Bristol festival asks can there be a 'gift in grief'?

Summary: In a year that has seen a national outpouring of grief, a team of academics has been encouraging people to learn more about bereavement and even to see the "gift in grief". Dr Lucy Selman set up the Good Grief Festival, which was attended by around 12,000 people. Now more than 60 hours' worth of content has been moved online , helping even more people navigate these difficult times.

By Emma HallettBBC News "I was 15 when my father died and we lost our baby, Ada, two years ago," said Lucy. "My dad had cancer for about five years, but me and my sister weren't told. We knew he was very ill, but didn't realise how serious it was. "With Ada there was this profound shock. The only person I knew that had experienced a stillbirth was my grandmother, but she'd died a couple of years before." Lucy, who has spent 15 years researching people's experiences of end of life care and bereavement, says she feels strongly that an important aspect of research is to engage with the public. The Good Grief Festival, broadcast online from Bristol, saw her professional and personal lives brought together. She was six months pregnant when her waters broke on the morning of her first daughter's birthday party. She was taken to hospital and found to have an infection. After five days she was sent home. The next night, Lucy felt a sharp pain and, later, contractions. After rushing back to hospital doctors delivered the news there was no heartbeat. Ada died on a Thursday evening. Lucy was consequently induced and gave birth the next day. Lucy introduced and closed the festival "Grief School" session on stillbirth, taking with her Ada's memory box. "It was really important to me to do that, but it was difficult to be involved in," she said. "People might assume that at six months, it's a pregnancy loss, not a baby loss and that it's not as traumatic, but if you've carried a baby for six months you are connected, they are part of your family." Lucy would like to see bereavement support made part of health and social care, and grief a topic that people think and talk about. Hence, the festival. "Ultimately grief affects all of us, at some point we are all going to experience it. It's something we could deal with a lot better with in our society," she said. Lucy talks about the "grief gift" - referring to the positive side of going through a profound loss and coming out the other end. "It can give a sense of your own strength and resilience when you get to a point where you can see that something worthwhile can come out of something awful," she said. Roisheen Childs, from York, was one of those who signed up for the festival - which uses a moth as its logo. She was prompted to attend the sessions after a butterfly landed on the exact spot in her garden that her late husband said a DIY job needed doing. "You hold onto anything and everything and I thought that was Dave telling me everything is ok, you'll be ok," the 63-year-old said. Roisheen was married to Dave for 16 years. It was the second marriage for both of them, described by Roisheen as "quality over quantity". 'Whole body ached' After becoming ill in December 2019 with a cough, Dave, 71, was diagnosed with cancer in the spine in April. On 4 July, just three months after he was first diagnosed, he passed away. Roisheen attended four of the festival sessions including "the grief gift" and "the healing power of nature in grief". "If you don't do, you don't get, and it was lovely to listen to other peoples stories and get further information," she said. "It is the end of life and I just hope the festival helps so people are not so afraid or frightened anymore." After being forced to move online, the festival was opened up to people from around the world, with more than 32,000 total views across all content. Russell Quinn, 41, from Cheltenham and now living in Los Angeles, lost his mother and grandmother in the space of a few weeks. Linda passed away in December 2017 after being diagnosed with breast cancer ten years earlier. A few weeks later Russell's 89-year-old grandmother fell in her house, broke her hip, and died during surgery. They were his last two immediate family members. After hearing about the festival Russell, who has suffered post-traumatic stress disorder-like symptoms, signed up and said he found it "overwhelmingly positive". "It had been a extremely hard time for me and suddenly I found myself in a chat room with all of these people who had gone through similar things and I no longer felt alone with those feelings," he said. "To hear other people talking about, and confirming the same feelings, felt deeply cathartic after so long." Reflecting on the festival Lucy said: "It was quite phenomenal, seeing people interacting and being very engaged with what was being said and also with each other... and recognising the shared nature of their experiences. "It's a reminder that there can be a positive side to grief. When you are in it you obviously don't feel like that, but over time it is possible to see some benefit in how grief transforms you." Lucy added she hopes that by helping people learn more about grief they have brought some solace to people at this really challenging time.

एक ऐसे वर्ष में जब राष्ट्रीय स्तर पर शोक की लहर दौड़ गई है, शिक्षाविदों की एक टीम लोगों को शोक के बारे में अधिक जानने और यहां तक कि "दुख में उपहार" देखने के लिए प्रोत्साहित कर रही है। डॉ. लुसी सेलमैन ने गुड ग्रीफ फेस्टिवल की स्थापना की, जिसमें लगभग 12,000 लोग शामिल हुए। अब 60 घंटे से अधिक की सामग्री को ऑनलाइन स्थानांतरित किया गया है, जिससे और भी अधिक लोगों को इस कठिन समय से गुजरने में मदद मिली है।


Kano on making 'great art', knife crime and Drake's Top Boy

Summary: Kano's last album, the 2016 MOBO-winning Made in the Manor, was an introspective reflection on his journey, friends, family and rivals. This time around, with knife crime at a record high , the east London MC is looking and speaking out.

By Paul GlynnEntertainment & arts reporter The 34-year-old rapper / actor has a starring role in the returning crime drama Top Boy and his sixth LP Hoodies All Summer sees him combine music and drama to devastating effect. The powerful music video for lead single Trouble begins with a sample of an old speech by the late activist Darcus Howe, blaming politicians and police for failing black communities and creating disharmony. Kano picks up the threads of Howe's argument in his eerily-jaunty opening verse: "Politician, hush don't make a sound / Been oppressing us couple centuries now / And these gunshots never reach your town / It's never on top when you leave your house." The whole piece then crashes down to a gospel prayer after the video's young protagonist, Nate, is stabbed to death in broad daylight while playing with his friends. Now with more than 100 people having been fatally stabbed in the UK this year - the youngest, Jaden Moodie, was just 14 years old when he was killed in nearby Leyton - Kano wants his music to become "a direct conversation with people of the community that I'm from". "I do see what's going on, things do trouble me and it's natural that will creep into my music," he says. "I don't want to be a preachy person. It's more like 'I get it.' "'I know the wider world might not get it and I know the media might not get it when a kid gets stabbed and they throw him up on screen and act like he was a gang member when he wasn't - trying to blame the parents and everyone but the system that's been created." "I think great art poses questions and doesn't necessarily give answers and solutions - that's not what I'm trying to do," he adds. "I'm here to show you my perspective, as an older person. I'm not silly enough to think someone's going to stop violence. "I'm just trying to humanise situations and represent voices that aren't being represented." 'Endz minister' Poet Caleb Femi has called Kano a musical spokesperson - a modern-day Bob Dylan or Tupac Shakur for Britain's youth. "In these times of uncertain political leadership, the endz have found their own prime minster in Kano" he writes. "The endz minister?!" laughs Kano, whose real name is Kane Robinson. "I don't want that job - it's hard enough doing the jobs I do right now!" After thanking Femi for those "kind words" he stresses the importance of his own being able to "stand the test of time." "This album in particular I just kept thinking about myself in the future, looking back and could I be proud of what I've done? "If I had an album full of party tunes in a time like this, would that be acceptable for the artist that I believe I am?" That's why, when other artists are drip-feeding a constant supply of "content", Kano is happy to operate in his own time and on his own terms. His new record, featuring Kojo Funds, Popcaan and Lil Silva, melds UK hip-hop, grime and garage influences, as well as jungle and dancehall - reflecting his Jamaican roots. The penultimate track, Class of Deja, sees him re-connect with Ghetts and D Double E - all members of the legendary N.A.S.T.Y Crew, who are widely considered pioneers of the grime scene in the early noughties. Kano says he's pleased to have "inspired a generation of young artists," recalling how, before the scene exploded and started putting "dollar signs" in people's eyes, artists like himself, Wiley, Dizzee Rascal and Lethal Bizzle were spitting bars on pirate radio simply "because we loved it". One of the young fans galvanised by those trailblazers was Stormzy - who made sure to thank Kano and his cohorts for "paving the way" during his historic Glastonbury headline performance in June. Likewise, Kano acknowledges Stormzy in his album opener, Free Years Later. But rather than celebrate his success, he recalls how police allegedly kicked open his front door, after a neighbour mistook him for a burglar. As Kano notes, "as a young, successful black man in this country - in some people's eyes you still don't belong". Perhaps that's why he's determined to colonise spaces that aren't a natural home for UK rap - with a five date-tour of lavish venues like the Royal Albert Hall and Manchester namesake the Albert Hall, in October. "I don't remember many moments of our kind of music in those buildings," he observes. Before that, however, the star will reprise his debut acting role as Sully, a drug dealer on the fictional Hackney estate of Summerhouse, in Top Boy. The cult series looked to have bitten the dust after being dropped by Channel 4 in 2014, only to be saved by high-profile fan and soon-to-be Netflix executive producer, Drake. "He just let them know 'I'm a big fan of the show. If there's anything I could do to help get it back I would love to do so. I'm serious.' "Shortly after that we sat down, me, him and [actor] Ash [Walters] and spoke about our ambitions. "He was like 'I don't want to get involved in creating it. I want you guys to do what you do.'" While there's "definitely no cameo" from Drizzy there will be appearances from Dave - "a natural on camera" - and the "unstoppable" Little Simz. How then do so many rappers - from Will Smith to Queen Latifah - move into acting so seamlessly? "Hip-hop is the art of story-telling," Kano muses, noting how acting is "allowing yourself to become vulnerable". "Maybe there's a confidence that it takes." Confidence, and looking out, as well as looking in. Hoodies All Summer by Kano is out on 30 August and Top Boy returns on 13 September.

कानो का अंतिम एल्बम, 2016 का मोबो-विजेता मेड इन द मैनर, उनकी यात्रा, दोस्तों, परिवार और प्रतिद्वंद्वियों पर एक आत्मनिरीक्षण प्रतिबिंब था। इस बार, रिकॉर्ड उच्च पर चाकू अपराध के साथ, पूर्वी लंदन एमसी देख रहा है और बोल रहा है।


Could new anti-social behaviour powers back-fire?

Summary: As children's charity Barnardo's raises concerns that new plans to tackle anti-social behaviour could endanger children, the BBC's UK affairs correspondent Chris Buckler talks to people in Bristol affected by the issue.

The police caught Pam smoking, drinking and hanging around the streets in Bristol late at night when she was in her early teens. They thought the right thing to do was to take her back to her house. But it was her home that she was trying to escape from. Behind closed doors she was physically abused on several occasions by her adoptive parents. "One of the times before I ran away my father strangled me," says Pam, who asked for her real name not to be used. "At one point I was dragged home when I was sleeping in a bush. "Why didn't anybody ask the question, why was I sleeping in a bush rather than my own bed?" Pam does not deny taking drugs, skipping school and getting into trouble. But she says the authorities never scratched the surface to see what was going on at home. "I'd been let down by everyone - social services, the police, the school..." Pam is now in her early 20s, but the children's charity Barnardo's is concerned that new plans to tackle anti-social behaviour could lead others to experience similar problems to those she faced in her early teens. Among the measures proposed by the government are "police direction powers". They would allow officers to move people away from areas and return potential troublemakers to their homes. Currently to exercise similar powers, areas have to be specifically designated as "dispersal zones" using "dispersal orders". End of the Asbo Barnardo's claims many of the children who will be taken home are likely to come from highly disadvantaged backgrounds and insists that needs to be considered. "If police send children back to abusive or unsafe households they could be placed in greater danger," says the charity's chief executive Anne Marie Carrie. "If the government really wants 'effective responses' to anti-social behaviour by children then it needs to know why the problems are happening in the first place." Barnardo's wants courts to be given information about the home life of any child who appears in court linked to allegations of causing trouble. Stopping anti-social behaviour is a police priority for many UK forces. In south Bristol officers recently had a day of action targeting so-called 'low level crime', but many people feel that more needs to be done. And there's particular cynicism about how effective anti-social behaviour orders have been. Asbos are civil orders which restrict people from engaging in behaviour that has been linked to them causing trouble in the past. "They wear them like a medal," one woman critical of Asbos told me in the Knowle area of the city. Public concern The coalition government is reacting to those concerns with plans to replace Asbos in England and Wales with Criminal Behaviour Orders and Crime Prevention Injunctions. But the proposed new measures have much in common with the old orders. At a parade of shops in Knowle, people were more than happy to get into discussion about anti-social behaviour and most wanted stronger powers "There are kids drinking in big crowds," said one resident. "The police move them on and they're back half an hour later - it does nothing." The government knows it has to make people feel involved in tackling those kinds of problems. Among the other measures being considered is a 'community trigger' which would give neighbourhoods the power to force officers to investigate incidents. The Home Office plans are currently open to public consultation and it is aware of the concerns that Barnardo's has. Better communication A Home Office spokesman said: "Our proposed reforms to the anti-social behaviour regime will empower the public and give the authorities the flexibility and powers they need to tackle this serious problem. "The concerns raised by Barnardo's relate as much to the existing regime as our proposals, and we are looking forward to discussing them with Barnardo's soon." Pam, who has been through the existing system trying to deal with the problem, is now the mother of a young child herself and working towards becoming a social worker. Sitting in a room surrounded by toys with her daughter beside her, she insists the authorities could have done more to help her. "There needs to be much better communication between police and welfare services," she says. "We need to ensure that we are not putting children at risk and ultimately perpetuating the cycle of offending."

जैसा कि बच्चों की दान संस्था बर्नार्डो ने चिंता जताई है कि असामाजिक व्यवहार से निपटने की नई योजनाएं बच्चों को खतरे में डाल सकती हैं, बीबीसी के यूके मामलों के संवाददाता क्रिस बकलर ब्रिस्टल में इस मुद्दे से प्रभावित लोगों से बात करते हैं।


Leonardo da Vinci five centuries on: Louvre in Paris opens long-awaited exhibition

Summary: It took more than a decade to prepare and was almost thwarted by a diplomatic row. Now, one of the world's most expensive art exhibitions - to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's death - is finally opening to the public.

By Mal SiretBBC News, Paris The Louvre museum in Paris, home to Leonardo's Mona Lisa, opens its doors on Thursday to a display of more than 160 Renaissance-era paintings and drawings, some of which are on loan from Queen Elizabeth II and Bill and Melinda Gates. The exhibition, which is expected to attract more than half a million visitors over the next four months, aims to provide a deeper understanding of the artist's working methods using his notebooks, infrared imaging technology and virtual reality. Shining infrared light on some of his most famous artworks has revealed a number of secrets, with multiple layers of drawings discovered beneath the artist's finished pieces. It is not the first time this method has been used. In August, experts found designs for the angel and infant Christ beneath the surface of Leonardo's The Virgin of the Rocks, using macro X-ray fluorescence maps and infrared and hyperspectral imaging. Leonardo da Vinci was an engineer, designer, scientist and artist who was fascinated with the human form and the behaviours of animals and plants. From the growth of trees to the motion of birds - he was obsessed with flight and designed a flying machine based on the wings of a bat - Leonardo studied the complexities and documented them with drawings. Some of those drawings are on show here. He also designed weapons, tools and utensils, and his notebooks include interpretations of architectural building techniques. Among the most celebrated of works on loan to the Louvre is Leonardo's Vitruvian Man, a pen-and-ink drawing of a perfectly proportioned human form inside a square and circle. The piece, which will form part of the exhibition for eight weeks, was transported to Paris just last week despite attempts to ban it from leaving Italy. Standing alongside the delicate artwork, exhibition co-curator Vincent Delieuvin said the drawing showed the importance of the relationship between science and art. "In this case, it shows the beauty of the [human] body," he said. "We hope to show who he was as an artist, why and how Leonardo was so important. [He used a] very particular and original method of work based on science." The Mona Lisa, perhaps one of the artist's best-known paintings, does not feature in this exhibition in its physical form - it is kept elsewhere at the Louvre in a protected glass case - but visitors can see the painting Beyond the Glass. The virtual reality experience, the first of its kind at the Louvre, incorporates scientific research to reveal details within the painting otherwise invisible to the naked eye, say the developers of the project, Vive Arts. Then there are the pieces on loan from the Queen, which are usually kept behind closed doors in the royal household at Windsor Castle. These include Leonardo's Study of Hands and the Head of Leda, the mythological mother of Helen of Troy. "Elizabeth was very generous, sending 24 pieces from her collection; because of her we are able to show a fine selection of his drawings," said Mr Delieuvin. The exhibition also features Renaissance-era pieces from other artists, including sculptures, to help put Leonardo da Vinci's own work into context, the Louvre said. Mr Delieuvin told the BBC he anticipated about 600,000 people would visit the exhibition in Paris thanks to the impressive volume of works on show. Born in Tuscany in 1452, Leonardo was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect and mathematician. Before his death in May 1519, he spent his final years in France as the guest of the monarch, Francis I. It was this fact that led to a recent political and cultural row between France and Italy. The big plans for the exhibition, which had long been in the works, were almost scuppered towards the end of last year when Italy's right-wing, nationalist League party opposed sending several artworks, claiming Italy was being left "on the fringes of a major political event". In an interview last November, the then-undersecretary for Italy's cultural heritage ministry, Lucia Borgonzoni, said "Leonardo was Italian. He only died in France. France cannot have everything." The spat was only settled in an Italian courtroom last week, when it was agreed that Vitruvian Man, which had been kept in a climate-controlled room in Venice for years, could go to Paris. The Venice court cited "the exceptional global relevance of the [Louvre] exhibition and [Italy's] desire to maximise its heritage potential" when announcing its decision to allow the drawing to travel. "Now the great Italian-French cultural operation of the two exhibitions on Leonardo in Paris and Raphael in Rome can start," Italy's Cultural Heritage Minister Dario Franceschini tweeted after the court ruling. All images are subject to copyright.

इसे तैयार करने में एक दशक से अधिक समय लगा और एक राजनयिक विवाद ने इसे लगभग विफल कर दिया। अब, दुनिया की सबसे महंगी कला प्रदर्शनियों में से एक-लियोनार्डो दा विंची की मृत्यु की 500 वीं वर्षगांठ मनाने के लिए-आखिरकार जनता के लिए खुल रही है।


Housing plan for Newmarket thrown out by council

Summary: Plans for a controversial housing development in Newmarket, Suffolk, have been thrown out by the local council.

Racehorse owner Lord Derby wanted to build about 1,200 houses, a hotel, park and ride scheme and a retail park on the 160-acre Hatchfield Farm site. Campaigners against the development said it would drive away the horse-racing industry. Forest Heath district councillors voted against the plans at a meeting on Wednesday night. Previously racehorse trainers said the extra traffic would make it unsafe for the 3,000 horses that cross Newmarket's roads each day. The meeting at the council building was so busy some people had to wait outside.

न्यूमार्केट, सफ़ोक में एक विवादास्पद आवास विकास की योजनाओं को स्थानीय परिषद द्वारा खारिज कर दिया गया है।


The last man standing on the Calf of Man

Summary: When a fellow warden slipped and broke his ankle, Daniel Woollard was left in charge of a tiny nature reserve in the Irish Sea. What is it like living on one of the British Isles' most isolated islands?

By Mark EdwardsBBC News When the 22-year-old from Essex volunteered to work on the Calf of Man, his family thought he had lost his mind. Not long after he became the only full-time seasonal resident on the one-mile square spit of land, so did he. "Most days I'd pull back the curtains and think 'wow... I'm in paradise'," said Daniel. "Other days I'd stare at the walls in my bedroom and be close to packing my bags. "It was difficult. You can't just pop out to the shop - there isn't one - and you really miss family and friends. But I was in charge of my own island. Not many people can say that." The Calf of Man is separated from the Isle of Man half a mile from its southern tip by a narrow stretch of water called the Calf Sound. In stormy weather the ruggedly beautiful and unspoilt land can be cut off for weeks at a time; its isolation such that its only permanent residents are seabirds, Loaghtan sheep and seals. Since 1959 it has been a bird sanctuary, looked after by two seasonal wardens who undertake ornithological and estate work on behalf of the Manx Wildlife Trust. When he heard the trust was hiring volunteers to help on the island, Daniel jumped at the opportunity. He had been looking for a full-time job after completing a diploma in countryside management and spending the past four years gaining conservation experience around the UK. "It was while studying I realised I wanted to do this for the rest my life," said Daniel. "I wanted to become a warden and look after a reserve and manage it for the benefit of wildlife. "It was this dream that led me to the Calf of Man." The Calf's wardens live permanently in its sole farmhouse between March and November. They are joined by a trickle of volunteers, who stay for anything from a day up to a few weeks at a time, who help with ongoing projects to eradicate rats and attract ground-nesting puffins. "I knew it was going to be lonely and difficult, but I didn't care," said Daniel. "Most of my friends have normal jobs or are at university, so they all thought I was a bit crazy when I said I was off to live on an island for eight months. "And for my mum - for me to be away for [that long] - was a big deal for both of us." Life on the island is basic - showers are rationed to once a week to save water and a generator is powered up just twice a day. There is no central heating, just two wood-burning stoves, and food arrives weekly - when weather allows - on a small fishing boat with other vital supplies. "The wildlife, the walks, the views... we were surrounded and immersed in nature," said Daniel, who was 21 when he arrived on the island. You might also be interested in "I'd swim in the sea, have BBQs, lovely walks, and the volunteers were amazing. Of course, sometimes, I did feel like it was all too much and I wanted off the island but that was always fleeting." Five months into his volunteering role, Daniel fulfilled his dream of becoming an estate warden earlier than expected when his predecessor left for a job on Skomer, off the coast of Pembrokeshire. Just four weeks later, the ornithology warden slipped and broke his ankle, leaving Daniel in charge of the whole island. As well as the estate work, his new responsibilities included shepherding, bird ringing, and monitoring seal, rat, and moth populations. "I was the last man standing. I had no option but to step up again," he said. "It was a strange feeling being the only permanent resident on an island but I think I took it in my stride." Daniel said he learned invaluable skills, including how to build dry-stone walls and coppice willow. But it was the wildlife that was the real highlight - allowing him to tick the red-breasted flycatcher, yellow-browed warbler and leach's petrel off his bird-spotting bucket list. "Everywhere you went there was a seal pup. I had never seen one before and there were about 60 born this year. "I watched some from birth until they swam out to sea, it was so special to see." Back at his parents' semi-detached house in Southend-on-Sea, the former warden is readjusting to city life. He said returning to the noise of the busy mainland was a "shock to the system" and having to remember to carry a wallet was "strange". "When you get back from the island, you instantly get back into normal life; TV, shops, pub. [It's like the last] eight months never happened. I'm looking out the window and there are cars constantly driving past, other houses, and other buildings. "On the Calf I was more used to waking up and seeing fluffy seal pups than parked cars and I know which I prefer." Next year's wardens will arrive on the island in March. The Manx Wildlife Trust said the jobs were a "unique opportunity to work and live in one of the most remote and beautiful locations in Britain". "It is an adventure for those chosen and a venture away from our connected lives," added spokesman Tim Graham. Daniel hopes to return to the Calf and has reapplied for the job. "I wanted to work on an island more for myself than for my CV - so in years to come I can say, 'I've lived on an island for eight months'. And if they wanted to take me on [again] it would be brilliant. I would love to go back." .

जब एक साथी वार्डन फिसल गया और उसका टखने टूट गया, तो डैनियल वूलार्ड को आयरिश सागर में एक छोटे से प्रकृति अभयारण्य का प्रभारी छोड़ दिया गया। ब्रिटिश द्वीपों के सबसे अलग-थलग द्वीपों में से एक पर रहना कैसा लगता है?


Q&A: The Free Syrian Army

Summary: The Free Syrian Army (FSA) claim to have attacked an Air Force Intelligence facility has attracted more media attention to the group of Syrian Army deserters. There are reports that the opposition Syrian National Council has recently met FSA leader Col Riyad al-Asad to discuss the scope for cooperation.

What are the FSA's aims? In its founding statement in August, the group said it wanted to "work hand in hand with the people to achieve freedom and dignity, topple the regime, protect the revolution and the country's resources and stand up to the irresponsible military machine which is protecting the regime". Col Al-Asad told pan-Arab Al Jazeera TV in October that the FSA "will continue to offer its men's blood and souls to help our great people get rid of the yoke of that ruling clique". How big is it? The strength of the FSA is unknown. The group put its membership at more than 15,000 by mid-October. It has admitted that it would be unable to directly confront the Syrian army, which is estimated to comprise over 200,000 soldiers. According to the FSA, soldiers and officers are defecting every day and are continuously being organized and assigned tasks by the group. On 14 November Col Al-Riyad told the Turkish news agency Anatolia that nearly 400 soldiers, including 15 officers, had defected in the past week in a sign of growing momentum. Where is it based? The FSA controls no territory in Syria. Col Al-Asad and dozens of other FSA members are based in a refugee camp in Turkey's southern Hatay province, close to the Syrian border. Both the FSA and Turkey deny that armed men from the camp are crossing into Syria. The FSA says it has 22 battalions in Syria, and is particularly strong around Deraa in the south and Homs in the centre. How does it operate? Col Al-Asad says soldiers defecting from the Syrian army operate in their original areas using light arms. FSA Col Malik al-Kurdi told pan-Arab Al-Arabiyah TV that the FSA attacks military units that have themselves attacked or are planning to attack protesters, and employs guerrilla warfare through attack and retreat operations. The FSA also targets non-military security forces, like the Mukhabarat secret police and pro-government militias, and Col Al-Asad says he keeps contact with each of the FSA battalions within Syria by mobile phone and Internet. What is its position on foreign intervention? Col Al-Asad has told various media that the FSA wants a UN no-fly zone over the Syria-Turkey border, in order to give defecting soldiers an area within Syria where they can regroup and recruit. He rejects the idea of foreign military intervention. The Al-Haqiqah newspaper of the Paris-based Syrian National Council for Truth, Justice and Reconciliation quoted an aide to Col Al-Riyad as saying that the FSA leader had had meetings with US diplomats in Turkey, under Turkish government aegis, in recent days to discuss FSA needs in terms of intelligence-gathering rather than arms. Does it have any political affiliation? Col Al-Asad has denied any political affiliation, and told the Turkish newspaper Milliyet that the FSA sought to make Syria a "Muslim country and a secular democracy" like Turkey. He denied Syrian government allegations that the FSA is linked to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the main Sunni Islamist grouping, although he did acknowledge to Milliyet that all of the FSA troops are Sunnis. How is it viewed by other opposition groups? The Syrian National Council (SNC), a coalition of opposition groups sharing the goal of overthrowing the government, expresses sympathy with the FSA while warning against its potential to undermine the peaceful nature of the uprising. SNC Chairman Burhan Ghalyoun told Al Jazeera TV in October that the FSA could not be ignored but should limit its activities to defending unarmed civilians. As for contacts between the two groups, Mr Ghalyoun said they had "barely started". Col Al-Asad has at various times said there is "full coordination" between the FSA and the SNC on the ground in Syria but no contact at the leadership level. In the last few days various Syrian opposition sources have reported a meeting between Col Al-Asad, Mr Ghalyoun and other leading figures in the SNC at an undisclosed location. The reports agreed that the two groups were moving closer together in terms of cooperation, but stopped short of announcing a clear link. The Al-Haqiqah report says this was because of divided opinion within the SNC. Quoting an aide to Col Al-Riyad, it says the Muslim Brotherhood and "pro-US" SNC leaders want Col-Riyad to join the SNC, while Mr Ghalyoun still seeks to maintain a non-military profile for the Council. BBC Monitoringselects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad.

फ्री सीरियन आर्मी (एफ. एस. ए.) के एक वायु सेना खुफिया सुविधा पर हमला करने के दावे ने सीरियाई सेना के पलायन करने वालों के समूह की ओर अधिक मीडिया का ध्यान आकर्षित किया है। ऐसी खबरें हैं कि विपक्षी सीरियाई राष्ट्रीय परिषद ने हाल ही में सहयोग की गुंजाइश पर चर्चा करने के लिए एफ. एस. ए. के नेता कर्नल रियाद अल-असद से मुलाकात की है।


Stranoch wind farm public inquiry starts

Summary: A public inquiry is set to get under way into plans for a 24-turbine wind farm in south west Scotland.

Dumfries and Galloway Council has already lodged a formal objection to Wind Prospect's plans on moorland at Stranoch, near New Luce. Developers say it could produce enough electricity to meet the needs of more than 40,000 homes. The council has expressed its concerns about the cumulative impact of the scheme on the area. The public inquiry, at the North West Castle Hotel in Stranraer, is expected to last three days. It will be conducted by a reporter appointed by the Scottish government.

दक्षिण पश्चिम स्कॉटलैंड में 24-टर्बाइन पवन फार्म की योजनाओं की एक सार्वजनिक जांच शुरू होने वाली है।


Why are people using Scottish food banks?

Summary: BBC Scotland has obtained new figures from the Trussell Trust that reveal a record number of adults and children relied upon their food banks in Scotland in December 2014.

Often seen as a necessity only for the unemployed or those on welfare, the Trust's data suggests even people with jobs are receiving emergency food packages. For the first time in 2014, the majority of users blamed low income - and not welfare benefit delays or changes - for having to rely on emergency food packages from the Trust. Here is a breakdown, by food bank, of the three most common reasons cited by people who used Trussell Trust food banks in December 2014. Some notes about food banks missing from this table:

बीबीसी स्कॉटलैंड ने ट्रसेल ट्रस्ट से नए आंकड़े प्राप्त किए हैं जो बताते हैं कि दिसंबर 2014 में स्कॉटलैंड में रिकॉर्ड संख्या में वयस्कों और बच्चों ने अपने खाद्य बैंकों पर भरोसा किया था।


Was Google wrong to fire James Damore after memo controversy?

Summary: Google has fired an employee who wrote a controversial memo opposed to diversity programmes and hiring practices. The company's chief executive said the "offensive" text advanced "harmful gender stereotypes". Did Google do the right thing?

By Nalina EggertBBC News First things first: What did the memo say? A senior Google employee, named in US media as James Damore, argued in an internal memo that perhaps tech companies that try diversity programmes to get more women in to the industry are looking at things the wrong way. It's not just because of recruitment practices or education or discrimination that more men than women work in the tech industry, he argued, but because of biological differences. Women are "on average more interested in people" as opposed to things, he said, "more co-operative" and "more prone to anxiety" - all things that stop them going in to the tech industry or rising to the top of it. And he said this couldn't usually be said by people who worked for Google, because of an "ideological echo chamber" and a "shaming culture and the possibility of being fired". You can read the full memo here. After the memo received a few days of international attention, Mr Damore was fired. He is reported to be considering legal action. The memo and now his sacking have been much discussed on social media, with some agreeing with him, some offering him jobs, and others aghast at his views. Google was wrong to fire him, say some "I think it's wrong for a company to fire someone for simply expressing their opinion," said Jodie Ginsberg of the Index on Censorship pressure group. Asked whether Mr Damore being fired was censorship, she said yes. "Yes, in that the message it's sending is that people are not free to express their beliefs and opinions. The message is we should just shut down the views with which we disagree. "A much better way is to discuss those opinions openly." Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico, said Google had gone down in his estimation when it fired Mr Damore. "It was reasonable of this author to expect that his argument would be respected, that he would be able to air it with some safety," he said. "It's just embarrassing for Google," he continued. "I used to think Google was one of the coolest companies on earth. I use a lot of their software of all kinds and now I just feel like I'm supporting this ideological juggernaut. "If the reaction to being told that you are an ideological echo chamber is that kind of defensiveness to me it's pretty strong evidence that it probably is biased." Google was right to fire him, say others On the other hand, says technology writer and broadcaster Kate Bevan, the memo created a hostile environment for female staff. "I'm not very keen on the mob going for people to get the sack," she said. "But in this case he was acting in a way that was detrimental to his colleagues. "If you stand up and declare in public that you think a large number of your colleagues are unfit to do the job because of their chromosomes, you're telling your colleagues 'I don't think you're good enough'." That echoes the argument made by Google's CEO Sundar Pichai in a letter to staff: "To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK." Ms Bevan continued: "The best engineers are not necessarily male. If you continue to restrict your hiring pool to one type of people you're going to get some mediocre people in there." She argued that a more diverse workplace would be better for business, too, saying: "If you've got a limited workforce you're going to limit the products you make." So the science he cited - was it legit? Geoffrey Miller, the evolutionary psychologist, told the BBC that Mr Damore got "most of the science right" and showed "pretty good judgment about what we know and what we don't know". He wrote that the memo "would get at least an A- in any Masters psychology course". But Gina Rippon, the chair of cognitive brain imaging at Aston University in Birmingham, England, disagreed. She told the BBC: "The key thing for me is that he's got quite a lot of the science wrong. "The basis of his argument is wrong. I don't know who he's been reading." In fact the author of a study mentioned in the memo has responded to the furore, saying that using someone's sex to work out what you think their personality will be like is "like surgically operating with an axe". Professor Rippon said: "It's one of those areas where science moves on perhaps more quickly than the communication of it. "He seems to be suggesting that because something is biological it can't be changed." She said ability at spatial tasks - often cited as a way in which men and women's brains work differently - can be affected by how many videogames the people being studied have played. And playing more videogames or getting a different environment can influence an individual's brain. She continued: "But even if you accepted the idea that there are some biological differences, all researchers would assert that they're so tiny that there's no way that they can explain the kind of gender gap that's apparent at Google." Just 20% of Google's technical roles are filled by women, according to the company's own figures. Nearly half of non-technical staff are female. Angela Saini, author of Inferior: How Science got Women Wrong, agreed: "The differences aren't as big as we think they are and the gender gap as it exists in society is not explained by biological differences." But the fact remains that there are many more men than women working in tech companies like Google. And a 2016 study of women in Silicon Valley found that half of the women asked had repeatedly been told they were too aggressive, and nearly half had been asked to do low-level jobs their male colleagues weren't asked to do, like taking notes or ordering food. These are issues that Google will undoubtedly turn its attention back to once it has come down from walking the PR tightrope in the wake of this memo.

गूगल ने एक कर्मचारी को निकाल दिया है जिसने विविधता कार्यक्रमों और भर्ती प्रथाओं का विरोध करते हुए एक विवादास्पद ज्ञापन लिखा था। कंपनी के मुख्य कार्यकारी ने कहा कि "आपत्तिजनक" पाठ ने "हानिकारक लिंग रूढ़िवादिता" को आगे बढ़ाया। क्या गूगल ने सही काम किया?


Viewpoint: India court disregards woman's right to choose husband

Summary: A Hindu woman who converted to Islam and married a Muslim man has been waiting for months for India's courts to recognise her marriage after they annulled it. Flavia Agnes, a women's rights lawyer, argues that the courts have consistently disregarded the woman's fundamental rights.

India is embroiled in a political controversy which concerns the private lives of two adults - Hadiya and Shafin Jahan - who contracted an inter-faith marriage with consent. The marriage might have been a routine affair which occurs in metropolitan cities, but for the fact that Hindu nationalists have been projecting inter-faith marriages between Hindu women and Muslim men as "love jihad". The term "love jihad" conveys a carefully crafted political ploy by Muslim men to entice Hindu women for the sole purpose of conversion. This venomous propaganda has been wreaking havoc in the lives of young couples in India in recent times. India is a secular country. The Indian constitution grants every adult the right to practice the religion of their choice. It also provides for inter-faith marriages with or without conversion. A marriage between adults contracted with consent can be dissolved only at the behest of either or both parties to the marriage and not by a third party. And yet, these fundamental rights are negated in the present case. The controversy is set in the southern state of Kerala where the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to gain a foothold. The state has a sizeable Muslim population, it's one of the few in India where Muslims have a political voice. There have also been news reports of radicalisation of Muslim youth in the state. This is the background in which the controversy over the marriage of Hadiya and Shafin Jahan is set. Ms Jahan, 24, was born a Hindu and converted to Islam in January 2016. She changed her name from Akhila to Hadiya. Since then her father has been waging a legal battle to prove that her conversion and marriage were not of her own free will and that she was "indoctrinated". Ms Jahan appeared before the Kerala high court in response to a petition filed by her father and testified that she had converted and subsequently married out of her own free will. But in May 2017, the court termed it a "sham marriage" and annulled it. Terming Hadiya "weak and vulnerable", the court confined her to the custody of her parents. Two months later, the case reached the Supreme Court when Mr Jahan challenged the high court verdict, stoking debates on the jurisdiction and power of the courts in the personal lives of adults. However, instead of focusing on the primary issue of annulment of a marriage contracted by choice, the court ordered India's National Intelligence Agency to probe the incident, creating yet another controversy. The court was apparently swayed by the comments of the Kerala high court that there were radical groups influencing and converting young Hindu women. The court declined the plea made by her lawyers to interview Ms Jahan and she continued to be in the custody of her parents. Finally, when the case was heard on 27 November, Ms Jahan was asked to be present. However, the court took two hours to concede her right to be heard. When she made a naive comment that her husband should be appointed as her legal guardian instead of her father, to whose custody she had been relegated by the Kerala high court, one of the judges responded, "No husband can be guardian of his wife." He then asked senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who was representing the couple, to explain to her that a wife is not chattel, that she is an individual entitled to her own status in society. But what transpired in court that day suggests that even the highest court in the country is not fully convinced about a woman's freedom and autonomy to contract a marriage of choice, against the wishes of her parents. The lawyers defending the rights of the couple said that it was a victory of sorts since all they wanted on that particular day was to secure Ms Jahan's freedom and to end the custody arrangements which had forced her to return to her parental home. The simple logic that a woman is not chattel seems to have eluded India's courts then. Many people saw this as a case of gender discrimination. However, the Supreme Court, steeped in its own brand of patriarchy, failed to see the role of its own judgment in undermining the right of an adult woman to autonomy and personal freedom. The court kept vacillating about granting Ms Jahan, who had travelled from Kerala to Delhi to appear in court, her right to be heard in her own case, even while making comments about her life and her choices. It is astonishing how the court failed to see the issue clearly as one of gender injustice and denial of the personal freedom of women in matters concerning marriage. Instead of being "weak and vulnerable", what came through that day in court was the sterling quality of Ms Jahan and her ability to withstand pressure from her family, the media and the judiciary over several months as she answered in a clear voice that she wanted her freedom, and that she wanted to keep her faith and complete her education. A few months earlier, during the controversy over triple talaq or Muslim instant divorce, Indian media was lamenting the fact that a Muslim woman is denied rights and agency, and that she is a victim of Islamic patriarchy. In the present controversy it appears that it is the Hindu woman who lacks agency and can easily be "brainwashed". What is projected while terming marriages of Hindu women to Muslim men as "love jihad" is that Hindu women are incapable of making intelligent choices. Further, since a woman is not able to decide what is good for her, it is the father who must decide for her and without his consent, her marriage is not valid. The "love jihad" bogey has been effectively used by the right-wing Hindu nationalist groups such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh during election campaigns in several states. What is disturbing in the present controversy is that even the courts seem to be endorsing such Hindu right-wing terminology.

एक हिंदू महिला, जिसने इस्लाम धर्म अपना लिया और एक मुस्लिम पुरुष से शादी की, भारत की अदालतों द्वारा उसकी शादी को रद्द करने के बाद उसे मान्यता देने के लिए महीनों से इंतजार कर रही है। एक महिला अधिकार वकील, फ्लाविया एग्नेस का तर्क है कि अदालतों ने लगातार महिला के मौलिक अधिकारों की अवहेलना की है।


More than 100 bottlenose dolphins seen off Manx coast

Summary: A pod of more than 100 bottlenose dolphins have been spotted off the coast of the Isle of Man.

The first sighting, from John Galpin at the Manx Whale and Dolphin Watch, was on Monday at 0930 GMT off the island's west coast, near Dalby. Subsequent sightings at the Sound confirmed the pod was travelling towards the south coast. At the Sound the dolphins were split into four distinct groups including juveniles and calves. Common bottlenose dolphins are widespread, except in polar waters. They are extremely sociable and sometimes hunt their prey in teams.

आइल ऑफ मैन के तट पर 100 से अधिक बॉटलनोज़ डॉल्फ़िन की एक फली देखी गई है।


'Dip' in Highlands and Islands Airports' passenger numbers

Summary: Scottish regional airports operator Highlands and Islands Airports Limited has reported a fall in numbers of passengers using its sites in November.

There were 99,039 passengers, a decline of 2.6% on the same month last year. Hial, which operates 11 airports across Scotland, described it as a "dip" in a year that had seen a trend of "strong growth". Dundee and Western Isles airports saw falls in numbers, but figures had remained high at Sumburgh and Kirkwall. Flight cancellations, reduced frequency on certain routes and a decline in business and energy-related traffic had resulted in the drop in numbers at the other sites.

स्कॉटिश क्षेत्रीय हवाई अड्डों के संचालक हाइलैंड्स एंड आइलैंड्स एयरपोर्ट्स लिमिटेड ने नवंबर में अपनी साइटों का उपयोग करने वाले यात्रियों की संख्या में गिरावट की सूचना दी है।


Theatre's Bogdanov reflects on his scandalous history

Summary: Thirty years after he went on trial at London's Old Bailey for staging an act of simulated male sex in the play The Romans in Britain, the renowned British theatre director Michael Bogdanov, says he is proud to have been "among those people willing to stand up and be counted".

By Mike LanchinBBC World Service "It was extraordinary to have found yourself a symbol of freedom of expression, though for the wrong reasons," the 73-year old Bogdanov tells the BBC World Service's Witness programme on the 30th anniversary of his trial. Accused of procuring an act of "gross indecency" likely to cause offence for his production of The Romans in Britain at London's National Theatre, Bogdanov says he felt "enormous relief" when the case collapsed and the prosecution withdrew its evidence on the third day of the hearing. He also says he felt "very angry" that the private prosecution brought by the morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse had been allowed to happen at all. Mrs Whitehouse, he says, "confused reality with an illusion" on the stage. If he had been convicted, Bogdanov could have been jailed for up to three years. Written by the playwright Howard Brenton, The Romans in Britain, which opened in London in October 1980, was always likely to provoke controversy. With vivid imagery, strong language and violence, the play sought to draw graphic parallels between the Romans' invasion of the British Isles and the presence at the time of British soldiers on the streets of Northern Ireland. But it was one short scene involving the attempted rape of a young Druid called Marban by a Roman soldier ("a metaphor for the rape of one culture by another," according to the director), that eventually landed Bogdanov in court. When he was first handed the play by the National's then artistic director, Sir Peter Hall, Bogdanov says he thought it contained some of the best new writing he had read. The attempted rape scene, to be performed with naked actors in full light and centre-stage, was "brilliantly written". But though nudity was not uncommon on the stage - and Bogdanov was careful that no sexual contact was actually made between the actors (the Roman used his bunched up fist and thumb as a substitute for his erect penis) - Sir Peter was clearly worried. He asked Bogdanov to consider moving the scene upstage, in half light. The director stood his ground, arguing the scene's artistic merit. Sir Peter eventually acceded, but not before warning that there could be trouble ahead. Anonymous letters Though playing to packed audiences, the play's nudity and strong language attracted fervent media attention. But more ominously, it quickly came to the notice of Mrs Whitehouse, then head of the National Viewers and Listeners' Association. She refused to attend a performance in person but in December 1980 sent her solicitor to watch the play in order to collect evidence. He came back convinced there had been a sexual act on stage likely to cause offence. Having tried and failed to force the Attorney General to initiate a prosecution against the National, the morality campaigner then began her own proceedings under the 1956 Sexual Offences Act, accusing Bogdanov of being the "pimp" who had allegedly procured the act on stage. Three decades on, Bogdanov's memories of those days are still vivid. He and his colleagues had initially dismissed the possibility of being taken to court, believing their defence of dramatic effect would be enough to discourage a prosecution. But a magistrate and then an Old Bailey judge both ruled that the case should be heard. Bogdanov became increasingly concerned: "I can't pretend it was easy, it felt like some huge juggernaut rolling over me, especially when they spent hours discussing whether I should be kept in the cells overnight," he says. Anonymous letters arrived at the family home, while his children became the object of unwanted attention at school. "At one point I was the only thing on the front pages." Legal precedent The collapse of Bogdanov's trial three days after it began was one more act in the long-running drama of The Romans in Britain. Keen to establish what Mrs Whitehouse's solicitor, and chief prosecution witness, had actually seen on stage, Bogdanov's defence team asked him to tell the jury where he had been sitting in the theatre. "At the back," came the answer - much to everyone's amazement. Lord Hutchinson, lead defence counsel, leapt up: "What if I told you that what you thought you saw was not an erect penis, but a thumb?" And he proceeded to bunch up his fist and thumb under his robes, pulling them aside to reveal his hand to the witness and jury. Bogdanov, looking on from the dock, says members of the jury burst out laughing, while the prosecution barrister went pale and immediately requested an adjournment. The prosecution withdrew its evidence, and the court set Bodganov free. Outside the court, Mrs Whitehouse claimed victory. The case, she said, had set an important legal precedent that the Sexual Offences Act could be applied to events on stage and that simulated sex could amount to gross indecency. But for Bogdanov, the play that got him into trouble has left other lessons. The Romans in Britain, he says, is just one in a long line of stage productions down the years that have caused controversy. "The thing that gives me most pleasure is that the theatre still has the power to shock," he says. Mike Lanchin spoke to Michael Bogdanov for the BBC World Service programme Witness. Listen to the programme at 0950 GMT on the BBC World Service,via i-playerordownload the podcast. Related Internet Links On this day: Judge halts 'obscenity' trial National Theatre

ब्रिटेन में रोमन नाटक में नकली पुरुष यौन क्रिया का मंचन करने के लिए लंदन के ओल्ड बेली में मुकदमे पर जाने के तीस साल बाद, प्रसिद्ध ब्रिटिश रंगमंच निर्देशक माइकल बोगदानोव का कहना है कि उन्हें "उन लोगों में से होने पर गर्व है जो खड़े होने और गिने जाने के लिए तैयार हैं।"


Q&A: Japan election

Summary: Japan's voters go to the polls on Sunday in elections that look set to deliver a painful setback to the governing Democratic Party of Japan, only three years after it ended decades of nearly unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.

The election comes with Japan's sluggish economy back in recession and a territorial dispute with China has also raised tensions. As well as an LDP success, observers predict an overall rightward shift, with a new right-wing party attracting attention. What is at stake? The election determines the composition of the lower house of Japan's parliament (Diet), the 480-member House of Representatives, which determines who forms the government. The upper house, the 242-member House of Councillors, is not up for election. Members of the House of Representatives are elected for four year-terms using a mixed electoral system, with 300 members elected by simple majorities in single-member constituencies and the remaining 180 from national party lists in proportion to their party's share of the vote. What are the main parties? In the incumbent corner is the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. Formed from various small social democratic and liberal groups in 1998, the DPJ unites a range of political views, from centre-left to centrist. It swept to power for the first time in 2009 amid voter fatigue with more than 50 years of nearly uninterrupted government by the LDP, winning a strong 308-seat majority. It promised to break up the traditionally close ties between Japan's bureaucrats and politicians, and hand more power to citizens. The DPJ has seen a steady decline in its popularity, experiencing two changes of prime minister, party infighting and corruption scandals, and acquiring a reputation with many voters for ineffectiveness. The main opposition party - the LDP - has rebounded since losing power, benefiting from disillusionment with the DPJ. Formed out of the centre-right Liberal and Democratic parties in 1955, the party has since then held a near-continuous stranglehold on Japanese politics, only briefly losing power in 1993-4. The big newcomer on the political scene is the right-leaning Japan Restoration Party, led by the nationalist former governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara. Mr Ishihara resigned in November to lead the new party, the result of a merger between his Sunrise Party and a regional party led by right-wing Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto. After an initial burst of popularity, its star could be waning after Mr Ishihara cast doubt on its commitment to abolishing nuclear power, a highly emotive issue with many Japanese voters since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Another new party is the Tomorrow Party, led by Shiga Governor Yukiko Kada. Former DPJ heavy-weight Ichiro Ozawa has swung his support behind this party, which has an anti-nuclear platform. More likely to play a role after the election is New Komeito, a lay Buddhist party which promotes pacifist policies and welfare spending, and has traditionally worked closely with the LDP. Who are the main party leaders? Yoshihiko Noda became DPJ leader and prime minister in August 2011 after his predecessor, Naoto Kan, resigned in response to criticism of his handling of the Fukushima disaster. Mr Noda - who once compared himself to a Dojo Loach (a bottom-feeding freshwater fish native to East Asia) - has struggled to restore the DPJ's fortunes. Never sky-high, his popularity took a potentially fatal hit when he pushed through a move to raise Japan's sales tax from 5% to 10%. The election is LDP leader Shinzo Abe's chance to become prime minister for a second time after serving in the office and as LDP leader between September 2006 and September 2007, when he resigned suddenly in response to persistently low opinion poll ratings. He returned as party leader in September 2012. Mr Abe is known as a fiscal conservative and foreign-policy hawk who has called for national pride and a more assertive Japan. What are the main issues? One key issue has been how to jump-start Japan's struggling economy, which has just slipped back into recession. All parties want to end what is seen as the vicious circle of falling prices, weak growth and resulting weak consumer demand, but the LDP goes further than most in pledging to give the central bank a fixed inflation target of 2% in order to achieve this. Nuclear policy became a hot-button topic with many Japanese after last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster. The DPJ has promised to end all nuclear power generation by the end of the 2030s. The LDP, meanwhile, only says it will decide on a new energy mix for Japan within 10 years, leaving open whether this will include nuclear power. Foreign policy has also loomed large. The election comes as the longstanding row with China over a group of small islands near Taiwan continues to simmer. Both the DPJ and LDP promise to step up measures to protect Japan's claim, the LDP says it will station Japanese officials on the islets - a move likely to incense Beijing. BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.

जापान के मतदाता रविवार को चुनावों में जाते हैं जो सत्तारूढ़ डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी ऑफ जापान को एक दर्दनाक झटका देने के लिए तैयार हैं, लिबरल डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी द्वारा दशकों के लगभग अखंड शासन को समाप्त करने के केवल तीन साल बाद।


Borders speed camera attacks continue

Summary: A speed camera has been set alight in the Borders - where there have been more than 20 attacks on the safety devices in the past decade.

The latest incident happened on the A68 at Newtown St Boswells at about 00:30 on Wednesday. Firefighters were called to the scene and were able to put out the flames and isolate the power. Anyone who was in the area and saw anything suspicious has been asked to contact the police. Speed cameras have regularly been set alight in the region, and were also subjected to a spate of attacks with a saw. Police have previously condemned the attacks on what they call a "vital tool in keeping our roadways safe".

सीमाओं में एक गति कैमरे को आग लगा दी गई है-जहां पिछले एक दशक में सुरक्षा उपकरणों पर 20 से अधिक हमले हुए हैं।


Teenage boy missing after going into sea at Clacton

Summary: A teenage boy is missing after going into the sea at a popular beach resort.

It is thought the teenager had been in the water with a friend on Thursday afternoon near Clacton Pier in Essex. One boy has since been rescued. RNLI Clacton-on-Sea Lifeboat Station said both of its boats were taking part in the search. An Essex Police spokesman said the search for the missing boy was "ongoing". It said the rescued teenager received treatment at the scene.

एक किशोर लड़का एक लोकप्रिय समुद्र तट रिसॉर्ट में समुद्र में जाने के बाद लापता है।


Lyubov Sobol: The woman driving Russia's opposition protests

Summary: Lyubov Sobol shuffles slowly these days when she walks, leaning on a colleague's arm for support. After almost three weeks refusing food she says she feels dizzy and weak but determined to go on with her protest.

By Sarah RainsfordBBC News, Moscow The young lawyer and popular video blogger is one of a group of opposition activists who have been barred from local elections in Moscow, sparking a growing wave of demonstrations. The summer protests have caught the authorities off guard and led to clashes with riot police and mass arrests. "They ignored all our appeals so I have to fight in a more radical way", she says, in the central Moscow office where she is camped out. It is the place where her team previously set up office to gather the signatures required to run for election to Moscow's city parliament. The council has little power, but opposition candidates - gradually excluded from other forums during President Vladimir Putin's time in power - hoped to use it as a political platform and potential springboard. Their registration was rejected after officials declared many of the signatures they submitted invalid. "I think a hunger strike is a means of applying pressure," Ms Sobol explains, a long-time ally of Russia's most prominent opposition figure, Alexei Navalny - who is currently in custody. "Of course, Putin sees such action as blackmail and won't accept it. But it's my way of defending my rights." On 27 July, images of overwhelmingly peaceful protestors being pounded with police batons flooded social media - the security forces had swooped after the crowds refused orders to clear the streets. The mayor's office has since offered to permit a rally on the city's ring-road but opposition activists insist on a central site. Their main negotiator was arrested moments after talks broke down. "This was mass unrest: pre-planned and well prepared," Moscow's mayor Sergei Sobyanin declared of the protest, in an awkward-looking television interview. "They were trying to block roads, attacking the police. They simply compelled the police to use force, which was perfectly appropriate for the situation." Shrugging off the cause of the demonstrations - the block on independent candidates - the mayor instead praised police for "doing their duty". Tougher measures That duty has filled Moscow courts and detention cells with opposition activists and demonstrators including many of the rejected candidates themselves - the protest leaders. "All we wanted was to participate in elections," Dmitry Gudkov told the BBC at a hearing in Moscow's main appeals court. "They want the guaranteed victory of United Russia candidates," he said, referring to the party of the Kremlin. Once a member of Russia's federal parliament, Mr Gudkov is now serving his first ever custodial sentence: 30 days for organising one of the unauthorised rallies. A similar charge for the 27 July event is still pending. "They're worried if we're free, we can participate in the protest actions," the 39-year old said, holding his wife's hand across a wooden barrier. "Thirty days is a high level of repression. This is very tough." But tougher measures are already in place. Russia's powerful Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case which designates the 27 July protest as a riot. Initially, protesters were charged under Russia's administrative code - they faced fines or up to a month in detention for violating the tight restrictions on public protest. But criminal prosecution for rioting carries a lengthy prison sentence. "Of course everyone is worried about that," Mr Gudkov said. "No-one knows where this will end." The next morning a young blogger from his team was arrested under the new criminal charge. Influential state TV programmes have portrayed the protests as orchestrated from abroad, claiming those involved want to "change the constitutional order by force". That reflects the Kremlin's long-standing fear that popular unrest can escalate and topple governments, as happened in Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere. A spate of socially-focused protests, and an economic downturn, have already seen Vladimir Putin's famously sky-high popularity rating slide. Some opposition figures have suggested activists should agree to an authorised rally on the ring-road. They call it irresponsible to summon crowds to the city centre, where more clashes with police - and criminal charges - are entirely possible. But Ms Sobol argues the violence against demonstrators rules out such a compromise. She and others have announced that the protest will continue in the form of a mass Saturday stroll through Moscow this week, with other rallies to follow. "Yes, some will be too afraid now. But others will come out because of what's happened," she says. "They can't resolve this by putting people behind bars. Only by giving them their rights at elections." The authorities show no sign of compromise either. Which means these surprise political protests could yet spiral into a political crisis.

ल्युबोव सोबोल इन दिनों चलते समय धीरे-धीरे हिलती है, समर्थन के लिए एक सहकर्मी की बांह पर झुकती है। लगभग तीन सप्ताह तक खाना खाने से इनकार करने के बाद वह कहती है कि वह चक्कर आती है और कमजोर महसूस करती है लेकिन अपना विरोध जारी रखने के लिए दृढ़ संकल्पित है।


Will Brexit be a boon for tourists?

Summary: It's official. Tourists love coming to the UK.

By Tom EspinerBusiness reporter, BBC News Overseas residents made a whopping 3.8 million visits to the UK in July, up 2% on the same month last year, according to the most recent official statistics. In total, they spent some £2.5bn. This was the first month after the Brexit vote, suggesting its outcome, so far at least, has had little impact on visitors' enthusiasm for the UK. But will this interest continue? Central London seemed like a good place to try and find out. Tumbling pound Joseph and Winifreda Cassai, and Jackie Douglas, all from Malta, were cheerfully laden with Primark bags on an Oxford Street bathed in September sunshine when they agreed to talk to the BBC. So why did they come to the UK? Jackie says: "The pound is attractive." Winifreda adds: "That's why we came - but the hotels are too expensive." They love Primark because they don't have the fashion-chain in Malta, they say. They are not alone in splashing the cash after the Brexit vote. According to FTSE 100-listed payments processor Worldpay, there was a big increase in UK retail spending growth on foreign cards after the referendum. In all, foreign card spending growth was up 3.4% in August compared with the previous year, and online sales growth rose by 5.3%. High Street sales were up 3.0%. After the 23 June referendum, the pound fell, tumbling from $1.47 just before the vote to $1.28 by mid-August, meaning many tourists could afford to buy more. On Oxford Street, Chrissie Aspinall, from Cairns in Australia, and Indi Shields, from nearby Mission Beach, both said they had noticed a major boost in the spending power of their Australian dollars. Both had suffered luggage misfortunes in their travels, and had their hands forced by having to buy new clothes - but said the pound's slump had made this easier. Like the Cassais from Malta, they found accommodation too expensive, and were "couch-surfing" online or staying with friends. Despite the difficulties with accommodation, Indi had managed to find some spare cash. She decided to buy new shoes after going dancing in Shoreditch, a very trendy part of London. "I came here in Birkenstocks [sandals] and everyone here wears closed-in shoes. I was on the dance floor and I got booed off. Not good." Footwear seemed to hold a certain fascination for Vivien Hang, Josh Tok, and Aaron Lee from Singapore, too. For them, the weaker pound has also been a factor in their decision to come to the UK. "It's cheaper to shop here now because of the exchange rate," says Vivien. "It gives us an excuse to shop… I used to study here. I like the people here, and the culture." Josh adds: "But not the weather." They don't normally go shopping in the UK, but Josh and Aaron had decided to splash out on some shoes. Aaron says: "In a way the currency helped a lot... in general the prices here are higher [than Singapore] so when the pound drops, it helps a lot." So for the short term, the signs for British tourism look good. Industry body, the Tourism Alliance, says that in July advance bookings from foreign tourists increased for 18% of businesses, while 21% of firms said domestic tourist bookings had increased. But there are two big question marks hanging over UK tourism, it says. Around 76% of trips made by UK residents are to EU destinations, while 67% of visitors to the UK come from the EU. EU tourists are worth £10bn each year to the UK economy, and that spending supports 185,000 jobs. "The reason that the UK receives such a high level of tourism from European counties is not just that they are wealthy nations located on our back door," says its director Kurt Janson. "It's because over the last 40 years there has been an army of officials in Brussels working on agreements, regulations and rules that help facilitate the ability of EU citizens to cross national borders." There are also arrangements such as the Single Aviation Market, which gives UK carriers rights to fly between EU airports. "Any deal that makes it harder for businesses to operate across the border, or for people to travel across the border, will trigger a fall in tourism," Mr Janson says. The UK's tourist sector is also very dependent on workers from the EU. "To grow and be able to provide high quality service, the UK tourism industry needs there to be free movement of workers between the EU and the UK. "This may not be popular with some of those that voted to leave, but is essential to the viability of the UK tourism industry," Mr Janson adds.

यह आधिकारिक है। पर्यटकों को यू. के. आना पसंद है।


Anders Povlsen: Why a Danish billionaire bought the Highlands

Summary: Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen and his wife Anne recently thanked the people of Scotland for their support after three of their four children died in the Sri Lanka attacks in April. But how did the fashion retail tycoon come to be Scotland's biggest private landowner - and what is he planning to do with his vast Highland estates?

By Andrew Picken & Stuart NicolsonBBC Scotland News Like hundreds of thousands of other tourists who pour into the Scottish Highlands every year, Mr Povlsen was captivated by its rugged beauty when he visited for an angling holiday with his parents in the 1980s. Two decades later, Mr Povlsen returned to the country he had fallen in love with - but this time, he was wielding his cheque book rather than a fishing rod. The Danish businessman, who is reportedly worth £4.5bn thanks to his Bestseller clothes retail empire, bought the 42,000-acre Glenfeshie estate in the Cairngorms for £8m in 2006. The estate's Glenfeshie Lodge, which was built in about 1880, continues to serve as Mr Povlsen's private Highland home, and has featured in films and TV series including The Crown and The Queen. Since then, the 46-year-old billionaire, who is the biggest single shareholder in the Asos online retailer, and his wife have continued to snap up huge swathes of the Scottish countryside. They now own about 220,000 acres across 12 estates. This makes them Scotland's biggest private landowners - as well as, according to some estimates, the biggest in the UK. But it was the tragic events of April that thrust the publicity-shy couple into the public eye. Three of their four children - Alfred, five, Agnes, 12, and Alma, 15 - were killed in the bombing attacks in Sri Lanka which claimed more than 250 lives. In adverts printed in two Scottish newspapers on 16 May, Mr and Mrs Povlsen extended their "heartfelt gratitude for the condolences, sympathy and many warming thoughts we have received following the tragic loss of our three beloved and beautiful children". They also described the "abiding, special memories" that the Scottish Highlands had given to their family over the years. The Povlsens describe themselves as custodians of their land, which stretches across Sutherland and the Grampian mountains, and are said to be regular visitors to their estates. They have unveiled a manifesto of sorts on their website which describes their "deep connection with this magnificent landscape" and their pledge to "restore our parts of the Highlands to their former magnificent natural state and repair the harm that man has inflicted on them". They have also previously written of their hope that the project would "bear fruit not just for our own children but also for the generations of visitors who, like us, hold a deep affection for the Scottish Highlands". Mr and Mrs Povlsen believe that the Highlands have been left badly damaged from centuries of overgrazing by sheep and red deer on the estates of more traditional landowners. Who owns Scotland's land? The Duke of Buccleuch is the most prominent of Scotland's traditional big landowners, owning about 200,000 acres, mostly in the south of Scotland. But recent years have seen the emergence of a new breed of laird, such as Mr Povlsen. The billionaire ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, has also been busy snapping up about 63,000 acres of Scottish land. The Scottish government has also attempted to modernise the rules, encouraging more community ownership. However, the country's biggest landowner remains the government agencies and public bodies that manage huge areas of land on behalf of the nation. They have embarked on an ambitious programme which aims to restore native woodland, peatlands, wetlands and rivers and species on their estates - although this "wildland" pledge has been met with scepticism from some, who fear the couple's ultimate goal is to reintroduce predators such as wolves and lynx to their ancient Highland habitats. People close to the Povlsens play down this possibility - and insist the couple's actions can be partly explained through the cultural ethos known as Jante Law, which underpins life in Denmark and other parts of Scandinavia. In essence, it means that people are expected to live life in a thoughtful and modest way, and "not to think you are anything special". There is no denying the Povlsens live a fairly understated life in comparison to most other billionaires. They sent their children to state schools, and Mr Povlsen only recently replaced his VW Golf with a Tesla electric car. On the other hand, buying land in Scotland which is valued at more than £100m is far from understated. Tim Kirkwood, chief executive of Wildland - the Aviemore-based company which manages the Povlsen estates - says the couple are "genuinely modest and humble people" who "prefer to be judged by what they do and not what they say". These actions include planting one-and-a-half million trees on the Killiehuntly Estate in the Cairngorms National Park, as well as reducing the numbers of sheep and deer on many of the estates. Mr Kirkwood says the Povlsens will invest about £50m over the next three years alone on re-wilding projects across their estates, with the promise of further investment over what is considered to be a 200-year project by the family. He added: "I cannot stress enough this is not land ownership for the sake of land ownership. These plans are considered and for the long-term benefit of the landscape and its ecology. "By having continuous lands I think it does help manage the landscape better, it is much easier to achieve things, certainly in a consistent manner than you would struggle to achieve with more fragmented ownership." Mr Kirkwood also described the potential reintroduction of species such as wolves and lynx as being at the "more radical end" of the re-wilding scale - with decisions on whether it should happen for future generations to take, and "not now". He added: "We are more at the people and place end of the scale just now. It is more important to forge ahead with these large-scale conservation projects." The Povlsens' extensive Scottish land and property empire is good news for the Danish public purse, as Danes pay tax on all the land they own - regardless of where it is. This article was inspired by questions sent in by readers of the BBC website. Do you have any other questions around land ownership - or any other topic - in Scotland that you'd like us to investigate? Use the tool below and we could be in touch. Your contact info Please don't publish my name I am over 16 years old I accept the Terms of Service The BBC retains the right to select from these contributions based on editorial requirements and subject to online terms and conditions and BBC editorial guidelines. For more information about how the BBC handles your personal data, see here. If you are reading this page on the BBC News app, you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question on this topic.

डेनिश अरबपति एंडर्स होल्च पोवलसेन और उनकी पत्नी ऐनी ने हाल ही में अप्रैल में श्रीलंका के हमलों में अपने चार बच्चों में से तीन की मौत के बाद स्कॉटलैंड के लोगों को उनके समर्थन के लिए धन्यवाद दिया। लेकिन फैशन रिटेल टाइकून स्कॉटलैंड का सबसे बड़ा निजी जमींदार कैसे बन गया-और वह अपनी विशाल हाईलैंड एस्टेट के साथ क्या करने की योजना बना रहा है?


Guernsey farmers 'behind schedule' after bad weather

Summary: Farmers are months behind schedule due to a summer of heavy rain, according to a spokesman for the Guernsey Farmers' Association.

James Watts said haymaking and silaging have been delayed, with the first silage supposed to have been completed by the end of May. He said cows were being kept under cover every night due to wet and muddy fields. Mr Watts said the delays could hit local farmers' finances. The rain has already seen the cancellation of one Guernsey festival, and the delaying of another. It was announced last week that the island's annual agricultural show would be split over two months to allow farmers more time to prepare their livestock. Mr Watts said he was not likely to enter any cattle in the show, as he hoped to be harvesting his wheat crops in August instead.

ग्वेर्नसे फार्मर्स एसोसिएशन के एक प्रवक्ता के अनुसार, भारी बारिश की गर्मी के कारण किसान निर्धारित समय से महीनों पीछे हैं।


A74(M) crash near Lockerbie: West Drayton man named by police

Summary: Police have identified a lorry driver who died in a crash on the A74(M) in Dumfries and Galloway.

Dorin Mihailescu, 52, of West Drayton, west London, died at the scene of the accident near Lockerbie at about 05:45 on Monday. His lorry struck the central reservation barrier of the motorway before leaving the road. A Police Scotland spokesman said inquiries into the cause of the crash were ongoing. It was the first of two serious accidents close to one another, and only a few hours apart on Monday. In the second incident a 34-year-old man was badly hurt following a crash involving a van and a lorry. The road in the area was shut for several hours.

पुलिस ने डमफ्रीज और गैलोवे में ए74 (एम) पर एक दुर्घटना में मारे गए एक लॉरी चालक की पहचान की है।


Young and jobless forever: What do the numbers tell us?

Summary: The jobs crisis facing the world's young people shows no sign of abating. The evidence suggests that queues for jobs are growing longer and some are getting so frustrated at their employment prospects they have taken to the streets to protest.

By Hannah BarnesBBC News The statistics can make gloomy reading. If you group together the European Union and other developed economies, the youth unemployment rate has risen by a quarter since 2008. But headline figures do not tell the whole story of the situation facing many of the world's young people today. A year ago I examined the work prospects for young people, pointing out some of the idiosyncrasies in the way the statistics are calculated. Twelve months on, the situation is no more promising. In fact, according to the United Nations' International Labour Organization (ILO), the situation for young people will continue to worsen until 2018. "It is not a good time to be a young person looking for a job," the ILO's Theodore Sparreboom says bluntly in one of the organisation's videos. The ILO estimates that in 2013, more than 73 million young people - those aged between 15 and 24 - are out of work, a global rate of 12.6%. The eagle-eyed will notice that this appears to be lower than last year's figure, which was originally 75 million, but has since been revised down as the real data became available and the ILO adapted its sophisticated econometric models. Who are the young and jobless? Before taking a closer look at the numbers in particular countries, we have to understand how they're arrived at. All unemployment rates are calculated as percentages not of the total population, but of something called the "economically active population". That is the employed plus the unemployed, which have strict definitions so that we can make comparisons between countries. Someone is classified unemployed if they do not have a job but would like one, have actively looked for one and have the time to do it. A person is "economically inactive" if they neither have a job nor are unemployed according to the definition above. It could be that someone does not want or need to work so hasn't actively sought out a job, or it could be that someone is unavailable to work - for example, as is likely with young people, they are studying full-time. Is there a gender gap? Relying on statistics alone can hide a far more complicated picture. For example, a young person's sex can make a big difference to their employment prospects. "If you are a young male you have a higher chance of finding a good and stable job in developing countries," says Sara Elder, a senior economist at the ILO. The difference is startling in some countries. Take the regions with the highest youth unemployment rates - the Middle East and North Africa. The unemployment rate for young Middle Eastern men was estimated to be 24.5% in 2012. For young women, it's much higher, at 42.6%. In North Africa too, young women are twice as likely to be unemployed as their male counterparts. What does irregular employment mean? Unemployment rates can also hide many of the realities faced by those who are in work. When you compare high-income economies to some of the least developed countries, "big differences are found in the regularity of work", explains Ms Elder. "Very few young people in the least developed economies can find a job with a contract that goes beyond 12 months." In developing countries, six in 10 young people are engaged in irregular employment: a salaried worker with a contract of less than a year, a self-employed young person with no employees and contributing family workers. The figure for high-income economies was fewer than two in 10. And there is a strong link between the proportion of young people in irregular employment and the proportion in informal employment - where people are either working in the black market or are working in the formal sector, but without entitlements to sick pay, paid annual leave and social security. Across 10 countries analysed by the ILO, the proportion of young people working informally is as many as eight out of 10. Does education distort unemployment figures? Using a strict definition of unemployment can also help give a misleading picture of the plight of the young. In developed economies, many people remain in full-time education into their twenties. This means that the economically inactive population is very large in relation to the economically active and high youth unemployment rates can be the result. If we revisit the two EU countries which featured last year, Spain and Greece, they both had youth unemployment rates higher than 50% in 2012 - increases on the year before. If we try to account for the effect of remaining in education by calculating the ratio of young people unemployed - the share of people without a job as a percentage of the whole youth population - the prospects for young people perhaps do not look quite as stark. The proportion "unemployed" in Spain now falls to just over 20%. In other areas of the world, using a strict definition of unemployment has the opposite effect: it hides a more worrying reality. Remember that to be counted as unemployed someone has to be actively looking for work. In most developed economies, it makes sense for young people to search. They have to prove that they've been trying to find a job in order to receive unemployment benefits. But in developing countries, where no such benefits exist and poverty forces young people out of school and into the workplace, it makes less sense. If we relax this "active job search" requirement, it has a significant impact. In some of the least developed countries the unemployment rate more than doubles. Unemployment continues to be a huge obstacle to millions of young people in scores of countries across the world. What is perhaps more worrying is that because of the way joblessness is calculated, the crisis could be even worse than the raw numbers suggest.

दुनिया के युवाओं के सामने नौकरियों का संकट कम होने का कोई संकेत नहीं दिख रहा है। सबूत बताते हैं कि नौकरियों के लिए कतारें लंबी हो रही हैं और कुछ लोग अपने रोजगार की संभावनाओं को लेकर इतने निराश हो रहे हैं कि वे विरोध करने के लिए सड़कों पर उतर आए हैं।


Passengers stuck on trains for 14 hours show 'Dunkirk spirit'

Summary: Passengers were stuck for up to 14 hours when at least three trains ground to a halt as freezing conditions hit lines in the New Forest in Hampshire. But what is it like to be one of the unlucky few, spending the night in a cold carriage full of strangers with no way out?

Robert Luther was among about 100 passengers on a five-carriage train which left London Waterloo bound for Weymouth early on Thursday evening. The electric train ground to a halt near New Milton, Hampshire, due to ice on the conductor rail. With the line blocked, other services backed up. The situation was "unbelievable", he said. "A chap had a packet of biscuits - people shared what they've got. "It's fortunate people had winter clothing - it looked like we were going on ski trip. We haven't had fresh water or heating since 8-9pm. "The toilet pans were full up and we couldn't get off the train either. "It shouldn't happen in this day and age, it's not as if we've got three-foot of snow on the tracks." They were eventually rescued at about 08:00 GMT on Friday. Phillip Brown, who was travelling home from London on a 17:05 South Western Railway service said: "It prevents you from sleeping when you get that cold, so it was a case of walking up and down to get some temperature back and keep warm. "People were taking it in their stride, but I felt sorry for the guard and the driver. They weren't getting any information." Harold Hanna, from Barton on Sea, was stuck with 50 other passengers on the line between Sway and New Milton. He said that, despite the chilly conditions, he had made some new friends as the "Dunkirk spirit" flourished among his fellow passengers. Others posted pictures on social media showing them trying to bed down for the night. Martin Hemmingway was stuck on a CrossCountry train and had an altogether different experience. "CrossCountry were brilliant," he said. We were fed and watered and warm through the night, I've nothing but praise for them. The staff were wonderful." South Western Railway issued a statement earlier apologising to passengers. It said: "Passengers will be taken to Bournemouth station where we have staff waiting to give them hot food and drinks." The firm said it "sincerely apologised" to the stranded passengers and organised a train to rescue them. The company said it would be closing down its service by 20:00 GMT on Friday and urged people not to attempt to travel.

यात्री 14 घंटे तक फंसे रहे जब हैम्पशायर के न्यू फॉरेस्ट में ठंड की स्थिति के कारण कम से कम तीन ट्रेनें रुक गईं। लेकिन कुछ दुर्भाग्यपूर्ण लोगों में से एक होना कैसा लगता है, जो अजनबियों से भरी ठंडी गाड़ी में रात बिता रहे हैं और बाहर निकलने का कोई रास्ता नहीं है?


How the lift transformed the shape of our cities

Summary: We don't tend to think of lifts as mass transportation systems, but that's what they are. They move hundreds of millions of people every day, and China alone is thought to be installing 660,000 lifts a year.

By Tim HarfordBBC World Service, 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy The tallest building in the world, Dubai's Burj Khalifa, has more than 300,000 sq m (3.2 million sq ft) of floor space. The brilliantly engineered Sears Tower in Chicago has more than 400,000. Imagine slicing such skyscrapers into 50 or 60 low-rise chunks, then surrounding each chunk with a car park and connecting all the car parks together with roads. You'd have an office park the size of a small town. The fact that so many people can work together in huge buildings on compact sites is only possible because of the lift. 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that have helped create the economic world. It is broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen online or subscribe to the programme podcast. Or, perhaps we should say, because of the safety lift. Lifts themselves have existed for a long time. Archimedes is said to have built one in ancient Greece. In 1743, at the Palace of Versailles, Louis XV used one for clandestine visits to and from his mistress. The power for Louis's secret love-lift was supplied by a chap in a chimney breast, standing ready to haul on a rope when required. Other lifts in Hungary, China and Egypt were powered by animals. Steam power went further. Matthew Boulton and James Watt - giants of Britain's industrial revolution - produced steam engines that ran muscular industrial lifts that hauled coal up from the mines. Safety fears But while these lifts worked well enough, you wouldn't want to use them to lift people to any serious height, because - inevitably - something would go wrong. The lift would plunge down the shaft, loose ends of the rope flapping in the darkness, passengers screaming into oblivion. Most people can walk up five flights of stairs if they must. Nobody would want to take a lift to such a deadly height. So what mattered was making a lift that was not only safe, but demonstrably safe. Both the innovation and the demonstration fell to a man named Elisha Otis. At the 1853 World's Fair in New York, Otis climbed on to a platform, which was hoisted high above a crowd of onlookers nervy with anticipation. The entire contraption looked a little like an executioner's scaffold. Behind Otis stood a man with an axe. He swung down on to the rope, the crowd gasped, Otis' platform shuddered - but did not plunge. "All safe, gentlemen, all safe," boomed Otis. The city landscape was about to be turned on its head by the man who had invented not the lift, but the lift brake. "Turned on its head" is right, because the lift transformed where a building's highest status areas were located. Density and efficiency When the furthest reaches of a six- or seven-storey building were accessed only after an arduous climb, they tended to be the servants' quarters or the artist's garret. After the lift, the attic became the loft apartment, the penthouse. The lift flourished alongside two complementary sets of innovations: the steel and reinforced concrete that made it practical to build tall buildings, and the undergrounds and other mass transit systems that could bring large numbers of people into dense urban cores. In the quintessential high-rise centre, Manhattan, lifts and the underground are symbiotic. Without the density that the skyscrapers provide, it would be hard to run an underground system efficiently. Without the underground system, nobody would be able to get to the skyscrapers. The result is a surprisingly green urban environment: more than 80% of Manhattanites travel to work on the underground, or by bike or on foot, 10 times the rate for America as a whole. Minor miracle A similar story can be told for high-rise cities across the planet, from Singapore to Sydney. They tend to be highly desirable places to live - as witnessed by people's willingness to pay high rents. They're creative, as measured by a large output of patents and a high rate of start-ups. They're rich, as measured by economic output per person. And relative to rural and suburban areas, they are environmental utopias, with low rates of energy use per person and low consumption of petrol. More from Tim Harford How a razor revolutionised the way we pay for stuff Rise of the robots: What advances mean for workers Battery bonanza: From frogs' legs to mobiles and electric cars Superstar economics: How the gramophone changed everything This minor miracle - wealth and vitality in a modest environmental footprint - would be impossible without the lift. Yet the lift seems unfairly underrated. We hold it to a higher standard than other forms of transport. We're pleased if we only have to wait a couple of minutes for a bus or a train, but we grumble if we have to wait 20 seconds for a lift. Many people are nervous of lifts, yet they are safe - at least 10 times safer than escalators. Innovation and evolution Frankly, the lift is a faithful servant that is too often ignored. Perhaps - as Nick Paumgarten once suggested in the New Yorker magazine - this is because using a lift feels almost like being teleported: the doors close, there is a shift in the feeling of gravity, the doors open again and you're somewhere else. There is so little sense of place that without signs and LED displays, we wouldn't have a clue which floor we were emerging into. While we take the lift for granted, it continues to evolve. The challenges of ever taller skyscrapers are being met by super-light lift ropes, and by computer controllers that will allow two cars to shuttle up and down a single shaft independently, one above the other. But often the older, simpler ideas still work: for example, making the wait for a lift pass more quickly by putting full length mirrors in the lobby. And lifts are naturally energy efficient because their cars have counterweights. There's always room for improvement, of course. The Empire State Building - still the most iconic skyscraper in the world - was recently retrofitted in a $500m (£387m) project effort to reduce the building's carbon emissions. The retrofit included lifts with regenerative brakes, so that when a full car comes down or an empty car heads up, the lift supplies power back to the building. But the truth is that the Empire State Building was always energy efficient by the simple virtue of being a densely packed vertical structure next to an underground station. One of the organisations that designed the building's retrofit is visionary environmental organisation the Rocky Mountain Institute, whose super-efficient, environmentally sustainable headquarters, doubling as a showcase home for founder Amory Lovins, was built high in the Rockies, 180 miles (290km) from the nearest public transit system. The RMI has expanded and staff take pains to use bikes, buses and electric cars to get to work and many meetings are done by teleconferencing. And the RMI is a showcase for environmentally efficient design ideas - including high-tech window coatings, krypton-filled triple-glazing, a water-reuse system and energy-saving heat exchanges. But one of the most environmentally friendly technologies is on display in buildings all around us. It's a green mode of transport that moves billions of people every year - and yet is so overlooked that it can hide in plain sight. Tim Harford writes the Financial Times's Undercover Economist column. 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy is broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen online or subscribe to the programme podcast.

हम लिफ्टों को बड़े पैमाने पर परिवहन प्रणाली के रूप में नहीं सोचते हैं, लेकिन वे वही हैं जो वे हैं। वे हर दिन लाखों लोगों को स्थानांतरित करते हैं, और अकेले चीन में एक वर्ष में 660,000 लिफ्ट स्थापित किए जाने के बारे में सोचा जाता है।