Good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu news analysis by Shankar A.S. Academy for the Rate 4th of December 2022. These are the list of news articles we will be going through today. Now let's start our discussion. Look at this. This snippet article says that new minerals have been found in the meteorite that landed in Somalia. Do you know what is the difference between meteorite and meteor? Let's find the answer to this question in this discussion. And let us also see some of the facts about the meteorite in Somalia. Where shall I start? Let me tell you about Asteroid first. An asteroid is a small rocky object that orbits the sun. They are smaller than a planet. Most asteroids in our solar system are found in the main asteroid belt. Asteroid belt is a region between Mars and Jupiter, which is full of asteroids. Since many asteroids are together, they meet smash into one another. This leads to asteroid breaking off into smaller pieces. These pieces are what are called as meteoroids. So meteorites are small breakaway pieces from asteroids. And they can also come from comets also. Here comet is something different from asteroid, even though it also orbits the sun. Comets here are made up of ice and dust, okay? Now there are many situations where one meteoroid can break away and it can get close to the earth. And in some cases, it can also enter Earth's atmosphere.  So it is no longer a meteorite. Here it turns into meteor. This vaporizing process looks like a streak of light in the sky. So due to this feature only, we call them shooting stars. But from the above discussion, it is very clear that meteors are not actually stars, but they are breakaway pieces from asteroids. Since the meteoroids vaporize, they do not land on the earth, okay? Then what happens to the meteoroid that does not vaporize completely in the atmosphere? What if they survive, they trip through the earth's atmosphere and land on the earth's surface? When they land on the earth, they are called as meteorites, okay? One such meteorite that survived the journey is what landed in Sumalia. This meteorite was found in 2020. It has two names, the locals call it Nightfall. But the scientists call it LLE meteorite because it was found near the town of LLE, which is in the Hiran region of Sumalia. This meteorite is the ninth largest meteorite ever recorded. It is over 2 meters wide. It weighs 15 tons. It was found that it is an ion-based meteorite because it is about 90% ion and nickel. After analyzing a sample of this meteorite, now scientists have found two minerals in it. One is named as LLE8 since the meteorite is found in the town of LLE. The second one is named Elkinstantonite. It is named after a principal investigator of NASA, Ms. Lindy Elkinstanton. It is expected that further research might reveal presence of new minerals in the meteorite. So that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw about the difference between meteorites, meteors and meteorites. We also saw about the new minerals that are discovered in the meteorite that was found in Sumalia. With this, let us conclude this discussion and move on to the next news article. Look at this article. This article talks about the plate of Tampura makers in present day India. As the modern musical instruments are slowly replacing traditional instruments like Tampura, Surbhara, Rudra Veena and Vichitra Veena, the makers of these instruments are finding it difficult to make their ends meet. The Tampura instrument, which the article reports about, is used in both Hindustani and Carnatic music. So in this discussion, you will see some of the basic difference between the Carnatic and Hindustani music. We are going to discuss only the basic difference present between the two music systems and we are not going to get into the technical details of them. With this disclaimer, let us start our discussion. First, let's look at the geographic area of both Hindustani and Carnatic music. Hindustani music is a classical music of the northern region of Indian subcontinent. While Carnatic music, as the name suggests, belong to the southern part of India. Here note that, Carnatic music is also performed in some parts of Sri Lanka also. The second major difference between both the art forms are with respect to the elements present in it. Hindustani music arose in the Ganga Jamnai, Tazib, which is nothing but a period of great influence of Persio-Arabic arts in the Indian subcontinent, mainly the northern parts of Indian subcontinent. This music combines the Indian classical music tradition with the Persio-Arabic musical language resulting in a unique tradition of Grahana system of musical education. So Hindustani music has the elements of both Indian, Persian and Arabic influence. Now coming to Carnatic music. Carnatic music is simply of Indian origin without much of the external influence. Now let us look at some of the famous musicians of these two schools. Mian Tenzin was a flag bearer of Hindustani music. It was at his time only Hindustani music in India reached its zenith. He was famous for his Draupad style of singing. Tenzin sang Draupad in the Mughal emperor Akbar's court, making this style of singing reach the far corners of the Indian subcontinent. The famous personality of Hindustani music presently is Sahir Hussain. On the other hand, the Carnatic music evolved due to the efforts of personalities like Shyamasastri, Tyagarajar, Muthusami Dixitar and Saint Purandaratas. The famous M.S. Subulakshmi was also a Carnatic singer. These are some of the most important figures with respect to Carnatic music. Since we are talking about singers here, we should also see about Ameer Kusro who is one of the most important singers of the Indian subcontinent. Ameer Kusro was an Indo-Persian Sufi singer, musician, poet and scholar who lived under the Delhi Sultanate. He is an iconic figure in the cultural history of the Indian subcontinent. He is known today for his famous Kavalis. Here, Kavalis refers to a form of Sufi Islamic devotional singing. He sang in Hindavi, a local dialect which got developed into Hindi and Urdu separately. Due to his astonishing singing skills, he is called as the parrot of India. These are some of the important facts with respect to Ameer Kusro. With this, we have come to the end of this discussion. In this discussion, we saw some of the basic difference between the Hindustani and Carnatic music. Also, we saw some of the prominent singers belonging to both the musical system. Finally, we saw some points about Ameer Kusro. With this, let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Look at this article here. It talks about the decision by Manipuri language newspapers to use Manipuri May script instead of Bengal script in their newspaper. The decision taken is going to be implemented from January 15, 2023. According to the article, all Manipur working journalist union and the editor's guild has taken this decision after coming to an understanding with the script activists of the Milal. This is about the news article given here. In this context, let us learn about the indigenous community of Manipur who are nothing but the Maiti people. The Maiti people or the Manipuri people are an ethnic group native to the state of Manipur in northeastern India. They primarily live in the Impal valley region in modern day Manipur. In addition to this, they are also present in Assam, Tirupura, Nahaland, Mehalaya and Misuram. Here you have to note that the Maiti ethnic group represents 53% of Manipur's population. There is also a notable presence of Maiti in neighboring countries of Myanmar and Bangladesh. This is all about the geographic distribution of Maiti people. Now, let us look at some of the cultural facets of the Maiti people. Most of the rich culture of Manipur can be credited to the Maitis. Since ancient times, people in Manipur were trading with both India and Myanmar. Due to this, cultural exchange happened. This resulted in the valley portion of Manipur become the melting part of Indo Burmese culture, okay? The famous Manipuri dance, also referred to as the Manipuri Rasleela, is one of the eight major Indian classical dance forms. The dance form is primarily based on the devotional themes. This dance is characterized by gentle eye movements and peaceful body movements. Chambals are the important musical instruments that are used while performing this dance. This is about Manipuri dance. Now, coming to the martial art form of the Maitis. The Manipuri martial art, that is Tangta, is a combative sports which had its origin from the Maiti Knights of the Monarchal rule. It involves various fighting techniques with swords and spears. Now, coming to the religion of the Maitis. Maitis majorly follow Vaishnavite Hinduism. Some of the Maitis traditionally believe in the local Sanamahi religion named after the god Sanamahi. This is all about the culture of the Maitis. Now, coming to the economic activities of the Maitis. The primary economic activity of the Maitis is agriculture. Shifting cultivation and terrace forming are practiced on the slopes of the hills of Manipur. Other than this, fishing is also common practice among the Maitis. The famous Lok Tak Lake is located in Manipur only and here fishing is practiced by the Manipuri people. Here you have to note an interesting fact. Maitis have a long tradition of playing polo. What is polo? Polo is the game in which a ball is chased by horsemen with long sticks. The game of polo has been integral part of the Manipuri culture through centuries of Manipuri civilization. The Britishers took a keen interest to the game played by the kings and princes of Manipur and they exported this game throughout the world which resulted in this game gaining popularity all over the world. This is about the game of polo which is traditionally practiced in Manipur. This is all about the economic activities of the Maiti people. Now, let us see some of the few facts given in the news article. The article says that the arrival of Shantidas Kausai into Manipur led to the Maiti Maya getting replaced by Bengali script. Here note that Shantidas Kausai is a Vaishnavite missionary who led the conversion of Maiti people into Vaishnavism. This is all about the Maiti people and about the news article. With this, let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Look at this article. The article talks about the success story of conservation in the Kaziranga National Park. One of the main reason for the success in Kaziranga National Park is the rhino protection force in the region. The rhino protection force shoots the poachers at sight. So far, more than 55 armed men have been killed within the boundary of the reserves for unauthorized entry since 2012. So, in this context, let us quickly go through Project Rhino and Project Elephant. Also, let us see some of the important points mentioned in this article. Let us begin with Project Rhino. Project Rhino is also called as Indian Rhino Vision 2020. This program was launched in the year 2005. Its main aim is to attain a wild population of at least 3,000 greater Unhan rhinos which is spread over seven protected areas in the Indian state of Assam by the year 2020. Here, the seven protected areas include Kaziranga National Park, Pobittora National Park, Urang National Park, Mannas National Park, Laukova Wildlife Sanctuary, Borachapuri Wildlife Sanctuary and Dibrushaikova Wildlife Sanctuary. You can see the seven wildlife sanctuaries in the map given here. Remember, it is a collaborative effort between various organizations, including the International Rhino Foundation, Assam's Forest Department, Bodo Territorial Council, Wildlife Fund of India and the United States Fish and Wildlife Fund. The significant part of this program is the wild to wild rhino translocation. That is, moving rhinos from densely populated parks like Kaziranga National Park to once in need of more rhinos like the Mannas National Park. Now, let us look at the current status of the program. See, this program is fairly successful because we have achieved the target of having 3,000 wild rhino population. But in the translocation sphere, we have failed because in only one of the national parks, the rhino translocation occurred, that is Mannas National Park. Other than this, the other planned rhino translocation failed to materialize. In addition to this, due to the coordinated effort of the forestry, local and the national government officials, the wildlife crime in Assam has been brought down significantly from 2018 to 2019. This is the current status of project rhino. Now, let us see about project elephant. See, project elephant is a centrally sponsored scheme which was launched in the year 1992. The project is being mainly implemented in 16 states and Union territories. How are these 16 states selected? See, these 16 states have wild elephants in a free-ranging population, okay? The main objective of project elephant is to help the states in the protection and maintenance of these wild elephants. Secondly, the project tries to ensure the protection of elephant corridors and elephant habitat for the survival of the elephant population in the wild. Thirdly, apart from providing technical and financial help to these states, the Union government also will assist them for the purpose like sensors, training of field officials, et cetera. This is done to ensure the mitigation and prevention of man-elephant conflict. Here you have to know that Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change provides the required financial and technical support to the states. This is about project elephant. Now, let us come to the news article. See, the news article says that India is home to nearly 60% of Asian elephants. While the number of elephants in India has increased in the past years, the Asian elephants is still listed as a endangered species in IUCN Red List. In addition to this, in India also, we have placed the elephants in the Schedule 1 of Wildlife Protection Act 1972. So, you must first know why even though wild population of elephants are increasing, we are still keeping the elephant population in the endangered list. To know the reason behind this, we must first understand the threats faced by the animal. The first and the major threat is poaching and the man-elephant conflict. See, on average in India, nearly 500 humans and 1000 elephants are killed due to confrontation between man and elephant. This is the first major threat faced by the elephants in India. The second major threat is habitat. See, elephant habitats are fragmented in India. Due to this, there is uneven distribution of elephant population in the country. And you have to know here that elephants are migratory species. They have to move from one place to another regularly. Since the elephant habitats are fragmented and there is no corridor between the fragments, the elephants are not able to move freely. It is due to this reason only, the elephants are moving into human habitat and causing havoc. So fragmented elephant habitat and uneven distribution of elephant population is the second major threat faced by the Asian elephants in India. Moving on to the third threat, this is change in land use. Due to increasing population, what we are doing, we are changing the forest land into agricultural fields. This is reducing the habitat that is earmarked for the elephants. Due to this, elephants are finding it difficult to get food inside their habitat. So they are moving into human territory. See, these three are the major threats faced by the Asian elephants in India. It is due to these threats only, even though the wild population of elephants in India has increased in the past couple of years, we are still placing the elephant in the endangered list and also in the Schedule 1 of Wildlife Protection Act 1972. See, to solve these threats only, Project Elephant has been launched. As we saw earlier, Project Elephant gives due attention to the elephant coidos. And these elephant coidos will link the fragmented elephant habitats. So, this will enable the free movement of the elephant from Moon habitat to another. Due to this free movement, the elephant will have genetic diversity. Also, it will aid in their migration pattern. This will also reduce the elephant-human conflict. In addition to this, using Project Elephant, we have established various elephant reserves in our country. This is done to ensure the long-term survival of the elephants in their natural habitat. Until now, we have established 32 elephant reserves in our country. The recent addition to the list is Agastiyamalai Elephant Reserve, which was added in the year 2022. In addition to this, 101 elephant coidos have been identified in our country. And the elephant coidos is also given due protection. So, this is about the points mentioned in the news article. So, that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, first we saw the reason for the success in rhino conservation in Kajaranga National Park. After that, we saw about Project Rhino, then we saw about Project Elephant, then we saw about the threats faced by Asian elephants in the country. And finally, we concluded by seeing how the Project Elephant is planning to address the threats faced by elephants in our country. So, with this, let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Look at this news article. This news article reports about a burning issue in Kerala. It is the protest against the construction of Willingham Port in Kerala. As per the article, efforts are being taken by all the stakeholders to solve the issue. So, let us understand the issue and also why there are protests in the area. Before getting into the discussion, I have highlighted here the syllabus regarding this discussion. You can go through it. Now, let us start our discussion. The port we are discussing is the Willingham International Transshipment Deepwater Multipurpose Seaport or shortly, Willingham Port. Willingham is located near Tiruvananthapuram. The port will mainly cater to container transshipment along with multipurpose cargo and brake bulk cargo. Here, let me explain the terminologies briefly. A container transshipment refers to the process where a cargo or a container is moved from one vessel to another. This happens while the cargo is in transit or it happens in the final destination. Then the brake bulk is meant to encompass all the cargo that is transported in bags, boxes, crates, drums or barrels. This is about transshipment and brake bulk cargo. No moving on. Note that the port is still under construction stage. The construction started nearly seven years ago in December 2015. After its operationalization, the port will become India's first mega-transshipment container terminal. This is an ambitious project of the Government of Kerala. But the project is implemented through a special purpose government company which is fully owned by the Kerala government. The company is called Willingham International Seaport Ltd that is VASL. Are there any private parties involved in the project? Yes, actually the port is being constructed in a landlord model with public-private partnership component. Here, the landlord model for the port or simply the landlord port is characterized by its mixed private public orientation. Under this model, the port authority acts as a regulatory body and as a landlord. On the other hand, the port operation are carried out by the private companies. Mainly, the private companies handle the cargo. Now in case of Willingham port, the private partner is the Adani-Willingham Port Private Ltd. So, the Adani Ltd will carry on the construction and it will also handle the cargo. Whereas the VASL will procure the land, obtain environmental clearance for the project and it will also act as a regulator of the project. Now this is how this project is set to function. Now let us see some of the main reasons why Willingham was chosen for the port project. First reason is this region has good connectivity. The region has links to national and regional road and rail network. For example, the national highways NH47 is in close proximity that is 10 km from the Willingham port. NH47 connects Salem to Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu via Tiruvannandapuram in Kerala. And even the national rail network is less than 12 km from the proposed port site. Second is that this port sits in the international trade corridor. As you can see in this map, this region is in proximity to the international shipping lane. It is just 10 nautical miles from this route. The third major reason is that just one nautical mile from the coast of Willingham, the seawater depth is 20 meters. This will help attract large container vessels. So basically the port is being planned as a strategically important port located at the tip of Indian Peninsula. But are we forgetting anything here? See large projects will definitely have certain impacts on the surrounding environment. To ensure the impact is minimal and assessment is carried out. You all know what it is. It is the Environment Impact Assessment under the 2006 Environment Impact Assessment notification. After this only environmental clearance is given. In addition to this, since coastal area is involved in this project, coastal regulation zone clearance is also required. So did the project get any of these clearances? Yes, actually the project has both environmental clearance and coastal zone regulation clearance from the Ministry of Environment. Okay, then why are we seeing protest in news? The protests are mainly done by the fishermen of the region. They have several concerns regarding the project. First is that they fear coastal erosion will happen because of the project. This fear is not unreasonable as last year only the fishermen lost their homes to coastal erosion. They believe that the port project is the main reason behind the coastal erosion. They say that there are changes in the sediment deposit pattern due to which erosion has happened recently. But the governments are of different opinion. Yes, both the central and the state government. They believe that there is no change in previous erosion spots of villager. This opinion is based on a 2019 report of the National Institute of Ocean Technology. The report is annual shoreline monitoring report. According to this, the beaches near Villinjam such as Valliyathura, Shangumuham and Puntura had remained unchanged since the construction of the port behind in 2015. Here you have to note another point. Some private research studies point out that there is accelerated erosion along the coastline of Tiruvannandapuram. But among the private research also there is varying findings. Some private research shows that the port project has indeed accelerated the erosion process. But some private research show that the port project does not have any impact on the coastal erosion in Villinjam. Additionally, the fishermen are also fearing that the port project will affect their livelihood because this port is close to the already existing fishing harbor. So once the port is constructed the nature of the sea will be impacted. And due to this, the fishing from this region might be affected. This is the second fear of the fishermen. The fishermen fear that once the fish population near the coast is affected due to the construction of Villinjam port the fishermen have to venture deep into the sea to catch more fish. And venturing deep into the sea will be a costly affair. So they are asking subsidy for their fuel that is kerosene which is used in fishing boats. So due to these fears only the protesters have made many demands to the government. Let me read out the demands. First is stopping the port construction completely. Second is conducting a proper environmental impact study. Third is rehabilitation of the families who lost their homes due to coastal erosion. Third is taking effective steps to mitigate the coastal erosion process. And last one is providing subsidy for kerosene. It is said that the government agreed to almost all the demands. It did not agree to the first one because government is not ready to halt the project. It also did not agree to the kerosene subsidy because government fears that giving subsidy to kerosene will have environmental problems due to increased emission. But the protesters are sticking to these demands and they have declared the protest will continue until all the demands are met and implemented by the government. We can say that there is some confusion on what the environmental impact would be. So it is only ways to conduct another environmental impact assessment. Maybe as a first step to this in October the Kerala government constituted a four-member expert committee to study the impact of the project on coastal erosion. So our conclusion is that rather than just conducting this study a complete environmental impact assessment again would be the best option. Otherwise the protesters cannot be satisfied. If the protesters do not stop it not only affects the fishermen but also the project. And this will lead to wasting of tax payer money. So that's all regarding this discussion. With this let us conclude this discussion and move on to the next news article. Take a look at this article. It reports that State Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in Tamil Nadu is considering relaxing the Tamil Nadu Neera rules for the benefit of coconut farmers. If the Neera extraction rules are relaxed it will result in coconut farmers and producer companies getting benefited. This is about the news article given here. In this context let us learn about what is meant by the term Neera and what are all the health benefits associated with it. The term Neera refers to a white-colored juice obtained from the unopened coconut inflorescence. Here I have provided the image of the unopened inflorescence of coconut tree. The Neera is extracted from the coconut tree by cutting open the unopened coconut inflorescence and tying a container to it to collect the dripping transparent liquid. After the extraction of this liquid it is filtered to remove the impurities. Then the filtered liquid is chilled to less than 4 degrees Celsius. After this preservation process treatment using clarifying agents are done to completely remove all the minute suspended solid particles present in the liquid. The last step in the Neera production is pasteurization. Here pasteurization is done to extend the shelf life of Neera. Here you have to note that Neera doesn't even contain even trace amounts of alcohol. It is completely a soft drink. This is the step-by-step procedure followed for the production of Neera. Now let's move our attention towards the health benefits associated with consuming Neera. Neera is a rich source of sugar, vitamin and minerals. Secondly, micronutrient present in Neera is very high. Neera is rich in iron, phosphorus and ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid is nothing but vitamin C. Thirdly, Neera also has low glycemic index. Here the term glycemic index refers to a rating system for foods containing carbohydrates. It shows how quickly each food affects our blood sugar level when that food is eaten by us. Neera having low glycemic index shows the less impact it will be having on our blood sugar levels. Other than this, it is believed to facilitate clear urination and prevent jaundice. These are all the advantages of consuming Neera for our health. So with this, let us conclude our discussion and take up the next news article. Look at this article. This article is about fintech. Recently, the deputy governor of RBI had said that speculations about fintech's replacing banks is a misconception. And this is why fintech made news today. So in this article discussion, let us understand what is this fintech. Fintech is an acronym for financial technology. It actually refers to emerging digital technology for improving and automating financial services. Here, the improvements are mainly made through specialized softwares and algorithms. The recent example is development and use of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Originally, the term was coined to refer to technologies used in established financial organizations back in system. Now it has wider scope and spans across a wide range of sectors like education, retail banking, investment management, nonprofit fundraising, et cetera. Now based on the services offered by the fintech, they are most properly categorized as the following. The first one is digital banking. Digital banking do survey with all the paperwork and all the banking activities are done online. This is about digital banking. The next is pay tech, which can be expanded as payment technology. We have G pay, phone pay, everything rate. It all comes under payment technology. In addition to this, we have this wallet system, mobile wallets. This also comes under payment technology. This ensure safe and simple consumer experience. The next one is trade tech, which is trading technology. Various platforms like Bitcoin, Atom, C currency, all of these uses blockchain technology to ensure private, secure, and transparent financial transaction. And they provide a platform to trade virtual currencies like Bitcoins, et cetera. Then there is insurance tech or insu tech. The next one is lender tech, which is involved in deposit and lending activity. See all these different technology has one thing in common. They are all made to raise capital. Keep this in mind, fintech is always changing. So in the following years, the above mentioned kinds are likely to expand or even change completely. The only thing that will be common among these and the future fintechs would be, they are all involved in raising capital in one way or another, okay? Now let us see the significance of the fintech. First is it will bring down cost of doing business. Then it will help in breaking geographical barriers. For example, by using Bitcoin, I can easily bypass the government and the central bank and make transaction to other individuals all around the world. This is the second significance. The third significance is fintechs enhances customer experience. It is easy to use. In addition to this, it is very transparent. So the customer trust on fintech is high due to the increased transparency. The last one is it will help in driving financial inclusion in India. See, India is a large country. To enable financial inclusion, we must create a lot of infrastructure. For example, we have to establish banks in all rural areas. But in a rural area, if you establish a bank means, it is not necessary that the bank will run in a profitable manner. But using this fintech, we can reduce the need for opening new branches in the rural area, but we can make sure that the people in the rural area get financial inclusion. See, these are the four significance of fintech. Now let us see some of the concerns associated with it. Firstly, regulation of fintech is very difficult because the entire functioning of the fintech is based on decentralized mechanism. Since it is very decentralized, monitoring everyone is very difficult for both the government and the central bank. Second one is diversity. Like we saw, fintech is not a monolithic term. There are a lot of technology within it that performs various functions. So creating a single rules and regulation for the entire framework of fintech is very difficult. We have to create different framework for different financial technology. This is the second concern. The third concern is lack of digital literacy. See, in a country like India, the digital literacy is very low. Due to lack of digital literacy, there is concern that people might be duped by the fintech corporation. Since fintechs are relatively new and it is not entirely brought under the regulation of RBA, there is high chance that these fintech corporation can dup the people of their savings. So these are the main concerns with respect to fintech. So that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw what is fintech, its types, its advantages, and the concerns associated with it. With this, let us conclude the news article discussion and take up the practice problems questions. We have five practice problems questions today. Let us see them one by one. Let us take up the first question. This is a two statement question asking us to find the correct statements. Two statements regarding the Coconut Development Board is given. We have to find the correct statement. Let us take up the first statement. Coconut Development Board is a statutory body established under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare. See, this statement is correct. Coconut Development Board is indeed a statutory body established by the government of India for the integrated development of coconut production and utilization in the country. It mainly focuses on productivity increase and product diversification. The Board, which came into existence in the year 1981, functions under the administrative control of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare. So statement one, once again, is correct. Moving on to the second statement, its headquarters is located in New Delhi. See, this statement is incorrect. At first notice, it may seem like an abstract fact, but thinking a little bit smart, you can get to know whether this statement is right or wrong. New Delhi is located in a climatic zone which doesn't favor coconut cultivation. So a coconut board of India located in New Delhi serves little purpose. It cannot even easily conduct meetings with the stakeholders. So higher chances are there, this statement is wrong. The Coconut Development Board's headquarters is actually located in Kochi, which is in Kerala. And why it is located there? Because Kerala produces the highest quantity of coconut in our country. See, I am not saying that this approach will be right all the time, but this is an approach which we can use to make a educated guess. So coming back, statement one is correct, statement two is incorrect. So the correct answer here is option A, only. Moving on to the second question. This is a pair based question and it is also a previous year question from the 2018 paper. In one side, traditions are given and in other side, states are given. We have to find which of the following pairs are correctly matched. Let us take up the first pair, Chapchar Kut Mishoram. See this pair is correct. The Chapchar Kut is a festival of Mishoram. It is celebrated during March after the completion of their zoom operation. It is a spring festival, celebrated with great favor and gallantry. Moving on to the second pair, Kanjum Parba Ballet Manipur. This pair is also correct because Kunjam Parva is a ballad singing tradition that has been existing over the past 122 years in Manipur. It emerged just after the Anglo-Manipur War of 1891. The ballad started in praise of great heroes of the war who sacrificed their life for Manipur. Moving on to the third pair, Tangta Dance Sikkim. See this pair is wrong because in our discussion we saw that Tangta is a combative martial art form which is practiced in Manipur. So here first pair and second pair are correct and the third pair is wrong. So the correct answer here is option B, 1 and 2 only. Moving on to the third question. See this is also a previous year question and it was asked in the 2019 prelims paper. Four statements regarding Mian Tansen is given. We have to find the incorrect statement. Let us take up the first statement. Tansen was the name given to him by Emperor Akbar. See this statement is incorrect. The name Tansen was not given by Akbar. It was given by the ruler named Vikram Jatt of Gwalior. So statement one is wrong. See this question was asked in the UPC examination which is picked directly from this news article. This news article appeared in the Hindu newspaper in the March of the same year. All the four statements are taken from this article only. So to get questions of this type right you have to make notes of all the historical personalities who are currently making headlines. See recently Lachit Borpokan is making news. I want you guys to put it in the comment section some points about Lachit Borpokan. Okay, so for this question the correct answer is option A. Moving on to the fourth question. This is also a two statement question. Two statements regarding gift city is given. We have to find the correct statement. It is located at Kandla in Gujarat. This statement is wrong because gift city that is Gujarat International Finance Tech City is located in Gandhi Nagar of Gujarat. So statement one is wrong. Moving on to the second statement. It is an emerging global manufacturing hub focusing on petrochemicals. This statement is also wrong because it is a special economic zone designated to house India's first international financial service center. So it is an integrated hub for financial and technological service and not for manufacturing industries. So statement two is also incorrect. Since both the statements are incorrect the correct answer here is option D. Neither one nor two. Look at the last question. See this is a quiz question for you. In our news article discussion we saw about a meteorite which is found in Somalia, right? So I have asked you a map based question regarding Somalia. I want you all to pick up the map and try to answer the question by looking at the map. Interested aspirants can also post the answer for this question in the comment section. The main questions based on today's discussion are displayed here. Interested aspirants can write the answers and post it in the comment section. If you like today's video, like, comment and share it with your friends. For more updates regarding UPSC preparation subscribe to Shankara IS Academy's YouTube channel. Thank you for listening.


What's up everyone? I'm Jeff here at Lightbox and I just got something cool in the mail from Elementor. Look it. They sent me a gift. How dope is that? Oh, I'm really excited about this. You know, I usually binge watch like unpacking and unboxing videos. I'm a super tech head. I love phones and gadgets and stuff like that. I never thought I'd be doing one, but I just got this and I thought, you know what, let's go ahead and do sort of an unboxing. Let's take a look and see what Elementor sent me. All right. So I don't have any fancy knives because I don't have knives really, but look at it. They even got that Elementor sticker. The details, man. The details. The eye is in the details. I love it. All right. Let's see here. All right. I see more Elementor branding and here we go. Get that focus going. Look at that Elementor stickers. Powered by 10 million. Amazing, right? Wow. Okay. Check that out right there. Powered by 10 million. I can't wait to see. Actually, I can't front. You know, I am just opening this right now, but I just see other people posting pictures of it. So I kind of know what it is already. I don't want to front, you know, but I'm excited right now to open this and to get this right here. And I wanted to share it with everyone. So let's see here. What is this? Oh, check that out. A cool greeting card right there. Let's get that in focus. More of the details and personalization. Oh, okay. And then it looks like we got a plaque right here. All right. Now I've seen this plaque. He's pretty cool. You can put a light behind it. I know my boy Emron. He did something really dope with his. I got to figure out now how I can make mine look dope. Look at, thank you. I'm really, I'm really grateful for this. It's a very generous token. You know, like I got this and I was thinking, what a better time to thank Elementor. They gave a gift, you know, thanking me. I am one of the Elementor leaders inside their community. I've been, you know, just blessed to be able to be part of the community and connect with people, connect with other people inside Elementor as well. And, you know, really quick, I want to share why I'm such an advocate of Elementor because I have been using Elementor full on for the last three years. And I remember the very first time I stumbled across Elementor. You know, before that I was building websites with like WP Bakery, depending on themes from Theme Forest or having to custom code things, do a lot of custom coding, building websites took a while. And when I stumbled on Elementor, first when I figured out that we could control things like the header and footer and have the flexibility inside forms, I was blown away. Like if you are just starting off right now, you have no idea what it used to be like, trying to build your own header or your own footer and having that control over it or the control over, you know, the dynamics with the blog posts. Like these are really powerful tools. I think we take them a lot for granted now because they became the norm but it was Elementor that brought them out at least from what I saw. My experience was Elementor, what I saw Elementor brought this power to building WordPress websites and it's never been the same since then. But that's not the reason why I am such an advocate of it because it is just a tool. I have plenty of tools that I use that I've been using for years but you don't see me creating content or advocating so much for it. The reason why I advocate so much for Elementor is because they have become something much more than a tool. They have built communities. They have a purpose which is not just to build something to sell it but they have a genuine purpose to help web creators with their journey, with their business to help them grow and learn. They have invested so much into their communities and to tools and to resources and I've got to personally know some amazing people in Elementor. I got to know Verde, Tale, Ronnie and by me getting to know them through some time now the purpose is in line with mine. My purpose is to help web creators find freedom, growth and to have basically what I have because I love what I do. I have a pretty good living that I've made out of doing it and I want others to have the same thing. Well, their goals, their mission and when Ben Pines was there all their missions and everybody that I met with Elementor in Elementor they all had that same mission and that is why that's why I've been such an advocate. Now, I know there's a lot of good tools out there and I really hope that some of these other creators of some other tools could take a look at what Elementor is doing as far as giving back to the community, building communities, giving out resources and having a genuine, really genuine interest in helping into giving back because for me that has been what separated Elementor from everybody else. There's a lot of good tools out there. Elementor is great. But it's the people, the culture and the company behind Elementor which is why I have become such an advocate of them because we are in line. I really like what they do and I hope they continue with and I believe that they will because I know some of the people, I know what their goals and their focus is and it's not to sell stuff, it's to help and to give back. I love that kind of stuff. It's all about giving back and the crazy thing is the more you give back, the more that comes in return, the more you teach, the more you learn. It's an amazing journey. Well anyways, thank you Elementor. Thank you for listening to my rants and yeah, I'll keep pumping out some content, helping out web creators because my goal is to help other web creators have freedom, have a sustainable living and be able to have hope and vision and passion and be able to earn a very good living. Well, thank you for listening and I will be back again with more Elementor and web design related content. Thank you.


What is going on guys welcome back to the channel critical overlord here? So this is probably going to be my last video before the official casting Continues to drop regarding screen 5. They're gonna be weeks away now almost from getting our full cast announcement and from production Production starting in one between North Carolina bearing no changes coming after pause production or anything like that as we know over The past coming weeks. We've been getting casting news left and right. We have Melissa Barrera on board. We have Jack Quaid, we have a general or Tega all our those are three brand new faces The only returning people we know are so far Courtney Cox and David Arquette back to play their characters Dewey and Gale And then we know over the past week or so we got news that the release date for screen 5 has been delayed to 2022 January 14th of 2022 now an interesting thing this has to do with is this might be a very subtle way of our filmmakers Hinting at the return of Kirby now. Just look at this post that I put out a couple of days ago on my Twitter Basically what I'm getting at is the fact that this film is set to come out on January 14th of 2022 That might have been a coincidence But another strange thing is look at the look in the very left Look at that tweet from West Quaid West Craven Which on the date of screen 5's release would make this tweet 10 years old Look at what he says about Kirby and Kirby possibly being alive And it just makes me think that that tweet from West Craven and then the date being January 14th 2022 Is that a subtle nod to them trying to tell us? Yes. Hayden Pantier will be back as Kirby read I may be looking too far into that But that's like the final that is like the last Big clue that we could possibly have about this character coming back because the only clues we have so far Are just things that we've been pulling from evidence that is from years ago and Stuff that happens in screen 4 because again the biggest thing from screen 4 is cindy prescott going back into kirby's home Attempting to or starting to go downstairs into the basement area where we last saw kirby before she went outside and got stabbed and left to bleed out uh by charlie As cindy's going downstairs. She hears a door open down in that basement now Who is opening that door because first of all? cindy's upstairs charlie's upstairs because he grabbed cindy from behind jill is upstairs as well That could have been jill actually no that was not jill at all I think jill was coming from downstairs when she came and confronted cindy So the only person that could have been down there opening that door that made cindy stop because the first person she made and called out for was kirby She heard a noise and said kirby the only person who could have been was kirby kirby was the only person left for dead downstairs And it's it sounds just from that slight noise that she made her way back into the house And west craven as you saw in that tweet has made Mitch he was making mentions of this many years ago that he does not think kirby was dead He wants he makes it a big point for you to pay attention to the fact that she was still moving And in fact like i've already stated her survival was originally in the script But they decided to leave that out for whatever reason or another Maybe that came Maybe that came and that happened during filming once he saw how good of a job Hayden panthear was doing with this character. Maybe he associated the character with hayden panthear just because of how well This is just because of how well her performance was on screen Who knows maybe that's when they decided to cut that scene out of the script because we know screen for underwent a lot of rewrites Kevin Williamson walked out mid production and they brought in erin kruger who wrote wrote scream 3 to work on a few rewrites So there's several different things that could have led to that scene where we would have had kirby survival confirmed being left out but Getting back into what i wanted to talk about with this again the tweet Was from january 14th of 2022 That's very odd and that's very ironic if it is just a like a big coincidence That's very hilarious to me because i don't i don't think this is Just a subtle cool. I don't think this is a coincidence.  I'm being called a kirby I'm not going to say the word if you know the word a kirby d writer but Hayden panthear she did great in that role and she was like a perfect blend of not only randy but sydney and Fans wanted to see her back. I can't it's not just me. There's there's a fan base for this character It's very rare that you I won't say it's rare But for a character that was only in one movie and a movie that was pretty much Not that well received upon initial release, but is now being re Re-evaluated as the years go by because of how relevant and how far ahead of its time It apparently was given everything that's going on in society today And how people are wanting to get famous by just doing exactly what jill was explaining During her confrontation with sydney at the end of screen four Screen four was indeed ahead of its time Kirby reed is a character that many people want to see back in screen five that tweet being dated january 14th 2012 and then screen five now being dated to release on january 14th of 2022 10 years to the date of west craven Hinting and tweeting that kirby might be alive. That's just very strange to me I don't think that's just done by pure coincidence. I think these filmmakers involved They've already made it clear they want to honor this man's legacy I think this means that this is just like our first subtle nod from them that hayden pancier will be back Because what's very odd about this is how hayden pancier. She keeps coming and going from social media And I know she has a lot of things going on personally She just overcame some stuff in her life and I'm very happy to hear that for her But she did also recently return to instagram and she returned to twitter She's been mostly active on instagram but She hasn't been posting much of anything And I don't know if that's because she's waiting for it might have nothing to do with screen five But it's just very odd how she and courtney cox remember courtney cox was the first person who kind of started this She tweeted out something on her socials She posted something around halloween last year and then that's when news about screen five started coming out And then in christmas time Then we got then we saw curbie or hayden pancier rocking that curbie haircut She shared it on twitter and now here we are many months after both of those two things We already know courtney cox is back after she made a reference to screen And now hayden pancier more than likely is going to be back too because she made a reference to it as well She might have just been wanting to rock that haircut But it's just way too many things and that to be that specific with the date and then I'm just really convinced that they were trying to redirect us to something Not necessarily of course, you know hey go check out this tweet But when you sit down and you notice the similarity there We have a date of january 14 2022 if you look at the tweet from west craven from that same date He's talking about curbie read could be a big coincidence. I don't think it is I think this is our first subtle hint from them That hayden pancier is indeed on board I think hayden pancier silence has a lot to do with the fact that she's trying to remain off of social media Until the filming process starts could be nothing could be something. I think it's something I hope hayden pancier is back and even even if she's not back This could be just their subtle hint to say you know what she's not in the movie hayden pancier Unfortunately will not be participating But we're definitely going to still mention that character and let you know what's going on in her life Because I feel like at the end of the day what really matters to not only myself but fans of that character is not that she comes back But is she alive is she alive? I think that's the biggest thing that means the most to not just myself but other people who are fans and want to see This character brought back. I can live with hayden pancier not returning to her prize that role I'm fine with that maybe bring her back from stream six or maybe save her for something Something better down the road and factor her into the franchise again But let us know something is she alive? What's going on? Did she die in screen four because I would hate for screen five that come and go and they make no mention of curbie honestly We we didn't get an official announcement We know we have gil in the hospital making her claims, but that's just that can easily just be brushed off That can be brushed off. We she's not necessarily straight up saying. Oh curbie's dead. She said I heard I think her exact words when she said she heard so yeah, you heard wrong Because I'm pretty confident curbie did not die, but we'll find out in a few coming weeks when this full cast is announced Can't wait to see what happens I think that tweet was our first subtle hint that she will be back Let me know what you guys think about all this down in the comment section below I'm gonna have a link to the facebook group go ahead and join that group If you haven't already make sure of course that you subscribe And turn on post notifications so you never miss a video in the description I'll have links to my social media accounts. I'm on facebook twitter and instagram You can of course go ahead and message me there to let me know if there's any movies news or reviews You would like me to cover in the future and of course with audit in mind guys. I will see you in the next video


This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. All right. Oh, that's Jeff Kissel. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Energy in America. He joins us by Zoom from Southern California, and he was just briefing me on the status of laying the hurricane. That rhymes, doesn't it? Welcome back to the show, Jeff. It's wonderful to be with you, at least in spirit, if not in person. So what is the status of laying the hurricane? I mean, taking it from a guy who knows in Southern California. Well, all I'm doing is watching the Weather Channel and the other sources because, of course, I have a lot of friends and interests there, and I'm concerned naturally for people's safety and welfare first, and obviously the property and the recovery second. It seems to think that the big impact will be wind and rain, but not hurricane force winds, at least on Oahu. It's an open question on Maui at the moment, and obviously the big island. And the problem is, of course, having an infrastructure that needs a lot of help if it's damaged in this storm series, and it has to recover, whether it's water, whether it is sewer or electric or communications, all of it runs in Hawaii on oil. And that's the concern that everybody has that I talk to in the energy industry is, until the renewable plans are implemented, Hawaii has decided that oil is its bridge to its energy future. Yeah, but in the capital, we use more oil here than anywhere, we're the leader in percentage of the fuel we use as oil. But that's surprising given the mild climate than Hawaii is. They made a decision a long time ago and have stuck with it all these years. And that leads to the scenario of what happens. And we could have a real nasty storm in 24, 48 hours. And so my question to you is, how will that play out in terms of energy? How will this oil infrastructure, our dependence on oil, affect us in the context of a storm that is destructive? Well, in the short term, it hurts us. In the long term, it hurts us even worse. But now everybody has to think about the fact that electricity powers so much of Hawaii's infrastructure. And even though we say we're 20% renewable, it's almost impossible to get any of the renewables to the power outlets in our stores and factories and hospitals without supplementing it with oil. And people have to think about that. There are very, very few truly independent generating capabilities in the state of Hawaii. So if the oil goes out, if the grid goes out, 100% of the electricity goes out, regardless of whether it's renewable, then that's got to be a focus and a concern. Well, how does that play out if that happens? So we have a blackout. How does that affect the community? How does that affect other community services? Electric stops running, sewage treatment plants stop running, gasoline can't be pumped. Emergency services operating on independent generators operate as long as they have oil. They stop operating when there's temporary supplies of oil run out. Without electricity, you can't replenish those temporary supplies of oil. You can't operate the big oil pumps to load the oil trucks. It is a huge problem. When I say oil, I mean diesel, low sulfur fuel oil to run the power plants, propane, all of those products are dependent upon electricity to get delivered. And I might add that in our lives, when we wake up in the morning until we go to sleep at night, we use appliances of every kind of nature and the Internet is the source of information on everything we might want to know about. And if we don't have electricity, I mean forget about infrastructure for a moment. We don't have electricity to provide that information, to let us make telephone calls, get news, cook. We are really in trouble from moment one. We've all seen the pictures of the lines in Puerto Rico where people were standing to get their phones charged for hours. And that's a realistic possibility. People say, oh, I've got an electric car and I can plug it into my home charger. Well, newsflash, your home charger, the charger electric car and anything under a week must have electricity, it must have supplemental electricity. So it's really a big concern. Now, if the electric is out for a couple of hours, a couple of days, no problem. But if it tears up the grid and tears up the infrastructure to prevent delivery for weeks or a month, then you can't pretend that the Navy can bring a submarine up alongside the dock and plug it in.  So I refer to Puerto Rico as an interesting parallel because this sort of happened in Puerto Rico. Not exactly the same as we are talking about, but the community was non-functioning. And all the goods and services you need to lead a normal life were unavailable all of a sudden and there were no options for you. And there was nobody, there was no lone ranger who was going to save you. This could happen here, don't you think? Well, that's right. And Puerto Rico, at least you could depart by boat. You could depart by airplane to some degree. Why is so far from the continental US that it's impractical to move as many people off of the islands as would need to be moved in a prolonged and devastating outage? So it's a very, very serious problem. The governor and the mayor made all the right moves. The mayors, sorry, are making all the right moves. The emergency services people are making all the right moves. You know, they're making the best of the situation. Question is, are we on the right path? And should we diversify our energy sources so that we can preclude the impact, preclude this from becoming a crisis from a severe situation? Well, you're right. That's a really good question. And very clearly, this is one storm. There might be others this very year. Next year is El Nino. There will be other storms next year. And so we could find ourselves in a repetition of the lane experience, better or worse, in the years to come. So we really need to think ahead. And I hope this doesn't stand as a reminder, but we need to think ahead so we are as resilient as we can possibly be. So I guess the question I would put to you is, how do we, one thing you said is we needed to diversify our sources of energy. But how do we do that? In what way, in what manner do we make that into a resilient economy? Well, you know, I've been talking for a long time about the advantages of liquefied natural gas. And I brought along some slides to talk about what's going to happen to the price of oil in Hawaii, and what could be a potential way to diversify while we're becoming renewable, which is to bring in liquefied natural gas and the costs associated therewith. So if you want to take a quick look at my little slide back, I have a picture of an LNG carrier on slide one. And I want to talk about why the coming international regulation of bunker fuels could cause a huge spike in Hawaiian electricity prices and thereby making it even more expensive for us to diversify our sources of energy. Why do you anticipate that the cost of bunker fuels will increase? Well, if there is a convention in the world that is going to require all of the ships in the world to use ultra low-salt for a bunker fuel in the future or install very expensive pollution removal equipment in their exhaust system, in order to do that, they have to spend huge amounts of money. While there is a route for the purpose of shipping, there's an inexpensive alternative. It's low-salt for fuel oil. Unfortunately, that inexpensive alternative is exactly what Hawaii is almost totally dependent on to make its electricity. As a result, you've got the upward pressure on electricity prices and the lack of availability of low-salt for fuel oil facing Hawaii. So it will need to switch to even more expensive diesel fuel, maintain its electric supplies in the short term. If you look at the advantages of LNG, I just want to show you a slide too quickly.  It's available in the Pacific now. It's available, obviously, throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. And there are literally hundreds of LNG cargoes being shipped around the world today. What is going to happen is the cost of LNG is going to continue to decline, and that will somewhat offset the cost of the LNG infrastructure that has to be built in Hawaii to accommodate. However, if you look at slide three, the price of low-salt for fuel oil has already started to spike. And what they call the forward pricing curve, which is the commodity pricing of this, is up by over $100 a ton. Now, what that means is there are seven barrels a ton of oil in low-salt for fuel oil. So that indicates that the cost of this fuel is already going up by about $20 a barrel from its present cost of around $85. So it's over $100 a barrel on the forward commodity market. That's a huge difference. While LNG is flatter down, that's really interesting. But you made one comment that I'd like to dwell on for a minute. You said we will have to spend some money in Hawaii to debark, to offload the LNG. And I recall that was an issue because it comes in big gas container ships, I guess, LNG ships, and we don't have the infrastructure to offload it from those ships. What do we need to do to become an LNG using state? But we need to study it a little bit and really understand the numbers. For me, to spout off numbers, it's just not responsible. And the Energy Policy Research Foundation really does rely on our data. But I will tell you with the rising cost of low-salt fuel oil, the importance of knowing those numbers and making a well-considered, transparent, publicly discussed decision grows every single day. So not only is this an issue of diversifying because we need alternatives in the event of a natural disaster, it's diversifying in the face of rising costs so that we can actually afford to get to our renewable energy future. And we don't have to continue to push it off, as we have been doing for the past 15 years. Wow, OK. It's time to think and contemplate what that means, your last statement. We're going to take one minute, Jeff. This is Jeff Kissel of Eprink, formerly the CEO of Hawaii Gas. And we're going to think about that, come back and explore exactly what that means for us. We'll be right back with Jeff Kissel. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. I sang this song to you because I think you either are cool or have the potential to be seriously cool. And I want you to come watch my show where I bring in experts who talk all about easy strategies to be healthier, happier, build better relationships, and make your life a success. So come sit with the cool kids at Out of the Comfort Zone on Tuesdays at 1. OK, we're back. We're live with Jeff Kissel. And I just want to revisit the statement he made is that over the past 15 years, we have not made all that much progress in moving to renewables. This is a great concern because we're supposed to be, and we're supposed to be becoming more resilient against extreme weather. So you want to discuss that further? Sure. We operate, as I said earlier, on data. The data is very simple. If you look at the installed solar capacity, it peaked out at a little over a megawatt a month. Today, the installed solar capacity is virtually flat. It is not growing. If you look at the wind farms, we had a wonderful surge in wind generation. But because the grids are fully loaded with variable power, they can't take any more. We lost the remaining gas and agricultural product produced electricity when the pineapple plantation closed on Maui. We have lost the geothermal plant effectively. So we're actually not only flat, we're actually declining in our ability to produce renewable and produce and use. We can produce it, but we can't use it in Hawaii. And it really is not a good idea to fool ourselves into thinking that electric cars are running on zero fossil fuel. Electric cars are running on 80% oil because only 20% of the energy produced in Hawaii is not from oil. You've got to really look at this the way it should be examined and realize that a change in the strategy, and I'm not advocating only one changed LNG, again, my advocacy is diversification, a change in the strategy is warranted. And having a good solid strong public debate over what the change should be and then making it is really essential. Well, as you said, diversification is the magic word. If we diversify, we're better able to handle these storms and climate change in general. If we don't diversify, and in many ways we're focusing on fewer things these days rather than many things, if we don't diversify, we're less able to handle this extreme weather and climate change in general. What's the net effect of not being able to handle climate change in general? I guess it affects the economy, it affects quality of life, it affects the forward motion of the state in terms of building, building not only infrastructure in general, but new energy infrastructure. What's the effect of not diversifying, Jeff? Well, I wish I had a cartoon to put up there of a deer in the headlight because that's what happened to our energy policy. We are paralyzed. Now, you mentioned the tourism industry. It doesn't take more than a month, look back, to see the devastation in that industry from the volcano. Question is what's going to happen next as a result of the storms? And I can't answer it. I will answer it however. So people are going to be reluctant to come all the way to Hawaii and get caught in a storm and have trouble getting home. That's real. That's not something. I think that's already happening. That's already happening in Honolulu. People don't know how they're going to get home already. So you had some other slides. You want to discuss them as well? Yeah, I just want to go to slide four, which basically shows what's happening now is that the price of the alternative fuel oils is beginning to peak. And the economics of burning high sulfur fuel oil for power generation are still strong. But this is the old 15-cent pork chop story. It would be great if we had 15-cent pork chops. We don't have them. And the alternative though is natural gas. And that's on slide five. I talk about the natural gas market. It's there. It's growing. And it's an efficient market because the costs are effectively falling relative to inflation. We've got more LNG terminals, more transparency in the market, more capacity. And there is still room to lower costs through market efficiencies and service delivery efficiencies. We have a little slide on six that talks about what our current costs are, which are relatively low, and what they are projected to rise to in 2025, which is not much. And obviously, you know, Jay, this is up on our website. You can put it up on your website. I won't go through all the details because time doesn't permit. But costs for LNG are stable to declining. Supply of LNG is abundant and growing. It just makes sense for us to start to explore it and discuss it as far as the public debate is concerned. I realize our time is short. So slide seven, I think is really interesting. It shows the dramatic growth in the availability of this resource. The numbers are not terribly important, but the trend is there. The resources there, whereas oil is not growing at that rate and the low sulfur fuel oil that we have to have is definitely not growing at that rate. And then my final slide shows on slide eight, it shows the supplies that are coming on through 2023, 2024, and 2025. And those are really, really growing. So the market is there. The opportunity is there. I think it takes a little bit of courage on the part of government to initiate the debate. And hopefully if the debate results in a favorable decision, Hawaii will have one way of diversifying its resource and not be dependent on oil as its bridge to the renewable energy future. Yeah. Well, you know, it strikes me. Something you said is that, and these charts demonstrate, is that there's more LNG going out in the world today, much of it from the United States than ever before. And it's a dramatically increasing amount of LNG that's going all over the world. Why is that? Why is it because it's really popular? Why is it popular? Is it because the technology is making it easier to deliver and distribute and use? What is it that makes LNG so popular worldwide? There are three key factors. It is cost effective. It's relatively inexpensive. It is less polluting than oil and certainly less polluting than coal. And it is very easy to move around the world now that it is, it's being delivered in bulk. So you can get it and you can get it safely. And you, you aren't dependent upon a pipeline that might be running across a region in a war-torn sector that might be disrupted. Oh yeah, interesting. So it's moved, in large part, it's moved by water, by ship. So that makes it actually safer. The other thing I was going to ask you is, you know, where does this market go? You mentioned that as the use of LNG is more widespread, then the technology improves for developing infrastructure and delivery systems. And therefore the price of LNG is likely to go down further. Did I get that right? Yes. When I say the price is going to go down, it's relative to the other sources of energy. Now the price of coal, even though coal is incredibly cheap, the price of using coal is incredibly high because you have to clean up the emissions from coal. The price of oil similarly is rising relative to other energy sources, even solar and wind, because it's expensive to use oil and keep it clean. So what effect ultimately is this going to have on the developers of LNG in the United States, on the people who live in the areas where it is being developed? I suppose Oklahoma would be an interesting example. And on the investors who are able to build the plants and distribution systems and the ships, what effects does it have on the American economy to be a world center for LNG? Well, natural gas, of course, is replacing coal and other forms of power generation in the United States at a record pace. Doing so in China and other major power consuming nations. LNG, which is, of course, just liquefied natural gas. Is providing access to markets that don't have good pipeline access. The Northeast is a good example. So that they can generate electricity on a large scale using LNG and not have to build expensive pipelines from Texas and Oklahoma. So I guess what's going to happen is within this country, there'll be more use of it. Internationally, there'll be more use of it. And the United States will have kind of a lock on it because we have such a big supply. Is there anybody else, any other country in the world that would compete with us in finding and selling LNG? In the short term, no. But of course, in the long term, we have to realize that hydrocarbons are all over the world. And certainly there will be competition. But the competition, I think, will serve increasing demand. I don't think it's going to impact the United States' ability to produce it profitably and deliver it in a competitive environment. It's truly competitive because LNG, even though it looks like it's a big-scale operation, it really has been developed from small-scale economic. Because the individual wells are being drilled by independent entrepreneurs. And to a large extent, and then only supplemented by the major outcome. You know, one thing is when NextEra was here trying to get approval of its deal, its merger deal, with Hawaiian Electric, there was an issue about whether NextEra favored LNG or not. And Governor E. Gay sort of pulled the rug out from under that possibility by saying he did not favor LNG. But my understanding is that not only NextEra, but many utility companies on the mainland are shifting their infrastructure to generate electricity on the basis of LNG these days, rather than other fuels. Am I right about that? What is the level of adoption, so to speak, in the utility industry in the United States? Well, all of the new power plants are being built for natural gas. Now that could come from LNG, or it could come from natural gas coming right out of the ground. So, you know, there are virtually no new nuclear projects planned in America. There are only a few coal upgrades being planned, so that the old plants can continue to use coal. So almost all of the new power in America is produced, either from wind, solar, or gas. Now, wind and solar work really well in areas where people are willing to invest in the grid. Unfortunately, Hawaii has not found a way to invest in its grid. So again, it's treading water. And unfortunately, the waters are rising. The waters, the temperature, the wind, the extreme weather, it's all rising.  But we are in the middle of it. We have to change our way of thinking. We have to find new solutions. We have to be resilient more than ever before. This is not a drill. That is completely true, Jay. It is completely true. Thank you, Jeff Kissel and E. Prink, formerly CEO of Hawaii Gas. I hope we can do this again soon. We always enjoy energy in America with you and Lou Pulirisi. Thanks so much. Thank you, Jay. Aloha. Aloha.


Fighters from the Wagner group have arrived in Belarus from Russia, Ukrainian and Polish officials said on Saturday, July 15. A day after Minsk said the mercenaries were training the country soldiers southeast of the capital of video shared by Russian war correspondent Alexander Kotz on Saturday evening appeared to show a convoy of trucks and military vehicles on a highway in southern Russia. Some of which were flying the Wagner flag, Reuters, could not independently verify the location or the… Not the video was filmed, the Belarusian Hadyun project, which monitors military activity in the country and which is viewed as an extremist formation by Belarusian authorities, said a large column of at least 60 vehicles entered Belarus overnight Friday from Russia. Hadyun said it appeared that a Wagner column was headed to Tsel in central Belarus, where foreign reporters were last week shown a camp with hundreds of empty tents.