Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not too pleased with the performance of India's scientists. That's what he seems to have told top officials from related departments on Tuesday, a report in The Indian Express says, adding that he expected more revolutionary intervention from the community to eradicate problems like malnutrition.

For the public it's hard to decide if the rebuke was justified, but it's true India hasn't made any significant scientific breakthrough in several decades now. Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy said the other day that the nation has made no "earth shaking" discoveries since the 1960s. His lament may have substance, but it's also true that the public only gets to hear of big scientific news — not of the many small strides that our scientists are making in areas as diverse as health, space, nuclear energy and agriculture. Or, for that matter, of the difficulties that the scientific community is having to deal with due to the State's apathy.

Did you know, for instance, that government spending on science is currently at a woeful 0.8% of India's gross domestic product (GDP)? Scientists have long demanded that this be increased to 3% of the GDP, but in vain. Frustrated by this culture of neglect, on August 9, they will be taking the protest to the streets with an 'India March For Science', following the example of the global rallies held on April 22 this year.

But what's even more worrying is the misdirected allocation of the limited funds that are available for research.

Here's another piece of news: On April 25, the Science for Equity, Empowerment and Development division of the Department of Science and Technology issued a memorandum to create a 19-member National Steering Committee for Scientific Validation and Research on Panchgavya (SVAROP).

For those not in the know, the term panchgavya refers to a substance made of the five elixirs derived from the cow — milk, ghee, curd, dung and urine — and mixed with recommended portions of other ingredients like jaggery, banana, tender coconut water and sugarcane juice to create a 'magic' potion. From health to daily utility products to agricultural produce, panchgavya is believed to have an impact on almost everything that affects human life. And this 'cowpathy', as Hindutva ideologues like to refer to 'cow science', will be studied for its scientific basis by SVAROP. The latter includes luminaries from the scientific world such as V Ramgopal Rao, the director of IIT-Delhi, alongside Bijay Bhatkar, president of Vijnana Bharati, affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Welcome to India's evolving scientific temper, carried proudly into the 21st century by bodies like the Vijanana Bharati (also known as Vibha), which is reportedly soon launching an ambitious digital mentoring programme for school children to inculcate in them an interest in scientific research.

Apart from teaching young students about the regular sciences, Vibha's Science Portal will open the doors to dubious disciplines such as spiritual and Vedic sciences for them too. Because, you know, scientific education is not all about being rational and empirical; it is also about instilling patriotic feeling and national pride in the future generation of scientists.

For, while learning about the latest advancements in the world of technology, it is also important to allow our chest to swell with pride for the glorious mythical past we have left behind — those halcyon pre-historical days when gods had cosmetic surgery, members of royal families were born of IVF and aeroplanes flew about the skies of ancient India.

It was none other than PM Modi who sang these ditties to our ancestors shortly after he was elected with a landslide margin to lead the country of over a billion people. At the inauguration of a hospital in Mumbai, he related the successful implant of on elephant's head on Lord Ganesh to the superior knowledge of cosmetic surgery among the ancients. Karna, in Mahabharata, who was not born of his mother's womb, was a living example of genetic engineering thousands of years ago. The PM dropped every shining example he could to encourage new-age doctors to take a leaf out of the grand tradition they are inheritors of.

But the PM is not alone in dropping such nuggets of unknown wisdom.

Recently, a high court judge wanted the cow to be declared the national animal of India because, obviously, who but our mother deserves such an august position? That wasn't because peacocks lacked virtue. After all, the peacock didn't cohabit with the peahen to get her pregnant. The only thing that the female of the species needed were tears of the male to be able to bear its young, he added.

An education minister of a state went a step ahead, claiming that the cow is the only animal in the world that breathed oxygen in and out, a statement that was echoed by a high court judge too. Is it any wonder, then, that people in India get killed just on the suspicion of eating cow meat, but even innocuous things such as ferrying the animal from one place to another?

If you needed further proof of the cow's myriad usefulness, listen to the president of Akhil Bharatiya Gau Sewa Sangh, an outfit associated with the RSS, who said last year that dung produced by Indian cows has the power to absorb harmful radiation. To demonstrate his point, he brandished his cell phone, the back of which was liberally coated with the animal's dried excreta.

The list of such examples keeps growing, but we would be hugely amiss if we didn't draw your attention to the pedagogy followed by several schools in contemporary India, with textbooks teaching young children about the ideal dimensions of a female body, telling them that "ugly and physically challenged" girls have to pay dowry, and that working women are causing unemployment among men. Add to this roster the fact that sex education is a strict no-no among most Indian schools and that most young people in India are opposed to LGBTQ sexual identities.

In a country with such an exceptional scientific temper, the PM does have very good reason to feel upset indeed.

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In May this year, Kochi Metro Rail Ltd, an enterprise owned by the government of Kerala, appointed 23 transgender people in different positions in its workforce, a month before it began its operations. "We would like to give members of the transgender community their rightful share in different jobs at stations," Elias George, managing director of Kochi Metro, told The Hindu. "There will be no discrimination between them and women workers." The company planned to scale up the number of transgender employees to 60 in the next few months.

Kerala has the highest literacy among Indian states (94%, according to the Census 2011 data) and its Left Democratic Front (LDF) government is often praised for enlightened policies—such as equal employment opportunities for transgender people. It's another matter that society there, as in most parts of India, is indifferent to the implications of such official gestures or development indices.

In the first week of their job, 8 of the 23 transgender people, all trans women, quit. Employed in a variety of roles, from ticketing to housekeeping staff, which paid between ₹9,000-₹15,000 a month, most of them found it impossible to make ends meet, especially since landlords in the city charged them ₹400-₹600 a day for the most basic accommodation. That is, if they agreed to rent a place to them at all.

Some of the trans women had given up begging on the streets or sex work (both are illegal in India) to take up a government job. Others had found employment after being sacked from an earlier well-paid private-sector job because of their gender. If they had hoped for a steady income and better stability, they realised their predicament within hours of joining the Kochi Metro. At the end of their first day at a 'regular job', one of them was forced to pick up a customer for sex and another went back on the streets to beg to supplement their incomes.

Reality bites

The Kochi Metro case is a typical example of an ostensibly noble intention frustrated by the bitter reality of public prejudice. Three years ago, India's judiciary recognised the third gender as a valid identity that deserved all the constitutional privileges enjoyed by the other two genders. Last year a bill was tabled in Parliament to formalise the rights and safeguards of transgender people. Although it is yet to become law and there are several problems with its framework (more on that later), it is no doubt a step in the right direction, at least for what it seeks to achieve: equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of their gender. Society, however, is guided by its own rules, or rather misrules, whose roots are too deep and visceral to be hacked off overnight by one fell sweep of legal goodwill.

In the expanding rainbow of the LGBTQ+ umbrella, transgender people are the most visible in everyday India. Also perhaps the most reviled by the public, they are seldom visible in professional settings, be it in private or public sector offices.

Around for centuries, from royal harems to myths and folktales to the streets of 21st century India, the transgender population is ubiquitous, but till date (mistakenly) perceived as a homogenous community by the rest of society. Usually treated as outcasts and banished from home, they are feared for their power to inflict curses. For decades, only the 'hijras' who sing at weddings or at the birth of a baby to bless the occasion, beg at traffic lights or on trains and buses, and do sex work, were the most recognisable faces of the community, and believed to be synonymous with it. This (mis)identification, to the exclusion of all other transgender people, persists, causing damage to the hundreds who want to, or do already, work in other professions.

If identifying as genderqueer is mired in challenges in India, coming out as trans is even more difficult. Along with the phobia of sexual difference, it brings out the deepest, darkest biases of class among middle India. If you identify as transgender, the unthinking assumption is you're headed for a life of indignity on the streets, with a future that's dark and hopeless.

Thankfully, as the law and government are taking small, if wobbly, steps towards honouring the rights of transgender people, more members of the community are debunking the myths and misinformation about them by joining the workforce, often against staggering odds.

Hard work

Transgender people have been part of India's workforce for as long as it has existed, employed in jobs as diverse as academia to shop attendants. It's another matter that many of them may not come out at work or choose to express their gender identity through clothing or other outward signs. Then there are those who have embraced their sexual difference unabashedly, even at the cost of facing hurdles at workplace.

Olga Aaron, founder of the Bringing Adequate Values of Humanity (BRAVOH) movement, is a trans-rights activist, who has worked in white-collar jobs for over 20 years. "At home, my family never refers to me as third gender," she says. "I used to be a son to my mother once, now she calls me her daughter."

An independent professional now, she did have her share of difficulties at various workplaces. "After my colleagues came to know about me, I felt closely watched, I was given more work, harassed in the way other women are," she says. "But I never got worked up, even when I was asked a seemingly insensitive question."

Such 'offensive' queries, Aaron says, are usually the result of ignorance rather than a deliberate attempt to be obnoxious. Clarifying such doubts, without losing one's composure or feeling diminished, is a life skill, an integral part of the never-ending process of sensitisation.

Not everyone is fortunate to have co-workers who will listen and let live, or to have enough reserves of fortitude to get through intimidation and harassment day after day, sometimes for years at a stretch.

The story of Manobi Bandopadhyay, India's first transgender college principal, is one such horrific testimony that reveals the stubborn resistance of society to accept what it has always considered alien to itself. In her recently published memoir, A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi, Bandopadhyay, who was born 'Somnath', recalls her journey from being the beloved only son of her parents, bullied through school and college, to getting a PhD in Bengali Literature, holding an academic job for two decades in an inhospitable college in suburban Bengal, before finally being appointed the principal of another institution in 2015.

As a lecturer in a college in Jhargram, West Bengal, in the 1980s, Bandopadhyay says she faced problems similar to those who left their jobs with Kochi Metro. "It was next to impossible for me to find a permanent place to live in," she remembers, forced to move from one makeshift apartment to the next until a kindly landlord decided to take her in. Worse still, her colleagues were openly hostile, instigating a section of the students against her and leaving her out of most decisions.

Even though Bandopadhyay ends her story on a note of harmony, with her appointment as principal at a prestigious college in the Nadia district of Bengal, the real-life postscript to the book is much grimmer. At the end of 2016, after fighting, in her own words, "a long battle against ignorance", Bandopadhyay resigned from her job, citing lack of co-operation of her colleagues as the reason behind her decision. Her academic achievements, including the authorship of several books and articles as well as the editorship of Bengal's first journal for transgender people, weren't sufficient insurance against age-old blind spots.

You would imagine Bandopadhyay's struggle to have smoothened the path for the next generation of trans professionals. It has and hasn't.

For 27-year-old schoolteacher Atri Kar, it has taken two transfers from various state-funded schools in Bengal and sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) to find her professional niche, though she has many more battles to fight still.

"When I decided to come out at work in 2014, my colleagues at the time were openly hostile," she says. "In a meeting involving 10 people, 9 would be allowed to speak and be heard but I would be left out." Although people were better disposed towards her at the second school, one person took objection to her presence in the staff room, forcing her to move on to her current job. "My acceptance here has been total," says the English teacher, adding that people at home and her neighbourhood have also reconciled themselves to her new identity. "The driver of the auto-rickshaw in which I've been travelling since I was in Class VIII used to call me dada (brother) and now he calls me didi (sister)," she says. "Maybe because I am educated, I have a government job, and I am in the media limelight, it's easier for people to move on. Our society, after all, is inherently elitist."

Making a difference

Kar's observation about elitism is spot on. Class may not necessarily be able to insure anyone against harm, but it does have the potential to shape destinies. It often boils down to the school or college you went to, the circumstances and attitude of your family. Think of Naina, a teenager studying in a posh Delhi school, who came out as a transwoman during assembly in front of her entire school. Before she got there, Naina was driven to the brink of suicide. With the support of her mother and her friends, she emerged as herself, stronger, and now, after SRS and change of identity in all her documents, ready for higher education and to enter the workforce as a confident woman.

But unlike Naina, a great many transgender people looking for blue-collar, let alone white-collar, jobs face a major obstacle: lack of adequate educational qualifications.

"The biggest hurdle for us is to source the right candidates," says Neelam Jain of Periferry, a Chennai-based organisation that works with transgender people to place them in jobs. "Many of them do not have high enough qualifications for us to pitch them to corporates."

Jain's own background is in the corporate sector but now she works with the trans community closely to try alleviate the stigma against them in the workforce. Most companies are tactful enough to not refuse outright but the usual excuses range from lack of vacancies (even when the facts show otherwise) to saying that the candidate doesn't fit the profile they are looking for.

"Due to lack of clarity in the legal language and the absence of an enacted law, some don't want to hire pre-operated people or are worried about Section 377 [of the Indian Penal Code]," adds Jain. But even if Periferry manages to get an applicant through—it has placed 6 transpeople, so far, in roles such as outlet managers and housekeeping staff—it ensures that the future colleagues are adequately sensitised before the worker joins the job.

Apart from reiterating the basic rules of running an inclusive workplace—from using gender-neutral terms like partner (instead of husband or wife) to having designated toilets for all three genders to not bringing up personal questions unprovoked—Periferry runs a full-fledged gender sensitisation workshop, facilitated by a transwoman who is trained in advocacy.

The good part is many corporates are already pro-actively seeking to address the problem of inclusivity in their workplaces, though it's early days still, by most accounts. According to a study by Mission for Indian Gay & Lesbian Empowerment (MINGLE) using a very small sample in white-collar jobs, as of 2016, 85% of the respondents are out to their colleagues, while 69% are out to their families. Those who did come out at work found greater acceptance, though only 48% of them are covered by anti-discrimination policies. Evidently, being able to behave and talk about themselves freely at work matters enough to most people to even risk unemployment.

The Godrej Group is one of India's leading corporates to have well-defined pro-LGBTQ policies, including benefits for partners, irrespective of their gender. "On our people policy documents, we have included 'other' as an option for our transgender team members," says Mahnaz Shaikh, Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Godrej Industries and Associate Companies Limited. "The word 'spouse' has been replaced with 'partner'. Our adoption policy is designed with a gender-neutral primary caregiver in mind."

Apart from conducting gender sensitisation workshops across its businesses, at the headquarters in Mumbai and in the regional offices across India, Godrej is also piloting an "unconscious bias workshop" to sensitise its team members about all the stereotypes that exist at workplaces. The company, which has several thousand employees in India, has one transgender person working with it at the moment.

Legal muddle

The biggest impediment to fair representation of LGBTQ+ people in India's workforce is a legacy of our colonial masters. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), framed by the British in 1860 but still going strong in 21st century India, criminalises sexual acts, even between consenting adults, that are against the "order of nature". The latter includes non-procreative sex and affects nearly everyone, along with members of the transgender community.

Perhaps it's the draconian language of the law and its prolonged misuse by the police to intimidate queer people that make most companies too nervous to realise that the law does not criminalise an identity but a specific sexual behaviour—so it is difficult to prosecute an individual for simply identifying as queer.

Persecuted like any other member of the LGBTQ+ community by the police, transgender people had it even worse, as they were denied a legal existence until as late as 2014. All that changed overnight as the Supreme Court, in a landmark case now known as NALSA (National Legal Authority Services vs. the Union of India), upheld the constitutional validity of people belonging to the 'third gender', granting them all the rights and freedoms guaranteed to any man or woman in India.

In spite of the wave of cheer that coursed through the LGBTQ+ community, rekindling hopes of repealing Section 377, the NALSA judgment is far from perfect. In a scathing critique on Round Table India, trans activist Gee Imaan Semmalar took it apart for its confusions and conflations (it clubs all transpeople under the third gender), use of the pejorative term 'eunuch', and its general blindness to trans men. It also does not talk about the sexual rights of trans people, acknowledging the Supreme Court's views on Section 377, which the court had upheld in 2013.

"The NALSA judgment only clarifies that all fundamental rights apply to transgender persons, including right to express themselves in a gender of their choice," says Surabhi Shukla, a lawyer who is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Oxford. "It does not speak about the sexual rights of the transgender person. It remains to be seen how the court will view sexual relations between a transgender person (say, trans man) and a woman post NALSA. The court may either construe it as a heterosexual sexual relationship or as a homosexual sexual relationship."

Be that as it may, NALSA was certainly a significant juncture in the LGBTQ+ movement in India, leading to the framing of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016 last year, yet to be passed into a law by the Parliament. Like NALSA, the bill has raised many thorny juridical questions, which dovetail into serious worries about its implementation at a practical, everyday level.

In a blog on the website of Orinam, an all-volunteer unregistered collective of LGBTI people and allies based in Chennai, Shukla pointed out a number of problems with the bill. Starting with the way it imagines transgender identity (by linking biology with identity and ignoring gender fluidity) to making mandatory a certificate from a district magistrate for the establishment of trans identity to not giving reservations to transgender candidates in the workforce, it went against several recommendations by NALSA.

Kar, for instance, had a run in with West Bengal Civil Services Examination authorities when she found they had not included the 'third gender' option on their application form. The Railway Recruitment Board, which she also applied to, had the provision but no reservation for transgender people as directed by NALSA.

Those who have undergone SRS and are in the process of applying for change of name in their identification papers, including academic degree certificates, also go through bureaucratic hell. "I had to run from pillar to post to get all the paperwork in order," says Kar. "How am I supposed to do my day job at this rate?" In Bandopadhyay's case as well, the confusion over her degree certificates was resolved only after the state education ministry, in Mamata Banerjee's government, intervened.

Home truths

In the end, in spite of adequate constitutional safeguards and anti-discrimination laws to protect them, the workers in Kochi had to leave. "Why wasn't strong action taken against Kochi Metro for failing to ensure the rights of its staff?" asks Jayna Kothari, Executive Director, Centre for Law and Policy Research, Bengaluru.

The failure is as much of the legal system's as of society's, which is even harder to change than the law. It all begins at home, usually in childhood.

"Any policy towards the well-being of trans people should realise that change has to begin with the family," says Aaron. In her advocacy work with the community, she has focused on strengthening rights of gender-nonconforming children, who, she says, should be seen as children with special needs. "We cannot blame the person for turning out the way she is. We must blame the social structure that is responsible for her."

Santa Khurai, who works with a community-based organisation in Manipur, agrees. Many underage trans youth in the state, she says, are forced into working at beauty parlours, some of which may exploit them for sex work, by their parents, who are the most difficult to sensitise. "Since young people don't come out in schools, it's hard to gather exact data, which makes advocacy with the government even more difficult," Khurai adds.

Early abuse exacts its toll in permanent damage, even self-destruction.

In 2014, shortly after the NALSA judgement, I went to meet Mona Ahmed, an iconic transgender figure in New Delhi. Her reaction to the court order was prudent. She was happy to learn that transgender people have a better shot at a decent life now, but wasn't optimistic about any significant change in societal bias. She pointed me to her disciple, a young boy who crossdresses as Roshni and earns a living by sex work, and said, "Who is going to give him a job in an office?" Roshni had dropped out of school after being tormented for being effeminate and had no desire to go back to that life of indignity.

More acutely, Ahmed wondered why hijras, who earn anything between a few thousand to lakhs of rupees by singing and begging, would want to enslave themselves to a desk and also take on the sniggering of their colleagues in the bargain, all for a paltry salary. Unpleasant as it may sound, Ahmed had a point there. Pallav Patankar, who was director of the Humsafar Trust, also speaks of a disconnect between the discourse of advocacy and the ground reality. "We've to ask the transgender leaders what they are doing to mobilise their community," he says.

The road that stretches ahead is long and full of uncomfortable truths. Society at large has to learn to look at transgender people as any other human being—and be held to account by law if they don't.

Soon after they started working in Kochi, some of the trans people appeared on a video, which went viral on social media, to make a few requests to the public. "When you look at me today, I don't want you to see someone who needs pity," one employee said. "When you see me, don't look twice," added another.

Sometimes all we need is a small reminder to usher in a big change.

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On July 17, writer-editor Apurva Asrani, who has been in an elaborate battle with Kangana Ranaut over the writing credits of the upcoming, Simran, tweeted this.

I hired my brother as addnl writer on my new film. #Kangana hired her sister as manager & now promotes her brother. All guilty of #nepotism?

— Apurva Asrani (@Apurvasrani) July 18, 2017

As we know by now, ever since her appearance in Koffee with Karan, Kangana has brought the topic of nepotism into the mainstream, talking about the easy route to stardom for actors from film families.

So, clearly, Apurva's tweet, which accused Kangana of nepotism as she hired her sister as manager, didn't go down too well with Rangoli, who neatly contextualised the circumstances in which it happened.

@Apurvasrani acid dsn't kill you it just distorts your face in a way that wherever you go people's jaw drops in a very sad way.

— Rangoli Chandel (@Rangoli_A) July 19, 2017

@Apurvasrani Kangana nt only got my treatment done but saw to it that I gained my confidence back, she held my hand and took me to the sets.

— Rangoli Chandel (@Rangoli_A) July 19, 2017

@Apurvasrani I m topper in M.Sc microbiology I didn't loose my degree after the attack but I lost my confidence and started to wear veil .

— Rangoli Chandel (@Rangoli_A) July 19, 2017

@Apurvasrani You are after your 5 mins fame which you don't deserve so please calm down and Relax.

— Rangoli Chandel (@Rangoli_A) July 19, 2017

@Apurvasrani I am her sister and i am with her in that capacity, my brother is a pilot and don't you dare to bring him in to this.

— Rangoli Chandel (@Rangoli_A) July 19, 2017

Drinking cofe n watching flms with your own little brthr is nt nepotism u emotionally illitrate persn.Thts cald Love .#sigh which u lack .

— Rangoli Chandel (@Rangoli_A) July 19, 2017

If there's one thing to learn from this, it's that you just don't mess with the Ranaut sisters.

No, no, nope.

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Just 6

Hooking up with someone new on Tinder can be so many things, often at the same time. It can be hot, fun, thrilling, embarrassing, rubbish and just plain weird. It's possible that you might have life-changing, unforgettable sex with a stranger you might never see again. And it's just as possible that you might end up staring at each other awkwardly after you or your no-strings-attached sex partner screamed out the ex's name, mid-act. While there might be a mind-boggling range of potential conclusions to one's night of casual sex, and you can't ever account for all the contingencies, there are some ground rules you can cling to, to ensure you have your behind covered, in case things start to go south. Here are 6 things every decent adult should do before bumping uglies with someone new.

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Find out their last name

This might seem like a no-brainer, but it really is possible to entirely miss something as ordinary as the last name of the person you hook up with. Knowing at least the basic identifying details of the people you're planning to sleep with is non-negotiable for so many reasons, not least of all being safety. Sure, googling someone before meeting them might diminish the fun of discovery, but it's not a bad trade-off, compared to the peace of mind that comes with knowing that your date is not an axe murderer. In today's day and age, it's almost impossible not to have some kind of a digital footprint, and if you find that your Tinder date doesn't have one, it should definitely give you pause. Same goes for people who are cagey about sharing any identifying details. People who hide usually have stuff that needs to be hidden. Highly avoidable.

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Check with mutual friends

Even if it's just a hookup, and the bar for casual sex is generally lower than other equations, you still don't want to find yourself in bed with a weirdo. If you're lucky enough to have close mutual friends with the man/woman you intend to sleep with, do not hesitate to ask about their impressions of the person and if they seem like a decent person to your friends. It's true that you might never see them again after that one night, but you still don't want to feel regret every time you think about that time.

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Find out their STI-status

I don't know how this isn't a bigger deal for us. I have never heard of anyone ever asking the people they hook up with about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and frankly, it's appalling. Periodically screening for STIs is basic health hygiene for even those who are in monogamous relationships, but it is absolutely imperative for those who have multiple partners. How the person you're hooking up with reacts to the question of STIs is also a great window into how their mind works. Bolt, if you find yourself with someone who is offended or dismissive of the question.

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Be on the same page about sex

Before you jump into bed with someone new, pause to find out what sex means to them. Sometimes, it will mean more to one or the other party. Casual sex is fun only when both parties know exactly what to expect are on board with the no-strings-attached plan. Take the trouble to find out, because it is all too easy to be on completely different pages about this. If you find yourself with someone who thinks of it as a stepping stone to a relationship or tender feelings of some sort, do the decent thing and walk away before they get hurt. And don't sleep with someone who you know thinks of sex as a more intimate act than you do — because you're using them, regardless of what you tell yourself to justify it. When you're honest, it's possible you might not get laid as often as you like, but at least when you do, you won't feel like a manipulative prick.

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Don't blame it on alcohol

If you're old enough to hook up, you're old enough to take responsibility for it. The morning after will be at least a little bit awkward when you wake up in bed with someone you barely know. So don't make it infinitely worse by blaming the alcohol for the "poor decision" or the "big mistake". Most of the time, it isn't true, but even if it is, do everyone a favour and save your guilt for later, when you're alone. Waking up to a person wracked with regret is one of the most unappealing things that can happen, post hook-up. Don't be that person. And if you're really so bad at holding your alcohol, entrust a friend with the responsibility of making sure you sleep in your own bed while you're too wasted to make sex decisions for yourself.

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Admit your true relationship status

Don't be the douchebag who cheats on their partner with someone who is sleeping with you in good faith. Even if it is just a one-night stand, you owe them the information. Whether you're in an open relationship, aren't exclusive, figuring things out, separating, or whatever other permutation and combination of complicated relationships you're in, they have a right to know and make the decision to sleep with you or not once they are in possession of all the facts. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, but sleeping with someone under false pretences is a terrible thing to do.

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Ban on non-vegetarian food is something that is not unheard of in India, and in the latest case of clamping down on non-vegetarian food, the Greater Noida SHO has said that roadside non-vegetarian food vendors in Dadri have been removed because of the 'Kanwar Yatra'.

Ram Sen Singh told The Times of India, "We have also removed vendors serving non-vegetarian food. They will be off the road till the religious season of kanwar yatra is on."

The Kanwar Yatra is a yearly event devotees of Lord Shiva carry water from the River Ganga to local shrines in their states in the month of Sawan or Shravan. And while Haridwar is one of the places where the largest number of Kanwarias (the ones who take the pilgrimage) visit, the step has been taken because allegedly the number of pilgrims returning from Haridwar to Greater Noida has gone up.

Ved Nagar, president of Hindu Raksha Dal, a welcomed the move. He told The Times of India, "We welcome the move of the district administration and police which shows respect to the people's sentiments."

However, because of this move fish, chicken, eggs and mutton will be unavailable in the area, making it difficult for people whose staple diet is non-vegetarian.

But this kind of forced vegetarianism isn't new. Earlier, in March this year, Shiv Sena workers had forced 500 meat shops and dhabas to shut down in Gurgaon for all nine days of the Navratri festival.

There have been huge debates about ban on sale of non-vegetarian food during the Jain fasting period of Paryushan too.

In 2016, the Gujarat government had, following in the footsteps of Maharashtra, banned the sale of meet for 5 days during Paryushan.

Such bans have been upheld by the Supreme Court too. In 2008, the Supreme Court had said, "It is a short restriction for a few days and surely the non-vegetarians can remain vegetarian for this short period. Also, the traders in meat of Ahmedabad will not suffer much merely because their business has been closed down for nine days in a year."

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Actress Sunny Leone and husband Daniel Weber have turned parents to baby girl, Nisha, who they adopted from Latur, Maharashtra.

The couple confirmed the development in an interview with Hindustan Times. Nisha, who is about 2 years old, is their first child.

Daniel said that Sunny's packed schedule wouldn't allow them the time to plan a baby, which is why they took the decision to adopt instead.

"Our life is always so crazy. There are no nine months for us. For me, it has just been lots of paperwork for two years and then one day, that's it. You get an email that you have been matched with a child. It's so crazy," Daniel was quoted as saying, while Sunny said, "I don't know about everybody else, but for us, it didn't matter even for a second whether it was our child or she not being our biological child. For us, it was about starting a family and I might not because of our schedules and so many other things but we both thought, 'why don't we just adopt?'

Nisha was the baby girl's original name but the couple was offered the choice to change it, which they haven't. Her full name now is Nisha Kaur Weber.

Said Sunny, "She is so cute. The moment she looks up at you and smiles, it just melts your heart. I look forward to her growing up to become an independent and being her own woman."

You go girl!

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"Nobody has the right to take law in his hands. And if somebody does, he should be condemned, arrested, and prosecuted. The government's stand is very clear -- nobody is allowed to do that," Jaitley said in the Rajya Sabha.

He was replying to a short duration discussion on the situation arising out of increasing incidents of lynching and atrocities on minorities and Dalits across the country.

"... there is no rationalisation, no argument about hurting of sentiments can be an explanation for the crime," he said adding that the central government is absolutely committed on the issue and has already sent an advisory to the states.

He said Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has already spoken on the matter with the state governments.

"Therefore, the law will certainly take its course in these cases. No amount of sympathy will be shown to these people. The Prime Minister has spoken thrice on the issue," Jaitley said.

On the atrocities on Dalits, Jaitley said oppression in the name of caste will not be tolerated and that stringent laws are in place to protect the Dalits.

"The way we have historically treated one section of our brethren is a black spot in our history. We owe it to ourselves, if not to them, to reverse that process of history," the Minister said.

He said he categorically assured the house on the government's commitment on the issue.

"If such incidents where police is not acting is brought to our notice, the (central) government will not think twice before issuing advisory to the state concerned or even asking for report," the Minister said.

However, the senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader said, it was also not proper to "eulogise" cow slaughter.

He said it was under the Congress rule that most states in India enacted laws prohibiting cow slaughter in the 1950s.

Quoting Article 48 of the Indian Constitution that talks of prohibition of cow slaughter, Jaitley said it was introduced by (Father of the Indian Constitution) Bhim Rao Ambedkar and not by Narendra Modi or Rajnath Singh.

In the Rajya Sabha, Union Minister of state for Home Affairs Hansraj Ahir too said that the Narendra Modi government is neither anti-Dalit nor anti-Muslim as was alleged by the opposition.

Also on HuffPost India

Minister of State (HRD), Upendra Kushwaha today gave written reply to a Rajya Sabha question stating that content related to ' Bhagavad Gita' is already included in the National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT)'s Class XII Sanskrit text book, namely, Shashwati, Part-II (Chapter IV: Karma Gauravam) since 2007-08.

Kushwaha further said that, "the National Curriculum Framework-2005 brought out by NCERT states that to strengthen our cultural heritage and national identity, the curriculum should enable the younger generation to reinterpret and re-evaluate the part with reference to new priorities and emerging outlooks of a changing societal context".

The document further stated that the cultural diversity of this land should continue to be treasured as our special attribute.

However, education, being a subject in the Concurrent List of the Constitution, and the majority of schools being under the jurisdiction of the State Governments, it is within the ambit of the States/ Union Territories to decide about the subjects to be taught in their schools keeping in view the National Curriculum Framework (NCF).

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  Trump warned that Mueller would be crossing a line if the Russia investigation expanded into Trump's finances. Trump also said the special counsel had many conflicts of interest that he hasn't talked about yet, but will "at some point."

Roopa Moudgil, the deputy inspector general (prisons) of Karnataka, made it to the national news last week for exposing the special treatment given to AIADMK interim general secretary V K Sasikala, who is lodged in Bengaluru's Parappana Agrahara central prison. The plot thickened on Monday when Moudgil was transferred from her position by the Siddaramaiah government pending an inquiry. Predictably, many television news hosts ran down the Karnataka government on Monday night for shielding the corrupt and punishing the whistleblowers.

There is no doubt that DIG Moudgil honoured her commitment to the public by throwing light on corruption in the jail system. She confirmed what has been widely known for a long time, in fact— the rich and powerful are as a matter of course given VIP treatment even behind bars, such as in the case of mafia don-turned politician Mohammad Shahabuddin, or even Sahara chief Subrata Roy.

Should a serving police officer accuse her boss of corruption and that too in the public sphere?

But it is rare for a police officer to bring such practices in prison to light, and while her commitment to justice is to be lauded, it begs the question: why didn't she use her authority to crack down on the irregularities she found during her inspections? Moudgil has an answer: her corrupt bosses did not let her put the system in order, so she decided to expose them.

And there lies the rub. Should a serving police officer accuse her boss of corruption and that too in the public sphere? Moudgil was right in writing a no-nonsense letter to her boss, DG (Prisons), about the special kitchen for Sasikala and special privileges for Abdul Karim Telgi, the fake stamp paper scam kingpin, who has been serving time in the same jail since 2007. It was also absolutely right for her to copy the letter to the home secretary and the chief secretary, especially because she had the suspicion that her senior officer in charge of the prisons of the entire state was part of the conspiracy to allow the system to be subverted. It was important that the specifics of the corruption in the system were brought to the knowledge of the top echelons in the administration.

But was it right for DIG Moudgil to note "rumours" about a ₹2 crore bribe having been given to jail authorities, and that the DG (Prisons), her boss, was the prime beneficiary? Should she have included a gossip item among the jail inmates as a substantive in her complaint? Can a responsible officer accuse her boss of taking a bribe without a shred of evidence?

That was not all. DIG Moudgil's was a confidential letter to the top bosses of the state administration. How did a copy land up with a TV channel that went about saying that DG (Prisons) HN Satyanarayana Rao took part of a ₹2 crore bribe to give special favour to Sasikala? The allegations were presented as if they were confirmed fact.

The Karnataka government has rightly issued show cause notices to both Rao and Moudgil for violating the code of conduct...[their transfers were also] necessary to ensure a fair enquiry.

Rao, who is set to retire this month and who had never faced such ignominy in his long career as a police officer, chose to rebut the charges levelled against him in the media—courtesy Moudgil's letter—by a press conference where he revealed how he had issued two show cause notices to DIG Moudgil in the recent past for not attending periodic meetings and for staying away from office for long periods without intimation or explanation.

Rao alleged that Moudgil hit him below the belt to get back at him for admonishing her on her unprofessional conduct. Moudgil, meanwhile, has denied any personal vendetta behind her attack on Rao and says she was not responsible for leaking the letter. The facts will, possibly, come out in the open when Vinay Kumar, the retired IAS officer, who has been asked by the Karnataka government to investigate the matter, submits his report in a month.

The Karnataka government's role in this unsavoury episode has come in for major criticism. The Siddaramaiah government deserves scrutiny for the conversion of the jails—what Moudgil has rightly put on record—as drug addiction centres. Siddaramaiah personally should share a part of the blame as he is also the Home Minister of the state. But the government cannot be faulted for the twin actions it has taken in the current episode. It has rightly issued show cause notices to both Rao, the DG (Prisons), and Moudgil, DIG (Prisons), for violating the code of conduct and speaking to the media making allegations against a fellow officer. If such conduct goes unchecked, then all officers would be encouraged to wash their dirty linen in public. That would lead to a virtual state of anarchy.

She should not have accused the DG of accepting a hefty bribe without substantiation. Secondly, she should not have shared the letter with the media.

The second action relates to the transfer of both the DG and the DIG. The transfers were necessary to ensure that a fair enquiry was conducted as the continuance of the two as prison officers would have vitiated the probe. Satynarayana Rao has not been given a fresh posting, presumably because he is due to retire in a few days. But DIG Moudgil has been given a prize posting for a police officer of her rank as Bengaluru's commissioner of traffic safety.

It is a reality that India's prisons are a living hell for a majority of the inmates, while the rich and the powerful manage to carve out a privileged existence for themselves even within the system by using their money and clout. To eliminate the influence of political and muscle power, the courts have chosen to shift some influential criminals from jails in their native places. Shahabuddin, the don of Siwan, was initially shifted to Bhagalpur jail, but when the reports came about his continued highhanded ways there, the Supreme Court ordered him to be lodged in the Tihar jail in Delhi.

That was the same reason why Sasikala, the powerful political leader of Tamil Nadu, was sentenced to serve her four-year prison term in a jail in Karnataka so that she could not misuse the government machinery and get special favours.

But clearly these steps are not much of a deterrent for those who have the means. Sasikala and Telgi are using their ill-gotten wealth to enjoy a privileged existence in the Bengaluru jail.

It is right for Moudgil to expose the scam, especially as she had the advantage of being an insider. But the way she went about doing it gave rise to a lot of concerns. First, she should not have accused the DG of accepting a hefty bribe without substantiation. Secondly, she should not have shared the letter with the media. DIG Moudgil has, of course, charged that her letter was leaked by Rao, not by herself. But that seems unlikely, since why would Rao choose to put himself under the scanner this way?

DIG Moudgil ought to know that she would have gone down in history as a laudable whistleblower had she demonstrated greater professional conduct.

Normally, I like to avoid watching mainstream Bollywood films in the theatre, primarily because they disappoint more often than not, and I end up regretting wasting my hard-earned money on an overpriced multiplex ticket. Nevertheless, I decided to go for Jagga Jasoos, thinking that the promos didn't look bad, and Anurag Basu can be counted on to present something above average.

And for the first half, Jagga Jasoos did seem above the Bollywood average (which is a very low bar, to be honest). It was reasonably entertaining, well shot, and was a rare Bollywood film that actually used music as part of the narrative instead of an excuse to show off actors' dancing skills and bodies. But the second half fell away, despite Basu doing a good job of making even deus ex machinas seem like part of the plan. The film lacked a convincing climax, however, and actually ended on a cliffhanger. It was also very hard to not notice how heavily "inspired" certain things were from Tintin comics.

Bollywood propaganda is very pervasive, and even the most enlightened people generally shy away from criticising Ranbir Kapoor. So, I decided to examine his career trajectory to see how exactly he became a star.

What interested me more than the film's narrative, though, was its lead. As I walked out of the theatre, I realised that there was literally nothing Ranbir Kapoor brought to the table, as far as the character of Jagga is concerned. The film was a musical, and Kapoor is not a singer. Jagga was a schoolboy, and Kapoor is 34. Jagga lived in the Northeast, and Kapoor's skin tone, features, build, and height are very typically North Indian. Being a musical, Jagga Jasoos offers Kapoor only around 10 minutes in its 160-minute runtime to actually speak in his own voice.

Clearly, Ranbir Kapoor is in this film only to sell it. The fact that he produced the film could also have something to do with it but, for all practical purposes, this film needed Ranbir Kapoor the star to pull crowds into theatres. And then I began to wonder, why exactly is Ranbir Kapoor a star?

Nepotism is the first reason that comes to mind, especially considering that he admitted to being a product of it. He is fairly unique in that, as most star kids have denied the very existence of nepotism, unless they're on a stage in New York declaring that it "rocks." I genuinely respected Kapoor for admitting this, until he appeared in All India Bakchod's podcast and actually tried to present his unimaginable privilege as a hindrance.

It must also be kept in mind that Kapoor has merely admitted to being a product of nepotism, and not really condemned the practice, as he also said that if his children wanted to be actors, he would like to give them a platform, meaning that he does not really intend to stop engaging in this practice.

While some star kids, like Abhishek Bachchan, Uday Chopra, and Tusshar Kapoor, are very soft and obvious targets for those calling out the industry's nepotism, Bollywood propaganda is very pervasive, and even the most enlightened people generally shy away from criticising Ranbir Kapoor. So, I decided to examine his career trajectory to see how exactly he became a star.

About a week ago, I'd decided to rewatch one of my "guilty pleasures," Bachna Ae Haseeno. This film came out in 2008, when Ranbir Kapoor was just one film old. His first film, Saawariya, had been a box office flop. He'd won the Filmfare award for Best Male Debut for it but, then again, Fardeen Khan also won the same award for Prem Aggan.

Kapoor was only 24 when Bachna came out. He had no real acting credentials, but had technically been in the industry for nine years at this point. His first "official" association with films was in 1999, when he was barely 17 years old. He was an assistant director in Aa Ab Laut Chalen, which was directed by — wait for it — Rishi Kapoor.

A star vehicle, in other industries, is generally a way to cash in on an established star's popularity by specifically showcasing their talents... In Bollywood, it was being given to a 24-year-old, one-film-old actor.

So, here was a 24-year-old with no acting credentials who had already been launched as a lead in a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film, now a lead in a Yash Raj Films production. Ranbir Kapoor had already gotten what 99.9% of aspiring actors in tinsel town never do.

The opening credits sequence began, and it was the perfect trailer for the two-and-a-half hours to follow. This was a Ranbir Kapoor fest. A star vehicle, in other industries, is generally either a way to cash in on an established star's popularity by specifically showcasing their talents, or a vanity project generally produced by the stars themselves (implying that they've earned the resources needed to do so). In Bollywood, it was being given to a 24-year-old, one-film-old actor.

His name appeared first in the credits, despite the film starring an actress six years his senior in the industry. He showcased his perfectly chiselled body along with his dancing skills, to an evergreen chartbuster that his superstar father once danced to. In this song, he wasn't Raj Sharma, the character he was supposed to play, but Ranbir Kapoor the star, changing 10 costumes in one shot while he danced. It may have been aided by CGI and had absolutely nothing to do with the film, but it showed that Ranbir Kapoor was the nation's new heartthrob, who could do anything.

Raj Sharma was a self-proclaimed "killer," or "player" in common parlance. In his most pathetic moments, he was just Raj Sharma. But in his best ones, the thin veil came off, and he became Ranbir Kapoor the star. He became the guy who conducted a bunch of street musicians in Switzerland as they played "Tujhe Dekha To Ye Jaana Sanam." He became the guy with the perfectly-sculpted abs who roamed around topless in his apartment, and charmed his next-door neighbour.

But nothing endeared him more to the audience than when he appeared in the songs, when Ranbir Kapoor completely took over from Raj Sharma. In the exotic locales of Italy, to a beautiful track composed by Vishal-Shekhar and sung by KK and Shilpa Rao, Ranbir Kapoor stood, arching his back, flaunting his abs, with his arms outstretched à la Shah Rukh Khan, as the camera dollied across him, capturing a low-angle shot.

His contribution to the shot — having six-pack abs, outstretching his arms, and arching his back — a feat that could be accomplished by virtually any good-looking man dedicated to the gym. But the effect: millions of Hindi-speaking cinegoers, brought up on Bollywood sensibilities with little understanding of the filmmaking process, saw Ranbir Kapoor as this gorgeous superstar with an incredibly powerful screen presence, subliminally associating the beauty of the locale and music with the man they saw on screen.

He was turned into a heartthrob using clever cinematic techniques conceived and implemented by others, with his contribution being limited to conventionally good looks, a good physique, and his ability to dance.

It didn't end there. In the second half of the film, the veil came off completely, and Ranbir Kapoor the star became the guy who could fix anything in the world. He could travel thousands of miles and fix a marriage by singing a soul-touching song while simultaneously playing the dhol and dancing animatedly in his sherwani and salwar. He could be the world's coolest PA to a film star by busting out some perfect Bollywood dance moves in the middle of a street in Capri, and even make a crowd of firangs join him. He was the quintessential Bollywood hero: a man for all seasons and people.

Of course, it isn't fair to blame Ranbir Kapoor for such propaganda. He isn't even the first one to benefit from it, even though he might be the youngest. But the point is, Bachna Ae Haseeno became a "semi-hit" at the box office, and consolidated Kapoor's stardom, so much so that his third film appearance was actually a cameo in Luck By Chance, where he played himself, furthering the notion that Ranbir Kapoor was a big star who could now do guest appearances, never mind the fact that he had been in only two films, neither of them box office scorchers.

In Wake Up Sid, Ranbir Kapoor played a character that, in his own words, was very similar to how he is in real life, and yet, ended up receiving heaps of praise for his performance. In Raajneeti, even the wooden-faced Arjun Rampal out-acted Kapoor, but it was the latter whose acting ability got a massive endorsement.

With every film, Ranbir Kapoor's star rose higher and higher. The film could be completely mindless, like Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, or a shoddy mess, like Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and Rockstar, but Ranbir Kapoor couldn't be brought down. Not even by massive box office failures like Besharam and Bombay Velvet or critical failures like Anjaana Anjaani and Roy. How could he, when the media constantly gushed over him, when even the most enlightened and educated liberals were in awe of him, when Karan Johar endorsed him on his talk show's rapid fire round by putting him in the same league as the Khans, and when industry insiders sang his praises, often at their own expense (Shahid Kapoor once said on record that Ranbir could've done a better job than him in Kaminey)?

[S]imply appearing in slightly offbeat films that allow more room for acting than the average Bollywood flick earns them a lot of brownie points, regardless of their performances. A case in point is 'Rocket Singh'...

The problem isn't just that star kids like Ranbir Kapoor are artificially turned into stars overnight on the backs of artists and craftspersons significantly more talented than them, using cinematic propaganda techniques that Bollywood has perfected over decades. It's also that simply appearing in slightly offbeat films that allow more room for acting than the average Bollywood flick earns them a lot of brownie points, regardless of their performances.

A case in point is Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year. Another YRF production, Rocket Singh was written by Jaideep Sahni (Khosla ka Ghosla) and directed by Shimit Amin (Chak de India). One would think that this film would allow Ranbir Kapoor to showcase the acting talent that the industry and his fans zealously claim he has, but one would be wrong. Finding an expression on his face other than his trademark sadface/angryface/any-negative-emotion-face frown and trademark happyface grin, or even a slight modulation in his voice in the 150-minute runtime of the film was like trying to find a needle in the proverbial haystack.

In fact, just like with Jagga, Kapoor brought almost nothing to his character, Harpreet Singh Bedi, who remained on screen as he would have in the pages Sahni wrote. But the fact that the character was Sikh meant that Kapoor was seen in a turban and with a beard, giving the appearance of a well-thought out character, and despite adding no depth, or even any discernible characteristics to Harpreet Singh, he ended up getting a standing ovation for the hard work of Sahni, Amin, and several others, such as the film's costume designers and makeup artists.

Flops never weighed him down, and merely by constantly calling him a superstar in the same league as stars 15-20 years his senior, he was turned into one.

So, a young man, who happened to be the son of a star (who is also the son of a star), despite not having proven his ability to act on even the smallest platform, was launched as a lead in a big-budget production. Despite its box office failure, he got a star vehicle handed to him by one of the biggest studios in the country. He was turned into a heartthrob using clever cinematic techniques conceived and implemented by others, with his contribution being limited to conventionally good looks, a good physique, and his ability to dance.

Simply based on the fact that he was appearing in offbeat films, he was hailed as a supremely talented actor, despite providing no evidence of this, except the fact that he wasn't as bad as his abysmal competitors. Flops never weighed him down, and merely by constantly calling him a superstar in the same league as stars 15-20 years his senior, he was turned into one. Only after being in the industry for half a decade did he begin to give the odd glimpse of some acting ability. Be it layperson or experienced critic, no one seems to be able to see through the glossy veneer of his stardom and realise that based on talent alone, he would be lucky to get speaking roles in more meritocratic film industries. Within a decade of being in the industry, he's earned enough to produce his own films, and even offer to compensate distributors out of his own pocket should his latest release fail.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the power of Bollywood propaganda.

Every year, World Population Day, which falls on 11 July, serves as a reminder of the burgeoning human population, and its grim implications. For India, the challenge is especially pronounced—by 2024 we are poised to become the most populated country in the world. The theme of World Population Day this year—

Family Planning: Empowering People, Developing Nations—thus was even more significant in the context of the India story.

The role of women in family planning is vital. When women are empowered, they become active participants in decision-making for their family—determining its size, for instance. Enabling women to make informed decisions on whether and when to have children therefore becomes imperative. However, despite the progress made through multiple policy and intervention implementations in the last few decades, there remain some challenges that need to be addressed because for many women in India access to contraceptives is still a problem. A significant number of these women belong to the urban poor population— migrants who move from villages to towns and cities in order to seek better economic opportunities.

For many women in India access to contraceptives is still a problem. A significant number of them belong to the urban poor population— migrants who move from villages to towns and cities...

With limited financial resources, this migrant force ends up in slum settlements. According to the Census 2011 figures, almost 65.5 million Indians live in urban slums, and this number is expected to cross the 100 million mark in the next five years. Along with problems like lack of clean drinking water and inadequate sanitation systems, this population also suffers due to restricted access to essential healthcare services.

Let's take Kamla's example. The 22-year-old, originally from Gaya in Bihar, works as a domestic helper and lives in a one-room shanty in Noida with her husband, a daily wage labourer, and their two-year-old daughter. With work taking up a large chunk of her time, Kamla is clear that she doesn't want to have another child for a few years. Her priority is earning an income and supporting her husband financially. Although Kamla is happy with her life in Noida on most counts, she faces a constant dilemma because she doesn't know whom to reach out to for information on matters of contraception and reproductive health.

Kamla's story is a familiar one. In my work in the field of public healthcare, I've come across several women like her. Young women, typically in their early 20s, often find themselves dealing with unplanned pregnancies. Having children in quick succession puts their health and the health of their children at great risk. A large number of women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Linked closely to maternal health is newborn survival—infection and complications during delivery are leadings causes of infant death.

Due to low levels of awareness and limited knowledge of modern contraceptive methods, these women have little agency over their health. Providing for a large family puts a strain on their financial resources, further compromising their quality of life.

[For women] having a basket of choices is empowering. They are more confident about planning how many children they want and when... This puts them in a position to contribute to not just their families but also the economy.

Recognising the need to reach out to this largely ignored and vulnerable population in the cities, USAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched The Challenge Initiative for Healthy Cities (TCIHC). Covering 31 cities across three states—Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha—the initiative involves working closely with city governments to address family planning and maternal and child health needs among the urban poor.

The first step is identifying the gaps that exist in the areas of family planning and maternal and child health. This is done jointly by the Initiative staff and city officials. The TCIHC staff then provides technical guidance to address these gaps by recommending models and approaches that have been proven successful. Community outreach and behaviour change campaigns are used to create awareness.

Through the Initiative, a comprehensive range of modern contraceptives is made available to poor women, especially in the 15-25 years age group. For women like Kamla, having a basket of choices is empowering. They are more confident about planning how many children they want and when to have them. This puts them in a position to contribute to not just their families but also the economy.

To help women evaluate their options, a central role is played by Accredited Social Health Activists, popularly known as ASHAs. Trained as part of the National Health Mission, these frontline workers are an important source of information on maternal health and family planning. They are equipped to counsel women on a number of issues, including the range of contraceptives available, how to use them, possible side effects, which health facility to go to, etc. Mobilising public and private resources ensures a wider network of health facilities that women can access for free or at subsidised rates.

Empowering women like Kamla by making them aware of their options gives them autonomy over their lives. When not burdened by unwanted pregnancies, women are more productive. They contribute to their family's finances, thereby improving their quality of life. Smaller family units mean that they can afford to provide their children an education and give them a chance to lead a healthy life.

On this World Population Day, governments, as well as civil society organisations, should strengthen their commitment to empower women. Irrespective of their economic strata, all women should have access to high-quality health services. Arming them with the right tools and knowledge about reproductive health will put them in charge of making significant decisions like family planning. And when women are in charge of planning their family, everyone benefits.

Shab is the latest offering from the National Award-winning filmmaker ofI Am, Onir, who is also one of the pioneers of independent cinema in India. In many ways, it was the critical success of his 2005 film My Brother... Nikhilthat encouraged other directors to look upon indie filmmaking as a viable alternative. Over the next few years, Onir has continued to experiment, making films such as Bas Ek Pal and Sorry Bhai! that try to grapple with the different issues associated with sexuality. With Shab, Onir continues this trend. Moreover, it is heartening to see him make a film about the underbelly of Delhi's elite. Unlike some attempts by lesser filmmakers in the past, the subject's treatment is not superficial and has been done in a deeply meditative manner.

'Shab' is a dark brooding treatise on the complexities of human relationships (heterosexual as well as homosexual) that's nothing like anything Bollywood has ever attempted.

In his films, Onir has always managed to present relationships in a different light and he succeeds in doing the same in Shab as well, only this time he goes further than he has ever done. And the result is a dark brooding treatise on the complexities of human relationships (heterosexual as well as homosexual) that's nothing like anything Bollywood has ever attempted. He succeeds in eliciting wonderful performances from an ensemble cast that includes the likes of the 'Mast Mast' girl Raveena Tandon, the Bengali actress Arpita Chatterjee, French talent Simon Frenay, Areesz Ganddi, and the newcomer Ashish Bisht. It's Ganddi and Frenay who stand out with their subtle and deeply nuanced performances. While Chatterjee is a sight for sore eyes, Tandon is the archetypal femme fatale in the vintage Hollywood mode. Bisht is alluring as the small-town boy who dreams of making it big.

Another unique aspect about the film is that it's been shot in Delhi across four different seasons — summer, monsoon, autumn, and winter — and captures the distinct mood of each of these seasons.

Shab, co-written by Merle Kroger and Onir, is essentially a story of love and betrayal but one that's elevated by multilayered characters, ambiguous subtexts and complicated subplots. Another unique aspect of the film is that it's been shot in Delhi across four different seasons — summer, monsoon, autumn, and winter — and captures the distinct mood of each of these seasons. Sachin K. Krishn's cinematography is top notch and helps bring the characters to life, with the city of Delhi as a distinct character in itself. Handling a story with multiple characters requires parallel editing of the highest quality and the brother-sister duo of Onir and Irene Dhar Malik, a National Award winner herself, is certainly up to the task. The songs in Shab are already creating a buzz and the credit goes to composer Mithoon, lyricist Amitabh Verma, and Tips Films & Music.

Sachin K. Krishn's cinematography is topnotch and helps bring the characters to life, with the city of Delhi as a distinct character in itself.

Overall, Shab tries its best to avoid clichés and comes across as a thought-provoking film that offers a refreshing take on human relationships in a world driven by opportunism and hypocrisy. However, Shab is far from being a seamless film in that it unravels like a puzzle and may, therefore, end up puzzling the average viewer looking for a straightforward story of love and heartbreak. Yes, there is plenty of that in Shab but Onir like any intelligent filmmaker hates to spoon-feed his audience. The only way to enjoy the film is to surrender yourself to its ebbs and flows or else you are better off skipping it altogether.

Rating: A-

An NDP leadership candidate who is proposing a federal ban on racial profiling says his idea isn't just a shiny Twitter graphic — he actually has a plan to end the controversial police practice known as carding.

Jagmeet Singh stepped down as deputy leader of the Ontario NDP in May to take a shot at replacing Thomas Mulcair at the federal level. The self-annointed "growth candidate" used social media last week to sell a new-again idea to party supporters.

Racial profiling is violent and systematic yet the halls of power in Canada remain silent. I won't. Here's why: pic.twitter.com/IoTg0PHYkb

— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) July 13, 2017

In a series of abbreviated personal anecdotes, Singh laid out a case why the ban is needed. But in those 17 tweets, there wasn't a clear explanation for how he would do it.

In an interview with HuffPost Canada on Tuesday, the NDP leadership candidate said that in his second year of law school, he experienced his "most shocking" brush with racial profiling.

It happened about 15 years ago. Singh was driving around in warm weather when he decided to pull into Toronto's Casa Loma for a brief stop. Leaning on a fence on the crest of a hill, he noticed two police officers biking up the road near the landmark attraction.

'Do you have a problem?'

He was curious if they would make it up the steep hill.

"So I was kind of staring at them as they were going up the hill, and I continued to stare at them as they turned the corner," Singh recalled.

As he was on his phone at the time, Singh turned his attention back to the call. In the meantime, the officers he had watched earlier surrounded him. "I looked up and they were there," he said. They started questioning him.

"Do you have a problem?" Singh recalls one asking.

"No, why?" he replied.

"Well, you were staring really hard."

Then the officers asked to see his ID, Singh said. They both stepped closer.

This culture of racial bias & anti-black racism results in life and death situations for black, brown & Indigenous people.

— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) July 13, 2017

In that moment, Singh's law training kicked into gear. He knew he had the right to be free from arbitrary detention. He knew he had cover because he wasn't advised he was under arrest. He wasn't told that he was a suspect in a crime. Check, check, check.

"So I stood up and said, 'Sir, I don't want to show you any identification. I don't want to answer your questions. This conversation is over.' Then I turned around and walked away."

Singh got in his car but couldn't leave the parking lot, because the officers had blocked his path with their bikes.

"One of the officers came over to my window and said, 'Well, you seem to know a lot about your rights. You must know that under the Highway Traffic Act, now you must provide ID."

Accordingly, the police ran Singh's plate, name, and car through, but nothing came back. Then the officers called for backup.

The responding officer was a turbaned Sikh man, Singh said. The Sikh officer explicitly told Singh that the carding incident wasn't racial profiling — he called it routine procedure.

Carding (also known as street checks) occur when an officer randomly stops someone for questioning, including asking for personal identification, despite not being suspected of a crime. That information is then entered into a database.

Critics say the practice unfairly targets non-white communities at a disproportionate rate.

The current government doesn't have the courage to take on this issue.Jagmeet Singh

According to Legal Aid Ontario, 8.1 per cent of Toronto's population identified as black between 2008 and 2013. Carding data collected in the same time period shows 24.1 per cent of those stopped were black. (Read more in Toronto Star's ground-breaking Carding Controversy investigations.)

"The fact that they had to call a Sikh man to tell me that it wasn't [carding] just really highlighted how much it was," Singh said.

The confrontation left the Toronto-area raised law student demoralized.

"I've done all this work academically — getting my degree in science in undergrad, was in law school, about to become a lawyer — and all that work was erased in a moment where I was made to feel like I was not as worthy, I didn't belong to my community."

I remember being carded as a law student in Toronto. It was a tense, aggressive and intimidating experience. pic.twitter.com/4Gk0Iju3lS

— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) July 13, 2017

It's been over a decade since that encounter, and Singh believes he can end the dubious practice in a few steps.

The first would be to define "once and for all" what racial profiling means, and to ban it across federal enforcement agencies. That includes the RCMP, border control, and immigration screening.

Next would be to establish a national task force to review data on carding and street checks collected from municipalities. It would provide centralized data to extrapolate how racial profiling is affecting specific communities.

Anecdotal evidence can then be replaced with hard data, proposes Singh.

The last piece to Singh's plan stems from his own interaction with police at Casa Loma all those years ago: to require officers to notify people of their rights off the bat, and to offer people "receipts" for every street check or carding interaction.

"So I should say to you, 'Hey, you are being stopped right now. But you don't have to talk to me if you don't want to. You can leave. This interaction is voluntary'," Singh explained.

The documentation would allow people to try and prove an official pattern if they feel they're being unfairly targeted.

"So you get stopped four times, you have receipts. You can say, 'Well, why do I keep on getting stopped if it's supposed to be specific investigations'."

Pivot Legal Society, a Vancouver-based legal advocacy group, suggests other remedies as well including mandatory body cameras for patrol officers, and disciplinary proceedings and suspensions for officers who breach a carding ban.

More from HuffPost Canada:

• Jagmeet Singh Knows You'll Talk About How He Looks. Here's Why He Doesn't Mind
• Jagmeet Singh Is Acting Like A Liberal, Charlie Angus Says
• Jagmeet Singh Marks Multiculturalism Day With Personal Story

'Not just an idea or a slogan'

The proposal to introduce a federal racial profiling ban isn't a new one.

Former NDP MP Libby Davies tabled a private member's bill in 2004 to introduce the exact same thing. But the bill failed to pick up the support it needed from Paul Martin's Liberal government to become law.

As a member of the Ontario legislature, Singh tried to end carding in 2015. But the province "didn't go far enough" to actually make it happen, he said.

Singh doesn't think the current Liberal government lead by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has the "courage" to take on the issue of racial profiling.

"It's an issue that is devastating the lives of people. It's directly impacting racialized people across this country. It's an issue that I've experienced personally. And there's a concrete way to stop it," said the Brampton MPP.

Rival accuses Singh of acting like a Liberal

At an NDP leadership debate earlier this month, Singh called himself the only candidate who could grow the party with new members and volunteers. But he was called out by fellow leadership contender Charlie Angus for having a saviour complex, and acting like a Liberal who adopts "big image" and "big spin" to win.

"That's what Liberals do; that's not what New Democrats do," Angus said.

When asked about that political attack and if the pledge to end racial profiling plays into a "big spin" strategy, Singh deflected and swiped at Trudeau's government instead, bringing up the Liberals' broken promise over electoral reform.

"The current government doesn't have the courage to take on this issue," Singh told HuffPost Canada. He defended his proposal as one with "definitive steps that would actually help us achieve the goal of ending racial profiling."

He asserted those "definitive steps" differentiate him from the Liberals, referencing Trudeau's campaign pledge that 2015 would be the last federal election under first-past-the-post — without having a distinct plan of what system would replace it.

"Then they don't propose any clear solutions. They don't propose an alternative."

The Liberal government conceded earlier this year that electoral reform wouldn't happen before the next election.

"I'm not just saying that we need to end racial profiling, but I'm also backing it up with clear policy that would actually achieve that result," Singh said.

It's "not just an idea or a slogan."

After three years of violence, Islamic State has encountered a major defeat that could mean that its end is near. On July 10 2017, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi, after a successful nine-month military offensive to "liberate" the northern city of Mosul, declared "total victory" over IS in Iraq.

He categorically said: "I announce from here the end and the failure and the collapse of the terrorist state of falsehood and terrorism which the terrorist Daesh announced from Mosul", using the Arabic acronym for ISIS or ISIL.

Almost exactly three years ago, on June 29 2014, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the group's self-styled caliph, proclaimed a cross-border caliphate stretching over vast swathes of northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria.

Today, the Iraqi half of that territory has been almost totally eliminated (the northwestern Iraqi city of Tel Afar, close to the Syrian border, being an exception) while the Syrian half, based in the city of Raqqa, is facing imminent collapse under powerful US-backed Kurdish-led military offensives.

It's a major turning point.

In the summer of 2014, an ISIL blitzkrieg swiftly defeated Iraqi defence forces across northwestern Iraq, capturing some 40% of Iraqi territories.

Prior to this rapid conquest, ISIL fighters had captured the Syrian province of Raqqa in January 2014, taking advantage of the bloody civil war let loose by pro-democracy movements.

But the territorial conquests could not be sustained for long. After a string of crushing military defeats throughout 2015 and early 2016 at the hands of Iraqi and Syrian armed forces, ISIL lost 65% of its Iraqi territories and 45% of captured ground in Syria.

When Raqqa falls - sooner or later - to Kurdish-led forces, it could mean the complete destruction of the caliphate.

What went wrong with ISIL?

Al-Baghdadi, whose fate is currently unknown, declared his caliphate to realise a series of "impossible" objectives - including restoring Islamic power under a single authority, eliminating US and Western influence on Muslim lands and laying a claim to global leadership - and called upon all Sunni Muslims from Europe to East Asia to unite under his new flag.

These were the same objectives that the now-deceased al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden boastfully proclaimed in the early 1990s.

They were also unrealistic goals given the policy choices and capabilities of ISIL. In his first official speech on June 29 2014, Al-Baghdadi presented a world divided into two mutually opposed camps: Islam, and the camp of disbelief and hypocrisy.

He put pro-caliphate Sunni Muslims in the camp of Islam while the camp of disbelief was the abode of Shia Muslims, Jews, Christians and almost everybody else. This set the new caliphate on a collision course with the rest of the world.

ISIL militants, like their Wahhabi counterparts in the Gulf, also declared Shias to be non-Muslims and viewed the sheikhs, kings and emirs of the Gulf region as American surrogates, ringing alarm bells in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The spectre of the threat they posed soon forced Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US to close ranks to militarily deter and contain ISIL together, despite their differences.

Lack of followers

The spate of atrocities committed by ISIL fighters against the Yazidi community in Syria, who practice a non-Islamic faith, led the United Nations to accuse ISIL of perpetrating genocidal crimes.

This senseless use of violence against non-Muslims alienated most Sunni Muslims, so ISIL was never able to develop much popular support. Less than 8% of Sunni Muslims in the top 20 Muslim-majority countries across the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia supported the ISIL caliphate.

In early December 2015, to ISIL's despair, thousands of Muslim clerics from across the globe declared the caliphate a terrorist organisation and branded its supporters non-Muslims.

ISIL's military defeats, loss of territories and control over resources represented further serious blows.

In 2014, the caliphate had eight million Iraqis and Syrians living in its territories, assets worth nearly US$2 billion and annual revenue US$1.9 billion.

Two years later, after territorial losses in Iraq and Syria meant fewer people and businesses to tax, that revenue was more than halved to US$870 million. Its control over oil fields - a lucrative source of money - also shrank from 2014 to 2016.

ISIL's challenges and legacies

ISIL might be on its way to becoming history, but it will certainly leave its mark.

Just as its emergence posed a twofold challenge (territorial as well as ideological) to the Middle East and the West, ISIL's demise is also leaving behind the legacies of sectarian violence and killing, inter-ethnic malice and seemingly unmanageable rivalries involving regional and extra-regional powers.

Rightly or wrongly, many commentators saw the declaration of the cross-border ISIL caliphate as a possible death blow to the post-first world war political arrangements in the region.

Present-day national borders in the Middle East are the outcome of a secretly negotiated agreement between Britain and France from May 1916, known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement. It divided the Ottoman Arab territories of the Levant, Jordan, Iraq and Palestine between Britain and France.

Half a dozen Arab states were created: Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Israel, originally created as a "homeland" for the Jewish people in 1917, declared itself a state in 1948.

The caliphate partially challenged British- and French-imposed national boundaries by systematically dismantling the Iraq-Syria border, redrawing the map. It also expressed its resolve to eradicate colonial legacies in the region by extending the boundaries of the caliphate.

This attempt to rewrite the history of the Middle East may keep destabilising the region for years to come.

Ideologically, ISIL has challenged the West's eurocentric claims to universalism, in which Western values of democracy, human rights and freedom are promoted as universal values that are applicable to all societies, regardless of cultural and racial differences.

Though criticised by many people from within the West, eurocentrism is alive in the hearts and minds of many Western people. The 2003 US invasion to remodel Iraqi society on American lines is just one example.

ISIL rejects Western dominance over the Middle East and has sought to promote the alternative Islamic claim to universalism based on the commandments of the holy Koran.

The Koran instructs all humans to engage in universal morality by creating and upholding a moral order based on the values of justice, equality, truthfulness, fairness and honesty. This applies to all humans, regardless of their ethnic, cultural and racial differences.

Claiming a universal moral order that negates Western values could not but pit ISIL against the West. Future Islamic radical groups, if they emerge, are likely to carry on the ideological battle.

They may well do so in less violent ways. The Koran does not sanction brutal and inhumane methods to fulfil its commandments.

The mess after ISIL

The possible end of ISIL could still mean a more unstable Middle East, at least in the short term.

Currently, most Iraqi factions have morphed into a common front against ISIL, hiding the mistrust and rancor that persists between Shia and Sunni Iraqis, among diverse militia groups, and between Arab and Kurdish Iraqis.

If ISIL disappears, this tentative, temporary alliance may simply fall apart, unleashing more violence on the war-ravaged nation.

Syrian society is likewise polarised; along divisions between the foreign-backed pro and anti-government groups and between the rebel groups themselves. These tensions will outlive ISIS.

Other contradictory interests persist in the region, too: those of Iran, the US and Russia in Syria, and the Iran-Saudi competition for power and influence across the Middle East.

The elimination of ISIL will reaffirm the region's post-first world war political and territorial status quo but don't expect it to bring peace to the Middle East.

Mohammed Nuruzzaman, Associate Professor of International Relations, Gulf University for Science and Technology

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.