email address. Where it is for a physical copy or a loan, it will be a postal address. The final step in creating an order is a review of what you have already entered. Check the details including the price, dispatch estimate and delivery address carefully, as once the order has been confirmed, you will be committed to the transaction and you will only be able to cancel it up to the time that we start work on it. You can add your own reference, which may be useful for tracking purposes, and you can add a note to your administrator if your organisation prefers to mediate orders. Once happy with all of the options, add the item to your basket. You can now add more items to your basket, or you can submit the order. The BLDSS service has many more items than are searchable in the system. If you are looking for a particular article, first try searching for it. If you cannot find it, try searching for the title. If you find the title, select it from the search results. Fill in the details of the specific article and submit the order as usual. Please give us as accurate information as you can on this screen. The more accurate the information, the more likely it is, we will find your item of interest. Check availability will attempt to identify the item, but if it can't, you can still progress the order. Where we hold a title, we generally have the full run, so it's likely that we will still be able to supply. You will pay nothing unless we actually supply the item. If you cannot find the title in our collection, you could try our find it for me or get it for me services, which are described in other videos.  By clicking on the item title you can view full details and amend selected preferences if you wish. Otherwise, submit the order. Once the items have been ordered, you will be taken to a confirmation screen. This screen will confirm that the order has been submitted to BLDSS, or for mediated accounts that it has been submitted for approval. If you are paying for the item as a pay-as-you-go customer and you are using your credit or debit card, you will be taken to a card payment facility where you can enter appropriate details. You will be given an order number which is your unique reference to the order. You may wish to take a note of this number, though you will be able to locate it for the easy-to-use order tracking functions which are described in another video. This concludes this section.


Keith Cook for Philips. Philips is of course a rather large global company. We focus on lighting products. In fact, we're number one in the world in lighting. The only place where you get more light from Philips is from the sun. We're also focused on health care products and consumer lifestyles like Sonic Care and Relto, those kind of products. As far as sustainability is concerned, that's a very main focus for Philips. We're one of the top companies in the world for sustainability and it really drives a lot of our processes. That is one of the reasons why we've been a big preferment of energy efficient lighting, which is one of the reasons we're here today. Of course, you're maybe somewhat familiar with some of our LED type lighting products, which is now over 37% of our lighting sales is LED based products. So it's become a very huge part of our business and we expect to continue to grow. We expect that number to be 80% by 2020. So we're trying to save energy as much as possible. We're looking at expanding that more into the service business where essentially by utilizing controls and those kind of things, we can further save energy beyond just LEDs themselves. For instance, the most efficient lighting you can have is a light that's turned out. And so when people are not in the room, it's best for the lights to be off. So let's make sure that we're doing that effectively with sensors and controls. So that is one of the focuses that we have going forward. How do we make it so easy for the installers to put it in a complete system that it's a no-brainer? Overall, Phillips is looking at the bigger picture and we know that for the world to exist, we have to be careful of our resources. And so as a result, we're looking at essentially an end-to-end economy. A circular economy is the correct term whereas we're trying to really minimize the use of resources and to become as efficient as possible can. So we have the least amount of impact on those resources.