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Scientists found evidence that a vegetarian diet has led to a mutation that may make people more susceptible to inflammation, and by association, increased risk of heart disease and colon cancer.
https://indianexpress.com/arti...

While it's not explicitly stated...

Lion Air captain: probably Hindu

Ethiopian Airlines captain: probably Christian

Free snooping at train stations?

https://www.tatadocomo.com/en-...

https://indianexpress.com/arti...

You are that idiot who thinks if an American company is doing it then nobody else is, right? You also own an iPhone, don't you?

The school day starts at more or less the same time everywhere

Private schools can choose their starting time - unless the time is prohibited by law, or local district regulation. School laws fall under state subject - which means the state is the primary legal entity responsible for creating such laws. None of the states measures 3000 kilometers. 800 km is rarely or maybe never a distance in any direction to any direction in a state - let alone latitudinally.

District collector can order schools to start at times deemed convenient for kids - no district measures more than a few hundred km in any direction.
E.g. https://indianexpress.com/arti...

There are many multi-shift schools - which have 2 sessions per day. So within a school, there are kids in multiple "time zones" - e.g. 7am to noon, and 12:30 pm to 5:30 pm.

Ask 10 children in India their school timings, and you will likely get 12 unique answers.

You forgot at least one: Selling creative labor.

This is a fundamentally incomplete creativity. The motivation, direction, criticism, approval of the creative work is highly likely to come from someone other than the "creative worker".

Its power to shape society - the only real reason why society should worry about creative workers being empowered, is extremely limited. Otherwise there is nothing special in creative works - as you yourself say later in this post. Creative work as a "business model" does not by itself deserve a wholesale change in society like you propose - unless it be for the possibility of societal transformation.

So even if it can be said to be creative by some definitions - I would not take it seriously for 2 reasons :
1. Incomplete creativity
2. Uselessness

I seem to recall that hunter-gatherers actually have loads of leisure time

Today's hunter gatherers are protected by armies or navies from the unpleasant realities. Migration - which used to be a constant endeavour or threat is usually impossible due to adjacent human civilization powered by agriculture.

If you are using the first definition of "actual" from here for your "actually", and using present tense to talk about prehistory - you will have to provide a lot more evidence. And still come to nothing because in any case, you agree with the real point that idleness / free time / resources not devoted to absolute survival does promote creative works. This idleness needs money in today's world. Which is the point.

Well, there's no reason to treat creative workers specially. If you simply want more works and will pay, offer commissions.

Whom are you telling to offer commissions ? Me ?

If you want to let people live leisurely, offer that to everyone equally, and give everyone a chance to do productive things.

I have barely enough money to offer a leisurely life to myself - and sometimes not that. Not sure whom you have started to talk to.

Note however, that if you don't need money, you don't need copyrights, which are an economic incentive to create and publish works

Nobody in the whole conversation said that "you don't need money" , and I made multiple arguments as to why creative workers need money. Again not sure who your "you" is. So while it is a interesting aside as to what to do in the completely irrelevant scenario of "you" not needing money, I would refrain from going there.

Childhood obesity linked to Poor School Performance and Coping Skills

Childhood obesity linked to antibiotics

Childhood obesity linked to hip disease in adolescence

Childhood obesity linked to More Junk Food Ads

Childhood obesity linked to poverty, parenting style Childhood Obesity Linked to a Mother's Weight Gain in Pregnancy

Childhood Obesity Linked to lakc of sleep

Childhood obesity linked to eating food from animals treated with antibiotics

Childhood obesity linked to Mutant Gean

Just vast numbers of people pushing as hard as they can, and then the trains take off, always on time, with some people hanging out the door. It is a real sport.

Killed 6,989 passengers apparently.

https://indianexpress.com/arti...

Twenty-one to 23 percent — or some 40 to 44 million of the 191 million adults in this country — demonstrated skills in the lowest level of prose, document, and quantitative proficiencies (Level 1).
Twenty-five percent of the respondents who performed in this level were immigrants who may have been just learning to speak English. Nearly two-thirds of those in Level 1 (62 percent) had terminated their education before completing high school. A third were age 65 or older, and 26 percent had physical, mental, or health conditions that kept them from participating fully in work, school, housework, or other activities. Nineteen percent of the respondents in Level 1 reported having visual difficulties that affect their ability to read print.

Yes, new immigrants are unable to read English, but you wouldn't call them illiterate if they read in Spanish or Chinese instead. And a person can be a PhD in English literature and still lose their vision due to old age.

Meanwhile, the US is about 45% college graduates, to India's 4.5%.

GP was also talking about Kerala for some reason, which is not where the events of the story happened. That was actually in Assam, which is nowhere near Kerala, whether that's on the map or in education.

Yup. Beggars in India have swipe digital POS/swipe machines. See article https://indianexpress.com/arti...

If the scammers left valid numbers, then they can be traced. Sounds like another photo opportunity for law enforcement.

India definitely needs to invest more in cleaner energy.

I agree, but I will point out that the pollution in question comes from burning fields, not from energy production or transportation.

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/stubble-burning-punjab-farmers-amarinder-singh-ngt-air-pollution-4897240/

  http://www.dw.com/en/burning-fields-in-punjab/av-41233497

And by slap on the wrist, you mean years in jail?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...

http://indianexpress.com/artic...

Well actually Apple doesn't lead in India, there's a considerable user base though. Samsung leads the market, followed by Xiaomi, Lenovo, Oppo & Vivo. Apple isn't even in the top 5, Xiaomi will be #1 in about a year or two. http://indianexpress.com/artic...

The Hindu right in India begs to differ with you. The Hindu right have notions of grandeur which involve conquering neighboring countries and bringing them under a Hindu "rashtra" (kingdom). The present Indian government under the BJP Party have made it clear that they are interested in declaring India as an Indian state and also the current PM is on record as calling for an Akhand Bharat (a greater nation which incorporates Pakistan, Bangladesh, parts of Afghanistan etc).

http://indianexpress.com/artic...

The present government has also declared their intent to declare India as a Hindu nation with minority rights severely restricted as per the ideologies of their parent organizations that they owe allegiance to - such as the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha.

http://www.rediff.com/news/rep...

India has the Best Tech Schools in the world. People are fighting to get in. What have we got? Nothing.. http://indianexpress.com/artic...

This is just more right wing racist bs guised as a legitimate concern.

Transport for London, which is pushing this, is chaired by the Mayor of London. He looks just like a right wing racist, doesn't he?

What about to make a new QWERTY phone after 7+ years. No BlackBerry - it needs to have a keyboard on its longer side, have landscape display and have physical arrow keys. More extra keys for shifts+symbols are a plus.

amount of smog /= amount of greenhouse gases produced.

Also, no one is letting India off the hook. Their government is actually doing more than the US.

http://indianexpress.com/artic...

I think this is his.

Top 10 richest people in the world ...

Power of the Internets

PR0N FTW.

Didn't the indian government recently subsidize mobile phones for 'all'?

http://indianexpress.com/artic...

IMO anything that can be abused by government will be... but then if 'the people' had a lick of sense, those in power wouldn't be.

Overnight and without warning, the government banned bills worth more than about $1.50. The result has been an absolute disaster:

97% of the Indian economy is cash-based. With 88% of all outstanding currency no longer usable, the economy is coming to a standstill. The daily-wage laborer, who leads a hand-to-mouth existence in a country with GDP per capita of a mere $1,600, no longer has work, as his employer has no cash to pay his wages. His life is in utter chaos. He is not as smart as Modi — despite the fact that Modi has no real life experience except as a bully and perhaps in his early days as a tea-seller at a train-station. He has no clue where his life is headed from here.

These people are going hungry, and some have begun to raid food shops. People are dying for lack of treatment at hospitals. Old people are dying in the endless queues. Some are killing themselves, as they are unable to comprehend the situation and simply don’t know what to do. There are now hundreds of such stories in the media.

Small businesses are in shambles, and many will probably never recover. The Hindu wedding season has just started and people are left with unusable banknotes. Their personal and family lives are now an utter disaster.

Banks and ATMs are running out of what little cash their is shortly after they open.

I'm amazed but glad that it's actually begun to operate.

How did they get the people who farmed the 2500 acres of land there to move out? That is the biggest problem setting up a large factory in India, the land rights are questionable.

Oh I Googled that for myself: Adani seeks to gag its lawyer after he claims 'violations', "In an unusual move, the Gujarat-based Adani Group of Companies has filed a petition in the Madras High Court seeking to gag its own lawyer after he allegedly threatened to expose "major violations", and name those involved in the purchase and funding of 1,800 acres of land for its solar power project in Tamil Nadu."

BTW Nat Geo video here of the Kamuthi solar plant.

declaring war on terror by striking terrorist training camps and launch pads inside Pakistan

Do you also see nothing wrong with the alleged "Standard Oil tactics" - the big player lowers prices in an area, long enough to drive smaller players out of business and then raise prices to recoup the "investment" ? This model lets "people make their own choices". The only similarity with free basics is that both these models are big on letting people make their own choices at present, and long term choices are limited.

For other examples of choices, think about first dose of addictive drugs being served free to non-adults, or Microsoft bribing Government officials everywhere to make online Government-Citizen interactions only through Windows.

Facebook itself couldn't have risen if something like this was present and served only MySpace pages. No competitor can rise in such an environment, not only of Facebook, but of any entrenched internet service that has some money. In internet services, there are enough natural barriers of entry even before we create more with services like Free Basics.

Anyway, in India, this is what swung the debate against "free basics".

That is the kind of condescending attitude that people like Mark Zuckerberg have that really pisses off people know who anything about internet access in India. That whole 'let them eat stale bread for free' thing.

The choice between Zuckerberg curated internet and no internet is a made up, false dichotomy. Whatever else you may say or hate about Google, I much much prefer their philosophy of fast internet is good for Google and therefore they focus on improving access to ALL of the internet.

For anyone who has been to a train station in India for example, this is an absolute godsend: http://indianexpress.com/artic...

And a huge number of poorer Indians use trains - we are talking millions of people every day if they cover the 100 largest stations with adequate bandwidth.

The biggest barrier to internet access in India is not just the cost. And the reason for the high cost is not just the fact that people are poor - the licensing regime and restricted spectrum are far bigger factors than price.

This has been big news in India and most opinion was strongly against Facebook. You can read some of the arguments here: http://blogs.timesofindia.indi...

Being poor or poorer doesn't universally bestow some sort of nobility or sense of purpose or a special hunger for knowledge. Most people in the third world use the internet for what the developed world does - games and pointless social media and sharing garbage. That is exactly what the free 'tablets' that a misguided minister subsidized in India a few years ago were mostly used for.

Provide internet access in public spaces, and in schools and universities Mr. Zuckerberg if you really give a shit.

Disney have repeatedly and successfully lobbied for increases of the H1B scheme, and are notorious abusers and beneficiaries of it.

Paul Ryan has just gifted them a 400% increase in the number of H2-B visas issued. To be used for, surprise, surprise, cheap labor at theme parks.

Copyright terms get extended every time Micky Mouse or Snow White approach the public domain.

Bought attorney generals and corrupt judges are working to sink fantasy sports sites, the NFL's plan-B to preserve revenue as ESPN subscription decline. (This increases Disney's chances of getting a larger slice of a shrinking pie at the expense of the leagues.)

Yada, yada, yada.

It's a sad day when I agree with a pathetic old cook like Bernie Sanders, but the US is controlled by evil corporations, and none are more evil that Disney.

Defund DSNY!

The USA is "is a federal republic composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major territories and various possessions." (citation)

A federal republic is "federation of states with a democratic form of government." (citation)

A state is a political entity.

I think the problem you're running into is your conflation of a state with the population that lives under it. It's this type of unfortunate ignorance that causes the Ayatollah to explicitly clarify the distinction, in the context of the "Death to America" chants. This distinction may be lost on you, but it's not lost on those of use who are precise with our language.

yeah, given that we're not any closer to an AI that would NEED those three laws

The robots Asimov imagined (whatever their brain) did not have to be bound by the three laws. They were deliberately designed that way.

And that's exactly the complain — the brains we currently devise are not being built those hard limits.

they don't make any choices nor do they ponder the choices or have any capability to make a choice.

Yes, the "syntactic" ones do not. But we are on the verge of real ("semantic") AI, and those better have some limits built-in, or some nasty predictions might materialize instead of Asimov's comfortable robot-assisted world.

Report just in that the Indian Mars Orbiter has successfully test-fired its engine and has entered the Martian gravitational sphere of influence: http://www.isro.org/mars/updat... http://indianexpress.com/artic...

Uniformed troll is uninformed, News at 11.

BTW, here you go.

India will still be at constant risk. This modern secular country is right next to a muzzy hell-hole where attacks on polio workers are frequent.

Depressingly, Pakistani muslims are correct in thinking that vaccination programs may be controlled by western governments. The CIA used a fake vaccination program (not polio) to aid in the hunt for Bin Laden.

Among the many other things that Islam forbids they have now decided that polio vaccines are unislamic.

Islam does not forbid vaccination.

Nothing to do with Al Quaeda
http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/cleric-says-polio-vaccination-unislamic-warns-of-jihad-against-docs/961503/

India will still be at constant risk. This modern secular country is right next to a muzzy hell-hole where attacks on polio workers are frequent. Among the many other things that Islam forbids they have now decided that polio vaccines are unislamic.

yet again this (literally) diabolical 'religion' brings death and suffering to the world.

You seem to be generally misinformed on this matter, so here are a few things. The Congress passed the resolution noted in the following document: Authorization For Use Of Military Force in Response to the 9/11 Attacks. The Supreme Court of the United States has held this type of Congressional authorization to be equivalent to a declaration of war. If you join the enemy making war on the United States, you can be captured or killed under the law of war - no trial is necessary beforehand. All of your hand waving on these matters is just that. Your lack of familiarity with the personal involvement of an enemy combatant with attacks or attempted attacks doesn't change or weaken the findings against them.

As an American citizen you don't have a Constitutional right to join a terrorist group and attack the United States or its allies. If you join with them, you will be treated like them, i.e. captured or killed as possible or necessary. Renegade Americans may be the most dangerous of all since they know the ins and outs of American society, and can identify weak points for attack, and coach would-be attackers to be more effective. If you go renegade, you accept the consequences of war. If you want a nice trial, then surrender so that charges can be prepared and a trial set.

There is no great mystery about why Al Awlaki was killed. The man actively recruited for Al Qaida, was directly tied to numerous people making attacks, and was apparently involved in planning attacks. The man was an enemy of the American people, whom he plotted to kill in large numbers, an enemy of the state that he hoped to help destroy, and an enemy of humanity as a stateless terrorist, the very kin to pirates, hostis humani generis. Is slavery far behind?

I do not support many of President Obama's policies, but he is correct in this one, and against that man.

The United States is not rounding up or making war against people who insult the First Lady, or the President, but rather against actual and would be mass murderers, terrorists, war criminals. It is quite amazing to me that so many people get this elementary question wrong, this isn't even close to being hard to understand. Somehow I expect you will amaze me again.

If Americans really don't want to let this guy in there are diplomatic ways to do so. They should've declared him a persona non grata before the incident. That would've been an honest way of dealing with the situation, most people would've understood that they don't want an Al-Qaeda supporter in their country, and the guy wouldn't have got free popularity back at home out of it.

I do agree with you that the President and the Secretary of State should set diplomatic policy, not some agent at the counter. However, I don't think they would support this. This person should be our friend. This is not the way to go about achieving that.

Imran Khan (an ex-professional cricket player) is no more Al Qaeda than is Ron Paul. (He is frequently described as Pakistan's Ron Paul.) He has a fairly classic liberal agenda. (Note that classic liberalism is the basis of our system of government.) He is explicitly against the Taliban.

Yes, he is also against drone strikes. That is a widespread sentiment in Pakistan. Heck, I believe that some politicians (even, dare I say, Ron Paul) feel the same way here.

Note also that Al Qaeda is against sports and the Taliban shut down all sports in the territory they controlled, at least up until recently. Knowing that, you might even think that they would threaten to kill a Paikistani politician who played sports and espoused liberal values. You would be correct.

We should probably apologize to the guy, and should certainly welcome him into the country. One does not have to agree with everything a friend says to recognize them as a friend.

for a crime that no one has indicted him for here

The indictment is sealed.

Either way, neither of them are at any imminent risk of being turned over to the US.

Assange has stated that he will voluntarily return to Sweden if they promise not to hand him over the U.S. Rather than making such an easy promise, TPTB have put Assange's attorney on a terror watch list instead.

Form here, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/exodus-of-north-easterners-from-bangalore-shows-signs-of-subsiding/989967//, so may be the ban has had some effect.

and their cars catch fire

At least they weren't big fires. They were Nano fires.

and their cars catch fire

This is exactly what the GP claims it to be. A populist measure before the election campaigns start. Only difference being that it is happening at the Central Government level instead of being limited to a few state governments till now.

There have been numerous such pre-election promises and surprisingly they work. Few examples in the recent state election in south Indian states for freebies

"Taking the war of freebies to a new high, AIADMK manifesto for April 13 Assembly elections today promised 20 kg of free rice for ration-card holders, laptops for students from classes XI, free fans, mixers and grinders to all and mineral water to BPL families."

"free grinders to 35 kg free rice every month for 1.6 million poor families, free bus passes for senior citizens to free laptops for Dalit engineering students, increase in old age pension to new insurance scheme for fishermen"

O'kay, so I was wrong about when China was granted MFN status and yes it was one of the last acts by President Clinton. Of course, we've got legislation pending to Already Revoke China's Most Favored Nation http://www.indianexpress.com/news/congressional-legislation-to-revoke-mfn-status-of-china/656365/0 (One Page). Somebody in congress already thought and proposed this change in status for China.

There are proven benefits to drinking alcohol

No,
  no
and no.

The only truth is, there's a shitload of money made from getting people to drink overpriced alcohol-in-water solutions.

I suppose when only 40% of India's population (thats over 400 million people!) lives below the international poverty line (thats US$1.25 per day) that they are doing quite fantastic....

You are fucking full of shit. The population of India is not "doing quite well these days" .. quite the fucking opposite, asshole. Over 400 million people are pretty much completely fucking destitute in that "doing quite well" country.. if thats "doing quite well", what the fuck does "doing badly" look like?

The World Bank, citing estimates made by the World Health Organization, states that "About 49 per cent of the world's underweight children, 34 per cent of the world's stunted children and 46 per cent of the world's wasted children, live in India." Heres a fucking citation.

Your bullshit is the problem with most westerners. You have no fucking idea how bad it is elsewhere, or the scale of the problem. With 400 million fucking people destitute in Inida, it puts all your other complaints about the world to shame. Global warming? Terrorism? Privacy? Put in perspective, and assuming we actually give a shit about making the world a better place with the countless billions of dollars that we are throwing around, the ONLY thing we should be doing is fixing India... until its fixed.

India's TFR is declining as well. Granted population continued to increase due to previous high TFRs, but it also seems headed toward 2 or below.

"The government said that the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) across the country had declined to 2.6 in 2008 from 2.9 in 2005." From one of the first hits on Google.

That's a huge decrease in just a few years. 0.3 points in 3 years. The same link says half the Indian states are at replacement level (2.1).

Also from the 1st Google SERP, 7 Indian states are below replacement level.

The only known "cause" of cancer is a genetically deformed cell. The older you get the more your cells have divided. Cellular damage also causes more cells to divide. Nervous lip chewers (that chew their inner mouth tissues frequently) have the same approx amount of mouth cancer as snuff dippers (tobacco chewers). The more times a cell splits the more chance it will mutate and become a cancer. Cells that have split more times have a higher chance.

Then, Cancer causes more of itself.

Does exposure to EMF increase the chances of cancer? Do you think that adding energy to a chemical reaction may have a factor in the result? (DNA duplication == chemical reaction) Microwaves are non ionizing, but they still contribute heat, and last I checked, so did a Bunsen burner.

Do foreign substances increase the chances of cancer? Do you think that adding more chemicals to a chemical reaction may have a factor in the result?

IMHO, we should put more effort into researching a cure than trying to figure out what causes (read: increases the chance of) cancer. There is no way to prevent genetic deformations of cells, but perhaps we can find a way to combat those that occur, (or use them to our advantage), and make the whole argument pointless.

Blackberry spent a lot of money building up a successful business in the middle east.

This is not just about middle-eastern dictators...This was probablymore in reference to BlackBerry succumbing to pressure from the Indian governmet to allow full access to emails and calls :
Asked on India, BlackBerry CEO walks out of TV show

Unless my company required it, I would'nt touch a BlackBerry device with a stick.

Yeah, the metro in New Delhi is driverless, too.

Uhh ... I live here (New Delhi) and no, the DMRC trains aren't driverless.
Included are some links that tell about an accident that happened when a driver did something stupid.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_driver-started-metro-train-before-getting-signal-dmrc_1282211

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/driver-started-metro-train-before-getting-signal-dmrc/501738/2

Nothing made by a North American mobile OS company at any rate. All this privacy violating, security hole bullshit seems to be confined to iOS/Android/Winmobile 7 (not sure about BB/Palm) That leaves Nokia, SonyEricsson, LG and a plethora of no brand Chinese handset makers who still make hardware for the rest of the world in the old fashioned way- where you the purchaser own your device entirely and are free to do whatever you want with it without any artificial restrictions. In India, there are new players that are giving Nokia a run for its money in the low end space, with innovative features (dual SIMs, TV/AC remote controls, 3D displays and so on). Take a look at Micromax, for example, they offer a Blackberry style qwerty handset with email/social networking for barely 5000 Rs. (close to $100) unsubsidized.

I personally think so, but I would be willing to be a large portion of voters wouldn't be comfortable with that...which, if true, is freakin' hilarious.

That's because you live in a safe and civilized country, or at least you think you do. Here's what happens if you go voting in Afghanistan when the Taliban tell you to boycott it, so any vote is seen as a vote against them: link. What do you think would happen in all half civilized, half corrupt countries if there was no secret vote and you vote for the "wrong" party? They might be slightly more subtle than the Taliban who rely on terror but don't think it'd be pretty.