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"Jurassic World" and the Dinosaurs at the USDA
Rachel Smolker,
The new movie Jurassic World offers more than a few lessons relevant to the state of our world. (Photo: Dinosaur Fossil via Shutterstock)
The new movie Jurassic World offers more than a few lessons relevant to the state of our world. There is the obvious point about scientists bringing back to life genetically engineered dinosaurs with no real concern for the havoc they may wreak. Then there is the very clear link to real-world "de-extinction" scientists who seriously aim to bring back mastodons and passenger pigeons, while others are finding ever more potent means to mess around with the code of life to manufacture completely new organisms through synthetic biology.
There are also the dinosaur-like regulations of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), developed way back in the 1980s before many of the new biotechnologies were even conceived. Those regulations are in desperate need of an overhaul if they are ever to protect the public from the onslaught of dangerous and unpredictable impacts that necessarily accompany the derailing of billions of years of evolution for the purpose of corporate profit-making.
Right now in fact, the USDA is in the process of evaluating and overhauling these antiquated regulations, a process that should have been completed a decade ago (more below on this, and on how to take action). Better late than never, however, especially given the current push to genetically engineer a post-fossil-fuel bioeconomy!
A bioeconomy on the scale of our fossil economy would require many planets worth of biomass.
As a rather jaded climate activist, I find my workdays often feel like a torrent of bad news and troubling trends. But just lately there seems to be a long overdue shift afoot! The coal industry is taking serious hits and in fact, the entire fossil fuel empire is increasingly referred to in terms of "stranded assets." In St. Paul, Minnesota, in early June, thousands protested against tar sands. I rejoiced to see the Raging Grannies firmly ensconced in front of Shell's Arctic drilling rig in Seattle along with a swarm of colorful "kayaktivists." Beyond Extreme Energy and allies organized 10 days of actions against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and its rubber-stamping of fracking and gas export infrastructure at Cove Point. Here in my mighty little home state of Vermont, a band of merry warriors is fighting (and winning) against a fracked gas pipeline! Even Pope Francis is speaking up about climate and making plenty of sense!
While this is all inspiring some hope, that hope is tempered for me by a now familiar sense of anxiety about some of the implications. I've watched for years as over and over, vague and unspecified supports for "action" or "solutions" to the problem of climate change have devolved into ever more subsidies, mandates and outrageous investments into fantasy technologies, especially those promising to maintain "business as usual." The main game has been to find ways to avoid actually changing the system, and instead, at most, just change the fuel source that runs the system.
Especially eager to maintain business as usual, and to profit wherever and whenever possible, Big Ag, Big Oil, Big Aviation and the very Big US Military are all joining hands in a big dance for big biofuels. Their dance turns in circles around Big Biotech, which is working like crazy to facilitate the "fuel switch": tweaking, synthesizing and engineering the genetic heritages of all manner of crops, trees, microbes, algae and other forms of life, seeking to turn things from their evolved place in the web of life into living chemical factories that spew out biofuels, biochemicals and the raw materials for human industrial economies. It is, after all, an inconvenient truth that virtually anything now derived from, or powered by, fossil fuels could, theoretically at least, be derived from living biomass. Thus, the hopeful embrace of a bioeconomy to seamlessly replace our fossil economy.
A bioeconomy on the scale of our fossil economy would, inconveniently, require many planets worth of biomass. Consider this example, just for illustration: Recently, it was enthusiastically announced that Alaska Airlines will be testing wood-derived biofuels. Based on the figures provided, one ton of wood yields 45 gallons of jet fuel. A loaded jet in flight burns about 14 gallons of fuel per minute. A one-hour flight would therefore require about 840 gallons of fuel. That means it would take about 18 tons of dry wood to fly for one hour. But dry wood weighs about half of what fresh cut, wet wood weighs, so to fly for an hour, it would be necessary to harvest around 36 tons of wood! For one plane to fly for one hour.
What does 36 tons of wood even look like? And what if we multiplied that by even just a single day's worth of flights for just that one airline? Or, even more astonishing, by just half the flights that grace our skies on any given day. How much land area would have to be harvested; how much soil, water, nutrients, displaced food, farming and forests; how much air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions from harvest equipment and trucking? How can that possibly be considered a "sustainable" or environmentally friendly solution? Our ability to grapple with the magnitude of these figures is, frankly, stunted, and industry has taken advantage of that handicap, referring in glowing terms to plentiful and abundant "wastes and residues." Several planets worth!
Researchers are working to develop "gene drives" intended to deliberately force new genes to spread in nature.
We are fed nonsensical rhetoric about "energy independence" and "low carbon fuels," while this convergence of corporate interests grows fatter and fatter, feeding off the subsidies that hemorrhage out of every conceivable budget. Smiling puppet politicians proclaim to offer "solutions" to our vague demands, blatantly ignoring the heaped mountains of science and common sense that show us biofuels can never deliver energy independence, that most are in fact as bad or even worse for the climate than the fossil fuels they supposedly displace (but in reality, augment), that food is pricier and people are hungrier when fuel competes with food, and that cutting down trees, turning them into pellets, shipping them across the ocean and burning them in European coal plants bears no relationship whatsoever to "clean," "renewable" or "climate-friendly" fuels.
In addition to the unimaginably vast amounts of biomass required, achieving a bioeconomy depends on some unimaginable feats of genetic engineering, which is why the Big Biofuel dance circles all around Big Biotech. They are tasked with engineering the genetics of crops and trees to grow faster and be more easily converted into chemicals and fuels. And they are tasked with hijacking the metabolic processes of yeast, E. coli, algae and various microbes, forcing them to squirt out industrial and commercial fuels and chemicals. The US Department of Energy ARPA-E, for example, now hosts a project referred to as "PETRO," an acronym for "Plants Engineered to Replace Oil." Along with other government agencies, they seek to fast-track field tests of a suite of genetically engineered crops and trees across the southeastern United States. Perhaps even more troubling is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which opened a new "Biological Technologies Office," with a "Living Foundries" program.
Biotechnologists working in this realm have a whole range of new synthetic tools to wield. Synthetic biology techniques with names like CRISPR, RNA interference and zinc fingers permit drastic manipulations and rearrangements of the evolved genetic heritage of living organisms, far above and beyond anything previously possible or even imagined.
Researchers are working to develop "gene drives" intended to deliberately force new genes to spread in nature. They have developed means for "directed evolution," and are working to "enhance photosynthesis." Others are developing microbes to extract coal bed methane or secrete drilling lubricants for the fracking industry. Biotechnologists have engineered E. coli bacteria to pump out propane, yeast to pump out morphine, microalgae that squirt ethanol, chemicals for plastic manufacturing and any of a variety of other industrial chemicals. AquaBounty seeks commercial release of genetically modified salmon, and scientists amuse themselves by engineering featherless chickens, goats that produce pharmaceutical milk and chickens with dinosaur faces. Others seek the techno-resurrection of extinct species or are banking on profits from patented climate-change-resistant seed varieties.
In garages and back rooms, do-it-yourselfers insert mail ordered gene sequences into microbes, offer glowing plants in exchange for Kickstarter donations and struggle to poke "milk" out of yeast. Tree biotechnologists engineer designer trees to fulfill the vast dreams of pulp and paper or biofuel industries (and Alaska Airlines). Synthetic microalgae secrete ingredients for face creams and vanilla flavoring is squeezed from yeast (while vanilla farmers are squeezed out of business). In April, Chinese scientists announced they had succeeded in using new "gene editing" techniques on human embryos.
That's when a number of scientists said, "Hey, wait a minute! We need to talk about ethics!"
How can it be OK to eat food from plants engineered to secrete pesticides?
New techniques, new organisms, new horizons and new frontiers for profit-making. For a few, the prospects are exhilarating. For many, they are terrifying. The scale and scope for biotechnology has blasted wide open and in the process, transgressed some sensitive boundaries. Even the World Economic Forum recently expressed concern, referring to synthetic biology as an emerging global risk with serious security and ethical concerns. While we might like to assume that these new biotechnology developments are controlled and regulated, they are absolutely not. We are very precariously poised: Even as biotechnologists are deploying these new and ever more potent and invasive tools for grossly manipulating the genetic codes and functions of living organisms, our regulatory agencies have fallen asleep at the wheel.
Way back in 2008, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) proposed rules for the regulation of genetically engineered organisms. They received over 88,300 comments in response. Industry thought the regulations too restrictive (what a surprise), while many others considered the rules grossly insufficient and slack. APHIS recently decided to respond to the divergence of opinions by withdrawing the proposed ruling. In the interim, regulatory oversight of biotechnology has languished, falling further and further out of step with the rapid pace of advancement in biotechnologies.
Now APHIS has announced a rebooted process. Reform of arcane and technologically inadequate regulations is certainly desperately needed, and the time to do so is right now (or 10 years ago)! The track record does not instill confidence. Farmers are sued for all they are worth because, unwittingly and unavoidably, their crops were contaminated by neighboring GMOs. Battles rage over scientific independence and integrity as Monsanto and their compatriots work to suppress critical voices, using mockery, economic coercion and even violence. Superweeds overtake farms and fields, while oceans of glyphosate (the probable carcinogen) and other toxic chemicals are sprayed, leach into soils, flow into waterways and lodge in our bodies. Industrial farms and forests are scattered with the corpses of monarch butterflies and honeybees, ponds thick with scum host two-headed tadpoles and our own children are born with malformed genitalia and disrupted hormones.
But our regulatory agencies told us these things were safe! Well, actually, they appear to consider pretty much any and everything to be safe. APHIS in fact seems never to have met a GMO (or a biotech company) it did not love. Even recently, new crop varieties that can be sprayed with some of the most toxic compounds known to humankind, like 2,4 D and dicamba (think Agent Orange) resistant soybeans, corn and cotton, were granted the seal of safety approval. Those were in fact developed as a "solution" to the escalating emergence of glyphosate-resistant weeds, a problem that was predicted long ago, but not considered a reason to withhold permitting.
How can it be OK to eat food from plants engineered to secrete pesticides or endure spraying with carcinogens, "probable" carcinogens, mutagens, hormone disruptors and more? Why have we put poison experts (like Monsanto) in charge of our food? Now we not only have to contend with food crops engineered to withstand various poisons and environmental stresses, but we are also faced with a whole new genre of industrial crops and microbes engineered for fuel and chemical production.
We are holding in our hands tools that are so powerful, they literally enable us to create, recreate, resurrect and redesign life forms.
Industry welcomes the vast regulatory loopholes through which various new frankencreations are falling, willy-nilly and unremarked, from laboratory benches straight onto your dinner plate, into your field or out in your forest. The loophole is one that the USDA appears to have crafted for itself, deliberately and willingly, embracing a vanishingly narrow interpretation of their mandate to regulate, based on antiquated technology. In the old days, viruses and the bacterial pathogen Agrobacterium were commonly used to deliver new genes into plants. Nowadays, new technologies allow biotechnologists to insert and manipulate genes without using any of those "plant pests."
The USDA claims that it is only required to regulate those organisms engineered using plant pest materials. Hence an engineered loblolly pine was recently granted a free bypass of regulation simply because of the way the genes were inserted and manipulated. Of course the consequences of those introduced genes may be just as bad or even worse than if they had been introduced using plant pests. But the USDA is apparently happy to turn a blind eye. That gigantic loophole is the same one that Simplot potato, Scotts bluegrass and glowing synthetic plants have fallen through in recent years. All were developed using new techniques that are considered potentially very risky, even though they do not involve plant pests.
Of the USDA's loophole, Doug Gurian Sherman, from Union of Concerned Scientists, states: "Many genes from pathogens are no more (or less) harmful than genes from non-pathogens. But because our GMO regulations are based on inadequate laws already in existence in the 1980s, the agencies were left trying to fit a regulatory square peg into a statutory round hole, and came up with the pest-gene ruse." The "pest-gene ruse," in light of all the new technologies coming online, has indeed opened up a loophole the size of the Andromeda Galaxy. If carried forward, it could lead in the not-too-distant future to a situation where most GMOs are unregulated. Welcome to the brave new world of biotechnology, where powerful and risky new technologies are welcomed by our regulatory agencies as an excuse not to do their job!
The sheer scale and volume of new, engineered organisms is beyond anything we have ever seen or even imagined a decade ago. New synthetic biology techniques permit the development of tens of thousands of variants in a day, and far speedier design-build-test and production cycles. That in itself creates huge new concerns about how regulations can be implemented
So here we stand in the midst of a maelstrom of new techniques, new organisms, new concerns and potential risks while there is ever greater pressure, funding and incentive to engineer a new bioeconomy. We are holding in our hands tools that are so powerful, they literally enable us to create, recreate, resurrect and redesign life forms that evolved on earth over millions of years. Or do they? Perhaps what they really enable us to do is mess things up royally.
If an organism is genetically engineered, no matter how, it should be regulated. Period.
As a biologist trained in evolution and ecology, I am troubled deeply by the arrogant assumption and worldview of biotechnologists like DARPA's Alicia Jackson, who see "biology as technology" and seek to "program the living world." These are people who see the language of life not as something sacred and wondrous, but rather something like a Lego set with interchangeable parts that can be assembled and disassembled, parts plugged in or edited out, discrete functions assumed to be controllable via "switches." The whole is seen as no more and no less than the sum of its parts, predictable and controllable. All of creation is seen as just waiting to be manipulated and recoded for the service of the human industrial economy.
In reality, we simply do not know enough to really control genes, their expression or their evolution over time. Nature is messy and unpredictable, no matter how much men in white lab coats in their government or industry laboratories might try to convince us otherwise.
As with the rogue dinosaurs in Jurassic World, we may well be on our way to creating rogue superweeds, rogue designer offspring, rogue synthetic food, and perhaps even scarier, rogue microbes – beyond our control and full of unpleasant surprises. Unlike the situation with dinosaurs stranded on an island, we won't be able to run away and trigger self-destruct. There will likely be no turning back and no "recall" switch because it is a fundamental truth that "life finds a way."
So what do we do? For one thing, we demand that the USDA stop dragging its heels and get its new, stringent and protective biotech rules up and running, and soon. The agency needs to do its job for the people it serves, not the industries who profit from deregulation. Of paramount importance is to get rid of the loophole(s). After all, if an organism is genetically engineered, no matter how, it should be regulated. Period. All GMOs should be thoroughly and holistically evaluated, taking all known and potential risks into consideration. That includes potential increased use of pesticides or herbicides as well as potential for cross-contamination and socioeconomic consequences. If something is deregulated, it should be tested and monitored on an ongoing basis to ensure problems do not arise once it is out in the world. The processes and reviews must be holistic, public, inclusive and transparent, not narrow or dominated by industry vested interests. Groups like the Center for Food Safety, among others, have long advocated for better regulation and should be supported.
Now is most definitely the time to stand up to the fossil fuel industries, to block the pipelines, the bomb trains, the liquefied natural gas terminals, to chain our bodies to the gears and block passage to Shell's Arctic drilling rigs. It is also time to attend to the path that lies ahead and call for real solutions, to reduce consumption, to respect life, and to demand that biotechnologists and their starry-eyed bioeconomy backers not be permitted free rein to run amok over our common genetic heritage!
Rachel Smolker
Rachel Smolker is co-director of Biofuelwatch. Her work has spanned from local grassroots organizing to participation in international processes, including the United Nations conventions on climate and biodiversity. She has a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Michigan and worked previously as a field biologist. She lives in Vermont.
Biofuels, Speculators Driving Food Price Surges
Washington – A new report on global hunger pinpoints factors at the heart of spikes in food prices it says are exacerbating the unfolding food crisis in the…
Amanda Wilson,
Biofuels and the Right to Food: Time for the US to Get its Head Out of the Sand
The EPA refused to waive the U.S. ethanol mandate in order to ease price pressures in corn and soybeans following the severe US drought, thus valuing oil…
Timothy A Wise,
Biomass Industry Plays With Fire, Gets Burned
Fires, explosions and toxic smokestack emissions are among the few advantages of living next to industrial scale biomass energy facilities.
Josh Schlossberg,
The Biomass Monitor


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Entrances & Exits March 20, 2019 American Theatre Editors Leave a comment
Chicago Dramatists Names Carson Grace Becker Artistic Director
The theatremaker and arts educator, who began her playwriting career at the organization, will start the new post in May.
CHICAGO: Chicago Dramatists has announced Carson Grace Becker as its new artistic director. Becker, who lives in Butte, Mont., and launched her playwriting career at Chicago Dramatists in the 1990s, will relocate to the Windy City this May. The artistic director position has been vacant since interim artistic director Dana Lynn Formby stepped down in September of 2018.
Carson Grace Becker.
"Carson has a distinguished career, an astute and creative mind, and is a long-time member of the Chicago Dramatists community," said Ajitha L. Reddy, president of Chicago Dramatists' board of directors, in a statement. "She has a natural ability to relate to and nurture playwrights and other artists, no matter where they are in their artistic journeys. That skill, her formidable talent and networks, her warmth and authenticity, and her ability to bring people together led her to the top of the list of impressive candidates."
The playwright, screenwriter, dramaturg, and arts educator currently splits her time between Butte, Mont., Los Angeles, and Chicago. She's the founder of Montana's the Root & The Bloom Collective, she is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College, Roosevelt University, and Chicago Dramatists, and she has also taught at the University of Chicago's Graham School and Roosevelt University. Becker has served as literary manager for Honolulu Theatre for Youth and as the program manager for the Educational Outreach and the Network Playwrights programs at Chicago Dramatists. She holds an MFA in playwriting from the University of Iowa.
"Chicago Dramatists was my first artistic home, and helped launch my career," said Becker in a statement. "As a collective of playwrights and artistic associates, it nurtured and challenged my craft, provided collaborative opportunities, and gave me room to play, think, experiment, succeed, and fail. Such spaces are more important than ever now in our American landscape. I've been many places since my beginnings at Dramatists. It is both an honor and pleasure to accept this position, and I can't wait to return."
Carson Grace BeckerChicago Dramatists
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Ajman University's Bachelor of Pharmacy program has been granted International Certification by the US-based Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE).
The ACPE's favorable decision comes after due consideration of the Evaluation Team Report (ETR), the College's Self-Study Report, and the recommendations of ACPE's International Commission. This prestigious certification renders AU's BPharm program to be internationally recognized for its quality and outcomes.
According to the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), the official number of pharmacy schools outside the United States is 1,945. As one of only 11 non-American universities to earn ACPE certification, AU is proudly part of an elite 0.6% of pharmacy colleges with these credentials.
Recently, ACPE increased its international certification criteria from 19 to 26 measures and Ajman University is among the first cohort of institutions outside the United States to receive this certification under the new band of criteria. AU is the second institution in the UAE to earn certification; only five other programs in the Arab region were ever certified before AU.
Dr. Nageeb Hassan, Dean College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences elaborated that pharmacy education in the Arab world is gaining momentum and students are seeking this specialization because of its diverse job opportunities. This certification is a privilege and responsibility that ensures our BPharm program holds up to international standards.
ACPE sets standards for the education of pharmacists -to prepare them for the delivery of pharmacist-provided patient care. Since 1932, ACPE has worked with educational institutions and organizations to assure excellence is available for people in the pharmacy profession.


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Latest from Central Hudson: 32,000 customers still without power
Aug 31, 2011 at 3:56 PM Aug 31, 2011 at 4:00 PM
About 32,000 Central Hudson customers remain without power as of 3 p.m. Wednesday.
The utility blamed impassable or washed-away roads, flooded properties and devastated downtowns for making it impossible to reach some of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Irene. Central Hudson has now restored electricity to nearly 150,000 of the 180,000 customers who lost service due to the killer storm.
Electricity has largely returned to half of its eight counties: Columbia, Dutchess, Orange and Putnam, and is expected to be restored for at least 90 percent of the residents who live in the remaining and hardest-hit counties by 11 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 4.
"Where we have been able to gain access, our damage assessment teams report that we will need to rebuild some portions of our electric system in several of these devastated communities-- the highway shoulders where our poles once stood have been washed away in scores of locations. This will require substantive construction work to complete," said Central Hudson President James P. Laurito. "We thank the county, state and federal governments for recognizing that the damage in some locations is horrific, and that it will take weeks -- if not months -- to overcome.
"The vast majority of remaining customers will have electricity by Sunday evening, but we have sadly realized that some customers may be even weeks away from recovery in these hard-hit areas. Damage to their homes and hometowns is astounding," Laurito said, after touring more of the utility's eight-county service territory again today.
Joining Central Hudson's 1,000-person restoration effort today were 26 additional line clearance crew members; and on Friday, 15 additional line repair and construction personnel will arrive from Tulsa, Oklahoma. They join Westar Crews from Kansas and every Central Hudson employee in working to restore electric service in the wake of the second worst natural disaster in the history of the utility. Central Hudson continues to solicit for additional mutual aid assistance, but resources are strained throughout the Eastern Seaboard due to the extent of Irene's swath of damage. New fears regarding the brewing storm Katia have also prohibited some utilities from lending assistance, Laurito said.
As of 3 p.m. Wednesday, here are the locations of the estimated 32,000 customers who remain without electric service:
Ulster County – 23,627; Majority projected to be restored by Sunday.
Sullivan County – 1,065; Majority projected to be restored by Sunday.
Dutchess County – 360; Majority projected to be restored by 11 p.m. Wednesday
Orange County – 95; Majority projected to be restored by 11 p.m. Wednesday.
"The widespread nature of the storm along the Eastern Seaboard has also made it virtually impossible to obtain supplies of dry ice, though we continue to seek it out and will do our best to notify our customers when/where it becomes available. We will distribute it as quickly as we can where it is needed most," said Laurito. Bottled water will be provided at:
Cairo - Angelo Canna Park, Mountain Ave., Cairo, (adjacent to Greene County Office of Emergency Preparedness), 5 p.m;
Ellenville - Ellenville Village Hall, 2 Elting Ct.., Ellenville, 5 p.m.; and
Lake Katrine - Grace Community Evangelical Church, 160 Seremma Ct., 5 p.m.
Central Hudson officials continue to warn local residents that serious flooding conditions also have the potential to undermine the stability of underground pipelines; they remind customers who may see damage in the vicinity of pipelines and/or who may smell the odor of natural gas to report the condition via the utility's Gas Odor Hotline: 1-800-942-8274. Laurito stressed the importance of staying away from downed lines and being alert to the possibility that fallen trees or structures may hide energized electric lines.
If power is lost, customers should call Central Hudson's PowerLine at (845) 452-2700 or 1-800-527-2714 to report their power condition, and are encouraged to use the automated reporting system. Customers with access to a computer may also report their power condition via the utility's website, www.CentralHudson.com, by using the StormCentral function.
Information regarding service restoration estimates, as it becomes available, can be obtained by phone and on-line, and updates are posted on Facebook and Twitter. A mobile version of the utility's website, including StormCentral, can be accessed by web enabled cell phones and mobile devices at http://mobile.CentralHudson.com. Free Central Hudson mobile applications for Android-based and Apple devices are also available by logging onto www.CentralHudson.com/mobileapp.


Music in its many forms plays a key role in life at Glenfall.
When the children have learnt to play their instruments, they are encouraged to join the school orchestra to further develop their confidence and playing ability, to get experience of playing with others, to experience performing together and the excitment and fun that this provides and to give a point to playing a musical instrument. No auditions are held – if a child can play two notes or chords, then a part reflecting this will be specially written. The orchestra meets regularly on Tuesday mornings throughout the year.
"Primary Schools Live" – This is an opportunity for the orchestra to perform at events where children can perform to a live audience from the general public as well as parents and friends.
During the summer term the orchestra gives a concert for parents and friends where the year's music is celebrated and performed in front of large, enthusiastic and appreciative audience.


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Fainting Goat Wine Cellars works with homeowners, retailers, restaurants and more to provide custom wine cellar designs and accessories including racks, cooling, wine cellar doors, and plumbing.


The Family Language is hiring for a 19hs timetable starting in October. The timetable is Monday to Thrsday from 17.15-19.45. It's mix of kids and young teens classes.
- Ongoing training: online and presential.
- Experience teaching Cambridge exams, including CPE.
- Willing to learn and develop professionally.
- A very dynamic, fun and engaging teacher, who is passionate about teaching kids.


Before :- Mehinder Singh Sullar, J.
For the Petitioners :- Mr. R.S. Cheema, Senior Advocate with Mr. J.S. Mehndiratta, Advocate.
For the Respondents :- Mr. Satya Pal Jain, Senior Advocate with Mr. Dheeraj Jain, Advocate.
(i) Accused have published the accurate statement of the Minister on the reports of PTI (Press Trust of India) as such.
(ii) Fair, accurate and truthful reporting by the petitioners in the absence of mens rea would not constitute any offence. 1998(2) RCR (Cri) 455 : 2007(4) RCR (Criminal) 6, relied.
(iii) Protection under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India is available.
(iv) The accurate publication by the petitioner-accused squarely falls within the domain/ambit of Explanation 4 and pointed Exceptions of Section 499 IPC.
Aroon Purie v. State of Haryana, 2007(4) R.C.R.(Criminal) 6.
Ashok Chaturvedi v. Shitul H. Chanchani, 1998(3) R.C.R.(Criminal) 801 : 1998(7) SCC 698.
Central Bureau of Investigation v. Ravi Shankar Srivastava, 2006(3) Apex Criminal 65 : (2006) 7 SCC 188.
Dhariwal Tobaco Products Limited v. State of Maharashtra, 2009(1) R.C.R.(Criminal) 677 : 2009(2) SCC 370.
Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Private Ltd. v. Union of India, AIR 1986 Supreme Court 515(1).
Jawahar Lal Darda v. Manohar Rao Ganpat Rao Kapsikar, 1998(2) R.C.R.(Criminal) 455 : (1998) 4 Supreme Court Cases 112.
Jeffrey J. Diermeier v. State of West Bengal, 2010(3) R.C.R.(Criminal) 183 : 2010(3) Recent Apex Judgments (R.A.J.) 437 : (2010) 6 Supreme Court Cases 243.
K.M. Mathew v. K.A. Abraham, 2002(4) R.C.R.(Criminal) 288 : AIR 2002 Supreme Court 2989.
M.A. Rumugam v. Kittu alias Krishnamoorthy, (2009) 1 Supreme Court Cases 101.
M/s Pepsi Foods Limited v. Special Judicial Magistrate, 1997(4) R.C.R.(Criminal) 761 : (1998) 5 Supreme Court Cases 749.
Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India and others v. Cricket Association of Bengal, AIR 1995 Supreme Court 1236.
Smt. Chand Dhawan v. Jawahar Lal, 1992(3) R.C.R.(Criminal) 534 : JT 1992(3) S.C. 618.
Som Mittal v. Government of Karnataka, 2008(2) R.C.R.(Criminal) 92.
State of H.P. v. Pirthi Chand, 1996(2) R.C.R.(Criminal) 759 : (1996) 2 Supreme Court Cases 37.
State of Haryana v. Ch. Bhajan Lal, 1991(1) R.C.R.(Criminal) 383 : AIR 1992 Supreme Court 604.
Vir Sanghvi v. State of Haryana, 2006(1) R.C.R.(Criminal) 115.
Vivek Goenka v. Col. Ram Singh(P&H), 2006(2) R.C.R.(Criminal) 700.
"The Human Resource Development Minister, Arjun Singh, today asked the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, to cleanse the administration of people owing allegiance to the RSS, an organization he accused of being responsible for the killing of Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi.
Our first duty is that the fascist forces of the RSS should be detected. Today, Government administration is in grip of the RSS, we have to cleanse it," he said at the National Convention on Secularism here.
The veteran Congress leader, who removed academicians close to the BJP and the RSS from panels drafting textbooks for schools, said the RSS had a strong hold on administration as "men having sympathies with the Sangh Parivar were appointed (by the previous Government) on key positions.
If an institution's biggest achievement was killing of (Mahatma)Gandhi than you can expect what national purpose it can serve," he said called for "exposing the RSS-men in the Government.
Not one but there are hundred different fronts of the RSS. They are getting crores of rupees from within and outside the country. The previous Government allowed foreign money to come in but now this web has to be broken. People should know for what purpose the money was used for." Mr. Singh said. The Minister hoped that "the Prime Minister will take definitive action in this regard."
The CPI general secretary, A.B. Bardhan, said Mr. Singh and the information and Broadcasting Minister, S. Jaipal Reddy, were facing difficulties due to presence of a large number of "RSS-men" in their Ministries.
"Committees are filled with RSS-men. Raj hamara, Governor tumhara (its our government but the Governor is of RSS-BJP). How long will this last," Mr. Bardhan asked.
The CPI leader charged the BJP with propagating politics of hate and said the party had changed the word Hindutva with nationalism. "Don't forget Hitler played havoc around the world in the garb of nationalism".
Sachin Pilot, MP and Rajasthan, moved a resolution called for a thorough study of the working of the RSS and countering its "false propaganda and a politics of hate and teaching secularism in schools".
Mr. Jaipal Reddy, who presided over the convention, said the recent Lok Sabha election was a revolution through the ballot which defeated the fascist forces. "It would be a revolution if we could sustain the momentum and could be rightly called a post-independent renaissance". He said India could not be a country of one religion or caste as diversity had been the underlying factor since pre-historic times of the country.
Challenging the RSS to prove the existence of any single ethnically homogenous society in the world, he said India's diversity was praised all over the world. Calling the BJP an 'illusion' and the RSS the 'reality', he said it was the strenuous efforts of Mahatma Gandhi that brought together all ethnic groups to fight for the freedom of the country.
Earlier, Nilotpal Basu of the CPI(M) said the fight for secularism was not over with the victory in the election. "You have to continue to fight communalism, not just through elections but in all spheres of life."
3. Likewise, the news of planning of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, to take legal action against Minister Mr. Arjun Singh (Annexure P-8) and his rejoinder (Annexure P-9) were also published by 'The Hindu' as such. The same very 1st news (Annexure P-7) was also published by The Hindustan Times (Annexure P-10), The Pioneer (Annexure P-11), The Asian Age (Annexure P-12) and Navbharat Times (Annexure P-14) in their respective newspapers. The news of condemnation of the conduct of the Minister by the RSS was published (Annexure P13) by the Indian Express as well.
4. The complainant-Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh & Darshan Lal Jain, its Prant Sangh Chalak, respondent Nos. 1 and 2 (for brevity "the complainant- RSS"), did not initiate any action against the remaining leaders, who have also levelled similar imputations, office bearers & other newspapers, who have published the same very news in their respective Newspapers, but aggrieved by the publication of the impugned news(Annexure P-7) by 'The Hindu' newspaper, it filed a criminal complaint (Annexure P-1) against Mr. Arjun Singh, former Minister (since deceased), N.Ram, Editor-in-Chief, Publisher, P. Balachandran Printer and his firm M/s Kasturi & Sons Limited through its Managing Director, of 'The Hindu' Newspaper, for the reasons best known to it, for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 499, 500 and 501 IPC, in the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jagadhri (Haryana).
5. The complainant claimed that, although all the accused were aware of the fact that the Inquiry Commission duly appointed by the Government of India, found that there was not an iota of evidence of any kind whatsoever that the complainant- RSS, as an organization or otherwise was involved in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, but the statement made by Mr. Arjun Singh, printed, published and circulated by the petitioners-accused, have not only caused great mental agony and harassment to the RSS, but also to its members, followers and sympathizers as such.
6. Levelling a variety of allegations, narrating the sequence of events and listing the merits of RSS, in all, according to the complainant-RSS that the impugned statement has been intentionally made by Mr. Arjun Singh (accused) published, printed and circulated by the petitioners-accused, just to harm its (RSS) goodwill & reputation and its Members, knowing fully well that it is false. In this manner, all the accused have committed the offences in question. In the background of these allegations, the complainant filed the impugned complaint (Annexure P-1) against the main accused Mr. Arjun Singh(since deceased) and the petitioners-accused, for the pointed offences, in the manner depicted hereinabove.
7. Taking cognizance of the complaint and after considering the preliminary evidence, the Chief Judicial Magistrate, summoned the accused, to face the trial for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 499 to 501 IPC, by way of impugned summoning order dated 24.12.2004 (Annexure P-2).
8. The petitioners-accused did not feel satisfied with the initiation of the criminal prosecution against them and preferred the present petition, to quash the impugned complaint(Annexure P-1) and summoning order(Annexure P-2), invoking the provisions of Section 482 Cr.P.C.
9. The case set-up by the petitioners, in brief, insofar as relevant was that, 'The Hindu' published the news item report(Annexure P-7) on 09.08.2004 based on the material supplied/forwarded by the Press Trust of India(for short "the PTI"), a National Level Agency with high degree of credibility. Even, the news to take legal action against Mr. Arjun Singh by the complainant-RSS (Annexure P-8) and rejoinder by the Minister (Annexure P-9), were fairly published by 'The Hindu' Newspaper as well. It was claimed that 'The Hindu' has published the true news in discharge of his obligation, in order to provide the correct information to the public and no offence whatsoever is made out against them in this connection.
"(i) That the complaint against the petitioner is apparently inspired by some oblique motive. The very fact that the news report in question was based on a dispatch by PTI-a news agency which is almost uniformly subscribed by all widely circulated news papers- would show that The Hindu did not have any intention to defame the complainant No. 1 or persons associated therewith. An eminent national level leader as also other known public and political personalities had addressed the convention on secularism. It was the bounden duty of any widely read newspaper to give a fair and balanced report of the proceedings of the said convention. It is not even suggested that the news report Annexure P-7 is in any manner a lop sided or distorted or coloured version of the speech of Sh.Arjun Singh or the speeches made by other speakers. It can be safely presumed that the event in question would be widely covered in the national press and almost all Dailies published from Delhi for the regions surrounding the national capital, would carry reports thereof. The petitioner has placed on record copies of reports Annexures P-10 to P-14 to put things in a proper factual perspective. The complainant has not cared to mention anything in the complaint or in the preliminary evidence as to why The Hindu was chosen for discriminatory treatment. It can, therefore, be safely inferred that the petitioners have not been arraigned in the complaint in a bonafide manner; rather the exercise has been undertaken to single out one Daily.
(ii) The action of the petitioners is protected under Article 19 of the Constitution of India, highlighting the importance of freedom of the Press in the democracy and is stated to be squarely covered by Exception 1 to Section 499 IPC.
(iii) That in case a fair, balanced and objective report of an important public, political or social event is sought to be blacked out under the threat of prosecution for defamation, it shall not only be a body blow to the freedom of press but would also place the law of defamation as enshrined in Sections 499/500/501 of the Indian Penal Code in direct conflict with article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India.
(v) That a comparative reading of the news item published by The Hindu Annexure P-7 and the other newspapers Annexures P-10, P-11, P-12 and P- 14 would show that the report Annexure P-7 was fair, balanced and objective. In fact the other newspapers had carried equally critical comment about RSS on 9.8.2004. It is further important to note that some of the reports in the other newspapers were covered by Special Correspondents of the concerned papers; while the report in The Hindu dated 9.8.2004(Annexure P- 7) was based on a dispatch by PTI, as submitted hereinbefore.
(vi) That the choice of Jagadhri for institution of the complaint also suggests that the main objective of the complainants is to cause maximum harassment to the petitioners and their co-respondent in the complaint. The newspaper in this case was published from Delhi. The convention or the seminar where Sh. Arjun Singh delivered his speech was also held in Delhi. Some of the leading functionaries of RSS are residents of Delhi and operate from there. There is absolutely no good reason for choice of Jagadhri for lodging of complaint Annexure P-1. Of course such a cause would entail undue difficulty, inconvenience and hardship to the respondents. This circumstance also underlines the oblique objective behind institution of the complaint."
11. On the strength of aforesaid grounds, the petitioners-accused sought to quash the impugned complaint(Annexure P-1) and summoning order(Annexure P-2), in the manner described hereinabove.
12. Although, the complainant-respondent-RSS did not file any reply, to controvert the specific allegations contained in the petition, however, they have refuted the prayer of the petitioners, to quash the impugned complaint, summoning order, orally reiterated the allegations contained in the complaint and prayed for dismissal of the main petition. That is how, I am seized of the matter.
13. Taking the benefit of his usual ability and assailing the impugned complaint and summoning order, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners-accused, has contended with some amount of vehemence that 'The Hindu' is a reputed newspaper with a high degree of national credibility. It was its duty to inform the reading-public, with regard to the speech delivered by the then Human Resources Central Cabinet Minister and Senior Congress Leader Mr. Arjun Singh, in view of the mandate enshrined in Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India, which guarantees the freedom of speech and expression. The argument is that since the petitioners-accused have published the indicated accurate speech in question (Annexure P-7) on the reports of PTI as such, in their newspapers, in good faith, to inform the public at large, so, it cannot be said that they intended to harm the reputation of the complainant-RSS. He has also argued that in any case, such publication would be squarely covered by Explanation 4 & Exceptions 1 & 10 of Section 499 of the IPC. The argument further proceeds that although all the other newspapers have published the same very news item(Annexures P-10 to P-14), but the complainant has filed the present complaint against the petitioners-accused only, in order to put pressure and to wreak vengeance and no offence whatsoever is made out against them. Hence, he prayed for quashment of the impugned complaint(Annexure P-1) and summoning order(Annexure P-2).
14. Hailing the impugned complaint and summoning order, on the contrary, learned counsel for the complainant-RSS, has vehemently urged, as well, that the publication of news item(Annexure P-7) by the petitioners-accused has not only caused great mental agony and harassment to the complainant, but also to the members, followers and sympathizers of RSS as such. Since, the statement was printed, published and circulated by the petitioners-accused intentionally, just to harm the reputation of RSS, so, the Trial Magistrate has rightly summoned them, for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 499, 500 and 501 IPC and no illegality could be assigned to the detailed impugned summoning order. The argument further proceeds that as the disputed questions are involved, therefore, no ground for quashing the impugned complaint and summoning order, in exercise of the power under Section 482 Cr.P.C., is made out. Thus, he prayed for dismissal of the main petition.
15. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties at quite length, having gone through the record with their valuable assistance and after bestowal of thoughts over the entire matter, to my mind, the instant petition deserves to be accepted in this context.
16. There can hardly be any dispute in respect of the crux of the propositions of law set out by the Hon'ble Apex Court in cases Smt. Chand Dhawan v. Jawahar Lal and others, 1992(3) R.C.R.(Criminal) 534 : JT 1992(3) S.C. 618; State of H.P. v. Pirthi Chand and another, 1996(2) R.C.R.(Criminal) 759 : (1996) 2 Supreme Court Cases 37; Jeffrey J. Diermeier and another v. State of West Bengal and another, 2010(3) R.C.R.(Criminal) 183 : 2010(3) Recent Apex Judgments (R.A.J.) 437 : (2010) 6 Supreme Court Cases 243, relied on behalf of the complainant-RSS that nevertheless, it is neither possible, nor desirable to lay down any inflexible guidelines/rigid formula/rule, which would govern the exercise of inherent jurisdiction of the Court. It depends upon the facts and circumstances of each case, wherein, such power should be exercised. Undoubtedly, the power possessed by the High Court under the said provision is very wide, but is not unlimited. It has to be exercised carefully. The High Court can exercise its inherent jurisdiction of quashing a criminal proceeding only when the allegations made in the complaint do not constitute an offence, or that the exercise of power is necessary either to prevent abuse of the process of Court, or otherwise to secure the ends of justice.
17. At the same time, the Hon'ble Supreme Court has categorically held in cases M/s. Pepsi Foods Limited and another v. Special Judicial Magistrate and others, 1997(4) R.C.R.(Criminal) 761 : (1998) 5 Supreme Court Cases 749; Ashok Chaturvedi v. Shitul H. Chanchani, 1998(3) R.C.R.(Criminal) 801 : 1998(7) SCC 698; Central Bureau of Investigation v. Ravi Shankar Srivastava, 2006(3) Apex Criminal 65 : (2006) 7 SCC 188 and Dhariwal Tobaco Products Limited and others v. State of Maharashtra and another, 2009(1) R.C.R.(Criminal) 677 : 2009(2) SCC 370, that whenever the High Court comes to the conclusion that allowing the criminal prosecution to continue would be an abuse of the process of Court and that the ends of justice require that the proceedings should be quashed, it would not hesitate to do so, in exercise of inherent powers irrespective of other factors.
18. Such, thus, being the legal position and material on record, now the short and significant questions, though important, that arises for determination in the instant petition are, as to whether the petitioners-accused, who were Editor, Printer and Publisher of 'The Hindu' newspaper, by publishing the accurate statement (Annexure P7), have committed any indicated offences and are liable to be prosecuted, in pursuance of the complaint(Annexure P-1) or not?
19. Having regard to the rival contentions of the learned counsel for the parties and the relevant record, to me, the answer must obviously be in the negative in this respect.
20. Ex facie, the celebrated argument of the learned counsel for the complainant-RSS that since the protection under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution is not available and the case of the petitioners-accused does not fall in any of the Exceptions of Section 499 IPC, so, they have committed the offences in question, is neither tenable, nor the observations of the Hon'ble Apex Court in cases M.A. Rumugam v. Kittu alias Krishnamoorthy, (2009) 1 Supreme Court Cases 101; K.M. Mathew v. K.A. Abraham and others, 2002(4) R.C.R.(Criminal) 288 : AIR 2002 Supreme Court 2989, of this Court in cases Vivek Goenka v. Col. Ram Singh(P&H), 2006(2) R.C.R.(Criminal) 700 and Vir Sanghvi v. State of Haryana, 2006(1) R.C.R.(Criminal) 115, are at all applicable to the facts of the present case.
21. As is amply clear in M.A. Rumugam's case (supra), the appellant(therein) filed a complaint before the Sub-Inspector of Police, contending that: "On 30-4-2003, the Panchayat Union Committee member and Panchayat Board President approached him and wanted land on south side of his coconut grove to lay road through the grove. He did not give consent for the proposal. In these circumstances when he visited the grove on 3-6-2003 about 9 coconut yielding trees on the south side were found slide down. When he enquired about this he came to know that Namasivayam, son of Rajagopal and Kaliappan, son of Ramu of Naluvedapathi Village were standing on the south side of my coconut grove some time back with tins in their hands. He met them and told that they were responsible for the sliding of tender coconut trees as they were seen near the trees by some people of the village. They confessed that they on the advice of Kittu alias Krishnamurthy, son of Vedaiya Gounder of Naluvedapathi Village along with him poured acid mixed kerosene into the coconut trees and they have done it since he did not give consent to lay road through his coconut grove". In the said complaint, the appellant requested the Sub-Inspector of Police to take action against those persons and sought protection for himself and his property. On the basis of complaint, a criminal case was registered against the respondent. The police authorities neither filed any charge-sheet within six months, nor sought for the extension of time for the purpose of conducting further investigation. The Magistrate ordered the stopping of further investigation and consequently closed the matter. The allegations levelled by the appellant were stoutly denied by the respondent. Thereafter, the respondent filed a criminal complaint, for commission of the offence of defamation against the appellant(therein).
22. Similarly, in Vir Sanghvi's case (supra), the President of the Haryana Vikas Party, accused former General Secretary of the Party of defrauding the HVP of Rs. 10 crore, subsequently, who had joined the National Congress Party(NCP) of Mr. Sharad Pawar. The allegations were also denied by complainant Ved Pal(therein). So, on the peculiar facts and in the special circumstances of that case, it was observed by this Court that it required to prove by evidence whether the imputation made by the accused (therein) was in good faith or for the protection of his or others' interest, which cannot be decided in a petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C.
23. Sequelly, in K.M.Mathew(Supreme Court) and Vivek Goenka's cases(supra)(P&H High Court), the question before the Courts was whether, the Managing Editor, Resident Editor or Chief Editor of a newspaper are immune from prosecution for libellous matter published in the newspaper, in view of Section 7 of The Press & Registration of Books Act, 1867 or not? After considering the provisions of Section 7 of the said Act, it was observed that presumption contained in Section 7 of the Act, is rebuttable and it does not mean that there is a statutory immunity against the Managing Editor, Resident Editor or Chief Editor, against any prosecution for the alleged publication of any matter in the newspaper over which, these persons exercise control although, a similar presumption cannot be drawn against them. It was also observed that nevertheless, the complainant can still allege and prove that they had the knowledge and they were responsible for the publication of defamatory news item. Even, the presumption under Section 7 is a rebuttable presumption and the same could be proved otherwise. That by itself indicates that somebody other than the Editor can be held responsible for selecting the matter for publication in the newspaper.
24. Possibly, no one can dispute in regard to the aforesaid observations, but to me, the same would not come to the rescue of the complainant-RSS in the present controversy, for the reasons mentioned hereinbelow.
It is with a view to checking such malpractices which interfere with free flow of information, democratic constitutions all over the world have made provisions guaranteeing the freedom of speech and expression laying down the limits of interference with it. It is, therefore, the primary duty of all the national Courts to uphold the said freedom and invalidate all laws or administrative actions which interfere with it contrary to the constitutional mandate.
Freedom of expression has four broad social purposes to serve : (i) it helps an individual to attain self fulfilment, (ii) it assists in the discovery of truth, (iii) it strengthens the capacity of an individual in participating in decision-making and (iv) it provides a mechanism by which it would be possible to establish a reasonable balance between stability and social change. All members of society should be able to form their own beliefs and communicate them freely to others. In sum, the fundamental principle involved here is the people's right to know. Freedom of speech and expression should, therefore receive a generous support from all those who believe in the participation of people in the administration. It is on account of this special interest which society has in the freedom of speech and expression that the approach of the Government should be more cautious while levying taxes on the matters concerning newspaper industry than while levying taxes on other matters."
26. Again, the Hon'ble Apex Court reiterated the same principle of freedom of speech & expression in case Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India and others v. Cricket Association of Bengal and others, AIR 1995 Supreme Court 1236 and has observed that "the freedom of speech and expression includes right to acquire information and disseminate it. Freedom of speech and expression is necessary, for self expression which is an important means of free conscience and self fulfilment. It enables people to contribute to debates of social and moral issues. It is the best way to find a truest model of anything, since it is only through it, that the widest possible range of ideas can circulate. It is the only vehicle of political discourse so essential to democracy. Equally important is the role it plays in facilitating artistic and scholarly endeavours of all sorts. The right to communicate, therefore, includes right to communicate through any media that is available whether print or electronic or audio-visual such as advertisement, movie, article, speech etc. that is why freedom of speech and expression includes freedom of the press. The freedom of the press in terms includes right to circulate and also to determine the volume of such circulation. This freedom includes the freedom to communicate or circulate one's opinion without interference to as large a population in the country as well as abroad as is possible to reach. The fundamental right can be limited only by reasonable restrictions under a law made for the purposes mentioned in Art.19(2) of the Constitution." In the same sequence, the enactments of The Freedom of Information Act, 2002 and The Right to Information Act, 2005, are the other steps in this relevant direction.
27. As is evident from the record that the complainant has filed the complaint(Annexure P-1) against the petitioners-accused, inter alia, on the ground that they have printed, published and circulated the statement(Annexure P-7) delivered by their co-accused and former Central Cabinet Minister and Senior Congress Leader Mr. Arjun Singh(since deceased), intentionally, just to harm the goodwill, reputation of RSS and its followers, knowing fully well it to be false. In this way, they were stated to have committed the offences punishable under Sections 499 to 501 IPC.
28. As is apparent that, Section 499 IPC postulates that "whoever, by words either spoken or intended to be read, or by signs or by visible representations, makes or publishes any imputation concerning any person intending to harm, or knowing or having reason to believe that such imputation will harm, the reputation of such person, is said, except in the cases hereinafter expected, to defame that person." The words "knowing or having reason to believe" intending to harm the reputation, are very important and carry significant meaning in this regard.
29. Not only that, Explanation 4 further posits that "no imputation is said to have harm a person's reputation, unless that imputation directly or indirectly, in the estimation of others, lowers the moral or intellectual character of that person, or lowers the character of that person in respect of his caste or his calling, or lowers the credit of that person, or causes it to be believed that the body of that person is in a loathsome state, or in a state generally considered as disgraceful." In this manner, Explanation 4 to Sec. 499, IPC places a curb on the general description of definition contained in the section. It makes only such imputations punishable as might lower a person's reputation in respect of some aspects of his personality and makes an imputation defamatory only if it lowers a person in the estimation of others. It implies a fall in reputation. The reputation has been used to denote the estimation in which a person is held by others, the character imputed to him in the community or the society to which he belongs.
30. Likewise, there are certain statutory Exceptions 1 to 10 attached to this section. First Exception escalates that it is not defamation to impute anything which is true concerning any person, if it be for the public good that the imputation should be made or published. Whereas, Tenth Exception provides that, it is not defamation to convey a caution, in good faith, to one person against another, provided that such caution be intended for the good of the person to whom it is conveyed, or of some person in whom that person is interested, or for the public good. According to Section 501 IPC that whoever prints or engraves any matter, knowing or having good reason to believe that such matter is defamatory of any person, he is liable to be punished under this Section.
31. A conjoint and meaningful reading of these provisions would reveal that, in order to entail the penal provisions of Sections 499 and 501 IPC, it was incumbent/obligatory on the part of the complainant-RSS to prima facie, prove that the accused have intentionally published the accurate news with the intention to harm or with the knowledge or having good reasons to believe that it would harm its reputation. The essence of the offence of defamation must have been made either with the intention of causing harm, or knowing or having reason to believe that such imputation would cause harm to a person.
32. As depicted hereinabove, in the instant case, the complainant-RSS has miserably failed to indicate as to how, when and in what manner, the mere accurate publication, of the statement of the main accused Central Cabinet Minister and Congress Leader Mr. Arjun Singh, by the petitioners-accused was intentional or they have the knowledge or belief that it will harm its reputation. Even it is not claimed by the complainant either in the complaint or preliminary evidence that publication of news (Annexure P7) is in any manner distorted or coloured version of the speech of the Minister. It is not a matter of dispute that the petitioners-accused have published the accurate statement of the Minister on the reports of PTI as such. That means, the requisite intention/knowledge, (Mens-rea) to defame the complainant RSS or the person associated with it and all other essential ingredients are totally lacking in this case. Meaning thereby, such fair, accurate and truthful reporting by the petitioners in the absence of mens rea would not constitute any offence. This matter is no more resintegra and is now well settled.
33. An identical question came to be decided by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in case Jawahar Lal Darda and others v. Manohar Rao Ganpat Rao Kapsikar and another, 1998(2) R.C.R.(Criminal) 455 : (1998) 4 Supreme Court Cases 112, wherein while interpreting the relevant provisions of Sections 499 to 502 IPC, it was ruled that accurate and true reporting/publication in good faith, cannot be said that the accused intended to harm the reputation of the complainant and no offences under Sections 499 to 502 IPC, are made out against the accused.
"History and its historical figures, who once strode this earth and stood as colossus on it have always been an enigma for the subsequent generations. The heroes and villains of history, their personalities, passions, actions, omissions, compulsions for such acts and omissions, which made them stand out, have always been the subject-matter of intelligent speculations among the academicians, historians and theorists, who paint them in various colours including the grays and blacks and give their characters a real and a fictional touch.
Nathuram Godse was no different and accordingly, he has been the subject-matter of intense studies which tried to unravel his past and also tried to understand the motives of actions and killing of the Father of the Nation. In the midst of such speculations based on historical and archival records, he and his association with the R.S.S. have been commented upon variously.
Reverting back to the article, it nowhere delineates the role of the R.S.S. and does not attribute any overt, covert or conspiratorial role to it while describing the act of Nathuram Godse. In the absence of any such allegations and consequent evidence led by the complainant before issuance of summoning order, it cannot be termed to be derogatory and defamatory to the R.S.S.
Besides, an article has to be read in its entirety and an isolated passage cannot be read out of context. The Court is cast with a duty to decide what impression the article would produce on the mind of an unprejudiced reader and the offending article, if read in this context, also refers to the present legatees of Mahatma Gandhi, which probably includes all and sundry of the society and the political class of today, who have carried on with the sectarian and factional tendencies- a telling and a cynical comment on the prevailing situation by the author. Such an article can hardly be termed to be scandalous unless a hypocritical society wants to turn a Nelson's eye to the realities."
Accordingly, it was ruled that no offences under Sections 499 and 501 IPC, are made out in that regard.
35. Meaning thereby, all the essential ingredients of the offences are not complete. As indicated earlier, the petitioners-accused have published the speech of Central Cabinet Minister and Senior Congress Leader Mr. Arjun Singh, Annexure P-7 in their newspaper correctly on the material and reference made by PTI, in good faith and just to inform the public. If the contention of learned counsel for complainant-RSS is accepted that such truthful and accurate reporting is an offence, then, there will be no end of anything and it will amount to nullifying the constitutional mandate, Explanation 4 and Exceptions to Section 499 IPC, which, to me, is not legally permissible.
36. There is yet another aspect of the matter, which can be viewed from entirely a different angle. Although the Central Cabinet Minister Mr. Arjun Singh delivered the speech, but other leaders A.B. Bardhan and S. Jaipal Reddy have made their speeches at the relevant time, which were also published, vide publication (Annexure P-7) by The Hindu Newspaper. Again it is not a matter of dispute that the same very news was also published in The Hindustan Times (Annexure P-10), The Pioneer (Annexure P-11), The Asian Age (Annexure P-12) and Navbharat Times (Annexure P-14) in their respective newspapers. In order to show their bona fide and independence, not only that, the petitioners- accused have published the news of planning of RSS, to take legal action against the Minister (Annexure P-8), they have also published the rejoinder (Annexure P-9) issued by the Minister in their newspaper 'The Hindu'. The news of condemnation of the conduct of the Minister by the RSS was published (Annexure P-13) by the Indian Express as well.
37. Strange enough, the complainant neither implead the other speakers, who levelled the similar imputation against RSS nor filed any criminal complaint against the Editor, Printer and Publisher of other newspapers, who have also published the same statement in their respective newspapers, in the manner stated hereinabove. Moreover, the mere fact, that the news item (Annexure P-7) was published by "The Hindu" paper from Delhi and the complainant-RSS has filed the present complaint at Jagadhri (Haryana), is indicative of the fact and corroborates the case of petitioners-accused that the complainant has filed a false complaint in order to harass them.
38. Thus, seen from any angle, if the legal provisions, material, totality of other peculiar facts and the special circumstances of the case, oozing out of the record, as discussed hereinbefore, are put together and analyzed in right perspective, then, to my mind, the conclusion is inescapable and irresistible that the protection under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India is available and since the accurate publication by the petitioners-accused squarely falls within the domain/ambit of Explanation 4 and pointed Exceptions of Section 499 IPC, so, to me, no offence whatsoever is made out and the complainant-RSS has only filed the complaint (Annexure P-1) against them with a mala fide intention, vexatiously and in order to wreak vengeance. The petitioners-accused cannot possibly be allowed to suffer a prolonged criminal trial, as per the law laid down by the Hon'ble Apex Court in M/s Pepsi Foods Limited's case (supra). In that eventuality, such false criminal prosecution against the petitioners-accused amounts to clear & deep misuse/abuse of process of the Court and deserves to be quashed, in view of the law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in a celebrated judgment in State of Haryana and others v. Ch. Bhajan Lal and others, 1991(1) R.C.R.(Criminal) 383 : AIR 1992 Supreme Court 604, which was again reiterated in case Som Mittal v. Government of Karnataka, 2008(2) R.C.R.(Criminal) 92. Moreover, in case, if such false prosecution is allowed to continue and the petitioners-accused were compelled to suffer a prolonged criminal litigation at Jagadhri (Haryana), then it will inculcate and perpetuate injustice to their case, which is not legally permissible.
39. Therefore, the indicated contentions of learned counsel for petitioners- accused have considerable force and the contrary arguments of the learned counsel for the complainant-RSS pale into insignificance, "stricto sensu" deserve to be and are hereby repelled under the present set of circumstances as the ratio of the law laid down in the aforesaid judgments "mutatis mutandis" is applicable to the facts of the present case and is the complete answer to the problem in hand.
40. No other legal point, worth consideration, has either been urged or pressed by the learned counsel for the parties.
41. In the light of aforesaid reasons, the instant petition is accepted. Consequently, the impugned complaint (Annexure P-1), summoning order (Annexure P-2) and all other subsequent proceedings arising therefrom, are hereby quashed. The petitioners-accused are accordingly discharged from the indicated criminal complaint in the obtaining circumstances of the case.


text:
Emily Murphy February 9, 2012
How to Build Real Connections on Twitter
Twitter's a great medium for connecting with other people in the industry and for broadcasting to potential clients.
It's a relatively new communication tool for many, and I would argue that a lot of people are still experimenting with how best to use it. While talking about Twitter with other social media users lately, I've ended up hearing a bit about what people do and don't like about other Twitter users – and a few common peeves keep coming up. People just don't warm to accounts that do things like:
Post useless, self promotional content
Ignore @replies and @mentions
Post only automated messages with a link back to the original Facebook post
What not to tweet!
Instead, the best Twitter users come across as real people with valuable information to share. The key to forging strong connections on Twitter is not to repeatedly send out links to your own content and listings, but to engage with other real people.
Here's a couple of key ways to be genuinely helpful to other Twitter users:
1. Share content of value.
It's fine to have a self-promotion strategy for social media, but a great question to have in mind while using social networks is How can this information help other people? That's why so many Twitter users share content that they found useful (even when it doesn't directly promote them). By providing value to others, you're benefiting by boosting your own credibility.
2. Engage in conversation.
In an interview last week, real estate agent Joe Mucci said this about succeeding in real estate:
"Relationship is probably the most important. People knowing who you are and what you stand for and you the agent knowing who your customers are."
This is equally as true online! And building relationships require conversations. When you see a tweet that you could make an intelligent/funny/useful response to, or when someone mentions you, don't hesitate to reply. Talking to other people is really the only way to make sincere connections.
Being successful is often about gaining trust and developing strong social networks. Those users who share content of value to others and engage in conversation, rather than treating Twitter as just a broadcasting tool, are the ones who come across as genuine individuals – not as marketing robots.
Image by David Carillet via Flickr.
Filed Under: Twitter Tagged: etiquette, social media marketing
About Emily Murphy
Emily is a digital strategist, Internet Communications graduate, and raving fan of WordPress. She worked with Real Estate Tribe from early 2012 to late 2014.
@_emilysauce - Google+
Real estate marketing: What mums teach us about online presentation | Real Estate Tribe says:
[…] approachable. This means having a profile that's appropriate to the setting. On Facebook and Twitter you'll want a profile picture that shows that you're more than a real estate agent. […]


Christ the Redeemer is hoping to start an Adult Faith Group that would meet to view DVDs and discuss them in light of our religious faith. In order to refine this idea and help get it off the ground, we ask that you please complete this survey in hopes of having our first Faith & Film showing toward the end of July.
Don't forget to hit the SUBMIT button at the end of the survey.
Type in movie name, you can look the movie up on IMDB.COM to check its running time).
On this weekend's celebration of Corpus Christi we might do well to reflect upon the Body and Blood of Christ offered for us and sustaining and enabling us as members of the same. For me, this weekend pulls me in two different directions. First, I have been called back to New Jersey to celebrate the Ordination Mass of my junior year high school religion teacher, who will then celebrate his First Mass at our memorable Christian Brothers Academy in Lincroft.
I owe a debt of gratitude to this teacher who was part of a very intentional faith formation process in my high school years. It is also with a sense of shared responsibility that the two of us separated by many years of education now find ourselves more intentionally aligned to the same tasks and responsibilities of parish ministry. Our past and present have led us to a common future that was invisible to us all those years ago.
We have journeyed fairly recently through the Easter Season hearing as if for the first time the impact of the Resurrection stories upon the hearts and minds of the first disciples. Jesus' Ascension was not a reprieve from the mission, but a period of hope and preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Feast of Pentecost and its outpouring of the Spirit's gifts could easily stand in for any of our sacramental celebrations in which that same hope and preparation culminates in the Spirit who comes down upon us so that these gifts may become Christ's Body and Blood offered up for the Father's loving embrace.
As mysterious as sacraments are, they are also quite revealing. They are outward signs of an inward reality. They make visible what is invisible: Jesus Christ, the First Sacrament. It is he who makes visible the invisible God. So also the Church, through the Holy Spirit, is the Sacrament of Christ making visible the invisible God today. It is through the Church and its actions that others come to see Christ. One of the Church's basic actions visible at the parish level is to share in mission through Religious Education.
The miracle of feeding the multitudes is a testimony to our hope and God's abundant care for us. It would be wonderful if everything were as simple as calling the multitudes to sit together in groups and then letting "God happen." Our various groups in the religious education program hunger for a chance to experience this same abundance and hope. And they need the Church, our parish, to show up and make visible and real this hope and care.
Catechists, parents and parish adults, are needed to live out their responsibilities in faith to echo (which is the meaning of catechesis) the faith. We are not looking for theologians and professors. We are simply looking to carry out our mission to make Christ visible to the world and to our parish children in particular by echoing what we have seen and heard.
From God's abundance there ought to be a call to "Taste and See", to "See and Believe", to have God's promise "Fulfilled in our hearing." Do we have 12 baskets full to nourish and sustain our parish programs of the past and present for a common future? What is invisible needs to be made visible. While registration continues, so too the need for catechists continues. Come and be seen, counted, and fed. Come and be food for others.
Feel free to contact Jay with other News & Announcements or comment on what you see here.


All speakers are requested to load their presentations in the Speakers' Ready Room at least 1 hour before the start of their session. All presentations should be prepared in Microsoft Office Powerpoint program, 16:9 size. The presentations will be controlled through a network system. Presenters will not be able to use their own laptops or notepads on stage.
The Speakers' Ready Room will be marked clearly with signage at the conference venue.
We have an exceptional number of abstracts this year and wanted to give as many people as possible chance to present, but this means that we have a very full program. Please show respect to your fellow speakers, the chairs and the audience by keeping to the times assigned to your presentation.
Oral Presentations submitted by abstracts have 10 minutes allocated: 8 minutes for presentation and 2 minutes for discussion after your talk.
The accepted posters will be presented as printed posters.
All Posters will appear on poster board in the Poster Area at the exhibition area and are available for viewing for participants at all times during the conference.
Posters should be prepared in  PORTRAIT format of dimensions NO MORE than 90 cm (height) x 70 cm (width).
All the material necessary for attaching the poster to the poster board is available at the posters' help desk in the respective poster area.
Please make sure that your poster can be read easily from a distance of 2 meters.
All posters must be written in English.
Setup time is between 07:30 – 08:30 am on Wednesday, 26th June.
Each presenter is responsible to hang down their poster on Friday, 28th June at 13:00-13:30. Posters not taken from the board will be thrown away.


This post explains for the semiconductor NS4263.
The Part Number is NS4263.
The function of this semiconductor is 3W Stereo Class AB Audio Amplifier + Stereo Headset.
NS4263 is a Class AB / Class D operation mode switching function, ultra-low EMI, no filter, 3W dual channel audio amplifier. In addition, when the headphone plug into the jack, the audio power amplifier will single-ended mode of operation to drive stereo headphones. Through a control pin to make the chip in the AB class or D type of work mode to switch between to match the different application environment. Even in the Class D mode NS4263 uses advanced technology to greatly reduce EMI interference over a full bandwidth range, minimizing the impact on other components. To simplify the design of the audio system, NS4263 bridge-connected speaker magnification mode and single-ended stereo headphone amplification mode are implemented on the same chip. NS4263 eliminates the need for filter PWM modulation structure and feedback resistor built-in way to reduce external components, PCB area and system cost. NS4263 built-in overcurrent protection, overheating protection and undervoltage protection, effectively protect the chip in the abnormal working conditions are not damaged. And the use of spread spectrum technology to fully optimize the new circuit design, up to 90% efficiency is more suitable for mobile phones and other portable audio products.
This entry was posted in Pinout and tagged NS4263. Bookmark the permalink.


They are: Botswana, South Africa ... and also accounts for the reason why Congo cannot be found in the list of top diamond producers if ranking is based on mines.
Sentula Mining and Wits Gold have been excluded, ... SA Mine: 6th edition – Highlighting trends in the South African mining industry .
Here's an overview of the 10 top gold-mining companies of 2017. ... As of the company's performance for 2017, ... Peru and South Africa.
Category Archives: Minerals. Economy disappoints in Q1 2018, contracting by 2,2%. ... 2015 Statistics South Africa presents the Mining industry, 2015 results.
1946 African Mineworkers Strike. ... a body of men who owned the rich gold mines. ... greatly influenced the pattern and direction of trade unionism in South Africa.
The killings of more than 30 workers in the Marikana platinum mine have put the spotlight on working conditions in South Africa's mining industry.
the Australian mining industry invested in gold extraction process ... and it is estimated that South Africa's mining industry lost ... a Productivity in mining. EY.


text:
Q: bash colours: OS X vs Linux I have a very simple script to colorize Maven output in bash. It works great under Linux, but not at all under OS X
# Colorize maven output
# Thanks to https://github.com/builddoctor/maven-antsy-color

alias maven="command mvn"
function color_maven() {
    local BLUE="\x1b[0;34m"
    local RED="\x1b[0;31m"
    local GREEN="\x1b[0;32m"
    local YELLOW="\x1b[1;33m"
    local WHITE="\x1b[1;37m"
    local LIGHT_RED="\x1b[1;31m"
    local LIGHT_GREEN="\x1b[1;32m"
    local LIGHT_BLUE="\x1b[1;34m"
    local LIGHT_CYAN="\x1b[1;36m"
    local NO_COLOUR="\x1b[0m"
    maven $* | sed \
        -e "s/Tests run: \([^,]*\), Failures: \([^,]*\), Errors: \([^,]*\), Skipped: \([^,]*\)/${LIGHT_GREEN}Tests run: \1$NO_COLOUR, Failures: $RED\2$NO_COLOUR, Errors: $YELLOW\3$NO_COLOUR, Skipped: $LIGHT_BLUE\4$NO_COLOUR/g" \
        -e "s/\(\[\{0,1\}WARN\(ING\)\{0,1\}\]\{0,1\}.*\)/$YELLOW\1$NO_COLOUR/g" \
        -e "s/\(\[ERROR\].*\)/$RED\1$NO_COLOUR/g" \
        -e "s/\(\(BUILD \)\{0,1\}FAILURE.*\)/$RED\1$NO_COLOUR/g" \
        -e "s/\(\(BUILD \)\{0,1\}SUCCESS.*\)/$LIGHT_GREEN\1$NO_COLOUR/g" \
        -e "s/\(\[INFO\].*\)/$GREEN\1$NO_COLOUR/g"

        MAVEN_STATUS=$PIPESTATUS

        return $MAVEN_STATUS
}

Under OSX this is how my output is being displayed:
x1b[0;32m[INFO] Scanning for projects...x1b[0m
x1b[0;32m[INFO] -----------------------------------------------x1b[0m
x1b[0;32m[INFO] x1B[0;31mBUILD FAILUREx1b[0mx1b[0m
x1b[0;32m[INFO] -----------------------------------------------x1b[0m
x1b[0;32m[INFO] Total time: 0.097 sx1b[0m
x1b[0;32m[INFO] Finished at: 2015-09-19T20:35:12+02:00x1b[0m
x1b[0;32m[INFO] Final Memory: 5M/123Mx1b[0m
x1b[0;32m[INFO] -----------------------------------------------x1b[0m

I assume it is a problem with the \x1b control sequence. I have also tried \[\033 and \033 in its place, with the same broken result.
My prompt is also colorized and works under Linux and OSX, it is defined like this:
export PS1="\[\033[32m\]\u@\h\[\033[0m\] \[\033[0;35m\]\w\[\033[0m\]\[\033[0;31m\]\$(__git_ps1)\[\033[0m\] \[\033[0;35m\]$\[\033[0m\] "

So the question is, what is the deal with OSX? What do I need to do to get colors to work properly?

A: The GNU version of sed you'll find on Linux is a bit different from the version on OS X. The difference you're running into is that the GNU version interprets hex escapes (e.g. \x1b -> an ASCII ESC character) and translates them into the corresponding characters (in this case the escape character), while the OS X version doesn't.
Fortunately, there's a simple solution: rather than counting on sed to do the escape interpretation, tell bash to do it for you:
local BLUE=$'\x1b[0;34m'
local RED=$'\x1b[0;31m'
...etc

Bash's $'...' quote format does escape interpretation, so when you use those variables in the sed command, they've already been interpreted and get substituted as you expect.
Note that this same script should work fine on Linux as well.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Luckily none of my family is dairy intolerant. Amazing, because as a child I drank so much milk I am amazed my body didn't decide to rebel against me! Anyway, I do know a few friends who have babies and toddlers that are dairy intolerant and having a simple meal like pancakes sometimes is a real no-no. So, here is a great recipe for a non- dairy pancake. Enjoy!
Non dairy for dairy intolerant children or adults.
1. Preheat the oven to very low. Place all the ingredients (apart from the fruit and oil) in a large mixing bowl and mix until well blended. Add the fruit and mix well.
2. Heat about 1 teaspoon of oil in a small frying pan until very hot the pour 1/4 of the batter mixture into the pan, swirling it around to cover the base evenly.
3. Reduce the heat and fry over low heat until the first side is lightly browned, then turn and fry on the other side until done.
4. Transfer to a warmed plate, cover loosely with foil and place in the oven to keep warm whilst you cook the remaining pancakes.
A dairy free delicious banana pancakes recipe which is easy to cook and can be ready in no time….


Guardian Gear dog products are known for their quality and reliable performance. They provide tested-tough outdoor, travel, and training gear for pets.
Guardian Gear® provides convenient, safe products that help make pet ownership even more enjoyable. Their products range from crates to leads, training collars and more.
Guardian Gear® is a respected brand of PetEdge, a company that strives to live up to their name by having the "edge" in the pet industry.
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Unexpected marketing opportunities are akin to natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, and cold weather events. You know they are coming, but they are impossible to predict when and where they will happen.
So, how do you forecast unexpected opportunities? How do you take advantage of them when they occur? And how can public relations serve as a means of seizing the moment and putting your product or service into the mind of your target audience?
Do you have the ability to see change before it happens?
Probably not. In fact, very few are blessed with that kind of intuition and those who possess that trait often are as lucky as they are intuitive.
That leaves the overwhelming majority of us relying on our inherent skills and experience to see an opportunity and then figure out a way to take advantage of it. While it may be difficult to foresee opportunities that are not immediately apparent, there are ways and means to sharpen your forward-looking skills.
We've all heard the old adage "the only constant is change." It's just as true today as it was when someone first coined it.
As we charged into the 21st century, for example, we all recognized that the onset of digital communications was changing how we do business. Those who embraced the changes that digital communications brought to how we obtain information, what we do with the information, and how we interact with one another have become business legends.
How does PR help you change?
Real-time marketing incorporates brand messages into current events – events that your clients and potential customers care about. If these messages are strategically crafted and quickly distributed, public relations can serve as a powerful tool to help you enhance your product or service.
Public relations can react quickly, often involving quick turnaround and on-the-fly responses to immediate events, but they can put your organization's name at the top of the list in those media that matter to you and your clients.
We all become somewhat numb to the day-to-day experience of business, but for PR practitioners, it is all new.
PR folks don't see what you see every single business day. From a distance, they can see what is working for you—and see those things that could be working even harder on your behalf. They can visualize unexpected opportunities.
Look and listen. And profit.
Our team at Wellons communications works hard at remaining abreast of current events, both in the everyday consumer workplace, as well as the more limited surroundings of the market category served by of our clients.
We enjoy digging into the news to see what is of interest to media. We look for how the mundane can suddenly be interesting. And we search within the market categories served by our clients for what media could—and should—be covering and how our clients can fit in.
We look and listen for opportunities. And when we see them, we articulate them and seize them. And when we succeed, our clients succeed.
Find out how we can help you succeed. Call or e-mail me (407-339-0879 or will@wellonscommunications.com) and let me share some additional stories about how PR can help you find unexpected opportunities and help you capitalize upon them.


text:
Home » Personal Development » Mnemonic Major System: Definition and Example
Mnemonic Major System: Definition and Example
Mnemonic Major System: this article provides a practical explanation of the Mnemonic Major System.
After reading, you'll understand the basics of this powerful personal development and memory tool.
This article contains the general definition of the Mnemonic Major System and a practical example.
What is the Mnemonic Major System?
The Mnemonic Major System is a mnemonic technique and device that makes it easier to remember series of numbers.
It's also a phonetic number system, converting numbers into consonant sounds and then into words by adding vowels. According to mnemonic principles, it's easier to remember images than numbers. The Major System is based on that idea.
It was likely named after the 19th-century Polish military advisor and major Beniowski. Living in exile in England, he was an activist for radical organisations. Multiple inventors have been linked to the Major System, and several versions have been seen in recent centuries.
For example, it has been attributed to the French photography and mnemonic device expert Francis Fauvel Gourand.
Later in the 20th century, it was popularised by the American magician, mentalist, and memory trainer Harry Lorayne. German historian Johann Just Winckelmann is also regularly mentioned of the Major System in the late 17th century.
How do you use a mnemonic major system?
The Mnemonic Major System is a so-called mnemonic technique. It's a memory trick and phonetic mnemonic system that helps people to easily remember a lot of information simultaneously. Examples are dates, long series of numbers, new people's faces, shopping lists, or big chunks of text.
It's based on the idea that information with no structure or a complicated one can be remembered by associating them to an alternative structure.
When he parks his car in spot F-1 in a car park as large as a football pitch, chances are the driver won't manage to easily find it again.
When spot F-1 actually has a picture of basket of Fruit (starting with the letter F), that image and the combination of the letter and the number will be remembered by the driver, helping him to easily find their car again.
There are many more mnemonic devices in addition to the Major System, with the Memory Palace being one of the most famous. By talking a virtual stroll through, for instance, your own home, you can remember objects or long series of numbers.
The first series of decimals of an infinite number like pi can be remembered and reproduced in that way; 3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 …. The person who has to remembered is asked to visualise the front door and see the number 314 on it.
The entry hall has a balloon hanging in it with 159 written on it. The little cabinet under the mirror has a wooden frame on it displaying the number 265. The door to the sitting room has 358 painted on it. By memorising all these numbers and associating them with objects in the memory palace, it becomes easier to reproduce them.
Using a language method based on rhythm and music is a common mnemonic device as well. Using a rhyme or song is a good way to remember things.
To remember our solar system, you can use My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nine Pies for example, referring to Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. 'ROYGBIV' is a similar acronym to remember the order of the colours of the rainbow: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.
Mnemonic Major System example
This mnemonic assigns certain sounds to certain numbers. In its most common form, it ignores vowels. They can be used as fillers to create recognisable words. Each number refers to a series of similar sounds with similar positions of the mouth and tongue. The link is phonetical; it's about the consonant sounds and not the actual spelling.
This way, the Major System as a term memory makes it easy to remember numbers, such as different kinds of codes, dates, credit card numbers, and phone numbers. The most common definition is as follows:
Figure 1 – Major System
In addition to what has been listed above, it's good to remember that vowels, double letters, and the letters W, H, Y, and X are not used. The following example shows what number can be remembered using the word 'Satellite':
Figure 2 – Major System Example
The full code for 'Satellite' would then be '0151'.
You can use images that show that contain the exact number of consonants in the number. Consonants can also be used as a general guideline, with a combination of additional consonants.
As long as it's logical to the user, and he knows the link between the numbers and words, it doesn't really matter how the letter combination looks.
The current word list of the Major System has 60,000 words, divided over about 25,000 codes. Over the centuries, the system has evolved, and each number is usually associated with one or more consonants.
It's also possible to create mnemonic images, for which it's recommended to use at least one set image for each number between 0-9 and 00-99. Another way to use the system is to form sentences with different words, reproducing them like a mantra or rhyme.
What do you think? Do you recognize the explanation of the Mnemonic Major System? Do you use the Major System to make it easier to remember things? Do you have any tips or additions you would like to share regarding memory techniques?
Bellezza, F. S. (1983). Mnemonic-device instruction with adults. In Cognitive strategy research (pp. 51-73). Springer, New York, NY.
Bower, G. H. (1970). Analysis of a mnemonic device: Modern psychology uncovers the powerful components of an ancient system for improving memory. American Scientist, 58(5), 496-510.
McCarty, D. L. (1980). Investigation of a visual imagery mnemonic device for acquiring face–name associations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6(2), 145.
Mulder, P. (2019). Mnemonic Major System. Retrieved [insert date] from Toolshero: https://www.toolshero.com/personal-development/mnemonic-major-system/
Toolshero: Mnemonic Major System
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