City air pollution 'link to teenage psychotic experiences' explored

Summary: Psychotic experiences - such as hearing voices or extreme paranoia - are more common in teenagers living in cities with high pollution than those in rural areas, a study of young people in England and Wales suggests.

Scientists say that their research could provide possible clues about why children in urban areas are more likely to get psychotic disorders later on. But they caution that much more work is needed to be certain of the link. The study appears in JAMA Psychiatry. Scientists from King's College London tracked some 2,000 teenagers living in urban, semi-urban and rural areas. Almost a third (623) reported they had been through at least one psychotic experience between the ages of 12 and 18 - for example feeling like people were spying on them or hearing voices no-one else could. 'Noisy city life' Researchers matched their responses to detailed estimates of the air pollution each adolescent faced over a year. Scientists say the findings remained firm even when they factored in other issues that can contribute to psychotic episodes - including a family history of mental health issues, social deprivation and alcohol and drugs. Lead researcher, Dr Joanne Newbury, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, said: "We found that adolescent psychotic experiences were more common in urban areas." She added that while the study could not show pollutants caused the episodes to take place, "our findings suggest air pollution could be a contributing factor in the link between city living and psychotic experiences". How could air pollution be connected to mental health? Researchers say that while the study does not prove that air pollution causes psychotic experiences, it adds to growing evidence that air pollution may have wider effects on the body beyond the heart and lungs. They speculate that tiny particles of air pollution could get past the lungs and into the blood and then travel on to the brain. There they could trigger inflammation and contribute to poor mental health. Another theory is that the chemicals coating these particles could dissolve in the blood and be carried to the brain and again lead to inflammation. The research team say that noise pollution could partially explain the link too - for example noisy traffic could disturb sleep and add to the stress of city life. But they were unable to measure this directly. Although it is not always possible, experts suggest trying to use side roads and keeping away from the busiest roads when traffic is at its heaviest. How sure can they be of the link? Scientists estimated four outdoor pollutants; the gases nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter - PM2.5 and PM10 - at home addresses and two places the teenagers frequently spent time at - for example schools, work and shops. And while the researchers say they took other factors like alcohol and drugs into account, they acknowledge it is impossible to be sure they factored in everything. Dr Daniel Maughan, at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: "While the paper has not proved air pollution causes psychosis, the findings are concerning as they suggest that increased psychosis rates in urban areas are potentially linked to air pollution. "We need a radical approach to air pollution as it is very likely damaging the mental health of young and older people alike." Meanwhile Prof Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, at the University of Heidelberg, said: "While this is a careful study of a large cohort, it should be borne in mind that researchers did not actually measure, but modelled, air quality and also could not know when participants were where. "Also, most evidence points to the relevance of early childhood in psychosis risk, a period the study did not cover. "While the authors looked at many potential factors that could influence air quality and psychosis risk, such as neighbourhood socio-economic status, the findings should be replicated in a setting where pollution and location are directly measured before firm conclusions can be drawn." Psychosis or psychotic experiences? Researchers say they looked specifically at adolescents, because their developing brains are more vulnerable to psychotic experiences. They consider these to be a milder form of the experiences that people have, who go on to develop disorders like schizophrenia in adulthood. Teenagers who have them are more likely - though certainly not guaranteed - to develop psychotic disorders in later life. So scientists say identifying them at this stage could provide an opportunity to intervene ahead of time. But they reassure parents that long-term psychotic disorders are rare and most teenagers who go through these experiences do not go on to develop them. The NHS says that traumatic experiences, stress, alcohol and drug abuse can all trigger episodes of psychosis. Researchers say anyone who is concerned about an adolescent's mental health should speak to their GP or seek urgent medical advice if the problem is immediate.

इंग्लैंड और वेल्स के युवाओं के एक अध्ययन से पता चलता है कि ग्रामीण क्षेत्रों की तुलना में उच्च प्रदूषण वाले शहरों में रहने वाले किशोरों में मनोवैज्ञानिक अनुभव-जैसे आवाजें सुनना या अत्यधिक व्यामोह-अधिक आम हैं।


Former BBC newsreader Richard Baker dies aged 93

Summary: Former BBC newsreader Richard Baker has died aged 93.

The son of a plasterer, London-born Baker introduced the first BBC TV news bulletin broadcast in July 1954. He went on to front the Last Night of the Proms and present on Radio 2, 3 and 4. Baker's son James said his father died this morning at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. BBC director general Tony Hall was among those to pay tribute, saying he "became the face of news for millions". Baker's studies at Cambridge University were interrupted by World War Two. He served on a minesweeper with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the conflict, attached to the supply convoys to Russia. A keen amateur dramatist, Baker resumed his education after the war and joined the BBC in 1950 as a radio presenter. Baker presented BBC TV news bulletins until 1982. He was a regular panellist on the TV classical music quiz Face the Music and hosted Start the Week on Radio 4. His long career at the corporation also saw him voice the animated children's series Mary, Mungo and Midge, and make three guest appearances on Monty Python's Flying Circus. Lord Hall said Baker had been "at the forefront of the creation of the modern news presenter", adding: "He was a calm and assured presence who became the face of news for millions. "Later, he became a great advocate for classical music, presenting many much loved programmes. But more than that, he was quite simply a lovely and charming man. "Our sympathies are with his many friends and family." BBC journalist John Simpson was one of the first to pay tribute to Baker on social media, describing him as one of the "finest newsreaders of modern times". ITV News presenter Alastair Stewart said Baker was a "giant" and a "true gentleman". Former colleague Jan Leeming was saddened by the news of Baker's death. He was "THE newsreader" for a certain generation, said BBC News presenter Simon McCoy.

बीबीसी के पूर्व समाचार पाठक रिचर्ड बेकर का 93 वर्ष की आयु में निधन हो गया है।


The invention that stops girls missing school every month

Summary: In Malawi a packet of sanitary towels can cost a whole day's pay, and girls often miss school because the cotton strips they use instead are inadequate. Charlotte Ashton met a woman in Blantyre who's come up with a solution.

It's a 14-year-old girl's worst nightmare. You're standing in front of your class when giggling erupts from the back and everyone's pointing at your behind. With despair you realise your sanitary pad has leaked and an embarrassing circle of blood has appeared on your dress. I clearly remember the anxious checking of my school skirt as a teenager. You'd pull aside a close friend: "Have I leaked?" But the worst never actually happened and I don't remember seeing it happen to any classmates. Because in the West we're blessed with effective, disposable, affordable sanitary protection - the vast majority of us can afford pads or tampons every month. Here in Malawi, that's not the case. The sanitary pads in the shops cost 500 Malawi kwacha (75 cents; 50p) per pack. That's nearly a whole day's pay at the minimum wage - and you really need two packs per period. Imagine spending two days' wages every month just on sanitary pads. To find out what women do instead, I head to a school in a township on the outskirts of Blantyre, Malawi's second city, to talk periods with a group of teenage girls. "Tell me," I venture. "We're here to talk about sanitary pads. Do any of you use the disposable ones?" A row of shaking heads then a brave hand goes up. "We take pieces of old chitenge and tear them into strips." Benku is 15 and bright-eyed. Chitenges the pieces of cotton material Malawian women wear around their waists. "Then we fold them over and put them into our underwear." "That must be uncomfortable," I ask. "Yes," she agrees. "Sometimes I get sores on my legs where the material rubs. And sometimes the chitenge falls out! "That happened to me once in class. The boys were laughing. I was so embarrassed." Find out more The monthly burden doesn't end there. The girls explain how they get up early or stay out late to wash the used strips - in a quiet moment when no-one's around to see. Hanging them up to dry in the sun would be too public a display of an issue that's taboo here. So the girls find a dark corner inside to dry their rags. And then the answer that I somehow found saddest of all: "Do your mothers help you?" Their heads shake again: "No," says Benku's friend. "My mother asked my aunt to explain everything to me when I got my first period." Another girl was given an old chitenge and a lesson in what to do by a neighbour. A third was sent to her grandmother's for a week. This monthly struggle has been the same for generations. But unlike their mothers, aunts and grandmothers these young women have a champion, who's determined to tackle the problem. Trinitas is a tall, vivacious 31-year-old researcher at Blantyre's College of Medicine. When six boys but only two girls turned up for a focus group she was running at this school, she asked the teacher where they all were and was told they'd excused themselves that week because they were menstruating. And that's a whole other tragic side to this issue: girls often don't leave the house while they're bleeding. "So how many days of school are you missing every month?" I ask the group. "Five, five, six, four, five," they tell me. Trinitas remembers this from her own schooldays and is angry that another generation of girls is suffering. She's the daughter of a single mother and studied at a basic government school. Yet she beat the odds and made it to university - thanks, she says, to her mother's insistence on the value of education. With that in mind Trinitas bought an old treadle sewing machine and started making reusable sanitary pads from fabrics available locally. She's been doing market research at the school and the girls have all tried out her pads. The feedback is resoundingly positive. "They're so easy to wash!" says one girl. "The top layer is lovely and fleecy so they're comfortable," says another. Trinitas's challenge is to get capital investment in this chronically poor country - enough to scale up production and bring down the price so it's low enough for the average Malawian. The girls are clearly excited by the new freedom this product could afford them. "The wings and the poppers mean I can move around as usual," chirps one. "We can do skipping rope and everything." And with that I'm reminded that these schoolgirls deserve better than a week of discomfort and humiliation every single month. More from the Magazine Two years ago, when Amy Peake was leafing through a magazine she saw an image that shocked her. It showed thousands of refugees queuing for food in a bombed-out street in Damascus. In the foreground stood a woman, and for a split second she thought, "What if I was her? What if my children were there? And what if I got my period?" Then her husband showed her a BBC News Magazine story about an Indian man who had invented a machine to produce cheap and hygienic sanitary pads after realising his wife, and millions of other Indian women, used rags. He didn't want to sell the pads, he wanted women to make and sell their own. Peake immediately thought: "That machine should be in the refugee camps - and if it isn't, perhaps I should take it there." So that's exactly what she's done. The unlikely sanitary pad missionary Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

मलावी में सैनिटरी तौलिए के एक पैकेट पर पूरे दिन का वेतन खर्च हो सकता है, और लड़कियां अक्सर स्कूल नहीं जाती हैं क्योंकि उनके द्वारा उपयोग की जाने वाली सूती पट्टियाँ अपर्याप्त होती हैं। शार्लोट एश्टन ब्लांटायर में एक महिला से मिलीं जो एक समाधान के साथ आई हैं।


Jersey General Hospital intensive care unit opens

Summary: Work on an intensive care unit (ICU) at Jersey's General Hospital has been completed as part of a £3m upgrade.

In January a five-bed decant facility was finished, while the ICU will provide for up to seven critically ill patients. It has replaced the current ICU, which was opened in 1989. Annually about 200 patients are admitted to the hospital's surgical intensive care unit, while around 550 use the medical intensive care unit. The final stage of the project involves the refurbishment of ancillary and treatment rooms and specialised isolation rooms, with work expected to start in October.

जर्सी के जनरल अस्पताल में एक गहन देखभाल इकाई (आई. सी. यू.) पर काम 3 मिलियन पाउंड के उन्नयन के हिस्से के रूप में पूरा किया गया है।


Covid: Is it time we learned to live with the virus?

Summary: The constant mantra is the virus must be suppressed and contained. But how do you do this when people can be infectious without knowing they have it? Where it can be passed on silently because people do not develop symptoms?

Nick TriggleHealth correspondent@nicktriggleon Twitter The nation has been brought to a standstill once at immense cost to the economy, education and health more generally. And now with cases rising, there is the constant threat of more and more restrictions being imposed. But are we fighting a losing battle? Do we instead need to learn to live with the virus? It's 'utter chaos' now Prof Carl Heneghan, the head of the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford University, says the current situation is "utter chaos" with a constant stream of new restrictions and schools sending whole year groups home when just one person tests positive. All this at a time when the level of infection is still very low. This, Prof Heneghan says, is the consequence of trying to suppress the virus. Instead, he argues we should accept it is here to stay and try to minimise the risks, while balancing that against the consequences of the actions we take. In particular, he's concerned the Covid test is actually so sensitive it's picking up what is effectively dead virus as it spots traces of it months after the person has stopped being infectious. "We need to slow down our thinking. But every time the government sees a rise in cases it seems to panic," he said. Hospital admissions matter 'not cases' The argument put forward by Prof Heneghan and a number of other experts is that more weight needs to be put on disease rather than cases. While hospital admissions have started rising they are still incredibly low compared to the spring and the increase is much more gradual than it was. What is more, rising admissions for respiratory illness and, sadly, deaths are what you would expect to happen at this time of year as you head into autumn and winter when these viruses always spread more. Some years are worse than others. In 2017-18 there were 50,000 extra deaths over winter compared to the rest of the year, mainly because of the cold weather, a virulent strain of flu and an ineffective vaccine. In fact, Prof Robert Dingwall, a sociologist and an adviser to the government, believes the public may well be now at the stage where it is "comfortable" with the idea that thousands will die from Covid just as they are that they die of flu. He believes it is only a particular element of the public health and scientific leadership who worry about driving down the infection level and is critical of politicians for not being "brave enough" to be honest with the public that the virus will be around "forever and a day" even with a vaccine. What's the risk of loosening our grip? The problem of relying on hospital admissions is that you can find yourself behind the curve. Hospital cases are a result of infections from a few weeks back - so if they spiral out of control more draconian measures may be needed than would have been otherwise. The other issue, says Prof Christina Pagel, from University College London, is "Long Covid" - the patients who still struggle months after an infection. She says it would be "irresponsible" to allow the virus to spread as it is still less than a year old and we are still not certain of what the long-term risks are. She also says if infection rates go up in the younger, healthier age groups it will be difficult to keep it from spilling over into more vulnerable ones. Prof Mark Woolhouse, an expert in infectious disease at Edinburgh University, agrees this is a risk. But he argues the government must carefully "balance the harms" of Covid with the consequences that come from trying to contain it. He says there is already growing evidence the "cure has been worse than the disease" because of the wider societal costs. The death toll has undoubtedly been terrible. More than 40,000 deaths are linked to Covid. The burden of those have fallen on the very old. The average age of death has been over 80. And if you look at the age-adjusted mortality rates, which take into account the size and age of the population, you can see that while 2020 has undoubtedly been a bad year compared to recent years, what has been seen in terms of people dying is not completely out of sync with recent history. It is actually comparable with what happened in the 2000s. How can the vulnerable be protected? Prof Woolhouse says lockdown simply deferred the problem, but did have the benefit of buying time, which he thinks could now be used to better protect the vulnerable. That means intensive targeting of testing at care homes to prevent the virus from getting in - four in 10 deaths have been among care home residents. Similar steps will be taken to protect frail people who receive care in their own homes. Beyond that Prof Woolhouse says what is needed is a "chain of trust" whereby more care is taken when you have contact with an individual who is at higher risk. That, he says, may mean not seeing them if you think you have been in busy places where you may have been exposed. And naturally people in higher risk groups will themselves be taking more precautions than those who are not - something that simply was not happening in February and March until the extent of the spread of the virus was realised. This should be a consideration, many health experts say, from the age of 50 upwards. But, of course, it should be proportionate with the risk. While it starts going up at 50, it is still very slim. But it then rises directly with age, which is quite unusual for an infectious disease. Perhaps the easiest way to understand it is to consider it like this - an infection with the virus essentially doubles your risk of death that you face in any given year from injury or illness. The older and more unhealthy you are, the higher the risk on both counts. The other factor to consider is that doctors are in a much better position to treat severe illness. Two steroid treatments have been found to reduce the risk of death in the seriously ill, while much has been learned about how Covid behaves, which means hospitals will be better prepared for problems such as blood clots and kidney damage. It means many are confident the scale of deaths seen earlier will not be repeated. What about herd immunity? Allowing - or perhaps accepting - some spread also brings us on to perhaps the most contentious point, immunity. There is great hope a vaccine will be developed. But what if it isn't? Or what if it does not trigger a strong enough immune response in the older age groups? You are then reliant on getting enough younger people vaccinated to create herd immunity. Will they do this for a vaccine that has been produced so quickly to protect them against a virus that is unlikely to cause complications? The other way immunity develops is through exposure. Like other coronaviruses, all the evidence on Covid points to infections giving people some immunity that then wanes, but is followed by re-infections that cause milder illness. Over the years this is likely to lead to coronavirus becoming just another of the seasonal virus we experience every year. Although, as always, that needs to caveated with the fact this is a new virus so scientists are learning more about it all the time. That process could take years, even decades some think. But others are more optimistic. Prof Sunetra Gupta, of Oxford University, believes there may well be more immunity already than we think because of a combination of natural immunity and more exposure than screening suggests - she says the antibody markers that are relied on to identify previous exposure are not so reliable for this particular virus. She says allowing young and healthy people to be exposed over the winter will be of benefit in the years to come. "This is how we have always managed viruses. Why is this so different? If we keep introducing restrictions and lockdowns while we wait for a vaccine it will be the young that suffer the most, particularly those from more deprived backgrounds. We can't keep doing this - it would be an injustice." Follow Nick on Twitter Read more from Nick

निरंतर मंत्र यह है कि वायरस को दबाया और नियंत्रित किया जाना चाहिए। लेकिन आप ऐसा कैसे करते हैं जब लोग यह जाने बिना संक्रामक हो सकते हैं कि उनके पास यह है? इसे चुपचाप कहाँ फैलाया जा सकता है क्योंकि लोगों में लक्षण विकसित नहीं होते हैं?


Dublin shooting: Teenager taken to hospital

Summary: A male teenager has been taken to hospital after a shooting in Dublin in the Republic of Ireland.

The incident happened in Eugene Street, at about 22:55 GMT local time on Wednesday night. Gardaí (Irish police) said the youth sustained a number of gunshot wounds and has been taken to hospital "to be treated for serious injuries". The area has been cordoned off and a forensic examination is due to take place later. Gardaí have appealed for information about the incident.

आयरलैंड गणराज्य के डबलिन में गोलीबारी के बाद एक किशोर पुरुष को अस्पताल ले जाया गया है।


Offshore platform workers balloted on industrial action

Summary: Workers on three offshore platforms operated by oil firm Total are being balloted on possible industrial action.

The Unite union said members on the Alwyn, Elgin and Dunbar installations are having pay and conditions reviewed. The union said it includes proposals to change rotas. A spokesperson for Total said a consultation process was under way with the workforce. The ballot closes on 28 June.

तेल कंपनी टोटल द्वारा संचालित तीन अपतटीय प्लेटफार्मों पर श्रमिकों को संभावित औद्योगिक कार्रवाई पर मतदान किया जा रहा है।


Plan to avoid delays on new Skye hospital

Summary: An independent adjudicator could be asked to have the final say on the location for a new hospital to serve Skye, Lochalsh and south west Ross.

Kate Earnshaw, of NHS Highland, told a meeting of community council representatives that it could be a way of avoiding delays in the project. The health board has proposed building a new hospital to replace Skye's two existing hospitals. A steering group has been set up to push the plan forward. There is a demand for a new facility as Portree Community Hospital and Dr Mackinnon Memorial Hospital in Broadford will fail to meet modern standards in the near future.

एक स्वतंत्र न्यायनिर्णायक को स्काई, लोचालश और दक्षिण पश्चिम रॉस की सेवा के लिए एक नए अस्पताल के स्थान पर अंतिम निर्णय लेने के लिए कहा जा सकता है।


Lincoln to get one of 15 new technology colleges

Summary: Lincoln is one of 15 locations in the UK to get a new college focussing on engineering and technology.

The University of Lincoln, Lincoln College and Siemens will run the site together to provide skills to pupils aged 14 to19. They will join a network of 17 other university technical colleges due to open this September or next. Each of the colleges will have an enrolment of approximately 600 students.

लिंकन ब्रिटेन के उन 15 स्थानों में से एक है जहाँ इंजीनियरिंग और प्रौद्योगिकी पर ध्यान केंद्रित करने वाला एक नया कॉलेज है।


Making Babies: Documentary follows three Scots couples going through IVF

Summary: A new documentary follows the lives of three Scots couples as they undergo IVF treatment in a bid to start a family. But behind the camera, filmmaker Laura-Jane McRae was going through a similar experience.

By Debbie JacksonBBC Scotland Three couples sit and wait. The pregnancy test is done. It's just a matter of time. Waiting is what the past month has been about. Waiting for the hormones to kick in. Waiting for ovaries to be stimulated. Waiting for embryos to be fertilised. Waiting to find out if they are viable. And now, waiting to find out if the next nine months will be the future they have dreamed of, cried over and longed for. IVF is a miracle of modern science. It is also difficult, upsetting and carries no guarantees for those who just want to do what others seem to find easy - make babies. Filmmaker Laura-Jane McRae knows exactly how difficult the IVF journey is. She was on the same journey when she began recording the highs and lows of three young Scottish couples who let the BBC Scotland channel follow them on one cycle of IVF. Laura-Jane, (L-J) was going through one round of IVF while filming Making Babies. She started her second while editing the three couples' stories for the documentary, due to be broadcast on Tuesday. L-J and her husband Findlay, like the couples she followed, have "unexplained infertility". This is when both partners are apparently fertile, and yet together cannot conceive a child. One in seven couples struggles to fall pregnant in the UK - 3.5 million people. Of those, 30% have unexplained infertility. The next steps often lead them to IVF - in vitro fertilisation. Advances in science have made it possible to give nature a helping hand towards a much-wanted pregnancy. But for those who embark on this second chance, the brutal reality is medically-induced menopause, high hormone levels, injecting yourself in the stomach every day, waiting, more waiting... and a 70% chance it will not be successful. But that doesn't stop almost 70,000 rounds of IVF taking place in the UK every year. L-J said she had one reason for telling the story. "I want people to feel like they are not alone," she said. "My only aim is that there's a couple sitting like Findlay and I were two years ago and they watch it and they think it's going to be OK. "People don't talk about it. It felt taboo. But when you do come out of the IVF closet and tell people, they start telling you they have had IVF or their friend has or a family member has. It's in all our immediate circles." In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) An egg is removed from the woman's ovaries and fertilised with sperm in a laboratory. The fertilised egg is then returned to the woman's womb to develop. IVF worked for the first time on 10 November 1977. On 25 July 1978, the world's first IVF baby, Louise Brown, was born. On average, IVF fails 70% of the time. The highest success rates are for women under 35, one-third of treatment cycles are successful. On average, it takes almost four-and-a-half years to conceive with IVF. Source: Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority/Fertility Network UK The couples in the programme are all setting out on a round of IVF. In Scotland, the NHS funds three cycles of treatment. Gemma and Ryan have been trying to conceive for five years - this is their first attempt at IVF. Sarah and Ryan have been trying to fall pregnant for four years and this is their second attempt. Nicki and Bob have been through the process three times before. Their second round resulted in their daughter Daisy. Now, because they have already had a child, they have to fund the treatment themselves. They want to give Daisy a brother or sister. After disappointment, this is their fourth round. L-J sees herself and Findlay in all three couples. From the blind optimism of the first round, taking every supplement, having acupuncture, hypnotherapy and even eating multiple pineapples - an old wives' tale. She was familiar with the disappointments, the joy and then the acceptance that what will be will be. The three couples hit high points and low points at the same stages of their journey, but with their hopes set on the end goal, they keep going. L-J said: "One of the couples described IVF as being like every time you try to conceive each month, it's like rolling two dice and trying to get a six. This is like not knowing if you even have any sixes on your dice. But you just keep rolling." She wanted the documentary to be truthful and honest and show the lengths people will go to for their baby dream. From daily self-injections of hormones, to a humiliating examination from a piece of equipment called the "Wanda" and excruciating waits for results, the process is laid bare, as are the emotions of the couples involved. L-J, who, after four rounds of IVF is taking a break from the process before trying again, found the process cathartic. She said: "One of the pivotal moments for me was standing in the lab and realising the embryologist is crossing her fingers just as you are. She is not a magician. They just put the elements together and hope that it is going to take. They put them back into your body and they just hope. "That clicked for me that this isn't a guarantee. My attitude changed to thinking we'll give it a try, but if it doesn't happen that's OK." She added; "If wanting and love was enough, we'd have hundreds of kids. But sometimes it is not enough and we just don't know why. "Everyone told me not to do the documentary - nobody thought it was a good idea. And it's turned out to be one of the best things I have ever done." Making Babies is on the BBC Scotland channel at 22:00 on Tuesday 29 October

एक नया वृत्तचित्र तीन स्कॉटिश जोड़ों के जीवन का अनुसरण करता है क्योंकि वे एक परिवार शुरू करने के लिए आईवीएफ उपचार से गुजरते हैं। लेकिन कैमरे के पीछे, फिल्म निर्माता लौरा-जेन मैकरे एक समान अनुभव से गुजर रहे थे।


How Morocco became a haven for gay Westerners in the 1950s

Summary: A British man flew home from Marrakech last week after being jailed for "homosexual acts". There was a time though when Morocco was renowned as a haven for gay Americans and Britons, who fled restrictions in their own countries to take advantage of its relaxed atmosphere.

By Richard HamiltonBBC World Service Take a walk down one of the main streets in Tangier, the Boulevard Pasteur, turn left before the Hotel Rembrandt and descend towards the sea. Then follow some steps into a narrow side street that smells of urine and screams of danger. Overlooking an empty space that looks like a disused car park or the aftermath of a nuclear bomb, is a family-run hostel called El Muniria, a white block with blue windowsills and a crenelated roof. It was here in Room 9, in the 1950s, that William Burroughs, high on drugs, wrote one of the 20th Century's most shocking novels, Naked Lunch. The book, banned under US obscenity laws, is a mixture of autobiography, science fiction and satire, peppered with descriptions of gay sex. When I enter the Muniria, the youngest member of the family tells me that I can look around, but that Room 9 is locked, as his uncle has "gone away with the key." The corridors are desolate with some mould on the walls. A black and white portrait of Burroughs in hat and dark glasses stares blankly back above a rubber plant. The bathroom is bleak, like the inside of an asylum, with white tiles everywhere, exposed yellowing pipes and a loose mirror about to fall into the sink. The toilets look like the end of the world. I venture downstairs to the quarters where the family live. The landlady shows me around. We stand in front of Room 9, which is still locked. I ask if it's possible to see inside. She replies that it is a bit messy. I tell her I don't mind, so she comes back with the key and opens the door. Inside is an unmade bed, an old radio and dark wooden wardrobes. A single naked light bulb dangles from the ceiling. She tells me Burroughs had lived in Room 9, while fellow Beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac had rented Room 4 and Room 5 on the floor above. Very occasionally, she says, the American novelist Paul Bowles, the author of The Sheltering Sky, would use number 7 at the top. Like Naked Lunch, The Sheltering Sky was another groundbreaking novel that explores the dark side of the human psyche amid the desolate backdrop of the Sahara. But why were these giants of American literature so attracted to Tangier? "I think you know the reason," replies Simon-Pierre Hamelin with a smile, when I put this question to him, and says no more. He runs La Librairie des Colonnes, a bookshop on the Boulevard Pasteur, owned by the former boyfriend of Yves Saint Laurent. Its bookshelves are another reminder of Tangier's huge literary legacy which includes Jean Genet, Andre Gide, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal and Joe Orton, all of whom were gay or bisexual, as well as many others, from Samuel Pepys to Mark Twain, who were straight. For decades Tangier and other Moroccan cities were magnets for gay tourists. Prior to independence in 1956 Tangier was an international zone that was administered by several different European countries, without a very rigid rule of law. In the words of the English academic Andrew Hussey, Tangier was "a utopia of dangerous, unknown pleasures." The Americans who turned up in the 1950s were escaping from a repressive society where homosexuality was outlawed. In Morocco, attitudes were much more relaxed and, provided they were discreet, Westerners could indulge their desires, without fear of harassment, with a limitless supply of young locals in need of money, and smoke an equally limitless supply of the local cannabis. The differential in wealth between foreigners and Moroccans created a thriving market in prostitution, but relations were not only based on the exchange of money. Paul Bowles had a long-lasting friendship with the artist Ahmed Yacoubi, and his wife Jane lived in an apartment upstairs with a wild peasant woman called Cherifa. In his early days in Tangier, Burroughs was not particularly sensitive to local culture. In a letter to Allen Ginsberg in 1954, he is not even able to keep track of his conquests: "I go to bed with an Arab in European clothes. Several days later… I meet an Arab in native dress, and we repair to a Turkish bath. Now I am almost (but not quite) sure it is the same Arab. In any case I have not seen no.1 again... It's like I been to bed with 3 Arabs since arrival, but I wonder if it isn't the same character in different clothes, and every time better behaved, cheaper, more respectful… I really don't know for sure." In his 1972 autobiography Second Son, David Herbert, an English aristocrat and long time resident of Tangier, bemoaned the city's "Queer Tangier" reputation. "There is one aspect of Tangier life that many of us who live here do find disagreeable and occasionally embarrassing." He added that its "old reputation as a city of sin" attracted Europeans who seemed to imagine that "every Moroccan they see is for sale. Great offence is caused by their lack of discrimination and if someone gets knocked on the head it is usually their own fault." In his diary, the English playwright Joe Orton recorded a conversation at the Cafe de Paris in 1967. Orton was sitting at a table with friends beside a "rather stuffy American tourist and his disapproving wife." To further stoke their disapproval, the playwright began to talk about a sexual encounter. When one of those at the table reminded Orton that the tourists could hear every word, he replied, "they have no right to be occupying chairs reserved for decent sex perverts." For some straight men the predominance of gay men had its advantages. The septuagenarian American travel writer John Hopkins says: "I was the only heterosexual writer in Tangier at the time. In terms of women, I had the field to myself!" Although some think the writers were rebelling against a soulless, suburban McCarthyite America, Hopkins says it was more straightforward. "They were after boys and drugs. That's what drew them. The Moroccans were charming, attractive, intelligent and tolerant. They had to put up with a lot from us." So why did Morocco, an ostensibly devout Islamic country, allow homosexuality to thrive? The author Barnaby Rogerson says it is a society that is full of paradoxes. "It is... a place where all the four different cornerstones of culture: Berber-African, Mediterranean, Arabic or Islamic, share an absolute belief in the abundant sexuality of all men and women, who are charged with a sort of personal volcano of 'fitna', which threatens family, society and state with sexually derived chaos at any time," he says. The word fitna, he suggests, "means something like 'charm, allure, enchantment, temptation, dissent, unrest, riot, rebellion' or all of these at the same time." But despite a certain fear of this chaos of sexuality, there is also an understanding that it is just part of human nature and that ultimately you have to live and let live. "Morocco," Rogerson says, "has always been a nation where tolerance is practised but not preached." Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

एक ब्रिटिश व्यक्ति "समलैंगिक कृत्यों" के लिए जेल जाने के बाद पिछले सप्ताह माराकेच से घर आया था। एक समय था जब मोरक्को समलैंगिक अमेरिकियों और ब्रिटेनियों के लिए एक पनाहगाह के रूप में प्रसिद्ध था, जो इसके आरामदायक वातावरण का लाभ उठाने के लिए अपने ही देशों में प्रतिबंधों से भाग गए थे।


Cave rescue: Key questions answered

Summary: After 17 days underground, all the Thai boys and their football coach have safely escaped from the Tham Luang cave complex.

A team of Thai and international divers mounted a dangerous and complicated rescue to bring the boys out, and details of the bid are still emerging now. BBC correspondent Jonathan Head has answered some of the core questions about the boys, the rescue attempt, and what happens next. Why did the kids go so deep into the cave? We will not know that until we hear from them and their assistant coach, Ekkapol "Ake" Chantawong. On that Saturday they were scheduled to play a match, which was cancelled, according to head coach Nopparat Kanthawong. He scheduled a training session instead. The boys were keen cyclists so on the Facebook chat group through which they communicated with the parents, coach Ake suggested they cycle to the football field. There was no suggestion there that they would go on to the caves. Saturday was the 16th birthday of Pheeraphat 'Night' Sompiengjai, and a local shop said the boys spent more than 700 baht (US$22) on food to celebrate, a large sum in this area. Coach Nop describes Ake as being very kind-hearted and devoted to the boys. He thinks the boys persuaded him to go with them into the caves. The caves are well-known in the area and had been explored by the boys before. The best guess is they went quite deep, which is easy when they are dry, got caught by rising flood water, and were forced to go even deeper. What kind of communication have the children had with their parents and why are they not being allowed to see them? The official explanation is they are weak from their ordeal and potentially vulnerable to infection. These are now very precious lives in Thailand. A massive effort has been made to get them out alive. The Thai authorities are taking no chances. Perhaps they also wanted to avoid the excitement of seeing their parents again. Thais are generally less physical than westerners. Hugging is unusual. And the parents are from poor, marginal communities, used to being told what to do by officials, and probably grateful for the lengths the government went to in rescuing them. They would not protest. They were allowed to see them through windows, and are gradually being allowed in, wearing gloves and facemasks, to stand in the same room. Will coach Ake face any disciplinary proceedings? At this stage that seems unlikely. The parents say they have forgiven him, and they are grateful for the efforts he is reported to have made to keep their spirits up in the caves, in particular through meditation, which he learned during 12 years as a monk. Coach Nop said Ake may be asked to go back to being a monk for a while, something Thais typically do as a kind of penance, or to replenish or cleanse themselves spiritually. Such a move would make a lot of sense to Thais, and he would likely be allowed to resume life as normal after that. Also Thailand typically does not have a 'blame culture', where a culprit must be found for any misadventure. There is a more fatalistic acceptance of things going wrong, less public clamour for accountability. How did they survive so long with so little food, and lose so little weight? The boys were in the caves nine days before they were found. They may have had a little food from what they bought to celebrate Night's birthday. They are passionate football players, very fit, and with the training they have had a tight-knit team. This would have helped them ration their food carefully and support each other, perhaps with songs. Coach Ake taught them to meditate, say Thai navy divers, and gave them more food than he ate. He also told them to drink water dripping from the rocks, rather than polluted ground water. During their last six to eight days they were being fed, initially high-protein gels, but later more normal food, which might have allowed them to start putting on a little weight before coming out. Were they in the dark the whole time? Most of the time. They went in with cheap torches, which would not have lasted long. It is likely they were in the dark for most of the first nine days of their ordeal. Once they were found a Thai army doctor and at least three divers stayed with them, equipped with good torches. Even so they were mostly in the dark, and had to wear sunglasses when they were first brought out. Were they sedated in any way? The Thai authorities are being very coy about this. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said they had been lightly sedated. But the BBC has spoken to a number of people involved in the operation who say the boys were heavily sedated, and only semi-conscious. The logic for this would be the fear their rescuers had that they would panic when wearing diving equipment for the first time in darkness and swirling cave water, endangering the lives of all of them. The two British cave divers who led the rescue effort, John Volanthen and Richard Stanton, are believed to have asked for Australian Richard Harris, a cave diver and anaesthetician, to assist in preparing the boys. How they carried semi-conscious or very drowsy boys through the technically challenging early stages of the journey out, with a lot of diving in narrow passages, we do not know. At times they may have been strapped to a diver's body. Later they were strapped on to a stretcher and suspended from a rope pulley system attached to the cave roof. The entire operation was complex, innovative and very bold. Nothing like it has been attempted before. Some of those involved described the tasks undertaken by the core divers, who carried the boys out, as superhuman. Who has paid for this operation? The Thai government, for most of it. It is likely that the contribution by other countries, like the 30 US air force personnel who went to help, would have been funded by their own governments as a gesture of good will. Many Thai businesses supported with transport and food. Thai Airways and Bangkok Airways offered free flights to some of the foreign divers coming in. Could the Thais have done this on their own? No, and few countries could. Cave diving is a very specialised skill, and expert cave rescuers are even rarer. Thailand was fortunate that an experienced caver Vern Unsworth has explored the Tham Luang cave complex extensively, and lives nearby. He was on the scene the day after the boys disappeared, and suggested that the Thai government needed to invite expert divers from other countries to help. The Thai navy divers who went down initially struggled, because both their experience and equipment were for sea diving, which is very different. They were driven out of the caves by rapidly rising flood water, and finding the boys seemed a hopeless cause. Once foreign divers arrived, from many different countries, the Thai authorities allowed them to devise first the search, and then the enormously complex rescue. It was a huge logistical operation involving hundreds of people, building guide rope and pulley systems, putting in power and communication cables. It is to Thailand's credit that it was organised so well, and there was no attempt to diminish the foreign contribution. Since we published this Q&A, we have received many more questions from readers about the rescue. The BBC's Jason Boswell and Howard Johnson have answered some of them. David Thrussell asks: Who raised the alarm and suggested that they may be in the caves? On the evening the boys went missing, Nopparat Khanthavong, another coach of the Wild Boars team, began receiving phone calls from worried parents. He called the missing coach, Ekapol Chanthawong, and some of the boys, but there was no answer. Eventually he got hold of Songpol Kanthawong, a 13-year-old member of the team whose mother picked him up after training. The boy told him that his teammates had gone to explore the Tham Luang caves. Coach Khanthavong then raised the alarm. Maeda Masami from Japan asks: How did the divers navigate in the zero visibility conditions? Cave divers will always put in a reference, or guide, line when they first swim into a cave. The line is unspooled from a reel as they extend further into the cave and will be tied off on rocks at regular intervals. The divers can then follow this line in and out of the cave or use it to install additional stronger lines or ropes so they can hold on and navigate despite terrible visibility. Even if they lost their masks they can navigate by touch and feel along the rope. Tumalip Ericson asks: Why did they say that Elon Musk's mini-sub wouldn't fit through the narrow gap in the rescue? What the head of the Thai rescue operation actually said was that the mini-submarine provided by Elon Musk was not "practical" with the mission. The exact reason why wasn't given. Several expert cave divers told the BBC that one of the potential problems with the design put forward by Mr Musk's team might have been that the "submarine" is a rigid inflexible tube. Cave passages are often not straight and smooth, so if there was a bend it may have been difficult for divers to try navigate the tube. Imagine trying to manoeuvre a long couch into a small room through an even smaller door, but in the dark and with a limited air supply. The divers would have wanted every piece of equipment as streamlined and as flexible as possible to navigate the uneven walls and bends of cave passages. However the mini-sub may be of future use in places that are not as restricted - for example in sunken or capsized ships. Experts say the design should continue to be worked on as the mini-sub may be valuable under a different set of circumstances. Mr Musk responded to the Thai authorities by tweeting an email from one of the British caving experts who played a key role in the rescue urging the inventor to build the capsule as quickly as possible. Mr Musk also said that "SpaceX engineering is absolutely certain that mini-sub can do entire journey & demonstrate at any time".

17 दिनों के भूमिगत होने के बाद, सभी थाई लड़के और उनके फुटबॉल कोच थाम लुआंग गुफा परिसर से सुरक्षित रूप से बच निकले हैं।


BBC Four's unexpected monologues on disability

Summary: From sexual liberation to the power-play of carers and benefit scams, BBC Four's CripTales presents a series of unexpected monologues written, performed and directed by disabled people. Actor, and curator of the series Mat Fraser, explains.

Growing up as a young disabled boy in a mainstream, non-disabled school, the whole world seemed able-bodied to me. I didn't know any disabled people, let alone kids my age. At that time, television seemed to reinforce the notion that we pretty much didn't exist, or, when we did, it was generally pitiful. The only disabled character I saw on TV in the 1970s was Sandy in the soap Crossroads. He was paraplegic, and used a wheelchair. Even now, jobs in TV drama have continued to be few and far between, so it means there are thousands of untold stories, experiences and performances. So, I welcomed the opportunity to curate CripTales - six, 15-minute monologues - about the disabled experience over the last 50 years, exploring disabled women's, people of colour and LGBT+ voices, not to mention faces. But why call it CripTales? Crip is a reclaimed word of self-empowerment and disability pride. It's free of pity, charity or tragedy, and was taken up by the disability rights movement in the 1980s. It was the title that I and the other participants wanted. The entire series has been written, directed and acted by disabled people, as part of the BBC's Queers and Snatches series. Jack Thorne is probably the most famous disabled screenwriter. He started his career on Shameless and Skins, and adapted Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials last year. For CripTales, he wrote Hamish. Set in 1981, Hamish's parents have bought him a new wheelchair. Crucially, it is a self-operated vehicle and a chance for independence, as he's always been pushed everywhere by carers before. Hamish heads for the woods, in search of carnal pleasure… For my own monologue - Audition - which I wrote and performed, I wanted to expose and poke fun at the audition process and the many weird, wonderful and often awful auditions I've had over the last 20 years. One such example is an audition I did in the late 90s for a popular TV drama, when many in the industry weren't very good at hiding their prejudice. The audition went well. The casting guy said I had a very suitable voice and persona. Two weeks later I hadn't heard anything, so my agent called him. "Oh, there's a problem," he said. "The character needs to drive." My agent pointed out that I had a full driving licence. "Sorry, it's not going to work out with Mat this time," he said. I drew on my bewilderment and embarrassment for the monologue, which speaks directly to the industry. I have had success in other auditions, as you may know if you've watched American Horror Story: Freak Show or His Dark Materials. Deaf director Jenny Sealey handles Matilda Ibini's story about the power dynamic of carers and their disabled "clients", from a gay black disabled woman's perspective in The Shed, performed by Carly Houston. It's about a writer who falls in love with Keira, her next-door neighbour. But Ellie, her carer, does not approve of the relationship, and starts to subtly block and subvert the romance, with dangerous consequences. It's a chilling tale exploring the power that can be exerted over a wheelchair-user's life. This is a perfect example of the stories that TV audiences have previously not had access to, which can only enrich our understanding of humanity in society. Much like deaf writer Genevieve Barr's unflinching story, Thunderbox. Set against the new law allowing abortion in the UK in 1968, it asks who is in charge of a disabled woman's body and who gets to decide about childbirth, when religion, family and society's beliefs often influence those decisions. While it was a moment of liberation for some, for wheelchair-user Sue, brilliantly acted by Bafta-nominated actor Ruth Madeley, it throws up questions about bodies and belief. A whirlwind romance has left her pregnant - what should she do now? And then there is The Real Deal, performed by Liz Carr (Clarissa from Silent Witness) about the UK benefits system and how some disabled people don't get what's theirs while others, who may be fakers, get the full bundle. It's really cheeky, yet a vital comment on the currently often dire situation so many British disabled people are in, as services are cut. I'm sure the BBC and other broadcasters will see the talent, recognise the lived experiences, and start commissioning and casting more work from our fine CripTales bunch, or it runs the risk of being a tokenistic project. CripTales is just the tip of the disability iceberg, but the lumbering Titanic of incorrect portrayals and impairment-obsessed caricatures has sunk into history, finally. The future is authentic, diverse and includes disabled people in all their myriad guises. CripTales can be watched at 10pm on BBC Four on 4 and 5 November and watched on BBC iPlayer afterwards. For more disability news, follow BBC Ouch on Twitter and Facebook and subscribe to the weekly podcast on BBC Sounds.

यौन मुक्ति से लेकर देखभाल करने वालों और लाभ घोटालों के पावर-प्ले तक, बीबीसी फोर की क्रिपटेल्स विकलांग लोगों द्वारा लिखित, प्रदर्शन और निर्देशित अप्रत्याशित एकालापों की एक श्रृंखला प्रस्तुत करती है। अभिनेता और श्रृंखला के क्यूरेटर मैट फ्रेजर बताते हैं।


Was there a communist witch-hunt at the BBC?

Summary: Newly released files from the 1950s show the extent to which the government was monitoring the BBC for communist and Soviet sympathisers. Despite pressure from one driven MP, the authorities resisted the urge to conduct a purge.

By Sanchia BergToday programme In June 1952, a Conservative MP urged the Prime Minister Winston Churchill to investigate Communist activities in Britain. "We have traitors in our midst," wrote Sir Waldron Smithers, "and although I should deplore suppression of free speech they should be treated as traitors." The letter was contained in one of Churchill's files that has only now been released to the National Archives, more than 60 years later. It was to be closed "indefinitely" according to a note on the front of the brown card cover. Historians believe that's because it concerns MI5 - and it's only in the past few years that their Cold War files have been released to the public. In 1952 Smithers urged the prime minister to set up a "committee presided over by an English judge or QC… who could make an extensive enquiry into communist activities and report to you". This was the era when Senator Joseph McCarthy was the driving force behind high profile and controversial hearings into alleged Communist infiltration in the United States, especially in public service. In 1947, Smithers had asked in parliament if the prime minister [then Labour's Clement Attlee] would "set up a committee of this House on Un-British Activities, on the lines of the Committee on Un-American activities". The government refused point blank. Smithers asked if communists would be outlawed and their funds seized. He was again refused. Five years later, Smithers was particularly worried about communist sympathisers in the BBC: "In the event of war or a major crisis… these fellow travellers, with their intimate knowledge of the mechanisms of broadcasting, could in half an hour cut wires and damage equipment seriously to hamper broadcasting." He included a list of BBC employees who he understood were communists, or sympathisers, mostly in the new Russian service. Among them was a "Mr Goldberg", who he described as a "Jew… who controls the selection of programmes and is a communist". Anatol Goldberg was in fact head of the BBC Russian service - an important and influential figure. Churchill was concerned enough to send the letter - and names - to MI5, via the Home Office, for further investigation. They wrote back saying the prime minister should not be worried. "In the considered view of the Security Service, communist influence in the BBC is very slight and does not constitute a serious security danger." For many years, MI5 had been vetting BBC staff. They believed there were only 147 communists, suspected communists, or communist sympathisers, out of a staff of 12,200. The home secretary believed a major inquiry - like that suggested by Smithers - "might cause much embarrassment without serving any useful purpose". Separately, MI5 forwarded their views on Smithers's blacklist. There was no evidence that any of them had been Communist Party members. Anatol Goldberg, they said, had been in contact in 1950 with a known communist, who was employed by Soviet News - but nothing more. Peter Fraenkel, former head of the BBC Russian Service, knew Anatol Goldberg well. "He was a wonderful raconteur," he says. "One of the best I've ever known". He isn't surprised that Goldberg had been in contact with Russian journalists in London - it was part of the job. He wasn't a communist himself. Fraenkel says Goldberg never spoke about his problems with MI5, but he knew some people felt his tone was too gentle: "He didn't sock it to them enough." Fraenkel says Goldberg's approach was more subtle - to listen to people, and then ask them questions like: "The revolution was supposed to deliver this and this this… has it done so?" Goldberg's approach was successful. The BBC Russian service was believed to be more popular and more trusted than its US-sponsored rivals - though of course there were no reliable ratings. MI5 and the Foreign Office did succeed in part - in 1957 Anatol Goldberg was shunted out of his post. He remained a commentator. Fraenkel says his predecessor at the Russian section, the former MI6 officer Alexander Lieven, had a poor view of his erstwhile colleagues at MI5. He advised Fraenkel not to trust their vetting - but to rely on his own Russian staff, who would quickly "sniff out" an infiltrator. Churchill wasn't fully convinced by Smithers's concerns. "I am assured you overestimate the extent of Communist influence and that proper plans exist to counter any serious threat." However, the prime minister retained a private interest. A year later he asked the Cabinet Secretary, Norman Brook, to check how many communists or communist sympathisers remained on the BBC staff. There were 100 - 60 in relatively junior positions. Of the 40 in more senior roles, 31 were in the overseas services. Brook said that the Director General Sir Ian Jacob was aware of the "risks" - that they'd try to influence the content of broadcasts, but that "he is certainly on the watch for any signs of this - he is of course helped by knowing precisely who the suspects are and what positions they hold". The director general and the home secretary were opposed to a policy of "eradication" as they feared sacking people for their political beliefs would cause "such a political storm that it would do more harm than good". Jean Seaton, author of Pinkos And Traitors, about politicians and the BBC, believes this was a rather British approach - to monitor rather than blacklist. While the closeness between the BBC, government, and MI5 may look troubling now, she says it was an effect of World War Two. Churchill and Jacob, for instance, had worked closely together: "These are men who'd worked through a national emergency… they'd shared concerns... they shared a world view. In that sense they don't have the alarm bells round MI5 that someone who'd always worked on Newsnight might." George Orwell's list of communist sympathisers Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

1950 के दशक की नई जारी की गई फाइलों से पता चलता है कि सरकार किस हद तक कम्युनिस्ट और सोवियत सहानुभूति रखने वालों के लिए बीबीसी की निगरानी कर रही थी। एक संचालित सांसद के दबाव के बावजूद, अधिकारियों ने सफाई करने के आग्रह का विरोध किया।


Surrey schools get high-speed broadband in £10.2m deal

Summary: High-speed broadband is to be installed in nearly 400 Surrey schools at a cost of £10.2m, the county council has said.

The Tory-run authority expects all schools to get connection speeds of between 10mb and 50mb by September. The council said the average broadband speed across the UK was 6.2mb, based on figures from Ofcom in March. Councillor Peter Martin said ensuring schools were in the "internet fast lane" was vital in making sure they continued to set high standards. The cabinet spokesman for children and learning said: "Computers and the internet are just as essential a part of education as books, pens and paper. "We want to enable as many pupils as possible to take full advantage of the benefits they provide." Surrey County Council has signed a three-year contract with Research Machines to provide the service.

काउंटी परिषद ने कहा है कि लगभग 400 सरे स्कूलों में £ 10.2m की लागत से हाई-स्पीड ब्रॉडबैंड स्थापित किया जाना है।


Near-complete skeleton found in M54 slip road search

Summary: A near-complete skeleton was found by a Shropshire motorway slip road after a man's skull was discovered there last month, police have revealed.

West Mercia Police said a post-mortem carried out on 16 September had not established the cause of his death. Investigators are examining dental records to work out his identity. The skull was found on 20 August by junction four of the M54 at Shifnal. Tests determined the remains had been at the scene for at least two years. The skull was found by maintenance workers at the eastbound exit slip road of the motorway. Police are being helped by the National Crime Agency, the UK Missing Persons Database and forensic anthropologists to identify the person, the force said. A police search by the slip road ended on 10 September.

पुलिस ने खुलासा किया है कि पिछले महीने श्रॉपशायर मोटरवे स्लिप रोड पर एक व्यक्ति की खोपड़ी मिलने के बाद एक लगभग पूरा कंकाल मिला था।


Pisa tests to include 'global skills' and cultural awareness

Summary: Pisa tests, an international standard for comparing education systems around the world, could include a new measurement of global skills in the next round of tests in 2018. The OECD, which runs the tests in maths, reading and science, is considering adding another test which would look at how well pupils can navigate an increasingly diverse world, with an awareness of different cultures and beliefs. The OECD's education director Andreas Schleicher explains why there is such a need for new rankings to show young people's competence in a world where globalisation is a powerful economic, political and cultural force.

By Andreas Schleicher OECD education director Education leaders around the world are increasingly talking about the need to teach "global competences" as a way of addressing the challenges of globalisation. It was one of the key topics at this month's meeting of education ministers from the G7 group of leading industrial countries, held in Japan. Globalisation can mean different things to different people. It can mean innovation and higher living standards for some - but it can also contribute to social division and economic inequality. Automation and the digital economy could be seen as an entrepreneurial opportunity - or a weakening of job security. For some "cross border migration" means being able to travel for work between different countries, while for others it means escaping from poverty and war. Educators have been struggling with how to prepare students for the culturally diverse and digitally-connected communities in which they work and socialise. In the past, education was about teaching people something. Now, it is also about making sure that children develop a reliable compass, the navigation skills and the character qualities that will help them find their own way through an uncertain, volatile and ambiguous world. Schools need to prepare students for a world where many will need to collaborate with people of diverse cultural origins. They will need to appreciate different ideas, perspectives and values. It's a world in which people need to decide how to trust and collaborate across differences. Schools can provide opportunities for young people to learn about global development, equip them with the means of accessing and analysing different cultures, help students engage in international and intercultural relations, and foster the value of the diversity of people. These objectives already feature in many countries' curriculums. But nowhere do policymakers or educators have ready answers about how to embed global competence in schools and learning. A big part of the problem is that there is no clear definition of what global competence should embrace, and how to make it measurable for educational policy and practice. The OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) has now put that on its agenda. It defines "global competence" as: The idea is to provide an internationally comparative Pisa assessment that would offer the first comprehensive overview of education systems' success in preparing young people to have such global competence. It could assess the knowledge and understanding of 15-year-olds of global issues and interactions with other cultures. More stories from the BBC's Global education series looking at education from an international perspective and how to get in touch The proposal also includes asking students questions about communicating appropriately and effectively with people from other cultures or countries How well can they comprehend other people's thoughts, beliefs and feelings, and see the world from their perspectives? How can they adjust their own thoughts, feelings or behaviours to fit new contexts and situations? Can they analyse and think critically in order to scrutinise information given to them? There is also a discussion about looking at more general attitudes, such as the openness of students towards people from other cultures. What is their sensitivity towards, curiosity about and willingness to engage with other people and other perspectives on the world? Pisa is just at the beginning of exploring how to measure these dimensions. But comparative evidence from tests could help countries to study how well their students are prepared for life and employment in a globalised world. It could find out how much their students are exposed to global news and how they understand and critically analyse global issues. What are the different approaches to multicultural and global education used in different countries? How are culturally diverse groups of students being taught? How well are schools challenging cultural and gender biases and stereotypes? The OECD sees global competence as being shaped by three principles - "equity", "cohesion" and "sustainability". Today, all three principles are at risk. But the OECD sees global competence as the centrepiece of a broader vision for 21st-Century education.

पीसा परीक्षण, दुनिया भर की शिक्षा प्रणालियों की तुलना करने के लिए एक अंतरराष्ट्रीय मानक, 2018 में परीक्षणों के अगले दौर में वैश्विक कौशल का एक नया माप शामिल कर सकता है। ओ. ई. सी. डी., जो गणित, पढ़ने और विज्ञान में परीक्षण चलाता है, एक और परीक्षा जोड़ने पर विचार कर रहा है जो यह देखेगा कि छात्र विभिन्न संस्कृतियों और मान्यताओं के प्रति जागरूकता के साथ एक तेजी से विविध दुनिया को कितनी अच्छी तरह से नेविगेट कर सकते हैं। ओ. ई. सी. डी. के शिक्षा निदेशक एंड्रियास श्लेचर बताते हैं कि एक ऐसी दुनिया में युवाओं की क्षमता को दिखाने के लिए नई रैंकिंग की आवश्यकता क्यों है जहां वैश्वीकरण एक शक्तिशाली आर्थिक, राजनीतिक और सांस्कृतिक शक्ति है।


Woman dies in Christmas Eve crash near Caerphilly

Summary: A woman has died after a car crash on one of the main roads in the south Wales valleys.

The A468 between Caerphilly and the A470 at Nantgarw Hill was shut for almost three hours after the single vehicle crash involving a blue Seat. Two people were taken to hospital in Cardiff after the crash at the Heol Y Dderwen junction in Rhondda Cynon Taff at 10:20 GMT. South Wales Police said a 57-year-old woman from Caerphilly had died.

साउथ वेल्स घाटी में मुख्य सड़कों में से एक पर कार दुर्घटना में एक महिला की मौत हो गई है।


UK 'has particularly extreme form of capitalism'

Summary: The UK has one of the most extreme forms of capitalism in the world and we urgently need to rethink the role of business in society. That's according to Prof Colin Mayer, author of a new report on the future of the corporation for the British Academy.

Simon JackBusiness editor@BBCSimonJackon Twitter Prof Mayer says that global crises such as the environment and growing inequality are forcing a reassessment of what business is for. "The corporation has failed to deliver benefit beyond shareholders, to its stakeholders and its wider community," he said. "At the moment, how we conceptualise business is, it's there to make money. But instead, we should think about it as an incredibly powerful tool for solving our problems in the world." He said the ownership structure of companies had made the UK one of the worst examples of responsible capitalism. "The UK has a particularly extreme form of capitalism and ownership," he said. "Most ownership in the UK is in the hands of a large number of institutional investors, none of which have a significant controlling shareholding in our largest companies. That is quite unlike virtually any other country in the world, including the United States." This heavily dispersed form of ownership means none of the owners is providing a genuinely long-term perspective on how to achieve goals while also making money. Business shake-up Established in 1902, the British Academy is the UK's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. In Principles for Purposeful Business, it proposes a new formula for corporate purpose: "to profitably solve problems of people and planet, and not profit from causing problems." The Academy's report comes a week after the Labour Party manifesto proposed the biggest shake-up of how business is owned and run in decades. It included the nationalisation of water, rail, energy, mail, broadband and the forced transfer of company shares to employees. Prof Mayer agreed that the Labour manifesto was bold in its ambition, but said it was too traditional and old-fashioned in its way of achieving its aims. "It's very much focused on one particular means of delivery, that is through the state," he said. "Now, the state has an important part to play. But we should think about the state in a more imaginative way, as to how it can promote successful business, how it can reform the nature of business in society. That's what we're really looking for." One thing on which he did agree with the Labour Party was the need to rewrite the Companies Act to specifically enshrine directors' duties to other stakeholders in law. Currently, the Act says that other stakeholders interests are subordinate to shareholders. Where he doesn't agree is in the demonisation of billionaires: "It's not obscene to make a lot of money in the process of creating real solutions to the problems of the world." But he hoped that such wealth would be recycled through foundations, for example, which could be the kind of long-term owners needed for the next generation of problem-solving companies. Profit motive Not everyone agrees, of course, that the pursuit of profit, within the confines of the law and social norms, is bad. Matthew Lesh, from the Adam Smith Institute, says we should be cautious before we dismantle a mechanism that has produced innovation and a rise in absolute living standards. "The profit motive has raised literally billions of people out of poverty by encouraging innovation and ensuring our finite resources are used exceedingly productively," he said. "Mandating alternative purposes for business raises more issues than it solves. It removes the essential accountability between shareholders, whose investments are at risk, and corporate executives." Some of these are age-old arguments between the Left and Right, but there is plenty of evidence that something fundamental is changing deep in the heart of capitalist economies. Since 1978, the American Business Roundtable of top chief executives has periodically issued Principles of Corporate Governance. For the last 40 years, all of them have reiterated the orthodoxy that corporations exist principally to serve shareholders. Until now. In August it issued a new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, signed by 181 chief executives who committed to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders - customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders. Even the famously private family that owns Mars has recently popped its head over the parapet to talk openly about the way it runs the chocolate-to-pet-food giant with annual sales of $35bn. 'Whatever it takes' Mars chairman Stephen Badger admits things are different now. "We've never felt the need to be public but times have changed," he said. "The talent [employees] really want to know what the company they work for, stands for. "Equally important is that the magnitude of the challenges facing the world - climate change, poverty, biodiversity loss - these are issues that we care deeply about. "We've got less than 10 years to get this right - incremental change is not enough. We are prepared to spend serious money on this and if that means lower profits, so be it. Whatever it takes to get the job done," The challenge to companies is threefold. Staff who want to believe in the company they work for, consumers who may boycott the products of companies that don't get it and, of course, politicians who may legislate, tax or nationalise them out of existence. Do the right thing? But we should be cautious about announcing the death of shareholder power. Unilever - the Anglo-Dutch makers of Marmite, PG Tips and 400 other consumer brands - has long been admired for its enlightened approach to its societal impact. In 2017, it received a surprise takeover bid from Kraft Heinz. Its response was to accelerate the sale of some businesses, increase its dividend, cut costs by 12%, raise the amount of debt in the company and give a further €5bn to shareholders through share buybacks. Steps the then chief executive, Paul Polman, now says he would rather not have taken. "Feel free to be responsible - but don't be complacent about the interests of your owners" was the clear message and lesson learned. Alan Jope, the current Unilever chief executive, told the BBC that its focus on doing right by society and the environment was not out of fear of nationalisation, taxation or regulation, but out of fear that its products would be shunned by a new generation of consumers unless they got this stuff right. Is that doing the right thing for the wrong reason? Not really. Does it matter if it is? Probably not. Unilever's Mr Jope did have a supportive message for the Labour Party. When asked if he supported company law changes to discourage firms from placing shareholders above others, he gave a clipped and clear response: "Yep." One thing is certain. No matter who wins the UK election, you can expect to hear the word "purpose" a lot in the next few years.

ब्रिटेन दुनिया में पूँजीवाद के सबसे चरम रूपों में से एक है और हमें समाज में व्यवसाय की भूमिका पर तत्काल पुनर्विचार करने की आवश्यकता है। यह ब्रिटिश अकादमी के लिए निगम के भविष्य पर एक नई रिपोर्ट के लेखक प्रो. कॉलिन मेयर के अनुसार है।


The secret life of a female bodyguard

Summary: Jacquie Davis, who says she was the first woman to become a bodyguard in the UK, has protected royals and celebrities, rescued hostages and carried out undercover surveillance in her 30 years in the industry. Now her own life has inspired a Netflix thriller starring Noomi Rapace.

By Tim BowlerBusiness reporter, BBC News "When I came into the industry it was a very he-man attitude," says Jacquie. "They just always wanted me to look after the female principal or the children which was ironic - as most of them were fathers and I wasn't even a mother!" Having initially joined the police, Jacquie decided to move into private security in 1980 because it would give her more variety. "I wanted to do close protection, I wanted to do surveillance and wanted to do investigations," she says. Being a bodyguard is particularly high-profile at the moment thanks to Bodyguard, the BBC One drama starring Keeley Hawes as the UK's Home Secretary and Richard Madden as her personal protection officer. Writer Jed Mercurio's script is full of plot twists, guns - and a steamy relationship between the two lead characters. "Technically it's been fine - it is a good drama," says Jacquie, but while such relationships do occasionally happen "you'll get sacked immediately, no question". In her career she's travelled the world staying in five- and six-star hotels, but says "after 12 to 16 hours of thinking on your feet, it's not glamorous". In addition to this, there is the toll on a bodyguard's private life. "You might not go home for eight to 10 weeks." Jacquie also specialises in the more dangerous end of the business - surveillance and rescue. Once she found herself begging on the streets of Iraq, disguised in a burka, as part of a mission to rescue oil workers. While the job is about preventing danger to the client by planning ahead to avoid potential risks, sometimes real life can be as dramatic as any film or TV script. "We were being chased by the Pakistan army and wandered into Kashmir," she told BBC World Service's Business Daily programme. "The Kashmiri rebels were firing at the Pakistan army and we got caught in the crossfire." She and her team had gone undercover in a rescue mission to free a 23-year-old British woman who'd been tricked into going to Pakistan with her new husband. Instead the woman was imprisoned, but eventually got a message to her mother telling her she was being held hostage and asking for help. Her mother contacted Jacquie. One night, Jacquie broke into the villa where the woman was being held, handcuffed to an iron bedstead. "She said she was three months pregnant and was being raped, starved and beaten. I told her, 'We will come back and get you out.'" But suddenly they got a phone call telling them their cover was blown. "Benazir Bhutto, who I'd worked for [previously], had recognised me and thought she knew why I was there - to rescue somebody," says Jacquie. It meant they had to rethink their plans and act fast. "We had to storm the villa by paying a taxi driver to ram the gates," she says. They freed the woman and headed for India with the Pakistani army in pursuit. Going as far as they could in a vehicle they then walked across the mountains. "We were trained and quite fit, but I've got a pregnant woman who's been beaten, starved and has a pair of flip-flops on. To me she was the real hero." Happily, they managed to dodge the gunfire in Kashmir and were able to bring the woman home. Jacquie says there have been two big changes over her three decades in the industry. More women are now signing up, though they still make up only one in 10 bodyguards in the UK. The business also has a much higher public profile now. "Because of terrorism, security is in people's minds," she says. This political instability, coupled with an upsurge in the super-rich in the Middle East, China and elsewhere has driven the growth of the sector in recent years. Figures from the Confederation of European Security Services show there are more than 230,000 people employed in the security services industry in the UK - and 1.9 million in the EU, with 44,000 security companies operating in the sector in Europe alone. Though only a fraction of these will actually be working as bodyguards. In the UK, the Security Industry Authority (SIA) is the industry regulatory body responsible for personal licensing and private security regulations, and all newcomers need to do a training course first. Which is fine as far as it goes, says Jacquie, but points out that "you're never going to come off a course and be a bodyguard or close protection operative immediately". Anybody working in personal protection needs to remember that they are not the client's friend. "You just have to maintain that slight apartness so you can be there when they need it and pull back when they don't," she says. Jacquie herself is now the subject of an upcoming Netflix film, Close. The action-thriller starring Noomi Rapace was inspired by Jacquie's life as a bodyguard and she was a consultant on the film. Director Vicky Jewson has said that working with Jacquie "allowed us to bring an authenticity to the action scenes which was very important to me". Despite the stereotype of burly security men in dark glasses, the essence of being a bodyguard is brains not brawn, Jacquie insists. Recruits need to learn the softer skills of the business to work with clients. For instance, which knife and fork to use in a Michelin restaurant and how to have afternoon tea at the Ritz while blending into the background. You also need to keep up with current affairs, she advises. "You have to be able to talk about the Nasdaq, not The Only Way Is Essex." She's not dismissive of the personal risks that are occasionally involved but says you can't worry going into a job. "You do the job you're trained to do. When you come out, that's when you go, 'Oh my God, what have I just done?'" Listen to the whole interview with Jacquie Davis on Business Daily.

जैकी डेविस, जो कहती हैं कि वह यूके में अंगरक्षक बनने वाली पहली महिला थीं, ने शाही परिवार और मशहूर हस्तियों की रक्षा की है, बंधकों को बचाया है और उद्योग में अपने 30 वर्षों में गुप्त निगरानी की है। अब उनके अपने जीवन ने नूमी रैपेस अभिनीत एक नेटफ्लिक्स थ्रिलर को प्रेरित किया है।


Man dies in Bicester roundabout car crash

Summary: A man has died after the car he was driving crashed into a roundabout in Oxfordshire.

The man, in his sixties, was driving a red Mercedes on the A41 on Thursday when he crashed into the Bicester Park and Ride roundabout at 22:10 BST. He died at the scene and his next of kin have been informed. A passenger, a man in his fifties, was seriously injured and is in "a critical condition" in hospital, Thames Valley Police said. Police are appealing for witnesses. Related Internet Links Thames Valley Police

ऑक्सफोर्डशायर में एक गोल चक्कर में कार के दुर्घटनाग्रस्त होने से एक व्यक्ति की मौत हो गई है।


What makes a language like Welsh or English 'official'?

Summary: When is a language an "official" language?

By Mark HannabyBBC Wales political reporter Much of the impassioned debate around the proposed new law on the Welsh language centres on that complex question. The assembly government maintains that its amendments confirm official status for Welsh. But Welsh language campaigners argue the changes in status have no power in law. This argument is complicated by the fact that the English language does not have an "official" status in law, so there is no clearly defined notion of what official status might mean. Ultimately, perhaps, arguments about linguistic status are important as a way into arguments about linguistic rights. When the assembly's legislation committee scrutinised the Welsh Assembly Government's proposals, it recommended the inclusion of a clear statement that English and Welsh are official languages of Wales. What has actually been proposed by the ministers is a clause stating that "the Welsh language has official status in Wales" followed by a series of clauses explaining how that status is given legal effect. For some language campaigners this is an unacceptable limiting of the concept of "official" status to cover the subject areas listed in the clauses. These establish, for example, that all public sector bodies and some private sector companies - utilities such as telecoms, gas and electricity firms - must provide services in the Welsh language. What that does not do, say opponents, is give Welsh speakers the right to demand services in Welsh and enforce that right through the courts. But, unnecessary as it may be in practice, those are rights English speakers don't have either because, as stated earlier, English does not have an "official" status in law. It is perhaps impossible for Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones and his government colleagues to chart a course on the Welsh language that satisfies most. Welsh speakers "I get the impression that if Moses secured the language's status on Mount Sinai, some people still would not be happy," he told BBC Radio Cymru's Post Cyntaf programme on Thursday morning. If Welsh speakers did have a right to demand services in Welsh in every area of life and in every part of Wales, however few Welsh speakers live there, that would also meet opposition - from the businesses which would have to provide those services, for example. But it is a course Mr Jones has to pursue. A new law on Welsh was a central promise in the One Wales document underwriting the coalition agreement between Labour and Plaid Cymru at the Welsh assembly. It is also a vital issue for much of Plaid Cymru's support. So it is imperative for that party, while in government, to bring such a law into being before the end of the current assembly term and next May's election.

कब कोई भाषा "आधिकारिक" भाषा होती है?


Wales Rally GB gears up start of 2014 event

Summary: The Wales Rally GB is under way around north and mid Wales.

The three-day international event is the final stage of the world rally championships and sees 160 competitors taking on the forest stage. Entrants include Elfyn Evans, 25, from Dolgellau, son of former British rally champion Gwyndaf Evans. Thousands attended a firework launch in Eirias Park Stadium, Colwyn Bay, on Thursday night, from where the rally began. It is the second year the rally has started in north Wales after moving from its previous base in Cardiff. The course takes drivers through forests in Snowdonia, Denbighshire and mid Wales. The rally started with the Gartheiniog Forest stage. It was the first time spectators were able to view this stage, which organisers described as 18km of "pure challenge" for the competitors. All the way through the forest there were tight technical corners, fast open sweeping roads and big climbs as well as steep downhill sections. The event is the 13th and final stage of this year's World Rally Championship. It is a three-day route comprising of 23 competitive stages, with all 191 miles against the clock. Friday's action will see the drivers competing through mid Wales and they will eventually make their way back up to north Wales on Sunday, where the winner will be crowned in Llandudno.

वेल्स रैली जी. बी. उत्तर और मध्य वेल्स के आसपास चल रही है।


Erick Morillo: I Like To Move It DJ dead at 49

Summary: Erick Morillo, the internationally-recognised DJ best known for the track I Like To Move It, has been found dead in Miami, local police have said.

His death comes less than a month after his arrest for sexually assaulting a female DJ after working a gig together. Police said the 49-year old was found dead in his Miami Beach home, but have released few details as the investigation begins. He released his 1994 hit I Like To Move It using the name Reel 2 Real. It became a retro hit again after a remix was featured in the 2005 animated film Madagascar. Morillo had denied the sexual assault charge, but turned himself in after a rape kit identified him as the suspect, according to WPLG-TV in Florida. He had been scheduled for a court hearing on Friday, the station reported.

स्थानीय पुलिस ने कहा है कि अंतरराष्ट्रीय स्तर पर मान्यता प्राप्त डीजे एरिक मोरिलो, जो ट्रैक आई लाइक टू मूव इट के लिए जाने जाते हैं, मियामी में मृत पाए गए हैं।


PCC Elections 2021: Who is standing in Leicestershire?

Summary: Elections for police and crime commissioners will be held in England and Wales on 6 May 2021.

Candidates standing in Leicestershire Police's area are listed alphabetically by surname below. More information is available on the Choose my PCC website. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk. Related Internet Links Leicester City Council: PCC Election 2021 Police and crime commissioners

पुलिस और अपराध आयुक्तों के लिए चुनाव 6 मई 2021 को इंग्लैंड और वेल्स में आयोजित किए जाएंगे।


Kashmir: Can new government provide healing touch?

Summary: The alliance between India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the regional People's Democratic Party (PDP) to govern Indian-administered Kashmir is the most hopeful development in the region in a quarter of a century, writes Professor Sumantra Bose .

The anti-India insurgency that erupted in Kashmir in 1989 has abated over the past decade, but the situation remains fragile and volatile - the Kashmir Valley, in particular, remains beset by simmering unrest. The state is home to about 13 million of the disputed territory's 18 million people; the rest live across the heavily militarised Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. The Kashmir conflict has three main dimensions: The BJP-PDP agreement offers the potential to apply the healing touch to the second and third dimensions. At odds On paper, the two are very unlikely coalition partners. Since its formation in 1951, the BJP has maintained a hardline stance on the Kashmir issue and has stood for the repeal of Article 370 of India's constitution which grants special autonomous status to the state. The PDP accepts that Kashmir is a part of India but has based its politics on articulating the valley's grievances and aspirations. It has not only defended Article 370 but - given that the state's statutory autonomy has been stripped away since the mid-1950s by integrative measures unilaterally imposed from Delhi - advocated renewed "self-rule" for Jammu and Kashmir, plus cross-border ties with Pakistani Kashmir. The PDP has also campaigned on a human rights agenda, especially against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which gives virtually unlimited powers and immunity from prosecution to army personnel in Kashmir. The party also advocates dialogue with pro-independence and pro-Pakistan groups and leaders in Kashmir and with Pakistan to find a lasting solution to the Kashmir conflict. All these demands are at odds with the Hindu nationalist perspective on Kashmir. Tough negotiations Last May the BJP, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, won a decisive victory in India's general elections and a majority in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the parliament), the first time this has happened since 1984. In December, Jammu and Kashmir state elections saw a good voter turnout of 65% and threw up a complex, fractured result - the PDP dominated in the valley and emerged as the single-largest party with 28 seats and the BJP was a close second with 25 seats due to a dominating performance in the Jammu region. The formation of the PDP-BJP government - in which Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, a 79-year-old political veteran, and nearly two-thirds of the ministers with full cabinet rank are from the PDP - followed two months of hard negotiations. The talks signalled a hugely positive development: the engagement of the most hardline Indian position on Kashmir with a perspective rooted in the valley which advocates autonomy, dignity and rights. On Article 370, "while recognising the different positions of the parties", the coalition agreement commits to maintaining "all the constitutional provisions pertaining to Kashmir including the special status". On AFSPA, while noting that the "[two] parties have historically held different view(s)", the agreement observes that "the situation in the state has improved vastly" and "the coalition government will thoroughly review the security situation" and "the need for de-notifying disturbed areas" to "enable the government to take a final view on the continuation of AFSPA in these areas". Beyond the rapprochement on the most contentious points, the agreement is significant for what it promises to do on a broader front. "The purpose of this alliance," the agreement says, is "to catalyse reconciliation and confidence-building within and across the LoC", to "widen the ambit of democracy through inclusive politics", and to "create conditions to facilitate resolution of all issues". So "the coalition government will facilitate and help initiate a sustained and meaningful dialogue with all internal stakeholders irrespective of their ideological views... [which] will seek to build a broad-based consensus on the resolution of all outstanding issues". Further, as "the government has recently initiated several steps to normalise the relationship with Pakistan, the coalition government will seek to support and strengthen the approach". And, "the same [goal] will be pursued by enhancing people-to-people contact across the LoC [through] encouraging civil society exchanges [and by] taking travel, commerce, trade and business across the LoC to the next level". This is precisely the kind of approach that eventually succeeded in ending the long conflict in Northern Ireland. The symbolism of the oath-taking ceremony of the new Kashmir government - held in Jammu, the state's winter capital and a predominantly Hindu city - was powerful, as Mr Modi and Mr Sayeed embraced behind a table decorated with the Indian flag and the state flag. Hindu nationalists have long objected to Kashmir having its own flag. It is premature to say that this strategic bargain between Kashmiri Muslim regionalists and Hindu nationalists heralds a Kashmir Spring. But it is unmistakably the most hopeful development since the descent into violence a quarter of a century ago. The challenge over the next few years is to convert symbolism into substance, and the promise into reality. Sumantra Bose is Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His latest book is Transforming India: Challenges to the World's Largest Democracy.

प्रोफेसर सुमंत्र बोस लिखते हैं कि भारत प्रशासित कश्मीर पर शासन करने के लिए भारत की सत्तारूढ़ भारतीय जनता पार्टी (भाजपा) और क्षेत्रीय पीपुल्स डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी (पीडीपी) के बीच गठबंधन इस क्षेत्र में एक चौथाई सदी में सबसे आशाजनक विकास है।


King's Lynn crash pheasant released back into wild

Summary: A pheasant that became trapped in a van's engine cavity after hitting it with such force the bonnet opened has been released back into the wild.

The RSPCA said it caused considerable damage to the delivery van's front when it was struck in King's Lynn, Norfolk, in March. The bird spent a month recovering at the charity's East Winch centre so swelling on its body could go down. It was returned to the wild on farmland near Fakenham. Centre manager Alison Charles said the pheasant was "very lucky" to just be "pink and swollen" after hitting the van. She added the bird's care had been "TLC, warmth and quiet".

एक तीतर जो एक वैन के इंजन गुहा में इतने बल से टकराने के बाद फंस गया था कि बोनट खोला गया था, उसे वापस जंगल में छोड़ दिया गया है।