Thanks for joining us on this special panel discussion of the India Economic Summit at 2014. Thank you all for joining us today. I've got a distinguished panel of experts to talk about India's economic growth outlook. To my extreme right is Ajay Sridham, President of CII, Chairman of MD of DCM Sridham. To my right is Anand Mahindra, Chairman and Manager Director of Mahindra Group, also the Co-Chair of the India Economic Summit this year. To my left is Geeta Gopinath, Professor of Economics at Harvard University. To my extreme left is William Danvers, Deputy Secretary General at the OECD. Without further ado, let me set the ball rolling by asking each of my panelists to give me a sense of how they see the economy progressing. It's been five months since the new government took over. There's been clearly a shift in business sentiment and confidence. But what's the impact on the ground? Are things moving? Is the economy set, is the state set for the economy to get back to that 7% GDP growth that the government has set itself for? Mr. Mahindra, may we start with you? It's close to a cold call as I've ever had with her, which we are familiar with at Harvard. Let me just try and give you a very compact view of my assessment of where the economy is. Things are moving.  Forgive me for using an automotive metaphor, but it's not easy to get it going. You need a number of shoulders to the wheel and it takes some time or momentum to get things going. You don't try big bang reforms. I've never been a vote 3 of saying there are two or three big bangs which are going to get things moving. Usually, big bangs leave a big crater on the ground and then it gets hard to move by that. You do need steady, consistent reforms. You need a reform a day, which I think the Prime Minister has committed to doing. He's even said in the US that maybe one archaic law a day might be deleted. Let's say even if he does one a week, that's good. But the question is, that's the talk. Is it happening on the ground? And anecdotally, I can tell you, yes, my own particular experience in our business has been that things like licenses to produce which were stuck in the pipeline have been opened up. I've invested in a personal capacity in a smaller business and there too, the license which was held up has been cleared. So essentially a shift metaphors for a bid. I think the job in India is about plumbing. You basically need to clean the pipes. I don't think the pipes are wrong. We inherited a wonderful system in the British, a very vast pipeline to manage this chaotic and large country. The pipelines were clogged. The question is, there was no water flowing through them. I think that job is being done admirably. It needs to be done consistently. And the final point I'll make is that we have talked a lot about make in India. There's been a big focus on getting multinationals back in, on getting global investment flows. Let's keep in mind that the large share of investment that gets the Indian economy going 80% and more is by small entrepreneurs and businesses. Frankly, they're the ones who need single windows. They're the ones who want the pipes to be cleaned. They're our equivalent of Germany's middle stand. If they're not healthy, I don't care how much investment comes from overseas. Nothing's going to work here. So it's more than the PNGs, it's the Patels that we have to focus on right now. They're the ones who are important. And I hope that if we get that focus right, things will move. Gita, do you think the government is moving in the right direction to revive the investment cycle, to get the economy back on track? I feel very strongly that India is at a turning point right now. The macroeconomy is in better shape than it's been in the past few years. Inflation has come down. It's been trending down, thanks to a very strong RBI. The fiscal deficit is being paid much closer attention. The rupee is stable. The second piece, which is about having consistent ongoing reforms, has finally come of age. We finally have a stable political government that is undertaking reforms. I'm particularly excited with what I've seen over the last one month in terms of the reforms that have happened, in terms of improving labor market compliance, in terms of deregulating diesel prices. And so these are important fundamental steps that had to be taken and are being taken. So I am optimistic about what we can expect in India. What I'm still waiting to see, which would give me then a lot more confidence about the health of the Indian economy, is the revival of investment. We haven't seen that yet. In 2011 was the year when India started slowing down. When investment rates came down, it was about 38% of GDP. It came down to 32%. We haven't seen that turn. Now, it's still early. The numbers haven't come yet. But I think if we see two to three quarters of a steady investment growth in India, I think that's when we can step back and say, OK, the reforms are working. At this point, you in the past spoken about how India continues to pay poorly on the ease of business indicators. Since the new government has taken board, are you seeing any change in the way things are moving, not just from government policy, from the way corporates make their decisions? I think there is definitely a change. On this issue of ease of doing business, in CII, we did a detailed study. And we said, instead of reinventing the wheel, why don't we look at what are the best practices in the states in India based on the World Bank ranking, which last year was 134, which unfortunately now is 142, which has gone worse. I would like to mention that last year and about April, we had gone to Gujarat and met Mr. Modi as that time chief minister who talked about this issue. And the study has been done to the extent that after this study, we've had two discussions at the PMO with the minister, secretaries, et cetera. I think the government is genuinely serious. I think they want to bring about change aggressively, but it's such a monolith system that to implement it, to percolate it down is a very big challenge. But at the same time, I think the direction are moving on a digital platform, the direction of the prime minister personally getting involved with secretaries, personally getting involved in implementation. The PMO itself is following up very aggressively on where things are going. Sure. Either doing business is a big challenge for India, because if you want to percolate it down to the state level and the village level and the district level, it's a tough task. But I think the prime minister has seen on it. He has shown his performance in Gujarat. So it will take time. But I don't think we should even expect that, because they have been there five months, that, OK, everything will start changing tomorrow. Look, it will take time. Sure. If I may put it honestly, I feel, they may be, all the ministers are keen for change. There may be 10%, 15% of the bureaucrats and systems who are keen for change, but a lot of others who still have to make up their mind how they're going to follow the new system. And I think that's where the challenge of the prime minister, the finance minister, and the other team members is going to come in as how to actually ensure that the change percolates down so that, if I may put it, the biggest stumbling block which comes in this is by giving the system or bureaucrats a politician the power to say no. Sure. If they can reduce the power to say no, I think automatically systems start falling in place. And I think the government has seen on it. They are working on it. We are seeing results. Right. We are seeing the right direction. And I'm sure there'll be a positive change. Well, your own view or growth outlook, are you seeing the kind of change since the government has taken over? What I'd like to do at least initially, if I may, is I'd like to take a step back. And I'd like to make three sort of connected points. And the first point relates to the Indian economic profile and what's happened and what's happening. And the second and third points have to do with governance, which pivots off your points. Specifically, the need to communicate policies to the electorate and to counsel patients. So change can take hold. And it can be sustained. Not only taking hold, but it can be sustained. So India experienced great growth between 2003 and 2011. I think it was around 8%. And the incidence of poverty was cut by half. That's significant. That's a big deal. Unfortunately, the growth faltered in 2012. But the good news is, and I think everybody's mentioned that today, is the economy has recently shown signs of a turnaround. And India is poised to take growth to a new level. But to do so, it'll have to implement a reform agenda. Some of the reforms that you've been talking about, cleaning the pipes, as it were. I think it's a wonderful analogy. Now, in a few weeks, the OECD is going to release an economic survey to talk about some of the areas we're looking at for potential reform. And that includes labor regulations, education and training, land acquisition, taxation, reg reform, investment. And there'll be three specific chapters in the survey on manufacturing, gender issues, and health. And the government, as everyone has mentioned, is beginning to address some of these issues. I think the Make in India program is a good example of this. The OECD economic survey is going to provide detailed analysis, which we hope will be very useful for policymakers. But the second point I want to make, and it's a point I'm probably more familiar with, because I've been in government for much of my life, is that there's got to be a clear and consistent communication between the government and the electorate of the kind of policy, on the kind of policy changes that I just mentioned. People need to know. They've got to really know what the government is up to. You've got to be able to tell the electorate what you're doing, why you're doing it, and why it's important to them. Now, that doesn't mean government by polls or focus groups. But it does mean that people need to understand why they should have trust in the government and why the government is looking out for them. Now, the prime minister has done a pretty good job. In his campaign, he really was a master of getting his message out. That's right. And he's shown that even after the election, in reaching out to the Indian diaspora, something I'm a bit more familiar with, the New York Madison Square Garden event is a very good example of this. It was a big deal. It wasn't only a big deal here. It was a big deal in the United States. And I think that's important, getting that message out. But the final related point that is necessary for making the kinds of changes we're discussing is the need for patience. Not only in the part of the people but the part of the government. The need for patience for policy reforms to be able to take hold. Because in some ways, the biggest threat to a government that has a clear mandate just after a big election is the sometimes unrealistic expectations that come with a big victory. In some ways, that's really what the government is fighting against, unrealistic expectations. Sure, that's an interesting point. It's basically on the issue of communication. I suppose the government has done enough in communicating its agenda and its thoughts. Mr. Mahendra, this is one point that I want to pick on on reforms. You spoke about unclogging the pipes. Everybody's talking about how these smaller steps are far more significant. But Prime Minister Modi has to be extremely lucky because he's taken over at a time when the macroeconomic environment is also looking fairly good. Look at where oil prices are today. Six months ago, that was not the case. No one predicted all is going to be below $80. If things turn around, don't you expect or do you think that the big bank reforms are needed, too? Yeah, there is no silver bullet. Both are going to be needed. Talking about luck, you're right. Fortune favors the brave of the old adage. And he's had his good share. Clearly, one should look closely at his horoscope. He's clearly got some good stuff. Oil, I was just looking today. I think Brent is down to 82 this morning. I cannot imagine a bigger stroke of good fortune. So yes, I think that increases his capacity to make bigger moves. I'm in his camp in terms of patience. And ironically, I found when I was in the US during the Prime Minister's visit that overseas investors have more patience than us. We seem to be more concerned. I talked to somebody on my right at the Council on Foreign Relations while the Prime Minister was speaking. And I said, how much time would you give him to really start showing progress? And he said, maybe 18 months. And I said, what, 18 months?  I thought honeymoons are supposed to be 100 days and then maybe six months. So people are willing to give him time. So I don't think he needs to jump into anything. But having said that, yes, you're right. He has gotten tremendous wins in his sales because of commodity prices coming down. It is time for some big banks, but also levers like interest rate reduction, admirable job done by our Reserve Bank governor. But I think time now to be a little more courageous. It doesn't mean one or two big bank reforms, but I think just pressing our foot in the accelerator right now. He has the room to do that. Sure. Geetha, your best position to answer this. Do you think Governor Rajan should play ball and cut interest rates a bit? I think it is completely up to Governor Rajan to decide. I don't think it's for a lack of courage. I think it's a matter of prudence. What Governor Rajan is trying to accomplish is to bring down inflation, bring down trend inflation.  That said, if I were to give my opinion about what should happen to interest rates, I guess I would agree that the environment is set for interest rates to come down. So if I look at the factors, inflation has come down in a consistent manner. It's not just one-off thing, it's come down consistently. The second variable is inflation expectations, which is a very important factor. And inflation expectations have come down and that is important. It's moderated. The fact that oil prices have come down give you the sense that the feedback into inflation is going to be weak. The currency has been stable. You have a government that's trying to undertake supply-side reforms. So there are several factors that would make this a fairly decent environment to bring down interest rates. But again, I just want to reiterate, that is entirely the RBI's policy and not the Ministry of Finance. I get that, but you know, Mr. Srinath, perhaps the industry has been asking for lower interest rates for a while now. The governor has in a sense set himself a glide path. He said, 6% by 2016, you are seeing factors globally that might help the case. You had the finance minister going on record to say, you know, he expects or he hopes there's a cut in interest rates. At what point do you think the finance minister is going to, you know, call up the RBI and say, you know, why not? Got a little bit. I think the finance minister himself talked about 6% as something where inflation is under control. If I'm not mistaken, the RBI governor has said the same thing. In our system, what we've seen for the last many years, the RBI works fairly independently. They might, you know, the FM might pick up and speak to the governor. That doesn't mean it's going to happen. I think that's just an indicator of the way things are. I didn't agree with otherwise. But I think from the point of view of seeing the economic growth happening, the buoyancy in the system, the positiveness in the system, the change of sentiments the way it's moving. And you're right. I mean, we've been helped by food prices, vegetable prices and commodity prices coming down. That's good for India. At the same time, it is going to be a challenge also to address how do we make sure that our farmers are adequately paid? How do you make sure that the money flows into the rural economy, which is 65% of India's population? Sure. Does get the income to actually, you know, meet their needs and go forward. Sure. So I think it's a balancing act somewhere. But I've got a feeling that, you know, the sentiment for investment is more important than half percent interest rate. I think the important point is, these are doing business, the simplicity on the rule side, the attractiveness of investment, decision making, infrastructure. I think these are more important, which actually will bring an investment faster. Sure. So either on the cost of capital fees, you've seen even the Reserve Bank of India's Technical Advisory Committee saying, you know, there is a case for lower costs, lower rates. Do you think the time is now? Yeah. I just wanted to add there that, in fact, I did meet the governor earlier at the start of the year, and I was talking to him about the need for a kind of way to kickstart the economy. Interest rates would be a good way. And he gave me a good lesson in economics and talked to me about core inflation being high in India. I backed off, and I buy Geetha's point about him doing an admirable job of sending out signals to the world that our boat was stable, that we were not a banana republic, which was his first job to prove. But core inflation was eight at that time. Core inflation, Geetha, correct me if I'm wrong, is 5.9, okay, and head it down. And then at that time, beginning of the year, you didn't have commodity prices going south as far as they do right now, which means that overall inflation is going to be very benign as far as the outlook is concerned. So yes, there is no silver bullet, Ajay. I think you're right. It's a lot of things. But Geetha mentioned expectations. Psychology is important. What I need as a seller in the market today is I still see consumers holding back. They bought, like there was no tomorrow on Dhanteras, and then it went down again. So we are seeing spike behavior on part of consumers. We are not seeing them graduate to a level of higher spending. And I think it's psychological. A signal-like interest rate is not about math. It's about expectations also. It's about a signal of confidence, which is why I'm totally in favor of a reduction right now. Sure, let me also shift this conversation to budget deficit. Geetha, we were talking about the big challenge that this government, or India faced about a year ago, was current account deficit, budget deficit. This government, and its first budget, has said it's going to stick to that 4.1% target. Given the fact that oil prices have tapered off, do you think this government will be able to meet that target? Is that a headache at all? I mean, the factors are in its favor. What you mentioned about prices, well, prices for oil coming down, it certainly helps. The other measure that they took, which was to deregulate diesel prices, certainly helps. There is a lot of talk of divestments, which, if that happens, that will certainly help. And if growth comes back up to 6%, that will certainly help. Now, the budget itself did not provide a very clear path on how they were actually going to bring the fiscal deficit down. But there are many factors in their favor to keep the fiscal deficit kept. Would it be tough to argue with that? It's a complicated process. Fiscal responsibility is key, but it's also key in terms of the psychological piece that was just discussed. You've got to have confidence in your government, and if it looks like your government is handling the budget, which is really suited to the core of what a government does, then I think you're in a good place. But there are a lot of different levers that a government can use in order to be able to have, to ensure that fiscal responsibility takes hold, and I think you can mention many of them, and there are probably others as well. I want to shift this conversation to what's happening globally. Gita, you're seeing global monetary policy sending out extremely confusing signals. On one hand, you've got the Federal Reserve shutting the liquidity tap. On the other hand, you've got the ECB infusing money. Bank of Japan is infusing money. China is infusing money. What does that do to liquidity flows into India and impact of global growth on India? Right, I mean this difference in central bank policies is obviously a reflection of differences in the growth in these different parts of the world. I mean the US economy is an upcycle. It's experiencing a three and a half percent growth. The eurozone, on the other hand, is bouncing at the bottom and it's been bouncing for a long time at the bottom. Japan is being weak for a very long time now. So that explains why these policies are very different. And the question is what does that imply for a country like India, right? As you saw, monetary tapering came to an end, nothing much happened most recently because all of this was very well predicted. It was very clear that the tap was gonna be turned off at some point, very clear timeline. What's going to matter is what happens when the Fed starts raising interest rates. I think that's going to be an interesting event. That will happen sometime by the middle of next year, most likely. Now, the factors that make this less sinister than it might seem, one is that the Fed is in no hurry to raise interest rates back up to four or five percent. It's going to be very gradual. So maybe we'd have about 25 basis points, RAPMOS 50 basis points over the next year, but it's not going to be much more than that. Sure. Secondly, the reason that they're raising interest rates is because the US economy is becoming healthier. And for India, which exports a lot to the US, that's a good sign because there's increasing demand coming out of the US market. Now that said, I feel fairly sure that there will be market volatility when the interest rates go up, just because that's how markets work. Any change, any news about the liquidity changing in the market is going to cause some turmoil. I would be very surprised if it was the same level of turmoil that happened with the TAPA tantrum that happened last year. So I don't expect to see such big negative reaction, but there will certainly be some more. Do you expect capital flows that's coming into the markets to sustain? As long as the pull factors in India are good, as long as this particular government delivers on opening up the ease of doing business, or providing a more predictable, more certain investment environment in the country, in terms of not having retroactive taxation and things of that kind. I mean, India looks very much like an Oasis right now in otherwise fairly dry international landscape of growth. So investors are very optimistic. They want to put their money in India. And if this government continues its reforms, and one thing we can be certainly sure is that bad stuff will happen. Right now we have good things happening, oil prices are coming down, but there will be bad things that will happen. If oil prices go up, people will watch to see whether this government sticks with its policy of keeping diesel prices deregulated. Politics will get in the way, elections will come in the way, things will go wrong. And so the question is- We don't score up very well. Yes, exactly. The question is if we keep the reform agenda going, then I think India would be a very promising destination. Mr. Mahendra, one of the pull factors is about domestic growth. One area of concern has been the investment cycle revival. What can get corporates to start investing? What should the government be doing to get corporates to start investing? Couple of, here there are some very focused things which I think most companies would look at, and Ajay would like to hear his view too, is two things. One is stalled projects, whether they relate to power and infrastructure. There has to be visible signs of them opening up. Right now, what we see is a scorecard, and by the way, they do communicate here. They do have a kind of chart they give you of number of projects stalled, what the ones that have been restarted and what are the balance left. That's on paper. You know you have to go out there and see backhoe loaders and earth moving equipment, moving earth. When you see that happening, when there's real revival on the ground, I think that's when people will start to get confidence that things are going to turn around. That's still a while away, you think? I don't know, I don't think it is. The government doesn't think it is. We do make backhoe loaders, by the way. So no, there hasn't been an uptick in backhoe loader sales yet. So that's my closest sensor to telling you whether or not they started. But on the other hand, some really highly visible infrastructure projects rather than being announced, again, you've got to see some earth moving equipment out there. If that happens, I think everybody, including domestic businessmen, that's my view, Ajay, we'll move in. We might have been outliers, we never stopped investing. So I can't really comment from that point of view as if I've been waiting to excel and haven't, we've been investing, we've been in India long term. But yes, overseas investors and others who've been held up, I think they want to see some action on the ground. Ajay, same question for you. What can the government do to bring backhoe loaders? I absolutely agree with what Anand said. I think there are so many, there's such a large backlog. I believe it's almost six and a half lakh crores worth of project spending. I think once they pick up and take off, I think automatically the sentiment will change. But I think one more factor for a country like India is what is the change which is happening at the state level? Ultimately, if you look at it, Delhi as a city or as a UT, unit territory, is maybe a thousand square kilometers or whatever, the action happens at the state. I think what's going to determine the investment cycle to a large degree is what are the changes are happening at the state level to attract investment. There are two Harvard stalwarts here. I remember doing a course, reading a case study called factory in factory. It was case study on factory within a factory concept. I think in India we need to look at it as a country within country. We are so many states, each state, and it's a good thing now what is happening are competing with each other to attract investment. I think that is the only way they are going to become more investor friendly. They're going to become a more attractive destination. And I think the social side which has been now taken up, the Prime Minister, if I may just mention, the first time in any election that I can ever remember that we had a Prime Minister who campaigned only on development, growth, and governance. Otherwise we've always had people campaigning on free power and free distance and free that. I think that sets the tone of what the government wants to do. So I think the state level reforms, that is very important to actually start attracting more investments. Some states are moving faster than others and that's a great direction. A little more competition there will actually create a more conducive environment and those states will take care of their people better. So I think it's a great direction. Gita, are you seeing any evidence of the corporate sector investment coming back, any evidence around the economy that you're seeing perhaps those green shoots of the company? Yeah, so I see those numbers with a lag and I haven't seen that yet. No, I mean, that's what I said earlier on which is that I think we can be sure that the reforms are working once I see investment coming back up. If you look at most of the measures, if you look at measures of industrial production, consumer durable purchases, investments otherwise, those numbers haven't come back up fully. We haven't recovered from the slack that was there previously. So, no, it's not there yet. Mr. Bhaitra, one area of concern that several people pointed out, I think that India's become less productive. Would you agree? And what can be done to increase the productivity? What a hazardous question. We attributed with the statement that India is less productive. No, I'll be hounded out of this country if I say so. No, I think that's too sweeping a statement. We're too large a country to make any sweeping statements. I'm sure. We've always thrived under adversity, however much we appreciate that sound. Indian businessmen are almost like mutants. They learn how to survive with the most adverse circumstances. And I've seen pockets of innovation, frankly, that has thrived through this poor environment. The question is, how can you make that viral? How can you make these pockets of innovation get more widespread? And just as I said right in my opening statement, make life easier for the small entrepreneur who may not be a Silicon Valley innovator, just wants to do an honest business, wants to run an honest Kirana store, doesn't want to jump over hurdles to get there. That, to me, is the essence. We focus a lot on innovation and so on and productivity, but we are so far behind in productivity, not because India in its indigenous nature is unproductive. We almost seem to have created a system. What should have been a 100 meter race has turned into a hurdle race. And this is the role of the government, right? Absolutely, absolutely. Of state governments, not just one central government, but as Ajay said, of the state government. Just wanted to add again, Jigita was saying about investment, your question. I think, in fact, if I'm not wrong, the IIP in July, August, in fact, has been negative. So it's gone down. It was 3.8 earlier in Q1. It's now negative. Consumer non-durables, in fact, are pretty low. Nadev Godridge is in the audience here. Other consumer goods, I believe, are doing well, but the consumer non-durables are doing okay, but consumer durables haven't picked up at all. So we still, the indicators are not flashing green yet. Sure, I'll get to solutions in just a bit. Well, what are investors looking at? We spoke about what corporate India wants and so on. What are global investors? What do they want from this government that can change sentiment, that can change things on the ground? They want the ease of doing business. They want red tape to be cut. They want clarity. They want transparency. They want predictability. They want an educated workforce where the skills match the job requirements. They want to be able to, if they're a foreign investor, they want to be able to have a majority if that's what they choose to do. Lifting the ceiling on defense industry was a good step in that direction. They want an economy that they can depend on. They don't want a miracle. I don't think investors want a miracle, but I think that they do want some dependability. They want clarity and they want to know that the way they're doing business today, they can do a year from now. If you were to look at this economy, let's say six months from now, perhaps after the budget, would you say that the government should perhaps incentivize manufacturing? Is this the time to go and announce the stimulus? What should the government be doing to move this forward? I mean, there's no ifs and buts that manufacturing requires a lot of attention, and the government has at least advertised that by saying, talking about the Make in India campaign. They've spoken about it. The question is, what does that translate to into actual facts? And that's why I think that this government can't escape the big bang reforms for too long. What would the big bang reforms be? Well, I mean, among the big ones would be firstly, the land acquisition. You know, to make it easier to be able to work by land. I mean, that's the first part of doing any kind of infrastructure investment or manufacturing. The second aspect is going to be with labor, labor regulation. They've done certain steps. They've made kind of labor compliance with labor laws easier, but then there are the bigger questions about how to hire and fire workers. They have to build, you know, better infrastructure in just in terms of building capacity to help manufacturing. They've got to invest in human capital. So those things are potential bottlenecks. And this is very important to keep in mind because as India takes off and tries to regenerate growth and through investment, these capacity constraints can come and choke the economy and then that can feed into inflation and then we can hit another spot where you need to keep interest rates high. And so the big decisions will have to be taken sooner than later. I completely agree that patience is important to have, but I just think that they will hit those constraints fairly soon. The big decisions, the big bang reforms on land labor capital, Mr. Mahendra, do you think at least post the budget you're gonna see the government move all this? And do you expect this government to incentivize investments in manufacturing and so on? Whether we'll see them right after the budget, I do not claim any inside knowledge of what the government is going to do, but if you put yourself in that situation, the heat is really rising right now on them.  When we talk about the need to move will talks, Gita will say something, there'll be other people. There is enormous pressure on them now to turn the talk into deeds. Walk the talk is frankly the subtitle of this conference, if you ask me. Public-private partnership is the ostensible title, but people are coming here to see that talk turned into action. So there's going to be enormous pressure. And frankly, I don't see an unwillingness to do that. It's not that you have to be an astrologer anymore to figure out whether they're going to do it. It's all about a matter of timing because their professed philosophy and ideology is that. I've said this ad nauseam again, but I remember in Washington, you were there at the US-IBC conference when he said, you know, I'm a Gujarati, so business runs in my blood. I can't remember when a Prime Minister of India ever said that. I had the courage to say something like that. So that is a statement of intent. It's not just hyperbole. He is talking about saying, I understand you. I empathize with you. I know what hurdles you're jumping over. So they're going to do all this, Harsha. We just want a greater speed. We want pressing the foot on the accelerator a little bit. And as we talked right earlier on, happily, Kismet is on their side, and there are a very great number of convergent factors from a macroeconomic point of view that are giving them the fuel to act faster than they might otherwise have been able to do. So from now to the budget, Ajay, do you think the government is going to move on reforms concerning land, labor, capital? I think so. I think it's going to be a continuous process. The pace may vary depending on the issue concern, but as a statement, as Anand said, what the Prime Minister made, I can't again remember any senior government official making a statement. Publicly, we are pro-business and we are pro-poor. I think that itself is a very positive direction and it indicates the government's thinking where they're saying that unless you get business, you won't get more jobs. Unless you get jobs, you won't get more income in the hands of people. You won't get rising income. You won't get more taxes. You know, the whole chain reaction is what they're talking about. So I think from day one, since the government came in, they're looking at changes positively. The pace may vary. We are going to have a budget session now coming up. There are a couple of challenging bills which require support from the opposition also. The government, I'm sure, is moving on that. I'm sure they're trying to see how to get things going. We have the FM this morning. He talked about the land issues also. He talked about changing some of the, whether it's insurance, FTI, et cetera, he talked about that. I think this government's policy is to continuously keep making changes, regardless of whether there's a budget, whether it's Christmas, whether it's New Year. They just want to continue making changes, continuously, regularly, in all areas. I mean, I think another important point, besides business, but it's very important for India, is the social sector. Just look at the work this Prime Minister and his team have taken up on the social front. Who's talked about cleaning the country? I mean, you know, from the ramparts of the Red Fort, he's set off a drive, which is driving everyone. I'm saying they're looking at various aspects. And he's, I think, carrying people with him. Yes, the pace we can debate on, but I think changes will happen, consistently happen. It'll continue moving. And we, I think, should wait for a year, two years to see a much more larger impact of what's happening. But changes are happening, which are very important. Will, do you see India removing restrictions on capital? What could be the red flags? While we're not talking about extremely optimistic about growth, what could be the red flags? Well, I mean, lack of growth could be the red flag. Inflation going up could be the red flag. Another point I want to make that doesn't relate directly to that, is that there's a lot that's going on in terms of capital flows and in terms of market volatility that have absolutely nothing to do with economics. Just take a look at Syria. Take a look at Iraq. Take a look at Ebola in Africa. There are a lot of factors out there that need to be considered. So when you're looking at the overall picture, there are things that are really beyond the control of the government of India and the prime minister. So he can do a million of these things or all of these things or some of these things that it may not make the kind of dramatic impact that people are looking for, which gets me back to my point and the point that others have made in terms of being patient. And that's why incremental change is really key. And that's why change over time, as opposed to Big Bang, is probably essential. If, what could be the rate of lags again, Gita? Same question to you. The reason I'm asking this is we are expecting this government to deliver in the next three to six months. What if it doesn't? What happens then? Well, I hope we will give the government a little longer than that. Okay, eight months. 56 months is a relatively short amount of time. I think the problem that can arise is what I said that things wouldn't go wrong. So a lot of things that look good, even in terms of the macro fundamentals, are fairly on edge. So for instance, let me take one statistic, which is the current account. The current account deficit right now is about 1.7% of GDP, which looks great. That's a very comfortable low number. But if you look at the most recent numbers for imports of gold, those have gone up quite a bit. I would not be surprised that in the next set of numbers that come out, it's not anywhere near 1.7%, but it's a much higher number than that. So you're saying the problem of the current account deficit can resurface? Yes, it can resurface. This is not like it's a permanently solved problem. The other thing is in terms of inflation, I mean, food inflation is about 50% of the CPI. Things can go wrong. You can have bad monsoons, weather can change. Those things can go bad. So the global environment has issues. Growth is weak in the global environment. So there can be negative effects. So what can go wrong? What would be disappointed to see if this government starts kind of slowing down reform in response to things going wrong? Because right now the environment is great. Everything looks fantastic. It's easy to push through reforms. The question is whether it will keep the momentum and will stick with it. Elections will come. There will be a temptation to have expenditure that gets votes. And the hope is that reforms will stick. The diesel price deregulation will stick and these tough reforms will be undertaken. Sure. We've been talking about reform measures like GST and DTT for a while now, Mr. Mahendra. If these things are not implemented, what could the consequence be? What could be the red flag? Well, the consequence would be that we just have to live with what we've lived with for a long period of time, which frankly is not something that I'm sanguine about. It's highly dismaying.  You've got Europe creating a common market, breaking heads to do it. We are a unified country and we've broken ourselves up into a pre-European Union kind of Europe.  I've heard figures that tell me that if you just didn't have those kinds of impediments at the borders, our logistics costs would improve by 3% to 4%. For every company, by the way, on its P&L, 3% to 4%. That comes back to are we unproductive? No, we are not unproductive by nature or congenitally unproductive.  So I think that certainly is a no-brainer to me and has to happen. GST must become a priority. It's such an obvious thing. So yes, that would be a red flag to me. You were asking Gita earlier about red flags. If you see a flagging of commitment in that direction, suddenly you hear noises saying, you know what, GST is not important. We'll defer it. You know what, DTC is not that important. We'll do it later. Suddenly that old word that was bandied about a lot in the last decade or the last five years of paralysis, right now the mood in India is anything but parallel. I travel a lot and I remember in the mid-90s when things were moving here, I'd travel abroad and I couldn't wait to come back because the energy here was so intense. Pick up the papers and something new was going on. And then for the last five, seven years, it was no hurry to come back because nothing was going on. And suddenly you find that you come back here, every other place, I mean, New York seems placid compared to India right now. The pace of change here is so rapid. That starts slowing down. So I know this is a kind of abstract, impressionistic view I'm giving you, but to me that's important. That's why the world's attracted. It's attracted to the energy of this new prime minister, the new government. If that energy seems to go out, if we seem to be flagging again, getting paralysed again, to me enormous red flag. Vashriya? I think the pace of change which is happening, the government is definitely keen and the prime minister pushing it really hard. I mean, I can't remember a time to be serious with you when I wanted a time with the Secretary in the government of India and he said, please come at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. I mean, I don't think it's ever happened before that they are in office at that time. So I think these are the sort of things which are showing a commitment of a different nature altogether. Again, to be honest with you, I mentioned to a person in government working there, I said, I feel sorry for you because today the prime minister has no family, no children, no wife, no hobbies. There's only hobbies work. So you just have to take the bait in by the raw end and work on that direction. And he's pushing his people. So I think, frankly, we are positive things are going to happen. The pace may vary, but I don't think we should look at, you know, something going so drastically wrong that we're going to go back. I don't think that's gonna happen. Well, last round of questioning before I open this out to the audience. Geetha, you know, one year ago, we were talking about a possible race ratings downgrade. We have seen the S&P reset in its view on India. What do you think needs to change in the environment for a ratings upgrade? Are we anywhere near that scenario? I think it's the same things that we've been talking about, which is that if the reform pace continues, if the numbers, it starts showing up in numbers in terms of investments, in terms of consumer durable purchases, if the government is able to stick to its fiscal deficit target, which it seems to have every intention of sticking to, then that will certainly call for a rating upgrade. On that note, I'll throw this open to the audience. Please raise your hand, we'll pass a mic to you and ask you a question. Mr. Gaudiraj here, please. Can someone pass a mic to him, right at the first row? My question is to Anand and Geetha about inflation. You said that it was important to keep interest rates high to fight inflation, but recently Jim Walker mentioned that consumer prices in India have nothing to do with inflation in the classical sense. That's because a consumer price index is largely made up of items that are commodities or manufactured goods where the commodity component is 70 to 80%. We had a huge commodity boom because of Chinese demand. High interest rates in China can bring down Indian inflation. Not high interest rates in India. Indian prices equilibrate to global prices. You were right that keeping a strong currency is a way to fight inflation, but interest rates have no impact. The monsoon has no impact because in spite of low production in India, Indian prices of cereals, pulses, vegetable oils, even fruits and, not fruits, but vegetables, onions and potatoes have been imported into India this year. So the interest rate has no impact whatsoever and it's killing industry. We should fight inflation with the exchange rate. What do you feel? So I guess I partly disagree with you. The facts are in the numbers. We've had high interest rates for a while now and inflation has come down. Because global commodities prices have come down. Yes, let me finish. So I agree with you that the pieces that are feeding into inflation are in terms of commodity prices, in terms of food prices, are out of the control of direct monetary policy. But there still is a very good reason to use interest rates and here's the argument, which is that in India, there's a very high pass-through of commodity prices and food prices into other prices, which means that if you find people asking for higher wages because they live in an environment with high prices, higher wages are going to feed into high inflation, that's going to feed into higher inflation expectations and that's going to set off an inflation spiral. It's in that environment that keeping interest rates high is very helpful. Now there sits on my board and on my compensation committee so I'm nervous about giving the right answer here. If I disagree with them, my salary is going to be reduced immediately. I can see that. But now that the argument you gave, that's exactly what I talked to Raghurajan about in the beginning of the year and I referred to the lesson he gave me in economics is exactly what he told me just now. What he said was, look Anand, that's fine but core inflation is high and he's saying core inflation shows that long-term inflation therefore has a kind of sinister trend to it and that has to be controlled. He didn't disagree with what you were saying but he said I would be more sanguine when core inflation comes down, which is why I say to him now, if I had breakfast with him again, I'd say core inflation is 5.9, Raghur, down from 8, what do you think now? And commodities are on your side.  I'm more concerned right now about the signal. I want consumers to get confident and start buying. Then you get into a virtuous circle. Anyone else? The gentleman in the third row please. Hi, good afternoon. Chetan Gupta from Samina Capital. We deploy a large amount of money, overseas money into India and honestly our biggest challenge is the rupee. We spoke about red flags. We love the entrepreneurs. We've partnered with Mr. Maindra and one of his ventures overseas but we just don't know how to make sense of the rupee and would love to hear everybody's views on how the government should be able to tackle it because it's partly reactionary to what's happening globally and partly in their control. We've seen the rupee stabilized considerably since the near crisis situation one year ago, largely due to the current account deficit. Is that behind us? What do you think? I think the stability level is much better. There's no doubt. We've seen it fairly stable between 60 and 62. I think it will stay in that level unless there is something dramatic which happened, let's say in the Middle East or some international crisis which can create a major turmoil. But I think the way the economy is going, I would feel it will be in this band. I don't think it's gonna change very much. You all right? It's quite impossible to predict exchange rates. And so to actually say where in exchange the rupee is going to be, it's just a hard thing to do. I think I will agree with what was just said which is that the RBI obviously steps in when the rupee was crashing. So the RBI has signaled that it doesn't really want the rupee to be very far off and where it is now. So that kind of monetary policy intervention is effective and that exists. There will be times when the rupee will jump around and I think when US interest rates go up there will certainly be some turbulence with the rupee market and you just have to hedge your exposure. Yes sir, the gentleman in the row right here, the central, just a moment so everyone can hear you. Here are the mic here. My question is on employment generation. We spoke a lot about economy, about industrial production, but if you just look at the rate of employment generation in the last five to seven years and if you look at the amount of young people we have in the 15 to 30 age group, so not just for the next couple of years but for the next decade and above, we need very high employment generation every year. You know, beyond just attracting more investment, what specifically needs to be done on that count? Do we need to reduce capital intensity of production? What else do we need to do to change that mix beyond just growth? You already did. Either anyone will have this problem. Labor regulation is one way. Education and training is absolutely key to employment. Making sure that skills match the jobs that are being created and if you don't have those sorts of education and training programs in place, it's gonna be very, very tough in terms of dealing with unemployment problems. It's a big push through many of the OECD countries to make sure that skills match jobs and it's not only for the young, it's also for those who are middle age. As old jobs go away and new jobs are created, you wanna make sure that your labor force is connected with these new jobs that are being created and that's one way of dealing with the whole issue of unemployment before I'd like to put it in point. And just to add to that, look on here. I think it's a very relevant question. I think for a country like India, we require 10 million jobs a year for the next 10 years. And just to share again the demographic profile, out of our 1.25 billion people, 65% are below the age of 35. 52% are below the age of 25. Between the age of 15 and 35, we had 425 million people. Our median age today is 27 years. And we have 47% of our population below the age of 24. So the job needs coming down the line are so dramatic. And I think this is where the government's approach towards increasing economic activity and accelerating growth rate. I think it's the only way we can create more jobs across the board. And unless we come back to 8% to 10% GDP growth rate, we will not add adequate jobs into the economy, which we are already seeing it to a degree. But I think it'll have a much more major impact on the social front, which is a big concern area too. So I think for higher and faster economic growth and more investments, more opportunities for jobs is going to be the only way to create more employment. And I would 100% agree with the issue of skilling. I think India has got a big challenge on that. I believe less than 3% of our population goes through skill training. Unlike Europe and I believe Germany, France and 70, 80% train. Unless we have adequately skilled people to fill in those slots, it's going to be a mismatch. So the government is giving focus on both. I mean, they put up a separate skilling and entrepreneurship division, department now, a ministry, they've set that up separately under the secretary. So I think they are serious on this. They have to move on it much more. Sure. You know, I remember when Bill Gates first came to India sometime in the 90s. And one of his engagements was at the Infosys campus where he was doing some kind of live broadcast. And it was interesting. At that time, India was caught up in this euphoria of how we were going to be an IT superpower. And the biggest misconception of the time was that we were going to somehow leapfrog over the manufacturing phase of an economy's growth. And suddenly we'd be in this wonderful valley where everyone would be an IT programmer and we'd all be happy. And he was the first person who threw cold water in that argument and he, very tentatively, because he's speaking at the Infosys campus, said that, you know, excuse me, I'm sorry. That's not what happens in a growing economy. And he took the example of China. And of all people, it was Bill Gates who first said, you cannot leapfrog the manufacturing sector. You have to make it more productive. You cannot ignore it. And at that time, I remember there was a number of just about two or three million people employed in the IT sector. And he said, look, that's all you're talking about. And as he said, even in those days, it was about seven, eight million jobs a year you needed. And coming from him, I think we should have listened earlier, listened harder. What is needed? Labor regulation. I think we should take that squarely, take that challenge up. We cannot shy away from it. If we've got a prime minister who's brave enough to talk about toilets, you should talk about labor regulation as well and say, we cannot shy away from this. Education, skilling, certainly. And I think ease of doing business, because finally, it's small-scale manufacturing that provides most of the jobs. Just make it easier. At the risk of sounding overly repetitive, let's focus on the small guy. Let's make it easier for those businesses to be set up. Can I just add one more point? Sorry, just very quickly. You're absolutely right. It's the small firms where the jobs are created. But it's not just the small firms. It's the young firms. We have found at the OACD that young firms is really where the jobs are being generated. So you've really got to be able to help those firms by cutting red tape, by getting capital infusion, so that they can be created. And the new firms will create new jobs. I've got time for it. Sure. I think today that on our GDP, manufacturing is about 15% of our GDP. Government's policy or desire is that by 2022, we should come to 25% of our GDP. I think that is needed. That is where we actually need to give a tremendous push to create jobs. I've got time for perhaps one more question. The lady behind. Thank you very much. My name is Malani Mehra. I'm Chief Executive of Globe International, Global Legislators. I'd like to talk about the fact that we haven't talked about yet. And it refers to the risks in the external environment. It's about climate change. And I'm going to pick on something that your boss has been talking about, Mr. Danvers. Anja Khureya, who has talked about the risk to business posed by not managing climate risk. Climate risk is not just an energy issue. It's a food and water issue. Critical aspects of constraints for this country. The Prime Minister, our new Prime Minister, hugely energetic. Many warm things have been said about him. But he made the strategic decision not to attend the World Climate Summit in New York, at which many world leaders did attend. And significantly, many business leaders attended. More than 1,000 CEOs of the world's leading companies agreed to a carbon price and carbon tax in their spheres of influence in their jurisdictions. I'd like to ask you, Mr. Mehendra, I've been snapping at your heels on this. And I see you as an ally on corporate leadership on climate change. I'd like to ask you what you would wish to do in the coming year as we move towards a global agreement on climate change to encourage climate-resilient decision-making in India? Can you repeat the last sentence? I lost you the last sentence. Ja, what would you do in the coming year to increase decision-making decisiveness on climate-resilient growth for India? For my position, what I have to do is walk the talk, frankly. There's no point getting up into a pulpit and sermonizing about it and paying lip service to it or making it like the old-day CSR, a box to take. I'm proud to say that we have consistently produced the GRI report. We have been listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. We have one of the companies listed in that in the world. So we're walking the talk. But I'll be honest, we're walking the talk not because we see ourselves as messiahs. It's good for business. It's good for business for a couple of reasons. One is that just as going into overseas markets challenges you and forces you to innovate or competition forces you to innovate, environmental pressures and being more efficient in your use of resources forces you to innovate. So to me, I'm not doing good. I'm simply forcing the pace of innovation in my company. And if I can disseminate that view in the company, I know I'll get more believers. Not simply by saying, we must do this because hallowed be thy name. That's not how we look at climate change. And so my only message to everybody else will be, there's profit in this. There's profit in this not only through carbon credits, but by forcing the pace of innovation in your company. And the second profit in it is there is a widespread movement from consumers to buy from environmentally ethical companies. And people who are missing this movement are just going to see their market share erode very gradually over time. So one of the biggest projects we are working on, not in terms of size, but in terms of bets, is an electric two-wheeler we've designed in California and are making in Michigan. People are saying, why would Americans buy this? I'm betting they will. Not because they've always spent their whole lives wanting to ride an electric scooter, but because they feel that's the right thing to do. That's what mobility of the future means. So there's profit all around climate change. And the way to appeal to a businessman's heart frankly still is through profits. Can I bottle what he just said and send that globally? That was very well put. It's coming from an accomplished businessman. And that's the kind of thing that we need in order to be able to get climate change really to stick. Because climate knows no borders. This isn't an Indian problem. It's not a Chinese problem. It's not an American problem or an Indonesian problem. It's a global problem. And if we don't begin to deal with it, we will pay the penalty for it. And it will hurt us economically. It will hurt us socially. It hurts in terms of health care. And this is the kind of tough sell that I was talking about earlier in my presentation there. You've got to communicate the need to make these changes. And that's why I think what you just said is so important, because it's coming from a businessman. All right. I'm running out of time. Thank you all for joining us in this panel discussion. I thank all my panelists as well for joining us today. But please stay on. Coming up next is an award ceremony. It's the Forum's Global Growth Companies Awards. I'm handing it over to David Eichmann, Madden director and head of new champions at the World Economic Forum. Thank you all. Thank you once again. Thank you, Harsha.


The Women's World Cup is right around the corner and Team USA is going for the 3P. Right now, they're the favorites at plus 240 where a $25 bet would win $60. And right behind them, some other big names, England, Spain, Germany, you can see the rest of the countries and their corresponding odds here. Do you think Team USA can get it done or is there another country you like to win this year's Women's World Cup? Let us know.


Hey, Express Community. My name is Cosmo, and this is Elijah. We're pride of the Landwärmen-Riverion team. We're negative emission pioneers based in Munich, Germany, but with a global perspective. Follow us on a journey to a decarbonized world. Also for this guy. Our biggest motivation is a brighter future for all of us, by sequestering CO2 in the most efficient, economical, and ecologically advantageous way possible. That's why we're proud to be taking part in Express Carbon Removal, a $100 million competition that is helping to accelerate scientifically viable, sustainable, and scalable carbon removal solutions, just like ours. We are bio-leavers. In a circular approach we use regionally generated biomass to flexibly produce renewable energy. Biomethane, green hydrogen, or sustainable power depending on what the energy grid needs at any given time. This biogas plant is owned by five local farmers. The excess heat from power generation keeps a local hospital warm. But achieving climate neutrality alone is not enough. It's our responsibility to actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as well. And we need these negative emissions as soon as possible. Tomorrow might be too late. The time to act is now. So we set out to develop a solution that will enable us to go carbon negative. Not only do we need to remove carbon in the process, we need to do it in a highly efficient way, while producing very clean CO2 at the same time. Sound impossible? Well, this is what we came up with. The decentralized energy production plant of the future. Our demonstration site in Reimlingen Bavaria is deeply rooted in the region. With our system we capture the CO2 that rises when the biomass ferments. Then comes our first innovation. Instead of releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere during biogas upgrading or on-site power generation, we separate very pure CO2 that's ready for long-term storage. The biomethane that remains can now be fed into the gas grid or into our on-site power plant. This is where the magic happens. The biomethane is converted into electricity with an efficiency of 80%. This is unheard of. So how do we do it? At the heart of the plant is a fuel cell we have tweaked to perfection. This is a salt oxide fuel cell stack. Current systems don't make full use of these fuel cells. They limit the efficiency by burning off large fractions of the gas that is supplied to them, but we do things differently. Our system enables the full potential of salt oxide cell stacks because our system avoids any combustion and uses all the gas to produce power. Our full-size commercial unit will provide 100 kilowatt of clean power which is enough to supply 500 households. Not only is our system 20% more effective than conventional fuel cells, it also separates all CO2 and can operate carbon negative. But that's not all. We made the whole fuel cell operation reversible. Why is this important? Because on very sunny and windy days, the power grids cannot absorb the surplus energy from solar farms and wind generators, and it goes to waste. But our power plant can take the excess electricity and convert it into gas, rehydrogen or emethane, and store it for future use. Compared to conventional biogas operation, our power plant enables our customers to maximize their income, meaning their biomass will generate up to five times more revenue while being carbon negative. Our carbon capture approach is decentralized. Scaling sustainably will mean more socially acceptable plants, not bigger sites with higher environmental impact. By integrating the reverient solution, we're making existing biogas upgrading plants more efficient with little to no increased environmental impact. Our sustainable, scalable, low impact technology is why we're contenders for the carbon removal X-Price. And it's our firm belief that bioenergy with carbon capture and storage will be a key pillar in reaching emission targets in 2050 and beyond.


Hi there. I'm Andrea. I'm a youth services librarian from the Port La Branch Library, and today I'd love to share a song with you. It's called, I Have a Little Turtle. I have a little turtle. His name is Tiny Tim. I put him in the bathtub to see if he could swim. He drank up all the water. He ate up all the soap. And now my turtle's sick in bed with bubbles in his throat. I have a little turtle. His name is Tiny Tim. I put him in the bathtub to see if he could swim. He drank up all the water. He ate up all the soap. And now my turtle's sick in bed with bubbles in his throat.


The practical importance of a teacher in a classroom, people might think that teachers job is easy and anyone can do it as effectively as they can. In reality, they have lots of duties and responsibilities to play and fulfill. In fact, teachers play a very special role in education. The education system wouldn't be possible without them. Lesson planning and creating the material. Even before the class starts, teachers are planners and designers. They plan for everyday's lessons and design activities that will be effective for his or her students. This requires time and careful designing. If the plan is not carefully made, the whole lesson will not be successful. Additionally, designing for the materials you are about to use in the class also matters. You have to gain the students' attention and interest in a class. Part of it will depend on your materials and the activities you have prepared. Teachers must be creative in deciding what materials will be effective for each set of students he or she has. Knowledge transferring and advice giving. Teachers are also considered as the fountain of knowledge. As the saying says, you cannot teach what you do not know, teachers must also know what he or she will teach before coming to class. However, being the fountain of knowledge doesn't mean that teachers will be just talking inside the classroom. Effective teachers are also facilitators. 21st century teachers must know the disadvantages of a teacher-centered class. As facilitators, they should encourage students to learn by themselves. Allowing them to work in pairs and in groups are the best ways to establish a student-centered class. This is also a good way to address the different types of students. Surely, it will help some students to build their confidence and to also be able to express their thoughts and brainstorm with their group mates or classmates. But, keep in mind that designing these activities alone will surely help students learn. A teacher is also a mentor and tutor. Personally helping your students and giving time to help and talk to them will surely contribute to the students' development. At times, there will be students who will need more attention from the teacher. Giving a one-on-one talk or even doing house visit, public school teachers, will help us know more about the child situation and understand them better. This means teachers are also listeners and advisors. Teachers are also learners inside the class. It is given that they have more knowledge about the lesson, but it should not be a reason not to learn from the students as well. As much as possible, teachers must encourage students to also share what they know in class and learn from them too. Giving them a chance to speak and share is a help to build their confidence. This is also an indicator that the students are interested in the topic. Evaluating and Assessing One major role of a teacher is being an evaluator or assessor too. Learning of the student must always be measured at the end of the day to say that the lesson was successful. It is the responsibility of the teachers to prepare activities or examinations, and be able to see the students that excelled and who needs more attention. Are you ready to teach English abroad? Teachers indeed play a lot of roles in education. In fact, in some countries they are also expected to be role models, not only for the students but also for the whole community. People have a high expectation towards teachers, and this high expectation also carries a big responsibility for the teachers. Some might think that being a teacher is simple, but, we do not know how much responsibilities they have. Handling these roles all at once will make us realize how hard it is to be teachers.


about social discovery. Every day we meet a lot of people, so these people at some point of time will be useful for us. For example, you meet a person who works in railways. So at some point of time you may need a help regarding the railways service. So at that situation he may be useful to you. So Marat actually does this. So when you see a new person all you're going to do is take a picture of them and then have a number and what purpose he could serve to you. So you just store the data. So then in case you require some help, the app will scan through your networks and provide you with suggestions of list of people who can help you with that issue. So another thing is that it's not about you have to construct your own network. You can also capture the other people's network. For example, my friend Streamers has a different network. I can join with this network. So then at some point of time we have a very big, large network which if I share my graph to him publicly so that he can access my graph and he can access my saved contacts like that. It gets expanded. The more and more people use them, more beneficial. And we also observe that people won't generally, people are lazy to use these apps because you have to go type the things, take a photo. So we wanted to minimize as much as possible. For example, if I want to add you as a my tool into my network, I just take a photo and ask you to give a mystical. So once you give the mystical, the number will be taken inside and the photo, that's it. So simple case instead of adding a new contact, entering the names, you can also speak your name. We were in through pocket things we were using, but due to time constraint, that's the concept. So few things. So when you first explain it, right? It looks like a mini-facebook or a new social network. I mean, generally when you... Yeah, but this is more focused. For example, in Facebook you cannot expect every person in your network to have the detail regarding your requirement. For example, you may be a friend in Facebook, but I may not know what your purpose towards me. Facebook may not provide that information. We cannot trust that. But our application has been also implemented as a web application. So in case there are details available through Google plus or Facebook, it can also fit into the graph. So you're augmenting the existing contacts with some extra... Yeah, but if we saw the external application, we can actually replace the actual contacts in our... Then you can search locally and search through every person. So I can show you the small view. For example, these are my four networks. If I want to join this person's network, I just click in. Then you search and it just adds. Just a minute takes. So these are the stuff. Actually, it didn't complete the UFR. So it just features and adds to our graph. So when you mentioned taking a picture and saving, it can replace even the contact that is already... No, it won't replace. Currently it is a separate application. Currently. But is that a feature? Yeah. If we want to, we can do it. So how do you plan to make it more global? Right now it is centralized. I mean, it's not... It's localized. It's within your device. How does it work with searching between your friends' graphs and friends' graphs? Yeah. We are currently through a server. Okay. We have a centralized server. Whatever information you gather, it's all uploaded to the server. Yeah. If you want to share, for example, you have an option here called share. So once you share, all your data within yourself will be shared publicly so that other people can also access your data. Is there a setting to actually... I mean, the user can select what data to share. What data? What data to share and what not. Some information he might be... Let me ask some privacy issues. Privacy issues. Right? Yeah. Any photo that is captured... We can add any constraints to it. Even users can... What to say? You can modify this person's or some important person. So I don't want to share that information. And the remaining information that I don't care about that... For example, you can sit like in Facebook. Some people, if you are in your mutual friends list, you can hear friends with you. For example, the same concept. You can also choose not to share your details to completely public people. But mutually, you both are friends. And one thing, you can use Facebook API so that you can reduce a lot of time, taking pictures, getting phone numbers. So you can do everything through Facebook API. So you can just get this Facebook idea or something. You can write an API, go to Facebook and... But for that purpose, you need always internet connection. So you can use QR code, right? Ask your user to generate a QR code containing the information he wants to share. Instead of giving missed call, you can scan his QR code and just go. Yeah.


This is weird. Hey, when's the last time I did a real IRL stream?  Dude, I totally forgot there was a new space jam coming out. It's all over the place here. I don't know if it's going to be able to match up to the first space jam. Like the old space jam uniforms were classic, had Michael Jordan, Lola Bunny. Just everything, just things are so different, you know what I mean? Oh my god, wait a minute. The frik? All this glass is shattered.  Okay, we need to get a headphones. Headphones is one. Clothes is two. Actually, clothes is one. I don't have any clean clothes. I'm kind of hungry, but I've also pooped like five times today. So I got to find out what I ate yesterday that was bad. So I've got to not eat that. The donut? Yeah, maybe. What else? It was just to ask somebody. Excuse me, sir, do you know how to get into the target? Just go across. Is there an entrance that side? Okay. Just right across. All right. Thank you. Appreciate you. Go back and ask me to get normal with that bag. Chat, if I can cross with the cars going five-gifted subs. I'll give you guys five-gifted subs if I can. That's a good idea.  You know what, dude? I think LA is a great place to not live. I think LA is a great place to visit. It's cool to talk about it. I think the idea of LA is cool. But I think living here is rough. I just couldn't imagine living here. Everything is super expensive. It's traffic all the time. It's in California. Hail of the land. Are you limping? No, I just walked with the dip, yo. Wait, why does it look like I'm limping? There's three signs for a target here. Every area with a massive target sign says go to other entrants. Is this a meme? Go inside of CVS? Check Minimap. Oh. I don't have the coordinates that on. Oh. No way. Okay, so look at this. So it's a store inside of a store. Old Navy. Where's Target? Upstairs. Oh, there's another target. I'm telling you, dude, there's so many target signs and none of them actually take you to Target. I love the double cam. It's cool. You know what's the best part about this? You guys don't know that this entire stream is pre-recorded and I'm just reacting to it. That's the best part. Why is it so bright? Dude, welcome to America. Okay, Target has closed. It has probably headphones. So we're gonna do that. Mousepad, yes. Can we get some candy? No. Okay, women's wear, personal care, beauty. Okay, I think we're in the wrong section. Entertainment. This is probably... Okay, these are books that's not entertainment. These are mislabeled. Where do I find headphones? It's not good for your life. I can put my backpack in my cart. So I don't have to wear the backpack the whole time. No way. Badass. Okay. Okay, this is our guy. This is our guy. I have no plans. I'm just going IRL and we're just gonna walk around. We're gonna take a look at what's going on. I got my wow raid tonight. Dude, I'm not even joking. I actually extended my stay because I didn't want to miss raid because realistically I could have gotten home before raid time. Or I could have gotten an awesome before raid time but I couldn't gotten home because you drive and you pack and this and that. I was gonna be late for raid. So I said, you know what? Let's just extend this day. I could have missed. And I could have puggied it this week which probably would have been pretty decent too but I didn't want to miss. And I also wanted to stay and do IRL. Extended my stay for a couple more days and then that way we can get some IRL done and I don't miss my raid. So easy clap. But I'd stay in a hotel for a few more days. So yeah, that's how it goes. Actually addicted. Dude, I'm telling you, it is the best game. It is the best expansion. It is so fun. I know a lot of people like Wrath of Lich King better. I get it. But for me, if you have not played wow before this is actually the best and most fun time in a while. Period. It is, I can't say enough good things. I'm literally going to sit here and I'm going to rant about it for four hours if you get me started. It is just so good, man. It is so good. SteelSeries all-in-one gaming bundle. Wait, what? But see, it comes with a mouse pad. I don't think I even want this one. Cool. So now we've got a backup mouse in case my mouse dies. It is a razor. So the only problem I have with my current setup is it doesn't do a very good job of standing upright because it is so heavy. So I'm good there. I've got to get clothes. I used to buy supplies before clothes. True. Because here's the thing. Clothes are there. Not important. I could be naked and I could raid and turn my camera off. Too small. Where's man clothes? Hello. Have a good day. Thank you. You answered my question wrong. I said, are you having a good day? And she said, do you too? It was awesome. Dude, we went out to a club. Will Neff spent like a billion dollars on a club table for us. And I had athletic shorts on. Like so. So Hassan goes and buys pants because he was already at the store.  He buys pants that are torn. Why do you not check to see if the pants are ripped or not before you buy them? You just get scammed. So he said it was cool. He would pay for it. But it's just stupid, man. So I need two shirts. Is that enough? Is two shirts enough to last me? Check auction house? Oh, frick, I forgot. It's fine. I'll just go to the vendor. That's fine. Athletic. Straight. Really? I thought California was supposed to be progressive. That's kind of weird. They have a whole section for that. Three, two, one. It's the wrong size. Oh, sleeveless. Oh. Yeah, I think this will do. Underwear is good because you can just flip it. You flip it four times. You just go out. Front, back, inside, outside. I need game fuel. How do you game fuel? Mountain dew? Sure, I had to make it blatantly clear from Texas. I actually did. There are some crazy people here in LA. He's sitting here. He's got his kid and he's got his daughter with him. About yay-hi. Sitting here. Dude smoking weed and blasting music on his Bluetooth speaker. And he's handing out cards or something to people walking by. I swear, he had to have been like some SoundCloud rapper. Like handing out his mixtape. And you could hear it from all the way down on the other side of the block. I'm not even joking. What is wrong with people? It's normal for LA.  What are you going to do?  Stupid. What are you doing? Just catch. It's my first time here. I'm getting original. No tomatoes, no onions. No cheese. What's that girl? My name is Aspan. What are you going to say? Nobody else comes close to my caliber of gaming athleticism. I'm not a single other person. Look, there might be guys who are stronger. There might be guys who are faster. But the combination of size, strength, speed, and agility is unbeknownst to the rest of the world. Thank you so much. It was hot. It was good. Thank you.  No onions. No tomatoes. I got bacon. So, the first bite. Lettuce. Pickles. A little bit of mustard. A little bit of ketchup. Bacon. Of course, meat.  Are you rating TBC or retail? Dude, I'm rating TBC. What am I going to do on retail? Play for two weeks, start complaining after two days, and then un-sub after two months. That's just how it works. I'm just kidding. I will probably at some point try out 9.1 to give an honest opinion of it. I'm not promising that I'm going to do that. Yeah. But man, I'm telling you, dude, I would just rather do IRL. I would rather do Variety. I just don't want to do another MMO. Like, Burning Crusade, and that's it, man. And then after Burning Crusade, Rad. I don't want to try out Final Fantasy XIV. I just want to do Burning Crusade Variety IRL. So, some RP in there. This is what I want to do. Guys, I have to eat fast. It's about time to go rating.


Some of my Southern brethren are real talented at putting their own spin on what the good book says. And the most dominant strain of religion in my neck of the woods is Protestant evangelicalism. This is a school of Christianity focused on spreading the good news, taking a more literal interpretation of Bible stories, and accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. The kind of Bible thumpers who got mad at Kevin Bacon for trying to dance, those are my people. Protestant evangelicalism, as we know it, grew out of the Church of England, which was founded back in the 16th century when the Pope refused to let King Henry VIII get divorced and marry his dead brother's ex-wife. Defying authority and coveting thy brother's wife? That's the most redneck sh**t I've ever heard. So it ain't so surprising that this strain of Christianity birthed the dominant religion in the South. Protestant evangelicalism carried over this major lesson from the Church of England. If you don't like what your religion is telling you, pretend it's saying something different. Anything they don't want to do is either Old Testament, so Jesus said they don't have to anymore, or it was a metaphor, you know? Imagine if we were allowed to live our lives that way, you know what I mean? Like, baby, I'm sorry I didn't mean to cheat on you, I thought our valves were like a metaphor. But coming up with your own understanding of the Bible has its downsides, like using it to justify the unjustifiable. slavery became the most contentious issue in religious communities in the build-up to the Civil War. In fact, it's been written that the Civil War began in churches decades before the first shot was fired. They read the Old Testament, Abraham on slaves, the New Testament, the Apostle Paul tells slaves to obey their masters, obviously if we weren't meant to on slaves, the Bible would have said something about it, so it was very easy for them to reconcile. See, while some churches were using the good book to justify slavery, others were using the same source as an argument for abolition. It was pretty important among early Methodists. What happened with the Methodists is they got creamed when they started preaching that and they had to back off. After enslaved black preacher Nat Turner led a rebellion in 1831, Virginia went ahead and passed a law mandating that black churches have white pastors to control the message folks were receiving from God.  Nat Turner was trying to use the power of group, of organization, of faith, of belief to do some good and of course the white man of that day and age came down on him. The thing that gets me about it is it kind of shows us how starved for entertainment. They were that the people were actually listening in church. I don't mean to be too harsh on southern evangelicals as they have contributed significantly to the culture I grew up in. See one of the guiding principles of evangelical Christianity is doing good works. It's what leaves the Bible Belt to give more to charity than anywhere in the country. It's the spirit that's got Jimmy Carter, a devout southern Baptist for most of his life, still building houses for Habitat for Humanity at 95 years old. And also we cannot skip black evangelical churches in the civil rights movement. They were the literal backbone of the southern civil rights movement. Now you gotta do the negative there too. The KKK was ostensibly founded as a religious organization. The thing is, everybody went to church back then, so if you were going to have a meeting and discuss shit, you were going to do it at the church. Plus without evangelicals we wouldn't have one of the south's most colorful regional traditions, snake handling, which is still practiced by some Pentecostals in parts of Appalachia. If you don't know what snake handling is, it's where you hold a poisonous snake in church to demonstrate your faith. I like to imagine what it would be like if the devil had came to Eve as some animal other than a snake. Now you'd have hillbillies going to church on Sundays to fist fight gorillas. That's a church I go to. If you're a northerner before you get all snobby about being enlightened, I would remind you that the south has never held witch trials. Yet, I don't know who needs to hear this, but Jesus don't have a stance on gay marriage, the Second Amendment, or carbon emissions. But the good news is, while the south hasn't been very religiously diverse, unless you believe Methodist, Southern Baptist, and Episcopalians living together counts as diversity, that is finally changing. The south has a lot more immigrants than it used to have. Evangelicals are smart, realize that the future of their movement lies in recruiting ethnic minorities. And studies show that non-white evangelicals are more likely to hold progressive views. For example, they're more likely to believe that climate change is real. But the idea that immigrants are destroying America is fake. If a bunch of new people moving in and changing the religious character of your community makes you uncomfortable, just keep in mind a simple lesson that's both catchy and easy to remember. Love thy neighbor.


Key for us and our education partners is the practical skills that provide the uplift that we're looking for. We're all about driving for results so what the university provides us is that up-to-date research but it's very practical in the way that it's presented so our people can come back equipped and it just gives them that additional edge to their skill set. The specific areas that we use, a clear winner would be strategic planning and implementation backed up by emotional intelligence influencing those kinds of softer skills and those kind of combinations work really well for our culture of driving results. It's been very powerful for us. People come off the courses with a clear action plan that's part of the course and it gives us comfort that they're actually applying what they've learned to great success and then we follow that up to make sure that that's embedded so it's tangible results for us.


Since the turn of the millennium we've seen a continual change to the face of terrorism through the 9-11 attacks, the growth of al-Qaeda, the bombings in Europe including the continent's first ever suicide bombing, the rise of groups such as Boko Haram and the continued destabilisation of parts of the Middle East and the commensurate rise of ISIS. Terrorism today reflects the globalised nature of our society. Currently the preferred method of attack by terrorists is the improvised explosive device, utilising homemade explosives and the use of high-powered automatic rifles by marauding shooters, sometimes referred to as the active shooter. These tactics produce devastating results, spread terror and confusion and meet the terrorist's objective of maximising casualties and has been seen all too recently in cities around the world. So what then, are the so-called weapons of mass destruction, use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear material to cause death, harm and destruction? This conference has focused on two of these, the R and the N parts of CBRN. As discussed throughout the conference, access to nuclear material is difficult and the production of nuclear bomb is fortunately beyond the capability of most governments, let alone terrorist organisations. And although access to nuclear material is difficult, it's not impossible, as you've heard from some of the case studies. The production of an improvised nuclear device whilst difficult could eventually be achieved by some terrorist organisations. More worryingly, access to radiological materials is much easier and the harm that has been caused simply by leaving a high activity source in a public space undetected over a period of time would be immense. Which triggers the question, why have terrorists not hit us with an IND or an explosively radiological dispersal device, a dirty bomb to date? Quite simply, at present, the acquisition of RM material and a means to deploy them effectively to cause maximum casualties remains largely problematic and it's far easier for a terrorist to attack using conventional means. In Australia, my home country, it was recently observed that all you need to be a terrorist nowadays is a knife, a flag and a video. Could be true. Nevertheless, it's known that terrorist groups seek RM material and actively recruit scientists to their cause in order to have them to develop a method of delivery that will be effective and relatively easy. They haven't got there yet, but there will come a time when a tipping point is reached and it becomes easier for them to deliver a dirty bomb or similar. And when that day comes, we will potentially see a marked increase in this type of terrorism and the trafficking of the materials required. To prevent that from happening, the world's law enforcement agencies need to be ahead of the game and be prepared to counter the threat of illicit trafficking of nuclear or other radioactive materials as well as chemical and biological materials. Here at Interpol, the CBRNE sub-directorate has endeavoured to share information, help build capacity and support law enforcement agencies with operations and investigations in these highly specialised areas. And as we prepare for the Nuclear Security Summit, our goal is to advocate for a more substantial global approach. At the summit, 52 world leaders and four heads of international organisations will reiterate their collective commitment to the goal of global nuclear security. And through its information sharing initiative, Project Geiger, workshops, training courses and exercises, as well as support to operations such as failsafe, conduit and stone, Interpol will help to contribute to make an important contribution to this international effort. This draws to the closing of the Global Counter Nuclear Smuggling Conference which has seen a number of experts in this highly specialised field come here to Leon to share their experiences and knowledge with you and us. You are the experts most likely to conduct an counter nuclear smuggling investigation or command and operation to support such an investigation. Please take home with you the lessons learnt over the past three days, the contacts that you have made and the assurance of Interpol's support and assistance to you 24-7. So on behalf of the Secretary-General, Jürgen Stock, I would like to extend Interpol's gratitude to all of you for supplying your support to combat illicit trafficking of nuclear and other radioactive material. I wish you all a safe journey home or as we say in France, bon voyage. Thank you.


Okay, it was freezing this morning. Now the sun is out. Hopefully it's not too bright. But I'm warm now. I'm very warm and thinking and discerning thanks to you in their YouTube. Thank you so, so much for taking the time to comment two days ago on the vlog all about playlists versus channels. And you are, I can't even tell you, you taking 30 seconds to a minute to type your comment and answer the question of the day. It's helping me discern so, so, so much. I cannot thank you enough. So if you care to go watch it, go ahead and answer the question of the day about playlists versus channels. I am, I'm not, I haven't made my decisions yet. I'm still thinking, trying to figure it out. And, but your opinions are invaluable. I cannot even begin to describe how valuable your thoughts are. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And in addition, I know I've already talked about this twice before very specifically. And this is the last time I promise that I'm going to bring it up in 2017. No, no, no, really, I'm seeing more clearly what the, what the YouTube universe and the Twitter universe is desiring when it comes to the length of the blogs.  So I asked yesterday, I put up a Twitter poll. If we're not connected yet on Twitter, let's do it. Basically, I asked this exact question. Here we go. What length do you think is optimum for a daily blog? How long do you usually watch other daily blogs? So there's four answers or four choices, three to five minutes, five to eight minutes, eight to 12 minutes, 12 to 20 minutes. So if 19 people have voted, thank you. Thank you. I don't know who you are, but thank you. I'm going to, I'm going to let it run actually for about a week, this poll because I really want to get, I'd love to get it up to maybe double that to 40 to 50 votes. So just to help me once again discern the future of video production of blogs, how long they should be, how much time you have to watch them so that I'm bringing you value here on the digital continent. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Continue with your day. Remember yesterday, I said hold me accountable to fixing the children's books. Here we go. Hustle in everybody. Hustle in. I didn't even mean to do this. I didn't even mean to do this. Okay. I've been wanting an Apple Watch for a while basically to sync it with my phone for text messaging and also mostly to listen to podcasts, audio books and music on my long, long, long runs. Someday I'd like to get an Apple Watch Series 3, but way too expensive. So brand new Apple Watch Series 1 is $245. I bought one this morning for $100, $100 on Facebook marketplace. It's beautiful thing. Capitalism at work here, people. But when I showed up to buy it, it was pink. I didn't look close enough at the pictures. The watch was pink, rose gold. Oh my gosh. Here's a few pictures just to show you. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So what did I do? I put it back on Facebook marketplace, marked it up 40 bucks and just sold it for $140. Oh, I feel a little bad, but listen, hey, this is, I knew the value and sure enough, it's sold in two hours. So made 40 bucks today and I'm going to take this 140 bucks and buy a probably gray or white Apple Watch. Oh, this is life. This is life. Oh, always an adventure pulling out, advent, Christmas stuff. Happy vlogmas, everybody. Yeah, that's the furnace. Yeah, it's strong enough. What did you get, Seth? Just getting the ornaments, getting the lights, getting the decorations. It's a great...