Shadowfax Ties Up With ASSOCHAM To Upskill And Employ Youth Under The Skill India Mission – IndianWeb2.com

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Ritika Singh, Maninder Singh, Ajay Sharma, Praharsh Chandra, Saurabh Sharma, Kumaresan.B

Shadowfax, Indias only crowdsourced, cross-category, full-stack logistics platform, has joined hands with the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India, ASSOCHAM, in a first-of-its-kind and an exclusive partnership to promote micro entrepreneurship in gig economy under the aegis of Government of Indias Skill India Mission initiative.

With the gig economy gaining traction, logistics and delivery are the sunshine sectors providing immense employment and entrepreneurial opportunities. Under this partnership, ASSOCHAM, which is an independent body, will work closely with the government to create awareness about the benefits of working in this attractive sector and the right candidates shall be trained as per government standards to make them employment ready for the delivery & hospitality sector.

Once trained, these fully skilled human resources will be provided business and entrepreneurship opportunities in delivery sector through the crowdsourced Shadowfax logistics platform. This first-of-its-kind socio-economic association is expected to create an additional resource pool of 1.6 lakh trained delivery personnel in the course of next two years across India including metros, tier 2, tier 3 cities and even rural areas.

Sharing the details of the partnership, Saurabh Sharma, V.P. Growth & Expansion, Shadowfax said, We are privileged to partnerwith ASSOCHAM in this socio-economic initiative under the Skill India mission. The Shadowfax delivery partners are all microentrepreneurs who, if they choose to, rewrite their destiny a little better every day. This partnership which seeks to upskill more than 150000 youth to make them employable, is in line with our corporate social mission to create a million microentrepreneurs by 2023. It is also in sync with our business goal to increase our footprints to a 600+ Indian cities and towns as the project will provide us a ready pool of trained delivery partners from across India including metros, tier 2-3 cities and towns and even rural areas including parts of J&K and North-East India. We expect this Shadowfax-ASSOCHAM partnership to set an exemplary instance of the best kind of socio-corporate tie-up.

Speaking on the occasion, Maninder Singh Nayyar, Co-Chairman, Skill & Entrepreneurship ASSOCHAM, said, ASSOCHAM has found a worthy partner in Shadowfax, a company which believes in not only providing gainful employment but also in sowing the seeds of entrepreneurship in its workforce. Upskilling alone does not help our youth, they need enough business opportunities to prove their mettle. Our partnership with Shadowfax will provide our trained youth right and ample opportunities to make their mark. The project alone is expected to add approximately 20% more delivery personnel to the existing pool with reputed organizations like Bal Bharti Academy also supporting this initiative at pan India level.

Ajay Sharma, Assistant Secretary General, ASSOCHAM, added, GOI has allocated handsome amount for skill development under various programs. ASSOCHAM will identify and train each selected youth as per standards set out by the government under the aegis of this initiative. The project is expected to add approximately 2 lakh delivery personnel to the current 10 lakh+ community.

About Shadowfax

Shadowfax Indias largest crowdsourced logistics platform, was established in 2015 withthe vision of enabling commerce by empowering lives for everyone, everywhere. The Shadowfax technology platform optimizes for best-in-class partner efficiency and uniteconomics. Its AI based location processing engine, using location data from orderprocessing, enables highest service levels among its competitors. Driven by a massiveword-of-mouth growth in the India market, Shadowfax has the lowest partner acquisition cost in its segment. Shadowfax APIs are available for small as well as enterprise businesses throughout India for seamless and trustworthy logistics service.

About ASSOCHAM

ASSOCHAM initiated its endeavour of value creation for Indian industry in 1920. Having in its fold over 400 Chambers and Trade Associations and serving over 4.5 lakh members across India. ASSOCHAM has emerged as the fountainhead of Knowledge for Indian industry, which is all set to redefine the dynamics of growth and development in the Knowledge Based Economy.

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Shadowfax Ties Up With ASSOCHAM To Upskill And Employ Youth Under The Skill India Mission - IndianWeb2.com

Timipre Sylva: Nigeria to focus on five critical areas in oil and gas sector in 2020 – TODAY NEWS AFRICA

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The Nigerian Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, on Thursday, held his first major press conference in Abuja since he was appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019, and rolled out the five critical areas of focus for oil and gas sector in Africas most populous nation in the year 2020.

Theformer governorofBayelsa Statein Southern Nigeria expressed optimism that both the Petroleum Industry Governance, Administration & Host Communities Bill on one hand, and the Petroleum Industry Fiscal Bill on the other, will be passed within the first anniversary of the Buhari administrations second term in office.

His confidence, he explained, was based on the current harmony between the Executive and Legislative arms of the Government.

President Muhammadu Buhari won a second term of four years in 2019, with his All Progressives Congress (APC) sweeping both chambers of the National Assembly.

That victory gave Mr. Buhari, 77, the backing he lacked in his first term when Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara rose to defeat his preferred candidates and antagonized him until the very last minute.

On the PIB, or Petroleum Industry Bill, which is the first priority of Mr. Sylva, he said a special focus will be placed on the Midstream and Downstream sectors.

Consequently, we are considering two regulators, one for the Upstream (the Commission) and another for the Midstream & Downstream (the Authority), he said, adding that the Midstream and Downstream sectors will particularly open enormous opportunities to local investors and create massive job opportunities in the country.

For example, investments will be available in pipeline engineering design, procurement & construction, terminal operations, pipe mills, fabrication of pressure vessels, storage facilities, pipe transportation and laying equipments, Refineries, Central Processing Facilities and also investment in Gas-based industries (Fertilizer, Methanol, Petrochemicals, LPG and CNG) etc. Open access for oil and gas transportation will be fully enhanced, he said.

On the upstream side, we are coming up with more robust fiscal provision, acreage management, drilling-or-drop program, etc. We are not only going to retain investors, multitudes will join the leagues of high-value operators, the Minister added.

Mr. Sylva explained that his second point agenda would be to address security challenges around oil and gas installations, specifically to curtail theft of petroleum products and crude oil.

He said the crude theft was being currently contained with legislation, security, surveillance, community engagement and diplomacy.

Mr. Sylva explained that oil theft lingers because of the presence of an active market for stolen crude and products, a weak measurement and surveillance mechanism, weak and inadequate sanctions, low cost and high incentive for theft as well as lack of infrastructural development.

As a solution, he proposed to use technology for pro-active leak detection and community participation in the oil and gas assets, as well as engage PTI in the training of unemployed youths in the region.

In addition, the government would have to revamp security architecture, increase supply to underserved areas, provide good infrastructure in the regions where oil is exploited and give incentives to host communities.

This would not be complete without increasing community stake-holding, designing and enforcing stiffer legislations and mobilizing global community, traders, refiners, regulators and international groups.

His third agenda, he said, would be to enable the operations of the National Oil company as a responsive commercial enterprise

Mr. Sylva said various transformation processes were currently ongoing in NNPC Growing from Business Unit Focus Areas (12 BUFAs) to Transparency, Accountability and Performance Excellence (TAPE). We are considering the Incorporation of NNPC and its existing Joint Venture Companies.

In addition, his fourth priority would be to conduct bid rounds for marginal and opportunities within 2020 and to ensure settlement of dispute with partners and pave way for FID on major capital projects.

New Gridding, acreage management and bidding process are thoroughly elucidated in the upcoming Petroleum Industry Bills. It is therefore highly desirable that the Bills are passed before any bid round. This is one of the reason we implore Nigerians to support us in our quest to pass the bills in earnest, Mr. Sylva said.

His fifth priority would be to deepen domestic gas utilization and overall monetization of gas resource.

As you are aware, Natural gas has the capacity to transform an economy. We have seen successful examples all over the world. Qatar has the worlds highest GDP per Capita its growth anchored on natural gas. Saudi Arabia has positioned itself as the worlds hub for petrochemicals, creating significant job opportunities and enabling industrialization of the country, he said.

He added: Nigerias gas reserves is significant. Nigeria current 2P gas estimate is about 202TCF with potential for up to 600TCF in undiscovered resources. With the undiscovered potential, Nigeria could be in the same league as Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Recognizing the potential of our enormous natural gas resources and the unprecedented growth in domestic gas demand, the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Ministry of Petroleum Resources over the years has championed various interventions to stimulate gas utilization and monetization.

This led to the Gas Master-Plan Policy initiative where detailed major gas infrastructure expansion and integration, gas supply development projects, revamp of the commercial framework for gas and tactical efforts to accelerate gas supply to Power sector, in addition to our gas industrialization strategy for investments in Fertilizer, Methanol, Petrochemical, CNG and LPG are fully stated.

Also the Ministry of Petroleum Resources is driving the Nigeria Gas Flare Commercialization Program (NGFCP). This initiative is designed as the strategy to implement policy objective of the FGN for the elimination of gas flares with potentially enormous multiplier and development outcomes for Nigeria. The objective of the NGFCP is to eliminate gas flaring through technically and commercially sustainable gas utilisation projects developed by competent third party investors who will be invited to participate in a competitive and transparent bid process.

The Federal Executive Council in June 2016 approved the Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialization Program (NGFCP).

The Federal Government ratified the Paris Climate Change Agreement, and is a signatory to the Global Gas Flaring Partnership (GGFR) principles for global flare-out by 2030 whilst committing to a national flare-out target by year 2020.

In November 2018, the Federal Government of Nigeria called for Expression of Interest (EoI) in the Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialization Program (NGFCP).

Over 850 interested parties registered their interest in the NGFCP. 205 Applicants emerged successful and all 205 companies will be invited to submit their proposal for flare gas utilization through the Request for Proposals (RfP) phase of the NGFCP, Mr. Sylva said.

He added that the commercialization approach has been considered from legal, technical, economic, commercial and developmental standpoints.

It is a unique and historic opportunity to attract major investment in economically viable gas flare capture projects whilst permanently addressing a 60 year environmental problem in Nigeria.

About US$ 3.5 billion worth of inward investments is required to achieve the gas flare commercialization targets by 2020.

The analysis also shows that the NGFCP will deliver significant social and economic benefits to host communities in gas-rich regions of the Niger Delta, to investors and to the national economy. Benefits would include, he added.

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Timipre Sylva: Nigeria to focus on five critical areas in oil and gas sector in 2020 - TODAY NEWS AFRICA

Quillen Op-Ed: ‘How to Protect Free Speech in the Age of Mass Shootings’ – Davidson News

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Quillen explores how the world might look to college studentsand its not always pretty. Instantaneous access to information has raised the stakes of expression, creating a world in which free speech can mutate into violence in the blink of an eye.

For young people who have known no world but this one, the line between speech that invites violence and violent criminal acts seems paper thin, she writes.

If we want to engage our students, rather than belittle them, we might consider changing the subject from free speech per se to how words lead to action in the world.

Quillen asks readers to focus on our collective vulnerability to tribalism and how technology has made us less likely to connect directly.

Such a change of subject would invite all of us to pose timely political and ethical questions, as many college professors nationwide are doing she writes. In fact, freedom of speech has a better chance of flourishing if weon the left and the rightwould lay down our arms and listen.

The op-ed is available in its entirety at The Hill

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Quillen Op-Ed: 'How to Protect Free Speech in the Age of Mass Shootings' - Davidson News

Franklin Republican wants to make it a crime to burn symbol of liberty – The Union Leader

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CONCORD A state senator said its time to ask New Hampshire voters whether they want to make flag burning an unlawful expression of free speech.

Sen. Harold French, R-Franklin, presented to the Senate Election Laws and Municipal Affairs Committee Thursday a proposed amendment to the New Hampshire Constitution (CACR 19) to make it illegal to burn a flag except as a respectable means of disposing of a worn or damaged one.

People had the right to express themselves, but as I got older I realized it was not just the flag; it was a symbol of unity. As all of us look at that flag, we see the same thing and that is the unity the flag brings to us, French said.

There are other instances that we prohibit things which could be considered freedom of speech. This is just one other I would like to add to that.

Jeanne Hruska, political director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, said even if adopted by voters, the law would last as long as it took a judge to examine it and conclude it violated the U.S. Constitution.

This amendment is very much about speech and protest, including peaceful protest, since incitement to violence is already illegal, Hruska said. Burning the flag may be offensive speech to many, but it is the kind of speech that is most important to protect if free speech is to retain its meaning.

The first flag protection amendment was passed by Congress in 1968 in response to protests against the Vietnam War.

Over time, 48 of the 50 states adopted their own flag protection laws, but the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989 struck them all down as unconstitutional in a 5-4 ruling.

When Congress adopted another law in response, the court voted 5-4 to knock that one down, too.

Congress then spent nearly the next decade trying to get the necessary two-thirds vote to amend the U.S. Constitution. The movement passed the U.S. House but finally died in the U.S. Senate by a single vote in 2006.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental right enjoyed by citizens in this country, said liberal activist Nancy Brennan of Weare.

Although I have no desire to burn the American flag, I do understand why some people may feel so disenfranchised, so angry about something that they burned or desecrated the flag.

The hearing was sparsely attended, though six senators have signed on to the amendment, including first-term Sen. Jon Morgan, D-Brentwood.

The hearing featured some spirited debate.

I have to say I feel the Supreme Court was wrong-headed in that decision, said Sen. Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead and a Coast Guard veteran.

We have had numerous people who died under the flag. Its a desecration to them that others are allowed to burn the flag.

Sen. Tom Sherman, D-Rye, said many in his family fought against the Nazis in World War II, including an uncle whom he never met.

I find it absolutely abhorrent to burn the American flag. My family has been here since the origins of the nation. Can I put in a constitutional amendment next year to end hate speech? What is going to stop us from stopping this kind of speech? Sherman asked rhetorically.

Sen. Melanie Levesque, D-Brookline, tried to stay in the political median for now.

Our freedom of speech is also very important. Without weighing in here I can understand both sides, Levesque said.

Amendments to the State Constitution require at least a three-fifths majority vote in the House of Representatives and the State Senate.

Then,without the governors involvement, the question automatically would be placed on the November 2020 ballot, requiring a two-thirds vote to be adopted.

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Franklin Republican wants to make it a crime to burn symbol of liberty - The Union Leader

Brazils Top Culture Official Fired Over Speech Evoking Nazi Propaganda – The New York Times

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RIO DE JANEIRO President Jair Bolsonaros top culture official was dismissed on Friday over an address in which he used phrases and ideas from an infamous Nazi propaganda speech while playing an opera that Adolf Hitler regarded as a favorite.

The address by Roberto Alvim, the culture secretary, set off an outcry across the political spectrum as Brazilians reacted with exasperation and incredulity.

It was the latest flash point in a broader debate over freedom of speech and culture in the Bolsonaro era. The president campaigned on a promised course correction after an era of rule by leftist leaders, whom he accused of trying to impose cultural Marxism.

Critics say that he and his allies are taking a dogmatic approach to the arts, the public education system and to sexuality and reproductive rights.

Mr. Alvims speech, which was posted on the culture secretariats Twitter account Thursday evening, shows Mr. Alvim speaking sternly sitting at a desk. Behind him is a framed photograph of Mr. Bolsonaro. A large wooden cross on his desk is featured prominently.

Careful observers were aghast after noticing that a few minutes into the address, Mr. Alvim uttered a few phrases that are remarkably similar to an infamous speech by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Germany propaganda minister.

Goebbelss speech, delivered in 1933, was one of several in which he called on artists to back the Nazi vision. Art, he said, needed to be a tool free of sentimentalism that served the states aims, according to a biography of Goebbels written by the German historian Peter Longerich.

Mr. Alvims address included verbatim some phrases from Goebbelss, including an exhortation to make art in the next decade heroic. It also includes the warning that Goebbels gave that if art doesnt rise to the national moment, it will cease to exist.

In the background, Richard Wagners opera Lohengrin is playing, a work Hitler described in his autobiography as one that had been decisive in his life, according to the newspaper Folha de So Paulo.

Announcing a $4.8 million investment in the countrys national arts grant program, Mr. Alvim, a veteran theater director, made clear the government would fund works that hew to Mr. Bolsonaros worldview, works that pay homage to historical figures and emphasize conservative values.

The arts grants would support operas, theater productions, painting and sculpture exhibitions, works of literature and music compositions.

Mr. Alvim said Brazil needed a culture that doesnt destroy, but one that will save our youth.

When culture is sickened, people become sick as well, he said in a video recorded alongside the president, which was broadcast before the one that drew controversy.

By Friday morning, Goebbels and Nazi were trending topics on Twitter in Brazil as users shared news stories and memes expressing horror.

Mr. Alvim initially dismissed the criticism, accusing leftists of reading too much into his words, and saying in a radio interview that his aides chose the passages from Goebbelss speech when he asked them to search on Google for speeches about nationalism and art.

But later he apologized to the Jewish community for what he called an involuntary mistake.

Mr. Bolsonaro said on Friday afternoon in a statement that despite Mr. Alvins apology, he decided that keeping him in the job was unsustainable. He added that the government repudiates totalitarian and genocidal ideologies.

Several politicians, including the speaker of the House, had called for Mr. Alvims immediate ouster while some prominent figures close to Mr. Bolsonaro questioned his sanity.

Jos Antonio Dias Toffoli, the president of the Supreme Court, said in a statement that Mr. Alvims remarks deserved to be repudiated with vehemence, adding that they were offensive to Brazilian people, especially the Jewish community.

Olavo de Carvalho, a Virginia-based writer and YouTuber from Brazil who is known for peddling conspiracy theories and informing Mr. Bolsonaros thinking on societal and intellectual matters, was also critical of Mr. Alvim.

It may be early to judge, he wrote on Facebook. But Roberto Alvim may not be of sound mind. Well see.

Germanys embassy in Brazil condemned the speech in a post on Twitter, saying that it opposed any attempt to banalize or glorify an era that brought infinite suffering for humanity.

Letcia Casado contributed reporting from Braslia.

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Brazils Top Culture Official Fired Over Speech Evoking Nazi Propaganda - The New York Times

Experts warn of foreign disinformation in 2020 election that could ‘annihilate truth’ – The Daily World

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By Rick Rouan

The Columbus Dispatch

COLUMBUS, Ohio Government reports agree that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 election, using sophisticated troll farms and disinformation campaigns to meddle in the selection of the next U.S. president.

But a full election cycle later, regulators, legal scholars and security experts are still trying to figure out how to fight it and where it will originate.

If you arent terrified, you arent paying attention, said Ellen Weintraub, a commissioner on the Federal Election Commission. The question is what, if anything, we can do about it.

Modern propaganda distributed across social media seeks to exhaust critical thinking and annihilate truth, Weintraub said during a panel discussion Friday at Ohio State Universitys Moritz College of Law.

In 2020, it wont just come from Russia, she said, noting that intelligence officials are expecting attacks from China, North Korea and others.

Stopping it from happening, though, is complicated, panelists said, because it pits the First Amendment against the need for regulations that would stop erosion of confidence in elections.

The dilemma we face is that any measures we take to counter disinformation have negative consequences for the freedom of speech said Yasmin Dawood, a law professor at the University of Toronto who has studied Canadas approach to combating disinformation.

In 2018, Canada adopted regulations that prohibit publishing misleading information about the countrys elections administration arm and false information about candidates, party leaders and other public figures.

Those restrictions were narrow, though, Dawood said. For example, regulations on distributing false information about individuals were limited to their involvement in a crime, their citizenship, membership in a group and other factors.

If social media platforms adopted their own limitations, that would negate any concerns about government limiting free speech, Weintraub said. So far, though, they have taken little action to stop the disinformation that ran rampant during the 2016 presidential election cycle.

Leaving regulation to the private sector is unlikely to be enough, though, said William Marshall, law professor at the University of North Carolina.

Disinformation has real consequences in elections, he said, and that could be enough to swing the argument for government regulation. For example, distributing false information about the date of the election could suppress voter turnout; lies about a candidate could swing votes entirely.

I think all this false information just normalizes lies. We live in a world many people call post-truth that just accepts it, he said.

If confronted with stronger laws, Weintraub said, she does not believe the Supreme Court would block them while foreign actors are trying to get their tentacles into our political system.

I believe that the Supreme Court would uphold those laws. I dont believe that they would say that the Constitution is a suicide pact, she said.

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Experts warn of foreign disinformation in 2020 election that could 'annihilate truth' - The Daily World

Editorial: NH House should reject bill that violates freedom of the press – Seacoastonline.com

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Free speech and Liberty of the press are essential to the security of Freedom in a State: They ought, therefore, to be inviolably preserved.

Article 22, New Hampshire Constitution.

On Wednesday, Jan. 15, the New Hampshire House Judiciary Committee will hold the first hearing on HB 1157: An Act relative to liability of New Hampshire news media for failure to update stories on criminal proceedings.

While we agree that it is fair journalistic practice to update stories about criminal proceedings, the bill clearly violates the United States and New Hampshire constitutions and should therefore be rejected.

To our knowledge, the vast majority of professional news outlets in New Hampshire, including Seacoast Media Group, already voluntarily do what this bill seeks to compel through use of government force.

If a news outlet reports criminal charges against an individual and is then notified in writing that those charges were dropped, dismissed, resulted in a finding of not guilty or were subsequently annulled, every outlet in the state already either updates the full story or, in the case of police logs, attaches a note updating the cases disposition.

HB 1157 seeks to compel the news media to take these actions and, if they fail to do so shall result in the liability of the New Hampshire news media organization for any damages incurred by the person caused by such failure.

Having conceded that news outlets should report the dispositions of criminal cases after reporting the initial charges, we strongly oppose this bill on the grounds that it violates constitutional press freedoms upheld time and again by the U.S. Supreme Court as well as state courts.

Controlling the press allows a government to control a people by allowing them to know only what the government wants them to know and preventing them from knowing what the government doesnt want them to know. There is a reason why Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and thousands of other internet sites have been blocked by the so-called Great Firewall of China.

The founders of our state and nation explicitly included strong constitutional press protections. Having just thrown off the repressive yoke of Great Britain and its monarchy, they wanted to prevent the rise of a new tyrant and felt a free press was the best protection because an informed public would have the information it needed to hold government accountable. For this reason, Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1787: were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

A First Amendment case relevant to HB 1157, brought to the attention of the New Hampshire Press Association by Matthew Saldaa from the law firm Bernstein and Shur, is Miami Herald Pub. Co. v. Tornillo, 1974, in which the Supreme Court ruled a Florida law mandating that newspapers provide every political candidate a right to reply to negative articles in the paper, violated the First Amendment.

In the decision, Associate Justice Byron White wrote: the balance struck by the First Amendment with respect to the press is that society must take the risk that occasionally debate on vital issues will not be comprehensive and that all viewpoints may not be expressed. The press would be unlicensesd because, in Jeffersons words, (w)here the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe. Any other accommodation any other system that would supplant private control of the press with the heavy hand of government intrusion would make the government the censor of what the people may read and know.

While we agree that media outlets should voluntarily report on the final disposition of crime stories they have published, we do not believe the remedy is for the New Hampshire House to pass an unconstitutional law. The remedy is for publishers to do what is fair and right and for readers to hold them accountable when they fail to do so.

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Editorial: NH House should reject bill that violates freedom of the press - Seacoastonline.com

Montclair State Univ. Sued for ‘Unconstitutional’ Speech Policy and Favoring One Student Group Over Another Based on Their Beliefs – CBN News

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Montclair State University in New Jersey was hit with a lawsuit Wednesday challenging its policies regulating speech on campus.

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) says the university's speech and permit policies stifle the free expression of ideas and unconstitutionally classifies campus student organizations based on viewpoint.

The lawsuit stems from an incident last September. Three students affiliated with Young Americans for Liberty dressed in orange prisoner-like jumpsuits and held up signs expressing support for gun-free zones. As pretend criminals, their message was clear that gun-free zones only aid lawbreakers, and harm law-abiding citizens.According to a press release on the lawsuit, the ADF says the students were peacefully expressing their ideas in a common outdoor area of the campus when a campus police officer forced them to stop. They were told if they wanted to speak on campus they had first to obtain permission at least two weeks in advance and that the dean's office would assign them a time and place to speak.

The lawsuit alleges "this two-week requirement imposes an unconstitutional prior restraint on all students throughout the entire campus," and allows the university to deny or delay a student's request for a permit for any reason.

"A public university is supposed to be a marketplace of ideas, but that marketplace can't function if officials impose burdensome restraints on speech or if they can selectively enforce those restraints against disfavored groups," said ADF Legal Counsel Michael Ross.

In an e-mailed statementto northjersey.com, University President Susan Cole said Montclair State "is absolutely and unequivocally committed to freedom of speech" and the exchange of ideas. But, she wrote, that must be balanced with "the right of all members of the university community to be able to engage without disruption" in school activities.

"No member of the university community is subject to any limitation or penalty for demonstrating or assembling with others for the expression of his/her viewpoint," Cole wrote.

ADF counsel Ross disagrees. "Policing peaceful student expression that the university doesn't favor is blatantly unconstitutional and directly opposed to the mission of public universities to encourage and allow the discussion of ideas," Ross said.

The lawsuit takes aim at two other campus policies it says violates students' rights.

One policy gives the university's Student Government Association (SGA) complete discretion to rank student organizations into "classes." Young Americans for Liberty is ranked as a Class IV group, which means it is considered "entry-level," and unlike higher-ranked groups it can not request funding from the student fees its members and all students are required to pay unless it raises outside matching funds. The Student Government Association has sole discretion to determine if a student group is entry-level or "meets the needs of a very specific and unique interest of the campus community." This, the lawsuit alleges, is a criterion based on viewpoint and content of speech and is, therefore, unconstitutional. Young Americans for Liberty is still designated as "entry-level" even though it's been registered as a group since 2018.

In a statement to northjersey.com, the SGA says its policies and procedures for student organizations are "viewpoint neutral," and that the lawsuit "mischaracterizes" them.

The second school policy involves the university's Bias Education Response Taskforce. The lawsuit quotes the University as saying the Taskforce exists "to provide a well-coordinated and comprehensive response to incidents of intolerance and bias with respect to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, and national origin." It also has various sanctions against students whose speech it determines intolerant.

The lawsuit alleges the Taskforce guidelines for determining bias and prejudice are "vague and overbroad," and the fear of violating some vague standard stifles the expression of speech protected by the US Constitution. The ADF says the purpose of the Taskforce "is to suppress speech that may make others uncomfortable."

ADF attorneys filed the complaint called Young Americans for Liberty at Montclair State University v. The Trustees of Montclair State University with the US District Court for the District of New Jersey on Wednesday.

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Montclair State Univ. Sued for 'Unconstitutional' Speech Policy and Favoring One Student Group Over Another Based on Their Beliefs - CBN News

Sheffield Arena urged to cancel event by ‘homophobic’ Trump ally – The Guardian

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LGBTQ+ leaders in Sheffield have called for the cancellation of an upcoming UK tour by Donald Trumps most prominent evangelical ally, claiming he promotes homophobic views.

Franklin Graham, the influential son of the late American preacher Billy Graham, has previously said he believes gay marriage is a sin.

Graham is currently on a tour of Florida which has attracted protests from thousands of other Christians and is to tour eight UK cities later this year. He is due to visit Sheffield Arena in June as part of his tour, which is not open to the public.

Sheffield City Trust, which runs the venue, has said it does not endorse Grahams views but supports the right to free speech.

But LGBT+ campaigners have written to the trust calling for the visit to be cancelled.

The letter, signed by 22 representatives of the citys LGBTQ+ community, says: Franklin Graham has repeatedly publicly promoted his homophobic beliefs, including but not limited to branding homosexuality a sin

We believe that these statements far exceed freedom of speech and are direct hate speech and incitement to violence against LGBTQ+ communities and individuals, which should not be welcomed in our city or anywhere else.

David Grey, chairman of the trust, said he had met faith groups from the city and taken advice from South Yorkshire police regarding the visit but supported the right to free speech and freedom of expression whilst promoting equality and freedom from hatred and abuse.

He agreed there was a potential conflict between these two moral stances, but added that the event was not open to the public and if individuals or groups arent breaking the law then their right to speak freely should be respected.

Heather Paterson, LGBT+ chair at the Equality Hub Network in the city and one of the signatories to the letter, said: While Sheffield City Trust defend their position on the grounds of free speech, hate speech is not free speech. Grahams rhetoric demonising some of our most vulnerable communities, referring to us as the enemies of civilisation and advocating for the harmful and abusive practice of conversion therapy inspires and encourages these attacks. As a community we stand together to reject his attempts to spread further hatred and division in our city.

A demonstration against Grahams appearance, Sheffield Against Hate Demo: Say No To Franklin Graham, is being held on 25 January at the Forge International Sports Centre in the city.

Earlier this month councillors wrote a cross-party letter to organisers of Grahams event warning that the visit could lead to protests.

And in November the bishop of Sheffield, Pete Wilcox, said Grahams rhetoric was inflammatory and represented a risk to the social cohesion of Sheffield.

Grey added: The Franklin Graham event is part of a series of closed events across the country. These events are not open to the public. Other religious groups hire the arena for similar closed events and we are happy to accommodate them as long as the law isnt being broken.

As an organisation, we take matters such as this immensely seriously. We are aware of views from some of our citys councillors and understand their concerns. [But] it is the view of the board of trustees that freedom of speech, and the ability to disagree with someones beliefs, are to be encouraged. If individuals or groups arent breaking the law then their right to speak freely should be respected.

The tour during May and June will also include venues in Glasgow, Newcastle, Milton Keynes, Liverpool, Cardiff, Birmingham and London.

Graham said: Im not coming to Sheffield to preach against anyone. Im coming to tell everyone about a God who loves them.

The gospels life-saving truth and power applies to everyone in this great city.

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Sheffield Arena urged to cancel event by 'homophobic' Trump ally - The Guardian

Free Speech Left for Space as Professor Fired Over a Political Joke – Ask the Truth

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This post was last updated on January 14th, 2020 at 12:41 pm

For a universal fact, when two fight, only one wins. In a conflict with freedom of speech, nationalism won in the United States, when an adjunct professor was fired from a Massachusetts college over a Facebook post, where he sarcastically suggested Iran to pick sites in the US to bomb.

The Babson College professor, Asheen Phansey described the post on his personal Facebook page a joke, in which he wrote that the Iranian supreme leader should tweet a list of 52 sites of beloved American cultural heritage that he would bomb. A spokeswoman for him, Judy Rakowsky stated that he suggested the Mall of America in Minnesota and a Kardashian residence as targets.

Phanseys post came in response to President Donald Trumps threat to target Iranian cultural sites, warning it of a retaliation against America for killing their General Qassem Soleimani. However, the idea was ward off by the Pentagon because of the laws of armed conflict.

The Babson professor deleted the post later, but after it was captured in a screenshot and spread across the social media with the colleges contact details tagged along.

One most shared tweet stated, Why does @Babson College have an America-hating terrorist supporter on their payroll. Ask them!

The remarks were soon learned by the college, which later suspended Phansey. Based on the results of the investigation, the staff member is no longer a Babson College employee, the school said.

In a statement issued, the college said it condemned any type of threatening words and actions condoning violence.

This particular post from a staff member on his personal Facebook page clearly does not represent the values and culture of Babson College, it added.

Professor Phansey stated that he regretted his bad attempt at humor.

As an American, born and raised, I was trying to juxtapose our cultural sites with ancient Iranian churches and mosques, he said, adding that he was opposed to violence. I am sorry that my sloppy humor was read as a threat.

Asheen Phansey expressed his disappointment over the colleges decision to fire him just because people willfully misinterpreted a joke I made to friends on Facebook. The professor received his masters degree in business administration in 2008 from the same college, which is a private business school in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Phansey said he expected that his college would have defended and supported my right to free speech. He continued, Beyond my own situation, I am really concerned about what this portends for our ability as Americans to engage in political discourse without presuming the worst about each other.

It does appear to a terrible decision sending a critical message to academics and staff members across the US, of misinterpreting a joke and curbing free speech.

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Join the Inquisition or lose your job: wasn’t Hong Kong meant to give peace a chance? – Hong Kong Free Press

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It is difficult to take seriously the governments claim that it respects Hongkongers fundamental rights and freedoms, when officials find it so difficult to talk honestly, or even accurately, about them.

Consider a story the other day which started like this: Education Secretary Kevin Yeung has denied infringing upon teachers freedom of speech by penalising them for what are regarded as inappropriate comments on social media.

Kevin Yeung. Photo: RTHK Screenshot.

This paragraph was entirely borne out by the ensuing story, and indicates a truly shocking state of denial or ignorance.

Now watch closely Kevin: inappropriate comment + penalty = infringement of right to comment. It may be a justified infringement, a lawful infringement, or a trivial infringement, but infringement it is. Denying this fundamental feature of the situation suggests that we have a Secretary for Education who should not be teaching in a kindergarten.

And of course this is true. Reputable educators are strangely reluctant to join what its leaders laughably call the government team. Mr Yeung joined the ranks of the political and (supposedly) accountable secretariat after a blameless career in the full-time civil service.

He was announcing a rather sordid exercise in which the Education Bureau is pressuring school principals to take action against teachers with political views which the government disapproves of. That is not, of course, quite how they put it.

Principals are required to investigate complaints about teachers, whether they concern the teachers work or not. And then?

Yeung said that if a school believed the teacher did nothing wrong the bureau may consider the attitude and stance of the school and principal to be problematic. If we believe a principal is unfit to discharge their duties, we can dismiss them as principals. Every principal is appointed by thePermanent Secretary for Education. We have the legal power to do so, but we will be very careful to exercise this power, he said.If the situation is serious to the extent we believe the principal cannot even be a teacher, we can cancel their teacher qualifications, he said.

Photo: GovHK.

In other words, dear principal, if you are an insufficiently enthusiastic participant in the Inquisition, you will not only lose your job as a school principal, but will be disqualified from teaching of any kind.

It is appalling that the education officials are prepared to make such spectacular sacrifices on the altar of political correctness. Hunting for inappropriate verbiage on teachers social media feeds is a very minor part of a principals job. Good principals are hard to find and removing one is disruptive. Have we no sense of proportion?

In his latest defence of this policy Mr Yeung seemed to be offering a sort of way out. He told the Legislative Council that schools must provide a reason if they dont investigate complaints against teachers who are accused of being unprofessional over their activities linked to the ongoing anti-government protests.

So let us see if we can provide some helpful suggestions. Teachers who post things on-line outside office hours are still citizens of Hong Kong and enjoy the right of freedom of speech as provided in the Basic Law and the Bill of Rights Ordinance. Both these instruments provide that restrictions must be provided by law. They do not make exceptions for teachers, or any other professional groups.

So the fact that some members of the public think a comment is inappropriate, or that the Education Bureau agrees with them, is not relevant. The complainant should be told that if he or she believes the offending comment is illegal it should be referred to the police. If it is believed to be unprofessional it can be referred to the relevant professional council.

If it is in neither of those two categories then it is an exercise of the constitutional right to free speech which principals, like the rest of us, are supposed to protect.

The Education Bureau. File Photo: Apple Daily.

No doubt this will result in no action being taken about some postings with which many of us would profoundly disagree. This is a bearable outcome. The idea that children who can barely be persuaded by bribes or threats to crack a textbook are voluntarily spending their free time looking at their teachers social media posts is outlandish.

It seems most of the complaints are about social media posts, but some are of inappropriate teaching materials. Now clearly the principal is perfectly entitled to take an interest in what is going on in his or her classrooms. It is his responsibility to ensure that teachers are fulfilling reasonable expectations of teaching content and methods.

Principals will, one hopes, be more aware of the difficulties facing teachers in the current atmosphere than the complainants are. Students are expected and encouraged to take an interest in current events, to read newspapers and to discuss their contents.

Teachers will, of course, be well aware that this is not an opportunity to impose their views on students or even, indeed, to expound them. One tries to stick to the facts. But sooner or later someone is going to raise a hand and say Sir, what do you think?

At this point almost anything the teacher says will offend someone, if accurately reported, and if inaccurately reported as is quite likely may offend a lot of people. But we would not, I hope, expect him to lie.

Photo: Kevin Cheng/United Social Press.

The depressing thing about all this is that the government has clearly succumbed to the bombardment of complaints from the pro-Beijing corner that all our recent travails are a result of the failings of the Hong Kong education system.

In the more lurid versions of this, which you can find in the English-language version of the China Daily, it is traced right back to kindergarten where, a recent op-ed writer complained, children had been told that in China the rivers were polluted and in America, they were not.

Similar nutty stuff proliferates. One charming suggestion was that the local universities could be closed. All existing students should be sent to mainland universities where they would be straightened out.

By an interesting coincidence, the Economist reported only last week on a piece of research which set out to test the theory that educated people in America tend to be democrats because of their exposure to four years in liberal-infested universities.

Not so. Students political views were carefully tracked over the four years and did not change a bit. Nor is this surprising. Most university courses offer no opportunities for political indoctrination even if the teacher is so unscrupulous as to attempt it.

This lump of scientific evidence will, of course, have no effect on people who wish to believe that the absence of national education is the root of all evils. But this sort of rhetorical overkill threatens to turn a civic dispute into a civil war.

Photo: Apple Daily.

The most distressing recent story was of a young lady who barred her father from her own wedding because he was a policeman. It may be that the gentleman concerned is a tactless martinet who was, as they say, asking for it. Still, it seemed to me that this was the sort of decision which might lead to bitter regret in a year or twos time.

Some of the published comments from the other side also look like a prolific cause for retrospective embarrassment. It seems that if the level of violence is declining the level of verbal abuse ought to subside a bit too.

The other night I caught a government ad or Announcement of Public Interest as they call it for peace and quiet. It started by appropriating the oldCampaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) symbol. This was an error: the CND logo incorporates the semaphore signals for ND, meaning nuclear disarmament, which is hardly relevant here.

The ad went on to say Say no to violence, a bit rich from people who are so generous with tear gas and other chemicals. When governments say no to violence they are merely seeking to preserve their monopoly of it.

Then we had Give peace a chance, in what I fear is not quite the sort of context which John Lennon intended when he penned thephrase. But still, a worthy sentiment.

Mr Yeung needs to get with the programme. If the government is losing on the streets then opening a new front in local classrooms is not the way to peace, only to conflict of a different kind.

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Sigrid Nunez’s National Book Award-winning novel, The Friend: One form of contemporary misanthropy – World Socialist Web Site

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Sigrid Nunezs National Book Award-winning novel, The Friend: One form of contemporary misanthropy By James McDonald 18 January 2020

The Friend (2018) is Sigrid Nunezs National Book Award-winning novel about a middle-aged writing instructor whose recently deceased friend and mentor has bequeathed her his enormous Great Dane.

Thats it. With densely weighted details and chatty digression, Nunez wrings both emotional depth and incisive social observation from a story about the adoption of a burdensome dog by a grieving woman who doesnt like dogs.

The Friend is narrated by the woman who, like all the other characters except Apollo the dog and Hector, the superintendent of her Manhattan apartment building, remains nameless. The novel is told in the first person, addressed to you, the womans friend, who has committed suicide. You, a teacher and only moderately successful writer, was unwilling, the woman surmises, to endure an autumnal existence bereft of the womanizing that appears to have been the chief reward of his career.

The strength of The Friend is Nunezs characteristic narrative restraint. The novel is written in her trademark crisp, unadorned prose, which compels the reader through the pages as if we are being led by Apollo on a brisk walk. More than this, the narrative reveals itself to be a tour de force of understatement as we come to know the complexity of the womans relationship to You, and to Apollo, likely better than she herself.

Early on, in a conversation with Wife Three, who is delivering the news that You wanted the narrator to take his dog, Nunez offers up an impressive display of doubling. The narrators thoughts digress to her deceased friends increasingly pathetic sexual encounters with students and from there to the J.M. Coetzee novel Disgrace, in which the protagonist exhibits the same sad proclivities, at which point Wife Three brings up the dog. The narrator relates,

When you decided you wanted to keep the dog, you and she had a big fight. A beautiful animaland how could she not feel sorry for the poor thing, being abandoned like that. But she didnt like dogs...She told you she refused to share any responsibility for itfor example, when you had to go out of town.

And it is a taste of Nunezs poignant sense of humor when Wife Three complains, You cant explain death to a dog.

Nunez makes reference on several occasions to Milan Kundera, whose novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being also features an adopted dog, and The Friend decidedly shares formal affinities with the Czech novelists work. Such as the references to other writers. In the course of The Friend, Nunez alludes to Flannery OConnor, J.R. Ackerley, Heinrich von Kleist, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Elizabeth Bishop, to name a few. Such allusions occur naturally enough in a novel narrated by a creative writing teacher. (Although she teaches in a college, the woman never refers to herself as a professor.)

As with Kundera, the literary allusions, as well as the many historical and scientific asideswe are told, for instance, of Kleists murder-suicide pact with his terminally ill lover and a wealth of knowledge and lore about caninesbear a certain formality, presented not in dialogue or in narrated events but as discrete digressions addressed at once to You and to the reader.

Also, like Kundera, Nunez conducts with her novel overt intellectual inquiries of which the narrative is both the occasion and a functioning component. In the case of The Friend, these inquiries take up matters of love, contemporary academia and misanthropy.

In keeping with this contemplative, agreeably didactic form, the overall tone of The Friend is a cool detachment, a mulled-over past tense that seldom broaches emotional immediacy. Even a description of her crying over her dead friend and imagining seeing him on the street is prefaced with a factoid:

Its true that if you cry hard enough for long enough you can end up with blurred vision.

Of course, such moments serve purposes in the novel, and in this instance, Nunez continues The Friends interesting consideration of lasting trauma as a cost of love. (She opens the novel with an account of Cambodian women who suffer blindness as a result of seeing loved ones tortured and murdered.) A consequence of this reserved tone is that, when Nunez does bring her narrator to a moment that exceeds contemplation, the effect is arresting.

It is the costs of love, of friendship and marriageand conversely, the ideals of lovethat work quietly within the womans narrative. Has fear of love kept her from taking a partner? Has her love for You prevented her marrying another? Apollo too suffers from the loss of his owner, and the woman wonders intermittently about the grief and famous loyalty of dogs. To the consternation of her friends and colleagues, she too exhibits an overwhelming loyalty to Apollo, risking homelessness rather than live in her pet-free building without him.

Given its academic setting, it is possible to read The Friend as a postmortem of the dead white male (one of the deceased writers colleagues quips in the funeral parlor that he is now a dead white male), an expression of a high anxiety of influence. Nunez writes in and of a historical moment that is post-feminist, postmodern and self-consciously multicultural. In fact, some of the novels most intellectually energetic moments come when the narrator confronts the effects identity and so-called cancel culture have on her students, who are thoroughly indoctrinated, and her colleagues, who are demoralized. (Where, one wonders, are the indoctrinating professors?)

Nunezs treatment of identity politics and other symptoms of educations decline is sensitive and humane, giving time to her (narrators) frustration with the triggered campus and to sympathy for the argument that writing should now be dominated by those whose voices have been underrepresented in print. But The Friend does seem to give the last word to an identity politics of race and culture, which may have played a role in endearing it to those arbiters of contemporary taste, the National Book Award judges. Missing from the novel is any unifying vision of an oppressed class, of a bourgeoisie in crisis, of an upper middle-class scramble for diminishing dollars in the worlds of art and academia.

When a writing student tells the narrator that writing is made to seem difficult because the pie is only so big, we might move beyond the narrators dumbstruck silence to an implied social analysis, but such an analysis is hardly encouraged by the novel. Instead, we are prompted to recoil at the new generations pragmatism (at one point her students complain that they arent reading more successful authors). As a result, Nunez falls short of identifying the deeply reactionary and menacing character of identity politics, which deals in harms that go far beyond the worlds of publishing and teaching.

This shortcoming marks The Friends political limitation. And now that we have the New York Times 1619 Project with its mendacious pseudo-historicism, and the irrational anti-education of ethnomathematics, a novel set in the world of contemporary academia must be weighed, in part, in terms of its position on identity politics. The effects of this lack of a historicizing vision, however, run deeper, and it is ironically its misanthropy that most mars this self-consciously humane novel.

Ultimately, the narrator arrives at, or finally reveals, her conclusion that human relationships are too complicated, unfulfilling and, worst of all, not conducive to a kind of beatific goodness she, and Nunez, seek. At least this is the case with living, healthy humans. Again, citing Kundera, the narrator endorses the idea that true human goodness can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. The quest for such goodness is at the heart of The Friend, as it is of Nunezs post-apocalyptic novel Salvation City, whose adolescent protagonist achieves maturity and independence upon the occasion of the incapacitation of his own caretakers.

To see oneself as blessed by virtue of the suffering of others is, by one reckoning, humanisms highest calling. As an end in itself, however, such a position betrays a resignation to the causes of suffering. Why has every aspect of the narrators social and academic life (she has even given up reading) becoming so repugnant, characterized by a calculating, misanthropic ethos? The Friend does not delve into this question. Instead, in a novel that does so much to chart the symptoms of contemporary bourgeois demoralization, the salvation we are offered is an individual altruism and a preference for the nonhuman. The lot of the discouraged or even the misanthrope.

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Sigrid Nunez's National Book Award-winning novel, The Friend: One form of contemporary misanthropy - World Socialist Web Site

ThinkFest thoughts – DAWN.com

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NOBEL Laureates are advised to bring their own multimedia equipment when lecturing in Pakistan. At the two-day ThinkFest 2020, held in Lahore recently, the victim was Dr Venki Ramakrishnan, winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2009 and currently president of the Royal Society. Valiantly, he tried to operate the projector from the stage. Eventually, he controlled it manually, from the foot of the stage. Subcontinental by birth, he understood that incompetence is the ineradicable element in our genes that will take centuries to modify.

Dr Ramakrishnan, a structural biologist, first obtained a PhD in physics before migrating to chemistry, in which he began ab initio at the undergrad level and continued to gain a PhD in that speciality as well. Dr Ramakrishnan, in his keynote address, introduced his book Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome (2018).

For a Lahori audience, he might as well have been talking about Japanese netsuke or Gothic architecture, but the genius of any genius is to dumb down without being condescending, to simplify arcane concepts into comprehensible elements. Dr Ramakrishnan left his audience wondering why had they not thought of his conclusions themselves.

The previous day, while opening the ThinkFest 2020, Sir Mark Lyall-Grant analysed the unscientific complexity of International governance and the future of the nation state. Sir Marks family lent its name to the former city of Lyallpur (now Faisalabad). Some wag suggested that he might like to change his name reciprocally to Faisal-Grant. Sir Mark had spent eight years here in Pakistan, lastly as high commissioner before retiring as UKs national security adviser. His views were authoritative, his vision global and then regional.

The event functioned like a well-greased automaton.

Another participant Mani Shankar Aiyar, a former minister and now almost a former Congressite is the last surviving Pakistani still living in India. Like some latter-day Vishnu, he is the ultimate preserver of Indo-Pak amity. To hear him speak whether on his experience as the minister of Indian panchayats or on the death wish of liberal democracy is to be educated in humanism by osmosis.

Among the many sessions on history, one that glowed was Supriya Gandhis introduction of her book Dara Shukoh: the Emperor that Never Was (2020). Supriya is the great-granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, and to the despair of BJP diehards, she has chosen, from the safety of Yale university, a Muslim Mughal as her might-have-been hero.

The cruelty inherent in such Thinkfests and LitFests is that the audience is forced to decide between competing sessions. How could one choose between Sarvarkar and the origin of Hindutva and Pakistan and its economy: Why is it always muddling through? Or sit simultaneously in a debate on Where is Pakistan heading in the next 10 years? and Will the provinces bankrupt the centre?: Fiscal devolution post 18th Amendment? Or attend both Jis ki lathi us ki bhains: The rule of law in Pakistan and Defining national security?

To the credit of the organisers, they were able to attract a very high level of speakers from abroad. One stood out: Bruno Maes (a former Portuguese minister and author of Belt and Road: The Sinews of Chinese Power) deserves a multiple-entry visa to Pakistan. The ThinkFest even managed to get cawing members of the opposition and government songbirds to occupy the same perch. No one expects them to sing in harmony. That they could warble without fighting like angry mynahs was itself an achievement.

The ThinkFest 2020 functioned like a well-greased automaton. One was not aware of any prime mover, a mastermind, a behind-the-scenes Svengali. Certainly, there were volunteers who began and ended each session with discreet reminders of expiring minutes, but a conductor controlling this orchestra of disparate talents was hard to detect.

Those experienced in previous Thinkfests suspected such an ambitious enterprise could not have been conceived and launched without the benediction of official patronage. How else can one ensure limitless funding, the mandatory presence of busy government ministers, and an assembly of significant speakers?

The fingerprint of any government agency, however, was missing, but perhaps that was to be expected of any self-effacing body that wants through films, television dramas and such Thinkfests to present a soft image of Pakistan. Contentious issues that have agitated the public the extension of the service chiefs or the verdict against Gen Musharraf were kept discreetly off the menu. Perhaps they have been left to mature, like game, for future roasting.

Lahores social calendar this season is overcrowded with such events. Even though they are held only annually, they are necessary reminders that we Pakistanis need to observe the norms of civilised interaction with other religionists, our neighbours, and most importantly with each other.

The writer is an author and historian.

http://www.fsaijazuddin.pk

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2020

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Simon Gregson health: Coronation Street star reveals hidden and awful health condition – Express

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Simon Gregson is best known for playing the hapless Steve McDonald on Coronation Street, a portrayal that has earned the actor a string of accolades for his comedy and hard-hitting performances over the years. Simon imbues the character with a sense of humanism that can be painful to watch at times, with many storylines involving Steve getting into ill-fated situations.

To deliver his emotionally fraught performances, the soap star may have drawn on difficult moments in his own life.

Simon revealed in a Twitter post a couple of years back that he has grappled with anxiety over the years.

The admission came off the back of watching BBC documentary Nadiya: Anxiety and Me, which starred The Great British Bake Off winner Nadia Hussain.

Taking to Twitter at the time, Simon said: This is real and awful to live with.

READ MORE:Christopher Biggins health: TV star on his life-changing diagnosis -I dont want to die'

The health site explains: Everyone has feelings of anxiety at some point in their life. For example, you may feel worried and anxious about sitting an exam, or having a medical test or job interview.

In response to specific circumstances, bouts of anxiety can be perfectly normal, however some people find it hard to control their worries, notes the health site.

Persistent feelings of anxiety can negatively impact your daily life, however, changing your behaviour and the way you think and feel about things.

This may result in symptoms such as:

The condition can also manifest itself physically, causing symptoms such as:

Your symptoms may also take its toll on your social life, as feelings of worry and dread can make people retreat from and friends and family.

How to treat anxiety

Simon found that the combination of therapy and medication helped to alleviate his symptoms.

According to the NHS, if you have been diagnosed with anxiety, you'll usually be advised to try psychological treatment before you're prescribed medication.

A course of cognitive behavioural therapy is usually recommended.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave.

As the NHS explained: CBT is based on the concept that your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and actions are interconnected, and that negative thoughts and feelings can trap you in a vicious cycle.

CBT aims to help you deal with overwhelming problems in a more positive way by breaking them down into smaller parts, notes the health site.

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Simon Gregson health: Coronation Street star reveals hidden and awful health condition - Express

A Very Stable Genius review: dysfunction and disaster at the court of King Donald – The Guardian

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In January 2018, Michael Wolffs Fire and Fury made headlines as it depicted a president out of control and a White House that careened from crisis to crisis. Donald Trump threatened legal action against author and publisher. He also lauded himself and his electoral college victory: I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius and a very stable genius at that!

Trumps outburst confirmed what many already feared. In the aftermath of the firing of FBI director James Comey in May 2017, Rod Rosenstein, then deputy attorney general, reportedly weighed secretly recording the president with an eye to removing him from office under the 25th amendment.

Now Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post offer A Very Stable Genius. As befitting Pulitzer winners for investigative reporting, their book is richly sourced and highly readable.

It sheds new light on how the 45th president tests the boundaries of the office while trying the patience and dignity of those who work for or with him. It is not just another Trump tell-all or third-party confessional. It is unsettling, not salacious.

Trump himself was quick to criticize the book, calling its authors two third rate Washington Post reporters. In a tweet on Saturday night, the president said the book was all for the purpose of demeaning and belittling a President who is getting great things done for our Country, at a record clip.

Rucker and Leonnig lift the curtain on internal battles over immigration and the attempt to replace John Kelly with Chris Christie as White House chief of staff. It also closely examines the scrum between Bill Barr, the attorney general, and Bob Mueller over Barrs handling of the special counsels report on Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.

Trumps West Wing is tantamount to a family business and everything is personal

Trumps West Wing is tantamount to a family business and everything is personal. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump obtain security clearances because they are kin.

After publicly punting the issue to Kelly, Trump is described as applying pressure privately. I wish we could make this go away, he reportedly told Kelly. This is a problem. Said differently, protocols and national security were treated as impediments, not safeguards, when Javanka got involved.

When Trump cuts Kelly loose, Kushner and Ivanka are depicted as coveting the job. Their ambitions go unfulfilled but they continue to lurk in the background.

Told by Rudy Giuliani that Trump wants him as his chief of staff, Christie asks why he would want the job if Kushner isnt leaving. For record, as a federal prosecutor Christie sent Charlie Kushner, Jareds father, to prison for one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes on Christies watch.

Why the fuck am I going to take this job? the former New Jersey governor exclaims. You guys are nuts. Im not going in there.

Still, Ivanka purportedly telephoned Christies wife, Pat, to assure her bygones would be bygones. It didnt work.

A Very Stable Genius also chronicles the back and forth between Trumps lawyers and the special counsels office and the interplay between Barr and Mueller. Under George HW Bush, Barr was attorney general and Mueller headed the criminal division at the justice department. The two men were friends.

Yet when Barr rolled out his summary of Muellers report, Leonnig and Rucker write, the special counsel looked as if hed been slapped. When Mueller sent a rebuttal letter, objecting to Barrs summary, Barr was pissed, thought the letter nasty and felt personally betrayed. Barr and Mueller spoke by phone, a tense conversation that ended on an uplifting note.

As for Trump and name-calling, nothing has changed. As a candidate, he mocked John McCain, a gold star family, a Latino judge and a disabled reporter. Life at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has not alloyed that spirit.

At a meeting in the Pentagons inner sanctum, the Tank, the draft-dodging Trump derided Americas generals as dopes and babies. He added: I wouldnt go to war with you people. Debasement was a coin of the realm.

When Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of homeland security and a Kelly deputy, balked at Trumps demands on immigration, he berated her looks and height. For good measure, according to the authors, Trump would call her at 5am, just for the sake of harassment.

After James Mattis advised Trump of his intent to resign as defense secretary, Trump moved his departure up two months. At a cabinet meeting, the president bragged that he had essentially fired the four-star general. For the president, policy differences invariably exploded into a matter of honor.

Mattiss resignation letter omitted any praise for the commander-in-chief. Because you have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours, he wrote, I believe it is right for me to step down.

Likewise, Trump mocked HR McMaster, Michael Flynns replacement as national security adviser, for his mien and wardrobe. The scholarly McMaster was always on borrowed time.

Says one of McMasters aides, Trump doesnt fire people he tortures them until theyre willing to quit.

Clearly, Trumpworld has its share of casualties. Paul Manafort, a campaign manager, and Michael Cohen, a lawyer, sit imprisoned. Flynn and Roger Stone, a longtime political confidante, await sentencing.

Trumps allergy to reality remains on display. His contention he doesnt know Lev Parnas is belied by video and email. The US now admits 11 troops attacked by Irans missiles were treated for concussions.

Leonnig and Rucker quote Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution, who says Trump appears to be daring the rest of the political system to stop him and if it doesnt hell go further. The law has no force without people who are willing to enforce it.

As the Senate marches toward an impeachment trial and the countdown to the election ticks on, truer words have seldom been spoken.

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A Very Stable Genius review: dysfunction and disaster at the court of King Donald - The Guardian

Trump is on trial for abuse of power the Davos elites should be in the dock too – The Guardian

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As the Senate debates Donald Trumps future, chief executives, financiers and politicians will descend on Davos in the Swiss Alps for their annual self-congratulatory defense of global capitalism.

The events are not unrelated. Trump is charged with abusing his power. Capitalisms global elite is under assault for abusing its power as well: fueling inequality, fostering corruption and doing squat about climate change.

Chief executives of the largest global corporations are raking in more money and at a larger multiple of their workers pay than at any time in history. The worlds leading financiers are pocketing even more. The 26 richest people on Earth now own as much as the 3.8 billion who form the poorer half of the planets population.

Concentrated wealth on this scale invites corruption. Across the world, big money is buying off politicians to procure favors that further enlarge the wealth of those at the top, while siphoning off resources from everyone else.

Corruption makes it impossible to fight stagnant wages, climate change or any other problem facing the vast majority of the worlds population that would require some sacrifice by the rich.

Popular anger is boiling over against elites seen as irredeemably greedy, corrupt and indifferent

Popular anger is boiling over against elites seen as irredeemably greedy, corrupt and indifferent to the plight of most people struggling to get by. The anger has fueled uprisings in Chile, Spain, Ecuador, Lebanon, Egypt and Bolivia; environmental protests in the UK, Germany, Austria, France and New Zealand; and xenophobic politics in the US, the UK, Brazil and Hungary.

Trumps support comes largely from Americas working class whose wages havent risen in decades, whose jobs are less secure than ever and whose political voice has been drowned out by big money.

Although Trump has given corporations and Wall Street everything theyve wanted and nothing has trickled down to his supporters, he has convinced those supporters hes on their side by channeling their rage on to foreigners, immigrants, minorities and deep state bureaucrats.

It seems strangely appropriate, therefore, that the theme of this years Davos conclave is stakeholder capitalism the idea that corporations have a responsibility to their workers, communities and the environment as well as to their shareholders.

Expect endless speeches touting the long-term benefits of stakeholder capitalism to corporate bottom lines: happy workers are more productive. A growing middle class can buy more goods and services. Climate change is beginning to cost a bundle in terms of environmental calamities and insurance, so it must be stopped.

All true, but the assembled CEOs know theyll get richer far quicker if they boost equity values in the short term by buying back their shares of stock, suppressing wages, fighting unions, resisting environmental regulations and buying off politicians for tax cuts and subsidies.

This has been their strategy for three decades, and its about to get worse. Three researchers Daniel Greenwald at MITs Sloan School, Martin Lettau at Berkeley and Sydney Ludvigson at NYU found that between 1952 and 1988, economic growth accounted for 92% of the rise in equity values. But since 1989 most of the increase has come from reallocated rents to shareholders and away from labor compensation. In other words, from workers.

What this means is that in order for the stock market to do as well in coming years, either economic growth has to accelerate markedly (highly unlikely), or chief executives will have to siphon off even more of the gains from growth from workers and other stakeholders to their shareholders.

This is likely to require even more downward pressure on wages, more payoffs to politicians for tax cuts and subsidies and further rollbacks of environmental regulations. All of which will worsen the prevailing discontent.

There will be no mention at Davos of any of this, nor of the increasing political and economic power of these elites and the diminishing power of average workers and citizens around the world.

Nothing will be achieved in the Swiss Alps because the growing global discontent has yet to affect the bottom lines of the corporations and financial institutions whose leaders are assembling to congratulate themselves on their wealth, influence and benevolence.

Trump, meanwhile, is likely to be acquitted by Senate Republicans who are so cowardly and unprincipled that they will ignore his flagrantly unconstitutional acts.

Trump plans to speak at Davos, by the way: an impeached president addressing world economic leaders while being tried in the Senate. Hell probably boast about the stock market, bully and lie, as usual.

One thing he wont say is that the whatever-it-takes abuses of economic and political power such as he and much of his audience are engaged in threaten to destroy capitalism, democracy and the planet.

The rest is here:

Trump is on trial for abuse of power the Davos elites should be in the dock too - The Guardian

Trump accuses Dems of using impeachment trial to hurt Sanders campaign – POLITICO

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Trumps allegations are not new he has sporadically claimed for years that the Democratic establishment sought to undermine Sanders in 2016, as have Sanders own supporters but they come as Trump has accelerated his offensive against the Vermont senator, who continues to show strength in early polling.

Earlier this week, Trump sought to play up a feud between Sanders and Warren, who are battling for progressive voters, and his campaign has begun to single Sanders out in press releases and on social media more often rather than focusing more exclusively on Biden.

Trump has also recently stepped up his attacks on former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is pouring money into TV ads attacking Trump to boost his late-start bid.

But Sanders rejected Trump's "attempts to divide Democrats" in a statement Friday evening.

Lets be clear about who is rigging what: it is Donald Trumps action to use the power of the federal government for his own political benefit that is the cause of the impeachment trial," he said. "His transparent attempts to divide Democrats will not work, and we are going to unite to sweep him out of the White House in November.

When the trial begins in earnest on Tuesday, all senators will be required to attend each day of the proceedings for as long as they last.

But Sanders isnt the only 2020 candidate who will be kept off the campaign trail as the impeachment trial drags on.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), whom polls have shown is within striking distance in Iowa; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who is hoping for a come-from-behind victory in the Hawkeye State, and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), a longshot who has placed more stock in the New Hampshire primaries in less than a month, will all be sidelined by the proceedings.

The trial could be a huge boon to White House hopefuls like Biden and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who are clustered with Sanders and Warren at the top of the field. The senators currently running for president have all expressed disappointment at being kept off the campaign trail while pledging to fulfill their constitutional obligations and sending surrogates to campaign on their behalf.

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Trump accuses Dems of using impeachment trial to hurt Sanders campaign - POLITICO

Trump lawyer dismisses new evidence, including photos of the president with Lev Parnas – NBCNews.com

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Less than 12 hours after the White House announced President Donald Trumps impeachment trial defense team, new questions have emerged about connections between some of his lawyers and figures at the center of the Ukraine investigation.

A document dump from the House Judiciary Committee overnight Friday included more information about Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, who is currently under federal indictment for his alleged role in the political pressure campaign in Ukraine.

The released documents included photos of Parnas with President Trump as well as shots of him with Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general who is among the lawyers on the president's impeachment team.

Trump has repeatedly said he does not know Parnas.

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Bondi, in an interview on NBC's "TODAY" on Saturday morning, dismissed the photos.

Clearly, Lev Parnas liked to take pictures with a lot of people, she said. "He showed up at events pretty much everywhere where Republicans were.

The Judiciary Committee's release also included information obtained by the FBI when they searched Parnas electronic devices. According to his electronic calendar, Parnas had a breakfast meeting scheduled with Trump in September, just days before Parnas was arrested.

I dont know what that matters, what theyre planning on doing with it, Bondi said when asked about how apparent evidence of the presidents relationship with Parnas might figure into Democrats' strategy at the trial. Were going to stick to the facts and stick to the law in this case.

Besides questions about possible connections of Parnas to the president and Bondi, another person on Trump's defense team drawing attention is Kenneth Starr, who in the 1990s oversaw investigations into President Bill Clinton that led to his impeachment. At that time, Trump called Starr a lunatic and a disaster.

Asked about Trump's prior comments on Starr, Bondi said, Clearly he does not think this now.

Ken Starr knows what hes doing," she said. "He has experience in this field.

Bondi also addressed the question of whether new witnesses might be called at the Senate trial, which is set to begin on Tuesday.

If they want to force a witness to be called, thats going to be discussed, Bondi said.

Katie Primm is a news producer at NBC News in New York for Today and News Specials.

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Trump lawyer dismisses new evidence, including photos of the president with Lev Parnas - NBCNews.com

The Age of Illusions review: anti-anti-Trump but for what, exactly? – The Guardian

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Winston Churchill supposedly said: Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else. In his new book, Andrew Bacevich goes far towards proving the second half of that sentence and casts doubt on the first, without offering much in the way of alternatives.

In what is mostly a social history of the post-cold war era dont expect to find an analysis of the Balkan wars Bacevich seeks to chronicle how the US wasted little time in squandering the advantage it had gained. Few would disagree.

Yet he defines Americas supposed post-cold war consensus as globalized neoliberalism, global leadership, freedom (as the expansion of personal autonomy, with traditional moral prohibitions declared obsolete and the removal of constraints maximizing choice), and presidential supremacy. The 2016 election, he writes, presented the repudiation of that very consensus.

The villains in this telling are the elites who pushed the consensus heedless of other views or interests expectations raised, but unfulfilled; outraged citizens left with no place to stand to the point where Donald Trump was elected and no one could understand why.

In 2016, he writes, financial impotence was to turn into political outrage, bringing the post-cold war era to an abrupt end. As for the people who shop for produce at Whole Foods, wear vintage jeans and ski in Aspen, they never saw it coming and couldnt believe it when it occurred.

Bacevich argues that the seeds of this failure were present throughout the cold war, notably in Vietnam and Ross Perots insurgent White House run in 1992. But how could there ever have been a consensus if the country were so divided?

We have been here before, both in the history of the US and of ideology. Post-1989 featured the same universal self-congratulation and flinging up of caps that Thomas Carlyle critiqued in The French Revolution. Bacevich is right to criticize it again. But it is surely wrong to claim, for instance, that Reagans entire presidency was a pseudo-event, its achievements based on the masterful creation and manipulation of images. Mikhail Gorbachev, for one, doesnt think so.

Acerbic, even curmudgeonly his catalogue of Americas social ills is harsh but fair Bacevich veers between the commonplace and the sarcastic. The promotion of globalization included a generous element of hucksterism, he writes, the equivalent of labeling a large cup of strong coffee a grande dark roast while referring to the server handing it to you as a barista.

Clearly, for those who favor an expansive role for America and the west, and operating according to the principles of grand statecraft, the post-cold war years were the years the locust has eaten. Social mobility declined. The plight of the poor worsened. But JD Vance wrote more sensitively about this in Hillbilly Elegy and Bacevich adds little on either the wars or the peace.

Even if the Donald Rumsfeld-endorsed, technology-friendly Revolution in Military Affairs only purported to describe the culmination of a long evolutionary march toward perfection, which great power today does not rely on technology for military might? And what, other than isolationism, would preclude the possibility of another Vietnam?

Similarly, even as he chronicles their failures Bacevich is harshly critical of the view that presidents direct history. Abraham Lincoln, call your office. FDR too.

The elites Bacevich chides had many faults, and no president of the period left office fully content. But sometimes the authors strategy, as well as his history, is simply wrong.

The horrors of 9/11 notwithstanding, he writes, terrorism does not pose an existential threat to the United States and never has. As innumerable commentators have noted, terrorism is merely a tactic, and an ancient one at that.

Yet one nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day, as the bumper sticker read, and any leader is responsible for maintaining vigilance. Which threats can be ignored? Air piracy? Chemical weapons? Nuclear smuggling? Bacevich never offers what he would do to states harboring terrorists, even while noting failures in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The book starts out critical of Trump but then takes a more nuanced position. Chiding Barack Obama as the one who saved globalized neoliberalism and inadvertently laid the way for a powerful backlash, he says Trumps detractors commit this categorial error. They confuse cause and effect. They charge him with dividing America. Yet which other recent president attacked fellow citizens so harshly and took delight in smashing the norms of political debate?

Bacevich focuses on the neoconservative project in terms of wars but ignores its Burkean focus on domestic policy, not least David Brooks idea of national greatness conservatism, a very different thing than Maga. John McCain, who articulated a similar vision of national purpose, and whose policies were designed to help Joe the Plumber far more than Trump has, gets one brief mention.

Some people saw what was happening and sought to answer the question Rabbit Angstrom asked and Bacevich cites: Without the cold war, whats the point of being an American? They were ignored.

Bacevich now urges Americans to ignore the tweets and focus on events. But the tweets are events, the way in which the old guardrails are broken down and the boundaries of legitimate discourse weakened, which has let loose some very dangerous ideas, not least on race and republican norms. A tweet is not a notification to Congress under the War Powers Act.

Despite Bacevichs call for conversation on issues formerly beyond the pale such as abandoning globalism and militarism, his book has a fatal weakness: he never quite says what or who he is for. He is too good a historian not to know there was a tendency of anti-anti-communism during the cold war. Perhaps his book is about anti-anti-Trumpism. But the pale is there for a reason

One hopes some future historian will find the seeds of success in our present troubles. Meanwhile, Americans must pick up the pieces as best they can.

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The Age of Illusions review: anti-anti-Trump but for what, exactly? - The Guardian

NPR coverage of Trumps Milwaukee rally shows how hes broken the media – Vox.com

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By almost any standard, President Donald Trumps rally on Tuesday evening in Milwaukee was a bizarre affair. The president went on a lengthy tirade about lightbulbs, toilets, and showers; touted war crimes; joked about a former president being in hell; and said hed like to see one of his domestic political foes locked up.

I tried to capture some of the speechs disconcerting oddness in my write-up of the event. In many ways, the remarks the president made were typical of him. And that provides the media with a challenge: Describing Trump as he really is can make it seem as if a report is anti-Trump and that the reporter is trying to make the president look foolish.

But for media outlets that view themselves as above taking sides, attempts to provide a sober, balanced look at presidential speeches often end up normalizing things that are decidedly not normal.

A brief report about Trumps Milwaukee speech that aired Wednesday morning on NPR illustrates this phenomenon. The anchors intro framed Trumps at times disjointed ramblings as a normal political speech that ranged widely, and the ensuing report (which originated from member station WUWM Milwaukee Public Radio) characterized his delivery as one in which he snapped back at Democrats for bringing impeachment proceedings.

Trump was taking on Democrats on their own territory, the reporter said, when in reality Trump heaped abuse on them, for instance, suggesting former Vice President Joe Biden is experiencing memory loss.

Listen for yourself:

On Twitter, Georgetown University public affairs professor Don Moynihan noted that NPRs report about the rally mentioned specific topics like Iran and impeachment but carefully omit the insane stuff. This is one way the media strives to present Trump as a normal president.

NPR is far from alone in struggling to cover Trump.

As I wrote following a previous Trump rally in Wisconsin last April, outlets including CBS, USA Today, the Associated Press, and the Hill failed to so much as mention in their reporting that Trump pushed dozens of lies and incendiary smears during his speech.

The irony is that the media is one of Trumps foremost targets of abuse. He calls the press the enemy of the people, yet the very outlets he demeans regularly bend over backward to cover him in the most favorable possible light.

The disconnect between the real Trump and the whitewashed version that emerges from mainstream reporting was captured nicely by Guardian Australia editor Lenore Taylor in a piece she wrote last September headlined, As a foreign reporter visiting the US I was stunned by Trumps press conference:

Ive read so many stories about his bluster and boasting and ill-founded attacks, Ive listened to speeches and hours of analysis, and yet I was still taken back by just how disjointed and meandering the unedited president could sound.

...

Id understood the dilemma of normalizing Trumps ideas and policies the racism, misogyny and demonization of the free press. But watching just one press conference [in real time] helped me understand how the process of reporting about this president can mask and normalize his full and alarming incoherence.

It is difficult to cover Trump, and it is important to honor the publics trust in the press by providing fair and balanced coverage. But we also have to pay attention to how much more alarming the unfiltered Trump is when compared to the sanitized version that often emerges in mainstream media reporting.

The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Voxs policy and politics coverage.

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NPR coverage of Trumps Milwaukee rally shows how hes broken the media - Vox.com