A Texas father admitted moving the body of his 3-year-old daughter from the family’s home after she choked on milk and died, according to an arrest affidavit, changing his original story that she had disappeared after he had put her outside a few hours before dawn as punishment.
Wesley Mathews, Sherin Mathews’ adoptive father, offered the new account to detectives with the Richardson Police Department on Monday, roughly 24 hours after the missing girl’s body was found near the home.
The recovery of the body, which police said was positively identified on Tuesday using dental records, capped a two-week search. A cause of death has yet to be determined.
Police said Mathews provided the new details during a voluntary visit to police headquarters with his lawyer. He said that in the early morning hours of Oct. 7, he engaged in a struggle with the girl over her refusal to drink milk in the home’s garage. He then “physically assisted her” with drinking it, and she began to choke.
“She was coughing and her breathing slowed. Eventually, Wesley Mathews no longer felt a pulse on the child and believed she had died,” the affidavit said.
Mathews, whose 4-year-old biological daughter has been in foster care since Sherin’s disappearance, previously told police that the child vanished after he left her outside at about 3 a.m. as a punishment for not drinking her milk.
He was arrested on Monday night for felony injury to a child and ordered held on $1 million bond. The same day of Sherin’s disappearance, Mathews was charged with abandoning or endangering a child. He posted a $250,000 bond shortly thereafter.
Mathews wife has not been charged with a crime and has told police that she was asleep at the time of the child’s disappearance, authorities have said.
Sherin was adopted by the Mathews about two years ago from an orphanage in India. She was malnourished at the time and was on a special diet to gain weight, police told the Washington Post.
Authorities, at the time of her disappearance, also described her as having “developmental issues and limited verbal communication skills.”
Mathews’ lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During her acceptance speech, the Oscar winner made a humorous comparison in order to make a stellar point about the way women present themselves.
“Women like looking sexy, but it doesn’t mean we want to fuck you,” Blanchett said at the awards show, per InStyle. “No one says to Steve Bannon, ‘You look like a bag of trash. Do you want me to throw you out?’”
She also added of the hate so many women receive online for what they wear:
“But the comments that get said about what women wear on the red carpet — I mean. If you troll through those trolls on the Internet, just don’t.”
That’s right, trolls! Cate and her fab Givenchy dress do not have time for your foolishness.
“Stranger Things” returns to Netflix at the end of October — and this spoof video could be the perfect refresher for what went down in Season 1:
YouTube parody masters “The Hillywood Show” ― aka sisters Hilly and Hannah Hindi ― summarize the story so far in the clip, with a little help from a reworked version of Rick James’ “Super Freak.”
Using real locations from the show, they reenact key scenes with their own comedic twist.
Check out the full segment above, and the behind-the-scenes footage below:
“Stranger Things” Season 2 premieres Oct. 27 on Netflix.
Another woman has come forward to level allegations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein.
Mimi Haleyi, a former production assistant for the Weinstein Co., accused the Hollywood mogul of forcing himself on her and orally sexually assaulting her in 2006 while she was on her period.
She spoke Tuesday at a news conference in New York with her lawyer, Gloria Allred. Allred is also representing other Weinstein accusers, former actresses Louisette Geiss and Heather Kerr.
Haleyi said she first met Weinstein in 2004 while in her 20s at the London premier of the film “The Aviator.” She said their paths crossed again in 2006 at the Cannes Film Festival and that she broached the prospect of working for his company. Weinstein invited her to meet him at his hotel room, which she did one afternoon, she said.
After “a few minutes of normal conversation,” he tried to persuade her to give him a massage, she said. Instead, she said she left.
“By that time I was crying, as I felt completely humiliated and stupid for having been excited about meeting with him,” Haleyi said.
After the incident, she said Weinstein got in touch with her and she went to work on one of his company’s television shows in New York. Shortly after that job wrapped up, Weinstein asked Haleyi to accompany him to Paris, she said.
“I declined, as this seemed like an invitation of a romantic nature,” she said. “He didn’t like that answer.”
Weinstein allegedly showed up to her apartment in New York and “physically forced himself in through the door, pleading with me to come to Paris,” she said, but she continued to decline.
After his return for Paris, Haleyi said she agreed to meet him at his apartment in Manhattan. “I wanted to maintain a good relationship with him,” she said.
They watched television for a few minutes, but soon “he was all over me, making sexual advances,” she said.
“I said, ‘I am on my period. There is no way this is going to happen. Please stop.’ He wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Haleyi said.
Weinstein allegedly backed her into a room “which was not lit but looked like a kid’s bedroom with kids’ drawings on the wall,” she said.
“He held me on the bed, I tried to get him off me but … he was extremely persistent and physically overpowering,” she said. “He orally forced himself on me while i was on my period. He even pulled my tampon out. I was mortified. I was in disbelief and disgusted.”
After the alleged assault, Haleyi said Weinstein rolled over on his back and said “Don’t you feel like we’re so much closer now?”
“No,” she said she replied.
A New York Times story earlier this month first disclosed sexual harassment complaints against Weinstein spanning decades. A New Yorker story followed days later with more allegations. Since then, he has been accused of harassment and sexual assault by dozens of women, with allegations including rape and forcing women to watch him masturbate.
A spokeswoman for Weinstein has previously said that “any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied” by him.
Allred called Haleyi’s accusations “a new low” for Weinstein. Allred’s daughter, Lisa Bloom, had been one of Weinstein’s lawyers, but as the allegations against him escalated, she dropped him as a client.
See? It's no eggsageration. It's no yolk. It's enough to make you go into shell shock. (OK we'll stop.)
But seriously. How the flip (sorry) did Humpty end up as an egg?
Well, apparently it's all thanks to Lewis Carroll (yes, he of 'Alice in Wonderland' fame) and his 1872 novel 'Through the Looking-Glass'.
Chapter six of the book is entitled 'Humpty Dumpty' and apparently, it's here that Humpty first appeared as an egg.
"However, the egg only got larger and larger, and more and more human: when she had come within a few yards of it, she saw that it had eyes and a nose and mouth; and when she had come close to it, she saw clearly that it was Humpty Dumpty himself. 'It can't be anybody else!' she said to herself. 'I'm as certain of it, as if his name were written all over his face.'"
Much like an omelette in a stainless steel pan, this portrayal of Humpty apparently stuck (sorry again) and he's been an egg ever since.
But while Carroll may have introduced Humpty as an egg, he can't be credited with the original nursery rhyme. So what was Humpty before he was an egg? (Hopefully a chicken, because that would settle a really long debate.)
Yep. A large cannon which is believed to have been used in English Civil War (1642-1649), specifically, in the 1648 Siege of Colchester.
The rhyme came about because as Colchester was under siege, one of the cannons from the attacking side managed to destroy the wall 'Humpty Dumpty' was positioned on. Hence, Humpty Dumpty came tumbling down.
Due to its massive size, none of the king's horses and none of the king's men were able to put it back together again... and so Humpty's legacy was born.
So there you have it. Once a cannon, now an egg, forever a popular nursery rhyme.
How could they not be? Across the world, the film and TV industry – Weinstein's domain – continues to foist outdated gender roles upon viewers.
Women's work
Television commercials are particularly guilty, frequently casting women in subservient domestic roles.
Take this 2015 ad for the Argentine cleaning product Cif, which is still running today. It explains how its concentrated cleaning capsules "made Sleeping Beauty shine."
The prince could help clean up, but why bother when women can do it all?
In it, a princess eager to receive her prince remembers that – gasp – the floors in her castle tower are a total mess. Thanks to Cif's magic scouring fluid, she has time not only to clean but also to get dolled up for the prince – who, in case you were wondering, has no physical challenges preventing him from helping her tidy up.
But why should he, when it's a woman's job to be both housekeeper and pretty princess?
Somewhat paradoxically, advertisements may also cast men as domestic superheroes. Often, characters like Mr. Muscle will mansplain to women about the best product and how to use it – though they don't actually do any cleaning themselves.
Mansplaining domestic chores.
More recently, there's been a shift – perhaps an awkward attempt at political correctness – in which women are still the masters of the home, but their partners are shown "helping out" with the chores. In exchange, the men earn sex object status.
This year, U.N. Women teamed up with Unilever and other industry leaders like Facebook, Google, Mars and Microsoft to launch the Unstereotype Alliance. The aim of this global campaign is to end stereotypical and sexist portrayals of gender in advertising.
As part of the #Unstereotype campaign, Unilever also undertook research on gender in advertising. It found that only 3 percent of advertising shows women as leaders and just 2 percent conveys them as intelligent. In ads, women come off as interesting people just 1 percent of the time.
The #Unstereotype Alliance will tackle gender stereotypes in advertising, which are often perpetuated negatively across the industry. pic.twitter.com/SYIOuyJjO0
Even before it was forced to reckon with allegations that Harvey Weinstein had also harassed women in London, the United Kingdom was making political progress on the issue of women's portrayal in the media.
In July, the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority announced that the U.K. will soon prohibit commercials that promote gender stereotypes.
"While advertising is only one of many factors that contribute to unequal gender outcomes," its press release stated, "tougher advertising standards can play an important role in tackling inequalities and improving outcomes for individuals, the economy and society as a whole."
As of 2018, the agency says, advertisements in which women are shown as solely responsible for household cleaning or men appear useless around kitchen appliances and unable to handle taking care of their children and dependents will not pass muster in the U.K. Commercials that differentiate between girls' and boys' toys based on gender stereotypes will be banned as well.
Sticky floors
The U.K.'s move is a heartening public recognition that gender stereotypes in the media both reflect and further the very real inequalities women face at home and at work.
Worldwide, the International Labor Organization reports, women still bear the burden of household chores and caretaking responsibilities, which often either excludes them from pay work or leaves them relegated to ill-paid part-time jobs.
In Argentina, my home country, fully 40 percent of men report doing no household work at all, even if they're unemployed. Among those who do pitch in, it's 24 hours a week on caretaking and domestic chores for men. Argentinean women put in 45 hours.
You can do the math: On average, Argentinean women use up two days of their week and some 100 days annually – nearly one-third of their year – on unpaid household labor.
Real-world consequences
These inequalities, combined with advertising that reinforces them, generate what's called the "sticky floors" problem. Women – whether would-be investment bankers or, I dare say, aspiring Hollywood stars – don't just face glass ceilings to advancement, they also are also "stuck" to domestic life by endless chores.
The cultural powers that be produce content that represents private spaces as "naturally" imbued with female qualities, gluing women to traditional caregiving roles.
This hampers their professional development and helps keep them at the bottom of the economy pyramid because women must pull off a balancing act between their jobs inside and outside of the domestic sphere. And they must excel at both, all while competing against male colleagues who likely confront no such challenges.
Former U.S. president Barack Obama once pointed out this double standard in homage to his then-competitor Hillary Clinton. She, he reminded an audience in 2008, "was doing everything I was doing, but just like Ginger Rogers, it was backwards in heels."
The sticky floor problem puts women in a position to be exploited by men like Weinstein, who tout their ability to help female aspirants to get unstuck. Until society – and, with it, the media we create – comprehend that neither professional success nor domesticity has a gender, these pernicious powerful dynamics will endure.
It was Diwali's eve, and my day started with a dismaying piece of news talking about a proposal issued by the Maharashtra state government which goes a step further to coerce MBBS doctors into rural service. I've written extensively on the pros and cons of compulsory rural service for fresh doctors. However, this write-up is to target a much more disconcerting aspect: that of putting the entire onus of the sad state of our rural healthcare system on doctors who are reluctant to join rural service. This also seems to be the sinister undertone of the government's campaign to solve the rural health crisis and is catching on with the commonality of this nation rapidly.
To understand the prime factors responsible for the shambles our rural healthcare is currently in, we need to examine the long-standing proclivities of our governing class. It's hard to argue that our policies related to healthcare have ever truly been 'pro-poor' and directed to address the perennial rural-urban dichotomy. The main focus, however, has arguably been the flashy, advanced tertiary care model taking care of the affluent urban class and sidelining the needs of the rural folk like nutrition, sanitation, and primary care, which also happen to be our major public health challenges. The saddest part is that the layman has been deceived into believing that advancement is all about sophisticated, high-end interventions, state of the art facilities and that nutrition and sanitation are secondary, while the reverse is true. India's measly investment into social security is also a testament to this general tendency.
The public health system of India in its present form is not even an apology of what it was envisaged to be several decades ago.
The undue pro-capitalist skew in our policies favouring the rich, culminating in the rise of neoliberalism in the 1990s has proved to be a significant damaging factor for our public health system. Not only has unregulated commercialisation and privatisation made quality healthcare a prerogative of the rich, it has also severely curtailed the inflow of resources (including doctors) into the public sector. A predilection for for-profit, market forces in healthcare coupled with a perennially low health spending never allowed a meaningful national health service to take off, which is meant to absorb all doctors and provide healthcare 'irrespective of one's ability to pay'. The public health system of India in its present form is not even an apology of what it was envisaged to be several decades ago. It lacks not only human resources but also essential infrastructure, a credible referral system, and an effective healthcare manpower policy.
It is hypocritical to expect a doctor to stay satisfied on moral grounds... putting up with the worst conditions while many of his peers continue to be lured into the affluent private sector...
It's hard to justify calling into question the moral integrity of doctors reluctant for rural service, while the real reason for the sad state of rural healthcare lies entrenched in our policies and the inclinations of our governments. Having recently worked in a rural area myself, I can attest to how abject the state of affairs could be for such doctors, who often have to settle for everything from a pest-infested accommodation, lack of basic amenities like electricity and potable water, to an overt insecurity about their own lives, apart from their patient's. Despite this, our authorities remain steady in propagandising that the doctor is the diabolical figure responsible for the rural health crisis.
It's high time the truth be propagated that increasing the number of public sector doctors would be in vain, unless backed by a renovation of the public health infrastructure and a reorientation of policies. The national health system of India is not in a position sound enough to effectively utilise the expertise of the country's doctors, even if it somehow they can accommodate the majority of them. It is absurd to think that a doctor working in a PHC could deliver a satisfactory service in the absence of basic, life saving infrastructure, essential medicines, and ambulatory services. It would be hypocritical to expect a doctor to stay satisfied on moral grounds after distancing himself from his family, and putting up with the worst conditions, while many of his peers continue to be lured into the affluent private sector so favoured by the powers that be.
Compulsory rural service after MBBS can be a welcome move only if an adequate national health system is in place to take care of both patients and doctors. There is an urgent need for the authorities to stop portraying doctors in bad light, assume responsibility, and acknowledge the holistic solution to the problem. If the current trend of blame and coercion continues, the country shall only be destined to an even more deficient and disgruntled medical workforce.
The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of HuffPost India. Any omissions or errors are the author's and HuffPost India does not assume any liability or responsibility for them.
But there’s one thing you won’t see Kate Middleton wearing while she’s out and about attending royal engagements: bright nail polishon her fingernails.
“The royal ladies always wear natural nail polish because very bright, especially red, is seen as rather vulgar,” Diana Mather, director and senior tutor at The English Manner, an international protocol, etiquette and hospitality consultancy firm in the U.K., told HuffPost.
“In the old days prostitutes and courtesans wore red nail varnish (as it was called then) and ladies didn’t want to be associated with anything like that, so they wore understated colors,” Mather said. “Royal ladies always keep their nails beautifully manicured, but if by some unfortunate mishap a nail gets chipped when out in public, it is much less visible if it is a natural shade.”
William Hanson, a British etiquette coach and expert, agreed and said that brightly colored nails are seen as “tarty” by the British.
“Nothing about any outfit any member of royalty wears should distract from the duty at hand,” he said.
Grant Harrold, an etiquette expert and former royal butler who now runs a Twitter, YouTube and website called “The Royal Butler,” echoed Hanson’s thoughts.
“The family would certainly not wear any form of product or makeup that will draw the wrong attention,” he said.
“Her Majesty the Queen wears a neutral polish, showing that royals do indeed wear nail polish, but opt for subtle and neutral colors keeping with tradition and not the latest fashion item.”
Middleton went with a similar, understated manicure for her engagement announcement photos with Prince William:
Throughout her time in the public eye, the Duchess of Cambridge has also kept her nails unvarnished or worn a lighter shade of polish at events:
Now, this news doesn’t mean that Middleton hasn’t ever worn bright nail polish before (she hasn’t been a royal her entire life). And we’ve seen her wear red nail polish on her toes at a dinner at Claridge’s in 2012.
And more recently she wore a similar red nail polish color on her toes earlier this year to a reception at Clärchens Ballhaus in Berlin, Germany.
Though it seems that royals wouldn’t necessarily wear bright nail polish on their toes, Mather offered an explained for Middleton’s choice.
“The correct dress code states that toes should not be on display, but that rule is more relaxed in the 21st century, so perhaps the Duchess of Cambridge likes to be a bit more adventurous where her toes are concerned,” Mather said.
Just don’t count on Kate wearing bright blue or a sparkly pink polish on her fingernails any time soon (unless Princess Charlotte is able to convince her!)
The study’s authors observed 50 native German speakers who were attending a university in the Netherlands, where classes were taught in Dutch. Each person in the study indicated that they drank alcohol on occasion. The participants had also recently passed a Dutch proficiency test.
Each volunteer was asked to engage in a two-minute recorded conversation with an interviewer in Dutch. Half of the volunteers were given alcohol before the chat, and the other half were given water. The amount of alcohol varied depending on the person’s body type. (For example, a 150-pound man was given slightly under a pint’s worth of beer.)
The conversations were then reviewed by two native Dutch speakers, who weren’t told which participants had drunk alcohol and which hadn’t. The participants were also asked to rate their own performances.
Those who’d had alcohol didn’t rate their performance any better than those who’d had water, indicating that they didn’t necessarily feel more confident in their fluency than the water-drinkers.
However, the native Dutch speakers saw it differently. They ranked the alcohol drinkers as being more fluent in Dutch than those who drank water ― specifically, when it came to pronunciation. On metrics like vocabulary and grammar, the native Dutch speakers said, the two groups were comparable.
There are some caveats here. The amount of alcohol is key, for starters. Researchers theorize that drinking too much can have the opposite effect, making proficiency in another language worse due to slurred words. It’s also not clear what the participants’ stress levels or emotional states were at the time ― factors that can help or impede a person’s performance. The study’s authors note that this experiment should be conducted with other foreign languages to see if the same effect occurs.
Still, the researchers concluded that a little liquid courage can help when it comes to fluency.
Don’t drink? There are other options
If a little chardonnay isn’t your thing, there are certainly other ways to get better at speaking a new language. Give one of these a try:
Prioritize rest.
There’s some evidence to suggest that your brain can learn new information while you slumber. This doesn’t necessarily mean you can learn Spanish as you drift off, but research has shown that a person’s brain can learn and understand new noise patterns even while they’re asleep. The results suggest that hitting the hay is vital for brain power, also. It’s a start, right?
Writing during the learning process can help the brain retain new information. Studies show that when students take notes using pen and paper, they’re better able to recall the information from memory than when they take notes on a laptop.
You should never need a reason to indulge your love for dogs and all things dog-related, but as the world skids further into a fiery hellscape, dogs can be a great source of self-care.
But what do you do if there's no dog in sight? Sure, you could just look at some photos, I mean, that could work. But wouldn't it be even better to hear jokes and anecdotes tinged with Twitter's trademark mix of bleakness and humour? No need to answer that question, fellow dog-adorer, because we got you.
We have scoured Twitter and found our favourite dog-related tweets for those times you need them which, we guess is, like, always?
1.
Cop: Know why I stopped you?
Me: Cuz my dog is driving?
Cop: No, I wanted to pet him and call him a good boy.
After facing scathing criticism for promoting a “women’s empowerment” panel consisting only of men, SJ Magazine announced it was pulling the plug on the event.
The South Jersey-based publication promoted the panel, unironically dubbed “Women in Business: A man’s point of view,” on Twitter on Monday. In response, HuffPost reporter Yashar Ali expressed incredulity in a tweet that promptly went viral.
Reaction to the all-male panel, which would’ve included New Jersey state Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald (D) and ESPN correspondent Sal Paolantonio, was blistering:
The discussion should be had by women and men should be the ones listening. That's how you support women in business.
SJ Magazine initially defended its decision to host the all-male panel, saying it had organized three other panels in its “women’s empowerment” series that included female speakers.
“Men have a responsibility to step up & support women & we want to start the discussion,” the publication said in a follow-up tweet.
A few hours later, however, the magazine announced it was canceling the event.
Sahar Dofdaa lived a tragically short and painful life. With sunken eyes and frail, protruding bones, the famished infant hardly stood a chance. Trapped in a Syrian conflict zone, her mother was too malnourished to breastfeed, and her father too impoverished to afford milk supplements.
Freelance journalist Amer Almohibany photographed Sahar for the last time at a medical facility in the war-torn country on Saturday. She died hours later, barely a month old and weighing just 4 pounds.
Almohibany’s heart-wrenching images of the emaciated newborn have onceagainturnedWesternattention to the Syrian regime’s siege of eastern Ghouta, where as many as 400,000 people reside, including Sahar’s parents.
Hundreds of civilians in the dilapidated Damascus suburb ― more than half of them children ― have died from food and medication shortages since the siege began in 2012, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said in a report released Tuesday.
Experts warn President Bashar Assad’s government is tightening its noose in the region, causing the already dire situation to deteriorate further.
“They’re really pushing the enclave to the brink of catastrophe for hundreds of thousands of people,” Valerie Szybala, executive director of the Washington-based Syria Institute, told HuffPost. “There’s nothing hopeful to grab onto here.”
Ghouta Under Siege
Eastern Ghoutahas been under complete siege since 2013, shortly after a sarin gas attack by regime forces killed an estimated 1,429 people there.
For Assad, encircling Syrian territory and populations is a way to exert dominance and control while defying international human rights actors who oppose his leadership. He has kept the rebel-held area under an increasingly tight blockade, preventing his own desperate citizens from fleeing and keeping them from urgently needed aid supplies, with few exceptions.
The Russian military and Syrian rebels reached a de-escalation agreement on July 22, but Syrian-Russian alliance groups have continued to launch dozens of attacks against civilian facilities in recent months, the report notes.
“At this point, a lot of people have adjusted to this kind of caveman lifestyle that they’ve been living: no electricity and no running water,” Szybala said. “But the Syrian government and its allies are still launching attacks on [civilians], and has recently taken steps to intensify the siege,” limiting access to arable land and profiting off of basic supplies that have drastically escalated in price.
For Abu Azzam and his family in the town of Hamouriya, east Ghouta, this means eating one small meal per day, if they’re lucky. An airstrike on his home two years ago left him and his son permanently disabled, and killed one of his other children. He and his wife, Manal, struggle to care for their surviving sons and daughters.
“Over the past three days, we have only eaten bread,” Manal told the Syrian American Medical Society in a tearful interview. “And that’s thanks to our neighbor, who gave us a small amount of wheat.”
There's nothing hopeful to grab onto here.
Valerie Szybala, executive director of the Syria Institute
There are approximately 1,100 cases of malnutrition in eastern Ghouta, including hundreds of people suffering from severe to acute malnourishment, said Dr. Mohamad Katoub, a doctor with SAMS.
“It’s not only malnutrition. Other medical services just aren’t available,” Katoub, who is originally from eastern Ghouta, told HuffPost from Turkey. “We continue to lose people because of this lack of medical treatment ― people who could have been treated very easily.”
The medical sector “has been incredibly depleted,” said Szybala, who worries the humanitarian situation will only worsen as autumn gives way to winter.
Starvation By Siege: Assad’s Weapon Of War
The tactic of sieges, among the most brutal in the Assad regime’s playbook, “has turned into a matter of starving and restricting civilians” with no end in sight, according to Fadel Abdul Ghany, the founder and director of SNHR. “Its cost is higher than any anticipated military objective, and has become a form of collective punishment that denied civilians basic services and food.”
Szybala says she fears “something akin to East Aleppo,” referring to another siege imposed by the Syrian government that also resulted in a hunger crisis and widespread suffering. “I expect we’re going to see a lot of deaths due to siege this winter.”
The plight of eastern Ghouta’s residents also bears gruesome similarities to a prolonged siege in Madaya, Syria. The government blocked aid supplies and basic goods there for over a year, leading to mass casualties.
The international community’s response to the crisis has been utterly inadequate, according to Szybala. “People feel isolated, they feel alone, they feel abandoned ― and they are absolutely right,” she said. “There is no help coming for them.”
WASHINGTON D.C. -- The roads in Madhya Pradesh (MP) are better than the United States, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Tuesday.
Addressing the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum meeting, Chouhan said, "When I got down at the Washington Airport and travelled on roads, I felt the roads in Madhya Pradesh are better than the United States."
When I got down at Washington Airport & travelled on roads, I felt roads in MP are better than US: Madhya Pradesh CM in Washington DC pic.twitter.com/saMTLqKDqT
"A few years back, MP was termed as a diseased state, but when I became the Chief Minister 12 years back then it was in my mind that without basic infrastructure no state can develop. Our first focus was on building the roads. Today, we have constructed around 1.75 lakh kilometre roads in the state and all the villages have been well-connected with roads," Chouhan said.
He said that India is on the cusp of great economic progress today under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"Projects like Start up India, Digital India, Stand Up India, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojna, Aam Aadmi Beema Yojna, Housing for All have been started by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India's economic development rate is more than 7 %," the Chief Minister said.
Chouhan termed the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as the biggest opportunity for investors.
"The GST has been launched in India for one nation-one tax-one market. This is the best opportunity for the investors as earlier they had to pay different taxes in different states," Chouhan said.
The GST, launched on July 1, is an indirect tax and is applicable throughout India. It replaced multiple cascading taxes levied by both - the central and state governments.
Chouhan also termed last year's demonetisation as the biggest step for the economy of the country.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi also took a very big decision of demonetisation. The black economy in India has been completely eradicated. Under the Digital India, people are getting all the facilities online through mobile even in the villages. India is marching ahead rapidly," he said.
On 8 November, 2016, Prime Minister Modi announced the demonetisation of all Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 banknotes. The government claimed that the action would curtail the shadow economy and crack down on the use of illicit and counterfeit cash to fund illegal activity and terrorism.
Talking about electricity production in Madhya Pradesh, Chauhan said, "When I became the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, we had only 2900 MW power. Today, the state has 20,000 MW power. We generated electricity from not only thermal, but also from water, wind, and solar resources."
He also told the gathering that Madhya Pradesh was constructing world's biggest 750 MW sola
r power plant in Rewa and "probably the consumers will get world's cheapest electricity at Rs. 2.93 per unit".
The Chief Minister also highlighted Madhya Pradesh's other achievements.
"When I became the Chief Minister, only 7.5 hectare land was irrigated, but now 40 lakh hectare land is irrigated. Madhya Pradesh's growth rate has been in double digits - around 12 per cent for the last eight years. The state's agriculture growth rate has been plus 20 per cent for the last five years," he said.
Talking about the river-linking project, Chouhan said it was the dream project of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to tackle with flood and drought.
"We have successfully implemented this project in Madhya Pradesh when we linked River Narmada with River Chipra. Now, we are linking River Narmada and with other rivers."
Chouhan also said that Madhya Pradesh's thrust is on the food processing sector.
"Madhya Pradesh is number one in India in agriculture, urban development. State's 22 cities found place in top 100 cities of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat Mission," the Chief Minister said, adding, "we are also investing heavily in providing drinking water in 53000 villages of the state."
Chouhan is in the United States to attract investments for Madhya Pradesh.
On Thursday, Chouhan will be holding a series of meetings with Amazon representatives until lunch.
In the evening, he will be attending a 'Friends of MP' interactive session at the Indian Consulate in New York, followed by dinner.
On Friday, Chouhan will again be attending a series of one-to-one meetings, and will depart for Mumbai from the Newark Airport on Saturday.
The Morning Wrap is HuffPost India's selection of interesting news and opinion from the day's newspapers. Subscribe here to receive it in your inbox each weekday morning.
Essential HuffPost
The Supreme Court has weighed in on the national anthem, again, this time to say people shouldn't be forced to stand up in cinemas. But really that misses the larger point, argues Sandip Roy.
Wesley Mathew, from Kerala who is based in Texas, admitted to moving the body of his 3-year-old daughter Sherin Mathew from the family's home after she choked on milk and died, according to an arrest affidavit, changing his original story that she had disappeared after he had put her outside a few hours before dawn as punishment.
We're entering the sixth-wave of mass-extinction. We stand to lose up to 75% of the world's species, some report as soon as mid-century. This is because of human activity like waste and pollution, climate change, habitat destruction and wildlife poaching.
Main News
The government's ₹2.11 lakh crore stimulus for public sector undertaking bank recapitalisation sent the equity markets zooming on Wednesday morning, with both Sensex and Nifty, touching an all-time high in early trade.
Over the last four months, The Indian Express has tracked three key routes to find a trail of health hazards, including environmental damage, caused by the transportation of 25 million tonnes of coal. Official records attest that by 2030, this is slated to double to go up to 51.6 million tonnes each year.
NR Narayana Murthy, one of the founders of Infosys, said he was "disappointed" by the board clearing former CEO Vishal Sikka and his management members on issues of corporate governance and irregularities on a $200 million acquisition.
Off The Record
Within 24 hours of tabling a bill in the Rajasthan assembly that sought to shield public servants and judges from investigation, the Vasundhara Raje government has put the controversial draft into "cold storage" by sending it to a select committee of the House.
Large personal electronic devices like laptops may soon be disallowed from check-in bags because of fears that their battery fire would go undetected, leading to possible catastrophes.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has said that by appointing a representative to hold talks in Kashmir, the central government has finally taken an important step towards reconciliation.
Opinion
The question facing the Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat is whether the powerful Patel community in the state will vote as a caste bloc or if their support will be divided by class inflections. Christophe Jaffrelot weighs in in The Indian Express.
The horrifying incident of a brutal rape in a public place in Visakhapatnam, and of a bystander recording a video of the incident instead of alerting the police highlights not just how unsafe our cities are for women, but also how callous our society has become, an editorial in the Hindustan Times says.
Bitcoin has proved many of its critics wrong over the years, but its long-term prospects may not be too bright, writes Prashanth Perumal in The Hindu.
The Indian Medical Association had demanded that the practice of having a doctor participate in the process of execution be scrapped. The Telegraph reports that the IMA has asked medical regulators in the country to amend the code of conduct of doctors, so that they are not made to be present at hangings.
Krishnan Kumar Agarwal, national president of the IMA, said in a statement: "No doctor should be present during the process of execution. This would be a violation of medical ethics and should be deemed professional misconduct."
The report adds that the doctors want to implement a 2012 resolution by the World Medical Association. While they do not want to have any part in capital punishment, they've said that they can be asked to check the deceased after the process in order to issue a death certificate.
In 2012, the World Medical Association announced that it was against a physician's morals to abet and participate in the killing of a human being.
The general assembly of the World Medical Association therefore undertook a resolution in Bangkok in 2012 to not participate in processes of capital punishment undertaken by governments.
Explaining their decision, the resolution said: "There is universal agreement that physicians must not participate in executions because such participation is incompatible with the physician's role as healer. The use of a physician's knowledge and clinical skill for purposes other than promoting health, wellbeing and welfare undermines a basic ethical foundation of medicine—first, do no harm."
They also declared the following:
Therefore, be it RESOLVED that:
Physicians will not facilitate the importation or prescription of drugs for execution.
The WMA reaffirms: "that it is unethical for physicians to participate in capital punishment, in any way, or during any step of the execution process, including its planning and the instruction and/or training of persons to perform executions", and
The WMA reaffirms: that physicians "will maintain the utmost respect for human life and will not use [my] medical knowledge to violate human rights and civil liberties, even under threat."
India Today reports Dr Agarwal saying: "All the policies and resolutions of the WMA are accepted by all member national medical associations, this makes India a signatory to all policies and resolutions adopted by the WMA, so we have requested the MCI to implement the 'WMA Resolution on Physician Participation in Capital Punishment', as a guideline for doctors in the country."
The BCCI today suspended the curator of Pune's cricket stadium after he was seen on a TV sting operation claiming that he could tamper with the pitch ahead of the second India-New Zealand ODI.
In the sting operation by India Today TV, curator Pandurang Salgaoncar is seen and heard speaking to an undercover reporter, who poses as a bookie, while standing on the pitch of the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium.
The 68-year-old Salgaoncar is seen agreeing to tamper with the pitch to suit the requirements put forth by the reporter. India Today TV said the video was shot last evening.
It is not clear how Salgaoncar, a former pacer and one-time India prospect, could have tweaked the pitch with just a few hours to go before the match later today.
"Pandurang Salgaoncar has been suspended from the Maharashtra Cricket Association's curator's post with immediate effect," BCCI acting Secretary Amitabh Chaudhary told PTI.
"The MCA has also suspended Salgaoncar from all other positions in the association. An inquiry Commission will also be constituted by MCA. At BCCI, we reiterate that we have zero tolerance towards any corrupt activity," he added.
The expose revealed a serious lapse in the functioning of the BCCI's anti-corruption mechanism but Chaudhary said today's match must go ahead.
"That is a decision that only the ICC match referee can take. You need evidence that the pitch has been doctored in order to call off a match. It's match referee's call. But in my opinion, match will go on," he asserted.
What has left senior BCCI officials baffled is that Salgaoncar allowed a self-confessed bookie to accompany him to the main match pitch. Under BCCI rules no unaccredited persons, including journalists, are allowed near the pitch.
"The BCCI Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) under Neeraj Kumar will have some answering to do. Here a random man comes, doesn't have an all-access area pass and is taken to the main pitch by the curator," a BCCI official said.
Asked if the ACU unit should be answerable as to how an outsider got access to the pitch, Chaudhary said, "...everyone associated with the ACU would be answerable. In any case a very select few have access to the centre of the pitch."
When contacted, BCCI acting President C K Khanna said he is writing a mail to Kumar so that his team gives an update on the incident.
"It's a pity that both former MCA President Ajay Shirke and current president Abhay Apte had helped Salgaoncar have a career after retirement. He gets Rs 65,000 salary per month from the MCA and also a BCCI pension. He is among BCCI's independent curators. We are feeling bad for both Abhay and Ajay. Salgaoncar let them down badly," Khanna said.
Salgaoncar, a former Maharashtra speedster, was considered a genuine India prospect in early and mid '70s.
He toured with the Indian team for an unofficial series against Sri Lanka back in 1974. Sunil Gavaskar's autobiography 'Sunny Days' mentions him as being a genuine prospect who was unlucky not to don national colours.
The former pacer took 214 wickets in 63 first-class games.
The Pune pitch had been under the spotlight earlier as well. It had been rated poor by the ICC after an India- Australia Test match in February.
The Australians had hammered India by 333 runs on a turner where the home team was bowled out for 105 and 107 in two innings. The game itself had ended inside three days.
Former India captain Sourav Ganguly also expressed his shock.
"I don't know how he can tweak the pitch in one day and prepare it accordingly for a bookie. I don't know in what context he was saying this," Ganguly said.
The Maharashtra government's attempt of online registration for loan waiver implementation has sent the authorities into a tizzy as names over 100 farmers have been found linked to a single Aadhaar number.
The state government had earlier stressed on online registration by farmers with their Aadhaar, which is a unique identification.
The government has said that the Aadhaar-based linking will avoid any duplication as well as fake accounts getting the benefit of the loan waiver.
A senior official from the Maharashtra cooperation department showed a list of potential beneficiaries of farmers having a common Aadhaar number, which has become a cause of concern for the government.
"We always thought that the Aadhaar number will be our key to check fake beneficiaries. Now, we don't know how to address this challenge with so many farmers showing the same Aadhaar number."
"We always thought that the Aadhaar number will be our key to check fake beneficiaries. Now, we don't know how to address this challenge with so many farmers showing the same Aadhaar number. If we have to carry out a manual check, which will take weeks. The farming community is already agitated over the delay in implementation of the scheme," the official said.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has called an urgent meeting with bankers today to address issues like this that crop up in the way of speedy implementation of the scheme.
Officials of some banks also admitted that the data they received from the online registration portal Aapale Sarkar - varies the data at their in their records.
Names Missing
The names of some farmers are missing and some do not match with the land size or type of loan.
"In many cases the principal amount and interest are not matching. It leads to suspicion. Unless the state officials have verified the account and its loan amount, we cannot consider that account for loan waiver," a senior official of a leading public sector bank.
The state government had last week released a sum of Rs 4,000 crore under the first phase of the over Rs 34,000 crore farm loan waiver scheme.
Responding to the Opposition's criticism against the online system of filling forms for availing the scheme, Fadnavis last week earlier said had that not been done, the banks would have mismanaged funds.
The Centre had earlier this year made Aadhaar mandatory for availing crop insurance policies.
As per the agriculture ministry's directive, banks were asked to persuade farmers to furnish Aadhaar identification card at the time of sanction/renewal/ disbursement/inspection of the loan or on visit at bank branches.
Indian banking shares soared on Wednesday, sending indexes to record highs after the cabinet approved a $32.4 billion plan to recapitalise its state banks over the next two years, although uncertainty remains about how the injections will be structured.
The gains come after India's cabinet late on Tuesday cleared a plan to inject 2.11 trillion rupees ($32.4 billion) into state-run lenders over the next two years.
With the plan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is bidding to tackle a major drag on the economy that has frustrated his attempts to boost growth.
Investors welcomed the news, sending shares of State Bank of India, the biggest lender, up as much as 25 percent to its highest since January 2015. The benchmark NSE index rose as much as 1.3 percent, touching a record high.
But details of how New Delhi will fund the injections remain unclear. Also, questions remain about whether it would add to the country's fiscal deficit at a time markets are already doubtful India can meet its 3.2 percent target of gross domestic product for the year ending in March 2018.
The planned injection also still falls short of some estimates, including from credit rating agencies, of what's required. Fitch Ratings estimates Indian banks need $65 billion of additional capital by March 2019 to meet Basel III global banking rules.
For now, analysts said the long-awaited actions are positive, as India was widely seen as dragging its feet in resolving issues in a banking sector saddled with $145 billion in soured loans after years of almost indiscriminate lending.
Once the world's fastest-growing major economy, India has seen its growth rate plummet to the lowest in three years. A key factor has been the lack of private investment as state banks, which provide most of the credit in the economy, hold the largest amount of bad debt.
"At the end of the day, a good dose of the medicine that is required is being provided," said Jobin Jacob, associate director of financial institutions at Fitch Ratings.
"How the medicine is being sourced could have its own implications on the macro picture, but as far as the banking sector is concerned, it is helpful," he said.
Of the planned 2.11 trillion rupees sum, so-called recapitalisation bonds will account for 1.35 trillion rupees, while about 580 billion rupees is estimated to come from share sales by banks, the ministry said on Tuesday.
BIGGER STATE EQUITY STAKES?
The government will also use 180 billion rupees left from its previously budgeted recapitalisation fund.
Analysts predict recapitalisation bonds would likely involve selling debt to lenders, with the government then injecting the capital back into state-owned banks, potentially in exchange for increased equity stakes in the sector.
The government could also seek to avoid adding to its fiscal deficit by funding the injections through state-owned bodies rather than directly, an accounting sleight-of-hand that could allow New Delhi not to count the expenditure as part of its budget.
Details will matter. Concerns about how the recapitalisation bonds will be structured sent the benchmark 10-year bond yield up 3 basis points to 6.81 percent from its previous close.
The Indian rupee weakened slightly to 65.15 from its previous close of 65.0925
Investors warned that India also needed to announce reforms to the banking sector, to prevent moral hazard and impose more credit discipline on lenders.
Policymakers "should impose targets on these banks in terms of profitability, credit quality and efficiency. This has to be carefully managed," said David Marshall, Singapore-based analyst with CreditSights.
The festive season had many an enemy this year. From GST to ever-changing "internet ka fashion", we felt a distinct change this year, the kind of change that mirrors everyone's favourite Bangkok-tee slogan: Same Same But Different!
Not everyone's feeling the festive buzz in Banda this year, and there's a new three-letter word to blame, it seems. "GST, GST, GST. What is this GST? Aaj tak samajh hi nahi aaya. (Nobody's got the hang of it)." A frustrated Gopal Prasad Gupta, who runs a general store in Banda, spells it out for a chunk of the population who've been complaining of the "kamar-tod mehengaai (back-breaking price-rise)," the likes of which they haven't ever experienced. "Now the worker population has been unemployed for so long, what with demonetisation and then the 'baalu samasya' (the pause on the sand business, a huge income-source for local mule owners), how will they spend on Diwali?", asks Bhishm Yadav, shopkeeper, pointing to his own pockets, as if to illustrate the point. It's an echo we follow around that marks our reportage, we hear it again and again. "Raunak nahi hai na (There's no buzz)", says Ashok, fruit seller. Sannatta to dekh hi rahe ho aap bhi (you can see how quiet the market is)", whispers bangle seller Meena. Even as local advocate Kumar Yadav has the last word, "you know how on Dhanteras, people used to buy utensils for the house, or jewelry for their wives? Now, they're going to buy a spoon." He laughs at his own joke.
Kusum Kali, another Banda local, wouldn't agree though. For a Diwali trend-mapping story, she tells us, "we never had anything, what did we have? Nowadays women have naths, baalis, jhumkas, paayals, bichchuas, (nose rings, earrings, anklets, toe rings) and what is that they've started wearing here?", she circles her upper arm with her thumb and forefinger. "Baaju-band (armlet)", someone prompts her. She also explains to us how jhaalars (chandelier earrings) are no longer trending, and how the young girls prefer jhumkis. Shiv Devi, another Banda local, is nostalgic about the bichchua, "Ab toh mahatva nahi hai uska (It's no longer considered an important item)". The local sunhaar (goldsmith) Om Narayan is obsessed with "net ka fashion", only because that's what his clients are obsessed with. (Net, meaning, the internet.)
The more things change, the more they remain the same
There are rituals and cultural practices that mark the festive season for Bundelkhand, which continue to hold fort here. Chitrakoot's signature dance form, the traditional Dewari dance, hasn't paled over the years. We heard senior practitioners speak of the need to instil pride in the younger performers, so they know it is part of a heritage they'd be wise not to just give away. Of course nothing says Bundeli Diwali fervour quite like donkeys! The famed gadha mela (donkey fair) of Chitrakoot witnessed the hustle and bustle of brokered deals the same as every year. As digital head Kavita puts it, "All year-round, you crack jokes on donkeys and then this one time of the year, you dress them up in all their finery, paint them in attractive hues, and make a huge display of them!" Now, that's what we call a Bundelkhand Diwali!
The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of HuffPost India. Any omissions or errors are the author's and HuffPost India does not assume any liability or responsibility for them
Even his most ardent admirer would concede that Rahul Gandhi is no orator. He comes across as the master of the faux pas, the mangler of metaphors, a Muggle flailing against the political wizardry of a Modi-Shah combo. Some have even joked that he is the BJP's greatest asset. BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao once said Rahul Gandhi is a sure shot route for achieving his party's Congress-mukt (Congress-free) Bharat claim.
But these days the BJP might be the one helping Rahul, never a stellar performer on the campaign trail. The big guns of the ruling party are spending a lot of time training their ammunition on a man whom they have routinely dismissed as a political non-entity. In the process they are inadvertently granting Rahul what he has sorely needed — some political gravitas. They are making him someone to reckon with.
His recent speeches in the US at first spawned mocking memes because it was reported he was going to talk about Artificial Intelligence. The BJP could have just ignored him because in the end what did it matter how he performed in a lecture hall at a university in the US. Instead they sent in their heavyweights to attack him as a "failed dynast". Amit Shah, Smriti Irani and Ravi Shankar Prasad all took turns to go after Rahul. Prasad complained that Rahul had broken a tradition of not talking about domestic politics overseas. Shah said nobody listens to Rahul in India anyways oddly proving that he was listening. Irani complained Rahul was belittling the Prime Minister abroad. In the process they managed to make more people pay attention to what had been in essence an interaction with university students, not even as much drama as Modi's Facebook townhall or Madison Square Garden speech.
Rahul's latest barb calling GST the Gabbar Singh Tax clearly got under the BJP's skin. As Vijay's Mersal has shown, the ruling party is quite thin-skinned about GST anyway. Arun Jaitley has retorted that the GST crack proves that the Congress is scared of a legitimate tax system, that the party of 2G and coal scams only wants a cash economy. Actually what it really proves is that two can play the acronym game.
Narendra Modi is the master of the acronym. There's nothing he cannot acronym-ize. Some have been his attempt to make government programmes and goals pithy — JAM (Jandhan Aadhar Mobile), SMART (Strict and Sensitive, Modern and Mobile, Alert and Accountable, Reliable and Responsive, Technosavvy and Trained police force) and PRAGATI (Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation). But his acronyms have had their greatest sting when he targets them at his opponents. And the Congress has been often the butt of the acronym.
During the Uttar Pradesh election Modi warned against SCAM — Samajwadi, Congress, Akhilesh and Mayawati. In 2014 he defined the Congress party as ABCD — Adarsh, Bofors, Coal and Daamaad (son-in-law). He even had a little shorthand for the Gandhi parivaar — RSVP or Rahul, Sonia, Vadra and Priyanka.
Despite an occasional humdinger like the "suit-boot ki sarkar" after Modi was photographed in his monogrammed suit, Rahul is better known for the plodding metaphor talking about Dalit empowerment in terms of the escape velocities of earth and Jupiter. "In Hindustan we have the concept of caste. Dalits need Jupiter's escape velocity on earth." That Rahul (or his team) have come up with an acronym that draws blood shows that Rahul is learning a few tricks from his foes.
Rahul has a steep learning curve. He got on social media way too late, long after Narendra Modi had turned it into a powerful weapon for his party. Rahul can only play catch-up. That the BJP now complains about Congress bots online and fake accounts is quite funny. Rajyavardhan Rathore, tweeted: "In sports, this would come under 'Doping'... hey wait?? Does 'dope' remind you of someone?"
Now the BJP is calling Congress a 'Dramebaaz party Number 1'. Ravi Shankar Prasad said Rahul is "yet to understand the serious dynamics of economics and development" and was resorting to gimmickry in a desperate bid to stay relevant. He said Rahul needed to do his homework. But in reality, it's Rahul who has been far too serious and far too earnest for too long, the dutiful student reluctantly completing his homework assignments. But his earnest Harry Potter image was not working well against his opponent's sly and sarcastic jibes calling him "young leader" just learning to give speeches.
He told a meeting in Vadodara, "I am thankful to the BJP because the defeat in 2014 Lok Sabha elections was greatest thing that happened to me. BJP had beaten me and abused me so much. It opened up my eyes." Perhaps he has also learned a little humour goes a long way in the battle of social media. A little drama goes even further.
"In Hindustan we have the concept of caste. Dalits need Jupiter's escape velocity on earth."Rahul Gandhi
It's not that Rahul has not tried drama before. His famous intervention at the Press Club in Delhi tearing up an ordinance shielding tainted MPs was high drama indeed. Unfortunately for the Congress it was a bit of self-goal for the party since its own man Manmohan Singh was at the helm at that time. But Narendra Modi is the master of drama and can milk a pregnant pause in a speech like no other. He can even make drama about an appearance at a Teachers Day event turning it into must-watch TV.
He has turned tearful talking about demonetization which was unrolled with all the "surgical strike" drama of a Bollywood action thriller. "They may ruin me but I'm prepared," he said in best martyr-style. Left leader Brinda Karat called it naatakbaazi(drama). When Modi teared up at his Facebook townhall, All India Mahila Congress president Shobha Oza called him a big "drama king". Some would say that the BJP calling Rahul Gandhi a dramabaaz is actually a compliment. The "young leader" is at least learning about the theatrics of politics.
None of this might make much difference to the Congress' prospects, whether in Gujarat or beyond. Any reinvention of Rahul Gandhi is a tough call after all these years. But it's amusing to see the BJP reacting with such indignation to Rahul Gandhi's newfound penchant for a little drama and acronyms.
He has learned from the best. This is a leaf taken right out of Narendra Modi's playbook.
The sticky floor problem puts women in a position to be exploited by men like Weinstein, who tout their ability to help female aspirants to get unstuck. Until society – and, with it, the media we create – comprehend that neither professional success nor domesticity has a gender, these pernicious powerful dynamics will endure.
