Okay, so my name is Diego. I'm not a security specialist. Okay, but I am Conan co-founder So I'm going to tell here my story here. Please be be kind to me because I'm trying to explain how we are modest approach to secure Conan Center Please read your hands who knows what is Conan read your hand if you know it one person to people. Okay Okay, perfect. So Conan is the missing link. It's something that we have been missing in C++ for decades It's a package manager for C++. It is open source. It is decentralized. It is a Multi-platform it works in every every operating system with any build system and it's very mature and reliable and stable I'm going to throw some some numbers here For example, we have been designated as one of the 1% critical by PI projects You know that what that means we got we it is downloaded a ton of times Because Conan itself is a Python tool. So we put it in the pie in the pie by Python package index and In the C++ Language a slack team. We are consistently a rank among the top most active channels in the whole in the whole place We get thousands of pull requests per year to our repos We have a dedicated team 10 people Sponsored by JFrog as maintainers of the conan project And there are many thousands of companies using Conan in production This is the number of artifact resurface that we know those that are not behind a firewall Those that we get that the telemetry its ranking last year was ranking around 8,000 Companies or teams using Conan that means of course a lot of support tickets We get a lot of feedback from them hundreds of video calls and a top of supporting general From these users, we selected a small group of them and we made also a group of We call it the tribe the tribe to see there's a group that has been giving feedback For the next big thing which is Conan to see that which is coming in a fully in a in a couple of months What I'm explaining this Besides the same less self-promotion Yes, I'm doing this is because you need to be aware that Conan is becoming a very important piece in the cnc-plus-plus ecosystem It's a piece that needs to be secure and today. I'm going to explain what we have been doing so far to try to Secure the supply chain for cnc-plus-plus packages with Conan First important thing the technology we manage the binaries So we have this concept of a package and we have a recipe And the recipe one single recipe can create any number of binaries for every different configuration every different operating system Everything compiler compiler version debug release configurations static or cert libraries That's that every one of those things is a new different binary and Conan can manage all of them This is the way that these binaries are created We have a recipe is a DSL on top of Python that describes how a package is built from sources And what does a package contain and together with the recipe? It goes to Conan data.jammel that can be used to put some data like the URLs and the and the checksums of the Turbles that is going to download to to build those those packages And from the architecture point of view Conan is decentralized So you can easily have your own server. We have an Artifactory Community Edition, which is completely free for c++ Okay, so you can have the whole stack the Conan client and the server For free and you can put your own private packages in your Artifactory server and get them from there and Besides that we also have central repository as npm For example, which we call Conan Center Conan Center is the place where we host the third-party open source packages Those are contributed by the community, but we maintain the infrastructure and we run the repo To give also some ideas about what is Conan Center Conan Center contains nowadays 1400 recipes for each one of these recipes it can contain in a number of versions for every different versions It can contains different revisions that happens with you do a change to the recipe but you don't actually bump the the version of the of the underlying library and For every single revisions We are building up to 130 different binaries for Windows Linux Mac different flavors of the compilers as you can see This is a big infrastructure That means that more or less we are maintaining 1.4 million packages binary packages in Conan Center which accounts for 20 terabytes of storage we are getting close to 1 million package download per month and We that means also like 25 terabytes of transfer per month So this is basically what is Conan Center content that contains two parts the first one is the package system It's a system when we are creating the packages from source everything start from a github to request We build the package we store the packages and we serve the packages so the Conan client can do a Conan install and get the packages from the from the servers and This is goes together with a web with a web application that we can use to navigate and explore and discover these these packages The package system is is a CI We are we are using Jenkins here and we are using the different agents Windows Linux and Mac agents Here to build the things we put the binaries in an artifact to repo And then we put a Google CDN on front of that for for scaling And the web system is a typical web application We are getting the metadata from the packages that are already in the artifact server We get them we crawl them and then we extract the license the version all the things that we need And we put them in some storage basically Google storage and a postgres database And we serve them through a fast API and next is a very standard web application From that application we we have this this is the front end of of Conan Center as you can see is relatively simple It displays the packages one important thing here is that it doesn't have any authentication Users don't need to log into this system. It's a read-only. It's a read-only page So that means from the security point of view the web part of Conan Center is very secure We are not concerned about it at all Maybe you can get into it, but even if you do it the information there the database information It's absolutely public It's something that you can get from the packages that you can get from Conan Center So it's not that we are hosting any sensitive information or anything like that As you can imagine our major concern is about the package creation process Because yes, we have the Jenkins. This is the first liability here. So we put the Jenkins absolutely In a VPN you cannot access anything from from Jenkins from the outside But you are still processing them the pull request from github and this is the main attack vector for for for Conan Center, of course So what we did here is we put in place a very strict Contribution process this is outlining our process several stages here and now I'm going to explain a little bit about them The first one is a user check. So the users when they do a pull request to Conan Center repo They first they need to sign the CLI. They are actually transferring the copyright of their contributions and then Jenkins the first thing we'll do is check the github username It contains an allow list if the user is not in this allow list the pull request will not be processed at all We don't we don't build anything and the users can request access For this for this allow list in doing also a like a pull request that is processed like two times per week And it's manually reviewed. So we get the users That that has a contribute permissions to Conan Center accepted manually as well Then the second stage even if you are an outright user the second stage is the static analysis so we get the diff from the pull request and we we have several tools there that analyze that diff and We check things for example that if the pull request is doing a version bump because it only changed the Conan data Jamel file with the specific URLs we check the URLs we check the checksums We check everything this is looking good, and then we annotate it as a version bump We can detect also things like a this is a dependencies bump Which can check the consistency of the current it about Jamel So everything that we can check with a with a diff analyzing the files there before building anything is done We check that the users are not touching in any folder for example the configuration folder that we have we have very little But we have something they are not allowed of course of modify anything They are touching the configuration folder then the pull request stops Then the next stage are some quality checks. We have here. We are using two tools here We are using first the github actions, and we are using some lint in there Okay, it's not a strict security measure But if you are doing something weird it is likely that these these quality checks might raise an area You are doing I don't know trying to obfuscate something or something a linter can can easily say hey You are doing something weird here, and then we will have some some insights about that And also in the Jenkins side we are running some of our quality checks That they contain for example they check that the recipe itself doesn't contain any URL For example, or it's not trying to do a W get or it's not trying to do something that is trying to connect to the to the outside So we run also some quality and security checks there Then we get to the bills when we are actually sending the job to the to the bill agents And they need to start building and this is the first thing that is a bit more more delicate because so far We have using temporary posts So everything that has been running so far runs in a pot that is is created on the fly and is destroyed after so even if you Get access to that pot it will be completely isolated It doesn't have any permissions and and whatever you do there will stay there and will be destroyed But here we also need to build with Windows and Mac And of course as you can imagine that that is also a problem So for that the best that we we are able to do so far is we we have automated Those machines so we are using ansible and we can periodically rebuild those machines in case something goes wrong Not only because of security just for our own sanity because you can get maintaining this infrastructure a scale for Windows and OS X is not that as nice and the Kubernetes So we do it, but we also use it as a measure to a let's let's build these machines from time to time So they are fresh and they are and they are clean In that step we also do some some binary checks This bill is actually building the binaries So we have some hooks there that will check a you said that you were building a search library Is there an actual DLL library here are the I'll say I'll say the magic numbers of the DLL Whatever we can check about these binaries created. We also we also check the artifact that has been built and finally Everything that is built at this stage is put in an Independent isolated Artifactory repo that is created on the fly for this specific pull request So even if you get access to this to this stage and you create some malicious packages and they are uploaded by this process They will not be uploaded to the production repo. They are uploaded to a clean independent repo for from independent also from every other pull request and finally the manual review We require this for anything to be merged into Conan Center and we require in this case to positive reviews one review from the from our official reviewers these are people that we have Selected from the community like heavy contributors to Conan Center people that we have been talking to them We have been doing video conferences with them and we meet them So we put them in an allow list and we made them official reviewers So they can do a positive review and that counts and then it also requires a positive review from a maintainer This is the stage where where the the reviewers will will care for a let's do the due diligence of what is happening here And they will do checks that are otherwise difficult to automate for example Is the URL that is being used the real URL of the project is the checksum there is everything correct is using a Some recipes might be using mirrors for example because the network might be flaky or the original source is also a bit a bit unstable So if there are mirrors, we need to check the mirrors as well So everything that a developer will will do is done at this stage And finally when everything is good when everything is clean only at this stage the merge and promote mechanism kicks in Here again, we are in a in a new in a new temporary pod because this this pod is the one that has access Right access is the only one in the whole system that has right access to the final Artifactory repo that is the production repo for for Conan Center So this is basically a product is in the Artifactory API to copy to promote packages from the pull request repo To the final production repo, which is typical with practice for package management at a scale in any in any case in any case besides all these review process and Contribution process we try to follow also other best practices So everything that we can restrict permissions we do we use two factor on the indication everywhere for every service that you We can do Every single piece of the system is as isolated as possible It was mentioned it before but our images if we can do something in an image that doesn't have a cell at all And it's just running some command or something we do it we try to maintain things as as minimal as possible We store logs of everything give have us a record. This sounds Easy, but it is actually cool It doesn't matter once you are using github pull request as a mechanism you do a pull request and it stays there You cannot remove it you can remove the source code But the pull request itself stay there So you cannot do something try to remove because it can't maintain that that information there And we try to maintain of course everything all the pieces there updated to the latest versions But let's say that and at some point you got access into our system Right and then you manage to create some malicious packages of popular C++ libraries Let's say that you infected boosts or open SSL or set leave there And you put them in artifactually Conan Center in the actual production repo. Okay, this is really bad news But probably is not as bad news as you expected if you if you thought a I'm gaining access to all those cool Companies fortune 100 companies using Conan in production that Diego was telling before No, this is not the case and as you can get a C++ It's probably different to all the other ecosystems out there Before you got being commenting about other other languages and other package managers and Conan was not there It hasn't been a concerted farm C++ is different The community has been doing different things for decades because they didn't even have a package manager in this case 80% 80% of the users are not using Conan Center binaries in production at all Okay, there are and this is goes proportionally also with the size and the value of the company if you are one of those big companies That are using Conan I can tell you that they are not using the Conan Center binaries in production. None of them are using them Okay, so the metric that we saw before they are just from the 20% of users that are actually using those binaries in production typically hobby users startups small companies small teams Exploration typically trying out things but not in production So what are these companies doing is something that should be done for every package manager? It was commented before in a previous talk So one of the approaches that are personally 20% of the users are doing is they are copying the binaries from Conan Center They do a copy a control copy typically a developer does some some out this process They check a I'm getting this version and then I'm copying it into my own Artifactory instance And they they cut access to the to the Conan Center completely and they even have many of them You probably don't imagine because in other words is is unthinkable But many of these companies they have a process they have a meeting to be able to upgrade boost from one version to the other Okay, so it's not something that happened. Hey, let's just get the latest version of the boost library from package So they have this control copy from time to time and that time might be two months Some maybe it's not best to get the latest and newest version for a library But it's very secure from the supply chain attack point of view because those binaries They are not easily getting into their organization And even though that was only 20% of the users 60% of the users and all of the important ones. They are doing this They are building the packages from sources They are actually doing the due diligence over the Conan recipes and they are building the binaries from source And we are very happy about this only in your own binaries. It's a good thing to do. So hey So all of these for nothing. What is Conan Center worth them the knowledge base? Containing the Conan Center repo is huge building C++ is a challenge building the third-party libraries out there It's very complicated Conan Center contains the recipes It instead of a read me that it automates how a library is built from source for Windows for Linux for Mac And that is super valuable and then Conan can automate a you create the binaries I sort the binaries and then you don't need to rebuild them from source I will be serving you your own binary that you created for all the next build as you that you are doing Okay, since also since JFrog acquired a video the last year We have been also working with the security team at JFrog and we have been doing several Improvements, so I'm going to tell a little bit about our ongoing work First we have been checking a are the Conan Center binaries The best they can they can be for example because GCC is not Activating by default some some compiler flags that are considered to be secured and are considered to be a good A good practice for security and by default they are not active So we have been checking these things and we are starting we implement that way to inject These compiler flags to any build system because Conan Center contains Packages that are built with CMake or with Meson or without the tools So Conan now now knows how to inject compiler flags for every project that it contains So in this way we can inject the F stack protectors strong flag In an easy way that both Conan Center can do it and the users that are building from source the binaries They can also do it and start to use these these Practices by default It's not always possible because some things change the ABI the binary compatibility in this case We are not doing that, but we have investigated which ones that's on what not We have also been implemented package signing Not only because it's important to know the authority and having the package integrity But also because the ecosystem is also becoming a bit better There are other providers that they want to start and even companies that they are starting to Distribute Conan packages to their own customers at the same time. So if the system is becoming more federated Then it's becoming more important to know the origin who who is this package from it is this package signed So this is what we have been adding so in this case for Conan to zero because it's a breaking change We couldn't do it in one on one, which is the current version We added a package signing plugin a way that anyone can sign their packages with the tools that they want It's basically implementing those two functions there One the signing function is called when you are uploading packages because developers can create packages locally all the time You don't want to be signing all those packages. So packages are signed at a upload time Packages are verified when you are downloading them from the servers. So we have these two Extension points you implement them and then it works We sign everything we sign not only the binaries But if you recall I was in a the recipe itself is an artifact that this is stored in in the server as well So even if for some reason you didn't upload the binaries the recipe is also signed as well And we besides the plug-in which is built-in. We are also providing a reference implementation with six store Okay, we are using the record and it's an implementation that is very easy to configure You only need to call Conan config is tall and then a URL of the repo and then you get this Secret store sign in plug-in We will use it in Conan center Conan center packages once Conan to zero is finally out and an stable They will start signing the packages Okay, and this implementation will also be public so anyone can sign their own packages providing their own their own signature their own keys Okay to finalize My presentation today. I would like to to discuss a little bit about the solution Because yeah, you can say okay. That was easy Conan only only has 1400 recipes different different packets Plus the number of versions plus the number of binaries is not is not that huge compared with the number of different packages that the NPM can contain for example But it is also true that we also have for because from the full Conan team only four people are working in Conan center Okay, and the number of official reviewers is 15 official reviewers So it's also a small numbers so far and this is not a cold to be hacked Okay, we have had no security incidents Okay, it is true that some of the easy security the incidents that other other Systems have had in the past like for example the color. Yes even if the the package creator if they in the library owner Wants to hijack their own library. It is not possible Because one thing is the library and one thing is the recipe to the poor request that you need to do to Conan Center to have Your recipe include that process by the way probably it was not that clear before But that is also running a test of the package if for some reason you are putting the the colored Yes in an infinite loop then it's going to block the the construction of the package will fail Okay, it's something that our pipeline would easily capture and would easily block even even for the library author library Thor cannot do that okay the same for for For other attacks if even if someone is able to gain access to the github user of some Contributor that has already access their poor request are going to be reviewed No matter if they contributed originally get originally some package No matter if they are the library author that created that that specific C++ library That is going through the process So the question here is is this something that is worth to be considered for all the technologies? because honestly Some other technologies has been super great. I'm a happy users of them But let's be honest is they are not very secure. So something has to be done I think by PI has started to do something with a 1% of critical projects and asking us to use to factor authentication to be able to upload our own packages So we cannot be hijacked and someone can upload a Conan client that would be a disaster on our behalf Because they gain access to our account. Okay, so this is a first step But is the review process something that is is doable at a scale? I think Maven has doing something like related but the other maybe it is as Also has been commented before. I think the docker images this morning All the central package manager they they follow up right to distribution in our case I can give I can tell you that From that fourteen hundred recipes only one hundred recipes they account for 80% of all the downloads from Conan Center Okay, so let's say let's move that to the other package manager Can we review maybe the 1% or 5% of the most popular packages in npm or pi PI? Maybe we can maybe we can scale the number of reviews to 300. Okay, and to finalize How what has been our approach for Conan Center security is just a simple one is a very constrained process We only accept packages from sources from pull requests. We have a lot of automation. We do lots of automated checks And of course best practices around our system to be secure and we have a manual review process with due diligence of what is happening there Okay, we keep constantly working on that In our future is we are going to deploy it has been already implemented by the package signing and robustifying the banners It's already there. It will be part of after to zero sometimes soon We will build more user gates checking who is doing pull request to Conan Center the activating accounts when they are not active doing I'll say how many Months old is a github account before gain Forgiving them access. We are going to automate those checks that sometimes are manual to We are creating s bombs. We have been creating artifact reveal info which is proprietary for for Artifactory, but the s bomb is a standard and we will create them so it can be also integrated with other security tools and it has been working for Conan so far great because Yeah, the ecosystem scale is manageable for us Okay And also because building C++ is so challenging that if you want to hack you want to gain reputation in our system You are going to have to work a lot before you you you become a popular contributor to Conan Center You are going to have to build a few C++ libraries their party libraries and that is challenging It's way more challenging that throwing an attack to npm or pi pi And within that this is something that can be a scale and is something to be considered for other communities It can be done is working great and something has to be done in our opinion And thank you if you want any more information about this you can go to the Conan dot IO page If you find something we also have a back bounty program So that's the the URL as well. Please submit your your findings there And if someone wants to reach me or talk to me I will be here after the session as well and that is my Twitter handle don't hesitate to write to me too. Thank you Time for questions One question only. Hi there a very interesting talk Thank you. So It's too bad I have a two-part question, but I'll just ask the first I'll make a comment first about the first one that'll move the second one which is a While ago I pointed out a bunch of problems with Linux package managers, which led to them using a different signing model and One community that didn't do this was slack ware because they said everyone could just download and read the source for themselves And that did not turn out well for them. So that's my first aside The second question is have you heard of the underhanded C code contests? And Do you understand how easy it is for people to write code that looks legitimate? Especially in C and C++ and get it past code review because there's been a lot of work that's shown that that's not particularly difficult to do Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's that's a good that's a good question I've been a C++ developer for four decades. I know how it is. So The thing is we are not doing any due diligence on the C++ code itself If the library author is doing something that is really nuts in the C++ code They are going to be able to offer skate out we can control. Let's say from the origin the URL This is the official review The official point of source of that URL and to the final point It is like if they are going something really weird. They are trying to escape They are trying to do like remote calls to some place it's possible that Something will break in the build because we are running it actually It's not the same as running in a developer machine, which those chains will be typically targeted to So if you try to do a pull request that adds to our system It is possible that that we will be there But yeah, if the source is obfuscated in the library by the library author themselves and the is that the official URL for the project then it's going to be challenging, but that's more a source Attack than a supply chain to the package binaries, which is our our scope here. Okay. Thank you Thank you


I'm really glad you asked the question. What should you do with your life, man? You can be happy about asking that question. You can be happy about it coming up. Now, I know you're not, but you're stressed about it. It's causing you some stress, and I can fully guarantee. I'm pretty confident that I can calm you down a bit with this episode. And I'm going to show you a couple of things I have on the floor here. And I think you're going to get a lot out of this one, OK? Because it's a big question. Congratulations for asking yourself a really big one. I know you do that a lot, probably. Very analytical. You like questioning, is the grass really greener on the other side? Could I do better? Should I do better? Should I move? Should I change career? Should I do this? Should I do this? And this is when the question comes up. If we're even happy in the moment, St. Paul calls it a thorn in the flesh, like a little prick. So you're happy in the moment, and then it comes up. You know you've been at this job for a couple of years. There's probably something better out there. With your experience, you could do this. You could make more money. You could do this. Why are you even happy here?  You're complacent. You're lazy. You're too comfortable. Get uncomfortable. Get out there.  And then there's a state of, when we're in an emotional low, and when we're low, man, that's when the analytical mind and questions come at us.  We're feeling so low. How did we get here? What will make me feel better? Well, the question comes in.   Why aren't you happy then? Change your situation. Change your environment. Change your career. Change your relationship. You need to change, obviously, if you feel bad. Something is going wrong if you feel bad. So you need to change.  What should you do? So let's break down the question first. Should and do. Oh, my goodness. OK. Why do you think you should know what you should do with your life? Why should you know that? Are you writing this down? Come on. Write it down. This is a lecture. All right. Sermon, why should you know?  What is telling you that at your age, at your specific age, in your season of life, wherever that is, man, you could be in school. You could be graduated. You could have a career and you're 20 years in. And you're still like, I don't know, it's not fueling me.  What is the reason you think you should know right now that you should be 100% definite, that you should have an answer? And not just an answer that's like a little deflating balloon and you catch it. No, this answer needs to be solid, written in stone, and it should never move. It should never move. What's making you feel that? I wonder. Because you see other people living an awesome life and you believe that they're exactly where they want to be in life. You know so much about people. You know so much about your friends, about people online that you think, yeah, they really have it figured out.  And I'm not. What do you think it is? So ask yourself that one. The should statement. Let's switch it. What can I do with my life? What do I want to do with my life? What interests me in my life? That's a big one. What am I good at? What fuels me? What do I do where time stands still? So the should can be a want. What do I want to do? What can I do? What am I good at doing? So switch those words up and write yourself all these different questions and see if the answer changes, and it will. But it'll change even more when we change this do. D-O. What should you do? Okay, most of you are thinking career-wise, aren't you? In North America, we're so obsessed with career. What do you do? What is your job? You meet someone, right? So what do you do? So what do you do?  Who cares? I like music. I play guitar. I do this. I do this. I love sailing. You know, I play ping pong. It's one part of you, my friends. You don't have to. If no one else has told you this, let me be the first. You don't have to center your entire life around your career. I know money's important. I know things are so expensive. I know, but let's have a little balance here.  You don't have to center that about a job, about a career. How you make money does not need to be your vocation. How you make money does not need to be your vocation. You do not need a career. You can have a job. Everyone's telling you, you gotta love what you do. You gotta get up every morning and have a boner for your work. You don't. You don't. Who says you do? Friends, family, social media, influencers, other people you know that just love their job so much that they got lucky or they work towards it or they knew exactly what they wanted, but you aren't them and they aren't you. This is your life and you don't need an answer for that. So what should you do with your life? Think about, okay, am I talking about career? What if you weren't talking about career? What other things do you wanna do? And this is where the interest comes in and the wants come in. Check this out. Listen, I do public speaking gigs. I travel around. I talk to schools, corporations. I do my mindfulness thing. I do coaching. I do a bunch of courses and that's pretty cool. But you know what I really love? Check this out. I'm at, where did we get this? Russell Books, Russell Books Downtown Victoria. I saw it on the shelf. And oh my God, my friends, check this out. Are you kidding me? Beethoven, the bicentennial edition. You should see. Okay, first of all, you should smell this book. But within this book is letters that Beethoven wrote to friends. This is some of the original notation of his symphonies and of his quartets. And oh, there's a classic painting. Here are some letters that he wrote. And I'm a nerd for this stuff. And if you ask me, what do I wanna do with my life?  And I wanna travel to Vienna where he did some concerts. And I wanna learn more about his life and everything about his life is in here. And I love it. I absolutely love it.  And it's taken me from the bottoms to help me tread water in the darkest of times. I owe so much to this guy. And I wanna learn a lot about Beethoven.  What should I do with my life? It's so serious that I need to figure out the job thing. Okay, in times, yeah, in times you're gonna have to make some decisions. Do you know how I chose a university? And a degree? In 2007, a documentary came out called An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. Remember this? It was about climate change. I didn't know anything about climate change.  But I saw this and I'm like, oh my God, the world's gonna end. So what did I do? I looked up degrees about climate change, about international development, about environment and resource studies. And I picked a school that had it and I went there for five years of my life because I watched a documentary. And if it wasn't for doing that, I wouldn't have experienced the worst depression of my life. I wouldn't have met some amazing teachers and the friends I have today. And I wouldn't be here right now because that's where I started my YouTube channel. That's why I wanted to help people. That's why I became a coach because I was a teaching assistant and then a tutor and then I was a residence assistant. Things will align when you make decisions. But don't trap yourself into overthinking decisions. Take care of what you can right now. Take care of it. But you're overthinking so much about is this the right thing?  What should I do with my life? Pick something. I'm serious, pick something. Because picking something is usually the best move on the chess board. It's the best move you have right now. If you've been chilling for a while because a lot of the time, sit with it. Chill out a little bit. But if you're just overthinking it and haven't made a decision and are waiting for an opportunity to arise and you're just sitting at home, nothing's gonna happen, man. I'm so sorry to tell you this. Get out there, make a simple decision. Start small. But start making some decisions. Start making some moves on the chess board. Start making some moves. And you're the king or the queen. So guess what? You make a bad decision. The king can move back. You make a bad decision. Great if you're a female. You can move all over the place. And you can move back.  You're not. You're not.  I meet people like you. In person. Every day, one thing I'm really good at is striking up conversations with strangers. I'm so good at it. And it's taken me so many years to be able to see what I'm good at and say it out loud to people. Because I put myself down. I'm so good at talking to strangers. I meet people all the time.  And you're like, Scott, you don't know me. Sure, I do. If you're asking this question, I know you. You're scared to make a move.   You wish you knew more. You wish you were like others. You wish you had a plan.  You hope things would be different. You thought things would be different and they're not.  Great.  But in this moment in time, I wonder if you can give yourself a little bit of grace. A little bit of grace. And if you wanna pray, you can pray. If you wanna meditate, you can meditate. If you wanna bounce ideas off other people, go for it. But for this question to bring you down and to cause you to judge yourself harshly, be angry at yourself, that's not the way forward. That is gonna allow you to make the wrong decision when it's made out of anger, made out of jealousy. Ask yourself, what do I wanna do? What am I interested in? What am I good at? And genuinely, what will be good for me? What is good for me right now? You writing it down? What, at this moment in time, in this season of my life, what is good for me?  You know, if this is a bigger thing, like I've been depressed for a long time, what would be good for you is getting some help, calling a doctor, try medication, try therapy.  Doing something, do something. Even you're something of meditation, of prayer, isn't nothing, okay? But eventually you're gonna have to make a move and I hope you make that move with compassion for yourself and kindness for yourself. You don't need to know the answers, you don't need to know 20 moves ahead. I tell this to people all the time, move from A to B. That's my dad's thing. Don't think about Z. Scott, move from A to B. What's your next step? Well, I don't even have it in an interview yet for a job, but I don't even have clothes to even go to an interview. All right, get yourself some shirts. That's move number one. That's move number one. Move number one is thinking I need shirts. How about that? Move number one is you writing a list of things you need to get done today. That's it. I need shirts for a possible interview I will have in the future. Come on. What should I do with my life? God. If I asked myself that question a lot and too much, I wouldn't be here. I would have been crippled by the question. I would have been crippled by the question and questions are meant to move you forward towards some kind of answer and answer that you don't even know yet. Remember, I talked about living out your questions. If you're new to the channel, check out some stuff in previous episodes. Live out your question. You don't solve it by sitting. You don't solve it just by asking. You solve it by moving. You solve it by making decisions. Move into your interests a little bit. Don't move into this thing about a career. Guys, the virus thingy that's been happening and it happened in 2020, that changed the world. People don't really have careers that are our age anymore. People are working from home. People are living in their houses. I'm looking at a building across the street. I haven't seen a person in this office building. Been here for almost a month. You see places downtown Toronto, there's no one there. The world has changed. You can switch jobs like that. You can create a new interest. You can try a new thing.  I picked up an interest here. Got my own pocket New Testament and it has the Psalms and Proverbs or the Book of Wisdom. And this is fun for me. It's fun diving into faith. It's fun looking at things that people wrote 2,000 years ago. It's so cool. It's so cool. Do things that interest you rather than focusing and centering your life around one thing, the thing that brings you coins into your purse. I'll punch you in the coin purse if you keep overthinking this one, okay? Give yourself some grace, have some fun with it. Wonder, ponder.  What should you do? What can you do? And you can do a hell of a lot. You can't make a bad decision this time, man. Just choose something that you can do. And whatever you choose, you'll be really good at it. I'll see ya. And oh, Patreon, all that stuff. Support me if this helped you. Throw me a toonie, all right? And then you can meet me monthly or if you want one-on-one coaching, that's in there and better help as well. You know that link. If you're needing therapy right now and you're down in the dumps and you're feeling really low and you can't get out of bed, I'm not your man. Professional help is there for you. Please seek help. Love you. God bless.


Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Ayesakarmi. The news articles along with the page numbers are displayed here for your reference. The PDF link of the handwritten notes and the time stamping of the news articles is given in the description box as well as in the comment section. Now let us start our today's news analysis. This discussion is based on the FAQ on Stagflation. So in this contest we will be discussing about Stagflation and why is it a problem for the Indian economy. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. Now you should know that the retail price inflation or retail inflation for December month of 2019 was at 7.35%. And this is above the RBI's targeted range of 2 to 6%. Know that the inflation that is the increase in price which is experienced at retail shops is known as retail inflation. This value gives the actual reflection of the price rise in the country. So in India the inflation rate at retail level is estimated by the consumer price index. Now if you look at the reasons for rising inflation rates which has been attributed mainly to the rise in the prices of vegetables such as onions. Now if you look at the news article it says that the December month retail inflation that is 7.3% is higher in the last 6 years. And this is above the RBI's targeted range of 2 to 6%. Therefore this higher retail inflation has increased the worries that the Indian economy may be headed towards Stagflation. Now you should know about Stagflation which is the combination of high rate of inflation and low rate of growth. So at this time not only the inflation is higher but the unemployment rate is also higher. Now know that Indian economy has faced 6 consecutive quarters of slowing growth rate since 2018. And the most recent quarter that is the second quarter of current financial year that ended in September 2019 the growth rate was just 4.5%. This indicates that Indian economy is experiencing lower rate of growth. And the main reason for this economic slowdown or lower rate of growth is the lack of sufficient consumer demand for goods and services. So in order to boost the demand the RBI was encouraged to cut the repo rates. Therefore repo rate was cut about 5 times in 2019 by the RBI. The RBI is encouraged to do so because as you know that if the repo rate is decreased that is the rate of interest that RBI charges from its clients on the short term borrowing. So when repo rate is higher it means that the bank loans are costly. In the same manner when repo rate is lower the bank loans are cheaper. So easy credit is available. This means that people can borrow easily and there will be more liquidity in the economy. So when there is more availability of money it will automatically increase the demand. So in turn it will boost the Indian economy. But what actually happened was in the second half of 2019 the prices of goods begin to rise at a faster rate. However the growth rate of the Indian economy continued to fall significantly. So here we can see that there is a high inflation and there is low rate of growth. This situation made many to believe that India may be sliding into stagnation. Now we will try to understand the situation based on Philips curve which is a graphic curve which advocates a relationship between inflation and unemployment in the economy. So as per this curve there is a trade-off between inflation and unemployment rate. That is there is an inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment. The curve suggests that lower the inflation higher the unemployment rate and higher the inflation lower the unemployment rate. So this inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment was seen as a confirmation of the hypothesis that inflation helps the economy to function at its full potential. So to understand the logic behind this hypothesis you should first understand what is meant by real wage on the nominal wages. Now we will see the difference between nominal wages and the real wages. In case of nominal wages these wages are expressed in a monetary form and they don't take the changes in prices into account. Whereas real wages are the type of phases that take inflation rates into concentration. Therefore the real wages determine the purchasing power of the individuals. That is it determines the amount of goods or services that the individuals can purchase based on the current market conditions. Now the logic behind the belief is that inflation helps the economy to function at its full potential. That is at least in short term if there is inflation the employer or companies may increase the wages by boosting the nominal wages. Therefore these short term nominal wages may increase the additional demand in the economy. It also enables to hold the present employees and also additional employment opportunities would be created in the economy. That is why inflation helps the economy to function at its full potential. Now at the same time economists argue that an inflation rate beyond a certain level that is at which the labour resources and other resources in the economy are fully employed. Then at that level there will be no employment benefits or growth benefits. That is why policy makers are often advised to maintain a certain inflation rate to ensure that unemployment is kept to a minimum level and the economy is operating at its full capacity. But according to the author of this news article the simultaneous presence of higher rate of inflation and low economic growth and a strikeflation challenges the conventional view that inflation helps an economy to operate at its full capacity. So in turn it quotients the validity of the Philips curve which mentions that there is an inverse relation between inflation and the unemployment rates. Now we will see that how the strikeflation is a problem for the Indian economy. The strikeflation is a problem because it ties the hands of the central government and the central bank from taking any counter-cyclic policy steps increasing spending capacity in the economy. For example this could be increasing the liquidity in the economy by cutting the interest rates or by other means by the RBI. This is because the greatest spending is to revive the economy. But it cannot be done because as we saw that the retail inflation is already above the target range of RBI. So RBI will not reduce the repo rates. If RBI does so then it will lead to a further rise in the prices and it will make things worse than the present situation. It is because this kind of situation leads to easy credit that is easy credit is also known as easy money as the name implies that it is the easy availability of credit or money to the public. And when there is an increase in supply of money into the banking system it makes the money easily available for the public. So this easy credit is intended to increase economic growth but it also leads to inflation. That is why further reduction in repo rate will further rise prices. Then the next problem of strike inflation is that the slowdown in the growth rate could affect the income of the people. That is when there is a high rate of inflation it could cause a reduction in the people's standard of living. So these are the certain problems that arise due to strike inflation. Now we will see what can be done to come out of this strike inflation situation. Some economists suggest that policy makers should stop worrying about inflation and instead they should focus exclusively on boosting aggregate demand in the economy. They believe that the central bank should further ease its policy and the government should spend more on infrastructure and other service sectors to boost the economy. Also some economists suggest that there should be supply-side reforms to bring genuine economic growth rather than just injecting further liquidity into the economy. So these are certain suggestions suggested by economists to overcome the present situation of strike inflation. So in this contest we saw about strike inflation then the difference between nominal wages and real wages. Then we tried to understand the concept of Pilipskow then we have discussed about reasons for strike inflation. Then also we discussed some of the suggestions suggested by economists to overcome to come out strike inflation situation. With this we have come to the end of analysis of this news article. The displayed practice question will be discussed at the end of the session. Now let us proceed to the next news article analysis. Now let us see few news articles which discuss about a virus outbreak at Wuhan province in China and this virus is called as novel coronavirus. This virus has been reported by China to the World Health Organization towards the end of 2019. So in this contest we will be discussing about coronavirus, its signs, symptoms, treatment and other related details. The syllabus relevant to the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. See coronaviruses are actually a large family of viruses and these viruses are known to cause illness which range from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East respiratory syndrome and the severe acute respiratory syndrome. That is SARS. Now we will see about novel coronavirus which is a new strain of coronavirus that has not been previously identified in human beings. The Chinese researchers by using genome sequencing technique were able to identify the virus as novel coronavirus within a short span of time. Generally coronaviruses or genotic viruses that is they transmit between animals and human beings. For example, severe acute respiratory syndrome that is SARS coronavirus is thought to be an animal virus which probably spread from bats to other animals like civet cats and it first infected human beings in 2002 in China. Similarly Middle East respiratory syndrome that is MERS coronavirus was transmitted from dromedary camels to human beings in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. Now that dromedary is an Arabian camel which is trained for riding or racing. Now in case of novel coronavirus its source has not been identified as of now. Now let us see the clinical signs and symptoms of this coronavirus in human beings. Common signs of this viral infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties etc. Even in more severe cases the viral infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even it can lead to death of human beings. When China reported the outbreak of this virus many people were suffering from pneumonia and few people are also experiencing difficulty in breathing. It also reported that two people had died so far due to this viral infection. So this is about clinical signs and symptoms of novel coronavirus. Now we will see the mode of transmission of this novel coronavirus which is a genotic virus which can transmit from animals to human beings. Know that some coronaviruses can be transmitted from person to person usually after close contact with an infected patient. WHO has said that there is a possibility of limited human to human transmission of this novel coronavirus. Now this fact of transmission that is transmission from human beings to human beings is important because there is every possibility that this virus will spread to other countries across the world because if you see that SARS coronavirus outbreak in China which happened in 2002 has killed nearly about 800 people across the world. Now the Chinese new air is nearing and Chinese nationals are expected to travel across the world so human to human transmission of this novel coronavirus is also possible. However, World Health Organization does not recommend any restriction of travel or trade as of now based on currently available information. However, India has issued a travel advisory asking citizens to follow certain precautionary measures while visiting China. Similarly, if you see the Tamil Nadu government has increased the surveillance and preventive measures to contain the spread of the virus. Now coming to treatment there is no specific treatment for disease which is caused by this novel coronavirus. However, many of the symptoms can be treated and therefore the treatment is based on patient's clinical condition. That is if the patient have pneumonia they can be treated with necessary medicines for pneumonia. Now that there is no vaccine available for this new novel coronavirus. So we can say that there is no particular treatment for this novel coronavirus. Therefore prevention is the best strategy. So WHO has issued standard recommendations to prevent the spread of this viral infection. This includes regular hand washing, covering mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing, then eating thoroughly cooked meat and eggs. WHO has also recommended avoiding close contact with anyone who shows symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing and sneezing. So this is all you need to know about this novel coronavirus. See Chinese researchers were able to identify the virus as novel coronavirus using genome sequencing. China shared the whole genome sequence data with WHO and it also submitted to the global initiative on sharing all influence data platform. So this step by China is significant because it will allow researchers across the globe to access the data. It will also help other countries to quickly identify the virus, then provide suitable care and also to develop specific diagnostic kits, drugs, even vaccination if it is required. Now we will see in brief about global initiative on sharing all influence data platform. This platform was launched on the occasion of the 61st World Health Assembly in the month of May 2008. It is publicly accessible database designed by scientists for scientists in order to improve the sharing of influenza data. It helps researchers to understand how the viruses evolve, then spread and potentially become pandemics. Now that in 2010, Germany became the official host of this data platform initiative. So to summarize this discussion, we saw in detail about the signs, symptoms and treatment related to the novel coronavirus which was reported in Wuhan province of China. Then we also saw about global initiative on sharing all influence data platform which is a publicly accessible database designed by scientists for scientists. With this we have come to the analysis of this news article. The displayed practice question will be discussed at the end of the session. Now let us proceed to the next news article analysis. This news article states that the environment ministry has exempted oil and gas companies from seeking prior environmental clearance for conducting explorations. So in this contest we will discuss different category of projects, then their significance while analyzing the news article. We will also see the stages involved in the process of obtaining prior environmental clearance for the developmental projects. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. We should know that the industrial and other developmental activities in India are governed by keeping environmental protection and sustainable management in mind. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has policies to promote integration of environmental concerns in developmental projects. So in this regard one such measure is that it has brought environmental impact assessment notification under the Prozents of Environmental Protection Act of 1986. See the present EIA notification is the Environmental Impact Assessment notification of 2006. This notification has categorized the developmental projects into two different categories. These categories are called category A and category B projects. This categorization is based on section 4 of the EIA notification of 2006. The categorization depends on two things that is the size of the project. Then the other aspect is the degree of potential impacts on human health and natural and man-made resources. This categorization of projects can be seen in the schedule of the given notification. Now let us see with respect to obtaining prior environmental clearance that is as per section 2 of environment impact assessment which deals with requirements of prior environmental clearance that is as per this section 2 and section 4 of the notification all category A projects require a prior environmental clearance that is EC from the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. See there is an expert appraisal committee for this purpose under Union Ministry who will uprise the category A projects. Then when it comes to category B projects the prior environmental clearance is required at the state level. That is from the state environment impact assessment authority. See this authority at the state level shall base its decisions on the recommendations of a state or union territory level expert appraisal committee. So here we can note that the environmental clearance process has been a decentralized process in the country. That too it is based on the category of different projects. Kindly know that when we say prior environmental clearance we refer to getting clearance before any construction work or before the preparation of land by the project management authorities. So under the process the applicant will submit an application form along with pre-feasibility project report and this application will be made before commencing any construction activity or preparation of land. Then after receiving the application generally there are four different stages that is in the process of obtaining prior environmental clearance for new projects. They are called screening, then scoping, public consultation and appraisal. Know that the process of screening is only for category B projects. The state expert appraisal committee will determine whether the project requires further environmental studies. Then such studies are for preparation of an environmental impact assessment for the appraisal. The projects requiring an environmental impact assessment report shall be termed category B1 and remaining projects shall be termed as category B2 projects. The projects categorized as B2 during screening will not require any environmental impact assessment report. Then the next stage is scoping. It is a process where the concerned appraisal committee will determine detailed and comprehensive terms of reference in order to address all relevant environmental concerns of the project. Scoping may also include a site visit by a subgroup of the appropriate appraisal committee. Then the application for the clearance could be rejected at the stage of scoping itself. Scoping is carried out by the central expert appraisal committee that is EAC for category A projects and by the state level expert appraisal committee that is SCAC for category B1 projects. Know that scoping is not required for category B2 projects. Now we will see the next stage after screening and scoping. The next stage is public consultation. See this stage involves consultation with the affected persons of the proposed project. The consultation will be on the effects of the project on the affected persons. See usually public consultation is required for all category A projects and category B1 projects with some exceptions. The importance of this consultation is that the concerns put forward during the public consultation process must be addressed in the environmental impact assessment report and also in the environmental management plan. Then after public consultation the next and last stage is the appraisal stage. So in this stage there will be overall and detailed scrutiny of the final EIA report. This report which is detailed scrutiny of the final environmental impact assessment report is presented to central expert appraisal committee or state expert appraisal committee. So at this stage the concerned expert appraisal committee considers the environmental aspects of the proposed project. Then after this the committee makes its recommendations to the regulatory authority whether prior environmental clearance should be granted or not. Then based on the recommendations made by the expert appraisal committee the prior environmental clearance may be granted by the union environmental ministry. And based on the recommendations made by the state level expert appraisal committee the prior environmental clearance may be granted by the state level environmental impact assessment authority. So this is all about four stages in the process of obtaining prior environmental clearance for new projects. Let us come to the news article. It states that as per a recent notification by the environment ministry the offshore and onshore oil and gas exploration projects conducted by oil and gas companies or shifted from category A projects to category B2 projects. So in the analysis we saw that category B2 projects are those projects that don't require an environmental impact assessment report. And also these projects don't require scoping and they also exempted from public consultation as per section 7 of the environment impact assessment notification of 2006. See such a shift in the categorization means that hereafter such oil and gas exploration projects are to be appraised by state level authorities. And therefore such projects are exempted from the scrutiny of the central expert appraisal committee and the union ministry of environment. Kindly know that only offshore and onshore oil and gas exploration is now moved to B2 category. Whereas the offshore and onshore oil and gas development and production is still a category A projects. So this change in the categorization for exploratory projects of oil and gas companies has raised concerns among the environment activists. This change is considered as a dilution of regulatory oversight from the central government. This is because it is being reported that the exploratory drilling on land would lead to the restriction of agricultural fields whereas offshore drilling operations can affect marine organisms as they lead to building up of heavy water contaminants. Know that such projects may also deviate whales and sea life that relay on sonar for navigation. Offshore exploration projects have one another impact that such projects can make worse the risk of oil spills. With this we come to the end of analysis of this news article. In this analysis we saw about few important pros and cons of environment impact assessment notification of 2006. Then the categories of projects and the stages involved in the process of planning prior environmental clearance. Then finally we saw the recent changes made by the union ministry of environment in the schedule of the environmental impact assessment notification with respect to the exploration of oil and gas. The displayed practice question will be discussed at the end of this session. Now let us move on to the next news article analysis. The next news article is with respect to the trade and investment relations between India and the European Union. In the analysis of this news article we will discuss in brief about the bilateral trade and investment relations between India and the European Union. Then we will also discuss the need for the broad based trade and investment agreement. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. The news article presents the opinion stated by the Foreign Minister of Latvia which is one of the member countries in the European Union. The Latvian Foreign Minister stated that the broad based trade and investment agreement between India and the European Union could be signed in the month of March 2020. This is because Indian Prime Minister is scheduled to visit Brussels for the India European Summit in March 2020. We know that India European Union summits are supposed to be conducted annually and so for about 14 India European summits have taken place since the year 2000. The last summit was held in 2017. We know that the first India European summit took place on 28th June 2000 in Lisbon which is the capital city of Portugal. Portugal is also one of the 28 members of the European Union. The relationship between India and the European Union was upgraded to the strategic partnership level in 2004 at the 5th India European summit which was held at the Hague in Netherlands. Know that at present there is no bilateral trade and investment agreement between India and the European Union. Therefore the trade and investment relationship between India and the EU could not be utilized or realized to the fullest potential. Kindly notice that the European Union is India's largest regional trading partner in 2018 and India was European Union's 9th largest trading partner in the same year. Then if you take the period from April 2000 to June 2018 the European Union is the largest source of foreign direct investment for India. In this period the investment inflows from European Union accounts for about 24.38% of the total FDA. Since there is no bilateral investment agreement between India and European Union, therefore in the year 2017 an investment facilitation mechanism has been established for close coordination between India and the European Union. Let us see few information with respect to the broad based trade and investment agreement. See a commitment was made by political leaders of India and the European Union at the 7th India European summit for having a broad based trade and investment agreement. The 7th India European Union summit was held in Helsinki in 2006. Now that Helsinki is in Finland and Finland is also a member of European Union. So it is based on this commitment made in Helsinki. The negotiations for the agreement was launched in the year 2007. These negotiations cover trade in goods and services, then investment, sanitary and phytosanitary measures that is measures with reference to health of the plants or products before exporting etc. The European Union India BTIA is inconclusive because of wide range of issues like fixing tariffs, rules of origin, intellectual property rights etc. In terms of IPR rights, European Union is asking India to adapt intellectual property protection standards more than what is required under TRIPS agreement of WTO. So even after multiple rounds of negotiations, there is no agreement yet to boost the bilateral trade and investment ties as committed by the leaders in 2006. So if this agreement comes into effect, there will be huge investment coming to India from the European Union region. The investment will come with benefits of job generation and growth. This will be beneficial at a time when India is facing slowdown in the economy. Then India will be able to export its food products and industrial products at reduced tariffs. Then European countries will be able to outsource IT business to India and they may recruit skilled and talented Indian professionals. These are few implications of this agreement. So we will be discussing more about this agreement in the coming days. With this, we have come to the end of the analysis of this news article. Now let us start our practice plans question session. This question is based on coronavirus. They have given four statements that is four options and you have to choose incorrect option. Option A says coronaviruses are genotic viruses. Then option B says severe acute respiratory syndrome is a disease caused by coronavirus. Then option C says human to human transmission of some coronaviruses is possible. Then option D says vaccines are available for all types of coronaviruses. See all these statements are related to coronavirus. If you look at option A, it tells that coronaviruses are genotic viruses, which is a correct statement because these viruses are known as genotic viruses. That is they can be transmitted between animals and people. Know that coronaviruses are actually a large family of viruses and these viruses are known to cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East respiratory syndrome that is M.E.R.S. and severe acute respiratory syndrome. See S.A.R.S. coronavirus is thought to be an animal virus which probably spread from bats to other animals like seaweed cats and it first infected human beings in China in 2002. Similarly M.E.R.S. coronavirus was passed on from dromedary camels to human beings in Saudi Arabia in 2012. So we can see that coronaviruses are genotic viruses and the severe acute respiratory syndrome is a severe disease caused by a coronavirus. So options A and B are correct options. Now if you look at option C it tells that human to human transmission of some coronaviruses is possible. This statement is also correct statement because some coronaviruses can be transmitted from person to person. That is usually after close contact with an infected patient. So option C is correct statement. Now if you look at option D it says that vaccines are available for all types of coronaviruses. See recently a novel coronavirus outbreak was reported in China in Wuhan province which is a new strain of coronavirus. Know that it can take many years for a new vaccine to be developed for a particular disease. Therefore it is a novel coronavirus that is a recently found virus and there is no vaccine developed as of now for this new strain of coronavirus. So option D which says that vaccines are available for all types of coronaviruses is not a correct statement. So for this question you have to choose incorrect option. That is option D is the correct answer for this question. Now look at this question which was asked in UPSC 2013 prelims examination. The question says that a rise in general level of prices may be caused by an increase in the money supply, a decrease in the aggregate level of output then an increase in the effective demand. So for this question you have to choose correct answer using the course given. For this question option D that is 1, 2, 3 is the correct answer because it is a direct application based question. That is if you look at statement 1 it says that an increase in the money supply may cause rise in the general level of prices. This statement is correct statement because money supply in the economy may increase or may cause inflation. If you look at second and third statements which are also correct statements because a decrease in the aggregate level of output may also leads to increase of prices. Then an increase in the effective demand obviously rises in the general level of prices. So for this question option D is the correct answer. Look at this question which was asked in 2015 UPSC prelims examination that is with reference to the inflation in India which are the following statements is correct. Option A says that controlling the inflation in India is the responsibility of the government of India only. Then option B says that Reserve Bank of India has no role in controlling the inflation. Then option C says that decreased money circulation helps in controlling the inflation. Then option D says increased money circulation helps in controlling the inflation. So in the context of this question know that RBI and government both play a role in controlling the inflation that is often termed as the inflation targeting by the RBI. Therefore option A and B are incorrect statements. Then if you look at option C it says that decreased money circulation helps in controlling the inflation. Know that increased money circulation leads to increased inflation because it can increase demand. Therefore the prices of the goods or services may increase. So in this context RBI increases bank rates and SLR in order to reduce money supply in the market which controls demand. Therefore decreased money circulation helps in controlling the inflation. So for this question option C is the correct option. Consider this question. This question is with reference to Phillips Cup. They have given four options and you have to choose correct option. Option A says it is the proportional relationship between inflation and employment. Then option B says it is the inverse relationship between inflation and employment. Then option C says that it is the proportional relationship between inflation and unemployment. D says it is the inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment. So this question is based on Phillips Cup which is a graphic curve which advocates a relationship between inflation and unemployment in the economy. So you can eliminate options A and B because they talk about employment. Whether the relationship is proportional or inversely proportional you should know that proportional means two quantities vary directly with each other. That is if one increases other also increases. In case of inversely proportional if one quantity increases other decreases. So as per this Phillips curve there is a tradeoff between inflation and unemployment. That is there is an inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment. This curve suggests that lower the inflation, higher the unemployment and higher the inflation, lower the unemployment. So for this question option D is the correct answer. Now look at this question. They have given three statements and you have to choose correct statements. Statement one says that as per the environment impact assessment notification of 2006 all projects and activities are broadly categorized into two categories. Then second statement says that the process established by the above mentioned notification for obtaining prior environmental clearance is a centralized process. Then third statement says that recently all projects in respect of offshore and onshore oil and gas exploration and production are categorized as B2 projects by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. So for this question you have to choose correct statements using the quotes given. Now if you look at the first statement that is as per the environment impact assessment notification all projects and activities are broadly categorized into two categories. This statement is correct statement because as per section four of the notification the projects are broadly categorized into two categories. That is category A and category B projects. Now if you look at second statement it says that the process established by the above mentioned notification for obtaining prior environmental clearance is a centralized process. This statement is incorrect statement because the process of environmental clearance is a decentralized process. That is for category A projects the prior environmental clearance is given by the Union Ministry on the recommendations of the Central Expert Appraisal Committee. Whereas in case of category B projects the prior environmental clearance is given by the State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority on the recommendations of the State Level Expert Appraisal Committee. So we can say that prior environmental clearance process is a decentralized process by the notification itself. Now if you look at the third statement it says that recently all projects in respect of onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration and production are categorized as B2 projects. This statement is incorrect statement because only offshore and onshore oil and gas exploration projects are categorized as B2 projects by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Whereas offshore and onshore oil and gas production and developmental projects are still categorized as category A projects. Further B2 is a B category of projects. These B2 category projects don't require the submission of Environment Impact Assessment Report for the grant of prior environmental clearance and for such projects public consultation need not be conducted. So the given thought statement is incorrect statement. So for this question you have to choose correct statements. Therefore option C one only is the correct answer for this question. Now consider this mains question which was asked in 2019. The question says that do you agree with the view that steady GDP growth and a low inflation have left the Indian economy in good shape? Give reasons in support of your argument. This is a 10 marks question and you have to write in 150 words. So for this question you can post your written answers in the comment section. Your posted answers would be evaluated and suitable feedback will be given in the reasonable time frame. With this we have come to the end of analysis of today's Indian news analysis. If you like the video please do like, share, comment and subscribe Shankar IS Academy YouTube channel for daily updates. Thank you.


It's much easier to talk about the making of these than it is the use of them. So we move from something that's available in antique stores or lots of museums to a painting which is a singular thing. This one, Erastus Salisbury Fields, Joseph Moore and his family, about 1839 it was done by field, is that we can see the Hitchcock chairs in the painting. So paintings are a good iconographic source of, okay, there are these things made, they now sit in museum collections or private collections, but did anyone care? Did anyone use them? And then second, how did they use them? What kinds of rooms did they appear? Did they appear in porches? As porch furniture, did they appear as kitchen seats or in this case, did they appear in the parlor, the fanciest room of a house? So here we have, interestingly enough, there's a family of four children, two adults.  The father and the mother are sitting in these Hitchcock chairs. They're very brightly, we can see the cornucopia on Joseph's chair, along with the striping on the legs that peers out. So this gives you a sense of the vibrancy when these were new. They're stenciling on the stand right behind the family. In that case, the stenciling is used along with a mirror that's above them to give the imitation of mahogany, a richer wood. So stenciling can be used also as a means of imitation. So there's lots of this foe decor going on, because again, these middling people are looking on one hand to establish a connection to what was once previously luxurious goods. And so they are using just like the portrait itself. Something that used to be beyond the reach of a middling family. This is a family dressed in their best. This is not an ordinary experience. This is an exceptional experience. So we often need to look at what are the moments in a family's life cycle when a portrait might be made, marriage, death, addition to the family. So again, these are exceptional moments and we can trace out the life cycle. So this is, in some ways, like an inventory. It's an inventory of all the nice things that they've acquired and actually some of these objects that Amirah is holding in her hand, that are some of the furniture, these two chairs are actually passed down from the family with the portrait and exist in the same collection at the Museum of Fine Arts. So we always sort of wonder about that. Are these things sort of like that the portrait is brought in and gave to the family so they could look fancier? Or actually are they their real possessions? Are they their real clothes? So here we have, I think, the jewelry that she's wearing, has passed along in the family collection. So we know that these adornments are theirs. And then I think with students it's really fun to work from what do you see? What are the different things you see? And I think students can do a good job with that to what do you think they're useful? What does it mean? What did this portrait mean to the family that commissioned it? What did it mean to the family that displayed it? This thing is almost six feet wide. It fills the whole wall to Museum of Fine Arts. You wouldn't know that. From this it could easily be a miniature, you know, small. So that's something you really want to sort of make sure that's in there because something that's six feet would take a lot more time, a lot more money.