Reality Check: Does China's Communist Party have a woman problem?

Summary: At the end of the Chinese Communist Party's 19th Congress, the new Politburo Standing Committee was revealed: seven middle aged men in dark suits, without a woman to be seen. There has never been a female member of the Standing Committee.

Of the 2,280 delegates at that Congress, fewer than a quarter were women. That's got some people asking whether the party should take gender equality more seriously. The New York Times wrote of women being "shut out" - but does the Chinese Communist Party have a woman problem? Of the 89.4 million members of the Chinese Communist Party, just under 23 million are women - that's 26%. And women make up 24% of China's National Congress - the sprawling national parliament. You don't have to be a Communist Party member to sit on that. Women are less represented the higher up the political tree you climb. After the last Congress in 2012, only 33 women sat on the Central Committee which elects the powerful Politburo - that's 9%. Only two of the 25 members of that Politburo were women - 8%. It's evidently difficult for Chinese women to break through the political glass ceiling. That's despite the government's stated commitment to gender equality, and despite the fact that more women than men are entering university in China. What's holding them back? Women usually join the party at university or when they join the workforce as a way of advancing their careers. However, promotion beyond county and township level is especially difficult. "The long-standing perception that women's place belongs at home and in the kitchen mean they are not meant to be ambitious," explains Professor Lynette H. Ong, Professor of Political Science at University of Toronto. "Their societal role is to be caregivers to the husbands, children and grandchildren. "Even though Mao once famously said, 'Women hold up half the sky', women still have a long way to go in their fights for equal representation." Top-level Women are also hindered because there is little chance of receiving a national appointment without first holding a provincial government or party position - it takes time to climb that ladder. A number of women reach mid-level executive positions. However, comparatively few reach a top-level leadership position. "One needs to build good guanxi (connection) with the people who have the power to appoint and they are predominantly men," explains Dr Ling Li, Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. A lower national retirement age for women also hinders the opportunity for promotion. China's national retirement age is currently 60 years old for men, 55 for female civil servants and state enterprise employees, and 50 for all other female workers. Some feel the government should be more proactive. "There is inadequate state intervention to implement policies to alleviate some of the barriers to women's progression in politics. Quota requirements have had the opposite effect because of the way they have been interpreted," explains Prof Jude Howell, Director for the Centre for Civil Society at the London School of Economics. But is the situation in China unusual? Are Chinese women any worse off than women elsewhere in the world? Not really. Women out of power Comparing the work women do in China's National Congress to the work of British MPs or US Congresswomen is like comparing apples with pears. But one thing is clear - women make up small percentages of political decision-making bodies around the world, not only in China. They make up only 32% of MPs in the UK's House of Commons - and that's a record high. They account for only 11% of members of India's Lok Sabha and 9% of Japan's House of Representatives. There are some countries with a much better record - women sit in 61% of the seats in Rwanda's Chamber of Deputies, and in communist Cuba, make up 49% of the Asamblea Nacional. So much for women at the top. How about the grass roots? Remember, 26% of Communist Party members are women. But that's unremarkable when you look at ruling parties around the world. Vietnam and Cuba are also one-party states. In the last available figures for both countries, fewer than 33% of party members are women. That picture is similar in some multi-party democracies. Women make up 26% of Angela Merkel's CDU party in Germany, and around 30% of Theresa May's Conservatives in the UK. Meanwhile, a survey carried out by the University of Sao Carlos suggests that 33% of all party members in the Brazilian state of Sao Paolo are female. So while women are under-represented in Chinese politics, the issue is not China's alone. Read more from Reality Check Follow us on Twitter

चीनी कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी की 19वीं कांग्रेस के अंत में, नई पोलित ब्यूरो स्थायी समिति का खुलासा किया गयाः काले रंग के सूट में सात अधेड़ उम्र के पुरुष, बिना किसी महिला के देखे जा सकते हैं। स्थायी समिति में कभी भी कोई महिला सदस्य नहीं रही है।


Your last-minute Christmas shopping tips

Summary: With less than a week until Christmas many of us will be panic-buying presents in time for the big day. Here are some tips on how to take the stress - and strain on your bank balance - out of last-minute Christmas shopping.

By Jennifer MeierhansBBC News Online Find more consumer stories and ideas on our Pinterest board Christmas Eve haul Katie Burton, from Telford, runs her own business, Maisie Moo gifts, and the run-up to Christmas is the busiest time of year for her. "Often I can be working 16 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, so finding time for anything other than eating and sleeping is very hard," she said. "Every year I tell myself I'll finish my Christmas shopping by mid-November ahead of the rush but inevitably things are left to the last minute. "With a week to go I always manage it. It just takes some planning. "Keep a list in a notepad or on your phone so every time you think of an idea for someone you can jot it down. "I get some online shopping done whenever I get a moment, like on a lunch break - click and collect is very handy. "By Christmas Eve I've normally got a list of well thought out gifts I need to purchase. "I often find shops have already started discounting things and my Christmas shopping trip is a bit of a smash-and-grab, racing round to get everything." Crafty solutions Natalie Oakley, from Sedgley in the West Midlands, manages to stay away from the shops by making gifts at home. She shares her tips on her blog Lady Like Momma. "There's nothing more warming to the soul than knowing someone will be receiving a gift that you have poured your heart, soul and time into," said Ms Oakley. "Making your own gifts is a great way to save money as you can usually recreate gifts seen in stores at a much lesser cost. "You can also relax knowing your gift is unique and your friends and family will not receive one quite like it. "Crafting is also a great way to unwind and 'take a moment' during this hectic time of year. "So take an hour, put on some Christmas tunes and get your glitter and glue gun ready and start crafting your way to gorgeous Christmas gifts." Bargain hunt Ashleigh Swan, from Walkergate, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was made redundant three years ago. The mother of three set up www.ashleighmoneysaver.co.uk to help other families save money. Her Christmas shopping technique could help avoid panic-buying next year. "I try not pay full price for gifts, ever. One way to do this is to start buying gifts in the January sales, then keep this going throughout the year during sale events," she said. "Buying presents throughout the year is easier to do for adults rather than children. "This is because children's toys go in and out of style, so you don't know what children will want later in the year. "A way to get around this is to buy toys that will always be popular. Board games, action figures and dolls are good ideas. "Some of the best bargains I have ever had include £90 worth of clothes from a high street store for £14. "I bought 50 boxes of well known chocolates for 2p each - they were perfect for gifts throughout the year, I obviously kept a box or two for myself too! "I got 75% off many gift sets including Soap & Glory, Jack Wills, Nivea, No7, Estee Lauder and many more. "I bought these in January sales and put them away for the following Christmas. It saved me tons of money and meant I didn't have to go Christmas shopping later in the year." This story was inspired by questions sent in by readers of Christmas Markets: Will Brexit have any effect?

क्रिसमस तक एक सप्ताह से भी कम समय के साथ हम में से कई लोग बड़े दिन के लिए समय पर घबराकर उपहार खरीदेंगे। यहाँ कुछ सुझाव दिए गए हैं कि क्रिसमस की अंतिम समय की खरीदारी से तनाव को कैसे दूर किया जाए-और अपने बैंक बैलेंस पर दबाव कैसे डाला जाए।


Biafran leader Nnamdi Kanu: The man behind Nigeria's separatists

Summary: After spending more than a year-and-a-half in a Nigerian jail without trial on treason charges, Nnamdi Kanu is now free on bail. The BBC's Stephanie Hegarty explains who Nwannekaenyi "Nnamdi" Kanu is and why he attracts so much controversy

Nnamdi Kanu founded the Indigenous People Of Biafra (Ipob) in 2014. The movement wants a group of states in south-east Nigeria, made up mainly of people from the Igbo ethnic group, to break away and form the independent nation of Biafra. The plan is not new. In 1967 Igbo leaders declared a Biafran state, but after a brutal civil war, which led to the deaths of up to a million people, the secessionist rebellion was defeated. But the idea of separatism has bubbled away since then and Mr Kanu is the latest in a line of Biafran activists taking up the cause. He was a relatively obscure figure until 2009 when he started Radio Biafra, a station that called for an independent state for the Igbo people and broadcast to Nigeria from London. Though he grew up in Nigeria's south-east and went to the University of Nsukka, Mr Kanu moved to the UK before graduating. Soon after setting up Ipob, he spoke to gatherings of the large Igbo diaspora, calling for Biafran independence. In some of his comments, he urged Biafrans to take up arms against the Nigerian state. "We need guns and we need bullets," he said in one such address. And that is what brought him to the attention of Nigeria's security services. 'Frivolous' However Ipob spokeswoman Amarachi Chimeremeze told the BBC this was not a literal call to arms: "That was a metaphor, to tell the people we are going to fight for this." If his trial, currently due to begin in July, does actually get underway, that is the question the judge will have to rule on. In October 2015, soon after arriving in Nigeria for a visit, he was arrested in his Lagos hotel. He was charged with "criminal conspiracy, intimidation and membership of an illegal organisation" - charges that could amount to treason. His lawyer, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, told the BBC that the charges were "frivolous". "They were concocted to ensure his detention in prison. These are smoke-screen charges that will never see the light of day." Biafra at a glance: Since his arrest, groups of Ipob supporters have gathered in protest around Nigeria and the movement has gained momentum. They believe that the British vote to leave the European Union and Donald Trump's election in the US are evidence of growing international support for the "right to self-determination" which they espouse. Some have said they are now seeking "Biafrexit". Organised pro-Biafran protests have almost always been broken up by police, with Ipob saying their followers were injured or even killed, something the authorities vehemently deny. An Amnesty International report also claimed that at least 150 people were killed by Nigerian security forces in the course of pro-Biafra protests between August 2015 and August 2016. The violence has led to increased publicity and Cheta Nwanze, a political analyst who has done extensive research on the pro-Biafra movement, says Mr Kanu's "arrest was a mistake because it played into his hands". "When the 2015 election happened, there was a slowdown in the popularity of his radio station and that's when he decided to come to Nigeria to get arrested." Mr Nwanze believes Mr Kanu is an opportunist and points to a video of him speaking at an anti-Boko Haram rally in London just months before he set up Ipob, where he spoke about the need to protect Nigeria from breaking apart. But the Ipob spokeswoman disputes this. She says Mr Kanu simply went to Nigeria to show his commitment to the struggle. "He came to prove to them that he meant everything that he said. The Nigerian administration were acting as if according to a script and arrested him," Ms Chimeremeze told the BBC. 'Lost tribe of Israel' Putting his separatist ambitions aside, human rights groups and some senior politicians have been calling for Mr Kanu's release, arguing that his many months of detention without trial was unlawful. As is common with the Nigerian legal system, the case has been plagued by delays. After a year-and-a-half, no significant progress has been made. The government ignored several court orders calling for Mr Kanu's bail before bowing to a court order last week, and granting it "on medical grounds". But the bail conditions are harsh: The Ipob leader is banned from public speaking, granting interviews or being in a group of more than 10 people. As a condition of that bail Mr Kanu had to bring a prominent Igbo leader, a wealthy resident of Abuja and a senior Nigerian Jewish leader to provide 100m naira ($260,000; £200,000) each as surety to the court. The Ipob leader says he is an Igbo Jew, part of a group who believe they are descendants of the lost tribe of Israel who settled in West Africa. It is hard to judge the real strength of a movement like Ipob and its leader. While the misery of the Biafran war put an end to the separatist ambitions of many Biafrans, a lot of Igbo people still feel that they are not fairly treated in Nigeria. And some argue that President Muhammadu Buhari is doing little to help that. After all, he was a soldier in the army that defeated the separatists in 1970. Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, on the other hand, was recently celebrated for opening a conversation on what happened during the Biafran war. What happens to Mr Kanu and Ipob next is not clear. The movement may go the way of Massob (Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra), an earlier separatist movement. Massob lost some of its influence after its leader was jailed in 2005 and released two years later. This year marks 50 years since the Biafran war began. What the interest in Mr Kanu and his movement shows more than anything else is Nigeria's 50-year failure to put the idea of Igbo separatism to rest.

राजद्रोह के आरोप में मुकदमे के बिना नाइजीरियाई जेल में डेढ़ साल से अधिक समय बिताने के बाद, नामदी कानू अब जमानत पर रिहा है। बीबीसी की स्टेफ़नी हेगार्टी बताती है कि नावनेकेनी "नामदी" कानू कौन है और वह इतना विवाद क्यों आकर्षित करता है


Boston bombings: Timeline of manhunt

Summary: Police have captured the remaining suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings after a manhunt. Here is how events unfolded in the tense search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who remained at large for more than a day.

Thursday 18 April 17:10 local time (21:10 GMT) Police release CCTV images of two suspects they want to question following Monday's bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon which killed three people. "Suspect no. 1" - wearing a dark baseball cap - is later identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26. "Suspect no. 2" - wearing a white baseball cap - is later identified as his younger brother Dzhokhar, 19. After 22:30 A major police operation gets under way at Watertown near Boston after a police officer is fatally shot at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It later emerges the brothers hijacked a car and held its owner for half an hour before releasing him at a petrol station. In a car chase with police, the suspects throw explosives and exchange gunfire. Tamerlan Tsarnaev is hit during the shootout, taken into custody and later pronounced dead. Dzhokhar escapes on foot. Friday 19 April Before 01:00 FBI agents descend on Watertown in a huge manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. 03:00 Residents are told to stay indoors as police search house-to-house. 05:30 Public transport systems are suspended. 06:00 Heavily armed state police begin multiple sweeps of streets in Watertown. 08:00 Stay-indoors order extended to entire city of Boston. Search continues throughout the day. 18:00 Stay-indoors order lifted and public transport reopens. 19:00 Gunfire breaks out in Watertown and police converge on house on Franklin Street. It later emerges that the resident exited his home after the lockdown was lifted and noticed bloodstains near his boat. He lifted the tarp covering the boat and found the suspect in the stern. A crowd near the scene cheer as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is led away by police. 20:45 Police announce the capture of the suspect and he is being treated at a Massachusetts hospital for gunshot wounds. 22:00 President Barack Obama praises the law-enforcement teams for their work. He adds that many questions remain outstanding about the suspects, including whether they had help from others, and urges the public not to rush to judgement about the suspects' motivations.

पुलिस ने बोस्टन मैराथन बम विस्फोटों में शेष संदिग्ध को एक खोज के बाद पकड़ लिया है। यहाँ बताया गया है कि ज़ोखर सारनेव की तनावपूर्ण खोज में घटनाएँ कैसे सामने आईं, जो एक दिन से अधिक समय तक फरार रहे।


Coronavirus: Hungary on Wales quarantine list as Sweden removed

Summary: Travellers to Wales from Hungary will have to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival from Saturday, but Sweden is to be removed from the quarantine list.

Hungary and the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean join countries like France, Spain and Portugal on Wales' quarantine list. The new rules will come into force at 04:00 BST on Saturday and will also apply to those returning to England. Ten Greek islands, Austria and Belgium are also on Wales' quarantine list. A similar announcement was made by the UK government for England, which also decided to remove mainland Portugal, French Polynesia from its quarantine list. The countries had already been added to Wales' quarantine list. Health Minister Vaughan Gething said he made the decision to make the changes following a review of the latest assessments by the Joint Biosecurity Centre.

हंगरी से वेल्स जाने वाले यात्रियों को शनिवार से आने पर 14 दिनों के लिए आत्म-पृथक करना होगा, लेकिन स्वीडन को संगरोध सूची से हटा दिया जाना है।


Apple's HomePod: Superb sound, but how smart?

Summary: We weren't allowed to film it, so I can't show it to you, but a quick off-camera demonstration of Apple's new HomePad speaker confirmed what the company promised on stage: it sounds terrific.

Dave LeeNorth America technology reporter The company trotted out two "competing" devices, a Sonos Play 3 speaker ($299) and an Amazon Echo ($180), to receive something of an audio beating at the hands of the HomePod ($349). But this should be no means be considered an independent test. Apple controlled all aspects of it, including the settings on the competing devices. Even so, Apple made a point of touting the device's spacial awareness. If you put it in the corner of the room, a spokeswoman said, it would quickly recalibrate itself in order to fill the room with sound. Put one in the middle of the room and it'll play sound out in all directions. But stick it in the corner and it will aim its output away from the wall. Pair two of the devices together, and they'll act as stereo speakers. In the highly-controlled environment, it delivered as promised . Tougher will be how it deals with homes full of objects that make the task harder. But while Apple's device can claim, in this test at least, to sound the best - that may not be enough to make the product a success. Homepod hobble Siri is built in to the device, and though an integration with Apple Music you can ask it requests such as "play Sia". Annoyingly, and one thing that will be frustrating to many, that integration will I'm told only work with Apple Music. If Spotify is your preferred music service for example, you can't use voice commands. Instead you'll need to resort to treating the HomePod like a bluetooth speaker. What may hobble Apple's HomePod won't be the noise it makes, but its less impressive listening skills. Siri is in third place behind Google Home and Amazon's Alexa when it come to offering intuitive, natural digital assistant. But Siri will only improve, and Apple's decision to sell this as a music device makes perfect sense. If I think about my own habits with Alexa and Google Home - and I've been trying them both for months now - I'd say a good 90% of use is for music. The assistant side of things just isn't useful enough at the moment. So should Amazon and Google be worried by Apple's new gadget? Not yet. There's more than enough room for all of them, and besides, the real casualty in this race will be the likes of Sonos and Bose. Now simply sounding great is no longer enough. ___________ Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC You can reach Dave securely through encrypted messaging app Signal on: +1 (628) 400-7370

हमें इसे फिल्माने की अनुमति नहीं थी, इसलिए मैं इसे आपको नहीं दिखा सकता, लेकिन ऐप्पल के नए होमपैड स्पीकर के एक त्वरित ऑफ-कैमरा प्रदर्शन ने पुष्टि की कि कंपनी ने मंच पर क्या वादा किया थाः यह बहुत अच्छा लगता है।


Facebook - not dead, not buried

Summary: Over the weekend, there was some scary news for the world's biggest social network. Facebook, the story went, was "dead and buried", teenagers were turning away "in their droves", put off by their parents' presence on the network.

Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent@BBCRoryCJon Twitter It was "the start of what looks likely to be a sustained decline". The headlines appeared first in the UK, then spread rapidly around the world. But I was sceptical. I've seen plenty such stories over the years - I wrote my own first piece asking whether Facebook was in decline around Christmas 2007 - and each time the social network has just kept on growing. But this story emerged not from some dodgy survey promoted by a marketing company or even from a journalist whipping something up in the quiet days between Christmas and New Year. It came from "comprehensive European research", something called the Global Social Media Impact Study. This EU-funded project, headed by Professor Daniel Miller from University College London, looks like a serious piece of work. Its website tells us that its aim is to study how social media are changing our lives and involves "eight highly trained ethnographic researchers based at UCL... each spending 15 months during 2013-4, in small towns in Brazil, China (2), India, Italy, Trinidad, Turkey and the UK". There is some interesting material on the project's blog - the researchers have found that 40% of Italians have never changed their Facebook privacy settings - but nothing immediately apparent about the social network's demise among young people. So, was this a case of journalists taking an academic research paper and overhyping it? No - the man who sold, perhaps oversold, the story turns out to be Professor Miller, leader of the GSMI study. All of the quotes in the opening paragraph of this blogpost came from a piece he wrote on a website called The Conversation, whose catchline is "academic rigour, journalistic flair." The piece makes it clear that he has drawn his conclusions not from the study as a whole but from its work in the UK. "What we've learned from working with 16-18 year olds in the UK is that Facebook is not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried." They have gone off to cooler places like Snapchat, Instagram and WhatsApp, he tells us, because they are embarrassed to hang out on a network now frequented by their parents. What the piece does not make clear is how this research has been conducted, how many teenagers were involved, where they were and how they were selected. Professor Miller is hard to contact right now - his Twitter account (@dannyanth) tells us he's "at work/rest in remote site in Caribbean with intermittent/poor internet access. Back end January." But he has used Twitter to answer some questions about his research. He says it involves school kids in villages north of London from three schools with a population of more than 2,000, and "the data is ethnographic/qualitative but I strongly encourage people to interview schoolkids to find confirmation," he said. Now it is obviously true that rival networks and apps are increasingly popular amongst teenagers, and it may also be the case that some of them are leaving Facebook for good. But do interviews with some 16 to 18 year olds in one small area really tell us that young people are leaving Facebook "in their droves" and herald a "sustained decline"? That seems quite a stretch - the plural of anecdote is not data, as the man said. And there is plenty of data out there about Facebook - notably from the company itself which now has to update investors regularly about its users. The company's chief financial officer David Ebersman caused a tremor in the share price in October when he indicated that there had been a slight fall in daily activity on Facebook among teenagers. The shares quickly recovered and have now scaled new heights - but surely when trading begins in New York on Monday afternoon traders will rush to sell in response to the "dead and buried" story? Or perhaps they will decide that Professor Miller's theories show more journalistic flair than academic rigour. UPDATE 15:00 GMT, 30 December Professor Daniel Miller has now written a blogpost responding to this post and defending his research methods. He reveals that the article in The Conversation which appeared under his name - and which made the story go viral - was in fact written by a journalist. He says he checked her piece for factual errors but "left in elements in her version that perhaps over-simplified the original".

सप्ताहांत में, दुनिया के सबसे बड़े सोशल नेटवर्क के लिए कुछ डरावनी खबर आई। फेसबुक, कहानी में कहा गया, "मृत और दफन" था, किशोर नेटवर्क पर अपने माता-पिता की उपस्थिति से "अपने झुंड में" दूर जा रहे थे।


Jersey budget sets aside millions for ash disposal

Summary: A plan to bury ash from Jersey's waste incinerator has been allocated £3m of funding in the States' latest budget.

The scheme, which aims to see the ash buried in pits at La Collette headland, has yet to be finalised. A meeting is due to take place between the Transport and Technical Services Department and environmental group Save Our Shoreline to discuss options. The draft budget will be debated on 4 December and will come into effect on 1 January 2013.

जर्सी के अपशिष्ट भस्मक से राख को दफनाने की योजना को राज्यों के नवीनतम बजट में 3 मिलियन पाउंड का धन आवंटित किया गया है।


Narendra Modi's historic win: 'India is at the whim of one man'

Summary: Indian PM Narendra Modi made history on Thursday, after he won a second landslide. The BBC's Jugal Purohit spoke to leading political analyst Pratap Bhanu Mehta about what this means for India. Q: You recently said that "something is happening which is mutilating the soul of India's democracy". Now that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has returned with a bigger than ever mandate, what do you see for India from now until 2024?

As I said, what makes this election very distinctive is that it has produced - arguably [and] institutionally - the strongest government India has had, possibly since independence. Even Jawaharlal Nehru did not have as much control over his party as Mr Modi does. I do think, I worry that there was something surreal about this election. My worry is about the fact that we've reached a point where truth does not seem to matter. And that is a dangerous point for a democracy. I do think we are in very uncharted territory. That's why this moment does represent a significant danger to Indian democracy because democracy survives on the fragmentation of power. We are now largely at the whims of one person and what he decides to do with this extraordinary mandate that he's been given. To me, the most striking aspect is the number of people who are fearful of speaking their minds, including some of India's most privileged and powerful - so the dominant tenor of this election was not that of a nation marching on with confidence. When people trust each other and distrust their leaders, you get democracy. When people distrust each other and completely trust their leaders, you get dictatorship. I think we are at the second moment right now. Q: One significant and persistent feature of the last five years of the Modi government was the spate of lynchings reported from across the country. How do you analyse the role and importance of those lynchings in his re-election and how do you see that situation going forward from here until 2024? I think it will be a little too quick to say that lynchings were a causal factor in the consolidation of the BJP. But I think what they did do was very clearly indicate to their core constituency that this is now a country where majoritarianism can rear its head with impunity. I think [the] lynchings were a politically diabolical move because at that point the BJP understood that any major riots just statistically look bad - and they have the possibility of uniting forces against communalism, which makes lynchings a special kind of modus operandi. Because at one level, it looks like a drip, drip, drip - and doesn't concentrate your mind in a way that a large cataclysmic event does. Yet it manages to send a signal that various communities should know their place. I think the need to periodically remind people that this is a Hindu majority country and the marginalisation of what you might call this composite history - I think that trend will accelerate. Q: Do you believe that it is time for the Gandhi family and Rahul Gandhi in particular to let go of the Congress party's leadership? He does not have the moral right and I think he will own up to the responsibility of the defeat. That's not the issue. The issue is what do you do after that - and all I am saying is simply removing Rahul [Gandhi] tomorrow doesn't solve your core problem. I think Congress needs a complete overhaul of its leadership. Pratap Bhanu Mehta is vice-chancellor at Ashoka University.

भारतीय प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी ने गुरुवार को दूसरी बार भारी जीत हासिल करने के बाद इतिहास रच दिया। बीबीसी के जुगल पुरोहित ने प्रमुख राजनीतिक विश्लेषक प्रताप भानु मेहता से बात की कि भारत के लिए इसका क्या मतलब है। प्रश्नः आपने हाल ही में कहा कि "कुछ ऐसा हो रहा है जो भारत के लोकतंत्र की आत्मा को विकृत कर रहा है।" अब जब भारतीय जनता पार्टी (भाजपा) पहले से कहीं अधिक बड़े जनादेश के साथ लौटी है, तो आप अब से 2024 तक भारत के लिए क्या देख रहे हैं?


Grimsby £8m YMCA hostel Plans approved

Summary: Plans have been approved for an £8 million YMCA hostel.

The building on Freeman Street in Grimsby will have 74 bedrooms, conference and exhibition rooms, a cafe and gym. The site will replace the centre in the town's Peaks Lane, with 50 members of staff transferring to the new building. The YMCA's other 26-bed facility on the other side of Riby Square will remain open under the plans. YMCA Chief Executive Debbie Cooke said: "YMCA Humber has a proud history, with a Christian ethos embedded in all we stand for," she said. "This ambitious plan is about the YMCA stepping up as a community leader to provide aspirational accommodation and opportunity for our residents and the local community. The building will be developed on the site of the former House of Holland store. It is part of a larger redevelopment of the Freeman Street area. Follow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.

8 मिलियन पाउंड के वाई. एम. सी. ए. छात्रावास के लिए योजनाओं को मंजूरी दी गई है।


York's mass Covid-19 vaccination site to open

Summary: A mass Covid-19 vaccination site will open in York on Tuesday.

The open-air site at Moor Lane car park, Askham Bar, is currently being used as a flu vaccination site. A primary care provider will deliver the vaccine to eligible patients working with 11 GP practices in the area. Patients will be invited to attend for vaccination by their surgery and will have to return for a booster jab at a later date. York-based primary care provider Nimbuscare Ltd said the vaccine would be given to priority patient groups first. Professor Mike Holmes said: "This programme is one of the most important moments in the history of the NHS. "Delivering the vaccine on this scale is a huge task and we're fortunate to have a dedicated and experienced team which is making this possible. "We have joined with clinicians, volunteers, primary care colleagues and local organisations from across the York area to make this happen and we thank them all for their support. "We have been working round the clock to get the site ready and await the arrival of the first vaccines." Prof Holmes added people should not contact their GP practice or hospital to ask about the vaccine and should not come to the site without an appointment. Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk or send video here.

मंगलवार को यॉर्क में एक बड़े पैमाने पर कोविड-19 टीकाकरण स्थल खोला जाएगा।


Businessmen, lawyers and justice

Summary: The simple fact that most prisoners come out of jail and reoffend is the government's central justification for dismantling the state-provided probation service in England and Wales. The hard part is putting something else in its place that will work better.

Mark EastonHome editor@BBCMarkEastonon Twitter The Justice Secretary Chris Grayling is determined to cut recidivism but he wants to save money at the same time. His answer is, effectively, to privatise probation. All but the highest risk offenders will be managed by non-state providers. The government talks about private and voluntary sector bodies running the 16 contracts, but few charitable organisations have the capital reserves or expertise to win the tendering process. There will be a role for not-for-profit bodies in front-line delivery of some services, but it looks almost certain that the people in charge will be hardheaded businessmen out to make a return. The Ministry of Justice is convinced that the profit motive will deliver a cheaper and more efficient service. Critics argue it will lead to confusion, waste and risk. Companies like Serco and G4S, which already advertise their willingness to expand into the probation sector, are front-runners for the contracts - a prospect which naturally alarms the 20,000 people employed by the state-run service at the moment. It is thought that around 14,000 probation officers may lose their state-funded jobs. Many will be re-employed by the private providers but, since one of the key aims of the reform is to save money, a significant number will not. It is no surprise that the National Association of Probation Officers, the union for the sector, say the government's motives are "purely ideological" and warn that "if this plan proceeds it will be chaotic and will compromise public protection". The association's influence, indeed its very existence, is threatened by the reforms. What, though, is one to make of the predictions of chaos and public risk? Similar arguments were put forward when the Labour government privatised prisons and introduced payment by results in other public services like the NHS. Indeed, the concept of "contestability" (market competition) was inserted into the DNA of the National Offender Management Service when it was being created almost a decade ago. The sky did not fall in. The public risk argument comes down to this: if you have low-medium risk offenders being managed by the private/voluntary sector and high risk offenders by the state sector there will be confusion and error because risk is dynamic. A survey of probation cases in London has suggested that 24% see a change to their risk status while under supervision. Most, of course, see their assessment go down. But some may suddenly be identified as a much greater risk than originally thought. The man jailed for reckless driving, a low risk at the outset, may emerge as someone who presents serious risk of domestic violence. How easy will it be for that person to be moved from the non-state provided service back into state supervision? Here lies the conundrum. The government insists that the new streamlined state-run probation service must not be "constantly looking over the shoulder" of the contract providers. Equally, they say the state-run service must have oversight of all cases. Where is the line drawn? Get it wrong, and confusion and risk increase. The Ministry of Justice stresses that a lot of the detail is still to be worked out; many of the challenges will be dealt with in the construction of the contracts. But, as ever, the devil will be in the detail. Putting together payment-by-results contracts often proves much more complex than originally planned. For example, an operation where Serco and the existing state-run London Probation Trust jointly provide Community Payback services for the MoJ took around two years to procure. One big headache is defining the "result" for which payment will be made. In the context of probation, how much reward, if any, should a contractor get if an offender with a history of violent crime commits no offences of violence while supervised, but steals a chocolate bar from Tesco's? There is also a concern that private providers might maximise profits by focusing on the less challenging cases. Offenders with complex needs may require high levels of investment which don't make business sense. The contract is key in addressing such questions. So the most important people in deciding whether these proposals work will not be politicians. Nor will they be businessmen, probation officers or voluntary sector mentors. Success or failure will be in the hands of contract lawyers.

सरल तथ्य यह है कि अधिकांश कैदी जेल से बाहर आते हैं और फिर से अपराध करते हैं, इंग्लैंड और वेल्स में राज्य द्वारा प्रदान की जाने वाली परिवीक्षा सेवा को समाप्त करने के लिए सरकार का केंद्रीय औचित्य है। कठिन हिस्सा इसके स्थान पर कुछ और डालना है जो बेहतर काम करेगा।


'Long Covid': The economy is also badly out of puff

Summary: The forecast contraction in the Scottish economy of 10% is in line with the UK, but worse than most other countries. Paying the bills may continue to weigh on health budgets well beyond this year, say fiscal experts, and we can expect big tax increases by 2025. Scots support higher taxes to support public services, though it's more a "liberal" preference than "authoritarian".

Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland Scotland's economy is not expected to return to its pre-pandemic levels of output for more than three years, according to a forecast published on Tuesday by the chief economist at the Scottish government. That's the central forecast, getting back to early 2020 output by the end of 2023. That is seen as following a dip of 9.8% in output being forecast for the whole of this year. Unemployment is expected to rise from 4.6%, the most recent figure for May to July, to a peak of 8.2% by this December. Since lockdown was eased, the recovery of some markets and stabilisation of the economy is not seen as being sustained into the fourth quarter of the year. Some others are talking about a fourth quarter contraction, so possibly a double dip recession. This forecast comes with a warning from Chief Economist Gary Gillespie: with this level of uncertainty, recovery could be much faster or slower. The chart he has set out displays a wide fan of possibilities. Brexit turbulence While it's this "central scenario" that takes Scotland back to pre-Covid output in late 2023, the chief economist in St Andrew's House is focussed on the risk of the downside. Things could be much slower to recover, depending on the imposition of further measures to control infection, with a knock-on effect for the economy. UK government policy has shifted from the furlough scheme to a less generous subsidy for employers who can pay at least half of a wage, and policy choices like that could push down the path of the recovery. Dr Gillespie was involved in drawing up a Scottish government alternative plan that would continue furlough until next June, at a cost of £850m, and 61,000 fewer people in the unemployment queue at the start of next year. Next there's Brexit, which is expected to be a drag on Britain's recovery, but how much is impossible to know when negotiations with the European Union are far from resolved. The Scottish government's forecast assumes the UK government is true to its intentions of striking a departing trade deal, so that it won't be too turbulent a departure from the single market and customs union. How would a 9.8% contraction in 2020 compare with other forecasts? The Bank of England and the Treasury have forecasts for UK economic output that lie a few notches to either side of that figure: 9.5% and 10%. The forecast for the world economy, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), looks like 4.5% contraction, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it might be 4.9% down. Most economic analysis is agreed that, when compared with most comparable developed nations, the UK is doing relatively badly in economic performance as well as Covid deaths. 'Global Britain' Of course, forecasting has a nasty habit of being wrong, particularly when in uncharted territory such as that being traversed in 2020. The performance of the economy was not as bad as Dr Gillespie forecast last April. He thought it was imploding by 30%, and he had good company for expecting that scale of contraction. As we're reminded in his State of the Economy report, published on Tuesday, the second quarter of the year showed a contraction of 19.4% - coming in less severely because lockdown was eased earlier than expected and some sectors remained surprisingly resilient. Included in his report is a review of trade figures, which are not the most reliable data, but worth a reminder that both exports and imports have taken a hit. In the second quarter, the data tells us overseas sales were down £5.7bn, or 31%, with oil and gas, along with beverages (a trade wonk's word for whisky) down by most. In the context of Brexit and the hopes of a "Global Britain" connecting with markets beyond Europe, it's interesting to note that exports beyond Europe were much less resilient. They fell twice as fast as those to the European Union. Digging into survey data from the Office for National Statistics, you can get at least a sense of how imports fared by comparison: while 36% of exporting firms said their numbers were below normal in August and September, that was true of 31% of importing firms. Test, Trace and Pay Much of my working day is taken up with reading more or less dire surveys and analysis of the economy and the business outlook. Stand by for the latest from the Fraser of Allander Institute, being published on Wednesday. On Tuesday, we got the view of the Institute of Fiscal Studies about the implications of all this for the choices facing the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, in setting public spending and taxation. Having postponed a budget from this autumn, due to uncertainty on both sides of the ledger, he may still produce a high-level view of spending priorities by the end of the year. The IFS is recommending he sticks to one year, as the intended three-year spending review would be likely to be (I paraphrase) a work of dystopian fantasy. The chief concern raised by IFS researcher and author Ben Zaranko is that the health costs of Covid - including Test and Trace, and all that disposable protective equipment - could well linger long after this financial year. Even if interest rates are low, debt payments will be up, after borrowing more than £300bn this fiscal year. Unemployment will be up, raising the benefits bill. But even assuming that a quarter of the £70bn extra day-to-day (resource) budget added to NHS spending this year is continued into 2021-22, it could require a devastating cut in non-health budgets, when they have already seen real spending per head fall by a staggering 25% in a decade. That's unless taxes go up. IFS director Paul Johnson doesn't see that happening next year or possibly the year after, while the priority remains use of borrowing to stabilise the economy. But he told BBC Radio Scotland that significant tax rises should be assumed after the 2024 Westminster election. Higher taxes? Decisions such as that have numerous knock-on effects on decisions required at Holyrood, despite (perhaps because of) income tax being devolved. So is there much of an appetite for taxes going up in Scotland? We got some guide to the mood of the nation, before Covid-19 was A Thing, in the regular survey of Scottish social and political attitudes. It's independently produced and part of it was published on Tuesday as well. The findings show a gulf between trust in Holyrood to listen and make the right decisions for Scotland, and in Westminster, which lags a long way behind. On the economy, while a smallish minority believed the economy had strengthened from 2018 to 2019, and that living standards had improved, those people were much more likely to credit the Scottish government than Westminster. By last year, growing the economy had risen to the top of people's list of priorities, chosen by 23% of people. That was ahead of improving health or education, while the environment and inequality were options seeing the fastest rises. The appetite for higher taxes, "to pay for health, education and social benefits" (the wording of the survey question can make a big difference) is now well ahead of those who think taxes should stay the same, by 55% to 37%. That gap was reversed from 2005 to 2015, with '"keep taxes the same" comfortably ahead. Those who want taxes cut, meaning government would "spend less on health, education and social benefits" (see how much the wording of the question matters?) has bobbled along the graph, consistently under the 10% mark. There's an interesting observation about that from the survey team at ScotCen Social Research. The decline in support for higher taxes to its low point over two decades, around 2009, was clearest among those who wanted Scotland to leave the UK. However, the subsequent rise in support for higher taxes has not been linked with the independence issue, but with other social and political views. It was people classed as "liberal" who increased their support for higher taxes, but not those with an "authoritarian" outlook. Asked if government should use taxes to redistribute from the better off to the worse off, 55% agreed and 20% disagreed, predictably split along left-right political lines. It's possible that those who like the smack of firm authority are also those who anticipate being walloped with those higher tax bills.

स्कॉटिश अर्थव्यवस्था में 10 प्रतिशत के संकुचन का पूर्वानुमान ब्रिटेन के अनुरूप है, लेकिन अधिकांश अन्य देशों की तुलना में बदतर है। राजकोषीय विशेषज्ञों का कहना है कि बिलों का भुगतान करने से इस वर्ष के बाद भी स्वास्थ्य बजट पर असर पड़ सकता है, और हम 2025 तक बड़े कर वृद्धि की उम्मीद कर सकते हैं। स्कॉट्स सार्वजनिक सेवाओं का समर्थन करने के लिए उच्च करों का समर्थन करते हैं, हालांकि यह "सत्तावादी" की तुलना में अधिक "उदार" प्राथमिकता है।


Pressure mounts on Iran's lawyers

Summary: The European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought has been collected on behalf of the jailed Iranian human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh. It comes at a time of what many campaigners say is unprecedented pressure on the legal profession in Iran, reports BBC Persian's Fariba Sahraei.

Kamal is a young Kurdish activist from north-western Iran. When he was arrested during the post-election protests in 2009 his family started looking for a lawyer to represent him. "We couldn't find a single person in our whole town who would agree to take on my case," he told the BBC. "Everyone we approached came up with an excuse. I got the feeling they had been threatened by the security forces." Eventually Kamal was given a state-appointed lawyer who made little attempt to defend him. He is now serving a 13-year prison sentence and spoke to the BBC while on day-release using a pseudonym. Hunger strike Iranian lawyer Shadi Sadr says stories like Kamal's are not unusual, and they highlight what she says is an increasing campaign of pressure on the legal profession in Iran. Ms Sadr told the BBC that since the wave of arrests following Iran's aborted 2009 "Green Revolution" many lawyers have been under pressure not to accept politically sensitive cases. And those that have, have been threatened, called in for questioning and even imprisoned by the security forces. Several, like Ms Sadr herself, have been forced to leave the country. One of the most prominent cases is that of Nasrin Sotoudeh, a well-respected and outspoken human rights lawyer known for taking on high-profile political cases in recent years. A mother of two, she was jailed for six years in 2011 on charges of conspiring to harm state security. Ms Sotoudeh denied the charges, which the UN said were believed to be linked to her work as a human rights defender. Last week, Ms Sotoudeh ended a 49-day hunger strike after the Iranian authorities lifted a travel ban on her 12-year-old daughter, Mehraveh. On Wednesday, five representatives received the Sakharov Prize on behalf of Ms Sotoudeh and Jafar Panahi, the Iranian filmmaker with whom she shared the award. Two empty chairs were put out by the European Parliament to symbolise the prize winners. Families pressured Ms Sotoudeh is a former colleague of the Nobel Prize-winning lawyer, Shirin Ebadi, who also now lives abroad. Ms Ebadi told the BBC that the prison authorities in Tehran were putting Ms Sotoudeh under huge pressure to make a false confession, something which she continues to resist. "The security services have been trying to force Nasrin to admit that she has been spying for the West, and to make a false confession against me too," she said. Ms Sotoudeh is not the only Iranian lawyer to find her family targeted. Maedeh Soltani is the daughter of another leading human rights lawyer, Abdolfattah Soltani, whose past clients have included the dissident journalist Akbar Ganji, Mr Soltani was sentence to 13 years in prison in 2011, but even before his arrest the security services were taking steps to silence his wife. "My mum was put under severe pressure by the intelligence services," Ms Soltani told the BBC. "After calling her in for questioning they gave her a one year jail sentence. It was shocking news for us because she had absolutely nothing to do with politics." Independence threatened Iranian lawyers are also concerned about a new bill currently up for discussion in parliament, which they say will deal the final blow to whatever independence the legal profession still has in Iran. Under the current system, which has been in operation for the past 60 years, lawyers are licensed, regulated and supported by the independent Iran Bar Association. The bill proposes establishing a new oversight committee for the legal profession, made up of seven people appointed by and answering to the all-powerful judiciary. Sadeq Larijani, the influential head of the judiciary, is a strong supporter of the bill, which he says is designed to improve co-operation. Ms Sadr says that the new system would enable the authorities to stop lawyers from getting involved in sensitive cases. It would also make it even harder for opponents of the current government to hire anyone to defend them, she adds. "If this bill is passed all independence for lawyers will be history," she warns. "It will destroy us."

यूरोपीय संसद का विचार की स्वतंत्रता के लिए सखारोव पुरस्कार जेल में बंद ईरानी मानवाधिकार वकील नसरीन सोतौदेह की ओर से एकत्र किया गया है। यह ऐसे समय में आया है जब कई प्रचारकों का कहना है कि ईरान में कानूनी पेशे पर अभूतपूर्व दबाव है, बीबीसी फारसी की फरीबा सहराई की रिपोर्ट है।


What is life like for a teenage prodigy?

Summary: Cameron Thompson is a 14-year-old maths prodigy from north Wales. He passed with high grades at maths GCSE and A-level and is now taking an Open University degree in pure maths. So what does it feel like to be a teenager growing up with raging hormones and a towering intellect?

By Lucy WallisBBC News Magazine At the age of 11, Cameron sat a school entrance maths test. "One hundred and forty one out of 140, I broke the system, I think I did well," he says. At the same age, he sailed through two GCSEs in maths and additional maths, and in the same year passed his maths A-level with flying colours. But being brilliant at maths has become Cameron's entire identity, and trying to fit in at school and develop his social skills has somehow become left behind in a desire to escape mediocrity. "I have the social ability of a talking potato," he says. "Most people my age do despise me. I've been like this for years. I'm used to being ignored." The foundations of his academic success have also been shaken by the fact that his grades for his degree course have been dropping, and he is panicking. In the first year, his marks were up in the 80s, putting him in the top 0.5%. But on a recent assignment, he scored 72%, a healthy grade by most people's standards, but not enough to secure the distinction that he wants. "I am a bit worried about failing the Open University," he says. "I just am, despite the fact that, technically, I shouldn't be doing it for about another five years." Fresh start Although Cameron can easily identify the answers, he has trouble explaining how he came to his conclusion, bringing down his overall marks, and he will only be able to continue with the degree if his marks show signs of improvement. His parents, Rod and Alison, who live near Wrexham, are unsure whether his struggle to explain is due to his age, or the fact he has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a type of autism that can occasionally combine great mental prowess with communication problems. "Apparently plenty of people with Asperger's are really intelligent, high achievers," Cameron says. "People like Einstein and Newton, they had supposed Asperger's." The pressure of making sure his marks improve on his next assignment is a worry for Cameron. It is not his parents that drive this ambition to achieve, but Cameron himself, and to add to this stress he is also growing up. "Mum first noticed a moustache, she saw it and told me about it," he explains. Not long after that, one of his younger sisters, 10-year-old Beth, accidentally ripped it off with a piece of sticky tape. With his family moving house, however, Cameron is facing a fresh start at a new school and the opportunity to try to establish a new social life. "It gives me a chance to start again, so they reckon [I'll] actually work my way up the social ladder, instead of just staying at the bottom," he says. "If I can make it to the middle I'm less likely to be bullied there, certainly not physically." One characteristic of Asperger's is a difficulty to make friends, and Alison worries that her son does not always listen to social cues. "Sometimes tact goes right over his head. Naive would be the best word for it," she says. "He is a brilliant kid. He couldn't do enough for everybody. At the same time, while sometimes he is oblivious, he is also very sensitive," she says. Choosing the right school for Cameron was critical, as his parents want him to develop a full range of skills and not just be an academic success. "We need to give him a good balance, we need to cater for his emotional needs, we need to cater for his social needs and develop a broad range of skills," says his father Rod. "Quite where we go when he hits GCSE year and he turns up with an honours degree is going to be a strange one." Cameron's new high school specialises in looking after children who are on the autistic spectrum and his teacher, Enid Moore, is keen to make sure that he takes his social studies seriously. She stresses that it is not enough to have examination certificates - Cameron needs to learn how to relate to people his own age and maintain friendships. On his first day he met Tim, another intelligent teenager who also has Asperger's Syndrome. The two share similar interests and issues, which means they can support each other through the difficult times. "It's amazing to have a new friend because he's funny... and he is also into the same computer games as me. The main thing that keeps us together is we both agree on the fact that [Justin] Bieber is an idiot," says Tim. Inspired by his new social life at school, Cameron has also - for the first time in his life - gone on a day out with a friend from his karate class to a computer games expo or "geek convention". Away from his growing teenage pursuits, Cameron is hoping to complete his degree course by the time he is 16. The mark on his last degree paper shows an improvement. With a total of 77%, Cameron can continue with the course, but is still disappointed with the result. "I expected above 80," he says. "I'm desperate to achieve, I'm desperate to get high marks. I'm too hard on myself." Prof Imre Leader, a maths fellow from Trinity College, Cambridge, has assessed Cameron's maths skills, and believes there is no point fast-forwarding through exams and qualifications unless someone is achieving 99% on every exam. "There's quite an important distinction between progressing, taking lots of exams as fast as you can, getting four or five years ahead of yourself, and relaxing and enjoying the level that you are at - what we call enrichment - doing some harder thinking material on your own level of maths. "That's often a more fruitful thing in the long run," he says. He has suggested that Cameron slows down a little and studies for a degree in maths at Cambridge or Oxford University at the age of 18, with those his own age. He also recommends that he takes part in summer camps with talented maths students from other schools. Although he still wants to complete his Open University degree, Prof Leader's advice has given Cameron another option in life. "He taught me that you need to go behind the scenes in maths. Not just on the surface but deep within. And as Prof Leader said, there are other people like me, high maths abilities, bad school lives, I am not alone. Spooky." Since he turned 14, Cameron has a new-found interest in girls and has been on his first date without his parents. "I started becoming interested in women about a few months ago," he says. "I started to like them instead of being disgusted by them." So, as Cameron is very happy with his new social life and has more of a plan for his long-term future, the growing pains are definitely easing for this teenage prodigy.

कैमरून थॉम्पसन उत्तरी वेल्स का एक 14 वर्षीय गणित विशेषज्ञ है। वह जी. सी. एस. ई. और ए-स्तर पर गणित में उच्च ग्रेड के साथ उत्तीर्ण हुआ और अब शुद्ध गणित में एक मुक्त विश्वविद्यालय की डिग्री ले रहा है। तो यह कैसा लगता है कि एक किशोर उग्र हार्मोन और एक विशाल बुद्धि के साथ बड़ा हो रहा है?


Tortured and killed: Kashmir's vulnerable policemen

Summary: At least 31 policemen in Indian-administered Kashmir have been killed by militants this year, according to official estimates. Sameer Yasir reports on how the state's police force is bearing the brunt of the insurgency.

Mohammad Ashraf Dar was killed in his kitchen in front of his one-year-old daughter on 22 August. It was the day of Eid-ul-Adha, a holy Muslim festival. The 45-year-old sub-inspector was posted to central Kashmir but he had come home to spend the holiday with his wife and three children. His family lives in the tiny village of Larve, surrounded by paddy fields and apple orchards, in southern Kashmir's Pulwama district. The region has witnessed a fresh spiral of deadly violence, sparked by the killing of a popular militant leader, Burhan Wani, in July 2016 by Indian security forces. And policemen, many of them local Muslims, have become the most vulnerable targets as violence escalates in the region. In recent months, they have even been advised to avoid visiting their homes. If they do, they should take "extreme precautions", particularly in the southern region, said the Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police, Shesh Paul Vaid. 'Like negotiating mines' Dar's colleagues said he was asked by his friends and family to stay away from home but he had said he had no need to hide. "Am I a thief? I have never wronged anyone," he had said. "The life of a local policeman fighting a homegrown insurgency is like walking on a road filled with landmines," said Ghulam Qadir, Dar's father. Muslim separatists have waged a violent campaign against Indian rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir since 1989. The region remains a subject of bitter dispute between India and Pakistan, who have fought two out of three wars over it. India has long accused Pakistan of fuelling the unrest, a charge Islamabad denies. The insurgency, which had begun to wane since the late 1990s, intensified in 2016 after Wani's death. When Kashmiris took to the streets to protest, security forces used "pellet guns", a kind of shotgun, against them. Indian forces had said that the pellets, made of rubber-encased steel, were not lethal but they killed dozens of people and injured more than 1,500 others, blinding hundreds of bystanders including children who were caught in the crossfire. Since then, the number of militants being killed has also shot up. In 2017 alone, 76 militants were killed - the highest in a decade - according to police. And this year, 66 were killed only in south Kashmir. For decades, the Indian government did not deploy policemen in their own towns or neighbourhoods in Kashmir in order to protect their identities and their families. But in the restive south - in districts such as Pulwama - as more local youth join the insurgency, the attacks on policemen have grown. No militant group has recently said it killed any policeman, even in Dar's case, which was a high-profile killing. Unofficially, police blame militant groups like Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-taiba for such attacks. 'My daughter's innocent eyes saw it all' The men who killed Dar knew where he lived. They crept into his house - their faces masked, carrying rucksacks and rifles slung over their shoulders - while he offered his evening prayers at the local mosque. "Keep your mouth shut," they told Dar's wife, Shehla Gani, as they pointed a gun at her. They pushed her and her two sons, Jibran Ashraf, 12, and Mohammad Owaim, 7, into a corner. "They pulled my hand and asked me where my father was," Jibran recalled. When Dar returned home, his one-year-old daughter, Iraj, was with him. But the masked men forced him into the kitchen while he still held her in his arms. He refused to let her go but they hit him and snatched her. "You are like my brothers," Dar said to the men. "I have never harmed anyone." Ms Gani, who could hear everything from the next room, says she then heard a volley of shots. Dar died on the spot. "My daughter's innocent eyes saw it all," Ms Gani said. "Is a policeman not Kashmiri?" asked Abdul Gani Shah, 68, a resident of Mutalhama village in south Kashmir. "By targeting policemen, militants are hurting their cause." In another incident in June 2017, Muhammad Ayub, a police officer in plainclothes, was lynched in the capital Srinagar. He had allegedly fired his gun into a crowd after getting into a brawl with some youths. In July 2018, constable Mohammad Saleem Shah went missing while he was on a fishing expedition with friends. His bullet-riddled body was found the next day in an apple orchard. Officials said at least 12 family members of policemen were kidnapped this year. On 28 August, suspected militants abducted the son of a policeman from his home in south Kashmir. The police traced the kidnapping to Riyaz Naiko, chief of the Hizbul Mujahideen militant group. Naiko had once threatened Kashmiri policemen to "leave their jobs or face consequences". Muhammad Aslam Chowdhary, a senior police officer, said he felt he was a target not just on the streets when he was in uniform but even inside the four walls of his home. Until recently, he was posted in Pulwama. "Sometime you even doubt your own family members," he added. Despite all this, many young Kashmiris want to join the police force. There aren't many jobs in the region because of sporadic violence and a weak economy. "I would like to join the police because I have to take care of my parents," said Furkan Ahmad, who is currently training to be a police officer. Meanwhile, the rift between Kashmiris and the police continues to widen. Protesters clashed with police in June after a demonstrator run over by a police jeep died in hospital. Police said they were defending themselves but locals alleged that they had deliberately driven into the crowd. "Humanity is dead," said Mr Qadrim. "It's been dead in Kashmir for a long time." Sameer Yasir is an independent journalist based in Srinagar, Kashmir.

आधिकारिक अनुमानों के अनुसार, भारत प्रशासित कश्मीर में इस साल आतंकवादियों द्वारा कम से कम 31 पुलिसकर्मी मारे गए हैं। समीर यासिर बताते हैं कि राज्य का पुलिस बल विद्रोह का खामियाजा कैसे झेल रहा है।


Liz Saville Roberts new Plaid Cymru leader in Commons

Summary: Dwyfor Meirionnydd MP Liz Saville Roberts has been elected Plaid Cymru's leader at Westminster.

She succeeds Hywel Williams, the MP for Arfon, who had been in the post for almost two years. Ms Saville Roberts became Plaid's first female MP at the 2015 general election, succeeding party colleague Elfyn Llwyd who stood down after 23 years. Plaid Cymru now have four MPs, after Ben Lake won Ceredigion from the Lib Dems in last week's election.

ड्वायफोर मीरियोनिड्ड एम. पी. लिज़ सेविले रॉबर्ट्स को वेस्टमिंस्टर में प्लेड साइमरू का नेता चुना गया है।


From Brexit with love: Lithuania sees its chance

Summary: They are the hot new trend in finance, and Marius Jurgilas's mission is to lure them to Lithuania. Yet even he has been shocked by the "overwhelming" number of enquiries from UK "fintech" companies in recent months.

By Vicky BakerBBC News, Vilnius The reason is Brexit. Financial technology companies are making last-minute plans in case of a no-deal Brexit on 29 March. Many are looking to secure financial licences in other EU states to protect their operations, and this Baltic nation has an eye on helping to fill the gap. Mr Jurgilas, a Bank of Lithuania board member, has had some notable successes. Customers of new-age bank Revolut might not know it has acquired its banking licence in Lithuania. Google's parent company Alphabet has one too. Mr Jurgilas insists his country's new direction is not all about Brexit. "It was a coincidence," he says. "Mostly we just want innovation to happen here, not 10 years down the road after things are implemented in Sweden." The start-ups with EU credentials Marius Jurgilas is not alone. On the seventh floor of a shiny new office block, the Blockchain Centre is on the hunt for hot new fintech markets in Lithuania's name. Inside, it is silent and the mood intense. Workers in headphones stare at black screens awash with code. Motivational posters on the walls carry messages such as: "The future will be decentralised." This one-year-old centre - which offers co-working space and consultancy services to start-ups using blockchain technology - plays to its EU credentials. Its website has an EU rather than a Lithuanian domain. But chief executive Egle Nemeikstyte says the centre is casting its net far beyond Europe. Australia, Singapore and Israel all want EU partners. There is still plenty of scepticism about how blockchain should be used, and Ms Nemeikstyte sometimes has to dissuade people from jumping on the bandwagon. "Lots of people come to us with ideas and we say that's great, but you don't need blockchain for it. Go ahead without it," she advises. What is blockchain? How tight will the rules be? Lithuania's expansion has been compared to Iceland, where the three biggest banks grew too fast and collapsed during the financial crisis of 2008. Marius Jurgilas insists such comparisons are unfair and Lithuania is far from gung-ho in the field. "We don't have the framework yet to know how to manage the risks. We don't want to go too fast in that area," he says of blockchain and crypto-currencies. And yet the Bank of Lithuania offers "no regulatory sanctions for the first year of operations", which some have suggested could be a sign of laxity. Officials will also be keen to avoid the money-laundering cases that befell its neighbours, Latvia and Estonia. What Lithuania does offer is a regulatory "sandbox", which allows financial technology companies to test products in a limited environment and under supervision. Such sandboxes are not common, but they are cropping up in places as disparate as Arizona and Kuwait. Critics worry that they mark a race to the bottom, but supporters insist they boost innovation and can be well-managed. 'Using Lithuania as a springboard' One of Lithuania's biggest coups, or perhaps risks, has been in backing financial technology company Revolut. Valued at $1.7bn (£1.3bn), it is one of the world's fast-growing app-based banks. Brexit is a primary reason for its move to Vilnius, but it will still retain its London HQ and the electric money licence it has from UK regulators. Last year it advertised for its third head of compliance in less than 18 months, and some have argued that it may be expanding too fast. However, the company insists it is just looking for the right fit. And there was "no cutting corners" when the company secured its specialised banking licence from Lithuania, insists head of business development Andrius Biceika. That will allow Revolut to offer full current accounts, pay interest on deposits and issue loans. By choosing Lithuania, it can operate across the EU. "We are going to pilot all this in Lithuania and then passport to other countries," says Mr Biceika. "We are seeing lots of companies using Lithuania as a springboard." Gearing up for no-deal Brexit In the UK, all the talk about Lithuania has travelled the corridors of Level 39 - a three-floor tech hub in London's Canary Wharf, where a number of its residents have been making insurance plans for Brexit. TransferGo - a money transferring company for migrant workers - received its electronic money licence from the Lithuanian central bank in July 2018. BABB - a yet-to-launch money transfer company that has no connections to Lithuania - is also midway through the process. While both made the decision because of Brexit uncertainty, both also cited Lithuania's local talent and helpful regulators as other motivations. The 'G-spot of Europe'? Go to an event for fintech start-ups in Vilnius and the room teems with enthusiastic young entrepreneurs. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, various international companies came here to save money. Among them was Western Union, where many Lithuanians learnt the ropes of finance. "We used to compete over low costs," says Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Simasius. "But now it is more about talent." Vilnius has certainly been putting itself out there. In mid-2018, it launched a bizarre tourist campaign called "G-spot of Europe" complete with tagline: "Nobody knows where it is but when you find it, it's amazing." Co-working hub Rise Vilnius is where you will find dozens of the new companies. Backed by British bank Barclays, it is one of seven such hubs in Mumbai, Tel Aviv, London, Manchester, Cape Town and New York. "There was scepticism that we would find enough fintech start-ups here, but we proved them wrong," says Mariano Andrade Gonzalez, executive director of Barclays' operations centre in Lithuania. The mayor of Vilnius says companies have discovered that the city's workforce is particularly suited to the new start-ups, because Lithuanians have good mathematical skills. "Maybe that goes down to the dark times of the Soviet Union. People studied these things instead of social studies. "It was natural for us to move into fintech, even before Brexit. We are willing to adapt to the future, not fight it."

वे वित्त में गर्म नई प्रवृत्ति हैं, और मारियस जुर्गिलास का मिशन उन्हें लिथुआनिया में लुभाना है। फिर भी वह हाल के महीनों में यूके "फिनटेक" कंपनियों से पूछताछ की "भारी" संख्या से हैरान हैं।


Euston tunnel protest: The activist who celebrated her 17th birthday in jail

Summary: Four climate change activists are risking their lives inside a network of manmade tunnels near Euston station in protest against the £106bn HS2 rail project. One of them is 18-year-old Blue Sandford, who has vowed to be underground for as long as it takes bailiffs to evict her.

By Thomas MackintoshBBC News, London It was early on Tuesday when a group of HS2 Rebellion protesters heard a team of bailiffs marching towards their Euston Square Gardens campsite. The campaigners have occupied the land since August, but HS2 requires possession of it so it can build a temporary taxi rank outside Euston station. It was an eviction attempt the protesters knew was coming, so to thwart their forcible removal they have spent the past two months digging a tunnel they claim is 100ft (30m) long. The tunnel has been widely condemned by officials and drew criticism from Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, who said the protesters' actions were "reckless, irresponsible and deeply concerning". But it was criticism Ms Sandford and her fellow activists knew would be coming. "I was already awake; we were doing stuff through the night when they came very suddenly," she recalls. "I heard the shout and I just jumped down and stayed down in the tunnel. "I couldn't really hear people and there was so much adrenaline. Everyone is safe and fine. "My mum is really scared and worried about me. Both parents feel quite heartbroken that I need to do this but also really proud and [they are] trying to support me and help me in any way they can. "We have had some communication with them [the National Eviction Team]. They are going to be as safe as possible and say there will be no surprises [while digging the protesters out]. "We have been working on this for so long, getting organised. It has been a secret until the BBC published an article." Ms Sandford, a published author on climate change, says digging the tunnel - codenamed "Kelvin" - is the activists' "best defence" against being evicted, but admits it is a very dangerous, even life-threatening, thing to have done. Planks of reclaimed wood have been used to shore up the tunnel, but that hasn't prevented partial collapses already and the authorities have warned that the protesters risk being buried alive. Ms Sandford, from London, maintains the activists are not intent on "martyring themselves" - their sole intention is delaying - or even stopping - the HS2 project, she says. "HS2 is a waste of money and time," Ms Sandford adds. "By the government's own admission, it will be heavily polluting and carbon intensive while demand for mass transit is falling and home working is the new norm for many people. "I'm angry that the government is still effectively ignoring this crisis despite declaring a Climate and Ecological Emergency two years ago. I'm in this tunnel because they are irresponsibly putting my life at risk from the Climate and Ecological Emergency. "I shouldn't have to do this - I should be in school - the trouble is, they are stealing that future and I have to stop them." Ms Sandford would only say her school was in London, but that it had "not taught her the truth" about the ecological emergency facing the planet. In the summer of 2019 she joined thousands of Extinction Rebellion protesters in central London as parts of the capital ground to a halt. She draws inspiration from her father Roc Sandford, who is the laird of the Hebridean isle of Gometra and describes himself on LinkedIn as an "Extinction Rebellion catalyser". Located off the west coast of Scotland, the few residents of the remote island live off the grid with no electricity or cars. "My dad is an environmental activist and has been for some time," she says. "He has been involved in Extinction Rebellion and I went along in 2019 and started hearing all these facts and got terrified and depressed. "One that I heard was that by 2050, 5bn people will be facing water shortages which was from a UN water report published 2018. I couldn't believe it." Despite the growing profile of Extinction Rebellion, the teenager still feels that not enough people see climate change as a real problem. Her activism led her to take part in the second set of Extinction Rebellion protests in October 2019, when police arrested more than 1,100 demonstrators. This time Ms Sandford was one of them. "It was for obstruction of the highway," she says. "I was on a scaffolding tower glued on in the middle of The Strand and [was] carried down and taken to Dagenham police station." While in the cell overnight, Ms Sandford turned 17 years old. She used the time behind bars to think about her future and realised this was a fight she wanted to continue with. She adds: "I thought about it for a long time and just thought I couldn't vote at that time so I felt like voting wasn't working. "I didn't have any options. I saw these people getting arrested, making a difference, and I just threw myself at it." In recent months Ms Sandford has joined up with other HS2 Rebellion protesters, spending two months in Euston Square Gardens and also in camps along the line which will link London and the Midlands. Ms Sandford says she is currently on a long-running school strike - something inspired by an initiative called FridaysForFuture that was started by young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. A Sunday Times article described Ms Sandford as Britain's answer to the famous Swedish campaigner, although it's a comparison she wants to distance herself from. "It irritates me a bit, but I put up with it," she says. "It is a compliment to be compared to her as she is amazing. But I don't like the comparison because it is not about individuals and that could be detracting from our message. "I don't want to be a role model, but I think it is an amazing thing to inspire people. What I learned through activism was to break the rules and do what I wanted to do, so I want to spread that." Breaking the rules might draw attention to the activists' cause, but it can also be dangerous. Water mains run through Euston Square Gardens and if these are damaged the protesters risk being drowned or suffocated, Department for Transport officials warned on Thursday. Nevertheless, Ms Sandford and the other protesters have no intention of giving up. "When we are out I think we will all be arrested pretty quickly," she admits. "There are four of us down here now but I am not chained, although some people are. "The longest tunnel eviction was six weeks. I'm prepared to stay here for as long as it takes."

106 बिलियन पाउंड की एच. एस. 2 रेल परियोजना के विरोध में चार जलवायु परिवर्तन कार्यकर्ता यूस्टन स्टेशन के पास मानव निर्मित सुरंगों के एक नेटवर्क के अंदर अपनी जान जोखिम में डाल रहे हैं। उनमें से एक 18 वर्षीय ब्लू सैंडफोर्ड है, जिसने तब तक भूमिगत रहने की कसम खाई है जब तक कि उसे बेदखल करने में बेलिफ को समय लगता है।


Bedfordshire: 'Under-funded' police concerns prospective PCCs

Summary: On 6 May, Bedfordshire will be electing its third police and crime commissioner (PCC) since the post was created in 2012. The outgoing PCC, Kathryn Holloway, of the Conservatives, has highlighted the force needs to make £6m savings over three years. What do the candidates make of the current financial situation?

The candidates are listed below alphabetically: Festus Akinbusoye, Conservative Mr Akinbusoye, 42, lives in Central Bedfordshire, runs his own security business and served as a special constable in the county. He said the force was under-funded by central government and had between 200 and 300 fewer police officers than it needed, because "we are currently funded as a rural policing area". He said the force needed to be as "efficient" as possible, but "we need to deal with the underlying funding formula". "I will keep on banging on the door of the home secretary and the policing minister to make sure the planned funding formula review goes ahead," he said. "We need to invest more in community-based and community-led policing, where officers are amongst the community, visiting businesses, where they're attending local events and they have that visible presence. "If we're building relationships, we're empowering communities. We're encouraging them to provide us with intelligence and information in confidence, knowing that something will be done about it." Patrick Hammill, independent The 67-year-old, from Houghton Regis, was standing as an independent as he believed "policing should be free from party politics". Already an independent councillor at Central Bedfordshire Council, where he sits on the development management committee and the Houghton Regis town partnership committee, he has a family member who has been a Metropolitan Police officer for 21 years. "The county is very under-funded. It is funded as a rural small police force when we have urban crime issues in Luton and Bedford, and the crime levels require us to be funded to the maximum," he said. "I would be fighting to fight those savings. I would be putting that to the voters. "We need more officers to tackle crime across all of Bedfordshire. "We need to look at Bedfordshire holistically and distribute resources as evenly as possible." Bedfordshire Police David Michael, Labour Mr Michael, 67, lives in Luton and is a retired police officer, who served in the Metropolitan Police for more than 30 years. He said the force was under-funded and he would make an "evidence-based presentation to central government to reconsider how they fund Bedfordshire Police". He said the Home Office's funding formula "miscategorises Bedfordshire as rural police service, when we know the level of serious and violent crime does not reflect that". His priorities were to "engage with local residents, wherever and whoever they are, whatever their backgrounds, to listen to their issues and concerns and prioritise those". He believed a "holistic approach", where the police and local groups work together, was key. "I give them [the electorate] the reassurance that I care about them and I will respond to every bit of the county whatever the issues and circumstances, because there's nothing worse than people not having trust and confidence in either the police and crime commissioner or the chief constable," he said. Jas Parmer, Liberal Democrat The 63-year-old lives in Clifton near Biggleswade. He was a Metropolitan Police officer for five years and has been a serving postmaster in Kempston for 33 years. "Luton and Bedford have the same issues as big inner cities and we need fair funding for that," he said. "What we have had in the past is just grants, and grants are not a sustainable way of running a police force." He said without proper funding "Bedfordshire is doomed", and he would try to change this by lobbying the home secretary every week. He said he wanted to create mobile police stations, where police were "in the community" and more pro-active than re-active. "Visible policing is the best tool to prevent crime, and prevention is always better than cure," he said. Antonio Vitiello, English Democrats Mr Vitiello is a law graduate and, as well as being raised by a police officer, said he had served as a member of Thames Valley Police's volunteer support team. He said he was opposed to plans to "asset-strip police stations to be sold off for houses, which are only needed because of the British political establishment's (Lib, Lab, Con) failure to control mass immigration". He believed Bedfordshire was under-funded, along with "every police force in England". "The British government sends too much of our English taxes to Scotland and Wales, whilst asset-stripping England," he added. The Home Office has been asked by the BBC to comment on the police force funding formula as it applies to Bedfordshire. A modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. More information about these elections Who won in my area? Enter your postcode, or the name of your English council or Scottish or Welsh constituency to find out. Eg 'W1A 1AA' or 'Westminster' Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk Related Internet Links Police and crime commissioners - GOV.UK

6 मई को, बेडफोर्डशायर 2012 में पद बनाए जाने के बाद से अपने तीसरे पुलिस और अपराध आयुक्त (पीसीसी) का चुनाव करेगा। निवर्तमान पीसीसी, कंजरवेटिव्स की कैथरीन होलोवे ने बल को तीन वर्षों में 6 मिलियन पाउंड की बचत करने की आवश्यकता पर प्रकाश डाला है। उम्मीदवार वर्तमान वित्तीय स्थिति के बारे में क्या सोचते हैं?


The real Spider-Man: Stickiness goes to the next level

Summary: Geckos are among the superheroes of the animal world.

By Paul RinconScience editor, BBC News website These colourful lizards can scamper rapidly up walls, scuttle along ceilings and even hang upside down on polished glass. Yet the secret of their amazing climbing ability remained a mystery until relatively recently. The underside of a gecko's foot looks like a tyre tread and is covered in millions of microscopic hairs. Each hair splits into hundreds of tips just 200 billionths of a metre wide. The secret of this lizard's adhesion turns out to be the relatively weak intermolecular forces that draw materials together any time they get close. These van der Waals forces nevertheless explain how a gecko can support its own body weight on just one finger, and a single gecko hair can lift the weight of an ant. To un-stick, the gecko pulls its foot away at a different angle. "What we're talking about is something that is about as sticky as sticky tape - it's not crazy glue," says Prof Kellar Autumn, who became intrigued by gecko adhesion after being funded to develop climbing robots by the US military. Prof Autumn, from Lewis & Clark College in Oregon, added: "What is special about it is that it is controllable. And its controllability is based on geometry and physics, not chemistry." The effort to uncover the mechanisms behind gecko climbing has already yielded synthetic material that sticks in the same way. Stick, peel and re-stick a piece of existing adhesive tape several times and it quickly loses its clingy properties. Prof Autumn and Mark Cutkosky, from Stanford University, compared natural and polymer-based synthetic gecko hairs using a machine that simulated gecko climbing. This showed both versions could be re-used some 30,000 times without losing their stickiness. Synthetic adhesives could yield transformative applications in robotics, industry, medicine, sports and clothing. But one possible use always comes up in any popular discussion: could they allow humans to scale walls like Spider-Man? In 2007, physicist and engineer Nicola Pugno, from Turin Polytechnic in Italy, calculated that a person wearing gloves and boots made of carbon nanotubes and structured to mimic gecko feet could indeed cling safely to a wall or a ceiling. Challenges would include wear and tear and the propensity for dirt particles to collect and inhibit stickiness. The suit would have to work on every kind of surface and for long periods of time. But Prof Pugno says: "We are not very far, in my opinion, from a kind of Spider-Man suit." Prof Metin Sitti, from Carnegie Mellon University, says the idea is "not impossible". Selecting a lightweight person and applying the adhesive to many parts of the suit (not just the feet and hands) would improve the chances of success, he explains. But, he comments: "We get questions like: 'Can you carry a one-tonne weight'. And we say: 'Maybe, but that's not our biggest advantage'." Several institutes have been developing robots that can climb walls - Stanford University's "Sticky-bot" can be seen in action here. Some scientists envisage "geckobots" being used to search for survivors in a burning building or disaster zone, to explore the rocky terrain of Mars, or even as toys. But many in the field are most excited by more routine applications. Medicine is one target area for these adhesives. They could spawn advanced bandages that can be removed easily after healing or gripping surfaces on instruments designed for delicate surgery. Since the mechanism works in the wet, it could be used to affix implants within the body. Stanislav Gorb, from the University of Kiel, studies biological adhesion; his work also looks at the way beetles stick to surfaces. He says gecko material has several advantages when compared with generic sticky tape. There is no "visco-elastic" adhesive to dry out, so it stays attached for longer and leaves no residue. But he says that with current production methods, they are unlikely to replace classical sticky tape. "Maybe in 5-10 years we will have a method that will make the tape very cheap - right now it isn't. Secondly, right now, the forces are in the range or even lower than traditional sticky tape." Zip it up Metin Sitti thinks gecko material could provide alternatives to current "closure" technologies, such as hook and loop fastening, zips and sealing systems on food packaging. It is one area he is exploring through his company NanoGripTech, set up to commercialise his lab's gecko work. Synthetic adhesives work best on glass; rough or uneven surfaces pose more of an obstacle. Getting high performance out of gecko material on a variety of surfaces and in different conditions represents the firm's first challenge. "We have been focusing on what happens when the surface gets wet, oily, dirty and what happens when temperatures change from very cold to very hot," says Prof Sitti. "The second challenge is how can you manufacture and sell this [material] at high volume and at low cost?" Prof Sitti is working on this problem and expects within a year to begin manufacturing at low volumes. A silicone-based bio-inspired adhesive made by German firm Binder has been on the market for some six months. Prof Gorb was involved with its development. The company has been exploring medical applications and the "pick and place" technology used in clean rooms to precisely position components on to circuit boards. "Clean rooms often work with suction systems. That generates dust and requires a lot of energy, which contributes to the cost," says Jan Tuma, managing director of Binder. "We are only sticky on really flat, shiny surfaces. It depends on the pins per sq cm and at the moment we have 29,000 pins per sq centimetre. "Geckos have more, but they have had millions of years to develop, and we have had only a few." Prof Autumn says: "We can look to Nature as a giant library of design principles. The way gecko adhesives work is so bizarre and so different from the way that adhesives have been engineered, that I don't think we would have invented it." Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

गेकोस पशु जगत के सुपरहीरो में से हैं।


Where were you when man first landed on the Moon?

Summary: It is claimed that 22 million watched the coverage of Neil Armstrong's historic moonwalk in Britain on the day, but the number who actually saw it live was probably rather smaller because it was an event that unexpectedly took place in the middle of the night, UK time.

By David SillitoMedia and Arts Correspondent But for many who did manage to make it to the big moment, it was life-changing. Fifty years on, we speak to three people who have been contributing to a UK Space Project/AHRC project, Moon Memories. It was not part of the plan. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were supposed to be settling down for a rest but the BBC's Apollo 11 programme presenter James Burke listened in to the communications from the lunar surface and realised they had changed their minds and were preparing to step on to the Moon. However, no-one could tell them when they would emerge. What should have been a short update programme at 11:32pm became the BBC's first all-night broadcast. Burke was a bit tense. If he had got it wrong, there would be consequences. In Dagenham, Jackie Burns was 11 years old and sitting in the gym of her school. She, like most of her friends' families, did not have access to a television and so the school had opened its doors on a Sunday evening to parents and children. They had watched the coverage of the touchdown and the plan was to go home and return at seven o'clock to watch the first moonwalk. When news came that it might happen overnight, everyone decided to stay. The problem was there was nothing to watch other than the BBC's presenters talking among themselves. "The children got very bored and they were getting up and running around," says Burns. "And the parents were chatting amongst themselves and the noise volume was going up. And there I am dodging trying to see and I am getting so frustrated with it, because I so wanted to see it. I burst in to tears." In Ashford-in-the-Water, a small village in the Derbyshire Peaks, 13-year-old Nigel Shadbolt was heading downstairs. The rest of the family had long gone to bed but he did not want to miss the crucial moment. "I was thinking I'd never been up this late," Shadbolt recalls. "We had a grainy Philips TV, I was crouched down in front of it thinking how loud can I have it because I did not want to wake people upstairs. I was just incredibly excited and also worried that continental interference would do for the whole project because in those days the TV signal would come in and out in the summertime." Networks around the world had been trailing this for weeks as the TV event of the century. It was the culmination of 13 years of competition with the Soviet Union that began with the launch of Sputnik in 1957. In July 1969, both America and Russia sent rockets to the Moon but the world has largely forgotten the unmanned Luna 15 that crashed on to its surface on the same day that Neil Armstrong first stepped out of the lunar module. And throughout it all the astronauts were filming the journey but the pictures that were beamed back live were dark, grainy and black and white. Nevertheless, for a generation this was a shared global TV moment. In the studio, James Burke, Patrick Moore and Cliff Michelmore were trying their best to keep things going without any pictures from the Moon. Finally at around 3:45am Burke began to hear definite signs that the astronauts were about to open the door and swing the camera out to show Neil Armstrong step on to the Moon. There was one overriding thought on his mind. "The worst thing you can do is talk when an astronaut is talking," Burke explains. "And I had horror dreams the night before that he would be walking down the steps and he would open his mouth to say something and I would talk over the top of it so when he went out of the door I shut up and the control gallery asked if I should perhaps say something and it was at that point he said 'that's one small step.'" However, the image of the Moon surface was at first upside down. And when it did right itself it was dark and grainy. Many of the shots we see today have been digitally enhanced to give us a rather better image than viewers saw in 1969. But for one 11-year-old Chris Lee who was sitting with his father (his mother and brother had long gone to bed) it was a moment he would never forget. "I knew at that point that's what I wanted to do," says Lee. "I wanted to be involved in that side of life, those programmes, looking out in to the Universe." A few years later Lee was studying space engineering at University and is now head of Science Programmes for the UK's Space Agency overseeing Britain's contribution towards a planned lunar space station. Shadbolt is now a Professor of artificial intelligence (AI) at Oxford University. "I think you can talk to an awful lot of people from my generation who were inspired by those extraordinary achievements." And as for Burns? "It inspired me but the best I could hope for in those days was to be a clerk or typist," she admits. However, 50 years on everything has changed, Jackie is now a space artist and makes a living creating scientifically accurate artworks of planets, rockets and of course the Moon. "It was an amazing thing to see and I was so affected by it. "I was determined to get a bit of the action even though I was a woman and I knew I would always be an outsider of science but I was determined to get there somehow. And I did." Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

यह दावा किया जाता है कि उस दिन ब्रिटेन में नील आर्मस्ट्रांग के ऐतिहासिक मूनवॉक का कवरेज 22 मिलियन लोगों ने देखा था, लेकिन वास्तव में इसे लाइव देखने वालों की संख्या शायद कम थी क्योंकि यह एक ऐसी घटना थी जो अप्रत्याशित रूप से ब्रिटेन के समयानुसार आधी रात को हुई थी।


Quiz: See if you know your school science

Summary: The UK's 15-year-olds have risen to 15th in the world for science but they still lag behind the likes of Singapore, Japan and Finland.

More than half a millions teens around the world took part in the science test by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It assesses how students could use their knowledge and skills in real life. Rather than just being able to repeat back facts and figures. Have a go at some of the questions the OECD gave us below and see how you do. The study also looked into how much each country spends on education per person. The UK is well above the average of £59,000 - with more than £90,000 per person from the age of six to 15. Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat

ब्रिटेन के 15 साल के बच्चे विज्ञान के मामले में दुनिया में 15वें स्थान पर पहुंच गए हैं, लेकिन वे अभी भी सिंगापुर, जापान और फिनलैंड से पीछे हैं।