tonight by the Don't Extradite Assange campaign and will be live broadcast as well by Consortium News. We'll be screening a short film by director John First, focused on a very disturbing aspect of Julian Assange's case, which is the psychological torture. And afterwards, I will be moderating a conversation with John First, the filmmaker, as well as Niels Meltzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture. So please stay with us. In February 2020, the United Nations Human Rights Council published a landmark report on psychological torture. The report was written by the special rapporteur on torture, Professor Niels Meltzer. Meltzer had also investigated the case of Julian Assange, the founding editor of WikiLeaks, an online publisher of censored and suppressed information since 2006. I declined to get involved because I had this visceral reaction of, I'm not going to defend this rapist and narcissist. And I'm the special rapporteur on torture. It started to get intrigued because I realized immediately when you scratch the surface, things don't add up. Meltzer's findings were disturbing. Mr. Assange shows all the symptoms of a person who has been exposed to psychological torture for a prolonged period of time. Assange's ordeal had been precipitated by WikiLeaks publishing thousands of classified American intelligence files provided by a military whistleblower, Chelsea Manning, in 2010. Chelsea Manning, the transgender soldier convicted of leaking the biggest trove of government secrets in US history. The WikiLeaks files included a film recording of the killing of unarmed civilians in 2007 during the Iraq war. I'm all up. And here's the soundtrack on that video of his wounded fire knowing very well that they're shooting at rescuers. It's a war crime. Three leading international newspapers participated in the publishing of material on the war in Afghanistan drawn from WikiLeaks files. They shared WikiLeaks' belief in press freedom and the public's democratic right to know what was being done in their name by their governments. Three important organizations together. But it was WikiLeaks and Assange who were targeted by the American authorities. They concluded that WikiLeaks is a known outlet of foreign propaganda. Do you stand by that assessment? Yes. Do you believe that WikiLeaks has released sensitive and classified information? Yes. Do you believe any of WikiLeaks' disclosures have endangered American lives and or put at risk American interests? I believe both have been the results of some of their releases. It's very important for our government to show that we have no patience for the kind of so-called whistle-blowing activities of traitors. One of those demands was that we destroy our archives of classified information relating to the Pentagon. And the demand was that we stop dealing with US military whistleblowers. If we did not follow those demands, then we would be coerced. Assange and WikiLeaks refused to comply with the American demands. Assange was to be subjected over many years to measures by the American authorities and other allied nations that accorded with the UN's definition of psychological torture. Psychological torture is not torture right. Now, psychological torture is directly at destroying the personality of an individual by isolating them from all positive influences by manipulating their feelings, exposing them to constant anxiety and stress, over stimulating their nervous system to a point where the forensic expert explained to me the nervous system simply collapses at some point. The indefinite torment of constant fear and anxiety is a key component in the UN's definition of psychological torture. The defense team will argue that Sweden has a history of sending people to the United States who then face torture despite explicit assurances from the American authorities that that would not happen. The real fear is that if Mr. Assange is sent to the US, he'll face the death penalty. In terms of fear and threat, often it's the anticipation of the danger that you're frightened of is experienced as more traumatic and more tormenting than the actual materialization of that threat.  If we catch you, we're gonna hang you. There's been an extraordinary twist in the Julian Assange saga with the WikiLeaks founder seeking political asylum in Ecuador. The move follows his failed bid to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex crime allegations. Well, I think Assange should be assassinated actually. He's guilty of sabotage, espionage, crimes against humanity. He should be killed. Move him from country to country to face various charges for the next 25 years. Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has been put on Interpol's most wanted list in connection with a case of alleged sexual assault in Sweden. The Julian Assange has appeared in a London court to face extradition to Sweden. Julian Assange has been granted bail from a British court. Julian Assange is under house arrest at an estate about 100 miles north. I'm just getting some breaking news that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has entered the Ecuadorian embassy in London seeking political asylum. Where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was questioned at the Ecuadorian embassy over rape accusations he allegedly committed in 2010. Julian Assange dragged from Ecuador's embassy in London by British police today. Their dramatic development paving the way for his possible extradition to the US. Well, the judge did not hold back sentencing Julian Assange to 50 weeks in jail. Another key tactic is to attack a person's dignity and identity. By putting a spotlight on Julian Assange, these states have deliberately created a monster, a purported rapist, narcissists, hacker and spy and this poisoned narrative has really intoxicated the whole public. The social animals and being, having work in the eyes of others, belonging, being part of the group is deeply important to us. And so being publicly shamed, humiliated, vilified really does attack that sense of worth and value and dignity and identity in a way that can be very destabilizing. It operates to isolate the person further from their sense of who they are and what they're all about and to smear their name in such a way as to make it easier in terms of public opinion to do what perhaps the state wishes to do with this person. For over four decades, we've campaigned to get rapists convicted, but the pursuit of Julian Assange is not about rape.  The one thing that lets you know it's deliberate is that the facts of this case, once you let the facts of this case in all of that stuff falls away and the facts have been studiously kept out because that would interfere with the vilification, that would interfere with the dehumanization and that would actually interfere with the immobilization. Swedish prosecutors have dropped an investigation into a rape allegation made against Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange's 2010. Mr Assange, who developed- Among the UN rapporteurs' explosive findings were that the Swedish authorities had consistently refused to guarantee Assange's safety from onward extradition to America, that they had deliberately distorted the statements made by the two women involved and that in collusion with the British authorities, they had deliberately kept the rape allegation against Assange in limbo for nine years before they finally admitted that they lacked the evidence that Assange had committed any crime. We were then much later very grateful when Niels Meltzer, the UN rapporteur, published his findings that the state manipulation of the allegations are in themselves a form of psychological torture. We also noted that the Swedish, UK and American government were systematically running a smear campaign and witch hunt against Julian Assange for nine years or more and that in the course of that, justice was not served for anyone. The women were publicly smeared and vilified. Mr Assange was treated by the international media as if he were guilty, even though he's never even been charged. Furthermore, at Chelsea Manning's trial in 2013, US military testimony also confirmed that no lives had been endangered by WikiLeaks publishing the whistleblower's files. Brigadier General Robert Carr, who headed up the task force, investigating the leaks, testified that he found no evidence of an intelligence source killed or even harmed as a result of Cablegate. Removing a victim's autonomy is a key torture technique. Several police in neighborhood buildings surveying the embassy 24 hours, seven days a week with cameras and with microphones, long range microphones, trying to get what comes from the embassy and registering every single visitor that Julian had. One visitor in 2015 was Australian lawyer Stella Morris. A relationship developed. They had two children. To protect Assange's partner and their children, their identities were kept secret. No, even then it was an easiest day because the invasion of privacy, because the impossibility of fresh air, the impossibility of having sunlight, and the impossibility to walk, to even walk. The longest distance that he could walk in the embassy was 12 to 15 meters. The corridor is very small apartment. Taking in a person's autonomy, their agency, their efficacy, their ability to control things around them and themselves is very important. In fact, being powerless and out of control is a defining feature of psychological torture. On April the 2nd, 2017, then in Moreno was elected as new president of Ecuador. There's been a dramatic change since May 2017, since Moreno came to power, in terms of Ecuador's foreign policy, real, strong, sort of unambiguous alignment with the Trump administration. This proved a turning point in the duress that Assange was being subjected to. In the last year, it went much worse because the government basically isolated Julian. He was cut out internet. He was not able to have visitors, social visitors, apart from his legal team, basically. And he was threatened also by the very same government that was supposedly protecting him. There were two main things happening, I think, in terms of the psychological torture. There was now the embassy wasn't safe and there was the threat of being evicted at any moment. And there was the social isolation being cut off from contact from the world. Another defining feature of psychological torture is the instilling of a deep sense of helplessness and hopelessness. I think that the breaking point probably was when the protectors suddenly changed and became harassers. So the wire to fight back or run away when we're under threat and being rendered helpless is really deeply distressing. I saw him worried about his fate because by the time there was quite obvious that the government was looking for the right opportunity to get rid of him. Being able to trust organizations and societies to follow due process, follow rule of law. You know where you are with respect to that law. You can feel safe that you're not going to be arrested or extradited if you've got a solid legal case. You can feel safe you're not going to be abducted from the Ecuadorian embassy when you've got the laws of asylum on your side. So when all that's out the window, anything can happen. It's deeply destabilizing. You don't know what you're preparing for. You don't know how you can defend yourself. You don't know what to expect next. So that arbitrariness is a very significant aspect of the torture. Julian Assange says he will fight extradition to the United States and British court. The WikiLeaks founder was arrested Thursday at the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he had been living since 2012. The US has charged him over a 2010... He has since been held at London's maximum security Belmarsh prison for highly dangerous prisoners. Assange's health had suffered during almost seven years' confinement inside the Ecuadorian embassy when he'd had no access to hospitals or dental clinics. It's just very moving to see Julian, particularly in those circumstances of coming out of sick bay and having lost 10 kilograms right. I did visit Mr. Assange in Belmarsh prison on the 9th of May in the company of two medical experts. And my primary concerns really are that I'm extremely worried about his current state of health, which was alarming already when I visited him and which seems to have deteriorated rapidly since then to the point where he's no longer even able to stand trial and to participate in court hearings. I must say that I'm appalled at the sustained and concerted abuse that this man has been exposed to at the hands of several democratic states over a period of almost a decade. Despite mounting concern about his health, Assange finally faced American extradition proceedings in February 2020. We are facing a situation where a journalist and an editor faces 175 years in prison for publishing truthful information. One year for an appeal in future. Another appeal to the Supreme Court, two years. 13 years arbitrary detention for a man who hasn't committed a crime. He's unable to pass notes in a confidential and secure way to his legal team. He's unable to seek clarification from his legal team and give instructions during the course of the proceedings and the judge's reputious ability to leave the dock to be able to participate properly. This is obviously raising serious concerns about his fair trial rights and his ability to properly participate and defend himself in these proceedings. At any one moment at first like this is subject to a whole range of stressors, if you like, and it's hard to separate one off like, say, oh, between us from other things, you know, fear and anxiety, the sense that they'll never be free, or they may be killed or other sort of things. But clearly, it must substantially contribute to someone's helplessness and hopelessness that they can't really, you know, that the process they're under, even if there is a legal process at all, that their fear that it might turn out to be a mockery that the endpoint is predestined. Depriving a person of social contact and stimulation are powerful methods for disorientating an individual. In terms of sensory deprivation, which attacks that need for environmental orientation, you know, in Julian Assata's case, that's sort of happening, well, it's been happening all along in the Ecuadorian embassy in terms of not being able to get outside, not being able to have, you know, broad visual horizons that can really affect visual system and perception. So he's had sensory deprivation going back 10 years in various ways. And then that got worse when he was cut off from the outside world in the Ecuadorian embassy. Being deprived of communication is one form of sensory deprivation. And obviously that's accelerated and intensified even Bill Marsh and things like, he didn't have his glasses for three months. I mean, depriving people of their personal possessions and reading materials and things like glasses are classic psychological torture tactics to keep people under stimulated. He has had to stay in a cell for 23 hours or 24 a day. And as I pointed out, whatever is called by the authorities here or by Bill Marsh's vision, I call it solitary confinement. That's a description of solitary confinement. The human needs that psychological torture targets are need for safety and survival, to making people fear for their safety and survival and security. The human need for connection and attachment and, you know, bonding, which runs very deep. I mean, you know, arguably as important to people, those bond, but babies come out really needing both things, the connection and the survival, sort of really core needs. You do that by first isolating the person completely from the environment and then exposing him to a completely arbitrary and threatening environment which overstimulates the nervous system to a point where he collapses. How did you survive in solitary confinement? I was alive, but I was dead. I just don't forget it ever happened. Assange is looking at life imprisonment with Ramsey Youssef at the Supermax. So very stark, no matter how you spin it, there's 23 hours a day you would be in lockdown and that one hour that he's not in there, he would be escorted to a caged area where he could basically walk around in circles for an hour. If this man gets extradited to the United States, he will be tortured until the day he dies because the prison conditions in the Supermax institutions announced to torture and other treatment not just by my standards, but all my predecessors. That he's on medication and he's vulnerable and depressed. We're designed for short bursts of stress and stress physiology, but when it's constant and relentless, it causes very serious problems with immunity, you know, immune cells can self destruct. The body stops producing them, communication, immune system breaks down and that can render people susceptible to cancer, to atypical infections, makes him very vulnerable to coronavirus on top of his respiratory issues and medical neglect in the embassy. So, you know, the torture is continuing in Bill Marsh prison. How worried are you about what coronavirus could mean for our prisons? Well, this is unprecedented. Assange's poor health placed him in further danger from the coronavirus infecting prisons. Prisons have become one of the flashpoints of the virus with riots breaking out in Italy and thousands of inmates being freed in Iran. In April 2020, temporary release of low-risk prisoners due to the spread of coronavirus in prisons was commenced, but an application for Assange's early release on bail as an unconvicted detainee was denied. That's what these techniques are essentially designed to do to break someone down so much that they don't want to leave, they can't function.  You know, that's very predictable. Julian rang me because he spent Christmas with me and my family in 2010 while on bail. I think he simply wanted a few minutes of escape. His speech was slurred, he was speaking slowly.  And he said to me that I'm slowly dying here. I'm Stella Morris. I am Julian Assange's partner. This is the extraordinary YouTube post released by WikiLeaks. Julian Assange, it reveals, has two young children. Fathered, while he was holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. I have to do this because I've taken so many steps for so many years. And I feel like Julian's life might be coming to an end. Now, we have with us the filmmaker, John Furse, as well as the UN Special Rapporteur and torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, Nils Meltzer. I'll start with a question to John and just to note for our audience, if you want to send in questions on this channel or on social media, we'll try to take a few from the audience a bit later as well. But John, could you tell us a bit about how you came into the story? Why you chose to tell Julian's story and why this aspect of the story? Well, that was because I'd had a longstanding interest in the possibility of any kind of popular movements against the status quo. And like everybody, I was part of the sort of, the mass of general disillusionment with the way our political systems work and exasperated at the lack of movement in opposition to them. So I'd written a screenplay because I'm really a screenwriter. I've written a screenplay about an uprising in this country set in the near future. And that drew me to making a film about the campaign to save the NHS over here. And I learned a great deal from that, that it crystallized a number of things for me. Most particularly, it was the way that the NHS, for instance, is being privatized without any democratic consent, without any due parliamentary process and without any of the kind of legislation that's required. So this whole question of accountability was highlighted for me. And also the loss of democracy, the way that our democracy has effectively been taken over by big money and big business. And I was finishing the film towards the end of last year. And the news about Julian Assange's hearing came up. And I thought I ought to pay attention. I was like everybody, I had questions about it and I was dubious. I wondered if anybody had been endangered by them. I hadn't been properly drawn to it. And then up on Twitter came Nils Meltzer's interview in the German publication Republic. And that just completely blew my mind. I was instantly realized how I've been duped and that this appalling miscarriage of justice was happening and I had no real inkling about it. Because I think as a filmmaker, you have to be very honest about your own prejudices. You have to be alert all the time to what your real feelings are. Because if you don't have that, it's going to be very hard to convert other people. If you change your mind, how are you going to convert other people if you don't recognize your own shortcomings? So Nils is really to blame for my involvement. Well Nils, I'll put a similar question to you. Could you tell us a bit about your decision to take up the case in your UN mandate? Yes, well, I think as everybody knows, I was very hesitant to get into this case when I was contacted the first time in December, 2018, when he was obviously still at the embassy and his legal team contacted my mandate asking me to intervene on his behalf because they felt his living condition had become inhumane at the embassy. I had this visceral reaction of not getting involved and thinking, you know, Assange, he's just going to manipulate my mandate and this is this hacker and narcissist and rapist and so on. So I didn't really know much about the case. This was a, as I said, a visceral reaction. And I also have to explain that I received about 15 requests per day by individuals to intervene on their behalf and I can take about one or two. So it is normal for me that I have to discard most of the requests. So, but I didn't really think about this much longer. I just discarded it and then only when they came back to me three months later, just before his expulsion and I said, look, rumors are really consolidating around the risk of the Julian Assange being expelled from the embassy and then extradited to the US. Then something clicked in my brain. I thought, well, didn't I hear about this before and why didn't I actually deal with this? And I actually looked at myself and I felt, I asked myself, where did I get my prejudice from? Had I known the case? And through my own research or come to a realization that, I don't know, this case was not for me, have we different, but how could I react so instinctively? And then I really, as John just said, I really had to look myself in the mirror and I owed it to my professional integrity to really look into this case a little bit and I realized that I had been deceived. And I really, as a first statement, I'd like to put this out there. If you think Julian Assange is a hacker and a narcissist and a rapist, you're not to blame because you have been deceived. If you think you have not been deceived, it means that the deception is working because obviously deception only works if the deceived think they're not being deceived, otherwise it's not working. So it's normal that you think you're not being deceived. That's the whole point of deception, right? But the beauty in this case really is, despite the tragic also of it, that you only have to scratch the surface a little bit and immediately you'll see the contradictions. And that's what I did in March, 2019. I received a couple of pieces of evidence of a general nature from the legal team and I started looking at it and it intrigued me. It concerned his state of health, medical assessments that had been made about it and some of the text messages that had been sent in the Swedish case and so on. And this intrigued me and I started opening the books and looking into the documents and immediately I saw profound contradictions between documented facts and the public narrative about Julian Assange. It just didn't add up. And so I felt I needed to go and really investigate this case and take with me medical doctors to be sure to have an objective medical scientific assessment. And so I took with me two medical experts, the psychiatrist and forensic expert and we did this visit that everybody I think knows about where we examined Julian Assange of the May 2019 in Belvast prison for four hours and he clearly, we examined him separately from each other. That's also important to know. So these were separate assessments and we compared notes and all of us agreed that he showed clear symptoms of psychological torture. So that was how I got into this case. And obviously then I have to inform the public about this and being aware that most of the official world will not believe me because they have, they're still being deceived and they're not aware of it. What was the public reaction to your report? Can you tell us a bit more about that? Well, initially I think the states, the state representatives were quite shocked because they didn't expect someone like me coming out with a statement like this. Also because I have been working with situations of war and violence and victims of war and violence for more than 20 years and including in those areas. So I've been quite accustomed to be confronted with harsh realities and I've never been known to be headline hunting and seeking the public limelight. But here I felt that the authorities were simply not receptive. They didn't want to hear the truth. So that's why I took this step, quite dramatic step to step into the public limelight and informed the public about it because I feel that here we need a change in public opinion in order for the authorities to actually even come to the point that they're prepared to acknowledge the truth. That's something we very much found in our work at Reporters Without Borders as well is that the public opinion really enables governments to continue their behavior in this case. And it seems that many people, particularly in the UK and the US, reject the idea that this could be happening to somebody, that what we know to be true is true, that he's being targeted for political reasons and that he's been laughed in these conditions. How have these states reacted to you and with your official reports, have they been cooperative or have they dug their heels in? No, they have been not cooperative. I mean, they've rejected everything basically. I mean, the UK took, well, there's two things. The UK took one hour to respond. I mean, Jerry enhanced the former forum's secretary immediately sent a tweet as a reaction to my press statement that this was not acceptable, that I shouldn't interfere with the British judiciary. And I think he forgot that he actually invited me to visit during the Assange and that he actually authorized that visit and that the UK actually mandated to me, along with all other states in the Human Rights Council, to do exactly that and to inform the public about my findings. But then it took them five months to respond to my official communication. And where I warned that Julian Assange's health was in serious danger and that we need an urgent redress. So it took them five months to do that. And as you all know, by that time, he was in isolation in the medical department of Belmarsh and not able to participate in judicial hearings anymore. That happened only nine days after my visit and we were already seeing the signs of this happening when we saw him. I mean, Sweden just rejected everything. Ecuador sent me very long letters, but not really engaging with any of my questions in a serious manner. The US obviously rejected everything. So what we want to see here is really a denial of reality. And I was so struck by this that this is possible with so-called mature democracies like Sweden, like Britain. Then I decided to do a research on psychosocial factors that are conducive to this type of behavior. And I found, and I just submitted yesterday, a report that the UN General Assembly now for October on these psychosocial patterns, the very widespread among authorities, but also ordinary citizens and media representatives that whenever we receive unwelcome information that questions our view of reality and the systems that we are attached to and that we depend on, we have this unconscious and emotional reaction to reject that and to find reasons to deny this reality. By denying the facts, basically we look somewhere else. We don't want to face the truth. Or if we can't do that, we're denying the wrongfulness of it. We're twisting it until we find some kind of a justification or we deny the responsibility for it. And so I've really looked into this together with very experienced social psychologists. And we also did broad consultations on this and psychology confirms that there are these collective tendencies to deny reality, to self-protect against it. And it actually even gets people to, it's not maliciously that they're basically denying or lying to the public. They don't see what their own authorities are doing because they don't want to face the truth. And so I was affected by this in some manner as well. And I think there is no point in denying this. It's a generic human tendency. And so we have to know about this and therefore be particularly vigilant and particularly also prepared to question our own prejudices and beliefs and to always be subject to external scrutiny and open to external criticism. And that's how I understand my role with regard to the governments and also the public. Well, John, you were one such member of the public who was convinced by Niels. What do you think that we can do as filmmakers, as journalists, as even private persons with an interest in this case? What can we all do now to start to change this conversation more, to get people to consider their own biases and to take action against this injustice? I think one of the first things is we have to find a new language, if you like, for speaking to people. I found it a problem in the NHS campaign initially, and I think there's maybe a problem with the Assange campaign too, is you end up talking within your bubble and the big problem is how to break through the bubbles. I was very careful in my NHS film not to use phrases like left-wing, right-wing, capitalism, that blair-right and all that. I was very careful in the language and in the making of this film, that was one of my first questions, was how to not immediately put somebody off with this very strange information that doesn't accord with all one's prejudices about trusting the BBC or trusting the media or that ultimately parliamentary democracy is sort of working. And a key to that was obviously to have Niels making his own confession about his own prejudices at the beginning. But also when he finished just one small example is when he talks about the prejudice about Julian Assange's narcissism. I chose that shot very carefully of him walking to the courtroom because it seemed to me so consonant with the prejudice I remember having of this very confident guy. He's, you don't know, it's his lawyer. He's got an attractive woman with him. He looks at the camera. That was a very carefully chosen image because I wanted to get the audience feeling comfortable with their own prejudices before actually confounding them. I wanted to draw them into the film through their own prejudices if you like. And I was questioned, I was quizzed by that by one or two campaigners who thought I was reinforcing public myths about Julian Assange. Well, my argument was you have to work off those myths. You have to get people on the same page as you. And that's, I think that's for all people trying to create any kind of change of perception through whatever communications tools they're using. So on one level, there are these misconceptions about Assange, this bias against Assange himself. Do you feel that there was a good understanding of his treatment and of what he has suffered? Did you feel when you started this film that people fully understood what psychological torture is? No, I think that that was a problem even after being converted by Nils's piece. I still had a question. I said, my colleague on the film, Gus, I only discovered later about psychological torture. It sounds kind of vague. I mean, I've dealt with victims of physical torture. Many years ago, I was allowed to film with them. But when I listened to Fidel talking about what happened inside the embassy, and particularly also Lissa Johnson laying out the classifications of psychological torture, that actually, that sort of completed my conversion on that score. The other key question for me, of course, was whether any damage had been created by the WikiLeaks revelations. And again, I was completely confounded by being given the news clip that showed that that was completely false. Well, Nils, in your mandate, a special repertoire, you work on all forms of torture. Have you found that governments and that the public is as receptive when your concerns are on the basis of psychological torture, as opposed to what people might view as more obvious physical forms of torture? No, obviously. And even myself, I mean, spontaneously, when I mentioned the word torture, I immediately have physical methods in my mind. The images that come up are of physical ill treatment. And I think we have to be, again, there's nothing wrong with having these images and prejudices, it's just that we have to be aware of it. But what is very important is to realize torture, essentially, is when you instrumentalize the infliction of pain and suffering to achieve a purpose, be it interrogation, coercion, intimidation, punishment, but it's always purposeful. And these purposes are always mental. So the essential nature of torture is to affect and break a person's mind, not to break, you break their body to break in order to reach their mind.  You're breaking their arm for the sake of making them talk, or cooperate or intimidate them. So what's really important is that the actual target of any act of torture is the mind, is all the psychological. It's just that the body is used as a tool to reach and to affect the mind, because people cannot withstand the physical pain so then they've changed their mind and start cooperating or whatever is being demanded from them to breaking their resistance. So that's the first thing. And then so you can achieve that through physical pain or you can achieve that through non-physical pain and suffering. So isolation combined with humiliation, combined with intimidation, combined with a profound arbitrariness, targets very specifically innate needs of stability, security, orientation, identity that we have, these are confirmed psychological needs that are much closer to our personal identity even than our body. So psychological torture is a very targeted method at systematically destroying these aspects of the self and therefore much more effectively even achieve the breaking of someone's mind. So that's just a small, so psychological torture really is not less serious than physical torture, but very often it has even more long lasting consequences than physical ill treatment. I think also what I'd like to put out there, I think it's quite interesting that we're discussing, oh, did the WikiLeaks publications threaten anyone or harm anyone or is this illegal or something like this? But we're always discussing what Julian Assange did. But really, Julian Assange's case is not about him. He's just paying the price for something, but it's about the states. It has always been about the states, but notice that we are discussing whether his publications endangered anybody. No one has ever found any proof of it, but we're still discussing it, but we had a video of people being massacred and no one even discusses what happened to the perpetrators. No one, it's not a question, have these people been harmed? They've been murdered in cold blood and no one asks the question, what happened to the perpetrators? But we're still asking whether Julian Assange endangered some people that no one knows anything about and no one has ever brought any proof for it. We even have US government officials confirming that no one has ever been harmed by it. So this is, I think, very symptomatic for the manipulation of our minds, and I've usually in my talks, I describe it as being the elephant in the room. You can have an elephant in a dark room if you put your flashlight on something else than the elephant, no one will notice the elephant. And so the media really is the institution that puts the spotlight for people on certain topics and headlines. And we always discuss what is in the headlines, but we don't realize that what is in the headlines and what isn't in the headlines has been decided by someone else and that we never discuss what is not in the headlines. And here in the Julian Assange case, we're discussing cats and skateboards and I don't know what speculation about harm but we're not discussing things that have been documented as war crimes. So we've got a number of questions from the audience and they're taking certain patterns. So I will actually take them thematically, a few at a time here. Several questions about the case against Mr. Assange in the United States. One viewer has asked what will happen if he's extradited there and another has asked about the new US superseding indictment and how that might impact the case, what difference that will make to the legal position and to his psychological condition. John, do you want to try to answer that first and maybe we turn to Nils as well? I, you're asking me. Yes, do you want to comment at all on the US angle? No, I don't feel I have the knowledge, I think Nils is the person to answer. Okay, sure. Right, well, first of the superseding indictment, I'm not gonna go into a detailed analysis of it, but what I think is quite obvious is that we're talking about the same charges. There are no additional charges that are being made. We have lots of stories of other people that Julian is supposed to be in contact with. And part interestingly, if you look at much of the superseding indictment, it refers to facts that happened after all of the acts that he's indicted for. So how is that relevant to a criminal indictment? Things that happened after the alleged crime are not simply not relevant for an indictment. So I think the purpose of these superseding indictment is not to bring additional evidence to support the indictment. It is really kind of an attempt to feed the narrative that Julian Assange is not a journalist. That he's some sort of a hacker that he has these kind of sleazy contacts with strange people that the normal journalist would not have. And so he wants to mislead people to think that somehow Julian Assange is a hacker. When everybody knows he's not and he's not been accused of hacking at all. He's been accused of publishing secret information like any investigative journalist would do. So I think it's quite a manipulative document and it's really worth analyzing it and looking at when in the timeline are all of these things happening and what exactly is there a relevance for the indictment? And then we will, again, you scratch the surface a little bit and you immediately see what is the purpose of this. It is really to affect public opinion much more than to have a legal value. And that also speaks probably to the nervousness of the US authorities because they might realize that public opinion starts changing. That the public, including some of the mainstream media start realizing what is the risk for them and for the freedom of press if this extradition goes ahead. And that example is and that precedent is being established. And so now they're trying to affect public opinion negatively in order to prevent that from happening. So that's my short analysis of the superseding environment. What would happen to him in the US? We all, the US, as I said, work in the public opinion, not only Europe, but certainly mainly in the US because once, if ever, Julian Assange gets extradited to the US, it is very important for the US to have a compliant public that sticks to its kind of prejudice that it already has about Julian, that he's basically guilty for everything. I mean, he's guilty for, you know, he'll reclaim to not becoming president as if he had written the emails that she has written. He has endangered American lives, but we have no proof.  But the problem simply is that what is objectively going to happen to him if extradited to the US, he'll be fed into this national security judicial system that have been established in the federal district of number four of Alexandria, which is the federal court district just next to Washington, DC, where you then have a trial where most of the representatives of the public that will be judging his guilt really have been selected from a population that is very large proportion of which is working for the US government. So you are not going to have a impartial jury in that district. And that is well known. No national security defendant has ever been acquitted in the court, the so-called Espionage Court in Alexandria. It's always presided by the same judge. It's always, you know, a trial behind closed door based on secret evidence. So no one in his right mind would really think that he could get acquitted in a court like this. It's not going to be a fair trial. It's going to be going to be simply coercion for him to try to make a plea bargain. And that's what happened also to John Kiriakou. He has witnessed to it extensively publicly, but also other national security defendants, obviously Chelsea Manning and so on. So I think it's very important that we know Julian Assange is not, there's no chance that he's going to have a fair trial there. There's also no chance that he could ever be acquitted for political reasons because the US wants to make an example of him. If he, I mean, just imagine for a moment Julian Assange gets freed. What this means for the US, basically it disproves their whole narrative and obviously Julian Assange will probably take up his profession again and he would find other people that would imitate him or follow him and do the same. And that's what the US is most afraid about. So I think the only chance we really have is to inform the public that they know what's going on. They know how important it is that we see a reality that we hold government to account and that this really is not about whether we like or don't like Julian Assange. It's about whether we like ourselves and our own rights and our press freedom, whether we want to be able to know the truth about what the government is doing with our tax money are we able to hold our governments to account or not? Once we criminalize people who tell the truth, that goes down the drain. And that's the essence really of democracy that we can hold governments to account and that's why we need a free press, why we need people like Julian Assange, whether we like him personally or not, we need them for their function. And that's why we really have to stand up and demand accountability here of governments. And we can't have him extradited to the US subjected to an unfair trial. And then just because you asked if sentenced and convicted, he will be for sure disappearing in a supermax prison for the rest of his life. And what this means, you can read in any Amnesty International report, in any Human Rights Watch report, in any other civil society report about detention conditions in the supermax facilities in the US. In the worst case, subjected to special administrative measures by the Attorney General for the rest of their lives. It is pure and simple torture. It is cruel and human or degrading treatment. It is unlawful. And therefore it is unlawful to extradite him. There's no chance of this extradition going forward lawfully. Well, we completely agree at Reporters Without Borders. And I'll take a moment because some questions have come in asking about our position and our actions in the case. So I'll take a moment to clarify that we believe he has been clearly targeted for his contributions to public interest reporting. We continue to call for all charges against him to be dropped by the United States. We continue to call for him to be immediately released. He should be released to full stop. But of course, his health situation in Belmarsh prison also adds additional urgency to that. We remain very concerned about the risk of possible COVID infection in Belmarsh prison. And we continue to call on the UK government not to extradite him to the United States. This case has affected the rankings of both the UK and the US in Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. The UK has slipped to 35th out of 180 countries. And the US is at 45th, which is certainly not what we would expect from the country of the First Amendment. And beyond this case, we have called on the US to actually reform the Espionage Act, which lacks a public interest defense and continues to be used against others, whistleblowers, journalistic sources. So this is a very clear political case connected to journalism that has serious implications for journalism, for press freedom, not just in the countries at the epicenter of this, but internationally. And we would call on other organizations, free expression organizations, human rights organizations, journalistic organizations and individuals to lend their voices and their support as well to this cause. Because as you said, it's very much not about one's perception of whether they like or dislike him as an individual or these misconceptions that many of us have found we have in this case. It's very much about what is actually happening here. What is that stake? And everybody should be concerned. So I'm sorry to interject as moderator, but these questions have come in and I believe it was connected as well to the case in the US because we fully agree with your position on that. Rebecca, if you allow me, I'll not take too much time here, but I wanted to compliment something on the notion of torture. If speculators think that what's happening to Julian Assange is not torture, I just want to put this to you. Just think about it. Torture, the main purpose of torture in the world is not to interrogate people. Julian Assange is not being tortured to be interrogated. The main purpose of his ill treatment is not even his punishment. And the main purpose of torture in the world is not punishment.  They know that tortured people say anything just to make things stop and that they might not have to write people. The real purpose of torture, most of the time is intimidation. And it's not necessarily intimidation of the victim. It's intimidation of everybody else. That's why people are being tortured in public spaces. That's why women are being raped on the village square in an armed conflict. That's why people are being executed publicly and punished and flogged because you want to intimidate everybody else. That's the power of torture. And that is what's happening to Julian Assange. It's not about punishing him. It's not about interrogating him and finding the truth or something. It's about intimidating all other journalists and publishers and making sure that no one does what he has done because that's what states are afraid of. That's what this is about. And this purpose has already been achieved. It's not that states think they have only achieved their goal once he is extradited. They can take as much time as they want as long as Julian Assange is holed up in a high security prison just to prevent his escape in case of extradition. As long as he cannot work, as long as he's isolated, they make an example of him. You can see the effects already, how the mainstream media is intimidated and they cannot even report about this case objectively because they're so afraid that they might end up in the same place. You can see that the New York Times publicly acknowledges that they submit their own security, national security relevant articles to the government before releasing them. So they're basically being censored already by the government, the New York Times. I mean, who would have thought that? So this is already working. Everybody is already intimidated. Let's acknowledge it. So this fight is really to reestablish press freedom rather than just protecting you. That's the purpose of torture and certainly of the torture of Julian Assange. Thank you. So that brings us back to the need to change public opinion. John, I'll take two categories of questions to you if that's okay. I've got several questions here about the role of the media, about how we can get more established media to be more aware of the case and to cover the case. And there's also several questions from people about what they can do, how they can help, how they can mobilize online, what they can do beyond just trying to raise awareness. Do you have thoughts on that? Well, the first thing if I just pick up on something that Nils said, is I think the first thing one has to realize and try to make other people realize is that when we talk about the state, we are talking about a state in all the countries where you use that word, which has largely been captured, as I said, by big business and big money. And that's what's really being protected. There are enormous global powers that are under threat from WikiLeaks and organizations like that. And what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are doing, they're right at the prow of the battle to me to rescue democracy from the grip of big money and big business. This has to be recognized. And one of my regrets about the last election is that the labor party didn't foreground, we mentioned the loss of democracy. We, I think this is a very, very powerful theme with which to talk to people about across the political spectrum. I think there's a greater awareness now that we no longer have proper functioning democracies. So that is a theme that I think can be used by campaigners because I think the Assange case is part of the wider battle, as I said, to rescue democracy. Absolutely. Got a number of questions as well about the role of the UN. So I'll take that back to you, Niels. Firstly, a practical question. Somebody's asked if your report is publicly available, which it is. A couple of people have asked about, has the UN done anything since you issued your report? And specifically, there's a question about the Human Rights Council. And there's also a question about, have you been threatened in connection with your work on the case as a special rapporteur? Well, thank you. Why, I haven't been threatened. I've been told that there's a political price to pay for what I, for my engagement and that states are not necessarily very happy and not only the ones that I wrote to that I consider responsible for Julian Assange's treatment, but I haven't been threatened. I think I'm being grudgingly tolerated somehow, but I've been made aware that I don't have to expect a big career in the United Nations or anywhere else after this. So, but that's not the point, obviously. I have a mandate and I have to carry it out in integrity to the end. And we will see what the future will bring. That's not my concern really. It's never been my concern. But the UN, you see, is not separate from states. The UN is an organization of states. And the problem that we're discussing here is not one that is limited to the UK, the US, Ecuador and Sweden. It is a generic problem that we have basically with any state in the world because we have a globalized world and a globalized society and a globalized economic system. And as John just mentioned, a lot of the problems that we're facing with democracy have been economic undertone and to say the least. And so that is a global generic problem. And so no one really in the US, no state has come forward that they're interested in getting engaged in this because at some level, they all share the same interests. And that is very disillusioning to realize and very difficult to work with. I think the special rapporteurs have very specific status within the United Nations because we're not employed by the United Nations. We're politically appointed as a mandate holder but then we're independent from the UN hierarchy. So no one can give us instructions. They can take away our money so we can't buy plane tickets and go to places and employ people but they cannot stop us from reporting or intervening and making public statements and assessments as long as we're appointed or as our appointment lasts. So we are independent United Nations experts. The United Nations as an organization therefore should not be expected to do anything about this case because they're not. They're not going to do it. The United Nations is a big group of states and what we're up against here really is a governance system that is globalized by now. And it really needs to trickle up from the ground from the grassroots, from the populations. Populations have to, and it's not about revolutions and violence. It's really just about insisting that we have democratic rights and in order to be able to exercise these democratic rights, we need transparency. We need to know what the people we elect do with the money that we give them from our earnings so they can govern us and they do it on our behalf. I think we need to have again, kind of renew the sense that government is service. It's service for the public. But we have been privatizing public service for 40 years and now we have almost been privatizing governments. We have privatized prisons. We have privatized armies, privatized police. So no wonder the government thinks they're private, you know? So we have to remind governments that they're not private, that they're basically serving us, the people. And so we, the people to me is really the beginning of everything. Well, in my work as a human rights campaigner, I'm finding increasingly that bodies including the UN and other intergovernmental institutions, it is increasingly the work of special mandate holders that is really getting at the core issues, the most crucial cases in a way that, in other ways, the institutions are failing. So we very much view that at RSF as being the case with your work. And I just wanted to add my personal things for everything that you've done in this case and many other important cases that have made our governments very uncomfortable. I will take the last question or a group of questions to John. There's been a number of comments and questions about the film as well. People thanking you for making it, who found it very moving and very informative. And there have been some questions about what you will do with it next and also what your next film might be. What will I do the film next? Well, I'm very dependent on everybody watching this film to help put it out there. I can't get it on national media. They won't take it. It will be seen as a campaign film. And anyway, the subject matter is not conducive to being taken. It's a real problem. I honestly don't know.  It's the liberal intelligentsia and the influentials who whenever there is any sign of a progressive movement in the developed world, then that then seems to act as a barrier to it. We've seen it in the last election yet. We're seeing in America, we're seeing here, even in Poland, we're seeing that there are large movements of people who are profoundly dissatisfied with the direction the ultra free marketeers have been taking us over the last 40 years and they want to change. And yet we're seeing this being blocked by the soft middle, however you like to put them, you can call it the centrist in the Labour Party, the Lib Dems and so on and so forth. And this is what happened in the 1930s. It was the failure of the soft middle to direct and channel the anger of working people and people who'd lost a lot after the First World War and after the Depression.  And the same thing is happening now. I think this is the most worrying, this is the thing that most concerns me and I just don't know how to get those people on side. I think that is a major problem is to move the middle, move the soft middle and get people of influence. I mean, I'm appalled at the avoidance of so many of the soft middle to come in and support Julian Assange. Particularly now after Nilsa's report, I don't have an easy answer, I wish I knew. I don't have an answer either, but I think there's something to these conversations needing to be had. People becoming more comfortable with the concept of changing one's mind, which I've tried to say on a number of occasions really is a strength, it's not a weakness to be able to reassess what we think about certain cases and why and to challenge those, as Nils you've said too. So let's hope that your report Nils continues to get traction and your continued work in this role in that, John, that your film helps more people to start to have those conversations because the situation really is quite urgent. So I think I'll close with that, just noting that as of tonight, Julian Assange is detained in Belmarsh prison where he should not be, where he faces serious risk of contracting COVID in prison on top of longer standing health issues and the impact of psychological torture. He should not have been detained today and he should be immediately released now. His US extradition hearing resumes, it was set to resume unless anything changes on the 7th of September, the court to be determined, possibly in London, and three weeks of evidence are expected to be heard. Reporters without borders will be monitoring it, I will be there personally, if I can gain access to the courtroom, which is always a challenge, but we will stay with the case and hope that you all will too. Thank you to everybody for watching and for engaging in such a robust conversation. Thank you so much to our two brilliant panelists and to the Don't Extradite Assange campaign for organizing tonight's events. Thank you very much. Thank you.


A very good evening aspirants, welcome to Hindu Newspaper Analysis brought to you by Shankarae's Academy for the date 4th of March 2022. See before starting our discussion today, I want to share something with you all. As we all know, prelims is coming nearby. It's vastly approaching us. Hardly 3 months are there. See the most difficult part in the UPSC preparation has been the consolidation of our preparation process. With the overload of information that is available in the internet, it is becoming more and more difficult by the day to go and search for the current affairs notes, to go and search for the quizzes or the question papers, to go and search for the videos for the clarification of our doubts. If you are someone who are having these kind of difficulties, your worrying time is over, I'm so excited to bring it to you. A recently launched Shankarae's Academy app, yeah you heard me right. Shankarae's Academy has launched this app and it is available in Google Play Store. What all do you want? Do you want daily current affairs notes? Do you want main topic analysis? Do you want quizzes to evaluate yourself? Or do you want prelims facts? Or do you want videos for the clarification of your doubts? Or do you want information about the admission or the test series in Shankarae's Academy? Or do you want the study materials of Shankarae's Academy? Do you want one or do you want everything? Don't worry, everything in this app and everything is just one click away. See it is a very user friendly app. If you haven't downloaded it already, go download it, check out the features of the app and I'm very glad to tell you that if you have downloaded it already, you have everything in your hands now and you have consolidated the preparation of yours. So without any worry, go start your studying process. With that happy thought, let's take a look at the articles that we are going to discuss today. See these are the articles that we are going to see today. We have the self-help groups and after that we are going to discuss about the biodiversity heritage sites and after that we are going to discuss about this fascinating topic carbon-neutral farming. And as a bonus, we have the map reading session also. So without any delay, let's get into our article discussion. Let us start our discussion with this map session. See, prelims is coming nearby and it is important to equally invest in the map-based questions also. I agree that the proportion of questions that are asked in the map-related topic is very low but then when it is a matter of one or two marks, that is when you require one or two marks to get past the cutoff line, these kind of questions or knowing these kind of questions will give you an edge. So today let's see some of the map-related topics. Firstly, let's see about the Ukraine region. We all know this region has been in use quite some time and there is a probability of asking a map based question in this region. Now let's take this Ukraine country. What we are going to see today is we are going to see the bordering countries of Ukraine. See whenever you're solving these kind of questions, what you should do is you should separate a particular region into sections. Here we are going to see the bordering countries of Ukraine. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to divide it into four sections so that it is easy for me to remember the countries in sections. I'll show you how. See here in Ukraine, in the east it is bordered by Russia, in the south it is not bordered by a country, it is bordered by a water body, that is the Black Sea and in the south west it is bordered by Moldova and Romania and in the west it is bordered by Poland, Slovakia and Hungary and in the north it is bordered by Belarus. So dividing into sections like this, it will make the studying process easy and it will help you to remember the countries in the long run. So totally how many countries are there? So seven countries are bordering Ukraine. They are Russia, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Belarus. Now let's see about the Black Sea. What are all the countries that border Black Sea? See in the east it is bordered by Russia and Georgia, in the south it is bordered by Turkey and in the west it is bordered by Bulgaria and Romania and in the north it is bordered by Ukraine. So totally six countries are bordering Black Sea. They are Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine. See generally when you're studying map related topics you should not just see the map and close it and move to the next topic. No, it doesn't work that way. What you have to do is you have to take an empty map like an outline map and try locating those areas in the outline map. Wait, I'll show you an outline map. See this map here, this uncolored region, this is the Ukraine. We saw Ukraine bordering countries, right? So try locating those countries around Ukraine. Here it is Russia and here it is Moldova and here it is Romania, here it is Hungary and here it is Slovakia. This is Poland and this is Belarus. So this is like a practice. So when you start doing this you won't forget the facts. Likewise I've given the outline map of Black Sea also. This is Black Sea and this is Russia and this is Georgia, this is Turkey, this is Bulgaria, this is Romania and this is Ukraine. See Ukraine is bordered by seven countries and Black Sea is bordered by six countries, right? There is also a trick here. You can remember it by since Black Sea is below Ukraine it is one country less than Ukraine. That is Ukraine is bordered by seven countries, right? So obviously one country less means Black Sea is bordered by six countries. This is just a trick. You can come up with tricks like this to remember facts always. So that's all about this world map. Now let's see a map based question in India. See this map here. Here what we are going to do is we are going to identify the states through which tropic of cancer is passing. See this tropic of cancer lies at 23 and a half degree north. So it passes through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram. See since they are plain facts it needs more revision to retain the information. See here it may seem that you have known everything after seeing the map but then it's not the case. Here also what you have to do is you have to take the plain outline map of India and try locating the tropic of cancer and the states. See here we have to just learn about the states through which the tropic of cancer is passing. So just draw a plain vague line. It doesn't matter whether it's accurate or not. We have to just know the information. That's all right. So just draw a plain line like this and try locating the states. See this is Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram. So when it comes to map-based questions always practice it to retain the facts that you learnt. We saw three areas today. One is the countries that are bordering Ukraine and the other one is the countries that are bordering the Black Sea and after that we saw the number of states through which the tropic of cancer is passing. See apart from this I want you to do something. There's nothing but go and try locate the countries that border the Red Sea. It is very simple like this. Try locate the countries that border the Red Sea and take an outline map and try practicing it. And interested aspirants you can post the answer in the comment section also. In the next map session I'll give you the answer for this task and with this we'll start the articles discussion. See this news article here it talks about the self-help groups. See the concept was launched 33 years ago in a village of Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu. It was assisted with the International Fund for Agricultural Development. See the idea of this is to improve the overall socioeconomic and political status of women. But over the years these groups have transformed from being mere extension of credit lines into tools of empowerment of women. Here credit lines mean the SHVs served as a link between the conventional banking system and those who are left out of it. So this is the cracks of the news article given here. Now in this context let us discuss what are self-help groups. Then we'll see the importance of women empowerment and finally let's see how these self-help groups help in the empowerment of women. But before that the syllabus relevant to the topic is given here for your reference please go through it. Now let's start our discussion. See villages are faced with problems related to poverty, illiteracy, lack of skills, health care etc. See these are the problems that cannot be tackled individually but it can be better solved through group efforts right. And there came a group known as self-help group who have become the vehicle of change for the poor and marginalized in the rural areas of India. Now let us see what are self-help groups. See self-help group that is SHG is a development group for the poor and marginalized. It is recognized by the government and it does not require any formal registration. Know that SHG is an informal group and registration under Societies Act, State Cooperative Act or any partnership form is not mandatory okay. Now moving on to the purpose and functions of the SHG. Like I said again and again the main and the foremost function is to build the functional capacity of the poor and marginalized in the field of employment and income generating activities. And secondly see in every meeting the SHG should be encouraged to discuss and try to find solutions to the problems faced by the members of the group. Since members of the SHG face similar problems they help each other to solve their problems. This is one another purpose. Now moving on to the third one. See SHG's promote small savings among their members. This savings they are kept with the bank and this is the common fund in the name of SHG. And know that the SHG's give small loans to its member from this common fund. Thus making savings first and credit later the motto of every SHG member. Now let us move on to see who helps to form SHG's. See a reasonably educated and helpful local person has to initially help the poor people to form the group. He or she tells them about the benefits and the advantages of forming groups. And this person is called as an animator or facilitator. Usually the animator is a person who is already known to the community. See this list here. It contains who all can be a successful animator. For example a retired school teacher or a retired government servant, a health worker or a field officer of a development agency or a department of the state government, a field officer or a staff member of a commercial bank or regional rural bank or the local cooperative bank or even a functionary of an NGO, an unemployed educated local person and finally a member or a participant in the Vikas Volunteer Wahini program of NABAD. So these are the people who can be a successful animator. Now let us know certain criteria for the size of SHG. Firstly the ideal size of an SHG is 10 to 20 members. See in a bigger group members cannot actively participate. Also legally it is required that an informal group should not be more than 20 people. So the size of an SHG is maintained between 10 to 20 members. And having seen a brief about the SHGs now let us see about the importance of the women empowerment and how these SHGs help in empowering women. But before seeing that we'll see what is empowerment. Well according to World Bank empowerment is a process of increasing the assets and capabilities of individuals or groups. See this is to make purpose of choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. See in simple words empowered people have freedom of choice and action. This in turn enables them to better influence the cause of their lives and decisions which affect them. Now with the understanding of the empowerment let's see about the women empowerment. See women are integral part of every economy. Hence all-round development and harmonious growth of a nation would be possible only when women are considered as equal partners in progress with men. However in most developing countries women have a low socioeconomic status. In such cases effective empowerment of women is essential to harness the women labor in the mainstream of economic development. Also note that women have been the vulnerable section of the society and they constitute a sizable segment of poverty struck population. Hence women face gender specific barriers to access education, health, employment etc. To be specific poor women are the most disadvantaged. How? See they are characterized by lack of education and access of resources both of which is required to help them work their way out of poverty and for upward economic and social mobility. Thus women's empowerment is the key to socio-economic development of the community. Hence bringing women into the mainstream of national development should be a major concern of the government. Right? Now let us see how the SHGs are important in empowering the women. See firstly in India these self-help groups were promoted by NGOs, banks and cooperatives. Here you can take the example where the NABART launched a pilot project for linking SHGs in 1992. See the NABART gives 100 percentage refinance to the banks on their lending through SHGs. Secondly take the SHG bank linkage program. See this facilitates SHGs to access credit from formal banking channels. This program has proved to be the major supplementary credit delivery system. Also it has wide acceptance by banks, NGOs and various government departments. And thirdly SHGs actively take part in social welfare programs focusing on dowry, AIDS awareness, nutrition, legal literacy, poverty elevation programs etc. Now take a look at the state-wise programs. All these work towards the socio-economic empowerment of women. Mahalir Thittam in Tamil Nadu state, Podupalakshmi Indra Kranti Padam in Andhra Pradesh, Jeevika in Bihar, Mission Shakti in Odisha, Kudumbashree in Kerala. See these programs helped to set up over thousands of community kitchens across the country. This is mainly to feed stranded workers, the poor and the vulnerable during the COVID-19 crisis. Thus in addition to the economic dimension, SHGs enhanced the self-esteem of women. Take the example of an initiative by a women self-help group in Tamil Nadu. This initiative is making the plastic bitumen. What is a plastic bitumen? See bitumen is primarily used in the construction of flexible pavements. This when mixed with plastic waste it is called as plastic bitumen. It improves the water resistivity, capacity and stability of the mix. Thus it can be used as a binder material in the bitumen mix for construction of flexible pavements. Thus we can understand from this example that the SHGs has gone to the level of entrepreneurs producing innovative products. Here you have to note that the government should create more avenues to market the products of SHGs. Having seen the importance of SHGs especially the women-based self-help groups which helps in the women empowerment, now let us see a few steps. See firstly the government needs to listen to the needs of the women. In addition to that financial support should be provided and they also require institutional support to fully exploit their potential. And secondly a multi-disciplinary committee should be instituted to improve the condition of women self-help groups in India. Thirdly a mentorship program which guides the self-help groups to survive in the hard competitive market is needed. And fourthly they should be provided with the CSR support, international funding, multilateral bank support and these will help self-help groups to shape themselves into a corporate entity. That's all about the article given here. Now let's have a quick recap. What all we saw in this discussion we saw about the self-help groups. It is a development group of the poor and marginalized. It is recognized by the government and does not require any formal registration. And after that we saw the purpose and functions of the self-help groups. They are to build the functional capacity of the poor and marginalized in the field of employment and they should be encouraged to discuss and try to solve the problems faced by the members of the group. And they promote small savings among members and they give small loans to its members from the common fund. And the motto is savings first, credit later. And after that we saw who helps to form self-help groups. We saw a reasonably educated and helpful local person may help the poor people to form groups. And we saw a list of successful animator. And after that we saw the criteria for the size of SHGs. See the ideal sizes from 10 to 20 members. And we saw that it is legally required that an informal group should not be more than 20 people. And after that we saw about the empowerment which is the process of increasing the assets and capabilities of individuals or groups. And from that we moved on to see about woman empowerment. We saw that women are integral part of the economy and they are also the vulnerable section of the society and constitute a sizeable segment of the poverty struck population. And we saw they face gender specific barriers to access education, health and employment. And access to education and resources is required to help them work their way out of poverty and for the upward economic and social mobility. And from that we moved on to see how the SHGs are important in empowering the women. We saw about the self-help groups promoted by the NGOs, banks and cooperators and the NABAD initiative and the bank linkage program. And we saw that SHGs take part in social welfare programs also. And we saw some of the statewide programs that work towards the socio-economic empowerment of women. And after that we saw an example of the women self-help group in Tamil Nadu which started an initiative of making plastic bitumen. We saw what is plastic bitumen which is binder material made up of bitumen and the plastic waste. And finally we ended our discussion by seeing some of the steps that has to be taken by the government. The first one is to listen to the needs of the women, requirement of the institutional support, requirement of a multidisciplinary committee, mentorship program and finally CSR support international funding and multilateral bank support. With this we have come to the end and with the key learned points let's move on to the next article discussion. See this news article here it talks about the Kadinamkulam lake. See the news article mentions that the Kerala State Biodiversity Board has initiated steps to include this lake in the list of biodiversity heritage sites in the state. So in this context let us discuss what is biodiversity heritage site BHS. Then we'll see the criteria for identification and declaration of biodiversity heritage site. Also we'll see who declares a place as Biodiversity Heritage Site. Okay. See Biodiversity Heritage Sites that is the BHS or well defined areas that are unique ecologically fragile ecosystems like terrestrial, coastal and inland waters and marine. See they have rich biodiversity comprising of any one or more of the following components. Firstly richness of wild as well as domesticated species or intraspecific categories. Secondly high endomism that is species that are available in that particular place. Thirdly presence of rare threatened species, keystone species, species of evolutionary significance. Fourthly presence of wild ancestors of domestic cultivated species or their varieties. Then past pre-eminence of biological components represented by fossil beds. And fifthly having significant cultural, ethical or aesthetic values. Sixthly it may be an important place for maintenance of cultural diversity. And lastly it may be with or without a long history of human association with them. So if a particular site or place has these kind of characteristics then it is categorized as Biodiversity Heritage Sites. Having seen that now let us see the criteria for identification of BHS that is the Biodiversity Heritage Site. Now let's see the first one. See the areas that contain a mosaic of natural, semi-natural and man-made habitats. This together must contain a significant diversity of life forms. This is the first criteria and secondly the areas that contain significant domesticated biodiversity component. They should be representative of agro ecosystems and there should be ongoing agricultural practices that sustain this diversity. This is the second criteria. And thirdly areas that are significant from a biodiversity point of view. That is it can be important cultural space such as sacred grooves or trees and sites or other large community conserved areas. This is the third criteria and the fourth criteria is areas including very small ones that offer refuge or corridors for threatened and endemic fauna and flora. For example community conserved areas are urban greens and wetlands. So if a site fulfills this criteria it is identified as Biodiversity Heritage Site. And fifthly all kinds of legal land uses whether government, community or private land. These can also be identified as BHS. The next criteria will be the sites that are not covered under protected area network under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 as amended. And the next one is areas that provide habitats.  See it may be aquatic or terrestrial. And this site should be used for feeding and breeding of the seasonal migrants pieces. This is one of the criteria. And the next one is the areas that are maintained as preservation plots by the research wing of the forest department. This is also considered as a criteria for the identification of Biodiversity Heritage Site. And lastly it may also be a medicinal plant conservation area okay. So these are the criteria and if any site fulfills any one of these criteria then it is identified as Biodiversity Heritage Site. Now let us see who declare a site as Biodiversity Heritage Site. See the state Biodiversity Boats may invite suggestion for the declaration of BHS. It may also consider suggestions from committees. All this happens through Biodiversity Management Committee. It may also happen through other relevant community institutions including Gramsabas, Panjayat, Urban Watts, Forest Protection Committees and Tribal Councils. Know that the state Biodiversity Boats may undertake widespread dissemination of information related to the proposed Biodiversity Heritage Site. This is done among the rural communities, NGOs, farmers, fishermen, adivasi associations, urban groups, research institutions, government agencies and other organizations. So what is informed through these communities? See the information will be regarding the provision of the Biodiversity Heritage Site. It may be done through local language newspapers, radio, holding meetings with the communities, letters to line departments, Grams, Panjayats, local bodies and others. See after collecting all the suggestions the state Biodiversity Boats consolidates them. Following this there will be public discussions and in this discussion there will be various sections of society with gender and social representation. And ones approved by the relevant Gramsabas or the urban local bodies, state Biodiversity Boats issue a preliminary notification. This is to specify the boundaries of the Biodiversity Heritage Site that is proposed. After 30 days of the draft notification of the site there will be a public hearing. Thus on the declaration of Biodiversity Heritage Site the state Biodiversity Boats may write to all the concerned government departments. And this is to announce the establishment of BHS. So that's all about the criteria for the identification of the Biodiversity Heritage Site and the declaration of Biodiversity Heritage Site. Here is a list of the Biodiversity Heritage Sites in India and it is given statewide. Please go through it and with this we have come to the end. Let's have a quick recap. What all we saw in this discussion? We saw about Biodiversity Heritage Site which are well-defined areas that are unique ecologically fragile ecosystems like terrestrial, coastal, inland waters and marine. And we saw the components of the Biodiversity Heritage Site which is they have richness of wild as well as domesticated species. They have high endomism. They have the presence of rare threatened species, keystone species, of evolutionary significance, presence of wild ancestors, cultivated species. They have significant cultural ethical aesthetic values and they are an important place for maintenance of cultural diversity and they are with or without a long history of human association with them. And after that we moved on to see the criteria for identification of BHS. That is it should contain natural semi-natural man-made habitats. It should contain significant domesticated biodiversity component and it can be an important cultural space such as sacred groups, trees or sites. It should be areas including small ones that offer refuge corridors for the threatened endemic flora and fauna. And these can be all kinds of legal land uses. And these are the sites that are not covered under the protected area network under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. And the areas that provide habitats such as aquatic terrestrial and the areas that are maintained as preservation plots are they may be medicinal plant conservation areas. These are the criteria for the identification of BHS. And after that we saw who declare BHS. See the state biodiversity boats. They invite suggestion for the declaration of biodiversity heritage site and they consider suggestions from communities such as biodiversity management communities and the boats undertake widespread dissemination of information regarding the proposed BHS. And after that public discussions will be held and after that it will be approved by the relevant Gram Sabha and urban local bodies. And after that state biodiversity board issue a preliminary notification to specify the boundaries of the site. And after 30 days of draft notification there will be a public hearing and then the site is declared as biodiversity heritage site. And finally we saw the list of the biodiversity heritage sites in India. And with that we ended our conversation. And with these key learned points let's move on to the next article discussion. See this article here it talks about the statement given by the agricultural minister Rashad in Kerala. He said that the government has been working towards making the state the first in the country to implement carbon neutral agriculture. See he also emphasized the need to boost agriculture across the state to bring down reliance on agricultural imports. And he also raised caution on the health hazards posed by toxic greens. So this is the essence of the article given here in this context. We'll learn about the carbon neutral agriculture, its significance and the practices that aid the carbon sequestration. First of all let's see what is carbon neutral agriculture. See it refers to the net zero balance of emissions and sinks all the greenhouse gases on farms resulting in carbon neutral systems. See it simply means practices that aid the sinking of carbon farms such as carbon dioxide into the soil to balance the amount that has been emitted into the atmosphere. It is also called as carbon forming or soil carbon sequestration. See like I said it involves a wide range of agricultural practices with the primary goal of removing excess carbon from the atmosphere to reduce global warming. Now let us see the mechanism behind it. See plants observe atmospheric carbon dioxide to produce food right. They also convert the gas they observe into a stable solid form of carbon and store it in the soil through direct or indirect fixation. So the carbon forming practices emphasize on keeping the carbon in the ground for long periods. But there are several conventional agricultural practices such as unscientific ploughing and tractors tilling and overgrazing etc. See usage of these techniques and applying fossil fuel based agrochemicals results in the release of carbon into the atmosphere rather than capturing it. See for the carbon forming to be effective the carbon gains into the soil from the conservation or the land management practices need to exceed the carbon losses into the atmosphere. Now let us see the significance of carbon neutral forming. See carbon forming or carbon neutral forming can achieve carbon neutrality that is emission equals to the carbon sequestration that is contained in the soil. See carbon forming can help achieve carbon neutrality by storing carbon in the soil where the carbon can improve soil fertility and nutrient retention. This in turn boosts the crop productivity and aids the progress being made towards food and nutrition security globally. They also offset carbon emissions and reduce the volume of greenhouse gases that agriculture releases into the atmosphere. The next significance is that they minimize the soil erosion and nutrient runoff while also purifying surface and groundwater. See they improve crop yields as well as the native vegetation habitat and animal health. See this carbon sequestration they result in improved soil health by increasing soil fertility reducing soil salinity and boosting the microbial activity and soil biodiversity. See the other significance of the carbon forming is that it has the immense potential to reverse the climate change effects when implemented on a large scale and this forming practices they provide financial incentives to the farmers in the form of carbon credits. So these are all some of the significances of carbon neutral agriculture and with this understanding let us see the practices that aid carbon sequestration. The first practice is using the residual biomass after harvest as organic to cover the soil instead of burning it. We all know how the stubble burning in the northwestern region creates a lot of pollution in the national capital region right? So such practices will help control the emission of greenhouse gases. See organic mulching offers several benefits including regulating soil temperature, increasing soil nutrients, restricting the rate of evaporation to retain soil moisture, suppressing the weed growth, controlling the erosion and improving the overall soil health. And in addition to this like I said it will help reduce the pollution also because we are not burning the residual biomass here right? The next practice is replacing conventional tillage practices with conservation tillage that is reduced tillage or no tillage at all. See tilling loosens and aerates the soil and rises the organic content or carbon to the surface promoting the crop growth. So this is the reason behind tilling the land but when the trapped carbon is released in massive amounts it reacts with the oxygen in the atmosphere to produce carbon dioxide. So this can be reduced through this practice. The next one is cultivating cover crops during off season instead of leaving the crop lands bare. See cover crops prevent soil erosion they regulate the moisture, suppress soil diseases, pests, weed growth and they attract the pollinators. Additionally they serve as mulch and a source of organic matter that can be used for grazing or as fodder for livestock. The next practice is alternating monocultures with high diversity crop rotations and integrated farming practices. See incorporating many crops into cycles that return higher volumes of residue to the soil contribute to the higher soil organic carbon stock. We saw in the tillage point right that soil contains carbon content. So here these kind of crops they contribute to the higher soil organic carbon content. This will aid in higher productivity. See increased organic matter ensures healthy biologically active soil with fewer problems concerning crop fertility, pests or diseases. And also they enable farmers to earn an additional income. And the next practice is reintroducing livestock into crop rotation for nutrient cycling. See livestock grazing after the crop harvest promotes the conversion of high carbon residues to low carbon organic manure. See cover crops such as cereals and legumes provides for animal grazing and allows more nutrient cycling from crop to soil while also sequestering carbon into soil. This practice also mitigates challenges and expenses related to the concentrated animal feeding operations. So we saw five important practices that aid in carbon sequestration and other such practices include substituting intensive application of chemical fertilizers with integrated nutrient management and precision farming, integrating trees into agriculture through cropland agroforestry, protecting carbon rich soils that act as natural carbon sinks, rotating livestock periodically through pastures and a series of small paddocks and using compost to restore the soil fertility and increase the grassland carbon storage. And with this we have come to the end let's have a quick recap. What all we saw in this discussion we saw about carbon neutral agriculture which is the practices that aid in the sinking of carbon forms into the soil to balance the amount of the carbon dioxide that has been emitted. See it is also called as carbon forming or soil carbon sequestration and after that we saw about the mechanism behind it that is plant observe atmospheric carbon dioxide to produce food and they convert it into solid forms of carbon and store it in the soil through direct or indirect fixation and after that we saw the significance of carbon neutral forming which is they increase crop productivity and they ensure food nutrition security they offset the carbon emissions and reduce the volume of greenhouse gases that releases into the atmosphere they minimize soil erosion and nutrient runoff they improve the crop yield they improve the soil health and it has immense potential to reverse the climate change and they provide financial incentives to farmers in form of carbon credits. And finally we saw some practices that aid carbon sequestration which is using the residual biomass after harvest as organic to cover soil instead of burning it that is organic mulching. Reducing conventional tillage practices with conservation tillage that is reduced or no tillage cultivating cover crops during off season alternating monocultures with high diversity crop rotations and integrated forming practices reintroducing livestock into crop production for nutrient cycling substituting intensive application of fertilizers with integrated nutrient management integrating trees into agriculture protecting carbon-rich soils rotating livestock periodically and using compost to restore the soil fertility and with this we have come to the end of our discussion now let's move on to the next part of our discussion that is the practice prelims question session. Today we have three practice prelims questions as usual I have one quiz question for you and I'll solve the other two questions. Now the first question consider the following statements with reference to self-help groups statement one SHGs are informal groups but it requires registration under society's registration act of 1975. The statement is wrong. See it is not entirely wrong because the first part of it that is the SHGs are informal groups that is correct but the second part of the statement which says that it requires registration under society's registration act of 1975 is wrong because in our discussion we saw that self-help groups does not require any registration under any society's act state cooperative act or any partnership firm. So the statement one is incorrect. Moving on to the second statement SHGs should comprise a minimum of 25 members. This statement is also incorrect because we saw in our discussion that the ideal size of a self-help group is 10 to 20 members and legally it is required that an informal group should not be more than 20 people. So being an informal organization self-help group should not be more than 20 members right. So the statement two is also incorrect so the correct option here will be option D neither one nor two. Moving on to the second question consider the following statements with reference to biodiversity heritage site BHS statement one a sacred group can be declared as a biodiversity heritage site statement two a medicinal plant conservation area can be declared as a biodiversity heritage site. Try to recall our discussion yeah you're right both the statements are correct here. See we saw certain criterias for the identification of biodiversity heritage site right go through it again see if these two criterias are fulfilled then it can be identified as biodiversity heritage site. So going by that the correct option here will be option C both one and two. Now moving on to the final question aspirants this is the quiz question for you which of the following is not a carbon neutral forming practice option A alternating monocultures with high diversity crop rotations and integrated forming practices option B substituting intensive application of chemical fertilizers with integrated nutrient management and precision forming option C opting for conventional tillage that promotes crop growth option D using the residual biomass after harvest as the organic to cover the soil. See this is a very simple question go through our discussion again and find out which is not a carbon neutral forming practice. Attempt this question and post your answer in the comment section. I have a main question here for you so interested aspirants write it and post it in the comment section if you have any queries regarding the articles that we discussed today post that also in the comment section don't forget to do the task that I've given you which is seeing the bordering countries of Red Sea and also try to attempt the quiz question and with this we have come to the end if you find the video useful please like share and comment and do subscribe to Shankar Ayes Academy's YouTube channel for further updates. Thank you.