KOLKATA — A three-member BJP delegation, led by former Union minister SS Ahluwalia, arrived at trouble-torn Bhatpara on Saturday, where two people were killed and seven injured in clashes between two groups believed to be affiliated to the TMC and the saffron party.

The BJP central leadership had asked the team led by Ahluwalia, an MP from West Bengal, to visit Bhatpara in North 24 Pargana district. He is accompanied by MPs Satya Pal Singh and BD Ram, besides other state leaders.

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Singh and Ram are former police officers and MPs from Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand respectively. Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh is also accompanying them.

The delegation will meet family members of the deceased and talk to the locals. It will submit a report to party president and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Two people had died and seven others injured in clashes in Bhatpara between the groups suspected to be attached to TMC and BJP on Thursday. Section 144 has been imposed by the administration in the wake of the clashes.

Earlier in the day, a joint delegation of CPI(M) and Congress headed by Leader of Opposition Abdul Mannan and CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty visited the troubled areas of Baruipara, Jagaddal, Bhatpara. They demanded a CBI inquiry into the killings.

On Friday, the BJP leadership had also demanded a CBI inquiry into the incident to bring out the truth.

A TMC citadel for long, Bhatpara has been witnessing frequent post-poll violence between the rival parties.

The fight intensified ever since TMC MLA Arjun Singh crossed over to the BJP and was elected to Lok Sabha from Barrackpore. Bhatpara comes under the Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency.

In the bypoll to the Bhatpara Assembly seat that were held along with the Lok Sabha elections, Arjun Singh’s son Pawan Singh had defeated TMC candidate and former state minister Madan Mitra.

A black bear created a stir in the US when it somehow locked itself inside a Montana home and then nestled in to a wardrobe for a nap.

On Friday, Missoula County sheriff’s officials said the bear just yawned when deputies knocked on the window and unlocked the door in an attempt to coax it to leave earlier that morning.

They had to call Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department officials, who tranquillised the bear so it could be moved to more natural territory.

Sheriff’s officials said in a Facebook post that deputies responded at 5.45am to a call that a bear had opened the door to the Butler Creek’s utility room and somehow shut the bolt once inside.

They say the bear ‘began ripping the room apart’ before climbing up on to a wardrobe shelf for a nap.

Much like life or a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get on “The Graham Norton Show,” which seemingly pairs up celebrity guests at random.

But a truly impressive group of famous types, including Tom Hanks and Tom Holland, assembled for an episode of the British talk show this week, gifting us with a master class in acting we never knew we needed. 

Hanks, who’s busy promoting the latest movie in the “Toy Story” franchise, was asked about the challenges of voice-acting, which is usually considered the cushiest gig in Hollywood.

The Oscar winner, however, had nothing positive to say about the experience, which requires long hours in a recording booth repeating the same phrases ad nauseam. 

“I have never begun a recording session without wishing it was already over, because understand, Woody is clenched all the time, he’s clenched,” Hanks said before mimicking his alter ego Woody. “There’s something he’s gotta explain. Or, ‘Come on guys!’ Or, ‘No, no, no, no, look out! Look out! Look out! This way!’”

To prove his point, he turned his attention toward Holland and put the “Spider-Man” star’s acting abilities to the test.

Holland was a bit taken aback, as he recited Hanks’ prompt back to him in a number of ways, but his performance wasn’t exactly cutting it.

“Could you try it with a bit more something to it because this is a big, important scene,” the 62-year-old actor asked, to which Holland replied, “Yes, Tom Hanks.”

Of course, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhaal were on the couch next to the Toms enjoying every second of the young actor’s time in the hot seat. 

But Holland eventually pulled it out, impressing his much-older audience and proving he might have a future in voice-acting after all. 

NEW DELHI — Amid rising geopolitical tensions between the US and Iran, India’s aviation regulator DGCA Saturday said Indian airlines have decided to avoid the “affected part of the Iranian airspace” and reroute their flight “suitably”.

On Friday, the American aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) prohibiting US-registered aircraft from operating “in the overwater area of the Tehran Flight Information Region until further notice, due to heightened military activities and increased political tensions”.

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“All Indian operators in consultation with DGCA have decided to avoid the affected part of Iranian Airspace to ensure safe travel for the passengers. They will re-route flights suitably,” the DGCA said on Twitter.

On Thursday, Iran shot down a US military drone in its airspace, following which the FAA had warned that there is a possibility that commercial aircraft can be mistakenly targeted in Iranian airspace.

Consequently, major airlines around the world have already rerouted their aircraft.

In a clip from a TV show that has garnered over 120,000 views since it was first posted on Instagram, model Erika Packard is seen showing a shirt with patterned patches on it to her co-host Gabriella Demetriades and explaining how she is upcycled her ‘uncle’s shirt’ using her mother’s ‘old bandhni saree’.

Harmless, right?

Only, the patches Packard points at are ikat, not bandhni and the shirt is not a hand-me-down from the model’s uncle but a design created by Mumbai-based brand Ikat Story, which the channel sourced for the show. Chances are, the blatant appropriation of a designer’s work on a show put together by powerful businesses like AXN, Sony and Conde Nast would remain as another piece of gossip in Mumbai’s sequestered fashion circles had it not been for a Instagram handle called Diet Sabya (DS). The handle, then just a few months old, posted a clip, tagged the model in question, the show’s producers and directed its thousands of followers to the designer Chandni Sareen who deserved actual credits.  

Packard later confessed on Instagram that the she was simply following a script given to her by the makers of the show. The post was hashtagged ‘gandi’ (dirty) like a few of Diet Sabya’s previous posts and it seemed appropriate since it was targeted at corporate houses making money off stealing a designer’s works.

Indian fashion has a massive plagiarism problem. That boutique “designers” make bulk purchases at Bangkok to sell under their own labels at astronomical prices back home has long been one of the industry’s worst-kept secret. Sabyasachi Couture makes sure to register its designs before they enter the market and Tarun Tahiliani battled pattern infringement in court.

Diet Sabya’s snark therefore seemed like a legitimate way to have designers copying from other brands and selling clothes for obscene amounts of money, actually develop some sort of a conscience. Or fear of being called out.

However, as Diet Sabya’s followers swelled, people started pointing out that the handle’s snark was often misdirected and at times, plain uncalled for.

FASHION POLICING AND FEMINISM

Despite the occasional knock, the account gets it mostly right, ensuring that chronic plagiarists have to at least face public scrutiny and the shame of exposure, if not legal action. It’s the reason why Diet Sabya finds support from many stakeholders in the fashion industry. Designer Nachiket Barve, who was featured as someone whose work has been copied in the past, fashion entrepreneur Pernia Qureshi, and celebrity stylist Ami Patel, who has been called out by the account on several occasions, all believe that Diet Sabya serves the important purpose of making designers, brands, stylists, and photographers conscious of the originality of their work.

When actress Sanya Malhotra wore a jumpsuit from Madison boutique, the account was the first to point out that it was a complete rip-off  — colour, cut, and design — of Australian brand Sheike. 

Similarly, when a lehenga from Suneet Verma’s 2018/19 couture collection very closely resembled the one designed by Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla in 2015, Diet Sabya was quick to note, and poke fun at, the glaring similarities.  

It’s a form of criticism that’s new to the Indian fashion industry, which itself is an infant in the global scheme of things. India’s first fashion week was in 2000, 53 long years after the first New York Fashion Week. “For a long time, the only kind of fashion criticism we knew in India was the criticism of omission. If we didn’t like a brand or a designer, we didn’t cover it. You couldn’t waste precious print space on negativity,” says Nonita Kalra, editor of Harper’s Bazaar India who believes Diet Sabya signals a ‘democratisation in the process of giving opinions’.

With 167K followers, Diet Sabya said they started out as a platform to “call out copies and fakes, but has evolved into a larger platform to highlight issues like workplace injustice, bullying, worker safety, photoshop in media…” and the list is growing. But to many, including this writer, it looks a lot like Internet bullying, albeit with an impressive knowledge of fashion. 

FUN VERSUS KINDNESS

The “gandi” hashtag (a constant in Diet Sabya’s posts) has a lot to do with my perception of Diet Sabya’s particular brand of fashion criticism as being little more than a glorified version of online bullying. The language of fashion and beauty commentary is evolving, thanks to all the voices advocating for inclusivity and kindness in the way people — especially women — are spoken to.

Using a descriptor like gandi (dirty), which has historically been used as a pejorative to describe women and their characters, is primitive and problematic at best, and derogatory at worst. It is tough to overlook the association when used by an account that mostly traffics in the criticism of women’s fashion. To be fair, Diet Sabya does use the hashtag on posts related to male fashion as well, but compared to the women, male fashion or celebrities rarely ever get called out.

Diet Sabya describes its tone as “simple, sharp, and a direct antithesis of the self-congratulatory nature the fashion world is so proud of,” and defends “#gandi” as “not for the women (or men) in question, but for the choice of fashion they’d want to associate themselves with,” in an email interview with HuffPost India. But the link between taking potshots at the women who didn’t even design the clothes and holding up a mirror to the fashion industry is tenuous at best.

One post features television actress Mouni Roy alongside Hollywood actress Blake Lively Both women are in similar-looking yellow dresses. The caption takes a swipe at Roy’s inability to land the original Oscar De La Renta original that Lively is wearing — it loosely translates into a chant that maybe she’ll wear an original in her next life.

Another one, this one featuring Bollywood actress Yami Gautam alongside Bella Hadid, calls Gautam “Bella Hadid from Bandra”. Chronicled within its highlighted stories is a poll that Diet Sabya ran in its early days — “Is Tanya Patni Ridhi Mehra with bad photoshop?”

In October last year, when television actor Yuvika Chaudhry wore a lime green lehenga, similar to Sabyasachi ensemble Alia Bhatt wore to Sonam Kapoor’s wedding, for her own mehendi ceremony, DS posted a photo from Chaudhry’s wedding celebrations captioning it ‘It’s a mess’.

The owners of the account believe that it is the celebrity’s “job to enquire before seamlessly sliding into knock-off gowns,” but that still doesn’t explain how making cruel jibes at actresses and television stars — who probably cannot afford the styling and wardrobe budget of a top Bollywood actress — makes fashion accountable.

When asked why the account has only ever called out a handful of male celebrities, they claim it’s because “male celebrity fashion is (mostly) so bland, there’s nothing to call out.” They don’t subscribe to “ANY biases,” the owners emphasise, in their response. 

UN-FOLLOWERS

For some, like former fan and fashion commentator Varun Rana, and celebrity stylist Nitasha Gaurav, the constant stream of negativity isn’t worth the service Diet Sabya offers, and have chosen to unfollow the account. Both believe that the owners took a much-needed and good idea, and ruined it with the execution. “If it was meant to be about fashion, their knowledge and research would speak for itself. They wouldn’t need a “gandi” hashtag or poop emojis,” says Rana.

Gaurav describes Diet Sabya’s way or expression “catty and bitchy, with overtones of bullying”, and doesn’t agree with its penchant for targeting smaller stars like TV actresses, Bollywood newbies, or models. “They’re not very snarky when the stars are big, but are particularly nasty about smaller stars. Which is worse, because they have access to fewer things. It is common knowledge that the bigger the star, the wider their access to designers within the country and internationally.”

But for others, like stylist Ami Patel, as long as the process is unbiased, the means justify the end. The account may be doing nothing to moderate the gleefully nasty, sometimes even abusive comments that its more dedicated followers often leave on the account’s posts; but it also doesn’t stop designers, brands, celebrities or stylists from vehemently refuting them, or putting forward their side of the story.  Kalra defends Diet Sabya’s right to stay true to its voice. “You can’t call yourself liberal and force someone to self-censor. The freedom of expression is sacrosanct to creativity,” she says. “Personally, I believe that people having a voice is better than them not having a voice, even if you don’t always agree with what they’re saying, or how they’re saying it. It’s forced me to be more liberal and less old-fashioned in the way I think.”

ANONYMOUS WATCHDOG

Anonymity is another important variable in the ‘critic or bully?’ debate. Anyone who has ever spent any length of time on the Internet can attest to this: it’s a lot easier to say cruel, hurtful things online when you don’t have to suffer the consequences of those words in the real world. In the case of Diet Sabya, where its acerbic tone is fast becoming the very fabric of its identity, anonymity helps cushion its owners as much as it enables them. If nothing else, it is hypocritical for an anonymous account to demand that the fashion industry be accountable for their work, while being answerable to no one for their own. Is concealing the owners’ identity important to the account’s purpose of exposing design thieves, or is it a convenient way of subverting accountability? Perhaps, a bit of both.  

Gaurav and Barve believe that anonymity is fine, as long as the focus is firmly on fashion. But Qureshi and Rana feel otherwise. “Without anonymity, they wouldn’t have the courage to say one-tenth of what they do,” says Qureshi.  

Diet Sabya might believe itself to be an “unbiased” platform that “calls out stuff that needs to be called out” in all their “unfiltered glory”, but even they aren’t completely immune to public and celebrity pressure.

In January this year, Diet Sabya called out Anamika Khanna for the conceptual similarity in her AK-OK lehenga and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour’s AWOK Air Jordan sneakers. Sonam and Rhea Kapoor immediately rushed to defend Khanna, writing lengthy social media posts about how AK-OK was an inside joke between Khanna and her son while she battled a medical emergency. Eventually, the post was taken down. Diet Sabya claimed that it was decision spurred by “empathy, not intimidation” and apologised to their followers for “failing them”. In our email interview, the owners of the account, without mentioning this specific incident, claimed they “Possibly regretted a call-out one time, but also regretted taking it down.”  

Anamika Khanna, on her part, categorically denies having asked for the post to be taken down. “Neither I, nor anyone from my brand reached out to Diet Sabya. I think it was Sonam and Rhea’s posts that made them reach out to us and after hearing our side, they made the decision to take it down.”  

Diet Sabya is modelled after Diet Prada, an Instagram platform that calls out ripoffs and imitations long international designers. But Diet Prada’s focus is squarely about educating fashion enthusiasts and starting important conversations about the difference between inspiration and imitation, even as it continues to name and shame designers for pirating; Diet Sabya’s “growth” in the last year can be chalked down to this: it’s even more cocky and toxic than it was when it started a year ago.

Stephen Colbert is less than impressed with most of the Democratic 2020 candidates’ favorite comfort foods.

“The Late Show” host on Friday responded to their claims in The New York Times’ “Meet the Candidates” survey ― that they turn to things like vegetables, mocha coffee and mints ― with some all-American advice.

“Oh, they are doomed,” Colbert joked.

“Mints? Iced tea? Come on. You’re in America. Just say burgers. Or pizza. Or nachos. Or French fries. Or just chugging Alfredo sauce straight from the jar,” he added.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-N.Y.) choice did get Colbert’s vote, however.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is well known to be a fan of fast food.

Check out the clip here:

And see Colbert’s fact-check of Trump’s Time magazine cover boast here:

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian lawmakers chanted “Death to America” during a parliament session on Sunday after a speaker accused the United States of being the “real world terrorist”, amid escalating tension with Washington following the downing of an unmanned U.S. drone.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he aborted a military strike to retaliate for the drone incident because it could have killed 150 people, and signaled he was open to talks with Tehran.

Iran said on Saturday it would respond firmly to any threat against it.

“America is the real terrorist in the world by spreading chaos in countries, giving advanced weapons to terrorist groups, causing insecurity, and still it says ‘Come, let’s negotiate’,” the parliament’s deputy speaker, Masoud Pezeshkian, said at the start of a session broadcast live on state radio.

“Death to America,” chanted many lawmakers.

The chants, often repeated since the 1979 Islamic revolution which toppled the U.S.-backed Shah, came weeks after Trump said in a U.S. television interview: “They (Iranians) haven’t screamed ‘death to America’ lately.”

On Sunday, India rejected a US religious freedom report, saying it sees no locus standi for a foreign government to pronounce on the state of its citizens’ constitutionally protected rights.

In its annual 2018 International Religious Freedom Report, the State Department alleged Friday that mob attacks by violent extremist Hindu groups against minority communities, particularly Muslims, continued in India in 2018, amid rumours that victims had traded or killed cows for beef. 

Responding to media queries on the report, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, “India is proud of its secular credentials, its status as the largest democracy and a pluralistic society with a longstanding commitment to tolerance and inclusion.” 

The Indian Constitution guarantees fundamental rights to all its citizens, including its minority communities, he said.

It is widely acknowledged that India is a vibrant democracy where the Constitution provides protection of religious freedom, and where democratic governance and rule of law further promote and protect fundamental rights, Kumar asserted.

“We see no locus standi for a foreign entity/government to pronounce on the state of our citizens’ constitutionally protected rights,” he said.

Mandated by the Congress, the State Department in its voluminous report gives its assessment of the status of religious freedom in almost all the countries and territories of the world.

Releasing the report at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week said the report was like a report card which tracks countries to see how well they have respected this fundamental human right.

Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari has received a death threat through an SMS on his personal phone number, in which the sender said he is under “extreme compulsion” to eliminate the leader.

The unidentified person also threatened to eliminate the prime minister “if need be”, Tiwari said.

“I have informed the police about the threat,” Tiwari told PTI.

The sender of the SMS also said in his Hindi message that he was “sorry” for deciding to eliminate Tiwari under “extreme compulsion”.

A formal complaint about the threat will be lodged soon, said Delhi BJP’s Media Relations head Neelkant Bakshi.

The SMS was received on Tiwari’s mobile phone at 12.52 pm on Friday which he saw on Saturday evening and immediately informed the police, he added.

A 24-year-old man named Tabrez Ansari was attacked by a mob in Jhankhand’s Kharsawan district and beaten up mercilessly for hours on 18 June. He died in the hospital on 22 June, allegedly from the injuries. 

The SP of Kharsawan told HuffPost India that Tabrez was handed over to the police after being beaten up and was in judicial custody since June 18. On the morning of 22 June, his condition worsened and he was taken to the hospital where he died. While many people were involved in the mob that beat up Tabrez, the primary accused — one Pappu Mandal — was arrested after his death. 

“Tabrez was with two other men who had gone there to steal. The villagers caught them. While two of the men fled, Tabrez was caught by the villagers and beaten up,” Chandan Kumar Sinha, SP of Seraikella-Kharsawan told HuffPost India. The incident took place in Dhatkidih, roughly 10 kilometres from where Tabrez lived.

Aurungzeb Ansari, a Jharkhand-based activist, told HuffPost India that the man worked as a labourer and welder in Pune. A month ago, Tabrez returned to his village to get married and also celebrate Eid with his wife and family. 

The activist said that on 18 June, Tabrez left for Jamshedpur at 5pm with two other men from his neighbourhood. On investigating, Ansari later found that the men he had left with has a ‘dubious’ reputation in the neighbourhood. 

“Their background is slightly sketchy and Tabrez did not know them very well. I think he was manipulated into going with them, we are still speaking to locals and figuring the matter,” Ansari said.

He added that the mob accused Tabrez of being a thief and beat him up, while the other two men fled and has been absconding.

The entire incident of lynching was recorded and shared on WhatsApp and two of the videos have been shared by Ansari and a human rights lawyer with HuffPost India. In the first video half-minute long video, Tabrez is shown squatting on a grassy patch of land as a mob stands behind him and shouts. One man, whose face is not visible, is seen hitting Tabrez with a wooden stick as the later screams and begs to be let off. The clips don’t show the faces of the people in the mob.

The second is a ten-minute long video where Tabrez is seen tied to a pole, while men keep beating him with sticks. In the snatches of conversation in Hindi, the mob is heard accusing Tabrez of entering one of their house. “Ghar main ghusega (You will enter the house?),” men are heard shouting at him. The young man is heard denying he entered the house and saying the other two men did, and he had no clue what was going on.

He is later heard saying he was asked to stand downstairs and the two men went inside a building. “I did not know anything,” he says.

Then the mob asks for his name and asks him to repeat it several times, while beating him. “People know me as Sonu in my village, they don’t call me Tabrez,” he says. They ask for names of the members of his family. A bike, that the other two men had left behind is also mentioned.

All this while, Tabrez is seen gasping for breath, crying and shrieking. The men in the mob keep threatening him that he will be ‘beaten up a lot’ that day. 

They also comment on the absconding men and say that they have left him behind to get attacked. “My mother is dead. I am a Muslim, I am swearing on my mother, I did not...,” Tabrez is heard saying.

Towards the end of the video, the man asks people to step back, asks the victim to shut up and then demand Tabrez chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. At first Tabrez shakes his head and soon enough, as the crowd starts chanting Jai Shri Ram, he is seen chanting the refrain along with them. 

“Jai Shri Ram, Jai Shri Ram, Jai Shri Ram, Jai Hanuman,” Tabrez is seen chanting.

Ansari said he has appealed the local police superintendent to investigate the matter and arrest both the Muslim men who accompanied Tabrez and the men who lynched him. “I am sure he was not a thief and was fooled by the other men, no one in the locality said Tabrez as having a criminal past. But even if someone is caught, you turn him to the police. He was beaten up for hours, made to chant Hindu religious slogans ― how is that a fair punishment,” Ansari said.

Seraikella-Kharsawan deputy SP confirmed that an FIR has been lodged in the incident on Saturday.

Jharkhand, had witnessed a spate of lynchings in the past few years. In 2016, a Muslim cattle trader and a 12-year-old boy accompanying him was beaten up and killed by a mob and their bodies hung from a tree in Latehar district. Eight men were sentenced to life for the killings. In 2018, Union minister Jayant Sinha faced criticism for garlanding seven men accused of killing a Muslim tempo driver in Ramgarh on suspicion of smuggling cow meat. The men were later released on bail after which they met Sinha. BJP’s Raghubar Das, chief minister of Jharkhand, however had ordered ‘strict action’ against the ‘culprits’ responsible for the Ramgarh lynching incident. 

This is a developing story and will be updated as more details emerge.

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Panchkula, HARYANA — In 2004, when Col. Bahadur Singh Rangi (Retd.) used his savings and pension money to buy some land in Amravati Enclave, a sprawling township at the foothills of the Himalayas, he thought he was getting a great deal.

The society was close to the army canteen and military hospital, and had hundreds of multi-storied apartments, along with shopping malls and  restaurants.

“It seemed like nothing less than a paradise for serving and retired defence personnel  like me,” Col. Rangi told HuffPost India.

15 years later, he is one among hundreds of people, many of them either part of or retired from the armed forces, trapped in a double bind, much of which will be familiar to many frustrated homebuyers across the country.

An administrative deadlock means that Amravati Enclave plot owners don’t have ownership rights over the land they bought, even as a clause inserted by the developer in the sale deeds has made it almost impossible for them to sell or transfer the property.

Though Haryana’s Town and Country Planning Department approved the Amravati Enclave township, spread over 118 acres on the Kalka-Shimla national highway, back in 1999, the district administration still hasn’t incorporated this in its revenue records.

The people who bought the land didn’t know they were getting only occupational, not ownership rights. Majority of the area inside Amravati Enclave is still classified as agricultural land.

Adding to this headache is the fact that the developer, Amarnath Aggarwal Group (ANA), included a ‘No Objection’ clause in the conveyance deed, which prevents buyers from selling or transferring their plots without written approval from the company. Though the Haryana government had, in 1999, issued a notification asking all private developers to remove the clause, all of ANA’s existing sale deeds till date still include it.

Virbhan Garg, the estate officer at Amravati Enclave, told HuffPost India that though the company has excluded the clause from all the conveyance deeds executed after the government’s order, it cannot be removed from those done earlier.

Homeowners are outraged.

“Why should my children beg in front of the coloniser’s (developer’s) children to sell a property which I had purchased years ago? What stops a coloniser from removing the ‘No Objection’ clause even when I made full and final payment against the plot?” asked Col. Rangi, who is also a former president of the Democrats Welfare Association Of Amravati Enclave Residents (DWAAR).

No khasra, no rights

In 2008, four years after Rangi bought a 1 kanal plot (around 5,445 sq. ft) in the township through a conveyance deed (transfer of land title), he and his son approached State Bank of India for a loan against the land to construct a house. The bank refused their request, saying that the mutation of the plot hadn’t been done.

Mutation refers to the rectification in the records of the municipal authorities (in the case of urban properties) and local revenue officers (in case of other properties), replacing the name of the owner with that of the new owner.

“The officials asked us to either get the mutation done or else get a letter for ‘permission to mortgage’ from the builder,” said Col. Rangi.

He said the area revenue officer has refused to carry out the mutation of any of the plots as their conveyance deed does not mention a khasra number.

Interestingly, while the state’s revenue department has refused to acknowledge Rangi and hundreds of other buyers residing inside Amravati Enclave as the plot ‘owners’ in the absence of any mutation, the Town and Country Planning Department says that mutation is not necessary for plots of a residential project approved by it.

The project was approved by the Town and Country Planning Department in 1999 and a licence number issued under the provisions of the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975, and permission to develop the enclave granted under section 11 of the Punjab New Capital (Periphery) Control Haryana Amendment Act, 1971.

“According to the Act, mutation is not required for a plot purchased in a residential project approved by the Town and Country Planning Department. Only a registered conveyance or sale deed is done in such cases,” K. Makrand Pandurang, Director General of Town and Country Planning in Haryana, told HuffPost India.

However, when asked which section of which Act includes this provision, he asked for some time to respond. HuffPost India will update this story with Pandurang’s response once we receive it. The aggrieved residents have also claimed that while the DG has mentioned this provision verbally to them, he refused to assure the same in written order.

Balkar Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Panchkula, told HuffPost India that he ordered an enquiry into the complaints raised by the Amravati Enclave residents around six months ago but is yet to receive a report from the tehsildar.

However, in a letter written to the aggrieved Welfare Association of Amravati Enclave in August 2016, the Kalka tehsildar said that the sale deeds registered in the sub registrar office at Kalka mention only the plot number and area.

“While incorporating and sanctioning the mutation in favour of the purchase, khewat/khatauni and khasra numbers are essential to maintain a record of village land. Nowhere in the sale deeds of Amravati Township, khasra number is mentioned. You are requested to fulfil the discrepancies and then only the mutation can be incorporated in your favour,” stated the letter.

“The concerned deputy commissioners are  playing a cat-and-mouse game with us but are unable to update the land records since 1999. The incumbent deputy commissioner too has claimed helplessness and asked us to approach Haryana Real Estate Regulatory Authority (HRERA),”said Col. N.R. Sharma (retd.), former secretary of DWAAR.

HRERA was set up in 2017 to regulate and promote the real estate sector and to ensure the sale of land, apartments and buildings in an efficient and transparent manner. A delegation of residents met HRERA representatives, but there has been no progress so far.

HuffPost India made repeated attempts to contact HRERA chairman Rajan Gupta over phone but didn’t receive a response.

Occupants, not owners

Last year, Haryana chief minister Khattar had announced that mutation must be done along with the plot registry to prevent fraud and harassment of homebuyers. He also said that if there is an error or fraud in the land registry process, the concerned tehsildar would be held responsible.

But none of this has solved the problem faced by the Amravati residents. Both DG Pandurang and DC Singh have not acknowledged the Haryana CM’s order.  A confusion whether the order also pertains to old cases remains a burning issue.

Sec. 8(4) of Haryana Development and Regulation Of Urban Areas Act, 1975, holds the developer and the Town and Country Planning Department responsible for ensuring that the land title is transferred to the plot holder.

Social worker Babita Talwar, who lives in the society, told HuffPost India that plot owners had been given possession of the land only as occupants, not owners.

“Despite paying the full amount, we are staying in our own house as an occupant. Despite clear directions from Haryana government, the district officials have failed to grant us complete ownership rights,” she said.

HuffPost India has seen the occupation certificate issued by the Town and Country Planning Department.

Hargobind Goyal, director of ANA, told HuffPost India that he was unaware ofany of the orders issued by the Haryana CM and also the directions of the Town and Country Planning department to remove the ‘No Objection clause’ from the conveyance deeds.

“We are only following the footsteps of Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), whereby it  only provides plot number and not any khasra number to their allottees,” said Goyal.

He also pleaded ignorance of the directions issued by  T.L Satyaprakash, Director of T&CP, Haryana, dated 13th July, 2017 whereby ANA was asked to remove ‘NOC’ clause from the conveyance deeds and not to claim any such parity with HUDA. 

“Accordingly, the coloniser is directed to remove this condition of NOC from the agreement,” states the order, a copy of which is available with HuffPost India.

Hargobind Goyal, director of ANA, told HuffPost India that though the company can provide the khasra numbers on which the township was developed, it can’t do this for individual plots.

Garg, the estate officer, also told HuffPost India why the company can’t provide khasra numbers to the plot owners.

“Only 48% of the land inside the township can be sold as plots. Once a layout plan was made and approved by the town planning department, it is almost impossible to identify the khasra number of each plot as the whole land gets converted to a complete township with lot of public utility and common areas like community centres, parks, clubs and roads. How can we allocate the same khasra number to so many plot owners together?”

Legal fight

The area residents’ fight to gain control over their own property has been going on for almost two decades now. Dozens of complaints made to Haryana CM Khattar, former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda and high-ranking police officials haven’t worked.

In 2010, Amravati Enclave’s Resident Welfare Association (RWA) filed a civil writ petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court on behalf of  over two dozen plot owners. This was later withdrawn by a former RWA president Shamsher Sharma through his lawyer Deepender Singh.

“As the township is approved and registered by the Town and Country Planning Department, there is no need  to get the mutation done for individual plots. In such cases, the ownership of a plot is known by the plot numbers and not by the Khasra numbers,” Deepender told HuffPost India.

But the land records for the plots still say the land is used for agricultural purposes, and the company name ‘Aggarwal Investment Pvt Limited’, Bathinda, Punjab is mentioned as the owner.

“This is because the township is registered on the name of the company and will not change until mutation of each plot is done separately by the plot owners,” said the lawyer.

The area residents in January this year filed another case in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, demanding that the district authorities perform the mutation of their plots purchased inside Amravati Enclave.

On a busy workday in March, 28-year-old Kate felt an urgent tap on her shoulder. Her colleague wanted to show her a video, so she glanced at his computer and was shocked to see her own face staring back, wincing and moaning. She appeared on-screen to be lying naked on a couch with her legs in the air while a man repeatedly penetrated her.

Kate felt sick. Her co-workers, who’d gathered around to see what was going on, instantly fell silent when they saw the video. It looked real and even identified Kate by name, but she knew it couldn’t be. Beyond the obvious — she’d never done porn — she could tell it wasn’t her body; only the face was hers. It had to be some kind of hoax… but would other people believe it?

“It was horrifying,” Kate, who lives in Texas, told HuffPost. “I’d never seen anything like it.”

The video, which is still online and has tens of thousands of views, is a deepfake — a doctored video created with artificial-intelligence software that can make someone appear to do or say anything. Deepfake algorithms use a dataset of videos and images of an individual to create a virtual model of their face that can be superimposed and manipulated. In Kate’s case, her face was swapped onto a porn actress’ head.

“When it’s Photoshop, it’s a static picture and can be very obvious that it’s not real,” said Kate, who’s been the target of previous misogynistic attacks. “But when it’s your own face reacting and moving, there’s this panic that you have no control over how people use your image.”

At first, deepfake porn almost exclusively featured female celebrities; their television and movie appearances gave video creators plenty of material to work with. But now, as the technology has advanced and become more broadly accessible, ordinary women with even a small selection of public photos or videos of themselves are being targeted too.

HuffPost spoke to six women who have been digitally inserted into porn without their consent.Those quoted here are identified by pseudonyms to protect their privacy, and are speaking out to call attention to an issue that’s been left to fester in the shadows.

Most public discussion on deepfakes thus far has centered on the potential political problems they could cause in the future, even though they already pose a real threat to women. Lawmakers havefretted about how the videos could hypothetically make a presidential candidate appear to say something defamatory on the eve of next year’s election. Satirical deepfakes of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have recently dominated headlines as warnings of what’s to come.

Meanwhile, as deepfake porn continues to upend women’s lives, there’s been little media coverage, and there still exists no criminal recourse for victims.

“The harm done to women when it comes to this kind of sexual objectification is happening now,”saidMary Anne Franks, a law professor at the University of Miami and president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. “It’s almost like people have forgotten that this is what this technology really started out as, and the conversation around women has fallen away.”

Deepfakes Are Rooted In Misogyny

Deepfakes have been weaponized against women for as long as they’ve existed. The term “deepfake” was coined in 2017 by an anonymous Reddit user who shared doctored porn videos like the one above, which portrays “Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot. Today, major porn websites are filled with deepfakes, despite promises to ban them. (MindGeek, which owns Pornhub and other erotic video sites, did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the no-deepfakes policy it announced more than a year ago.)

Other tech platforms have wavered in their approach to deepfakes hosted on their sites, torn between calls to stamp out disinformation and to protect free expression. Inside the federal government, legislators have started to sound the alarm about the videos, and a few have introduced bills toregulate them, such as the DEEPFAKES Accountability Act from Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.).But so far, none have resulted in action.

Without any such intervention or effective policies in place, deepfake porn has carved out a comfortable space online — and it’s thriving. In addition to free, easy-to-use deepfake generator apps, there are now photo search engines (which HuffPost won’t name) that allow people to upload pictures of individuals to find porn actresses with similar features for optimal face-swapping results. There are even deepfake porn forums where men make paid requests for professional-looking videos of specific women, and share links to the women’s social media profiles for source imagery. HuffPost has observed requesters seeking porn with female Twitch, YouTube and Instagram influencers, as well as the requesters’ own co-workers, friends and exes.

On one such forum in March, someone asked for a sex video of Tina, a 24-year-old Canadian woman, and dropped a link to her YouTube channel. Four days later, a deepfake popped up that appeared to show her bent over naked on a bed with one man thrusting behind her and another stroking his penis near her head. The video, which is virtually seamless, is still up with thousands of views.

“I was definitely shocked and disturbed,” Tina, who learned of the video when an acquaintance sent her a link, told HuffPost. “It felt really weird and gross to see my face where it shouldn’t be.”

The video poster and claimed creator is a middle-aged man, according to his profile. Tina has no idea who he is. She thought about trying to get the video taken down, but didn’t see a point once she realized it had already been shared to other websites.

“You know how the internet is — once something is uploaded it can never really get deleted,” she said. “It will just be reposted forever.”

It Could Happen To Anyone

Until recently, convincing, deepfake-style video manipulation could only be done by highly skilled editors. Hollywood filmmakers have digitallyinserted actors into movies posthumously, for example, which required a considerable amount of footage of the actors’ faces to work with. Now, rapidly advancing technology has democratized this kind of deceptive video-editing practice at women’s expense. We’ve reached a point where even amateurs with relatively few pictures of their target’s face can create deepfake porn on their own.

One self-proclaimed video creator, who describes himself online as a 25-year-old Greek man and “one of the first guys” to make deepfake porn, solicits donations and paid requests on multiple forums. People have watched his videos more than 300,000 times.

Deepfakes are “no different from a photoshop manipulation or artist drawing/rendering,” the man, who did not reveal his name, told HuffPost. Asked if anyone ever requests that he remove the sex videos he uploads, he replied: “There are no takedowns.”

Despite his disregard for women’s privacy, he seems rather concerned with protecting his own: “I’m accepting payments in bitcoin and other crypto currencies (no paypal/credit card due to privacy reasons),” he wrote in one post. In another, he listed his price range as around $15 to $40 per video.

“Women can tell men, ‘I don’t want to date you, I don’t want to know you, I don’t want to take my clothes off for you,’ but now men can say, ‘Oh yeah? I’m going to force you to, and if I can’t do it physically, I will do it virtually,’” said Franks. “There’s nothing you can really do to protect yourself except not exist online.”

She’s hopeful that as people become increasingly aware of deepfakes and deepfake porn in particular, they’ll become more skeptical of what they see online.

“The only silver lining, if you can even call it that,” she said, “is that the more people know about this, the more they’ll start to question if [revenge porn videos] are real.”

But deepfakes have also broadened the threat of revenge porn, or nonconsensual porn. A vindictive creep no longer needs nudes or sex tapes of a woman who’s spurned him to leak online. He just needs her Facebook or Instagram photos to deepfake into existing porn. And as these videos get easier to make, they’re also getting harder to recognize.

Like so many women, Amy, a mother and business owner who’s based in Los Angeles, has been harassed in the past with crudely altered images that were disturbing but clearly fake. She’d never heard of deepfakes until she was featured in onethat portrays her having sex, and labels her a “slut.” In the comments section, people have commended the anonymous creator for the video’s believability.

“It didn’t get really concerning until the technology and skill level of those putting it together got better — to the point where people might actually believe that was me,” Amy told HuffPost. “If we see a video of something, we take it as fact.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense, has been working in recent years to develop machine-learning algorithms that can detect manipulated videos, including deepfakes. Much of the challenge lies in keeping pace with deepfake software as it continues to evolve.

“As the people making these videos get more and more sophisticated with their tools, we’re going to have to get more and more sophisticated with ours,” Edward Delp, a media forensics expert at Purdue Universitywho’s conducting research for DARPA, said in a recent interview with HuffPost. “It’s going to be an arms race.”

No Real Options For Victims

Maya, a 29-year-old woman who also lives in Los Angeles, wasn’t aware that she’s featured in deepfake porn until HuffPost contacted her last week. She was aghast to learn of the video, which identifies her by name and appears to show her masturbating. But she wasn’t entirely surprised: She’s been receiving a lot of messages lately from strangers requesting sex.

“Being violated in such an intimate way is really a weird feeling,” Maya told HuffPost. “The idea of people sexualizing me makes me feel like I’m being fetishized, receiving unwanted attention, losing respect as a person and no longer safe.”

The unfortunate reality for Maya and other women in her situation is that there’s not much they can do now that the videos are out there. Lawsuits can be extremely expensive, and in order to sue for harassment, impersonation, defamation or even misappropriation of image — which typically only applies for celebrities — you need to know who you’re suing. Like many victims of nonconsensual deepfake porn, Maya has no clue who created or posted the video of her.

And because online intermediaries, including social media giants and deepfake forums, are shielded from liability for third-party content thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, suing the sites that host the video would be pointless too. Platforms can’t get in legal trouble for the things their users post, and aren’t required to remove them. As a result, trying to get abusive content taken offline is often futile.

“As disappointing and sobering as it is, there aren’t a lot of options for victims,” said Carrie Goldberg, an attorney specializing in sexual privacy. Deepfake websites exist “to monetize people’s humiliation,” she added. “It points to the infirmity that Section 230 has caused when there are websites that are so arrogant about their immunity from liability.”

Since malicious deepfakes are usually posted anonymously and designed to go viral, victims’ advocates such as Danielle Citron are urging lawmakers to develop a policy that’s focused not only on punishing the producers, but also the distributors. She and Franks are working together to draft a federal criminal law that would hold platforms accountable for wittingly amplifying hoax videos and enabling them to be spread around.

“If [there are] impersonations or manipulations that do not reflect what we’ve done or said, platforms should — once they figure it out — take it down,” Citron, who’s a law professor at the University of Maryland,said this month at the first congressional hearing on deepfakes. At this stage, she noted, there’s no way to filter the videos from being posted, so platforms should be required to remove them as soon as they’re flagged.

Free speech proponents worry that unless it’s done very carefully, forcing websites to restrict certain content could lead to broader repercussions for online expression.

But as Franks argued, unbridled deepfake porn is already doing just that.

“There’s a massive chilling effect that deepfake pornography has on women’s speech,” she said, “because the way to make yourself safer is to censor yourself.”

Women Are Being Silenced

Investigative journalist Rana Ayyub has experienced firsthand the silencing effect Franks described. Last spring, she was the victim of a targeted disinformation campaign in India that was intended to intimidate and humiliate her.

The abuse began the day after she publicly condemned a political party’s shameful response to the rape of a young girl. Suddenly, screenshots showing a series of defamatory tweets falsely appearing to be from Ayyub began circulating online. She then realized a deepfake porn video featuring her face was spreading across social media like wildfire, alongside her name and phone number. It was viewed hundreds of thousands of times, and Ayyub started getting calls and messages asking for sex.

“It was devastating,” she told HuffPost UK. “The entire country was watching a porn video that claimed to be me, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything.”

Even now that the video has been debunked as fake, Ayyub will never be able to fully move on. She can’t undo the damage to her reputation, and she’s afraid of drawing more attention to herself on social media.

“I used to be very opinionated; now I’m much more cautious about what I post online. I’ve self-censored quite a bit out of necessity,” she said. “I’m constantly thinking, ‘What if someone does something to me again?’”

Kate, the woman from Texas whose co-worker found deepfake porn of her, has struggled to move forward too. When she contacted her lawyer, he explained that the case would be incredibly difficult to fight because she didn’t know who was behind the video.

With no viable legal options on the table, Kate reluctantly turned to the deepfake forum where the video was posted and asked for it to be removed. The site owner told her she wasn’t the only woman on the page, then stopped replying, Kate said. She felt hopeless.

“It’s grotesque to know that it lives out there and there’s nothing I can do about it,” she said. “These things are so horribly believable, and you desperately want to say, ‘That’s not me!’ But that would just bring more attention to it.”

Like Ayyub, Kate has also started to limit what she shares online for fear that her content could be distorted and used against her without consequence yet again.

“Pornographic deepfakes and revenge porn and all that kind of stuff are only going to make women want to say less,” she said. “As these videos get more prolific and realistic, is this something we’re just going to be expected to accept as the cost of being online?”

Each “Toy Story” movie introduces one key character who gives the franchise an excuse to keep going. In “Toy Story 2,” it was Jessie, the excitable cowgirl voiced by Joan Cusack. In “Toy Story 3,” it was Lotso, the ruthless bear played by Ned Beatty. And in “Toy Story 4,” which opened Friday, we get the Pixar series’ most complex addition yet: Forky, a spork with googly eyes, gangly pipe-cleaner arms and ice pop sticks for feet.

Portrayed by “Veep” and “Arrested Development” funnyman Tony Hale, Forky gains sentience at the exact moment when little Bonnie, who has inherited Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and the other toys, gives him a name. But Forky doesn’t consider himself a toy. “I’m meant for soup, salad, maybe chili and then the trash,” he proclaims after one of many suicide dives. It’s a profound existential quandary: Is his identity self-made, or is it dictated by others’ perceptions? Can it change over time? And how does it frame his mortality?

Throughout the film, Woody works to keep Forky from leaping into garbage cans, where he insists he belongs. They’re protecting Bonnie’s interests; she made him on her first day of kindergarten, and her happiness depends on Forky sticking around. What Forky doesn’t understand is how much some toys would give to be loved half as much as he is.

To find out more about how this self-destructive spork came to be, I talked to Hale, who said he treated Forky like a “small child” with a naive sense of the world.

At what point did you realize you were the breakout star of “Toy Story 4”?

Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m still trying to digest even being in it. It kind of comes in waves of realization that I’m actually a part of it. I think it was at the premiere a week ago that it really sealed the deal. I was like, “Oh, I didn’t make a mistake. Maybe I am supposed to be in this.”

Before taking the role, did you demonstrate what you thought Forky should sound like?

Yeah, when I went in, they had attached clips from “Arrested Development” and “Veep” to an animated Forky, so I knew they wanted him to have a neurotic energy, which is clearly, I guess, one of my fortes. So we kind of discussed that and then I played around with the voices. It felt very collaborative because they created a really warm environment where the actor is not separated from the writer and director. You’re in the same room, which is very different than typical voice-over in animation. I felt very much part of the process, and we played with ideas. After a day of playing around, we just seemed to kind of settle on a tone.

Tell me about that tone. It sounds like you’re softening or thinning your voice. Did it feel that way to you?

Maybe, yeah. I also think Forky is very much a small child. When my daughter was 4 or 5 years old, all she did was ask questions. That was it. It was one question after the next. Forky obviously has this incredible childlike wonder, so it was kind of getting to a higher pitch, but very childlike and gullible-sounding, very naive. For Forky, everything is new. He’s a completely blank slate, so when I was handed pages in the script, I had no idea what was going on. I just kind of played into this young child with a little bit of sass. Everything was so strange in the universe. He just has no clue — not to mention, yes, the “Toy Story” universe, but the universe in general. He was not even supposed to be alive, so it just felt like he was always in a state of “what the heck is going on?”

Did anything about the design of Forky change during the process?

I seem to remember there might have been a different sticker on his foot, and his eyes might have been placed a little differently, which makes me think about another thing that makes me laugh about Forky. Not only does he have no control as to what’s happening — he has no control over his body. His eyes are googly eyes, so they go all different kinds of directions. He has no flexibility in his body. He barely can walk. His arms have too much flexibility; they’re just all over the map. As a whole, he’s just floating around, completely clueless about what’s going on.

In the recording booth, did you find yourself doing something similar with your arms or your body movements?

That’s a good question because, coming from mainly doing comic acting on-camera, you get very used to your physicality. You get very used to using your eyebrows to punch a joke, or you get used to your eyes. And knowing that you just have the microphone to communicate the energy of Forky, I would do as much physicality in front of the microphone as I would if I was on camera. So as a way to channel that energy into the performance, my hands were all over the place, my body was all over the place. If anything, it was really tough to stay in front of the microphone to capture it. I was probably too crazy.

Was the “trash” motif as prominent from the beginning?

I remember saying “trash” a lot when it started. I think he always had this goal of just getting back to the trash. I will say, initially I just saw it as funny and silly that he was made from the trash and that was his home and it was squishy and fun. It wasn’t until months later when I came back to record that I really began to see — and maybe it’s because more pages of the script kept coming in — the depth of, not that Pixar is doing a message-driven piece, but the message that was organically coming out of the story with Forky, that he was made for more purpose and value than just the trash.

How did you conceptualize his dilemma? It’s universal in that everyone struggles to form their own identity, and often our identities are projected onto us by others and by the world at large. Forky already comes with a crisis: Is he a fork or a spoon? Now he has a second one: Is he a spork or a toy?

Yeah. I think it was more of him not knowing any better. He didn’t know anything other than trash. That was his only route, which made me think of anybody in this world who might have only seen themselves one way or have only been told they’re that way, and that there isn’t any other direction for them to take or a different way to think about themselves. Forky had his own awakening. And he obviously wasn’t pained about it — it’s all he ever knew: “This is the direction I’m made for.”  And then he has this beautiful discovery of, “Wait a second. I’m made for a lot more than that.” It’s really beautiful how they constructed it.

If you had to estimate, how many times do you think you said the word “trash”?

Yeah, lots. I probably said the word “trash” as many times as Woody said, “Come on, guys.” I think Tom Hanks said that over the years he has said, “Come on, guys” so many different ways, and I can’t even imagine what Tim Allen’s version of that is for Buzz Lightyear. Forky’s version of that was definitely “trash.”

Right, because you have these little, manic soliloquies where you’re just saying “trash” over and over and over. Did you change the pace and energy of those from take to take?

If I’m honest, in my insecure brain, they didn’t sound very different. I was like, “Am I giving them something different?” As an actor, you really want to match whatever vision or plan they have for this character, so you keep putting stuff out, hoping that something is clicking with them. I think I just rambled about different stuff. Obviously, they were pleased and stuff did click, but in the moment I’m like, “I hope they’re getting it.”

Was there an improv that didn’t make it into the film that you were particularly fond of?

I can’t remember specifically what it was, but I remember I was shooting “Veep” at the time. The environment that I’m in on “Veep” is obviously very different than the “Toy Story” environment. So I think there were a few ad-libs that were colored from the “Veep” universe that clearly didn’t make it into the “Toy Story” universe.

A bit more adult, in other words.

Yeah. Yeah. I was so used to that atmosphere, and it probably bled into my recordings. They were like, “Yeah, we can’t use that.”

From the pavilion of the Toucan Rescue Ranch on the outskirts of San Jose, Costa Rica, tourists can sip coffee and contemplate a cornucopia of abuse. The leafy green sanctuary is filled with about 200 injured and rescued wild animals. There’s a spider monkey whose previous owner cut off part of its tail so it couldn’t get around as easily and another who had been tied to a tree with a chain. There’s a baby sloth rescued from someone who thought it would be a great plaything for her children (for the record: it wasn’t).

On a recent afternoon, one could hear the distinct chirping of a black-faced solitaire, one of 11 songbirds confiscated by wildlife officers from “horrible, disgusting cages” in a home about 50 kilometers east of San Jose, where they were likely being held for illegal sale, according to the ranch’s co-founder, Leslie Howle. Endemic to Costa Rica and Panama, the black-faced solitaire is prized by collectors who will pay about $700 for one because each has a different song based on the region where it lives. “That’s why collectors collect them,’’ explained Howle, an American by birth who lives in Costa Rica. “They want to have one that makes the bell sound and one that has the squeaky door sound.”

Howle, who grew up in Costa Rica, returned after having a midlife crisis, and in 2004 opened the rescue ranch, fulfilling a lifelong dream of running a refuge for wild birds. Her success caught the attention of wildlife officials, who began bringing her all kinds of rescued animals, at a time when the country was strengthening rules to protect wildlife and preserve habitat. Hers is one of a network of conservation nonprofits the government relies on to meet its ambitious commitments to protect biodiversity.

As a global extinction crisis grips the world, Costa Rica has answered nature’s cry by enacting detailed and targeted regulations to limit how humans interact with the nation’s richest assets, from singing birds to slow-moving sloths, leaping monkeys, and the verdant wilderness that is their home. Incorporating efforts by multiple government agencies, NGOs, private landowners and local communities, Costa Rica’s strict animal protection laws and comprehensive land conservation strategies have made it a model of what a country can do to reverse devastating trends and build a promising future for nature.  

“It has definitely been an example to the world,” said Zdenka Piskulich, the executive director of the nonprofit Forever Costa Rica Association, which works with the government to help meet the country’s commitments under the United Nations’ 1992 global Convention on Biological Diversity — a key driver of the nation’s conservation efforts. (The U.S. signed the agreement, along with nearly 200 other countries, but never ratified it.)

Costa Rica’s attention to wildlife makes sense, culturally and financially. The Central American country of about 5 million people has some of the richest biodiversity on the planet. Slightly smaller than the state of West Virginia, the tropical nation has only 0.03% of the Earth’s surface area but hosts more than 5% of all known plant and animal species, according to Forever Costa Rica.   

Straddling the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, it’s made up of rainforests, dry forests, mountaintop cloud forests, mangroves and wetlands containing more than 250 species of mammals (14 threatened with extinction in Costa Rica), over 100 bat species, more than 900 species of birds, and well over 1,000 different orchids. There are rare animals that occur nowhere else, such as the endangered variable harlequin frog once common in Costa Rica and Panama and the Cocos finch, found only on an island by the same name.

More than 3 million visitors traveled to Costa Rica last year, many to tour the nation’s extensive national parks and reserves. Eco-tourism there is a $3.8 billion per year industry, according to Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, the country’s minister of environment and energy and a former vice president at the nonprofit Conservation International.

It hasn’t always been this way. After decades of deforestation for agriculture, Costa Rica became a patchwork of forest pimples by the 1980s. But it began building a massive park system that — after 40 years of consolidation — now covers 27.6% of the country’s landmass as a protected area, compared to 13% in the United States, according to the World Bank. Many politicians and successive regimes worked with nonprofits to achieve such a massive reversal of deforestation, recognizing the value of Costa Rica’s sizable natural resources.

“There is more political stability in support of environmental policies than many other countries,” said Rodriguez. The population has supported the government’s work. Forever Costa Rica surveys have found that more than 90% of residents say that the environment is one of their top three concerns, Piskulich said.

With that support, Costa Rica began an ambitious program starting in the 1990s to pay landowners to preserve forests and protect clean water. The government funds the payments with $30 million annually from a gasoline tax and about $6 million annually from a tax on water users, Rodriguez said. Now, more than half of the country’s landmass is forest, much of it privately owned. But Costa Rica is not stopping there. Recently, the country announced a plan to increase forest cover to 60 percent of its landmass by 2030.

Parks and biological corridors, some of them on private land, help migratory animals travel throughout their natural habitats and that has helped stem the loss of wildlife. Thanks to these protected corridors, populations of the scarlet and great green macaws, as well as the jaguar, have increased in the last few decades, according to Forever Costa Rica program officer Adolfo Artavia. 

But not all corridors are safe from development — not even development for the sake of ecological progress. Thanks in part to the huge Reventazón hydroelectric dam, Costa Rica’s electricity needs are supplied almost entirely by renewable sources — a crucial part of the country’s lofty commitment to go carbon neutral by 2050. But completion of the dam in 2016 cut off an important migratory pathway for jaguars and other animals.

In tandem with habitat regulations, Costa Rica boasts strict stewardship of its animals and plants — and it’s only getting stricter. People can’t keep wild animals or plants without a special permit. Recreational hunting on land was banned in 2012. Wild animal “selfies,” the popular social media phenomenon where unscrupulous operators pose tourists with captive animals that often have been drugged or abused into submission, were banned as part of sweeping wildlife legislation in 2013.

Zoos in Costa Rica only house injured animals or those that can’t be released in the wild because they have spent too much time in captivity, said Ronald Mora, an officer with SINAC, the National System of Conservation Areas, speaking through a translator. The country also imposes stringent regulations on rescue centers such as Toucan Rescue Ranch, conducting regular visits to make sure they comply with the laws and don’t allow visitors to touch or handle the animals.

But the country often struggles to follow its own rules. A lack of financial resources consistently hampers enforcement of existing land use laws. Piskulich said that in a few areas, the government has allocated no money for management of forests and nonprofits have to step in and provide funding.

And despite decades of reforestation efforts, “there’s constantly destruction of the forest,’’ according to Sam Trull, cofounder of The Sloth Institute Costa Rica, which does research on sloths and releases the injured animals back into the wild. Many sloths are victims of deforestation, as well as dog attacks and electrocutions from power lines running between trees, she said. (The Sloth Institute works closely with Toucan Rescue Ranch; neither receives government funding.) “There are definitely protected areas, but the law does not protect other areas and there are plenty of other areas being destroyed,” she said.

Conservationists also say that Costa Rica’s marine habitats are largely neglected. Less than 3% of the country’s territorial waters are protected from fishing and other uses, according to Forever Costa Rica, which was founded in 2010 by the national parks administration and international trusts for “the conservation of terrestrial and marine ecosystems in perpetuity.” The government did recently take measures to try to protect coral reefs.

In the few marine areas that are protected, illegal fishing is common, said Jorge Cortés, a researcher and expert on coral reefs with the University of Costa Rica, explaining the country commits little funding to enforcement.

“You realize there’s no boat for patrolling, there’s no fuel, or there’s no one who knows how to pilot a boat,” Cortés said. With regard to marine habitat protections, “we are like Costa Rica in the ’70s when they started with the parks,” he added, noting that “it took 30 or 40 years to really consolidate that.’’ He hopes it doesn’t take that long to protect the oceans.

A sign over a recessed doorway at Toucan Rescue Ranch points the way to the “sloth nursery” and here, plastic buckets are literally overflowing with baby sloths. A few slowly reach out to fetch a cooked green bean or carrot. Like human babies, they make quite a mess, dropping much of it on the floor. And, like human babies, they instill a sense of hope for the future. 

Costa Rica may be strained for resources, but its success in saving and restoring its wilderness and wildlife shows the rest of the world what’s possible. “We might not be huge in terms of our size but from a moral standpoint [Costa Rica] has a huge value,” Piskulich said.

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An official US report’s observations — released on June 21 — on religious freedom and violence against minorities in India have been rebuffed by the government and the ruling party BJP.

The ministry of external affairs rejected the report on Sunday and said it saw no locus standi for a foreign government to pronounce on the state of its citizens’ constitutionally protected rights.

The BJP responded to the report’s allegation that some senior leaders of the party “made inflammatory speeches against minority communities”, saying the report had a clear bias against the Narendra Modi government and the saffron party.

What is this report?

The US State Department’s annual 2018 International Religious Freedom Report covers government policies violating religious belief and practices of groups, religious denominations and individuals, and US policies to promote religious freedom around the world.

Mandated by the US  Congress, the State Department in its voluminous report gives its assessment of the status of religious freedom in almost all the countries and territories of the world.

What exactly did it say about India?

In India, the report said mob attacks by violent extremist Hindu groups against the minority communities, particularly Muslims, continued in 2018, amid rumours that victims had traded or killed cows for beef

According to some NGOs, the authorities often protected perpetrators from prosecution, it said.

The report said that as of November, there were 18 such attacks, and eight people killed during the year.

On June 22, two Uttar Pradesh police officers were charged with culpable homicide after a Muslim cattle trader died of injuries sustained while being questioned in police custody, the report said.

The State Department said that the central and state governments and members of political parties took steps that affected Muslim practices and institutions.

The government continued its challenge in the Supreme Court to the minority status of Muslim educational institutions, which affords them independence in hiring and curriculum decisions, it said.

“Proposals to rename Indian cities with Muslim provenance continued, most notably the renaming of Allahabad to Prayagraj. Activists said these proposals were designed to erase Muslim contributions to Indian history and had led to increased communal tensions,” the State Department said.

There were reports of religiously motivated killings, assaults, riots, discrimination, vandalism and actions restricting the right of individuals to practice their religious beliefs and proselytise, the annual report said.

Senior US government officials underscored the importance of respecting religious freedom and promoting tolerance throughout the year with the ruling and opposition parties, civil society and religious freedom activists, and religious leaders belonging to various faith communities, the report said.

The Indian govt’s response

Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said: “India is proud of its secular credentials, its status as the largest democracy and a pluralistic society with a longstanding commitment to tolerance and inclusion.” 

The Indian Constitution guarantees fundamental rights to all its citizens, including its minority communities, he said.

It is widely acknowledged that India is a vibrant democracy where the Constitution provides protection of religious freedom, and where democratic governance and rule of law further promote and protect fundamental rights, Kumar asserted.

“We see no locus standi for a foreign entity/government to pronounce on the state of our citizens’ constitutionally protected rights,” he said.

BJP’s defence

In a statement, BJP media head and Rajya Sabha MP Anil Baluni said, “The basic presumption in this report that there is some grand design behind anti-minority violence is simply false. On the contrary, in most of such cases, these instances are carried out as a result of local disputes and by (people with) criminal mindsets.” 

Whenever needed, PM Modi and other BJP leaders have strongly deplored violence against minorities and weaker sections of the society, he added.

Baluni said India has deep-rooted democratic institutions, including fiercely independent and pro-active judiciary, which is quite capable of handling such disputes and punish the guilty. 

Unfortunately, this fact is completely ignored in this report, he said, adding that the BJP under the leadership of Modi believes in “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas” (With all, development for all). 

“Mega schemes launched and effectively implemented by the Modi government have benefited all the castes, religions and regions equally. BJP is indeed proud of its record in uplifting living standards of all poor, underprivileged sections of the society, irrespective of their faith and gender,” he said in the statement. 

(With PTI inputs)

RBI on Monday confirmed deputy governor Viral Acharya had resigned from his post after media reports said he quit six months before his term was due to end.

RBI said Acharya submitted his resignation citing unavoidable personal circumstances few weeks ago and said he would not be able to continue his term beyond July 23, Reuters reported.

His resignation would mean the RBI is likely to be more dovish over monetary policy and willing to cut interest rates as Acharya, who is in charge of departments that look at monetary policy and exchange rate markets, had been regarded as more of an inflation hawk, economists told Reuters.

Acharya is returning to New York University Stern School of Business in August as the CV Starr Professor of Economics, the Business Standard said.

He had joined the RBI on 23 January 2017 and is the central bank’s youngest deputy governor, post economic liberalisation, the Indian Express reported.

On his resignation, Acharya told the Business Standard: “A schoolteacher once told me: ‘When your work speaks for itself, do not interrupt’.”

According to the daily’s report, Acharya resigned a few weeks before the RBI’s monetary policy committee meeting held earlier this month.

Express reported Acharya had a difference of opinion with RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das over the monetary policy announced on 4 April. The committee decided to reduce the policy repo rate by 25 basis points to 6 per cent. Acharya had reportedly cautioned Das against another repo rate cut.  

In October 2018, in an apparent warning to the government, Acharya had warned against undermining a central bank’s independence, The Scroll reported.

Staunchly defending the need for independence, Acharya made public disputes with the government over issues ranging from lending curbs, more cash availability to the non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), to who controls the RBI’s reserves.

“The risks of undermining the central bank’s independence are potentially catastrophic,” Acharya said in his October speech, adding that rash moves could trigger a “crisis of confidence in capital markets”.

Bloomberg says NS Vishwanathan, a deputy governor whose term is due to end in July, may stay on for another term.

Acharya may be succeeded by Michael Patra, an RBI executive director, or Sanjeev Sanyal, principal economic adviser at the finance ministry, the report said.

This is the second high profile resignation in the past six months at the RBI. 

In December 2018, Urjit Patel had quit as RBI governor amid growing differences with the government.

The BET Awards red carpet knows what excellence looks like. 

Over the past 19 years, the award show has been graced with some iconic moments from Destiny’s Child in the finest House of Deréon fashions to Janelle Monáe’s rainbow-colored fantasy.

The stars went full glam on the carpet this year ahead of the show at Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday night, dripping in jaw-dropping looks fit for a runway. 

Hosted by “Girl’s Trip” and “Black Monday” star Regina Hall for the first time, this year’s ceremony is set to be one for the ages with Cardi B leading the nominations into the ceremony with seven nods, including female hip-hop artist and album of the year. 

Drake, Travis Scott, J. Cole and Beyoncé could also win big, but only time will tell if the queen herself ― the most decorated artist in BET Awards history ― will make the award show a homecoming after skipping the ceremony the past two years. 

Check out all of the best looks from the BET red carpet below. 

Mary J. Blige

Lizzo

Megan Thee Stallion 

Blac Chyna

Lil Nas X

Yara Shahidi

Lil’ Kim

Fantasia Barrino 

John Legend

H.E.R.

Ciara

Anderson .Paak

Meagan Good

Meek Mill 

Ella Mai

DJ Khaled

Jidenna 

Lala Anthony

Justine Skye

Mike Colter 

Karrueche Tran

Doja Cat

Eva Marcille

Saweetie

Rico Nasty 

A moving editorial published Sunday in The Salt Lake Tribune argues that the U.S. government is holding immigrants ― including children — in concentration camps. 

“Our nation is operating concentration camps for refugee children,” the paper’s editorial board wrote. “We need to stop denying that and decide if we are comfortable with that fact. And how we will explain it to our children.”

The editorial was published days after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) received backlash for characterizing the detention centers for immigrants as “concentration camps.”

President Donald Trump shrugged off his own government’s reports concluding Saudi Arabian leadership directed the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year, stressing that the Middle Eastern kingdom is a valuable ally to the U.S.

During an interview with NBC News’ Chuck Todd that aired Sunday on “Meet The Press,” the president said his only interests in the Middle East are preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons and protecting Israel and Saudi Arabia.

“That’s all I care about,” Trump said. “Look, Saudi Arabia is buying $400 billion worth of things for us. That’s a very good thing.”

Experts say Trump’s repeated claim that Saudi Arabia has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. goods and services has no basis in reality. The Saudis signed letters of offer and acceptance for $14.5 billion worth of purchases as of October 2018. The White House did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment about the other $385.5 billion.

Trump also told Todd that he spoke to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS) on Friday ahead of his interview with NBC News and that the two had “a great conversation.”

Asked by Todd if he spoke to MBS about Khashoggi, Trump said, “It really didn’t come up.”

The CIA and Turkish authorities investigated Khashoggi’s death and determined MBS personally ordered his murder. Khashoggi, 59, a Washington Post columnist who had been living in the U.S., was an outspoken critic of the Saudi royal family. On Oct. 2, 2018, he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get documents he needed for his planned marriage and instead was killed and dismembered by agents of the Saudi government, the U.S. and Turkish officials reported.

MBS has denied any involvement in Khashoggi’s death and Trump has publicly sided with the crown prince over his own intelligence agencies.

In defending America’s continued partnership with the Saudis, Trump claimed in the NBC interview that the country is “a big buyer” of U.S. products.

“That means something to me,” the president said. “It’s a big producer of jobs.”

Trump denied that the Saudi promise to buy American goods prompted him to “overlook” some of the country’s “bad behavior.” But when asked if he would allow the FBI to investigate Khashoggi’s death, as encouraged by the United Nations, Trump said he believes it’s already been “heavily investigated.”

“I’ve seen so many different reports,” Trump said. “Iran’s killed many, many people a day. Other countries in the Middle East ― this is a hostile place. This is a vicious, hostile place. If you’re going to look at Saudi Arabia, look at Iran, look at other countries.”

Todd asked whether Saudi Arabia had paid the right price for the U.S. to essentially look the other way on Khashoggi’s killing.

“No, no,” Trump responded. “But I’m not like a fool that says, ‘We don’t want to do business with them.’ And by the way, if they don’t do business with us, you know what they do? They’ll do business with the Russians or with the Chinese.”

“Take their money,” he added. “Take their money, Chuck.”

Just last week, the U.N. announced it had found “credible evidence” linking MBS to Khashoggi’s murder and called on Trump to allow the FBI to investigate further.

The Senate voted last week to block the Trump administration from selling arms to Saudi Arabia. The president has vowed to veto the measure.

“There is high confidence that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia butchered a dissident with a bone saw,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of a handful of GOP members who voted against the arms sales, told his colleagues on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. “You would think that would give us pause as to giving Saudi Arabia or selling Saudi Arabia more weapons.”

AHMEDABAD/VADODARA — A crocodile that strayed into a Khodiyar Mata temple in Gujarat’s Mahisagar district was Sunday rescued even as villagers delayed the forest department operation by claiming the reptile’s presence was an auspicious one, a senior official said.

Khodiyar Mata, the family deity of the Patel community in the state, is often depicted in religious literature as riding on a crocodile.

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A large number of people who had assembled at the Khodiyar Temple in Palla village in Lunwada tehsil offered prayers, conducted aarti and showered vermillion on the 6-foot reptile as it lay near the goddess’ idol, said Lunwada forest department in charge RV Patel.

Mahisagar Deputy Conservator of Forests RM Parmar said the people assembled at the temple delayed rescue operations by around two hours.

“When our personnel reached there to rescue the crocodile, people opposed it. We waited for two hours as we did not want to hurt religious sentiments. However, later, we managed to get the reptile to a nearby pond,” Parmar said.

He said water bodies in the region, including the Mahisagar River, have a sizable number of crocodiles, adding that these reptiles can travel 4-5 kilometres in search of food.

“The crocodile, around four years old, may have entered the temple late night to rest. We rescue around 30-35 crocodiles every year,” Parmar added.

Crocodiles are Schedule 1 animals (provided absolute protection) as per theIndian Wildlife (Protection Act), 1972.