May 2021 the important facet. I was just noticing is that judges decided they are five decided on fifth and fifth of May so that's a very unique way of remembering it that a constitution bench decides that particular judgment and We all know that debate regarding the reservation as to whether it has to be granted whether it has to be Granted and whether in the promotions Whether the 50% cap is As has been rightly noticed by the five judges is continuing most especially after the judgment of Interesting and since we know that the judgment is voluminous and to understand immediately when there's not much Debates on that barring food to three YouTube's as such other analysis In a newspaper. We thought why not call a person who is well-versed not only in the constitutional matters as well as on the Matters on the criminal side as well as civil side and we have taken Mr. P. S. Raja Gopal on various sessions and we all know that his sessions have done tremendously well and Before going live on the session. We were also discussing about the aspect that how these covert has been on the spike and we are also seen to the effect that Despite the fact that there's a lot of decimation of knowledge regarding vaccination social distancing and masks wearing of mask yet the spikes are continuing to go on and as we all said that Stay safe. Stay home. That's the best way which is coming forward Before we request Mr. P. S. Raja Gopal who would take us to these entire judgments of 600 page To be capsules in a form of around 60 minutes It only shows the immense knowledge and the manner in which he can take things forward I would request a trivikram to say a few words and thereafter we would request mr. P. S. Raja Gopal a senior advocate from Karnataka What do you expect? Mr. Traikram unmute yourself I'm sorry, I'm not able to switch on my video for some reason I'll be in next 10 minutes I'll be able to come on video. I'll be able to switch on my video It's a wonderful judgment. Very important judgment. I'm sure senior would simplify it and it would be beneficial to the Advocate fraternity at large and other participants as well. So without taking much time. I think over to you, sir Mr. Trivikram and my dear friends Well, Mr. Vikas asked me because we're discussing with me about the subject for today's interaction He suggested why not I speak on The latest judgment regarding the Maratha reservation first I was hesitant because the issue of reservation is More often than not a controversial issue reservation which was Introduced in the Constitution as a measure to bring about real equality vis-a-vis the formal equality that we talk of As unfortunately over a period of time deteriorated into a Divisive factor in the society. That is what Justice Ravindran said in the Shokumar Thakur that our objective is to bring about a casteless society and cast-based reservations continued without any time limitation He is going to dissipate the energies of society by bringing forth the divisive feelings or instincts in the society that he was speaking How why there should be Some alternative to reservation. It is not that There should not be real equality. Real equality should be there But whether reservation is the only instrument that is available to us under the Constitution This was gloriously discussed by Justice Ravindran in Ashokumar Thakur the case which dealt with Reservation in favor of other backward classes, which we today call as socially and economically backward classes then in spite of the Controversial nature of the subject after a giving a thought I thought we should discuss because This judgment has given us an opportunity to look forward Unbound by the earlier Long believed I only say that we have believed but it was not a real there was nothing to believe so Long believed notions of Social justice if I may say so now coming straight to the subject Malata reservation issue Provides a Classical example of How the reason how the castes or groups are included in socially economic backward classes Exactly not on merit, but on consideration Which are nothing to do with merits of the matter. What is the factual background in which Citing extraordinary circumstances The state of Maharashtra introduced a reservation in favor of Maratha community there were as many as Six commissions of inquiry Which I'm called into the status of Marathas and their demand for inclusion as Socially economically backward class three of them are centrally appointed commissions Starting from Kaka Kalilkar committee in 1953 then national commission then the Mandal Commission Then national backward class Commission and three state commissions and one Political committee also that is committee headed by Mr. Rane who was a minister in Maharashtra Virtually every seven of them had said that Marathas are a forward community in the state of Maharashtra. They have secured adequate share and consciously using the word adequate because That is one of the controversies decided by the constitution bench in the judgment we are discussing today They have secured more than adequate share not only in education public employment even political power I'm told close to more than 50% of the chief minister of the state had belong to Maratha community After all reservation is also talked about as an instrument which brings about political power apart from educational and economic power the Eighth committee or the seventh committee I may if I may say so that is just that is the latest committee headed by A retired judge of Bombay Hikor It not only reversed The findings recorded by successive committees earlier that Marathas cannot time to be backward class But it also went on to say that there are Exceptional circumstances Which permit in the case of reservation for Marathas in education has also public employment To breach the 50% limit stipulated by Nine judge bench in Indra son before I go into the Issues decided with the constitution bench one thing all of us should realize is This judgment rendered with the constitution bench is First and foremost Important for the reason that an issue like reservation which normally drags on for years together in the high court and Equally long period in the Supreme Court Has been decided in a record time Let us go back to M. Nagraj the constitutional amendments made in 2000 2001 and earlier to it They will it the constitutional validity of was decided in M. Nagraj in the year 2006 then The constitution bench instead of while laying down the law Instead of deciding the validity of the state enactments that were under challenge The constitution bench demanded the validity of the state exam state enactments To be examined by respective benches Respective benches took their own time to decide Whether they should decide the matter or whether they should send the Matters to the concerned high courts to decide With all that at least in the state of Karnataka The validity of consequential seniority on promotion in respect of scheduled constitutional rights The controversy about which was started somewhere around 1997 With a 1997 or even slightly earlier that is immediately after Orcas above all the next judgment came birpal Singh Chauhan From that 1997 until 2017 the Controversy persisted compare that with the speed with the present issue has been addressed by the Supreme Court a few dates would be relevant On 15th November 2018 The state backward class commission submitted its report recommending Marathas to be Enlisted as socially and economically backward class State passes the order State made its enactment Which was published in the gadget on 30th November 2018 then High Court rendered its rendered this decision on 27 6 2019 In the Supreme Court notice was ordered on 12 7 2019 Reference to constitution bench was made on 9th September 2020 mark the state 9th September 2020 and in less than eight months 5th May 2011 2021 the present judgment is rendered In spite of the pandemic situation in which we are all placed in About which Mr. Vikas made a mention at the threshold this augurs well for the future because In the matter of education and service What happens is if the things are not decided fast the Equities cannot be set right on conclusion of the proceedings Irrespective of the positive all possible efforts that could be made because Say MBBS course at the end of sixth year He would have become a doctor whether He would have been entitled to the seat In the light of the ultimate determination rendered by the court Irrespective of whether it's eligibility or eligibility He would have become a doctor and perhaps a person who would have become eligible But for the entire model or but for the impugned law which is ultimately set aside a military student could have suffered Similarly in respect of service matters After all the life the service span of an employee With the if you take the present age of entry he is around 25 to 28 years Earlier there was a time when it used to be 33 35 and perhaps if I had not become an advocate I would have had a service span of 40 years Today's the days have changed Therefore this we should congratulate both the Bombay hacker Though it's judgment has been reversed And the Supreme Court Which have recorded the which have rendered their determination in a record time Without hurrying up anybody Another significant feature of this judgment is All the three judges Who after recording their prima facie view Referred the matter to the Chief Justice for being placed before a Constitution bench Were part of the Constitution bench also in spite of it None objected Taking a plea that look you have been you have expressed your prima facie view in your reference order Therefore, please refuse this happened very recently in our Supreme Court This all speaks volume for the character and the Content of the judgment Now let us see What are the issues that were considered now? I do not know whether it is a Coincidence or whatever you call it the Guy Quartz report the matter was referred to Guy Quartz committee on 211 2017 on 158 2008 Constitution 102nd amendment act was made inserting article 342 capital E a and Also inserting in the definition clause article 366 clause to see defining This the social and economically backward class or other backward class or whatever you may wish to call it and 30th November 2018 the State enactment of providing reservation in excess of 50% came All these happened in such quick succession if there had been some time gap between the constitutional amendment and the state enactment State would have perhaps perhaps after studying the constitution amendment Recommended to the center to enact Instead of state itself enacting Without realizing the implications of article through 342 capital E the six questions that were framed by the Constitution bench for its consideration work whether Ninjit judgment in Indra Sani which stipulated a numerical barrier of 50% for reservation Needs reconsideration and if so because the Reconciliation can be only by a bench larger than nine judges. Therefore whether it requires reference to a larger bench The second question was whether Maharashtra reservation act Which granted 12% and 13% reservation for the marathas In addition to 50% for Reservation that was already in force or bringing the total reservation to 62 and 63 percent Whether it is covered by Exceptional circumstance carved out in Indra Sani third question was the Indra Sani requires That's the existence of the exceptional circumstances to breathe the numerical barrier of 50% in the matter of reservation Whether a Gaikwad committee report Or to put it differently whether the state government on the basis of Gaikwad committee report Has made out existence of exceptional circumstances To have breached 50% numerical limit These are the three questions Which went a which were relevant in so far as Maratha reservation per se In addition to it because of challenge to the constitutional 102nd amendment also Three questions were framed Which are specific to validity of 102nd constitutional amendment One was Whether after the 340 second Whether or whether after 102nd Second constitutional amendment The state legislature is denuded of its power to Enact a legislation Determining the socially and economically backward classes Then whether it has affected the state's power to provide reservation under article 15 4 and 16 4 And then last question was If your interpretation is that 342 capital year has denuded the power of the state legislature or state government To include a class in a CBC or to remove a class from a CBC Whether it is infringes upon Federal structure of our constitution After India is a federation of states Now in so far the first three questions is concerned the constitution bench is unanimous that Indra Sani does not require consideration That state has not made out Any exceptional circumstances to have breached 50% limitation and then Gaikwad committee report itself is very very flawed then on the next three questions There is unanimity on one aspect that is Power of the state governments under article 14 4 and 16 4 is not Abridged or modified by the 102nd amendment to the constitution the only difference is between the two views one of three judges penned by justices Raminder but and Supplemented by justice lagesh Rao Is that they say that after the 102nd amendment? It is only the central it is only the president Who has power to Determine whether a cast belongs to a CBC or not That can of course be always amended with the parliament but in so far as the Attack on the amendment on the ground that it infringes on the federal structure the answer given is that a Marginal or incidental curtailment of the state's power would not Destroy the federal structure because the power to make reservation under article 15 4 and 16 4 Still vests in the state government only in so far as state services and state educational service institutions are concerned However, the inclusion of a cast in the SCBC list is now with the central It is not that the state is helpless the finding of the constitution bench is that state can still appoint a commission of study state can still collect Verifiable data on The basis of it it can pursue a the central government to include or exclude a cast and At the same time the decision per se is left with the central government So what is the change that it has been brought about it has brought about this most important aspect because I See every day in live loss sometime in bar and bench and then sometime in daily newspapers also People saying that the marata reservation judgment has curtailed the power of the state and It has cut at the roots of the federal structure of our constitution now let us Go into history a little bit not more than two or three minutes the first Commission though not called as a commission to identify the scheduled cast and scheduled tribes was appointed by the government of India in pre-independence days By appointing mr. Hutton the then census commission of India as one man committee to identify the committee gave a report Giving after preparing the meticulously a list of scheduled cast and scheduled tribes and on the basis of which a Government of India reservation or a scheduled cast scheduled rights order Was issued in the year 1936 under the government of India Act which is which held the field prior to the constitution The power to schedule a cast was with the central government and Not with the provincial government then we came to the era of constitution before constitution 1950 Presidential order was made Constitution of India scheduled cast order that substantially followed the government of India order of 1936 and that power was exercised by the president and not by any provincial legislator There are from the constitution article 341 342 have always vested the power to Schedule or de-schedule a cast or a tribe in the central government in the in the president then in the parliament While referring to president I say central government because It has been gloriously said in our form of governance that President is the short-term forum for the central government and Government governor is the short-term forum for the state government The power to identify our schedule a cast or a tribe or de-schedule it has always been with the president and the parliament if 341 342 have not been criticized as contrary to basic structure of the constitution that is federalism India being a federation of states. I really fail to understand why this client now When the Supreme Court has declared that under 342 capital a the power was with the president and the parliament and not in the state government By this statement what has happened? The position that has always prevailed in respect of scheduled cast and scheduled tribes Has been now made applicable Not by the judges But by article 342 capital a itself to the other backward classes also this is Answer to those who say that it has infringed upon the federal structure then about the enabling power to make reservation article 15 for an enabling power Vessit in the appropriate government appropriate government when it comes to state education state sector state government sector educational institutions are concerned It is the state government when it comes to state employment and the public services of the state under entry 41 to In the entry 41 list two of the constitution of the Southern schedule that power is always vested in the state government Same thing is continuing even under the new dispensation that has been set in place or play put in place by the country by the constitution bench Interpreting article 342 capital a and interpreting article 366 266 Another criticism that is Rob that is level against the constitution bench judgment is that the Article 342 capital a was intended only to give a constitutional status to the national backward class commission It never intended to take away the right of the state to include or exclude a cash from social and economically backward classes but by judicial interpretation you have breached the object of the Legislature in having enacted this enactment Just is but in his judgment So also just is Have given enormous reasons why The statements made on the floor of the parliament either by law minister or by social welfare minister Our statements made Assurances given to the standing committee as a parliament to be there for the bill had been referred as the Basis to interpret the constitution and one glorious and quite obvious thing is that It is well settled that When language of enactment is clear You cannot apply any other rule of interpretation or to put it differently You cannot first create a confusion or create a weakness where there is none and then go in search of a rule of interpretation to resolve your own self created weakness Second is as has been gloriously put by in this judgment by justice revindra but Different people speak in different voices in parliament ultimately You can neither take One expression against the other as view of the parliament or The statement made by the minister on the floor of the house while piloting the bill or while pleading or replying to the debate and then Seeking its adoption by the parliament that can outhouse by not a great In this case, what has happened even in these days where debate in parliament Is a rarity earlier Things were debated and then decided After the anti defection law came into force I'm not saying whether the anti defection law is good or bad. Everything is good. Everything is bad. Ultimately A thing is as good as the person who are the people who have who manage it or who administer it Prior to anti defection law there used to be debate and decision Today what is happening Even before the bill goes to the parliament There would be a decision No member of parliament is free to deviate from that decision even in the debate Therefore these are guided debates In spite of the great the limited debate that is available to us they're available in the parliament in the post anti defection law scenario Eight at least eight parliamentarians viewed the 123rd amendment bill As going to infringe upon the right of the state to Notify a caste as economical social and economically bad and would several amendments similar thing happened in select committee Sukhya and the right A member of parliament was a member of the standing committee He gave a dissent note saying that article 342 capital a is going to take away the rights of the state to specify a caste as Social and economical backward class therefore this bill should be given Then several amendments were suggested moved Both in the standing committee as also in the parliament to the bill With the stated purpose of protecting the state's jurisdiction to declare a caste as social and economically backward All these amendments were rejected None of them were adopted All these have been taken into consideration By malogest is revindrabhat in Framing his opinion And ultimately which is the main majority opinion and which is the law declared under article 141 constitutional Devam Maharashtra plea before Every one of my learned friends here Is that All that this 100 and second amendment has done is It has placed The power of reservation and power of identification Exactly in the same way as it is in respect of schedule cash and schedule If The reservation in favor of schedule cash and schedule price Which as I was submitting a few minutes earlier Which is in force From 1936 Till now That is 85 years If it has not caused Any injustice Either to schedule cash or to schedule price Or if it has not In any manner Abridged the federal nature of our constitution and our society Please be assured The it is not the present judgment is not going to alter the situation in any manner another controversy that has been debated In this judgment is about 50 percent normal Several views have been advanced before the supreme court that 54 50 percent is not saccharine A paragraph by 800 ton of judgment in Indra's honey A wall is kept open That under exceptional circumstances 50 percent can be breached and therefore You cannot find fault with 12 percent in the education instrument 13 percent in public employment As a reservation given to marathakas under the marastas data This has been squarely answered by the constitution by Citing Founding father of our constitution. I am not saying that Dr. Ambedkar is the lone country constitution maker. No, that is not But it is well recognized that he's Architect of the constitution irrespective of the number of engineers who are employed at site architect takes and rightly so The prime of place or pride of place in making the constitution he said suppose the demands lead to 70 percent reservation And 30 percent is only available for general competition Does it fulfill The equality which is the bedrock of our constitution I am not saying that reservation is a exception to equality. No reservation is Reservation article 16 4 is held to be A facet of equality under article 16 1 in In India but completely put the submission of Dr. Ambedkar in the constraint assembly was that if you reserve 70 percent and the cake available for competition amongst non-reserved or includes reserved also is only 30 percent It will not be in tune with Article 10 1 in the draft constitution, which is no article 16 1 Constitution as adopted that is one second is Justice revenue but has put one sentence in his judgment that is In numerical limitation of 50 percent is the surest Guard against the charge of discrimination There were 50 percent has come to stay There was some confusion Whether it applies only to public employment Because Indra Sani arose And a question of public employment Or it applies to admission to educational institutions also The constitution in terms of MR biology Which is the earliest of the judgments We spoke of reservation limitation on reservation Arrows out of admission to MVBS course There in the dense state of Mysore From which I am now speaking 68 percent of the seats have been dissolved And Surinam God said that anything beyond 50 percent is He would Destroy the equality at that time The phrase Basic structure of the constitution has not come yet Because Fundamental rates came Keshavananda Bharti came much later In Keshavananda Bharti We The justice Matthew Kanna kind In new phrase When speaking the limitation of the power of the parliament to amend the constitution Saying that Basic structure cannot be destroyed Here In the present judgment What the constitution has said is that Articles 14 15 1 16 1 16 4 All these 3 All these provisions Will have to be harmonized And the only way to harmonize is Keep the reservation within a limit of 50 percent I will stop here on these findings on These aspects of reservation But The most important Contribution of the judgment of the constitution It has given a guide for the future As to How The Improvement of Backward classes or scheduled camps or scheduled types Will take place It has I do not say propounded But Has expanded And given Substance To the concept of affirmative action Reservation Is not The be all and end all Of the measures To Improve The less fortunate classes Though Fertile place A very little role And it is societal effort And the governmental Programs I have to use The phrase For less fortunate Because Of nothing more than That has become a fashion To improve the lot of the less fortunate classes The constitution Has emphasized Reservation is not The only way Affirmative action Beyond reservation Is Necessary One of the important steps Of course The constitution has spoken about The Scholarships Then additional facilities For improvement of skills In addition to it It has said one thing that is Look Recently we introduced the concept of Corporate social responsibility Now we cannot enforce Reservation on private sector There will be no actions And It requires structural changes to the Constitution To because Part 3 Of the Constitution Would come only In respect of state and its instrument But not applicable to private sector When amendment Substantially Amending the contents Of part 3 Whether it would be valid Or whether it would not be susceptible For attack on the ground Of altering the basic structure These are debatable points And I hope that Such a situation would not arise If Affirmative action In substance Is implemented in our society Towards this end what the constitution has said is that Look the corporate social responsibility Enormous Resources can be generated For the purpose of this For funding these affirmative actions If only you Enlarge the scope of CSR under the company's Act So that these affirmative actions Are implemented by every Corporate body As a part of its corporate Social responsibility Now the approach is this Either you can Be satisfied with reservation By reducing the standards I am not talking of anti-marriage But by reducing the standards Because that is also provided By one of the amendments to article 16 4 Or Make Investment To improve the skills Where they are needed To improve the education Where it is necessary To providing opportunities To upgrade the skills In respect of Less skilled or Those having Lessor access to higher education And By this affirmative action That is provided of time You can reach a stage where The crutch of reservation Would be no longer required This is a very important Guide for us For future As advocates practicing law Let us remember That We are also opinion makers In this society After all who will be guiding the companies One or the other advocate Who will be guiding the companies If we imbibe The societal necessity Or societal need for affirmative action And the constitutional Maintain To assurance fraternity It is possible For we the advocates To Enhance The content of Affirmative action in future Of course the initiative should always come from Making it possible By amendments But making it possible Is only Opening an opportunity That opportunity Society has to Invest in and society has to Develop it Another clear principle Initiated by the constitution bench Is the difference between Proportional representation And adequate representation Because If you Study the Relevant provisions of The constitution Whenever The constitution speaks of Reservation in Elected bodies Like parliament State assemblies Then from the year 1992 In the panchayat municipalities It speaks Of Proportional representation That is If If scheduled case Population in the state Is say 18% Or 20% 20% of the seats in the assembly Should go to that case That is proportional representation When it comes to article 15 And article 16 The constitution speaks of Not proportional representation But adequate representation What is adequate representation A Guide is guiding principle To determine As to what is Adequate representation In contradiction To proportionate representation Is laid down In this constitution bench And Of wrongly applying The theory of proportional representation Has been Held to be One of the flaws In the Backward class commission report Has also in the decision of the Maharashtra government And also in the decision of the Bombay High Court division bench Which upheld that Reservation act Therefore Reservation Is a distinct feature When it comes to reservation While on the difference between political When a reservation in elected bodies And Education and services under the state One Significant and singular Contribution Of This judgment is That It has given a hint Reservation is a temporary crutch One day or the other We should be able to proudly Say That we have brought A dynamic real equality In the society When The crutch of reservation Is No longer required Reservations As a principle Intended to be time Only thing is When it came to representation Reservation in state assemblies And parliament Constitution specifically said It will be valid for Ten years from the rate of coming into the Constitution Of course one safeguard was provided However this ten years does not curtail The term of an elected representative Suppose a person Is elected within the ten year period He will continue to hold office Of the He will continue to represent the constituency Until expiration of that term That Ten years period has now been extended By Six constitutional amendments Up to 70 years Whereas in respect of Reservation in education And reservation in Public employment No time limit Has been specified An effort was made In judgment in Indrasani A very feeble attempt That A time frame Has to be evolved This is necessary to Hold the society together And this would be In keeping with the constitution of Aspirations That debate has been taken A bit forward By this constitution I would say And I would conclude Saying That the important findings Of the constitution Is that To change the 50% Limit On reservation Is to have a society which is not founded An equality but based on cash True Essential feature of our constitution And part of our basic structure If the reservation goes above 50% limit Which is reasonable It will be slippery slope The political pressure Make it hardly to reduce the same The answer to the question posed Is that the percentage of 50% Has been arrived At on the principle of Reasonableity and achieved equality Has ensigned by Article 14, 15 and 16 Of the constitution Then a numerical benchmark In the surest Immunity against charges of Discrimination Then The U.S. practice of encouraging diversity By incentivizing It by for instance Provide government contracts or firms That have a good record of recruiting members From racial and ethnically Disadvantaged groups has found That the public should not go in Policies in Madhya Pradesh Other states such as UP, BR, Karnataka AP and Talangana Have followed a policy of affirmative action In awarding contracts And in that In that manner Protecting SC and SD entrepreneurs Entry into trade, business And other public works as contractors Recently Karnataka enacted legislation Named is Karnataka transparency In public procurement act 24.1% for SC and SD contracts In all government works Public contracts up to 550 lakhs This law aims to ensure the presence of SC and SD contractors To get the award of contract work Without rigid tender process Versa2 provides For a price preference to SC, SD Entrepreneurs to the extent of 10% Of contracts have a certain value There is empirical evidence In India in different sectors That access to productive Employment is conveyed To a few sections of workforce Among the most backward of classes With the rest echoed a living In informal economy Therefore the emphasis is on Improving The opportunities And openings For the deprived classes So that They are Empowered And empowerment Cannot be achieved Only by reservation This is a point on which They will have to be Serious thought And I would conclude just by Referring to The Out of the criticism that Parliament did not intend this And intend that and all that Kindly see the One of the objectives of the Constitutional amendment bill That is one hundred and thirty Twenty-third amendment bill I will read the Statement of objects Which Would nullify All the criticism against the judgment That is The In the statement of objects and reasons It is stated last paragraph Of the statement of objects and reasons And the In view of the above it is Proposed to amend the Constitution Interior to provide the following Namely clause A will omit clause B To insert a new article 342 capital A So as to provide that the Present may By public notification Specify the social and educational Classes Therefore The Judgment Of the Supreme Court that we are Discussing is not only in Accordance with the Objects of the amendment It has not Infringed upon The powers of the state government After article 15 4 and 16 4 Are only enabling provisions And the power to make Reservation Even now Even after the constitutional judgment Was only in the respective governments And it has only brought about The uniformity In The approach To the constitutional approach to the Reservation in the matter of scheduled Casual rights and other Social and economic And economic backward classes I Stop here Mr. Vikas today for the First time I have concluded In less than the allotted time of One hour And Since this is a Fertile ground for debate I am sure there would be Many questions And answering The questions may not be as easy as The monologue I have indulged in Till now Now over to you Trivikram Trivikram and I will just say that The judgment had ignited the right Debate And you also Catalyzed the entire debate And you rightly summed up the way The entire section Articles 14, 15, 16, 341, 342 Along with the Various reports, K.L.K.R, Mandil Admission To sum up in a one hour In fact, I would be very candid like What you were saying I was also having Reservations that one says the 598 pages Judgment, coupled with the entire History, whether we can do it within One week But hats off to you. I will ask Trivikram to read few of the questions Trivikram Once again thank you sir for A stupendous presentation It's a Herculean task to Reduce About To Presentation For about one hour The Herculean task and you have done a stupendous Task, thank you so much And I will take a few questions in the Question box and I also request others To put forth their questions if at all They have By Mr. Naveen Kumar Sir doesn't Relaxation of cut off marks Along with reservation of seats And then in promotion to Multiplying reservation And another point has There been an outster Of any community from the list Of SCBCs After inclusion, what is the way forward As political parties don't seem To proceed in that direction Of these reasons of Mr. Naveen Kumar You are right That there has been No Exclusion of any In fact The constitutional commands A Periodical review of The list of SCBCs Or SCBCs That is one of the issues That has been debated in the Constituent Benjamin Review means It should be both exclusion and inclusion And then we have Article 39 As directive principle of state policy What is the essence Of article 39 This is the economic The economic system should be worked In such a way That it shall not result in Concentration of wealth And every state Has progressed, in fact Figures of progress of Mara state Has been given in the judgment I am very poor in statistics Therefore I don't venture To give out those figures In spite of The advancement Of the society as a whole And in spite of Directive principles being In place and being followed Can it be said that No caste Has progressed To the extent Where it can go Out of the reservation Answer is obvious There are many Which will have to be excluded Why they are not excluded Is also clear from your question itself Because As the Constituent Benjamin has said Affirmative action means Reservation That appears to be Myopic, easy View of the politicians They have to tell That that view is wrong There are other ways Don't Carry on this reservation To an extent When it That it becomes counterproductive Now From a community Go back, let us go back to Arka Sabarwal Arka Sabarwal dealt with one question Incidentally But substantially That is Whether a scheduled caste Or scheduled tribe candidate Can compete For an undeserved post The answer The Constituent Benjamin gave in Arka Sabarwal Is that If a person Get selected On his own merit Irrespective of the caste He has to be treated He cannot be counted again as the reservation quote And more importantly It said one important aspect That is If large number of candidates From a community are getting selected Under general merit It is a stage Where The government will have to be examined Their continued Schedulement Or in the case of other backward classes Their continued Enlistment under other backward classes You will find from the data Furnished In the Constituent Benjamin Which we are discussing today That is In the state of Maharashtra From the Maratha caste More than 50% of the More than 20% of the General merit candidates Have been selected From out of the Maratha caste Therefore The constitution Has indicated That is A paragraph Is a paragraph 200 And 332 Of last year justice Ashok Bhushan's view Speaking for himself and justice Abdul Nasir With which the other three judges Have also agreed We have examined the issues regarding Representation of Marathas In state services On the basis of facts and materials Compiling by commission and obtained From states and other resources The representation of Marathas in public services In grade A, B, C and D Comes to 33.23% 29.03% 37.06% And 36.53% Computed From out of the open category Filled post Is this not adequate and satisfactory This is the state The test that is required to be applied What would happen The political inclination Is You can use The word appeasement Or you can use the word World bank politics Depending upon Which state of public opinion You hold But whether you use the word Appeasement or World Bank The outcome is the same Outcome is The Advanced Amongst the deprived classes Are getting Reservation benefit is one aspect And more important in the second Aspect is that Once a cash is Included A question of exclusion In our political present political setup Therefore How do We drive A sense of Rationality And Reasonableness In the political minds For that I open my today's submissions By saying that Reservation is a divisive issue Therefore it is only by Judicial Guidance And public awareness That A Reasonable policy Of inclusion and exclusion Can bear all Just as Ravindran when he spoke of A time frame for reservations In paragraph 666 of judgment In Ashok Kumar Thakur He said this This cash based reservations Have to end one day or the other Earlier the better But We have to Take Every possible step To bring about a real equality And not a formal equality For that he also said that The scratch of reservations should go In fact I was Thinking about Why the supreme court Which came so close To laying down a time frame For the Termination of these reservations Or Facing out of these reservations First in Indira And now in Maratha judgment Reservation judgment did not Go All how I think the time is premature But by successive Inclusions And Not a single inclusion Explosion The political executive itself is preparing The society To articulate Its opinion that Reduction of standards Reservation At multiple levels This is not going to be In the interest of the society For a long time For if continued Beyond the limit Now I remember About 30 years ago Justice Yama Ramajoyevs Who was then A judge of my high court Karnataka High Court He one of the in one of the judgments That Reservation gives only Accelerated promotion But not accelerated seniority Then that became the law of the land Much later Ajit Singh too My friends from Punjab Haryana they would be Very well aware of the Circumstances under which Ajit Singh had to be rendered The In Vinod Kumar If I remember correctly In Vinod Kumar Supreme court said Article 164 does not Enable you to reduce the standards Then constation was amended Not to enhance the standards of The Deprived sections of the society But to reduce the standards Of entry into public service Therefore whenever Whenever The time has come supreme court has said What is the constitutional intent And what is the constitutional Purport But Ultimately If Democracy means Rule of numbers These shorted cited policies Would be there I don't say they are Either good or bad Whether something is good or something Is bad depends upon the Time frame also If you remember Under the states reorganization act When certain parts of the State went into another state and all that The old laws That were prevailing in the Arrestable state continued to Apply to those areas in the new state Also by virtue of section 119 Of the states reorganization act In one case which went from My state that is Karnataka state supreme court On the other side Yes that was An emergent Of the arrangement Made for smooth transition You cannot make it a permanent Feature If you do not set right and make A law uniformed equal to all parts Of the state Article 14 you may be violating Therefore better you change the law And bring about a uniform law Within one year Even there after to bring about a Uniform law and that uniform law That is brought in the matter of Religious institutions and charitable Endowments is no pending Challenge is also even more pending The pending challenge in the Supreme court that is Karnataka Religious institutions and charitable Endowments act is different Therefore the only Safe guard I entirely agree with the You expressed by Naveen Kumar What is the way forward Way forward means A debate Which you cannot expect the Political class to Invoke Not encourage A debate Amongst the What word shall I use Those of us Who are interested In taking the society Forward Because I would not say that the Intellectual class Because ultimately when I say The role of the advocates Ultimately we argue Depending upon who pays the fee Therefore I would say a stage has come At least for the advocates Of my age To shed this Belonging to a View Which has financed me That I think we should come Out and at least outside the court We should be candid in our campaigns Ultimately We should have faith in the Fairness of the human race And Hope and trust That This is reason Earlier than What we generally anticipate I think more and more of Reservation will hazen the Process of realization Though in the interim Art shifts will be plenty Thank you Naveen Kumar The next question please I will be taking from the YouTube because this Drop had been full therefore some People have posted on the YouTube Is there any problem Which will come in the Tamil Nadu Reservation of 68% after this statement In fact one of the criticism Says that It may also impact The Reservation made in favor of the Economically weaker sections By articles 15, 5 and 16, 5 Or 15, 6, 5 In the last count of the clauses That we have introduced If we bring in a new clause It will definitely Have an impact on Tamil Nadu Reservation And if it has to be justified It will have to be justified on the Basis of Test of exceptional circumstances And The test of What constitutes exceptional Circumstances In terms of Dr. Jayashree Patil The Or by articles 16, 6 Which came into force With effect from 14, 1 2019 And similarly By article 15, 6 Which came into force On the same day The Government of India has introduced Reservation in favor of Economically weaker sections That is also under challenge before the Supreme Court On the ground that It breaches 50% barrier All these may have to be Revisited In the light of The judgment in Jayashree Patil And it would Open up That is why he said this judgment Not only these two aspects There is Another aspect Whether There must be A generation Limit Let us say a cast is included as Scheduled cast or scheduled tribe Or a CBC From one family How many generations can get the benefit of that Reservation Whether Disabilities faced By the first generation From that cast Has continued in that family In spite of Grandfather being chief minister Father being Another minister And the Grants are still getting Reservation benefit This is What I would say Apart from the timeframe That should be Enforced Number of generations frame also Will have to be included Therefore while framing the Creamy layer concept Under the Other backward classes Which came about because of Observations in Indra Sani that Creamy layer has to be Exploded Son of a Guided Officer Is not entitled for CBC because he belongs to Creamy layer Son of a Member of Parliament is not Entitled for Reservation This type of Economic criteria has been Included in the SCBCs It is not there In respect of scheduled cast Scheduled tribe If you make a careful analysis of Constitutional judgment in Journalizing There is a scope to argue Creamy layer Even in the matter of scheduled cast Scheduled tribes Of course this Concept would be slowly But surely And steadily developed So that The Balance would be brought I am not saying for a moment that Reservations have outlived their ability to move I am only saying that Your emphasis on Reservation Should not result In Inbuilt destruction of Equality That is the only thing To answer the question it will Definitely impact the 68% Reservation made in Tamil Nadu And That question would be raised and it Would be answered in course of time My only hope is that As fast as it can be In deciding these matters because The irreparable Injury is not cost It is one of the I have never realized that the Faster judgment which has Fast tracked in the As well as in the state court Otherwise Constitutional matters Do take time I will ask them to take another question Because rest of the questions in fact While you dealt with the previous question On YouTube I have not even dealt In a sweeping statement Because a lot of questions were Interwoven as such and you have taken That One last question sir By our beloved Mr Jay Kumar party Sir what is according To you is the exceptional Circumstance where the Reservation Can be more than 15% As the judgment is silent on the Which I will not be able to Answer this question to your satisfaction But I will only say What the supreme court Itself said I will only read Paragraph 810 Of Judgment in Indra san I can Tell you something about this before Reading paragraph 810 From my Observation of the society There is one Drive called as Konda Reddy In parts of Andhra Pradesh it is there In parts of Tamil Nadu it is there I can say these Konda Reddies Are Untouched by civilization Their occupation If I may use the word It is difficult to use that word In relation to that They are nomads They stay In Village Not even Choutris because those type of Choutris I don't see in the present generation As a small boy I used to See a Choutris In my village Where these nomads would come and Stay Stay means there is no door There is no closed room Only a roof is provided And They go To each house in the village Then As a Virtually as religious mendicants And be in that village for about Week of 10 days Then move to the next village Those are the type of People Which I think Are what is kept in Mind While penning Paragraph 810 This is my personal view of course It is yet to be judicially tested While 50 percent Shall be the rule It is necessary not to put out Of consideration Certain extraordinary situations Inherent in the great diversity Of this country and the people It might happen that In far-flung and remote areas The population inhabiting those areas Might an account of their Being out of the mainstream Of national life And in view of conditions Peculiar to and characteristic To them need to be treated In a different way Some relaxation in this strict rule May become imperative This is like Kondaredis I have been referring to And then there is one area In Kondaredis Even today it is called Company area To use The exact phrase They use in Telugu language Kumbini Seema Kumbini is The colloquial word For company That is East India Company And Seema means A land Where Kumbini Seema in Andhra Pradesh It is also one of the famous Tourist spots That is Arukku valley Which you would have read about Or you might have visited Some of you might have gone also I have also visited that Arukku valley once There You will really come across A population which has been Unaffected by The Changes that have taken place in the country From 1900 onwards Perhaps they are more than One century primitive Than us Except in those Glaring What I should say Inhuman deprivations This 50% cannot be breached Of interpretation This 50% The supreme court in the Maratha Reservation case said What is not exceptional circumstances Therefore by process of elimination In another 4 to 5 years Time frame You would know what is not exceptional circumstances Two of your friends Written Mr. Prabhakar says You have dropped on And another class fellow of yours He has also joined He is also amazed the way You have taken the session forward He is responsible in KLEC college He has also joined You will have his insights on the session Then I will ask Ravikram To say a word of thanks as such Yeah Thanks to all my friends who have joined And thanks to those Whom I have not Had no occasion to interact Also I have joined I am really grateful to Every one of you Yeah Whenever I go to KLE college But for the COVID I would have I think in the period that I have not gone I would have visited at least twice Because I believe in Visiting the law colleges Because that is where we build Legal points And Legal professionals We have taken Your one visit of KLE college To the entire India and beyond Yeah Yeah Mr. Malikarajan Thank you Ravikram and Ravikas For once again bringing me on the screen And Rajagopal sir it was nice seeing you On the screen and Good evening to you In fact you know I was thinking I often preach my students View of the things one of them is Necessary brevity When I say necessary brevity It is to state everything Nothing short of what has to be stated But in brief manner That is what I call as Necessary brevity I could see that and notice it In your presentation today It was such a voluminous task Which we have covered in one hour Without leaving out Anything that we considered as core That we considered as core And for that I congratulate And thank you profusely For bringing insights to All of us Yeah One my observation is Sir may not be about The very decision Few of the points we discussed in the course of time Like shall we Do away with reservation Has the time matured to do away with them Or shall we bring Generations cap Kind of things I was precisely thinking on those lines I wanted to ask questions on that Given an opportunity In my personal view For a variety of reasons I am of the opinion that time has not come To do away with reservations Time has really come To do something with the reservations And Allow the benefits To the really needy ones When we did Introduce these reservations The classes to whom the blanket Reservation we have introduced The blessed families In those Communities Were very few and super exception Times have changed Over a period of 70 years of independence And working of the constitution Though not there is a tremendous change There is a change which cannot be Acknowledged To the Positive On the positive lines That being the case I am of the form opinion Straight from SCST Till all the kinds of reservations It's time to Figure out and put some cap Maybe economic background Maybe as you said generations cap Something like that needs to be Introduced and the time is mature for that And I believe This decision Which as I heard from you I get a feeling That it has gone a step forward from Indra San In trying to limit the reservations To 50% Never beyond that And as you also said It's going to have far reaching Consequences Especially to the states which have already Introduced more than 50% And so on That being the case I was thinking A what's your take on this Point B Was there any chance For the court to speak about This though it was not debated Before the court Incidentally since the courts have the practice of speaking Had this spoken it At least it would have remained a dicta For the days to come Though not the ratio I just would like to have your response on this Thinking of mine Yes you see One principle that is evolved by The Larger bench judgment in Abdul Rahman Antires case is that A point which was not argued And a Point which was not put to the Councils While arguing Should not go into the judgment Because What is that you are judging You are judging the issue before you And the points argued before you And not beyond The Unilateral talking of the judges on a Point that is not argued Has been rightly avoided is my view Because I went through the Arguments this time frame And all it did not come up in the arguments Okay But my only My only understanding is that Excuse me if I am wrong Since the apex courts Not only Adjudicate the matter before them They do and they have the Responsibility to lay down the law For the future as a result I believe you have the practice of Speaking That is a wrong practice Which has been rightly issued In this Thank you Thank you Sir my profound thanks to you For extremely Informative, valuable And Insightful presentation Thank you so much sir Thank you all, thank you Thank you I would also like to thank Sorry to interrupt, I would also like to Thank honourable Mr. Justice Sanjeev Kumar Hanchate Who was a participant today I would also like to thank all the other Participants including Dr. Malikajnaya Principal K. Lee college Thank you one and all, thank you Mr. Vikas Once again thank you Thank you my many thanks to Thank you So, before we For the day, tomorrow The session would be on trial Of both a trial of suits for declaration Of title injunction By Mr. SR Soma Rajia The former district judge from Karnataka Do join us at 6pm and before We part for the day, again Though it looks quite repetitive Keep on wearing your mask Maintain social distancing And if not gone for vaccination, do take that. It is showing its results. And each one, not only on the sensitization of the COVID-19 situation, how it can be avoided. And meanwhile, keep on joining, learning. And there's a small baby steps process of sharing the knowledge on the virtual platform of Beyond Law CLC. You can share, like and subscribe to our channel of Beyond Law CLC. And thank you, everyone. Thank you, Mr. Prakram, Dr. Malika Alizham. And all those participants who are watching us. And without the words for shot in the way in which Mr. Rajagopal has actually put the entire, what we have always learned that you should always learn to funnel out the facts in the right perspective. Because they say, when things come out of the funnel, it is the best, it has the maximum flow and the maximum results. And that was what we learned today in the 600 pages, how it could be decimated in 60 minutes. I remember TV showing 30 minutes for the news. And it was actually like that. And we actually all enjoyed it. Over to you. Thank you, sir. Thank you.


So YouTube team keep it clean. I just like literally just just woke up from a nap and woke up to some real good news. Obviously some news that the Ravens are getting some reinforcements that can make a big difference in their offense. And it's crazy because the Ravens offense just overall as a whole has been good but not great. The passer offense has been great. The runner offense has been, yeah. But the scoring offense has been, yeah. So they've been doing that thing even without a running game. So just like think about this real quick. Think about it. The Ravens offense, they put up, what they put up a week one, 24, I think, 24. And then last week against the Dolphins, they put up 31, well, yeah, yeah, 31, right? Well, I guess you can put special team. You can either give special team seven points because Devin Duvenay or you can give special teams 10 points if you wanna count the field goal that Justin Tugger kicked towards. Special team, it all depends on how you look at it. But the Ravens offense has been putting up points both weeks. So that's a good thing. And what we've been talking about this season is that we wanna see consistency. We don't wanna get too hyped. We don't wanna overthink anything. Don't wanna underthink anything. Because it's only been two weeks, but this is the beginning of consistency. It gots to start somewhere. And the fact that the Ravens offense has been scoring the number of points that they have scored, it's a good thing, but they've been doing it without a running game. They've been doing it without a running game. And I'm not saying that J.K. Dobbins is gonna come through and change everything. I hope he does. I hope that ends up being the case. That would be a beautiful thing if he could do that. But it will be very nice to upgrade the quality. It will be very nice for the Baltimore Ravens to upgrade the quality of their current group of running backs. Timing is everything. Last week, I just, and I said it during the live stream, I said it in my post game thoughts video, I just felt like the Ravens, they weren't too impressed with Mike Davis.  I really felt that way because like, every time he touched the ball, dolphins were like, no, no, it ain't happening. No, like literally nothing. He couldn't get anything going, nothing. King Drake, he tried. King Drake did a better job. He's trying, but there weren't really many holes for him. And then Justice Hill, he got in, he had that nice run. And then I know a lot of people, everybody, not even a lot of people, everybody, we all turned into film experts because everybody saw this gaping hole. Everybody saw it as like, man, whoa, that should have been a touchdown. And even if it wasn't a touchdown, he should have got a lot more yards because the vision and a lot of people to start thinking, man, if that was J.K. Dobbins, he probably would have got that. And we'll never know, but tomorrow against the Patriots, we'll start to find out some interesting numbers here. Shout out to Phil Yates for putting this up. He said, through two games, the Ravens running backs have 29 carries for 74 yards. That's 2.55 yards per carry and zero touchdowns. So that is a big yikes, it's a huge yikes. 29 carries for 74 yards, 2.5 yards in change. So a little over 2.5 yards per carry. That's scary, that's very scary. And now tomorrow we'll start to see if the bigger difference will be the offensive line in their run blocking or if it will be the actual running back. And again, my hope is that it's a mix of both. I'm hoping that it's a good mix of that Ravens offensive line being like, hold up, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We are the Ravens, we are the Baltimore Ravens. We are usually so good at run blocking. That's what we do over here, baby, let's get back to it. Now that's not to say to get bad at pass blocking all of a sudden, please don't, please don't. Because please don't, yeah, you know what, please don't. Please continue to continue to improve at pass blocking. Because pass blocking ain't even the best right now, but it's in a good direction. So don't make it worse, but hopefully this Ravens offensive line to be like, hey, let's get better at run blocking. And then you throw JK in a mix too. It can, see the thing, this can only have a good impact. It can only get better. The run game cannot get any worse. It can't get any worse, adding JK to the mix. Even if JK Dobbins has a limited roll, which I expect him to, I don't expect him to go out there and get 20, 25 carries or anything like that. Now, if he does, okay, cool. But I don't think that should be the expectation. But the run game cannot get any worse than what it is right now. It can't, it's like, it's almost impossible for it to get worse than what it is right now. Now, another thing, shout out to Jameson Henson. He said, this is JK Dobbins first game in 20 months. That's one year and eight months. That's a long time, long time, very long time. And Adam Schefter highlighted the details just to give us Ravens fans and just NFL fans reminder of what JK Dobbins went through. He said Ravens running back JK Dobbins who tore his ACL, LCL, Maniscus, and Hamstring last year. And it's questionable for Sunday's expected to make his 2022 regular season debut versus the Patriots per source. It's time, as one source said. So this is great, man.  Now, we mentioned in the previous video earlier that it just felt like John Hubbard was trolling a little bit when it came to how he was talking about JK Dobbins in his most recent presser. Cause he was like, oh, JK Dobbins, he was like, what did he say? Did he say he's weak too? I forgot exactly what he said, but he basically was very non-committal about JK Dobbins but he did it in like a little Hubbard trolly kind of way. I'm like, oh, we see you, man. We've been watching how you move for like the past, what, 14 years? It's been 14 years, right? 2008, yeah, 14 years. We've been watching how you've been moving the past 14 years. So we know a little something about you. Just a little bit, but nah, it's all good. But this is nice, man. This is nice. JK Dobbins, he can help in the running game, but he can also help in the passing game too. He helped in the passing game too. Now, Justice Hill, he can help in the passing game. Ken Drake a little bit, he can help in the passing game too. But now Lamar has that running back that he's very comfortable with, very comfortable with. And when you have a comfort level with somebody, that just raises the quality of everything that you do with them.  I need you all to finish this assignment by Friday at noon. He tells you this on Monday. I need you to finish this assignment by Friday at noon. You got the next four days in change. And you're like, okay, well, who am I working with? All right, Brock, you're gonna work with Billy. I know you've never worked with Billy before, but you're gonna work with Billy and you're all gonna get this thing done. Now you of course will accept the assignment because that's part of your job. But if you're Brock and you've never worked with Billy before, and it'll be like, oh, okay, well, we could try to make it happen and hopefully we'll make it happen. But there may be a lot of bumps in the road.  And you and Paul are best friends and y'all have worked on several projects together in the past before and have had success doing them. You're gonna be like, oh yeah, I get to work with Paul. And then that chemistry that y'all already have, it can show and it can make everything that much easier. That's what we want to happen with Lamar Jackson and J.K. Dobbins for everything to be made that much easier. That's what we want to happen with J.K. Dobbins and Raven's run game. We want everything to be made that much easier. That's what we want to happen with J.K. Dobbins in this Raven's offense as a whole. We want everything to be made that much easier.


In nearly a decade of working as a network engineer, there have been a number of different things that have really gotten to me when it comes to the intersection of networking and security. Typically, when I push back on these things, it tends to make people squirm and sometimes even grab their pitchforks and torches. These are three of those things, things which really need to be thought more about, things that don't always improve your security posture within your network. And these are uncomfortable networking topics. Hi, I'm Charles Rompford, and I'm here to tell you about some uncomfortable networking topics, but first, a little bit about myself. For the last 10 years, I have worked as a network engineer in both higher education and in the corporate world, and before that, I was a systems administrator. Probably my most formative years in aiming in these topics was working as a wireless network engineer in higher education, where there's a strong convergence of usability, security, and networking, and flexibility, along with manageability, to make sure that the system is working. I've also done work as a network architect, automation engineer, Linux system man, I've also been an adjunct professor, and then outside of the workspace, I do a lot of photography, knitting, and if you really want to go look it up, I am a campanologist. We'll be curious to see if anyone asks me any questions about that. Before we get deep into the topics, I really want to put some constraints around the area in which I'm talking about. I'm in this talk, I'm not talking about client networks. I am talking about networks that are providing services to clients. Typically, this would be a data center of some sort, spaces where you might have web servers, you might have database servers, DNS, things of that nature. That is the primary focus of this talk, in the primary areas in which I am talking about. A couple of these don't really apply to client networks, but can be used in those spaces. I think everyone is familiar with the project management triangle. Choose two. You can either have a project be good quality and low cost, but it's going to take a lot of time, or it's going to take a little bit of time and be good quality, but it's going to cost you a lot of money, or it's going to be low cost and low time, but it's not going to be great quality. This is something that we think about a lot when it comes to projects. We don't think about it, but what do we think about when we think about design? I've kind of changed the triangle, and typically when we deploy something in the networking perspective, we choose two. Either it's manageable and secure, but it's not really usable, or it's usable and secure, but it becomes a management nightmare, or it's usable and manageable, but it's not always the most secure option. We think, I've run into this numerous times while working in the networking space, especially around security. We're deploying security architectures. What if I were to say there are a couple of things that we can think about that we can do inside of our networks that increase our manageability, and it also increases our usability while either holding security at a current stance, or possibly even improving it, probably saying that crazy, but just hear me out. So let's dive in, and for the number of years, there's one thing that has always gotten to me, and that is when I can't ping something. ICMP is your friend.  ICMP is an important, functional part of the internet. It is how the internet passes messages from one space to another. And they're not just messages of, hey, are you there? Yes, yes I am. But there are also messages of, hey, that's prohibited. Hey, you can't do that. Hey, that thing don't exist. And we've even used ICMP for trace routes in the past. All of these are ICMP messages, and they're all good things. But over the years, we've come to block ICMP because everyone thinks that ICMP is bad. That ICMP is going to make their system more vulnerable. People are going to be able to find it. That really isn't true, right? So I have some questions for you, right? What is the first thing you do when you think that you are having some network connectivity issues? I'll give you a moment. Now, if you thought to yourself you ping something, that's probably what everyone comes up with, right? I do it all the time. The first thing I do is ping the gateway, ping Google, ping Cloudflare, ping something, right? Can I get a ping through, right? We also use the pings, or ICMP messages, for reachability, latency, and jitter, right? All things that are easy to figure out using a simple ping, right? And in my mind, as a network engineer, if something is not pingable, then it's down, and it's not connected to the network. As far as I'm concerned, as a network engineer, is if I can't ping it, then its low-level networking isn't working, right? So let me ask you another question, right? Oh, there we go. Let me ask you another question. What if Google, Cloudflare, and Quad9 one day decided to block all ICMP inbound traffic to their services, right? Or better yet, as a network operator, I decide to block all ICMP to your network gateway. I basically, I say, no more peeing the gateway. That is not allowed in this network, right? Take a moment to ponder this. That default test that we all use for determining whether there's networking issues or not goes away. We no longer have that very standard test that we use, right? It's become a test that we take for granted, and yet at the same time, we cripple it on a regular basis. So why do we stop ICMP traffic to servers to services, right? Typically, it's because if it ain't pingable, then it can't be found. Well, I'm here to tell you that that is false. That is quite false, right? There are many, many ways to find a service on the internet without using ICMP, right? Security through obscurity has never been the answer. It never has been, and it never will be. And all you're doing is adding complexity to your situation, right? And so as a friend, I'm going to tell you something, right? An open port to the internet is an open port to the internet, right? If you have a resource on the network and you have an open SSH port or an open HTTP port or anything, someone knows about it. I can tell you that right now. At one of the universities that I worked at, one of the researchers on a regular basis scanned the entire internet in under 24 hours on a regular basis. Every port on the open internet enabled to map out what's going on, and she wasn't using ICMP, right? If a port is open on the internet, then it is open. So I say allow all the ICMP, and let's just make our lives much easier. It's easier to figure out what's up, what's down. It makes troubleshooting. The first lines of troubleshooting, so much easier, right?  We know the port's open. Why are we hiding something that's already available, right? So some things to consider when turning on ICMP, right? The first thing from a network engineering perspective is can you at least turn it on for the local network, right? If you at least allow it in the local network, then troubleshooting inside the network becomes easier. Yes, I would prefer to ICMP be open everywhere, but if you just start in the local network, awesome, right? But some other things to consider, you can rate limit ICMP, socially at your firewall or at the host level. Remember, host level firewalling is super awesome and super handy. Here's an example command from a Linux IP tables to rate limit ICMP down to five frames a second, right? We can also limit the types of ICMP messages.  We can limit which ones are allowed. It's one of the things that we do at the networking gear level is we limit which ICMP messages we accept and handle, right? This is something you can also do at the firewall and at the host level, right? But the other thing to consider is that ICMP messages tend to help improve the usability of the network, right? And the user experience of the network. Did you know that a lot of browsers when you try to navigate to a website, which isn't allowed, that when the ICMP reject message comes, that it will present the user with a message that says, hey, you're not allowed to do that, right? That's independent of the web application itself, right? Also, like I said, there are a number of times where I've pinged something, thought it was down and went running. One time I thought the whole set of DNS servers were down, went running down the hallways to see yelling the DNS servers down, the DNS servers down, to only have the Windows administrator pop his head out and be like, I'm logged into them, they're just fine. Turned out to be another issue, but I couldn't ping them. So as far as I'm concerned, they were down, right? So just a reminder that security through obscurity is yuck. It is not worth it. An open port to the internet is an open port to the internet. So changing port numbers, not that great, right? Once somebody finds it, it will be found and it will be pounded, right? The other thing I've also heard people doing is not putting things in DNS. This is not helpful, right? When you're unable to find something in DNS, unable to type something on a command line, it becomes harder to troubleshoot and understand what's going on, right? So I say put everything in, allow all the ICMP, put everything in DNS and keep SSH on port 22 forever and ever. The next topic is one that I have a lot of feelings about. It's one where a lot of people deploy it in the hopes of building a little security blanket around them, but in reality, they're just decreasing the usability of the network and dramatically making it harder to manage their network. And what I'm speaking of is NAT.  Really, it's not. There's a lot of NAT happening on firewalls and things of that nature but I'm talking about NATting itself. For those of you who don't know, NAT stands for network address translation and there are a couple of different flavors of it but it generally allows us to translate one IP address and port set into another. The most common use is in your house, you're probably using NAT as we speak to watch this video because it allows multiple devices inside of your home network to talk to the internet via your ISP, right? But let's focus on the enterprise space, right? And NAT's typically used to handle two problems. One being not having enough IP addresses and two security. The first one, not having enough IP addresses is solved by technologies like IPv6. If we could get IPv6 deployed in more places and get rid of NAT, that'd be great but that's a whole different talk. I wanna focus on the security aspects for now. One of the big things that I find in the conversations I have is a lot of people love private IP addressing. They think that it will prevent people from contacting, being able to get to a device or a resource but in reality, private IP addressing isn't a magic security blanket, right? A lot of people put stuff behind NATs and magically think that everything is hunky dory, right? Just because it has a private IP address, it's all of a sudden magically protected and typically I start to see people getting lax about their security posture. I've seen a couple of times where things have been compromised after being moved into a NAT and having private IP addresses than when they had public IP addresses, right? Like I said, I've seen a number of administrators start to get lax about their security posture because everything has a private IP address, right? So let's take a look at some network diagrams real quick, right? So here I have a fairly standardish corporate network, right? We have the internet, we have some clients and then we need this NAT box, I'm gonna say is the edge of our data, like a data center type thing, right? We have some web services, we have some network services and we have some database services, right? But the first thing that NAT does is it creates this inside-outside barrier, right? Now you're probably thinking to yourself, oh, will firewalls do the same thing? Yes, but firewalls do not separate out IP addressing. We have one IP addressing scheme inside the firewall or inside the NAT box and one IP addressing scheme outside the NAT box. And this leads to all sorts of problems because everything now has two IP addresses, right? You've got the internal private IP address and you have the external public IP address. So that www.tallwireless.com, if you're outside the NAT, then it might have a one IP address, but when you're inside, you have to hit it on a different IP address where it might not work, right? Along with that, we have to open up ports via destination NAT to allow outside clients and devices to talk to things inside, right? That open, again, an open IP, an open port on the internet is an open port on the internet, right? We now have a lot of NAT to track. We have to track all those translations. We now have to have ways of querying it. We have to have ways of monitoring it to make sure we don't run out of resources. And if there's a security incident, it's just one more thing that has to be investigated to understand what's going on, right? Now, you can get along with doing what's called hairpin NATing or hairpin routing, which allows a service to access an internal service to access an external services IP address and then have it NATed back inside. So for instance, the database server could talk to the web server on its public IP address. But this is just more configuration that has to be tracked, managed, taking care of. And well, I don't like that. Simplification, all about simplification, right? Now, a lot of people do their NATing on a firewall, right? So if you have a firewall and you're doing that, you now have to open up the ports to allow the firewall, you have to set the firewall rules to allow that traffic in, right? So we've created this complex space that we now have to manage and track and reason about, which isn't great fun. All while having two separate names, IP addresses for everything. Now, I don't like this and I really don't like the idea of having a device have to contact something based on where it is in the network. I should be able to just access the web service and be done with it. So let's review real quick. NAT bad, right? There's more to keep track of. This could be all of the destination NATs you need to keep track of, the firewall rules, translation records, and there could be even more, there's now more to clean up during decommissioning, there's more to set up during commissioning, right? And there's something that could totally be left behind. It also increases our auditing space, right? There's so much more that needs to be verified, checks to ensure that everything is the way it should be. And my personal thing that I hate about NAT is that there's a two of everything, right? A classic example that I've used in the past is at a previous organization I worked at, you have a DNS server, right? You have one set of IP addresses to access the DNS server when you're inside the network and you have another set when you're outside. But they all go to the same server, but it means they now have to track in the configuration for all of my switches, routers, servers, where I am in the network to decide which IP address that we're going to, right? And like I said, network position means something. Am I inside the NAT? Am I outside the NAT? Am I having to go through multiple NATs because that happens a lot, right? And the other big thing is every time I've had to solve some major problem regarding NAT, I've had to deploy more NAT, more things to track, more things to keep aware of, right? So overall, we have a huge decrease in manageability and a huge decrease in usability without actually increasing anything in our security space, right? And then like the ICMP, we're just complicating everything without actually having any security gains because it's all just security theater. And we don't like security, at least I don't like security theater. So let's take a look at another way of looking at this, right? So in this diagram, in this diagram, we have the similar network, but let's make the assumption that everything here is public IP addressing, right? So the first thing is, is all the web services, all the network services, all the database services, all have public IP addresses, right? And I'll touch about the amount of IP addressing in just a second, but roll with me here for a second, Now, like the NAT, you still have to open up ports for the firewall rules. Easy peasy, that's simple, right? On top of that, to get that actual feeling of not being able to get in, we can set up a default deny on the inbound. Everything coming in will be dropped unless you explicitly allow it, right? This gives you the same comfort feeling, right? With actual security posture of having a private IP address.  But in this whole thing, we've simplified the architecture. We're doing native routing between our data center services and our corporate network. So now everything is, there's no inside, outside. And so we can just access everything directly by the same IP address, the same name, and it's much easier to manage across the board, right? But it also simplifies our auditing space. It's easier to reason about inside of our heads when we're trying to figure out problems and do troubleshooting. And when it comes to maintenance, it's so much easier to figure out what needs to be done and be able to build an infrastructure that is more tolerant and resilient to handling maintenance, right? Plus we get an increase in usability and an increase in manageability, right? Now you might be thinking in your head, wow, that could be a lot of IP addresses, a lot of public IPv4 addresses. And well, I will agree that it could be a lot, right? I also know that there are a number of organizations that just can't afford that and don't have the staffing to manage it or the network connectivity to manage it, right? I will admit that I've come from a number of different organizations that have a large number of public IPv4 addresses available to them and this has not been a problem. Although they've kept using Natting to solve the problems instead of the giant pool of public IP addresses, right? But I'm very aware that public IP addressing is a rarity in today's world, right? I think we've almost run out in terms of non-allocated IP space. But because of this, there are ways to approach this in a hybrid manner that allow for reachability and security and getting the best of both worlds while still keeping the manageability and the complexity down. Now I will say, you can go native full IPv6, there are so many addresses in there, but again, another talk. So let's look at that diagram one more time. So in this model again, right? Let's just say, for instance, our database services, we give them all private IP addressing, right? So now the web services can talk to the database services, great, clients in the corporate network don't need to talk to the database services, they only need to talk to web and network services, so we'll give those public IP addresses and we're gonna natively route all of that stuff internal to the data center out into the corporate network. So if there is a reason to contact the database services, they can, plus we can put a source NAT on the firewall that will allow the database services to access the internet to do things like updates and things of that nature, right? This is a model that I've seen deployed and I actually deployed myself because I am also not a rich person and can't afford the amount of public IP addresses that I need for my own personal infrastructure, right? So this is a great model, right? So really, public IP addressing, it's awesome, right? You should, I'm not saying go run and rip out all of your private IP addressing and go buy hundreds of public IP addresses at really expensive prices, but I'm challenging you to think about how you think about private IP addressing and public IP addressing in relation to the usability of your network and the manageability of your network and what does that add to your network overhead in running it? One of the final areas that I wanna talk about is network layer encryption and how it should not be relied upon. A lot of systems people and application developers rely on VPN and site to site VPNs for their encryption properties, but it ends up binding the network architecture into a very specific path. Now I'm not talking about client VPNs at this point, I'm talking more about site to site VPNs that are used as shortcut paths to connect to say a data center, two data centers together or to connect the data center to the cloud, right? But one of the things that happens with these is that people start becoming very dependent on those shortcut paths and especially the network, the encryption aspects of that VPN connection. And it should be noted that VPNs don't necessarily have to be encrypted. There are a number of different VPN technologies out there that don't encrypt traffic at all, right? One of the more common situations that I've seen is when people start getting into the cloud, they wanna build VPN tunnels between their data center and the cloud. And these are IP second encrypted VPN tunnels and there's nothing wrong with that. But one of the problems that happens is that people start to treat that as part of their data center and then they start to rely on the fact that that pathway is in fact encrypted. And what this does is it binds the architecture to that pathway so that once you need more throughput or you have a lower latency physical connection, you're now so bound to that encrypted nature that you can't move off of it. And people get scared about passing that traffic over other links through other networks without it being encrypted, but at the same time they don't want to actually encrypt that traffic at the application layer. So I'm here to say, stop relying on network layer encryption and start moving that up into the application itself. There are a number of different technologies, TLS even endpoint to endpoint IPsec are great technologies to use to bring that encryption up into the application or up into higher levels of the network stack so that we as network engineers are able to just move packets and worry just about moving packets and not have to worry about traffic taking a very specific path because that path happens to be encrypted. That should all be handled inside of the application layer traffic, right? So we've come to the end. There are a couple of takeaways that I hope that everyone gets away from this talk. One, ICMP is good. Two, security through obscurity is bad. Three, not bad, public IP good. And four, bring that encryption up out of the network and into the application layer. Well, there's another thing that I hope that everyone walks away from this talk with, which is I hope that everyone starts to take a little more time to think about not just the security aspects but also the manageability and usability of the systems that they develop. It's really easy to get caught up in we need to make this secure, we need to make this secure and not think about how are users gonna use this? What are the workflows look like? How are we gonna do maintenance on this? How are we going to troubleshoot this? How are we going to do all of those things, right? Complexity can be managed, but it can also be shifted and it can sometimes even be eliminated if you just sit down and think about it a little, right? Remember to take a look at the whole system. Take a look at what your actions today will have on future plans and longer-term strategies within the organization. I'm aware you should also have some longer-term strategies and bring in some networking subjectmatic experts, right? To help with the network design and the network aspects of the thing you're designing, right? We might have suggestions on how to achieve what you're trying to accomplish while not crippling the network or not binding the system into a specific design or setup that locks us into something forever and ever, right? And there's a lot of network people who really love building secure networks and systems who also think about usability and maintainability. So, reach out to them, right? I wanna thank you all for your time and thank you for listening. I'm on the Blue Team Discord server, answering questions if you wanna reach out. I am always happy to talk about the intersection of networking, security management and usability, so please reach out. I'm not that intimidating, even though I am very tall. And you can find me on Twitter under tall wireless, but I'm gonna warn you that I don't just post about networking and security. You're gonna get a whole lot of random. So, I hope everyone has a great DEF CON and I will talk to you guys later.