一夜之间，大量商品从亚马逊印度站上「消失」了。2 月 1 日，印度新的电子商务外国直接投资（FDI）政策正式生效。印度原有政策禁止外资电商公司以直营方式向印度消费者销售商品，而新规进一步要求，外资电商平台不得通过其持股公司来变相销售自营商品，并禁止它们与卖家签订独家销售协议。2018 年 12 月 26 日，印度商业与工业部突然宣布了这项政策变更。仅一个月后，一直以来以「效率低下」示人的印度政府，匆匆上马了这一新政。新的电商 FDI 政策只是印度当局限制外国科技巨头在印业务的冰山一角。《华尔街日报》1 月 29 日引述知情人士报道称，上月早些时候，印度电信部部长 Aruna Sundararajan 在一场闭门会议上表示，当局「很快」就会推出一项名为「国家捍卫者」（national champion）的政策，以此「捍卫」印度本土科技公司的崛起。当前，从购物、通讯到社交，印度市场上的各类互联网产品，几乎都由美国科技巨头主导。《纽约时报》称，一些印度政治人物认为，自己的国家似乎正再一次被「殖民强权」征服：「他们决心要改变这一切。」 最近一段时间以来，多家外媒陆续披露，印度的政策制定者已经注意到了阿里巴巴和腾讯等中国互联网巨头的成功，试图借鉴「中国在保护和推动本土科技巨头发展方面的成功经验」，进一步加强对外国科技公司的限制，以「创造公平竞争环境，鼓励本国创新」，为印度的科技公司提供「蓬勃发展的机会」。身为 2018 财年里印度 GMV 最高的电商平台，亚马逊在印度的商业模式正受到新政重创。此前，在无法直接向消费者提供自营商品的政策管制下，亚马逊通过 Cloudtail 等本地关联公司代持的自有商品，「曲线救国」地维持着自身具有竞争力的自营 B2C 模式。但从 2 月 1 日起，亚马逊印度站便下架了一系列「借壳」Cloudtail 等本地持股公司所开展的自营服务和商品。在印度的杂货配送（Pantry）、3C 配件商城 Amazon Basics 都已经陷入「暂时无法提供服务」的状态，自有品牌设备 Echo 音箱、Kindle 等产品也不再提供自营购买渠道。因为亚马逊 5% 的持股，印度本地百货连锁 Shopper's Stop 的服装也无法再通过直营渠道在亚马逊上购买。印度用户仅可通过亚马逊平台上的第三方卖家来购买相关商品。《纽约时报》称，如果亚马逊完全遵守新规，那么超过 40 万件商品（能为印度亚马逊 60 亿美元的年销售额贡献三分之一收入）可能需要暂时从亚马逊印度站下架，亚马逊印度站也必须放弃重要的 B2C 业务，转型成为类 eBay、淘宝的 C2C 平台，自身不再售卖商品，只向入驻商家收取服务费用。面对印度站现有的商业模式可能在一夕之间崩塌的危机，亚马逊似乎依然乐观。印度电商新政实施的首日，也是亚马逊发布 2018 年第四季度财报的日子，亚马逊首席财务官 Brian Olsavsky 在当天的财报电话会议上坦言，「现在印度的情况有点不稳定」，但他依然认为，对亚马逊来说，这个拥有 13 亿人口的国家，「从长远来看仍然有着很好的机会」。亚马逊 CEO 贝佐斯此前曾承诺，要投入 55 亿美元来推动印度业务的发展。和亚马逊一样，沃尔玛也因为看好印度市场潜力而砸重金进行了投资布局，但也同样因此成了印度最新电商 FDI 政策的最大「受害者」之一。去年 8 月，沃尔玛以 160 亿美元的「天价」收购了印度本土电商平台 Flipkart 77% 的股权，这是沃尔玛有史以来最大的一起并购案。Flipkart 长期稳坐印度最大电商平台的宝座，但近年来市场份额开始受到亚马逊的强势蚕食，占据了印度线上零售市场 70% 的份额的二者，如今已逐渐形成分庭抗礼之势。突如其来的外资电商政策变动，让竞争白热化的两大平台难得「团结」了起来。在 2 月 1 日之前，亚马逊和 Flipkart 一直在游说相关部门，希望能推迟新规的实施日期。亚马逊此前致函印度政府，要求延期四个月来消化当地关联公司库存里的大量商品，以更好地遵守新规定。亚马逊发言人就此向 CNN 解释道：「亚马逊在印度有超过 40 万名卖家，每天产生数十万笔交易，我们需要足够的时间来厘清政策的细节。」Flipkart 首席执行官 Kalyan Krishnamurthy 则在一月致信印度商工部，称新规可能「对印度电商的持续增长产生不良影响」，并要求延期六个月。他还表示，如果期限没有延长，那么这些规定会「对客户造成严重扰乱」。亚马逊和 Flipkart 反应如此强烈，根本上还是在于新规可能会对两家公司收益产生巨大不利影响。印度零售咨询公司 Technopak 的董事长 Arvind Singhal 预估，在未来数月里，亚马逊和 Flipkart 的收入增长可能将会降至 15% 左右，而在之前，这一数字是 25%-30%。另一家印度咨询公司 CRISIL Ratings 则估计，受 FDI 政策的收紧，到 2020 年，两家公司的营收至多将减少 40％。在政策变化之前，摩根士丹利曾称，到 2027 年，印度的电商市场将以每年 30％的增长率「大跃进」，达到 2000 亿美元的规模。除了两大电商公司的「自我拯救」，路透社还曝称，美国政府也有参与其中，以两国之间的「良好关系」为由敦促印度官员保护沃尔玛和亚马逊在该国的投资。但印度当局在 1 月 31 日晚依旧态度强硬地声明表示，「经过适当考虑后」，决定不进行延期，新政按计划在 2 月 1 日如期登场。Flipkart 随后发表声明称，「对于政府决定如此匆忙地实施监管变革感到失望」，但仍承诺会遵守新规定。Flipkart 发言人说：「我们认为政策应该是在协商的、市场驱动的方式下所创造的。我们将继续与政府合作，以促进公平且有利于增长的政策。」印度当局「适当考虑」的背后，是来自印度全国贸易商联合会（CAIT）的巨大压力。这一代表大约 7000 万印度小型零售商的机构曾警告到，如果现在执政的莫迪政府和印度人民党在美国的压力下推迟电商新政的实施，那么「将在政治上面临强烈抵制」。印度将在今年五月举行全国大选，CAIT 所代表的小企业主是莫迪与人民党不敢得罪的重要票仓。这些小企业主普遍对亚马逊和 Flipkart 感到不满，认为电商巨头对价格和商品库存的控制能力，给他们带来了极不公平的市场竞争。莫迪政府发表如期实施 FDI 新政的声明之后，CAIT 表示，对政府的决定「深感满意」。但对于印度这样一个科技产业发展仰赖外国资金、却在世界银行营商便利性排行中排名第 77 位的国家来说，善变的法规政策，恐怕将进一步恶化其在国际投资者心中的形象。2015 年 9 月，印度总理莫迪成为了三十多年来首位访问美国西海岸的印度领导人，在硅谷大展魅力攻势，先后和 Google、Facebook、苹果以及特斯拉等公司的高管会面，并向硅谷科技巨头们敞开了怀抱，以极其开放的姿态邀请后者在印度投资，「帮助印度成为互联网强国」。彼时，莫迪在印度国内高达 87% 的支持率，支撑着他在硅谷的风光访问。然而，2018 年以来，印度民间对于莫迪和其所属的人民党的不满声浪正越来越大，随着 2019 年 5 月全国大选的临近，寻求连任的莫迪政府，政策大转弯，开始提倡民族主义的经济政策，对于美国科技巨头的态度，也从「热烈欢迎」转变为「积极遏制」，欲借此逢迎国内的支持者。对外国科技公司的「遏制」情绪，正在印度商界弥漫。意图拓展电商、视频等业务的印度首富 Mukesh Ambani 在上个月就曾呼吁称，要结束外国公司在印度的「数据殖民化」。印度最大本土即时通讯产品、WhatsApp 的竞争对手 Hike 的创始人 Kavin Bharti Mittal 也表示，政府是时候采取行动来保护印度创业公司了。他说，如果印度的科技产业被美国公司所侵占，那么将永远无法真正蓬勃发展。目前在印度，亚马逊和沃尔玛的 Flipkart 是最大的两家电商，Facebook 的 WhatsApp 是最受欢迎的手机 App，YouTube 是最受欢迎的视频平台。此外，苹果手机在印度的市占虽然不到 1%，但这也意味着，几乎每部印度的智能手机，都是在 Google 的 Android 系统上运行的。毫无疑问，美国的科技产品，已经深入印度人的生活肌理，并占据着主导地位。与之相对应地，在这个世界上最大的新兴数字经济体，硅谷巨头们也挹注了庞大的资金与人力来争夺市场 ... 但现在，除了对外资电商经营范围的进一步限制，如雨后春笋般冒出的诸多可能实施的新法规，正在威胁着 Google、Facebook 和 Twitter 等公司的业务发展：去年 12 月，电商新政公布前两天，印度技术部发布了一系列有关在线内容监管的法律修改建议，意图立法规定 Facebook 和 Twitter 等社交媒体平台在 24 小时内根据印度当局的要求删除「非法」内容；去年 7 月，路透社曝光的一份印度政策草案文件还显示，印度当局希望通过立法，让电商、社交媒体和搜索引擎等互联网服务必须在印度境内存储用户数据，出于国家安全和公共政策的目的，政府有权获取这些数据。总的来说，这些正在被印度各级部门所推动中的法规，将结束外国的科技巨头们在印度长期享有的自由。《纽约时报》称，许多参与过相关政策讨论的印度官员和行业高管都表示，对外国科技巨头的限制政策，一定会到来。新德里律所 TechLegis 的国际技术法专家 Salman Waris 去年 8 月时曾表示，印度正试图像欧洲一样建立强有力的公民数据保护政策，同时赋予政府以自认为合适的方式获取私人信息的权利，就像中国一样。外国科技公司别无选择，只能附和遵守。「这些公司在中国和欧洲必须这么做，那么在这里也一样。」「我们不想筑起高墙，但与此同时，我们明确认识到，数据是一项战略资产，」负责政策讨论的印度电信部部长 Aruna Sundararajan 去年表示，「在很多方面都有一种强烈的感觉，认为印度没能产生腾讯、百度或阿里巴巴的原因，是因为我们的政策没有做出差异化。」「互联网女皇」玛丽·米克尔去年的互联网趋势报告中指出，世界排名前 20 位的科技公司中，有 9 家位于中国，此外，中国还拥有 76 家独角兽公司。相比之下，与中国一样同样坐拥十几亿人口印度，仅有 14 家独角兽企业，其中大部分都还是从美国和中国的风投处获得的资金支持。盛产创业者和技术人才的印度，却从未催生出一家如阿里或腾讯一般的本土科技巨头，这一方面让印度的政策制定者与当地的创业社区忧心，自己的国家会因此错失成为世界科技强国的机会，另一方面，也让他们看到了中国的「限制性政策」如何帮助创造了一批世界上最大和最具创新性的新兴科技巨头，并从中汲取到了发展路径上的灵感。上个月早些时候，在班加罗尔举行的一次闭门会议上，Aruna Sundararajan 进一步对参会的多家印度创业公司表示，政府「很快」将推出一项「国家捍卫者」政策，以鼓励本土公司的崛起。知情人士透露，这位电信部部长在会议上，再一次地提到了阿里巴巴和腾讯的成功，显示出莫迪政府似乎已经准备好要直接将中国的经验进行复制，以「创造公平竞争环境，鼓励本国创新」。但印度不断变化的法律环境，依旧让这一切存在变数。总部位在纽约的自由软件法律中心法务总监 Mishi Choudhary 向 CNN 表示：「对于任何一个企业来说，不确定的、不断变化的监管环境都是不利的。」「印度必须明确自己在全球格局中身处何处，」Mishi 补充道，「它可以成为一个让最好的公司取得胜利并为公民提供开放、自由和安全的互联网环境的国家，亦或者，转变成为喜马拉雅山另一侧的样子。鱼与熊掌，不可兼得。」参考：题图来源：视觉中国责任编辑：宋德胜

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. federal prosecutors have stepped up efforts to pressure witnesses to testify against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, WikiLeaks said on Wednesday, in connection with what it said were secret criminal charges filed by the Trump administration. FILE PHOTO: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Britain, May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Peter NichollsWikiLeaks did not mention any names in its public statement. But Assange’s lawyers identified some of those contacted in a document asking the human rights arm of the Organization of American States to demand that the charges be unsealed. Reuters obtained excerpts of the document filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and spoke to one of the persons named. President Barack Obama’s administration extensively investigated Assange and WikiLeaks after it published hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables and secret documents detailing U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The administration ultimately decided not to prosecute, however, on the grounds the group’s work was too similar to journalistic activities protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Late last year, a court filing by prosecutors in an unrelated case referred to a sealed American indictment of Assange. Prosecutors said the filing was made in error and declined to confirm whether any charges had been filed. Donald Trump praised WikiLeaks during his 2016 presidential campaign for publishing material about Hillary Clinton. Not long after Trump took office, however, then-CIA director Mike Pompeo, now Secretary of State, publicly called it a “non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.” Assange, an Australian national, has taken refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where authorities wanted to question him as part of a sexual assault investigation that was eventually dropped. A spokesman for the federal prosecutors’ office in Alexandria, Virginia, which has taken the lead for several years in investigations into WikiLeaks, did not respond to a request for comment on this story. According to the document filed to the human rights commission, one of the people contacted by Alexandria prosecutors was Jacob Appelbaum, a Berlin-based U.S. computer expert and hacker. Appelbaum told Reuters that while prosecutors offered him broad immunity from prosecution, he had no interest in cooperating or testifying before a grand jury. Another potential witness targeted by U.S. prosecutors was David House, a Massachusetts computer programmer, the document said. House was involved in setting up a group to support Chelsea Manning, a U.S. soldier who passed on military communications to WikiLeaks and was jailed by U.S. authorities. House could not be reached. The American Civil Liberties Union which represented him in connection with the Manning case did not respond to requests for comment. The Justice Department also contacted American activist and computer scientist, Jason Katz. Katz, who has lived in Iceland since 2011, did not respond to a request for comment sent to that country’s Pirate Party, of which he was a founding member. Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Sonya HepinstallOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

"It is our endeavour to ensure that every poor person, irrespective of caste or creed gets to lead a life of dignity, and gets access to all possible opportunities," Modi added.In 2014, Modi campaigned on the promise of millions of new jobs -- a promise critics say that he has failed to fulfil. This move is being seen as an attempt to repackage his image a few months before India's general elections due to be held during April and May.Shekhar Gupta, one of India's most prominent political commentators, called the move a "cynical and desperate ploy" that shows that the "BJP leadership is more nervous about the elections than we would've thought." Members of the main opposition Congress party were quick to point out that the bill does not actually create new jobs."Without jobs, creating reservation in jobs may just prove to be one more jumla (false promise), for the purposes of election promises," a Congress spokesperson told local reporters.An editorial in The Hindu, a leading Indian newspaper, criticized the BJP for using a system meant to right historical wrongs as a political tool."Reservations have been traditionally provided to undo historical injustice and social exclusion suffered over a period of time, and the question is whether they should be extended to those with social and educational capital solely on the basis of what they earn."After India's independence from British colonial rule in 1947, the constitution specifically created provisions for socially and educationally backward classes in the society.Indian society has been bogged down by casteism for generations, where certain sections of the society, also known as Dalits or untouchables have suffered from low-grade work, discrimination and poor educational opportunities.For centuries, people belonging to lower castes were not accepted by the rest of the Indian society. This consistent discrimination resulted in a tilted population -- which still exists -- where educational and job opportunities are out of reach for a percentage of the population.The provision in the constitution enabled the government to offer affirmative action for government jobs and educational institutions -- an attempt to correct a historical wrong.However, decades of electoral politics have resulted in a skewed view of the original intention. To limit the blatant misuse of announcing reservations for the purposes of expanding one's vote bank, the Supreme Court stepped in.In a 1992 judgment the court capped all reservations at 50 percent."Social status and economic power are so woven and fused into the caste system in Indian rural society that one may without hesitation, say that if poverty be the cause, caste is the primary index of social backwardness, so that social backwardness is often readily identifiable with reference to a person's caste," the judgment said.Since the decision, reservations have always played an important role in Indian elections as politicians promise affirmative action to different castes and cultures in an attempt to woo voters.In a statement in Parliament Tuesday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley voiced his support for the bill, insisting that the cap by the Supreme Court was on only caste-based reservation and reserving more jobs for the poor upper-caste members would help boost the economy."Just as equals cannot be treated unequally, un-equals cannot be treated equally," said Jaitley.But the BJP's announcement has been received with a healthy dose of skepticism by the opposition, who are unwilling to openly support the ruling party but at the same time cannot oppose the reservations due to the political ramifications.The Congress party came out swiftly in support for the reservations but insisted that reservations in jobs has no meaning if the government has not created enough jobs."Congress party has always supported every step for reservation and extending support to the economically poor sections of the society, bereft of caste, community or creed without interfering with the constitutional mandate of reservation given to Dalits (lower caste), to Adivasis (tribal) and to backward classes in any manner," said a Congress spokesperson.

India’s surging aviation growth has a flip side—its airports are overwhelmed.For instance, the Kempegowda International Airport in the southern city of Bengaluru handled 27 million passengers in 2017-18 and is now expecting a 70% surge in passenger traffic over two years. The airport, India’s third busiest, also expects passenger traffic to triple in the next 10 years.To cope, the Bangalore International Airport Authority (BIAL), which owns and operates the facility, on Thursday (Jan. 10), announced a $2-billion (Rs14,000 crore) investment plan that will see the addition of a new terminal and a second runway.With the new terminal, the airport will be able to handle 45 million passengers a year, Hari Marar, CEO of BIAL, said at a press conference yesterday (Thursday). The second runway is equipped to handle bigger planes like Airbus’s A380s and can operate in near zero visibility, added Marar.Other major Indian airports, too, are bursting at the seams.The ones in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Pune are saturated, while Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Goa, and Lucknow will soon reach maximum capacity. At least 25 of India’s 50 busiest airports are overloaded; the remaining will reach optimal capacity this year, documents accessed by the Hindustan Times daily show.The number of passengers carried by domestic airlines in the January-November period last year stood at 126 million, up 19.21% year-on-year, according to India’s directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA).In the current financial year, India’s aviation sector is expected to continue growing at near 20% and passenger volume is expected to cross the 150 million mark by March 31, 2019, according to a recent report by the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), a firm specialising in aviation and travel data.In June 2018, the domestic aviation market recorded its 46th consecutive month of double-digit year-on-year growth which is not expected to end anytime soon, according to a report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a global trade association of airlines.Keeping this boom in mind, India’s cabinet committee on economic affairs had in May approved investments for expansion and upgradation of terminals in Chennai, Guwahati, and Lucknow by the Airports Authority of India.New international airports, with world-class features, are also on the anvil. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is expected to pump in Rs400 crore for the expansion of the Goa International Airport. Civil aviation minister Suresh Prabhu had said in September that India would be undertaking construction of 100 airports worth $60 billion in the next 10-15 years.In some of the big cities, multiple airports have already been approved.Mumbai is set to get one in Navi Mumbai and Noida International will be the second one in Delhi, while Goa, Pune, and Ahmedabad are also set to get their second airports.

Scott Shackelford is the Cybersecurity Program Chair at IU-Bloomington, Indiana University. The annals of science fiction are full of visions of the future. Some are techno-utopian like “Star Trek” in which humanity has joined together in peace to explore the cosmos. Others are dystopian, like the World State in “Brave New World.” But many of these stories share one thing in common–they envision a time in which humanity has moved past narrow ideas of tribe and nationalism. That assumption might be wrong.End of the golden ageIn 1959, then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson stated, “Men who have worked together to reach the stars are not likely to descend together into the depths of war and desolation.” In this spirit, between 1962 and 1979 the United States and the former Soviet Union worked together and through the U.N. Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space to enact five major international treaties and numerous bilateral and multilateral agreements concerning outer space.These accords covered everything from the return of rescued astronauts and liability for damage from space objects to the peaceful use of outer space. They did not, though, address space weaponization outside of the weapons of mass destruction context, or put into place mechanisms for managing an increasingly crowded final frontier.Rise of collective action problemsSince the breakup of the Soviet Union space governance has only gotten more complicated due to an increasing number of space powers, both public and private. National and commercial interests are increasingly tied to space in political, economic and military arenas. Beyond fanciful notions of solar energy satellites, fusion energy and orbiting hotels, contemporary political issues such as nuclear nonproliferation, economic development, cybersecurity and human rights are also intimately tied to outer space.Private companies, such as SpaceX, are working to dramatically lower the cost of launching payloads into low Earth orbit, which has long stood at approximately $10,000 per pound. Such innovation holds the promise of opening up space to new development. It also raises concerns over the sustainability of space operations.At the same time, the Trump administration’s public desire to launch a Space Force has fueled concerns over a new arms race, which, if created, could exacerbate both the issues of space weapons and debris. The two issues are related since the use of weapons in space can increase the amount of debris through fragments from destroyed satellites. For example, China performed a successful anti-satellite test in 2007 that destroyed an aging weather satellite at an altitude of some 500 miles. This single event contributed more than 35,000 pieces of orbital debris boosting the amount of space junk by approximately 25 percent.Without concerted action, Marshall Kaplan, an orbital debris expert within the Space Policy Department at Johns Hopkins University, argues, “There is a good chance that we may have to eventually abandon all active satellites in currently used orbits” due to the growing problem of space junk.Avoiding a tragedy of the space commonsThe tragedy of the commons scenario refers to the “unconstrained consumption of a shared resource–a pasture, a highway, a server–by individuals acting in rational pursuit of their self-interest,” according to commons governance expert Brett Frischmann. This can and often does lead to destruction of the resource. Given that space is largely an open-access system, the predictions of the tragedy of the commons are self-evident. Space law expert Robert Bird, has argued that nations treat orbital space as a kind of communal pasture that may be over-exploited and polluted through debris. It’s a scenario captured in the movie “Wall-E.”But luckily, there is a way out of this scenario besides either nationalization or privatization. Scholars led by the political economist and Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom modified the tragedy of the commons by showing that, in some cases, groups can and do self-organize and cooperate to avoid tragic over exploitation.Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford (in foreground) and cosmonaut Aleksei A. Leonov make their historic handshake in space on July 17, 1975 during the joint U.S.-USSR Apollo Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) docking mission in Earth orbit. [Photo: NASA/Wikimedia Commons]I explore this literature on “polycentric” governance–complex governance systems made up of multiple scales, sectors and stakeholders–in my forthcoming book, Governing New Frontiers in the Information Age: Toward Cyber Peace. Already, we are seeing some evidence of the benefits of such a polycentric approach in an increasingly multipolar era in which there are more and more power centers emerging around the world. One example is a code of conduct for space-faring nations. That code includes the need to reduce orbital debris. Further progress could be made by building on the success of the international coalition that built the International Space Station such as by deepening partnerships with firms like SpaceX and Blue Origin.This is not a “keep it simple, stupid” response to the challenges in space governance. But it does recognize the reality of continued national control over space operations for the foreseeable future, and indeed there are some benefits to such an outcome, including accountability. But we should think long and hard before moving away from a tried and tested model like the International Space Station and toward a future of vying national research stations and even military outposts in space.Coordination between sovereign nations is possible, as was shown in the golden age of space law. By finding common ground, including the importance of sustainable development, we earthlings can ensure that humanity’s development of space is less a race than a peaceful march – not a flags and footprints mission for one nation, but a destination serving the development of science, the economy and the betterment of international relations.This essay originally appeared at The Conversation.

Not every member of his cast was sold on the idea.“For some people it was almost like having a third wheel they didn’t need to have,” he said, and a handful of his younger actors who had not gone through traditional training asked, “‘Why is this woman making me breathe like a gorilla or move like a fish?’”A longstanding criticism of over-rehearsing sex scenes has been that it will lead to a loss of chemistry. Bernardo Bertolucci, who directed “Last Tango in Paris,” once defended the film’s rape scene by arguing that he had wanted Ms. Schneider “to feel, not to act, the rage and humiliation.”Ms. O’Brien argues that her guidelines help create magnetism between actors rather than squelching it. Her program aims to keep the actors “personally safe so they can be artistically free,” she said. “It doesn’t lock down or censor — it actually frees the actor up.”Sara Wiseman, an Australian-based actress who took part in a workshop that Ms. O’Brien held in Sydney, agreed.“We have to be vulnerable, we have to be sometimes violent, we have to be intimate with someone, so you want as much support on your side as possible,” said the actress, a New Zealand native known for her roles in the series “Rake” and “A Place to Call Home.”Ms. Wiseman — who minutes earlier had been performing a tentative and tender kiss scene with another actress in the workshop — paused.“Then you can bust out the creativity,” she said, “because you know your parameters.”

KOCHI, India — Clad in a simple striped shirt and the white mundu of the city’s fishmongers, Bashir stood out from the well-heeled throng at the warehouse galleries and tree-filled courtyards on the first day of India’s biggest contemporary art show, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Keeping to himself, he moved from room to room, stopping to study moody landscapes by the Delhi photographer Chandan Gomes that were paired with imaginary scenes drawn by a girl who died at age 12. “I don’t understand the inner meaning of the art,” said Bashir, who uses one name and makes a living wrapping and delivering fish. “I just like to see beautiful things.”Bashir’s willingness to engage with the artwork, no matter how challenging, was a victory for the show’s organizers. The southern state of Kerala, and India as a whole, have very few public venues to see art. So the organizers of the biennale, which runs until March 29, strove to create an event that would appeal to everyone — from untutored day laborers to veteran museum curators.ImageBashir, a fishwrapper who works nearby, visited the Kochi-Muziris Biennale on opening day because entry was free. He lingered over the photographs, including these photo essays by Chandan Gomes, a Delhi photographer.CreditAtul Loke for The New York Times“We are making a cultural festival,” said Bose Krishnamachari, a painter from Kerala who co-founded the show eight years ago. “We have tried to penetrate to the people’s minds so that they feel that it is their biennale.”Performances by Oorali, a multilingual folk-reggae band from Kerala whose tour bus opens up to become a stage, are mixed in with more cerebral works, such as B.V. Suresh’s “Canes of Wrath,” a dark room filled with representations of slaughtered peacocks, clattering canes and whirling brooms designed to evoke the oppressive tactics of India’s Hindu extremists.The acclaimed South African artist William Kentridge has been given space for an eight-screen video installation featuring his famous dancing silhouettes. But the biennale’s curator, Anita Dube, also chose to show the works of Bapi Das, a little-known artist from Kolkata, who drives a three-wheeled taxi and sews needlepoint scenes of daily life there.ImageA visitor takes a close look at “Missing Route 4,” a hand-stitched embroidery by Bapi Das.CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesImageAt the show's entrance, visitors view “Dus Motin Kanya and Jal Devata” by the husband-and-wife team of Subhash and Durgabai Vyam. They work in the Gond folk-art tradition, known for its earth tones and mythical themes.CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesMany of the works are interactive, and on Mondays, entry to the biennale is free, an attempt to draw in local laborers like Bashir, who would balk at paying the entry fee of 100 rupees, about $1.40. A satellite show supports the next generation of artists, featuring about 130 projects from students across South Asia.The title of the biennale, “Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life,” reflects Ms. Dube’s effort to build connections between communities, both in Kochi and beyond.“In spite of our hyper-connectivity, we are more and more alienated from each other,” said Ms. Dube, a sculptor and art historian. “We need to think of ways that people can be together via culture.”Kochi, a centuries-old port city formerly known as Cochin, was at various times ruled by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. It has long been a melting pot of cultures and religions.ImageAnita Dube, curator of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, at Aspinwall House, a colonial-era compound in Fort Kochi that hosts the show every two years. Her goal was to help people build connections to each other through art.CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesFrom its first edition, the biennale has tried to reflect that inclusiveness. For this one, Ms. Dube recruited more than 100 artists from India and 30 other countries. More than half are women, and many, like Mr. Das, had received little previous exposure.Shambhavi, a painter and sculptor from the rural Indian state of Bihar, said that women who are artists had long struggled to get the same attention as men. Her work here — a cluster of 300 sickles and other abstract sculptures of farm life — has no distinct gender cast. “But the farmer's world is very feminine, close to the earth,” said Shambhavi, who uses one name professionally. Contemporary art can be difficult for audiences anywhere to understand, and especially so in India, a nation of 1.3 billion people with little arts education, few museums and almost no government support for the fine arts. Galleries and private museums have begun to take root in some cities. The Kerala government is a major sponsor of the Kochi biennale, which cost about $4 million. However, India’s leaders have generally focused on other needs, such as food and health care for the many Indians who live in deep poverty. The art that does get funded tends to support political goals. The government just spent about $430 million to build the world’s tallest statue — a 597-foot monument to the independence leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel by the sculptor Ram V. Sutar — in Gujarat, the home state of India’s current prime minister, Narendra Modi. Two bigger statues, of the ancient king Chhatrapati Shivaji and the Hindu deity Ram, are planned in other states run by Mr. Modi’s party.ImagePedestrians in Fort Kochi walk past photographic murals by Zanele Muholi, an artist and activist whose ongoing “Faces and Phases” portraits commemorate the queer community in her native South Africa.CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesImagePangrok Sulap is a Malaysia-based musical art collective. “Pangrok” roughly translates as punk rock, and “sulap” means hut. At the biennale, they made a giant woodcut print on a blackout curtain by inviting the audience to dance on the artwork to imprint the image while the band performed.CreditAtul Loke for The New York Times“It’s all about railways, more airports, more roads, more high-rises, and now, the biggest statues in the world,” Ms. Dube complained. “Culture is at the back.”The biennale in 2016-17 drew about 600,000 visitors, and planners hope for 700,000 this time. For Kerala, devastated by flooding from last summer’s monsoons, the show is an economic lifeline that is expected to draw tourists from around the world, some of whom may also visit the area’s beaches or stay on houseboats on its inland waterways. Some artists here are paying homage to the flood’s victims. Marzia Farhana’s installation, “Ecocide and the Rise of Free Fall,” suspends refrigerators and books salvaged from flooded homes, in a symbolic representation of impermanence. Oorali plans to take its bus on the road and perform up and down the coast, entertaining fishermen who heroically rescued many people from the rising waters. ImageMembers of the folk-reggae band Oorali performed from their bus for an audience at Aspinwall House. The band will take the “Oorali Express" up and down the Kerala coast, performing for fishing communities that rescued people during the 2018 floods that devastated the state. CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesImageThe Indonesian artist Heri Dono’s installation “Smiling Angels From the Sky.”CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesImageA young boy joins Sebastian Thomas, a retired telephone lineman and local saxophonist, in exploring Tania Candiani’s “String Loom,” a broken handloom that has been converted into a musical instrument.CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesImageVisitors at the installation “Ecocide and the Rise of Free Fall” by Marzia Farhana in Kochi. It is made from refrigerators, furniture and books damaged in the 2018 Kerala floods.CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesShanay Jhaveri, assistant curator of South Asian art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, attended the biennale’s opening and said he was struck by how the exhibition addresses the political issues of the day without proselytizing.“It’s about setting up a conversation,” he said. “I don’t think Anita is trying to provide an answer. She is asking, ‘How do we find a way to support each other?’”After getting off to a slow start on Dec. 12, the show built momentum over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, when many Indian businesses and schools were closed. The main venue at Aspinwall House was crowded with families taking cellphone photos, and people flocked to “Water Temple,” an outdoor installation by the Beijing artist Song Dong that invites guests to make ephemeral paintings on its walls with a brush and water.ImageVisitors to the biennale making ephemeral paintings in Song Dong’s interactive installation “Water Temple.”CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesBut with some exhibits, the show’s organizers seemed to have miscalculated. The Edible Archives, a cafe across the road from the main event, was designed to be a communal space. Visitors can sample dishes, created by four female chefs, that feature heritage rice varieties from around India. But the price of a rice bowl, around $2, was double what locals would pay elsewhere, dissuading some customers. Few Kochi visitors were stopping to study the writing on the T-shirts flapping in the wind along Aspinwall’s waterfront, although their political message was directed at their own history: The exhibit, “One Hundred and Nineteen Deeds of Sale,” by the South African artist Sue Williamson, memorialized the names, age, sex and sale prices of Kochi residents captured by 17th-century Dutch traders and sold as slaves in Cape Town, South Africa.ImageAn exhibit, “One Hundred and Nineteen Deeds of Sale” by the South African artist Sue Williamson, commemorated the names of Kochi residents captured by 17th-century Dutch traders and sold as slaves in South Africa.CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesImagePrima Kurien, left, a chef at the Edible Archives, talks with Shalini Krishnan, a writer documenting the project, at a cafe at the biennale. Four female chefs, including Anumitra Ghosh Dastidar, foreground, are pairing indigenous rice varieties with locally sourced vegetables, fish and meat.CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesImageThe artist B.V. Suresh at his multimedia installation, “Canes of Wrath.” The monkey image in the background, known as “Angry Hanuman,” is a symbol used by some right-wing Hindus.CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesImageVisitors at an installation by the South African artist Sue Williamson, made of glass, metal, water and wood. The work, titled “Messages from the Atlantic Passage,” is a visceral representation of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesDuring opening week, Sharif K.M. was busy working, rolling dozens of empty oil drums through the front door of a warehouse onto a flatbed truck. Looming above him was a biennale mural of two giant purple-stained hands by the Nepalese street artist Kiran Maharjan.Covered in black grease from his boots to his burgundy cap, Sharif, who prefers to use one name, had little time to think about such things.“Whatever an artist draws has its meaning,” he said, gesturing at the mural. “But I have not understood it yet.”ImageA mural by the street artist Kiran Maharjan on the warehouses of Fort Kochi was part of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. But Sharif K.M., right, was too busy loading used oil barrels to pay it much attention.CreditAtul Loke for The New York TimesJust a handful of artists at the show are from Kerala, a sore point for Sebastian Thomas, a retiree who plays the saxophone at a local hotel. He complained about the lack of representation for local craftspeople who make metal mirrors, furniture and pottery. “Working-class art is not really portrayed,” he said.Still, as the show closed on the first day, Mr. Thomas could not keep his hands off a weaver’s loom that had been restrung like a sitar. “It’s out of tune,” he declared, as he ran a floppy-tipped wand across the strings. Yet he seemed mesmerized by the unusual tones made by the loom, a collaboration between the Mexican artist Tania Candiani and local instrument makers. “What kind of artist would make music from that?” he wondered.Shalini Venugopal contributed reporting.

Venezuela’s opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, has secured significant international support after declaring himself interim president in a bid to force out Nicolás Maduro as two nights of unrest gripped the country, leading to the deaths of 14 people.Guaidó was quickly recognised by the US, Canada, Brazil, Colombia and other US allies in the Americas, while the European Union said the voice of the people “cannot be ignored”.Donald Trump warned that “all options are on the table” if Maduro – who has overseen the country’s slide into authoritarianism and economic collapse – responded with force against the opposition. Mike Pence later made clear the US would use “the full weight of our diplomatic and economic pressure”. US officials said the US would look at ways to transfer Venezuelan assets and oil revenues to Guaidó and the opposition-run national assembly.Maduro responded with defiance, cutting off relations with the US and ordering all US diplomats to leave the country within 72 hours.“We are defending the right to the very existence of our Bolivarian republic,” Maduro told supporters at a rally outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas. He urged them to resist “at all costs” what he called a coup attempt being orchestrated by “the coup-mongering, interventionist gringo empire” and the “fascist right”.“They intend to govern Venezuela from Washington,” Maduro shouted from the palace’s people’s balcony. “Do you want a puppet government controlled by Washington?”Guaidó issued his own statement, urging foreign embassies to keep their diplomats in the country. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, later said the US would abide by Guaidó’s directive and ignore Maduro’s order to withdraw its diplomats.MPs in Russia, a major Venezuelan ally, criticised US moves against Maduro. “The United States is trying to carry out an operation to organise the next ‘colour revolution’ in Venezuela,” Andrei Klimov, the deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the upper house of parliament, said, using a term for the popular uprisings that unseated leaders in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.Another committee member, Vladimir Dzhabrailov, said: “I do not think that we can recognise this – it is, in essence, a coup.”Turkey and Cuba and Bolivia’s Evo Morales have also offered their support for Maduro.In a statement, 11 of the 14 members of regional bloc the Lima Group said they supported the start of a democratic transition in Venezuela “in order to hold new elections, in the shortest time”. The three holdouts included Mexico, which has maintained a principle of non-intervention under leftist president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, as well as Guyana and St Lucia.The EU’s foreign affairs representative, Federica Mogherini, called for work to begin on holding free and credible elections. She said: “The people of Venezuela have massively called for democracy and the possibility to freely determine their own destiny. These voices cannot be ignored.”On Wednesday, thousands of protesters clogged the streets of the capital, Caracas, with further demonstrations across the country.The protests came as Guaidó, the head of the national assembly, raised his right hand and said: “I swear to assume all the powers of the presidency to secure an end to the usurpation.”The 35-year-old lawmaker, said his surprise move was the only way to rescue Venezuela from “dictatorship” and restore constitutional order.“We know that this will have consequences,” Guaidó, 35, told the cheering crowd. “To be able to achieve this task and to re-establish the constitution we need the agreement of all Venezuelans,” he shouted.Oil-rich Venezuela is mired in economic and political turmoil, with hyperinflation rendering the bolivar currency practically worthless. Shortages in food staples and basic medicines are rampant, and crime is widespread. More than 3 million Venezuelans have fled, causing consternation across the continent.The country’s opposition has struggled to find a strategy against Maduro, however, and analysis warned that Guaidó’s gutsy move was potentially dangerous: the opposition may have won international recognition, but it has no control over state bodies or the security forces.“It is absolutely clear that the strategy was decided by the US government and the Venezuelan opposition, so they share the risk,” said Dimitris Pantoulas, a Caracas-based political analyst and consultant. “The government reaction will come shortly and it remains unclear if the people are ready to defend Guaidó with their lives”In a statement, Trump described the national assembly as the “only legitimate branch of government duly elected by the Venezuelan people” and warned Maduro not to resort to violence.“We continue to hold the illegitimate Maduro regime directly responsible for any threats it may pose to the safety of the Venezuelan people,” he said.Asked if would consider a military option if Maduro refused to cede power, the US president said: “We’re not considering anything but all options on the table. All options, always, all options are on the table.”Pence was more specific in a television interview on Wednesday night. “The United States is going to continue to bring the full weight of our economic and diplomatic pressure until freedom and democracy and fair elections are restored for the people of Venezuela,” he told the Fox Business Network.Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, said Maduro’s government was “now fully entrenched as a dictatorship”, and called on him to hand power to the national assembly until new elections were held.The sudden developments came as tens of thousands joined marches across the country, which followed two nights of violent protests in working-class neighbourhoods of Caracas – once bastions of support for the government – and the apparent foiling of an armed uprising by members of the national guard.Morelia Armini, a saleswoman from Caracas, could barely contain her joy at the day’s developments. “This is a wonderful thing,” she said, after watching to Guaidó take the oath. “Like a phoenix, this is the rebirth of Venezuela.”Wednesday also marked the anniversary of the 1958 uprising that overthrew the military dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez – symbolism that was not lost on María de Jesús, a social worker from Caracas who was born on the day of the 1958 rebellion.“I was born in democracy,” she said on her way to the march in Caracas. “I want my freedom; this is a dictatorship.”Across town, several hundred supporters held a rival march in support of Maduro. Though it was dwarfed in size by the opposition protest, those in attendance were in a buoyant mood.“We are here to support our president and defend our resources,” said Ana Medina, who works for the state oil company PDVAs, as salsa music blasted from loudspeakers. “We know that other countries are against Maduro because they want to take over our resources.” Topics Venezuela Nicolás Maduro Americas Juan Guaidó news

The jury is still out on whether artificial intelligence (AI) is hype or reality. Yet, organisations that do not harness its potential, do so at their own peril.Those that shun the technology risk falling behind their peers. Among other things, the deployment of AI in the area of human resources (HR) can enhance employee welfare.AI uses multiple algorithms that analyse past data to identify patterns and predict the future. The magic is the intelligent recognition of patterns, based on a wide range of variables including obscure ones like tone, photo, and speech, to predict aspects that are not visible to the human eye.One of the objectives of AI is to build systems that are intelligent and resourceful, thereby eliminating a lot of wasteful human effort. Much of the repetitive work currently done manually is getting replaced with intelligent tools.So, how is the technology useful for HR professionals?Employee self-service and query management, for instance, can be more or less replaced by bots. Cognitive computing may also help in predicting which employee is likely to leave, who is likely to succeed, and who can be an effective leader, among other things. It can also help in predicting who is likely to commit fraud. At a more evolved level, it can also identify traits and behaviours that lead to accidents.The biggest difference between an AI tool and a human in the decision-making process is the elimination of the “gut-feeling.” This has immense benefits in the area of people management as it aids in removing biases, which greatly influence human decision-making.Research has shown that most interviewers decide on a candidate in the first two minutes of an interview. These decisions are based on personal biases. With AI tools, one can make decisions that are objective and more likely to be successful.While the traditional role becomes redundant, this also means that there will be an onset of new roles. Rich insights would enable HR professionals to focus on enhancing employee experiences to a higher level. With the transactional grunt out, HR staff will be able to focus greatly on predictive analytics and the business more effectively. The strategic elements in the role will go up significantly. Focus will be on rebuilding work architecture and re-skilling.HR requires two levels of preparation. One to build momentum towards AI. Two, to redefine roles and prepare the organisation for the changes that come along with AI. The HR department needs to embrace digital change and in turn define the digitalisation journey for the organisation. This would mean a transition from building a culture that enables technology to using technology to drive culture.While some manual skills are getting replaced, it also means that roles are becoming more meaningful. HR needs to redefine, re-skill, and re-deploy resources for the future.Internally, HR professionals themselves need to become more agile, analytical, and tech-savvy.As AI systems evolve, I think the upside in terms of productivity and efficiency would be tremendous. Freed from non-value-adding, repetitive tasks, HR can further reinforce its business partnership edge and steer the organisation in the right direction. All this will, however, requires time, and organisations must be willing to invest.We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

Home prices have fallen for the second consecutive year in India’s financial capital, Mumbai.In 2018, residential prices in Mumbai were down 6.8% year-on-year, the worst decline recorded among the eight Indian cities analysed in a recent report by real estate consulting firm Knight Frank. This follows a 5% fall recorded in 2017.While Mumbai’s home sales rose by 3% to 63,893 units in 2018, the shocking default of the lending giant Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) put a damper on the market, according to Knight Frank.After the Mumbai-based lending giant defaulted on a few payments at the end of August 2018, it sparked a liquidity crisis among non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), prompting fears of a Lehman Brothers-like situation in India. The crisis eroded billions of dollars worth of investor wealth, besides hurting buyer sentiment, which resulted in a slowdown in home sales in Mumbai, Knight Frank said in its report.The IL&FS default was only the latest blow to India’s real estate developers, who are still reeling from policy changes such as the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA), designed to drastically improve transparency and accountability in the market, and the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST).However, 2018 did mark an uptick in overall residential launches and sales in India, Knight Frank data show. Altogether, home sales for the eight Indian cities studied were up 6% and launches rose 76%.While developers are still trying to find their footing amid a persistent liquidity crunch, buyers are benefiting from the situation, especially in Mumbai.“Developers who have been willing to negotiate on prices are able to generate sales. But it has been observed that if the developer is not willing to reduce prices, most buyers are ready to wait and are in no hurry to close the transaction” Knight Frank said. “They are expecting the prices to come down in the future, which was not the case until a few years back.”

Exciting developments in televised Mykonos, as the Lindsay Lohan universe formally expands into different properties. Time was that Lindsay featured in the news primarily as the person picking up DUI charges when Paris Hilton wasn’t, but she swiftly grew too large for the mid-00s Los Angeles party scene. There were unpaid hotel bills. There were failures to show up on film sets. There was a stolen necklace, and community service at a morgue. There was BBC3’s decision to get her to front a documentary on human trafficking in India.In overview, then, Lindsay’s has always been a story in the picaresque style – perhaps this is inevitable, given her terrible parents pushed her on stage at 11, when she made her debut in Disney’s remake of The Parent Trap.During the second decade of the millennium, however, the Mean Girls star has certainly added to the gaiety of various nations. She resided on our own shores during the EU referendum, and the night the results were dropping in saw Lindsay unleash a series of tweets so ancien regime they could only have been the direct inspiration for Theresa May’s subsequent “citizens of nowhere” speech. “Sorry #Kettering,” ran one of these, “but where are you?”Local MP Philip Hollobone was so incensed that he used the occasion of a Commons question to the then leader of the house Chris Grayling to assert that “everyone knows where Kettering is”. A Grayling reply was forthcoming. “Lindsay Lohan – as a star of child and teen movies, a very entertaining actress at the time – hasn’t necessarily fulfilled her professional potential,” judged Chris, who would certainly know about not achieving one’s professional potential. “Perhaps now we know the reason why,” he went on. “She should visit the fine town of Kettering and find herself returned to stardom.”Well, there’s careers advice gold right there. That said, this exchange did appear to elicit an apology from Lindsay, and a pledge to switch on the town’s Christmas lights. A broken pledge, as it would turn out. But hey: it’s hardly the most significant pledge to have been broken in the two and a half years since.By that stage, in any case, our heroine had moved on. East, in fact, to Turkey, where she fulfilled her obligations as the face of an energy drink by handing out cans of it to Syrian refugees in a camp. From there, it was a short hop to Athens, where she and a Greek business partner opened a nightclub called LOHAN. Filmed on its steps on opening night, Lindsay debuted a mixed European accent best described as the full Steve McClaren. Speaking only haltingly in the strange American tongue, she announced that this was only the start of an empire. “There’s bigger things to be done with the LOHAN club,” she told reporters. “There is spas, there is refugee camps.” Sure.Actually, no: what?“We create peaceful locations where we can all be happy,” Lindsay went on. “And we start with the refugees, and then we open nice places, and maybe one of the refugees will open a place with us … I want LOHAN to be a celebration of everybody coming together, in the European nations.” Mmm.It wasn’t entirely clear – it rarely is – but Lindsay did assert of the Lohan club brand that “we can make it a good purpose” and it “will fix bad things in the world”. “We have to help people,” she elaborated. “And if we can do it with a nightclub, or with a spa, or with refugee camps, or with containers …”The premise? Lindsay Lohan has opened a Mykonos beach club. Either by MTV’s design or by Lindsay’s, the beach in question is the one on which she was publicly hit by a former boyfriend in 2016. As Lindsay explains it, the club is the result of a promise she made to herself at the time. “I said I’m going to own this beach one day because I always want everyone to feel safe.”To work in it, she has summoned 15 MTV-hot young contestants who need to be “the best of the best”. At what? Serving expensive drinks, I think. Serving clients. Getting them to upgrade from loungers to cabanas and so on. But mainly at all the reality-TV things: fighting, backstabbing, partying and hooking up.In her new role as hardnosed entrepreneur businesswoman, Lindsay has to be appalled at this behaviour, for instance when she shows up unannounced at the group house and finds one of the contestants swimming in her underwear. “When you meet your boss, don’t show up in a bra,” Lindsay rules. “It’s like me going to Steven Spielberg in a bra and wet hair.”That … feels like a real thing that might have happened in about 2004?All in all, the show is going to struggle to resolve its central tension: that Lindsay is a professional beach club owner who prizes the reputation of her business above all; and that the people who staff it are only pretending to be dedicated beach club workers on reality TV.Still, this isn’t the only fish the growing Lohan brand has to fry. As Lindsay revealed to Jimmy Fallon this week: “There will eventually be an island.” So happily – or rather, less sadly – the universe has other plans for expansion. Topics Celebrity Lost in showbiz Lindsay Lohan Reality TV Television features

NEW DELHI—The Indian government has rushed to defend itself against accusations it was tampering with indicators to make the economy look healthier as the country heads toward elections.A growing group of skeptics—including official statisticians—have charged New Delhi with inflating gross-domestic product and concealing unfavorable inflation data to make Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s performance look stronger ahead of the elections, which are scheduled to finish by mid-May. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gold hit an eight-month high while world stock markets were mixed ahead of further U.S.-Sino trade talks, a raft of technology company results, including Apple’s, and a Federal Reserve decision on U.S. interest rates. FILE PHOTO: An employee stores newly cast ingots of 99.99 percent pure gold at the Krastsvetmet non-ferrous metals plant, one of the world's largest producers in the precious metals industry, in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia November 22, 2018. REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin/File PhotoThe U.S. dollar traded little changed and oil prices rose after Washington slapped sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm in a bid to curb its crude exports as traders prepared for major events, including a key Brexit vote late in the day. Sterling fell after British lawmakers rejected most amendments that aimed to keep Britain from leaving the European Union without a deal, reviving worries of a chaotic withdrawal from the trading bloc that would damage the UK economy. Sterling fell sharply after a brief rise and was down 0.75 percent. Investors expect the Fed, the U.S. central bank, to show a more cautious stance when policymakers release a statement on Wednesday after a two-day meeting. U.S. economic data in December that was softer than expected and a sharp downturn in financial markets are likely to keep the Fed from raising rates. Equity markets in Europe rose as investors bid up stocks considered safer during times of economic uncertainty, such as utilities. However, a gauge of global stock performance edged lower as stocks on Wall Street fell amid a ream of mixed earnings reports and caution due to the U.S.-China trade spat. MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe was little changed, while the FTSEurofirst 300 index of leading regional shares in Europe closed 0.8 percent higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 51.74 points, or 0.21 percent, to 24,579.96. The S&P 500 lost 3.85 points, or 0.15 percent, to 2,640 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 57.40 points, or 0.81 percent, to 7,028.29. The information glut this week will make it hard for people to reach a conclusion but the trade talks with China, which begin Wednesday, are the overriding issue for the world economy, said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Funds in New York. What Washington, and possibly Beijing, fail to understand is that the uncertainty about trade is slowing the global economy, which will show up in East Asian PMI manufacturing data for January to be released on Thursday, Kelly said. “The biggest tax levy by Washington is an uncertainty tax, and it’s the biggest threat to the markets and the economy this year,” Kelly said. Tensions were high after U.S. officials announced criminal charges against China’s telecom giant Huawei for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. For Asia, the blow was cushioned by promises of more Chinese stimulus but Beijing berated Washington for blocking tactics in its World Trade Organization appeal against U.S. tariffs. Amid the uncertainty, safe-haven gold broke through $1,310 an ounce in spot prices to reach its highest since last May. U.S. gold futures settled up 0.4 percent at $1,308.90 per ounce. Oil price gains were capped by abundant supply and signs of a slowing Chinese economy. Brent crude oil futures rose $1.39 to settle at $61.32 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained $1.32 to settle at $53.31. Market participants will have catalysts for trading all week, with more than one-fifth of companies on the benchmark S&P 500 index reporting results, including Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook. Apple Inc reported earnings after the bell and said sales for its fiscal second quarter would most likely be lower than Wall Street expected. The outlook suggested Apple still faces weak demand for its iPhone, especially in China, the world’s biggest smartphone market. But Apple shares rose 4.3 percent in after-hours trading on upbeat comments from Chief Executive Tim Cook. FILE PHOTO: A man looks at an electronic stock quotation board showing Japan's Nikkei average outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, November 13, 2018. REUTERS/Toru HanaiU.S. Treasury yields fell across maturities as investors anticipated strong demand for $78 billion of new issues on sale later in the day and on data showing U.S. consumer confidence at its lowest since July 2017. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes rose 9/32 in price to push their yield down to 2.7116 percent. The dollar index rose 0.06 percent, while the euro gained 0.01 percent to $1.1434. The Japanese yen weakened 0.01 percent versus the greenback at 109.33 per dollar. Reporting by Herbert Lash in New York; Editing by Diane Craft, James Dalgleish and Dan GreblerOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The Guardian’s picture editors bring you photo highlights from around the world, including the Kumbh Mela in India and the pope in the UAE

Microbes that set up home in the gut may have an impact on mental health, according to a major study into wellbeing and the bacteria that live inside us.Researchers in Belgium found that people with depression had consistently low levels of bacteria known as Coprococcus and Dialister whether they took antidepressants or not.If the preliminary finding stands up to further scrutiny, it could pave the way for new treatments for mental health disorders based on probiotics that boost levels of “good” bacteria in the intestines.Jeroen Raes of the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology and the Catholic University of Leuven drew on medical tests and GP records to look for links between depression, quality of life and microbes lurking in the faeces of more than 1,000 people enrolled in the Flemish Gut Flora Project.He found that two kinds of bugs, namely Faecalibacterium and Coprococcus, were both more common in people who claimed to enjoy a high mental quality of life. Meanwhile, those with depression had lower than average levels of Coprococcus and Dialister.The study reported in Nature Microbiology does not prove that gut microbes affect mental health. It is possible that the effect works the other way around, with a person’s mental health having an impact on the bugs that thrive inside them. But in follow-up experiments, Raes and his team found evidence that gut microbes can at least talk to the human nervous system by producing neurotransmitters that are crucial for good mental health.“We studied whether gut bacteria in general would have a means to talk to the nervous system, by analysing their DNA,” he said. “We found that many can produce neurotransmitters or precursors for substances like dopamine and serotonin.” Both dopamine and serotonin have complex roles in the brain and imbalances have long been linked to depression.Microbes that live outside the body, for example those found in soils, are not able to make the same kinds of neurotransmitters, Raes said, perhaps because they did not co-evolve with humans and learned to benefit from tapping into their host’s nervous system.If low levels of the bacteria are to blame for at least some depression, it opens the door to probiotic treatments that boost their populations in the gut. But Raes said the connection has to be proved first. That will involve growing the bugs in the lab to see what substances they make, testing their effects in animals, and treating them with tailored probiotics. Only then could scientists consider human trials.In two separate reports, both published in Nature Biotechnology, scientists in China and a UK-Australian collaboration describe how they sequenced the DNA of more than 100 new species of gut microbes. The work amounts to the most comprehensive list of human gut bacteria to date.The vast catalogue of human gut bugs will help scientists to identify which bacteria are in patients’ bodies and drive research into new treatments for conditions as broad as irritable bowel syndrome, allergies and obesity. Topics Microbiology Depression Biology Belgium news

For a demonstration of how political upheaval ripples through the financial system, look no further than the market for initial public offerings (IPOs). Stock offerings dried up almost completely last month in the US and Europe, and things weren’t much better in the rest of the world, as well.The US and Europe managed just two IPOs—New York’s New Fortress Energy and Austria’s Marinomed Biotech—last month, according to Refinitiv. The global total, 46, was also the lowest in two years.In the US, the partial government shutdown, which Donald Trump said he was willing to own in order to get funding for his border wall, explains the seizure. The Securities and Exchange Commission operated with barebones staffing during the closure and was unable to approve IPOs.In Europe, the UK is slated to leave the EU in March, but the British government can’t agree on how to go about it. Prime minister Theresa May’s Brexit agreement with the EU, which was two years in the making, was resoundingly defeated in a vote in the British parliament last month. Failure to hammer out an orderly exit would rupture trade and commerce within the bloc, sending economic shockwaves throughout Europe.Meanwhile, Trump’s trade war with China has squeezed its economy, and has likewise smothered its stock market (paywall). A deadline of March 1 has been set for negotiators to agree on ways to restructure the trade relationship between the world’s largest economies; if no agreement is reached, the US will ratchet up tariffs on Chinese goods even higher.Some of the factors weighing on the global IPO market are most likely transitory. Assuming the US government and its agencies stay open, domestic IPOs will eventually get back on track. But how exactly the UK’s departure from the European bloc will proceed is anyone’s guess. Likewise, it’s impossible to predict the results of the US’s deliberations with China, which will have a wide-ranging impact on businesses across the world.

People who pooh-pooh the cord-cutting phenomenon love to argue that the cost of streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu really adds up, to the point where someone who dumps cable in favor of streaming isn’t actually saving money.Such skeptics haven’t accounted for free streaming services like Tubi, which allow cord cutters to watch thousands of movies and shows without subscriptions. Although Tubi’s been around for almost five years, it’s enjoying a growth spurt as more people ditch cable and seek cheaper alternatives. The company just announced that viewership in 2018 was 4.3 times greater than the year before, and that December alone brought in more viewing time than all of 2017. (It did not share specific hard numbers, though it claims to be the largest ad-supported streaming service.)In the age of cord-cutting, the reality is not that people will subscribe to a dozen streaming services and fail to save money. What they’ll actually do is pick a few subscriptions–as surveys from TiVo and Deloitte have estimated–and pad them out with free services like Tubi.Tubi CEO Farhad Massoudi [Photo: courtesy of Tubi]“I think what everybody has finally come to realize is that the SVOD market is saturating,” says Tubi CEO Farhad Massoudi, referring to subscription-based streaming services such as Netflix. “There isn’t room for too many SVOD services on an average household basis, and that means [ad-supported streaming] … is the next big frontier.”Streaming the 99%The most obvious reason for the rise of ad-supported streaming is the sheer number of subscription services competing for space on customers’ TV bills. Beyond Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, there are premium cable-based channels such as HBO, Showtime, and Starz, plus CBS’s All Access service and even full-blown live TV bundles like Sling TV and YouTube TV. New on-demand services from Disney, AT&T’s WarnerMedia, and (it seems likely) Apple will also enter the fray later this year, and niche services such as CuriosityStream (for science documentaries) and Acorn TV (for British programming) are available by the dozen. It’s safe to assume not all of these services will succeed.Still, subscription overload alone doesn’t explain the sudden rise of ad-supported streaming.[Photo: courtesy of Tubi]With services like Netflix spending more on original programming or high-profile licensed shows that can lure in new customers, they’re becoming less interested in buying up older movies and shows, says BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield. At the same time, people aren’t watching reruns on cable like they used to, which in turn means TV studios are looking for new ways to make money on their back catalogs.“As [cable] viewership drops–they’re having a hard enough time in prime time, let alone the off-hours–it creates an opportunity for companies like Tubi,” Greenfield says.Unlike Netflix or Amazon Prime, Tubi has no interest in original programming, because it doesn’t need flashy exclusives to convince viewers to pay up. Instead, the company looks at its data on what users are watching and tries to predict what might rack up a lot of viewing hours.The Tubi catalog therefore tends to favor quantity over quality, doubling the size of Netflix’s catalog with more than 12,000 movies and shows. Massoudi says some of Tubi’s most popular programming includes reality TV (Dog the Bounty Hunter, for instance), horror films (I Spit on Your Grave I, II, and III), and kids’ programming (Bratz), which may bring in more eyeballs than critical acclaim.“These are not necessarily the type of titles that you put out there in a press release, but there is a huge audience for them,” Massoudi says.Tubi isn’t slowing down on acquiring new content, either. This year, the company plans to spend in the nine figures on licensing, and Massoudi says Tubi has already started competing with TV networks that want to license older shows for cable.“There is a ton of content out there,” Massoudi says. “If you have access to Netflix, you have access to less than 1% of the movies and TV shows on the market, and so there is a huge library of content that you don’t get through Netflix, and some of it is incredible content that we all love to watch.”The free TV marketDespite the sudden interest in free streaming, Greenfield says it’s unlikely that services such as Tubi will outgrow major subscription services like Netflix. Case in point: Netflix is currently worth about $150 billion, versus the $340 million that Viacom paid for Pluto TV. Still, he believes free streaming can be a meaningful business that supports multiple players, especially if they can get better at ad targeting and thereby make more money on fewer commercials.“This is not about whether these [ad-supported streaming services] are going to grow into the scale of Netflix,” he says. “It’s a matter of, is there an opportunity to take advantage of the shift to consumer streaming through advertising? I think the answer is clearly yes.”[Image: courtesy of Tubi]Tubi already seems to have made some headway. Though the company recently raised $25 million in debt financing, it also turned a profit in the fourth quarter and says its ad revenues grew by 180% last year. Massoudi says the funding will help Tubi manage its cash flow as it licenses more content and spends more on marketing, but the profitable quarter proves that ad-supported video can be a real business. That’s not always the case, he says, with other online services–both on the ad-supported and subscription sides.“We want to highlight that we are a self-sustaining licensing business that’s growing,” he says, “versus a lot of companies out there that are burning through a ton of cash and hoping for a Hail Mary.”

Mr. Rai and others said progress was more visible in the commercial sphere: Muslims and Dalits were no longer denied service at lunch counters; castes were no longer confined to divinely decreed occupations. Many were working in local restaurants, some as cooks, where former “untouchables” were now allowed to touch the food of higher castes.By comparison, politics seemed stuck in the past. From 2014 to 2018, 100 million Indians had reached voting age, and many pundits thought this youth bloc would ignore caste loyalties. Instead, we found last year that people of all ages were voting along familiar battle lines of caste or religion. My escort in Bijnor was my second cousin, Prashant Mishra, known as Monty, who excused himself at the town square, saying that as a prominent Brahmin and supporter of the ruling Hindu nationalist party — the Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P. — his mere presence would discourage Dalits and Muslims from speaking openly to me.Upper castes spoke of how the B.J.P. prime minister, Narendra Modi, was defending the Hindu way of life from the growing Muslim minority and reforming a corrupt economy. Muslims and Dalits spoke of how he was destroying jobs and business, and how the party was conspiring to manipulate electronic voting machines to steal the national elections in April, when Mr. Modi is up for re-election. Underlying these theories was a weary skepticism that any party would do anything to raise living standards — meaning voters might as well pull for the politician most loyal to their own religion or caste. At the Bijnor jail, the warden, Radha Krishna Mishra, spoke proudly of modernizing the lockup, including by installing machines that bake roti. But caste politics had persisted. Asked about criticism of the B.J.P. for promoting upper-caste officials like him, he said that the previous state government had favored its supporters, mainly Muslims and Yadavs, a caste once linked to cattle herding. “Now that our government is in power, we have the good postings,” Mr. Mishra said. “That’s the way life goes.”We drove to the sugar cane fields Babuji once owned, and we found that voters there were also skeptical of economic progress and divided by faith or caste. The former caretaker, a kindly man who gave me rides to the town square on Babuji’s tractor, was now so frail, despite being only in his 60s, that his son carried him outside in a wheelbarrow. His replacement, a young Brahmin and avid B.J.P. supporter, showed us WhatsApp videos purportedly showing illicit fortunes amassed by Mr. Modi’s leading rivals. The Congress Party, once the nation’s most dominant political force, has been supplanted in many states by regional parties, each championing one of India’s thousands of castes and subcastes. In Uttar Pradesh, the B.J.P.’s main rivals are the Samajwadi Party led by Akhilesh Yadav, and the Bahujan Samaj Party led by Mayawati, a legendary Dalit who goes by one name. Mayawati had risen to power from Bijnor in the 1980s, when her supporters used to chant, “The upper-caste Brahmins, Bania and Thakurs, thrash them with shoes.”

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gold hit an eight-month high while world stock markets were mixed ahead of further U.S.-Sino trade talks, a raft of technology company results, including Apple’s, and a Federal Reserve decision on U.S. interest rates. FILE PHOTO: An employee stores newly cast ingots of 99.99 percent pure gold at the Krastsvetmet non-ferrous metals plant, one of the world's largest producers in the precious metals industry, in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia November 22, 2018. REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin/File PhotoThe U.S. dollar traded little changed and oil prices rose after Washington slapped sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm in a bid to curb its crude exports as traders prepared for major events, including a key Brexit vote late in the day. Sterling fell after British lawmakers rejected most amendments that aimed to keep Britain from leaving the European Union without a deal, reviving worries of a chaotic withdrawal from the trading bloc that would damage the UK economy. Sterling fell sharply after a brief rise and was down 0.75 percent. Investors expect the Fed, the U.S. central bank, to show a more cautious stance when policymakers release a statement on Wednesday after a two-day meeting. U.S. economic data in December that was softer than expected and a sharp downturn in financial markets are likely to keep the Fed from raising rates. Equity markets in Europe rose as investors bid up stocks considered safer during times of economic uncertainty, such as utilities. However, a gauge of global stock performance edged lower as stocks on Wall Street fell amid a ream of mixed earnings reports and caution due to the U.S.-China trade spat. MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe was little changed, while the FTSEurofirst 300 index of leading regional shares in Europe closed 0.8 percent higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 51.74 points, or 0.21 percent, to 24,579.96. The S&P 500 lost 3.85 points, or 0.15 percent, to 2,640 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 57.40 points, or 0.81 percent, to 7,028.29. The information glut this week will make it hard for people to reach a conclusion but the trade talks with China, which begin Wednesday, are the overriding issue for the world economy, said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Funds in New York. What Washington, and possibly Beijing, fail to understand is that the uncertainty about trade is slowing the global economy, which will show up in East Asian PMI manufacturing data for January to be released on Thursday, Kelly said. “The biggest tax levy by Washington is an uncertainty tax, and it’s the biggest threat to the markets and the economy this year,” Kelly said. Tensions were high after U.S. officials announced criminal charges against China’s telecom giant Huawei for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. For Asia, the blow was cushioned by promises of more Chinese stimulus but Beijing berated Washington for blocking tactics in its World Trade Organization appeal against U.S. tariffs. Amid the uncertainty, safe-haven gold broke through $1,310 an ounce in spot prices to reach its highest since last May. U.S. gold futures settled up 0.4 percent at $1,308.90 per ounce. Oil price gains were capped by abundant supply and signs of a slowing Chinese economy. Brent crude oil futures rose $1.39 to settle at $61.32 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained $1.32 to settle at $53.31. Market participants will have catalysts for trading all week, with more than one-fifth of companies on the benchmark S&P 500 index reporting results, including Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook. Apple Inc reported earnings after the bell and said sales for its fiscal second quarter would most likely be lower than Wall Street expected. The outlook suggested Apple still faces weak demand for its iPhone, especially in China, the world’s biggest smartphone market. But Apple shares rose 4.3 percent in after-hours trading on upbeat comments from Chief Executive Tim Cook. FILE PHOTO: A man looks at an electronic stock quotation board showing Japan's Nikkei average outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, November 13, 2018. REUTERS/Toru HanaiU.S. Treasury yields fell across maturities as investors anticipated strong demand for $78 billion of new issues on sale later in the day and on data showing U.S. consumer confidence at its lowest since July 2017. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes rose 9/32 in price to push their yield down to 2.7116 percent. The dollar index rose 0.06 percent, while the euro gained 0.01 percent to $1.1434. The Japanese yen weakened 0.01 percent versus the greenback at 109.33 per dollar. Reporting by Herbert Lash in New York; Editing by Diane Craft, James Dalgleish and Dan GreblerOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

From money laundering to terror financing, the risks associated with cryptocurrencies are well known. But a high-level panel tasked with drafting rules for India’s virtual currency ecosystem is now obsessed with its impact on a less-explored area.The committee, led by the top bureaucrat Subhash Chandra Garg is believed to be in a tangle over the impact that digital coins will have on the Indian rupee if they are allowed for making payments.The panel was set up in November 2017 under Garg, the economic affairs secretary in the ministry of finance, and is in advanced stages of drafting regulations for cryptocurrencies in India.“If bitcoin and other digital currencies are going to be allowed to be used for payments then whether it will end up destabilising the fiat currency is a major concern for them (the Garg panel),” said one of the representatives from the cryptocurrency ecosystem who recently met the ministers, requesting anonymity. “The overall impact on the financial ecosystem that it is likely to have is still unclear and it has been a challenge to convince them on this particular point.”The fears have been possibly bolstered by a report released by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) last March. Based in Basel, Switzerland, the BIS is a club of sorts for the world’s central banks, and it is usually concerned about matters like the stability of the global financial system. Along with 59 other central banks, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is a member of the BIS.In the report, it had said that virtual currencies can one day be issued by policymakers for settling payments among financial institutions, among other things. However, it had also warned that digital coins might destabilise traditional banks if they are offered widely to the general public.But the cryptoecosystem believes that such risks may not arise in the near-term.“At this point it may be a bit premature to worry about this as right now even globally only a handful of payments are made using virtual currencies and that will be the case till blockchain reaches the scale that say Mastercard or Visa have,” said Rahul Raj, founder of Koinex, an Indian cryptocurrency exchange.“Therefore, there is (a) considerable time before that concern even comes up.”Moreover, the Indian government had made it clear on several occasions that it does not recognise these new-age coins as legal tender and is unlikely to do so. “You can’t buy goods and services in India using any other currency such as the dollar, pound or even gold and it needs to be converted first into rupee to complete payments, a stance that can also be adopted for cryptocurrencies,” added Raj.Earlier, both the RBI and the Garg Panel had also been considering launching its own cryptocurrencies. The government has also previously expressed that it is not comfortable with virtual currencies, even though it wants to push blockchain technology, a digitised and decentralised public ledger for cryptocurrency transactions.On the other hand, the government is also concerned that these currencies may be used for money laundering, terror financing, or other illegitimate transactions, and can also be used to dupe gullible investors.In November last year, in an ongoing court battle of cryptocurrency exchanges, against the Indian government and the RBI, the finance ministry had informed that the panel was going to submit a draft report to its own members on the ecosystem. The findings of this report were to be discussed in a meeting held in January 2019.There is no timeline on when the regulations are likely to be out but it seems it will take time till few of these pertinent issues are ironed out. Till then, the industry will continue to remain on tenterhooks.