Now, moving further, we have with us Mr. Bobby Paul, General Manager of Marketing, thanks for the online audience, Neeta Nair, Assistant Editor, Impact Exchange for India, the fireside chat on monetizing news and winning the localization challenge for brands. So, I welcome both of you on screen. A very warm welcome and over to you, Neeta. Thank you so much, Kiyati. Malayalam and Urma is known for a lot of things. The most widely-read newspaper in India. The fifth most-read daily in the country as the IRS 2019. I would like to describe it as a Mamuti and Mohanlal combined of Malayalam myths. That is exactly how good a star Malayalam is in the market. And I hope my guests agree. Yes, I agree to you, send for some dates. And I love that anecdote you used. So, for a fireside chat here today, we have with us someone from the online arm of the group, which has been doing remarkably well in the digital news space. So, let me welcome Mr. Bobby Paul, GM Marketing, Malayalam and Urma online. Hello, Mr. Paul. Thank you, Neeta, for such a warm welcome. Looking forward. Tell me, Kerala loves its newspaper. Loud, teased, all conversations and news is very, very common in every nook and corner of the state. Now, how easy or difficult was it over the years to get the average Malayali to switch to digital news? Yeah, that's a quite a pertinent question. This is not something which is not just a matter of fact a concern for Manor Malone, but for the end-of-publishing community or publishers it is because when you grow a product and you have parallel products coming in, definitely the chance for cannibalization is always there. But having said that, you cannot still work with your typewriter, right? So, the technology has changed, the user working, the pattern has changed. So, you have to keep up with the times. So, it is basically something similar for publishing world also. You have to embrace what is coming new and especially for a young nation like India and a very literate state like Kerala where digital adoption is very high, mobile penetration is almost 100% and you talk about the news consumption habits traditionally and we have news genies. So, definitely as your time span is going towards mobile, definitely you have to be there. So, you cannot miss out on that. Even though we have a very, very strong print presence across the broadcast and review, we cover almost like 91% of the Kerala or Malayali diaspora. Okay. But is it largely the youth which is kind of accessing the website if you have to compare? Not really. So, last couple of years has been already a change happening, digital adoption, the drop in mobile and data prices in India is already one of the lowest. You are talking about comparing it to the US. It is around $12 in US for one GB of data and in India it is almost like 20-30 cents. So, it is a huge difference. So, anybody can be mobile and can access news and Malayalis as a community has been quite spread out within India and also outside India. So, you have traffic coming up for more than 200 geographies. There are a lot of other news for you to get national and international news. But what about hyperlocal which we master it over 130-year-old audios. So, that is what our strength comes in. So, the user base is there so much massively even because of the pandemic, which kind of left with a lot of people. Yeah. So, if you take a spice and that is the demographic of users for audience, our predominant group is 18 to 44 years like most of the publishers. But definitely you have users coming in from all age segments, especially after this pandemic where people cannot move out. And Kerala was lucky even in the last fast wave of COVID that the distribution of newspaper never got affected. So, yeah. So, it was pretty, it is spread out but the concentration is between 18 to 44 years. I'd like to come outside of Kerala and give a personal example. So, my father is used to read who's based out of Bombay. You should have two papers, English newspapers a day. But even in the remote shams that I tell him to delete his Malayalam or my app from his phone because of space constraints, there is likely to be a war in the house. So, you have a very, very loyal user there. So, tell me, have you ever seen merit in monetizing this maybe through a subscription model? Not so much for the e-paper but the constant updates I think is what they prefer. So, have you seen about, looked at subscription there? Yeah. So, I will answer a question in two parts. So, first, a small trick of the trade for your dad. So, Manorama app, you can just toggle back from English and Malayalam in just one touch of the button. So, that's a solution for that. And coming to the second part of the question, definitely our e-paper is already behind a payboard for the last two years. We are having solid plans to launch our subscription services by end of this financial year at least. So, yeah. So, we have quite a good tangent of audience which actually not present in Kerala, who want to know what is happening back in Kerala, would be the near shore customers for this kind of subscription services. But monetizing generic news in India is a big challenge. A lot of players are trying to tackle and try to find a solution and try to evolve. So, we will also be getting soon on that track and hopefully things will work out. Another thing is, Kerala politics is always trending on social media. Be it left versus BJP or Shailaja teacher. Youth living outside of Kerala who can't read or write Malayalam like me, they are seen actively discussing state politics. So, how are you ensuring that you have their attention and how strong is your social media game? Well, so again, I will answer the two parts. So, first part is basically, see, we are talking about a brand which is kind of a legacy brand, you know, who has been around for a long time, I mean, 134 plus years. So, it is something which is people are used to reading in your houses, discussing at home and offices, and even small chai kadas and chai corners, what we call. So, it's very ingrained in the system. And since the literacy rates and intellectual awareness levels are very high in Kerala, definitely news is something which they crave for. And of course, politics is a big, big part of that. Even though I'm not an official commentator on that, but I'll say that whatever content you can hook your customers or audience with, that is what you're going to pitch for. So, that's exactly what we are doing and finding decent amount of success over the years. And digital also nothing not quite new for us is almost 20 to 23 years we have been in digital. So, slow and rocky start, but yes. Raju, you actually mentioned legacy news publishers. And I want to come to this aspect, there are many relatively new digital news reporters like the News Minute, who are capturing the imagination of the youth. Now, tell me in this traditional publisher versus New Age Portals, David, what are the things that you are doing to emerge at the top? See, India has a quieted lot of headroom in the news space. I'm specifically talking about digital news space. Why? Because our country is so heterogeneous. So, it has 22 official languages, more than 1000 languages and dialects. So, you cannot cater to all the audience at one book, right? The news what a millennial or a Gen C user will crave for is not what a 40 plus year old person will be looking at. So, there is enough and more space for a lot of players to come and operate. It will only help rejuvenate the ecosystem. So, what is good about this new, I don't need any platforms or sites, but they are young, they are very nimble. They are very adapt to technologies. You don't have a baggage, what do you have from a lot of legacy operations. So, these are all the merits. But when it comes to merits or cause for legacy publishers, it's our trust what people have in us, the kind of network of news gathering, factual news gathering which has our whole set of reporters spread throughout Kerala and India and outside and a lot of stringers who work with us who actually gather a lot of credible news. And there is a mechanism where we treat it and make sure that what we put out is kind of genuine in most of the time. I'd like to now come to revenue. For years, online publishers have accused tech companies like Google of getting an undue advantage from their news content and now they've launched something called the news showcase which kind of provides monthly payouts to partner publishers. Now, as a biggest news brand in Kerala, do you see merit in being a partner with Google? Well, I cannot really comment on that but what little knowledge I have about it is basically it is a curated content offering from Google for various publishers and regional is yet to be launched. So, I think mainstream English and Indian is what I think it's already launched. So, we are in discussion. So, the discussion what we are having is about monetizing the content or curated content and some amount of monetization which Google gives us. Now, on the monetization part, it's still a little far off because we are not even started the relationship already. So, once that is in place, then you'll think about the monetization part. But right now, it is only content and monetizing content. So, ads will follow a little later. And you know, off late, we've seen this huge explosion of regional language content and news. The people beyond the metros and the big cities have never been this important. So, tell me in the past couple of months or maybe a year, are you seeing more and more national advertisers coming on Malayalam and Orma and as opposed to maybe two, three years ago, as opposed to also having national brands coming out from Kerala like VGAR or Muthuth advertising on the platform. Yeah. So, we have a healthy mix of national and regional or retail brands which operate from Kerala. So, when I say healthy mix, if I give a percentage on this, it's almost like a 50-50. So, basically, all the national brands that show want to tap into the consumer state like Kerala were, Kerala economy is kind of insulated to a lot of what is happening within India. There is a lot of money flowing from outside of India, especially GCC and elsewhere. So, what happens is that there is a buoyant consumer, you know, spends already happening from Kerala. And if you look at auto, white goods kind of numbers from their respective organization that you can always see auto, Kerala, Maharashtra will be always on the top. So, there is quite a lot of demand for that. So, national and within Kerala, spenders are always the mix and match may change. For example, the second wave which just happened in Kerala and elsewhere in India, there is a bit of slowdown for retail market because things were locked out and you know, retails were not operating and things like that. So, it was a major prominence for the national brands. But having said that, once the lockdown is stopped from 17th onwards and shops and establishments started opening up, things are coming back. But it will take a little more time. But tell me about these ads on Malayalam Anurma customized for a Malayali audience. I tell you why I asked because I was going through one of the sessions earlier on our own platform. Kavita Ganeshan from TVS Eurogrip said that, you know, there was a TVC that they wanted to play in the Kerala market and which had a cat crossing your path which kind of shows bag love. But in Kerala, we don't have that kind, that particular superstition. We have many more but we don't have that particular superstition. So, they completely changed that to something else. So, are you seeing that happen even on digital, you know, on Malayalam Anurma digital, wherein, you know, ads are being made specifically for your kind of audience? Yes, there is quite a good amount of effort what is happening on localization front, you know, catering specifically to a Malayali diaspora in Malayalam language. But there is quite a bit of challenge for a lot of agencies and international brands as a kind of, you know, localize for the local taste. So, we also helped a lot of brands with our, you know, content team to actually localize. So, it is not just literal translation. It is more of the getting the feeling of why you've got Malayali diaspora, you know, treat that good and, you know, not so good. I'll tell you a little example.  So, there was a bit of a backlash which happened telling that it's food basically, so you cannot mistreat food, right? So, if you would have, if the brand would have understood what Malayalam or Malayalis are and what they value, then this kind of small mistakes would have been avoided. So, that is the place where Malayalam or Malayalam or Malayalam or like can help a lot of brands to localize content. Finally, you said that it is not what you say, but what they hear that matters. True. So, Onam is going to come up in the next few months. What are the big innovative ways in which you're lowering the advertisers to Malayalam and over online? Yeah, this Onam is almost around the corner. It's another one out of months, if you put numbers to it. This year, our overarching theme for Onam is basically cautious optimism I would call. Enjoy responsibility, celebrate responsibility. The approach we are taking for this Onam is basically on vertical based or segment-based approach because the needs and requirements of each of the verticals like auto, SMCG, fashion, gifting, all is different. Now, being a lot of people opting for digital or omnichannel kind of group, we are customizing a lot of options for this kind of large segments, which I think they can cut across the clutter which normally happens in Onam. So, this is where our focus is going to be for the Onam. And how much is the growth and revenue are you expecting foreseeing in this season? See, every year you clock a new revenue benchmark during the Onam season, but if you compare it from last year to this year, we should be looking at least 20-25 percent growth over last year. And last year has also been a growth, in spite of being a family. I'm talking about digital per se. Okay, fantastic. And with that, we've come to the end of this discussion. Thank you so much, Mr. Paul, for joining us. May you have a fantastic Onam season and me, Mahabali, bring with me with a lot of hope and joy for Malayalam Anurma and whole of Kerala and the country, to be honest. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. And it was good speaking to you and having all the listeners across India or worldwide. Hope things work out and all stay safe and have a nice Onam. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for those times. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you, Mr. Paul. And thank you, Nita, for steering this wonderful conversation, bringing in such nuggets of insights through this conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you.


Hey there friends, thanks for checking in at the Range Now. Today we're going to do a range comparison with the Glock 19 Gen 4 versus the Canik TP9 SF Elite. Both compact size handguns with 15 round mags. With the Canik on the right you can see that the slide goes a little bit longer. It has a 4.2 inch barrel and we'll look at the grip, length and width. It's kind of similar. I think the Canik has a little nicer ergonomic feel, but the Glock is known for reliability. Let's start with the Glock 19. What can you say about the Glock 19 that hasn't been set? It's built for everyday carry. A lot of people carry it. It's built for duty as well. It has sustained a lot of torture tests, the reliability tests. It has a proven track record. Not the most ergonomic gun, but it works. The one thing that Glock has more than any other company out there is aftermarket support. This actually has night sights on it that was added afterward. That's one of the things you can do with Glock is customize it to fit your liking, your shooting style, your personality. It has a five and a half pound. Glock calls it a safe action trigger and there is the reset. A little blocky. Some people call it Glock block, but I've had this a long time. I really enjoy it. I think it's a fine handgun. I know it is extra reliable. Never once failed I mean that I can remember. I've always had a Glock 19. I've had several Glock 19s. I've stuck with this one for a while, but I am happy with it. Glock 19. Let's go ahead and take a few shots. I'm going to make my decision after I do the shooting by the way. I'm going to ask to see which one you prefer. Let's start right there. Nice trigger action. I've always liked the trigger action of the Glock. It's got a nice trigger. You just pull that trigger and it just popped for you. So there it is. But over here we've got the Canik TP9 SF Elite. Let me go ahead and shoot this first because I can see a train's coming and I don't want to shoot with a train coming behind me. It's going in the opposite direction, but I already charged it. Let's go ahead and take some shots and I think I shot them pretty much the same. But the Canik offers some things that Glock doesn't out of the box. First off, it's $100 less. It does have serrated black rear sight, a fiber optic front sight, front serrations, a full pick rail, ambidextrous slide release. Magazine release is interchangeable and about a four and a half pound trigger pull that is so nice with a reset right there. It does have a striker fire indicator. Let's see if we can get that, that red button right there goes away. It does have a loaded chamber indicator bar. So many of the Canik people say, well, you really don't need any aftermarket parts because Canik gives you everything that you want in the case. And that's true, including a holster for about $100 less. So it does offer quite a bit out of the case. I like to disassemble with the Canik.  You don't even slide it off. You just put it on to there. But there's no problem with the Glock. So which one would you choose? Would you choose the Canik TP9 SF Elite or the Glock 19? Well, I was going to make my decision after I shot both. I don't have a bias either way. Both these are mine. Any time I do these comparisons, I don't have a bias because I'm using my own guns and if I didn't like them, I wouldn't have them. But I do like both these for what they are. I like the Canik for the price. I like the Canik for the Urgos and I like the Canik for the trigger. I like the Glock for the reliability. If I was going to carry one of these, which I don't, but if I were going to do that, I'd choose the Glock 19. It's four ounces lighter. You're looking at an unloaded weight of about 24 ounces. Over here you're looking at 28 ounces, 4.2 inch barrel, four inch barrel. Better ergonomic feel with the Canik TP9 SF Elite. Nice firing, shooting impressions, reliability with the Glock 19. So I guess if I'm going to carry, I'm going with the Glock just for range fun. I'm going with the Canik. I like that fiber optic front sight. That is really nice and both of these have their advantages with not too many disadvantages. If you like videos like this, please subscribe and share. I always appreciate thumbs up button. Thanks for watching and you guys be safe.


Hello, hello. Okay. Hello, everyone. Good evening. So my name is Daskaran and I'm one of satellite engineer at Radat. Today, my major topic, my topic is securing infrastructure with opens cap, the automation way because it's an era of automation, right? We are far, far behind with manual tasks and doing all those things. So automation in terms of working with it. I'm so sorry. Right. So let's, let's start this. My major agenda is to cover what's openscap. Why do we need it? Right? Components, something around it and integration with four men. A lot of you might have heard about four men in just, you know, last 15 minutes. So I'll give a more idea on that and how it actually works. So in between the talk, I'll have a demo as well. You know, the first question comes to my mind is of whosoever listens to this is what is openscap, right? It's an open source security scanning tool which, uh, which is used for two primary purposes that is soft to mitigate software vulnerabilities to check configurational flaws, to check security flaws, right? So these are the two things that we, that the openscap, you know, directly focuses on whatever software we have in our infrastructure. We have to figure out what flaws are in it or configurational things that normal day to day sister, sister admins or someone who, you know, manages the infrastructure, make mistakes. Why do we need openscap? It's a way to express security policies in a user interactive format. You know, a lot of people come across and say, you know what, there is a vulnerability in a system, but I don't know what it is. You know, what is meltdown, what is specter? I don't know. A lot of vulnerabilities are out there, but I don't know what to do with it. It's, it's in my infrastructure, right?  You know, what to meet, what to do about it, what to, how to mitigate all those things. Openscap scap, uh, generally known as is, is, is, is an NISC standard certified standard and is a lot of security policies. So take that word security policies. I'll be explaining more about security policies in my latest slide, a tool to verify system or infrastructure to make up a certain standards. Now, standard comes to my mind. There are a lot of organizations, which needs to tends to have a set of standards in their organization. Let's say, you know, talking about XYZ organization, whenever they gave a laptop to a new employee, they want a particular set of operating system to be installed and not any other operating system, right? That's a standard for them or for our organization, SSH access to certain systems is disabled. That's a standard. That's a security standard that's required, right? To maintain those standards, make it more easy for the people who work over there because just maintaining up the standard is not your work. There's something else you need to do, right? You have your own time to work on different things, not just to maintain up the standards. So openscap helps you on that front from the time the system has been being provisioned or it's into your organization, it's into your infrastructure opens up takes control of that. Modification can be done using tailoring files. Obviously it's an open source. You can do all your modifications that you want to do. Whatever whatsoever you want to do it, you can do it and you can make it across all your fear infrastructure. It's supported cross platform, made by windows, made by Linux, anything you want to do it, anything, whatever your infrastructure is consist of openscaps supports that. So that's a good point where you know a lot of organizations say, okay, this particular open source tool is something for Linux. We can't use it. No, it's for windows as well. All the standard, all the security profiles, all those things are for windows as well. There are a few couple of tools which openscap gives you that's first one is anaconda. A lot of people have heard about anaconda. That's an installer for a Linux, right? Linux based system. That's an installer. So in anaconda, there's a plugin for openscap. The time you are building up a system, let's say you are building your own desktop system on once in a one system, anaconda is out there or if you are building a number of systems, yes, you can have your own set of anaconda file where you can mention out those profiles. You can mention on those rules that you need to check mention on those standards, which you want to, you know, put it in your, in your, in the system that you are building up. Scab workbench. This is an GUI tool with scab gives you. So, you know, people not comfortable with command line. You can use this tool. It's, it's absolutely brilliant tool because it gives you, it gives the user an approach for, you know, tailoring out things. Modification can be done. Even if the person is not core technical or he doesn't know, he or she doesn't know that if I, you know, omitted out this particular rule or omitted out this particular standard, what impact it will create, right? What at the background, the system is going to happen. Even if it doesn't know, openscap will take care of that. I mean, the workbench takes care of that openscap debon. Again, the system has been, I mean the service will be running up in your systems, in your containers, in your infrastructure at the background.  That's one thing.  It's again taking care of a lot of people. A lot of people has this idea that, you know, what, whatever scan we did in last six months, it should be stored just for verification, just for analyzing how we are moving towards security, right? In that case, it's kept up. It's kept up on me is a very useful tool for you. You can use your SQL search query and you can get whatever things, whatever scanned reports of just one system or in other, you know, scan reports of your entire systems or entire infrastructure will be out there and you can, you know, search what all things I can do with that. Openscap base.  Openscap components. Okay. So languages is something which, I mean, openscap is written in XML. So if you want to write up a rule, you have to know what is XML. XCDF is a, is a sort of language where it's a kind of a wrapper over, over OAL rule. So you write a rule in OAL and over that there's a wrapper, you know, a lot of people who are from programming background, you must be knowing it. What is a wrapper of, you know, in a programming? So XCDF is a wrapper. And with the help of these two things, XCDF and OAL, it creates, creates a data stream file, which is the file, which openscap used to scan your systems. That's again a rule list. Let's say in OAL, you have a lot of rules to return it. I need access to be disabled. You know, it should be installed on your system. A lot of other things you mentioned in the form of rules or it's in the upstream that has been again, uh, you know, collaborated with XCDF and you get a data stream file. That particular file is used for scanning up your system. Yeah, I have a report. This is a sort of a report, a format of a report in which the openscap, you know, gives you the result. The first result comes up. Also you can have your results in HTML format in a beautiful format. You know, you can open up in your browsers and you can give it to people who are, who just want to know what all things or how many systems are being scanned up or how if a system is scanned to watch the level of, you know, it is, uh, vulnerable, vulnerable. Openscap components, CVS, CVSS, all these things openscap looks from NIST. So whatever NIST has its own standard indexing of each and every vulnerability, openscap copies that and has the source, uh, as it indexed. It's all about openscap openscap, but how does it work? Okay. It's a beautiful diagram out here and it says there are few profiles which I have written over here. PC, PCI DSS profile. It's a profile which has been used by payment gateways. A lot of companies which are using payment gateways, the particular profile has been used by them. Standard Docker. If you are using Docker in your infrastructure, you can use this profile. Standard system profile, that's normal system profile. Maybe you are using CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, maybe Red Hat, Fedora, something, anything, right? Or maybe Microsoft windows, right? That's a standard system profile in which all the rules have been mentioned based on your infrastructure, right? These collaborative profiles are known as cap profiles and it's distributed among the operating system, whatever operating system you use. Lot of pro, I mean collection of these profiles is known as cap content. That's all content. Now, as cap content can be directly apply to your client systems with the help of openscap. That's one thing. But now this particular project is an open source project. It should have a ability to communicate or to get integrated with other open source projects as well. So here four men comes into the picture that a diagram with a helmet is four men. So with the help of four men, you can either use puppet, whatever puppet you want to use, you want to use puppet enterprise, right? Or you want to go with Ansible, you want to go with with Chef, Salt, anything can be used with four men and you can then apply it on your client systems sorted. If it's, I mean you are using four men in your infrastructure by four men, nothing in your infrastructure, just direct systems, do it with openscap. I was talking about profiles. So this is just an image which gives you an idea that what all sort of profiles. I mean, I was talking about that is health insurance portability, maybe something related to hospitals. PC idea. I've already talked about Red Hat corporate profile. Again, this is a company specific profile, right? If you have a systems on that C2S and for Red Hat, you know, cloud based instances, a lot of other profiles, which we can scroll down and we can have those profiles mentioned over there. There's also an option of tailoring files. Let's say based on these profiles, C2S profile for Red Hat Enterprise Linux seven is a very strict for your infrastructure. Let's move out some, you know, cross out some rules and that particular file, I mean, you have to generate a new file and that particular file can be known is known as tailoring file. So based on one standard profile, you have your own custom tailoring profile, which have an addition of rules or some rules which you have striked off. So this is a report of how openscap report comes up. So there's an evaluation target. I have mitigated it. I mean, it will give you or, you know, host by system when the scan happened, when it got finished by which user, even if you are using ADA or LDAP or something, it will give you the user, which users can this result. What, how many rules got passed, which were failed and which were not even checked, right? Checked as in, you want a particular rule not to be checked in a system because that is something your organization wants. So you can skip that rule. These are rules which you have in your system, whichever are failed, whichever are passed, somewhere are not checked. The beautiful thing is you can just click on the rule and it will give you the description about it, what that particular rule was and what all things you need to do about it to mitigate that particular thing or to pass that result, right? With openscap, you get an all, you get also a flexibility to do all the stuff with bash with Ansible playbook or with puppet modules. So this is how some, you know, you just click on Ansible scriptlet and it gives you the answer playbook. But this is, you know, for each and every rule which got filled, but you want to mitigate all the rules. You just have to create, click a command. Okay, I'll give you the command now and the Ansible playbook will be generated for all those rules which are failed. This is the command and it will generate the Ansible playbook. We have the Ansible playbook over here. Simple. How does it looks like? I'll give you that also. How that my Ansible playbook looks like something like this. It got generated with this particular command was for this system, all the inventories and everything out are out here for all those rules which were failed, right? Now this is, this is the command that I have used. Now opens, openscap get also integrated with a lot of other enterprise products or open source products as well. So let's say you want to use on a very small infrastructure, you can use them and or work bench because it's easy to manage. Or if you want to use on a large systems, you can definitely use foreman, sousai manager, red hot cloud forms, satellite five, satellite six, anything you want to use. You can integrate with, let's say, I mean, I'm giving an example with foreman because it's open source, right?  Let's say you have VMs, you have containers, what all things do you have in your infrastructure? It gives you all the help to manage out your infrastructure.  And then once everything is set up, monitoring is done. So foreman is quite integrative with, you know, a lot of other components easy to Google cloud, word, open stack, what all things you want to use, you can use it and you can manage all your systems which are deployed over there, you can manage over here as well. Provisioning, you can provision, I mean, once you set up foreman, you can provision any system on any sort of platform which you have.  It's very easily integratable and you can deploy all the systems on the platform that you are using. Configuration, majorly it's puppet and Ansible. Previously it was using with puppet and now it's been using Ansible, but let's say you don't want to use this. You want to go some with something else, chef, salt, anything else can be used. Right? Uh, I guess I'm monitoring. This is one thing which needs to be done. There are a lot of APIs which are well documented. The documentation is fabulous and gives you proper API monitoring, gives you the openscap report generation. You can generate that report, you can get it on a web UI, a single dashboard, you can get all the reports of entire infrastructure. Now, uh, you have a lot of systems and you don't know which particular system lies in which organization or which place, which which data center can directly search it through SQL query or directly with hostname.  This is how something you're openscap data, a foreman data dashboard looks like.  All the things can will be, you know, in the dashboard. And this particular image is of a system which has been provisioned with the help of four men. So all the IPs, all the system facts will be out there for each and every system, whatever configuration you want to do, it will be out there even before deploying the system. Once it's deployed and comes to your hand, you can do other configuration things. Let's say, you know what provision the system, make this sort of configuration. And once this whole conviction is done, when the system is built, you know, scan with this openscap, everything is sorted. You have all the automation done at your end and it's good to go anyways. Okay. So all right. So like every other product openscap also has a limitation, you know, if you want to keep, if you want to make a new rule, you know, a lot of, a lot of people comes to, you know, say, and you know what, we have our own auditing system. We have our own auditors, which at which they have their own scripts and they come and they check our organization and they audit the organization. So what if we want to write our own rules? It's, I would say it's not that easy to write your own rules. You just need to know XML and then a proper wrapper should be out there and you can build your own rule. But yeah, by default, whatever rules are out there, you have to use that. Only thing is vulnerability in vendor's package, not in EPL as of now.  Not in third party vendors, like, you know, software that you develop, you know, let's say you develop for some, some RPM or some other software package you develop, openscap won't be able to help on that front. Right? It's only vulnerability important enough to fix RSAs. So it's, it's more of, you know, company-driven where your security advisories are being concerned. Security policies don't get updated automatically under foreman. So in whichever open source or enterprise level, uh, you know, project you integrate openscap, it has a drawback that the profile that I was talking about in the diagram, the doctor profile, the standard profile doesn't gets updated automatically. We need to have some sort of automation done at that end so that, you know, from repository, those profiles gets updated. And once those are updated again, things will be sorted at your end. Right? So it was all in a nutshell that how an open source tool is easy to use at your end, right? Just for one, two systems or for your entire infrastructure, whether it's, uh, you know, it is on any of the platforms. So yes, that is all. I'm running out of my time, I guess. So it's fine. It's good. Okay. Any questions anyone have around this, around foreman, around openscap, anything you can, you know, guys, you can shoot me out. Hi. So basically I have a question regarding this openscap. So there is an infrastructure tool, Nessus, right? So what's the difference between these two? I mean, uh, so openscap is just for only like you mentioned, NIST based framework as well as PCI DSS. So for those policies, it will scan for a whole infrastructure also like Nessus in Nessus scans. Yes. Nessus scans will be, I mean, you can integrate openscap profiles in your system. Let's say you have already paid for it. It's a paid product, I believe, right? You have already paid for it.  Right.  So it's specific to the, um, standards like PCI DSS and NIST based frameworks. It's specific to that only or it will scan for a whole infrastructure also. It will scan the entire infrastructure. So it's, it will scan the networking part, whatever networking part you have in your infrastructure and as well as the standardizations that you want to maintain. Okay. Right.  So these are the rules that we have and anytime you want to customize it, you can directly go and you can just click it or let's say I want to have this rule, just click it and make a customization file. There's a tailoring file you have. And now you can integrate it with your Nessus tool or if you're going to use it with openscap, you can use this directly with openscap. So since you mentioned it only supports RHS says the policies that you're showing also are very RPS specific. It works with non-radar executions. Absolutely fine. It works with open to because, okay, I'll show you the open to part.  It's when we debut and it can be one to it can be even windows. I don't have a windows right now, but it can be anything. So it doesn't know, it doesn't restrict you to red hat. It's a part, but you know, you can go around with any of the other operating systems. Yeah, I have two questions. First one is what are the reason that they chose XML as a formatting thing? And secondly, how hard is it to write some JSON or YAML, you know, formatted that openscap can take us in? I would say this is all, I mean, I'm not pretty sure why they have chosen XML as a part. They could have chosen other languages to work, but I'm not pretty sure on this front. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, since I'm not a maintainer, I'm not, you know, the correct person for that, but for in terms of the next next part was YAML, right? So it all depends on the person who is using it. So for me, if I'm using, you know, openscap for me, it's not a very difficult to write an XML or YAML, right? But for the person that say who is on a, on a position as known as manager, you just want to know what all things are there, but he still wants to, you know, have a tech background, or you want to still touch base on, you still have to check what all things are going on in the system. This particular tool gives you a proper insight what with host, which rule, why, how to mitigate it. And it also gives you the, you know, flexibility with the Ansible if he knows or he or she knows it, you know, Ansible puppet or anything, you know, you can mitigate it, the description of the, about it. So all the things are, you know, done for the person who is not even very good in terms of technicalities, but yes, he still want to go. Does it has the capability to scan docker images? Yes, it has. There is an auto, uh, atomic scan, which can be run on dockers. I have not shown over here, but yes, openscap has the capability, you know, to scan docker images and, uh, it has inbuilt profiles. Pardon. Inbuilt profiles. Inbuilt profiles. Yes, we have different profiles as well for that. Hi, I have one question on web, web, web scanning part. I can't see. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, uh, as NASA scanner or open vast, we do have a ability to scan web, web, web based URL as well as well as a system profiles. So if I'm running a open vast, do you recommend to go for this, uh, scab? It all depends on you and your infrastructure, right? Let's say you're pretty much comfortable with open vast. You can go with that. Not a problem. But if you still want to give a try to open scab, definitely should give because there could be certain changes or, uh, different approach towards scanning up your same infrastructure. So I would say definitely give a try.  I have actually two questions. One, does it scan the container itself or it scans the image? No, it's kind of container as well. Okay. And second one is, um, how do you make sure that the code, um, that your tool has generated is, uh, compatible with the version of Ansible or a popular chef you are using. Uh, the second question, I'm not clear. Can you just repeat it? So there might be, you know, um, uh, compatibility metrics in between, uh, um, the confusion management tool and open scab. Okay. So how you're making sure that they both are compatible. Right. So behind this, whatever rule, let's say you write today, you have to give Ansible playbook or a puppet playbook, whatever feasible to you, whatever feasible to the developer or the person who is writing a rule and give it in the upstream, right? So they upstream gets checked, which rule or which pants were playbook runs on which systems. I mean, let's say that's one thing for your configurational tool. I mean, openscap should, uh, needs to manage by, uh, Ansible 2.7, right? So both it's again at the end, Ansible playbook will be running up. And the rule, I mean, the task in the Ansible playbook will be the one of your own system, not for puppet or not for, uh, Ansible core Ansible or core puppet. The rule, the task will be for the system or the, uh, you know, the infrastructure that you have, the configuration that you have done. It won't change the puppet configurations. It won't change the Ansible configurations, but it will change the system configurations. So let's say you have, uh, I mean, in login.tef, um, you know, some, some rule you have written or in profiles, you have mentioned some sort of things, right? Once you log in into bash, you have some things in your terminal, it won't change that, but it will give you a hint that you know what you have to, you, this is something which is deprecated or this is something which is not secure enough for your infrastructure. So now you can use it with, with a basket or Ansible playbook. So it will change that configuration. So custom scans, I mean, custom things, custom configurations will be something which will be, uh, a human invention needs to take place. But if this is something related to more of a package, openscab will take place of that. So I, I'm not pretty sure whether I have answered your question, but yeah, we can discuss that offline. Anyone else? All right. Okay. Thank you, uh, Jessica. So, uh,


Good evening, aspirants. Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankara Ace Academy for the date 25th June 2019. The list of articles which has been chosen for today's analysis along with the page numbers of Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Tiruvannathapuram editions are provided here. The link for the handwritten notes in the PDF format and the timestamping for the displayed articles is given in the description box below. And for the benefit of smartphone users, the timestamping is also provided in the comments section. Let's move on to our first article discussion. This news article is about the deaths that was caused by acute encephalitis syndrome that happened in the state of Bihar. The discussion is relevant in prelim syllabus under the area current events of national importance, then in poverty and also in general science. The discussion can also be linked to main syllabus under GS paper 2 in the area issues relating to development and management of social sector relating to health, then also in issues relating to poverty and hunger. The Indian Medical Association study team has released a ground report. The ground report is based on the death of children in the Musafarpur district of Bihar due to the acute encephalitis and encephalopathy. As we have already discussed many times, encephalopathy and encephalitis both affect the brain, but there are significant differences. Encephalitis refers to the inflammation in the brain which often results from a viral infection and encephalopathy refers to permanent or temporary brain damage disorder or disease which leads to an altered mental status. It affects the brain's function or structure and it can also be degenerative. Here degenerative means the progressive deterioration and loss of function in the organs or tissues. Then the acute encephalitis syndrome can be defined as a person of any age at any time of year with the acute onset of fever and a change in mental status which includes symptoms such as confusion, disorientation, coma or inability to talk with or without the new onset of seizures. The report by the Indian Medical Association states that the deaths could have been prevented if the health awareness campaign had been conducted and the correction information was provided to the families. The report also mentions about the causes for the deaths. It reasonably concluded that the prevailing heat and humidity together with malnutrition contributed substantially to the deaths. Along with this heat and humidity and malnutrition, dehydration, hypoglycemia and the heat syndrome also played a significant part leading to the death of the children. Here dehydration is a significant loss of body fluid that impairs normal bodily functions. In other words, dehydration occurs when more water and fluids leave the body than the water and fluids that enter the body. And here hypoglycemia is a condition that occurs when a person's blood glucose level drops too low. The report also added that the persistence of a very high atmospheric temperature with humidity throughout the day and night and that too without fluctuations or change might be causing a heat syndrome in children. Heat syndrome is caused when the body's capacity of production of heat increases at a faster rate than the body's ability to dissipate or disperse the heat. We can say that the heat syndrome is developed when the body uses all its mechanisms and still cannot keep the temperature down and the excess heat is retained. Then the report noted that awareness is key, that is knowledge about the acute encephalitis syndrome or AES and the immediate first aid is the key to reduce deaths in AES. The report mentions about the first aid or the immediate measures that can start right from home. The first immediate measure is tepid sponging. Tepid means lukewarm water. Tepid sponging means sponge bath in which the patient's body is not immersed in water but is wiped with a wet cloth or sponge. This is most often done for reduction of body temperature when there is fever. This may be used to reduce the heat syndrome. Then next is the correction of dehydration. Dehydration can be corrected by giving extra fluids to the patients at home or it can be treated simply and effectively by giving adequate glucose electrolyte solution. This glucose electrolyte is called as oral rehydration salts solution or in short ORS solution. Oral rehydration salts contain a variety of salts that is electrolytes and sugar. The combination of electrolytes and sugar stimulates the water and electrolyte absorption from the gut that is the digestive part of the human body. Therefore, the ORS solution prevents or reverses dehydration and replaces lost salts. Normally ORS is available in the market in a powder form in sachet or ready-made solutions or can also be made easily at home. The next measure is correction of hypoglycemia using the clinical methods such as the intravenous dextrose. Intravenous means through the veins. Dextrose is the name of a simple sugar that is made from corn and is chemically identical to glucose or blood sugar. So, this will help in correction of hypoglycemia. Then the report also mentions some simple interventions to prevent further deaths in the form of a package program. This package program should be focused on health awareness, then free meals to children especially at night and the public availability of the ORS solution. Then the report also said that going by the observations no definite conclusions can be made on the etiology of the syndrome that is the cause of the AES. It states that the current problem seems unlikely to be an infectious cause with the present evidence and then leachy consumption cannot be attributed as the major factor of the AES as even infants have been affected. Here infants are below the age of one and they take only liquid food normally. That is why the report is saying leachy consumption is not the only major factor. Finally the report says that a foolproof scientific epidemiological study that is the study of incidence distribution and control of these diseases and then a follow-up among children who survived in previous episodes and outbreak of this disease in 2014 and 2015 should be done systematically. With this we have come to the end of this discussion. The displayed practice problems question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next news article which is about the protection of elephants in the country. The discussion is relevant in problem syllabus under current events of national importance, then in public policy, then also in general issues on environment ecology, biodiversity. The discussion is important also in main syllabus under the area conservation in GS paper 3. The news article talks about the questioning by the Gauhati High Court on clearing the transit of four juvenile elephants to Gujarat for a religious event. The court has questioned the Assam's chief wildlife warden on whether she had taken note of a 2016 Supreme Court order against transfer of elephants while approving the transit. Also based on two separate petitions, the High Court bench had sought clarification from the centre with regard to the operation of the apex courts interim order in 2016 which prohibited the transfer of elephants outside a state by their possessors. The wildlife activists have argued that the juvenile elephants will not survive the heat wave. This is because the elephants will be transported in a metal railway wagon for about 3106 kilometers from eastern Assam to Ahmedabad. They also insisted that none of the elephants sent outside Assam on temporary leases have returned till date. Even the railways had sought clarification on the Supreme Court's interim order before transporting the elephants. The bench also referred to a letter of the Project Elephant Division of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. This letter seeks a legal step for the welfare of the captive elephants and the strict monitoring of the captive elephants. This is to prevent illegal transport of elephants between the states. It was also pointed out that like Tamil Nadu and Kerala, Assam has not framed any rules for the management and maintenance of captive elephants under section 64, clause 2 of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. The section 64 of Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 is about the power of state government to make rules. And the clause 2 in this deals with all the matters regarding the rules such as regulation of the possession, transfer and the sale of captive animals, their meat, animal articles, trophies and uncured trophies. Here trophies means horns, antlers, skulls, skins, tusks or teeth of animal which are used for display. And trophy hunting is defined as the killing of animals for recreation with the purpose of collecting these trophies and this is illegal. Then uncured trophy means a freshly killed wild animal. While discussing the news article, we saw a term which is project elephant division. This is a separate division of wildlife division under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change of Government of India. The Government of India has concerns for the primary need to restore the elephant habitats and reduce suffering of both elephants as well as the human population. So, the Government of India launched project elephant in 1991 and 92 period. It was launched as a centrally sponsored scheme of the then Ministry of Environment and Forests. Now this ministry is called as Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. The project elephant was intended to provide financial and technical support to the elephant range states of India. This support is for the protection of elephants, their habitats and corridors and also to address the issue of human-animal conflict. It also sought to promote welfare of the captive elephants. See the captive animals under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 means any animal which is captured or kept or bred in captivity. These are the animals which are specified in Schedule 1, Schedule 2, Schedule 3 or Schedule 4 of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. In short, we can say that it provides financial and technical support of wildlife management efforts by states for the free-ranging population of wild elephants and also monitoring against their poaching. Hence, the objectives of project elephants can be summarized as to protect elephants, their habitat and corridors, then to address issues of man-animal conflict, then to ensure and promote the welfare of captive elephants and the domesticated elephants. Here the financial and technical support are being provided to the major elephant bearing states in the country. At present, the project is being implemented in 22 states and union territories, which includes Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chathisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Andamananikobaar, Bihar, Punjab, Gujarat and Haryana. In all these states, an elephant rescue center has also been set up, which is supported by Project Elephant. With this, we have come to the end of this discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next discussion, which is about basic rights and basic needs. The article discussion will be relevant in your prelim syllabus under the area rights issue, which comes under Indian polity and governance. It can also be linked to your main syllabus in general studies paper 2 under the area issues relating to health and also in important aspects of accountability. The article is a response to the recent tragedy that happened in the Musafarpur district in Bihar. We know that around 140 children have died in this district from a preventable acute encephalitis syndrome. The author states that the death of the children was due to the systemic failure of the healthcare in the state. We have already seen how this disease could have been easily prevented on 18th June, while analyzing the editorial article titled as the leechy link. The link is provided in the description box. Now, coming to this editorial, the author is deeply concerned and worried about the state of vulnerability and helplessness of the families in the district with respect to the recent tragedy. Therefore, the author shares that he had three thoughts in the aftermath of this tragedy. One is that there has to be basic rights, like we have basic structure doctrine with respect to our constitution. The author relates the basic rights to the basic structure that we have for Indian constitution to stress that the basic rights should not be altered by the government. We know that Supreme Court in Keswananda Bharati case has stated that the basic structure of the constitution should not be amended by the parliament using article 368 of Indian constitution. Now, the author proposes that the basic rights must be viewed primarily as a positive rights. This is because positive rights confer a duty upon the government to provide services. And thirdly, when the government of the day violates the basic rights, it has to be held legally accountable and shall be punished. When there is systemic violation of basic rights, it has to be treated in the same manner as the breakdown of constitution machinery. Then the author attempts to explain basic rights. He says that basic rights flow from basic needs. Now, we have to understand what is a basic need? Basic needs are those needs that are essential for survival and sustenance. Physical security is essential for survival. Then clean air, water, food are essential for survival. These are the basic needs that the author mentions. Here, he explains the difference between a need and a want. A need is something essential, whereas a want is not an essential one. To have at least one home is a need, whereas desire to have more than one home is a want. Now, this difference is important because non-fulfillment of basic needs can cause great harm and even kill human beings. For example, not able to get an antibiotic medicine can lead to infection of a disease which can become more serious. That is why the author says basic needs are necessary. Then the author adds that the basic needs cannot be substituted. There is no substitute for clean air, uncontaminated water and food. So, these basic needs are important for the survival. Providing these basic needs is the basic duty of the government in the purview of positive rights. This is because when we say basic rights, it means that it is an entitlement to get these services from the government. Right is not a favor from the government, rather it is what owed to us. So, basic rights are claims on the state to provide goods and services to satisfy the basic needs of the citizen. Then we can say basic rights are the shield for the defenseless against the most damaging threats that they face against their survival. These are the threats that make the vulnerable population unable to get their basic needs satisfied. An example could be a single mother living below poverty line having no access to drinking water. This threat will vanish if basic rights are declared. These are the author's opinion because the author feels that if there are basic rights, then people can make the governments accountable and also punish them. It is like giving the people the veto power. That is when the government fails to provide basic services, then people can exercise their veto power to overrule the statements of the government and also hold them accountable for the same. To highlight this, the author quotes the statement made by a philosopher Henry Shoe. The statement is that the basic rights will be an attempt to give to the powerless a veto over some economic, social and political forces that harm them. Also, basic rights are important to ensure elementary justice to the people. By saying elementary justice, the author here means that the state providing everything to satisfy all the basic needs of the citizen. If a state carries out this responsibility, then such a country ensures elementary justice to its citizens. Then the author gives three rights that must be declared as basic rights. Firstly, the right to physical security. Without this right, there is no possibility of survival. We can say that it can become a socially guaranteed right only when the government provides a police force that has two qualities. One is that it has to be well trained and the other it has to be professional police force. The word professional in this context refers to a police force that has behaviors of high ethical and moral standards. The next right that has to be declared as a basic right is the right to minimum economic security and subsistence. This right includes the right to have clean air, uncontaminated water, nutritious food, clothing and shelter. This right also should include the right to primary health care. The government should provide primary health care to those who cannot afford it. This right can be guaranteed if the state establishes institutions and practices to assist the vulnerable population. These mechanisms will also handle the threats to these basic rights. In establishing these mechanisms, there has to be proper budgetary allocation and political priority and also commitment. Then the third basic right is the right to free public expression of helplessness and frustration. This right includes the right to announce the vulnerability publicly. The right to get information about the commission and omission of the government that affected the satisfaction of basic needs. Here commission means doing an act that is not right. Omission means not doing an act that is required. For example, not having a driving license while driving is omission and ration negligent driving is commission. Then the third basic right also includes the right to critically examine the government officials and hold them publicly accountable. To guarantee this basic right, the government has to make certain arrangements for the people. These arrangements are to demand basic rights and to complain whether their demands are met or not and also to report lapses and omissions on the part of the government. Finally, government should make arrangements for citizens to criticize the government without fear when the government fails to provide basic services. These are required for the survival and sustenance of citizens. The author finally sums up the three basic rights into a single phrase which can be called as right to a minimally decent life. This right the author calls as a threshold right. Threshold in this context refers to a minimum level of leading a decent life. All the three rights we discussed constitute the minimum level of leading a decent life and no person should fall below this minimum level of existence. And then having such basic rights will prevent similar tragedies that happened in PR in the future. With this we have come to the end of this discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next discussion which is based on the article about the stands taken by the departmentally related standing committee of finance with respect to the estimation of unaccounted income and wealth in the country. This article discussion will be relevant in your prelim syllabus under the area current events of national importance then in Indian polity and also in economic development. This topic can also be linked to main syllabus in general studies paper 3 under the area money laundering and its prevention. The article talks about the stand taken by the standing committee on finance on the estimation of unaccounted income and wealth in the country. Recently the standing committee on finance has released a preliminary report titled as status of unaccounted income or wealth both inside and outside the country a critical analysis. This report states that the reliable estimation of unaccounted income and wealth inside and outside the country is a difficult task. The report also mentions that the chief economic advisor has given his opinion that there is no scope for arriving at a common estimate of unaccounted income by combining estimates from three reports. We will see what these three reports are in a short time. In 2010 the then finance minister gave approval for the study of the thorough assessment or survey of accounted unaccounted income and wealth. It was decided at that time that the study may be conducted separately by three institutes and the final view was to be taken by the government after the submission of the individual study. The three institutes are National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, National Institute of Financial Management and then National Council of Applied Economic Research. Before seeing the estimation given by the each of the institute let us see some facts about these institutes. The National Institute of Public Finance and Policy is a center for research in public economics and policies. It was established in the year 1976 and it is an autonomous research institute under the Ministry of Finance. Then the National Institute of Financial Management also carries out research but the main function of this institute is training and capacity building of professionals. It is a center of excellence that is specialized in capacity building of professionals in the fields of public policy, financial management and other governance issues. It was established in 1993 and at that time it was mandated to train the officers recruited by the Union Public Service Commission through the civil services examination but over a period of time it has become a premier resource center to meet the training needs of central governments, state governments, defense establishments and also financial institutions. Next the National Council of Applied Economic Research is a non-profit economic research institute that was established in 1956. It was established as a public-private partnership. Now coming back to the news article, the article states that there are variations of about 7% to 120% of GDP for unaccounted income and wealth inside and outside the country. According to the assessment of National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, the unaccounted income and wealth amounts to 72% of the GDP and according to the National Institute of Financial Management it amounts to around 7 to 17% of the GDP and then according to the National Council of Applied Economic Research, the unaccounted income and wealth both inside and outside the country amounts to two values. One is 120% of GDP in one method and then around 55% in another method. At the end it was found that there is difference in the final estimation by these three studies and therefore it was decided that there is no scope for arriving at a common estimate from the three reports. This decision was understood as they have decided not to proceed with the thorough assessment or estimation of unaccounted income or wealth. This unaccounted illegal income or wealth is also called as black money. So the view of the Standing Committee on Finance in the matter as of now is a common estimate from these three studies is not possible. We will see in the coming days whether the government of the day will take any steps to proceed with the estimation or not. There is also a possibility that the government may accept the estimates of these reports also but the possibility is very less because the government may take the opinion of the Chief Economic Advisor in this matter. We already saw in the beginning that he is of the opinion that there is no scope for a common estimate from the three studies. Now in this context let us see about the departmentally related Standing Committees. The system of department related Standing Committees was introduced by the Parliament of India in 1993. The purpose was to ensure a specialized and ministry or department specific scrutiny and oversight of the Executive by the Legislature. We saw about the Standing Committee on Finance in the article discussion. This committee is different from the financial committees. Financial committees include Public Accounts Committee, Estimates Committee and the Committee on Public Undertakings. So Standing Committee on Finance is not a committee which comes under the financial committees. Remember this Standing Committee on Finance is not a committee which comes under the financial committees. Rather it is a part of departmentally related Standing Committees. The Standing Committee on Finance examines the matters concerned with the Ministry of Finance, then Ministry of Corporate Affairs and also the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation. With this we have come to the end of this article discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next article discussion which is about the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement that are said to be in the final round of negotiations. This article will be relevant in a prelim syllabus under current events of national and international importance. Then the article will also be relevant in Main's examination under GS paper 2 in bilateral regional groupings and agreements involving India and or affecting India's interests. The news article talks about the recent statement given by the Malaysian Prime Minister. The statement is that ASEAN may proceed with the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement that is the RCEP agreement with just 13 countries leaving India, Australia and New Zealand. Recently India has some issues with respect to Malaysia. This we have been seeing in our news analysis. One with respect to the extradition of Zakir Naik, then Malaysia also supports Pakistan in financial action task force. We saw Malaysia along with China and Turkey has almost blocked the proposal to blacklist Pakistan in the public statement of FATF. As another issue now we see that the Malaysian Prime Minister is stating that he will prefer to have an RCEP agreement with just 13 countries. We have seen on 12th June that RCEP is an agreement which has not yet been finalized between 10 countries of ASEAN and 6 other countries. The 6 other countries are India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Some of the ASEAN countries feel that countries such as China, Japan and South Korea much more cooperative than India, Australia and New Zealand. So there is also an understanding between some countries in ASEAN grouping to initially have just 13 countries onboard and India, Australia and New Zealand can be joined later. Recently on 22nd June the foreign ministers of association of Southeast Asian nations that is ASEAN held a meeting in Thailand and on 23rd June the 34th ASEAN summit was held in Thailand. The final declaration of the summit has urged the ministers and officials of ASEAN to redouble their efforts to reach the RCEP agreement. The Bangkok declaration which is the final statement of the 34th ASEAN summit has also asked the partners to prioritize the RCEP negotiations. It also asked India and 5 other countries to work with ASEAN to conclude the RCEP negotiations within this year. The new efforts that are taken recently appears like the ASEAN countries may leave India and proceed with RCEP. This will have serious implications to Indian businesses and the asserting role of India in the present geopolitical scenario. The news article states that the officials of Indian government have stated that it is still not time to judge whether India will be left out from regional comprehensive economic partnership or not. What we have to note here right now is that China is in the positive note with respect to RCEP negotiations with the ASEAN countries and one reason why India has some issues with respect to RCEP is that countries in the negotiations particularly China demands India to open up industrial and manufacturing sector of India. If India proceeds with such an agreement it will result in huge damage to Indian domestic industries and domestic manufacturers. There had been a delay in taking the negotiations forward because four countries that are currently party to the negotiations had undergone elections this year between March and May. The four countries are India, Indonesia, Thailand and Australia. Further we can note that right now Singapore has expressed its interest in having India in the RCEP agreement. We can expect serious developments about RCEP before the end of 2019. We will see more about this as repeatedly news will be coming hereafter. With this we have come to the end of our article discussions. Moving on to the last session for the day that is the practice questions discussion session. If you see the first question it is about the encephalitis. The first statement states that encephalitis refers to the inflammation of the stomach lining. Now by seeing the second statement which talks about leachy fruit you may think the disease is related to stomach but this disease is related to the brain. Encephalitis refers to the inflammation of the brain. Remember this encephalitis refers to the inflammation of the brain. So the statement one is wrong but also know that the inflammation of stomach lining is known as gastritis. Now if you look at the second statement if you are regularly reading the newspaper and watching our analysis you can say that leachy fruit has been associated with the acute encephalitis syndrome which led to deaths of many children in the Musapharpur district of Bihar. So this statement is correct. Sometimes going through the news headlines will also help you in the examination. Since the question asks for the correct statements here statement two is the only correct statement. So the correct answer to this question is option B two only. Now if you see the next question it is about the project elephant of government of India. If you see the first statement it states that project elephant is a centrally sponsored scheme of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. So here we have to ensure two things whether it is a centrally sponsored scheme or not and next whether it comes under this ministry or not. During our analysis we saw that it comes under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. You can remember this because elephant is related to forests and environment you can simply remember it comes under Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. And we also discussed that it is a centrally sponsored scheme. So this statement is a correct statement. Now here the second statement states national elephant conservation authority is the nodal agency for its implementation. Now if you see this statement you can remember a project tiger of government of India under which national tiger conservation authority functions. But in this question you should not make a mistake because there is no such authority called as national elephant conservation authority under project elephant of government of India. Because the proposal was given for the creation of national elephant conservation authority as a part of 12th plan and it was considered in the meeting of expenditure finance committee in the Ministry of Environment and Forests in 2013. But the committee did not recommend the proposal saying that there is a lack of any enabling statutory provisions in the Wildlife Protection Act. So this means there is no such authority called as national elephant conservation authority. But there is a authority known as national tiger conservation authority. Don't confuse both. Here the question asks for the correct statement. Here statement one is the only correct statement. So the correct answer to this question is option A1 only. Now if you look at the next question it is based on the committees of the government. Now if you see the first statement it talks about the financial committees and it says that financial committees in the parliament include public accounts committee, estimates committee and standing committee on finance. Now there are two kinds of parliamentary committees. One is standing committees and other is ad hoc committees. Standing committees are permanent in nature and ad hoc committees are temporary. Now within this standing committees we can see financial committees and departmentally related standing committee. Now based on today's analysis you can say that the standing committee on finance comes under the departmentally related standing committees as both have the common word standing committee. And during our discussion we also saw that the financial committees consist of three committees only and they are public accounts committee, estimates committee and the committee on public undertakings not the standing committee on finance. So the first statement here is wrong. Then if you look at the second statement it states that the system of department related standing committees was introduced to ensure specialized and ministry or department specific scrutiny and oversight of the executive by the legislature. Now this is a correct statement. We discussed this during our analysis. So the question asks for the correct statement. Only statement 2 is the correct statement. So the correct answer to this question is option B 2 only. Now let us see one main question based on GS paper 2. The question is basic rights are Sineqo are known for the fulfillment of very basic needs discussed. For those who would already gone through previous year's main question papers you would not be shocked to see Sineqo are known in the question. Sometimes questions are asked like this in main examination. Even last year in GS paper 3 the first question was access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy is the Sineqo are known to achieve sustainable development goals. Comment on the progress made in India in this regard. So here the word Sineqo are known means an essential condition or absolutely necessary. Now you read the question which we have given today. It says that basic rights are absolutely necessary for the fulfillment of very basic needs. Now for this question you can focus on discussing keywords given in the question that is basic needs and basic rights. Therefore begin with what constitutes basic needs. Here basic needs constitute very minimal human needs like food, shelter, health and education, safety and security, clean elements of weather etc. Which makes existence of a human life decent and meaningful. And furthermore you can also add that securing basic needs can be subjected to constitutional limitation of non-justiciable nature of directive principles and judicial interpretation of the fundamental rights as these basic needs are not exclusively imbibed in the justiciable fundamental rights. Therefore you can use the suggestion of the author like it would be better way to secure the basic needs by including the above mentioned basic needs as the core of the justiciable part of the fundamental rights. This would enable that every citizen is secured with humanly needs besides meaningful right. You can also add your own viewpoints based on today's discussion. With this we have come to the end of our analysis sessions. If you like the video don't forget to like, comment and share and do subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel for more updates on civil service examination preparation.