Good afternoon everyone and I'm delighted that all of you could come today. I hope you've enjoyed the session so far. What we'll try to do in this afternoon's first panel is to widen the lens a little bit on US-Indian partnership and look at the question of how we can reinforce and build on habits of cooperation between the United States and India across what is an increasingly complicated international landscape. I think Prime Minister Modi put it best when he said recently that the real test of partnership between the United States and India is only partly about what we can do for each other. It's also about what we can do together for the rest of the world. I truly can't think of a more accomplished or thoughtful group to help us address that question this afternoon than the four very distinguished statesmen on the stage with me, Steve Hadley, MK Narayanan, Shankar Menon, and Tom Donnelly. You've all seen or already know their remarkable biographies and accomplishments. All four served as national security advisors during very important moments in the histories of their country and in the history of the US-India relationship. All four contributed in extremely important ways to the strengthening of that partnership. All four, I think, appreciated what in many ways sets apart the US-India partnership and that is the sense of bipartisan support in both of our capitals, which at least in Washington these days is a rare enough phenomenon. I've had the good fortune of working with all four of them during their 10 years as national security advisor and know each of them not only as a model of leadership and the best in public service, but also as friends for whom I have the greatest respect. So as I mentioned this morning, we've accomplished a lot together, I think, in the last decade of the United States and India, but a great deal of work remains to realize the full promise of our partnership. And as significant as the civil nuclear agreement was, the truth, as all of you know very well, is that one initiative, however dramatic or groundbreaking it might be, is not the real test of a partnership like the one between the United States and India. It's really about the question of whether we can apply that partnership in practical terms across a range of issues on which I believe our interests increasingly converge, whether it's the issue of building order and prosperity for a new generation in the Asia Pacific or climate change or working together to prevent the proliferation of weapons and mass destruction or working together to combat terrorism and violent extremism. So what I thought I'd try to do just to begin our discussion is to ask each of my friends and colleagues here to take a step back and reflect a little bit on their 10 years as national security advisor. What did they expect? How did they see the US-India relationship at the outset of their 10 years? What did they see to be the possibilities, the major challenges and opportunities? What kind of lessons and broad terms did they draw from their experience? So Steve, if you don't mind, why don't we start with you?  I grew up in Toledo and then Cleveland, Ohio, and the first time I left the United States was actually the year after I graduated from law school and I went to India for seven weeks with a law school classmate of mine named Bill Drayton, who subsequently founded an organization called Ashoka of Social Entrepreneurs, and its first operation was in India. And that seven weeks in India was really quite formative, and the thing that struck me at the time was why these countries that had so much in common had had such a difficult relationship. And I thought to myself, well, if I ever have an opportunity, I'll see if I can do something about it. And then, of course, we get into the campaign for the presidency in 2000. And President Clinton really, and this is Bill's point, this has been a project over three administrations, both in the United States and in India. And Bill Clinton really got it started with that historic trip he took to India at the end of his presidency. And then President Bush in the campaign said that one of his objectives was to forge a strategic relationship between the United States and India. And that was the opportunity we really had when we came into office. A lot of people have said, well, that was because India was needed by the United States as a balance to China. That was really not how I saw it. And I don't think it was how President Bush saw it. And it's not how he talked about it. What he said was India is going to emerge and is emerging on the world stage. And India is going to be a huge player on the world stage. And as we look at the problems we all face, increasingly they are going to be global problems. Bill mentioned them, terrorism, proliferation, the environment, energy, stable economy, and all the rest, for which we will need India's cooperation if we are going to solve them. So the President's view was let's get ahead of this situation and use now as an opportunity to forge the kind of relationship with India. So as India emerges as a global player, it will be a partner of the United States rather than an adversary of the United States. And that was really what motivated it in the first place. I would say two other things, Bill. One is everybody remembers the civil nuclear deal, and I'll talk about it. But really I think more important was, and Ashley will remember it because he was central to this, was what we called Next Steps in Strategic Partnership, which did not have a lot of publicity to it, but was an effort to forge Indian-American cooperation in three or four areas. One was missile space technology, one was advanced technology, one was in the civil nuclear field, three or four areas. And what we did was develop a situation of sort of a glide path going forward where there are suspicions on each side. And the way we arranged it was if India, for example, would take a step to reassure us on the proliferation front, that would allow us to loosen up and start forging cooperation in the nuclear front. And there were flip sides. If the United States would take a step, then India would take a step. And that step-by-step approach allowed the two countries to build confidence in each other over time. And that really set up a situation where we then said, well, then let's pick one of these areas of cooperation. And our criteria really was where is an area of cooperation that if the United States and India can have a breakthrough, it will really capture the imagination, the intention of both of Americans and Indians and let them know that it is now a new relationship. So the nuclear, civil nuclear deal with all the problems it had in terms of people who are concerned about the proliferation consequence, the advantage of it was it had the potential to really break through in that way and the consciousness of both Americans and Indians, send the message it is a new relationship, and then open the door for the kind of cooperation on global issues that was really where we wanted to go in the relationship in the first place. Thanks, Steve. That's a terrific story. I really don't know where to start, because I think I'm perhaps the oldest man in the room. So I've seen the worst days of the India-U.S. relationship, and I was very much a part of keeping the Americans at bay. I'm sitting back here and to think that today I'm part of a group which can claim some role in completely transforming the nature of the relationship, is something which I would never have thought possible.  You can take as much time as you want. Anecdote age is part of my Anecdote. No, the point is that the sort of Cold War years appeared a great hostility, and as you rightly said, three administrations. I would like to say on the Indian side, I think several prime ministers, I would say Mrs. Gandhi when she started her second tenure. It so happened that I was an intelligence chief to five prime ministers, so I have some idea of what their thought process is as well. And Rajeev Gandhi took it forward. Mr. Vajpayee, whom I did not serve directly, but he was always sometimes just sent for me. And of course, then we had Mr. Manmohan Singh and others. So each of them played a major role in trying to sort of tear aside, not the bamboo curtain, what I would say the jute curtain that we had between India and the United States. But I for one never imagined, I must confess that a day would come when we would establish the relationship that we have been able to establish today, and particularly that the nuclear issue would become the centerpiece. And well, there are lots of people who are responsible for this. I want to pay a homage to President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, particularly because I think this morning I used the phrase, I don't know where I got it from suddenly, the suspension of disbelief was the real reason why we were able to achieve what we did. And I also want to say a big compliment to my distinguished colleague, Mr. Rusty Hadley, who was the midwife of this entire program during those days, played a remarkable role in sort of facilitating the ideas and the concepts that were put forward by these two leaders. But the element of trust, President Bush's belief that India's time had come and that we must be part of the process. And I agree entirely with Mr. Rusty, at no time during the entire process was there any hint, suggestion, etc. that India should be used as a counterbalance to China. This often figured in the debates, in the debates that used to take place saying, is that why the Americans are being so friendly? And nobody could quite understand why were the Americans so helpful to us. I mean, there were difficulties in terms of the nitty-gritty of the discussions on the nuclear issue. But without our two principles, the two leaders who steered the destiny of our countries during that period, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the Indian side, President Bush on the US side, we just could not have achieved what we want. I mean, there were three, I do one, two instances were mentioned briefly this morning. One was on the night of July 17th and 18th, when I think, but for the, I think I clarified the issue, saying that it's not that Mr. Manmohan Singh did not want the deal, but there was something that Steve and I had worked on, which we found had been altered over the, over the period of the next few weeks. So we finally, but I think in that case, the President and Condi Rice and Steve worked the whole thing out. The other one was, which involved Steve and me directly on the, on the night of the 1st of March, the President gets down from the plane and he, we were on the receiving line, he came up to me and he said, I want the deal. You remember that Steve? And he said, I'm not going to negotiate, it's going to be between you and, and Steve. And we worked till midnight and we broke, the talks broke down. And I remember ringing up Mr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister and saying that sir, it is not working out. Next morning, they came back. Once again, the two sides, the principles came to us. So I think where you get a fundamental transformation in the natural relationship, I think you require great leaders who, as I said, can suspend disbelief. You know, the, the, the most important thing is not to be taken in, but what MTA says or Shankar says, but please accept the bigger picture because there's a greater good that one looks for. And I think that is the fundamental way that we need to, to look at it because while there were incremental improvements in the relationship, we required the India, US nuclear deal to completely transform the natural relationship. Today, you go across to any university in India, you go to any city in India. And I think there's no question now, in your number, where does India and the United States stand? They're on the same page, quite, quite clearly. But you required a deal like this. And I think that was sustained in relation. Whenever there is a decline in that, I think things don't, so in this group, I'm the only non-diplomat. And that's why I'm taking a dig at Shankar. I said, I'm a non-diplomat. And I said, with all the brilliance of the diplomats and the hard work they put in, finally, when you come to a big deal, you require the top leaders to have a common understanding. And I think the nations, the two nations to be, as I said, on the same page when you come to a stop here, just to give you as to where we are. And I think there's a lot more to be said as to where we could go to later. No, that's great. And us diplomats will need to stick together here. So let me turn to Shankar also, because that's a very good transition to, you're certainly both of you are absolutely right about this, the power, not only have seen the big picture, but of leadership and being willing to take risks in the pursuit of that big picture. And then that opens up the question of, so how do you take advantage of it? How do you build habits of cooperation across what is today a kind of bewildering array of international challenges? And I can't think of anybody better suited to begin to talk about it than you Shankar. Well, for me, it's remarkable. Looking back, if you think of what's happened over the last two decades to the India-U.S. relationship, the transformation that they've spoken of, and the leadership that our leaders have shown in this relationship, if you think of it, this is the process pre-911, pre- and post-Mumbai, pre-2008, post-2008. I mean, if you think of the environment in which this has been going on, look how transformed it is. Not just the rise of China, but the whole change of the Asia-Pacific balance and the rise of so many powers in the Asia-Pacific. And yet, this is steady. This is a constant for the last two decades. I find that incredible. And I don't think enough people quite, I don't think we diplomats, but certainly leaders, give ourselves enough credit for what is happening. So why is this happening? Why is it such, why have we managed this despite all the changes around us, whatever we see? For me, there's three big parts to this. One is increasing strategic congruence. Even the issues that used to divide us. When I was foreign secretary, when we used to talk about Iran, Myanmar, I mean, those are no longer issues that divide us anymore. And when you look at the new issues, contention in the global commons, cyber security, maritime security, things like that. There are all issues on which we actually come closer and closer. You look at maritime security, for instance. Cyber, I mean, we all seek multi-stakeholder involvement in global internet governance. I think if you look at it over time, that congruence has grown. Secondly, I'm from an Indian, purely Indian point of view. Of course, the U.S. is an essential partner if we want to transform India. There's no way we could do this without the U.S. So I think that's very clear. But the third thing I think is that we've actually had a series of successes. Civil nuclear has been the most prominent and I think it's one that got all the attention. But if you look at the defense technology initiative and look at how far back it goes, I think Steve mentioned the next steps in strategic partnership and what it did for high technology. In December 2008, I think India was still subject to something like 28 different kinds of U.S. sanctions on various things. Today, there's none of them. And frankly, high-tech exports to India get cleared as fast and get similar treatment to what happens with Israel with the UK. I mean, that's a remarkable step forward. We're now talking about working together on an aircraft carrier. So when I look for the way forward, it seems to me we should build on those successes. Those are the things that I would look at. Defense technology initiative, the strategic conference, improving the dialogue between us and seeing what we can do together on these things. Already, we've expanded Malabar this year to include Japan. I think we're the exercises. So there's a whole series. And most important to me is that we need to look also at issues of the Asia-Pacific order going forward of how we ensure that the kind of peaceful enabling environment that we've had, which has permitted this tremendous economic growth in the region, that this can still be enabled in the years to come. I can go on, but I'd better stop. Come back to that. But thanks very much, Shankar. And Tom, I mean, this is a very good setup and a way for you, because you deserve a great deal of credit in the Obama administration for building on all the achievements that everyone else has talked about already. So let me just turn to you. Okay, thank you. It's great to be here today. Thanks, everybody. And Shankar and I spent many, many hours together working on this. And he was a great partner, a great representative of this country. A couple of things to start with. One, I think it is important to underscore the arc of the relationship since President Clinton's visit there in 2000 through three administrations. And the arc, and it's never going to be perfect, and there are going to be disagreements, and there are going to be bumps in the road. But it is important to take the long view. And the long view on this is that the relationship between the United States and India has been transformed in ways that really couldn't have been imagined in the mid-1990s. And I think that's an important piece of this. A second bill, as you alluded to, this has been a thoroughly bipartisan policy in the United States, which is an unusual thing. Third, it also has had, in part, its basis in deep people-to-people ties. You know, there are some 3 million Indians working in America. We have 100,000 Indian students in the United States. And the connectivity between our societies and our peoples, I think, it's also had a lot to do with this. And I think it provides a real source of strength going forward. With respect to our coming into office in 2009 and how we thought about India, I'd say the following things. Number one, we did see strategic conversions and sought to build on the steps that the President Bush 43 had taken. Number two, we had a set of specific issues in mind as well. One was that we were, in addition to revitalizing our alliances, which had gone through a tiring time, a very exhausting time in foreign policy. We also were looking to build new relationships and trying to imagine what the partnerships we were going to require in the future would look like. And we really couldn't imagine taking on global issues in the future and not having India as a partner. And President Obama thought very clearly about that. Indeed, he said on a number of occasions, quoting Prime Minister Bhadrapati, who's been recently quoted by Prime Minister Modi, that in fact that the United States and India were natural allies in the famous phrase. And we sought to work towards that. Even more specifically, we undertook beginning in 2009 a policy called the Rebalance to Asia, which I worked pretty intensively on. And this matched up almost exactly with the India-Go East policy. And there were just a number of things that we sought to work on together geostrategically going forward. And I think that all worked out pretty well. So the first state visit to the United States was Prime Minister Singh to the White House in 2009. President Obama then took a trip, a very quite successful trip to India in 2010, where he stood in the Indian Parliament and declared the United States support for India as a member of the permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Another, I think, an important step building on, again, the work that had been done before. And then to be candid, we hit a bit of a stall in the relationship. So you have to ask why that was. Lots of different reasons for it. Always there are many things going on in the world. You know, in the United States has a lot of things that it's working on day to day. I do think that the civil liability legislation in 2010, which seemed to diminish the promise of the civil nuclear deal, and that's been hopefully revitalized now as a result of the work by President Obama and Prime Minister Modi in last January, that I think did take some of the air out of the momentum in terms of the relationship. And then I think there were issues on the Indian side in terms of reform stalling to some extent. I do think, though, in the second term with President Obama keeping his eye on the ball here in terms, again, of thinking through what are the partnerships the United States needs? What are the partnerships the globe needs in order to attack global issues? We're back, I think, and revitalizing the relationship. And so you've had reciprocal visits to India and Washington within a four month period. My own recommendation, if I were still in my old job, would be that President Obama not finish his term before having another visit here by Prime Minister Modi. I think that that systematic encounter at the highest levels is really critical because it drives the systems. It ensures that the list of things, and there are dozens and dozens of things that came out of these last two reciprocal visits, that you're constantly working on them and you're called to account when the heads of state or government get together. So I would schedule another round, if you will, with Prime Minister Modi. And I think, again, that underscores the strategic convergence, the view that President Obama's had from the beginning, to build on what had been done before and, again, to imagine the United States and India as essential partners going forward. It's also the last thing I'll say about this. It has been a test of imagination to some extent. Take it over some of the old ways and the old ways of thinking. And I think that we're at the point now where both sides can actually imagine what a natural alliance looks like finally. And you saw that, I think, when President Obama was invited by Prime Minister Modi to be the honored guest at Republic Day for the first time for a U.S. President. And that embodied a lot, I think. It really did set a lot to me about the full embrace, the full embrace between the countries. And the last thing, of course, is I do think that Prime Minister Modi's election and the energy around that, I think, is also brought, re-energized on the U.S. I predict in the American business community. Thanks very much, Tom. And I know MK, you wanted to add a comment. And let me just preface that by saying that no time, I think, introduced one of the most significant areas of convergence as Indians and Americans and our two governments look at the world. And that is the convergence between the rebalance in this administration, building on what the last administration did, the increasing priority attached to the Asia Pacific and an Indian policy that's not just about looking East but acting East in some very important ways. So MK, why don't I turn to you for your comment and also talk a little bit more about the Asia Pacific and how the U.S. and India can work together. Okay. But I mean, in the euphoria, I thought I might inject a certain amount of realism because I thought that was coming. No, the reason is that we almost stumbled on the India-U.S. nuclear deal on the domestic front. And since that was an area which I worked on very closely because of my past anger, there is a certain amount of residual, what should I say, distrust of where we stand. The reason I wanted to press the point is we need to work hard on this. Let's not take it for granted. I know that at many levels, Indian industry, I think even amongst the youth of the country, et cetera, but deep down in the political hierarchy, it is still a great deal. I won't say a great deal. There's considerable amount of atmospherics which need to be sort of sorted out. And we need to look at this and the just now Tom was mentioning about what sort of stood in the way. Part of it is this I mean, you know, when things don't work out in the speed at which happens, these forces come to the surface. So we need to do a great deal with regard to ensuring that the relationship proceeds in the way that we do. And of course, industry will play a major role. The Indian Americans, Indian United States and others will play their role. But I know that even minor pride like we had to do, I did 47 meetings to sort of soften the blow as far as the deal was concerned. And we were lucky, we got the support of President Kalam, who was just demoted office and he came on to and he had to sort of come in. So I mean, I just wanted to mention that because I think we need a certain. So I think that's a very good point. I mean, it is, you know, I think we've been describing a an enhanced and positive bilateral relationship, which is undeniable, I think. But there's a lot of work to be done on the strategic side and building is toward the true strategic partnership because there are many areas where we don't see eye to eye and they continue to cause issues, whether it be Russia, Iran, climate, so these are all the things that we can discuss. But it's a, I think that the point's both taken a lot of work to do. I think one of the things we have on this strategic trust is very interesting. If you talk to the Chinese, they will say, well, we can't cooperate until we overcome the strategic distrust between the United States and China. I think, you know, countries don't really have trust or distrust. They have interests and you try to address suspicions and but oddly enough, if you say we have to have strategic trust before we can cooperate, you'll never cooperate because the way you build strategic trust is by cooperating. So this U.S.-India relationship is a little bit by like the bicycle, you've got to keep going and we need to keep identifying areas where we can cooperate and demonstrate over and over again to our people that there are common interests that link us together and there are things that we can do together that are in the mutual interest of both countries. If I could put one footnote to something MK said, it is certainly true the two, the leaders at the top really make an enormous difference, particularly when you're going to do a breakthrough initiative. I would also say personal relationships really matter. I had complete confidence in MK Narayana and, you know, he would call me up on the phone and he would say, Steve, the negotiations have broken down again. We need to get together and get it all, let's sit down and we would figure out a way to get it back on tracks. Thirdly, this was an example where the NSCs in both countries worked very closely with their foreign ministries and state departments. There was no division, there was complete transparency and we were working actually both columns for a common objective. That is very important because when state and foreign ministries and the NSC are working together in harness, you can really get a lot done and if there can conflictually bring the whole process to a halt. So in terms of good governance and how you run the process, there are a lot of lessons here I think that are applicable more generally to how to run a governmental process in a way that can actually achieve our objectives in advance. No, it's a really important point, Steve, and I think it reinforces what Tom said before about the significance of structure so that whether it's regular meetings between leaders that helps to drive the bureaucracy and build those kind of habits of both institutional and personal cooperation, it's really valuable. Shankar, let me just turn to you for a second on especially on the Asia Pacific as a former ambassador to China, one of the most thoughtful observers of China around, you know, obviously China's rise is of enormous significance for all of us. It's not the only critical issue in the Asia Pacific but it's certainly center stage and so how do you see not only the India-China relationship but how the United States and India can work together across the Asia Pacific because there are challenges with regard to modifying institutions which exist and dealing with the introduction of new institutions like the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, so how do you see that whole set of challenges? Well, I think, you know, if there, it's not so much a question as Steve Hadley said, I think about trust. I think first you have to assume that all the actors are going to, you trust them to follow their self-interest. I mean that's all you can trust them for the rest of it. I don't think you need to at this stage worry beyond that especially when you look at the Asia Pacific as a whole. You know, if you're going to wait for trust and whatever, understand them to break out, then I think you have a long wait coming. The rise of China, I think it's more than just the rise of China. I think it's a fact that we today don't have the political institutions and that the politics, the security order in the Asia Pacific is way behind the economic development and the economic order and in fact there's actual dissonance between the two today when you look at the situation in the Asia Pacific. I think both the US and India have the same interest actually that we bring these back in alignment that we create an enabling environment within which growth development, the peace and stability that we require in the region that all the countries in the region say they're interested in. But I don't think today we have either the places where we talk about this among ourselves in the region. East Asia summit was a beginning, we've tried some of us, but clearly there are some countries, China included, who are uncomfortable with the idea of multi-lateralizing those discussions. And I think there's a long way to go before we can actually do that. So it becomes important therefore that what the US, what India, what Japan or all of us do in the region helps to create a situation where we can at least start looking at building up an order which will work because frankly this dissonance is really is worrying. I mean I find it particularly worrying and in the longer run because not only has Asia grown very fast economically, we've used that money in the last two decades for the world's biggest arms race actually in history if you look at it. So there's a fair amount of kindling lying around in terms of disputes, in terms of you know capabilities which have been built up and that's something that I think we therefore need to seriously look at issues of the order. And I think frankly when you look at interest as Steve said US and India I think here are very similar ground. Tom, do you or Steve want to comment on that because you both give a lot of thought to this? Yeah well I think I think Shankar underscores what the President Park of South Korea has called the age of paradox which is an ever-increasing integration economically but persistent security issues and nowhere near the kinds of architecture or order that is required and these issues rooted in nationalism and history and unresolved disputes coming out of World War II and afterwards and so there is this paradox in Asia. Number two, Steve said earlier that the US India path forward was not about China principally. It's not about China principally but it is about China to some extent and that the United States and India share an interest in creating the environment in Asia that would be conducive to a peaceful rise of China. That's a shared interest I think. We do have a deeply shared interest in the security of each other's interest in Asia so again you can't really ignore China's rise that you have a strategic discussion about Asia and I do think we have shared interest in that in that respect. With respect to the order and the institutions the EAS is an important institution that's developed I think. We can go into more detail on that but you know the President of the United States made a decision to participate at the head of government level on a yearly basis in that institution because it seemed to us to be the most likely institution that could grow in to being a premier region wide place not to address political and security issues. We have APEC which works quite well on the harmonization and economic issues and we can talk about India and APEC which at some point but the EAS I think is an important institution was seen very important by President Obama in terms of the future of the region and the right people were there. I was at a conference in Shanghai and Pascal Lamee was there who's a great trade negotiator and he said geoeconomics is driving Asia towards interdependence prosperity and peace and the question is whether we can keep geopolitics from upsetting that evolution so it is the management of geopolitics. I would say to Tom just this A it was not about China it was about India's emergence on the world stage there is an issue about China the more you make cooperation with India about checking China the harder you make it for us and India to cooperate and I think that's true generally in the region. This is a region of countries who do not want to have to choose between the United States and China and I think one of the opportunities and it's very much consistent with what Tom said and the focus on the EAS. You know we used to think of Asia as South Asia and we kind of imprisoned India in South Asia and then we had Southeast Asia and then we had Northeast Asia. Well you know it's all Asia it is all Asia and I think the ticket for managing the dynamic change that is occurring in Asia is that everybody's got to play in Asia and one of the ways of managing China's rise is for us all to be in the pool together surrounding and embracing China but also helping China understand what a peaceful rise really looks like and so as an example this is why I think Republicans and Democrats generally think we missed a bank bet on the Asia infrastructure investment bank rather than saying no we're not going to participate unless you do some things we should have said yes we're going to participate we should have encouraged everybody else to participate and then embraced it lovingly to insist that China adopts standards of transparency and global standards and really established an institution that was not going to be about geopolitics but was going to be a economic development. I think that's the model going forward for managing that in Asia and it is essential for India to participate because without India's weight in that strategy I don't think it will work. Thanks Steve very much and then okay one final comment. I would just like to stress the point that we need to look at what's happening in West and Central Asia. I think it's critical for it's definitely critical for India I think it's critical for the world I think we have not seen this kind of turbulence anywhere in recent history and I think this is an area where the United States and India need to work very closely because I think the issues are not clear we have the rise of of a group which talks of spiritual purity which is garnering support almost by the minute if not by the by the hour and I I think the whole region is in turmoil our Prime Minister has taken the lead he's gone to Central Asia to talk of of the threat posed by the ISIS and other agencies I mean countries like Tajikistan are already rocked by by this but the whole of West Asia and it has a great deal of the same for us Afghanistan for instance is coming into the vortex can we really think of the United States and India having some kind of a common what should I say kind of action rather mundane phrase to use to deal with the threat which is going to which is going to engulf not only Asia but large parts of Europe and Africa etc. I don't know about the United States you know separated by a huge ocean perhaps but I think this is an area which I think we can't I think this morning there was a reference to this I think some didn't bring bring this up in the morning about looking at what's happening in Afghanistan but I would I would grow even further because what's happening across the whole of West Asia is having repercussions of various kinds and I think this is something that maybe we should take as one of the outcomes of the meeting which you could discuss if it's thrown out it's one okay thank you very much and I think that's a very good stepping off point for questions from the audience because we've had a good balance I think of the the upbeat and the promising and the non euphoric and so all I would ask is please raise your hand wait for the microphone to come to you identify yourself please be brief and please end with a question mark sir Dave Ramaswamy with Africa Agribusiness magazine one of the national security threats that us and India face is climate change as well as Islam is terror both of these two issues combined to form a toxic brutal in Africa especially desertification driven by climate change resulting in large-scale human migrations and in many of these areas Islam is extremist groups have stepped in where states are failing where do you see India and the US cooperating to combat these two threats to the national security thank you it's a very good question who'd like to start off on the answer Shankar well I think on the extremism on terrorism if you look at what we're doing today and compared to what we were doing eight years ago 10 years ago it's really a whole phase transformation both the India both India and the US working together on counterterrorism what I think we may be going forward what we need to do is look much more at processes of radicalization and what it's not animals saying about what's happening in West Asia because that's a much broader phenomenon than just extremism or radicalization and it's tied into the geopolitics of the area it's tied into the economy it's tied into a whole series of and I think that's the kind of conversation where we need to see how do we deal with this and we need to work out a common way of dealing with it on climate change frankly speaking for ourselves our own position is evolving and it's evolved considerably if you look at it on HFCs for instance if you look at it on renewables India and the US have done very well working together on energy on new and renewable sources of energy they've done less well in terms of the actual negotiation the international negotiations on climate change but for me much more important than what you do on a piece of paper and finding the right wording is the actual outcomes that you can produce on the ground and what we do what we have done and the kinds of commitments that the government of India is now making 175 gigawatts of renewables and solar commitments and so on I think those are very important commitments but these this is an evolving situation the change in India is driven actually by the Indian middle class which doesn't want to have to breathe bad air have their children growing up in Delhi as the most polluted capital air capital in the world and so on so that's going to drive change not an international negotiation or general arguments about but that change is coming and so as I see it there will be more and more opportunities for India and the US to work together on climate change issues as well but as I said it's not going to be a simple formula or a simple you know linear sort of extrapolation from the present self-interest is usually the best driver a change you're right Tom anything you want to add no I think radicalization is I think I think that's what that's basically the question that you were trying because I think what whatever we have tried in the past is turning out to be non applicable if I might use that term and I think that's in that's an area where I think the United States can come I'm just brilliant scholars I hear such so many opportunities we need new ideas to to stem this I'm the present part of you know a lot of physical activities going on bombing drones are killing people before there's one leader still a new one is coming up but I think what is really happening the way we dealt with for instance fighting communism fighting etc at one stage I think we need something more with regard to the models that we had certainly the 20 years ago are no longer so I would I would suggest that in answer to that question and I think Africa is really on on the I think what the Boko Haram and others are doing us spreading and in the literature I still manage the literature which comes into both on the internet and even by kind of thing it's really frightening so my only addition I will say is that maybe this is one thing that we need to look at thanks sorry yes sir hey it's right behind you I'm sorry Jeff I'd like to go back to an issue which of course was what kept us apart for many years I don't I'll speak for myself and I think most of the people in the room are very happy with the fact that we have this new relationship and it's going forward and we're today about what can be done in the future but that's sort of the element in the room because it's kind of still there uh you know if you go back and I think Steve and I were both on the NSC and I said before one time he got word that uh he's been looking at the explosion type of law of course we're all hopeful that maybe India is still used in the future for that and that might in fact help us keep Pakistan non-nuclear and some other things but that history is gone it couldn't occur and in particular it didn't occur with regard to what happened in Pakistan and it's not entirely clear that the situation between India and Pakistan is safer now that there's nuclear deterrence there many people and I'm one of those think that it's perhaps the most dangerous nuclear confrontation in the world and the one that's most likely to lead to some kind of nuclear catastrophe so I just would appreciate those who are on the panel both reflecting a little bit on perhaps how that played in the initial decisions years ago and more importantly how it plays in the relationship today and what can we best do to move together forward on this problem especially given the historical situation that you have with Pakistan but is there a way we can get beyond that and move forward on this particular critical problem thanks Jen very much Steve well Jen what we and Ashley and Bill and others can come in but my recollection is our logic was this it was pretty clear India was not going to go back and become a non-nuclear weapons state that was first second India's non-proliferation behavior in terms of not proliferating technology to neighbors or terrorist groups or anything else was actually quite good and we saw the opportunity of the civil nuclear deal not only to address the strategic consideration to send a message of a new relationship to help India with a real problem of satisfying its needs for energy in a way that would be environmentally responsible but we also thought it was a vehicle for bringing them into the nuclear non-proliferation framework because part of the deal was that they had to sign up to all of those arrangements so in our view it was a backdoor way to make them a responsible state in terms of proliferation and that was that was our thinking there was a lot of criticism why won't you do the same thing for Pakistan and our answer was because Pakistan's record on proliferation was quite different than India's and it was an issue that Pakistan needed to address. If you want India to sign the NPT she's quite happy to do so as a nuclear weapons state I don't think that's the problem about India and Pakistan and being the most dangerous place in the world now that's a subjective judgment I know it suits the Pakistanis to say so and to convince you of that fact because they are interested in making getting the rest of the world involved not just in India-Pakistan relations but in Pakistan itself and Pakistan's future but if you look at the actual record when did we fight our wars before we were nuclear and what we've done since then might not be pretty but it isn't of the same scale as what there was before and if there have been real attempts of trying to solve the issues between India and Pakistan it's been since we actually went nuclear it's been after 74 so I'm not sure that you need to worry that much about it it's not a satisfactory situation certainly what exists in Pakistan in terms of tactical nuclear weapons in terms of you know the possibility of well an insider threat of the wrong people getting their hands on nuclear weapons but that's not an India-Pakistan dynamic at all so I think we need to be a little clearer about that I the last thing I'd like to point out is as Steve said I mean India's adhered to the MTCR to Wassenaar to the Australia group to you name it and is ready to join the NSG has actually has implemented the NSG guidelines probably better than some NSG members in the past so in effect I think the civil nuclear understanding helped us to to take those steps and to implement them I think I think I'd like to make it Indian law actually yeah if you look back at the think about what's the and this was a controversial in the United States as it was being considered obviously and you look back and ask what the but what the negative scenarios were the concerns were at the time the United States was considering considering the the civil nuclear deal with India and I think the outcomes here actually too right one is as Shankar said India has become a quite positive and detailed member of the non-proliferation regimes in the world and a very positive player and secondly the knock-on effects that folks worried about right in terms of non-proliferation really have not emerged I mean the non-proliferation threats we have today are not the result of India coming into the non-proliferation regimes that we talked about here today they're there for in Iran and North Korea totally different dynamic so I think in both and both places the the negative scenarios have not played out and we've had a very quite positive scenario from a non-proliferation perspective and India has a no first use I mean too I mean India cannot be accused of starting a starting a conflict using nuclear weapons and I think our doctrine is very clear unless we are proven that we've been hit by a nuclear device from a particular country there's not a question of our use I mean I don't think any country really has that degree of so that it should be the most dangerous place in the world I think the little overdoing that statement and turn to the back please yes sir good afternoon my name is Nisim Rubin I'm assistant director for Asia at the American Jewish Committee and Mr. Menon when you you and later ambassador Aaron Singh were there in Israel and then you were in SA and before you Mr. Narayanan you built on the foundations of Mr. Majesh Mishra in late Mr. Dixit on building a very solid strategic India-Israel relations that can survive any administration now and in the future can you comment a bit on Mr. Modi's upcoming visit to Israel what are the areas we can expect I you cannot talk about anything that you don't want to it's just a Shankar I hope no I think seniority right it's a real partnership no you know I think there's another Modi in the audience but I want to say that that Mr. Modi I think is a is I think a great admirer of Israel and the way the Israel for that matter I think a lot of people in India are admirers of of Israel I mean we don't quite go along with with their preemption doctrine which is something that we find difficult to accept but so I would presume that the visit of our Prime Minister to Israel would greatly cement a relationship which already exists because Israel has been helping us over the years in many ways many of us we don't want to reveal just now but we shall do so so I think the short answer to your question would be I think that it would set the steel of or stamp of approval on on what is already taking place and I think Israel relationship would go forward in a manner that we can only hope is almost as good as the India-U.S. relationship well I agree entirely and I think it's successful visit and let's see because there are so many things that we're doing together between India and Israel and let's see but I'm very optimistic about the nature of that relationship it's interesting because it's a popular relationship in India and that that says something and I think that's because of the longevity of that relationship thanks Shankar yes sir Paul Joyo NSI thank you for the wonderful commentary today by all the participants one one thing that was mentioned was the potential or the particularly irritant in some ways between the US position of Russia and India's position on Russia so my question is in the last few years the I would say the velocity of aggressive foreign policy from the Russian side has increased especially to to towards the United States and my question is have you seen this velocity translate into attempting difficulties in the let's say development of relations between the US and India and secondly to MK with his long tradition of understanding from the Soviet period forward and understanding the long-term success that Soviets had in penetrating many elements of the Indian government according to the metrokin papers if you see that this is a if this is carrying on in any way shape or form you know I think the the the Russians are the aren't the only country the nation that is penetrated the Indian system if I might say so I mean I spent a lifetime probably more than anyone else in this game so but but I think I think the that hasn't in a sense destroyed the relationship with any of any of the country's concern it's a job we have a counterintelligence wing which is supposed to be doing its job it is not as good as it should be but so we have not sort of taken it as as a sort of entirely damaging the the framework of state-to-state relation in that sense so I don't think that is an issue but I do want to make a point saying that the Indian tradition is that to be loyal to anybody who stood by you for long and there's no denying the fact that the Russians whether they were Soviets or non-Soviet as the case may be they have and I think Ambassador Arun Singh is an expert on this on the subject I think they stood by India and therefore there's an India-US-India-Russia relationship which I think you you cannot quite overlook or forget but that has not prevented us from widening our embrace with the way we are now looking at the India-US relationship even in defense and related matters so there's nothing that that impedes the relationship but it doesn't mean that we can only go forward with the India-US relationship by divesting ourselves of our relationship with the Russians I think that is not not on because but I think Russia has come to terms with that because they are not particularly happy at the enlarging scope of India-US relationship on defense and related matters where they almost had a monopoly at one stage or for that matter with some of the other countries but India is quite clear that it knows what it needs to do in these matters but it does not mean that it it will accept that somebody else dislikes your friend and therefore you should should divest yourself of it so I think it's it's a comfortable relationship in this in this case in actually India in the driver's seat rather than being on the on the sidelines I I like I want to make the point I'm not the diplomat I I just barge into it by mistake and thanks and thanks to Steve we managed to pull off the deal barge away Steve is well yeah I would just add one thing one of the things we had to recognize once we made the breakthrough the civil nuclear deal is that that we could be strategic partners did not mean that India was going to vote with the United States the way the United States wanted to vote on every resolution coming before the United Nations that they had their own interests they were going to have their own positions on issues and sometimes we were going to disagree but I I think the one thing in this dealing with Russia over Ukraine is an example I think the one thing that we could ask for of India is to have the kind of strategic conversation so that India would come to understand the American perspective first of all and then secondly take into account that perspective because India is in a process of becoming a global player and it is learning how to be a global player and that its perspective is changing and that's I think the convergence that was being suggested earlier and India is going to understand that what happens in one sector actually affects credibility globally and I've said for example that I thought the pivot to Asia was going to depend a lot more on how the United States handled what Russia is doing in Ukraine and how we handle what's going on in the Middle East as much as it would on how many base agreements we were able to sign up with allies in in Asia that's the kind of conversation we need to have with India as India takes on a global perspective and starts playing a role globally on issues that two decades ago India would never have to say much about I agree I think that I mean I think that in case exactly it is important to note Paul there has been a real transformation in terms of the diversity of defense relationships that you have in the in the depth and breadth now the U.S.-Indian defense relationship and we just now entered into a new 10-year defense framework but Steve's exactly right and these are the kinds of conversations I think the conversations that come along as you're deep in the relationship and as India becomes a global power that impacts globally the kinds of conversations we would have now would be around the importance of construction of productive powers among and between great powers and when one of the powers like Russia goes actually hostile to the West and to the United States which it has that impacts our ability to work together around the world to address to address global problems next time another question in the back please so this question is for any and all of you looking forward five years from now do you see the world a more peaceful place or a less peaceful place and why do you want our hope or our expectation start with expectation well if we don't do anything it's going to be worse so I think we have a lot of work to do but we certainly hope it'll be more peaceful it helps it well it helps it too but there's an awful lot of awful lot of work to do when it requires it's going to require deep cooperation you know we've seen the we see today basically the breakdown of authority and among Arab states with now a number of out all out failed states in the Arab world the the resulting filling of that vacuum by some of the most violent and aggressive groups in the face of the earth the fact that they've become increasingly sectarian which means that a number of these conflicts are going to be we'll take a long time to deal with we have in the case of ISIS a unique group in terms of its the scale of the territory that it controls it's financing the fact that's got probably 25 to 30 000 foreign fighters who have come into Syria and Iraq to participate a far larger number than came into Afghanistan to participate in the Mujahideen against the Soviet Union so we have a very big problem on our hands it's going to take a long time to deal with and the second piece of this I think of this kind of general breakdown is the is part of the answer I gave to the last question which is we have had in the last quarter of a century productive and constructive relationships generally among the great powers and that has changed in the last year and a half with Russia's activities in Europe and a Russia that's going actively hostile to the United States in the west and kind of has pulled out from cooperation with the number of other powers in the world and that makes the world more difficult to manage frankly and so yeah we have a couple of dynamics here that that are going to make that they're going to be very challenging going to take a lot of a lot of work and are going to be long-term challenges I think now that said there are a lot of positive things going on in the world as well and to date most of these issues have been contained regionally but you can't count on that thanks Tom last question please Elizabeth Colton this Colton related to everything that we've been talking about whether it's Pakistan or Russia or nuclear etc I'd like to bring up the Indian Ocean and it's related to you know the perception of others of this partnership since it's not an alliance and of course during the time of cold war Russia the Soviet Union and India were very closely tied together in the Indian Ocean and now there's the perception that the United States and India are tied together and of course that perception is from especially in terms of Pakistan and China so I'd like to ask if you could speak a little about our relationship vis-a-vis the Indian Ocean and developments there thank you thanks Liz well just to clarify the the Russians weren't very involved in the Indian Ocean even during the Cold War at the height of the Cold War I mean frankly we never saw a Russian naval presence in the Indian Ocean I think that's that's just it just wasn't true well the capacity was limited they had other concerns I think they they were more worried about you than they were about and about other places but but you're right I think it is an ocean which is becoming more crowded much more important to the world economy it is an area where for now for the first time for the last three years the LNAV presence is now uh becoming the new normal as it has already become in the western Pacific and if you look at the levels of interest in what's happening around that ocean partly because of what's happening in the literal and you see the the extent of changes all around it some of it Tom just mentioned but also Africa also if you look at the importance of the energy flows and so on that that go through the energy trade all the that go through those those regions it's now for me it's critical that we actually make sure that the global commons including the Indian Ocean that the stays open and available for all of us and that's where we have a real common interest and that's what we I think have been working on successfully quite apart from you know the other work that we've done together I think that's something that we have successfully worked on for several years and I do hope that we continue to do that thanks Shankar one of the things I hate most about being a moderator is bringing really interesting discussions to close so we do have a schedule that we need to stick to today so let me just ask all of you to join me in thanking our panelists not not only for their wisdom and insights today but also for many years of service to us


I'm Martin Roster, District Manager with the Mine Safety and Health Administration, Metal and Non-Metal. And I'm Ray McKinney, District Manager for Coal. We in the metal and non-metal mining industry had a great number of accidents involving off-road haulage trucks just like this. Martin, we've experienced the same problem. The off-road haulage trucks are much larger today and much more complex. It takes a great deal of knowledge and expertise to inspect these trucks. The following video will show the steps necessary an inspector has to take in order to make a good, thorough inspection. We also need to emphasize the importance for the inspectors to protect themselves when they are inspecting these vehicles. When conducting truck inspections, ensure that the truck is not loaded, secured from movement, and in a safe, level area. This video presents a typical sequence of inspection procedures for off-road haulage trucks. Your inspection sequence may vary from the one shown here depending on conditions and type of truck. Regardless of your inspection sequence, be sure to check all components that affect safety. It is also critical that you perform this inspection in a safe manner. Select a safe location for performing your inspection. Find a level surface away from traffic. Always approach the vehicle with caution. Avoid immediately climbing on the vehicle.  Greet the driver and identify yourself. Explain that you will be conducting a safety inspection. Have the driver climb down and ask if there are any problems with the truck. Before performing an inspection, the truck must be properly secured from movement. You begin your inspection with a thorough check of tires and wheels. Look for loose or missing lugs or cracked or bent rims. Check the tires for exposed plies, deep cuts, bulges and abnormal wear. Also look for proper inflation because low tire pressure can cause poor steering response, overheating or a blowout. Check the engine compartment for trash, tools, rags and anything that could jam controls or cause a fire. Check fan and V-belt drives for proper guarding. Check the steering components for excessive wear or movement including the steering jacks and bushings, tie rod and tie rod ends. And look for any fluid leaks. Also check the suspension. Several different types of suspension systems are used on off-road haulage trucks. Haulers equipped with gas-charged suspension cylinders should be checked for loose mountings and leaks. If springs are used, check for indications of misaligned, shifted or cracked springs, missing or loose bolts, spring hangers unsecured at frame and cracked or loose U-bolts. If equipped with A-arms and torque rods, check for cracks and loose pins. Inspect all fluid-carrying lines for cracks, brakes, rubbing or loose fittings. The steering, braking and other controls depend upon hydraulic force, so it's important that there be no leaks, brakes or loose fittings. The truck's braking system should be checked for missing, loose, cracked or non-functioning parts, such as loose belts, leaking hydraulic lines, leaks in wheel cylinders, brake linings or pads saturated with oil, grease or brake fluid, excessive wear or cracks in rotors and brake pads or drums and linings, and loose or missing air chamber mounting bolts. You must also be alert for the sound of air leaks. Look under the vehicle to check the condition of the drivetrain components. Make certain there are no loose U-clamps or missing bolts. Check the truck frame for cracks or broken welds. Look at the mounting of the hoist jacks and pins to determine if there are any cracks or missing keeper bolts. Look for any fluid leaks and check the hydraulic tank mounting. As you move to the rear of the truck to continue your inspection, check the other tires and wheels. This inspection will include checking the braking assembly to determine if the brake valves, pressure converters and lines are secure, with no loose or missing parts, and looking for any fluid leaks. At the rear of the truck you will also examine the truck bed for rubbing marks, cracks or other defects, such as broken welds, bed mountings or pins that might indicate problems in the operation of the truck. Check for lights and mountings making certain the light units are clean and in good condition. And inspect the reverse backup alarm and mounting to ensure that it is not damaged. Check the exhaust system for leaks and defects. As you continue your inspection on the right side of the truck, check the tires and wheels, suspension, brakes, frame and bed. Fuel tank, engine compartment and other systems and components as you have already done at the rear and left side of your vehicle. While checking the area around the machine, inspect the service lights for damage. Look for broken lenses or conditions that will reduce visibility. Every step of the inspection is important. Before climbing onto the truck, make sure the steps, handrails and handholds are free from mud, grease, ice, snow and any other materials that could cause a slip or fall. Also check the ladders and handrails for looseness, bent parts or cracked welds. Check out your shoes and gloves too. Muddy or greasy shoes and gloves will keep you from getting a sound footing and a firm grip. Check fire extinguisher if located near base of ladder and fire suppression systems if equipped. As you climb up the ladder, use the steps and handholds correctly. Nothing should be carried in your hands while ascending or descending ladders. Don't take shortcuts to reach the cab and face the machine when climbing on or off. Before entering the cab, check the cab protector and rock deflector for broken welds and cracks in the struts or braces. Make sure the windows are clean and free of cracks that might impair visibility and that the wiper blades are in good condition. Examine the exterior mirrors and mountings for damage or defects and check the door latches to make certain they open and close correctly. The next procedure is the cab inspection. Give the cab a good visual inspection. Check for obscured visibility. Look for trash, tools or any loose objects which could jam a control or be tossed around if the truck should stop suddenly or become involved in an accident. Check the fire extinguisher if it's located in the cab. It should be fastened securely in place and fully charged. Inspect rocks or roll over protection if equipped and check condition of seat belts. Once again, be sure the parking brake is set. While in the cab with the driver, notice if the seat belt is being worn properly. Ask the driver to start the engine. Driver, would you start your engine? Notice if the driver sounds the horn before starting the engine. After the engine starts, check gauges for oil pressure, air buildup, low air warning device or test LED system if used. Ask the driver to function test all controls. Okay, at this time would you function test your controls? Ask the driver to turn on wipers to see that they are operating properly. Alright, would you turn your wipers on please? Okay. Determine that the park brake is set. And then dismount the truck and walk around it to check if the lights are working. Next, ask the driver to test the backup alarm. The backup alarm should sound automatically when the transmission is placed in reverse. And it must be audible above the surrounding noise level in the blind area. The next inspection is of the emergency steering. This check applies only to those trucks that have an emergency or auxiliary steering system of a type that can be checked. Ask the driver to shut off the engine and check the emergency steering in accordance with the manufacturer's recommendations. If the emergency steering is functioning properly, have driver turn off the switch and proceed with the rest of the inspection. Have the driver apply the service brakes and check for air leaks with the brakes applied. The purpose of this video is to aid you in your inspections of haulage trucks used on mine property. It is designed to supplement more in-depth instruction that will be conducted on proper inspection procedures. Your supervisor will provide you with additional information based on regulations and manufacturer's specifications.


上面. Thank you." So my name's Sarah Sherman, I work for consortium of universities in the London area. Our six partners are Birkbeck, the London School of Hygiene stock vault medicine, the Royal veterinary college, SOAS, UCL's Institute of Education and the University of London. Together we do all sorts of things. We share software licenses, deals I've negotiated with providers, some of whom are here today. We do joint training we provide joint materials training guides I run lots of events and we do stuff together because between us all were quite small institutions and as one combined effort. ..ingly, we still are not the size of a normal sized university. So the hole is greater than the size of its parts is very much our motto. So activity is based around an enhancement theme which we pick every two or three years. In 2014 we were looking at assessment and feedback practices. We collated lots of good examples across our partners and shared that with the community. The next enhancement theme, which we started in 2016, was digital capabilities, which is obviously what's brought us all here today. So we've done a lot of different activities as part of this theme. We have designed a MOOC, an award-winning MOOC. I have to add that in for teachers, any teachers who teach online whether it's fully blended or completely distance learning. It teaches and trains them to make their online courses engaging and interactive. It's on course here, it's three weeks long, it's free, and that's the URL. Also, as part of this theme, we have run the JISC Student Digital Tracker Survey, and we've also trialled the staff discovery tool. So the topic that I'm going to be talking to you about today is our pre-enrolment course, which has come out of this same programme. It's a course to look at students before they start university. We're well aware of all the brilliant stuff that's out there, particularly a lot developed by JISC, on ensuring that students are equipped for entering the workplace to make sure they're digitally skilled and ready to get earning the bucks. But actually, we were worried and bloomed to if we were maybe doing a disservice to our students. We're equipping them with the technologies that they need for their learning, and in a way to get them before they even start. So it's still a work in progress, but I wanted to talk about the process and where we've got to right now. So we did some research across our six partners, we consulted with a number of colleagues, and we ran a couple of surveys with staff and students. So in terms of the consultation, I report to a steering group which is made up of a couple of senior representatives of each of the six partner institutions. So I talked to my advisory board, kind of my line managers, to make sure they were happy with what we were planning. I also have a sort of a dispersed team of learning technologists, we call them the BLEE tell team. They knew what we were up to, some of them were involved more heavily in the project. I have a digital capability advisory board, which again is representatives from all the institutions, but from different stakeholder groups. So we have librarians, staff, development, a real life student. We have a number of different people on our board progressing through all of these different activities, some of which I've already mentioned. But for this specific project, the pre-enrolment course, I have a working group. They don't have big muscles, but some of them like to think maybe they do the peck working group. So to kick off, we ran a couple of surveys last year, one for staff. It was possibly the shortest survey we've ever sent out to staff and they were quite pleased that we did so. It just has two questions, one of which is, what digital skills do you expect your students to have when they arrive and start your programme? And the second question is, on what digital skills do they seem to routinely lack? And that was it, and if they wanted to provide their name, that was great, it wasn't obligatory. And we targeted a number of staff, so we had 17 colleagues give us responses back, which doesn't sound loads, but actually that was kind of more than enough because we were coming back with very similar results. Then we did a student survey, we opened it up to first years across the consortium. We asked them four questions. What digital skills did you have when you arrived at university? What did you need that you didn't have, that you realised you didn't have? How did you acquire these skills? What did you do to get them? And what advice would you give any first years coming in based on what you've found out? So we had 63 students respond to that. Again, loads, not significantly remarkable, but plenty for us to get working on. So we collated all of the results that we've got from all of our students, and based on the data we started to identify the areas of this pre-enrolment course that we knew that we would need to cover. So this is like the spreadsheet taken from collating all our data. So we started realising that all of the teaching staff, for example 11 teaching staff said they needed something on Microsoft Word, working in documents like that, that cloud storage didn't come up at all. We thought it would. We grade it out because only one person thought it would be significantly important. Not to say we didn't include it, but this really got us going, start thinking about how to design and shape the course. At the same time as collecting our data and finding out what our stakeholders wanted, we scoped out what resources already existed internally. So we looked at all of our six institutional partners, VLEs. We got access to the sort of digital skills courses that they already offered, making sure that obviously the resources there were openly available. And then we went external, so we asked local friends if they had anything in the open that we would be able to use in this course. Now it's important at this stage to realise that our course was an overview of the kind of digital things that a student would come across once they started their academic career programmes. We weren't going to be learning anything per se. We weren't going to be teaching how to create a video, but it was more of a kind of a heads up. This is what you're going to be faced with when you start your programme, whether it was undergraduate, postgraduate, distance learning or what. We wanted to make this as inclusive as possible. Our mantra of the whole course was so that there'd be no surprises when you went through those classroom gates. So, based on all of the research that we collected, we were able to refine and decide on the four main areas of our course. So, sort of topic zero is what is digital skills, what are digital skills, what do we mean by this. Section one is about general technologies. So, working with files, understanding what file types mean. It's important that students understand that they need to save documents into PDF if they're going to be using Turnitin. Office applications, search engines, those kind of things. The learning technology section is around things like the VLE, forums in the VLE, assignments and assessments and the use of video lecture capture. We wanted to tell our students before they got into the classroom that a lot of their stuff would actually be filmed and they can think about how they'll use that recording. For many of our students, we're anticipating that it will be the first time they'll ever have used a VLE, certainly Moodle in an HE setting. So, if nothing else, this course will give them a taste for that. The third option is all around safety, security and access, logging in. Some of our students, I've heard colloquially, come to the help desk because they can't get into Moodle. I've logged on to my laptop and I can't access Moodle. I don't understand why. Well, you have to log in to various different university systems. There are lots of use names and passwords involved when you're at university. The final section is about getting organised, so that's online note-taking, annotating, understanding, referencing, time management. This is another spreadsheet that we designed to start honing in and use this as the course map to structure the course. If the link works, we can go into it more fully. So, it's all there. So, all these different colours refer to a different topic section. In terms of how we managed the project, there was myself and my colleague Nancy, who hopefully is tuning in live at the moment. We used Google Drive to store all of our shared documentation. We worked disparately across six different institutions and our small working group, we wanted to ensure they had access to everything as we went along. We used Blackboards Collaborate quite often. Again, although we're located all in London, Nancy, for example, lives in Dorset, so we needed to make sure we all got together virtually. So, that's just a snippet of a Blackboard Collaborate session we ran as Nancy was starting to start structuring the course to show the working group where she was at. Nancy really is truly the architect and the key designer behind the course. So, let's have a look at the actual course. So, we use Moodle. Our course is a generic course. It sits in our shared version of Moodle. That's the landing page with a bit of information, a very short introduction. That is section zero. What is this course? If we click into the Learning Technologies section, it takes you to that, and there are only about four sections in this course on learning technologies. We don't want to overwhelm these students. Potentially, they might be sitting on a beach in Ibiza. They haven't yet started their courses, so we don't want to stress them out before they even start. But it's just to give them that taste of flavour, a heads up of what's to come. So, you can see in the Learning Technologies section, we've got a bit about an online learning environment, the forums, the assessments and assignments, and the video that you will be using or having access to video recordings. At the end of each section, we've got a quiz. Students are expected to get 100% in this quiz and they can verify very simple questions. They can keep retaking it and retaking it until they get the 100% and then they get a badge at the end. So, it's all kind of subtly demonstrating what it will be like to do an online course. And then that is, if I click into the Assignments and Assetsments section, that is about the size of a page that we have on each topic. There's no scrolling. There might be a video. The University of Derby is brilliant animation and videos about digital capabilities. There might just be a still image, something to make it look nice. And right at the very bottom of this page is a quote which we've pinched. We didn't have to make any quotes up, which was brilliant, we were considering it. But we got enough of those quotes from those students and that fourth question, what advice would you give incoming students? So, right now, literally at this very moment, we're running our pilots. So, out of the six institutions I work for, three institutions are now piloting the course. So, they've taken a copy of the pre-enrolment course from our shared noodle and dropped it into their own. So, that is the role of veterinary colleges, version of the course, that is Birkbecks and that is Soasis. So, you can see it's the same course in different noodles. I'm right now there piloting. So, right at the very end of the course, we've embedded a survey which I haven't looked today, I've already got at least two or three responses from. This is a very quick survey to ask them what do they think of the course. So, I found this course and they've put in a load of different adjectives of them to describe. Too much information, boring, confusing, but we've put in some positives mixed in there as well. We don't want to force anyone one way or the other. We asked them which bits they liked, the best, they can take all of those, how difficult or easy they found their way to navigate through the course and a bit about them so we know which level of study they're in, which institution and their age range and how they were accessing the course. So, as I said, we've already had at least response and one of them says, I am useless with computers so the basic guidance which assumed no knowledge was useful. So, that was good going from our second response to the survey. And then once we have the focus groups, sorry, the survey, has the pilot's progress will collect some focus groups based on students who are happy for us to contact them afterwards. So, what next? We're planning a full rollout 2019, so possible another presentation that we'll see next year. And our plan is to open up the course to everyone, to the world. You couldn't see it earlier but there is a creative commons licence already attached to the course so it will be properly openly available but if anybody would like to take a sneaky peek at it and have a look at it now, I would be very happy to let you in so just grab me at the end or drop me a line. And that's it. So, I think we came up with a really clever metaphor for this presentation which is something about unlocking the stable door. So, I think it's around ensuring our students we might be checking they've got digital capabilities for the workplace especially, let's just unlock the door give them those digital capabilities now and then they're free to leave the stable. Thank you very much, Sarah. So, you've taken my advice and you've asked lots of questions so I don't have to. Oh, God. A little bit. Right, first of all then, is there a difference between digital skills and digital fluency that is investigated in your data? It's a good question. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to answer it fully but I'll do the politician thing. So, I think there is a really fuzzy line between digital skills generally so understanding the software and if we talk about note-taking for example understanding the different Evernote and Google Docs and what there is and I think there's a difference between knowing that and identifying those. So, how to annotate annotations and notes pedagogically for informing learning. That's not what we're doing in this course. It's not so much study skills as technology so these are the tech tools or platforms that you'll be coming across when you're at university. So, thank you. Email me if you want to surf chat more. Yeah, please do talk to Sarah afterwards. Right, second one then quickly. Do you already use Google tools for learning for example Gmail, Drive, Docs? Yeah, so some of our institutions do obviously with six independent separate institutions. Sirass, for example, is fully Googled. They got Google apps for education gosh I don't know, seven years ago whenever it came out. So staff and students at Sirass are using Gmail and Drive for everything. At Birkbeck it's just for Gmail and then other institutions can use it if they want to use it. So there's no hard and fast rule. Brilliant, thank you. Then thirdly what's the level and quality of engagement with the course? Well, I don't know yet. We literally, because it's a pre-enrolment course it's happening right now we've let students loose on it. So the three pilots that we've got running for example at the Royal Veterinary College where I took lots of these photos are probably quite ill horses The RBC is piloting it with one BSE course so it's a full co-horse in the first years. They haven't yet started so the moment the IT sets up their accounts they'll be in. Birkbeck we think we've got a number of courses we've got some academics who are running those and at Sirass we've got some what they call bridging students so they're international students and they come over a couple of weeks before term starts to kind of get orientated do a bit of language stuff and this course will support them so I don't know, ask me again in three months we'll see how we go. Take her email address. Thank you. So do you have a minimum standard for blue muses of staff? Minimum standard of the BLE? BLE Right, minimum standard of staff so students can be sure they will get what they have learned I'm not sure if I understand the question but what I can say is I guess with all the consultation and studying we approached lots of academics I think Liz, you were probably one of the ones who filled in the survey for us we made sure that all the institutions could be covered so what their needs and requirements were so that the course would be met but there isn't anything formal as a minimum standard certainly the institutions don't have minimum standards for the BLE Do you want What are the things to bear in mind that were customised? So the group created the course so the group created the course and when it was handed over we've actually gone in and customised it so the links to all the support materials all the contact details of the post institution so in regards to that if they need additional work or if they need additional work on to that if they need additional support in the resources section they should know where to go so we're signposting as we go along Thank you so much Liz for reminding me and Liz spent about an hour personalising the Birkbeck version of the course so we provided guidance to our piloting and anyone else which bit needed personalising and I think in the actual template course those bits are highlighted in red so people know what they need to change Yes It's kind of a bit of an age-old question we have these ideas at our institution should it be a minimum standard for lecturers for all their lecture captures up there can students expect when they come to the institution I will see all my lecture captures I will see all my PowerPoints I will see a picture of my lecturer and that's kind of what I was trying to ask Got it Yes Sorry Thank you Elizabeth I think you answered that so that each institution will have a different take on it so from my point of view I've done a generic template course and then it's up to the institution how they want to localise that if they want to get rid of that whole section on lecture capture it would be a shame because we work holes in it but you know they can do that Okay thank you Last week for our next presenter you asked students for their age was this relevant? Don't know yeah Probably not but let's find out If you'd like to show your appreciation in the normal way


So guys I am back With another out of ring video and today guys I bring you a weapon which is actually real unique This is a weapon. I haven't seen anybody post a video on I mean it's Well, not that important But it is something I thought I'd share with you because it may interest one or two out of thousands that might view this How's it going guys? My name is D.P. Jen if you do enjoy the video Help that and if you like what you see want to see more be sure to subscribe Okay, so the weapon we're taking a look at today. It's called the celebrance magic rib Rake this one requires eight strength and 14 dexterity You can see mine scales with the intelligence too, but that's due to my ash of war They're gravity tusk that which is this one right here, but boom I just tried it on because I just wanted to see if it works with these things Special ability base guys believe it or not. This thing gets ruins Per hit. I know you're thinking you're looking at the title thinking what you want about DPJ Every weapon can get ruined to be killed. So I'm gonna get ruins for it This one gets them on hit.  This is overpowered. Are you ready for this guys?  No, not really get 10 per hit and I'm pretty sure there's like a two-second cool down. I mean what? Watch this watch this I can even hit me in the shield. I get my 10 ruins people Give me a room And it does work with the ash of war as well Which is just wild it's just absolutely wild but like it's no big deal It's only like 10 ruins per Per hit, I'm sure like said there's a two-second cool down. I think it's multiple adds a joined up I'm not sure if you're getting 10 per one you kill if it's like 20 in the vicinity that'd make it slightly better for new players, I guess Oh Yeah, I don't think it does work that way But hey, it's unique. It's something I haven't seen anybody else cover. It's definitely a rare drop as well So that item could it took me. I'm not even joking. I Mean I went back. I had this ages ago because of farm I was using I went back guys to try and get another one to dual wield I'm as a literal death for you. I was I didn't get a single one drop. I had my silver scarab on I had my silver tier mask on nope wasn't having it. So he needs to come all the way up here But do you remember this popular area right here? The windmill village with those crazy dancing and singing women on the hill It's actually a couple of these on this hill drop this weapon where they can drop this weapon I think it's like two or three here on what you do is I showcase you here anyway And this was actually one of the earlier room spots. I posted before we found out about the Margin Palace And so I've got a decent weapon on no, I haven't but either way this will still work. So this grace here guys This I can farm this if you want it. There's a couple of weapons on offer here, too So I see these ladies here dancing. I don't think any of these have it here But this what you do is you just basically kill them So this one's this one's a bit harder that weapon and I drop it either but that's pretty cool looking Probably does something great. They got women up here as well. So if you hit one, you'll see that all attack me I think this one here. Yeah, she has one and I believe there's one back there. You can see the one back there And it all be hold different weapons. I've had like two of them in total And only one of the one I'm using now. So yeah, it's a super rare drop like I said Yeah, and what you do guys is just run back down to the grace sit down stymie crop rinse repeat I can do this all day long now I'm probably gonna continue doing this until I get that one weapon there that woman is using Hey, yep, like I said, it's simpler sitting down standing back up Rinsing and repeating if you've got the relic sword you can take these out in one It's way way easier, which is what I was doing earlier She died. Oh, what's she dropped me? What's she dropped me? Nope. Nope. Nope Come on. Come on Boom boom boom If you just magically appears that old ladies coming in come on then Gang up on me. Oh Shit.  Look Whoa, whoa, look at him. I even that's the one I want there.   This is where you got to come to get it guys And there we have it the video It's coming to an end and I hope you enjoyed it if you did leave me a like really helps out If you'd like what you see I want to see more out of ring be sure to subscribe and hopefully my bear your tiff or people I will see you on that next one