Right to Live In the Article In Defense of Abortion and...

1. Explain the basic thesis of the article assigned to you. (Each has one main thesis supported by arguments, examples, and analogies). Do you think the argument is sound or unsound? Explain why you find it sound or, if unsound, what false premises and or fallacies you find. Do you think the examples/analogies strengthen the authors argument? What do you think of the After-Birth Abortion argument? (See the short article with the link on the Content page.) In the article In Defense of Abortion and Infanticide, author Michael Tooley’s main argument/thesis is that fetuses or unborn babies do not possess the right to life under the basis that it does not â€Å"possess the concept of continuing self or mental substance† (Vaughn 316). By this conclusion he states that the possibility of the fetus reaching the requisite concept in the future does not qualify as an excuse to deny abortion. He emphasizes that this supports that abortion and early infanticide are morally j ustifiable and acceptable. Overall I agree with the argument that Michael Tooley uses to support abortion and early infanticide, however I find that his method of convincing is rather weak. While I find that the interest principle is an important part of deciding the ethics behind abortion, I do not believe that it should be the main and most-emphasized argument. For example he explains that a zygote cannot have any interests or desires, and therefore it in itself cannot be the subject of interests. I find thatShow MoreRelatedA Critical Examination of Judith Thomsons Argument for Abortion2736 Words   |  11 PagesJudith Thomson’s argument through her article, â€Å"A Defence of Abortion† is one that adopts the premise that the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. By doing this, Thomson is distancing her argument from the various theorists who maintain the moral view that it is wrong to kill another human being, such as (Marquis, 1989). This ultimatel y allows her to assume various hypothetical situations in which the cognitive status of the fetus is otherwise not considered. This is important.

Love In Wuthering Heights Essay - 1261 Words

The story of Emily Brontà «s Wuthering Heights has been one of the most influential and powerful piece of literature ever written. After being published, it garnered a lot of interest because of the theme that was deemed misleading and critically unfit for society. The main theme of the book revolves around the evolution of love, passion and cruelty. During the first half of the book, Catherine showed different types of love for two different people. Her love for Heathcliff was her everything, it was her identity to love and live for Heathcliff but as soon as she found out how society views Heathcliff, she sacrificed their love and married Edgar Linton in the hopes of saving Heathcliff from Hindley and protecting him from the eyes of†¦show more content†¦Catherine proved that changing love cannot compare to the love she and Heathcliff has for each other for they have a love that cannot be broken, as long as forever is they are bound to each other. Though Catherine and Heathcliffs love brings joy to each other it has also caused them great pains and the people around them. Their love destroyed innocence and purity. Catherine was going to marry Edgar because of his wealth and status. By marrying Edgar, it would give her a name she can be proud of and the people would envy her (Seichepine, 2004). This marked the lost of innocence for Catherine because she now knows the rules of society. Heathcliff once thought that if he could only leave Catherine then he would be free from the fate that binds them but he cannot escape because for him there is no escape and apart from Catherine there is nobody else that mattered. When Heathcliff returned 3 years later, he used Isabella Linton as a means of revenge on both Catherine and Edgar. Heathcliff was not scared nor did he even shared a drop of pity on Isabella. He was going to use her innocence to hurt the people she loved and even the woman he loved. Isabella, on the other hand really loved Heathcliff and prayed that somehow he begins to see someone else other than Catherine. She knew that she never reflected in Heathcliffs eyes but she chose to stay with him because of her love. Isabella has the type of love that will never be returned. She accepted the factShow MoreRelatedWuthering Heights Love And Betrayal1425 Words   |  6 PagesLove and Betrayal Emily Brontes Wuthering Heights is considered to be one of the greatest novels written in the English language. Due to Heathcliff and Catherines love relationship, Wuthering Heights is considered a romantic novel. Their powerful presence permeates throughout the novel, as well as their complex personalities. Their climatic feelings towards each other and often selfish behavior often exaggerates or possibly encapsulates certain universal psychological truths about humans. The roleRead MoreTheme Of Love In Wuthering Heights922 Words   |  4 PagesLove can take many forms. Sonnet 18 , undoubtedly one of Shakespeare’s most famous works and believed to be one of the most famous love poems of all time, illustrates the timelessness and true beauty of love in a natural, pure way. In contrast, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights takes a far darker, more intense yet somewhat sinister twist when exploring the themes of love, passion and cruelty. One of the greatest love stories in English literature, the love-hate passionate relationship between CathyRead MoreThe Love and Hate in Wuthering Heights5240 Words   |  21 PagesThe Love and Hate in Wuthering Heights Shi Xueping Introduction Wuthering Heights, the great novel by Emily Bronte, though not inordinately long is an amalgamation of childhood fantasies, friendship, romance, and revenge. But this story is not a simple story of revenge, it has more profound implications. As Arnold Kettle, the English critic, said, Wuthering Heights is an expression in the imaginative  terms of art of the stresses and tensions and conflicts, personalRead MoreTheme Of Love In Wuthering Heights786 Words   |  4 PagesEmily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights draws a close line between love and hate as a major theme in the novel. The different sides of love are demonstrated by Bronte through situations that draw upon the nature of being human. The author displays the selfish, destructive and the betrayal side of love between the main character as well as minor characters in the novel and how they are imprisoned by the same recurring cycle. The relationship shared by Heathcliff and Catherine is the most important as itRead More The Power of Love in Wuthering Heights Essay1404 Words   |  6 PagesWuthering Heights is a novel which deviates from the standard of Victorian literature. The novels of the Victorian Era were often works of social criticism. They generally had a moral purpose and promoted ideals of love and brotherhood. Wuthering Heights is more of a Victorian Gothic novel; it contains passion, violence, and supernatural elements (Mitchell 119). The world of Wuthering Heights seems to be a world without morals. In Wuthering Heights, Brontà « does not idealize love; she presents itRead MoreEssay on Revenge and Love in Wuthering Heights1521 Words   |  7 Pagescan move a man to action, but in Emily Brontà «Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s Wuthering Heights, love and revenge are the only two passions powerful enough to compel the primary actors. There is consensus, in the academic community,1 that the primary antagonist in the nov el, Heathcliff is largely motivated by a wanton lust for vengeance, and it is obvious from even a cursory reading that Edgar Linton, one of the protagonists, is mostly compelled by a his seemingly endless love for his wife, and it even seems as if this is reflectedRead MoreWuthering Heights Meaning Of Love Essay1357 Words   |  6 PagesWuthering Heights by Emily Brontà « is considered a great Victorian love story between various characters, but most famously, between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. As the novel is a tale of romance, the word love and other related words is used a great deal throughout. It is used to describe the emotions and sentiments of the various characters in relation to other characters. On the surface, love is perceived as something beautiful and amazing but this does not cover the complex layers that itRead MoreHeathcliff And Catherines Love As Obsessive Love In Wuthering Heights1120 Words   |  5 PagesIs there such a thing as obsessive love, making it unhealthy to love someone excessively? There is not anything like â€Å"too much love† for someone else, nevertheless, occasionally it is blown out of proportion. The notion that love remains solely expressed by one half, gives a desire to fight for someone that cannot display the same feelings under certain circumstances. In the novel written by Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights, â€Å"obsessive† love stands apparent in the story. The sense of heartbreak canRead MoreThe Themes Of Love In Wuthering Heights By Emily Brontà «706 Words   |  3 PagesIn the novel, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontà «, the main themes help the reader discover a deeper understanding of the novel as a whole. One of the first important themes of this novel is love. Love plays an immense role throughout the plot, in a nontraditional way. In the beginning of the novel, we notice the growing relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine, and how they become inseparable. No matter what they ar e doing, they are almost certainly together. However, after their separationRead MoreDestructive Love In Brontes Macbeth And Wuthering Heights1395 Words   |  6 PagesLove Is A Strong Word The theme of destructive love within relationships in Shakespeare’s MacBeth and Bronte’s Wuthering Heights are presented through sexism, jealousy and betrayal. Destructive love is an active process of destroying the affection and tenderness between a couple. Both authors represent this kind love well in their respective stories. Lady MacBeth was a mastermind the way she had control in the beginning of Macbeth. She influenced MacBeth to do all his actions. An example of this

Risk Analysis of House Building Project - Click to Solution

Question: Discuss about the Risk Analysis of House Building Project? Answer: Introduction: This study concentrates on identifying and analyzing the risk that may occur in a house construction project. In addition, it includes the classification of the stakeholders and identification of team members. Brainstorm risk identification technique makes most impact at the unstructured level of the project. Cause Effect Diagram assists to direct the project in the right way at each step of development (Gymrek, 2013). Team Members and Stakeholders: To have a vision of the critical nature of the construction team helps to manage effectively a building project. Various builders, vendors, and consultant works together to complete a construction project. In a house construction project, the team member varies from one construction to another. Choosing the right depends on the following factors. Plot Attributes State of the Ground, Topography, etc. Construction Avenue. Design. House Building Process. Typically the team members in a regular house building project team are architect, surveyors, project manager, the primary contractor, decorators. The small category workers are stone masons, bricklayers, roofers, joiners, etc (Gymrek, 2013). Identifying stakeholders and their requirements are critical for any construction project. Different stakeholders obtain different objectives. Champions and user panel are the members of the client organization. Champions have the work of supervising the design quality throughout the project. User group consists of customers, visitors, community groups, etc. Neighbors, funders, local authority, are also stakeholders (Kunreuther et al. 2013). Risk Identification technique: To initiate and monitor a risk management program it is crucial to identify risks. The identification of risk includes many methods. This study mentioned three of them. Brainstorming: In the unstructured state of the project, this approach is most useful. The method reflects the process of capturing risks that assist in building the project based on others' design. To utilize this technique a team of particular members who have knowledge of the discussed ideas, related documentation and it also need a facilitator who knows how to lead the group as per risk process. A note taker gathers and stores the ideas discuss in each meeting (Van et al.2014). In the planning process brainstorming create a list observed strategies, the cause of the risks and areas of impact. Working Groups: This technique concentrates on assigning a group to a particular area to identify risks. It consists of a different group of peoples working on a specific topic within the project management for gathering information about possible risk. Engineering Templates: This technique uses sets of flow charts that are related to various development processes (Kunreuther et al. 2013). Brainstorm technique serves as the last option when no other options are left. This way the project management will always go the furthest way to identify any possible risk. Selection of Risk Diagram Technique: Cause and effect diagrams, System or process flow charts, Influence, SWOT analysis, Expert judgment are the different types of diagramming techniques. For identifying the risk the cause and effect diagram is selected. This chart is also known as Fishbone diagram and Ishikawa diagram. The CE Diagram gives solution for the needs of investigating risks for an impact. The implementation process of CE Diagram starts from the team meetings as it assists in directing team members' concentration toward a particular issue (McNeil, Frey Embrechts, 2015). In addition, it makes a picture of the issue without having concerns of a comparatively complex flow chart. Figure 1: Case and Effect Diagram of House Building (Source: Nasirzadeh Nojedehi, 2013) Impact Analysis of Risk: Project risks for a construction business are related and dependent on each other. The sources of the risks are performance, scope, environment, cost, local government, etc. The classification of project risk is as follows changes in the work, site access, level of details delivered, actual quantities of work, etc (Yang Shen, 2014). The risks can be categorized as per high probability and impact. Figure 2: Risk Impact and Probability (Source: Mindtools.com, 2016) Conclusion: The study concludes that use of the risk assessment techniques for a building construction prevents even the least possible risks. Though the process is very efficient, it is not capable of eliminating all the risks. The Cause and Effect Diagram becomes helpful when a group wants to find the cause of some problems. Risk impact and probability categorizes the risks and helps to determine to initiate the risk elimination process. References: Gymrek, M., McGuire, A. L., Golan, D., Halperin, E., Erlich, Y. (2013). Identifying personal genomes by surname inference.Science,339(6117), 321-324. Kunreuther, H., Heal, G., Allen, M., Edenhofer, O., Field, C. B., Yohe, G. (2013). Risk management and climate change.Nature Climate Change,3(5), 447-450. McNeil, A. J., Frey, R., Embrechts, P. (2015).Quantitative risk management: Concepts, techniques and tools. Princeton university press. Van Loon, M. H., de Bruin, A. B., van Gog, T., van Merrinboer, J. J., Dunlosky, J. (2014). Can students evaluate their understanding of cause-and-effect relations? The effects of diagram completion on monitoring accuracy.Acta psychologica,151, 143-154. Yang, R. J., Shen, G. Q. (2014). Framework for stakeholder management in construction projects.Journal of Management in Engineering,31(4), 04014064. Mindtools.com,. (2016).Risk Impact/Probability Chart: Learning to Prioritize Risks. Retrieved 21 February 2016, from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_78.html

Playing Her Guitar Suite free essay sample

Last September, four young musicians began a journey, calling themselves Rip N Time, cleverly named after lead singer Riley Ripintyme. This band of high schoolers from LA combined their talents to create the album â€Å"Playing Her Guitar Suite. †Whats interesting about this album is that it is primarily guitar music. â€Å"Playing Her Guitar Suite† is a three-song EP that takes the listener on a jingle-jangle journey back to the classic guitar sounds of 50s rock, 80s metal, and the Blues era.The first track, â€Å"Playing Her Guitar,† is a sensitive vocal. Shimmery guitar and pretty choral voices combine to create a passionate sound. Then the guitars break into chunky rhythmic riffing that gives it a chill vibe before adding in some pretty sounds. The result is a unique interweaving of different types of guitar playing.â€Å"Twisting Road,† an eight-minute instrumental track, overlaps beautiful chords with metallic guitars and a cool background bass. We will write a custom essay sample on Playing Her Guitar Suite or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This track is full of intricate guitar solos that display lots of talent. It morphs seamlessly between rough metallic riffing and easy rock sounds, similar to what one would hear at a classic rock concert.Rip N Times final track, â€Å"Suite Dream,† is another guitar-filled instrumental. It begins with dream-like cascading harmonies accompanied by the soft plucking of the bass. As it progresses, several guitars cry out in a symphonic mix, weaving their voices together. Soft vocals at the end leave listeners feeling like theyve been in a sweet dream.In addition to the band members, other students work behind the scenes to create visual representations of the music. Inside the CD is a 24-page graphic novella that tells the inspiring story of seven guitar legends who shaped the bands music-making goals. Rip N Time uses the power of tuning, sensitivity, practice, perseverance, attitude, tone, and heart to achieve their ultimate goal: to defeat the Tarborgs, a rival band, at the Battle of the Bands at a local cafe. This novella is beautifully written, and the illustrations are as unique as their songs.

Gastro oesophageal reflux Essay Example

Gastro oesophageal reflux Essay Example Gastro oesophageal reflux Essay Gastro oesophageal reflux Essay Unit of measurement 3. AN Introduction TO ACTION AND USES OF MEDICINES. P2 ( a ) List the common upsets of the gastro-intestinal piece of land. GORD ( gastro oesophageal reflux ) : GORD occurs when tummy acid leaks backup into the gorge. Peptic ulcer: tummy ulcer and duodenal ulcer is known as peptic ulcers. Inflammatory intestine disease: A chronic upset of GI piece of land, ( Ulcerative inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn s disease, ) Cranky intestine syndrome: IBS is a common functional upset of the intestine means there is a job with the map of a portion of the organic structure but there is no abnormalcy in the construction. ( e.g. hurting uncomfortableness, bloating, diarrhea, irregularity ) Hemorrhoids P2 ( B ) name the common interventions used in the upsets you have named in P2a and include and OTC readyings available. 1. GORD: there are three chief types of medical specialties for GORD. Antacidse.g. Aluminium hydrated oxide ( Alu-Cap, Maalox, Mucogel ) , magnesium carbonate ( aromatic Mg carbonate unwritten suspension ) , magnesium trisilicate tablets and suspension, Hydrotalcite suspension, Altacite Plus, Maalox Plus, Alginates:Gaviscon Advance A ; baby, Rennie Duo, Topal, peptic, Acidex, H2-blockers:Cimetidine, cimetidine, Famotidine, Ranitidine, Nizatidine, Proton pump inhibitors:esomeprazole ( Nexium ) , Lansoprazole ( Zoton ) , Omeprazole ( Losec, omepazole ) , pantoprazole ( Protium : 2. Peptic Ulcer: Peptic ulcer is besides treated with alkalizers and H2-antagonists. Patient who takes NSAIDs should take with Prostaglandin parallel ( e.g. Misoprostol ( cytotec ) 3. Inflammatory bowel disease: a. Ulcerative inflammatory bowel disease: intervention of ulcerative inflammatory bowel disease depends on the badness of the disease. drugs are used in ulcerative inflammatory bowel disease are: Aminosalicylates ( balsalzide Na ( Colazide ) , Mesalazine ( AsacolMR, Ipocol, MesrenMR, Pentasa ) , Olsalazine Sodium ( Dipentium ) , Sulfasalazine ( Salazopyurin ) Corticosteroids: such as beclometasoneDipropionate ( ( Clipper ) , Budesonide ( Entocort ) , Hydrocorticone ( Colifoam ) , Pediapred ( predenema, predfoam, predsol ) Immunomodulators: such as Azathioprine, Purinethol, 4. Cranky Bowel Syndrome: There is no remedy for IBS, but drugs are available to handle the symptoms. E.g. Constipation drugs: Bisacodyl, Docustae Na ( docusol, Dioctyl ) , Glycerol, Senna, Na picosulfate ( Dulco-lax ) , Laxatives ( lactulose, macrogols ( Movicol ) , Phosphate clyster, Microlette Micro-enema. Bowel cleansing solution etc. Diarrhea: To halt diarrhea drugs are available such as: e.g. Loperamide, Imodium, Co-phenotrope ( Lomotil ) , Codeine Phosphate, Antispasmodic: helps to command colon musculus cramps and cut down abdominal hurting Antidepressants may alleviate some symptoms. 5. Hemorrhoids: intervention of hemorrhoids is ab initio alleviating symptoms. ( E.g tub baths, picks, suppository ) and forestalling the return of hemorrhoids require cut down the force per unit area and straining of irregularity. ( e.g Increasing fiber and fluids in diet, exercising, laxacitive, etc. Oeintment, picks, suppositories Local anaesthetics: e.g Xylocaine Vasoconstrictors: e.g Ephedrine sulfate, adrenaline, phenylephrine Protectants: Glycerin, hemimorphite, Zn oxide, aluminum hydrated oxide gel. Astrigents: hemimorphite, Zn oxide. Antiseptics: boracic acid Analgesics Corticosteroids: cortisol Surgery: Haemorrhoidectomy, Rubber set ligation, injection. P2 ( degree Celsius ) List the common side effects with each of the interventions named in P2 ( B ) Side effects of alkalizers drugs: Diarrhoea, silica-based nephritic rocks on long term intervention, aluminum incorporating alkalizers may be cloging. H2-blocker drugs side effects: Diarrhoea, concern, giddiness, roseola, fatigue, alopecia, seldom tachycardia, anorexia, cholestatic icterus, interstitial pneumonia, anxety, insomnia, dry oral cavity, gustatory sensation perturbation, sudating, alopecia, vasculitis. Proton Pump Inhibitors drugs side effects: Nausea, purging, abdominal hurting, flatulency, diarrhea, irregularity, concern, dry oral cavity, peripheral odema, giddiness, sleep perturbation, weariness, par-aesthesia, arthralgia, myodynia, roseola, pruritus, other side effects are really seldom stomatitis, hepatitis, icterus, hypertensitivity, febrility, depression, hallucinations, confusion, gynaecomastia, Brights disease, blood upsets, ocular perturbation, sudating, alopecia, etc. Aminosalicylates side effects: Diarrhoea, sickness, purging, abdominal hurting, headhache, roseolas, loss of appetency, blood upsets, ataxy, sterile meningitis, dizziness, depression, oligospermia. Corticosteroids side effects: high blood pressure, Na and H2O keeping, K and Ca loss, and glucocorticsteroid side effects are diabetes osteoporosis, high dosage of corticoid can do Cushing s syndrome with Moon face, acne, striae, and others and gastro-intestinal side effects are dyspepsia, abdominal distention, acute pancreatitis, oesophageal ulceration, candidasis, musculus failing, vertebral and long bone break, endocrinal effects catamenial abnormalities, amenorrhea, hirsuteness, weight addition, Neuropsychiatric effects: insomnia, schizophrenic disorder, ophthalmic effects ; glaucoma, increased intra optic force per unit area, besides skin wasting, urtication, myocardial rupture, hyperglycaemia, hiccoughs, unease, concern, vertigo etc. Stimulant laxatives: urine coloring material alteration, colic, local annoyance from suppositories. Anti-Motility drugs side effects: abdominal spasms, giddiness, sleepiness, and tegument roseolas, urtications, abdominal bloating, and paralytic intestinal obstruction. P2 ( vitamin D ) for each of the intervention, discourse the information you would give to patients assist them utilize the intervention efficaciously. Try and avoid big repast, particularly in the eventide. Try eating repasts and distribute these repasts through the twenty-four hours. Avoid fatty nutrients in the eventide. Avoid inordinate intoxicant, tea, java, spicy nutrient Stress direction or relaxation therapy Regular exercising Avoid sitting hunched Avoid tight belts Raising the caput of the bed may cut down the symptoms attempt to avoid smoke if self-treatment are non working see your physician for advice.

History and Facts About Alcatraz Prison

History and Facts About Alcatraz Prison Once considered the prison of American prisons, the island of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay has been an asset to the U.S. Army, the federal prison system, jailhouse folklore, and the historical evolution of the West Coast. Despite its reputation as a cold and unforgiving penitentiary, Alcatraz is now one of the most prominent tourist magnets in San Francisco. In 1775, Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala chartered what is now San Francisco Bay. He called the 22-acre rocky island La Isla de los Alcatraces, meaning Island of the Pelicans. With no vegetation or habitation, Alcatraz was little more than a desolate islet occupied by the occasional swarm of birds. Under the English-speaking influence, the name Alcatraces became Alcatraz. Fort Alcatraz Alcatraz was reserved for military use under President Millard Fillmore in 1850. Meanwhile, the discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada Mountains brought growth and prosperity to San Francisco. The lure of the Gold Rush demanded the protection of California as gold seekers flooded the San Francisco Bay. In response, the U.S. Army built a fortress on the rocky face of Alcatraz. They made plans to install more than 100 cannons, making Alcatraz the most heavily armed entity on the West Coast. The first functional lighthouse on the West Coast was built on Alcatraz Island as well. Once fully equipped with weaponry in 1859, the island was deemed Fort Alcatraz. Having never fired its own weapons in combat, Fort Alcatraz quickly evolved from an island of defense to an island of detention. In the early 1860s, civilians arrested for treason during the Civil War were housed on the island. With the influx of prisoners, additional living quarters were built to house 500 men. Alcatraz as a jail would continue for 100 years. Throughout history, the average population of the island hovered between 200 and 300 people, never at maximum capacity. The Rock After the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906, inmates from nearby prisons were transferred to the infallible Alcatraz. Over the next five years, prisoners built a new jail, designated Pacific Branch, U.S. Military Prison, Alcatraz Island. Popularly known as The Rock, Alcatraz served as an army disciplinary barracks until 1933. Prisoners were educated and received military and vocational training here. Alcatraz of the early 20th century was a minimum-security prison. Prisoners spent their days working and learning. Some were even employed as babysitters for the families of prison officers. They eventually built a baseball field and inmates fashioned their own baseball uniforms. Boxing matches among inmates known as â€Å"Alcatraz Fights† were hosted on Friday nights. Prison life played a role in the changing landscape of the island. The military transported soil to Alcatraz from nearby Angel Island, and many prisoners were trained as gardeners. They planted roses, bluegrass, poppies, and lilies. Under the order of the U.S. Army, Alcatraz was a fairly mild institution and its accommodations were favorable. The geographic location of Alcatraz was the undoing of U.S. Army occupation. Importing food and supplies to the island was much too expensive. The Great Depression of the 1930s forced the army off the island, and the prisoners were transferred to institutes in Kansas and New Jersey. Uncle Sam’s Devil’s Island Alcatraz was obtained by the Federal Bureau of Prisons in 1934. The former military detention center became America’s first maximum-security civilian penitentiary. This â€Å"prison system’s prison† was specifically designed to house the most horrendous prisoners, the troublemakers that other federal prisons could not successfully detain. Its isolated location made it ideal for the exile of hardened criminals, and a strict daily routine taught inmates to follow prison rule and regulation. The Great Depression witnessed some of the most heinous criminal activity in modern American history, and Alcatraz’s severity was well suited to its time. Alcatraz was home to notorious criminals including Al â€Å"Scarface† Capone, who was convicted of tax evasion and spent five years on the island. Alvin â€Å"Creepy† Karpis, the FBI’s first â€Å"Public Enemy,† was a 28-year resident of Alcatraz. The most famous prisoner was Alaskan murderer Robert â€Å"Birdman† Stroud, who spent 17 years on Alcatraz. Over its 29 years of operation, the federal prison housed more than 1,500 convicts. Daily life in the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was harsh. Prisoners were given four rights. They included medical attention, shelter, food, and clothing. Recreational activities and family visits had to be earned through hard work. Punishments for bad behavior included hard labor, wearing a 12-pound ball and chain, and lock-downs where prisoners were kept in solitary confinement, restricted to bread and water. There was a total of 14 escape attempts by over 30 prisoners. Most were caught, several were shot, and a few were swallowed by the chilling swells of the San Francisco Bay. Why Did Alcatraz Close? The prison on Alcatraz Island was expensive to operate, as all supplies had to be brought in by boat. The island had no source of fresh water, and almost one million gallons were shipped in each week. Building a high-security prison elsewhere was more affordable for the Federal Government, and as of 1963 â€Å"Uncle Sam’s Devil’s Island† was no more. Today, the equivalent of the infamous federal prison on Alcatraz Island is a maximum-security institution in Florence, Colorado. It is nicknamed â€Å"Alcatraz of the Rockies†. Tourism Alcatraz Island became a national park in 1972 and is considered part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Open to the public in 1973, Alcatraz sees more than one million visitors from across the globe each year. Alcatraz is best known as a maximum-security prison. Media attention and fantastic stories have exaggerated this image. The San Francisco Bay islet has been much more than this. Alcatraz as a mass of rock named for its birds, an American fort during the Gold Rush, an army barracks, and tourist attraction may be less enticing but allude to a more dynamic existence. It is one to be embraced by San Francisco and California as a whole.

Elizabeth Gaskell short story The Old Nurse's Story, which is taken Essay

Elizabeth Gaskell short story The Old Nurse's Story, which is taken from the Virago Book of Ghost Stories (Virago 2006), The Weir by Connor McPherson, and dramatises Valerie's story - Essay Example ‘The Virago Book of Ghost Stories’ has series of ghost stories which are edited chronologically so that the reader can feel the change in the pattern of the ghost stories over the ages. In the short story ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’, the author Mrs. Gaskell pitches in various factors that make the plot of the story truly supernatural. She inculcates the series of untimely deaths, the secrets of the family, the sibling rivalries along with more common features like love and jealousy. The most important attribute that makes the story so popular in the genre of the supernatural stories is the addition of certain Gothic features like that of the old manor house, stormy evenings, extreme emotions, super natural ambience and above all the child ghost. The excerpts from the story, â€Å"I was all in a hot, trembling passion; and I said it was very well for her to talk, that knew what these sights and noises betokened, and that had, perhaps, had something to do with the spectre -child while it was alive. And I taunted her so, that she told me all she knew, at last; and then I wished I had never been told, for it only made me afraid more than ever† (Gaskell, â€Å"The Old Nurses Story†) provides for the superb case of spectre - child. The play ‘The Weir’ captures the scene of a regular rural Irish Bar where three ‘regulars’ are busy in having drink with the bar owner. The four of them are old time friends. While sipping in to their drinks, they are busy narrating and swapping stories with each other. All of a sudden, a lady, in her late thirties, arrives at the bar and asks for wine. She joins the four friends with her drink. The chemistry of the group changes as all of them tries to impress the lady with their stories which in due course of time turns to Irish folklores with supernatural events. After all the male counterparts are done with their respective stories, the lady commences her narration of the melancholy

Why is it important for the marketer to distinguish between customer Essay

Why is it important for the marketer to distinguish between customer acquisition, conversion, and retention when developing marketing strategies - Essay Example The dynamics of the three aspects are also very different, so telling them apart makes it easy for the marketer to develop an effective marketing strategy. Another important point is that all three concepts are methodical and systematic, meaning they have to be conducted in an orderly manner. Customer acquisition is always the first activity to be carried out, because customers cannot be acquired or retained if they do not exist. A marketer who can distinguish the three concepts is also more likely to understand that they must be conducted in an orderly fashion (Tracy 47). An ability to distinguish the three aspects gives the marketer the impetus to implement them effectively, and make the whole marketing strategy effective. Finally, distinguishing these concepts allows the marketer to identify possible mistakes made during the development of the marketing strategy. For example, if customer acquisition is not done effectively, the marketer can pinpoint the areas of weakness and develop appropriate measures to eliminate

Piece of irony Essay Example for Free

Piece of irony Essay His odyssey then comes to a halt, as he perceives his friend, Henry Clerval. Coming across this memorable person allows him to forget his horror and misfortune; it allows him to feel calm and serene joy. They exchange stories and Victor reveals the scenario of his created monster. Henry believes it is a disturbed imagination, but the pertinacity of the story allows it to become believable. Where will Frankenstein go from here? This chapter is of pure significance to how the story is concluded. It creates suspense, knowing there is a vile monster on the loose. Where will it go? What will it do? This chapter allows new themes to be created. Death! Love! What will this mean for Frankenstein? Will he live or will he die? How will this gothic novel conclude and what effect will this monster have on the communities welfare? The character of Frankenstein should be immensely appreciated. Is Frankenstein who we think he is? From previously read chapters, we see the emotional and diligent side of Frankenstein. He is seen to be energetic, beneficial, well-mannered; a man of determination who would in capacitate at the thought of failure. However, chapter 5 emphasizes the indolent and non-progressive side of Dr. Frankenstein. We see this by the way he reacts to the form and appearance of his unforgettable monster. For example, he uses a great phrase: With anxiety that almost amounted to agony. This suggests that the amount of fear and worry was immensely increasing. Victors feelings towards his creature are negative, consequently his use of irony emphasizes this. One piece of irony used is: I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! Victor doesnt mean what he says so he uses sarcasm to overlap his disappointment. Victor also uses a rhetorical question to make himself and the reader think. He asks himself: how can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe? . This once again clarifies his negativity towards the monster. In this chapter, Victor has two main dreams, one being of relevance. His first dream is about the outcome of his creation; the beauty that had encountered to disgust and breathless horror. The second of the two dreams is the most abnormal. Victor dreamt that his wife Elizabeth had wandered the streets of Ingolstadt in the bloom of health; once embracing her, he kisses her dainty lips and somehow her body reforms to that of his dead mother, wrapped up in cloth, covered scarcely in graveworms. This is of pure relevance to the rest of the novel as they are seen as signs for what is to come in the future. As it happens, his dream in some phases becomes true. Elizabeth, Victors wife gets killed by his vicious creature. From this stage, Victor is forced to create a companion for the monster; not consenting to this would lead to more homicides within Victors family. In the novel, Mary Shelley illustrates a poem to correlate with Victors retreat from home. The first line of the poem reads: Like one, on a lonesome road. Using this sentence suggests that Victor is walking by himself; disassociated with anyone. At this moment in time, he is feeling poorly and anxious about what the consequences hold. The second line reads: Doth walk in fear and dread. This emphasizes the fact that he is scared as he triumphants through the streets. The next line reads: And having once turned round, walks on. This phrase states that he turns around to see his surroundings, and then continues his journey. Victors feels as if the monster has banished him from Ingolstadt. The following line reads; And turns no more his head. This tells us that Victor doesnt want to come in contact with the monster again. At this point, Victor still has the feeling of disappointment and embarrassment in himself. Next the poem reads; Because he knows a frightful flend. This means he knows a frightful demon, of whom to him is the monster he created. The final line of the poem reads: Doth close behind him tread. This means that the monster is perhaps close behind him. At this moment, Victor feels paranoid and weary. Within this gothic novel, Victor includes 3 themes: dark science, isolation and weather. Dark science is used to indicate the creation of the fiend, made from scarce rotted bodily parts. His thoughts are deep and out of this world. His knowledge takes him so deep into science that his tutor tries to prevent him passing a certain stage in his medical degree. His aim is to infuse life into an inanimate body. He succeeds, however is disappointed with his result. During this theme, it is intercepted by weather. During the lonely nights and experimental days, the dark science compacts with horrid weather. For example: it was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishments of my toils. This tells us that the night the monster was finalised, the night and atmosphere was very dull. Another example of the weather.

Are Calcium Supplements Really Necessary? Essay -- Health Nutrition Pa

Are Calcium Supplements Really Necessary? Are calcium supplements really necessary, and if so, are they necessary for all age groups? This is a debated issue at this point, and there are facts and studies that have results going both ways. The difficult part is deciphering which studies are accurate, which are applicable to specific groups of individuals, and which are simply ploys to make a profit. But no matter what the conclusions, all studies agree that calcium, in one form or another, is essential for forming and maintaining strong bones. BONE BUILDING AND BONE LOSS First of all, calcium is essential for the strengthening of teeth and bones, muscle and nerve function, and is also a necessary factor for blood clotting. Although most people are aware of this, calcium is severely deficient in most of our diets. As a result, we are experiencing an epidemic of osteoporosis in our society and high blood pressure, which causes kidney and heart damage and stroke. The human body is constantly building and destroying bone mass. As long as it is receiving sufficient calcium, exercise, and hormones, bone building stays ahead of bone loss; osteoporosis occurs in older people when bone loss outpaces their bone building. This was once considered to be an inevitable part of the aging process, but it is now recognized as the most common skeletal disease in the world, leading to debilitating injuries that can have serious complications and even result in death. Factors of this disease include genetics, ethnicity, family history, and body type. (http://www.ghc.org /nwhealth/julaug96/women.html) CALCIUM NECESSARY FOR ALL AGES An adequate calcium intake is essential for all ages. Young children need high doses because th... ...oducts improve bone density in adolescent girls?" School of Allied Health Professions, University of Connecticut, Storrs 06269-2101, USA. Levenson DI. Bockman RS. Nutrition Reviews 52(7):221-32, 1994 Jul. "A review of calcium preparations." New York Hospital, Cornell University Medical Center, NY. Saggese G. Igli Baroncelli G. Annali dell Instituto Superiore di Sanita. 31(4):461-79, 1995. "Nutritional aspects of calcium and Vitamin D from infancy to adolescence." Istituto di Clinica Pediatrica Universita degli Studi, Pisa, Italy. Whiting SJ. Wood R. Kim K. Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. 9(4):187-92, 1997 Apr. "Calcium supplements." University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. Whiting SJ. Nutrition Reviews 52(3):95-7, 1994 Mar. "Safety of some calcium supplements questioned." University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.

Valuation: Apv vs Wacc

The three approaches value the entire firm but they differ around the way they treat tax shields. We will first review the rational and the underlying assumptions behind each approach. We will then use a numerical example to illustrate the mechanics behind the three approaches and show under which assumptions they yield the same results. Enterprise Valuation According to Modigliani and Miller, the value of a company’s economic assets must equal the value of the claims against those assets.Enterprise valuation models value the sum of the cash flows to all claim holders, including equity holders and debt holders and discount them to the appropriate cost of capital. The cash flow available to all claim holders is called the free cash flow (FCF) from operations and is defined below: FCF = EBIAT + Depreciation – Capital Expenditure – Increases in Working Capital EBIAT is the income the company earns after tax without regard to how the company is financed. Non-cash exp enses such as Depreciation are then added.Because we are valuing a going concern we also take into account the cash flow management will retain for new capital expenditures and possible increase in working capital. The remaining is in effect the cash available to owners and creditors. By definition free cash flow is independent from leverage (and is often referred as un-levered free cash flow). Therefore the value derived from the interest tax shield (interest on debt is tax deductible) has still to be incorporated in the enterprise valuation.This is where the three approaches WACC, APV and CCF differ: †¢ The WACC approach values the tax shield by adjusting the cost of capital †¢ The APV approach values the tax shield separately from the un-levered free cash flow †¢ The CCF approach values the tax shield by incorporating it in the cash flow The Weighted Average Cost of Capital Approach To determine the value of the enterprise, the free cash flows from operations have to be discounted to present value. According to Modigliani and Miller’s proposition number one without taxes or financial market mperfections the cost of capital does not depend on financing so the weighted average of the expected returns to debt and equity investors equals the opportunity cost of capital regardless of leverage: Rd x D/V + Re x E/V = Ra = Constant independent of D/V Ra = Opportunity cost of capital = Un-levered cost of equity = Return on assets = pre-tax WACC Rd = Cost of debt, Re = Cost of equity, D/V and E/V = Target levels of debt and equity using market values Fabrice Bienfait IFM Final Paper Page 2 of 8None of the components of the cost of capital are directly observable and therefore need to be approximated using various models and assumptions. The cost of equity is derived from the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) while the cost of debt can be estimated from the firm credit rating and default risk or from yields on publicly traded debt. However inter est on debt is tax deductible so if we were to discount free cash flows from operations using Ra we would not take into account the value of the tax shield.Therefore the after-tax weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is used instead. WACC includes an adjustment to the cost of debt by the marginal tax rate (Tm): WACC = Rd x (1-Tm) x D/V + Re x E/V (= Ra – Rd x Tm x D/V) WACC is less than the opportunity cost of capital Ra because the cost of debt is calculated after tax as Rd (1-Tm). Thus the tax advantages of debt financing are reflected in a lower discount rate. The WACC equals the opportunity cost of capital when there is no debt and declines with financial leverage because of increasing interest tax shields.The WACC increases again when the debt level becomes significant relative to the value of the firm reflecting the main costs associated with borrowing, the costs of bankruptcy. Figure 1: WACC as a Function of the Debt Ratio Rates of Return Re R WACC Rd Debt to Equity Discounting all future cash flows using a constant WACC assumes that the company manages its capital structure to a fixed debt to value ratio (D/V).Therefore the company’s WACC is the right discount rate only if the company’s debt ratio (D/V) is expected to remain reasonably close to constant. However if the company is expected to significantly change its capital structure (i. e. Fabrice Bienfait IFM Final Paper Page 3 of 8 constant level of debt, LBO, recapitalization), the WACC would have to be continuously adjusted which makes the approach more difficult to apply.The Adjusted Present Value Approach The APV approach values the cash flows associated with capital structure independently by separating the value of operations into two components: the value of the firm without debt and the benefits and the costs of borrowing: Value of the firm = Value of the un-levered firm + Present value of interest tax shields – Costs of financial distress The value of the un-l evered firm is obtained by discounting free cash flows at the return on assets (Ra).If the company manages its debt-to-value to a target level (D/V=constant) then the interest tax shield is as risky as the firm and should be discounted at Ra. In this case the APV approach yields the same results as the WACC approach but is computationally less efficient. However if the debt is assumed to be a fixed amount (D=constant) the interest tax shield is less risky than the firm but as risky as the debt itself and should be discounted at the cost of debt.In this case the APV approach is not only the only correct approach, it is also computationally very efficient if the tax saving are considered as perpetuity since: Present value of interest tax shields = (Tm x Rd x D) / Rd = Tm x D The main risk in using the APV approach is to ignore the costs of financial distress, especially at very high debt ratios, which leads to an overvaluation of the firm.The Capital Cash Flow Approach Capital cash fl ows are simply derived from free cash flows by adding interest tax shields: CCF = FCF + Interest tax shield = FCF + Tm x Rd x D With this approach capital cash flows are then discounted at the return on assets. This implicitly assumes that interest tax shields are as risky as the firm and are discounted at the return on assets. This is true when debt is a fixed proportion of value. Under this assumption the capital cash flow approach will generate the same results as the WACC approach.Furthermore if the debt is forecasted in levels instead of a debt-to-value ratio the CCF approach is easier to use because the tax shield are simple to calculate and to include in the CCF. If the forecasted debt levels imply a change in the debt-to-value ratio, the CCF retains his simplicity since the discount rate, the return on assets, is independent of the capital structure and can be used for every forecast period. Therefore the approach is easier to apply in transactions involving change in capita l structure such as a LBO or a restructuring.However in this case discounting the interest tax shields at Ra is a simplifying assumption since the risk of those cash flows is not anymore the same as the risk associate with the firm. Fabrice Bienfait IFM Final Paper Page 4 of 8 Numerical Example Table 1 shows the financial assumptions underlying our numerical example. The firm is valued over a period of 5 years during which EBIT is growing at 5% per annum and depreciation, capital expenditure and increase in working capital are constant. However the firm’s capital structure changes significantly through the repayment of a major portion of its debt.Table 1: Assumptions (in â‚ ¬) Risk Free Rate Market Risk Premium Tax Rate Asset Beta Debt Beta EBIT Depreciation Capex Increase in NWC Debt Year 1 5% 7% 40% 1. 2 0. 4 100,000 50,000 60,000 10,000 100,000 Year 2 5% 7% 40% 1. 2 0. 35 105,000 50,000 60,000 10,000 50,000 Year 3 5% 7% 40% 1. 2 0. 3 110,250 50,000 60,000 10,000 25,000 Year 4 5% 7% 40% 1. 2 0. 25 115,763 50,000 60,000 10,000 12,500 Year 5 5% 7% 40% 1. 2 0. 2 121,551 50,000 60,000 10,000 6,250 We will start valuing the firm using the WACC approach (see table 2).This is the less appropriated and most complex methodology given the forecasted changes in capital structure. Indeed the WACC needs to be recalculated every year and an iterative calculation has to be used since the value of the firm for each year is required to derive the percentage of debt and equity. The firm value in year N is the value of the remaining cash flows. For instance the value of the firm at the beginning of Year 3 is the value of the remaining cash flow in Year 3, 4 and 5 discounted using the WACC in year 3, 4 and 5.Table 2: WACC Valuation (in â‚ ¬) EBIT – Taxes on EBIT = EBIAT + Depreciation – Capex – Increase in NWC = FCF Percent Debt Cost of Debt After Tax Cost of Debt Percent Equity Return on Assets Cost of Equity WACC Discount Factor PV Firm Value Year 1 100,000 (40,000) 60,000 50,000 (60,000) (10,000) 40,000 61. 3% 7. 8% 4. 7% 38. 7% 13. 4% 22. 3% 11. 5% 0. 90 35,878 163,178 Year 2 105,000 (42,000) 63,000 50,000 (60,000) (10,000) 43,000 35. 2% 7. 5% 4. 5% 64. 8% 13. 4% 16. 6% 12. 4% 0. 80 34,329 141,923Year 3 110,250 (44,100) 66,150 50,000 (60,000) (10,000) 46,150 21. 5% 7. 1% 4. 3% 78. 5% 13. 4% 15. 1% 12. 8% 0. 71 32,666 116,451 Year 4 115,763 (46,305) 69,458 50,000 (60,000) (10,000) 49,458 14. 7% 6. 8% 4. 1% 85. 3% 13. 4% 14. 5% 13. 0% 0. 63 30,979 85,196 Year 5 121,551 (48,620) 72,930 50,000 (60,000) (10,000) 52,930 13. 3% 6. 4% 3. 8% 86. 7% 13. 4% 14. 5% 13. 1% 0. 55 29,325 46,817 Fabrice Bienfait IFM Final Paper Page 5 of 8 The cost of debt is calculated using CAPM: The cost of equity is calculated using the M&M proposition I:Rd = Rf + ? d x MRP Re = (Ra – D/V Rd) / (E/V) Using the WACC approach we find a value for the firm of â‚ ¬163,178. Next we use the APV approach to value the firm calculating separately the value of the un-levered firm and the value of the interest tax shield (Tm x Rd x D). The approach is straightforward in this case since we are given a forecast of the level of debt. We find that the APV approach yields the same firm value (â‚ ¬163,178) as the WACC approach when discounting interest tax shield at Ra.We also illustrate that using Rd would yield a higher valuation of the firm (this is not the correct discount rate in this case given that the debt is not constant). Table 3: APV Valuation (in â‚ ¬) FCF Return on Assets Discount Factor PV Value of Unlevered Firm Interest Tax Shield Return on Assets Ra Discount Factor PV Value of Interest Tax Shield @ Ra Interest Tax Shield Cost of Debt Rd Discount Factor PV Value of Interest Tax Shield @ Rd Value of Firm with ITS @ Ra Value of Firm with ITS @ Rd Year 1 40,000 13. 4% 0. 88 35,273 158,491 3,120 13. % 0. 88 2,751 4,686 3,120 7. 8% 0. 93 2,894 5,121 163,178 163,613 Year 2 43,000 13. 4% 0. 78 33,438 Year 3 46,150 13 . 4% 0. 69 31,647 Year 4 49,458 13. 4% 0. 60 29,907 Year 5 52,930 13. 4% 0. 53 28,225 1,490 13. 4% 0. 78 1,159 710 13. 4% 0. 69 487 338 13. 4% 0. 60 204 160 13. 4% 0. 53 85 1,490 7. 5% 0. 86 1,286 710 7. 1% 0. 81 572 338 6. 8% 0. 76 255 160 6. 4% 0. 71 114 Finally we use the CCF approach. The calculation clearly shows how the interest tax shields are incorporated in the cash flows and then discounted at Ra.The CCF approach is equivalent to the WACC approach. Furthermore the approach also produces the same value as the APV method with interest tax shields discounted at Ra. Fabrice Bienfait IFM Final Paper Page 6 of 8 Table 4: CCF Valuation (in â‚ ¬) EBIT – Taxes on EBIT = EBIAT + Depreciation – Capex – Increase in NWC + Interest tax Shield = CCF Return on Assets Discount Factor PV Firm Value Year 1 100,000 (40,000) 60,000 50,000 (60,000) (10,000) 3,120 43,120 13. 4% 0. 88 38,025 163,178 Year 2 105,000 (42,000) 63,000 50,000 (60,000) (10,000) 1,490 44,490 13. 4 % 0. 8 34,597 Year 3 110,250 (44,100) 66,150 50,000 (60,000) (10,000) 710 46,860 13. 4% 0. 69 32,134 Year 4 115,763 (46,305) 69,458 50,000 (60,000) (10,000) 338 49,795 13. 4% 0. 60 30,112 Year 5 121,551 (48,620) 72,930 50,000 (60,000) (10,000) 160 53,090 13. 4% 0. 53 28,311 Conclusions The three enterprise valuation techniques considered in this paper are different in the way they treat interest tax shields. However we have seen that the WACC approach and the CCF approach are identical and that under certain assumptions the APV approach also yields the same valuation.The WACC approach is easy to use and efficient when the assumption that capital structure will not change in the future can be made (D/V= constant). If debt level is forecasted to remain constant in absolute term (D=constant), the APV approach should be used discounting the interest tax shield at the cost of debt. Finally the CCF approach is the appropriate and most efficient approach when forecasted debt levels imply a change in capital structure. In this case it is also equivalent to the APV approach discounting the interest tax shield at the return on assets. Fabrice Bienfait IFM Final Paper

Audience as Market vs Audience as Public Essay

The relevance of ratings is very crucial, for it is what determines the most looked after programs that give a hint of satisfaction from the audiences as consumers. It is a measure of response that helps producers and managers determine what type of programs are appropriate for a certain time of the day. It also tells something about the audience, generally, their age and program preference. The audience-as-market view was manifested through the many advertisements that can be found on the commercials or air-time allotted in-between television programs. (Ang, 1991, pp. 28) Most of the television programs were an also profit-making program that generates money from the emotions and satisfaction of the public domain. In a more traditional sense, wherein broadcasting is used as a means of transmitting information, the audiences are viewed as a public. In a broad sense it portrays public service through broadcasting. Those who take broadcasting in the traditional sense believe that they have a responsibility to provide information to the public domain or to their audiences. (Ang, 1991, pp. 29) Impact of Globalization There had been several changes in the broadcasting industry due to the innovations in technology and the advent of globalization. The new ways of delivering audio-visual information via satellite have tremendously increase the audience choice and made access to different programs a lot more cheaper (McQuail, 1997, pp. 9). An instance that shows the advent of globalization can be reflected on the different interactive programs use to generate funds and advertisements. In public service broadcasting, the latest innovations have made it easier to get and present information and news. By being interactive, it had been able to solicit questions and opinions from the audience that further create a more informed viewers. Conclusion Broadcasting is a money-making industry that was promoted by a capitalist institution. Although there were views that it is ought to be used and contextualize to serve the public, nevertheless, this view would only be a part of a larger cultural-market scheme. It is important to analyze the institutional framework that fueled the broadcasting industry in able for one to determine how analyze the audience. Due to the fact that it is the institutional framework which determines who are the audiences and how they are supposed to response and be address. Bibliography Ang, I. 1991Desperately Seeking the Audience, Routledge, London/New York, , pp. 26-32 McQuail, D. 1997Audience Analysis, Sage, Thousand Oaks, California, , pp. 1-11. Moores, S. 2000. Media And Everyday Life In Modern Society. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh. pp. 5-23 Schirato, T. and Yell, S. 1996`Communication and Culture`, Communication and Cultural Literacy: An introduction, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, Sydney, , pp. 1-21 Schlesinger, P. Do Institutions Matter For Public Servic Broadcasting? University of Stirling, Scotland. Retrieved on August 12, 2007. Retrieved from www. ofcom. org. uk/consult/condocs/psb2/psb2/psbwp/wp2schles. pdf Thompson, J. 1997, `Mass Communication and Mass Culture` in O`Sullivan, Tim and Jewkes, Yvonne (eds), The Media Studies Reader, Edward Arnold Ltd, London, pp. 28-41 Williams, R. 1997`Mass and Masses` in O`Sullivan, Tim and Jewkes, Yvonne (Eds), The Media Studies Reader, Edward Arnold ltd, , pp. 18-27

Pollock - An Overview of the Biopic essays

Pollock - An Overview of the Biopic essays For my film, I chose to cover the biopic, "Pollock", starring Ed Harris. The film covers the complex life of one of America's most abstract painters, Jackson Pollock. The film's lead, Ed Harris, was a fantastic choice for the role. A little-known fact, "Ed Harris's father bought his son a book about Jackson Pollock simply because he felt Ed bore a strong resemblance to the painter. Ever since then, Ed Harris became fascinated with Pollock's life." (IMDB, 2000) This allowed him to portray the role in a very personal, well-informed way. Because of this, the film truly allowed me to gaze into the artist's life and gain a deeper appreciation for the external elements that affected the art created by such a renowned artist. The film literally walks us through what Jackson Pollock experienced during his career and short life. It starts at the climax of his career with the artist signing Life magazines that he was featured on. It then quickly flashes back to the beginning, the struggles he faced, and the difficulty he had getting his art showcased. You can see the frustration portrayed, and you can sense that he's almost ready to give up. He's living with his brother Sande in a small apartment, when Lee Krasner decides to intervene. She brings Jackson home with her and becomes his manager. Throughout everything, alcohol is constantly getting in the way and causing heartache for everyone in his life. He gets a fairly big deal from Peggy Guggenheim, who he almost sleeps with and that leads to some moderate success. He marries Lee and focuses on his career, the alcohol still getting in the way of any sort of peace. Life magazine does a feature story on him and things get better. He backs off of alcohol te mporarily and that creates a better mood and relative peace. The peace didn't last for long and after a photographer attempting to make a movie on Jackson triggers his drinking, things spiral downwards. He lets it get out of hand and blo...

Battle of Coronel in World War I

Battle of Coronel in World War I Battle of Coronel - Conflict: The Battle of Coronel was fought off central Chile in the early months of World War I (1914-1918). Battle of Coronel - Date: Graf Maximilian von Spee won his victory on November 1, 1914. Fleets Commanders: Royal Navy Rear Admiral Sir Christopher CradockArmored Cruisers HMS Good Hope HMS Monmouth Light Cruiser HMS Glasgow Converted Liner HMS Otranto Kaiserliche Marine Admiral Graf Maximilian von SpeeArmored Cruisers SMS Scharnhorst SMS Gneisenau Light Cruisers SMS Nurnberg, SMS Leipzig, SMS Dresden Battle of Coronel - Background: Based at Tsingtao, China, the German East Asiatic Squadron was the only German naval squadron overseas at the outbreak of World War I. Composed of the armored cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau, as well as two light cruisers, the fleet was commanded by Admiral Maximilian von Spee. An elite unit of modern ships, von Spee had personally selected the officers and crews. With the wars start in August 1914, von Spee began making plans to abandon his base at Tsingtao before he was trapped by British, Australian, and Japanese forces. Charting a course across the Pacific, the squadron commenced a campaign of commerce raiding and frequented British and French islands seeking targets. While at Pagan, Captain Karl von Muller asked if he could take his ship, the light cruiser Emden on a solo cruise through the Indian Ocean. This request was granted and von Spee continued on with three ships. After sailing to Easter Island, his squadron was reinforced in mid-October 1914, by the light cruisers Leipzig and Dresden. With this force, von Spee intended to prey upon British and French shipping on the west coast of South America. Battle of Coronel - British Response: Alerted to von Spees presence, the British Royal Navy began making plans to intercept and destroy his squadron. The closest force in the area was Rear Admiral Christopher Cradocks West Indies Squadron, consisting of the older armored cruisers HMS Good Hope (flagship) and HMS Monmouth, as well as the modern light cruiser HMS Glasgow and the converted liner HMS Otranto. Aware that Cradocks force was badly outgunned, the Admiralty dispatched the elderly battleship HMS Canopus and the armored cruiser HMS Defence. From his base in the Falklands, Cradock sent Glasgow ahead into the Pacific to scout for von Spee. By late October, Cradock decided that he could not wait any longer for Canopus and Defence to arrive and sailed for the Pacific unreinforced. Rendezvousing with Glasgow off Coronel, Chile, Cradock prepared to search for von Spee. On October 28, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill issued orders to Cradock to avoid a confrontation as reinforcements might be available from the Japanese. It is not clear whether Cradock received this message. Three days later, the British commander learned via a radio intercept that one of von Spees light cruisers, SMS Leipzig was in the area. Battle of Coronel - Cradock Crushed: Moving to cut off the German ship, Cradock steamed north and ordered his squadron into battle formation. At 4:30 PM, Leipzig was sighted, however it was accompanied by von Spees entire squadron. Rather than turn and run south towards Canopus, which was 300 miles away, Cradock opted to stay and fight, though he did direct Otranto to flee. Maneuvering his faster, larger ships out of range of the British, von Spee opened fire around 7:00 PM, when Cradocks force was clearly silhouetted by the setting sun. Hitting the British with accurate fire, Scharnhorst crippled Good Hope with its third salvo. Fifty-seven minutes later, Good Hope sank with all hands, including Cradock. Monmouth was hit badly as well, with its green crew of recruits and reservists fighting valiantly though ineffectively. With his ship burning and disabled, Monmouths captain ordered Glasgow to flee and warn Canopus, rather than attempt to tow his ship to safety. Monmouth was finished off by the light cruiser SMS Nurnberg and sank at 9:18 PM with no survivors. Though pursued by Leipzig and Dresden, both Glasgow and Otranto were able to make good their escape. Battle of Coronel - Aftermath: The defeat off Coronel was the first suffered by a British fleet at sea in a century and unleashed a wave of outrage across Britain. In order to deal with the threat posed by von Spee, the Admiralty assembled a large task force centered on the battlecruisers HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible. Commanded by Admiral Sir Frederick Sturdee, this force sunk all but the light cruiser Dresden at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on December 8, 1914. Admiral von Spee was killed when his flagship, Scharnhorst sank. Casualties at Coronel were one-sided. Cradock lost 1,654 killed and both of his armored cruisers. The Germans escaped with only three wounded. Selected Sources Massie, Robert K., Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany and the Winning of the Great War at Sea. New York: Random House, 2003.Battle of CoronelBattles, 1914: Battle of Coronel

Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 72

Journal - Essay Example For instance, the story uncovers the ordeal faced by the immigrants back in their countries, which drives them to take a journey through the dangerous sea. Additionally, the author explores how Sicily, its residents, and the government of Italy has come in to provide rescue efforts to these immigrants and provide a safe landing in the form of holding places instead of turning them back. Nevertheless, the journalist ignores another critical part of the story, which is the fatal passage. He ought to emphasize how the bought, and ship journeys are a matter of life and death to discourage anybody willing to go through the journey. In this article, he makes the journey seem like a mere bad luck for one to die, instead of stressing on the fact that it is a gruesome risk with 1% percent chance of reaching the destination. Hence, the story is presented in such a way that it tends to encourage immigration despite the deadly trip it takes to reach Italy. Nonetheless, the article achieves the c riteria for newsworthiness because it contains several elements such as the significance, human interest, and timing among

Elise Smart's Problem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

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Analysis of the Armed Special Forces Act 1943 in India

Analysis of the Armed Special Forces Act 1943 in India Civil society is a term oft-repeated in democratic contexts today. Seen as an essential component of the liberal framework of political structures, it is essentially the space of free association for the masses. India, a multicultural democratic country, boasts of a vibrant civil society. At the same time, it also has accusations of being one of the worst offenders of human and civil liberties of some of its people, in the form of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. This chapter seeks to introduce the motivation, hypothesis, methodology and key concepts of this paper. Introduction The spotlight of global affairs and the ‘march to democracy has been on the Middle East in 2011. Mass rebellions against autocratic, unjust and oppressive regimes have swept the region in a sort of domino-effect swarming hordes of people rose up to replace what seemed no more applicable or tolerable in Tunisia to Tahrir Square in Egypt, in a bid to in-state the only form of governance that allowed ‘power to the people i.e. democracy. This phenomenon has come to the West as a pleasant surprise, that have viewed the Islamic world as essentially subject to notions of conservatism, violence and religion all seen as harbingers of a pre-modern past that the West feels it has left behind for good. â€Å"What is happening in Tunisia and Egypt is the completion of the 1989 revolutions the Egyptians are reclaiming the values of the Solidarnosc and the Civic Forum from the neo-liberals who usurped them The people in Tahrir Square and elsewhere are giving us back the meaning of c ivil society a place where people can talk, discuss and act freely,† says Mary Kaldor , examining the notion of civil society and how it has changed since the last time it was picked up from the annals of a rejected history and reinvented to bring monumental political change in Eastern European states. Closer home, the beginning of summer this year has seen a heated campaign against corruption being driven by a single mans Satyagraha Anna Hazare would definitely qualify as a ‘non-entity even by the modest standards of celebration that Indian civil society activists enjoy. Yet, this army truck driver of the 1960s is today the poster-boy of ‘publicness, coming to symbolise the space for mediation and political interference to bring out moral dividends that is the hallmark of a vibrant democracy. Some have called his actions ‘Gandhian, one of the few attempts at reform emerging from among the non-political that post-independence India has seen, otherwise witnessed only in Irom Sharmilas consistent campaign from Manipur against the travails of militarisation of the north-east region and abuse of power that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958 has become synonymous with. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which the Indian government has thought fit to implement in two contexts all the North Eastern states and Jammu Kashmir is arguably among the most contentious legislations of post-Independence India. Said to be based on a 1942 British ordinance intended to contain the Indian independence movement (Quit India movement) during World War II, it was enacted as a short-term measure to allow the deployment of the army in Indias north-eastern Naga Hills but since has been in existence for five decades. It has, since then, also been implemented in Jammu Kashmir which has shown violent separatist aspirations since the late 1980s. The Act has been controversial because of the fact that it gives to the armed forces extended powers of action without accountability, which has led to abuse of power and gross violation of human and civil rights, building around it a sense of impunity. In a democratic framework, this move to retain the sovereign integrity of the Indian state has been vociferously derided by people both within and outside these regions. Even though justifications for the laws existence abound from freedom of operation to existence of provisions for accountability and redress within the armed forces set up, the Act in itself has become a symbol of oppression at the hands of the Indian state and therefore a part of the problem, not the solution. Hypothesis This paper attempts to therefore study civil society in India its role and scope with specific focus on this nugget of legislation that has a strong reference to the case of maintaining or violating civil liberty in a democracy. It seeks to analyse the effectiveness of the Indian democracy in this respect, considering whether ‘power to the people is just another catchphrase or if it goes deeper than that. This researcher is of the view that even though the definition of a modern civil society in a multicultural context as India needs to be revisited, and even though largely (as in the case of the AFSPA) political, military, judicial and legislative action has a will of its own, there is scope for activism and there are voices that get heard. The necessity of such a space of negotiation in a democracy cannot be stressed hard enough. The arbitrariness of power, possible marginalisation of the ‘have-nots and the dilemma of national unity versus individual rights need to be examined in the light of modern liberal rhetoric of freedom and equality that are foundational aspects of the Indian constitution. Methodology The study has used both primary and secondary sources of data along with analysis using both the deductive and inductive methods. I have analyzed government records, media reports, library sources, existing literature on the subject, archival data, think-tank reports as well as spoken / interviewed a few primary sources within the civil society. The study has also use information and experience gathered at symposiums, lectures and workshops related to the topic. It has been largely qualitative in approach, since the issue required an exploration of theory and potential policy-making role of civil society in situations of conflict and civil unrest. Chapterisation The paper shall follow this sequence: the first chapter will examine the trajectory of conceptualisation of civil society in the corpus of philosophy and political studies and its relevance globally as well as in India. The second chapter will elaborate upon the Act, the controversy and the issues surrounding it. In the third chapter, I will look at civil society initiatives regarding this aspect, both in terms of humanitarian redressal and rehabilitation and attempts at political negotiation and policy amendment. It will also look critically at the degree to which these initiatives have worked in mitigating the more negative consequences of the law. The last chapter, in conclusion, will critically analyse the role that civil society has played so far in the dynamics of the Indian democracy and the scope for positive change it contains. The rest of this chapter is dedicated to elaborating on the key concepts of this paper: civil society and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Key Concepts Civil Society: It is crucial to understand what civil society in a changed global context means. Historically, it has been understood to mean the public space that exists between the family and the state that seeks to mitigate the preponderance of individualism as well as the ‘tyranny of the majority. Based on principles of voluntarism, association and pluralism and tolerance, this was an imagination that sought to negotiate with power structures in every context it arose in, whether during industrialisation of England where a new bourgeois class of powerful traders emerged that sought to bargain with the state and the Church for power, or in Eastern Europe of the 1980s where a bid to parlay Communism resulted in associational uprising that stemmed out of sports clubs, trade unions, bars and basements. After 1989, civil society got the rejuvenation that had been missing for the past couple of centuries since Marx and Gramsci had derided it as yet another excuse for state/power domination and co-option of the masses. It has since been taken much more seriously, both academically and in its practical application, although consensus on what it constitutes is hard to come by. However, with democracy becoming the chosen form of ‘correct government, where representation and election to power is ‘by the people, for the people and of the people, civil society assumes new meaning as the arena of civilised battle. There is more to a democracy than public participation through ballot-box approval. This, in a nutshell, could be the motive for a functional civil society.   However, the proprietorship of the West over the concept of civil society is often criticised. By linking it with modernity, it is seen to be a concept both inherently Western and also as the Wests boon to the world. Ernest Gellner paints civil society as the space of the profane that gives freedom to the baser aspects of human beings and their relationships. Having associated it with capitalist liberalism, he posits many upcoming rivals to it such as Islam, Asiatic capitalism, fierce nationalism- leading one to believe that this essentially Western notion is one under threat from more preponderant forces in different parts of the world that do not essentially derive from rationality. Mary Kaldor finds in this a patronising approach of the entire West, evident also in US and Europes response to the upheaval in the Middle East. She observes that there already exists a term for civil society in Arabic Almujtamaa Almadani and therefore finds that the concept has more antiquated roots than otherwise presumed. To offset this overlordism, she says, â€Å"Instead of imposing yet another neo-liberal formula, western countries and institutions should consult the people of the Middle East about how they can help to construct a fairer, more sustainable economy. Instead of giving governments money to buy western weapons, they could discuss with civil society how they could help to restructure the armed forces to provide human security, to establish civilian control over the military, and to convert the substantial military industries to peaceful uses.† Ruminating on the changed idea of civil society, she says disappointedly, â€Å"After 1989, everyone celebrated the idea of civil society. But it was rapidly reduced within the framework of neo-liberal thinking to mean western-supported NGOs who would help to smooth the path of neo-liberal transition.† In the post-Cold War phase, since the world has gone more global, the meaning of civil society has veered towards international-level cooperation and institutionalism, through NGOs, forums, transnational networks of activities to work on a ‘global humanitarian regime. It has now become a buzzword relating to democracies, liberalism, neo-liberalism, anti-war movements, global justice and so on, and thereby is seen as a platform inhabited by activists of all sorts. In the normative sense, civil society is and always has been seen as the arena where consent is generated for and in opposition to concentrated authority. In the descriptive sense, or in considering what all should be included in this realm, lies the tensions should regulatory bodies such as the UN and the World Bank be considered part of civil society? Should one include international NGOs that depend on government funding? Does civil society include religious or ethnic organisations? Does it include militant or sece ssionist organisations that are fighting against an oppressive state or for some defined nationalism? As the concerns that occupy minds in a global world change (such as todays preoccupations include AIDS, landmines, terrorism, nuclear disarmament/disaster, receding water levels etc), the definitions of all realms of society would change too. This paper, taking insights from the corpus of philosophy on the subject, defines civil society as the associational space, lying between the family, state and market, where autonomous individuals voluntarily come together to define and pursue common goals to reap collective benefits. Schmitters definition of civil society, as a set or system of self-organised intermediary groups that: (1) are relatively independent of both public authorities and private units of production and reproduction, that is, of firms and families; (2) are capable of deliberating about and taking collective actions in defence or promotion of their interests or passions; (3) do not seek to replace either state agents or private (re)producers or to accept responsibility fo r governing the polity as a whole; and (4) agree to act within pre-established rules of a civil, i.e. mutually respectful, nature. It is civil society based on the four characteristics of dual autonomy, collective action, nonusurpation and civility that this paper will refer to. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA): The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act is a law, enacted by the Parliament of India, to meet violent internal situations created by underground militant outfits to further their illegal and ‘unconstitutional causes. The law was enacted to provide necessary powers and legal support to the Armed forces for carrying out proactive operations against the militants in a highly hostile environment that was threatening the integrity and sovereignty of the Indian nation-state. The Act dates back to September 11, 1958, when the Parliament of India passed the act bestowing more power on the armed forces in â€Å"disturbed areas†. First introduced in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, the Act was later extended to Jammu and Kashmir as the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990 in July 1990. The Act allows an officer of the armed forces to fire upon or otherwise use force, even to the causing of death, against any person who is acting in contravention of any law against assembly of five or more persons or possession of deadly weapons, to arrest without a warrant and with the use of necessary force anyone who has committed certain offenses or is suspected of having done so, to enter and search any premise in order to make such arrests. The act also bestows legal immunity to the officials, which means that they cannot be sued or prosecuted. While the law was enacted to mitigate militant action, violence and to quell secessionist tendencies that violated the essence of the Indian union, it has since inception over half a century ago turned into a controversial aspect of governance in the country. An increasing militarisation of areas branded as ‘disturbed and a consequent violation of human rights and civil liberties has resulted in a worsening of conditions in both the regions it has been applied to. Instead of bringing about greater cohesion, or of managing to bring the north-east and Jammu Kashmir peacefully into the fold of the Indian union, the law has become just another reason for the strengthening of secessionist demands. This is in contradiction with the reasoning given for consistent political will to keep the Act in place in the two regions: in a response to the United Nations Human Rights Committee questioning the validity of the AFSPA under the Indian law and in light of Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ICCPR, the Attorney General of India responded that the AFSPA is a necessary measure to prevent the secession of the North Eastern states. He said that a response to this agitation for secession in the North East had to be done on a war footing. He argued that the Indian Constitution, in Article 355, made it the duty of the Central Government to protect the states from internal disturbance and that there is no duty under international law to allow secession.â€Å"The shrill rhetoric demanding that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act be repealed, if allowed to hold sway, may drive us deeper into the dark world of both Islamist terror and the Maoist insurgency, † Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd) has warned more recently. The primary issue of controversy here is the violation of human and civil rights. According to a Human Rights Watch report, the act is in violation in the following respects: The right to life is violated by section 4(a) of the AFSPA, which grants the armed forces power to shoot to kill in law enforcement situations without regard to international human rights law restrictions on the use of lethal force. The right to liberty and security of person is violated by section 4(c) of the AFSPA, which fails to protect against arbitrary arrest by allowing soldiers to arrest anyone merely on suspicion that a â€Å"cognizable offence† has already taken place or is likely to take place in the future. Further, the AFSPA provides no specific time limit for handing arrested persons to the nearest police station. The right to remedy is violated by section 6 of the AFSPA, which provides officers who abuse their powers under the AFSPA with immunity from legal accountability. This section of th e AFSPA prohibits even state governments from initiating legal proceedings against the armed forces on behalf of their population without central government approval. Since such a sanction is seldom granted, it has in effect provided a shield of immunity for armed forces personnel implicated in serious abuses. In practice the AFSPA also facilitates violation of the right to be free from torture, and from cruel or degrading treatment. Since the AFSPA provides powers to arrest without warrant and then detain arrested persons for unspecified amounts of time, the armed forces routinely engage in torture and other ill-treatment during interrogation in army barracks. However, the support from within the armed forces and certain other sections of the political and academic circles is strong for the continuance of this act. Northern Army Commander General Jaswal in Jammu Kashmir gave the following reasoning: I would like to say that the provisions of the Armed Forces Special Power Act are very pious to me and I think to entire Indian ArmyWe have religious books, there are certain guidelines which are given there, but all the members of the religion do not follow it, they break it also, does it imply that you remove the religious book or you remove this chap. My take on it is to find someone guilty, take him to task, but dont touch this pious document or provision of the Armed Forces Special Power Act giving the similarity to religious book.† In the past couple of months Army has argued that without the Act it will not be able to launch proactive operations. The Army will also not be able to use force except in self-defence and not have powers to destroy ammunition dumps and IEDs. The army also says that a majority of human rights abuse cases are found to be false and those found true have been severely dealt with. Human rights activists have however contended time and again that the Act gives excessive powers to the soldiers. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said in recent past that there is a need to revoke the Act since it is prone to abuse. One of the grounds that the citizens have stated is that the people arrested or otherwise detained should be allowed to plead their case under section 130 and 131 of the Criminal Code. The Article 21 of the Constitution also gets violated in the process. In spite of the various cases filed and protests initiated there has been no revocation or dialogue towards the same. The issue revolving the AFSPA is that the principle of national integrity and sovereignty is in direct conflict with the liberal democratic frameworks of human rights and the civil society has the potential to the site for this negotiation. This is the premise under which the rest of this paper seeks to examine how the civil society and the Indian state have sought to deal with the AFSPA. CIVIL SOCIETY This Chapter seeks to chart the history of philosophy on civil society, in political sciences and social sciences. It will then look at civil society in India specifically, in todays context, and some of the major criticisms levelled against the concept and its real-time manifestation. Civil Society: The Concept At the abstract level, civil society has historically been conceptualised as a mediating space between the family, state and recently, also separate from the market. It is the site of association, voluntariness and community engagement, set apart from the politics and compulsions of the state as well as the individuality and liberty of the family. Bruce Sievers identifies seven strands that go into the making of civil society: nonprofit and voluntary institutions, individual rights, rule of law, the common good, philanthropy, freedom of expression and tolerance. Emerging in the context of the 18th century industrialisation rampant in Europe that gave rise to a new class of bourgeoisie and the new ideas of utilitarianism and capitalism, civil society gets inextricably linked with libertarian ideals that seek to carve out spaces for autonomous action in every individual and societal aspect.   â€Å"A ‘civil society was civilized and ordered by the rule of law. Unlike tribal so ciety, it was also large-scale and held together by impersonal bonds of interest rather than ties of kin and blood. It was also, to a degree some found frightening, a self-correcting mechanism in which the selfish actions of myriad individuals, brought together only by the rule of law, managed to produce an orderly and dynamic accumulation of prosperity unprecedented in human history,† observes Michael Ignatieff The importance of social engagement and principle of tolerance have only gained more importance in a globalised world that is characterised by multi-cultural, multi-ethnic nations. Robert Putnam identifies civic engagement, dense networks of interaction, political equality, solidarity, trust and tolerance and a strong associational life as crucial to the generation of ‘social capital the resource that could help to facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit in societies. He says that networks of civic engagement foster norms of generalised reciprocity, encourage the emergence of social trust, facilitate communication, collaboration and therefore collective action on common dilemmas and endorse the idea of collective benefits. Through its history, a number of philosophers have vouched for and expanded upon this realm of an advanced society. Alexis de Tocqueville , in Democracy in America, says that Americas answer to the problem of limiting the absolutist state was to have a constitution defined in law and protected by a counterbalancing force of independent bodies. These were the local associations of citizens acting together in the affairs of daily life. This was a civil society engaged in politics, voluntary by nature. His idea of civil society was based in the observation of an absolute sovereignty of the majority, but this principle, which could just as well turn into a tyranny of the majority, was also mitigated through a non-centralised frame of governance that set importance to localised chains of command and responsibility. Civicness emerged in America, he observed, through the relentless formation of associations: â€Å"Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition ar e forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different typesreligious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. . . . Nothing, in my view, deserves more attention than the intellectual and moral associations in America.† Civil Society, for Hegel , is the site that lies between the Family and the State in the Ethical Life, as described in his Philosophy of Right. It is the site where the ‘determination of particularity as per individual rights is given free rein, but which has to acquire a mantle of universality for the rights to become acquirable or even legitimate, so to speak. Here, therefore, are two elements: the concrete person who is out to pursue self-interest and personal motive, and the form of universality, or the generation of common motive, through forming bonds and finding over-lapping areas of interest. A particular end, therefore, assumes the form of universality through this relation to other people, and it is attained in the simultaneous attainment of the welfare of others. It has three dimensions: the system of needs, the administration of justice and the police and the corporation. The system of needs refers to the generation of ‘universal human capital through human beings exceptional capacity to generate needs and spot commonness with others and then to satisfy those needs through work and labour. A single persons particularity of interest can be recognised if he manages to associate himself with one sphere of the needs. The administration of justice is the principle of rightness that becomes universally known through a public legal code. Not only does this embed within the principle of freedom in both subjective individual and universal platforms, it also makes wrongdoing an infringement on the people that live within such an ethical life. The polizei, then, is the bearer and the guardian of this publicly generated and accepted principles of right, the public authority that also looks after public utilities and regulation activities as well. The corporation, on the other hand, is the arrangement whereby common interests are brought to fore through voluntary association as in sports or religious clubs etc. All these aspects together form the civil society for Hegel, the space where freedom of self-interest is allowed to reign but within the limits of the principle of universality.   Antonio Gramsci, however, had a more critical view of civil society, from a Marxist vantage point. He saw civil society not as the benign space that afforded a voice and power to the masses, but as an instrument of domination linked in an unholy alliance with the bourgeois elements in the civil society seeking to protect propertied interests . He was also convinced that the intricate, organic relationships between civil society and political society enable certain strata of society not only to gain dominance within the state but also, and more importantly, to maintain it, perpetuating the subalternity of other strata. In other words, the site of hegemony was civil society it was the arena wherein the ruling class extends and reinforces its power by non-violent means through components such as the press, the libraries, schools, associations and clubs that could all become media for propaganda and homogenisation of the masses. The state and the civil society in his purview are inextri cably linked, which only facilitates subordination by the state without coercion, focussing instead on ‘manufacturing consent. However, he does acknowledge the potential of civil society as a site for breeding revolutions and for newer ‘conceptions of the world to take place. However, the manifestation of this fairly utopian concept is fraught with tensions and dichotomies. Ernest Gellner, in Conditions of Liberty, analyses the role of civil society in the Marxist, socialist and capitalist frameworks and has also assessed post-modern rivals to it that have emerged, such as Islam. The Eastern European states found the concept of civil society useful in gaining independence from a Communist stronghold precisely because of the possibility here for mobilisation of the masses in opposition to totalitarian militarist regimes. Through meetings of trade unions, religious groups, bars etc, the emphasis was on autonomy, self-organisation and withdrawal from the state to create islands of civic engagement for the emergence of a ‘parallel polis. For Gellner, a civil society was â€Å"a profane society, a society that explicitly sought to put the lowest of human desires to productive uses. Mandevilles paradox private vices make public virtues naturalized the profane by demonstrating that â€Å"capitalist individuals were more likely to promote the public good when they looked exclusively to their private interest.† He found the Marxist, and therefore the socialist strain of civil society, that stressed on driving religion out of life and also investing the economic with the ultimate sacredness, as faulty for it denied space to the profane, the self-interest and avarice of human nature that could be harnessed and channelled into collective action. With the ‘disenchantment of the world that comes with modernity and its powerful agencies of science and capitalism came the advent of ‘the modular man    who associates voluntarily with other prototypes, giving rise to a Gesellschaft, the inorganic form of social bonding, through fostered ties, rather than a Gemeinschaft, the organic community based on ties of blood and kin. â€Å"The genius of capitalist civil society is that it not only harnesses our profane energies, b ut relieves us of the moral burden of thinking of them as profane. In so doing, it relieves us of the strain of constant longing for unattainable self-transcendence in desperate simulations of paradise,† says Ignatieff. He also observes that liberty in civil society is essentially negative because there cannot be, in principle, agreement among human beings about the positive ends of political communities, beyond the protection of the liberties of the individuals who compose it. If people seek to overcome their own alienation and separateness, they can do so only as individuals or in voluntary groups. Civil society, then, becomes crucial for maintaining checks and balances, says Ignatieff. The realms of politics, economics and culture are neatly segregated, and power in any one domain does not endow power in another. The society is free, acting through a vibrant media and elected representatives, all functioning within the ambit of law. â€Å"Needless to say, no civil society has ever lived up to this goalyet the formal promise is more than hypocrisy: it remains the standard against which civil society judges itself and from which it finds renewed impetus to reform.† In this sense, civil society, albeit being a flawed ideal, also has the potential for redeeming itself simply by virtue of being embedded in the notion of reform, of itself as well as of society, simply by virtue of allowing private trajectories of interest being followed.   Despite changing meanings, civil societys core rests in a rule-governed society based on the consent of individuals. The ‘social contract that Hobbes defined is another way of understanding the liberal ideas behind the conception of civil society through different phases, civil society can be seen as the process or the space through which different individuals negotiate, argue, struggle against or agree with each other and with the centres of political and economic authority. The element of autonomy, voluntariness and collective action through association remain hallmarks through all definitions of the term. Civil Society in India: It would seem natural that civil society, as has been described and conceptualised above is an integral part of a democracy, with its accompanying notions of equality, public participation, and masses-oriented governance. Robert Post and Nancy Rosenblum describe a consensus among contemporary theorists â€Å"that democracy depends on the particularist, self-determining associations of civil society, where independent commitments, interests, and voices, are developed . Civil society is the precondition for democratic decision making, whether democracy is conceived as deliberation or as interest group pluralism, and this is true even if the goal of democracy is to transcend particularism and arrive at uncoerced agreement or a common will.† According to Joerg Forbrig, a vibrant and functional civil society can contribute to strengthening a democracy in five ways: control of state power through the incorporation of a body of laws, individual rights and thereby becoming a space that overlooks the relationship between the pr Analysis of the Armed Special Forces Act 1943 in India Analysis of the Armed Special Forces Act 1943 in India Civil society is a term oft-repeated in democratic contexts today. Seen as an essential component of the liberal framework of political structures, it is essentially the space of free association for the masses. India, a multicultural democratic country, boasts of a vibrant civil society. At the same time, it also has accusations of being one of the worst offenders of human and civil liberties of some of its people, in the form of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. This chapter seeks to introduce the motivation, hypothesis, methodology and key concepts of this paper. Introduction The spotlight of global affairs and the ‘march to democracy has been on the Middle East in 2011. Mass rebellions against autocratic, unjust and oppressive regimes have swept the region in a sort of domino-effect swarming hordes of people rose up to replace what seemed no more applicable or tolerable in Tunisia to Tahrir Square in Egypt, in a bid to in-state the only form of governance that allowed ‘power to the people i.e. democracy. This phenomenon has come to the West as a pleasant surprise, that have viewed the Islamic world as essentially subject to notions of conservatism, violence and religion all seen as harbingers of a pre-modern past that the West feels it has left behind for good. â€Å"What is happening in Tunisia and Egypt is the completion of the 1989 revolutions the Egyptians are reclaiming the values of the Solidarnosc and the Civic Forum from the neo-liberals who usurped them The people in Tahrir Square and elsewhere are giving us back the meaning of c ivil society a place where people can talk, discuss and act freely,† says Mary Kaldor , examining the notion of civil society and how it has changed since the last time it was picked up from the annals of a rejected history and reinvented to bring monumental political change in Eastern European states. Closer home, the beginning of summer this year has seen a heated campaign against corruption being driven by a single mans Satyagraha Anna Hazare would definitely qualify as a ‘non-entity even by the modest standards of celebration that Indian civil society activists enjoy. Yet, this army truck driver of the 1960s is today the poster-boy of ‘publicness, coming to symbolise the space for mediation and political interference to bring out moral dividends that is the hallmark of a vibrant democracy. Some have called his actions ‘Gandhian, one of the few attempts at reform emerging from among the non-political that post-independence India has seen, otherwise witnessed only in Irom Sharmilas consistent campaign from Manipur against the travails of militarisation of the north-east region and abuse of power that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958 has become synonymous with. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which the Indian government has thought fit to implement in two contexts all the North Eastern states and Jammu Kashmir is arguably among the most contentious legislations of post-Independence India. Said to be based on a 1942 British ordinance intended to contain the Indian independence movement (Quit India movement) during World War II, it was enacted as a short-term measure to allow the deployment of the army in Indias north-eastern Naga Hills but since has been in existence for five decades. It has, since then, also been implemented in Jammu Kashmir which has shown violent separatist aspirations since the late 1980s. The Act has been controversial because of the fact that it gives to the armed forces extended powers of action without accountability, which has led to abuse of power and gross violation of human and civil rights, building around it a sense of impunity. In a democratic framework, this move to retain the sovereign integrity of the Indian state has been vociferously derided by people both within and outside these regions. Even though justifications for the laws existence abound from freedom of operation to existence of provisions for accountability and redress within the armed forces set up, the Act in itself has become a symbol of oppression at the hands of the Indian state and therefore a part of the problem, not the solution. Hypothesis This paper attempts to therefore study civil society in India its role and scope with specific focus on this nugget of legislation that has a strong reference to the case of maintaining or violating civil liberty in a democracy. It seeks to analyse the effectiveness of the Indian democracy in this respect, considering whether ‘power to the people is just another catchphrase or if it goes deeper than that. This researcher is of the view that even though the definition of a modern civil society in a multicultural context as India needs to be revisited, and even though largely (as in the case of the AFSPA) political, military, judicial and legislative action has a will of its own, there is scope for activism and there are voices that get heard. The necessity of such a space of negotiation in a democracy cannot be stressed hard enough. The arbitrariness of power, possible marginalisation of the ‘have-nots and the dilemma of national unity versus individual rights need to be examined in the light of modern liberal rhetoric of freedom and equality that are foundational aspects of the Indian constitution. Methodology The study has used both primary and secondary sources of data along with analysis using both the deductive and inductive methods. I have analyzed government records, media reports, library sources, existing literature on the subject, archival data, think-tank reports as well as spoken / interviewed a few primary sources within the civil society. The study has also use information and experience gathered at symposiums, lectures and workshops related to the topic. It has been largely qualitative in approach, since the issue required an exploration of theory and potential policy-making role of civil society in situations of conflict and civil unrest. Chapterisation The paper shall follow this sequence: the first chapter will examine the trajectory of conceptualisation of civil society in the corpus of philosophy and political studies and its relevance globally as well as in India. The second chapter will elaborate upon the Act, the controversy and the issues surrounding it. In the third chapter, I will look at civil society initiatives regarding this aspect, both in terms of humanitarian redressal and rehabilitation and attempts at political negotiation and policy amendment. It will also look critically at the degree to which these initiatives have worked in mitigating the more negative consequences of the law. The last chapter, in conclusion, will critically analyse the role that civil society has played so far in the dynamics of the Indian democracy and the scope for positive change it contains. The rest of this chapter is dedicated to elaborating on the key concepts of this paper: civil society and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Key Concepts Civil Society: It is crucial to understand what civil society in a changed global context means. Historically, it has been understood to mean the public space that exists between the family and the state that seeks to mitigate the preponderance of individualism as well as the ‘tyranny of the majority. Based on principles of voluntarism, association and pluralism and tolerance, this was an imagination that sought to negotiate with power structures in every context it arose in, whether during industrialisation of England where a new bourgeois class of powerful traders emerged that sought to bargain with the state and the Church for power, or in Eastern Europe of the 1980s where a bid to parlay Communism resulted in associational uprising that stemmed out of sports clubs, trade unions, bars and basements. After 1989, civil society got the rejuvenation that had been missing for the past couple of centuries since Marx and Gramsci had derided it as yet another excuse for state/power domination and co-option of the masses. It has since been taken much more seriously, both academically and in its practical application, although consensus on what it constitutes is hard to come by. However, with democracy becoming the chosen form of ‘correct government, where representation and election to power is ‘by the people, for the people and of the people, civil society assumes new meaning as the arena of civilised battle. There is more to a democracy than public participation through ballot-box approval. This, in a nutshell, could be the motive for a functional civil society.   However, the proprietorship of the West over the concept of civil society is often criticised. By linking it with modernity, it is seen to be a concept both inherently Western and also as the Wests boon to the world. Ernest Gellner paints civil society as the space of the profane that gives freedom to the baser aspects of human beings and their relationships. Having associated it with capitalist liberalism, he posits many upcoming rivals to it such as Islam, Asiatic capitalism, fierce nationalism- leading one to believe that this essentially Western notion is one under threat from more preponderant forces in different parts of the world that do not essentially derive from rationality. Mary Kaldor finds in this a patronising approach of the entire West, evident also in US and Europes response to the upheaval in the Middle East. She observes that there already exists a term for civil society in Arabic Almujtamaa Almadani and therefore finds that the concept has more antiquated roots than otherwise presumed. To offset this overlordism, she says, â€Å"Instead of imposing yet another neo-liberal formula, western countries and institutions should consult the people of the Middle East about how they can help to construct a fairer, more sustainable economy. Instead of giving governments money to buy western weapons, they could discuss with civil society how they could help to restructure the armed forces to provide human security, to establish civilian control over the military, and to convert the substantial military industries to peaceful uses.† Ruminating on the changed idea of civil society, she says disappointedly, â€Å"After 1989, everyone celebrated the idea of civil society. But it was rapidly reduced within the framework of neo-liberal thinking to mean western-supported NGOs who would help to smooth the path of neo-liberal transition.† In the post-Cold War phase, since the world has gone more global, the meaning of civil society has veered towards international-level cooperation and institutionalism, through NGOs, forums, transnational networks of activities to work on a ‘global humanitarian regime. It has now become a buzzword relating to democracies, liberalism, neo-liberalism, anti-war movements, global justice and so on, and thereby is seen as a platform inhabited by activists of all sorts. In the normative sense, civil society is and always has been seen as the arena where consent is generated for and in opposition to concentrated authority. In the descriptive sense, or in considering what all should be included in this realm, lies the tensions should regulatory bodies such as the UN and the World Bank be considered part of civil society? Should one include international NGOs that depend on government funding? Does civil society include religious or ethnic organisations? Does it include militant or sece ssionist organisations that are fighting against an oppressive state or for some defined nationalism? As the concerns that occupy minds in a global world change (such as todays preoccupations include AIDS, landmines, terrorism, nuclear disarmament/disaster, receding water levels etc), the definitions of all realms of society would change too. This paper, taking insights from the corpus of philosophy on the subject, defines civil society as the associational space, lying between the family, state and market, where autonomous individuals voluntarily come together to define and pursue common goals to reap collective benefits. Schmitters definition of civil society, as a set or system of self-organised intermediary groups that: (1) are relatively independent of both public authorities and private units of production and reproduction, that is, of firms and families; (2) are capable of deliberating about and taking collective actions in defence or promotion of their interests or passions; (3) do not seek to replace either state agents or private (re)producers or to accept responsibility fo r governing the polity as a whole; and (4) agree to act within pre-established rules of a civil, i.e. mutually respectful, nature. It is civil society based on the four characteristics of dual autonomy, collective action, nonusurpation and civility that this paper will refer to. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA): The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act is a law, enacted by the Parliament of India, to meet violent internal situations created by underground militant outfits to further their illegal and ‘unconstitutional causes. The law was enacted to provide necessary powers and legal support to the Armed forces for carrying out proactive operations against the militants in a highly hostile environment that was threatening the integrity and sovereignty of the Indian nation-state. The Act dates back to September 11, 1958, when the Parliament of India passed the act bestowing more power on the armed forces in â€Å"disturbed areas†. First introduced in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, the Act was later extended to Jammu and Kashmir as the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990 in July 1990. The Act allows an officer of the armed forces to fire upon or otherwise use force, even to the causing of death, against any person who is acting in contravention of any law against assembly of five or more persons or possession of deadly weapons, to arrest without a warrant and with the use of necessary force anyone who has committed certain offenses or is suspected of having done so, to enter and search any premise in order to make such arrests. The act also bestows legal immunity to the officials, which means that they cannot be sued or prosecuted. While the law was enacted to mitigate militant action, violence and to quell secessionist tendencies that violated the essence of the Indian union, it has since inception over half a century ago turned into a controversial aspect of governance in the country. An increasing militarisation of areas branded as ‘disturbed and a consequent violation of human rights and civil liberties has resulted in a worsening of conditions in both the regions it has been applied to. Instead of bringing about greater cohesion, or of managing to bring the north-east and Jammu Kashmir peacefully into the fold of the Indian union, the law has become just another reason for the strengthening of secessionist demands. This is in contradiction with the reasoning given for consistent political will to keep the Act in place in the two regions: in a response to the United Nations Human Rights Committee questioning the validity of the AFSPA under the Indian law and in light of Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ICCPR, the Attorney General of India responded that the AFSPA is a necessary measure to prevent the secession of the North Eastern states. He said that a response to this agitation for secession in the North East had to be done on a war footing. He argued that the Indian Constitution, in Article 355, made it the duty of the Central Government to protect the states from internal disturbance and that there is no duty under international law to allow secession.â€Å"The shrill rhetoric demanding that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act be repealed, if allowed to hold sway, may drive us deeper into the dark world of both Islamist terror and the Maoist insurgency, † Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd) has warned more recently. The primary issue of controversy here is the violation of human and civil rights. According to a Human Rights Watch report, the act is in violation in the following respects: The right to life is violated by section 4(a) of the AFSPA, which grants the armed forces power to shoot to kill in law enforcement situations without regard to international human rights law restrictions on the use of lethal force. The right to liberty and security of person is violated by section 4(c) of the AFSPA, which fails to protect against arbitrary arrest by allowing soldiers to arrest anyone merely on suspicion that a â€Å"cognizable offence† has already taken place or is likely to take place in the future. Further, the AFSPA provides no specific time limit for handing arrested persons to the nearest police station. The right to remedy is violated by section 6 of the AFSPA, which provides officers who abuse their powers under the AFSPA with immunity from legal accountability. This section of th e AFSPA prohibits even state governments from initiating legal proceedings against the armed forces on behalf of their population without central government approval. Since such a sanction is seldom granted, it has in effect provided a shield of immunity for armed forces personnel implicated in serious abuses. In practice the AFSPA also facilitates violation of the right to be free from torture, and from cruel or degrading treatment. Since the AFSPA provides powers to arrest without warrant and then detain arrested persons for unspecified amounts of time, the armed forces routinely engage in torture and other ill-treatment during interrogation in army barracks. However, the support from within the armed forces and certain other sections of the political and academic circles is strong for the continuance of this act. Northern Army Commander General Jaswal in Jammu Kashmir gave the following reasoning: I would like to say that the provisions of the Armed Forces Special Power Act are very pious to me and I think to entire Indian ArmyWe have religious books, there are certain guidelines which are given there, but all the members of the religion do not follow it, they break it also, does it imply that you remove the religious book or you remove this chap. My take on it is to find someone guilty, take him to task, but dont touch this pious document or provision of the Armed Forces Special Power Act giving the similarity to religious book.† In the past couple of months Army has argued that without the Act it will not be able to launch proactive operations. The Army will also not be able to use force except in self-defence and not have powers to destroy ammunition dumps and IEDs. The army also says that a majority of human rights abuse cases are found to be false and those found true have been severely dealt with. Human rights activists have however contended time and again that the Act gives excessive powers to the soldiers. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said in recent past that there is a need to revoke the Act since it is prone to abuse. One of the grounds that the citizens have stated is that the people arrested or otherwise detained should be allowed to plead their case under section 130 and 131 of the Criminal Code. The Article 21 of the Constitution also gets violated in the process. In spite of the various cases filed and protests initiated there has been no revocation or dialogue towards the same. The issue revolving the AFSPA is that the principle of national integrity and sovereignty is in direct conflict with the liberal democratic frameworks of human rights and the civil society has the potential to the site for this negotiation. This is the premise under which the rest of this paper seeks to examine how the civil society and the Indian state have sought to deal with the AFSPA. CIVIL SOCIETY This Chapter seeks to chart the history of philosophy on civil society, in political sciences and social sciences. It will then look at civil society in India specifically, in todays context, and some of the major criticisms levelled against the concept and its real-time manifestation. Civil Society: The Concept At the abstract level, civil society has historically been conceptualised as a mediating space between the family, state and recently, also separate from the market. It is the site of association, voluntariness and community engagement, set apart from the politics and compulsions of the state as well as the individuality and liberty of the family. Bruce Sievers identifies seven strands that go into the making of civil society: nonprofit and voluntary institutions, individual rights, rule of law, the common good, philanthropy, freedom of expression and tolerance. Emerging in the context of the 18th century industrialisation rampant in Europe that gave rise to a new class of bourgeoisie and the new ideas of utilitarianism and capitalism, civil society gets inextricably linked with libertarian ideals that seek to carve out spaces for autonomous action in every individual and societal aspect.   â€Å"A ‘civil society was civilized and ordered by the rule of law. Unlike tribal so ciety, it was also large-scale and held together by impersonal bonds of interest rather than ties of kin and blood. It was also, to a degree some found frightening, a self-correcting mechanism in which the selfish actions of myriad individuals, brought together only by the rule of law, managed to produce an orderly and dynamic accumulation of prosperity unprecedented in human history,† observes Michael Ignatieff The importance of social engagement and principle of tolerance have only gained more importance in a globalised world that is characterised by multi-cultural, multi-ethnic nations. Robert Putnam identifies civic engagement, dense networks of interaction, political equality, solidarity, trust and tolerance and a strong associational life as crucial to the generation of ‘social capital the resource that could help to facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit in societies. He says that networks of civic engagement foster norms of generalised reciprocity, encourage the emergence of social trust, facilitate communication, collaboration and therefore collective action on common dilemmas and endorse the idea of collective benefits. Through its history, a number of philosophers have vouched for and expanded upon this realm of an advanced society. Alexis de Tocqueville , in Democracy in America, says that Americas answer to the problem of limiting the absolutist state was to have a constitution defined in law and protected by a counterbalancing force of independent bodies. These were the local associations of citizens acting together in the affairs of daily life. This was a civil society engaged in politics, voluntary by nature. His idea of civil society was based in the observation of an absolute sovereignty of the majority, but this principle, which could just as well turn into a tyranny of the majority, was also mitigated through a non-centralised frame of governance that set importance to localised chains of command and responsibility. Civicness emerged in America, he observed, through the relentless formation of associations: â€Å"Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition ar e forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different typesreligious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. . . . Nothing, in my view, deserves more attention than the intellectual and moral associations in America.† Civil Society, for Hegel , is the site that lies between the Family and the State in the Ethical Life, as described in his Philosophy of Right. It is the site where the ‘determination of particularity as per individual rights is given free rein, but which has to acquire a mantle of universality for the rights to become acquirable or even legitimate, so to speak. Here, therefore, are two elements: the concrete person who is out to pursue self-interest and personal motive, and the form of universality, or the generation of common motive, through forming bonds and finding over-lapping areas of interest. A particular end, therefore, assumes the form of universality through this relation to other people, and it is attained in the simultaneous attainment of the welfare of others. It has three dimensions: the system of needs, the administration of justice and the police and the corporation. The system of needs refers to the generation of ‘universal human capital through human beings exceptional capacity to generate needs and spot commonness with others and then to satisfy those needs through work and labour. A single persons particularity of interest can be recognised if he manages to associate himself with one sphere of the needs. The administration of justice is the principle of rightness that becomes universally known through a public legal code. Not only does this embed within the principle of freedom in both subjective individual and universal platforms, it also makes wrongdoing an infringement on the people that live within such an ethical life. The polizei, then, is the bearer and the guardian of this publicly generated and accepted principles of right, the public authority that also looks after public utilities and regulation activities as well. The corporation, on the other hand, is the arrangement whereby common interests are brought to fore through voluntary association as in sports or religious clubs etc. All these aspects together form the civil society for Hegel, the space where freedom of self-interest is allowed to reign but within the limits of the principle of universality.   Antonio Gramsci, however, had a more critical view of civil society, from a Marxist vantage point. He saw civil society not as the benign space that afforded a voice and power to the masses, but as an instrument of domination linked in an unholy alliance with the bourgeois elements in the civil society seeking to protect propertied interests . He was also convinced that the intricate, organic relationships between civil society and political society enable certain strata of society not only to gain dominance within the state but also, and more importantly, to maintain it, perpetuating the subalternity of other strata. In other words, the site of hegemony was civil society it was the arena wherein the ruling class extends and reinforces its power by non-violent means through components such as the press, the libraries, schools, associations and clubs that could all become media for propaganda and homogenisation of the masses. The state and the civil society in his purview are inextri cably linked, which only facilitates subordination by the state without coercion, focussing instead on ‘manufacturing consent. However, he does acknowledge the potential of civil society as a site for breeding revolutions and for newer ‘conceptions of the world to take place. However, the manifestation of this fairly utopian concept is fraught with tensions and dichotomies. Ernest Gellner, in Conditions of Liberty, analyses the role of civil society in the Marxist, socialist and capitalist frameworks and has also assessed post-modern rivals to it that have emerged, such as Islam. The Eastern European states found the concept of civil society useful in gaining independence from a Communist stronghold precisely because of the possibility here for mobilisation of the masses in opposition to totalitarian militarist regimes. Through meetings of trade unions, religious groups, bars etc, the emphasis was on autonomy, self-organisation and withdrawal from the state to create islands of civic engagement for the emergence of a ‘parallel polis. For Gellner, a civil society was â€Å"a profane society, a society that explicitly sought to put the lowest of human desires to productive uses. Mandevilles paradox private vices make public virtues naturalized the profane by demonstrating that â€Å"capitalist individuals were more likely to promote the public good when they looked exclusively to their private interest.† He found the Marxist, and therefore the socialist strain of civil society, that stressed on driving religion out of life and also investing the economic with the ultimate sacredness, as faulty for it denied space to the profane, the self-interest and avarice of human nature that could be harnessed and channelled into collective action. With the ‘disenchantment of the world that comes with modernity and its powerful agencies of science and capitalism came the advent of ‘the modular man    who associates voluntarily with other prototypes, giving rise to a Gesellschaft, the inorganic form of social bonding, through fostered ties, rather than a Gemeinschaft, the organic community based on ties of blood and kin. â€Å"The genius of capitalist civil society is that it not only harnesses our profane energies, b ut relieves us of the moral burden of thinking of them as profane. In so doing, it relieves us of the strain of constant longing for unattainable self-transcendence in desperate simulations of paradise,† says Ignatieff. He also observes that liberty in civil society is essentially negative because there cannot be, in principle, agreement among human beings about the positive ends of political communities, beyond the protection of the liberties of the individuals who compose it. If people seek to overcome their own alienation and separateness, they can do so only as individuals or in voluntary groups. Civil society, then, becomes crucial for maintaining checks and balances, says Ignatieff. The realms of politics, economics and culture are neatly segregated, and power in any one domain does not endow power in another. The society is free, acting through a vibrant media and elected representatives, all functioning within the ambit of law. â€Å"Needless to say, no civil society has ever lived up to this goalyet the formal promise is more than hypocrisy: it remains the standard against which civil society judges itself and from which it finds renewed impetus to reform.† In this sense, civil society, albeit being a flawed ideal, also has the potential for redeeming itself simply by virtue of being embedded in the notion of reform, of itself as well as of society, simply by virtue of allowing private trajectories of interest being followed.   Despite changing meanings, civil societys core rests in a rule-governed society based on the consent of individuals. The ‘social contract that Hobbes defined is another way of understanding the liberal ideas behind the conception of civil society through different phases, civil society can be seen as the process or the space through which different individuals negotiate, argue, struggle against or agree with each other and with the centres of political and economic authority. The element of autonomy, voluntariness and collective action through association remain hallmarks through all definitions of the term. Civil Society in India: It would seem natural that civil society, as has been described and conceptualised above is an integral part of a democracy, with its accompanying notions of equality, public participation, and masses-oriented governance. Robert Post and Nancy Rosenblum describe a consensus among contemporary theorists â€Å"that democracy depends on the particularist, self-determining associations of civil society, where independent commitments, interests, and voices, are developed . Civil society is the precondition for democratic decision making, whether democracy is conceived as deliberation or as interest group pluralism, and this is true even if the goal of democracy is to transcend particularism and arrive at uncoerced agreement or a common will.† According to Joerg Forbrig, a vibrant and functional civil society can contribute to strengthening a democracy in five ways: control of state power through the incorporation of a body of laws, individual rights and thereby becoming a space that overlooks the relationship between the pr