India is planning to launch its own space station, ISRO chief K Sivan said Thursday.

The ambitious project will be an extension of the Gaganyaan mission.

“We have to sustain the Gaganyaan programme after the launch of (the) human space mission. In this context, India is planning to have its own space station,” Sivan told reporters here.

On Wednesday ISRO announced India’s second sojourn to the moon, Chandrayaan-2, will be launched on July 15, the most complex mission ever undertaken by the space agency.

Under the nearly Rs 1,000 crore mission, the landing on the moon near the South Pole would be on September 6 or 7 on an uncharted territory, ISRO chairman K Sivan said on Wednesday.

Pointing out Chandrayaan 2 is going to South Pole, a place where nobody else has gone, Sivan said the entire scientific community of the nation and the globe were eagerly waiting for the mission.

If all goes well, India would be the fourth country after the US, Russia and China to perform a soft landing on the moon and put a rover on it.

Chandrayaan 2 will also have the credit of being India’s first interplanetary mission to be steered by two women- with M Vanitha as Project Director and Ritu Karidhal as Mission Director.

The mission cost of Chandrayaan-2 with regard to the satellite was Rs 603 crore, Sivan noted.

Chandrayaan-2 is an advanced version of the previous Chandrayaan-1 mission, which was launched about 10 years ago.

CHENNAI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — Sudha seldom thought about the pills she took to ease her period pains during 10-hour shifts as a seamstress in southern India.

She could not afford to let anything interrupt her work and cut her wages so she sought medicine from a factory supervisor.

“They are depressing days and the pills helped,” said the factory worker in Tamil Nadu, India’s southern textile hub.

But by the end of her first year of work, and after months of taking painkillers without medical advice, Sudha’s menstrual cycle had gone haywire aged 17 - and she was not the only one.

A Thomson Reuters Foundation expose based on interviews with about 100 women in Tamil Nadu’s multi-billion dollar garment industry found all of them were given unlabelled drugs at work for period pains, and more than half said their health suffered.

The drugs were rarely provided by medical professionals, in violation of labor laws, and the state government said it would monitor the health of garment workers in light of the findings.

Many of the women said it took them years to realise the damage the medication had done as they were never warned about side effects, with health problems ranging from depression and anxiety, to urinary tract infections, fibroids and miscarriages.

Pills given to the Thomson Reuters Foundation by workers had no markings to show the brand, their composition or expiry date.

But two doctors who analysed the pills said they were non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs - similar to ibuprofen and Advil - that could help relieve menstrual cramps but were known to have possible harmful side-effects if taken frequently.

Activists, academics and doctors have voiced concerns that female workers’ lives were being tightly controlled, from toilet breaks to periods, to keep production lines running as India’s garment sector faces ever greater demands from Western brands.

Medical tests found that Sudha - who did not give her surname for fear of reprisals - had fibroids, which are non-cancerous growths that develop in or around the uterus.

A doctor said she needed to stop working and rest.

But missing work and wages was not an option as she was helping her mother - a ragpicker - pay back a loan of Rs 1,50,000 ($2,168) to local moneylenders.

“Half my salary (Rs 6,000) would go in paying off the loan and a big amount on my trips to the doctor,” Sudha said. “It became a cycle I was not able to break. And even though my health became worse, I needed to keep working to pay the bills.” 

ACTION AFOOT

In response to the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s findings, an official from Tamil Nadu said the state would this year launch a project to monitor the health of its garment workers and collect data on how many suffered from work-related health problems.

While India’s Factories Act requires medical dispensaries to be run by qualified nurses or doctors, some small factories flout the law, said Manivelan Rajamanickkam, the top official for occupational and environmental health in Tamil Nadu state.

The Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI), a group of trade unions, charities and companies including top brands such as H&M , Mothercare, and Gap Inc., said it had heard of pills being given to workers and was investigating.

Two top manufacturers’ associations said their member factories did not give our medication for menstrual pains, and that drugs were not normally provided without a prescription.

Sudha, now 20, said frequent gynaecologist visits have wiped out her savings while it is a struggle daily to stitch up to 400 parts of clothing from collars and buttons to pockets.

“I have learnt to ignore my aches and pains when I go to work. I also stay away from any pills,” she said, holding a faded folder full of doctors’ notes and medical prescriptions.

“My body feels weak after the last couple of years working in the factory,” Sudha added. “It is difficult but I manage.”

About 40,000 garment factories and spinning mills across Tamil Nadu employ more than 300,000 female workers, according to data from the government, but the true number could be far higher with thousands of informal workers uncounted.

Mainly young village women from poor, illiterate and marginalised communities toil in these factories, working long days to produce garments destined for leading global retailers.

Growing pressure from big brands on suppliers to deliver clothes ever-quicker and cheaper is fuelling exploitation from a lack of bathroom breaks to verbal abuse, labor activists said.

But the fear of missing work and losing wages due to periods was a major worry for many female workers who said taking painkillers was the best way to ensure their output didn’t slip.

MONEY OR HEALTH?

In each factory a supervisor known as the “time keeper” monitors workers’ hours and bathroom breaks and often manages a small medical dispensary for workers suffering aches and pains.

The women who spoke to the Thomson Reuters Foundation - most of whom were aged 15 to 25 - said they were always told to swallow the pills in front of the overseer, never knowing the name of the drugs or being warned about possible side-effects.

They identified the pills only by colour, size and shape.

Kanaga Marimuthu took medication every month for almost a year until she noticed a white discharge followed by aches, pains and a fever - then her periods stopped.

The 21-year-old was now in better health having visited a doctor, taken time to recover, and steered clear of the pills.

“The choice was between losing wages and popping more pills to get through the day’s production targets,” said Marimuthu, who now takes time off work if needed during her periods.

“I chose my health and pray everyday that I will recover completely soon.”

Two manufacturers’ associations representing hundreds of factories said protecting workers’ health was a priority.

“We have given clear instructions to our members to be sensitive during such times (menstruation),” said Selvaraju Kandaswamy, general secretary of the Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA), a trade body representing 500-odd factories.

“Factories keep a tab on the workers’ health, conducting regular blood tests to check haemoglobin levels and ensure nutritious food if workers have anaemia,” he added. “Often the workers who join ... are already anaemic and malnourished.”

Raja Shanmugam, head of the Tiruppur Exporter’s Association, said medicine was not normally provided to workers without a doctor’s prescription, and that factories only stocked basic medication for fevers or headaches and a balm for muscle pains.

“I am not aware of any medication being given to workers for their periods and we definitely would not support such a practice,” said Shanmugam, whose association counts more than 1,000 cotton knitwear manufacturers among its members.

“We ... cannot vouch for all factories, some of which are not our members.”

“CLEARLY UNACCEPTABLE”

Officials from the Tamil Nadu state and central government said they were not aware of pills being provided to workers.

Factories should refer workers with health concerns to the nearest hospital, said Rajamanickkam, the Tamil Nadu official.

“Unqualified supervisors doling out medicines should not be practiced,” he said, adding that medical dispensaries are legally required to be handled by a qualified nurse. “But compliance, especially in smaller factories, is a problem.”

“We will soon be doing surveillance across factories to get a real picture that will reflect the problems workers face.”

Peter McAllister, head of the ETI that represents about 66 companies in the garment sector - most of whom source from India - said his organisation had only recently heard of the practice.

“It is clearly unacceptable,” McAllister said.

Jeeva Balamurugan, general secretary of the all-women Tamilnadu Textile and Common Labour Union, said factory bosses knew the pills they provided could disrupt women’s periods yet still handed them out freely - aiming to keep the staff at work.

″(Some) workers take up to three days off during their periods and that impacts production,” said Balamurugan, who took pills during her periods at her old spinning mill job.

One “time keeper,” who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her job, said her role mainly involved providing painkillers to the 4,000 female workers under her watch.

“The pills that are consumed the most are the ones for stomach ache, but I don’t know their names or their side effects,” said the woman.

“During their periods, the medicines help them finish work,” she added. “I myself would never swallow the pills - and dissuade my close friends working from taking them also.”

At a clinic in Dindigul, doctor P Nalina Kumari said she treated many women from spinning mills and garment factories.

“The pills they seem to be given are basically causing a hormonal imbalance in their bodies,” she said.

“The visible symptoms are nausea and vomiting. The invisible symptoms are erratic menstrual cycles, depression and in many cases difficulty in conceiving.”

STIGMA AND SHAME

Selvi does not like to talk about her periods.

She remembers being teased by her male supervisor when she complained of cramps after starting work at a spinning mill.

From then on she kept quiet and asked for painkillers but six months later felt her insides “burning” and fell ill, forcing her to take 10 days off work and lose wages.

Selvi decided to stop taking the drugs after her health worsened, but said she was scared the damage had been done.

“I was always told this happens to everyone, it’s normal and I shouldn’t fuss,” Selvi said, sitting outside her home in Dindigul district. “So after a point, I stopped fussing.”

Social stigma and taboos around menstruation in India are exploited by factory supervisors and managers, said James Victor, head of labor rights charity Serene Secular Social Service Society.

“These girls have proper menstrual cycles when they are at home and things go wrong only after they join work,” said Victor, whose organisation advocates for spinning mill workers.

Instead of being given spare sanitary pads or allowed longer bathroom breaks, women were handed pills that stop their periods and were harassed for working slowly, according to Victor.

“It is an issue no one talks about or acknowledges but everyone knows about. The prevalence .... is alarming.”

“MAXIMUM WORK”

Under Indian labor laws, factories must have one toilet for every 20 workers but - barring a few major export factories - most do not, auditors and factory inspectors said.

“There are rules but implementation is a challenge,” said an independent auditor carrying out checks for global brands, requesting anonymity since he was presently conducting audits.

Workers get barely five minutes a day to use the restroom and many are thwarted by long queues, found a 2016 study by charity Community Awareness Research Education Trust (CARE-T).

Female workers said in many instances, dustbins were not cleared, regularly making the toilets impossible to use.

“The priority is always production,” said Prithviraj Sinnathambi, director of CARE-T, which promotes labor rights for garment workers in factories.

Manimekalai Natesan, head of women’s studies at Bharatidasan University, started documenting the lives of garment workers in 2011, and said there had been little sign of improvement.

“The exploitative methods continue but under different names and forms,” she said.

“In many instances, the toilets are deliberately kept dirty so that the women will refrain from using them and thereby not take restroom breaks. The idea is to extract maximum work.”

Sudha still works at the factory and has stopped hoping for change.

“I was very scared to speak up about the long hours, the period pain, the dirty bathrooms and so many other problems when I joined the factory,” she said, recalling her first few days.

“Four years later, the salary is still the same, the work hours are the same and armed with her medicine box, the time keeper is always watching our every move. Nothing has changed.”

Just two months ago, scenes of jubilation filled the Sudanese capital Khartoum after the country’s military overthrew President Omar al-Bashir.

His 30-year premiership came to an end following increasingly bloody protests over his repressive rule and the deteriorating economy.

Yet weeks later, the optimism which filled the city’s streets has been replaced with bloodshed, after at least 118 people were killed, doctors said, when the ruling military council opened fire on pro-democracy protesters.

In April, the demonstrators were left angry and disappointed when the defence minister announced the armed forces would govern for the next two years.

The aftermath of al-Bashir’s removal has seen a struggle emerge between the two sides, with protesters demanding a handing over of power from the military, to civilians.

Meanwhile, the UN has voiced concerns that the nation of 40 million people is sliding into a “human rights abyss”, and has called for an independent investigation into violations against peaceful protesters.

What Sparked The Unrest?

On June 3, Sudanese security forces attacked a pro-democracy sit-in in the capital Khartoum, killing dozens of people. Hundreds were wounded by the gunfire and the death toll has since escalated amid ongoing unrest.

The killings were a challenge to a protest movement that first succeeded in forcing the overthrow of Sudan’s long-time strongman al-Bashir. Dozens of bodies have been pulled out of the Nile river in the capital following the violence.

After the military removed al-Bashir and seized power, tens of thousands of protesters had remained in the protest camp and other sites, saying an end to his rule was not enough and demanding that the generals who took power hand over authority to civilians.

Protest leaders and military officials have been negotiating over the make-up of a transitional government, as protesters call for “limited military representation” in a sovereign council that would lead the country as it transitions to civilian rule over three years.

But ruling generals are refusing to relinquish power.

The violent crackdown put an end to the relative peace that surrounded the talks, signalling that the military had lost patience with activists’ demands. 

Mohammed Yousef al-Mustafa, a spokesman for the Sudanese Professionals’ Association, which has spearheaded the protests, previously said: “We have no choice but to continue our protests and civil disobedience until the fall of the military council.”

Madani Abbas Madani, a leading activist, said the protesters would continue a civil disobedience campaign until the overthrow of the ruling military council.

Is There Any Hope Of An Agreement Between Protesters And The Military?

Not at the moment.

Ethiopian mediator Mahmoud Dirir said talks between the two sides on restoring a civilian administration would resume soon.

The army has agreed to release political prisoners as a confidence-building measure, Mahmoud Dirir said on Tuesday.

The steps appeared to show a softening of positions after talks between the two sides collapsed following the disruption at the start of June.

Days after the violent crackdown, Sudan’s military council said ruling generals were ready to resume negotiations.

But protest organisers dismissed the call, saying the military was “not serious” about negotiating with protesters while killing them at the same time.

At the time, spokesman al-Mustafa said the protesters “totally reject” the call from ruling General Abdel-Fattah Burhan for the resumption of talks, the Associated Press reported.

Gen Burhan said the military would unilaterally form an interim government and hold elections sooner, within seven to nine months, under international supervision, and said any agreements reached earlier in the negotiations with the demonstrators were cancelled.

Protesters rejected the move because it would put the military in charge of running the election.

Meanwhile, the military council’s Lieutenant General Jamaleddine Omar on Sunday blamed protest leaders for “all the regrettable events” of the past days.

He said the actions of protest leaders have “crossed the line of peaceful practices... and have become a major liability for the country and the people’s security”.

How Has The Unrest Affected The Lives Of Civilians?

Daily life has understandably been affected by the unrest.

Civilians have been cut off from the outside world amid an internet blackout enforced by authorities. The move has forced people to find new ways to communicate with each other.

In Khartoum, employees returned to work this week and store owners opened their shops, after an alliance of protesters and opposition groups suspended their three-day campaign of strikes and civil disobedience.

ATMs and banks that had closed were reopened, leading to queues outside. Meanwhile, rubbish bins not emptied for days overflowed, Reuters reported.

What Has Been The International Response?

Western states have been critical of the military council, however ruling generals have received support from China, Russia and the Gulf Arab States, the AFP reported.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt condemned the violence soon after it began, saying that the international community would “hold the Military Council to account”.

“Condemn the attack on protestors by Sudanese security forces. This is an outrageous step that will only lead to more polarisation and violence,” he tweeted.

UN experts have said they are concerned that Sudan is sliding into a “human rights abyss” as the Human Rights Council called on Wednesday for an independent investigation into violations against peaceful protesters in Sudan.

This week, the top US diplomat for Africa, Tibor Nagy, joined the international effort to press Sudan’s military rulers and the opposition toward a deal on a transition to democracy.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed flew to Khartoum last week to mediate between the military council and protest leaders.

But the military council has been bolstered by support from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which between them have offered $3 billion (£2.4 billion) in aid.

Who Else Has Spoken Out About The Violence?

Outside the realm of politics, Sudanese Americans have held rallies outside the White House in solidarity with the protests in Sudan.

Celebrities including Rihanna and Wizkid have used their influence to raise awareness of the conflict.

Actor and activist George Clooney urged the international community to freeze on military officials’ illicit assets in hopes that financial pressure would trigger a switch in their approach to the protesters.

Actress Tracee Ellis Ross and model Imaan Hammam posted on Instagram: “There is a massacre happening in Sudan right now, and the world is silent.”

Some social media users have been replacing their profile pictures to the colour blue to draw awareness, including Demi Lovato and Naomi Campbell.

Sudanese social media influencer Shahd Khidir, who is known for her lifestyle content, told her tens of thousands of Instagram followers: “There’s a massacre happening in my country Sudan’s and a media blackout and internet censorship for four consecutive days.”

And now for the latest in the recurring series Sentences We Never Imagined Writing – Justin Bieber has (wisely) retracted his offer to cage fight Tom Cruise.

The popstar offered to go up against the Jack Reacher actor earlier this week, announcing his intentions with a tweet that read: “I wanna challenge Tom Cruise to fight in the octagon. Tom if you dont take this fight your scared and you will never live it down.” [sic] 

The unexpected post left us with many (many) questions and TMZ managed to corner Justin in an attempt to clear things up.

He told the website: “It was just a random tweet. I do that stuff sometimes.

“I think he’d probably whup my ass in a fight,” Justin continued. “I’d have to get in some good shape.

“I think he’d probably be out of my weight class.”

A wise choice, we think.

While Tom didn’t respond to Biebs’ challenge, cage fighter Conor McGregor did offer to help put the event on, stating that his entertainment company would make it happen.

This matter aside, 2019 is turning out to be a big year for Justin, who is currently riding high at the top of the UK singles charts with his Ed Sheeran collaboration I Don’t Care.

Meanwhile, Tom recently starred in his sixth Mission Impossible film – once again, doing all his own stunts – and will also take the lead in the new Top Gun movie, which is out next year.

Bringing new life into the world is complicated in the Republic of Gilead. There are the handmaids, who are tasked with breeding children; the Commanders, who father said children during brutal bedding “ceremonies”; and the Wives, who mother the children once the handmaid gives birth. It’s a sick cycle, one that questions consent and the sacredness of motherhood.

At the end of ”The Handmaid’s Tale” Season 2, Commander Fred Waterford’s (Joseph Fiennes) wife Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) — knowingGilead is no place for an innocent baby girl— decides to help her handmaid June (Elisabeth Moss) get their daughter Nichole to safety. (Editor’s note: Nichole, birth name Holly, is actually fathered by Guardian Nick (Max Minghella), with whom June had a secret romantic relationship.) But June, wrecked that her other daughter Hannah (Jordana Blake)is still in the Republic, makes the unpopular choice to stay. She gives Nichole to former handmaid Emily (Alexis Bledel) and urges her to head to Canada, where June’s husband and Hannah’s father, Luke Bankole (O-T Fagbenle), is waiting for them.

In Season 3, Emily reaches Toronto, but she grapples with the trauma she endured at the hands of a totalitarian regime, all while June is recaptured and given to a new, mysterious power player: Commander Joseph Lawrence (Bradley Whitford).

Luke, meanwhile, is in shock over the responsibility of raising June’s daughter ― a child who is biologically not his own ― without her. It’s very complicated, butO-T Fagbenle sort of understands the situation, he explained to HuffPost over the phone last week. The British-born actor found himself connecting with his character on a whole new level this season, being raised by many family members as he moved between England, Nigeria and Spain.

“For me, it was meaningful,” he said of Luke’s storyline. “I come from a very non-traditional family where people have been brought up by people who are not their parents — aunts as mothers and uncles [as fathers] and all sorts. And so it kind of resonated with me a lot — this idea of taking on a child who is related to you not by blood but, in some ways, something deeper. The quote ‘blood is thicker than water,’ the full quote, I was told, is, ‘the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,’ which I always took to mean the blood of the promises you make, the blood of your connection, is deeper than just genetics.”

It isn’t lost on Fagbenle, however, that the children of Gilead come about through such “horrific violence,” making it hard to compare it to his real-world experience.

“That has to factor into what is best for the child and where the child should be,” he said. “I don’t really have an answer to [what being a parent in Gilead means]. I think, definitely, if you give birth to a child then you’re its mother, on some deep intrinsic level. Beyond that, I think being a parent is about what kind of care and opportunity and love you’ll provide the child.”

According to Fagbenle, Luke isn’t so much worried about raising Nichole as he is about June not coming home. Although viewers know the tragedy she’s faced, Luke has no idea what happened to his wife under the Waterford’s roof. And that’s terrifying.  

“Luke is in the dark when it comes to what it means to receive this baby and what it means for her to turn her back on an opportunity to come back and look after the baby with him and get back together,” the actor said. “So it takes quite a bit of work for Luke to basically get over himself and have faith in June and take this baby on as his own.”

It’s also difficult for Luke to be around Emily, who avoided contacting her own family despite being beyond the confines of Gilead. As Moira (Samira Wiley) tells Emily, “He looks at you; he sees June.”

Luke begins to wonder if June would be acting the same way if she were to make it to Canada, Fagbenle said.

“What Emily has been through is just indescribable, really. Lots of people experience dissonance of having been through a trauma and not being able to properly express that trauma or fully explain how that trauma is affecting their lives to other people, whether that be refugees or war vets or victims of domestic violence. It’s quite agonizing for people because how do you sum up or express all the horrors that you’ve been through to other people?”

“But from Luke’s perspective,” he added, “a lot of his anxiety is toward, ‘What happened to June? What is left of June?’ It’s kind of pathologizing him.”

Hannah, their daughter who’s around 8 years old, was separated from them after Gilead came to power, and is still living in a society that controls every aspect of her life and future. For Luke, it’s even worse picturing her experience ― since he’s not sure if Hannah even remembers he’s her father.

“Hannah had very few conscious years — I don’t really know what years you truly start recognizing your relationships to other people. And so she’s had a couple of years in Gilead, and I’m a stranger to her. And that’s a really frightening thought,” Fagbenle said.

Like with the previous iterations of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the story of Season 3 eerilyrelates to the politics of our world today. Women’s bodies are being controlled by the government, andtheir rights are being questioned. The fear of climate change is real. But Fagbenle thinks it’s powerful when art can transcend nations and connect people from all walks of life, even when it’s as harrowing as this show.

“There is frustration, in America mostly, that some things are being rolled back,” Fagbenle said. “But more than all of that, [’Handmaid’s] is about the relationships between mothers and daughters and co-workers and the power deferential — a lot of people feel they don’t have all the power they would like in their lives.”  

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has come out in support of Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, the national soccer star accused of raping a model in Paris last month, which activists say could further discourage victims from coming forward to report sexual violence.

The soccer player, who is commonly known as Neymar Jr., is “going through a hard time,” Bolsonaro told reporterslast week. “But I believe him.”

The president’s remarks on the ongoing case sent shockwaves across Brazil, a country where experts say reporting rates for sexual crimes are lower than they should be. 

Najila Trindade Mendes de Souza, a 26-year-old model, waived her right to anonymity to file her complaint against Neymar, 27, who has vehemently denied the allegations and accused her of blackmail.

They both say that Neymar paid for de Souza to fly to meet him in Paris in May after they’d exchanged several messages.  

“I was prepared to engage in a consensual act,” de Souza said during an interview with the SBT channel. “But it became rape as soon as he began acting violently, when he did not comprehend that we could not go any further because we didn’t have a condom.”  

Bolsonaro dismissed the incident as: “This woman travels to a different continent, a bunch of stuff happens, and then she gets back to Brazil, and she wants this to happen.”

After Bolsonaro showed his support for Neymar last week, the hashtag #EstupradaDeTaubaté (#TaubatéRapeVictim) began trending on Twitter in Brazil, a reference to a woman from the city of Taubaté whose case gained notoriety in 2012 after she falsely claimed to be pregnant with quadruplets. Thousands of posts used the hashtag to try to discredit de Souza’s allegation.

In 2016, 49,497 cases of rape were reported across Brazil, according to the country’s 11th annual Report on Public Safety. But the true figures are believed to be much higher — somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 cases, according to a study by the Institute for Applied Economic Research and the Brazilian Public Safety Forum.

Bolsonaro’s own track record on women’s rights and LGBTQ rights has been abhorrent. Legal experts told HuffPost Brazil that siding with a man accused of sexual assault before the investigation into the allegations has even been completed indicates that the president is indifferent to survivors of sexual violence.

“The message [that Bolsonaro is sending] is that Brazil does not reject violence against women. It reinforces the idea that women should not complain or draw attention to certain issues,” said Mônica Sapucaia Machado, a professor at the Brazilian School of Law.

Flavia Biroli, a political scientist and professor at the University of Brasília, said that the president downplaying a report of rape contributes to “naturalizing violence against women in a country where it is occurring at an alarming rate and on a daily basis.”

Bolsonaro himself was accused of incitement to rape while serving as a congressman in 2016. Two years prior, he had told fellow Congresswoman Maria do Rosário, “I would never rape you because you do not deserve it.” That case has been on hold ever since Bolsonaro was elected president.

The president’s comments contribute to victim-blaming and misconceptions about what consent is, experts say.

“Either sex is consensual, or it’s rape,” Biroli said.

“Any attempt to make light of this clear delineation is contributing to the justification of the brutal violence of rape and the dehumanization of women,” she added. “This is the understanding present in national and international law. It is based on the assertion that women are individuals who are free to make decisions and whose decisions must be respected.”

Machado said too many people look for “justifications” to excuse sexual violence.

“Once again, it’s the same assertion about a woman’s position, as if questions of ideological, religious and moral character were the foundation of the right [of a woman] to not be treated violently,” she said.

Machado also called Bolsonaro’s stance a break from Brazil’s history of aligning with international organizations that promote women’s rights.

“It’s troubling that our country is abandoning the position of those who defend equality, fight for an end to violence, and want to build a safe country for women ― instead becoming a country that questions women’s claims when they report,” she said.

The president’s comments also may leave the door open for other public officials to behave in a similar fashion.

Congressman Carlos Jordy, a member of Bolsonaro’s party, introduced a bill that would increase jail time for falsely reporting crimes such as rape by up to one-third. He said the bill “serves to discourage rash behavior that may jeopardize the lives of innocent people.”

Jordy’s tweet in defense of the bill was retweeted by the president’s son Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro.

Mindy Kaling is vocal on social media, but when it comes to her 1-year-old daughter, the 39-year-old “Wrinkle in Time” actress has been pretty tight-lipped.

Kaling not only avoids showing her daughter Katherine’s face on social media, but she’s also kept mum about her baby’s paternity since she surprised fans by confirming her pregnancy in July 2017.

In an interview with Glamour published last week, Kaling explained why it’s so important for her to keep Katherine’s paternity to herself — even by keeping that information off her daughter’s birth certificate.

“I do feel entitled to have privacy about my daughter and my relationships,” Kaling, who is publicly single, told the magazine. “It’s really essential to my life that there be something not everybody knows about.”

Speaking to The New York Times last week, Kaling elaborated on her reasoning for keeping the father of her child private — and it makes a whole lot of sense.

“My feeling is, that until I speak to my daughter [about her paternity], I’m not going to talk to anyone else about it,” said “The Mindy Project” star.

There has been plenty of speculation as to who Katherine’s father may be. Many of Kaling’s fans have hoped it’s B.J. Novak, Kaling’s former co-star and co-writer on “The Office,” whom the actress has had a very public friendship with for 16 years.

Yet although Kaling and Novak did date in the early days of “The Office,” Kaling told “CBS Sunday Morning” earlier this month that she and Novak are now just buds.

“He’s a wonderful friend. He’s the godfather to my daughter,” she said. “I see him every week. It isn’t the thing that people sometimes think it is. He’s really part of my family now, which is great. Even though that’s less of a sexy characterization of our relationship, I think it’s a deeper and a closer one. We do spend a lot of time together and it’s a great blessing in my life.”

The writer and producer of HBO’s Chernobyl has asked tourists to show respect for “all who suffered and sacrificed” as a result of the 1986 nuclear disaster, after the hit series prompted a rise in tourism to the area. 

Craig Mazin addressed photographs being posted to Instagram and other social media platforms, which show visitors posing for selfies and using relics of the disaster as props.

In one particular photo a woman is seen posing in a hazmat suit, undone to reveal she is wearing only a thong underneath.

“If you visit, please remember that a terrible tragedy occurred there,” Mazin tweeted. “Comport yourselves with respect for all who suffered and sacrificed.”

It’s important to note that it’s not entirely clear whether all the images Mazin is referring to are actually taken in the exclusion zone – the town of Pripyat in Ukraine. Instagram allows users to geotag themselves in a location anywhere in the world without actually having to be there at the time.

But it does raise questions about how far people are willing to go for likes by at least trying to make their followers believe they are in Chernobyl.  

The HBO and Sky Atlantic mini-series, which examines the nuclear accident from 26 April 1986, first aired on 9 May 2019. Several local travel agencies reported a 30% increase in bookings year-on-year within the first few weeks.

In 2005, the World Health Organisation estimated as many as 4,000 people could’ve died as a result of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl power plant. Two died at the scene of the explosion and another 28 from acute radiation poisoning in the weeks that followed.

Around 1,000 firefighters and emergency services workers experienced high radiation doses and went on to develop life-shortening illnesses. 

Evacuation of Pripyat led to the permanent rehousing of 116,000 people, and homes within a 30km radius of the site were evacuated.

The site has been open to tourists since the late 90s, but has increased in popularity over the last five years. Visitors are screened for radiation levels on entry and exit, and sometimes wear hazmat suits and carry devices to measure radiation levels.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leaving the White House after a tenure defined by lashing out at reporters for critical coverage of Donald Trump while standing by the president’s lies and falsehoods.

Trump confirmed Sanders’ departure in tweets on Thursday, saying the press secretary would be leaving her post by the end of the month and returning to her home state of Arkansas. The president hinted that Sanders might be eying a run for governor.

In remarks delivered during an unrelated White House event on Thursday, Sanders said she would miss working for Trump but that she planned to spend more time with her three children.

“It’s truly been something that I will treasure forever. It’s the greatest job I’ve ever had. I’ve loved every minute, even the hard minutes,” Sanders said. 

Trump also spoke at the event and reiterated his hope that Sanders would run for governor.

“If we can get her to run for the governor of Arkansas, I think she’d do very well. I keep trying to get her to do that,” the president said.

Sanders’ departure came about two months after special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that said she lied to reporters in 2017 about the circumstances surrounding James Comey’s ouster as FBI director.

The press secretary told reporters on May 10, 2017, that Trump fired Comey after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommended he do so. But Mueller’s report released April 18 said “substantial evidence” indicates Trump fired Comey for refusing to publicly state that the president wasn’t personally being investigated. Sanders also falsely claimed during that news conference that FBI employees “lost confidence” in Comey, and later admitted to the special counsel’s office that her remark was fabricated.

Trump’s White House has had a continually combative relationship with the press. The White House temporarily revoked press credentials for CNN reporter Jim Acosta, who has frequently sparred with Trump and Sanders at news conferences.

To defend the revocation, Sanders tweeted a video from right-wing conspiracy website Infowars, which appeared to be doctored to purportedly show Acosta assaulting the White House intern in charge of handing reporters the microphone to ask Trump questions during a news conference.

Journalists and media advocacy organizations condemned the decision and fabricated justification, part of a pattern of Trump and administration officials undermining the free press.

The administration has also significantly cut back on press briefings. In a January tweet, Trump said he had told Sanders “not to bother” with briefings anymore because “the press covers her so rudely & inaccurately.”

By the time Trump announced the press secretary’s departure, it had been 94 days since Sanders’ last press briefing.

There were rumors last year that Sanders would leave the White House. In June 2018, CBS News reported that she “has told friends that she plans to leave the administration at the end of the year.” In a tweet, Sanders pushed back on the report but did not deny it.

By July 2018, then-White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Bill Shine had begun searching for Sanders’ possible replacement, according to Politico, which reported that White House staffers believed Sanders would leave sometime after the midterm elections in November.

At the time, Shine denied the report and Sanders declined to comment. Shine has since resigned from his position.

Sanders stepped into the role after serving as Trump’s principal deputy press secretary. Her predecessor, Sean Spicer, resigned in July of 2017 over the hiring of then-communications director Anthony Scaramucci, the final straw in a tenure beset with controversies.

Throughout her time in the post, Sanders adopted Trump’s tactic of attacking the media. She regularly became combative with reporters, lecturing them about negative coverage and mistakes — while repeatedly providing false information and shifting explanations, as well as defending the president’s lies and falsehoods.

Sanders developed a reputation as one of Trump’s most ardent defenders, with her press briefings often seen as playing to “an audience of one.”

However, at least one of her bizarre defenses reportedly drew Trump’s ire.

Following an incident at the NATO summit in July 2018, Sanders memorably told The Washington Post that then-chief of staff John Kelly ― seen grimacing while Trump ranted about U.S. ally Germany ― was upset about being offered “only pastries and cheese” instead of a full breakfast.

Vanity Fair cited a source who claimed that the president “was annoyed” at “the slim breakfast menu” explanation.

“He thought that was cheesy and lame. Trump wants fighters, not jokers,” the source said, according to Vanity Fair.

Before joining Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016, Sanders worked for a number of Republican campaigns, including that of her father, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R).

Antonia Blumberg and Sara Boboltz contributed to this report.

Donald Trump may not be happy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leaving her post at the end of the month, but a lot of Twitter users are very gleeful indeed.

The president announced Sanders’ departure in two tweets, in one of which he suggested she might want to consider running for governor in her home state of Arkansas.

After that, news spread fast and the reaction was swift.

Some people had questions for the president.

Others just wanted to reminisce on their fondest memories of Sanders’ time in the White House.

Some people admitted that Sanders had big shoes to fill.

One guy believed he had the perfect candidate in mind.

Sanders’ departure did help one man rediscover his faith in a higher power.

Mumbai-based entrepreneur Nisha Bora was not entirely prepared for the vitriol that came gushing at her on Twitter when she accused artist Jatin Das of sexually harassing her. Earlier this year, emboldened by many women taking to Twitter, among other social media platforms, to share stories of harassment, abuse and assault, Bora spoke about her ordeal on Twitter using the hashtag #MeTooIndia. Around the same time, I had reached out to her for an interview about the environment-friendly products her company creates. The 43-year-old requested me to wait for a couple of weeks because the attention and the backlash — abuse and judgment, sometimes from anonymous handles — had taken a massive toll on her physical and mental health.

While most of this was unfolding on Twitter, Bora did not reach out to the company to help stem abusive tweets. “I didn’t reach out to Twitter, because I expected nothing to happen had I even reported the trolls. In my experience in the past, I had tried reporting tweets that I found to be hateful and offensive towards women, but Twitter responded stating it doesn’t violate their standards. My guess is that unless it is really gruesome or graphic or inciting violence, Twitter does not act. So my expectations are on the floor,” she told HuffPost India.

Bora’s frustration with Twitter is a familiar sentiment among women users across India, and around the world. So when the micro-blogging site released a commercial targeting Indian users and claimed a tweet can launch movements like #MeTooIndia among others, it felt extremely opportunistic. People who have followed the #MeToo movement will probably remember how Twitter suspended actor Rose McGowan’s account in 2017 when she called out producer Harvey Weinstein for assaulting her. It really couldn’t get more ironic than this.

The ad shows a young man explaining to his friends how one tweet can start a ‘movement’. The protagonist narrates the story of a guy in a boy’s hostel waiting forever for his chance in the shower as someone takes way too long in it. After a comical altercation, the latter suggests that may be people shouldn’t shower if they worry about saving water. The guy takes it seriously and tweets #NoShowerDay, it becomes a movement and the water level in waterbodies go up. While all this is fine and it line with comical, hyperbolic nature of ads, the commercial then beams real hashtags created by its users #KeralaFloods, #377Verdict and of course #MeTooIndia 

Except for #KeralaFloods, people who started the other two hashtags — queer people and allies and women — also faced incessant abuse and hatred for simply narrating their stories and supporting others using them. Like Bora narrated, on innumerable occasions, people at the receiving end of casteist, sexist, racist, ableist, misogynistic abuse and hatred didn’t even ‘report’ the horrible tweets knowing no action will be taken by Twitter. And in many more cases, Twitter just responded saying a clearly violent tweet does not violate their ‘community guidelines’.

In fact, here’s what Twitter has to say about its policies on dealing with ‘aggressive insults’, ‘targeted harassment’ and ‘intimidation’: “We take action against excessively aggressive insults that target an individual, including content that contains slurs or similar language. Please also note that while some individuals may find certain terms to be offensive, we will not action against every instance where insulting terms are used.”

Therefore, it is perhaps safe to say, #MeTooIndia trended despite Twitter’s lax community guidelines and thanks to the sheer grit of women who persisted at the face of abuse and the site’s lack of responsibility. Now using that movement for their own publicity seems deeply problematic.

Lawyer Rutuja Shinde, who helped with legal support for women who outed harassers during the #MeTooIndia movement said that Twitter can’t be legally held liable for anything that gets said on it, even if it is abuse. Their ‘community guidelines’, Shinde found while working with these women, is not very effective in curbing harassment.

“A lot of regional language/casteist abuses that are typical to India are not taken into account. Mass reporting usually helps but as has been seen, an individual might not get the same kind of response,” she said. A victim of abuse may also not have the resources to get people to mass report a handle.

CLAIMING CREDIT FOR WHAT?

Lurking behind the stories of women speaking their truths, were their experiences of taking month-long exiles from social media because of the amount of harassment they were subjected to. Providing a platform for victims to break their silence but offering them no support to sustain their fight isn’t worthy of earning accolades, and Twitter should know that. Also, the site profits from using the platform. “Since Twitter is an American company, they’re very particular about the right of individuals to freedom of speech and expression. So they see any kind of suspension as a curb to that,” Shinde told HuffPost India. Considering organised hatred also rakes in the numbers of Twitter, it has often been argued that Twitter puts profits before efforts to make the platform safe and inclusive for vulnerable groups.

Twitter is not alone in doing this. Vox writer Carlos Maza, who has been at the receiving end of abusive videos uploaded on YouTube targeting his sexual orientation and ethnicity by one Steven Crowder, wrote an impassioned Twitter thread on how those videos are harmful for the entire queer community. YouTube informed him that they will not take down Crowder’s videos. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, after offering some wishy-washy explanation on how YouTube is ‘home’ to many queer content creators said this: “Steven Crowder has a lot of videos, and it took some time for us to look at that and understand it in the context of the video because context really, really matters,” Wojcicki said. “We looked at a large number of these videos and we decided they were not violative of our harassment policies.”

Now, exactly in which ‘context’, sustained racist and homophobic abuse is permissible, is entirely beyond us. Maza summed up our frustration best: “I don’t know what to say.”

Journalist Rituparna Chatterjee who curates the IndiaMeToo handle, revealed that Twitter’s policy still does not let one report abusive DMs, and it is the perfect wiggle room afforded to miscreants to carry on with their vile behaviour.

In several cases, she notes, even after Twitter notifies you that your complaint was valid and the account one has reported violates their community guidelines, it remains functional.

“The screen of anonymity is what allows one to do this, and that anonymity is being provided by the tech platform, is it is their responsibility to crack down on it,” she says. “But, if Twitter were to crack down on all these accounts, that is a huge part of their user base,” she muses.  

Which probably is the only ‘context’ Wojcicki statement also makes sense in.

ABETMENT OF HARASSMENT

Earlier this week, ‘screenshots’ of a tweet photoshopped to look like it was written by journalist Rana Ayyub — where she is seen claiming she supports Muslim child rapists was shared over a lakh times on Twitter. It even broke into WhatsApp circuits until her own neighbour went up to her and confronted her about it. When she reported that tweet which shared this fake photo, Twitter didn’t consider that a ‘violation of their standards’. Yet, that tweet endangered her physical safety.

Since 2010, when journalist Rana Ayyub’s expose on the Gujarat riots set her on a collision course with the powers-that-be in our present government, she has had to change 40 SIM cards to stem the abuse, intimidation and harassment that comes her way. After getting doxxed on Twitter, Ayyub received phone calls in 3 in the morning by miscreants who then followed up the calls with dick pics. Ayyub’s face was morphed on to a porn video, clips of which were shared widely. “Almost every abusive tweet I receive contains – if it doesn’t directly start with, that is - the word Jihadi,” she explains.

“Madhu Kishwar was rallying people to mob me, it is a person inciting violence against a community on religious grounds, if Twitter does not see that as problematic, they haven’t even begun to understand harassment yet,” Ayyub added.

Journalist Sandhya Menon, one of the most prominent curators and voices during the #MeTooIndia movement, notes that the hashtag itself was hijacked by the trolls, for about 8-9 hours when the conversation was at its peak.  The first several dozen tweets with that hashtag would inevitably be filthy and derogatory. If Twitter can push sponsored content on to you until you have no choice but to see it, I am sure they could have mitigated this menace as well,” she says.

However, she believes that holding these tech giants entirely accountable for a widespread cultural problem is the easy way out. “A more effective way of tackling the larger problem is to bring out stories about the consequences of trolling, and with more empathy and involvement. I don‘t see the point of punitive action - not with the intensity Twitter doles it out anyway - because the handles are reinstated in a few days anyway. It’s not a deterrent at all.”

She added that Twitter could perhaps employ more advanced tech to ‘nip mudslinging in the bud and by crawling through the net and having much more comprehensive criteria to sniff out slurs and microaggressions and suspend repeat offenders’.

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CAN TWITTER WALK THE TALK?

The commercial takes credit for something Twitter enabled, but only as a passive platform. It has constantly struggled to protect minorities and vulnerable social groups from harassment to the point the latter have had to grow a thick skin in order to avail the benefits of the platform. My version of self-care was to not engage trolls,” Bora said, mentioning the harassment was ‘ugly’.

It is difficult to imagine that Twitter couldn’t come up with another promotional strategy, like it is difficult to accept that they cannot plausibly monitor and censor abusive users more proactively. Both involve a choice — of doing the right thing — something they’ve not been great at.  

Kolkata doctors have found solidarity from counterparts from across the country including in Delhi, Maharashtra, Kerala, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan even as their protests entered the fourth day, despite a diktat from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. 

Meanwhile Union Minister Harsh Vardhan said that he would like to assure the protesting doctors that the government was concerned about their safety. 

He, however, blamed Banerjee and claimed it was her diktat that stoked more protests. “I appeal to West Bengal CM to not make this an issue of prestige. She gave the doctors an ultimatum, as a result they got angry and went on strike. Today, I will write to Mamata Banerjee ji and will also try to speak to her on this issue,” he said.

The protests spread across the country as the Indian Medical Association in a statement asked its members to show solidarity and demanded a Central law against attacks on doctors. 

While resident doctors at AIIMS in New Delhi had shown begun their protest on Thursday wearing bandages and helmets during work, doctors of the Safdarjung Hospital joined in the protests on Friday.  

Being two of the biggest hospitals in Delhi, this meant a nightmare for the thousands of patients who visit these clinics every day. Dr Prakash Thakur, president of Safdarjung Hospital’s resident doctors’ association told Hindustan Times, “Around 1,600 resident doctors from Safdarjung will go on a strike tomorrow to show solidarity with the doctors from Bengal. This will affect the clinics and routine services, however, we will ensure that the emergency department functions properly.”

Doctors in Jaipur worked, but wore black bands on their arms as a mark of protest. In Chhattisgarh’s  Bhimrao Ambedkar Memorial Hospital doctors raised slogans of ‘we want justice’. 

Friday will strikes in other parts of the country as well. The Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors and the Indian Medical Association (IMA) will join the protests, The Times of India reported, with 4,500 doctors on strike in Maharashtra. 

“All the state branches will organise dharnas before all district collectors’ offices between 10 am and 12 pm. A memorandum addressed to the Prime Minister will be handed over to the collector in every district,” the newspaper quoted an IMA statement as saying.  

The strikes were triggered by an attack on a junior doctor at the Nil Ratan Sarkar (NRS) Medical College and Hospital after a 75-year-old patient died on Sunday. Two doctors were severely injured when a mob of allegedly 200 people attacked the doctors at the hospital. 

As strikes affected medical services across the state, the BJP had blamed “a certain community” for the assault and also blamed TMC for it. 

Banerjee on Thursday threatened to take action against the doctors if they did not call of the strike. However, her threats have had little effect. 

Members of the Joint Platform of Doctors met Governor Kesari Nath Tripathi and informed him of the decision to continue the protests that entered day three on Thursday. 

ANI quoted the doctors as saying, “We demand adequate security in every medical college and hospital, and proper action against those who attacked doctors in NRS Hospital on 10 June. We will resume working as soon as our demands are fulfilled.”

Meanwhile Mamata Banerjee claimed that abuses were hurled at her when she went to meet the doctors on Thursday.  “I went to the emergency section where they could have talked to me, but the language they used when I was there and the manner they abused me...

“Had somebody else been there in my place, some other action would have followed,” Banerjee told a Bengali news channel on Thursday night.

(With PTI inputs) 

KOLKATA — West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Thursday accused the striking junior doctors of the city’s SSKM Hospital of verbally abusing her during her visit there.

The chief minister made the allegation hours after her visit to the state-run hospital in the afternoon to take stock of the situation in the wake of disruption of medical services across the state.

She said there were outsiders present among the agitating SSKM hospital doctors, who “abused” her.

“I went to the emergency section where they could have talked to me, but the language they used when I was there and the manner they abused me...

“Had somebody else been there in my place, some other action would have followed,” Banerjee told a Bengali news channel on Thursday night.

The chief minister, however, said she has “forgiven” them considering their age.

“But, I have forgiven them. They can oppose me, they can hurl abuses at me. I don’t mind because they are young. I only want them to resume work,” she said.

Doctors across West Bengal have gone on a strike in protest against the attack on two of their colleagues at NRS Medical College and Hospital in the city by family members of a patient, who died on Monday night.

Services have been affected over the past three days in emergency wards, outdoor facilities and pathological units of many state-run medical colleges and hospitals and a large number of private medical facilities in the state, leaving the patients in the lurch.

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Meanwhile, the principal and the medical superintendent of the state-run NRS Medical College and Hospital submitted their resignations to the the Medical Education director on Thursday night.

NRS Medical College and Hospital principal, Prof Saibal Mukherjee, and medical Superintendent cum vice-principal, Prof Saurabh Chattopadhyaya submitted their resignations to the Medical Education director for “failing to overcome the crisis” at the medical institution.

The director, Prof Pradip Kumar De had issued a directive to all principals and medical superintendents of medical colleges and hospitals to ensure resumption of normal patient care services immediately at out patient departments and emergencies.

The directive said “action may be taken against those who will obstruct in discharging duties of doctors in OPDs and emergency department.”

It was a reunion 75 years in the making for one 97-year-old World War II veteran and the French woman he loved way back when.

Back in 1944, KT Robbins was a 24-year-old U.S. soldier stationed in France. While he was there, he fell in love with an 18-year-old named Jeannine Pierson, but he lost contact with her after he left to fight on the Eastern Front and later returned to the States, according to Inside Edition.

Still, both Robbins and Pierson carried a torch for each other, one that lasted more than seven decades.

“When he left in the truck, I cried, of course, I was very sad,” Pierson told EuroNews. “I wish after the war he hadn’t returned to America.”

Robbins left France, but he kept Pierson’s photo with him, never expecting he’d see her again.

Robbins got his happy ending recently when he filmed a segment for the France 2 TV network about American veterans returning to the country for events commemorating the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

During the taping, Robbins mentioned Pierson and expressed a desire to meet her family and tell them how much she meant to him, figuring she probably wasn’t alive.

When Robbins got to France, the reporter had a surprise for him: Pierson was alive and excited to meet him.

As the video above shows, the young-at-heart couple had a heart-touching reunion before Robbins had to leave for a D-Day event.

But while he said goodbye, he promised it was only temporary and that he’d see her again.

“Jeannine, I love you girl,” he said, according to the Evening Standard.

A lawsuit from a former employee accusing Nicholas Sparks of racism and homophobia has been backed up by newly revealed emails reportedly between the accuser and the famed novelist.

The emails, recently obtained as part of an extensive report by The Daily Beast, are related to an ongoing legal battle between Sparks and the former headmaster of a private K-12 Christian school the writer co-founded in New Bern, North Carolina, his hometown, 13 years ago.

The former Epiphany School of Global Studies headmaster, Saul Hillel Benjamin, filed a lawsuit against “The Notebook” author and the school’s Board of Trustees in 2014 seeking punitive damages for “discrimination, breach of contract, emotional distress, and defamation.” According to a previous article in The Daily Beast, Benjamin, a Quaker of Jewish ancestry, claimed in his lawsuit that Sparks willfully kept minority students out of Epiphany, banned students’ exposure to non-Christian religions and discouraged staff from helping bullied LGBTQ students.

Sparks, who has written more than a dozen novels about heteronormative love stories, vehemently denied the accusations after the lawsuit’s filing. But the emails obtained by The Daily Beast appear to back at least some of the claims.

Benjamin said in his lawsuit that he was faced with resistance while working to diversify the school’s student population, which allegedly had just two black students enrolled in 2013, the year the plaintiff started as headmaster. Sparks reportedly wrote in a November 2013 email that “we’ve spent way, way too much time … talking about ‘tolerance, diversity, non-discrimination, and LGBT’ in these first twelve weeks.” Benjamin also claims in the lawsuit that Sparks told him “black students are too poor and can’t do the academic work” asked of the school’s students, A separate November 2013 email from Sparks obtained by The Daily Beast appears to support that claim, with the writer saying the school’s lack of diversity “has nothing to do with racism” but rather “money” and “culture.”

According to Benjamin’s 2014 complaint, Sparks supported a group of students who bullied the school’s LGBTQ students. The former headmaster also alleged that Sparks referred to a school club for LGBTQ students as “the Gay Club” and that two bisexual instructors were threatened with termination when they came forward to support the LGBTQ students.

According to one of the emails obtained by The Daily Beast, Sparks told Benjamin he “chose to rock this boat early and hard … with what some perceive as an agenda that strives to make homosexuality open and accepted. … As for the ‘Club,’ there obviously can’t be one now.”

On Wednesday, Sparks posted a statement on Twitter that denied the content shown in the emails and in Benjamin’s lawsuit, calling the Daily Beast story “not news.”

“Epiphany is and remains a place where students and faculty of any race, belief, religion, background or orientation should feel welcome,” the statement says. “My commitment to these values, as well as Epiphany’s commitment to these values, have been and remain constant.”

A federal judge ruled last year that a jury should decide whether the writer defamed Benjamin by allegedly suggesting to other board members that the man had Alzheimer’s and also whether Benjamin resigned or was pressured to quit. That judge dismissed Benjamin’s claims that he was forced out because of trying to diversify the student population and that his Jewish background played a role in his lost employment, according to The Associated Press. The case goes to trial in August.

“I am pleased that the Court has dismissed nearly every claim against me, my Foundation and Epiphany,” Sparks’ statement read. “Very importantly, the Court has dismissed all claims of discrimination or harassment against me. While there will be a trial on a few remaining issues, I am confident that a jury will evaluate these claims fairly and decide those claims in our favor as well.”

On today’s episode of “How Did This Get Published?” we have a blatantly fatphobic and infuriating essay written for The Telegraph by Tanya Gold.

Titled “Obese Mannequins Are Selling Women A Dangerous Lie,” the clickbait-y excuse for a story was published in response to the (excellent!) news that Nike has unveiled plus-size mannequins in its Oxford Street location.

The language Gold uses to describe a mannequin that reflects the bodies of countless women around the world ― “immense, gargantuan, vast” ― is bad enough. But it’s the assumption she makes about those women that is truly shocking.

“She is, in every measure, obese, and she is not readying herself for a run in her shiny Nike gear,” Gold writes. “She cannot run. She is, more likely, pre-diabetic and on her way to a hip replacement. What terrible cynicism is this on the part of Nike?” Right, because making assumptions about one’s health based on their appearance always turns out well.

She makes the erroneous assumption that fat people are uninterested in fitness and should be ashamed of being fat, blatantly ignoring the work Nike is doing to normalize the fact that ― spoiler alert ― people who work out have extensively different body types.

Luckily, plenty of women on the internet were open to giving her a refresher. 

“I look like that @nike mannequin and I’ve done a 10k, a half, & a marathon this year,” London-based Tegwen Tucker tweeted in response along with a side-by-side shot of her body. “If you think obese women can’t run you’ve clearly been living under a rock.”

Ultra runner Latoya Shauntay Snell, who has written extensively on fat-shaming and marathon running, also had some choice words for Gold. “If we cannot see ourselves in something, then the world don’t think we exist,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “It’s easy to bash but I’d love to hear your solutions for us. Excuse me as I do what mannequins can’t do ― run.”

Actor Jameela Jamil chimed in as well by demanding an apology from The Telegraph, and author Roxane Gay summed up her stance pretty succinctly:

Fatphobia often implies that fat people should strive to be thin while also ridiculing and shaming them when they want to exercise. It’s a lose-lose situation and a sad continuation of the status quo. As dietitian Michelle Allison concluded, fatphobia does not want fat people to be fat or thin — it just wants them “to suffer.”

On the bright side, the amount and ferocity of the backlash to an essay that belongs in the black hole of internet obscurity provides some hope to this entire conversation. It’s about damn time we dispel the notion that fitness is one-size-fits-all and fight back against fat-shaming and hypocrisy.

And it’s about time more brands acknowledge that, too.

MUMBAI — The Bombay High Court on Friday granted bail to four accused in the 2006 Malegaon blasts case.

A division bench of Justices I A Mahanty and A M Badar granted bail to Dhan Singh, Lokesh Sharma, Manohar Narwaria and Rajendra Chaudhary.

“The petitions are allowed. The applicants shall be released on cash bail of Rs 50,000. They shall attend the special court on each day during the trial and shall not tamper with evidence or contact witnesses,” the bench said.

The four, who are in jail since their arrest in 2013, had approached the high court in 2016 after a special court rejected their bail pleas in June that year.

The serial bomb blasts outside a cemetery near Hamidia mosque at Malegaon near Nashik on September 8, 2006, claimed 37 lives and injured over 100 people. 

NEW DELHI — The Delhi Metro has sent a report on free rides to women to the AAP government, seeking at least eight months’ time to make necessary preparations, including seeking approval from the fare-fixation committee, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said Wednesday.

He said the report received by his government from Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has cited an annual requirement of Rs 1566.64 crore to fund the fare exemption.

Addressing a press conference, Kejriwal said the fare fixation committee’s approval was just a “formality” and rejected the apprehension that it could be a “roadblock” before his government’s ambitious scheme.

“The role of fare fixation committee is just a formality, though we feel no fare fixation is involved,” he said.

The fare-fixation committee formed by the Centre for Delhi Metro’s fare-related decisions may take time to set up. Since the inception of the Delhi Metro in 1995, only four such committees have been formed, officials said. 

Headed by a serving or retired high court judge the committee comprises chief secretary of the Delhi government and officials of the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry. 

The Delhi Metro in its report gave two options for the implementation of the scheme. Under one, pink tokens will be given to women and it will take eight months to implement. Under the other, tokens and cards will be provided, but this option will take at least one year to implement, he said.

The chief minister said his government will talk to the DMRC to implement the scheme in under eight months.

“We will seek break up of the eight months’ time cited by the DMRC from its officials because it should not take this much time. It only requires to re-open its token counters that have been closed and arrange for (pink) tokens to be provided to women commuters,” he said.

The proposal of the AAP government to exempt women from fare in public transport buses and metro trains is being seen as a major sop before the assembly polls due early 2020.

MEXICO CITY, June 13 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Ecuador’s decision to allow same-sex marriage has topped a landmark week for LGBT+ rights after Botswana decriminalised gay sex and Bhutan took the first steps to do so, said campaigners marking the 50th anniversary of the gay equality movement.

Five of nine judges in Ecuador’s top court on Wednesday ruled in favour of two gay couples who sued after their request to be married was denied by the country’s civil registry.

The Latin American nation is the 27th country to allow same-sex marriage with the move coming during the annual gay Pride month and events to mark the 50th year of the Stonewall riots in New York that gave rise to the global movement forLGBT+ rights.

A day earlier Botswana’s top court voted to decriminalise homosexuality and Bhutan’s lower house six days ago voted to repeal a similar law that needs upper chamber approval. This would leave 68 nations where same-sex relations are illegal.

“The victories we’ve witnessed in the last couple of weeks will improve the lives of millions of LGBT+ people around the world,” said Mathias Wasik, director of programs at international LGBT rights group All Out.

“We’re witnessing an important moment in history as these victories will send out positive shockwaves across the world and inspire more activists to continue their fight for LGBT+rights,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by email.

GLOBAL CHALLENGES

Despite the recent milestones, however, LGBT+ rights advocates cautioned that significant global challenges remain.

In May, Kenya’s high court upheld the country’s ban on gay sex, so same-sex relations remain punishable by 14 years in jail, and Brunei announced but then reversed a decision to impose death by stoning for gay sex after a global backlash.

Campaigns in some countries during parliamentary elections in the European Union in May were characterised by anti-gay rhetoric including by Poland’s Law and Justice Party and Spain’s far-right Vox party challenging acceptance of LGBT+ rights.

In the United States in January, the Supreme Court lifted lower court rulings that blocked a Trump administration ban on certain transgender people from serving in the U.S. military, allowing the policy to go into effect.

“Whenever there’s progress, there’s always steps backwards,” said Neela Ghoshal, senior researcher in the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch.

Voters worldwide have supported leaders with anti-gay views.

Last year Brazilians elected far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro as president, a man who once said he would rather his son die in an accident than bring home a male partner.

Campaigns for LGBT+ rights have been met with steep resistance, particularly in countries where the influence of conservative religion sways politics such as in countries inAfrica, the Middle East and Latin America.

“Conservatives around social issues, particularly religious conservatives, take progress (on LGBT rights) as a threat to their belief system,” said Ghoshal.

In Ecuador, where the church is very influential, the Life and Family movement, a right-wing Christian group, led much of the opposition to same-sex marriage.

They argued marriage was determined by a 2008 constitution, which granted civil unions to same-sex couples, and any further changes required a referendum or amendment in parliament.

“The vast majority of the Ecuadorian people, through referendum, approved a constitution that ... reserved marriage for heterosexual, male/female couples,” Carlos Arsenio Larco, a lawyer for the group, told local TV channel El Comercio.

Ecuador’s LGBT+ community celebrated the decision.

“After a fight of almost 20 years, gay marriage has been achieved. It gives us a guiding light for many other proposals on human rights,” said Diane Rodriguez, president of theEcuadorian Federation of LGBTI Organisations and the first transwoman elected to Ecuador’s National Assembly.

(Reporting by Oscar Lopez @oscarlopezgib; Editing by BelindaGoldsmithPlease credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s andLGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

As protests in solidarity with the junior doctors in West Bengal spread across the country, 16 doctors of the RG Kar Medical Hospital In Kolkata and 27 doctors of the North Bengal Medical College & Hospital, Darjeeling resigned over the attacks on doctors in the state, reported ANI. 

The senior doctors in the RG Kar Medical Hospital said in their resignation letter that “in the present situation” was not “ideal for patient care” and hence they wanted to resign. 

The strike by doctors in West Bengal entered the fourth day on Friday. Junior doctors have been on a strike since Tuesday after two of their colleagues were attacked and seriously injured at the NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata.

Doctors from across India joined the protests on Friday after the Indian Medical Association (IMA) called for nation wide support for the doctors in West Bengal. 

While the IMA has demanded a Central law against doctors being attacked, the doctors in Bengal have demanded the perpetrators of the crime be arrested. 

This came after chief minister Mamata Banerjeethreatened the doctors of dire consequences if they did not call of the strikes. Not only did the strike continue, now they have found support from across the country. 

Meanwhile, Union Minister Harsh Vardhan said the government was concerned about their safety and assured action. 

He, however, blamed Banerjee and claimed it was her diktat that stoked more protests. “I appeal to West Bengal CM to not make this an issue of prestige. She gave the doctors an ultimatum, as a result they got angry and went on strike. Today, I will write to Mamata Banerjee ji and will also try to speak to her on this issue,” he said.

The state BJP had blamed the TMC for the attack itself. BJP leader Mukul Roy made communal statements saying it was people of a certain community who carried out the attacks. 

The attack took place after Md Sayeed, a 75-year-old resident of Tangra, died after a heart attack in front of his family. His family reportedly threatened the junior doctors on duty and then a mob of 200 people arrived in trucks and attacked the doctors.