Should the fast food industry be regulated in a similar manner to the Research Paper

Should the fast food industry be regulated in a similar manner to the tobacco industry Explain the factors behind your reasoning - Research Paper Example More than three hundred people die every year out of obesity-linked diseases. There have been few sober trials to regulate the food industry just like tobacco. One is left wondering if fast food industry should be regulated in the same way as the tobacco industry. Industries being threatened by the government regulation, have always undertaken to do self-regulatory actions. The food industry has been making promises to curb food marketing for children, trade less unhealthy goods in schools and put labels in foods responsibly. In industries like the tobacco, self-regulation failed. However, in some industries like the forestry and marine, it has been effective. Acting in response to the public outcry and the call for government regulation, the key food industry players have taken action as other businesses have done before. The industry has opted to adopt a self-regulatory initiative. The self-regulatory promises by the food industry are new and may be as the industry claims be, to the advantage of the public health or they may be deceptive and self-serving. Today, food industry self-regulation comprises of four key initiatives. One is that which deals with food and beverages in schools and pertains to marketing to children and addresses menu and labeling. On the beverages in schools, the industry in conjunction with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation released guidelines on school beverages. These guidelines comprise pledges to restrict portion sizes of drinks and set standards for the nutritional and caloric content of drinks to be traded in schools. The pledge was to implement the guidelines before 2009 to 2010 school year. After two years of implementation, the guidelines have reduced beverage calories taken to schools by more than 50 percent. The potential advantage of the guidelines provided and taking part of key players could be considered. The drinks industry has

Demographics and the Housing Market Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Demographics and the Housing Market - Essay Example Canada has a unique pattern of land markets, wherein the markets have been rated as, "moderately unaffordable", "affordable", "seriously unaffordable" and "severely unaffordable". It has been observed that the national median multiple is slightly above the above the affordable standard. Over the years there has been a rapid increase in housing prices. Prices and quantities in housing markets are determined by the interaction of the supply with the demand. During this time the home ownership rates have eaten up a deeper chunk of house hold wealth, thereby increasing household debt. Most important variables governing the supply of new housing include prices, the costs of construction materials and land, the cost of financing, and the value of the housing stock. Similarly, the important variables governing the quantity of housing include prices, the level of mortgage rates, expectations of permanent income or wealth, rates of return on other investments, and demographic factors that influence the decision to buy a house. Let us take a closer look at Toronto that is well known for its multicultural society. It is situated in southern Ontario, Canada with a population of 5,113,149. It has an urbanised region of 8.1 million people. Toronto being the fifth largest city in North America is one of the most populated cities having people from diverse backgrounds. Its clean environment together with a generally high standard of living, Toronto remains the most desired destination for immigrants. It also has the second highest percentage of foreign-born population. People of different European origins form the largest ethnic group in Toronto. Afro-Caribbean, Filipinos, Latin American too, find a place for themselves in this place. This is reflected in the neighbourhood names, like Little Italy, The junction, Little India, Chinatown, Portugal Village and others similarly named. The Downtown area of Toronto remains most densely populated while the financial district of Bay Street boasts of the maximum number of skyscrapers in Canada. The historically wealthy residential enclaves stretch northwards from downtown. It is a paradox of sorts, wherein, on one hand the up scale homes exist and on the other hand in the core vicinity of downtown low income families and incomes reside. The east and west regions of downtown however, radiate with artists and middle and upper class professionals. The inner suburbs retain the small, single family homes, while the housing boom has led to the construction of many high rise apartments in many neighbourhoods. North Toronto and some western neighbourhoods in York are some such areas. The housing boom has had a cascading effect on many municipalities. The advent of skyscrapers has not only changed their skylines but also helped them develop as secondary business centres .However further growth in the housing market is affected by the temperament of the consumers in that whether they are prepared to take risks. If the price is high and the consumer is averse to taking risks, the purchase of houses will automatically fall. The buying strategy of a consumer therefore differs from one demographic group to another. It can be safety said thus, that consumers differ in their thought process with regards to procurement of a house. Their views may differ on the money spent to rent a house vis-a vis to purchase

Food Safety Is An Important Issue Biology Essay

Food Safety Is An Important Issue Biology Essay Food safety is an important issue. The trust of consumers, food safety and quality, and this will be they expected to. Consumers also expect to be able to provide the information; you can help them make informed decisions about the composition of the food, this information, whether it is on the product label or by advertising, not false or misleading. Food safety is a discipline describing handling, preparation and storage of food to prevent food borne illness. The statistics on food borne illness speak for themselves. Regulatory officials and their management of retail and food service industry must cooperate with each other, if we are to prevent or reduce food borne illness. This Manual was prepared by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in partnership with federal, state and local regulatory agencies, industry, academia and consumers, to help you operators of the retail and food service establishments, your efforts to produce safe food. This includes many routine s that should be followed to avoid potentially severe health hazards. In this line of thought is the safety of the track between the industry and the market, between the market and consumers. Considerations in food safety, including consideration of industry market practices, the origin of the food, including on food labeling, food hygiene, food additives and pesticide residues practice, as well as biotechnology and food policies and government import and export management guidelines for food inspection and certification system. Consider the market of consumer behavior, it is usually thought that the food should be on the market should be safe, concern consumer food safe delivery and preparation. 2.0 Answer of Question 1 As a food safety expert, what considerations that needs to advocate to ensure a food safe facility is the steps of receive until serving are the most important part. When you have followed the steps nicely then it can avoid from being affect by bacteria. And if you already follow the steps then it will sure your food will be cleanness and healthier. The steps for the food safe facility are very important. Below retail on common steps, in order to assist in your decision-making, and steps you through the procedures in this document. All of the steps are receiving, storage, preparation, cooking, cooling, reheating, holding and serving. 2.1 Receiving The receiving food safety is an important step. In the receiver, the main concern is the contamination of pathogens, and the formation of harmful toxins. The importance of the proposed control measures in steps are rapidly into cold storage at the proper temperature and food spoilage of food and access to food, food additives and packaging materials from legitimate sources. Ready to eat, potentially hazardous food received special attention. This will not be cooked before the food service, the growth of pathogenic bacteria, refrigerated in this step, the food can be eaten at any time can be considered to be an important risk. Prerequisite programs, in order to control the temperature of the product is generally of the hazard, these products are mostly in the receiving sufficient control. At a suitable temperature, and when it arrives, if there is a potential danger if it is at a temperature of 5Â °C or below freezing, if it is at a temperature of 60Â °C or above heat and it is the frozen hard, rather than partially thawed. When this problem happens, then reject potentially dangerous food to pass internal temperature between 5Â °C and 60Â °C. Unless the supplier can prove a time segment, in which the food has been at 5Â °C and 60Â °C not impair food security. In addition to checking the temperature of the product, you should check the appearance, smell, color and condition of the packaging. 2.2 Storage When the food in refrigerated storage, food safety management system should focus on maintain temperature control to limit the growth of pathogenic bacteria that may be present, in the preparation of food products and store food, such as ready to eat foods, cross-contamination of raw animal foods to prevent. When determining the storage temperature and the frequency of monitoring in refrigeration products, you may decide to set the temperature lower than what is required by local regulations. Set temperature is lower than what your regulatory requirements, the bacteria begin to grow small upward bias temperature detected by frequent monitoring, can be quickly corrected. For example, if you are storing potentially dangerous, ready to eat food under refrigeration, you may decide to set critical limits of the refrigeration unit to run in 38Â °F. This provides a safety cushion, you have the opportunity to see the trend of more than 41Â °F and the appropriate corrective measures to inte rvene before the bacteria begin to grow to dangerous levels. Ready to eat food, it is best to check the temperature inside the control procedures. You should assess whether it is realistic and feasible for you to do this depends on your food storage volumes. You can choose your monitoring system based on air temperature refrigeration equipment as a prerequisite for the program. How often you should monitor the air temperature depends on your capacity and the use of refrigeration equipment and the number and type of food stored in the cold storage units. 2.3 Preparation Of all the operational steps, preparation has the greatest variety of activities that should be controlled, monitored, and in some cases, documented. This is impossible, including a summary of the manual covers a variety of menus, the skills of the staff and facilities design, influence the preparation of food. The preparation step may involve a plurality of procedures, including thawing, mixing together ingredients cutting, chopping, slicing, or breading. Preparatory steps, the premise of the program can be developed, to control some of the hazards, and assist in the implementation of food safety management system, to minimize the growth of bacteria and from the staff and equipment contamination. Prepared in small quantities for controlling bacteria growth it because the restriction of the amount of food prepared is an important tool that allows the growth temperature, maintained at the time of food minimized. The pre-planning of the volume of the food and minimize the time for prep aring the desired time the food is in the dangerous temperature region, the steps in this operation. The thawing of the frozen food products to maintain the proper temperature and time management is the primary control, to minimize bacterial growth. Procedures should be in place to reduce the potential for microbial, chemical and physical contamination during thawing. 2.4 Cooking Animal derived food cooking is the most effective steps to reduce or eliminate biological contamination. Cooking time specified to the proper temperature will kill most harmful bacteria and parasites. Therefore, frequent cooking temperature monitoring, it is strongly recommended. You should be determined to ensure that the proper cooking temperature and time to achieve the best system to use. Cooking raw animal foods, special consideration should be given to the time and temperature. In the development of the HACCP plan or prerequisite, it is important to understand the critical limit is a particular product in the cooking steps. For example, security cooking temperature or time for the poultry is 165Â °F is 15 seconds; 15 seconds with 155Â °F minced beef is safe cooking temperature. 2.5 Cooling If you want to cook, you intend after cooling and the use of potentially hazardous food, and then you need food cooled to 5Â °C or lower temperature as quickly as possible. Possible, even if it has been cooked foods cause food poisoning bacteria. These bacteria are able to grow faster cooling time limit or the formation of toxins. Cooling cooked potentially hazardous food, within a period of cooling food are from 60Â °C 21Â °C within in two hours and from 21Â °C to 5Â °C within a further four hours. This means that you have a cold food for up to six hours, from 60Â °C to 5Â °C or below. If you do not know how your food fast cooling, using a probe thermometer to measure the most warm food usually in the center section. Rapid cold food, break it down into smaller parts in shallow containers. Be careful not to contaminate the food when you do so. 2.6 Reheating If the food does not correct the temperature is maintained at a sufficiently long time, the pathogens have the opportunity to breeding dangerous figures. Appropriate reheating provides an important control to eliminate these organisms. Remember although proper reheating will kill most organisms of concern, it does not eliminate the toxins in the body, such as Bacillus cereus food borne viruses produce. Immediate use of any potentially hazardous food has been held between 5Â °C and 60Â °C, and more than two hours, but discarded food, has been held more than 5Â °C and 60Â °C for 4 hours. 2.7 Holding When cooking process to eliminate the bacteria, the spore-forming bacteria should be destroyed. If not at the proper temperature, without temperature control, held at the appropriate time in the cooked food, the rapid growth of this spore-forming bacterium is a big problem. Keeping food products at 135Â °F or above during hot holding and keeping food products at or below 41Â °F is effective in preventing microbial growth. As an alternative, the temperature control details of Food Code action, when used alone as a control, including a comprehensive monitoring and food labeling system to ensure food safety. 2.8 Serving Food before it reaches the customer, which is the last step of the operation. When employees work with food and food contact surfaces, they can easily spread bacteria parasites and viruses. Manage personal hygiene is important to control these hazards. Recommend employees personal health management program, implemented to solve the following proper hand washing procedures, appropriate use of gloves and dispensing utensils and the control bare hand contact with ready to eat food. Specific program recommends that customers self-service displays, such as to protect food from contamination of salad bars and buffets. Special consideration should be given to prevent cross-contamination, contaminated equipment and equipment to minimize pollution customers. 3.0 Conclusion of Question 1 In conclusion, when you cook or have a food then you should follow the steps that mention above. You take positive measures to improve the security you establish food sales. As we know, food is very important for us and it may cause us healthier or death. So that we should follow the steps nicely and make sure that the food is clean and make sure it safe to eat. Bacteria is the most difficult thing to prevent when you want to cook, bacteria will around any place and we cannot feel it or touch it but it can easily make the food become unhealthy. If you follow the steps that mention at above then it sure will help prevent those bacteria and also can easier cook out a healthy food. 1.0 Introduction of Question 2 In order to strengthen food security, food production per stage is from are receiving, storage, preparation, cooking, cooling, reheating, holding and serving strict monitoring should be carried out. Food security has already become important and most of the proprietor or customer will be attach importance to this food security. The HACCP system is a scientific, systematic approach to identify assess and control hazards in the food production process. HACCP system, food safety control is integrated into the design process, rather than relying on the testing of the last product. Therefore, the HACCP system in food safety, it can prevention and cost-effective way. 2.0 Answer of Question 2 The Codex Alimentarius Commission sets out seven principles for the basis of HACCP systems. Applies only to the seven principles of HACCP has completed a preliminary step in the development of the HACCP plan. 2.1 The seven principles of HACCP 2.1.1 Principles 1-Conduct a Hazard Analysis The application of this principle relates to the steps in the listing process and identify significant harm is likely to occur. HACCP team will focus on hazards is to prevent, eliminate or control the HACCP plan. Reported reasons include or exclude the danger, and to determine the possible control measures. 2.1.2 Principles 2-Identify Critical Control Points (CCP) Critical Control Point (CCP) is a point, step or procedure can be applied to control the food safety hazard can be prevented, eliminated or reduced to an acceptable level. HACCP team will use the CCP decision tree to help determine the critical control points in the process. The critical control points can control more than one food safety hazards, or in some cases, it is necessary to control a single dangerous more than one of CCP. CPC needed depends on the number to ensure that the required processing steps and control of food safety. 2.1.3 Principles 3-Establish Critical Limits Critical limits (CL) is a CCP, in order to prevent, eliminate or reduce to an acceptable level, biological, chemical or physical parameters of food safety hazards must be controlled at the maximum and or minimum value. Usually a key restriction measures, such as time, temperature, water activity (Aw), pH value, weight, or some other measure is based on the scientific literature and or regulatory standards. 2.1.4 Principles 4-Establish Monitoring Procedures Once you have determined the critical control points and critical limits, someone needs to keep track of critical control point, food flows through operation. Monitoring, including direct observation or measurement of critical control point is under control, insist on the establishment of critical limits. 2.1.5 Principles 5-Establish Corrective Actions Occasional processes or procedures in monitoring critical control points will not be able to comply with the established critical limit. This step establishes a plan for what happens when a critical limit has not been met at a critical control points. The operator can determine the action of these actions is to convey to the employees, and train them to make the right decisions. This preventive approach is the heart of the HACCP. Problems, but you need to find them, correct them before they lead to illness or injury. 2.1.6 Principles 6-Establish Verification Procedures This principle is to ensure that the system is the science of sound, effective control of hazards. In addition, this step ensures that specified when the system is running according to plan. Specified personal favorite manager regularly observe the activities of staff supervision, calibration equipment and temperature measuring devices, review of records or actions with employees to discuss the program. The purpose of all these activities is to deal with the issue of food security to ensure that the HACCP plan, if not, check to see if it needs to be modified or improved. 2.1.7 Principles 7-Establish Record Keeping Procedures There are written records or documents needed to verify that the system is working. These records are usually involved in the HACCP plan and any monitoring, corrective action, or calibration records of the operation of the HACCP system in the production. You can also include verification records. Maintenance records, records in the HACCP system is an ongoing, effective system is in place. Record keeping should be as simple as possible, so that more staff will have enough time to keep the records. 2.2 Risk Analysis Food safety risk analysis is essential, not only to the production or manufacture of goods and products of the highest quality, to ensure the safety and protection of public health, also in line with international standards and national standards, market regulations. 2.2.1 Risk Assessment The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department adopts the risk analysis framework promulgated by international food safety authorities in controlling food safety. The risk analysis consists of three functions, namely, risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication. The risk assessment can control the scientific basis for action. Risk assessment should incorporate the four steps of risk assessment example is hazard identification, hazard characterization, exposure assessment and risk characterization. Experienced in the risk assessment process, with the food or food ingredient hazard assessment and the potential risks of the population to be evaluated in order to develop appropriate risk management measures and risk communication information to protect public health. 2.2.2 Risk Management The risk assessment and risk communication, risk management is an important part of the risk analysis. This introduces a factor of the process of the successful implementation of the risk management needs. It describes the steps to identify and assess food safety risks, evaluate all available options to manage these risks, implementation of risk management decisions, and to ensure that the decision was the most appropriate. Risk management should take a comprehensive view of possible human health risk management. The process of risk management and decision-making should be transparent and appropriate records for different audiences. The risk management needs of a wide range of communication, coordination and collaboration, risk management and risk assessment, and with external stakeholders. 2.2.3 Risk Communication Therefore, if this is very important, in the end what is a food safety risk communication? While risk communication is a very complex subject, it is very simple in nature. Food safety risk communication is a three-step process, began to conduct a risk assessment, food safety scientists and statisticians part of the assessment of the likelihood of public health risk. The second step is risk management, health officials, scientific experts, food manufacturers and retailers work together to determine exactly what steps you need to ensure public safety. The third step is to risk communication, sharing of information and advice, with the consumption of the general public, and with the other parties in the production and preparation of food, food distribution and sales. From their experience in risk communication, International Food Information Council has developed a set of guidelines to help ensure that the right information reaches stakeholders and consumers, enabling them to make infor med decisions about the food they eat, their security. It is Understand and addresses the public concern and communicates with clarity and sympathy. 3.0 Conclusion of Question 2 Nowadays, food safety has become very important. Most of the proprietor and customer are attach importance to the food safety. Because when restaurant make out the food with not safety and the customer having the stale food then it may cause food poison or more serious it also can cause death. So to avoid this thing happen then HACCP is the better way to help you prevent the bacteria. Those seven principles are very important; all of restaurant, supplier should follow the principles to prevent bacteria and provide a healthy food. And then about risk analysis also one of the important thing for us. So, if you want make food safety then you should follow the steps of HACCP with nicely.

disinvestment :: essays research papers

DISINVESTMENT OF PUBLIC SECTOR UNDERTAKINGS IN INDIA TODAY THE RUSSIAN ECONOMIC MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT CONNOTED THROUGH THE RUSSIAN FUR DOES NOT EXIST. TODAY THE CHINESE ECONOMIC MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT CONNOTED THROUGH THE MAO SUIT DOES NOT EXIST. Margaret Thatcher disrobed them. The concept of the GOLDEN STRAIGHT JACKET is avowed, to whether it were the Democrats or the Republicans, the Conservatives or the Laborites, the BJP or the Congress. The concept of the golden straight jacket has been embraced by all countries including India. It endeavors to shift the economic decision making from the government to the markets. The concept of Disinvestment being it’s major tenet. The Nehruvian temples of economic growth, better known as the Public Sector Undertakings were born as the outcome of the conscious policy of the government to speed up industrialization of the country with a view to giving added impetus to economic growth as well as achieve certain socio-economic goals. These undertakings account for  ¼ of our GDP. They also account for 1/3 of our exports and have made contributions to import substitution. Also government undertakings employ more than 70% of the workers employed in the organized sector. These undertakings have helped reduce imbalances in regional development and a few of them have earned reputation for excellence at international level. But the picture is not as rosy as it seems, rather the scene in most of the PSU’s is very chilling. According to figures upto March ‘99 losses incurred by 29 PSU’s trebled within one year from approx. Rs.1050 crores to Rs. 3600 crores. The major reasons for the non performance of the PSU’s can be summarized as: Political Interference, High Cost of Delay, Fear of Scams, Headless Plants, Ineffective Management, Huge Inventories, Trade Unionism and Unutilized Capacities. A comprehensive policy on public sector was set out in the Industrial Policy Statement of July 24, 1991 - the year when the country had to tide over an unprecedented economic crisis reflected in its internal and external finances. The steps adumbrated included a review of public sector investments to focus on strategic and essential infrastructure enterprises and new procedures to tackle chronically sick and loss-making units. â€Å"Rationality is least expected from an economist who is best defined as a man who tells you tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday did not happen today.† The DEPARTMENT OF DISINVESTMENT has the following rationale: Because of the current revenue expenditure on items such as interest payments, wages and salaries of Government employee and subsidiaries, the Government is left with hardly any surplus for capital expenditure on social and physical infrastructure.

Fredric Jameson and the No Wave Art Movement Essay

In postmodern art, history is self-consciously reappropriated and re-fashioned into new forms. Postmodern art, Jameson argues, was a logical outcome of late-capitalism, which in its late stage has allowed society to abolish the distinction between high culture and mass culture, producing a culture of degradation. This was first taken up as an aesthetic by Andy Warhol. In the text, Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970-1990, Adamson and Pavitt note that Jameson, â€Å"found Warhol’s glittering series Diamond Dust Shoes to be particularly unnerving because of its incorporation of ommodity culture† (70). Art, according to both Warhol and Jameson is above all, a commodity, something to be bought and sold. Warhol’s work illustrates Jameson’s contention that, â€Å"Aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production† (4). This conflation of art and commodity creates a field of cultural production that is incapable of depth and v aluable social critique. According to Jameson, the abstract aesthetic of modernism was an expression of the new social forms of abstraction specif ic to capitalism. In modernism, the universalization of the money-form manifests as a range of social abstractions including, for example, society’s dominant â€Å"way of seeing† and representing the world aesthetically. In the age of global capitalism, the utopian sublime of modernism, to which Jameson referred, has disappeared, and has been replaced by the postmodern cultural logic of consumption. With the universalization of capitalism, the distinction between culture and economics has collapsed. In postmodernism everything, including art and culture, is subject to the logic of commodif ication. In the text, The Cultural Turn, Jameson submits that postmodernity â€Å"makes the cultural economic at the same time that it turns the economic into so many forms of culture† (81). This essay submits that the No Wave art movement that occurred between 1974 – 1984 in New York’s Lower East Side is indeed postmodern, by Jameson’s standards, and yet resists this conflation of art and commodity that Jameson maintains is characteristic of this paradigm. Jameson’s text, Postmodernism, suggests that with art’s entry into the commodity sphere art becomes propelled not by ideas but by money (Adamson et. al, 70). John N. Duvall is critical of Jameson’s linkage between culture and commodif ication in the postmodern context. Duvall writes in his text, Troping History, â€Å"It is precisely change that, for Jameson, can no longer be imagined in postmodernism, since aesthetic production has been subsumed by commodity production, thus emptying the modernist aesthetic of affect and hence of political effect† (4). Jameson’s characterization of postmodern art as enveloped in commodif ication overlooks art produced during this period that consciously existed outside the margins of the art market and acted as a resistance to the conditions of a commodif ied artistic arena. As alluded to by Duvall in the previous quotation, Jameson does not account for the possibility of political art production in postmoderism. As Perry Anderson notes, â€Å"by the positioning of the postmodern between aesthetics and economics,† Jameson omits, â€Å"a sense of culture as a battlefield, that divides protagonists. That is the plane of politics understood as a space in its own right† (18). As Marvin J. Taylor describes, â€Å"Downtown artists were profoundly aware of the failure of modernist revolutions, but were unwilling to abandon the possibility of a better world† (22) 1. It is precisely this urge for a better world that Jameson contends is an impossibility in the context of late-capitalism, and absent from postmodern art production. To classify the No Wave Art Movement as postmodern requires a working definition of this cultural epoch. The postmodern paradigm is commonly associated with a range of aesthetic practices, involving irony, parody, self-consciousness, fragmentation, playful selfreflexivity and parataxis (Waugh, 325). Characterized largely by the qualities of appropriation and simulation many postmodern artists addressed mass media and commodif ication in their 1 The terms â€Å"No Wave† and â€Å"Downtown scene† are used synonymously in essays that describe movement. So too are these terms used interchangeably in this essay. work, including those artists in the No Wave Movement, specif ically Barabara Kruger, who came out of this movement and whom we look to specif ically at the end of this paper. As Glen Ward notes in his description of the chronology of postmodernism, â€Å"More complex ideas about postmodernism quickly infiltrated the art world. Next to painting, photography and media-based work regained the limelight in the mid-1980s by seeming to provide a more obviously political postmodernism† (41). Rather than being incorporated into the late-capitalist system some theorists argue that postmodern art is a response to capitalist corruption, voicing an opposition to the world of commodities rather than becoming entrenched in it. There is no shortage of theorists and critics who have characterized the No Wave Art movement within the postmodern paradigm. As Carlo Mccormick describes in his essay, A Crack in Time, which appears in The Downtown Book, â€Å"†¦ etween 1974 and 1984 in Downtown Manhattan occurred the true postmodern moment: a time when modernism was most certainly dead and, unmoored from its schematics, creativity was based on flux, uncertainty, and searching† (71). The No Wave Art movement can be characterized by several recurrent postmodern themes including notions of authenticity; the Downto wn scene questioned the function of terms like authorship, originality, appropriation and tied them to the transgressive practices of theft, piracy and plagiarism. The second recurrent theme explored in the No Wave scene included performativity; challenging notions of representation in an environment of fragmented and multiple identities. Thirdly, the No Wave art scene is inextricably linked to its politics. As Taylor describes, Downtown art was activist and aggressive. Work was informed by the feminist movement, queer activism, AIDs, and poverty in postwar United States. As an expression of these politics, the No Wave Movement sought to criticize notions of institutional accreditation. This included an exploration of power structures, including the role of education, technical skills and technique. In her description of the Downtown Scene Gumpbert writes, â€Å"What so many Downtown artists of this era did share is that they conceived their work as alternative, if not outright subversive, vis-a-vis traditional curatorial and exhibition practices. Incorrigibly and resolutely defiant, Downtown artists interrogated systems of accreditation, broke down generic disciplines, and directly engaged with political issues† (14). Artists of the No Wave Art scene engaged with the political issues that plagued New York City at the time. This signif ies a potent antithesis to Jameson’s notion of postmodern art as vacuous and incapable of politicization. Taylor writes, â€Å"Suspicious of easy assimilation into the traditional Uptown art scene, Downtown artists mounted a full-scale assault on the structures of society that had led to grinding poverty, homelessness, the Vietnam War, nuclear power, misogyny, racism homophobia and a host of other social problems† (22). As an aesthetic movement the No Wave Art scene stood as a highly politicized rejection of the evolution of art as commodity. It was also a domain of extreme artistic production, â€Å"â€Å"From graffiti art to appropriation to Neo-Geo, virtually every major development in American art during that period seems to have originated in one or more of the mostly small, mostly storefront spaces that sprang up in the contested urban zones that characterized a neighbourhood in the early stages of transition from slum to middle-class playground† (Gumpert, 84). The scene existed actively outside the art market, residing largely in â€Å"informal alternative spaces† (Gumpert, 13). As an expression of an alternative antiestablishment attitude much of the work produced at this time took the form of graffiti art or performance art. According to Gumpert, â€Å"Artists, took to the streets in the late 1970s† (11). Notable artists of this time include, the graffiti works of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Herrings works in the city’s subway platforms and on sidewalks and Richard Hambleton, whose work appeared in poorly lit downtown alleys and construction sites (11). The No Wave movement was also composed of a subcultural punk scene, a host of postmodern writers and experimental filmmakers and video artists. Most famously perhaps was the Times Square Show, that took place in 1980 in an empty massage parlour, with works from more than a hundred artists. These examples demonstrate the desire of many of the artists in the No Wave art movement to â€Å"breakout of the framework of the established art world† (11). The work that is categorized as No Wave was characterized by a certain ephemerality, which allowed the artists and their works to resist the constraints of the commercial market. This offers a critique of Jameson’s assumption that art produced in the postmodern paradigm is inextricably linked with an economic motivation. As Gumpert explains in the forward for the text, The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene 1974 – 1984, A majority of the works [shown in these spaces] were process oriented and situationally specif ic, involving a relationship between materials, concepts, actions and locations. They were sometimes spontaneous, improvisational, open-ended, and often collaborative. The works existed within a given time and then ceased to exist. As a result much of this work was labeled ephemeral, the intent being to create an experience rather than a product, and new terms were devised to describe it, such as installation and performance†¦ During this period†¦ artists out of necessity created and took control of their own contexts (10) In order to preserve much of the ephemeral work produced between 1974 – 1984 in New York, it was archived and documented in photographs, notes, and films. Irving Sandler accounts for the motives behind documentation in the No Wave art scene, â€Å"[they’re] sympathies were countercultural, they believed that the documentation of a work was not art and thus not salable. They had turned to process art†¦ installation art, body art, and conceptual art because they did not want to create art commodities. Many also believed†¦ that their refusal to produce salable objects would subvert the art market† (24). This demonstrates a anti-market sentiment in the production of postmodern No Wave art. Jameson does not account for this type of art production in the theories that he forwards in his text, Postmodernism. Writing about the No Wave literature, Robert Siegle identif ies a central insurgency against established structures of culture that existed in New York at that time. He wrote, â€Å"It is, then, an insurgency, but not one that expects to break free of some kind of specif ic corrupt institution. It is an insurgency against the silence of institutions, the muteness of the ideology of form, the unspoken violence of normalization† (4). Siegle describes No Wave writing as quintessentially postmodern in its approach to the â€Å"silence of institutions† and to the â€Å"position of the speaking subject†. Rather than attempting to overthrow institutions, No Wave literature, according to Siegle, is premised on the attempt to understand how the discourse of institutions constructs who we are, thereby using that knowledge to problematize cultural discourse. Although in his text, Suburban Ambush: Downtown Writing and the Fiction of Insurgency, Siegle speaks specif ically of writing, this assessment applies equally to all artists in the No Wave scene. Through the deployment of the postmodern techniques that Jameson describes, artwork in the No Wave context, was far from the depthless commodity that Jameson imagined. It was rather highly political, productive and subversive. In his text, Postmodernism and Consumer Society, Jameson furthers his claims that in postmodernism expressive depth is replaced by an aesthetic superficiality in a phenomenon that he describes as â€Å"the waning of affect†. This â€Å"waning† is directly associated to a diminished political imagination. Jameson uses a comparison of the work of painter Edvard Munch and Andy Warhol to evidence this modern to postmodern shift. He contends that in postmodernism historical depth is replaced by nostalgia. Simultaneously, parody is replaced by pastiche, and an art of surface and loss is substituted for a history which â€Å"remains forever out of reach† (198). Jameson feels, â€Å"it is no longer clear what artists and writers of the present period are supposed to be doing† (196). This invoking of nostalgia and pastiche creates a condition in which artists can only comment upon or reproduce past art. This is articulated with Jameson’s description of postmodern art practice as being characterized by â€Å"the failure of the new, the imprisonment in the past† (196). In, The Postmodern Turn, Kellner and Best describe Jameson’s theory noting, â€Å"Coolness, blankness, and apathy become new moods for the decelerating, recessionary postmodern condition in an age of downsizing and diminishing expectations† (134). Jameson seems to articulate his own failings in his description of postmodern art. He admits that he is confounded by the postmodern and political work of Hans Haacke who questioned the institution and capitalism through his postmodern art installations. Of Hacke, Jameson writes, â€Å"The case of Haacke poses, however, a†¦ problem, for his is a kind of cultural production which is clearly postmodern and equally clearly political and oppositional – something that does not compute within the paradigm and does not seem to have been theoretically foreseen by it† (159). The No Wave art movement equally confounds Jameson’s theory towards a postmodern art that is bound by a sense of complicity. Much critique has been garnered by Jameson’s position on the art of the postmodern. Theorist Linda Hutcheon is critical of Jameson’s positioning of pastiche as a baseless technique, But the looking to both the aesthetic and the historical past in postmodernist architecture is anything but what Jameson describes as pastiche, that is â€Å"the random cannibalization of all the styles of the past, the play of random stylistic allusion. † There is absolutely nothing random or â€Å"without principle† in the parodic recall and re-examination of the past†¦ To include irony and play is never necessarily to exclude seriousness of purpose in post-modernist art. To misunderstand this is to misunderstand the nature of much contemporary aesthetic production – even if it does make for neater theorizing. (26 -27) Downtown artists actively sought to address this issue of art production within a capitalist system. Their work is characterized by a postmodern multiplicity. In his essay on the Downtown scene, Siegle notes, Far from being defeated by contradictions, these postmoderns take form it the cue for an alternative logic. Far from being rendered hopeless by the seemingly inevitable drift of (inter)national politics, they borrow form disinformation the ironic habitation of familiar forms for cross-purposes. Far from being paralyzed by the anxiety of past masters’ influence, they appropriate them for commentary on classic motifs (such as mastery, originality, autonomy, representation) and art-world structures (such as publishing houses, galleries, museums, and criticism). Far from feeling compromised by the investment economics of art, they turn the art market into a microcosm of consumer capitalism and subvert its operations. 10) No Wave artists, though they invoked themes of capitalism, were in fact openly critical of it. They did not create art with the intention of financial gain. Taylor presents Bourdieu’s theory on cultural capital to elucidate the artistic practices of those in the No Wave art scene and their pursuit for symbolic capital rather than economic. He writes, â€Å"If th e whole field of cultural production could be thought of as all those artists, poets, musicians, editors, publishers, critics, performers†¦ hen there could be subsets of this group who did not all conform to the desire for economic capital, but rather, and mostly because their work was experimental, sought â€Å"symbolic capital† from their peers† (31). Jameson argued that postmodernism marks the final and complete incorporation of culture into the commodity system. This integration The No Wave art scene, in fact, actively critiqued this condition. Though the No Wave Art movement occurred under the conditions of late-capitalism, the work produced during this period does not embody this notion of depthless commodity Jameson maintains is the primary characteristic of postmodern art. Barbara Kruger is an example of a No Wave artist whose work engages with themes of the media and the market while being simultaneously postmodern, anti-capitalist, and political. Kruger’s work, particularly her piece, Untitled, (When I hear the word culture I take out my cheque-book), serves as a response to the commodity culture postmodernism is so entrenched in. This work directly addresses Jameson’s concern that postmodern art is incapable of an authentic engagement with politicization. Kruger evokes many postmodern themes in her work yet avoids the non-criticality of commodif ied art practice that Jameson forwards. Kruger invokes the postmodern technique of pastiche recombining previously articulated styles while actively producing new meanings through this act re-appropriation. For Jameson, â€Å"Pastiche is a recycling of the past without the critical edge of satire or the subversive role of parody; it is a gesture to the past in a mediasaturated culture that lives in a perpetual present† (Murphie, Potts, Macmillan, 58). Where Jameson forwarded the notion that pastiche was merely â€Å"blank parody† (184) Kruger enacts pastiche as a meaningful technique. As noted in Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 – 1990, â€Å"She managed to break the conceptual barrier between art and mass media by selecting images from magazines from the 40s and 50s. Choosing them based on their poses and presenting phrases over them†¦ Stereotypes were thus turned into the vehicle for delivery of a totally different message† (368). Some of the postmodern themes deployed by Kruger include, the questioning of meta-narrative tructures, highlighting the decentred nature of contemporary culture, and the divorcing of sign and signif ier. In her work Kruger operates within the language and iconic system of consumer culture while offering a critique of those very conditions. As outlined in this essay Jameson’s theory of the cultural logic of late-capitalism fails to identify the critical aspect th at characterized much of the work produced under the conditions of postmodernism. This is specif ically demonstrated through the work of No Wave artists operating out of New york in the 1970s and 80s. While invoking the aesthetic themes common to postmodernism the work produced in the No Wave scene was highly political and did not act as a static representation of commodif ied art culture. The work of Barbara Kruger specif ically dealt with the concern of art as existing in a commodif ied global economy rather than simply falling victim to it. It was in fact the movement’s shift towards commodity that marked the No Wave’s scene’s decline. The year 1984 is signif icant to this movement’s trajectory. In his essay entitled, Playing the Field: The Downtown Scene and Cultural Production, An Introduction Marvin J. Taylor writes, â€Å"By 1984 the larger art world had encroached on the scene. That same year Mary Boone displayed and began to sell Basquiat’s paintings for up to $20, 000†¦ The major art journals, galleries, and auction houses had co-opted the restricted field of Downtown art, creating superstars and an influx of economic capital that would eventually overtake the symbolic capital† (36). It was exactly this move into the realm of the market that ended the production of postmodern art within the Downtown scene. Postmodern artists active in the No Wave art movement Jameson’s proposition that art made under postmodern conditions is incapable of exacting a political message. Works Cited: Adamson, Glenn, Jane Pavitt, and Paola Antonelli. Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970-1990. London: V&A Pub. , 2011. Bertens, Hans. The Idea of Postmodernism: A History. London: Routledge, 1995. Cameron, Dan. East Village USA. New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 2004. Duvall, John N. Productive Postmodernism: Consuming Histories and Cultural Studies. Albany: State University of New York, 2002. Hager, Steven. Art after Midnight: The East Village Scene. New York: St. Martin’s, 1986. Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge, 1988. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke UP, 1991. Jameson, Fredric. The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern, 1983-1998. London: Verso, 1998. Kellner, Douglas, and Sean Homer. Fredric Jameson: A Critical Reader. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Murphie, Andrew, and John Potts. Culture and Technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Perry Anderson. The Origins of Postmodernity. London: Verso, 1998. Sandler, Irving. Art of the Postmodern Era: From the Late 1960s to the Early 1990s. New York: Icon Editions, 1996 Siegle, Robert. Suburban Ambush: Downtown Writing and the Fiction of Insurgency. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. Taylor, Marvin J. The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2006. Ward, Glenn. Postmodernism. Chicago: Contemporary, 2003. Print. Wheale, Nigel. The Postmodern Arts: An Introductory Reader. London: Routledge, 1995.

Implementing Strategies: Managing Technology Essay

Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is a new discipline that is guiding organizations in setting goals and objectives, incorporating strategies and products, and making sure that business services are being delivered. PPM allows company’s to select, prioritize, optimize, and control all the projects in the organization based on many different parameters. PPM has been used in many IT project settings, but has recently been used by organizations to manage any portfolio of projects. In order to for PPM to be an effective tool, organizations need to define what issues need to be considered when selecting projects to implement strategy and what parameters need to be used to control the actual projects. The main issue that an organization needs to consider when selecting projects is alignment with long-term company goals. Often, projects are prioritized by internal political motivation which can quickly misalign what needs to be done compared to the company long-term goals. It is not to say that that the needs of certain business units should be ignored, but PPM allows a company to â€Å". . . prioritize its resources for the good of the business . . . (Paul, 2006). † Other issues that need to be considered in selecting projects are categorizing projects into those that run the business, those that grow the business, and those that may transform the business (Paul, 2006). Categorizing projects lets senior management change the project mix if revenue growth is a top priority or if a change in the business model is imminent. Having project flexibility is essential when implementing strategy within an organization. Senior managers can also use the categorizing of projects to determine the incoming demands from the business units and determine the capacity of the organization to deliver real value back to the business units or customers. PPM is also concerned with not just the actual project completion, but monitoring the project once it is complete for long-term effectiveness and success. The follow-up provided by PPM will help senior management and future project leaders determine best practices and focuses for the future and long-term strategies. PPM is able to define project parameters to control projects by long-term monitoring of completed projects. Parameters that need to be defined within each project are cost, resource availability, resource allocation and workload, time to market, cost reduction value, revenue generation, scope, and time-line to complete. The parameters need to be tracked in real-time for effective project management and portfolio management. PPM is able to â€Å". . . provide continuous checks and evaluations of a project throughout its lifecycle. . . (Gharehmani, 2006). † This allows PPM to assess projects or products based on real-time information and not outdated spreadsheets. The individual parameters can also be selected based on the particular need of the company with a certain project. For example, if a company is looking for a certain time to market versus the time-line to complete, PPM can use real-time information from previous projects to easily and accurately predict if the product will be released in the time frame desired. Categorizing projects can also be used as an effective means of controlling projects. For example, senior management may request that only projects that align with growing the business and revenue generation are to be worked on for a particular period of time depending on the business need in the specified time. PPM is a growing science that is being increasingly used to manage any portfolio of projects. In order for PPM to be effective, organizations need to define what issues need to be controlled to implement a particular strategy. Organizations also need to define the parameters that are to be used to control the projects. Without defining the issues and parameters related to project or portfolio management, the company will not be effective in managing what projects will ultimately lead to long-term success for the entire organization.

AMCAS Essay Writing Professional Service

AMCAS Essay Writing Professional Service The American Medical College Application Service and/or AMCAS essay doesnt differ much from most other types of personal statements required of med school applicants. A brief synopsis of personal beliefs and career coals, AMCAS statements are used to test applicants writing skills as well as their ability to communicate effectively. For more information on AMCAS papers, please read on. The process of applying to medical schools is an arduous one. The first thing that most applicants are required to do is enlist the assistance of an American Medical College Service. By sending transcript releases, essays, and application fees directly to this service (rather than to the schools), students dont have to worry about handling each school application themselves. AMCAS statements are important because they give applicants the chance to use their own voice. Unlike those for undergraduate universities, the med school application process has several different steps. Upon reviewing a favorable applicants initial package (including transcripts, letters of recommendation, and the essay), he or she is then asked to submit secondary essays, and so on. Granted, there is a lot of pressure involved when writing an AMCAS essay. Fortunately, there are many professional services that can help. For information on how to get help writing an AMCAS personal statement or if you would like an editor to review your medical school secondaries, please access the link provided.

What Is Juvenile Delinquency Example

What Is Juvenile Delinquency Example What Is Juvenile Delinquency – Coursework Example In your own words what is juvenile delinquency? Do you believe society puts enough emphasis on preventing juvenile crime? Why or why not?Juvenile Delinquency can in very simply words be defined as illegal act committed by a person who cannot legally be defined as an adult due to being of a less age. Punishment for juveniles involved in crime is often different from that which would have been to given to adults if they were to carry out a similar act. The main question that this seeks to answer is whether the society puts substantial emphasis on preventing juveniles from taking part in crime or not. According to the United Nations Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, it is the responsibility of an entire society to put joint efforts to ensure that adolescents are given an environment to harmoniously develop, as that is the only way of putting them away from becoming Juvenile Delinquents (Shoemaker). The guidelines shed light on the importance of equal educational opp ortunities so that adolescents can distinguish between what is right and wrong. The guidelines also point out towards that fact that young people should not merely be taken as objects of control, but rather have an active role in the society and its development.The society does without any doubt put an emphasis on preventing juvenile crime; however having said that it one should also understood that while knowledge and guidance can always be imparted, the acceptance or application of it always lies in the hand of the party at the receiving end. Similarly, while society has historically and will always put an emphasis on preventing juvenile crime, it is also in the hands of juveniles to take the lesson from their seniors and apply them in real life for their own benefit.Work CitedShoemaker, Donald J. Juvenile Delinquency. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. Print.

Homotherium - Facts and Figures

Homotherium - Facts and Figures Name: Homotherium (Greek for same beast); pronounced HOE-mo-THEE-ree-um Habitat: Plains of North and South America, Eurasia and Africa Historical Epoch: Pliocene-Modern (five million-10,000 years ago) Size and Weight: Up to seven feet long and 500 pounds Diet: Meat Distinguishing Characteristics: Long front than hind limbs; powerful teeth About Homotherium The most successful of all the saber-toothed cats (the most famous example of which is Smilodon, aka the Saber-Toothed Tiger), Homotherium spread as far afield as North and South America, Eurasia and Africa, and enjoyed an unusually long time in the sun: this genus persisted from the start of the Pliocene epoch, about five million years ago, to as recently as 10,000 years ago (at least in North America). Often called a scimitar cat because of the shape of its teeth, Homotherium subsisted on prey as diverse as early Homo sapiens and Woolly Mammoths. The oddest feature of Homotherium was the marked imbalance between its front and hind legs: with its long front limbs and squat hind limbs, this prehistoric cat was shaped more like a modern hyena, with which it probably shared the habit of hunting (or scavenging) in packs. The large nasal openings in Homotheriums skull hint that it required large amounts of oxygen (meaning it likely chased prey at high speeds, at least when it had to), and the structure of its hind limbs indicates that it was capable of sudden, murderous leaps. This cats brain was endowed with a well-developed visual cortex, an indication that Homotherium hunted by day (when it would have been the apex predator of its ecosystem) rather than night. Homotherium is known by a plethora of speciesthere are no less than 15 named varieties, ranging from H. aethiopicum (discovered in Ethiopia) to H. venezuelensis (discovered in Venezuela). Since many of these species overlapped with other genera of saber-toothed catsmost notably the above-mentioned Smilodonit appears that Homotherium was well-adapted to high-latitude environments like mountains and plateaus, where it could stay well out of the way of its equally hungry (and equally dangerous) relatives.

Death rituals Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Death rituals - Essay Example I have seen that the death rituals have remained the same over the years. These have comprised the gathering of near and dear ones to make sure that the affected family feels that they are not alone in their tough times (Gilbert, 2011). The close family members and friends come up and meet the concerned family and tell them what they thought of the deceased individual. They showcase how good or strong the person was who had passed away. It implicates for empathy on their part that they understand the situation and are ready to be a part of the death rituals that the family is undertaking at the present. I believe these death rituals will almost be impossible to change as time moves ahead. This has been seen in the recent past when one of my dearest aunties had died. We exhibited the same death rituals that were present at the time of my niece’s passing away some 4 years back. The death rituals did not change at all, and this strengthened my belief that the same steps and processes were going to be followed whenever someone is going to pass away in the family. However, there would be minor amendments within the death rituals as and when required but on the whole the basic agenda would more or less be what I experienced at the time of my aunt’s death. She was close to us and we loved her dearly. I noticed that nearly all the women in the family wore white clothes to pay homage to aunt’s soul (Hazan, 2004). They sat together, spoke at length about her qualities and the manner under which she used to help people around her. This was quite an enlightening experience for me since I learned that the best way to pay respects was to talk about the deceased itself rather than the worldly events that people usually talk about. The death rituals in my family will always change as and when there is a need but the bottom line remains the same – there is immense respect for the person who has died so that his/her soul rests in peace. I am

Information Security Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Information Security Management - Essay Example The fourth step is associated with creating contingency strategies. In the fifth step, information technology contingency plan is developed. The sixth step involves training, testing, and exercise. A maintenance plan document is developed, in the seventh step. The recommended standard approach to the process is to combine the both system development and life cycle (SDLC) risk management contemplation for the process of contingency planning. 2 Incident Response Planning Steps The incident response planning is associated with detailed set of processes and procedures which mitigate, detect and foresee the scope of an unexpected event directly impacting on information resources and assets. Incident Detection Identifying the incident to determine whether the incident has occurred due to routine operations or it is the occurrence of an actual incident. The identification of incidents, also known as incident classification, is related to analyze the originality of an actual incident. Howeve r, reports from system administrators, including intrusion detection systems, anti-virus software may facilitate to incident classification. Incident Response After the identification of actual incident, the incident response personnel follow with a responsive approach. Likewise, the responsive approach includes informing to key personnel, allocating tasks and documenting the incident. Incident Escalation If the incident response team cannot contain the incident, the impact of the incident is significantly out of reach. Prioritizing business processes as per business impact is essential. For instance, (fraud risk management server) in a bank stops responding, the business impact will be ‘most critical’. Incident Recovery After the containment of the incident, the process of incident recovery initializes. The incident response team must comply with â€Å"What to do to recover from the incident†. The team must restore services, backup data, continuously monitor the effected system etc. 3 Criteria for Law Enforcement Agencies The law enforcements agencies should be involved if any incident violates civil and criminal law. It is the sole responsibility of the organization to inform law enforcement agencies. However, the involvement of ‘what type of enforcement agencies’ relates to the type of crime conducted. 4 Why businesses Continuity Plans are tested and rehearsed? Plans are tested and rehearsed to ensure that the ongoing projects meet the changing needs of the organization. Secondly, the plans are also tested and rehearsed to ensure that the capacity of organization is compliant with all the applicable regulations. 5 Summary for Special Publication (SP) 800-34 Contingency Planning Guide For federal information system contingency planning, this publication provides recommendations, instructions, and considerations. Contingency planning is associated with the intermediate control measures for incidents related to information syst em services, which may occur due to interruption. The intermediate controls consist of recovery of information systems function by utilizing equipments exchange, performance of information systems, and relocation of information systems. This guide addresses contingency planning to three platforms. The platforms are Client / Server Architecture, mainframe systems and Telecommunication systems. Moreover, the guide provides seven progressive steps for contingency planning process. The 7 steps are: Contingency plann

Ontology and the Morality of Abortion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Ontology and the Morality of Abortion - Essay Example It seems everyone has a view on this issue and all seem to want to have their say. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the human race has strong ties to its origins so in answering the question of if humans were once fetuses; many feel the answer to when life begins will also be uncovered. After researching the ontological issue of was a human being ever a fetus and the moral issue of what the arguments are for the various position on abortion: anti-abortion, moderate and strong, the question of the morality of abortion should become clear. Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality. It is through ontology that the primary focus on the debate of abortion becomes the answer of one simple question, was a human being ever a fetus? Two of the most famous philosophers to debate this issue are Erin T. Olson and Lynne Rudder Baker. Their primary debate focuses on whether we are a person, or whether we are essentially persons. Baker takes on the view th at we are all essentially persons. The term person, as he defines it, is as a being capable of rational and moral activity. In this he argues that we could never have been something that was not a person, such as a fetus. He then takes this idea step further in saying that since only persons are moral agents and as a result have rights, no abortion ever has nor ever will violate any rights since non-persons, in this case fetuses, do not have any. This debate, though it seems logical, can hold many horrendous implications. If, in society, we view only those who are capable of rational and moral activity, as persons and therefore the only ones to have rights, many others besides the fetus could be excluded. Take for instance a man in a comma. In the comma state the man does not have the ability of ration or moral activity; he is in a sense a vegetable, same as a fetus. So according to this theory if he was an inconvenience then the plug could be pulled and it would be okay to let him die because he is not essentially a person. A new born, according to this theory, could also be deemed incapable of rational and moral activity, so in essence it is yet to be essentially a person, so therefore has no rights and if one so choose could be done away with. Another example would be a mentally handicap person, in many severe cases, the mentally handicap are incapable of rational and moral activity, therefore are they not considered essentially persons with rights. It seems that saying that only those with rational and moral activity are essentially persons and therefore have rights is a dangerous road to travel. Olson, however, takes on the view that we are not all essentially persons, but that each of us is essentially a member of the species, Homo sapiens, in short, an animal, a biological kind. He says that the properties of personhood are acquired by humans at some stage in their biological career, just like we acquire other properties like being a student, a mother, so on. So with this view all humans were once a fetus. If all human kind therefore was once a fetus, in the debate of abortion it would be wrong to kill or abort a human, despite what state it is in. This argument makes more logical sense as

Music and Mind Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Music and Mind - Essay Example An experiment in neuroscience and cognitive science find a good relationship between music and humans mental and the functioning of the human brain in cognitive ability (Levitin, 2015). Children can remember the music pitches and contours especially in melodies, which can help them remember what happened earlier in the day. The brain has the basic musical building blocks such as the neurons that are sensitive to tone pitch, rhythms, complex harmonic relationships, and melodic contours. For instance, the left hemisphere of the brain can process melody and the right one process language. Children have brains that understands music just like adults and enjoy music in their early life stages. Through listening and paying attention to music, children develop communication, self-expression, and cognition. The muscles and the brain also have a share of the real effect of the music. Scans taken in the brain during musical performances indicate that the cerebral cortex is normally active thro ughout the playing period (Meyer, 2008). Therefore, music engages the brain synapses and improves its capacity through neuron connectivity. Researchers found that music improves reading performances especially in the 1st graders as the experimental group showed high scores in academics than the control group (Meyer, 2008). Engaging in music through learning and performances exercises the brain by strengthening the synapses between the cells of the brain. The specific pitch training in music enhances the reading and the understanding capacity of the students. The ability of a student to recognize words in music leads to the improvement of the sounding-out stage increasing the students ability to rad. Research has shown that a correlation exist between the way students read standard and phonic and pitch discrimination (Supplemental Material for Review of

Climate Change- Reality or Myth Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Climate Change- Reality or Myth - Assignment Example I feel that through this advertisement, Nissan effectively reaches their target consumer – the educated consumer – because it shows them the simple beneficial effect that the purchase of the Nissan Leaf car would give Mother Nature. Through the symbolism of the polar bear, it seems that Mother Nature knows and personally thanks whoever buys this type of car. On the Science Magazine article, there is so much confusion in the media and among the masses concerning global warming, because there are two schools of thought regarding global warming. The majority, or 75% believe â€Å"the IPCC’s conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations,† which means to say that human factor was behind global warming. However, 25% of scientists believe that â€Å"climate change is natural† although no paper argued that point and although politicians, journalists and economists try to advocate. Now, although this could be wrong or right, the point is that we should do something about

Difference between service base and population base Research Paper

Difference between service base and population base - Research Paper Example As net CNU is a vital thing in estimation of population counts there is much concentration in population census. It starts with a summarized census collection process description and universe population definition and summarizes with processes used for CNU (Bureau of Census, 2010) On the other hand, service base is system of information for managing service processes. The services should be for IT services, technical support and servicing. It focuses knowledge from the management service of a company into a single source, allowing it for effective usage and sharing. The service base operator application gives users and consumers with online back up with all benefits arising from management process. It is a 100% application on website that uses internet in communicating with customers. The communication provided is through secured protocols. The IT system is completely configurable from a basic solution to value that is full for problem management and incident management including services of configuration database. A successful description of solved problems is easily exported to knowledge that is separated into classes by various users’ and products access rights (Foulkes,

Climate Change- Reality or Myth Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Climate Change- Reality or Myth - Assignment Example I feel that through this advertisement, Nissan effectively reaches their target consumer – the educated consumer – because it shows them the simple beneficial effect that the purchase of the Nissan Leaf car would give Mother Nature. Through the symbolism of the polar bear, it seems that Mother Nature knows and personally thanks whoever buys this type of car. On the Science Magazine article, there is so much confusion in the media and among the masses concerning global warming, because there are two schools of thought regarding global warming. The majority, or 75% believe â€Å"the IPCC’s conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations,† which means to say that human factor was behind global warming. However, 25% of scientists believe that â€Å"climate change is natural† although no paper argued that point and although politicians, journalists and economists try to advocate. Now, although this could be wrong or right, the point is that we should do something about

Expression of a persons mental state Essay Example for Free

Expression of a persons mental state Essay Emotions, feelings and intuition is the expression of a persons mental state, normally based on the persons internal (physical) and external (social), sensory feeling.[8]  We use emotions to determine our personal state of mind, we can be angry, sad and confused; and through emotion we can arrive at the truth that we are depressed. Regardless this truth only remains legitimate if the causes of the emotions remain constant. Likewise in the case we change the context of the situation, such as instead of it raining it were sunny, that person wouldnt feel as depressed and a new truth would emerge. Ethics is the study of morality; analysing if behaviour, thoughts and actions are good or right as opposed to bad and wrong.[9] Ethics plays a major role in the modern world as every public and social source, especially the media, are advertising what is nice and evil, good and bad, right and wrong. It is like the legal system, but it is more vague and theoretical also the consequences tend to be social as opposed to being sent to jail. Ethics are open to interpretation by each individual each society or even a culture as a whole. Where in the majority of Western countries it is seen as morally wrong to have more than two wives as well as illegal, in some Arab countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia it is acceptable to have more than one wife if you can support them. Sometimes the more wives you marry, the more money you must have, therefore the wealthier you are.[10] It is interesting to see how a large amount of people can interpret the same truth, such as in this case, which was brought to my attention by a guide during my stay in China. The use of footbinding on 6 year old girls in China during 1,000 years to impress the Emperor[11], was at the same time interpreted completely differently by an entire society. Westernized countries have never deformed their bodies, for status, erotic or social reasons as it is seen as morally wrong. It all depends on the context, and in this case it is the different backgrounds, cultures and beliefs of the two societies. History is the objective study and interpretation of information about the past.[12] To any historian a vital area of focus is the validity of sources to arrive at a truth. For example an unedited video would be considered reliable as it shows what happened without any tampering of the source as opposed to a journal, which could be biased.  However if the source is biased does it mean the truth is no longer valid ? For example when I was a little kid my parents (the source) used to tell me the Three Kings would come every January bearing presents and so they did. To me at the time it seemed as a truth and it was still valid, because I got my presents. Its not until we change the context, e.g.: present day, that the truth loses all its validity. This shows that the truth we derive from the validity of the sources is completely relative depending in the context which it is presented in, which means that the truths we know now may not be considered truths in the future.  Mathematics is a science dealing with logic and aim to derive theorems from axioms.[13] Whether it was discovered or invented we will never know, however one thing is certain; maths is highly influential in our day to day life; for example, technology, finance and architecture. We assume that mathematics provides us with an absolute truth; 1 + 1 = 2  However during my IGCSE course I experienced the ambiguity of maths (in the following example), which since then has left me thinking, if we could continue using maths as a source for truth.  The fraction 1/3 when written as a decimal number is .333 where the dots indicate that the sequence of 3s is infinite.  Thus we might write the equation:  1/3 = .3333  Multiplying both sides by 3 we get:  1 = .999  Therefore:  1 + 1 = 2 We know the first equation is a truth as we have been taught this in school and the world of mathematics revolves around that equation being valid. However using mathematical induction and rationalisation we have induced that the last equation is also valid. Nonetheless we arrive to the conclusion that they both can not be equal in a same frame of reference.  Once again Margaret Atwood, shows that the truth as we know it, cant be absolute as it varies depending on the context in which it is proposed. Answering the question Does this mean that there is no such thing as truth ? I believe there is always a truth as depending on the context, any situation can be manipulated to arrive at a truth. However I dont think Universality[14]; an idea which is universal, and exists everywhere, throughout the Universe nor an Absolute Truth exists, as the value of every thought changes depending on the context. As the Relativists would say; its all Relative.  I think a more appropriate title would have been: Does this mean there is no such thing as an absolute truth ? as the use of Context is all allows for there always to be a truth but not one that is absolute. Bibliography: Atwood, M. (1996), The Handmaids Tale. Vintage (pg. 202) http://dictionary.reference.com

Social Issues In Indian Cinema

Social Issues In Indian Cinema Despite its vacillation between the two extremes of sometimes being awfully responsible and at others outright sensational, Indian cinemas efforts in mirroring social reality deserves to be applauded. If popular perception is an indicator, a major part of the social transformation in India can be attributed to cinema social reformist role. The drive to link success of a film to box office returns have undoubtedly led to cinemas commercialisation at the cost of its social and developmental goals. But, despite the commercially driven attempts to cater escapist and fantasy-oriented entertainment, a good part of Indian films continues to be social theme carriers. These films enjoy a unique advantage of remaining out of the censor tangles. Of course, a prominent question remains to be answered is whether cinema can influence and change society. This paper attempts to answer this question through a historical review of the Hindi films. 1.0 Introduction: Lumiere brothers pet invention cinematograph on December 28, 1895, destined to emerge as second opium of the people, completed hundred years of awe-inspiring journey in India. It was in 1912 the first Indian feature film Pundalik was released followed by the Dhundiraj Govind Phalkes fully indigenous feature film Raja Harischandra in 1913. There was no looking back, Indian cinema kept on adding innovative features, both technical and artistic, from time to time to emerge as one of the greatest and most influential film industries in the world. The original camera, the projector, and the screen used by the France brothers have undergone metamorphosis to a stage of cinemas complete digitalization, thanks to innovations in technology. The transformation in characterization and sequencing of narratives is no less important, and so also the cinematic themes. From a stage of being viewed as an art, culture, and entertainment cinema has gradually emerged as an industry driven by profit. The change, indeed, is amazing. But, of the few features which continues to be nurtured is cinemas role as a tool of social transformation. Cinema arrived to India on 7th July, 1896 and first screened at Watsons Hotel in Bombay, latter to be shifted to the Novelty Theatre, by two employees of the Lumiere brothers where in living photographic pictures pictures of man and women, who breathed, moved and danced, were screened. So intrigued and overwhelmed at the screenings at Bombay that many of those who viewed the screenings themselves took to the business of film screening by the very next year. Film making activity started in India by the turn of the 20th century, the earliest short films being photographed in India included such titles as Cocoanut fair the Wrestlers Splendid new views of Bombay and Taboot procession. Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatvadekar shot a wrestling matchand training monkeys by wandering madaris as Indias first factual films then called topicals. Feature film production in India began with Dada Saheb R.G. Torneys Pundalik (Silent, 1909-1911), a devotional subject adopted from a popular stage play. The film was shot with the assistance of a cameraman of Bourne and Shephard, a local firm of photographers and photo equipment, developed and printed in London and released on May 18, 1912 at the coronation Theatre. Dhundraj Govind (Dadasaheb) Phalkes Raja Harishchandrawas released at the Coronation Theatre, Bombay, on May 13, 1913, as Indias first fully indigenous full length feature film. Indias first film comedy, first satire and one of the earliest to have a contemporary theme, making a radical departure from the prevalent trend of devotionals England Returned (Bilet Pherat) was made by Dhirendranath Ganguly in 1921. The Modern era of Indian cinema began with the production of talkies beginning with Ardeshir Iranis Alam Ara in 1931. The invention of talkies boosted the growth of Indian film Industry, and the number of feature films produced in India registered a steady increase year after year. During 1930s and 1940s filmmakers tried to reflect tough social issues on screen or used the struggle for Indian independence as a backdrop for their plots. With India attaining freedom, the issue emerged as a popular topic of Indian cinema makers. Films like Majboor-1948, Shaheed-1948, Samadhi, 26 January rode in popularity. In the late 1950s, Bollywood released its lavish romantic musicals and melodramas casting successful actors like Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor and actresses like Nargis, Meena Kumari, Nutan and Madhubala. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, romance movies and action films starring actors like Rajesh Khanna , Dharmendra, and Manoj Kumar had the sway. By mid-1970s, romantic confections made way for gritty, violent films about gangsters and bandits which created stars out of Amitabh Bachchan, Mithun Chakraborty and Anil Kapoor supported by actresses like Hema Malini, Jaya Bachchan and Rekha. In the mid-1990s, family-centric romantic musicals returned with resounding success of films like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1994) and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) based on the artistic acumen of actors such as Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan and actresses such as Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit, Karisma Kapoor and Kajol. Nana Patekar, Ajay Devgan, Manisha Koirala, Tabu and Urmila Matondkar were among the critically acclaimed actors of this generation. In the 2000s, spreading of Bollywoods popularity at the global level drove Indian film making to new heights in terms of quality, cinematography and innovative story lines as well as technical quality advances. Big production houses, like Yash Raj Films and Dharma Productions came to the fore front of film making. In the new millennium the Hindi film industry started its transformation into an industry that tried to get to grips with the business realities of moviemaking. The gradual corporatization of Bollywood resulted in increasing investment, efficient use of resources, generating accountability and reducing monetary losses by curbing piracy and enforcing transparency. Corporate entities Adlabs, Applause films, IDBI, EXIM etc. participate at various stages of the film industry like exhibition, funding, film making and processing, or all. Profit emerges as the driving force of film making in the country. To be precise, patriotic themes of Indian cinema made way for social reform, which undergoes change to embraces fashion of the day while still carrying messages of social reform, then turns out to a fighter to protect the institutions of democracy and freedom. A gamut of issues got representation in Indian cinema-from freedom to unemployment, from poverty to exploitation, from dowry to womens emancipation, from social conflict to national integration, from education to fantasy oriented entertainment. With the transformation of the society, the issues confronting it kept on changing and so also the themes adopted for film making. 1.1 Films on Social Issues Cinema is a mirror of social reality holds good beyond doubt if one looks back at the thematic treatment of Indias mainstream cinema. From the very early years, Indian feature film developed the admirable ability of focusing on different facets of Indian life. The cinemas concerns with social problems continue to be overtly expressed from the thirties, right through to the sixties, in a handful of most significant films. Hindi cinemas golden period in the thirties and the forties did bring forth films not merely presenting but tackling burning issues. How intellectual labour fights al-mighty capital, how young girls revolt against marriage with an old man, how life supersedes love, how inter-communal bliss is thrown asunder by the outside forces, how widows could be remarried and fallen women resurrected , how dowry could lead to tragedy and how convicts could be reformed, how the veneer of westernizing could ruin marriage and friendship, how the rural economy could be freed from the clutches of landlords and money lenders, how the untouchables and other underdogs could be given a more humane life and several such thorny problems were flashed across the countrys screens. In case of fatalism and tragic end, it was a mute protest mean to arouse the collective conscience against the various barriers. Films which talk so directly and movingly about the wrongs of society went onto influence it and shape i t along better lines. Dhirendra Nath Gangulys film the England returned made in 1922, was used as a means to get the audience to think of a social situation in which Indians had been imitating their foreign rulers and creating for themselves new problems within their own society. In 1925, Baburao Painter made the film Savkari Pash which painted an extremely realistic picture of the Indian poor, in the rural vast land, focusing on rural-indebtedness, feudal oppression, the poverty of the peasantry and myriad of problems. In the most outstanding film of the silent era of Indian cinema Savkari Pash, V, Santaram and Kamaladevi enacted the role of an oppressed farmer couple having to suffer both famine and the oppression of the Zamidari system. There were brave efforts to create similar thematic films commenting on the other social ills of Indian society. It is the arrival of the talkie film which brought to fore the contribution of Indian cinema in bringing about social awareness among the Indians to improve their status and remove age-old taboos which young India could ill afford. The period between 1931 and 1946 should be considered as the golden era of cinema of social comment. One is left amazed at the variety of films which Indian cinema of its time picked up for public debate. It is necessary to recall some of these films and their themes to impress upon the reader that Indian cinema even at its worst, was far better in its commitment to its audience and its society. Indian cinema tackled the problems of western culture clashing with Indian (Indira Ma, 1934); protested against arranged mirages and social barriers (Dev Das, 1935); protested against the caste barriers and religious bigotry (Achhut Kanya, 1936), Achhut (1940), promoted Hindu widow remarriage (Bal Yogini, 1936); fought against marriage of young girls with old persons, Duniya Na Mane (1937) and highlighted economic and social disparity (Adhikar, 1938). Indian cinema fought against rural indebtedness in K.A. Abass Dharitri ke Lal (1949); highlighted the problems of alcohol in Brandi Chi Batli (1939), Angoori (1943). The welfare of scheduled castes was highlighted in Malla Pilla, while widow remarriage was the theme of Sumangali. The ills of Zamidari system were highlighted in Raitu Bidda (1940), while the problem of the educated unemployed were best described in Vande Mataram(1948).The problems of unwed mothers was described in film Devta; while the events of dowry was best complimented upon in Dahej(1950). Achhut kanya suggested inter-caste mirages between high and low caste people. Mehbbos Aurat and Mother India, Vimal Roys Do Bigha Zamin and Sujata, Dilip Kumars Ganga Jamuna and Sunil Duttas Mujhe Jeeno Do focused on the socio-economic causes of the very Indian problem. 1.2 Sex and Violence in Indian Cinema Bollywoods sense of commitment to mirror social reality has hardly remained untouched by market force influences. Despite cinema being born in a form to creatively portray social reality, the drive to link success of a film to box office returns eventually led to its commercialisation. Profit prioritisation overpowering its social and developmental goals, obscenity and lewdness emerged as an integral feature of Indian cinema. The official censor history reveal that the film MERI AWAZ SUNO (1981) was first granted an A certificate, but was subsequently suspended citing that the film depicts excessive violence. In 1994, the film BANDIT QUEEN was suggested for 17 cuts especially scenes of frontal nudity. The film KAMA SUTRA- A TALE of LOVE (1996), was denied a certificate citing it pornographic only to be certified after two scenes of nudity were erased. The film FIRE (1998), which explicitly screened the homosexual relationships between two women (often termed as lesbianism), resulted in violent protest against it which forced the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to refer it back to the Censor Board for review. The anti-war and anti-nuclear documentary film Jung-aur-aman (War and Peace) as the censors claimed, suggested a bias against the minority Muslims when aid was distributed after the Gujrat earth quake 2001. The list of such films touched by censor wrangles for depicting sex and violence gets longer even if the country emerges as the most prolific film producing country in the world. At times it is sex, at times it is excessive violence (Aakrosh, 2003), at others it is kissing on screen (Khwaish), even at others it is smoking on screen (God Mother, 1999, Pyar -To-Hona Hi Tha). Though the issues of censor contention generally revolved round sleaze, sensuality, sexuality, nudity and permissiveness, overdose of obscenity and lewdness has been doing more harm to the image of the Bollywood. Sometimes sex and violence is deliberately incorporated to attract viewers, though family melo-dramas are no less popular. 1.3 Social Impacts of Films Any discussion on films and society confronts a vital question dose cinema have any impact on the society. There are two schools of thought on this issue among film makers. One line of thinking believe that films can never affect or reform the social body or the events taking place within it, but the other believes that the medium does have a direct or indirect impact on social streams, even though it may not be immediately perceptible. The former cites the example that just after a couple of excellent anti-war films were exhibited, the second world war engulfed humanity hence cinema cannot and should not offer any solutions for social problems raised by its writer and directors, by its content and style. The mere exposition of the problem is enough and there ends cinemas artistic obligation as well as compulsion. The later, however, stretches cinemas role further to promote a thought process and line of action where by the viewers are provoked into trying a change for the better. Fi lms, which talked directly and movingly about the wrongs of society, go on to influence it and shape it along better lines. The most important contribution of cinema to society is that by sheer usage it has grown to be a standard reference for most kinds of questions and situations, where elementary knowledge and practice are needed (Rangoonwalla, 1995:7). The mass mind picks up such points largely and stores them in some mental corner, to be reactivated while seeking or giving answers and guidance. Some of the life patterns and conclusions propagated by them could be having social repercussions below the outer of everyday life. Violence, crime and sex are made to look easy and frivolous, without much of retribution to follow. The magic of cinema is virtually unfathomable. The very mention of cinema conjures up a rainbow of captivating images. A vital aspect of Indian cinema is its unifying character. The Indian films have been subtly albeit consistently promoting the ideas of national integration and communal harmony. A part of the socio-economic cultural transformation can be attributed to the cinema as films usually generate social mobility, fluidity and an overall sense of oneness among people of different backgrounds (Rangoonwalla, 1995:7).The society is ripe with cases of crimes and criminals being emulated from the screen and so also the attitude to suicide as a way of dejection, mostly in love. Fashion including smoking and drinking, in many cases, are inspired from cinema characters. The vast fan followings of stars like Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachhan, Mithun Chatkrabothy are eloquent testimony to the social impacts of films. A study by Dr. Sativa Bhakry shows that Cinema can play both positive as well as negative roles in society. It can have positive impacts in terms of providing entertainment, enhancing information and knowledge, sensitizing people about urgent issues of society, in creating sociability and offering catharsis. It offers release from tensions of daily life. Cinema can also play an equally negative role in teaching wrong values, generating social and sexual violence and crime, providing escape from reality into a dream world of fantasy instead of facing up to the problems of life, encouraging adoption of destructive role models and in encouraging cynicism about social institutions (Bhakhry, 1995:71-76). 1.4 Freedom of Artistic Expression and its Limits Article 19(1) (a) of the Indian Constitution guarantees to every citizen of India the right to freedom of speech and expression; also assures the freedom of media, though it is not separately stated. This right to freedom of speech and expression includes within it, the right to collect and receive information from anywhere and through any legitimate means, the right to disseminate information and express opinion (Sawant, 1997). The freedom granted under 19(1) (a) is not absolute, and is subject to restrictions contained in Article 19(2) of the Indian constitution. The restrictions have, of course to be reasonable meaning there by that; they must have a direct nexus with ground on which they are imposed. But, to extend the scope of censorship to considerations of public taste and ban a mater which does not fall within the limits of the reasonable restrictions clause would not be legal(Vasudev,1979). Again, the media, when run as a business, is also subject to the restrictions, which may be imposed by the state on any business, under Article 19(6) of the constitution. Cinema as a medium of mass communication is also subjected to restrictions contained in article 19(2) of the constitution and set out in section 5-B of the Indian Cinematograph (Amendment) Act, 1959. In a celebrated Supreme Court judgment in 1970, in the case brought before it by K.A. Abbas, regarding his film A Tale of Four Cities declared that, Censorship falls under constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and expression and that while pre censorship of films does not contravene those guarantees per se, is still a justifiable issue and cannot be decided by a government official (Dayal, 1987). The Supreme Court said, Censorship in India (and pre-censorship is not different in quality) has full justification in the field of exhibition of cinema films and the censorship imposed on the making and exhibition of films is in the interest of the society. If the regulations venture into something, which goes beyond the legitimate opening to restrictions, they can be questioned on the ground that a legitimate power is being abused. We hold, therefore, that censorship of films, including prior restraint, is justified under our constitution (Vasudev, 1978). Platos polemics of art and artists urged strict censorship of the arts because of their influence on moulding peoples characters. Using his theory of forms, Plato claimed that artists and poets couldnt usually explain their works; as they are seized by irrational inspiration, a sort of divine madness. Therefore, the vital opinions of the community could be shaped by law and that men could be penalized for saying things that offended public sensibilities, undermined common morality, or subverted the institutions of the community. Acclaimed film critic and a spiritual champion of the right to freedom of expression, Noel Burch (1973) claimed I doubt if anybody will advocate freedom from interference of the state machinery to be extended to the commercial exploitation of a powerful medium of expression and entertainment like cinema. One can imagine the result if an unbridled commercial cinema is allowed to cater to the lowest common denominator of popular taste. Freedom of expression, therefore, cannot and should not be interpreted as a license for the cinemagnates to make money by pandering to and thereby propagating, shoddy and vulgar taste. While emphasizing the role of cinema as a vehicle of modernism, Indias first Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru has also advocated some amount of social control to ward off its bad effects (Vasudev, 1978:107). Tanuja Chandra claims that the artists have every right to give expression to the work of art and viewers have an equal right to reject it, if they do not like it either in part or whole. The entertainment part of cinema, she argues is of much important than the emotional part. Veteran actor turned Member of Parliament Satrughna Sinha claims that in a country like India films reach the widest possible and most diversified audience. As a medium of mass communication it can exercise the most tremendous and potent influence on the public. The rampant use of blatant sex and gruesome violence (as commodities for sale by the producers) can terribly shake a nation; the ruinous elements can easily shatter the society before the common law can give protection (TOI, 2006). John Dayal Claims that more and more people, especially the younger, look forward to watch the blatant display of sex and violence on the screen. If this virus is allowed to the artery of our national blood, the society will be infested with unruly elements with hardly any care for our social values and traditional tenets, which will eventually lead to chaos and anarchy in the society. Curbs are, therefore, necessary to protect the moral health of the nation and to ensure that cinema does not hurt the sensibilities or interests of the extraordinarily heterogeneous people that constitute the Indian nation (Dayal, 1987:61). 1.5 Research Design and Methods Analyzing a complex issue like social impacts of films demands a multidisciplinary approach. A historical review of the Hindi films reveals the presentation of social issues in contrast to other issues in Indian cinema. A review of cinema as a means of artistic expression provides pertinent clues about the social impacts of cinema. Constitutional and legal provisions, judgments of Supreme Court and High Courts, observations of various committees and commissions, legal adjudications on film censorship decisions, decisions of the Censor Board, and the policy guidelines issued from time to time provide an appropriate background for understanding the legal status of right to freedom of expression and its limits. The existing theories on film-society linkages, the research studies on social impacts of films, in addition to the study of the legal back ground mentioned above revels the ideal limits of artistic expression and moral decency in India. Of late, growing recognition of freedom of expression as a fundamental human right and the arguments against any kind of restriction on that right, coupled with the digital communication technology enabled scope for duplication and delivery of contents questions afresh the role of social films, of course, the socio-cultural conditions of a nation is an equally important factor. So it is the public opinion, defined and redefined by the changing socio-cultural environment that can be a real indicator of the social impacts of films and the need for films on social themes in the country. As such, the study primarily builds on the social survey method of research, a pre-structured questionnaire being the principal tool of data collection. The opinion survey constitutes the primary data, where as the secondary data culled from newspapers, journals, books and of course the Web provides significant input to the study. The universe for the study primarily comprises the academic community, including students, teachers and other academic staff of the universities. To represent the academic community Berhampur University (Odisha), Aligarh Muslim University (Uttar Pradesh), and Gauhatii and Nagalandi universities in the North-Eastern Parts of India were selected. The sample respondents were selected applying the stratified random sampling method. The academic community of the selected universities were identifies as three distinct groups- students, teachers, and academic staff of which 100, 40, and 20 respectively were selected randomly to constitute the sample for the study. While selecting the respondents gender and age have been kept in mind to make the sample a true representative of the universe, despite majority of respondents being post graduate students. All the 160 sample respondents so selected were administered a pre-structured questionnaire comprising 15 questions on various aspects of film ing practices and impacts of films on the society in India. The researcher could collect a total of 128 completed questionnaires of which 80 representing the students, 32 representing the teachers and 16 of the other academic staff. The responses so collected are codified and presented in tables 1-7. The codified and tabulated opinions are analysed using simple statistical techniques including the weighted average method. The alternative responses (say N) to a question are assigned priorities from 1 to N by the respondents. The responses from 1st to Nth priorities are assigned weightages N to 1 respectively and are multiplied by their respective frequencies n1,n2,n3nN-1,nN (number of respondents giving the same priority to a response).The weightage of each priority of a response are added to calculate the total weightage of a response. As such, the total weightage of a response is calculated to be: TW=NXn1+(N-1)Xn2+(N-2)Xn3+. . . . . . . .+N-(N-2)XnN-1+N-(N-1)XnN = NX(1st priority frequency)+(N-1)X(second priority frequency)+(N-2)X(3rd priority frequency)+ +2(N-1)th priority frequency+1(Nth priority frequency) The extracts of the personal interviews of a number of Bollywoodii personalities including actors, directors, producers on the issue of cinema censorship, published in sections of the media, have been incorporated to represent the views of the Indian film industry. 1.6 Public Perception on Cinematic Obligations The respondents were asked to mention the kinds of impact films have on society by selecting the appropriate alternative. The responses so obtained are presented in table-1, which evinces that 14.84 % of the respondents feel that films have positive impact on the society where as 20.31 % of them feel that films have negative impact. But a whopping majority (53.90%) of them agree that films do have impact, positive, negative or both, on the society.07.03 % does not see any impact of films, where as 3.91 % have no idea about social impacts of films. Table-1: What kinds of Impact does films have on the Indian Society? Response No of Respondents % age Positive Impact 19 14.84 Negative Impact 26 20.31 Both positive and negative impact 69 53.90 No impacts 09 07.03 Dont Know 05 3.91 The respondents were asked to mention in order of preference the mentioned positive impacts of films on the society. The responses presented in table -2 revels that the respondents strongly believe that films do have positive impacts in sensitizing the people about urgent social issues. The respondents are also impressed with the role of films as an entertainer. What closely follows these are films release tension and they keep the audience informed and educated on important issues confronting the society. Table-2: Positive Impacts of Films Impact 1st priority 2nd priority 3rd priority 4th priority 5th priority Total weightage Rank order Inform and educate 11(12.5) 13 22 28 14 243 2nd Entertain 25(28.41) 27 22 12 02 325 1st Sensitize about urgent social issues 25(28.41) 26 24 11 02 325 1st Instil positive values 09(10.23) 07 13 27 32 198 4th Release tension 18(20.45) 15 07 10 38 229 3rd TW (Total Weightage) =1st priorityX5+2nd priorityX4+3rd priorityX3+4th priorityX2+5th priorityX1 R (Rank) = rank of total weightage Table-3: Negative Impacts of Films Impact 1st priority 2nd priority 3rd priority 4th priority Total weightage Rank order Teach wrong values 21(22.10) 27 26 21 238 2nd Promotes sex and violence 28(29.47) 25 26 16 254 1st Provide escape route from real problems to a dream world 22(23.16) 18 23 32 220 4th Encourage destructive role models 24(25.26) 25 20 26 235 3rd TW (Total Weightage) =1st priorityX5+2nd priorityX4+3rd priorityX3+4th priorityX2+5th priorityX1 R (Rank) = rank of total weightage Among the negative impacts of films presented in table-3, promoting sex and violence tops the list. The audience closely believes that films provide an escape route from real problems to a dream world. The third major impacts mentioned are teaching wrong values, and encourage destructive role models. A question was asked regarding what should be the primary goal of film making. The respondents were asked to mention the mentioned alternatives in order of priority and the responses so obtained are presented in table-4. Table-4: What should be primary goal of film making? 1st Priority 2nd priority 3rd priority 4th priority 5th priority Total weightage Rank Profit generation 19(14.84) 17 21 28 43 325 5th Presentation of social issues to public notice 23(17.96) 27 18 22 38 359 4th Generate Social Change and development 39(30.47) 36 28 17 08 466 1st Eradication of social evils 21(16.40) 23 29 34 21 373 3rd Promote pro-social values 26(20.31) 25 32 27 18 398 2nd TW (Total Weightage) =1st priorityX5+2nd priorityX4+3rd priorityX3+4th priorityX2+5th priorityX1 R (Rank) = rank of total weightage Data in table-4 transpire that film makers first and foremost artistic obligation should be to try for positive social change through films, closely followed by the goal of promoting pro-social values. Notably, the artistic obligation of creatively presenting a social issue before the public without expecting or suggesting any social change from it, which is the line of thinking of the Avant Garde film makers finds third priority among the respondents. Equal