Quantcast
Channel: Huffington Post India
Viewing all 37249 articles
Browse latest View live

21 Tweets About Dating That Will Make You Laugh, Then Cry

$
0
0

Dating and meeting new people on apps is super fun... until it’s not. (Face it: There’s only so many godawful Tinder dates a person can endure before they just give up.)

Below, 21 tweets that perfectly capture that “you have to laugh, because otherwise, you’d uncontrollably cry” feeling that goes hand-in-hand with dating.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
Also on HuffPost

Daphne Caruana Galizia: Who Was The 'One-Woman WikiLeaks' Killed In Malta?

$
0
0

“There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.”
These were the words of Malta’s best-known investigative journalist just half an hour before an explosion tore through her car.

Daphne Caruana Galizia, who exposed Malta’s links with offshore tax havens through the leaked Panama Papers, was once described as a ‘one woman WikiLeaks’. Her killing has been described as an attack on free press and democracy.

Locals said she had just left her house and was on a road in her Peugeot 108 near the village of Bidnija in northern Malta when the bomb detonated on Monday afternoon, sending wreckage spiralling over a wall and into a field.

Daphne Caruana Galizia pictured in April 2017 

Her last blog post was about a libel claim the prime minister’s chief of staff had brought against a former opposition leader over comments the latter made about corruption.

But Caruana Galizia took aim at politicians and senior officials from across Malta and across the globe - seeing the island as a hotbed of corruption.

Who was she?

Caruana Galizia began her journalism career in 1987 as a columnist for the Sunday Times of Malta, later becoming assistant editor of The Malta Independent. 

The 53-year-old became best known for authoring Running Commentary, a hugely popular blog in which she relentlessly highlighted cases of alleged high-level corruption targeting politicians from across party lines.

A tribute to Caruana Galizia at the Love monument during a candlelit vigil in St Julian's, Malta 

She is credited with exposing Malta’s involvment in the leaked Panama Papers, which revealed the identities of rich and powerful people around the world who allegedly had holdings in the central American country.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat sued Caruana Galizia after she wrote blogs saying his wife was the beneficial owner of a company in Panama, and that large sums of money had been moved between the company and bank accounts in Azerbaijan. Both Muscat and his wife denied the accusations.

Caruana Galizia was a harsh critic of Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who has deplored her death as a 'barbaric attack on press freedom' 

Looking for a vote of confidence to counter the allegations, Muscat called snap elections in June which he easily won. He denounced her killing, calling it a “barbaric attack on press freedom.”

“Malta’s public life is afflicted with dangerously unstable men with no principles or scruples,” Caruana Galizia wrote last year.

She also targeted banks banks facilitating money laundering to links between Malta’s online gaming industry and the Mafia. As well as being a harsh critic of Malta’s Labour party and government, she had recently expanded her criticism to include the opposition Nationalist Party. 

The Politico website had recently described her as a “one-woman WikiLeaks” in a roundup of ‘the 28 people who are shaping and stirring Europe’.

In a profile titled “the blogging fury”, Caruana Galizia was praised for “crusading against untransparency and corruption in Malta, an island nation famous for both.” 

Caruana Galizia  was married to lawyer Peter Caruna Galizia, with whom she had three sons. 

One of her sons, Matthew Caruana Galizia is a journalist and programmer who works for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). He worked on the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for its work on the Panama Papers scandal.

Writing on Facebook in the hours after her death, Matthew Caruana Galizia said: “My mother was assassinated because she stood between the rule of law and those who sought to violate it, like many strong journalists. 

“She was also targeted because she was the only person doing so.” 

What do we know about her death?

Malta Television reported that Caruana Galizia had filed a complaint to the police two weeks ago to say she had received threats. It gave no further information.

Police and forensic experts inspect the wreckage of a car bomb believed to have killed Caruana Galizia

Muscat has announced the FBI has agreed to help local police investigate the killing and was flying experts to the island as soon as possible.

“Everyone knows Caruana Galizia was a harsh critic of mine, both politically and personally, but nobody can justify this barbaric act in any way,” Muscat said. “The only remedy for anyone who felt slandered was through the courts.”

Tributes 

Around 3,000 people held a silent, candle-lit vigil on Tuesday evening in Sliema, just outside Valletta. 

The hashtag Je Suis Daphne circulated widely among social media users on the island of 400,000 people, the European Union’s smallest state. It saw Caruana Galizia variously branded a “hero of anti-courruption”, the “mother of free speech” and “a modern martyr killed for writing about the truth.”

Caruana Galizia addresses the media in 2013 following her arrest over an article she published on her blog 

Times of Malta online editor Herman Grech wrote Caruana Galizia was “loved and resented in equal measure in politically divided Malta - but she will go down in the Mediterranean island’s history as one of the most influential writers.” 

In a blog for the BBC, he added: “Her uncompromising blog and scathing pen spared no punches.” 

Opposition leader Adrian Delia, who sued Caruana Galizia over stories linking him to a prostitution racket in London, said the blogger was the victim of a “political murder”.

Caruana Galizia was a regular face on the news after she examined the Maltese content in the Panama Papers leaked in 2016 

“Caruana Galizia revealed the Panama Papers and was the government’s strongest critic,” he said, calling for a independent probe of her killing.

“We will not accept an investigation by the Commissioner of Police, the Army commander or the duty magistrate, all of whom were at the heart of criticism by Caruana Galizia,” he added.

European Parliament President Antonio Tajani said her death was a “tragic example of a journalist who sacrificed her life to seek out the truth.”  

ICIJ director Gerard Ryle said he was shocked by the news and condemned the attack. “Caruana Galizia has been at the forefront of important investigations in the public interest and has exposed offshore dealings of prominent political figures in Malta,” he said. 

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said he would offer a 20,000 euro ($23,578.00) reward for information leading to the conviction of Caruana Galizia’s killers, and European politicians expressed dismay at her death.

Frans Timmermans, first vice president of the European Commission, tweeted that he was “shocked and outraged”, adding that “if journalists are silenced our freedom is lost”.

Manfred Weber, head of the conservative bloc in the European Parliament, said the killing marked “a dark day for democracy”.

Should We Have An Economy That Thrives On Tax Evasion?

$
0
0

By Sanjiv Phansalkar

The overall drop in growth of gross domestic product (GDP) lends some support to the claim of a slowdown in the rural sector. During the time when demonetisation was a current subject, and now when the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime is the popular whipping boy, the slowdown was attributed to these factors. But attribution to these causes is perhaps arguable. Let us look at the most commonly repeated assertions.

The worst impact of demonetisation was cited on the market for pulses. A huge drop in wholesale prices of black gram, pigeon pea, etc., from their high of the financial year 2015-16 has been reported, and more pertinently here, attributed to demonetisation. It sounds tenable. Agricultural markets functioned till demonetisation (and by preference even after) in cash. Mercantile-capitalist traders preferred cash transactions, almost exclusively, to avoid income tax. Farmers too preferred cash since the reach of banks to average rural household is neither ubiquitous nor as smooth as experienced by their urban brothers.

Mercantile-capitalist traders preferred cash transactions, almost exclusively, to avoid income tax.

Was demonetisation then, the cause of distress in pulses market? In fact, could the drop be described at all as distress? Financial year 2015-16 had witnessed a fall in production leading to high price rise. Compared with those high levels, prices came down. The causes for this are to be found in the poor timing of arrival of imported pulses ordered earlier, and release of massive stocks bought the previous year for supporting prices.

There was no similar distress in much larger markets, such as for wheat or paddy. The attribution will really lack cogency if one found that in fact there was a boom in prices of some agricultural commodity. In fact there was such a boom both in tomato and onion for a while during the last six months. Onion prices had shot up to as high as Rs 100 a kilogram and tomato prices even beyond that.

Varied reasons for the fluctuations

There undoubtedly was a downward blip during the 50 days of intense trouble after November 8, when high-value currency was withdrawn. But the extent to which the downward pressure lasted, the durability of the downward pressure, and its direct attribution to demonetisation are all matters of conjecture. Commodities do experience gluts and shortages periodically, and it is popularly believed that farmers end up being at the shorter end of the stick always. There is a reason to believe that the price variations are as much due to seasonality, and by supply-demand balances.

The impact of GST on the rural sector is more recent and pertained largely due to the imposition of the reverse charge phenomenon. Small time operators, who form the bulk of suppliers of small stores, inputs and services to more formal buyers, do not have registration with the tax authorities, or for that matter, any other authority. They have traditionally existed in the grey zone. In fact, their ability to survive comes from their facelessness and their ability to evade all manners of taxes.

Low formal presence

The mindset of operating with as little formal presence as possible in fact carries itself in large urban centers and in small-scale industries as well. I have documented this as a principal cause of stunting in small industry. Till recently, a large number of traders and small industrialists of all sorts, particularly those providing diverse supplies to homes, only wanted cash payments. These people form the most populous and significant block of unaccounted wealth and income in India. Being unregistered, they would not pay GST on their supplies to their buyers in rural or urban sector.

Why would I buy from a small time operator if, after the seemingly low price, I have to pay the GST on it?

But the reverse charge required the buyers to pay the GST in any case. This wiped out the very competitive advantage of the small time operator. His low prices were primarily because he avoided all taxes, and as a buyer, I could get away by still charging my spending on purchases from him as business expenses. Why would I buy from a small time operator if, after the seemingly low price, I have to pay the GST on it? The small time operator's USP of smaller price is gone. So there was this uproar. It affected the small businessmen in both the rural and urban centers.

The third strand

A third strand of argument relating these two changes to the slowdown has also been made. When the wealthy people in rural or urban areas had a larger proportion of their incomes in cash, they were willing to pay more money to people who worked for them, such as domestic help, drivers, and handymen. Once the currency flows came under stress, and then under the much feared 'watch', the payment to service providers reduced. It led to reduction in their spending, in turn affecting the sale and prosperity levels of suppliers and services providers. Thus, the money circulation, and hence business among the lower rungs of the economy has suffered.

While there is some negative impact due to each of these factors, it is not ubiquitous, nor is it uniformly intense. The cry of attribution is out of proportion. One has only to take a look around to see that people are finding new ways of adjusting to the changed economic environment.

There is indeed some slowdown in the rural and farm sectors but most of it is attributable to variation in production levels and demand-supply balances and usual market cycles.

There is indeed some slowdown in the rural and farm sectors but most of it is attributable to variation in production levels and demand-supply balances and usual market cycles. The crunch in cash economy, and GST has had some effect, which is transient, and finally, people are discovering new ways of regaining their business and prosperity.

But are we comfortable with rampant tax evasion by a whole stratum of society simply because cash is the main method of its operation and non-registration its key strategy? Do we not wish to widen the tax net? Naturally those who are caught in the tax net will squirm and scream, but is that material?

If indeed steps like demonetisation, and significantly improved tax compliance due to GST are the causes then the choice has a moral overtone. Should one opt for an economy that thrived on facelessness and tax evasion just because it supported livelihoods of a class of the poor or should one opt for more formal and compliant economy knowing that there will be hiccups? I will opt for the later every time.

Sanjiv Phansalkar is associated closely with Transform Rural India Foundation, and is a fellow of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad. This article was first published on VillageSquare.in, a public-interest communications platform focused on rural India.

The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of HuffPost India. Any omissions or errors are the author's and HuffPost India does not assume any liability or responsibility for them.

Even This 'Game Of Thrones' Star Missed A Tragic, Subtle Easter Egg

$
0
0

Game of Thrones” Season 7 featured more reveals than there are swords in the Iron Throne. However, none was bigger than when HBO went all ancestry.com on Jon Snow (Kit Harington).

In the most recent season, fans finally learned, definitively, that Jon Snow is a Targaryen and his real name is Aegon, or as the internet has deemed him, Aejon.

Now that we’re privy to that info, peeps on Reddit noticed an apparent Easter egg ― or rather, an “Easter Aeg” ― the show planted years ago.

The first word Shireen Baratheon taught Davos (Jon Snow’s now loyal confidante) how to read was Aegon.

Davos himself, actor Liam Cunningham, was recently out at New York Comic Con promoting his new project, “Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams,” and HuffPost asked him about the connection between Jon’s real name and the first word Davos learned to read.

“Yeah, they’re very good at that sort of thing,” said Cunningham. “David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] plant little Easter eggs there if you want to see them.”

The fact that Shireen (Kerry Ingram) was a part of this moment with Davos is kind of tragic, considering how much he cared for her and how she was ultimately sacrificed by Melisandre (Carice van Houten). But despite the moment’s significance, Cunningham told us he had no idea it would be so instrumental at the time.

“No, are you kidding me? I don’t know what the hell’s gonna happen from one episode to the next. That’s testament to how good the writing is on that, too. After seven seasons, people are still asking the same question they asked in Season 1. ‘Who do you think is gonna end up on the throne?’” 

From “Game of Thrones” to Philip K. Dick, here’s the rest of our conversation with Cunningham: 

You’re now in “Electric Dreams,” but is it true you also used to be an electrician?

Somebody did make that connection. I never thought about it. I was an electrician, and now I’m in “Electric Dreams.” It’s almost bizarre.

What was Davos Seaworth like as an electrician?

He wasn’t one. That electrician died and up came Davos. That was like a different life. That’s what I like to say. That’s when I used to be a real person.

A theme in Philip K. Dick’s work is “what it means to be human.” Why do you think that’s important nowadays?

What makes us different from other species is our capacity for compassion and empathy with the struggles of other people. I think it has great resonance at the moment because there seems to be some skewed view that not looking after people or taking care of people in trouble shows some sort of strength. It’s the complete opposite. It actually weakens us as a species and weakens us as human beings […] like certain individuals are doing, not just here, but plenty of places in Europe that’s happening, as well. The demonization of people who don’t have a voice is particularly despicable, and the only thing we can do in our own little way is hold a mirror up to society and kind of say we’re better than that.

What was it like working with Bryan Cranston, who stars with you and is a producer?

That man has given myself and my family, specifically my kids, years and years of pleasure from “Malcolm in the Middle.” My kids grew up, we sat arm-in-arm laughing our heads off at “Malcolm in the Middle” because we feel like we’re like that family. I think every family feels like that family and then onto “Breaking Bad,” the guy’s CV is just beautiful. Bryan is not a movie star. He’s an actor, and that’s the highest compliment I can pay him.

When you work with other actors like that, do you ever talk about past work? Do you talk about “Breaking Bad” with Bryan Cranston?

When you’re trying to get these things done, there’s not a huge amount of time for sitting around reminiscing about what one’s done before. It’s kind of like that with me, as well. When “Games of Thrones” is finished, I’m not one to go on about it too long and rest on one’s laurels. The stuff that interests me is the work. I got involved in “Game of Thrones” because I thought it was a ridiculously wonderful story and beautiful storytelling. Nobody knew it was gonna turn into a cultural phenomenon. But we try and improve, keep the quality as high as it possibly can [go] without patronizing an audience or [being] condescending to them, thinking we know more about it than they do. Nobody knows more about it than they do. And we just try to deliver it with a bit of honor and a bit of respect.

How do you feel about the last “Game of Thrones” table read?

Yeah, we’ll all be drunk. No, I’m kidding. I’m kidding.

No, it’ll be the last time we do it. I did get an email from David and Dan talking about, “This is the last table read,” and that was a really sweet email. Yeah, it’s gonna be really odd. It’s gonna be very odd. We’ve kind of been trying to prepare ourselves for the end of this from the beginning of last season. That’s when we kind of said we have to start thinking about this. This is gonna end. They’re gonna take this baby off us. We’ll be out in the wilderness again with nobody even remembering who we are. Back to obscurity.

I’ve asked you this a couple times at this point, but you’ve said George R.R. Martin once told you a secret. What’s the secret?

I’m not telling you.

[Laugh] Will you reveal it one day?

I will reveal it one day, and it’ll come across as, “Oh, is that it?” It’ll be a real letdown. Everybody thinks he told me who’s on the throne because that’s what they’re projecting. “He must’ve told him something.” You’re bigging it up. It ain’t that big. It was just something he told me. It’s not monumental.

“Philip K. Dick’s “Electric Dreams” heads to Amazon in 2018.

Also on HuffPost
"Game of Thrones" Season 7 premiere

This Is How Many Times You Can Safely Take The Morning After Pill In A Year

$
0
0

As more and more pharmacies slash the price of the morning after pill, concerns have been raised that cheaper prices might encourage women to “misuse or overuse” it.

These kind of comments imply it’s not safe to use emergency contraception (EC) more than once, perpetuating widespread myths - a survey by FPA found almost two-thirds of women thought repeat use of EC could make them infertile or weren’t sure of its effects.

To clear things up once and for all, we asked experts about the safety of the emergency contraceptive pill, as well as how many times you can take it in a year. Spoiler: it’s more than you think.

An overview of the emergency contraceptive pill.

While many of us colloquially use the term ‘morning after pill’, experts prefer the term emergency contraception, so as not to mislead people into thinking they have to take the pill the morning after sex, or within 24 hours, for it to be effective.

There are two types of emergency contraceptive pills available. 

One contains a hormone called levonorgestrel and can be taken up to three days after unprotected sex, but is more effective the earlier it’s taken. A well-known brand is Levonelle but there are lots of different brands available including pharmacy own-brands which are often much cheaper.

The other pill, branded ellaOne, contains an ingredient called ulipristal acetate. It can be taken up to five days after unprotected sex. This type of pill is more effective than a pill with levonorgestrel at preventing pregnancy, according to sexual health charity FPA.

“Both pills are suitable for most people,” Natika Halil, chief executive of FPA, told HuffPost UK. “There are a few things to watch out for. With levonorgestrel pills, if you weigh more than 70kg or have a BMI higher than 26, or if you’re taking certain medicines, then you might need a higher dose. 

“Pills with ulipristal acetate (UPA) aren’t suitable for use by women with severe asthma controlled by oral steroids. If you’re breastfeeding and use UPA you need to avoid breastfeeding for a week afterwards (expressing and discarding your milk). And if you’ve used hormonal contraception in the week before taking UPA this might make it less effective.”

Some people may feel sick, get headaches or a painful period after taking an emergency pill and a very small number will vomit. If the latter happens within three hours of the taking the pill, it’s important to speak to a health professional, who might recommend an emergency IUD. 

Is the emergency contraceptive pill safe?

The emergency contraceptive pill is completely safe to use, multiple times throughout the year, according to the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH).

“The safety of EC is backed up by scientific evidence,” Dr Jane Dickson, FSRH vice president, said. “EC is extremely safe with occasional minor side effects.” 

Guidance released earlier in the year by FSRH said any adverse events relating to use of emergency contraception by healthy women are rare.

The faculty added that increased accessibility of oral emergency contraception does not increase the frequency of unprotected sex, the likelihood of sexual risk-taking and does not make women less likely to use effective contraception.

When asked about how many times a woman could take EC in a year, a spokesperson for FSRH told HuffPost UK: “There is no such thing as taking emergency contraception too many times in a year.

“There is no maximum amount after which it becomes dangerous. So there is no problem in buying three packs within six months, as Chemist-4-U is offering women.”

They did warn, however, that the whole point of EC is for emergencies and it is far less effective than regular, ongoing contraception such as the combined pill. In short: it’s always best to use a reliable form of contraception.

A spokesperson for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) added that emergency contraception is categorised by the World Health Organisation as level 1 medication, meaning there should be no restriction on its use.

“It can be used repeatedly, even within the same cycle,” they told HuffPost UK. “It is far safer than many medications which are available to buy off the shelves of supermarkets, including painkillers, nicotine replacement therapies and ‎digestive medications.”

Well there you have it.

#MeToo: All Sexual Harassment Experiences Are Worth Reporting, But Don't Feel Pressured To Share

$
0
0

In the wake of allegations facing Harvey Weinstein, women are coming forward to share experiences of sexual assault and harassment to show how rape culture permeates all areas of society.

The #MeToo hashtag has encouraged women from across the world to open up about very personal, and difficult, experiences. And while it’s powerful to share stories to show the gravity of the problem, many have said survivors shouldn’t feel pressured to share their stories so publicly and we should be focusing on perpetrators rather than victims.

Continuing this conversation, Leena Norms, from London, raised an important point about the dangers of dismissing our own sexual harassment experiences as trivial compared to others’.

Leena said she decided not to share her own stories of sexual harassment because she had dismissed her own experiences as ‘not [being] that bad’.

But she then went on to describe her own experiences, which ranged from being subjected to vulgar language in the street, to being groped, to having men threaten to kill or rape her.

She explained that she thought she had “got off the lightest” because her experiences were nowhere near as bad as her friends. But the reality is, all accounts of harassment and abuse are valid. They should not be swept under the carpet.

Her admission just goes to show how sexual harassment is the norm for a lot of women. Women who believe, deep down, that their experiences aren’t shocking enough or awful enough to be shared. Women who believe it would detract away from more serious offences, where others have been assaulted or raped.

But why do women feel forced to remain silent and, dare we say it, feel guilty of admitting they’ve experienced such awful treatment?

“Women are socialised to accept these experiences as normal because they are so commonplace, we downplay them as ‘not a big deal’ because others have have had worse experiences,” Caitlin Roper, campaigner for Collective Shout, tells HuffPost UK.

“The reality is these experiences are shared by all women. They are female experiences. They exist on a spectrum of male violence, with sexist jokes and normalised objectification of women on one end and rape and murder on the other.”

The very fact that the issue is so endemic in society makes it very difficult for women to come out and say it happened to them.

“It’s a very difficult thing to ‘come out’ as a survivor, and much more so in such a public way on social media,” Caitlin explains.

“We know how women are treated for sharing their stories of sexual assault and the hostility and scrutiny they are subjected to, at a time when they desperately need to be believed, validated and supported. 

“Women are not obligated to share their stories and to publicly recall their most traumatic experiences.”

The onus is still on women to relive experiences, but the problem with this way of thinking is that it can be triggering (more on that here) and painful for those who feel torn between wanting to share their story and, in the process, having to relive a nightmare.

Sophie Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality Party, acknowledges that while speaking out is important, holding women accountable for this means we’re all completely ignoring “the massive power imbalance that has created such systemic abuse”.

“Remember that in the case of Weinstein and many others this was largely acknowledged as an ‘open secret’ for years because so many other people, including other powerful men, knew or suspected what was going on,” she tells HuffPost UK.

“A problem this big needs a political response and, in the meantime, stronger protection for women who do make a complaint.”

Men play a huge role in tackling the problem. That’s why executive producer and feminist Liz Plank coined the hashtag #HimThough to move the focus away from women having to share their stories and onto men. 

“I was sexually harassed, physically and verbally attacked,” she tweeted. “But what about him though? Who decided it was women’s job to fix men?”

Samantha Rennie, executive director at Rosa, a charitable fund set up to support initiatives that benefit women, says men must have a deeper understanding of what sexual harassment and assault actually is before things can change. 

“It can be anything from unsolicited comments about body and appearance all the way up to rape,” she explains. “In addition, it shouldn’t only be an issue if it happens to your wife or your daughter; we all have to fight this until hashtags like #metoo are no longer necessary.”

As a society, we must also move away from “trivialising sexual harassment as ‘banter’ or an unfortunate come-on”, says Sophie Walker from the Women’s Equality Party.

And finally, we need to stop victim-blaming. Samantha, from Rosa UK, explains: “It can be incredibly difficult for women who have experienced sexual harassment, abuse or assault to speak out because we live in a world that consistently questions the lived experiences of women and does its best to find fault with the survivor.

“Questions like ‘What was she wearing?’, ‘Why was she alone with him?’ only serve to blame women for the actions of an abuser.”

Useful helplines and websites:

The Morning Wrap: The Power Of Hashtags; GST Council To Make Eating Out Cheaper

$
0
0

The Morning Wrap is HuffPost India's selection of interesting news and opinion from the day's newspapers. Subscribe here to receive it in your inbox each weekday morning.

Essential HuffPost

The #MeToo movement on Indian Twitter, which recently took off in response to the blatant sexism at a bar in Pune, has seen women speak out about sexual harassment and reliving their own Harvey Weinstein moments. Here's what men can do in solidarity with this magical turn in global feminism.

2018 will be the year of NT Rama Rao, 22 years after he passed away. And in what promises to be a double role of a different kind, two filmmakers are getting ready to present two biopics of the late Andhra chief minister. Read TS Sudhir's take on these movies.

In a bitterly ironic twist of fate, a man from north Karnataka has taken an agency to court after paying it an exorbitant sum of money for its advice to change the vaastu of his home, but still finding no better luck for all the trouble.

Main News

According to the 'State of World Population 2017' report, released by United Nations Fund for Population Activities, 27% of India's children get married by age 18, as compared to 28% the world over. In the rest of the sub-continent, Bangladesh is worst off, with 59% of the married couples being under-age, followed by 37% in Nepal.

A doctor couple in Aligarh, caught allegedly conducting illegal pre-natal sex-determination tests on a woman who was a decoy planted by the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques cell of the Rajasthan government could not be taken into custody after alleged "interference" by two local BJP MLAs.

Chinese President Xi Jinping proclaimed his nation's prospects as bright but made a rare acknowledgement of severe economic challenges as he opened the ruling Communist Party's national congress, which occurs twice a decade, on Wednesday.

Off The Front Page

American author George Saunders won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction on Tuesday for Lincoln in the Bardo, a polyphonic symphony of a novel about restless souls adrift in the afterlife.

Calcutta High Court has stayed till 27 October the Centre's decision to withdraw almost half of its troops from the Darjeeling hills, saying such a move should not be taken at a time the Bengal government has said it is trying to restore peace in the region.

Eating out is expected to get less taxing, with the GST Council likely to back a reduction in the levy on restaurants from 18% to 12% and the withdrawal of the input tax credit facility available to eateries.

Opinion

The CPI(M) wants to rally all secular and like minded parties together to take on the BJP. But its apathy to the Congress is more selective than ideological, argues Jayanth Jacob in the Hindustan Times.

In The Hindu, Radhika Santhanam argues that social media should not only be used as an effective tool to register protest but also as a means of mobilising the public.

While the Supreme Court's recent verdict on child marriages helps shatter the stranglehold of cultural norms, it is time to back it with fresh policies to stem the rot, writes Krishna Kumar in the Indian Express.

Also on HuffPost

The 'Me Too' Campaign Was Created By A Black Woman 10 Years Ago

$
0
0

A black woman named Tarana Burke is the original creator of the #MeToo campaign that has recently taken over social media. 

Burke, founder of youth organization Just Be Inc., created the “Me Too” campaign in 2007 long before hashtags even existed. The 44-year-old told Ebony Magazine that she created the campaign as a grass-roots movement to reach sexual assault survivors in underprivileged communities. 

“It wasn’t built to be a viral campaign or a hashtag that is here today and forgotten tomorrow,” Burke told Ebony on Monday. “It was a catchphrase to be used from survivor to survivor to let folks know that they were not alone and that a movement for radical healing was happening and possible.”

The campaign recently turned into a hashtag after actress Alyssa Milano wrote a call-out on Twitter asking followers to share their stories of sexual harassment and assault using the phrase “Me too.” While Milano did not state that she created the campaign, many media outlets credited the actress for originating the hashtag. 

Burke told Ebony that it’s “powerful” to see the hashtag go viral. “What’s happening now is powerful,” she said. “And I salute it and the women who have disclosed but the power of using ‘me too’ has always been in the fact that it can be a conversation starter or the whole conversation ― but it was us talking to us.” 

On Monday, Milano tweeted that she was “made aware of an earlier #MeToo movement” and linked to Burke’s story

In a Tuesday morning interview with Democracy Now, Burke discussed the origins of the “Me Too” movement and why it’s still so relevant today. As a survivor of sexual violence herself, Burke said she used the “me too” phrase as a way to connect with other survivors, specifically young women of color. 

”[I was] trying to find a succinct way to show empathy,” Burke said. “Me too is so powerful because somebody had said it to me and it changed the trajectory of my healing process once I heard that. Me too was about reaching the places that other people wouldn’t go, bringing messages and words and encouragement to survivors of sexual violence where other people wouldn’t be talking about it.” 

Burke tweeted her thoughts about the hashtag going viral on Sunday night, writing: “The point of the work we’ve done over the last decade with the ‘me too movement’ is to let women, particularly young women of color know that they are not alone ― it’s a movement.”

Read Burke’s full thread below. 

The #MeToo movement highlights a common problem: Feminist movements are often whitewashed when they’re brought into mainstream conversations. Women of color are often overlooked and left out of the very conversations they create.

As the #MeToo hashtag went viral, many people thanked Burke and tweeted their support of her movement. 

Co-founder of Black Lives Matter Alicia Garza thanked Burke, tweeting: “Thank you @TaranaBurke for bringing us this gift of #MeToo almost 10 years ago. Still powerful today.”

Other Twitter users gave credit to Burke for #MeToo and asked media to stop crediting white women for the work of women of color. ”#MeToo was started by Tarana Burke. Stop erasing black women,” Twitter user Aura Bogado wrote. 

Scroll below to see other Twitter users’ messages to Burke. 

Head over to Twitter to read more #MeToo stories. 


I Was Afraid Of Playing 'Dark Room' As A Child On Diwali. Yes, #MeToo.

$
0
0

As women flooded Twitter with their heartbreaking stories of sexual violence with the hashtag #MeToo, it opened a chasm within me filled with memories I thought I had buried. It opened the floodgates of memories of being scared, often among my 'own' people.

Like several other women, I have lost count of the number of times I have been scared.

– While playing a 'game' called 'dark room' with my sisters and other children of varied ages, including a teenage son of the hosts at a Diwali party. My parents refused to understand why I didn't want to play 'dark room' and preferred watching them play cards. My father asked me to join the other children and stop being a 'black sheep'. I was seven years old. These get-togethers continued and so did the discomfort, pain, shame and anger.

– On a train journey with my family as a child of 11, a Malayali uncle offering to share his food at dinner and after we retired for bed and I fell asleep, putting his hand down from the berth above, opening my jeans and shoving his hands in. Bewildering. Painful.

– Every time I took a train journey alone to home from engineering college and back every semester. Could never sleep a wink watching and waiting, sometimes for 36 hours. Was never 'disappointed'. Some man or the other always tried some stunt.

– On my way to write the SPA entrance exam in Delhi in a public bus. When I objected, the man screaming back at me, "take a private car, if you don't like this", in Hindi of course. People around sneered and laughed.

Strange that we bury such incidents. Because I spent all of yesterday seeing the #MeToo hashtag and telling myself: "sexual abuse at work is what they are talking about. THAT hasn't happened to me. At least not in some very hideous way. (We learn to grade such incidents and be grateful you see)."

I wake up everyday thinking how differently a woman artiste is treated at home and overseas. Just when I start to feel happy that it's been a year of great concerts -- one better than the other -- playing in world class venues, great cities, working on my stagecraft, musicianship, sound, costumes and band, I am reminded of the treatment meted out to several women artistes at home in India. Be it big college campuses and premiere institutes or renowned music festivals and corporate-funded bus tours, it will be men who will take the centre-stage, headline the marquee and I will have to be okay knowing that I, the woman, worshipped as goddess in this land of ours, will not be worthy of much more.

The 'bulls' will occupy every big arena while, I, along with the other 'cows', supposedly revered by this land, will have to be okay playing second fiddle. The one odd amongst us will get to be a token presence at best to help make the men's club look 'politically correct' and 'fair'.

For us you need to have a special 'festivals' — 'women in music' and special 'women-only' panels -- where we get celebrated like an exotic species and are supposed to discuss our period pains and how it affects our performance abilities on stage etc.

How do I even begin to compete without been given the same platform and opportunities? (The average number of Bollywood songs in a solo female voice amongst 100 recorded? 16, if not lesser in some years ) Misogyny runs deep in our country and this cannot be said enough. Be it in the music and entertainment industry or any other.

If all the good people of the country are watching and not doing anything about this, please know that you are complicit – just like the crowd which sniggered when a man on the bus decided to slip his hand inside my clothes. I was 17. Let's start by having a conversation. Here's the most important thing I want to share as the Festival of Lights approaches us, I am on the right side of history.

I will keep knocking on it everyday, every time and make the wall fall. I'm not getting tired anytime soon. Happy Deepawali.

The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of HuffPost India. Any omissions or errors are the author's and HuffPost India does not assume any liability or responsibility for them.

These 7 Numbers Show How Global Poverty Remains A Huge Problem

$
0
0

More than 1 billion people escaped the grind of extreme poverty – defined as living on less than $1.90 a day – between 1990 and 2013. But despite the gains, the world remains a long way from eradicating poverty altogether, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where large numbers of people continue to languish in extreme poverty with no safety net. 

To mark Tuesday’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, which calls on people to connect with the poorest and build alliances for action, here are nine statistics that give a snapshot of the global poverty problem.

767 million

The number of people who live in extreme poverty around the world, on less than $1.90 a day. While still a huge number, it represents a large reduction from the 1.85 billion people who lived below the international poverty line in 1990.

19.5 percent

Children are disproportionately affected by poverty. In 2013, 19.5 percent of children in developing countries were living in extremely poor households, compared to 9.2 percent for adults, according to a UNICEF and World Bank study.

389 million

The number of people in sub-Saharan Africa who live in extreme poverty. The region is home to half of the world’s poorest people.

A child helps his mother light a fire in N'djamena, Chad.

$656

The gross domestic product per capita in the Central African Republic, which is the poorest country in the world based on GDP and taking into account the cost of living, according research from Global Finance Magazine. This figure compares to $129,726, which is the GDP per capita for the world’s richest country, Qatar.

8

Just eight men own the same amount of wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world, according to an Oxfam report released earlier this year.

20 percent

If policymakers focused on tackling mental illness instead of only focusing on eliminating poverty, global misery levels could decrease by 20 percent, according to a London School of Economics study. Reducing poverty is therefore not the only key to happiness.

2030

The U.N.’s sustainable development goals commit to ending global poverty in all its forms by 2030. However, the latest progress report said the pace of change needs to be much faster if that target is to be met. 

A girl from the Peul tribe stands in a village outside Bambari, Central African Republic.

#MeToo Made Us Realize That Being A Bystander Does Not Let Us Off The Hook

$
0
0
A woman holds a sign as she takes part in the #IWillGoOut rally, to show solidarity with the Women's March in Washington, along a street in Bengaluru.

It's been hard looking at my social media timeline.

First there were a few #MeToos. Then a few more. The trickle became a flood. Now they seem to have taken over social media. That was always the point. The drumbeat had to become such a crescendo that it could not be ignored and dismissed. Too big to fail, as they say.

A friend. A colleague. A cousin. An acquaintance. A writer. A young student. A retired professor. Some I knew. Some I was surprised by. Some made me want to avert my gaze. Her too?

I am a social media cynic even as I am a social media addict. I think of it as a space where our statuses are more about performance than about sharing, often carefully calibrated with an audience in mind. I worry it is faux activism, reassuring us that changing a profile picture or sharing a status is actually doing something whether about cancer or suicide or depression.

I worry about the way public and private is constantly blurred, where we both overshare and undershare sometimes in the very same status, where empathy is counted in Likes.

I resent the emotional blackmail of those statuses that tell me that if only I bothered to share, or rather not share but copy-and-paste this one message about cancer, it would show that I cared. I care. I just don't feel compelled to advertise it. I worry about the way public and private is constantly blurred, where we both overshare and undershare sometimes in the very same status, where empathy is counted in Likes.

To be honest I viewed #MeToo with some of that same skepticism, thinking of it as yet another example of hashtag performance art, a blip of feel-good catharsis of the privileged, people like us, the ones who have the time to post social media updates while others search for body parts of their loved ones in the rubble of Mogadishu.

But there was something different about #MeToo. I was not surprised that it was so pervasive, so ubiquitous, that it touched almost every woman on my timeline. I am surprised at those who were surprised by that. As a beloved friend in her sixties said, 'you cannot be alive this long and not say ME TOO.' But then another professional acquaintance, a man, wrote "When your daughter also posts, 'me too'..." This hashtag can cut too close to the bone.

I was not surprised that it was so pervasive, so ubiquitous, that it touched almost every woman on my timeline. I am surprised at those who were surprised by that.

That's when it became discomfiting. This is the first hashtag that forced me to look at people I've always known in a different light. Social media calls them all my friends. But some are truly friends, some are cousins, acquaintances, peers I met once at a conference, long-ago hook-ups, colleagues. Some are people I would not recognize in real life.

Women take part in the #IWillGoOut rally, organized to show solidarity with the Women's March in Washington, along a street in New Delhi, India January 21, 2017.

And for the first time there is a hashtag that reveals something that's in common to all these different kinds of people, the women you know slightly and the women you thought you knew well. The woman across the office with whom you laugh, joke, argue everyday still laughs, jokes and argues and meets her deadlines. But you realize that in between all that she also posted #MeToo. She does not talk about it. Neither do you. But you know. She knows you probably know. That knowledge has weight. This hashtag carries weight.

Other hashtags have been different. When they support gay rights or when they say Je Suis Charlie Hebdo, they are about solidarity not vulnerability. They allow us to wear our liberal credentials on our sleeves with the click of a Facebook filter. They can almost be an act of charity, empathizing with the pain of faraway others. They cost little and ask little of us. We hope they ennoble us in some way in the eyes of others. This one turns the lens around from others to ourselves. It's an act of out-ing and I understand the pain and power of coming out. Nothing is every quite the same again. You might feel freer, you might be truer to yourself but you have forever changed something in your relationship with others. You are no longer exactly the person they thought you to be or the person you presented yourself as. This is a difficult conversation disguised as a hashtag.

This one turns the lens around from others to ourselves. It's an act of out-ing and I understand the pain and power of coming out.

As a man I cannot begin to understand what it took to tell the stories. This I know is only the tip of the iceberg. Too many stories are too painful to be told on a Facebook wall. As someone commented on social media, that it took so many women to dig so deep into their pain and lay it bare for us to acknowledge it as a universal truth is itself telling. As a man I know my privilege even if I don't acknowledge it. I don't automatically create a barricade with my bag when I am squished in the back seat of a three-wheeler with strangers. I don't worry about the fit of my t-shirt.

And as a man I can also take refuge in the bubble of #NotMe. I am not the gang rapist. I am not the one who shoved my hand down a woman's shirt. I am not the one who rubbed up against someone in the backseat of that three-wheeler. I am not Harvey Weinstein and I have never been.

Members of All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) shout slogans during a march for women rights in society and politics, in Amritsar on October 13, 2017.

But what the volume of these #MeToos does is erode that smugness, the comfort of #NotAllMen. I might not be the truly rotten apple but what if the basket itself is rotten? It makes you wonder not just about what you do but what you enable. Even the best of us has let that horrible rape joke on the school friends' WhatsApp group pass. I remember clearly the joke a friend sent after the Nirbhaya gangrape. The Indian cricket team had been decimated in a match. Why was no one holding a candlelight vigil for the rape of the cricket team? I did not laugh. It made me cringe but I did not say anything either. No one else did too. Perhaps they cringed. Perhaps they laughed. I don't know but we all let it pass. After all who wants to be the party pooper, the finger-wagging moral police, the one who's too serious all the time, yaar?

This is the first hashtag that made me look at those I know differently. This is also the first hashtag that made me look at myself differently as well.

This is the first hashtag that made me look at those I know differently. This is also the first hashtag that made me look at myself differently as well.

Will it achieve anything concrete in the end? The sheer volume can become too overwhelming and it can make us feel it's hopeless. But if for one moment it forced us to stop, listen, and believe, that too is something. If it makes us think twice before we let that rape joke pass that's something. If it makes us speak up when we see that woman being heckled on the street that's something. If it whittles down our tolerance for boys behaving badly that too is something.

It's not about what we do when we witness something as horrible as a rape. Hopefully we would intervene. Or call the police. It's about what we do when we see the smaller acts of harassment, the garden variety ones on the street, the bus, the workplace, at home. Just because we did not do it is not enough. If nothing else this hashtag has made us realize that being a bystander does not let any of us off the hook.

NDTV's Decision To Take Down Story On Jay Shah Is 'Deeply Unfortunate', Says Sreenivasan Jain

$
0
0
File photo of Indian politician and former Gujarat minister Amit Shah (L) and his son Jay celebrating on his arrival at his residence after his release from Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad late on October 29, 2010.

A week after NDTV took down a story on loans given to Jay Shah, the channel's managing editor Sreenivasan Jain, who also co-authored the piece, has called it "deeply unfortunate". He said, in a Facebook statement, that the channel's lawyers had taken it down for "legal vetting" but had not restored it even after a week.

"This is deeply unfortunate, since the report is based entirely on facts in the public domain and makes no unsubstantiated or unwarranted assertions," wrote Jain. "A situation like this presents journalists with hard choices. For now, I am treating this is as a distressing aberration and have decided to continue to do the journalism that I have always done – on NDTV. All of this has been conveyed to NDTV."

At the time, Jain had expected that the article would be "temporarily" taken down.

Jain's reporting on Shah's companies followed an investigative report on The Wire that appeared to link Shah's economic fortunes to his father--Bharatiya Janata Party's president Amit Shah's--political ascent.

Meanwhile, The Wire's editors said in a press statement that a special civil suit filed by Jay Shah's lawyers showed that "no single factual error has been substantively shown or pleaded against The Wire".

"No case of untruth has been made out against The Wire," according to the statement. "Indeed, the plaint acknowledges that the full text of the lawyer's exchange with The Wire was available on the website on the date of filing the suit, which is shown as October 12, 2017."

Also On HuffPost:

7 Interesting Facts You Didn’t Know About Dev Patel’s ‘Lion’

$
0
0

With 34 award wins, and 78 nominations including an astounding six Academy Awards nominations, Lion is one of the most formidable films of the year. The movie, which stars Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman in major roles, revolves around a man's quest to find his birth family, 25 years after being adopted by an Australian couple from a Kolkata orphanage. Its powerhouse acting performances and nuanced depiction of poverty, pain, separation, and the difficult, but cathartic, journey to find one's true roots, has won Lion considerable global acclaim. The film also generated a buzz in India because large parts of the movie were shot across Madhya Pradesh and Kolkata, and also because of the presence of Indian actors like Sunny Pawar, Priyanka Bose, Tannishtha Chatterjee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

Here are seven interesting facts about Lion that you may not have known before.

1. It is based on a real story

Lion is the movie adaptation of A Long Way Home, the memoirs of Indian-born Australian businessman Saroo Brierly. Published in 2013, the book narrates the fascinating story of Brierly's search for his biological family, 25 years after he was adopted from a Calcutta orphanage.

Brierly's story began in Madhya Pradesh's Khandwa region, where he was born Saroo Munshi Khan, in a poor but happy family. At the age of 5, Saroo was separated from his family after accidentally boarding a train to Calcutta (Kolkata) from Khandwa railway station. Finding himself in a totally alien city 1500 kilometres away from home, Saroo was forced to live as a street child for a while, before being sent by the authorities to an orphanage. He was eventually adopted by Tasmania-based couple Sue and John Brierly, and left for Australia with them in 1987. Although he grew up in Australia happy and loved, Saroo kept getting flashbacks of his earlier life. Tormented by the memories and a desperate desire to know where he came from, the adult Saroo began a frenzied online search to find his mother and siblings. His efforts to piece together places, people and events almost erased from memory by time, form the crux of Brierly's book and the movie that it inspired.

2. Sue Brierly's role was strikingly similar to Nicole Kidman's real life

Like the character she played—that of Sue Brierly, adoptive mother of two Indian children—Nicole Kidman has two adopted children (besides two biological ones) in real life. In the nineties, Kidman and her then husband Tom Cruise adopted a daughter, Isabella, and son, Connor. In interviews following the release of Lion, Kidman has dedicated her role in the film to her adopted children.

3. The film was Sunny Pawar's movie debut

Sunny Pawar lives in a Mumbai slum, had never seen a Western film, spoke no English and had no acting experience whatsoever. Then, Lion and the Oscars happened, and life was never the same again.

Sunny, who plays the young Saroo, was selected through an audition that spanned three cities. Approximately 2000 candidates were reportedly screened for the role, before Sunny was selected. Since he did not understand English, director Garth Davis used sign language to explain to Sunny how to act out emotional scenes. The formula clearly worked, because Sunny's heartbreakingly natural performance, particularly in the scenes where Saroo ekes out a lonely and scary existence on the streets of Calcutta, wowed the audiences and critics alike, and resulted in much praise being showered on the little superstar's raw talent.

4. Lion was also director Garth Davis's first feature film

Garth Davis, Director of Lion, is an award-winning director of television series and commercials. However, he had never directed a full-length feature film before. In 2008, Davis won a Gold Lion at Cannes. He also directed the successful TV series 'Top of the Lake', for which he received Emmy and BAFTA nominations. But Lion has to be his biggest project to date: the film has received 2 BAFTA wins and 6 Emmy nominations. From here on, for Davis, there can be no looking back.

5. Dev Patel spent 8 months preparing for the role

Born to Indian parents in London, Dev Patel had to work hard to look and sound more "Aussie" for his role in the movie. The physical transformation included gym sessions to put on more bulk. Patel also grew out his hair and beard to better portray a distraught man who is troubled by the memories of his past life and obsessed with his search for his family.

However, an even more important part of the prep was getting the Australian accent right. Patel spent a lot of time with a voice and accent coach to ensure that he sounded authentic. He also reportedly visited the orphanage where the real Saroo Brierly had stayed, travelled on the train to Kolkata that Saroo had accidentally taken three decades ago, and wrote down all his observations and reflections in a diary—all so that he could live and breathe the character he was about to portray.

6. Lion had one of the biggest opening weekends in Aussie film history

It would be an understatement to say that Lion opened to packed theatres. It had the highest-ever opening weekend for an independent film in Australian Box Office history. If one includes Australian films backed by studios, Lion posted the fifth biggest opening weekend of all time.

7. Lion is a deeply layered movie

Lion is the story of one man's search for his birth family. However, the film's real success lies in its ability to keep away from convenient stereotypes about life, loss and relationships. The movie takes a deeper approach, exploring conflicting themes, such as the bonds of familial love that thrive even in misfortune, the plight of street children who are still able to bear their lot with good cheer, the hopelessness the adult Saroo feels, and the resilience he finds within himself. Without making poverty the villain or milking emotional scenes for mileage, Lion relies on strong, genuine storytelling to keep viewers hooked.

A story of love and loss, pain and strength, Lion represents that rare mix of sensitive storytelling, brilliant performances and thought-provoking messages that makes a movie truly worth watching. So don't miss the Indian television premiere of Lion on Sunday, 22 October 2017, at 1 pm and 9 pm, only on &Privé HD. With its roster of acclaimed films, &Privé HD is an HD-only premium destination for the finest English cinema in the Indian broadcast space, and is designed for the discerning viewer who feels the other side of cinema.

Anne Frank Halloween Costume Sparks Internet Controversy

$
0
0

A costume in the likeness of Holocaust victim Anne Frank has received so much backlash that at least one online retailer has pulled it from its website.

The costume, on sale at HalloweenCostumes.com, featured a cheery young girl wearing a World War II-era dress, beret and bag. Twitter users picked up on the costume and quickly expressed their anger about it.

Carlos Galindo-Elvira, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Arizona office, summed up a lot of people’s feelings:

For those unfamiliar with her story, Anne Frank was a 15-year-old German teenager who hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II and wrote a diary about her experiences in hiding. After being discovered by the Gestapo, Anne and her family were split up. In October 1944, she, along with her sister Margot, was taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Anne nearly survived the war, but succumbed to typhus sometime in March 1945. Bergen-Belsen was liberated by British troops the next month. Anne’s diary, “The Diary of a Young Girl,” was published posthumously. 

The costume has since been pulled from the Fun.com-run website. Ross Walker Smith, a spokesman for the site, tweeted on Sunday that while the costume had been removed, the company sells costumes for “many uses outside of the Halloween season, such as school projects and plays.’’ 

He added: “We apologize for any offense it has caused, as that’s never our intention.”

A quick Google search reveals that the costume, and many others like it, are sold at other retailers online. One description for the same costume on CandyAppleCostumes.com says it “was designed by a British company to represent the British children who were evacuated from London to the countryside during World War II, like the Pevensie children in the Narnia books.”

Also on HuffPost
Archival Photos From World War II

Kolkata Police Leads The Way With Message Of Empathy For Women Tweeting About Sexual Harassment

$
0
0

In the days following the Harvey Weinstein scandal, thousands of women have joined the #MeToo social media campaign against sexual harassment, exposing the extent of the crisis.

The global campaign took off on Sunday following a tweet by actress Alyssa Milano, which said, "Suggested by a friend: If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote 'Me too' as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem."

Not only was the hashtag was tweeted nearly a million times in 48 hours, it triggered over 12 million #MeToo Facebook posts, comments and reactions in 24 hours.

Today, the Kolkata Police came out in support of the women who are speaking out against sexual harassment, sharing a powerful message on Facebook:

We at Kolkata Police have been perturbed by the number of women who have shared #metoo. And we would also like to reiterate our pledge and commitment by saying that we hear every single one of you."
We urge you to be strong, we want you to be very, very angry about the leering, jeering, threats, verbal and physical abuses, we are asking you to be not afraid and to report to the police every time.
We also feel it important to talk to boys about the need to stop sexual harassment, and for this, we have recently launched a project, Dear Boys, in schools. We have visited ten schools of Kolkata, and the second part of Dear Boys will start mid-November.

Read the full post.

Also on HuffPost India:


A Mother Calls Out Her Son's Sexism Publicly, But Social Media Makes Her Regret Her Brave Move

$
0
0

Over the last few days, social media has been used as a powerful tool by people of all genders and sexual identities across the world to bring attention to the problem of sexual harassment and abuse.

Shocking revelations shook Hollywood in the wake of multiple allegations against Harvey Weinstein of being a serial abuser. It led to actress Alyssa Milano call to victims of sexual abuse to put up a post with #MeToo on social media.

Closer home, Indian social media was grappling its own Weinstein-like conspiracy of abuse, silence and cover-up as Khodu Irani, the owner of High Spirits, a popular local bar in Pune, was accused by dozens of women of sexual misconduct that his friends and employees had been covering up for years.

Even as accusations against Irani piled up and evidence of his guilt mounted, some dismissed the issue by saying that the girls must have been asking for it if they chose to return to High Spirits after their ordeal.

One Facebook user, made the terrible choice of joking about the matter.

There's nothing new about ill-timed, sexist jokes in poor taste on social media. We find them gleefully circulated on Whatsapp groups and lurking around our Facebook news feeds and Twitter timelines on a daily basis. Sometimes we make the time to call out the person responsible. More often, they are just ignored.

Until a mother steps in and takes matters in her own hands.

Responding to her son's shameful joke, the user's mother wrote a comment telling him without mincing words what she thought about his sense of humour and how he could prepare to go hungry for the rest of the month until he apologised for ridiculing a problem as endemic as sexual abuse.

What could have been a beautiful learning moment for the woman's son and all the others who had cheered on his awful joke, quickly turned sinister, thanks to overzealous social media activists.

The mother's comment quickly went viral as screen shots started making the rounds of social media. Duly chastised and publicly shamed, the son owned up to his mistake and apologised on Facebook. But by then, the matter had snowballed into something much bigger.

In a misguided attempt to commend the mother for the courage she showed by shaming her own son publicly, many social media users invariably ended up harassing her and her family.

HuffPost India spoke to the woman's son, the original poster of the joke. He showed us screen shots of the messages he started receiving from strangers after the story caught media attention. People offended by the joke have hurled abuses indiscriminately. One wrote to his mother advising her to hang him.

"Which mother will like hearing this? She is distressed and distraught. Now she wishes she had never written anything in the first place," said the user, on condition of anonymity.

"I understand it was a bad joke. I've apologised multiple times for it. Even to the people writing to me privately and abusing me. But at the end of the day, it was a Facebook post. Do I deserve death threats for that? I am afraid someone will file an FIR against me for fun. I'm scared that if the issue blows up further, it might affect my job. My mother feels guilty now. She is a cancer patient and cannot take the harassment any more," he said.

The backlash against his 'joke' and the consequent abuse became so severe that the user has now deleted both the original post and the apology as well as has deactivated his account. His mother too has gone off social media for the time being.

Calling out sexism is often difficult. Most of us are unable to even confront strangers, let alone our own friends or family. It takes great courage and conviction to be able to do it so pointedly on a public platform, especially when it involves a loved one on the receiving end of our sharp words.

Ironically, a mother who was able to take such a difficult step now feels harassed and punished for standing up for her beliefs. All because in the tearing hurry to champion the cause, so many people forget the basic rules of decency and engagement.

While the joke was distasteful, undoubtedly, far more disturbing is people's hunger to go to any lengths to make an example of someone. The whole point of calling out sexism when we see it is to help people understand why such 'jokes' are harmful and how they contribute to a culture that trivialises sexual abuse, not to start a witch-hunt or a social media trial.

Also on HuffPost

BJP Is Taking Advantage Of The Wording Of An SC Order To Make Their Stand On Firecrackers Clear

$
0
0

The Supreme Court has banned the sale of firecrackers in the Delhi NCR region to test whether the temporary curb will bring down the national capital's alarming air pollution levels that shoot up every year especially after Diwali.

The decision has understandably ruffled many feathers. Those against the ban took to social media to allege that the decision targetted Hindus. They pointed out the "unfairness" of allowing animal slaughter in Eid while stopping Hindus from bursting crackers, a custom associated with the festival. Notably, Diwali, called the festival of lights, is celebrated among all communities in India.

READ: The Firecracker Ban Is Not A Story Of Hindu Victimhood

But none of this stopped the spokesperson of Delhi BJP, Tajinder Bagga, from using the wording of the SC order to find a way to make his stand about firecrackers known.

Bagga shared a video of him distributing firecrackers to children in Delhi's Hari Nagar:

While the Supreme Court held that burning firecrackers would only make the pollution worse, it only banned its sale. Bursting firecrackers is still allowed. The order stated that the ban on the sale of firecrackers is to see if air pollution can be controlled. But many have taken it as an attack on people's rights to celebrate their festival.

And the defiant BJP has used this to make a point.

Live Law quoted the Supreme Court order as saying:

We are of the view that the order suspending the licences should be given one chance to test itself in order to find out as to whether there would be positive effect of this suspension, particularly during Diwali period. Insofar as adverse effects of burning of crackers during Diwali are concerned, those have been witnessed year after year. The air quality deteriorates abysmally and alarmingly and the city chokes thereby. It leads to closing the schools and the authorities are compelled to take various measures on emergent basis, when faced with "health emergency" situation.

This very situation had occurred on the very next morning after Diwali in the year 2016. It resulted in passing the order dated November 11, 2016. This order prevailed during the year but the impact and effect of this order remains to be tested on Diwali days. Going by these considerations, we are of the opinion that the judgment dated dated September 12, 2017 passed by this Court should be made effective only from November 01, 2017. To put it clearly, though we are not tweaking with the various directions contained in the Orders dated September 12, 2017, the effect of that Order would not be given during this Diwali and, therefore, we are making it effective only from November 01, 2017. We are conscious of the fact that after the said order was passed, the police may have issued temporary licences. Accordingly, those aresuspended forthwith so that there is no further sale of the crackers in Delhi and NCR. Further orders in this behalf can be passed on assessing the situation that would emerge after this Diwali season.

Bagga justified his actions by telling India Today, "I purchased these firecrackers from outside Delhi and I have distributed them."

Bagga argued that only Hindu festivals were being targeted. He was not the only person who protested the SC order.

Fourteen members of the Azad Hind Fauj were arrested after they burst crackers in front of the apex court.

Last year, the particulate matter levels had increased dangerously, putting all citizens at risk.

The Guardian had reported that while World Health Organization recommends that PM2.5 is kept below 10 as an annual average, last year on the day after Diwali, it had gone upto 1,238. This was in comparison to 435 in 2015.

Will Akhilesh 2:0 Manage To Revive Samajwadi Party's Fortunes In Uttar Pradesh

$
0
0

A recent YouTube video has re-launched Akhilesh Yadav as a superhero, ready to vanquish his adversaries. The list of adversaries, of course, include various BJP leaders, starting with Yogi Adityanath and Amit Shah and ending with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. The video is basically a montage of famous dialogues and scenes from various Bollywood blockbusters, with faces of politicians superimposed on that of the actors.

The approximately three-minute long video is called 'Action Raja 2', the '2' probably signifying the re-incarnation of Yadav junior in the political topography of India. It may look like it's fan fiction of some sort and a spoof on the current political scenario, but Samajwadi Party insiders insists it isn't.

A send-up or for real?

The maker of the video, Faizaan Siddiqui, is an SP worker and so there's no question of spoofing the boss, insisted Anand Bhadauria, a close Akhilesh aide. Bhadauria had also put up another video on his Facebook page which depicted Yadav as 'Don' from the film starring Shah Rukh Khan. This video was created in February this year.

The spot has elements of burlesque and its creator — Lucknow-based Siddiqui — has made parodies of Mayawati, Yogi Adityanath. But Bhadauria insists that Siddiqui "worships" Akhilesh and his debut video on him was called "Ek tha Akhilesh (there was an Akhilesh): An emotional song".

Akhilesh Yadav 2:0, in real life, is remarkable for one change. At 44, he's come out of his family's shadow that bedevilled his first tenure as the Uttar Pradesh chief minister. Superman or not, he has positioned himself as a mainstay of a "secular" coalition which the Opposition is prospectively looking at to combat the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Akhilesh Yadav, Chief Minister of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and Samajwadi Party (SP) President, waves to his supporters as he arrives for an election campaign rally in Jaunpur, India March 6, 2017.

Akhilesh 2:0

Akhilesh's self-confidence after his party, the Samajwadi Party, was routed in the UP elections, stems from his second coming as the SP president earlier this month. It does not as much arise from the ground situation because the SP has not recovered the aggression that characterizes it whenever it's in the Opposition. No street fights with the Yogi government, no police "lathis" bearing down on the activists, no arrests. But these are early days of the new regime and there's time for all of that, say Akhilesh's aides.

Akhilesh's big achievement is he has attained the top post without challenges from his father and mentor, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and his paternal uncle, Shivpal Singh Yadav who nursed his own ambitions and once placed himself as Akhilesh's contender. Mulayam and Shivpal stayed out of the SP's national convention held in Agra on October 5 to formalise Akhilesh's re-anointment. He claimed he had their "blessings".

What is a fact is that Akhilesh met his father one-on-one several times before the Agra meet, confirming a perception that Mulayam had endorsed his son's second elevation at every step.

What is a fact is that Akhilesh met his father one-on-one several times before the Agra meet, confirming a perception that Mulayam had endorsed his son's second elevation at every step. Mulayam reportedly prevailed on Shivpal not to come in his son's way. Shivpal, a legislator, has been painted into a corner. He has no option other than serving his nephew. He cannot resign and join another party like the BJP until the next Lok Sabha or assembly election in case a ticket bait is dangled before him. He will lose the only locus he has. Shivpal's potential to manipulate the divisions in Mulayam's clan and play on the purported aspirations of Akhilesh's step-brother Prateek and his wife Aparna is over after Aparna lost the 2017 election and is warming up to the BJP.

Akhilesh used his unchallenged supremacy to his advantage. He dropped Mulayam and Shivpal from the SP's reconstituted national executive, rewarded his uncle and loyalist Ramgopal Yadav with the post of the principal general secretary and nominated Ramgopal's son Akshay Yadav as a special invitee. In contrast, Dharmendra Yadav, also a cousin and a Lok Sabha MP like Akshay, does not figure in the list because in the recent family dispute, he sided with Mulayam and Shivpal.

Likewise, those outside the family who steadfastly backed Akhilesh were suitably placed in the executive committee, notably Rajya Sabha MPs Kiranmay Nanda, Naresh Agarwal, Surendra Nagar, Ram Prakash Verma and Vishambar Prasad Nishad. These MPs collectively boycotted a meeting Mulayam had called at the end of the last Parliament session and registered their "solidarity" with Akhilesh.

At 77 and in indifferent health, Mulayam ceded space to his son after playing the neutral umpire for a while.

What will Akhilesh make of the mandate?

Dimple Yadav, wife of Samajwadi Party (SP) president and chief minister of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav, addresses an election campaign rally in Agra, India February 8, 2017.

His politics seems fuzzy and defensive. In response to a journalist's question on a visit to Raipur, he declared his wife, Dimple Yadav, who is the MP from Kannauj, will not contest in 2019, apparently in response to the BJP's tirade against dynasties. "If there is dynastic politics, then I will decide that my wife won't fight elections next time. Now BJP should tell us about its dynastic politics," he was quoted saying.

Last week at the launch of former President Pranab Mukherjee's book, "The Coalition Years: 1996-2012", Akhilesh shared the dais with Mukherjee, the former Prime Minister Pranab Mukherjee, CPM and CPI leaders Sitaram Yechury and S Sudhakar Reddy, BSP MP Satish Mishra and DMK MP Kanimozhi. He signalled that in the Opposition spectrum, he was no less a player than his seniors and peers.

Akhilesh Yadav, Chief Minister of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and Samajwadi Party (SP) President, waves to his supporters as he arrives for an election campaign rally in Jaunpur, India March 6, 2017.

Akhilesh said, "Elections beckon. The book will have lessons for us. If some of you (the leaders on the stage) had the opportunity to discuss (coalition formation) with 'Netaji' (Mulayam), now it is my turn." Mukherjee and Manmohan later congratulated him.

However, serious tests await Akhilesh before he can hope to become a linchpin of Opposition politics. He has to recover lost ground in UP's urban local body polls as well as the crucial by-elections in Gorakhpur and Phulpur that were occasioned by the resignations of the chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy, Keshav Prasad Maurya. The Congress has announced it would go solo in the local polls. If the Opposition fights independently in the two by-polls, it's a scenario tailor-made for a BJP win.

Kamal Hassan Retracts Support For Demonetisation, Calls It A Mistake

$
0
0

CHENNAI -- Apologizing for supporting demonetisation, actor Kamal Hassan said he will again salute Prime Minister Narendra Modi if he also accepts that the note ban was a mistake.

In an article in the Tamil magazine Anandavikatan, the actor said accepting and correcting mistakes is a marker for great leaders which Mahatma Gandhi was able to do.

Hassan said Modi should not be stubborn in arguing that the rabbit he had caught has three legs.

On his initial support for the demonetisation of 1,000 and 500 rupee notes, Hassan said he had welcomed the move and tweeted that it should be supported regardless of party affiliation.

"I thought people should bear with minor irritants in the goal to eradicate black money," he wrote.

The actor said his friends and those who know economics had called him and criticised his support for demonetisation.

Hassan said he later thought that demonetisation was good but the manner in which it was implemented was wrong.

He said now there were voices saying demonetisation was a deception and the weak response from the government raises serious doubts about the scheme.

The Morning Wrap: Akhilesh Yadav's New Avatar; Yogi Adityanath Defines 'Ram Rajya'

$
0
0

The Morning Wrap is HuffPost India's selection of interesting news and opinion from the day's newspapers. Subscribe here to receive it in your inbox each weekday morning.

Essential HuffPost

A recent YouTube video has re-launched Akhilesh Yadav as a superhero, ready to vanquish his adversaries. But will he be able to revive the fortunes of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh? Radhika Ramaseshan asks.

Social media can be used as a genuine tool of empowerment and positive change but it can also bare its fangs and turn into a bottomless pit of vileness. A mother who called out her son in public on his sexism learned this truth the hard way recently.

A week after NDTV took down a story on loans given to Jay Shah, the channel's managing editor Sreenivasan Jain, who also co-authored the piece, has called it "deeply unfortunate".

PARTNER BULLETIN |​ &PRIVÉ HD

7 Interesting Facts You Didn't Know About Dev Patel's 'Lion'

With 34 award wins, and 78 nominations including an astounding six Academy Awards nominations, Lion is one of the most formidable films of the year. Here are seven interesting facts about Lion that you may not have known before.

Main News

Calling the United States and India "two bookends of stability on either side of the globe," the Donald J Trump administration has proposed that Washington DC and New Delhi work together in the Indo-Pacific region to counter the disruptive force that China has become.

Seeking to deflect opposition criticism, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said on Wednesday that no politics should be seen behind his government's efforts to develop the temple town of Ayodhya which gave the idea of Ram Rajya — where there is no poverty or discrimination.

The Supreme Court has made it mandatory for the railways to keep oxygen cylinders in all trains to ensure that the life-saving gas could be provided to travellers suffering from respiratory problems in case of any emergency.

Off The Front Page

Actor Kamal Haasan has apologised for "hastily" supporting demonetisation and said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should accept his "mistake".

The family of the 11-year-old girl who died in Jharkhand's Simdega district last month, allegedly due to non-availability of ration, had been removed from the state's public distribution system because their Aadhaar cards were not linked to the new list issued by the government.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is capturing social media traction, evident from the high volume of retweets that the Twitter latecomer is getting for his punchy posts of late.

Opinion

SC does well to criminalise marital rape of a minor wife. It also needs to classify child marriage as forced marriage, argues Pratiksha Baxi in The Indian Express.

The defeat of the Islamic State in Raqqa is good news, but unless statesmanship is shown by the victors of the present round of fighting, it won't be long before West Asia sees another round of militancy, says an editorial in the Hindustan Times.

In The Telegraph, Swapan Dasgupta asks an unpopular question, "Should judges interpret statutes or should they make laws?" and proceeds to offer an answer.

Also on HuffPost

Viewing all 37249 articles
Browse latest View live