All right, good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for joining this session. I'm going to spend about 25 minutes just doing a really quick overview of two of the most common ways that people interact with OpenStack Clouds. The first is using the OpenStack Horizon client, which I have the login page for up right here. And then the second is the OpenStack command line client based off of Python. So just before we get started, I want to get a quick sense of since this is kind of a 101 and beginners talk like, how many people here, how many people here, is this your first summit or are you new to OpenStack? So that's perfect, that's exactly what I kind of wanted to see. If you are interested in following along and trying this out at home later on, also to start off with, I have a project up on GitHub called Getting Started with OpenStack. This is actually something that Dan Ray does from Red Hat put together. And I've maintained it, and this is the most recent version. If you're running Vagrant on your laptop, you can download this, you can spin up a server, and you can start trying out OpenStack on your own. Okay, so let's get started. So this is the horizon dashboard. After when you come across an OpenStack instance, whether it's something that you've installed, or it's one that your company has installed, or you're accessing as a public cloud, you're gonna be presented with a login. Today we're going to be using a login that we're using administrator credentials. It's like you wouldn't have administrator credentials if you're accessing a public cloud, but a lot of the concepts are still the same. So we're gonna start off by giving a username and a password, which I conveniently saved in my password manager. And if you're logged in as an administrator, it'll drop you into the projects page. But if you log in as a user, it's gonna drop you into an overview page. And the classic view of OpenStack is it's gonna provide you with compute, networking, and storage. In the overview, you're gonna get a sense of what your quotas are like. And so whenever you log into a system, you're gonna be given some limits on how many servers you can spin up, how many volumes you can create, how many floating IPs you can use. So you can see here that we really aren't using any of the resources. This is actually just kind of a stock OpenStack installation. It comes right out of the box, looking like this. You can tab through. We have the compute tab, which gave us an overview of the system. We can see instances, don't have any instances created. We can check the status of our volumes. We do have something here. We actually have an image that's ready to boot. And oftentimes in OpenStack Cloud, you can also upload your own images. So let's start off by doing that. This is gonna be one of the first things we wanna do is if we don't have an image that we wanna boot, we're gonna upload one. So, it's just a matter of saying you wanna create an image. You don't wanna give it a name. In this case, we're gonna be uploading a CentOS image. It's gonna be CentOS 7, Cloud. I've already downloaded it to my hard drive, but you can sometimes also load these up from the internet, depending upon the configuration of your Cloud. So we select a file. We go to our downloads. Choose our image there, CentOS 7. It's going to be in a QCOW2 format. There's no kernel, there's no RAM disk. We're gonna make it publicly available, and we'll leave it unprotected. And so publicly available means that it's visible to not just you, but all of the other tenants in the system. Protected means that it can be, if you protect it, it means it can't be deleted, it can't be changed. So we're gonna go right there, we're gonna create the image. It's being uploaded through the horizon dashboard. And once this is completed, takes a little bit of time to process.  So I'm walking on the high wire here. You can choose other options too, like a minimum disk, a minimum RAM disk size, a bunch of things to help with your image. So I'm actually, in the interest of time, I'm gonna cancel this out, since we already have an image up and running. It's probably just kind of processing in the background. Actually, let's do this instead. Let's leave that open, and we'll open a new tab with that right there. Yeah, so it's not quite available yet. But let's move on and let's talk about how we boot this image, right? So we have a machine image that is uploaded, it's ready to go. And so we can start off by launching it. So when we hit the launch tab, again, the nice thing about Horizon is that kind of, you don't necessarily need to know a ton of information about how OpenStack works or how to do things up. We have these nice wizards here, and they just kind of step you through the process of what you need to do to accomplish the different tasks that you wanna accomplish inside of OpenStack. So in this case, we're gonna call the instance name OpenStack Boston. You're presented with an availability zone, and so larger OpenStack installations will oftentimes have different availability zones that you can choose from that have different properties, like say, bare metal availability zone or virtualization availability zone. In our little instance, we only have one. You can actually bring up multiple instances if you want. We're choosing to boot from an image. We're gonna create a volume and attach that to that. And so generally when you boot an image in OpenStack, all of the storage associated with that is what we call ephemeral. Any storage that's attached to that virtual machine as it's brought up will disappear when you take that machine down. But by creating a volume, we're creating storage that is external to that virtual machine and will be attached to it. And you're able to store more permanent data inside of that. And so this is a case where we wanna create an attach a volume to it. We're gonna give it a volume size of one gigabyte. We're using the name, we're using this, the seros image. There are different flavors that we can choose from. So in this case, we're gonna choose M1 Tiny. You know, this specifies just how many resources are available. There's gonna be 512 megabytes of RAM, a gigabyte of total disk. You know, this is an addition to the volume that we're attaching. This is the ephemeral disk and one virtual CPU. We also need to access our cloud somehow, so we're gonna attach it to a private network. And then on this private network, we will later attach a public floating IP address to it. Then you can kind of scan through, you can. Now for logging in, this is a common question that you often have. You're booting a machine, how do you actually log into that? Within OpenStack Clouds, the common way that that happens is the compute nodes will run something called cloud init. And cloud init will go out and gather information from a service that's running inside of your cloud, including injection of any credentials you want that you need to log into the machine. And so in this case, we'll actually create a key pair so that we can log into the account. So we'll call it the Boston key. We'll create the key pair and we'll see that that's downloaded to our system. And it's gonna automatically be injected into the system. A few other things you can add, a customization script, server groups you want it to be a part of, and even have metadata available. So once we've gone through all that, we select launch instance. And if we go to our instances tab, we'll see that our instance is in the build process. So we've done two things so far. We're creating a virtual machine, attaching storage to it, attach it to a network. So we've already touched the three major components of an OpenStack installation. Compute, networking, and storage. Whoops, and it looks like the instance wasn't created. This is what happens when you do a live demo. So let's try that again. We'll launch it. This time we won't attach the storage because I think that's where it failed. Attach it to the private network, make sure that we use our Boston key. We'll launch this instance again. Both of them are there now. And you can see that it's being attached to an IP address on there. And in the meantime, while this is booting up, let's associate a floating IP to it. So actually, let me explain how the floating IP works there. If we go into the network tab, we're gonna see a network topology here. These networks were pre-created. We have a public network on the left. This is where we're accessing our system from the public internet, that the public to my laptop. There's a router connected to that, which then connects to a private network. And you can see on that private network is this instance that we just started up. If we view the instance details on this tab, you can see there's a log that is running. There is also a console that should be running. Unfortunately, my machine did not come up in a good state. So what I may do is, status is an error, and I don't know why. Yep, that's exactly what it is. Yeah, we will delete both of these instances. Thank you. Yeah, all right, both of those are deleted. We're gonna try this one more time, boot from an image. We will not create a new volume, make it M1 tiny, attach our private network, make sure our key pair is being injected, and select zero, so we'll launch the instance. Okay, so not to worry, I had a backup. Luckily, we also have lots of amazing public clouds. I know that my Vex host instance is going to be running, so let's log into the Vex host and let's see, here's the sign in for here. That's the sign up, okay, here we go. It's gonna be a little bit different, but this is a public cloud provider. The dashboard is going to look a little bit different, but a lot of things are the same. So let's do the same thing. This time it'll work. Choosing a source, we're gonna choose our seros image. We're gonna give it, it's time of V1 standard. Every cloud has its own thing. We're gonna attach it to a network. We're gonna use my Vex host key pair. And we're gonna launch the instance. So we see that it's spawning, is it going to work this time? Right, and there we go, success. See, I should have gone public cloud in the first place. And one of the nice things about this is you get all of this information about the instance there, including a lot of times the open stack dashboards give you consoles that you can log in directly to. But let's take a look at this instance here. And we'll see that the console is being brought up. And success we can log in, right? We can also, there are public IP addresses associated with this, including some IPv6 addresses. And we can SSH into those also. And didn't like my unprotected key file. And I'm logged in, right, just like that. Okay, so that was just a really kind of basic overview of how the horizon dashboard works and there are so many other things that you can kind of take a look at into there. But while having the web interface is really nice to kind of like get an understanding of the things that you can do inside of open stack. And what resources are there? Kind of the real power comes is when you start controlling it programmatically and automating that control. And so now we're gonna move on to the open stack client. And we're gonna kind of talk a little bit about how to use the open stack client to accomplish the same things. So I have a couple of windows open here, right? So the first thing that you'll usually see inside of one of these, to get started with using the open stack client, is you have to supply the credentials for it somehow. If you remember before, we went to a website, we logged in using our username and password, and we were granted access through the client. So you need those same things to be able to log into your cloud. In this instance, I have an open RC file that kind of has all this basic information. We have a username, a password, which is, this is not the password that I used to log in. An authentication URL, and so this is where I'm actually connecting to the services and where all of my requests are going to be made to. As well as a project name, a domain name, and an identity version that we want to use. Typically, when you log into Horizon, you're actually given the option to download this RC file. And so this isn't something that you have to build on your own. This is something that Horizon will actually give to you. It's one of the features of Horizon. And we can see that in right here. If you go up to that panel up there, you can download the open RC file from there. So we source that file into our environment. And then we use the OpenStack command. Now there are a number of different ways that you can install the OpenStack command. Your package manager will typically have it if you have OpenStack installed. You can also use PIP to install it. You can also use PIP install Python OpenStack Client. But if we just type the command OpenStack, we're going to be, if we just type the command OpenStack, we're going to be dropping to an environment. Which is kind of nice, all of your credentials are going to be there. You can issue commands directly against it. You can type help. It's going to give you a list of all sorts of things that you can do. And the way the OpenStack Client works is, it tries to have a very consistent way that you interact with it. It's almost always going to be subject verb. And so, for example, if we want to manage servers, you would type OpenStack server something. So let's try it, let's try it here, right? So we say OpenStack server list, right? And what we get there is, this is my local cloud. You can see that there is one server in an error state. But because OpenStack Clouds are interoperable with one another, if I actually am in another, I can be in another environment and I can change my credentials. And so, this is an environment where I recently sourced my Vex host. So this is my Vex host openRC file that once again I downloaded. And I can do OpenStack server list. And we're going to see that there is another server there. The command line can sometimes be a little bit opaque though, but don't fear, there's lots of information there to help you figure out how the commands work. So if we do OpenStack server, if you just type OpenStack server, we forgot the verb. It's going to give us a list of all of the verbs that we can perform against servers. And so let's go to server create. How do we do that? You can type OpenStack server create. You just type it with no options right there. It's actually going to give you a little bit of help. So it's going to tell you the things that are absolutely required. So let's create a new server. We need some information to do that though. We need a flavor. And we need a flavor, a network, and a image. So we guess OpenStack image list. It's going to give us a whole list of images for us to choose from. OpenStack flavor list. It's going to give us an entire list of flavors to choose from. And now an OpenStack network list is going to give us networks to choose from. And then we can launch our instance. So OpenStack server create. We needed the flavor. So minus, minus flavor. We go back up to our list. We choose our V1 standard. You can choose the ID or the name. We choose our image. We're going to give it seros. We're going to give it a net. We're going to attach it to a network. Connect that there. And we're going to give it a name. Yep. What did I miss there? Net ID is equal to right. This has to be equal there. And it's going to reach out and it's going to start. Cannot find resource seros. So it probably wanted seros one. Yep, thank you. And I've already exceeded my cores. V1 standard 64. You're right, I chose a really, I chose a really big one.  Thanks to everyone for, right. And it returns that it's going over to its build state. And then if we do an open stack image list, oops, open stack server list. It'll give us the status of all the current images. And I think that that is the end of this quick demo. Thanks for everyone for bearing with me, especially the demo crashes. And if you have any more questions, please feel free to ask.


There's a lot of scenes in the new film where Eddie Brock is talking out loud to Venom, but Venom talks in his head. So, why doesn't Eddie Brock just talk in his head? Like, you know, reading a book. Does Eddie Brock read his books out loud when he's alone? So how is Woody Harrelson, though? The guy always brings it, right? Well, he brings it. There's just not a lot to bring. And he has a girlfriend in this, Scream Lady. It's Calypso from those Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and every time she showed up I was just thinking, man, I would really rather be watching the Pirates of the Caribbean films than this. The movie's only an hour and a half long. It didn't even want to stick around for itself. And Venom is just a straight up douche bro. Now he really is the physical manifestation of a monster energy drink. No, a rock star energy drink. We have an end credit scene that's gonna make you go, whoa! Now I'll stop thinking about the rest of this crappy movie and focus on this one cool little part that probably won't even amount to much.


Welcome to another International Relations Capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. This edition, we would like to continue to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. This is really a second part of what we discussed last week. Soon after the Americans left unexpectedly, the situation has completely deteriorated in Afghanistan. Taliban, without giving any attention to whatever agreements they may have reached with the honey government or the United States, are advancing towards the capital. They are doing it in such a way that first they capture the surrounding cities and particularly the border areas leaving Kabul for the time being. But it is very clear that they are advancing towards Kabul and their objective is to dislodge Ashraf Khani's government and take over Afghanistan. There is really no obstacle to this because there is really nobody fighting against the Taliban except some of the Afghan national forces. So naturally, Taliban's strength outweighs the strength of the Ghani government. Now that the Americans are left because the Ghani government was being supported and encouraged and funded and financed and equipped with the American forces and the Allies. So the Ghani government is completely weak at this point and Taliban is advancing in different directions. We ourselves know that they came almost three kilometers next to the Kandahar Indian consulate general and we have withdrawn all the India-based stuff from there. In fact, three consulates have been vacated. And then we have the Taliban claiming that they have 85% of the territory is already in their hands. So the style of operation is that they are trying to block the borders like the Central Asian Republics, Tajikistan for example, because a number of groups are supposed to have gone away to Tajikistan just for safety. And supplies could come from there towards the Kabul government. So to prevent both these, they are operating on the borders. So the border towns have been occupied and they are not allowing any transfer of goods or people from the Central Asian Republics to Afghanistan. And surprisingly, they are also holding the two entry points from Pakistan and there apparently the Pakistani groups, some Mujahideen kind of groups are slowly filtering into Afghanistan. Then there is an opening near China and that border has also been protected. So it's a kind of Chakra view movement that they encircle the Kabul government and the Stakhan. What else is happening? India has not had a major role in Afghan negotiations. Very late in the day, once we knew that the Americans were definitely withdrawing and the Taliban is likely to come to power, we opened some tentative discussions with Taliban. And also we hear that we have had some discussions with Pakistan also. But last few days, the peacemaker in the region has become India, particularly our external affairs minister, Mr. Jay Shankar. He has been on a mission, almost a frantic mission moving around in the region to find out if there is any possibility of establishing peace. And the repeated hope he expresses is that Afghanistan's future should not be its past. So while everybody else thinks that history will repeat itself in Afghanistan in the sense that like the Soviet Union left, then Taliban came to power, then the United States came and ousted Taliban, now the United States has left, so Taliban comes to power. That is the presumption everywhere. But is there another alternative is what Mr. Jay Shankar is exploring? And that's why I'm calling this episode as one on Indian initiatives. As I said earlier, India was not a direct party in these negotiations, even from the beginning, even the United States started this discussion on Afghanistan many years ago. Even at that time, India was never invited on the ground that we had no common border with Afghanistan. We had the Pakistan occupation it has, but at the moment de facto there is no border and Pakistan insisted that therefore India should not be a direct party in those negotiations. But we are very much part of the building of the Afghan government. So with the Americans support militarily, India did not intervene militarily, but we did get ourselves involved in humanitarian activities. We had a lot of sympathy for what India was doing. We lost a diplomat, we lost some soldiers, but in spite of all that we persisted. Because Americans did not appreciate it very much because President Trump once said, oh, what are Indians doing in Afghanistan? Simply building some libraries or something. And he wanted India to be involved militarily in Afghanistan, which of course we are not willing to do. We have refrain from doing so under different circumstances. The Americans would have welcomed us, the Soviets would have welcomed us, but we refrain from doing so. We kept saying that what we need is an Afghanistan free of foreign forces and the government in Kabul, which is independent, which is inclusive, which is Afghan-owned and Afghan-oriented government. So in this situation now, what are the possibilities? Mr. Jaishankar went first to Iran, where he mentioned that the consensus that existed between Iran and India and partly Soviet Union in the 90s is still valid. But this did not create any response. How is that valid today? It was Soviet Union occupying and we were trying to help out a process of reconciliation in Afghanistan. And that is not the situation now. The Soviet Union had not left. They had stayed on and installed another government and we were working together to consparenter it. But now the situation is the United States has left without leaving any support or supplies to this government to survive. Many in United States feel that they owed it to Mr. Ghani to support him for some time. But as far as we know, there is no indication that the United States is going to continue to support Mr. Ghani's existence either militarily or financially. Even if they have done that, they have not understood. But Mr. Ghani is very confident. He says we will continue the discussions in Doha. There have been some understanding things on this withdrawal, like that Taliban will not engage all the militants and Al-Qaeda and others and join together against the government. And they will probably respect the authority or the central government for some time at least etc. This is the kind of understanding we hear that we made in Afghanistan. But nobody is talking about that. So Mr. Ghani is saying that we are going to talk. In Doha, continue to talk with Taliban and find a solution. And meanwhile, he expects the United States to support him. But the United States has not given any such indication. The special environment of the American Special Envoy in Afghanistan has only made one promise. He said that unless the new government is a popular government, popularly supported by government, government of all people, we will not recognize it. That is not much of a threat because the Taliban government has existed for many years in the past without the support of the recognition of the United States. There are only one or two countries who have recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan. So that is not a big threat. Russia, where Mr. Gashankar went, made some noises about the need for avoidance of terrorism and also need for peace. But they are not willing even to criticize Pakistan for what it is. The only person who is criticizing Pakistan is Mr. Ghani himself, who says that Pakistan has been allowing Mujahideen forces to enter into Afghanistan in the recent period. So he does not expect his government to form and he believes that some other process could be set in. Russia has condemned the United States for withdrawing, exactly what they did. They condemned withdrawal and saying that it was a mission failed. And the only offer that the United States is making is that if the new government is not fully representational, there will be no recognition. The situation has inevitably created some instability in Central Asian Republics. Those countries are very concerned. But as it happened, Mr. Gashankar attended two conferences, not specifically addressing Afghanistan, but generally in the context of what is happening in Afghanistan is extremely significant. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization had held a meeting of its grouping. It has very interesting composition, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and four Central Asian countries. And the fact that the meeting was held, not specifically for Afghanistan, but still they came out with a declaration or a statement which emphasized the need to avoid terrorism, avoid conflict and peaceful solution. Again, there is no action. Nothing addressed to Pakistan to do something about it. Nothing addressed to the United States to do something about it. And therefore, this is kind of a biased declaration. It has the support of our government and Mr. Gashankar made the right statements there, explaining the situation very well. Then there was in Vashkent another meeting with more or less the same people, Pakistan was there, India was there. This was all about connectivity in Central Asia. Again, another theme, but there can be no connectivity in Central Asia if Taliban is going to take over Kabul. So they urge that the Taliban should hold peace talks, Taliban should not support terrorist organizations. And Central Asia there should be peace. And talking about connectivity itself, Mr. Gashankar spoke about the economic viability being very important for connectivity and also financial responsibility.  But these are all in the expectation that there will be some kind of a normal scene of Afghanistan. But all military observers stay with the same kind of conviction that all this is not going to work. So what is India trying to do? India is trying to show to the world that peace in this region is very important. And we should not allow the past of Afghanistan to prevail in the sense that it should not be Taliban government all over again with all the implications. In fact, President Bush Jr., who started the war in 2001, criticized President Biden for withdrawing from Afghanistan. And he said, you are doing a great injustice to the people of Afghanistan because the Taliban government, which will come to power, will be definitely anti-people, people of Afghanistan themselves. And he even said that it would be the women in Afghanistan who are going to suffer. There will be no gender equality, there will be persecution of women, etc. In the middle of all this, there has been a negative development, which must have surprised Mr. Jay Shankar in India, is that a new quad has been announced. We know about the quad US, India, Australia, and Japan. But out of the blue has come a new quad. It is a quad only in the sense it has four countries. And these are US, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. So what is the logic of this? Which Pakistan, which Afghanistan, which kind of quad is it? What is its purpose? If China is accusing India, Australia, Japan, and the United States for creating a NATO in Asia, what is the meaning of this new quad? Who is it against? Who is it for? The Americans have not explained it for you, but they are talking about a kind of economic grouping which can take care of the situation in Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics. So to which nobody can object when there it goes. So these are the different strands we find at the moment. And nobody knows how long this will go on. But the most significant thing as far as I can say is the softness that Taliban is showing towards the Chinese. This is new because in the last occasion the Chinese were not involved. But this time the Chinese are much more aggressive and they have this Belt and Road Initiative which would very much fit in with the situation which is developing. So that waging through the other countries, through Pakistan, through Afghanistan, to Tajikistan, and then create a kind of sphere of influence for China. There are two theories. One is China will just take over as it were through Pakistan. But China will not directly take over the country. But using Pakistan dominates the situation and the Taliban will run the government and they will be able to influence their diet. And this is a new danger because Pakistan and Taliban together self is very anti-Indian. We have known that. Even this time they have said that they will set fire to all the facilities that India had built for Afghanistan. At the same time, they have told the Chinese that the Chinese will be free to come and help us in whatever way they want and we will reassure your security. So China, Taliban, Afghanistan, Taliban, Pakistan will likely to be the eventual situation in that. So China is just waiting in the wings and they are interacting with various countries. But China has no interest as they said to put the boot on the ground and they will not. Will China be the next empire to fail in Afghanistan? What is the true reason that Afghanistan is the grave of many empires? So we had the Soviet Union. The pattern was very clear. Soviet Union entered Afghanistan at a time when the intense situation was quite bad and as a neighbouring country, they felt responsible to take charge and so they went in and occupied. And at that time, one of the very few countries, maybe the only country outside the Soviet Empire and Soviet alliance. So India was the only country which supported the Soviet Union because Mrs. Gandhi had division to know that if Afghanistan is left alone without solid support from some country, some neighbouring country, it will certainly go to the dogs. And therefore we decided to support the Soviet Union and our relations with the United States deteriorated very much. We had very serious bilateral problems with them and they kept asking us, why are you not asking Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan? We kept on saying foreign countries should not occupy other countries etc. But we never opposed the Soviet action. And even when the Soviets started withdrawing and when they installed the Najibullah government, we supported them in whatever way we can. The United Nations was involved. The United Nations envoy was playing a role in making sure that Najibullah is not overthrown or killed but it happened. And even the UN troops were in the danger of being attacked by the Taliban. India was willing to take on Najibullah as a refugee in India but even that was considered inappropriate. And Mr. Narsimov decided that his family was already here but he would not be allowed to come in. And then Najibullah of course was killed in this garden. And of course the Soviet Union completely left and then the Taliban came in full force. And then we know the story of how terrorism developed, terrorism directed against the United States, Osama bin Laden, the bombing of 9-11 etc. Till then what happened was that the United States never felt that the terrorism threatening the world would come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia. They kept saying that this India is saying this simply to blame Pakistan for what is happening. So they thought that terrorism was on the other side in the Middle East, the Palestinians who were the terrorists. But the 9-11 proved that it was the terrorism that affected the United States came from this area. And President Bush started off his war on terrorism and he overthrew the Taliban very fast. But it cannot really control the whole region. And a point came when President Obama himself and after that President Trump and President Biden felt that they should withdraw and they withdrew rather dishonorably. Even before the date of the announcement came they withdrew. And like the Soviets, the Americans also became a disaster as far as Afghanistan is concerned. So the situation is grave and India suffers. You see that there is a stable government in Afghanistan that does not have many papers. We do not know what each one wants to do but clearly there is no action plan even after Mr Jay Shankar's meeting with all possible people involved. We probably are talking to Pakistan also. So the situation is totally uncertain. But we must take credit that India has made an effort. But whether we made an effort earlier, whether our taking this effort at this time will help us, all these we do not know. If the anti-Indian feeling among the Taliban is still very strong as it appears to be, a dam was bombed by India and they are talking about destroying all the Indian institutions. But what Mr Jay Shankar is saying is a lot of sense that today's Afghanistan is not the Afghanistan of 1996. It should be given, we should be fair to the future generations of Afghanistan. But when we say all this, the whole world knows what we want. We do not want a Taliban dominated government further dominated by the Pakistanis and then by the Chinese. So that would be disaster number one. And this is something which is known to the world. So they are polite to us. They recognize what we are saying is right. And it is all very appropriate words that ministers has used, no aggressive statements, but simply saying that we need cooperation in this area. And particularly at this context of the COVID-19 as well as Chinese aggression in Ladakh. All these are complicated matters and therefore we need peace and so we are willing to work with whether it is Iran. Iran has now good relations with China. Russia is also more Indian towards China. So Russia is a candidate for supporting us or supporting peace. Iran is one of them and the United States of course does not want to get involved, but might play a helpful role by not recognizing the Taliban government. So whether Mr. Yashankar's initiatives or India's initiative in this regard will be a success or not is an open question. But most people believe that this won't have much of an impact because the lines are already drawn and it may be difficult to make any country intervene in a particular way. But the option of the Shanghai Corporation Organization, the conference in Tashkent on connectivity, these are all things which show the imperative need for peace. But unfortunately the people of Afghanistan were divided into tribes in any case. They seem to have supported the Taliban and even if the Taliban goes slow, eventually they will take the government. So Indian initiatives certainly will be welcomed by the world, but will indeed be a success or not will not. The possibility is that we may have to deal with Taliban, we'll have to deal with Pakistan and deal with China also and that's a huge responsibility that India has. But India will, India cannot behave any differently and they always be pleading and arguing for peace, arguing for development, arguing for economic cooperation. So we have considerable influence in the Central Asian region, Central Asian countries and we can probably get some help from them, but otherwise we need to see how the situation develops. So that's what I wanted to say about the Indian initiatives. These are significant, this may have an impact, but not to the extent that not as fast as we would expect. So at least we have heard it for trying something which is in the interest of Africa. Thank you very much. Yes, Pakistan is intruded in the part and this is very surprising. Americans agreeing to a quad with Pakistan in it and Afghanistan in it. So this has surprised everybody that Pakistan has been intruded. Well, first of all, they could have remained without been drawing without a proper agreement. The Doha agreement should have been properly negotiated. So the United States could have waited, that's one option. Second option if they wanted to leave, they could have established some system like the Soviets did in the case of Najibullah, have some kind of arrangement for the Kabul government to continue with financial and some military support. So that also they could have done. They have done none of those and they are simply offering that they will not recognize the Taliban government unless it is lawfully established. Well, who is betraying whom? They are not betraying Afghanistan, they are trying to take over Afghanistan and run it away, they want it. So and there is considerable support for Pakistan. Many people don't think that even the Durand line is a border.  Such a question has also been also been raised. The principle of non-alignment is not pulling us back from any of these adjustments or instruments necessary. As long as we are doing it under our own wisdom, non-alignment is not violated in any way like we aligned ourselves in the Soviet Union at one point. So if we work with the United States in this particular context, nobody will accuse you of giving up non-alignment. But the important thing is in this changing environment, whether it will be wise for us to completely identify ourselves with the United States. Interact with the Taliban already happened. Now the Quad has happened and it is a reality and everybody knows that India is on the side of the United States. There's no question about that. But what we are doing, trying to do is to not provoke a confrontation with China because we are the only country with a long border, a land border with China and all these countries. So on that we are being very careful. In fact, you suggested that we could go with the United States. There are some people who are suggesting why not go with China? Yes, go and make friends with China and work out an arrangement. There we know the Chinese will accept you provided you are willing to accept a secondary position in Asia, which I don't think India is willing to do. That is really the question. There is no equal relationship as far as China is concerned with India. They think that they have defeated India and India must accept that position and become some kind of a supplicant to China and that is all that they will accept and they will not accept a situation where the two countries are equal. But in any case, we are not equal. China is five times bigger than India in terms of economic strength, technology, finance, everything. So what we have is only the two cultural giants of Asia and we are equal. And that was true in 1962. They were not very superior to us, but they still defeated us. So there is some inevitability of adversarial relationship with China, which is difficult to demolish in my view. So we will have to be somewhere be non-aligned between US and China and maybe non-aligned between US, China and Russia. All these are options are there where we retain our identity and retain our sovereign power but may not be able to influence events entirely in our direction. And that's what diplomacy is all about. They could just go and join somebody and fight and win and come back and join somebody. That is not diplomacy. So here there's a situation which we have to use according to our best lights and that's what we are doing now. If we fail, if we fail, then we allow other options. So all these options are open and all these options were open for the last 70 years. So we have not given up the Dalai Lama, definitely not. And we have repeatedly said that the Lama will have to find his own successor, it should be a Tibetan leader and the Chinese must keep off and all those things we have already said. But at the same time we don't want to play the China card as we are often told to do because that will be a point of no return. Even the Dalai Lama himself did not want India to have a confrontation with China. He was willing to talk to the Chinese but he did not insist that India should talk to the Chinese. Taiwan is an option, Hong Kong is an option but all these are games in which we are not normally involved because we have not been an expansionist power and we deal with our neighbors with respect and then of course with strength if it is required to be. But we are not a superpower which goes about fixing Taiwan or fixing Hong Kong that kind of ambition we don't have. As long as we they leave us to have an independent and peaceful life, India will be quite happy and whatever we will do otherwise it would be only for our own sake of our own peace and development. These options are there but whether we will exercise in one way or the other we don't know. But if we are looking at India's history we will find that we will not do anything such drastic things. We will abide by the international law, abide by the claims etc. So we are not necessarily interfered in these matters and that is because of our own interest in remaining independent. So we are in troubled waters but I wrote somewhere that Afghanistan is the last flank like Abhimanyu's Patma view. So that's also close. Now what do we do? So which means we may have to think of, so when Mr. Jayashankar I know he has come back when he comes back I'm sure he'll sit down with the Prime Minister and see what our options are. You know the SEO now that the Chinese have taken it over as it assumes some importance. But this was a group of former Soviet Socialist Republics that is how the SEO originally was formed. But now India is there, Pakistan is there and all that and it has become a mix of many things. But the Chinese have completely taken charge of it. Whatever the SEO does will be done on the basis of the Chinese. So the republics or these countries, circulation countries have their own agenda, their own relationship with each other. So that our foreign minister went to Georgia. People raised questions as to why Georgia now because Georgia is wanting to join the European Union. So we are giving a signal to Russia that we can also support Georgia to go to the European Union. So such options we sometimes exercise, but certainly not in any manner which should affect their sovereignty. So they may have their own politics as Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, etc. And they may be playing in different forms which we do not know. Just I do not know where exactly the lines are drawn among that. Apart from peace talks, what India can do? Well, that's what I was discussing. Not many things we can do. So we are trying to do our best to save the situation in the interest of not only of India, but also of the region. There's nothing else we can do. We cannot go and fight in Afghanistan. That's out of the question. Then what more can we do except to push these countries forward? And get them to act in a rational manner, Pakistan and China and Taliban themselves. But they are now in a winning mood and therefore they are likely to not listen to such advice. So only if they lose for some reason, then they might look around for support. But at the moment, Pakistan has no reason to hold their horses and try and see something can be done in their Pakistan relations. But their objective is completely Jammu and Kashmir. And this will be a godsend opportunity for them to direct the Taliban into Jammu and Kashmir. So that is their prime, what they call the core issue. And they can get some satisfaction on the core issue. And then that will be a matter of India's territorial integrity and so on. So thank you very much, everyone. We'll meet again next week. Thank you.


We have a program announcement. The all the muscle memory and brain memory. Oh, no, breaking news. They have a booze cruise.  But in each of the. Hold on, Sarah T. W. Says Tom is riding that breaking news button hard. Yeah. From our chat room. Now back to you now. Breaking news. Make sure you don't overheat that button. It might fail on you right when you need it. Yeah. Expect it the most. Roger Chang reports that the button might. Okay, trigger happy man. Calm down.  I have looked under many hoods under many cars and I have not seen a single horse. Me either. I feel cheated. That's why I'm like, what? What's with the horse? Tom technology is allowed us to shrink them so they fit inside. So they're what you're saying. They're so small that the human eye cannot see them. Are they tiny horses? They're tiny. That's it. And they're just running really fast. And they gas on the tiny. Yeah. They also give you a lot of gas. Especially if you're in a pinto. I've been around enough horses to know what comes up. Good day internet. Good day internet. Day internet. Roger Chang will be joining us shortly. And if I sound a little different or or look a little different, it's because I'm wearing a Zoe brings bacon made crocheted balaclava in the shape of an among us head. Zoe, I am impressed.  And let me tell you, Zoe, when it's not 70 degrees out, this is going to be great, but it's kind of hot though. It works. Okay, let's give this a shot. This is great for the audio listeners, but it's fun for us. So just, you know, yeah. Oh my gosh, has a Otis on his back. You would say, wow, that dog's big. That dog looks big.   Like he's about to give you a big about the pounce. The FedEx driver came up our driveway the other day. And this is what Otis did. Yeah, same deal. I stream more from here. If I can, I prefer to stream PC games here. If I can figure out a way sometimes I just emulate it off or, you know, run it through steam link or something because I would rather do it here. Yeah. And it performs great. I don't know what happened. I'm just saying I now I'm nervous because they're going to go and the new Apple pencil is made of cat poo. And it doesn't work at all. You know, they're going to something's going to go bad. I just feel it. Wow. You don't say, yeah, it's like I fix it is like alert everyone. We've opened it up and there's nothing but cat poo inside. Yeah. Yeah, that's really weird. Not an Apple pencil at all. No.


on him, subhanahu wa ta'ala, for he is al-jami' and the purpose of the day of Jumu'a is that my heart, your heart, our hearts find a state of Jammu'a, find a state of gatheredness and focus experientially on Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. And this gatheredness, hafidukum Allah, this gatheredness and focus on Allah experientially with my heart and mind and emotions, this gatheredness is even more important in the world in which I live, in the world in which we live. As you know, we live in a world or we live in an age of increasing doubt, increasing shakr. And this doubt, the skepticism, the cynicism, pervades even the concept of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's existence. Does the divine exist? I say I exist, but I doubt whether he, subhanahu wa ta'ala, exists. And flowing from this doubt in the existence of the divine are many practical consequences of those consequences, of those dire consequences is that the names and attributes of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, which are the source of our values and the source of our akhlaq, those names and attributes are negated with the negation of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah ta'ala is al-kareem, and so in a world that does not make Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the center of its focus, where is the attribute of generosity? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is al-adil, the just. In a world that doesn't have Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, where is the realization of justice? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is a shakr, the grateful subhanahu wa ta'ala. In a world without Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, where is the concept and the practical manifestations of being grateful? Where is beauty if we understand beauty and we must as Muslims understand beauty and jamaal as beautiful akhlaq and beautiful values? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala your Lord is Hayyi. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has at His divine infinite level the attribute of Hayyi. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is in that divine sense, infinite sense without any anthropomorphic insinuation. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has the attribute of Hayyi and we know the attribute of Hayyi to be modesty, to be bashfulness, to be conscientiousness, to be spiritual sensitivity. And he, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, reminds us that Allah has this attribute and therefore I, we must have this beautiful attribute at my human level, at the level of my human potential. And thus Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam teaches us that every faith, every system of belief has its own defining feature, its own defining characteristic trait. Inna li kulli din, he said, with that emphasis, inna li kulli dinin khuluqan, every din, every way of life, every philosophy, every ideology, every religion, if we use that word, has its own defining feature. But this deans defining feature, wa khuluqul Islam, this deans defining khuluq is Hayyi, is modesty, is bashfulness, is spiritual sensitivity. Therefore, hafidhukumullah, as a Muslim, as a mature and educated Muslim, I must know that the most important feature or characteristic or value that must define me as a Muslim, is the khuluq of Hayyi, the most important feature, because the text is unequivocal in that regard, second to none, the value of Hayyi. And then that becomes, by this text, the standard by which I judge my Islam. That becomes the standard by which I measure the value, the quality of me being a Muslim. And that's the value and standard not only at the individual level, but at the collective level by which we measure our society, our community, our collective, indeed our civilization, because the text is very powerful and very clear in its explicit and implicit meanings from him, sallallahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sahbiosallam. And that is why, that is why in Arabic, Hayyi is similar to Hayyi, Hayyi is life, is life, and Hayyi is modesty. And that similarity is meant to teach me that indeed without Hayyi, there is no Hayyi. Without Hayyi, there's no true spiritual life. Indeed without Hayyi, there is no true even material life, because everything that is a khuluq in our deen, it is because it is beneficial. It serves a welfare for the human being, both materially and spiritually. So a society without bereft or having a very stunted sense of Hayyi is not a society that realizes the fullness and the deepness and depth of what it's meant to live in its Hayah. Istahya, yestahi in Arabic means to give Hayah, but it also means to resuscitate, to bring back to life. Again, this connection, this connection, powerful link between life and between the value and the khuluq of Hayyi. He said, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, inna al hayaa wal iman qurina jami'an, that truly Hayaa and iman and faith itself, qurina are tied together, are bound together, idha rufi'a ahaduhuma, rufi'a al-akhar. If one of them is removed, the other will be removed. If one of them is lost, the other will be lost. And so now in the first text, very powerfully, he sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sahb sallam, he ties Hayaa to Islam. Now he ties sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sahb sallam, he ties Hayaa to iman itself. And in a way that indicates a causal, reciprocal relationship with one another, that if my Hayaa falls low, so does my iman. If my iman falls and ebz, so will my Hayaa. And therefore anything that raises my iman must raise, if it truly raises my iman, must raise my Hayaa. And anything that genuinely, truly raises my conscientiousness and sensitivity and spiritual modesty is going to raise and elevate and evolve my iman in Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. And that is why he said, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, all of Hayaa. And he used an emphasis, all of Hayaa, Hayaa in general. And then he said, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, kulluhu to emphasize it, kulluhu khair. All the manifestations of Hayaa are khair, are good. In a world hafidakumullah in which the value of Hayaa has been depleted to the point of extinction. Indeed, the value itself has become practically speaking and even philosophically valueless. The way in which we talk, the way in which, yes, we dress, the way in which I behave, the way in which I interact, the way in which I conceive of my orientation spiritually, before even biologically, all of these aspects of life must spring from the fountain of Hayaa. Because Hayaa is not only, as you know, the way I dress, it's the way I speak, it's the way I walk, it's the way I look, it's the way I hear, it's what I think about, it's the way I feel, it's the way I interact with my mother and father, it's the way I interact with my teachers, it's the way I run the affairs of the masjid, it's the way I'm an activist in the field of advocacy and politics. It informs what I do when I'm alone and no one is watching, it informs what I do when I'm working in the social realm, in the social dimension. Hayaa, because it has to do with the quality of Hayaa spiritually, as well as materially, Hayaa informs every aspect of my daily mundane secular and sacred living, because Hayaa has many dimensions. The first dimension of Hayaa is my Hayaa with Allah subhanu wa ta'ala. There's a vertical relationship between me and Allah subhanu wa ta'ala, if you like, and in that vertical relationship Hayaa with Allah means Hayaa with His commands, Hayaa with His prohibitions, Hayaa with what He loves, Hayaa that He is watching me at every moment, at every level, dimension of my existence subhanu wa ta'ala. He is arraqib, watching, aware, Hayaa from that, to have the divine gaze, the infinite divine gaze upon my mind, my thoughts, my emotions, my feelings, my words, my deeds, Hayaa from Allah subhanu wa ta'ala, and then horizontal in my relational, interactional, transactional relationships to have Hayaa. And we know that in the world in which we live, there is an active quest on the part of some to undo Hayaa, to undo Hayaa. And you and me are like in one way living in a pot. I remembered when I was young this example, powerful example given by one of our teachers, the experiment of a frog who was dropped into a boiling pot of water. And the moment the frog touched the water, he jumped out. And then he was placed in lukewarm water and slowly the water was heated. Degree by degree, until the frog boiled to death. So we are living in a context, in an environment The virtue of time, by time passing, the entropic nature of time, the entropic nature of time, in which by the passage of time, it brings disorder naturally, as Allah created it to be. So as we are living in time and in an environment not only that is neutral, but that in many ways is hostile to the idea of Hayaa, I will change. Day by day, moment by moment, I will change. If I'm not aware of the milieu in which I live, if I'm not aware that if I don't make an active effort to reorder spiritually, to reorder my inner spiritual ecosystem, I will change. And after days, months, years, I will lose that innate beautiful innocence. And I will accept, and I will believe, and I will behave in ways that I would not even know show a deep void and lack of Hayaa. How do we change? How do our children change? How do generations change? They don't change overnight. They change step by step by step. They change gradually. And therefore, I must, as a Muslim, I must be reordering my spiritual environment aware of the changes happening in my mind, in my emotions, in my heart, connecting to Allah keeping my consciousness and awareness of Allah, focusing in the ibadat, being in the dhikr of Allah, being in dua of Allah, being in muraqabah, in vigilance of the changes in my akhlaat inside. If I don't do that, I will be changing. And it will not be a positive change. And therefore, Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam tells us, al-maru'ala dini khaleelihi, that I will be on the faith, the deen of my friend. Not only my friend in the physical environment, my friend in the virtual environment, in the digital environment of the most toxic and poisonous and harmful means that we infect ourselves with and allow our young hearts to be infected by in their loss of Hayaa is unfiltered access and availability to the digital world and the digital world for me as an adult and of course for the more vulnerable amongst our minds and hearts is very damaging to my their our Hayaa. So is it no wonder, is it no wonder that after access hours and years of access we surprise ourselves by what we do and what we are willing to allow and even what emotionally we are not sensitive to anymore. Though I may be intellectually, intellectually at least that Alhamdulillah intellectually disagreeing with X and Y, but emotionally I have already been conquered. Emotionally the battle has already been lost emotionally and then it's only a matter of time intellectually in which I change and change and change. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us of those who listen and follow the best of what they hear. Khidriha of the texts describing his Hayaa sallallahu alaihi wasallam of the beautiful texts that speak of who he was, the realities of who he was sallallahu alaihi wasallam. His Hayaa is described as that of a maiden unmarried innocent young girl who at that point did not know the world of men living in the private innermost quarters of her home sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wasallam. That was his Hayaa. A girl, a young innocent maiden girl unmarried doesn't know about the world of men and lives in the innermost confines of her home. That was the purity of his Hayaa sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wasallam and with that with that value he was a Rasul, he was a Nabi, with that he was a hakim, he was a judge, he was a Musharri, he was a legislator, he was a Qaid, he was the general of the army, with that he was a Muallim, he taught, with that he was a Nasih and he gave counsel and advice, with that he was who he was sallallahu alaihi wa sallam at every level of his interaction and action in life who says it can't be done, who says one can't have the purity of that value, the purity of that Hayaa and live a life that's modeled, that's inspired by that Muhammadan Hayaa who says that's proof that it can't be done and that's proof not only that it can't be done but that it must be done in order for me to realize my sa'ada, my happiness in dunya and in akhira. In conclusion Hafidah, I remind myself in you not to become a statistic, not to become another statistic of those who have abandoned and who have lost their Hayaa and not to become a statistic of those who because they have done that do not convey that to the next generation of young minds and young hearts. I remind myself in you to be mindful and to be cautious and vigilant about the sohbah, the fellowship, companionship that we keep both in the real world and even more importantly in the virtual world. Number two, I remind myself in you to implore Allah subhanu ta'ala with abundant sincere regular consistent dua that he returns to me what is insha'Allah dormant and a potential within me the intrinsic human fitra to have Hayaa and I advise myself and you to use the institution of Salah as a means by which to develop that Hayaa that five times a day to make my Salah or Salah of Hayaa with Allah subhanu ta'ala and to have that in my mind and heart as I pray who am I standing before what does it mean what is accessible of me at every level to Allah subhanu ta'ala and through Salah like that quality Salah focused Salah heart felt Salah may Allah subhanu ta'ala gradually instill and re-instill in me that innate beautiful innocent disposition of Hayaa from him because he is al-Hayee and so from him to me to have that khuluq and then to express it in my life. Hafidah cum Allah the I feel Hayaa to say this so forgive me the sohbah the institution I'm a part of has a table outside if you would like to see the five-year program that we will be launching in October and we also I believe the seminary has a program tonight about developing yakin by connecting with Allah subhanu ta'ala and through that some of the proofs though we don't need proofs but some of them nonetheless spiritual and rational of Allah subhanu ta'ala's existence Allahumma izal islamah wal muslimin Allahumma izal islamah wal muslimin Allahumma nsur man nasraddin wa jalla minhum ma'uhum wa khzul man khadal ad-din wa la tajalla minhum wa la tajalla ma'uhum Allahumma jaalna hadin mahdiin la dalin wa la mudillin la mughirin wa la mubaddilin Allahumma shri marzana warham mutana wa amin rawatina wastur auratina wa roddna ilayka raddan jameela Allahumma hadina li'ahsanil akhlaq la yahdi li'ahsaniha illa ent wa srif anna sayyihah la yasrif wa anna sayyihah illa ent rabbana aatina fi dunya hasana wa fil aakhir wa tihasana wa qini aathab al-nar aqim al-salah inna al-salata kanat aal al-muminina kitab al-mukuta


All right, we've got a drive-in freezer here that's not holding temp Problem is it's not hitting zero fluctuating around six to ten area and then over in this area here We've got a another one up there So Feels a little colder over here I have a feeling this one here might be doing a little bit better job Still not quite cutting it so Looks like our line set goes up over And out that side of the wall so I'm going to go out there and see what's going on Everything appears to be running just not getting down to temperature. So we got one two three Say these ones here Yeah, one south evap freezer One north one so north South And that's a doc evap. So yeah, it's these two here one's running The other is not that's not good. This one only holds about 481 pounds We're not in a deep frost What we got going on here Little pressure switch that ain't good. The other one that's running actually has what looks to be It's got a solid cyclist It's on this one. I think we basically just got one that's struggling To keep up As you're gonna cross it there. We are open So now to find out why do we have a pressure switch that's bad or do we have Something else going on. Oh, we'll get in there. See if we can gauge onto that somewhere We'll find a spot to even get on it Yeah, it goes up goes down comes over. Yeah, there we go. You just gotta look long enough Please be high Be a nice easy one for once No, sir Not Okay Is our solenoid calling so it almost makes me think Pressure switch is doing its job Hopefully We're pumped down checking our liquid side We do have Pressure our solenoid. I don't believe is calling because this thing's locked itself out There's solenoid calling you can see it right here according to this here Yeah in four which is your car coming out Comes out goes the thermal block Goes through the thermostat goes to a dummy terminal comes out There's a liquid line solenoid back up through a pump down switch back over here to r1, which is a relay Um, I've got 200 and some odd volts there on my in and four so it's coming out of the clock So it sounds to me if I could find five and six there You might find the thermostat and that's going to be Probably where our problem is going to be at The one that was missing there the dummy terminal I'm assuming is this one here because there's nothing on five So check between there In six I have 214 volts so we need to go inside and check uh See if that's the case it seems like the thermostat. It's not calling All right, so it was open And all I had to do is turn it down a little bit It was right at zero So we're gonna wait and see what what the actual temperature is in here. Is it a problem of calibration? Or is it an issue with The thermostat just being defective Looks like it's fairly newer, but then again, it's not getting a whole lot of use when it's you know Probably 20 some put up here in the here all the seven degrees And far as getting it to come on I had to go to negative five I made sure this isn't Pinned in between there because I can twist that if it gets too Too tighter if it's uneven which it's inside the the frame there. It shouldn't have done it. So At this point, I am going to say we need to replace thermostat. All right, so she's out here running Which is a beautiful sign It's that really beautiful sign 20 of 20 pounds suction Into a pump down Okay, we just got it changed. So let's Pick this back on see what happens Deep frost But we get make sure she comes down shuts down and there she goes interlock 43 smackers 37 Problem with this one was the only one unit was pretty much calling And I mean it was getting it down there, but it wasn't where it needed to be at It was off like 12 degrees. We'll watch it for this a little bit and we'll wrap this thing up You can tell this has been running a long cycle, but to the peak inside of it There ain't nothing else weird in here. I don't want to skip it my luck Something weird going on. I don't know about All right guys like video, please like and subscribe Until next time we'll catch you on the next one