Archive for February, 2021

Afghanistan receives COVID-19 vaccine from India as ‘sign of generosity, commitment and strong partnership’ – Times Now

Representational image  |  Photo Credit: PTI

Kabul: India on Sunday handed over half a million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Afghan officials as its gift to the people of the war-torn nation, a goodwill gesture described by Afghanistan as "a strong sign of generosity and sincere cooperation" of New Delhi with Kabul.

"1st Batch of COVID-19 vaccines arrives in Afghanistan. A consignment of half a million dose of COVID vaccine gifted by India to the people of Afghanistan arrived in Kabul today," the Indian Embassy in Kabul tweeted.

India's Charged'Affaires Raghuram S handed over the consignment of vaccines to Wahid Majrooh, Acting Minister of Public Health, it said.

"My profound gratitude to my friend @DrSJaishankar, the government & people of India for assisting 500k dozes of 'Made in India' vaccines to address #Covid spread in Afghanistan. A clear sign of generosity, commitment & strong partnership indeed," Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammed Haneef Atmar tweeted.

In a brief statement, the Afghan Foreign Ministry expressed its sincere gratitude for the assistance and delivery of the first shipment of the COVID 19 vaccine (COVISHIELD) by "Afghanistan's generous supporter and strategic partner, India."

"The donation of five hundred thousand doses of vaccine to tackle the spread of COVID in Afghanistan in the current difficult circumstances is a strong sign of generosity and sincere cooperation of the Republic of India with the government and people of Afghanistan," it said in the statement.

As a part of expanding cooperation between the two countries, the COVID relief assistance had been announced by India earlier on January 8 during a telephone call between Jaishankar and Atmar.

President Ashraf Ghani has expressed his gratitude for the timely assistance of India, the presidential palace said in a tweet.In the first phase, the vaccines will be administered to security and defense forces, health workers and other groups at the forefront of the fight against the virus, it added.

Majrooh said senior citizens and patients with chronic diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes will receive the vaccine from this batch in the second phase.

In the second phase, senior citizens and people with chronic diseases will be immunized against the Coronavirus.Afghanistan has so far registered 55,359 COVID-19 cases and 2,413 fatalities. More than 48,041 people have recovered from the contagion.

India is one of the world's biggest drugmakers, and an increasing number of countries have already approached it for procuring the coronavirus vaccines.

India has already rolled out a massive coronavirus vaccination drive under which two vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, are being administered to frontline health workers across the country.

While Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield is being manufactured by the Serum Institute, and the Covaxin is being produced by Bharat Biotech.

The Ministry of External Affairs has said it will be ensured that domestic manufacturers will have adequate stocks to meet domestic requirements while supplying abroad.

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Afghanistan receives COVID-19 vaccine from India as 'sign of generosity, commitment and strong partnership' - Times Now

Boulder’s Motus Theater to hear about immigration from Black Lives Matter founder – coloradopolitics.com

One of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, Patrisse Cullors, is joining the Boulder-based Motus Theater Thursday evening to read the story of an undocumented immigrant.

Cullors is the latest prominent American to participate in "Shoebox Stories: UndocuAmerica."

The Democratic freshmen are teaming up to tell the real stories of undocumented immigrants as part of a free online series for the Motus Theater, a Boulder-based nonprofit that creates dialogue around issues through creative expression.

She will read the personal story of Armando Peniche and his experience with racial profiling and the dangers that inflammatory rhetoric toward Mexican immigrants poses to him and his American-born son.

Cullors will be joined at 6 p.m. on Zoom by Afro-Latino musical theater star Carlos Heredia and slam poet Dominique Christina, whoholds five national poetry slam titles, including winning the National Poetry Championship and two Women of the World Slam Championships.

The series' programs are free.Registerby clicking here.

Joey Bunch: "Im not prone to say much about TV, but heres something worth talking about thats significant to Colorado and significant to the country: compassion in patriotism."

The series' first six episodes have featured, respectively, Colorado U.S. Reps. Joe Neguse and Jason Crow, actor John Lithgow, musicians Neil Young and Yo_Yo Ma, activist Gloria Steinem, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and celebrity chef Jos Andrs, who conservative commentator Ann Coulter called a "nut foreigner" in December over the New York chef's request that the Biden administration create a U.S. hunger relief czar.

On March 11, the series will hear from Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo.

After Thursday night's reading, Cullors and Peniche will talk about the stories of police brutality survivors, followed by a discussion with Nana Gyamfi, executive director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and Sydelle OBrien, an undocumented Black activist.

Miller Hudson: "Listening to their stories, which were filled with hope and aspiration far more than any anger or recrimination, the complexity and injustice of their undocumented status became apparent."

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Boulder's Motus Theater to hear about immigration from Black Lives Matter founder - coloradopolitics.com

How EarnKaro is helping women micro-entrepreneurs in Tier II and III cities earn up to Rs 1 lakh per month – YourStory

Launched in 2019, EarnKaro is a social commerce app by CashKaro that helps homemakers become financially independent just by sharing good shopping deals over social media platforms like Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram, and others.

In less than two years, EarnKaro has already registered around two million resellers, majority of which are women, especially from Tier II and III cities, and paid Rs 10+ crore as cashback to app users.

Swati Bhargava, Co-founder, CashKaro and EarnKaro, says, it is a first-of-its-kind zero investment social cashback app that enables savvy online shoppers to earn money whenever anyone shops via their EarnKaro links. They can simply log on to the EarnKaro app and share deals from popular shopping sites like Flipkart, Myntra, AJIO, etc. Whenever anyone shops via their link, they earn a certain percentage as profit.

Swati Bhargava - Co-founder of CashKaro and EarnKaro

The entrepreneur also throws light on the findings of the Sixth Economic Census released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) that reveals women constitute to 13.76 percent of the total entrepreneurs in India. While the figure surely shows growth compared to a decade ago, it also showcases how biased the stats are in the entrepreneurship industry.

EarnKaro offers a win-win situation for every woman in India who wants to be financially independent and have something of her own. The best part is that it doesnt feel like work at all. Young women have their friend circles from colleges, homemakers have their own local networking groups, and social media influencers, make-up artists and other micro-influencers have their followers to leverage. The greater number of people shop using these links, the more profit our members earn, she explains.

Apart from the platform, EarnKaro also provides end-to-end training sessions to help them leverage this opportunity.

We started hosting webinars that covers topics ranging from growing audience and increasing profits, to social media marketing and SEO. From helping them copy-paste links to understanding their network better, we ensure that our micro-entrepreneurs are economically as well as technologically independent. Our team conducts multiple calls to provide unfaltering support, sometimes even during odd hours. We currently have several WhatsApp groups for our women micro-entrepreneurs wherein we constantly share deals and offers that interest their networks, Swati adds.

So far, EarnKaro has generated a whopping Rs 15 crore for its members across Tier I to VI cities of India. Out of all the members earning via EarnKaro, 35 percent are women. Women micro-entrepreneurs at EarnKaro are easily earning up to Rs 25,000 per month working flexible hours from their homes. It also has members who enjoy a larger social media following and influence and are earning a monthly income of Rs 1.5 lakh or more.

Priyanka Jaiswal, Nidhi Katiyar and Keerty

Priyanka Jaiswal, Keerty, and Nidhi Katiyar are three women who are using CashKaro to become financially independent.

Priyanka, who hails from Kanpur, says she always wanted to start her own business and run it her own way but did not have the finances for it.

Joining EarnKaro was a life-changing decision for me. EarnKaro rewarded me at all the right times and kept my motivation high in the race of becoming an entrepreneur. In fact, I needed handholding a lot of times and the team was always kind enough to guide me, she says.

If you work in the right direction, you can witness your growth from a housewife to a successful entrepreneur in a short span of time. The only requisites are hard work and your belief in yourself. I have earned more than a profit of Rs 1 lakh from EarnKaro in less than two years, she adds

Keerty is from Thrissur, Kerala, and is an Electronics and Communications engineer. Like Priyanka, she always wanted to start her own business.

For instance, I shop on AJIO a lot and I keep sharing those product recommendations with my subscribers on YouTube. With EarnKaro, the only change Ive made is sharing EarnKaro profit links of my AJIO products instead of normal product links. So every time someone shops on AJIO through those links, I earn a 10 percent profit. If its helping and benefitting me, Im sure others will love it too. I highly recommend it, she says.

Nidhi Katiyar from Noida has a BTech degree and was working for a software company for six years, but balancing hectic office hours and managing her baby proved to be difficult. She quit her job in 2016 and was looking for something that would offer flexible working hours and an income.

Like everything else, this is also something that requires patience and constant hard work. Its not something that you can start earning money out of right from Day 1. I have been able to earn a lot from single videos also and it has just motivated me more to continue doing the same. Basically, I was a YouTuber first but ever since I've started using EarnKaro, I've become an entrepreneur. So far Ive earned over Rs 52,000 profit from EarnKaro, she adds.

EarnKaro helps Nidhi earn money by sharing product recommendations from top websites like AJIO and Myntra. One of her Myntra haul videos got so many views, and led to a lot of people shopping from her link.

It was amazing because that video alone helped me earn around Rs 10,000, which is insane, she says.

During the initial months of COVID-19, when people in the country were going through immense financial duress, EarnKaro decided to help its women micro-entrepreneurs stay afloat by providing advance confirmations of their profits, even before the expiration of the return period.

During the lockdown, ecommerce was adversely affected as deliveries were restricted in containment zones. While this impacted our business, it impacted our micro-entrepreneurs even more. To help them scale up during uncertain times, we partnered with online education sites, audiobook subscriptions, gaming websites, OTT platforms, etc. The idea was to help them keep their business going during subsequent lockdowns and focus on online consumption-based categories, as opposed to those that were dependent on deliveries. Furthermore, we invested this time in training our micro-entrepreneurs and introduced Profitshala, a virtual guide, for them, says Swati.

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How EarnKaro is helping women micro-entrepreneurs in Tier II and III cities earn up to Rs 1 lakh per month - YourStory

Guy who got roasted for using dog shampoo really wants to be known as "the guy who got roasted for using dog s – The A.V. Club

Photo: Chalabala (Getty Images)

Canada is no longer lending the United States its best celebrities. At one point, its most famous cultural ex-pats were actors like Ryan Gosling, Sandra Oh, Michael J. Fox, and Keanu Reeves or musicians like Drake, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, and the members of bands like Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, and Wolf Parade. More recently, though, Canadas most notable exports have been dominated by people like Gavin McInnes and Jordan Peterson, Lauren Southern and Stephan Molyneux, and, the latest celebrity to garner international attention, the guy who tweeted about not realizing he was using dog shampoo for several months.

The person in question is Jonathan Kay, a well known figure in Canadian media whose current job is senior editor of the right-wing reactionary rag Quillette. Unable to resist needlessly posting the transcendent self own that hes been washing his hair for the last few months with dog shampoohe assumes this is common because of the 4-pt typeface labelling it for pets next to the photo of a happy dogKay found himself the butt of many internet jokes.

Rather than ignore the mockery, Kay took the tweeting through it approacha risky move that almost always, as it did here, makes the initial embarrassment worse. In this case, it led fellow Canadian Seth Rogen to tweet a reply to Kay that reads: youre stupid.

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When Kay tried to turn the insult into another joke, Rogen replied that he wasnt trolling Kay, adding, for good measure, This was objectively stupid.

Undaunted, Kays continued in a desperate attempt to salvage his internet reputation by tweeting more and more about it, changing his profile picture to a photo of the dog shampoos dog, and basically just doing everything possible to ensure that he will forever be known as the guy who washed his hair with dog shampoo.

Kays mom, also a very well known Canadian media figure, even tried to help her son, making everything worse in the process. And then last night, to ensure that even those without Twitter would know exactly how goofy this all is, Kay appeared on Fox News to cement his reputation.

To nobodys surprise, the segment, including its chyron Adult Journalists Mom Defends Him From Seth Rogen, has given fresh attention to the fact that Jonathan Kay will forever be known across the world as the dog shampoo guy.

Wed like to think this is the end of the whole thing, but, having seen how things have gone so far, a few weeks from now will probably see Kay appearing in a dog shampoo ad, helping Arm & Hammer in a bid to advertise its products as human-friendly.

Send Great Job, Internet tips to gji@theonion.com

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Guy who got roasted for using dog shampoo really wants to be known as "the guy who got roasted for using dog s - The A.V. Club

In Big Tech world: The Journalist as Censor, Hit Man, and Snitch – Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

At Substack, one of an increasing number of independent news and opinion sites, lawyer and civil rights activist Glenn Greenwald looks at a disturbing trend in journalism today. The rise of the journalist as tattletale and censor, rather than investigative reporter:

A new and rapidly growing journalistic beat has arisen over the last several years that can best be described as an unholy mix of junior high hall-monitor tattling and Stasi-like citizen surveillance. It is half adolescent and half malevolent. Its primary objectives are control, censorship, and the destruction of reputations for fun and power. Though its epicenter is the largest corporate media outlets, it is the very antithesis of journalism.

Whereas an investigative reporter succeeds by getting the story right, tattletales can succeed even if they get the story wrong. Censors can succeed even if their concerns are wholly misdirected quite apart from whether censorship is a valid enterprise anyway.

Greenwald (pictured) cites a number of recent instances:

A star New York Times tech reporter, Taylor Lorenz, falsely accused tech entrepreneur Marc Andreessen of having used the slur world retarded in an online discussion of Reddit activities. In fact, a woman in the discussion room had used the wordit is a self-description on the part of some Redditors. Without offering any apology for failure to listen carefully, Lorenz lectured the world about insensitivity, then locked her Twitter account. She likely faces no consequences.

Forty-five-year veteran New York Times science reporter Donald McNeill, on a field trip with high school students in Peru, used the n-word while discussing with a student whether it was fair that one of her classmates was punished for using it in a video. Greenwald: McNeil used it not with malice or as a racist insult but to inquire about the facts of the video so he could answer the students question. New York Times management was inclined to issue only a reprimand but dozens of Times journalists insisted on much more serious punishment, so he was fired.

Greenwald cautions that these widely publicized examples are by no means isolated ones:

These examples of journalism being abused to demand censorship of spaces they cannot control are too numerous to comprehensively chronicle. And they are not confined to those three outlets. That far more robust censorship is urgently needed is now a virtual consensus in mainstream corporate journalism: its an animating cause for them.

Indeed. One might also cite the recent, almost incomprehensibly vicious attack on Jordan Peterson, author the bestseller 12 Rules for Life, by Decca Aitkenhead of the Sunday Times of London. She interviewed Peterson and his daughter Mikhaila, who has seen her father through serious health problems over the past two years (her mother is recovering from a battle with cancer). Under the circumstances, the family would hardly seem appropriate subjects for a full-on assault. But thats what happened.

Mikhaila Peterson released the unedited transcript for the world to see how grievous the misrepresentation has been. But not everyone is so lucky and Aitkenhead likely faces few consequences other than the approval of like-minded colleagues.

Then there was the 2019 misrepresentation by George Eaton at New Statesman of British philosopher and writer Roger Scruton (19442020) as a racist as the result of an interview. The misrepresentation led to his being unceremoniously dumped from a government committee.

Author and commentator Douglas Murray, suspecting that Sir Roger would not really have said those things, began a search and eventually came into possession of the tape and transcript. He notes, What the tape showed beyond doubt is that George Eaton misled his readers to try to destroy the reputation of Britains foremost conservative thinker. Readers and listeners can listen to and read the interview themselves and find their favorite examples of Eatons dishonesty. He offers a few favorites of his own. (National Review, April 29, 2019)

Murray comments, To say that this is the sort of thing that has degraded public discourse is to wildly understate things.

Well, yes, but whats behind it? Greenwald offers, regarding the new breed of journalists,

They have insufficient talent or skill, and even less desire, to take on real power centers: the military-industrial complex, the CIA and FBI, the clandestine security state, Wall Street, Silicon Valley monopolies, the corrupted and lying corporate media outlets they serve. So settling on this penny-ante, trivial bullshit tattling, hall monitoring, speech policing: all in the most anti-intellectual, adolescent and primitive ways is all they have. Its all they are. Its why they have fully earned the contempt and distrust in which the public holds them.

How did we get here?

Ive been in the news business fifty years. Heres my view: The single biggest factor in all this is that traditional media are no longer a necessary institution.

In the 1970s, one needed a newspaper to find out the weather, the scores, and who had a bicycle for sale. Hit pieces sometimes appeared, of course. But generally speaking, the investigative journalist was, well, investigating, not plotting to take someone down just for the sake of it. There were plenty of bad landlords, corrupt officeholders, shoddy builders, etc., to focus on. It was difficult and sometimes dangerous work.

But we have specialty web sites and consumer groups for all that today. Its all online.

Today, the newspaper (along with generic TV and radio) are echo chambers for opinion for cultural reasons, that usually means progressive opinion. When an institution is no longer needed, its mission usually changes. The people attracted to it change too.

One suspects that Greenwald is right: The sort of people who would launch baseless attacks and refuse to apologize, destroy colleagues careers over misunderstood conversations, and ridicule or misrepresent old or sick men probably could not do an exhausting eight-month, on-the-ground investigation into corruption at the Municipal Housing Board. So, increasingly, they do what they can: Misrepresentation and speech policing.

One outcome of the increasing prevalence in media of the type of people Greenwald describes is a very great decline in the perceived value of freedom of speech and of the media. Twenty years ago, media people understood freedom of speech to mean, I want the right to report, with evidence, that the mayor fixes drunk driving tickets for upper class twits. Today, many in media understand it to mean I want the right to spout hate against visible and sexual minorities. Because that truly is all they do understand it to be. And they want a crackdown. Until then, they will act as police themselves.

Increasingly, the organizations many new journalists work for are owned by companies eyeing the Chinese market. That entails the need to get along with a totalitarian state. Perhaps it is best for them to get used to the mentality first. It is best for the rest of us to view their output with a skeptical eye and seek out smaller, alternative, independent sources of news.

You may also wish to read: Escaping the news filter bubble: Three simple tips. Spoiler: Reduce the amount of information big providers have about YOU. (Russ White)

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In Big Tech world: The Journalist as Censor, Hit Man, and Snitch - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence