Daily Archives: February 6, 2020

Slamming old ways of the previous governments, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said that if our government would have continued to work according to "the old ways", decisive and determined decisions like abrogation of Article 370, resolution of Ram Janmabhoomi issue, abolition of Triple Talaq, Chief of Defence Staff would not have been possible.

Prime Minister Modi was replying to the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address in the Lok Sabha.

In a scathing attach on Congress and opposition, he said government sat idle for 70 years. "Some members have asked that why this government is in so much hurry," he said. Replying to this Modi said the government wants to work away from the league. "The Country is not ready to wait forever. The people of India have not only changed the 'Sarkar' (government). They want the 'Sarokar' to be changed as well," he added.

"Our approach helped us in taking big decisions and the decisions were not taken based on vote bank politics," Prime Minister said.

"We have kept the fiscal deficit in check. Price rise is also under check and there is macro-economic stability. Investor confidence should increase, the country's economy should be strengthened, for this we have also taken several steps," he said.

He also took a dig at the Congress' leader of opposition Adheer Ranjan for regular interruptions during his speech. He thanked him for promoting Fit India Movement of the government. "Adheer ji not only give speech in Parliament but also do gymming. I thank him for promoting the government's Fit India movement.

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If we had worked the old ways, decisive decisions like Article 370 won't have been possible: PM Modi - Economic Times

Image: portal of the mayor and government of Moscow

the Federation of migrants of Russia has called for the abolition of compulsory examination for immigrants who work on patents. About it reports Agency Moscow with reference to the President of the organization Vadim Kozhenova.

According to him, this form of control is not effective, but because the exam should be lifted, at least for some categories of citizens.

Accredited organizations across the country take the exam, the idea is good, but all came to the conclusion that these certificates are now just sell. 90% of the certificates fake, said Koenov.

the President of the organization added that the training of newcomers to the Russian language should continue, it is also important to find effective methods.

If one comes here in any case he is immersed in the language, communicating with native speakers. The certificate does not stimulate migrants to learn the language. It is necessary to change the system itself, said the expert.

Earlier it was reported that migrant workers joined the Moscow budget of nearly 72 billion. In all, the city issued more than two million patents.

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Sobyanin said about the need to give more working patents migrateproxy will receive a record number of migrants in 2019

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A mandatory exam for those working on patents of immigrants has proposed to abolish - International Law Lawyer News

One of William Stills major accomplishments was teachinghimself to read and write in a period when laws prohibited enslaved Africansand black people in general from doing so.

Despite having little formal education, he was able to read everything available to him and studied grammar. This will become useful in his later fight against slavery and racism.

While risking his own freedom to assist fugitive slaves, Still documented the lives and difficulties of the hundreds of runaway slaves he came into contact with.

This produced his popular 1872 book The Underground Railroad, which remains the only first-person account of activities on the Underground Railroad that was written and published by an African American.

TheUnderground Railroad was a large movement inNorth Americaconsistingof several individuals who worked together to aid slaves in their escape fromtheir captors.

The freedom network began in the 1830s; there were homes and businesses which became known as stations along the route toward the north. These homes provided temporary shelter for fugitive slaves before they continued the rest of their journey.

People like Harriet Tubman who helped these enslaved Africans move from one station to the other were called conductors. Still was, however, known as a station master.

The Underground Railroad extended to Canada in1834 after the latter had outlawed slavery. By the end of 1850, the network hadhelped 10,000 slaves escape to freedom.

Most accounts agree that the stories of themovement would have been lost had it not been the works of Still, who recordedthe networks activities.

Born free on October 7, 1821, in Burlington County, New Jersey, Still was the youngest of 18 children. Both of his parents were born into slavery. His father bought his freedom and his mother escaped slavery, though she had to escape twice after she was caught the first time.

When she finally made it, she had to leave behind two of her children, who were later sold to slave owners in the Deep South.

In the 1840s, Still moved to Philadelphia where he first worked as a janitor for the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery (PSAS) before rising to the position of clerk. He later married.

Starting a coal delivery business, Still became a successful man and an important member of the black community in Philadelphia. In 1852, he became chair of PSASs Vigilance Committee, assisting fugitive slaves who passed through the city on the Underground Railroad.

His Underground Railroad station (home) became a popular stop for fugitive slaves who were making their way towards Canada.

Tubman, one of the popular conductors, occasionally stopped by his home during her rescue missions. Still provided shelter and food to many of the runaway slaves, and even funded many of Tubmans rescue expeditions.

In effect, Still rescued around 800 slavesthrough his work with the Underground Railroad, earning him the title, Fatherof the Underground Railroad.

Penning down records of the hundreds offugitive slaves he came into contact with, including the sacrifices they madeto escape slavery, Still kept their information hidden until slavery wasabolished in 1865.

Seven years after the abolition of slavery, he published his collected interviews with the runaway slaves in his book The Underground Rail Road. One of the interviews was of a fugitive slave named Peter who turned out to be his own brother.

Being directed to the Anti-Slavery Office for instructions as to the best plan to adopt to find out the whereabouts of his parents, Still wrote. Fortunately, he fell into the hands of his own brother, the writer, whom he had never heard of before, much less seen or known.

Still hired agents to sell his book, which would go through three editions and would be exhibited in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition to remind visitors of the legacy of slavery in the United States.

We very much need works on various topics from the pens of colored men to represent the race intellectually, Still once said of his book.

Today, his book, which is known worldwide, is important not only because of the records of Stills incredible feats and the people he helped but also for showing that Blacks had the intellectual ability and were fearless individuals who struggled for their own freedom.

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The father of the Underground Railroad who funded Harriet Tubman's rescue missions - Face2Face Africa

Latinas in the U.S. come from a long line of influential, barrier-breaking, rebel Latin American women. Through Remezclas Herstory series, we introduce readers to the women warriors and pioneers whose legacies we carry on.

In Brazil, centuries-old historical figures continue to make headlines today. Last year, controversy erupted when two important Black women from the colonial era Dandara and Luisa Mahin were inscribed in the Book of Heroes, a national list that commemorates historical figures. The debate centered on the veracity of their existence but opened up discussions on Black representation in Brazilian history, the states debt to millions for slavery and genocide and much-needed efforts to rescue stories lost to obscurity.

A quick sweep through Brazils recorded history will reveal a dearth of information on women of color, particularly Indigenous women. Much more scholarship is needed to reconstruct the biographies of Indigenous and Black women and their contributions. The impact these histories have today shows why these stories matter. Afro-Brazilian leaders, such as the politician rica Malunguinho, have learned from the resistance of quilombos, settlements of runaway enslaved Africans, and quilombo warriors such as Dandara to build radical political movements and spaces.

In this installment of the Herstory series, we recount stories of Brazilian women who were warriors, activists, spiritual priestesses, educators, artists and politicians. These are women that, despite the hostile political climate of the current presidency, continue to live on through the people that remember and find inspiration in them today.

Dandara is a controversial figure in Brazil. She is said to have been a fierce capoeira warrior in Quilombo dos Palmares, the largest settlement of runaway enslaved Africans in Brazil that at one point reached 11,000 inhabitants and endured for 100 years until its demise in 1695. According to legend, she was the wife of Zumbi Dos Palmares, the last king of the quilombo. But Dandaras inclusion last year in the Book of Heroes, a list of historical figures commemorated in a large cenotaph in Brasilia, received backlash from some historians who argued Dandara was a fictional character. Others defended her existence, alleging historians had yet to seriously analyze oral stories that spoke of Dandara.

Madalena Caramaru, the daughter of a Portuguese trader and an Indigenous Tupinambs woman, became the first literate woman in Brazil. Caramaru learned to read and write with the instruction of either her father or husband. Letters she later wrote to the regional Catholic missionary, Father Manuel de Nbrega, urged the Church to abandon its maltreatment of Indigenous children and to support educational access for women. These petitions, although well-received by the Father, were ultimately denied by the Portuguese royalty.

Born in 1792, Quitria never attended school, but she learned to ride horses, hunt and operate firearms in the Bahia farm where she grew up. These skills would later prove useful when she joined pro-revolutionary troops in 1822. She cut her hair and dressed herself in mens clothes to hide her real identity. Her higher-ups eventually discovered her secret, but they permitted her to stay in the army due to her strength and skills as a fighter. In 1823, she rose to the rank of cadet and then to lieutenant. The Brazilian government recognized her bravery in 1996 when she was proclaimed an army patron.

Almost 30 years before slavery was banned in 1888, the Afro-Brazilian author Maria Firmina dos Reis wrote the first abolitionist novel, Ursula. A clear-eyed depiction of life under slavery, the novel is written from the perspective of a young African girl who is kidnapped from her hometown and subjected to a lifetime of cruelty. Ursula is also considered the first novel written by a Brazilian woman. Born to a free African man and a white woman, Firmina published critical essays, poems, short stories and abolitionist songs. She also founded the first free and racially mixed school in Brazil before the abolition of slavery.

In the 1830s, Iy Nass, a freed African slave, co-founded the first temple devoted to the Afro-Brazilian spiritual tradition of Candombl. The house of worship known as Casa Branca do Engenho Velho would help spread Candombl throughout Brazil as priestesses initiated there opened their own temples. It is believed that Nass and her fellow co-founders Iy Adet and Iy Acal were priestesses from the towns of Ketu and Oyo, located in present-day Nigeria. Not much is known about her life. Some research indicates Nass eventually returned to Africa to research the cult of Orishas, while others say she fled persecution from the Mal slave revolt, in which her son was implicated. More than 150 years later, the Candombl house still stands in Salvador, Bahia.

The daughter of a Swiss-Brazilian physician and a British nurse, Bertha Lutz became a pioneer of the womens suffrage movement in Brazil. Her feminist manifesto published in Revista da Semana in 1918 is credited with prompting a rise in womens rights organizations, mostly comprised of literate, white women. She founded the Brazilian Federation for the Advancement of Women in 1922, which helped to secure womens right to vote in a decade. Still, womens suffrage was restricted by the same literacy tests men were subjected to.

A housekeeper since the age of seven, Laudelina de Campos Melo knew firsthand the abuses domestic workers faced and founded the first association of domestic workers in Brazil in 1936. During these years, she was also active in the Communist Party and the Black Brazilian Front, the largest federation of Black rights organizations in Brazil. In the 1970s, her activism helped domestic workers win the right to a work permit and social security.

When Black representation on mainstream Brazilian television remained slim, Tas Arajo played the first Black woman protagonist in a telenovela in 1996. The 231-episode series told the story of Xica Silva, an enslaved African who became one of the wealthiest women in the region because of her relationship with a Portuguese knight. She went on to play various leading roles, including one that made her the first Black woman to star in a primetime telenovela.

Decades before Dilma Rousseff became Brazils first woman president, the young militant joined urban Marxist guerrilla groups that rebelled against the military dictatorship that took over after the 1964 coup detat. She was eventually captured, tortured and served three years in prison for her guerrilla activities. When she was released, Rousseff dedicated herself to politics, reorganizing the Brazilian Labor Party. After serving in various presidential cabinets, she held the presidency in 2011 until she was impeached in 2016 on charges of criminal administrative misconduct and disregard for the federal budget.

Maria da Penha, a womens rights activist, helped to pass a law that increased punishments for domestic abuse offenders, created specialized courts for these crimes and opened 24-hour shelters for survivors. Her activism stems from the two homicide attempts she suffered that left her paraplegic. Her ex-husband, the culprit in the attacks, eluded prison for more than 19 years due to systemic faults in the judicial systems that favored the perpetrators in domestic abuse cases. He ultimately served one year in jail. Da Penha took her case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which ruled in her favor. In 2006, the Maria da Penha law passed.

A Black, bisexual woman raised in Rio de Janeiros Mar favela, Marielle Franco campaigned against gender violence, police brutality, militarization and for reproductive rights as an activist and city council member. She was killed by unknown assailants in March 2018 in an attack that prompted mass protests throughout Brazil and the world. Its believed her homicide could be linked to her work denouncing police violence in the favelas and paramilitary groups made up of retired and off-duty police. Two former police officers were arrested last year in connection to her murder and five people including two police officers were accused of obstruction to justice.

rica Malunguinho is the first transgender politician to be elected in state congress. Born in Recife in 1981, Malunguinho moved to So Paulo at the age of 19 and started to transition. She immersed herself in arts, culture and politics, eventually opening up a cultural center she called an urban quilombo in reference to the Black freetowns created during slavery. When Marielle Franco was assassinated, Malunguinho, then a well-regarded Afro-Brazilian and LGBTQ leader, decided to run for state congress as a member of the Socialism and Liberty Party, the political party that Franco represented.

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Culture Herstory: 12 Brazilian Women Who Changed the Course of History - Remezcla

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said Delhi needs a government that will not resort to appeasement but supports the CAA, abolition of Article 370 and issues related to national security.

Addressing an election rally ahead of the February 8 assembly elections, the prime minister touched on various issues, including the 2008 Batla House encounter, surgical strikes and his governments flagship Ayushman Bharat scheme, during a speech that lasted a little over an hour.

In his second rally in the city in two days, Modi also referred to the armed forces while training his guns at the AAP government and the Congress and exhorting voters to back the BJP.

You must punish those who insult the armed forces. You should vent your anger through your vote. Delhi does not need a government which gives opportunity to enemies to attack us, he said at the rally in Dwarka.

He said the national capital also needs a government that will give direction and not resort to blame games.

The anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests in Shaheen Bagh and other places in the city did not find any mention in his speech, unlike his address in Karkardooma on Monday when he said they were not a coincidence but a political conspiracy to destroy the countrys harmony.

Delhi needs a government that will not resort to appeasement but support the CAA, abolition of (special provisions of) Article 370 and issues of national security, he said in Dwarka, taking up the theme of the earlier day.

He also accused the opposition of spreading lies and rumours about the CAA, a legislation which seeks to give citizenship to the persecuted minorities of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Muslims have been excluded from it.

Modi attacked those who questioned the surgical strike and air strike on terror camps across the Line of Control but did not take any names.

The surgical strike was launched on terror launch pads by the Indian Army in September 2016 after the Uri attack. The Balakot air strikes were launched by the Air Force in 2019, post the Pulwama terror attack.

Slamming the AAP and the Congress, he said both parties cry for Batla House terrorists, put security forces in dock and instigate people but can not develop the national capital.

Two Indian Mujahideen (IM) terrorists were killed and two arrested in the encounter at Batla House in Jamia Nagar area on September 19, 2008. A Delhi Police inspector, who was injured in the encounter, also died.

The prime minister accused the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP dispensation of not implementing the Ayushman Bharat scheme, the flagship initiative of the Centre, in the national capital and asked if the AAP governments mohalla clinics will work if Delhiites fall sick outside the city.

The people of Delhi have seen how the AAP government practises the politics of hate, he said.

People of Delhi have seen how the (AAP) government practises politics of hate. Delhi needs a government that will give direction and not resort to blame game, he said.

Many Central government schemes in the last five years were opposed by the Delhi government even before their implementation, he alleged.

The people of Delhi say the country has changed, and now is the time for Delhis transformation, the prime minister told the gathering.

Modi enumerated steps taken by his government for Delhi -- including the Eastern Peripheral Expressway and Western Peripheral Expressway and extending the Metro network.

His government, Modi added, opened more bank accounts for the poor than the population of US, and built more houses than the population of Sri Lanka.

Votes for the Delhi elections will be counted on February 11.

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Delhi needs govt that will not resort to appeasement but supports CAA: PM Modi - BusinessLine

A personal view from Ian Stewart, Deloittes Chief Economist in the UK.

The past, as the novelist LP Harley wrote, is another country, they do things differently there.

And things were different in the year 2000. The global economy was booming. The 3.5% growth rate in the UK and the 3.8% figure in the euro area that year have not been bettered in the 19 years that followed.

Tony Blair was in Downing Street, George Bush was in the White House and Vladimir Putin had just become president of Russia. The events of 9/11, and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq lay ahead. The euro was just a year old and the EU was debating whether to expand into central and eastern Europe. Nokia ruled the roost in mobile telephony and the world was getting by without Facebook, Skype, Instagram, YouTube or Twitter. Twenty-five percent of UK households were able to access the internet through a dial-up connection, most using a desktop computer. Britains first commercial broadband service was launched in March 2000.

Much has changed since then.

Britains population has increased, become older and more international: 8.3m more people live in the UK today, an increase of 14%. Londons population has increased by 25%. There are 37% more over-70s around today but only 6% more children and teenagers. Despite this, the ratio of state pensioners to those of working age has fallen due to the rise in the female state pension age.

The UK economy grew far faster in 2000 than it has in recent years, yet the unemployment rate today, at 3.8%, is well below the 5.5% rate seen in 2000.

The number of people in self-employment has soared since the millennium, rising more than 50%. Numbers in part-time and full-time employment have risen by 17%. Evidence on the casualization of the workforce is mixed. So called zero-hours contracts have risen from less than 1% to over 2.5% of the workforce. But temporary employment has shrunk from 7% to 5% of employment, the lowest recorded, and part-time employment remains pretty flat at about 25% of the workforce.

Those over 65 are also now twice as likely to still be working as in 2000, in part due to the abolition of mandatory retirement at 65 in 2011. Younger people play a smaller role in the labour market because of the new requirement to stay in education or training until the age of 18. The proportion of young people going to university has risen from just over 30% to 50%. Overseas student numbers have quadrupled.

Employment among women has increased far more rapidly than among men and the average age of first-time mothers has increased by more than two years, to 28.8. Rising rates of participation in the labour force by women and older people has increased employment, but immigration has been the biggest factor behind job growth. About two-thirds of the 5.6m increase in the UK workforce since 2000 has been due to immigration.

The shape of the economy has changed radically. Over one million fewer people work in manufacturing, a decline of more than a quarter. Manufacturing output is unchanged, demonstrating how automation and a focus on higher-value products have helped lift productivity. Technology, education and healthcare have increased their headcounts by 40%-50% in the last 20 years. Those in work are less likely to go on strike. The number of days lost due to strike action in 2019 was less than half that in 2000, despite a substantial increase in the size of the workforce.

A largely unnoticed change has been the decline in the number of public companies those whose shares can be freely traded on a stock exchange. At the end of the 20th century, there were 12,400 public companies in the UK. Since then the number has dwindled to 5,700. Private companies are on the rise, with their numbers increasing from 1.3m to almost 4m.

Government is bigger today, with government spending accounting for 38% of GDP, up from 34% in 2000. The financial crisis and the anaemic growth that followed set government on a borrowing spree that lifted government debt from 28% of GDP to over 80%. But with interest rates near historic lows the government currently has to pay only 0.5% to borrow money for ten years, down from 5.7% in 2000.

Government spending is increasingly focused on the NHS and old-age benefits. A number of areas within the public sector have faced deep cuts, among them working-age benefits, police, prisons and local government.

Yet despite the depredations of the global financial crisis and public sector austerity we are getting richer. Real GDP is 37% higher than in 2000 and per capita GDP has risen by 20%.

The price level has risen 51% since 2000, with prices rising far faster for services than goods. The cost of medical services, for instance, have risen 130% in the last 20 years. Education costs have risen by a factor of almost four reflecting the rising cost of university tuition and higher independent school fees.

The scope for productivity gains is greater in goods than services, partly because making things lends itself to automation and the use of new technologies. The scale of price deflation in some goods sectors is remarkable. Clothing and footwear prices have halved since 2000. Second-hand cars are 40% cheaper. The price of audio-visual equipment has fallen by 80%.

Patterns of energy consumption have changed significantly. UK greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 37%, in part because coal now generates less than 1% of our electricity, down from almost one-third in 2000. Energy generated by renewables such as wind and solar has increased ten-fold. In terms of transport the clear losers are buses and coaches, with total miles travelled falling by 24%. Total car passenger miles have risen by just 5% while the number of rail passenger journeys is up by almost 90%.

Falling carbon emissions partly reflect a growing tendency to import goods whose production requires high levels of energy inputs, rather than producing them at home. When carbon emissions from the production of the goods we consume is included, the decline in UK greenhouse gas emissions is less impressive.

The year 2000 was the peak of the economic cycle for the rich countries of the world, including the UK. Growth was about as good as it gets. With the collapse of Soviet communism and Chinas rapid industrialisation, capitalism seemed triumphant. The world seemed to have entered an era of strong growth, greater predictability and breakneck globalisation.

Twenty years on things look rather different. Growth has slowed everywhere, including in the UK. Otherwise the big trends here have been towards a more populous, older and international country, one which, despite the de-rating of growth prospects, has done better than most in creating job opportunities, especially for women and older people.

Rapid population growth, driven by immigration, has been one of the unanticipated features of the last two decades. The financial crisis has left us with a larger, more indebted government, one that is spending ever more on health and old-age benefits. It has also left us with borrowing costs that would seemed unimaginably low 20 years ago. From todays vantage point the year 2000 does, indeed, seem like another country.

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The shape of the British economy has changed radically since 2000 - Reaction

Access, access, access be it physical, emotional, or preferably both is the doc filmmakers equivalent of location. And Brazilian director Petra Costa manages to get it in spades. Currently streaming on Netflix, her Oscar-nominated epicThe Edge of Democracy,the third film in a personal, award-winning trilogy that began with the 2009 shortUndertow Eyes, followed by her debut featureElenathree years later, is easily Costas most ambitious to date.

With fly-on-the-wall camerawork, and guided by her eloquent voiceover narration, Costa captures up close and in real time the democratic car wreck of recent corruption scandals in Brazil that led to the impeachment of one president (Dilma Rouseff), the jailing of another (Luiz Incio Lula da Silva), and the election of a military dictatorship-glorifying strongman (Jair Bolsonaro). And, as if shooting in the presidential palace as the nations first female leaders belongings are unceremoniously packed up, or filming as Lula hunkers down in an office awaiting potential arrest werent enough, Costa adds to the drama by deftly weaving in archival images encompassing the countrys fraught history, including her familys own complicated role in it.

My grandparents, who were the protagonists ofUndertow Eyes, were actually in conflict with my parents for a very long time because of political disagreements, which I reveal in this film, Costa explained by phone soon after the Academy Award nominations were announced. While my grandparents supported the military coup, both my parents fought against it and were imprisoned by it, and had many friends tortured and killed.

Were a younger country, and its crazy to look at it, she continued. There are more presidents that fell than finished their mandates in Brazil. Its a country built on coup after coup after coup. One of the first coups was after the king and the prince decided to declare the abolition of slavery. Thats when the republic was proclaimed and they were kicked out, because the oligarchs in Brazil were against the abolition of slavery.As she went on to explain, Its a country built by a few oligarchs, like if slavery in the South in the United States had never been challenged with a civil war. But then the government finally did do affirmative action, and changed the landscape of Brazilian institutions. Today there are more black people in public universities in Brazil than whites. The impeachment and everything else was really a revolt against that as well. I think a question we all have today is, Is this the last scream of agony of white supremacists, or will they actually destroy democracy to be able to maintain power?

But to contextualize the elite oligarchy Costa claimed as original sin she chose to look far beyond her nations borders, not north but south. The first chapter of Patricio GuzmnsThe Battle of ChileisThe Insurrection of the Bourgeoisie.That is precisely what was happening here, the filmmaker said, citing the renowned Chilean documentarian. The bourgeoisie was having an insurrection after 13 years of the Workers Party. The idea was that if Dilma was not impeached then Lula would be elected, and the Workers Party would continue to be in power.

It was clearly an insurrection, she continued. That was so obvious. My desire at one point was to cut between the right wing protests inThe Battle of Chileto our right wing protests, because they were just a copy of each other. But then I saw that what was happening in Brazil was subsiding. And I had a feeling, like, this has all calmed and were back to normal.

Unfortunately, as she was quick to point out, this was not to be. When six months later the streets exploded in protest I felt that now I have a duty to do what he did. I was really inspired by how he did it, and how he was able to be in the streets, in Congress, and in the presidential palace. So thats what we were constantly trying to do. I would watch that film with my DP almost every day before going to shoot.

I thought about how clearly he put his own point of view in that film, in terms of the analysis of each event, Costa emphasized. One thing that everyone here was saying: You have to be neutral, you have to be neutral. Or, there was just this shift in the entire media landscape towards a very conservative perspective of everything. WatchingThe Battle of Chilehelped me to have the courage to trust my intuition about what was happening.

She continued, In the beginning there was so much doubt, and everyone was trying to kind of prove that what was being done was right. But then there was leak after leak after leak that just revealed so clearly what the real intentions behind the impeachment and Lulas imprisonment were. There was a leak that came out 21 days after Dilmas impeachment of the Congressmen saying that she has to be impeached or were all going to go to prison. Because she wasnt stopping Operation Car Wash. And then, there was the leak six months after Lula was imprisoned that shows the prosecutors coordinating with the judge. Lula had to go to prison or else the Workers Party would win the election.

Contemplating that time of nail-biting uncertainty and how she was able to document it, Costa noted, The most cinematic moment was, of course, Lulas imprisonment. Wed already built access over three years with Lula by then, so I knew most of the staff that worked with him, and had several points of connection. For three days he was kidnapped inside his own, like, workers union. And the entire country was watching that while we were inside filming and also looking at that from the televisions. No one knew if he would give himself up, or if the police would invade the building. It was like a thriller.

As for how Costa was able to wade through what ended up being a daunting, often head-spinning, 10,000 hours worth of footage, she explained, I was mostly editing in Brazil, though for about three months, or four, I went to Paris to work with this editor, Tina Baz, who works with (Japanese film director) Naomi Kawase. It was great to be able to kind of zoom out of what was happening in Brazil, and have her foreign perspective, and not be intoxicated by the passions here, which were very high. The discussions here could often go into a football cheering mode, for one side or the other. So for me it was really important to look at this from a different, more distant perspective.

And in England I worked with Joanna Natasegara, who produced two amazing political films,VirungaandThe White Helmets, Costa continued.She helped us a lot in getting the facts right, and having a political perspective that would also be less impassioned and more journalistically precise. And in the US, we had producers Shane Boris and Sara Dosa. The production was mainly in Brazil, the US, and the UK. The international help of these people that were working with us was really essential, as were the editors. Its like how with each article I read about Brazil that is written abroad helps me understand a lot of what is happening here.

And what happens in Brazil, of course, doesnt stay in Brazil. As the filmmaker explained, the parallels to the political discourse in the US leading up to the 2016 election were at times uncanny. Theres the concept of sexism, and how this process was extremely sexist. There were a lot of similarities to what happened to Hillary in many ways. Likethe chants of lock her up, which was for Lula. Every protest they were saying lock her up for Lula. But the sexism that Hillary suffered during the campaign was very similar to what happened to Dilma. It showed how incapable most people still are of respecting female politicians. And then you elect someone who says that women should be raped!

Though Costa was swift to add that, as in the US, the profit-hungry tech giants were likewise damningly culpable. I think the reason that this has been unleashed has a lot to do with social media, she lamented. People wouldnt even say that they were right wing before 2013 in Brazil. You would be center or youd be left. But in 2013 these protests started to happen, and a very strange movement started to happen in social media where these pages supporting far right thought went viral.One of these main pages actually had funding by the Koch brothers, she then revealed. Its called MBL (Free Brazil Movement). One of the leaders got a grant to found Students for Liberty, so thats also funded by the Koch brothers. So theres a lot yet to be unveiled about how some companies are possibly paying for these movements in social media that are actually perverting our democracy worldwide.

As the conversation wound to a close, Costa added what, in retrospect, could only be described as a chilling global warning. I feel that what is happening is, more than anything, a decision by certain corporations that theyre tired of democracy.

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Watching The Battle of Chile Helped Me to Have the Courage to Trust my Intuition: Petra Costa on Her Oscar-nominated Doc The Edge of Democracy -...

Parents in Finland will receive the same amount of parental leave, regardless of gender or if they are the biological parents of a child, the government announced.

The changes, which were announced on Wednesday and could take effect as of 2021, are an attempt to promote gender equality and inclusion for same-sex couples and encourage fathers to take both free time and mothers.

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The measure is one of the latest reforms under the new government of Finland, led by Sanna Marin, a progressive prime minister who took office late last year. Ms. Marin made headlines when she took office late last year becoming the youngest prime minister in the world and leading a coalition government made up of all female leaders.

Under the new reforms, each parent will be allowed 164 days of paid parental leave, which increased the total allowance for a couple from 11.5 months to more than 14 months, the government said in a statement. Single parents will be entitled to use parental leave fees from both parents.

The Minister of Social Affairs and Health, Aino-Kaisa Pekonen, said the new policy shows "government investment in the future of children,quot; and in the welfare of families.

"The reform will be an important change in attitudes, as it will improve equality between parents and facilitate the lives of diverse families," he added.

But some labor and industry leaders seemed to distrust the changes. Ilkka Oksala, director of labor and social affairs of the Confederation of Finnish Industries, the country's largest employers' association, criticized the new policy.

"The reform does not improve equality, does not improve employment and does not improve the position of women in the labor market," said Oksala Helsingin Sanomat, a Finnish newspaper.

Lotta Savinko, director of labor affairs for Akava, a confederation of professional and administrative staff unions in Finland, told the same newspaper that "the fact that the child care subsidy is not touched at home is a real problem."

Experts said that, although the parental leave revisions had taken a long time, Marin may have been key to finally driving the policy.

"Sanna Marin represents the change and her values in politics and politics are in line with the new parental leave model," Elina Penttinen, a professor of gender studies at the University of Helsinki, said Thursday.

Ms. Marin is the mother of a young daughter and previously She described herself as part of a "rainbow family." Her parents separated when she was a child, and she was raised by her mother and her mother's female partner. He has long advocated progressive policies aimed at supporting families of all kinds.

Ms. Pekonen said the reform will bring "a major change in attitudes,quot; and "will facilitate the lives of diverse families."

"The reform will support all types of families and guarantee equitable permits for children, regardless of the form of the family," he said.

The new government policy will apply to all parents, regardless of gender or if they are a child's biological or adoptive parents, and parents can transfer up to 69 days of their own permission to their partner.

But Finland is an atypical case, as it maintains that the changes are aimed at addressing gender inequality through the abolition of gender-specific benefits and the use of neutral language in legislation.

Many Finnish social media users applauded the government's efforts on social media after the measures were announced on Wednesday.

"I never felt that family vacations are also for us rainbow families," Minna Minkkinen wrote in a tweet, noting the fact that the new reforms provide better inclusion of same-sex couples. "I was touched."

Hanna Markkanen said it was a step towards a "Finland family friend."

"I am particularly pleased that multiple types of families are considered in the reform," he said.

Ms. Penttinen, a professor of gender studies, said that it had previously been "a financial challenge for parents to stay home as they still received higher salaries than women," but she hoped that this reform would lead to better job opportunities. for the women.

"In the long run, this could also change the perception of hiring women, as they have the same opportunity to advance in their careers and return to work," he said.

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Finland plans to give all new parents the same license - Up News Info

The Rev. Raphael Warnock coupled the launch of his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat with another piece of news: He plans to stay in the pulpit of Atlantas Ebenezer Baptist Church, a move that will invite more scrutiny of the famed congregation from the IRS and his rivals.

The Democrat said he wasnt concerned about serving double duty as both a candidate and a clergyman as he races to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler. He framed his decision as a throwback to a time when congressional lawmakers held everyday jobs.

Weve grown accustomed in our country to politicians who are professional politicians they think about politics and thats all they think about, Warnock said in an interview. But theres another great tradition, and that is of the citizen representative. Theyre enmeshed in their community, and they take their concerns to Washington.

Theres no question he has a powerful platform in his role as the senior pastor where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached. His sermon at this years King Day ceremony served as a preview of his campaign message, and it drew thousands of viewers and international coverage.

But it also puts Warnock and his church on tricky terrain. Preachers often discuss hot-button issues such as voting rights and abortion while in their pulpits, but they risk losing their tax-exempt status if they openly back candidates or pay for campaign activities.

READ: Georgia Senate: Warnocks Democratic rivals are staying in the race

That means its perfectly legal for Warnock to preach and run as a Democrat against Loeffler, a financial executive appointed last month to fill U.S. Sen. Johnny Isaksons seat after he retired for health reasons.

But Warnock would have to steer clear of overtly politicking in the pulpit and using church resources for his campaign. The church could not endorse Warnock or collect cash for him. Any political activity such as forums or get-out-the-vote efforts must be done in a nonpartisan way.

Violating those rules would risk penalties from the Internal Revenue Service, which classifies churches as tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations that dont pay federal income tax but also cant actively engage in political campaigns.

His candidacy would also invite scrutiny from Republican trackers who will analyze his Sunday sermons in search of a legal slip-up. Tax analysts say even using a church email account for campaign business could trigger sanctions.

A minister does not give up his or her rights as a citizen, but running while a minister is challenging, said Ellen Aprill, who specializes in nonprofit tax law at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. The minister has to be sure not to use church assets, such as mailing lists, and cannot ask for support from the pulpit.

Michael Kang, a professor at Northwestern Universitys Pritzker School of Law and a nationally recognized expert on campaign finance laws, said Warnock and the church will need to be clear about how he is separating his candidate activity from those in the pulpit.

Kang suggests clear disclaimers and careful consideration about what Warnock says when he is before the church. Warnock has often touched on political and social issues while in the pulpit, but now he will need to take extra precautions.

Warnock has had time to consider these ideas. When he was exploring a potential Senate bid in 2015, the minister invoked examples of pastors who have preached on Sundays and campaigned on Mondays as proof he could pull it off.

He pointed to former New York U.S. Reps. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Floyd Flake, and ex-Pennsylvania U.S. Rep. Bill Gray all black preachers who maintained a presence in the pulpit after they were elected.

Theres no question that Raphael Warnock can do both, said Isaac Newton Farris Jr., the nephew of King and a lifelong member of Ebenezer. He has the intelligence, the sensitivity and administrative skills to do both. Theres no question about it.

Still, Farris acknowledged the distinct possibility that developments on the campaign trail could put his congregation in an uncomfortable light.

The question, politically, is how does that work? said Farris, whose grandfather and two uncles held leadership positions with the congregation. There will be times as a senator where, in the course of doing his job, it might bring unneeded scrutiny on the church. How does this impact the church?

Warnock said he met with members of Ebenezers board of trustees and the deacon board as well as the church membership before announcing his decision to run.

He said there will be a complete separation between the work of the church and the work of the campaign.

Warnock has long used the pulpit to preach about progressive policies, such as social justice initiatives and voting rights legislation. Hes also used his platform to routinely call for the expansion of Medicaid and abolition of capital punishment.

Ive advocated for these issues for years as a pastor, and I plan to lean into that and continue to advocate in the ways that I have, he said. Im seeking in this instance to have the ability as a legislator to turn my activism into public policy.

The Rev. William J. Barber II, one of the leaders of the Poor Peoples Campaign, said Warnock is uniquely able to balance roles that are sometimes complementary, sometimes competing.

From time to time, particularly in moments like this, there is a need for someone who is the pastor of a church to bring moral clarity and commitment to the political arena, Barber said.

Warnock feels he is up to the task.

To be clear, he said, I will be there preaching on Sundays and the church will not miss a beat.

We are well staffed, Warnock said. We have a team of ministers, and thats been the case for years. We have a team of lay leaders to help carry out the work.

Simply put, he said, the work of the church has never been a one-man show its been a collective effort.

Recently, Ebenezer brought on the Rev. John H. Vaughn as executive pastor, filling an existing spot that has been vacant for a while.

Warnock said that by remaining in the pulpit, he will hear from his parishioners every week, and that would help keep him grounded in their concerns.

I want to go to Washington, he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, but I dont want to be drowned by the waters of Washington.

Washington correspondent Tia Mitchell contributed to this article.

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Warnock will have to take care to separate roles as candidate, pastor - Atlanta Journal Constitution

Nirmala Sitharamans budget speech, which broke records for its length, is likely to have left some disappointed. She faced the challenge, common among Indians during the wedding season, of having presented the bride with an expensive gift in advance of the wedding and then finding herself somewhat empty-handed on the big day. Readers will recall that there were already big bang announcements with regard to corporate tax cuts, credit facilities for non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and the merger of banks, which are in progress. After these announcements, her budget speech was always likely to fall short of expectations.

Despite this challenge, the finance minister has stayed consistent with her partys philosophy that it is the institutional economic framework of the country that needs to change. Consequently, a lot of air time was spent communicating budgetary philosophy (often through the medium of Tamil poets and, remarkably, even Harappan inscriptions) rather than stating actual allocation numbers. I indicated in a newspaper article on Jan20 that budgets were communication tools and hence communication (even if through poetry) was actually quite desirable. I had called for greater articulation on the simplification of taxes, explicit recognition of the contribution of honest businessmen and clarity on macro-economic data. I was gratified to see these issues addressed in the speech.

Given the absence of big bang reforms, what exactly is the government planning to do to improve the economic plumbing? In the backdrop of the challenges the economy faces, the budget seeks to rekindle the economy through a range of activities around agriculture, health and education. There are large sums allocated to improvements in food warehousing, financing of agricultural warehouse receipts, enhanced limits for agri-credit as well as several interesting initiatives in health and education. Building roads have always been pet projects of Bharatiya Janata Party governments and there were clear five-year targets set for them, while also promising 100 new airports. On a more personal note, my home town Bengalurus now legendary traffic gridlock may be alleviated by a Rs 18,000 crore (about $2.5 million) suburban rail project. Most of these actions should drive job creation.

In tune with the belief that small initiatives can have larger beneficial consequences, small NBFCs will now get the legal benefits under Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act. This will enable precisely the kinds of organisations that lend more to small enterprises and help in job creation to lend more with the comfort of greater recoveries. On a similar note, encouragement of TrEDS ( the platform that enables invoice discounting) is another excellent but under-marketed scheme that still hasnt achieved traction. Public sector vendors will now use TrEDS, making them easier to finance.

In this manner, the government seems to be looking at recovery by a thousand cuts. This can indeed work if the government can execute well on even a few of these initiatives.

One is also happy that the government is clearly in a mood to bust its fiscal deficit. It would be surprising if the fiscal deficit for 2020 was only 3.8 percent and the actual number for 2021 is likely to be higher than the promised 3.5 percent However, finance ministers who are confident of achieving deficit numbers do not say, as Sitharaman did, that they would need a margin of 0.5 percent. Clearly, the government is prepared to cross into 4 percent territory. But, it doesnt want to admit this openly. This is fair game and is the only way to climb back to growth. In connection with deficits, there was a somewhat dramatic announcement about the potential divestment of a part of Life Insurance Corp (LIC). This is likely to meet with resistance. There are many other organisations the government could choose to sell before it divests LIC. I expect this particular proposal will not materialise and, to that extent, the fiscal slippage will widen.

A few other initiatives stand out. First, there is a reduction in direct taxes for the middle class, which will certainly drive a little more consumption. There is also the reduction of the vexatious dividend distribution tax, which should make it simpler for overseas investors to invest in India.

If one had been limited to only one wish for the budget, it would have been a mechanism to bring in large amounts of long-term capital into the Indian bond markets, to enable the funding of the tens of lakhs of crores we need to boost infrastructure and to achieve the green transition. In this area, there is an interesting waiver of tax on sovereign wealth funds that should catalyse investment in the approved sectors.

For the second budget in a row, the government is giving more attention to its climate change commitments. The allocations for smart metering and the funding to allow farmers to generate retail solar power are all in the right direction. The finance minister also indicated that there could be regulation requiring highly emissive thermal plants to close. If followed through, this is a remarkable step for the government of a growing economy. Those who are critical of the current government often fail to give it adequate credit for being among the most enlightened in terms of its responses to climate change.

Following Sitharamans speech, we now know that the government is not looking for dramatic changes in policy such as steep reductions in customs duties or the abolition of capital gains tax. Instead the message we must absorb is that the economy, in the main, needs to strengthen itself in the normal course and the government will try to help by active social sector spending and easing bottlenecks along the way. This approach also reflects the reality that the government has four more years to go and, therefore, does not believe it needs to use stronger ammunition.

Fortunately, big bang budgets have not always resulted in sustained economic growth (with the exception of 1991) and one hopes that the governments generally sound track record in execution will help it achieve its policy of recovery by a thousand cuts.

Govind Sankaranarayanan is a former chief operating officer and chief financial officer at Tata Capital and is currently vice-chairman at ESG Fund ECube Investment Advisors. HINDUSTAN TIMES

January 24, 2020

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The Indian government's policy of recovery by a thousand cuts can work - Khmer Times