Batman v Superman – Official Trailer 2

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Official Trailer 2

Source By Fpj — Dec 08, 2015 06:28 pm

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Official Trailer 2 [HD]

Zack Snyder’s BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE is in theaters March 25, 2016.
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Game of Thrones Season 6 premieres in April, 2016.

Game of Thrones Season 6: Teaser (HBO)

Source By FPJ — Dec 08, 2015 06:18 pm

Game of Thrones Season 6: Tease (HBO)

Game of Thrones Season 6 premieres in April, 2016.

Ghayal The movie revolves around four free-spirited youngsters.

“Ghayal Once Again” First look trailer – 2016

Source FPJ — Nov 13, 2015 03:04 pm

“Ghayal Once Again” First look trailer – 2016

The movie revolves around four free-spirited youngsters who risk their live after they displease the most powerful person of the country and land themselves in a major trouble.

Ghayal Once Again, is the sequal of the Rajkumar Santoshi’s “Ghayal”, released in 1990, starring Sunny Deol, Meenakshi Sheshadri and Amrish Puri.

Cast: Sunny Deol as Ajay Mehra, Om Puri as ACP Joe Dsouza, Soha Ali Khan as a Doctor, Tisca Chopra, Rishabh Arora, Neha Khan as Renu, Abhilash Kumar, Nadira Babbar, Narendra Jha, Shivam Patil as Rohan, Aanchal Munjal.

Director: Sunny Deol

Producer: Dharmendra 

Music: Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy

Release Date: 15th January 2016

Actor Anil Kapoor loves his butter chicken, but the next day he ensures he works out with greater intensity.

I exercise to feel good: Anil Kapoor 

Source— By Asia News International | Dec 15, 2015 09:07 pm 

Actor Anil Kapoor loves his butter chicken, but the next day he ensures he works out with greater intensity. The actor, who is nearing 60, says that he has never felt as physically fit as he feels now.

“Mentally and physically I feel better. We owe it to our bodies. When you work-out on a regular basis, you enjoy food better; relationships better and perform better in your job,” he says.

The actor adds that exercising, which has become an integral part of his life over the years, makes him feel good. “For me, the feel is very important,” he says.

The actor, who introduced Indian audiences to action-drama series 24, is excited for its forthcoming second season. “Obviously story, screenplay, new star cast and the scale is bigger. Action is bigger,” adds Kapoor when asked as to what the audience can expect from the new season.

The show is entirely shot in Mumbai and unlike the previous reports, the show won’t star Tabu. Kapoor is excited as he is also bringing an Indian version of American comedy-series ‘Modern Family’ to India. “I am trying to bring the best content to India television through my shows,” he says.

Talking about Priyanka Chopra’s foray into American television show ‘Quantico’, the actor says that he is really proud of her achievements. “I am very happy as I feel it’s just the beginning. This exchange of actors will only increase with more films and TV shows,” he adds.

Audiences loved Anil Kapoor in films like ‘Ram Lakhan’ and ‘Woh 7 Din’. When asked if we can see the remake of these films anytime soon, he replies, “I can’t say much regarding remakes right now. I will be happy if others make it.”

The actor, who is known as a family man, feels being a father is the most challenging role that he essays in real life. Well the answer may lie in his autobiography, which he refused to either confirm or deny. “Who knows about future, anything can happen,” he sums it up.

Looks like, the actor is all set to defy his age with his love for fitness and the notion to live in present.

Facebook has announced couple of changes to its real name policy to empower people from communities who are either marginalised or face discrimination, including the LGBT community.

Facebook tweaking real name policy to benefit the marginalised

Source— By IANS | Dec 16, 2015 12:18 pm 

New York: Facebook has announced couple of changes to its real name policy to empower people from communities who are either marginalised or face discrimination, including the LGBT community.

According to Justin Osofsky, vice president of global operations at Facebook, the company wants to reduce the number of people who are asked to verify their name on Facebook when they are already using the name people know them by.

“On Facebook, we require people to use the name their friends and family know them by. When people use the names they are known by, their actions and words carry more weight because they are more accountable for what they say,” Osofsky wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.

“However, after hearing feedback from our community, we recognise that it’s also important that this policy works for everyone, especially for communities who are marginalised or face discrimination. That’s why we’re continuing to make improvements in this area,” he wrote.

Last October, Facebook had promised that it will make changes to its real name policy after a number of false account flagging incidents led to the suspension of LGBT members’ pages.

Beginning Wednesday, Facebook has rolled out new tools that address two key goals.

“First, we want to reduce the number of people who are asked to verify their name on Facebook when they are already using the name people know them by,” Osofsky said.

“Second, we want to make it easier for people to confirm their name if necessary. These tools have been built based on many conversations with community leaders and safety organisations around the world,” he noted.

The company is introducing a new version of the names reporting process that requires people to provide additional information about why they are reporting a name.

In the past, people were able to simply report a “fake name” but now they will be required to go through several new steps that provide Facebook more specifics about the report.

“This additional context will help our review teams better understand why someone is reporting a name, giving them more information about a specific situation,” the company official added.

The company is also testing a new tool that will let people provide more information about their circumstances if they are asked to verify their name.

“People can let us know they have a special circumstance, and then give us more information about their unique situation,” the post read.

This additional information will help the review teams better understand the situation so they can provide more personalised support.

“We want to create the best experience that we can for everyone, and we will continue to make improvements until everyone can use the name that their friends and family know them by,” the post announced.

According to a Tech Crunch report, Facebook has recently received criticism around requiring people to provide forms of legal identification, which do not always reflect someone’s preferred name.

Insomnia? You may want to blame evolution as a new study has revealed that humans have evolved to get better sleep in less time,

We evolved to sleep better in less time

Source— By FPJ Bureau | Dec 16, 2015 12:46 am 

Washington DC : Insomnia? You may want to blame evolution as a new study has revealed that humans have evolved to get better sleep in less time, reports ANI.

Researchers from Duke University scoured the scientific literature and compiled a database of slumber patterns across hundreds of mammals including 21 species of primates, from baboons and lemurs to orangutans, chimpanzees and people. They then used statistical techniques to account for each species’ position in the primate family tree.

They found that humans are exceptionally short sleepers, getting by on an average of seven hours of sleep a night, whereas other primate species, such as southern pig-tailed macaques and gray mouse lemurs, need as many as 14 to 17 hours.

What’s more, our sleep tends to be more efficient, meaning we spend a smaller proportion of time in light stages of sleep, and more of our sleep time in deeper stages of sleep. A dream state called rapid eye movement sleep, or REM, for example, makes up nearly 25 percent of our overall sleep. But in primates such as mouse lemurs, mongoose lemurs and African green monkeys, REM sleep barely climbs above five percent.

Humans are unique in having shorter, higher quality sleep, said anthropologist and study co-author David Samson. The human sleep gap isn’t merely the result of round-the-clock access to artificial light from streetlamps and computer screens, the researchers say. A separate study of the sleep habits of people living in three hunter-gatherer societies without electricity in Tanzania, Namibia and Bolivia found they get slightly less shut-eye than those of us with electronic gadgets.

The study is published in Evolutionary Anthropology.

Now only a miracle can salvage the GST Bill from the thicket of opportunistic politics.

Forget GST; press ahead with good governance

Source — By FPJ Bureau | Dec 16, 2015 12:18 am 

Now only a miracle can salvage the GST Bill from the thicket of opportunistic politics. Obstructionism seems to be winning over wider national interest. Admittedly, divisive politics is an integral part of all democratic systems but rival politicians are not expected to scupper progress at the altar of intense and unthinking partisanship. Tragically, what we have seen in the last few weeks is the unreconstructed childishness and pique elevated to the status of a considered policy by Rahul Gandhi. The de facto boss of the opposition Congress is just not ready to offer constructive cooperation to the ruling party even on matters of wider national interest. It is lost on him that the GST was proposed by the UPA. It is lost on him too that the government has virtually accepted the three conditions his party had raised for cooperating in passing the historic tax reform. In retrospect, it appears that the three conditions were laid in the belief that the government would stand firm and would not yield on any of them. But the government called the Congress bluff, more or less giving in on the points raised by the main Opposition. Taken by surprise by the extent to which the government was willing to ensure that the GST Bill was passed in the current session, the Congress per force resorted to other peripheral issues to stall Parliament. As was seen in the last couple of days, after it realised that it was counter-productive to stall Parliament on the National Herald court case against the Gandhis and a few others, a new excuse was cited each day to create shindy in Parliament. It was only the tenacity and firmness of the Lok Sabha Speaker, Sumitra Mahajan, and the fact that the government had a clear majority in the House, which has enabled it to function near-normal. In the Rajya Sabha, the so-called House of the Elders with such wise men like former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as its members, it has been bedlam from the word go. The presiding officers seem helpless before the Congress members who come determined to disrupt the proceedings. In this backdrop, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s fears that this session too might turn out to be a complete washout are not unfounded. Frankly, we have a feeling that so long as Rahul Gandhi is not made to realise by someone wiser than him that his antics might result in further marginalisation of the Congress he might persist with his obstructive, destructive politics. The claim that he was prevented by the RSS to enter a famous temple in Assam was found to be false, with the head priest saying that they were waiting for the great man at the temple gate for nearly four hours but he never showed up.

But it is for the PM to find ways around Rahul’s obstructionism. If the numbers minus the Congress still not add for the GST constitutional amendment, Modi should proceed without the GST with other doable reforms. Necessity being the mother of invention, the government must be run and run well for the larger public good with or without further constitutional amendments and even new laws. Implementing the existing laws firmly and honestly too can prove productive. And reforms, wherever possible, with executive action must be proceeded with. The nation cannot be allowed to be held hostage by the immaturity and childishness of one person. The opportunity to grow at a faster rate is now. The world oil prices are at a historic low, so are commodities, giving India a golden opportunity to grow at a faster rate, particularly when China is hit by excessive capacities and shrinking exports. Happily, even the manufacturing sector is beginning to show an upward movement. Should the government become the effective catalyst for private sector growth, which it is always expected to,  there is no reason why we cannot register eight-nine percent growth this year, especially when the public sector infrastructure projects have once again got going.

Full list of players for the draft; How the draft works?

Full list of players for the draft; How the draft works?

For the first time in 8 years in IPL, Dhoni is forced to represent a team other than Chennai Super Kings (CSK). With CSK and Rajasthan Royals (RR) suspended from the league for a two-year period, the players will have to find a new home. And Dhoni will head to Pune. As per the draft rules, Rs 12.5 crore was deducted from Pune's purse for picking Dhoni.

MS Dhoni

As Pune bid the lowest amount to win the franchise, they had the right to pick the 1st player from the draft. And they were quick to go for Dhoni.

In their 1st pick, Rajkot opted for left-handed batsman Suresh Raina. In their next turn, Pune chose Ajinkya Rahane followed by off-spinner R Ashwin.

Rajkot picked home boy Ravindra Jadeja and they were also the first to sign up the first overseas player from the draft - Brendon McCullum of New Zealand.

In the 4th round, Pune took Australian captain Steve Smith while his compatriot James Faulkner went to Rajkot.

In the 5th and final picks, Pune opted for South Africa's Faf du Plessis while Rajkot chose West Indian Dwayne Bravo.

Only 10 players were allowed to pick (5 each) and 7 from CSK and 3 from RR was lucky to get a new team today. The rest will go into the auction pool.

Pune and Rajkot won the recent franchise bids from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to replace CSK and RR for 2016 and 2017 seasons. Chennai and Rajasthan will return in 2018.

The 2016 IPL players auction is in Bengaluru on February 6.

Who went where? (Full list of players picked at draft)

1st picks - MS Dhoni - Pune

Suresh Raina - Rajkot

2nd picks - Ajinkya Rahane - Pune

Ravindra Jadeja - Rajkot

3rd picks - R Ashwin - Pune

Brendon McCullum- Rajkot

4th picks - Steve Smith - Pune

James Faulkner - Rajkot

5th picks - Faf du Plessis - Pune

Dwayne Bravo - Rajkot

Brendon McCullum will play for Rajkot

Final team line-ups after the draft

Pune: MS Dhoni (India), Ajinkya Rahane (India), R Ashwin (India), Steve Smith (Australia), Faf du Plessis (South Africa)

Rajkot: Suresh Raina (India), Ravindra Jadeja (India), Brendon McCullum (New Zealand), James Faulkner (Australia), Dwayne Bravo (West Indies)

Prices for each player in order of who they pick (This is not the actual money the player gets. He will be paid the same amount what he was getting from previous franchise)

1. Rs 12.5 crore (Dhoni, Raina)

2. Rs 9.5 crore (Rahane, Jadeja)

3. Rs 7.5 crore (McCullum, Ashwin)

4. Rs 5.5 crore (Smith, Faulkner)

5. Rs 4 crore (Du Plessis, Bravo)

Total: Rs 39 crore

Chinese varsity imposes blanket punishment on students

— By IANS | Sep 19, 2015 06:15 pm 

Beijing: A Chinese university forced its female students to wrap themselves in blankets in the hot sun as a form of punishment during the school’s compulsory military training, a media report said. The incident took place at a university in Hunan Province, according to Global Post.

Instructors at the College of Foreign Studies in Changsha ordered the group of 20 students to lie down on a paved athletic track and cover themselves in heavy quilts as a penalty for their “unkempt dormitory”, the report said. Drills and disciplinary action are part of China’s military education programmne. The report also quoted a school official defending the instructor’s actions, saying the punishment lasted “only five minutes”.

“The weather was good and temperatures were below 32 C,” said Xie Yong, a deputy director of the college’s student work department. The students were subjected to the penalty as more than 2,000 others participating in the military training watched. The school called the spectacle “punishment education”.

“It’s really miserable and embarrassing (to be punished) in front of thousands of people,” said an unnamed student. A freshman too sided with the authorities and said extreme measures are understandable.

“They don’t do what they’re told because they’re pampered at home,” said Hu Ling (pseudonym). “The instructors are being strict for our own good.” But Xie said such punishment was not appropriate for girls on an emotional level and that the school will arrange for counselling of the students.

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Another drowned toddler washes up on Turkish beach

— By FPJ Bureau | Sep 19, 2015 01:37 am 

Istanbul : A four-year-old Syrian girl’s body washed up on a beach in western Turkey today, state media said, just weeks after images of drowned Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi shook the world.

The yet-to-be identified girl was found lifeless on a beach in the Aegean town of Cesme in Izmir province after a boat carrying 15 Syrians to the Greek island of Chios sank, the official Anatolia news agency said.

It said the Turkish coast guard rescued the remaining 14 Syrians, including eight children, from the inflatable boat. The girl appeared to be the only casualty.

Harrowing pictures of three-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi, whose body was found washed up on a Turkish beach after the boat carrying his family to the Greek island of Kos sank, caused an outpouring of emotion around the world, pressuring European leaders to step up their response to the refugee crisis.

But two weeks later EU members are still at odds over how to accommodate the tens of thousands of new arrivals.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Friday that the Turkish coast guard had rescued over 53,000 migrants from stricken boats since the beginning of the year.

He said around 274 migrants have lost their lives in Turkish waters this year seeking to leave the country by sea for Greece.

In the latest tragedy, 22 people who had left Turkey drowned on Tuesday when their wooden boat sank off Kos.

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Chileans deal with aftermath of 8.3 quake

— By FPJ Bureau | Sep 19, 2015 01:33 am 

Coquimbo : Hundreds of traumatised Chileans spent a second night out in the open or in shelters night after an offshore 8.3 magnitude earthquake left 12 dead.

In the coastal city of Coquimbo, the wrath of the earth’s twitch in this quake-prone country was clear and ugly: a jumble of fishing boats, remains of homes, trucks, vendors’ stands and cars washed up by tsunami waves bore testament to the sea’s fury.

Maria Zamorano, 60, recounted how she and her large family ran from the shoreline to save themselves from the surging waves.

“If we had stayed here we would have perished,” she told AFP, as people slowly and warily returned to see what was left of their homes. The town is 400 km north of the capital Santiago.

The earthquake Wednesday evening was the sixth strongest in the history of Chile and the most powerful anywhere in the world this year, officials said.

Close to one million people were evacuated from Pacific coastal areas as a precaution as Chile sounded a tsunami alert, with warnings issued as far away as Japan and New Zealand.

But as of Thursday, most of the evacuated Chileans had returned home.

Still, Interior Minister Jorge Burgos said that some 600 people remained in shelters or elsewhere and that some 650 homes were damaged, mainly in Cocquimbo.

The quake occurred at a shallow depth and the epicenter was 228 kilometers (about 140 miles) north of the capital Santiago, a city of 6.6 million people, where there were scenes of pandemonium as thousands fled swaying buildings.

In the hours that followed, tsunami waves of up to 4.5 meters (15 feet) came crashing onshore in the Coquimbo region, causing extensive damage to the region’s port. Eight of the 12 victims were in Coquimbo.

Scenes of destruction also littered the badly hit coastal town of Illapel, further south.

“It was a nightmare,” Maria Ramirez told AFP as she swept up debris outside her house.

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Muslim teen not to return to school that got him arrested

Houston : A Muslim boy in the US arrested over a homemade clock today said he will not return to the school where teachers got him arrested for an invention that ‘looked like a bomb’ as more support gathered for the 14-year- old, with people questioning the real motive of his detention.

Ninth-grader Ahmed Mohamed from Irving in Texas does not wish to return to MacArthur High and is searching for another school though his three-day suspension came to an end today, the CNN reported.

The teen’s family stated that they will consider other schools, possibly even some outside of the US. Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed said his son will either enrol at a private school or be home schooled.

Mohamed’s handcuffing and arrest over an innocent attempt to impress his teachers with his homemade clock sparked a debate, including on social media where netizens questioned the real motive of teachers and authorities amid fears of Islamophobia as the child in question was of brown skin and a Muslim.

Some Facebook users ‘shared’ a post that suggested the authorities never really thought the teen had a real bomb and wanted to ‘humiliate a little Muslim, African boy’.

The post highlighted why the school was not immediately evacuated following the beep and discovery of the clock — a circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display, all strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front.

“…they (authorities) didn’t evacuate the school — like you do when there’s a bomb. They didn’t call a bomb squad — like you do when there’s a bomb. They didn’t get as far away from him as possible — like you do when there’s a bomb. Then they put him and the clock in an office — not like you do when there’s a bomb. Then they waited with him for the police to arrive. Then they put the clock in the same car as the police. Then they took pictures of it…” it read.

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Pressure to be ‘cool’ and look good harmful to kids

— By PTI | Sep 11, 2015 03:13 pm 

London: The pressure to be ‘cool’, look good and own the ‘right stuff’ is detrimental to many children and teenagers, scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have warned. The study by the University of Sussex psychologists shows that while many young people buy into consumer culture believing it will make them feel better about themselves and help them to make friends, often the reverse happens.

The result is a negative downward spiral, said the researchers, whereby those with low well-being turn to consumerist values, which impacts further still upon their state of mind. In the study of 1,000 UK children aged 8-14 over three years, being disruptive, having ‘cool stuff’ and looking good was often seen as the best way to become more popular among peers.

The results, however, showed that valuing these behaviours actually has the opposite effect, with peer relations worsening over time for those kids turning to consumer-culture values. There were also some interesting differences between boys and girls: depressive symptoms in boys tends to predict increases in their materialism, whereas depressive symptoms in girls tends to predict the internalisation of appearance concerns.

“Our results suggest that children who have low levels of well-being are particularly likely to become orientated towards consumer culture, and thus enter into a negative downward spiral,” said Dr Matthew Easterbrook, Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Sussex.

“Consumer culture may be perceived as a coping mechanism by vulnerable children, but it is one that is detrimental to their well-being,” he said. “Our study shows how consumer-culture values are tied up with images of social success in childhood,” said Robin Banerjee, Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Sussex.

“Although friendly and helpful children were ultimately more popular over time, young people mistakenly predicted that the route to being liked was in having a reputation for disruptive behaviour, having ‘cool’ stuff and looking good. “What we found was another example of a downward spiral – those rejected by peers then turned to consumer culture, which actually worsened, rather than improved, those relationships,” he said.

The latest research is part of a wider project at the University, led by Sussex psychologist Dr Helga Dittmar, that is systematically examining the impact of consumer-culture ideals on children’s personal and social well-being. The research was presented at the British Psychological Society’s Developmental and Social Psychology Section annual conference.

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Climate change will hit food security

— By Bharat Jhunjhunwala | Sep 05, 2015 12:09 am 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his resolve to help Island countries of the Pacific Ocean face climate change. The melting of glaciers due to global warming is expected to lead to an increase in the level of water in our oceans. This will lead to some islands completely being submerged into the ocean. Modi is also slated to join hands with President Obama on the issue of global warming during his coming visit to the United States. These steps taken by Modi are both timely and welcome. But there is a much more urgent problem lurking in our backyard that needs attention much before the global action plan is worked out.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted that global warming will increase the number of extreme climate events such as floods, droughts and cyclones. The rainfall pattern is likely to become more variable too. Few days of intense rain followed by long periods of droughts are likely to take place even though average rainfall may remain the same. The average temperature in India has risen by 0.6 degree Celsius in the last century. It is expected to increase by 2.4 degrees by the year 2100. What we will face will be four times the increase in present century compared to what we have seen in the last century.

The impact of climate change will be more severe on rain fed agriculture. Crops like bajra, corn and ragi are cultivated in large tracts of the country. I have lived for a few years in Rajasthan. Often there are good rains at the time of sowing followed by long dry spells such that the farmer only harvests the straw at the end of the season. Climate change will hit at rain-fed agriculture majorly. Farmers in these areas will demand facilities of irrigation such as from canals. Crops in irrigated areas will also come under pressure. It is predicted that there will be a reduction in winter rains. Long spells of no rains in the monsoons will increase the demand for irrigation for paddy as well. There will be an increase in demand for irrigation in all the seasons.

The availability of water, on the other hand, will reduce. It is predicted that there will be less snowfall in the hills. That will lead to less flow into the rivers during the summers when the demand for water is the highest. Greater variability in the rainfall pattern will lead to less recharge of groundwater aquifers. Continuously drizzling water for a number of days enables large amounts of water to seep into the earth. One gush of heavy rainfall, on the other hand, provides less time for the water to seep into the earth. Most water flows into the rivers and into the sea. Our efforts to control flood have also led to less recharge of aquifers. Previously flood waters used to inundate large tracts of land and water used to seep into the aquifers. Now we have built embankments along many rivers which prevent the spread of flood water. As a result, groundwater level is fast reducing in most areas of the country.

The availability of water for irrigation will be further reduced due to evaporation from large storage reservoirs like Bhakra and Tehri. A study of 12 large reservoirs in the United States predicted that evaporation loss will increase by nine percent in the next century. The loss is likely to be more in our warmer climate. We are faced with a double whammy. The demand for irrigation will increase while availability of water for irrigation will reduce.

Climate change will also have global political implications for us. Warmer temperatures will be mildly positive for colder countries of Europe and North America; while it will be hugely negative for tropical countries like India which means that developed countries will be able to produce larger quantities of food grains while our production may decline. We had to go with a begging bowl to Washington in the sixties for supply of food grains under the United States’ PL 480 programme. A similar situation may be created yet again. Thus climate change will affect sovereignty.

We need to make changes in our agriculture and water policies to face these multiple challenges arising from global warming. The indigenous varieties of food grains like paddy and wheat are more resistant to climate variations. We had abandoned these varieties in favour of High Yielding Varieties to augment our food production in the wake of the food crisis of the sixties. We will have to retrace our steps. We must encourage farmers to grow traditional varieties even though the production may be less. The farmer is willing to make this change. He wants to insulate himself from the vagaries of weather. His problem is that he cannot make his ends meet if the production is less. Therefore, we must put in place a system of incentives for growing indigenous varieties. We must adopt water conservation measures such as drip irrigation so that we can grow same amount of grains with less water. Once again the problem is that of price. The farmers do not have the income or the incentive to invest in drip irrigation systems. This requires increase in price and provision of incentives.

We are consuming large amounts of water for growing water-intensive crops like grapes, sugarcane, and red chillies that are often produced for export. We pack our scarce water into these crops and export our water to foreign countries. There is a need to assess the availability of water in each block of the country and put restrictions on growing of crops that consume more water than is available. Farmers make tens of irrigations in dry areas of Gulbarga and Jodhpur to grow grapes and red chillies. This must stop.

Our water policy also needs reconsideration. Present policy is to make large reservoirs like Bhakra and Tehri and store monsoon water for use in the summers. As told above, this is leading to huge losses due to evaporation. Instead, we must store water in groundwater aquifers. We must remove all embankments along the rivers and let the flood waters spread over large areas so that the aquifers are recharged. We must build villages on mounds and houses on stilts so that loss of life is minimised during floods. Prime Minister Modi must be congratulated for putting global warming on the agenda in his talks with foreign countries. But one does not lecture about the need to buy a new fire engine when one’s house is on fire. Modi must first make policies to insulate India from global warming. Only then would his interactions with other countries be credible.

Author was formerly a Professor of Economics at IIM Bengaluru

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Movie review: Gauraiya – Gritty but distasteful!

— By Johnson Thomas | Aug 28, 2015 08:06 pm 

Cast: Raiya Sinha, Karamveer Chaudhary, Vijay Jora, Sumit Chawla, Sushma Salvi

Director: Rajesh Hans

Rating: * *

Runtime: 109 mins

Supposedly centered around true incidents of sexploitation of Harijans by Dacoits, thekedars and other armed forces located in the north Indian desert regions of Patha and Chitrakoot, this film tries hard to ensnare it’s audience with a surfeit of cuss words and exploitative frontal nudity.

 While the treatment is gritty and the ethos, look  and cultural landscape tends to realism, the overabundant use of dehumanizing slang and copious plants of frontal nudity in the guise of sexploitation exposes, is just not palatable. It seemed like the director had some noble intentions to begin with- like making a case for cautious implementation of the 216 A law that empowers the police to take in hapless villagers as a preventive measure against armed attack. But those intentions  get lost in the exploitative content masquerading as a social awareness treatise.

The writer/Director does try to broaden the ambit a bit by adding a young activist/writer, Shefali, working on a book titled ‘End of crime’ as part of her PhD thesis work – to the story. Shefali visits the oppressed and the oppressors,  making notes and soothing pained brows as part of her effort to understand the cycle of crime and criminality.  But there’s little or no affect there other than as a convenient prop- just like the NGO sent to the village to serve the oppressed victims, becoming yet another spoke in the wheel of oppression.

Also, the characters have no growth curve. The lead character Gauraiya(Raiya Sinha), moves from one sexploitative experience to another without any repulsive action to showcase her unwillingness. The performances are pretty sanguine though. The villains are also typically vicious and boot happy. There’s absolutely no relief to be had in the abusive assemblage. The entire experience was gross and the rendering criminally  undermines the cause of women’s empowerment. Token posturing of one so-called strong woman character who stands up against oppression doesn’t balance it out either. Best avoided or else be resigned to your thankless fate!

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