If a man goes back on his promise to marry a woman, can sex between consenting adults then be considered rape? The Indian Supreme Court recently answered this question with a "yes".In a significant verdict, the court upheld a trial court order convicting a doctor of rape in the central state of Chhattisgarh because he had a consensual sexual relationship with a woman after he'd promised to marry her, but then went back on his word and married someone else. Judges L Nageswara Rao and MR Shah said the woman gave her consent because she believed that the doctor intended to marry her, therefore, it could not be regarded as consent.India is still largely conservative when it comes to matters of sex and sexuality. Virginity is prized and a woman who's known to have had pre-marital sex may find it hard to get married.The judges said that the accused had a "clear intention" not to marry her, adding that "sexual intercourse under total misconception cannot be treated as consent". Though the top court reduced the 10-year prison term awarded by the trial court to seven, the judges said that he "must face the consequences of the crime committed by him".This is not a rare case - according to the government's crime data for 2016, police recorded 10,068 similar cases of rape by "known persons on promise to marry the victim". In 2015, that number was 7,655. In April 2019, a court in the southern state of Karnataka freed a man on bail, saying that educated women in a pre-marital relationship cannot claim rape after the relationship is over - even if the consensual sex was on the promise of marriage In 2017, a senior journalist in the southern state of Kerala was arrested after a female colleague accused him of sexually harassing her. According to police reports, the two were in a relationship for more than a year. He had allegedly promised to marry her, but then later changed his mind A Scottish national was arrested in the capital, Delhi, in 2016 after a woman alleged that he sexually assaulted her for five months after promising to marry her. She told police that he later ended their relationship The Supreme Court judges advised the trial courts to "very carefully examine whether the man actually wanted to marry the victim or had malafide motives from the start and had made a false promise only to satisfy his lust". This essentially means that if a man can prove that he intended to marry the woman but changed his mind later, then it's not rape. It's only considered rape if it's established that he had dubious intentions from the start.Now as "intention" is not easy to prove, it leaves such cases to the discretion of judges and also concerns that the law can be misused.In fact, perturbed by the high number of such cases, Justice Pratibha Rani of Delhi High Court said in 2017 that women use rape laws for "vendetta" when a relationship sours. "This court had observed on [a] number of occasions that the number of cases where both persons, out of their own will and choice, develop consensual physical relationship, when the relationship breaks up due to some reason, the women use the law as a weapon for vengeance and personal vendetta."They tend to convert such consensual acts as incidents of rape maybe out of anger and frustration, thereby defeating the very purpose of the provision. This requires a clear demarcation between the rape and consensual sex, especially in the case where complaint is that consent had been given on promise of marriage," the judge said. Why Indian women must shun sex to claim alimony India court blames 'promiscuous' rape survivor Was Delhi gang rape India's #Metoo moment? Bystanders ignored Vishakhapatnam rape The woman who collects clothes of sex assault victims Many Indians believe rape laws should not be used to regulate intimate relationships, especially in cases where women have agency and are entering a relationship by choice. Many in the judiciary, too, seem to share this opinion and, that to some extent, explains why the conviction rate in such cases is very low and most cases lead to acquittal. In 2016, the Bombay High Court also observed that an educated adult woman who had a consensual sexual relationship cannot later allege rape when the relationship sours.Mumbai-based senior lawyer and activist Flavia Agnes, however, argues that what we need to remember is that many of these complaints come from socially disadvantaged and poor women in rural areas who are often lured into sex by men on false promises of marriage and then dumped as soon as they get pregnant. She adds that under the present legal system, the rape law may be the only recourse they have to claim damages or even maintenance. That's why she suggests a separate section under the rape law to deal with these cases where instead of harsh jail terms, the deceiving men could be made to pay damages, maintenance and future security for the child.

Back in 2009, India was still far from becoming a global startup hub. The founders of India’s (now) most-funded internet startup, Flipkart, were only selling books online, and the country was nowhere on the radar of global players like Amazon.But Piyush Shah took the plunge.Giving up his cushy job as an assistant vice-president at Deutsche Bank, he chose to join a young team in Bengaluru (then Bangalore) that was working on SMS-based search at the time.This company of around 100 employees had been in business for around two years. Shah was to head its strategic initiatives, beginning with the development of a mobile phone-based payments solution that was launched in 2011. This launch was the beginning of its transformation into the more advanced sphere, advertising on mobile phones, which is its core business today.“None of the co-founders had a telecom background. Neither did I,” Shah recalls. But when he met InMobi founder and CEO Naveen Tiwari in Mumbai, he was sold nevertheless.“The fact that they (InMobi’s founders) were building a product company from India was reason enough,” he told Quartz. “What drew me was the audacity of the vision—something very large and very world-class.”Even though that project didn’t work out, over the last eight years, Shah, now the chief product officer, put in place some key initiatives at InMobi, including its biggest cash cow: performance advertising.The day Shah first walked into InMobi’s office in Bengaluru was the last time he wore formals to work. ”I used to wear business suits at Deutsche, but now all I wear are jeans. I now struggle to find a pair of trousers in my wardrobe,” he said.But a wardrobe makeover was just the beginning. “Just three months after joining InMobi, I was in the heart of Silicon Valley in a room filled with some of the biggest investors in the world. I was pitching my idea to them. I had never imagined doing something like that,” he said.His first assignment was to create and head a team to build Smartpay, a solution that helped app developers, game companies, and content providers make money.Two years on, in May 2011, InMobi launched SmartPay. ”At the time, even Google had just started thinking of payments and did not have their own payments solution. Facebook had nothing in the space,” he recalls.Shah had hired top engineering talent from companies like Amazon, Yahoo, and Google for SmartPay—some of these engineers have been instrumental in building InMobi’s tech backbone.Smartpay itself had a short life, though.For soon after its launch, Google and Apple banned third-party payment solutions from their operating systems. “We took the hard call, shut the division down, and pivoted the team to something else. We did explore a wallet model back then, but it never happened,” Shah said.The focus shifted to strengthening and deepening InMobi’s developer relations. Till then, it was only helping clients run ads on apps and make money.Then, in 2012, he was called on to create InMobi’s future jackpot.During an offsite that year, InMobi’s leadership decided to diversify into performance advertising: the ability of a mobile advertiser to get users to download various apps.“This was 2012, when the iPhone and Android platforms were still pretty new, and the first set of apps were getting popular. Customers across domains like gaming, social networks, chat, music, etc, wanted to acquire tens of millions of customers in different countries. We offered them the right solution and that was the first wave of huge growth for InMobi,” Shah said.As general manager, he took the business towards revenues of over $100 million within just two years. “Even now, performance advertising is InMobi’s cash cow. It generates around two-thirds of its revenue,” he said. The company, however, refused to disclose any numbers. Though, as per a source-based report in The Times of India newspaper, InMobi earned over $300 million in 2016.InMobi is among a handful of profitable Indian tech startups. It managed this feat despite competition from American giants like Facebook and Google.Shah believes there’s a reason why the company will continue to give the biggies a run for their money. “We have always been mobile(phone)-first. All our solutions have been built with a focus on mobile (phones). That has given us a lot of knowledge and expertise in a unique way and so we have grown uniquely in the app ecosystem,” he said. “While Google and Facebook are strong, too, the mobile-only focus brings with it an added domain expertise and domain knowledge for us.”The company has also built “pockets of resilience” by going after geographies that are not the competitors’ strongholds. China, for instance.In any case, as far as Shah is concerned, the geography of his ambition is massive. “Startups give us an open canvas,” he said. And InMobi is that dream canvas.

Mr. Krasimirov, who had been drinking heavily before the assault, waited for his victim near Ruse’s promenade along the Danube River, where Ms. Marinova had gone for a run on Saturday morning, officials said. They said he struck her on the head and dragged her into nearby brush.He has been charged in absentia with rape and murder by extreme cruelty, which can carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.Mr. Krasimirov fled on Sunday to Germany, where the German police tracked him in three different states, the Bulgarian authorities said. He was arrested by German officers at the request of Sofia and is awaiting an extradition hearing.The crime has fueled outrage in Bulgaria, where many people express frustration with rampant corruption and say they have little trust in law enforcement and the judicial system. Though the country joined the European Union in 2007, it has often been criticized for making little headway in fighting high-profile graft or in reforming its judiciary.On Tuesday, the police again cordoned off the crime scene, after some of Ms. Marinova’s relatives and friends said they were going to search the area on their own for evidence, voicing disappointment with the slow progress of the investigation. In the evening, dozens of people ran five kilometers along the Danube to the place where her body was found, and demanded police patrols and the installation of security cameras along the river promenade.Prime Minister Boiko Borisov of Bulgaria expressed his discontent with the international pressure the government had faced to solve the crime, as the grisly killing made headlines around the world.“Over the course of the last three days, I read a lot of monstrous things about Bulgaria and none of them was true,” Mr. Borisov said to reporters in Sofia. He pleaded with them to use their influence responsibly.

Enlarge this image A security force member walks outside a shuttered restaurant Thursday in Manbij, Syria, the site of a suicide attack that killed more than a dozen people, including four Americans, a day earlier. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Delil Souleiman /AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Delil Souleiman /AFP/Getty Images A security force member walks outside a shuttered restaurant Thursday in Manbij, Syria, the site of a suicide attack that killed more than a dozen people, including four Americans, a day earlier. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Delil Souleiman /AFP/Getty Images The Islamic State has jumped back into the headlines by claiming responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed four Americans and more than a dozen civilians at a restaurant in northern Syria.The attack in the city of Manbij on Wednesday came less than a month after President Trump declared ISIS had been defeated and that it was time to bring U.S. troops home from Syria. Many military analysts, and even fellow Republicans, have pushed back against the president's claim that ISIS is a spent force."I strongly urge the president to forcefully respond [to Wednesday's bombing] and ensure we do not withdraw our troops until ISIS is completely destroyed," said Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.The attack raised a host of questions about the future of ISIS, the U.S. withdrawal and the wider war in Syria. Middle East U.S. Has 'Begun The Process' Of Withdrawing From Syria, Pentagon Says How strong is the Islamic State in Syria?ISIS has lost the caliphate, or Islamic State, and almost all the territory it controlled in Syria (and Iraq) at its peak in 2014. However, many fighters are still believed to be in Syria; they've just gone underground.Many are citizens of Syria and have nowhere else to go. In addition, relatively few foreign ISIS fighters have tried to return to their home countries elsewhere in the Middle East or in the West. The Pentagon and others have estimated ISIS may still have 20,000 to 30,000 members in Syria and Iraq combined.For these reasons, many analysts believe ISIS retains the potential to mount a comeback, particularly as a guerrilla force waging small-scale attacks. Enlarge this image A member of the Kurdish security forces patrols a popular market in Manbij, Syria, last April. The city had been mostly calm since the Kurds and the U.S. drove the Islamic State out of the city in 2016. Hussein Malla/AP hide caption toggle caption Hussein Malla/AP A member of the Kurdish security forces patrols a popular market in Manbij, Syria, last April. The city had been mostly calm since the Kurds and the U.S. drove the Islamic State out of the city in 2016. Hussein Malla/AP Why is President Trump so determined to remove U.S. forces now?The president has often boasted that he would hit hard at ISIS, and the U.S. military did step up the bombing campaign he inherited from President Barack Obama.But Trump has also stressed repeatedly that he doesn't want the U.S. to be the world's policeman and that he intends to bring home U.S. troops. The U.S. force in Syria (around 2,000) is smaller than the ones in Iraq (about 5,000) and Afghanistan (about 14,000).The president has not clearly articulated why he wants to pull out of Syria at a time when most of his own advisers appear to favor a more gradual approach.Trump's Dec. 19 announcement on Syria caught nearly everyone by surprise, and caused allies and rivals alike to scramble to figure out how quickly a withdrawal will happen and what it means for those still fighting in Syria.Why was Manbij a target?Wednesday's attack showed ISIS could still strike in a place the U.S. and its Kurdish partners felt was under control. The U.S. and the Kurds drove ISIS out of the city in 2016, and its been seen as a relative success since then.Manbij is small, with about 100,000 residents, but has had outsize importance because of its location. Turkey keeps a close eye on the city, which is just 20 miles south of its border. The Syrian government army and its allies are also nearby, and are always looking to reclaim territory the government held before the war erupted. Analysis After U.S. Troops Leave Syria, What Happens Next? What would a comprehensive defeat of ISIS look like?Many analysts point to three things. First, a military defeat that would drive ISIS from its last remaining pockets of territory in Syria's far east. U.S. commanders say they've been making progress but will likely need a couple more months.Second, Syria needs a political settlement that ends the wider war and resolves questions about who will govern the country. The Kurds now hold the former ISIS stronghold in the northeast, but Syrian President Bashar Assad wants it back. At present, there's no prospect for an end to the war.The third big challenge is to effectively end the appeal of ISIS's extremist ideology so that it can no longer keep attracting recruits and resources.Are there parallels to the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011?The circumstances aren't identical, but there are similarities. Obama removed U.S. forces from neighboring Iraq at the end of 2011, a time when the Iraqi government seemed to have a relatively firm control on the country.But ISIS emerged a couple years later, rapidly seizing swathes of northeastern Syria and northern Iraq. With reluctance, Obama launched the U.S. bombing campaign against ISIS in 2014.The concern is that the U.S. is again pulling out before a radical group has been fully defeated, and that ISIS could regroup."I saw this in Iraq. And I'm now seeing it in Syria," said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

UNITED NATIONS/BEIRUT (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Friday delayed a vote on a demand for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria, where pro-government warplanes have been pounding the last rebel bastion near Damascus in one of the deadliest bombing campaigns of the seven-year civil war. A draft resolution aimed at ending the carnage in the eastern Ghouta district and elsewhere in Syria will be put up for a vote in the 15-member council at noon (1700 GMT) on Saturday, Kuwait’s U.N. Ambassador Mansour Ayyad Al-Otaibi said. The 24-hour delay followed a flurry of last-minute negotiations on the text drafted by Sweden and Kuwait after Russia, a veto-holding ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, proposed new amendments on Friday. “Unbelievable that Russia is stalling a vote on a ceasefire allowing humanitarian access in Syria,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley posted on Twitter. Talks have centered on the paragraph demanding a cessation of hostilities for 30 days to allow aid access and medical evacuations. A proposal for the truce to start 72 hours after the resolution’s adoption has been watered-down to instead demand it start “without delay” in a bid to win Russian support. Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Moscow does not want to specify when a truce should start. It was not immediately clear how Russia would vote on Saturday. A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by Russia, China, the United States, Britain and France to be adopted. “We’re not going to give up. ... I hope that we will adopt something forceful, meaningful, impactful tomorrow,” Olof Skoog, Sweden’s U.N. ambassador, told reporters. Previous ceasefires, however, have had a poor record of ending fighting in Syria, where Assad’s forces have gained the upper hand. The towns and farms of eastern Ghouta have been under government siege since 2013, with shortages of food, water and electricity that worsened last year. Earlier on Friday, the densely populated enclave was bombed for a sixth straight day, witnesses said. The civilian casualties and devastation there are among the worst in Syria since the government captured rebel-held parts of Aleppo in 2016. At least 462 people have been killed, including at least 99 children, and many hundreds injured, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Friday. Syrian state media reported one person was killed and 58 injured in rebel shelling of sites in Damascus, including a hospital. Clouding any potential ceasefire is the Syrian government’s frequently used tactic of pushing rebels to surrender their strongholds after long sieges and military offensives. Insurgents in eastern Ghouta have vowed not to accept such a fate, ruling out an evacuation of fighters, their families and other civilians of the kind that ended rebellions in Aleppo and Homs after heavy bombardment in earlier years. “We refuse categorically any initiative that includes getting the residents out of their homes and moving them elsewhere,” Ghouta rebel factions wrote in a letter to the Security Council. Eastern Ghouta has 400,000 people spread over a larger area than other enclaves the government has recaptured. Late on Thursday, government aircraft dropped leaflets urging civilians to depart and hand themselves over to the Syrian army, marking corridors through which they could leave safely. People inspect missile remains in the besieged town of Douma, in eastern Ghouta, in Damascus, Syria, February 23, 2018. REUTERS/Bassam KhabiehLeading up to the Security Council vote, all eyes have been on Russia. Moscow has a history of standing in the way of Security Council measures that would harm Assad’s interests. Germany and France were among the nations to ratchet up the pressure on Russia, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron asking Russian President Vladimir Putin to support the resolution. Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow wanted guarantees that rebel fighters will not shoot at residential areas in Damascus. Damascus and Moscow say they only target militants. They have said their main aim is to stop rebel shelling of the capital, and have accused insurgents in Ghouta of holding residents as human shields. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government planes and artillery hit Douma, Zamalka and other towns across the enclave in the early hours of Friday. There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military. Medical charities say more than a dozen hospitals were hit, making it nearly impossible to treat the wounded. A witness in Douma who asked not to be identified said by telephone that the early morning bombing was the most intense so far. Another resident, in the town of Hamouriyeh, said the assault had continued “like the other days.” “Whenever the bombing stops for some moments, the Civil Defence vehicles go out to the targeted places. They work to remove the debris from the road,” Bilal Abu Salah said. Slideshow (4 Images)The Civil Defence there said its rescuers rushed to help the wounded after strikes on Hamouriyeh and Saqba. The emergency service, which operates in rebel territory, says it has pulled hundreds of people out from under rubble in recent days. Hamza Birqdar, the military spokesman for the Jaish al-Islam rebel faction, said it had thwarted nine attacks by pro-government militias trying to storm a front in the southeast of Ghouta. Reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Additional reporting by Dahlia Nehme in Beirut and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Ellen Francis and Paul Simao; Editing by James Dalgleish, Will Dunham and Lisa ShumakerOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

By Feb. 7, 2018 7:00 am ET India’s income tax department has issued 100,000 tax notices to cryptocurrency investors, in the latest sign of a government crackdown on the use of the digital money. “People who have made investments (in cryptocurrency) and have not declared income while filing taxes and have not paid tax on the profit earned by investing, we are sending them notices as we feel that it is all taxable,” Sushil Chandra, the head of India’s direct taxes department, was quoted as saying in a news release from an Associated Chambers of Commerce... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In

Why is it racist to say Jews are careful with their money? Why is it racist to say Asians are good at maths? Why is it racist to say black men have 24-inch penises? Guys, these are compliments! Your lot are never satisfied, are they?And so to some Manchester United fans’ chants about their striker Romelu Lukaku, which a totally encouraging number of people simply cannot see are racist. To be super-clear (and apologies to those who realised this in 1964 or whenever): any assumption about someone made solely on the basis of that person’s race is racist. It may also be banter – but it is racist banter. And if anyone’s still struggling with the logical underpinnings of that incredibly simple rule of thumb, we’ll be diving deeper into why in a minute.For now, Kick It Out has written to Manchester United asking them to act on the Lukaku chants, explaining: “Racist stereotypes are never acceptable in football or wider society, irrespective of showing support for a player.” In 2014, a YouGov analysis of Manchester United and Manchester City fans asked the two groups to describe themselves from a list of over 200 personality traits. With United fans, the one that came out top was “adaptable”. So do let’s hope they’ll swiftly adapt to not singing songs about Lukaku’s cock size.Hang on – before we continue, I should stress: not all Manchester United fans. An unquantified minority of Manchester United fans. A minority who have almost without doubt completely lost their shit in the past if anyone tried to stereotype them in some way. As troublemakers, say, or people who live in Surrey. Yes, it’s a particular irony that those voicing distaste about the Lukaku chant are now being accused of oversensitivity by a certain strand of quick-to-temper football fans, who absolutely cannot stand to be generalised about themselves in any way. I mean, they really wet their pants about it.If it relates to their own tribe, there are few more sensitive and chippy policers of language than some football fans. Fire up the internet and start anything other than the most positive sentence with the words “All fans of X club are” and you would be accused of appalling bias, hatred of the club, laziness, and a variety of unprintables besides. It is absolutely right that phrases like “a section of fans” and “a minority of fans” appear in news reports relating to the less savoury incidents that occasionally attend the game. But I sometimes feel they need to feature in special highlighted type in case arguably the most oversensitive group in society thinks someone’s accusing them, personally, of whatever it is. Not all United fans. Not all Chelsea fans. Not all England fans. Not all men.But back to Lukaku and this one-eyed notion that stereotyping someone in a manner perceived to be complimentary is somehow problem-free. As huge amounts of psychological research have found, the trouble with supposedly positive stereotypes is that they tend to be accompanied in the minds of those who hold them by distinctly less complimentary ones. Time and again research papers have showed you couldn’t have one without the other: people who saw Asians as great at maths also thought they were cold and remote, and terrible drivers. If we may boil down this tendency to a racist drama in three sentences: why is it racist to say Jews are careful with their money? It’s a compliment, for God’s sake. Bloody hell, trust the Jews to find something to complain about.And so with the Lukaku chant. I’m afraid we have to ask ourselves something about those Manchester United fans chanting their great big compliment at Lukaku: what’s the likelihood the only stereotype those people hold about black people is that they have enormous penises? Honestly, what are the chances? Zero, is the answer to that, whether or not they even realise it.As the aforementioned social psychologists repeatedly find, those who are positively stereotyped in one department are negatively stereotyped in others. For instance, you don’t get people to assume you have a superior penis without them also quietly assuming you have an inferior brain.This is why it is so unreasonable to expect people to laugh along with what may seem to those indulging in it to be “just banter” – be they the subject of the chant himself, or other black people who hear it or hear of it. Not all of them may declare they have a problem with it but the ones who do have a very real and serious problem with it. Why should they be expected to laugh gratefully as you tell them they have a huge penis, when inside they may be well aware you also probably think they’re lazy and more predisposed to criminal behaviour?Obviously, this questionably complimentary stereotyping isn’t restricted to race. It may come as a shock to the system for men given to paying a certain type of compliment but when women heard men praise them for conforming to one positive stereotype – being ladylike, for instance, or nurturing – they stated they were more likely to think the man also held negative stereotypes about them. And why wouldn’t he? He’s a stereotyper. Stands to reason he does it both ways. He may not be saying them out loud but they’re there.Just as they are with Lukaku. Prejudice masquerading as praise may appear superficially more appealing than prejudice without disguise. But only superficially. Topics Romelu Lukaku Sportblog Manchester United comment

India’s supreme court has marked a big step forward in the fight against the sexual exploitation of minors.In a landmark ruling on Oct. 11, the country’s highest court declared that having sex with a wife who is under the age of 18 counts as rape, and is therefore a criminal act. Until now, an exception to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, which defines various circumstances of rape, protected men who engaged in sexual relations with women aged between 15 and 18, as long as they were married to them.However, this exception left room for the cruel sexual exploitation of minors in India, which recorded the second-highest number of child marriages between 2000 and 2012, behind Bangladesh, according to UNICEF. The incidence of child marriage has been increasing in urban areas, perpetuated by a variety of factors, including poverty, a lack of education, and cultural norms.The loophole has also encouraged the trafficking of young girls. In one particularly harrowing example, reported by Reuters earlier this week, underage girls in the southern city of Hyderabad were married off to visiting men from the Arabian Gulf states just for the duration of their stay, before being unceremoniously divorced. The few who travelled back with their husbands ended up in sexual slavery or domestic servitude, the report says.While the supreme court on Oct. 11 refused to comment on marital rapes in general, its decision on child brides could have ramifications for the matter, which is being heard by the Delhi high court currently.The Indian government, on its part, has maintained that criminalising sexual intercourse with child brides or even marital rape in general would threaten the institution of marriage. This despite the fact that a significant proportion of women in India are sexually abused by their husbands, besides being forced into performing sexual acts.

AIN ISSA, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S.-backed militias launched their “final” assault on Syria’s Raqqa on Sunday after letting a convoy of Islamic State fighters and their families quit the city, leaving only a hardcore of jihadists to mount a last stand. “The battle will continue until the whole city is clean,” said a statement by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias. SDF spokesman Talal Selo told Reuters that “no more than 200-300” foreign militants remained to fight on in the city after the convoy left. “This is the final battle,” he said. Under the withdrawal deal between Islamic State and tribal elders, the jihadists would let all other civilians trapped in Raqqa have safe passage out of the city, he said. Selo added that he believed only a few may have remained. Raqqa’s fall to the SDF now looks imminent after four months of battle hemmed the Islamic State jihadists into a small, bomb-cratered patch of the city. “We still expect there to be difficult fighting,” said Colonel Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the U.S.-led international coalition backing the SDF in the war against Islamic State with air strikes and special forces. The coalition will continue to operate on the basis that civilians remain in Raqqa, he said. Raqqa was the first big Syrian city that Islamic State seized as it declared a “caliphate” and rampaged through Syria and Iraq in 2014, becoming an operations center for attacks abroad and the stage for some of its darkest atrocities. But Islamic State has been in retreat for two years, losing swathes of territory in both countries and forced back into an ever-diminishing foothold along the Euphrates river valley. “Last night, the final batch of fighters (who had agreed to leave) left the city,” said Mostafa Bali, another SDF spokesman. There were conflicting accounts as to how many people left in the convoy. Selo said 275 Syrian militants left along with their family members. Laila Mostafa, head of the Raqqa Civil Council formed under SDF auspices to oversee the city, said that figure included both the fighters and their family members. In a statement, she denied an earlier comment by another council member that some foreign fighters had left in the convoy. Before the evacuation, the coalition estimated that about 300-400 fighters were still holed up in the Islamic State enclave. Fighters who left in the convoy, which the coalition is tracking, had given biometric data including fingerprints, Dillon said. The convoy was still in territory held by the SDF on Sunday morning, Selo said. Related CoverageU.S.-backed SDF launch final assault in Syria's Raqqa cityFactbox - Battle for Raqqa, Islamic State's Syrian HQ near endBali described the civilians who left with Islamic State fighters in the convoy as human shields. The jihadists had refused to release them once they left the city as agreed, wanting to take them as far as their destination to guarantee their own safety, he said. Such withdrawals of fighters along with groups of civilians have grown commonplace in Syria’s six-year war, as a way for besieging forces to accelerate the fall of populated areas. The convoy would head to the remaining Islamic State territory in eastern Syria, Omar Alloush of the Raqqa Civil Council had said on Saturday. The agreement was brokered by the council and tribal elders to “minimize civilian casualties”, the coalition has said. Tribal leaders from Raqqa said they sought to prevent bloodshed among civilians still trapped in the city. “If there are any civilians remaining (in the enclave) they would be the families of those foreigners. The civilians exited completely,” Selo said on Sunday. The SDF’s decision to hasten the battle’s end by allowing Islamic State fighters to leave Raqqa was at odds with the stated wishes of the U.S.-led coalition that backs the militias. Dillon said it was not involved in the evacuation but added: “We may not always fully agree with our partners at times. But we have to respect their solutions.” In August, the coalition spent weeks preventing a convoy of Islamic State evacuees from an enclave on the Syrian-Lebanon border from reaching jihadist territory in eastern Syria. The SDF launched the battle for Raqqa on June 6 after a months-long campaign to isolate the city against the north bank of the Euphrates. Islamic State, then known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, had captured the city in January 2014, seizing it from rebel factions which had ousted the Syrian army a few months earlier. As the group became more entrenched in Syria and Iraq leading up to its capture of Mosul in June that year, Raqqa became its most important center, and it celebrated its series of victories with a massive parade through the city. Many of its top leaders were at times based there, and former hostages said Mohammed Emwazi, better known as Jihadi John, imprisoned them along with those he later executed, in a building near an oil installation near the city. The group killed dozens of captured Syrian soldiers there in July 2014 and it was also the site of a slave market for Yazidi women captured in Iraq and given to fighters. The coalition has said Raqqa was a hub for attacks abroad, and in November 2015, after militants killed more than 130 people in Paris, France launched air strikes on Islamic State targets inside Raqqa. Members of Syrian Democratic Forces escort a blindfolded civilian detainee suspected to be a member of Islamic State militants in Raqqa, Syria October 12, 2017. REUTERS/Issam AbdallahBut the group is now in disarray. In Syria it does not only face the U.S.-backed SDF offensive but a rival one by the Syrian army supported by Russia, Iran and allied Shi’ite militias. A Syrian military source said on Saturday the army had captured the city of al-Mayadin in the Euphrates valley, leaving Islamic State only a few more towns and villages, and surrounding desert territory, in Syria. But the battle for Raqqa has come at great cost to its people. Intense coalition air strikes and the months of street-to-street fighting have pulverized much of the city. Thousands of people have fled as refugees and hundreds of civilians have died. Reporting by John Davison in Syria and Ellen Francis in Beirut; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Mark PotterOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

A leadership crunch is crippling India’s non-government (NGO) sector.Chronic negligence has led to a virtual absence of talent-nurturing in these organisations.Nearly all (97%) of the 250 leaders from the sector surveyed recently considered leadership development vital to their organisations’ success, according to a study by Bridgespan, a US-based non-profit. This was echoed by 50 funders, too. Yet, over half the NGOs surveyed reported not having received any money towards this in the past two years.“Pushed in part by donors to focus almost exclusively on delivering programs, NGOs…often shortchange themselves by under-investing in people,” Pritha Venkatachalam, the co-author of the study, titled Building the Bench at Indian NGOs: Investing to Fill the Leadership Development Gap, told Quartz.This proves a hurdle particularly when NGOs try to “scale and sustain impact,” Venkatachalam said.The number of NGOs operating in India are estimated to surpass three million but those having real-world, large-scale impact are few. But the crunch is felt most acutely by those with over 50 full-time employees that ”realise they cannot rely on a single leader and must build a strong leadership bench,” according to Venkatachalam (see chart). As they begin to address the burning need for good top-level talent, confidence improves. So NGOs with over 100 employees fare better, according to the survey.For the survey, leaders of 203 organisations of varying sizes rated on a scale of one to five how capable their organisations were across the four leadership-pipeline components: developing, retaining, recruiting, and transitioning.Irrespective of sectors and size, half the organisations do not assess the leadership on the ability to meet future challenges and seize opportunities. In fact, 22% of them don’t asses the leadership at all.The NGO sector talent pool is small and those vying for senior-level recruits are many.Nearly 40% of NGOs surveyed by Bridgespan struggled to even enlist senior leaders. Their other big challenges were transitioning new recruits into their new positions and developing their leadership skills.While leaders typically move from one NGO to another, over 30% of the organisations identified private sector for-profits as a primary source for senior talent, the study noted. There are, of course, tasks that require specific expertise from outside, like when an organisation begins using more technology.However, outside hires are mostly burdensome. Discovering and onboarding new senior-level recruits can be an expensive affair.Besides, moving from the private to the social sector can be daunting. “The problems the social sector is attempting to tackle are more complicated and intractable, whilst the resources are much more constrained,” Venkatachalam explained. ”Impact and progress are harder to measure and can take longer to see and the culture is very different.”A sustainable solution to NGOs’ problems is to identify talent from within.Potential in-house leaders are likely to be easier to retain. “They have institutional and stakeholder knowledge and are likely a good cultural fit with the rest of the team,” Venkatachalam added.However, only 54% of NGOs coach or mentor internal leaders and mostly do so on an ad hoc basis. This is due to insufficient resources (both funding and tools), low awareness, and lack of prioritisation, the study notes.A second line of leadership is key to avoid over-dependence on individual leaders (often the founders) and for succession plans, something that over half the NGOs surveyed haven’t given a thought to. Some, though, have come up with solutions such as following a two-CEO model or moving decision-making down the line to regional managers and others closer to the projects.“There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ magic bullet for leadership development,” Venkatachalam says. But deeply investing in talented senior staff has shown to bear fruit as “greater ownership, mission alignment, and institutionalised learning across levels of the organisation.”

编者按：本文来自爱范儿，作者：肖钦鹏；36氪经授权发布。2014 年第三季度，苹果财报公布 iPod 销量为 290 万台，与 2013 年同期相比下滑 36%——这是苹果最后一次公布 iPod 的销量数据，此后，iPod 作为苹果的次要收入来源，被归到了「其他」品类当中。两个季度之后，Apple Watch 正式开卖，跟 iPod 一样，这个全新的品类也被归到了财报的「其他」项里。短短两三年间，在苹果财报那个不为人知的角落里，Apple Watch 正在取代 iPod 的位置。个人分析机构 Asymco 统计了近几年来 iPod、Apple Watch 和其他配件的销售情况。从这份图表上看，在 2009 年到 2012 年期间，iPod 仍然是苹果最主要的营收来源之一；而随着 iPhone 的崛起、苹果体系配件的日渐丰富（包括 Beats、AirPods 以及各种保护套等），iPod 能贡献的营收也越来越少。到了 2015 年第二季度，Apple Watch 正式发售，很快就取代了式微的 iPod，并逐渐成为苹果「其他」品类中最主要的收入来源之一。有意思的是，Apple Watch 与 iPod 的增长轨迹有不少相似之处，在最新的苹果财报发布后，苹果官方表示，在过去的三个季度里，Apple Watch 已经连续三个季度实现了 50% 的销量增长。个人分析机构 Asymco 认为，如果 Apple Watch 能够继续保持良好的增长势头，那么其累积销量很可能将达到 4000 万只，累计销售额高达 143 亿美元。这距离 iPod 的巅峰已经不远了，就在 9 月份的苹果秋季新品发布会上，苹果 CEO 蒂姆·库克曾表示，Apple Watch 已经超越劳力士，成为世界第一的手表品牌。由于 Apple Watch 的平均售价要比 iPod 高不少，因此在总销售额方面，Apple Watch 很有可能在明年超越 iPod；至于年销量方面，2008 年是 iPod 系列卖得最好的一年，出货量多达 5500 万台。如果 Apple Watch 能够以 50% 的增速进行增长，那么到了 2020 年，Apple Watch 的年销量就将超越 iPod。考虑到 iPod 曾经一度是苹果公司的代名词，因此也可以说 Apple Watch 是一款相当成功的产品。但目前 Apple Watch 依旧是 iPhone 的附属品，这也就注定 Apple Watch 无法取代 iPhone 成为苹果最主要的营收来源。近两年，苹果不断地对各大产品线和营收结构进行调整梳理。苹果正在努力调节自身的盈利结构，解决 iPhone 营收占比过高的问题：让 iPad 转型为生产力工具推出强调性能的 iMac Pro提供 iCloud、Apple Music 等附加服务发布 Apple TV，推出各种自制节目强化 Apple Watch 的性能，提供更丰富的功能经过对市场定位、主打功能进行不断地调整，一开始不被看好的 Apple Watch，在经历可穿戴设备市场的低迷期之后，逐渐找准了自身的定位，正在取代 iPod 的位置，成为苹果产品线中不可或缺的一环。

Last week, Jeff Sugarman escaped his burning home in Santa Rosa, California. This week he faced the horrors of the region’s housing market.One of the first inquiries Sugarman made was about a rental house nearby that was listed for $3,700 a month on Zillow. But when he emailed about seeing it, the owner told him the price had soared. “He said insurance companies had been calling him all day and they were willing to pay $4,700 to $5,000 (to house fire victims) so I’d better be prepared to pay more,” Sugarman said, adding that he told the landlord he was “appalled” and “this was wrong”.Sugarman passed the communications to the local newspaper and the US justice department, which he said was investigating price gouging in the wake of the northern California fires that killed at least 42 people and destroyed 8,400 buildings.A spokesman for the California state attorney general’s office said investigators planned to enforce a price gouging provision in the state penal code that prohibits anyone from raising prices more than 10% following the declaration of a state of emergency.But an analysis, conducted for the Guardian by Zillow, of new rental listings since the fire appeared to show that prices last week compared to the previous month have risen more than is typical for rentals in Sonoma and Napa, the two counties hit hardest by the fires. Between September and last week, Zillow data showed a typical asking rent jumped 36% in Sonoma to $3,224 from $2,366, and 23% in Napa to $3,094 from $2,509. Usually, price increases are down in Napa in October and neutral in Sonoma. In Sonoma County, where median rents increased by nearly 44% between 2011 and August 2017, according to Zillow, the housing market is already overheated. But last week’s rental prices per sq ft were still on pace to jump 16 times faster for Sonoma and 22 times faster for Napa in October compared to the average monthly rates in June, July and August.“These data would suggest that rents have increased sharply in Napa and Sonoma counties [since the fires started],” said Aaron Terrazas, a senior economist for Zillow. He cautioned, though, that the analysis was based on the small number of units listed in a single week – 26 new listings in Napa and 30 in Sonoma mostly in single family homes. He said the magnitude of the trends could change as more data became available.Noting that Santa Rosa had declared a state of emergency about a year ago over the housing shortage and the homelessness crisis, councilwoman Julie Combs said: “Now we’ve lost 5% of our housing and 15,000 people have lost their homes.”Sonoma County supervisor Susan Gorin, wearing a respirator and boots as she sifted through the ash of her destroyed home last week, said it was her lower-income neighbors who were most likely to be displaced from the area.“We are so successful as a tourism destination,” Gorin said. “We produce a lot of lower-income jobs – in wineries, in restaurants, in hotels. It’s going to hurt our economy if we don’t get temporary housing for the people who lost their homes in the fire, as well as those who were already on the edge of losing their homes and the homeless.”Adrienne Lauby, who runs Homeless Action, an advocacy group in Santa Rosa, said there were at least 3,000 homeless people in the area before the fires and the numbers were going up. “People are already becoming homeless,” Lauby said, adding that she knew of several people who had been kicked out of informal housing arrangements so that the people they were staying with could take in family members displaced by the fire. “There are pop-up encampments all over the city. People are sleeping in the parks, they’re staying in their cars – there are still 425 people in the shelters.” “All of these people,” she said, “are at risk for homelessness and the winter is coming.”Gorin said the board should look at options such as trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), recreational vehicles and cargo containers converted into homes.Lucien Bisaccio said he and about 30 other people fled from a homeless encampment in the brush below the now-destroyed Fountaingrove neighborhood, after one of the campers woke up to see the whole sky in flame.“When the sun comes up in the north, you know it’s time to evacuate,” he said.He said the campers lost everything. He didn’t know where they would go next.Omar Medina, of the North Bay Organizing Project, has been struggling to line up help for the many undocumented immigrants who work in the region. He said that under federal law families with children who are US residents may qualify for Fema help even if the parents are undocumented. But many workers are afraid to apply because a clause in the Fema paperwork says the information may be passed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Instead some are leaving town. “We’re seeing people already moving out of the community,” he said, adding that, on Thursday, 170 workers showed up at an event organized by the Mexican consulate in Santa Rosa to aid Mexican citizens affected by the fires. “My biggest fear for my community is losing our diversity.” Even without price rises, he said, people on the lower end of the income spectrum are likely to be pushed out of the competition for housing by those with more resources for housing deposits and more stable incomes. His organization has started the Undocufund, which has raised $200,000 to help undocumented workers with money for things like deposits on rentals and emergencies caused by lost wages. “Our hope is that this disaster will be a wakeup call,” he said. “It’s time now to either step up and provide more housing or we’re screwed.” • This article was amended on 4 December 2017 to remove personal information. Do you have an experience of homelessness to share with the Guardian? Get in touch Topics Wildfires Outside in America Natural disasters and extreme weather California features

Dogs have allegedly killed at least 12 children since November in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. But some believe that wolves or jackals are to blame. The BBC's Nitin Srivastava travelled to Sitapur district to find out more. A walk into a lush green mango orchard has never been this frightening. Escorted by three young men, each armed with a big bamboo stick, we make our way to a tree trunk which still has blood stains on it. This is the spot Khalid Ali was mauled to death by what is believed to be a pack of stray dogs on 1 May. The 11-year-old had been on his way to school in Gurpallia village when he made a detour to pick some fruit."I heard loud screams from the neighbouring orchard in the morning. What I saw was gory. This little boy, who was being attacked by dogs, tried to climb up a tree but the animals pulled him down and mauled him. I ran towards the village for help," Ameen Ahmed, a 65-year-old mango farmer says. Khalid Ali had stopped breathing by the time villagers arrived. The "killer dogs" had vanished into the forests. His devastated family is struggling to comprehend what happened."He died on the spot. He was so badly mauled there was no point taking him to the hospital," his weeping mother Mehzabeen says. Do India's stray dogs kill more people than terror attacks? Tracking down India's killer dogs The man who kills stray dogs in India's Kerala But Khalid was not the only victim of mauling that day. Two more children in a 26 sq km (10 sq miles) radius were also killed by packs of "killer dogs". Around 12 children who have survived the attack have suffered terrible injuries. Terrified parents have stopped sending their children to school.No-one seems to know why the stray dogs in the area have suddenly turned into "child killers".Many villagers blame the closure of an illegal slaughterhouse in the area, which was a source of food for the animals.But that theory doesn't really stand up since the slaughterhouse was shut down at least six months before the first mauling casualty was reported last November. Rumours of a "rare breed of man-eater dogs emerging out of the nearby forests" have also spread. Sabir Ali, whose nephew was one of the victims, says that the animals who attacked the child were not "the normal stray dogs thronging the villages". "They were slightly bigger and their jaws were like that of a jackal."Teams from the World Wildlife Fund and Indian Veterinary Research Institute have been camping in the region to ascertain the exact breed of the animals.Vivek Sharma, the chief trainer with the Animal Welfare Board of India, who is in the district to try to solve the mystery, believes the "dogs" may actually be wolves. "I won't be surprised if the real culprits are wolves, and rabid ones. They can travel between one and 20 kilometres within a day, they attack in groups and only target minors," he says. In fact, several wolf attacks have been reported in Uttar Pradesh and the neighbouring state of Bihar in the past few years. The animals had attacked livestock and children.Asghar Jamal, a reputed dog breeder in the region, says cross-breeding between dogs and wolves could be to blame."This would give us a variety of dog which though not a hunting hound, is as deadly as them in nature."Local authorities, however, are not convinced and believe they have almost solved the mystery. "All eye witnesses have said dogs are attacking kids and we have caught more than 50 such dogs. Their behaviour is being monitored by experts," Sitarpur's police chief Anand Kulkarni says.Photographs and videos of more than a few dozen dogs who have been killed or captured also indicate that the animals are the stray dogs that are found across north India.But a deadly round of revenge killings has also set in. "We have killed six dogs in the last week though they are wild and it's not easy to chase them barefoot. We keep moving in groups throughout the day and track them into the forests," Wasee Khan, from Gurpallia village says.With media pressure mounting, local officials also appear to be on a drive to capture as many dogs as possible.Thirteen "dog-tracking teams" equipped with drones, wireless sets and night vision devices have been formed and carry out regular "dog raids". But life for those who have lost loved ones continues to be traumatic."Had I known of these brutal attacks, I would have locked my nine-year-old son at home," the sobbing mother of another victim says.

The brutal gang rape and murder of an eight-year old girl has sparked outrage and anger across India.The body of Asifa Bano, who belonged to a Muslim nomadic tribe, was found in a forest on 17 January near Kathua city of Indian-administered Kashmir.The story made headlines this week when Hindu right-wing groups protested over the arrest of eight Hindu men. The case has become a religious flashpoint in an already polarised Indian region. The men the police have arrested include a retired government official, four police officers and a minor - all of them belong to a local Hindu community that has been involved in a land dispute with the Muslim nomads. Outrage grew after two ministers from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attended a rally in support of the accused men. The child rape and murder that has Kashmir on edge Was Delhi gang rape India's #Metoo moment? Anger not only over the grisly murder but also the support for the accused quickly gathered momentum on Twitter with the hashtags #Kathua and #justiceforAsifa trending since Thursday.Some people on Twitter have also compared Asifa's death with the brutal gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi, which led to huge protests and changes in India's rape laws.The crime took place in one of India's most restive regions. Since 1989, there has been an armed revolt in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley against Indian rule - they valley is adjacent to Hindu-majority Jammu.Asifa's family belongs to a community of Muslim nomadic shepherds who crisscross the Himalayas with their livestock. In the winter, they often travel from the valley to Jammu, where they use public forest land for grazing - this has recently brought them into conflict with some Hindu residents in the region.Investigators believe that the accused men wished to force the nomads out of Jammu. After they were arrested, lawyers in Jammu city tried to stop police entering the court to file a charge sheet. The lawyers were believed to be supporting a Hindu right-wing group that has alleged that the accused men are innocent, and have demanded that the case be transferred to India's federal police. Rahul Gandhi, the chief of the main opposition Congress party, led a candlelight march in Delhi on Thursday night.More protests have been planned to bring attention to brutal crimes against women in India.The chief of Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, has said she will be starting an indefinite fast from Friday to demand better security for women and children in the country.Several other activists and women have also planned protests in Delhi and other parts of the country over the weekend.Some people have also used the hashtag #Unnao to highlight another rape case in which a lawmaker is accused of raping a 16-year-old in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.Kuldeep Singh Sengar, 50, from the ruling BJP allegedly raped the girl last year in Unnao district. But her case was registered only after she tried to kill herself last week in front of the chief minister's home.

Swedish furniture giant Ikea has opened its first store in India in the southern city of Hyderabad.With a growing middle class, India could be a big opportunity for the company, but it is also a market with many quirks.Ikea's giant blue store sits on a 13-acre campus, by the side of a busy road, in HITEC city.The technology hub in Hyderabad is also home to global firms such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook.The scale of the shop is something that has never been seen in India before.Its size alone has piqued curiosity among those who may have never heard of the brand.And then of course, there are so many who have.Upwardly mobile, well-travelled Indians have known Ikea for a while now.In fact, with the number of global retailers who've come to India over the past decade, some would say Ikea has taken its time to set up shop here. The company's global chief executive Jesper Brodin said: "The market of India for us is a dream."But to be honest, some years ago, when we looked into the business case of India, we felt it was too high risk from the cost perspective [of] not meeting our targets." Is Ikea the Marmite of retailers? How Ikea's Billy took over the world Ikea plans ban on single-use plastics So, what changed? Government policies, for one. In 2012, India allowed 100% foreign direct investment in single-brand retail.This was important for Ikea, because it didn't want to go down the joint venture route. The emergence and rapid growth of e-commerce is another reason why Ikea sees more of an opportunity in India now.In fact, even as it works on expanding its brick and mortar presence, the company wants to start selling its wares online in the country by next year. "They've been very patient about India. In terms of the amount of effort and time that they have taken to launch the first store, it's unusual actually," said Arvind Singhal from consulting firm Technopak Advisors. "It shows to me a determination to get it right in the market."And Ikea has taken care to adapt to India.Around the world, Ikea purchases arrive in customer homes in the famed "flat-pack".Stripping out the parts and assembling the furniture is a "do-it-yourself" job. That's not something Indians are used to. The availability of cheap labour in the country means people here rely on workmen or carpenters to do that. "We will argue a little bit with our customers to say - would you please consider the do-it-yourself model?"And the whole point of that is that you save money by doing that," says Mr Brodin. "But we are not naive, and also in other markets we offer services, for home deliveries, for kitchen installations. and in India we believe that need will be slightly more than the average market."So here we have signed up with companies, experts, but also a social entrepreneurship network with people that will be able to get great jobs in serving customers with assembling."They've also changed the other thing Ikea is so well known for - Swedish meatballs.At the store's 1,000-seater restaurant - its largest in the world - they are available.But they aren't traditional meatballs made of beef and pork. That could offend religious sentiments here, and so there are chicken and vegetarian meatballs on offer.As are some Indian dishes like biryani and dal makhani.But finally, whether or not people will actually shop at Ikea all comes down to one thing - price. "Indians are very price sensitive, but they're also value sensitive. You can't give them substandard quality at cheaper rates. They want both," says Paresh Parekh, partner at Ersnt & Young."Indians lose trust very fast, so I think they will have to get it right the first time, in terms of price, quality and experience."It's something Ikea's leadership seems to have taken into account. "In India, we've gone all in as much as we can, and that means out of the 7,500 products that we have here, we've worked very hard, to have 1,000 products with a price of Rs. 200 ($3, £2.30) or less and 500 products for less than Rs. 100," said Mr Brodin."With that offer, this is one of the price-attractive markets that we're opening."But India throws up other challenges. Huge tracts of land, to offer the true Ikea experience, are hard to find in most big cities.If they are available, they're expensive.High import duties are another problem. And keeping prices low means it will take longer to make money back.Ikea has so far said it's investing $1.5bn in India.Mr Brodin admitted it's going to be hard. "The investments are high and the time until which you reach an economy of scale will be a stretch for us, but we will try to endure," he said. From Thursday, they will be watching with bated breath to see how India reacts to Ikea.

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The decision by the Guggenheim museum in New York to pull three pieces from an upcoming exhibit after 600,000 people signed a petition claiming they depicted animal cruelty has revealed unusual trip-wires across the well-trodden arguments around freedom of speech and cultural offensiveness.One of the withdrawn pieces, a seven-minute video-based work, Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other, shows pit bulls tethered to treadmills that exhaust themselves trying to reach, and presumably maul, the other. A second work, Theatre of the World, was an installation of leopard geckos, Italian wall lizards, millipedes, crickets, cockroaches, grasshoppers and two types of beetles, fighting, devouring or being devoured or dying of fatigue. “I was trying to present a metaphor through these creatures, not to emphasize their cruelty,” artist Huang Yong Ping explained in 2015. “I was presenting a case in which the bugs represented different kinds of people who supposedly cannot exist together, and raising the question – what would it be like if they coexisted?”A third work, also a video and titled A Case Study of Transference, showed a boar and a sow copulating, both parties stenciled with Chinese and Roman symbols.The museum said in a news release this week that its decision to pull the three pieces rested on “explicit and repeated threats of violence” it had received. “As an arts institution committed to presenting a multiplicity of voices, we are dismayed that we must withhold works of art. Freedom of expression has always been and will remain a paramount value of the Guggenheim.”But that posed the question whether, in similar circumstances, involving human participants the institution would have taken steps to protect the art, the artists and the institution itself from animal rights activists.The museum’s decision to withdraw the works is an unusual conflation of human and animal rights, says Gary Comstock, professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University and board member of the Culture & Animals Foundation.Comstock says the dog video, by the artist team Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, represents a “valuable historical record of a dubious ‘artistic’ act that has obviously served a purpose; it has provoked conversation about the human/animal bond and about differences between cultures in what we accept as ways to treat companion animals”.The Guggenheim, Comstock points out, says it withdrew the exhibits not because it was persuaded by the merits of ethical arguments on behalf of the animals, but because they claimed to have been threatened with violence and could not protect visitors to the museum.But Comstock finds no ethical objections in the insect or pig exhibits, only in the dog video.“The dogs were clearly being harmed during, and probably after, they were restrained in harnesses on treadmills and being out in front of other dogs that were aggressive and antagonistic to them. But this was not extreme or mortal harm and, as far as I know, the artists are not continuing to harm these creatures.” “The video of the dogs records morally questionable behavior, but that’s no reason to suppress them,” he argues. Prior to Monday’s decision to withdraw the three works, an online petition warned “this assault on animals in the name of art will not be tolerated or supported”. It called on the museum to “take a stand with our animal cohabitants of this planet, and pull the pieces employing these cruel methods from your upcoming show”.After the Guggenheim took the decision to withdraw the work, Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, thanked the institution “for withdrawing these vile acts of cruelty masked as creativity, because abusing animals should never be taken lightly and the museum is not a circus but a temple of fine art”.But the museum now faces accusations that it caved to pressure from animal rights activists in place of any reasoned argument about the work itself. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei called the decision to remove the pieces “tragic for a modern society”.PEN America described the decision as “a worrying precedent”. “That threats of violence became grounds for the cancellation of the works represents a major blow to artistic freedom,” PEN said in a statement.The issue is not short on precedent. The recent Fly By Night (2016) show in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard used a flock of pigeons each with a small light fixed to its leg. Show organizer Creative Time took the precaution of consulting the Wild Bird Fund, which issued approval and described the work as “transformative”.Still, nearly 7,500 people signed a petition calling the work cruel and demanding that the 2,000 pigeons be released.In 2008, the San Francisco Art Institute shuttered a show of works by Adel Abdessemed’s called Don’t Trust Me, that included a video of animals being bludgeoned to death while tied to a brick wall. The exhibition closed after an outcry. In that instance, artnews reports, a similar argument was advanced that while the art institute was committed to freedom of speech, it was swayed by the public safety arguments. “We have to take people’s safety very seriously,” the institute said. But to Comstock at the Culture & Animals Foundation “this is a case in which the Guggenheim should have kept the video on display, assuming they were not incapable of ensuring visitors safety. The video is not harming the viewer and not harming the dogs because the harm has already been done”.“It’s bad art, in my opinion, but that’s an aesthetic, not moral, judgment. At worst, those artists may have corrupt minds. In any case, anyone thinking of doing this to sentient animals in the future should be condemned.” Topics Animal welfare Animals Dogs features

In Syria, as bombs continue to fall in that country’s seven-year civil war and descent into hell, there’s a man in a cave, working his ass off to try to cobble together on-the-fly fixes to broken medical equipment. Sometimes he succeeds, and sometimes he’s stumped by stupid problems–like not being able to find a service person willing to come and update the firmware on a two-year-old ultrasound machine that’s otherwise in great shape.Usamah–it’s best not to use his full name, for obvious reasons, given that he’s MacGyvering solutions on behalf of suffering people on the receiving end of relentless attacks by the brutal Assad regime–is Our Man in Syria for Field Ready, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that aims to come up with novel, inexpensive, and practical solutions to really dire problems on the ground in war and natural disaster zones.Field Ready was founded by Dara Dotz, an expert in 3D printing with a history of humanitarian work in places like Haiti, and Eric James, a veteran of two decades of leading disaster relief around the world. To date, the nonprofit has done work in 17 to 19 countries–“it just depends on how many islands you want to count,” Dotz says–including places like Nepal, South Sudan, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, East Timor, Haiti, and Colombia.There’s nothing that Dotz is more proud of than the organization’s work in Syria. For example, Usamah has come up with an ingenious system for repurposing car parts like old airbags in order to build inexpensive kits capable of saving people trapped under the rubble that inevitably follows airstrikes. So far, the kits have been used to save at least 25 lives.Dotz got her start as an industrial designer with a focus on low-cost dependable products “for the other 90% of the planet.” Working and studying in 37 countries, she underwent a life-changing experience when she went to Haiti in 2012, two years after that country’s devastating earthquake. She had assumed that by that point, things would be largely back to normal; instead, she found hospitals still missing walls. She’d planned to stay for a few days, but ended up staying eight months working to confront common problems like that of a broken 3¢ piece of plastic keeping an entire well out of commission.Watching a friend deliver HIV-infected women’s babies bare-handed because she had used her last sterile glove, Dotz decided it was crazy for humanitarian workers in Haiti to have to wait months for supplies to be “muled” in. “That flipped a switch in my brain,” she says. “I was like, Does anyone have an old 3D printer? We could 3D-print . . . clamps, [which are] 5¢ pieces of plastic, print them here instead of waiting for someone to bring them down.”Next thing she knew, she was learning 3D printing in a shipping container, working on someone’s MakerBot. When she met James, who’d also come to Haiti to do earthquake relief, the seeds of Field Ready were sewn.Field Ready developed a system made from a series of parts that could lift tons of rubble and help trapped people escape. [Photo: courtesy of Field Ready]A lab in SyriaField Ready’s work in Syria began a couple of years ago, starting out with helping first responders who needed help with tools and with finding electrical power.One of Field Ready’s air bladders, which can lift tons of rubble and allow people trapped after airstrikes to escape. [Photo: courtesy of Field Ready]The project to build inexpensive kits capable of saving people trapped under rubble was inspired by a grim reality: First responders were rushing into areas where they saw planes circling, because they knew there would soon be bombs. As a result, Dotz says, the Assad regime was targeting the emergency personnel. Either way, there was sure to be a lot of rubble and desperate people stuck underneath it, many of them doomed by the fact that there’s no easy way to lift all that masonry and twisted rebar even three inches to pull someone to safety.Inflating one of the airbladders. [Photo: courtesy of Field Ready]As Field Ready ramped up its work in Syria, it leaned on Usamah. Dotz, who travels more than any 20 normal people, has not yet visited the country herself. But the need for a solution to the rubble problem led to what she calls an “Apollo 13 moment”–WhatsApp and Skype calls with Dotz and others outside Syria talking to people on the ground in Syria as they “took [a bunch] of ingredients and dumped them on a table” in search of a way to build something they could use to rescue those trapped after a bombing.It wasn’t easy. The project took four months of sifting through potential parts from burned-out cars and army vehicles–things like inner tubes, airbags, and even oxygen tanks from EMT kits. The result was an pneumatic air-bladder system capable of lifting as much as nine tons. An equivalent system in Turkey would cost about $5,000, Dotz says, but the Field Ready folks were able to engineer it for a fraction of that cost. Training someone to build one cost about $500, she says, and each new system costs just $50 in parts. There are now 200 units and counting in use in Syria.Cave hospitalDotz rarely gets to talk to Usamah. Internet connectivity is hard to come by in Syria, and, anyway, he’s busy trying to save lives. One day earlier this week, I was able to speak to him thanks to a cell-phone signal coming across Syria’s nearby northwest border with Turkey. “We feel proud,” Usamah tells me, “every time [Syria Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets] call us and tells us they’ve [saved] one or two people.”In the meantime, Usamah spends a lot of his time working in a hospital he’s helped build in a cave in Southern Syria–a facility that aims to protect patients from new airstrikes. Among its many challenges is trying to figure out how to bring in steady power.Another is keeping the hospital’s Dermajets–tools useful for delivering therapy to burn victims–up and running. The problem, Usamah says, is that the Dermajets’ seals were having to be replaced as often as twice every time doctors did a procedure.So Usamah and his team fashioned stronger threads for the seals, and supplied a new kind of spring that couldn’t otherwise be found locally, and they’ve been able to triple the number of patients treated per day.Stitching up equipment in the field. [Photo: courtesy of Field Ready]Still, the problems Syrians face are innumerable. Along with issues such as updating ultrasound-equipment software, medical providers must deal with issues such broken-down X-ray machines, and the lack of reliable power means that it’s hard to do things like make braces for broken bones.Yet in spite of all that, Usamah has also spearheaded an effort to help local families start hydroponic farming. With water at a premium–just 5% of what’s needed is actually available, he says–it’s been hard to grow much, yet Field Ready has started building and distributing hyper-efficient hydroponics kits that can feed two or three families each.“We work with the people themselves”Field Ready team members like Usamah may be clever, but they couldn’t be useful on an ongoing basis without understanding the kinds of problems locals are having.“We work with the people themselves,” Dotz says, and “ask what they need. Then we engineer and design [solutions].”The trick is being efficient. Field Ready never builds replicable systems that rely on technology unless it’s confident that they can get enough of the required parts–either cheap locally or by bringing them in themselves. Sometimes, projects involve purchasing what’s available, but that’s generally only about getting through the moment. It’s then necessary to think about a long-term answer, Dotz explains.In Nepal, a Field Ready employee helped a local entrepreneur figure out a new kind of mold using 3D modeling and 3D printing for a stovetop burner that was 28% more biomass efficient and produced much less smoke. That’s important in an area where, because kids are always at their mother’s ankles, smoke is the number-one killer of children under 5. The organization got a grant to produce the molds, and as a result of that project, Dotz says, 1.2 million people have been positively impacted in Nepal alone.In the meantime, Field Ready has taught people in Nepal to use Usamah’s airbag-lifter system in that earthquake-roiled country, and there are now at least 50 there in operation. “I’m really excited when I see sharing of knowledge from country to country,” Dotz says. “This is my favorite part of what we do.”For his part, Usamah goes about his day, moving around Syria, trying to fix broken machines in the cave hospital, and looking for ways to solve the new problems that are sure to arise. And as frustrating as it surely is to encounter intractable problems like the un-updatable ultrasound, there’s also the gratification from knowing he’s making a real difference.“It’s the perfect thing when you hear” your work has helped someone, Usamah tells me. “It’s wonderful, and that’s what we aim to do, helping people, trying to reduce the suffering of our people. It’s been a very tough seven years. If you can give a hand or reduce the suffering, that’s really something.”A collection of air bladders, ready to be put into use saving people trapped under tons of rubble. [Photo: Courtesy of Field Ready]Funding crisisAlthough Dotz is frequently on the road visiting Field Ready teams around the world, one of the reasons she’s been traveling nearly nonstop in recent months is that the nonprofit is struggling to raise money for its efforts, particularly those in Syria.It baffles Dotz, who says she’s talked to numerous people who end up deciding not to donate money despite taking the attitude that, “‘Oh, it’s so terrible in Syria. What can I do?’ Well, here’s something you can do.”Dotz isn’t sure why she’s been having trouble with fundraising. It could be empathy fatigue, or simply that people who want to help have already given everything they can given the endless numbers of disasters that have hit the world in recent years.Still, she remains hopeful. “My gut tells me there’s some tech person out there who wants to do something cool,” Dotz says, “but who hasn’t come across the right project.”

I spent 20 years in industry before entering politics, and my first job was with a Canadian company called Northern Telecom. It championed the principle of valuing employees as partners, viewing workers as “the primary source of productivity gains”.But when it came to rights – well, it was hardly a bastion of socialism. When I asked where I should go to join a union the look on the HR woman’s face has stayed with me to this day.Over 20 years on and hundreds of miles south of the Canadian border, it is a similar story. Much like Nortel, the tech titans of Silicon Valley like to portray themselves as fostering a positive working environment. Google’s co-founder Larry Page said it should be “like a family”, and it has been rated by CNN and Fortune as the No 1 place to work in the world.But as I learned when visiting last month, the rhetoric does not match up to the reality. Google perks, such as gourmet food and on-the-job massages, aren’t extended to the thousands of contractors who work for the company. Google says it is the biggest provider of public transport in the Bay Area – but its sleek, wifi-enabled buses are only for Googlers. It is a similar story for other tech companies that increasingly rely on outsourcing to keep their businesses clean and safe.When Silicon Valley first began to merit the title – in the 60s and 70s – cleaners and bus drivers were employed in-house. Tech created good jobs for everyone, not just those at the top of the food chain. In the past few decades this has changed dramatically. Between 1990 and 2014, the private-sector workforce in Silicon Valley grew by 18%. But much of this was growth in low-wage subcontractor jobs, which increased at three times the rate.Today, over 1 million people in the Bay Area are on low-wage jobs that pay only $18 an hour – well below the living wage of $22 an hour. And there is a racial dimension: black and Latino workers comprise 58% of the cleaners, bus drivers, caterers and other subcontractors working for big tech firms, but only 10% of the core tech workforce.And the benefits and economic security of the better-paid programmers and product managers who make up the “techies” are curtailed by an employment structure that affords different rights to different groups of workers. There have been well-documented attempts by large tech firms to suppress wages and prevent their employees from getting better job offers. And, crucially, many tech workers are also subject to outsourcing – and therefore cannot collectively bargain because it would violate anti-trust laws.With wages stagnating, good jobs only for the privileged few and housing, and transport and schooling costs rising, more and more ordinary people are seeing the need for action. Working people have been organising for decades in Silicon Valley, but the past few years have seen a surge of activity. While in California I met Silicon Valley Rising, a movement that has brought together trade unions and community groups to fight for a Silicon Valley where all workers are valued. And last year the Teamsters union managed to win higher wages for the bus drivers who shuttle white-collar tech workers to their jobs.These developments are promising, but more needs to be done. There needs to be blanket recognition from large tech firms that employees can and should join trade unions. And white-collar tech workers need to ally themselves with this growing movement and assert their rights, ending divide-and-rule tactics and bringing the fight to the bosses.This side of the Atlantic, the weather may be worse but the challenges are much the same. Productivity has stagnated since the financial crisis, with Britain the only country to have seen a fall in wages over the past few years despite a growing economy. And with the rise of the “gig economy” threatening workers’ rights, high-profile campaigns such as the Deliveroo drivers’ strike and the GMB union’s legal challenge to Uber are striking back.The Labour party is committed to tackling the scourge of low-paid jobs, raising the minimum wage to a true living wage of £10 per hour and creating over a million good jobs. With our shadow secretary of state Rebecca Long-Bailey, I’m developing and championing Labour’s challenge-led, mission-oriented and values-driven industrial strategy that will create a high-skill, high-wage, high-productivity economy.Labour is also fighting to defend and extend rights at work, guaranteeing them after our exit from the European Union and ensuring they are maintained in the face of technological change. And Labour is actively investigating alternative models of ownership that will ensure workers are truly in control.As a labour movement in the UK we need to collaborate with and take inspiration from our colleagues in the US fighting for a more just tech economy. Their struggle matters – because tech is increasingly not only the economy of Silicon Valley but of the world. By working across geographic boundaries we will be better able to make tech good news for everyone.• Chi Onwurah is the Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central Topics US unions Opinion Google Alphabet Facebook Social networking Uber Deliveroo comment