Let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say... Nkiazakwaile statementu, Lisema, you know you said you as a public figure, you know it might cost you and at the same time it might help someone else. Did you lose anything, did it cost you somehow? Oh my God. It costed me a lot. Not money wise but it really cost me. I saw the comments as well, pali kwa social media LJ, suji kama ulu kwa ume expect the kind of comments that people were giving you. Of course there were those that were very encouraging, but there were those who were telling you, unatafta kiki, you want to get back to music, this is why you're doing this, you as a person went through depression. How did that make you feel, LJ? What's up guys and welcome to yet another episode of Buzz with stars right here on SPM Buzz. My good name is Miss Kithingi and today I have a very talented artist right here on Buzz with stars. You know he's been able to put some Masai dialect into his music and makes it sound very cool and other than that he has been an award winner, the groover world artist of the year. This is the one and only LJ Masai. Guys better let me tell you there's one more thing, I wanted to say LJ is a gospel artist, but I didn't know if that is the truth. So he's gonna be telling us if he still does gospel music, if he's still a gospel artist or not. LJ, where but on a gospel artist? So that's a definition of gospel artist. Someone who does music that I know praises the most high god according to my understanding. LJ Masai is a musician. Okay, yes. So in terms of music, music for me is a work. It's something I do. So for me if I sing gospel music, what is the definition of gospel music? Gospel is the word of god. But Yes, but love What is the greatest commandment? Love is the greatest commandment. So for me I don't do that in music. Okay, yes. But if I do love songs, it's godly love. But you know LJ, we both agree that your type of music changed from what you used to do back in the days to you know the latest music you've given us LJ. What is the genre of LJ? What is the genre of LJ? The genre of LJ? The content of LJ. Okay. The content of LJ? And what is the change of content? What is the change of content? What work is so quick to judge us as artists. But in terms of music, like honestly love Even in the Bible.  But for me my love songs are just Geni, legit. Geni, legit. Okay. But personally Salve Shonyangu, me na God, me personal and me am select Christian Stunch. Christian. I read somewhere on the news that I think she's your former girlfriend Flo Flo Mutia. Mutia was you know accused of making you change you know your type of content the type of music that you're doing I don't know if that's true or that's not true. I saw that as well Flo Flo is an actress. She's a musician as well. So we did a song with her. It was a love song. Na ini do kam. So wuki skiza ingo ma There's nothing dirty in it. Manpata. It's just genuine love. Manpata. So Na siyati na nili switch siku switch. Manpata. Ili fika yo point I've done gospel songs kumsi fo mungu kilakati na ini. And then just Ili happened to at its own time na ni have kwaimba I love song Manpata. And she just happened to be the one to do the song with me. So LJ it is not true that you know that you had said that you left the gospel music because of Sijuka tales in that last tree. Siku live gospel. Upa kwa bado. Mimu na janashindo yo story li kwaime I don't live gospel. I don't know why people keep saying I left gospel. Now that you're actually there still in the gospel industry, are there kataels there? Are people not making you not get shows? Kataels zime kuwa from day one. Really? Na Sijuka is Taisha. What kind of kataels? Break it down for us because you know you're inside there. What is your experience? For me it's like if you don't belong to a certain group you don't get airplay you don't get some shows I'm a gigs if you don't belong kama u relate na wasiflani sima bestoa ko siwatu muna fanyashu muna fanyashu muna fanyashubili na you don't get shows you don't get gigs you don't get interviews you don't get airplay if I relate to one group or party this other one that's the rival are not going to support me partner, out and support but me nikangu I didn't pick any side and me I was like wacha God was coming and you know it's so unfortunate because the gospel industry should be a place whereby someone feels encouraged someone feels supported because we are preaching the word of God sasa muna jusa apa beti na jai difference nini umesema gospel industry nukweli jifama linambia enwa ministry siwa industry kuna industry na ministry sasa ile industry do ile aribu manenu kapisa industry ni industry ineza kwa ita industry kupika mayai kazi ni pesa it's about money that's about money but ministry is not about money it's not about what you're getting because blessings are God kwa ile ureza kumata ka gari kuna Goda me plana kwa ile jufo kwa ile that's ministry nesemi aji now LJ let's talk about what you've been through lately for the past 1 year and something you came out on social media told us about what you've been going through You said all those things on social media, but we'd like to hear now from you. What happened, LJ? Where was it, you know? Where was life hard for you? What happened? Well, I don't know, if you're talking about my depression station. Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, for sure. Um, anyway. Una jwa saywa na jwa LJ masai kama, insa ni monye. Ali bobe ya. Eh, great, yes. A big artist. Kwanza, when groove awards was groove awards those times. Mail artist of the year. Yes. I think I'm the last one. By the way, was there any other? I think we may answer quishaisha. I don't think so. I don't think so. Was there any? I don't think so. I really don't think so. And that was 20, what? Sixteen. Twenty sixteen. Ya. I don't think badwili ndelia sitani. That's when... And the fact that we don't know it means... The biggest hour do we look on nangalakilamutu. Queli, ya. In kanya. Ya. So anyway. Kenyeli happened, ilifuka point, guys were over rating. Okay. Transkenganda rated. Ya. Ah, sasa miinu kwa na over rate yo. All right. Guys thinking that, you know, after winning this award, dama millionia. Ya. Sdini mi papesangapi. Aha. Of which is nang. Ya. So that is what the, you know, the awards of the acknowledgement did. It made you... It's just exactly what you said. It's an acknowledgement. Yes. It's not a reward in terms of... Finance. Finance or money, whatever. Ya. No. So there was a lot of pressure. Too much pressure. From fans, from family of... Fans, family, friends and everyone. What were they telling you? They were expecting too much of me. Like your support and money? Ya. Kama... Ya. Support. Ya. Or expectation in terms of content. Ya. Na jwa. Ya. For example, like when I won that award, I did a video nyi lini. So much money. The most expensive video nyi lini. In my career. Ya. It came out of my pocket. Ya. So the next video after that, what do I expect? The same standard. For sure. Do you go? Hakuna. So being an artist in Kenya, how would you describe, you know, just being an artist in Kenya? Especially during your happier times when you know people are following you a lot and just talking about you. Eh, it's awesome. Ya. Nifiti. Okay. Ono jwa kuatis, tumapata favazumob. Kweli. Unapata favazumob. Okenda... Okenda gigs. Okenda... Ata inya daily life routine na pata. Like there's so much favazia nyi una chukulia kama uni lje. Nyi ya. Na pata. So you get so many favaz. But you see these favaz, they cost. Okay. So if I walk into a supermarket, for example, ono jwa umsa na kuja shopping. Ta. Mini weka mkuba yoga tia chwani. Me. Eh. Umana get. Ya. So sometimes I have to pack my cow outside nitu maumsa hindi kwa super ni chukulia yoga. Eh. And then I'll get... Eh. Nani pata wasi wuku kwa super badu anada ini wali piya shopping yao. Ok. Nasa yoha unabob biyo time. Nii komba. Eh. Hey. So now, what time did it get bad? Is it when now you change the type of content of music that you were doing or it was before? Actually I had contemplated for a long time. Ha. To do like a love song. Ok. Um. Nili kikiri asana. Niku kwa nirekod na asani. Kada. Mhm. Piya minko nirekod zangubi kivi angu lakini. Mhm. I didn't know whether it's time to release this ama si kwa na patiopi chani ni toy nisi toy. Mhm. Nani kikiri asana uto nijajaja. Nia. Nani pata. So. So. When I finally came to decide that ni anze wa chani toa. Nisi kia response. Wo. It had taken a toll on me. Wow. Mhm. So that is after you released all before or after? Even your song na flaw. Eh. To go to my record. Way back. Yeah. Nia pata. Yeah. So. By the time ni kama mambene aje to shoot a video to release ingoma. I look at me take time. Mhm. Ate he munya lini niza. Uko shio na tatu release ikitu. Nia kama mea. Tachilia. Yeah. And then this is why the time now corona was hitting. Yeah. The first phase. Okay. That is 2020. Mhm. Eh. Sasa sayi watakuna shows. Ata uke release music piano shows. Mili kwa zilezaa. So tu toi tupana. Eh. Tungo jasetwa nia ata samaji. Yeah. What was her contribution in your life? Because we saw you wrote a love letter to her and we are going to get into the details of that. Yo, love letter? I mean it was more like a love letter because it was to your love of your life. In na song ama. No, no, no, no. On what you wrote on Facebook. Mhm. Yes. So I would like to know what was her contribution in your life that time? That is flow. Well, let me tell you something. When you get into relationships, there's always a lesson. Mhm. And there's always an experience. Nupata. Yeah. So, I never experienced different sound. Mhm. Because before that, what was the journey that actually happened? Yeah, I remember. Yeah. Yeah. So it was rumored you were engaged. Was it true? I know that was just a photo shoot. Iliwkwatu photo shoot. Mepiga wedding gown. Nini, nini, nini. Sule wutatweke, hezo piciaza wedding wawane. LJ tulifira uluku wawana. Ashilali kwa na kampuni aku za wedding gowns. Iliwkwatu nana market. Okay. Yeah. Ehe. So, when flow came, I was sure this is done. For me, in terms of relationship, I was like, ya ni minsha fika. This is it. Ehe. Kus my focus is on my career. Yeah. Na business dango za kifamiliya na nini. Yes. No relationship. Mhm. Nupata. So I was so settled. Kabisa. Mhm. And I got that picture. Yeah. From dating her. Aha. But you know, wutu zulea happened in between. Ehe. Ehe.  Mhm. You lost wealth.  You lost literally everything. Mhm. And it was, was it due to the depression that your relationship ended? Ama. I would say actually that relationship at that time helped me survive for a while. Okay. During the depression. Yes. So it says in the relationship. Okay. Nupata. Yeah. Mwajokama no, kama personally, mimi, mimi saku jikea bitu, mimi siyambi angu ya say. Ehe. Mimi kiki go through itu, mimi mi sayzikwambia. Okay. Beti as much as wuwa wu na zokasistangu ama mma angu. Yeah. Nanyama zia. Ehe. So I just suffered with it alone. Npaka ni figure out kivi angu. Ehe. Nupata. Yeah. So at some point li fika any ega kwa sasa adi relationship siyazi handling. Okay. So now it was also taking a toll on her as well. Mwibbia asana. Ehe. Mwibbia asana. So now we had to call it quits. Wewe ama yae ama it was. Actually I can't even explain how that relationship ended. Yeah. We just drifted. Nwana. Miya drifted, she drifted. Yeah. And by the time I realized ya ni story mesh. Ehe. You mentioned she had said that you know she's gonna be there for you. Nwata, you know even if you guys are not together. That actually those are words that I put there. Okay. Ya ni mwenyendal sayama. Ya. And I think she posted it. Ya. Aka sayama ya ni ya no matter what alone will be there for LJ whatever whatever. Ya. So that. So did you feel the need you know to go and just approach her once again when things got really bad or you just thought yourself let me just handle this. Oh. Mwibbia. Mwibbia. Mwibbia. Mwibbia. Ya. I just kept quiet. Ya. Kivi angutu. Ya. Nisafatu. Ya. But in the midst of separation baduna nantraiku kufigawa things. Ya. So you did not talk to anyone else. You didn't talk. No one. No one. You mentioned you lost friends as well. How was that? Whoa. Friends. Ya. Chana marafiki akuna kitu kama marafiki. I LJ utasema J if you. Agon. Did you reach out to anyone aka kulenga? Ya. Not once, not twice. Ya. Ten times plus.  Ya. Not really a bother but they could not help me at my time of need. Nampada. Ya. Yet I was there. Kukyua na persa kukyua na. Shuguli za kazi ni hene. Ya. Nampada. Ya. So when you put out that post, I mean you had already gone. I think I even mentioned on the post that at a family. Ya. Tenshwan different family by the way. Ya.  Ya. How is your relationship like with your mum? Oh it's very good. Okay. Tukosa na mazutu kutumeko sana kiasi. Ya. I didn't talk to my mum for like six months. But she was reaching out. No na jo aso sayo na jo sokosa na angu na ake. Ya. Siya ti tumeko sana isu. Apana. Tumeko sana kusana ni yambia. A mi siya nbiliki, mi siya kwa kichungu. Ya. Ali kwa na kwenbi anini. Siya ofkosa na ni advice. Ya. Pa ni yuki. A mavasi. Ru di shule. Ya. Do this thing. Ono jo na ni advice in different ways. For sure. What you can do. I'ma talk to this person. I'm like you don't understand what I'm going through. Ya. And you know it's very easy to actually feel that way when you're going through something because you feel people are not in your shoes. Mi iskwa na na eliawa. Ok. Si kwa na feel kama na eliawa kenya na go through. Ya na ni pay advice in diyo. Mazali advice of course. Ya. But I'm not feeling like she understands what I'm going through. Ya. And how to deal with it. Mm hmm. So ni kwa like mam tu ni ajitu. Ya. Let me deal with it. But how was it for her as well now that you guys are in good terms? Oh it was stuff for her. Ya. But you know. Damn. Jitu kuliko. Maji. Mm hmm. And was it the same duration that you lost your grandpa? Ya. That must have been very tough. Ya. My grandpa. I lost my grandpa. And that was crazy stuff. Kwa wu ni mitu ni kwa na kwa na kwa na. Ya. Ya. In our family. Asa saima. Ya ya. Iinda li kwa mitu. Ya ni. Me na ya ni. There was no one known as much as him and myself. Ya. And Pata. He was like your father basically. She was my father. He raised me. Yes. I told you I'm raised from a single mother. Yes. But now my grandpa. He was my father figure. Mm hmm. I lived in school. I can even reach a bit of mobile. I had my first employment. Mm hmm. Ni li kwa kampani ake. And Pata. Ya. So when I lost him. Yo. It was crazy. For me. Not only for me but my phone calls was not come. Not only for me but my phone calls was not come. Ya. I was like yo. I don't have answers for your questions. Ya. That must have been very tough for sure. It was crazy. The part that you mentioned. You know you lost wealth and all that. Was it part of new. Was it like wealth that your grandpa left you? I mean it was now what you had already just made for yourself. Well I didn't really lose wealth. Okay. But I lost my life. Mm hmm. I input like that. Ya. Um. No je wealth kengalawas nangalanda rindini. Ya. Kenye naza se ma. Illigo. Different ni. No jai usani. I was a tambian. Matatu ni ni. Mm hmm. Kenye piya wana expect weka mam sana ni. Na live life. Ya. So sa gari, mestol. Ya. E mi na pigesa abu ni. Ya jene kumafutia ta wa bana. Chani pande matatu ani. Ya. Aruwata. Ya. But you see wealth especially for my grandfather. Ya. You can't sell. Okay. With the sell. Ya. Ata weidu leh landika. Ya. With the user. Ya. So basically what you lost is especially a piece of mind. Because sometimes at a kwa na pesa mingi. With no peace of mind. Mm hmm. There is really nothing. Ya there is so much going on. I was like you know what. We are just done. Ya. Ni ka choka ni ka choka ni ka tulia. Ya. Ni ka samata nga masita aki kutawa. Ya. Siya tisi na ideas. Ya. Ni na studio na record na sema. Ta. Nama fans wa kikua na kikuliza LG uku api. Because that's a point you lost even your Instagram account.  Actually I lost Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. That's a very terrible coincidence. How come? And then I managed to retrieve Twitter and Facebook. Okay. But Instagram bado ki doga. Ya. Juna kumbuka you know you went missing I think at the moment you lost your grandpa. And I remember texting you some point I'm like LG hey it's been a long time are you okay? Mm hmm. And I think you just said you were fine but I think now you are not. Na juna jibuto. Ya. Ya. He. Okay guys. No LG you went on social media and expressed yourself how you've been feeling, what you've been through and you really elaborated into details and all those kind of things. And you know it's very hard for a man to express himself.  I want to do this and I want to tell my story on social media. Ya. I know friends and people who have gone through depression, anxiety and stress. Mm hmm. Na nikitu it's mental health. Na nikitu wato na pukusasana. Ya. So it reached a point I just had to speak you know. I had to speak you know. And so go up and you know. It's hard for me. Wato na jikama masai. Ya masai. Na jua ya. Masai ni soja. Ya. Ya. But you know it had to reach that point where I had to speak out. Ya. Did you get people, did you consult with anyone Amulia and Dika too? I didn't consult. I consulted myself. Ya. For a while. Mm hmm. Ni kafi kiriya story, ni kasa mani yonge ya mani siyonge. Ya. But reached a point where I had to express myself. Ya. Na kiaanza kwaile statementu. Lisema you know you said you as a public figure. You know it might cost you. And at the same time it might help someone else. Did you lose anything? Did it cost you somehow? Oh my god it costed me a lot. Ya. Not money wise. Okay. But it let me cost. Eh. And you know I saw the comments as well palia kwa social media elges. Jikama ulu kwa ume expect the kind of comments that were you know people were giving you. Of course there were those that were very encouraging. But there were those who were telling you unatafta kiki you want to get back you know to music. This is why you're doing this. You as a person went through depression. What did you make? How did it make you feel well Jikama? So. Paole paole.  Guys now this is what I feel like when people just come out especially men and they tell us how they are feeling. Then you know we just try to rubbish what they are saying and tell them to be men. And I feel like that's not the best way to approach this. And especially when we are talking about mental health issues. Like we should just listen to someone you know because mental health issues are a big problem. And I feel like we contribute to the spreading of this problem by not listening to people and just encouraging them. When all they need is just a word of encouragement. And uh. What do you mean? And you know. I remember when I was young. I was in the store. I don't know if it was a phone call. Yeah. But I think you know. You want to go through your stuff. Yeah. But I don't know how to speak. I don't have a platform. What platform? I don't know how to explain. Yeah. I can speak to people. Yeah. Encourage them. But you know there are people out there who can't do that. Kwaili. And you see. You had even mentioned that it's a point you contemplated suicide. I did. Three times. Three times? Maratat. Yeah. Korogasumunifrenikayakap. But now you know you are able to just convince yourself. This is not the way I want to go. At LG. It's a funny story. It's a funny story. It was like. You know what I did? Yeah. And I was drinking. Because I was alone. So I went to the hospital. And I went to my house. Good time I got a sugar extension flying. You know. And I'm like. And Korogasumunifrenikayakap. Yeah. Because I was drinking. I was not myself. I was alone. And Korogasumunifrenikayakuna. Luckily. I drank more than I needed to. I broke it. I passed out. Yeah. So you were not able to take. In the morning when I'm waking up. The poison in me ispiliote kakapet. In part. Yeah. So. Chiku meza sumu. But it was that. Shai bain, shai koroga. So na rakani leve ju. In my real consciousness. I didn't care. Sawa. Sihezi akiliangu zina bain meza sumu. So I had to get drunk first. Yeah. So kuna. Post me. Post me.  It literally did. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I got drunk. I blocked out. I was not able to take the poison. Yeah. After you put up that post. Did any members of the gospel industry reach out to you and talk to you? Is there anyone who did? You know at this point I was like. Yes there are few people who had tried to reach out to me. But at this point I didn't feel like anyone mattered in my life. So at me mo niya ni kuna lengat wat. Tukini call, tukini text. So I wouldn't know. So you respond. Kuna DM zeni uli pataza watu enyo. Kwan bia you know they are going through the same thing. Oh after the post. Yes. Oh too many. My God. Actually we are starting a mental health program. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah. Ya ni. Ku kongelisha tu ase na ku. Kua. Kua encourage on this. Ya ni. Kuna jia ni a mental let ni baya. It's tough ya. Nakuna watua zia and all kivyao. And get. So. I want to start a program where I can talk to these guys you know. Kus I've been there. Done that. Ya. I've been through a attempt of suicide. So. So na takatu kongena say ya ni wajwe. Kuna life. Na kuna. Kuna vilu neza jito kwa situationi hote in life. Ya ni pata. Ya. And you know you are going to do good at it because now you're not going to be telling people out of theory. It's not a story. It's not a story. It's something you've been through it. Exactly. What is that one mantra you're going you know to tell these people who are going through mental health issues. What is that one important mantra? Yo. Mu wa kupatia life. Evo tu. He has a purpose. Air life. Ya. Ya. Nami na kili ni kip. Nili di bilili. Munga umeni aka apu iwi ni mone kana na juli kana. Ya. Ii papas ni ni ni. Let me find my papas. Ya. In life. Kwa zile DMZ ni uli pata? What are some other cases you know that led to just them feeling depressed and just going through a hard time ni pesa relationship? Ui. Um relationships of course. Kulikuna family issues. Ya. Kuna career issues. Kuna. Ya ni it's all over the place. Ya ni kila mtu aka na tu iswi ake kivi ake. For me I can specify mine, but I was like whoa. Even job nizakufanyu komiji side. Ya toxic environment. A hundred percent. Ya so there's such situations. Ya. We just with this foundation takakujiwa ni aje tuta tuta tuta mentor ase aje. Ya. Now I mean I think right now you're better off just being able to express yourself on social media. Beda iliku sa idea yo kuji expressa takama there wa no negative reaction. Iliku sa idea ni pili ni piga. Ya. Ya cos guys were had both negative and positive. Ya for sure. Ya. Ya. Um insa idea mi personally cos I opened up. Ya. And people were like you know for a person to speak up like that. Especially a man. A public figure. Ya a public figure. A man in a public figure to speak up. That's that's why no job at olympia congratsana. Ya. But una joa piya kuna aso alukua like anyone home ni ni zunongia cos social media. Then sa idea farm pier ona sema ni aje zunongia. Ntweibisha. Ntweibisha. Ntweoma. Ya. But you know me I'm always a believer of like you know kuna sa idea kufikamali ni cos o ni kiji angusha ni kijinua yun shida angu. Ya. Amani fida angu. Um pata. Ya. So for me if you've not helped me you can't advise me. You can't tell me anything. Ya. Elji please talk to someone anaka pitiya sahi. Ya ni ako on the verge of losing hope right now. Na anaku watch. Ebu mongelisha. Well yo, me ni mefika place ni me lose hope. Ni me lose ya ni ni me lose my life in my mind but it's a lose life kwa hat ma pata. So maze it's always it's mentality ma pata. So una go through issues kwa life kwa relationship kwa family kwa career kwa job kwa man I'm a woman I'm a lady I'm a girl I'm a boy it's it's for you to reset your mind ma pata. I had to go back there ya ni li haveku reset kwa zmini li kwanisha pata e pitiya elji ma sayi ni msana Julikana ni msani everyone knows their name musics jini ni no pata ma ni kwa ineto factory settings restore back to factory settings kwa sama neza juwa jai pressure life na watu ju watu na oku pressure juya too much expectation and pata ni for me it was too much expectation for me guys didn't understand why I am not a billionaire yet they see me on TV every day ya and understand takini wajiki tiko behind me nwaja bi impia kuna kuna vitu mings nga go through kuna management kuna ni ni before you get to that point all these things behind me you have to work out before you can get to become that billionaire you want to see that can help you kwa wana takaku sa idea kwa luangu so man just mental health is very important stick to your goal stick to your ya ni kitu tagete akum stick to it na let nothing come in between just your drive your passion and everything you know just work on it and don't let anything we wana jo gole ako ama kitu na takaku tagete ako it's ama your vision it's uu liku janao tivi ako ni where we to na ijua akunam za ni kusho and pata wendo liku kama puna stick to it so the same way you came up with it by yourself don't let anyone detail you from that stick to it ya okay now elji let's talk currently where you are in life how would you describe your mental health right now e ni kofiti ni kofiti but you know human is human let me say I'm okay ni me gro mentally ni me gro to a level ni naezata naezadi mental say mentally ya and pata and as for me I have known how to deal with things in my life and one thing that eliku na ni pigasan na ni ku deal na issues more by the same time you have to deal with one thing at a time you can't deal with all them so I can see ni me gro san na to monata you've been releasing some few music videos and you're at a match you may release ah so now actually in the next like few days or weeks another one that's good so have you reopened your studio yes, the studio is open do you have a team that you're working with that you're working alone ya, I have a team ya I'm working with a team I'm working with Anto and Judy yes so who are the management oh okay I'm under new management right now aha and we're about to do serious stuff okay ya so this management mojona semanga usi spill the beans the beans before you release so did they reach out to you after you know this so your post is it people you've known before no actually let me do this ya and make it funny ya but we're going to Stella your past I had Stella ya Stella when I met Stella things just started changing in my life aha and me na believe billion limit Anto na Judy and the other team na now what it's a bunch it's a team by the way it's a crew ya sim se mo just you are willing you are to curtain mm hmm vitu zuli anzatu ya ni na patana na mutu ya ni it's divine connection na pata na feel to eh umeku api me ya na pata ya so I don't want to say so much right now but I believe vitu zuli na come up next mm hmm zidakwa out of this world what's the name of the management do you want to reach out to reach out to partners so the same way you are in the NLJ so I'm under new management so Shapa talent management okay STM oh okay Shapa talent management STM it's our basic ya so kubuangapu ni Judy and Anto na kuna hangi na na utawadu ya tu pole pole so we are waiting for great things music videos one after the other mm hmm that's nice eh back to back back to back do you feel the industry has changed by the way from oh of course it has changed aha what are some of the changes you've noted eh size what we are people are not embracing eh people are embracing good music okay one of the things gengetu na kikam eh nasiko uban na gengetu na gengetu na kini gengetu na dikam tu kuna embrace yo weve ya gengetu ya size bo ro kuna nga makali ita pendo mm watu na embrace kitu po yes ah ya so industry kutuna industry will change eh what is it that you'd like to tell your fans where ma fans are shapa LGM side the real that we were ero ero ero ero mi na shukuru sana kwa supporte aw all these years since me artist of the year male artist of the year kenyan awad zamaju ando linominati ni ni ni ya ni much love na shukuru sana na tuzidi ni ya mm alright LGM ya ni asante sana you know for just agreeing to come here and tell people your story and I want to upload your confidence just going on social media and speaking out as a man I feel like clats are a really good move and you're just showing people you need to speak out because look at you now if you didn't speak out probably you'd have eh wasiwa na ni ita ma jina flani ya po ibo junili yunga makini you know but there are watu na zataka kwa ambiaji the people you know who are just thinking you're trying to to get attention with that story yo mi have never been a cloud chaser tijai kwa ya mischiss cloud but maju at the end of the day asya na ni support tiyo akuna life kwaili at the end of the day okuna life ya kwa no na camera na kwa camera man akuna life ya kwa okuna patha ya but lazima aku empowered inasate mi waka story yungunit ame empower amita kwenpower u feel ya ni wukone confidence ya kumovon na life why not speak it out no patha asya feel akwa alone akwa alone kwa this journey wano jo ayo janya depression and zati ikitu nise serious watu na jinyonga watu na kufa but minili amuani watu na jinyonga story kwa sababu wakuna watu na nijin we are just having a courage and just hope we can keep going. But, this is how we are doing. We must help and help our elders to survive. If my story can help them to survive, then why not? Let it be. I'm really glad you just thought of going in that direction of encouraging people which is very nice and we are looking forward to that Foundation, are you counting on telling those success stories? Siya, ita kwa kitu poo sana. One more thing I would like to say is Please don't go back to that you know just you know you've just told us the it's all in the mind If you ever think of ever going back there lg please remember these words there you are very important to the people that love you the people that look up to you and the most importantly you are important to yourself and you deserve to be happy so by all means please heal a hundred percent thank you so much for coming to espion bars and thank you guys hey i don't think i've done this before but they was very emotional for me but uh you know i'm glad lg was here to tell us his story if you're going through a rough patch in your life right now lg is a testimony that you can get out of it and just be great out there so we keep you know wishing lg all the very best in whatever is going to do we are gonna support him make sure you catch his music on youtube what's the the name of the latest you know song that you've released in ito atagolo it's on my channel lg massai kenya eh eh instagram umeru disha badu instagram iko hacked but uh someone is working on it yes within a few days so twitter but kuna backup account in ito lg massai l sharper okay so they should follow you at lg massai dot l sharp dot l sharper uh facebook twitter facebook lg massai kawahida twitter lg massai yes all right guys thank you so much make sure you catch his latest music as well and uh down on the comments section let us know have you been inspired what is it that you've learnt today from lg's story and just let us know how the show was generally thank you so much for watching bars with stars right here on spm bars my good name is miss kitinji until next time kipita spm bars


In this case, the 10 years of emergency spending, even after we had been involved in the wars for a long time, meant that there was very little oversight on the war. But it also meant that every single year, whichever administration, whatever president was in power, was able to essentially pretend that the war was about to be over because we were never budgeting for it for the next year. And also to minimize the deficit for the year ahead because war spending, even though we knew we'd be spending another $100 billion on the war next year. It wasn't in the projections, it wasn't in the budget, so it made it appear as if the deficit was less than it would actually be. My name is Linda Bilms and I am the Daniel Patrick Moynihan senior lecturer chair at Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University. In the early 2000s, Joe Stiglitz and I began looking at the costs of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, which we discovered was much larger than was being officially published. And over the years we published a number of articles, book chapters, book, and so on, looking at the costs of the war. But as the war went on year after year and the amount of money was getting into, you know, $3 trillion, $4 trillion, $5 trillion. One of the questions I began to think about was why was it that the wars were being paid for very differently than previous wars. So going back to the Spanish American war, the war of 1812, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, they were all characterized by being paid for essentially through taxes and cuts to non-military spending. And they were budgeted through the regular defense budget after the initial phase of the war. So after the first year in which there would be some emergency kind of spending, they were gradually brought into the defense budget. And the post-911 wars, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and related conflict were paid for entirely differently. They were paid for entirely by debt, which was the first time this had ever happened, without any tax increases. And in fact, taxes were cut three times, twice under Bush and once under Trump during this period. And they were actually budgeted for completely differently. They were budgeted for outside of the regular budget for 10 years through emergency funding and for the second decade through OCO or through, you know, non-budget special kind of hybrid budgetary mechanism. So the research that I have been doing that is contained in my forthcoming book, The Ghost Budget, is looking at why did this happen and how did this happen. And I did an enormous number of interviews, data mining of papers and so on to try and figure out, first of all, to confirm that this was in fact the difference that we thought it was, and secondly to try and figure out why it happened. The United States has always used contractors in wars, but in the post-911 wars, contractors constituted a much, much larger percentage of the operational forces. And at many times, the number of contractors who were deployed exceeded the number of US troops. And the contractors were deeply embedded into every single military activity. So you couldn't have actually functioned in these wars and operated them without contractors. Contractors were not only doing work that had been done in previous wars by troops who were usually being on a sort of lull period, you know, like driving trucks and cooking and cleaning and doing all kinds of construction work. But, I mean, contractors were also in charge of repairing most equipment, maintaining equipment. They were embedded with pretty much every unit. They were in some cases, as we saw in the Abu Ghraib prison debacle. I mean, we saw they were actually guarding prisoners and making very significant decisions. And I think that the fact that the military relied so heavily on this blended workforce as they saw it has many implications because having worked in the private sector myself, however dedicated and certainly private contractors took very heavy losses during these wars. But the incentive structure for contractors is different than the incentive structure for regular deployed troops. And this had a very distortionary effect on the cost of the war. And, arguably, it made it easier to continue the war for a long time without a draft. The financing of the war is very much related to the use of contractors. In my research, I was trying to understand why it was that we had financed and budgeted for these wars so differently than we had in previous wars. And I examined a wide range of factors that could have contributed to this difference. And through the research, I interviewed most of the presidential chiefs of staff during the 20-year period, all of the inspector generals at the Pentagon and the special inspector generals who were involved, a large number of congressional and OMB budget staff, fiscal committee staff, and a wide range of budget experts and others who were involved. So in total, about 90 senior individuals or elite interviews as they're called. And the conclusions that I reached with it, there were three main factors that led to the war being financed and budgeted for so differently. First was the essential breakdown in the budget process in Congress, the dysfunctional budgeting process, which has resulted in 26 shutdowns since the budget reforms of 1973, the constant reliance on continuing resolutions, the breakdown of the committee structure, and so on and so forth. So the fact that it was very difficult to wage a war from the Pentagon's perspective without being able to rely on the budget coming through in Congress meant that there was an incentive for the wars to be sort of paid for outside of the regular budget process. And secondly, the Pentagon was coming out of a period in the 90s in which the Pentagon budget had, relatively speaking, declined as the Clinton administration, which I was part of, was trying to realize a peace dividend. And so there was a very strong feeling that they were underfunded, the religious projects that were underfunded. And the money for the war, first of all, the emergency spending during the first 10 years of the war was a way to not only replenish all of this spending, but the emergency money and then the overseas contingency operation, or OCO, went primarily into the most flexible account within the Pentagon budget, the operation, the so-called O&M account, which is the account that, among other things, pays for contractors primarily. And because we were so heavily reliant on contractors and in a government shutdown, this created another strong incentive to pay for these wars totally differently in this kind of flexible account that received less oversight and so forth. And further incentivize the Pentagon to try and push for the war to be funded in this way. As part of this whole desire on behalf of the, we could call it the military-industrial complex, but people who were involved in the operations of the war to maintain the very unusual, unprecedented financial and budgetary structure for the war was the fact that the funding received almost no oversight. This was partly because of the kind of ways that we paid for it. So emergency spending, by definition, is supposed to be used for emergencies like earthquakes or hurricanes where the objective is you just want to get the money as fast as possible out to the emergency, to people. And so you don't want to spend a lot of time kicking the tires and looking at it and you sort of accept, okay, it's not going to be perfect, we want to get it out very, very fast. So the oversight requirements are minimal. In this case, the 10 years of emergency spending, even after we had been involved in the wars for a long time, meant that there was very little oversight on the war. But it also meant that every single year, whichever administration, whatever president was in power, was able to essentially pretend that the war was about to be over because we were never budgeting for it for the next year and also to minimize the deficit for the year ahead because war spending, even though we knew we'd be spending another $100 billion on the war next year, it wasn't in the projections, it wasn't in the budget. So it made it appear as if the deficit was less than it would actually be. The third reason was that in the financial crisis, it is now fairly widely known that the stimulus package was insufficient after the 2008 financial crisis. But at that point, interest rates went down to historically low levels. And the spending on the wars became a kind of backdoor stimulus package. So all of a sudden you had this sort of spending. It was something that you could sort of, from an economic standpoint, turn a blind eye to because we needed the stimulus. And the fact that we were in this funny economic moment where interest rates were so low meant that all of the debt, of course, wasn't really showing up in terms of the slice of the budgetary pie on debt servicing. So you had this strange economic moment in which it was possible to keep borrowing all this money for the war and in which extra stimulus was welcomed in many quarters. So there was no real reason to kind of turn off the spigot. So these three factors, the congressional dysfunction, the needs of the Pentagon and the sort of unusually benign economic environment which facilitated all this came together to make it possible to have 20 years of trillions of dollars being spent on these wars with almost no oversight. The president spent a lot of time talking in their state of the union addresses, in their budget transmittal memos, and so far talking about the fact that there was a war, we needed to raise taxes for the war, people needed to do their duty to pay for the war, etc. So during the Korean War, President Truman had raised top marginal rates to 92%. During World War II, President Roosevelt had raised top marginal rates in the 90 plus percent. And so this trade-off was very much said at the presidential level. In addition, there was extensive congressional oversight. I datamined all of the hearings for previous wars and for these wars in the House and Senate fiscal committees and the appropriations committees. And what we found was a tiny fraction of the committee hearings during the last 20 years were devoted to these issues of how do we pay for the wars, whereas quite a considerable percentage of the hearings during previous wars was devoted specifically to discussing how the wars would be financed and budgeted for and paid for. I chose the titled Ghost Budget because one of the words that comes up very frequently in the reports of the Pentagon Inspector Generals, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction and Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction is the word ghost, as in ghost soldiers, ghost troops, ghost schools, ghost buildings, ghost operations, which means this is not a case of corruption or profiteering where the school was painted and it should have cost $10,000 and we paid $25,000 or the school didn't get painted and we paid for them anyway. But this is a case where there is no school. It's a ghost school. And so there are thousands of places in all of these reports in which this issue of ghost comes up. There was ghost soldiers. There was nothing there. There were no soldiers. So the ghost budget, in addition to capturing this idea of something that was there but not there and the disappearing of the money, captures one of the realities of the spending in this war, which is that we spent a great deal of money on things that actually didn't exist. Understanding the implications of 20 years of war spending in America's longest and most expensive wars with minimal oversight is something that I think we will be unpacking for a long time in the future. I mean, to channel the Chinese leader who was asked about the French Revolution, about what was the impact of it and he said, well, it's only 200 years. It's too early to know. I'm not sure we fully understand what the long-term impact will be of so much spending with so little oversight. But I suspect that there are a number of implications. One of the implications was that it made it easier to prolong the wars because we were not fighting the wars and we were not paying for the wars and we were not feeling the pain of all the funding that was spent. So normally people are feeling the pain and if taxes were 75% at the top marginal rate or 92% and we had Congress holding hearings on the cost of the war and we had the president talking about paying for the war, I think that the public mood would have been very different and there would have been an agitation to think about what we were doing earlier. One of the inspector generals who I spoke to at the Pentagon who was a former Rhodes scholar and who I thought was particularly insightful and he said, you know, there was some more oversight that was classified. There was this oversight, you know, maybe not enough. He said, but in all of this time, what we haven't really done is really step back to ask is it worth it? Is this use of resources worth it for society? And I think that the fact that the money was spent kind of under the table or around the side of the table and it was financed by debt and so forth and that nobody talked about it and that this was considered very distasteful made it much easier not to ask a big question. We accrued an enormous amount of long-term obligations for those who fought in the wars. So in these wars, I have done a great deal of work on veterans issues over the years and have written many, many papers on the veterans issues. Those who were deployed in these wars, troops actually were deployed more intensely, saw more firefights, had longer deployments and came back for a variety reasons with a much wider range of conditions. So that we have more than 50% of those who were fought in the wars have some form of life long, disabling condition. Now that doesn't mean that they are not fully functioning members of society in most cases because many of these conditions are not visible. But we have already obligated and promised to millions of veterans lifetime stream of benefits and in many cases health care. But there has not been any set aside at any point during the war for how we're going to pay for this. So it's just another long-term debt. I have recommended for a long time we set up a veterans trust fund. This has not happened with many demands on the US purse. It is certainly possible that when veterans cost for these wars peak and veterans costs always peak many years later. Veterans benefit costs for World War I peaked in 1969, more than 50 years later. When these veterans are in the greatest need, it will be a long time from now, it will be decades from now. And I think it is not at all impossible that at that point we may renege on some of those promises. So I think that is another potential implication, long-term implication of how we have paid for and it or rather ignore the cost of these wars.


Welcome back to the session on latex. In this session, we will learn to specify the aspect ratio. What is an aspect ratio? It is nothing but the relationship between the width and the height of the screen, be it TV, mobile, tablets, computers, laptops, etcetera. Some of the standard aspect ratios you might be aware of are 4 by 3 and 16 by 9. Nowadays, the devices are generally of 16 by 9 aspect ratio. Let us open a PDF in PDF viewer and view it in presentation mode. Well, the slides are prepared in the default 4 by 3 aspect ratio. Since my device here is of 16 by 9, I can see these white patches on the sides. Let us go back to our slides. This can be taken care of by writing the aspect ratio as shown here. Let us do it in tech studio. Let us write aspect ratio equal to 16 by 9. Build and run. All right, I guess it did become wider, but let us confirm it by looking at the PDF. Let us open this file in presentation mode. Well, now our slides are in 16 by 9 aspect ratio. Let us switch back to our slides. So, in this session, we learn to mention the aspect ratio. Thank you. Have a nice day.


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Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for yet another engaging panel discussion, which will talk about health as a sellable asset for marketers and brands where we learn the use of empathy, emotional approach, strategies to market health, as well as wellness to the masses, also, which means to sell your product, service to the consumer driven Indian market. With this, may I please now invite, on the screen, Abhishek Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Edelweiss Tokyo Life Insurance, Venkat Eppena, Vice President, Marketing Fast Enough, Samkar Dutta, General Manager of Marketing, Sood Healthcare, Samyukta Ayur, Vice President and Head of Marketing, Khaya Limited, and the session chair being Rashmi Thosar, the Founder, CEO of Brandcare. Well, with this, I'd like to humbly welcome all our esteemed panelists on the screen. Thank you so much for your valuable time with this. The screen is all yours. Rashmi, it is over to you to take it forth with your exciting panel and it's great to see so much energy and exuberance on the screen. We're looking forward to your panel now. Over to you. Thank you so much, Bhavna. Thanks a lot. Nice to see everybody. Good afternoon to everybody. This is Rashmi Thosar and your session source. Welcome to this wonderful session of Health as a Sellable Asset for Marketers and Brands. This COVID period will go down in history as a period of shift. The significant among these shifts was the health care shift. All the HIK shops lived in unity, ventilators, PPKs, boxy meters became like this table cap. And I'm sure you've all been a part of it. The health frenzy was so unimaginable and we've been it to it all and we've survived and come on to the other side, somewhat unpacked, I would say. While this unimaginable frenzy was there, we saw in the beginning of 2020, the first four months was so hectic. Everybody was jumping into onto this brand. There were about 650 million health apps which were downloaded globally. The dietary supplements and nutrition market, it just kind of exploded. Insurance devices, people were just looking up for everything which they could find to keep themselves safe and to find themselves in good health. And whenever there are vacuum marketers aboard vacuums and then they tend to flood in. So overall, while this is a blue ocean, there is also, typing in this has never been very easy to all come out and list how they have done it in one at all. Let me introduce, I appreciate Gupta chief marketing officer, Ed Weiss took your life. So Bishik, has he joined in? Bishik? Yes, I'm here. I am audible and visible. Yes, yes, very much so. Hi there. I was just saying that these are times of extreme variability and during this time trust takes a downturn. How do you think pandemic has impacted communication? You're very right, Rashmi. During this time, especially when everybody's feeling so vulnerable, the trust actually takes a little backseat, not in terms of backseat, in terms of its importance, but backseat in terms of the trust levels going down. So during this time, according to me, the most critical from a communication perspective or an advertising perspective or from a brand perspective is empathy. Yeah, you know, this is the time to probably tone down.  It is a time where you have to realize that people are going through a major problem and they are looking for a solution to that problem. If you think that you have a product which offers a solution to this problem that people are facing, you need to talk about it, but you need to talk about it in extremely empathetic ways. That is one part, especially for intellectuals in the life insurance industry, which is heavily, heavily dependent on third party distributors or what we normally call as insurance agents. You have to actually, while one part of your TG is the consumers who will end up buying life insurance. As a brand marketer, as a communications professional, you often have to realize that there's another set of TG are these people who are actually going out there and trying to convince customers to buy your products. It's time to show empathy towards them as well. It's time to ensure that they are well equipped to handle the change which is happening. Don't just look at only your end consumers, look at intermediaries also. For industries like us, where activities play a huge role, I think take a backseat and go and understand their problems as well. Sure. I think that's very important. What do you think? It's balancing you very rightly said balancing sales and communications is a very important thing. The pressure is to sell to your clients while also developing long-term relations with them. For health insurance professionals, it's a kind of a tightrope walk where consumers are expecting agents to be their trusted advisor to tell them about health plans. But you're not just there to educate your clients. You have sales goals to meet and stay in business. How do you maintain this balance of empathy? It's quite difficult. On one side, you have to be looking at how you're going to make the business and on the other side, you have to also be their advisor, find that very critical element of trust. So while Rashmi, this question is not only valid during a pandemic or any crisis, it is always there. Yes. How do you balance what kind of initiatives or communication do you balance? And probably I'm going to say something which is going to be hugely unpopular or probably goes against the conventional marketing wisdom. During times of crisis, during times of crisis, you need to first speak to the people who are close to you, which are your intermediaries. So my priority, my balance would go tilt in favor of them during this crisis, because these are the people. Please understand the mindset of an insurance professional. This guy has been selling or this guy is only I'm using as a metaphor. It is not gender specific. This person has been selling life insurance for ages and ages and ages by meeting face to face. And that's the only way this person knows how to sell insurance. If there is no meeting, this person cannot sell because insurance takes time to convince customers and therefore you need to meet customers. Suddenly in the pandemic, that thing is out gone. You can't meet the customers. However, you still have a house to run. You still answerable to the commitments of the business. So at that point of time, this is how you make a shift. This is how you start selling in a mix of video based, plus text based, plus WhatsApp based, plus if possible, go and meet the customer under safe conditions. But this is how you do it. And it is very important for handhold this person. So yes, at this point of time, what we did, we actually focused in terms of the balance more towards the distributor than less towards the consumers. When I say less towards the consumer, it doesn't mean that we are completely neglecting the consumers, but in terms of the effort. However, yes, consumers also need to be told that here also my focus was more on my existing customers telling them that I am there. In case something happens, you have placed trust in us when you bought a product from us. And what we had given you at that time was just a promise and not anything else. It was a piece of paper and a promise. So I am here to honor that promise today. Should you need help? So my focus was first on my existing customers. And at that point of time, you also realize that since consumers are feeling vulnerable, whenever the vulnerability increases, the demand for our product increases. That is very clear. When you start realizing, something can go wrong with me, that's when you start looking at products which hedge the risk. And therefore insurance demand goes up. So yes, it's a time that we also need to ensure that consumers who are looking for insurance are getting the best product according to their need. But if I have to ask in terms of the order, first is my intermediaries, then is my existing customers, then is my prospective customers in terms of crisis. I think that's a very, very valid point you have made, Abhishek, that especially when you're selling at the point of vulnerability, it's very important to say that I'm there for you. And that I think is a takeaway from here. Just being able to say that I'm there for you. Yes. Are you able to hear me somehow? My connection today is not too great. All right. Okay. Thank you. But thank you, Abhishek. We'll come back to you. Venkat, if I may ask you, tell us a little bit more about the philosophy of fast and up. Okay. So I think when it comes to fast and up, it is a five-year-old brand in Indian market. So we are basically into active and sports nutrition. So I would say I think today, if you take three out of four sports candidates, I think they use fast and up products. Either you take Indian cricket team, you take 90% of the runners use this product. So I think we have built a lot of trust around these products. I think we brought in new technology into the market where I think fast and up is the first brand to bring in FOS and technology into India with all the products. Like let's say, for example, if you take many brands are in liquid form, powder form, but we are the one who brought in FOS and we trusted in it. We brought into Indian market. And today, as I mentioned, I think out of every four sports persons, I think two to three sports persons are using our products. So I think the major value we created is I think starting from manufacturing factories, the way products labeled the way products delivered everywhere we tried to maintain authenticity. We tried to evolve as the market started building. Also, we made sure that more than pushing product into the market, we tried to pull audience by having very strong communication, which gives more information around aspects like for example, effervescent is new to India five years back. Today, being a number one brand in effervescent, I think we can I can say that within the mix of products like let's say in sports nutrition or nutraceuticals, I think we have three different formats. I think fastest growing format is effervescent. So I think we were able to build that line being very strong on authenticity side as well as I can say customer orientation service everything. Yeah. So our value is being very authentic and having very high quality production in place. And as we are the first one to bring in effervescent, I think we are the one even today we are the number one in manufacturing as well as on sales friend on effervescent side. So our core value is highest highest quality and customer service. Yeah, because every day there are about within India itself, there are about 27 to 30 new brands of health and nutrition supplements being launched. And they are in several, several different categories. How important is it that you know, you stay very true to your niche? How important is that? Yeah, so let me start with our own example. Today, I think when we started our first cohort was runners in India. So we want to activate that category, and we want to fuel all those runs happening across India. I think even today 90% of the runners use our product to fuel their run. So I think being any technology that we are building or any new product that we are launching or even the service that we are bringing in, I think if you define your own niche, your own cohort very clearly, I think servicing that cohort and niche at top notch level is very important. I know that every brand since the opportunities ample around, I think getting into various categories like entering into new markets, entering into new TGE, I think especially in last four, five years, I think health and wellness industry became a blue ocean. So I think the opportunity is ample. So I think even though I think you have a different business-flying plan or you want to enter into a new market or you want to launch a new product, I think the core aspect of the core niche that you're targeting, our core niche is sports. So I think the either market research or like, let's say building products, launching new products, everything should, the core focus should be around your niche. So even today, we stand, if we take a call, I think our inclination is always towards sports. So any nutritional product that we launch into the market, I think the first priority goes to sports sites. So that's one important factor. As I mentioned again, I think as Abhishek was saying, I think the core value that you create for your brand, that authenticity that you create for your brand use that value. For example, on insurance side, if you promise something and next, you don't deliver that, for sure, I think that customer goes to another brand. So I think authenticity is the utmost important thing for any brand to have your own niche, where your own niche will build your revenues. I think in fact, I think the chasing new customer versus focusing on your own niche and is going to be building better revenues, qualified revenues, which will sustain. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that, Venkat. I also had a small question here. Do you think you've been using random message versus one on and there should be how much do you think they play? They play a role in being very focused to your own niche. Do they add a great value? Do they bring with them followers? Do they really raise your perception within this niche? How important are they and what value do they bring in? Yeah. So I think the way even, I think we can call it as, we can call them celebrities or influencers or whatever. I think today, I think the way influencers, I think the word used, I think that is shaping up really in a different line where previously it's more of selling products through influencers. I think today influencer or celebrity is used to create a tone for your brand. Like let's say, if you take Varun Dhawan or Shilpa Shetty, they are more into fitness, more into, I think, they are more towards active lifestyle. So I think we picked those two celebrities to create a certain tone for our brand. Again, for example, they are popular in certain states. So we want to make sure that our product is toned or the product is the image of the product, image of our brand is created in a way. So that's the reason we picked those two celebrities and that helped us a lot in the last two years. I think either you take it as a brand visibility, brand existence or brand growth, I think all three friends, I think those two celebrities helped us a lot. In fact, since they are into fitness and active lifestyle, and many followers follow them for those two reasons because they are active and they are fit. So I think that they were able to add that value to our brand for sure. Yeah, I read somewhere you've been calling them good vibes officer. I think that's a very interesting term, which is, I think a little bit more than a celebrity or just an influencer. They just create their good vibes. It's a very nice term. And yeah, I think it's a start. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And Samta, are you there? I'm not able to hear her. Can you hear me? Yes, now I can. And I can see you also. I think I missed your introduction. Samta Dutta. Would you like to, you know, give us a little introduction about what is the philosophy of soothe health care. And then we will get on to discussing how exactly are you trying to get closer to its consumers, a small bit of an introduction first to soothe health care, maybe. So I think I think like, like most of the panelists here or some of the panelists here, we are a young brand, we're a young Indian brand, exorbitant brands, we are into feminine hygiene, creating solutions for young Indian women, homegrown solutions. So we are into sanitary, menstruation cups to diapers, to adult diapers, that's the category we operate in. We fundamentally believe that Indian women and Indian intimate hygiene has been ignored and dominated by global players for the longest time. And while we have a lot of ample solutions in the market, the category has has been dominated by the culture of silence. So we are here to actually offer our products and also in somewhat fashion sort of push them on the level of the culture of silence. Yeah, nice. Which is very valid. And I wanted to discuss that with you that this is typically an area which has been dominated so much by Procter and Gamble, Johnson and Johnson, and multinational players have been at it and they've done it for so very long. How does a local brand, your flagship brand like Puri, how does it get close to consumers? You know, interestingly enough, Rashmi, we launched, we are a GT presence launched in in early in late 2018, early 19 and bang after that, you know, the pandemic really hit us.  We had a tougher thing. We were here trying to introduce ourselves and any which was to a category where not many people are willing to hear us. So, you know, the one thing is that we're a young brand and the consumer does not talk about this product to the retailer. So that becomes a very big challenge, you know, when a girl goes to buy a sanitary pad, the minimum there is a minimum amount of conversation that happens between her and the seller. So she's like, Whisper, Dana, or whatever her brand is, Dana, you know, with that said, a new brand entering a mass as a mass teach player in the market is a huge, huge challenge that we took upon ourselves. And, you know, that's something that we are building and fighting each day on. Is it difficult? It is supremely challenging, I would say. And that's what makes it super fun. In the past couple of years, we have in terms of GT, you know, increased our distribution, you know, started with India two, and now sort of going to India one and providing solutions. So that is what we are doing in terms of brand-building in terms of being present. And in terms of actually talking to the consumer, there are so many things that we are doing in today's consumer that so many level one is, of course, the advertising. And as, you know, Venkat was saying, having a good vibe ambassador, social influencer, all of that is a very, very norm thing. But I think also today's consumer is very comes across as very conscientious. And we want to tap into that ideology of theirs as we speak to them. So our product line, our product philosophy, as well as how we communicate and go back to them, is all about that.  So there are, you know, we like to talk, you know, not in a very insular way, but very inclusive way for the brand.  But I think today's time with the new marketplace, I think it's a very, very, it's a very, very interesting challenge to have on. Definitely. So definitely. And I'm sure I think you have manufacturing facilities, I'm sure right from the product itself, you've been putting the consumer based thinking into making of the product as well. Does anything happen there from the time that you're conceptualizing the product has anything happened, which is very local, which is very India centric and which might give you an edge over the multi nationals. That's the basic product itself. You have products across I think women's health and also I think kids health and adult health. So in each of these segments does the thinking of going local start from the time that the product is being conceptualized that the product is being thought thank you Russian that's a very, very important and valid question as we own up in the category. One of the things that we are on an ongoing basis study about the category, especially the dominated leaders in the market is that while they are there in your supply chain cannot be matched by the marketing but it's cannot be matched. I think in terms of product definitely I think the innovation panel has been very, very limited if I may say so. The women health and hygiene intimate hygiene has been so ignored because firstly it's not talked about. So the ignorance come from it's not being in the center stage in the first go right. So we are using products and the competition is using products which are so bad for your intimate hygiene because you know like every other area of your body the while you're menstruating you know you need everything that you do need to be readable you know and it has to ensure that you know you are yes you are covered you are your leakage fee and all of that but at the same time you need to be readable. Right you need to be able you need to be having or you know you need to be open right in that sense. So in in those terms we realize that and that came from empathy as a product as a product philosophy that you know we have to come up with products that actually can really tally to that.   Thank you, thank you Smuta that was really very interesting to understand how it's possible just with the local thinking to take multi-nationals head on by getting very close to the consumers building in the consumer thinking right from the product stage or just at the marketing stage very interesting thank you for that thank you some of the highs i have a question for you and i'm sure Chi is a case study and everybody would like to know what's been done right from the services model i think a lot of introduction of product all products have also happened now this is a brand which is being designed and driven by by dermatology dermatologists how do you maintain this balance of you know science and emotion it's a very deep question actually Rashmi thanks for that i'm sure it got all of us thinking um i think this is very famous code by Dignad Han and basically it's a very simple philosophy but it really runs very deep speaks about saying that keeping your body healthy is an expression of you know gratitude to the whole cosmos and i think a lot of it is also you know very again i think it's very karmic because it's very linked to what Samta was also talking about literally like you know 10 seconds ago because it's a very simple scientific truth really right like beauty in most cases is a reflection of good health right um again i think that's very linked to what Venkat was also talking about because he spoke a lot about authenticity and you know uh you know getting things right from the consumer perspective um i'll give you a simple example um when your hair is healthy your hair looks beautiful when your skin is healthy your skin looks beautiful right um so what happens is that largely beauty becomes a by-product of good health um i think you started off your conversation you know you spoke about the pandemic you spoke about um i think Abhishek spoke a lot about people's realization and i think for everyone it's it's hit home very hard for each one of us but i think health suddenly became a prerogative in everybody's life even if it weren't wasn't before i think that became very important you spoke about the number of launches that happen in india you know 25 30 is a huge number of launches that are happening every day um and it's actually an age old secret right like if i'm healthy i will look beautiful uh so skin health suddenly became something to achieve hair health became something to you know actually focus on so when you look at a very clear dermatology kind of an approach you know bringing it back to kaya uh we focus on health from with the right we cure we treat we better because they're all md highly md qualified doctors they're looking at your skin they're looking at your hair they're looking at body health and the minute for example you have any kind of say acne or you have say hair fall or dandruff it could be an issue with your skin or or skin or hair um the minute they're going deep within doing the right kind of treatments customized to what that person needs um in the absence of say acne scars your skin starts glowing because everything is suddenly clear in the absence of hair falls and you have a head full of hair it's it's really shining from within automatically you end up looking beautiful and because science has been used you know from within to kind of you know treat everything from the outside and it looks beautiful uh the emotion that manifests because of this is an emotion of happiness there's an emotion of freedom there's an emotion of i think sometimes spoke about independence just spoke about inclusivity because it's very inclusive right it's about every person's journey even with health is so different from the other person's journey of health and that's really where we are it's literally like saying you look good you feel good and automatically there's a there's this entire you know verge of happiness that's kind of caught around and the pandemic has taught us a very health first approach again bringing it back i think lungs is something i don't know if i don't think anyone of us was focusing so much on the importance of you know building lung capacity working out all of that started happening again the byproduct of that is that people automatically started looking good it's a different story that from a health benefit perspective your body could then combat any illness that hit your way but the minute you started looking good so it's really very rational right and i think people it's a very simple insight i think as marketers and advertisers across the world they're always looking for that simple human truth and i think that's what kaya has also kind of always been in this space because we are a 19 year old brand we've been in India for a very long time um and it's a very simple approach if i am healthy i end up looking good by default and i end up looking good i end up feeling good i end up feeling good so i'm happy so it's a very simple mantra um to answer your question the science is the how to it helps you achieve that beauty becomes the outcome and i think emotion is just a manifestation a very fyi manifestation if i were to call it that thank you thank you so much thank you very much for that um i think we are just about warming up and we can just go on forever with this discussion maybe we should take it offline sometime when we meet again um thank you so much everybody and it was really my pleasure um posting this thanks thank you all thank you so much thank you thank you so much well um with these ladies in general no thank you thank you thank you sometimes thank you so thank you so much thank you so much


I've noticed that on numerous occasions, Mike says that Scripture tells us that the Nephilim were done away with in the Old Testament. Why then are there still instructions that are suggestive of the angels still having potential to be enticed? For instance, if the reference to angels in the head covering harken back to Genesis 6, why is that significant unless cohabitation is still possible? Also, why does it matter if a woman's hair is covered in the New Covenant? Well, I would say first, the wording of the question sort of presumes that the Watchers and the Sons of God and the Nephilim are kind of the same, but they're not. I think the questioner understands that, but the wording, the way the question is worded makes me just wonder a little bit, so I'll just start there. First Corinthians 11 obviously doesn't mention Nephilim, but the gist of the question is, why was Paul concerned? Well, the fact that Paul would be concerned about angelic enticement is no justification for arguing that there are Nephilim now. It just means he was concerned. In other words, it means exactly what you would think it would mean, that in Paul's mind that this possibility was there. A possibility is not an actuality, and these are just simple ways of just thinking coherently about the topic we're discussing. The instructions Paul give, I don't even like the word instructions, they're not instructions that Paul writes in First Corinthians 11 about the head covering in the sense that Paul's saying, do X, because if you don't do X, then why will happen? That isn't the sense of what Paul's doing, rather Paul's advice shows he's concerned. He considers a Genesis 6-like event to perhaps be possible. That doesn't mean it was happening, it doesn't mean it would happen again. Paul's just reflecting a fear or concern, something again that's lurking in the back of his mind, but there's no guarantee that if someone, some woman who listened to Paul and read that and said, well, forget that, I'm leaving my head cover, I'm doing what I want, flaunting my sexuality. What does it mean that something's going to happen to her? In other words, the cause and effect mechanism here is not being taught in First Corinthians 11. First Corinthians 11 is not teaching a cause, effect, reality, and in some cases even a potentiality, what it does, what Paul's wording suggests is that in his mind he thought that there was some, there's a reason to be concerned, there's some possibility here, but we can't sort of convert that possibility in Paul's head to something that would indeed happen. Possibilities are just that, they are possibilities, they are not actualities. A potentiality is not an actuality. Again, we could just go over the, again, these terms like this to try to draw the distinction, but I think that would get a little annoying. So I would just say Paul isn't predicting anything, his words reflect a concern of his. There's no evidence from the fact that he was concerned that anything was happening. The Old Testament does make it quite clear that the giant clan lines were destroyed, that's the whole point of what happens with the refaeim, the remnant there, flees to the cities of the Philistines, that's where we find them next. Goliath and his brothers are taken out, they're exterminated, we never get another reference to them. Even if you're reading the Septuagint, you have a reference to Anachim in Jeremiah, but it's a reference back to the Philistines. You know, there's just no evidence for this, zero in scripture that we have a Nephilim presence beyond the Old Testament period, on into the inter-testamental period, on into the New Testament. All we can say is that from the way Paul wrote this, he thought that it could happen again. In other words, there's nothing in his mind that says it can't happen again, but we can't convert that to saying, oh, it was or it is, or if somebody just flaunted their sexuality, some woman in court, that it was going to happen, that was the trigger event. It's going to produce this effect. This is the cause that produces this effect. All of those things are overstatements. They overstate the data. So I don't think we should read into what Paul said. We should just sort of leave it where Paul left it. Second question also is concerning cohabitation. Is this what Jesus means in Matthew when he speaks to the days of Noah marriage and the end times? And could this possibility have any ties to the man of sin possibly being a result of such things? Yeah.  Paul is trying to get the Corinthians to do the right thing in terms of sexual modesty and of course, sexual fidelity within marriage. And again, because, you know, he has this concern and other concerns, frankly, he's talking to the Corinthians and they must have done just about everything under the sun in this area. But anyway, you know, those things matter again for new covenant living, for New Testament living. Of course, why wouldn't they, you know, fidelity and modesty and what not. You know, and Paul is, you know, he's speaking to Gentiles here. I think they understand what what's going on clearly. As far as, you know, what's going on, what is there some relationship between this and Matthew 24, the Gospels or, you know, the end times with the man of sin? You know, I don't think that there's any direct proof, any direct even evidence that the Antichrist figure has anything to do with Genesis six, one, two, four. Now the key word there is direct. You did have people, you know, like Irenaeus that considered Genesis six, one through four to be a possible backdrop that there may be some sort of indirect tie in between Genesis six, one through four and the Antichrist, again, that the man of sin. So his argument, you know, was more peripheral, more sort of character based, you know, he ties it in with the the idea that the the giboree of Genesis six were tyrants. And so he thinks that the man of sin is going to be a tyrant. In other words, Irenaeus will talk about Genesis six, one through four in relationship to the Antichrist figure, but he never says anything like that cohabitation is going to happen again to produce the Antichrist. He never says anything like that. Neither does anybody else. Neither does any text. Now personally, I think there are peripheral, indirect connections between the Antichrist figure and the sin of the watchers and, you know, what happens in Genesis six, one through four, let me just, you know, bring that all down to this point. I don't think there's any direct connection between these two things, Genesis six, one through four, the Nephilim and the Antichrist. Okay. I do think there are peripheral indirect, suggestive sort of connections that are not clear, but again, that may indicate that there's something about that event that has a role to play in the Antichrist figure. I know that's kind of a convoluted way to say it, but I think it's better than just saying indirect versus direct. Back to the Matthew 24 thing. I've commented on that before. I think even in a Q&A, I don't think Matthew 24 has any connection to Genesis six, one through four, because there are no textual connections there. The terminology for marrying and intermarriage in Matthew 24 is not the terminology the Septuagint uses for Genesis six. If it was, I would change my tune on this to me, that would be telegraphing a connection, but it just isn't there. And the rest of the things that are described in Matthew 24 about what people were doing before the flood entirely refer to the human population of Noah's day. So to me, it's cheating to take four or five things that are described in Matthew 24, pluck one of them out and say, oh, this is about the Nephilim. Okay, that to me is not legitimate hermeneutics. But again, if there was a connection via the Septuagint to that passage, well, that would be a little different because then to me, again, if you've listened to the podcast long enough, those kinds of things are important to me because the writer is trying to draw our attention back to a specific passage by virtue of the Septuagint, but that does not occur in Matthew 24.


अर ये मनिस्ट्री अप अवर्सीज पाखिस्टानीज अन हुमर इस्ट्रोस द्वल्पन्ट के तहात आता है और it was created in 1976 by these students through the passage of the Employees Old Age Benefits Institution Act of 1976 by the Parliament of Pakistan. EOBI operates on the partially funded basis. इस में जो insured परसन होता है, वो contribute करता है, employer contribute करता है, और during the insurable employment ये activity जारी रत्ती है. Employers are supposed to pay 5% of the minimum wages prescribed by the government while employees are supposed to pay 1% of the minimum wages. So, my dear students, this contribution constitutes half of the total contribution while remaining half comes from the government of Pakistan. Government of Pakistan, my dear students, contributed to this scheme till 1995 but withdrew thereafter. My dear students, the contribution that comes from the employers, the employees, the government and the EOBI, they invest in profitable projects so that they can create income so that the insured employees who have completed their job can give them pensions. My dear students, when the insured person is 60 years old, then it becomes eligible to give him a pension. And the insurable service of 15 years is required in this scheme. Now, let's discuss what is old age pension. This pension is provided in an event of retirement, my dear students. The second pension is the survivor pension. Survivor pensions are given to the successors of the people who have passed away. And nominees are given to the insured persons. Because Islamic teachings are also that old parents or young widows are involved in survivor pension programmes which EOBI has developed and according to Islamic law. My dear students, as per EOBI rules, parents of the unmarried employee gets pension for 5 years in case of employee's death. If an employee dies after 36 months of EOBI insurable service, his widow gets the survivor's pension for the entire life, my dear students. Dear students, children of the deceased insured individuals are eligible to get the EOBI survivor pension even if the widow of the insured employees gets remarried, given the stepfather of the children may not take the financial responsibility of the children. This is survivor's pension. Now let's move on to discuss what is invalidity pension. This pension is provided in case of disability of the insured persons, my dear students. EOBI also gives old age grants. Old age grants are given at the age of superannuation. My dear students, minimum pension is Rs.6,500. And average income distributed by the pension scheme is very low which grew from Rs.888 to Rs.1000 per month in a year 2006 and 2007. Today, the challenge of EOBI is low contribution. Funds are not much. It is estimated that the fund will be completely exhausted by 2035. So, the issue of sustainable economic viability is very high. In this issue, the structure of administrative reforms is being presented so that administrative expense decreases so that it can come to the status of sustainable economic viability. Hope you have understood the topic. Thank you very much indeed.