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3-D Printing A Masterwork For Your Living Room : All Tech Considered It's now possible to create an impressive copy of Michelangelo's David or Rodin's The Thinker with a 3-D printer. Rather than object, some museum curators see this high-tech replication as a way to bring near-real versions of classic works to the masses.
Tech, Culture and Connection
3-D Printing A Masterwork For Your Living Room 4:54
< 3-D Printing A Masterwork For Your Living Room
October 11, 20132:57 AM ET
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Getting to see Michelangelo's sculpture "David" in person is pretty cool. An entirely different experience would be having him in your living room. But advances in 3-D printing technology are making it possible to create an almost perfect replica for yourself. NPR's Laura Sydell has this profile of one innovator who's pushing the edges of how 3-D printing can be used to make classic works accessible.
LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: These days, a lot of museums will let people take photos of art.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAMERA SHUTTER)
COSMO WENMAN: It gets a little exhausting and monotonous after the 500th photo.
SYDELL: Cosmo Wenman is photographing Rodin's "Bellona," a bronze bust of the Roman goddess of war and he needs a lot of photos to do what's called a 3-D scan. Bellona's got an engraved helmet with flaps that fall along the back of her neck like a horse's mane. She looks down her shoulder with her intense gaze, her taught neck muscles protruding.
WENMAN: It's got some detail's I'll have to get in close to, but it could turn out well.
SYDELL: Wenman's standing in a gallery of the Cantor Center for the Visual Arts at Stanford University. He's been making 3-D replicas of classic sculptures from museum collections around the world, including the Louvre, the British Museum and the Getty Villa.
WENMAN: I'm trying to demonstrate what the regular consumer can do with consumer-grade photography and consumer-grade software and even consumer-grade 3-D printers to recreate artwork.
SYDELL: After Wenman takes all the photos he needs, he will then process them with some free software from Autodesk and a $2,200 MakerBot 3-D printer. The software is able to bring together all of Cosmo's photos and recreate an object with three dimensions. He's recently started a partnership with Autodesk and today, he's doing some printing at their San Francisco offices.
WENMAN: It's basically a hot glue gun attached to a printing armature. Instead of a printer just going back and forth spraying ink, this goes back and up and down.
SYDELL: The hot glue he's talking about is a type of biodegradable plastic that's good for printing large things. The printer builds up the object with the plastic, layer by layer, based on the software instructions. The result is an object that has all the contours, details and proportions of the sculpture he photographed.
As we wait for the Rodin to print, he shows me some small replicas he's made of a classic Greek torso from the Louvre with lots of rippling muscles. Part of Wenman's process also includes putting patinas on the sculpture to make it look like the original.
WENMAN: You can see it's complete. It looks good and to my eye, this is worthy of display in the home.
SYDELL: Wenman puts his art scans on the MakerBot-run website Thingiverse so that other people can print them out at home or wherever there is a 3-D printer. Wenman sees all kinds of uses for his scans of classical works.
WENMAN: Schools could use these for their instruction. They could make cheap reproductions in the classroom. Art lovers could use them for study. People could just print them and have them in their homes.
SYDELL: Wenman got support from Autodesk after the company's Tatjana Dzambazova saw his work at a 3-D printing conference in London. She says most of the showcases were about 3-D printing iPhone cases and toys. But then...
TATJANA DZAMBAZOVA: I saw this gorgeous sculpture of a horse and I say, oh, my God, what is this? It didn't look like a 3-D print. He was trying to show that you can make art, or that you can save heritage or a much further instance than just, oh, I'll make my dock or my iPhone cover and that's it, right?
SYDELL: So far, no museums have objected to what Wenman is doing. Wenman says he doesn't ask permission. He'd prefer to ask forgiveness. But when Cantor Center Director Connie Wolf sees him in the gallery, she actually seems excited, a 3-D print is a lot more like seeing a sculpture than a photo would be.
CONNIE WOLF: The ability to see a sculpture as if you're walking around it is something so important. I'm very intrigued by it, but I don't know it.
SYDELL: Wolf says she sees great value in what Wenman is trying to do, as long as it's for the right reasons.
WOLF: You want to be sure that people recognize these are studying tools, teaching tools. These are opportunities to enjoy something that's a replica as opposed to a forgery.
SYDELL: Wolf also says 3-D printing could raise copyright problems with contemporary sculpture. But, she sees it more like a new version of posters, which have made people more interested in seeing the original artwork. This summer the Metropolitan Museum held a hackathon for digital artists and programmers who wanted to help scan parts of its collection.
Cosmo Wenman hopes he's leading the way to a future where 3-D prints of sculptures by greats like Rodin or Michelangelo are as common as posters of a Van Gogh. Laura Sydell, NPR News, San Francisco.
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How plants get rid of their waste (output)
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Home/Entertainment/"Google" launches an unprecedented smart device
EntertainmentGamesYouTube
"Google" launches an unprecedented smart device
During the recent I / O conference, Google reviewed a sophisticated electronic display that can work instead of many smart home appliances.
What is called the "Nest Hub Max" is that it works as a small smart home screen, and as a home aid similar to Google, Amazon and Apple, as a loudspeaker and a home control camera at the same time.
The electronic masterpiece is equipped with a 10-inch touch screen and a 1280/800 pixel resolution that responds to gestures and user gestures, as well as speakers and microphones that enable it to receive voice commands, and display music or audio news broadcasts.
youtube / Made by Google
It has also been provided with Bluetooth 5.0 and Wi-Fi networking technology and an advanced video camera to be used as a home surveillance camera.
Source: Vesti
Device launches quotGooglequot smart Unprecedented
A Russian company launches the first router using a domestic operating system
Learn about the advanced Nokia 8.1 (photos + video)
Top 10 computer games coming in 2019
Archie, the son of Prince Harry and his wife Megan
United Nations: The number of older persons in the world exceeded the number of children
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What's behind all the festive magic at Careys Manor
Careys Manor in Brockenhurst
Picture This (Imaging) LTD
A Christmas retreat deep in the New Forest sounds idyllic. Viv Micklefield heads to Brockenhurst's Careys Manor to discover the hard work that goes into creating the festive magic and some trade secrets for a stress-free celebration at home
See more Hampshire Christmas here!
As preparations for December 25 gather pace, some chill-out time beside a roaring log fire, having tucked into deliciously cooked Hampshire fare, or partying the night away only to escape before the clear-up beckons, sounds a welcome respite.
Careys Manor has built its reputation on such indulgence. Yet the hospitality industry is a hard taskmaster and for those working behind the scenes at this four-star hotel, it will be their busiest time in the whole year.
Since welcoming the first paying guests in 1934, this former Victorian country residence has expanded into garden wings and after ‘new’ owners took over in 1975, the following decades have seen further additions and refurbishments to the 79 bedrooms, three restaurants and award winning spa.
So what’s in store this year? And who’ll be sprinkling the seasonal sparkle?
Alistair Craig, Head Chef
Head chef Alistair Craig
If there’s one place the heat is on, that’s in the kitchen. “The chefs are here at 6am for breakfast at seven,” says Alistair Craig, who’s been in charge of the food at fine dining restaurant Cambium since the summer and will be cooking-up Christmas lunch this year. Alistair however, is no stranger to the pressures his eight-strong brigade will be under, having trained at sister hotel, the Montagu Arms, in Beaulieu.
“This is the second winter following the restaurant’s redecoration in 2015, but Christmas dinner can’t be messed around with too much because people expect us to keep it traditional. You just have to cook everything as nicely as you can and there will definitely still be turkey and all the trimmings.
“As much as possible will be sourced locally, and in future years the kitchen garden, which we’re in the process of extending with the help of our gardener, will supply more of the vegetables.”
Despite having up to 150 covers to satisfy each sitting Alistair, a new dad to boot, exudes an air of calmness, insisting that “I just do the food bit”. Although, he’s not underestimating the job ahead.
“The whole of December will be full-on, including leading up to the New Year; it’s like a Saturday night every day. Plus, I’m doing a cookery demonstration for our guests on Boxing Day, so will certainly be taking a week off, after everything’s over.”
Alistair’s tip: have food you can prepare the day before, and save time by part-cooking the vegetables.
Francoise Gysemans and Rachael Knowles, Event Coordinators
Events co-ordinators Francois Gyseman and Rachael Knowles
“We discuss in January what’s worked well the previous Christmas while it is still fresh in our minds,” says Francoise Gysemans, who having notched-up 14 years at Careys, oversees party bookings in French bistro Le Blaireau.
“These usually start from the first weekend in December, with a three-course menu and a disco until the early hours,” she says, continuing: “I set aside a day to decorate the room, having talked first with the restaurant manager. This year’s theme is a Christmas Jumper; I’m quite a crafty person and don’t mind a challenge.”
“It always looks amazing, Francoise does such a good job” says the other half of the events team, Rachael Knowles. Responsible for the main hotel’s black-tie Party at the Manor, this is Rachael’s third Christmas here and for 2016 she’s introduced a photo booth, for a contemporary twist.
“We keep up with the times and last year launched a relaxing spa break Christmas package. But if people still love the traditional things that we do, why change these? Whatever our guests prefer, I think it’s so important to create a family atmosphere away from home.”
Francoise adds: “We give them a little present in their bedroom too and there’s always a card personally signed by the management.” Wearing her other ‘hat’ as Carey’s wedding coordinator, and with winter nuptials barely allowing for a breather, the little touches matter she says. “We have three weddings between Christmas and New Year alone, so will have already planned everything with the bride and groom.”
Rachael’s tip: pre plan as much as you can and then you can relax on the big day.
Colin Parkes, Head of Concierge
“I’ve had two Christmas Days off in 34 years here,” says Colin Parkes, who’s the ‘face’ of Careys for many guests, as soon as they step through the oak front door. “We want everyone to enjoy themselves while they are with us, and for our department Christmas Eve is by far the busiest day with all the arrivals,” Colin observes.
“Most people begin with the festive afternoon tea on 24 December, which gives us time to get to know them and for them to get to know each other. The next day, I’ll be in for the early shift around 6:15am. We do a nice champagne reception, before Christmas lunch with crackers and hats of course, and the party atmosphere is in full swing by the time it’s the gala dinner on Boxing Day.”
As well as welcoming back returning guests, which he says accounts for up to 50 per cent of those staying, Colin knows that one of his tasks is a particularly tall order.
“I get the Christmas trees every year from Longdown Farm in Ashurst, and the tree in reception goes right up to the landing. It’s also my job to organise a car treasure hunt on Christmas morning around the forest.
“It’s lovely if there’s been a light dusting of snow – but not too much, as I’ll have to clear it away!”
Colin’s tip: it’s a long day so start with a good breakfast; and don’t forget to chill plenty of champagne.
Mark Yates, General Manager
Mark Yates, general manager at Careys Manor
“I shall certainly be here on Christmas morning as the “extra man” who can deal with anything that might crop up,” says Mark Yates, adding: “It’s the role of the general manager to see that everything runs smoothly.
“Because Careys Manor is still a fairly small, privately owned, hotel there’s a great camaraderie. So even those guests here for Christmas on their own, soon link-up with others. Also, being on the edge of the village, you’re not isolated. Our location is ideal.”
As a seasoned hotelier Mark also knows that creating the festive ambience whist retaining the desired level of service, is important. Whether that means putting the right staff in place to cater for up to 1400 party guests pre-Christmas – Careys, he says, recruits additional seasonal staff to support the 168 regular team members, or budgeting for Christmas baubles.
“Our florist Owen Lavin is very creative and across the three restaurants and the hotel we spend in excess of £10,000 on decorations every Christmas. £3,000 is spent on the reception area alone. The Manor and Cedar Suites also have trees and there’s outside lighting too because people expect a hotel like this to be decorated beautifully.
“I joined Careys last year, 10 days before Christmas, and so am looking forward to meeting our regular guests second time around. I hope that we’ll do things just as well as before and better, with our new guests, hopefully, becoming returning guests. For me running a hotel is a bit like being on stage.”
Go on, treat yourself
Careys Manor’s Christmas celebrations during December include a three-course lunch from £27.50 per person, available for groups of eight or more, and a festive afternoon at £24 per person. For an alternative Christmas stay the three-night spa break starting on 24 December costs from £765 per person. A two-night New Year package including dinner at one of the hotel’s three restaurants costs from £485 per person. www.careysmanor.com or call 01590 624467.
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Wait, New Mexico is a State?
Yes, it’s a state. No passport required.
by Our Readers
WHAT'S NEW?
When she was a kid, says Kelly Carnes, one of our Facebook fans, she always called Mexico “Old Mexico.” The way she figured it, “If there was a New Mexico, the other one must be old.” Makes sense to us. But as tough as it’s been to remind people that we’re officially a state, we doubt Mexico will agree to officially change its name.
After studying New Mexico Magazine issues for a year, Beltsville, Maryland, resident Christi Fries thoroughly enjoyed her visit. “I stayed at a casita on a working farm in the South Valley, ate authentic chiles rellenos, drove to Madrid, and visited museums.” Then she mailed her souvenirs from an Albuquerque post office so they wouldn’t get lost or ruined on her flight back. A week later, her Petroglyph National Monument poster arrived, with the mailing tube crushed and bent in half. She filed a complaint, but the U.S. Postal Service agent informed her that it bore no blame “since it had to go through customs.” Fries attempted to explain her view of geography, but then gave up. “Maybe they just need a subscription to New Mexico Magazine,” she says.
WE CAN'T EVEN
Rebecca Sacks of Tularosa got an e-newsletter from Fodor’s, the travel-guide giant. Built as a faux postcard, it blared “Welcome to New Mexico” above a photo that mashed up images of Taos Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, and Ship Rock, in northwestern New Mexico, with saguaro cacti, which grow only in Arizona and Mexico. Like Sacks, we’re beyond bewildered.
Read more incredible tales from the "Missing" vault.
HAVE A “MISSING” MOMENT?
Send it to fifty@nmmagazine.com or Fifty, New Mexico Magazine, 495 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501. Include your name, hometown, and state. ¡Gracias!
Categories: December 2018, One Of Our 50 Is Missing, Missing
Tags: Missing
Author: Our Readers
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Mehbooba Mufti Rules Out AFSPA Revocation, Says Indian Army Most Disciplined Force in World
Mehbooba hoped that "all shades of opinion" in Jammu and Kashmir would join the dialogue process initiated by the Centre's representative Dineshwar Sharma to "cut through the unending cycle of violence and uncertainty in the state".
Updated:February 3, 2018, 4:35 PM IST
Mehbooba Mufti condemned the murder of the boy terming it as termed the act as "savage beyond imagination". (PTI)
Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has ruled out revoking the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in Kashmir "due to the prevailing situation" and asserted that the Indian Army is the "most disciplined" force in the world.
Mehbooba said the Army's footprint in the Valley had increased due to the deteriorating security situation.
"If the situation deteriorates, the footprint of security forces will increase. If militancy or stone pelting increases, you will see more footprint of police. We don't want that to happen," she said on Friday while replying to a discussion on demand of grants for the departments under her charge.
On CPI(M) MLA M Y Tarigami raking up the issue of revocation of AFSPA, Mehbooba retorted and asked: "Can AFSPA be revoked in such a situation? Is it realistic?"
"The Indian Army is the most disciplined force in the world. It was instrumental in bettering the security situation...that is the reason we are here today... They have made huge sacrifices," she said.
On the National Conference's concerns about the fate of an FIR registered against armymen over the killing of three civilians in alleged firing in Shopian last month, Mehbooba said, "The Army has a great reputation, but when someone commits a wrong, legal process has to follow."
She said her government was reaching out to Kashmiri youths to wean them away from militancy.
The chief minister said her government withdrew cases of stone-pelting against more than 9,700 youths which were pending since 2008.
The central and state governments were on the same page on the subject, she said.
Mehbooba said political outreach was a must to get people out of despair while and mainstream political parties had a major role in it.
She favoured "cross-LoC cooperation" in the sectors of tourism, environment, and disaster management, among others.
AFSPA
| Edited by: Tarun Bhardwaj
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Former Delhi Top Cop Hopes Batla House Has Not Taken Cinematic Liberties with the Sensitive Case
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Bollywood Actor John Abraham Announces New Film Based On the Isle of Man TT - Watch Video
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After Legalising Marijuana, Denver to Now Vote on Decriminalising 'Magic Mushrooms'
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High Mom: Canadian Women Say Smoking Marijuana Makes Them Better Mothers
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Booming Business: Little Girl Sells Out Cookie Stock at Canada Pot Shop
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Canada Becomes the Second Country to Legalise Cannabis
Uday Chopra, you listening?
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'This Is Beyond Science' Mumbai Police Again Slams Uday Chopra's 'Legalize Marijuana' Tweet
"It is not just beyond science, but beyond logic."
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Mumbai Police Schools Uday Chopra on His "Legalize Marijuana" Tweets
No puff, puff, passing for Uday it seems.
Uday Chopra Thinks 'Marijuana Is Part of Our Culture' and Should Be Legalized
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Most Canadians Say They Won't Try Legal Cannabis Or Boost Current Use
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High Tea? Beer Baron Brewing Cannabis-Infused, Non-alcoholic Drinks for Canadian Market
According to a December 2017 Georgia State University study, alcohol sales fell by as much as 20 percent in US states that legalized marijuana.
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High Hopes: French Shops Use Loophole to Sell 'Ultralight' Weed
Technically, the fragrant marijuana buds on offer at a new Paris boutique are not meant to be smoked, as the friendly staff and disclaimers remind clients -- brewing the herb in hot water is advised, as is adding it to food.
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These Are All the Legalised Pot Spots Around The World
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Canada Senate Approves Bill Legalising Recreational Marijuana
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Canada to reap billions in taxes from legal marijuana: Study
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The first recreational marijuana to be sold legally in Seattle will be put up on display at a museum in the city!
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Priyanka Gandhi ends 3-day boat yatra in PM Narendra Modi’s constituency
Published on: 20 March 2019 11:47 PM
Priyanka Gandhi ends 3-day boat yatra in PM Narendra Modi's Varanasi constituency: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra concluded her three-day boat yatra in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Lok Sabha 2019 elections in the country. She had kick-started the three-day poll campaign in Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad) and ended on Wedndesday in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency. Priyanka joined politics in January this year
Priyanka Gandhi ends 3-day boat yatra in PM Narendra Modi’s Varanasi constituency: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday concluded her three-day poll campaign in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Lok Sabha 2019 elections in the country. She had kick-started the three-day boat yatra in Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad) and ended on Wednesday in Varanasi, which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency. She was accompanied by Congress MP Savitri Bai Phule, spokesperson Akhilesh Pratap Singh and MLA Aradhana Mishra. Priyanka entered politics in January this year. She was given charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh where PM Modi’s parliamentary constituency also falls.
On the first day of her yatra, she started the campaign from Hanuman temple. She held discussions with students. At the rally, she said people of Uttar Pradesh have faced political stagnation. On the second day of her campaign, General Secretary and east Uttar Pradesh in-charge visited Vindhyachal, Bhadohi and Mirzapur areas of Uttar Pradesh. At Mirzapur, she was greeted with whispers of Har Har Modi slogans by the supporters of prime minister.
On the same day, the 47-year-old Congress leader launched a scathing attack on PM Modi. She said that farmers, youth etc were not satisfied with the performance of BJP. She said that voters would change the government in the forthcoming general elections. Sister of Congress president Rahul Gandhi also claimed that all the people in Yogi Adityanath-led state are in distress.
Her comments were apparently in response to chief minister Adityanath’s statement that that crime rate has gone down in the state.In response to Priyanka’s three-day campaign, BJP said that every election has become a picnic for Gandhi family. The party said that after elections, Congress leaders fly to Italy or Switzerland
Meanwhile, Congress has not yet announced the candidature of Priyanka for the Lok Sabha elections. Some reports suggest that she would not contest polls but would work to strengthen the organisational structure of Congres in UP.
Uttar Pradesh is the most important state for Lok Sabha elections as the state sends 80 parliamentarians to the Lok Sabha. Both Congress and ruling BJP have an intense poll campaign in UP. They are trying to win as many as seats they can.
But it is most unlikely that BJP or Congress would win what they are expecting as they have to face Mahagathbandhan of Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.
In the last Lok Sabha election, BJP secured 71 out of 80 seats, while Congress could only win two seats. Samajwadi Party had managed to get five seats.
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UK twin town for Disney World - competition launches to find a resort partner town
Walt Disney World have launched a competition to find a UK twin town for the Florida Resort park. From now until 22 November 2009, anyone in the UK (over 18 years) can nominate their home village, town, city or 'hamlet' to become the Walt Disney World twinned town by visiting www.waltdisneyworldtwinnedtown.co.uk.
A YouTube video highlights the Disney World UK twin competition here:
The winning location will be announced as having official “Walt Disney World Twinned Town” status and arrangements will be made to hold a magical Disney party in January to celebrate the twinning. Furthermore, the person who submits the winning nomination will jet off to Disney World in Florida with their family for the official twinning ceremony presided over by the mayor of Main Street, U.S.A.
Walt Disney World UK twin town competition microsite
To make a Disney World UK twin town nomination, users can use words photographs or video. Entries are uploaded to the Disney World UK twin town competition site and a gallery shows entries so far - with current submissions including Dundee, Sudbury, Pontypridd and Ealing.
Mickey Mouse promoting the Walt Disney World UK twin town competition
The Disney World UK twin town winning entry will be determined by a judging panel rather than public vote and the judges include TV star Angellica Bell, Vice President Creative Inc, Walt Disney World Duncan Wardle, Vice President and managing director of Disney Destinations International UK Hugh Wood, and one of the famous Walt Disney Imagineers, Patrick Brennan.
Another example of how a competition can be turned into an online (social?) event - doing something to 'Drive The Conversation' and receiving traffic and attention in return.
Then subscribe to regular updates from this blog -
click here to use a Reader or click here to get email updates
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Tag: Movie Night at Huskie Stadium
Athletics to host Huskie Family Fun Day Aug. 9
July 27, 2015 Mark McGowan Community, Communiversity, Digital Signage, Events, Latest News, On Campus
Huskie fans of all ages are invited to join Northern Illinois University student-athletes and staff at the Huskie Family Fun Day and Movie Night from 4 to 8 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 9, at the Chessick Practice Center and Huskie Stadium. The free
Let It Go! ‘Frozen’ to screen Friday at Huskie Stadium
July 29, 2014 Mark McGowan Communiversity, Digital Signage, Events, What's Going On
Northern Illinois will host “Movie Night at Huskie Stadium” Friday, Aug. 1, as Huskie fans will be able to meet NIU head coaches and watch the movie “Frozen,” as chosen by a fan vote on NIUHuskies.com, on the Huskie Stadium videoboard. Admission
Huskie Stadium to host free movie Aug. 1
June 20, 2014 Mark McGowan Communiversity, Digital Signage, Events, Latest News, On Campus
Northern Illinois will host “Movie Night at Huskie Stadium” Friday, Aug. 1, as Huskie fans will be able to meet NIU head coaches and watch a movie on the Huskie Stadium videoboard. Fans can vote for “Frozen,” “The Lego Movie” or “Little
Check out new scoreboard on movie night
September 5, 2013 Mark McGowan Arts, Communiversity, Events, Latest News, On Campus, Students
Northern Illinois will hold “Movie Night at Huskie Stadium” on Wednesday, Sept. 11, to mark the official debut of the new HD scoreboard, ribbon boards and audio system installed at Huskie Stadium this summer. Fans are invited to come to Huskie Stadium
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Hiking among redwoods Craig Stock/National Park Service
Phleger Estate
See a verdant redwood forest reborn here at the southern tip of the Golden Gate National Parks. This tranquil park was once severely logged and century-old redwood stumps and remnants of steam mills are still in evidence. But along its miles of trails, and tumbling creeks, second-growth redwoods and firs are rising again.
Open NowOpen: 24/7
Phleger Estate San Mateo County
Tips and Highlights
You can park near the lot at Huddart County Park on the southern side and enter Phleger Estate.
From Private Estate to National Park
Herman Phleger, a respected San Francisco lawyer, and his wife Mary Elena Phleger bought the large country house above West Union Creek (then known as Mountain Meadow) in 1931. They were early supporters of the Save-the-Redwoods League and in 1994 Mary Phleger sold the estate to the Peninsula Open Space Trust. The land was later turned over to National Park Service management.
The Logging Industry
After gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, San Francisco’s population exploded. The need to build homes, hotels, businesses, and other buildings helped fuel a lucrative logging industry, including Phleger Estate.
Steam Mills
Union Creek, which winds along the estate’s eastern edge, once powered more than a dozen mills. The mill operations were seasonal during the wet winter months. From 1852-1855, entrepreneur Willard Whipple logged the area and traces of the upper and lower mill still remain on site today.
Trails & Activities
Explore what kind of activities are available near the park.
Find other activities in the park
Serenity Wow: Top Spots to Get Away from It All
Park E-Ventures Article
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Biting the Sun
By Tanith Lee
Category: Contemporary Fantasy
About Biting the Sun
In a world dedicated to pleasure, one young rebel sets out on a forbidden quest. Published for the first time in a single volume, Tanith Lee’s duet of novels set in a hedonistic Utopia are as riveting and revolutionary as they were when they first appeared two decades ago.
It’s a perfect existence, a world in which no pleasure is off-limits, no risk is too dangerous, and no responsibilities can cramp your style. Not if you’re Jang: a caste of libertine teenagers in the city of Four BEE. But when you’re expected to make trouble—when you can kill yourself on a whim and return in another body, when you’re encouraged to change genders at will and experience whatever you desire—you’ve got no reason to rebel . . . until making love and raising hell, daring death and running wild just leave you cold and empty.
Ravenous for true adventures of the mind and body, desperate to find some meaning, one restless spirit finally bucks the system—and by shattering the rules, strikes at the very heart of a soulless society. . . .
Also by Tanith Lee
See all books by Tanith Lee
About Tanith Lee
Tanith Lee (1947–2015) was a legend in science fiction and fantasy writing. She wrote more than 90 novels and 300 short stories, and was the winner of multiple World Fantasy Awards, a British Fantasy Society Derleth Award, the World Fantasy… More about Tanith Lee
Published by Spectra
Oct 05, 1999 | 384 Pages | 4-3/16 x 6-7/8 | ISBN 9780553581300
Published by Del Rey
People Who Read Biting the Sun Also Read
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Newspaper newsrooms suffer large staffing decreases
By Emily Guskin
The American Society of News Editors released its annual newsroom census figures today showing a severe decline in the size of newspaper staffs.
In all, there were about 2,600 fewer full-time professional editorial jobs at newspapers in 2012, a 6.4% decline from 2011. That leaves the industry at 38,000 full-time professional editorial employees and is the first time that figure has been below 40,000 since the census began in 1978.
The losses are also more than twice the level estimated in March by Rick Edmonds, coauthor of the chapter on newspapers in the Pew Research Center’s State of the News Media report. Edmonds discussed the losses in a piece published earlier today on the Poynter Institute’s website.
Although the decreases announced by ASNE today are substantial, Edmonds points out some caveats about the data. Several large newspapers did not fill out the survey this year, resulting in missing data from some major outlets. These papers include USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Arizona Republic, the Miami Herald, the (New Orleans) Times-Picayune and several others, according to Edmonds. In all, 978 of 1,382 dailies responded to the survey.
Additionally, the definition of editorial staff has become muddled. Several newspapers with regional editing centers (where employees edit and publish reports covering a wide area) were allowed to determine whether including their share of those groups would count as part of the news staff or not. This means the count was inconsistent among newspapers.
The decreases reported by ASNE reflect cuts seen at several major newspapers in the past year. Most recently, the Oregonian announced it was cutting 45 newsroom staff earlier this week and the Chicago Sun-Times let its entire 28-person photo staff go in May.
The diminished capacity to gather news, and its impact, was noted in the State of the News Media report which found that 31% of those surveyed said they had deserted a particular news outlet –not just newspapers — because it no longer provided the news and information they had grown accustomed to.
One question often raised is how new news outlets, particularly at the local level, are stepping in to the fill gaps left in the cutbacks at traditional newsrooms. The Pew Research Center’s recent report on nonprofit news outlets found that 172 digital nonprofit news outlets had launched since 1987, but many of these are small with minimal staff and modest budgets — 78% of nonprofit outlets surveyed reported having five or fewer full-time paid staffers-including business and administrative roles.
State of the News MediaMedia EconomicsNewsroom Investment and ResourcesMedia PerformanceDigital Media
Emily Guskin is a Research Analyst at the Pew Research Center's Journalism Project.
POSTS BIO EMAIL
Fact TankJuly 18, 2013
5 facts about ethnic and gender diversity in U.S. newsrooms
Media & NewsJuly 1, 2013
Men, for the most part, still run newsrooms
Media & NewsNovember 11, 2013
At newspapers, photographers feel the brunt of job cuts
Pew Research CenterJuly 9, 2019
U.S. newsroom employment has dropped by a quarter since 2008, with greatest decline at newspapers
Fact TankAugust 4, 2015
In the news industry, diversity is lowest at smaller outlets
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Live-Auctions
After Auction Sale
About Philasearch.com
About Live-Auctions
Kelleher Auktionen
Daniel F. Kelleher Auctions, LLC
Administrative Office:
4 Finance Drive, Suite 100
Danbury, CT 06810, USA
E-Mail: info@kelleherauctions.com
Web: http://db.kelleherauctions.com/php/home.php
About Kelleher Auktionen
America's Oldest Philatelic Auction House
· Kelleher Auctions - Conditions of Sale
· CONDITIONS OF SALE – PRIVATE TREATY STOCKHOLMIA 2019
Kelleher Auctions - Conditions of Sale
THE PLACING OF A BID SHALL CONSTITUTE ACCEPTANCE OF THESE CONDITIONS OF SALE BETWEEN BIDDER AND DANIEL F. KELLEHER AUCTIONS, LLC ("KELLEHER")
1. Unless announced otherwise by the auctioneer, all bids are per lot, as numbered in the printed Catalogue. Kelleher, as agent for the consignor or vendor, shall regulate the bidding and shall determine the manner in which the bidding shall be conducted. Kelleher reserves the right to withdraw any lot prior to sale (without liability to any potential purchaser or agent), to re-offer any withdrawn lot, to divide a lot or to group two or more lots belonging to the same consignor or vendor, and to refuse any bid believed not made in good faith. Estimates of sales prices contained in the printed Catalogue reflect the best judgment of Kelleher and are not minimum or upset prices.
2. (a) Bids shall be made in the steps set forth on the bidding page (ii) of our printed catalog, or click here to see them online.
(b) The highest bid acknowledged by the auctioneer shall prevail. Should a dispute arise between bidders (including a dispute between a floor or internet bidder and the auctioneer acting on behalf of a mail bidder, consignor or vendor), the auctioneer alone shall determine who the successful bidder is and whether to reoffer the lot in dispute. Should a dispute arise after the sale, the auctioneer's sale records shall be conclusive. On all lots sold, a commission of 20% on the hammer price is payable by the buyer to the auctioneer together with any sales and use tax or customs duties.
3. (a) The auctioneer reserves the right to bid on behalf of clients (and consignors or vendors) but shall not be liable for errors and omissions in executing instructions to bid, however received, and whether such errors or omissions be those of the bidder or agent or those of the auctioneer.
(b) Lots are offered subject to a reserve price. The auctioneer will implement such reserve price by bidding on behalf of the consignor vendor.
(c) It may also be assumed that all consignors have been advanced monies against the sale of their consigned material and Kelleher therefore has a security interest in the consigned material over and above the normal auction commission.
(d) Purchases made by a consignor or vendor or his agent on his own lots shall be considered as a sale subject to commissions and sales tax as applicable.
(e) Agents are responsible for the payment of the purchase price for all purchases made on behalf of their clients, unless other arrangements with the auctioneer have been confirmed in writing prior to the auction.
PAYMENT FOR PURCHASES
4. (a) Payment for lots, including those on which opinions are desired (Condition of Sale 7), shall be as follows:
(b) Floor Bidders. Payment of the purchase price, or such part there of as Kelleher shall require, shall be made by the purchaser in cash or bank or certified check or in such other manner as Kelleher may determine. The name and address of the purchaser of each lot shall be given to the auctioneer immediately following the saleof such lot.
(c) Mail Bidders. A successful mail bidder will be notified of lots purchased. Before Kelleher will send such lots, payment in full must be received by Kelleher within three (3) business days of receipt of the aforesaid notification by the mail bidder. However, a purchaser known to Kelleher at its option may have purchases delivered or forwarded for immediate payment (by a dollar draft on a U.S. bank in the case of overseas purchasers). Mailed delivery will be to the address on the bid sheet and proof by Kelleher of receipt of a sending at the advised address shall constitute delivery. All charges for handling, delivery and insurance obtained by Kelleher on behalf of the purchaser shall be added to the purchase price; a minimum charge of $20.00 will be made.
(d) Prompt Payment Discount - Successful bidders whose payment is received within 15 calendar days from the date of the auction, shall be entitled to a 2% prompt payment discount of the hammer price of each lot, regardless of the method payment.
5. Title shall not pass to the purchaser until full payment has been received by Kelleher as agents for the consignor or vendor.
6. (a) Purchasers agree to pay for lots as specified in Condition of Sale 4 (or as the same may be modified by Condition of Sale 8), and no credit is extended; a late payment charge of 2% per month or fraction thereof shall be added if payment is not made in accordance with the aforesaid conditions.
(b) In the event that a bidder shall fail to comply with these Conditions of Sale ("Non-Complying Bidder"), then, as to any lot with respect to which such failure to comply occurs, Kelleher, may, in its sole discretion, re-offer such lot during the same auction or at an auction at a later time, or by private treaty at such time as Kelleher Auctions, in its sole discretion, deems appropriate and the Non-Complying Bidder shall be liable for the deficiency, if any, between the hammer price and the net proceeds of a sale to a subsequent purchaser, whether at auction or by private treaty, as well as for all costs and expenses of both sales, all other charges due thereunder, including commissions with respect to both sales, whether payable to Kelleher or to a third party and all incidental damages. It shall be in Kellehers' sole discretion to determine whether to re-offer the lot theretofore hammered-down to a Non-Complying Bidder at the same auction, or by private treaty in due course, or at a subsequent auction conducted by Kelleher. In no event shall any surplus arising from the sale of a re-offered lot be payable to a Non-Complying Bidder.
(c) A defaulting purchaser shall be deemed to have granted Kelleher a security interest in property in Kellehers possession owned by such purchaser. Kelleher shall have all of the rights afforded a purchase money secured party under the New York, Connecticut or Massachusetts Uniform Commercial Code with respect to such property and may apply against such obligations all monies held or received by it for the account of, or due from Kelleher to such purchaser. Kelleher is authorized to file a Financing Statement in order to perfect its rights as a secured party.
(d) If Kelleher takes any legal steps to secure payment of a delinquent account, the defaulting purchaser shall be liable for all legal and other expenses incurred by Kelleher to secure such payment, including but not limited to a reasonable allowance for attorneys' fees. For purposes of this paragraph, the term legal steps shall be deemed to include any and all consultation by Kelleher with its attorneys with respect to all matters arising out of a delinquent account.
(e) Unless otherwise acceptable to Kelleher, payment is to be made only in the form of cash, bank check or certified check, personal check (which must clear prior to delivery of lots), credit card (AMEX, Visa, MasterCard and Discover), PayPal or a bank wire transfer. Payments made by credit card are accepted as a courtesy without surcharge, if paid within 15 days of sale date.
WIRING INSTRUCTIONS:
Please contact us for our wiring instructions.
EXHIBITION AND INSPECTION OF LOTS; QUALITY AND AUTHENTICITY
7. (a) See viewing schedule for on-premises viewing. Ample opportunity is given for on premises inspection prior to the auction date, and, upon written request and at Kelleher discretion.
(b) Each lot is sold as genuine and correctly described, based on individual description as modified by any specific notations in this Catalogue.
(c) Quality. Any lot which a purchaser considers to be incorrectly described may be returned to Kelleher within two weeks of its receipt by such purchaser ("Returning Purchaser"), provided, however, that the same is received by Kelleher within four weeks of the date of the auction; however, Kelleher may, in its discretion, refuse acceptance of such returned lot. If an opinion of a mutually acceptable authority is desired, the period of time within which a lot must be received by Kelleher will be extended in accordance with Condition of Sale 8. In the event that a dispute cannot be resolved by reference to a mutually acceptable authority, and Kelleher thereupon undertakes to re-offer the lot with a description identical to the description disputed, the Returning Purchaser shall be liable for the deficiency, if any, between the proceeds of the sale to the Returning Purchaser and the proceeds of a sale to a subsequent purchaser, as well as for all costs and expenses of the resale, including commission, and all incidental damages. Any lot, the description of which is disputed, must be returned intact and in the original packaging and in the condition received (unaltered) by the purchaser. The following lots are not returnable except at the discretion of Kelleher: (i) lots from purchasers who attended the exhibition of the lots; (ii) lots examined by postal viewers; (iii) lots on account of their appearance, if they are illustrated in this Catalogue; or (iv) lots described as having repairs, defects or faults for any reason. (v) lots containing more than ten (10) items.
(d) Authenticity. Any lot which is declared otherwise than genuine by a generally recognized authority is returnable, provided such lot is received by Kelleher within four weeks of the date of the auction. Proof that a mutually acceptable authority declines to express an opinion is not grounds for the return of a lot.
(e) Expenses incurred a purchaser in the submission and the return of a lot under Conditions of Sale 7 are not subject to refund.
(f ) Numerical grading is subjective and is based upon the condition of each issue. Lots may not be returned if a third party grades a stamp at lower than our grade.
(g) Lots with existing Certificates from the Philatelic Foundation (PF) or Professional Stamp Experts (PSE), British Philatelic Association (BOA), Royal Philatelic Society of London (RPSL), Vincent Graves Green Foundation (VGG) or any other expertizing authority as recognized by the International Association of Philatelic Experts (AIEP), for items within their specialty and dated within the last seven (7) years from the date of sale, will be offered and sold on an "as-is" basis and as so stated on the certificate. Such lots may not be returned for any reason, including but not limited to a contrary verbal or written opinion or certificate.
SALES TAX/CUSTOMS DUTIES
8. Unless presentation of satisfactory proof that it is exempted by law, a purchaser shall pay to Kelleher the Connecticut or Massachusetts and local sales taxes, or any compensating use taxes of any other State claiming jurisdiction. Buyers outside the U.S. are responsible for all customs duties. A purchaser shall indemnify Kelleher and hold it harmless of and from any claims of any jurisdiction for sales taxes relating to the purchase of articles at the auction, whenever the same may arise.
APPLICABLE LAW, JURISDICTION, ETC.
9. All matters arising out of this auction shall be governed by the laws of the State of Connecticut without giving effect to the choice of law principles thereof.
10. Any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to this auction shall be settled by arbitration in the City of New York, State of New York in accordance with the Rules of the American Arbitration Association and judgment upon the award rendered by the Arbitrator or Arbitrators may be entered in any Court having jurisdiction.
JURISDICTION AND VENUE OF ACTIONS
11. The purchaser at this auction (a) consents and submits to the jurisdiction of the Courts of the State of Connecticut or New York and of the Courts of the United States for a judicial district within the territorial limits of the State of Connecticut for all matters arising out of this auction sale, including, without limitation, any action or proceeding instituted for the enforcement of any right, remedy, obligation and liability arising under or by reason thereof; and (b) consents and submits to the venue of such action or proceeding in the City of Danbury, County of Fairfield, State of Connecticut (or such judicial district of a Court of the United States as shall include the same), and (c) further consents that service of process in any action relating thereto may be effected by registered mail, return receipt requested address to the purchase at the address given to the auctioneer at the time of the sale.
BIDDING STEPS
12. Bidding Steps are as published on page (ii) of our printed catalog, or click here to see them online; bids made out of increment will be reduced to the next increment. Example: $603 bid will be reduced to $600, etc.
BIDS BY TELEPHONE
(a) Must be confirmed in writing unless waived by the auctioneer.
(b) Any errors are the responsibility of the bidder.
(c) No bids accepted less than 1 hour before the commencement of the sale.
BIDS BY FAX OR EMAIL
Bids must be received 1 hour before sale commences - be sure to use
FAX: 203.297.6059 or
EMAIL: bids@kelleherauctions.com
PHONE BIDDING DURING THE SALE
Phone bidding space is limited and available on a first come, first served basis. The importance of reserving early cannot be overstated! Please call us at 203.297.6056 to reserve your phone bidding space.
CONDITIONS OF SALE – PRIVATE TREATY STOCKHOLMIA 2019
THE PLACING OF AN OFFER SHALL CONSTITUTE ACCEPTANCE OF THESE CONDITIONS OF SALE BETWEEN PURCHASER
AND DANIEL F. KELLEHER AUCTIONS, LLC (“KELLEHER”)
1. Each lot is sold as genuine and as described, on a first come, first served basis as priced net in the catalog. The first order of record will be the successful
buyer. Orders are accepted by telephone, telefax, email, mail and courier services. In-person orders will need to be transmitted and confirmed with US office.
All lots will be on display at Stockholmia 2019, Stand 30. All sales will be conducted from our United States office, lots will be shipped from the U.S. only
upon our return to our Danbury, CT offices. No delivery of lots will be made at the Exhibition. All lots must be paid in full upon invoice.
1. All lots are available for on-premises viewing during Stockholmia May 29-June 2, during regular show hours.
2. (a.) Payment for lots, may be made in the currency of the purchaser’s choice, as listed in the catalog only.
(b.) Unless otherwise acceptable to Kelleher, payment is to be made only in the form of cash, bank check or certified check, personal check (which must clear
prior to delivery of lots), credit card (AMEX, Visa, MasterCard and Discover), PayPal [ see item “c” below] or bank wire.
Details for payments follow:
Paypal at Paypal@kelleherauctions.com
US$ bank wire transfer to:
Union Savings Bank, 225 Main Street, Danbury, CT 06810
ABA #: 221172241 or SWIFT # UNSGUS33
For Further Credit To:
Daniel F. Kelleher Auctions LLC, P O Box 220, Bethel, CT 06801
Account Number: 596 005 717
HK$ bank wire transfer to:
Kelleher & Rogers Limited
Account#048-846091-838 (戶口號碼)
Beneficiary Bank Name: HSBC Hong Kong (香港匯豐銀行)
Beneficiary Bank Address: 1 Queen’s Road, Central, Hong Kong
SWIFT Address: HSBCHKHHHKH (銀行代碼)
(c.) Payments made by Paypal or credit card are accepted with a 3% convenience fee and payable in US$ only.
(a.) Purchasers agree to pay for lots in full, and no credit is extended; a late payment charge of 2% per month or fraction thereof shall be added if payment
is not made in accordance with the aforesaid conditions.
(b.) In the event that a purchaser shall fail to comply with these Conditions of Sale (“Non-Complying Purchaser”), then, as to any lot with respect to which
such failure to comply occurs, Kelleher, may, in its sole discretion, re-offer such lot during an auction at a later time, or by private treaty at such time as
Kelleher Auctions, in its sole discretion, deems appropriate and the Non-Complying Purchaser shall be liable for the deficiency, if any, between the
hammer price and the net proceeds of a sale to a subsequent purchaser, whether at auction or by private treaty, as well as for all costs and expenses of
both sales, all other charges due thereunder, including commissions with respect to both sales, whether payable to Kelleher or to a third party and all
incidental damages. It shall be in Kellehers’ sole discretion to determine whether to re-offer the lot theretofore sold to a Non-Complying Purchaser at a
subsequent auction, or by private treaty in due course, by Kelleher. In no event shall any surplus arising from the sale of a re-offered lot be payable to a
Non-Complying Purchaser.
(c.) A defaulting purchaser shall be deemed to have granted Kelleher a security interest in property in Kellehers’ possession owned by such purchaser.
Kelleher shall have all of the rights afforded a purchase money secured party under the Connecticut or Massachusetts Uniform Commercial Code with
respect to such property and may apply against such obligations all monies held or received by it for the account of, or due from Kelleher to such
purchaser. Kelleher is authorized to file a Financing Statement in order to perfect its rights as a secured party.
(d.) If Kelleher takes any legal steps to secure payment of a delinquent account, the de- faulting purchaser shall be liable for all legal and other expenses
incurred by Kelleher to secure such payment, including but not limited to a reasonable allowance for attorneys’ fees. For purposes of this paragraph,
the term legal steps shall be deemed to include any and all consultation by Kelleher with its attorneys with respect to all matters arising out of a delinquent
5. Unless presented with satisfactory proof that the transaction is exempt from taxes by law, the successful purchaser is responsible for any compensating use taxes of
any other state claiming jurisdiction, and authorizes Kelleher to assess and collect such amounts from purchaser, and remit the appropriate amount to the
applicable taxing authority. Buyers outside the U.S. are responsible for all customs duties and taxes. A purchaser shall indemnify Kelleher and hold it harmless
of and from any claims of any jurisdiction for sales taxes or customs duties relating to the purchase of articles at the auction, whenever the same may arise.
DELIVERY/SHIPMENT OF LOTS
6. All lots are priced net and include standard delivery to most delivery addresses. Insurance is extra at the cost of such if required will be paid by the buyer, if
so desired. Please enquire with any specific shipping queries.
APPLICABLE LAW/ JURISDICTION AND VENUE OF ACTIONS
7. The purchaser (a) consents and submits to the jurisdiction of the Courts of the State of Connecticut and of the Courts of the United States for a judicial
district within the territorial limits of the State of Connecticut for all matters arising out of this auction sale, including, without limitation, any action or proceeding
instituted for the enforcement of any right, remedy, obligation and liability arising under or by reason thereof; and (b) consents and submits to the venue of such
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the same, and (c) further consents that service of process in any action relating thereto may be effected by registered mail, return receipt requested address to the
purchase at the address given to the firm at the time of the sale.
Kelleher Auction 726th
June 28th to 29th, 2019
Collections, Stocks and Accumulations of the World
Short Terms and Conditions
On all lots sold, a commission of 20% on the hammer price is payable by the buyer to the auctioneer together with any sales and use tax or customs duties.
Important Note! The buyer's premium will be 20%. However there will be a 2% discount for those buyers whose payments reach us within 15 says of the sale.
Lot Start
Lot End
Starting Time EDT
1001 1302 13:00 EDT U.S. and British
1303 1733 13:00 EDT General Foreign and Worldwide
Show lots
May 21st - 23rd, 2019
U.S.A., British Commonwealth, Europe and Worldwide - Stamps and Postal History
The MLG Collection of U.S.A. 1883-1930 Issues
February 19th - 20th, 2019
Kelleher Auction 722nd
US, British and Worldwide Stamps and Postal History
December 18th - 20th, 2018
Kelleher Auction 721st
October 10th - 12th, 2018
September 28th - 29th, 2018
Kelleher Auction 717th - The Loth Family Collection
Rare Stamps from the U.S.A., British Commonwealth, Europe and Worldwide.
August 1st - 2nd, 2018
Aerophilately of the World
Kelleher Auction 713rd
U.S.A., British Commonwealth, Europe and Worldwide - Stamps and Postal History.
March 23rd - 24th, 2018
February 27th to March 2nd, 2018
Michael Rogers Online - Auction 5018
Internet Auction with over 3600 Lots of U.S. and Wordwide
Kelleher Auction 710th: The Deacon Collection of Worldwide Stamps and Covers
The Deacon Collection of Wordwide Stamps and Covers
Kelleher Auction 709th: U.S.A., British Commonwealth, Europe and Worldwide
December 8th - 9th, 2017
Kelleher Auction 708th: Collections, Stocks and Accumulations of the World
November 29th - 30th, 2017
Kelleher Auction 707th: The Thomas P. Knapp Collection of Aerophilately
The Thomas P. Knapp Collection of Aerophilately
Kelleher Auction 706th: USA and Worldwide
U.S.A. and Worldwide, including a large collection of Germany with Colonies, Offices and Locals
Kelleher Auction 705th: Collection of the Ryukyus
A specialized sale of Stan Cutler's Collection of the Ryukyus.
Kelleher Auction 704th: Collection of the Canal Zone
A specialized sale of "Best" Family Collection of the Canal Zone.
September 8th - 9th, 2017
August 15th - 17th, 2017
A Flagship sale with over 2200 lots featuring U.S. and Possessions, including the Finesse Collection of Trans-Mississippi Postal History, ...
June 20th - 23rd, 2017
USA and Worldwide, including many high grade US stamps and a large collection of Germany with Colonies and Offices
May 18-19th, 2017
A Flagship sale with over 1200 lots, featuring U.S. and Possessions classic postal history, with extensive offerings of fancy cancels, ...
May 2nd-4th, 2017
Over 2800 lots featuring United States Stamps, British and Worldwide Stamps and Postal History, including several large and comprehesive ...
With over 1100 lots estimated at $10 to $2000 each. This sale features U.S., British and Worldwide stamps and postal history, including ...
A collections sale with nearly 900 lots of US, British Empire and Worldwide collections, stocks and accumulations.
February 21st-23rd, 2017
Over 2100 lots of US, British Empire and Worldwide stamps and postal history.
November 29th - December 1st, 2016
Flagship US, British and Worldwide Stamps and Postal History
November 18th-19th, 2016
US, British and worldwide collections, stocks and accumulations.
August 30th - September 1st, 2016
International auction offer with strong section USA.
August 19-20th, 2016
U.S., British and Worldwide collections, stocks and accumulations.
Flagship sale. Worldwide offer with strong section USA.
Kelleher Auction 687
Die Adolfo J. Capurro Sammlung ungebrauchte Ausgaben der ganzen Welt.
Kelleher Fire&Ice Titanic and Zeppelin Auction
Aero-Philately and Flights with Ephemera, from the Danner, Peckham, Phipps, Fitzhugh, Gunpowder Collections.
Februar 12th, 2014
Kelleher Auction 643 - Fire & Ice
Special Sale Titanic, Hindenburg, Aerophilately and Zeppelins incl. Memorabilia.
Kelleher Auction 642 - Tristan da Cunha
Die "Partridge" collection of Tristan da Cunha
Kelleher Auction 641 - Russian Zemstvo Local Posts
Russian Zemstvo Local Posts
628th Kelleher Auction
First Offerings from the 'Sacramento' Collection of Quality U.S. Singles and Plate Blocks
'Amberley' Collection of ...
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Search in titles only Search in Programming & Compilers only
Programming & Compilers
JIT Is Approved For PHP 8 To Open Up Faster CPU Performance
DoMiNeLa10
Originally posted by hreindl View Post
bla - with a timemachine all would be fine - otherwise LUCKILY the PHP developers are not that stupid to break BC in a way as Phyton did where a lot of code is still not compatible with python3, many of that stuff is likely internal and just does what it is expected to do and the people implemented are no longer there - have fun next year
Considering that PHP is pretty nasty about backwards compatibility, I think it would be fine for them to announce a major change in how the language works.
kapouer
At the almost same time, https://v8.dev/blog/jitless is doing the reverse approach.
MrEcho
The PHP team have been pretty good about not breaking things. Some of the stuff ive seen is stuff you shouldn't have been doing in the first place, once allowed, now turning it off. That and fixing long standing issues. As for security, I would say the language it self is pretty locked down. Now what you do with that language, thats on you, it can only hold your hand so much. Badly written code shouldn't have a reflection on the language its self. I think a lot of that comes from having to still support 5.x.
For most workloads the JIT isnt really going to do much, most of the time tuning your OPCache will really speed things up. Where its really going to make a difference is big dataset kind of stuff. Processing 10's of thousands of rows / elements.
Ive started to use Server Timing to pass along how long things take, and how many sql calls im making per request. Its not like some of the other stuff out there, but its enough for me to kind of see whats going on, and on production.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/.../Server-Timing
Delgarde
Originally posted by xnor View Post
I don't think you know what you're talking about. UTF-16 is the worst possible choice. It's still variable length but also byte order dependent.
Yeah, its predecessor UCS-2 seemed like a good choice at the time, a fixed-width encoding that could cope with all of Unicode. But UTF-16 has never been a particularly good idea in its own right - it's convenient as a mostly-compatible extension of the established UCS-2 and it's more compact for certain languages... but as you say, it has all the disadvantages of a variable-width encoding _and_ of byte-order issues. Essentially it's a historic anomaly...
Of course, dealing with Unicode text has so many headaches that the actual encoding is just the starter. Don't get me started on combination and marks, and whether an accented character is one character or two...
AHSauge
that i am trired of people like you?
surely PHP breaks BC here and there, but there is no code that i have wirtten in my whole life which wasn't easily to even port to native 7.1 with type-hints, return-types and nullable-return-types in strict-mode
So because it's easy for you, it can not possibly ever be a problem at all, right?
In PHP 8 mbstring.func_overload will be dropped completely. It's not out of the blue, and I'd say it's a good move. However, do you think it will be easy for people relying on this to port it to PHP8?
which is bullshit, espcially now that there is an native upercase ß
Bull shit? Do you know what you're talking about? Case folding is very much a thing, and it's not the same as lower case.
The ß was just an example. There are plenty of others.
and because it's a minefield it's not as easy as you think "just support native UTF8 and be done" without either large and often subtle BC breaks or a dramatic performance dropdown and so again: other than python 2/3 it was just a no brainer to bring some hundret thousands line of code to PHP 7.3 in full strict mode without any single warning in production for a ton of runnign instanes, if you don't like PHP just use somthing else but creep way with your "let me guess" bullshit - PHP6 didn't work out that well for good reasons
For starters, I've never said PHP need or should support UTF-8 natively. What I've said is that PHP should have had Unicode support ages ago.
Second, PHP 6 failed due to lack of competence and interest. When you have a single digit number of people who fully understand Unicode, i18n and l10n, you're not exactly set up for success when you're trying to do massive changes to a language all at once. All the people who are used to ISO 8859-1 / Latin1 working well, isn't going to have any particular interest in working on it. As one of the developer put it, there was a lack of mind share. Basically, the ones who understood got bored of trying to explain to and push the people that don't understand into doing the necessary work. It all grinned to a halt.
That statement makes no sense. Either string functions support the encoding used or not. And PHP's normal string functions do not. The mb_ functions however do.
It makes every bit of sense. It's just that you don't understand what UTF-8 is.
UTF-8 was designed to be fully backwards compatible with ASCII. Anything that can handle ASCII can also handle UTF-8. There are no extra null bytes that will break you program, and all characters consist of a sequence of bytes that are unique. If you look for a byte that is 0x41, you will always and only find the letter 'A'. No other character in UTF-8 consist of that byte. So as long as you know how to handle ASCII, you can handle UTF-8 as well. If your ASCII program tries to split a string at the first letter 'A', it will do so successfully and both strings you're left with will still be valid UTF-8. The only operation that won't give you a valid result is strlen as it will give you the number of bytes, not character. Aside from that, any ASCII string is automatically valid UTF-8, and any UTF-8 string consisting of only single byte characters (0x00-0x7F) is automatically valid ASCII.
Extended ASCII on the other hand, that's where the trouble starts. UTF-8 is certainly not compatible with that as it's based upon multi byte characters having the 8th bit set.
Variable length encoding is not a PITA at all. It's easy to deal with, needs no special BOM, is byte order agnostic.
You lose random access. If you think scanning the string every time you want to use a length is not PITA, then... yeah, I don't know what to say really...
BOM is not trouble at all. You read it and convert it into your native byte order. Depending on the platform you're on, there's even hardware support for that operation so you don't even lose any significant performance.
No, I get the feeling you're the one not knowing what you're talking about. Yes, UTF-16 is variable length, but that doesn't mean you always have to deal with it that way. If you know your string doesn't contain surrogates, you can assume constant length and gain constant random access again. For the wast majority of the processing any UTF-16 code will ever do, it will be dealing with strings without surrogates.
Another approach is to be an ignorant and implement UTF-16 for Unicode 3.0. At that point, Unicode didn't contain enough characters to cover more than 16 bits.
Luckily in Linux land we didn't make the same mistake as Microsoft did with their Windows APIs, C# or Sun did with Java.
That's quite an ignorant statement. When Microsoft and Sun did their work, Unicode was 16 bits and thus UTF-16 could falsely be assumed to be a fixed sized encoding. I mean, technically they didn't even go for UTF-16, but UCS-2.
Last edited by AHSauge; 03-31-2019, 05:34 AM. Reason: Stupid typos
xnor
Originally posted by AHSauge View Post
LOL, followed by a bunch of wrong statements. Dunning-Kruger, eh? xD
Anything that can handle ASCII can also handle UTF-8.
Use a single-byte substr() function on an UTF-8 encoded string and it will happily chop off your string at any byte. You do understand why that is a problem, or do YOU not understand what UTF-8 is?
There are no extra null bytes that will break you program, and all characters consist of a sequence of bytes that are unique. If you look for a byte that is 0x41, you will always and only find the letter 'A'. No other character in UTF-8 consist of that byte. So as long as you know how to handle ASCII, you can handle UTF-8 as well. If your ASCII program tries to split a string at the first letter 'A', it will do so successfully and both strings you're left with will still be valid UTF-8. The only operation that won't give you a valid result is strlen as it will give you the number of bytes, not character. Aside from that, any ASCII string is automatically valid UTF-8, and any UTF-8 string consisting of only single byte characters (0x00-0x7F) is automatically valid ASCII.
Sure, there is some compatibility. Thank you for making my case for UTF-8.
Thank you for teaching grandma how to suck eggs.
If you think scanning the string every time you want to use a length is not PITA, then... yeah, I don't know what to say really...
You mean like strlen() does anyway, that is scanning the entire string counting the number of bytes?
Here's what you should say to yourself: "I'm clueless".
What do you want to count? The number of code points? Code units? Abstract characters? Encoded characters? User-perceived characters? Grapheme clusters? Glyphs?
The thing is that if you know what you're doing then this is not a problem. And UTF-16 doesn't improve anything here.
Also, in my many years working as a software developer I've very rarely needed to count string length (that is any of the above and not number of bytes), but that's probably because I'm not wasting my time on painting websites or doing boring input validation.
BOM is not trouble at all.
It is in fact a huge trouble. You again don't know what you're talking about.
Even today there are still many applications that do not handle BOMs properly. It's one of the reasons why UTF-16 should be considered dangerous on the web ... and it's also one of the reasons why the majority of the web is UTF-8.
No, I get the feeling you're the one not knowing what you're talking about. Yes, UTF-16 is variable length, but that doesn't mean you always have to deal with it that way.
That's quite an ignorant statement.
They consciously went for an encoding that not only completely broke backwards compatibility, they also knew that it was limited to 65,536 characters.
It just adds to the tragedy that UTF-8 had been developed only 2 years after UCS-2, still a few years before Java was published.
Last edited by xnor; 03-31-2019, 07:29 AM.
Originally posted by linner View Post
As a security researcher this is going to be awesome. Don't get me wrong, I write PHP all the time for my own sites. it's way better than the Perl stuff everything was originally (huge Perl fan BTW). However, PHP is not known for correctness and security and JIT adds a whole new dimension of exploits.
If you're wondering, on sites I need to be correct, fast, and secure I use C/C++ and sometimes Lua(JIT). Everything else though, general use, I use PHP. I think Go/Rust are OK but they don't offer anything I can't get from traditional very well proven methods.
If you like Perl, you might want to look into Ruby, it is inspired by Ruby and it is my understanding that it is popular among Perl and ex-Perl programmers. Me myself, I like neither Perl or Ruby though.
C and C++ are not so suitable languages for web sites, and you have to bother with lots of low level such as freeing used memory. It is much better to use a modern garbage-collected language suited for web development such as Python, C# or Go.
Let me guess: Still no native support for Unicode?
It's beginning to be a bit too stupid. This is a standard from the early 90's, and this joke of a language hasn't succeeded in including support.
PHP does have Unicode support, but I've had problems with it because there is UTF-8 and UTF-8 with BOM. So if you happen to save it as UTF-8 with BOM then PHP chokes saying that the first statement must be a namespace declaration.
Originally posted by AJenbo View Post
PHP defaults to UTF-8 and as long as you use the mb_* extension you should be pretty set.
Yes, but it has problems handling UTF-8 with BOM.
So if you accidentally save the file as UTF-8 with BOM then PHP chokes and outputs a confusing error message about the first statement must be a namespace declaration.
Originally posted by Chugworth View Post
People tend to think of PHP as a language for web development, but I use PHP for a lot of scripting work in Linux and it works very well for that. I tend to prefer its syntax over Python, and their website has very good documentation.
Yes, you can use PHP for CLI and scripting too. I've done so.
Python has the advantage of being installed by default though. Python also have a cleaner API that is more consistent and doesn't return -1 and such. Python is also arguably more object oriented as even strings are objects which have methods on them.
Python has its things I don't like though, such as class methods having to declare self as argument, and the distinction between class instance variables/properties an static properties are confusing.
Well, you can write everything from cli up to Honeypot servers in PHP and it just works
people likely don't know anything expect they read 10 years ago and that's it in their stubborn mind
Well you can write most things in most languages. But some languages are less suited for some things.
PHP can't do asynchronous operations, and is not suited for things like WebSockets and Server-Sent Events.
Originally posted by DoMiNeLa10 View Post
WordPress keeps PHP afloat so it is very important that any change in PHP does not break backwards compatibility with WordPress.
Riight, because you're obvious an expert...
You are wrong here, and it shows how blatant ignorant you are about how UTF-8 works. Seeing as I'm supposable wrong here. Could you give me an example? Where does it break?
Also, in my many years working as a software developer I've very rarely needed to count string length (that is any of the above and not number of bytes), but that's probably because I'm not painting websites or doing boring input validation.
The answer is obviously counting bananas
Seriously though, if you say you rarely have needed to count string length, then I guess you've stayed away from all functions depending on the length as well? I've been developing for well over 10 years now. Knowing the length of a string is a quite common issue. You might not be directly exposed to it, but functions you are using sure needs to know it.
Riiiiight. UTF-16...dangerous...suuure...and I suppose you don't see any security issues with UTF-8 what so ever, right? Security issues due to non-shortest form in UTF-8 encoded strings, does not exist, right?
As for the web, don't kid yourself. The web uses UTF-8 because it's ASCII compatible and consequently also offers Unicode for western languages without requiring significantly more bandwidth. Why would an English-only website double the size of it's websites for absolutely no gain?
Some trivia for you: The python implementation of Unicode switches between ISO 8859-1 / Latin1, UCS-2 and UCS-4 depending on the string. The benefit? You always have constant random access and know number of Unicode code points.
It just adds to the tragedy that UTF-8 had been developed only 2 years later, still a few years before Java was published.
So they should have had a magic crystal ball so they could see that the Unicode consortium would add stuff exceeding 16 bits in the future. Is that your point here?
Seeing as you're so pro-UTF-8 here. Can you name a programming language or framework that internally uses UTF-8 for string handling?
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St. Moritz has a major goal
THE MOST SUSTAINABLE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP IN SNOW MANAGEMENT
Sustainability has long been the name of the game in St. Moritz. Yet for the FIS Alpine Ski World Championships 2017, operator Engadin St. Moritz Mountains AG has set itself an even more ambitious goal: the major sporting event in February 2017 is to go down in the history books as the "most sustainable world championship in snow management". There's already been a lot going on in advance of the event. We at Kässbohrer are right in the thick of it too with a variety of products.
The most eco-friendly PistenBully fleet
As a Swiss "Energiestadt" (energy city), St. Moritz is no stranger to setting standards - and all new projects nowadays are rigorously reviewed in terms of energy efficiency and sustainability. This obligation is also reflected in winter sports. It all started back in 2008 with the bid to host the Alpine Ski World Championships. Since they were successful, all decisions relating to the major event have been taken with a focus on sustainability and environmental protection. Engadin St. Moritz Mountains AG has raised the bar, by becoming the first ski resort to retrofit, or buy new, all its vehicles with diesel particle filters. Thus, the whole PistenBully fleet for the World Championships is equipped both with emission-reducing SCR technology and with particle filters. Three PistenBully 600 E+ will also be in use in time for the event. And finally, the whole fleet will be fitted with SNOWsat for the World Championships as well. In brief - the most eco-friendly fleet imaginable.
SNOWsat and the PRO ACADEMY optimising snow management
An eco-friendly approach also has enormous potential: efficient snow grooming, environmentally friendly driving and effective snow management can save more money and resources than you might think. That's where Adrian Mattli and Florian Profanter come in, respectively our Swiss expert in all SNOWsat matters, and our specialist for efficient and economical snow management from the PRO ACADEMY. Their job in St. Moritz: to provide active guidance and support, as requested by Adrian Jordan, Head of Technology COO at Engadin St. Moritz Mountains AG, as the resort pursues its goal of delivering the most sustainable World Championships in history. Florian Profanter from the PRO ACADEMY demonstrates how and under what conditions our PistenBully are most eco-friendly. And explains the difference this makes in comparison to the previous approach. In parallel to this, Adrian Mattli analyses the optimisation potential based on the data from last season. SNOWsat enables a resort to define precise snow volumes on sections of the slopes and then to target snow production where it's needed. This means the natural snow is always taken into account. Based on the optimisation proposal, Reto Bieri (Head of Slopes and Snow Production) is convinced that 20 % of the water used to produce snow last season can be saved. And he says that with good reason, because the optimisation steps with SNOWsat are based on real data.
Clear specifications are essential
The idea of the most sustainable World Championships is being driven by Adrian Jordan. It has also fallen to him, together with his management colleagues, to define the desired specifications. Whether, for example, the emphasis would be on rapid work to keep personnel costs down, or whether they wanted to focus on an eco-friendly working method. These are significant parameters for our experts: fast speed means high revs means high consumption - and vice versa. Indeed, as Florian Profanter explains, there is also considerable saving potential in optimising the drive strategy - i. e. less fuel consumption and lower emissions - and of course lower costs here as well as a result.
Sustainability as a philosophy
All the optimisation proposals were put on paper over this summer and presented to Engadin St. Moritz Mountains AG. Along with Adrian Jordan's ideas, this resulted in a joint strategy that all participants could follow. Yet it's more than a strategy - it's becoming a philosophy, a management tool. Adrian Jordan knows that his goal can only be successfully implemented if all employees are fully convinced of his vision in line with the motto for the 2017 World Championships "Live the Future". If the drivers can be sure that it's not just about pure time, but rather about their driving style. They too must remember what it's all about.
The figures speak for themselves
The target-actual comparison, which Adrian Mattli and Florian Profanter have now created and presented, is truly impressive. "The figures speak for themselves", says Adrian Jordan. "And the PistenBully people have conclusively shown us that we will actually achieve the indicated savings in resources and money." Now it's all about intensive training - on the PC just as much as on the slope - making sure all the drivers are not just trained in the techniques, but are also enthusiastic about the idea of the most sustainable World Championships. We are raring to go! The World Championships 2017 can begin.
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Home Explore Our Thinking The war for diverse talen…
The war for diverse talent
October 5, 2015 Blog 1 min read
It’s a new recruiting season, which has me thinking a lot about diversity — something that’s very important to our firm.
When we look at the staff in our office, we strive to reflect our communities and the clients we serve. But that isn’t always easy.
Diversity challenges in the accounting profession start early. The pool of diverse candidates seeking a career in public accounting is small and has created a real war for talent. We realized that we needed to take the initiative to overcome this obstacle, so we developed an internship program that’s helping us do just that: we call it Track.
Track is a six-week program designed for multicultural college freshman and sophomores. It offers students a snapshot of life at a public accounting firm by shadowing partners and staff and rotating through various practice groups.
Track introduces students to business and public accounting early in their college careers — when they’re just starting to figure out what they want to do. The program allows us to connect with students and engage them much earlier than in the past.
Jalen Garrett of Plante Moran Financial Advisors (PMFA) is one of Track’s first participants and success stories. Jalen tells us that, through Track, he had the opportunity to interact, seek advice, and learn from the firm’s staff and partners — which gave him a clear picture of what a career at Plante Moran would look like. It was a place where he could picture himself.
After participating in the Track program, completing a traditional internship, and graduating from MSU, Jalen was offered full-time employment with PMFA in 2014.
And Jalen isn’t our only success story. After years of laying the groundwork, Track is making a difference. Five years ago Track started in our Southfield office as a pilot program for two college sophomores. Because of Track, Plante Moran has hired a number of full-time, diverse staff members and interns across Southeast Michigan, Grand Rapids, and Chicago, with expansion plans into Ohio over the next couple of years.
I think it’s important that organizations don’t let the competition for diverse talent discourage them but, instead, look at it as a motivator to become more strategic when recruiting, put more focus around onboarding, and increase their commitment to retention.
What’s your organization doing to promote and retain diverse talent?
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About- Nik Heimach
Nik Heimach
A life enthusiast with a pension for cultural critique and getting caught in the rain, Nik is part scribe, part superhero. In addition to a variety of writings and lifesaving, Nik makes videos, reads comic books and globe trots his way closer to answering the enigmas of life. Spoiler alert: there will be spoiler alerts.
Posts By Nik Heimach
Pop Culture Week In Review: June 28 – July 4
July 4, 2014 | Nik Heimach
Happy Birthday, ‘Murcia! It’s July 4th, and to help celebrate your independence from high taxes, a farce of a representative government and a society ruled by the rich elite (…wait), catch up on this week’s pop culture happens so you can uncomfortably discuss wuddup with drunk people as you grill! CUZ ‘MURICCAAAAA!
Pop Culture Week In Review 6/13 – 6/20
June 20, 2014 | Nik Heimach
Ok. Let’s Go.
May 30, 2014 | Nik Heimach
Oh, what a week. Things happened, man. Believe me. Things.
Not good enough for you? Fine. Then taste this cornucopia of pop culture…things, and be satiated, glutton.
Pop Culture WIR: 4/18 – 4/25 |Shakespeare’s Birthday
April 25, 2014 | Nik Heimach
In honor of Shakespeare’s 450th birthday, the following Pop Culture Review was written in what this author assumes is traditional Shakespearian iambic pentameter. “Couldn’t you just spend 5-10 minutes and … Read More
General TopicsPop Culture
Pop Culture Week In Review | TRAILERPALOOZA!
March 31, 2014 | Nik Heimach
Spring must certainly be in the air, because this week two companies did that sexy dance and got together, toasting a fresh start with pop culture hormones abounding.
Then again, it must still be winter, because celebrities ended their copulations, … Read More
Lost Retrospective | Looking Back On The Series Ten Years Later
Ten years ago, 18.6 million people flipped the channel to ABC for the first ever episode of Lost. From the still unknown J.J. Abrams (when Alias was the only noteworthy credit to his name), no one really knew what to … Read More
Pop Culture Week In Review 2/21 – 2/28 | Heroes Reborn
February 28, 2014 | Nik Heimach
Here we are again, Pop Culture Week In Review. I love/hate writing these because, unlike feature stories, they’re completely reactionary. Any color added is thanks to what’s happening throughout the week, not some predetermined idea or narrative. It’s simultaneously exciting and frustrating not knowing what you’re going to be writing about until the picture becomes clearer the closer a deadline gets, but if nothing else, it’s unique.
Like the beers we review, sometimes it’s refined, and other times it falls flat. Who knows how this one will go; all I’ve got is a few ingredients. Let’s see how well they sit. Read More
Pop Culture Week In Review Feb. 1 – 7
February 7, 2014 | Nik Heimach
A wise man once said, “All substances lower the quality of your writing, but heighten your opinion of it.”* If that’s the case, by the time I finish this article, I’ll swear it’s my magnum opus.
Not from anything illegal, mind you, but from that most auspicious of beverages: beer. That’s what you get when PorchDrinking.com founder Tristan Chan shows up in your city and hops from brewery to brewery with you in tow. It’s when you get to taste brews named “Clown Tears,” “Quaff on Hare Trigger” and “Kono Koko blablabla”** while sharing conversations and laughs with a group of people you just met. But I can’t think of a better way to end my PorchDrinking hiatus than with a night like that.
Pop Culture Week in Review 11/1 – 11/8
November 8, 2013 | Nik Heimach
Usually when we start a Week in Review with, “this has been a slow week for pop culture,” it’s not entirely true. It’s a lament to a slow week for bombastic mainstream news. No, this doesn’t mean I’m putting on the hipster glasses, it just means there’s been a lot of niche news. While that’s the case this week, there was one megabust that dropped: Blockbuster is dead, long live Blockbuster. This time, it’s more than just a flesh-wound.
Top 10 Best Horror Movies
October 31, 2013 | Nik Heimach 3
Horror movies belong to the most polarizing class of all moviemaking. Action blockbusters, romantic comedies and historical biopics all sell tickets and garner critical acclaim, but the horror genre brings about as much disdain and avoidance as it does obsession and fandom. It’s the bastard step-child of the Greek tragedy, offering up a kind of storytelling far beyond the traditional good guy wins, bad guy loses mentality.
Pop Culture Week in Review 10/4 – 10/11
October 11, 2013 | Nik Heimach
October is such a wild month. In all regards, it starts with relative ease. Only a slight chill to the weather, only a budding budget squabble in Washington, only flowery decorations on your neighbors porch. But the deeper we fall down October’s rabbit hole, the more madness consumes us. I’m talking about fall frosts, a government shutting down, and terrifying(ly awful) cotton cobwebs and sheet-ghosts on every corner. But hey, at least our popular culture is safe. It’s not like we’re slowly marching to a holiday that metaphorically AND literally celebrates this horror, one that completely consumes the collective culture of everything pop and pulp. Oh, wait.
September 20, 2013 | Nik Heimach
Fall is upon us, porch drinkers, and with it the annual onslaught of new TV shows. This week kicked off with Sleepy Hollow, Dads and Brooklyn Nine-Nine all airing their respective pilots with various degrees of critical success. The general … Read More
Blurred Lines: The Uneasy Relationship Between Sex and Pop Culture
September 5, 2013 | Nik Heimach 4
Sex and pop culture are two of the most easily discernible, yet confounding of all foundational aspects in American society. The counterculture boom of the 60’s and 70’s radiated sex, drugs and rock and roll, opening up entire publics to … Read More
August 23, 2013 | Nik Heimach
J.J. Abrams riddles the internet, a cavalcade of actor/actress project news, and two industry vets died this week. Oh, and huge Batman news. Let’s get right to it.
J.J. Abrams, transcendent being of mysterious mysteries that he is, kicked off … Read More
Pop Culture Week In Review July 19-26
July 26, 2013 | Nik Heimach
So far, this summer has knocked it out of the park with pop culture happenings. If there’s one theme permeating the pieces from various pop culture writers here at PorchDrinking, it is, in a word, SOMUCHNEWSANDCOOLSTUFFNOMG. And then Comic-Con 2013 … Read More
Art of the Box Office Flop
July 11, 2013 | Nik Heimach 4
The Lone Ranger cost $215 million to make. Directed by Gore Verbinski, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and a hammer, Disney was positive its investment into the once established franchise would yield a lucrative return. But after opening night, The Lone Ranger only raked in $9.7 million. Ruh-roh, Silver.
Pop Culture Review 6/8 – 6/14
Content Warning: If you fancy yourself only the most modest connoisseur of media and pop culture, the following may be an inappropriate consumption for you. This week showcased some of the most in-depth news of the year, distinguished not only by its content, but the elaborate multiplicity consternating the ramifications necessary to comprehend. If you choose to read, the choice may irrevocably extinguish the inexhaustible, visa vi, your pop culture conscious. Ergo, the paradox of choice: causality. Concordantly. A priori? I don’t have a job.
Pop Culture Week in Review: 5/24 – 5/31
May 31, 2013 | Nik Heimach 4
School’s out for summer. Summertime. The boys of summer. Summer girls. Summer love. Summer breeze. Those summer…niiiiIIGGHHTTSS!
Whether you’re enjoying time off between semesters, a break from work, or stuck in the special kind of hell that is a 62º office when it’s beautiful outside, there’s no doubt the dog days are here at last. In any case, stay awhile and get acquainted with the pop culture news and previews you’ve been missing.
Have you ever read one of our Pop Culture Week In Reviews and thought, “Hey, that wasn’t a review. Where’s the criticism and acclaim? The judging and gauging? The hoopla and hollering?” Well, I have, dear reader. Late last night, whilst perusing the dark corners of the internet for my secret pop culture sources, I realized you probably finish these articles with an air of contempt. “This is garbage, I wasn’t told what to think!” you say, contemptibly.
Lucky for you, I care, and while we usually pepper in our opinions with implicative subtext, today is not that day. So here’s me, actually reviewing the most notable pop culture news and happenings of the week.
Five Apps That Will Take Over 2013
If you own a smartphone, the first thing you probably noticed is how little you knew about smartphones. They are, after all, the pinnacle of communicative advancement, our gateway into a larger, interconnected world.
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U.S. pig farmers part of a cohesive, diverse business
Mike Skahill, Vice President of Government Affairs for Smithfield Foods
By Mike Skahill, Vice President of Government Affairs for Smithfield Foods
U.S. pig farmers are part of a unique business that knows few boundaries, geographic and otherwise. At the recent World Meat Congress in Dallas, Texas, that message was loud and clear.
It is simply an awesome opportunity to attend such an event that showcases the diversity of the industry. Representatives from farms, governments and companies that do everything from raise pigs to produce and market products such as hams, sausage, and fresh pork cuts were represented. It was a chance to network with more than 700 people from around the world representing the gamut of the industry responsible for sustaining a critical food source for billions of people around the world, not to mention showcase the quality, wholesomeness and safety of U.S. pork.
The pork industry’s diversity was no more apparent than when top-level members of governments of the U.S., Canada and Mexico spoke from the same podium to speak to the shared ambition of continuing to sustain a safe and wholesome supply of pork around the world.
To me, from my tenure at Smithfield, that starts at the farm level with a simple strategy: being responsible. Doing the right thing to raise healthy pigs is the foundation of the entire industry, and it all boils down to responsibility. Raising pigs in modern barns with the latest technology, for example, helps farmers better care for their animals. Beyond being the responsible thing to do, it’s also critical to sustaining access to pork-hungry consumers around the world – starting on our farms and running throughout our entire supply chain.
Part of pig farmers’ responsibility also comes through innovation, something that’s been central to Smithfield’s operations for years. A culture of innovation is important to us, and adopting the latest technology to raise pigs is one strategy that fits in with the ethic of responsible production that is key to both our company and the entire industry.
Though farm-level innovation is critical to sustaining the role of U.S. pork around the world, so too is the same spirited innovation in other sectors of the industry like medicine. We established our Smithfield Bioscience unit last year to find new ways to leverage pigs and porcine products to aid human health through tissue engineering and muscle repair, for example. Though the technology is advanced, the same ethic of responsibility remains, and it’s a growing part of an industry that shares the drive to do the right, responsible thing in meeting growing and diversifying consumer demands around the world.
Across the spectrum, whether you’re a small, medium or large farmer, you should feel proud to be part of such a cohesive industry. We should be proud of how unified we are in our goal of responsibly producing animals. Animal husbandry is important to every farmer regardless of his or her size, and it’s heartening to know that singular focus runs through our industry so strongly.
Though the hog industry is not without its challenges, events like the World Meat Congress show that while we are part of an extremely diverse business, we are at the same time part of a cohesive group of men and women committed to the goal of responsibly raising pigs and meeting our population’s growing needs.
Blog Mike Skahill WMC World Meat Congress
Esse quam videri:
Higher exports for all meat proteins in April offer a demand boost but also underscore threat from possible trade disruptions
Types Of Pig Farming In The U.S.
Pork 2040 RFP: Understanding the International Marketplace
Six Takeaways from FoodFluence 2018
Latin American Product Showcase Connects Buyers and Sellers of U.S. Pork
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Sen. Cory Gardner says he ‘won’t block’ CORE Act
David O. Williams
Special to the Vail Daily
Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., is facing pressure to get behind the CORE Act, which was introduced in late January by Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet and Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse.
Hugh Carey / hcarey@summitdaily.com
Facing a full-court press from area elected officials and conservation groups to back the CORE Act and protect large swaths of Colorado wilderness, U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner contends the legislation — despite a decade of negotiation — is not yet ready for primetime.
Gardner has been taking some heat for not sponsoring any major wilderness legislation since taking office in 2014 and for failing to include some form of wilderness protection in the Natural Resources Management Act, now known as the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act after President Donald Trump signed it into law March 12.
The CORE Act, or the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act, was introduced by Sen. Michael Bennet and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse — the congressman whose district includes Vail — on Jan. 25.
It combines four previous bills, including the Continental Divide Recreation, Wilderness and Camp Hale Legacy Act, protecting 400,000 total acres and 73,000 acres as new wilderness.
It also includes reintroduction of the Thompson Divide Withdrawal and Protection Act which covers parts of western Pitkin County and crosses into Garfield and Delta counties.
That proposal seeks to withdraw remaining gas leases in the area west of Carbondale and permanently close off 200,000 acres to future oil and gas leasing.
“The Department of Defense has issues with the Camp Hale piece of the bill,” Gardner spokesman Jerrod Dobkin told the Vail Daily on Tuesday. “Sen. Gardner has never blocked the bill from moving forward and Sen. Gardner does not determine what bills come before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee for a hearing.”
‘Any concerns can be worked out’
Proponents of the CORE Act contend that any issues with creating the first-of-its-kind National Historic Landscape designation for Camp Hale, forever protecting the home of the famed 10th Mountain Division, can be worked out with the Department of Defense in a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Gardner serves on.
Eagle County Commissioner Kathy Chandler-Henry met with Gardner and his staff in Washington while attending a National Association of Counties meeting earlier this month. She was joined by San Miguel County Commissioner Hilary Cooper and Gunnison County Commissioner Jonathan Houck.
“Gardner’s position currently is that he ‘won’t block’ (CORE Act) legislation but has some outstanding concerns,” Chandler-Henry said. “Grazing issues on the San Juan raised by the Farm Bureau, some pullback from Garfield County on support for Thompson Divide, and some questions from the Department of Defense on Camp Hale.
“We pointed out that the many stakeholder groups in all the affected counties support the bill,” she added. The commissioners later met with Bennet’s staff.
“They are actively working with the DOD to make sure the cleanup works well between the Forest Service and Army Corps of Engineers (at Camp Hale),” Chandler-Henry said. “As the bill works its way through committee and comments, any concerns can be worked out.”
While Gardner is the only Colorado senator who hasn’t sponsored any major wilderness legislation since the Wilderness Act first passed in 1964, including all of his Republican predecessors, he has been praised for his role in reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund and resolving key local public lands issues such as Bolts Lake near Minturn.
“We’re hopeful that Sen. Gardner changes his stance from neutral to supporter (on the CORE Act), as his support will be very helpful to getting the bill heard in committee,” Chandler-Henry said.
Campaign of misinformation
While special recreational designations have been included in the CORE Act, protecting mechanized travel such as snowmobiling in certain areas, some motorized recreation groups have been grumbling about the legislation lately.
Letters to the editor in the Vail Daily and other papers claimed major motorized use restrictions, but were later corrected or removed.
One of the letters, still posted on the Durango Herald website, was debunked by another letter writer.
“The CORE Act enjoys the support of hundreds of community businesses, recreational user groups and local governments. It would have a negligible impact on motorized users, closing no roads or trails that are currently open,” said Scott Braden, wilderness and public lands advocate for Conservation Colorado.
“For a few motorized users to come out in opposition isn’t a surprise, but it is surprising to see them resort to false claims about the CORE Act to agitate their base and try to prevent Sen. Gardner from supporting it.”
Scott Jones serves as president of the Colorado Snowmobile Association, vice president of the Colorado Off-Highway Vehicle Coalition and is an authorized representative of the Trail Preservation Alliance.
Jones said he has not been included in CORE Act discussions or previous versions of the bill, such as the Continental Divide Recreation, Wilderness and Camp Hale Legacy Act, and wants to see motorized travel preserved in writing in the legislation.
“Camp Hale is open currently, and that’s one of the things throughout this piece of legislation we’re being told is that, ‘Oh well, you know, you get access to this,’” Jones said. “Well, we’ve already got access to it; that’s not a win for us. Why don’t we just clarify that in the legislation?”
Jones argues that, over time, as the state’s population continues to boom, it may be necessary to expand trails for motorized use.
“That’s what we’re concerned about from a long-term perspective is if we’re locking up everything, where do people go? You can only put so many people on the trail and we’re way above the national average for that issue already and we may actually have to expand our trail networks someplace,” Jones added. “Let’s have a discussion.”
Bennet’s office contends many different outdoor recreation groups have been included in the negotiations over the CORE Act, including motorized users.
“The CORE Act has broad support, and we look forward to working with the relevant committees to move this bill forward in Congress,” a Bennet spokeswoman said.
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Plasma Protein Therapies
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PlasmaProteins Primary immunodeficiencies (PI) are severe, chronic conditions that prevent immune systems from functioning properly. Each year, more than 130 #plasma donations are needed to treat just one person #LivingWithPI . bit.ly/2QF6N1B pic.twitter.com/FuDxI2jWOU
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2018 Plasma Protein Forum Highlights
Opening Session: Jan M. Bult, President and CEO of PPTA, opened the 2018 Plasma Protein Forum by welcoming attendees to Washington, DC. He then introduced the “How Is Your Day?” campaign to PPTA’s North America audience, highlighting the campaign’s goals and purpose. Mr. Bult acknowledged attendees living with rare diseases who have offered testimonials in support of the campaign – Tim Frost, Ed Burke, Chris Templin, and Terry Halper.
Chairman’s Welcome: David Bell, Chairman of the PPTA Global Board of Directors and Chief Innovation Officer, Grifols S.A., welcomed attendees and reiterated PPTA’s mission – to promote the availability of and access to safe and effective plasma protein therapeutics for all patients in the world. He then invited Jan M. Bult to the podium to receive PPTA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his decades of service to PPTA and its industry members. Upon receiving the award, Mr. Bult noted his appreciation to the Global Board of Directors and offered gratitude to the entire PPTA staff for their work in support of PPTA’s mission.
Session One featured Anthony Castaldo (President, U.S. Hereditary Angioedema Association), Joanna Chorostowska-Wynimko, MD, PhD (Scientific Director, National Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases, Warsaw, Poland), and Professor Paolo Caraceni (Associate Professor, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy). Panelists provided their perspectives on the importance of access to care for patients who rely on plasma protein therapies to treat their diseases and the burden of disease each faces.
Session Two provided an opportunity for speakers to discuss issues related to regulatory initiatives focused on inspections and donor health. PPF attendees heard from – and asked questions of – Ginette Y. Michaud, M.D. (Director, Office of Biological Products Operations, U.S. Food & Drug Administration), Toby L. Simon, M.D. (Senior Medical Director, Plasma & Plasma Safety, CSL Plasma), and George B. Schreiber, Sc.D. (Director, Epidemiology, Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association).
Session Three addressed international access to plasma protein therapies. Professor Martin van Hagen, M.D., Ph.D. (Head, Clinical Immunology Unit Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands), opened the session by discussing whether personalized medicine is a national issue or if it is a cross-border, international focus area. Dr. Ranjeet S. Ajmani (CEO, PlasmaGen BioSciences PVt. Ltd.) and Antonio Condino-Neto, M.D., Ph.D. (President, Latin American Society for Immunodeficiencies) addressed challenges and opportunities to improving access to care in India and Brazil, respectively.
Dr. Otto Schwarz Award: David Bell, Chairman of the PPTA Global Board of Directors, presented the 2018 Dr. Otto Schwarz Award to Mr. Shinji Wada, Vice President, Japanese Affairs, Grifols S.A. The Dr. Otto Schwarz Award is presented only to those individuals whose efforts and commitment have significantly advanced the plasma protein therapeutics industry. PPTA congratulates Mr. Wada on this greatly deserved recognition.
Day One closed with a presentation from Dr. Alvin Roth, Ph.D., Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics, Stanford University; George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration Emeritus, Harvard University; and 2012 recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. As a signatory to “Donation Ethics: Ethicists and Economists for Ethical Donation-Compensation Practices,” Dr. Roth argued strongly in favor of the ethics of compensation for plasma donation.
Day Two of the Plasma Protein Forum began with an update on PPTA’s Source Division activities over the past year by Roger Brinser, Chairman of the PPTA Source Board of Directors and Director, Regulatory, BioLife Plasma Services/Shire. Mr. Brinser offered highlights from the Source Board of Directors and from PPTA committees whose efforts impact the collection of source plasma.
Session One focused on challenges impacting the collection of source plasma, including the perception of donor compensation and donor health. The session also included a discussion about plasma management in China. The session’s speakers were Nicola Lacetera, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, University of Toronto), Prof. Dr. Liu Zhong (Vice President, Institute of Blood Transfusion, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences), and Chen Bin (Deputy Director, Medical Safety and Transfusion Division, Department of Medical Regulatory and Management, National Health Commission).
Session Two, the final session of the 2018 Plasma Protein Forum, focused on issues regarding national and global self-sufficiency and included comments from Bill Bees (Vice President, Plasma Technologies, Prometic Plasma Resources), Peter Jaworski, Ph.D. (Professor, Georgetown University), and Joshua Penrod, J.D., Ph.D. (Vice President, Source & International Affairs, PPTA).
See you June 18-19 in Reston, Virginia, for the 2019 Plasma Protein Forum!
PPTA News
Immunoglobulin Access +
Recently, several media outlets have reported on access issues regarding immunoglobulin (Ig) therapies relied on by people living with primary immunodeficiencies.1, 2, 3 The Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association (PPTA) represents the private collectors of plasma and the manufacturers of plasma-derived therapies that treat rare, serious, genetic, and — in many cases — life-threatening diseases caused by missing or nonfunctioning proteins typically found in plasma.
PPTA Responds to New York Times Article +
On February 1, The New York Times published an article that lacked balance in its portrayal of Source plasma donors. Plasma donors, including Jacqueline Watson, Kevin Hayway, and Robert Jenkins, all of whom are discussed in the article, deserve our deepest respect, gratitude, and appreciation, not negative characterizations and insinuation.
PPTA Names Amy Efantis President & CEO +
Annapolis, MD (January 14, 2019) -- The Board of Directors of the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association (PPTA) announced today that Amy Efantis will be its next President and Chief Executive Officer effective January 16, 2019.
Having served most recently as Vice President, Global Public Policy & Government Affairs at Biogen, Efantis joins the PPTA, the world’s leading trade association that represents more than 750 human plasma collection centers in North America and Europe as well as the manufacturers of life-saving plasma protein therapies.
The Source, the international magazine of the plasma protein therapeutics industry, is published quarterly.
Subscribe to The Source
Learn more about the need for plasma donors, plasma donation, and how you can save and improve lives. Find a Donation Center.
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Study finds no long-term cognitive benefit to breastfeeding
Research confirms the truth.
By Livia Gamble
Breast is best, except for when it's not.
That said, the results of a new study found no difference in cognitive development between breastfed and bottle fed children.
“We weren’t able to find a direct causal link between breastfeeding and children’s cognitive outcomes,” study author Lisa-Christine Girard, a researcher at University College Dublin, told NPR.
The study, published in the journal Pediatrics on Monday, involved almost 8,000 children in Ireland who were born full-term. Researchers collected data measuring their vocabulary and cognitive skill at 9 months, three years and five years.
While children who were breastfed until at least six months appeared to be less hyperactive by three years old, this levelled out by the time they turned five.
Speaking to The Independent, Girard said previous research may have been influenced by socio-economic factors.
"There’s a certain profile of mothers in developed countries who engage in breastfeeding behaviour," she said. "So it’s important to tease that apart and understand the direct link - if there is one."
Girard added: "We didn’t find any statistically significant differences between children who were breastfed and those who weren’t, in terms of their cognitive ability and language.
“We did find a direct effect of breastfeeding on a reduction in hyperactive behaviours when the children were three years old. This wasn’t found at five years, suggesting there may be other factors that are more influential as children develop.”
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The Sun Mistake Men Make
What your guy can do to save his skin
By Stephanie Castillo
For as much as women are educated about sun care, you'd think that the men in their lives would pick up a tip or two. But, according to a survey from The Skin Cancer Foundation, they don't.
The survey, taken in 2012, measured men's knowledge of skin cancer and sun protection, where almost half of men in the United States admitted to not using sunscreen in the past 12 months. Seventy percent didn't even know what skin cancer warning signs to look for. As if that weren't alarming enough, men over the age of 50 are more than twice as likely to develop—and die—from melanoma.
Which is why The Skin Cancer Foundation and Energizer, the makers of Banana Boat and Hawaiian Tropic sunscreens, have teamed up to launch Sun Blunders—a campaign that helps men read up on their risk, as well as the rules of proper sun protection, just in time for summer.
The face of the campaign is LA Galaxy and Team USA soccer player Landon Donovan who not only spends an ample amount of time outside, but whose father has been diagnosed with skin cancer. "When The Skin Cancer Foundation approached me, it was sort of a no-brainer," says Donovan. "Cancer doesn't discriminate, and this campaign is a great way to teach guys it's OK to be smart about sun protection."
Men visiting the Sun Blunders wesite can click through an interactive map of outdoor venues they frequent—the basketball court, the nature trails, the golf course and their own front yard—and get facts on when to apply sunscreen, how much and how often. Then, users can take a quiz to test their new "sun smarts" and enter to win a 3-day trip to Key West, Fla. "We realize that most people aren't most excited to talk about skin cancer prevention," says Donovan. "It's sort of this macho culture, but Sun Blunders is fun and exciting and guys are receptive to it."
Outside of sunscreen, Joshua Zeichner, MD, a spokesperson for The Skin Cancer Foundation and assistant professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Medical Center, offers these sun safety tips for men and women alike.
Don't blame it on D "Most people say to me, 'I need the sun for my vitamin D.' It's true that sun is involved for the production of vitamin D in the body, but current recommendations from The Skin Cancer Foundation are to get D from diet and, if necessary, supplements," says Dr. Zeichner. (Find out the best foods for your source of D.)
Know what to look for "There are different types of skin cancer—non-melanoma and melanoma, to be broad. Subcategories of non-melanoma can include spots or scabs that frequently bleed or little shiny white bumps, like a little pearl," says Dr. Zeichner. "Melanoma is more of a dark spot." To help you better identify possibly cancerous moles, follow this warning sign checklist.
Get undressed For a total body skin check, that is. "A typical mole and melanoma can develop in between the toes, scalp and hidden areas, so it's important to have the entire body checked out for your annual total body skin check," says Dr. Zeichner. "If you notice a new mole between your skin checks, don't wait; get it checked out."
Be aware of peak hour The sun is really at its stronger from 10 in the morning to 4 PM, and you should seek shade as often as you can. If not, stay safe with broad spectrum SPF 30 and includes ingredients to protect against both UVB and UVA rays, like zinc, titanium and avobenzone, says Dr. Zeichner. "Avobenzone can cause some skin irritation or allergies in people, so if that's you, choose a brand specific for sensitive skin," he says. (Just be sure to steer clear of these six sunscreens.)
Cover up After SPF, consider clothing specifically labeled as UPF—ultraviolet protection factor, says Dr. Zeichner. Also, broad rimmed hats, sunglasses that have lenses labeled as broad spectrum UV protection, and, in some cases, gloves.
While most media outlets target women and sun care, men need to study up, too. "Just because sun protection is a part of women's interest in beauty doesn't mean men shouldn't follow the same rules. It's not infrequent for me to perform a total body check up and have my patient tell me his wife or girlfriend made him come," says Dr. Zeichner. "That's great."
More from Prevention: 15 Confusing Sunscreen Questions—Answered
Stephanie Castillo Stephanie Castillo is an assistant editor for Prevention.com.
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Leighton Contractors awarded Ichthys onshore LNG contract
admin, January 23, 2013 January 23, 2013 , Contracts and tenders awarded, LNG, News, Oil & gas, 0
Leighton Contractors’ Services Division has been awarded a four year, $280 million operations and maintenance contract by JKC Australia LNG (JKC) for the Temporary Site Facilities Works at Blaydin Point, Darwin, Northern Territory.
These works support the construction of the Ichthys Project onshore LNG facilities being delivered by JKC on behalf of the Ichthys Joint Venture.
Leighton Contractors, in partnership with Morris Corporation, will deliver operations and maintenance services for the temporary site facilities works. This includes servicing site temporary buildings, electrical and power distribution systems, temporary waste water treatment plant and pumping stations, warehouse and material control systems, fuel storage, roads, set down areas, fencing, lighting, cleaning services, wash down, quarantine areas and pest control.
Construction of the temporary site facilities works is currently being undertaken by Leighton Contractors’ Infrastructure Division.
Craig Laslett, Managing Director at Leighton Contractors, said the company was very proud to continue working with JKC to construct and maintain building works instrumental to the onshore LNG facilities.
“To be awarded another component on this major project demonstrates our ability to deliver total project solutions spanning every stage of the project life-cycle. It‟s also an excellent example of how our diverse capabilities deliver value to clients. The ability to transition smoothly from construction to operations and maintenance of these temporary facilities reduces risk and enables the rest of the construction operations on the site to progress.”
Michael Bushby, Executive General Manager at Leighton Contractors Services Division, said the company will draw on their strong experience in facility management and service delivery and look forward to working closely with to operate and maintain this vital infrastructure.
“This contract is a great result for Leighton Contractors‟ services business and reflects the hard work and commitment of the team in understanding JKC needs by providing a customised service delivery solution.”
Service mobilisation will commence in February 2013. Leighton Contractors will operate and maintain services for all temporary site facilities for approximately 50 months during construction phase and employ up to 300 people at peak, with many sourced locally.
“The workforce required for the operation will present a tremendous opportunity to provide training and development for local people.” Mr Bushby said.
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Home Forums > Religious Topics > Religious Debates > General Religious Debates >
Featured Jesus vs the New Testament
Discussion in 'General Religious Debates' started by Disciple of Jesus, Mar 10, 2019.
New testament representative of Jesus?
Poll closed Jun 18, 2019.
Somewhat, more representative
Somewhat, less representative
Multiple votes are allowed.
Disciple of Jesus Veteran Member
Did you know that 5/6th’s of the bible is about Israel? That is over 83% of our bible. That is an awful lot of the bible to not have a good understanding.
No idea what that is supposed to mean.
#201 Disciple of Jesus, Mar 12, 2019
Disciple of Jesus said: ↑
The Bible is about the Jews from their ancestor Adam to Jesus to the Destruction of the Temple.
Revelation was so obviously written by an elderly Jewish man.
"The last book in the New Testament canon, yet in fact one of the oldest; probably the only Judæo-Christian work which has survived the Paulinian transformation of the Church.
The introductory verse betrays the complicated character of the whole work.
It presents the book as a "Revelation which God gave . . . to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass," and at the same time as a revelation of Jesus Christ to "his servant John."
According to recent investigations, the latter part was interpolated by the compiler, who worked the two sections of the book, the main apocalypse (ch. iv.-xxi. 6) and the letters to the "seven churches" (i.-iii. and close of xxii.) into one so as to make the whole appear as emanating from John, the seer of the isle of Patmos in Asia Minor (see i. 9, xxii. 8), known otherwise as John the Presbyter.
The anti-Paulinian character of the letters to the seven churches and the anti-Roman character of the apocalyptic section have been a source of great embarrassment, especially to Protestant theologians, ever since the days of Luther.
(Jewish Apocryphal literature was VERY popular for about 300 years.)
Revelation of John, the original Jewish version. Apocalypse composition, dating & authorship
#202 sooda, Mar 12, 2019
Christians don't explain how they interpret Revelation 7 in accordance with the Epistles, and neither in accordance with Jewish belief, and neither in accordance with Christian theology, which would not correlate to some odd type of Judaism mysticism.
In other words, it isn't explained in any context, not just Christian.
The 'explanation' does not match anything, it's just non christian and weird.
Like I said, unless it's all the tribes, and Levi combined to make a total of all the tribes, with Levi, then it's very problematic.
Don't you think the people of the first century understood it perfectly?
144,000 probably just means a big number.
The christian explanations although they do vary a bit, tend to maintain the problematic nature. So that could be your explanation, however it doesn't seem to be the standard christian explanations.
Aside from a 'general idea', concerning worship of other beings.
• essenes:angeology
• christianity: angels with freewill
• Xianity: not a strict association with other beings, to idol worship, necessarily
• Xianity: imagry and traditions syncretically mixed with other cultures.
They vary a lot.. Someone thinks Revelation is writing about New York and the Kaiser ..
If it was written for people thousands of years in the future, why can no one know what it means exactly?
IndigoChild5559 Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
It's still Judaism, according to your definition. So, you just believe it's a heresy, that's all.
No it's not Judaism. It's a heresy. Those who believe it are Jews. But they are not practicing Judaism. They are practicing a heresy. Again, that's my opinion. Other Jews in the forum may have differing opinions. You'll have to ask them. But in my book, Judaism has respect for Oral Law. You light shabbat candles. You say Kiddush. Etc.
#208 IndigoChild5559, Mar 12, 2019
PruePhillip Well-Known Member
You can say it's also about the Gentile mission.
Taking on board prophecies it's also about the second return of the
Jews to Israel and the fall of the Gentile churches. The end times if
I suggest you take "links" and "scholarship" on these things for what
they are - someone's opinion (including mine) I for instance see no
space between Jesus and Paul - and repudiate this whole business
of "Pauline Christianity."
#209 PruePhillip, Mar 12, 2019
PruePhillip said: ↑
Its pretty clear to me that Jesus' mission wasn't to the Gentiles.
If not for Paul, Christianity may have never gotten off the ground.. Remember he converted the 7 Jewish congregations around the Mediterranean ….
The Patriarch Jacob, ca 2000 BC, Bronze Age, Egypt.
"The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from his
descendants, until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one
whom all nations will honor"
You have to respect the text. It's all we have.
Who does the scepter and law really belong to? (Shiloh or the
Messiah in most translations.)
"the one whom all nations will honor", or the Gentiles in some
translations. By implication - the end of the monarchy and law
mean these are removed from the Jewish people.
Other authors are much more explicit - everything which belongs
to the Jews WILL be taken away and the Messiah will be believed
upon of the Gentiles. Even Jesus said this. His mission was first
to the Jews, but Jesus told his itinerant ministers they will go out
into all the world.
I know the verse, but I don't know what or who Shiloh is.. Devout Muslims will tell you Shiloh is Muhammed.
Mohamed was a Sixth Century Arab warlord.
Shiloh is the Jewish (and Gentile!) Messiah. There is first the Messiah
as Redeemer and then Messiah as King. This kingly Messiah is the
one who was lowly and rode upon an ***, and who's hands the nation
of Israel "pierced" (Zachariah's prophecies.)
Not sure how Mohamed or his followers imagine they fit into this.
I put Islam on the same level as Mormonism.
Katzpur Not your average Mormon
LDS Christian
Unlike Islam, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sees Jesus Christ as the Only Begotten Son of God and the sole means by which we might be redeemed of our sins and welcomed back into our Father's presence.
#214 Katzpur, Mar 12, 2019
Katzpur said: ↑
What I meant was that the Mormons hold that the Christian mission
failed and needs resetting to symbolic worship of the Old Testament.
This is what Islam believes also. Most churches just gloss over the
hard bits of Christian doctrine and example. The Quran and Book of
Mormon at least confront these issues.
'g- d concept' is usually relevant to religious discussions.
IndigoChild5559 said: ↑
You said it's judaism, by your own definition, then say it isn't judaism, you can't even not contradict yourself from one sentence to the next.
How do you know the meaning of Shiloh? Is the word used anywhere else in scripture?
Actually he DID practice second Temple Judaism.
So you say, ...
It does not differ from Judaism. It's simply a form of Judaism that existed during the Second Temple era. Specifically, he was of the school of Hillel, and argued with those of the school of Shammai, which anyone familiar with the arguments in the Talmud would recognize.
It clearly does differ from judaism. Read the book of Matthew, ketuvim in judaism, is prophecy in Jesus religion.
Aside from other things, like the inferred solar calendar
At this point, I can only say I don't understand what you are saying. I've read the book of Matthew. So? What does that have to do with the Ketuvim(the writings)? There were many messianic cults in Jesus day, all part of Second Temple Judaism (much like how the Lubavitchers are the messianics of today's Judaism). Messianic cults are well known for having esoteric understanding of the texts. It's one of the things that puts them outside of the mainstream, but they are still part of Judaism. Jesus did not try to start a new religion. He tried to bring Jews back to the essence of Judaism (which he believed was the school of Hillel halakha).
Clearly, when you say Judaism, you don't mean the religion of Jesus, , and it's confusing concepts, to say that, Jesus practiced Judaism, when you also say heresies and not your form of Judaism , 'aren't Judaism'.
Your statements are a confused mess, and even if you are a recent convert to judaism, there's no excuse for this.
That's why you actually need to know that Jesus didn't practice anything close to your form of Judaism, by your own statements.
Actually is pretty standard among mainline churches where clergy are college educated.
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National Grid Foundation Donates $120,000 to Catholic Charities for Local Emergency Energy Assistance
When cold weather hits, local residents who are struggling to pay energy bills wonder how they can make ends meet and still keep warm. Many find themselves in need of extra help as usage and costs go up when the temperatures drop.
With another very generous grant from the National Grid Foundation, Catholic Charities is able to provide emergency assistance to many individuals and families during a difficult economic time. National Grid Foundation announced on Tuesday a grant of $120,000 for 2018 to Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany to help people with heating assistance this winter. The increase in this year’s grant will help over 1,400 people with non-fuel specific emergency heating or energy assistance in the fourteen counties served by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany.
“The National Grid Foundation is proud to help our neighbors who are struggling this time of year," said Edward White, Executive Director of the National Grid Foundation. " Catholic Charities will be able to administer this funding to connect people with fuel neutral assistance when they need it most. Whether it’s firewood, or heating oil, or propane, or whatever fuel they use – many people will be helped by this grant. Once again, we are thrilled to partner with Catholic Charities to help local residents in need, and we urge our friends and neighbors to join us in helping those less fortunate to receive the gift of warmth."
As part of its effort, Catholic Charities officials also announced a challenge to the greater community to donate to assist those in need with contributions to the Emergency Energy Assistance Fund (EEAF). Visitors to the Catholic Charities website (http://www.ccrcda.org/) can click on a link that will take them to a contribution page customized for the EEAF. In addition, local Catholic Charities agencies also will be promoting this challenge in their communities, and word will spread through their newsletters to donors and friends of the 14 Catholic Charities agencies. A gift as small as $5 can help keep a family warm for an evening.
This year’s $120,000 grant was presented in Albany to Catholic Charities Chief Executive Officer Vincent W. Colonno and Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger. “This is the tenth year that we’re able to partner with the National Grid Foundation,” said Mr. Colonno. “Each year they’ve been able to increase the good that we can do in communities across the 14 counties we cover. We’re so grateful for their support, and we look forward to helping people who are going through a difficult time. We will put this funding to use immediately, and begin helping people right away.” Mr. Colonno urged anyone who is in need of heating assistance to reach out to their local Catholic Charities office.
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Ex-Brazil President Lula sentenced to nearly 10 years for corruption
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Former Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a top contender to win next year’s presidential election, was convicted on corruption charges on Wednesday and sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison.
The ruling marked a stunning fall for Lula, one of the country’s most popular politicians, and a serious blow to his chances of a political comeback. The former union leader, who won global praise for policies to reduce stinging inequality in Brazil, faces four more corruption trials and will remain free on appeal.
The verdict represented the highest-profile conviction yet in a sweeping corruption investigation that for over three years has rattled Brazil, revealing a sprawling system of graft at top levels of business and government.
Judge Sergio Moro found Lula, 71, guilty of accepting 3.7 million reais ($1.2 million) worth of bribes from engineering firm OAS SA, the amount of money prosecutors said the company spent refurbishing a beach apartment for Lula in return for his help winning contracts with state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro (PETR4.SA).
Federal prosecutors have accused Lula, Brazil’s first working-class president from 2003 to 2011, of masterminding a long-running corruption scheme that was uncovered in a probe into kickbacks around Petrobras.
Lula’s legal team said in an emailed statement that he was innocent and they would appeal.
“For over three years, Lula has been subject to a politically motivated investigation,” they wrote. “No credible evidence of guilt has been produced, and overwhelming proof of his innocence blatantly ignored.”
Brazil's Lula to appeal conviction: lawyer
Lula’s lawyer Cristiano Martins has repeatedly accused judge Moro of being biased against his client, which Moro strongly denies.
Moro wrote in his ruling that he “took no personal satisfaction in this conviction, quite to the contrary.”
“It’s lamentable that a president of the republic is criminally convicted,” Moro said. “No matter how important you are, no one is above the law.”
The Brazilian real BRBY extended gains following the decision and reached its strongest in two months. The benchmark Bovespa stock index .BVSP rose to a session high. Investors fear that another Lula presidency would mean a return to more state-directed and less business friendly economic policies.
“POWER VACUUM ON LEFT”
Lula would be barred from office if his guilty verdict is upheld by an appeals court, which is expected to take at least eight months to rule.
If he cannot run, political analysts say Brazil’s left would be thrown into disarray, forced to rebuild and somehow find a leader who can emerge from the immense shadow that Lula has cast on Brazilian politics for three decades.
Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is seen during the inauguration of the new National Directory of the Workers' Party, in Brasilia, Brazil July 5, 2017. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
“Lula’s absence opens a gaping hole in the political scene, it creates an enormous power vacuum on the left,” said Claudio Couto, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a top university. “We have now entered a situation of extreme political tension, even beyond the chaos we have been living for the last year.”
Couto said he expected Lula’s guilty verdict to be upheld by the appeals court. That would leave the 2018 presidential race wide open and raise chances of a victory by a political outsider, given most known contenders are also ensnared in Brazil’s corruption investigations.
BOOM TO BUST
Lula’s two-terms were marked by a commodity boom that momentarily made Brazil one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. His ambitious foreign policies, aligning Brazil with other big developing nations, raised the country’s profile on the global stage.
With Lula’s swagger setting the tone, Brazil sought to shrug off northern economic and political hegemony and engage in global problems, like Middle East peace and the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama once labeled him the most popular politician on earth.
But upon leaving office and managing to get his hand-selected successor Dilma Rousseff elected, Brazil’s economy soured, with the nation just now beginning to emerge from its worst recession on record.
Rousseff was impeached last year for breaking budgetary rules. She and her backers say her ouster was actually a ‘coup’ orchestrated by her vice president and now President Michel Temer, who himself faces corruption charges.
During his trial, Lula gave five hours of fiery and defiant defense, proclaiming his innocence and saying that it was politics and not the pilfering of public funds that put him on trial.
“But what is happening is not getting me down, just motivating me to go out and talk more,” Lula said in his testimony. “I will keep fighting.”
($1 = 3.22 reais)
Reporting by Brad Brooks; Additional reporting by Bruno Federowski in Sao Paulo; Editing by Paulo Prada and Andrew Hay
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The Most Underrated Travel Destinations in the World
Lindsay Cohn
Looking for somewhere off-the-beaten path that’s not overrun with tourists? Here are our picks for an unforgettable under-the-radar adventure.
Onomichi, Japan
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Onomichi is an old-timey port with a tranquil vibe. Set in eastern Hiroshima Prefecture, it’s distinguished by sloped lanes, traditional houses, and heritage sites. A designated walking route, called “Temple Walk,” gives visitors the opportunity to soak in all the nostalgia while trekking up and down the narrow corridors. Prefer not to hoof it? A ropeway runs to the hilltop Senkō-ji Park, prized for its 9th-century Buddhist temple and stunning views. Nipponophiles won’t want to miss these hidden gems you can only see in Japan.
Kastellorizo, Greece
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What if we told you there’s an underground cave that’s larger than Grotta Azzurra off the coast of a low-key Grecian islet? Kastellorizo has many things to be proud of—magnificent views, Mediterranean ambiance, and film credentials to name a few—although its most celebrated attraction is without a doubt the breathtaking Blue Cave. So, how has it managed to stay a secret? Santorini and Mykonos sort of hog the spotlight. These idyllic isles are certainly worthy of praise, but with that said, Kastellorizo is too. No wonder it made our list of European islands you never thought to visit—but totally should.
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If you ask us (and anyone who lives in Poland or has ever visited) Gdansk has been flying under the radar for far too long. Seriously, its fascinating history dates back a thousand years. Its where the opening shots of World War II were fired and was instrumental in the fall of communism. As to expected, there’s an array of noteworthy landmarks. More surprising? It’s the center of the amber trade. There are tons of boutiques that sell gemstone jewelry and even a dedicated museum.
Ballymote, Ireland
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Dublin is dazzling, but there’s plenty of awe-inspiring places outside of Ireland’s capital (which by the way are every bit as photogenic). Take Ballymote, in southern County Sligo, for example. On the outskirts of this historic hamlet is the impressive ruins of an Anglo-Norman castle Built by Richard de Burgo, the Red Earl of Ulster, in 1300, this mighty fortress was, back then, the strongest citadel in Connacht. Today, it’s an enduring reminder of an era gone by. A short walk away is the ivy-covered Ballymote Abbey as well as quaint cafés. On your trip to the Emerald Isle, make these undiscovered gems are on your radar.
Chanthaburi, Thailand
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Why more tourists aren’t flocking to Chanthaburi, we’ll never understand. This intriguing locale, a three-hour drive southeast from Thailand’s modern capital, Bangkok, is brimming with Buddhist temples, colorful markets, and historic shrines. Nearby, Namtok Phlio National Park has its fair share of glimmering lagoons, gushing cascades, mossy pagodas, mangrove forests, and exotic wildlife. Here are some other places to visit that deliver some major bang for your buck.
Doc Let, Vietnam
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Just an hour north of the ever-popular resort of Nha Trang is Doc Let, a sleepy seaside village with a spellbinding 10 miles of powder-white sand and turquoise water. The pace is relaxed and locals are warm. Plus, the food is delicious (you’ll often see local fisherman cooking fresh-caught fish). Coupled with the fact that Vietnam is among the fastest-growing tourism destinations in the world and it’s borderline inconceivable that more people don’t visit, let alone know about, Doc Let.
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Kotor doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Situated in a sapphire bay near the picturesque cliffs of Mt. Lovćen, this coastal enclave is endlessly charming. Its medieval old town is filled with meandering streets, squares, monuments, and cathedrals. You’ll also find distinctive museums. One is dedicated to nautical heritage, while the other displays a collection of cat-themed memorabilia and artwork.
Hahndorf, Australia
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From Sydney and Melbourne to Brisbane and Darwin, Australia abounds with hot spots. However, the less prominent locales prove equally compelling. Settled by 19th-century Lutheran migrants, Hahndorf is the oldest surviving German settlement in Oz. On the itinerary? Peep traditional fachwerk architecture, peruse artisan shops, sip craft beers, and learn about local culture at Hahndorf Academy. Don’t miss these other must-see towns in Australia.
Mt. Huashan, China
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There’s more to China than Beijing, Shanghai, and Xi’an. Case in point: Mt. Huashan. This sacred mountain is both fear-inducing and fantastical. Thrill-seekers can attempt the adrenaline-pumping climb to the top. Vertical ascents and wooden plank path make it one of the most dangerous hikes in the world. If terrifying treks aren’t your thing (and we totally get it) you can still gaze at all the alpine glory from the safety of a cable car. Don’t miss these extreme escapes around the world.
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Most folks spend their days in Bangkok and Chiang Mai (both of which are certain must-visits), but in-the-know travelers carve out time to visit Pai. Some have called it a carbon copy of the latter, except for quieter and more compact. But that certainly does mean you’ll be bored! Downtown brims with handicraft vendors, food stalls, and vegetarian restaurants. Just outside are natural attractions such as Mo Paeng Waterfall, Pong Nam Ron Thapai (hot springs), and Pai Land Split. Get inspired with these breathtaking waterfall pictures.
Lapland, Finland
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Lapland should be on everyone’s wishlist. Finland’s northernmost region is a sparsely populated playground of snow-capped wilderness, ski resorts, and arctic adventure. Its capital, Rovaniemi shines come Christmas as the official home of Santa Claus. But perhaps the biggest draw is the spellbinding natural phenomena, from the Northern Lights in the winter to the midnight sun in the summer.
Tomar, Portugal
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Tomar played a crucial role during the Middle Ages, yet few outside of Portugal are familiar with this appealing town in the Iberian Peninsula. So, here’s the scoop: It served as the religious headquarters of the Knights Templar for a whopping 700 years. Constructed over the course of five centuries the Convent of Christ is an architectural marvel of considerable import. The expansive hilltop complex is a mesmerizing mix of Romanesque, Gothic, Manueline, Renaissance, Mannerist, and Baroque elements and is widely considered to be one of the nation’s finest monuments. Portugal is also among the most affordable places to go in 2018.
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Be honest, you probably weren’t aware Tobermory existed until now. This harbor village in southern Ontario is the gateway to scenic beauty. Bruce Peninsula National Park boasts Niagara Escarpment, Indian Head Cove, and the Grotto, a limestone cave in Georgian Bay. Fathom Five National Marine Park features Flowerpot Island, 19th-century lighthouses, and multiple shipwrecks. Need help choosing your next trip? Here’s how to pick the best vacation based on your personality type.
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10 Health ‘Facts’ That Are No Longer True
Jill Waldbieser
Think you know what’s best for your body? Maybe not as well as you think. Science has proved these bits of conventional wisdom wrong.
What’s new? Only everything
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For as long as scientists have been studying the human body, you’d think they’d have it pretty well figured out. But faster than Halloween candy can appear on store shelves in September, new research uncovers some mind-blowing truth that changes everything. (Once upon a time, doctors recommended smoking—really.) As these debunked “facts” prove, when it comes to the wonders of the human body, we’re still learning. Read about 20 “facts” you learned in school that are no longer true.
Not true: Vaccines are dangerous
bogdandimages/Shutterstock
Hopefully, you’ve stopped believing this—or never did, since the theory that vaccines cause autism was always a myth. Plenty of people believed that the shots were risky because of thimerosal, a preservative in some vaccines. However, thimerosal contains a type of mercury that the body can easily clear (and only tiny amounts are used). Even though experts consider it to be extremely safe, manufacturers nonetheless have reduced or eliminated its use. Still, worries about vaccines continue to pop up with alarming frequency, says Purvi Parikh, MD, an allergist and immunologist with the Allergy & Asthma Network. In fact, so many people have been skipping vaccinations, there have been outbreaks of diseases that doctors haven’t seen in decades. The bottom line, Dr. Parikh says: “Vaccines do not cause autism. They also do not make you sick by infecting you with the illness.”
That goes for the flu shot, too. What’s injected is a dead virus, so it’s impossible to contract an illness from the shot. People who experience a reaction are feeling their immune system response kick in. Even vaccines that contain live forms of a virus, such as the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine, use weakened forms of the virus and are safe for most people who don’t have weak immune systems. “Vaccines save lives and prevent illness,” Dr. Parikh says. Read about 10 vaccine myths that you can safely ignore.
Not true: If you never had a food allergy, you never will
Food Mood/Shutterstock
Unfortunately, food allergies are on the rise and becoming more severe, and scientists aren’t sure exactly why. People can develop them at any stage in life, to practically any kind of food, and the effects can range from mild to severe. Although there have been some advances in exposure therapy, which introduces a person to allergens gradually to reduce his or her allergic reaction, Dr. Parikh cautions that this is not something you should ever try on your own. “On the same note, you should not premedicate yourself with a drug such as Benadryl to try to eat a food you are allergic to,” she says. “Each reaction can be different, and an initial mild reaction can become worse on subsequent exposures.” Find out the 14 unbelievable food facts that will change the way you eat.
Not true: Only kids get asthma
Dmitry Galaganov/Shutterstock
Actually, more American adults (around 20 million) have asthma than do children (about six million), according to the CDC. As with allergies, you can develop asthma as an adult even if you never had it before—and it can be life-threatening if untreated, says Dr. Parikh. You may be surprised to learn these 14 health myths even doctors believe.
Not true: Eating more protein will give you more energy
Protein fills you up and provides a steady, slow-burning supply of calories; that’s why weight-loss experts recommend it over refined carbohydrates for people looking to ditch a few pounds. But despite what paleo-diet enthusiasts would have you believe, most Americans eat too much animal protein, says Michael Galitzer, MD, coauthor of Outstanding Health: A Longevity Guide for Staying Young, Healthy, and Sexy for the Rest of Your Life. Eating too much meat can contribute to increased acidity in the body and increased inflammation—and that has been linked to many chronic diseases. You only need 50 grams of protein daily, and one 4-ounce burger gets you nearly halfway to that quota. “One of the healthiest things you can do is go vegetarian for dinner while eating protein for breakfast and lunch,” says Dr. Galitzer.
Not true: Weight loss is a matter of willpower
Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock
Willpower might work for a short period of time in dieting, but eventually, almost everyone breaks down. “The human brain is wired to crave high-calorie foods, especially sugar and fat,” says Michael Long, coauthor of The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity―and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race. “It’s the chemical dopamine that makes you crave unhealthy food, and it’s very powerful.” He suggests that instead of trying to fight this fact, you should incorporate strategies to avoid hunger and temptation: Stock up on healthy snacks and keep tempting foods out of the house, and go grocery shopping on a full stomach so you’re less likely to make impulse buys.
Not true: Coffee is dehydrating
Caffeine is known to have a diuretic effect—that means it makes you urinate—but coffee and other caffeinated beverages still count toward your daily fluid intake. “There’s evidence to suggest it can be as hydrating as water,” says Angela Lemond, RD, a national spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Be sure not to follow these 20 worst pieces of health advice on the Internet.
Not true: Starve a cold, feed a fever
Vladislav Noseek/Shutterstock
“In general, you don’t want to starve when you’re sick,” says Lemond. “Your body needs energy.” Unless you’re suffering from stomach flu and can’t keep food down, it’s best to try to eat regularly—and definitely stay hydrated, Lemond says: “Being properly hydrated is a balance of fluids and electrolytes. When you’re already low on fluids, only drinking water can be detrimental because you need to replace electrolytes, too.” So make sure you’re eating and drinking once you’re able to. Foods like bone broth and bananas have electrolytes to replace what you’re missing. Check out these 14 facts you’ll wish weren’t true.
Not true: Eating eggs raises your cholesterol
Avdeyukphoto/Shutterstock
Yolks used to be a huge no-no, especially when it came to heart health. But research demonstrates that food high in cholesterol won’t raise cholesterol levels in your blood, says Keri Glassman, RD, owner of Nutritious Life. Plus, yolks contain the bulk of an egg’s vitamins, including fat-soluble A, D, E, and K, as well as calcium, iron, and choline. Skip the egg whites only and have one of nature’s most nutritious whole foods: an egg. Read about these 13 downright weird facts about the human body.
Not true: You don’t really need to floss
mdbildes/Shutterstock
More and more research is showing that oral health is closely tied to your general health. In the last few decades, scientists have unearthed evidence that poor oral health and gum disease are linked to systemic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and even premature births and low-birth-weight babies, according to dentist Ami Barakat, DMD, author of Perfecting Smiles, Changing Lives: Your Guide to an Exceptional Dental Experience.
Not true: Snoring is normal
Golubovy/Shutterstock
Unless you have a cold, you shouldn’t make a lot of noise while sleeping. Snoring isn’t a sign of a deep, restful sleep; it can be a signal that something is wrong in your airways—a potential sleep disorder, says Dr. Barakat. Obstructive sleep apnea has been linked to high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic diseases. It’s best to ask your health-care provider about it. Be sure to check out these 50 myths about the human body that can actually be dangerous.
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Rated G. Walt Disney Studios. Release date: Sept 20, 2011.
Speak out for those who cannot speak,
for the rights of all the destitute.
Speak out, judge righteously,
Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.
© Walt Disney Studios
A wonderful outsider story, the film shows how with encouragement and support one can transform what others regard as a handicap into an asset. The film maintains for preschool viewers the old myth of storks delivering babies to their mothers. The one bringing the baby elephant is late, having trouble finding the circus train in Florida where the circus has been staying out the winter. From the beginning the little fellow is made by others to feel that he is an outsider, all the animals laughing at those big ears that often trip him up. This makes his mother’s love all the more poignant, especially when she defends him from abusers and is punished by being locked into a dreary cage. When he comes to her at night she reaches through the bars and cradles him in her trunk as she sings the lullaby that won the 1941 “Best Song” Oscar.
How Timothy Mouse comes to his aid, helping the little fellow discover and value his sail-size ears as a gift makes for delightful viewing. Especially memorable is the Oscar-winning lullaby “Baby Mine,” and virtually all ages will love the wordplay of the crows’ sprightly song “When I See an Elephant Fly.” The colorful circus train is pulled by a delightful steam engine that, as it puffs up a steep hill, calls to mind another story, “The Little Engine That Could.” The animation is simple, but beautiful, from the bright circus poster-like opening credits to the spectacular landscapes that the train passes through to the engaging way in which each character is drawn. Art-minded adults will love the spectacular Pink Elephant sequence. I suspect that the high-minded Walt was still in Fantasia-mode when he approved that sequence.
Everything about this 70th Anniversary Blu-Ray/DVD release is first rate, especially the Extra Features “Taking Flight: The Making Of Dumbo” and “Celebrating Dumb” that deepen the viewer’s understanding of the making of the film and the troubled times—the latter both for our country (the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor bounced the little elephant from Time Magazine’s cover) and the Walt Disney Studio. Disney was saved from financial ruin by the film’s success (the box office failure of the expensive Fantasia had left the studio deeply in debt.
Art lovers will appreciate the way in which Disney’s team incorporated elements of surreal artists such as Salvador Dali and techniques of the German Expressionist filmmakers.
Both this film and the short “Elmer Elephant and the Flying Mouse” are gold mines for those looking for material for lessons for children! With its games, art galleries, and songs, the disks could keep young and old entertained far beyond the 62-minute film itself. The set is expensive, but buyers will find a bargain if they go to Amazon.com (and no doubt other such sites).
Extra Features · Combo Pack includes Blu-ray and DVD A Great Value!
· Blu-ray: Cine-Explore · Blu-ray: Disney View · Blu-ray: “What Do You See?” Game · Blu-ray: “What Do You Know?” Game · Blu-ray: “What Do You Know?” Game · Blu-ray: “Celebrating Dumbo” Featurette · Blu-ray: Animated Short: “The Flying Mouse” · Blu-ray: Animated Short: “Elmer Elephant” · Blu-ray: The Magic Of Dumbo: A Ride Of Passage · Blu-ray: Art Galleries · Blu-ray: Deleted Scene: The Mouse’s Tale · Blu-ray: Deleted Song: “Are You A Man Or A Mouse · Blu-ray: Original Walt Disney Television Introduction · Blu-ray: Audio Commentary · Blu-ray: Sound Design Excerpt from “The Reluctant Dragon” · DVD: Deleted Scene: The Mouse’s Tale · DVD: Deleted Song: “Are You A Man Or A Mouse?” · DVD: Taking Flight: The Making Of Dumbo · DVD: The Magic Of Dumbo: A Ride Of Passage
Note: Discussion questions are available with this review for those subscribing to the Visual Parables journal. The journal also includes many extras–book reviews, the use of films for church seasons, a lectionary related column, and more. Hundreds of old reviews are also available in the subscribers; section. Check out the sample issue.
Previous PostPrevious The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)
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Traditional Funerals
Caskets/Vaults
Heirloom Throws
Urns/Jewelry
Memorial Store
Traditional Funeral Packages
Transferring Pre-arrangements
VFMC Client Bill of Rights
James R. Compton, Jr.
February 14, 1919 ~ April 12, 2019 (age 100)
James R. Compton, Jr., 100, of Boiling Springs, passed away on Friday, April 12, 2019 at Specialty Select Hospital, Camp Hill.
Born February 14, 1919 in Ozan, Arkansas, he was the son of the late James R. Compton, Sr. and Cora (Hooker) Compton. Mr. Compton was the widower of Marjorie (Kester) Compton.
Mr. Compton was a U S Army Veteran of WWII. It was during his service that he met his wife, who was serving as an Army nurse.
He owned a fruit processing business for 20 years and retired from the Pennsylvania Turnpike as a field auditor.
He was a member of First Presbyterian Church, Carlisle.
Jim loved to fly and made cross country flights to California, Florida, and Iowa. He also loved painting with water colors.
Surviving are a son. James R. (Marcia) Compton, III, of Boiling Springs, with whom he resided; four daughters: Janet (Tom) Ivey of Wausau, WI; Susan Stecher of Harrisburg; Emily Compton and Doris Compton, both of Carlisle; five grandchildren: Margo (Tracy) Swedlund, Megan (Paul) Westerberg, Wendy (Charles) Armstrong, Debbie (Ramin) Amiri and Ted (Dana) Compton and eight great grandchildren.
Memorial services will be held at the First Presbyterian Church, on the Square in Carlisle on May 11, 2019 at 2PM. Burial with military honors will be in Fort Indiantown Gap National Cemetery, Annville, PA. Visitation will be at the church from 1PM until time of service.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to First Presbyterian Church, 2 N. Hanover St. Carlisle, PA 17013.
Ronan Funeral Home, Carlisle, is handling arrangements.
© 2019 Ronan Funeral Home. All Rights Reserved. Funeral Home website by CFS
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President Rafael Correa declares victory in Ecuador’s elections
Published time: 18 Feb, 2013 00:44 Edited time: 18 Feb, 2013 14:24
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa celebrates the re-election with his family, at the Carondelet presidential palace in Quito on February 17, 2013.(AFP Photo / Rodrigo Buendia) © AFP
Ecuadoreans have reelected President Rafael Correa in Sunday's presidential vote, according to the first official exit poll. Correa has declared his victory in the country’s election.
According to state figures Correa is leading with 56.6 percent of the vote against 24 percent for his closest challenger former banker Guillermo Lasso, with some 30.5 percent of the vote counted.
Earlier private exit polls had given Correa a clear lead – Opinion Publica gave him 61% against 21% for his opponent. Cedatos gave Correa 59% against 20% for Lasso.
An Ecuadorean state TV poll gave Correa 61 percent ahead of 21 percent for his nearest rival. Following such a strong performance in the exit poll, Correa has declared victory.
None of the other six candidates had more than 6 percent. They include former President Lucio Gutierrez, former Cabinet minister Alberto Acosta, banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa, evangelical minister Nelson Zavala, former city official Norman Wray and attorney Mauricio Rodas are also in the race.
The Organization of American States and the Union of South American Nations have been monitoring the transparency in Ecuador’s elections.
The only president in the past two decades to complete a full term in office, Correa, in his third term is expected to continue to strengthen the oil-producing economy and reinforce the position of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) as a regional force countering US influence in the region.
A country of 14.6 million people had 28 percent living in poverty in 2011, down from 37 percent in 2006, the year before Mr. Correa took office, according to World Bank data.
Opposition accuse the President of suppressing free speech and crushing free enterprise through heavy taxation and constant regulatory changes.
People read newspapers as others wait in line to vote at a polling station in Calderon, north of Quito February 17, 2013.(Reuters / Guillermo Granja)
'Correa was marked to win'
President Rafael Correa was marked to win in the first round, Adrian Salbuchi, the founder of the Second Republic Project in Argentina told RT.
“Public opinion throughout Latin America is growing, we're weary with US and UK intervention throughout the country,” he explained. “Which explains why countries like Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia even Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua are having governments that are keeping aloof or at arm’s length from the United States.”
The opposition hardly stands a chance of winning since most of them “to a greater or lesser degree are pro-US,” Salbuchi added.
In Latin America there is a very strong popular movement trying to move away from the United States. Not without some problems, it is still gaining momentum and Correa will become “increasingly important especially now when we are in a bit of a crisis regionally because of the illness of Mr Chavez in Venezuela,” Salbuchi said.
It is a truth of life that Ecuador is a relatively small country so it “does not have that much leverage,” but for example in Julian Assange’s case, Salbuchi believes, Correa’s victory means continued support for him and his extended stay at the Ecuadorian embassy in the United Kingdom.
Indigenous Ecuadoreans line up to vote in Cangahua, 45 km northeast of Quito, on February 17, 2013.(AFP Photo / Daniel Molineros)
(AFP Photo / Daniel Molineros)
A policeman votes at a polling station in Quito on February 17, 2013.(AFP Photo / Rodrigo Buendia)
Ecuadorian president warns of possible 'CIA attack' before elections
Confirmed: Assange will run for Australian Senate in 2013
Assange's $4.5-million lockdown: UK police spending huge sums on 24-hour patrol
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It would pay to measure your meter if you value your water supply
By Kyabram Free Press
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority is encouraging water users to check a list of approved water meters to ensure the ones they buy are appropriate and fit for purpose when taking water in the Murray-Darling Basin.
The head of the MDBA’s office of compliance Brent Williams said a list of pattern approved meters had been developed to help irrigators choose the right water meter for their circumstances.
‘‘Water meters are required under state legislation in the Murray-Darling Basin, in line with the MDBA’s no meter no pump advice,’’ Mr Williams said.
‘‘Meters provide the clearest measure of how much water is being drawn from a river or aquifer. By using one of the approved meters, irrigators can be confident their water use meets the required level of accuracy in the Australian standard for non-urban water meters.
‘‘More accurate information will help water users to run their business, whether it’s growing crops, watering livestock, manufacturing goods or mining, and to maintain the trust of everyone who relies on the water resources of the basin.’’
Mr Williams said the MDBA had been working with testing laboratories and meter manufacturers to expand the list of meters and had compiled a list of pattern approved meters and metering requirements for water users in each basin state.
‘‘The information identifies the need for a significant growth in meter installations over the next decade.’’
The range of meters approved by the National Measurement Institute of Australia against the Australian standards is available on the MDBA website, mdba.gov.au
Try pilates - you’ll soon get the hang of it
BREATHE in, breathe out.
Holly Tregenza
Crucial analysis for farmers
MURRAY Dairy is making sure farmers are as prepared as they can be for the coming season by hosting several seasonal updates this month.
Kyabram Free Press
Judy’s still in with a shout
INTERNATIONAL Town Crier Day has made a lot of noise recently and it’s definitely something to yell about.
Hands-on approach to learning
HIGH school students in the Campaspe area will be learning hands-on skills thanks to a Campaspe Youth Partnerships program.
Lachlan Durling
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Pacific Tuvalu
Former Tuvalu prime minister laid to rest
10:17 am on 22 November 2018
A former Tuvalu prime minister, Apisai Ielemia, was buried on his home island yesterday after dying at his Funafuti home on Monday.
His body was transported to Vaitupu by Tuvalu's patrol boat, Te Mataili, on Tuesday night.
Mr Ielemia was prime minister from 2006 to 2010, but his political career ended in turmoil when he was convicted of corruption in 2016.
Those charges were later quashed and Mr Ielemia maintained he had therefore not forfeited his seat in parliament but the government went ahead and held a by-election in his Vaitupu seat.
Tuvalu PM calls media reports blatant lies
The Tuvalu prime minister Enele Sopoaga has rejected claims he delayed the parliamentary session because he needed to cement his position.
Legitimacy of Tuvalu by-election questioned
The legitimacy of a recent by-election in Tuvalu is being disputed, with some opposition MPs saying it should never have happened.
Tuvalu PM explains protest restriction
The Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, has defended his decision to restrict a protest last week over the chief justice.
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Filename: _common/waterfall_cache.php
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Sun Opens Up About Latest Open Source Roadmap
Server News
Server Trends
Server Topics
Server Operating Systems
ServerWatch
Hot Server Topics
1 Niagara 2 Servers Revealed
2 Sun Combines Server, Storage Business Units
3 Sun Unveils Intel Servers
1 Failover Cluster
2 Server Market Trends 2019
3 What is Load Balancing and How Does it Work?
4 Network Servers for the Enterprise
5 What Is Server Management?
By Andy Patrizio (Send Email)
SANTA CLARA, Calif. Some of the top promoters and leaders of open source projects gathered at Sun Microsystems today to update press and analysts on the company's growing list of projects and initiatives.
The systems vendor sheds some light on where open source Java and Solaris are going.
Need a Definition?
Long criticized as a company that benefited from many open source projects without giving back in kind, and hounded to make its Java language open source, Sun abruptly shifted course in the last year under new CEO Jonathan Schwartz.
Now its Solaris operating system, Java language and even SPARC processors are open source and under the General Public License (GPL).
One of its To Do list items is to make Solaris easier to distribute. Linux has had packages for distributing bits of compiled code for years, first under the RPM technology developer by Red Hat Linux and then via Yum or App-Get.
Sun hired Ian Murdock, creator of the Debian Linux distribution back in the 1990s, earlier this year to help with such an effort. He told the assembly that his hiring was meant to send the message that Sun is Linux-friendly.
"There's a broad perception that Sun is anti-Linux or competes with Linux, and that's not true," said Murdock, now chief operating systems platform strategist. "So to have someone with a broad Linux background come into Sun made sense."
His project, called Project Indiana(a nod to his home state), is an attempt to give OpenSolaris, and eventually the enterprise version of Solaris, a faster, easier and safer way to update code. It's also intended to lower the barriers to adoption, so those familiar with Linux can move to OpenSolaris, said Murdock.
Murdock pointed out that Yum and App-Get are now several years old and have some shortcomings. Namely, they don't allow you to rollback an installation if there is a problem. Sun's solution is IPS, or Image Package System.
IPS will do exactly as RPM, Yum and App-Get do in that it will download updates to the operating system, thereby eliminating the need for updates via CD or having to download source code and compile it. It will update a Solaris installation with any new code, check for dependencies and download that code as well, and install it all for the user. It's integrated with Sun's ZFS file system to take snapshots of an installation and roll it back if necessary.
Murdock said the first developer preview will be posted to OpenSolaris.org by the end of the month. He expects the final version to be available in March 2008. Although it's meant for Solaris and will utilize Solaris features, it will also be available for other open source operating systems, it just will not have the versatility without ZFS support.
Next to speak was Josh Berkus, the project lead for PostgreSQL, an open source database trying to catch up not only to the more established MySQL but also commercial packages like SQL Server and Oracle. It's updated annually; beta 1 of version 8.3 was released last week, and the final version due in seven to nine weeks.
PostgreSQL can trace its roots back 21 years, to the POSTGRES project at the University of California, Berkeley. It was created as the successor to the Ingres database and commercialized in 1994 under the name Illustra, which later merged with Informix. It went open source in 1995.
Berkus said surveys found it wasn't performance holding back PostgreSQL from taking more of the database market from packaged software firms, rather it was training and knowledge. There was a serious lack of support for the product, of tools to support it and knowledge out there for those interested in using it, he said.
Berkus identified the missing pieces as a lack of worldwide support, performance that was fast but not consistent and a lack of enterprise-quality scalability and reliability. So Sun's efforts in that area have been to focus on high availability and improved performance, as well as ZFS integration.
The third briefing came from Mark Reinhold, chief engineer for the Java SE platform and a lead engineer for OpenJDK, the open source Java Development Kit being used to port Java to numerous platforms.
He said the interim governance board for the OpenJDK community has met three times so far and is making good progress. They would like to get a constitution for the OpenJDK community out for review later this year and ratified some time next year.
One of the problems slowing down the complete availability of Java as open source is that some pieces of code are not owned by Sun and thus could not be released. Therefore, Sun and the community had to develop its own replacements, and those are not trivial tasks. Reinhold said Sun currently has early versions of the font rasterizer done, a cryptography component and the graphics rasterizer, which is in a pretty raw state.
Sun was asked repeatedly who were the developers of these products and why they were so intransigent about releasing the code as open source, but the systems vendor diplomatically declined. All Simon Phipps, chief open source officer at Sun would say is "If people don't want to work with us we'll work around them."
Sun was asked if there was any interest from Apple in a JDK port to the Macintosh but again, a diplomatic answer was the response, that there had been no talk from Apple.
Among other projects in the works at Sun is a multi-language virtual machine that would do for Python, PHP and Ruby what the JVM does for Java now. No time table was given on when such a VM would be released.
Clay Ryder, president of The Sageza Group consultancy and present at the briefing, said he felt Sun is earning some badly needed credibility in the open source community. "They have not become the goto open source player but they are earning some credibility," he told InternetNews.com.
Sun's efforts are still a work in progress, he went on to say, but progressing. "It's paying off in getting some developer credibility, and they need to re-win the developer world. It also helps them with their ISVs (Independent Software Vendors). It's important to have that mindshare. They lost a lot of it," said Ryder.
This article was published on InternetNews.com.
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Wildlife enthusiast protests ‘untimely’ pollarding of Shoreham trees
The pollarded trees in Queens Place, Shoreham
Isabella Cipirska
A writer and wildlife enthusiast was left close to tears by what she said was the ‘untimely and brutal’ pollarding of ancient lime trees in her road.
Jennifer Pulling said the six or seven trees that line Queens Place, Shoreham, were ‘beautiful, full of leaves and really healthy looking’ before their branches were removed by county council contractors three weeks ago.
The pollarded trees in Shoreham
She said: “The sight of those lime trees is enough to make you weep. They look awful.”
Mrs Pulling had tried to prevent the pollarding, which she said should not take place during the summer when the foliage provides ‘a haven for young birds and myriad insects’.
“All we asked for was a delay until the autumn and leaf fall,” she said.
“I understand they have to be kept under control. But it should be done at the right time of year.”
Ms Pulling, who has lived with her cat Sheba in the road for 15 years, admitted the trees had needed some work.
She said: “There was a lot of leaf growth at the base that people were grumbling about. They had got very bushy and were obstructing windows.
“But they should have kept it under control over the years, instead of doing this.”
Losing the trees would also have an effect on air quality, she said, adding: “At a time when Shoreham is experiencing high levels of air pollution, leafy trees are even more important.”
According to the Royal Horticultural Society, the best time for pollarding trees and shrubs is in the late winter or early spring.
A spokesman for West Sussex County Council said the trees were pollarded as part of a regular maintenance cycle carried out in the winter or summer months.
“The trees are inspected regularly by a qualified arboriculturist,” the spokesman said.
“Pollarding works are not at all unusual and will not have an adverse effect upon the trees.
“Each tree was carefully checked for any bird’s nests beforehand and none were found.”
Shoreham surgery marks 70 years of the NHS
Hedgehog found dead in Waitrose bread bag
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Gruden has to be thrilled that Redskins focused on 'D' early
WASHINGTON (AP) A few months ago, Jay Gruden famously said of the initial two first-round picks during his tenure as coach of the Washington Redskins: ''One's played two downs and one's a guard.''
He sure seemed more pleased about the way things went this time around in the NFL draft - and the disarray that had been the hallmark of Washington's offseason diminished, at least for a few days.
The Redskins made a point of boosting their lackluster defense, taking a player for that side of the ball in each of the first three rounds for the first time in 20 years, getting Alabama defensive lineman Jonathan Allen at No. 17 overall, Alabama outside linebacker Ryan Anderson at No. 49, and UCLA cornerback Fabian Moreau at No. 81.
''Couldn't ask for anything more, really,'' Gruden said.
In rounds 4-7 on Saturday, the Redskins made seven more picks, including a trio of defensive backs: Montae Nicholson of Michigan State in the fourth round, and Josh Harvey-Clemons of Louisville and Josh Holsey of Auburn in the seventh.
Director of college scouting Scott Campbell said before the draft that former general manager Scot McCloughan helped set the team's board before he was fired last month, halfway through his four-year contract. Maybe that helped matters, because the Redskins' propensity for dysfunction seemed to fade away as Campbell and team president Bruce Allen went about making selections.
That's not to say there are any guarantees, of course. First of all, there never are when it comes to the draft, and it often takes a few seasons to know the true value of players picked. And in the case of the Redskins, two high choices came with question marks about health: Allen has had shoulder troubles; Moreau tore a chest muscle during his pro day and is expected to miss all of training camp.
Here are other things to know about Washington's 2017 draft class:
NEEDS ADDRESSED: After last year's disastrous defense - it ranked 28th in the league and was particularly bad on third downs and against the run - got coordinator Joe Barry fired, replacement Greg Manusky has some fresh talent to work with at DL and LB, two of the biggest needs Washington had.
HELP STILL NEEDED: While Washington did pick up a running back in the fourth round (Samaje Perine of Oklahoma) and some other possible depth on offense later (Arkansas TE Jeremy Sprinkle, Wyoming C Chase Roullier, Georgia Southern WR Robert Davis), it was somewhat surprising not to see a guard or developmental QB taken.
SURE TO START: If Allen turns out to be as good as expected, he will start right away. As Gruden joked the night Allen was picked: ''He will contribute - tomorrow.'' Allen joins a defensive line that already was lacking, and then lost Chris Baker to free agency. Anderson could join his college teammate in the starting 11, slotting in as a pass-rusher opposite Ryan Kerrigan, especially with OLB Trent Murphy serving a four-game drug suspension to open the season.
ROLL TIDE: Gruden dismissed the notion that Alabama defenders who succeed in college don't always turn into stars in the pros. ''They are just well-coached and we feel good about where they are from a mental standpoint, from talking to them, getting to know these guys,'' Gruden said. ''I don't see any negative, whatsoever.''
PRESSURE'S ON: CB Bashaud Breeland. Entering the last year of his contract, Breeland could find himself being pushed by Moreau and last year's third-round cornerback, Kendall Fuller, for playing time opposite Josh Norman.
For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP-NFL
bashaud breeland
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By Jordan Reeves and Jen Lee Reeves
(Part of Jeter Publishing)
Price may vary by retailer
Amazon's Kindle Store
Apple's iBookstore
Reading Group Guide
From tween advocate for limb difference and founder of Project Unicorn Jordan Reeves and her mom, Jen, comes an inspiring memoir about how every kid is perfect just the way they are.
When Jordan Reeves was born without the bottom half of her left arm, the doctors reassured her parents that she was “born just right.” And she has been proving that doctor right ever since!
With candor, humor, and heart, Jordan’s mother, Jen Lee Reeves, helps Jordan tell her story about growing up in an able-bodied world and family, where she was treated like all of her siblings and classmates—and where she never felt limited. Whether it was changing people’s minds about her capabilities, trying all kinds of sports, or mentoring other kids, Jordan has channeled any negativity into a positive, and is determined to create more innovations for people just like her.
Her most famous invention, aptly called Project Unicorn, is a special prosthetic (that shoots glitter!) made with the help of a 3-D printer. A real-life superhero, Jordan is changing the world with her foundation, Born Just Right, which advocates and celebrates kids with differences, and helps them live their best possible life—just like Jordan is today!
Jordan Reeves
Jordan Reeves was born just right, and cofounded a nonprofit with the same name. Ever since she was little, this teen has pushed through any expectations and proved she can do anything (except monkey bars). Through her activities and opportunities to speak and mentor other kids with limb differences, Jordan is helping change attitudes around physical differences. Jordan is currently changing what we think of as a superhero and by designing a body enhancement. Her ideas include a 3-D printed prosthetic that allows her to shoot sparkles for her alter ego, Girl Blaster. Jordan has shown off her work on The Rachael Ray Show, MakerFaire, TEDx, and many other events across the country.
Jen Lee Reeves
Jen Lee Reeves is the founder and executive director of Born Just Right. She’s also a mom to Cameron and Jordan. She and her husband, Randy, have learned so much about what it takes to advocate for our children and how powerful it can be when parents work together in advocacy and support in the world of disability. When she isn’t working for Born Just Right, she’s a social media strategist and training consultant with her own consultancy. She also taught at the Missouri School of Journalism and managed an NBC affiliate newsroom. To relax, Jen loves to travel, enjoy sunrise runs in new cities, take photos of the lake in her backyard, and enjoy music and good food with the family.
Publisher: Aladdin (June 2019)
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Brooks Ghost 6 Review
COURTNEY ROY
Smooth ride
Runners with narrow feet may have too much room in the toe box
The Ghost 6 is a solid shoe that will not disappoint long-time Ghost wearers. It performs just as well on the roads as it does on the track, and has a soft, smooth ride, making it a great choice for everyday training as well as long runs.
10.7 oz (M); 8.8 oz (W) oz. (303 gr.)
Neutral runners looking for a soft, bouncy shoe that performs well in a variety of workouts
by Courtney Roy
Brooks Ghost 6 General Info
The Ghost series has been extremely popular with runners, and is a core offering from Brooks. For this latest iteration, Brooks kept all of the features and feel that runners have come to know and love, and just made minor updates to the sole unit, creating a smoother ride.
Though Brooks did make some changes to the sole unit, the overall level of support and cushion remains unchanged, and the payoff of these changes is a smoother ride that allows the whole foot to make contact with the ground. The Ghost 6, like its predecessors, is a fantastic all-around shoe that is designed to appeal to a wide range of runners, and the latest edition only improves on the line’s strengths.
Brooks Ghost 6 Impressions
After spending the past few months in shoes with low heel to toe drops and minimal cushioning, I was blown away by how soft the Ghost 6 felt and remembered why they were a go-to shoe for me for so long. I loved the soft, smooth ride, and appreciated the bouncy feel, especially during runs on the road.
Having trained for two marathons in the Ghost 4 and 5, I have a lot of experience with the Ghosts, and this latest edition just continues to build on the best parts of the previous versions.
Since running in more minimal shoes with lower weights, less cushioning, and no to 4mm heel to toe drops almost exclusively through most of the spring, I was expecting the Ghost 6 to feel heavy and cumbersome. The Ghost 6, though it definitely felt much softer and bouncier than what I’ve grown accustomed to, has an smooth, natural-feeling ride.
Brooks Ghost 6 Sole Unit
The Ghost’s sole unit saw two significant updates to the sole unit in this version, meant to make for a smoother, more responsive ride.
The first notice that most runners will notice is that the plastic shank located just under the arch has been removed, and that the sole unit is now flat so that the shoe will make full ground contact from heel to toe. Looking at the shoe immediately after taking it out of the box, I was initially a little concerned that this change would significantly reduce the amount of support, but in testing, this wasn’t the case.
The other significant change to the shoe is that the caterpillar crash pad, has again been extended, wrapping all the way around the heel. The indentations in the crash pad are designed to expand as the shoe makes contact, allowing the running to feel the ground and making for a more responsive ride and adding additional shock absorption.
I found the sole unit of the Ghost 6 to be extremely durable, as in previous editions. It holds up well through the miles on pavement, even uneven, cracked, and rocky paths, non-technical trails, and on the track.
Though longtime fans may notice a different look on the sole unit, they shouldn’t worry that the overall ride and feel of the shoe has changed. The Ghost 6 simply highlights the previous editions’ most popular features.
Brooks Ghost 6 Upper Unit
Like the sole unit, the upper on the Ghost 6 did not see any major changes in this update. In keeping with the latest trends, some of the materials on the upper have been made slightly thinner and more of the overlays are “welded” with heat, rather than sewed on, but the overall feel of the upper is unchanged. As in previous editions, the upper manages heat and moisture well, even through rainy runs, and dries quickly.
The overall fit of the upper is nice and snug, with additional padding around the heel and collar to keep the shoe securely in place and prevent uncomfortable rubbing or chaffing.
Like the Ghost 5, it felt slightly wider than some shoes available on the market for me, but the lacing was easily adjusted to create the snugger fit I prefer. Though there was a little extra room in the toe box than I am accustomed to, especially after spending most of my miles in Saucony Mirage 3, I didn’t find that it was an issue on my runs.
Brooks Ghost 6 Opinion
The Ghost 6 reminded me why I loved my Ghost 4’s and 5’s for so long. It boasts a soft, smooth, and bouncy ride that kept my legs feeling fresh even on longer runs. Though I’ll likely stick with more pared-down models for most of my runs, the Ghost 6 will definitely still have a place in my rotation as the miles begin to pile up through the summer.
Brooks has done a fantastic job of updating the shoe without changing the things that runners love the most. Ultimately, the Ghost 6 is an incredibly well-balanced shoe—striking the perfect mix of cushioning, without being too heavy and support without sacrificing responsiveness or smoothness.
We thank the nice people at Brooks for sending us a pair of Ghost 6 to test. This did not influence the outcome of the review, written after running more than 50 miles in them.
Brooks Ghost 6 Price Comparison
Keep reading for 3 User Reviews
Courtney lives and runs in New York City. When she’s not running through her favorite parks, you can find her shopping, cooking, or watching her favorite football teams.
Brooks Glycerin 17 Review
Brooks Transcend 6 Review
Nike Zoom Vomero 14 Review
Saucony Triumph ISO 5 Review
Brooks Ricochet Review
Hoka One One Bondi 6 Review
I wore through 3 pairs of Ghost 5 10/D. LOVED them.
But Brooks did something to the toebox. A pair of Ghost 6 10/2e is painful to me.
Too tight across the toebox.
Ghost 7’s were a bit better, but still not there.
Currently wearing (and loving) asics Nimbus 15 (10/2e).
Brian wexler
Totally concur. 65 year old running addict. The Ghost 6 just has a bouncy cushioning that really helps keep my legs strong through the five and ten Ks I’ve run. When you don’t notice your shoes when you run, that appears to be a big plus.
Running on asics, which are a really good, I’m sold. If you don’t feel your feet, that’s a very damn good thing!!!!!!
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Iran denies US' allegation after attacks on Gulf tankers
Tehran [Iran], June 15 (ANI): Iran on Friday denounced the allegations by the United States that Tehran was responsible for the attacks on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the US jumped to the allegations "without circumstantial evident".
"The US had immediately jumped to make allegations against Iran without a shred of factual or circumstantial evidence," Al Jazeera quoted Zarif as saying.
On Thursday two oil tankers-- Marshall Islands-flagged Front Altair and the Panama-flagged Kokuka Courageous-- were attacked in the Gulf of Oman, raising tensions in the region.
This comes a month after four tankers including two of Saudi Arabia were attacked. Saudi Arabia had said that some "state actor" was involved in the attack on May 12.
Blaming Iran for the attack, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, "The attack on two oil tankers on June 13 was one in a list of Iranian and Iranian-backed attacks over the last month. It was a clear threat to peace, security and freedom of navigation.""The US will defend its force, interests, partners and allies. We call upon all nations threatened to join us in that endeavour," he added.
The US also released a blurry video in which a boat crew of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) drawing up to Kokuka Courageous, hours after the suspected attacks, and removing an unexploded limpet mine from the hull.
Coming in Iran's support, Russia has warned against "hasty conclusions" over the tanker incident in the Gulf of Oman or blaming the suspected attacks on Iran "I would use this opportunity to warn against hasty conclusions, from any attempts to impose responsibility on those who are seen as undesirable," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters after a meeting of the State Duma's international affairs committee, RIA-Novosti reported.
Several other countries including France and the United Kingdom have condemned the attack.France termed the attack as the "disturbing incident".
"We have learned that a disturbing incident involving two tankers in the Arabian Sea has occurred today, in the broader context of rising tensions in the region, as evidenced also by the attack on the [Abha airport] in Saudi Arabia yesterday, which we firmly condemned," a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson told CNN.
Tensions have escalated in the already simmering region. The US and Iran are at loggerhead since President Donald Trump's decision in May 2018 to withdraw from a landmark nuclear deal.(ANI)
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Spotlight on drug target validation, From the journal, Computational chemistry and informatics, Drug discovery approaches
PAIN(S) relievers for medicinal chemists: how computational methods can assist in hit evaluation
In this editorial, brought to MedChemNet members by Future Medicinal Chemistry, authors Conrad Stork and Johannes Kirchmair discuss the use of computational methods to assist hit evaluation.
Modern high-throughput screening technologies allow for the testing of tens of thousands of compounds per day. However, a substantial proportion of the initial hits can be artifacts related to aggregate formation [1], chemical reactivity, photoreactivity, redox activity, metal chelation, interference with assay spectroscopy, membrane disruption, decomposition in buffers and other mechanisms [2–4].
The seminal works by the Shoichet group on aggregators [1] and by Baell and Holloway on pan-assay interference compounds (PAINS) [2] have greatly increased the scientific community's awareness of the pollution of medicinal chemistry and chemical biology literature with ‘bad actors’ and ‘frequent hitters’. Less present in discussions but not of lower significance are impurities and decomposition products as sources of assay interference [15,16].
Recently, the editors-in-chief of nine ACS journals have teamed up to define best practice guidelines for how to identify assay artifacts and reject such hits [4]. Recommendations include the measurement and publication of full concentration response curves as well as the use of reporter-free methods such as surface plasmon resonance.
At this point, it is important to note that frequent hitters are not necessarily bad actors and vice versa. Frequent hitters are compounds which have a higher-than-expected activity rate recorded in historical screening data. Bad actors, on the other hand, are compounds that trigger false assay readouts under specific conditions and therefore often, but by far not always, show a high frequency of false readouts. In addition to some bad actors, frequent hitters also include true promiscuous compounds (sometimes related to privileged scaffolds) that may in fact be of interest in the context of polypharmacology and drug repurposing.
Computational methods can make a significant contribution to the identification of potential bad actors and/or frequent hitters. These computational techniques include rule-based and similarity-based methods, statistical approaches and machine learning. Here, we will briefly discuss the most relevant approaches that are publicly accessible.
Read the full editorial here.
Stork C and Kirchmair J. PAIN(S) relivers for medicinal chemists: how computational methods can assist hit evaluation. Fut. Med. Chem. (Epub ahead of print) doi:10.4155/fmc-2018-0116 (2018)
McGovern SL, Caselli E, Grigorieff N, Shoichet BK. A common mechanism underlying promiscuous inhibitors from virtual and high-throughput screening. J. Med. Chem. 45(8), 1712–1722 (2002)
Baell JB, Holloway GA. New substructure filters for removal of pan-assay interference compounds (PAINS) from screening libraries and for their exclusion in bioassays. J. Med. Chem. 53(7), 2719–2740 (2010)
Baell JB, Nissink JWM. Seven year itch: pan-assay interference compounds (PAINS) in 2017-utility and limitations. ACS Chem. Biol. 13(1), 36–44 (2017)
Aldrich C, Bertozzi C, Georg GI et al. The ecstasy and agony of assay interference compounds. J. Med. Chem. 60(6), 2165–2168 (2017)
Chakravorty SJ, Chan J, Greenwood MN et al. Nuisance compounds, PAINS filters, and dark chemical matter in the GSK HTS collection. SLAS Discov. 23(6), 532–545 (2018)
Hermann JC, Chen Y, Wartchow C et al. Metal impurities cause false positives in high-throughput screening campaigns. ACS Med. Chem. Lett. 4(2), 197–200 (2013)
Journal, Future Science Group
Future Medicinal Chemistry provides a monthly point of access to commentary and debate for this ever-expanding and diversifying community. The journal showcases milestones in pharmaceutical R&D and features expert analysis of emerging research – from the identification of targets, through to the discovery, design, synthesis and evaluation of bioactive agents.
Ask the experts: what do the next 5—10 years look like for artificial intelligence?
Member Exclusive Interview
Expert interviews, Ask the Experts, Computational chemistry and informatics, Technologies and methodologies
A mathematical approach to translating research into the clinic
News, Computational chemistry and informatics, Therapeutic challenges, Preclinical studies and Phase I
Ask the experts: is there too much hype surrounding the promise of artificial intelligence?
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October 27, 2010 Screens » Screens Etc.
Commitment to Conviction
By Kiko Martinez
Director Tony Goldwyn sees a lot of himself in the real-life Betty Anne Waters, portrayed by actress Hilary Swank in his film Conviction. Waters spent 18 years proving her brother Kenny (played by Sam Rockwell) had been wrongfully imprisoned for murder.
“If you have faith in something and believe in it hard enough it will manifest itself,” Goldwyn told the Current, relating the sentiment to his own nine-year struggle to find funding for the film. “There is power in passion.”
During our interview, Goldwyn, who is also an actor (best known for getting a chest full of jagged glass in 1990’s Ghost), talked about sidestepping sappiness and explained why he decided to exclude a heartbreaking truth of the story.
Because Betty was so involved in the filmmaking process, did that put added pressure on you to do the story justice?
Yes, I felt a lot of emotional responsibility to Betty to get it done right and be truthful about it. I wasn’t going to shy away from the dark aspects of the story, and I was very honest with her about that. I didn’t want it to be a Pollyanna-version.
How much creative liberty did you take?
Well, I compressed time and I combined events. Any time I changed anything it was always in the spirit of the truth and to enhance what this movie is about. Betty would look at some of the scenes and say, “Well, that’s not exactly how it happened, but that’s exactly how it felt.”
In real life, Kenny dies six months after he is finally released from prison. Why did you decide to end the film with a strong sense of hope instead of including the tragic reality?
I tried really hard to put Kenny’s death in the film, but what I found was it made the movie about something else. Even in Kenny’s death, the love that he and Betty shared was not diminished. It was in the script for a number of years, but people kept saying they were so moved by the story, but then there is this left turn, and they couldn’t recover from it.
How did you avoid making this film overly sentimental?
The trick really is to keep balance and show both the darkness and the light of something. Over-sentimentality comes when you lean too hard on the emotional moments and gloss over things. I was always trying to find the contrast with this story. With Sam Rockwell’s character, we have to fall in love with him, but we also have to believe he’s a murderer. With that contrast we avoid that saccharine type of treatment this story could have easily had. •
Dr. Tony Goldwyn; writ. Pamela Gray; feat. Sam Rockwell, Hilary Swank, Minnie Driver, Melissa Leo
Tags: Screens Etc., Second Story, Screens & Tech, Film Reviews
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The Portrait of a Lady
Chapters 37–40
by: Henry James
Chapters 1–3
Chapters 8–11
Analytical Overview
Rosier wanders through the Osmonds' palazzo, searching for Pansy. He encounters Gilbert Osmond, who insultingly refuses to shake his hand, instead offering him only two fingers to grasp. They discuss Osmond's art collection, and when Rosier asks whether he would like to sell anything, Osmond replies that there is nothing he wishes to match. The subtle implication, Rosier realizes, is that Madame Merle has revealed to Osmond Rosier's desire to marry Pansy, and Osmond has no intention of allowing the marriage to take place. Hastily excusing himself, Rosier encounters Isabel, who asks him to speak to a young woman who has shyly kept to herself throughout the party. Rosier asks Isabel why Osmond does not speak to her, and she replies that her husband does not do her such favors. Rosier finds the young woman and discovers that Pansy is with her. Moved by Pansy's beauty and by her innocence, he asks her to show him something in another room. Here, he confesses to Pansy that he has come to the party solely because she is there. She replies somewhat passively that she likes him as well.
Elsewhere in the palazzo, Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond discuss the problem of Rosier: Osmond says that he is tired of Rosier, but Madame Merle advises him to keep Rosier around, as he might find a use for him. Merle says that Pansy has been thinking about Rosier, but Gilbert insists that he has no interest in what Pansy thinks, only what Pansy does. Rosier and Pansy enter the room; Merle says to Osmond that Rosier is coming to declare his feelings for Pansy. Osmond glares at Pansy and then strides away. Merle tells Rosier to pay her a visit the following afternoon. Rosier finds Isabel, who admits to him that Osmond thinks he is not wealthy enough to marry Pansy. She says that there is nothing she can do to change her husband's mind.
The next day, Madame Merle advises Rosier that if he has any desire to marry Pansy, he must stay away from her except at Mrs. Osmond's weekly gatherings on Thursday nights. Rosier agrees. The next Thursday, Gilbert Osmond tells him that he is glad to see that Rosier has been staying away from his daughter, who will never marry him. Lord Warburton approaches and greets Osmond, and Rosier excuses himself to speak to Isabel. She assures him that Pansy still hopes to marry him, despite Osmond's claims. As Rosier leaves to find Pansy, Warburton approaches Isabel and says that she seems changed. He tells her that Ralph Touchett is very ill and that he has planned to spend the winter in Sicily against the advice of his doctors. Alarmed, Isabel agrees to see Ralph the next morning. Isabel offers to introduce Warburton to her guests, but he says that he has come only to speak to her. When he notices Pansy, however, he says that he would like to meet her. He mentions to Isabel that he is interested in finding a wife.
Pansy is deep in conversation with Rosier, telling him not to listen to her father—she has not lost interest in him. She says that she plans to turn to her stepmother for help. Rosier tells her that Isabel will be useless, because she is obviously afraid of her husband. Pansy replies that Isabel is not afraid.
Ralph thinks about the recent past in his friendship with Isabel. He has scarcely seen her since her marriage and feels that he alienated her by telling her how he felt about her engagement. Isabel has distanced herself from all her old friends, including Henrietta, whom Osmond despises, and Mrs. Touchett, whose friendship with Madame Merle has been destroyed by Merle's deceitful role in helping Osmond win Isabel. Ralph is disgusted by Osmond, whose entire life seems to him nothing more than a pose—he pretends to be above the world, but what he really wants is for the world to notice that he is above it. Now Ralph worries that Osmond has transformed Isabel into a mere acquisition, a piece of his collection designed to make the right impression on the world.
After the last time he saw Isabel, Ralph worried that Osmond would disapprove of their friendship, so he left Rome; now, he has decided to stay in Rome instead of going to Sicily, to be near Isabel and to help her if he can. He is also keenly interested to see how she will handle life with her husband—especially now that a new complication has entered her life, the arrival of Lord Warburton and his obvious interest in marrying Pansy. Warburton has even confessed his intentions to Ralph, though he denies that, as Ralph suggests, he only wants to marry Pansy to make himself a part of Isabel's life.
Take the Chapters 37–40 Quick Quiz
Chapters 32–36 Next
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CGT relief posing valuation traps with divorce cases
06 March 2017 — 1 minute read
The CGT relief could potentially result in overvalued member account interests following marriage splits, if the deferred notional capital gains are overlooked in the process, an industry lawyer has warned.
Speaking at a Townsends Business & Corporate Lawyers event, Townsends special counsel Michael Hallinan explained that the notional gain enters into tax payable in the year in which the asset that gave rise to the notional gain is disposed.
“So a fund could have not one, but two, three or four of these notional gains, each attached in a sense to a separate and discreet asset, and those notional gains will be realised in the financial years in which those relevant assets are subject to disposal,” Mr Hallinan said.
This raises an interesting question for valuation purposes in terms of how that crystallised gain will be set out in the financial statements, he said.
“How is someone to know whether there is one or more of these deferred notional gains sitting in the balance sheets which are yet to appear or be incorporated into the valuation member accounts?”
Mr Hallinan said the deferred notional gain is related to the asset itself – it’s not related to the member of the fund at that time.
“If there’s a subsequent marriage split and there’s a need to revalue the superannuation interests, [practitioners will] need to take into account that notional gain sitting somewhere in the balance sheet,” he said.
“In terms of marriage splits, it could mean that it’s very easy to overvalue a member’s account interest, because [you haven’t taken] into account that deferred liability.”
Last Updated: 03 March 2017 Published: 06 March 2017
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If you think Crazy Rich Asians isn't Asian enough you're missing the point
Hannah-Rose Yee
I grew up in Sydney, Australia, in a leafy suburb (when are they ever anything but?) with two brothers, a roster of goldfish and more books than sense. I made friends, I went to school, I studied journalism at university, my family and I would go on holidays together, I fell in love, and out of it again, and then I moved to London.
That’s my 27 years in about 65 words or less.
Well, almost. My dad is Chinese. My grandparents and all my aunts and uncles and cousins are Chinese. As am I, or biracial to be specific, since my mum is Australian. I may not look Chinese, and people who ask me where I’m from first demand to know whether I am South American or Hawaiian and then dubiously raise their eyebrows when I resignedly say ‘Sydney, but my dad is from Hong Kong’.
But there you have it. I am an Asian Australian woman, straddling two different cultures and two different sides of my self. And that particular specificity of me, all the nuts and the bolts and the bits and the pieces of who I am, is nowhere to be seen in this month’s most buzzed about new movie Crazy Rich Asians. And that’s okay.
Crazy Rich Asians premiered last week in the US (September 14 is the release date here in the UK) to largely unanimous critical acclaim and a record-breaking £26.6 million opening weekend at the box office.
The first film from a major Hollywood studio to feature an entirely Asian American, Australian and British cast in 25 years (sigh), it tells the story of Rachel (Constance Wu), an economics professor who accompanies her boyfriend Nick (Henry Golding, my new internet boyfriend) to meet his mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh) and family in Singapore, never knowing that he’s the scion of one of the country’s wealthiest and most elite families.
In the Venn diagram of my particular pop culture preferences, Crazy Rich Asians would be the fizzy, champagne-bubble centre. I like romantic comedies, I like watching gorgeous men with sharp, icy cheekbones button and unbutton suits, I like seeing Michelle Yeoh in bedazzled haute couture playing mah jeong. Even if this movie didn’t feature a diverse Asian cast and even if it didn’t star Michelle Yeoh, I would be all in.
Michelle Yeoh, my queen, in Crazy Rich Asians
But not everyone is.
Since the movie first started screening to critics a growing chorus of dissent and anxiety has filtered through the media. It’s too Asian, some critics said, or the “worst” kind of Asian, or it’s not Asian enough. It only speaks to one particular kind of Singaporean experience, others noted, and its lead actor Golding is, in fact, “only” half Asian.
Why weren’t the stars of the film wearing Asian designers on the red carpet? Or if they were wearing Asian designers, how come they weren’t wearing traditional Asian dress and not Westernised gowns? How come everyone in this movie is good looking according to traditional European standards of beauty and not Asian ones?
And so on, and so forth. (Et cetera, et cetera, as one of the most infamously white-washed Asian characters onscreen would have said.)
More of these kinds of movies, please
I’m excited about this movie. I plan on seeing it in cinemas in Australia when I go home next week and again in September when the film is released here in the UK. I fully intend on swooning every time Henry Golding or Chris Pang, the actor who plays Nick’s best friend Colin Khoo, appear onscreen. I will laugh at Peik Lin (Awkwafina) and her impeccable comedic timing, pore over every single one of Astrid (Gemma Chan’s) ensembles and I’ll probably cry, too.
On a macro level this movie bears no resemblance to my life or my experiences as an Asian woman. My family lives in Hong Kong and Sydney, not Singapore and New York. They do not jet around on private planes, commandeer casinos in Macau and private islands in the Philippines for hen dos and stag nights, they don’t buy out entire hotels in London after being refused entry just to make a point about racism, they don’t drop millions of dollars on a single pair of earrings because they’re feeling sad.
My family is neither crazy, nor rich. But they are Asian.
Nick (Henry Golding) takes Rachel (Constance Wu) to meet the family in Crazy Rich Asians
Crazy Rich Asians is not the definitive Asian movie, and nor should it be. That’s like saying Christopher Robin has to be the definitive British movie about grown men who speak to stuffed animals or complaining that Ant Man & The Wasp doesn’t speak to your personal experience because you’re not, you know, a superhero. Crazy Rich Asians shouldn’t have to be all things to all people.
It’s the first movie from Hollywood in 25 years to even consider putting the Asian experience front and centre in its storytelling. Why should it be tasked with undoing those 25 years (and more) of wrongs?
This is something I talk about often with my friends the fashion and beauty blogger Peony Lim and photographer Kit Lee. Both are British Asian (Peony is half Chinese, like me), and over the years we mourned the lack of representation in fashion, in beauty and in pop culture of faces and stories that looked and sounded like us.
It’s why we decided to make Three Dumplings, a podcast about what it means to be an Asian woman in 2018, which launches next week with our first episode on how Hollywood is slowly realising the importance of telling Asian stories.
“When I was growing up there was nobody who looked like me or my family on television or in movies,” Lim tells me, echoing my own childhood in Australia spent consuming predominantly white media.
“With my website and now with our podcast I want to speak to those girls who felt isolated and ignored as I did when I was a teenager. I still don’t feel like we have enough representation, but it’s getting better.”
She’s right, it is getting better. Crazy Rich Asians does what Pride and Prejudice or The Great Gatsby or any Nancy Meyers movie in the canon of romantic comedies have done for white audiences: tell the story of preternaturally gorgeous people in love.
This month To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before does what Pretty in Pink and 10 Things I Hate About You and Mean Girls have done for white audiences: tell the story of the exquisite agony of being a teenager. Also this month, The Meg and Searching do what, um, Jaws and Taken have done for white audiences: tell the story of intrepid shark hunters and action heroes looking for their missing daughters.
Peter Kavinsky and Lara Jean Covey fall in love in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before
What can I say, I’m greedy. I want a dim sum buffet of Asian stories, I want a never-ending, Chinese New Year banquet feast of representation. I want movies about every possible facet of the Asian experience and I want them in every cinema in every multiplex, on every Netflix app on every device, on every bookshelf and every radio station and every art gallery and every theatre in every city of every diaspora.
I want Asian superheroes and Asian action stars, I want Asian leading men and women, I want an Asian James Bond (Henry Golding could do it with his eyes closed and his hands tied behind his back, don’t fight me on that one), I want more Asian romantic comedies, scores and scores of them, I want Asian dramas, I want Asian sitcoms, I want Asian historical epics, I want Asian talk show hosts and Asian news anchors and Asian legal dramas and police procedurals and hospital soaps.
I want it all, all of it, every single story told every single way, from every creator who wants to share their own experiences, their own history, their own identity. Crazy Rich Asians is only the first delightful course, the amuse-bouche of what I want when it comes to Asian representation.
I want it all. And then I want more.
Crazy Rich Asians is in UK cinemas from September 14.
Images: Warner Bros, Netflix
Hannah-Rose Yee is a writer, podcaster and recent Australian transplant in London. You can find her on the internet talking about pop culture, food and travel.
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Man linked to online threats against LGBT community facing federal charge, FBI says
By Mike Clary
Sep 04, 2016 | 5:11 PM
The FBI announces that Craig Allen Jungwirth, age 50, has been charged witha federal crime in connection to a series of social media posts threatening a Pulse-style attack against the LGBT community in South Florida.
A man linked to a series of online threats against South Florida's LGBT community that alarmed many residents and led to stepped-up police patrols in Wilton Manors and Fort Lauderdale is being charged with a federal crime, authorities announced Sunday.
Craig Allen Jungwirth, 50, is accused of violating a law of interstate commerce when in Aug. 30 Facebook posts he allegedly mentioned the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando and made threats planned for Labor Day weekend in the Wilton Manors area.
Jungwirth was arrested Saturday by the Florida Highway Patrol in Osceola County on an unrelated charge of driving on a suspended license, said Orlando Police Lt. Richard Ruth.
The affidavit released by the FBI Sunday details the grounds for Jungwirth's arrest on a federal charge that prohibits sending "any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another."
If convicted, Jungwirth could face a fine, up to five years in prison, or both.
Jungwirth, being held in the Seminole County Jail, is expected to make his initial appearance Tuesday in federal court in Orlando, according to the FBI.
Wilton Manors Police officials held a news conference Sunday afternoon, where they also released the affidavit and gave an overview of the investigation that led to Jungwirth's arrest.
The six-page affidavit in support of Jungwirth's arrest on federal charges details both the threats he allegedly posted in the last week and also his bilious history with businesses and members of South Florida's LGBT community.
One post on Aug. 30 said, "if you losers thought the Pulse nightclub shooting was bad, wait till you see what I'm planning for Labor Day," according to federal officials.
"You can never catch a genius from MIT and since you [expletive] aren't dying from AIDS anymore, I have a better solution to exterminate you."
Investigators said they confirmed that Jungwirth had attended MIT.
[Popular on SunSentinel.com] Wilton Manors burglary suspect tracked down in Chicago, police say »
Jungwirth was located by investigators on Wednesday walking outside a house in Orlando where he was living with his mother, Maryann T. Jungwirth.
Asked by an FBI agent if he knew why investigators were there, he said that he did not, according to the affidavit.
"As investigators moved to show Jungwirth a copy of the threats made on Facebook, Jungwirth refused to read the Facebook statements and stated that he denied posting those threats, before investigators even had an opportunity to show him the purported threats," according to the complaint.
"Jungwirth then refused to speak further with agents and requested that they contact his lawyer."
Jungwirth's attorney, Ron L. Baum of Fort Lauderdale, could not immediately be reached.
Jungwirth "was identified by the Wilton Manors Police Department as a known individual and past city resident who had previously been the subject of numerous complaints involving the harassment and stalking of Wilton Manors residents," the complaint said.
[Popular on SunSentinel.com] Organization registers new voters at Pride festival »
On Thursday federal investigators reviewed "multiple complaints for stalking and harassing behavior" concerning Jungwirth, "as well as incidents of sabotage, vandalism and trespassing," the complaint said.
Agents also interviewed local business people who said Jungwirth "advertises himself as an event and party promoter in Wilton Manors and has a history of attempting to get what Jungwirth perceives as 'competing events' shut down."
One person told investigators of being targeted by hundreds of harassing calls from Jungwirth after a personal dispute and of "multiple negative reviews on their business website using multiple identities in an attempt to ruin their business and its reputation."
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Another person interviewed by the FBI told of receiving "thousands of threatening text messages, Facebook messages and phone calls from Jungwirth, many times with Jungwirth stating, 'I'm going to get you.'"
Jungwirth was charged with defrauding an innkeeper for allegedly failing to pay a food and drink bill at a Wilton Manors establishment in late 2014. In a separate incident, in May, he was accused of damaging windows at Rumors Bar & Grill, also in Wilton Manors, and charged with criminal mischief, court records show.
Staff writers Erika Pesantes, Linda Trischitta and Brian Ballou and Orlando Sentinel staff writer Christal Hayes contributed to this report.
mwclary@sunsentinel.com
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Walmart enlists more grocery delivery partners
Four last-mile delivery specialists join roster of third-party providers
Russell Redman 1 | Jan 18, 2019
Walmart continues to pull out all the stops in its drive to expand online grocery delivery.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based retail giant said Thursday that it has partnered with last-mile delivery providers Point Pickup, Skipcart, AxleHire and Roadie to help power the Walmart Grocery Delivery service in metropolitan areas across four states.
Related: Walmart flexes its grocery muscle in e-commerce
That coverage area is slated to be expanded in the coming weeks, according to Walmart. Overall, the retailer currently offers online grocery delivery in more than 100 metro areas, with plans to make the service available in over 300 metro markets by the end of 2019.
Currently, more than 800 Walmart stores offer grocery delivery. The company aims to double that number this year.
Related: Walmart helps customers buy online in-store
“Customers love our Grocery Delivery service. As they are busy managing jobs, soccer practice, dance lessons and social schedules, we are on a mission to do more than keep a little extra money in their pockets,” Tom Ward, senior vice president of digital operations for Walmart U.S., said in a statement. “With the help of these new delivery partners, we’re making grocery shopping even easier by bringing the everyday low prices of Walmart right to the front door of customers.”
Walmart has actively pursued third-party partners in ramping up e-grocery delivery. The company works with outside service providers like Postmates, Doordash and Deliv for grocery delivery from Walmart U.S. stores, while its Sam’s Club and Walmart Canada subsidiaries use Instacart for online grocery service. Earlier this year, Walmart ended delivery partnerships with Uber and Lyft and abandoned a test in which Walmart employees delivered groceries to customers after their regular shifts.
Point Pickup bills itself as a delivery provider not just for the last mile but also for the “middle mile,” or deliveries to a location before the customer’s home. An on-demand platform, Skipcart specializes in last-mile solutions for retailers offering pickup service but lacking same-day delivery, while AxleHire touts on-time accuracy and reliability, including photo proof of delivery.
Meanwhile, Roadie describes its service as “on-the-way” delivery. The collaborative model leverages extra space in passenger vehicles by connecting parties looking to send items with drivers heading in the right direction. Similarly, Walmart this summer began testing a crowdsourcing-based service called Spark Delivery, which uses delivery logistics platform Bringg to engage with independent drivers to pick up grocery orders at Walmart stores and deliver them to customers.
Walmart, too, is engaged in several pilots using self-driving vehicles to fulfill online grocery orders, with partners including Udelv, Ford and Waymo. In the test with Waymo (formerly Google’s self-driving car project), being conducted in Chandler, Ariz., autonomous vehicles pick up customers at their homes and take them to the store to collect their orders.
Through Walmart Grocery Delivery — accessed via Walmart.com/grocery or the Walmart Grocery App — consumers can buy fresh produce, meat, seafood, bakery items, pantry staples, various consumables and seasonal general merchandise. At checkout, they select a delivery time window. After orders have been picked by Walmart personal shoppers, a member of the delivery partner’s team retrieves the order from a Walmart store and delivers it to the customer in the designated time frame. Orders carry a $30 minimum and a simple fee structure with “no subscription, no price markups,” Walmart said.
In addition, Walmart offers an Online Grocery Pickup service that allows customers to order their groceries online and collect them at stores without leaving their cars. The company plans to have 2,140 online grocery pickup sites, covering 69% of U.S. households, and online grocery delivery through over 800 stores, covering about 40% of the population, by the close of its 2019 fiscal year at the end of January.
For fiscal 2020, Walmart is targeting about 3,100 curbside pickup and 1,600 delivery locations. Last week, Walmart launched a major promotional campaign led by eye-catching, action-packed TV commercials highlighting the speed and ease of Walmart Grocery Pickup service.
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Mr Peter Brownson
Consultant orthopaedic shoulder and elbow surgeon
DM FRCS (Ed) FRCS (Tr & Orth)
Specialises in
Rotator cuff problems
Make an enquiry Book online
Clinic times:
Thursday: 2pm - 6pm
An initial consultation with Mr Peter Brownson is from £180.
Some of the principal treatments carried out by Mr Peter Brownson at Spire include:
Orthopaedics - elbow and shoulder
Shoulder replacement surgery
Joint pain treatment (joint injections)
Decompression for shoulder impingement, capsular release for frozen shoulder, arthroscopic shoulder repair for shoulder instability/dislocation, arthroscopy for acromioclavicular joint arthritis, sports shoulder injuries, treatment of tennis and golfers elbow syndrome
After studying at Liverpool University and qualified in 1986. I was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1991, after which I undertook a period of orthopaedic research at Nottingham University. I continued my orthopaedic training in Nottingham, during which time I acquired extensive experience in trauma surgery working at the Queens Medical Centre (one of the busiest trauma hospitals in Europe with a worldwide reputation as a Centre of Excellence for trauma). My initial consultant post was at the University Hospital Aintree but subsequently moved to the Royal Liverpool Hospital where I worked in collaboration to develop the Liverpool Upper Limb Unit.
The unit has achieved an international reputation as a Centre for Excellence in the field of shoulder and elbow surgery and particularly with regards to arthroscopic (keyhole) surgery. As a result I have gained both national and international recognition as being at the forefront of arthroscopic (keyhole) surgical techniques. In recognition of this, I was awarded the Travelling Fellowship of the British Elbow and Shoulder Society in 2002.
I am Course Director of the Liverpool Advanced Shoulder Arthroscopy Course which is one of the largest arthroscopic shoulder surgery courses outside of the United States and also the Course Director of the AO Liverpool Shoulder and Elbow Trauma Course which was the first course of its type ever to be awarded AO recognition. I am regularly invited to lecture and carry out live surgical demonstrations at trauma and upper limb related courses across Europe, carrying out live surgical demonstrations of advanced arthroscopic shoulder surgery techniques.
I'm the Upper Limb Surgeon to Liverpool Football Club and also treat players from 3 other Premiership Football Clubs. In addition, I regularly contribute to articles in the national press.
General Medical Council Number: C3170878
MB ChB / Liverpool University / 1986
Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery
FRCS (Ed) / Edinburgh / 1991
Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
DM / Nottingham / 1994
Doctor of Medicine
FRCS (Tr & Orth) / Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham / 1996
Inter-collegiate Fellowship (Orthopaedic Surgery)
President Elect British Elbow and Shoulder Society
British Orthopaedic Association
The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust
Mr Brownson is married with two children. He enjoys sailing, cycling and skiing.
Website http://www.boneandjointcentre.com
Private secretary Miss Clare Vandewaal
Private secretary email clare.vandewaal@spirehealthcare.com
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Business Development & Partnerships: Advice from Experts Alley Chelsea 119 West 24th Street, 2nd Floor
02jun6:30 pm9:00 pmBusiness Development & Partnerships: Advice from Experts
Description “The thing that makes business development fascinating is that the best deals have never been done before. There’s
“The thing that makes business development fascinating is that the best deals have never been done before. There’s no template, no cookie cutter grind-it-out approach to making it work. This is why most organizations are so astonishingly bad at it.” – Seth Godin
Business development and partnerships are all about expanding growth opportunities for your startup. When done correctly, they can be a huge driver of growth for early-stage startups, all while providing value to partners and consumers. But, without strategic planning, specific goals and the right incentives, BD and partnership deals can become an enormous waste of time.
How should early stage startups be approaching business development and partnerships? Is there an argument for punting on BD strategy and focusing on sales or marketing? Or does BD have value from Day 1? What kind of assets or resources can a young company bring to a partnership deal? We’ll ask our panelists these questions and cover topics like
Developing & implementing a business development strategy
Identifying the right partners and building relationships
Aligning incentives
Negotiating strategies
Aligning business development with sales, marketing, and other teams
Hiring for BD & partnerships
About the panelists
Tory Marlin is the VP of Brand for Finn by Chase, an all-mobile bank with built-in money management tools. Her work is focused on changing the way young people think about and manage their money. She hopes to change the conversation about saving to a more positive one, giving the “starter” segment of Gen Z & millennial customers the tools they need to make money management a joyful experience. Tory’s previous work experience spans custom content, experiential marketing, influencer marketing, and new product development. Most recently at PopSugar, she led the strategy for more than $8MM in revenue, growing the PopSugar brand influence specifically in the health and wellness space and in experiential programming. Previously, Tory was on the founding team of #BUILTBYGIRLS, Oath’s social impact brand aimed at giving young women the tools to pursue careers powered by technology.
Michelle Finizio is the Chief Revenue Officer & Head of Partnerships of FounderMade, a platform that takes consumer discovery to the next level, helping entrepreneurs everywhere scale their business through thought leadership, investment, distribution and high-impact marketing initiatives. Prior to this, she was the program lead at XRC labs, where she launched the first XRC Labs cohort. She managed and supported program operations, the mentorship network, demo day, sponsor and investor relations, and portfolio company’s operations, staffing, and program needs.
Kristin Ross, SVP Corporate Sales & Partnerships at S’well, a company that makes fashionable hydration accessories that look great and do good. Ross specializes in identifying and building long term relationships with high profile accounts to secure strategic partnerships that will support the overall brand strategy. Swell’s most recent partnership is with Links Unlimited, naming them the exclusive supplier of S’well bottles to the wholesale industry. Prior to S’well, Ross was the Director of Corporate Partnerships for North America at FFP Group. There, she successfully delivered and drove sales development of the Corporate Sales and Wholesale Channels for both Links of London and Folli Follie.
Alex Song, is the Co-founder & CEO of DojoMojo, a partnership marketing platform. Alex Song spent several years working in investment banking before tapping into his natural pension for entrepreneurship to launch two of his own companies: Innovation Department, a Soho-based Startup Studio, and later on, DojoMojo. The latter of the two came to fruition after Alex saw an opportunity, through his work in helping to grow brands across a range of industries, to streamline the process of collaborative brand partnerships. By launching this first-of-its-kind partnership marketing platform, Alex, along with his co-founders, has democratized the system of partnership marketing to help well-established and on-the-rise brands alike.
(Guest Moderator) Alexandra Adamson is the Executive Director of Women In Sales (WIS), a digital platform dedicated to developing the next generation of female sales leaders. She is also the Head of Organizational Strategy at CloserIQ, the sister company to WIS, where she focuses on human capital consulting and sales talent optimization. Previously, Alexandra was the Director of Talent at Bowery Capital, a seed-stage venture capital fund where she worked with the firm’s entrepreneurs on their human capital strategies including talent architecture, executive search, performance management, and compensation design. Prior to Bowery Capital, she was the Director of Account Management at Betts Recruiting where she scaled sales teams at high growth companies such as Zenefits, Marketo, Rubrik and Meraki.
6:30 – 6:50: Drinks & Networking
6:50 – 7:50: Panel
7:50 – 8:15: Audience Q&A
8:15 – 9:00: More Drinks & Networking
Alley Chelsea
119 West 24th Street, 2nd Floor
© 2019 Stacklist. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy
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Time to Recap All (Or Almost All) ‘Game of Thrones’ Deaths So Far
April 22, 2016 onScreen entertainment, film, Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones Season 6
Game of Thrones Could Go Eight Seasons
July 31, 2015 Fredi Trending Game of Thrones, Jon Snow, Trending
Will a Major Game of Thrones Character Be Brought Back?
June 26, 2015 Megan Shisler Trending Game of Thrones, Jon Snow, Trending
Game of Thrones Hits Another High
June 17, 2015 Megan Shisler Trending Game of Thrones, Trending, Twitter
Game of Thrones Creator George RR Martin Doesn’t Want to Hear Your Complaining
Game of Thrones Creator George RR Martin Doesn't Want to Hear Your Complaining
June 12, 2015 Megan Shisler Trending Game of Thrones, george rr martin, The Winds of Winter, Trending
Game of Thrones Piracy is Out of Control
April 23, 2015 Guest Author Trending Game of Thrones, HBO, Trending
Game of Thrones Reaches Record High
April 16, 2015 Guest Author Trending Game of Thrones, Trending
Game of Thrones Battles Piracy Again
April 14, 2015 Guest Author Trending Game of Thrones, HBO, piracy, Trending
Game of Thrones Season Five First Review is In
April 9, 2015 Guest Author Trending Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones Season Five, Trending
Game of Thrones Making Big Money in Imax
February 3, 2015 Guest Author Trending Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones Season Five, Trending
Wife of Game of Thrones Showrunner Thought the Show Would Suck
January 29, 2015 Guest Author Trending Conan O’Brien, david benioff, Game of Thrones, Trending
Game of Thrones to Play in Imax
January 7, 2015 Joe Jejune Trending Game of Thrones, imax, The Twilight Zone, Trending
Galavant Could Be a Mideval Musical Hit
January 6, 2015 Joe Jejune Trending Galavant, Game of Thrones, John Stamos, Trending, Weird Al Yankovic
The Hobbit’s Still On Top, and Game of Thrones Still the Most Pirated Show
The Hobbit's Still On Top, and Game of Thrones Still the Most Pirated Show
December 29, 2014 Joe Jejune onScreen film, Game of Thrones, The Hobbit, The Hobbit Battle of the Five Armies
Game of Thrones Creator Wants to Play The Interview at His Theater
December 19, 2014 Joe Jejune Trending Game of Thrones, George R R Martin, Team America World Police, The Interview, Trending
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The case for an Apple smart TV set is now officially dead
Whatever vision Steve Jobs had, it died in Vegas
It annoys me that I'm about to talk about Apple in the context of CES - a place it has historically remained absent from (well, since 1992) - but... we really need to talk about Apple at CES. Specifically, we need to talk about Apple and TV.
Forget towering billboards sent to troll Google and Amazon in Vegas. I'm more interested in the stream of Apple namechecks that took place over the course of last week, despite nary a single Cupertino exec showing their face at the show.
In an industry first, several TV manufacturers - Samsung, LG, Sony, Vizio - announced that AirPlay 2, Apple's wireless audio/video service, will soon be supported on their smart TVs. All these manufacturers bar Samsung will also support HomeKit, Apple's smart home protocol. But don't feel bad for Samsung - it's inked a deal to get Apple's iTunes service on its televisions - another first.
And the fun didn't stop there: Apple's malnourished HomeKit had a big year with support from tons of manufacturers - a payoff for Cupetino's decision to make it easier for third parties to make their devices HomeKit-friendly.
This is the Eddy Cue era of Apple
But let's go back to the TV. With Apple moving its services to other companies' platforms, it's leaving the Apple TV box high and dry; as these services start to integrate across a spectrum of third-party TV sets, the set-top box has little purpose.
Not only that, but surely this all dashes any hope of Apple ever making a smart TV set of its own.
Throw away your television
Rumors of an Apple TV set have circulated for years, and Apple has only stoked the fire. Tim Cook has, on more than one occasion, called the TV an area of "great interest" for the company, while Apple services chief Eddy Cue said the television "needs to be reinvented". Steve Jobs famously told his biographer Walter Isaacson that he'd "finally cracked it," describing his vision of an "integrated television" that would be easy to use. "It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine".
Personally I doubt Jobs' grand vision for the future of TV was as fully formed as people give it credit for. The quote has become something of a legend over time, analyzed beyond meaning, but whatever vision there was - and I'm sure there was something - this is not it. You can argue that Apple has done good things for the TV interface (and bad things for the TV remote, let's be honest) but if Jobs had a plan to revolutionize television, it wasn't about sharing its services with other manufacturers.
Which means the Apple TV dream is surely dead. And in all likelihood, what we've ended up with instead is better for everyone in the long term.
Because yes, Apple could have produced an integrated TV: one that runs tvOS, dynamically adjusts to content and works nicely with all of its other gadgets. I'm sure it would have looked great. Would it make a lot of money for Apple in 2019? Probably not. Selling set-top boxes has, at least until now, made more sense, but from a money-making perspective the TV space is a tough one. Short of a true TV revolution, Apple could easily fail.
Instead, Apple is turning to services and sharing, including $1 billion on original programming. This is the Eddy Cue era of Apple. And perhaps these moves are a microcosm of a larger shift for the company, which is easing control of its ecosystem, opening its services to others and relying less on its own hardware to drive the profits. Rumors also suggest the company will launch its own Netflix-style streaming service later this year, which would perhaps mean iOS users are favored by TVs running AirPlay 2 and iTunes.
Whatever the case, Apple's vision for the future of TV is surely different to whatever it once was. One where it's finally opening some holes in that famous walled garden.
This week's best deals
TAGGED televisions
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Net Neutrality Violation by Jio on Restricting the Use Of Non-Jio Apps
Reliance Jio has created a new free JioPhone for just Rs 1500 with a refundable option. The public queries regarding the phone still remain unanswered. The phones OS system details have also not been revealed. The basic question arises in one’s mind is about the app accessibility or support on the new Jio VoLTE feature phone.
At the RIL AGM, the company has revealed that the JioPhone will support only the Jio-based apps such as Jio Music, JioTV, Jio Cinema, Jio news, Jio Money, and others. The social or utility apps will also be provided on the phones by the telecom provider. Here comes the question—Will the phone be supporting other competing apps or only Jio-based apps? As per the sources, the JioPhone has the Firefox OS installed in the new phones. Also, the user can download apps available on the Jio App Store itself that blocks the subscribers from accessing other apps. The company basically wants to keep a tight hold on what the users are going to download in order to keep away online threat.
The Reliance Jio’s Jio App Store will have all the social, payment, and content verticals present in it. Hence, the users do not have to rely on the other apps. The JioPhone user is restricted to accessibility owing to its own software platform and refund feature. The answer to the question “Can the company churn the market?” is doubtful. However, this is something only the time can decide. The basic problem in the phone is the pre-installed apps. This is kind of like the violation of the Net Neutrality principles. The Jio users are restricted to the Reliance own app ecosystem and leaving the subscribers no option of using other services or apps. The competition with the other apps is increased as well due to the other app shadowing.
Additionally, the Jio subscribers have to use only the Jio SIM on a mandatory basis along with restriction on the app access. This results in the creation of discriminatory tariffs for content and data. The proof regarding the violation or non-violation of the Net Neutrality is still a matter that can be concluded after the launch of the JioPhone. So let’s wait and watch till the smart JioPhone will be out.
Reliance Jio has to still answer against the violation issue pointed at it. This situation is similar to one created after the Facebook’s Free Basics service was launched in India.
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Handling the position of Head of Admin and Networking at Zion Market Research, Sandip is a tech geek constantly looking out for niche innovations in the field of Networking and Technology. He can be reached at Facebook | Twitter | [email protected]
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Jeremy Corbyn took heed of what happened in the US election. Theresa May did not
David Millward
9 June 2017 • 4:39am
For weeks I had a sense that the Theresa May's election campaign carried echoes of Hillary Clinton's disastrous tilt at the White House. Both were supposed to be serene processions against opponents who were unelectable.
It looks as if it is not going to turn out that way. Jeremy Corbyn was, according to conventional wisdom as unelectable as Donald Trump. Little did we know.
Of course the same was said about Bernie Sanders as he was being stitched up by senior apparatchiks in the Democratic Committee. It was Mr Sanders who generated much of the excitement during the Democratic campaign, drawing thousands to his rallies which at times resembled revivalist meetings.
His anti-austerity message resonated...
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Tory leadership latest: Ministers rebel by blocking suspension of parliament
Comment: Remainers just snatched a Pyrrhic victory that could cost us our democracy
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The week in geek: Black Lightning's Lit! Where's that Snyder Cut? Does Nintendo know?
Dany Roth
@danyordinary
Tag: Black Lightning
Tag: justice league
Tag: Nintendo Labo
Tag: Wayward Sisters
Tag: Supernatural
Tag: Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi
Tag: The Week in Geek
Hello, friends, and congratulations: We made it to the end of yet another week! Did you catch all of the biggest news stories? Probably not. It was kind of an intense week when it came to non-nerd news. No one could blame you for being distracted.
Fortunately for you, some of us stare at nerdy news all week until our muscles atrophy, as a profession. So, while you were having a life with your Tide Pods, your lip sync battles, and the constant threat of government shutdown, we stayed home — watching.
From January 14 to today, these are the stories that most dominated the week in geek:
Video of Black Lightning in 2 Minutes | SYFY WIRE
You want to start with some good news? Yeah, you do. The CW premiered its latest, non-Arrowverse (maybe) comic book show, Black Lightning, on Tuesday night. It was an enormous success! Based on the numbers alone, Black Lightning had the best series premiere The CW has seen in two years, with 2.3 million viewers.
But those numbers only tell part of the story. The real success, as we're seeing more and more these days, was in the response on social media. And what people love about Black Lightning right from the pilot is the authenticity, the music, and the unflinching willingness to openly discuss the oppression of black people in America without denying the strength of black families and the black community.
And let's just say we won't be surprised if Black Lightning is one of the most discussed topics next week, too. #Thunder
#RELEASETHESNYDERCUT?
Details for the home video release for DCEU's Justice League movie were announced this week. While there will be behind-the-scenes featurettes, there will be no director's commentary, no extended cut, and only one deleted scene. In other words, no cut of the film with Zack Snyder's original vision.
But that has not stopped some DCEU fans from not only insisting that there is a Zack Snyder cut of Justice League, but also demanding its release. And while the home video details suggest it doesn't exist, there is, as of this week, a website now dedicated to willing the supposed Snyder Cut into existence.
Anyway, as a result of the home video announcement and the Snyder Cut website, people seem to be talking about this situation now more than ever. Someone should get Fox and Friends to talk about it, prompting the president to tweet #ReleaseTheSnyderCut. Whether or not that gets something released or just gives people something to laugh at, uh ... win-win?
THE LAST JEDI: DE-FEMINIZED FANEDIT
Speaking of conversations you probably thought would be over by now, the conflict between the people who loved the latest Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, and the people who hated it sure is still happening.
The conversation took a turn this week, when an anonymous person illegally downloaded a bootleg copy of The Last Jedi from torrenting site The Pirate Bay and crafted their own version of the film. The difference? It's about 46 minutes long now and focuses on the men while removing most of the plotlines involving the lady-Star-folks.
Unsurprisingly, the cut got roasted on Twitter. Perhaps slightly surprising, the people involved in making the real film joined in the roasting. Rian Johnson, John Boyega, and Mark Hamill all took the time to dunk on the all-male cut of the film.
But the real story, as ever, isn't the fan-edit (hilarious though it may be) but the response to it. SYFY WIRE's own Jordan Zakarin analyzed the alt-right's involvement in not only The Last Jedi, but also throughout all nerd conversations, from Gamergate to Ghostbusters.
And while some people are still arguing whether a piece of media is somehow objectively good or bad, the larger conversation is why someone was inspired to craft an all-male fan edit for The Last Jedi in the first place, why it's generated so much conversation, and how best to deal with the extreme and opposing reactions we have to our media, whether it's Star Wars or literally every other piece of media that comes out now.
Video of First Look at Nintendo Labo
NINTENDO CARDBOARDO
The House That Mario Built revealed their "new interactive experience," Nintendo Labo. We knew Nintendo would be announcing something this week, but few (if any) were ready for DIY cardboard.
Yup. Nintendo's new concept involves kids (and adults) piecing together what is effectively sturdy papercraft, combining it with the Switch technology, and using the two in tandem to play a tiny piano, or go fishing, or make a house or car or robot or ... motorbike.
Nintendo Labo is the sort of oddity that only Nintendo would attempt. And the reaction has been ... hilarious. But, yes, it's a $70 venture for the consumer, which can feel like quite an investment for cardboard. It's also a weirdly creative tactic, too, especially for a video game company. After all, aren't parents always complaining that their kids are mindlessly staring at the screen instead of actually DOING SOMETHING?
Is Nintendo Labo a worthwhile something for kids (and adults) to do? That's definitely been one of the big questions on people's minds this week. But mostly it's just cardboard jokes. Which is fair.
WAYWARD DAUGHTERS BECOME WAYWARD SISTERS
The CW had a week, huh? Not only was Black Lightning lit (I'm sorry, had to be done), but Supernatural has made good on a fandom's nearly three-year-old wish.
During Supernatural's 10th season, it aired an episode called "Angel Heart," which connected Castiel's host's daughter, Claire, with Sheriff Jody Mills. And from that moment #WaywardDaughters was a born, a hashtag that hoped for a spin-off show featuring women characters from the Supernatural world so they could have stories of their own and not, you know, just wind up being fodder for Sam and Dean's man feelings.
That hashtag, taken up by Jody Mills herself, Kim Rhodes, eventually played its part in landing a backdoor pilot for an all-female Supernatural spin-off, Wayward Sisters.
Said backdoor pilot aired this week to a very positive reception. #WaywardSisters trended throughout the evening, with people tweeting that they hadn't watched Supernatural for a while, but were returning to support the all-female spin-off.
That's it! That is the week in top topics. What were the topics you were seeing in your timeline? What are your thoughts on these topics? Can you #ReleaseTheSnyderCut? Won't someone think of #TheSnyderCut? #TheSnyderCut.
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Rookie Josh Allen To Work With Bills Starters After Impressive Pre-Season
by Rodrigo Lobato
– on Aug 21, 2018
in NFL, News
It took only two outstanding preseason games and one quarterback injury for the first pick of the Buffalo Bills to start working out with the first team and therefore improve his odds to become the starting QB this season.
After a reportedly broken collarbone that the forecasted starting Bills quarterback A.J. McCarron suffered in the team’s second preseason game, the plans of who will get the starting job position leading the Buffalo offense have changed. At the beginning of the preseason, Josh Allen was not even considered to workout with the first team; now, after McCarron's injury and two preseason games where the rookie displayed a phenomenal level, he will practice with the starters.
“[Josh Allen] will be working with the ones and Nate will be working with the twos today,” said head coach Sean McDermott. “We’re staying with the rotation. Nate had the reps with the ones yesterday. Josh will have them today. After today we’ll start to move into a blend into a normal week as we prepare for the next game. Part of that is so our players can get acclimated to the routine of a normal regular season week.”
RELATED: JOSH ALLEN'S PERFORMANCE AGAINST CAROLINA PANTHERS PROVES HE'S NFL READY
Josh Allen has been named the starting QB for Sunday’s game against the Bengals. #CINvsBUF pic.twitter.com/HyVjIqZCOm
— Buffalo Bills (@buffalobills) August 20, 2018
Followed by this, on Monday, the team announced what every Bill fan wanted to hear, that the seventh overall pick in the 2018 Draft will start the third preseason game against the Bengals. To start this game is no small feat, the third preseason match is commonly called in the NFL as “dress rehearsal” since the teams operate similarly to a regular season game.
So now, the race for the starting position is between the fifth-round pick of the 2017 NFL Draft Nathan Peterman and Josh Allen, at the expense of McCarron’s final medical report. Both players have had a great preseason. Peterman has an amazing record of 17-of-20 for 232 yards, two TDs, and one interception. Whereas Allen has completed 18 of 32 passes for 176 yards, thrown two TDs and zero turnovers. However, the astounding passing and running skills of the 22-year-old have overshadowed Peterman’s exceptional performance.
Even though the rookie player is way more talented than Peterman and he would definitely sell many more tickets, it might be a safer bet to not start him for week one. The pressure of being the starter at the beginning of the season usually messes up a lot of promising rookies.
RELATED: JOSH ALLEN GETS TARGETED BEHIND EMBARRASSING BILLS OFFENSIVE LINE [VIDEO]
Paul Silano Jr
Korey Beckett
Morgan Swaim
Becky Lynch's Response To Vince Russo Might Be Her Best Tweet To Date
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10 Best Late Summer Flowering Shrubs
If your landscaping tends to look tired when August and September roll around, it's time to look into growing some late summer flowering shrubs. Some of these bushes begin blooming earlier in the year but have good staying power, continuing to blossom into September (or even beyond). Others are simply late bloomers. Either way, they're critical allies to have at your disposal if you value continuous sequence of bloom.
Candy Oh! Rose
This rose bush begins blooming in late May, qualifying not only for the present list but also as a bush that blooms in early summer. Candy Oh! blooms non-stop throughout the summer. It is one shrub that you can count on to inject color into your landscaping during June, July, August, September, and—assuming you avoid a frost—even into October.
The Greenery Nursery /Flickr/CC BY 2.0
You probably know that butterfly bush is in an elite class when it comes to drawing butterflies (heck, with a name like that, how could it not?), along with butterfly weed and common milkweed. You probably also know that it's an invasive plant in some regions. So what you need to find out now is whether it's considered invasive in your own particular area.
Sugar Tip Rose of Sharon
Rose of Sharon is a classic contributor to the late summer landscape. 'Sugar Tip' is one of the more interesting cultivars. Not only are the double flowers two-toned, but the leaves are also variegated.
Blue Chiffon Rose of Sharon
F. D. Richards/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
Some rose of Sharon varieties have powder blue flowers, and the aptly named Blue Chiffon is one of them. Its color is not as blue as a bluebeard, though. You may be more impressed by the fact that it's a double flower.
'Dinner-Plate' Hibiscus
The botanical name of rose of Sharon is Hibiscus syriacus. There's another type of Hibiscus that is hardy in many Northern zones, but it's not as widely grown as is the rose of Sharon. It's the Hibiscus moscheutos. This bush is known for its enormous flowers—so big that the shrub has acquired the nickname dinner-plate hibiscus.
Bluebeard Shrubs
Variety is the spice of life, and bluebeard (Caryopteris) furnishes you with a different look in your landscaping. Unlike the other bushes of late summer flowering shrubs, this one has fluffy flowers, giving the plant a soft appearance. The shrub also is good for drawing bees.
Peegee Hydrangea
It is tempting to classify the Peegee hydrangea as a tree, but the experts call it a shrub. Either way, due to its size and the abundance of its flower heads, you cannot miss this plant in the late summer landscape. It's commonly grown in cemeteries, but don't let that fool you: this bush will breathe new life into your yard in August, September, and into the fall months.
Just as the Peegee hydrangea shrub is easily mistaken for a tree, Russian sage is widely spoken of as a perennial in everyday parlance. Technically, it's a shrub—and another good late summer flowering shrub for those of you desperate for color in August and September. As one of the plants with silvery leaves, its foliage may be even more valued than its flowers. Oh, and if you don't care much for landscape maintenance, rest assured that this bush won't be much of a hassle.
For the final two entries on the list, think outside the box a bit. One way to gain additional options for late summer color in the northern landscape is to make use of tropical flowers, and angel's trumpet is one of the more spectacular. Don't be surprised if you see more than 175 of its large, trumpet-shaped blooms appear sometime in August. Since angel's trumpet is not cold-hardy in zone 5, you might need to overwinter it in the basement.
Crape myrtle is another out-of-the-box pick for northern landscaping. It's hardy enough to survive winter in the zone-5 landscape, but its growth is stunted in comparison to the way it grows in the Southeast.
In these warmer regions, crape myrtle is very popular and grows as a tree. But in colder areas of the country, it tends to be a late summer flowering shrub. Its roots survive the winter's cold while the above-ground growth entirely (or largely) dies back.
The Best Early Summer Flowering Shrubs
10 Best Ornamental Shrubs for Your Yard
10 Great Shrubs With Blue or Lavender Flowers
12 Shrubs You Should Grow in Your Yard
10 Best Low-Maintenance Shrubs for Your Landscaping
Rose of Sharon Plant Profile
Best Shrubs for Sun With Colorful Flowers
Best Shrubs With Pink Flowers
Best Shrubs With Red or Orange Flowers
Tall Shrubs: Examples of Tree-Like Bushes
15 Recommended Flowering Shrubs for Residential Landscapes
Shrubs That Bloom on New Wood (Current Year's Growth)
Double Rose of Sharon: "Sugar Tip"
Pictures of Lavender Flowers for Gardening
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Strong Aussie presence in men's Ilkley Trophy draw
By Bill Marshall Sports Reporter
THE Aussies are coming – and that doesn’t just mean for the ICC Cricket World Cup and the Ashes that follow.
A strong presence from Down Under have entered the fifth Ilkley Trophy - an LTA summer grass-court tournament from June 17-23 at Ilkley Lawn Tennis and Squash Club that acts as preparation for Wimbledon.
Second seed is set to be world No 69 Jordan Thompson, who was top seed at Ilkley in 2016 and 2018, losing in the quarter-finals both times, and has played in the tournament four of the five years that it has been held.
Three years ago, Thompson, who reached the third round of the French Open last week, was beaten by eventual runner-up Vincent Millot, while last year he succumbed to champion Sergei Stakhovsky.
Backing Thompson up is 2017 Ilkley runner-up Alex Bolt (Australia), who reached the third round of the Australian Open earlier this year, beating world No 30 Gilles Simon; James Duckworth, who lost to Andy Murray in the first round of the 2018 US Open; and 2018 Ilkley semi-finalist Jason Kubler.
Top seed at Ilkley is ATP Next Gen star Ugo Humbert from France.
The 20-year-old is currently at a world-best ranking of 61, having defeated world No 13 Borna Coric earlier this year in Marseille.
Other players in the top 100 to have entered are Romanian Maruis Copil at No 83 and Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin at 97.
Copil reached his first ATP World Tour final last year in the Sofia Open and has wins over Marin Cilic (twice) and Alexander Zverev.
Istomin, who has been as high as 33 in the world, beat Novak Djokovic in the 2017 Australian Open second round.
The women’s draw for the Ilkley Trophy features nine players ranked between 50 and 100 in the world.
The 20 women players accepted direct into the main draw include world No 53 Kristina Mladenovic (France), who is also No 4 in doubles.
Mladenovic, a former No 11 in 2017, is best known for her doubles career, winning the 2013 Wimbledon and 2014 Australian Open mixed doubles and most recently the 2018 Australian Open women's doubles title with Tímea Babos.
Mladenovic’s compatriot and fellow France Fed Cup team member Pauline Parmentier (No 66) returns to Ilkley, aiming to build on her 2018 haul of two WTA singles titles.
The 2016 Ilkley Champion Evgeniya Rodina (Russia), currently ranked No 70 in the world, also returns alongside 2017 champion Magdalena Rybarikova (No 74, Slovakia), who notably went on from Ilkley to reach the semi-finals at Wimbledon beating then world No 3 Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic) and Coco Vandeweghe (then No 25, USA) along the way.
The 2018 Ilkley Champion Tereza Smitkova (No 126, Czech Republic) will also be back to defend her title.
Viktorija Golubic (No 79, Switzerland) will be aiming for her second title of 2019, to add to her win at Indian Wells, United States, in February.
Currently enjoying her highest ever ranking, France’s Fiona Ferro (No 82) is enjoying her first year in the global top 100 while Poland’s number one Magda Linette (No 87), will be making her Ilkley debut.
Rounding off top 100 players set to appear in Ilkley are American Madison Brengle (No 91) and Stefanie Voegele (No 97, Switzerland).
Bantams boss keen to squeeze in more
Hallas eyes York pick-me-up for Bulls
Bradford boxer dispenses with journeyman who faced Chisora and Whyte
Assistant manager Gardner scores for Avenue
Bradford (Park Avenue) sign former Bantams midfielder
O'Neill goes global for new recruits after 'topsy-turvy' first six months
Green among Bradford Bulls trio called up for Wales squad
Bignot has learning curve during busy pre-season
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Somebody Mashed Up Tomi Lahren’s Commentary Into a Totally Awesome ’80s Pop Hit (Video)
“Hey ladies, stick and stones and radical Muslims break our bones,” Lahren belts in a Cyndi Lauper-esque rendition
Jon Levine | November 16, 2017 @ 6:51 AM
Here's what @TomiLahren would sound like as an '80s pop hit. pic.twitter.com/esJJydjZME
— Super Deluxe (@superdeluxe) November 15, 2017
While Tomi Lahren often makes headlines for her explosive commentary on Fox News, the conservative fire-breather found herself in the viral spotlight this week after somebody edited her words into an ’80s-style pop mashup.
“Hey ladies, stick and stones and radical Muslims break our bones,” Lahren belts in a Cyndi Lauper-esque rendition. “It’s not easy being a girl these days with selective outrage.”
And it goes from there.
Also Read: Fox News' Tomi Lahren Blasts NFL Protest, Says She Doesn't Know Why They're Happening (Video)
“The morally repulsive are triggered by everything including kneelers, tranny bathrooms, the drag queens and the queen bee herself. Mrs. Drug Dealers Anonymous, Beyoncé “Black Panthers” Knowles,” she continued with ’80s-era syncopation.
The song is loosely based on Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” but at various points, the Lahren mashup replaces the “wanna have fun” refrain with “mouth diarrhea.”
Also Read: Tomi Lahren Explains All the Megyn Kelly Criticism: 'It's Harder for a Conservative' (Video)
The video was tweeted from the account @superdeluxe on Wednesday and has received close to 4,000 retweets at press time.
.. And it also gets a stamp of approval from Keith Olbermann.
Way more worthwhile than the current reboot https://t.co/ydHkAF6WyB
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) November 16, 2017
10 Times Tomi Lahren Has Courted Outrage: From Black Lives Matter to President Obama (Photos)
Forthcoming Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren doesn't keep her opinions to herself -- even when her job is on the line. Scroll through to look back at times when Lahren has inflamed both the left and the right.
Also Read: Fox News Signs Tomi Lahren as a Contributor
Beyonce's Super Bowl Performance
Lahren caught plenty of flak when she criticized Beyonce's performance at Super Bowl 50. "Even the Super Bowl halftime show has become a way to politicize and advance the notion that black lives matter more," Lahren said.
Nearly 60,000 people signed a petition calling for Lahren to be fired after she compared Black Lives Matter to the KKK in a since-deleted tweet.
Lahren took serious issue with Jesse Williams' BET Awards acceptance speech, in which he spoke of police brutality toward black Americans. "I saw a lot of talent on that stage, but at the same time a whole lot of victimhood," she said.
Dallas Shooting
Lahren blamed President Obama for the Dallas shooting that left five police officers dead and nine others injured. "Eight years later and we are more divided than ever," she said.
Donald Trump Protesters
After millions took to the street to protest the election of Donald Trump, Lahren said, "A bunch of sore losers occupying a space is called a tantrum."
Trevor Noah Appearance
The two sparred over protests to Donald Trump’s presidential election victory and the Black Lives Matter movement. It probably didn’t help that Lahren previously compared the latter to the KKK. Lahren claimed she doesn’t “see color,” which drew a laughing-gasp from the Comedy Central crowd.
Here's a closer look at Lahren's debate with Noah.
Suspended from "The Blaze"
Lahren was fired from her job at Glenn Beck's "The Blaze" in April after she revealed in an appearance on "The View" that she is pro-choice when it comes to abortion. She then sued her former boss for wrongful termination.
Interview with Jazz Jennings on Transgender Rights
In August, Lahren sat down with the star of TLC's "I am Jazz" to discuss transgender rights and bathroom bills. She asked Jennings if, when she was in second grade using the girls' restroom, others at school thought she was a "pervert."
Fox News/TLC
Charlottesville response
After violent white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia in August, Lahren posted a video on Facebook denouncing liberals who she says blame all Trump supporters for the deadly chaos. "It’s this phony identity politics that lost you the election. The average Trump supporter is not a Nazi or white supremacist," she said.
Tomi Lahren/Facebook
Glenn Beck Countersues
Later in August, Lahren was counter-sued by Glenn Beck and The Blaze. The countersuit paints Lahren as “inappropriate and unprofessional,” as well as a “divisive” person who “created conflicts with other media personalities” at the organization.
Also Read: JK Rowling Trashes Tomi Lahren Over Trump-Obama Claim
TheBlaze
Debate with Trevor Noah is not first time The Blaze anchor has gotten into hot water
Fox News’ Tomi Lahren Blasts NFL Protest, Says She Doesn’t Know Why They’re Happening (Video)
By Jon Levine | October 18, 2017 @ 8:19 AM
Tomi Lahren Explains All the Megyn Kelly Criticism: ‘It’s Harder for a Conservative’ (Video)
By Tim Kenneally | September 29, 2017 @ 1:04 PM
S.E. Cupp, Tomi Lahren, Jeanine Pirro Blast Michelle Obama’s Take on Trump vs Clinton
By Ashley Boucher | September 29, 2017 @ 12:43 PM
By Joe Otterson | August 30, 2017 @ 12:00 PM
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Home > Insights > Blogs > Sweepstakes Law > FTC’s revised COPPA rules go into effect July 1, 2013
FTC’s revised COPPA rules go into effect July 1, 2013
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Sweepstakes Law
Hap Burke
Mark Sableman
Jennifer Visintine
Why privacy policies are key for corporate sweepstakes
Introducing Thompson Coburn’s new Sweepstakes Creator
Can I change the rules to my sweepstakes? 12 questions you should ask
7 things you should know about sweepstakes and contests in employee incentive programs
On May 6, 2013, the FTC unanimously decided that the revised Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) will go into effect on July 1, 2013, as announced last December. Several industry organizations had asked the Commission to postpone the implementation date because the FTC had not issued updated guidelines for the revised rules.
However, last week, the FTC issued the requested guidelines in a new document, “Complying with COPPA: Frequently Asked Questions.” The document contains 92 questions and answers that will help both businesses and parents interpret the revised rules. The FAQs explain the Act’s requirements and provide welcome assistance for businesses — including those that sponsor sweepstakes and contests for children under the age of 13 — that need to understand COPPA’s requirements.
Here are the key changes in COPPA that take effect on July 1, 2013.
Operator’s notice to parents
Under the revised rules, the notice that operators must send to parents has been re-arranged so that the most important information is presented at the beginning of the notice. The revision also reduces the information that operators must include in their online privacy policy.
Obtaining parental consent
The revised rules allow several new ways businesses can obtain parental approval. Those include:
Electric scans of signed parental consent forms
Use of government-issued ID
Alternative payment systems (on the assumption that they meet the same stringent criteria as credit cards)
The “email plus” approach, used by operators collecting parental information for internal use only, remains available under the new rules.
Stricter rules to maintain confidentiality of the child’s personal information
The new rules require operators to make certain that before they provide personal information to service providers and other third parties, that these third-party entities are able to protect the confidentiality, security and integrity of the children’s personal information.
The revised rule also allows operators to keep a child’s personal information only as long as necessary, such as to the end of a sweepstakes or contest.
Safe harbors
The revised rules also require that any organizations using safe harbors conduct audits of their members and report the results to the FTC.
Under the new rules, the definition of “personal information” has been expanded to include “geo location” information, as well as photographs, videos, and audio files that contain a child’s image or voice. The definition now also includes “Persistent identifiers” that can be used to identify a user over time and across different websites or online services.
The new rules also clarify that the definition of “website or online service directed to children” now includes a plug-in or ad network that has actual knowledge that it is collecting personal information through a child-directed website or service.
The revised rules further clarify that an “operator” includes any operator of a child directed site or service that allows outside services, such as plug-ins or advertising networks, to collect personal information from visitors.
If you operate a website or online service directed to children younger than 13 — or if you have actual knowledge that you are collecting personal information online from children in that age group, such as through a sweepstakes or contest — you need to be aware of COPPA’s requirements. The FTC’s new Frequently Asked Questions provide a reliable resource for complying with this complex law.
Click here to view all our posts on COPPA.
This post was written by retired Thompson Coburn partner Dale Joerling. If you have any questions about the topics discussed in this post, please contact Thompson Coburn partner Hap Burke.
children parents internet sweepstakes COPPA
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Robin M. Pflugh, 36, of 134 Crandon Circle, Brighton Township, about 9 p.m. Dec. 20 at Freedom-Crider Road and Danbury Drive in New Sewickley Township. Pflugh�s blood-alcohol level was 0.21 percent, township police said.
Brian C. Ludwig, 25, of 911 William Penn Court, Pittsburgh, about 1:35 a.m. Dec. 21 in the 1000 block of Route 68 in New Sewickley Township. Ludwig�s blood-alcohol level was 0.22 percent, township police said.
James S. Majetic Jr., 29, of 462 Midland Road, Midland, about 8:40 a.m. Jan. 19 at the 200 block of Franklin Avenue in Aliquippa. Police did not release Majetic�s blood-alcohol level.
Marvin Mills, 35, of 103 Moreland St., Aliquippa, about 2:20 a.m. Dec. 21 at Sheffield Avenue and Superior Avenue in Aliquippa. Mills�s blood-alcohol level was 0.10 percent, state police said.
Thomas E. Mullooly, 48, of Masontown, W.Va., about 3:45 a.m. Jan. 25 at Sheetz, 9002 University Blvd., Moon Township. Township police did not release Mullooly�s blood-alcohol level.
Stacey L. Slis, 37, of 930 Kris Drive, Apartment 190, Moon Township, about 12:15 a.m. Jan. 27 on Lee Drive in Moon Township. Moon police did not release the results of Slis� blood-alcohol level.
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What Is TextNow, and Is It Worth It?
By Sean Riley 2018-08-14T22:42:00Z Wireless Carriers
TextNow can help you lower your monthly bill by using Wi-Fi to handle your calls and texts when available. Here’s how the service works.
TextNow got its start in 2009 as a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) app that provided you with a U.S. phone number, which you could use to make calls or text over Wi-Fi. While it still provides that service — there’s an app for that — TextNow has also expanded into a true mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that piggybacks on other cellular networks to provide wireless coverage for your smartphone.
TextNow can point to a few things that help it stand out from the MVNO crowd, such as an ad-supported free tier of service and a new unlimited plan with a price that undercuts what you’d pay at a major carrier. But does what TextNow has to offer fit in with your wireless needs? Here’s an overview of TextNow and its wireless phone service.
What network does TextNow use?
When TextNow started as a wireless provider, it relied on Sprint’s CDMA network for cellular service. It’s since added the GSM-based T-Mobile network to its mix.
But cellular is only part of the story with TextNow. Like Republic Wireless and Project Fi, TextNow uses Wi-Fi whenever possible for your calls, text and data. That Wi-Fi-centric focus is what enables the carrier to offer low monthly rates on its plans.
When you buy a phone from TextNow or order a SIM card to use with your current phone, you have to pick either a CDMA or GSM version, tying you to either Sprint or T-Mobile. According to the findings in our LTE network speed tests, in most areas you will see faster and more reliable service with the T-Mobile GSM option. But this is not universally the case so you should check the coverage maps and our article to see if you might be better served by Sprint’s network.
What phones can you use with TextNow?
TextNow offers 14 phones on its website, with the carrier telling us that it focuses on “good value” with its phone selection. To that end, half of the phones currently on offer at TextNow cost less than $100. The most expensive phone the company sells is the Galaxy S9 at $449. (That's nearly $300 less than what you'd pay for that same device at a larger carrier.)
(Image credit: The Galaxy S8 is available through Text Now at a discount. (Credit: Tom's Guide))
Despite the presence of the S9, you won’t find the latest phones available for sale through TextNow. The most current iPhone available is the iPhone 7, which debuted in 2016. (Its $360 price tag reflects its aging status.) Even the budget phones available feel a little long in the tooth. TextNow sells the Moto E4 at a bargain basement price of $46, but Motorola has come out a new version of that handset.
On the bright side, TextNow breaks with many discount carriers by letting you pay for your phone in monthly installments over three, six or 12 months. There is a financing charge, so you will end up paying a little more than you would if you bought your phone outright.
MORE: Unlocked or Carrier? How You Should Buy Your Next Phone
If you already have a device you are happy with, or would like an unlocked phone that TextNow doesn’t offer, you can order a SIM card from TextNow and pop that into the device of your choice. You can order a SIM card for free currently, as TextNow is waiving the usual $5 cost; it even ships the SIM card to you for free.
TextNow's online tool lets you see if your phone will work with its service.
As you proceed through the checkout process, TextNow will prompt you for your current carrier, the IMEI/MEID code for your phone, and the device model to verify that it will work on TextNow’s network; you’ll also be asked whether you need a CDMA or GSM SIM card.
What are the best TextNow plans?
If you haven’t looked at TextNow’s plans in a while, you’re in for a surprise. TextNow has upped the amount of data you get int its plans, including the addition of a new unlimited plan that’s very competitively priced.
Data allotments start at 2GB of LTE data for $19.99 a month. (All TextNow plans offer unlimited talk and text, so there’s no need to calculate how many minutes and texts you’ll need each month.) Pay $29.99 and your monthly data bucket grows to 5GB. (For the sake of comparison, T-Mobile-owned MetroPCS charges $40 for its 5GB plan.) Go over your limit, and TextNow merely throttles your data to 2G speeds for the rest of the billing cycle.
TextNowView Deal
TextNow’s most intriguing plan, though, is a $39.99 monthly offering that delivers unlimited LTE data. Only a smattering of MVNOs offer unlimited data plans and TextNow’s is one of the least expensive. (Your data speeds will be slowed if you go over 23GB a month, but that’s standard for unlimited data plans; in fact 23GB is the threshold Sprint sets for its unlimited customers.)
If you don’t need LTE data at all, you can turn to TextNow’s $9.99 plan, which just offers talk and text. For the even budget-conscious, the free TextNow app (Android, iOS) enables Wi-Fi calling on your smartphone, with a $2.99 monthly fee removing ads and adding other features like group texting, caller ID, conference calling and voice mail transcription.
TextNow Plans
Talk Text LTE Data Monthly Price
Unlimited Unlimited None $9.99
Unlimited Unlimited 2GB $19.99
Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited $39.99
If you need to add additional lines, TextNow offers discounts on the 5GB and unlimited data plans. A second 5GB line costs $22.99, a $7 discount, while additional unlimited data lines are discounted by $10 to $29.99. TextNow points out that a family could get three lines of unlimited data for $100, though with carriers now offering different tiers of unlimited data plans, those savings aren't as substantial as they might first appear. Under T-Mobile's stripped-down Essentials plan, for example, three lines of unlimited data cost $105 a month.
What special features does TextNow offer?
All TextNow plans, even the lowest-cost one, feature unlimited talk and text to the U.S. and Canada.
TextNow’s most intriguing plan, though, is a $39.99 monthly offering that delivers unlimited LTE data.
TextNow also lets you add credit to your account by completing surveys, installing apps or watching ads. This is a strategy that will be familiar to fans of free-to-play mobile games. Offers can vary from installing an app to signing up for a service, and you’ll receive varying amounts of account credit. Viewing a single 30-second ad earned me 2 cents in credit, for example. Customers on the free and paid tiers are eligible to earn credit via these methods.
TextNow offers international calling from within the U.S. at very competitive rates, including free international calling to some locations, but the service does not have any plans that allow users to make cellular calls when they travel outside the U.S. and Canada. You can still make calls and send texts over Wi-Fi when you’re overseas, though.
What do customers say about TextNow?
Reviews of the TextNow app from customers in both Google Play and the iOS App Store are quite good, with an average of 4.4 out of 5 and 4 out of 5, respectively The majority of these users are taking advantage of TextNow’s free service, though the praise for service’s performance leaves a generally solid impression of the company and its app.
MORE: Wireless Carriers Forum
The Better Business Bureau has upped its grade of TextNow to an A+, with the company getting a rating of 4.12 out of 5 based on six reviews.
The most common complaint regarding the service centered on the ads, which is only a concern for those using the free app. One user review notes a slight delay on calls, but otherwise users seem to like the competitive pricing.
TextNow has taken some big strides since we last reviewed the service, with the addition of GSM service, a bring-your-own-device program and massive amounts of data. While reliability appears to have improved, some handoff issues when moving from Wi-Fi to cellular are still to be expected.
Some of the unique features TextNow offers, like the ability to earn credit toward your bill by completing surveys and watching ads, will certainly appeal to some customers looking to keep their cellular bill at an absolute minimum. While unlimited 2G data would be agonizing to use, it’s still nice to know that option’s available should you go over your data allotment in a given month.
TextNow already offered a remarkable value for users that prioritize calling and texting with relatively modest high-speed data needs, and larger data plans make TextNow a more compelling option Users with little or no cell reception in their home or office will also benefit greatly from the service as long as they have Wi-Fi available. If you have no need for unlimited calling and texting, then take a look at Ting or US Mobile, as they separate out talk, text and data and could save you more money.
Credit: TextNow
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State v. Parrinello, Ariz. Ct. App. (2016)
Filed: 2016-03-10 Precedential Status: Non-Precedential Docket: 1 CA-CR 14-0603
saveSave State v. Parrinello, Ariz. Ct. App. (2016) For Later
United States v. Brian Miller, 693 F.2d 1051, 11th Cir. (1982)
Romero v. New Mexico, State Of, 10th Cir. (1996)
Daniel v. Ben E. Keith Company, 10th Cir. (1996)
United States v. Mark Lomax, 4th Cir. (2012)
United States v. Peter Reuben Ortiz, 445 F.2d 1100, 10th Cir. (1971)
United States v. Robert Earl Saunders, A/K/A John Robert Sanders, 451 F.2d 344, 3rd Cir. (1971)
Yaakub Bin Ahmad v Public Prosecutor - [1975
United States v. Renteria-Caicedo, 4th Cir. (1996)
United States v. Mark Williams, 3rd Cir. (2013)
United States v. Regina M. Preetorius, 11th Cir. (2015)
United States v. Berry, 4th Cir. (2001)
United States of America Ex Rel. Robert John Small, Jr., H-5586 v. Alfred T. Rundle, Supt, 442 F.2d 235, 3rd Cir. (1971)
United States v. Raynard Carroll, 678 F.2d 1208, 4th Cir. (1982)
State v. Connatser, Ariz. Ct. App. (2016)
United States v. Fernando Avalos, 4th Cir. (2012)
State v. Romero, Ariz. Ct. App. (2014)
Anacalypsis
United States v. Forde, 4th Cir. (2011)
Davis v. Wood, 14 U.S. 6 (1816)
NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION.
UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL
AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE.
ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS
STATE OF ARIZONA, Appellee,
ANTHONY PARRINELLO, Appellant.
No. 1 CA-CR 14-0603
FILED 3-10-2016
Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County
No. CR2013-002192-001
The Honorable Bruce R. Cohen, Judge
Arizona Attorney Generals Office, Phoenix
By Colby Mills
Counsel for Appellee
Maricopa County Public Defenders Office, Phoenix
By Peg Green
Counsel for Appellant
STATE v. PARRINELLO
Decision of the Court
MEMORANDUM DECISION
Presiding Judge Jon W. Thompson delivered the decision of the Court, in
which Judge Maurice Portley and Judge Patricia K. Norris joined.
T H O M P S O N, Judge:
Anthony Parrinello (defendant) appeals from his convictions
and sentences for second degree murder, a class one dangerous felony, and
leaving the scene of a fatal accident, a class three felony. For the following
reasons, we affirm.
FACTS1 AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
On August 13, 2012, defendant and the victim got into an
argument outside of their childrens elementary school. Defendant told the
victim to meet him behind Walmart to finish the argument, but the victim
refused and began walking home. Defendant drove his SUV to Walmart,
but when the victim did not appear he drove back toward the school.
Defendant saw the victim walking on the sidewalk and stopped his car
alongside of him. Defendant and the victim continued to argue through the
passenger window, but defendant did not exit his vehicle.
Shortly after defendant and victims confrontation, a witness
found the victim lying in the middle of the street. The victims torso had
been run over by a vehicle traveling at a low speed, and his body dragged
for over forty feet. The victim had suffered blunt force trauma throughout
his body, he was unresponsive, and he later died from his injuries.
Phoenix police officers responded and arrested defendant at
his workplace. Officers searched defendants SUV and found blood and
body tissue matching the victims on the undercarriage of the vehicle. The
front grill of defendants car was cracked and pushed in, and portions of
the grill, hood and undercarriage had been wiped clean.
A grand jury indicted defendant on one count of second
degree murder (count 1) and one count of leaving the scene of a fatal
We view the trial evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining
the jurys verdicts. See State v. Nelson, 214 Ariz. 196, 196, 2, 150 P.3d 769,
769 (App. 2007).
accident (count 2). The jury found defendant guilty as charged, and found
that the state had proven two aggravating circumstances. The court
sentenced defendant to twenty years imprisonment for count 1, with 597
days presentence incarceration. The court suspended imposition of
sentence on Count 2 and imposed a four year probation term.
Defendant filed a timely notice of appeal. This court has
jurisdiction pursuant to Article 6, Section 9, of the Arizona Constitution and
Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) sections 12-120.21(A)(1) (2003), and 134033(A)(1) (2010).
Defendant argues that the trial court erred in admitting three
recorded phone calls he made while in jail pending trial because they lacked
sufficient foundation. Specifically, defendant asserts that the state failed to
link the date and time of each call with its content, identify the name or
number of the recipient of the calls, identify defendants booking number,
and describe the content of the call. Whether a party has laid sufficient
foundation for admission of evidence is within the sound discretion of the
trial court, and we will not disturb its ruling absent a clear abuse of that
discretion. State v. George, 206 Ariz. 436, 446, 28, 79 P.3d 1050, 1060 (App.
It is settled law that transcripts and recordings of telephone
conversations are admissible when properly authenticated. State v. Miller,
226 Ariz. 202, 8, 245 P.3d 887, 891 (App. 2010). The requirement for
authentication or identification as a condition precedent to admissibility is
satisfied by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in
question is what its proponent claims. Ariz. R. Evid. 901(a). The question
for the trial court is not whether the evidence is authentic, but only whether
evidence exists from which the jury could reasonably conclude that it is
authentic. State v. Lavers, 168 Ariz. 376, 386, 814 P.2d 333, 343 (1991).
Authentication may be satisfied through voice identification based on
hearing the voice at any time under circumstances that connect it with the
alleged speaker, or also by evidence describing a process or system and
showing that it produces an accurate result. Ariz. R. Evid. 901(b)(5), (9)
In this case, the custodian of records in the jails inmate
telephone records unit testified that all non-legally related inmate calls are
recorded, and that she received a subpoena requesting all calls made by
defendant. She identified the CDs marked as exhibits 66 and 67 as the CDs
produced by her unit, containing all the jail calls made by defendant. She
testified that the CDs were in their original form because they were
encrypted and could not be altered.
Similarly, a Phoenix police detective testified that the sheriffs
office also prepared exhibit 69, a CD containing redacted portions of
defendants jail calls, and marked it with defendants name and booking
number. The detective testified that he previously interviewed defendant
after his arrest, and recognized defendants voice as the caller in the jail
calls. The detective's personal knowledge of defendant's voice, as well as
the evidence of the procedure for taping inmate calls, supplied sufficient
foundation to authenticate the recordings. See State v. Wooten, 193 Ariz. 357,
368, 5658, 972 P.2d 993, 1004 (App. 1998). That the State did not identify
the recipient of the calls, link the date of each call with its content, or
describe the content of the call prior to admission does not render the
recorded jail calls improperly authenticated.
Defendant also asserts that the recorded jail calls were
prejudicial because they were confusing to the jury by not being listed in
chronological order. Because defense counsel did not object on grounds of
prejudice, this argument is waived absent fundamental error. State v. Neal,
143 Ariz. 93, 100, 692 P.2d 272, 279 (1984) (Absent fundamental error, if
evidence is objected to on one ground in the trial court and admitted over
that objection, other grounds raised for the first time on appeal are
waived.). Defendant thus bears the burden of establishing that the error
was fundamental and caused him prejudice. State v. Henderson, 210 Ariz.
561, 568, 23, 26, 115 P.3d 601, 608 (2005). Fundamental error is error
going to the foundation of the case, error that takes from the defendant a
right essential to his defense, and error of such magnitude that the
defendant could not possibly have received a fair trial. State v. Hunter, 142
Ariz. 88, 90, 688 P.2d 980, 982 (1984).
The admission of jail calls did not amount to fundamental
error. Defendant admitted on appeal that when exhibit 69 was opened, the
correct date was reflected for each call. Additionally, during closing
arguments the prosecutor recited the correct order and date of each call.
Defendant has not shown that the admission of the jail calls denied him a
fair trial or deprived him of a right essential to his defense. Additionally,
defendant has not established prejudice.
The state presented
overwhelming evidence to support defendants convictions; defendant
failed to show that absent the evidence of the recorded jail calls, the jury
could have reached a different verdict. State v. Trostle, 191 Ariz. 4, 16, 951
P.2d 869, 881 (1997). Accordingly, we find no error, much less fundamental
In sum, there was ample evidence from which the jury could
reasonably conclude the CD recordings were authentic, see Wooten, 193
Ariz. at 368, 56, 972 P.2d at 1004, and the trial court did not abuse its
discretion in admitting them. Consequently, we find no reversible error.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm defendants convictions
and sentences.
:ama
Prejudice (Legal Term)
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The Beth Din
Uploaded by Ashley Diane Henry
JEWISH LAW IN THE UK
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NTF_Protocol (Signed on 22 June 2000)
THE BETH DIN:
The Centre for Social Cohesion
JEWISH COURTS IN THE UK
Clutha House
10 Storeys Gate
London SW1P 3AY
Fax: +44 (0)5 601527476
Email: mail@socialcohesion.co.uk
www.socialcohesion.co.uk
Limited by guarantee.
Registered in England and Wales: No. 06609071
Executive Summary 1
THE BETH DIN AND THE ARBITRATION ACT (1996) 6
Rules applicable to Arbitration tribunals 7
Arbitration awards 8
Safeguards under the Arbitration Act 9
Enforcement by civil courts
Remit of arbitration tribunals
Recognition of religious courts 12
THE BETH DIN AS A RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY 13
Religious functions of the Beth Din 13
The Beth Din, Divorce and Family Law 13
The Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act 2002
INTERPRETATIONS OF JEWISH LAW IN THE UK 18
Positions on key issues 18
Jewish status
THE BETH DIN: JEWISH LAW IN THE UK 1
What is the Beth Din and what does it do?
The Beth Din is a Jewish authority which offers members of the Jewish communities two
separate services civil arbitration and religious rulings. The Beth Din provides civil
arbitration as an alternative to court action under the Arbitration Act (1996), which grants all
British citizens the right to resolve civil disputes through arbitration. They also provide
religious rulings on personal issues of faith which are voluntary, non-binding and limited to
an individuals private status.
Is there only one Beth Din?
No, there is no centralised Beth Din in the UK; each of the main branches of Judaism in
Britain has its own rabbinic authority and interprets halakha, or Jewish law, for its associated
synagogues. For example, the London Beth Din, the Court of the Chief Rabbi and the oldest
Jewish court in the UK established in the early 18th century is the best-known Orthodox
authority representing 30-40% of Britains 250,000 Jews. Other Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox
communities and progressive Jewish movements also run separate Beth Din. The positions
held by the different branches of Judaism on key issues demonstrate the plurality of
interpretation within Jewish law specifically between Orthodox and non-Orthodox
approaches to religious divorces, conversions and determination of Jewish status.
What is the Beth Dins remit does it deal with criminal or family law?
No, the Beth Din does not deal directly with matters pertaining to criminal or family law.
When functioning as an arbitration tribunal the Beth Din is limited to civil proceedings. The
Arbitration Act (1996) preserves the English common law position in respect of matters that
are capable of settlement by arbitration: civil disputes (contractual disputes, claims in tort,
disputes concerning intellectual property rights and certain statutory claims) can legally be
resolved by arbitration; family law and criminal matters cannot.
Religious rulings and services provided by the Beth Din are voluntary and limited to an
individuals private status a religious divorce overseen by the Beth Din, for example, does
not affect the individuals legal status. However, individuals do have the right to consult
religious figures on personal matters, including ancillary relief and childcare provisions
resulting from divorce. In the UK, family law can only be decided on by a family law court:
the outcome of mediation by religious figures can be used as a basis for discussion in a
family court, but is always subject to the authority of the court.
Are Beth Din decisions voluntary and/or legally-binding?
All Beth Din decisions are ostensibly voluntary; decisions made within the parameters of the
Arbitration Act (1996) are also legally-binding, subject to the approval of civil courts. Both
parties must freely agree to accept the judgment as legally-binding; by signing an arbitration
agreement with the Beth Din individuals are choosing to be judged by Jewish law. In the
event of non-compliance, the arbitration agreement may be taken to secular courts for
enforcement. Civil courts, however, retain the right to intervene in any case where the award
of the Beth Din is considered unreasonable or contrary to public policy. Unlike civil courts,
the Act does not afford a tribunal power to assume jurisdiction over individuals or entities not
party to the arbitration agreement: the Beth Din may invite a non-party to submit testimony or
produce documents willingly; but it cannot compel that individual or entity to do so.
Religious rulings, however, are not legally binding: they are voluntary and open to all
members of the Jewish communities in the UK. However, the Beth Dins religious rulings are
often seen as religiously and morally binding some members of the Jewish communities
seek a religious divorce, for example, because they feel it is necessary to maintain a sense
of honour within their community.
What about religious divorce are women disadvantaged under Jewish law?
Jewish marriages conducted in synagogues in the UK are registered with the state; religious
and civil divorces, however, are separate procedures. A Jewish divorce is not an alternative
to a civil divorce. It does not alter an individuals legal status, just as a civil divorce does not
dissolve a religious marriage.
A Jewish couple seeking a religious divorce must both freely agree to obtain a Jewish
contractual divorce document, known as a Get, from a Beth Din, which acts as a witness.
Traditionally, a Get may only be granted if both parties agree. Unsatisfactory divorces
where one party refuses to divorce can present practical problems for the continuation of
the other partys Jewish life, especially for women. Men suffer limited social opprobrium by
not being divorced while women can be seriously disadvantaged - if she re-marries in the
civil courts without a Get she will be regarded as being adulterous and any future child of
hers will be considered a mamzer, or illegitimate in Jewish law. As a result, men have only
limited incentive to grant their wives a divorce,
Movements within progressive Judaism have reinterpreted Jewish law to alleviate this
problem. For example, the Reform Beth Din in Britain grants religious divorces to women
without the husbands consent on the basis that an unethical law cannot be a Jewish law.
Orthodox communities lobbied for legislative changes to protect women (and men) from
unsatisfactory divorces: the resulting Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act (2002) compels the
Beth Din to issue a religious divorce if either party to a civil divorce requires it, safeguarding
against the religious divorce being used as a bargaining tool. A minority of Jewish women
from highly conservative Ultra-Orthodox communities will not be protected by this law if
their community does not recognise the necessity of civil divorce.
Is the Beth Din a recognised legal court does it offer a parallel legal system?
No, in neither arbitration cases nor religious judgements, is the Beth Din recognised as a
legal court nor does it offer a parallel legal system; Beth Din rulings or advice can only be
reflected in UK law if both parties freely agree and the decision is approved by the civil
When functioning as a tribunal, the Beth Din facilitates consensual arbitration within the
parameters of the Arbitration Act (1996), operating within and not outside of UK law.
Religious rulings do not confer or change an individuals legal status they are a matter of
personal faith. The Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act (2002), however, recognises the
disadvantaged position a Jewish woman can find herself in if her husband refuses her a
religious divorce. The Act itself, however, does not grant the Beth Din legal recognition: the
law compels the Beth Din to pursue a religious divorce if a party to a civil divorce requests it
the Jewish court must reflect the couples status according to UK law not act outside it.
In January 2008 the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams spoke of the unavoidable
introduction of some aspects of Sharia law in Britain.1 Since then the media have paid
increasing attention to religious courts in the UK and specifically their role within minority
communities in a multi-cultural society. The freedom and right to consult a religious body
rather than a court of law in civil disputes and personal matters challenges the balance
between two fundamental principles of contemporary British society, equality before the law
and personal liberty. How does society balance the right to individual freedom in the private
sphere if it conflicts with collective values, such as equality for women and freedom under
the law from all forms of discrimination?
Family issues such as religious marriage and divorce and childcare provisions, the
compatibility of religious law and English law and concerns over the potential emergence of
a parallel legal system, are key issues in the discussion of religious courts in the UK. Media
coverage has particularly focused on comparisons between Jewish courts, known
collectively as the Batei Din (pl.) or more commonly the Beth Din (sing.) and Sharia
courts. There is, however, considerable confusion over the legal status and remit of Jewish
courts in the UK. This briefing will examine how Jewish courts work within UK law to offer
arbitration in civil disputes law; the religious functions of the Beth Din; and the plurality of
Jewish law amongst the Beth Din the UK.
Archbishop's Lecture - Civil and Religious Law in England: a Religious Perspective & BBC Interview - Radio 4 World at One,
The Archbishop of Canterburys official website, 07 February, 2008. See: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1581
Functions of the Beth Din
The Beth Din serve two distinct functions for members of the Jewish communities in the UK:
Recourse to arbitration of civil disputes using Jewish law
Rulings on religious matters such as designating religious holidays or granting
religious divorces
Arbitration:
Jewish courts function as legally binding arbitration tribunals for civil cases, for example
property or employment disputes. Subject to certain procedural rules and safeguards
specified by the Arbitration Act (1996), these tribunals offer an alternative to the civil courts.
Their decisions, known as awards, can be legally enforced if they are deemed reasonable
by the civil courts.
Religious Rulings:
The Beth Din also functions as a religious and not legal authority, and is self-regulatory.
In this capacity Jewish courts rule on a variety of religious matters, and its judges, known as
dayanim, are also free to mediate between parties wishing to resolve a situation such as
childcare and ancillary relief according to prescribed interpretations of their faith.
Across the spectrum of Judaism in the UK in both arbitration cases and religious
judgements the Beth Din is ostensibly voluntary and rulings or advice can only be reflected
in UK law if both parties freely submit to the religious courts jurisdiction and the award or
advice is approved by the civil courts. In neither case is the religious court itself recognised
as an official legal court.
Organisation of the Beth Din
There is no centralised Beth Din in the UK; each of the main Jewish communities in Britain
has its own rabbinic authority.
Orthodox Judaism:
The London Beth Din, the Court of the Chief Rabbi and the oldest Jewish court in the UK
(with branches in Glasgow, Manchester and Leeds) established in the early 18th century
is the religious authority for the United Synagogue, the primary Orthodox synagogue
grouping in the UK representing 30-40% of Britains 250,000 Jews.2 Other Orthodox courts
include the Beth Din of the Federation of Synagogues in London and the Sephardi Beth Din
of the Spanish & Portuguese Jews' Congregation in London. The Union of Orthodox Hebrew
Congregations also runs a Beth Din in Stanford Hill for Ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Non-Orthodox or Progressive Judaism:
The Liberal, Masorti and Reform movements, which represent over a third of Britains Jews
(Liberal 8%, Masorti 6% and Reform 20%) run separate Beth Din and span from the
Personal interview with David Frei, Registrar of the London Beth Din and member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews
Family Law Committee, 07 October, 2008.
traditional to the progressive both in their practices and their attitudes to Jewish law. 3 The
creation of the Reformist Beth Din in 1948 broke the virtual monopoly of the London Beth
Din; since then such non-Orthodox Beth Din have challenged the authority of Orthodox
interpretations of Jewish law, and provided alternative religious readings in cases such as
religious conversions, divorces and re-marriages.
Major drive to increase Jewish cross-communal collaboration, Reform Judaism press release, 12 September, 2008. See:
http://news.reformjudaism.org.uk/press-releases/major-drive-to-increase-jewish-cross-communal-collaboration.html
The Beth Din and the Arbitration Act (1996)
Jewish courts can settle civil cases under the 1996 Arbitration Act which grants all British
citizens the right to mutually agree to have civil disputes resolved through arbitration. Each
Beth Din provides a forum for arbitration in accordance with interpretations of Jewish law for
its associated synagogues and members of the wider Jewish communities.
As the 1996 Arbitration Act makes clear, Jewish courts functioning as arbitral tribunals are a
voluntary, impartial and legally-binding alternative to national courts for civil and not
criminal or family law cases. The Arbitration Act lays out the following three general
principles on which it is founded:
(a) the object of arbitration is to obtain the fair resolution of disputes by an
impartial tribunal without unnecessary delay or expense;
(b) the parties should be free to agree how their disputes are resolved, subject
only to such safeguards as are necessary in the public interest;
(c) in matters governed by this Part the court [High Court or county court] should
not intervene except as provided by this Part.4
The mandate of an arbitral tribunal in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, therefore, is to
obtain the impartial resolution of civil cases without unnecessary delay, expense or
intervention.
In the last ten years arbitration has been encouraged in the UK as a precursor to court action
and is most commonly used for the resolution of commercial disputes, particularly in the
context of international transactions.5 Many consumer contracts for example, holiday
disputes now either require or recommend arbitration.
The elements of arbitration that appeal to international businesses speed, impartiality, low
cost and confidentiality make it an attractive method of dispute resolution for individuals
involved in civil cases. David Frei, Registrar of the London Beth Din and member of the
Board of Deputies of British Jews Family Law Committee, outlines the advantages to
Its an alternative to the courts [and] has a number of advantages: its usually
cheaper, its often quicker with the courts clogged up with so many cases and,
very important, its confidential once you have arbitration, nobody knows
about it. 6
Parties seeking arbitration are free to mutually choose an arbitrator, to appoint an arbitrator
each or to appoint a number of arbitrators.7 The Beth Din, therefore, provides a forum for
The Arbitration Act (1996) General Principles (part 1; section 1 a-c), The Office of Public Sector Information. See:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1996/ukpga_19960023_en_1
The Civil Procedure Rules (1999) commonly known as the Woolf Reforms recommended arbitration, a form of Alternative
Dispute Resolution (ADR), as a way to speed up and streamline the process of taking civil cases to court in England, Wales
and Northern Ireland.
Personal interview, 07 October, 2008.
If three arbitrators are to be appointed, each party chooses one and these two together chose the third arbitrator.
arbitration for Jewish individuals seeking dispute resolution in accordance with the Halakha,
or Jewish law. Jonathan Greenwood, a solicitor who has represented many Jewish
businesspeople at the London Beth Din, says:
Orthodox Jews go to the Beth Din to settle their disputes They believe it is a
religious obligation to go there rather than the secular courts. But it is also
quicker and cheaper.8
David Frei, Registrar of the London Beth Din, says of the UKs primary Orthodox rabbinic
All we do is act as courts of arbitration. Now in English Law, anyone can act as
an arbitrator. You dont have to have any special qualification. All you need is
parties to agree that you should be the referee in their dispute. 9
Rules applicable to Arbitration tribunals
Settlements under arbitration do not have to be based on English law: once the decision is
made to seek arbitration, the parties can chose to be judged by any rules or laws that they
mutually agree upon. The 1996 Arbitration Act states:
The arbitral tribunal shall decide the dispute
in accordance with the law chosen by the parties as applicable to the
substance of the dispute, or
if the parties so agree, in accordance with such other considerations as are
agreed by them or determined by the tribunal.10
The 1996 Act further states:
Parties may make such arrangements by agreeing to the application of
institutional rules or providing any other means by which a matter may be
It is immaterial whether or not the law applicable to the parties' agreement is
the law of England and Wales or, as the case may be, Northern Ireland
The choice of a law other than the law of England and Wales or Northern
Ireland as the applicable law in respect of a matter provided for by a non-
mandatory provision of this Part is equivalent to an agreement making
provision about that matter
An applicable law determined in accordance with the parties' agreement, or
which is objectively determined in the absence of any express or implied
choice, shall be treated as chosen by the parties.11
Innes Bowen, The end of one law for all? BBC News, 28 November, 2006. Available at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6190080.stm
Personal interview with David Frei, 07 October, 2008.
The Arbitration Act (1996) Rules applicable to substance of dispute (part 1; section 46), The Office of Public Sector
Information. See: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1996/ukpga_19960023_en_3#pt1-pb9-l1g46
The Arbitration Act (1996) Mandatory and non-mandatory provisions (part 1; section 4), The Office of Public Sector
Information. See: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1996/ukpga_19960023_en_2#pt1-pb1-l1g4
Parties agreeing to allow a Beth Din to act as their arbitration tribunal are therefore choosing
to be judged by Jewish law. Consent to be judged accordingly is accepted from both parties
either in writing or if their agreement is recorded by any [other] means.
Arbitration awards
In its judgements, or awards, arbitration tribunals are empowered under the 1996 Arbitration
Act to order individuals to pay money or carry out other actions, if they have agreed on the
principle of such remedies in advance:
The tribunal may order the payment of a sum of money, in any currency.
(5) The tribunal has the same powers as the court
(a) to order a party to do or refrain from doing anything;
(b) to order specific performance of a contract (other than a contract relating to
land);
(c) to order the rectification, setting aside or cancellation of a deed or other
document.12
In addition, the Act specifies that:
(2) This includes, for instance, making
(a) a provisional order for the payment of money or the disposition of property as
between the parties, or
(b) an order to make an interim payment on account of the costs of the
(3) Any such order shall be subject to the tribunals final adjudication; and the
tribunals final award, on the merits or as to costs, shall take account of any such
(4) Unless the parties agree to confer such power on the tribunal, the tribunal
has no such power.13
This also applies to apportioning the costs of the tribunal. The Act says that the tribunal may
make an award allocating the costs of the arbitration as between the parties, subject to any
agreement of the parties.14
The tribunals decisions regarding costs and payments are all legally enforceable: An award
made by the tribunal pursuant to an arbitration agreement may, by leave of the court [High
Court or a county court], be enforced in the same manner as a judgment or order of the court
to the same effect.15
The Arbitration Act (1996) Remedies (part 1; section 48), The Office of Public Sector Information. See:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1996/ukpga_19960023_en_3#pt1-pb9-l1g48
The Arbitration Act (1996) Power to make provisional awards (part1; section 39), The Office of Public Sector Information.
See: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1996/ukpga_19960023_en_3#pt1-pb7-l1g39
The Arbitration Act (1996) Award of costs (part 1; section 61), The Office of Public Sector Information. See:
The Arbitration Act (1996) Enforcement of the award of costs (part 1; section 66), The Office of Public Sector Information.
See: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1996/ukpga_19960023_en_4#pt1-pb11-l1g66
Safeguards under the Arbitration Act
The 1996 Arbitration Act contains many safeguards:
Arbitration must be voluntary for both parties
Arbitration must be impartial
Civil courts retain the right to overturn an arbitration award
Arbitration is limited to civil cases
It must be noted, however, that these safeguards are only applicable and/or enforceable
when a religious court is acting as an arbitration tribunal under the 1996 Arbitration Act.
Under English law arbitration is a consensual process: in this case the litigating parties
choose to sign an arbitration agreement agreeing to accept the judgment of the Beth Din as
binding. The 1996 Arbitration Act does not afford a tribunal power to assume jurisdiction over
individuals or entities not party to the arbitration agreement. When functioning as an
arbitration tribunal, the Beth Din may invite a non-party to submit testimony or produce
documents willingly; but it cannot compel that individual or entity to do so.
David Frei says:
Arbitration is an established system of dispute resolution. And all that the
[London] Beth Din do is work within that system. We constitute ourselves as a
court of arbitration. We cannot coerce anybody to come before us unlike a court
if they dont want to come we have really no sanction against them Were
dealing with consenting individuals who are coming to determine civil matters in
front of us.16
The impartiality of arbitrators is central to the arbitration process: the 1996 Act states that
the object of arbitration is to obtain the fair resolution of disputes by an impartial tribunal.
The Act instructs tribunals to act fairly and impartially as between the parties, giving each
party a reasonable opportunity of putting his case and dealing with that of his opponent.
Tribunals are also required to adopt procedures suitable to the circumstances of a particular
case.17
The 1996 Act permits a party to the tribunal to apply to the court a High Court or a county
court for the removal of an arbitrator if there are justifiable doubts as to that arbitrators
impartiality. Alternatively, a party can apply to the court to remove an arbitrator in the event
that: they do not possess the qualifications required by the parties arbitration agreement; if
they suffer from physical or mental incapability; or if there are failures in conducting the
proceedings properly.18
The Arbitration Act (1996) General duty of the tribunal (part 1; section 33), The Office of Public Sector Information.
The Arbitration Act (1996) Power of court to remove arbitrator (part1; section 24), The Office of Public Sector Information.
THE BETH DIN: JEWISH LAW IN THE UK 10
By signing an arbitration agreement both parties agree to accept the judgment of the Beth
Din as binding. In the event of non-compliance, the arbitration agreement may be taken to
secular courts often the Court of Appeal for enforcement. Civil courts, however, retain
the right to intervene in any case where the award of the Beth Din is considered
unreasonable.
Once the tribunal has reached a decision, either party is able to appeal to the high court or
a county court to have the decision overturned on the ground of serious irregularity
affecting the tribunal, the proceedings or the award. The Act adds that:
Serious irregularity means an irregularity of one or more of the following kinds
which the court considers has caused or will cause substantial injustice to the
(a) failure by the tribunal to comply with section 33 (general duty of tribunal);
(b) the tribunal exceeding its powers (otherwise than by exceeding its
substantive jurisdiction: see section 67);
(c) failure by the tribunal to conduct the proceedings in accordance with the
procedure agreed by the parties;
(d) failure by the tribunal to deal with all the issues that were put to it;
(e) any arbitral or other institution or person vested by the parties with powers in
relation to the proceedings or the award exceeding its powers;
(f) uncertainty or ambiguity as to the effect of the award;
(g) the award being obtained by fraud or the award or the way in which it was
procured being contrary to public policy;
(h) failure to comply with the requirements as to the form of the award; or
(i) any irregularity in the conduct of the proceedings or in the award which is
admitted by the tribunal or by any arbitral or other institution or person vested by
the parties with powers in relation to the proceedings or the award.19
Therefore, all agreements reached under the 1996 Arbitration Act can be reviewed and
potentially overturned by the civil courts.
CASE STUDY: SOLEIMANY vs SOLEIMANY
Civil courts can question the legality of a Beth Din decision in the event of the award or the way
in which it was procured being contrary to public policy. In the case of Soleimany vs Soleimany
a financial dispute between two Iranian Jewish merchants, a father and son, who were exporting
Persian carpets in contravention of Iranian Revenue laws and export controls the London Beth
Din recognised that the original contract was illegal, but since this illegality was regarded as
irrelevant under the applicable Jewish law an appropriate award was made. The UK Court of
Appeal, however, ruled that the underlying contract was illegal as it contravened the law of Iran
and that the award of the Beth Din was therefore contrary to public policy and could not be
enforced.
Source: Soleimany v Soleimany [1998] APP.L.R. 02/19. See also Abdulhay Sayed, Corruption in International
Trade and Commercial Arbitration (Kluwer Law International, 2004) pp. 414-415.
The Arbitration Act (1996) Challenging the award: serious irregularity (part1; section 68), The Office of Public Sector
See: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1996/ukpga_19960023_en_1
Elsewhere, the 1996 Arbitration Act states that if legal proceedings (including criminal
proceedings) have been brought against one of the parties to an arbitration tribunal, the
party may apply to the civil courts to stay the proceedings and to seek to settle the issue
first through arbitration:
A party to an arbitration agreement against whom legal proceedings are brought
(whether by way of claim or counterclaim) in respect of a matter which under the
agreement is to be referred to arbitration may (upon notice to the other parties to
the proceedings) apply to the court in which the proceedings have been brought
to stay the proceedings so far as they concern that matter.20
However, the act adds that the civil courts are not obliged to comply: the court can refuse to
stay legal proceedings if it is satisfied that the arbitration agreement is null and void,
inoperative, or incapable of being performed.21
Under the 1996 Arbitration Act, arbitral awards by the Beth Din are legally binding.
Simultaneously, the Act allows civil courts to overturn the tribunals final decisions. 22 Jewish
courts, therefore, do not offer a parallel legal system; arbitral awards remain subject to
English law and public policy.
The 1996 Arbitration Act preserves the English common law position in respect of matters
that are capable of settlement by arbitration. Contractual disputes as well as a number of
non-contractual claims (including claims in tort, disputes concerning intellectual property
rights and certain statutory claims) can legally be resolved by arbitration. Family law and
criminal matters cannot: when functioning as an arbitration tribunal the Beth Din and any
other religious court is limited to civil proceedings.23
Bridget Prentice, parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, told the House of
Commons in October 2008 that:
Arbitration [under the Arbitration Act 1996] does not apply to family law and the
only decisions which can be enforced are those relating to civil disputes.24
As an arbitration tribunal, therefore, the Beth Din cannot resolve family law or criminal cases.
Her Honour Judge Dawn Freedman, also a member of the United Synagogue congregation,
The [London] Beth Din is only a court in so far in that it is a court of arbitration
in respect of civil disputes its purely a civil court.25
The Arbitration Act (1996) Stay of legal proceedings (part1; section 9), The Office of Public Sector Information. See:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1996/ukpga_19960023_en_2#pt1-pb3-l1g9
The Arbitration Act (1996) Saving for certain matters governed by common law (part 1; sections 81), The Office of Public
Sector Information.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice Bridget Prentice, Matrimonial Proceedings: Religion, House of
Commons Written Answers, 23 October, 2008 Column 560W. See:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm081023/text/81023w0020.htm
Personal interview Her Honour Judge Dawn Freedman, Crown Court Judge in Harrow, London, and spokesperson for the
United Synagogue, 07 October, 2008.
Recognition of religious courts
The UK government recognises an individuals right to use religious courts to deal with
personal matters. Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice Bridget Prentice told
the House of Commons in October 2008 that:
Any member of a religious community has the option to use religious courts and
to agree to abide by their decisions but these decisions are subject to national
law and cannot be enforced through the national courts save in certain limited
circumstances when the religious court acts as arbitrator within the meaning of
the Arbitration Act 1996. Arbitration does not apply to family law and the only
decisions which can be enforced are those relating to civil disputes.26
However, the enforcement or overruling of an arbitral award made by a Beth Din
operating under the Arbitration Act is not official recognition of the Jewish court. The Beth
Din facilitates arbitration; it is the seat of arbitration, not a legal court.27
David Frei believes that the assumption that Jewish communities in the UK have a
recognised system of courts is a common mistake. He says:
The great misnomer is that the Jews have been given the right to have their
courts. Nobody gave us that right. Nobody sat down and said the Beth Din is
recognised. Any court of arbitration is recognised. [] We have no official
recognition.28
The legitimacy granted by the 1996 Arbitration Act to the Beth Din or any other religious
court amounts to nothing more than recognition of the tribunals jurisdiction in any one
case, which is dependent on the condition of mutual consent of the parties involved. It
should also be noted that arbitral awards made in a Beth Din or any religious court
functioning as an arbitration tribunal do not gain any additional religious legitimacy as a
result of being reached under the Arbitration Act.
The Arbitration Act (1996) The seat of the arbitration (part1; section 3), available from The Office of Public Sector
The Beth Din as a Religious Authority
Jewish courts rule on a number of religious matters affecting the individual, families and the
Jewish communities. In this capacity the Beth Din is not operating as an arbitration tribunal;
it is an autonomous religious authority that is voluntary, non-binding and open to all
members of the Jewish communities in the UK. For some Beth Din rulings are seen as
religiously and morally binding; many others do not seek religious advice from the court.
Religious functions of the Beth Din
The Beth Din regularly provides rulings and guidance on personal issues of faith such as
conversions, religious divorces, burial practices, and determining personal status whether
an individual is Jewish according to the halakha, or Jewish law.
The Beth Din also oversees and regulates a number of religious services provided by the
synagogue for members of the congregation. These include:
Hechsher the certification of restaurants and food manufacturers whose products
contain only kosher ingredients and were produced in accordance with the halakha,
or Jewish law
Shochetim the ritual slaughter of animals according to Jewish dietary laws
Mohelin circumcision specialists
Crown Court Judge Dawn Freedman, a spokesperson for the United Synagogue and the
London Beth Din, says:
Like every other religion, every religion has conversions: just determining
Jewish law for a host of areas to do with Sabbath observance, medical ethics
and the like. We have a remit which is far beyond acting as a court of law.
The two most common matters that come before the Beth Din are conversion and religious
divorce.
The Beth Din, Divorce and Family Law
individuals private status. A religious divorce overseen by the Beth Din does not affect the
individuals legal status. Individuals do have the right to consult religious figures on personal
matters, including ancillary relief and childcare provisions resulting from divorce. In the UK
family law can only be decided on by a family law court: the outcome of mediation by
religious figures can be used as a basis for discussion in a family court, but is always subject
to the authority of the court.
Jewish marriages conducted in synagogues in the UK are registered with the state.29
Synagogues employ a civil Registrar of Marriages to ensure that a marriage in a synagogue
is also registered as a civil marriage. However, religious and civil divorces are separate
The 1836 Marriage Act mandated civil registration of marriages in England and Wales. However, some Ultra-Orthodox Jews
may dispute the necessity of obtaining a civil marriage.
procedures. A Jewish divorce is not an alternative to a civil divorce. It does not alter an
individuals legal status, just as a civil divorce does not dissolve a religious marriage.
Judge Dawn Freedman says:
In order for the Jewish people who have been civilly divorced to re-marry
according to religious practice, they have to have, in addition to their civil divorce,
whats called a Get, which is a Jewish bill of divorce. It doesnt take the place of
a civil divorce. Its something which in order to get married religiously again, you
have to have from a religious perspective.30
A Jewish couple seeking a religious divorce must, therefore, both freely agree to obtain a
Get (Pl. Gittin), a Jewish contractual divorce document, from a Beth Din. In the Jewish
tradition the mutual giving and receiving of the Get symbolises the end of the marriage. In
this capacity the Beth Din is not functioning as a court; rather it is a witness to the
consensual dissolution of a religious marriage. David Frei says:
In Jewish law, marriage is a contract between husband and wife. They marry,
they part. And the court has actually nothing to do with it. All [the Beth Din]are
doing is acting as a referee to see that the document was written properly, there
were two witnesses who signed it, thats all were doing. We are not dissolving
the marriage.31
Many members of the Jewish communities seek a religious divorce because they believe
they have a religious obligation to do so. Many Jewish couples also feel they require a
religious divorce to maintain a sense of honour within their community.
Additionally, Jewish law contains specific rulings governing divorce, many of which serve
practical purposes for the continuation of ones Jewish life.
FACTBOX: ORTHODOX REQUIREMENTS FOR DIVORCE
Both individuals need to be halakhically Jewish have maternal ancestors who were
Jewish, as recognised by an Orthodox Beth Din or have converted to Orthodox Judaism
The husband must willingly give the Get to his wife; she must freely accept it; and the
process must be witnessed by someone acting on behalf of the Beth Din
Jewish marriages are not dissolved by a civil divorce Jewish couples need to produce a
Get certificate in order to re-marry in an Orthodox synagogue
Source: The London Beth Din
FACTBOX: ORTHODOX POSITION ON DIVORCE
Repercussions for men: A man whose wife refuses to accept a Get will remain married in the
eyes of the Orthodox community known as an Agun and is not permitted to re-marry in an
Orthodox synagogue. If he has a child from another Jewish woman, the child will be considered
halakhically Jewish as long as, at the time of conception, the mother is unmarried and the
legitimate child of a Jewish mother.
Repercussions for women: A woman whose husband refuses to grant her a Get is known as an
Agunah and is similarly prohibited from re-marrying in an Orthodox synagogue. If she re-marries in
the civil courts without a Get she will be regarded as being adulterous. Any future child of hers will
be considered a mamzer, or illegitimate in Jewish law. Being a mamzer which can also refer to a
child born from an incestuous union has important social and religious penalties: no mamzer, or
any child of a mamzer, may marry in an Orthodox synagogue except to another mamzer.
Additionally, a divorced woman should wait 92 days before re-marrying and cannot marry a Cohen,
or Jewish priest.
Note: Traditionally, a Cohen is a direct male descendant of the Aaron, the brother of Moses, and is part of a holy
order. A male Cohen cannot marry a divorcee, a prostitute, a convert, or a profaned woman -source: Leviticus 21:7
Unsatisfactory divorce cases can have serious implications for both parties, especially
women: men suffer limited social opprobrium by not being divorced while women can be
seriously disadvantaged. As a result, men have only limited incentive to grant their wives a
divorce and an Orthodox Beth Din cannot compel a husband to issue a divorce, nor can it
grant one to his wife independent of his wishes. David Frei says:
If a man doesnt want to come, we have no powers as Ive said, and this often
happens, then the woman is stuck. She may have a civil divorce but she cant
marry another Jewish person in a synagogue.32
Since 2003 civil divorce courts in England have been granted powers designed to rectify the
specific problem in Jewish law of either party becoming an Agunah (fem.) or Agun (masc.),
or literally, chained to one another. Prior to this a man could withhold the Get in order to
extract a more favourable divorce settlement knowing that unless he grants his wife a Get
she cannot have legitimate Jewish children.
The Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act 2002 empowers civil courts to postpone granting a
Decree Absolute until both parties have done all that is required of them to dissolve their
marriage religiously.33 The act, which amended the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973,
safeguards against either party refusing to grant or receive a Get as a potential negotiating
tool in civil divorce cases.
Personal interview 07 October 2009.
The Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act 2002, available from The Office of Public Sector Information.
The Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act 2002 applies to members of the Jewish faith or to any
other prescribed religious group. The Act applies if a decree of divorce has been granted
but not made absolute and the parties to the marriage concerned fulfil the following criteria:
(a) were married in accordance with
(i) the usages of the Jews, or
(ii) any other prescribed religious usages; and
(b) must co-operate if the marriage is to be dissolved in accordance with those
The Act defines prescribed as follows:
(6) Prescribed means prescribed in an order made by the Lord Chancellor and
such an order
(a) must be made by statutory instrument;
(b) shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of
Parliament.35
The Act further states that it is at the discretion of a religious community itself to decide
whether the act is applicable and, if so, to ask the Lord Chancellor to prescribe the religious
group for that purpose. At present the Jewish communities are the only religious group
authorised to make use of the Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act. In March 2008, Lord Hunt
of Kings Heath, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice, told the
House of Lords that:
[The Act] applies to members of the Jewish faith or to any other prescribed
religious group, including Islam. The option does, however, depend on the
religious community itself deciding to make use of the provisions of the Act and
then asking the Lord Chancellor to prescribe the religious group for that purpose.
No application has been received from any Islamic group requesting such
recognition. 36
The Act is often misrepresented as an example of legal recognition of the Beth Din by the
state. David Frei concedes that in such cases:
[It is] tacitly understood at the end of the day that the religious divorce will go
through a Beth Din.37
However, unlike a civil divorce, religious divorces do not affect ones legal status. The
Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act, therefore, signifies recognition of the Beth Din as a
religious authority, not a legal court.
The Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act 2002 (part 1; section 1), available from The Office of Public Sector Information.
The Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act 2002, (part1; section 6) available from The Office of Public Sector Information.
House of Lords (Written Answers): Justice: Sharia Law - Hansard 3 Mar 2008: Column WA154
Family law is the sole preserve of the national court system. When overseeing religious
divorces the Beth Din does not have jurisdiction over matters resulting from a civil divorce,
for example ancillary relief and childcare provisions. Judge Dawn Freedman says:
[In divorce cases] the Beth Din would never ever be involved in financial
provision, distribution of the matrimonial assets or in relation to anything to do
with children.38
Individuals have the right to consult religious figures for advice on family matters resulting
from civil divorce including ancillary relief, and visitation rights prior to going before a family
court. Such advice is not arbitration and cannot be conducted under the 1996 Arbitration Act;
instead it is regarded as mediation an informal, voluntary and non-binding method of
dispute resolution.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice Bridget Prentice told the House of
If, in a family dispute dealing with money or children, the parties to a judgment in
a Shari'a council [or other religious authority] wish to have this recognised by
English authorities, they are at liberty to draft a consent order embodying the
terms of the agreement and submit it to an English court. This allows English
judges to scrutinise it to ensure that it complies with English legal tenets.39
English judges, she reiterated, scrutinise such agreements to ensure they comply with
English legal tenets:
Religious courts are always subservient to the established family courts of
England and Wales.40
Jewish couples undertaking a civil divorce may therefore seek advice from their Rabbi on
how to approach the settlement terms of their divorce. Here the Rabbi is acting as a spiritual
rather than a legal authority. Mediation by the Beth Din is uncommon, however, and usually
only sought after by a minority of very Ultra-Orthodox Jews. David Frei says:
The vast majorities of Jews dont even dream of coming to us [the London Beth
Din] because they go through civil divorce and in the civil divorce ancillary relief
is included as is the issue for children. At the very ultra-orthodox end of the
spectrum, there are those who will come to us for some guidance. Thats very
Personal interview 07 October 2009
Interpretations of Jewish law in the UK
Jewish law or halakha path or way in Hebrew is a set of principles that guides religious
practice and belief as well as daily life. It consists of two forms: the Written Torah, or
Chumash, which Jews believe is the word of God as dictated to Moses; and the Oral Torah,
interpretations of ancient Jewish scholars passed through generations orally contained in
written form in the Talmud.
However, Jewish law is not a monolithic entity: in the 1500 years since the completion of the
Talmud, codification of Jewish law has resulted in a variety of commentaries and
reinterpretation, usually in the form of responsa, or questions of Jewish law put to leading
Rabbis of the time.
Positions on key issues
The main differences between interpretations of Jewish law can be found in the positions
held by different branches of Judaism on key issues, specifically between Orthodox and non-
Orthodox approaches to religious divorces, conversions and Jewish status. For example:
Traditionally, Jewish law stipulated that the womans consent was not necessary for divorce,
and the Get can be given against her will. However, over one thousand years ago a leading
German scholar Rabbenu Gershom ben Yehuda (c. 960-1028), known as Rabbi Gershom,
decreed that a husband could no longer divorce his wife without her consent. The decision
was accepted as binding by European Jewry.42
Although religious divorce is widely regarded as a mutually consensual process, especially
amongst Orthodox communities, some argue that rabbinic courts can issue a Get of benefit,
known as a Get Zikkui, a divorce issued to a husband without his wifes consent. According
to some Talmudic scholars, if the divorce can be seen as conferring benefit upon an
individual then the Beth Din can appoint an agent to receive a Get on an individuals
behalf.43
For example, the Reform Beth Din in Britain extends the idea of benefit to women and
grants religious divorces to women without the husbands consent. A Reform Get, however,
is not generally recognised by an Orthodox Beth Din; and neither party would be allowed to
remarry in an Orthodox synagogue. Jonathan Romain, Rabbi of Maidenhead Reform
Synagogue, says:
On the basis that an unethical law cannot be a Jewish law [] a Jewish
husband who is already civilly divorced from his wife but refuses to give her a get
out of malice or for financial gain is no longer acting as a husband should and
therefore forfeits any right to withhold it. The Reform Beth Din awards the get on
Rabbenu Gershom ben Yehuda, The America-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise: Jewish Virtual Library. See:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/RabbenuGershom.html
Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Judaism: History, Belief and Practice, (Routledge, 2003) pp. 455-456
its own authority, and both releases the woman from the relationship and permits
her to remarry in a Progressive synagogue.44
CASE STUDY: GET ZIKKUI
In July 2008 the Sephardi Beth Din divorced a woman without her consent. According to the
Sephardi Beth Din the Get Zikkui was issued to Karin Gabay, who had been divorced in the civil
courts, as a protective measure. A spokesperson said:
The get was issued to protect Mrs Gabay from becoming an agunah [] the
procedure adopted was primarily for the benefit of the wife and to protect her claims.
Additionally, the court issued a responsa (religious ruling) by Dayan Saadia Amor, head of the
Sephardi Bet Din, which concluded that it was permissible to divorce her, in part because she
dressed provocatively in public, worse than a common harlot.
The decision was criticised by other rabbinic authorities: the London Beth Din questioned Sephardi
jurisdiction over the case whilst the Beth Din of the Federation of Synagogues in London said there
were no grounds for a Get Zikkui. Jewish womens rights organisations also condemned the
decision: Sharon Shenhav, head of a womens-rights project, said:
Jewish women have the right to expect to be treated with fairness and justice.
Others said the Sephardi ruling was politically inappropriate and risked drawing media attention to
potential abuses amongst Britains Jewish communities. Journalist Miriam Shaviv wrote at the
Every time the possibility of sharia law being introduced in the UK is raised, the day
gets closer when our right to run Jewish courts will be questioned. So far, politicians
have distinguished between sharia courts and halachic ones because ours are
perceived to be fair to women and compatible with modern values. This ruling, which
shows otherwise, is not only a gross injustice, but endangers the entire system for
those of us who believe in it.
Simon Rocker, The council-house single mother of seven divorced against her will, The Jewish Chronicle, 24 July,
2008. See: http://community.thejc.com/articles/the-council-house-single-mother-seven-divorced-against-her-will
Miriam Shaviv, Why this forced get is a scandal, The Jewish Chronicle, 24 July, 2008. See:
http://community.thejc.com/articles/why-forced-get-a-scandal
Similarly, Progressive Judaism permits marriage between a divorced woman and a Cohen,
or priest whereas Orthodox Judaism does not. David Frei says:
[Liberal, Masorti and Reform Judaism] are schismatic groups, if you like, who dont
practice Orthodoxy, so its much looser in that case.45
Jonathan Romain, Why Britain needs and alternative Beth Din The Jewish Chronicle, 28 August, 2008. See:
http://www.thejc.com/articles/why-britain-needs-alternative-beth-din
Whilst Orthodox synagogues traditionally regard conversion as undesirable, Reform Judaism
has reinterpreted scripture to encourage conversion:
Reform Judaism is not missionary but sees no reason why a person should not
become Jewish if they so wish. This is especially the case if the person is
engaged or married to a Jew, and their conversion will help unify the family and
ensure that any future children will be brought up in the Jewish faith.46
Across the spectrum of Judaism in the UK from Ultra-Orthodox to Reform there is a
commitment to Jewish status determined by matrilineality only. Children with Jewish fathers
but non-Jewish mothers are not considered officially Jewish. In August 2008, Jonathan
Romain, Rabbi of Maidenhead Reform Synagogue, asked whether given the rise of mixed-
marriages it might be possible to find a compromise:
Rather than simply dismiss [patrilineals] as non-Jews, is it not the task of the
Beth Din to find ways of including them in the wider family of Judaism? It might
be on an individual case-by-case basis, or through finding a collective formula.47
Conversion,The Movement for Reform Judaism website. See: http://www.reformjudaism.org.uk/a-to-z-of-reform-
judaism/?id=28
The term Jewish courts is misleading: the Beth Din is not a legal court. Instead, it offers
members of the Jewish communities two separate services civil arbitration and religious
rulings neither of which constitute a parallel legal system.
Under the Arbitration Act (1996) all British citizens have the right to resolve civil and not
criminal or family disputes through arbitration, however decisions can be legally overturned
if they are deemed unreasonable or contrary to public policy.
Separately, the Beth Din provides religious rulings on personal issues of faith which are
voluntary, non-binding and limited to an individuals private status. Individuals also have the
right to consult religious figures as a precursor to a family court case but this is always
subject to the authority of the civil courts.
The Beth Dins rulings are often seen as religiously and morally binding some members of
the Jewish communities seek a religious divorce, for example, because they feel it is
necessary to maintain a sense of honour within their community. The threat of social
opprobrium can lead to abuse in a minority of cases, particularly amongst the close-knit
Ultra-Orthodox communities who see women as the bearer of traditional notions of honour
and sometimes question the necessity of civil law.
Elsewhere, however, reinterpretations of Jewish law within branches of progressive Judaism
challenge traditional patriarchal religious divorce rules. Similarly, the Divorce (Religious
Marriages) Act (2002) lobbied for by the Orthodox communities compels the Beth Din to
issue a religious divorce if either party to a civil divorce requires it and safeguards against
the religious divorce being used as a bargaining tool. The Act is open to all religious groups
in the UK though no others have taken advantage of it.
The Beth Din, therefore, is neither a legal court nor a parallel legal system. In both arbitration
cases and religious judgements, Beth Din rulings or advice can only be reflected in UK law if
both parties freely agree and the decision is approved by the civil courts. The Beth Din
facilitates consensual arbitration within and not outside of the national legal framework
laid out in the Arbitration Act (1996). Similarly, the Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act (2002)
does not grant the Beth Din legal recognition: rather it compels Jewish individuals and the
Beth Din to reflect the situation according to UK law not act outside it.
Agunah (plural Agunot)
A woman who is chained to her Jewish husband who refuses to grant her a Get (Jewish divorce
document). A man will also be an Agun (plural Agunim) if his wife refuses to accept a Get.
Beth Din (plural Batei Din)
Court of Jewish religious law.
Cohen (or Kohen, plural Kohanim or Cohanim)
A Hebrew priest; a direct male descendant of the Aaron, the brother of Moses.
Dayan (plural dayanim)
Judge in a Jewish court
Get (plural Gittin)
Jewish divorce document
Halachically Jewish
A status that applies to any person whose ancestors on the maternal side were Jewish, as
recognised by an Orthodox Beth Din or someone who has undergone a conversion to Orthodox
Judaism.
Mamzer (plural Mamzerim)
A Jewish child whose status is religiously illegitimate. Such a child, together with any descendants,
cannot marry in accordance with Orthodox Jewish law. A child will be a mamzer if he or she is born to
a Jewish mother who married her husband in an Orthodox Synagogue but who did not obtain a Get
from him before she became pregnant by another Jewish man with that child even if she did obtain
a civil divorce.
Source: Faith, Sharon and Deanna Levine, Getting your Get, 6th ed (Cissanell Publications; 2008) p.28. See:
http://www.gettingyourget.co.uk/sixth_2008_edition_15-5-08.pdf
Faith, Sharon and Deanna Levine, Divorce, Religion and the Law, Family Law Journal (Legalease), December
2002/January 2003, pp. 18-20.
See: http://www.gettingyourget.co.uk/GyG_-_scanned_articles_for_website_(17-8-08)%5B1%5D.pdf
The Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) is a non-partisan think-tank that
studies issues related to community cohesion in the UK. Committed to the
promotion of human rights, it is the first think-tank in the UK to specialise in
studying radicalisation and extremism within Britain. The CSC is
headquartered in London, and was founded in 2007 to promote human
rights, tolerance and greater cohesion among the UKs ethnic and religious
communities and within wider British society.
CSC publications include:
Hate on the State:
How British libraries encourage Islamic extremism
Crimes of the Community:
Honour-based violence in the UK
Virtual Caliphate:
Islamic extremists and their websites
Islam on Campus:
A survey of UK student opinions
Victims of Intimidation:
Freedom of speech within Europes Muslim communities
The West and the Future of Islam
A Debate between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Ed Husain
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Such a strange silence: India's stand on the Rohingya crisis
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Suhasini Haidar
UPDATED: NOVEMBER 30, 2017 23:32 IST
India’s reticence on the Rohingya crisis undermines its democracy and global standing
The Pope has been in South Asia this week, with the focus of his stops in Bangladesh and Myanmar on the
reconciliation and rehabilitation of more than 836,000 Rohingya (including 623,000 since August, according
to the UN’s International Organisation for Migration) who have fled gruesome violence in Myanmar.
Flurry of diplomatic activity
The Pope is by no means alone. In the past month, the U.S. sent Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Myanmar,
while a senior State Department team as well as the British and Canadian international development
ministers travelled to Rohingya camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar. Singapore’s Foreign Minister has made
trips to Naypyidaw and Dhaka, exploring a role for ASEAN countries to help in the crisis. And earlier this
month, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali took the European Union’s Foreign Affairs
High Representative along with the German, Swedish and Japanese Foreign Ministers for a survey of the
refugee camps. No Indian leader has, however, visited them.
In a rare shift of position from not involving itself in the internal politics of another
country, China decided to play a mediatory role in the issue, and Foreign Minister Wang
Yi went to Dhaka to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on November 18, and then to
Naypyidaw to meet President Htin Kyaw. Within days, Bangladesh and Myanmar
Chauvinist
winds over India
announced an agreement to begin the repatriation of Rohingya refugees back to
Rakhine province in about two months, as part of what Mr. Wang called a three-phase
solution. It is significant that within the same week, Myanmar Army Chief Min Aung
Hlaing visited China for more talks on the Rohingya crisis, while the country’s other
power centre, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, is now headed to Beijing for three days.
Biggest nation, smallest voice
In this flurry of diplomatic activity, it would be natural to ask why India has been so soft-footed and silent in
comparison. As the subcontinent’s biggest nation, neighbour to both Bangladesh and Myanmar, as well as the
country most likely to be affected if the numbers of Rohingya refugees continue to grow, India in fact should
be showing the most initiative in this crisis. Instead, through a series of blunders that began with Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s own visit to Myanmar, India has allowed its voice to be muffled. Even as hundreds
of thousands were fleeing violence at home, Mr. Modi refused to refer to the Rohingya in his press statements
in Naypyidaw in early September. Nor did India refer to anything other than the terror strike by the Arakan
Rohingya Salvation Army while discussing the violence in Rakhine. It wasn’t until two days later, and after
some prodding from Ms. Hasina, that the Indian foreign office even issued a statement of concern over the
refugee crisis that had reached alarming proportions, something the U.S. has now called a clear case of “ethnic
cleansing”. Moreover, in Bali, India refused to endorse a 50-nation parliamentarian conference’s declaration
because it referenced the Rohingya. Every other South Asian country, including Buddhist-majority Bhutan
and Sri Lanka, endorsed the Bali declaration.
Later in September, the government began to dispatch humanitarian aid in an operation
rather grandly named “Operation Insaniyat (Humanity)”, but was only one of several
countries including the U.S., Turkey, Azerbaijan, Malaysia and others to do so. The
government’s consignment to Myanmar of a mere 3,000 “family bags” last week also
Vivekananda’s
slipped notice given the large numbers of those displaced inside Rakhine and in
country? desperate need of assistance. The Indian effort, coupled with Foreign Minister Sushma
Swaraj’s visit to Bangladesh, where she didn’t even spare time for a trip to the camps,
stands out not just in stark contrast to other nations, but to India’s own record. In every
way, the Rohingya crisis is mammoth, with around a million men, women and children in Bangladesh and
Myanmar living perilously. India, which has a tradition of rushing humanitarian aid and medical assistance,
doctors and volunteers to other nations — for example, after the 2004 tsunami, the 2008 Cyclone Nargis that
hit Myanmar, and the 2015 Nepal earthquake — has been seen to visibly hold back during the Rohingya crisis.
Position at the UN
Meanwhile, at the UN too, India’s voice has been consistently muted, ceding space to other countries to take
the lead on the issue. The U.K., for example, hosted a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly
with Myanmar’s National Security Adviser and Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister, attended by senior officials
from Indonesia, Turkey, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and the U.S. At the UNGA’s Third Committee
vote, India abstained on a resolution calling for an end to military action, one of 26 abstentions on the
proposal to send a UN fact-finding mission to Myanmar — 135 countries voted in favour of the resolution.
While India’s vote is consistent with its position on interventionist resolutions, it doesn’t mark itself out for
principled leadership of any kind. If anything, the votes have had a bearing on India’s standing in Bangladesh,
one of its closest allies in the region, whose leadership is struggling to cope with the flow of refugees as Ms.
Hasina braces for a tough election next year.
In short, all of India’s actions since the outbreak of this round of violence in Myanmar
have negated its position as a regional, subcontinental and Asian leader. Regaining that
stature will require a more proactive stance in being part of the solution to the crisis.
At home and in To begin with, the impression that the government’s decision to push out nearly 40,000
the world: on Rohingya living in India since 2012 is guided by its domestic political compulsions is
the Rohingya
issue not conducive to India’s international ambitions. Therefore, it may be necessary for
India to put its own concerns about repatriation on hold until it is able to work with
both Bangladesh and Myanmar on the issue, preferably in a trilateral format. This
should have been easier for India than for China, given it already works with them on regional issues as a part
of BIMSTEC. Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC)
Spell out the refugee policy
The government must also iron out internal contradictions on India’s refugee policy. Even though it is not a
signatory to any UN refugee convention, India has a proud tradition of giving a home to neighbours in
distress: from Tibetans in 1960s to East Pakistanis in the 1970s, from Sri Lankans in the 1980s to the Afghans
in the 1990s. More recently, the Modi government even changed its long-term visa rules to help minorities
fleeing violence from neighbouring Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. If India now says it cannot help
Rohingya, who are a minority in Myanmar, it is either saying that Rohingya are not Myanmarese or that
Myanmar is not a neighbour, both of which contradict previous positions. The government’s argument in
court that Rohingya refugees pose a terrorist threat wasn’t used for Sri Lankans or Afghans. India also has a
unique position as a country that is home to every religion practised in the region and must play to this
strength.
For all these reasons, India, which has high stakes in global and regional governance, must ensure its voice is
heard on the Rohingya crisis. Mumbling as part of a chorus while one of the biggest human tragedies is
unfolding across two of India’s borders does not behove a nation with global leadership aspirations. Those
questioning India’s push for a Security Council seat have often cited its record as a fence sitter at the UN. All
those critics must be silenced now by clarity in India’s position on an issue where abstentions cannot suffice.
Turning the corner
See Annex for the definitions of
capital spending, revenue
spending, consumer spending
& fiscal spedning, equity
financing & debt financing.
Ajit Ranade
UPDATED: DECEMBER 01, 2017 23:34 IST
The next few quarters call for focus on consumption, private investment, agriculture and exports
T here was a collective sigh of relief when the second quarter GDP data were released officially by the Central Statistics
Office (CSO). The government folks were relieved that a declining trend of four consecutive quarters of growth had finally
been reversed.
The forecasters and economists were relieved that the announced data had mostly conformed to their expectations. Industry
and business people were now hopeful that this was the first instance of a sustained upward trajectory of growth. GDP growth
came at 6.3% for the quarter ending September, higher than 5.7% in the previous quarter, but still lower than 7.5% a year ago.
The Finance Minister said that the effects of the demonetisation and initial rollout of the goods and services tax (GST) were
behind us. (In saying so, he implicitly endorsed the view that indeed demonetisation and the GST rollout had been negative for
the GDP, at least in the short run. But this is not the occasion for such minor nitpicking!)
Devil’s in the detail
All these responses of being assured that we had turned a corner are justified if we see some of the positive details from the
GDP data. For instance, industrial growth accelerated from 1.6% during the June quarter to 5.8% in this September quarter. Its
subcomponent, manufacturing, too grew faster at 7% compared to only 1.2% during the previous quarter. This data is a bit
puzzling since it seems inconsistent with the data on the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), whose growth is only 2.2%
during this quarter. The services component of trade, hotels, transport and communications also grew smartly at 10.5% for the
half year, as compared to 8.3% a year ago. So much for the good news.
Industrial revival is an absolute must for sustained growth in employment and output. It should also be
accompanied by an increase in private sector investment, which is still lacklustre. The portion of GDP
growth coming from fixed capital formation (which stands for investment activity) declined from 27.5%
in the first quarter to 26.4% now. This has to be closely watched, and needs high policy priority. All the
It’s the real
improvements in the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) ranking are meaningless unless we see substantial
pick-up in private sector investment. More about this later.
There was one more silver lining in the data. The CSO says that GST collections data are provisional, and
could be an underestimate. To that extent an upward revision of the GDP data is possible in the future.
So if the GDP trend is satisfactory, why did the stock market react so negatively? It is of course hazardous to impute motives to
the stock marker index movements, since there are multiple influences, both domestic and global. Several caveats are in order.
The stock market has been scaling new peaks, even though GDP growth had been declining. The stock market is always a
forward-looking entity, a harbinger of things to come. Whereas the GDP data released by the government describe what
happened two or three months ago. The stock market is swayed by a relatively small minority of deep pocket investors (and
increasingly algorithms and bots), so its reaction is not representative of what’s happening to the broad-based economy. Even
so, despite these caveats, it’s useful to pay heed.
Impute - represent (something, especially something undesirable) as being done or possessed by
Spooked markets someone; attribute, assign, ascribe.
The market was spooked by the data on fiscal deficit. At this stage of the fiscal year, the deficit is running at 96.1% of the
annual target. Last year at this stage it was only at 79.3%. The revenue expenditure component (roughly salaries, pensions,
interest payments, etc), which is not the productive spending on items like infrastructure, is growing at twice the rate as
budgeted (10% against 5%). The higher deficit would have been acceptable had it been on account of higher capital spending,
not higher revenue spending. The government can either cut further into capital spending (which tends to be discretionary, or
can be postponed to the next budget year) or it can increase its market borrowing to tide over this year. Either way it is not
good news for the markets. That’s because the former implies lower economic growth, and the latter implies higher interest
rates. This could be the main reason for the markets crashing. Indeed, a fiscal slippage right after an upgrade by international
rating agency Moody’s does not sound auspicious. Rating agencies tend to be fiscal fundamentalists, focussing
disproportionately on fiscal deficits. They in turn influence bond investors, who might suddenly stop pouring dollars into
India’s bond and stock markets. But markets are notoriously fickle. They might very well be more jubilant if the government
exceeds its privatisation target this year.
Moving away from sentiments of Dalal Street, it is important to focus on the weaker components, which should become policy
focus area. As said above, private sector investment is still anaemic. It is constrained by low capacity utilisation, deleveraging
of balance sheets (as companies are reducing loan burdens), insolvency resolutions and large influx of imports, especially
manufactured goods. Second, consumption spending has started losing steam. Its growth went down a notch from the last two
quarters. Anaemic - lacking in color, spirit or vitality.
Nearly two-thirds of India’s GDP is consumption spending, and remains the key to sustaining the growth momentum. Its
slowing means that purchasing power both in rural and urban areas is under pressure. Mounting inflation rates are not
helping. The situation on job creation is still bleak. Large job creating sectors like construction, agriculture, textiles, leather
and tourism need to exhibit more vim. Spook (verb) - frighten; unnerve
(noun) - Ghost
Exports are the key
Vim- energy, enthusiasm
Finally, among the biggest worries are India’s exports. The world at large is experiencing one of its strongest growth phases.
Indeed, the International Monetary Fund has revised its growth projections upwards for most countries. In such a scenario,
India’s sluggish exports stick out like a sore thumb. When the world economy does well, India’s exports should be flourishing.
The exporting sector’s fortunes are closely linked with the manufacturing sector. Exports create jobs, especially in small and
medium enterprises. Why can’t India’s small enterprises sell on global portals like Alibaba and Amazon? What are the hurdles?
Is the GST framework (with delayed refunds) inhibiting the growth of exports? What are the policy and other bottlenecks?
These are the issues that we need to grapple with to sustain an upward growth path.
We need to acknowledge that unlike last year, this year the government has less fiscal room to pump prime growth. Oil prices
have gone up in the past few months, taking away the fiscal dividend. GST, Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act,
Insolvency Code are all great reforms for the medium to long term. But the next few quarters call for sustaining consumption,
inviting private investment, energising agriculture, and giving a big fillip to exports. We have our work cut out.
Ajit Ranade is an economist
The difference between capital expenditures and revenue expenditures is essentially the same
as the difference between capital expenditures and operating expenses.
Capital expenditures represent major investments of capital that a company makes to
maintain or, more often, to expand its business and generate additional profits. Capital expenses
are for the acquisition of long-term assets, such as facilities or manufacturing equipment.
Because such assets provide income-generating value for a company for a period of years,
companies are not allowed to deduct the full cost of the asset in the year the expense is incurred;
they must recover the cost through year-by-year depreciation over the useful life of the asset.
Companies often use debt financing or equity financing to cover the substantial costs involved
in acquiring major assets for expanding their business.
Revenue expenses are shorter-term expenses required to meet the ongoing operational costs
of running a business, and thus are essentially the same as operating expenses. Unlike capital
expenditures, revenue expenses can be fully tax-deducted in the same year the expenses occur.
In relation to the major asset purchases that qualify as capital expenditures, revenue
expenditures include the ordinary repair and maintenance costs that are necessary to keep the
asset in working order without substantially improving or extending the useful life of the asset.
Revenue expenses related to existing assets include repairs and regular maintenance as well as
repainting and renewal expenses. Revenue expenditures can be considered to be recurring
expenses in contrast to the one-off nature of most capital expenditures.
The purpose of capital expenditures is commonly to expand a company's ability to generate
earnings, whereas revenue expenditures are more commonly for the purpose of maintaining a
company's ability to operate. Capital expenditures appear as an asset on a company's balance
sheet; revenue expenses are listed with liabilities.
Consumer spending is another term for voluntary private consumption, or an exchange
of money for goods and services. Contemporary measures of consumer spending include all
private purchases of durable goods, nondurables and services. In a purely free market, the
aggregate level of private consumer spending in an economy is necessarily equal to the total
market value of economic output.
Many economists, especially those in tradition of John Maynard Keynes, believe consumer
spending is the most important short run determinant of economic performance. Other
economists, sometimes known as supply-siders, accept Say’s Law of Markets and believe
private savings and production is more important than aggregate consumption.
Investors and businesses closely follow consumer spending statistics when making future
forecasts. Every year in the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) conducts
consumer expenditure surveys to help measure consumer spending. Additionally, the Bureau
of Economic Analysis (BEA) estimates consumer spending for monthly, quarterly and annual
periods.
If consumers spend too much of their income, however, future economic growth could be
compromised because of insufficient savings and investment. Modern governments and
central banks often examined consumer spending patterns when considering current and
future fiscal and monetary policies.
Consumer Spending as an Economic Variable - Consumption of final goods (i.e. not
capital goods or investment assets) is the end result of economic activity. This is because
individuals ultimately use these goods to satisfy their own needs and wants; economists refer
to this satisfaction as “utility.”
Consumer spending is the demand side of “supply and demand;” production is the supply.
When economists or policymakers refer to aggregate demand, they simply mean the
combined market value of all consumer spending within a given area, over a given period of
time and at a specific price level.
By its very nature, consumer spending only reveals the “use” economy, or finished goods and
services. This is distinguished from the “make” economy, referring to the supply chain and
intermediate stages of production necessary to make finished goods and services.
Most official aggregate metrics, such as gross domestic product (GDP), are dominated by
consumer spending. Others, including the much newer gross domestic expenditures (GDE) or
“gross output” (GO) reported by the BEA, also include the “make” economy and are less
influenced by short-term consumer spending.
Consumer Spending as an Investment Indicator
Consumers are, naturally, very important to businesses. The more money consumers spend at
a given company, the better that company tends to perform. For this reason, it is unsurprising
that most investors and businesses pay a great amount of attention to consumer spending
figures and patterns.
In fact, the American Association of Individual Investors lists real GDP as the single most
important economic indicator to watch. If consumers provide fewer revenues for a given
business or within a given industry, companies must adjust by reducing costs, wages, or
innovating and introducing newer and better products and services. Companies that do this
most effectively earn higher profits and, if publicly traded, tend to experience better stock
market performance.
Deficit spending occurs whenever a government's expenditures exceed its revenues over a
fiscal period, creating or enlarging a government debt balance. Traditionally, government
deficits are financed through the sale of public securities, particularly government bonds.
Many economists, especially in the Keynesian tradition, believe government deficits can be
used as a tool of stimulative fiscal policy.
Deficit spending is an accounting phenomenon. It is only possible to engage in deficit
spending when revenues fall short of expenditures. However, nearly all of the academic and
political debate surrounding deficit spending focuses on economic theory, not accounting.
Deficit Spending as Fiscal Policy - According to demand-side economic theory, a
government can begin deficit spending after the economy falls into recession. The famed
British economist John Maynard Keynes is often credited with the concept of deficit
spending as fiscal policy, though most of his ideas were re-interpretations or modifications of
older mercantilist arguments.
In fact, many of Keynes’ spending ideas were tried before “The General Theory” was
published in 1936. Herbert Hoover, for example, fought the Great Depression by increasing
federal government spending more than 50% and engaging in massive public works projects
during his four years in office between 1928 and 1932.
Laissez-Faire - a doctrine opposing governmental interference in economic affairs
beyond the minimum necessary for the maintenance of peace and property rights
What Keynes managed in 1936 was to give academic and intellectual legitimacy to deficit
spending programs. He argued a drop in consumer spending during the recession could be
met by a corresponding increase in government deficit spending, maintaining the correct
level of aggregate demand to prevent high levels of unemployment. Once full employment
was achieved, Keynes believed, the market could return to a more laissez-faire approach and
the debt could be repaid. If the extra government spending were to cause inflation, Keynes
believed the government could simply raise taxes and drain extra money out of the economy.
Deficit Spending and Economic Growth
Deficit spending is often misinterpreted as a pro-growth policy tool. This may be because
deficit spending is positively correlated with gross domestic product (GDP). However, since
one of the key components of the GDP equation is government spending, it is tautological
and not empirical that the two tend to rise and fall together.
As Keynes articulated, the main role of deficit spending is to prevent or reverse rising
unemployment during a recession. Keynes did believe there could arise a secondary benefit
of government spending, something often called “the multiplier effect.” According to the
theory, a single dollar of government spending might increase total economic output by more
than $1.
There are plenty of theoretical and empirical challenges to the notion of the Keynesian
multiplier. A huge series of econometric tests have been run, with various and inconclusive
If left unchecked, some economists argue, the effects of deficit spending pose a threat to
economic growth. Too large a debt, wrought by consistent deficits, might force government
to raise taxes, pursue inflationary monetary policies, or default on their debt obligations.
Additionally, the sale of government bonds crowds out private issuers and might distort
prices and interest rates in capital markets.
When a company needs money, it can take three routes to obtain financing: equity, debt, or
some hybrid of the two. Equity represents an ownership stake in the company. It gives the
shareholder a claim on future earnings, but it does not need to be paid back. If the company
goes bankrupt, equity holders are the last in line to receive money. The other route a company
can take to raise capital for its business is by issuing debt - a process known as debt
financing.
Debt financing occurs when a firm raises money for working capital or capital
expenditures by selling debt instruments to individuals and/or institutional investors. In return
for lending the money, the individuals or institutions become creditors and receive a promise
that the principal and interest on the debt will be repaid.
Debt financing occurs when a firm sells fixed income products, such as bonds, bills, or notes,
to investors to obtain the capital needed to grow and expand its operations. When a company
issues a bond, the investors that purchase the bond are lenders who are either retail or
institutional investors that provide the company with debt financing. The amount of the
investment loan, referred to as the principal, must be paid back at some agreed date in the
future. If the company goes bankrupt, lenders have a higher claim on any liquidated assets
than shareholders.
Cost of Debt Financing - A firm's capital structure is made up of equity and debt. The cost
of equity is the dividend payments to shareholders, and the cost of debt is the interest
payment to bondholders. When a company issues debt, not only does it promise to repay the
principal amount, it also promises to compensate its bondholders by making interest
payments, known as coupon payments, to them annually. The interest rate paid on these debt
instruments represent the cost of borrowing to the issuer.
The sum of the cost of equity financing and debt financing is a company's cost of capital. The
cost of capital represents the minimum return that a company must earn on ts capital to
satisfy its shareholders, creditors, and other providers of capital. A company's investment
decisions relating to new projects and operations should always generate returns greater than
the cost of capital. If returns on its capital expenditures are below its cost of capital, then the
firm is not generating positive earnings for its investors. In this case, the company may need
to re-evaluate and re-balance its capital structure.
Interest Rates on Debt Financing - Some investors in debt are only interested in principal
protection, while others want a return in the form of interest. The rate of interest is
determined by market rates and the creditworthiness of the borrower. Higher rates of interest
imply a greater chance of default and, therefore, a higher level of risk. Higher interest rates
help to compensate the borrower for the increased risk. In addition to paying interest, debt
financing often requires the borrower to adhere to certain rules regarding financial
performance. These rules are referred to as covenants.
Debt financing can be difficult to obtain, but for many companies, it provides funding at
lower rates than equity financing, especially in periods of historically low interest rates.
Another perk to debt financing is that the interest on debt is tax deductible. Still, adding too
much debt can increase the cost of capital, which reduces the present value of the company.
Equity financing is the process of raising capital through the sale of shares in an
enterprise. Equity financing essentially refers to the sale of an ownership interest to raise
funds for business purposes. Equity financing spans a wide range of activities in scale and
scope, from a few thousand dollars raised by an entrepreneur from friends and family, to
giant initial public offerings(IPOs) running into the billions by household names such as
Google and Facebook. While the term is generally associated with financings by public
companies listed on an exchange, it includes financings by private companies as well. Equity
financing is distinct from debt financing, which refers to funds borrowed by a business.
Equity financing involves not just the sale of common equity, but also the sale of
other equity or quasi-equity instruments such as preferred stock, convertible preferred
stockand equity units that include common shares and warrants.
A startup that grows into a successful company will have several rounds of equity financing
as it evolves. Since a startup typically attracts different types of investors at various stages of
its evolution, it may use different equity instruments for its financing needs.
For example, angel investors and venture capitalists – who are generally the first investors in
a startup – are inclined to favor convertible preferred shares rather than common equity in
exchange for funding new companies, since the former have greater upside potential and
some downside protection. Once the company has grown large enough to consider going
public, it may consider selling common equity to institutional and retail investors. Later on, if
it needs additional capital, the company may go in for secondary equity financings such as
a rights offering or an offering of equity units that includes warrants as a “sweetener.”
The equity-financing process is governed by regulation imposed by a local or national
securities authority in most jurisdictions. Such regulation is primarily designed to protect the
investing public from unscrupulous operators who may raise funds from unsuspecting
investors and disappear with the financing proceeds. An equity financing is therefore
generally accompanied by an offering memorandum or prospectus, which contains a great
deal of information that should help the investor make an informed decision about the merits
of the financing. Such information includes the company's activities, details on its officers
and directors, use of financing proceeds, risk factors, financial statements and so on.
Investor appetite for equity financings depends significantly on the state of financial
markets in general and equity markets in particular. While a steady pace of equity financings
is seen as a sign of investor confidence, a torrent of financings may indicate excessive
optimism and a looming market top. For example, IPOs by dot-coms and technology
companies reached record levels in the late 1990s, before the “tech wreck” that engulfed
the Nasdaq from 2000 to 2002. The pace of equity financings typically drops off sharply after
a sustained market correction due to investor risk-aversion during this period.
The gag on free speech
Gautam Bhatia
Recent actions by the Indian judiciary suggest a trend of creeping censorship
O n Wednesday, a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Court, hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and
Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter cases, issued a gag order prohibiting the press from reporting on the court
proceedings. This order, allegedly issued at the behest of the lawyers for the defence has come only a few days after the
Allahabad High Court gagged the media from reporting on an ongoing case concerning an alleged instance of hate
speech by the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, in 2007, who was then a Bharatiya Janata Party
parliamentarian from Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh.
A growing trend
These two instances, which are not isolated, are representative of an alarming trend of creeping judicial censorship,
increasingly across large domains. The Indian judiciary has had a historically ambivalent relationship with free speech,
from upholding the constitutionality of sedition in 1962, to endorsing the law of criminal defamation in 2016.
Recently, however, it has begun to go further than simply rejecting constitutional challenges to the state’s speech-
restrictive laws. Traversing well beyond the bounds of the Constitution, it has begun to actively censor or compel
speech of its own accord, without even the existence of a parliamentary law on the subject. Recent, notorious examples
include the Bombay High Court constituting a “committee” to recommend cuts to the satirical film, “Jolly LLB 2”, the
Madras High Court telling condom manufacturers to have the illustrations on their packets cleared by the Advertising
Standards Council of India, and the Supreme Court directing cinema halls to play the national anthem before the
screening of every movie.
However, the CBI Court and the Allahabad High Court’s gag orders, are significantly more serious because they strike at
the heart of our system of democratic governance. The task of courts under the Constitution is to deliver justice, and a
functional democracy is defined by a justice system that is open, transparent, and, above all, public. The authority of
judges and courts, we must always remember, stems not from popular consent and periodic elections, but from their
fidelity to the laws and the Constitution, and the strength and quality of their legal reasoning. For these reasons,
“secret justice” — bringing to mind the infamous trials of the Star Chamber in medieval England — is a paradox in
terms. As the great British judge, Lord Diplock, noted, “if the way that courts behave cannot be hidden from the public
ear and eye, this provides a safeguard against judicial arbitrariness or idiosyncrasy and maintains the public
confidence in the administration of justice.”
Tracing the line
Unfortunately, however, the judicial gag orders, by the CBI Court and the Allahabad High Court, were enabled, at least
in part, by the Supreme Court itself (although it is questionable whether the CBI Court had even the power to pass a
gag order, let us assume, for the purpose of argument, that it did). In 2012, the Supreme Court held that in certain
circumstances, courts could pass “postponement orders” barring coverage of specific judicial proceedings. The court
framed the issue as requiring a balancing of two competing rights: the right to free speech, and the right to a fair trial.
Observing that sometimes excessive publicity could jeopardise a fair trial, the court held that to the extent it was
reasonable and proportionate, “prior restraints” on court reporting could be imposed.
There are, however, two problems with this. First, the idea that “media trials” might distort the outcomes of cases
makes sense in a jury system, where guilt or innocence is decided by a jury of twelve men and women who do not
possess specialised legal training, and need to be immunised from undue forms of influence. In India, however, we
abolished jury trials more than 40 years ago, and it is judges now who decide cases on their own. Judges, by definition,
are not only supposed to apply the law but also have to have the relevant training and temperament to apply the law
regardless of whatever public outcry that might exist outside the courtroom. The argument for fair trial, therefore,
betrays a startling lack of faith in the judiciary’s own ability to decide controversial cases objectively.
Second, and more importantly, the 2012 Supreme Court judgment failed to adequately limit the kinds of cases in which
these exceptional “postponement orders” could be passed; it failed to limit the duration for which they could be
passed. In fact, by using subjective words such as “reasonable” and “proportionate”, it left the door wide open for future
courts to issue sweeping gag orders, insulating themselves from public reporting and, thereby, public criticism. As
media and civil rights lawyer Apar Gupta noted at the time, the judgment was so “open to interpretation and probable
abuse” that, in the course of the years, it could well transform itself into a “gag writ.” The recent orders of the CBI Court
and the Allahabad High Court indicate that this is precisely what has happened.
Handling misreporting
It is often argued that the media reports court proceedings inaccurately; judicial observations are published out of
context just to provide good headline copy, and sometimes, there is outright misquotation. In fact, this was precisely
the reason cited by the Allahabad High Court to justify the gag order, although the court did not provide any examples
of “misquotation”. There are, however, laws to deal with inaccurate reporting, especially the Contempt of Courts Act,
which the judiciary has never shied away from invoking. Perhaps more importantly, however, there is a more
straightforward way of dealing with the spectre of misreporting: to make written transcripts and audio or video
recordings of court proceedings available to the public. Until that happens, to ban reporting of court proceedings by
invoking “misquotation” is to invoke a bogey at worst, and to throw the baby out with the bathwater at best.
Of course, there might be situations where inaccurate reporting could cause imminent damage. Imagine, for example,
the cross-examination of the principal accused in a communal riot, in an already charged atmosphere. There might
also be situations where a case involves arguments pertaining to national security, which cannot at that time be made
public. In these situations, a temporary halt on reporting could be justifiable, but it is in the very nature of these
situations that the bar would be limited to a single hearing, and only in the most exceptional of situations. The CBI
Court and the Allahabad High Court’s sweeping gag orders do not even come close to satisfying that condition.
Ultimately, the trial courts and the High Courts take their cue from the Supreme Court, which is the ultimate driver of
jurisprudence. And unfortunately, earlier this year, the Supreme Court passed a sweeping gag order of its own. While
convicting (the now retired) Justice Karnan of contempt of court, a bench comprising the seven senior-most judges of
the Supreme Court ordered that “no further statements issued by Shri Justice C.S. Karnan would be publicized”.
Whatever the special circumstances of that case, there is little doubt that such a command sends a clear message about
the appropriateness of sweeping gag orders, should a court feel that they are necessary.
The CBI Court and the Allahabad High Court’s gag orders demonstrate an urgent need for some conscious course-
correction by the judiciary. They come with a democratic cost that is simply too high to pay: sunlight, they say, is the
best disinfectant. Often, it is the only disinfectant.
Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based lawyer
Vidya Subrahmaniam The political ascent of Rahul Gandhi: Miles to go before...
Rahul Gandhi’s real fight will begin after the Gujarat elections
I n its August 12-18, 1990 issue, the now defunct Sunday magazine ran an interview with Rajiv Gandhi, months
before his assassination in 1991, with the introduction that while “face-to-face it is impossible not to like Rajiv
Gandhi,” in his public interactions he tended to be indiscreet and rash, which frequently landed him in trouble.
However, in the interview, the then Leader of the Opposition came through as a politician mellowed by defeat and
possessing the humility to accept that, “Yes, I made mistakes.” Rajiv Gandhi wondered why people were now more
appreciative of him when he hadn’t “changed a bit”. “When I say or I do something now, suddenly I’m told by media
and by other people, ‘It’s fantastic. Why didn’t you do this before?’”
Gaffe - an unintentional act or remark causing embarrassment to its originator;
Behind the transformation a blunder.
Twenty-seven years later, it is his son, Rahul Gandhi, who might have been transformed from “a nice guy prone to
gaffes” to someone suddenly winning appreciation. The best that was said of him was that he appeared to be
sincere but somewhat dull. As against this, there were the endless Pappu jokes triggered by his seeming gift for
saying absolutely the wrong things.
In 2007, he bragged that his family had broken Pakistan in two, which thankfully did not set off a diplomatic
crisis. In 2013, to the bewilderment of all, including the Congress, he spoke of Dalits needing the escape velocity of
Jupiter to succeed. Mr. Gandhi’s January 2014 interview to Times Now’s Arnab Goswami had Twitterati
wisecracking that Mr. Goswami ought to have been sued for harassing a minor.
In recent months, Mr. Gandhi’s public appearances have made people sit up and take notice — and for the entirely
different reason that nearly everything about him has changed for the better. The transformation was first noticed
on his tour of the United States, where on his campus interactions, he came across as sober, self-assured and able
to convey ideas, if not with scintillating intellectual depth, then certainly in a commonsensical way. However, he
has been a revelation on the Gujarat campaign trail; indeed if anyone has made a splash in this election, aside
from the young caste leaders who have shored up the Congress, it is Rahul Gandhi himself. Gujaratis are talking to
him and talking about him.
Although nowhere in the league of the phenomenal Narendra Modi, Mr. Gandhi has developed a distinct style of
his own. On the stump, he looks relaxed and confident, slow-delivering his lines to make them uncomplicated
and effective. His speeches are direct hits at the Prime Minister and his Gujarat model, and there are frequent digs
at the now dying Tata Nano, which he says was part of Mr. Modi’s agenda of “transferring wealth from the poor to
the rich.” To much giggling from the audience, he asks, “Any of you here seen a Nano on the road? You? Bhaisaab
you?”
His Gabbar Singh Tax for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) broke the Internet and the other runaway hit, vikas
gando thayo che (development has gone crazy) is apparently also a surrogate from the Congress stable. If there is a
light, fun quality to these coinages, what has earned Mr. Gandhi respect is the line he has drawn at abuse and
uncivil language in the face of coarse, low-level personal attacks from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Mr.
Modi.
And yet in a striking parallel with Rajiv Gandhi earlier, Rahul Gandhi’s team insists that he is what he always was,
believing in the same things — pro-poor, pro-farmer — he did earlier. And that people are warming to him and his
ideas in a changed environment. Not really. The evolution of Pappu to First Congressperson is best seen via his
earlier videos where he appears stiff and distracted, struggling to compose his thoughts, and beginning every
sentence with “Bhaiya — in short, the stand-up comic’s delight and quite the contrast to the easy camaraderie
evident in his recent outings.
Dents in the image
It is true, however, that this change would not have created the buzz it has, had it not coincided with the people’s
own willingness to look away from Mr. Modi, if ever so slightly, to a possible, tentative alternative. Up until now,
Mr. Modi was god in Gujarat. When he became Prime Minister, the rest of India was awestruck by the power and
authority he exuded, magnified by his victory with an absolute majority and the decimation of the Opposition.
Today, while the fascination with Mr. Modi undeniably remains, the first murmurs can be heard, among traders,
among the unemployed and in middle class households. The constant adjustments to the demands of
demonetisation, and now GST and Aadhaar, have devastated small businesses, the poor and the old, many of them
living in a blighted world beyond the dips and spikes in the national GDP.
But as everyone agrees, pitted against the combination of Mr. Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party national president
Amit Shah, and the humongous election cum public relations machinery they have created, Mr. Gandhi could be a
toddler taking his first steps to indulgent applause. Though his elevation to Congress President is imminent, the
challenges before him are immense. The Congress organisation is in tatters, its votes are shrinking, and the haze
around the party’s vision often makes it indistinguishable from the BJP. It is true that the Congress has always
held a range of ideas within it. But the party as a whole was conceived as centrist with a strong liberal core.
The Left and the right co-existed in Jawaharlal Nehru’s Congress but his absolute commitment to the idea of a
progressive, enlightened nation ensured that the centre prevailed. The innumerable unethical compromises the
Congress made thereafter are not Rahul Gandhi’s doing. But having inherited them, he has to find a way to
reassert the party’s founding philosophy and, more difficult still, make it saleable to voters swayed by the BJP’s
enormously attractive Hindutva appeal. Recently, the student-wing of the Congress, the National Students Union
of India (NSUI), fought and won the students’ union election in Delhi University (DU) on the slogan, “Take back
DU.” The NSUI promised a progressive vision based on gender equality and the freedoms to eat, wear and go out as
the students pleased, without being shamed as immoral.
The election the Congress fought in DU was tiny but the party went to the heart of what is wrong with India today.
Maybe Mr. Gandhi can start with a “Take back India” campaign. But that requires courage and the conviction that
the right way is the best way. That is not going to happen, judging by the Congress’s embarrassingly uneducated
response to the recent questions on Mr. Gandhi’s religion. The BJP’s multiple spokespersons amplified the noise
that television spat out: “Hindu or Catholic?”. Instead of asking why it’s wrong to be a Catholic, the Congress
produced photographs of Mr. Gandhi wearing the Janevu (sacred thread).
With all the anti-incumbency, such is the Modi legend that few in Gujarat will bet on the verdict. In any case, Mr.
Gandhi’s real fight will begin after Gujarat which is a two-party State. The rest of India is more complex with a
bunch of regional leaders, all ambitious for themselves. If this is problematic, consider the twin tags that hound
the Congress: dynasty and corruption. On dynasty, Mr. Modi is unbeatable. He is self-made and has ostensibly
shed his family in the service of Bharat Mata. Whether Mr. Gandhi, or indeed even the entire Opposition, can
summon the cleverness to turn the tables on corruption, only time will tell.
Ostensible - stated or appearing to be true, but not necessarily so,
apparent, seeming, outward, superficial, supposed, so-called, alleged, claimed,
purported, pretended, feigned,
India’s plural soul
Gopalkrishna Gandhi Triptych - a picture or relief carving on three panels, typically hinged together
vertically and used as an altarpiece intended to be appreciated together.
An assassination, a demolition and a portrait’s unveiling together spelt the polarisation of India
T he partitioning of India broke us, shamed us. It is estimated that nearly two million were slaughtered during
the weeks around Partition, almost no Muslim surviving in East Punjab and no Hindu or Sikh in West Punjab.
About 7.5 million Muslims left India for the newly formed state of Pakistan and about 7.5 million Hindus trekked
to the new India from Pakistan. Both sets of displaced persons were seeking the security of a religious majority,
their majority.
Gandhi’s scorching presence, the new government’s unwavering commitment to pluralism and the humanity of
millions of ordinary people saved the tragedy from becoming a cataclysm.
cataclysm - a large-scale and violent event in the natural world.
The triptych of an agenda a sudden violent political or social upheaval.
After that traumatic year, three dates, three events, shook Indian pluralism again. Gandhi’s assassination —
January 30, 1948; the Babri Masjid demolition — December 6, 1992, and the unveiling of V.D. Savarkar’s portrait in
Parliament House — February 26, 2003
The first of these three saw a believer in the criticality of India’s pluralism being put to death. The second
witnessed a pre-eminent Islamic monument reduced to rubble. The third valorised a man who believed India was
meant to be a Hindu Rashtra. The first was murder, the second vandalism, the third a celebration.
Those three form a triptych.
All three occurrences singed India’s plural soul.
Their “work” is still on. It is still affecting ways of thinking, acting, reacting.
The assassination was a carefully planned plot by people who owed allegiance to the concept of a Hindu Rashtra.
Its aim was threefold: punish, by murder, one who believed India to be the home of all the faith traditions in it,
reverse Gandhi’s idea of “Ishvar Allah Tere Naam”, pronounce the primacy and power of Hinduism in India. It was
meant to tell the Muslims of India that they were here by leave of the Hindus and that all talk of Hindu-Muslim
unity and equality was sentimental and meaningless.
Gandhi’s killing traumatised the country. It devastated Muslims in India. Who would, hereafter, be its rakhvala
(protector)? Nehru said that evening: “The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere.” For
India’s Muslims who had said “no” to Pakistan and stayed back in India because they had faith in Gandhi’s India,
that darkness was real. Along with the light, the oxygen of confidence in the air fled, too.
Several years and countless Hindu-Muslim riots later, the unhealed wound on India’s plural ethos was violently
cut open once again.
Spiteful - showing or caused by malice
Another dateline
Ayodhya, December 6, 1992 is a dateline, a hate-line, a fate-line.
Babri Masjid, the 16th century mosque was built spitefully, it is said, on the exact spot in Ayodhya, where Rama
was born. In fact, the pious say, a temple stood where the mosque came up. The mosque had, over the years,
become a contested site, a Hindu v Muslim akhara. And on that day, Hindu muscle power asserted itself. Watched
by unwitting, unsure or captive seniors of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and with a police force unable or
unwilling to intervene, 1,50,000 delirious Hindu kar sevaks brought the mosque down.
In the rubble lay all hope for Hindu-Muslim concord. In it lay shattered Muslim trust in India’s secular future.
And in it lay tattered, the Constitution’s guarantees about the freedom of religious belief.
The broken stones said more: Here rises, at long last, they proclaimed, Veer Savarkar’s dream of a Hindu Rashtra.
India partitioned was now India polarised.
Savarkar’s spirit must have felt more than fulfilled.
Moving over to Parliament
A decade later, the BJP in power at the Centre, decided that for Savarkar’s fulfilment to be complete, due ceremony
was in order. It decided to place in Parliament House’s Central Hall, along with portraits of the Greats of India’s
freedom struggle, a portrait of this freedom fighter as well. Savarkar was, of course, a fighter for India’s freedom.
On his terms, in his own light. With Mohammed Ali Jinnah, also a freedom fighter according to his own terms and
his own lights, Savarkar believed that Hindus and Muslims formed Two Nations. Jinnah realised his goal with
Partition. Savarkar did not, could not, for India insisted, through its Constitution, its laws and public policy
pronouncements, that it was secular. Asoka’s Lion Capital was, after all, the Republic of India’s new emblem.
Savarkar’ dream remained un-realised until the unveiling of the portrait. That completed the triptych.
The unveiling in Parliament House did three things. First, it placed against the Indian Republic a conceptual
alternative — Hindu Rashtra. Second, it made demolition the exact co-relative of construction. Third, it made Veer
Savarkar, the precise opposite number of Mahatma Gandhi. And thereby, his peer, alternative and equal. It
juxtaposed the Two Nations theorist against the One Nation preceptor.
An agenda at work
The assassination, the demolition and the portrait’s unveiling, together, go to spell a long word with a short
agenda: polarisation.
The ghastly terrorist attacks in Mumbai of 1993, in Parliament House of 2001 and again in Mumbai in 2008 may or
may not have been retaliatory for Ayodhya. I believe the attacks would have happened, Ayodhya or no Ayodhya.
For such is the blind bloodlust of terror, such the radicalisation of unemployed, callow youth in Pakistan. And
such the mutually nourishing agenda of polarisation.
That agenda, as I said, remains at work. The Ayodhya dateline etched hate, stretched fate — the fate of secularism
— to its limits. It continues to do so.
The demolition in Ayodhya was the first step. Like a bhumi-puja. The second step is the building of the temple.
The third, its consecration. And there will be as many more steps as the rites of polarisation require.
The building of a Ram temple at the site of the Masjid is not going to be easy. But keeping the idea of that building
alive is all too easy.
For polarisers, better than a temple built is a temple that is waiting to be built. It keeps spirits up, tensions high. It
keeps terrorists on the other side activated. And it keeps cadres on this side motivated.
December 6, 1992 is not a fading date in history; it is marked ochre red in the future calendars of the Hindu
Rashtra. For those who hailed it, the 25th “anniversary” of the demolition promises future sport. For those who
were aghast by it, it promises future struggle.
The struggle to keep polarisation at bay will be unrelenting for the memories of Partition and the mayhem of
terror will keep churning up hate, fear. Bigots face each other, unblinkingly. Their bigotry feeds each other,
untiringly. The higher the Hindu bigotry in India, the happier the Islamic zealotry in Pakistan. Polarisation is their
common nourishment.
But hate and fear are not a normal condition; fanaticism not a natural emotion. Plain common sense and Gandhi’s
miraculously still-alive spirit have staved off communal frenzy. Never more effectively than when bloodthirsty
terrorists sought to mutilate life in Mumbai in 1993 and then to maim the House of India’s Parliament in 2001. All
of India could have erupted then into communal frenzy, but it did not. Likewise, when Gujarat 2002 could have
spread, but did not. Pinion (verb) - restrain or immobilize (someone) by tying up or holding their arms or legs.
The India of Asoka, Akbar, Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar is strong but pinioned under the blades of the Two Nations
theory. It is for the inheritors of their India to match the date-lines of hate and the fate-lines of death with the life-
line that Gandhi made from the essences, the intangible susman of his belief that India is One Nation and Ishvar
Allah two names, among other ones, for the One.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a former administrator, diplomat and Governor
Let us be realistic about the UNSC
Chinmaya R. Gharekhan
Spurn - reject with disdain or contempt.
If a permanent Security Council seat is unavailable, India must not spurn other proposals on the table
O ur recent victory in the hotly contested election to the International Court of Justice seems to have lifted
our spirits as a nation. We are justifiably proud of our success and of the skill and determination with which our
diplomacy was deployed. It would be prudent, however, not to interpret this in a way as to raise hopes of a
permanent seat in the Security Council.
The UNSC election
The two most prestigious organs of the United Nations are the Security Council and the International Court of
Justice. While the Security Council has 15 member states, the ICJ has 15 judges. Election to the UNSC is
conducted only in the General Assembly and requires two-thirds majority to get elected. Election to the ICJ is
held concurrently in the UNGA and UNSC and requires absolute majority of the total membership in each
organ. Veto does not apply for election to the ICJ. India has lost elections to both these organs in the past.
Of the two, the UNSC is by far more important from the national interest point of view. It deals with questions
of peace and security as well as terrorism and has developed a tendency to widen its ambit into other fields,
including human rights and eventually environment. In addition to the Kashmir issue, which Pakistan forever
tries to raise, there are other matters in which India would be interested such as the list of terrorists — Hafeez
Saeed for example. Since it is in permanent session, we have to try to be its member as often as possible.
The ICJ is required to represent the principal civilisations and legal systems of the world. The judges sitting on
ICJ are expected to act impartially, not as representatives of the countries of their origin. That is why they are
nominated, not by their governments but by their national groups in the Permanent Court of Arbitration based
in The Hague. To have an Indian judge at the ICJ, when we have an active case on its agenda regarding our
national in illegal custody of Pakistan might be of some advantage, though it would be wrong to assume that the
final judgment will go in our favour simply because an Indian is on the bench. He will surely act in an objective
manner. We will win because we have an excellent legal case and are ably represented by an eminent lawyer.
There are other bodies in the UN that are not as well known but are important enough to be represented on like
the ACABQ (Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions) and the Committee on
Contributions. The former consists of 16 members elected by the UNGA on the recommendation of the Fifth
Committee of the UNGA dealing with the budget of the UN. Usually, the members are officers of the permanent
missions serving on the Fifth Committee. Most often, they are of the rank of first secretary or counsellor;
Ambassadors rarely offer their candidatures.
The Committee on Contributions recommends the scale of assessments to the budget and the share of each
member. This is a very important function, since the share decided by the UNGA applies to all the specialised
agencies, etc. Even a 0.1 % change can make a difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars. We have had
distinguished persons serving on both these committees, such as G. Parthasarathy, S.K Singh, as well as our
current permanent representative, ambassador Syed Akbaruddin. Some stalwarts have also lost these elections.
There is also the Human Rights Council; we have had almost continuous representation on it. The U.S. lost the
election to it a few years ago; there is widespread resentment against the P-5’s presumption to a permanent seat
on all bodies.
The veto question
Primarily at our initiative, the question of Security Council reform, euphemism for expansion, has been under
consideration since 1970s. There is near unanimous support for increasing the number of non-permanent seats.
The controversial question is about the increase in the category of permanent seats. The rationale for expansion
has been accepted in-principle by nearly all, but the difficulty arises when the actual numbers and their rights
are discussed.
India, along with Brazil, Germany and Japan, has proposed an increase of six additional permanent seats, the
other two being for Africa. The African group is demanding two permanent seats, recognised as reasonable by
every member, but there are at least three and perhaps more claimants for the two seats. Then there is the
question of the rights of the additional members. The G-4’s initial position was for the same rights as the
present permanent members, essentially the veto right. Over the years, they have become more realistic and
would be willing to forego the veto right. The firm position of the Africans is that the new members must have
the same rights as the existing ones. This is a non-starter.
The larger picture
The P-5 will never agree to give up their veto right, nor will they agree to accord this right to any other country.
(France supports veto for additional permanent members.) Also, the general membership of the UN wants to
eliminate the existing veto; they will never agree to new veto-wielding powers. Variants of the veto provision
have been suggested, such as the requirement of double veto, i.e. at least two permanent members must
exercise veto for it to be valid. The P-5 are not willing to dilute their self-acquired right.
Many member-states have been pledging support for our aspiration for permanent membership. This is
welcome and should be appreciated; it would come in useful if the question ever comes up for a vote in the
UNGA. Several P-5 countries have also announced support. The principal P-5 member opposing us is China. We
should not be misled by their ambiguous statements on the subject. It has to be underscored that there is no
way that India alone, by itself, can be elected as permanent member. It will have to be a package deal in which
the demands of all the geographical groups, including the Latin America and Caribbean group which, like Africa,
does not have a single permanent member, will have to be accommodated.
Even if the Americans are sincere in their support for us, they will simply not lobby for India alone; it will be
unthinkable for them to try to get India in without at the same time getting Japan also in. It is equally
unthinkable, for a long time to come, for China to support Japan’s candidature. The P-5 will play the game
among themselves but will stand by one another, as was evident recently at the time of election to the ICJ.
So, we should be realistic. If a permanent seat is not available, there are other proposals on the table. One
proposal is for the creation of ‘semi-permanent’ seats, according to which members would be elected for six-
eight years and would be eligible for immediate reelection. Given India’s growing prestige and respect, it should
not be difficult for us to successfully bid for one of these seats; it might be a better alternative than to
unrealistically hope for a permanent seat.
C. Rangarajan
The GDP numbers are good but for growth to pick up further, we need to push private investment
T he national income numbers for the second quarter of 2017-18 has come as a relief. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has
grown at 6.3% year-on-year compared to 5.7% in the first quarter. The trend of declining growth rate quarter after quarter,
which was seen in the last one year, has been reversed. This is a welcome sign. However, doubts and concerns persist for some.
Signs of revival?
Is this a flash in the pan or is it a sign of a revival? Can we expect a further rise in the growth rate in the rest of the year? Some
people are disturbed by the excessive focus on GDP and its growth rate. It is true that development has many dimensions and
for a balanced view, one must look at all of them. Nevertheless, GDP is an important indicator of the performance of the
economy, and a faster rate of growth is most often a prerequisite for rapid social development.
What are the encouraging signs flowing out of the data on GDP for the July-September quarter? For this, we need to look at
sectoral growth rates. The most encouraging sign is the performance of the manufacturing sector which grew at 7% against
1.2% in the previous quarter. This is really a turnaround, if we don’t dispute the number. In the corresponding quarter in the
previous year, the growth rate was 7.7%. It appears that the manufacturing sector has come out of the disruptions caused by
demonetisation and more particularly, the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST).
Three other sectors which have grown strongly are the two subsectors under services — trade, hotels, etc., and public
administration — besides electricity and other utility services. The trade sector grew by 9.9% and there is some indication by
the Chief Statistician, T.C.A. Anant, that there could be some underestimation here.
Public administration grew at 6%, much lower than the previous quarters but still reasonably high. In fact, it is a good sign that
despite a lower growth of government expenditure, overall growth rate picked up. Some calculations show that excluding
agriculture and public administration, the GDP growth rate in Q2 was 6.8% compared to 3.8% in Q1. The electricity sector has
done well with a growth rate of 7.6% compared to 7.0% in Q1.
The growth rate in agriculture was low at 1.7%. This was to be expected because the growth rate in agriculture was very strong
the previous year. Even though the monsoon has been good, one should not expect a much stronger growth over a good year.
The construction sector grew at 2.6% only. It is yet to recover from the impact of demonetisation. But that should not come as a
surprise as demonetisation was directly meant to hurt the way business was being done in this sector.
Discouraging signals
The most discouraging sign is the behaviour of the Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF). It is true that GFCF at current prices
grew at 6.3% in Q2 against 2.9% in the corresponding period last fiscal. This shows an improvement in terms of sentiment.
However, as the growth rate of GFCF fell below the growth rate of GDP, the ratio of GFCF to GDP has fallen from 27.1% to
26.4%. This is truly disturbing. The fall must be due to a decline in private investment, as public investment during this period
has done reasonably well. Without a rise in the private investment rate, sustained high growth cannot be maintained.
There are some doubts about the high growth in manufacturing. In this context, analysts draw attention to the disparities
between the rate of growth in the index of industrial production (IIP) and national income statistics. For example, in Q2 of
2017-18, manufacturing under IIP grew at 2.2%. There is, of course, a difference between the national income and IIP figures,
the former dealing with value added and the latter with total production. Nevertheless, such sharp differences raise some
concerns. In the new methodology in estimating value added in the manufacturing sector, corporate data play a major role.
This approach is not incorrect. Though many committees, including the one headed by me, on savings have recommended the
use of corporate sector data, some cross-checking is needed. The government has set up the National Statistical Commission
to give credibility to the Indian Statistical System. It must make effective use of it. Perhaps a clear statement from the National
Statistical Commission will help to put the doubts at rest.
What do the numbers say about the future? After staying at the same level for two quarters, gross value added (GVA) has
moved up. This may be broadly taken to mean that the decline in growth rate has bottomed out. Perhaps the glitches caused by
GST have been overcome. That only amounts to the removal of a negative factor. Therefore, the immediate prospect is some
improvement in the growth rate in the next two quarters. In the next two quarters, there is not much space for public
administration to push the economy. Last year, a reasonable rate of growth was achieved because of the strong growth of
government expenditure in all quarters. This year, at the end of the third quarter, fiscal deficit has almost reached the
budgeted level. Even after allowing for some slippage, it is unlikely that government expenditure can act as a driver of growth.
Thus, while one can expect the growth rate to pick up in the second half, any substantial increase depends on the behaviour of
private investment which remains intractable.
Yet another factor influencing growth is exports. India’s export performance has picked up in the current year. In terms of
growth rate, it was doing reasonably well. During April-September, exports grew by 11.52%. But there was a setback in October
with the export growth rate turning negative. However, the world economy is generally looking better this year. World trade in
2017 is expected to grow at 1.7% compared to 0.8% in 2016. Improvement in the external environment may help to raise our
exports. This may be another positive factor influencing growth, even though it is difficult to say how strong it will be. All in
all, it appears that the GDP growth for the year as a whole may be around 6.5%.
For growth to pick up in a strong way, policymakers need to address the issue of declining investment rate. As pointed out
already, the GFCF ratio has fallen to 26.4%. As late as 2014-15, the GFCF rate was 30.8%. Only when the reversal of this trend
happens can we be assured of a sustained high growth of 7% plus. The excess capacity built up during the boom period must
have been used up by now. A complex set of factors is keeping down the private investment rate. These factors need to be
addressed in order to push up private investment, even as the pace of public capital expenditures, which have shown a pick up
recently, is maintained.
Sectoral Growth Rates
(% real growth, y-o-y)
Q1 FY17 Q2 FY17 Q3 FY17 Q4 FY17 Q1 FY18 Q2 FY18
Farm and allied sectors 2.5 4.1 6.9 5.2 2.3 1.7
Mining & quarrying -0.9 -1.3 1.9 6.4 -0.7 5.5
Manufacturing 10.7 7.7 8.2 5.3 1.2 7.0
Electricity, utility services 10.3 5.1 7.4 6.1 7.0 7.6
Construction 3.1 4.3 3.4 -3.7 2.0 2.6
Trade, hotels etc. 8.9 7.7 8.3 6.5 11.1 9.9
Financial Services etc. 9.4 7 3.3 2.2 6.4 5.7
Public administration and 8.6 9.5 10.3 17 9.5 6.0
Overall GVA 7.6 6.8 6.7 5.6 5.6 6.1
Source MoSPI
C. Rangarajan is former chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and former Governor, Reserve Bank
A stab in the heart of a peace process
Stanly Johny
Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem has dealt a body blow to Palestinian hopes
A n American President taking a pro-Israeli decision related to the Israel-Palestine conflict is no
surprise. The U.S. has largely favoured Israel throughout the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian
territories and East Jerusalem. It has offered protection to Israel in the UN Security Council, come to its
aid in times of crises, and provided it with advanced weapons. The U.S. has even looked away when Israel
was amassing nuclear weapons. In return, Israel has become America’s greatest ally in West Asia.
Despite this special relationship, previous American Presidents have been wary of recognising Israel’s
claims over Jerusalem. Even after the U.S. Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, urging the
Administration to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to the Holy City, American Presidents have
deferred the decision endlessly given international public opinion and the political and moral
sensitivity of the issue. It is this consensus that U.S. President Donald Trump has now broken by
recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Cutting off the oxygen
Mr. Trump’s supporters claim he was acting on a long-made promise, and that Washington remains
committed to the peace process irrespective of the Jerusalem move. They also say that Mr. Trump has
just shown the world he is a tough decision-maker and can act decisively while brokering peace between
the Israelis and Palestinians. But what these arguments conveniently forget is that Jerusalem is at the
very heart of an Israeli-Palestinian solution. By endorsing Israel’s claims over the city, the American
President has driven a knife into that heart. A President who promised the “ultimate deal” to resolve the
conflict has effectively dealt a body blow to the peace process.
This is not diplomacy. If this is a calculated move as part of a diplomatic package, the U.S. would have
held talks with both sides and extracted compromises, taking the peace process a step forward. If so, Mr.
Trump would also have said which part of Jerusalem he was recognising as Israel’s seat of power and
endorsed the Palestinians’ claim over East Jerusalem, including the Old City. Instead, Mr. Trump has
taken a unilateral decision giving the largest concession to Israel, perhaps since the Oslo process,
without getting any promises in return. His move will only strengthen the Israeli Right, which is dead
opposed to ceding any inch of Jerusalem to a future Palestinian state.
Was never recognised
History is not on the side of the likes of Mr. Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Jerusalem has never been recognised as Israel’s capital by the international community. In the original
UN General Assembly plan to partition Palestine and create independent Jewish and Arab states,
Jerusalem was deemed an international city. The Zionists didn’t wait for the plan to be implemented by
the UN. In 1948, they declared the state of Israel and in the ensuing Arab-Israeli war, they captured 23%
more territories than even what the UN had proposed, including the western half of Jerusalem. Israel
seized East Jerusalem in 1967 from Jordan, and later annexed it. Since then, Israel has been encouraging
illegal settlements in the eastern parts of the city, with Palestinians being forced to live in their historical
neighbourhoods.
The Israeli Right has always made claims over the whole of the city. In 1980, when the Likud government
was in power, the Israeli Parliament passed a basic law, declaring Jerusalem “complete and united” as its
capital. This move invoked sharp reaction from world powers, including the U.S. The UN Security
Council (UNSC) declared the draft law “null and void” and urged member countries to withdraw their
diplomatic missions from the Holy City. This is the reason all countries have their embassies in Tel Aviv
despite West Jerusalem being Israel’s seat of power for decades. Israel defying international norms and
UNSC resolutions is nothing new, but America publicly endorsing Israel’s illegal claims is
unprecedented.
In an ideal world, had the U.S. been a neutral power broker, it should have put pressure on Israel to come
forward and engage the Palestinians in talks. This is because on the Palestinian side, conditions for talks
now look better. Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip, recently came up with a
new political charter that signals a readiness to deal with Israel and accept the 1967 border for a future
Palestinian state — a compromise which has been compared to the group’s rhetorical anti-Semitic claims
in the past. Hamas and the Fatah, Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas’s party that rules parts of the
West Bank, also reached a reconciliation agreement recently. This could have been used as an opening to
break the logjam in the peace process. Israel’s history suggests that it will not agree to any compromise
unless it is forced to do so. Over the years, it has continued its illegal settlements in the occupied
territories despite repeated warnings from the international community. If it was really bothered about
peace it would have frozen the settlements and agreed to having talks with the Palestinians.
American nudges
The only country that can put effective pressure on Israel is the U.S. American Presidents have done that
in the past without upsetting the U.S.-Israel alliance. Notable among them has been President Jimmy
Carter who practically arm-twisted Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Menachem Begin to join talks
with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and even with the Palestinians (whose claim over the occupied
territories was not even recognised by the Israeli Right those days). Mr. Carter’s attempts proved
successful as Begin and Sadat finally signed the Camp David Agreement. President Bill Clinton also
played a key role in the 2000 Camp David negotiations between Yasser Arafat and Israel’s Ehud Barak,
which eventually failed to reach a deal. But since the collapse of the Second Camp David talks, American
Presidents have largely looked away from the issue. President George Bush’s 2007 Annapolis Conference
was no more than a photo op in the last days of his presidency. President Barack Obama’s focus was on
the Iran deal, while his administration offered full support to Israel at the UN. And Mr. Trump is least
interested in finding cues of peace on the Palestinian side and acting upon them by putting pressure on
Israel, the occupying force, for compromises. In his world, what matters is America’s cultural and
military alliance with Israel.
The real tragedy is the impact Mr. Trump’s decision will have on the Palestinian people. The hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians, who live in the annexed East Jerusalem without even Israeli citizenship, hope
to be free at some point in time. Likewise, the millions of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank
and the blockaded Gaza hope to see East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. The U.S.
has struck a blow against these hopes. First they lost their city and now are losing even their claims. This
will only lead to their despair mounting. But if the history of Jerusalem states anything, it is that its
disputes cannot be settled by force. During the Crusades, both Christians and Muslims captured the city
using brutal force. The Ottomans ruled it for centuries only to have it lost to the British a century ago.
The Jordanians and the Israelis split it among themselves for two decades after the Second World War.
And, now, a millennium after the Crusades, the status of Jerusalem is still disputed. Mr. Trump’s move
may be a big shot in the arm for the Israelis, but a final settlement is still afar.
stanly.johny@thehindu.co.in
Arbitrary and irrational
Declaring triple talaq a penal offence does not stand up to first principles of criminal jurisprudence
T he proposal by the government to introduce a Muslim Woman Protection of Rights on Marriage Bill in the winter session
of Parliament — wherein a husband who resorts to instant triple talaq can be jailed for up to three years and fined — needs
closer scrutiny as there is stigma attached to criminal conviction. On August 22, 2017, a five judge Bench of the Supreme
Court, in a majority 3:2 judgment, set aside the practice of Talaq-e-Biddat (triple talaq); the minority view of Chief Justice J.S.
Khehar, who led the Bench, and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer was that triple divorce is a valid form of divorce.
If Parliament wants, it can enact a law on it. But nowhere in its judgment has the top court said that triple divorce is to be
criminally punished.
No longer valid
No one can question Parliament’s power to legislate with respect to personal laws under Entry 5 of the Concurrent List. But in
the Supreme Court judgment, the majority of three judges had already “set aside” triple divorce. Under Article 141 of the
Constitution, this is the “law declared by the Supreme Court”. Therefore, there is basically no need for any law as triple divorce
no longer dissolves marriage. But since the court did not explicitly state the consequences of its three pronouncements,
Parliament may say that the three pronouncements will count as one revocable divorce. This is the law in most Muslim
countries whose examples were cited by the government in the top court.
The stand of the government, which, citing data, said that its decision was influenced by over 60 cases of triple divorce even
after the Supreme Court’s decision is not correct. The belief that if wrongful conduct becomes a crime, people will refrain from
indulging in it is both erroneous and not been substantially proved by any authentic empirical research.
Since triple divorce no more dissolves marriage, its pronouncement is inconsequential and in no way adversely affects either
the wife or society. Thus no legitimate state interest is adversely affected. In making triple divorce a penal offence, the
government is in fact like the Rajiv Gandhi government after the Shah Bano case — accepting the view of conservative Ulema
who have themselves taken the stand that while triple divorce validly dissolves marriage, the person making three instant
pronouncements is liable to punishment. Are we going to insist on mens rea (guilty intention) or make triple divorce a ‘strict
liability’ offence which would mean that even if the person did not intend to divorce his wife, he would be punished for mere
utterance of the word “divorce” thrice? Since the cardinal principle of criminal law is presumption of innocence and the
burden of proof is always on the prosecution which has to prove the case beyond a shadow of a doubt, how will the poor wife
prove instant triple divorce if declared orally when no one else was around? The husband will be entitled to acquittal claiming
the benefit of doubt. Since the law makes the husband liable for the payment of maintenance, how will he pay maintenance if
he is sent to jail?
Even more crucial, is this question. On what basis has the Bill provided for imprisonment of three years?
Under the IPC
Why did the government not look at provisions under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which is the general criminal law of the
country? For what crimes does the IPC reserve imprisonment of three years? Section 148, which is on rioting and armed with
deadly weapon, has a provision of three years or with fine, or with both. Section 153A, which is on promoting enmity between
different groups, is also for three years, which may extend to five years and shall also be liable to fine. Section 237, which
punishes the import or export of counterfeit coin, has the same term. It is the same again with Section 295A (deliberate and
malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs). These serious
crimes are in no way comparable to an individual who instead of taking three months to divorce his wife, just took a minute in
making all three pronouncements. Such divorces generally happen out of extreme anger when a person really does not know
the nature and quality of his act, and already an exception from criminal liability.
A cursory look at other sections shows these: Section 304A (Causing death by negligence); Section 147 (punishment for
rioting); Section 171E (Punishment for bribery); Section 269 (Negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to
life); Section 272 (Adulteration of food or drink intended for sale); Section 295 (Injuring or defiling place of worship with
intent to insult the religion of any class); Section 290 (Punishment for public nuisance in cases not otherwise provided for);
Section 337 (Causing hurt by act of endangering life or personal safety of others); Section 341 (Punishment for wrongful
restraint) and Section 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) have much smaller terms of
imprisonment and fines. Thus imprisonment of three years for triple divorce is excessive, arbitrary and irrational, and
violative of Article 14.
Ideally, divorce should not be treated by divorcees as the end of the world. Our women do not need men to lead a dignified life.
We must remove the stigma attached to divorces. Triple divorce should be nothing more than civil contempt of the Supreme
Faizan Mustafa is Vice-Chancellor NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. The views expressed are personal
A game of chicken in the Korean peninsula
Happymon Jacob
On North Korea, the world is way past tactical solutions. Only a comprehensive diplomatic solution will
T hirteen thousand kilometres. That’s how far North Korea’s newest Hwasong-15 missile can travel, which
puts the United States, its principal adversary, within striking distance. With nuclear capable intercontinental
ballistic missiles in its arsenal, and with hardly any workable U.S military options to disarm Pyongyang, nuclear
North Korea is now an inevitability and here to stay. Lessons from the tragic end of Saddam Hussein and
Muammar Qadhafi would further disincentivise North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un to give up his
weapons. Pyongyang’s neighbours, namely Japan and South Korea, and the international community, the U.S. in
particular, however, have not reconciled to this reality provoking a nuclear crisis in the Korean peninsula.
The rationality of escalation
Kim Jong-un has been called all kinds of names, from a ruthless dictator to a madman. But Kim’s actions
consolidating his hold over power in Pyongyang or developing North Korea’s strategic arsenal show that he is
anything but irrational. More pertinently, his policy of taking on the entire international community is seemingly
premised on the classical military strategy of escalating to de-escalate — to initially escalate to unacceptable
levels so as to force one’s adversaries to make concessions in areas they otherwise would not. Being recognised as a
nuclear weapon capable state would be the foremost objective; survival of his regime and an eventual removal of
sanctions would be the natural consequences of such a recognition.
Given that Pyongyang is pursuing such an escalatory strategy when there is a great deal of great power
disharmony and American indecisiveness, the odds are heavily stacked in its favour. In this game of chicken, Kim
seems to be the winner.
Great power buck-passing
Ever since Pyongyang withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003, which led to the Six-
Party Talks to diffuse the situation in the Korean peninsula, the North Korean regime has played the great powers
against each other, exploiting their respective strategic calculations vis-à-vis Pyongyang, and each other. Having
outmanoeuvred the big boys, North Korea conducted several nuclear tests and has now reached a point of no
return, leaving the great powers stupefied and outwitted. Notwithstanding Pyongyang’s determination to go
down this road by all means, the differing great power endgames and their unwillingness to commit sustained
political and diplomatic capital, individually and together, to the Korean peninsula have contributed to the
current crisis in a major way.
Today, having exhausted all its strategies, from imposing sanctions to isolating North Korea, Washington has
neither any leverage nor is it in a position to make a successful military strike against the country. China is not
only worried about a lethal nuclear fallout in its neighbourhood and the potential rush of North Korean refugees
into its territory but also uneasy about what may otherwise be an excellent solution — a reunified Korea,
something Beijing thinks will undercut its rising regional predominance. Russia, having had clandestine dealings
with the North Korean regime in the past, also has no cards to play. And yet, if the unravelling of the Korean
peninsula weakens Washington’s standing in the region further, Moscow and Beijing would certainly not mind
Japan and South Korea, in a sense, then are the real victims in this game of great power buck-passing and
geopolitical expediency. Seen as arch-rivals by Pyongyang and located in what is arguably the world’s most
dangerous neighbourhood, Tokyo and Seoul would be the first to face Kim’s wrath. What is complicating their
plight even more is the shakiness of the extended deterrence commitments of U.S. President Donald Trump’s
“America First” policy.
Going nuclear would not take too much time or effort for either of these technologically advanced countries. The
lack of a firm commitment from Washington on security commitments could potentially prompt them to develop
a modest strategic arsenal which would have a domino effect for the region and the rest of the international
system. In a self-help world of such kind, the NPT-led non-proliferation regime as we know it would cease to exist.
Systemic crisis
At the heart of it, the crisis in the Korean peninsula reflects an endemic and worrying disorder in the
contemporary international system. For one, international diplomacy has failed in the region. The ability of the
great powers to compromise and reach a workable consensus to deal with global crises seems to have considerably
reduced especially with the arrival of Mr. Trump and the assertion of China and Russia. What is even more
worrying is this: the failure of the great powers to arrive at a workable consensus in crisis situations is perhaps a
sign of the times to come.
Second, the current crisis is further intensified by the deal-breaking tendencies of Mr. Trump. For instance, his
administration’s tirade against the Iran nuclear deal, the end result of long, arduous negotiations, is sending out
all the wrong signals to the international community. If Kim’s North Korea is decidedly revisionist, Mr. Trump’s
revisionist tendencies are equally damaging.
What is also becoming clear today is that isolating states that “misbehave” does not resolve conflicts. Be it
Pakistan, Iran or North Korea, isolating states in the international system can only further complicate existing
crises. The reason why we have been able to restrain the development of Iranian nuclear weapons is precisely
because the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, plus Germany) reached a historic
nuclear deal in 2015 despite pressure from within the U.S. and countries such as Israel to use force against Tehran.
Had it not been for this deal, we would have had quite a mess in our neighbourhood today.
Finally, and at a deeper level, the disarmament platitudes of the N-5 (or the five nuclear weapon states) and no
progress on their disarmament commitments have eroded the faith of the nuclear have-nots in the global nuclear
order. In an indirect but relevant way, such erosion of a normative global order has contributed to the North
Korean crisis. Therefore, those lamenting how Kim’s nukes will weaken the non-proliferation regime have only
themselves to blame for it.
Now that Pyongyang has crossed the nuclear threshold, international sanctions and the use of force against North
Korea will not yield the desired results. It will lead to immeasurable human suffering within North Korea and in
its neighbourhood. We are way past tactical solutions, and, therefore, only a comprehensive, sustained and
diplomatic solution will work, though the result of which is uncertain, and the intent for which is non-existent
among the great powers at this point. However, if indeed Kim is “escalating to deescalate”, Pyongyang might be
open to such engagement especially since it has now gone beyond being forcibly disarmed. Moreover, for Kim,
talking itself would constitute a form of recognition for his regime.
The most unpleasant part of such a comprehensive solution would involve according de facto “recognition” to
North Korea’s nuclear weapons. In other words, North Korea has nuclear weapons and its delivery mechanism in
its custody, and there is no getting away from that fact, not now. If so, all we can do now is to consider how we can
live with a nuclear North Korea rather than think of impractical military solutions to disarm Pyongyang. For sure,
it would be a pity to add it to the list of states possessing nuclear weapons. But then there is a time to prevent
something from becoming a reality, and there is a time to accept when it becomes an inevitable reality.
The operational aspect of this approach would involve taking on board North Korea’s historical grievances,
involving the regional powers including China and South Korea to reach out to Kim, and reviving the dormant Six
Party Talks at the earliest. Revival of the Six Party talks is important precisely because entrusting China and or
Russia to solely deal with North Korea would be unwise. Moreover, multilateral engagement would also prevent
anyone from engaging in underhand dealings with Pyongyang.
Happymon Jacob is Associate Professor of Disarmament Studies, Centre for International Politics, Organization
and Disarmament, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
The power play in peacekeeping
Portend - sign or warning that (something, especially something momentous or calamitous) is likely to happen
Manmohan Bahadur
Though Indian troops have led the way, the returns in UN power play have been low. The contrast
with China is stark
M edia coverage of peacekeeping operations is an area with many gaps. Consider for example, an
incident last week, where at least 15 peacekeepers and five soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC) were killed and numerous peacekeepers wounded by armed militants in one of the worst
attacks on United Nations personnel. A local Islamist extremist group overran the remote base. Most of
the dead and wounded are from Tanzania. Was there any media coverage in India? It would have been a
different story had they been troops from the West. In the midst of this, one must focus on China as its grip
on UN affairs tightens and it starts deciding policy, to the detriment of India.
Amid the buzz around Beijing taking centre stage in world affairs, the import of China’s deployment of its
first peacekeeping helicopter unit in the peacekeeping mission in Darfur has been lost sight of. Having
made a reluctant entry in peacekeeping, when it sent a small cadre of soldiers to Cambodia in 1992, Beijing
has become the largest troop contributor among the permanent members of the UN Security Council
(UNSC). More importantly, China is now the third-largest contributor to the UN’s regular budget and the
second-largest contributor to the peacekeeping budget. News of any country supporting peacekeeping is
good, but what does this portend in Beijing’s quest for great power status? In a September 2017 report, the
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says: “China’s participation in UN operations offers... a
low-cost means of demonstrating their commitment to global stability... and allay(s) fears about its
military and economic strength.” But is the picture that simple for India in geopolitical power play?
The UN, especially the UNSC, is a blue-blooded political body, notwithstanding its charter of considering
all countries as equals. In practice, a nation’s voice is in proportion to what it contributes towards the UN,
especially funds — India’s contribution is only 0.737% when compared to China’s 7.92% and the U.S.’s 22%.
Troop contributions to peacekeeping do not get their due in UN power politics. Having led a peacekeeping
contingent, in 2005, I have seen first hand how pivotal posts in UN missions have always been with major
fund contributors. China is indeed a part of the picture.
Veto power
The CSIS report states that China has used its veto only 12 times, but two were cast where its economic
interests were involved, like in Myanmar and Zimbabwe despite these being low on human rights records.
What is more worrisome, however, is that two vetoes were also cast “over concerns over territorial integrity
pertaining to Taiwan”. China was against sending UN peacekeepers to Guatemala and Macedonia because
they had established diplomatic ties with Taiwan. When this self-serving act is linked with Beijing’s other
recent coercive actions such as against Mongolia due to a Dalai Lama visit, and against Japan when it is said
to have halted exports of rare minerals following the arrest of a Chinese trawler captain, the increasing
front-lining of China in international affairs via the UN has an ominous ring. Ominous - inauspicious
In 2015, China committed a standby force of 8,000 peacekeepers and a permanent police squad for UN
operations. In addition, there is a 10-year $1 billion China-U.N. peace and development fund and $100
million in military assistance to the African Union. It is no coincidence that Africa is where China has large
economic interests. Peacekeeping is said to be a cover for China to test its strengths in overseas
deployments. The deployment of a People’s Liberation Army Navy submarine off the Africa coast for anti-
piracy patrolling is totrain its seamen in long-distance operations.
Impacting India
Chinese involvement in peacekeeping, along with its higher funding contributions will put Beijing in the
driver’s seat in formulating peacekeeping mandates, thereby affecting India in more ways than one.
Is India losing out despite having provided almost 200,000 troops in nearly 50 of the 71 UN peacekeeping
missions over the past six decades? We have also sent scarce aviation assets including Canberra bombers to
a UN Mission in Congo in the 1960s and helicopters to Somalia, Sierra Leone and Sudan. The truth is that
though our troops have been on the front line of facing danger (168 soldiers lost in UN operations, till May
2017), the returns in UN power play have been low. It was perhaps not a troublesome issue until now
considering India’s good relations with the other four permanent UNSC members, but will this continue
with China rise in the UN, especially with U.S. President Donald Trump’s preoccupation elsewhere?
Chinese opposition to India’s candidature for a UNSC seat and its repeated vetos on the Masood Azhar
issue are unwelcome indicators.
Peacekeeping missions are the raison d’etre of the UN and India’s generous contributions as far as
peacekeeping troops are concerned should be key in its argument to have a greater say in the affairs of the
UN. India must demand its pound of flesh.
Manmohan Bahadur, a retired Air Vice Marshal, is a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Air Power
Studies, New Delhi
Raison détre - the most important reason or purpose for someone or something's
Animus - strong dislike or enmity; hostile attitude; animosity.
Dithered - indecisive
Iffy - of doubtful quality or legality.
A working class act in America
Dipankar Gupta Billow - fill with air and swell outwards.
Donald Trump’s critics have overlooked the tremendous impact workers and unions had on his election
T he upcoming elections for the Governor of Alabama are being closely watched because it is a test of President
Donald Trump too. Some argue that it is his unconditional support of the controversial Roy Moore that has actually
filled, if not billowed, Republican sails. After all, current surveys conclude that Mr. Trump still has the faithful solidly
by him. Almost 62% of them believe he has done nothing wrong since his election. All things considered, this is not
that much worse than the 66% rating Mr. Barack Obama’s supporters had given him earlier.
Trump’s appeal
Regardless of what most journalists may say of him, Mr. Trump’s appeal is not in imminent danger. In fact, it tends to
flourish under fire. According to Reuters, when Donald Trump Jr. was accused of asking for Russian support, the
President’s popularity in swing states, like Ohio, actually got stronger.
Mr. Trump won in 30 states with a clear majority, but as Gary Abernathy reported in The Washington Post, in most of
these places not a single newspaper supported him. No wonder, people in the U.S. are still puzzling over Mr. Trump’s
victory. Some say it’s a fluke, others put their finger on gender bias, finally, there are those who believe that a freshly
minted nationalism explains it all.
But all of them, invariably, shut out the tremendous impact workers and their unions have had on this presidential
election. It is another matter what Mr. Trump might do during his term for the rich, but a large part of his campaign
pitch was directed straight at the blue-collar class. It needed that little bit to tip the scales in traditional unions-
soaked Democratic states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and that is what happened. Enough workers
deserted Hillary Clinton, ignored the call of unions, and voted Trump.
Why were workers upset?
Appearances can be deceptive for Mr. Trump’s campaign was not all bluster and boast. In fact, he may have well used
his head and carefully held a match to pent up past grievances among workers. These were waiting to explode for over
Incendiary - tending to stir up conflict, designed to cause fires
20 years and Mr. Trump blew the lid off, to perfection, with his incendiary attacks on Mexico and immigrants.
That he pulled this off so remarkably is because the current working class resentment began in 1993 when Bill Clinton
signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (or, NAFTA) Implementation Act into law. This was a monumental
show of bipartisanship, yet NAFTA was causing anger to many. As it allowed a freer movement of capital, and
sometimes labour, between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, organised workers, then and now, opposed it. They feared job
cuts would take place and that industries would move out -- both happened.
When Mr. Obama became President, expectations were kindled, especially among Black unionists (who are in a
majority), that some changes would happen on the NAFTA front, but nothing did. Indeed, animus against NAFTA was
so intense that many workers denied Oreo cookies to their children because the company had moved to Mexico.
Yet, big unions formally hung on to the Democratic Party even as it dithered over NAFTA. This is where Mr. Trump
made all the difference. He broke rank and opposed NAFTA like no other leader, Republican or Democrat, before him.
What also helped Mr. Trump look the authentic underdog champ was Ms Clinton’s iffy reputation in this department.
She was not just vague on NAFTA but also seemed like damaged goods to many because of her long, uncomplaining
stint on Wal-Mart’s Board. Unfortunately for her, this was at a time when that enterprise was being accused, right or
wrong, of unethical practices.
Black Americans did not warm up to Ms Clinton either. Black icon, Louis Farrakhan, clearly voiced his unhappiness
with her, and he was not alone. To complicate matters for Democrats, its solid ally, the working class unions, were
losing members fast, from 21% in 1981 to a mere 11% in 2015. In fact, the number falls to a low 4% if we just take those
who are below 25 years old. But Mr. Trump did not start this fire. Unions were emptying out long before he began his
campaign to be President.
For example, between 2003-2008, in the automobile sector alone, once known for its powerful organised working
class, as many as 1,71,066 jobs were lost and union membership dropped by 1,38,653. New industries, such as
construction, did not help either. Even here union membership fell from 86% in the 1940s to 13% today. Consequently,
unions were left with hardly any heft. In 1937 they had organised 4,740 strikes, but in 2014, they managed to pull off
just 11.
Fifty years ago as many as 28% of voters were from union households, but today less than 13% are. This left the large
majority of them to vote as they wished. The legal obligation to belong to an union has also now been lifted.
Workers might have felt compelled to back Democrats in the past because the alternative did not exist. The
Republicans, if anything, were even worse for they supported NAFTA with a straighter face and a wider grin. Now, at
long last, comes Mr. Trump, freely accusing NAFTA, and years of stamped down sullenness suddenly broke free.
Downturn of unions
The best decades for unions were in the 1930s and 1940s. Most memorable of all was the 1936 General Motors strike in
Flint in which spies, blacklegs, guns and clubs were in full display. Over a dozen lives were lost, but the union
eventually got what it wanted. The workers in the assembly line and shop floor won a 5% wage hike and the right to
talk to each other at lunch.
The subsequent downturn of unions not only hobbled the Democrats, but robbed workers of a listening post and a
wailing wall as well. This is because unions also contributed to family welfare and counsel. Even children of unionised
workers were better educated than the rest. In addition, as the famous Black scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, noted,
autoworkers’ unions helped tremendously in harmonising race relations, particularly in the 1940s.
This trend became stronger with the merger of the two largest unions in 1955. Yet, over the decades, unions kept
losing out, primarily because of the advance of disaggregated service industries and the closing down, or migration, of
large scale manufacture, such as of automobile production. Nor should we overlook the fact that, with time, fewer
workers are needed to produce more. Far back as 1930, workers made about 10 cars in a year, but today it is in the range
of 17-20, indicating a rise in skilled labour which may have hurt membership in organisations such as UAW.
According to Marquita Walker of Purdue University, a large number of those who were retrenched in the financial
crisis of 2007-08 stayed unemployed, or underemployed. When NAFTA piled on to all of this, it gave the Democrats a
hill too high to climb. As a result, Ms Clinton lost in traditional union stronghold states such as Ohio, Iowa,
Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and it is this slide that finally brought about her downfall.
Mr. Trump’s victory was not a fluke, or a crazy outcome of unpredictable events, or pure jingoism. Fortune reports that
non-college graduates, who dominate the working class, continue to support Mr. Trump even today. Workers clearly
saw in Mr. Trump somebody who can lead, and not just tweet, from the front.
Dipankar Gupta, an eminent sociologist, was a professor at the School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Retrench - (of an organization or individual) reduce costs or spending in response to economic difficulty,
make (an employee) redundant.
Human Rights & Indian Values
Neither civilisational ethos nor the mere enshrining of constitutional morality is enough to deliver on basic rights
D adri, Alwar and Rajsamand are names that must ring a bell for every aware Indian. In a little more than a year these have
been sites where a fellow citizen has been brutally murdered by another Indian. They should be a source of deep shame to us as
these were not random events. In every case the victim was a Muslim from the poorest sections of our country. Mohammad
Akhlaq, Pehlu Khan and Afrazul Khan were murdered for the identity assigned to them and the alleged guilt that is thereby
claimed to cling to them.
Acts of hate
Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was quick to respond to the murder of Afrazul Khan stating that it
should not be seen as religiously motivated but as a criminal act. Not only is this difficult to sustain given the explanation by
Afrazul Khan’s assailant that he was only seeking revenge for “cross-community” marital relationships but it also ignores a
pattern in the three killings in question. In all cases the murders have been justified in the name of injuring the sensibilities of
Hindus. They are, for all to see, unmistakably acts of hate committed against a member of a religious minority.
Four days after the killing of Afrazul Khan on December 6, India celebrated Human Rights Day. December 10 is the
anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly. As an early supporter
of the UN movement and a constant participant in its deliberations, India has, in international fora, constantly endorsed the
charter of rights that the declaration unfurled.
On December 10, at an official ceremony at Delhi’s Vigyan Bhavan Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu said two noteworthy things.
He first affirmed India’s commitment to human rights emphasising the duty of governments to ensure them to individuals.
Second, he observed that human rights existed in India not due to some constitutional morality but because of the DNA of
Indian civilisation. To clarify what he meant he chanted from the Upanishad “Sarve Janaha Sukhino Bhavantu”, loosely
translated as “May all be happy”.
The Vice-President was obviously referring to the many assurances of the freedom of thought and expression and the right to
life and liberty in the Constitution, suggesting that their provenance lies in the immemorial history of the country’s
civilisation. While there may be a grain of truth in this observation it doesn’t count for much when it comes to repeated
violation of human rights in India, of which the murders of Mohammad Akhlaq, Pehlu Khan and Afrazul Khan are instances.
Provenance - Place of origin; derivation, history of the ownership of an object, especially when documented
Role of government or authenticated. The records or documents authenticating such an object or the history of its ownership.
In the light of these violations, it may have been more helpful if the Vice-President had said that the constitutional provisions
are inadequate by themselves and the role of government is fundamental in advancing them. In fact, it is precisely because we
cannot rely on civilisational values that may or may not be enshrined in the constitution to deliver us rights that we adopt
democracy as the form of government.
Historically, votaries of civilisational values have struggled to break free of cultural prejudices and accord similar status to
other civilisations. Not very long ago, colonialism had been justified on civilisational terms, with the very term “civilised”
being used to differentiate the West from the indigenous populations of the lands colonised by Europe. It is perhaps this that
led Gandhi to respond to the query of what he thought of Western civilisation by saying, “I think it would be a good idea.”
Gandhi is unlikely to have been any softer on champions of the superiority of eastern civilisations.
Civilisational hubris abounds in claims of “the inclusivity of Hinduism” or “the egalitarianism of Islam”. Whatever be the
exhortations in the texts that underlie these religions, the history of caste and gender inequality in India and Islamic societies,
respectively, show them to have been neither inclusive nor egalitarian. It is clear that civilisational values, in our case Indian,
are far from sufficient to deliver us the rights that we seek to make our own.
Though the UN’s declaration of human rights is expansive, in his speech the Vice-President took it further to include social
and economic rights. It is clear that Indian civilisation has not had much success in ensuring their delivery. If any progress has
at all been made in the desired direction, it has been after the adoption of a democratic form of governance; an arrangement
that is distinctly non-Indian in its origins. In terms of human development, 21st century India is radically different from what
it was in the 20th century. That economic inequality has steadily risen and ecological stress is written all over the country
cannot take away from the fact that there has been progress of a form that has collapsed social distance. The rise to the prime
ministership of India of Mr. Narendra Modi is the best testament to this. There is social churning in India, with some of it
having come through affirmative action and some of it through economic transformation in which the more recent
liberalisation of the economy has had some role.
However, as India has managed to shed some of the centuries old practices that maintained social distance due to caste and
economic differentiation, newer axes of power have emerged. We have begun to see an unimaginable rise of violence against
women and Muslims. Hardening patriarchy and Hindu chauvinism are India’s unanticipated demons. These have taken us by
surprise, and as a society we appear to be incapable of handling them.
Ways to tackle intolerance
Our task of ensuring human rights in India is, however, made no more easy after rejecting the potential of civilisational values
and of the instrumentality of economic growth combined with constitutional morality in achieving such a state. While
“constitutional morality”, a term used by Ambedkar to appropriately reject any role for “societal morality” in the Republic, is of
course a useful guide to the courts when it comes to adjudicating between individuals, it is by itself helpless in preventing acts
of violence. The efficacy of constitutional provisions is entirely dependent on the government machinery entrusted to our
elected representatives. An effective protection of individuals, in this case women and minorities, from acts of violence
requires the power of the state to weigh in on their side. In too many cases of violence against women, Muslims and Dalits, the
Indian state is distinguished by its absence.
In a recent paper Canada-based economist Mukesh Eswaran demonstrated that it is possible to understand “9/11” and home-
grown terrorism in western Europe as a response to the historical wrongs inflicted on Muslim societies by Western powers,
notably the invasion of Iraq. This is a useful corrective to the collective gasp of incredulity let out by Western elites when
addressing the violence unleashed against them by Islamic groups. Transferring Eswaran’s reasoning to the Indian context,
one might argue that India should contain violence against its Muslims to ensure the safety of Hindus. But such crass
instrumentalism would be unworthy of a great civilisation. We want to ensure the flourishing of all the peoples of India not
out of self-preservation but because we want to be civilised. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, anyone?
Pulapre Balakrishnan teaches economics at Ashoka University, Sonipat, Haryana and the Indian Institute of Management,
Kozhikode, Kerala
Incredulity - lack of credence, disbelief, the state of being unwilling or unable to believe something
Printable version | Dec 13, 2017 10:42:42 AM | http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/human-rights-and-indian-
values/article21537130.ece
© The Hindu
Aniket Aga
The judiciary’s brazen disregard for the RTI has now got a stamp of approval from a high court
A six-year-long farce concluded at the Delhi High Court on November 21, 2017, and the Right to Information (RTI) Act,
2005 is the worse for it. At issue was the right of citizens to get information from the Supreme Court , and by implication,
India’s higher judiciary, which has strongly resisted the RTI. The apex court summarily rejects RTI requests, and insists that
applicants exclusively request information under its administrative rules (Supreme Court Rules) framed in 1966, and re-
issued with minor changes in 2014. To see why the High Court’s judgment strengthens a culture of opacity in the higher
judiciary, we need to delve into the Supreme Court’s engagement, or rather persistent non-engagement with the RTI.
In April 2010, a former schoolteacher, R.S. Misra, filed an RTI request with the Supreme Court Registry. He had earlier sent two
letters to different Justices, essentially demanding redress in a case before the apex court that he had already lost. In an
evident attempt at using RTI to fight a judicial battle already lost, he sought “action taken” reports on his letters.
The Registry could have lawfully disposed of this RTI request by simply stating that no such information was available.
Instead, the Registry rejected the application, and asked Mr. Misra to apply under the Supreme Court Rules. Mr. Misra
challenged this response before the then Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi.
In May 2011, appearing before the Commission, the Additional Registrar of the Court, Smita Sharma objected only to the use
of the RTI, and not to Mr. Misra’s request per se. She maintained that the Supreme Court Rules alone governed access to the
information he had sought. Claiming that the Rules were consistent with the RTI, she asked Mr. Gandhi to reinstate the
primacy of Supreme Court Rules over the RTI, in line with previous Central Information Commission (CIC) rulings.
However, as Mr. Gandhi noted in his decision, the Supreme Court Rules undermined the RTI in four key ways. Unlike the RTI
Act, the Rules do not provide for: a time frame for furnishing information; an appeal mechanism, and penalties for delays or
wrongful refusal of information. Finally, the Rules also make disclosures to citizens contingent upon “good cause shown”. In
sum, the Rules allowed the Registry to provide information at its unquestionable discretion, violating the text and spirit of the
RTI. Consequently, Mr. Gandhi held that the Supreme Court Rules are inconsistent with the RTI Act, and that the Registry
must respond to applications within the RTI framework alone.
A ruse
This was a landmark ruling. As many applicants, which includes this writer, have found, the apex court’s insistence on its own
Rules for providing information is a ruse. Between 2014 and 2016, I attempted to access documents related to a disposed
public interest litigation, filing requests under the Supreme Court Rules and the RTI Act. The Registry rejected both requests.
The Additional Registrar’s office told me quite transparently over the phone that it would simply not release the information.
Returning to Mr. Misra’s case, faced with an adverse order from Mr. Gandhi, the Registry filed a writ petition before the Delhi
High Court in 2011, prolonging the matter. In essence, the Registry turned Mr. Misra’s request into an RTI v. Rules contest, as it
has done for others too.
Justice S. Muralidhar of the High Court stayed Mr. Gandhi’s decision immediately without addressing Section 23 of the RTI
Act, which forbids courts from entertaining “any suit, application or other proceeding in respect of any order made under this
Act”. The High Court did not justify how its writ jurisdiction applies to an appeal against a CIC order.
Another ruling
Six years on, this November, Justice Manmohan overturned Mr. Gandhi’s order. His judgment relies on four planks: Mr. Misra’s
application went beyond the RTI; Supreme Court Rules are consistent with the RTI Act; the RTI Act cannot apply to the
Supreme Court’s judicial functioning; and Mr. Gandhi should not have deviated from previous CIC rulings.
The first point is irrelevant, as the Registry could have disposed of the application under the RTI Act in 2010 itself. The issue
before the High Court was the Registry’s refusal to abide by the RTI Act. The second and third points are in contradiction. If the
RTI Act and Supreme Court Rules are mutually consistent, then why should the Registry privilege the latter? Moreover, Justice
Manmohan did not examine the obvious contradictions between the two. And if the RTI does not apply to judicial functioning,
then it is inconsistent with the Supreme Court Rules, and must be declared ultra vires or an overreach. The final point is even
more untenable. The CIC is not a court of record and Commissioners are not beholden to prior decisions.
The nub of the matter is that the Supreme Court Registry wants to provide information at its absolute discretion. Its brazen
disregard for the RTI has now got a stamp of approval from a court of record. The RTI has suffered another blow, not from the
berated political class or the much maligned babus, but from the “gems of institutions” enjoined to protect the law.
Aniket Aga is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. E-mail: aaniket@umich.edu
Nub - the crux or central point of a matter, a small lump
Printable version | Dec 13, 2017 10:31:36 AM | http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/information-at-the-courts-
discretion/article21537137.ece
Amit Varma
Eschew - deliberately avoid using; abstain from
Politicians like Trump and Modi play to our worst impulses as people believe what they want to believe
T he most surprising thing about these Gujarat elections is that people are so surprised at the Prime Minister’s
rhetoric. Narendra Modi has eschewed all talk of development, and has played to the worst impulses of the Gujarati
people. His main tool is Hindu-Muslim polarisation, which is reflected in the language he uses for his opponents. The
Congress has a “Mughlai” mentality, they are ushering in an “Aurangzeb Raj”, and their top leaders are conspiring with
Pakistan to make sure Mr. Modi loses. A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson has also launched a scathing attack
on Congress president-elect Rahul Gandhi. None of this is new.
Mr. Modi’s rhetoric in the heat of campaigning has always come from below. From his references to “Mian Musharraf”
over a decade ago to the “kabristan-shamshaan” comments of the recent elections in Uttar Pradesh, it has been clear
that the otherness of Muslims is central to the BJP playbook. Hate drives more people to the polling booth than warm,
fuzzy feelings of pluralism. But, the question is, are the Congress leaders really conspiring with Pakistan to make sure
the BJP lose?
Answer: It doesn’t matter.
Cotton (verb) - begin to understand. He cottoned on to what I was trying to say.
No care for truth
In 1986, the philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt wrote an essay named “On Bullshit”, which was published as a book in 2005
and became a surprise bestseller. The book attempts to arrive at “a theoretical understanding of bullshit”. The key
difference between a liar and a , ‘bullshitter’, Frankfurt tells us, is that the liar knows the truth and aims to deceive. The
‘bullshitter’, on the other hand, doesn’t care about the truth. He is “neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the
false,” in Frankfurt’s words. “His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except
insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says.”
The ‘bullshitter’ is wise, for he has cottoned on to an important truth that has become more and more glaring in these
modern times: that facts don’t matter. And to understand why, I ask you to go back with me in time to another seminal
book, this one published in 1922.
The first chapter of “Public Opinion”, by the American journalist, Walter Lippmann, is titled “The World Outside and
the Pictures in Our Heads”. In it, Lippmann makes the point that all of us have a version of the world inside our heads
that resembles, but is not identical to, the world as it is. “The real environment,” he writes, “is altogether too big, too
complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance.” Fleeting - lasting for a very short time.
We construct a version of the world in our heads, and feed that version, for modifying it too much will require too
much effort. If facts conflict with it, we ignore those facts, and accept only those that conform to our worldview.
(Cognitive psychologists call this the “Confirmation Bias”.)
Lippmann sees this as a challenge for democracy, for how are we to elect our leaders if we cannot comprehend the
impact they will have on the world?
Fragmented media
I would argue that this is a far greater problem today than it was in Lippmann’s time. Back then, and until a couple of
decades ago, there was a broad consensus on the truth. There were gatekeepers to information and knowledge. Even
accounting for biases, the mainstream media agreed on some basic facts. That has changed. The media is fragmented,
there are no barriers to entry, and the mainstream media no longer has a monopoly of the dissemination of
information. This is a good thing, with one worrying side effect: whatever beliefs or impulses we might have — the
earth is flat, the Jews carried out 9/11, India is a Hindu nation — we can find plenty of “evidence” for it online, and
connect with like-minded people. Finding others who share our beliefs makes us more strident, and soon we form
multiple echo chambers that become more and more extreme. Polarisation increases. The space in the middle
disappears. And the world inside our heads, shared by so many other, becomes impervious to facts.
This also means that impulses we would otherwise not express in polite society find validation, and a voice. Here’s
another book you should read: in 1997, the sociologist, Timur Kuran, wrote “Private Truths, Public Lies” in which he
coined the term “Preference Falsification”. There are many things we feel or believe but do not express because we fear
social approbation. But as soon as we realise that others share our views, we are emboldened to express ourselves. This
leads to a “Preference Cascade”: Kuran gives the example of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but an equally apt modern
illustration is the rise of right-wing populists everywhere. I believe — and I apologise if this is too depressing to
contemplate — that the majority of us are bigots, misogynists, racists, and tribal in our thinking. We have always been
this way, but because liberal elites ran the media, and a liberal consensus seemed to prevail, we did not express these
feelings. Social media showed us that we were not alone, and gave us the courage to express ourselves.
That’s where Donald Trump comes from. That’s where Mr. Modi comes from. Our masses vote for these fine gentlemen
not in spite of their bigotry and misogyny, but because of it. Mr. Trump and Mr. Modi provide them a narrative that
feeds the world inside their heads. Mexicans are rapists, foreigners are bad, Muslims are stealing our girls, gaumutra
cures cancer — and so on. The truth is irrelevant. Facts. Don’t. Matter.
Think about the implication of this. This means that the men and women who wrote the Constitution were an out-of-
touch elite, and the values they embedded in it were not shared by most of the nation. (As a libertarian, I think the
Constitution was deeply flawed because it did not do enough to protect individual rights, but our society’s consensus
would probably be that it did too much.) The “Idea of India” that these elites spoke of was never India’s Idea of India.
These “liberal” values were imposed on an unwilling nation — and is such imposition, ironically, not deeply illiberal
itself? This is what I call The Liberal Paradox.
All the ugliness in our politics today is the ugliness of the human condition. This is how we are. This is not a perversion
of democracy but an expression of it. Those of us who are saddened by it — the liberal elites, libertarians like me — have
to stop feeling entitled, and get down to work. The alt-right guru Andrew Breitbart once said something I never get
tired of quoting: “Politics is downstream from Culture.” A political victory will now not come until there is a social
revolution. Where will it begin?
Amit Varma is the editor of the online magazine, Pragati, a blogger at India Uncut and a podcaster at The Seen and the
Strident - loud and harsh; grating.
presenting a point of view, especially a controversial one, in an excessively forceful way.
Approbation - approval or praise
Printable version | Dec 14, 2017 10:43:02 AM | http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-facts-do-not-
matter/article21615781.ece
Whither disaster management after Ockhi?
M.G. Devasahayam
More lives of fisherfolk would have been saved if disaster management action plans were implemented properly
A disaster is an event causing extreme disruption in a society’s functioning. It results in widespread human, material, and
environmental losses which are beyond the ability of the affected people to cope with on their own. Most disasters — floods,
cyclones, earthquakes, landslides — are due to nature’s fury. When a disaster causes death and destruction, it becomes a
calamity beyond human endurance. This is what happened when cyclone Ockhi struck Kanniyakumari district in Tamil Nadu
and parts of Kerala on November 29th night and 30th morning.
As per the information given by fishermen associations in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, over 120 fishermen are dead and about 900
are still missing. Fishermen who ventured out into the sea to help in rescue operations reportedly saw bloated bodies floating.
They were, however, unable to bring several of these bodies back to the shore. The Tamil Nadu government continues to be in
denial mode as far as the number of deaths is concerned, although there is some consensus on the number of people missing.
Cyclone Ockhi has left a massive trail of destruction in Kanniyakumari district. It is here that the government’s rapid response
by way of disaster management should have stepped in.
Bloated - swollen with fluid or gas.
Failure in damage control
There are three basic failings in the government’s response: the cyclone warning was delayed; the warning, when it came, was
ineffective because it could not be conveyed to thousands of fisherfolk who were already out at sea; and once the cyclone
struck, there was no war-like mobilisation and action, which are the hallmarks of good disaster management.
Cyclone Ockhi’s devastation started within 12 hours of the first “rough seas” warning that was put out on November 29. Such
conditions may have deterred fisherfolk in other parts of Tamil Nadu, but not those in Kanniyakumari, which has among the
highest density of fisherfolk in India. Given the limited quantity of fish in nearshore waters, many fisherfolk have diversified
into deep-sea and long-distance fishing. Considering that their fishing voyages sometimes last from ten days to more than a
month, the Indian Meteorological Department’s timing of the cyclone forecast was futile.
The government’s own estimates suggest that 3,677 fishermen from Kanniyakumari and Kerala were lost in sea. On November
30 morning, action plans should have kicked in and the Indian Coast Guard, with its seaborne vessels and helicopters, should
have launched emergency search and rescue operations. Coast Guard ships should have taken along a few fishermen from the
villages as navigation assistants (because they knew where to look for missingpeople) and should have intensely combed the
area. Had this been done, hundreds of fishing boats and fishermen would have been found and rescued within the shortest
possible time.
Nothing of this sort happened, say fisherfolk in the worst-affected villages that I visited: Neerodi, Marthandamthurai,
Vallavillai, Eraviputhenthurai , Chinnathurai, Thoothoor, Poothurai, Enayamputhanthurai. The Coast Guard, they said, turned
a deaf ear to their pleas. Even when the Coast Guard reluctantly moved with some fishermen on board, all it did was to go up to
about 60 nautical miles and then stop saying that it cannot go beyond its jurisdiction.
Even so, the Indian Navy with its vast array of ships, aircraft and state-of-the-art technology should have stepped in
immediately. This too did not happen. The resultant outcry forced Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to come to
Kanniyakumari, conduct a review, and make some promises. A few days later, the government announced the rescue/recovery
of several hundred mechanised/motorised fishing boats and over 3,000 fishermen who had landed on the coasts of Gujarat,
Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. While the Coast Guard and the Indian Navy staked claim to this “rescue” mission, the
fishing community leaders say that all these boats and the fishermen drifted to the coast on their own.
What has happened to the National Disaster Management Act (2005), the National Policy on Disaster Management (2009), the
National Disaster Management Plan (2016) and the National Disaster Response Force and infrastructure created thereof? Did
the disaster management control room in Delhi function at all? Villagers have printed the photos of the dead based on eye-
witness accounts and the number is not less than 100. The government continues to dismiss this as being untrue.
The need for compensation
The cyclone has also resulted in massive losses to the livelihoods of people living in the coasts due to the destruction of crops,
banana, rubber, coconut and forest trees. Relief and rehabilitation is going to be a monumental task and the State government
alone cannot take the huge burden of providing a decent compensation to the victims of the cyclone.
This calls for the combined efforts of the Central and State government (departments of agriculture, horticulture, animal
husbandry and fisheries) and various departments (rubber board, coconut board, spices board, etc.) To get things moving, the
Central Relief Commissioner should immediately visit the district, make realistic assessments, and award reasonable
compensation immediately.
M.G. Devasahayam is a retired bureaucrat
Looking for balance in power
Harsh V. Pant
The Russia-India-China trilateral meet is New Delhi’s attempt to overcome challenges in ties with Moscow
and Beijing
A month after India was part of the ‘Quad’ discussion on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Manila involving
Japan, Australia and the U.S., New Delhi hosted foreign ministers of Russia and China this week. The Russia-India-
China trilateral held its 15th meeting in what can be construed as New Delhi’s attempt to get a semblance of balance in
its ties with Moscow and Beijing.
Scope of talks Semblance - the outward appearance or apparent form of something, especially when the reality is different.
The broader discussions, according to a joint communique of the 15th meeting, “took place in the backdrop of the
political scenario in West Asia and North Africa, numerous challenges in putting the world economy back on the
growth track, concerns relating to terrorism, transnational organised crime, illicit drug trafficking, food security, and
But what was perhaps interesting was Russia and China’s continued attempts to frame global and regional politics
through a similar lens, and the growing divergences between India and them. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
made it clear that he believes that India can benefit by joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative. “I know India has
problems, we discussed it today, with the concept of One Belt, One Road, but the specific problem in this regard should
not make everything else conditional to resolving political issues,” Mr. Lavrov said. Targeting India’s participation in
the ‘Quad’, he also underlined that a sustainable security architecture cannot be achieved in the Asia-Pacific region
with “closed bloc arrangements.” Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi also cautioned against “spheres of influence” and
“cliques” by arguing that China opposed “hegemony and power politics and disagree with the sphere of influence and
cliques and promote the democratisation of international relations.”
China, meanwhile, continued to take an aggressive posture on Doklam and its aftermath. Mr. Wang said in a speech
before his Delhi visit: “We have handled the issue of cross-border incursions by the Indian border troops into China's
Donglang (Doklam) area through diplomatic measures.” Though he suggested that “China and India have far greater
shared strategic interests than differences, and far greater needs for cooperation than partial friction,” he maintained
that “through diplomatic means, the Indian side withdrew its equipment and personnel which reflected the value and
importance of China-India relations and demonstrated sincerity and responsibility of maintaining regional peace and
stability.”
Tension in the air
The tensions in the trilateral framework are inevitable given the changes in the global geopolitical environment. The
original conception of this framework was a response to a very different global environment. The proposal for a
Moscow-Beijing-Delhi ‘strategic triangle’ had originally come from former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov
during his visit to India in 1998, when he argued that such an arrangement would represent a force for greater regional
and international stability. This did not elicit as enthusiastic a response from China and India as Russia had perhaps
hoped for. Thereafter, the three countries continued to focus on improving the nature of their bilateral relationships,
maintaining a safe distance from the Primakov proposal. But, this idea of a ‘strategic triangle’ took a tangible form
when former Foreign Ministers of Russia, China, and India — Igor Ivanov, Tang Jiaxuan and Yashwant Sinha — met on
the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2002. Despite the fact that nothing concrete
emerged out of that meeting, it represented the first major attempt by the three nations to deliberate on world affairs,
and since then has become a regular feature of interactions among the three states.
The three nations had very different expectations from this trilateral. Russia’s role was key as its loss of power and
influence on the world scene was a major cause of concern for its leadership. There was a growing and pervasive feeling
in Russia that it surrendered its once-powerful position on the world stage for a position of little international
influence and respect. It is against this backdrop that Russia tried to establish itself as the hub of two bilateral security
partnerships that could be used to counteract U.S. power and influence in areas of mutual concern. While Russia
witnessed a downward slide in its status as a superpower since the end of the Cold War, China emerged as a rising
power that saw the U.S. as the greatest obstacle, if it was to achieve a pre-eminent position in the global political
hierarchy. As a consequence, China recognised the importance of cooperating with Russia to check U.S. expansionism
in the world, even if only for the short term. In fact, American policies towards Russia and China moved the two states
closer to each other, leading to the formation of a new balance of power against the U.S.
India’s stance
India, on the other hand, had different considerations, as it was still far from becoming a global power of any
reckoning. India saw in the trilateral a mechanism to bring greater balance in the global order as it believed that a
unipolar U.S.-dominated world was not in the best interests of weaker states like itself, even as strategic convergence
deepened between Washington and Delhi. Moreover, all three countries realised the enormous potential in the
economic, political, military and cultural realms if bilateral relationships among them were adequately strengthened.
As a consequence, the trilateral did not lead to consequences of any great import. It merely resulted in declarations
which were often critical of the West, and of the U.S. in particular. Yet this was also a period which saw significant shifts
in Indo-U.S. ties as bilateral relations expanded while Russian and Chinese links with the U.S. have witnessed a
downward shift.
The joint declaration of the recent trilateral meeting said: “Those committing, organising, inciting or supporting
terrorist acts” must be held accountable and brought to justice under international law, including the principle of
“extradite or prosecute.” It stopped short of naming Pakistan-based terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-
Mohammed, something that India would have liked in line with the most recent BRICS declaration.
An arrangement that had started with an attempt to manage American unipolarity is now being affected
fundamentally by Chinese resurgence. Both Russia and India are having to deal with the externalities being generated
by China’s rise. While Russia is getting closer to China, India is trying to leverage its partnership with other like-
minded states in the wider Indo-Pacific region. As a multipolar world order takes shape, India will have to engage with
multiple partners so as to limit bilateral divergences.
The Russia-India-China template comes with its own set of challenges. China’s Global Times, commenting on the
recent trilateral, suggested that “the leaders of the three only meet with each other on international occasions,” adding,
“this indicates it does not have high status in diplomacy and cannot bear more functions.” While this may be true, New
Delhi’s continued engagement with the duo suggests that India is today confident of setting its own agenda in various
platforms. Just as China engages with the U.S. on the one hand and with Russia on the other, a rising India is quite
capable of managing its ties with Washington, Beijing and Moscow simultaneously. It will not always be easy, but in an
age when the certitudes of the past are fast vanishing, diplomacy will have to tread a complex path.
Harsh V. Pant is Professor at King's College, London and Head of Strategic Studies at the Observer Research Foundation,
Certitude - something that someone firmly believes is true.
certainty, confidence, conviction.
A closer look at the lines
V. Sudarshan
China’s remarks on bilateral ties and the border issue lay the initiative for corrective measures at India’s
Moribund - at the point of death, in terminal decline
L ast week, ahead of the 20th round of the now moribund talks between the Special Representatives of India and
China entrusted with finding an early settlement of the border question, the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, after
meeting External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and the National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, set out parameters that
he implied needed to be bilaterally addressed with urgency. In sum, the remarks constitute quite a lecture. They lay the
initiative for corrective measures comprehensively at New Delhi’s door and make it difficult to gloss over their
implications. Whereas, the statements made by New Delhi appear, in contrast, to be conciliatory and more hopeful.
The set of remarks, therefore, broadly underpin the direction of ties with China in the near term. A course correction is
being sought, months after the Doklam crisis has been perceived to have been set at rest.
The import
While it is not clear if it is a negotiating tactic, here is the listing, in no particular order of priority, so the import of the
Wang Yi stipulations is not lost in translation: that India-China relations were at a crucial moment at present; he used
the phrase “critical period” after he met Ms. Swaraj. That both countries needed to make the “correct choice regarding
the future direction of bilateral relations”. That the results of the efforts made for “overall development momentum
were unsatisfactory”. The most important thing to do was (emphasis added) “genuine cultivation of mutual trust”. So
long as mutual trust continued to be absent, “some individual issues will keep fermenting and spilling over, thus
eroding the overall situation of bilateral relations”. That the “Dong Lang incident caused by the Indian border troops’
illegal crossing of the China-India boundary into the Chinese territory was a severe test for bilateral relations… lessons
should be learned to prevent similar incidents from happening again”. That the two countries “should properly control
and handle problems left over from history and some specific issues in bilateral relations by putting them in the right
place of China-India relations, without politicizing and complicating them to hamper the overall development of
China-India relations”.
Mr. Wang also set out some tasks that needed to be undertaken: both sides should enhance strategic communications
at all levels, restore established dialogue mechanisms (emphasis added), deepen practical co-operation in various
fields “and meanwhile, well manage existing differences and well safeguard peace and tranquillity in border areas”. He
also specifically alluded to the benefits that await India were it to come aboard the Belt and Road Initiative, which New
Delhi has shown some reluctance towards. Thus some of the Chinese goals and the problems have been clearly set out
in public.
This is the clearest confirmation yet that the “dialogue mechanism” —where the two Special Representatives (SR) meet,
and set up with so much fanfare in 2003 — may have over the last decade-and-a-half or so, been more or less
transformed into an exercise in general fatuity. Just like the Joint Working Group that looked at clarifying the border
areas before the SRs came along. In the meanwhile, four Special Representatives have changed — Brajesh Mishra, J.N.
Dixit, M.K. Narayanan, as well as Shivshankar Menon. Will Ajit Doval, or the one who follows him eventually, or the
one afterwards, be able to make a difference?
Fatuity - something foolish or stupid
A slide
It is also significant that Mr. Wang’s candid remarks should come days after the tenth round of the Working
Mechanism for Consultation and Co-ordination on India China Border Affairs, (WMCC) which concluded with a
positive spin having been imparted to them as having been “constructive and forward looking”, but without firm dates
for the next meeting.
What a slide it has been. The SR dialogue was set up after lengthy diplomatic negotiations had yielded the “Political
Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the Boundary Question”. The hard-fought principles set out
that the eventually delineated boundary would “be along well-defined and easily identifiable natural geographical
features” and that the due interest of the settled populations in the border areas would be taken care of. It was expected
that the exploration for the framework for the boundary settlement would commence thereafter.
Graffiti - writing or drawings that have been scribbled, scratched, or painted illicitly on a
Clarity on the border wall or other surface
In the meanwhile, some of the expectations had rewritten themselves. The Joint Working Group — that had been
clarifying the border areas with a view to leading up to exchange of maps on a mutually agreed scale on where the Line
of Actual Control (LAC) lay in each others’ perception — had run itself into the ground. This was after sample maps
were exchanged in the Middle Sector without having been able to progress to the Western and Eastern Sectors. There
was a time when as many as four lines ran across the border areas: one where we perceived the LAC to be, one where the
Chinese perceived the LAC to be, one where we perceived the Chinese perceived the line to be and one where the
Chinese perceived where we thought our line lay. The last two lines were somewhat guess-worked from the military
graffiti, tell-tale traces that our armies leave behind when they foray into the border areas asserting perceptional
rights through patrols, the same way as animals mark territory. It is not even clear whether we have spoken of each
other’s perception of the LAC for the last decade. Liturgy - a public office or duty
This after China had till the middle of the 1980s seemed open to a process that would let India keep the areas in the
East while they held on to those in the West. The fond hope was of an “LAC plus” solution. That changed as well. As did
the pious intention to earnestly look for an early solution. Utterances of visiting Chinese premiers introduced new
nuances into the diplomatic liturgy, emphasising the complexity of the issue, underlining the difficulty of its
resolution, and, thereby, leaving it to future generations to grapple with. Instead of enlarging commonalities, what is
being expanded instead are the divergences: whether it is China’s opposition to India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers
Group, or its steadfast support to Pakistan’s mollycoddling of terrorist groups that are inimical to India, or its pointed
message to encourage Bhutan to settle its boundary dispute with China in a way that would make the Indian Army’s
presence in Doklam eventually redundant. Just look at the Chinese penetration of the area we consider to be our
backyard: whether it is Sri Lanka, Nepal, and now the Maldives. Can Bhutan be far behind?
To this day, even though a military hotline between the two army headquarters had been agreed upon years ago, it has
not materialised. This is something that would be logical, even imperative, given that both countries have improved
their border infrastructure in terms of roads and accessibility in such a way that increases the possibilities of troops
chancing upon each other. Therefore, transgressions will increase in terms of frequency, duration, depth, and intensity.
The aim should be to evolve a stronger mechanism to manage the border areas more effectively to ensure equilibrium.
This must include a more robust code of military conduct, even though neither side has sought to alter border reality
through use of force.
It is time New Delhi put more effort into strengthening India’s presence in those areas where we are present, where we
consider to be them as our border, and live with it rather than to wait for Beijing to alter reality again. It is easier to
make provisions to better live with it than to squander energies resolving it. If we don’t let the boundary question
detain us, we will be in a better position to enlarge the areas where we can more fruitfully, in the Asian Century, engage
the Chinese in line with the bilateral intentions that envisaged the simultaneous rise of both China and India.
sudarshan.v@thehindu.co.in
Mollycoddling - treat (someone) in an indulgent or overprotective way
Squander - waste (something, especially money or time) in a reckless and foolish manner
Changed priorities
Meera Nangia
The government’s move will shift attention away from recovery of bad loans to selling assets
of defaulting corporates
I t is ironical that while the 2017 Forbes India List says that the combined net worth of India’s 100
wealthiest stood at a whopping $479 billion, top corporate borrower groups in India are unable to
repay loans and make timely interest payments.
Tackling NPAs Bugle - brass instrument
The government has taken the high moral ground to deal with the menace of non-performing assets
or NPAs that have brought many public sector banks on the verge of bankruptcy. It sounded the bugle
for errant promoters with its ordinance of November 23 amending the Insolvency and Bankruptcy
Code (IBC) 2016. Many are of the view that if the errant promoter is disqualified from the bidding
process it will lead to further losses for banks.
However, the ordinance is not likely to either eliminate errant promoters or hugely escalate bank
losses apart from the deep haircuts already suffered. It merely signals the government’s intent to
shift attention away from recovery of bad loans to selling the assets of defaulting corporates.
The May 2017 ordinance directed banks to accept deep haircuts on their non-performing loans.
However, there was no explicit direction from the government as the majority owner of public sector
banks to recall the outstanding loans and recover as much as possible against the personal
guarantees of promoters. Paean - a song of praise or triumph
Paeans are being sung in praise of corporate defaulters for their stellar role in the development of the
infrastructure sector. The Mumbai and Delhi airports are being cited as examples of the success of the
public-private partnership (PPP) model. The fact that defaulting corporates such as GMR
Infrastructure, GVK Power and Infrastructure, and Jaiprakash Associates borrowed more money than
they could repay is being overlooked and their inability to repay is sought to be justified by
“circumstances beyond their control”.
These corporates have not been downgraded on their creditworthiness parameter although the
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been monitoring all large loans through the Central Repository of
Information on Large Credits (CRILC) since 2014. Would the government show the same leniency to
the 32,000 odd home buyers of Jaypee Infratech and waive off their home loans since they may not
get possession of their flats due to “circumstances beyond their control” ?
Corporates-bank nexus
The fact that lending banks in case of large borrowers were operating as a consortium of a score or
more of banks obviates the need for any investigation into the corporates-bank nexus that caused
this loss of lakh-crores of depositors’ money. In all fairness, this hit being taken by banks for the sake
of development should be treated as a government bailout of the corporate sector. Alternatively, it
could be seen as the RBI making credit available to defaulting corporates at negative rates of interest.
The recent ordinance makes the resolution professional all powerful. It is now up to the resolution
professional to decide who will be eligible to bid for the defaulter companies or their assets.
The ordinance conveys the urgency of impeccable antecedents of bidders so as to exclude wilful
defaulters as well as companies whose interest and charges are outstanding for a period of one year or
more. An existing promoter is eligible to bid for majority control only if all dues are paid. A
defaulting promoter is not even allowed to bid indirectly through or along with other parties since
“connected persons” are excluded from eligibility. A strict interpretation of the ordinance would
mean that the loan accounts of each one of the 400-odd defaulter corporate borrowers are technically
classified as NPAs. Otherwise they would not have reached this stage of resolution.
These accounts are likely to have been through various rounds of unsuccessful restructuring in the
past. Having failed to repay even the reduced amounts of loan and interest to the banks, their past
credit history should raise serious questions on their antecedents. Hence, the promoters of these
companies should not qualify as eligible bidders. So far, none of the first 12 corporates referred to the
IBC has been debarred from bidding back their companies after driving them aground. Thus, the
ordinance creates the scope for disqualifying an existing promoter or including a rank outsider into
the bidding process.
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) is the regulator set up on October 1, 2016 under
the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. The resolution professionals entrusted with the responsibility
of sorting out the insolvent companies or individuals can be registered with any one of the three
insolvency professional agencies. The IBBI is assisted by the disciplinary, advisory and technical
committees. A quick glance at the IBBI website reveals that the advisory committees on corporate
insolvency and liquidation are chaired by several top corporates.
While there is nothing unusual about government consultation with corporate India, the
appointment of corporates as heads of important corporate insolvency advisory committees under
IBBI does not inspire confidence in the credibility of the resolution process. The recent ordinance
may end up being used selectively to defeat the very objective of penalising the errant promoter. The
banks will only lose if resolution is sidetracked by the ensuing power struggle among corporate India
to purchase distressed assets at rock-bottom prices.
Meera Nangia is Associate Professor in Commerce, University of Delhi
Printable version | Dec 18, 2017 11:03:21 AM | http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/changed-
priorities/article21726553.ece
High road to democratic stability
Kanak Mani Dixit
With civic watch-dogging, Nepal, with its new Constitution, can turn history on its head
N epal has been in distress for two decades, since the start of the Maoist war in early 1996, through royal autocracy, palace
massacre, earthquake, foreign interference and communal polarisation. Finally, in a second try, the new Constitution was
promulgated by the Constituent Assembly in September 2015. The last roadblock to its implementation was overcome with a
series of local, provincial and national elections over the summer-winter of 2017.
The parliamentary elections of November 26-December 7 ended the 70-year tradition of the Nepali Congress (NC) setting the
political agenda in power or in dissidence. The Left alliance of the mainstream Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-
Leninist), or UML, and the Maoists have made a clean sweep to be able to form governments at the Centre and all but one of
the seven brand new provinces. (The elected MP vote count for the five ‘national parties’ came to 80-UML, 36-Maoist, 23-NC,
11-Rashtriya Janata Party and 10-Federal Socialist Forum.)
Constitutional confidence
While this weakening of opposition is cause for concern, Nepal finally seems set for a stable government with longevity
beyond a year. To begin with, Nepal’s adherence to republicanism, federalism and its own brand of secularism are now set in
stone, while earlier there was the fear of backsliding. The placement of elected representatives in three tiers from local,
provincial to national — including in the restive Tarai plains — means there is now buy-in for the Constitution from all
political stakeholders.
New Delhi’s overt show of displeasure regarding the constitutional promulgation too has been overcome
A new phase?
Nepal's historic through sheer national public will. The citizenry feels empowered for having participated in each key
episode of the last decade, including the People’s Movement of 2006, blocking attempts at communal
arson, and overcoming the five-month blockade of 2015-16.
The new Constitution marks an innovation in the South Asian landscape, with devolution of fiscal,
legislative, executive and other powers not to two but three tier ‘sarkars’.
Besides the national Parliament, the Constitution has empowered representative government in the
seven provinces, 17 cities, 276 towns and 460 village municipalities. Emerging from a history of
Kathmandu-centrism and two decades without elected local government, today an entire superstructure of representation is
in place. Says the constitutionalist Nilamber Acharya: “A system of democratic filtering is in place, and there is excitement
among the people to experiment with this new system.”
Debilitation - to make weak or feeble
Deuba’s debacle
While the caretaker Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, deserves all credit for guiding society through the maze of elections,
he did run a lacklustre campaign and will not be thanked for the debilitation of the country’s premier democratic party. While
NC voters remained loyal, the Maoist swing vote and the romantic call of ‘Left unity’ made all the difference.
During the Dashain holidays, the UML sprang a surprise, enticing Maoist Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal (‘Prachanda’) away from
the Congress with the promise of 60-40% share of seats in the provincial/national elections of November-December. This was
a godsend for the Maoist party in decline. Mr. Deuba’s poor oratory could not stand against the UML’s firebrand Khadga Prasad
Oli, who rode the nationalist plank against the vivid backdrop of the blockade. Mr. Deuba’s dire warnings that the communists
as threats to democracy lacked credibility because of his own earlier embrace of Mr. Dahal.
Oli’s moment
All eyes are now on Mr. Oli, having emerged as paramount leader with both electoral and populist power. Under the new rules,
a no-confidence motion against a new government cannot be brought for two years, and it is likely that he will get to complete
a full five-year term. This situation has been unavailable to any of his predecessors in the entire modern era.
The new Prime Minister’s biggest success will be to ‘neutralise’ the Maoist party — through power-
sharing or unification — and Mr. Dahal may be agreeable as his main worry of late has been to keep the
cadre placated. In his previous stint as Prime Minister, Mr. Oli had almost brought the transitional
justice process to a successful closure, including accountability for conflict-era excesses. The peace
Nepal’s Left
alliance heading
process will not be complete till this is done, and Mr. Oli’s staying the course will ensure long-term peace
for landslide and represent a victory for liberal democracy.
win with 106
seats Beyond the Maoists, Mr. Oli will have to build a working relationship not only with the NC but also the
plains-based parties with whom he has been combative. Democratic stability would, ipso facto, release
Ipso Facto - by that very fact or act.
"The enemy of one's enemy may be ipso facto a friend"
long-pending economic energy for which the new Prime Minister will have to fight rather than join the crony capitalists who
have entrapped the political economy during the decade of “political transition”.
The economy has to start galloping, creating jobs for the young workforce, including the millions in West Asia, Malaysia and
India likely to return due to pushes and pulls beyond Nepal’s control. This requires movement on infrastructure projects,
agro-forestry, tourism, service industries and irrigated agriculture in the Tarai plains.
The new Prime Minister will need to mend fences with New Delhi, energised by the strength of his electoral mandate. Based
on the set of agreements signed in Beijing during his earlier stint at Singha Durbar, Mr. Oli is expected to accelerate
connectivity to the north, utilising the Chinese railway network that has arrived on the Tibetan plateau.
Kathmandu does not yet fully understand Beijing’s super-charged geopolitical agenda, but a confident Mr. Oli can be expected
to seek a respectful rather than obsequious relationship. As the commentator Jainendra Jeevan wrote last week, “We don’t
want another ‘India’ across the northern border.” Obsequious - obedient or attentive to an excessive or servile degree
Nepal having become a feeble international player due to autocracy, conflict and transition, Mr. Oli has an opportunity to
bring international respectability back to a level not seen since the time of B.P. Koirala in the 1950s. Insecurities having been
dealt with, the confidence of the new republic will also be seen in shifting the office and residence of the President of Nepal
from Shital Niwas to the former Narayanhiti Royal Palace.
The ride to democratic stability is bound to be bumpy, not least because the Constitution — written by politicians rather than
jurists and constitutionalists — is so ‘magnanimous’ that it will be a challenge to implement. Hundreds of laws need drafting,
the grey areas in the inter-relationships between the three levels of government have to be clarified.
The concurrent list detailing the rights and responsibilities of not two but three tiers makes Nepal’s experiment unique.
Already, one can sense reluctance among the topmost leadership and bureaucracy to devolve power to local government as
mandated by the Constitution. The newborn Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court will need to gear up to tackle the
deluge. Deluge - a great flood of water; inundation Profligate - reckless extravagance or wastefulness in the use of resources
There are enough triggers out there for social discontent to erupt. The profligacy of the last decade of “consensus governance”
has emptied the national coffers even as expenditure is set to rise to meet the needs of local and provincial administration. The
post-earthquake reconstruction of households, infrastructure and heritage structures has yet to gather steam.
There is a sharp difference in the economic status of the seven federal units, with Province No. 1 (in the East) and No. 3
(including Kathmandu Valley) the best placed in the GDP and human development indices. An equalisation protocol is the
need of the hour.
The power devolved to provincial and local government is liable to expose the population to mistreatment, from economic
crimes to human rights abuse. Civil liberty forums must rise to the occasion in all seven provinces, to watchdog all tiers. A
society heading out into uncharted waters amid economic, political and geopolitical challenges is asked to implement the
democratic, inclusive and social justice-oriented ideals that are to be found in the Constitution of Nepal (2015).
Kanak Mani Dixit, a writer and journalist based in Kathmandu, is founding editor of the magazine, ‘Himal Southasian’
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stability/article21827613.ece
How Gujarat was won
Shreyas Sardesai
Was the victory sealed by a late swing on account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaigning?
T he Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has managed only a modest victory in Gujarat, confirming some earlier
psephological predictions and ground reports of a close electoral contest. Two polls conducted by us at Lokniti, Centre
for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), one in end-October and another in end-November, had found the
electoral race between the BJP and the Congress to have tightened considerably. In fact, the November survey had
found the race to be neck-and-neck in terms of vote share. That trend, however, did not hold entirely till Voting Day. It
now seems that a last-minute swing by some voters towards the final stages of the campaign ended up giving the edge
to the BJP.
We say this based on evidence gathered from a post-poll, a survey of voters at their residences after they voted,
conducted by Lokniti. The poll reveals that over two in every five voters (43%) took a final call on who they would vote
for in the last two weeks of campaigning — and more than half of them (53%) said they voted for the BJP while only
about 38% went with the Congress. In fact, a majority of these late deciders are those who decided at the last minute,
either on the day of voting or a day or two before it. In 2012 the share of late deciders had been much lower, at 31%, and
back then they had split their vote evenly between the BJP and the Congress.
The question then is, what really happened, between the last week of November when our final
pre-poll took place and the second week of December when actual voting took place, that made
some disaffected voters planning to vote for the Congress change their minds? The answer to this
question is not so difficult to find.
behind The late shift
We believe that it is quite obviously Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaigning, which was for
the most part controversial and divisive, that played a role in turning a section of voters towards
the BJP, thus saving it from a possible defeat. This is the period when the Prime Minister, who is hugely liked in Gujarat
(by 72% of those surveyed, post-poll), campaigned extensively in the State. Starting from November 27 right up till
December 11, he addressed more than 30 election rallies across the State. Most of his speeches, especially the ones
made at rallies post-December 5, focussed on divisive themes. Mandir-Masjid, Mughals, Pakistan, Ahmed Patel,
Salman Nizami, etc., he practised classic dog-whistle politics by using coded language that might have stoked passions
among some sections of the electorate.
In our final pre-poll done in end-November, we had found only about 45%
Dog-whistle politics is political of Hindu voters to be voting for the BJP. In the post-poll, we noticed that
messaging employing coded language eventually nearly 52% of them ended up voting for the incumbent party.
that appears to mean one thing to the This is also three points higher than the Hindu support that the BJP
general population but has an
received in 2012. While our post-poll also suggests an increase in Muslim
additional, different or more specific
votes for the BJP compared to last time, at the same time it also points to a
resonance for a targeted subgroup.
consolidation of Hindu votes behind the party in Assembly seats where
the Muslim population is much higher than average. In constituencies
where Muslims in the population are less than 10%, the BJP’s lead over the
Congress among Hindu voters is only 4 percentage points. In seats where Muslims constitute 10-20% of the
population, the gap is six times higher at 25 points. And in areas where Muslims are over 20% of the population, the BJP
leads the Congress by 42 points among Hindu voters. In our pre-poll, these gaps had been minus-3, 16 and 11 points,
The Hindu card
Among the major worries of the BJP all throughout the campaign had been the Patidar disaffection with the party as
well as the Congress’s attempts to build a rainbow coalition of different castes by roping in young Patel, Dalit and OBC
(Other Backward Classes) leaders on its side. By giving communal overtones to the campaign, the Prime Minister
seems to have ensured a subsuming of some of these caste identities within the Hindu fold, thus helping the BJP hold
on to its bastion. We notice a shift away from the Congress among all Hindu communities, be it Patidars, Kshatriyas,
Dalits, and Adivasis, between the pre-poll and the post-poll. To be fair, it wasn’t just the BJP that played the Hindu card;
the Congress tried doing it too, albeit covertly. All throughout the campaign, Rahul Gandhi, who led the party
campaign, steered clear of raising issues concerning Muslim voters and instead chose to appeal to majoritarian
sentiments by visiting temples across the State.
However, eventually it seems that in this competition to woo the Gujarati Hindus, most Hindu voters, particularly
urban ones, were more convinced by Mr. Modi’s insinuations than by Mr. Gandhi’s attempts at asserting his Hindu-
ness. The Congress’s strategic abandonment of its pluralistic legacy for electoral gains is to our mind as worrying as the
communal rhetoric in Mr. Modi’s campaign.
Also, the fact that a seemingly neck-and-neck election can be turned around in such a short span by appealing to the
majoritarian impulses of voters raises troubling questions about the health of our electoral democracy.
A section of the Gujarati press may have also played a role, perhaps inadvertently, in effecting the
Bharatiya Tribal
Party opens late swing of some voters. A day after Mr. Modi raised a hue and cry at one of his rallies about
account in
Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar’s remark calling him a “neech kisam ka aadmi (a low type of
man)”, the hugely popular Gujarati newspaper, Gujarat Samachar, which has otherwise been quite
critical of Mr. Modi over the years, ran a headline on its front page: “Modi neech jaatino maanas
chhe: Mani Shankar Aiyar (Modi is a man from a lower caste says Mani Shankar Aiyar)”. While Mr.
Aiyar had described Mr. Modi as “neech”, the newspaper chose to give the remark its own spin, or
rather Mr. Modi’s spin, by adding the word “jaati” to it. Such misreporting of Mr. Aiyar’s comment
in sections of the press just a day before voting was to take place in Saurashtra-Kutchh and South Gujarat may well
have affected the mood of a significant proportion of voters. Our series of surveys in Gujarat suggest that on an average
about one-third of voters in Gujarat are daily readers of newspapers. Among such voters, the BJP’s lead over the
Congress widened from 8 points in the pre-poll to 14 points in the post-poll.
Uncomfortable questions
Winning the trust and confidence of a majority of voters election after election is no mean achievement, and there’s no
doubt the BJP should be commended for this. But at the same time the uncomfortable question we must be asking is
this — was this trust of voters won by the BJP fairly and squarely on the performance plank alone or whether a large
part of it was also won through divisive innuendos, falsehoods and fear mongering?
Shreyas Sardesai is Research Associate at Lokniti, CSDS. Sanjay Kumar is a Professor and currently the Director of
CSDS, Delhi
Insinuation - an unpleasant hint or suggestion of something bad.
"I've done nothing to deserve all your vicious insinuations"
Seeing through a glass darkly: on combating terrorism
M. K. Narayanan
To deal with the terror threat, there must be far greater sharing of intelligence among agencies worldwide
Y et another anniversary of the November 26, 2008 terror attacks on multiple targets in Mumbai has come and gone. Much
has changed since then and terror has evolved into an even more dangerous phenomenon. Recent variants represent a
paradigmatic change in the practice of violence.
A different genre
It is difficult to recognise the new generation of terrorists as a mere extension of the earlier lot of radical Islamist terrorists
who were influenced by the teachings of the Egyptian thinker, Sayyid Qutb, and the Palestinian Islamist preacher, Abdullah
Azzam, and adopted the practical theology of the Afghan warlord, Jalaluddin Haqqani. There is less theology today and the
new age terrorist seems to belong to an altogether different genre of terrorism.
This is not to say that the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai were not different in the methodology and the tactics used in the
September 11, 2001 attack in New York City. Nevertheless, the spate of recent attacks in Europe and parts of Asia, from 2015 to
2017 — beginning with the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris in January 2015, the major incidents at Brussels and
Istanbul Ataturk airports as well as the Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, all in 2016, to the string of attacks in London,
Stockholm, Barcelona and New York, in 2017 — are very different in structure and the morphology from attacks of an earlier
Sanguinary - blood red color
A large number of terror attacks in the past three years have been attributed to the handiwork of the Islamic State (IS), and
reveal its leaning towards the “nihilism” of Sayyid Qutb. It is this which distinguishes the IS from many of the other radical
Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda and its affiliates. The IS’s recruitment techniques, especially its ability to proselytise over the
Internet, including “direct to home jihad” as also its more sanguinary brand of violence, set it apart from earlier variants of
radical Islamist terror.
Nihilism - viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless.
Even while the IS has gained a great deal of prominence due to its brand of violence, other terror
networks have continued to be no less active. For example, al-Qaeda and its affiliates. The Boko Haram in
Africa has been responsible for more killings than most people would realise. Closer home, the Afghan
Taliban and the Haqqani network have carried out several spectacular attacks inside Afghanistan. The
Fifteen years of
the war on
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi have carried out several attacks inside
terror Pakistan. Pakistan provides the wherewithal and the support to terror outfits such as the Lashkar-e-
Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad to launch well-planned attacks on Indian targets.
Most of these outfits continue to adopt earlier methodologies. These have proved no less effective than
those followed by the IS. The terror attack on a mosque in North Sinai, Egypt in November this year, which killed over 230
persons, is one such example. In December, the TTP was responsible for a terror attack on an agricultural training institute in
Peshawar, Pakistan. Differences among terror outfits, do not, however, preclude a complicated pattern of relationships when it
comes to operational aspects.
Incorrect perception
Understanding the constantly altering trajectory of terror is important before charges of intelligence failure are levelled. It has
become axiomatic to attack agencies of intelligence failure whenever a major terror attack takes place. This need not be the
case in every instance. The usual charge levelled is of the failure of intelligence agencies “to connect the dots”. Most often, this
is not true. There are many other reasons for adequate intelligence not being available to prevent a terror attack. The danger is
that a wrong diagnosis could prevent further improvements in intelligence collection and analysis.
One common fallacy is that intelligence agencies have remained static, are rooted in the past, and that
their personnel are inadequately trained to handle current day intelligence tasks. While there is room for
improvement, it is a mistake to presume that intelligence agencies have not made rapid progress and
Terror attacks in kept up with the times. Intelligence agencies today are well-versed in the latest techniques of
Europe: A
intelligence gathering and analysis. Agencies obtain vast amounts of information from both human and
technical intelligence, not excluding signal intelligence and electronic intelligence, intelligence from
satellites and photo reconnaissance, etc. This is apart from open source intelligence.
Agencies employ data mining techniques and are familiar with pattern recognition software. Today,
noise and signals constitute valuable meta-data. Analysing meta-data has produced more precise information and
intelligence than is possibly envisaged, and agencies well recognise the value and utility of this.
In addition, intelligence agencies have become highly adept in monitoring and exploiting open source material. Mapping and
analysis of social networks is today a critical aspect of their work. This is especially useful when it comes to unearthing covert
terror networks. Many intelligence agencies today have an extensive database of several thousands of terrorists and potential
terrorists.
Admittedly, intelligence agencies, like many other organisations, are risk-prone. They do make mistakes. Intelligence analysts,
like analysts in other fields, are particularly vulnerable. Problems also arise from inadequate sharing of intelligence across
institutions and countries. All these, however, are a far cry from the charge of an inability or failure “to connect the dots”.
The real problem is that when dealing with terrorism and terror networks, no two situations in the actual world are identical.
The nature of threats is such that they continue to evolve all the time. Both the 2001 terror attack in New York and the
November 2008 attack in Mumbai were one of a kind with few parallels at the time. Anticipating an attack of this nature
remains in the area of an “intelligence gap” rather than an “intelligence failure”. Most experts explain an intelligence gap as
one denoting an absence of intelligence output while an intelligence failure is one where, based on available evidence, no
warning was issued.
Newer challenges
One of the major challenges that all intelligence agencies face is a qualitative understanding of the newer, and many post-
modern threats. These newer generation threats, including those by terror groups and outfits, often lie “below the radar” or
beyond the horizon. Anticipating such threats and their nature requires intelligence agencies to be constantly ahead of the
curve. Anticipating newer threats is only partly facilitated by today’s technical advances such as new computing and
communication technologies. However, these alone are not often enough to meet today’s intelligence needs.
As problems become more complicated, and as terror networks become even more sophisticated, there
has to be recognition that the situation demands better understanding of factors that are at work.
Levelling mere charges or accusations against intelligence agencies of a failure to anticipate an attack by
not “connecting the dots” could be misleading, if not downright dangerous. All professional analysts in
America's gun
problem in five
whichever field they operate face the same problem as intelligence agencies, and vividly outlined by
charts David Omand, a former U.K. Intelligence and Security Coordinator as “seeing through a glass darkly
when the information available to them is incomplete or partially hidden”.
Alongside this, and to fill the gap, there is a case for far greater sharing of intelligence and information
among intelligence agencies worldwide than it exists at present. This is important to prevent another terror attack on the lines
of the Mumbai 2008 attack. It now transpires that certain foreign intelligence agencies had additional information about the
possible attack which was not shared in time, and which led to an intelligence gap. This could have been avoided.
More important, such a situation should never arise in the future. Terror and terrorism is a universal phenomenon. Every
nation is bound to share the intelligence available with it to prevent a possible major terror attack.
M.K. Narayanan is a former National Security Adviser and a former Governor of West Bengal
A pixelated campaign
an image in which individual pixels are apparent to the naked eye
Shiv Visvanathan
The BJP realises that the Indian voter might be quick to react but he is slow to change
E lection time as a ritual often presents a split-level reality. The contest, the struggle, the battle, the
debates provide an epic panorama of possibilities. One can think and wish aloud as the battle rages but
election day is a time for closure. It is not the magic of the battle that counts but the banal score. Results are a
narrowing down of the world into real articulations. Hopes and wishes disappear by the morning of counting
Banal - so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring.
Prediction and reality
The Gujarat election of 2017 was a classic illustration of this paradigm. Even as the results were being touted
local, commentators and pollsters were proclaiming a Congress surprise. But as the numbers came in, hopes
of the Congress went down. The standard exaggerations between Rahul Gandhi as a naïve Boy Scout and the
Narendra Modi-Amit Shah combine as professional came into play. The tentativeness of the last few weeks
was forgotten and Mr. Modi was once more the constant refrain.
The picture has become critically different. It is not possibilities but numbers that are
recorded. Suddenly, Mr. Gandhi is read in a different way. He is not a recharged leader
bringing a fresh look to the Congress, but a Johnny-come-lately, a Rip Van Winkle who
got up too late. Mr. Gandhi might be tactically precocious but Mr. Shah and the RSS are
Over 5.5 lakh
voters went with
the classic strategists. Mr. Gandhi is labelled an amateur and Modi-Shah
NOTA professionalism is re-emphasised.
One must stress on one event. As commentaries and broadcast go this year, election
coverage was the weakest one has seen. There was no sense of camaraderie between
experts, no attempt to explain the magic of elections. Explanations were bland and experts blander. In fact,
commentators became hagiographers, a chorus of admiration for Mr. Modi as the results became clearer. As
the morning drew to a close, one sensed a stereotyping of the two parties.
Bland - lacking strong features or characteristics and therefore uninteresting.
Targetting Hardik
The butt of the attack was not Mr. Gandhi, but Hardik Patel. Commentators felt Mr. Gandhi was naïve to have
emphasised the importance of personalities. As personalities go, Mr. Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh
Mewani attracted attention. They were the toast of the press for playing out the dissatisfaction against
development. But as results trickled in, there was a sense that all three were only personas, not people-
centred politicians who built elaborate networks. They sounded like false echoes against Mr. Shah’s style. Two
aspects were severely criticised. They were described as attention-grabbers, not vote-converters, openers
without the finishing touch. Second, their timing was poor. One cannot instigate a battle a few months before
elections and expect effective results. The election drama was no time for Twenty20 experts when aficionados
of the five-day Test had already taken control. Time had become a disadvantage for the new trio.
There was also a sense that the magic of development had remained durable for the urban voter. For the
urban and semi-urban voter, the promise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held and worked. Even Surat,
where demonetisation had devastated the economy, returned the BJP almost full house. Urban was the magic
word for the BJP, while the Congress had to be content with its tribal, farm and youth following. Even here, it
is clear that years of RSS work in the tribal areas might one day nibble away this constituency. The Congress,
once a coral reef of coalitions, suddenly seemed even more vulnerable.
For the commentators, the moral of the story was that while individuals create instant drama, they lack the
epic pull of interests. Interest, not individuals and ideologues, is the gold standard of Gujarat politics. Anger
and dissatisfaction might surface occasionally, but interest is the cement that guarantees votes. This, many
admitted, was wisdom straight from Mr. Shah’s political handbook of elections. They added that when it
comes to delivery, Mr. Modi is a believable Father Christmas while the electorate reads Mr. Gandhi as merely
Aficionado - a person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about an activity, subject, or pastime.
connoisseur, cognoscente
promising. His promise is only a hypothesis next to the formidable interest clusters Mr. Shah has built over
One also sensed that memory was a major factor. It was not anti-incumbency that was a major theme. On
the contrary, most people could hardly remember the last time the Congress was in power. Mr. Gandhi and
the Congress might be good at articulating Patel distress, but when push came to shove, they lacked the
confidence as delivery boys of politics.
Memory affected other perceptions. While Congress rode on the myth of poverty, BJP rule had seen a decline
in overt poverty. Or to put it more sociologically, one realises that inequality had increased but poverty had
declined. This was particularly true of the urban voter who loved “achhe din” while destitution was restricted
to tribals and peasantry where the Congress campaign was more effective. The Congress, it was felt, had to
rework itself to reclaim urban middle-class India.
Congress vs RSS
There was also a sense that Mr. Gandhi’s Congress and its campaign were considered superficial. It was not
just their emphasis on personality or short-term scenarios, it was also that by emphasising individuals, the
Congress had no sense of organisations, institutions of memory. It could not match the years of sustained
work the RSS had put in, like the worker bees of election politics. The shakha could bury itself into a society
for decades and wait for its efforts to work. The Congress lacked this sense of the politics of duration. The only
sense of time it had was genealogical, but genealogies cut little ice in terms of organisational planning and
Despite all this, one had to admit that the BJP goal of 150 of 182 seats was distant. Yet
one also realises that 150 for Mr. Shah is not a number; it is a clarion call to battle which
motivates his workers. If they fall a bit short they admit they came close to the
impossible. If the miracle is occasionally achieved, the myth of the BJP’s invincibility
The rise of the
Saffron brigade
becomes more resonant.
One realises that the basic campaign the BJP is fighting — a mix of middle-class,
development and a lovely veneer of Hindutva works for the party. The party has read the
sociology right. The new urban voter is the darling of BJP posters. Even their sense of
psychology appears immaculate. They realise that regimes produce moments of discontent, but
discontentment as a phenomenon is fragile. It appears dramatically, but it takes hard work to convert
discontentment to votes. The BJP realises that the Indian voter might be quick to react but he is slow to
change. The BJP is better at local homework. A lot of this remains invisible to the media, but it is this that
produces the stuff of electoral politics. Amit Shah can rest content that he is still the master of interests and
everydayness. He is still the Machiavelli warding off Congress Boy Scouts.
Yet, the BJP cannot afford to be complacent. It is still rolling as a juggernaut but at times the ride looks rickety
and vulnerable. It senses, like other practitioners, that society is changing, that new configurations and
interests are appearing, new dialects of politics are being born. The present is safe in its hands, but the future
might prove the trickster it cannot defeat.
Rickety - poorly made and likely to collapse
Reconsider the Rules: on 2017 Wetland Rules
Neha Sinha
The 2017 Wetland Rules limit monitoring and omit important wetland types
E arlier this year, a judgment by the Uttarakhand High Court, stating that Ganga and Yamuna rivers are
“living entities”, captured the national imagination. It is worth noting that wetlands, the other major water-
based ecosystem apart from rivers, are at a moment of policy transition in the country. This year, a new legal
framework for wetlands was passed, the Wetland (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, replacing
the earlier Rules of 2010. Also this year, the Supreme Court passed an order directing States to identify
wetlands in the country within a stipulated timeframe.
The 2017 Wetland Rules have been criticised for doing away with strong wetland monitoring systems and
omitting important wetland types. At the same time, the Supreme Court order directs States to come forward
and notify wetlands. What then could be the way forward?
The 2010 and 2017 Rules for wetlands both emphasise that the ecological character of wetlands ought to be
maintained for their conservation. ‘Ecological character’ refers to processes and components which make the
wetland a particular, and sometimes unique, ecosystem. For example, as lagoons like Chilika (Odisha) and
Pulicat (Tamil Nadu/Andhra Pradesh) are characterised by a mix of saline and fresh water, the flows of each
type need to be maintained; river flood plains contain wetlands that require conservation so they can re-fuel
the river with fish and other aquatic life during flooding.
In the 2010 Rules, some related criteria were made explicit, such as natural beauty,
A lagoon is a ecological sensitivity, genetic diversity, historical value, etc. These have been omitted in
shallow body of the 2017 Rules. There are a few reasons why this is problematic. First, there is multiple
water separated interest around wetlands. Multiple interests also have governance needs, and this
from a larger body
makes it absolutely necessary to identify and map these multiple uses. Leading on from
of water by barrier
islands or reefs. this, and second, it is crucial to identify ecological criteria so that the wetlands’
character can be maintained. The key to wetland conservation is not just understanding
regimes of multiple use — but conserving or managing the integrity of the wetland
ecosystem. Finally, restriction of activities on wetlands will be done as per the principle of ‘wise use’,
determined by the State wetland authority. Whether wise use will include maintaining ecological character
remains to be seen. Under the new Rules, no authority to issue directions, which are binding in nature to
desist from any activity detrimental to wetland conservation, has been prescribed to State wetland
authorities.
Salt pans are an example how one use (of making salt) has trumped the other (of environmental balance). Salt
pans as ‘wetlands’ have been omitted from the new Rules. They were identified as wetlands in the 2010 Rules,
as they are often important sites of migratory birds and other forms of biodiversity. The omission in the 2017
Rules suggests that while saltpans do exist as wetlands, they do not require any conservation or ecological
balance. The inference can also be that it would be acceptable to tip the environmental balance or integrity of
such a wetland, which could lead to damage and pollution.
The case of Deepor Beel
The issue of wetlands being multiple-use areas — and subsequently being abused due to clashes of interest —
found centre-stage this year with the observations of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in the case of
Deepor Beel.
Deepor Beel is a Ramsar site and a part of it is also wildlife sanctuary in Guwahati, Assam. (‘Ramsar Sites are
designated because they meet the criteria for identifying wetlands of international importance.’) This
wetland harbours a wide variety of biodiversity, and also suffers from intense man-made pressure — the city’s
municipal waste is dumped close to the Beel. Large, meat-eating storks (Greater adjutant storks) are
ironically found eating from the mountains of garbage at the site. Potential impacts of contamination or
poisoning from the garbage are still unknown. This January, 26 storks died. The fact that Deepor Beel (Beel
means water body) exists as a wetland does not prevent garbage dumping; this is a fate faced by many
wetlands. The NGT’s observations on Deepor Beel are interesting and symptomatic of what is happening in
several wetlands. In an inspection done by the judicial member of the Tribunal, it was noted that waste was
being dumped “not beyond the site but within it,” and “demarcations are made by drying out areas or cutting
off water sources”. These are classic ways of killing a wetland and turning it from a wet to a dry ecosystem; or
from a lake to a garbage dump or cesspool. The Tribunal has now asked for the “traditional” spread of the
wetland. Cartography - study and practice of making maps. Bulwark - a defensive wall, fortification.
Given all the modern uses of wetlands, or the use of the wetland only for its land, looking at traditional
cartography may be one way to understand catchments of wetlands. It may also be a way of restoring some
modicum of ecological character, identity or ‘rights’ to wetlands, as the river judgment suggested. There are
challenges ahead in identifying wetlands – multiple and competing use is just one of them. Understanding
the historic spread and ecological character will be an important bulwark for the way forward. Setting clear
governance systems would be the next. Without either, we are looking at a complete dilution of wetlands in
Salt Pan - flat expanses of ground covered with salt and other minerals, usually shining white under the sun. They are found in deserts,
and are natural formations (unlike salt evaporation ponds, which are artificial). A salt pan forms by evaporation of a water pool such as a
lake or pond. This happens in climates where the rate of water evaporation exceeds the rate of precipitation, that is, in a desert. If the
water cannot drain into the ground, it remains on the surface until it evaporates, leaving behind minerals precipitated from the salt ions
dissolved in the water. Over thousands of years, the minerals (usually salts) accumulate on the surface. These minerals reflect the sun's
rays and often appear as white areas.
GST, a work in progress
M.Govinda Rao
We need to immediately move towards three tax slabs, and eventually two
T he introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) raised much hope that it would herald the
emergence of a ‘good and simple tax’ with ‘one nation, one market, one tax’. However, there has been
considerable concern with the new tax, both in its structure and operational details, including the ease of
paying the tax and filing returns. Trade and industry have been grappling with the problem of payment,
filing the returns and claiming input tax credit, and exporters have been facing liquidity crises as the
zero-rating of the tax has not worked and refunds have not been forthcoming, with difficulty in filing
returns. Of course, the GST Council has been quite responsive to tweak the structure and operational
details to make it simpler. Yet, considerable work needs to be done to ensure a smooth transition and to
reap the revenue and productivity gains to the economy.
History of GST
Introduction of the GST is an important reform and is a standard policy recommendation for every
country going in for the structural adjustment programme of the International Monetary Fund. This has
been a major money spinner and a source of productivity gain. According to Michael Keen, of over 165
countries which have adopted GST in one form or another, only five have repealed it (Belize, Ghana,
Grenada, Malta and Vietnam), but have reintroduced the tax later. The GST has taken centre-stage in
many countries and is considered important in view of the competitive reduction in corporation tax rates
due to high mobility of capital. It is also true that there is no “one-size fits all” GST and each country has
to adopt the structure depending on political bargains and operational feasibility. It is a major reform,
and even as every country makes a lot of preparations before it is introduced, it takes time to smoothen
the rough edges and settle contentious issues.
International experience shows that some features of the reform are inherently
desirable. It is important not to have too low thresholds. In fact, reasonably high
thresholds will reduce the compliance burden to a large number of small businesses
without much impact on revenue. Richard Bird and Pierre-Pascal Gendron, after a
All you need to
know about GST
detailed examination of a number of countries adopting GST, suggest that in
developing countries, a threshold closer to $100,000 would eliminate 75% of the
taxpayers with a revenue loss of less than 4%. (See Bird and Gendron, The VAT in
Developing and Transitional Countries, Cambridge University Press, 2007). Another
desirable feature of a successful GST is to have fewer rates. Multiple rates create classification problems,
are harder to administer and would require the general rate of tax to be higher. It would also invite a lot of
lobbying by special interest groups. Third, it is important to prepare well before the plunge. Most
countries take at least two years to prepare for the introduction of reform to ensure a smooth transition.
This is particularly necessary for developing and testing the technology platform, educating the tax
collectors and tax payers and to avoid any anomalies in the structure of the tax.
The Indian version
In the Indian context, given that the reform had to be evolved by taking into account the views of 29
States, two Union Territories with legislatures and the Union government, compromises are inevitable
and it is impossible to expect the structure of the tax to be ideal. As stated by Bird and Gendron, some bad
initial features may be an essential compromise to get the tax accepted in the first place.
It would have been preferable to evolve the structure with two rates, one lower on items of common
consumption and another general rate on consumer durables and luxuries. Notably, given that the VAT in
the earlier regime had predominantly two rates, it should have been possible to convince the States of the
need to fix the GST rates at two rather than four. In addition, the levy of three rates of cesses has further
complicated the structure. Having four tax rates and three rates of cesses should have been avoided. As
mentioned above, multiple rates create problems of classification, inverted duty structure and large-
scale lobbying. It enormously complicates the technology platform to ensure input tax credit
mechanism. It therefore appears desirable to move immediately towards three slabs with the final goal of
reducing the slabs to two. It would also have been desirable for the “fitment committee” to evolve the
rates by thinking afresh instead to merely adding up the excise and VAT rates to fit the item to the nearest
rate decided. This is particularly relevant in the case of commodities which are predominantly inputs as
in the earlier VAT regime they were placed in the lower rate category. Hopefully, the GST Council will act
soon on this.
Raising the threshold
As mentioned above, expert opinion based on international experience shows that there is much to be
gained by having the threshold at reasonably high levels. As mentioned above, international experience
is that a threshold closer to $100,000 would eliminate 75% of the taxpayers and the sacrifice in terms of
revenue would be less than 4%. Moreover, it is the small businesses which produce and trade in
commodities and services which are predominantly consumed by low income groups and therefore,
keeping the threshold high would be desirable from the viewpoint of equity as well. Considering this,
going further, it may be desirable to fix the threshold at ₹50 lakh. The revenue loss will be minimal but
ease of doing business will be high. The inclusion of petroleum products in the GST base will depend on
mainly the revenue gains from the reform. Nevertheless, it is a desirable objective and the GST Council
must act on it. International experience shows that including real estate may not be easy.
There is some concern that the revenues from GST in the past few months are somewhat below
expectations. Things could improve as the new changes bring in stability and technology platform
stabilises. Hopefully the implementation of GST may help in augmenting income tax as well.
Strong political commitment, to implementing the reform, thorough advance preparation, adequate
investment in tax administration and taxpayer services, extensive public education programme, support
from business community and good timing of reform are the important pre-requisites for successful
implementation of the GST. It is also important to note that problems of transition to a major tax reform
are unavoidable and most countries go through this. In this regard, the approach of the GST Council must
be commended for being receptive to the concerns of businesses and in dealing with the glitches in
technology. Some of the noise heard is also due to the fact that all traders, in one way or the other, are
brought into the formal sector. That hurts some. The GST Council has recognised that it needs to carefully
calibrate the reform until the desired goal of a Good and Simple Tax is realised. Hopefully the GST
Council will keep the goals clear and consider the reform effort as a work in progress.
C. Rangarajan is former Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the PM and former Governor,
RBI. M. Govinda Rao was member, 14th Finance Commission, and is Emeritus Professor, National
Institute of Public Finance and Policy
Reading Rahul Gandhi’s hand
G. Sampath
By pitching a politics of love in opposition to a politics of fear, he may have just hit upon a winning
U ntil a few months ago, a politician could speak of a ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ and expect to be taken seriously.
It was an eventuality that seemed both possible and probable. A few days after the Gujarat election results, it
would seem that the spectre of a ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ has been exorcised for the time being.
Exorcise - drive out or attempt to drive out (a supposed evil spirit) from a person or place
Diffident - modest or shy because of a lack of self-confidence.
Dilettante - Dabbler, a person who cultivates an area of interest, such as the arts, without real commitment or
One could discern four factors behind the upswing in the Congress’s fortunes in Gujarat, and these may well
constitute the core ingredients for a pan-India revival too.
The first is Rahul Gandhi’s comfort level in a leadership role. Never before has he looked as relaxed and confident
as he did leading from the front in Gujarat. For long he has been mocked as a bumbling neophyte lacking the
commitment necessary for the rigours of electoral politics. But as he travelled across Gujarat, addressing nearly 30
rallies, gone was the diffident dilettante mouthing ghost-written speeches. Instead, what the people saw was a
politician who was earnest, did not act like the entitled dynast he was said to be, and was eager to listen.
Bumbling - speak in a The second is Mr. Gandhi’s capacity for self-effacement, which enabled him to bring together
confused or indistinct
competing political egos for a larger cause. Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani
are massively popular, ambitious youth leaders representing different constituencies and
whose political agendas are often mutually contradictory. What united them under the
Neophyte - a person auspices of the Congress was their readiness to trust Mr. Gandhi. It is difficult to think of
who is new to a subject another Congress politician who could have pulled off this remarkable social coalition —
or activity. remarkable because it was based not on a cynical caste calculus but on substantive issues
such as employment, educational opportunities, unfair taxation, land rights, and agrarian
The third element, unlike the others, is a work in progress: organisational presence on the ground. The Congress
mostly managed this by drawing on pre-existing mobilisations such as the Patidar movement. But one instance
where it came a cropper was Surat. The textile city had become the epicentre of anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
anger in Gujarat. But the crowds that turned up for Mr. Patel’s rallies in Surat did not translate into votes. The
Congress’s near-absence at the ground level and the BJP’s superiority in booth management and financial
firepower made all the difference as the latter swept the city, winning 15 of the 16 seats. The Surat phenomenon is
bound to repeat itself unless Mr. Gandhi fixes the rot in the middle and lower rungs of the party and turns them
into reliable cogs in the organisational machinery.
Last, and most critical to the Congress’s electoral prospects, is the articulation of an alternative politics that is
credible, imaginative, and connects with the masses. And it is here that Mr. Gandhi has surprised everyone.
His speech after taking over as Congress president offered the clearest glimpse to date into his vision of politics.
Though not a full-fledged narrative, the outline suggested by his pronouncements has the potential to serve as an
alternative pole of mobilisation and affective investment.
Sets of binaries
By now, the contrast between Mr. Gandhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is apparent to all. In terms of stature,
popularity, charisma, and accomplishments, the former is a David up against Goliath. But David may have found a
way to make the contrast work in his favour.
If Mr. Modi exudes power and authority, Mr. Gandhi personifies a low-key civility. If one evokes admiration and
awe, the other has the ability to inspire affection. If one is a great speaker, the other presents himself as a great
listener. Interestingly enough, of late Mr. Gandhi has shown a penchant for expanding these sets of binaries in a
manner that further sharpens the contrast between himself and Mr. Modi.
The binaries invoked in his recent pronouncements include a politics of love versus a politics
of anger; brotherhood versus hatred; truth versus falsehood; dialogue versus monologue;
Riffs - a short listening versus speechifying; arrogance versus humility; pluralism versus uniformity;
repeated phrase in diversity versus homogeneity; and above all, a politics of kindness versus a politics of fear.
His speeches in Gujarat were riffs on these themes interspersed with caustic commentary on
Bamboozle - cheat/ the Gujarat model, ‘Vikas’, the Rafale deal, demonetisation, the goods and services tax, and so
fool on. However, he astonished everyone by insisting that though the BJP wanted a ‘Congress-
mukt Bharat’, he did not want a ‘BJP-mukt Bharat’ since the BJP was also an expression of the aspirations of the
Indian people. Though he did not agree with their politics, his love, he said, extended to BJP supporters as well.
These are shockingly unusual sentiments in the dog-eat-dog world of Indian politics.
So much so that even the Nehruvian liberals are bamboozled. After all, what kind of a modern politician talks of
love? Love? Who votes for love and kindness in the age of gratuitous social media cruelty? Has he gone crazy?
Less puzzling and more unsettling has been his infamous ‘temple run’ in Gujarat. Mr. Gandhi stands accused of
conceding political ground to the Hindu Right by highlighting his Hindu identity during the Gujarat campaign.
Some have called it ‘soft Hindutva’, citing the strategic use of vermilion on his forehead and his silence on
minority issues.
This is a misreading, not unexpected from a puritanical streak of liberalism that is
susceptible to confusing form with substance. Mr. Gandhi’s temple run needs to be
understood in the context of a new political reality: India in 2017 is far more communally
polarised than it was in 2009, and Gujarat more so than any other State, with religious
Bigger battles
ahead for
identity overriding all else at the time of voting. The Congress has little chance of winning
Congress elections unless it reverses this mass ‘Hinduisation’ or neutralises it at election time.
Ejecting communal toxins from the body politic is a long-term project, best pursued as a
social movement or when the reins of power are at hand. With 2019 not far away, the only
viable political option in the short term is neutralisation. Mr. Gandhi seems to have understood this.
Smart secularism
His temple visits, from this perspective, are not ‘soft Hindutva’ but ‘smart secularism’ — one that acknowledges
the religious identity of the majority without lapsing into majoritarianism or compromising on the
constitutional rights of the minority. This is a tricky tightrope walk, and it remains to be seen how well he keeps
his balance. While it is debatable how many extra votes it garnered, one indication of its efficacy was the panic it
caused in the BJP ranks.
The Congress’s performance in Gujarat has given Mr. Gandhi what he has lacked so far: credibility as a helmsman,
which is kind of hard to establish when you have inherited your position at the helm. Second, it has demonstrated
that the Congress can take the BJP head-on and win. This rise in the party’s ‘winnability quotient’ would put it on a
stronger footing when negotiating alliances. It would also draw back into its fold the minorities in other States
who traditionally vote for the strongest secular party.
All said and done, by forcefully pitching a politics of love in opposition to a politics of fear, Mr. Gandhi may have
just hit upon the nucleus of an alternative narrative that the Congress has been searching for. The future of Indian
democracy may well be decided by a fierce battle between fear and love, fought in the hearts and minds of the
Indian voter.
Time for an icebreaker: on India-Pakistan relations
The intellectual partition of India and Pakistan does no benefit to either country
I n the late 1960s, shortly after the India-Pakistan war, the official in the Ministry of External Affairs
handling the Pakistan desk received a strange request during his meeting with the new Pakistan High
Commissioner. “I hope that you would deal with Pakistan as a foreign country,” the High Commissioner told the
slightly puzzled Indian official, explaining that the familiarity of Indian officials with both language and culture
of Pakistan ran counter to Pakistan’s desire to build their identity as a newly sovereign nation.
Two years apart
While the two countries had been physically partitioned, and borders and check-posts now controlled people
from crossing over, the ‘intellectual partition’ of India and Pakistan had not taken place at the time. Decades
later, it would be hard for a Pakistani envoy to make such a complaint. India and Pakistan are not just foreign
countries for each other, they are practically alien, with little to engage on in various spheres. The “intellectual
and emotional partition” of the two countries is even more stark today, exactly two years since Prime Minister
Narendra Modi landed in Lahore to attend his then counterpart, Nawaz Sharif’s grand-daughter’s wedding.
To begin with, Indian and Pakistani societies have learnt to look away from each other culturally. The process of
this partition, which began in the 1950s, when poets and historians began to construct separate histories, is now
complete, as Pakistani students learn a language more Arabic than Urdu, of a polity that begins in 1947, and
about an ancient history that relates to foreign invaders from the country’s west more than the shared history
with its east. On the Indian side, contemporary cultural linkages have been severed, with Abida Parveen and
Ghulam Ali no longer able to perform in India, Pakistani actors barred from work in Indian films, and a
television network stopping the very popular telecast of Pakistani soap operas. Sporting events are fewer, and
there is little “healthy rivalry” when Indian and Pakistani teams do meet: instead a defeat becomes a national
disgrace, while a victory is celebrated as a quasi-military conquest. Visas are still granted for pilgrimages on
both sides, but for all other travel they are tightly controlled and granted as exceptions to the rule. Seldom have
two countries which share language, idiom, music and religion been this closed to each other, including in times
of war.
Bilateral trade, which had developed a low but steady normal, could be reduced even further now: as Indian
development of Chabahar port in Iran circumvents Pakistan by sea, and an air cargo corridor to Afghanistan
replaces land cargo entirely. Effectively, India is willing to double its trade costs and spend billions of dollars
extra in order block out Pakistan, and Pakistan is willing to risk its trade route to Afghanistan and Central Asia,
but won’t allow Indian trade to Afghanistan come through Wagah.
The only increased ‘trade’ is that of ‘trading fire’ at the Line of Control (LoC), where Pakistan attempts to push in
infiltrators over the LoC into India under covering fire, and Indian troops fire back, taking also a high toll for
civilians on both sides. After the 2003 ceasefire had been implemented, villagers on either side of the LoC had
returned to their homes and rebuilt schools along the area. Most of that peace has been undone by the past few
years of ceasefire violations, according to a study by the United States Institute of Peace called “A Line on Fire”.
From 12 ceasefire violations (CFVs) on both sides combined and one civilian casualty in 2006, 2016 saw 51 dead
in about 900 CFVs. The data for this year has surpassed those numbers, which includes four Indian Army
soldiers killed this weekend. Yet, neither side gives credence to claims of the other. Even after the surgical
strikes of September 2016, Pakistan’s government refused to accept India’s detailed account of the cross-LoC
The discourse on terrorism is even more divided. After the Mumbai attacks of 2008, Pakistan admitted in public
statements at least that the perpetrators of the attacks would be brought to justice. Yet in the past three years,
the Mumbai trial in Rawalpindi has all but ground to a halt. The Lashkar-e-Taiba’s operations commander
Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi is out on bail, while 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed, out of custody last month, plans to
stand for elections in 2018. On the Pakistani side, there’s growing belief that India funds groups such as the
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as well as insurgent groups in Balochistan. Mr. Modi’s public support for the
Baloch insurgency during his Independence Day speech last year did not help. The fate of Kulbushan Jadhav,
whose release from Pakistani custody in other times may have been decided by mutual negotiation and a
possible exchange of personnel, is now in the hands of the International Court of Justice.
Difficult calendar
While both India and Pakistan have recently appointed new High Commissioners to Islamabad and Delhi,
respectively, there is very little hope of any fresh initiative at this point. Pakistan heads into its electoral process
in a few months, once the Senate elections are done in March and a caretaker government is put in place. By the
time a new Prime Minister is in place there, the Indian general election campaign will begin to roll out. Given
Mr. Modi’s recent attack on former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for meeting the new Pakistani envoy at a
dinner during the Gujarat campaign, and suggesting collusion between the two, it is unlikely that the political
atmosphere would allow for even diplomatic niceties to be maintained.
Yet, for a number of reasons, it is even more necessary for both sides to stem this intellectual partition today.
India has long opposed “third-party interventions”, but the lack of dialogue with Pakistan is imposing just that,
with every dispute between the two countries now being taken up at global forums: the United Nations,
Financial Action Task Force, International Court of Justice, and World Bank for the Indus Waters Treaty.
Second, with the U.S. drawing India into its Afghanistan policy, and China’s stakes in the China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor, the subcontinent is becoming an area of contestation by players bigger than both India and
Pakistan. Even in Afghanistan, their interests are being increasingly defined by the coalitional arcs being drawn:
with the U.S., India, and Afghanistan ranged on one side; and Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan and the Taliban on the
The alphabet soup
India’s decision to stay out of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) meet in Pakistan
has also complicated its standing as a regional leader. While alternative arrangements such as The Bay of Bengal
Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India,
Nepal (BBIN) initiative and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) represent some parts of the region, they
cannot replace the whole, and the region becomes easier to fragment, as China has managed to do by making
inroads into Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
Finally, re-engagement will inevitably follow disengagement at some point, and the growing distance between
the people of both countries will be much more difficult for their governments to bridge in the future. Even
without bilateral talks, the two sides can explore simple engagements on the environment, medical tourism,
energy pipelines and electric grids in the interim. In a world where connectivity is the new currency, and
multiple alignments are replacing polar geopolitics, it is hard to justify the disconnected space that New Delhi
and Islamabad are hurtling into.
suhasini.h@thehindu.co.in
Hurtle - move or cause to move at high speed, typically in an uncontrolled manner
This year, on Jerusalem
Varghese K. George
India’s vote at the UN is in line with its leading power ambitions, and not just a legacy of nonalignment
W hen India voted on a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution last week on the status of Jerusalem, going against the
wishes of the U.S. and Israel, many observers of its foreign policy were surprised. The resolution did not make a direct
reference to the recent U.S. decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and shift its embassy to the holy city from
Tel Aviv. Through the resolution adopted with 128 in favour to nine against, with 35 abstentions, the 193-member UNGA
expressed “deep regret” over “recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem” and stressed that Jerusalem “is a final status
issue to be resolved through negotiations in line with relevant U.N. resolutions,” between Israel and Palestine.
India’s stand
The surprise over the Indian vote was not because it fell out of line with the country’s foreign policy as we have known it, but
because of an apparent deviation from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new strategic thinking. Much has been written on the
‘Modi strategic doctrine’ but the concept has been pithily summarised by Mr. Modi himself and explained by Foreign Secretary
S. Jaishankar on earlier occasions — the goal is to transform India from being a ‘balancing power’ to a ‘leading power’ on the
international stage. U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy released recently offers support for this
aspiration of India to emerge as a ‘leading power.’
ALSO READ India’s Jerusalem vote can be interpreted as a continuing adherence to its traditional policy of
Affirmative vote: nonalignment. But a more appropriate interpretation of the vote is possible within the framework of
on US' move on India’s leading power ambitions. To do that, we need to also see the vote in conjunction with two other
votes in the recent past at the UN. The first was in June, when India supported a move by Mauritius to
take its sovereignty claims over the British-controlled Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean to the
International Court of Justice (ICJ), against the wishes of the U.S.; the second was in November when
India won a seat on the ICJ, in spite of active opposition from the U.S.
On the Jerusalem vote in the UNGA, which is not binding, if India had voted against the resolution, it
would have ended up in the company of seven countries that joined the U.S. and Israel. These are
Guatemala, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo, the combined population of which roughly
equals the population of Delhi. In the 2012 Gujarat Assembly election, Mr. Modi won more votes in the Maninagar
constituency than the population of four of these countries. Not exactly the group that India might want to lead, as second
deputy after America and Israel.
The second option was abstaining, along with Antigua-Barbuda, Argentina, Australia, Bahamas, Benin, Canada, Cameroon,
Croatia, Haiti, etc.
Of these, Canada, which used to vote with the U.S. on Israel resolutions, moved away from the U.S. position this time. Canada
and Mexico also face the threat of the dismantling of the North American Free Trade Agreement by the Trump administration.
As for Australia, its interests in West Asia are hardly comparable to India’s. In any case, not taking a position on an issue is
hardly worthy of an aspiring leader.
Supporters of the ‘leading power’ doctrine often argue, rightly, that India must be more forthright and
articulate in expressing its position on issues confronting the world. As it did, for instance, by speaking
up on the Belt and Road Initiative. So, abstaining was not an attractive option for an aspiring leading
Suboptimal - of power.
less than the
highest standard Many advantages
or quality. Suboptimal as it might be as a choice, voting for the resolution put India in the company of the
overwhelming majority of the world. It kept India in the company of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
(SCO) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), groupings that India continues to value under the Modi
government. While BRICS and the SCO stayed together, the American-led NATO split on the issue, and even the Five Eyes
countries of the English-speaking West — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. — did not stay together on this
vote. And India has far more significant interests in West Asian peace and stability than many of these countries.
South Korea and Japan, treaty allies of the U.S. in the midst of a nuclear threat from North Korea, also voted for the resolution.
Yes, India voted alongside Pakistan, but that happens quite often. Some critics of the Indian vote have said Islamic countries
do not support India on Kashmir. In 2016, Pakistan raised Kashmir nine times at the U.N.; in 2017, seven times, a total of 16
times. There are 57 countries in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and statistically, there were 912 chances for a
statement against India on Kashmir over the last two years by an Islamic country. But it has not happened even once.
While India under Mr. Modi’s brand of Hindutva nationalism is seeking leadership status on the global stage, the U.S. under
Mr. Trump is undergoing a transition from being a hegemon to being a bully in its leadership role. The Jerusalem decision
itself and the rhetoric that preceded the UNGA vote is a stark demonstration of this new U.S. posture. The disruptive streak in
Mr. Trump opens new possibilities for India’s leading power ambitions, but that cannot be achieved by blindly following
American diktats. The Chagos Archipelago vote in June and India’s ICJ contest in November bear out that fact.
Mauritius wanted the UNGA to request the ICJ to issue an advisory opinion on its sovereignty claim over archipelago as it
considers it as an unfinished agenda of decolonisation. The U.S. recognises U.K. sovereignty over the territory and they jointly
operate the Diego Garcia military base there. India voted in support of the resolution, overcoming the fear of a bilateral
dispute being taken to ICJ. “The process of decolonisation that started with our own independence, still remains unfinished
seven decades later,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin, said in a statement on India’s vote. The
resolution was passed with 94 countries voting in favour, 15 against and 65 abstaining.
In November, the U.S. supported the U.K. in its contest against India for an ICJ seat, as did all other permanent members of the
Security Council. India stood its ground and won the day as the UNGA overwhelmingly supported it, forcing other
permanent members to limit their support to the U.K., which finally withdrew its candidate. It is not difficult to draw a link
between the two votes.
Leading power ambitions are not realised by declaring unquestioning allegiance to anyone. If you see Nehruvian thinking in
this script, it must be read with the caveat that any resemblance is purely coincidental and not intended. If you are worried
that this might make the U.S. unhappy towards India, be assured, not any more unhappy than it can be towards the U.K. that
voted against it — after all, the U.S. had voted for it in the ICJ election against India. And the vote is only as much an
appeasement of the increasingly marginalised Muslims of India, as Japan’s vote for the resolution can be an appeasement of its
100,000-strong Muslims. Three UNGA votes over six months are more about multilateral diplomacy coming of age. India can
be great friends with the U.S. and Israel and still disagree with them on some issues.
varghese.g@thehindu.co.in
Printable version | Dec 26, 2017 10:56:41 AM | http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/this-year-on-
jerusalem/article22277320.ece
A voice vote (dhvani mat) is used in Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and state assemblies to vote for certain resolutions. It
is used when there is a wide agreement on issues and in some cases where the house is not in order. It was used
during the formation of Telangana state, in forming the 29th state of India.
Bamboo not a tree: Parliament passes Bill amending Forest Act
NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 27, 2017 19:34 IST
The Bill permits felling and transit of bamboo grown in non-forest areas. However, bamboo grown
on forest lands would continue to be classified as a tree.
The Parliament on Wednesday passed a Bill to exclude bamboo from the definition of tree under the Indian
Forest Act, claiming it would improve the earnings of tribals and dwellers living around forests.
The Indian Forest (Amendment) Bill, which was adopted by the Lok Sabha on December 20, was passed by a
voice vote in the Rajya Sabha, amid a walk-out by member of the Congress, Biju Janta Dal and the Samajwadi
The opposition parties protested its passage saying the Bill was being passed in a hurry without proper
consultations with stakeholders and the states. Besides, they alleged it would favour the industrialists.
Replying to a short debate, Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Harsh Vardhan said the Bill to
amend the 1927 Indian Forest Act would benefit the tribals, forest dweller and farmers as their income would
The Bill permits felling and transit of bamboo grown in non-forest areas. However, bamboo grown on forest
lands would continue to be classified as a tree and would be guided by the existing legal restrictions.
“I am really shocked to see that you (Opposition) can’t see the benefit of tribals and poor farmers who are
going to benefit after the Bill is passed,” he told the House amid protest from the opposition members.
Attacking the Opposition, which repeatedly questioned the government taking the ordinance route, Mr.
Vardhan said the process to make the Bill a reality was going on for a long time and the government could no
longer see tribals suffer in the country. “It took us 90 years to do it. It was long awaited in India. We cannot
allow tribals and poor farmers of the country to suffer,” he said.
On the Opposition charge that states were not consulted, the minister said that 26 states and union
territories had responded on the bill while 24 of them had supported it.
Mr. Vardhan said the Bill would not only increase rural income but also help in increasing green cover across
the country. Bamboo, the minister said, was used extensively in a variety of applications such as furnishing,
yarn, pulp and paper, handicrafts, decoration and musical instruments.
Earlier while moving the Bill for passage, Mr. Vardhan said the major objective of the amendment was to
promote the cultivation of bamboo in non-forest areas and improve farmers’ income, keeping in mind the
Government’s “ambitious” target of doubling farmers’ income by 2022.
The Minister observed that after the amendment, all the legal and regulatory hardships faced by the farmers
and other individuals will be removed.
Dissatisfied with his reply, Congress, SP and BJD members staged a walkout from the Rajya Sabha.
Participating in the debate, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had opposed the Bill, terming it as “very
misleading” and one which would work against the interests of tribals in the long run.
After the minister’s reply, Mr. Ramesh, a former Union Environment Minister, said it was most unsatisfactory
on all counts and walked out of the House. He was followed by his other party members.
Mr. Ramesh questioned the “urgency” of promulgating the ordinance when Parliament was in session,
alleging that the government was bringing the amendment to benefit private players and taking away the
control of the forest areas from the Gram Sabhas.
The Congress leader alleged that the bill was “trampling upon the rights of the Gram Sabha, which are
enshrined in the Indian Forest Act”.
Several opposition members including D. Raja (CPI), Pradeep Tamta (Congress), Viplove Thakur (Congress)
also opposed the Bill.
Countering growing inequality
Indian social policy must raise health and education levels all around, as China has done
T he release recently of the World Inequality Report 2018 has brought into focus an aspect of economic progress in India.
This is the continuous growth in inequality here since the mid-1980s. To grasp this, consider the reported finding that the top
1% of income earners received 6% of the total income in the early 1980s, close to 15% of it in 2000, and receives 22% today. As
this is a report on a global scale, we can see the trend in inequality across the world, providing a comparative perspective
across countries.
In particular, it enables a comparison of economic progress made in India and China. This is not
flattering of India. Since 1980, while the Chinese economy has grown 800% and India’s a far lower 200%,
inequality in China today is considerably lower than in India. The share of the top 1% of the Chinese
population is 14% as opposed to the 22% reported for India. The authors go on to emphasise that growing
inequality need not necessarily accompany faster growth, observing that inequality actually declined in
necessarily China from the early 21st century. By then China had grown faster for longer than most countries of the
mean high
inequality, says
world ever did.
Lucas Chancel
Basket of indicators
The findings in the World Inequality Report serve as grist to the mill that is the study of the progress of nations. But before we
proceed to reflect on them we may pause to consider their underlying methodology. First, the results are based on the share of
top incomes. This is not invalid but some of the findings may alter if we adopt measures of inequality that characterise the
entire distribution. To be precise, the inequality ranking of China and India may now reverse. But this need not hold us back as
it is evident that China’s performance is far superior all round to that of India. China has grown faster, has far lower poverty
and far higher average income, and its income distribution is less unequal at the very top. The World Development Indicators
data released by the World Bank show that per capita income in China was five times that of India in 2016 while the percentage
of the population living on less than $1.90 a day was about 10 times less at the beginning of this decade. India has a forbidding
gap to traverse in all directions, but for now let us focus on inequality.
It is the comparative perspective contained in the Report that makes it useful. India-based researchers have for some time
now pointed out that the country is becoming less equal since 1991. Also, we need not turn to the experience of China to
recognise that growth need not be unequalising. We know independently that inequality in India declined for three and a half
decades since 1950 even as the economy grew steadily, though maybe not spectacularly. It is important to comprehend this
outcome if we are to understand the source of inequality in India, not to mention why India lags China.
Now, is a comparison of the progress made in China and India meaningful at all? Yes it is, for though
representing different political systems, they had both been large agrarian economies at similar levels of
per capita income when they had started out in the early 1950s. Moreover, the absence of democracy in a
society does not by itself guarantee faster economic growth and greater income equality. For a populous
inequality in
poor country to lift itself to a higher growth path and stay there requires imaginative public policy and a
India at its steady governance. We can see this in the divergent economic histories of North and South Korea. So
highest level
since 1922, says
what is it that China did better than India?
The Chinese clue
If there is to be a meta narrative for China’s economic development, it is that its leadership combined the drive for growth
with the spreading of human capital. Human capital may be understood as a person’s endowment derived from education and
robust health. When a population is more or less equally endowed, as it was in China when it began to draw ahead, the human
capital profile of a country may be represented by a rectangle. Now the returns to labour would be relatively equal compared
to the country in which the distribution of human capital is pyramidical, which is the case for India. To see the latter better,
note that the share of the Indian population with secondary schooling is less than 15%. China had by the early 1970s achieved
the level of schooling India did only by the early 21st century. The spread of health and education in that country enabled the
Chinese economy to grow faster than India by exporting manufactures to the rest of the world. These goods may not have been
the byword for quality but they were globally competitive, which made their domestic production viable. The resulting
growth lifted vast multitudes out of poverty. As the human capital endowment was relatively equal, most people could share
in this growth, which accounts for the relative equality of outcomes in China when compared to India. An ingredient of this is
also the greater participation of women in the workforce of China, an outcome that eludes India.
While concluding this brief account of China’s progress, two points may be made. China is no exception
to the general history of progress made in East Asia, right down to the authoritarianism, only that China
has remained even more authoritarian. This makes it appropriate to term progress in the country as
growth through human capital-accumulation for there can be no human development without
‘Inequality pulls
back India’
democracy, whatever may be the health and educational attainments of a population. Recent revelations
suggest that the massacre of pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989 was far greater than
believed to be.
This brings us back to India. India has lower per capita income, persistent poverty and by all accounts
rising inequality. It may be said in the context that economic progress here has been neither efficient nor equitable.
Democracy per se cannot be held responsible for this. There are States in India with superior social indicators than China. This
shows that not only is democracy not a barrier to development but also that similar political institutions across India have not
resulted in same development outcomes across its regions. Nor can we remain complacent that democracy is combined with
superior social indicators in some parts of India when income levels are lower here than what China has demonstrated is
achievable.
Deepening democracy
Given the growing inequality in India, the direction that public policy should now take is evident. There is need to spread
health and education far more widely amidst the population. India’s full panoply of interventions, invariably justified as being
pro-poor, have not only not spread human capital, but they have also not been able to prevent a growing income inequality.
A ritualistic focus on the trappings of democracy, from frenetic election campaigns to stylised skirmishes in the legislatures,
has not worked to deliver its promise. We now need to reorient public policy so that the government is more enabling of
private entrepreneurship while being directly engaged in the equalisation of opportunity through a social policy that raises
health and education levels at the bottom of the pyramid.
Pulapre Balakrishnan is Professor of Ashoka University and Senior Fellow of IIM Kozhikode
Grist to the mill - useful experience, material, or knowledge
Meta **** - Meta means about the thing itself. It's seeing the thing from a higher perspective instead of from
within the thing, like being self-aware.
Meta narrative - a narrative about narratives of historical meaning, experience, or knowledge, which offers a
society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a (as yet unrealized) master idea.
Panoply - an extensive or impressive collection
Frenetic - fast and energetic in a rather wild and uncontrolled way.
Post-poll ‘chalphal’ in Nepal
Rakesh Sood
As an ordinance holds up government formation, the Left Alliance needs to be largehearted to find a
way out
T he word ‘chalphal’ in Nepali means more than a discussion; it implies an interminable discussion, often
for the sake of it, to a point where in the heat and dust of arguments the way forward gets obscured. Nepali
politicians revel in this pastime. The post-election ‘chalphal’ currently underway in Kathmandu, unless
resolved with maturity, will lead to heightened polarisation in a society that has been in search of political
stability for nearly three decades.
This has been a watershed year when Nepal successfully conducted three elections — the local body elections
after two decades between May and September, followed by the first federal and provincial elections, under
the new Constitution, in November-December. The elections were reasonably peaceful and the results have
been accepted by all political parties but government formation remains uncertain.
The new Constitution provides for a bi-cameral Parliament — a 275 member House of Representatives, of
which 165 are directly elected on a ‘first past the post’ (FPTP) system and 110 on the basis of ‘proportional
representation’ (PR); and a 59-member National Assembly (NA) consisting of eight members indirectly
elected from each of the seven provinces and three nominated members. The Parliament is then convened to
elect a new Prime Minister — not that there is any dispute about the fact that the Communist Party of Nepal
(Unified Marxist–Leninist) leader K.P.S. Oli will be the PM.
In October, the UML and the Maoists came together to form a Left Alliance with the
Nepal's historic prospects of a merger after the elections. Of 165 seats, the Left Alliance managed an
impressive tally of 116, with Maoists getting 36 seats. The Nepali Congress was reduced
to a distant third with 23 seats. An understanding between the Rashtriya Janata Party-
Nepal (an alliance of Madhesi parties) and Upendra Yadav’s Federal Socialist Forum
helped them get 11 and 10 seats, respectively.
Interestingly, in terms of the vote count, the gap between the UML and the NC was
marginal — the UML getting 33.2% of the vote and the NC maintaining its share at
32.8%, with the Maoists following with 13.7%. Therefore, in the PR category of 110 seats, UML and NC were
close, getting 41 and 40 seats, respectively, with Maoists at 17 and the two Madhesi based parties claiming six
each. With a total of 174 seats in a House of 275, the Left Alliance led by Mr. Oli is well placed to form the
Government formation
Yet the Election Commission of Nepal cannot announce the results. The issue is the methodology of election
of the 56 members of the NA for which the electoral college consists of 550 members of provincial assemblies
and the mayors/chairpersons and deputies of the 753 local bodies. Two months ago, the government had
submitted an ordinance to President Bidhya Devi Bhandari proposing that the Election Commission frame
the rules for the NA elections on the basis of the single transferable vote (STV). This is seen as more
representative and enables preference votes to be counted. (Rajya Sabha members are elected on this basis.)
President Bhandari, a UML loyalist who owes her position to Mr. Oli, has not signed the ordinance. The results
of the provincial assembly elections have given the Left Alliance a clear majority in six of Nepal’s seven
provinces. Earlier this year, in the local body elections, the UML won the mayorships/chairmanships in 294 of
the 753 bodies, with the Maoists winning another 106. On the basis of the FPTP system, the alliance can win
42 of the 56 seats, giving it a brute majority in the NA. The UML is, therefore, pushing the President to reject
the ordinance.
The glitch is that the new Constitution provides for 33% representation in Parliament for women, with any
shortfall being made up in the PR lists. The precise shortfall will not be clear till the NA members have been
elected. Consequently, the names of the 110 PR members cannot be notified, and so the House cannot be
convened to elect Mr. Oli as the new Prime Minister. Other political parties led by the NC are adamant on the
STV system as being consistent with the intentions of the framers of the Constitution. Even the Maoists are
quietly supportive of the STV idea.
Mr. Oli is blaming caretaker Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba for delaying tactics and the debate is
increasing polarisation. Mr. Oli is unlikely to get his way but needs a political face-saver. The Maoist leader,
Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, had joined the alliance thinking that he and Mr. Oli could share the prime
ministership by dividing up the tenure. Given the UML’s strong showing, Mr. Oli is not receptive to such an
idea and has suggested that Mr. Prachanda instead become chairman of the new entity once the merger
between the two parties takes place. Mr. Prachanda is unlikely to find this satisfactory as it cements his junior
status, but his options seem to be limited.
The NC has received a drubbing in the FPTP results but its vote share remains intact, which is more a
reflection of poor campaign management and disenchantment with the NC leadership than a dent in its
political base. Its old leaders have been defeated, pointing to the need for a thorough revamp. Madhesi groups
have put up a strong showing in Province 2 indicating that if they work together, they can be a potent force
for pushing a forward looking agenda. Further constitutional amendments on inclusivity will have to be
pushed through with persuasion rather than agitation and confrontation.
Drubbing - a beating; a thrashing.
Having won a decisive victory, Mr. Oli now needs to display a degree of pragmatism and balance, both at home
and with India. President Bhandari has been urging consensus even as she keeps the NA election ordinance
pending, and the UML would be well advised to accept the STV in the interests of democracy. A hard line may
not only deprive Mr. Oli of his victory but also bring the office of the President into needless controversy.
On December 19, Mr. Oli undertook a surprise visit to Rasuwagadhi (on the Nepal-China
border) to announce its upgradation to an international border crossing and the entry
point for the railway link from Shigatse, nearly 550 km away in Tibet. The gesture was
noted in Delhi, as two days later Prime Minister Narendra Modi telephoned him to
China-Nepal
exercises don’t
congratulate him on his election victory. He followed it up with a call to Mr. Prachanda
worry us: India and another to Mr. Deuba to felicitate him on the successful conduct of the elections.
Clearly, both sides need to get over the unpleasantness that marked Mr. Oli’s nine-
month tenure as Prime Minister in 2015-16. He blamed India for overtly supporting the
Madhesi agitation leading to the ‘economic blockade’ and held India responsible for Mr. Prachanda
withdrawing support in July 2016 and forcing him to resign. The Indian action, particularly the economic
dislocation caused by the ‘blockade’, generated a sentiment of anti-Indianism, effectively exploited in the
elections by Mr. Oli in the guise of Nepali nationalism. Except for this short period, however, Mr. Oli has been
consistently supportive of better relations between India and Nepal.
Playing the China card is not a new phenomenon in Nepal. In the past, China would advise Nepali leaders to
resolve differences with India. Things have changed with Nepal now an eager participant in the ambitious
Belt and Road Initiative.
While Mr. Oli is smart enough to see the risks of too close a Chinese embrace, Delhi too needs to rebuild trust
with Mr. Oli. This requires addressing concerns quietly and ensuring consistency of messaging. Fast-tracking
implementation of reconstruction and development projects promised after the devastating earthquake in
2015 would be a good signal and in keeping with Mr. Modi’s ‘neighbourhood first’ policy.
Rakesh Sood is a former Ambassador to Nepal and is currently Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research
Foundation. E-mail: rakeshsood2001@yahoo.com
Listen to these four girls: on the Panapakkam suicides
Petulance - the quality of being childishly sulky or bad-tempered
Camaradiere- mutual trust and friendship among people who spend a lot of time together.
Opprobrium - harsh criticism or censure.
The tragic suicide of students in Panapakkam in Tamil Nadu points to the crisis that grips India’s
P anapakkam is a rural town in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore district. Last month, it was in the news when four
adolescent girls disappeared from their school, leaving their bags behind. Their shoes were later found beside
a sizeable well into which they had apparently jumped in order to end their lives. They were students of
Class XI. This is precisely the grade level at which a vast number of India’s adolescents feel seriously unhappy
and resentful. If you consult a typical textbook on adolescent psychology, you will find such emotions to be
common. The text will probably dwell on identity, self-worth and petulance. Teachers are taught about these
common symptoms, and those who learn them well enough to discuss them correctly get through their B.Ed.
(Bachelor of Education) examination without much cramming. When they become teachers, they soon realise
that passing the B.Ed. examination is a lot easier than dealing with real adolescents — boys or girls.
A poor record
The Panapakkam girls are reported to have been scolded by a teacher for their poor academic performance
and told to call their parents. The girls decided to avoid that ordeal and embraced death instead, thereby
displaying another familiar characteristic of the adolescent mind, namely, its preference for camaraderie in
taking a decision.
As a nation, our record of dealing with adolescents is rather poor. To be an adolescent
means that you don’t feel comfortable with what all is going on around you, but older
people don’t find it easy to deal with you. This is partly because adolescent behaviour is
often prickly and petulant. The larger reason, however, is that adolescents live in an
Principal,
ideal world and measure everyone, including parents and teachers, by their utopian
suspended over standards. This is not merely an emotional response to an imperfect world; it is also
girls’ death
proof of their fully developed logical capacity. By defying the adults surrounding them,
adolescents develop their own identity as individuals. This is not easy, so they depend
on their peers to plan and decide. Their private fantasies are mostly benign and transformative. We can say
that adolescent dreams represent a nation’s wealth. In India, this wealth is mostly burnt up in preparation for
examinations.
Ignoring or oppressing adolescents is not uncommon in other countries, but India’s case is somewhat
extreme. Over more than a century, our system of schooling has honed its tools to oppress and defeat the
adolescent. The tool used to subdue the rebellious adolescent mind is the Board examination. The term
‘board’ has acquired connotations of terror for the young on account of the darkness into which it pushes
them before some are let back out into normal light and further education. Boards of examinations maintain
a tight secrecy over how a young student will be marked and declared either ‘pass’ or ‘fail’. Social history is rife
with instances of unwarranted failure and opprobrium of family seniors.
The matriculation examination is part of family lore in every part of India. Fear of
failing in it and thereby closing all doors to a worthwhile future figures in many
autobiographies written during the colonial period. Examination mania is instilled into
the young mind from the start of primary schooling. Popular understanding of
CEO conducts
inquiry with
education, which is widely shared in political and official circles, equates learning with
school students, performance on tests. The nationwide industry that specialises in offering help in
passing examinations and entrance tests makes no distinction between cramming,
cheating and learning. The Class X examination continues to ‘fail’ millions every
summer.
The Class XI hurdle
If an adolescent successfully survives the Class X examination, his or her ordeal enters a more complicated
phase, involving choice of subjects for the higher secondary examination. The Panapakkam girls who chose to
end their lives were studying in Class XI. We do not know how they individually came to choose the subjects
to study in this fateful class. For a vast majority of students moving into Class XI, the choice of elective
subjects is made by their parents or senior siblings and teachers. Subjects are seen as tickets to the future.
Some are regarded as solid tickets for a coveted future while others are seen as bogus tickets, carrying the risk
of life-long stagnation. These are, of course, stereotypes, but they persist as currency of practical wisdom in a
blind market controlled by Boards. No principal, teacher or parent dares to demand openness from a Board
about its procedures. A tight cover of confidentiality is maintained to conceal the abysmal quality of the
marking system, question papers and the evaluation process.
In the case of girls, school-related anxieties get compounded by older, entrenched anxieties associated with
gendering. Family and kinship fuel the apprehensions that girls internalise early childhood onwards about
their matrimonial future. Educating a daughter is often perceived as an investment towards her marriage.
The fear of being viewed as a poor performer at school adds to the stress at home. Teachers usually have scant
awareness of a student’s state of mind. When they ask students to bring parents to school, they assume this
will create additional pressure to encourage harder work. This simplistic logic carries great risk, as the
Panapakkam incident shows.
Assessing the Boards
The state of education being what it is at present, it is unlikely that the voices drowned in the well at
Panapakkam will be heard, but an effort must be made to do so. Boards responsible for the examination
industry must realise that that it is no longer useful to install helplines to provide just-in-time advice for a
16-year-old in despair. The entire Board examination system and the culture associated with it constitute an
endemic problem.
Plenty of ideas for reforming the Boards and the examination system they govern have been given over the
years. Some of these ideas have been put into practice here and there, as isolated steps lacking a wider frame
of reference to curricular reform. The National Curriculum Framework, 2005 insisted on coherence between
reforms in curriculum, examinations and teacher training. This perspective continues to pose a challenge to
an institutional structure marked by rivalry and turf wars.
Turf - the area that a group considers its own
Taking on the gatekeepers: on the Censor Board
As long as courts affirm ‘community’ claims, don’t expect the Censor Board to protect free speech
arlier this week, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) announced that a six-member panel was being
constituted to review the film Padmavati, before it could be granted a censor certificate and publicly exhibited.
Members of the panel include historians as well as representatives of the royal family of Mewar. The announcement of
the panel has caused both bemusement and amusement. What, after all, do professional historians have to do with a
piece of entertainment that is historical fiction at best, and the retelling of a myth at worst? And why has the royal
family seemingly acquired a veto over the clearance of a film? The task of the Censor Board is to ensure that a film
complies with the laws of the land and the guidelines of the Cinematograph Act, a task that does not require it to judge
“historical accuracy”, or to subject a film to the scrutiny of self-appointed community gatekeepers. It is a legal and
constitutional task, not a sentimental or popular one.
Amusement - Something that is amusing is entertaining or funny &
Requirements of any work Bemusement - to cause to be bewildered or to confuse.
Unfortunately, however, the Censor Board’s actions represent an approach towards the freedom of expression that,
despite its evident wrong-headedness, has been sanctioned by the Supreme Court on a number of recent occasions.
This approach has two distinct aspects. First, that in order to qualify for constitutional protection, a work must have an
objectively defined social value — that is, it must be good for something, whether it is spreading scientific or historical
knowledge, inculcating patriotic values, or advocating good social habits. Second, if the work refers to or is about a
certain segment of society, then that segment automatically acquires the power to decide whether or not it has been
“offended” by it — a power that is exercised by the self-appointed gatekeepers of the community.
Nick of Time - At the
last possible moment As an example of the second, take the recent travails of Jolly LLB 2, a well known satirical film
before a deadline or about the Indian legal system. Before the film could be released, there was an uproar because it
before something begins was alleged to have “insulted” lawyers and the legal system (although there is no law – and
or ends; just in time. probably with good reason – that prohibits people from insulting lawyers). A petition was filed in
the Bombay High Court. Ignoring what the CBFC itself had to say about this, the Bombay High
Grotesque - comically Court appointed a three-member panel of lawyers, to “review” the film. Where the High Court
or repulsively ugly or found the power to do so, and why lawyers were appointed to review a film that satirises lawyers
distorted. are questions that have no answer. In any event, the panel suggested four deletions. In the
meantime, the producers had rushed to the Supreme Court, which, however, declined to interfere. Faced with the
delayed release of their film, and the possibility of an eventual defeat in the Supreme Court, the producers swallowed
their pride, accepted the four cuts, and received clearance for the film in the nick of time.
There is something uniquely grotesque about appointing lawyers to vet a film that makes fun of lawyers, just as it is
uniquely grotesque to invite members of the royal family to vet a film that allegedly besmirches Rajput honour. The
idea underlying the actions of both the court and the Censor Board is that every self-identified “community” – no
matter how loosely- or ill-defined – has an automatic right of veto over any work of art, expressed through its self-
proclaimed and most noisy gatekeepers. This, in turn, goes back to the pre-constitutional idea that India is not a nation
of individual citizens, but an agglomeration of homogenous, clearly defined “communities”, and that it is these
communities that come to be the measure of all values. The Constitution, however, clearly repudiated this view when
it placed the individual – and individual rights – at its heart. Unfortunately, however, that lesson remains to be learnt,
and especially by the Supreme Court which, in 2007, upheld a book ban on the ground that in a country as diverse as
India, no community should feel offended or have its feelings hurt. The court didn’t see fit to say that in a country as
diverse as India, everyone should learn spirit of tolerance; that apart, who can claim the right to project their personal
hurt or offence onto their community as a whole is itself a difficult and complex question, which the court has so far
failed to answer.
Besmirch - damage (someone's reputation)
Repudiate - refuse to accept; reject.
‘Useful art’
Let us now go back to the first aspect of Indian free speech jurisprudence. Ever since the Supreme Court upheld the
constitutionality of obscenity law in 1964, it has given a clear indication that “useful art”, or art that can serve a “social
purpose”, may be exempted from the penal consequences of obscenity, or other similar speech-restricting laws. In
assessing the famous movie Bandit Queen, for example, the Court pointed out that certain disputed scenes – involving
sexual assault – were actually meant to instil revulsion and disgust in the minds of the readers, and in that sense, the
film was serving a socially useful purpose in depicting such scenes. And it is that motivation which, presumably, has
driven the Censor Board to rope in historians to screen Padmavati. If Padmavati, according to the historians, is
historically accurate, it will pass muster. But if it is “distorting history” (to echo the most famous complaint against it),
then it serves no feasible social role, and the state is justified in refusing it screening permission.
There are, however, two serious mistakes in this approach which undermine the entire system of
Heretical - believing freedom of speech and expression itself. First, even if we concede that art ought to have a social
in or practising purpose (which we shouldn’t), the task of deciding whether a particular work of art is “socially
religious heresy, useful” or not will be left to judges who, with the best intentions, will only end up reproducing
unorthodox, non- the dominant conceptions of what is useful. For example in Ranjit Udeshi (the obscenity case),
conformist, Justice M. Hidayatullah embarked on a two-paragraph critique that questioned the merits of D.H.
renegade. Lawrence’s writing, and probably everybody will agree that those two paragraphs are a standing
embarrassment in the annals of our constitutional history. However, this does mean that truly
heretical or rebellious work – precisely the kind of subversive work that a free speech guarantee is supposed to protect
– will always be persecuted. And second, there is simply no way of knowing what uses a work might be put to in the
future. The Churchmen who sentenced Galileo to house imprisonment were no doubt sure that the Sun revolved
around the Earth, and that Galileo’s research, apart from being heretical, was simply useless. That predication,
however, did not age well. Similarly, to decide – as this screening committee will do – whether Padmavati has
“distorted” history and therefore cannot be redeemed by the social purpose of art would be to declare authority over all
possible uses that art may have now or in the future.
A larger battle
The Supreme Court’s own ambivalence towards the freedom of speech was best exemplified earlier this year, when, in
upholding a book ban imposed in the State of Karnataka, the court refused to give any reasons for its opinion. The
CBFC is, of course, an independent body with an independent mandate. However, we need to remember that it is the
Supreme Court which, in the last analysis, sets the norms, principles and values that trickle down the judicial ladder.
Consequently, as long as the freedom of speech continues to be treated as a minor inconvenience that needs to be
regulated and controlled in the “public interest”, and as long as the court continues to affirm “community” claims as
having priority over individual freedoms, we cannot really expect the CBFC to protect free speech in a meaningful way.
The battle for free speech must be waged both at the bottom and at the top.
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https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Strip-club-zone-is-opposed-1214666.php
Strip club zone is opposed
Planners say establishments should be widely allowed
By ANGELA GALLOWAY, P-I REPORTER
Updated 10:00 pm PDT, Thursday, September 14, 2006
Pressure is mounting for Seattle politicians to finally decide where strip clubs may open -- after 17 years of avoiding the topic.
Such clubs could pop up all over the city if voters in November repeal a ban on lap dances and other rules undermining the profitability of such businesses.
Or the City Council might rely on yet another stopgap measure to stall the issue, a key official said.
The city Planning Commission completed its report Thursday opposing Mayor Greg Nickels' proposal that the city establish a 310-acre strip club district in the industrial area of Sodo. Instead, Seattle should stick with de facto rules that allow such clubs in most business districts like other performing arts centers, but perhaps with limited additional requirements, the commission said.
City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, chairman of the council's Planning Committee, agrees. He says strip club legislation won't advance from his committee until the "dispersion" idea is formally re-examined -- a process of environmental reviews, public hearings and other meetings that could take months.
"My informal discussions with colleagues on the council indicate that there is general agreement with those recommendations," Steinbrueck said.
The mayor proposed the zone nine months ago after a federal court tossed out Seattle's continual moratoriums against new clubs opening in the city.
Nickels opposes further delay, said his spokesman, Marty McOmber.
"He feels just as strongly today that the approach that he's proposed is the one that has the least amount of impacts on neighborhoods," McOmber said. "There was a tremendous amount of work done by city staff (and) by outside consultants after the court made its ruling. They looked at dispersal. They looked at a number of options.
"The work's been done."
For nearly two decades, officials have ducked the thorny topic.
It's impractical and probably unrealistic for politicians to try to ban strip clubs outright; courts have repeatedly ruled such prohibitions unconstitutional. So, for 17 years, Seattle politicos renewed a moratorium against clubs.
A federal judge ruled the moratorium unconstitutional last year, spurring Nickels to make his proposal.
Also in response to the ruling, the council and mayor banned dancers at the several existing clubs from getting within 4 feet of patrons and required the facilities be well lighted. The idea was to make the clubs unprofitable to discourage any would-be owners from opening new venues.
The owners of several existing strip clubs have sponsored a referendum on the November ballot to repeal the rules. Further, they've donated about $750,000 to campaign for it. And there's no organized opposition.
So, what if that passes and there are still no zoning rules restricting clubs on Seattle's books? Current laws allow clubs in most any business district.
"There are some options, I think, to ensure that we won't have just an unleashing of applications for this type of business," Steinbrueck said. "We may have to have another temporary moratorium."
But finding time for the review will be "challenging," he said.
Council staffers are about to be swamped with the upcoming budget review.
Also, he said, "we're focused on other issues right now, like the (Alaskan Way) Viaduct and (state Route) 520."
"I'm eager to get this work completed as soon as possible, whatever we do."
The mayor doesn't think City Hall should put matters off with another moratorium, his spokesman said.
"The courts are really clear and have taken a very dim view of the city's moratorium," McOmber said. "As an option that's fraught with a lot of legal concerns."
Earlier this year, Steinbrueck and others said they expected the council would quietly pass Nickels' proposal for the zone south of Safeco Field. But after Georgetown and Beacon Hill residents spoke out against it, Steinbrueck asked the Planning Commission for guidance.
"We are working diligently on this but we had been awaiting the Planning Commission review, which took longer than I expected."
Now, Steinbrueck wants to examine a citywide zoning code that would likely prohibit such clubs near "sensitive" neighbors, such as schools.
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NPP’s first Northeast Coordination Committee (NECC) Conference held in Shillong
Shillong: After the Election Commission of India declared NPP as the National Political Party, on Saturday, NPP held its first Northeast Coordination Committee (NECC) conference in Shillong with an objective to further strengthen the party in the region and propagate the vision and ideology of the party.
The NPP-NECC is headed by former Meghalaya Chief Minister and one of the political stalwarts of the Northeast, DD Lapang.
Delivering his keynote address at the opening session of the conference, Lapang said that the conference will usher in an era of new progress for the party.
“It is a crucial meeting as the party will make an endeavour to formulate a road map to take the vision and mission of the party to different nook and corners of the Northeast,” Lapang said.
He said that NPP’s recognition as a “National Party” by the Election Commission of India will pave a new way in the regional political arena, as the NPP becomes the first party from the Northeast to be accorded the “National Party” tag.
“It is a responsibility for the party to carry forward the onus to represent the regional aspirations of the people at the national level. NPP has remained committed and it will further continue to fulfil its agenda for the Northeast,” Lapang echoed.
Speaking on the occasion, NPP national president, Conrad K. Sangma said, “The recognition of NPP as a national party is a great achievement for the people of Northeast. It is a moment for all of us to remember the ideals of our late leader Purno A Sangma, whose contribution to the party has led this possible. Though he is not amongst us today his ideas will live forever.”
He congratulated members of the party, who have worked tirelessly in different states of the region.
The beauty of recognition of the party as “National Party” is a testimony of how brick by brick and drop by drop an ocean is created. “It is not because the NPP has formed the government in Meghalaya or accorded the tag because we were part of the government in Manipur or the two MLAs from Nagaland but it is the collective contributions of all the States including those who contested from the party and lost the elections. Every MLA who won has contributed. It is a great example that if everyone comes together, the most difficult task can be accomplished.”
“NPP is not just a party from the Northeast but a party purely created by the Northeast to fulfil the aspirations of our people,” the NPP chief added.
He also said that the recognition has proved a point that irrespective of our difference at times and diversity when we come together we can achieve greater heights. “When Northeast came together with one idea and one vision, we have demonstrated that we can also be included in the national political arena and be the voice of the Northeast. It is a responsibility for us now to raise the aspiration and concerns of our people,” Conrad exhorted.
Leaders from different States including Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram attended the conference, including Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma, Deputy Chief Minister of Manipur, Joykumar Singh and other NPP cabinet ministers from Manipur, Meghalaya, legislative party leader of Arunachal Pradesh Mutchu Mithi, among others attended the conference.
During the conference, the newly elected MP from Tura, Agatha K. Sangma, leader from Arunachal Mutchu Mithi and newly elected MLA from Meghalaya, who won the Selsella by-election Ferlin C. A. Sangma were felicitated by NPP chief Conrad K. Sangma.
A two-minute silence was observed to honour the departed leader of NPP from Arunachal Pradesh, Tirong Aboh and others killed in a militant attack last month.
Also Read: Election Commission of India declares NPP as National Political Party
TagsConrad A Sangma National People’s Party (NPP)
Khasi Student’s Union Remembers Freedom Fighter U Tirot Sing Syiem
A Correspondent SHILLONG: The Khasi Student’s Union (KSU) on Wednesday commemorated the 184th death anniversary of Khasi Freedom Fighter, U Tirot Sing Syiem...
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NCC Additional Director General Major General Bipin Bakshi Meets Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma
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What Is the State of the Art in HIV Treatment and Prevention?
With several new regimens nearing late-stage trials, a new generation of HIV antiretrovirals may soon be entering the marketplace.
By Sony Salzman
Fixed-Dose Doravirine Combination Non-Inferior in Treatment-Experienced Patients
Delstrigo, a fixed-dose combination regimen containing the newly approved antiretroviral doravirine (Pifeltro), lamivudine (3TC, Epivir), and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (Viread), was non-inferior to other triple combination therapies in participan...
Late 2017 HIV Conferences Focus on Antiretrovirals and Comorbidities
2017 may be winding down, but even as the year wanes, we’ve seen significant new HIV research featured in major scientific conferences in the U.S. and Europe. IDWeek, most recently held in San Diego in early October 2017, is an annual infectious disease...
Ibalizumab Effective Against Drug-Resistant HIV in 48-Week Data
The experimental drug ibalizumab, a monoclonal antibody, continues to effectively lower viral load in people with drug-resistant HIV through 48 weeks of treatment, as potential FDA approval nears.
How Can We Keep People With HIV in Care? New Research Offers Insights
Two studies presented at IDWeek 2017 looked at patient and provider issues that impact retention in care and offered new insights that might help end disparities in the HIV care continuum.
Low Dietary Calcium Tied to Low BMD With HCV but Not HIV
Low dietary calcium might contribute to low bone mineral density (BMD) in men living with hepatitis C but not in those with HIV, according to a Veterans Administration analysis.
D/C/F/TAF Noninferior to Continued Protease Inhibitor at Week 48 of Phase 3 Trial
A single-tablet combination D/C/F/TAF proved virologically noninferior to continuing a suppressive boosted protease inhibitor plus F/TDF at 48 weeks in the phase 3 randomized Emerald trial.
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New HIV Rate Similar Above and Below Age 45 in 86,836-Person U.S. Study
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Better Use of Electronic Health Records Might Help Close HIV Testing Gap in U.S.
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Marketing Social Media
Are you using Twitter for your business?
Want to organize your Twitter stream?
Twitter lists are a useful tool for collecting influencers, engaging Twitter users and creating feeds that are focused around a certain topic. Twitter allows you to make lists private so they are only seen by you or the public so, they can be seen by everyone.
When creating public lists, give them a relevant and interesting title to encourage subscribers. Twitter has recently allowed users to have up to 1000 Twitter lists and each user can have 5000 accounts in the list.
Here are 7 ideas for using Twitter lists.
1.Staff directory for your team
Find all your employees who are on Twitter, and collect them into a list.
These lists can reveal a lot about the culture and the people behind the brand and business. If you’ve got anywhere from five to 100 employees, lists like these can be a really intriguing to follow. It’s a great way to integrate new employees into your current team, because they can easily find and connect with others in your company through the list.
2.Prospects
Are you interested in striking up a conversation with a company or individuals you would like to work with? Add them to a prospects list.
3.Industry players
This list includes twitter users who work in your specific industry and not just the ones with whom you compete for customers. This list is essential for keeping up to date with industry and current trends.
4.Events
When it comes to events, Twitter Lists allow participants as well as those unable to attend a means of staying updated with the event. Using a hashtag related to the event allows anyone interested to contribute to the topic and the event. This list also provides an opportunity for people to keep in touch afterwards.
5.Client List
You may want to put together a list of your clients so you can stay abreast of their activities and what they’re sharing on Social media and twitter. For lists like these, you can set them to “Private” if there may be some reason to keep anonymity of who you work with. This privacy setting comes up when you are creating the list, and you can always change this setting later.
6.Things to do in your favourite City or Town
It would be silly to follow every bar, restaurant and entertainment venue in your city or town, Add your favourite venues to a list to keep up with their list offerings.
7.People you regularly engage with on Twitter
Making a list of these people will help you stay abreast of the conversations you would contribute to generally. A list will make it easier to find these users away from your Twitter timeline.
Hope you’ll find some great use out of Twitter lists. There are so many different ways to use this feature from Twitter. Just described the 7 we have featured here there are clearly unique ways to put them into practice.
Printing Terms You Need to Know
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Derm Case Challenge
73-Year-Old Male With Pruritic Dry Rash of Upper Extremities
Can you diagnose this case?
Figures 1 and 2. A different patient presented with new-onset pruritic, erythematous papules on the upper arms and upper back, similar to our patient’s lesions.
Case Report: A 73-year-old homeless man recently had received a diagnosis of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma with Sézary syndrome (T4N3B1M0). His chief concern was a pruritic dry rash of the bilateral upper extremities, which had spread progressively to his face, trunk, and legs. Peripheral blood flow cytometry results showed atypical T lymphocytes (43% predominance). Findings of a positron emission tomography plus computed tomography (PET/CT) scan showed hypermetabolic activity in the neck, bilateral subpectoral, axillary, and inguinal lymph nodes.
Skin punch biopsy showed atypical lymphocytic infiltration. Biopsy of an epitrochlear lymph node demonstrated involvement with T-cell mycosis fungoides. He had been treated previously with bexarotene and photopheresis without significant improvement. He then had begun treatment with romidepsin. After the first 2 doses of the first cycle, the patient’s pruritus and rash resolved. He had no significant adverse reactions.
What’s your diagnosis?
Choose one to reveal diagnosis and discussion
Cheyletiella mites
Answer: Bed bugs
See the full case at Consultant360
Over the past 20 years, bed bug infestations have reemerged in clinical settings.1 Bed bugs are hematophagous arthropods in the Hemiptera order of the Cimicidae family. These insects are an off-white color as nymphs and are reddish-brown in the latter stages of their life cycle. The 2 species of bed bugs associated with humans are Cimex hemipterus (inhabiting tropical and subtropical climates) and Cimex lectularius (inhabiting mainly temperate climates).2 Bed bug bites mainly cause a pruriginous maculopapular rash but, unlike other arthropods, are not known to act as vectors for pathogens. Despite this, bed bugs can cause significant disruption to patient care, produce fear of contagion among staff and patients, and result in expensive procedures for containment and control of spread.2-5
Case Report: During his visit for the second cycle of treatment with romidepsin, he presented with new-onset pruritic erythematous papules on the upper arm and upper back. (Figures 1 and 2 depict a different patient who had similar lesions.) Small red insects, soon to be identified as C lectularius, were found on the patient’s bed (Figure 3).
The nurse caring for the patient believed that she had received bites, as well. The patient initially was in denial about having bed bugs and expressed anger and embarrassment when informed of the finding. The bed bugs had been brought to the hospital by the patient, and the truck cab in which he slept also was infested and was later fumigated.
Through collaboration and consultation with social workers, nurses, hospital infection control specialists, and the state health department, a comprehensive protocol was developed that successfully prevented a bed bug infestation of the staff and facility. Measures taken at the clinic included having the patient shower and change into disposable scrubs, along with double-bagging of all his belongings. Staff involved directly in the care of the patient wore gowns and gloves. This allowed the patient to successfully complete 7 cycles of romidepsin in a busy outpatient infusion center.
At the time of the patient’s last visit, he was found to be free of bed bugs. The treatment facility made the decision to dispose of some of the furniture used in the care of the patient (eg, the infusion chair).
Clinical Manifestations of Bed Bugs: Bed bugs harbor in dark recesses such as bedclothes, mattresses, springs, bedframes, cracks, crevices, and wallpaper.1 Because these arthropods do not possess wings, their movement typically occurs via direct physical contact with surfaces. Their spread occurs principally via two mechanisms: active transmission and passive transmission. Active transmission occurs by bed bugs crawling across neighboring areas. Passive transmission, however, occurs by transfer of bed bugs via fomites (eg, clothes, bags, linens, furniture). Evidence also suggests that bed bugs are capable of dispersing by small air currents and by static electricity.6 Because of their ability to survive up to 5 months without feeding, leaving infested rooms vacant is not an effective solution in resolving a bed bug infestation.7
Bed bugs are night feeders of humans, with painless bites attributed to their needle-like stylets that penetrate the skin. Multiple bites often exhibit characteristic lined and curved patterns on exposed areas of the body from either a single bed bug probing to find a productive capillary bed or many bed bugs feeding along a zone of exposed skin. For individuals who do not experience a reaction from the bed bug bite itself, the area appears as a small punctum with no surrounding reaction.2
The severity of cutaneous reactions from bed bug bites varies between individuals. Some individuals develop no reaction, although this may depend on previous exposures.8 In individuals who do mount a reaction against bed bug bites, pruriginous macules or papules develop, usually within 48 hours. These reactions manifest frequently as 2- to 5-mm pruritic, erythematous papules or wheals with a central hemorrhagic punctum. These lesions tend to be intensely itchy.8 Bed bug bites also can appear as papular urticaria, and individuals with them may develop immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies against C lectularius.9,10 Skin reactions that mimic urticaria produce edema in the upper dermis, as well as a perivascular inflammatory infiltration with lymphocytes, eosinophils, and mast cells.11,12 Occasionally, more-severe bullous lesions can develop with intraepidermal edema, subepidermal edema, and a mixed dermal inflammatory infiltrate.13-16 One case report described bullous lesions with histopathologic features consistent with cutaneous vasculitis.15 Occasionally, systemic allergic reactions or systemic manifestations may occur, such as iron-deficiency anemia.3,17
Bed Bugs as Vectors for Pathogens: Within the medical community, there has been debate as to whether bed bugs are capable of acting as vectors of disease to humans.18 Among the human pathogens that have been detected in bed bugs are hepatitis B virus,19,20 hepatitis C virus,20 Trypanosoma cruzi,21 HIV,22,23 and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.24,25 Although these pathogens can exist within the bed bug and transmit diseases to other animals, no evidence exists to confirm that bed bugs are capable of acting as vectors of these diseases to other humans.26
Diagnosis: The successful diagnosis of bed bug infestation must be confirmed by physical detection of the insects. Although the linear feeding pattern can be a reasonable indicator, this feeding pattern does not occur in all cases, such as when few bed bugs are present. The detection of bed bugs can be accomplished by way of visual inspection, isolation with physical traps baited with chemical attractants, or through the action of bed bug–detection dogs.27 Other signs can include molted cast skins of bed bugs, or feces or blood on bedding, mattresses, or wallpaper.28,29 Skin biopsies for detection of bed bug bites have proven to yield nonspecific results and are unnecessary.
When diagnosing bed bug infestation, it is important to consider the differential diagnosis for other arthropod bites that result in pruritic papules. Bites of bat bugs or swallow bugs, scabies, fleas, Cheyletiella mites, and other mite species can be mistaken for bed bug bites. Dermatitis herpetiformis is also included in the differential diagnosis. This rash is characterized by pruritic inflammatory papules and vesicles on the forearms, knees, scalp, or buttocks and can be confirmed via biopsy with direct immunofluorescence studies.
Treatment and Posttreatment Effects: Patients with bed bug bites should maintain good hygiene to prevent secondary infection and should avoid scratching the bites, although many patients will scratch them during sleep. Asymptomatic bed bug bites do not require treatment. Symptomatic management of patients with significant pruritus includes a topical corticosteroid, systemic antihistamine, or both.28,30,31 Secondary infections should be managed with appropriate antibiotics.
Bed bug infestations can also produce serious physiological effects during and long after an episode has resolved. Bed bug bites and infestations can result in varying degrees of anxiety and depression, disruption in sleep, ostracism from friends and family, financial burdens, or loss of work. Furthermore, unaffected individuals may believe they have a bed bug infestation. Mistaken individuals may report skin lesions resembling bed bug bites or exposure to an individual or family member with bed bugs. This may cause unaffected individuals to take measures to eradicate nonexistent bed bugs, resulting in personal or financial distress.
Bed Bugs and Denial of Health Care: In 2013 in Hawaii, a 58-year-old terminally ill man with skin cancer metastatic to bone experienced the devastating effects of the denial of medical care due to fear of bed bug transmission.32 Bed bugs infested his home and bed, forcing him to sleep in a wheelchair in his living room. The patient subsequently was denied health care due to the risk of possible infestation of health care workers. This denial of health care not only caused the patient to break his clavicle trying to clean up the bed bugs, but also resulted in dehydration and hospitalization for 6 days as a result of acute kidney injury.
In 2011, a 43-year-old woman who had been disabled for 10 years as a result of 3 motor vehicle accidents experienced a similar situation in Colorado.33 After speaking with her physician about a spinal injection for her back pain, the physician reportedly refused to provide her with health care due to a fear of bed bug spread and hospital infestation. Eventually, the physician performed the procedure after extensive preparation and education of the staff. These 2 examples demonstrate that bed bug infestation can seriously disrupt a patient’s access to health care and may result in delayed or deferred care.
Financial Implications of Bed Bugs in Hospitals: In 2011, bed bug infestations were widely reported from Colorado to Maine.34 This widespread presence of bed bugs in clinical settings necessitates discussion about their costly removal. One study analyzed the costs of bed bug management at a single tertiary-care academic medical center.5 Throughout the study period, 180 bed bug events occurred (approximately 1 event every 2.2 days). The calculated annual cost for removal and control of the bed bug infestations totaled $22,844 for the adult emergency department and $55,915 for the medical center. These costly management fees highlight the additional financial implications associated with bed bugs’ presence in the health care system.4,5 For example, a single patient with severe anemia caused by bed bugs was unknowingly transported via ambulance, placed in a treatment cubicle, a hospital room, and 2 radiology wards. This required substantive disinfection of the places within the hospital that the patient had visited, as well as the patient’s neighboring apartments and public transportation.3
Infection Control: These situations generate the opportunity to discuss the ethical and moral implications of refusing to care for patients with bed bugs, as well as how hospitals can manage the ethics of patient autonomy and hospital safety with a reasonable policy.35,36 Following infection-control guidelines may facilitate early prevention of outbreaks in the health care setting.37
The first step is to identify patients with bed bug infestation at triage. If a patient presents with suspected bed bug infestation, a specimen can be sent to an entomologist for definitive identification.38 Contact precautions and changing the patient’s clothing into hospital scrubs is necessary. The patient’s belongings should be double-bagged and sealed with tape. These bagged items should be placed in extreme temperatures (above 60°C or below –17°C).2 Bed bugs are also capable of inhabiting and hiding inside electronic devices, and these items should also be taken into consideration. Patient education and counseling about eradication of bed bugs should be provided. These steps should be repeated with each patient visit until the patient and their residence is free of bed bugs.
An alert should be added into the patient’s chart for present and future identification. The importance of education and awareness of hospital staff members is also fundamental to effectively managing these situations and avoiding the spread of infestation.
Entomologic Identification of Bed Bugs: Health care providers serving populations at risk for bed bug infestation should be trained to be aware of the lesions characteristic of bed bug infestation. A cursory understanding of the morphology of the bed bug insect itself is recommended for health care professionals involved in the triage of patients to prevent infested individuals from unknowingly spreading bed bugs into other parts of the health care facility. If a suspected bed bug adult or nymph is recovered from a patient, and laboratory identification is desired, the specimen can be stored dried or placed into a liquid transport medium (typically 70% to 90% ethanol) to prevent desiccation of and damage to of the specimen.39 For health care or laboratory professionals seeking to identify specimens, we recommend reviewing an entomology atlas or reviewing the excellent resource by Usinger.38
The Take-Home Message: Bed bugs can negatively affect a patient’s ability to access timely and appropriate health care. Because of the costs associated with decontaminating a facility infested with bed bugs, careful screening at triage should be undertaken. At facilities that serve patient populations who are at risk for bed bug infestation, health care providers should be educated in bed bugs’ appearance and the lesions characteristic of their bites. Regarding patients presenting with bed bug infestation, a multidisciplinary approach involving social workers, nurses, hospital infection control personnel, housekeeping staff, and county or state public health authorities should be undertaken to protect other patients and frontline health care providers from bed bug infestation.
Figure 3. Clinical specimen of a bed bug (photo courtesy Ramon Sandin, MD).
1. Delaunay P, Blanc V, Del Giudice P, et al. Bedbugs and infectious diseases. Clin Infect Dis. 2011;52(2):200-210
2. Munoz-Price LS, Safdar N, Beier JC, Doggett SL. Bed bugs in healthcare settings. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2012;33(11):1137-114
3. Sabou M, Imperiale DG, Andrès E, et al. Bed bugs reproductive life cycle in the clothes of a patient suffering from Alzheimer’s disease results in iron deficiency anemia. Parasite. 2013;20:16.
4. Bandyopadhyay T, Kumar A, Saili A. Bed bug outbreak in a neonatal unit. Epidemiol Infect. 2015;143(13):2865-2870.
5. Totten V, Charbonneau H, Hoch W, Shah S, Sheele JM. The cost of decontaminating an ED after finding a bed bug: results from a single academic medical center. Am J Emerg Med. 2016;34(3):649.
6. Feldlaufer MF, Loudon C. Undesirable dispersal of eggs and early-stage nymphs of the bed bug (Hemiptera: Cimicidae) by static electricity and air currents. J Entomol Sci. 2011;46(2):169-170.
7. Johnson CG. The ecology of the bed-bug, Cimex lectularius L., in Britain: report on research, 1935-40. J Hyg (Lond). 1941;41(4):345-461.
8. Doggett SL, Dwyer DE, Peñas PF, Russell RC. Bed bugs: clinical relevance and control options. Clin Microbiol Rev. 2012;25(1):164-192.
9. Scarupa MD, Economides A. Bedbug bites masquerading as urticaria. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2006;117(6):1508-150
10. Abdel-Naser MB, Lotfy RA, Al-Sherbiny MM, Sayed Ali NM. Patients with papular urticaria have IgG antibodies to bedbug (Cimex lectularius) antigens. Parasitol Res. 2006;98(6):550-556.
11. Quach KA, Zaenglein AL. The eyelid sign: a clue to bed bug bites. Pediatr Dermatol. 2014;31(3):353-355.
12. Patterson JW. Arthropod-induced diseases. In: Patterson JW. Weedon’s Skin Pathology. 4th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Churchill Livingstone Elsevier; 2016:chap 30.
13. Liebold K, Schliemann-Willers S, Wollina U. Disseminated bullous eruption with systemic reaction caused by Cimex lectularius. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2003;17(4):461-463.
14. Fletcher CL, Ardern-Jones MR, Hay RJ. Widespread bullous eruption due to multiple bed bug bites. Clin Exp Dermatol. 2002;27(1):74-75.
15. deShazo RD, Feldlaufer MF, Mihm MC Jr, Goddard J. Bullous reactions to bedbug bites reflect cutaneous vasculitis. Am J Med. 2012;125(7):688-694.
16. Tharakaram S. Bullous eruption due to Cimex lecticularis. Clin Exp Dermatol. 1999;24(3):241-242.
17. Phan C, Brunet-Possenti F, Marinho E, Petit A. Systemic reactions caused by bed bug bites. Clin Infect Dis. 2016;63(2):284-285.
18. Lai O, Ho D, Glick S, Jagdeo J. Bed bugs and possible transmission of human pathogens: a systematic review. Arch Dermatol Res. 2016;308(8):531-538.
19. Vall Mayans M, Hall AJ, Inskip HM, et al. Do bedbugs transmit hepatitis B? Lancet. 1994;343(8900):761-763.
20. Silverman AL, Qu LH, Blow J, Zitron IM, Gordon SC, Walker ED. Assessment of hepatitis B virus DNA and hepatitis C virus RNA in the common bedbug (Cimex lectularius L.) and kissing bug (Rodnius prolixus). Am J Gastroenterol. 2001;96(7):2194-2198.
21. Salazar R, Castillo-Neyra R, Tustin AW, Borrini-Mayorí K, Náquira C, Levy MZ. Bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) as vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2015;92(2):331-335.
22. Webb PA, Happ CM, Maupin GO, Johnson BJ, Ou CY, Monath TP. Potential for insect transmission of HIV: experimental exposure of Cimex hemipterus and Toxorhynchites amboinensis to human immunodeficiency virus. J Infect Dis. 1989;160(6):970-977.
23. Jupp PG, Lyons SF. Experimental assessment of bedbugs (Cimex lectularius and Cimex hemipterus) and mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti formosus) as vectors of human immunodeficiency virus. AIDS. 1987;1(3):171-174.
24. Lowe CF, Romney MG. Bedbugs as vectors for drug-resistant bacteria. Emerg Infect Dis. 2011;17(6):1132-1134.
25. Barbarin AM, Hu B, Nachamkin I, Levy MZ. Colonization of Cimex lectularius with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Environ Microbiol. 2014;16(5):1222-1224.
26. Goddard J. Bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) and clinical consequences of their bites. JAMA. 2009;301(13):1358-1366.
27. Vaidyanathan R, Feldlaufer MF. Bed bug detection: current technologies and future directions. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2013;88(4):619-625.
28. Thomas I, Kihiczak GG, Schwartz RA. Bedbug bites: a review. Int J Dermatol. 2004;43(6):430-433.
29. Cleary CJ, Buchanan D. Diagnosis and management of bedbugs: an emerging U.S. Infestation. Nurse Pract. 2004;29(6):46-48.
30. McNeill C, Jarrett A, Shreve MD. Bed bugs: current treatment guidelines. J Nurse Pract. 2017;13(6):381-388.
31. Minocha R, Wang C, Dang K, Webb CE, Fernández-Peñas P, Doggett SL. Systemic and erythrodermic reactions following repeated exposure to bites from the common bed bug Cimex lectularius (Hemiptera: Cimicidae). Austral Entomol. 2016;16:417.
32. Lincoln M. Terminally ill patient denied treatment due to bed bug infestation. Hawaii News Now. http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/23700606/terminally-ill-patient-says-he-is-denied-treatment-due-to-bed-bug-infestation. Published 2013. Accessed July 11, 2018.
33. James SD. Woman with bedbugs denied doc’s treatment. ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/colorado-woman-refused-medical-procedure-bed-bug-bites/story?id=13725067. Published May 31, 2011. Accessed July 11, 2018.
34. Sheele JM, Barrett E, Farhan O, Morris N. Analysis of bed bug (Cimex lectularius) introductions into an academic medical center. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2017;38(5):623-624.
35. Jourdain F, Delaunay P, Bérenger J-M, Perrin Y, Robert V. The common bed bug (Cimex lectularius) in metropolitan France: survey on the attitudes and practices of private- and public-sector professionals. Parasite. 2016;23:38.
36. Barnes ER, Murray BS. Bedbugs: what nurses need to know. Am J Nurs. 2013;113(10):58-62.
37. Sfeir M, Munoz-Price LS. Scabies and bedbugs in hospital outbreaks. Curr Infect Dis Rep. 2014;16(8):412.
38. Usinger RL. Monograph of Cimicidae (Hemiptera-Heteroptera). College Park, MD: Entomological Society of America; 1966. http://www.drjackdisinfestazioni.it/doc/Monograph%20of%20Cimicidae.pdf. Accessed July 11, 2018.
39. Telford SR III. Arthropods of medical importance. In: Jorgensen JH, Pfaller MA, Carroll KC, et al, eds. Manual of Clinical Microbiology. Vol 2. 11th ed. Washington, DC: ASM Press; 2018:chap 148.
Authors: Jordan N. Edwards, BS; James D. Denham, MS, MS-III; Dae Hyun Lee, MD; Sowmya Nanjappa, MBBS, MD; Julie Gnage, MPH; and John N. Greene, MD;
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Miranda Lambert Says She Always Has Booze on Hand
By Kelly Burch 04/07/17
"My assistant packs—I call it my nanny bag—she packs a bag of liquor for emergencies, for meltdowns and things like that."
Country superstar Miranda Lambert faced some unexpected difficulties getting to Las Vegas for the Country Music Awards last weekend, but says the situation was alright because she had alcohol on hand to help her through it.
Lambert’s flight was diverted because of bad weather in Vegas, so she and her crew drove from Laughlin, Nevada, about two hours away. Despite the detour, Lambert told Sounds of Nashville that she was prepared. “We had a suitcase of booze with us for emergencies like that, so we were good to go on that,” Lambert said.
The tour essential is apparently always at the ready. "My assistant packs—I call it my nanny bag—she packs a bag of liquor for emergencies, for meltdowns and things like that so I’m like, ‘Okay we’re good, we’re golden, we only need a cooler full of ice and we’re going,’" Lambert said.
The last-minute road trip was worth it, since Lambert went on to win Female Vocalist of the Year and Album of the Year for The Weight of These Wings. It was Lambert’s eighth consecutive win for female vocalist of the year, breaking the record that was previously held by Reba McEntire.
“This really means the world to me,” she said in her acceptance speech. “I’m just glad to see females kicking ass these days, I’m so proud to be part of that.”
Lambert’s 2016 album The Weight of These Wings was written after her break-up and subsequent divorce from singer Blake Shelton. “I just want to say thank you for letting me use my heartbreak and sharing that with me,” Lambert said.
After the 2015 break-up, Lambert turned to alcohol to cope. “I got divorced so I started drinking a little extra,” she said during a performance at the time. The song “Ugly Lights” on The Weight of These Wings, was written during that time period.
“I found myself in Midtown in Nashville three nights in a row at last call and with the lights coming on, and I’m still sitting there,” she said. “So I wrote a song about it.”
At the time, Lambert acknowledged that processing the divorce would mean slogging through some tough feelings, drink in hand. "Some of that might mean nights on my porch crying, drinking whiskey, and going, 'Man, this sucks right now,’” she said.
Watch the whole clip here:
Kelly Burch
Kelly Burch writes about addiction and mental health issues, particularly as they affect families. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
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The top 10 photography exhibitions of 2017
Best culture 2017
The refugee crisis became a sci-fi dystopia, a handful of dust took us to the moon and back, a Polish pioneer had suggestive fun with hot dogs and love returned to the Left Bank. Our critic picks his 2017 highlights
Sean O'Hagan
Wed 13 Dec 2017 13.06 EST Last modified on Thu 27 Jun 2019 06.55 EDT
‘Relentless curiosity’ … Girl in Metro, Tokyo, 1981. Photograph: © Ed van der Elsken / Collection Ed van der Elsken estate
10. Natalia LL
Roman Road Gallery at Photo London
Consumer Art by Natalia LL, 1974. Photograph: Zby Kordys
This small show of the work of Natalia LL, a neglected early-1970s Polish-born pioneer of feminist avant garde image making, was an unexpected surprise. Text and image combine in works like TAK, an assemblage of images of female lips mouthing the Polish word for yes. In the ironically titled series Consumer Art (1972), models fondle and eat certain foods – bananas, hot dogs – in suggestive ways, parodying the commodified female sexuality portrayed in contemporary pornographic magazines. Playful, provocative and still politically resonant, Natalia LL deserves a bigger show.
9. Wolfgang Tillmans: 2017
Tate Modern, London
Astro Crusto by Wolfgang Tillmans. Photograph: © Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans mixes and merges the everyday and the abstract, presenting the world as it unfolds for his camera in a wilfully haphazard way. His free-roaming gaze, though now familiar, can still surprise. Likewise, his curatorial audacity: vast prints – a car headlight, a nightscape of sea and sky – shared the wall with postcard-size images. Meanwhile portraits, random still lifes and diaristic snapshots somehow combined in a (just about) unified vision that is perfectly in tune with the thrust of our profligate image culture.
8. The Deutsche Börse photography prize shortlist
The Photographers’ Gallery, London
Wilteysha by Dana Lixenberg – winner of the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. Photograph: Dana Lixenberg
Inevitably, the Deutsche Börse shortlist does not always work as an exhibition, but this year’s four finalists – Sophie Calle, Dana Lixenberg, Awoiska van der Molen and the duo Onorato and Krebs – made for an interesting mix of contrasting styles and approaches. Calle, the seasoned conceptualist, seemed the most likely contender, but Lixenberg’s epic series Imperial Courts, a sustained exercise in long-form documentary portraiture based in a beleaguered housing project in Watts, Los Angeles, was the deserving winner. A project for our turbulent times.
7. Swaps: Photographs from the David Hurn Collection
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
Pool designed by Alain Capeilleres in Le Brusc, Provence by Martine Franck - part of the Swaps exhibition. Photograph: Magnum Photos
This year, the veteran Magnum photographer David Hurn donated his collection of 700 prints to the National Museum of Wales. This show, held in the first gallery in the museum dedicated solely to photography, comprises the most striking images by the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eve Arnold, Sergio Larrain and Bill Brandt. Like the entire collection, they were were acquired by Hurn swapping his own work with other photographers. A potted history of 20th-century documentary photography and a scattering of clues to Hurn’s formative influences.
6. A Handful of Dust
Whitechapel Gallery, London
Statue (Double Check by Seward Johnson), New York, 11 September 2001 by Jeff Mermelstein.
From the surrealists to the moon landings and on to the 9/11 attacks, A Handful of Dust traced a kind of shadow history of photography through a substance that evokes all manner of ominous suggestion. Curated by David Campany, it ranged from the vernacular (postcards of American dust storms) to the art historical (Man Ray’s Dust Breeding, a photograph of dust-coated glass in Duchamp’s studio). A show of interesting juxtapositions, with dust as the abiding metaphor for time, history, memory – and photography.
5. Giles Duley: I Can Only Tell You What My Eyes See
Old Truman Brewery, London
Lamis, five, from Homs, Syria, with her one-year-old brother Jad – a portrait taken in 2016 in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. Photograph: Giles Duley
Giles Duley was another photographer who dealt with the refugee crisis in a way that challenged the traditional idea of an exhibition. The powerful prints here were part of a bigger, more ambitious environment in which storytelling, live music, talks, creative collaborations and a nightly “supper gathering” combined to create, as Duley put it, “a space where stories will be shared and action inspired”. With both a writer and artist in residence as well as an ambient soundscape provided by Robert “3D” del Naja from Massive Attack, this was an exhibition as both collective conversation and creative activism.
4. Richard Mosse: Incoming
Barbican Curve Gallery, London
A still from Incoming by Richard Mosse. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York and carlier|gebauer, Berlin.
Perhaps the most widely discussed exhibition of the year, Mosse’s vast three-screen video installation was not strictly photography, but addressed all the issues that the medium is freighted with as it negotiates the post-truth world. Shot on a hi-tech military surveillance camera that registers body heat from as far away as 30km, Incoming reimagined the contemporary refugee crisis as a Ballardian dystopian drama populated by spectral figures moving slowly through an alien landscape. Beautifully observed moments of heightened intimacy – a lone figure praying to Mecca amid the tumult around him – provide breathing space in an almost overwhelming audiovisual installation.
3. Thomas Ruff: Photographs 1979–2017
The Emperor 06 by Thomas Ruff, 1982. Photograph: © Thomas Ruff
Though Thomas Ruff’s photography about photography can seem overly cerebral, there was much here to admire, not least Ruff’s quiet sense of mischief. The German appropriates and reworks found photographs from press archives, the internet and even outer space, the results sometimes approaching pure abstraction. For all his experimenting, it is those big, early portraits of his friends that still resonate with their effortless merging of the epic and the intimate.
2. Sohrab Hura: The Lost Head and the Bird
The Nines, Peckham 24, London
A still from The Lost Head & the Bird by Sohrab Hura, single channel video, 9:40 minutes.
The most viscerally exciting installation this year was Sohrab Hura’s two-part video in which a relentless stream of often disturbing images unfolded at a furious pace in a darkened room in Peckham during PhotoLondon. This was India reimagined as a kind of feverish hallucination, the almost subliminal thrust of the imagery disorienting the viewer and leaving a sense of dread and anxiety. Hura is a Magnum nominee, and this work certainly pushes the boundaries of reportage, the real and the fictional blurring into a fractured narrative that is overwhelming, disorienting and utterly unforgettable.
1. Ed van der Elsken: Camera in Love
The Stedelijk, Amsterdam
Increasingly, if you want to see a retrospective devoted to the work of a single photographer, you need to travel outside Britain. This year was no exception with this extraordinary Ed van der Elsken show travelling to Paris, but not London, after it debuted in his hometown, Amsterdam. What we missed out on was a chance to track the relentlessly curious eye of a photographer who moved effortlessly – and mischievously – between documentary, street photography and art.
Beethovenstraat, Amsterdam by Ed van der Elsken, 1967. Photograph: © Ed van der Elsken / Collection Ed van der Elsken estate
Best known for his groundbreaking 1954 photobook, Love on the Left Bank, which used real characters from the Parisian demimonde of the time to tell a fictional story, Van der Elsken also captured the energy of his native city in the 1960s, before travelling widely – to Japan, India and Africa.
The curators rightly placed his photobooks at the centre, over 20 publications that range from the vivid global panorama that is Sweet Life to the more intimately observational Amsterdam. Book dummies, contact sheets and drawings punctuated the prints and films. The result was a portrait of Van der Elsken as a brilliantly restless artist, whose energy and optimism underpinned his often intense, illuminating and immersive way of seeing.
Deutsche Börse photography prize
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Curtain raiser for WTO launched
null | 26 July 2013 12:20 AM GMT
Rs 50 crore for each tourism project Hyderabad: Union Minister of A State for Tourism K Chiranjeevi...
Rs 50 crore for each tourism project Hyderabad: Union Minister of A State for Tourism K Chiranjeevi launched the curtain raiser for United Nations World Tourism Organisation conference scheduled to be held in the city from April 12-14. Talking during the inauguration program, he termed tourism wing as a strong medium for projecting the country's rich traditions and cultures. The three-day conference would also deliberate on the future programmes of UNWTO commission. The Minister informed that Rs 5 crore has been allocated for organising the conference and an amount of Rs 221 crore has been allotted for tourism in Andhra Pradesh for the year 2013-14. The growth rate of foreign tourists to India is 2.5 per cent in the last quarter and AP topped among domestic tourists because of pilgrim tour to Tirupati, he added. Some of the projects that are to be taken up during the next year in the State include a mega tourism circuit at Konaseema, Bhadrachalam and Papikondalu besides mega circuit at Kondapally and Ibrahimpatnam with a budget of Rs 50 crore each. Circuits at a cost of Rs 8 crore have also been planned at Pileru and Nizamabad, he added. State Tourism Minister Vatti Vasanth Kumar, who also took part in the programme thanked the Union Minister for allotting International culinary institute at Tirupati.
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Disney's Magic gets a makeover
By BETH J. HARPAZ Associated Press
NEW YORK - Disney Cruise Line's oldest ship, the Magic, is getting a makeover, including the addition of a children's area themed on Marvel Comics superheroes and a three-story water slide, the company announced Friday.
The Magic launched in 1998. Other updates when the ship goes into drydock in Spain for a month this fall include updating audio technology and lighting, and retheming decor, motifs and layout in cabins, dining rooms, play spaces, and adult areas like bars and clubs.
The new Magic ride, called AquaDunk, is a waterslide three decks high that sends riders on a near-vertical drop through a translucent tube extending 20 feet over the side of the ship. The ship also will get a water playground and pool called AquaLab, as well as a splash zone for infants and toddlers, using Donald Duck's mischievous nephews as a character theme.
The Magic's new Marvel's Avengers Academy will use characters from the Marvel brand, which Disney acquired in 2009. It will feature games, programming, and equipment consisting of reproductions of props from superhero films. It's designed to appeal to both boys and girls, inspiring them to become superhero "recruits" for missions from the academy.
Adding the AquaDunk ride to the Magic will bring it in line with Disney's newest ships, the Dream and Fantasy, which already have flashy thrill rides. The Dream and Fantasy also have play areas called Andy's Room themed on "Toy Story," and the Magic will get one too, with oversized furniture, a human-sized Mr. Potato Head and a Slinky slide designed to make children feel they are no bigger than a toy.
Fran Golden, a veteran cruiser who blogs for Porthole Cruise News at Porthole.com, said the Magic is in need of an update. "Disney's newer ships - Dream and Fantasy - have more attractions. Adding a thrill water slide, AquaDunk, will get people excited - and not just kids," she said, noting that the water slides on Disney's other ships are popular with adults as well as children.
She predicted that the Marvel area will also be a big hit. "What kid can resist hanging with Captain America, Iron Man and Thor?" she said.
Stateroom changes will include raising beds up to allow for storage underneath and reconfiguring the rooms so that bedrooms can be closed off from the rest of the cabin. Retheming of adult areas includes a new piano lounge and a new Irish pub and sports bar. A Brazil-themed family dining area called Carioca's will replace a Caribbean-themed restaurant called Parrot Cay. And the popular Animator's Palate restaurant, which offers guests an interactive look at Disney animation, is also getting a complete technological redo.
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Rainmakers Kai Leighton goes up for the block in the teams first game of the No Regrets tournament (Submitted by / Neil Dixon)
Charles Hays senior boys make it rain this weekend
Rainmakers senior boys basketball thrashed Caledonia twice
Nick Laws
The Charles Hays’ senior boys basketball team started its home season Friday night with an emphatic 66-51 win over the visiting team from Caledonia.
The game on Dec. 14 came on the heels of a strong showing at the No Regrets Tournament in Vancouver the weekend prior. The Rainmakers placed second at that tournament and carried their momentum into Friday’s game.
READ MORE: Charles Hays Rainmakers dry up in final game
It was the home opener for the Rainmakers and the team did not disappoint their fans. The team was carried to victory on the backs of strong performances from Kai Leighton and Liam McChesney. Both McChesney and Leighton scored 19 points, while point guard Tyler Jones scored 12 points.
After the victory, the team didn’t have much time to turn around as they travelled to Terrace, this time to play on Caledonia’s home court.
The second game was not nearly as tightly contested as the first of the home and home series. The Rainmakers walked away with a huge 83-38 win.
RELATED: Charles Hays Rainmakers basketball opens its season in Terrace
The 45 point win was one of the largest margins of victory for the team this year, and again it came on the backs of its two star forwards, Leighton and McChesney, both of whom walked away from the game with double-doubles.
McChesney nearly outscored the opposing team himself, posting 36 points and adding in 10 rebounds. Leighton wasn’t far behind his teammate posting an impressive 22 points and 14 rebound performance.
The back to back games were the last on the schedule for the Rainmakers until the new year. They do have some exhibition games over the break but nothing that will impact the standings.
The team kicks off the new year with a game against Kitsilano on Jan. 4, 2019.
nick.laws@thenorthernview.com
Shames Mountain creates new fund for youth in memory of late founder
New B.C. Lions coach DeVone Claybrooks adds eight to coaching staff
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Continued efforts to take uncertified wood stoves out of service and enforce burn bans are a good start. But the key to even greater improvements in air quality is in tackling the emissions from cars and trucks – one of the most significant sources of particle pollution in Washington.
So far, the Legislature has failed to act on Gov. Jay Inslee's Carbon Pollution Accountability Act during this year's regular session, and the Senate has strongly opposed the governor's use of executive power to institute a Clean Fuel Standard. The Legislature should not stand in the way of reasonable action to combat carbon pollution.
By diversifying the transportation fuel sector and speeding Washington’s transition away from fossil fuels to cleaner alternatives like electricity and hydrogen, we can make dramatic improvements in air quality. While the clean fuels program is directed at carbon pollution, the air quality benefits of the transition away from dirty diesel and gasoline will improve health in the near term.
Pierce County’s F grade isn’t helped at all by our overdependence on dirty fuels. In fact, the toxic particles in diesel exhaust are responsible for nearly 80 percent of our cancer risk due to air pollutants in the Puget Sound region. The shift to cleaner fuels is a public health priority.
By establishing a Clean Fuel Standard for Washington, similar to those already in place in California, Oregon and British Columbia, Washington will reduce pollution from fuels used by cars and trucks by ten percent. Like Inslee’s Carbon Pollution Accountability Act, the clean fuel standard will also reduce our state’s contribution to climate change. But even better, the governor already has the legal authority to put a clean fuels standard in effect.
It’s a common-sense step that will demonstrably improve the lives of Washingtonians, including some 900,000 Washingtonians who live close to major roadways and face increased health risks from traffic pollution. Lower-income residents and people who today bear the greatest burden from pollution will be the greatest beneficiaries of cleaning up our fuel supply.
California’s clean fuels program is expected to reduce 1,200 tons of particles from the air over the next five years, resulting in nearly 100 avoided deaths in 2020 alone.
Tackling tailpipe emissions will have other benefits, too. Doing so will cut smog that exacerbates respiratory ailments. Asthma results in tens of thousands of emergency room visits and thousands of hospitalizations costing Washingtonians tens of millions of dollars.
We are presented with an opportunity to improve air quality and protecting public health long into the future by embracing a clean fuels standard that will benefit the health of everyone in Tacoma, Pierce County and Washington state. We should take it.
Carrie Nyssen is regional director of advocacy and air quality for the American Lung Association of the Mountain Pacific
It took a village to create Thurston County’s robust plan to tackle the opioid crisis
By The Olympian Editorial Board
You might be skeptical about what county government can do to combat the national opioid crisis. But Thurston County has goals to improve prescribing practices, expand treatment, and prevent overdose deaths.
How to help with America’s border crisis
Starting the conversation about SRO housing in Olympia
Fewer of us are taking time to smell -- or tend -- the roses as gardening evolves
We all should celebrate Juneteenth’s promise of ‘absolute equality’
Schools make progress, but achievement gaps by race, resources slow to close
Nurse Family Partnership provides such important support. Why isn’t it fully funded?
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broken clouds 76.5° F
Grape Hyacinth (Muscari) - colorful, unique and sweet
April, 6 2015 | The Parklands | Gheens Foundation Lodge, Trails - Beckley Creek Park , Walking & Hiking, Parklands Explorer Hikes
With the first few weeks of spring upon us the trails and wooded pathways already show signs of new growth and early blooms. Among the earliest wildflowers to blossom are Grape Hyacinths, known for their colorful, unique flowers and sweet scent.
While not true Hyacinths, the common name refers to the plants dense clustered inflorescence of urn-shaped flowers resembling an upside-down bunch of grapes. Its scientific name Muscari contains over 40 similar types of species and comes from the Greek word muscus meaning musk in reference to the flowers aroma. While originating in the Old World, Grape Hyacinths were originally native to southern Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia until naturalizing throughout large portions of the United States.
Starting from small fleshy little bulbs, Grape Hyacinths bloom between March and April, growing 6 to 8 inches tall before going dormant in the summer and growing new leaves in autumn. A popular container plant, these easily grown wildflowers thrive with little care in full sun or part shade. The edges of Floyds Fork provide the perfect habitat for Grape Hyacinths to flourish and spread, particularly the trails within feet of water where well drained, sandy soils exist.
Story and photo by Nathan Strange, Zone Gardener
Nathan joined The Parklands staff in 2014 as a Gardener and currently oversees the areas around the Egg Lawn, the Pollination Garden at PNC Achievement Center/Gheens Foundation Lodge, and manages the collection and propagation of native plants within the park.
While attending University of Kentucky for a degree in Natural Resource Conservation & Management, Nathan worked as a naturalist at Natural Bridge State Resort Park and as a field technician for Floracliff Nature Sanctuary - specializing in program development, native plant alternatives, and invasive species removal. In 2011, Nathan published “A Guide to the Knobstone Trail: Indiana’s Longest Footpath” with Indiana University Press - representing three years of independent research while highlighting his love for hiking and the outdoors.
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What Happened At The 2018 Australasian Bus Conference | Recap
2018 Australasian Bus Conference: Event Recap
Main takeaways from the joint BIC and NZ BCA conference. By David Eason.
The 2018 Australasian Bus Conference was jointly organised by the Bus Industry Confederation (BIC) and the Bus & Coach Association of New Zealand (NZ BCA) in Cairns from 7 – 10 October.
If you’ve never been to this event before, one of our customers Leanne Griffiths (Red Bus Services) summarised it as a place for bus operators to get together and consider the long-term planning and shaping of the transport industry.
Here’s a quick summary of what happened:
A Growing Population
Cities within commuting distance to capital cities, such as Geelong and Toowoomba, were also seeing growth as people choose to buy homes there and commute to work.
With our cities getting ever more crowded, there is an obvious need for more public transport services to ease congestion and improve liveability. The private car is still dominating, with 80% of passenger kilometres in capital cities travelled in this mode.
Yale Wong, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, University of Sydney – ‘The Bus Industry Report 2018’
To cope with this increased density without increasing congestion, it is clear that industry and government need to work together to make public transport more attractive and move people out of their cars and into mass transit vehicles.
While this is a challenging task, it also opens up opportunities for the bus industry: many transport authorities and political representatives at the conference expressed their eagerness to start a dialogue with operators and collaborate to realise their visions of an integrated transport network.
Advocacy & Opportunity
Bronwen Clark from the National Growth Areas Alliance spoke about the importance of collaboration between all levels of government – local, state and federal – to improve liveability in our cities as well as the surrounding areas.
For instance, suburbs often experience significant congestion during the AM and PM peaks as residents converge on one main road to drive to or from the CBD.
Bronwen Clark of @NGAA_AU explains the City Deal for Western Sydney and the factors that need to be considered relating to #movingpeople #c21conference pic.twitter.com/aUadHQ6G6z
— Bus Industry Confed (@OzeBus) October 8, 2018
Both Ms Clark and Adrian Beresford-Wiley from the Australian Local Government Association encouraged bus operators to approach their local governments, as this level of government had a greater interest in social coherence and inclusion.
While bus operators have traditionally engaged state governments, there is potential for local governments and transport operators to collaborate and take their ideas for improving public transport to the state instead.
Panel on integrated transport in growth areas feat. Adrian Beresford-Wiley (ALGA), Bronwen Clark @NGAA_AU and Stephen Davis (ERM) @OzeBus @BCA_NZ #busconference pic.twitter.com/vDLl7APcyY
— Trapeze Group AP (@trapezegroupAP) October 9, 2018
The excellent work being done by APTIA, BIC’s industry arm, has led to numerous government representatives favourably viewing engagement from the bus industry.
Anthony Albanese, the Australian Shadow Minister for Transport, Infrastructure, Cities, Regional Development and Transport, told us that he was an advocate of the 30-minute city and wanted to see more collaboration between governments and operators to make this happen.
Phil Twyford, New Zealand’s Minister for Transport, said he was keen to hear from industry on how we could transition to an all-electric fleet and improve safety.
As Michael McCormack, Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, said, “You have the ear of government.”
The Liberal and @The_Nationals Government is committed to building better roads to help people get to their destinations safer and sooner.
Great to address the @OzeBus annual conference in Cairns today. #movingpeople #BIC2018 pic.twitter.com/ZO8PILAP6p
— Michael McCormack (@M_McCormackMP) October 8, 2018
The Elephant in the Room: Autonomous Vehicles
With autonomous vehicles having been promoted as a silver bullet to all public transport woes in the past, this is perhaps unsurprising.
As Professor Graham Currie of Monash University pointed out, simply replacing all the cars on the road with driverless cars will not reduce the number of cars – getting people into mass transit vehicles like buses and trains is still essential.
John Calabro, the Chief Operating Officer of Transit Australia Group (TAG), gave an update on his company’s autonomous vehicle trials in South Australia and was cautiously optimistic about this technology’s potential. There is still need for more testing and development to fully mature these vehicles, as well as updated rules and regulations.
We are currently doing our own trials in Switzerland, where we successfully integrated an autonomous bus into the public transport operations control system (a world first!).
If you’re interested in reading the latest on autonomous vehicle trials across the world, my colleague David Panter explores this in his whitepaper:
With the governments’ appetite for trials and tests with autonomous vehicles not waning, it is unlikely that driverless vehicles will go away. However, the future is far from certain:
Some speakers predicted that autonomous vehicles would be used as shuttles for first/last mile services to supplement – not replace – line haul services. The key would be to integrate these into the wider public transport network, like Schaffhausen has done.
Others suggested we could see partially autonomous buses that drove themselves while on dedicated lanes on motorways, but which needed a driver to take over once they were in urban areas with mixed traffic.
Geoff Allan from the National Transport Commission probably made the most realistic prediction, saying that transformation is evolutionary and change incremental.
There are over 700 laws that need adapting and dozens that need to be added before we can have a fully autonomous vehicle on the road; while this is happening, we need to ensure we are ready for change and able to adapt as needed.
The clear message throughout the conference was that governments recognise the importance of public transport for managing population growth and retaining the high liveability standards that Australian cities are known for.
This means that it is important for bus operators to continue engaging with all levels of government to ensure their voice is heard in planning and development discussions, whether that is one-on-one with a local council or through the work that APTIA is doing in creating submissions and meeting with ministers.
As Michael Apps from BIC said in his wrap-up speech:
“This industry is a growth industry. The opportunity is there to increase patronage numbers.”
It’s up to us to pull together and work with transport authorities to continue improving public transport in our communities.
Interested in MaaS or on-demand transport? Read Generation Z: Your Guide to the Future of Public Transport, which recaps the Australasia Bus Conference talks on these topics!
Headway – The New Way to Customer Satisfaction
Generation Z: Your Guide to the Future of Public Transport?
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You are here: Home / Travel Themes / Travel Themes South Pacific Travel
Welcome to the Travel with a Challenge South Pacific Theme Page of feature articles that have appeared in past issues of our web magazine. Fully updated with current content and richly-illustrated as well as informative for senior travel readers, we invite you to explore this exciting collection which ranges across the vast Pacific Ocean from the five Hawaiian Islands and French Polynesia to the Cook Islands (Rarotonga) and Australia.
At sunset, pelicans settle along the Kangaroo Island shore. South Australian Tourism Commission
Feel free to explore our other Travel Theme Pages for vacations well suited to senior travelers, their families and friends. Please click on image buttons or titles below to enter each South Pacific article, covering birds and nature on some spectacular islands, freighter cruising in the Marquesas, volunteering on the Great Barrier Reef, and serious wellness vacationing in the Hawaiian Islands, to name some of our topics.
Short (four days) but challenging with significant elevation changes, the Milford Track on New Zealand’s South Island is a trek that is popular with active mature travelers. MaryAnn Gerst, age 72, shares her ups and downs with seven hiking friends, ages 55 to 65, all from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Have you ever considered trekking with a train of camels across part of the largest dune desert in the world? That would be Australia’s Simpson Desert. Intrepid senior, Trish Clark, describes her hardy adventure, the expected and the unexpected as her journey pushes body and mind to the limit. Button credit: Charles Tait
Move over Africa’s “Big Five” for an introduction to New Zealand’s own smallest and rarest species of birds, marine mammals and reptiles in the world. Read their unique stories of survival and you will surely want to see these comeback heroes for yourself with a trip to Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud, as the indigenous Maori have long called it.
South Pacific guidebook author and long time authority on the region, David Stanley, shares little known facts about the black pearls of French Polynesia and the Cook Islands, and offers tips on how to select good quality pearl jewelry.
Join Lucia Appleby for an impulsive stopover on the island of Rarotonga in the South Pacific where she finds rare birds, rare people and a fragile environment where a successful transition to tourism will require dedicated community input.
Shirley LaPlanche shares her encounters with nesting turtles and an abundance of other natural residents on a recent visit to this unique coral island ecosystem located on the Great Barrier Reef off the Queensland coast.
Join travel journalist, Alison Gardner, for an exploration of Kangaroo Island, one of Australia’s lesser known ecotourism treasures, where rare animals, sea mammals and birds enjoy a spectacular geological frontier.
Sign up for a challenging, active, inexpensive holiday in Australia by joining our author and 8,000 other cyclists, from toddlers to seniors, for a nine-day, 580-kilometer ride along Victoria’s picturesque Great Ocean Road.
Definitely our most visited Theme Page any month of the year, the Alternative Hawaii collection takes readers way beyond Waikiki to explore the finest natural treasures, active adventures, educational programs, traditional Hawaiian culture, and a variety of health and wellness options on five Hawaiian islands.
Going for Hawaii cruises and the like will guarantee you and your loved ones an amazing experience. There are plenty of great getaways that you can spend with the people you love, most especially in the South Pacific. The stunning scenery and beautiful places that you visit will surely give you the utmost relaxation. Reading the articles above will reveal more about the various destinations and activities available to you.
New Zealand Holiday Rentals
KiwiShortStay.co.nz lists holiday homes, guest houses, lodges, bed and breakfasts and other short stay accommodation throughout New Zealand for rent direct from the owner.
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Kyiv's Moskovskiy Avenue renamed after Stepan Bandera
15:50, 07 July 2016
Kyiv City Council has decided that Moskovskiy [Moscow] Avenue has to be renamed after Stepan Bandera as part of de-communization drive, according to an UNIAN correspondent.
Moskovskiy Avenue
The decision was taken at a meeting of the City Council on Thursday and supported by 87 of 97 deputies registered in the session hall.
The draft decision was submitted as urgent and put on the agenda at the initiative of Kyiv Mayor.
According to the resolution adopted today, the new names were also given to Kutuzov Str. – Almazov Str., Kutuzov lane – Hutsalo lane, Bauman Str. – Korchak Str., Suvorov Str. – Omelianovych-Pavlenko Str.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Kyiv mayor Vitaliy Klitschko had suggested to rename the street where the Russian Embassy in Ukraine is located after Russian opposition leader and Vladimir Putin's vocal critic Boris Nemtsov, who was killed in Moscow on February 27, 2015.
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New Webmail
Students Web
Search: Αναζήτηση
University of Ioannina
University of Ioannina Official Website
Rector’s Greeting
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International & Public Relations
Quality Assurance Unit – MODIP
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Department of History and Archaeology
The education offered to students of the Department of History & Archaeology aims at teaching them the methodology of resolving old and new scientific problems, guiding them to identification and search of archives, providing them any necessary knowledge on the basic specializations of History & Archaeology Studies and Folklore. Graduates are mostly employed in Secondary Education, both in public and private schools. However, there are many who continue their postgraduate studies in Greece or abroad or in relevant research institutes.
For this reason, the undergraduate course offers both core and syllabus modules (compulsory and elective), foreign language modules (English, French, German) and modules offered by faculty members from other Departments. Teaching methods also include seminars-conferences, lectures by Greek and foreign scientists, projects and special courses (design – photography). Students may further participate in excavations, field research, museum visits, archive collection projects and assignments, field trips etc.
Compulsory minimum period of study: eight (8) semesters.
http://hist-arch.uoi.gr/
Ioannis Prelorentzos, Professor
Ioannis Lolos, Professor
Secretary: Katerina Papadima
Department of History & Archaeology Secretariat
Administration Building, 1st floor
45110 Ioannina
Phone: (+30) 26510 07180-1, 07231, 07232
Fax: (+30) 26510 07035
E-mail: gramisar@cc.uoi.gr
The Department offers three Postgraduate Courses:
a) Byzantine Studies,
b) Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Course in Modern History and Folklore Tradition , and
c) Postgraduate Course entitled “Ancient World: History and Archaeology”.
Doctoral Study applications are welcome from holders of a Master’s (MSc) Degree. Under exceptional circumstances, and following a substantiated decision by the Special Composition General Assembly, non-holders of a Master’s Degree may be accepted as doctoral students. Graduates of Technological Educational Institutes, the Higher School of Education and Technical Training, or equivalent Schools may only be accepted as doctoral students provided they hold a Master’s Degree.
An applicant who is interested in writing a doctoral dissertation must submit a relevant application to the Department’s Secretary by filling in a special form.
The following supporting documents must be attached to the application:
Copy of Bachelor’s Degree
Copy of Master’s Degree
Copies of scientific publications or papers (if applicable)
Substantiated Research Proposal accompanied by indicative literature.
Holders of a Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree from a foreign university must submit a confirmation from the National Academic Recognition Information Centre (DOATAP) certifying equivalence to those granted by Greek universities.
Please note that we will not consider applications that do not include all necessary supporting documents.
The provisions of law 3685/2008 are applicable to all other matters.
Modern Greek Literature – Digital Database (KENEF)
Conference Centre “Karolos Papoulias”
Centre for the Study of the Hellenic Language and Culture
Procurements Department
Teleconference Service
Scholarships search
Postgraduate studies search
Faults report
User webspace
APELLA system
Old version website
Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων
Τηλ. Κέντρο: 26510-07777
Πανεπιστημιούπολη Ιωαννίνων
Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων, Τ.Θ. 1186,
Τ.Κ. 45110 Ιωάννινα
Διεύθυνση Διεθνών
& Δημοσίων Σχέσεων
Τηλ: 26510-07106, 07520, 07264
Web: http://piro.uoi.gr/
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Utah State Aggies vs. New Mexico State Aggies, Arizona Bowl 2017, Las Vegas Odds, College Football Betting, Free Picks and Prediction
December 29, 2017 David Steinberg 394 Views 0 Comment Arizona Bowl, Arizona Stadium, Bet on Sports, Betting Trends, College Football Betting, Football Betting, NCAA College Football, NCAA Football Betting, New Mexico State Aggies, Odds to Win, Sports Betting, Sports Gambling, Team Statistics, TV Schedule, Utah State Aggies, Vegas Odds
New Mexico State vs Utah State, NCAA College Football Betting When: 8:30 PM ET, Friday, December 29, 2017 Where: Arizona Stadium, Tucson, Arizona TV: 8:30
Utah State Aggies vs. Air Force Falcons, Week 13, College Football Sports Betting, Las Vegas Odds, Picks and Predictions
November 25, 2017 Jennifer Zeledon 270 Views 0 Comment Air Force Falcons, Bet on Sports, Betting Trends, College Football Betting, Football Betting, NCAA College Football, NCAA Football Betting, Odds to Win, Sports Betting, Sports Gambling, Team Statistics, TV Schedule, Utah State Aggies, Vegas Odds
Utah State at Air Force, NCAA College Football Betting When: 10:15 PM ET, Saturday, November 25, 2017 Where: Falcon Stadium, Colorado Springs, Colorado Team/ Live
Hawaii Warriors vs. Utah State Aggies, Week 12 Las Vegas Odds, Picks, Predictions and College Football Sports Betting
November 18, 2017 Jennifer Zeledon 574 Views 0 Comment Bet on Sports, Betting Trends, College Football Betting, Football Betting, Hawaii Warriors, NCAA College Football, NCAA Football Betting, Odds to Win, Sports Betting, Sports Gambling, Team Statistics, TV Schedule, Utah State Aggies, Vegas Odds
Hawaii at Utah State, NCAA College Football Betting When: 3:00 PM ET, Saturday, November 18, 2017 Where: Merlin Olsen Field at Maverik Stadium, Logan,
Utah State Aggies vs. UNLV Rebels, Week 8 Las Vegas Odds, College Football Sports Betting, Picks and Predictions
October 21, 2017 Jennifer Zeledon 204 Views 0 Comment Bet on Sports, Betting Trends, College Football Betting, Football Betting, NCAA College Football, NCAA Football Betting, Odds to Win, Sam Boyd Stadium, Sports Betting, Sports Gambling, Team Statistics, TV Schedule, UNLV Rebels, Utah State Aggies, Vegas Odds
Utah State at UNLV, NCAA College Football Betting When: 6:00 PM ET, Saturday, October 21, 2017 Where: Sam Boyd Stadium, Las Vegas, Nevada Team/ Live
Wyoming Cowboys vs. Utah State Aggies, Week 7 Las Vegas Odds, College Football Sports Betting, Picks and Predictions
October 14, 2017 Jennifer Zeledon 190 Views 0 Comment Bet on Sports, Betting Trends, College Football Betting, Football Betting, Merlin Olsen Field, NCAA College Football, NCAA Football Betting, Odds to Win, Sports Betting, Sports Gambling, Team Statistics, TV Schedule, Utah State Aggies, Vegas Odds, Wyoming Cowboys
Wyoming at Utah State, NCAA College Football Betting When: 4:30 PM ET, Saturday, October 14, 2017 Where: Merlin Olsen Field at Maverik Stadium, Logan,
Colorado State Rams vs. Utah State Aggies, College Football Sports Betting, Picks, Predictions and Week 6 Las Vegas Odds
October 7, 2017 Jennifer Zeledon 227 Views 0 Comment Bet on Sports, Betting Trends, College Football Betting, Colorado State Rams, Football Betting, Maverik Stadium, NCAA College Football, NCAA Football Betting, Odds to Win, Sports Betting, Sports Gambling, Team Statistics, TV Schedule, Utah State Aggies, Vegas Odds
Colorado State at Utah State, NCAA College Football Betting When: 4:30 PM ET, Saturday, October 7, 2017 Where: Merlin Olsen Field at Maverik Stadium,
BYU Cougars vs. Utah State Aggies, Week 5 Las Vegas Odds, College Football Sports Betting, Picks and Predictions
September 29, 2017 Jennifer Zeledon 252 Views 0 Comment Bet on Sports, Betting Trends, BYU Cougars, College Football Betting, Football Betting, Merlin Olsen Field at Maverik Stadium, NCAA College Football, NCAA Football Betting, Odds to Win, Sports Betting, Sports Gambling, Team Statistics, TV Schedule, Utah State Aggies, Vegas Odds
Brigham Young at Utah State, NCAA College Football Betting When: 8:00 PM ET, Friday, September 29, 2017 Where: Merlin Olsen Field at Maverik Stadium,
Utah State Aggies vs. Wake Forest Demon Deacons, College Football Sports Betting, Week 3 Las Vegas Odds, Picks and Predictions
September 16, 2017 Jennifer Zeledon 251 Views 0 Comment BB&T Field, Bet on Sports, Betting Trends, College Football Betting, Football Betting, NCAA College Football, NCAA Football Betting, Odds to Win, Sports Betting, Sports Gambling, Team Statistics, TV Schedule, Utah State Aggies, Vegas Odds, Wake Forest Demon Deacons
Utah State at Wake Forest, NCAA College Football Betting When: 3:00 PM ET, Saturday, September 16, 2017 Where: BB&T Field, Winston-Salem, North Carolina TV: 3
Idaho State Bengals vs. Utah State Aggies, College Football Sports Betting, Las Vegas Odds, Picks and Predictions
September 7, 2017 Jennifer Zeledon 258 Views 0 Comment Bet on Sports, Betting Trends, College Football Betting, Football Betting, Idaho State Bengals, Maverik Stadium, NCAA College Football, NCAA Football Betting, Odds to Win, Sports Betting, Sports Gambling, Team Statistics, TV Schedule, Utah State Aggies, Vegas Odds
IDAHO STATE BENGALS UTAH STATE AGGIES 1-0, 1st in Big Sky September 7, 8:00 PM | Turf of Romney Stadium
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Adidas Is Creating a Recyclable Running Shoe Made Out of Repurposed Ocean Plastics
Fashion Current Events VEGWORLD NEWS
by Peter Manley
As vegans well know, ocean pollution is a major environmental concern worldwide. In fact, it’s now believed that there are approximately 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean, according to Ocean Crusaders. Of that mass, about 269,000 tons float on the surface, and nearly four billion plastic microfibers per square kilometer litter the deep sea. Removing plastic waste from the ocean is indeed a necessary first step; however, Adidas is taking it a step further.
As Eric Liedtke, Executive Board Member at Adidas, said, “Taking plastic waste out of the system is the first step, but we can’t stop there.”
Adidas is creating a new concept that vegans will welcome: a shoe made with 100% reclaimed and recyclable ocean-plastic materials that itself can be recycled over and over again. The new sneaker, called the FUTURECRAFT.LOOP, is currently in beta testing and is scheduled to be publicly released by 2021.
The sneaker will be a multi-purpose shoe meant for running, training, or casual wear. When a pair wears out, the owner can return them to Adidas, who will break them down and recycle them into new shoes.
"What happens to your shoes after you've worn them out? You throw them away...except there is no ‘away,’” says Liedtke. “There are only landfills and incinerators and ultimately an atmosphere choked with excess carbon or oceans filled with plastic waste. The next step is to end the concept of 'waste' entirely. Our dream is that you can keep wearing the same shoes over and over again,”
Adidas is aiming to produce 11 million pairs of shoes by 2021 that will all be made with recycled ocean plastics collected from beaches and seaside communities. Expect vegans to be first in line to buy them.
A Nudge for Veganism: Tyson Recalls 12 Million Pou...
Plant-Based Products Are Becoming More Mainstream
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EdwardCullen4eva
Post by EdwardCullen4eva » Wed Jan 14, 2009 1:02 pm
1. It depends on how well i knew edward. If i just met him and he gave me some expensive car, i might be a little reluctant. How often is it that a stranger comes up and gives you a sports car??? If i knew him, of course i would say no, just to be polite, but if he insisted, and i knew it made him happy, then i would say yes.
2. I was a bit annoyed that Charlie put up posters, becuase seriously, do you think that Charlie would do that for Edward, not likely. I think that Charlie was fine doing that, but if Charlie knew the secrtet that edward was a were wolf, he probably wouldnt, which explains why Billy didn't. Another reason i think is becuase Charlie was trying to make a deal of showing Bella how much he like jacob, or how much more he like Jacob over Edward.
3. I was really annoyed the way Charlie acted, becuase aren't you supposed to support your kids in the decisons they make??? I think Charlie could have put on a happy face, and been happy for Bella, becuase this meant a lot to bella, and even more to Edward. I was NOT suprised at Renee's reaction. I did not believe Charlie when he assumed the way Renee would act. After all, Renee was a lot more supportive about Edward than Charlie.
4. i was a little nervous, when Bella was meeting Kate and Tanya, only becuase Tanya used to like Edward and I thought that Tanya might be little rude to Bella, but after Bella met Tanya and they were all nice to eachother, i wasn't really nevous, but excited. I wasn't really thinking that much about Jacob becuase of everything else that was on my mind about their wedding, but i was glad Jacob could put his feelings aside to make the day even more special for Bella.
IsabellaAnastasia
Location: In a glass case of emotion...in FORKS!
Post by IsabellaAnastasia » Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:43 am
HECK NO!!! I mean he has unlimited funds and while most people say things like 'it's just money' the Cullens REALLY mean that! I understand she is a simple and prideful person and a car like that would cause a commotion in a small town like that, but she would need to get used that kind of stuff anyway, so why not start now? Besides, I gotta tell ya, her inability to except his gifts has seriously frustrated me through-out the series. It's like, there's stubborn and then there's just ridiculous, ya know?
Alphie wrote: 2. Did you feel Charlie was justified in putting up the various posters of Jacob around town or should he have left that up to Billy? Remember, even as the police chief, Charlie doesn't have jurisdiction over the reservation.
Ok, that is a tricky question because while you are correct in the 'jurisdiction' part of it...Charlie wasn't thinking like a police officer entirely, he was thinking as a concerned parent in regards to a kid that he has known forever. A kid that is his daughters best friend and HIS best friend's son. Charlie didn't know what really happend to Jacob either and honestly if a friend of yours disappeared and no one seemed to be doing anything about it, wouldn't you do something? I know I would.
Alphie wrote: 3. What were your thoughts about the way Charlie reacted to the engagement? About how Renee reacted?
You know, Charlie isn't dumb and while he may have not liked the situation he seems pretty level headed about most things. He is the head of the police department...he HAS to be fairly intelligent. He isn't blind either, he saw something coming, sure he was shocked but his reaction was fitting because he thought he could count on Renee giving Bella crap for her decision. Obviously that didn't happen but at that point it was a done deal and the polls were closed (so to speak) so honestly I liked his reaction...I honestly thought his reaction was quite perfect.
As for Renee...I was honestly shocked! I mean Renee ran out of her marriage, spoke harshly of early marriages so much so that it seriously effected Bella to the point that even though she was willing to end her life to be with man she KNEW she loved for all eternity she wouldn't say yes. That is a serious impact. So, while I WAS shocked at first...after her mother explained her stance on the subject in direct regards to Bella...it made complete sense after that. After-all it's true that Bella has never been a kid emotionally speaking.
Alphie wrote: 4. Were you nervous for the wedding at the end of this chapter? Did you think Jacob would show up?
No, I wasn't nervous I was anxious for it to FINALLY happen. YES! I absolutely KNEW Jacob would come back. He is stubborn and crazy, but he loved Bella and it was inevitable that he would come back!
Last edited by IsabellaAnastasia on Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:41 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Location: Vancouver, BC (Where New Moon is being filmed YEAH!!)
Post by Jazzy » Thu Jan 15, 2009 2:46 pm
If I knew that giving me a car would make Edward happy, I'll go along with it. I would probably have requested he give me something more practical, instead of a Mercedes! I mean, I don't think missiles really find their way to Forks, do they?
I think he was justified. Charlie views Jacob like a son.
Classic Charlie, I love it!
It also made me laugh out loud when he started laughing about Bella being the one to have to tell Renee.
Renee's reaction...Hm...being as how she's so scatterbrained and flakey, I was not surprised that she was totally cool with it. With Renee, you never know what you're gonna get!
I thought maybe she would flip out, but I was happy to see that she was so cool about it.
At first I kinda did NOT want Jacob to show up cos I know it would be really painful for him, and I LOVE Jacob.
But I was glad he came! It made Bella's day complete, before the disaster.
I LOVE the wedding in general, one of my most anticipated scenes in the movie, OH THEY BETTER MAKE A MOVIE! Actually, better to make BD into 2 movies!
Team Edward: Cos I love stupid shiny Volvo owners
Private Nichole Silver of Team PG - Jasper's Confederate Army Second Rank
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Vero Software – Perfect For Advanced Manufacturing Needs
Three Vero Software CAD/CAM brands are to demonstrate how board-level decision makers and production engineers can gain a competitive edge through advanced manufacturing techniques.
Latest releases of VISI, EDGECAM and RADAN will be on show at the Advanced Manufacturing Show at the NEC in Birmingham in early June.
The three brands provide state-of-the-art software for 3- to 5-axis milling and turning, wire EDM, sheet metal manufacturing, and mold and die applications. Vero regards the exhibition as the perfect showcase for its game-changing brands, as visitors use it to review, plan and make investment decisions about machine tools and software.
As well as on-screen demonstrations of how EDGECAM creates optimised toolpaths on the Vero stand – A26 – Matsuura will be showing, on their stand, how the software is ideal for 5-axis machining by using it to program a scaled-down version of a helicopter rotorblade cover on their best-selling MX-520 5-axis machine.
EDGECAM Strategic Partnership Manager Wesley Tonks says: “It’s a major plus for visitors to see the principals of EDGECAM’s offline programming system, on our stand; then see the physical results on the machine tool.” EDGECAM engineers will be demonstrating new and enhanced aspects of functionality in the forthcoming EDGECAM 2015 R2, which ensure that manufacturers can compete in a global economy.
VISI is widely regarded as the leading CAD/CAM solution for the mold and die industry, and the latest release, in particular, includes significant developments across the board, from data translation, multi cavity and instance management, through to new surface modelling tools which expand on the previous toolset for surface extension, surface tangency, and blending between curves and faces with curvature constraints.
Visitors will also see significant enhancements to VISI Machining and VISI PEPS-Wire, including an updated GUI and new toolpath algorithms with improved point distribution and toolpath accuracy. General Manager Richard Youhill says “The software incorporates specific process knowledge enabling the designer or machinist to produce complex, high-precision components in a fraction of the time taken by more generic CAD/CAM systems. It offers a unique combination of applications, from fully integrated wireframe, surface and solid modelling, plastic flow analysis, 3D tool design, and comprehensive 2D, 3D and 5-axis machining strategies with dedicated high speed routines.”
RADAN will be demonstrating many of the 180 items of new and enhanced functionality in the 2015 release, including ways of ensuring that imported 3D files retain accurate information, resolving manufacturing issues throughout the production process, especially at the press brake. And RADAN will also be highlighting the new Work Order Nesting functionality.
A number of the 180 enhancements in RADAN 2015 help bring all aspects of the software together – CAD/CAM, Radbend, Radm-ax, Radtube, and the logistics products. Product Manager Olaf Körner says: “When people think of RADAN they think of the world’s most powerful sheetmetal CAD/CAM system. But RADAN is actually a whole suite of connected products, For example, there’s a major connection between 3D in CAD/CAM and the Radbend press brake software. When manufacturers unfold a model they need to know how the bend process will be affected further down the production line.”
RADAN sees the Show as the perfect venue to demonstrate the software’s ability to provide a total sheetmetal solution meeting users’ present and future advanced manufacturing needs.
Vero Software: Stand A26, Advanced Manufacturing Show, NEC, Birmingham June 2 – 4.
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Debunking myths around KFCs halal status
February 19, 2018 • News, VOC News • 1 Comment
By Najma Bibi Noor Mahomed
Questions around the halal status of one of South Africa’s most loved chicken fast-food chains KFC have surfaced following messages circulating online alleging that their chicken sources are not halal. One of the halaal bodies that have been mentioned in this alert was the South African National Halaal Authority (SANHA) who has discussed in their publication Musjid Times their position on KFC’s halal status. SANHA’s Ebi Lockhat said that since their inception 21 years ago, they have never certified KFC.
“The KFC brand has never been certified by SANHA. KFC has 850 stores across the country and not a single store is certified by SANHA.”
In order for products to be certified halaal, certain criterion must be met. Asked why SANHA does not certify the global chicken outlet, he said:
“When we as SANHA say we don’t say certify something halaal it doesn’t mean that it is haraam. This means that we do not have access, we don’t know the process or the supervision to give the testimony that this is halaal.”
During the outbreak of Avian flu last year, many KFC stores across the country were affected by the shortage of chicken. Lockhat said that they were experiencing an influx of queries with regards to store closures.
“We received queries on social media and a local radio station contacted us to ask us about this because some stores were closed due to a shortage of stock, and there were allegations which were just hearsay that they saw boxes of poultry without the rubber stamp. So we informed our constituency, through our Musjid Times which goes out the masjids to say ‘leave out what is doubtful’. However if you follow other halal bodies and they say the product is halal then go ahead. But if you follow SANHA then we say we do not certify and we say be cautious,” he explained.
Listen to Sanha’s interview here:
https://www.vocfm.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/BB-14-02-18-SANHA-KFC.mp3
The Muslim Judicial Council Halaal Trust (MJCHT) has confirmed that it is one of the halal bodies that certifies KFC. MJCHT director Shayk Achmat Sedick said the body certified 33 of the KFC outlets as halaal, most of them here in Cape Town and some in Gauteng.
“When we certify a branch we ensure the suppliers are halaal. The suppliers to these branches form part of the halaal certification requirement. And it is not just the chicken but all the items like the oil and spices that must be certified,” Sedick said.”
Listen to the MJCHT interview here:
https://www.vocfm.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/MJC-.mp3
KFC’s head office has clarified that all products are locally sourced and that they are not making use of any imported chicken. Suhayl Limbada, a representative of KFC expressed concern at the false messages circulating online and reiterated their previous message that their chickens are all locally sourced.
“We are the franchiser of the KFC brand which means that we franchise out our brand to a group of franchisees that run the actual stores. In essence we don’t operate the stores and therefore the decision to get halaal certification by store is on the franchisee,” he explained.
“But what we do control on our side is the supply chain. So from selection of the actual product, ensuring quality and making sure the product gets to the store sits with us. On that we have a very clear approach to ensuring that we are complying to halaal standards throughout that chain. So every single piece of chicken is halaal certified,” Limbada explained.
KFC explains their position below:
https://www.vocfm.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/KFC-.mp3
Listening to the 3 interviews nowhere in the SAHNA interview was it mentioned that KFC is not Halaal. During this interview it was mentioned a couple of times we do not say that KFC is not Halaal. When sister Najma interviewed MJC she mentions that SAHNA says that KFC is not Halaal. I think sister Najma is just causing problems between SAHNA and MJC. When doing interviews I think the facts need to be stated correctly.
183428: Stationary Vehicle on N1 Outbound after Ramp from Plattekloof. Left lane closed. No Delays
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Oprah's Middlebrow Market
In my first column for Bloomberg View, where I'll be appearing every other Friday, I compare "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to two other media phenomena that also debuted in 1986: Spy magazine and the American Girl line of dolls and books. Here's the opening:
In her 25 years hosting her eponymous show, Oprah Winfrey changed lives, most notably her own, but she did not change American culture. Rather, she revived and extended an old American phenomenon: the tradition of middlebrow self-improvement that many observers assumed had died in the anti-authority turmoil of the 1960s. While anything but radical, this achievement was nonetheless remarkable.
To understand its significance, positive and negative, consider two other media institutions that also debuted in 1986. The first is Spy magazine, defunct since 1998. Enormously influential, particularly in New York media circles, Spy pioneered the snobby, snarky cynicism that many writers under 50 still equate with sophistication. Spy did change the culture.
Both Spy and "The Oprah Winfrey Show" sold gossip and personal stories. Both made their audiences feel like members of a club of superior people. Both were self-congratulatory. But the bases for their self-congratulation were, of course, very different. Spy and its audience prided themselves on being wised-up, clever and edgy; Oprah and her audience on being empathetic, optimistic and resilient. If "Oprah" was about uplift, Spy was about putting people in their place.
Winfrey was one of the magazine's earliest targets. A profile in Spy's third issue mocked her weight, her "poodlish starlet's existence," her exuberance and her frank yearning to be rich and famous. Calling her a "binge dreamer," author Bill Zehme compared her to the delusional, self-dramatizing Norma Desmond of "Sunset Boulevard."
Read the rest at Bloomberg View.
To receive links to my articles via email, send an email to [email protected] You can also follow me on Twitter at @vpostrel (also @deepglamour).
Posted by Virginia Postrel on May 26, 2011
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The surreal tales of Trump's 2 former doctors
Everything that has anything to do with President Donald Trump and his health is surreal.We've met two Trump d...
Posted: May 2, 2018 4:27 AM
Updated: May 2, 2018 4:27 AM
Everything that has anything to do with President Donald Trump and his health is surreal.
We've met two Trump doctors now and, despite their very different appearances and backgrounds, both have given almost unbelievably upbeat assessments of his health.
They're also both no longer his doctor.
The similarities end there but the stories do not. Dr. Harold Bornstein said he lost his patient after letting slip to The New York Times that he'd prescribed Propecia. A "raid" -- his term -- of his office by Trump associates ensued. That term has since been disputed.
Dr. Ronny Jackson lost Trump as his patient after a painful and embarrassing short stint as Trump's nominee to head the Veterans Affairs Department.
That both doctors vouched for the health of a man who mainlines McDonald's and likes steak and meatloaf is incredible. He doesn't exercise because, according to one report, he thinks every human has a finite amount of energy in their lifetime and he doesn't want to use his up.
That he should still be healthy has never made any sense and, if true, it's not fair to the rest of the human population that has to watch its weight and burn calories.
The first doctor of the Trump political era was Bornstein. Trump's physician for more than 30 years, with flowing hair and dark circular glasses, looks like something of a John Lennon throwback. He's the one who declared in a weird letter back in 2015 that, "If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."
That led to some serious questions about how thorough a doctor Bornstein was.
It was so strangely worded that CNN's Drew Griffin asked him at the time if it was a joke.
Jackson, the clean-cut Navy rear admiral who administered to Trump as White House physician, was not quite as effusive, but he did repeatedly crow about Trump's good genes during a White House news conference early in 2018 and said Trump had excellent health despite high cholesterol.
That performance somehow got Jackson the nod to be VA secretary despite his lack of experience running a large organization.
We all know how that turned out at this point. After whistleblowers raised multiple questions about Jackson's management style and medical practices (he was known as "the candy man" for handing out prescription sleep and wakefulness aids on overseas trips and there were reports of drunkenness on those trips), Jackson removed his nomination and was also removed as Trump's personal doctor. New allegations that he may have mishandled the medical information of second lady Karen Pence have since been reported by CNN's Manu Raju.
All that Jackson controversy led NBC to check back in with Bornstein, who said his office had been, essentially, raided by Trump's head of security Keith Schiller, a lawyer from the Trump Organization and "a large man," and that they had taken Trump's medical records, without signed paperwork, leaving him feeling "raped, frightened and sad."
A source with knowledge of the transfer of records said it was not a raid and that there was confusion at the time because Bornstein could not operate his copy machine.
What aggravated Trump and led to Bornstein's dismissal was his admission to The New York Times that he'd prescribed Propecia to help Trump grow hair.
"I couldn't believe anybody was making a big deal out of a drug to grow his hair that seemed to be so important. And it certainly was not a breach of medical trust to tell somebody they take Propecia to grow their hair. What's the matter with that?" Bornstein told NBC News.
Jackson's medical report on Trump in January made clear he was still taking the drug, but the disclosure that time does not appear to have had any ill effect on Jackson's career. The ill effect would come later, from the VA nod.
In these weighty times of Russian election meddling, nuclear-aspiring North Korea, tense relations with Russia, a brewing trade war with China, unrest in the Middle East and income inequality here in the US, the doctor-patient relationship of the US President should probably take a back seat to other weighty matters in the public consciousness. But all that goes out the window when the President nominates one doctor to head the VA and another says the President's associates raided his office.
Everything seems to become surreal when it enters Trump's orbit.
Quick, try to name the doctor of another recent President. Jackson served both Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. But you didn't know his name until he entered Trump's world. Now it won't soon be forgotten.
'Surreal' Trump meeting on guns left Republicans reeling, Democrats optimistic
5 ways Trump weakened America this surreal week
Priest offers hope amid storm's 'surreal' destruction of his church
Trump's 'surreal' guns meeting delays White House rollout of policy proposals
17 surreal things that happened during the Donald Trump-Kanye West summit
The 29 most surreal lines from Donald Trump's Fox News interview
Trump supporter disrupts De Niro's 'Bronx Tale' musical on Broadway
Analysis: A tale of two Hannitys
Tale of a 'tail: The pisco sour
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Home > News & Events > Wayland Press Release Archives > 2011 News Releases > September 2011 > Jonathan Petty named Director of Communications
SEPTEMBER 2011 NEWS RELEASES
Jonathan Petty named Director of Communications
Math professors solve the Rubik's riddle
Wayland receives award for distance learning
WBU theatre to present Monday After the Miracle
Semwayo named Miss Wayland 2012
Wayland professor receives peer recognition award for ministry guidance
Changes mark the WBU theatre season
Seven co-eds in the running for Miss Wayland crown
WBU celebrates convocation with a challenge to students
Wayland offers community writing class
WBU soliciting projects
Wayland and Miss Texas prepare for A Grand Evening
PLAINVIEW -- Wayland Baptist University is proud to announce the appointment of Jonathan Petty as Director of Communications. Petty advances to the position after serving 8 years as Assistant Director of Communications. Prior to coming to Wayland, he served as Sports Editor for the Plainview Daily Herald, as well as serving stints as the sports, business and design editor of the Hobbs (NM) News-Sun.
Petty is a 1995 graduate of Wayland with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Communications. He joined the Wayland staff in January 2003.
As Assistant Director of Communications, Petty successfully used his skills in graphic design, news and feature writing and photography to effectively communicate with Wayland’s many constituents. In addition to his daily duties, Petty was also instrumental in completing several major projects. He wrote and directed Wayland’s Centennial DVD, The Wayland Story. In collaboration with University Historian, Dr. Estelle Owens, he wrote and designed, The Wayland Century: 100 Years of Presidents, Policies and Pictures.
Petty is well known as the public address announcer at Wayland athletic events and for his online play-by-play and color commentary for Wayland baseball. He also has served as the program speaker for local area civic organization. Petty has completed Public Information Officer training through the Texas Department of Public Safety Division of Emergency Management.
He is an active member of First Baptist Church and the Noon Optimist Club, where he supervises the Girls Optimist Softball League program.
Petty, who completed the Master of Arts in Management degree in 2009, has won press awards in design, writing and photography. He also has experience in the administrative areas of budgeting, scheduling, planning and supervision at Wayland.
“Jonathan will continue the level of excellence that he has helped create as a team member in the office of communications at Wayland,” said Dr. Bobby Hall, Executive Vice President and Provost. “He has a deep understanding of the Wayland system and the needs not only in Plainview, but also across our external campuses. He has worked diligently throughout his career to prepare himself for this opportunity and I have great confidence that he will do an outstanding job.”
Jonathan is married to Mindy Petty, also a 1995 graduate of Wayland. She teaches third grade at Edgemere Elementary in Plainview and is working on her master’s degree in counseling. They have one daughter, Karissa, a sixth-grader at Ash Elementary.
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Make Your Game of Thrones Season 7 Predictions
Which Game of Thrones Scene Gave a Very Young Sophie Turner Her “Sex Education”?
Is This the Most Inappropriate Game of Thrones Reference of All Time?
Who Is the Jon Snow of Climate Change?
Game of Thrones-loving climate experts explain how every major player has a real-world climate warrior counterpart. (Tyrion Lannister is Leonardo DiCaprio!)
Jane Borden
Courtesy Of HBO.
“There’s squabbling among the kingdoms about issues that seem pressing. But meanwhile, far away, there is this looming threat that could eclipse all of it,” says Katharine Davis Reich, associate director at the UCLA IoES Center for Climate Science. She’s talking about Game of Thrones—and also our response to climate change.
Of course, there’s at least one major difference between the two: winter is coming to Westeros, but disappearing on Earth. Still, both worlds’ most pressing problems involve a rejection of information gathered on the front lines, migrations of vulnerable populations that unsettle adjacent communities, and a potential tipping point past which there is no hope of survival.
Peter Griffith, a scientist in Baltimore, MD, who works in the field of carbon cycle and climate, made the connection early while reading the first book in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series: “Any time there was news from the Wall, and it was ridiculed by King’s Landing—the old stories that nursemaids tell to scare children—there was an immediate sense of, boy, this sounds familiar.”
But even civilian readers began seeing the similarities in 2015, when Foreign Affairs published a paper by political-science professor Charli Carpenter that argued Game of Thrones is actually about how “the pursuit of short-term objectives distracts players from the truly pressing issues of human survival.” Vox ran with the idea, bringing the idea of Thrones as climate-change metaphor to the masses. Martin himself will admit that his saga has a collective-action angle, but hesitates to pigeon-hole his metaphor: “We have things going on in our world right now, like climate change, that’s a threat to the entire world. But people are using it as a political football instead of, you know, you’d think everybody would get together . . . So I wanted to do an analogue not specifically to the modern-day thing but as a general thing,” he told Al Jazeera in 2014.
Regardless of Martin’s intent, Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric science at Penn State and a climate activist, is pleased that the metaphor is resonating with audiences. “Scientists and science communicators need to take advantage of cultural references that allow people to understand the nature of the challenge,” he says.
If Mann thinks pop-culture metaphors are important tools, then we won’t consider the following exercise a waste of journalistic resources. With the help of a handful of G.O.T.-loving climate experts, we’ve matched up the most important Game of Thrones characters with their real-world climate warrior counterparts.
Samwell Tarly = Climate scientists
Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO (Sam), by Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images (climate scientists).
Tarly has data on the White Walkers. He’s seen them and, more importantly, he knows how to fight them: he killed one with dragon glass, which was kind of an accident, as some of our most compelling scientific discoveries often are. Plus, Griffith adds, “He is such a nerd, as we are. He wants to get into the library and study all the books.”
Tyrion Lannister = Leonardo DiCaprio
Courtesy Of Macall B. Polay/HBO (Tyrion), by Jose Luis Magana/AFP/Getty Images (DiCaprio).
“A party-boy womanizer who also has this moral center and has a lot of money”—sounds like both the youngest Lannister and the Titanic star, says Sarah Duffy, a Shapiro fellow at the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. Tyrion is a former denier—“I don’t believe that giants and ghouls and White Walkers are lurking beyond the wall”—who is now fighting for good by backing Daenerys and, one presumes, her eventual battle against the wights. Meanwhile, DiCaprio used to terrorize L.A. nightclubs with the Pussy Posse before gradually turning more conscientious and making Before the Flood, a film that offers not only information about climate change, but practical ways to fight it.
Daenerys Targaryen = Angela Merkel
Courtesy of HBO (Daenerys), by Steffi Loos/Getty Images (Merkel).
James Salzman, professor of environmental law at the UCLA School of Law and the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UC Santa Barbara, admits that there is not an obvious analog for the Khaleesi, mother of dragons and hero to the oppressed. Then again, “maybe she’s Angela Merkel. As the U.S. is dropping out, other countries are stepping up. Certainly, Germany is one.” In May, Merkel—whom the German press has nicknamed the “Climate Chancellor”—confronted Trump about his promise to pull out of the Paris accord, saying, “We Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands.” Khaleesi has dragons, and Merkel also has a powerful weapon in her arsenal: she was a scientist for more than a decade, earning her doctorate in physical chemistry in 1986. Plus, George W. Bush would probably try to give actress Emilia Clarke a back rub, too.
Jaime Lannister = John McCain
Courtesy Of Macall B. Polay/HBO (Jaime), by Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call (McCain).
They’re both moderates who frequently cross the aisle. “I think McCain is interesting,” says Salzman. “He co-sponsored the first major climate bill with Joe Lieberman.” Another obvious, if uncomfortable, comparison: both Jaime and McCain have been prisoners of war.
Bran Stark = Elon Musk
Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO (Bran), by Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images (Musk).
Bran has visions. He’s learning clairvoyance. As the Three-Eyed Raven, he is now harnessing magic that fans hope will save the world. “Bran might be an engineer,” offers Duffy. Similarly, Musk has been instrumental in developing commercial solar-energy programs for homes and businesses, the integration of solar power with an electric-car battery, and a solar-powered, 28-seat pod that moves at high speeds through a giant tube. “It’s essentially magic,” she says.
Hodor = The Sierra Club
Courtesy of HBO (Hodor), by Mark Wilson/Getty Images (Sierra Club’s Michael Brune).
The Sierra Club is a giant in conservation, our nation’s largest environmental organization. It exists to protect what can’t protect itself, and it is currently leading the charge in the move away from fossil fuels. It does a lot of heavy lifting that we all take for granted, but which would be missed if it ever met its demise. But even the Sierra Club will not be able to hold the door against eventual global warming.
Margaery Tyrell = Ivanka Trump
Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO (Margaery), by Olivier Douliery/Bloomberg/Getty Images (Ivanka).
“She’s blonde and beautiful and a populist figure,” Duffy opines. Another similarity, albeit for vastly different reasons: the press is obsessed with both of their clothing.
Yara Greyjoy = Hillary Clinton
Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO (Yara), by Scott Eisen/Bloomberg/Getty Images (Clinton).
Neither of these women has done much about either the White Walkers or climate change. Still, Reich’s idea is too fun to ignore: “The feminist ass-kicker from the Iron Islands is definitely Hillary Clinton. There was that whole scene where [Yara] is going to become the king, and then this random dude shows up out of nowhere and everyone is like, ‘Yeah, this guy! He’s totally unqualified!’ ” When Yara’s uncle won, she disappeared. Clinton did the same—though not for good.
Cersei Lannister = The Koch brothers
Courtesy of HBO (Cersei), by Patrick T. Fallon/The Washington Post/Getty Images (Charles), by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images (David).
Cersei schemes to gain power and will destroy anything to keep it. “You could argue this is the fossil-fuel interests,” Salzman says. “The Koch brothers get most of their money from petroleum, and have been very actively funding climate-denial organizations.” Here’s another wasting-natural-resources comparison: presumably, Cersei could have used all that wildfire against the White Walkers, or at least to keep dead bodies from becoming wights. One could also argue that there is a bit of Cersei in all of us: we’re unwilling to give up the power we receive from cheap fuel, and our children are the ones who will suffer.
Wildlings = Pacific Islanders
Left; courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO (Wildlings), Right; Paul Crock/AFP/Getty Images.
“The Wildlings are the first to feel the effects [of the threat], not unlike Pacific Islanders or people in the Arctic,” Griffith opines. Reich agrees: “If the Wildlings are the ones being terrorized by White Walkers, that’s like people in the tropics, who are already getting hit with climate-change impacts, such as sea-level rise in the Pacific Islands, or the permafrost thaw that threatens Alaska villages.”
Jon Snow = Michael Mann
Courtesy of Helen Sloan/HBO (Snow), by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images (Mann).
First, Salzman considers Al Gore: like the former vice president, Snow “is telling inconvenient truths. The Night’s Watch obviously doesn’t like what Jon has to say.” But after a bit more thought, he says, “Michael Mann would be better. He’s been pilloried.”
Really, the similarities are undeniable. In a phone interview, Mann explains his role as an activist: “I didn’t come to politics, politics came to me. Back in the late 1990s, when I suddenly found myself under assault by climate-change deniers looking to discredit it, and to discredit me, I found myself in a battle I never signed up for. Even though I would probably be happier spending my life the way I had originally intended—in the lab, educating the next generation—I don’t think there’s any more noble pursuit than trying to inform the discourse over what might be the greatest challenge that we face as a civilization.”
Jon Snow could certainly sympathize with that situation: “Sometimes,” he says in A Feast for Crows, “there is no happy choice, only one less grievous than the others.”
Will humans, fictional or real, triumph against these various existential threats? The fates of those in Thrones are up to show-runners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff—but there’s another storyline over which fans have some degree of control. When asked how we will fare, Michael Mann, in a Snow-like way, considers the wisdom of others: “I’ll quote our former science advisor John Holdren, who put it best. He said that how we deal with climate change will be a combination of mitigation (doing something about our emissions, stabilizing greenhouse gases), adaptation (adapting to the changes that are coming, those that are locked in, and also those that will occur in the future), and suffering. It’s up to us to decide what the balance will be.”
Sounds like Jon Snow again: “There’s no shame in fear, my father told me. What matters is how we face it.”
Game of Thrones Season 7 Character Posters
The Bachelorette: Jed Wyatt Will Try to Explain the Whole Secret-Girlfriend Thing
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Wellness at Century City
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Dr. Cho's Mission
Having served on several medical mission trips to Central America, South America, and European Continent over several years, Dr. Cho is affiliated with several missionaries around the globe and several Christian humanitarian relief organizations. Her most recent experiences in medical missions include helping Afghanistan in their refugee camps in Athene, Greece. She also served Kurdish living in repression and poverty in Vans, Turkish province. She also served abandoned Gypsies with free medical care in remote towns of Bulgaria.
Meet Jessica Cho, M.D.
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Dr. Cho specializes in Medical Weight Loss.
SculpSure is a non-invasive laser treatment for the reduction of stubborn fat in areas like the abdomen and flanks. The procedure takes 25 minutes, is minimally painful, and requires no downtime. Clinical trials show an average of 24% reduction in fat volume after a single treatment.
EXECUTIVE PHYSICAL EXAMINATION
BIO-IDENTICAL HORMONE THERAPY FOR MEN
BIO-IDENTICAL HORMONE FOR WOMEN
COMPREHENSIVE WEIGHT MANAGEMENT
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IV VITAMIN THERAPY
VITAMIN & HERBAL THERAPY
SPECIALIZED CARDIOVASCULAR PROFILE
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Patients of Wellness at Century City receive unique and special benefits, such as the following:
• 20% off your first order
• 10% on all orders
• additional 10% on recurring orders
Our office is in-network with Aetna, and all other insurances are accepted but will be out of network. Our office happily provides a courtesy billing to your insurance company out of network and the reimbursement will be sent to the patient directly.
"She is EVERYTHING you are looking for in a doctor! She is holistic, comprehensive, integrates your healing with eastern and western medicine..."
Meg C.
"I cannot thank Dr. Cho enough for what she has done for both my physical and mental health... she literally saved my life!"
Spencer T.
"I have never been under the care of a physician as compassionate and detail-oriented as Dr. Cho. Her level of analysis is extremely thorough! I am so lucky I found her."
"Hands down the best doctor... I've been a patient for over 6 years. She thoroughly explains my ailments to me and how to treat the root cause, not just the symptoms."
Vivian M.
"Dr. Cho is a warm, compassionate person, and her enthusiasm and positive energy always leave me feeling better after an appointment. I highly recommend Dr. Cho!"
"She's smart, mindful, patient, so full of knowledge and I feel like she really cares about getting to know you and getting to the root of what you have."
Amy O.
"What a gift of health she has given me ever since i have met her over 10 years ago. The best doctor I have ever met who genuinely cared for my overall health."
"I love Dr. Cho and her friendly, knowledgeable, professional staff. Dr. Cho takes the time to hear my health concerns - I never feel like she's rushing me."
"Cured my stomach issues with simple lifestyle change and other natural remedies, instead of lifelong medication."
Eliza K.
"I've been going to her for about three years. She keeps up on the most modern research and uses state-of-the art testing."
"Dr. Cho takes care of my entire self, inside and out, with preventive medicine, a combination of east-west medicine, and a caring, holistic attitude."
"She is a big believer in prevention and will always discuss life adjustments, diet or supplement, before resorting to medication."
Antonio C.
"I've been going to Dr Cho around 6 years and love it. She's been great at helping me stay proactive in staying healthy."
Katosha G.
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Wellness at Century City, Los Angeles, CA
Address: 2080 Century Park East, Suite 807, Los Angeles, CA 90067
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Man honors late wife with Carrie Underwood truck
MANHATTAN, Kan. (WFLA/CNN) – A truck driving around Manhattan Kansas is drawing eyes and ears of residents.
“You know I’m pretty lucky, who else gets to drive around with Carrie Underwood all the time,” said Lawrence Young, the owner of the truck. “The radio has never been played in this truck, Carrie Underwood music all the time.”
Lawrence Young coins himself as a Carrie Underwood superfan with his tribute truck.
“My wife and I have loved Carrie Underwood music from the time she was on American Idol in 2005.”
But the reason for the truck is more than just about his love for the music, but for his wife, who got sick in 2010. Kathi Young suffered from Fibromyalgia. She went into surgery in 2010 and later had a second surgery.
“They said she would regain consciousness and I could see her in an hour, well one hour went by 6 hours went by 24 hours went by, she hadn’t regained consciousness.”
She was left with severe brain damage and doctors saying she would never be able to talk again.
“So I immediately started playing Carrie’s music when we put her in the bed at home, and within the first 48 hours we saw more activity.”
Nine weeks later, less than a minute before Kathi died, she told Lawrence one last thing.
“Carrie music help through a rough time,” Young recalled.
So fast forward to today, 70-year-old Lawrence Young driving around Northeast Kansas waving and listening to Carrie Underwood hits.
“I did this to honor my wife and honor Carrie because without Carrie’s music I would have lost my wife 9 weeks earlier.”
So every time he steps foot into his truck, he knows his wife is singing along too.
“She loved Carrie Underwood and I know she’s smiling.”
Lawrence has been to five Carrie Underwood concerts with his wife while she was alive. He has yet to meet her, but that’s all going to change this September when Underwood comes to Wichita.
Pasco County / 1 hour ago
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PUBLISHED: 15:12 04 August 2006 | UPDATED: 10:45 01 June 2010
Two Wisbech firefighters have won a national competition after beating off stiff competition from 19 teams from across the country. Full-time firefighter Rob Wabe, left, and Gary Reach, a firefighter with the Ministry of Defence and retained firefighter
Two Wisbech firefighters have won a national competition after beating off stiff competition from 19 teams from across the country.
Full-time firefighter Rob Wabe, left, and Gary Reach, a firefighter with the Ministry of Defence and retained firefighter at Wisbech, took part in the Trauma Challenge at Brighton.
The pair were presented with a scenario in which a casualty was injured in an explosion, trapped by falling rubble and suffering from multiple injuries.
The Cambridgeshire team was made up of Rob, Gary, Ian, Graham Brighty, Jamie Nobbs and Tim Simons, all based at Wisbech.
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6 Unique Things to do in Marrakech
Marrakech is one of those cities you can get lost in - literally. It's a maze of twisting alleys and crowded souks, and can be tough to navigate even after being there for a few days.
What I really liked about it though was how much it had to offer for tourists. Whether your idea of a good time is indulging in a relaxing spa experience, or getting lost in the ruins of an ancient palace, Marrakech has something for you.
In this post, I'll go through 6 of my favorite, and most unique things to do in Marrakech. Keep reading till the end and you'll find a bonus list of things I didn't do, but recommend checking out, and a couple of things I did do, but don't recommend.
Let me know what interests you the most in the comments below!
1. Appreciate the Saadian Tombs and Moulay El Yazid Mosque
The Saadian Tombs are a collection of intricately-decorated tombstones in a small mausoleum. It sounds like an eerie place, but it was turned out to be a really nice surprise during our time in Marrakech. Compared to the busy medina outside of its walls, the Saadian Tombs were a peaceful escape.
Spend half-an-hour or so here, and then admire the Moulay El Yazid Mosque outside. While you can’t go in unless you’re Muslim, there are a lot of great cafes outside the mosque where you can sit and admire it.
Hours (Saadian Tombs): 9 am - 4:45 pm
Price (Saadian Tombs): 10 dh
2. Discover Ben Yousseff Madrasa
Ben Yousseff Madrasa was once an Islamic college in Marrakech which housed about 900 students. Today, it’s open for viewing by the public and is one of the most sought after photo ops in Marrakech. The old college is known for its well-preserved, 14th-century architecture, and colorful tiles.
Unfortunately for Yuting and I, Ben Yousseff Madrasa was completely closed down when we visited. It was undergoing major construction and the workers weren’t allowing anyone to go inside.
Hours: 9 am - 7 pm (6 pm in the Winter)
Price: 20 dh
3. Get lost in the ruins of the Badi Palace
If you’re short on time and can’t decide whether you should visit the Bahia Palace, or the Badi Palace, go for Badi. It’s more of an actual ruin to explore, and had a few, sweet surprises up its sleeve.
For one, the walls of this ruin are dotted with giant stork nests. Storks in Marrakech are considered to be holy animals - something easy to believe after spending time observing them. Unlike smaller bird nests, stork nests are made with thick branches, and look strong enough to support a small human (wasn’t able to test this unfortunately)...
Read more: Spending the Night in the Sahara Desert
In the center of Badi Palace, is a sunken down orange grove and a few, small reflection pools. For the best view, go left after you pass through the first archway after the entrance, and head up the flight of stairs. You’ll be able to see the entire midsection of the palace, as well as catch a glance of the busy streets outside of the walls.
Hours: 9 am - 5 pm
4. Binge on fresh juice in Jemaa el-Fna
Jemaa el-Fna is the main square in Marrakech. If you're staying anywhere near here during your stay, you'll likely cross through this square multiple times a day.
For some that's a good thing - others, not so much. Jemaa el-Fna can be chaotic and a little bit disturbing at times. Moroccan men have monkeys on chains, boys fight for money and there are so many people you feel inclined to constantly clutch your belongings tightly.
That being said, don't be scared off by Jemaa el-Fna. It's an eye-opening place that will awaken your senses. One of my favorite things about the square was the orange juice stalls. For only a few dirhams, you can buy a fresh glass of orange juice. It was so yummy Yuting and I bought multiple glasses some days.
The one thing to watch out for though, is stand owners not giving you back the correct amount of change. We ran into this scam a lot in Jemaa el-Fna, and had to be careful to check our change after every purchase.
TIP: If you don't want to get scammed and just want to drink fresh juice in a relaxing setting, head to a cafe. The price will be a little more expensive, but the juice is still delicious and you'll get better service. Also, make sure to try different flavors of fruit juice and smoothies! Besides orange juice, I really liked avocado smoothies, pomegranate juice, and banana smoothies.
Hours: Varies
Price: 4-20 dh
5. Learn about Moroccan architecture at the Bahia Palace
Compared to the Badi Palace, Bahia is a lot less of a ‘ruin,’ and more of an empty, architectural masterpiece. As you walk through the different rooms and courtyards, you’ll notice all the detailing and tiles are well preserved. This is because although the palace is empty of furniture and residents, it is still fairly new as far as palaces go.
Bahia Palace was built in the late 19th-century for the personal use of the Grand Vizier of the Sultan. In the early 1900’s, the palace was ransacked and eventually deserted. Today, a portion of the rooms are open to the public, as well as a few courtyards.
6. Try a camel burger at Cafe Clock
Whenever I visit a new country, I try to be pretty open about the different foods and flavors. While it was never a particular goal of mine to eat camel, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try something so unique.
Cafe Clock, the home of the camel burger, has two locations: one in Fes, and one in Marrakech (the one we went to). The Marrakech location is a bit of a walk from Jemaa el-Fna, but not too far from the Badi Palace. During our stay, we went to the Badi Palace in the morning, and then met a couple of friends at Cafe Clock for lunch.
Read more: Cost of Traveling in Morocco
Taste wise, the burgers were delicious. The meat was fresh and moist, and served with homemade Taza ketchup on a fluffy bun. My only complaint with the whole experience was the price. Cafe Clock is beautiful and serves delicious food, but charges prices more equivalent to those in the United States.
A camel burger with fries was 95 dh. Compared to the cost of the rest of the meals we ate in Morocco, that was outrageous. However, even as a budget backpacker myself, sometimes it's worth it to spend a little bit more money for a new experience.
Hours: 9 am - 10 pm
Things I didn’t get to, but recommend doing:
Ouzoud Falls - This was going to be our last stop of the trip, but we ended up not making it in time. If you’re waterfall-obsessed like myself though, or need a break from Marrakech, Ouzoud Falls would make for a good day-trip. It’s about a 2 hr drive from Marrakech, and is home to a few groups of small monkeys (if the waterfall wasn’t motivation enough).
Hammam experience - A hammam is the ultimate way to relax in Marrakech. Like the Turkish bath experience, a hammam involves stripping down, taking a sudsy bath, sitting in a sauna, exfoliating and getting a massage. It can be a long ordeal, but will leave you feeling like a new person.
Read more: A Guide to Ait Benhaddou | Morocco's Game of Thrones Kasbah
Things I did do, but don’t recommend:
Marrakech Museum - We decided to stop in here after discovering Ben Yousseff Madrasa was closed, and weren’t too impressed. It cost 50 dh per person instead of the usual 10 dh, and didn’t have much to offer besides a few small rooms and exhibits.
The Tanneries - If you’re going to check tanneries in Morocco, do it in Fes. The ones in Marrakech are less nice, and one place almost every tourist gets scammed.
Like it? Pin it?
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Teabox.com : Darjeeling-Based Online Tea Shop That Sells 100+ Varieties Of Tea!
Tags: teabox business model
India is the world’s 4th largest exporter and 2nd largest producer of tea. Established by the East India Company, the industry in India is about 150 years old, but it still continues to follow the methods and practices setup by them.
The entire chain of the industry is a complete mess and consists of a range of middle men including brokers, importers, wholesalers, distributors, etc…
Due to this mess, a pack of tea has to cross a long journey of about 3-6 months from the gardens to the consumers.
What is Teabox?
Teabox is an online tea shop which is based in Siliguri in Darjeeling, the heart of India’s tea-growing region that connects tea to people.
It is an online store that works directly with over 200 plantations in India and Nepal, and sells tea to customers in 75 countries.
The company claims to have a selection of more than 100 varieties of tea some of which include – Black, Green, White, Oolong, Chai, Blends, from Regions including – Darjeeling, Assam, Nepal, Nilgiris, North-East, Kangra, etc…
Teabox has its own storage facilities near to all the plantations and also handles the distribution, supply, storage and logistics all by itself. Due to this kind of arrangement, they are able to drastically speed up the process and reduce the time taken for tea to reach customers.
Traditionally, the process used to take months because of the long chain of players that are involved in picking, sampling selling, stocking etc… but cutting out all the middlemen, Teabox delivers its orders in a matter of a week.
Let’s give you insights on how their process works?
To begin with –Teabox sources orthodox long leaves of tea, instead of the commercial tea dust that is manufactured by traditional CTC method.
In the selection process, the company first receives samples which go for tasting to their tea experts. The colour, the dry leaf, the appearance, the aroma, the presence of foreign particles, old leaves, brewed leaves, etc. are checked during this process. Post this, the tea that is most liked goes to the testing process of its moisture, to check its contamination.
Overall, their tea experts play the most important role due to their experience, in sorting out the best tea from the bulk by giving their valuable insights. Only when a tea passes all these criteria’s is when Teabox buys that tea for further purchase.
After the completion of the selection process; the teas then go through another round of picking and sorting process. Here, the teas are first cleaned again and are sorted manually. Then, the broken leaves are removed and only the fuller, longer and freshest leaves are selected. Along with that, the stalk weeds that cause bitterness are also removed from the lot.
This highly selective manual procedure helps Teabox choose and bring out the richness and flavour in the teas.
Post this – the teas go through the Packaging process!
The four biggest enemies of tea are – moisture, light, heat and oxygen, and soon after the manufacturing, the tea starts deteriorating very fast for the first 6 weeks, and looses flavour, aroma and its freshness as well. And before it becomes flat, it also loses its sparkle and then turns completely dead in a few months too.
The only and best possible solution to avert this is to store the teas in vacuum packaging. Vacuum packaging makes sure that the freshness, flavour and colour of the tea are maintained and that the customers get factory fresh tea.
Other than that, earlier teas had to go through a long journey before reaching the customers, thus, loosing out on quality and freshness. Therefore, to ensure the best possibility and freshness, Teabox also cuts short the long five-stage process to two, making the delivery in a week’s time.
The tea is vacuum packed and sealed in opaque wraps, and then shipped to customers within 48 hours of its production, unlike the traditional methods which involved retail storage period of 3–6 months.
Talking about their Shipping Process – Teabox delivers the tea pack in roughly 3-5 business days to any location in the world.
Their domestic delivery of Teabox is taken care by either – Blue Dart, DTDC or First Flight couriers; whereas, they have partnered with DHL/FedEx, Overnite Express-SPSR, EMS (India Post) or Air Mail, to handle their international shipping.
What Kind of Approach & Strategies Have They Adopted?
To begin with – Teabox is a business model that manufactures the product here in India, and sells them majorly to customers outside India.
Now Teabox since long has been using various strategies to maintain and grow their customer base, some of these include – ‘Tea Subscription Program’ (offering samples of various types of tea on a monthly basis), Offering high-end teas at discounted rates to established brands like Twinings and upscale European, Asian and American tea salons, etc…
But beyond these, what has helped them the most is Rebranding and Change in Approach!
The company was originally founded as Darjeeling TeaXpress in 2012.
After two years since their initiation, they could see that their brand identity lacked depth, and the character of the brand wasn’t coming across as it should have. Hence in 2014, they decided to scale up their business and thought of repositioning and redesigning their brand and brand identity.
The idea was not to merely re-design the website and revamp the packaging, but they wanted their product to communicate with the customers and tell them who Teabox was more clearly. To do so – they hired Pentagram (world’s largest independent design consultancy).
This change in their strategy has worked wonders for them…
Talking about their approach: – Teabox believes that their approach is what sets them apart! Unlike the large corporates, who continue to work on the age-old models, Teabox has gone few steps ahead to create their own model.
They have not only created an entirely new supply chain model, but have also chosen to use technology instead of the traditional brick-and-mortar setup, to reach more consumers.
Taking a cue from the successful wine industry, Teabox offers online descriptions for its products by the experts. Teabox’s website presents tea like wine literally. When you select a tea, you can see the garden where it originated, time of bloom and date of plucking, as done by vineyards. You will also find detailed instructions and tasting notes given under every Tea that is presented.
But what truly sets Teabox apart, is their use of technology to enable them to understand their customers more effectively. Based on your purchasing history, their algorithms suggest other teas that you may like, and to add to that, every shipment that you receive also includes a sample of another tea as well.
Other than that, Teabox also uses an algorithm-based personalised tea service wherein you have to take a survey, which then matches your characteristics to that of a tea, and delivers a match of the best teas that would suit you. Initially, the accuracy rate is of over 35%, which further zooms up to 90% after the third order placement.
Just like other eCommerce sites, Teabox also uses technology for their online operations, wherein, Algorithms predict the demand, based on factors such as past sales, internal ranking of tea varieties, pricing, etc…
Who Leads The Brand?
Kaushal Dugar is the founder of Teabox. He was born and raised in Siliguri in Darjeeling. Darjeeling, a place located in the foothills of the Himalayas, is known to be heart of heart of India’s tea-growing region, with tea plantations at every nook-and-corner.
He belonged to family which had trade connections in the Tea industry since decades. His father was supplier of all the needs and resources including machines, parts, irrigation equipment, etc to the tea gardens.
Kaushal too learned the trade from his father. He used to spend his childhood summers on tea plantations in Assam and Darjeeling along with his father and used to learn the business.
He became an entrepreneur at an early age of 6. He saw that his friends loved comic books, and hence, started lending comic books in exchange for some candy.
Later, Kaushal moved to Singapore to pursue his Bachelor’s in Business Management, Finance, Marketing from the Singapore Management University in 2002.
Soon after he completed his studies, Kaushal went on to found his first official venture called “GAR Services Pte. Ltd” in March 2006. The company was about IT / Electronic waste management and also provided affordable branded refurbished computers for lower income groups in India Singapore.
Post this stint of his, Kaushal joined KPMG in Singapore as an Associate in 2007 and went on to get promoted to a Senior Associate in the next one year. His roughly two year stint at KPMG including tasks such as Pricing Strategy, Forecasting Financial Statements, Financial Modelling, Due Diligence, Negotiations, Human Resources Deployment, Advisory, etc…
After gaining the relevant experience, Kaushal then again decided to venture out. He founded ‘Books To Read’ – A non-profit aimed to help primary & secondary school children get access to books in developing nations. He founded this venture in 2008 and still continues to run it.
Moving on! In 2010, Kaushal then founded ‘Sandbox Network’ – a global community of inspiring young achievers and innovators under the age of 30, to connect them to each other, to fulfil each other’s needs and purposes. He continues to run this community.
And then finally, he landed to his true calling in 2012. He founded Teabox (earlier known as Darjeeling TeaXpress).
How Has Their Growth Been So Far?
So Kaushal had founded Darjeeling TeaXpress with less than $33,000 in 2012, with an aim to sell fresh Darjeeling Tea. He had also created an online portal that helped him export Darjeeling tea worldwide.
The Production, post production and packaging was set up in Siliguri. At this point, Darjeeling TeaXpress did not have any offline presence and only sold Darjeeling tea.
Soon, they also began expanding this product range and also added teas from Assam, Niligiri and Nepal, which eventually led to the formation of Teabox in October 2013.
Around the same time, Kaushal was also in search of an able e-commerce partner who could help the company to reach its potential consumers on a global scale, and in 2014, he completed his search with ‘Accel Partners’. Accel decided to fund Teabox with their first round investment $1 Mn in 2014.
While at it, Teabox also went through an overall change of design, look-and-feel, branding and approach. The website of Teabox was now made available in multiple languages, including Russian, and Chinese.
Their focus had now changed too. On one end, they were targeting the tea connoisseurs, who were very happy to have an access to teas that were otherwise hard to procure, and the fact that these teas were being made available to them in a matter of days.
While on the other end, they were targeting the masses in general. These were neither connoisseurs nor experts. They drank tea out of complete randomness, with absolutely no experience beyond what the supermarket teas could offer. Kaushal realised that, this audience was rather confused and unclear with the options they found on the site, because they barely understood the difference.
For them, they introduced subscription program called ‘Teabox Fresh Beginnings’ in may 2014. Basically, members used to receive samples of various types of tea on a monthly basis. Through their subscription program, they also performed surveys and took customer feedback to understand the areas of improvement.
Beyond addressing the problem of convenience, they wanted to solve a bigger problem at large, i.e. discovering the right kinds of teas. And to do so, they started the world’s first (patent-pending) personalised ‘tea club’.
This club basically uses a machine-learning algorithm which asks some very common questions and based on the answers it receives; it helps a tea novice to understand the kinds of teas they might want to try.
By June 2014 – Teabox had reached to point where it already had sold 10 million cups worth of tea to customers in 65 countries, and accounted for a team of 20 employees. Their growth rate at this point was somewhere between 300$ and 500%, and had also crossed $1 Mn in annual revenues as well. Their major business came from East Asia and North America.
In a matter of a year or rather presently, these developments have increased by manifolds. Teabox has opened another office in Bangalore which houses the technology, sales and marketing teams, with an overall strength of 35 people.
They also managed to raise another $6 Mn from JAFCO Asia, Accel Partners, Keystone Group, Dragoneer Investment Group in March 2015.
So far, although they are pretty shy at disclosing numbers, but Teabox already has grown 10x and has already made a sale of over 30 Mn cups or 60,000 kilograms of tea to 90 countries.
In terms of revenues, US has overtaken Russia to be their key market, which is then followed by Korea, Japan, the UK, India and then China.
Going ahead, the company is planning to setup little kiosks offline, just to create a Teabox experience, around his primary markets including – San Francisco, New York, London, Tokyo and Singapore.
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Spot News, 2nd prize
Protesters march on the royal palace, demonstrating against King Gyanendra. In February 2005, the monarch had dismissed the government of the country and assumed power. A general strike called by opposition parties in April 2006, was followed by an intensive campaign of anti-royal demonstrations and clashes with police around the country. By the end of the month, the king had capitulated and agreed to the reinstitution of parliament.
A woman is buried under bodies as police beat protesters with bamboo sticks. Protesters march on the royal palace, demonstrating against King Gyanendra. In February 2005, the monarch had dismissed the government of the country and assumed power. A general strike called by opposition parties in April 2006, was followed by an intensive campaign of anti-royal demonstrations and clashes with police around the country. By the end of the month, the king had capitulated and agreed to the reinstitution of parliament.
Shoes belonging to demonstrators who have fled from riot police lie beside blood from a boy wounded by bamboo batons. Protesters march on the royal palace, demonstrating against King Gyanendra. In February 2005, the monarch had dismissed the government of the country and assumed power. A general strike called by opposition parties in April 2006, was followed by an intensive campaign of anti-royal demonstrations and clashes with police around the country. By the end of the month, the king had capitulated and agreed to the reinstitution of parliament.
Protesters throw stones in the suburb of Kalanki, on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Protesters march on the royal palace, demonstrating against King Gyanendra. In February 2005, the monarch had dismissed the government of the country and assumed power. A general strike called by opposition parties in April 2006, was followed by an intensive campaign of anti-royal demonstrations and clashes with police around the country. By the end of the month, the king had capitulated and agreed to the reinstitution of parliament.
Anti-monarchists burn tires on the ring road around Kathmandu's city center. Protesters march on the royal palace, demonstrating against King Gyanendra. In February 2005, the monarch had dismissed the government of the country and assumed power. A general strike called by opposition parties in April 2006, was followed by an intensive campaign of anti-royal demonstrations and clashes with police around the country. By the end of the month, the king had capitulated and agreed to the reinstitution of parliament.
Spot News,1st prize
Agnes Dherbeys
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2007 Photo Contest, Spot News, Stories, 2nd prize
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Nicolas Gouhier
João Kehl
Peter Schols
Steve Christo
David Klammer
Craig Golding
Mohammed Ballas
Jeroen Oerlemans
Akintunde Akinleye
Yonathan Weitzman
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Home » Fiction writers
Fiction writers
The Best Daphne Du Maurier Books | Five Books Expert Recommendations
Fri, 18/01/2019 - 4:14pm Chris Holifield
The Best Daphne Du Maurier Books | Five Books Expert Recommendations website
Daphne du Maurier is one of the most overlooked writers of the twentieth century, says Oxford University's Laura Varnam. As Rebecca celebrates its eightieth anniversary and du Maurier enjoys a critical renaissance, Varnam explores five works that best highlight this novelist's sheer range and brilliance-from biography and fiction to history and horror.
Why Doesn’t America Love the Novella? – Electric Literature
Thu, 20/12/2018 - 6:29pm Chris Holifield
Why Doesn’t America Love the Novella? – Electric Literature website
What happens when "bigger is better" becomes an ethos for an entire society? From SUVs that will never see a dirt road to McMansions that could fit several families, American culture right now abounds with an excess of, well, excess. The normalization of this can distort priorities, creating a sense that something far larger than what we need is what we want. Read more
What Fiction Decline? An Indie Author's Asking.
Thu, 22/11/2018 - 12:04pm Chris Holifield
What Fiction Decline? An Indie Author's Asking. website
In America and Britain, fiction is said to be in decline. PW recently called attention to the 16% (or $830 million) decline in the sales of adult fiction reported by the Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies during the 2013-2017 period. In Britain, the Publishers Association reports a slightly larger drop over a similar period. Read more
What’s the Matter with Fiction Sales?
What’s the Matter with Fiction Sales? website
According to 2017 estimates released this summer by the Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies, sales of adult fiction fell 16% between 2013 and 2017, from $5.21 billion to $4.38 billion. The numbers, though not a major worry, raise questions about the books the industry is publishing and what consumers want to read.
Stephen King: Master of Almost All the Genres Except "Literary" | Literary Hub
Thu, 21/06/2018 - 11:33am Chris Holifield
Stephen King: Master of Almost All the Genres Except "Literary" | Literary Hub website
Imagine you're in an airport boarding lounge, or the waiting room at virtually any train station or bus terminal in the Western world. Maybe you commute to work or school by subway. It doesn't matter. Look around. Somewhere in there, among hundreds of fellow travelers, lurks the shade of a tall, lanky man in a Red Sox gimme cap. Read more
The Writers’ Roundtable: Fiction vs. Nonfiction
The Writers’ Roundtable: Fiction vs. Nonfiction website
A lifetime ago, it seems, I used to write fiction. I wrote little stories on scraps of paper as a young kid; throughout grade school, I filled my unused notebooks with attempts at novels; I wrote a few short stories in high school and college. But since I started freelancing full-time a decade ago, I haven't written a single line of fiction.
Authors hit back at Self's claim 'the novel is doomed' | The Bookseller
Authors hit back at Self's claim 'the novel is doomed' | The Bookseller website
Authors have hit back at writer Will Self's assertion that the novel is "doomed to become a marginal cultural form".
Self's interview in the Guardian, published on Saturday (17th March), featured insights into his thoughts on the Iraq war, e-readers, the future of fiction and female writers. Read more
Will Self: ‘The novel is absolutely doomed’ | Books | The Guardian
Will Self: ‘The novel is absolutely doomed’ | Books | The Guardian website
Will Self is the author of 10 novels, five collections of short stories and several works of nonfiction, including The Quantity Theory of Insanity, Dorian and Walking to Hollywood. Phone is the final instalment of the trilogy that began with Umbrella and Shark and is out now in paperback (Viking, £8.99).
Cat Person is 'mundane', Austen is 'dross': why do so many men hate female writing?
Cat Person is 'mundane', Austen is 'dross': why do so many men hate female writing? website
Although you might expect to see "short story" in a sentence topped and tailed with "is the" and "dead?", in the past few days a New Yorker short story written by the previously unknown Kristen Roupenian has gone viral. Read more
Stop dissing romance novels already - The Washington Post
Stop dissing romance novels already - The Washington Post website
What does a woman want?
If you're in publishing, this is not an idle - or sexist - question. As Ian McEwan said more than 10 years ago, "When women stop reading, the novel will be dead."
'Publishers don't nurse you,; they buy and sell you.'
— P D James
'Ordinary life is shapeless'
'Are these people real to me?'
Scribd cuts romance and erotica titles | Books | The Guardian
The Marsh Agency Ltd
Penguin Random House Might Not Understand the Subscription Market, But They're Getting Into It Anyway | Ink, Bits, & Pixels
Why Choose the Name Hermux Tantamoq?
International Publishing, Book Fairs and Trade Shows, Translation, Foreign Rights, International Bestsellers
Sassy Books
Lar Cassidy Award
A week of Armageddon
22 October 2012 - What's new
Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.
Sixty Years of Sterling Wisdom from the “Lord of Publishing”
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Red carpet rolled out for Vol royalty at Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame
Posted: Sat 6:54 PM, Jun 15, 2019 |
Updated: Sun 12:17 AM, Jun 16, 2019
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Some Tennessee greats are back in The Volunteer State to get inducted into the 2019 Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in Nashville this weekend. Those players included University of Tennessee greats Kippy Brown, Kara Lawson, Charles Davis, David Cutcliffe.
Some Tennessee greats are back in The Volunteer State to be inducted into the 2019 Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in Nashville this weekend. Source: WVLT
The young quarterback, David Cutcliffe, told WVLT Manning helped mold him at UT.
"Peyton actually helped change the way I coached during the years he was there at Tennessee," Cutcliffe said.
Now retired as one of the all time greats in the national football league, Manning said this honor holds special meaning to him because The Volunteer State is where he really honed his craft.
"You go to Tennessee as an 18-year-old and you learn how to play quarterback and get an education and get you prepared for what's ahead. (I) just had a wonderful four years there," said Manning. "That's the reason I stayed for my senior year because of the great support and coaching I got during my first three years. I wanted one more year of that. Like I said, one of the best decisions I ever made was to go to Tennessee and then to stay for my senior year was an important one as well."
Established in 1966, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame enshrines and honors athletes, teams, coaches, sports writers and sports administrators who have made an impact on the history of Tennessee sports.
It's safe to say this 2019 class has done just that.
Copyright 2019 WVLT. all rights reserved.
Nashville to host 2021 SEC Media Days
Former Kentucky quarterback Jared Lorenzen dies at 38
Former Knoxville Open winner takes Travelers Championship
Former Lady Vol, WNBA player Kara Lawson among prestigious Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame class
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Mondays at 6:44 a.m.; 8:44 a.m. during Morning Edition and 4:44 p.m. during All Things Considered
Hosted by Ann Thompson
Ann Thompson reports on the latest trends in technology and their effects on medicine, safety, the environment or entertainment.
How UC plans to change cancer care in 3 years
By Ann Thompson • Mar 8, 2013
Ann Thompson WVXU
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation says the U.S. is becoming more successful in treating some kinds of cancer, including brain, colorectal, stomach and breast cancer. This is due in part to more aggressive care. The University of Cincinnati is pledging more aggressive and personalized care with a new team of doctors and a new center. WVXU's Ann Thompson reports what makes the new bone marrow transplant center and its doctors different, in Focus on Technology.
Preventing classified data from being compromised
The Pentagon is increasing its cybersecurity force fivefold after a series of hacking incidents that have originated in China and other places. In recent months U.S. businesses and newspapers have also been compromised. Suspects include organized rings and teenage hackers from Russia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Increasingly the U.S. government and businesses are taking steps to better protect themselves. Ann Thompson reports in Focus on Technology.
Early detection of pancreatic cancer may come from this magnet
By Ann Thompson • Feb 22, 2013
The NMR 850 mhz is in full use in the basement of Hughes Laboratories at Miami University. The most recent experiment using this powerful magnet, one of the strongest in the world, aims to discover signs of pancreatic cancer earlier. Ann Thompson reports in "Focus on Technology."
Star Trek-like Tricorder in the works
Dottie Stover, University of Cincinnati
The first step in developing a Tricorder device may only be a few years away. UC researcher Jason Heikenfeld is testing his band-aid like patch. With just a few drops of sweat, it will monitor health and diagnose disease on people and in the lab using artificial skin that mimics sweat. Ann Thompson reports in "Focus on Technology."
Growing life science companies
By Ann Thompson • Feb 8, 2013
Ann Thompson / WVXU
BioLOGIC, Covington's life sciences accelerator, is expanding. Not only do city leaders hope to fill the space but they are counting on the bright ideas and talented workforce to help lure other life science companies to the area. Ann Thompson reports in "Focus on Technology."
Are smart guns the next silver bullet?
Interest in "smart guns," using biometrics and radio frequency technology, has rebounded following recent gun violence. President Obama has included them as part of his plan to reduce such mass shootings. Who makes these guns? How do they work? And will they catch on? Ann Thompson reports in "Focus on Technology."
Coronary arteries healed with dissolvable stents
By Ann Thompson • Jan 25, 2013
WVXU
The 4 billion dollar coronary stent market is about to get bigger. Bioresorbable stents are performing well, giving patients and doctors more options. Cincinnati's Christ Hospital is the lead hospital in a national study. Ann Thompson reports how Absorb™ works and what it could mean for the market.
Identifying and treating violent teens
Part of the President’s plan to reduce gun violence focuses on increased mental health services. Ann Thompson, in “Focus on Technology,” reports on Cincinnati efforts to be pro-active, involving a predictive spit test and photographing the brain.
Dr. Jim Eliassen stands behinds glass at the University of Cincinnati Center for Imaging Research.
North Korea: On the Other Side of the Firewall
North Koreans continue to face restrictions over cell phone and computer usage. As Google’s chairman visits the country, Ann Thompson reports in Focus on Technology, what Eric Schmidt may want and what the future may hold for those who live there. East-West Center Associate Scott Thomas Bruce weighs in and so does Suk-Ho Shin, a reporter for South Korea's leading newspaper DONG-A-ILBO.
Drones to Gather News?
By Ann Thompson • Jan 4, 2013
The Federal Aviation Administration has started writing licensing and safety regulations regarding using unmanned air vehicles (UAV’s) for alternate purposes, such as newsgathering, by 2015. In this week’s Focus on Technology, Ann Thompson reports on how these drones may eliminate the need for TV news helicopters.
Future Innovations to Keep Elderly at Home Include Robots
By Ann Thompson • Dec 21, 2012
Smart devices and robots are keeping older adults in their homes longer. In this week’s Focus on Technology, Ann Thompson reports that University of Cincinnati students are inventing new devices and aids to test in a smart house.
New 4-D Transistors
In the world of computing it’s all about being faster and better. As Ann Thompson reports in this week’s Focus on Technology, a group of Purdue and Harvard scientists have come up with a new 4-D transistor. The novel design and material, directing the flow of electrical current, is said to be a preview of future computers.
An Advancement in Studying Cancer
By Ann Thompson • Dec 7, 2012
In this week’s Focus on Technology, Ann Thompson reports there’s a new way to study one of the most deadly forms of cancer.
3D Laser Scanner aids crash investigators
By Ann Thompson • Nov 30, 2012
The faster police clear an accident, the faster you can get moving again. In this week’s Focus on Technology, Ann Thompson reports on new tools increasing the speed and accuracy of documenting police reports.
Medicine might one day fend off some ailments of old age
The fountain of youth may be closer than you think. A German researcher working at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center appears to have discovered a way to reverse the aging of cells. It won’t make you look any younger but it might make you feel better as Ann Thompson reports in this week’s Focus on Technology.
When Computers Become as Smart as People
A new book, Singularity Rising, suggests computers are on the path to becoming as smart as people. In this week’s Focus on Technology, Ann Thompson, in an interview with author James Miller, reports on how soon it could happen, which country will have the technology first, and what could derail it.
America's Power Grid
By Ann Thompson • Nov 9, 2012
Superstorm Sandy uncovers some gaps in grid technology. Ann Thompson, in this week’s Focus on Technology, reports on efforts nationally, and locally, to prevent such outages and provide adequate back-up power.
Links for this story:
http://www.duke-energy.com/about-us/smart-grid.asp
http://www.alumifuelpowertech.com/?page_id=350
Meet the Germinator
The germinator is at work in area hospitals. Ann Thompson will let you know what it is and how it works on this week’s Focus on Technology.
Bengals playbook goes digital
By Ann Thompson • Oct 26, 2012
Sleek new iPads replace big playbooks and DVD’s for Cincinnati Bengals players who can now prepare anytime, anyplace. Ann Thompson reports on this new trend in this week’s Focus on Technology.
The Cost of Going Mobile
Having a smart phone, a tablet, an e-reader and more costs a lot of money and it’s more than just the purchase price. In this week’s Focus on Technology, Ann Thompson reports on how to stay connected and stay within your budget.
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Published Monday 11 December 2017 | By Zeno
Homeopaths publish ten studies they claim affirm the ‘potential benefits of homeopathy for a range of health problems’, but do they withstand scrutiny?
Homeopathy is under severe pressure in the UK with what little credibility it had, destroyed. The ending of referrals from GPs in Liverpool and the Wirral over the last year or so and consultations on the future of homeopathy in Clinical Commissioning Groups in Bristol and Enfield, and more recently by NHS England, have piled on top of the decline by 96% of NHS prescriptions for homeopathy in England in the past 20 years.
We have also seen the recent announcement that Weleda (a supplier of homeopathic and anthroposophic products to the NHS) is ending the production of their ‘bespoke’ homeopathic products. The pending outcome of a consultation by the Charity Commission on CAM charities could add yet more woe.
We could be seeing the final death throes of homeopathy on the NHS with possible knock-on effects on the businesses of lay homeopaths: many relying on the false imprimatur leant to it by the NHS.
In November, the Council of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) issued a position statement including ‘Homeopathy exists without a recognised body of evidence for its use. Furthermore, it is not based on sound scientific principles.’
This followed a statement in September 2017 from the European Association of Science Advisory Councils, which represents the national science academies of 27 countries, concluding that homeopathy ‘can actually be harmful: by delaying or deterring a patient from seeking appropriate, evidence-based, medical attention and by undermining patient and public confidence in scientific evidence.’
Homeopaths are also under pressure from the Advertising Standards Authority to make sure their advertising is ‘legal, decent, honest and truthful’, but many still seem to have difficulty with those principles. To protect the public from misleading claims, the ASA rightly sets a high standard of evidence — one clearly too high for homeopaths. But the ASA make it easy for homeopathy advertisers, stating: “Practitioners should therefore avoid making direct or implied claims that homeopathy can treat medical conditions.” Crystal clear.
Whether it concerns human or animal health, the debate is clearly about the consideration of the best available scientific evidence; to that battle, homeopaths come unarmed. Continue reading →
Posted in AltMed | Tagged Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), evidence, Homeopathy, NHS, Nightingale Collaboration, professional standards authority, Regulation, society of homeopaths | Leave a comment
Published Saturday 29 August 2015 | By Zeno
Prof Ernst has covered the details of the Judicial Review brought by homeopathy user Honor Watt against NHS Lothian after their decision to withdraw funding for homeopathy referrals to the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital: Homeopathy: another day in court + another defeat.
Puffballs
The judgement, published yesterday, names the three products she was prescribed and calls them ‘homeopathic medicines’: Agaricus and Rockrose for anxiety and Bovista for arthritis.
Ignoring the fact that many homeopaths would baulk at the notion of prescribing a homeopathic potion for a particular medical condition rather than treating her ‘holistically’, it’s interesting to look at these in a bit more detail.
We know that the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital buys most or all of its supplies of homeopathy products from Freemans Homeopathic Pharmacy in the village of Busby, just south of Glasgow.
Agaricus and Bovista (puffball) are both genuses of mushroom and Freemans list four different Agaricus products: Agaricus Bulb, Agaricus Emet, Agaricus Muscarius and Agaricus Stercorarius, and one Bovista product: Bovista (Lycoperdon Gigan). It could well be these that Watt was prescribed.
RockRose isn’t listed as a homeopathic product, but Rock Rose is one of the 38 Bach Flower products and Freemans do sell these — genuine Bach Centre products, apparently — so it could be this she was prescribed for her anxiety.
Homeopath Dr Edward Bach described Rock Rose thus:
The rescue remedy. The remedy of emergency for cases where there even appears no hope. In accident or sudden illness, or when the patient is very frightened or terrified or if the condition is serious enough to cause great fear to those around. If the patient is not conscious the lips may be moistened with the remedy.
Another one of the 38 Bach flower food products
Bach Flower products are not homeopathic, of course: they are very dilute herbal products, usually diluted to around 1 part in 100,000 using brandy and grape alcohol. And there is not a jot of good evidence to support any notion that it can do what Bach supposed it could.
But then, Bach Flower Remedies are foods, not medicines and have been that way since the medicines regulator, the MHRA, cancelled the Product Licences of Right (which they had held for the past 40-odd years) in January 2014. Because of this, they are now classified as foods and have to abide by the rules laid down by the EU Register of authorised health and nutrition claims. In the UK, advertising claims for food supplements fall within the remit of the Advertising Standards Authority. The rules do allow some health claims to be made, but only ones authorised as shown in the register. However, because Bach products are mostly alcohol, the rules rightly prohibit any health claims.
The Bach Centre sells Rock Rose in the usual 10 ml bottle for £5.99 to the general public. I wonder how much NHS Lothian were paying?
Only by the label
Of course, the two mushroom products are unlicensed medicines and as such, should not be advertised, sold or supplied to the general public, but we know that Freemans have sold other unlicensed medicines to the public, including homeopathic owl.
We also know that, once in their bottles, it’s a bit difficult to tell which is which. Giving evidence to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee in 2007, Kate Chatfield. representing the Society of Homeopaths and a senior lecturer in homeopathy at the University of Central Lancashire was asked:
Lord Broers: I have a simple, technical question about homeopathy and drugs. Is it possible to distinguish between homeopathic drugs after they have been diluted? Is there any means of distinguishing one from the other?
Ms Chatfield: Only by the label.
Prof Ernst was also present, but Hansard doesn’t record whether he chuckled at that admission.
Too many Cooks?
John Cook of North West Friends of Homeopathy and director of the British Homeopathic Association (BHA) gets a mention in the judgement as having been specially invited by Lothian Health Board during their consultation and the judgement mentions that the Board’s submission says:
The real force behind the petition [to the Court of Session] was a charity, not the petitioner. [Honor Watt]
The Judge says no more about this — presumably because it was irrelevant to the case as presented — but the BHA is mentioned in relation to its position on the evidence for homeopathy.
We know the BHA — and John Cook in particular — are staunch defenders of homeopathy and they are one of only of several homeopathy charities, but it does seem a fair assumption that it was the BHA that was behind this — they are a charity, after all. Perhaps they were funding it as well. It could have been another homeopathy charity, Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century [sic]. Who knows? If you do, please let me know.
I was checking the documents of the BHA that are filed at Companies House and noticed that two documents were filed on 20 August:
Termination of appointment of John Kenneth Halesworth Cook as a director on 15 April 2015
Termination of appointment of Francis Samuel Treuherz as a director on 3 August 2015
The BHA’s website still shows Treuherz (who also runs the website Homeopathy Helpline [sic]) as a trustee, but not Cook. Cook is shown as a Trustee in archive.org’s cache of that page on 16 March 2015.
The Charity Commission also shows the Treuherz as a trustee, but not Cook but their 2013–2014 report (filed on 15 May 2015) states (bizarrely):
Mr John K H Cook (retired 15 April 2015)
Interestingly, their area of operation as noted on the Charities Commission website is ‘Throughout England and Wales’. If it really was them behind the JR in Scotland, might the Charities Commission be interested (although given recent events it seems unlikely)?
It could be Cook was due to stand down (he was 68 in April) anyway… but is it a coincidence these documents were filed just seven days before the judgement was handed down?
CCG Homeopathy Funding Status – 2015
Marginalised
Whatever has been going on, the fact remains that homeopathy on the NHS is becoming increasingly marginalised, adding to the other recent signs that homeopathy is in its death throes on the NHS:
The (further) decline of homeopathy on the NHS
NHS Lanarkshire to end referrals to Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital
More misleading claims at NHS Homeopathic Hospitals
NHS Homeopathy Legal Challenge
NHS Homeopathy Spending
And what better excuse is needed to again highlight this, showing the decline in the number of NHS homeopathy prescriptions fulfilled in community pharmacies in England: a drop of 94% in the past 17 years.
Posted in AltMed | Tagged 1023, Edzard Ernst, Good Thinking Society, Homeopathy, NHS, Nightingale Collaboration | Leave a comment
Published Monday 23 February 2015 | By Zeno
Last month, the following exchange took place in the House of Commons during Health Questions, supposedly about the Government’s revised adult Autism strategy:
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con): Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is clear evidence that homeopathy is effective in treating autism, especially when doctors have not found a solution? Now that the Society of Homeopaths is regulated by the Professional Standards Authority, will he make more use of homeopathy in the health service generally, and in this particular instance?
Mr Speaker: The hon. Gentleman’s question is quite a long way from the statutory guidance, but it can be given a brief reply.
Norman Lamb: I have to say that I was not aware of the information provided by the hon. Gentleman. I should be happy for him to send me more information, but I make the general point that it is always important for us to base our decisions and expenditure on evidence.
We know Tredinnick is a True Believer in homeopathy and all thing quackish, but here is a definitive claim that “there is clear evidence that homeopathy is effective in treating autism”.
There is, of course, no good evidence homeopathy can effectively treat any condition whatsoever other than HWS (Heavy Wallet Syndrome), but it would certainly be interesting to see what evidence Tredinnick thought substantiated such a bold claim.
Since Normal Lamb (Minister of State for Care and Support at the Department of Health) asked Tredinnick to send him that information, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the DoH to get hold of that ‘clear evidence’.
The information provided consisted of a letter from Tredinnick, an article from the magazine Homeopathy in practice from 2010 titled Saving a lost generation: Autism and homeopathy and a screenshot of the home page of the website CEASE Therapy, originally created by the late homeopath and MD Tinus Smits:
See also Lee Turnpenny’s take on this FOIA response: ‘MINISTER FOR QUACKERY’: TREDINNICK’S CONTINUING FOLLY
Tredinnick told Lamb:
As you will be aware, in the past 20 years there has been a dramatic rise in neurological and developmental disorders in children, particularly Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Conventional medicine considers ASD incurable, and offers powerful pharmaceutical medication to deal with the most difficult behaviour, often with serious side effects.
However, there is ongoing work in this area by homeopaths in various places around the world including the Netherlands, United States and Australia, which suggests that homeopathy could be effective in tackling the possible underlying causes behind autism. I attach an article and information on this for your information.
Whilst the evidence on autism could be described as anecdotal, there were, up to the end of 2013, a total of 188 RCT papers in homeopathy (on 100 different medical conditions) which have been published in good quality scientific journals. 44% of the RCTs have a balance of positive evidence and only 5% are negative. The remainder were inconclusive which does not mean they are negative.
In light of the large number of conditions that conventional medicine finds difficult to treat, including autism, this is an area which does warrant further research.
Where to start with this…
Tredinnick regurgitates the same old zombie arguments and fallacious nonsense homeopaths and their supporters are wont to do.
But remember Tredinnick proclaimed in the House that “there is clear evidence that homeopathy is effective in treating autism”, so it’s surprising that he didn’t bother to provide any…
But at least he now says:
Whilst the evidence on autism could be described as anecdotal…
Is this his ‘clear evidence’? Is he now saying that anecdotal evidence is ‘clear evidence’ or has he realised that anecdotes are not ‘clear evidence’ and shifted his position? I doubt he has any clue.
Imaginary numbers
He has clearly taken what the British Homeopathic Association have published as gospel, but he’s quoted what they said last year:
How homeopaths like to present the evidence
The BHA’s current page has slightly different numbers, but let’s take Tredinnick’s outdated numbers to show how he misrepresents the balance of evidence.
He states that only 5% are negative and that 44% are positive. But what of the remaining 51%? Tredinnick tells us these are ‘inconclusive’ and implies that these should just be ignored.
But that’s not how it works.
Prof Edzard Ernst deals with this very problem in his blog post: The alchemists of alternative medicine – part 3: the ‘NON-CONCLUSIVE’ method:
A clinical trial is a research tool for testing hypotheses; strictly speaking, it tests the ‘null-hypothesis’: “the experimental treatment generates the same outcomes as the treatment of the control group”. If the trial shows no difference between the outcomes of the two groups, the null-hypothesis is confirmed. In this case, we commonly speak of a negative result. If the experimental treatment was better than the control treatment, the null-hypothesis is rejected, and we commonly speak of a positive result. In other words, clinical trials can only generate positive or negative results, because the null-hypothesis must either be confirmed or rejected – there are no grey tones between the black of a negative and the white of a positive study.
Homeopaths don’t like the way this turns out: it would mean that there were more negative trials than positive and that wouldn’t look too good in their advertising. It’s bad for business.
So, how could they spin this to make it look good for homeopathy?
Prof Ernst nails it:
One fairly obvious way of achieving this aim is to simply re-categorise the results. What, if we invented a new category? What, if we called some of the negative studies by a different name? What about NON-CONCLUSIVE?
How exactly do we do this? We continue to call positive studies POSITIVE; we then call studies where the experimental treatment generated worst results than the control treatment (usually a placebo) NEGATIVE; and finally we call those studies where the experimental treatment created outcomes which were not different from placebo NON-CONCLUSIVE.
What the evidence says in reality
Genius! (And it’s not often that can be said about homeopaths!)
The trick that Tredinnick uses makes it look as if the balance of evidence for homeopathy is overwhelmingly in its favour (44% to 5%), but the correct way to state his numbers is: 44% are positive and 56% are negative. Remember Tredinnick said “The remainder were inconclusive which does not mean they are negative”, but oh yes, it does mean they are negative — they do not refute the null hypotheses: they are therefore negative.
But even then it’s still not that simple.
All trials are equal, but some are more equal than others
There is no doubt that some of these 44% trials will be of a higher quality than others and what’s important is which of them are the better ones and what do the results of those show. Creating a trial that gives positive results for homeopathy is easy, but we should not be swayed by any trial without looking closely at how robust it is. If it is a trial that was not robust methodologically, we should view it with suspicion and treat its results with extreme caution. What we need to do — assuming what we’re trying to achieve is not to confirm preconceived beliefs but to genuinely look to see what the best, most robust, most independent, least biased evidence tell us — is to tentatively acknowledge those better results until such time as even better evidence comes along.
This isn’t the place to go through all the trials making up the 44%, but it’s useful to remind ourselves of the time when the Society of Homeopaths were investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority over claims they made. Their evidence was demolished by the ASA as not being up to the standard required to substantiate the claims they made. Although the ASA don’t identify the evidence the SoH provided, Cool Hard Logic on YouTube has had a very good go at identifying most of the papers. His demolition of them is a joy to watch. Click here to watch the video
But as Linde et al. noted after examining 89 placebo-controlled trials of homeopathy:
We conclude that in the study set investigated, there was clear evidence that studies with better methodological quality tended to yield less positive results.
Of course, looking at all the best evidence leads to just one conclusion:
It is concluded that the best clinical evidence for homeopathy available to date does not warrant positive recommendations for its use in clinical practice.
That’ll be a negative, then.
Why does Tredinnick believe otherwise?
The magazine article
Next up is the magazine article Tredinnick sent to Lamb. Perhaps it has that elusive evidence?
It’s not really worth demolishing all the tropes spewed out in it by homeopath Carol Boyce MCH CCH RSHom(NA), but the flavour of it can be got from just a couple of quotes:
Under the guise of ‘protecting’ children from the ‘scourge’ of childhood diseases, known to kill or maim just a handful of (already sick) children every year in the West, the push for enforced mass vaccination may be trading our children’s entire futures and with them the very future of society itself. (For more information on this see: http://www.ageofautism.com.)
The link to the notorious anti-vax site Age of Autism is very telling.
But, of course, homeopathy comes to the rescue:
Treating a case of ASD [Autism Spectrum Disorder] should be no different for the homeopath than any other case, although the options for success seem to be increased when the homeopath is familiar with the specific symptomatology of ASD, in order to identify the strange, rare, peculiar and characteristic symptoms of the case and not confuse them with those that belong to the diagnosis.
We can initially take the pressure off the system by removing the maintaining causes — gluten and casein — from the diet and supplementation to address the nutritional deficiencies that impact the ability to synthesise, catabolise and excrete.
Ultimately, though, the body must be able to complete these processes independently in order to sustain health in the absence of supplementation. Once these metabolic processes are reset and working efficiently, it stands to reason that external supplementation is no longer required and has the potential to overload the system, especially a system that has already had problems with excretion and subsequent toxicity.
There you have it in all it’s sciencey-sounding jargon finery, the simple solution to treating ASD.
If only someone would tell the doctors.
At least the article doesn’t fall into the usual referenciness trope and lists just:
Baron-Cohen S et al (2009) ‘Prevalence of autism-spectrum conditions: UK school-based population study.’ The British Journal of Psychiatry 194, 500-509 http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Activities/vsd/priority_studies.html#3
Knapp M, Romeo R, Beecham J (2007) Economic Consequences of Autism in the UK. Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities
Boyce C (2007) ‘Magnus Pharma and the Golden Goose — The case of allopathy and the implications for homeopathy.’ Similia Vol 19 No 1 June 2007
Klein L (2010) http://www.narayana-verlag.com/spectrum-homeopathy/louis-klein-the-orchid-project?fromOverview=spectrum-homeopathy-012010
Scholren J (2009) http://www.interhomeopathy.org/lanthanides_in_pdd_nos
Shang A (2005) http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)67177-2/abstract
None of those, however, provide Tredinnick’s ‘clear evidence that homeopathy is effective in treating autism’.
Just stop it
And finally, CEASE Therapy.
Standing for Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression, this has also been well covered elsewhere: here by Orac:
Apparently Tinus Smits was no different. I’ll give him credit, though. If you’re a homeopath and believe that autism is caused by vaccines, toxic medicine, other toxic substances and “some diseases,” what would you treat autistic children with? If you know the Law of Similars, you know the answer. The Law of Similars states that the way to treat a symptom is to use a diluted substance that causes the symptoms. So, if you’re a homeopath, it’s rather obvious. If you believe, against all science, against all reason, against all medicine that vaccines, “toxic medicine” and other “toxic substances” cause autism, then there’s only one thing to do, isn’t there. Yes, that’s right:
The treatment of autistic children and even adults has matured through 300 cases over the last three years and is called CEASE Therapy, which stands for Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression. Step by step all causative factors (vaccines, regular medication, environmental toxic exposures, effects of illness, etc.) are detoxified with the homeopathically prepared, that is diluted and potentized substances that caused the autism. Currently we use the 30C, 200C, 1M and 10M potencies to clear out the energetic field of the patient from the imprint of toxic substances or diseases.
Yep. Unadulterated pseudo scientific nonsense.
CEASE Therapy is frequently advertised on the websites of homeopaths and the notion that vaccines are the cause of just about everything is well ingrained in the homeopathic psyche.
But still no ‘clear evidence’. Perhaps there isn’t any after all.
Coincidentally, Tredinnick is hosting an event at Westminster this evening that promises to be, erm, interesting. As announced on the website of the Confederation of Healing Organisations:
An email sent out by a PR company (whose website doesn’t even appear to work) gave more details:
The evening, co-hosted by David Tredinnick and the Parliamentary Group for Integrated Healthcare, will begin with Professor Chris A. Roe (University of Northampton) presenting the positive results arising from the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date into the scientific evidence for the efficacy of healing as a complementary therapy. Immediately following this there will be a unique opportunity to question several of the lead researchers about the research and also the results. There will then be a wider discussion with the researches [sic] and a variety of representatives within the healing community about the implications of these results and what this means for healing as a complementary therapy within and alongside the NHS.
Forget homeopathy. Move aside chiropractic. Ignore acupuncture. We appear to have good positive evidence for Healing!
But what is ‘Healing’? Even the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, which ‘regulates’ Healers, isn’t very clear on what it actually is, saying simply:
The history of Healing stretches back for thousands of years. Nowadays most Healers view their work as a natural and purposeful energy based process which, from mostly anecdotal evidence, is believed to help relieve everyday stress, provide a sense of physical and emotional revitalisation and on some occasions bring about a deep sense of peace.
If you’re none the wiser, you’re not alone.
Anyway, this new evidence is being presented by Chris Roe, professor of psychology at the University of Northampton. His list of current research projects includes:
To conduct an analytical review of the published empirical studies on healing to date to determine whether it is tenable to claim that directed intention can have a measurable effect on another living system and to identify best practice to maximise effect sizes in future research (Confederation of Healing Organisations)
…so it looks like he’s presenting the results of this research.
It’ll be interesting to see what this meta-analysis is and how it stands up to scrutiny. Will it be ‘clear evidence’ as Tredinnick might think, or just ‘homeopathic’ levels of evidence?
If I get any information on it, I’ll let you know.
Oh my God — it’s full of stars!
While we’re talking about Tredinnick, the Good Thinking Society is still waiting to hear from him after they asked him to help them test astrology.
Tredinnick certainly seems to believe in it. In the House of Commons in 2009, he declared:
In 2001 I raised in the House the influence of the moon, on the basis of the evidence then that at certain phases of the moon there are more accidents. Surgeons will not operate because blood clotting is not effective and the police have to put more people on the street.
It would be easy, you would have thought, to provide evidence for clear claims such as those.
Evidence, for David Tredinnick, is nebulous, variable and malleable to suit whatever hobby-horse he is currently promoting.
How on earth did he get on both the Health and Science and Technology Select Committees if he is so clueless about evidence?
David Tredinnick is a Capricorn, of course.
Posted in AltMed, Government, Science | Tagged 1023, Edzard Ernst, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Government, Homeopathy | 2 Comments
Published Sunday 31 August 2014 | By Zeno
There’s an un-written rule — or at least there should be — that anything said in support of homeopathy cited by a homeopath or supporter should be taken with a large pinch of natrium muriaticum.
That’s not to say homeopaths will always be wrong or there won’t be some grain of truth in what they say, of course, but it will always bear a bit of investigation. There will frequently be more to it than meets the eye.
Take for example, a homeopath citing the meta-analysis Clinical trials of homoeopathy by Kleijnen et al. (1991). Nancy Malik summarises this paper thus:
Clinical Trials of Homeopathy (1991) FULL TEXT // 81 (77%) out of 105 RCT (1943-1990) shows statistically significant result for homeopathy and 15 out of 22 best quality studies are also statistically significant.
Out of 81, 5 out of 5 of the clinical trials for hay fever showed a positive result and 8 out of 10 trials looking at mental or emotional problems showed a beneficial effect, while 6 out of 7 trials for infection showed that homeopathy could effectively relieve the problem.
“Based on this evidence we would be ready to accept that homoeopathy can be efficacious, if only the mechanism of action were more plausible” and “the evidence presented in this review would probably be sufficient for establishing homoeopathy as a regular treatment for certain indications……..a conventional method would have been acknowledged with this amount of evidence”, the results are mostly favourable for homeopathy regarding the quality of trials.”
Glowing praise for homeopathy it would seem, but what she fails to mention is the conclusion the authors reached, quoted here in full:
Conclusions At the moment the evidence of clinical trials is positive but not sufficient to draw definitive conclusions because most trials are of low methodological quality and because of the unknown role of publication bias. This indicates that there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homoeopathy, but only by means of well performed trials.
Spot the difference. Malik does try to link to the paper (but not to an accessible copy of it), but how many will click on her link to check the veracity of what she says? Some other examples of conclusions homeopaths would rather you didn’t read can be found on the Discover Homeopathy website.
Anyway, the point is made: always check original sources to make sure claims made by homeopaths for homeopathy are complete and accurate.
How much do people trust homeopathy? That’s difficult to know unless a survey is done asking that specific question. We could perhaps use the sales of homeopathic products as a proxy, but market surveys are complex things to do and tend to cost a lot on money. Mintel, for example, will sell you their market survey on homeopathic and herbal products in the US for a mere £2,466.89 (Excl.Tax), or their report Complementary Medicines – UK – December 2009 for just £1,750. Well beyond the reach of many, including me.
But the teaser for that last report does tell us:
Growth in the UK’s £213 million complementary medicines market [note: not specifically homeopathy] has gathered pace in the last two years. It is estimated to have grown in value by some 18% between 2007 and 2009 when Mintel last reviewed the industry.
We also know that the market for homeopathic and anthroposophic medicinal products in the EU exceeded €1 billion for third year in a row in 2011. It doesn’t tell us anything about the sales in the UK, but it’s still an interesting figure. Whither the cries of homeopaths that they have no money for decent trials? And we know there is plenty of scope to raise the money for trials if they really, really wanted to.
But homeopaths frequently like to use increasing sales figures in the mistaken belief that this somehow correlates with efficacy. Equally, sales figures are not a measure of trust: they tell only about the success of marketing and PR that they do about whether homeopathy works or whether people trust it.
But fortunately, there are some limited data available that answers that question about trust.
In a recent Tweet, a dedicated homeopathy supporter claimed:
60% growth h’pathy mkt in Europe 1995-2005 Mintel est sales in UK to reach 46M pds 2012
When asked for a source of those figures, she replied:
Mintel, Global Global TGI Barometer — look them up
As I said, Mintel reports cost a lot of money, but I thought it would be interesting to see if I could find the Global TGI Barometer source.
A search shows that the one Global TGI (Target Group Index) Barometer that pops up regularly on homeopaths’ websites is the Global TGI Barometer, January 2008, Issue 33: The lure of alternative medicine. It’s this article that is cited frequently in support of homeopathy, eg:
British Homeopathic Association: The growing demand for homeopathy
A survey conducted by Global TGI in 2008 found 15% of the population of Britain trusted homeopathy.
Homeopathy manufacturer, Nelsons: 150 Facts About Homeopathy
57. In India, alternative treatments, including homeopathy, are well established and integrated into the healthcare system, with 94 per cent of people saying that they have faith in alternative remedies.[8] [8] Global TGI Barometer, January 2008; Issue 33.
Dr Brian Kaplan: Homeopathy in perspective:
Homeopathy has never been so popular; currently 15% of the population of Britain trust it.1 Homeopathy is the fastest-growing form of complementary medicine and has experienced a growth of 44% since 2004.1 1. Global TGI Barometer, January 2008; Issue 33.
Homeopath, Paula Yates:
It is estimated that between 6 and 9 million people in the UK choose to use homeopathy (Source: Global TGI Barometer, issue 33 – Jan 2008).
Homeopath, Gill Marshall:
It is used by 15% of people in the UK, 27% of Germans and 40% of French people. (2)
(2) Global TGI Barometer January 2008 Issue 33: The lure of alternative medicine.
There are a couple of websites that seem to give most of the text of the article (eg here and here, but the links to the original source are broken), but none looked like the full article, so I asked the publishers, Kantar Media. Although the document is some six years old, they were kind enough to send me the full, original article: The lure of alternative medicine.
This was about a survey of 13 countries, finding out what proportion of people agree with the statement ‘I trust homeopathic medicine’: This puts a rather dramatic perspective on the 15% figure for Great Britain.
Additionally, it’s clear that many of the statements made by homeopaths about this article are not supported by what the article actually says! I have to wonder if any of them actually read the article — it is only three-and-a-half pages long — or whether they were just parroting what others had said.
The article also says:
In many countries, particularly in Europe, consumers are less convinced. At 15% agreement, Britons are the least trusting of homeopathy, and only 1 in 10 say that they prefer alternative medicine. Even in Germany, the birth place of homeopathy, just 27% of people trust this kind of treatment. France is the European market in which people are most trusting of homeopathy.
Unfortunately, we can only speculate about the historical, cultural and political reasons for these marked differences, but maybe the reason for the figure for France is more obvious?
But now we know that one of the sources the homeopathy supporter cited did not substantiate the claims she made for the growth in homeopathy. No surprise there. Copying and pasting without engaging brain is an all too familiar gambit of homeopathy supporters — perhaps through ignorance or in the desperate hope that no one will bother to check… More likely, though, it can be attributed to a complete lack of curiosity on their part.
In decline
We already know that homeopathy in the NHS has been in steep decline for the last few decades: This could well indicate that homeopathy isn’t as unthinkingly accepted as it once was.
But the Global TGI Barometer data was from some six years ago — what about trust in homeopathy now? Although Kantar Media haven’t publicly published such a comprehensive survey since 2008, in 2013 they published a Factiod, a single page document Headache Remedies: East vs. West. In it, they were able to say:
TGI data shows that 43% of people in China agree with the statement ‘I trust homeopathic medicine’ compared to just 20% in the USA and 12% in GB.
It would have been good to see up-to-date figures for the other countries, but this does show that trust in homeopathy products in Great Britain has dropped by a fifth, from 15% in 2008 to just 12% in 2013.
As more people find out what homeopathy is and how homeopathy works, we should not be surprised to see this figure drop even more.
Posted in AltMed | Tagged 1023, Homeopathy, NHS, Nightingale Collaboration | Leave a comment
Published Wednesday 11 December 2013 | By Zeno
Do homeopaths’ claims that trials are too expensive and that they can’t afford them hold water?
Science is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with?
— Dr Steven Novella
Homeopaths have an ambivalent attitude to research: they are quick to jump on any results they think support their pseudo scientific beliefs, yet any paper that shows homeopathy to be no better than placebo is denounced, usually with cries that the ‘homeopathic system of personalised, holistic medicine’ is just not suited to being tested using flawed ‘conventional’ double-blind randomised controlled trials (DBRCT). And sometimes Big Pharma tell lies.
But homeopaths have a problem: all advertising in the UK has to comply with the Advertising Standards Authority’s CAP Code and this rightly demands a high standard of evidence for any claim, regardless of whether it’s about how clean a soap powder makes your whites, how efficient double-glazed windows are or how much a skin cream reduces the appearance of wrinkles. So it is with homeopathy: high quality evidence is required. Continue reading →
Posted in AltMed | Tagged 1023, Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Homeopathy, Nightingale Collaboration | 4 Comments
Published Sunday 17 February 2013 | By Zeno
The exposé by Prof David Colquhoun of the interference by the Department of Health — at the behest of homeopathy promoters — in the publication of impartial, scientifically-based information about homeopathy on the NHS Choices website has been covered by the Guardian and the Daily Mail this past week.
Damned by their own words, the DoH said in response to the draft submitted by the editors of NHS Choices that mentioned the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s comprehensive Evidence Check report on homeopathy:
Can we remove this statement? This report is really quite contentious and we may well be subject to quite a lot of challenge from the Homeopathic community if published.
The statement was removed. What NHS Choices were eventually told to publish was a biased sop to homeopathy, including a list of the main homeopathy trade bodies and a list of medical conditions homeopathy could, apparently, treat.
Andy Lewis, on his excellent website, The Quackometer, asked that we contact our MP over this to demand NHS Choices be allowed to replace this biased page with one that properly reflects the scientific consensus on homeopathy so that the public can make properly informed choices in their health care.
Below is our email to our MP. We urge all those concerned about the public being given unbiased information to write to your own MP — please feel free to use whatever you feel useful.
We are concerned to read that the Department of Health has been interfering with the content of the NHS Choices website to the detriment of the public’s ability to make informed choices about health care.
It was reported in the Guardian on 13 February (Prince’s charity lobbied government to water down homeopathy criticism) and in the Daily Mail on 15 February (Homeopathy charity run by Charles ‘cowed civil servants’ into supporting the therapy) that the NHS Choices website editor had been prevented from stating the lack of scientific evidence for homeopathy for fear of lobbying from the ‘homeopathy community’. This debacle came to light after a Freedom of Information request by Professor David Colquhoun.
As a result of this interference, the page on homeopathy as it stands now is in danger of misleading the public into thinking that homeopathy may be able to treat potentially serious medical conditions such as asthma, ear infections, high blood pressure and depression when there is no scientific evidence to suggest this is the case.
In his response to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s Evidence Check report on homeopathy (which recommended removal of all NHS funding for homeopathy because of the complete lack of scientific evidence), the Secretary of State for Health stated:
10. In order for the public to make informed choices, it is therefore vitally important that the scientific evidence base for homeopathy is clearly explained and available. He will therefore engage further with the Department of Health to ensure communication to the public is addressed. His position remains that the evidence of efficacy and the scientific basis of homeopathy is highly questionable.
He also stated:
14. The Government agrees that, when looking at the evidence base for efficacy, it is important to focus on the most scientifically robust studies and evidence.
It is therefore incomprehensible and deplorable that the Department of Health believes it now acceptable to tell the public that homeopathy can be used to treat the following:
other mental health conditions, such as stress and anxiety
allergies, such as food allergies
dermatitis (an allergic skin condition)
For such a highly respected, informative and authoritative source of sound medical information such as NHS Choices to have been forced by the DoH into publishing such erroneous information on homeopathy is disgraceful and unacceptable.
This can only lead to the public being mislead and potentially making ill-advised and dangerous health care decisions.
As we are sure you are aware, the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, has recently made clear that homeopathy is ‘rubbish’. The DoH needs to heed this advice and allow NHS Choices to completely re-write the page on sound scientific and evidence-based principles.
We also note that Anna Soubry recently stated to the House:
The Department [of Health] does not maintain a position on any particular complementary or alternative medicine treatments including homeopathy.
We therefore ask you to request that the Secretary of State for Health explain these actions and that he allow NHS Choices the freedom to ensure that the public can make the informed choice that are entitled to make based on sound scientific evidence and principles and not to have that distorted by vested interests.
We look forward to receiving your reply.
Thanks and best regards.
I’ll let you know what response we get.
Posted in AltMed, Government, Science | Tagged 1023, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Government, Homeopathy, NHS Choices | 4 Comments
The bitter sugar pill
Published Wednesday 08 August 2012 | By Zeno
In his Guardian article, Homeopaths offer to rebrand products as ‘confectionery’, Martin Robbins tells the story that, faced with being unable to sell their products as homeopathic medicines because they were unlicensed, a manufacturer offered to re-brand them as sweets. The irony of that won’t be lost on many, but what else has been going on?
…sceptics [are] posing as genuine members of the public…
Thanks to his FOIA request, we now know that the medicines regulator, the MHRA, told homeopathy manufacturers Helios and Ainsworths to discontinue the sale and supply of a number of their kits of homeopathic products because they contained homeopathic products that were not registered (under the HR scheme) or authorised (under the NR scheme) and because the names of the kits were not as had been registered with the MHRA.
McCarthy-style reporting, encouraged by the self-appointed detractors of homoeopathy…has protracted this decline [in the homeopathy industry]
These two issues are important: under the Medicines Regulations, individual homeopathic products have to be registered or authorised by the MHRA, and so do kits of these products, with the name of the kits agreed with the MHRA.
Helios and Ainsworths fell foul of the Medicines Regulations on both counts.
Posted in AltMed, Government | Tagged 1023, Government, Homeopathy, Regulation | 16 Comments
That ‘neutral’ Swiss homeopathy report
Published Wednesday 09 May 2012 | By Zeno
What does the Swiss Government really think about homeopathy?
By Sven Rudloff and Zeno
Jump to Postscript
A lot has been made by homeopaths about the ‘neutral’ Swiss Government’s report and its unequivocal support of homeopathy. It’s been lauded by the luminaries of the homeopathic world as further proof — as if any was needed, of course — that homeopathic ‘medicines’ are superior in every way to those dangerous and expensive pharmaceutical drugs.
Arch proponent of homeopathy, Dana Ullman, proclaimed:
The Swiss government’s exceedingly positive report on homeopathic medicine
The Swiss government has a long and widely-respected history of neutrality, and therefore, reports from this government on controversial subjects need to be taken more seriously than other reports from countries that are more strongly influenced by present economic and political constituencies.
In late 2011, the Swiss government’s report on homeopathic medicine represents the most comprehensive evaluation of homeopathic medicine ever written by a government and was just published in book form in English (Bornhoft and Matthiessen, 2011). This breakthrough report affirmed that homeopathic treatment is both effective and cost-effective and that homeopathic treatment should be reimbursed by Switzerland’s national health insurance program.
The provisional reimbursement for these alternative treatments ended in 2005, but as a result of this new study, the Swiss government’s health insurance program once again began to reimburse for homeopathy and select alternative treatments. (Source, cached)
Ullman again:
this report from the Swiss government has confirmed the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of homeopathic treatment. (Source, cached)
The Society of Homeopaths:
Swiss scientists endorse homeopathy evidence
Report says homeopathic medicine is clinically effective
A comprehensive and authoritative research study by Swiss scientists has offered an unambiguous endorsement of the evidence base for homeopathy as a clinically effective system of medicine.
Their report, part of a Swiss government evaluation of complementary and alternative medicines, gives a massive boost to the growing body of research underpinning the therapeutic effects of homeopathic medicine. (Source, cached)
The Faculty of Homeopathy and the British Homeopathic Association:
Evidence for homeopathy builds
Long-awaited English translation of Swiss study endorses evidence for homeopathy
This important report addresses the evidence for the effectiveness of homeopathic therapy in everyday use (i.e. the real world), its safety and its cost-effectiveness.
The authors, Doctor Gudrun Bornhöft and Professor Peter Matthiessen, state: “There is sufficient evidence for the preclinical effectiveness and the clinical efficacy of homeopathy and for its safety and economy compared with conventional treatment.”
Following on from the initial publication of this report, a public referendum in Switzerland in 2009 supported the inclusion of homeopathy and other complementary and alternative medicines in the Swiss national health insurance, with 67% of the people voting in favour. Earlier this month, the Swiss government passed legislation to enact the referendum’s conclusion. (Source, cached and source, cached)
GP and homeopath Dr Andrew Sikorski:
In 2009 a Swiss national referendum voted in favour of complementary medicine being part of the public health service which is now covered by the obligatory public health insurance system. This decision was partly informed by the findings of the 2006 Health Technology Assessment report commissioned by the Swiss Government on the effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness of homeopathy in general practice. (Source, cached)
Many other websites have echoed these sentiments, with many taking their lead from Ullman’s article and possibly placing far too much reliance on what he had to say, eg Swiss Government finds homeopathy effective and cost efficient (cached).
You’d think from all this that the ‘neutral’ Swiss Government had taken to homeopathy like the proverbial quacking duck to water.
Of course, to state in this context that the Swiss Government has a ‘widely-respected history of neutrality’ is to conflate political neutrality with scientific objectivity.
As usual, research of truly homeopathic proportions, misrepresentation and cherry picking are the order of the day.
Posted in AltMed, Government, Science | Tagged 1023, Homeopathy | 85 Comments
Changing times for homeopaths
Published Saturday 29 October 2011 | By Zeno
Many websites of homeopaths are changing. Some as a direct result of being contacted by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and some, no doubt, because, now they are aware of the ASA’s rules, want to be responsible and abide by them.
I’ve been watching several websites change over recent months: some delete a few words here and there; some have had to make substantial changes; and some have yet to make the necessary changes.
One of the websites I’ve been watching is the one belonging to the Society of Homeopaths.
Their home page had this:
Homeopathy is an evidence-based medicine which offers holistic, individual and integrated treatment with highly diluted substances with the aim of triggering the body’s natural system of healing.
A few days ago, they changed it to say:
Homeopathy is a form of holistic medicine in which treatment is tailored to the individual.
Have they finally realised that it’s not ‘an evidence-based medicine’; that there is no robust scientific evidence (ie the kind required by the ASA to protect the public from misleading claims) that homeopathic sugar pills have any effect over placebo?
I doubt it, but sooner or later homeopaths have to realise that they have to abide by the same rules as every other advertiser: if you make a claim, you must have robust evidence to substantiate it.
If a double-glazing seller claims his windows use an alternative glass that works far better than ‘conventional’ glass, then we would — rightly — expect him to be able to back up that with good evidence. There cannot be one standard for, say, double-glazing sellers and different, lower standard, for homeopaths.
And so with the homeopaths or any other advertiser of alternative therapies. Indeed, there could be a case made for requiring an even higher standard of evidence for claims about healthcare made to an unsuspecting public.
Posted in AltMed | Tagged 1023, Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), Homeopathy, Regulation | 10 Comments
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Las Vegas Nightlife Redefined With Blush
Opens Labor Day Weekend at Wynn Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS, Aug 06, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Casino developer Stephen A. Wynn and renowned night club operator Sean Christie have partnered to create Blush, the first boutique nightclub in Las Vegas, opening Labor Day Weekend 2007.
"We wanted to create an intimate nightlife experience that we have termed 'the boutique nightclub'," said managing partner Sean Christie. "Blush offers a unique option to the Las Vegas scene as the club seamlessly transforms from elegant lounge to high-energy nightclub."
Formerly the location of Lure, the venue will undergo a complete remodel under the direction of Wynn's Executive Vice President of Design Roger Thomas. The 4,500 square-foot club will feature a lit onyx dance floor and creme lantern ceiling sculpture. This central art focal piece will create various hues and images that enhance the vibe and atmosphere as the display literally comes alive nightly.
A rich palette of deep green, chocolate brown, gold and shimmering metallics create an ambience of sensual elegance. The club will feature a series of contemporary paintings that add a provocative and edgy feel. Additional seating banquettes around a new dance floor will produce a circular flow to the space. The open-air patio and bar have been enhanced with lighted topiaries and outdoor seating surrounded by lush foliage.
In addition to banquettes and bottle service, a private, draped VIP Room is available for up to 25 people. Additional men's and women's restrooms have been added as well as some playful amenities -- purse drawers at each seat and personal lockers for belongings.
Delectable Asian appetizers from Red 8 will be served nightly from 5 P.M. until 9 P.M. Beverage menus, including wines by the glass or bottle and an extensive collection of infused vodkas, will change on a monthly basis.
The club will feature an eclectic mix of music -- rock n' roll, hip hop and house -- from Music Director and Resident DJ Mighty Mi. Every Thursday, DJ Jack Lafleur will take the stage with his signature style. The lighting and sound system was designed by John Lyons, winner of the World Club Award.
Blush Tuesdays, service industry and local night, will be promoted by Brandon Roque and begin September 4.
Prior to partnering with Wynn Las Vegas, Christie was a founding member and managing partner of The Light Group. He was also an integral part of The Lyons Group which owns and operates more than 30 nightclub venues on the East coast.
Table reservations (702-770-3633) are highly recommended. Free admission for Local Ladies and Service Industry professionals nightly. Blush Tuesdays is the dedicated Industry night. Visitors cover is $30.
Blush is open nightly at 5 P.M. and transforms into an energetic, sensual club on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights from 10 P.M. until 4 A.M. Located off the main casino floor of Wynn Las Vegas Resort and Country Club.
SOURCE Wynn Las Vegas
Amy Rossetti of Wynn Las Vegas, +1-702-770-3626, amy.rossetti@wynnlasvegas.com; or
Jen Drumm of Mixed Media Entertainment, +1-702-326-5058, jen@mmelv.com, for Wynn Las
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