BENGALURU, Karnataka—A new WhatsApp-backed study has found that fake news is mostly spread by users who are prejudiced and ideologically motivated, rather than ignorant or digitally illiterate.

The report, titled WhatsApp vigilantes? WhatsApp messages and mob violence in India, is by a group of researchers from the London School of Economics who were among 20 teams selected by the company for a $50,000 grant to study how fake news spreads, and what the company can do to prevent this.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp is the most popular social media platform in India, with over 400 million users in the country. The app’s innocuous inbox is prime real estate for misinformation and downright hate, ranging from flagrant violations by political parties to communal propaganda. The rapid spread of information has also led to many Indians being lynched over rumours of being child kidnappers, leading the company to introduce restrictions on forwarding messages. But then, reports revealed thata Rs 1,000 software could bypass WhatsApp’s restrictions. And if that was too hard to do, many, many companies were also offeringsWhatsApp mass-messaging as a service, automating propaganda and undercutting regulation.

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The researchers—Dr Shakuntala Banaji and Ramnath Bhat at LSE, and Anushi Agrawal and Nihal Passanha at Maraa, a media and arts collective in Bengaluru—looked specifically at the issue of WhatsApp lynchings, with “a focus on the intersection of disinformation, misinformation, fake news, propaganda, mob violence, socio-political contexts of technology use, technological affordances and infrastructures, user experiences and motivations, media literacy, policy and regulation”.

“Since 2015, there have been more than a hundred instances of lynching,” said the report. “Many of these incidents victimise individuals from discriminated groups (Dalits, Muslims, Christians, Adivasis) based on allegations of cow slaughter, cow trafficking and cattle theft. Although the victims are targeted for different reasons, these incidents have in common mobs of vigilantes who use peer-to-peer messaging applications such as WhatsApp to spread lies about the victims.”

The researchers interviewed experts and focus groups, talking to users across Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh this year. They also gathered WhatsApp messages from multiple sources, and analysed WhatsApp forwards, including texts, still photos and moving images. 

“During focus groups and interviews with working and middle class users, men, women and young people, urban and rural as well as literate and illiterate users with a spectrum of political opinions, and during expert interviews, we examined the daily practices of WhatsApp usage in the contemporary Indian socio-political context,” said the report.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, they found that WhatsApp messages don’t exist in a vacuum. Although new technology platforms can accelerate the spread of certain messages, hate speech is not intrinsic to new platforms. So, for example, the researchers found that particular stereotypes or narratives would appear on WhatsApp at the same time that they began circulating on social media, mainstream news media or even films. 

“The fact that mainstream media has been responsible for broadcasting the hate-speech and stereotypes in the speeches of politicians without much criticism or questioning means that messages on WhatsApp which disparage particular communities or call for action against them (for example: Dalits, Muslims, Adivasis, Kashmiris, Christians) are less likely to be perceived as misinformation,” the researchers noted. “Likewise, the sensationalism of mainstream media formats and genres works very well when edited and used out of context in WhatsApp-based propaganda or misinformation.”

Who’s reading them?

One difference, though, is in who is receiving these messages on WhatsApp, versus traditional media. The use of smartphones in India is highly gendered—according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) there are 451 million Internet users in India, of which less than 150 million are women. This bias is much sharper in rural India. In rural India,barring a few social-good programmes, men still control access to devices, and with that, WhatsApp and the rest of the Internet as well.

“This finding needs to be considered in the context of the allied finding that the ready availability of digital technologies has contributed to new forms of physical and virtual violence,” the researchers said. 

They found that such violence is more likely to be directed towards women, especially those from marginalised communities. These could include unsolicited sexts, sex tapes, rape videos and blackmailing.

“A key finding is that there exists widespread, simmering distrust, hatred, contempt and suspicion towards Pakistanis, Muslims, Dalits and critical or dissenting citizens amongst a section of rural and urban upper and middle-caste Hindu men and women,” they added. “WhatsApp users in these demographics are predisposed both to believe disinformation and to share misinformation about discriminated groups in face-to-face and WhatsApp networks.”

And who’s sending these?

Although people in India already buy into various prejudices, this doesn’t mean that they all act on them. Some messages are more successful than others, and the researchers also looked at the impact of different messages. 

“Amidst the flow of hundreds of messages, the ones which stand out are those that convey a sense of immediacy, and those that can and do have shock value,” the study showed. “During elections, or during incidents of cross-border military action, simmering sentiments become high-intensity situations where the quality of disinformation and propaganda becomes immediately inflammatory.”

“In these circumstances, the chance of long-term discrimination turning into physical violence against particular demographic groups increases,” the researchers said.

You may have sighed in frustration at a message in your family WhatsApp group, wondering why anyone would send that. As it turns out, the researchers also wanted to answer the same question, and a number of reasons emerged, ranging from the naiveté of older users who choose to believe messages forwarded by known and trusted individuals, to the belief that it is a civic duty to pass along information about (even unverified) suspicious activities, and the need to be seen as a local “expert” by sharing local information.

In some cases, the emotional disturbance felt by users on viewing a clip of spectacular violence or overwhelming content (train or road accidents, harm caused by natural disasters) impelled them to share them with others and/or discuss them within their networks.

In other cases, this kind of content contributed to a sense of emotional fatigue and exhaustion whereby WhatsApp users would forward disinformation without checking the message fully, research showed.

“We found that for most WhatsApp users in India civic trust follows ideological, family and communal ties far more closely than is reported in other literature on this topic,” the researchers added. “In a majority of instances, misinformation and disinformation which contributes to the formation of mobs that engage in lynching and other discriminatory violence appears to be spread largely for reasons of prejudice and ideology rather than out of ignorance or digital illiteracy.”

What the researchers found is that if a WhatsApp user is male, technologically-literate Hindu, then regardless of whether they’re “upper or middle caste”, young or middle-aged, or rural or urban, they are more likely to share misinformation and hate speech. “Some user narratives in our fieldwork go as far as to suggest that this type of technologically-literate, male, Hindu user is also more likely to create and administer the groups responsible for ideologically charged misinformation, disinformation and hate-speech on WhatsApp in the first place,” they explained.

So what’s WhatsApp doing?

This is an issue that won’t go away easily, and multiple stakeholders are seeking solutions. Citing fake news as a concern, the government is calling for traceability of WhatsApp messages, but there are concerns that this would also enable snooping on all your messages. The Indian government has long argued that WhatsApp’s encrypted messaging service is detrimental to national security and has demanded WhatsApp “digitally fingerprint” all messages in India. Facebook has pushed back thus far, arguing it would undermine user privacy and turn WhatsApp into a different product. 

“We’ve taken a number of steps within our product over the last year to help address the challenge of misinformation,” a WhatsApp spokesperson explained. “To include new labels that identify to users when they have received a forwarded message, or a highly forwarded message (such as a chain message) – as well as limiting how messages can be forwarded to just five chats at once. That limit change reduced the total number of forwarded messages on WhatsApp by 25%. We also launched group permissions to empower users to decide which groups that would like to be part of.”

On its FAQ page about WhatsApp’s steps against misinformation in India, the company also notes measures such as limiting forwards, its education and advertising campaign about fake news, and growing a local team to work with civil society and the government. It has also worked to train local law enforcement departments on how to work with WhatsApp and make legal requests for information, aside from the 20 research awards to promote studies that will inform product development and safety efforts, the spokesperson noted. 

“WhatsApp cares deeply about the safety of our users and we appreciate the opportunity to learn from these international experts about how we can continue to help address the impact of misinformation,”said Mrinalini Rao, lead researcher at WhatsApp. “We recognise this issue presents a long-term challenge that must be met in partnership with others. These studies will help us build upon recent changes we have made within WhatsApp and support broad education campaigns to help keep people safe.”

Other topics by researchers who received the $50,000 grant from WhatsApp (a total of $1 million) include Social media and everyday life in India by Philippa Williams, Queen Mary University of London (Principal Investigator), and Lipika Kamra of OP Jindal Global University, which examines the role of WhatsApp in everyday political conversations in India; another, titled Misinformation in Diverse Societies, Political Behavior, and Good Governance by Robert A Johns, University of Essex, Sayan Banerjee, University of Essex, and Srinjoy Bose, University of New South Wales, uses field experiments with WhatsApp in India and Afghanistan, to establish a relationship between misinformation on social networks, and public opinion on ethnic relations.

In India, WhatsApp is also partnering with Osama Manzar and the Digital Empowerment Foundation to train community leaders in several states on how to address misinformation. The foundation is also part of a proposal which aims to adapt game-based interventions to “vaccinate” people against misinformation, testing it with field experiments.

DALLAS ― President Donald Trump said Thursday that he had to let Kurdish allies and Turkey “fight a little while” before the U.S. would be able to stop the Turkish attack on northern Syria that the president himself had enabled.

“Sometimes you have to let them fight a little while, then people find out how tough the fighting is,” he told supporters at his campaign rally in Dallas. “Sometimes you have to let them fight like two kids in a lot, you gotta let them fight, and then you pull them apart.”

Earlier Thursday, the White House said Turkey agreed to temporarily halt deadly military operations against northern Syria, a region that’s been held by Kurdish allies who had been fighting ISIS alongside the U.S. troops until Trump decided to abruptly withdraw earlier this month. The agreement gives the Kurds some time to give up their weapons and leave the region that Turkey has been trying to capture. It will allow Turkish forces to take over northern Syria.

The deal worked “without spilling a drop of American blood,” Trump told supporters at the rally.

The withdrawal decision led to Turkey attacking the Kurdish-held region with at least 180 airstrikes as of Thursday morning, killing at least 16 fighters, four civilians (including an infant), and injuring at least 70 more in border towns, according to The New York Times. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds have fled northeastern Syria since Trump’s announcement to withdraw the U.S. troops.

The deal, which Turkey’s foreign minister clarified as a “pause” and not a ceasefire, creates a five-day halt in Turkey’s attack against the Kurds, whom the country considers terrorists. The deal came after Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Turkey to prevent an escalation of the violence that Trump had effectively greenlighted.

“During a five-day period, we’re going to see if we can get it all finalized, and I think it will be,” Trump said Thursday evening. “So Turkey’s going to be happy, the Kurds are going to be happy, ISIS is going to be unhappy.”

Trump sympathized with Turkey at the campaign rally, calling the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a “gentleman” and saying that Turkey “was having a lot of bad things happen from this region, in all fairness.”

The president has faced overwhelming backlash by both Democrats and Republicans for his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the Kurdish-held region, basically allowing Turkish forces to invade while leaving the Kurds vulnerable. Many said the decision would likely lead to a resurgence of ISIS, made more likely after hundreds of ISIS supporters escaped detention in northern Syria as a result of Trump’s move.

On Wednesday, Trump made a series of comments undermining the U.S. alliance with the Kurds, saying the fighters were “not angels” and the Turkish invasion “not our problem.” 

The Senate on Thursday introduced sanctions on Turkey, a more detailed and punitive measure than the sanctions Trump imposed earlier this week. The House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to condemn Trump’s recent foreign policy decision in the Middle East.

Trump has continued to defend his decision, saying this week that it was “strategically brilliant.” On Wednesday, after the House vote, the president berated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a meeting meant to be about Trump’s plan of action on Syria.

Some supporters at the rally thought Trump made the right move in pulling the U.S. troops from the region, citing the need for the country to stay out of wars.

“We need to get out of there. We’ve been having wars for no reason for pretty much my entire life,” 40-year-old Josh Warren of Garland, Texas, told HuffPost. “[President George W.] Bush put us in those wars. They were wars to fill his pockets. Bush wasn’t really for this country.”

“I think he needs to bring our American troops home,” said Debbie Bewley. “I don’t think we need to be involved in useless wars.”

Kylie Jenner has created a storm of jokes on Twitter.

Last week the 22-year-old reality star and makeup mogul released a video tour on YouTube of her Kylie Cosmetics office.

The tour of her over-the-top space included a champagne vending machine, a bouquet of flowers made out of cash and M&M’s emblazoned with Jenner’s face.

But as extra as the tour was, viewers really latched onto one moment when Jenner shows off her 1-year-old daughter Stormi’s playroom.

Jenner waited until the very end of the video to film the pink-accented room because, as she explained earlier in the video, Stormi was taking a nap.

With that information in mind, Jenner quietly entered the dark room and seemingly woke up Stormi by singing “rise and shine” as she flipped on the lights.

Once the lights were on, it was apparent that Stormi was already awake, presumably because a camera crew had already entered the room and waited in the dark to film the scene.

And so a meme was born:

On Wednesday, Jenner responded to the meme on Instagram and hinted that she may capitalize on it by releasing “Rise and Shine” products soon.

Hey, you can’t hate on this “self-made” billionaire’s game.

NEW DELHI/DHAKA — In a first of its kind incident, Bangladeshi border guards opened fire at a Border Security Force (BSF) team on Thursday killing a jawan after a ‘flag meeting’ along the Indo-Bangla riverine frontier in West Bengal, officials said.

A second jawan was injured in the firing incident, they said.

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However, in a statement issued late night in Dhaka, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) said they fired the gunshots in “self defence”.

The action against the Indian personnel in what was called by officials in New Delhi as “high handedness” by the BGB sparked tension prompting the BSF chief, VK Johri, to call up his counterpart Major General Shafeenul Islam over hotline.

The BGB Director General assured Johri a thorough probe into the incident, officials said.

The jawan killed in the shooting was identified as head constable Vijay Bhan Singh and he hailed from Chamaroli village in Firozabad district of Uttar Pradesh. The 51-year-old trooper, who is survived by his wife and 2 young sons, had joined the BSF in 1990.

The BGB in the statement said their patrol team tried to detain three Indian fishermen who had entered into Bangladesh waters in an engine-run boat, but two of them managed to flee.

Soon four armed BSF men, including one in uniform, intruded 650 yards inside the Bangladesh territory with a speedboat to take away the detained fisherman.

However, the BGB team told the BSF personnel that the issue could be settled through a flag meeting in line with the practice and also told them that since they too intruded into Bangladesh’s territory, they would be handed over to the authorities after the proposed meeting.

The situation created panic among the Indian border guards, the statement said.

“The BSF men then turned furious and opened gunfire and started going back to their (Indian) territory,” it said.

“The BGB patrol team fired gunshots in self-defence amid gunfire by the BSF men,” the statement said, adding that it was revealed later at a commander-level flag meeting that a BSF member was killed and another injured during the fire exchanges.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal termed the incident “unexpected”, but said the unwanted episode took place as four armed BSF men intruded more than 500 yards inside the Bangladesh territory.

The BGB said later in a meeting the BSF commandant concerned and his Bangladesh counterpart decided to investigate the incident from their respective sides.

The meeting was held “peacefully” and the two sides also decided to hold further talks on the issue, the statement said.

The relations between the border forces of India and Bangladesh that guard the 4,096-km long international border have been very cordial and no bullet has been fired between them for decades.

The first of its kind incident is an aberration and efforts are being made to ensure that the situation does not deteriorate, officials said.

The top security establishment in New Delhi was taken aback by the incident and the Union ministries of home and external affairs were briefed by the BSF.

A BSF statement said the incident took place under the Kakmarichar border post of the BSF in Murshidabad district around 9 am when a force party approached BGB personnel, standing at a “char” or a riverine in the middle of the Padma river, to resolve an issue linked to Indian fishermen.

Officials said the trouble arose when the BGB personnel held three Indian fishermen who were allowed by the BSF to fish within the International Border, that runs through the middle of the 3-km-wide Padma river.

The river offers a rich catch of the hilsa fish.

A BGB team then allowed two fishermen to go and inform the BSF that the third person has been held by them and that was when the BSF post commander of the 117th battalion, a sub-inspector, took a 6-member party on a motor-boat to resolve the issue, the statement said.

A BGB jawan identified only as Sayed fired from behind when the BSF party started to return on their motor-boat after sensing the “aggressiveness” by the Bangladeshi personnel and an intention to “surround” them, officials said.

The BGB trooper, officials said, fired from his AK-47 rifle and shot Vijay Bhan Singh on his head, while constable Rajvir Yadav sustained bullet injuries on his hand.

Singh died on the boat itself while Yadav deftly saved the boat from sinking and managed to bring it to the Indian side.

A fisherman, identified as Pranab Mandal of Shirochar village, is stated to be still in the custody of the BGB.

Senior BSF officials reached the spot and are assessing the situation.

Security has been stepped up all along the Indo-Bangla border in the wake of the incident.

The two forces meet biannually and the last Director General-level talks took place in June this year at BGB’s headquarters at Pilkhana in Dhaka.

NEW DELHI —Tens of thousands of runners have signed up for Delhi’s half marathon and other races on Sunday, officials said, despite the air quality hitting dangerous levels in one of the most heavily polluted cities in the world.

New Delhi’s air quality index was around 300 on Thursday, classified as very poor and meaning prolonged exposure can cause respiratory illness.

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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who has described the city as a “gas chamber” in winter, has ordered emergency measures, including restricting the number of private vehicles on the roads under an “odd-even” scheme based on number plates.

Race organisers said pollution was a worry but they would take steps to reduce the impact on runners. Hours ahead of and throughout the race, the course will be sprayed with water.

“The air quality is a concern and will remain a concern, there is no question about it,” said Vivek Singh, joint managing director of Procam International that conducts the race sponsored by telecom operator Bharti Airtel.

“The measures that we take for those few hours to give our runners a good experience have worked in the past.”

The race has been moved this year to avoid a sharp rise in pollutants during Diwali.

But farmers burning crop stubble in the states north of Delhi have turned the air over Delhi toxic. The forecast for the next few days and into Sunday is “very poor”.

A record 40,633 people have signed up for the 21-km, 10-km and a 5-km races. Last year there were 34,916 runners, many of whom wore masks.

A former Olympic gold medallist, Carmelita Jeter of the United States, is the international event ambassador.

Doctors have advised citizens to restrict their outdoor activities and said runners must be made aware of the risks they are taking.

“Just two weeks before the odd-even scheme comes into play, how have the civic authorities allowed more than 30,000 people to expose themselves to toxic air?” asked said Desh Deepak, senior chest physician at the city’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.

Favourite children are having a moment. (But then again, when you’re Mom or Dad’s favourite, you could argue that every moment is your moment.)

Last week, “Mom” actress Jaime Pressly drew the ire of many on the internet when she shared a photo of herself with her 12-year-old, Dezi, and noted that he’s her “favourite.” (She also has a pair of twins who are toddlers.)

“Best time ever hangin with my favourite son, Dezi. That’s right I said it,” Pressly wrote on Instagram ― adding that although she has “a favourite son,” she loves “all 3 of my boys with everything I have in me.”

“Dez and I have a special bond that no one else will ever match because we’ve grown up together,” she wrote.

While some of the actress’ followers found the post sweet, others were put off. “I hope your son stole your phone and posted this,” one user wrote, a comment that garnered more than 100 likes.

Parental favouritism is splashed all over television lately, too.

On HBO’s “Succession,” megalomaniac media mogul Logan Roy takes obvious pleasure in watching his three kids jockey for the “favourite” position and the role of successor to the family business. (OK, four kids counting Connor, but he’s considerably less interested in running Waystar Royco). Spoiler alert: In last week’s season finale, “No. 1 boy” Kendall may have secured the title again. The power play he made at episode’s end was so bold and self-serving, even dear old Dad couldn’t help but smile with pride ― even if he was getting backstabbed.

In slightly less fictitious television, momager Kris Jenner on “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” clearly plays favourites, so much so that her kids feel comfortable talking about it in a playful way.

“Kimberly [was the favourite] 10 years ago,” Khloe Kardashian said on “Watch What Happens” in January. “Kylie now.” (It seems like profitability factors into Jenner’s rankings.)

But parental favouritism has always been a meaty, compelling topic: The ramifications of playing favourites show up in the Bible (Rebecca gravitated toward Jacob), Greek myths (Athena was Zeus’ fave) and fairy tales (the ugly stepsisters trump Cinderella).

Our responses to these stories are so visceral because most of us have firsthand experience with favouritism. One longitudinal study showed that 74 percent of mothers and 70 percent of fathers said they gave preferential treatment to one child.

In the same study, firstborn children reported feeling they were the preferred child, while younger siblings said they sensed the firstborn bias and that it affected their self-esteem.

Naturally, favouritism is a hot topic in family therapy, too. Genevieve von Lob, a psychologist and author of “Happy Parent, Happy Child,” says that most parents she works with are inherently drawn to one child, even if they’re not conscious of the fact. 

“In my experience, you can often tell they view their children differently from their body language and the way they speak to them,” she told HuffPost.

Others clients come in specifically for the issue: The parents feel guilty over having a favourite and want to strengthen their relationship with the less favoured one, von Lob said.

The stakes are high: “A less favoured sibling may tell me they’ve internalized a sense of being overlooked, of never feeling good enough and a deep sense of inadequacy,” von Lob said. “A favoured child may also suffer; sometimes, they’ve developed a deep-rooted fear and insecurities around losing their top spot or feel the pressure to live up to their parents’ expectations.”

At its worst, favouritism can set up kids for a lifetime of sibling rivalry. A 2010 study suggested that preferential treatment from parents can make it difficult for siblings to provide support to each other when experiencing crises in adulthood. 

“It can drive serious rifts between grown children,” said John Duffy, a psychologist and author of “Parenting the New Teen in the Age of Anxiety.” 

“Favoritism is so triggering and polarizing because it speaks to the relative worth of children in families,” he said. “It can result in unnecessarily hurt feelings and undue pain and suffering and arguing. And frankly, it often indicates something about the way money will be distributed through an estate down the road.”

Obviously, none of this is productive or healthy for families.

“Sometimes, the ‘favourite’ thing is part of family schtick and it’s dismissed as harmless,” Duffy said. “But for the reasons outlined above, it’s not.”

How to acknowledge you have a favourite

To nip favouritism in the bud, it’s important first to acknowledge you actually have a favorite, said Amanda Deverich, a marriage and family therapist in Williamsburg, Virginia. 

“Some children are more in sync with your own temperament and perspectives, making them easier to be ‘favoured,’” she said. “And some children are more challenging in personality, so it makes sense you might like one more. Loving is different, of course.”

As most parents will tell you, the title of “favourite” is usually a fluid thing. Your favourite might change daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly. 

Favouritism is less child-based than behaviour-based, experts say. If Henry is in the thick of the terrible twos while Elliott, a 5-year-old, has been bringing his A game to his chores, homework and bed-and-bath routine, you’re naturally going to favor Elliott over Henry, however unconsciously. 

“I play favourites, but my favourite child is always the one who is listening in the moment or goes to sleep the fastest at night,” said Aaronica Cole, a mother of three who runs the blog The Crunchy Mommy. “I have pretty low standards!”

Cole lessens her guilt by reminding herself she’s only human. In the same way she has a favourite bra, T-shirt, movie, food and man (her husband, naturally), every once in a while, she slips and plays favourites with her kids, too. 

“I think we feel guilt about this because as moms, we’re expected to be these perfect people with zero flaws,” Cole told HuffPost in an email. “The truth? We. Are. Humans. Too. It’s important to remember that!”

Having a favourite doesn’t mean that you love them any more or less than your other children. “It just means that they are behaving or embodying something that you favour,” she said. 

“In truth, all of my children are my favourite at some point, [and] they all also get on my nerves at some point,” she added. “Balance.”

How to lessen the negative effects of favoritism 

More often than not, parents have favorites not so much because of a deep appreciation for one particular kid, but because they’re overlooking the good in their other children, according to Duffy. 

“In many families ― mine included ― the rule follower is the most appreciated,” he said. “The child who pushes most against the grain is often least appreciated. If parents could find appreciation and admiration for the other child’s positive qualities, then more equity might be felt between all siblings.”

Monitoring your internal dialogue helps, too. 

“I would advise parents to clarify the difference between favorite child and ‘child I’m drawn to most,’ and why,” Duffy said. “This allows for the unconditional love for each child across the board.” 

If your children talk openly about who’s the favorite, you should address the elephant in the room, said Nancy Burgoyne, a psychologist and vice president of clinical services at the Family Institute at Northwestern University. If the matter goes unaddressed, the stories your children tell themselves about their worth in your eyes can be devastating. 

Choose your words wisely. Burgoyne gave the example of a father of two boys who addressed the situation in a way that was palatable for his young son.

“He started by validating the child’s feelings: ‘I hear you; you feel angry because you think I like your brother more than I like you. Is that right?’” she recalled. “Then he said, ‘Right now, your brother and I are getting along better than you and I are getting along, that’s true. I am sorry if that hurts your feelings. I love you very much and always will.’” 

To get your unfavored child back in good standing, try to acknowledge good behaviour on their part in front of the entire family.

“One way to combat your natural favouritism, in addition to being fair in rules and rewards, is to focus on offering positive praise for behaviours you would like to see more,” Deverich said. “That positive feedback not only bolsters the self-worth of the unfavored child, but it reminds the parent of the good the child has.”

If you still feel guilt, know that even therapists admit they sometimes feel like choosing favourites, even if they don’t let themselves do it.

“I walk my talk here,” Deverich said. “No favourites. It’s all about squelching your  natural impulses.”

NEW DELHI — Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on Friday sent a letter to the Centre recommending Justice S A Bobde, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, as his successor.

Official sources told PTI that Justice Gogoi wrote a letter to the Ministry of Law and Justice recommending Justice Bobde to be the next chief justice.

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Prosecutors in the Roseville murder case in the US, involving an Indian American techie, say that they have found new crime scene in the case. 

Shankar Nagappa Hangud, a 53-year-old, data specialist and resident of Roseville, California is said to have killed four people, two of whom were minors. 

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The murders came to light when Hangud walked into a Northern Carolina police station, along with a dead body in his car on Monday. 

KCRA News reported that the crime scene in Siskiyou County, California is where Hangud killed the man whose body he brought along with him to the police station. 

The report says that while Hangud killed the man on Sunday, he killed a woman and a girl on October 7 and a boy on October 8. The first three murders took place in Hangud’s apartment in Roseville. 

Meanwhile, one of the victims, officials have said could be a middle school student in Roseville. 

Dry Creek Elementary School District Superintendent Brad Tooker was quoted by The Sacramento Bee as saying, “It is with a heavy heart I inform you, pending confirmation from authorities, we believe one of the victims in the Carmel at Woodcreek West apartment complex homicide may have been one of our treasured Silverado Middle School students.”

All four of the victims are related to Hangud, the officials have said, but have not specified how they were related to him. The names of the victims have not been revealed either. 

The Sacramento Bee reported that many students in the school district live in the apartment complex where the crime was committed and even know the student. 

The reports said that Hangud has no criminal history.

The motive of the murder is not known, but The Modesto Bee reported that Hangud’s tax record showed that he faced a federal tax lien of $178,603 from the Internal Revenue Service this year.

KARGIL, Ladakh — “The Modi government has put us on thorns,” said Ahmed Hussain, as he opened seven gunny bags filled to the brim with dried apricots, his entire produce for this year. 

“What message do I have for Prime Minister Narendra Modi?  Nothing. We have received his message loud and clear for the past 72 days,” said the 61-year-old apricot farmer from Hardass village in Ladakh’s Kargil district, earlier this week. 

Ahmed is angry because he had no chance of selling any of the dried apricots—the main source of his livelihood—after the Narendra Modi government unexpectedly revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&K) special constitutional status on 5 August.

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The government also severed Ladakh from J&K and made them Union Territories. While mobile phone services and the internet were blocked in the Muslim majority Kashmir Valley, mobile phone connectivity and broadband internet were quickly restored in Ladakh, where the majority Buddhist population welcomed the break from J&K. 

Caught between the severe restrictions, the shutdown orchestrated by angry traders and transporters in Kashmir, and retaliation from militants, are those like Ahmed, for whom conducting any kind of business has become incredibly hard, even when they need the money. 

“I have not sold anything this year,” he said. “I’ve taken loans and I owe money to a lot of people.”

While much has been written about the woes of the apple farmers  of Kashmir following the abrogation of Article 370, the plight of the apricot farmers of Kargil has received little attention from the media, the public or the government.

Government officials in Kargil told HuffPost India that an estimated 800 metric tonnes of dry apricot were transported to Kashmir last year. According to Haji Zaffar, the chief horticulture officer of Kargil, the revenue from the dried apricots was Rs32 crore in 2018. 

Dried apricots are sold at the rate of Rs 400 per kg.

In August, a couple of weeks after Article 370 was abrogated, public broadcaster Doordarshan had reported that Kargil’s apricot farmers were expecting a “better tomorrow”, but what’s happening on the ground is just the opposite.

“This year, the sales are zero,” said Zaffar, matter-of-factly.

The window for these farmer — mostly Shia Muslims —  to make any sales this year is closing fast. Unlike the apple farmers of Kashmir, who have markets beyond J&K, Kashmir is the only market for the dried apricots of Kargil (other than the little sold within Kargil and sent to Leh, the capital of Ladakh).

But Kargil, which is home to mostly Shia Muslims, and Leh, which is predominantly Buddhist, have small populations of approximately 1,41,000 and 1,33,000 respectively. 

Transporting dried apricots from Kargil to Kashmir involves trucks crossing the treacherous Zoji La pass — the only land route connecting J&K and Ladakh —  located at at a staggering 15,649 feet above sea level. 

Even this sole pass will be buried under snow in another month, and impossible to cross until April next year. 

‘We are Indians too’

Hardass village, located about three kilometres from the Line of Control separating Ladakh from Pakistan occupied Gilgit-Baltistan province, is already preparing to be cut off from the rest of the world for the isolating six months of winter. 

The 330 families of the village are no strangers to hard times. Almost all of them had to flee when their village was shelled during the Kargil war in 1999. 

But this year, the villagers of Hardass, which was declared the “apricot village” of Kargil by former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti in 2016, are devastated not only by their “total loss,” but how little Indians and the Indian government seems to care. 

Ghulam Mohammed, the chief of Hardass village, said, “The losses suffered by the apple farmers of Kashmir received so much media attention, but no one noticed how we were suffering.” 

“We are far away and isolated, but we are Indian citizens as much as anyone else. It is the duty of the Indian government to care for us. So far, no one has come to even come to ask after us,” he said. 

There are an estimated 5,000 apricot farming families in Kargil. 

‘Winter is coming’ 

Last year, Hussain earned Rs 2,70,000 from selling 600 kg of dried apricots in Kashmir.

Anticipating similar sales this year, Hussain embarked on an ambitious project to build his family a new house before the winter sets in.

Now, Hussain is racing against time to finish the building the house, but he has no money to pay for the construction material and the labour that he has hired. 

“I’ve borrowed money from a lot of people. I’m in a lot of debt,” he said. 

Hussain, who lives with his wife, his son and daughter, his son’s wife, and two grandchildren, says that he has run out of his savings. His son, who works as a porter with Indian army, earns Rs 3,000-4,000 every month. 

“Soon, I will be in debt to the grocer as well,” he said. “Winter is coming and we are not ready.” 

More isolation after UT

The demotion of Ladakh to a Union Territory, that too without a state assembly, means less political representation for its people.

Before 5 August, Ladakh sent two state lawmakers to the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, who were also part of the state cabinet. Now, the UT will only have one member in Parliament. 

The residents of Kargil, mostly Shia Muslims, have two long-standing demands from the Indian government: better connectivity to India, and boosting markets for their apricot production. 

Unlike Leh, Kargil has no air connectivity. Residents are connected to J&K only through the Zoji La pass or they must drive over 235 km to Leh to catch a flight to Delhi. 

With less representation, the residents of Kargil fear further isolation.

No love for Kargil’s apricot farmers 

Dried apricot is only a small percentage of the total produce of apricots harvested in Kargil, every year.

M. Mehdi, a scientist who heads the Krishi Vigyan Kendra in Kargil, told HuffPost India that Kargil produced 9,000 metric tonnes of fresh apricot last year, but only a small percentage is the Halman variety, which is the “dry type” that is exported to Kashmir.

Farmers and officials in Kargil say there has been a ban on exporting apples and apricot since the codling moth entered Ladakh from the Gilgit-Baltistan province in the seventies and infected its fruit. 

For years now, farmers and officials in Kargil have called on the Indian government to depute experts to reinvestigate and withdraw the ban.  

“We have sent letters saying remove the ban on apricots. Apricots are our main economy,” said Mehdi. 

Successive Indian governments have paid little heed to the demands from Kargil. 

The extent of disinterest, officials say, can be gauged from the fact that a separate Department of Horticulture And Marketing has been established but barely functions.  

In fact, officials and farmers say the apricot that is sold in Jammu and in mainland India is imported from countries like Iran and Turkey, while they don’t have the resources and know-how to sell their produce beyond Kashmir. 

“We don’t have the drying and packaging techniques like they have in Iran and Turkey,” said Mehdi. “Why is the government not giving us with expertise or sending scientists to learn from Iran and Turkey?”

Mehdi says that there are at least 31 varieties of apricots in Kashmir, but apart from the Helman variety, the rest are dying because farmers are only producing what they can sell in Kashmir. 

“The different varieties of apricots are getting extinct because of this ban,” he said. 

No help from the Indian government 

Government officials say that since the farmers sell dry apricots, this year’s produce — unlike the apples of Kashmir — will not spoil. 

There is still time to avert a “total loss,” they say. 

But Fayaz Ahmed, a contractor in Kargil who sells the dry apricots to bigger contractors in Kashmir, says there is little chance of recovery. 

Even as the Kashmir administration restored post-paid mobile phones on Monday, the onset of winter coupled with the danger posed by militants and the economic slowdown in Kashmir makes it hard to conduct business. 

Earlier this week, a truck driver who was transporting apples was shot dead in the militant-heavy town of Shopian in Kashmir. 

Ahmed, who estimates he sent 10.5 tonnes of dry apricots to Kashmir in 2018, said that he is afraid of retaliation if he sends trucks to Kashmir. 

Noting that the wedding season in Kashmir is also almost over, Ahmed said, “I will call a few people in the next few days but the time has passed. Honestly, nothing can be done this year.”

Following the media attention around the apple harvest, the Modi government offered to buy apples from Kashmiri farmers through the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation. 

Officials in Kargil say there is no scheme for apricot farmers in the offing.

“There is no plan that we have heard of,” said Zafar, the chief horticulture officer in Kargil. 

Even if the apricot farmers manage to sell some produce, Zafar acknowledged this was a “big loss” for Kargil. 

“Definitely, you can say that,” he said.

Kozhikode, KERALA: Close on the heels of Tamil filmmaker K.P. Selvah, who filed a petition with Madras High Court requesting an interim stay on the Vijay and Nayanthara starrer-Tamil filmBigil, a Hyderabad based filmmaker, Nandi Chinni Kumar, has approached the Telangana Cinema Writers Association accusing the film’s makers of “copyright infringement”. 

While Selvah had approached the Madras HC earlier this month with allegations that the film’s story resembles his 256-page long script registered with the South Indian Film Writers Association, Nandi Kumar filed his complaint on October 16. 

As per Kumar’s complaint, Bigil, which was first named Thalapathy 63, has “striking similarities” with the life story of slum football (soccer) player Akhilesh Paul. Kumar had acquired the “exclusive copyrights” of Paul’s biography in 2018, the complaint notes. 

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The rights, story and script of Kumar’s feature film based on Paul’s life was registered with the same association on 7 July, 2018, the complaint claims. According to the complaint, Kumar had acquired the rights to make the feature film in all languages. 

Bigil is expected to be Vijay’s big Diwali release, later this month. A dubbed version of the film titled Whistle is expected to be released simultaneously. 

As per Kumar’s complaint, he had pitched the story and script to “major film studios and production companies in Bollywood and Tollywood listing copyright of Akhilesh Paul”. Paul is a football player who has been coaching children and adults living in slums. He himself was a slum-dweller and a notorious thug until he took up football. His story was featured in an episode of Satyameva Jayate, hosted by Bollywood actor Aamir Khan. 

In his complaint, Kumar writes that he noticed similarities in the script when the Bigil production team released “poster, teaser and trailers” this month. The lead character, played by Vijay in Bigil, is a “soccer player who is also a don/gangster”, notes the complaint. The film is set in slums and the trailers depict the lead character as a person who trains women in football even as he himself plays matches, the complaint alleges. These depictions have “cleared the doubts and ascertained copyright infringement”, stated the complaint.

As per the complaint, the tagline of Kumar’s film with detailed description of his story is available online. One of the taglines mentioned in the complaint reads, “Don/gangster turning to soccer player, later becoming Indian soccer team captain and plays for homeland world cup and slum soccer world cup”. In 2018, major news dailies had also covered the news of Kumar acquiring the rights to Paul’s life story, the complaint notes. 

The complaint also makes a reference to Selvah’s petition, which was filed in the Madras High Court. “Atlee and Vijay are accused of several counts of plagiarism and copyright infringement in the past…K P Selvah, writer and director is fighting a plagiarism complaint,” the complaint copy reads. 

Speaking to HuffPost India, Nandi Kumar alleged, “I tried contacting the film’s production team, including the director Atlee, numerous times. They did not respond. I was forced to lodge the complaint with the writers association.” 

Kumar who has made a few short films earlier, was hoping to debut as a writer and director with his film based on Akhilesh Paul’s life. 

In the complaint, Kumar has demanded an “immediate explanation” from the makers of Bigil. The complaint also cautions the makers that Kumar may issue a “notice of ‘cease and desist’” and demand that he be compensated for copyright infringement. 

The complaint addresses Bigil’s writer and director Atlee, the production company, AGS Entertainment and Mahesh Koneru, producer of East Coast Production, which produced the dubbed version in Telugu. 

Telangana Cinema Writers Association has registered the complaint and is expected to issue notices to Bigil’s makers. 

Bigil was made on a budget of Rs 180 crore.

It was after an exhausting day filming a music video titled Alpha Female about women skateboarders that filmmaker Sasha Rainbow and her crew spotted Kamali, then a 7-year-old, who zoomed up and down the skateboarding ramp with the effortless ease of a pro. At that point, Rainbow and her team were filming in Bangalore.

Rainbow immediately knew there was a story there. The Kiwi filmmaker wanted to find out more about her and learnt that Kamali came from Mahabalipuram, a coastal town in Tamil Nadu. 

Soon enough, Rainbow and her crew were on their way to the fishing village to film a documentary on Kamali. The linguistic barrier was an obvious challenge, so the director relied heavily on translators. But Kamali’s energy, the director says, transcended cultural obstacles. 

“On Day 1 of the shoot, we saw Kamali, who was as tall as her skateboard. She had this magical energy which lit up the entire room. Before we knew it, she was going up and down the ramp. It was such an electrifying moment,” Rainbow recalls, in a phone conversation from Los Angeles.

The film has already won Best Short Documentary at the Academy Award-qualifying Atlanta Film Festival, Best Director at Mumbai Shorts International Film Festival and was also screened at Palm Springs International ShortFest and the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne.

What moved the filmmaker the most was Kamali’s mother’s commitment to empower her daughter through sport. She saw it as a means to improve their life, instead of a juvenile distraction. As a result of a foreign crew shooting a film on her life, many young girls in Kamali’s village have found encouragement to take up the sport, which doesn’t have robust infrastructure even in big Indian cities.

As a white woman making a film on a brown girl from a poor socioeconomic background, Rainbow says she was conscious of her privilege. But how did she ensure that the camera’s gaze doesn’t turn exploitative?

“I was very clear that I want to celebrate Kamali’s life and not focus on how little they have. My past two documentaries also focus on people from impoverished backgrounds and that training helped in giving the film an empowering narrative,” says Rainbow, who started with shooting music videos as her then boyfriend was a musician. 

That she belongs to a family of immigrants herself — her grandfather was a prisoner of war, who fled from the Soviet Union and settled in New Zealand—and has witnessed the hardships that go into raising a family intimately also helped in giving the film a rare sensitivity.

“I was always fascinated with the camera. I was gifted one for my 16th birthday and I’d often film my university years on it. So making films full-time feels like a natural progression,” Rainbow says.

What does she hope the film will change for Kamali?

“They still live a hand-to-mouth existence so we’re hoping to set a scholarship programme which will enable her to complete her education,” Rainbow says. 

Plans are also afoot to install better infrastructure for skateboarding in Kamali’s village. “Kamali actually teaches other kids skateboarding. But if she needs to go big, she needs better infrastructure. We’re figuring out how to make that happen.”

Recently, after seeing the film, a sports brand flew Kamali to China to watch a skateboarding championship. It was her first trip abroad and Kamali was overwhelmed. “These are the little changes that have happened in Kamali’s life. I’m most moved by her mother, Suganthi, who’s trying so hard, so much to change her daughter’s life.”

‘Kamali’ is being distributed by RYOT Films in partnership with HuffPost, and will be exclusively released on HuffPost India on 20 October.

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Two astronauts are making history as they become the first ever all-female team to conduct a space walk. 

Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, both Nasa astronauts, are carrying out a spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS) in order to replace a faulty battery weighing 105.2kg.

In the process they will become the first female-only team to spacewalk, 54 years since Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov first stepped into space. 

Nasa are live-streaming the historic event – which has taken on an even greater significance in the wake of a widely-reported spacesuit sizing issue earlier this year. 

Koch and fellow astronaut Anne McClain were primed to undertake the first ever all-female EVA (extravehicular activity) in March, but it was called off when it became apparent there wasn’t enough time to get a second medium-sized spacesuit ready to fit the two women. 

All of Nasa’s astronauts aboard the station are equipped to carry out the task of replacing the enormous battery, CBS reported, however Koch and Meir were selected to set foot outside the station together. 

While Koch has undertaken three previous spacewalks, it will be Meir’s first ever excursion outside the station, and the 221st in the history of the International Space Station. 

Electrical engineer Koch has been living aboard the station since March, iNews reported, whilst Meir, a marine biologist, joined the crew in September. Both are members of NASA’s Astronaut Class of 2013. 

Koch is set to break another record during her time aboard the station – with an expected stay of 328 days she will set the precedent for the longest single spaceflight by a woman. 

Viewers watching the livestream will be able to differentiate Koch and Meir by the differences in their space suits – Koch’s will have red stripes, whilst Meir’s is unmarked.  

The mission is expected to last five-and-a half hours, and if time allows, the astronauts will not only replace the battery but will also adjust insulation around parts of the station, route an ethernet cable, and install a new fitting onto the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory module. 

The astronauts themselves may be treating Friday’s mission as little more a maintenance trip, but the world will be watching as they step out into space. 

The pair have been wished well by a number of leading scientists and astronauts past and present, including the UK’s Tim Peake who spent six months at the station after launching in December 2015. 

During a visit back home in Kerala, an Army man pulls up drug peddlers, rescues children from a school bus dangling from a bridge, delivers patriotic speeches at a school and also solves the problem of burnt biryani at a wedding. Maybe this would work better as a PR exercise for the Indian Army. But debutant director Swapnesh K. Nair decided to turn it into a full-length feature film, dotted with cliched, half-baked characters and events in a narrative that can at best be termed pointless.

The film opens to a voice-over about a village called Edakkad and its occupants and they all sound excruciatingly dreary. The hero, Shafeeq Muhammed (Tovino Thomas looks beefy but bored), is introduced during a local temple festival where he is taking part in a century-old custom. Then it meanders to the people linked to him—the mother who is a panchayat member, father who has almost retired from cooking biryani, a friend who runs a small grocery store, a sister who has cleared police selection and a brother-in-law who runs a school. 

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P. Balachandran’s writing is inconsistent—you only get passing mentions of characters who, at times, seem progressive. So the inclusion of the sister who gets a police selection is just an opening for her brother Shafeeq to launch into a patriotic rant about the army. We don’t follow that story after that. The mother is also just a skeletal sketch—liberal, independent woman who considers her son and daughter to be equal. The father’s character is confusing and abrupt and also gets a needlessly dramatic scene that ends up as silly. He cooks biryani at a wedding but burns the dish and when the son bails him out by replacing it with hotel biryani, the father reacts in anger and talks about getting “humiliated at the hands of his son”. When his friend’s sister is caught taking drugs, Shafeeq, the duty-bound army officer, opts to keep quiet initially and even later, we aren’t told how she came out of it. The grandmother is another bizarre character, who agrees to betray her grandson for a packet of beedi.   

We are unable to invest in a single character, including the main lead. When a father (Sudheesh who is getting typecast) beats his pot-smoking son black and blue in the police station, or sheds a tear wishing his son would be a better human being, you remain unmoved. 

The lead character’s role doesn’t stretch beyond his good Samaritan act. So his romance with schoolteacher Naina (Samyuktha Menon) just comes across as starchy, with a preposterous romantic stretch in Kashmir in between.

The bad guys are a bunch of impoverished lads who mostly get to say terrible lines and sit on a rundown bridge over a tunnel and smoke pot. Forget menacing, they just seem like they urgently need a shower and a trim.

At some point the film drifts into an exhausting docu-drama but since that will lead to spoilers, let’s leave it at that. All’s well that ends well as the bad guys finally get a haircut, fresh clothes and an army badge.

While the heat and bustle of the election campaign was going on in Maharashtra, former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan was quietly busy, campaigning in his assembly segment Karad, in Satara district in the western part of the state. Chavan’s tenure as chief minister was an eventful one, with the fissures between the Congress and ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) deepening. Chavan was accused of targeting his own ally. Eventually, that led to the fall of his government and the end of the alliance with the NCP just before the election.

Since the 2014 election, which brought the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government to the helm, the Congress has sunk to new lows in the state once considered its bastion. While Fadnavis, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray have already crisscrossed the state with multiple yatras, Congress leaders are barely visible, having confined themselves to their own regions and constituencies. 

In an exclusive interview with HuffPost India, Chavan, who was also the minister of state in the PMO during the Manmohan Singh government, claimed that he was aware that Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, the Congress party’s leader of opposition in Maharashtra assembly who recently joined the BJP, was comprised from “Day 1” and that he had warned both Sonia and Rahul Gandhi about him.

Chavan also spoke extensively on the problems with the NCP leaders, whether there is a possibility of an NCP-Congress merger and why he refused to contest the Lok Sabha by-election from Satara seat despite an open invite from Sharad Pawar.

Edited excerpts:

You are the former Chief Minister of this state. You are also among the star campaigners of the Congress. Why have you kept yourself restricted to your own constituency only and why have you not been travelling to other parts of the state for campaigning?

First of all, you must understand the manipulation of BJP. They set the election dates in such a way that the Durga festival and Kojagiri Purnima fell right at the beginning of the campaign. The Durga festival is a big thing here. In this city of a voting base of around 60,00, there are 265 Durga Mandals set up by youth groups. Every youth group wants you to visit them, then there is aarti. In one evening, you have to visit about 10-20 mondals. The entire time is masked out by this religious fervor and there is a deliberate attempt to create a Hindutva atmosphere in the area. Very little (campaigning) is possible except morning meetings. So in this entire six-day period, nobody was willing to do any public meetings. Due to the returning monsoon, even the evening meetings, which we attempted, were washed out. The campaign actually began only three days back. This was a deliberate plan because last time, the code of conduct kicked in on 12th September. This time they have delayed it by 11 days, just to factor in the Durga Puja. But that’s fine. We utilised that time to make personal contacts. Nobody was willing to take any public meeting at that time (during the Durga festival), nobody traveled. Mr. Sharad Pawar was traveling—he is not contesting, but all of us are. Yesterday I went to Mumbai for the first time, but then there are constraints of helicopters as I have to travel back by night. I have some invitations for campaigning, particularly in my area. We are not traveling across the state. We have only taken regional responsibility.  I will be touching Pune, Sangli, and Kolhapur if they want, depending on the candidate’s need. Just to say why am I not crisscrossing the state, that’s not right. Even Ashok Chavan and Sushilkumar Shinde are primarily focused on their regions. That’s very clear this time and everybody is contesting elections, so the majority of the time will be spent in the constituencies or nearby. Here (in Satara), we are also contesting Lok Sabha (by-election). So my assembly segment being one of the six, others are also important. So I am covering those areas which are outside my constituency, so it’s basically a regional focus.

Doesn’t this indicate that the Congress is facing a tough election this time

Look at BJP leaders as well. Chandrakant Patil is their chief ministerial candidate but he is stuck in his constituency in Pune, where else has he gone? Mungantiwar (Finance Minister), where has he gone (outside his constituency)?  Except for the CM, none of the BJP ministers are traveling anywhere. This is a highly localised election. There is no state-level issue. We are trying to make the economy, farm distress and joblessness a state-level issue but they are trying to shift it back to (Article) 370. But the economy is in a mess. The CM has not delivered on any of his promises. If things continue the way they are, the nation will face a serious crisis. The media is not covering us. The observers must understand that the election process has moved on. We never had such a massive impact of social media on every single voter. Big rallies are becoming only a television spectacle… The time of large public meetings is over, even the candidates don’t want it because of expenditure limits and all. One can draw conclusions about the Congress party’s campaign if you want. Yes, the fund crunch is there. In advertisement and hoardings, we have been outspent by the government and the ruling party, which is a fact. But there is a groundswell current (against the government) that you must sense.

Why did you not contest the Satara Lok Sabha election? Your name was being considered from this seat.

There was a suggestion. This Lok Sabha seat is with the NCP. The NCP’s incumbent MP deserted them. Mr. Pawar himself called me saying they are willing to give this seat to the Congress provided I contest. I said I will have to discuss it with my leadership and my people in Karad. He said he will call Mrs. (Sonia) Gandhi and then Mrs.Gandhi called me and I went to Delhi. We had extensive discussions. I discussed it with my people and they were very reluctant. There was even a violent protest and they told me ‘Don’t leave us’. Then I discussed the other five assembly segments where I had not campaigned for the last 20 years. They were generally favourable and there was huge anti-incumbency against the MP who had recently quit. There was a feeling of betrayal and anger because he had suddenly left. The Satara Lok Sabha election, I think, is over as everybody has decided what to do. The campaign is just a formality now. It is not difficult to win that. But I could not have left my people.

When you were made Maharashtra CM, there was this belief that you have been sent to rein in the NCP. Even the bank scam in which Ajit Pawar and Sharad Pawar have been named was first investigated under your tenure as the CM...

That was propaganda and I didn’t pay much attention to it. When I took over as the chief minister in November of 2010, the then governor of  RBI Raghuram Rajan came to meet me. He told me there is a problem with your apex cooperative bank. Its the mother bank of all cooperative banks. I said I will look into it. Two days later, there was a meeting between some of my ministers and the RBI officials who dealt with cooperative banks in March 2011. The RBI officials told me that your apex bank is working for the last 50 years without a banking licence. Then I said, we will apply for the license. Then he said that licence can’t be granted because the bank was in Rs1,100 crore loss. That bank has directors from every district of Maharashtra and people belonging to all parties. There were very light regulations by the government and the RBI, which led to a huge loss. The RBI gave us two options. First, to let it work as a credit society and not as a bank and second, to merge it with the Gujarat State Cooperative Bank, which would have been political suicide. I said that’s not possible and this bank has to be saved. The RBI said that the only option is to supersede the board and to appoint administrators to bring it back to health. They issued a letter immediately. I appointed two secretaries (as administrators), one was working with Ajit Pawar and the other was working with the cooperative department.  That event was read as an attack by me on NCP’s powerbase. Was there a problem with the bank? Yes, and there was a need to nurse it back to health which I would do again. Everybody knew that it was NCP’s powerbase and an inference was drawn that I, the new chief minister, was sent from Delhi directly to control NCP, which was unfortunate. There was no political vendetta, but perception is there and I am very sorry about it. But these two administrators I had appointed, nursed the bank to health and the bank reported a profit of Rs 700 crore in three years. The bank is very healthy today. I did not even order an inquiry.

But there was Lavasa also.

In the Lavasa issue, there was clear irregularity which (the matter) was being controlled by Jairam Ramesh (the then environment minister). I had nothing to do with it. But an impression was created that Mrs.Gandhi particularly directed all forces to control NCP which was not true at all. Did Lavasa violate, it did.  So should we have looked the other way or let the law take its own course? This was the Lavasa story.

What about the irrigation scam? You asked for the white paper.

When I took over as CM, I reviewed the delayed (irrigation) projects. One project, the Gosikhurd project in Nagpur, was inaugurated by Rajiv Gandhi. The project cost was Rs 384 crore, to be concluded in five years, but it had escalated to Rs 16,000 crore and it was still pending. I asked the people what was happening. They were mum. I  looked at a couple more cases and asked for a status report of all incomplete irrigation projects. I used the word ’white paper’. A white paper is nothing but communication from government to people. But unfortunately, the white paper has a connotation of an inquiry of sorts here in Maharashtra, which was wrong. It was perceived that I was targeting Ajit Pawar because he was the irrigation minister at that time. Not at all. I was coming from Manmohan Singh culture and they said that I was targeting. The white paper was an excellent document. But these two-three incidents caused NCP to pull my government down last time and we fought election separately.

In the run-up to this election, the CM crisscrossed the state in his Maha Janadesh Yatra, Aaditya Thackeray also traveled and so did Sharad Pawar and NCP leaders. Why was the Congress missing from the action? It looks like NCP is fighting this election and not the Congress.

No. Nana Patole, our agriculture unit chief, took out a yatra in Vidarbha and Marathwada. Before that, we had organised Sangharsh Yatra. We organized many such events and we forced the government to sanction the farm loan waiver. It was not that we were absent. The main problem was our leader of the opposition (in the state assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil) appeared to be compromised from Day 1. We should have replaced him but it didn’t happen.  So our floor coordination in the assembly was not perfect and we could not make an impact inside the house, particularly in corruption cases, plenty of them. Therefore an impression was created that this chief minister is clean and that there are no charges against him. But there was a conspiracy, which we fell prey to. We complained to high command about it.

Are you saying you had an idea that the leader of the opposition was compromised?

I had personally told the Delhi leadership that he must not continue.

Did you tell Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi?

Both. The newspaper articles were there, his inviting the CM for programs and all. The leader of the opposition never does that.

You are one of the prominent leaders of the Congress party nationally. What do you think led to this decline of the Congress? You are losing back-to-back elections.

There is a leadership crisis. The Delhi leadership crisis was very unfortunate. We should have resolved it earlier, I hope it will be resolved soon. Mr.Rahul Gandhi did come to address public meetings here. Others will also come.  

Has the “Syndicate” (CWC) in Congress got anything to do with this crisis the party is facing? Even Rahul Gandhi was overturned by this ‘syndicate’ in some instances. Some of the candidates pushed for by him were replaced by some CWC members who themselves do not have any electoral merit. 

That’s not true at all. What about the young people who were selected? Did they win? To say that after a particular age, your electoral winnability reduces is silly. A combined trust is very, very valuable in a political party. Unfortunately, perception went that there is this young-versus-old divide (in the party). That was not true at all. Neither the old nor the new leadership wanted to create that kind of perception.

But organisationally, there has been no change even after the debacle in the 2019 Lok Sabha. The same district leaders, who were rejected by people, are contesting elections.

It is not easy to replace them immediately. There are already voids in many districts where people have left. And it is not easy to find a person to work at the organizational level. We have a problem. Both NCP and Congress have been physically damaged under this Congress-Mukt plan of Amit Shah. Because they can’t answer us on performance.  If you want to debate with the CM on performance, he won’t do it.  If you ask New Delhi about the economy, they won’t answer. In the Maharashtra election, they are singing the Article 370 tune. They want to avoid discussion on real issues.

Why is the opposition failing to raise issues like the economic crisis? Why is the ruling party dominating the narrative?

After all, it’s the government. The government has all the media support, muscle power and money power. They are trying to set the agenda but we are not letting them succeed. This election is being fought constituency by constituency. 

You said this election is being fought at the local level. But some of your candidates this time had lost deposits in the last election. Those who could not win municipal elections have been given the ticket to contest this assembly election. The same people are being repeated despite back-to-back losses. Why should the people vote for them? Is there any disconnect between the ground level and the people who are deciding on tickets?

Last time, when we contested election separately, 125 people were fielded who had never contested an election in their lives. All of them lost. The point is there is no fixed formula that if you give the ticket to a young person, he will win and an old one will lose. In certain cases, there are some caste equations and ground realities that you can’t defy. There are attempts to field fresh faces but most often that doesn’t work. That person becomes a senior leader five years later. So to say ‘don’t give the ticket to him because he lost the last election’, that’s not correct. You need to fight a couple of elections before people start accepting you as an electable leader.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 33 out of 48 tickets were given to candidates from dominant communities by Congress-NCP. The BJP seems to be utilising the non-dominant OBC and non-dominant SC communities extremely well. But you people are trodding the same old path. Your party chief in Maharashtra also comes from a dominant community and so do most senior leaders.

BJP’s state chief is a Maratha. Maratha is a fairly large single community, about 30 to 35 % (of the state’s population). The next big community by population is about 7 to 8 % of the state’s population and OBC communities are only about 1 and 2 %. If OBC communities had been united as one block, then you could have said give tickets to them. Very rarely does a micro minority leader emerges as a state leader. Mr. Munde (Gopinath Munde) and Mr. Bhujbal (Chhagan Bhujbal) did emerge, but these are very rare examples. Mechanical solutions to politics don’t work. Maratha community is divided into all four parties. It’s not united. Had they been united behind one party, that party would have swept the polls. OBCs and Dalits are not united. Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi created a lot of problems last time.

Has the process of Congress’s revival begun? When do you expect to see your party in a powerful position again?

Mrs. Indira Gandhi lost the election but came out of it. BJP had only two MPs at one time but they also revived. The Indian electorate has a tendency to go from this extreme to that extreme and I hope people will choose Congress party in state elections because state issues are involved here. Just like Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where people threw out a strong dominant BJP and gave Congress party the mandate. Even in Andhra and Orissa, people chose non-BJP parties. Even Jagan’s party is Congress’s offshoot. There was a call by Mr. Shinde (Sushilkumar Shinde) that NCP and Congress should merge, which was more like wishful thinking and hope.

Do you agree with Mr.Shinde?

The issue behind NCP and Congress’s split was the issue of leadership. Unless the question of leadership is resolved as to who would lead the combined party in the state and what will be the role of NCP leaders in Delhi, unless that is resolved in a drawing-room, this question (of NCP Congress merger) is completely irrelevant. Because the entire reason for the split was the personal ambition of leadership. It had nothing to do with ideology. We are ideologically one. In this election, we worked together as if we are one party. Except there are different leaders.

How do you evaluate Fandavis’s government performance in the past five years?

Actually we had great hopes because, after almost 30 years, this was the most powerful office of the chief minister because it did not have a deputy CM. All the important portfolios like home were with him. This happened after 1991. If he had really delivered, we would have nothing to say about it. Let us take infrastructure. Not a single infrastructure item, which I had conceived, planned and taken initial steps about, began or was completed (during Fadnavis’s term). Our government launched Mumbai Metro 1 and I laid the foundation of Mumbai Metro 3. Five years and nothing has happened. Nothing happened with the projects like Trans-harbor link, Mumbai coastal road, Navi Mumbai airport, MIHAN (Multi-modal International Cargo Hub and Airport at Nagpur), Nagpur International Airport, second airport for Pune. Not a single public sector industry has come. I had laid the foundations of two public sector industries of Rs 4,000 crore, nothing has happened. He only makes slogans. I have been asking him details of which project has come to which district and investment. He has not given it. He claims the state is getting the highest FDI. Where is it? In sky? Nothing has happened. His dream project Samruddhi Expressway. What has happened?... It’s a very shocking state of affairs. They want a one-party rule so that nobody questions them. They want to destroy the Constitution. But we will fight back. The Congress party is too big a ship to sink.

It would be a travesty if Shastri’s contribution was looked at only in terms of his record as a spin bowler, for within a year of coming into the team, he was establishing himself as an all-rounder of quality alongside Kapil Dev.

Wisden wrote about him a couple of years after his debut: ‘His calm, sensible batting lower in the order raised promise of his developing into a useful all-rounder, and his fielding too was an asset.’ They were not wrong. By the time Shastri laid down his bat, of batsmen who have played 10 Test innings against Australia, only Eddie Paynter averaged more than Shastri’s 77.75.

Grit and determination were the overriding characters that made up Ravi Shastri. Less than two years on from his debut, Shastri found himself opening the batting against England at the Oval in 1982 after Pranab Roy and Ghulam Parkar had both been tried and failed. He scored 66. As Partab Ramchand points out, ‘Shastri might not have cut a dashing figure on the field as he pushed and prodded and grafted his way for runs, (but) no one could deny his immense value to the side, his commitment to the team’s cause and his consistency had to be admired. He very rarely let the country down and was an excellent utility cricketer.’

Forced to open for the second time in his career in the final Test against Pakistan at Karachi later that year (he was injured at the start of the tour and could not play before), he scored a gritty century against Imran Khan at his fearsome peak.

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Shastri recalls what transpired then: ‘I had five stitches on my webbing. I had not held a bat for almost three weeks. Sunny (Gavaskar) came and asked me, “How’s that webbing doing, when are the stitches coming off ?” I said, “Tomorrow.” He said, “Then I’d like you to play, and I’d like you to open with me.” His words sent an electric current through me. Here was my captain and one of the greatest batsmen of all time showing so much faith in my ability. Pakistan had bowlers like Imran, Sarfraz (Nawaz), (Abdul) Qadir. It really picked me up and made me think, ”Wow, this is a real challenge.” We had, of course, already lost the series by then. I told myself if I can get 40 or 50 and prove myself, it might help my confidence. Well, that 128 changed my career.’

He then got his second century against the West Indies at Antigua. In late 1984, he continued his good form with the bat against Pakistan saving India from defeat in Lahore with batting alongside Amarnath, then scoring 139 at Faisalabad. With almost 7,000 runs in his international career including 15 centuries (11 in Tests and 4 in ODI), and a Test average of 35.79, Shastri can well be said to have favourably followed in the footsteps of Vinoo Mankad as India’s second left-arm spinning all-rounder.

It is a pity that despite his sharp analytical mind and never-say-die attitude, India were deprived of the services of Shastri the captain. He was the perennial captain-in-waiting while his colleagues had the honour of leading their country. In the only Test that he captained (by default) against the West Indies in 1987-88, he picked Narendra Hirwani to make his debut against the world’s leading side. India not only won the Test match under his leadership but Shastri must also be given due credit for handling the prodigious young leg-spinner adroitly on a turning track that enabled him to pick up a phenomenal 16 wickets on debut. Sadly, his indifferent form and the fact that his off-field activities and attitude on and off it was not always appreciated by the powers that be, meant that he never captained India again. 

In his forthright manner he would admit years later about his failings that let him down on occasion: ‘I might have got complacent, I might have gotten too big for my boots, I might have relaxed a bit. The game can bring you down very quickly but it can also pick you up if you have the self-belief and you’re prepared to put in the hard yards.’

And when asked about whether it bothered him that he just had one chance at the top job in Indian cricket, he said: ‘I was asked to do a job, to lead against West Indies, and I did my job. In hindsight, probably if I’d been given a run for two or three years, there would have been a different story to tell. But who is to say what story it would have been.’

A Career Beyond the 22 Yards

At the age of thirty-two, plagued by a knee injury, Ravi Shastri decided not to prolong his career on the field and announced his retirement from international cricket. He then became the youngest Indian cricketer to walk into the commentary box to start what would turn out to be a brilliant second career. His would be an example that many of his peers and successors would follow as cricket viewership in India moved from the stands to TV sets and Ravi Shastri’s voice and astute commentary became a part of every household’s prime time
cricket viewing.

There was, however, yet another career that he was destined to have. In 2007 after India’s shock exit from the World Cup, Shastri became the interim coach for the series against Bangladesh which India won. Then, seven years later, with Indian cricket once again in the doldrums and coach Duncan Fletcher proving grossly ineffective, the board (as they were presumably unwilling to take on the costs of breaking Fletcher’s contract and hence did not fire him), once again turned to Ravi Shastri. Over a one-year period as ‘team director’ working alongside Fletcher, Shastri helped turn around the fortunes of the cricket team as it was transitioning to the leadership of Virat Kohli from that of M.S. Dhoni.

When Fletcher’s term ended, the BCCI appointed the ‘troika’ of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and V.V.S. Laxman to choose the new head coach of the Indian team. From an illustrious initial list of candidates, it finally came down to a face-off between Anil Kumble and Ravi Shastri, two equally committed men with contrasting styles. In what was an apparent resurfacing of Shastri’s occasional bouts of complacency, he decided not to interrupt his vacation and show up personally for the selection or perhaps it was the result of his past run-ins with those in charge of the process. Whatever be the truth, Anil Kumble was given the job.

Exactly one extremely successful year at the helm later, a public spat broke out between coach Kumble and captain Kohli regarding differences in how the team should be run. Anil Kumble tendered his resignation and Ravi Shastri was appointed head coach of the Indian cricket team.

At the time of writing this book, India has had the longest run at the top of the Test rankings in its history and it has just become the first Asian team to beat Australia in Australia, seventy-one years after the first Indian tour down under in
1947-48. The team is doing well in the ODI format as well with hopes of a third World Cup in the hearts of fans and all signs point to a long run at the helm for the man who famously commented to a reporter while applying for the job of head coach: ’When the moment is important, Ravi Shastri is the last one to back away. So if you are asking if my hat is in the ring, it is in there. May be three hats.’

Whatever his detractors may say, Ravi Jayadritha Shastri continues to punch above his weight.

Excerpted with permission from Wizards: The Story of Indian Spin Bowling by Anindya Dutta, Westland Sport.

It’s only Day 1 and the 2019 edition of the Mumbai Film Festival is surpassing expectations.

No, I don’t mean it in the context of the line-up (which it has), but in terms of the logistics. The ticketing system, often prone to lags and crashes, is working smoothly while a well thought out screening schedule has enabled cinephiles to tick off as many films as they can from their wishlist.

Or maybe not, because there’s just too many good things to watch. But then, it’s just Day 1 and things could go either way.

Thematically, all three films of the day, including Bombay Rose, touched upon isolation and loneliness with at least two touching upon the inability of men to express and emote.

Ad Astra

I began my day with James Gray’s Ad Astra, a drama set in Moon, Mars and Neptune, three cool spots that Brad Pitt’s character must negotiate to reunite with his missing father. Like his Dad, Pitt’s Roy McBride is also a star astronaut who’s sent on a classified mission after its learnt that his father, presumed to be dead for nearly 16 years, might still be alive.

The film, which Pitt has also produced, is a quiet meditation on loneliness and parenting and the lengths children go to seek the approval and acceptance of those that have birthed them. It’s a big-budget studio film mounted on an intergalactic scale and still, paints a deeply intimate portrait of a man yet to heal from the trauma of abandonment. As someone who hasn’t had the most perfect relationship with his father, Gray’s interplanetary journey deeply resonated with me as it brought into sharp focus questions of masculinity, the fear men have in displaying vulnerability and the distance one has to cross to come close to oneself.

Although visually spellbinding (it’s shot by Hoyte van Hoytema), it’s Ad Astra’s emotional core and leading man that make it a compelling movie watching experience. Under the clever guise of space exploration, Ad Astra ventures deep into the courage it takes to not just confront our disappointments but also to live with them.

Bombay Rose

Gitanjali Rao’s exquisitely designed animated feature, Bombay Rose, which premiered at MAMI, is an unabashed ode to Bombay as well as the film industry that spawned out of the city.

It’s hard to define what the film is specifically about: is it a doomed love story or a nostalgic celebration of the past? Is it about the punishing cost the city extracts for merely surviving or about the emotional rewards that it simultaneously charms you with? In a film where the local bar is called Pyaasa and the protagonist, Salim, Bombay comes alive with gently as if an oil painting was set into motion. 

Switching fluidly between Indian folklore and cinematic fantasies, Bombay Rose also ventures into politics, subtly talking about topics as varied and interconnected as human rights violation in Kashmir by the Indian Army and the brazen bigotry of people in big cities. While it romanticises old Bollywood, especially Guru Dutt and Waheeda Rehman movies, it also cleverly critiques the masculinity embodies by the modern day alpha male hero, those who don’t stop their SUVs after running over people.

The Lighthouse

In The Lighthouse, two men, who hide more than they reveal, find themselves holed up in a marooned island. Pattinson plays Dafoe’s assistant, an initially reticent man who’s forced into quiet submission by his new master, who talks in parables and metaphors about maintaining the lighthouse (including whitewashing it, literally). The job involves brutal physical labour, warding off ominous seabirds and essentially surviving on that desolate piece of land that looks like the physical manifestation of a nightmare.

Shot entirely in stunning black-and-white, The Lighthouse is essentially a film about two men and their slow yet explosive descent into paranoia and madness. Using elements of the supernatural, references to Greek tragedies, and  a masterful performance by Dafoe that’s matched with equal savagery by Pattinson, The Lighthouse is a haunting tale of what seclusion can do to men.  

Okami was Capcom’s take on the Legend of Zelda featuring white wolf Amaterasu. Directed by then Capcom employee Hideki Kamiya, it released towards the end of the PS2 era, in 2006. It was a critical success although it suffered from poor sales. Despite this it found its way to the Wii in 2008 with remasters on the PS3, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch as well as a Nintendo DS sequel, Okamiden in 2010. And now the series may return with a new game.

According to a tweet from ex-Tango Gameworks and PlatinumGames staffer Ikumi Nakamura featuring Hideki Kamiya, now a founder and game director at PlatinumGames, it appears that Kamiya is interested in revisiting Okami stating: “Okami is going to be back.” 

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Throw in the fact that Capcom has claimed it is interested in bringing back its older IPs, this could be a good a time as any for an Okami sequel. Though with next-generation hardware on the horizon, it will be interesting to see what shape and form it takes.

More so considering PlatinumGames’ is currently working on Bayonetta 3 that’s exclusive to the Nintendo Switch as well as recently wrapping up the awesome Astral Chain that’s also exclusive to Nintendo’s hybrid console.

Could Okami 2 be a Nintendo Switch exclusive? Well, when you factor in Capcom’s success on Sony and Microsoft hardware, it could be one way for the firm to do something fresh and different on a Nintendo platform in recent times.

At the moment however, this is speculative and nothing official has been announced yet. Though the timing of Nakamura’s tweet and Capcom’s statements regarding breathing life into old IP could not have been better.

The Mako Reactor is your one-stop destination for everything Japanese gaming in India.

As a bright Friday morning dawned over Mumbai and the inhabitants of India’s busiest metropolis began another day of hustle, particular patches of the city throbbed with activity. Herds of cinephiles, almost all of whom donned a thin, black-and-orange sling bag and a flailing nametag, swung from Andheri’s Infinity mall, the main venue of the festival, to Citi mall, another screening venue of the fest.

The Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival had officially begun.

My morning, like many other filmgoers, began with making reservations for the next day’s films, which was swiftly followed by a dash to Andheri where I would spend my first of the seven day festival, sans breakfast or chaai, mind you.

Sorry We Missed You

It started with Ken Loach’s harrowing family drama Sorry We Missed You. Loach follows up his 2016 Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake with a thematically similar film centering on the trials of a family struggling to make ends meet against a system that is at once both, impassive and ruthless.

The film begins with Ricky (Kris Hitchen), the father, who takes up a gig delivering parcels and gets squeezed in the vise-grip of a physically extracting job and financial ruin. Meanwhile, his wife Abby (Debbie Honeywood), who works as a nurse for elderly and neglected people, braves her own battles, from one house to another. And it is this explosive mix of volatile drama, which is further aggravated by their troubled teenage son, that becomes the linchpin for the central conflict in the film.

At 83, directing his 25th feature film, Ken Loach is firing on all cylinders as he masterfully captures the haplessness of a people crumbling under the machine, and a family on the verge of disintegration. With the film’s closing scene, Loach delivers a hammering gut-punch which rips open their fractured family dynamic.

Gamak Ghar

Interestingly, family dynamic formed the focus of the next film for the day as well, albeit of a completely different style. Achal Mishra’s utterly immaculate directorial debut Gamak Ghar is about a family house, nestled in the small town of Darbhanga, Bihar, and its eccentric inhabitants.

While the Maithili-language film is divided into three chapters spanning two decades, Mishra refrains from weaving an overarching narrative around family histories or anecdotal recounting of the glory days.

Instead, Mishra’s camera sits quietly within the house’s vast verandas, populated by idle furniture and rich sunbeams, gorgeously captured by cinematographer Anand Bansal. Within these frames, we are given a window into fragmented vignettes of family gatherings, feasts, and festivities, conveying a stark yet untouched portrait of life. The film’s sparse aesthetic effectively infuses life into the frames, while simultaneously bringing the inanimate to life.

Mishra, all of 23, exhibits a tremendous awareness of his craft, also illustrated through his smart use of shifting aspect ratios that coincide with the developing photography techniques used by the film’s characters.

Gamak Ghar is a stellar debut which heralds the arrival of a bright, new talent.

Moothon

After having a quick word with the director, I rushed out of the auditorium and plunged into a sea of people lining up to catch the opening film of the festival; Geetu Mohandas’ Moothon, the final film of the day.

Moothon turned out to be yet another story about a disrupted family, albeit peppered with crime and neo-noir elements and a car chase added for good measure.

The film is an impeccably shot and craftily assembled saga about relationships, identity, and destiny that uses cinematic sleight to unfurl a rather straightforward story, which turns deliciously unpredictable thanks to some mean twists.

However, Moothon ultimately fails to leave a lasting impression.

Following a young boy’s search for his elder brother which takes him from the lush island of Lakshadweep to the red-light district of Mumbai, we are suddenly introduced to the character of Nivin Pauly and abruptly dive into his extended backstory which forms a third of the film.

Finally, as we return to the present day and resolve a rather repetitive conflict, Moothon ends up on a bittersweet note. There are genuine flashes of cinematic brilliance that are riddled throughout this film, but it’s the wily plot that struggles to strike a balance between Mohandas’ predisposition for excess and her genuine flair for riveting storytelling.

As Day 1 of the festival concluded, and I returned home, tired and hungry, and completely sated, I couldn’t help but feel a mix of excitement and dread; for running around town, sleep-deprived on an empty stomach, seems like the kind of punishment that can be manageably endured only through the escapism afforded by about three to four films a day.

Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on Friday sent a letter to the Centre recommending Justice S A Bobde, who is next in seniority, as his successor.

Official Sources told PTI that Justice Gogoi wrote a letter to the Ministry of Law and Justice recommending Justice Bobde to be the next chief justice.

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Justice Gogoi, who was sworn in as the 46th Chief Justice of India on October 3, 2018, will demit office on November 17.

Official sources said the chief justice has gone by the convention to recommend the name of the next senior judge after him as his successor.

Justice Gogoi as the Chief Justice has a tenure of 13 months and 15 days while Justice Bobde, who will be sworn in as CJI on November 18, will have a tenure of about 18 months.

According to the Memorandum of Procedure, which governs the appointment of members of the higher judiciary, “appointment to the office of the Chief Justice of India should be of the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court considered fit to hold the office”.

Under this process, after receiving the CJI’s recommendation, the law minister puts it before the prime minister who advises the president on the matter.

“What do you do?” has always been a complicated question for me to answer. I’m currently a freelance writer, I’m a former film festival marketing assistant, and I work at McDonald’s. It’s my ‘anchor’ job that helps to pay my bills. I’ve worked on and off at the restaurant for over seven years, throughout college and internships, and as a means to keep pursuing my writing and film interests. There have been multiple instances where I’ve taken my resume to career experts and recruiters, who have asked me to leave McDonald’s off my work history. It’s a tightrope, as I never know if my experience will be a help or a hindrance. 

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In the entertainment business, there is a huge emphasis on humility. ‘Thick skin’ is a common buzzword. I thought to myself, What better way to be humbled than at a fast-food restaurant? The pay isn’t too far from entry-level entertainment positions (and in many cases, it’s the same), and you deal with hundreds of customers, many of whom are difficult. 

Once, a recruiter from a major Hollywood talent agency lauded my experience. She said if I could handle customers at McDonald’s, I could handle the agency’s clients. Another time, a recruiter encouraged me to erase McDonald’s from my resume, and I was rejected for that position because I didn’t have enough customer service experience. Working at McDonald’s – or any fast-food restaurant – is more than flipping burgers, but it can be a task convincing others of that. In the entertainment industry, where what you do is almost as important as who you know, it’s not an easy thing to admit. I’ve often had to remind myself that I am more than my job title and where I work. 

I’m 26-years-old, and when I’m not working at McDonald’s I’m a freelance writer who also worked as a film festival marketing assistant. My writing work has been featured in publications and has taken me to festivals such as Sundance and the Toronto International Film Festival. I live in Los Angeles, and while I was finishing my remaining college coursework online and interning, I took a job at McDonald’s so I could earn money quickly. After, as I focused on freelance work, I also used McDonald’s as a stable income. 

Outside of work, I would ponder whether people I knew would treat me the same while I was in uniform. Would their indifference extend my way? Would they bother to talk to me while I was wearing a grey polo shirt and cap, black slacks, and the faint smell of fries and burgers? I wasn’t always so sure. I feel like my life is a balancing act between two very different worlds. One is appeasing customers, cleaning up grease, and standing in a drive-thru window for hours on end, constantly exposed to secondhand smoke and exhaust fumes. The other is fancy catered parties, emailing back and forth with publicists, and occasionally breathing the same air as celebrities. 

With a simple change of clothing, my accomplishments, my identity and my voice disappear. No matter how articulate I am or how nice I am, I’m a nameless worker meant to cater to junk food cravings. I’m sure it wouldn’t be much different in another service job, but it’s a bit more evident in the fast-food space. 

During the recent Popeye’s spicy chicken sandwich crisis, a photo of a tired worker went viral on Twitter. She sits on a bench, bent over, her head hanging in defeat. Her hands are clasped, almost in prayer. This image in all its sadness was reposted over and over again for laughs. No one knows the woman’s name, or where she is located. I wonder if the woman even knows she’s sort of famous, her very private moment of weakness made available to the masses. 

This was only a small bit of the viral media from the chicken wars. A heartbreaking video shows a young man, evidently hurt by a customer calling him a “slow ass.” The most infuriating video is one in which a customer takes advantage after an employee passes out in the kitchen. 

I know the feelings of the viral workers all too well. I’ve had my own moments where I’ve slipped out back, exhausted from yet another busy and understaffed day. I know what it is like to get screamed at for something beyond my control. I’ve even seen phones pointed in my direction, the customers trying to shame my co-workers and me. Luckily for me, if the videos were ever posted, I’ve never seen them. Our country supposedly values hard work but somehow making an honest living, even if in service work, has become ridiculed. 

“That’s why you work at McDonald’s!” an irate woman screamed at me once. This person didn’t know me, yet she made a degrading remark while she came to my store at 4am for an Egg McMuffin. She is far from the only customer who has treated me badly, but she made me realise how so many view me and others in my line of work. Once upon a time, a friend used “BUTYOU WORK AT MCDONALD’S!” as a retort to a simple question I asked about a Facebook post they shared. To some, reminding you of your lowly job is the biggest insult they can think of. You work for a living, but you’re not allowed to be proud of what you do if it doesn’t meet a certain standard. 

Unfortunately, the fast-food job has been pigeonholed as a badge of professional failure. Social media has further pushed this narrative through memes, viral videos and a culture of instant gratification and clout-chasing. Fast-food workers aren’t harming anyone, and we’re just doing our jobs. What’s so wrong with that? Working a fast-food job to make a living isn’t something to be ashamed of, but to many people, it is. To some, fast-food work is a last resort and implies that I didn’t make the right decisions in life. Due to the assumptions, it’s easy to not think about the people behind the counters. What people don’t know is that I went to college, left my hometown and decided to pursue my dreams in the entertainment industry. So riddle me this, what if you made all the right choices, but still don’t end up exactly where you want to be and work in fast food for stable income while you are still pursuing your passion?

As a society, we love to demand goods and services, especially greasy, unhealthy food. Yet we make fun of the people delivering those things. In the past, the fast-food job was seen as a launching pad to the American dream. These restaurants were havens for character-building and for social mobility. In some ways, they still are, but not like they used to be. The likes of Jeff Bezos, Jay Leno, Keenen Ivory Wayans and Lin-Manuel Miranda, among many others, worked at McDonald’s before becoming wildly successful. 

As the economy has faltered, social mobility has become more difficult. Wages have stagnated, while the cost of living across the nation has risen. It also doesn’t help that a college education is increasingly losing its value. In today’s workforce, it isn’t uncommon to juggle multiple jobs to survive. It also isn’t uncommon to take on a job for which you’re overqualified. For me, McDonald’s has been a pillar of stability in changing locations, jobs and financial circumstances. And for many others, it’s the same thing. Despite the stigma, fast-food restaurants have provided opportunities for millions of people, including myself. The real truth is that they hire employees that other workplaces won’t take on, especially the young, elderly, immigrants, ex-convicts and people with disabilities. For many others, like myself, working in fast food is certain in a time of uncertainty. 

At the conclusion of this summer, I began to come to terms with the effect of the service life. It’s good for a while, but it wears you down quickly, both physically and emotionally. If I’ve learned anything from it, it’s how to endure extremely tough work environments – and people. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed the flexibility. However, it’s time to move on. Hopefully I can put the uniform away for good very soon – not because I’m embarrassed but because I’ll finally have reached financial security in the entertainment industry. Until then, I’ll have to push through a little bit longer until a better opportunity comes. 

This article first appeared on HuffPost UK Personal

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