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Jagdeep Dhankar is elected vice president of India with 528 votes out of 725 votes from members of parliament. He is seen as an outstanding chair of the Rajya Sabha, India's Upper house of parliament, by Modi, Jaishankar, Goyal and others. He was an Advocate for the Supreme Court of India. He coms from a farming family in Rajasthan from the Jat community. He was a member of parliament and a member of the legislative assembly of Rajasthan. Dhankar was a minister of state for parliamentary affairs under prime minister Chandrasekhar. With his wide experience he goes back to the early days of the Janata Dal, the party that preceded the current BJP party. The president and vice presidential positions have now been filled with the best representatives of the tribal communities in India that make up about 110 million people in India, and a representative of farmers from the Jat farming community in the states of Rajasthan, western UP and Haryana.   ...

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What is the best way to get ahead in a company? New studies show that the most important thing to do is to pick the right company for mobility and advancement, getting further education and skills, and for job stability. The studies shown here were done by the Burning Glass Institute in Philadelphia and the Harvard Project on Managing the Future of Work, the Schultz Family Foundation. The study looked at workers in 200 companies over a 5 year period to understand what helps workers build good careers. Companies that rank high for employee retention and pay are Adobe, Alphabet, Boeing, Microsoft. Companies promoting workers without a college degree are Southwest Airlines, AT&T, American Express, CISCO. For launchpads to further mobility Apple and AT&T do well. The main thing is that a person gets into the right company which has big consequences yet the workers starting out they don't have the visibility to make an educated choice, says an expert who did the study.  ...

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The entire area from the east coast of Africa to the west coast of the US in Pacific is now being covered as the Indo-Pacific region with the US, India, Australia and other nations committed to keeping the international rule of law and freedom of navigation.German Air Force takes part in a joint military exercize of 17 countries for Indo-Pacific in Darwin, Australia. The focus was on rapid deployment. The German Bundeswehr transfer of fighter jets and supply planes in mid-August Rapid Pacific 2022 was done within 24 hours for 6 Eurojets fighter jets, four transport aircraft, and 3 air to air fueling tankers, with 100 tons of material. The exercize from Aug 19 to September 8 was for 2500 personnel and 100 aircraft from all over the world called Pitch Black in Australia's Northern Territory. Next year Gemany plans to have its army participate in Australian exercize. An entire fleet unit is being set for German navy to return to the Pacific waters.  ...

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Coach Jitendra Singh who coached Hardik Pandya from his childhood days talks about the way Pandya has matured over the years since the Karan Johar chat show episode. Coach Jitendra Singh says Pandya told him- "Coach you won't hear any negative things about me after this." The death of his father who took his two boys to Baroda to prepare at a cricketing academy has affected Pandya.

In the recent IPL final Pandya showed his captaincy skills and his skills as an all rounder with 3 wickets for 17 runs including that of Butler of the Rajasthan Royals and 34 runs batting at a critical stage for a over 50 run partnership with Shubman Gill. Pandya is seen as very close to players and encouraging David Miller who took the Gujarat Titans to win the game with superb batting.

Here the Indian Express calls this a Kapil Dev moment for India as Kapil Dev is the only cricketer in Test history to have scored 5000 runs and taken 400 wickets.

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About 30% of recent postings are for hybrid work at Boeing and it favors remote and hybrid work. It helps to reduce cost by trimming payrolls and cutting office space to return to cash flow and profitability. The leader of America's largest aerospace company Mr. Calhoun says headquarters is himself and CFO Mr. West. Calhoun is CEO of Boeing since 2020, and has run the company using remote work. He sees the company as distributed all over the US. Its headquarters shifted twice from Seattle to Chicago, and then to Virginia outside Washington D.C. He says about this that 70% of his day is virtual no matter where he is because he runs a large distributed company that Boeing is today. Many factories are in the Seattle area, suppliers in many locations. Calhoun has homes in the Hilton Head area, and near Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire. Boeing says it is a different approach to get employees to travel to many locations and engage people rather than be tied up at a corporate headquarters.  ...

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Trump asked him to put him above the Constitution of the United States of America. He refused, making clear his overriding commitment to the Constitution of the United States, says former vice president Mike Pence. More clearly one sees a different understanding and grasp of the meaning of the Constitution of the US by the two individuals. This is what is at stake in what Peter Baker in the NYT calls an issue that will decide the future of America as a strong democracy. Deeper still are the questions of education and culture that this has raised that will not go away even then. How do you build a democracy when as a people, as a political class, or as groups of people one is not jolted by the fact that two thirds of American fourth graders fail the reading comprehension test, an indication of the deep lack of knowledge of the basic history, geography and political structure of the Untied States of America across broad sections of the people.

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Teri Scultz rightly points out that the biggest surprise on May 7, 2017, was when Emmanuel Macron stepped out to give his victory speech in front of the Louvre museum- what was played was not the French anthem but "Ode to Joy" by Beethoven, the European Union's adopted anthem. It was this unabashed defense of the  European Union at the time when it most needed it, not just frequently, but at every step of the way in the last two years, and in a forceful way at the last debate with Le Pen of the National Front, that marks the way Macron has presented himself to the French people. And not just in a fuzzy way with a feel good program, but clearly outlining the steps that needed to be taken to revive the French economy, yet do it from a centre right and centre left perspective drawing in the best ideas, with the close cooperation with Germany and the European Union.

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Hillary Clinton responds to a question from a 15 year old school girl in a Pennsylvania suburb of Haverford, who spoke about the damage done by Trump's crude comments about women. The girl Brennan Leach, asked Hillary Clinton, how Mrs. Clinton could help girls understand that they are much more than their looks. Clinton told the girl that "many women online were being bullied," and that this had to stop. She told the largely female crowd in Haverford gym that "Lets be the best we can be. Lets be proud of who we are."  The girl Brennan had lost a friend to suicide last year, and was especially concerned about the effect on girls of bullying at a period of middle and high school, which is a sensitive time for girls growing up. Trump had made many disparaging comments about women during the entire election campaign in 2016, without the kind of media sense of shock that one would have expected for such comments during previous moments in American history. ...

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In a nationwide television address prime minister Modi of India calls for a Janata Curfew on Sunday March 22, for a test of people's self-discipline in fighting the coronavirus. He urged people to not go outside of their homes from 7am to 9 pm voluntarily in this curfew. The aim is to build public consciousness of the need for social distancing and staying away from crowds and people gathering, as an effective way to prevent spread of coronavirus. Only health care workers and people who provide essential services would be outside. He asked that at 5 pm on that day people ring bells to thank health workers and others who are doing what is necessary in the health crisis.

The prime minister said there should be no hoarding as the government will ensure that there are adequate supplies. He said an Economic Response Task Force has been setup under the leadership of the Finance Minister that will decide on an economic relief package.

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How Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal was able to reduce his heart rate to 100 bpm as he prepared to take the first shot in a penalty shootout in Euro Cup soccer against Slovenia.  It was 170 bpm at the end of extra time. This was after he missed a penalty shot during the game. Ronaldo uses breathing in and breathing out as a way to control his heart rate. Visualization is another technique he uses to be in the best state of mind. Along with hydration, healthy diet and good sleep patterns breathing exercise is a way to reduce the heart rate in moments of stress. Why is it effective? Ronaldo says "It's because it makes you calm." The tracking was recorded by a fitness device called WHOOPS. This breathing in and breathing out is part of the Buddhist practice and an ancient way of maintaining the four forms of mindfulness involving contemplation of the body, of feeling, of mind, and of mind object.

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Maggie Haberman has covered Donald Trump from the period before he ran for president in 2016. Here she looks back at this period and reflects on the trial in New York with Judge Merchan, the campaign trail, and reflects on what it all means today to the people of the 51 states. She says it shows a former president who sees his best days in the 1980's when the Trump Tower was built, the connections with the New York elites who at once ignored and embraced this new view of the world and a place for greed in this world. It is also a period that began with Reagan Bush and the start of the Iran Iraq wars, the Bush war in Afghanistan, the Clinton embrace of economics that led to decline in US manufacturing, the 2009 financial crisis and Obama's continued war in Afghanistan- a period of decline in standard of living of the American people and failure to invest in essential infrastructure to improve quality of living.

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On the first days of her campaign Kamala Harris addresses the American Federation of Teachers. One of the big issues is learning loss for children during the pandemic. How to address reading loss, learning loss of children who are falling behind? Harris supports teachers in many ways. She wants to see the hard work of teachers respected and compensated by increasing teacher pay. Lyrarc's Movement for Global Literacy is focused on this same issue how to address reading comprehension loss among children in the US, that was weak to begin with and is now in trouble with the pandemic learning loss. Lyrarc is a useful tool and essential tool following serious learning loss from the pandemic, for increasing literacy and reading comprehension of children and young people in the US, UK, India and other countries. With NAEP test scores showing two thirds of children in 8th grade failing Reading Comprehension, and 75% failing Civics comprehension Lyrarc is an essential tool for addressing this problem. ...

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A look at how Kamala Harris plans to focus on specific aspects of the Biden Economic Policy Agenda that are of the greatest concern for the American public. Cost of living action is the highest priority. Harris has ideas on this issue to cut housing costs and has specific proposals from 2023 with rising housing costs to tackle this by limiting rent increases to 5%. She will also come up with specific actions to sharpen her focus on cost of living issues to help ordinary Americans cope with rising cost of living for groceries, autos, auto repair bills, insurance costs, and energy costs. Economic advisors include the following from the years since 2020 with Biden as his VP- Brian Nelson,Treasury Department, Mike Pyle   Deputy National Economic Advisor for International Economics, Brian Deese     former National Economic Council Director  Gene Sperling, former Biden Economic Adviser, Deane Millison former Harris Economic Adviser, Rohini Kosoglu, Grace Landrieu, Bharat Ramamurti.      ...

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Kamala Harris laid out her economic plan for Cost of Living Action at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. This includes action to restrict price gouging, excessive prices of supermarkets for groceries. It includes restricting rent increases to 5%, a first time home buyer help with down payment of $25,000, and a child tax credit of $6000 per child.

Kamala Harris said:

"Your salary should be enough to provide you and your family with a good quality of life … such as, no child should have to grow up in poverty. Such as, after years of hard work, you should be able to retire with dignity, and you should be able to join a union if you choose.”

“Our supply chains have now improved, and prices are still too high,” Harris said. “Many of the big food companies are seeing their highest profits in two decades. And while many grocery chains pass along these savings, others still aren’t."

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The US Senate races in 2024. See if you can connect the names to the state in US where the contest is being decided November 5. Bob Casey Jon Tester Tammy Baldwin Angela Alsobrooks Jacky Rosen Ruben Gallego Colin Allred Which is the big upset race? Who are the Independent Senators who retired? Answers- Casey- Pennsylvania, Tester- Montana, Baldwin- Wisconsin, Alsobrooks-Maryland,  Rosen- Nevada, Gallego- Arizona Colin Allred- Texas The big upset US Senate race in Texas, Colin Allred to unseat Republican Ted Cruz. Independent Senators retiring Joe Manchin- West Virginia, Krysten Sinema-Arizona. With their support Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act, other major legislation to invest in the renewal of America's infrastructure, American manufacturing,  CHIPS and Science.   ...

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Matt Garman, head of AI and Cloud Services at Amazon talks to Emma Tucker of the WSJ. Garman says Amazon was not slow, just being deliberate and thinking it through rather than coming up with something quickly as Microsoft had done with ChatGPT. He sees the need for regulation, only that it not create a situation where others including China go ahead and the US falls behind. This means that the US needs to coordinate AI rules with other countries including China, India, Russia, for comprehensive solutions on how AI is to be managed to work towards good.

On a five day week vs remote work Garman says Amazon takes the view that the creative work can best be done with humans interacting at the office. It sees this as essential for good work. On the 3 day week with 2 for remote work, the only problem he says is that everyone picks different 3 days and this leads to loss of human interaction at work.

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Mattinson and Ainsley have guided Labour's efforts to win back the trust of working class people and families in the UK. Here they talk about their visit to America and how they found an eerie resemblance to the situation in the UK, the same concerns about cost of living of food and housing or rent, the same concerns about immigration, and the same uncertainty about the future and the lives of their children. Could they ever trust Labour and could Labour deliver for them? During their visit they say -what they see Democrats and Harris already doing- focus on delivering for cost of living and for immigration. Starmer and Harris are both prosecutors and when Starmer talked up breaking up the gangs transporting migrants, and Harris talked about her prosecuting transnational gangs, they were talking about what they would do. Starmer set up the Border Security command, and Harris made the pledge she would sign the tough Republican Lankford immigration Border legislation into law.  ...

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Biden looks set to having DJT at the White House and attending his Inauguration. He has accomplished much says Pat Schumer, Minority Leader in the US Senate. He also believe it or not looks quite healthy and active, and likely to look like that a few short years hence in 2027-2028. It gives Biden who did in one term for Covid response and vaccines, infrastructure investment and rebuilding America, withdrawal from foreign wars, what has never been done before in just 4 years, an opportunity to enjoy life after 40 years of public service. And by letting DJT tackle issues of Border and fentanyl flows from Mexico and China in the first 2 years, of unfair trade that have not been resolved for decades, so that America can benefit from the the best of both parties resources and strengths. Contrary to what so called "smart heads" say the two party system is working by engaging people in an ongoing vigorous debate and bringing fresh faces into public service. 

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Pierre Poilievre gained prominence when he supported the Canadian truckers strike in 2022.  That year he was elected leader of the of the Conservatives party of Canada. In March 2022 the Conservative party crossed the Liberals with popularity at 32%. The NDP coalition ally of the Liberals was at 17%. Starting March 2024 the Liberals took a huge slide in the polls to 25% with Conservatives gaining to reach 42%.  The issues about cost of living, the Border and transgender culture issues resonate in Canada in the same way that they do with Americans. Voters say they can't afford gas at the pump and groceries. Pierre Poilevre has emerged as a leader of Conservatives at a point when for the first time since the 1980's it has a 20% point margin over the Liberals and Trudeau. There is also the issue of who will be best at negotiating on the tariffs issue with the DJT administration in the US. DJT does not take Trudeau seriously calling Canada the 51st state. ...

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The American pope's brother is John Prevost, 71 years, a school educator and principal, who lives in New Lenox, a community of 27,000 people 40 miles southwest of Chicago. He says of his borhter who was with him at his home for a couple of weeks last August 2024- "The best way I could describe him right now is that he will be following in Francis’ footsteps, they were very good friends. They knew each other before he was pope, before my brother even was bishop.” Pope Francis (Bergoglio) made the new American Pope bishop of a small Peruvian town in 1998, then archbishop and cardinal in Peru, before he returned to the US in 2014. At that time the new pope drove a white pickup truck to carry food and blankets to remote regions in the Andes mountains of Peru. Francis of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the new pope have a passion for seeing to the needs of the poor and the forgotten in society. ...

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Obama's formative 12 years teaching at the University of Chicago Law Shool as a lecturer. How it gave him a chance to develop his own views and test his thinking in the classroom.

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Richard Levitan, a physician expert on patient oxygen levels treated patients at a New York Hospital, and found this very important fact about coronavirus and its attack on patient lungs. Early detection and treatment, use of pulse oximeter monitoring, are shown to be critical for coronavirus.  Covid or cornavirus pneumonia is different from normal pneumonia in that it attacks the lungs but patients can be low on oxygen without realizing it through shortness of breath. As it turns out and confirmed by this physician expert who has invented intubation techniques and served at a New York hospital to understand why coronavirus was killing patients, the patient simply breathes faster and deeper without knowing it and is not short of breath even though his oxygen saturation is going down. This delays treatment- use of pulse oximeter is therefore recommended, an easy test placed on a finger that shows the oxygen reading. This kind of fast breathing then suddenly leads to the complete collapse of the patient's lungs, which is why so many end up in hospitals late and end up later on ventilators. British prime minister Boris Johnson received this kind of monitoring and early treatment to be able to return to work.  ...

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This assessment of Schmidt, West Germany's leader in the 1970's by Economist magazine, finds Schmidt to be smart and aggressive to the point of being arrogant and unable to listen to different views.

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Jannik Sinner grew up in South Tyrol in northern Italy near Austrian Alps. His first love was skiing and he was skiing since the age of 4 years. By 12 he had won an Italian championship. He shifted to tennis because he says in skkiing you make one mistake and you are gone, everything happens very quickly in a minute and a half a race is won. Tennis appealed to Sinner because it gave him more time, you did not have to be the best all the time, and mental fitness counted a lot over a longer period. He says giving it his all through good days and bad days is important in practice and this is true also in winning a game. Sinner says- "I always go on a practice court with a purpose, and I believe that the mindset you start to build in practice sessions, when you struggle, when you have pain, when you at times don’t want to practice, but you still go and you still do everything possible to make it a good day." “If you cannot do it in practice sessions, then you cannot do it in the real matches. So, I think this is one of the biggest parts.” ...

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Germany's views on DJT Putin meeting in Alaska- proceeding to next step of peace talks with European efforts to ensure a peace that holds. A failure by Ukrainian leaders to build a consensus for the foreign affairs of their country bordered by language and cultural ties to the east but wanting to be open to the west, its unique position after 1990 similar to how Austria navigated German language ties to Germany after 1945 but was outside NATO and carried on with an independent foreign affairs friendly with all sides. The Bush, Obama and Merkel administrations did not pay attention to this and made serious errors, leading to further wrong turns by Ukrainian leaders and Russian leaders for prolonged wars. This led to destabilization in the Middle East, in Latin America, and in Europe and the US around migrant flows, refugees, and local wars, with Russia, US and Europe local regimes acting as adversaries that had not happened in this way in the 1960's -1990 period. This is the mess that DJT and Merz are now having to untangle with the help of countries that suffered huge losses in the war Russia and Ukraine who now may have realized what went wrong and offer their cooperation to end the war. ...