The iPhone shortcut which records when you say ‘I’m getting pulled over’

An iPhone shortcut that allows users to automatically record their interactions with police is gaining popularity.Once installed, a user can simply say “Siri, I’m getting pulled over” or clicks a button on the screen saver to activate.

The shortcut will pause music, turn down the brightness and volume, place the phone in the “Do Not Disturb” mode to block any incoming calls, and start a video recording on the front-facing camera.

An alert will also be sent to a friend or close contact to inform them of the situation and your location. After the video is saved, another message will be sent saying that the user is safe.

The independent shortcut was developed by Robert Petersen and first released on Reddit in 2018.Petersen told Business Insider in 2018 that the app is essentially the “civilian equivalent” of body cameras worn by many police officers.

The developer has added on Twitter that none of the police officers he has spoken to “have had any issue with it all” and that he “has his reasons” behind the technology.

Its rise in popularity comes amid the widespread global protests and anger over police brutality.Thousands of people have marched against police violence since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

Video captured on mobile devices shared the fatal arrest of Floyd on social media.The shortcut can only be downloaded and installed from Apple’s browser, Safari, on iPhone, and is not currently available on the smartphone’s app store.

Link to activate this feature :-

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/cc95be30b285469ea22b7cff11ce0737

This also no direct Android equivalent of the shortcut, but similar apps can be found on the Google Play Store to discreetly record videos.

Educationists call for cancellation of JEE and NEET

As the covid 19 cases increasing swiflys in india and everyone is under distress during this pandemic it effecting especially the students as many of education institutions are planning to have their regular exams.But how will be it possible ? How will they condect it ? And most important question what are the measures for student saftys? 

All over the country students are demanding for cancelling the exams this year.Apart from students,  educationists are also calling for scrapping of all india level entrance exams this year.

Dr.  R Murali,Tamil Nadu secretary said ” everyone is under distress during this movie 19 pandemic and cases are only expected to increase in July and August. An examination for crores of students across the country would be higlhy impossible to be held safely At least for this one year, the exams must be scrapped for students sake. 
The main reason behind the scrapping exams said that studetst are facing mental pressures during this period.

They are proposing for an alternative assessment for admission to student.
It will me more better to consider scools borad exams marks than entrance exams.
On the other hand many of are saying that exams should not be cancle but just postponed it till the covid 19 situation is under control as many of students have prepared day and night for entrance exam plus many students do not done good in board exams.

China releases 10 Indian soldiers after intense negotiations

The release of the 10 soldiers figured in three rounds of talks between Indian and Chinese delegations, led by major generals, near Patrol Point 14 in Galway Valley between Tuesday and Thursday. Maj Gen Abhijit Bapat, commander of Karu-based headquarters 3 Infantry Division, and his Chinese counterpart, met for the third time on Thursday.Intense negotiations through diplomatic and military channels, including three rounds of talks between senior military officers, led to the release of 10 Indian soldiers detained by the Chinese side during the violent brawl of June 15 in Galwan Valley, people familiar with developments said.The people, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 10 soldiers, including at least two officers, were returned to the Indian side on Thursday evening, three days after the violent face-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that left 20 soldiers, including a colonel, dead.

These negotiations were kept tightly under wraps due to concerns for the safety of the soldiers amid the heightened tensions between the two sides, the people said.

Russia assures support to India amid violent face-off with China at Galwan Valley

India and Russia enjoy close ties and have frequently engaged at the highest level, both Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin have spoken to each other several times this year including on COVID crisis.Later next week, the \foreign ministers of the three countries are scheduled for the RIC (Russia, India, China) meet. The Russian envoy called the existence of the grouping an “undisputable reality” which is “firmly fixed on the world map”. 

Commenting on the current stage of the trilateral cooperation amid the border skirmish, he said, “There are no indications that it might be frozen”Also, Russia is set to host SCO and BRICS summits later this year. 

Meanwhile, Pakistani Foreign Minister SM Qureshi also spoke to his Russian counterpart and the Russian foreign ministry readout of the talks reveals that Russia does not support Pakistab’s priorities as had been claimed by Islamabad.

Awakening

EYE TO THE WORLD- AWAKENING

Awakening is the phase that comes from the three words when they come together. Awakening is the way in which we change our vision towards our own life.
The three words are death, hope and moments

Death:-
when we die, it is not the things we did that we regret the most, it is the things we did not do. That’s what, what every book, story motivational speaker says live your life to the fullest because you never know when your time to leave this universe might come and you’ll regret things.If you are 15, 18, 22, 25 remember a time when you used to think how old are you today seem so far away?you don’t have any more time to waste. No one remembers the night they got plenty of sleep. On the day you got to eat cheesecake. Go out and do something fun. Tonight!the perfect moment will never come. You just continue to get older and look back wishing you had  participated in more things in school, wishing you had talked to that cute guy or girl, wishing you had told your parents that you love them more. At the end of the day, it’s not about which school you went to, which car you drive, how many followers you had, or how many bedrooms does your apartment have or any of that. It is about the memories you made in the love you had with the people you made them with. This isn’t Just another motivational post this is a chance for you right now to make a true lasting impact in your life. To live a better life. To go out and have fun, chase your dreams, make memories, most importantly spend time with your loved ones,because death might take you and me but we will leave the ones we love behind and they will be the people who are gonna cry their eyes out and whimpering all over.

Hope:-
Hope feels like such a silly little 4 letter word and yet it is still in our everyday language. People tell us to hope all the damn time and I find it rather repetitive, but a necessary task. We set alarms every night In the hope we wake up the next morning. We all say “umeed par duniya kayam hai”.without hope there wouldn’t be anything we know in this world. This world has lost its meaning because people throw it around and kick it in the dirt, but I still hope.I hope one day I’m waking up next to you with those sleepy and barely opened eyes and  arms wide open that you pull me closer for those last few cuddles before we have to go on with our mundane missions for the day.I hope I can kiss you wherever we are, if it be in public and private, and I pull away and you draw me and for one more.I hope that someday I wake up in a beautiful bed in Paris and make breakfast for my entire shooting crew. I hope one day you see the man that I see and feel confident because you are truly remarkable.I just hope that one day the simple things don’t get a full stop I hope to yours one day and that you will be mine. But who gives a damn about hope anymore.

Moments:-
I was laughing with my friends once. When I realize something. Life is nothing but moments the fight you had with your best friend is just a moment. The championship you lost is just a moment. The road trip you spent with your friends singing to throwbacks is just a moment. Every up and down every down and everything in between is just a moment that passes with time. You will remember these moments and you may not but what you will remember is the people you spend them with and the way you felt. The way she made you laugh and the way he made you cry, and the way they made you feel like you’re on the top of the world when you were nowhere but with your best friends. The way you to walked the long the Marine drive and Sat and talked for hours. All of those moments and feelings and people combine to make a big moment that we call life. In all of eternity, our life is just a moment. Appreciate the moment you’ve been given to spend it with,because no matter how beautiful or tragic a moment it is , it is a moment, it always ends. So hold on a little tighter smile a little bigger kiss a little harder laugh a little louder try a little harder forgive a little quicker and lover whole lot deeper because they are the moments you will remember when you are old and wishing you could rewind time. Not a thing lasts forever,mind you love does, my love would last I hope, so you better damn well enjoy before it is all gone.
ciao for now.

Being busy

What a basic necessity to every relationship and to every other person it is time.
You know what is very appealing, very convincing, very sexy, it is humility. Being busy, being on the cloud and not having any sort of humility this is not how relationships work.
Now I know many people who organise slam me with comments like if we have work, we gotta work. now I’ll tell you this article is not for people who are being productively busy but this is for people who are being ignorant to the people around them into the relationships they are handling around them.
This article is also for those people who think that the people around them have gotten really ignorant and they think that they got no one to talk to.
Being busy and being ignorant is different just so you know. Being busy is working on making yourself better, being productive, working for your jobs, working for the betterment of your career, working on the betterment of your soul is being the productive busy, and being productive busy like this means extremely good, people who are indulging themselves into activities to make their career and life work should be supported no matter what.
The people who are ignorant and the people who are productively busy have a difference in them the people who are ignorant won’t be texting you for the entire day won’t be calling you instead will be indulging themselves into things like YouTube or Instagram or pubg or call of duty maybe or some other gaming channels on more entertainment sources instead of just working on the relationships.
The people who are ignorant and the ones who are productively busy have a difference in them the people who are productively busy will efficiently try and make efforts to maintain the relationships with everyone. The people who are ignorant will make absolutely no efforts to put into the relationship.
This blog contains this overview because I’m having my fair share of people who are ignorant and also those who are productively busy. Now as this overview is done I am going to tell you what to do to cope up with people like this.
we all know that being alone and being lonely so much different. Being alone is a choice sometimes being lonely is a situation you get stuck in. being lonely is like being in an extremely crowded room you are screaming on the top of a voice but nobody can hear you. being alone is like you are sitting in the quietest peaceful and beautiful hotel room reading a book with a cup of coffee or Coco and you can walk out any time and encounter in an adventure. Loneliness is not that, loneliness is something that keeps you entrapped it does not give you a choice.
that’s what you encounter when you have ignorant people in your life you do not get alone you get lonely. But it differs with the people if the person is productively busy all you have to do is understand, stay back and support.
But if the person is ignorant and you are getting lonely and you are just going up with the person my dear friend it is a Red flag.
when you have a person in your life who is extremely ignorant who pays no heeds and leaves you one question your mind gets questioned and you are jumbled up.
I’ll tell you when I do get lonely what is my solution. It is truly said tit for tat, I am not advising you to get ignorant instead get busy within building yourself. Paint portraits and landscapes, take up the hundred novel challenge, 30-day article challenge, cook the favorite meal challenge. Trust me when I tell you this cooking is therapeutic. Pick up the 30 ROM com movie challenge on Netflix. And of course, there are many more things you can encounter which will always keep you off your negative thoughts and definitely build up your own character and your own soul and you will have things to do with yourself which will form the base of your career.
Do not let others being ignorant to you affect your workspace. If the person is being ignorant it is the person who is Losing the relationship and trust me you are not at fault. Be proud of who you are and not ashamed of how someone else treats you. Owning your own story and loving yourself through the process is the bravest thing that you will never do. After all, you have to love yourself first you love someone else because you cannot pour from an empty cup.
Ciao.
 

Deliberate Practice:What It Is and How to Use It

What is Deliberate Practice?
Let’s define deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice refers to a special type of practice that is purposeful and systematic. While regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance.

Can You Achieve Anything With Enough Practice?
Deliberate practice does not mean that you can fashion yourself into anything with enough work and effort, though. While human beings do possess a remarkable ability to develop their skills, there are limits to how far any individual can go. Your genes set a boundary around what is possible.

However, while genetics influence performance, they do not determine performance. Do not confuse destiny with opportunity. Genes provide opportunity. They do not determine our destiny. It’s similar to a game of cards. You have a better opportunity if you are dealt a better hand, but you also need to play the hand well to win.

Regardless of where we choose to apply ourselves, deliberate practice can help us maximize our potential—no matter what cards we were dealt. It turns potential into reality.

Examples of Deliberate Practice
Joe DiMaggio was one of the greatest hitters in baseball history. I recently heard a little-known story about how DiMaggio developed his exceptional ability. Read more…
In some circles, golfer Ben Hogan is credited with “inventing practice.” Hogan methodically broke the game of golf down into chunks and figured out how he could master each section. Today, experts have a new term for his rigorous style of improvement.

In some circles, Ben Hogan is credited with “inventing practice.”

Hogan was one of the greatest golfers of the 20th century, an accomplishment he achieved through tireless repetition. He simply loved to practice. Hogan said, “I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning so I could hit balls. I’d be at the practice tee at the crack of dawn, hit balls for a few hours, then take a break and get right back to it.”

For Hogan, every practice session had a purpose. He reportedly spent years breaking down each phase of the golf swing and testing new methods for each segment. The result was near perfection. He developed one of the most finely-tuned golf swings in the history of the game.

His precision made him more like a surgeon than a golfer. During the 1953 Masters, for example, Hogan hit the flagstick on back-to-back holes. A few days later, he broke the tournament scoring record

Hogan methodically broke the game of golf down into chunks and figured out how he could master each section. For example, he was one of the first golfers to assign specific yardages to each golf club. Then, he studied each course carefully and used trees and sand bunkers as reference points to inform him about the distance of each shot.

Hogan finished his career with nine major championships—ranking fourth all-time. During his prime, other golfers simply attributed his remarkable success to “Hogan’s secret.” Today, experts have a new term for his rigorous style of improvement: deliberate practice.

While regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance.

The greatest challenge of deliberate practice is to remain focused. In the beginning, showing up and putting in your reps is the most important thing. But after a while we begin to carelessly overlook small errors and miss daily opportunities for improvement.

This is because the natural tendency of the human brain is to transform repeated behaviors into automatic habits. For example, when you first learned to tie your shoes you had to think carefully about each step of the process. Today, after many repetitions, your brain can perform this sequence automatically. The more we repeat a task the more mindless it becomes.

Mindless activity is the enemy of deliberate practice. The danger of practicing the same thing again and again is that progress becomes assumed. Too often, we assume we are getting better simply because we are gaining experience. In reality, we are merely reinforcing our current habits—not improving them.

Claiming that improvement requires attention and effort sounds logical enough. But what does deliberate practice actually look like in the real world? Let’s talk about that now.

Examples of Deliberate Practice
One of my favorite examples of deliberate practice is discussed in Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. In the book, Colvin describes how Benjamin Franklin used deliberate practice to improve his writing skills.

When he was a teenager, Benjamin Franklin was criticized by his father for his poor writing abilities. Unlike most teenagers, young Ben took his father’s advice seriously and vowed to improve his writing skills.

He began by finding a publication written by some of the best authors of his day. Then, Franklin went through each article line by line and wrote down the meaning of every sentence. Next, he rewrote each article in his own words and then compared his version to the original. Each time, “I discovered some of my faults, and corrected them.” Eventually, Franklin realized his vocabulary held him back from better writing, and so he focused intensely on that area.

Deliberate practice always follows the same pattern: break the overall process down into parts, identify your weaknesses, test new strategies for each section, and then integrate your learning into the overall process.

Here are some more examples.

Cooking: Jiro Ono, the subject of the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, is a chef and owner of an award-winning sushi restaurant in Tokyo. Jiro has dedicated his life to perfecting the art of making sushi and he expects the same of his apprentices. Each apprentice must master one tiny part of the sushi-making process at a time—how to wring a towel, how to use a knife, how to cut the fish, and so on. One apprentice trained under Jiro for ten years before being allowed to cook the eggs. Each step of the process is taught with the utmost care.

Martial arts: Josh Waitzkin, author of The Art of Learning, is a martial artist who holds several US national medals and a 2004 world championship. In the finals of one competition, he noticed a weakness: When an opponent illegally head-butted him in the nose, Waitzkin flew into a rage. His emotion caused him to lose control and forget his strategy. Afterward, he specifically sought out training partners who would fight dirty so he could practice remaining calm and principled in the face of chaos. “They were giving me a valuable opportunity to expand my threshold for turbulence,” Waitzkin wrote. “Dirty players were my best teachers.”

Chess: Magnus Carlsen is a chess grandmaster and one of the highest-rated players in history. One distinguishing feature of great chess players is their ability to recognize “chunks,” which are specific arrangements of pieces on the board. Some experts estimate that grandmasters can identify around 300,000 different chunks. Interestingly, Carlsen learned the game by playing computer chess, which allowed him to play multiple games at once. Not only did this strategy allow him to learn chunks much faster than someone playing in-person games, but also gave him a chance to make more mistakes and correct his weaknesses at an accelerated pace.

Music: Many great musicians recommend repeating the most challenging sections of a song until you master them. Virtuoso violinist Nathan Milstein says, “Practice as much as you feel you can accomplish with concentration. Once when I became concerned because others around me practiced all day long, I asked [my professor] how many hours I should practice, and he said, ‘It really doesn’t matter how long. If you practice with your fingers, no amount is enough. If you practice with your head, two hours is plenty.’

Basketball: Consider the following example from Aubrey Daniels, “Player A shoots 200 practice shots, Player B shoots 50. The Player B retrieves his own shots, dribbles leisurely and takes several breaks to talk to friends. Player A has a colleague who retrieves the ball after each attempt. The colleague keeps a record of shots made. If the shot is missed the colleague records whether the miss was short, long, left or right and the shooter reviews the results after every 10 minutes of practice. To characterize their hour of practice as equal would hardly be accurate. Assuming this is typical of their practice routine and they are equally skilled at the start, which would you predict would be the better shooter after only 100 hours of practice?”Basketball: Consider the following example from Aubrey Daniels, “Player A shoots 200 practice shots, Player B shoots 50. The Player B retrieves his own shots, dribbles leisurely and takes several breaks to talk to friends. Player A has a colleague who retrieves the ball after each attempt. The colleague keeps a record of shots made. If the shot is missed the colleague records whether the miss was short, long, left or right and the shooter reviews the results after every 10 minutes of practice. To characterize their hour of practice as equal would hardly be accurate. Assuming this is typical of their practice routine and they are equally skilled at the start, which would you predict would be the better shooter after only 100 hours of practice?”

The Unsung Hero of Deliberate Practice
Perhaps the greatest difference between deliberate practice and simple repetition is this: feedback. Anyone who has mastered the art of deliberate practice—whether they are an athlete like Ben Hogan or a writer like Ben Franklin—has developed methods for receiving continual feedback on their performance.

There are many ways to receive feedback. Let’s discuss two.

The first effective feedback system is measurement. The things we measure are the things we improve. This holds true for the number of pages we read, the number of pushups we do, the number of sales calls we make, and any other task that is important to us. It is only through measurement that we have any proof of whether we are getting better or worse.

The second effective feedback system is coaching. One consistent finding across disciplines is that coaches are often essential for sustaining deliberate practice. In many cases, it is nearly impossible to both perform a task and measure your progress at the same time. Good coaches can track your progress, find small ways to improve, and hold you accountable to delivering your best effort each day.

The Promise of Deliberate Practice
Humans have a remarkable capacity to improve their performance in nearly any area of life if they train in the correct way. This is easier said than done.

Deliberate practice is not a comfortable activity. It requires sustained effort and concentration. The people who master the art of deliberate practice are committed to being lifelong learners—always exploring and experimenting and refining.

Deliberate practice is not a magic pill, but if you can manage to maintain your focus and commitment, then the promise of deliberate practice is quite alluring: to get the most out of what you’ve got.

Scientists decode how the brain senses smell

Scientists have further decoded how mammalian brains perceive odors and distinguish one smell from thousands of others.

In experiments in mice, NYU Grossman School of Medicine researchers have for the first time created an electrical signature that is perceived as an odor in the brain’s smell-processing center, the olfactory bulb, even though the odor does not exist.

Because the odor-simulating signal was manmade, researchers could manipulate the timing and order of related nerve signaling and identify which changes were most important to the ability of mice to accurately identify the “synthetic smell.”

“Decoding how the brain tells apart odors is complicated, in part, because unlike with other senses such as vision, we do not yet know the most important aspects of individual smells,” says study lead investigator Edmund Chong, MS, a doctoral student at NYU Langone Health. “In facial recognition, for example, the brain can recognize people based on visual cues, such as the eyes, even without seeing someone’s nose and ears,” says Chong. “But these distinguishing features, as recorded by the brain, have yet to be found for each smell.”

The current study results, published online in the journal Science on June 18, center on the olfactory bulb, which is behind the nose in animals and humans. Past studies have shown that airborne molecules linked to scents trigger receptor cells lining the nose to send electric signals to nerve-ending bundles in the bulb called glomeruli, and then to brain cells (neurons).

The timing and order of glomeruli activation is known to be unique to each smell, researchers say, with signals then transmitted to the brain’s cortex, which controls how an animal perceives, reacts to, and remembers a smell. But because scents can vary over time and mingle with others, scientists have until now struggled to precisely track a single smell signature across several types of neurons.

For the new study, the researchers designed experiments based on the availability of mice genetically engineered by another lab so that their brain cells could be activated by shining light on them—a technique called optogenetics. Next they trained the mice to recognize a signal generated by light activation of six glomeruli—known to resemble a pattern evoked by an odor—by giving them a water reward only when they perceived the correct “odor” and pushed a lever.

If mice pushed the lever after activation of a different set of glomeruli (simulation of a different odor), they received no water. Using this model, the researchers changed the timing and mix of activated glomeruli, noting how each change impacted a mouse’s perception as reflected in a behavior: the accuracy with which it acted on the synthetic odor signal to get the reward.

Specifically, researchers found that changing which of the glomeruli within each odor-defining set were activated first led to as much as a 30 percent drop in the ability of a mouse to correctly sense an odor signal and obtain water. Changes in the last glomeruli in each set came with as little as a 5 percent decrease in accurate odor sensing.

The timing of the glomeruli activations worked together “like the notes in a melody,” say the researchers, with delays or interruptions in the early “notes” degrading accuracy. Tight control in their model over when, how many, and which receptors and glomeruli were activated in the mice, enabled the team to sift through many variables and identify which odor features stood out.

“Now that we have a model for breaking down the timing and order of glomeruli activation, we can examine the minimum number and kind of receptors needed by the olfactory bulb to identify a particular smell,” says study senior investigator and neurobiologist Dmitry Rinberg, Ph.D.

Rinberg, an associate professor at NYU Langone and its Neuroscience Institute, says the human nose is known to have some 350 different kinds of odor receptors, while mice, whose sense of smell is far more specialized, have more than 1,200.

“Our results identify for the first time a code for how the brain converts sensory information into perception of something, in this case an odor,” adds Rinberg. “This puts us closer to answering the longstanding question in our field of how the brain extracts sensory information to evoke behavior.”

New research untangles the complex code the brain uses to distinguish between a vast array of smells, offering a scientific explanation for how it separates baby powder from bleach, lemon from orange, or freshly cut grass from freshly brewed coffee.

A single scent can trigger a complex chain of events in what’s known as the olfactory bulb, the brain’s control center for smell. To unravel the intricacies of that process, researchers in the U.S. and Italy turned to a technique known as optogenetics, which uses light to control neurons in the brain. In research on mice, they used light to trick the brain into thinking it smelled a particular scent, then studied brain activity to understand the role different neurons play in a mouse’s ability to recognize that scent. Their findings were published Thursday in Science.

When we encounter a certain smell, it stimulates a specific pattern of activity among tiny spheres known as glomeruli, which are found in the olfactory bulb. The odor plays across these glomeruli like a melody across piano keys: Just as a tune is made distinct by which keys are pressed and at what point in the melody, a scent is made distinct by which glomeruli are activated and in what order.

A tune remains identifiable even with some tweaks: We can still place a melody marred by a wrong note or a mistimed beat. Likewise, we can still recognize a scent altered by some change in its characteristic activity pattern. The researchers wanted to understand how the specific combination of neurons that respond to a scent — including where they’re located, and when they’re activated — might affect whether the brain registers a smell as recognizable.

To do so, the researchers harnessed optogenetics to activate genetically engineered, light-sensitive neurons. The scientists used light to stimulate a specific pattern across glomeruli in mouse brains, which gave the mice the experience of smelling a particular scent — even though that scent that did not actually exist outside of their own heads.

You can do this experiment with the music. I’ll play different music and see which notes are more important, less important,” said Dmitry “Dima” Rinberg, a neuroscientist at NYU Langone Health and a senior author of the study. “We asked not on the level of the external stimulus, but at the level of stimulating neurons.”

The scientists trained the mice to respond in a particular way to this “synthetic smell.” Then, they introduced different tweaks to that pattern — like wrong notes in the melody — and watched to see which of those changes affected whether a mouse could still “smell” the scent.

Justus Verhagen, Yale researcher who studies taste and smell and was not involved in the research, said that the new paper builds on past research into the locations of olfactory neurons and the timing of their activation by bringing the two factors together into a single, comprehensive model.

The difference in the perception seems to follow fairly linearly with the magnitude of the change in either space or time of the stimulation of the olfactory system,” he said. “That linearity is kind of surprising because, in neuroscience, we’re very used to a lot of nonlinear effects.”

The study also cemented the findings of previous research, which has shown that receptors activated earlier are more essential to scent recognition than those activated later on.

“If I messed up with the first note, you have a much higher chance to misinterpret the melody than if I messed up with the 25th note,” Rinberg explained. That makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, he added — animals out in the wild need to make instantaneous assessments of danger. It’s what’s known as the primacy effect. Rinberg added that the effect carries over even to lower-stakes settings like smelling wine, where the specific notes that might suggest where the grapes were harvested only follow after we get past the immediately overwhelming impression of alcohol.

There are no immediate therapeutic applications of the research, Rinberg said. But a better understanding of how the brain perceives scent could one day shed more light on other scientific questions that also involve smell, such as why people sometimes temporarily lose their sense of smell when sick, which has been observed in some patients with Covid-19. Verhagen said research on the logic of the olfactory system could also be of use in developing new technologies.

“In terms of medicine, there is increased interest in brain-machine interfaces. And so it is very important to understand how the brain encodes stimuli,” he said. “If we understand that coding logic, we can use that to help people who have deficits.”

How artificial intelligence is transforming the future of digital marketing

From smart search options and personalized messaging to being used in campaigns and marketing, AI and machine learning are increasingly being used in digital marketing.

Digital marketing relies on leveraging insights from the copious amounts of data that gets created every time a customer interacts with a digital asset. Algorithms optimize various factors and data points that influence digital marketing success.
In 2020, we anticipate a significant uptick in the mainstreaming of AI and machine learning use cases in digital marketing across several areas. 

Search will get very smart

In the past year, online search has had several AI and machine learning developments. Google is leading the pack with exciting applications in information retrieval. For example, Google’s BERT technology can process a word in the context of all the other terms in a sentence, rather than one-by-one in order. BERT also enables anyone to train their own state-of-the-art question answering system.  

Customization of search results and the results page based on learning from past interactions and preferences of a user is another application of machine learning used in search.

AI-driven personalization of messaging 

Several attach companies have been focusing on using AI and machine learning to find the right audience to write better ads than humans, and to increase conversion rates and engagement with the target audience. There are also several AI-led developments in the area of creating dynamic ads and landing pages to personalize marketing messages on the fly. 

AI has an application in content creation in terms of determining the logic of personalization as also crating content specific to an individual, using techniques such as natural language generation (NLG).

Use of machine learning in campaign operations 

Platforms such as Google and Face book have been at the forefront of AI/ML applications in marketing. Starting from smart bidding and smart campaigns to auto-generated ads, Google is making it easy for advertisers.

Smart bidding options such as TROAS, TCPA, and others use advanced machine learning algorithms to train on data at a vast scale to make accurate predictions about how different bid amounts might impact conversion or conversion value and assist advertisers in optimizing without getting into too many details. 

Google factors in a wide range of contextual signals (through search data) to predict user behavior and to influence auction time bidding as per the goal set by advertisers. Facebook has also incorporated machine learning across campaign planning and execution, as also in ad placements and ad delivery.

Similarly, on the organic search side, machine learning-based product ALPS reverse engineers Google’s ranking algorithm, and is able to accurately quantify ranking drivers, provide precise recommendations for changes, and predicts the impact of SEO actions before they are implemented.

Similar technology to drive improved ad copy testing in digital marketing exists. These help in evaluating ad copies and landing pages on various parameters like relevancy, use of action promoters/inhibitors, urgency inducers, page layout, load times, etc., to gauge the impact on ad relevance, expected CTR, and landing page experience. 

Future trends 

AI will also have additional application in digital marketing with the uptick in the adoption of technologies such as VR and AR, as commercial use cases of these technologies find wider adoption in retail and other sectors.

Many retailers are also testing AI and VR/AR technologies together to make the user experience personalized to an individual.

Other areas of impact include voice search. We will increasingly see ads about things which we just said or talked about, but haven’t searched for yet. Similarly, image search is also being used by many brands for their consumers to match patterns and identify products using image search. 

The coming years will continue to unfold newer potential uses of AI in digital marketing.

Ethnic Killings/ Honour Killings: Right or Wrong???

‘Honour Killings’ are extreme acts of domestic violence culminating in the murder of a woman by her family or community. However only in relation to religious and ethnic communities is the concept of ‘honour’ invoked as motivation for domestic violence. Women who are victims of honour killings are invisible within the cultural relativism of the British multicultural discourse and the private/public divide which characterises the domestic violence discourse.

We are listening these issues of honour killings from much earlier times. These issues also came up at the time of partition. Both women of Hindu and Muslim religion were abducted, raped and looted by males of opposite communities in which the girls were either murdered by their own families in the name of honour or they had to got married by the men who raped them. That was the time of most honour killing issues.

Honour Killings has been defined as ” The killing of women for suspected deviation from sexual norms imposed by the society”. These are extreme acts of violence perpetrated upon a women when an honour code is believed to have been broken and perceived shame is brought upon the family. What marks so called ‘honour killings’ is that it is not just the husband or partner that may carry out the act, but also the community and other family members such as mothers, brothers, uncles, or cousins.

However in the UK honour killings as a specifc phenomena is perceived by the media and government agencies as a crime that is practiced only among certain minority ethnic groups. Thus honour killings as domestic violence has become ‘ethnicised’ within the British multicultural context. While we recognise that ethnic groups and communities do have specific religious and cultural traditions which they may themselves label as honour based, why, in the context of ethnicity, is domestic violence treated as a culturally specific
honour crime by our wider organisations and institutions?

Focusing on culturally specific forms of domestic violence is often seen as very controversial ground. However culture has been used in some UK cases of honour killings where the defendant has tried to push for a more lenient sentence by pleading a
cultural defence. It is generally disputed that culture can explain how and why particular practices happen. In vulnerable and racialised communities there are tensions between protecting men from the racism of state agencies and negative media representation on the one hand, and the need to raise the issue of gendered violence and protect women’s rights in these communities on the other.

However, liberal multiculturalism in its many and shifting manifestations has consistently functioned to privilege ‘race’ and ethnicity over gender. Multiculturalism deals with problems between communities, but not problems within communities as it fails to recognise the gendered power divisions within ethnic groups.Gender differences within the multicultural discourse now and in the past have yet to be recognised.The Government’s
Community Cohesion reports fail to look at the specificity of gendered social action.

With the appropriate enforcement of the Human Rights Act (2000) in the UK, it is possible to move away from the ‘gender trap’ of cultural relativism inherent within liberal democratic discourse on multiculturalism, where gender is rendered at best marginal, or at worst invisible. In the absence of global social and political reform of violent patriarchal cultures where masculinity and honour is linked to female control, we can use human rights law- based challenges to develop a more equitable and culturally neutral perspective where women’s rights are ensured and privileged over patriarchal cultural practices. By adopting a realist human rights approach which is predicated upon challenging the gender-biased corporate identity of the British multicultural State, black and Asian feminist activists who are in the process of redefining the ‘we‘, not only in their own communities but in the multicultural nation, have already begun to challenge the injustice of culturally endorsed domestic violence at its heart.

Refrences:- Gender, violence and multiculturalism by Heidi Safia Mirza

Ram Vilas Paswan meets Food Ministers of states, UTs to discuss roll out of One Nation One Ration Card scheme

Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan today held video conference with Food Ministers of States and Union Territories.

The meeting was held to discuss the roll out of One Nation One Ration Card scheme in remaining 14 states and Union Territories. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Paswan said that in the time of Covid-19 pandemic, the scheme proved immensely beneficial for migrant labourers, stranded and needy persons to access their quota of food.

He said by August this year, three more States – Uttarakhand, Nagaland and Manipur will be added to the national cluster. He said, the Department is making all necessary arrangements to include all remaining 14 States under One Nation One Ration Card scheme by end of this year. Mr Paswan said that sufficient food grains are available in buffer stock and assured no one will go hungry in this difficult time. The Minister said that around ten States have written to the ministry to extend the distribution of free food grains under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana for three more months.

Mr Paswan asked the remaining States and UTs to speed up the authentication of biometric and ePoS, so that the beneficiaries can conveniently lift their entitled quota of subsidised food grains from anywhere across the country.

Indian Railways terminate Chinese Contract due to poor performance

Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) has decided to terminate the contract with Beijing National Railway Research and Design Institute of Signal and Communication Group limited. In a statement, DFCCIL said, the contract has been terminated due to poor performance of the company.
 
In 2016, the Chinese company had won the contract to install signalling system and telecommunications work in over 400 kilometre of rail lines of kanpur Deendayal Upadhyaya section.
 
DFCCIL said, despite the passage of four years there is only 20 per cent progress in the work. Non availability of their engineer and authorised personnels at site was serious constraint. The physical work also could not progress as they have no tie up with local agencies.

Health Ministry issues advisory for healthcare workers managing COVID, Non-COVID areas in hospitals

Health Ministry has issued an advisory for managing health care workers working in COVID and Non-COVID areas of the hospitals. The Health and Family Welfare Ministry said an Infection Control Officer cum Nodal Officer will be identified by each hospital to address all matters related to Healthcare Associated Infections to prevent and manage the Covid-19 infection among the health care workers.
 
The Nodal Officer will ensure that healthcare workers shall use Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) as per their risk profile while on duty.
   
In the advisory, it is said, all healthcare workers managing COVID-19 cases are being provided with chemo-prophylaxis under medical supervision.
 
Healthcare workers have been asked to use appropriate PPE during their duties and any breach in PPE and exposure should immediately bring into the notice of the Nodal Officer of the Department.
 
It is recommended that pregnant, lactating mothers and immuno-compromised healthcare workers shall inform their medical condition to the hospital authorities to get them posted only in non-Covid areas.
 
It is advised that all the health care workers must report every exposure to COVID-19 to the concerned nodal officer of Department immediately.
 
After the information, the Nodal officer will get the exact details of exposure to ascertain whether the exposure constitutes a high risk or low risk exposure.
 
The Nodal Officer will form a sub-committee to assess the level of exposure and the risk and further action will be taken on the basis of guidelines issued by the Health Ministry.

Centre to launch Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan tomorrow in 116 districts to boost livelihood in rural areas

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan on Saturday to boost livelihood opportunities in rural India. The Prime Minister will launch the campaign through video-conference in the presence of Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar.
 
The campaign will be launched from Telihar village at Beldaur Block in Khagaria district of Bihar. It aims to provide livelihood opportunities to the returnee migrant workers and rural citizens.
 
Briefing media about the scheme, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Rojgar Yojana with an outlay of  50 thousand crore rupees will cover 116 districts in six States, namely Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan.
 
She said, workers from all over the country wanted to go back to villages after the lockdown began and Central and State governments made some arrangements, and they have gone back. The Minister said, the government looked at the districts to which they have largely returned.
 
She said, the Centre and State governments have meticulously mapped the skill sets of the migrant workers who have returned in large numbers to the 116 districts. 
 
The Minister said, everyone who needs an assignment in these districts will be given work under the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan. Ms Sitharaman said, the campaign will involve intensified and focused implementation of 25 different types of works to provide employment to the migrant workers and create infrastructure in the rural regions of the country.
 
The Minister said, nearly 25 schemes of the Central government are being brought together under Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan for 116 districts. She said, the objectives under these schemes will be achieved within 125 days, by offering work to migrant workers and rural citizens.

Elections for 19 Rajya Sabha seats spread over eight states to be held today

Elections for 19 Rajya Sabha seats spread over eight states will be held today. Of the 19 seats, four each are from Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, three each from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, two from Jharkhand, and one each from Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya.

In Karnataka, where elections were to be held for four seats, all the candidates have been declared elected unopposed. They are former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, BJP candidates Iranna Kadadi and Ashok Gasti.

BJP nominee Nabam Rebia was also elected unopposed to the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Arunachal Pradesh.

The counting of votes for all the 19 seats will be held this evening. Legislators vote to elect candidates for the Upper House of Parliament.

Election Commission has made elaborate arrangements for the voting keeping in mind the coronavirus pandemic. Every voter (MLA) will be screened for body temperature and will have to use mask and adhere to social distancing norms.

Legislators having a fever or showing other symptoms will be kept in a separate waiting room.