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BREXIT: Complications, Repercussions, and Implications
Cameron vs Pandora</i
Prime Minister David Cameron’s disastrous decision to hold a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU) and the manner he went about it reminds one of young Pandora in Greek mythology. ‘Pandora’ means ‘she with all gifts’. Cameron too had all the gifts; at 43, he became Prime Minister in 2010, got re-elected in 2015, and might have even won a third term. But just as Pandora opened the box she was warned not to open, Cameron went for a referendum that common sense would have told him not to go for, or to do it later.
The psychology as applied to any referendum tells us that the voter is not rationally responding to the question asked. Often, the voter uses the occasion to show his anger towards the government of the day. Without resorting to opinion polls, anyone could have told Cameron that a sizable section of the British public was disgruntled and disgusted as: they did not benefit much from the EU and globalization; they lost jobs because emigrants poured in from the rest of the EU; and they got hurt from the cut in welfare spending as demanded by the reckless and ruthless policy of austerity.
Pandora was young and curious, whereas Cameron is old enough to have known the risk of a referendum. He had the option to hold a referendum in 2017, after elections in France and Germany, and after preparing the ground better so that the public could have made a better informed judgment. He also had another option: A referendum seeking approval to renegotiate the treaty with the EU, which he would have easily won and then he could have sought a new contract with Brussels.
The common thread between the compositions was Mohammed Rafi who till date has not been surpassed in devotional singing by any singer in the world. Like Kabir, Rafi belongs to everyone and is the finest symbol of our secular foundation, someone whom we dare not classify with any caste, community or religion on account of his overwhelming contribution as a supreme artist and sublime human being. It is this greatness that Mahatma Gandhi propounded and which we need to practice. We all need to connect with each other since insulating ourselves from others’ pain only begets more pain.
Article on DRS( Decision review system) accepted by BCCI for upcoming India-England Test series.
Key changes in DRS for the India-England series include ultra-motion cameras to calculate predictive path and ball tracking in a more accurate manner, improved Hawk-Eye technology, and additional cameras to provide reliable spin reviews.
Another key feature will be Ultra-Edge technology to determine impact point in lbw decisions, and ensuring that post-impact balls do not affect the predicted path. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology approved this feature, and the BCCI accepted its report.
Hawk-Eye is a complex computer system used officially in numerous sports such as cricket, tennis, Gaelic football, badminton, hurling, association football and volleyball, to visually track the trajectory of the ball and display a record of its statistically most likely path as a moving image.
• Theme: Kigali accord which amends the Montreal Protocol of 1989 to allow it to eliminate HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons).
• The accord divides the world into three groups.
• First group: The richest countries, including the US and European Union nations, will freeze the production and consumption of HFCs by 2018 and reduce their use to about 15 per cent of 2012 levels by 2036.
• Second group: A group of developing countries, including China, Brazil and South Africa, are mandated to freeze HFC use by 2024 and reduce it to 20 per cent of their average value in 2020-22 by 2045.
• Third group: India, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and oil economies like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will have to freeze HFC use by 2028 and reduce it to about 15 per cent of 2025 levels by 2047.
• What are HFCs? They comprise a small part of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere and do not harm the ozone layer. But their heat-trapping capacity is more than a thousand times that of carbon dioxide, making them far more destructive to the climate than the more well-known GHG.
• Points of concern: India’s peers on most environmental compacts i.e. China, Brazil and South Africa opted for the middle-level phase-out schedule while India negotiated for a lenient schedule.
• Even, many of the hottest and poorest countries, including the entire African bloc, did not opt for the most lenient timetable.
• India’s refrigeration and air conditioning industry has been oblivious to the steps taken by its international counterparts e.g. EU banned the use of HFCs in cars in 2011 and is phasing out the chemical in other industries.
• Also, industries in the US have started replacing CFCs with climate-friendly refrigerants.
Article on DDos attack...Cyber hacking. Cyber security.
DDoS: Distributed denial-of-service
A global attack on one provider of Domain Name System services, Dyn Inc., took down sites including Twitter, Spotify, Reddit, CNN, Etsy and The New York Times for long stretches of time — from New York to Los Angeles.
Kyle York, chief strategy officer of Dyn, said the hackers launched a so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack using “tens of millions” of malware-infected devices connected to the internet. Speaking during a conference call on Friday afternoon, York said Dyn was “actively” dealing with a “third wave” of the attack.
The DNS translates website names into the Internet Protocol addresses that computers use to look up and access sites. But it has a design flaw: Sending a routine data request to a DNS server from one computer, the hacker can trick the system into sending a monster file of IP addresses back to the intended target. Multiply that by tens of thousands of computers under the hackers’ control, and the wall of data that flooded back is enormous. A small server may be capable of handling hundreds of simultaneous requests, but thousands every minute cause overload and ultimately shut down, taking the websites it hosts offline with it.
The practice often is employed by groups of hackers. In 2012, a DDoS attack forced offline the websites of Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., U.S. Bancorp and PNC Financial Services Group Inc.
There has been decline of circus. People are no more interested in watching a circus show. They get their entertainment from TV and movies now. There is also lack of recognition and support from government which has contributed to decline of circus in India.
Running a circus was a profitable business in those days. Politicians like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi and V.K. Krishna Menon were patrons and introduced measures such as abolishing entertainment tax, allowing railway concessions, and reducing the rent for grounds, recalls M.V. Shankaran, who owns the Kannur-based Gemini Group, pointing to an old black-and-white picture of him with Nehru. “There were times when we camped in places like Aligarh, Meerut and Sonepat during the festival season and performed five to six shows to a full gallery every day,” says Nirmala. But public interest in the circus slowly waned and today there is very little support or recognition from the government, says Rathi, 66, also a former performer. And her sentiment is echoed by much of the community.
Article on Actors doing a particular role, the stereotypes and prejudices within.
We don’t have to think about why charismatic but plain actors like Nawazuddin Siddiqui will never be cast in Ranbir Kapoor’s role in Ae Dil… though Siddiqui will be first choice for the serial killer in Raman Raghav 2.0 – as though conventionally good-looking people can’t be murderers. With something like Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, we are just asked to bask in beauty. We watch the lushly mounted film to take a break from our homes. And from our mirrors.
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Comments
BREXIT: Complications, Repercussions, and Implications
Cameron vs Pandora</i
Prime Minister David Cameron’s disastrous decision to hold a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU) and the manner he went about it reminds one of young Pandora in Greek mythology. ‘Pandora’ means ‘she with all gifts’. Cameron too had all the gifts; at 43, he became Prime Minister in 2010, got re-elected in 2015, and might have even won a third term. But just as Pandora opened the box she was warned not to open, Cameron went for a referendum that common sense would have told him not to go for, or to do it later.
The psychology as applied to any referendum tells us that the voter is not rationally responding to the question asked. Often, the voter uses the occasion to show his anger towards the government of the day. Without resorting to opinion polls, anyone could have told Cameron that a sizable section of the British public was disgruntled and disgusted as: they did not benefit much from the EU and globalization; they lost jobs because emigrants poured in from the rest of the EU; and they got hurt from the cut in welfare spending as demanded by the reckless and ruthless policy of austerity.
Pandora was young and curious, whereas Cameron is old enough to have known the risk of a referendum. He had the option to hold a referendum in 2017, after elections in France and Germany, and after preparing the ground better so that the public could have made a better informed judgment. He also had another option: A referendum seeking approval to renegotiate the treaty with the EU, which he would have easily won and then he could have sought a new contract with Brussels.
http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/brexit-complications-repercussions-and-implications_kpfabian_010716
World Needs More ‘Dharma’ and Less ‘Religion’ !
https://socialissuesindia.wordpress.com/why-dharma-is-not-religion/
The common thread between the compositions was Mohammed Rafi who till date has not been surpassed in devotional singing by any singer in the world. Like Kabir, Rafi belongs to everyone and is the finest symbol of our secular foundation, someone whom we dare not classify with any caste, community or religion on account of his overwhelming contribution as a supreme artist and sublime human being. It is this greatness that Mahatma Gandhi propounded and which we need to practice. We all need to connect with each other since insulating ourselves from others’ pain only begets more pain.
http://m.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/lest-we-forget/article9246297.ece
Key changes in DRS for the India-England series include ultra-motion cameras to calculate predictive path and ball tracking in a more accurate manner, improved Hawk-Eye technology, and additional cameras to provide reliable spin reviews.
Another key feature will be Ultra-Edge technology to determine impact point in lbw decisions, and ensuring that post-impact balls do not affect the predicted path. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology approved this feature, and the BCCI accepted its report.
http://www.livemint.com/Sports/OJsCR42Ag6CsUi1xjfsZnN/India-accept-DRS-for-England-test-series.html?facet=amp&utm_source=googleamp&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=googleamp
Hawk-Eye is a complex computer system used officially in numerous sports such as cricket, tennis, Gaelic football, badminton, hurling, association football and volleyball, to visually track the trajectory of the ball and display a record of its statistically most likely path as a moving image.
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRiwJxsCTW7FySDCbRHeLEiwnkGpsB-EF-WFJw-ApbTRQpgVXtk
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR3JsjWgqQ2RtIUu4y1q_5Cg7E-RHCd7oLfQ8mqfCOYuVULu6Qj2En2YGzC
Good job buddy.
Kigali warning
• Theme: Kigali accord which amends the Montreal Protocol of 1989 to allow it to eliminate HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons).
• The accord divides the world into three groups.
• First group: The richest countries, including the US and European Union nations, will freeze the production and consumption of HFCs by 2018 and reduce their use to about 15 per cent of 2012 levels by 2036.
• Second group: A group of developing countries, including China, Brazil and South Africa, are mandated to freeze HFC use by 2024 and reduce it to 20 per cent of their average value in 2020-22 by 2045.
• Third group: India, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and oil economies like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will have to freeze HFC use by 2028 and reduce it to about 15 per cent of 2025 levels by 2047.
• What are HFCs? They comprise a small part of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere and do not harm the ozone layer. But their heat-trapping capacity is more than a thousand times that of carbon dioxide, making them far more destructive to the climate than the more well-known GHG.
• Points of concern: India’s peers on most environmental compacts i.e. China, Brazil and South Africa opted for the middle-level phase-out schedule while India negotiated for a lenient schedule.
• Even, many of the hottest and poorest countries, including the entire African bloc, did not opt for the most lenient timetable.
• India’s refrigeration and air conditioning industry has been oblivious to the steps taken by its international counterparts e.g. EU banned the use of HFCs in cars in 2011 and is phasing out the chemical in other industries.
• Also, industries in the US have started replacing CFCs with climate-friendly refrigerants.
DDoS: Distributed denial-of-service
A global attack on one provider of Domain Name System services, Dyn Inc., took down sites including Twitter, Spotify, Reddit, CNN, Etsy and The New York Times for long stretches of time — from New York to Los Angeles.
Kyle York, chief strategy officer of Dyn, said the hackers launched a so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack using “tens of millions” of malware-infected devices connected to the internet. Speaking during a conference call on Friday afternoon, York said Dyn was “actively” dealing with a “third wave” of the attack.
http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/Ox8IZg5kiOKrpzr3KG5Q7O/Hackers-take-down-sites-like-Twitter-from-New-York-to-Los-A.html?facet=amp&utm_source=googleamp&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=googleamp
The DNS translates website names into the Internet Protocol addresses that computers use to look up and access sites. But it has a design flaw: Sending a routine data request to a DNS server from one computer, the hacker can trick the system into sending a monster file of IP addresses back to the intended target. Multiply that by tens of thousands of computers under the hackers’ control, and the wall of data that flooded back is enormous. A small server may be capable of handling hundreds of simultaneous requests, but thousands every minute cause overload and ultimately shut down, taking the websites it hosts offline with it.
The practice often is employed by groups of hackers. In 2012, a DDoS attack forced offline the websites of Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., U.S. Bancorp and PNC Financial Services Group Inc.
There has been decline of circus. People are no more interested in watching a circus show. They get their entertainment from TV and movies now. There is also lack of recognition and support from government which has contributed to decline of circus in India.
http://m.thehindu.com/features/magazine/nileena-ms-on-the-precarious-state-of-the-indian-circus-industry/article9251332.ece
Running a circus was a profitable business in those days. Politicians like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi and V.K. Krishna Menon were patrons and introduced measures such as abolishing entertainment tax, allowing railway concessions, and reducing the rent for grounds, recalls M.V. Shankaran, who owns the Kannur-based Gemini Group, pointing to an old black-and-white picture of him with Nehru. “There were times when we camped in places like Aligarh, Meerut and Sonepat during the festival season and performed five to six shows to a full gallery every day,” says Nirmala. But public interest in the circus slowly waned and today there is very little support or recognition from the government, says Rathi, 66, also a former performer. And her sentiment is echoed by much of the community.
We don’t have to think about why charismatic but plain actors like Nawazuddin Siddiqui will never be cast in Ranbir Kapoor’s role in Ae Dil… though Siddiqui will be first choice for the serial killer in Raman Raghav 2.0 – as though conventionally good-looking people can’t be murderers. With something like Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, we are just asked to bask in beauty. We watch the lushly mounted film to take a break from our homes. And from our mirrors.
http://m.thehindu.com/features/magazine/baradwaj-rangan-on-the-pleasure-of-gawking-at-beautiful-people-on-screen/article9251285.ece