An economic system is a network that forms the economic relationships between individuals in society. In other words, how the people of a nation come together to create a complex whole and conduct economic transactions with each other.
An initial surge in demand can create a multiplying effect that ripples throughout the economy. This surge in demand sends a signal to the whole supply chain that more of these products are required, so more are made. An economic system can change the way by which these supply and demand signals transfer through society. For instance, some economic systems may be more restrictive and place tariffs or quotas on imports. In turn, this can affect the signal between, buyer, seller, and supplier.
These are broad types of economic systems but will capture the different varieties that exist in the world today.
Traditional Economic System
Out of the four types of economic systems, the traditional economic system is the most basic. There is no involvement by the government, so people are largely left to conduct economic activities without influence. However, it is a very basic system that relies on basic customs and traditions. Under a traditional economic system, subsistence is the main driver for economic trades, whilst profit is not the main motive. Instead, this system relies on communities and the cohesion between them to provide and sustain each other.
Socialism – Command economic system
A command economic system is often referred to as a socialist or communist system. Under this structure, power is centralised either to the government or a sole ruler. In turn, they decide the rules of the game and command how economic interactions take place. Under a command economic system, central powers own the means of production, so can, therefore, shift it to where they see fit. For instance, if the nation’s central powers want to start making more steel, they may move workers from a construction site and transfer them to a steel factory.
Capitalism – Market economic system
A capitalist economic system is where the means of production is owned and controlled by private enterprise rather than the government. Instead of government dictating what goods and services should be produced, these are driven by supply and demand mechanisms. The capitalist economic system relies on private individuals using capital to produce goods and return a profit. In turn, this increases the private enterprise’s capital stock. The issue with this however is that many individuals can amass great economic power and wealth. Not only does this create social discontent, but can also lead to unscrupulous business practices.
Mixed Economy
A mixed economy is one of the most common forms of economic systems in the world today. We see it in many developed nations such as the US, Japan, and throughout most of Europe. It is simply a mixture of capitalist and command economic systems. A mixed economic system often has some level of private ownership of the means of production. However, in a mixed economy, some industries are controlled by the government, whilst others are privately owned.
Amid global pandemic accompanied by Russia-Ukraine crises and rising prices of fuels, the major economies across the globe are facing economic slowdown majorly in the form of peaked inflation, unstable government, industrial slowdown, low supplies and much more consequences. Some of the economies have slipped into crises, while some are struggling through the worst phase of slowdown. Industry experts have been showing aspersions that a global recession is just around the corner.
The recent survey by Bloomberg has attempted to gauge the percentage probabilities of various countries slipping into recession. The survey by Bloomberg said that risk of recession in a handful of Asian economies is rising as higher prices spur central banks to accelerate the pace of their interest rate hikes. Sri Lanka, which is in the midst of its worst economic crisis ever, has an 85% probability of falling into recession in the next year, up from a 33% chance in the previous survey by far the highest increase in the region. Economists see a 20% chance that China will enter recession, and a 25% likelihood that South Korea or Japan will enter one. Bloomberg economists also raised their expectations for a chance of recession in New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia and the Philippines to 33%, 20%, 20% and 8%, respectively. Central banks in those places have been raising interest rates to tame inflation.
India being one of the major and growing economy, also have been facing the consequences of global crises, particularly inflation. The survey report by Bloomberg for India is that it mentions that India has zero probability of slipping into recession. India literally has 0 percent chances of recession as against economic giants US and China which has 40 percent and 20 percent respectively. Although for India, surging domestic prices of key commodities is mainly on account of imported inflation, retail inflation based on consumer price index stood at 7.01%. In April, it had jumped to 8-year high of 7.79% have feared the economist about a probable recession but the case for India is much better compared to other economies.
Call Me By Your Name is a book that throbs with desire. André Aciman’s 2007 novel (and the basis for the film of the same franchise in 2017) is a portrait of adolescent love and lust, experienced for the first time with an intensity that’s almost frightening in how all-consuming it feels. And Aciman devotes himself to chronicling every fleeting fantasy, every caress, with a fervour that matches what his characters are feeling.
About The Author
André Aciman is an Italian-American writer. Born and raised in Alexandria,Egypt, he is currently distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of City University of NewYork, where he teaches the history of literary theory and the works of Marcel Proust.
He is the author of several novels, including Call Me By Your Name and a 1995 memoir, Out of Egypt, which won a Whiting Award. Although best known for Call Me by Your Name, Aciman stated in an interview in 2019 that his best book is the novel Eight White Nights.
André Aciman
Storyline of The Novel
It tells the story of a blooming romance between 17-year-old Elio Perlman, and 24-year-old visiting scholarOliver, who comes to the summer home of Elio’s parents in Italy, 1983.
The story is told in retrospect, with grown-up Elio recalling the events of that fateful summer. He always resented his parents’ tradition of taking a doctorate student into their home for six weeks each year, forcing him to vacate his bedroom (that sacred space of a teenage boy) to make room for their guest. That all changed when Oliver, a Harvard graduate student comes to stay with the academic expat family in the Italian Riviera, where he will oversee the translation of his dissertation on Heraclitus. As he wins the family over with his breezy charm and preppy insouciance, Oliver also inspires the adoration of the professor’s teenage son, Elio, who relays to us each stage of his infatuation.
Elio catalogues every aspect of Oliver—his gazes, his phrases—and even augurs meaning from his clothing: “He had, it took me a while to realize, four personalities depending on which bathing suit he was wearing.” Elio, in turn, dazzles Oliver with his precocity—he’s a virtuoso on piano and on an enviously easy footing with literature from Ovid to Celan. But he is unsure and untested in carnal matters. His desire for Oliver literally false-starts when he accidentally (and discreetly) ejaculates in his presence (the scene recalls Marcel’s embarrassing tussle with Gilberte). But when Oliver starts sleeping with a local girl, it seems that Elio’s fantasies of consummation will never be realized. He muses about killing, or at least crippling, Oliver: “If he were in a wheelchair, I would always know where he was, and he’d be easy to find.”
But then, just as Elio has given up hope, it happens: He slips into Oliver’s room one night and so begins their five-week love affair. They have adventurous, almost incessant sex, during which, at Oliver’s prompting, they call each other by the other’s name. As a strategy for subsuming the other’s self, this verbal masquerade is strikingly successful. At first shameful for Elio, their passion quickly becomes all-consuming. The lovers revel in their sameness—they are both young Jews, “brothers in the desert”; they experience the same sexual pains and pleasures; their minds travel along the same currents to catch the right literary references.
Timotheé Chalamet as Elio Perlman and Armie Hammer as Oliver, in Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Analysis of The Story
Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents’ cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks’ duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.
The psychological manoeuvres that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman’s frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion. Call Me by YourName is clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable.
Timotheé Chalamet as Elio Perlman
Criticism of The Story
Despite the fact that it’s a coming-of-age story, Call Me By Your Name is hardly a young adult book. For one, it’s quite erotic, albeit in a highly literary way. All of the sexual encounters (including one truly smutty incident with a peach) are depicted in detail, but not to titillate. It feels more like Aciman is simply demonstrating the depth and desperation of Elio and Oliver’s desire.
Call Me by Your Name ends with a series of unsatisfactory but still charged meetings between Elio and Oliver later in life. They have a rendezvous in New England, where Elio is traveling and where Oliver teaches and lives with his family. The novel, despite its melancholy send-off, ultimately holds out an extremely un-Proustian, optimistic promise: Love and understanding can endure hand in hand. Elio can still say of Oliver, “This was my favourite Oliver: the one who thought exactly like me.” Twenty years later, when they return to one of their cherished spots in Italy, Elio asks only to be called once more by the name Oliver—as if to imply that nothing has changed. For Proust, such naming is inevitably fraught with failure (Marcel at one point wishes he could give a different name to each of the Albertines he knows). The notion that the past could ever obey such a summons, that anyone could ever be so static, suggests that Elio has breached, but finally resisted, Proustian knowledge. This shying away leaves us with something less than we might have expected from Aciman’s previous reckonings with time.
Scene from the Movie Call Me By Your Name
Conclusion
Even with all the critical analysis, the storyline wins millions of hearts with the sweet message of love, that can happen to anyone under any circumstance. The story broke some stereotypes about how the meaning of Love is mostly depicted in society. It normalizes the simplicity, the beauty and the agony of love between two men, in a never seen before way. And that makes the book an ultimate winner for its modern day readers.
Full name – Usain St Leo Bolt Nickname(s)- Lightning Bolt Nationality – Jamaican Born – 21 August 1986 (age 34),Sherwood Content, Jamaica Height – 1.95 m (6 ft 5 in) Weight – 94 kg (207 lb) Sport – Track and field Event(s) – Sprints Club – Racers Track Club Coached by – Glen Mills Retired – 2017 Awards And Honors: Olympic Games.
About Usain Bolt:
The world’s fastest man has adopted the world’s fastest animal. As part of an effort to help protect this ‘endangered species’ in Kenya, Bolt formally adopted a three-month-old cheetah cub in Nairobi. Bolt bestowed one of his own nicknames upon the cub, naming him ‘Lightning Bolt’. Symbolic indeed!
One cheetah at a Cincinnati Zoo ran the 100 metres in just over 6 seconds, about 3.5 seconds faster than Bolt’s human world record of 9.58 seconds. Some scientists are trying to apply the physics of a cheetah’s running style in order to maximize the ability of human runners. Well, do not be surprised if Bolt does land another ‘bolt from the blue’ by equalling the cheetah’s feat.
Sportsmen like Bolt are like the Halley’s Comet, they come once in 76 years, nay, a hundred years. Bolt, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, distinguished himself with a 200 metres gold medal at the 2002 World Junior Championships, making him the competition’s youngest ever gold medalist. In 2004, at the CARIFTA Games, he became the first junior sprinter to run the 200 metre in under 20 seconds with a time of 19.93 seconds, breaking Roy Martin’s world junior record by two-tenths of a second.
He turned professional in 2004, missing most of his first two seasons due to injuries. But he competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics.In his childhood, he loved to play Cricket and Football in the streets of Jamaica with his brother. In his school, he was the fastest runner in the 100-meter race. His primary coach, McNeil was sometimes got frustrated by his penchant jokes. At the 2001 IAAF World Youth Championships in Hungary, he made his first appearance at an international event. Bolt is one of only nine athletes in the world to win World Championships at the youth, junior, and senior levels.Bolt’s first sports choice was Cricket. He is a big fan of Football.
About his Life:
In 2007, he beat Don Quarrie’s 200 metres Jamaican national record with a run of 19.75 seconds. In May 2008, Bolt set his first 100 metres world record with a timing of 9.72 seconds. He set world records in both the 100 metres and 200 metres events at the Beijing Summer Olympics, recording 9.69 seconds in the former event. With a timing of 19.30 seconds in the 200 metres, he broke the previous record of 19.32 seconds by Michael Johnson at the 1996 Summer Olympics at Atlanta. A year after the Beijing Olympics, he lowered his 100 metres and 200 metres world records to 9.58 seconds and 19.19 seconds respectively at the 2009 World Championships. His record-breaking margin in the 100 metres is the highest since the start of digital time instruments. As a result of Bolt’s success in athletics, he was named the Laurens World Sportsman of the Year for 2009.
• He is an 11-time World Champion.– In Track and Field, he is considered the highest-paid athlete ever. – He has been with a number of honors and awards, including Track and Field Athlete of the Year, World Athlete of the Year, and Laureus World Sportsman of the Year (3 times). – He has collaborated with the Soul Electronics and has launched 2-types of Bolt edition in-ear headphones- Run-Free.
Bolt loves dancing and is a great admirer of Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar, West Indian Opener Chris Gayle, and Australian opener Mathew Hayden. He is a football fan too, and supports Manchester United. What we can learn from a man like Bolt is the level to which one can reach if one works hard. Hours of hard and laborious training have gone into the making of this rare legend on the track, and countries with a billion strong population which cannot produce a single sensation on the track can do well to learn certain lessons from him.
Bruce Lee, the very name breathes enthusiasm and life euphoria in the minds of thousands of action movie lovers. When we talk about action movies today, particularly in the martial arts genre, it is impossible to forget, that Bruce Lee was the one who began it all with movies like The Big Boss (1971), Fist of Fury (1972), Way of the Dragon (1972), Enter the Dragon (1973) and The Game of Death (1978). Gone were the days when action movie lovers would be pleased with the gun fight of Clint Eastwood or the epic chariot races of Charlton Heston. Kung Fu had made its entrance in the world of entertainment, courtesy the silver screen. Bruce Lee was born on 27 November 1940. His father, Lee Hoi Chuen, was Chinese and his Catholic mother, Grace Ho, was of three-quarter Chinese and a quarter German ancestry. Lee and his parents went from the US to Hong Kong when he was three months old. Lee’s father was one of the leading Cantonese opera and film actors at the time.
At the age of thirteen, Bruce Lee took Kung Fu lessons with Yip Man. Having learnt the basics from his father, Bruce showed keen interest in the art and a year later, in 1955, had private training with the man who would later become the President of the Australian Federation of Kung Fu, William Cheung. At this time, the martial artist, Wong Shun Leung, who was consistently involved with dangerous and brutal competitions, had Bruce Lee privately train with him. Both Wong Shun Leune and William Cheung were students of Yip Man in his school at the same time as young Bruce Lee. Despite the advantages of his family’s high social status during his youth in Hong Kong, the neighbourhood where Bruce grew up was dangerous and full of gang rivalry. Bruce Lee evolved in these conditions as a dangerous street fighter. No wonder then that at the high school level at St Francis Xavier’s College in Kowloon, Lee was part of the school boxing team in inter-school tournaments.
Through his father, Bruce was introduced into films, and by the time he was 18, he had acted in 20 films. While in the United States from 1959 to 1964, Lee abandoned thoughts of a film career in favour of pursuing a career in martial arts. Destiny had different plans for him and the lightning fast moves of Bruce Lee landed him the role of Kato in the TV series The Green Hornet. This led to a host of other television serials like Iron Side (1967) and Here Come the Brides (1969). Lee’s return to Hong Kong landed him in Raymond Chow’s The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, and Lee was a big star overnight. Lee became a god of action cinema with the Warner Brothers’ production Enter the Dragon, but a cruel and inexplicable death snatched him away from his fans six days before the release of this movie.
We remember Lee today as a man who redefined action on the silver screen. We remember his high kicks, his exceptionally fast punches and the spine-chilling fight sequences. ‘Lee, pound for pound, might well have been one of the strongest men in the world, and certainly one of the quickest,’ said Chuck Norris. When a child today watches Jackie Chan or Jet Li and gets excited to throw a punch, no father fails to remind him that these are compared to the master-Bruce Lee. hing Lee has left a unique legacy in the world of sports and cinema, imitated by millions but mastered by none.
Devoted Teacher:
Lee finished high school in Edison, Washington, and subsequently enrolled as a philosophy major at the University of Washington. He also got a job teaching the Wing Chun style of martial arts that he had learned in Hong Kong to his fellow students and others. Through his teaching, Lee met Linda Emery, whom he married in 1964. By that time, Lee had opened his own martial arts school in Seattle.He and Linda soon moved to California, where Lee opened two more schools in Oakland and Los Angeles. He taught mostly a style he called Jeet Kune Do, or “The Way of the Intercepting Fist.” Lee was said to have deeply loved being an instructor and treated his students like a clan, ultimately choosing the world of cinema as a career so as not to unduly commercialize teaching.Lee and Linda also expanded their immediate family, having two children — Brandon, born in 1965, and Shannon, born in 1969.
Mysterious Death:
Most of the people said that he died under mysterious circumstances .On July 20, 1973, just one month before the premiere of Enter the Dragon, Lee died in Hong Kong, China, at the age of 32. The official cause of his sudden and utterly unexpected death was a brain edema, found in an autopsy to have been caused by a strange reaction to a prescription painkiller he was reportedly taking for a back injury. Controversy surrounded Lee’s death from the beginning, as some claimed he had been murdered. There was also the belief that he might have been cursed, a conclusion driven by Lee’s obsession with his own early death.More rumors of the so-called curse circulated in 1993, when Brandon Lee was killed under mysterious circumstances during the filming of The Crow. The 28-year-old actor was fatally shot with a gun that supposedly contained blanks but somehow had a live round lodged deep within its barrel.
Full name – Edward James Corbett Born – 25 July 1875 ,Nainital, (North-Western Provinces, British India (now in Uttarakhand, India)) Died – 19 April 1955 (aged 79), Nyeri, Kenya Nationality – Indian Occupation – Hunter, naturalist, writer.
‘My India, about which these sketches of village life and work are written, refers to those portions of a vast land which I have known from my earliest days, and where I have worked; and the simple folk whose ways and characters I have tried to depict for you are those among whom I spent the great part of seventy years,’ -wrote Jim Corbett.
These words are not merely a description of a country by a man. These words reveal the life of a rare man who was British by blood but became an Indian at heart.
About Jim:
Edward James ‘Jim’ Corbett was born on 25 July 1875, at Nainital, United Province (now Uttarakhand) in British India. Corbett held the rank of Colonel in the British Indian Army, and worked for the Bengal and North Western Railway. Corbett was frequently called upon by the government of the United Provinces to slay man-eating tigers and leopards who had killed people in the villages of the Garhwal and Kumaon region. Corbett was able to succeed in many cases where numerous others had failed.
History:
Between 1910 and 1938, Corbett shot much-feared man-eaters such as the Champawat Tiger, the Leopard of Rudraprayag, the Tigers of Chowgarh and the Panar Leopard, who had cumulatively killed over a thousand people. His success in slaying the man-eaters earned him much respect and fame amongst the people residing in the villages of Kumaon, many of whom considered him to be a saint or sadhu because of his simple, dedicated and honest lifestyle. After his retirement, he authored The Maneaters of Kumaon, Jungle Lore, and other books recounting his hunts and experiences. Corbett’s stories became best-sellers because he narrated tales bubbling with spine-chilling reality in simple and enjoyable language.
Corbett had great admiration for tigers and photographed them avidly in his later years. His attraction towards the uncorrupted beauty of nature in the wild started in his childhood. He could identify the call of most animals and birds from a very young age, owing to his frequent visits to the wild. He never shot a tiger or a leopard unless it turned a man-eater. Corbett was a pioneer conservationist and lectured at local schools and societies to create awareness about the need to respect the wild.
A great human being who would even risk his own life for saving somebody else’s, Corbett continued to write and sound the alarm about the declining numbers of jungle cats till the last days of his life at Nueri, Kenya. He was distressed when people described the tiger as a blood-thirsty’ and ‘cruel’ beast. He refers to his childhood when a child freely roaming about the forest often ended meeting a tiger, the latter giving him a clear, ‘Hello child, what the hell are you doing here?” look and walking away.
. “”a tiger is a large-hearted gentleman with boundless courage and that when he is exterminated-as exterminated he will be unless public opinion rallies to his support-India will be the poorer, having lost the finest of her fauna,””- Jim Corbett had written. This quotation also makes it very obvious that Corbett had great respect for India and Indians. When you read his description of his experiences with men like Bala Singh in his stories or read about the manner in which he could identify the distinct grieving of an Indian wife for her husband, you know why he is still so revered. Corbett passed away on 19 April 1955. The Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand is named after him.
Life of Jim corbett:
In childhood, he has a deep fascination for the forests and wildlife, and due to his interest in wildlife, he became a good tracker and hunter with time. Due to his amazing skill of tracking and hunting, he was often sought after by the then government of the united province to track and kill the tiger and leopard who becomes a man-eater. Even though he was the skilled hunter, he never killed any wild animal other than man-eaters.After many years as a celebrated hunter, he then developed a hobby of wildlife photography, especially, recording films of tigers in their natural habitat. He also used to give lectures on the rich natural heritage of India and the importance of the conservation of forests and wildlife to the school students.
He also penned his experience as a hunter and written many books on wildlife and hunting experiences. His most famous book was Man-Eaters of Kumaon that intensely portrayed his own hunting adventures. Many movies, TV episodes and documentaries have been made that are based on this critically acclaimed book.Later in his life, Jim Corbett started a movement to conserve the wild animals and forests. He strongly supported the All-India Conference for the Preservation of Wildlife and promoted the foundation of the Association for the Preservation of Game in the United Provinces. He also used his influence over the provincial government and lead the path that cleared the establishment of the first national park in India, the Hailey National Park, named after the Lord Malcolm Hailey in 1930s. The name later changed to the Jim Corbett National Park after the independence of India in 1957 in the honor of the legendary Jim Corbett.
Nelson Mandela was born on 18 July 1918, at Umtata, Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. He is an iconic figure in today’s world when it comes to fighting for one’s rights as a human being. The son of a Xhosa Chief, Mandela studied law at the University of Witwatersrand, and in 1944 joined the African National Congress (ANC), After the Sharpeville massacre (1960), he was disillusioned to the extent that he gave up his non-violent stance and became one of those who helped found the Spear of the Nation, the ANC’s military wing. Arrested in 1962, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The South African Court convicted him on charges of sabotage as well as other crimes committed while he led the movement against apartheid.
How is Nelson Mandela International Day celebrated?
Mandela provides service to others and always wants to create a better world for everyone. So, on this day if people find injustice in the neighbourhood, city, or state they do everything to alleviate the problem. Work in soup kitchens, marched with protesters, volunteer in local organisations, and work to help bring about civil liberties for everyone. Inspire change, and make every day a celebration of Mandela Day. People work for others and want to improve the lives of people around them. They will do this by volunteering or taking part in protests.
“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”
This day provides a global call for people to recognise their ability and have a positive effect on others around them. People also inspire others about the values that Mandela shared like democracy, freedom, diversity, reconciliation, and respect. To promote Nelson Mandela Day, many people and organisations around the world take part in several activities. These activities are volunteering, sport, art, education, music, and culture. This day also celebrates a campaign known as “46664”, in reference to Nelson Mandela’s Robben Island prison number. The campaign was originally launched to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS. In 1995 and 1999 Children’s Fund and the Nelson Mandela Foundation were established.
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
His Movements And Struggles:
In accordance with the conviction, Mandela served twenty-seven years in prison. While in jail, Mandela’s reputation grew and he became widely known as the most significant black leader in South Africa. The conditions that he had to go through as a prisoner were appalling. He performed hard labour in a lime quarry. Prisoners were segregated on the basis of race, and the black prisoners received the fewest rations. Political prisoners were kept separate from ordinary criminals and received fewer privileges. Mandela himself describes how as a D-group prisoner, the lowest classification, he was allowed one visitor and one letter every six months. Letters, when they came, were often delayed for long periods and made unreadable by the prison censors. It calls for nerves of steel for a man imprisoned for life to get a degree of Bachelor in Law from the University of London through correspondence.
In February 1985, President PW Botha offered Mandela conditional release in return for renouncing armed struggle. Mandela spurned the offer, releasing a statement through his daughter Zindzi saying, ‘What freedom am I being offered while the organisation of people remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts.’
Throughout Mandela’s imprisonment, local and international pressure mounted on the South African Government to release him. In 1989, South Africa reached a crossroads when Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced as President by Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk announced Mandela’s release in February 1990. His release from jail was broadcast live all over the world.
South Africa’s first multi-racial elections, in which full enfranchisement was granted, were held in April 1994. The ANC won 62 per cent of the votes in the election. Mandela became the first black President. As President from May 1994 to June 1999, Mandela presided over the transition from minority rule and apartheid, winning international respect for his advocacy of national and international reconciliation.
It is not surprising that Mahatma Gandhi should have inspired Mandela in his war against apartheid. The most universally respected figure of post-colonial Africa, Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 along with De Klerk for their efforts to end apartheid and bring about the transition to non-racial democracy. Mandela remains an inspiring figure for any man in any corner of the world who becomes conscious of his rights and is willing to fight for the same.
Road accidents are the order of the day in India. There is nothing unusual about innocent people losing their lives due to a combination of several factors. First and foremost is their own indifference and ignorance of traffic rules; combined with other factors like callous drivers or the absolute insensitivity shown by the transport authorities. There is no need to go for the statistical details about the exact number of deaths or serious injuries caused due to road accidents in a particular year. Such statistics do not reflect the truth under normal circumstances. The picture given below shows a man whose car has been turned over because of a collision with a truck and the man is presumably bleeding to death.
The policeman seems to have been able to nab the driver who looks more dazed than guilty, perhaps because of the impact of alcohol which is usually the driving force for drivers across India. An ambulance is in place and two men seem to be moving towards the victim with a stretcher. This is very assuring but the nature of the tragedy leaves us with considerable anxiety about the chances of the victim’s survival. Above all, the picture does not forget to show the common men who usually do not forget to play the role of either mute spectators or aggressive agitators under these circumstances. The spot is not as crowded as city areas are expected to be. Perhaps that also explains the presence of trees, clouds, and birds in the area rather than multistoried buildings and advertisement boards.
Car crash on major highway during rainfall at night. Ambulance in foreground and police car in background.
There are some serious questions that come to my mind when I look at this picture. If we contemplate the picture at a deeper level, we are bound to be confronted by certain very disturbing questions. Why are accidents so common in India? Can nothing be done to combat the menace of rash driving? Why can’t we have a more proactive approach from the police department so that a strict vigil on the roads discourages maniacs from indulging in the killing game of rash driving? The picture shows the policeman nabbing the driver and the medical team on the spot to help the wounded.
Both these incidents are utopian in the Indian context because most drivers in such cases flee the spot and reappear in the scene after a gap of about four or five months, when people have completely forgotten about this incident. Such people also take care to bribe certain dishonest policemen to stay out of legal hassles. The police are often unable to take these people to task. Moreover such is the state of medical care in our country that more often, accident victims die before they can reach the hospital and get proper medical care. Police investigation into these accident cases is such that the common man shies away from helping accident victims for fear of police harassment.
Auto accident involving two cars on a city street
There is no gainsaying the fact that this scenario needs to change. If we do not rush to the aid of an accident victim, it raises serious questions about our identity as civilised human beings. The concerned authorities and the common man should co-operate to improve the scenario with stricter traffic laws and efficient mobile health care units. But we need political will for such a thing to happen. Suppose this person is being taken to the hospital but his ambulance gets stuck in a traffic jam caused by a VIP’s transport facilities and the man dies, whom do you hold responsible? Can we depend on such individuals to make our roads and healthcare facilities better?
Scenario of Road accident in India:
India had most deaths in road accidents in 2019: Report A total of 151,113 people were killed in 480,652 road accidents across India in 2019, an average of 414 a day or 17 an hour, according to a report by the transport A total of 151,113 people were killed in 480,652 road accidents across India in 2019, an average of 414 a day or 17 an hour, according to a report by the transport research wing of the ministry of road transport and highways.
India continued to have the most road fatalities in the world, followed by China, a distant second at 63,093 deaths in 2,12,846 road accidents in 2019, the report revealed. The United States of America (USA) reported the most road accidents at 2,211,439, and witnessed 37,461 deaths in 2019.
According to the report, speeding was the leading cause of deaths, while, in terms of vehicles, two-wheelers were involved in most road fatalities.
Across states, most road accidents were reported in Tamil Nadu (57,228), followed by Madhya Pradesh (50,669), Uttar Pradesh (42,572), Kerala (41,111) and Karnataka (40,658) accidents.
Maharashtra ranked sixth with 32,295 accidents, but saw the second-highest number of fatalities (12,788), after 22,655 in Uttar Pradesh.
Among cities, Delhi retained its first rank with 1,463 deaths, followed by Jaipur (1,283), Chennai (1,252) and Bengaluru (768).
Mumbai ranked ninth with 447 people being killed in road accidents in 2019.
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1. A Book Titled “Kashmiri Century: Portrait Of A Society In Flux” Released:-
A book titled “Kashmiri Century: Portrait of a Society in Flux” authored by Khemlata Wakhlu. She is a writer, a political leader and a social worker, who has devoted the past fifty years to using her many talents to improve a lot of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
The essence of the book:–
A Kashmiri Century is a powerful and rare compilation of human-interest stories. Spanning a full century, it throws a compassionate light on the innocent and hard-working people who live in the beautiful valley of Kashmir.
The stories are all based on the author’s personal experiences and her intimate understanding of what it means to be a Kashmiri-speaking native. They cover the period from the late 19th century to the present day.
None of the available political treatises has ever delved deeply into the sociological and the human sides of living in the valley.
The author’s intimate insights into Kashmiri society, its evolution in an enticing, remote valley, and how her people dealt with Kashmir’s bitter and tempestuous history, are sprinkled liberally across the book.
2. Andhra Pradesh introduces SALT programme:-
Andhra Pradesh has started a Supporting Andhra’s Learning Transformation (SALT) programme to transform foundational learning in government schools for which the World Bank has approved a loan of 250 million dollars. The main objectives of the programme are strengthening foundation schools and providing training and skill development to teachers. Andhra Pradesh’s public school education system has more than 40 lakh children and nearly 2 lakh teachers.
About the programme:–
The five-year programme is result-oriented with the WB releasing funds after key goals are achieved. The government has converted all Anganwadis into pre-primary schools and attached them to the nearest schools.
The government’s document on SALT documents several challenges to improving the learning outcomes.
These include inadequate facilities in schools and a need for increased focus on foundational learning, the need for upgrading teaching skills of teachers, improving teacher-student interactions in classes, and capacity development of state-level institutions such as the Andhra Pradesh State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT), State Institute of Education Management and Training (SIEMAT) and District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs).
The government is also setting up new administrative structures which will monitor the working of schools, like the AP School Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission.
Important takeaways for all competitive exams:–
Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh: YS Jagan Mohan Reddy; Governor: Biswa Bhusan Harichandan.
3. A book titled “Policymaker’s Journal: From New Delhi to Washington, DC” by Kaushik Basu:-
A book titled “Policymaker’s Journal: From New Delhi to Washington, DC” authored by Kaushik Basu released soon. This book charts the course of Kaushik Basu’s career over seven years, as he moved out of the cloisters of academe to the frenetic world of policymaking, first in India as Chief Economic Adviser to the Indian Government and after that as Chief Economist at the World Bank in Washington.
About Kaushik Basu:–
Kaushik Basu is an Indian economist who was the Chief Economist of the World Bank from 2012 to 2016. He is the C. Marks Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. From 2009 to 2012, during the UPA government’s second term, Basu served as the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India.
4.WhatsApp appoints Manesh Mahatme as Head of Payments in India:-
WhatsApp has appointed former Amazon executive Manesh Mahatme as a director to lead the growth of its payments business in India. As Director, WhatsApp Payments-India, Mahatme will focus on enhancing the payments experience for users, scaling the service and work towards contributing to the messaging app’s vision of digital and financial inclusion in India.
Important takeaways for all competitive exams:–
WhatsApp Founded: 2009;
WhatsApp CEO: Will Cathcart (Mar 2019–);
WhatsApp Headquarters: Menlo Park, California, United States;
WhatsApp Acquisition date: 19 February 2014;
WhatsApp Founders: Jan Koum, Brian Acton;
WhatsApp Parent organization: Facebook.
5. Swedish PM Stefan Lofven resigns following no confidence vote:-
The Prime Minister of Sweden, Stefan Lofven, has announced his resignation on June 28, 2021, after he lost a confidence vote in parliament. The 63-year-old Lofven is the first Swedish government leader to be defeated by a no-confidence vote. He was serving as the prime minister of Sweden since 2014.The confidence motion was filed by the far-right Sweden Democrats after the Left Party said it was planning such a motion itself in protest against a plan to ease rent controls.
Important takeaways for all competitive exams:–
Sweden Capital: Stockholm; Currency: Swedish krona.
6.Two more complaints, call for legal action against Twitter India:-
Twitter India’s troubles continued on Tuesday after at least two more complaints being filed against the microblogging platform, and a political leader calling for legal action.
Twitter India Country Head Manish Maheshwari and news partnerships head Amrita Tripathi had been booked under Section 505 (2) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 74 of Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008 for showing a wrong map of India on its website, on the complaint of a Bajrang Dal leader in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh.
The issue revolves around a controversial map of India on the career section of Twitter, and showed Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh as a separate country. This led to angry reactions on Twitter, and the microblogging platform removed the map on Monday night.
Later in the day, on Tuesday, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra said that he had asked the Director General of Police (DGP) to investigate the same issue and take legal action against Twitter for “distorting” India’s map.
In a separate case, the Delhi Police registered an FIR against Twitter, based on a complaint filed by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). The complaint alleges that Cchild pornographic videos and links were available on Twitter.
News reports said the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyber Cell had been summoned Tuesday by the NCPCR for not taking action against Twitter despite repeated letters.
“Twitter has a zero tolerance policy for child sexual exploitation (CSE) and we have a proactive approach to combating sexual exploitation of minors on our service. We have been at the forefront of responding to the evolving challenge of preventing the exploitation of children on the Internet and will continue to aggressively fight online child sexual abuse, as well as invest in the technology and tools that are essential to stay ahead of this issue. We will continue to invest in proactive detection and removal of content that violates the Twitter Rules and work with law enforcement and NGO partners in India to tackle the issue,” said a spokesperson at the microblogging platform.
According to Twitter, it uses PhotoDNA technology, its own proprietary tools, and other systems to detect behavioral signals and remove media. In many cases, it lets Twitter remove new accounts linked to this type of content before they have even sent their first tweet.
Twitter considers anyone under the age of 18 as a minor, and all viewing, sharing, or linking to child sexual exploitation (CSE) material, regardless of the intent, contributes to the re-victimization of the depicted children and is prohibited on our service, it says.
This includes media, text, illustrations, or computer-generated images. This also applies to content that may further contribute to the victimization of children through the promotion or glorification of child sexual exploitation, according to the social media platform.
Maheshwari has also been named in another FIR filed by UP Police in Ghaziabad. The Karnataka HC had on Thursday granted him interim relief in a case relating to an assault video that had gone viral on the microblogging platform. The HC had also directed that no coercive action be taken against him till Tuesday.
Karnataka HC said Tuesday it will hear the criminal case against Maheshwari on July 5.
The case relates to an ongoing complaint related to tweets on the assault of an elderly Muslim man in Ghaziabad.
Twitter on June 21 restricted tweets showing the video and images from it.
The government has been at loggerheads with Twitter ever since January, when the microblogging platform refused to take down some content related to the farmers’ protests in India, saying it goes against their company policies.
This further intensified after India enacted new rules for social media intermediaries. The government has said Twitter has not complied with the requirements, and may have lost its safe harbour protection under the IT Act.
7. Facebook, Google to soon publish reports as required by new IT Rules:-
Technology giants Facebook and Google will soon publish reports, as mandated by the new Information Technology Rules, providing information about the actions they took on user complaints in India.
While Facebook said on Tuesday it will publish an interim report on July 2 as mandated by the IT rules, Google will publish its transparency report as required under the new IT Rules in India.
“In accordance with the IT Rules, we’ll publish an interim report for the period May 15-June 15 on July 2. This report will contain details of the content that we have removed proactively using our automated tools. The final report will be published on July 15 containing details of user complaints received and action taken. The report on July 15 will also contain data related to WhatsApp, which is currently being validated,” said a Facebook spokesperson.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The IT Rules, notified on February 25, ask significant social media intermediaries, or those with over 5 million users, to “publish periodic compliance report every month mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken thereon, and the number of specific communication links or parts of information that the intermediary has removed or disabled access to in pursuance of any proactive monitoring conducted by using automated tools or any other relevant information as may be specified”.
This was among the key issues that industry wanted clarity on in the new Rules. Many intermediaries were unclear about the format of these reports. A government official told Business Standard earlier that the compliance reports should have bare minimum details, on what type of content was removed or what other action was taken.
While most SSMIs publish annual or bi-annual transparency reports and would most likely publish compliance reports in a similar pattern, there was little clarity on whether those would be compliant with the new Rules.
Another issue that SSMIs are awaiting clarity on is that of the quantum of time required before which a user needs to be informed about their content being taken down. The kind of content on which intermediaries are required to do so includes content of pornographic nature, paedophilic, infringes trademarks and so on.
The government, it is understood, will bring out a standard operating procedure on the new IT Rules in consultation with industry and stakeholders, addressing some of the concerns that have been raised by them.
In addition, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will be soon releasing a set of “frequently asked questions” to simplify the requirements in the Rules, on similar lines as done by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting a few days ago.
While the Rules apply to all social media companies, the largest ones among these are Facebook, Google, WhatsApp, Twitter and the like.
According to data provided by the government, India has 530 million WhatsApp users, 410 million Facebook users, 210 million people on Instagram, and 17.5 million accounts on Twitter.
8. Top headlines: India approves Moderna vaccine; Sebi announces reforms:-
India approves Moderna’s vaccine for emergency use; Cipla to import jab:
Drug major Cipla has been approved by India’s drug regulator to import Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine for restricted emergency use in the country, the government said on Tuesday. Moderna is said to have applied for the emergency use approval in India following the US agreement to donate doses to India via Covax. Cipla on behalf of the US pharma giant has requested for import and marketing authorisation of these jabs.
Sebi overhauls norms for appointment, removal of independent directors:
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Tuesday overhauled norms pertaining for appointment, removal and remuneration of independent directors (ID) in order to reduce the sway of promoters on them. The regulator also reduced the minimum application amount for REITs and InvITs to Rs 10,000-15,000, from Rs 55,000 at present, aligning them with equity IPOs.
Monetise reserves or get set for auction: Dharmendra Pradhan to ONGC, OIL:
Taking into account the acreage Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) hold amid the country’s dependency on imports for oil, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today said that the reserves held need to be monetised else the government would take it away for auctioning.
Bharti to invest Rs 3,700 crore in OneWeb; become largest shareholder:
Bharti will invest an additional USD 500 million (over Rs 3,700 crore) into OneWeb, to become the largest shareholder in the satellite communications company that billionaire Sunil Mittal-run Bharti Group along with the UK government had rescued from bankruptcy last year.
SBI to levy charges for cash withdrawal beyond four free transactions a month:
The country’s largest lender SBI will levy charges for cash withdrawal beyond four free transactions in a month from customers holding the basic savings bank deposit (BSBD) accounts. These customers will also be levied charges for cheque book beyond 10 leaves in a year.
9. Covid-19: Over 11,000 ‘super-spreaders’ vaccinated in Ahmedabad:
More than 11,000 people categorised as ‘super-spreaders’ have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad city so far in a special drive started recently for their inoculation, local civic body said on Tuesday.
‘Super-spreaders’ are those who transmit an infectious disease to a large number of other people due to the nature of their job.
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) recently started a special vaccination drive for ‘super-spreaders’, like vegetable vendors, grocers, petrol pump staff, barbers, courier and food delivery agents.
A total of 11,013 such people have been inoculated so far as part of the drive, the civic body said in a release.
A centre has been set up in each of the city’s seven civic zones to facilitate the vaccination of ‘super-spreaders’ so that they pose little danger of the spread of the disease to other people, the AMC said.
“To make the vaccination campaign more effective, it was decided to inoculate super-spreaders by running a special drive so that their chances of getting infected from COVID-19 are reduced, since they come in contact with many people due to the nature of their job,” it said.
On Monday, a total of 923 such people were vaccinated, including 582 in the age group of 18 to 44 years, and 341 in the 45 years and above category, he said.
Of late, Ahmedabad has seen a sharp drop in the number of coronavirus cases reported daily.
As per the AMC’s COVID-19 bulletin issued on Monday, there were 830 active COVID-19 cases in the city.
Ahmedabad has so far reported a total 2,30,660 coronavirus cases and 3,310 deaths due to the infection. Besides, 2,26,520 people have recovered from the disease, the bulletin said.
10. Monetise reserves or get set for auction: Oil minister Pradhan to ONGC, OIL:-
Taking into account the acreage Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) hold amid the country’s dependency on imports for oil, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today said that the reserves held need to be monetised else the government would take it away for auctioning.
Speaking at BNEF Summit today, Pradhan said that the two state-owned firms cannot indefinitely sit on resources when the nation is a net importer of oil and gas.
“We have asked them to do two things – do it yourself, (produce oil and gas) through some joint venture (with domain experts and foreign companies) (and) through a new business model. But the government cannot permit you to hold resources for an indefinite time,” he said.
Despite India bidding out acreages to private and other companies since the 1990s, ONGC) and OIL hold a “sizeable number of acreage for years,” he said.
ONGC and OIL, which discovered and brought to production all of India’s eight sedimentary basins, produce about three-fourths of the nation’s oil and gas.
Pradhan said India needs energy for its ambitious economic growth agenda. “We want to reduce import dependency. We want to monetise our own resources.”
The two state-owned companies, especially ONGC, have faced criticism ranging from not being able to quickly bring discoveries to production to lower recovery.
“We have given policy guidance to our state-owned oil companies – either you do on your own through new partners and new economic model, (else) the government will after a particular period intervene and use its authority to bid out the resources,” he said.
The government has already taken away dozens of small and marginal discoveries from the two firms and auctioned them in what is known as Discovered Small Field (DSF) rounds.
DSF offers pricing and marketing freedom to operators, something which ONGC and OIL do not have currently, constraining their efforts to monetise smaller discoveries.
Pradhan indicated the government would not hesitate to take away larger idle discoveries and auction them to private and foreign players.
Earlier this month, the minister had stated that the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), the oil ministry’s technical arm, had the “full mandate” to identify unmonetised major fields that could be offered for bidding.
“Resources don’t belong to a company. They belong to the nation and the government. They cannot lie with a company indefinitely. If somebody cannot monetise them, we will have to bring a new regime,” he had said.
The statement comes weeks after his ministry told ONGC to sell a stake in producing oil fields such as Ratna R-Series in western offshore to private firms and get foreign partners in KG basin gas fields.
In October 2017, the DGH had identified 15 producing fields with a collective reserve of 791.2 million tonne of crude oil and 333.46 billion cubic meters of gas, for handing over to private firms in the hope that they would improve upon the baseline estimate and its extraction.
A year later, as many as 149 small and marginal fields of ONGC were identified for private and foreign companies on the grounds that the state-owned firm should focus only on bid ones.
ONGC produced 20.2 million tonne of crude oil in the fiscal year ending March 31 (2020-21), down from 20.6 million tonne in the previous year and 21.1 million tonne in 2018-19. It produced 21.87 billion cubic meters of gas in 2020-21, down from 23.74 bcm in the previous year and 24.67 bcm in 2018-19.
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