Good evening aspirants. Welcome to the Hindi News Analysis brought to you by Shankar Aise Academy. I have an announcement for you. The prelims test series of Shankar Aise Academy, which is the pre-storming test series, is starting this month, 12th of September. And the first test will be on 19th of September. Note that there will be total number of 66 tests. It will include GS papers, CSAT along with 3 mock tests. And this batch 1 of pre-storming starting this month is available in offline mode on the schedule dates from 2pm to 4pm. It will be followed by live discussion on the same day. But don't worry, those students who have missed the offline test can take the test in the online mode after 2 days. And for this, recorded discussion will be provided. And this facility of online mode test is available till the Shankar Aise Academy's prelims mock test for 2023 exam. So don't miss this opportunity. We are here to aid you in your preparation for the prelims 2023 examination. Let us come to the Hindi News Analysis. Today we will be covering the Hindi News articles taken from yesterday and today. And note that today there is no Hindi News edition. So I have taken articles from the website of the Hindu. These are the articles which I have taken. And the quiz question for today's discussion will be posted as a poll along with this video. So watch the discussions carefully and try to attend the poll also. So let us start our discussion now. So today we are going to start our news article discussion with this news article that has been taken from yesterday's newspaper. So the news is a team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Science has developed and tested a novel virus like particle. Here you have to focus on the term virus like particle in short VLP. The news is now the researchers are hoping to develop this virus like particle into a vaccine candidate. Now to understand why we need to know what is this virus like particle. See these are molecules that mimic viruses but they are not infectious and these are particles of nanoscale size. So this VLP which is a small particle it contains certain proteins from the outer coat of a virus. Here the point to note is they do not contain any genetic material from the virus but it behaves like the virus. Okay now since there is no genetic material from the original virus this VLP also cannot cause an infection. Remember this fact it doesn't contain a genetic material from the original virus and it cannot cause infection even though it mimics the virus. Actually the interest in these new VLPs was largely inspired by the successful development and introduction of two VLPs. The first VLP was based on the hepatitis B virus surface antigen. Here this was used to develop a commercial vaccine against hepatitis B. The second one was the human papillomavirus capsid protein L1. This VLP was used to develop a commercial vaccine against HPV induced cervical cancer. Now let us know why there was a need for such a VLP. First of all it is required for safely studying any virus. Take SARS-CoV-2 virus for example. See if you want to know the effect of mutations of SARS-CoV-2 then BSL-3 facility is required. What is BSL-3 facility? It is the biosafety level 3 which is applicable to clinical diagnostic teaching research and production facilities. In BSL-3 work is performed with agents that may cause serious or potentially lethal disease through inhalation and it may contaminate the environment. And we know that SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19 disease is quite lethal. So if you want to study that then BSL-3 facility is needed. Now in case we have a VLP that is a virus like particle based on SARS-CoV-2 then in that instance there is no need for BSL-3 facility because it will not cause any infection. So this is the first need. The second need is the VLPs are used for making vaccines. It is mainly because they do not possess the genetic material of the original virus. So they cannot proliferate or multiply inside the cell which they enter. Now because of these two needs, VLPs are being developed and currently it is used in many other instances also. For example they are used as carriers for delivery of biomaterials and nanomaterials such as drugs and vaccines. About vaccines we saw already. It is also used for delivery of drugs because it is a nanostructured particle. Other than this, VLPs are also used in the treatment of many hereditary and aqua genetic disorders. Here they are used in different gene therapy tools to treat these disorders. And then as we already saw it is used for studying the viruses. In a similar instance only the scientists from Indian Institute of Science they wanted to study about the mutations and the ability to cause infections in the coronavirus. So they used a VLP of coronavirus. Now here don't forget that I said it can be used as a vaccine. This is not only because it do not possess a genetic material. It is also because when they are introduced into the body it will trigger an immune response. So here the person will not experience any symptoms of the virus to which they are being vaccinated against. So these are the common benefits or uses of VLPs. Now before seeing the news you should also know that there are certain key challenges associated with VLPs. The first one is lower stability but this can be resolved in future with the help of further research into this area. And the second issue is the difficulty in downstream processing. See downstream process refers to the recovery and the purification of virus to produce the VLPs. Currently there is difficulty in this process. This can also be resolved in the future with the use of advanced technologies. Other than this VLPs include high production costs also and they are also sensitive to the environment. So these are certain challenges associated with using VLPs. So with these basic information about VLP let us understand what the news article says. See for the COVID-19 virus which is the SARS-CoV-2 virus a VLP was artificially synthesized with all the four structural proteins of RCOV-2. Remember that SARS-CoV-2 has four important structural proteins. See these structural proteins are the ones which help in the viral genome production, replication, attachment to the receptor and it also promotes the viruses entry into the host organism and helps it to proliferate and thereby spreading the infection. So these structural proteins are important for the viruses. Now coming to the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2 it has four structural proteins. They are spike protein, nucleocapsid proteins, envelope proteins and membrane proteins. Now among these the envelope proteins and membrane proteins which are called E proteins and M proteins. These form the viral envelope and then the nucleocapsid proteins which is the N protein it binds to the viruses RNA genome and then the S protein which is a spike protein it binds to the human receptors. Now the VLP which was used using the SARS-CoV-2 it also had all these structural proteins and that is why now the researchers are hoping to develop it into a vaccine candidate. So as I said in the beginning VLP's are the molecules that mimic the viruses but they are not infectious. So with these key points in mind let us move on to the next news article discussion. So for our second discussion I am taking up this editorial article. As you can see it talks about the Pegasus software. See again this is the news because recently the committee that was probing the allegations against this software has submitted its report. This committee is the Justice R. V. Ravindran committee. It was appointed by the Supreme Court to probe the allegations of unauthorized use of this Pegasus software. As you know the software belongs to an Israeli group called as NSO and it was used for surveillance in India. Now in its report this committee has said that during its examination it found no conclusive evidence on the use of the spyware in phones. Along with this it has also noted that the central government has not cooperated with the panel. Apart from these two facts other findings of the report were not made public and based on this only now the editorial has been written. See basically the author of this editorial is not happy with the way the Pegasus case is moving forward. He even states that there is a misplaced hope on the Supreme Court. So while talking about this the author has mentioned about the government's surveillance and he has cited various good practices around the world to handle such a situation. So in this discussion what we are going to do is we are not going to see about Pegasus software rather we will be seeing about the surveillance factor. That is we will be seeing what is government surveillance and we will see what are the issues on it and the best practices around the world and we will also see where India stands in government surveillance. Before that there is this syllabus that you can link with this discussion. Take note of it. See topics like this are quite important from the mains angle and the points which we are going to discuss today will help you directly in writing a comprehensive answer The question asks you to talk about government surveillance or the measures needed to be taken against it when you talk about right to privacy etc. Let me get to the discussion without any delay. First what is surveillance?  Now when the government collects information about people and organizations for the purpose of influencing, directing and monitoring their actions then we call that surveillance as government surveillance. See this government surveillance is not a new thing. Even in the medieval times the kings used to have spies to check on their subjects. This was used to prevent people's rebellion at that time. Now with the advent of technology in the current time just the nature and form of surveillance has changed. You would have seen in the 80s and early 90s Hollywood movies that the FBI officials are sitting with binoculars across the street of mob bosses to observe their moves. This is nothing but surveilling on the criminals. But with the advancement of technology currently there is no need for the spy to be physically present at the location. Now the surveillance can be done from a remote location itself. And in this the latest development is the digital surveillance. See as you know the world is becoming increasingly digital. So every possible step in the generation, transmission and reception of digital data is toward somewhere. Now when this information is monitored by an organization then we call that as digital surveillance. Now such a digital surveillance can be done either by the government or even by a corporation. When government does it we call it as government surveillance and when the corporation does it we call it as corporate surveillance. Okay, but there are many issues with these kinds of surveillance especially with the digital surveillance. You would have heard the quote if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to fear. This is a typical argument used by the government to justify its surveillance activities. See on the face of it if you see this argument makes sense. Most people are law abiding citizens only and they will not be targeted for surveillance and it will not impact their lives. From this we also assume that it is only the criminals who have to worry because surveillance enables the elimination of criminals and it saves the lives of law abiding citizens. So on the face of it surveillance sounds not so bad and it even seems essential for a functioning society. But if you dig deeper it gets uglier. Here I have to quote George Orwell. Mr Orwell said those who control the present control the past and those who control the past control the future. Let me repeat it again. Those who control the present control the past and those who control the past control the future and through surveillance this is what the government is trying to do. See the governments are very interested in surveillance. It is not only to eliminate the criminal elements from the society but also to control the citizens. Here by controlling the citizens I mean curbing their voices of dissent. That is to stop them from opposing the policies of the government to be critical of government moves. All these are nothing but controlling the citizens and the governments does this to consolidate power. This is done all around the globe. So in this regard even the European Court of Human Rights has said that a secret surveillance system can undermine or even destroy democracy under the cloak of defending it. So from this it is clear that surveillance without any monitoring mechanism is very dangerous and it will attack the roots of democracy. So the first issue with surveillance is it attacks democracy. Along with this surveillance also affects the freedom of press. See right to freedom of speech and right to privacy are two important ingredients that enable good journalism. Based on a good and impartial journalism only a free press is built. A free press is necessary for a well functioning democracy. Here the author also notes that the journalists are the ones who are particularly targeted for surveillance. So through this the press freedom is affected. This is why India ranks very low in the World Press Freedom Index also. In the recent 2021 index report India was ranked among the bottom 50. We were in the 142nd position out of 180 countries. So freedom of press is affected by surveillance. Next right to privacy is also affected. We know in our country Article 19 of Indian Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression. Along with this Article 21 ensures right to life and personal liberty. Now both these fundamental rights are affected by surveillance. Why because when the government is constantly breathing down your neck that is when the government is constantly monitoring your every move you cannot do things freely or even think freely even if you are doing nothing wrong. So this affects our freedom to think and express and this is against the Constitution guaranteed fundamental rights. So the main three issues which we saw now where first it attacks democracy it affects freedom of press and also the right to privacy. Along with this the issue of surveillance leads to the creation of a Polish state. See the state sponsored surveillance must be opposed in the initial stages itself. That is because surveillance is always a slippery slope. Once the government starts doing it it starts consolidating its powers by eliminating the opposition. So through this it can silence all the voices of dissent and this naturally turns the government into a Polish state. Apart from all this surveillance also brings the issue of transparency. See when the data is collected whatever data that might be it could be digital data or some other data whether such data is used for its stated purpose is a big question and this happens due to the lack of oversight. Even in the Pegasus case the government did not cooperate with the Supreme Court appointed committee. We saw that this shows that even the judiciary in our country is losing grip over the government in the issue of surveillance. So these are the main issues associated with surveillance. See as I said surveillance is not a new thing and with the advent of technology it is taking many new avatars and it is practiced globally. So to address these issues there are various international best practices and some of them have been quoted by the author also. Let us see these one by one. See mainly two US acts are relevant in this regard. The first act is the 1986 wiretap act of the USA. This act prohibited private agencies from engaging in surveillance in their country. Along with this when the US government wants to engage with the surveillance activities it has to ask the permission of the federal court and this act also states that the government must engage in surveillance only when all other options are exhausted. So you can see how strict this act is against surveillance. The another important act of USA is the Patriot Act of 2001. See this act was enacted to curb international terrorism. This act also says that before surveillance approval from a court is necessary. So both these acts of USA ensures that when the government wants to do surveillance it needs to get approval from the court of law. In addition to this USA also has a separate officer that protects the civil liberties of its citizens. This officer is called as the Civil Liberties Protection Officer. This officer is made part of the Office of Director of National Intelligence of USA. And this officer directly reports to the US Congress. So when one of the civil liberties of a US citizen is affected they can immediately approach the officer. Similarly Australia also has an officer in this regard. It is the Office of Privacy Commissioner. This office will have inspectors who will investigate the complaints regarding privacy. See these two examples of USA and Australia from this we can understand that they have separate officers to deal with the issues of privacy and to protect the civil liberties. But in India we only have the Supreme Court of India because it is the guarantor and the defender of fundamental rights of Indian citizens. Other than that the United Nations has also developed the legal framework of no secret rules. See according to these rules the government stating national interest to instigate surveillance is not good enough. So according to the rules the principle of maximum disclosure should govern the surveillance laws of a country. It also mentions that court warrant must be necessary for surveillance and notice should be given to those who are under surveillance. Along with this details of surveillance must be kept meticulously and surveillance must be supervised by an independent body according to these rules. So these are some of the international best practices that regulates surveillance. Now where does India stand? Do we have any such act or officer that deals with surveillance issues? See the status of India in surveillance could be understood by the report that was submitted by Justice B. N. Shri Krishna committee in 2018. See this report mentioned that much of the intelligence gathering in India does not happen under the ambit of law. It also stated that there is very little oversight and there is no proper checks and balances in India. So this report itself has cited how surveillance is not being regulated. Along with this a report published by Citizen Lab stated that the software such as packet shaper and fin fissure has been found on servers in India. See these are surveillance software and they are being marketed exclusively to law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies in our country. So from this it is clear that India is involved in surveillance without the concurrence of courts. Along with this we should also keep in mind that in India authorities authorize 9000 interception orders every month. That is these orders enable them to intercept any communications. But note these orders are not issued by the court but by police officers. So it is against the international best practices. And along with this we have the issue of facial recognition also. See both the European Union and the United States have stopped facial recognition sometimes ago because they found that this technology is violative of human rights. But in India we know that this technology is routinely used without any opposition. Even in my last discussion which was few days ago we had an elaborate understanding of the issues in facial recognition technology. So this is the present condition in India. From this what we can say is in India government surveillance is happening. Everyone knows that but there is no proper regulation. So in the conclusion we should acknowledge that surveillance and intelligence gathering has certain merits but it should be under the ambit of international best practices. So for this what is needed we need laws. And those laws should make taking permission from courts mandatory before going forward with surveillance. Along with this such laws can also create an independent body to ensure that the data which is collected is only used for the stated purpose. So if this is done then it will help us to strike a balance between the fundamental rights of the citizens and the national security. So what is needed is first a law and also guidelines in this regard. I hope you got an idea about what is government surveillance, how it is done and how it affects various rights. Then we also saw what measures could be taken by India based on the best international practices. With these points in mind we are moving to the next news article discussion. I have taken this article from the website of the Hindu because today there is no Hindu newspaper edition. See this news article reports about a much awaited report from the UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights based on the conditions of Uyghur Muslims in China. So today let us understand who are these Uyghur Muslims and what their report has to say. See Uyghurs are a group of Turkic speaking people of interior Asia. They mostly live in the northwestern China in the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang. Uyghurs also live in Central Asian Republics like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. See here the Uyghurs are among the oldest Turkic speaking peoples of Central Asia. They are even mentioned in Chinese records from the 3rd century CE. First they rose to prominence in the 8th century. At that time they established a kingdom in the present day Mongolia. But from there they were overrun by the Kyrgyz and later by the Mongols. So now let us understand what is the issue in China. See as I said in China they are prominently present in the Xinjiang province. Now this Xinjiang is an autonomous region in China's northwest. It was named as Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang. See the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang was established in 1955. And this region has around 10 million Uyghur Sunni Muslims. Here you should note that in the 1950s the Chinese government supported the migration of Han Chinese. The Han Chinese are the majority ethnic group in China. So because of this once Uyghurs were prominent in that region and now they only constitute around 47%. And because of this over time many Uyghurs have complained that Han's have benefited disproportionately from economic development in Xinjiang province. This economic disparity and also the ethnic tensions between these two communities resulted in protests and other disturbances in the region. Even a violent outbreak happened in 2009 which killed nearly 200 people and most of them were Han Chinese. So because of this the Chinese government blamed these attacks on a Muslim separatist group founded by the militant Uyghurs of Xinjiang province. And as a result the Chinese authorities retaliated by cracking down on Uyghurs and suspected every one of them being separatists. This retaliation included shootings, arrests and long jail sentences. Again in 2017 China initiated a thorough crackdown on Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Here what they did was they started political training centers or re-education camps. They even established cameras, checkpoints and constant police patrols in Uyghur dominated areas. Following this in 2017 again the Xinjiang government passed an anti-extremist law. It prohibited people from growing long beards and wearing veils in public. So like this China kept on curbing the rights of Uyghurs and it legitimizes its actions in the name of curbing separatism and violent extremism. But the rights group in the region alleged that in the education camps of Chinese government Uyghurs are getting cynicized. Cynicized means they are being forced to conform to the doctrines of Chinese Communist Party and to the customs of majority Han Chinese. So due to this the interference of UN was much awaited and now the UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights has submitted a report regarding the conditions of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang province. In this report the OHCHR that is the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights has accused China that it is using vague and complex national security laws to curtail the rights of minorities and to establish systems of arbitrary detention. The report also highlights that Uyghurs are imprisoned in the name of reeducation camps and they are being subjected to patterns of ill treatment which includes incidents of sexual violence and gender based violence. Along with that in these camps they are also facing forced medical treatments and discriminatory enforcement of family planning and birth control policies. And all these are done by the Chinese government in the context of application of counter-terrorism strategies and counter-extremism strategies. So the report has called these actions as serious human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. So as a conclusion the report has called for the Chinese government to take prompt steps to release all the individuals who were arbitrarily deprived of their liberty in the province and it has also asked the government to inform the families about the details of the respective individuals. So from this report it is clear that the Chinese government has carried out widespread human rights violations against Uyghur Muslims. You can compare this with the situation of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Both are being religiously persecuted in their countries. So I hope you got an idea about what is going on in the Xinjiang province against the Uyghur Muslims. With these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion. Let us take up this news article. This one again appeared in yesterday's newspaper. See it mentions that a group of petitions were filed in the Supreme Court and this challenged the constitutional validity of the practice of polygamy and Nika Halala which is allowed in Muslim personal law. See under the petitions a ban on polygamy and Nika Halala has been demanded saying that it renders the Muslim wives extremely insecure, vulnerable and it also infringes their fundamental rights. And now according to the news article a five judge constitution bench has postponed the hearing to these petitions. So in today's discussion let us understand what is this Muslim personal law we are talking about and we also see the practice of polygamy and Nika Halala among Muslims and how it violates fundamental rights. See generally personal laws are the ones which deal with personal issues like marriage, divorce, inheritance, custody of children etc. In 1937 the British government passed the Muslim personal law Sharia application act. This one deals with Muslim social life such as marriage, divorce, inheritance and family relations. Now this Sharia application act in India protects the application of Islamic laws in personal legal relationship but the act does not define the laws. It clearly states that in matters of personal dispute the state shall not interfere and the religious authority would pass a declaration based on his interpretation of the Quran and the Hadith. Now you may have a question whether only Muslims have personal laws. Actually no, all other religions have personal laws also. The Hindus have the Hindu succession act of 1956 which lays guidelines for property inheritance among Hindus, Muslims, Jains and Sikhs. Then we have the Parsi marriage and divorce act of 1936 Then we have the Hindu marriage act of 1955 Apart from it Christians and Jews are also governed by different personal laws. Now let us come to the issues in this Muslim personal law Sharia application act of 1937. So the main issue here is around section 2 of this act. This provision validates the practice of polygamy and Nika Halala. According to the Sharia or the Muslim personal law men are allowed to practice polygamy. That is they can have more than one wife at the same time and according to this law they can have up to a total of four wives. Then what is Nika Halala? It is a process in which a woman after being divorced by triple talaq marries another one consummates the marriage and then again gets divorced in order to able to remarry her former husband. That is the first husband. So these two practices were challenged by the petitioners. They argued that they are violative of article 14, 15 and 21 of Indian constitution. They said it infringes the fundamental rights of Muslim wives. It also renders them extremely insecure and vulnerable. But to this petition the All India Muslim Personal Law Board has provided an explanation saying that these personal laws do not derive its validity from legislature or any other competent authority. They have said that the source of this law is their scriptural text of their respective religions. Okay. See if you look at the fundamental rights we can say that the Muslim personal law is inconsistent with the fundamental rights. So it can be struck down under article 13 of Indian constitution. See article 13 clause 1 states that laws which are inconsistent with the provisions of fundamental rights are null and wide. So now you may think that Supreme Court can easily strike down section 2 of the Muslim Personal Law because it is against fundamental rights but the issue here is personal laws does not fall within the definition of laws under article 13 clause 3 of the constitution. See in the case law, state of Bombay versus Narasua Apamali the Bombay High Court mentioned that personal law wasn't included within the law as mentioned in article 13. But in the Shah Bhanu case where Ms Shah Bhanu filed a case for alimony under CRPC here the Supreme Court held that a Muslim divorced woman is entitled to the benefits of section 125 of CRPC and here the Supreme Court also noted that the CRPC here overrides the personal law if there is any conflict between the two. But the Supreme Court did not address the technical question of whether the personal law is a law as defined by the article 13. But note that later due to huge opposition from the Muslim community the government of the day passed the Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Divorce Act and this act made it necessary for the husband to pay alimony to his Muslim wife but only during the period of Iddat that is 90 days after divorce. So from this what we can understand is the applicability of the Shah Riyadh law has always been under controversy. The issue will come to an end only if the definition of the laws under article 13 clause 3 of Indian constitution is expanded to include personal laws. Okay, well let us wait and see what are the arguments put forward by both the sides when this petition is heard. With these points in mind let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now let me take this text and context article from yesterday's newspaper it talks about the Special Marriage Act of 1954. See this is in spotlight because recently the Supreme Court has dismissed a repetition which challenged the constitutional validity of certain provisions of this act. So in this discussion let me tell you the objectives behind this act the provisions which were challenged and also the reasons behind it. Special Marriages Act of 1954. See this act was enacted to provide a special form of marriage in certain cases and for their registration and also to deal with other matters related to it including divorce. So basically a marriage under this act allows people from two different religious backgrounds to come together in the bond of marriage. And the act lays down the procedure for both solemnization and registration of marriage. See here solemnization is nothing but the marriage ceremony involving the customs or practices etc. Now let us come to the provisions that were challenged. First one which was challenged is section 5 of the act. This section mandates to serve a notice of intended marriage. See as per this section if a couple wants to get married then they have to give notice in writing and such a notice is to be given to the marriage officer of the district in which at least one of the parties to the marriage has decided for a period of not less than 30 days. Now why this section is challenged is because of the particulars in the notice. See the notice is to be given as mentioned in 2nd schedule to this act. Here I have given the 2nd schedule you can see that this notice involves the particulars like the current address of the couples also. So this gives an opportunity for the harassers or the antisocial elements to harass the couples who belong to different religions. Now the second provision that is challenged is section 6. This one enables to maintain a marriage notice book to the marriage officer. See this book is nothing but a record of all the notices that are given under section 5. But why this is challenged is because of the clause 1 of this section. See this clause mentions that such a book shall be open for inspection at all reasonable times by any person desirous of inspecting the same. So that means whoever wants to inspect it can have access to this book. Therefore even the harassers or antisocial elements can easily get the details of the couples. Now the next section which is challenged is section 7. See it provides a process for making an objection in certain instances. For example if the either party have a living spouse or if either of them is incapable of giving consent due to unsoundness of their mind or if either one of them is suffering from a mental disorder etc etc. Like this certain instances are mentioned in this act. So if any of these is present then any person may object to the marriage within 30 days from the publication of notice under section 5. See because of this 30 days period for objection only it is normally understood that the couples have to serve a notice with the relevant documents to the marriage officer 30 days before the intended date of marriage. Okay. Other than that there is no direct mention of notice has to be served before 30 days. And if there is no objection received under this section 7 then that marriage is solemnized. See this section is challenged because the same does not happen in the marriage where couples belong to the same religion. And also this 30 days period gives ample time for the harassers to get hold of the couples and separate them. Now the final section that was challenged is section 8. This one specifies the inquiry procedure to be followed after an objection is submitted. Okay. So from these sections it is clear that these provisions make the personal information of the individuals open to public scrutiny. So the sections seriously violate one's right to have control over their personal information and its accessibility. Thereby it also violates right to privacy under article 21 of Indian Constitution. Other than that it also violates the right to marry a person as per one's wishes. This is also a fundamental right under article 21 right. Other than that the provisions also contravene article 14 because it amounts discrimination on the grounds of religion. Then article 15 is also violated because it violates the right to equality as the requirements under this act is absent in other personal laws. So based on these issues only the right petition was filed but Supreme Court has rejected the right petition. So from the above discussion we can clearly say that the provisions of special marriage act violates fundamental rights. So what the government has to do is it has to reconsider the act and make necessary amendments to safeguard the privacy and rights of individuals. Okay. So these are the points that you have to note from this discussion. Now let us get to the next one. So our next discussion is going to be based on this open article. As you can see the title mentions as hyperlapse consumerism. Yes, this article talks about the issues in hyperlapse consumerism. So first we will understand what is this model of hyperlapse consumerism. Then we will see the problems that has to be addressed. Let me tell you what do we mean by consumerism first. See it is nothing but the belief that it is necessary to buy and use a lot of goods and services indiscriminately. Now the author of this open article has given a new terminology called as hyperlapse consumerism and this is very much relevant in the age of e-commerce. So this is a phenomenon in which ease of buying of the consumer and the swiftness of the delivery are given more importance. This is called as hyperlapse consumerism. That is here the consumer can buy a product easily and along with this even that product is delivered swiftly. For example take Zepto. They were the ones who announced grocery deliveries in 10 minutes. Then it was followed by other delivery platforms like Swiggy also Dunzo also. See the hyperlapse consumerism is gaining so prominence that for example if you take Swiggy it was initially a food delivery platform only but now it has a separate network for delivering provisions and vegetables that is Swiggy Instamart. So these platforms Zepto, Swiggy Dunzo they have enhanced the consumer experience because they can buy products with ease along with that they also provide swift delivery. This is what is calling as hyperlapse consumerism. Now this has two main benefits. First it gives rise to huge employment. So according to a recent data by Nitya Ayog around 7.7 million workers were engaged in gig economy and this equals to about 1.5 percentage of total workforce of India. As you know gig economy is nothing but a labour market in which employment is characterised by the prevalence of short term contracts or freelance works as opposed to jobs. So working in this delivery platforms like Zepto and Swiggy it is also a part of gig economy only. So these platforms have contributed to the rise of gig economy. Now second benefit is if you see from this consumers angle ease of consuming has considerably increased because now we have faster deliveries and the shopping has been made impersonal without the need to be present physically to buy at the store. But even though benefits have increased the prominence of hyperlapse consumerism there are certain issues with it. First of all see this gig economy doesn't work based on employment contracts. So the social security needs of employees are not taken care of and also there is indiscriminate working hours this leads to mental and physical health issues of the employees. Now second this has led to a change in the consumer behaviour because now the consumers want speedier delivery. So due to this now the delivery professionals might resort to reckless diving this will cause road safety concerns. You would have even come across the recent news that the 10 minute delivery plan of Zepto was opposed by all sections of the society. So now the Zepto has rolled back in this plan and has changed the time from 10 to 20 minutes I think. Then the third issue is it leads to prolonged unsustainable consumption so it leads to environmental degradation. For example it increases vehicular emissions because all these deliveries will be happening by operating vehicles only that uses fossil fuels. So vehicular emissions will be increased because of this and if you see when you buy vegetables from these platforms they use lot of plastic. So again single use plastic is increasing. So due to this the environmentalists are calling or they are advocating minimalism as opposed to consumerism. See minimalism is nothing but consuming only necessary items that is consuming only what we need and leaving out luxury. Okay So these are the three issues with hyperlapse consumerism. Now let me tell you how these challenges can be addressed. From the consumer side what we can do is consumers should resort to laid back delivery model. See this laid back delivery model is nothing but the conventional delivery model as opposed to the hyperfast delivery. Now if consumers want this then the businesses will automatically go back to the conventional delivery model and here as consumers we should also remember that our convenience should not become hardship for delivery professionals and the common public and second from the business side it should be kept in mind that in a rush to be more competitive the businesses should not ignore ethical, social, environmental and safety concerns. These concerns should be addressed in their policies and thus be made part of their decision making processes. Along with this we can also say that we need a proper legislation and policy in line to deal with this kind of consumerism. So this was a small topic where we learned new terminology called hyperlapse consumerism. We saw some of the advantages of it issues with it and finally we saw two main ways to address the problems in it. With these points in mind now let us get to the next discussion. So our last discussion for today is going to be based on this news article. It talks about the union environment minister speech in the G20 environment and climate ministerial meeting. See this meeting was held recently in Bali, in Indonesia. This meeting is particularly relevant for India because India will be taking up the G20 presidency in December 2022. Now in this meeting the minister has said that India is showing intent as a problem-solver in the climate change crisis mitigation. Here the minister has stressed this fact even though India is not a traditional contributor to global emissions. But why the minister has said this? This is based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. This is in short is called as CBDRRC. So in this discussion we are going to just simply understand what is this CBDRRC. First of all it is a principle of international environmental law. See this principle was set out in the United Nations framework convention on climate change that is UNFCCC. As per this principle all states are responsible for addressing global environmental destruction but they are not equally responsible. So there is a difference in how much they are responsible. Now these differences are linked to two factors. The first factor is the country's contribution to the greenhouse gas emissions and the second factor is the country's ability to address the greenhouse gas emissions. Here the emphasis is on greenhouse gas emissions because it is one of the leading factors to climate change. Now we know that around the world different countries have contributed differently to the greenhouse gas emissions. For example currently if you see China is the biggest emitter that emits 26.4% of global greenhouse emissions. It is followed by United States which emits 12.5% of GHG. And third comes India which emits 7.06% and then comes the European Union which emits 7.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. See this may be the current scenario where India is in the third position. But if you look specifically the concentration of carbon dioxide which is a greenhouse gas it increased as a result of industrial revolution and exponential growth in manufacturing activities around the world. Along with this deforestation, agriculture fossil fuel use all contributed to carbon dioxide emissions. Even the recent data from global carbon project has found that the top five countries that have produced the most carbon dioxide from 1975 to 2020 are the countries of United States of America China, Russia Germany and the United Kingdom. You can see that India is nowhere in this list. So that is why we say India is not a traditional contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions. Even though we are currently one of the top contributors because we are in the development stage we are a developing country. So by looking at the historic times we can say that the countries of USA, China, Russia, Germany and UK have more responsibility to tackle the issue of greenhouse gas emissions than any other countries in the world. So basically what is the CBDRRC? That is the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. It is basically the principle which states the need for all states to take responsibility for global environmental problem. But it particularly notes that the degree of responsibility varies and it varies according to two factors as we already saw which led to economic development, emissions rating and it also involves emissions history the availability of technologies to address the issues of GHGs etc. And currently if you ask me where the CBDRRC is used it is now mainly followed in the climate finance. What is climate finance? It refers to the local, national or transnational financing that is drawn from public, private and alternative sources of financing. Such finance seeks to support mitigation and adoption actions that will address climate change. You should note that the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol along with the Paris Agreement they all call for financial assistance from the countries with more financial resources to the countries that are less endowed and more vulnerable. For example, if you take the countries having more financial resources like USA they should provide financial assistance to the more vulnerable countries like Africa. Here it is clear that the climate financing is recognizing that the contribution of countries to climate change and the capacity to prevent it and their ability to cope with it varies enormously. And that is why it is saying countries having more financial resources should provide to the countries which are more vulnerable. So this is basically based on the principle of action but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Okay. I hope you understood what this principle is. And India can contribute to reduce the emissions based on its share of GHG emissions. Okay. With these points in mind we are moving to the next session which is the practice questions discussion session. So let me take up the first practice question for today. This is a three statement question. First statement is virus like particles are called as virus filled shells. See this statement is incorrect because virus like particles that is VLPs are known as viral empty shells. This is because they lack genetic material. So statement one is incorrect. Now statement two is the genetic particle is absent in the virus like particles. Just now we saw that it is absent. So this statement is correct. So from this itself we can arrive at the correct answer which is option B two only. So that means statement three is also incorrect. It mentions virus like particles cause infection. No they don't. Since they lack the genetic material it cannot cause infections. Okay. The correct answer is option B. Let me take the next question. Which of the following constitutes law under article 13 clause 3 of Indian Constitution. See this article deals with the laws inconsistent with fundamental rights or the laws which are in derogation of fundamental rights. And as per this article if any law is inconsistent with the fundamental rights then it can be declared null and void. So which are the laws given here. First one is laws enacted by parliament or state legislature. Second one ordinance passed by parliament or state legislature. Third one law is passed by competent authority before the commencement of constitution. See all these three are considered as law under this article. Okay. So the correct answer is option D one, two and three. Now this next one is a pair based question. On one side communities are given. On the other side first one is Rohingyas Bangladesh. Second one is Uyghurs China. Third one is Kuts Turkey. See if you closely see these communities are being religiously persecuted in the given countries. For example Uyghurs are being persecuted in China. Kuts are being persecuted in Turkey. So these two pairs are correct. Whereas Rohingyas they belong to Myanmar and they are being persecuted in that country. So they are fleeing Myanmar. Okay. So first pair is correct. Therefore the correct answer to this question is option B two and three only. Now as I said in the beginning of this video the quiz question based on today's discussion will be posted as a poll along with this video. Don't forget to attend that poll. Now I have two main questions for you interested aspirants. Please write the answer and post it in the comment section. So this brings us to the end of Hindi news analysis for today. If you like this video don't forget to like, comment and share and also subscribe to Shankar Ice Academy YouTube channel for receiving updates related to current affairs. Thank you.


Representatives from the National Election Board of Ethiopia have taken to the street of Addis Ababa to explain the voting process ahead of Monday's elections. Prime Minister Abir Ahmed said the national and regional parliamentary elections will be the country's first free and fair pose of the decades of repressive rule. But voting has been delayed in 110 out of 547 constituencies because of violent conflict and logistical problems and some opposition parties are boycotting the elections over what they describe as harassment of their members. One candidate is contestant the election from jail.


Now, this is very, very shocking from the Baltimore Ravens. Now, it's not shocking that they placed a franchise tag on Justin Matta, BK, that's not surprising at all. But what's shocking to me is the timing of it. Because we know Baltimore Ravens, they will fight, kick, scratch, claw, all the way up until the deadline. We see it every single year. We see it with the franchise tag. We see it when it comes to signing their players. We see it when it comes to signing their draft picks. They will push everything down to the limit. We see it when it comes to the 4 p.m. deadline for the 53 Man Rock. We see it every single year in every single kind of way. But what's shocking to me is the fact that, right now, I'm recording this video at 1.12 p.m. The deadline for the franchise tag to be applied to a player is 4 p.m. So it's a little less than three hours away, but the Baltimore Ravens, no, no, no, no, we're not gonna wait until 4 p.m. We're applying this now. And in my opinion, and I don't really think this is an opinion, but in my opinion, I think that lets us know that these two sides are extremely far apart in negotiation. Because get this, if they were close, if they were even remotely closed, like they're not even in the same, they're not on the same page right now, of course, but I don't even think they in the same book right now. Because if they were remotely close to each other in these contract negotiations, if they were close in talks, then why would you just forfeit these last three hours and be like, all right, nope, place the franchise tag on them? No, they gotta be extremely far apart in contract negotiations. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just is what it is. That's part of contract talk. This is stuff that happens. It's business. And the Baltimore Ravens, like we've been talking about, ever since that report came out a couple of months ago, that, I guess I hadn't known about it before the season started, but I found out during the season, but the Baltimore Ravens, since they tried to sign Justin Maddabike before the season even started, they tried to sign him, they tried to get him inked up, but he was like, no, they obviously ain't come to a contract agreement then, but Baltimore Ravens, they knew. They just knew.  And that's exactly what happened. This guy had 13 sacks in the regular season, bunch of quarterback hits, bunch of pressures, but then he even added, I think he added to his salary and a playoffs too, when he sacked Patrick Mahomes in the AFC Championship game. He added a couple more meals to his bread. So shout out to Justin Maddabike. But what is going to happen? What could possibly happen? And what does this mean for the Baltimore Ravens? Is there salary cap space? How much money do they have? Or do they not have now? Who are some other players that could possibly get restructured in order to create salary cap space? Because remember, when the new league year starts, the Baltimore Ravens, every single team, they have to be under the salary cap.  Because with the NFL salary cap going up, that means players' values go up. How much money they can make, that goes up big time. And we're gonna talk about that in a couple of seconds. But before we get into it, make sure you subscribe to the channel, turn your notifications on so you do not miss not a single update because it's gonna be a lot of updates going up very, very soon. Some fun ones, some exciting ones, some sad ones, some heart breaking ones. There's gonna be everything and more. So y'all stay tuned for that. Subscribe to the channel, turn your notifications on and leave a like on the video because y'all have been doing that, which I appreciate, and it helps out a whole lot. Now, Matta B. K. His franchise tag is worth 22.1 meal. Now, I think a lot of us expected them to place the franchise tag on him, but we were hoping that they could get a deal done so they could avoid the franchise tag so they could be able to really maneuver their cap room a lot better. But this, it's not really a good sign for their cap room as of right now. And what I mean when I say they could have maneuvered the cap a lot better, it would mean that they would have more control over it because we know with the franchise tag, that's all guaranteed, that all goes on your salary cap right here, right now. For this 22.1 meal, they can't break it up. They can't be like, all right, we're gonna put 11 meal here and 11.1 meal there. No, no, no, no, no, all 22.1 meal that goes on your salary cap right now. Now, the deadline to get an extension done, I believe it's sometime in May, I believe. And y'all will know, I'm sure somebody will correct me in the comment section if that is incorrect, but I believe it's usually sometime in May. And after that deadline, then that play will play on a franchise tag. So right now Ravens got some time. They got some time. Just because they placed a franchise tag on Justin Matta BK right here right now, it does not mean that, oh, it's over. Oh, they're not gonna get a deal done. Oh man, even though they're so far apart right now, nothing, no, no, no, no, no. They got plenty of time and I'm sure they're gonna do everything in their power and more to make sure they get this deal done and they can lock him up for years to come. And especially you think about the player too, with the franchise tag, we talked about this before but we gotta talk about it real quick again. Franchise tag only is guaranteed money for one year. It's nice guaranteed money because you get paid the top five average salaries at your position and it's all guaranteed but it's only for one year. Players want long term, they want longevity with their contracts. So that's why players fight so hard to get their bread. Now, looking at the Ravens situation, I had to ask Brian McFarland, Raven salary cap on Twitter because he has all that information. I asked him, how much would this put this was before they officially placed the franchise tag on Matabike, but like a lot of us already did, we figured they would place the franchise tag on Justin Matabike. But I asked him, how much money or how much would the Ravens be over the cap if they placed the franchise tag on Matabike. And he created a thread, not just for me but really for all of us so we could have a better breakdown of everything and understand it a lot more. So let's read it as follows. And again, this is Raven salary cap all together on Twitter. Any salary cap information you need to know, anything you need to know about Raven's money, he got you covered. Anyway, he said the Ravens project to be 11.8 mil under the cap with an exclusive rights free agent tender for our Darius Washington. See, I didn't even know they did that with our Darius Washington. So that would mean that our Darius Washington, if he signs that tender, he will be coming back to Ravens. And if it's an exclusive rights free agent tender, then he got no choice but to come back to Ravens because with those exclusive rights tenders, they can't do nothing. They either sign with the team that put the tender on them or they don't play at all. So anyway, it says, the Ravens project to be 11.8 mil under the cap. This does not yet include Agilore, whose deal 16 days later has still not been posted by the NFLPA. So like Brian McFarland a little upset about that. But anyway, he said the Ravens can tag Matabike now and have until March 13th at 4 p.m. to get under the cap. So what are you saying with that? Ravens can place the franchise tag on Matabike, which they did like about an hour later. They can place the franchise tag on him and then they have until March 13th at 4 p.m. to get under the salary cap to where they're not in the negatives.  That's never a good thing. And I've been there before, plenty of times and it's a very sad feeling. Anyway, Seth, he also said Ravens have two easy moves to get under the cap. One of those is restructuring Lamar Jackson. They could save 11.1 mil. So that would be a big chunk of change right there. And that will put them under. He also said and cut Tyus Bowser and that would give them 5.5 mil in cap savings. So that would be a total of 16.6 mil altogether. Excuse me. He said that will be enough to fit the tag for Matabique. They'll need further moves to create space for other signings, restructures for Marcus Williams, Roquan Smith, Mark Andrews will create 15.7 mil more. So basically he's saying Ravens got some options. If they just want to get under the cap, you can go straight to Lamar Jackson, Tyus Bowser and those moves could get you under the cap. But if you want more to make more moves, make additional signings and whatnot like, I'm sure they will do, then those are some other options that the Ravens could pursue. It says the cap savings for those restructures, Lamar Jackson, Williams, Roquan and Andrews would be more if void years were added to the end of their deals. And we know like with void years, as Ravens fans, we learned so much, man. We learned so much about the business every single year. We understand void. I hadn't heard about void years until, I think maybe like maybe two years ago that they were brand new to me. But then when the Baltimore Ravens started using them Brian McFarlane, people like him and Jeff Zribick and even Jefferson Hensley, they saw breaking it down and whatnot. I'm like, oh, okay, I got it now. I got it. Well, not all the way, but I'm still learning. But you learn a lot as a Baltimore Ravens fan when it comes to the business. But anyway, he said, here are some cuts that could also create space, cap space. Ronnie Stanley, if they do a pre-June 1st release, they could create 8.3 mil in salary cap. But if they do a post-June 1st release, they could create 15 mil in cap space. So Ronnie Stanley is an option. They also said if Stanley takes a pay cut, it could create anywhere from four to seven mil maybe. Another option to be released cut would be Morgan Moses that will create 5.5 mil in cap space. And then he also listed Pat Ricard as another possibility. He said with Ricard, they could save four mil if he was to be cut. They said, or they could sign him to an extension, which will create less cap space, but it will keep Pat Ricard around. Pat Ricard is somebody who I feel like the Ravens, they would do a cut and then bring him back. Cause I don't think Pat Ricard is going anywhere. Last year, I for sure thought Pat Ricard was going anywhere. All I heard about George's offense with Top Monkeys offense, they don't use no fullbacks. They don't use fullbacks, but the Ravens offense certainly used Pat Ricard as a fullback as a bit of everything. And he proved to be worth his spot on the roster for sure. So I don't envision him going anywhere. I don't think Ravens definitely find a way to keep Pat Ricard, but Ronnie Stanley. Ronnie Stanley is a very tricky one. And so is Morgan Moses, something that we talked about recently. When you look at Ronnie Stanley and Morgan Moses, especially more so Ronnie Stanley, not necessarily Morgan Moses, but Ronnie Stanley, he's making big money, obviously. Shout out to Ronnie Stanley, getting his bread. But if you have a big money player, that's a starter, you left tackle making big money. How can you, what's the word I'm looking for? I can't think of the word right now, but how can you make it okay to where this is your starter? He's getting more than starter money, but how can you make it to where it's okay that he's on a rotation, that he's not even a full-time player and he's a starter and he's making all that money? That's tough. So it's gonna be interesting to see what, if anything, Eric Dacosta and the Baltimore Ravens do with the Ronnie Stanley, with Morgan Moses. And the trickiest part about those two guys is that the whole offensive line is a big question mark, except Tyler Lindebaugh. He is the only one who we know for sure. Hey, that guy's gonna be Baltimore Raven next year. That's it. John Simpson, left guard, free agent. Kevin Seigler, right guard, free agent. Morgan Moses, he could be a cap cut, Ronnie Stanley, he could be a cap cut. We don't know yet, but we'll certainly see. And now with Justin Madabecay officially being franchise tagged, Ravens are over the cap. So they got some corresponding moves that they have to make.


I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Check Hawaii Global Connections on a given Thursday with Carlos Suarez. We're talking about the Teflon President, shades of the Teflon Don, if you will. Any other president would be gone by now. Carlos, welcome to the show. Aloha, Jay. It's great to reconnect always and, you know, continue our dialogue about these, you know, pressing matters of the day, global issues. You know, in my case, as I offer, as you know, a global perspective, both because I'm in Mexico and a Mexican and what have you. But, boy, we are living in interesting times, no doubt.  We've called the show the Teflon President. And maybe just for, maybe we have some younger viewers who may not know what that means. But you may recall as we were there at the time back in the 80s, I think it was in the early 80s, there was a senator from the state of Colorado, Pat Schroeder, and she made a reference to Donald, I'm sorry, Ronald Reagan, President Reagan, how he had this ability to avoid any blame. And Teflon refers to the coating of these pans, like a nonstick pan, that basically, you know, nothing unwanted can stick to him. And we're looking today at Donald Trump, a remarkable how many tell all tale books have come out and many of them from people who he hired and that worked for him or otherwise, like his his niece, who put out this recent book, a very insider perspective, even with audio tapes. I mean, this isn't just the written word. Look at the most recent, what's coming out now, Bob Woodward's latest book, Rage. It's got some audio tapes. So now it's not really in question. And yet I say that because, boy, it's very likely that none of this is going to change a lot of votes. It's very likely that it will be spun as sort of, you know, more of the same hoax. And it's just remarkable. I mean, how can we understand this? How can we explain this that we live in a time where no matter how much dirt his opponents or his past allies may uncover, the voters will forgive him, the base will be there to support him. And I'm just guessing, but I could imagine if you had a group of these hardcore Trump supporters, this would be dismissed. It's irrelevant. It's a hoax. It's a, you know, whatever. Let's talk about that. By the way, my recollection is that back in the day of the mafia in New York, they were all called Don this and Don that. And it was one particular Don who was called the Teflon Don because he always escaped, you know, Elliot Ness and the boys. He always escaped the FBI. And even when he went to jail, he was Teflon. They couldn't really nail him. Finally, they did though. And I guess maybe that's the point of all this. Finally, they did get him.  And that is American history. The Midwest, they were farmers, they were into agriculture in the 19th century. And they had, they had a working economy in a regional way. All of a sudden, the railroads came. Vanderbilt and the like, those guys were building great railroads. And they began offering shipping opportunities for the farmers to ship their goods to the coastal states. And the problem is this changed everything. And all of a sudden the farmers had much bigger markets. They had to make their farmers bigger. They had to borrow money. They were in another place. And the problem is the railroads charged a lot of money. It was really extortionate. You know, once they got the farmer to ship on the railroad, they nailed them for big bucks. And the farmers began to resent that. And I think that was the beginning of a resentment that has taken, you know, that existed in the late 19th century and through the 20th century and still exists today. Maybe people don't realize where it came from. That's where it came from. Let me be clear. The resentment is what? Towards Washington? Towards East Coast? Yeah. Money, power, capital concentrations in Wall Street, which changed their lives for the worst, which nailed them, which made them subservient to the railroad capital interest. And it began there and maybe it went from, so, you know, then you have the privilege class in the East Coast. This is what Thomas Friedman was saying on PBS last night. And other, he was on a number of channels last time. I was interested to see they all wanted a piece of him last night. The question was, why does the base still support Trump? You know, when he makes ridiculous remarks about the military and about certain national service.  And the answer, at least in part, is that the base sees itself on the low end here. The base is disadvantaged. They're not the privileged people. They're not educated. They have an ongoing disadvantage against the people who go to good schools or who go to college. That's simple. And they're resentful of this. And what Trump says to them is, I understand your pain.  That's the biggest lie of all. Trump says, I will make it right for you. I will balance the scales. I will show those hotshots, the privileged fellows with the educations. I will show them that you guys have a lot of clout, too.  And he has this kind of strange relationship with them that keeps on giving. So even if he lies and cheats and does all this, they're willing to forgive him because they believe he understands them. They believe he's willing to protect them. It is a mafia don kind of thing. They're within Trump's protection somehow, even though it's not true at all. Well, no, I certainly concur with that. I mean, and there's another part that just can't help. I'm constantly dealing with this, as you know, teaching students at the, both in the U.S. and in Mexico, there's this puzzle. How can such a pretty significant population continue to support him in light of what we see? And I mean, we're talking about college students who tend to be more open-minded. They're reading information. They're assessing news. But I go back to this, the challenges that we have, especially in the U.S., a large population now that does not read good information, daily news, and social media is a mixed bag. It's a double-edged sword. Yes, we are accessing information overload, but it's also very easy to just continually see the things that reinforce our biases and much of the research and social sciences has shown us that. If anything, rather than more information, we tend to be skewing towards the information we like or want. But even just more than that, again, people just are not really informed, I think. You know, it's one thing to be, well, again, I just leave it at that that I think people just are not taking time and almost don't care. And at the end of the day, if you don't have an informed citizenship or citizenry, if you will, it's difficult to build community, to build understanding, to reach consensus. And as well, how do we explain now what we've seen for years, several years now, a deepening polarization? We talk about it all the time, right? You almost have two different realities in the world. Can I add one footnote to that? There's a movie on Netflix, a documentary that just came out called The Social Dilemma. You would be very interested in seeing that. It's the story of social media, especially Zuckerberg and Facebook, where he has worked it out so that he has the ability to predict what you are going to do based on his analysis of the data he gets from you. And then beyond that, this is so interesting to actually influence the public opinion of large groups of people. This is very often nefarious, and it's happening now. It's part of what you're talking about. Sure. And then look, it's part and parcel. This has been going on for quite some time. Almost we could say from the 1950s forward, we had a big sort of a behavioral revolution, again, in the social science. And that is the access through the computer age to do more information, more data, more sort of rigorous analysis. And today, whether it's a grocery store doing its marketing, a real estate firm understanding consumer behavior, there's just a wealth of data and information. Obviously, some of it can be good and valuable, but some of it can be used for more nefarious purposes. And even shaping, let's say, consumer demands or interest. This is an area I don't know a great deal about, but I imagine the same happening is essentially in the political sphere. What do we have now? The new norm as of 2016 is that now we have interference by foreign governments, the Russians, the Chinese, and interfering in a way where they're going into social media and shaping the dialogue, the narrative, adding more confusion, more complexity, more chaos, all in the name of just creating that chaos. Now, again, the United States after World War II began a lot of this propaganda and influencing elections in Greece and Turkey and other parts of Eastern Europe in its own way. So fundamentally, this is something that big powers have been in the business in. But today with social media, it's remarkable how they can use sophisticated computer algorithms and learn how to shape public opinion. It's quite scary when you think carefully about it. And it's difficult to disrupt, it's difficult to uncover, although obviously much effort is being made. And so when they can determine our intelligence community, this comes from some kind of a server that's linked to the state security services of the Russian government. It's because they really can do that. Now, again, others would be more skeptical and maybe with views. How do we know that for sure? The reality is that it's there, it's happening and we're just coming to terms with it now. And given President Trump and some of the allegations we've heard from others most recently, he has made an effort to try to minimize and obviously didn't do much to look into what the Russians have been doing. We still remain with this big puzzle about whether somehow the Russians or Putin seem to have something on Trump that keeps him from ever being critical or taking a stronger position on Russia. Yeah, there are a lot of intelligence, so a former intelligence people who say that. There's no way to explain his connection with Putin, except that Putin has something on him. And I believe that, I believe that for some time. And it's not going to surprise me at all that one day somebody whistleblowers on that and we find out what it was. I mean, even as recently as this week, whistleblower came out and said, you've seen this whistleblower from the intelligence community comes out and says, I was told to downplay our intelligence that we're getting on Russia's manipulation of our voting. I was ton of doubt play that and to focus more on China. That's a very interesting that this is exactly what Trump is saying. Trump is trying to create an intelligence message by manipulating the intelligence community. It's very scary that we are not getting the right information and furthermore, if you look at that movie, you will see that Zuckerberg can tune it up. He could say, and this is part of the movie, he can say to his and these guys are very sophisticated in the movie. They're not kids. These are the senior executives in social media who created social media. Zuckerberg can say, I want more people to dislike North Korea. I'm going to tune it up. He can change public opinion that fast instantly, but tune it down. And of course, that leads to the whole phenomenon that I can tune it up on Trump or I can tune it up on some other campaign or down. This is very scary that one company could have so much control of Republican opinion. Yeah, it's quite remarkable. And maybe just to put a different angle on that, obviously these are the companies that you've described their governments themselves. And today, really any government that is engaging in international politics, international relations, must address this and must take a handle on social media. And what I mean by that is they rather than just be reacting to everything, you have to be proactive. And I know this, as you know, a number of my former students, particularly from HPU are in the diplomatic service. And these are young millennials who obviously they are part of that. Now, how do you do that? You have to use the social media themselves, the platforms, obviously with more, let's see, at least said to be altruistic or community outreach connection. There are positive aspects of it. Of course, the more cynical is, Hey, we're trying to shape their opinion. And if you know, let's say this country we're working in has a negative opinion, how can we shape it? And there's a lot of more and more these days, a need for not a need, I guess it's just a it's a reality, because if you're not taking it and addressing it, and having it integral to your, let's say, foreign policy, then you're simply responding to tweets and to, you know, other social media that are defining the agenda. It's a big game now. And there's no way around it. And so I think I'm talking about the diplomatic service, but this could be even state and local government, if you're not on top of controlling your agenda over your issues, protest movements or maybe citizens or some, you know, particularly savvy young, you know, disruptor can just create chaos, right? We, you know, we're seeing the Russians doing it at the macro level, but it happens at the local and state larger, the larger question is with all of this, and I totally agree with you with all of this chaos, expanding chaos. What about democracy? What about the notion of representative government? What about people, you know, dedicated to doing the right thing on the right information? I fear for it, don't you? Yeah, no, I think so. And look, I can remember 10, 15 years ago, when the advent of this social media issue was beginning, maybe 15 years ago, there was the idea that there was an excitement, this is going to democratize, you know, access to information, anybody can participate. And some of that does still exist. Yes, we have an ability now to connect people and reach places, and so on. The part we didn't anticipate, which is this more sinister part is the ability to manipulate it for, you know, obviously, you know, more sinister purposes, and especially now foreign government. So we've heard this term cyber war, cyber war for four years, and it used to be abstract. What does it mean? Well, this is it, this is when you have, obviously, the capacity of, and it could be a small kid in a garage in Cleveland, it could be a, you know, security agency in Moscow, it could be, you know, graduate students and, you know, in a program that are there visiting. And I saw what last day or two, the Trump administration has now, I think, revoked the visas of a large number of Chinese researchers and so on. And, you know, it's very likely some of that is very real that they are there gathering, and yet how do we know or how much of it is, or how much of it is just simply, you know, doing something for a statement. But boy, this is the new reality that we're in, the new tools of warfare, the tools of propaganda.  And yet, look at what we see with Trump now, this barrage of books and the tell all things back to our, you know, Teflon president, at this point, he's on the defensive trying desperately to shift and change the dialogue. And yet, many of us can't help but shake our heads knowing that a week from now, 10 days from now, we'll be on to the next, the next drama, whatever it is. Yeah, he says he's he did it for altruistic reasons to try to save people from panic. And, you know, the problem is he's never done anything for altruistic reasons before. So this would be remarkable that he was trying to do anything for the benefit of the public.  Yeah, or they will question, you know, the motives or the interest of anybody who's taking a critical view of it. And again, I think the curious thing about this most recent, Bob Woodward's book, it's not just a book by this prominent investigative journalist, he's got audio tapes where he's literally got Trump saying certain things.  There will be others who will simply shake their heads and say, well, no, I don't see any problem with it or whatever. It's a perfect call. A lot of people like that. Every dedicated Trumper is coming back with some kind of response to that. They're not really being affected by it in a large part. Neither that nor the military insult, which I find remarkable. And the big question to me is, what about the people in the military whose mission, you know, it is to protect the United States and are dedicated to public service? How do they reject this notion that Trump thinks they're, what is it, suckers? Well, I think what we saw on this specific issue recently is that what we've come to learn is that among the officer corps, the more informed, I guess, more leadership of the military, there is definitely now a growing majority who are seeing that for what it is. When you talk about the average foot soldier, it goes back to the average American. People are just not terribly informed. They're not reading good information. They're not forming critical thinking skills, and they're just taking things somehow from, you know, whether it's their social media or if they're a Fox News fan or perhaps some other media. Yeah, and remember that when they go to boot camp and they study how to be a soldier, what's drummed into them is he's your commander-in-chief and you don't question his orders. The whole Andersonville kind of, I need to question your order on moral terms. It's not really built in to the enlisted crowd. Of course not.  You don't want them asking too many questions. And yet, I'm pleased to say because I mean, I've taught both soldiers and officers throughout my teaching career. And, you know, I guess I'm somewhat relieved to see that there's a growing sense. And again, a lot of my former students who are military professionals who begin to realize, wait a minute, this person is not representing the national interest. He's not defending the values that we're supposed to stand for. So there is a growing questioning of that. We haven't seen quite as much, I would add, in the leadership of the Republican Party. In other words, very few who have sort of been willing to take on the president. Obviously for those who are political leaders, or I'm talking about maybe a senator, a member of Congress, whatever it might be, they are fearful of what it would mean. The response by Trump can be pretty vicious, pretty tough. And so there's a personal risk for them. You know, why we don't hear that. I think the puzzle, for me, remains why some of these former military leaders, the Mathis and McMaster and maybe most recently, Jim Kelly, they are still relatively mum. And, you know, when are we going to begin to hear a little more now? We've got snippets of it here and there. Even Bolton, I mean, he had opportunities. He chose not to testify in the impeachment hearings. You could sense that he was looking out for, you know, his book sales as a strategy more. And I think for a lot of them, it's the strategy just kind of, you know, plug your nose and kind of write it out and, you know, see where it happens.  Very interesting article by Ann Applebaum, who writes for the Washington Post and The Guardian and maybe others. She's a, obviously, an American columnist. I think she's part of the Washington Post editorial board, matter of fact. She lives in Poland with her Polish husband. And she writes about the reasons that people in the Republican Party buy into Trump's, you know, craziness. And there are quite a few of them. One of them is, I think I'm doing the right thing. I'm helping. I shouldn't walk away from this. Maybe I can do some good for the country. That's not persuasive to me. But the most significant one is fear, just as you say. And one of her seven reasons for people going along with him is they are afraid that he is going to punish them. He has set that up as a culture point. Absolutely.  She's got a fascinating window because she has been integral to watching the developments there in Eastern Europe, post-communist Europe, particularly Poland. And so she is now looking at the U.S., and her most recent book, a very valuable one, is understanding how the U.S. seems to be shifting not from authoritarianism, but to and towards authoritarianism. And, you know, having seen the experience of Eastern Europe, they had the many decades of communist rule. They were liberated in the early 90s free. Suddenly in the last five, 10 years, we see a trend towards authoritarianism in Poland and Hungary in particular, you know, a concentration of power eroding democratic norms. So I say that because she is now looking at the U.S. and saying, wait a minute, we've got some lessons that you can see how countries like those that went into communism and those that came out and are now returning to a new form of authoritarianism. That's a fascinating lens to see it through, very complex, but it's a lot of these dynamics, you know, people looking out for their own interests and fearful of what it means to cross. And again, Trump, he's not your average political figure. He is known to be almost like a mafia boss.  He can shoot somebody in Fifth Avenue and a lot of people actually believe that and they further believe, you know, that there's a good comparison to be made between him, between Trump and Hitler. There's a and there's all kinds of people. And you know, what's his name? Timothy Snyder out of Yale, who wrote on tyranny. You know, that is a scary book because it compares what's happening with Trump, with what happened in Germany and in Europe, heading to a tyranny. But what I find most interesting, and I want to post this possibility to you, is that at the same time, as you described, these, these tyrannical things happening in the United States, the last five, 10 years, and the rise up of the base and the emergence of Trump as representing the base, is at the same time, we have declined. This country is on a decline vis-à-vis China. China is making fantastic strides, even after a really bad time with COVID. They have licked COVID essentially. Their economy is humming, their creativity, their science is humming, their military is humming. You could go through every, every measure, every metric of how the United States should be advancing and find that China is advancing that way and we are not. We have diluted ourselves into exceptionalism that isn't true. And while, and while we are heading down this path toward tyranny, fact is that China, which is tyrannical itself, is doing way better than we are. Can you explain that? Well, there's no simple answer, but I think it touches on many things. Curiously, for many decades, we saw a trend towards democratization opening throughout the world. Of course, the US was a long-established firm democracy and even today is one of the, really, the longest continually existing democratic system. I say that because what we've seen now is a retrenchment, erosion of those norms, and then places where democracy may not be their primary emphasis.  But at the end of the day, it is a variation of authoritarian rule, right? It's not democracy and the real concept. Oh, gosh, again, it's just hard to nail it down because I think that we have seen an erosion of the norms here in the US for reasons that have to do some of what we touched on, the polarization, the disenchantment. But how do we explain, again, for so long, we had this enduring quality of the US of bipartisanship, of respect, even from people you disagreed with, even our political leaders, particularly in the Congress, they had a tradition of working with the other side, even if they, you know, or even, and I think we talked about this in a previous episode that we did today, for example, in Congress, they don't socialize, they don't meet like they once did before.  And we saw it's happened these last five years in particular, the gradual elimination of all the centrist politicians, those who kind of operated with this, okay, I represent this party, but we have to cross over, we have more and more pushing out to the extremes, so that now we have just very conservative Republicans and perhaps more liberal Democrats who are not overlapping, because the American political system, some people see night and day, and there are real differences, but at the end of the day, they have traditionally been centrist parties with overlap, right, conservative Democrats, more liberal Republicans, so that some portion of them overlap.  No, but you know what you've described, though, Carlos, is a problem that goes beyond Trump. This is a problem that's existed before Trump and it's being exacerbated, and you want to call him ignorant, you can, but the fact is he understands this, he understands divisiveness, he understands that polarization you talked about, so the question at the end of the day, and we have roughly 50 days to watch this unfold, is the Teflon Don going to be able to win the election using all the hook and crook things that he has behind his back, including, we don't talk about so much anymore, but the post office, he's wrecked the post office, it's a wreck, the train wreck, so the question is can he be the Teflon Don, or is this going to catch up with him? And it's a test of our democracy, it's a test of the country, every man, woman, and child, what do you think? Well, there is so much at stake with this, because it's not just a simple election of, you know, one or another person wins, if Trump should win, it will be a deepening further erosion of the democratic norms and values and institutions, and it will get worse. I think, you know, any reasonable person has to conclude that, even if you are a conservative Republican, you should be able to say, wait a minute, as it happens, this guy does not represent the Republican Party in its traditional values, he is breaking it, and we have a small number who are realizing that, others, however, who are just looking out for their own hynies are just, you know, keeping mum, and that is a sad, I think a sad situation we find ourselves in. It could go any way, I don't want to predict, I think we can anticipate it's going to get rough and continue to be nasty, and we'll have to hope for the best, and the ultimate scenarios are going to be either a blowout by Biden, in which he clearly has to accept it, maybe he resigns and pence pardons him, so he can be free, or more likely will be a scenario where it goes into some legal challenges for weeks, a messy confusion, he screams fraud, and I don't know, I don't know how that's going to play out. Less likely, I think, is that he's going to win it decisively, I think that's more difficult, but it's not inconceivable that he could pull it off with more disruption, more chaos, but we're in for an interesting ride here these next 50 plus days, so it's going to be interesting. And the funny thing is that we can, we can say that, we can say he's going to do all kinds of amazing, ridiculous things in the next 50, 50 days, who is going to stop him? Who is going to stop him? The courts are too slow. Biden is not in office. You and me, we can only talk in the media, and the media can only say things, they can't do things. So really, this is his to lose, I would say. He's got a pretty good chance at winning because I only have one more question, Carlos, and that is, do you think that you could adopt my wife and me and somehow help us get Mexican citizenship just in case? We'll do everything I can pull some strings for you, absolutely. And the best part is, you get to keep the American. You can have both, so you don't have to renounce it. So when you're ready, you always have it available. I like it. I travel with both. I have both passports. I feel like Jason Bourne depends on where I'm going, what I'm doing, but we can do that for you, Jay. Absolutely. All right. Hold that thought. We're going to have to see what happens. Thank you, Carlos. Thank you for joining me here on Global Connections. Be well. Take care. Stay safe. Aloha.


Okay, so this is a typical afternoon, sleep on the couch, TV on, nobody's watching, and then kids outside. My brother's out there. I know him, and I'll tell you this is the way it goes to be the right thing to do. Sorry, he's sleeping. And I don't think he'll be able to sleep on the couch. Like in his private area. Here you go. Is it good? Hey y'all, having fun? Having fun? So pretty outside though. Your cousins are over here swimming. Outside chilling, but cool. I don't hang out with the kids. No makeup, y'all. Just some glasses. So yeah, you can hear all the splashing in the back. Yeah, so y'all want it more broad, so it's really, you know, don't really do much to hang around the house and have fun. This is what you get unless I go somewhere. I go shopping, or something, or go do something adventurous. Then I get a chat vlog as well. But see, I really don't really think about it because I do Snapchat most of the time. And if y'all want to follow me on Snapchat, it's L-P-A-D-U-A-Eleven. And then I'll put that in the description box below if y'all want to follow me on Snapchat. You can see more what I do day-to-day on my Snapchat anyway. But it is hot outside. It's like 97 degrees, I believe. It's hot. I'm sweating. I got a tin. And it's like not too bad because we're about to pool and we can just hop in. I have to stay out here for like more than a few hours or getting wet or drinking something cool. So we're just grilling and barbecuing. You know, having a good time. It's Friday, so we're just chilling. My husband's on the couch sleeping because he woke up early, barbecued, went to the store, got us drinks and all that kind of good stuff. Now he's taking a nap. So my brother came, his kids, and we're just basically all hanging out chilling. Having a good time. So I'll see you. I'll check back in later. So I'm gonna go out and check my mail. I don't know if it's here yet. The mail lady is super slow and they don't usually deliver the mail until like evening. So I'm gonna just go check. I'll see if she came early today. And I don't know if she's gonna be able to come because my brother parked his car here. I choose today to come. I never go to the mall in the weekend. Just the weekdays because it's always packed on the weekends. So we're getting ready to head to Katie Mills Mall. Come on, Laila. Oh wait, that's on the under entrance. Let's go to Ross, shall we? They have a huge Ross at this mall. So they get all the mall clothes first at this Ross. If you ever have a Ross in your mall, go there. They have the best stuff. Oh, I want a big cart. I don't like this one. The ones in the mall. These flip-flops are cute. I'll be fine. You guys want that at all? Here you go. Get three free though. Maybe we'll go back on the way out. Okay. Because I have to. 65% off. It's just $16. Not bad.  Laila, what did you get? That looks good. That's Snickers. They have cheesecake bites. Oh my gosh. Chocolate brownies, look at my eye. Oh my gosh. I got cookies and cream, brownie, vanilla, and birthday cake. I want cheesecake bites on my strawberry. I really want these. Then they have yellow cake, Laila, and brownies. I don't know what to do. I think I'm going to get yellow cake on one of them. Push it down in there. I think I want peanut butter cups on my peanut butter and chocolate. Let's see yours, Laila. Come over here. Sprinkle, seriously? That's all you got? Did you see the other side? Yes, I saw the other side. They have several fresh goods. Now I want several fresh goods. Okay. Karma wave first looks pretty good. Come on. Yours is going to melt before you finish. So we just walk around the mall. And the sun is already gone. So we've got to get home. It's nine o'clock. We stayed till it closed. We didn't really buy much. We just kind of walked around and had fun. Got yogurt and looked in the bookstore and got Father's Day gifts. So we'll see you guys later and I'll show you what we got. Okay, so we're back in the car. It is dark. We've been out for hours. And I feel so guilty because I left my other daughter at home with her dad.  So we're headed home. Laila got some cute stuff. I got Sasha a little outfit. And of course the Father's Day gift. And I'm going to show you guys what I got later. If y'all are interested in that haul, it'll be on, I don't know if I'm going to do it on my beauty channel or this channel. So you guys, I'll just link the other channel below and y'all can go subscribe to that channel and check it out anyway. So I'll see you guys when I get home. So yes, you guys, I'm back from the mall. My hair is looking all kind of crazy, but I just got the kids some little summer outfits and clothes and stuff like that. And these are really cute. Like this one says, you are invisible crown. And I'm already teaching them to be very self-confident little princesses, right? And this one is really cute. It's like a nautical theme that's really cute. It's just a flowy shirt that's really comfortable and lightweight. And this one has like the little fabric in the back and it says beautiful be beautiful. So I thought that was cute. And what does this one say? It's just a little Paris shirt. It's really cute. So they needed some summer clothes and she got this little cute skirt. And so I've got them some little cute summery outfits. And for me, the only thing I got were these Calvin Klein just little flip-flops that you can wear around the pool. They were cute. They were only like six bucks. Can't beat that, right? And they're like plastic. We're just walking around or whatever. But I still have these really cute glasses and I have to get them. They look like this. Oh my gosh.  So I can show you what they look like. A little quick. But I am, oh my gosh. Yes. I look so like 70s, 80s glam, rich roll. These are like hot for summer. I'm loving these. This is like, I feel like a pimp. Like, I just do, okay? I don't think I'm going to take these off for the rest of the video. That's how much I like. Okay. Sorry, Layla. Layla does not like these. She said, I said, get out of here. So then I had the Ulta box waiting on me at home because I ordered some stuff from Ulta. And let me see what I got. I got a bag of air. Yeah, I'm going to swap those with me. I need to save this receipt. Okay. So you all know how long it took me to try to get this.  And then one day I was just online and an email popped up saying, oh, buckwheat and pallet available. And so I went and bought it. And you know, I got this one at Ulta the day it came out. So, oh, okay. So I also picked up some urban decay eyeshadow primer potion as well. But I'm probably going to do an unboxing and swatching of the Swamp Queen palette on my beauty channel. So if you guys are subscribed there, you all know where to go find that video. Okay. And if I do make it, it's probably going to be very soon. Oh, and Layla also got this really cute leather bracelet with a little cute gold bow and it's magnetic. She wants to show you guys. It's really cute, really dainty. And it's like leather. Yeah, I think this is leather. Well, it's leather risk. And it's like gold detail. It's really pretty. She got that today too.  And I did get my husband some Calvin Klein cargo shorts and a chaps like cute button down summery shirt for Father's Day and I already put in a box to wrap it. So I don't want to show you guys because it's like, we already put in the box and we're like, we don't haul his stuff because like, we just don't haul it. Anyway, so thank you all so much for following us around today and sharing the day with us. So this was just another vlog that I thought y'all might enjoy.  That's what we do. Swim, have fun, go shop, eat, etc. What else did we do? What else? Make videos, do Snapchat. We jumped in the pool. Jumped in the pool. So I guess I'll see y'all in the next video. Bye!