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Now, Two Booked Under NSA For ‘Illegally’ Transporting Cows In Congress-Ruled Madhya Pradesh

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AGAR MALWA — Authorities in Agar Malwa district of Madhya Pradesh have booked two men under the National Security Act (NSA) for alleged illegal transportation of cattle and disruption of public peace, a police official said on Friday.

The incident comes close on the heels of the Kamal Nath-led government invoking the stringent NSA against three persons accused of cow slaughter in Khandwa district.

“The two accused ― Mehboob Khan, a resident of Lambikheda in Ujjain district, and Rodumal Malviya of Agar Malwa, were arrested on Thursday under the NSA for transporting cows illegally and disrupting public peace,” Kotwali police station in-charge Ajit Tiwari said.

After their arrest, a court sent the duo to the central jail in Ujjain, he added.

According to police, Agar Malwa town had witnessed tension on 29 January in the bus stand area when the two accused were carrying cows in their vehicles. People had protested against them, after which the market was shut.

The duo was later booked by the police.

“They were found to be involved in such activities in the past as well, which had led to disruption of peace in the area,” Tiwari said.

The NSA was invoked against them by District Collector Ajay Gupta after Agar Malwa’s Superintendent of Police (SP) Manoj Kumar Singh sent a report on the matter.

“In the past, four cases of illegal transportation of cows were registered against Mehboob and three cases against Rodumal, because of which the administration imposed the NSA against them,” he said.

Talking to reporters in Mandsaur two days back in connection with the Khandwa case, senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh had said it is the police who decide which sections should be applied and invoking the NSA appeared unnecessary in that case.


Me Too Allegations Rock South Korea’s Elite World Of Sports

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Shim Suk-hee competes in one of the heats of the women's 1,500-meter race of the ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Rotterdam, Netherlands, on March 10, 2017.

A two-time Olympic champion alleged last month that her coach had repeatedly raped her, setting off a wave of similar sex abuse claims that are rocking South Korea’s elite world of sports.

Shim Suk-hee, a short-track speedskater, told Korean media on Jan. 8 that her coach, Cho Jae-beom, sexually abused her for four years beginning when she was 17. In a police report filed the previous month, she said the alleged abuse sometimes took place in nationally managed facilities, including a locker room, ice skating rink and national training center.

“Shim hopes that an environment in which a victim can speak out in a confident manner can be created in the sports community,” her lawyer told Korean broadcaster SBS news.

Cho is serving a 10-month prison term for physically assaulting athletes, including Shim. His lawyer has said assault took place but sexual violence did not.

Shim’s decision to speak out comes amid a burgeoning Me Too movement that is challenging taboos in South Korea’s conservative society. The movement traces its roots to a prosecutor’s allegations against a senior colleague last year. In an emotional television interview, Seo Ji-hyeon alleged that Ahn Tae-geun had repeatedly groped her and that superiors retaliated against her when she complained. Ahn denied the accusation and cannot be charged with sexual abuse because of Korea’s one-year statute of limitations, the AFP reported.

But her public appearance led to a barrage of similar complaints against male bosses and colleagues across industries. These accusations culminated this month when a former provincial governor and possible presidential candidate was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on charges of sexually abusing his secretary.

Shim courageously broke the silence in the world of sports, prompting an ongoing reckoning in the hierarchical industry, in which male coaches wield enormous influence over the lives and careers of their athletes.

Just about 18 percent of 19,965 coaches registered in the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee in 2018 were women. The same year, more than 23 percent of registered athletes were women. In other words: Female athletes are slightly better represented in sports than female coaches.

A week after Shim filed her police report, a former judo athlete accused her coach of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor. In an interview with South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh, Shin Yu-yong alleged that her coach raped her 20 times between 2011 and 2015. In media interviews, she said he threatened that they would both be “finished in the world of judo” if she ever told anyone about the abuse. The Korea Judo Association permanently banned the coach, whose identity has not been revealed, in response to Shin’s allegations, The Korea Herald reported. The coach, a married man, has denied sexually assaulting Shin and claimed instead that they had an on-again, off-again consensual relationship.

That same week, 15 taekwondo athletes formed a “victims union” and complained against a former senior executive of the Korea Taekwondo Association. Lee Ji-hye, the only accuser to reveal her name, said the abuse began in 1998, when she was in sixth grade, and continued for five years. In a television interview, she said the executive, whose identity is also being withheld, threatened to kill her if her accusations landed him in prison.

He stepped down as head of the association and is currently on trial for sexual assault.

The accusations have continued to reverberate through other sports, including sepak takraw, also known as kick volleyball, and soccer, where female athletes accuse male coaches of abusing their power.

Male Power In Korea’s Sports Scene

South Korea’s sports world is notoriously competitive and laser-focused on developing elite athletes. In this system, speaking out against a coach, particularly when it comes to delicate topics of sexual violence, is tantamount to career suicide — a consequence most athletes who have dedicated their entire lives to their sport are not willing to face.

Moreover, Korea’s athletic organizations are notoriously hierarchical. A coach is given full authority over everything from selecting athletes to work with to choosing the events in which they compete. A coach’s decision can completely change the course of an athlete’s life.

The coaches in these positions of power are overwhelmingly male, in line with larger societal trends. Korea ranked 115th out of 149 countries in the 2018 Global Gender Gap Report, which measures gender-based disparities in economic participation, education, health and political empowerment. According to the Korean daily Hankook Ilbo, just about 18 percent of the 19,965 coaches registered in the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee in 2018 were women. The same year, more than 23 percent of registered athletes were women. In other words: Female athletes are slightly better represented in sports than female coaches.

But in the world of skating, where Korea dominates on the international stage, the gender imbalance is even more dramatically skewed. The country’s 223 female short-track speedskaters are coached exclusively by men. And in golf, in which nearly 50 percent of athletes are female, women account for just 10 percent of coaches.

Lim Shin-ja, a professor at Kyung Hee University and the president of Korea’s Women’s Sports Association, said in an interview with Hankook Ilbo that Korea’s sports community is particularly conservative and male-dominated.

“Not only can female coaches not demonstrate their skills and abilities, but also there is hardly any recognition for such demonstrations to be accepted,” she said. “First, an ecosystem where female coaches can demonstrate their capabilities needs to be in place. Then there will be less violence against female athletes.”

Korea’s Government Responds

In response to a public uproar, Korea’s government has initiated countermeasures to eradicate sexual violence in the sports community. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea announced plans last month for the country’s largest-ever inquiry into a culture of abuse in sports. After the yearlong investigation, the commission will issue guidelines and could also forward evidence to police for possible prosecution.

Do Jong-hwan, the country’s minister of culture, sports and tourism, said Korea will “take the lead” in sports ethics so athletes will no longer suffer, the Yonhap News Agency reported. “We will respect others, embrace the outcome [of the investigation] and materialize the intrinsic values of sports that shape a healthy society.”

Many Koreans are watching with intent as the problem of sexual violence — the tip of a long-submerged iceberg — gets exposed and slowly chipped away.

These Experts Think They Have 'The Formula' For Raising Super Successful Kids

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“When we encounter people who have experienced extraordinary success ... we can’t help but wonder: How did they do it? Was it just natural talent? What transformed their natural-born abilities into extraordinary adult success?” 

These are the questions journalist Tatsha Robertson began asking herself more than a decade ago as a national correspondent with The Boston Globe. Robertson noticed that many of the accomplished people she’d interviewed or profiled — individuals who’d achieved great academic or career success — had parents with seemingly similar traits.

Intrigued, Robertson called Ronald Ferguson, an MIT-trained economist who has made a career of studying academic disparities in the U.S. and serves as director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University, to ask whether it is possible that strategic parenting is something that can be taught. And, if so, was it possible to give parents a blueprint for fostering their children’s natural talents to set them up for lifelong success — no matter their circumstances?

The answer, Ferguson said, was yes, and the two began working on what ultimately became their new book, The Formula — effectively, a set of eight different actions parents can undertake to help produce adults who are successful. Among the things they found? More often than not, the high achievers in the book could read before they went to kindergarten. And their parents had begun to envision who they’d like them to turn into as adults before they were even born. 

HuffPost Parenting spoke with Robertson and Ferguson to find out more about their book. 

To start with, can we clarify how you guys define “success” here?

Ferguson: We’re looking at parents who’ve figured out how to put their kids on track for achieving their greatest potential. 

Robertson: These kids are mostly academically smart. And they have a sense of agency, so they have that sense of get up and go. And they were raised to have a purpose. 

Ferguson: We have a little equation, it’s smarts + purpose + agency = fully realized. 

A few of the roles you lay out here are time sensitive, especially the “early-learning partner” — which is basically the parent that is super hands-on in a really specific way from birth to age 5. The moms and dads you talk about in the book did things like use flashcards with their kids, and helped them learn to read before kindergarten. But what if you’ve got, say, a 4-year-old at home who can’t read yet and isn’t likely to anytime soon. Is the message basically... whoops? Too late?

Ferguson: The big thing really isn’t whether the 4-year-old can read. The big thing is whether the 4-year-old is hooked on learning. Whether the 4-year-old welcomes challenge. And parents can prepare for that by really knowing their child, and providing the level of challenge that inspires, but does not overwhelm. So the way I think about it is these “roles” are really about the parents’ mindset, and the parents being aware that these things matter.

There was zero coercion here. Some people think, “Why would you force your preschooler to read?” But there was zero forcing here. We make the point in the book that the child needs to be receptive. We’re not making the point that every child can be a superstar. We talk about this idea that parents have to be students of their children. Parents have to know each of their children well enough to know what the time and place are for any particular type of engagement or enrichment or activity. 

Are there any of the eight actions or roles that so-called “master parents” play that you find surprising?

Ferguson: One of the roles we talk about master parents playing is “the philosopher.” People who have a strong sense of purpose have a clarity of mind when it comes to what the problems are that they want to help solve in the world. These parents took their children very seriously as thinkers from the earliest moments, so when they asked questions that might seem too advanced or philosophical for a little kid, these parents would think hard about it. 

Robertson: To give you a quick example, there’s a young man named Sangu Delle from Ghana. He and his dad, who was a village doctor, would just talk in these really philosophical ways when he was 4 years old, 5 years old. Sangu would take baths, and for 10 minutes they’d just... talk. Sangu would ask him things like, “What is the most important virtue?” They’d talk about Aristotle. And the father would talk to him like an adult, and wouldn’t necessarily just answer the question right then. He’d go off, think about it for a day or two, and they would have a conversation. 

In the book, you talk about families of multiple kids where one is super high-achieving and the other (or others) are not. How does that happen?

Ferguson: Sometimes, if you have one really high achiever in a family, the other children will decide [they] just can’t compete with that. So if parents are aware that might be a dynamic, they can help their children to whom learning might not come as naturally to understand they’re important, too. The other piece is that sometimes parents are really excited about that first child.

Robertson: We did speak with some families where all of the kids were high-achievers. What we found, in many cases, is that they parented each child differently. And they were able to get the best out of all of them. The parents were students of their own children, and they looked at them very differently and parented them very differently. One of the things we also know we’re going to hear is about time — parents saying they don’t have enough time. But the parents we spoke to for this book were very strategic and intentional about the time they had with their kids.

You make the argument, and I’m going to quote directly from the book here, that: “The expeditions toward realization and success on which each child was piloted were extraordinarily similar. Class doesn’t seem to matter. Race doesn’t seem to matter.” Isn’t that simply dismissing the systemic obstacles that hold kids back?

Robertson: Yes, there are going to be people who say that. But I say, what is wrong with saying despite those challenges, you must be intentional. Because other people are doing it. And if you want your child to succeed in life, you need to know this. It sounds like a cliche, but all these parents embraced the American dream — the idea that if you work hard, you can grow up to be anything. We heard these ideals — that American ethos — from parents, regardless of how much money they had or where they were from. 

Ferguson: I don’t think either of us wants to take the burden off of society in taking responsibility to help these families. The question is whether we’re talking to the parent, or to society, and the book is addressing the parent specifically. But I want to say something back to society, too, which is that these parents deserve support. 

Robertson: But the message really is that these are successful parents who knew something, which is be thoughtful and strategic. And determined! Don’t give up. 

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Ariana Grande Accuses Grammys Of 'Lying' About Why She's Not Performing

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Ariana Grande is breaking her silence on why she’s no longer attending the Grammy Awards.

The “thank u, next” singer was scheduled to take the stage at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday night but dropped out of the award show all together over a reported clash with producers over artistic control. 

The pop star apparently intended to showcase her new single, “7 Rings,” but reportedly felt “insulted” when producers refused to let her play the song and later suggested she include the track in a medley instead.  

Speaking with The Associated Press on Thursday, Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich claimed that Grande “felt it was too late for her to pull something together” after a breakdown in conversations with the singer. 

“As it turned out when we finally got the point where we thought maybe it would work, she felt it was too late for her to pull something together for sure,” Ehrlich told AP. “And it’s too bad. She’s a great artist. And I’d love to get her in the show this year.”

Grande, who kept quiet when asked about the issue this week, now claims the award show powers that be are “lying” about the reason she dropped out.  

In a series of candid tweets shared Thursday, Grande painted a very different picture. 

“I’ve kept my mouth shut but now you’re lying about me. I can pull a performance over night and you know that, Ken,” Grande wrote. “It was when my creative expression was stifled by you, that I decided not to attend. i hope the show is exactly what you want it to be and more.”

 

Grande went on to claim that she “offered 3 different songs” but didn’t ultimately feel supported by the producers. 

“it’s about art and honesty. not politics,” she added. “Not doing favors or playing games. it’s just a game y’all.. and i’m sorry but that’s not what music is to me.”

Ahead of the show, Grande’s performance was heavily advertised as one of the highlights of the ceremony, which is not known for high ratings. 

She concluded her Twitter thread by adding that she “passed a Grammy’s bus with my face on it” while typing out the tweets. 

Grande, who’s nominated in the Best Pop Vocal Performance and Best Pop Vocal Album categories, maintained that she’s “still grateful for the acknowledgement” despite her differences with producers. 

Why Lynchings Have Become A Substitute For Communal Riots

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In this file photo, Kareeman Bano holds a photograph of her son-in-law Rakbar Khan who died after being thrashed by a mob in June 2018 on suspicion of cattle smuggling in Alwar, Rajasthan.

Indeed, lynching has replaced the age-old communal riot as a means of polarization. Lynching comes without the burden of guilt that used to accompany riots. It is more effective, lethal and sinister. It strikes at the very identity of the community. It is far more demoralizing than the traditional communal violence, but serves the same purpose as riots did in the years gone by: to engender a climate of distrust and fear. On one side are Hindus who begin to look at any Muslim, particularly those with conspicuous manifestation of being one, with distrust. In their mind, all Muslims are beefeaters. And, maybe, even cow slaughterers. Nothing wrong with that if you are in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and vast stretches of the Northeast, but often a fatal flaw in north and west India. To those Hindus denied the benefit of education and economic cushion, a Muslim is one who deliberately provokes Hindus by eating beef. They do not know the reality or the history of beef eating in their own religion. For such a misled vigilante, the Muslim is the ‘other’ who must be shown his place. For him, a Muslim is what the latest video, real or fake, on WhatsApp shows him to be. Also, a Muslim is to be tackled, again, in the way those hooligans do in the lynching videos. That brings us to Muslims. With each lynching incident, the community slips deeper into fear, and into its own shell. And a community which is often told to join the mainstream slips further away.

In an item titled ‘Black Shadow of the Mob’ (Times of India, 29 July 2018), correspondent Himanshi Dhawan talked of how ‘fear and alienation is changing the way middle-class Muslims live, from what they pack for lunch, to how they’re naming babies’. The piece dwelt at some length on the perplex, insecure and increasingly insular world of a Muslim in urban India in 2018. It talked of well-known historian Rana Safvi’s experience of living not too far from Dadri where Akhlaq was lynched soon after Eid-ul-Azha celebrations. 

One day, soon after Bakr-Id last year, when her relative came home with some mutton as a traditional gift, the watchman asked what was in the package, and the elderly gentleman told him. Safvi panicked. ‘My house is close to Dadri, and I was overcome by this feeling of helplessness. What would I do if some men barged in demanding to know if it were beef in my fridge’.

 A year before this feature, the outgoing Vice President of India Hamid Ansari had stated in August 2017, ‘Fear, unease is growing among Muslims in India’.He was proved right exactly a year later when the same newspaper reported,

Muslim traders in Ghansali town of Uttarakhand’s Tehri Garhwal district said on Wednesday they are wary of opening their shops, two days after a man from their community was beaten up by a mob when he was found with a minor Hindu girl, sparking calls for their ouster.

Around the same time came another media report wherein young men and women in Delhi revealed that they call up their parents and grandparents not to offer namaz (prayer) on a train for the fear of being identified. This in a country where it was not unusual for people to make space for Muslim travellers to offer namaz as a train halted at the railway station, or even on the train itself. Writing in The Wire, Apoorvanand stated,

A friend narrated his experience of offering namaz at the railway platform while waiting for his train. On earlier occasions, it had always been normal for him and others to pray in public. But this time, he was extra alert. A shout, a loud voice made him strain his ears. Was it for him? We who used to make space for namazis in train, in our homes, offices, and even offer a prayer mat to them have gone silent. Goondas have become our voice. This silence will drown India if we allow it to spread.

Lynchings have replaced the age-old riot as a means of polarisation, writes Ziya Us Salam in ‘Lynch Files’.

All this fragmentation of our social fabric has come about not because of any major communal riot. In fact, since 2013, the country has not had any major outpouring of communal violence. It has come about because of the climate of fear, insecurity, vulnerability and helplessness generated by a series of lynching incidents. A lynching incident may take place in a remote town of Jharkhand or a busy town just off the NCR in Uttar Pradesh, but it comes laced with the potential to reach to millions across the country, particularly the Hindi heartland, through a video recording of the assault. Be it Akhlaq, or Samiuddin, Afrazul or Usman Ansari, all the incidents of attack on the minorities in the garb of cow slaughter have a ripple effect. Like a small piece of stone dropped into the sea, these cases of violence shake the entire community, from those in the immediate vicinity to the distant. Further, each attack polarizes the society while the police and state bodies can either go on dubbing each case as a minor aberration or completely deflect it as a mere road rage case.

A vast number of members of the majority, while appalled at the gruesome violence, somewhere justify it as ‘he might have provoked it’. It is not too different in mindset from what the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said after a particularly gruesome incident:

Unnecessary importance is being given to lynching incidents. We will provide protection to everyone, but it is also the responsibility of every individual, every community and every religion to respect each others’ sentiments. Humans are important and cows are important. Both have their own roles in nature.

So subtly the blame is passed on to the victim. Much like the police which often files complaints against the attacked and the abused rather than the attackers and the abusers.

It is once again like the communal riots. Over the years, the Muslim community has had a grievance against the police that it favours the majority community—Hashimpura, Maliana, Bhagalpur, Bhiwadi, Moradabad and so on. It is the same with lynching incidents. Except for a solitary case of a police sub- inspector protecting a Muslim boy from a mob in Uttarakhand, the community lives with the uneasy feeling that even in case of murderous attack by cow vigilante groups, the police will come to the rescue of the offenders, find ways to protect the attackers and humiliate the victims. Again, like with communal riots, this time too, FIRs are filed against Muslims, some of them after they are killed by a murderous mob. Denied security in life by a rampant mob, they are denied dignity in death by the police.

Ziya Us Salam is an Associate Editor at Frontline. 

Excerpted with permission from ’Lynch Files’
2019 / 232 pages / Paperback: Rs 450 ( 9789353282196)/ SAGE Select

I Had Given Up On Being Vegan In India, But Writing This Changed My Mind

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How easy is it to be a vegan in India? Especially if you are on a limited budget? Two years ago, I would have said it is impossible. Today, I disagree.

In 2017, I read an expose about the horrors of the dairy industry and had a strong emotional reaction. I wrote a distressed Facebook post and overnight, decided to turn vegan. I was a vegetarian to begin with, so I assumed it would be easy for me. I shut off our milk supply and stopped buying curd, butter, ghee, cheese, and eggs.

Four months later, I had given up.

To anyone who asked (most didn’t—my family was relieved that I had reverted to a ‘normal’ diet; my friends just rolled their eyes at my food fads), I explained that being a vegan in India is a difficult, expensive affair. This article was originally meant to be a chronicle of the reasons why I had to give up veganism.

But something happened during the writing of this piece.

For my research, I started speaking to people: long term vegans, rebounding vegans, vegan food brands… I spent hours reading stories shared on Indian vegan forums. I watched videos of vegan recipes and dietary tips. And I realised something: being vegan on a budget was not only possible, but also much easier than I had imagined.

 

What does it mean to be vegan?

A vegan diet means that you avoid all foods that come directly or indirectly from other living beings. This includes meat, seafood, eggs, dairy (milk, butter, cheese, ghee, paneer, khoya, etc.) and honey.

“There will be nothing left to eat!” remarked a horrified friend who looked over my shoulder as I was composing this list.

When you are in control of the meals and ingredients, it is remarkably easy to be vegan.

Put this way, it does look like a tall order. But it’s not as bad as it looks, which I discovered soon enough.

Being vegan

“Being vegan doesn’t mean eating dal-chawal everyday,” says Abhishek Neogi, a freelance writer who has been vegan for over 2 years. Unusually for vegans, he made this choice for health rather than compassionate reasons, and says that he is healthier physically and more alert mentally since turning vegan. “Include these 5 food groups in your diet every day: whole grains (rice, wheat, oats, millets), lentils and legumes (all types of dals, rajma, chickpea, green peas), nuts and seeds (cashew, almond, walnut, sunflower, pumpkin seeds, chia), fresh fruits, and vegetables. Among these are enough cheap and tasty options to make every meal different.”

Doctors and nutritionists generally agree that vegans and vegetarians tend to be deficient in Vitamins B12. Dr Nandita Shah of SHARAN, a collective of doctors and professionals who support veganism for health, recommends taking 500MCG of methylcobalamin (the kind of B12 that is used by our body) every alternate day. The pills cost between Rs120 and Rs 200 for a month’s supply.

Poha from Maharashtra is one of the many Indian foods that are naturally vegan.

“Most new vegan converts start out by assuming that they need to eat some special vegan food or buy vegan products.” says Susmitha Subbaraju, a vegan for 18+ years and the founder of Carrots, Bangalore’s first vegan restaurant. “The truth is that many Indian foods are naturally vegan.” As she reels off a list, I am surprised by just how many there are: puttu and kadala from Kerala, appam and coconut stew, kozhakattais from Tamil Nadu, akki rotis from Karnataka, pesarattu from Andhra, poha from Maharashtra…there’s certainly no dearth of options for breakfast at least. 

Staying vegan

When you are in control of the meals and ingredients, it is remarkably easy to be vegan. But what happens when you are eating at a restaurant or a social gathering?

“If you can, try and pick the place yourself,” says Chaitali Pisupati, content lead at Give India and a committed vegan. “I prefer Chinese, Thai, Burmese or Vietnamese places because their vegetarian options are by nature, vegan. Dairy does not feature at all in these cuisines.” If you aren’t picking the place, she recommends checking the restaurant menu beforehand. “As long as there are 2-3 vegan options, I am good,” she says.

Being vegan may limit the number of things you can eat but definitely not the variety or taste.

“Typical South Indian food has tons of vegan options,” says Rheea Mukherjee, who runs branding and communications agency Write Leela Write. “I usually go for the thaali without curd or payasam.”  With a mixed Mangalore Catholic and Bengali background Rheea was raised a non-vegetarian but turned vegan three years ago. She started in stages, giving up meat first, then seafood, and lastly, dairy.

All catered meals, be it in office or at a social event, will have some vegan option, points out Sushant Ajnikar, design lead at Cure.fit and co-founder of Paws of India. Over the years, his friends and family have accepted his preferences and always keep a vegan option for him at parties and functions. In any circumstance, he says, “As a vegan, you can eat any vegetarian starter except paneer; then there will be rice, dal, rotis without butter, and a variety of sabzis—sarson ka saag, baingan bharta, rajma, aloo, gobi...the options are endless.” A committed biker, he manages to keep up his vegan lifestyle even during rides across the country. “Chai is something bikers rely on to keep them alert and refreshed. At the smallest tea shop in any corner of the country, you will get lemon tea, and I choose that over milky chai.”

As a vegan, you can eat a variety of sabzis—sarson ka saag, baingan bharta, rajma, aloo, gobi.

You can still enjoy the good stuff

Being vegan may limit the number of things you can eat but definitely not the variety or taste. “You can eat vegan on the cheap and it’s delicious, but if you want to indulge once in a while and can afford it, why not?” says Rheea who also runs the Messy Cooking, Always Vegan blog. From vegan quiche and Bengali mock meat kosha mangsho to avocado chocolate frosted cake, orange cacao nib ice cream and pina colada cake, she has an impressive number of  ‘exotic’ vegan recipes put up here. Hummus, she says, is an easy and tasty vegan dip and herb-infused cashew butter is a great spread. To recreate the flavour of cheese in her recipes, she (and numerous other vegan cooks) recommend nutritional yeast, which is deactivated yeast with a nutty, creamy flavour that makes it ideal as a cheese substitute.

As an erstwhile non vegetarian, she cooks a lot with soy and mock meat, especially for curries and biryanis and recommends Good Dot’s mock meat. The texture is incredible and the taste amazing. You can replace any meat curry recipe using it the same way you’d use regular meat.” she says. At Rs135 for 250 gms, this is also cheaper than meat. 

At Chinese, Thai, Burmese or Vietnamese places, vegetarian options are by nature, vegan.

Vegan milk or mylk is a common (though more expensive) dairy alternative in recipes. Interestingly, Abhay Rangan, the 21-year-old CEO and founder of Goodmylk, says that a significant proportion of his customers are lactose intolerant rather than vegan. At upwards of Rs.100/litre, the cheapest option in the market is soy milk, but not everyone likes the taste. Goodmylk (Rs.120/litre) is made of cashew and oat milk, says Abhay, and is a great shelf-stable substitute for milk in coffee and tea. “Some combinations work really well, like coconut milk in coffee and cashew milk in tea,” says Susmitha Subbaraju, who regularly conducts workshops and makes videos on vegan cooking.

When it comes to sweets, many simply switch from milk-based mithais to non-milk ones: like Agra petha, chikkis, ellu urundai (sesame balls), sharkara payasam (jaggery kheer), sukhiyan/modaks, elai adai, etc. But a lot of vendors have started offering vegan variants of popular mithais like vegan coconut burfi, kaju katli, besan/boondi laddoos and almond/cashew halwas. Vegan Christmas and birthday cakes are also popular and retailed en masse on BigBasket.

Coimbatore-based Vijay Sweets has even managed to create a recipe for vegan mysore pak (a sweet whose taste is primarily ascribed to the quantity of ghee used in it). Aravindan V, the owner said, it is made from a special combination of coconut milk and sunflower oil. The sweet made waves on social media around Diwali with even non-vegans swearing to the authenticity of its taste.

Kolkata Police Chief Rajeev Kumar Arrives At CBI For Chit Fund Probe

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Kolkata Police Chief Rajeev Kumar outside his house during CBI raids on February 3 this year

Jalandhar : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken  Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar to  an undisclosed location today in Shillong to probe  into the multi -crore chit fund scam.

According to local media sources, Kumar is presently being questioned  inside Assam Rifles regimental centre. 

Supreme Court earlier this week had directed Kumar to appear before the CBI to cooperate into  the probe of Saradha Chit -Fund scam.

 Kumar’s interrogation is followed by a day after Kolkata Police raided two properties of a company it said was linked to Nageshwara Rao, former interim director of the CBI. The enforcement agency had raided the  company offices at Dalhousie’s Clive Row and a building at Salt Lake’s CA-39. 

The move is seen as a ‘revenge’ by  the city police in response to an attempt made by CBI to search the house of City police chief Rajeev Kumar last Sunday.

According to sources, city police is trying to establish a connection of Angela Mercantile Pvt Ltd- which was raided recently with Rao’s wife Mannem Sandhya. The claim was refuted by Rao.

Police sources alleged that there have been a “series of transactions” between the company and Rao’s wife that are under scanner. The transactions under scanner includes - Rs 25 lakh taken as loan by Rao’s wife from the company in 2011-12, Rs 1.5 crore paid to the company in 2012-13 and Rs 14 lakh paid as salary to Rao’s daughter.

The police is also expected to interrogate Praveen Aggarwal, owner of AMPL later in the day.

The case took an ugly turn  few days ago following a face off between Mamta Bannerjee led West Bengal government and Narendra Modi led government at the centre.

The CBI team  that showed up at  Kumar’s residence were detained by the city police after they alleged that Kumar had destroyed  crucial evidence related to the chit fund scam.

Calling it a ‘political vendatta’, Banerjee sat on the dharna for three days and lifted it only after Supreme Court  provided immunity to Kumar against arrest on condition that he would cooperate in the chit fund scam investigation.

Meanwhile, CBI has  dispatched a team of 10 officers to Kolkata  to help the local unit headed by joint director Pankaj Srivastava to probe chit fund scam cases in the state.

 

Robert Vadra Arrives For ED Probe In Money Laundering Case

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New Delhi : Robert Vadra, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s brother-in-law, on Saturday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for the third time in connection with a probe into allegations of money laundering in purchase of assets abroad.

Vadra arrived at the central probe agency’s office at Jamnagar House in central Delhi at about 10.45 am in his private vehicle.

Officials said the investigating officer (IO) of the case required Vadra to answer more questions in connection with the case and hence was asked to depose on Saturday, after his two sessions of questioning on February 6 and 7.

While Vadra was grilled for the first time for about five-and-a-half hours, he was questioned the second time for about 9 hours.

It is understood that the last time Vadra was “confronted with” documents that the agency had obtained or seized as part of its probe in the case, including those linked to absconding defence dealer Sanjay Bhandari.

Vadra has also shared documents with the investigating officer of the case and has assured some more will be provided as and when he gets them, official sources had said.

The ED case against Vadra relates to allegations of money laundering in the purchase of a London-based property located at 12, Bryanston Square worth 1.9 million GBP (British pounds), which is allegedly owned by him.

The agency has told a Delhi court that it has received information about various new properties in London which belong to Vadra. These include two houses, one worth 5 million GBP and the other valued at 4 million GBP, six other flats and more properties.

Vadra has denied the allegations of possessing illegal foreign assets and termed them a political witch hunt against him. He said he was being “hounded and harassed” to subserve political ends.

Sources said Vadra’s statement is being recorded under Section 50 (powers of authorities regarding summons, production of documents and to give evidence) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, as was done the last two times.

His appearance before the ED acquired political overtones after his wife Priyanka Gandhi, recently appointed Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, accompanied him to the investigating agency’s office on Wednesday while she picked him up after questioning on Thursday. 

Vadra is also expected to depose before the ED on February 12 in Jaipur in an another money-laundering case related to a land scam in Bikaner. The Rajasthan High Court has directed him to cooperate with the agency in the case.


SBI Aadhar Biometrics Theft  Case: Police Arrests Victim's Close Friend

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Vikram Sheokand, a former Aadhaar operator with the State Bank Of India has alleged  theft and misuse of his biometrics by anonymous people. 

 Jalandhar : In a major breakthrough, the Counter Intelligence Wing (CIA)  of Jind Police  arrested  a person late night on Saturday in connection with the aadhaar biometrics misuse case reported by an Aadhaar vendor at the  State bank Of India branch at village Uchana in district Jind in Haryana.

 

The accused has been identified as Shamsher Singh, a resident of village Sudkhain Kurd in Jind  who is working as bank Mitra (BC) in SBI branch at Lodhar. Singh is reported to be a close associate  of Vikram Sheokand who has alleged theft and misuse of his biometrics by anonymous people.

 

While confirming this to HuffPost India, Uchana SHO  Sub Inspector Baldev Singh said that Singh was arrested after crucial evidence was found against him. He though refused to share further details on the case.

 

However calling it a cover up by the enforcement agencies, Vikram alleged that his friend was framed wrongly by UIDAI to put pressure on him to take back his complaint.

 

“Police officials  told  me that Rs 1000 stolen from my PNB account was transferred to Shamsher’s bank account. This is not possible as he was my childhood friend and is supporting me financially since childhood,” said Vikram while speaking to HuffPost India over the phone from Jind.

 

He also informed that police has also identified the other person who has transferred Rs 7500 from his account and is found to be based in Madhubani district of Bihar.

 

Vikram who worked as an Aadhaar operator with SBI bank was recently blacklisted by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)  after he was accused of using multi-station ids illegally and enrolling people for Aadhaar  using fake documents. The agency also levied a hefty fine of Rs 33.5 lakhs on Vikram.

 

On the contrary, Vikram alleged that his biometrics were stolen and were allegedly misused by anonymous people at various locations. Recently, Vikram has even got his biometrics locked at the UIDAI portal.

 

Also he recently lodged a complaint with Uchana police and also to Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. He even met SSP Jind Ashvin Shenvi who later  order a  high level probe into the case.

Keeping A Job In India While Battling A Mental Illness Is A Nightmare

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Image used for representational purposes only.

In 2016, I slipped into severe depression, and every day, for many months, I often stood on the balcony of my third floor apartment in Hyderabad, contemplating suicide. I was working as an independent communications consultant then and couldn’t back out of a three-day work-trip once, despite being completely sapped. I just couldn’t communicate to my colleagues what I was going through.

My friend Ankita Rajasekharan, a former middle school teacher, echoed my feelings when she said, “When I had emotional health issues, I would have felt supported if I had a common vocabulary to communicate with my colleagues.”

I am not alone in this experience. People working jobs with mental health issues are not uncommon. According to a study by Assocham, 42.5% of employees in the private sector suffer from depression or anxiety disorder. Yet chances are that you’ve rarely heard of a sensitisation workshop being held in a company or people asking for breaks to deal with a mental illness.

Shreyasi Bose, 28, a content designer, has been fired from several jobs as she struggled to deal with borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder and panic disorder. She says, “Most mornings I puke because of anxiety. I have to prepare myself for an hour just to get to the office. But offices have a 9-5 work structure.” 

I could not process interpersonal relationships, I could not follow non-verbal communication, and mostly felt bullied.

When I worked in an organized workplace, I had a pattern with all my jobs. I started with exceptional energy, exceeded performance expectations, and then quickly slipped into paralyzing anxiety and disillusionment, which finally led to quitting my job. I could not process interpersonal relationships, I could not follow non-verbal communication, and mostly felt bullied. Three years ago, my pattern finally made sense to me – I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. By then, I had been living with it for over a decade.

There were occasions when I was moved to tears for no apparent reason. Once my manager insisted on knowing why I was crying, and I could not explain it in simple terms. I would have preferred to be left alone.

Madhu (name changed), who works in marketing and has 13 years of work experience, recounts feeling she was failing to get through to the client while presenting a copy to them. And another time, she missed sending an email to a client, which quickly spiralled from fear, to paralysing anxiety when she could not physically do anything.

For Sandhya, a freelance designer living with depression, meeting deadlines is a nightmare since she can often not even begin her work. “Every time I get a project, the person that gives me work gets into a position of power. So, the pressure builds up.”

Misunderstood Disabilities

However, these disabilities are often misunderstood as personality flaws. At various places Madhu has worked in, she has been considered lazy. Swati, a technical writer living with BPD, is solely identified by her inability to turn up at work on time and her alleged inconsistency. “My colleagues are sometimes snide about it with me,” Swati told HuffPost India, adding that her manager being supportive has not helped a lot, considering there are a lot of people in the office who are sceptical of her ‘issues’.

And it’s not just patients who find it difficult to keep a job—psychiatrists HuffPost India spoke to said that even they find it difficult to help patients navigate workplace issues. This is compounded by the fact that psychiatrists and therapists have no control over the reaction and response — which is often unreasonable and rude — and have to help their patients put up with it.

“Managers assume that she (her patient) is trying to get out of work, or that she is trying to work from home. Sometimes they just assume she is plain crazy,” said Dr. Sabina Rao.

In 2016, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi made a frivolous remark questioning the employability of mentally ill people.

It is very convenient to misrepresent these concerns and treat people with mental health issues as unsuitable for the workplace. In 2016, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi made a frivolous remark questioning the employability of mentally ill people. While discussing the then proposed Rights of Persons with Disability Bill, she said, “It (bill) does not differentiate between mentally ill and mentally disabled person. But there is a difference between the two. If a person is mentally ill like schizophrenic, how can he be given a job.” There was a fitting response to it with the #WeCanWork, a photo campaign where people living with mental illnesses shared their own pictures with placards telling Gandhi that they can work.

This binary approach to employability makes it harder for people with mental health issues to sustain jobs and afford treatment. Therapy is often expensive, and unsupportive workplaces which are quick to fire people makes access to therapy harder. Shreyasi says, “I am in debt because of my mental illness, and I cannot afford to lose another job.”

Amba Salelkar, a lawyer with the Equals Centre for Promotion of Social Justice points out that if a disability is invisible, people often believe that it doesn’t exist. That, she added, adds to the travails of women already trying to deal with expectations of being a team player and being on top of things 24x7x365. She said, “These are ableist constructs in the context of psychosocial disability.”

And unfairly, the responsibility of building faith rests squarely on the shoulders of the person suffering from a mental illness. Shreyasi, for example, discussed her mental health issues with her manager even before she took up her new job. She was fortunate to have found a manager who was very supportive but for most others, discussing mental health with a manager is a huge leap of faith.

Finding Solutions

One way to address this would be to create the much-needed common vocabulary that Ankita required. This vocabulary is what White Swan Foundation is trying to create. The Bengaluru-based organisation has been enlisted by IT firms among others — though they refused to reveal who and how many — to conduct workshops and train employees to understand the social and cultural challenges that people with mental health issues face. While they reach out to companies that they know, organizations have also approached them on their own accord.

Dr. Rao suggests that companies should hire human resource managers who have understanding of mental illnesses and its challenges. Company policies should also be drafted to make it easier for people with mental illnesses keep their jobs. Chinmayee H, while working for a multinational company, took an 8-week sabbatical without loss of pay to support her mental health. Her manager, and the human resource personnel offered her immediate support and worked with her to identify an appropriate timeline to start her break from work.

Recently, Shreyasi had a panic attack during a meeting. The team postponed the meeting, gave her a separate room, and kept company until she was ready to step out.

However, the key to moving towards a workplace inclusive for people with mental illnesses is to focus on anti-discrimination. Amba explains that organizations need to offer reasonable accommodation to truly not be discriminatory towards people with mental health issues. Reasonable accommodation is any assistance that organizations should provide that will enable an employee to perform their work despite their disabilities. This is not a standardized list but has to be discussed on a case-by-case basis based on individual needs.

For example, Ayesha Minhaz lives with several comorbid disorders and works as a journalist. She avoids stories on violence against women to navigate around her triggers. In Swati’s case, the option to work from home without an impact on her career would be a breather.

Recently, Shreyasi had a panic attack during a meeting. The team postponed the meeting, gave her a separate room, and kept company until she was ready to step out. But she also wonders if it is fair to do a professional appraisal of her work with the same parameters as that of a colleague who doesn’t suffer from a mental condition. To resolve this, Amba says that workplaces need to stop focusing on labels and diagnosis, and instead acknowledge individual skills, and utilise those skills at work.

Five years ago, I quit my full-time job because I could no longer handle the struggles associated with dealing with people. But, this is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Swati, however, has a suggestion which could fit all situations. She says, “At the end of the day it is a question of being empathetic. Empathy is not going to soak up your profits.”

War And After: How Poet Cheran Mapped The Sri Lankan Conflict Through Verse

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Sri Lankan poet Rudhramoorthy Cheran is known for his powerful verses that bring to life the horror and trauma of the 26-year-long civil war fought between the government and Tamil rebels. But even the titles of his poetry collections can tell a story.

His first book Irandaam Suriya Uthayam (The second sunrise), was published in 1982, a year after a Sinhalese mob burned down the Jaffna public library, destroying thousands of rare books and manuscripts.

In July 1983, Tamil separatists ambushed a military convoy, killing 13 soldiers. Over the next few days, the island nation witnessed an anti-Tamil pogrom, leading to the massacre and exile of thousands. Cheran’s Yaman (God of Death) was published in 1984 and Kanal Vari (Songs of the sea shore) in 1989.

His next book, published in 1990, when the second phase of the war began, was called Elumbukoodugalin Oorvalam (The procession of the skeletons) and was followed by Erinthu Kondirukkum Neram(In the time of burning) in 1993.

“It is, in a sense, a closure. We have lost tens of thousands of lives. Without a closure, how could we think of reconciliation?”

The Eelam war ended in 2009 after the Sri Lankan government killed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief Velupillai Prabhakaran. Cheran’s poetry collection published in 2011 was titled Kaadaatru (A ritual to mollify the cremation ground).

“It is, in a sense, a closure. We have lost tens of thousands of lives. Without a closure, how could we think of reconciliation?” asked Cheran, in a recent conversation.

“The titles themselves convey the trajectory of civil war. In retrospect, when I look at the titles of my collections, it looks like I have captured the entire history of the civil war in Sri Lanka but not as a historian. I have done it as someone deeply involved and as an independent writer,” he said.

A poetry anthology he co-edited in 1985 was titled Maranathul vaazhvom (we live amidst death).

Yaman, he says, is a chronicle of a genocide foretold and Kaadaatru was about the genocide itself.

For the title of his latest collection of poems, Agnar, Cheran read all 2,381 poems in the ancient Sangam literature—he was looking for a word that would communicate the trauma of a society that had lived through war.

“I cannot believe that a language as rich as Tamil had no word for the post-war trauma of a society, both collective and individual. Sangam literature had the answer. There are, in fact, different types of Agnar,” he said.

Agnar has just been published by Kalachuvadu Publications along with another poetry collection, Thinai Mayakkam Allathu Nenjodu Kilarthal(Blurred genes).

‘Children of war’

Born in Alaveddy near Jaffna in 1960, Cheran shifted to Canada in 1993, where he teaches at the department of sociology at University of Windsor in Ontario. He recently began offering a course in genocide at the university. His poetry has been translated into over 20 Indian and international languages including Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Swedish, Bengali and Kannada.

MA Nuhman, a senior writer and Tamil scholar in Sri Lanka, calls Cheran the foremost of the children produced by war. His poems are powerful and gut-wrenching accounts of voices lost in the din of violence.

In an apparent reference to the poignant photograph of Balachandran (Prabhakaran’s 12-year-old son) in which he was seen eating a biscuit before being killed, Cheran writes this in Agnar:

Have you seen a man

Handing a handful of rice (or a biscuit)

To a child crying in hunger

And then severe its head?

In Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Congo,

Kashmir, Yemen, Palestine, El Salvador…

(translated by Geetha Sukumaran and Anushiya Ramasamy)

“Anushiya Ramasamy and I began these translations recently. We translate helplessly, carrying the images of the dead, giving them words in another language. Most times, we are weary of trying to find in the thesaurus, words for trauma, trial and blood. Sometimes we forget whose memories we are writing about—Cheran’s personal narratives and lost loves—or our own thoughts mired in his words,” Sukumaran said.

Cheran’s Aiyo vividly—and almost matter-of-factly—captures one of the many sordid tales of violence unleashed by the Indian Peace Keeping Force on Tamils in Sri Lanka.

This word comes as the

Voice of the well;

A thousand children –

A hundred artists,

Drunk, lost their way –

Those who fell

While crossing over the

Woven coconut fence,

Clandestinely, in the ecstasy of desire –

I know the chapter of death

Of the rainy well.

Twenty seven years ago

I saw three soldiers

Of the Indian army,

Entering that house;

Two held down

The woman who tried to flee

With a five year old;

Amid loud crying

The child slapped the face

Of the third one.

Even now,

I clearly remember

His face and the

Smudged vermillion mark

On his forehead;

A smile trickled

From the corner of his mouth –

As it fell on the dirty boot,

In a single sweep of hands

He snatched, threw the child

Into the well –

Now,

A well without a voice.

(translated by Geetha Sukumaran and Anushiya Ramasamy)

Moral responsibility

The war may be over in name, but the violence and trauma live on.

“The progression is not over yet,” said Cheran. “The trajectory continues and so does my poetry. The images might change; they would reflect the changes in the trajectory”.

In the 1980s, he used metaphors of blood and wounded land. “The blood was uncensored then, now it is censored”.  

Both Agnar and Thinai Mayakkam, published in 2018, reflect the changes in this trajectory. The latter, says the poet, is partly autobiographical and raises fundamental questions on morality. “How can one be a good writer without having questions on morality?” he asks.

The writer says he is not in agreement with blaming the LTTE for what happened in Sri Lanka. “Where did LTTE come from, if not from within us, from within the Tamil society in Sri Lanka? I think the entire Eelam Tamil community is responsible for whatever had happened in Sri Lanka. The society has a collective responsibility. Writers and artists have a moral responsibility. Thinai Mayakkam deals with that question.”

"You cannot call poetry travelling over 30-35 years as war poetry. It has historical trajectory, it is poetry of resistance, it is culmination of genocide."

Sukumaran, a senior Tamil poet and writer who has followed Sri Lankan poetry closely, said that he considered Cheran’s the most important voice in Eelam poetry.

“The verse Saambal Pootha Therukkalilirunthu ezhunthu varuga (Rise and come from the ash-laden streets) in Irandaam Suriya Uthayam captured the public imagination in such a big way that it was printed on pamphlets.”

Cheran’s poetry, said Sukumaran, transformed as the war progressed.

“It transformed into the voice of the entire humanity. I consider this the most important contribution of Cheran to Tamil literature—he expressed the common human voice in his poetry. It reflects the most fundamental principle of Tamil life: Yaadhum oore, yaavarum kelir (To us, all towns are our own, everyone our kin, from Sangam literature).  

Cheran is clear that he doesn’t want to be limited by being defined as a war poet.

“You cannot call poetry travelling over 30-35 years as war poetry. It has historical trajectory, it is poetry of resistance, it is culmination of genocide. It is also poetry of apocalypse. How can you classify someone like Elie Wiesel as a war poet?”

He is also convinced that while the war may have ended, the battle is far from over.

“It is a defeat for those who see it in complete nationalist perspective. The fire for liberation will continue to burn. Militant politics might have been defeated by there is still space for civic politics. It will take time, it requires commitment and it needs radical kind of democracy. I don’t know when but it is bound to happen.”

Texas City Councilman Calls Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez A 'Bimbo' After She Criticizes Trump

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A Texas elected official was roundly slammed after he called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) a “bimbo” for criticizing President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.

Ocasio-Cortez apparently triggered the ire of Republican Scott Dunn, member of the City Council of Richardson, near Dallas, when she responded to GOP criticism that she wasn’t enthusiastic enough during Trump’s speech. She declared in a tweet: “Why should I be ‘spirited and warm’ for this embarrassment of a #SOTU?”

Dunn tweeted: “The embarrassment is to have bimbos like you with nothing between your ear[s].”

After major blowback, Dunn deleted the tweet — and apologized. By Saturday his entire account was gone.

The New York Daily News reported that Dunn posted an apology Friday on his Facebook page — which has also since vanished. 

The words I used were offensive,” Dunn reportedly wrote. “I am responsible for my own words and actions. I apologize to anyone who finds what I said offensive.”

Dunn told The Dallas Morning News that he had attacked Ocasio-Cortez “in defense of the president” and his speech. His Facebook page disappeared after several people who responded to his apology questioned its sincerity, according to the newspaper.

Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t responded to Dunn’s insult.

Dunn was attacked for his comments on social media and by a former City Council member. Richardson Mayor Paul Voelker said in a statement that he was “extremely disappointed and embarrassed” by Dunn’s comments. “I condemn the description of any woman in this manner as clearly inconsistent with Richardson’s values,” he added.

Republican political strategist and campaign consultant Ed Rollins last month called Ocasio-Cortez a “little girl” with a big mouth, and Twitter trolls relentlessly attack her appearance.

Trump slammed Megyn Kelly during the presidential campaign as a “bimbo” in a retweet after the then-Fox News host grilled him at a candidate debate about his insults against women, whom he had called “fat pigs,” “dogs,” “slobs” and “disgusting animals.”

6 Quotes That Show Trump Has No Idea How Money Works For Real People

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President Donald Trump has made some questionable claims regarding finances.

Even before he became president, Donald Trump was never shy about sharing what’s on his mind. Since moving into the Oval Office, however, his voice has certainly been amplified ― for better or worse.

So leave it to us to highlight the ridiculous ― and untrue ― statements he’s made about finances. From the stock market to the actual market, these six quotes show he doesn’t really get how money works for regular people. 

1. He celebrated market fluctuations like milestones

In January, Trump tweeted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke 25,000 points. Tremendous news indeed, considering the previous month marked the worst December in stock market history since the Great Depression...

...except that he had already congratulated someone ― we can safely assume himself ― for the same milestone more than a year earlier...

...and also in July 2018.

For most of us who invest, it’s with the expectation that doing so will result in our money growing over time. Market ups and downs are to be expected, but more than a year of flatlined growth isn’t exactly something to brag about.

2. He thinks you need ID to buy groceries

It’s no secret that Trump has been pushing for stricter voter identification laws, claiming ID is necessary to prevent voter fraud (it isn’t). But one thing that anyone who lives in the real working world knows is that you don’t need an ID to buy groceries. Yet Trump claimed just the opposite to a crowd gathered for a rally in Tampa, Florida, last year: 

You know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID. You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and you need your picture.

We’re not sure when Trump last had to buy groceries for himself. And according to press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, neither is she. However, we do know formal identification is not required to buy basic goods like food.

3. He also thinks grocery stores help people with no income

Man, Trump really doesn’t understand how grocery stores work. In January, Trump was asked for his thoughts on Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ controversial statement that federal employees affected by the shutdown should not rely on food banks and simply take out loans to make ends meet instead. Here’s what Trump had to say:

Perhaps he should have said it differently. Local people know who they are, when they go for groceries and everything else. ... They will work along. I know banks are working along. If you have mortgages, the mortgagees, the folks collecting the interest and all of those things, they work along. And that’s what happens in time like this. They know the people; they’ve been dealing with them for years. And they work along. The grocery store — and I think that’s probably what Wilbur Ross meant.

This should go without saying, but grocery stores sell groceries. Many of the 800,000 federal employees who were furloughed or forced to work without pay for more than a month did need to rely on food banks, unemployment benefits and credit card debt to survive.

4. He claimed your 401(k) is killing it

Trump loves to tweet about 401(k)s. And in August 2018, he promised more good news to follow for all of the Americans who surely became rich after a market upswing.

2018 was a record-setting year. Unfortunately, that’s because it was actually the worst year for stocks since 2008. Despite several upswings, the market also experienced severe drops, ending down overall.

What the president also failed to acknowledge is that most Americans don’t have a 401(k). Only 14 percent of all employers offer a 401(k) or other defined contribution plan to employees. Of those that do, only about a third of employees actually contribute. Hopefully, more employers will offer retirement plans soon, and more workers will be able to afford to participate.

5. The economy grew by an ‘amazing’ 4.1 percent 

Gross domestic product, or GDP, measures the value of a country’s output and is a major indicator of an economy’s health. Last year, Trump boasted many times about the GDP’s growth over the second quarter.

“Amazing” isn’t exactly the appropriate word to describe a 4.1 percent rate of growth for the GDP. As The Associated Press explains, the economy is certainly healthy now, but the 4.1 percent figure was simply the highest since 2014. It represents nothing close to record growth in previous years.

6. He thought we’d be excited about his tax plan

In 2017, President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law. It included major changes to tax brackets, credits and deductions for both individuals and businesses. And as the House and Senate met to merge and finalize their two versions of the bill prior to passing it, Trump made strong claims about the impact of his plan.

People are going to be very, very happy. They’re going to get tremendous, tremendous tax cuts and tax relief and that’s what this country needs.

Americans are finally getting to see the results of the new tax plan on their returns this tax season. And the results are mixed at best. Many taxpayers who got refunds last year are discovering they owe hefty tax bills for 2018

Part of this is because the plan actually imposed greater limits on tax deductions that were particularly valuable in affluent metropolitan areas, such as those for state and local taxes, mortgage interest and property taxes. The second reason is that despite major changes to the tax code, the IRS had to rely on the same W-4 forms to determine employees’ tax withholding. That means many people ended up underpaying for the year. And those people are very, very mad. 

‘Big Little Lies’ Season 2 Premieres This Summer

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Fans of “Big Little Lies” can rejoice now that HBO has announced the premiere of its second season. 

Season 2 will premiere in June, HBO announced on Friday. Reese Witherspoon, one of the stars of the series, shared an Instagram picture of a reunited cast this week. 

“Keep your friends close, and your happy hour crew closer,” the actress wrote. 

Witherspoon stars in the award-winning HBO series alongside actors Zoë Kravitz, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley, Alexander Skarsgård and Adam Scott. Veteran actress Meryl Streep joined the cast for its second season.

The first season, based on the book of the same title by Liane Moriarty, follows the mothers of Monterey, California, whose children all attend the same school.

During a Television Critics Association panel on Friday, “Big Little Lies” writer and creator David E. Kelley said he and the cast had agreed that Season  2 would only happen if it would be “compelling enough that it will rise up to the first year,” The Hollywood Reporter reported. 

“We met and talked about what the stories were. We were very unflinching and candid with each other about ones we thought were viable and the ones we thought were not good enough,” he continued. “We didn’t finally agree to set sail until we had the commitment, en banc, from all of us, that this was storytelling we all felt passionate about.”

Dern shared a few teaser stills of the cast from the new season on Instagram on Friday.

Y’all ready for this?” she wrote.  

CBI To Continue Questioning Kolkata Police Chief Rajeev Kumar Today

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SHILLONG — The CBI will continue the questioning of Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar for the second day on Sunday and former TMC MP Kunal Ghosh will appear in person at the investigating agency’s office in Shillong for interrogation in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam, officials said Saturday.

Three senior CBI officers questioned Kumar for nearly nine hours on Saturday about his alleged role in the tampering of crucial evidence in the scam, the officials said.

There was no briefing by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the questioning which began at around 11 am at its highly secured office at Oakland here as per the directions of the Supreme Court.

Kumar’s counsel Biswajit Deb, who is also the TMC coordinator for Meghalaya, said Kumar is “cooperating and complying” with the CBI.

“He (Kumar) has come here on the orders of the Supreme Court. He has complied earlier and he is complying now as per the orders,” he told reporters outside the CBI office.

Kumar led the special investigation team (SIT) formed by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to investigation the chit fund scam before the probe was handed over to the CBI by the apex court.

He will be present at the CBI office for the second day tomorrow, said Deb, who met Kumar along with two senior IPS officers from West Bengal ― Javed Shamim and Murlidhar Sharma ― thrice during the day for brief periods.

The agency may confront him with Kunal Ghosh who has also been called on Sunday, but a final call will be taken by the investigating officer present in Shillong, agency sources said.

The CBI is relying on a 91-page letter from Ghosh, who was expelled by TMC, to the Enforcement Directorate, detailing the role of Kumar in handling the ponzi scam probe after the main accused, Sudipta Sen and Debjani Mukherjee, both promoters of Saradha Group of companies, had fled to Kashmir, officials said in Kolkata.

Sen and Mukherjee were arrested in 2013 from Kashmir.

Ghosh had implicated BJP leader Mukul Roy, who was once the right-hand man of Banerjee and 12 others in the Saradha scam.

The Supreme Court had directed Kumar on Tuesday to appear before the CBI and “faithfully” cooperate in the investigation of cases arising out of the Saradha chit fund scam.

The apex court had also directed Kumar to appear before the investigating agency at a neutral place in Shillong “to avoid all unnecessary controversy” and made clear that he would not be arrested.

The CBI had moved the Supreme Court after its officials were thwarted by Kolkata Police when they had gone to Kumar’s official residence in Kolkata to question him on February 3.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had rushed to the spot and had staged a three-day ‘Save the Constitution’ dharna against the CBI move and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah of plotting a ‘coup’.

The central investigating agency had said that its officials had wanted to question Kumar to plug the holes in the Saradha investigation case as he was supposed to be in possession of certain key documents as a member of the special investigation team.


Will The Graphic Novel Adaption Of Richard Wagner's 'The Ring Of The Nibelung' Live Up To The Expectations?

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Siegfried's Death, from the cycle The Ring of the Nibelung, by Wilhelm Ernst Ferdinand Franz Hauschild (1827-1887). Neuschwanstein Castle, Fussen, Germany. 

I visited the German town of Bayreuth a couple of years ago, for the same reason that thousands of others have done for over a century—the music of Richard Wagner. This is a difficult thing to admit because the composer (1813–1883) has always attracted admirers and detractors in equal measure, his life-affirming music jostling for attention alongside his racism and antisemitism. What everyone can agree upon, presumably, is that Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), his cycle of four epic music dramas, is the biggest challenge for any opera company or listener.

Wagner’s Ring, which is what the four-headed beast is most commonly referred to, took him over a quarter of a century to create. Its four parts — Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold), Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) — were inspired by the epic poem Der Nibelunge Liet written by an anonymous poet around 1200, and continue to amaze, inspire and infuriate those who choose to grapple with it.

As with anything so monumental, there have been all kinds of treatments, adaptations and readings, inspired or influenced by the original. There have been condensed orchestral versions, as well as satirical takes for stage and film. It takes a brave artist to attempt a graphic version of The Ring Cycle and Philip Craig Russell has always displayed that particular virtue. This month saw the publication of his 448-page

The Ring Of The Nibelung series for the first time in a collected trade paperback edition. It made me very happy because the 2002 hardcover edition of his Eisner Award-winning series had long been out of print, with only second hand copies available at ridiculous prices.

There are a number of reasons why this graphic novel deserves to be called an epic, starting with the story of the ‘Ring’ itself. It is a complicated, convoluted tale that draws from myth, folk tales and Wagner’s personal belief systems to become a potent mix that, like all great art, will always be open to interpretation.

It opens with maidens in the river Rhine who have been tasked with protecting gold of great power. That precious hoard is stolen by a dwarf named Alberich and forged into a magic ring that enables the wearer to rule everything. All comparisons with Tolkien end at this point because the ring is stolen by Wotan, chief of the Gods (also called Voton, the All-Father). He, in turn, is forced to hand it over to two giants as payment for the building of Valhalla, a suitable home for the gods. One of the giants is eventually killed by Voton’s grandson Siegfried, who is mortal and will inadvertently destroy the world. This is when Brünnhilde, a Valkyrie or female Norse warrior, who also happens to be Voton’s daughter, comes into the picture. She falls in love with Siegfried but is condemned for saving his father’s life. She then gets the ring and returns it to the Rhine maidens, before killing herself on her lover’s pyre. Valhalla is destroyed, along with the gods, and the opera closes with the Rhine flowing calmly again. With sub-plots, unexpected twists, and a host of major and minor characters, it really is the sort of tale begging for a CGI-enhanced four-film blockbuster helmed by Peter Jackson (who directed The Lord of The Rings series).

Siegmund and Sieglinde, scene from The Valkyrie, from The Ring of the Nibelung by Richard Wagner, illustration from the weekly Rivista Illustrata (Illustrated Magazine), No 227, May 6, 1883.

As an opera — or ‘music drama’ as Wagner preferred to call it — this is not for the fainthearted. It traditionally occurs over four nights and has been known to stretch for almost 16 hours depending upon who the conductor is. I approached it with trepidation only in my late twenties, starting with a translation of the epic poem, graduating to Wagner’s libretto, immersing myself in reams of academic criticism, before feeling confident enough to listen to the Ring Cycle itself. The standard waiting list for tickets to the Bayreuth Festival is around 10 years, so I had to be satisfied with a walk around the famous Festspielhaus and recordings on DVD.

I mention this because it is only by understanding how overwhelming the work is that one can appreciate Craig Russell’s interpretation. He has long been more qualified to do this than most other artists working in the medium, given the history of opera adaptations in his portfolio. The list includes Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Richard Strauss’s Salome, and Wagner’s Parsifal, all of which must have engendered their own challenges before spurring Russell towards the Ring Cycle. The art is his, but the book employs a translation of Wagner’s libretto by Patrick Mason, and colour by the legendary Lovern Kindzierski.

In all honesty, it shouldn’t work. The Ring Cycle is such a masterful blend of music, drama and visual spectacle that a comic book adaptation cannot help but be underwhelming. Wagner himself was routinely disappointed by any attempt at staging it, even though his Festspielhaus was built specifically for that reason. Advances in technology now make every Ring Cycle on stage more compelling than the last one, and yet, Russell succeeds by tapping into a crucial aspect — the story itself. Valkyrie on horses silhouetted against blood-red skies, swords that clash and shatter within wide expanses of white, the retro hues of Valhalla — they all appear in ways impossible to emulate on stage. It’s almost as if Wagner knew how well his libretto would work when placed alongside comics about superheroes and supervillains.

It must be said that this is not the first graphic interpretation. The writer Roy Thomas and illustrator Gil Kane published their own four-issue version in the late 1980s, which edited the libretto down to its bare bones and focused more on bosoms than the powerful myth about death and resurrection. In 2007, the French cartoonist Alex Alice published a trilogy called Siegfried, which referenced the opera only tangentially, emphasizing awe-inspiring art at the expense of the story.

Russell’s expertise reveals itself in his understanding of a key Wagnerian element: the leitmotif. The word refers to Wagner’s usage of clues in the form of melodic fragments associated with specific characters or events. These gradually accumulate meaning with every recurrence. He cleverly replicates the essence of these individual themes, sometimes using sparse panels to emphasise the appearance of the ring, or relying on repetitive visual clues to create a visual map for readers unfamiliar with the music. Where Wagner created threads that run parallel to each other by combining and contrasting these motifs, Russell’s art sometimes carries on independently of the dialogue.

In all honesty, it shouldn’t work. The Ring Cycle is such a masterful blend of music, drama and visual spectacle that a comic book adaptation cannot help but be underwhelming.

It is impossible to review any work by Wagner without acknowledging his antisemitism. This becomes more imperative while considering the Ring Cycle because the composer published his most virulent attack on Judaism just a few months before embarking upon a prose sketch for Siegfried. To separate the man from his art is a cop-out because it condones so much that ought to be dragged into the light and shamed. It must be said, however, that the Ring Cycle in particular has always been a vessel for all kinds of contradictory views. While George Bernard Shaw saw it as a critique of capitalism, Thomas Mann assumed it was a socialist work, and Hitler famously had his own ideas of what it was meant to convey.

Russell’s work avoids the most common criticism about The Ring Cycle, specifically its depiction of the dwarf blacksmith Mime, brother of Alberich. The composer Gustav Mahler saw Mime as a stereotype and a figure of intentional ridicule, an assessment the critic TW Adorno concurred with. Russell, wisely or inadvertently, eschews extraneous comments or political statements and sticks to the work’s more blatantly cinematic elements of romance, tragedy, lust, and betrayal.

According to official reports, Bayreuth is home to a little over 70,000 residents today. It continues to attract tourists for Wagner alone, and one can safely assume this will be the norm a century from now as well. I like to believe our collective relationship with the composer and his music will evolve, the way it did for Friedrich Nietzsche, who started out as an admirer but came to see the Bayreuth Festival as a symptom of societal decay.

An epic, like any work of art, must initiate questions. The act of questioning becomes easier through adaptations and reinterpretations. If the answers call for a dismantling of heroes and a reevaluation of our cultural icons, Russell’s graphic novel is already part of a worthy tradition. I’m just glad it’s finally affordable.

Trinamool MLA Satyajit Biswas Shot Dead In West Bengal's Nadia District

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KRISHNANAGAR — Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Satyajit Biswas was shot dead by unidentified assailants inside a Saraswati puja pandal on Saturday evening in Nadia district, police said.

The ruling TMC alleged that it was a planned attack by the BJP, while the saffron party claimed that it was the result of the ruling party’s infighting.

The incident occurred around 8 pm when 41-year-old Biswas, representing Krishnaganj constituency in the assembly, along with his party workers, were at the Saraswati puja marquee at Phoolbari in the Hanskhali police station area in the district bordering Bangladesh.

The TMC leader was shot from point blank range when he was coming down from the dais, the police said.

The MLA was immediately taken to a local hospital where doctors announced him “brought dead”.

The police were suspecting that two assailants were present at the spot and one of them fired at him.

A firearm suspected to have been used in the crime was found in a nearby area.

A high-level inquiry has been ordered into the killing, the police said.

TMC Secretary General Partha Chatterjee said the party was shocked at the killing of the “popular youth leader”.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee directed the party leaders to stand beside the family of the victim, he said.

Claiming that the attack was a conspiracy by the BJP, Chatterjee said those involved in it would be punished after a full-fledged inquiry.

He said the saffron party was trying to create disturbances ahead of the Lok Sabha polls and resorted to politics of murder by singling out leaders having mass bases.

“It was a pre-planned murder by the BJP. They have hired goons to carry out the murder,” the party’s in-charge of Nadia district Anubrata Mondal alleged.

BJP state president Dilip Ghosh denied the charges and claimed that the killing might be the result of infighting in the TMC.

“The allegations are baseless. The BJP is not at all involved in the case. Those who are blaming us are actually trying to hide their own sins,” Ghosh said.

Senior BJP leader Mukul Roy also termed the allegations as baseless.

Reacting to the killing, state Congress president Somen Mitra said it showed that “complete lawlessness and chaos” prevailed in the state.

“The chief minister claims that law and order is good in West Bengal, but this incident shows the true condition...It’s complete lawlessness and chaos that are prevailing in Bengal. We demand the CM give an explanation on how could a sitting MLA be murdered,” Mitra, who is in Delhi for a party meeting, said.

Amol Palekar Repeatedly Interrupted During Speech At Mumbai Event For Criticising Government

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MUMBAI — Veteran actor-director Amol Palekar was repeatedly interrupted during his speech by some members of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) on Friday evening.

Palekar was speaking at the opening of an exhibition “Inside The Empty Box” in the memory of artist Prabhakar Barwe.

A video of the incident available on social media showed Palekar criticising the Ministry of Culture for reportedly scrapping the advisory committees at the gallery’s Mumbai and Bengaluru centres.

Referring to these reports, Palekar said, “Many of you may not know that this retrospective will be the last show decided by the advisory committee of local artists and not by some bureaucrat or an agent of the government with an agenda of either moral policing or proliferation of certain art commensurate with an ideological incline.

“As of November 13, 2018, the artistes’ advisory committees at both regional centres Mumbai and Bangalore ― have been abolished, is what I have learnt,” he said.

He added that he was “in the process of verifying the hearsay”.

At this point, an NGMA member on the stage interrupted, saying that Palekar should talk about the event.

To which, Palekar responded, “I am going to talk about the same. Are you you applying censorship to that?”

He then said that as per his information, after the abolition of local artists’ committee, decisions as to whose work should be exhibited would be taken from Delhi by the Ministry of Culture.

He was again interrupted by a woman, who said, “This is not needed at the moment, sorry....The function is about Prabhakar Barwe, please stick to that.”

However, Palekar refused to stop, and went on to mention that writer Nayantara Sahgal was invited to speak at the Marathi literary convention recently but at the last minute the invitation was withdrawn because what she was going to say “was slightly critical of the situation around us.”

“Are we creating the same situation here?” he asked.

Chandrababu Naidu Backstabbed NTR: Modi Amid TDP Protests In Andhra Pradesh

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GUNTUR — Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday launched a scathing attack on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP supremo Chandrababu Naidu, saying he has made a “U-turn” on promises of development to the state and was only replicating the former’s schemes.

Modi lashed out at Naidu for aligning with the Congress, saying the former chief minister NT Ramarao (NTR) had launched the party to make Andhra Pradesh “Congress-mukt” after he was a victim of its ‘arrogance.’

Naidu was indeed a senior to him, but only in losing elections, switching alliances and ditching his father-in-law NT Rama Rao, Modi said at a public rally in Guntur.

“He keeps reminding me he is senior. There is no debate in this.

I have never shown any disrespect to you since you are a senior. You are a senior in changing alliances.

A senior biting the back of your own father-in-law. A senior in losing one election after the other, where as I am not,” the Prime Minister said.

Further, Naidu was senior in embracing tomorrow those whom he would abuse today, Modi said.

Modi alleged Naidu was taking him on since the Centre had sought details of every paise given to Andhra Pradesh.

Naidu had promised walking in the footsteps of NTR, Modi said and asked if the Chief Minister had lived by it.

“The arrogance of Delhi (during the Congress rule) has always insulted states. And NTR that is why decided to make AP Congress-mukth and floated the TDP.

The TDP leader who has to resist the arrogance of the Naamdaars (famous and powerful people) and crush their arrogance is siding with them,” he said in an apparent swipe at Naidu joining hands with the Congress.

“This chowkidar (watchman) has disturbed his sleep..

wanted to know the details of every paise given to Andhra Pradesh,” Modi said.

Naidu promised the sunrise of Andhra Pradesh but is fixated with the rise of his own son N Lokesh, Modi charged.

The Chief Minister promised the redevelopment of Amaravati but is now engaged in his own development, the Prime Minister alleged.

He said Naidu had not initiated any new programmes for the poor but was only putting his stamp on the NDA government’s development schemes.

On providing clean fuel in the country, Modi said while in 60 years, only 12 crore gas connections were given, the NDA government had given 13 crore gas connections in just four years.

On the occasion, the Prime Minister dedicated two petroleum and gas projects to the nation.

Earlier, when Modi arrived at Gannavaram airport in Vijayawada, TDP workers staged protests.

This is Modi’s first visit to the state after the ruling Telugu Desam Party severed ties with the NDA.

The Chandrababu Naidu-led party quit the BJP-led alliance protesting the “injustice” done to the state post-bifurcation.

Giving the protocol a go-by, none of the state ministers turned up at the Gannavaram airport to formally receive the Prime Minister.

BJP leaders alleged that people were “thwarted,” from reaching the venue in large numbers and said countdown would start for Naidu with Modi’s rally at Guntur.

Commenting on the black balloon protests against him by TDP workers, Modi quipped he welcomed it recalling the tradition of smearing black to ward off evil designs.

The 1999 Grammy Awards: A Flashback To Wonderfully '90s Fashions

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Monica and Brandy at the 41st annual Grammys in 1999. 

On Sunday night, the music industry’s biggest stars ― minus Ariana Grande ― will attend the 61st annual Grammys. But until then, we’re going to party like it’s 1999.

Join us on a digital trip back 20 years, when some of the biggest music stars of the ’90s stepped out for the 41st annual Grammy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

It was, of course, 1999, and women dominated the nominations. Every singer competing in the Album of the Year category was a woman, and Lauryn Hill came out on top. Hill took home five awards that night, Madonna won four and Celine Dion and Shania Twain each won two.

The women may have been the real winners of the night, but all the wonderfully ’90s fashions that appeared on the red carpet were a close second. Will Smith wore a full leather (or perhaps pleather?) suit, Crystal Bernard looked like she arrived straight from a Renaissance fair, and Brandy and Monica put their boyfriend rivalry behind them to sport color-coordinated ensembles. It was a time. 

Below, check out all those outfits and more: 

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