Monday, January 27, 2020

The Indian Economy and The Licence Raj

The Indian Economy and The Licence Raj Licence Raj, refers to the involved various licenses, regulations and accompanying red-tape that were required to set up and run businesses in India between 1947 and 1990. The Licence Raj was the result of Indian Planned Economy where each and every aspect is controlled by States and Central Government. To start an any new business, one has to take approximately 80 licences, that are resultant into disinterested new initiatives and not only that after getting licences businesses are controlled and governed by the government bodies that resultant into losses of new business. Government objective is not to control the growth but plan the each every thing and allocate the proper resources but somehow increased corruption rate and frauds has lead to decrease in growth rate. The License Raj-system was in place for around four decades. The government of India initiated a liberalization policy under the Prime Minister-ship of Rajiv Gandhi, though much of the actual progress was made under P.V.Narasimha Rao. Liberalization resulted in substantial growth in the Indian economy, which continues today. Liberalisation Indian economy had experienced major policy changes in early 1990s. The new economic reform, popularly known as, Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization (LPG model) aimed at making the Indian economy as fastest growing economy and globally competitive. The series of reforms undertaken with respect to industrial sector, trade as well as financial sector aimed at making the economy more efficient. The new neo-liberal policies (economic and social policy) included opening for international trade and investment, deregulation, initiation of privatization, tax reforms, and inflation-controlling measures. The overall direction of liberalisation has since remained the same, irrespective of the ruling party, although no party has yet tried to take on powerful lobbies such as the trade unions and farmers, or contentious issues such as reforming labour laws and reducing agricultural subsidies. The main objective of the government was to reform the economic system from socialism to capitalism so as to achieve high economic growth and industrialize the nation for the well-being of Indian citizens. Today India is mainly characterized as a market economy. With the result of that change today about 300 million people-equivalent to the entire population of the United States-have escaped extreme poverty. The consequences of liberalisation reached their pinnacle in 2007, when India recorded its highest GDP growth rate of 9%. With this, India became the second fastest growing major economy in the world, next only to China. The reforms progressed furthest in the areas of opening up to foreign investment, reforming capital markets, deregulating domestic business, and reforming the trade regime. Liberalisation has done away with the Licence Raj (investment, industrial and import licensing) and ended many public monopolies, allowing automatic approval of foreign direct investment in many sectors. Narsimha Rao governments goals were reducing the fiscal deficit, privatization of the public sector, and increasing investment in infrastructure. Trade reforms and changes in the regulation of foreign direct investment were introduced to open India to foreign trade while stabilizing external loans. Accountable changes made In the industrial sector, industrial licensing was cut, leaving only 18 industries subject to licensing. Industrial regulation was rationalized. Introducing the SEBI Act of 1992 and the Security Laws (Amendment) which gave SEBI the legal authority to register and regulate all security market intermediaries. Starting in 1994 of the National Stock Exchange as a computer-based trading system Reducing tariffs from an average of 85 percent to 25 percent Encouraging foreign direct investment by increasing the maximum limit on share of foreign capital in joint ventures Opening up in 1992 of Indias equity markets to investment by foreign institutional investors and permitting Indian firms to raise capital on international markets by issuing Global Depository Receipts Privatization Under the privatization plan, many of the public sector activities have been or are still being sold to the private sector. Thus the concept of PPP (public private partnership) came up. It describes a government service or private business venture which is funded and operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector companies. Privatization, in its wider sense, stands for policies to reduce the role of the state or government, assign larger role for the private sector pursuing the logic of the market in all economic decisions. The entry of new private sector enterprises could introduce competition where public sector enjoyed monopoly. Each form of privatization has differing implications for the labour, consumers and the economy. Degeneration, for instance, is likely to have little immediate adverse impact on employment. Degeneration, because of the removal of entry barriers, may motivate additional investments and offer enlarged employment opportunities. It is, however, possible that new private sector entrants may indulge in poaching of senior and experienced employees of the public sector by offering attractive emoluments. The outgoing public sector employees would carry the advantage and access to business networks and knowledge of the market with them. This phenomenon has already been seen in the aviation sector and communications industry. Privatization could lead to a reduction in the workforce if the new managements were to opt for modernization and automation. This, in all probability, is unavoidable. Under the Indian planning system public sector investments are financed through financial allocations by the government. While there were no administrative restrictions on cottage, village and small scale industries most large investment proposals by the private sector have had to pass through the scrutiny by a multiple of regulatory agencies. Soon after the initiation of development planning in India it became evident that the public sector was an economic necessity for the economy and the private sector.1 Public sector was envisaged as a major instrument for pursuance of plan targets. It was universally accepted that the Indian private sector was neither capable of making the necessary large investments nor was it expected to take up projects with long gestation periods and carrying low rates of return. Industrial Policy Resolution, 1956 reserved a large sector both for exclusive and priority development by the public sector. The government took upon herself the task of providing essential infrastructure and utilities as also heavy industries. Public sector in India has two main forms. One, the departmentally owned and managed establishments like railways, posts, telecommunication, irrigation, and power projects; and two, enterprises established under the Companies Act, 1956 and under special statutes. At the end of 1992, there were 1,180 undertakings in which government owned majority equity capital and which were categorized as government companies. Public sector has been an important employer, especially in the organized labour market. The sector accounted for 56.84 per cent of the total number of 14.3 million employees in the organized sector1 in 1980-81. From about 8.1 million in 1980-81, those employed in public sector manufacturing increased to 9.8 million by 1990-91. Public sector in India follows the same policy of preferences in employment for women and the underprivileged sections of the society as the government. The underprivileged categories are based on socio-economic considerations like membership of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, backward classes, weaker sections, women and the handicapped. Some of the public sector enterprises have closed down certain of their activities by subcontracting them to private parties. Contractualisation of specific tasks has been assisted by the general ban imposed by government on new recruitments. The activities privatized and brought under subcontracting include catering; message and courier service; and security, cleaning and maintenance of office buildings and office transport (staff cars). Railways appear to have taken to sub-contracting of services in a big manner. Each form of privatization has differing implications for the labour, consumers and the economy. Dereservation, for instance, is likely to have little immediate adverse impact on employment. Dereservation, because of the removal of entry barriers, may motivate additional investments and offer enlarged employment opportunities. It is, however, possible that new private sector entrants may indulge in poaching of senior and experienced employees of the public sector by offering attractive emoluments. Regulatory bodies Privatization of large public enterprises and entry of private sector in erstwhile reserved areas has the potential of giving rise to establishment of private monopolies. The interest of the consumers may therefore have to be protected from the normal instinct of private monopolies to exploit consumers in order to maximize their profits. One should not stretch the point too far as for the tendency of a public monopoly to be always better. Examples:- Security Exchange of India Electricity Regulatory Commission, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Insurance Regulatory Development Authority. Globalization Now that India is in the process of restructuring her economy, with aspirations of elevating herself from her present desolate position in the world, the need to speed up her economic development is even more imperative. And having witnessed the positive role that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has played in the rapid economic growth of most of the Southeast Asian countries and most notably China, India has embarked on an ambitious plan to emulate the successes of her neighbours to the east and is trying to sell herself as a safe and profitable destination for FDI. Globalization has many meanings depending on the context and on the person who is talking about. The process of globalization not only includes opening up of world trade, development of advanced means of communication, internationalization of financial markets, growing importance of MNCs, population migrations and more generally increased mobility of persons, goods, capital, data and ideas but also infections, diseases and pollution. The term globalization refers to the integration of economies of the world through uninhibited trade and financial flows, as also through mutual exchange of technology and knowledge. Ideally, it also contains free inter-country movement of labour. In context to India, this implies opening up the economy to foreign direct investment by providing facilities to foreign companies to invest in different fields of economic activity in India, removing constraints and obstacles to the entry of MNCs in India, allowing Indian companies to enter into foreign collaborations and also encouraging them to set up joint ventures abroad; carrying out massive import liberalization programs by switching over from quantitative restrictions to tariffs and import duties, therefore globalization has been identified with the policy reforms of 1991 in India. Indian economy was in deep crisis in July 1991, when foreign currency reserves had plummeted to almost $1 billion; Inflation had roared to an annual rate of 17 percent; fiscal deficit was very high and had become unsustainable; foreign investors and NRIs had lost confidence in Indian Economy. Capital was flying out of the country and we were close to defaulting on loans. Major measures initiated as a part of the liberalization and globalization strategy in the early nineties included the following: Devaluation: The first step towards globalization was taken with the announcement of the devaluation of Indian currency by 18-19 percent against major currencies in the international foreign exchange market. In fact, this measure was taken in order to resolve the BOP crisis Disinvestment-In order to make the process of globalization smooth, privatization and liberalization policies are moving along as well. Under the privatization scheme, most of the public sector undertakings have been/ are being sold to private sector. Dismantling of The Industrial Licensing Regime At present, only six industries are under compulsory licensing mainly on accounting of environmental safety and strategic considerations. A significantly amended locational policy in tune with the liberalized licensing policy is in place. No industrial approval is required from the government for locations not falling within 25 kms of the periphery of cities having a population of more than one million. Allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) across a wide spectrum of industries and encouraging non-debt flows. The Department has put in place a liberal and transparent foreign investment regime where most activities are opened to foreign investment on automatic route without any limit on the extent of foreign ownership. Some of the recent initiatives taken to further liberalize the FDI regime Non Resident Indian Scheme the general policy and facilities for foreign direct investment as available to foreign investors/ Companies are fully applicable to NRIs as well. In addition, Government has extended some concessions especially for NRIs and overseas corporate bodies having more than 60% stake by NRIs Abolition of the (MRTP) Act, which necessitated prior approval for capacity expansion The removal of quantitative restrictions on imports. The reduction of the peak customs tariff from over 300 per cent prior to the 30 per cent rate that applies now. Wide-ranging financial sector reforms in the banking, capital markets, and insurance sectors, including the deregulation of interest rates, strong regulation and supervisory systems, and the introduction of foreign/private sector competition The Bright Side of Globalization The rate of growth of the Gross Domestic Product of India has been on the increase from 5.6 per cent during 1980-90 to seven per cent in the 1993-2001 periods. Today Indian Economy is growing at 9% annually. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is confident of having a 10 per cent growth in the GDP in the Eleventh Five Year Plan period. The foreign exchange reserves (as at the end of the financial year) were $ 39 billion (2000-01), $ 107 billion (2003-04), $ 145 billion (2005-06) and $ 180 billion (in February 2007). Today (4th Nov 2010) India has $ 300 billion foreign exchange reserves and ranking at 6 number on world chart. The total cumulative amount of FDI inflows in India were Rs 563,656 million, about US$129,656 million over a decade from 1991 to January 2010. The sectors attracting highest FDI inflows are electrical equipments including computer software and electronics (18 per cent), service sector (13 per cent), telecommunications (10 per cent), transportation industry (nine per cent), etc. In the inflow of FDI, India has surpassed South Korea to become the fourth largest recipient. Dark Side of Globalisation Every coin has two sides; globalisation is also not out of it. There are many disadvantages of Globalisations as well. The main disadvantage of globalisation is in Agriculture field. In 1951, agriculture provided employment to 72 per cent of the population and contributed 59 per cent of the gross domestic product. However, by 2001 the population depending upon agriculture came to 58 per cent whereas the share of agriculture in the GDP went down drastically to 24 per cent and further to 22 per cent in 2006-07. This has resulted in a lowering the per capita income of the farmers and increasing the rural indebtedness. The number of rural landless families increased from 35 per cent in 1987 to 45 per cent in 1999, further to 55 per cent in 2005. The farmers are destined to die of starvation or suicide. Replying to the Short Duration Discussion on Import of Wheat and Agrarian Distress on May 18, 2006, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar informed the Rajya Sabha that roughly 1,00,000 farmers committed suicide during the period 1993-2003 mainly due to indebtedness. In his interview to The Indian Express on November 15, 2005, Sharad Pawar said: The farming community has been ignored in this country and especially so over the last eight to ten years. The total investment in the agriculture sector is going down. In the last few years, the average budgetary provision from the Indian Government for irrigation is less than 0.35 percent. Globalisation also leads to unemployment in labour class people according to Minister for Labour and Employment informed the Lok Sabha on March 19, 2007, that the enrolment of the unemployed in the Employment Exchanges in 2006-07 was 79 lakhs against the average of 58 lakhs in the past ten years. The lives of the educated and the rich had been enriched by globalization. The information technology (IT) sector was a particular beneficiary. But the benefits had not yet reached the majority, and new risks had cropped up for the losers-the socially deprived and the rural poor. Growth of Slum Capitals In his 2007-08 Budget Speech, Finance Minister Chidambaram put forth a proposal to promote Mumbai as a world class financial centre and to make financial services the next growth engine of India. Of its 13 million populations, Mumbai city has 54 per cent in slums. It is estimated that 100 to 300 new families come to Mumbai every day and most land up in a slum colony. Prof R. N. Sharma of the TATA Institute of Social Science says that Mumbai is disintegrating into slums. From being known as the slum capital of India and the biggest slum of Asia, Mumbai is all set to become the slum capital of the world. The population of Delhi is about 14 million of which nearly 45 per cent population lives in slums, unauthorized colonies, JJ clusters and undeveloped rural parts. During dry weather these slum dwellers use open areas around their units for defecation and the entire human waste generated from the slums along with the additional wastewater from their households is discharged untreated into the river Yamuna. To make Globalization Work India should pay immediate attention to ensure rapid development in education, health, water and sanitation, labour and employment so that under time-bound programmes the targets are completed without delay. A strong foundation of human development of all people is essential for the social, political and economic development of the country. The government should take immediate steps to increase agricultural production and create additional employment opportunities in the rural parts, to reduce the growing inequality between urban and rural areas and to decentralize powers and resources to the panchayati raj institutions for implementing all works of rural development. At the present, we can also say about the tale of two Indias: We have the best of times; we have the worst of times. There is sparkling prosperity, there is stinking poverty. We have dazzling five star hotels side by side with darkened ill-starred hovels. We have everything by globalization, we have nothing by globalization.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Drunk Driving laws in New York Essay

New York’s drunken driving laws, which seem to be adequate on paper, but did not have sufficient focus and cohesiveness to provide a substantial measure of anticipation. The combination of flimsy use of breath test laws, tolerant plea bargaining, grossly insufficient penalties and be short of commitment by the criminal justice system combined to lower New York’s effort for the tragic consequences of the drinking driver. As we know all the states have elaborated system of drunken driving laws, courts, enforcement, and punishment, but unfortunately these systems do not work properly. Arrest rates are considerably low and complex laws allow some offenders to escape any punishment. Other offenders can avoid a drunken driving conviction through an appeal haggle. Sentence requirements are not completed and permits are also not applied always. But unfortunately, these problems are not well known because state does not have good record systems. Drunk drivers have little fear of being stopped, convicted, arrested, and punished so they carry on drinking and driving. On Drunk Driving, the Senate Special Task Force came to know that New York’s laws did not provide strong fines for drunken driving offenders. And it also found that: The experience of other states where ruthless penalties have been tried such as obligatory jail for all convicted drunken driving offenders has revealed that these penalties have had a momentary effect at best. Where ruthless penalties have been susceptible, they should not been applied. Obligatory jail and so called â€Å"hard† license deferments, which outlawed offenders from holding controlled use licenses, provided an escape means for most drunk drivers, because public officials have recognized that efforts to impose harsh sanctions could decrease the possibility that drunk drivers would actually be convicted. Instead, New York stirred away from a scheme that focused on penalties to one that emphasized higher levels of enforcement and tribunal that were coupled with workable penalties and a public information and education crusade. Drunk driving in New York has decreased significantly for the past two decades. As the figures below show, most of the progress ended by about 1994. In 2000, drunken driving deaths increased for the first time since 1995. Traffic victims involving alcohol rose by 4%, from 15,976 in 1999 to 16,653 in 2000. The number of drunk drivers in fatal crashes rose by 6%, from 9,818 in 1999 to 10,408 in 2000. Drunken driving control strategies: Good laws, active enforcement, and effective punishment- Good laws that are strongly supported and enforced with meaningful penalties decrease drunk driving. Three other strategies support this policy. Public education updates drivers, especially young drivers, about alcohol and drunken driving subjects. Alcohol dealing is important for problem drinkers. Alcohol control measures such as minimum legal drinking ages and alcohol server training help diminish drinking in situations that may lead to drunk driving. With tough laws, enforcement, and punishment at the center, these strategies support and endorse a community standard that drunk driving is not tolerable. A strong system that affects everyone- Drunken driving laws and enforcement should send a message: drunk driving is not tolerable. A strong drunk driving control structure increases both the public sensitivity and the truth that drunk drivers will be often detected, arrested, convicted, and punished. The STOP-DWI Program:- STOP-DWI means â€Å"Special Traffic Options Program for Driving While Intoxicated†. It was invented by the State Legislature in 1981 for the reasons of authorizing counties to coordinate local efforts to decrease alcohol and other drug-related traffic crashes within the milieu of an inclusive and financially self-sustaining statewide highway safety program. The STOP-DWI legislation allows each of the State’s 62 counties to launch a county STOP-DWI Program which will qualify the county for the return of all penalties collected for alcohol and other drug-related traffic offenses occurring within its authority. Each county is given broad judgment in the direction of its program. The local option concept set forward by the Legislature just requires that the programs address alcohol and highway safety questions and be non-duplicative of related enduring labors. The strategy includes several serious elements: †¢ Punish all offenders with unswerving and convinced sanctions and increase the severity for second and subsequent offenses. †¢ Evaluate all offenders for alcohol problems and assign healing as appropriate. †¢ Control offenders so that assigned sanctions, healing, and other court-ordered Requirements are completed suitably. †¢ Maintain good records so repeat offenders are identified precisely and apply more penalties on them. †¢ Establish performance measures for state drunk driving enforcement and negotiation. †¢ Establish schemes by which states can support each other in assessing their drunken driving laws or court procedures. †¢ Establish a clearinghouse for standards and enhancements in state records systems. â€Å"Rhode Island has the deplorable distinction of being ranked first in the nation in the percentage of highway fatalities related to alcohol. † In the past year, Rhode Islanders have been bombarded with anecdotes and statistics about the unusually solemn nature of drunk driving in the state as compared to other states. We are also notified about â€Å"loopholes† in the state’s drunken driving laws that permit drunk drivers to getaway punishment, or at least to be treated much more mildly than in other states. These stories inevitably prompt concerned statements from local officials, and fresh calls for tough legislation to address the problem. Among the most important are proposals to criminalize sanctions for breathalyzer refusals, to authorize roadblocks for random alcohol checks, and to allow police to obtain warrants to compulsorily haul out bodily fluids from alleged drivers for chemical testing. Rhode Island’s below-average alcohol fatality records are not now a recent happenstance. That study shows that Rhode Island’s overall fatality rate was lower than the national average every year between 1982 and 2002, and – even more to the point – its alcohol-related fatality rate surpassed the national common only once during those two decades.

Friday, January 10, 2020

Social and Historical Effects Responsible for the Conception of the Fantastic and Supernatural in Gothic Horror (Dracula)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula debuted in Victorian England at the end of the nineteenth century. Not the first vampire story of its time, it certainly made one of the most lasting impressions on modern culture, where tales of the supernatural, horror, witchcraft, possession, demoniacs, vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, and monsters of all kinds have become something of a theme in modern art, if not an obsession. Many scholars debate the origin or cause of this phenomenon, yet most agree that culture plays an enormous role in the development of such themes, whether in nineteenth century gothic novels such as Dracula or Frankenstein, or in modern films with gothic leanings, such as The Exorcist or Children of Men. This paper will examine how fantasy and the idea of the supernatural, including the â€Å"undead,† is an important underlying fear prevalent in the psyche of humanity, which manifests itself differently, depending on the social or historical circumstances which spawns the creation of that work of literature or film. By placing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein within the context of its Romantic/Enlightenment era, E. Michael Jones shows how the effects of the revolutionary doctrine of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Marquis de Sade, and Percy Bysshe Shelley found their ultimate expression in the gothic horror genre (90). Dracula, no less than Frankenstein, is indicative of the cultural underbelly that the Victorian Age sought to cover up. Far from speaking directly of the human passions unleashed by the Romantic era, the Victorian Age found it more appropriate to hide them, keep them out of the public sphere, render them lifeless, and thereby make life respectable. The problem was, the less those passions were talked about, but acted upon, the more those same passions bubbled up to the surface through the means of gothic horror novels and films. While, Oscar Wilde’s â€Å"art for art’s sake† carried the artistic world out of the Victorian Age and into the twentieth century of unhindered expressionism, Wilde himself fell victim to the very underbelly of Victorian England—which, in fact, prosecuted him to the fullest extent of the law when his vices became open knowledge to the public. Stoker’s Dracula was just as representative of his own sexual desires masked by Victorian prudery. But because Stoker for the most part kept his affairs from becoming public scandal, he was left well enough alone to express what everyone was interested in anyway, and which has always been an easy seller: sex. Controlling the passions had always been the interest of the Catholic Church, which was the European bulwark against revolution, with assistance from the reason of Augustine to the scholasticism of Aquinas to the architecture of the gothic cathedrals. With the growing corruption of many Church officials, the rise of the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation, that control was finally threatened and replaced. New philosophies were spread (Rousseau’s concept of nature as the only law; Sade’s concept of that same nature as brutal, animalistic, and violent), which unleashed a tidal wave of radical revolutionaries in Paris at the end of the eighteenth century, which in turn needed new types of control. Napoleon was the immediate result. Victorian prudery was the nineteenth century’s later response. It enabled Mary Shelley to turn her husband into a â€Å"Victorian angel,† as she â€Å"dedicated the rest of her life to effacing their sexual experiment† (Jones 91) with Byron in Geneva, memorialized, however, by Ken Russell’s 1987 film Gothic, in which de Sade’s Justine informs Mary Shelley of what could soon be expected. What Sade foresaw, and helped promote, was a sexual revolution that would elevate sexual desire from the restraints of medieval Church doctrine. While that elevation led to the enforcement of a new social code of conduct (Victorianism), an alternate development got underway in which that same elevation of sexual license was to be used itself as a form of control. In fact, Augustine had spoken of such centuries before when he wrote that a man has as many masters as he has vices. Sade’s assessment was similar in the eighteenth century: â€Å"The state of the moral man is one of tranquility and peace; the state of an immoral man is one of perpetual unrest† (Jones 6). Yet, while Augustine promoted peace, Sade, who exercised some political sway in the Reign of Terror, promoted unrest: â€Å"By promoting vice, the regime promotes slavery, which can be fashioned into a form of political control† (Jones 6). Such was in line with Robespierre’s doctrine of terror as persuasion. Stoker’s Dracula was an expression of just such an idea—for Stoker himself knew the validity of both those claims: a seducer of young women, Stoker doubtlessly identified with Jonathan Harker and Dracula, the captive and master all at once. The vampire became a persona of iconic horror status in film in the following century. The concept of the walking â€Å"undead† who fed on the blood of innocents conjured up something so profound and stimulating in the minds of audiences all over the world that vampirism was everywhere, from Nosferatu to Bela Lugosi to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr. Dreyer, who had shot what is considered one of the greatest silent films of all time, The Passion of Joan of Arc, found his inspiration for his vampire film in the likes of Magnus Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld was an honorary member of the British Society for Sexual Psychology and something of a movie star himself in Weimar Germany, playing an â€Å"enlightened, sexually condoning doctor in Richard Oswald’s pro-homosexual film Anders als die Andern† (Jones 194). The themes of sexual license and control had a significant impact on Germany. Sigmund Freud would take up the themes in his psychoanalytic studies, promoting the fulfillment of sexual desires as a means of appeasing the subconscious. In Dr. Seward’s diary, one finds no less: a blood transfusion is given to Lucy by Van Helsing, who states, â€Å"She wants blood, and blood she must have or die† (Stoker 123). Lucy has been bitten by the vampire and become, in a sense, contaminated. The only scientific cure is to give her want she wants: blood. The allusion to another blood exchange is obvious—but the sense is inverted: While T. S. Eliot states in Murder in the Cathedral the relationship between Christian sacrifice and control of the passions (â€Å"His Blood for ours, Blood for blood†), Enlightenment science suggests no spiritual remedy—merely a physical or psychological one: a psychological/physical giving into desire rather than a spiritual dominance of it. Jones speaks of the sexual revolution that ran concomitantly with the French Revolution as the real forbearer of gothic horror. Whereas othic cathedrals reinforced through visual representation the horror of Satan and sin, modern gothic horror does the same—though the solution is different (if there is one, and there often is not: the immortal evil of Michael Myers, Jason, Krueger, etc. suggests that while Christ was the answer for Augustine and Aquinas, the Enlightenment has yet to formulate any acceptable solution). Meanwhile, the manipulation of desire, Jones notes, has found its way out of Victorian prudery and into the mainstream through advertising, radio, television, music, and cinema. The fantasy of the â€Å"undead† in the George A. Romero franchise, which is still being updated, suggests a kind of public response to the world around it: a society full of living, walking dead—killed by the bombardment of uncontrolled passions, yet still living, shopping, attending to social rituals. The sexual revolution and Enlightenment doctrine of the 1790s and early twentieth century resurfaced in full throttle in the 1960s and 70s, to create a new wave of liberal social doctrine and a new wave of gothic horror in film. In Dracula, Mina Harker records the assessment of the evil of vampirism according to Van Helsing: The nosferatu do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire†¦is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of cunning more than mortal†¦he have still the aids of necromancy, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him to command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not. (Stoker 237) The portrayal is Satanic, and a similar portrayal would be given in 1973’s The Exorcist, in which Satan possesses a girl through the medium of a children’s game (the Ouija board). Yet, with The Exorcist, the spiritual evil is made much more real than the fantastic evil of Dracula. And while Dracula is destroyed by a stake, the devil is dispelled only through the power of Christ in The Exorcist. Ironically, however, the devil is driven out only after the death of not one but two priests—the old man initially, and then the younger priest, whose own crisis of faith becomes a kind of despair at the end of the film, when, ceasing to compel Satan through Christ, he cries, â€Å"Take me! instead, and then throws himself out the window when his own possession is complete. The girl is freed from her captor, but only at the cost of the life and soul of the young priest: the power of Christ merely served to anger the devil—it did not subjugate him; such would have been too meaningful in the relativistic climate of the 70s. The 70’s sexual and political revolutions were intertwined to such an extent that hardcore pornography and Feminist politics app eared on the scene simultaneously. While Betty Friedan opposed traditional gender codes in such works as The Feminine Mystique, pornography was raking in the profits. The cinematic response to this was the slaughter of sexually-active teenagers by homicidal maniacs (evil incarnate), while virtuous and chaste maidens like Jamie Lee Curtis’ character in Halloween remained alive just long enough for the evil to be driven away by a male authority figure. Horror films often reinforced traditional gender norms, yet the awesome evil of those films seemed to have no end. With the proliferation of contraceptives as a form of eugenics similar to the kind practiced under Hitler, sex became an act of passion without physical consequences; yet horror maintained that it still had psychological and even spiritual ones. Nonetheless, as Jones shows, the promotion of contraception in twentieth century America by representatives of the Rockefeller Foundation was supposed to be nothing more than the controlling of ethnic populations that were found to be subhuman by WASP elitists (406). The black and Catholic communities, whose uninhibited breeding threatened to undermine WASP political control, promptly received the attention of people like Margaret Sanger and â€Å"Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, C. S. C. , who used Rockefeller money to fund secret conferences on contraception at the University of Notre Dame from 1962 to 1965† (Jones 147). The idea of Thomas Malthus, that over-population would ultimately destroy the earth, was marketed as the principle behind contraception. The underbelly of the movement, however, was, according to Jones, nothing more than a power play for control. The extremity of the situation would be explored by Alfonso Cuaron’s 2006 film Children of Men based on the novel by P. D. James. Friend of Spanish filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, whose Mimic has been noted in â€Å"Good Entomologist/Bad Entomologist† by Jones as a swipe at Enlightenment doctrine being a vain attempt at setting and controlling social mores (â€Å"The only solution left is the†¦prime totem of folk Catholicism, the rosary†Ã¢â‚¬â€referring, of course, to the end scene in which Mira Sorvino’s character draws blood rom her hand with a rosary crucifix to divert the attention of the giant blood-sucking roach, which is about to eat the little boy). In Children of Men, there are no little boys, nor little girls—in fact, children are gone altogether (a threatening theme that opens Del Toro’s Mimic too). The rampant sterilization of modern years is turned into a life-threatening ideology, affecting everyone and all ethnicities. When a woman is found, who has seemingly miraculously conceived, she is caught in the middle of yet another struggle for control—one group wants to use her as a political poster child, the other wants to legitimately help. Meanwhile, a war is waged in the urban cities, which evokes a kind of apocalyptic message of utter desolation. As Clive Owen’s character makes the ultimate sacrifice (his life) for that of the woman and her child’s, a sense of hope in the future of mankind is restored—but the outlook is still bleak and grim—for no one knows whether the woman and her child will really make it as they disappear into the fog rolling across the open sea. Hope is in the approach of the ship, but beyond that lies—what? In Children of Men, the fantasy of the â€Å"undead† is replaced by the fantasy of the â€Å"unborn. † The reality of Malthusian sterilization taken to extremes in modern times by social groups across the globe (birth rates are at lows nearly everywhere), sexual liberation has once again become a pathway to political control and to gothic horror genre representations. In conclusion, the underlying fears of societies since the beginning of the Romantic/Enlightenment age have manifested themselves in a variety of forms depending upon the cultural climate of the time. Beginning with Shelley’s Frankenstein as a repudiation of Enlightenment doctrine and going through Stoker’s Dracula as a representation of sexual desire and control bubbling under the surface of Victorian prudery, gothic horror has found its way into the mainstream culture with tales of supernatural occurrences that are in some sense connected to the issues of the day. The sexual revolution of the early twentieth century in New York materialized in greater force all over America in the 60s and 70s, launching another series of gothic horror novels and films onto audiences, from Stephen King to John Carpenter, Clive Barker, and Stanley Kubrick. While films like The Exorcist and Children of Men get closer to the reality of spiritual possession and widespread sterility, the human psyche of modern times continues to want to see itself as a kind of â€Å"undead† creature, whose reason for being has yet to be determined. Therefore, popular gothic horror icons like Frankenstein and Dracula remain staples of modern horror fiction, representing to the populace a mirror of its own struggles with the doctrine of Enlightenment liberation and control.

Thursday, January 2, 2020

Teamwork in Hospitality Industry - 3138 Words

TEAMWORK HRM ASSIGNMENT BY SATINDER –KAUR STUDENT ID- ETOLA 17396 B.SC HONOURS IN HOTEL MANAGEMENT CTH UNIVERSITY OF SUNDERLAND Introduction â€Å"Teamwork is seen as an aspect of high performance work systems in which it focuses as a way of empowering employees and facilitating the development of their full potential in order to enhance organisational performance.† (Derek Torrington, 2005) â€Å"A group of individuals becomes a team when, they†¦show more content†¦. Managers can focus resources and outcomes on their specific departments. The structure helps managers monitor performance more easily than some other models.† (Anya Baldwin, 1999-2011) source -http://cassley.org/classes/CS.302/302_L_4.html on 23/08/2011 * Matrix structure- â€Å"The matrix structure combines the specialization provided by a functional structure and the focus provided by a divisional structure. Your employees would be part of teams that connect functional roles with divisional roles. Each employee belongs to at least two formal groups; one is a functional group, and the other is a project, product or program team. Your employees also report to two bosses -- a functional group boss and a team boss. The structure increases your employee motivation and allows training across functional areas.† (Anya Baldwin, 1999-2011) source- https://honors.rit.edu/amitraywiki/index.php/User:Mike_Stark/23-08-11 B) The Purpose of teams in tourism and hospitality- The main purpose of teams is to improve the functioning of organisations as teams are the fundamental units of organisation (French, 1996). â€Å"Teams are a most powerful tool for solving problems and meeting continuous improvement objective as its purpose is to meet organisation goals and objectives while maintaining proper functioning of that organisation.(Joseph amp; Susan Berk, 1995). The organised group of professionals from differentShow MoreRelatedThe Environment Of A Commercial Kitchen919 Words   |  4 Pages‘The success of teamwork is about coming together at the beginning, keeping the process consistent and working together to get the outcome is the success’ Henry Ford (Ford, 2001). In this essay will outline and focus on the environment of a commercial kitchen, and will also be highlighting the importance of teamwork within a kitchen. Some examples of personal experiences I have had in the past, regarding teamwork will also be included. A kitchen in the hotel industry can be described as hot, hardRead MoreAnalysis of Hilton Hotels876 Words   |  4 PagesIntroduction The Hotel industry has become very important in the past years due to immense traveling and growth of international business. Hotel industry not only plays an important role in the life of people but as well as the economy of the country. 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