Farm laws news Highlights:Prime MinisterNarendra ModiFriday announced that his governmentwould repeal the three farm lawspassed by Parliament a year ago, which has led to massive protests by farmers unions in several states. The procedure to roll back the laws would take place during the winter session of Parliament, which begins next week, the Prime Minister informed.
In an address to the nation on Guru Nanak Jayanti, PM Modi said, “We worked to provide farmers with seeds at reasonable rates and facilities like micro-irrigation, 22 crore soil health cards. Such factors have contributed to increased agricultural production. However, we failed to make them understand about the benefits of the new laws and as such, we have decided to roll them back.”
Farmers from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and other states have been camping at Delhi’s borders since November 2020 in protest against the three legislations, the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020, and Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020. The protests have continued for over a year as deliberations between the government and farmers unions failed.
Plenty of countries have added creative elements to their flags, whether it's in the form of a dragon, a machete, or atwo-headed eagle. But a design you likely won’t find no matter where you are on Earth is one that includes purple. It’s not because the color is considered universally unfashionable: Its absence from flags has more to do with practicality.
In this video, the educational YouTube page After Skool breaks down the history of the glamorous hue. The first purple dyes were almost entirely sourced from one species of sea snail harvested from a small part of the Mediterranean. It took 10,000 of these snails to produce just a single gram of dye. For this reason, purple was worth more than its weight in gold prior to the 19th century.
While purple garments did exist, they were mainly worn by the supremely wealthy and members of the royal family (hence the term “royal purple”). Though it would have made a bold statement, incorporating purple into flags just wasn’t worth the cost.
The color’s status was forever changed in 1856, when a British university student named William Henry Perkin discovered a way to make purple dye synthetically. It became much more accessible in the years that followed, which is why the handful of flags that do have a splash of purple were all designed after 1900.
When Mohammed Bzeek from Los Angeles was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2016, the news did not unsettle him, for he was determined to fight and win the battle against malignancy. Not for himself, but for the eight-year-old blind and deaf girl with a deadly disease, who is his foster child at present.
Bzeek, better known as ‘Angel Dad’ of Los Angeles, has been serving as a foster parent to terminally ill children for the past three decades. He has been a doting parent to around 80 children with inborn fatal disorders. Without Bzeek, these children, orphaned or abandoned, would have had no choice left but to breathe their last in the confines of a hospice or hospital room.
He and his wife ran a foster home for terminally ill children
Mohammed Bzeek is the biological father of Adam, a collegegoer with brittle bone disease and dwarfism. Bzeek lost his beloved wife Dawn in 2013 to a lung disease, with whom he had started fostering these children. In a 2017 interview with Los Angeles Times, Bzeek opened up about what made him the ‘Angel Dad’. in Libya, Bzeek arrived in the USA in 1978 for pursuing higher studies and soon started working as an engineer. When he first met his wife Dawn in the 1980s, she was already a foster parent to many and had even turned her home into an emergency shelter for these helpless children. Bzeek joined her in this noble pursuit, and together the couple started fostering many children since 1989.
Soon, they started taking in only the children with ‘do-not-resuscitate’ orders, who were considered a lost cause and were thus abandoned by their own families. Through community colleges and conventions, the Bzeeks also spread awareness about the dos and don’ts of foster parenting. Together, they would take care of up to three terminally ill children at one time.
Born during their time as foster parents, Bzeek and his wife had also bid goodbye to ten foster children. Some of them lived less than a year, some survived a little longer, but all of them received utmost love and care during their short tryst with this harsh world. Bzeek recalls nursing his foster children with his own hands, and also having to bury them with teary eyes and a grieving heart.
The doting ‘Angel Dad’
After Dawn’s death, Bzeek has quit his day job to be a full-time foster parent. Now, apart from his own son, he takes care of the blind and deaf little girl with underdeveloped brain function, who recently turned eight. At her birth, the doctors predicted her to live no more than a few weeks or a few months at most. Bzeek’s unfailing love and caregiving have helped her sail through eight years with ease.
He has never regretted his own son’s physical limitations. Instead, the doting dad has engineered a wooden skateboard to help him move around the house, apart from a customised wheelchair. At present, Adam is pursuing a college degree in computer science, making Bzeek a proud father. He is also extremely fond of his present foster sister.
Bzeek gave names to all his children
All of Bzeek’s children have a heartbreaking story. Bzeek shares with Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles, “In the hospital, they give birth, they leave them.” Most of these children are born with rare, untreatable disorders, and hence they are abandoned because even the biological parents cannot fathom the courage to deal with death later. Hospitals across Los Angeles sends these nameless children to Bzeek. He christens them with a new name and makes him or her an integral part of the Bzeek family. Speechless and weary of living, they find a warm welcome in the arms of their new father.
He fondly remembers one of his children who passed away a few years ago. The little boy was born with a short gut syndrome and spent most of his days at the hospital. Though he was unable to consume solid food, Bzeek still made sure to seat him at the dinner table every night, so that he never feels aloof from the family.
They will pass away- today or tomorrow
“The key is, you have to love them like your own. I know they are sick. I know they are going to die. I do my best as a human being and leave the rest to God,” says Bzeek, who is a devout Muslim by faith. Even battling with stage-2 colon cancer himself, he thanks God every day for keeping his son and foster daughter alive.
Mohammed Bzeek knows all of his foster children would pass away – today or tomorrow. All he aims is to provide them with a family, full of love, care and belongingness before they take their leave from this mortal world. The ‘Angel Dad’ of Los Angeles has received financial contributions from all over the world to sustain the treatment costs of his children. Only he knows how to make them his own.
In 2009, Sultan Kösen became the first man over 8 ft to be measured by Guinness World Records for more than 20 years.
In fact, Guinness World Records only knows of ten confirmed or reliable cases in history reaching 8 ft or more.
The part-time farmer from Turkey was found to be a towering 246.5 cm (8 ft 1 in) in height and he took the iconic title of Tallest living man.
Two years later, the 26-year-old was measured again in Ankara, Turkey, by which time he had grown to a staggering 251 cm (8 ft 2.8 in).
For years, Sultan Kosen - the world's tallest man according to Guinness World Records - says he was unable to find love as women were put off by his stature.
But the Turkish man's bachelor days are now behind him as he tied the knot at the weekend with his Syrian fiancée in his hometown.
Travelling with his two loyal donkeys, Alfa and Beto, Luis Soriano has been spreading the joy of reading to children in rural Colombian communities for over 20 years.
Luis Soriano was a Spanish teacher in rural La Gloria Colombia. Concerned that his students had no access to books at home, he decided to do something about it.
By adapting the packsaddles of his two donkeys, Alfa and Beto, from carrying water to carrying books, Luis created a makeshift mobile library and set off to take his books to children who otherwise wouldn’t have access to reading materials. With that the ‘Biblioburro’ was born.
“Kids wise up when they pick up a book. Their surprise and imagination meet together, you see them starting to laugh by themselves, just by seeing the book,” he says.
Watch the video above to find out more about the inspirational story of Luis, Alfa and Beto.
NEET PG 2021 was held on September 11, 2021. As students wait for Counselling to begin, Supreme Court will be hearing the EWS, OBC reservation in AIQ matter today, on November 16, 2021. The counselling schedule will be released soon after the order is pronounced.
What Happen In Todays Verdict Read Here : On 16 November 2021
Counsel: Can we get a date for the NEET matter? Can it be taken up on 24th?
Justice Chandrachud: We'll try to accommodate.
Counsel: Maybe interim order regarding admissions can be made.
NEET PG 2021 mater related to EWS, OBC reservation in AIQ will be taken up today - November 16, 2021.
Supreme Court, SC will be hearing the matter today after adjourning it last time and putting a hold on Counselling.
The NEET PG Counselling schedule will be announced after the final order is pronounced and a nod is received from SC.
National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, NEET PG 2021 was held on September 11, 2021 throughout the country. NEET PG Counselling was earlier scheduled to begin from October 25 but Supreme Court, SC put a hold on it till the EWS, OBC reservation in All India Quota Seats, AIQ matter was resolved. The hearing will now be held today, on November 16, 2021 and the new counselling schedule is expected after the order is pronounced.
NEET PG 2021 hearing on EWS, OBC reservation in AIQ is likely to be taken up after 12 noon today. The definite time is not known yet. However, as the hearing commences, updates would be mentioned here. Previously, when SC adjourned the hearing to today, Centre gave its assurance to the Apex Court that it would not start NEET PG Counselling till it gets a nod.
EWS, OBC reservation in AIQ has been facing backlash from some people. Due to this, the matter has been in the court rooms since quite some time. In a previous hearing, SC had also questioned Centre on the reasons for adopting the same income criteria in order to determine the eligibility of EWS and OBC candidates in Counselling.
The last hearing was done by a Bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Vikram Nath and BV Nagarathna. With this, an affidavit was also submitted to SC saying that the Counselling process will not proceed and the same income criteria was justified for determining the eligibility for EWS, OBC candidates.
Related | EWS & OBC Quota: 8 lakh limit justified, Centre submits rationale to SC on NEET Reservation
Around 2 lakh candidates have been waiting for NEET PG 2021 Counselling to commence. If an order is pronounced today after the hearing concludes, it is likely the counselling schedule will be released soon after. Keep a check here for more updates on this.
There’s no doubt that smoking is injurious to health but there’s a startup that’s trying to put cigarette ends to good use. Noida-based Code Effort Pvt. Ltd processes everything that is left after a cigarette has been smoked to make a range of products from cushions and soft toys to organic compost.
It was after a party with a group of friends a few years ago that founders Naman Gupta and Vishal Kanet were struck by the amount of cigarette trash produced in a few hours.
“We looked at the two ashtrays we had filled in a few hours and wondered if one room of friends can generate so much trash, what is the scale of the waste worldwide?" said Gupta. They tried to imagine the afterlife of these leftovers. What happens to the stubs after they are thrown into the dustbin? Are they biodegradable? How much pollution do they cause? Can they be recycled? These were just some of the questions they had.
They started looking for answers and realised that cigarette filters are made of a polymer, cellulose acetate whose properties are similar to plastic. They learnt that the body of a cigarette is made of chemicals harmful to the environment.
Back then, Gupta was studying B.Com from Delhi University while Kanet, who had an engineering background, was working as a photographer. They experimented for a month and worked out a chemical process to clean and recycle the polymer.
In 2016, they launched Code Enterprises, a cigarette waste management firm, which recycles cigarette stubs into different products. Since they were familiar with the Delhi-NCR region they started operations here. The first step was to make people aware of the usefulness of the waste material.
“We distributed pamphlets and visited cigarette vendors explaining what we were trying to do," says Gupta. “We provided them with a cigarette waste collection bin called VBin, and we assured them ₹250 per kilo of cigarette waste. We also gave bins to commercial spaces for their smoking rooms."
Every fortnight, the friends would collect the cigarette trash. This was taken and treated in the collection plant they had set up.
At the treatment plant, the various parts of the cigarette stub, the paper coating, the burnt tobacco, the filter, are used to make a variety of products.
“The plastic-like filter is treated for about a fortnight, and is mixed with cotton to make a material that can be used to stuff beanbags and make soft toys and cushions," says Gupta. “ The paper coating around the filter is biodegradable and is used to make compost." The products are sold online.
In the first month, they only got 10 grams of cigarette waste. Over time, they found support from corporates and commercial spaces.
“People are educated in Delhi, Gurgaon," says Gupta. “Most companies have corporate social responsibility programmes. What we do is good for the environment and we were also providing a specific rate for the waste."
After a year, Kanet left the company and Gupta relaunched it as Code Effort. He has been self-funding it since.
The first challenge was to ensure a regular supply of cigarette waste. “First you have to build a stable network of raw material, before you start the merchandising and making the by products," says Gupta.
The startup issues specific contracts to suppliers across the country. It also has associates on a contract basis who have to supply at least 30kgs of cigarette waste in bulk every month. These associates also have a target of selling 500 finished products per district.
“We now have 20 to 25 contracts with suppliers all over the country and receive 2,500kgs of cigarette waste every month," says Gupta.
Tobacco manufacturers have also signed up. “Companies that manufacture cigarettes such as ITC and Marlboro supply their rejected products to us. We have specific contracts that we have signed for sourcing that industrial waste," he explains. Karnataka and Maharashtra are the two biggest suppliers of cigarette waste.
When asked about his plans to take on competition from other recyclers, Gupta says Code Effort is only such company in India, and so he has no competition. He plans to leverage that by launching more products and improving his marketing strategies.
“We will launch a range of products in this financial year, including mosquito repellent made from leftover paper and tobacco, more soft toys, and an air purification system for chimneys made from cellulose acetate fibre." The company plans to join hands with non-profits and government bodies for on-field support in marketing and cigarette waste procurement.
“Although we don’t have government support now, our company is in sync with the government policy of Swachh Bharat," says Gupta.
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