A very good evening aspirants. Welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankar Iyer's Academy. Today's date is 12th of December 2022. Displayed here are the list of news articles that we are going to discuss today. Today we have 9 different news articles. So without much delay, let's get into the first news article discussion. Now this text and context article speaks about multi-state cooperative societies. Now suddenly it is a news because on December 7 a bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha to amend the multi-state cooperative societies act 2002. But the opposition party or opposing the bill, they are saying that the provisions in the bill are taking away the rights of the state government regarding cooperatives. So the opposition parties are demanding that the bill should be referred to a standing committee of the parliament. So because of this issue only the multi-state cooperative societies made news today. And in this background let us understand what are multi-state cooperatives? What are the prevalent issues with the sector? And finally we will see about what is the amendment bill seek to change. Now before that the syllabus relevant to this news article is highlighted here for your reference you can just go through it. Now let us start with the question what are multi-state cooperatives? Now before learning about multi-state cooperatives you have to first know about what are cooperatives. See according to the International Cooperative Alliance the cooperatives are defined as people centered enterprises which are jointly owned and democratically controlled by the people themselves. Which means that the people are part of the cooperatives and they function as members of the cooperatives. Because of such a feature these cooperatives help the members to realize common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations. One of the best example of the cooperative is Amul. Know that the Amul is an Indian daily cooperative society based in Gujarat. This daily cooperative network is owned by nearly 12 million former members. And we all know about its achievement it has achieved in marketing, innovation and had a macro impact. So this is about the cooperatives. Now talking about multi-state cooperatives. See multi-state cooperatives are societies that have operations in more than one state. For example a farmer produces organization which procures grains from farmers from multi-states and we can say them as multi-state cooperatives. Know that the board of directors of these multi-state cooperatives are from all the states where the cooperatives are operating. The board of directors has the power to control all the finances and administration. Know that there are around 1500 multi-state cooperative societies registered in India and the highest numbers are in Maharashtra. So this is about the multi-state cooperative societies. So now moving on to see what are all the prevalent issues with the cooperative societies. See the functioning of the cooperative societies independence and the autonomous powers were crucial for them. What is happening here? See in 2021 a paper was published by a professor at the Institute of Rural Management which is based in Gujarat. In that paper the professor points out that in some states the policy of state governments enabled the government to contribute to the share capital of the cooperatives. So this allowed the state governments to directly intervene in the working of cooperatives in the name of public interest. Now this is affecting the autonomy of cooperatives. Notably this type of political control can be seen in states like Maharashtra, Kerala, Gujarat, parts of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Visbengal. So this is the first major issue. That is the state governments are intervening in the working of cooperatives and this is affecting the autonomy of cooperatives. Now coming to the second issue. See the multi-state cooperative societies were formed to ease the operation of collectives throughout the country. But what is happening then? One of the researchers from the Institute of Rural Management points out that the MSMEs are facing issues regarding trust. As we all know trust is the very basis of cooperation. But here this trust issue has brought multi-state cooperative societies under multiple controls from the centre. So this is the second issue. That is multi-state cooperative societies are facing trust issues and this brought controls from the central government. So these two are the main issues faced by the multi-state cooperatives. Now we shall see what does the amendment bill seek to change. See to address the loop holes in the multi-state cooperative societies act 2002 the central government introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha recently. This bill is seeking to amend the 2002 act and it tries to bring more transparency and ease of doing business. The amendment has been introduced to improve governance then to reform the electoral process. Then the amendment also aims to strengthen the monitoring mechanisms and to enhance transparency and accountability. Apart from this the amendment bill seeks to improve the composition of the board of directors and the bill aims to ensure financial discipline by enabling the raising of funds in multi-state cooperative societies. Apart from this the bill provides for the creation of a central cooperative election authority and this is to supervise the electoral functions of the multi-state cooperative societies. Know that the authority will have a chairperson, vice chairperson and up to three members and all of them are appointed by the central government. So objecting these amendments one of the congress MP said in parliament that the amendment bill may lead to the concentration of power of the central government and this could impact the autonomy of multi-state cooperatives and create potential for misuse. So now coming back to the bill, the bill also envisages the creation of a cooperative rehabilitation reconstruction and development fund. This fund is to be created for the revival of sick multi-state cooperative societies. Know that this fund shall be financed by existing profitable multi-state cooperative societies. Here the profitable societies will have to deposit either one crore rupee or one percentage of the net profit into the development fund. Now objecting to this provision also one of the congress MPs pointed out that this mandate would put an additional burden on multi-state cooperative societies. Then the bill also has provisions for appointing a cooperative information officer and a cooperative ombudsman. Now this provision envisages to make the governance of multi-state cooperative societies more democratic. Apart from this the bill have provisions relating to the representation of women and scheduled cast or scheduled tribe members on the boards of multi-state cooperative societies. So remember now this provision aims to promote equity and to facilitate inclusiveness. So that's all you have to know about this news article discussion. See this news article discussion talks about multi-state cooperative societies, the issues faced by them and the provisions of the newly proposed bill in Lokseba. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now this news article talks about the launch of carbon credits trading by the great Chennai corporation. The seven projects to be taken up are LED street lighting, solar panels, bio-methanation, electric vehicles, mangroves, Miyawaki forest and green buildings. So in this news article discussion let us learn about these projects and what is this carbon credits. As I already mentioned the first project is the LED street lighting. See the thing about LEDs is that they use less electricity and emit very little heat. In comparison incandescent bulbs release 90% of their energy as heat and compare fluorescent lamps or CFLs. They release about 80% of their energy as heat. Hence we can say that LEDs are better option for street lightings. Then the second project in line is the installation of solar panels. We know that solar panels capture sunlight as a source of radiant energy which is then converted into electric energy. Also solar energy is a non-polluting source of energy and hence it can earn carbon credits to the organization. Here we should also know that India has achieved fifth global position in solar power deployment by surpassing Italy recently. This is according to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy that is MNRE. The third project is the bio-methanation project. Bio-methanation is a process by which organic material is microbiologically converted under anaerobic conditions to biogas. This biogas which is primarily composed of methane which is about 52-65% then carbon dioxide 30-40% hydrogen sulfide which is 1-2.5% and a tiny fraction of moisture is a renewable source of fuel. Now coming to the fourth project which is e-vehicles. See we know about e-vehicles. They are powered by electric motors as opposed to an internal combustion engine which produces power by burning a mixture of fuel and gases. India seeks to have at least 30% of new vehicle sales be electric by 2030 as it is being supportive of the EV30 at 30 campaign. This EV30 at 30 campaign is a campaign of the clean energy ministerial. This clean energy ministerial is a high level global forum to promote policies and programs that advance clean energy technology to share lessons learned and best practices and to encourage the transition to a global clean energy economy. It was established in the summer 2009 at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties in Copenhagen. Now this CEM or the Clean Energy Ministerial has 29 countries as members. India is also a member country of CEM. So now moving on the fifth project that is mentioned in the news article is the mangroves. See the importance of mangroves cannot be understated especially in a city like Chennai where floods or a common occurrence. Also mangroves are responsible for 10 to 50% of carbon burial despite making up less than 2% of marine environment. Then talking about the Miyawaki forest. See the unique thing about these forests is that they grow much more quickly compared to a conventional forest that may take over 100 years. So this method takes its inspiration directly from processes and diversity in nature. That is 15 to 30 different species of trees and shrubs are planted together. And this plant community works very well together and is perfectly adopted to local weather conditions. So this is about the Miyawaki forest. Now moving on to the last project which talks about the construction of green buildings. See we know that green building is the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource efficient throughout a building's life cycle from sitting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and deconstruction. So these are all the projects for which carbon credits are generated. So here what are these carbon credits? See in simple terms a carbon credit is like a certificate that provides the holder of the credit, the right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide or an equivalent of another greenhouse gas. In general carbon credits are designed to support economic activity while keeping the nation's carbon reduction targets in perspective. Remember between 2010 and June 2022 India issued 35.94 million carbon credits or nearly 17% of all voluntary carbon market credits issued globally. Now the organizations they can purchase additional credits from other organizations who offset emissions through programs that directly remove greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Here such program includes a forestation or other alternative technologies. So in this case increased usage of cleaner technology will ultimately give carbon credits to the GCC. Now the GCC can trade it to other organizations and generate revenue through it. So here remember the process of monitoring the carbon emissions of the projects and its trading will be done by an external agency. This external agency will be hired by the GCC for that purpose so that the GCC can concentrate on its core activities. So this can be seen as a very good example and can be used as a model to be developed in other cities to bring down the carbon emissions. We can even use this case as an example to quote in questions related to sustainable cities. So these are all some of the important points that you have to remember about this news article discussion. In this news article discussion we saw in detail about the seven projects for which the GCC is going to launch carbon trading. So these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now have a look at this news article. This article provides a crucial data regarding Indian politics. Yes it is talking about the representation of women in Indian parliament and state legislatures. See this topic is very important because women's representation in political sphere is an important metric to evaluate progress in bridging gender inequalities in the country. That is why we have chosen this news article and there are also other reasons why we need such a metric. Firstly it shows whether a country is truly representative of democracy because such a democracy seeks adequate representation of women in politics. Secondly legislative representation is fundamental to political empowerment of women because of which it is even an important SDG under goal 5. Under SDG target 5.5 is to ensure women's full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision making in political life. So with this basic understanding let us get to the data given in the news article. So we will start with Indian parliament that is women MPs in Lok Sabha and Rajesh Sabha. See as on December 12th that is today 17th Lok Sabha has 81 women MPs and Rajesh Sabha has 33 women MPs. This means present Lok Sabha has almost 15% of representation of women because the total members of Lok Sabha are 5.42. And since the Rajesh Sabha members has 2.39 members the women representation is only 14%. So if you are having a doubt how many of them are in ministerial position see totally 7. Among them 2 cabinet ministers and 5 world ministers of state. Here in this image you can see the details of women ministers. So from this data it is clear that the proportion of women representation is low in comparison to their male counterparts in Indian parliament. Now let's move on to state legislatures. Around 19 legislative assemblies have less than 10% women lawmakers that is less than 10% women MLAs. This includes the states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Odisha, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. So here you can see that all the southern states have low representation of women. So if you have doubt about legislative assemblies that have more than 10% of women MLAs you can see that in the table given here. From this data it is clear that West Bengal has high women's representation but still proportion of women representation is low only. So overall we can agree that there is less women's representation in Indian politics. But what are the reasons for this? The first important reason is historical political marginalization due to the patriarchal social structures and mindsets. Now this includes the societal prejudices where they think women cannot balance private family and political life. So if you can understand the depth of the issue in this reason you can understand that internalized patriarchy is also a reason for low women's representation in Indian politics. So what is this internalized patriarchy? See it is a phenomenon where women themselves consider that it is their duty to prioritize family and households. Therefore they don't think about political ambitions. Apart from this a male dominated political party structure is also a reason which believes that women candidates are less likely to win elections than men. This inaccessibility is also a reason see to get represented in politics first they should win in election. For that they should get the party ticket right? But the problem is political parties give few party tickets to women candidates. Here also only those having family political connections or dynastic politicians get the ticket. So at entry point itself there is hindrance. Apart from this humiliation, inappropriate comments, abuse and threats of abuse further makes women's participation extremely challenging. Financing also acts as a major obstacle as many women are financially dependent on their families. This affect their campaign funding. Other than that family obligations, resource scarcity and various structural hindrances all impede greater participation among women as contestants or winners in parliamentary or state legislative or state assembly elections. And as a final point I would say lack of constitutional mandate is also a reason. Why? Because we saw that constitution provides reservation for women in PRRIs that is Panchayath Raj institutions and municipalities. According to research studies this policy led to a phenomenal rise in the political participation of women at the local level. So the same could also happen at other levels if constitution provides reservation for women. So this is all you have to know about this news article discussion. Very important news article discussion you can make note of each and every point. Even in Main's GS paper 1 you have a separate mention about role of women and women's organization and associated issues. Especially the developmental issues. So when questions are asked with respect to that you can quote all these points. So these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now this news article mentions that tender for smart parking did not attract any bidders in Bangalore. So a new bidder has been floated. Here what is important for us is the smart parking system. So let us know about them in this news article discussion. Here smart parking is an automatic parking system. It is one of the most adopted and fast growing smart city solution across the world. It provides an effortless solution towards hassle free parking by blending technology. The goal is to automate and decrease the time spent for manually searching the parking floor parking spot and lot. So basically its aim is to make the whole process of car parking more efficient and less complex for both drivers and supervisors. Therefore it encompasses online booking of parking slots along with other services like online payments, parking time notifications etc. Even space searching functionalities is available for very large lots. Since it stores the data related to parking area in a cloud it can be accessed from anywhere using internet. By this we get a real time parking map. So for all these it uses various technologies like sensors, microcontrollers, LEDs, LEDs as indicator, LCD display and other technologies. Most importantly it is available for both on-street and off-street parking. So what is this on-street and off-street parking? Off-street parking consists of demarcated area for parking near a street or road. On the other hand on-street parking consists of individual marked parking slots on streets or roads. So if you are asking me how the system exactly works. For example, sensors are installed along roads in various zones which will gather information on the availability of parking slots. This information will be transmitted to a monitoring cell. This cell will relay the same information to motorist through an app. If the motorist want a slot they can pay the parking fee through the app. Otherwise they can also use the smart parking meters installed on the roads. So by this the slot is booked and you can park your vehicle there. So this is how the system actually works. I hope you can understand clearly about smart parking. Now we shall see benefits of smart parking. See the first and foremost thing is public can find the best parking spot available that too by saving time, resource and effort. Secondly this helps in reducing the traffic congestion. Because one of the reasons for traffic congestion is illegal parking that take up road space. Apart from this it reduces human intervention and it helps in effective filling of parking lot and enhances the optimized parking. And finally it helps in preventing parking violations and also suspicious activity by blacklisting suspicious vehicles. Now finally it enables digital collection of parking revenues. So these are all some of the advantages of this smart parking. Since this is something new you can make a note of it. There might be a question and problems or you can quote this as an example in your mains. So in this news article discussion we saw in detail about smart parking system, its aim and then we saw how it works and some of its applications or benefits. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now this news article mentions about the NASA's Orion Space Capsule. It has safely landed in the Pacific. This capsule was part of Artemis 1 mission and it completed a 25 day journey around the moon. So in this backdrop let us understand about this Artemis 1 mission. See Artemis 1 is a mission of NASA. It is the first mission in a series of increasingly complex missions that will enable human exploration to the moon and mass. Artemis 1 basically aims to build a long term human presence at the moon. But how it will be made possible? How can long term human presence be ensured? It can be done by demonstrating the systems that will be involved in a mission, right? That is what is done by Artemis 1. It will be an uncrewed light test that will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration. So it will be the first integrated test of NASA's deep space exploration systems. The deep space exploration system include Orion spacecraft which is a next generation spacecraft designed for the demand of human missions to deep space. Second is space launch system that is SLS rocket which is termed as the most powerful rocket in the world that is designed to send humans to deep space. And finally the ground systems at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. So this Artemis 1 will be demonstrating all these capabilities prior to the first flight with crew on Artemis 2. Under this its primary goal was to demonstrate Orion's systems in a spaceflight environment. So Orion was to stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and then return home faster than ever before. So through this it was to ensure a safe reentry, descent, splashdown and recovery of the spacecraft. Here splashdown means touch down of a returning spacecraft on the sea with the assistance of parachutes. So today's news is related to this one Lee. Orion had safe splashdown and I think the recovery of the aircraft is going on. It was launched last month and it had splashdown after a record breaking mission. Remember it had travelled more than 1.4 million miles on a path around the moon and has returned safely to earth. After this successful mission in the future the second flight will take a crew on a different trajectory and test Orion's critical systems with human aboard. So that's all regarding this news article discussion. So in this news article discussion we saw in detail about this Artemis 1 mission. Make note of all these points even though this mission is not talking about a mission belonging to India there might be a question in the problems examination. That is why we have chosen this news article. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now take a look at this news article it is a text in context article. The article is that Apple announced that it will be increasing the number of data points protected by end to end encryption on iCloud from 14 to 23 categories. Similarly Elon Musk said that Twitter DMs to be encrypted but the government agencies are not happy with the development. So in this backdrop let us understand what is this end to end encryption and why tech companies are using it. And we shall also see why government agencies are unhappy with this move. Now before that the syllabus relevant to this news article is high data here for your reference you can just go through it. So first of all what is this end to end encryption say end to end encryption is a communication process that encrypts data which is being shared between two devices. Encryption literally means concealing or hiding data by converting it into a code. Let us say that some data is sent from device A to device B. Then here the data will be converted into code before sending to device B. Now if you are thinking why such a conversion is needed here the main reason is that it prevents third parties like cloud service providers, internet service providers that is ISPs and cyber criminals from accessing data while it is being transferred. And this end to end encryption process uses an algorithm and as we already saw this algorithm transforms the standard text into an unreadable format. And this unreadable format can only be read by those with the decryption keys and these decryption keys will be stored only on end points. I hope now you are clear that this decryption keys will not be with any third parties including companies which are providing the service. Now this ensures the safe transfer of data. So if you are asking me why such end to end encryption are used. Firstly it is used to secure communications through apps like Signal, WhatsApp, iMessage and Google Message. So these applications use end to end encryption. And remember instant messaging is not the only place where user data is protected using end to end encryption. It is also used to secure passwords to protect stored data and to safeguard data on cloud storage. And thirdly end to end encryption are used when transferring business documents, financial details, legal proceedings and personal conversations etc. And these big tech companies they use this encryption because of data breach. See a data breach research has been done in this respect. The research is called the rising threat to consumer data in the cloud. It stated that the total number of data breaches tripled between 2013 and 2021. According to Apple around 1.1 billion personal records were exposed in 2021 alone. So as an extra layer of protection tech companies are using this end to end encryption. Also know that another reason to use end to end encryption is that tech companies want to position itself as a provider of secure data storage and transfer services. This is because people like activists, journalists and political opponents want a secure platform to express their opinions. Otherwise the government agencies will snoop and hinder the expression of opinion. So to provide a secure platform for the freedom of expression tech companies are using it. See just now we saw that end to end encryption aids safe transfer of data right? Along with that know this also end to end encryption does not protect metadata. So what are these metadata? It includes information like where a file was created, the date when a message is sent and the end points between which the data was shared. So I hope now you got a clear understanding about this end to end encryption and its applications. Now let us see why government is unhappy with this end to end encryption. See the government is unhappy because several times the government agencies have faced resistance when it attempted to access encrypted data hosted and stored by tech companies. Let me give you some examples to have a better understanding. For example in the year 2018 Australia passed laws that forced the tech companies and service providers to allow secret access to messages on platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook. And even in 2019 the US and UK and Australia planned to pressure Facebook to create a backdoor into its encrypted messaging apps. The aim was to allow the government to access the contents of private communications. Here the government says that these legislations are necessary to prevent terrorists and other serious criminals from hiding from the law. Now this does not mean that government is against this end to end encryption. The government is actually an advocate of it. It is only asking for encryption schemes that give lawful access. But the cryptographers and cyber security experts are arguing that if access is given to law enforcement agencies through encryption with backdoors then it will compromise the reliability of the internet. So that's all you have to know about this news article discussion. See in this news article discussion we saw what is this end to end encryption where it is used and why government is upset with this end to end encryption. So these learned points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now have a look at this news article. This news article talks about the clean Ganga mission. The news is that this mission is shifting its emphasis that is from just improving the sanitation levels in the Ganga. It is now geared towards conservation tourism and providing livelihoods. So the Union Janasakthi Minister coordinates with the tourism ministry to develop a comprehensive plan for developing tourism circuits along the Ganga. Now this is in line with earth Ganga, organic forming and cultural activities. Here earth Ganga is nothing but the harnessing economic potential from the Ganga. So to build organic forming and natural forming corridors the agriculture ministry is also taking steps. Apart from this the urban Afais ministry is focused on mapping drains and solid waste management. And the environment ministry is also scaling up afforestation and conservation efforts to protect the Gansitic river dolphins. So this is the entire crux of the news article given here. So in this discussion let us just focus on the national mission for clean Ganga in detail. Before that the syllabus relevant to this news article is highlighted here for your reference. You can just go through it. See this national mission for clean Ganga which is in short called as NMCG was registered as a society. It was registered on 12th August 2011 under the society's registration act 1860. And this mission acted as implementation arm of national Ganga river basin authority which is in short called as NGRBA. Now remember this authority was constituted in the provisions of the Environment Protection Act that is EPA 1986. But this national Ganga river basin authority was dissolved after the constitution of National Council for Rejuvenation Protection and Management of River Ganga. Now this is referred as National Ganga Council. So we can say that this national mission for clean Ganga is the implementation wing of this national Ganga Council. I hope you can get a background detail about this national mission for clean Ganga or NMCG. So what about the aim of this mission? See the aim and objectives of NMCG is to accomplish the mandate of National Ganga river basin authority or NGRBA. So what are they? First is to ensure effective abitement of pollution and rejuvenation of the river Ganga. Now this is done by adopting a river basin approach because it will promote intersectoral coordination for comprehensive planning and management. Secondly its aim and objective is to maintain minimum ecological flows in the river Ganga. This is to ensure water quality and environmentally sustainable development. Okay now talking about the vision of the mission. The vision for Ganga rejuvenation constitutes restoring the wholesomeness of the river. If we can do that we can ensure Aviral Dara which means continuous flow and Nirmal Dara which means unpolluted flow. Then the geologic and ecological integrity of the river. Okay so if you are asking me about its implementation. See the national mission for clean Ganga or NMCG has a two-tier management structure. This comprises of governing council and executive committee both of them are headed by director general NMCG. Okay and this executive committee has been authorized to accord approval for all projects up to rupees 1000 crore. Then at the state level the state program management group or SPMGs acts as implementing arm of state Ganga committees. So the newly created structure attempts to bring all stakeholders on one platform. So that a holistic approach towards the task of Ganga cleaning and rejuvenation can be taken. Now let us conclude this discussion by seeing the key functions of this NMGC. See the first important function is to implement the work program of National Ganga River Basin Authority that is NGRBA. Secondly it implements the World Bank Supported National Ganga River Basin Project. Thirdly this NMGC it coordinates and oversees the implementation of projects sanctioned by Government of India and the National Ganga River Basin Authority. Apart from this it will undertake any additional work or functions that are assigned by the Ministry of Water Resource, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation which is in short called as MOWR, RD and GR. Fifthly it makes rules and regulations for the conduct of the affairs of the NMCG. Also it adds or amends, vary or rescinds the rules and regulations from time to time. Sixthly it provides any grant of money, loan securities and property of any kind. Also it undertakes and accepts the management of any endowment, trust, fund or donation that is consistent with the objective of NMCG. And the last but not the least it takes all such action necessary for the achievements of the objectives of the NGRBA. So that's all you have to know about this news article discussion. In this news article discussion we saw in detail about this National Mission for Clean Ganga. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now this news article talks about a press note in which the Foreign Minister of Indonesia said that India and other countries should respect and follow the ASEAN's policy on Myanmar rather than taking a different path. So if you are asking me why did the minister make such a comment? See recently a decision was made by the Indian Government to engage with the military government of Myanmar. I hope you all know that in Myanmar the military came to power in February 2021. They came to power after deposing the Electoral Government and jailing thousands of leaders. So the Foreign Minister of Indonesia advised India to respect and follow the ASEAN's policy on Myanmar rather than taking a different path. So this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context let us understand about ASEAN from a prelims perspective. See the Association of Southeast Asian Nations which is shortly known as ASEAN is a regional intergovernmental organization. It was established on 8th August 1967 in Bangkok, Thailand. It was established with the signing of the ASEAN Declaration which is popularly known as Bangkok Declaration. Know that the secretariat of the ASEAN is situated in Jakarta. Now talking about its member the founding members of ASEAN include Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. And later Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia were joined as full-time members. Therefore at present there are totally 10 full-time members in the ASEAN. Know that India is not a member of ASEAN but it is a dialogue partner of the ASEAN. Now talking about the chairmanship of the ASEAN. See this chairmanship of ASEAN rotates annually according to the alphabetical order of the English names of member countries. And know that Cambodia currently holds the ASEAN chairmanship that is for 2022. Now talking about the ASEAN summit. See this summit is held twice annually. Know that ASEAN summit is the highest policy-making body in ASEAN and it comprises the head of states or government of the member countries. Remember the summit is hosted by the member state holding the ASEAN chairmanship. So this is about the ASEAN. Now let us see some of the important aims and purposes of ASEAN one by one. Firstly the main purpose of ASEAN is to promote economic and security cooperation among its members. Secondly its aim is to promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law. Thirdly ASEAN aims to accelerate the economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the Southeast Asian region. And this is done through joint endeavors in the spirit of equality and partnership. Fourthly its aim is to promote active collaboration and manual assistance on matters of common interest in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative fields. And finally it aims to provide assistance to each other in the form of training and research facilities in the educational, professional, technical and administrative spheres. So that is all you have to know about ASEAN. So in this news article discussion we saw in detail about ASEAN, its members, then its chairmanship, then we saw about some of the important aims and purposes of ASEAN. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now for our next discussion let us take up this news article. It says that National Commission for Backward Classes that is NCBC has been functioning without a wise chairperson and members for nearly 10 months. And the chairman was appointed 2 weeks ago after a delay of 9 months. So this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context let us understand about NCBC in problem's perspective. See when we talk about National Commission for Scheduled Caste we have Article 338. And when we talk about National Commission for Scheduled Tribes we have Article 338A. Likewise while talking about NCBC you have to remember about Article 338B. This article only says that there shall be a commission for the socially and educationally backward classes which is known as the National Commission for Backward Classes. So this NCBC was provided constitutional status by the 1 out 2nd Constitutional Amendment Act 2018. So this amendment act only inserted Article 338B. Now the basis for this action is Article 340. See the Article 340 says that the President may by order appoint a commission to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes within the territory of India. So this is the basis for the existence of NCBC. Now let us see about the composition of the commission. See Article 338B says that the commission shall consist of a chairperson, vice chairperson and 3 other members. And this is the strength of NCBC. The article also says that the condition of service and tenure of office of the chairperson, vice chairperson and other members will be determined by the President by the rule he makes. And remember the chairperson, vice chairperson and other members of the commission are appointed by the President by Warren under his hand and seat. Now moving on let us see the functions and duties of the commission. See here in this column I have given the duties of NCBC that I mentioned in Article 338B. It says that the duty of NCBC is to investigate the safeguards provided for the socially and educationally backward classes to inquire the compliance with respect to the deprivation of rights and safeguards. Then to participate in the socio-economic development of backward classes that is BCs. Apart from that its duty is to present report to President to make recommendations for the implementation of protection measures and then to discharge other duties specified by President. Okay. So these are all some of the duties of NCBC as specified in Article 338B. Apart from this the article also says that the President shall lay the reports of NCBC before each House of Parliament. And the report should be accompanied by a memorandum explaining the action taken or proposed to be taken on the recommendations. In case of non-acceptance of recommendations of NCBC reasons for such non-acceptance should be submitted. Suppose if any part in the report is related to any state government then a copy of such report should be forwarded to the state government. Here also the report should be laid before the legislature of the state along with memorandum and the reason for the non-acceptance. Finally know that the commission have all the power of a civil court while investigating matters relating to the safeguards provided for the socially and educationally backward classes. So that's all regarding this news article discussion. In this news article discussion we saw in detail about NCBC, their composition, their functions and finally we saw about the reports of NCBC. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next part of the news article discussion which is the practice question discussion. Now look at this first question. Let me read out the question for you. Statement one, ministers are appointed by the president on that base of the prime minister. Statement two, one third reservation is provided for women in Pachayatraj institutions and the municipal bodies. Statement three, female representation in Indian parliament is less than 10 percentage. So you have to choose the correct answer here. Option A, one and three only, option B, two only, option C, one and two only and option D, two and three only. See the correct answer for this question is option C, one and two only. Statement one is actually correct. It is as per article 75 clause one of Indian constitution. Ministers are appointed by the president on that base of the prime minister. Statement two is also correct here. It is also as per constitution which was brought in by 73rd and 74th amendment to the constitution. Now the statement three is actually incorrect. Female representation in Indian parliament is actually more than 10 percentage. That is the 17th Lok Sabha has 81 women MPs and Rajesh Sabha has 33 women MPs. Which means present Lok Sabha has almost 15 percentage representation of women because the total members of Lok Sabha are 542. And since Rajesh Sabha has two 39 members, the women representation is 14 percentage. So the correct answer here is option C, one and two only. Now moving on, this question is about smart parking. You have to choose which of the following are the advantages of smart parking system. Statement one reduced human intervention. Statement two reduced traffic congestion. Statement three avoids on street parking. And statement four enables off street parking. See the correct answer for this question is option D, one, two and four only. It actually does not avoid on street parking. Rather it regulates it. Okay. Now the system actually avoid illegal parking. So the correct answer for this question is option D, one, two and four only. Because the third statement is wrong here. Now moving on, this question is about Artemis one mission. Statement one, it is an uncrewed flight test that will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration. Statement two, it's Orion spacecraft landed on moon and safely returned to earth after completing its mission. See here, statement one is actually correct. We saw that in the discussion. It is actually an uncrewed flight test. And statement two is incorrect. Because artisan one or Orion traveled more than 1.4 million miles on a path around the moon and has returned safely to earth. It did not land on moon. So this statement is actually wrong. So the correct answer for this question is option A, one, one only. Because the second statement is incorrect. Now moving on, this is a previous question which was asked in 2018. Here six countries are given and you have to find which among the countries are free trade partners of ASEAN. Statement one, Australia. Statement two, Canada. Statement three, China. Statement four, India. Statement five, Japan. And statement six, USA. See the correct answer for the question is option C, one, three, four and five. The ASEAN's free trade agreement partners are Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. Canada is not a member of it. Okay. So now moving on, the question displayed here is the practice question for you today. Just go through the question and mention the correct answer in the comment section. So the questions displayed here are the main practice questions for you today. Just go through the question, try to write an answer and post it in the comment section. We'll try to review your answer as well. So with this, we came to the end of the news article discussion. If you like the video, hit like, do comment and don't forget to subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel. Now, thank you for listening.


How are you all doing? Welcome back to the YouTube channel. It's your favorite village boy, Mr. Ghana Baby, right here. And I just want to tell you guys something. Whether you like it or not, moving to Africa is now a movement. And it's so exciting to see that most of them that move to the continent, actually add value to the continent. You all should meet Jerry, who moved from America to Ghana to establish an ancestral wall with the aim of educating Africans and Africans in the diaspora. And he's doing all these things out of his own pocket. But it's affordable to come in here. It's free. Like even to today. Oh, it's free of charge. Can you believe it? You don't think a selfless man like this deserves our financial support? Well, we've calculated that to finish that resource center because there's two levels, library, everything. It's going to be about $40,000. So I think I'm going to use my channel to raise $20,000, which means that we've taken half of your burden off, right?  Please, you guys should not disappoint me. This year is the year of charity. And whatever he has been doing here, he has been doing it out of charity. And if I'm here, we have to make it possible. The GoFarming page is going to be in the description box. It has nothing to do with me. The team will credit all the money will go into his bank account. And please, when the money comes, let us know. I'm going to come back here and then you tell us that, OK, this is the money that you got. And what am I never took a dollar? Are you going to get my money? What am I his brother? No, you're dead. Are you in person? Oh, how did you go to know what am I? From the videos. From the videos. The many, many videos. Yes. And what do you think about the videos? Excellent. It gives such an overview of not just Ghana, but the whole continent. And it's wonderful for the exposure, the information. Great. Oh, wow. Oh, my goodness. Very proud of you. Thank you. Good job. Thank you. Really, I appreciate it. Keep up to work, OK? Thank you. She's the one who did it. Oh, she's there. That's my favorite person. You're such a good person.  We called her Mama Vera, of course, you've met Mama Vera. Yeah.  That's beautiful. Yes, so she hasn't embraced me like a daughter. That's good. Yes, it's been great here. We've been here. We've celebrated my birthday and a year anniversary last Sunday. Last Sunday. So I'll say happy anniversary to you. Thank you. And I will be not going to leave us anytime soon. Oh, no. We're the entertainment. You don't regret being here? No, I love being here. Why would I regret being home? Wow, why would I regret it? Do you know that I've heard about the ancestral wall for so long? And this is my first time of coming here. Oh, welcome. And you know who brought me here? And you want me to be here? Because I was so moved when I heard about the ancestral wall that I met Jerry. And that was my most favorite place to be. I lived down the street. And I spent my weekends here at the wall with Jerry. And I want to do all I can to support him and his resource center. I've donated my entire library that I brought back from DC to his resource center. So here I am. I'm a fan of Jerry and Obama. So I want to do all I can. If Mama Vera is supporting Brother Jerry, then I guess we all need to support him. You know what we need to do? First of all, like the video, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and share this video. Send this video to your friends and family. Let them get to know what this man single-handedly done in here. My brother, my name is Wadamaya, the one and only village boy from Ghana. The village boy. The village boy. Hey, we've been following you. Really? No, you don't know. I mean, the inspiration.  It's so true, isn't it? It is. For people who watch it, they know it. And the doctor we just talked to, he said, I'm here because of Wadamaya. The one we just talked to, he met her. Yeah, I actually met the doctor. He said, we did a video at this hospital. And I decided to move from America and come and work there. I mean, that was so touching. And listen, this video is not about me. This video is about you. Well, listen about us. What are we trying to do? Because we're on the same page. When did you move to Ghana? Actually, 2004. 2004, I've been here quite a long time. 2004? Yeah, so in fact, I was one of the very first people to be in New Ningo, the site of Prom Prom. Yeah, this was all Bush when I came. I feel like every African-American wants to be in Ningo Prom Prom. If you don't go to, if you're not staying in Cape Coast, you're staying in Ningo Prom Prom. Why you guys love this place so much? Well, I think for some of us, I mean, I'm from Los Angeles, you know? And even though I lived in a place called Long Beach, if you're most black folks in Long Beach, never see the beach. Yeah. So when we come in a place like this and we can have a nice ocean view and the breeze and feel free, I mean, I don't know how you can resist it. That's beautiful. So which means you're born and raised in America? Yes. But, you know, America is the land of milk and honey to most Africans. Oh, I don't like that reaction. What does that mean? Isn't that true though? No, it's true. I mean, I've been here, I've been coming to Ghana since 1994. So it is true that that is what people see. But a lot of that is, of course, media, you know? If you go there, it's a different reality. I understand why a lot of people go there for financial, you know, for schooling or this kind of thing, but just in terms of being a black man and being in a free space, it's very difficult to be that in the US as you can be here in Africa anywhere. You know, I've been to most West African countries and it's the same thing. We have our challenges, but in the end of the day, are you in a black man in a black country? And that means more than almost anything. Well, you think America is the land of milk and honey? Well, what you heard from me was, I grew up under segregation. I'm older than he is. The Supreme Court decision in 1954 directly impacted me.  And so they didn't see the humanity in me. All they saw was a little enemy, you know? How I threatened them, I never know. But once I became an adult, I thought these women acted like that was their civic duty to call me a nigger I'm five years old, you know? So after they did all of that, they went about their day. They probably picked somebody to lunch and vacuumed their carpet and watched TV. And every day I walked past their house and they wanted to make sure they terrorized me every day.  And I'm raising my hand and asking Miss Ahern, I remember her name and it was Mary Ahern, asking her to call on me. Because I knew the answers because both of my parents were school teachers and seven of my aunts and uncles. So I was pretty well versed in the first grade. She hasn't called on me yet, well, am I? I'm 73 years old, that woman's never called on me.  Never called on me, but this is how she traumatized me. She wrote letters home to my mother and pinned them on my clothes.  We are here at the African Arts and Straw Wall and I just wanna ask, you came to Ghana just to design this? Oh, no, no. Actually I was living in Kwa Binyan, Dome area, even though I had built this small house here. And I was there purposely to be around Lagom because, you know, we had all of our videos, all of our books, all of our resources.  But I realized that, you know, by the time you get to a certain age, like the age of the students at Lagom, you know, they are kind of oriented toward getting out of the country or getting a connection or, you know what I mean? I'm more interested in, you know, what we can imbue inside of the people. So I realized we had to go younger and younger. So what I started doing, I started going to the schools of the younger students out here. And after going and so long, I decided logistics are a problem. You know, there's so many schools, it's so hard to get to that I, and it came to my mind since I had this nice space here to plaster the whole wall and then put the ancestors on the wall and then bring the students here. So for instance, last week I had a group of 75. I had a group of 30 something students, you know, that had come headmasters bring. So that's easier and better because the teachers are motivated when they bring them here. And then the children, even the last group, even though they were three, four, five, six, seven, they still get something out of seeing these Africans on the wall because of nothing else they know they are important. Who fits to be on the wall? Who fits to be on the wall? Well, really it depends on what I'm trying to tell the students. So I'm looking for attributes of different Africans, some which are well-known, some which are very, almost unknown, only because there's certain things I would like to tell the students. So it may have something to do with courage. It may have something to do with leadership, organizational potential or strength. It may have something to do with our creativity, brilliance, warriorship, all of these types of things. So I look, I've kind of taken these attributes and then I map different people against them. So when I bring the children through, they get some of everything. So you'll see some people that you don't know and then some of the people you expect to see, you may not see them because maybe there's three or four other people who have really shown that attribute strong enough. But I have a lot of walls, so we'll continue. You know what I love about this? You're talking about African ancestral wall, but I'm seeing people that were born in the diaspora of African descent. So are you gonna say that every black man living both on the continent and out of the continent is an African?  But there's this narrative that we are not Africans. We who? I mean like, I've seen it before. I've had conversations with people that were born in the diaspora.  Are you saying that don't call me an African? Well, there's a lot of confusion. I mean, just like the media makes everything here in America look like paradise, the media there makes Africa look like a very bad place to be. I hate to admit it, I was a reasonably good student, but I was 20 years old before I ever saw a picture of a building in Africa. So this is what we grew up with. Now Malcolm X told us something that I think we should keep in mind. He said, we are all Africans. And then people said, no, no, we're not Africans. He said, look. If a cat has kittens in an oven, that does not make them biscuits. In other words, if you're a cat and you have kittens that doesn't make any difference where the kittens are born, even in an oven, they're still not biscuits. They're kittens. So we're Africans, no matter where you're born, it's still the same. Whether you want to accept it or embrace it, that's a social issue that has to do with, you know, how we are socialized there and even here. What are some of the things that you had about Africa before coming? Well, one thing that's really struck me is I had an atlas with a picture in every country. And every country showed me cities. Every country showed me towns. And every country in Africa was either a village, a hut, a river, or animals. You know, so what do you expect our children? You know, who's trying to get involved with that? Now that you've been in Africa, what do they say about Africa? Oh, Africa is the future of black people. Period. Period. You know, I was in the U.S. Look, in the U.S., blacks don't have the population. They don't have the resources nor do we have the land. So if you don't have the population, the resources and the land, you're never going to be in charge and you will always be at the mercy of the people who do. But here in Africa, we have the population, obviously. We have the resources, clearly, and we have the land. Now, maybe we're not doing what we should be doing with it. Maybe we're not, you know, there's a lot we need to be doing. But the ingredients for sovereign nationhood is there. I'll read you some. So we have to, you know, we have to recognize the difference in between potential, which is here, and what's there is mainly hope. This has to show all being resistance? Well, we started this one in 2017. Yeah. Even though I've been here a long time, that's why I said I was trying different techniques until it came to me, what, five or six years ago, that this could actually be a good teaching aid for the youngsters. I never had tourism in mind, to be honest with you. It never even crossed my mind. It was just, can I get a tool because it's free for the children? Of course, it's free for the tourists. And, you know, what could be effective? And then later on, people started coming and then asked me to download me. Okay, well, other people are interested, but this is really still today for the students. If I get several students here now, I'll say you guys have to wait. My customer's in. But it's affordable to come in here. It's free. Like even to today. Oh, it's free of charge. It's always free of charge. That's the whole point. We're not, we're trying to teach our children. So you can't ask our children from money. I'm not even talking about the children. I'm talking about like, an ordinary citizen or maybe a foreigner coming to the country and wanna come and visit the ancestral wall. Oh, it's free to anyone, you know. It's a resource for the people. So which means that you did all of this out of your own pocket then? I did, and that's why my pocket's a little flat. Well, tell us, what can we do to support you as a channel? Well, we're building a resource center, as she mentioned. I can show you, it's a very big building and we put all of the pennies and dollars we could put together in it. And hopefully you get a chance to see it over there. So we'll talk about, you know, we cash out in these different things. I don't know, maybe we'll put them on. No, please do so. I'm gonna get a cash out and you have a go for me. We can actually start a go for me page for you. Tell us how much you want us to raise for you. Well, we've calculated that to finish that resource center because there's two levels, library, everything. It's gonna be about $40,000. So I think I'm gonna use my channel to raise $20,000, which means that we've taken half of your burden off, right?  Please, you guys should not disappoint me. This year is the year of charity and whatever he has been doing here, he has been doing it out of charity. And if I'm here, we have to make it possible. The go for me page is gonna be in the description box. It has nothing to do with me. The team will credit, all the money will go into his bank account. And please, when the money comes, let us know. I'm gonna come back here and then you tell us that, okay, this is the money that you got and what the mind never took a dollar out of it. What we'll even do in that case is what I've been trying to do is we just itemize everything that is bought with the money. So we know cement is 48, 49, probably going up now to 50 CD a pack. So if it's a thousand bags, you know, we know what it is, so you can do the math. So right through everything, the electricity, all of it will be itemized so you have full visibility. So there won't be any confusion about, you know, where the money went. Who was the first man to be on the wall? The first one happened to be Samora Michelle. Why Samora Michelle? Samora Michelle because I just happened to been reading about him at the time, actually. And I've always admired his strength as a young freedom fighter against the Portuguese, in this case, in Mozambique. But he was the very first one drawn, but very soon after within days, I started having, I had eight different artists. So if you get a look at some of them, you'll see different kinds of styles. So some are abstract, some are very, you know, detail. So, you know, we pay the artists and we pay to try to keep it, you know, looking good for the students. If I have had a hole in my room, I only have two people on it. I've seen one of them right here, Thomas Sankara. We've never had any African president like this guy. I mean, if you want to argue, it's all right. And Carmen Crumor, of course, these are the two people that for me, I love and cherish. I have been to the grave site of Thomas Sankara. Really? In 2008, and I saw a young boy standing, saluting at the bottom of the grave site. We had to walk across a rubbish heap to get there. My wife was with me. And I told her when I saw that young boy, he looked like he was about 12. He saluted and he walked away. I said, Thomas Sankara's children and grandchildren are still there. After you grew up, what did you do? Well, I didn't like the facts that black people were treated to, but we weren't allowed to go where we wanted, live where we wanted, or even eat where we wanted. We tried to change things, but the white Americans' government wouldn't even let us vote. But we tried. You know, I checked through the wall and I never saw these two people. But actually, they are actually the gateway to the main wall. Why? Marcus and Carmen Crumor in here. Hey, man. That's, well... To me, Marcus Garvey kind of embodies what we've been talking about. And the more I read of Garvey, the more I realized he was where my heart was. Garvey basically was saying that until we build something of power and consequence on the African continent, we're just gonna be struggling everywhere around the black world. And I think the longer I live, the more I think that is right. So I think we really have to focus on that. Plus, Marcus Garvey had the largest black organization that the world is known with, the UNIA Universal Negro Improvement Association. So a lot of people don't realize that. But I think reading philosophies and opinions of Marcus Garvey will clear up a lot for a lot of well-meaning African people. Now, we know that children usually know who and Crumor is, of course, being here in Ghana. So I don't have to go too far into the explanations. However, for some of the teachers and all, I also like for them to read this quote, which has to do with Kwame Nkrumah reading and knowing all of these big brain Europeans. But the one who really fired his enthusiasm was Marcus Garvey. So Marcus Garvey had the black star line. And so a lot of times when you see the black star, even the football team, some of these ideas came from Garvey. And certainly a lot of the pan-African leanings that in Krumah absorbed also came from Garvey. So it helps in a way because most of the people have never heard of Marcus Garvey. But this gives them some context because they say, well, if our man Kwame Nkrumah, who we all know, looked up to the man and you know, we're watching the black stars football team, not knowing that that black star, we're even driving the cantanker. I was looking at that. And the black star. Yeah. Actually, it's silver. Silver. So what you're seeing is three levels. We're not sure how we'll use the top level yet. But the first level is going to be our library. So we have a lot of pledges for books and things that we're going to do. So unfortunately, it will have to be a resource library where you can't really take the books out because there's no addresses to track them. But the idea is for the students to be able to come in, digitize everything we can, we'll download it on a PDF file. They can take it away if they don't have that and they can print it there. They're just a few Tesla, then they can take it and start building their own books page by page. So that's what we'll be doing here with the students. We've tried to get something started, but we really needed this space to do it efficiently. The second level is what we're calling our multi-purpose resource area. And that area is for, for instance, I've had more than 100 and something children through this past week. Now I would love to bring them, but that was during the week. But I would love to bring them on Saturday morning and then we take someone on the wall and then we go into detail for maybe two or three hours Saturday morning with the students who we can bring. We've been working on this building for at least four years. Three or four years, yeah. Well, I say that what you're trying to do is more of changing the education system in Ghana. But we'd love to do that, but, you know, do we really have access to the people who would change the actual education system? But until we get there, we don't have any excuse for not having our own materials.  You know, what are all of the benefits of colonialism? And there's a long list. And the more of those you get, the higher your grade is. So I just was talking to a man yesterday who was in his fifties. And he told me here in Ghana, he took those same, had that same. I don't know about you. No, it's the same way. You see, and so there's a long list of benefits of colonialism and then some short things about the drawbacks. Yeah.  I would say you've been here since 2004. Yes. That clearly you've seen a lot of opportunities in Africa. What are the things that you've seen that you think your fellow brothers and sisters in the diaspora can come and grow up? Well, this is a very important point for me because I feel that you have to have some kind of mission in mind to come in in Africa. We're talking, we're Garveyites, so we believe that Marcus Garvey's vision of building something powerful and strong. Well, if you're gonna do that, you have to do it through the people. And the people are the children.  Because if not, you'll get here and you'll run into, you know, all of these logistic problems and admin, light off, and you'll be frustrated and you'll be complaining. But if you're here on some kind of larger agenda for your grandchildren and their grandchildren, then some bad roads and some of these things, you don't like them, but they won't bother you so much. So people, I encourage them to get the mission in mind of building up the race because you'll never have power anywhere in Africa, never, ever, ever. So just get that out of your mind. They can make you a general. They can make you a president. All of that, it doesn't matter. So once you understand that, and you come here knowing that that has to happen even for the generations beyond, then you'll know what to do. How can people reach out to you if they wanna come to prom-prom to come check out disaster struggles? Well, there's a, my wife has a Facebook page that you can go to and you can type in either African Ancestral Wall or Malevna's M-M-A-L-E-B-N-A-S restaurant. And when you get to that page, you can see some other possibilities, things we can do. All right, I wanna say thank you so much for talking to me. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate your time. I appreciate your work. Before I go, the link for the GoFarming will be in the description box. You all should help me. We raise it $20,000 for him to complete this. I believe that we are an army and we can make this possible. One thing they just reminded me, Instagram, you know me, I don't know anything. Is Instagram, what's the name of it? African Ancestral Wall, okay, also Instagram. So check it out. But most importantly, donate a dollar. Click on the link right now. Thank you so much. And my name is Mr. Ghana Baby, the one and only annoying village boy from Ghana. I will see you all in the next one. Let me finish by hugging you then. Oh, thank you, my darling. Thank you, my dear, thank you, too. Oh, and I want to help Auntie Vera because this woman has come to this country with all heart and all good intentions and beautiful energy. And she made this happen, which I can't say enough about it. I love her. Thank you. I'll carry it. I love it.


This 10th year of Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners. Thanks to all of you including Dale Mulcahy, Matt Zaglin, and Scott Hepburn. Coming up on DTNS, Netflix has a new CEO, but it was planned for a long time. And Google plans to counter chat GPT. Those plans have leaked out. And Twitter, I mean... This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, January 20th, 2023 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood. I'm Sarah Lane. And I am Chris Ashley. Drawing the top tech stories from Cleveland, I'm Len Peralta. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Chen.  You're in Cognito. I am Chris. I am omnipresent. Chris Ashley is the location. All right, man. Let's start with the quick hits. T-Mobile disclosed in a regulatory filing that a malicious actor accessed data on 37 million customer accounts, including names, birth dates, and phone numbers starting on November 25th. T-Mobile deleted the activity, detected rather the activity on January 5th, and then fixed an exploited API flaw within 24 hours. This is T-Mobile's second major breach in a year with a threat group stealing source code back in April. Amazon announced it will increase the price of Amazon Music Unlimited in the US and UK as of February 21st. Prices will increase by either a dollar or a pound per month, depending on where. That includes student plans. They're all going up. Standard US individual subscriptions, for example, will cost $10.99 a month. Apple Music and Deezer made identical price increases last year, and Spotify has indicated it's probably going to raise its price pretty soon as well. The Verge has more details on Samsung's new prototype 360-degree foldable display. Samsung Display, that's the subsidiary that makes Samsung screens, showed off the Flex in and out display at CES earlier this month. It does rotate 360 degrees, basically folds both inward and outward with a new water drop hinge design that is supposedly going to create significantly less visible crease by forming a looser shape. Although Samsung's fold line is still using displays that only fold flat in one direction, the new Flex in and out design could show up in an upcoming device, perhaps the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, which we don't know when is going to be released. Yeah, or they might change the name to the Galaxy Z360 Fold. The Flex in and out. Or the Galaxy Z Flex, kind of like that actually. To mark the 40th birthday of the Apple Lisa desktop, the Computer History Museum with the approval and cooperation of Apple released the source code for the Apple Lisa Office System 3.1 that was originally released on January 19th, 1983. The operating system comes in at 26 megabytes, so clear that off if you want to download it. And it's licensed under Apple's Academic License Agreement, which allows for non-commercial open source use of the code. A new report from Canalist found that Xiaomi smartphone shipments in India fell 40% on the year in Q4 to 5.5 million units. As a result, for the first time in 20 quarters, Xiaomi did not ship the most phones in that country, falling to third. Samsung retook the top spot for first time since 2017, and Vivo shipments rose 13% to take the number two spot. Overall smartphone shipments in India dropped 27% on the year to 32.4 million units. All right, that's a big change in a big market. Let's talk a little bit about that Netflix news. Yeah, so in yesterday's show, right in the middle of the show, we got news that Reed Hastings was stepping down. But let's talk a little bit more about that and Netflix's latest earnings report. The company announced earnings Thursday, but started with that bombshell that Reed Hastings stepping down as co-CEO with COO Greg Peters, now co-CEO alongside Ted Serendos. Hastings will remain as executive chairman of the board. Now in a blog post about the move and the shakeup, Hastings said that Serendos was promoted to co-CEO back in July of 2020. Peters to COO partly because of long-term succession planning. So probably this was not a big surprise to anybody that Hastings says he will now want to spend more time on philanthropy. It was a good quarter to go out on. Analysts had expected a rise of 4.57 million subscribers, and Netflix almost doubled that, adding 7.66 million subscribers in Q4 to reach 230.75 million total subscribers worldwide. Also, every market grew. The U.S. and Canada grew at least 910,000 subscribers. Europe and the Middle East grew the most with 3.2 million new subscribers. The company met analyst revenue estimates with 7.85 billion dollars in Q4, missed on earnings, though a lot of that had to do with some currency stuff in Europe. Netflix also thinks its ad-supported tier is off to a solid start and expects that it will bring in about 3 billion dollars in annual revenue. New co-CEO Greg Peters said engagement is, quote, comparable to similar users on non-advertising plans. Yeah, as far as revenue, the company also followed up on plans to add a path to paid sharing of accounts, saying that those methods will roll out more broadly later in Q1 of 2023. The terms of service for the company have always prohibited sharing the account outside of your own household, but Netflix has been increasing its methods of detection, while also testing ways to pay extra to add an out-of-household account. The company also plans to offer a way to keep your profile data if you decide to start a new account of your own, making it easier if you were already on a shared account to begin with. So, Chris, of all this news, what part of the Netflix news surprises you the most? While much of this is very interesting, the user addition is kind of super surprising because Netflix has been around for a while. So to see them breaking records, even though I think there was a point where they lost some subscribers, but to see them adding so many, it makes you wonder who just recently raised their prices. Disney just announced that they're raising their prices, I wonder if they're peeling off folks that are like, I've had it with some of these other services. I'll just go back to Netflix. I was surprised by the numbers too, Chris, because for many quarters it's sort of like, Netflix, growth is slowing, the people who want Netflix already have it. Certainly the US and Canada was a market that had slowed quite a bit. Yeah, and even lost subscribers at times. I don't totally know if it just means that the competition has gotten more expensive and people are whittling down what they decide to pay for, but you would assume that you would probably already be a Netflix subscriber and drop something rather than become a Netflix subscriber out of nowhere, given all the choices that you have. I agree. I wonder how many of these are returning subscribers. I wish they would give us that report. I imagine it's not the majority, but I wonder how much of this chunk is a subscriber who said, I'm tired of the price increase. Done. I'm out. I'm mad. I'm not coming back. And then realized they missed things on Netflix. Because some of the analysis had been like, well, Netflix is having subscriber growth problems because it's making too many massively appealing shows. And I'm like, well, you may not like those massively appealing shows. You may consider them lowest carbon denominator. But the reason they make them is because they appeal to people. And if that's the case, if they really do appeal to people, then people will probably pay to watch them. And this seems to bear that out, which is, yeah, Netflix has got a lot of popular stuff on there. And over the holidays, they had big hits like Wednesday. They've had all kinds of other stuff, movies and things, glass onion. So I feel like this kind of vindicates that Netflix is making programming that people want, even if it's not what you or I particularly might want at the time. Yeah, adding content should never be seen as a detriment. You know, you can never speak for what everybody likes, right? So the more content you have, the more people you have an opportunity to attract. But certainly there should be something said as well about the ad supported version of Netflix too. It allows them to come in at a cheaper price. And so certainly that will attract more people as well. And finally, I love the fact that they're embracing the sharing of accounts, because we saw through Napster and all those things, when you just go hardcore after the people that are sharing these type of things, it never ends well, right?  People embraced it and they rolled with it. So I think Netflix is definitely doing the right thing when it comes to that as well. I think Netflix is smart too, because they said in the earnings call that as they roll this out more widely, they expect some backlash. They expect people to cancel accounts because they see that message and get upset. They're prepared for that. And they know that will have an effect on its numbers, but the tone that I got was that a lot of those people will come back same way they did this last quarter. I wonder if the weather had anything to do with it too, at least in the United States and Canada. That's a factor for sure. Alphabet announced it will cut 12,000 jobs, roughly 6% of its global workforce. CEO Sundar Pichai said job cuts are going to fall across the entire company in all regions, though the Wall Street Journal said recruiting and projects outside of the company's core businesses would be more heavily affected, at least according to Wall Street Journal sources. Google makes up about 75% of Alphabet's employees. So you can imagine that even if it's evenly added, Google is going to have the most losses here. And Alphabet is one of those companies like all the other tech companies we've been talking about who had overhired. Sundar Pichai made the usual thing that tech CEOs make now and said it's my responsibility. Alphabet had added 37,000 employees last year. So still a net gain on the year, I guess. Yeah, but the New York Times source say that Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have called in to give advice in response to the rise of chat GPT, which is interesting. I didn't even hear about this until two weeks ago. However, Larry and Sergey have been largely hands off for the past decade or so, but apparently pitched ideas and approved plans on how to get more AI into Google products. Yeah, and something that might offer a little bit of a slice into what that might be is a slide presentation indicating that Google has plans to show off a search engine with chatbot features sometime this year. Also planning to introduce more than 20 projects somehow related to AI at Google IO, which happens in May. The slides say Google thinks that copyright, privacy, and of course, antitrust are the primary risks to rolling out new tools. Yeah, that's why Google slow. If everybody's like, why are they so slow on this? That's why. Because they know copyright, people are going to come out of privacy. The public's going to come out of antitrust, any product they put out. If it's anything similar to anybody else, the government's going to come out. Going to Washington. Yeah. Let's go through some of these projects that the New York Times said were mentioned in the slide, an image generation studio. That seems like a no-brainer with Dolly out there, right? Yeah, and the fact that you see a lot more folks starting to take advantage of these fake images that are being created and just being able to use them in general marketing and stuff like that, definitely. That's almost table stakes at this point.  A tool that would summarize videos by generating a new one. Now, that one is a little bit of a headscratcher. Is that like editing? Yeah, I'm curious. I mean, let's say a tool is going to take a look at what we're doing right now. We have a video version of the show. What does that tool give? Does it summarize what our show wants? Does it try to say what we did, or is it just edit down? Like, here are the important parts. Is it one of those like, here's the Apple keynote in 10 minutes kind of things? Yeah, so I could see potential problems with that because I think one of the episodes I was with you a long time ago where they started talking about how the news aggregation was being removed and I think it was Australia. And so because you're taking our content and now you're attracting people to your site and, you know, we're not getting the money from our content. So I could see definitely something along the same. So that hits that copyright risk right there. Yeah. A product prototype tester. Okay, fair enough. Like more testing, more always good. No brainer. Yeah, something called Maker Suite, which lets companies create algorithm powered product prototypes in a browser window.  I guess, you know, some somewhere along the lines, they must have threw it against the wall and it stuck. So I'm not sure who's clamoring for algorithm powered product prototypes. But okay. Palm Coder 2. This is a code generator like GitHub's co-pilot. So bringing them up to Microsoft's Nuff there. Yeah. And, you know, things like that I see more play in because definitely creating a shorten in the gap for folks to get into coding and creating applications I always like. So anybody that does anything around that, I'm always for that. And it's only old people like us who will think it means coding for a palm pilot.  Who are you calling old? But that's exactly what I thought at first. I was like, palm? Collab plus C or colab, I guess, not colab. C-O-L-A-B plus Android studio. Collab plus Android studio for building smartphone apps. I like the idea of this one. The ability to be like, I just needed to do this. And it's like, here, here's your Android app. Yeah, for sure. And much like the previous one, you know, making app generation and coding a lot easier for folks. Definitely. Because I can't code, but I always have like, man, I'd love to get an app that does this. Oh, I get the idea. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, yeah. Talk about no code. It's like negative code. And the last one I'll pull out of the New York Times article. Shopping Tryon, a YouTube green screen feature to create backgrounds. So call me nuts, but I understand the whole shopping tryon. People are trying to make this technology work in a way that we all use it. What would a green screen do to help me try on something? I think, I don't know if this is like, if I cut and paste it badly from New York Times, or it's just badly written, but I think what they're saying is, like a green screen, they can put you into a shopping situation. Right. It's not just like put on that new pair of jammies and we'll give you a like a cool background. If you want to see what your new dress looks like when you're walking out of the Emmys. I would be. Oh, of course, Chris. Of course. So you're in the dressing room. I expect to be there next year. You're trying on an outfit. It's like, well, how's this going to look at the restaurant? And that's how I see it.  There'll be some YouTube folks who are like, this is awesome. Why not give people features like that?   Yeah, I don't care what they look like. There was a shoe one in here too. I didn't put it in our notes, but yeah. And it was like, okay, yeah, I know what the shoes are probably going to look like on my feet, but that's not my major concern. My major concern is, oh, my bunion's going to hurt every time I take a step. That's what I need to know. That's GPT five. I don't know, these all seem fine. None of them struck me as ridiculous or anything. I think the bigger deal is that Google is big and slow now. And the fact that this slide said copyright privacy and antitrust are our primary risks. I mean, open AI has to deal with copyright privacy and antitrust, but they're not like Google where they're going to know immediately as soon as they put anything out, one or more of these are going to be a problem for everything they do. And that's what takes them longer to do stuff. Well, those are their primary risks. I would say any fool that takes on any of these things is your primary risk is that it won't be around long enough for you to enjoy it. Yeah, yeah. The one they put in search, the one they put in Google search, that one, I feel confident will stick. Any of the rest of them, I don't know if I'd build your entire business on it. Yeah, good luck with that. Folks, if you disagree, if you're like, no, no, you can trust him. Here's why. Email us or email us about whatever is on your mind. Feedback at DailyTechNewShow.com Andy Bao was the first to discover, or at least the first that we saw tweeted about it, that Twitter added language to its API rules on January 19th that prohibit the use or access the licensed materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter applications. In other words, we don't want to work with third parties anymore. This comes two days, just two days after Twitter had posted that Twitter is enforcing its longstanding API rules that may result in some apps not working. Now, we don't know why some third parties were found in violation before the rule changed, but it does mean that going forward essentially any app mimicking the Twitter app would be in violation of this new rule. The Verge recently noted that an entire API team responsible for working with third party apps was laid off in November. Many third party apps have been pulling their apps from stores, suspending service. Twitter, for example, has been discontinued. The team made it official just a few hours before this show. Tweetbot maker Tapots announced that Tweetbot was shutting down. They're working on a mastodon client, but Tweetbot just can't exist anymore. Phoenix, that's an app that continues to work on iOS, also continues to have API access, but the developer, Mateo Villa, told Engadget, he pulled the Android version and was left with an app working fine on iOS that people are still buying. But Villa said, I'm wondering if I should pull it too. A lot of people wondering a lot of things at this point. So I don't know, Tom, what do you think is going on here? Yeah. Look, to me, the biggest problem with this is how it was done. It's fine if a developer or a company says, you know what? We're changing the API. We've changed our business model. We don't even owe you an explanation, but it's just, I don't know, good relations to say we will be cutting off your access at this point. We understand you built a business on this platform, so we're giving you a grace period. Rather than just one day say, oh, you're in violation and we're not going to tell you why, or in fact, we're not even going to talk to you.  And then two days after that, we're going to change the term so that you can't even do what you're doing. Just the way this was handled is what bothers me, not the fact that they did it so much. Yeah. And especially if you take into account that they have said that they want to create better relationships with developers, this ain't how you do it. No. In fact, it's the actual opposite. Yeah. So when you, and listen, folks, I love the opportunity to jump all over somebody that I don't really find, I'm not really a fan of, but let's, we should be honest, as much fun as we're having watching, you know, all of this stuff go down. The dude did overpay for a company. He owns it. He does have the right and the responsibility to make it profitable, right? So is he can do these things as he sees fit? If that, you know, if you're looking at the business model that previously existed and it's not making any money, you got to, you got to kind of change it, right? And you got to do some of these things. But I think it's also fair.  Like, listen, we're making this change. Here's a warning, 10 days, this thing is going out.   And it's like, it's not their fault that the app's not working. As a Tweetpot user for many years, there are many, many new Twitter features or even just, I don't know, just experiments that the company has tried or people lamenting, you know, there's too many ads and they're not relevant to me. I never saw any of that because they use Tweetpot. The whole time I thought, at any moment, this is going to go away because why would Twitter want me to not enjoy all of its new features, whether, whether or not I like the features, the company wants users to try them, you know, to understand what people want and don't want. And so, yes, I figured this day would come at some point. The, the complete lack of communication is appalling that said so much has happened within Twitter that I don't really know who would have communicated this effectively because, as I understand it, a lot of the comms team is no longer there. Right. You know, the teams that were working with third-party apps, it sounds like in large part are no longer there. And, you know, the folks who are running the business and trying to make a quick buck, you know, I don't know that they really care about the developer community. The developer community is a big one. And I'm not, I wouldn't consider myself part of that community. I'm certainly part of the community that enjoys the developer community because I like to have options. So, you know, you ticked off a lot of folks. I just, I just don't know how you bungle it worse. And in the end, I don't think this is going to reduce Twitter usage. It will probably, as Chris pointed out, increase revenue because more people will have to use the first-party content, which has the ads. And I don't know that there's any short-term consequences at all to doing it this way.  Because, or even if they haven't been burned, they've seen others get burned. And it won't even necessarily be an emotional thing. It'll be like, well, but do I want to do it on that platform? Because it might not stick around. It's like the Google stuff we were talking about earlier. Like, man, it sounds like a good idea, but I don't know. I get a queasy feeling. And that's not something you're going to be able to measure. And you can't prove a negative. So, you know, I'm not saying like this is going to blow up in anybody's face, but that's the only consequence I can think of. Well, we should be clear though on one aspect. I think you're right on that. But in the end, there's no way any company, any software company, can scale to every scenario, every issue, every idea that comes up that makes your product better, right? You can only do what you can. And that's by having a solid API where outside forces and outside developers can then take your platform and bring it to the next level. It's very important, even in the game that I play, Destiny, their API is regularly managed. It makes playing the game better because these outside users or developers make apps that work better than what the company has time to put forth effort into. And same thing with Twitter. There's no doubt that a lot of the Twitter third-party Twitter applications were way better than what Twitter was delivering themselves. And it'll be easy to show they're gone, but it will be hard to show what could have arisen later. A lot of people have been pointing out Tweety was the app that became the Twitter app when they acquired it. A lot of the features of Twitter started on third-party clients, and then were adopted into the main Twitter universe. And you won't be able to tell that's not happening anymore. Moving Train Media said a short-term consequence will be ill will from users. The reason I didn't mention that is I'm not sure the ill will could get any bigger. So, you know, at this point, there's so much ill will from users because of other things that I'm not sure this is really going to move the needle much. That train has left the station. Well, developers will continue developing, and this is a fun one. All right. We're going to end on a high note here, everybody. Developer mate Markle Shore posted a video on Reddit showing off a GPT-3 plus Apple Siri voice assistant combined demo supporting more conversational voice commands and understanding more vague prompts when controlling various home kits, smart home devices. For example, Marshall Core's voice prompt. Just notice that I'm recording this video in the dark in the office. Can you do something about that? Gets the lights turned on. Marshall, Marshall Cole also asked for a temperature that would help me sleep better, but didn't say specifically what temperature to leave it at. So instead of choosing a specific number, the AI responded by setting his bedroom thermostat to 19 degrees Celsius. Now you might say, what, how, how, how, how do you do it? In a blog post, Marshall explains that he's using Apple's Shortcuts app to interface between Siri GPT-3 and then HomeKit enable devices that he has in his house. So a voice command goes to Siri that causes shortcuts to send a prompt to GPT-3, requesting a machine readable response. Then shortcuts gets that back parses it to control smart home devices. And then if you need a response using Siri, then you get one. Marshall Cole says that each command costs about 0.014 dollars per API request sent to GPT-3. So occasional use not going to break the bank. But if you were to scale something like this could be a little challenging. So 1.4 cents basically, it's not nothing. But yeah, in a regular household that's not bad. I don't know, I love this. This is what open platforms allow to happen that you wouldn't have known were going to happen before, right? I think this is a great example of that. I love anything home automation. I have pretty much every switch in my house has something on it, you know, lights.  All these things are awesome. So when I see something like this that's next level, it gets you, gets me re-excited about what you can do around home automation. So really, really cool stuff here. You know, I just don't want somebody to walk in and see me having a conversation with Siri around my lights and my house temperature. I don't know. I think it's going to happen soon enough. For anybody who's like, is this really all that different than just, you know, the prompts that I'm used to using, it is. And we'll have the video, a link to the video in our show notes. It's really worth watching.  He really is just kind of chatting with the robot. Yeah. If you've gone through with Echo or Home or Siri or anybody that like having to ask something four times because you're like, I know you can do it. I just need to phrase it right. This feels like Nirvana. Watched this video where he's like saying stuff. It's amazing. I mean, just yesterday I was trying to get Siri to play a song for me. And I had my daughter was laughing at me because I had to figure out how to word it so she could pick up what I was saying. So yeah, something like this, you know, would be really dope. All right. Let's check in with Len Peralta, who has been illustrating today's show. Len, did you resist the siren call of drawing Twitter again or not? Oh, it just pulled me in. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, you know, I try not to be too editorial. I mean, I kind of jump into that editorial vein every once in a while. I think this for 2023 is probably going to be my most editorial version. This is called the Big Blue Crackdown, which is. You just have to see it. I don't want to say too much. Prince Harry in Halloween. My goodness. Exactly. You got to check it out. It's basically the Twitter birds sitting on top of three three Twitter apps, third party apps that have even been old around longer. That's the crazy thing. They've some been long around longer than the actual Twitter app itself. So if you want to see the Big Blue Crackdown and Twitter cracking down on third party apps, you can go to my Patreon, patreon.com forward slash Len. That is you get it free if you just back me at the Patreon level or at the DTS level, or you can just go the old fashioned route and go to my online store, which is Len Peralta store.com. It's right there in the front page and I'm also taking commissions too. So think about that as you as we go into the Valentine area. The way you got the disdain Valentine commission. Not a bad idea. Thank you, Len. As always, brilliant work. Chris Ashley, also brilliant work from you. Let folks know what else you're up to. You can always check out me and the homies on SMR podcast. Check us out on smrpodcast.com. And of course, the next season of barbecue and tech is on the way, folks. We've got to do it up again, wrapping up our Christmas smoking and then getting into some Super Bowl stuff and planning for our Super Bowl feast. So yeah, right around the corner. So coming soon, folks, coming soon. Well, glad to have you both on the show today. Also glad to thank a brand new boss. In fact, it's a family trust. The Bane family trust just started back in us on Patreon. Thank you, Bane family. We trust you're happy. Yes, we're glad you put your trust in us literally. Quite literally. Speaking of patrons, do stick around for our extended show, Good Day Internet. We'll talk about all the things you can also check out the show. Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern 2100 UTC. We do it live. Did you know? Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live back on Monday with Lamar Wilson joining us. Have a great weekend, everyone. This week's episodes of Daily Tech News Show were created by the following people, host producer and writer Tom Merritt, host producer and writer Sarah Lane, executive producer and Booker Roger Chang, producer, writer and host Rich Strafolino, video producer and Twitch producer Joe Kuntz, technical producer Anthony Lemos, Spanish language host, writer and producer Dan Campos, news host, writer and producer Jen Cutter. Science correspondent Dr. Nikki Ackermann's, social media producer and moderator Zoe Deterding. Our mods, Beatmaster, W.S. Goddess One, BioCow, Captain Kipper, Steve Guadarrama, Paul Rees, Matthew J. Stevens, a.k.a. 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