nutrition is going to be the organizing principle for the food system. And prior to this, for the last, you know, sort of 100 years as the kind of the legacy system was being developed, it was all about calories and securing calories. I think now it really is securing, you know, sort of nutrition.  You have to start thinking about things much differently. Okay. Victor E. Friedberg is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas, brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Victor has been at the forefront of innovation, investment and sustainability for over 20 years as co-founder of S2G Ventures. He was a principal force in developing the S2G mission, culture, strategy and team. Through his work at S2G, he pioneered systems, investing as a strategy for investing into food and agriculture and applied this approach in building the S2G portfolio. As managing director, Victor led the S2G investment into free food unicorns, beyond meat, sweet green and a field science, all well known as well as Maple Hill, Creamery, Adoraxus and Lava among others, which is a yogurt company, right? Yogurt. A non-dairy, yeah. Non-dairy type of yogurt. Although now we're becoming a super food company and we'll talk about that. Super food, super. Beyond meat, which Victor served as board observer from 2014 to 2017, became the most successful IPO in 2019 and one of the most successful food IPOs in the last decades. The new fund, a new epoch capital invests in best of class entrepreneurs, building transformative companies, defining a new era of health and wellness to support their visions of providing healthy, sustainable, effect us personalized and traceable products and services for the values conscious consumer. He is founder and chairman of FoodShot Global, a 501s T3 blended capital investment platform of equity, debt and grants with 25 of the leading funds, banks, foundations, universities, corporations and nonprofits seeking to join him on his mission to transform the food system into one that is more healthy, sustainable and equitable for all. FoodShot's Global Groundbreaker Prize is presently the largest prize for food and agriculture in the world. He serves presently as executive chairman of the fast-growing plant-based dairy company, Lava and chairman of the organic toddler food company, Tiny Organics. He serves on the board of those two companies as well as the biotech company, the Birdie Air Protein. He is an advisor to the biotech company, Mori and the SLM partner land fund. He was named by Forrest Magazine, one of the top 25 deal makers and influencers in consumer products in 2016. And I could go on and on. He has been involved in this as was said well over 20 years. He's a veteran and a wonderful person, a good friend. We might see his dog in the background or a beautiful ridge back. Hear him shaking his collar once in a while. Victor, welcome to the show. I'm so glad to see you, so good to talk to you. Mark, so glad to be joining you. I know it's been a long time coming, but I'm excited to both catch up as colleagues and also talk about all of the great things that you've been following on your podcast over the last year. So I'm excited. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for being on. And I'm really honored and glad we could get a workout. The last time, just for our listeners, the last time we saw each other was at Sustainable Brands Madrid in Madrid, Spain. We had a nice beer. Matter of fact, it was my birthday. We had a little beer celebration. We did. In a bar afterwards. But you gave a beautiful talk and our paths have crossed at the Eat For Me Foundation as well in Stockholm, Sweden, and many other places, I'm sure, over the years. You are just a pillar, a rock, and a man after my own heart in the vision that you have for food, not only in your investments, but in just the transformative global moonshots, this global food reform vision you have for the entire industry and where food needs to go. And so I want to just write out of the bat, out of the chute, first, with all those years of experience with these investments and real strong focus around health, sustainability, and equitable future for food.  Well, you mentioned our meeting in Madrid and Stockholm. That definitely seems like a long time ago, and now we're all meeting on Zoom calls like this and having conversations virtually with lots of folks. So like everybody else, I've adapted to sort of that reality, but I do look forward to getting back into the world and engaging personally and traveling and the like. I mean, like everybody else, the last eight or nine months have been deeply profound in terms of your family life, your personal life, certainly the trials and tribulations as well as opportunities on the business side. But I don't think anybody isn't looking forward to what's coming next and hopefully a better 2021. And it looks like we're on a good road to do that. What I will say is that over the last seven or eight months, one of the things that I had done right before COVID was to dedicate myself to taking operational roles in either portfolio companies or companies that I had interest in in either the founders or in what the company was doing. And I have to say, going from the investor side to the table to the operational side of the table is a incredibly educational experience and any investor, I would recommend a tour of duty out of the investment committee room and into a company. If they haven't prior really been operators because you're gonna look at investments completely different, leave from that sort of vantage point. That was true before COVID. During COVID, you really become to realize how companies are ultimately dependent on teams and the team's ability to step up, rally, pivot, analyze, feel. All of those skills come to bear in a timeline that is very intense and very consequential and so hopefully you're stronger for that at the end of it but it's been a profound time. There are things I've learned from that and clearly, I would love to talk a little bit about the sort of big macro changes that have happened over COVID and one could argue that they weren't changes at all, they were foundational cracks that had been there and the stress of COVID just made them more revealed and more urgent to address. And I think that's the main thing that I've seen is that all of us who have been deeply involved in food system change and understanding the implications for human health and for sustainability and planetary health and for sort of equity. Man, like COVID brought all of those to the surfaces in ways that ultimately would be very important I think very positive and beneficial for the industry and for the world but what a profoundly, I don't know, just a hard way to learn those lessons. Yeah, really hard way. I mean, not only did a lot of things bubble to the surface but we got a microscope look at what was wrong and what was right and just got this different perspective but in a very hard way. I mean, the food industry and gastronomy was really one of the hardest hit but it was also amazing. And I think, and I kind of want to follow up with you sharing this is that a lot of those companies that you invest in that you're kind of operations and focusing, they already have this ESG model a business model, a way of thinking they're focused in on health and sustainability and the future of food but also this global food reform, how we can do food differently. They were a lot of them as far as investments go first, second and third quarter outperformed conventional counterparts sustainable index funds, ESGs, food companies received investments, a lot of positive movement for really recession, a pandemic, a huge thing first, second and third quarter which was amazing but it also said, okay, well, here's the ones that haven't been walking the walk or just been talking about it, haven't made that transition and they're really suffering so but it's also put down those who did make that transition in a better position to deliver vital services essential services, continue producing but for example, the meat industry, I mean, boy that they're set up in practices were just not very sustainable but also ones where there was a lot of problems especially here in Germany with the meat industry and in the US and so where there are times where those companies that you're involved with say, we didn't listen, we need your help or so just aha moments in this time that you can maybe elaborate even more on where you saw that coming out and emerging that it may be confirmed to you this is a better model or, oh no, there's this microscope is showing us we really need to work on these. Yeah, I mean, I think from the vantage point of companies that I've either invested in or been operational in or from the overall vision of let's say what I've put forward for SUG and for Fuca Global all of those held up sort of quite well. I mean, those theses didn't anticipate a Black Swan event like sort of COVID, there were touches of them like a company I had led the investment at Araxxus which is, it's a technology that basically allows supply chain managers and stakeholders in the meat industry to validate that the meat actually is antibiotic free, right? So it's a kind of a honesty system but also for meat companies who wanna make sure that their supply chains are meeting their SPAC and trying to figure out where the weak points are and that you need a low cost, reliable sort of tests as the meat that you're buying is in sort of antibiotic free. Now that investment got done years ago but now you look at it through a COVID sort of frame and sort of understand the relationship between livestock farming and sort of the meat industry and bacterial superbugs and even potentially sort of viral ones you start understanding that that system is potentially ripe for the pandemic we can't see going forward. So how do you start thinking about an industry like that and a technology like that not just in terms of consumer traceability and transparency but now on this bigger theme of how do we keep our food systems moving towards a security that prevents the next sort of pandemic. So it's interesting though back and look at an investment like that, you look at certainly the Beyond Meat investment the IPO happened clearly before COVID and I think the view of Beyond Meat prior to COVID was that this sort of plant-based meat revolution was super aligned to the new consumer and people moving into flexitarian diets and that was all part of sort of the IPO. Once COVID hit, now you look at those companies much differently and I think all of the investment banks have reassessed the total addressable market for plant-based meat coming out of COVID and it gets to a trillion dollars a hell of a lot faster than people thought six months ago. We're seeing unbelievable things in that area just plant-based milks, plant-based meats, everything it's just unbelievable growth during this time for probably the biggest sector period. I mean, just oat milk just went through the roof and it's unbelievable how that was. Was that first company you mentioned was that a blockchain or emerging technology type or was it just a digitization? No, no, it's a lateral flow sort of pregnancy test meets sort of biopsy but then into databases and readers and supply chain visualization and all of those kind of things. So it's just an example that you can now look at all of these sort of companies as they had tailwinds going into COVID and now they have sort of like gale force winds sort of during COVID. I think for me the frame that everybody's still trying to get their arms around and anybody who says that they have a crystal ball clear vision as to where this all sort of ends up. I don't think you can get there but clearly automation decentralized distribution, traceability, blockchain like all of that infrastructure part of the food system that was the unsexy part that very little investment was going into certainly home delivery and last mile stuff and online groceries from there was plenty of capital going into that but into processing into storage into logistics all of the things that came under incredible pressure and buckled meaningfully during sort of COVID. I think those are starting to emerge as places where capital's gonna start finding its way to because I think we have to reimagine that middle layer of the food system and most of that hasn't changed for 70 years and I think that's an interesting sort of development. The other place I'm very interested in and with investments like lava and sort of tiny organics and but also air protein another one. Food as affordable nutrition and even food moving towards medicine I think is the big winner as a trend coming out of COVID clearly the two most important words I think from to really understand COVID's relationship to the food system or the words underlying conditions. I mean, that underlying conditions is now also turning into when you're talking about healthcare preexisting conditions but the 70 years of cheap calories and sort of food as marketing. I think that era is truly coming to the end because it has to. I think investors and venture capital was pushing that forward because one capital wants to find new consumers and new markets to create. But now at a macro level global stakeholders are seeing whether your insurance companies or your big employers or your governments or your healthcare providers like you're seeing the stresses materialize in a way that is translating into lost human potential, lost of lives, incredible amounts of spending that could be avoided by proactive approaches to sort of food. All of that I think is an incredibly difficult thing to watch on a day-to-day basis every day. I was here in New York in April and May and we were having 7 to 800 people dying a day here and obviously there were many things sort of contributing to that but it is clear that when the data is fully analyzed this is gonna be a story about food, diet, obesity, chronic disease, nutrient deficiencies, it's gonna be a story about that and how that burden has fallen on the shoulders of minority communities because of the economic realities of food and sustenance and cheap calories and it was heartbreaking to watch. You could almost every time you saw a picture of somebody who died during that time in New York you could almost visualize them on the screen. It was much more likely that they were going to be combating these chronic sort of health diseases that have been around for decades and the result of diets and so unless we as a community in the world start making changes there and creating incentives for scaling up a better, nutritious and efficacious approach to science towards food what are you putting in your body? What is it doing? How is it benefiting you? The food industry has just gotten away with way too much for way too long on marketing slogans and pseudo science and the like and so I think now we're ushering in the golden era of a new approach to nutrition and I think the benefits for that are gonna be clear. I totally see that as well and I see that new decade being ushered in and now we really need to get back to the health and fix our not only our biome but the biome of a human body which is really lacking nutrients and the good gut health and the vitamins, minerals out of our food sources the way that they're being produced and what options we have there. I really start with the first big question for you is do you feel like you're a global citizen and how would you feel or could you imagine a world without nations, borders, divisions of humanity one from another and what are your thoughts and feelings about that? Well, first of all, I think as we were talking about right before we did this interview we're in the midst of a political environment here that obviously is very US centric but has implications for sort of the rest of the world. I'm more singularly focused on how to get through the next three months here and finding the belief that our systems here will hold up under kind of the pressure that they're under now and that from there, the US joins a aligned group of global states that are trying to truly tackle the issues of this world around sustainability around food and nutrition, around all of the things that I know you're a big believer in. So I'm starting to think about I'm answering that question from the ground up from the bottom up and not from the top down I got to see what grassroots activism on a local level here has done and changed potentially the course of this country. So right now I'm in the view that these very localized grassroots very sort of progressive strategies are super important. And then if we can get through that, then maybe zoom back out for those bigger top down questions and maybe you mean it as a ground up, bottom up sort of strategy. But right now all I'm thinking about is what's going on out in that on those streets. It's crazy. Because the next couple of months there's gonna be a lot more of it. Yeah, I mean I really need to congratulate the US for their vote for Biden and whatever controversies and craziness comes out of that for the next month. I don't wish upon anybody. I hope that we can move forward with all the Paris agreement and many other things to kind of heal, repair and get into a better place. Like the World Economic Forum says, this should be a time of a great reset and awakening that the microscope has been. We've seen the problems and things above to the surface that we know where the systems are broken, what's wrong and where they are. Let's get them fixed.  Let's truly make it happen and move forward. Because really this year started out in January as a very positive movement in a lot of directions, a lot of movements. And even though it's been very tumultuous during the year with the pandemic, good and bad all around the world, there's also been some positive things around food and progress that have been made that really take us forward. Now we still need to have this roadmap of global food reform and have this, as you so eloquently say it, through the FoodShot.org and through your FoodShot business and project that we need a moonshot, a food shot for better food for the future. We need to start moving in that direction. The reason I, you know, I caveated it with those global citizens and how would you feel about a world without nathans and borders is because what we saw through this zoom in and zoom out of the pandemic is really, food didn't have any nations or borders. They continued to move around the world during the pandemic and the lockdown also. And a lot of communities bubbled up to come to service and to feed people and to make sure that it was distributed where we saw where the problems in our systems were as well. But also that, you know, during this time we had the documentary Kiss the Ground come out, which I think is a good, beautiful, regenerative movement and some directions that we need to go that people, you know, where see, but also the just last two weeks ago, the vote on plant-based meats in Europe and the vote on, yeah, plant-based milks and stuff and what's happening there and kind of, you know, are we going to allow politics to govern our food when we know that it's just as corrupt as others, that there's so many monies going from private organizations and the wrong direction on policies around food and things like that.        I think we're, you know, I think we're right there.     So, you know, if you're an entrepreneur in Utah, or you're, you know, in West Virginia, or, you know, if you start thinking about food from, you know, how are we going to create a 21st century farm?  And, you know, there's, there's a lot of things the entire country could be doing there. And capital could be supporting that, you know, like Steve Case has been doing this work for, you know, a long time.  Yeah, right.  The writer you probably know is now I'm blanking on it, who wrote Hillbilly, you know, Elegy, you know, Elegy, you know, that gave the first real insights as to why Trump got elected in 2016.  And so, you know, I'm hopeful. Well, how can we dive a little bit more into food shot and you kind of tell me how, how that's evolved, how it's been going and what your main push and drive is, what you want to deploy and see reached with food shot. Sure.   And for us to collectively then on an annual basis say, here's where we want to focus and then to use a blended capital.  And to use the consortium of stakeholders help de-risk that a bit.  So that was the kind of the original, you know, sort of concept.  And so, you know, what we do now, and I think what's exciting for me in the work that I'm doing there now is how do we take big global challenges like soil, you know, sort of protein and create new frameworks that would help investors and entrepreneurs, you know, make better decisions in the development of their, you know, their companies and their funds, but also that ultimately plays a way to think about that future food system and how do we get that and define it faster.  I was really convinced that nutrition is the key driver for investment and opportunity and entrepreneurship going, you know, forward. So how do we think about protein from a nutritional standpoint on a global basis?  And it's not, human health is much more, you know, much more broad micronutrients, phytonutrients, you know, they're all of these. And so, like, we're super fixated on protein as a catch on, it's not. So the idea was, how do we, if we are going to, you know, try to create a better protein system, which obviously because of the resources that it takes and, you know, how focused the consumer public, you know, is on it, how do we steer it in a better, you know, direction and how do we think about it? That's a new framework.  And how do we get more precise as to what protein is? What are those amino acids? What do they do?  How do you look at it more from an amino acid perspective and make sure that, you know, you're producing amino acids in a way that is more conducive to human health?   And then if we're going to, if we're going to produce proteins, how do we produce them? So, you know, a lot of protein nutrients are lost through the production process. So now you're, you're spending all of these resources to create the protein, but now you're losing a large percentage of it as it moves through the processing. Okay. Can we stop doing that? Can we make that more efficient? Can we make, you know, sort of the protein yield on the processing side more, you know, make it better. So we're looking at those kind of things and put together now, you know, a framework.  But we'll be announcing those winners on both the ground breaker prize and the ground breaker equity award in January of 2021. Beautiful. Beautiful. Maybe you can tease us. I know you want to start a new fund pretty soon. Can you maybe give us a little teaser or what we can look for, or is that too soon? No, no, I would love to talk about it. Thanks for, thanks for asking. The new funds called new epic capital. You know, the inspiration for it was, I started to see in other sectors and other verticals, a lot of the signals that I saw in 2012 and 2013 and food and agriculture. And that ultimately, the consumer drivers were all very similar. It was about health and wellness. It was about efficacy. What is it doing for me? It was about personalization. It was about resilience and sustainability. It was about e-com and, you know, it's just sort of new distribution. So the consumers spoke in as to basically what, you know, what we want. The systems have to catch up, you know, to that. Now food and agriculture now has been on a good run to better align, you know, the food system to those consumer drivers. So new epic will be investing absolutely in food and agriculture. But there are these other sectors, you know, beauty cosmetics, sustainable apparel, home and office now that we're now spending 90% of our time in our homes, you know, which I think is going to, a lot of that's going to continue as well. Now, how do you create, you know, better environments, you know, that you're now living and working in.  So new epic will be looking at these, you know, these same themes, but now making systems investing, you know, in these other consumer touch points. Sounds like a very systems approach and it's, you know, the, the resilience scene or the sustainable scene and, you know, not no more longer the, the anthropocene, but this new epoch of something moving more towards either resilience or sustainability, you know, I love it. Perfect. Well, you actually sort of got to why I named it new epic. Capital. Most people haven't sort of picked up, you know, on that, but this is the first epoch in which it's being named for man's footprint and thumbprint on the planet. And so, you know, before this, before Anthropocene, it was about species change and geological change. That's not what this is about.   Beautiful. Yeah, I'm fully aligned. So, you know, that's great. I'm excited to see and hear more and the world needs more of this. We just, we just, that's the direction we need to go. And I'm as crazy why we're still late, why we haven't jumped on board sooner and gotten there sooner. There are some positive movements as well. I mean, this year was supposed to be the launch of the sustainable food summit, the United Nations food system summit that's been pushed till next year. Now this year they've had some virtual events and things, but it's really bringing food into the discussion and global reform into the international global dialogue, especially at the United Nations where it's kind of how to backseat. It's been more about renewables and capturing carbon, carbon offsetting and putting a price on carbon. And really, those are all great. They're on the top 10 list, but we're getting it wrong because the number one way to impact and change is to usher in a better epoch is to start having food in our, our dialogue and what can we do to reform it and, and to get to a better place. So I want to ask you the burning question, WTF, and that's really what we've probably all been pulling out our hair and saying during this pandemic and especially during the election of the United States, but it's not the square word. It's really the word, you know, what's the future? I don't really want to know what your vision of the politics or other nations are. I want to know what, what's your future? I mean, you've given me a little bit of the setup of, of the, the epoch and, and some of the projects you're working on, but your vision is much bigger on global food reform. So really what's the future? Where do we need to go? And do you have a clear vision of that? Can you describe it to us? I mean, I think I've touched on, you know, it a little bit here is, you know, I think nutrition is going to be the organizing principle for the food system. And prior to this, for the last, you know, sort of hundred years as the, kind of the legacy system was being developed, it was all about calories and securing calories. I think now it really is securing, you know, sort of nutrition.  Okay.      Right now, that system is broken clearly. You know, it is moving more into a have and have nots, you know, you know, sort of structured, that's not sustainable.  That's when wars, you know, you know, sort of break out. So everybody's got a vested interest in, you know, accessible nutrition that is global. And within planetary boundaries. And so that's, you know, that's the frame. Now the question is, you know, how do you do that? And how do you create the new models that are going to accomplish that?    I think that's coming from the bottom and from the top. And so, you know, I think the hope is that that's what gets us, you know, there, I think the signals are pretty good. I think COVID accelerated that pressure. And so, you know, hopefully we'll get there faster. I really do too. I mean, do you feel that this current model that we're on, you know, the civil civilization framework, even the model that you're on in Manhattan there on, as far as who goes, is that a model that can be pushed out into the future? Or do you think that that's one of doom and gloom? And that's why we need to have this, you know, global food reform or this bigger vision of how we fix it.  Is that what you mean? Well, what I mean is I, is it because, you know, as you said in the beginning of our conversation, things bubbling to the surface that we're seeing that there's a lot of food deserts or that the current model we're in, you know, with extreme lobbyists and extreme monopolies of food and the way the food has been done in the past is just one that's not sustainable. And so you say, well, here's the situation I'm in now and I'm going to push that model out into the future. What does that look and feel like? Well, it doesn't look or feel very good. And now how do we make the shift? And you know, that's where you're talking about this bottom up, which is meeting this top down that does, it's not working for us is creating this new, this new vision or diamond and that's kind of what I just wanted to maybe push a little bit more of your thoughts. You know, real deeper. So one of the things I'm starting to develop with some partners for, you know, with food shot is, whether, you know, at the end of the day, it's, you need a viable economic model. And so, you know, better food at this point is just more expensive. I don't think that's a radical thing to say. And that it being more expensive is not just because it can be and there's more, you know, sort of, you know, sort of dollars for the entrepreneurs and, you know, investors, because they can charge more of that. That's not where the expense is coming from. The expense is coming from, it's more expensive because the systems that you need to create better food and do it the right way are just more expensive to do. They're more labor.   So all of the venture capital that's come into the innovation front is an attempt to solve some of those scaling issues so that better food over time can be less, you know, sort of, you know, expensive, but it can't be as, you know, it can't be par to, you know, you know, a system that's cranking out cheap calories that's been optimized for a hundred years. I mean, that's, you know, there's, there's going to be, you know, a gap between even where the most efficient progress is being made to get the costs down of food, of good food.  So the question is, how do you manage that gap? And is there incentives in that area so that you can make, you know, the good food cost on par, you know, to, to the consumer to make healthy choices.  The nutrition world should be talking about internalities, so I call them internalities. So, like, how do you start factoring in those, you know, costs of the cheap calories going in, but the expense of health care, you know, sort of coming out of that system? So, you know, the question, you know, is could there be a consortium of stakeholders that believe that the costs differential between the cheap calorie products and the, you know, the scaling better for you products, that it's better to subsidize that delta in the short term to avoid that much larger delta and all of those internalities, you know, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, you know, sort of later. So we're putting together the broad strokes of a pilot that we would do, you know, most likely on the west coast to test that thesis with stakeholders in each one of those buckets, insurance companies, retailer, big food, government. I did see that you have a nice chart on your website and I'll put those in the show link so that they can find those as well. I think that's important. You know, it's interesting and I don't want to maybe dive in just a little bit deeper as well because I think it's, when we were in Madrid, we kind of talked about this article, the surface of some of this conversation as well, that in 2008, the entire world's investments pretty much because of the financial crisis and some of things were happening in the markets at that time, shift to investments in anything to do with food systems because that was a safe bet. It's something that's grown 99 billion or trillions every year, nonstop since 2008. And it not only was a safe bet, but what happened is a real critical thing happened at that time. It turned food into a commodity. So not only did we kind of have the problem even before where those who were producing food weren't always knowledgeable about how to produce food or just trying to do it as cheap as possible. Well, now that we turned it into a commodity, it's even more so that it's not really, it's about when we make a profit, how do we do it? And it turned it out and Carolyn Steele really said it best. She says, if we cheap and food, we basically cheap a life, you know, and where you turn food into a commodity where it's not the true value or the total environmental cost of food or the percentage of EBITDA to produce that food. But then we drill down even deeper and said, you know, what if we use a real crazy model, which in my opinion is not that crazy. It has to also tie with this moonshot thinking that for our earth shots and for these, these planet dots. And that is really with moonshot thinking, you're thinking, how can I survive, eat, drink, sleep, get air, oxygen, energy and space and the harshest conditions be resilient and not while I'm trying to grow food or go to the bathroom in space that I'm creating waste or creating inefficiencies or using chemicals or processes in the way I do produce my energy that kills me in hours because I'm in this confined out harsh conditions of outer space. And what if we apply those and how we produce food and we discuss that, you know, it's not about the brands or the food products of the future that really are the key to solving the problem. It's what you've touched upon several times during our whole conversation.  That will have the biggest impact in the brands of the future. It's how we produce those brands in the future. And that's what goes to what you're saying. How can we fill that gap? How can we bring that imbalance back into alignment? So you've got this cheap product that is cheap but there's also no nutrients, minerals, vitamins.  But how do we bring the prices in alignment and still have nutritional healthy food that doesn't hurt human health or our environment? And the thought process was, why don't we use renewable energy, non-finite resources, battery backup, passive systems, circular economy thinking, cradle to cradle processes where we have this organic cycles, these technical cycles that when we produce, we, by using these renewables, by using these efficiencies of non-finite resources, we actually reduce our costs of good souls. We bring in the efficiencies of all the waste of what normally occurs and outdated antiquated production processes. And then we're not paying the high overheads for land and energy and the resources to make that, which brings that cost of goods down and brings up price in comparison to the others. And so I really think that, I mean, what you just said, that's how I hear. That's how, that's how I think that, you know, the direction of getting us into this global food reform and thinking, getting away from keeping food and getting it so that it can still be the true cost, the fair trade, the fair value. And I don't know if there's anything that you want to jump into that or how you're- So yeah, so it's a great example that I think would illustrate that on a number of fronts.   So when Obama, you know, came in, NASA want to position itself, you know, as a kind of a cutting edge thinker on sort of the sustainability. And it wasn't just the Department of Energy that should be kind of in that, you know, sort of conversation.  One of the companies, one of the first companies at this time was called Kaverdi, who was founded by this woman, Lisa Dyson, who was, you know, a scientist, had, you know, spent time at NASA.  And, you know, you could take CO2 and create different outputs using, you know, those sort of communities and specifically hydrogenatropes, which I had never heard that term until I talked to Lisa. So I had met Lisa in 2009. And, you know, we'd kind of worked through launch. Then I hadn't really crossed paths with her until about two years ago. When all of a sudden she was now Kaverdi, you know, it was around and been funded and was doing a lot of that CO2 to value work that she was getting into kind of the food industry, on the sort of protein, you know, and that she'd found this application for using these kind of hydrogenatropes, using CO2 as a feedstock, fermentation, I think using oxygen, you know, and hydrogen as well, you know, on the inputs and creating a, you know, sort of a protein powder and, you know, kind of doing next beyond meat or kind of impossible using that, you know, sort of, you know, process. So that mass of thinking had led to Kaverdi and then, you know, clean tech kind of went its way. And she was looking at, you know, the kind of the food industry and was like, oh my God, like there's this great application for that. Why don't we, you know, spin out this company, which is now called Air Protein. And so I'm on the board of that, you know, sort of company now, but it just just shows you, you know, how do you do meat production, you know, basically decoupled from agriculture and it's not a cell-based, you know, approach, which has a lot of complexity, you know, to a lot of money going into it, but I think the jury's still out, you know, kind of, you know, on that here, she can use this process not only in, you know, this really works into my precision protein frame, not only to create, you know, you know, distinct amino acid profiles, but then also to create, you know, other micronutrients that can basically be done through the same process.   So I'm very excited about that. There's a great company in Helsinki, Finland called Solar Foods. They do a similar thing as well. It's very, very similar to that. And, you know, there are so many cross-cutting thoughts and this connecting of complexity science and systems thinking to some of these companies. So you mentioned cellular agriculture and there are some really interesting things emerging in that area. There's still a lot of dealing with the scaffolding. So they can produce, you know, lab-grown meat, but it's pretty, it's almost like an Asian soup thing-cut meat that you would get if, you know, it's not a true burger in a short amount of time and so they need to work on scaffolding and what's the inputs and the mediums for those things. And there are some pretty good scaffolding opportunities around, you know, fungus around mushrooms and things there as well as other plant proteins or other plant-based scaffolding. So we're really at the cusp of this new epoch. So I just love how that's so fitting to go into this new direction where we have the opportunity to be creative and inventive and engineer and design these food futures and more so what we've also touched upon, which I hope my listeners will pull out of our discussion, is that we're not really talking about the future of foods. We always keep coming back to how do we get those futures of foods to production and scale and into this new, you know, to the masses because there could be 100,000 solar foods or impossible meats or impossible foods out there. And then we would start to tickle the surface of the problem and have that impact. And that, I mean, goes back to an even other thing, you know, neoliberalism, neodarwinism, you know, that's only the strong survival of the fittest, natural selection.  It's about competition, collaboration and really unifying and realizing, well, there's almost 8 billion people on this planet and impossible foods or solar foods, they're not going to cover it all. We need to be shifting the way we think about food. And so I really could go on and talk to you for hours and hours about things and I loved our discussions and I hope you will still contribute a section in my book, Menu B. I would love to do that, of course. People on planet food saving solutions, I've got a spot for you and I want to hear your wisdom and your thinking in what you've been specializing in for years. But as we wrap up our conversation, I want to give my listeners three sustainable takeaways from you. So something kind of selfish. I want you to give them something that will better their lives. And so I have three questions for you to kind of move in that direction. And it goes like this, is basically if there was one message that you could depart my listeners, a sustainable takeaway that has the power to change their life, what would it be your message? Before I answer that, maybe you can kind of give me a little more context for that one. Really, I just, you know, if there was something that you could say, you know, here's the future, here's something that really is a message, you know, the message that you preach, I think I could tell you what I think I've heard out of our conversation. But is there a message that you could give our listeners that would have the power to change their life or to change their way of thinking, acting or impacting on their own world or maybe what's your message? Well, I guess I'll answer, you know, I guess I'd answer it two ways.  Now, my God, it's an amazing time to reshape the world. So you have a role to play if that is something that, you know, is, you know, of interest. And even if not, the role that we play as consumers voting with our wallets is intensely profound. And if we can move more and more money towards values-based, you know, consumerism, conscious consumerism, I think it's moving there anyway. I mean, I think ultimately more and more people are buying that way.   That's beautiful. And I really like that because really if you're, if you invest in this arena, this area, and it's the biggest in the world, it's biggest industries in the world and it affects us, it's our basic needs. It's a good investment, but it's also a solid investment in your future and one of the desirable future and pretty much most other investments, especially fossil fuels and, and others are actually, you're betting against yourself, you're investing against your, your long-term future good outcome. And so that's how I see it. I'm a little biased. So the next question is, what should young innovators in your field be looking for or thinking about to make real impact on our world? Well, I mean, in food, in the food nag, sort of, yeah, so, you know, I think there are similar to my prior, you know, my prior statement, like, you know, this is the Cambrian explosion of food companies. Like we're there now. And so, you know, that's incredible from an opportunity standpoint.  There is no downside to big swings.   I think would be the, you know, sort of the first question. The counterpart to that is that at the same time, companies are under, you know, startup companies are going to become more and more under pressure to perform in terms of real businesses, you know, more quickly and that this isn't just about big swings. You have to be able to take the swing, but you also need to be running the vases. I don't know if that's a good sports metaphor, but you need to, you actually need to, you know, get in there and make your business work. And the, you know, the runway for that is a viability is getting shorter and more intense. So like if you're going to build a company, bring a team together that, you know, is simultaneously thinking about technology, market development, but somebody in there who's got a really good sense of finance and margins and, you know, business models and the like, because, you know, that stuff's coming to bear much faster than it did when I started, you know. So, you know, in 2014, you know, when I did the beyond meat investment, you know, beyond meats, you know, if you looked at that from a, you know, P and L standpoint, you would ask yourself, why would you ever, you know, as an investor invest into that company?  I don't know the answer to that. My sense is that runway is shortening. So as you create these companies, make sure that the teams, you know, really bring that multidisciplinary approach, you know, science, market and finance. Thank you. And the last question I have for my listeners is really what have you experienced or learned in this long 20 plus years professional journey that you would have loved to know from the start? If I only knew that, I mean, well, life would be different. Is there a aha or a moment like that, something that you would say, I would have loved to know this from the start? Well, I've been thinking about that question for a while now. And it sort of also relates back to kind of the beyond meat, you know, investment. You know, if I'm being completely honest with myself, with myself, you know, the success of that company as an investment, you know, for, you know, for the fund really ultimately came from, yes, you know, kind of an understanding of sort of macro trends and things like that. Yes. Is there a role for flexitarian, you know, diets, you know, that are for American families to eat less meat, but not become vegan, right? Okay, that was kind of the macro. But, you know, it was a pretty naive investment, right? So what I think about now is if I took all my learnings from now and went back to that moment, would I have done the investment? Maybe not.  So, you know, I think that would be the main thing is like, you know, the aha that I'm having right now is that, you know, knowledge doesn't always play to your, you know, advantage.   And a lot of that has to do with the team around you.  You know, we used to have a phrase that, you know, if, you know, if we were the smartest people in the room, we were in the wrong room.    So, I don't think I answered that question. No, I think you did. You actually went beyond, so I loved it. One thing that I took out of it that I want to touch upon, so I love how you say, you know, use your gut as well. If you were to look, looking back, you say, you know, what I made that same decision now, you know, and that was kind of the question you said, probably not, but that gut is, we could go to another rabbit hole, but we won't, we'll leave it at that. But what I wanted to touch upon is you said you made that gut decision or that was that gut. But what we're learning today through health, through nutrition is that our gut is our second brain. In some respects, if we have a healthy biome, a good gut health, then that true saying, you know, a gut decision can have a lot of meaning and have a lot of depth in that. But when you're numb and you're malnutritioned or undernourished, sometimes you're numb or desensitized to just common sense decisions in our world because you can't see or feel the world because you're not aligned, you're not healthy. And so maybe that's also something that changes over time, or maybe it is a different type of a gut decision. Thank you so much, Victor, for answering those questions, again, my listeners, these sustainable takeaways that, well, they will hopefully apply and go and research and look at your websites and see how they can follow in your wise footsteps to move forward. Before I say goodbye, I want to ask you, do you have any questions for me or if there's anything that we didn't get a touch upon that you would like to tell my listeners or that you'd like to talk about before I tell you goodbye? Well, my only question would be is like, you know, next time I see you, you know, will that map have all of the lines of the different nation states gone? And will I see a map of just sort of land and not of countries? Well, and I have an answer. So today I've recorded a couple of podcasts, and the podcast that I recorded right before you was with Parag Khanna. And he is a GIS specialist, PhD, and he does a lot of maps. And his, I asked him a question about global citizens and that this map is showing borders to divisions and separations of humanity. But if we look at some of the food maps, the cartography food maps out there, if we look at some of the infrastructure and industry or supply chain maps of our world, if we look at the population maps of our world, you would get a much different view of our world and what it's like. And I'm actually, for our book, which you'll see, I've got a real unique idea for the cover of the book that has to do with cartography and food. And so you might be a different map behind me. You know, these white flags and these different, those are some of the projects that I have around the world with the UN World Food Program and FAO and other businesses and things that really almost all of them tie with food one way or the other. And so I'm hoping to show you a different map this time. I look forward to that. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, Victor. It was a pleasure to have you. Was there anything else you wanted to tell my listeners or did we cover it all? We covered a lot, you know. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And yeah, I hope your listeners like it. I look forward to reading the, you know, any of the comments that come across. Perfect. I'll put all your links and stuff in the show description and I really appreciate it. You have a wonderful day there in New York and we'll talk to you soon.


Hello viewers and aspirants, welcome to the Indian News Analysis brought to you by Shankar Ice Academy for the date 15th of November 2021. So these are the list of news articles that will be discussed today. So on those lines we are going to discuss about a beautiful butterfly, we will be discussing about online violence such as cyberbullying and how it affects children. And we will also discuss about a particular community and an initiative of IIT. And we will also see about the unified payments interface along with these discussions we will be discussing about the hot topic of the day which is the Glasgow Climate Pact. So with this introduction now let us move on to the first news article discussion for today. Now let us take up this article for discussion. Now this article talks about the evolution of UPI that is Unified Payments Interface. The article also discusses about how UPI has made our life easier and finally it discusses the risks that are associated with UPI transactions. So in this discussion we are going to discuss in detail about UPI its benefits and also the disadvantages. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. See this UPI that is Unified Payments Interface is the genesis of a revolution in the digital transaction. We will see why. First let us understand what is this UPI. See it is a real time payment system. So it is a payment system. Now this payment system helps in instant transfer of funds between two bank accounts. So that is instant transfer of funds. Now such transfer of funds is usually done through a mobile application and we have the mobile applications like phone pay, G pay, Amazon pay and even V map. So it is a payment system which makes instant transfer of funds between two bank accounts. Now note that this UPI is an initiative taken by the National Payments Corporation of India NPCI along with the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks Association. So three entities have been involved in this initiative and this initiative was launched in 2016 and should also note that UPI is considered as an advanced version of IMPS that is immediate payment system. We use this IMPS while using internet banking and if you note this IMPS is also an initiative of the National Payments Corporation of India. So keeping these facts in mind now let us discuss the advantages or the benefits of UPI. See first of all UPI ensures immediate transfer of money that is immediate fund transfer. Secondly UPI is available 24 into 7 and it is available on 365 days. Therefore UPI transaction can be done even during bank holidays. Thirdly it is very simple to use as you know if you want to use this technology then you can simply pick up your phone and you can install the application like G pay. Now this application will ask you to authenticate your SIM through an OTP process that is one time password process. This process will enable you to link your bank account which is linked to the same mobile number. And if you do this process then after that you can easily start the transaction. It is as simple as that. But if you remember before this UPI that is around 2015 we had Paytm and to make a transaction we have to take certain steps in Paytm. For example first you have to have a Paytm wallet then you have to load the wallet with money from your bank account that is from your bank account the money is transferred to the Paytm wallet first. And then while making payment you have to send the money to the receiver's wallet that is from that Paytm wallet of yours you are transacting the money to the Paytm wallet of that receiver. And then the receiver again has to transact that money from the Paytm wallet to their bank account. So this was a tedious process but this process has been made simpler through this UPI because now we can directly send the money from our bank account to the receiver's bank account. So in this manner UPI enables us to send or receive money between person to person and also between person to merchants. Additionally we can also send money using QR code, virtual payment number, phone number and even using a bank account that is using IFSC code. More importantly when we are making payment to a merchant using this UPI application you and merchant need not have the same mobile application rather we have to just scan the QR code and initiate the transaction. Now this helps the merchant to tap customers who do not have a debit card or credit cards. So it enables a large number of people to participate in a digital transaction and it doesn't demand any debit card or credit card. Then you should also remember that UPI allows us to link more than one of our bank accounts to the UPI based mobile application. And then UPI is also a method of payment which is cost effective than using a credit card or internet banking. It is because we know that while using credit card or internet banking there are certain additional charges but there is no such charge associated with UPI. So in this manner it is also cost effective. And finally there is also grievance address in UPI payments because any complaints regarding the transaction can also be raised from the mobile application itself. In this manner UPI has become a technology that has cut down the socio-economic divide seamlessly because it is not an elitist or luxury technology. As we just saw anyone can use it. So in this way UPI has democratized digital transaction and it is accessible to everyone. And because of such advantages UPI based mobile transactions are on the rise compared to the other modes of transactions like credit card or internet banking because nowadays these are only used by a miniscule population in our country. See according to a data of National Payments Corporation of India about 3.24 billion transactions were made via UPI in the month of July 2021 itself. And these transactions were worth 6.06 trillion rupees. So you can imagine how much prominence this mobile applications and mode of transaction but we should also remember that beyond all these advantages there are also certain disadvantages mainly because it is a digital technology. So it is easily used to defraud people. This is what this news article particularly mentions as the other digital divide. See what is happening is that the fraudsters are using simple confidence tricks to cheat people rather than using high-tech methods like hacking. And such fraudulent activities are possible due to the inadequate digital awareness that is present among the population and it also provides a ground for confusion. For example, let us see how the fraudsters are exploiting. See we know that to send money via UPI we need to enter PIN. But on the other hand if we are the person who is receiving money then we do not need to enter UPI PIN. But many are not aware of this particular fact. So what fraudsters are doing is that instead of paying another person or merchant they will generate a request for money through the UPI app. And they will ask the person to approve that request and they will say that for approving that request they have to first enter their PIN to receive the money from this fraudulent person. But we know that only for sending money we have to enter the PIN number. Now being unaware about this fact many are entering their PIN and rather than receiving that particular amount of money they are sending their money to that fraudulent person. So this is one of the example of how fraudsters are exploiting the inadequate digital awareness among the population. Now other than this fraudsters are also trying to replicate this sim by cloning it. Now if they are able to do this then that means they will get the OTPs and they can easily make digital transactions on our accounts. Apart from all these there is also the issue of fake application because UPI applications are digital applications. So a fake can be easily created and such fake applications if installed in our phone they can even steal all of our personal data. So these are some of the disadvantages of UPI transactions. So what steps can be taken to avoid such disadvantages? The first and foremost is ensuring digital literacy and conducting awareness campaigns on digital safety. Because if people are educated about these fraudulent practices and if they simply just know how to operate the application and what are the process involved in it then we can easily avoid such fraudulent activities. Other than that we can also keep a low balance in the bank account which is linked to the UPI application. So even if our account is hacked or even if our account is obtained by a fraudulent person then also we can minimize the loss. So if we follow such measures then this UPI technology can be efficiently used and as Bill Gates once said UPI has made our phone as our wallet. So these are some of the points that we can take note regarding unified payments interface. Now let us move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is going to be based on these two news articles which talks about the hot topic of the day. The hot topic is the recent developments in the ongoing COP26 that is conference of parties 26 under the UNFCC agreement. And as the recent development is that yesterday important decisions and agreement were made between the parties and these were made as part of the Glasgow climate pact. So in this regard these news articles also throws light on the role played by India regarding the decisions. So let us see these important decisions now. Before that the syllabus relevant to this discussion has been highlighted here. See as we have already discussed many times the COP meetings are held every year and they are held mainly to construct a global response to climate change. Now in each of these meetings the parties to the convention that is the UNFCCC they produce a set of decisions. And this year's decision has been called the Glasgow Climate Pact. And if you remember before this pact the previous COP meetings delivered two important international agreements. They are the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the other one was the Paris Agreement of 2015. Now here you should note that among these two the Kyoto Protocol expired last year and only the Paris Agreement remains to be the active instrument to fight climate change. So coming to the Glasgow Climate Pact that has been agreed in the COP26. Let us see these decisions one by one. It is very important from the example's perspective these decisions can be directly asked in your problems as separate statements or a main question can be framed based on these decisions. So let us see these one by one. Now firstly the COP emphasized on the need to have a stronger action in the current decade in order to achieve the 1.5 degree target. So as you know the 1.5 degree target was put forward by the Paris Agreement that is the target was to reduce the rise in global temperature and that to keep this rise below two degree Celsius above the pre-industrial level or firstly efforts to limit it to 1.5 degree Celsius. So this recent pact also emphasized on the need to have a stronger action regarding this target. And on that line the agreement has called for a phase down of coal and phase out of fossil fuels. So in this regard you should remember that the Glasgow Climate Pact is the first ever climate deal to explicitly plan to reduce coal. So this is an important fact for the problems. So in this regard many countries have also admitted taking initiatives. For example around 28 new members have signed up an alliance called as the Powering Past Coal Alliance. Now this is the world's largest alliance on facing out coal. And on a similar manner around 20 new countries they have committed themselves to build no new coal plants. That is they will not build any coal plants. Now these countries include Vietnam, Morocco and Poland. Other than this even some major emerging economies they also took significant steps to move from coal to clean power. So in this regard the step taken by India is also important. So India along with Indonesia, Philippines and South Africa these countries together have announced partnership with the climate investment funds. So as part of this partnership climate investment funds has launched nearly $2.5 billion of accelerating coal transition investment program. And this program is the first ever effort to advance a just transition from coal power to clean energy in the emerging economies. So one of the decisions taken by India as part of phasing down coal is the partnership with climate investment funds. Or we can say that climate investment funds has chosen the countries of India, Indonesia, Philippines and South Africa for this accelerating coal transition investment program. Now in this regard you should also note that India played a key role by intervening to arrive at the final text of the agreement. Let us understand what India did. See previously in the agreement there was a provision called all parties to accelerate phase out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies. So initially a draft document mentioned that accelerating phase out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies. So for both coal and fossil fuels phase out was suggested but most nations including India were against this phrase. Why? Because many countries around the world have already attained high levels of growth using fossil fuels, we know that. And even now many developed countries have not completely phased out coal itself. So at such a scenario asking the developing countries like India to phase out coal is not a just decision according to India. And this decision of India is based on many factors. For example, if we look at the first factor when we consider the convention that is UNFCCC it only refers to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from all sources. That is this emission reduction is more general and it has not been directed at any particular source. So due to this, phasing out of particularly coal was not agreed by India in some countries. Now the second factor is that as we already said developed countries have made use of fossil fuels for their growth. So similarly, even the developing countries have got right to their fair share of global carbon budget. And therefore they are also entitled to the responsible use of fossil fuels within this scope. See here you should understand the term global carbon budget. It refers to the amount of greenhouse gases that can be spent, that is that can be emitted for a given level of global warming. So that means if this budget exceeds then the global temperatures will become higher. So that means every country should have some share in emitting greenhouse gases. And because of this reason only India is saying that developing countries also have the right to their fair share of global carbon budget. Now apart from this, there is also one more factor that is if phasing out fossil fuel was the real aim then all the three main fossil fuels should be reduced. That is all coal, oil and gas should be reduced. But this is not the case only reducing coal is emphasized in the deal. Why? Because the US and other countries, other developed countries they are refusing to target oil and gas as these two are critical to their own economies. So in this similar manner according to India coal is also critical to the growth of the economies of developing countries. And that is why India was stiff on its decision and it opposed for the phase out of coal along with fossil fuel subsidies. And due to this initially the phrase was watered down in the subsequent draft. It was changed to phase out of unambated coal power and insufficient fossil fuel subsidies. But even then the developing countries were not okay with this phrase. So finally after days of negotiation India managed to convince the parties to include coal under the phase down category instead of the phase out. So now phase down of coal along with phase out of fossil fuels has been agreed by the COP parties. So this decision of India has played a major role in the global carbon budget of developing countries. Now along with this the COP26 also concluded with the resolution. This resolution decided to revisit and strengthen the existing emission targets by 2022. Now apart from this another remarkable decision that was made at COP26 was with respect to carbon market. See carbon markets came into existence under the Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism that is CDM. So let us refresh what is the CDM? CDM allows emission reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction credits. Now each of this credit is equal into one ton of carbon dioxide and these credits can be further traded, sold and used by industrialized countries and these industrialized countries can buy and use these credits to meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. So let us understand this concept even more simply. See basically a carbon market will allow the countries or industries to earn a certain amount of carbon credits. So how we can earn a carbon credit? It can be earned with each emission reductions the countries make in excess of their targets. For example, if our target was to achieve 20 percentage reduction but we have achieved 25 percentage then that means we have achieved 5 percentage more emission reduction. Now this 5 percentage is our carbon credit and this can be traded sold to the industrialized economies and these carbon credits is traded to the highest bidder in exchange of money. So what will the buyers of such carbon credits will do? They can show the emission reductions as their own that is they have got this 5 percentage from us now they can show this 5 percentage carbon reduction as their own emissions reduction and then they can use them to meet their reduction targets. So this was the clean development mechanism and carbon market under it. And as I told you earlier this carbon market existed under Kyoto Protocol but in the beginning itself we saw that Kyoto Protocol expired last year and therefore this carbon market is also no longer in existence according to the news article and therefore a new market under Paris Agreement is yet to become functional in place of this carbon market. But there is an issue here it is that developing countries like India, China or Brazil they have got large amount of these carbon credits leftover and this is due to the lack of demand as many countries already abandoned their emission reduction targets. So therefore these developing countries wanted their unused carbon credits to be transitioned to the new market but the developed countries are not okay with this plan. Therefore there was a deadlock between the developing countries and the developed countries regarding the carbon credits. And now a solution has been found for this in the Glasgow Pact. The solution is that now the agreement allows these carbon credits to be used in meeting the country's first nationally determined contribution targets. That means these carbon credits cannot be used for meeting targets in subsequent nationally determined contributions. See if you remember under the Paris Agreement the countries agreed nationally determined contributions under which targets were set. So now under the Glasgow Pact what has been agreed is that if a developed country wants to buy these credits to meet its own emission reduction targets then it can do so only till 2025. Why 2025? Because most countries have already presented climate targets for 2025 in their first indices and the Glasgow Pact clearly says they can use the carbon credits in their first NDC targets only. And that is why these can be only used till 2025. So this was the change in the carbon credits mechanism. So that is all. These are the important decisions taken in the Glasgow Pact. First we saw about the phase down of coal and phase out of fossil fuel subsidies. Then we saw about revisiting and strengthening the existing emission targets by 2022. Then we also in between saw about the reasons for why India was reluctant in facing out of coal. We saw the important factors behind it. And finally we saw the changes regarding the carbon markets and carbon credits. So with this information I'll just move on to the next discussion. Now our next discussion is going to be based on this news article which talks about butterfly species. So the news article reports that the state cabinet headed by the chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh has recently approved a butterfly as the state butterfly. This butterfly is the Kesari Hind butterfly. So in this regard, let us see few facts about this Kesari Hind butterfly. So it is a large bright colored swallowtail butterfly. See swallowtail butterfly is a group of butterflies and they belong to the family Papillionidae. These butterflies are generally found worldwide except in the Arctic. And their name is based on the fact that their hind wings have extensions which look like tail. That is why they're called as swallowtail. Now coming back to Kesari Hind. See this is an elusive butterfly that is it is quite hard to catch. And its scientific name is Tainu Palpas Imperialis and popularly it is referred to as the Emperor of India. So you'd have heard about this butterfly the Emperor of India butterfly. Now, as you already saw, it is colorful. It has a super green, black and orange colors. So now coming to its distribution, this magnificent colorful butterfly is found along the eastern Himalayas. It is found in the areas of West Bengal, Meghalaya, Assam, Sikkim and Manipur. And it's also found in other countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Merlaus, Vietnam and even in Southern China. And note that this butterfly generally occurs at medium and higher elevations. It occurs from about 6,000 to 10,000 feet and it occurs in a terrain which is well wooded. Another important fact to be noted is that this butterfly is very localized and it is never abundant and it only survives in intact forest. This is the main concern regarding this species because much of the forest habitat in its distribution regions is under great pressure because those forests are cut down due to logging and for development. And particularly this species is also threatened due to over-collecting and also rapid destruction of the high elevation forest upon which this species depends on. So the best way to protect this species is to protect the forest habitat where it remains and by imposing collecting restrictions. See this butterfly is hunted for supplying to butterfly collectors. So imposing collecting restrictions will conserve this butterfly and because of this, this quesary hint is protected under Schedule II of Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. So basically now this new move of Arunachal Pradesh of declaring this butterfly as the state butterfly will enhance the conservation aspects. It will also boost butterfly tourism and it will save the species from extinction in the state because as of now, this butterfly is confined to very few pockets of Arunachal Pradesh. If not conserved, then it will become extinct. So that is why this move of Arunachal Pradesh is expected to develop habitat conservation of this species. Now in this regard, the news article mentions another fact that this butterfly was captured live during a butterfly watch that happened in Arunachal Pradesh Tally Valley Wildlife Sanctuary. So as you already said, this wildlife sanctuary is situated in Arunachal Pradesh and it lies 30 kilometers from the town of Zero in Arunachal Pradesh. This sanctuary is situated at an altitude of about 2,400 meters and this place is a plateau with dense forest of silver fir trees, pine clad plateau and a vast wasteland. And this area also has some of the most important endangered species like clouded leopard. So first live quesary hint butterfly was captured in Tally Valley Wildlife Sanctuary. So that is all. In this discussion, we saw about the quesary hint butterfly where we can find this butterfly. What are the threats facing the species? And finally, we also saw about the Tally Valley Wildlife Sanctuary. With this information, let us move on to the next discussion. Now let us take up this open article for discussion. It talks about the apprehensions prevailing around the digital platforms like using social media platforms, et cetera. And more importantly, it also discusses about how they also affect children and youth. So we know that in these COVID times, children and youth, they are getting increased unsupervised exposure to online content. So this is one of the main reasons for increasing online violence against children and youth, which has been discussed in this open article. So in this discussion, let us understand what is online violence, what are the categories involved in it, and what are the measures taken by the international community to address this issue. And we'll also see some of the way forwards to tackle this problem. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. So first, if you look at the available data regarding online news, in India, we can find that 71 million children, that is around 7.1 crore children who are aged five to 11 years, access the internet. And they access the internet on the devices of their family members. So children constitute about 14 percentage of our country's active internet user base. And as you know, our internet user base is over 50 crores. Therefore, children are more susceptible to online violence. And as we saw, this article speaks about the online violence involving children and young people, particularly in school. So first, let us understand what is this online violence? See, it can be defined as the intentional use of online digital devices to cause harm or to cause discomfort on others. And this online violence involving children and young people can be divided into two categories. Before seeing that two categories, you should understand that according to United Nations, child has been defined as a person under the age of 18 years. And young people have been defined as individuals in the age group of 10 to 24 years. So now what are the two categories? See, first is the violence between children and young people. This is also known as peer-to-peer violence. And it is often described as cyberbullying. For example, this kind of violence includes sending hurtful, malicious or intimidating messages. Now, this is the first type of violence. And the second category is the violence perpetrated by adults against the children and young people under the age of 18 years. So this violence is perpetrated by adults.  And it also includes actions like joking, telling stories or making comments about a person's body appearance, et cetera. So remember, these are the two categories of online violence involving children and young people. Now, let us see some statistics related to this. For this, let us take a UNESCO's report which is titled as Behind the Numbers, Ending School Violence and Bullying. This was the 2019 report. And according to this report, almost one in three students worldwide reported being bullied at least once in the preceding month. Now, this was about the physical bullying. And about cyberbullying, the report notes that around one in 10 children have experienced cyberbullying. Mainly, this report focuses on the cyberbullying of America and Europe. And based on this data, they have concluded that one in 10 children have experienced cyberbullying. And it also notes that cyberbullying is an increasing problem, that is, it is increasing day by day. For example, according to the report, in seven European countries, the proportion of children aged 11 to 16 years who use the internet, they have reported that they had experienced cyberbullying. And this reporting has increased from 7% in 2010 to 12% in 2014. And the report also notes that girls are more likely to be cyberbullied than boys. And such cyberbullying happens through messages. But it should also be noted that there is less difference between the gender factor in the prevalence of cyberbullying via pictures. In addition to this, we take another study which is conducted by an organization called Plan International. It was a 2020 study. It involved 14,000 women who were aged between 15 to 25 years and they were from 22 countries. Now, this study revealed that 58% of girls in Asia Pacific region have reported online harassment. It also found that out of the girls who were harassed, 14% self-identified as having a disability. And around 37% age identified themselves as from an ethnic minority community. And if any survey would be conducted now, then these figures will go up because in COVID times, children are using more digital tools and platforms for online education. So the prevalence of online violence has increased. So this is the extent of problem of online violence involving children and young people. Now, let us see how this is affecting these school children. That is, what are the consequences of online violence? See, children who are frequently bullied, they are nearly three times more likely to feel like an outsider at school. And they also have worse educational outcomes like they get lower marks or they even fail in exams. Apart from this, these children are also more likely to expect to leave formal education after finishing secondary school. So school dropout rate is quite higher among the children who are often bullied. On top of all these, the impact of online sexual harassment even could have long-term negative impacts on the mental health and well-being of the children. So that is why online violence, including online sexual harassment and cyberbullying is harmful for children. So in this way, certain measures are being taken by the international community to address this issue. For example, if you take UNESCO, it has taken certain measures because it is the organization that has been entrusted to lead and coordinate the education agenda in the SDG goals. And as you know, the SDG goal related to this is the SDG 4, which is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Now, this goal also includes ensuring safe, non-violent and inclusive learning environments. So as a part of the measures taken as part of the goal, recently the UNESCO member states have declared the first Thursday of November as the International Day Against Violence and Bullying at School, including cyberbullying. And this is the reason why this news article has appeared today. In addition to this, UNESCO in partnership with NCRT has also brought out measures to counter bullying in the title of Safe Online Learning in Times of COVID-19. And in our country, the Department of School Education and Literacy has also circulated guidelines about the adverse effects of online gaming and psycho-emotional stress related to it, because online gaming is also related to cyberbullying. So these are some of the measures taken by the international community. Now, as a conclusion, let us see what needs to be done in the future to tackle this problem. See, first of all, efforts should be made to provide children with knowledge and skills to identify online violence. See, only when the violence has been identified, we can address it. So first, children should be empowered with knowledge and skills to identify online violence. And secondly, teachers should also play a critical role in this manner. See, they can teach students about online safety and they can support parental involvement while using online platforms, et cetera. Apart from this, confidential reporting and address mechanism regarding the online violence should also be established. So this will give confidence to the children to report the violence easily. So while taking these measures, we should keep in mind that in this era of online education, it is very much essential to keep digital platforms free from cyberbullying to provide quality education. So these are some of the key points that you need to know about online violence, especially cyberbullying among children. As I always say, you can use these data in your main sensor writing, particularly in a topic in a essay paper that deals with the many sort of digital platforms or social media platforms or involvement of children in social media platform. And you can also talk about these points in the negatives of online learning, et cetera. So you can judiciously use the data in this discussion for supporting your answer. Now I'll just move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is going to be based on this news article. It mentions that, Potters from Unch village in Bharatpur district of Rajasthan will travel to another village to help the local clay griddle makers. They will help in fabricating the furnace of the another village people with a modified design. So what is a griddle actually? So it is a cooking device consisting of a broad flat surface. So basically it is like our dosa tawa, as you can see in this image. And the furnace is the place where the makers bake their earthenware. So now what is happening is the Potters of Unch village, they are from Kumbhar community and they have benefited from IIT Delhi's Rural Technology Action Group initiative. See this initiative helped the Potters from Unch village to build more efficient furnace. See this furnace was less polluting and even the earthenware that was produced from this furnace had better strength having lesser breakage. So now what the Potters of Unch village are doing is that they are visiting another village and they are going to help the local clay griddle makers to fabricate better furnace. So this is the crux of the news article. So from example's perspective, what we need to focus is about this news along with the Kumbhar community and the initiative which we just saw. So first let us see about the community. See first know that the word Kumbhar is derived from the term Kumbhar car. This literally means maker of Kumbha. Kumbha means earthen water. Now according to ancient Indian Hindu mythology, the people of this community, that is the Kumbhar people are offspring of Lord Brahma or the Lord Prajapati. Now here you should note that the people of Kumbhar community claim that they were the first inventors of the wheel. So now where we can find the people belonging to this community in India? See in India they are distributed among the states of Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat. So mostly northern and western part of her country and the people of this community speak the languages of the area where they live. So these are the important facts that you need to know about Kumbhar community. Now let us see about the initiative which we just saw. See the initiative is the Rural Technology Action Group ensured root tag which is initiative of IIT Delhi. So you should understand that this initiative was conceptualized by the office of the principal scientific officer to the government of India. Now the main aim of this initiative is to improve the level of science and technology intervention and to support the development of technologies for rural India. So here root tag stands for Rural Technology Action Group. It is based on improving the livelihood of rural people. And you should note that this initiative is centered in seven IITs. They are the IIT Bombay, Delhi, Gauhati, Kanpur, Gharakpur, Madras and Roorkee. Now the main aspect of this program is that all the technology intervention through this initiative is demand driven. That is if people come with a problem, then this initiative will provide technology solutions. And in this manner the initiative mostly focuses livelihood creation, drudgery reduction, increase in efficiency or productivity of processes, provisions of higher income, generation of employment, downsizing of existing technologies and local resource management and even knowledge generation. So these are the facts that you need to know about this initiative. Keep this initiative in mind. It's quite important from problems as well as from the mains perspective. So with this discussion, now we have come to the last session, the practice questions discussion session. Let us take up this previous question. It was asked in problems 2016. The question asks, recently for the first time in our country, which of the following states has declared a particular butterfly as state butterfly? Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. See, you should remember that this question was asked in problems 2016. And at that time, for the first time, a butterfly was declared as a state butterfly. And the correct answer to this question is option D, Maharashtra. And the state butterfly was the blue Mormon. See, blue Mormon is a large swallowtail butterfly. It is found primarily in Sri Lanka and India and is mainly restricted to the western guards of Maharashtra, South India and coastal belts. And it is also occasionally spotted in the Maharashtrian mainland between Viderba and western Maharashtra. And it is reportedly the second largest butterfly found in India. So the correct answer to this question is option D, Maharashtra. It declared the blue Mormon butterfly as its state butterfly. Now, let us take up this pair-based question. And we have to choose the correctly matched pair. On one side, state is given. And on the other side, state butterfly is given. First pair is Maharashtra common peacock. Just now we saw that Maharashtra's state butterfly is blue Mormon. So first pair is incorrect. You can eliminate options A and D. Now, the second pair is Arunachal Pradesh Keisari Hind. This pair is correct. You can say this based on our today's discussion. So two should be in the answer, which can also be said by the remaining options because B and C both have two and both have four also. Now, we have to decide whether three is right or not. Now, let us see the pair three, Uttarakhand and blue Mormon. See, as we just saw, blue Mormon is the state butterfly of Maharashtra and the state butterfly of Uttarakhand is common peacock. So, pair three is incorrect. Therefore, the correct answer to this question is option C, two and four only. Now, let us take up another prelims question. This question asks, which of the following systems are operated by the National Payments Corporation of India? Unified Payments Interface, Adha-Renabled Payments System, National Electronic Toll Collection, National Automated Clearing House, Immediate Payment Service. See, before attending this question, let us see a few facts about NPCI. It is an umbrella organization which operates the retail payments and settlement systems in India. And this NPCI is an initiative of the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks Association. And it was formed under the provisions of Payment and Settlement Systems Act of 2007 for creating a robust payment and settlement. Now, the aim of this organization is to provide infrastructure to the entire banking system in India for physical as well as electronic payment and settlement systems. So, in this regard, it operates many payment systems. It includes United Payments Interface, that is UPI, which we saw today, then Adha-Renabled Payment System, that is AAPS, then Fast Tag, that is the National Electronic Toll Collection, then National Automated Clearing House, Immediate Payment Service, IMPS, then Rupi, the National Financial Switch, Dheem, Adha, then E-Rupi, Bharat Bill Pay, Auto Pay, et cetera. So, based on this list, you can easily say that all of the given systems are operated by NPCI. So, the correct answer to this question is option D, all of the above. So, with this question, we are going to the main's question viewers. Today, we do not have any quiz question. We'll take up a quiz question in our next session. Now, this main's question is based on the discussion of today. Answer this question and interested aspirants can post that answer in the comment section for peer review. So, with this discussion, we have come to the end of today's Hindi News Analysis and the Practice Questions discussion session. So, as usual, viewers, if you like this video, don't forget to like, comment, and share, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for receiving updates related to civil services preparation. Thank you.


In Poland, U.S. troops continue to arrive in support of NATO allies in Eastern Europe, as Russia increases its forces on the border with Ukraine. International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach says he met with Chinese tennis player Peng Shui in Beijing. Peng disappeared after accusing a Chinese official of sexual wrongdoing. A United Nations report says North Korea supports its banned nuclear and missile programs partly through cyber attacks and cryptocurrencies. And in Mexico, the military and police clear a camp of 381 migrants in Tijuana near the U.S. border.


Every responsible scientist in the world is talking about, by 2045 we will be producing 40% less food on this planet and our population will be over nine billion. 2045 is not too far away, just twenty-two years away from us. It is not even next generation, it's us to live in a world where there are food shortages means. I want you to understand a thousand years of civilization will be pulled down and made into nothing in three days of food shortage in a given city. And this year already, I've been talking to the World Food Program and Food and Agricultural Organization, the leaders in that, they're all clearly saying this year itself there are going to be severe famines in many countries across Africa mainly because of soil depletion.