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rudrjobdesk · 2 years

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UPSC IES ISS Prelims 2022: 26 जून को होगी यूपीएससी आईईएस आईएसएस परीक्षा

संघ लोक सेवा आयोग (यूपीएससी) ने आईईएस आईएसएस परीक्षा की डेट घोषित कर दी है। भारतीय आर्थिक सेवा/भारतीय सांख्यिकी सेवा (आईईएस/आईएसएस) परीक्षा 26 जून 2022 को होगी। इस परीक्षा के लिए प्रवेश पत्र जारी कर दिए गए है। पंजीकृत उम्मीदवार आधिकारिक वेबसाइट upsconline.nic.in के माध्यम से अपना प्रवेश पत्र प्राप्त कर सकते हैं। आयोग ने यूपीएससी आईईएस आईएसएस परीक्षा की तैयारी पूरी कर ली है। UPSC IES/ISS एडमिट…

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vakilkarosblog · 3 months

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Which comes under NBFC?

Section 8 Microfinance Company Registration refers to the registration of a microfinance company under Section 8 of the Companies Act, which pertains to companies established for charitable purposes. Microfinance companies provide financial services to low-income individuals and businesses and Which comes under NBFC?.

As for the connection with NBFC (Non-Banking Financial Company), microfinance companies often fall under the broader category of NBFCs. NBFCs are financial institutions that provide banking services without meeting the legal definition of a bank. Microfinance companies, by engaging in lending and financial activities, often align with the characteristics of NBFCs.

For more detailed and specific information on Section 8 Microfinance Company Registration and its relationship with NBFCs, you may want to consult legal or financial experts, or visit official government websites related to company registration and financial regulations in your jurisdiction.

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techmarkethunter · 3 months

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A Closer Look at Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL)

Title: Revolutionizing Rail Infrastructure: A Closer Look at Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) Introduction: Railways have long been the backbone of transportation infrastructure, connecting cities and fostering economic growth. In the vast landscape of rail development in India, one entity stands out for its significant contributions – Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL). Established in 2003, RVNL…

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emeriobanque · 7 months

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Alliance I2U2: Pioneering partnerships with innovations and development in food security along with sustainability across the four nations

I2U2 is basically the bloc or grouping of the four nations that came in existence during October 2021. Here, this group includes India, the USA States, the UAE as well as Israel. The key objectives of this group is to simply deepen the technological as well as private-sector collaboration with different nations and handle various challenges of large-scale. On 14th July 2022, the group also issued their statement for the inaugural joint, affirming six focus areas of the areas where member nations would also collectively be ready to prioritise. Such kind of main areas are energy, water, space, transport, food and health.

Site: https://www.emeriobanque.com/news/i2u2-partnerships-for-food-security-and-sustainability-across-four-nations

#economic foundations #Indian economy #trade finance services

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arthapointplus · 10 months

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Indian economic service syllabus

#Indian economic service syllabus

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arthapoint · 1 year

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Indian Economic Service Mock Papers | Arthapointplus.com

Prepare for the Indian Economic Service exam with Arthapointplus.com. Our collection of Indian Economic Service Mock Papers will help you to get ready for the exam. For more details, visit our site.

Indian Economic Service Mock Papers

#Indian Economic Service Mock Papers

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reasonsforhope · 9 months

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"India’s announcement that it aims to reach net zero emissions by 2070 and to meet fifty percent of its electricity requirements from renewable energy sources by 2030 is a hugely significant moment for the global fight against climate change. India is pioneering a new model of economic development that could avoid the carbon-intensive approaches that many countries have pursued in the past – and provide a blueprint for other developing economies.

The scale of transformation in India is stunning. Its economic growth has been among the highest in the world over the past two decades, lifting of millions of people out of poverty. Every year, India adds a city the size of London to its urban population, involving vast construction of new buildings, factories and transportation networks. Coal and oil have so far served as bedrocks of India’s industrial growth and modernisation, giving a rising number of Indian people access to modern energy services. This includes adding new electricity connections for 50 million citizens each year over the past decade.

The rapid growth in fossil energy consumption has also meant India’s annual CO2 emissions have risen to become the third highest in the world. However, India’s CO2 emissions per person put it near the bottom of the world’s emitters, and they are lower still if you consider historical emissions per person. The same is true of energy consumption: the average household in India consumes a tenth as much electricity as the average household in the United States.

India’s sheer size and its huge scope for growth means that its energy demand is set to grow by more than that of any other country in the coming decades. In a pathway to net zero emissions by 2070, we estimate that most of the growth in energy demand this decade would already have to be met with low-carbon energy sources. It therefore makes sense that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced more ambitious targets for 2030, including installing 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, reducing the emissions intensity of its economy by 45%, and reducing a billion tonnes of CO2.

These targets are formidable, but the good news is that the clean energy transition in India is already well underway. It has overachieved its commitment made at COP 21- Paris Summit [a.k.a. 2015, at the same conference that produced the Paris Agreement] by already meeting 40% of its power capacity from non-fossil fuels- almost nine years ahead of its commitment, and the share of solar and wind in India’s energy mix have grown phenomenally. Owing to technological developments, steady policy support, and a vibrant private sector, solar power plants are cheaper to build than coal ones. Renewable electricity is growing at a faster rate in India than any other major economy, with new capacity additions on track to double by 2026...

Subsidies for petrol and diesel were removed in the early 2010s, and subsidies for electric vehicles were introduced in 2019. India’s robust energy efficiency programme has been successful in reducing energy use and emissions from buildings, transport and major industries. Government efforts to provide millions of households with fuel gas for cooking and heating are enabling a steady transition away from the use of traditional biomass such as burning wood. India is also laying the groundwork to scale up important emerging technologies such as hydrogen, battery storage, and low-carbon steel, cement and fertilisers..."

-via IEA (International Energy Agency), January 10, 2022

Note: And since that's a little old, here's an update to show that progress is still going strong:

-via Economic Times: EnergyWorld, March 10, 2023

#india #solar power #renewable energy #green energy #sustainability #wind power #population grown #economic growth #developing economies #renewable electricity #carbon emissions #good news #hope #hope posting

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thosearentcrimes · 9 months

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The Achaemenid/First Persian Empire is kind of wild. At the time of its greatest conquests it was the largest empire the world had ever seen, by a significant amount. Like any good empire it's a triumph of logistics, of course, but what's unusual is the character of the logistics in question. The kinds of empire we're used to are generally either basically maritime (Roman, Spanish, British, American) or basically horselord (Xiongnu, Parthian, Mongol, American) or Chinese (special case, the general tendency for there to exist a Chinese Empire is impressive in its own right but relatively familiar).

The Achaemenid Empire touched a lot of seas and bodies of water (Indus, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, Tigris and Euphrates, Red Sea, Nile, Mediterranean, Aegean and Bosporus, Black Sea, Caspian Sea) and certainly these would have been used to facilitate logistics to some degree (Persian invasions of Greece relied on naval support, for example), but it certainly seems like the fundamental lifeline of their state was their extensive system of roads. The Romans talk a big game about their road system but ultimately the major logistical corridors of the Roman state were maritime and riverine. The Inca Empire was similarly road-based, likewise a hilly/mountainous region, and is also extremely cool, but didn't last nearly as long and was much smaller.

Herodotus says: "There is nothing mortal that is faster than the system that the Persians have devised for sending messages. Apparently, they have horses and men posted at intervals along the route, the same number in total as the overall length in days of the journey, with a fresh horse and rider for every day of travel. Whatever the conditions—it may be snowing, raining, blazing hot, or dark—they never fail to complete their assigned journey in the fastest possible time. The first man passes his instructions on to the second, the second to the third, and so on." A different translation of a section of this passage is famously associated with the US postal service.

Herodotus may be wrong in the details because the actual intervals between adjacent waystations seem to have been on the order of 16-26km, a distance a rider could reach in an hour (and perhaps most relevantly, a pedestrian or army might reach in a day), and as such it's certainly plausible horses were changed more than daily, as is attested in later relay postal networks, but it's easily possible he was right about their incredible speed. A perhaps somewhat generous estimated speed of government messages along this route is ~230km/day, by analogy of the pirradazish to the Pony Express and barid systems. This would make them faster than Roman communications, though certainly we have to recognize that maritime transport is ultimately faster and more convenient for trade in bulk goods and food. All figures taken from H.P. Colburn, "Connectivity and Communication in the Achaemenid Empire" Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 56 (2013).

That's so cool! It's several hundred BCE and they have a complex permanent relay system with stations every couple dozen km, on a system of roads running throughout an empire thousands of km from center to edge. Just for one road, like the Sardis-Susa section that the Greeks usually talk about, that's over a hundred stations, each with a stock of supplies, backup mounts and riders, accommodations, anything else they might need, and Sardis-Susa was just one possible road stretch among many. That's incredible! I wish we knew what the people who made it and ran it thought. What was the life of a gas station attendant waystation operator in the reign of Artaxerxes I like?

It's kind of tragic that the Achaemenid Empire has been marginalized historiographically for so long. Generally it was treated as significant for its invasions and meddling in Greece, for ending the Babylonian captivity, or for providing a ready-made empire for Alexander to take over. It's not nothing, other places and time periods end up with much less of an imprint on our contemporary understanding of the past. We know a lot of cool stuff. But I wish we had more reflections on Persia from within. Most of what we seem to have is reports from Greeks, fragmentary letters and steles, and precious few excavation sites.

#History #Achaemenid Empire

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worldofeconomicscoaching · 1 year

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#Indian Economic Service Coaching in Chandigarh

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hobiebrownismygod · 5 months

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Yeah, Hobie Brown definitely has Indian friends or is close with Indian people

@daydreaming-en-pointe ur gonna love this

Hobie's universe is set in the 70s, only 20 years after India gained independence from Britain. The British nationality act of 1948, established only a year after India's independence enabled migration from India to Britain, so A LOT OF INDIANS migrated to the UK to seek benefits like economic opportunities, and to escape the civil war that was happening in India at the time.

If Hobie existed in the 70s, a lot of second generation Indians, people who were born in the UK or lived in the UK for a long time, would also be existing in the same time period.

Which means its completely plausible that he has Indian friends or knows a lot of Indian people

Considering the fact that a lot of the Indians that migrated were also single men who found work in manufacturing and services, all jobs that would be heavily impacted by Osborne's reign, its easy to assume that Hobie would've heavily supported Indian rights and these workers' rights.

I think it would also explain his and Pav's friendship a little better if Hobie already had Indian friends back at home and was accustomed to the culture and the languages.

I like to headcanon that because Hobie has Indian friends, he speaks some Hindi and thats how he and Pav quickly created such a deep connection in their friendship. Because Hobie was so open to the culture and Pav was excited to share :P

Maybe he could even have an Indian significant other like Maitreyi

I even remember headcanoning at some point that one of the members of his band was Indian because Indians love music first of all and also why not

Anyway, start writing Hobie with more xIndian!Reader or with Indian characters in your fanfics cuz its more accurate and also representation ✨ 🎉

thank you

sources under the cut:

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ixlander · 9 months

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Family Abolition

Ozzy: Totally. Well, you're talking a little bit about this, I think, but could you maybe say how you would define family abolition and kind of what this vision of the future is?

M.E.: Sure, so first I'll define family. I provide three definitions of family at the beginning, and they don't cover everything people mean by family at all. The first is a unit of social reproduction. So this comes out of Marxist feminist theory, it's thinking about how are new workers created, how is a worker sort of fed and clothed and cleaned from one day to the next, right? And recognizing the tremendous role that the household plays in raising caring children, taking care of people during periods of unemployment and illness and disability and aging, and preparing a workforce every single day. And I think this is one of my most challenging arguments in the book, that a free society would not be organized around private households. We might choose to form them, but they wouldn't be economic units in the way that they are now.

The second definition of family is a sort of normative ideal that's really deeply tied up with white supremacy, colonialism, and heterosexuality, right? So, some families as being legitimate, being respectable, being approved, and other efforts and people caring for each other not counting as family, right? So, the separation of children in Indian Boarding Schools, what scholars call "natal alienation" during slavery, the long history of Child Protective Services in the family policing system violently intervening, particularly in Black people's lives, separation at the border.... So these are all like an apparatus of determining whose family counts and whose doesn't, and inflicting violence on those that doesn't. And this sort of normative ideal, I also link to the violence within families. The organization of personal domination that really characterizes so many families, and the vulnerability of people within families–– that families are the place we're most likely to be raped, or murdered, or beaten up, or harmed. You know that family is a site of such tremendous violence. And so breaking, overcoming, and destroying this racial normative ideal, and freeing people from the site of violent constraints they might experience in their families.

And then the third definition of family in chapter three, I talk about George Floyd, calling out to his deceased mother, as he's being murdered. And that the way we speak of family as sort of our greatest yearnings––our like love, our care, our desire for refuge, and making the argument that like, in order to fulfill this, we'd have to discover something more, something beyond what the family is now, and that we, you know, we turn to family at our most vulnerable. And when we speak of family, for some people we're speaking of like, our really deep need to feel cared for and loved, even if we didn't ever find that in our families.

And so part of what I argue family abolition is... so I provide a lot, an overview of a lot of different meanings of what family abolition can mean. But I end up focusing in on three, and they correspond to those three definitions. So the overcoming of the private household as the primary unit of social reproduction and survival. So that who you love and who you happen to be related to, and who you happen to live with, should have no material consequences for your well-being, who you have sex with shouldn't determine whether you have housing, or food, or health care, right? [laughs] This is ludicrous as a way of organizing a society. And if you happen to be born to transphobes, or you happen to be born to a violent person, there's actual, respectful, supportive, effective means to address that. And to grapple with that.

Two, that we radically overcome this sort of normative ideal of what counts as family, by radically transforming the regulation of families, by overcoming the sort of systems of racial terror, and they're destroying them, that do so much harm against certain kinds of care relations. And then three, that the love and care that we look for in families be universal and widely accessible throughout society, and built available to everyone. That we all need it, and we shouldn't have to only depend on who we're having sex with in order to find it. We need to build a society built on caring for people and not on the impersonal driving, violence of profit. So generalizing, unleashing and generalizing the care available in the best families as universally available throughout society. So those sort of three definitions are a big part of what I mean by family: the overcoming of the private household, destruction of family policing system, and the unleashing and universalizing of the care that we depend on in the family.

m.e. o’brien on gender reveal podcast episode 151

#family abolition #m.e. o'brien #family abolition: capitalism and the communizing of care #gender reveal

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fatehbaz · 2 years

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Sweden became a slaveholding nation when it acquired its only Caribbean colony, Saint-Barthélemy -- a.k.a. St. Barths or St. Barts -- from France in 1784. When the island was retroceded in 1878, the records created during ninety-four years of Swedish Caribbean rule were left behind and are now held in France. Examining the history of this archive that stands as a metaphor for Swedish colonial amnesia, [...] the reluctance in Sweden to recognize a past [...] goes against a self-image untainted by slavery and colonialism. [...] [There is now] a project that aims to open the archive to a larger audience [...]. Saint-Barthelemy was retroceded back to France in 1878, at which point the entire archive that had been created by Swedish civil servants during the ninety-four years’ possession was left on the island. The FSB’s 327 volumes (approximately 130 linear feet and three hundred thousand pages) provide, despite disorder and lacunae, a comprehensive picture of Swedish rule and slavery in the Caribbean.

[Text by: Fredrik Thomasson. “The Caribbean Scorpion: The Saint-Barthelemy Archive and Swedish Colonial Amnesia.” Small Axe. July 2020. Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

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St. Barthelemy’s history is deeply embedded in the settlement and economic history of the Caribbean. [...] References to Indigenous peoples are made in the form of the island’s Arawak name, Ouanalao, in the coat of arms, [...] and of brand names [...]. A table showing the development of the island’s population in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reveals that a small number of Caribs were enslaved and worked on the island [...]. That St. Barthelemy was by no means exceptional in the exploitation of Black labor is, however, manifested in a 1736 revolt by enslaved people, who obviously collaborated with protesting enslaved laborers on the neighboring islands [...].

With the arrival of the Swedish in the 1780s, the island gained from the transatlantic [...] slave trade. Under King Gustav III, the harbor town of Gustavia was erected [...]. [T]he port benefited from wars in Europe [...] and from Sweden’s neutral position among belligerents [...]. [B]etween 1800 and 1815, one-third of the altogether 2,000-3,000 enslaved workers on the island had been born in Africa [...], 10 percent had been born into slavery on the island, and 25 percent had been born elsewhere in the West Indies [...].

Sweden transferred the island back to France in 1878. The island then depended mainly on a subsistence economy again [...] until the 1950s, when members of the Rockefeller family and the adventurer, entrepreneur, and later mayor of the island [...] identified the island’s potential for the establishment of private estates and luxury tourism resorts. Luxury tourism, the real estate business, and connected services have since become the undisputed main source of revenue [...]. Easily accessible information about St. Barthelemy -- for instance, the results of a quick online search -- relays an image of the island as a high-end tourism destination and tax haven, and as a slice of Europe in the Caribbean. [...] [T]he island’s “Europeanness” and whiteness [might seem] to be some of the most surprising [...] aspects of the shared past of St. Barthelemy and Sweden. Historical and natural factors have given rise to a situation on the island that is unusual in its West Indian context and in the context of the French overseas territories and their legacy of colonization and slavery: namely, the [...] subordinated role of the region’s Afro-Caribbean heritage. [...]

The naturalization of whiteness and the downplaying of the relevance of slavery and of Indigenous presence and their manifold legacies are two features that have characterized the Swedish self-understanding of the country’s colonial history. [...]

In her overview of Swedish historiography related to colonialism, Gunlog Fur describes Scandinavia’s uneasy relationship with the history of colonialism:

Engagement with colonialism proper appears limited and distant in time, and this “indirect” form of Scandinavian involvement in colonial expansion allows room for claims of innocence in confrontations with colonial histories. Seemingly untainted by colonialism’s heritage, the Scandinavian countries throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first successfully maintained positions as champions of minority rights and mediators in global politics. (2014,18) [...]

Fur suggests that Sweden has skipped a phase of scrutinizing its own involvement in colonialism and transatlantic enslavement [...]. Another elliptical narrative concerns the celebration of abolition, often in the form of European abolitionist “heroes,” while the establishment and maintenance of systems of enslavement remain more obscure. [...] In the meantime, there has been a tendency to treat St. Barthelemy as an exotic but rather insignificant curiosity. This tendency in Swedish historiography is currently being remedied, with a range of recent publications [...]. Studies comprise, among other aspects, [Swedish] overseas colonialism and enslavement; the treatment of minorities and Indigenous peoples; the history of Swedish race biology, ideology, and the institutionalization of eugenics; as well as the assumed conflation of national belonging and whiteness [...]. However, [...] [t]here is thus no ready archive to resort to when studying the relations between Sweden and its former colony [...].

[Text by: Lill-Ann Korber. “Sweden and St. Barthelemy: Exceptionalisms, Whiteness, and the Disappearance of Slavery from Colonial History.” Scandinavian Studies. Spring/Summer 2019. Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[Korber’s reference to “no ready archive” involving documentation of Swedish slavery/rule was made before the more-recent announcement of the availability of the FSB’s 327 volumes referenced above by Thomasson writing for Caribbean journal Small Axe.]

#Caribbean #abolition #imperial #indigenous #we still dunking on Swedish and Scandinavian colonialism right

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the-breath-in-air · 4 months

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9 Queer Movies from the 1990s You May Not Have Heard Of

It's New Years, which means it's time for lists. And while everyone else is doing 'top X of 2023,' I've decided to list 9 queer movies from the 1990s. Why? Because I wanna. Plus, in discussions of representation, I often see folks talk about it with a heavy focus on mainstream 'Hollywood' produced movies, which leads folks to talk as though progress has been linear. As if, in the past there was no/'bad' queer representation and now there is 'good' representation. But of course it's not that simple. Plenty of amazing queer movies were produced in the past decades...they were just indie movies and thus difficult to find in a world prior to Netflix and Mubi and whatnot. But now we have streaming services, so allow me to share some of my favorites from the before times (specifically the 1990s).

Without further ado....here is an alphabetical list of queer movies from the 90s you may not have heard of (especially if you're under 30).

Beautiful Thing (1996) (dir. Hettie Macdonald)

Before there was Heartstopper, there was Beautiful Thing. It's a story about two gay teens, one sporty and one very much not sporty...and about how they deal with pressure to come out and pressure to hide who they are. It's a very sweet coming of age story, really. However, unlike Heartstopper, in Beautiful Thing the economic class of the protagonists plays an important role in the story (the characters all live on a counsel estate in London). The characters stories are nearly as much about them being working class as it is about the two main character being gay. It's one of the first movies I ever saw about gay teens, and I loved it. I still get a wistful smile every time I hear Mama Cass Elliot's "Make Your Own Kind of Music." (cw for parental abuse)

Edward II (1991) (dir. Derek Jarman)

The real Edward II was King of England for 20 years in the 14th century. At the end of the 16th century, Christopher Marlowe wrote a play about Edward's reign and eventual downfall. In 1991, Derek Jarman streamlined Marlowe's play and brought all the homosexual subtext between Edward and Gaveston way out front. In the film, Edward II is in prison and reflects on the events which have led him to that point. The trouble begins when Edward takes the throne and brngs his exiled lover, Gaveston, back to England. All around them the rest of the aristocracy (including Edward's wife) conspire to bring Gaveston down. The movie itself is anachronistic (set in 1991), with minimal sets and costume, and staged a lot like a play. A lot of the dialogue is right out of Marlowe's play, though there are some changes to the story (notably at the end). It's honestly my favorite Derek Jarman movie, and frankly one of my favorite movies, full stop. (cw for blood, animal corpses, violent death)

Fire (1996) (dir. Deepa Mehta)

Fire is the first film in the Elements Trilogy written and directed by Deepa Mehta. Each film in the trilogy is about different characters in India, with the connection between the three being thematic rather than plot or character. Fire is about two Indian women, Radha and Sita, who form a bond through their struggles living within a traditional "joint-family" (i.e. a family where all extended family live together and all money and resources are shared). The women in this family have very little agency and this film explores how the two main characters navigate through it. The men in this film are also repressed by the social structure in which they live, and this film spends some time looking at that as well. It's a film about queer desire between women living under patriarchy. (All the movies on this list are available on streaming services in the US, except Fire. However, I was able to find it uploaded to a random YouTube channel) (cw for someone catching on fire, brief domestic violence (a slap), and non-consensual kissing)

Happy Together (1997) (dir. Wong Kar-wai)

In Happy Together, two men from Hong Kong travel to Argentina and eventually get stuck there when they run out of money and are unable to return home. The relationship between these two men is very tumultuous, with a lot of arguing and breaking up and getting back together. It's one of the first movies I saw in which queer folks have, just, regular ol' relationship drama - exasperated by the regular ol' struggles of life. (i cant remember if there are any content warnings i should put here; it's been a few years since i've seen it)

Lilies (1996) (dir. John Greyson)

Lilies is a Canadian film in which a prisoner requests a bishop come to the prison to hear the prisoner's last confession. It quickly becomes clear, however, that the prisoners have something else in mind when they begin staging a play. It turns out the bishop and prisoner knew each other as teens, and the play is about the events in their lives that led up to the prisoner being put on trial. So you end up with a play-within-a-play (or rather a play-within-a-movie). The film weaves between the production staged in the prison and the memory of the events in a really fluid way. All the prisoners portray their characters in the 'memory' sections, which lends itself to some really great moments in the prison sections. And at the heart of this memory/story is a queer love story. (cw for parental abuse, murder, fire, and suicide)

The Living End (1992) (dir. Gregg Araki)

This is a film about two young gay men who are diagnosed HIV positive. Unlike more mainstream films about HIV that came before (and after), The Living End wears its anger and pain on its sleeve. The entire world is entirely fucked up, and so these two men turn to a nihilistic outlook. The acting is just okay and some of the dialog is a bit ridiculous...but what draws me to rewatch this movie is the way that it conveys the emotion of the time. It's a ball of rage manifest on film. (cw for attempted suicide, rape, murder)

Love is the Devil (1998) (dir. John Maybury)

One of the problems with the average biopic is that it attempts to portray a person's entire life in a single movie. Thankfully, Love is the Devil doesn't have that problem; it focuses on only 8 years of Francis Bacon's life - the time he spent with a man named George Dyer. By this point, Bacon was already an extremely famous artist (and, at least in the film, a bit of an asshole). Bacon meets Dyer as Dyer attempts to burgle Bacon's studio - and thus begins an extremely dysfunctional love affair. If you want to see Derek Jacobi and Daniel Craig portray this dysfunctional relationship, then this is the movie for you. Also, if you want to see a biopic that lets the subject of the film be portrayed as a shitty person, this is a film for you. (cw for bdsm, drug use, untreated mental illness, and suicide)

Orlando (1992) (dir. Sally Potter)

From right out the gate, Orlando announces its queer themes by having Quentin Crisp portray Queen Elizabeth I, and Tilda Swinton portray Orlando (a man). From the first scenes it becomes clear that gender is going to be a main theme in the movie. Orlando is a young man who will never grow old and never die. He begins life in the 1500s, during Queen Elizabeth's reign, and we see him (and later, her) throughout the centuries between then and 'present' day (1992). The film is broken into thematic chunks (poetry, politics, society, etc). In each of these chunks we see Orlando's life as it reflects the social norms of the time (especially gender norms).

Swoon (1992) (dir. Tom Kalin)

Like Rope (1948) and Compulsion (1959), Swoon is a film about the Leopold and Loeb murder. Unlike the earlier films, Swoon makes the gay relationship between Leopold and Loeb explicit. Their relationship in the film is fairly uneven, with Loeb being characterized as more of an explicit manipulator. Leopold, on the other hand, is driven more by wanting to please Leopold. Complicating this dynamic is the way that Leopold is the one more interested in their sexual relationship. Is Loeb exchanging sex for help with his criminal activities? Or is Leopold committing crimes in order to elicit sex from Loeb? Or both...something a bit more complicated than either/or? The film, especially the latter half, eschews and lampoons the sensationalism of the reporting of the crime from the time. (cw for murder, blood (in black and white), and animal corpses)

Honorable mention goes to more well-known movies I didn't put on this list, such as: But I'm a Cheerleader, Velvet Goldmine, Bound, Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The Birdcage, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, My Own Private Idaho, Bent...there are actually a whole lot of queer movies from the 1990s, now that I think about it.

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aisling-writes · 6 days

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Why the real villain of Chhota Bheem was King Indravarma: A meta-analysis of who he really was.

Alternative Title: An episode where I go nuts and have zero backing behind my essay.

(A note to the readers: This essay does not take into account the existence of the Mighty Little Bheem show. The matter at discussion is purely based on the Chhota Bheem show only.)

Most Indian Children born in the late 2000s can easily recognize the musical ensemble of the theme song of Pogo’s crowned jewel: Chhota Bheem. Eyes were glued to the television and clock ticks were memorised for when the show would start because Chhota Bheem to them was not just an animated show; it was an expression, a memory, a piece of childhood, if you will.

And yet, while watching the show through an “adult” lens, Chhota Bheem leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

Why?

The answer, I personally believe, is of two aspects. One would be the obvious irritation in how King Indravarma ruled the land, and the other is about how Chhota Bheem was a Mary-Sue and how the show perhaps needed to be styled around Kalia, his imperfections and his character arc. (But that’s for another time.)

Let’s focus on the topic at hand: King Indravarma. He was, bluntly put, a stupid King.

Imagine a King as such in the real world. A King who had no strong Military, who constantly relied on a 10-year-old for any trivial matter whether it was an external threat to the kingdom instead of sending out an army, did not invest in new technology for the betterment of his people and used it for personal gain. The list can go on and on.

The argument presented here is that King Indravarma as a villain is not a bad evil person but rather how his aloofness was the one reason his kingdom suffered. Being a “villain” does not always necessitate violence and crude language; all it requires is to bring harm to others. And King Indravarma, indirectly, does that.

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“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. Dietrich Bonhoeffer ----------------

On the other hand, we can theorize that King Indravarma was merely “acting” to be stupid and always had ulterior motives behind his every move. This argument is also proven along the way when I dissect his character in this essay.

In fact, this essay reaches a conclusion that King Indravarma was a strategist who was…. stupid. A perfect balance. (But not for Dholakpur.)

I.Outsmarting a kid; getting outsmarted by the world.

When scouring through the deep dark pages of the internet, one question plagued me: How did Chhota Bheem get his powers?

Yes, it’s common knowledge that eating a Laddoo gives him super-human strength but how does he get such a power in the first place? Alas, that’s not an answer that the cartoon canon can answer but it is integral to the next question that follows: How did King Indravarma realize Chhota Bheem had such powers? Maybe he never found out because had he, he definitely would’ve chosen to make all his citizens the perfect citizens. (A strategist, remember?)

It’s natural for any parent to desire the safe protection of their child from the dangers of the world. As seen in Spider-Man, Aunt May chooses to protect the identity of Peter as his alter-ego and would go to any extent for his safe keeping. But why didn’t Bheem’s mother do the same? Why didn’t she hide the powers of Bheem?

Or maybe, she did.

She did try to hide it but somehow it reached the ears of King Indravarma. And King Indravarma strategicallydecided to use it to his advantage.

And I say strategic because, by all rights, Bheem deserved official employment. He worked as a protector of the kingdom more than the soldiers ever did. He could’ve been a member of the royal guards, or a leader of it too. But instead, the king always played along with the HA-HA Bheem- is- just- a- loyal- citizen- who -helps- sometimes card and gave him no remuneration.

This could’ve had two motives: An economic perspective where he didn’t have to pay Bheem for his services and/or a jealous King perspective where he wanted to avoid a 1789 France Bastille-Storming situation. Empowering Bheem and giving him more administrative power on top of the physical power he already had would make him a dangerous weapon. He was already charismatic and loved by the villagers; it would only be a matter of time until they felt that Bheem would be a better leader than the King himself.

The king further added on to this plan by employing some of the most useless soldiers in his army ever therefore making it seem that the King did try to save his kingdom, but it was to no avail. And at some point, he stopped using the soldiers (probably dismissed them, thus saving even more money for his personal gain) and purely relied on Bheem, a kid who he didn’t even have to pay! (And Bheem, being a “kid” did not have the sense of asking for remuneration as well.)[1]

Smart, isn’t he? (King Indravarma, I mean.)

But also, stupid.

By following this method, he made sure that the one key asset that Dholakpur had was revealed to the entire world. He placed the country in danger from threats all the time! (And I truly mean one asset because by its looks Dholakpur had nothing else to offer. The crops often struggled due to pests, the landscape was unappealing to the eyes, it had no tourist’s income etc.) It’s truly surprising how Dholakpur was not already overtaken by some other colonizer or king because all they had to worry about was defeating one kid. Just one kid. (Yes, he’s strong and what not, but Bheem’s got to have some limit?)

II. Economic drain for… what exactly?

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“Th’ abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.” Brutus in Julius Caesar (2.1.19-20) ----------------

In one episode of Chhota Bheem, King Indravarma had no qualms or shame in announcing that the kingdom had no new bicycles for a bicycle race when the neighbouring kingdom had brand new, shiny bicycles and therefore, Bheem and his friends had to manage with the old bicycles. Either the kingdom was not financially stable to accommodate the purchase of such bicycles, or the king lied that the kingdom had no money.

Let’s explore both the views, shall we?

The kingdom being too “broke” to purchase bicycles implies how financially unsecure it is! Perhaps the kingdom was knee-deep in debts or just refused to spend whatever reserves it had on importing foreign goods. Maybe the kingdom had an import substitution policy (similar to what the post-British India followed) but was not able to implement it seeing how the kingdom had an agrarian economy.

Which brings us to the question: How is an economy expected to grow without any investment in additional technology?

The only source of revenue that was noticed were from the fairs conducted, the crops reaped and Tun-Tun Mossi’s Laddoo sale. And as anyone with two eyes can note: It is not enough. The policies followed by King Indravarma were dangerous to Dholakpur in the short-run and long-run. Inflation was just a door’s knock away for the citizens of Dholakpur! People would’ve been forced to lead even more horrendous lives and forced to spend a bucketful of cash but a pocketful of things! (Again, how the kingdom survived is such a mystery.)

On the other hand, maybe the King just wanted to hold all the gold reserves to himself and did not wish to splurge on any investment in technology for the kingdom. Which again proves how he is a stupid strategist because if he wanted more money, the country needs development. More jobs, more employment brings about higher level of income, GDP and better lifestyle. How are the people supposed to pay taxes to the King if he doesn’t provide them enough opportunity to make money for paying the taxes? It would’ve been more understandable if he invested in their advancement first and then participated in red-tapism and what not.

(Idiot.)

The King, in my opinion, is begging for a Marie Antoinette situation by running around in gold chains and necklaces while his people slog and suffer.

III. Diplomacy at its finest. Not.

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To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy. -Will Durant

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The third, and final facet of why King Indravarma was the real villain is perhaps the shortest and the simplest. [2]

There’s no doubt why Dholakpur was often plagued with terrorists and external threats and challenges from other kingdoms than the neighbouring countries: King Indravarma’s tongue.

Instead of rallying allies and forming alliances with other countries, the king often chose to goad other rulers into competitions of which-kingdom-is-better game which is humorous to think because Dholakpur had no additional advantage except …Bheem. The entire fragile ego of Indravarma’s was built on nothing but a nine-year old boy!

The demise of the King’s pride would be swift and sweet the day Bheem decides to move out of the godforsaken kingdom.

Conclusion

“It is unwise to let a man who isn't king sit on a throne for too long.” ― Costanza Casati, Clytemnestra

Thus, I bring this essay to its end. A hyper-fixation of my childhood has now become a piece of media that will forever make me think of this 1600+ word essay that brings no added meaning to this world.

To you, Bheem, I wish that you escape from the clutches of Indravarma’s stupid reign. Perhaps if the King was just evil I could’ve respected him more. Alas, stupidity is a turn-off.

To you, Dholakpur, I wish that you understand that it’s better to have no king than have Indravarma as a king. Rise and revolt, fellow comrades. History would look kindly upon you.

And to you, King Indravarma, thank you for spoiling my favourite cartoon.

Aisling Elle 16.04.2024

[1] A further note to be added is that the king was a frequent enabler of Child Manipulation because he always made it seem that Bheem voluntarily decided to choose to fight for the kingdom and was not requested by the King. [2] This argument is in reference to the cycle competition that the King engages in with Pehelwanpur.

Part 1 of Random Essays

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flightyfox · 1 year

Text

"For the last several decades, self-governance policies have produced remarkable economic growth across most of Indian Country and expanded the responsibilities and capacities of tribal governments. Hundreds of tribes across the other Lower 48 states now routinely provide their citizens with the broad array of services normally expected from state and local governments, and an increasing number of tribes are becoming the economic engines of their regions.

The federal Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980 (MICSA) empowers the state government to block the applicability of federal Indian policy in Maine. As a result, all four Wabanaki Nations are stark economic underperformers relative to the other tribes in the Lower 48 states.

For the tribal citizens of Maine held down by MICSA’s restrictions, loosening or removing those restrictions offers them little in the way of downside risks but much in the way of upside payoffs. Notably, “nowhere to go but up” also applies to the Maine state government and Maine’s non-tribal citizens. Under federal policies of tribal self-determination, tribal economic development spills over positively into neighboring non-tribal communities and improves the abilities of tribes and state and local governments to serve their citizens.

As with any neighboring governments, conflicts can arise between tribal and non-tribal governments. The overall experience outside of Maine has been that increasingly capable tribal governments improve state-tribal relations by enabling both parties to cooperate productively. Against these positive potentials for Maine is a status quo in which all sides leave economic opportunities on the table, and old cycles of conflict, litigation, recrimination, and mistrust continue."

Tldr: in 1980 the state of Maine passed a law that restricts the Wabanaki Confederacy from accessing any federal law addressing the needs of native nations unless it explicitly mentions the Wabanaki Nation in the law. This includes pivitol laws such at the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the Indian Civil Rights Act, and many others. The only federal law that has been retroactively changed to include the Wabanaki Nation is the Violence Against Women Act, and that only happened in 2022. This state based law has very negatively affected the prosperity of tribes in the state of Maine and and is meant to kill tribal sovereignty in its tracks. I think it needs to be on people's radars.

#indigenous #native rights #indigenous sovereignty #native american #landback #wabanaki nation #maine

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