KOLKATA — Actor Kaushik Sen, who is one of the signatories of the letter written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue of mob violence, said on Thursday that he has received a threat call.

Police have been informed about it and the phone number has been forwarded to them, he said.

“Yesterday I received a call from an unknown number, where I was threatened of dire consequences if I don’t stop raising my voice against lynchings and intolerance. I was told that I would be killed if I don’t mend my ways,” Sen told PTI.

A senior police officer said the matter was being looked into.

“To be honest, I am not bothered about such calls. I have also informed other signatories about the call and forwarded them the number,” Sen said.

A group of 49 eminent personalities, including filmmakers, authors and actors, wrote to the prime minister on Tuesday, expressing concern over the recent instances of mob violence and lynching in the country.

The signatories also said that they regretted that “Jai Shri Ram” has been reduced to a “provocative war cry that leads to law and order problems, and lynchings take place in its name”.

On Wednesday, as the Rajya Sabha passed an amendment bill to the POCSO Act which includes death penalty for aggravated sexual assault on children, TMC MP Derek O’Brien recalled his own story of trauma during debate on the bill in the House. 

“With a lot of pride and sadness and hurt but I think India needs to know because my family knows, that on a bus in Kolkata as a 13-year-old after doing tennis practice, wearing short pants and a T-shirt, I got on to a crowded bus and I don’t know who it was, but with my short pants and T-shirt I was sexually molested,” O’Brien told the Rajya Sabha while expressing support to the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2019. 

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The TMC MP and former quizmaster also said that children should be encouraged to speak up and not hide incidents wherein they have been traumatised in this manner. He told the House that he did not speak about the incident for several years, and brought it up with his parents much later in life.

Smriti Irani, Minister for Women and Child Development, lauded O’Brien for sharing his own story of trauma. She was quoted by NDTV as saying, ”“That fact that an MP today shared what he faced at age 13... 46 years later, tells us what an imprint sexual abuse leaves on a child.”

The bill provides for fines and imprisonment to curb child pornography.

Irani said the government is setting up 1,023 fast track courts, which would specially deal withe POCSO related cases.

“Recognising that justice delayed is justice denied ,the government has sanctioned 1,023 fast track courts, particularly to be made for dispensing cases which were pending under POCSO, she added.

The bill would now be send to the Lok Sabha for approval.

Many activists have argued against the death penalty provision, saying that what it is a short-sighted response and that what India needs is better implementation of the law.

(With PTI inputs)

SHANGHAI ― In a cramped courtyard behind a row of whitewashed apartment buildings, Qin Jinfeng stands guard next to a row of color-coded trash cans.

Qin, ashort, affable man in his forties, can be found here every evening. He has handled security at the Beicheng Apartments in central Shanghai for years, but now he has an extra set of duties: making sure the hundred or so families in his complex sort their garbage correctly. 

Residents must hand their trash bags over to Qin, who inspects the contents before tossing them in the correct bin. 

Black bins are for “dry” stuff, brown for “wet,” blue for “recyclable” and red for “hazardous.” Sorting waste into these categories became mandatory in the city on July 1. There’s a penalty of 200 yuan ($30) for folks who don’t comply. 

“It’s like having a driving license,” Qin told HuffPost. “You’ll be fined if you break the rules.”

Similar scenes are playing out across Shanghai as the Chinese government tries to get a nationwide waste crisis under control. The country’s richest city, home to 26 million people, will serve as a testing ground for the new trash-sorting rules, which the government plans to roll out in the rest of the country soon.

These moves are meant to cut down on landfill waste ― including plastic ― and curb rampant pollution of the country’s air, soil and water. Breakneck economic growth over the past several decades has left China with a domestic garbage problem that’s growing faster than it can manage. Inadequate waste disposal facilities and unauthorized dumping in China cause an estimated 2.4 million tons of plastic to leak into the ocean each year, far more than any other nation. 

Last year, in an attempt to shed its image as the world’s garbage dump, China cracked down on mass imports of foreign recyclables like paper and plastic, some of which were ending up in waterways or burn piles. With imports now at a trickle, the country has turned its attention to trash at home. 

“People want to do something good for the environment,” Yuan Jiasheng, a teacher who lives in the north of Shanghai, told HuffPost. 

She admitted that she is skeptical of the new sorting rules. “No one really knows if it will work,” she said. “But we can try.”

China says it recycles only 20% of its waste. The U.S., by comparison, recycles 35%. 

China has a booming recycling industry, but virtually no municipal collection systems that feed directly into it. In most Chinese cities, informal networks of waste pickers collect and sort valuable items, then sell them to processing facilities. This work is done outside of regulatory oversight, meaning there’s no guarantee that the plastic is being disposed of properly.

Informal recyclers are extremely efficient, but they are driven by profits rather than concern for the environment, said Richard Brubaker, founder of Collective Responsibility, a Shanghai-based sustainability consultancy. “The informal sector is often not up to standard, often not licensed,” he added.

The waste pickers are continuing their work for now, but experts suspect that the government may crack down on them in the future to make way for official collection. In what might be a sign of changes to come, a new fleet of municipal garbage trucks recently appeared on the streets of Shanghai to collect sorted trash and transport recyclables on to processors. 

Shanghai’s new trash policy also includes measures to reduce single-use plastic items. Hotels, for instance, are supposed to stop offering every customer disposable products such as toothbrushes. Restaurants and food-delivery apps have been told not to include plastic disposable cutlery unless customers specifically request it with their order. 

The Chinese government hopes these rules will help create a new attitude toward garbage that’s akin to what you might see in Germany, where strict recycling rules are a point of national pride.

“China is trying to transition from a low-cost, informal recycling system to a more Western-style system that depends on civic-mindedness,” says Adam Minter, who wrote a book about the global recycling economy. “And that’s hard because no one’s done that anywhere.”

Indeed, the policy got off to a rocky start this month. 

Though residents who spoke to HuffPost were generally supportive of trash sorting in principle, many complained bitterly about how inconvenient the new rules are.

Most housing developments removed all the trash cans in their buildings and forced residents to walk to one designated sorting station. These areas are only open at specific times in the morning and evening, when volunteers like Qin are on hand to ensure that residents have sorted their waste correctly.

Young professionals working China’s grueling “996” workweek (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days per week) have been especially vocal about the rules because the sorting stations are often closed by the time they arrive home.

“Shanghai’s garbage sorting makes me want to swear!” complained one commenter on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform. “They [local officials] don’t consider the people or the actual situation at all.”

Others chafe at the indignity of having a stranger rummage through their trash.

Arguments over whether chicken bones or shrimp shells count as “wet” or “dry” waste have raged. In one extreme case, a female resident reportedly choked a volunteer after being told she had failed to sort her waste correctly.

Inspectors have already handed out thousands of warnings since the new rules took effect. A second offense incurs an automatic fine. 

The government has said that violators might also be punished via China’s controversial social credit system, which can restrict an individual’s freedoms in a variety of spheres — making it more difficult to do everything from buying a plane ticket to obtaining a loan.

Some districts plan to install facial recognition cameras at sorting stations to make sure residents dump their trash properly, while others have threatened to stop collecting trash from communities that miss their sorting targets.

Forty-five other Chinese cities are scheduled to roll out similar trash-sorting rules as early as next year, and the policy will be extended to the entire country by 2025. That same year, China will generate over 500 million tons of waste ― double its present amount ― according to estimates from the World Bank. 

Overflowing urban landfills are a common problem already. Shanghai’s massive Laogang facility will be full by the end of 2019, five years earlier than expected. In many cases, pollutants leaching from hastily constructed dumping grounds have poisoned cities’ soil and groundwater.

Local governments have plans to build more than 100 incinerators to avoid digging yet more garbage dumps. But public opposition to these plants is intense, as some have been linked to higher cancer rates among local populations.

The government therefore wants to make sure as much waste is diverted from landfills as possible. Cities have been ordered to raise their recycling rates to 35% by 2020.

Experts caution that sorting waste is only the first step. Cities also need to build out infrastructure to collect, transport and process waste. 

In a few cases, Shanghaiofficials have admitted, waste from all four categories has been dumped into the same truck — a recurring problem in China that contributed to the failure of several previous recycling drives.

Chen Liwen, head of the campaign group Zero Waste Villages, which has worked with the government to promote voluntary trash sorting in several regions across China, worries that local authorities will be unwilling to make the required investment, especially in smaller cities where budgets are often already severely overstretched. 

“They want to save money,” she said. But making massive waste management improvements is not cheap. 

Conservationists also say that big companies making plastic or packaging their products in it should strive to use less virgin plastic. Garbage-sorting rules, like the ones in Shanghai, could help limit new plastic production. But this, too, will probably be expensive. 

China’s plastics industry is the world’s largest, accounting for nearly 30% of global production, and until recently it was heavily reliant on foreign waste as a cheap source of raw materials. Prior to January 2018, China had imported 45% of the world’s scrap plastic. But when the government cracked down on foreign trash imports, it sent demand for new plastic soaring among Chinese manufacturers. 

Why not switch to recycling plastic that’s thrown out at home? Right now, most of it’s too contaminated with food particles and grease, or it’s so mixed in with other non-plastic trash that separating it out is very difficult, said Ben Ho, president of the China Thermoforming Association, a plastics industry group. Making new plastic is cheaper than cleaning and sorting old plastics for recycling. 

“International waste is cheap, so there was no need to invest in expensive machinery to upgrade the waste quality,” Ho told HuffPost.

Now, Chinese petrochemical firms are increasing production of PET resin — which is used to make plastic drinking bottles — by millions of tons, Ho says. 

The garbage-sorting policy could bring down the cost of using domestic waste significantly, as consumers will separate off plastics from dirty kitchen waste and rinse off food containers before throwing them in the trash. But if it doesn’t, using domestic waste will simply not be cost-effective for producers, according to Ho. 

“If the waste-sorting system works well, things will be better” for the plastics industry, said Ho. “But right now it is a crisis.”

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson returned to his home state of Hawaii on Wednesday to support Native Hawaiian activists who are peacefully protesting a massive $1.4 billion telescope project on the peak of Mauna Kea.

The “Jumanji” actor, who is part Samoan and briefly attended high school on Oahu, joined activists on the mountain as they performed hula and chanted in a ceremony on the 10th day of the protest.

“What I realized today ... it’s bigger than the telescope,” Johnson said of the protest while talking to the press.

“It’s humanity. It’s the culture,” he added. “It’s our people, Polynesian people, who are willing to die here to protect this land ... this very sacred land that they believe in so powerfully.”

The protests began on the high slopes of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii on July 15, the day that construction was scheduled to begin on the so-called Thirty Meter Telescope. Native Hawaiian activists and allies blocked the road that leads to the summit and chained themselves to a cattle grate, preventing workers and equipment from accessing the construction site.

In the days that followed, hundreds of more activists joined the demonstration on Mauna Kea, keeping construction at a standstill.

More than 30 activists, most of them elderly Native Hawaiians, were arrested by law enforcement deployed by the state in the first few days of the protest.

Johnson urged state officials to pay attention to the growing number of people who are joining the protest.

“When things escalate to that emotional apex, that is a sign that something has to be done,” he said. “To full charge ahead isn’t the way to do it.”

The Thirty Meter Telescope project is funded by a combination of private companies and public universities around the world, including institutions in California, Canada, Japan, India and China. The telescope’s supporters say the new observatory, placed on the state’s highest peak, will give astronomers unprecedented insight into the universe.

Those who oppose it say the massive endeavor, which would be 18 stories tall and span 1.44 acres, is a desecration of sacred land on the dormant volcano, which is also a conservation district.

Johnson called for better leadership from the state to come forward and work with the activists.

“A greater leadership has to step in. There needs to be leadership with empathy,” the actor said. “The whole idea about this [protest] is not about stopping progress. It’s not about stopping science. It’s about respecting a culture and respecting people and doing things the right way.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Dwayne Johnson was born in Hawaii. He was born in Hayward, California, but briefly attended high school in Honolulu.

If you have a period, you might also experience premenstrual syndrome (PMS) to some degree. But for those who have premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), the week before and sometimes during their period can be horrendous: symptoms can be so severe they result in suicidal thoughts, or pain so strong they have to visit hospital.

While it can have devastating mental and physical symptoms, many people do not know PMDD exists. You won’t, for instance, find an NHS Choices page for the disorder, and it’s not known how many people suffer with it – some estimates suggest that one in 20 women are impacted, others that between 3 and 8% of women of reproductive age have it.

This lack of visibility has obvious implications for both diagnosis of PMDD and sharing you have the condition with your employer or loved ones. This can be even more difficult for non-binary people and trans men, who may also find that resources don’t use inclusive language.

Some people are, however, working to improve understanding of this little-talked-about illness: the inclusive Facebook page called Vicious Cycle: Making PMDD Visible has over 10,000 likes; there’s a dedicated app for people to track their symptoms; and multiple clinical trials are investigating better treatment options. In May this year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) added PMDD to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, validating it as a legitimate medical diagnosis worldwide.

HuffPost UK spoke to three people diagnosed with the condition – and asked them what they want others to know. They hope in sharing their stories, that other PMDD sufferers will no longer be left in the dark.

It can have a huge mental impact.

A year or so after starting her period at 14, Claudia Lang’s mental health  deteriorated massively. “I’d always been a happy kid,” she explains, “and all of a sudden I was having suicidal thoughts.” It wasn’t until she turned 17 that she began to realise these bouts of depression were linked to her menstrual cycle.

There are dozens of symptoms associated with PMDD such as mood swings and feeling upset, tearful, anxious, hopeless, tense or on edge. Sufferers might also have difficulty concentrating, feel overwhelmed, have a lack of energy, and in some cases, experience suicidal thoughts.

Anna, 26, who asked we didn’t include their second name, started their period early, at the age of 10, and over time has noticed worsening symptoms including mood changes. Five days before their period their mood decline is very noticeable – “and the last two [days] I can be low enough to the point of being suicidal,” explains Anna, who identifies as non-binary.

Freya Crick, 20, was just starting out at university when she noticed she was struggling with her mental health – but only around the time of her period. “I’ve always noticed that every month I’ve had a week or two where it’s been really bad mentally,” she says.

There are physical symptoms too. 

Physical symptoms of PMDD include breast tenderness or swelling, pain in the muscles and joints, headaches, bloating and sleep problems. For all of the people we spoke to, these pains can be extreme. 

Lang, now 21, has had to deal with debilitating period cramps that left her “in complete agony” during her period, and also the week before. 

“I couldn’t get out of bed, I had weird flu-like symptoms, nausea, hot flashes, and was incapable of thinking straight,” says Lang, from Glasgow. On a particularly bad day she would have up to five showers to help with the physical symptoms and spend the rest of the day in bed. She couldn’t read, write or watch TV. The pain was unbearable.

Meanwhile Crick says she experienced such extreme period pain that she had to go to hospital.

PMDD is heavily stigmatised.

Periods are often not openly talked about – a recent survey by Plan International revealed that one in five young women had been period-shamed. But with PMDD, the mental health element brings an extra level of secrecy. This stigma stopped Lang from speaking to others about her symptoms – which meant that for years, she thought her experience was “normal”.

“People have this idea of what periods are like and they sign off on it,” she says. “For a long time I’d tell friends or family I was emotional and in a dark place, and they’d think: ‘Well that’s periods’.

“They wouldn’t take me seriously.”

It can impact people’s ability to work. 

The World Health Organisation defines PMDD as “a pattern of mood symptoms (depressed mood, irritability), somatic symptoms (lethargy, joint pain, overeating), or cognitive symptoms (concentration difficulties, forgetfulness) that begin several days before the onset of menses, start to improve within a few days after the onset of menses, and then become minimal or absent within approximately one week following the onset of menses”.

It adds that the symptoms are severe enough to “cause significant distress or significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning”.

Many companies have sickness policies whereby human resources (HR) get involved if an employee is off sick more than a certain number of times or days throughout the year. This can leave many people living with chronic illness or pain, struggling into work when they are unwell – and life with PMDD is no exception.

Anna says that it is something they are acutely aware of – and as a result they “try and push through”, even if the pain is unbearable or their mood is at rock bottom. “I can cope to an extent but it definitely impacts my work,” they add, before noting: “Because PMDD is not well known, it’s not something I’d be comfortable explaining to work.”

Crick explains that she missed four months of university because of her PMDD. Things have been a lot better since she began taking antidepressants, she notes. “Therapy helps me push through,” she adds. “I’ve managed to become a lot more productive now.”

Getting a diagnosis can be tough. 

Everyone HuffPost UK spoke to cited lengthy processes to get a diagnosis. “I wasn’t taken seriously for years, even once being turned away by the hospital because it wasn’t seen as a big deal,” says Lang. “I had to fight every step of the way to get a Mirena coil [an intrauterine device].” 

After years of trying to get answers through the NHS, Lang turned to private healthcare, where she was told she had endometriosis. “I was like, okay that’s what I have then,” she says. Then a laparoscopy (keyhole surgery) revealed that she didn’t have endometriosis after all. “After I woke up from the surgery they told me it was PMDD. I had no idea what it was,” she adds.

Despite the conflicting messages, Lang now says “it feels so wonderful to have a diagnosis and know what it is”.

Anna agrees that it was tough finding a medical professional who knew what they were dealing with. “The amount of GPs you have to go through to get a referral is a bit of a nightmare,” they say. Finally getting a diagnosis is a relief.

“It gives it a name. Just knowing it’s a legitimate thing and it’s not just me, other people have this as well, and knowing I’m not losing my mind at all and that it’s something that can be managed [is important],” they say.

Self-care is important. 

There is no specific cure for PMDD, so management of symptoms and self-care is crucial. Lang says she still experiences emotional difficulties around the time of her period. “I try to avoid things that will make me upset or stressed,” she explains.

The mental health charity Mind offers some examples of how people could practice self-care including: rearranging stressful events and tasks for another time, planning relaxing activities that you know improve your mood, putting in place a support plan that sets out how you would like to be supported in a particular situation, and creating a self-care box.

But for people struggling with depression and experiencing suicidal thoughts during this time, it’s really important to see a GP or seek medical help. It’s likely you will be prescribed antidepressants, specifically selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

It might take time to find the right treatment.

Anna has tried all kinds of treatment options, including three types of the combined contraceptive pill and two of the mini pill. Hormones are prescribed to ”suppress ovulation” and, as a result, suppress related hormone fluctuations, which can help relieve PMDD symptoms.

“From a non-binary/trans point of view, one of the possible side effects of oral contraception is breast swelling, pain and growth,” says Anna. “This exacerbated my gender dysphoria, which is why I had to come off it.” Anna also tried two different types of antidepressant which stabilised their mood for a while; but then they began to experience terrible nightmares. They also note the drugs became less effective the longer they took them.

“It can be frustrating trying all these options,” says Anna, as much of the time you have to try them for three months to determine whether they work or not. “It can take years [to find the right treatment]. But some people do find options a lot quicker.”

A head constable in Kanpur’s Nazirabad police station was removed after a video of him harassing a 16-year-old girl, who had approached him to lodge a complaint of molestation, went viral in the city. 

In the video, tweeted out by ANI, the cop, whomNDTV identified as Tar Babu, is seen humiliating the girl by slut shaming her and insinuating that she called for the molestation because she was wearing jewellery. 

“Yeh anguthi tum keh pehni ho? Yeh chuda kis liye pehne ho? Yeh kyon dale ho gale mein? Yeh item tum kis liye dale ho gale mein?... Yeh chuda hai, yeh locket hai, yeh chhah chhah anguthi kyon pehni ho? Inse kuch laabh hai inse tumhe? ... Isi se dikhai de jata hai ki tum kya ho. (Why are you wearing these rings? Why are you wearing these bangles, why are you wearing this on your neck? What purpose do these serve for you? This shows what you are),” the policeperson is heard telling the girl. 

He then goes on to criticising the family of the girl who was accompanying the girl for not keeping an eye on “what she was up to”. 

The video is said to have been recorded by the brother of the girl who was accompanying her. 

The NDTV report said that an FIR from the girl was registered only after the video of the incident went viral. 

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi also tweeted the video criticising the police for this behaviour. 

According to reports, the Uttar Pradesh police have said they were looking into the incident. 

I never realized egg-cracking could be a stressful endeavor for adults until I recently watched my 42-year-old brother pause over his nonstick pan at a family breakfast, paralyzed in fear. 

“I always get the shell in the pan,” he told me. “What am I doing wrong?” 

I asked him to show me how he cracks his eggs. He gave it a couple slow, indecisive whacks on the edge of his skillet, and I immediately knew the answer. 

If you don’t want shell in your egg, crack your eggs on a flat countertop.

This is not to say it’s a perfect method. Shells happen. But according to chefs and cooking institutions who know far better than all of us, the countertop technique is the most foolproof technique, for reasons we’ll explain below.

Unfortunately, most American home cooks are cracking their eggs the “wrong” way (there’s no real wrong way, but we’ll call it that for the purposes of this story). We conducted a poll of 1,000 Americans and found that 57% crack on the edge of a bowl or pan (ahem, the wrong way), while only 23% use a flat countertop (the right way). It should be noted that people under the age of 30 were significantly more likely to crack on the countertop!

Here’s Why The Countertop Method Is Best

First of all, the folks at America’s Test Kitchen, i.e. the all-knowing kitchen gods, promote the countertop method. So do the editors at Real Simple, who explain why in the video below:

Reader’s Digest is also a fan of the flat-on-the-countertop method, citing it as the best way for beginners to crack eggs and admitting it’s the default technique used by their test kitchen cooks.

So why is the countertop better than the bowl’s edge? There are three reasons:

1. The sharp edge of the bowl or pan actually pushes the shell inside the egg, increasing the risk that small pieces of shell will get inside the egg’s liquid. 

2. Cracking the egg directly on or over the bowl or pan increases the chance that broken shell will fall directly into your mixing bowl/pan.

3. Cracking the shell on a sharp edge actually breaks through the shell’s thin inner membrane, destroying the safety net that catches broken pieces of shell. Cracking on a flat surface keeps the membrane intact, adhering to the loose pieces of shell.

Chef Frank Proto from the Institute of Culinary Education agrees: “If you crack on the edge of a bowl, you risk getting micro shards of shell in your dish,” he told HuffPost. He also suggested cracking two eggs together as an alternative.

Of course, there are people like Gordon Ramsay who fly in the face of danger and crack on the edge of the bowl just fine, living to see another day. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t crack on a flat surface ― confident cooks have figured out all sorts of ways to do it. But if broken shells are a frequent problem for you, consider switching to the countertop method.

*The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted July 11-12 among U.S. adults, using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.

You’ve probably heard remarks like, “She could drink me under the table” or “He is a total lightweight.” Those comments, which come with (dubious) connotations of strength and weakness, are rooted in the concept of alcohol tolerance.

So what is alcohol tolerance? The term refers to the ability of some people to consume larger amounts of alcohol before feeling its effects than others, said Peter Martin, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

There are several reasons why this happens, and thus why it seems like some people can drink endlessly without a buzz and others feel tipsy on half a glass of wine. 

Gender, genetics and how much you drink all play a role in tolerance.

Researchers have examined multiple factors to figure out why some people’s bodies appear to handle more alcohol better than others, Martin said.

Gender and body weight clearly influence how an individual tolerates alcohol. Men tend to be able to drink more than women before they appear drunk. Larger people may imbibe more than smaller people without immediate ill effects.

Other biological factors are a bit more complicated. 

“Some think it relates to the enzymes involved in metabolizing the alcohol; others think there’s a varied effect on neurotransmission in the brain,” Martin said.

In the case of the neurotransmitters, the theory is that the brains of some people with high tolerance simply aren’t receiving signals saying, “Whoa there, you should probably stop drinking.”

As for the role of enzymes, “alcohol metabolism is a multi-step process,” explained Brad Uren, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Michigan health system, Michigan Medicine.

“Much of the alcohol processed in the body is initially metabolized by the enzyme ‘alcohol dehydrogenase’ to a compound called ‘acetaldehyde,’” he said. “Acetaldehyde is further metabolized by the enzyme ‘aldehyde dehydrogenase.’”

Some people are deficient in aldehyde dehydrogenase, which can lead to a buildup of acetaldehyde in the blood.

“This can lead to ‘flushing’ of the skin, and worsening or increased symptoms commonly associated with ‘hangover,’” Uren said. “Individuals of Asian descent are more likely to have this enzyme deficiency.”

Beyond that, our brains and bodies tend to adjust pretty quickly to heavy drinking.

The human body “has the ability to adapt to increased alcohol use,” Uren noted. “This can result in more rapid metabolism of alcohol.” And that, in turn, means those who drink alcohol more frequently “may also appear less intoxicated than others that have consumed a similar amount of alcohol.” 

Higher tolerance is not necessarily a good thing.

The first problem with higher alcohol tolerance is that it can give a false impression of just how drunk someone really is. Although you might think someone seems OK to drive a car or ride a bike because they’re not stumbling or slurring their words ― and they might think so, too ― that is not a sound assumption. The amount of alcohol consumed still matters. 

“It is not safe to assume that these individuals are better able to perform tasks that require concentration and reaction time, such as driving a vehicle, as if they had not consumed alcohol,” Uren said. The wiser choice is to take away the keys and call Uber. 

It’s also not safe to assume that someone with high alcohol tolerance, who’s able to drink more without feeling drunk, is not going to see the long-term effects of excessive drinking.

They’re still at risk for complications related to “how much alcohol you’ve consumed in a lifetime,” Martin said. “These include cirrhosis of the liver, brain disease, neuropathy, pancreatitis, and gastritis or stomach cancer.” 

Indeed, “people with a higher tolerance, who have that capacity to drink more, are more prone to develop alcoholism,” he said. 

Relying on your tolerance is particularly dangerous in the summer.

You should be especially mindful of drinking levels during the warmer season, Uren stressed, when people often increase their alcohol consumption.

“Alcohol can lead to dehydration, and should not be used in place of water or other fluids when exercising or outside on very hot summer days,” he said.

Drinking also impairs coordination and judgment. That means you should “separate the use of alcohol from activities that require extra concentration or coordination,” Uren said ― like biking, climbing and a hundred other fun summer sports.

Remember that unsafe alcohol use is not defined by your tolerance but by how much you’ve had to drink.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as “drinking so much within two hours as to raise the blood alcohol concentration to 0.08,” Uren said. “The average woman would likely reach this level with four standard drinks; men will typically reach this level after five standard drinks.”

One standard drink is about five ounces of wine, 12 ounces of beer or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits. 

More broadly speaking, you should avoid risky or hazardous use of alcohol.

“For men under 65, drinking more than four drinks per day or 14 drinks in a week constitutes risky use,” Uren said. “For women, or men over 65, more than three drinks per day or seven drinks in a week is considered risky.” 

And never, ever, try to keep up with the alcohol-tolerant Joneses.

“Being able to drink someone under the table is so commonly associated with strength, and there’s such a stigma to being a lightweight,” Martin said. But really, the “lightweights” are better off.

In one of the early scenes in Prakash Kovelamudi’s Judgementall Hai Kya (earlier titled Mental Hai Kya), Kangana Ranaut’s Bobby, a dubbing artist, smacks a guy at the dubbing studio, potentially jeopardising future gigs. Her manager, who’s also her on-off boyfriend, tells her, “Koi kaam nahi dene wala tujhe.” The one time she does land a job, he warns her, “Studio jala ke mat aana.”

Given the numerous controversies surrounding Ranaut, it’s impossible not to read this scene as self-referential, a meta moment where Ranaut the star is having fun being Ranaut the actor, harnessing her real-life adventures into a fictional narrative, bringing a self-awareness that makes the visual experience of Judgementall Hai Kya surreal.

The Kanika Dhillon-penned film, the story of a character suffering from acute psychosis, is laced with several meta moments. A film within a film, called Zara, is shown as being produced by Shailesh Singh, the co-producer of Judgementall and a number of other Ranaut films. Bobby’s house has her pictures but they aren’t just any pictures, they are stills from Ranaut’s past films such as Tanu Weds Manu and Queen. When Bobby struggles to get gigs, she complains, “Kaise kaise logon ko yahan kaam mil jaaata hai,” repeating a criticism she’s often made in real life, about Bollywood being a nepotistic and unfair industry.

More urgently, Bobby being branded a ‘mad woman’ in the movie echoes and exposes the soft whispers within Bollywood around Ranaut herself and her relentlessness in picking fights. Is Ranaut responding to a cultural environment that’s hellbent on branding her as unhinged?

Even discounting the possible real-life connections, Judgementall Hai Kya is quite unlike anything Bollywood has experimented with.

While Hollywood has made a prototype out of the unreliable female narrator (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects), this hasn’t been fully explored in Hindi films. In Judgementall, Bobby has an unreliable mind and her version of events cannot be trusted. She’s yet to process her childhood trauma and projects her paranoia on those around her. When Keshav (Rajkummar Rao) and his wife move in as tenants in her house, Ranaut’s suspicions and delusions reach self-destructive heights after she accuses him of murder.

How the two outwit each other and the viewer forms the crux of the story, which paces around with a trippy, electrifying energy.

Visually, the film employs a kitschy colour palette which goes neatly with its mythological undertones. Sita’s victimhood is invoked rather frequently and the lines between Ram and Ravan keep blurring, suggesting that male violence towards women isn’t confined to just one of them. The bro code is universal.

The tonal consistency of the film is remarkable. Even when the drama shifts from Mumbai to London, the visuals rearrange themselves as Bobby’s house in the UK slowly stars metamorphosing to resemble her Mumbai apartment. The film’s unhurried cinematography (Pankaj Kumar) carries a sense of impending doom but what’s most fascinating is the way it straddles genres. The minute things get dark and edgy (and they get really dark and edgy), they’re defused with humour and sarcasm. But the language of horror is present even in the sarcasm.

Bobby is no stock femme fatale. She’s a spinning top. As a woman perennially on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Ranaut is outstanding as Bobby, disappearing into the troubled mind of a deranged woman. As Ranaut embodies a character so awfully sad and tragic, one almost wants to be a voice in her head and tell her that it’s going to be all right. The world isn’t out there to get you and that that your persecution complex is misplaced.

Is it, though?

Rajkummar Rao is reliably good as the hyper-sexualised Keshav and straddles between being the ideal husband and the manipulative dude bro. Dhillon’s writing makes our sympathies constantly shift from Bobby to Keshav, throwing us into constant moral conflict until the film’s graphic, violent final act, when things come into sharp focus.

However, despite sharp performances and a unique screenplay, Judgementall Hai Kya isn’t without its flaws. The coincidences in the film are one too many, the pace dips towards the second half, and the scenes where Ranaut sees the physical manifestations of the voices in her head drag on. Jimmy Shergill’s cameo, too, appears half-baked and hurriedly weaved in.

While these shortcomings hamper the overall experience of an otherwise solid film, they don’t take away from its central idea.

At its core, Judgementall Hai Kya tells a vital story about the pervasiveness of domestic violence and the fact that often, the victim isn’t just the woman at the receiving end of that violence, but also those who witness it intimately, internalising the angst, grief and trauma, which ultimately percolates and wreaks havoc into their lives. 

NEW DELHI Strongly objecting the contentious bill to make the practice of instant triple talaq illegal, NDA ally JD(U) Thursday said it will create a lack of trust in the society and walked out of the House.

Stating his party does not support the Bill, Rajiv Ranjan Singh told the Lok Sabha that it will “create a lack of trust in the mind of the society.” 

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He was of the view that government should do all that is necessary to create “awareness among the people of this community (minority).”

This society does run with strict laws, he said, adding that everyone is run by customs.

“That society also has its own customs,” Singh said adding the government has taken this “historic” step to put an end to their customs.

Citing the example of government’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Singh said the need of the hour is that in haste no law should be made and rather awareness should be created.

Several laws made earlier were being misused, Singh said adding “if the law is made like this it would be misued.”

Since 1996, he said, JD(U) is with NDA.

Today also it is with NDA barring a few years in between, Singh said, adding in the beginning itself JD(U) had made it clear that on some contentious issues it will not support the government.

“We boycott the Bill,” he said and walked out of the proceedings of the House.

HBO bosses have finally addressed the fan petition that called for the final season of Game Of Thrones to be rewritten. 

Until now, producers had not commented on the Change.org petition, which called for the final series to be reshot “with competent writers” and gathered more than one million signatures. 

The president of HBO – the network on which the show airs in the US – has now had his say, claiming that remaking it is “not something we seriously considered”.

Speaking at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, Casey Bloys continued (via TV Line): “There are very, very few downsides to having a hugely popular show.

“But one I can think of is when you try to end it, many people have big opinions on how these characters’ stories should come to an end.”

Referencing Game Of Thrones’ success in this year’s Emmy nominations last week, Bloys added: “Thirty-two Emmy nominations is certainly nice validation.”

Many of the show’s cast have already spoken out against the petition.

Sophie Turner, who played Sansa Stark, branded it “disrespectful”, telling The New York Times: “So many people worked so, so hard on it, and for people to just rubbish it because it’s not what they want to see is just disrespectful.”

Bran Stark actor Isaac Hempstead Wright also called the petition “ridiculous” and “absurd”, while Jacob Anderson – aka Grey Worm – called it “insulting”.

The petition was set up before the controversial final episode had even aired, following Daenerys’ decision to torch the city of King’s Landing, with many fans claiming it was a betrayal of her character.

The TV version of Game Of Thrones overtook George RR Martin’s books quite some time ago, despite the writer being five books ahead of the show when the first season aired.

George has made no secret of his disappointment at the timeline, which left him no choice but to tell the showrunners plot secrets in order for them to finish the programme without any source material.

Last week, Game Of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau felt first hand just how upset some fans remain about the final season, when he was booed at Comic Con for defending the ending. 

He was met with the reaction after speaking about the underwhelming deaths of Jaime and Cersei Lannister. 

He’d said: “I thought it was perfect for him to end in the arms of Cersei. It made sense to me - that’s just my opinion.”

Lena Headey, who plays Cersei, previously said she was “gutted” about how her character met her fate.

“I will say I wanted a better death,” she told The Guardian.

The show’s creators David Benioff and DB Weiss had also been due to take part in the Comic Con panel last week, but HBO announced on Thursday they had dropped out with no explanation given. 

The unlikely rise of “Schitt’s Creek” shows no signs of stopping. Debuting on the little-known American station Pop in 2015, “Schitt’s Creek” went widely unnoticed for its first few seasons. The comedy series, created by father-son duo Daniel Levy and Eugene Levy, then began amassing a following after joining Netflix in 2017. This show about a formerly wealthy family who has to leave everything behind to live in a small town ― a show once toiling in obscurity itself ― is now a bonafide hit. Just last week, the show earned its first Emmy recognition with nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series; Lead Actress, Comedy Series and Best Actor, Comedy Series. It took five seasons and a Netflix bump to reach that notoriety.

Shows that join Netflix after debuting on other networks often get such a bump. Last year, the Lifetime show “You” had almost no viewers until it switched to Netflix and became a massive hit.

But what underrated comedy show on Netflix could be next? Below is a list of comedies that similarly air on small or foreign channels before reaching Netflix. All of these shows have future seasons ahead of them, and therefore still have a chance to break through just like “Schitt’s Creek.”

“Derry Girls”

Sum Up: Teenage students at a Catholic secondary school in the town of Derry, Northern Ireland, have to balance the dramas of youth with “The Troubles” ― a historic time of violence between a paramilitary and the state in the students’ hometown during the 1990s. The military conflict plays for laughs, while the students get into their own unrelated hijinks.

Original Channel: Channel 4, United Kingdom

“Schitt’s Creek” Similarity Beyond The Humor: The protagonists in both must juggle their personal lives with the madness of their surroundings.

Trailer:

“Kim’s Convenience”

Sum Up: A Korean Canadian family owns and operates a convenience store in Toronto. A wide range of characters pass through the business.

Original Channel: CBC, Canada

“Schitt’s Creek” Similarity Beyond The Humor: Much like “Schitt’s Creek,” the main comedy comes from the relationships between the family members.

Trailer:

“Workin’ Moms”

Sum Up: Four mothers meet in a parenting group that they don’t like, and so they form their own mini community. The new friends balance parenting life with contemporary struggles of working underwhelming jobs.

Original Channel: CBC, Canada

“Schitt’s Creek” Similarity Beyond The Humor: Both have a subtle critique of capitalism underlying the situations that the characters find themselves in.

Trailer:

“Toast of London”

Sum Up: While dealing with a divorce, a once-successful actor must take on odd jobs to stay afloat in London. His outlandish personality often gets him into trouble. This has been off the air for a few years, but creator and star Matt Berry has said it’s coming back. Berry currently stars in the fantastic “What We Do in the Shadows” on FX.

Original Channel: Channel 4, United Kingdom

“Schitt’s Creek” Similarity Beyond The Humor: The main comedy comes from a “fish out of water” trope, in which the protagonist used to be “great,” but now has to reckon with being something else.

Trailer:

Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan on Thursday created an uproar in the Lok Sabha with his objectionable remarks against BJP’s Rama Devi who was presiding over the proceedings.

“I like you so much that I feel like looking into your eyes all the time,” he said, according to ANI. This comment was met with protests from Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Arjun Ram Meghwal who demanded an apology from Khan. 

Rama Devi, replying to Khan, said: “This is not the way to speak, please expunge these remarks,” reported Hindustan Times. To this, Khan replied, saying “You are very respected, you are like my sister.”

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also asked for an apology, but defended Khan saying he did not say it with a “wrong intent”, according to The Indian Express report. “If the Speaker finds it incorrect, he can remove it,” he added. 

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When Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla took over the proceedings, he also asked Khan to apologise. “It is very easy for all of you to demand ‘expunge this expunge that’, but why should the need to expunge arise at all? Once a remark is given, it is already in public domain. Therefore, we all should speak keeping the dignity of the Parliament in mind,” Birla was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

Khan also said he will resign if he has said anything unparliamentary. 

Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi said Khan is a “repeat offender” and yet his party continues to back him. 

Former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan was quoted as saying by News18, “I am not saying that he should be punished. He should introspect if he should be in the Parliament or not.”

He should be given special training on how to sit and talk in Parliament, she added.

Khan is known to make sexist remarks. 

During the 2019 general election, a controversy had erupted over Khan’s ‘khaki underwear’ remarks allegedly against Jaya Prada. He later said that the comments he made were against a man and that if proven guilty he would not contest in the elections.

(With PTI inputs)

On Wednesday, it was reported that home minister Amit Shah will head a reconstituted group of ministers to deal with issues related to sexual harassment at the workplace. In 2013, Shah was accused of employing state machinery to keep a young woman in Gujarat under illegal surveillance on the behest of a man referred to as ‘saheb’ in audiotapes accessed by websites such as Cobrapost. 

Twitter had thoughts. 

Journalist Rana Ayyub, who wrote Gujarat Files, based on an undercover investigation into the Gujarat riots, told HuffPost India she laughed when she read the news. “This was a man accused of illegally using state machinery to snoop on a young girl, and that man will head a panel of sexual harassment?” she said. 

The BJP later released a letter from a Pranlal Soni, in which he claimed to have requested Narendra Modi to keep his daughter under surveillance for her ‘security’. Apparently the Gujarat government only complied with the request, which raised various questions about the use of state machinery to put a private citizen under surveillance. Police personnel in Gujarat themselves said that such surveillance was unheard of and a violation of the woman’s rights, no matter what her father wanted. 

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Ayyub pointed out that this was not the only problem. Shah was also implicated in the mysterious death of Kausar Bi, known to be ‘gangster’ Sohrabuddin Sheikh’s wife. Shah was arrested in the Sohrabuddin case but later all 22 accused were acquitted. 

“The signal cannot be stronger, the government has absolute disregard for women’s rights,” she said. She added that Shah’s Islamophobic rhetoric and “absolute contempt for civil liberties” makes it difficult for any woman to take the panel seriously. 

Is Shah the only problem?

While Shah’s appointment as the leader of an anti-sexual harassment panel must be questioned, the first such panel during the last BJP government was also headed by a man — defence minister Rajnath Singh. 

Journalist Revati Laul, who wrote the book Anatomy of Hate on the Gujarat riots, said that the problem here was bigger than just Shah or a man heading an anti-sexual harassment panel despite the presence of female ministers. The fact that the same panel barely got any work done during the last government and was dissolved before being reconstituted reveals the government’s lack of interest in and commitment to the issue, said Laul. 

“They formed a panel with ministers on it. Did they reach out to the women leading the movement? Did they reach out to any survivor and consult them on what needs to be done?” she asked. 

The government also did not set up panels of pro-bono lawyers in cities and towns who could probably help women deal with the intricacies of filing a sexual harassment complaint. 

“We have enough laws, we do not need any new laws,” she said, adding that Shah is not known for his listening skills in governance. 

“#MeToo was entirely about listening to women. Have they listened to women and asked them what they wanted?” she said.

Laul also said that the amendments to the POCSO Act, where death penalty is now applicable for cases of aggravated sexual crimes against children, are in line with the BJP’s ghus ke marenge approach. 

“How will they deal with sensitive cases of sexual harassment?”

The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the contentious Triple Talaq bill. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, moving the bill for consideration, said the bill is about gender justice. 

“Don’t look at this issue through political lenses. This is an issue of justice and humanity... an issue of women rights and empowerment... we can’t abandon our Muslim sisters,” Prasad was quoted as saying by NDTV.

Prasad, according to PTI, said the legislation was a must for gender equality and justice as despite an August 2017 Supreme Court verdict striking down the practice of instant triple talaq , women are being divorced by ‘talaq-e-biddat’.

He said, since January 2017, 574 such cases have been reported by the media.

Three ordinances have so been promulgated as a similar bill moved by the previous government could not get parliamentary nod.

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A fresh bill was introduced by the new government in June during the ongoing Parliament session.

Under the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019, divorcing through instant triple talaq will be illegal, void and would attract a jail term of three years for the husband.

Prasad said to allay fears that the proposed law could be misused, the government has included certain safeguards in it such as adding a provision of bail for the accused before trial.

While the bill makes triple talaq a “non-bailable” offence, an accused can approach a magistrate even before trial to seek bail.

In a non-bailable offence, bail cannot be granted by police at the police station itself.

A provision has been added to allow the magistrate to grant bail “after hearing the wife”, the minister said. 

(With PTI inputs)

Over the course of his career, Ed Sheeran has been lucky enough to work with and write songs for some of the biggest stars around today, including Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Stormzy.

Earlier this month, he even debuted a whole album full of big name collaborations, including Bruno Mars, Cardi B and Eminem, but there’s one huge artist he can finally cross off his wishlist.

Vocalist extraordinaire Katie Price. 

Yes, during an appearance on Thursday’s Loose Women, The Pricey revealed that despite it all, she hasn’t given up on her music career just yet, and even has a full album in the works, including a new track written by Ed.

We’re sure he’s over the moon his music has found a deserving home. 

Katie initially began her music career with an infamous attempt at representing the UK at Eurovision in 2005, which she’s previously said is the only thing she’s done in her life that she regrets.

She and ex-husband Peter Andre later released a collection of duets, titled A Whole New World, while her divorce from former cage fighter Alex Reid was followed by another new tune, Free To Love Again.

In 2017, she made another crack at a career in singing, releasing I Got U, co-written by former X Factor contestant Craig Colton.

Her new music wasn’t the only news Katie revealed during her Loose Women interview, though, also announcing that she and her boyfriend of just over a year Kris Boyson are engaged.

Showing off her eye-catching new ring, Katie said: “Kris bought the ring, for that finger, so there you go.

“He has met his match, he puts me in my place, he is strict with me. I’m not used to that. He’s a good guy, he’s so good with Harvey, Harvey’s obsessed with him.”

This marks the fifth time Katie has been engaged, having previously been married to singer Peter Andre and former cage-fighter Alex Reid, as well as having briefly been set to marry model Leandro Penna.

At present, Katie is in the process of divorcing her estranged husband Kieran Hayler, with whom she has a son and a daughter, Jett and Bunny.

Kensington Palace denied Kate Middleton got a Botox treatment after a U.K. plastic surgeon posted side-by-side photos of the duchess and claimed she “loves a bit of baby Botox.”  

The palace, which rarely responds to such matters, slammed Dr. Munir Somji’s claim as “categorically false” in a statement to the New York Post, and added: “The Royal Family never endorse commercial activity.” The palace declined to elaborate in response to HuffPost’s questions.

Somji posted pictures on Instagram that he purported were before and after photos of the duchess. His post also promoted his practice’s cosmetic treatments. 

“Our Kate loves a bit of baby Botox,” Somji wrote in the caption, suggesting the duchess was a patient. 

“Note the reduction of fine lines on the forehead,” Somji wrote. “But also note the depression of the medial (middle part) brow but elevation of the lateral tail of the brow.”

Somji described the “baby Botox” procedure as “the same total dose of Botox injected in smaller quantities over more injection points for better accuracy and injected at a specific depth to work on the surface of the muscle and skin only so you can still move with no lines.”  

A marketing manager at Somji’s office refused to confirm or deny that Kate was a patient, the Post reported. 

Baby Botox claims aside, the duchess has other things to focus on, as she, Prince William and their family of three reportedly jetted off to the Caribbean island of Mustique for a little vacation time after celebrating Prince George’s sixth birthday. 

Kensington Palace shared photos of the youngster on his birthday, taken by Kate. Two pictures showed the young prince at Kensington Palace, while another was snapped while the family was on vacation. 

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PUNE, Maharashtra — When Sharad Pawar, veteran politician and supremo of the Nationalist Congress Party, decided not to contest the Lok Sabha elections this summer and offered his seat up to his grand-nephew Parth Pawar instead, another presumed scion of the Pawar family took to Facebook to vent his feelings.

“We respect every decision made by him. But this respect is preceded by great affection,” Rohit Pawar, another one of Sharad Pawar’s grand-nephews wrote. “It is because of this immense respect felt by countless workers like myself that I urge Pawar Saheb to reconsider his decision of not contesting the Lok Sabha election.”

The NCP was wiped out in the elections; Parth lost by over 2 lakh votes to Shiv Sena’s Shrirang Barane, becoming the first member of the storied Pawar family to lose an election.

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Now, as Maharashtra prepares for state elections due in October this year, a family feud amongst the Pawar’s family’s millennial generation is boiling over with Parth, the son of former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, on the one hand, and Rohit, the grandson of Sharad Pawar’s late elder brother, Appasaheb Pawar, on the other.

The Pawar family feud — which all members of the family are at pains to deny — is a vivid illustration of the paradox of dynasty politics where the presence of a first family gives an outward impression of continuity and stability, while beneath the surface rival camps jockey for power and influence, when they should be focussed on winning elections.

“He campaigned for me in my election,” Parth said of Rohit in an interview with HuffPost India, in an attempt to maintain a facade of amity, even as he conceded that his cousin should not have written such a Facebook post on the eve of a general election.

“If you want to write a letter to your father or grandfather rather than picking up the phone and calling them, I find that very stupid,” Parth said. “He should have actually called grandfather but he wrote a letter which was his idea of showing affection and care which was not taken well by everyone else.

“People felt that he should have just picked up the phone and called which any normal person would do.”

Rohit, for his part, struck a sanguine note when HuffPost India reached out to him this week.

“Till today we are all together. None of us has spoken anything against each other in public ever,” Rohit said. 

But when Sharad Pawar addressed the media after the NCP’s losses in the May elections, Rohit accompanied him, and has appeared by his side ever since.

Family Pawar

It is said that Appasaheb Pawar was the first politician in the Pawar family and was a prominent leader of the Farmers and Workers’ Party in Maharashtra. While Appasaheb did not stay in party politics for too long — allying himself with the state’s influential cooperative movement instead —  he convinced his youngest brother Sharad to join the Congress party. Anantrao, the middle brother worked for a while in the Bombay film industry.

In 1999, when Sharad Pawar formed the breakaway NCP after he was expelled from the Congress party for feuding with Sonia Gandhi, the Pawar clan followed him. His daughter Supriya Sule has been a Member of Parliament with NCP for years (she won the recent Lok Sabha election as well), while Anantrao’s son, Ajit Pawar rose to great prominence as Maharashtra politician, holding ministerial berths in successive NCP-Congress coalition governments.

Parth,  Ajit’s son, was seen as the most natural successor to the Pawar family legacy — until Rohit rocked up.

In 2017, Rohit won the Zila Parishad elections from the Pawar hometown of Baramati, and since then has been quietly building a grassroots network across the state. Within the NCP, many party workers see him as the first real mass leader since Sharad Pawar — in contrast to Parth who often comes across as under-confident in public appearances.

“Ajit dada is not that accessible. People are scared to talk to him. Supriya tai is busy in Delhi, Parth also carries an attitude of a big politician,” said an NCP leader from Ajit Pawar’s bastion in Pimpri Chinchwad. “Rohit is an exception. He connects with the workers and youth. We see an image of Saheb (Sharad Pawar) in him.” 

Rohit’s supporters within the party portray him as a young man claiming his rightful legacy.

“He is Appasaheb’s grandson. Appasaheb launched Sharad Pawar in politics but no one from his clan entered politics. Now, Rohit is claiming that legacy,” said an NCP leader from Pune. “His contention is that his father did not enter politics which made sure Ajit Pawar had a smooth path. Now when he is entering politics, his uncle should have returned the favour.”

Pawar Hungry Politics

Rohit and Parth, for their part, are quick to dismiss any suggestion of a family rift.

“Till today we are all together. None of us has spoken anything against each other in public ever,” said Rohit when asked about the rift with Parth.

When asked if he considers himself the political heir of Sharad Pawar, he said, “Party leaders don’t decide political heir. It is the people who decide who is an heir of which politician. I would like to do something for the society and for the state while being in politics. I want to give more preference to social causes than politics. Politics should be done only at the time of elections.”

Parth also denied any rift within the family and claimed that it was his father who gave the ticket to Rohit to contest Zila Parishad election.

To a question on whether his mother Sunetra and he grew insecure with the rise of Rohit in politics, he said, “ I and my younger brother had even campaigned for Rohit. Those were stories spread by unhappy people around Baramati who did not get a ticket. They wanted to create a rift in the family.”

But for now, most agree, Rohit has firmly eclipsed his cousin Parth. In the coming elections, he is likely to contest from Karjat-Jamkhed, an assembly seat where a Maratha girl was raped triggering massive Maratha mobilisation. 

The same constituency witnessed the killing of a Dalit youth which had made headlines. This seat has voted BJP for the last 30 years and is represented by the minister of state for home Ram Shinde who is considered a formidable opponent.

People close to Rohit believe he chose a difficult assembly seat to contest to do away with the tag of the dynasty.

“But even if Rohit Pawar loses this election, he will gain the sympathy of people and his partymen. Because people will think Ajit Pawar and Parth Pawar defeated him. He is likely to emerge stronger in any scenario and he has clearly got Sahab’s blessings,” an NCP youth wing leader from Maval Lok Sabha seat contended.

SANGATTE, France, July 25 (Reuters) - A French inventor failed in his attempt to cross the English Channel on a jet-powered hoverboard on Thursday when he was knocked into the water as he landed on a boat-mounted refueling platform, his technical team said.

Franky Zapata lifted off near the northern port of Calais with 42 liters of kerosene in his backpack, enough for about 10 minutes of flight. He planned to strap on a new backpack on a vessel waiting midway across the 35-km wide Strait of Dover.

“It is a huge disappointment. He made his rendezvous with the refueling boat, but the landing platform hit the flyboard, which threw him off balance and knocked him into the water,“support crew member Stephane Denis told BFM television.

Zapata was making his attempt on the 110th anniversary of the first powered flight between Britain and France.

But Denis said that with the landing platform two meters above the deck, every movement of the ship on the waves was exaggerated, making landing difficult.

“He had practiced this maneuver in heavier seas without problems, but now, at the most important moment, it failed. Today was the 110th anniversary of Bleriot’s flight. It would have been a poignant moment,” Denis said.

He added that Zapata was unharmed and would make a new attempt as soon as possible.

Zapata had received a 1.3 million euro grant from the French army in late 2018 to help finance the development of the hoverboard, which is powered by five small jet engines.

Zapata took off from Sangatte, France, at 0706 GMT. Flying at up to 140 kph (87 mph) at an altitude of between 15 to 20 meters he had hoped to reach to Dover in about 20 minutes.

He disappeared from spectators’ view within moments, trailed by a helicopter, but minutes later his team announced the attempt had failed.

Zapata had wowed crowds during France’s July 14 Bastille Day celebrations, flying over a military parade on Paris’ Place de la Concorde in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

On July 25, 1909, Frenchman Louis Bleriot became the first man to fly across the Channel in an airplane. Since then, Channel crossings have become a rite of passage for all kinds of new aircraft.

Zapata, a champion on jetski-powered waterboards, steers his craft by leaning forward or backward and controls thrust with a throttle connected to his 1,500 horsepower board.

(Reporting by Emilie Delwarde in Sangatte and Geert De Clercqin Paris; Editing by Richard Lough)

When her show premieres on NBC in September, Canadian comedian Lilly Singh will be the only woman to host a current late-night show on one of the four major broadcast TV networks — and among only a handful of women, people of color and LGBTQ people who have hosted a late-night show.

Her upcoming show, “A Little Late with Lilly Singh,” will be notable for another reason: It will be the only current late-night show to have a gender-equal team of writers. Singh’s writers’ room will include Sean O’Connor, Marina Cockenberg, Sergio Serna, Mona Mira, Jen Burton and Jonathan Giles — three women and three men — NBC announced Thursday.

The show’s gender parity is rare in the world of late-night comedy, which is still largely a boys’ club — as dramatized in the recent movie “Late Night,” starring Emma Thompson as a late-night TV host and Mindy Kaling as her show’s only female writer.

In June, the Los Angeles Times found that among the current late-night shows on broadcast, cable and streaming, none of them had writing staffs that consisted of at least 50% women. The show that is the closest to gender parity — where 5 of its 11 credited writers (45%) are women — is TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee,” (probably not coincidentally) the only show hosted by a woman.

E!’s “Busy Tonight,” hosted by actress Busy Philipps, had an all-female writing staff. But it was canceled earlier this year, among several recent female-hosted shows that went off the air.

In a statement Thursday, Singh praised her “all-star team of writers,” saying that they will help “bring a new, authentic perspective to late night.”

Earlier this year, NBC announced that Singh, a comedian and YouTube star, will take over the 1:35 a.m. time slot from longtime late-night host Carson Daly, who announced his departure in February.

“An Indian-Canadian woman with her own late night show? Now that is a dream come true,” Singh said in a statement in March. “I’m thrilled to bring it to life on NBC, and I hope my parents consider this to be as exciting as a grandchild.”

“A Little Late with Lilly Singh” will premiere on Sept. 16.