The British are frantically Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

By Brian Fung June 24 at 9:55 AM

 

The U.K. just voted to leave the E.U. Here's what that means

 

After months of campaigning, the "Leave" camp has won and Britain will be leaving the E.U. The Post's Adam Taylor talks about what that means for the country and Europe. (Adam Taylor,Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

 

The whole world is reeling after a milestone referendum in Britain to leave the European Union. And although leaders of the campaign to exit Europe are crowing over their victory, it seems many Britons may not even know what they had actually voted for.

Awakening to a stock market plunge and a precipitous decline in the value of the pound that Britain hasn't seen in more than 30 years, voters now face a series of economic shocks that analysts say will only worsen before they improve. The consequences of the leave vote will be felt worldwide, even here in the United States, and some British voters say they now regret casting a ballot in favor of Brexit.

[Live updates: Britain votes to leave the European Union]

"Even though I voted to leave, this morning I woke up and I just — the reality did actually hit me," one woman told the news channel ITV News. "If I'd had the opportunity to vote again, it would be to stay."

That confusion over what Brexit might mean for the country's economy appears to have been reflected across the United Kingdom on Thursday. Google reported sharp upticks in searches not only related to the ballot measure but also about basic questions concerning the implications of the vote. At about 1 a.m. Eastern time, about eight hours after the polls closed, Google reported that searches for "what happens if we leave the EU" had more than tripled.

 

(Google Trends)

(Google Trends)

The run-up to the vote was marked by a bitterly divided campaign, one that was as much about immigration fears as it was about the global economy. But despite the all-out attempts by either side to court voters, Britons were not only mystified by what would happen if they left the E.U.— many seemed not to even know what the European Union is.

 What is the E.U.? To be fair, that question will now take on a much deeper significance than perhaps Google's users realized when they typed that into their browsers.

Source: washingtonpost

Single Desi Guy wants to Marry a Divorced Woman

When you are a single Desi guy and your choice of women for marriage is divorced, in Desi culture this is not an easy option. We explore why.

By Priya Chandra

"My parents were not happy at all when I told them about my plans to marry a divorced woman"

The title of this article, if it was an advert on a Desi matrimonial website would definitely raise some eyebrows, especially as it mentions divorced woman.

Because the ‘norm’ is not for a single Desi guy to marry a divorced woman when it comes to family expectations, cultural taboos and the overall stigma.

However, contacting and meeting Desi divorced women on dating and marriage websites, through social media or in social environments is increasing.

With divorce rising in South Asian communities around the world, it is inevitable that a single man will come across divorced women.

But to marry a divorced woman being a single Desi guy is not straightforward.

There are many problems faced by such a marriage. But this is not to say that such a union is impossible because it does depend on the individuals.

So, what are the inhibitors that would stop such a marriage and what are the things that can help make it a union?

Divorce History

Many would argue, the past is the past and when going into a new relationship, it needs to be left behind.

However, within Desi culture, the past is not easily ignored, especially, when it involves a divorced woman and a new marriage.

Therefore, it is important to know how long the marriage lasted, why she got divorced and what happened with the ex-partner in her previous relationship.

Answers to these questions and many more can definitely help to make decisions to marry or not.

Her history and background will be of definite interest to the family of the single Desi guy.

Also, the consummation of the previous marriage can reflect on the new marriage.

Sanjeev, a software engineer, who wanted to marry a divorcee says:

“My parents were not happy at all when I told them about my plans to marry a divorced woman. They wanted every detail about her past. I did not feel comfortable asking her and it made things difficult for us.”

Getting to Know Her

It is important for the relationship to have the belief and trust it needs, in order to progress towards a marriage.

However, it is important to appreciate there is a difference between the two people. One has been married and the other not yet. Leading to two different experiences of life and relationship status.

Getting to know each other well is extremely important for this marriage, due to the differences.

Therefore, giving it time and not rushing into it will help both partners understand what each other wants from the prospective marriage.

Tanvir Khosla, a solicitor, says:

“I met my partner, who was divorced, on a dating site. We both agreed to give us at least 10-12 months to get to know each other before we even discussed marriage. I’m glad we did because it helped us get closer.”

Children

If there are children involved, this can result in a greater responsibility, for a single man.

It means you do not just get to know the mother but the children too. To ensure this relationship will work in the long term.

The man needs to remember that it is not just a huge change to his life but to theirs too. Especially, if the children are still in touch with their father.

The Desi man’s family are likely to see this as a major sticking point. Because, marrying a divorced woman can be an issue itself but with children it becomes a completely different challenge. The question of ‘why marry a woman who has children?’ will crop up somewhere.

Jogi Purewal, a businessman, who never got married young, says:

“Being single and wanting to marry a divorced woman which children, set off fireworks in the family. No one could understand why I wanted this when the world was full of single women. But I knew this was the only woman that could make me happy. And she did just that, and the kids too!”

Being Ready

Both of you must be totally ready for such a marriage. Neither of you cannot be even slightly unsure.

Trying to convince parents and family of such a marriage cannot be risked if you are not ready yourselves.

For the divorced woman, it is important she is not on a rebound, rushing into another marriage to fix previous wrongs, just looking for comfort and ignoring the reality of it all.

For the guy, he needs to be sure he is not living in some kind of fantasy and understands the implications and the responsibility of such a union. At this stage, he is, still single.

Meena Kumari, a divorced optician, says:

“I met my partner when he was single and I had recently divorced. We spent about a year to get to know each other by seeing each other often. I knew I was ready but was happy to wait for him. We married a year later.”

Finances and Living

Finances and living arrangements will be all part of the plans like for any marriage. However, in this case, it is important that these are discussed to proactively address issues which could arise.

If there are children involved, it is likely that the mother already stays somewhere, where she has the children living with her. So, it could be a case of the man moving in with her and the kids.

If the ex is still on the scene, e.g. due to children. Then you need to be accommodating for the scenario of him coming to see or pick up the children.

Or if she is alone, then she moves to her marital home with the man. But if the man lives with family, she could potentially become a target for family members not approving of the marriage.

Finances also need to be discussed and agreed. Money can always cause problems and each case will be individual, depending on work, savings, property, assets and so forth.

Hamid Ahmed, a teacher, says:

“I made sure we discussed money and living, so we both happy. It did make her feel more comfortable that I was not a single guy who might be interested in her, just for her money. Because it does happen.”

Telling the Family

Unveiling plans to the family about such a marriage is not an easy or simple task.

The single Desi man needs to be prepared to have an emotional battle, at many levels.

Very few parents and family will readily accept this marriage. There will be uproar and shock, followed by discussions to divert him away from this marriage. Even suggestions of rishtas for girls, will trigger.

If there is any weakness in the argument, they will definitely focus on that and try to stop the man from proceeding.

They will even blame the woman for taking their ‘son’ from them and complain that could she not find someone like herself?

So, to convince parents, it is important a solid plan and its positive outcomes are presented.

Samir Bhatti, a civil servant, says:

    “I made sure me and her were fully happy to marry, before I told my parents. The initial reaction was not good. It took me about six months to make them realise, this is who I wanted to marry. Finally, they agreed. But I do feel my mother still has issues with it.”

Sheila Rajput, a businesswoman, says:

“After marrying my husband who was single, it took his family over a two years to accept us, after we had our first child. My family were fine and supported us.”

So, as shown being a single guy and wanting to marry a divorced woman is not an easy feat in Desi culture.

This may change gradually, as more acceptance of divorced women remarrying becomes a norm. But it will not be an easy task for the single guy because he will still need to reaffirm his choice of a divorced woman versus a single woman.

Source: desiblitz

Surprise! Affirmative Action Just Won A Victory No One Expected In The Supreme Court

Justice

by Ian Millhiser Jun 23, 2016 12:26 pm

Justice Anthony Kennedy

For the last several years, supporters of affirmative action have awoken every day justifiably fearing that the courts would bring race-conscious university admissions policies to a swift end. The 2006 appointment of Justice Samuel Alito gave conservatives a solid majority on the Supreme Court, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, the closest thing the Court has to a swing voter on issues of race, has not historically been sympathetic to affirmative action.

Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which the Supreme Court decided on Thursday, was the vehicle opponents of affirmative action chose in order to kill the programs. And, as this case proceeded through one of the most conservative federal appeals courts in the country and then, to two separate trips to the Supreme Court, it looked likely that affirmative action was on its death bed. Worse, for defenders of race-conscious programs, Justice Elena Kagan was recused from Fisher, so Justice Antonin Scalia’s recent death appeared unlikely to change the outcome in this case.

At yet, affirmative action will survive. As ThinkProgress quipped shortly after the second round of Supreme Court oral arguments in Fisher, Justice Kennedy spent the entirety of this litigation playing the role of the Dread Pirate Roberts from Rob Reiner’s classic film The Princess Bride. In that film, the Dread Pirate keeps a captive alive, telling him each night that “I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.” Yet in the end, the pirate does not kill his captive, instead turning over his ship and his title to the new Dread Pirate.

As it was in the movies, so it was Thursday in the Supreme Court — sort of. Though Kennedy appeared likely to kill affirmative action at many turns throughout this case, he cast the key fourth vote to uphold it over the dissents of his three most conservative colleagues. But, while Fisher is a victory for affirmative action, it is only a partial one. Kennedy’s opinion makes it clear that universities have a high and ongoing burden if they want to maintain affirmative action programs. It could also potentially inspire a rash of harassment suits targeting these programs.

The University of Texas’ admissions system, as Kennedy notes, is unusual. About three-quarters of the class is admitted through a “Top Ten Percent Plan,” which admits all Texas high school students in the top ten percent (or, more recently, about the top eight percent) regardless of their other qualifications. This plan does admit some students of color, but it only achieved fairly marginal diversity. In 2002, for example, before the university implemented the affirmative action program that was challenged in Fisher, “52 percent of undergraduate classes with at least five students had no African-American students enrolled in them, and 27 percent had only one African-American student.”

Then, in 2003, the Supreme Court upheld an affirmative action program at the University of Michigan law school in Grutter v. Bollinger. As Grutter held, and as Kennedy reiterates in Thursday’s opinion, universities may consider race in admissions because racial diversity benefits all students. “Enrolling a diverse student body ‘promotes cross-racial understanding, helps to break down racial stereotypes, and enables students to better understand persons of different races,’” Kennedy explains. “Equally important, ‘student body diversity promotes learning outcomes, and better prepares students for an increasingly diverse workforce and society.’”

In the wake of Grutter, Texas decided that race would be one of a myriad of factors that would play a minor role in determining who was admitted among the 25 percent of students who were not admitted by the Top Ten Percent plan. Kennedy’s opinion holds that Texas did not violate the Constitution when they decided to consider race in this way.

So that’s the good news for affirmative action. The bad news is that Kennedy’s opinion also imposes tough and continuing burdens on universities that wish to implement similar affirmative action programs. “Because racial characteristics so seldom provide a relevant basis for disparate treatment,” Kennedy explains, “race may not be considered [by a university] unless the admissions process can withstand” the highest level of constitutional scrutiny. In practice, that means that “through regular evaluation of data and consideration of student experience, the University must tailor its approach in light of changing circumstances, ensuring that race plays no greater role than is necessary to meet its compelling interest.” An admissions policy that survives review today may no longer pass Kennedy’s test tomorrow.

Kennedy also emphasizes just how many hoops Texas jumped through in order to produce an acceptable plan. The University of Texas “conducted ‘months of study and deliberation, including retreats, interviews, [and] review of data.'” This review culminated in a “39-page proposal” that “was written following a year-long study, which concluded that ‘[t]he use of race-neutral policies and programs ha[d] not been successful’ in ‘provid[ing] an educational setting that fosters cross-racial understanding, provid[ing] enlightened discussion and learning, [or] prepar[ing] students to function in an increasingly diverse workforce and society.’”

So, while other universities remain free to implement affirmative action programs after Fisher, they will need to jump through similar hoops. And even if they succeed in doing so, they still have an “ongoing obligation to engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection regarding its admissions policies.” It is easy to imagine how conservative litigators can turn this obligation into an opportunity to harass universities with expensive suits designed to wear down the school’s commitment to affirmative action.

In the meantime, however, affirmative action survives another day. That’s an outcome few people thought possible when Fisher first reached the Supreme Court.

Source: thinkprogress

Narendra Dabholkar’s four criteria for distinguishing faith from superstition

BOOK EXCERPT

Two suspects in the rationalist’s murder have been identified. His writings remind us why he was killed.

 Image credit:  IANS

Jun 19, 2016 · 08:30 am  Updated Jun 19, 2016 · 08:31 am

Narendra Dabholkar

The first is verifying the facts or the truth.

Faith that does not allow itself to be questioned on the basis of facts or truth is a superstition. What does this mean?

Babasaheb Ambedkar gives an apt illustration. He says, “If you find a yellow shining piece of metal, do you burst with joy that you have found a precious piece of gold? No. You argue with yourself that when put to the test of fire, the piece will shine if it is gold and will not if it is only a piece of brass. You give so much thought while deciding about a piece of metal. Why don’t you take such a considered decision regarding your values that guide and sustain your life? You must take a decision about your values thoughtfully. It means that you ought to put your faith to the test of the fire of truth.”

The second criterion of faith is non-violence. In any society people have diverse faiths.

They all should be allowed to preach and propagate their faiths as long as they confine their activities within the bounds of propriety. To allow people adhering to faiths other than ours to propagate, to consolidate and to persuade others to accept that faith is akin to reverence for others’ faiths. It is tolerance and is rooted in non-violence, the fundamental rule of life.

And to insist that “those who adhere to faiths other than ours have no place here” is in itself an enormous superstition. Thus the first criterion of faith is truth and the second non-violence.

What is the third criterion? It is being dynamic.

It can be tested as below. Fear and temptation are two drives that weaken a human being’s determination.

For example, you believe in your religion. Your faith is strong and deep. Now someone asks you, “Come on, I will give you twenty lakh rupees cash down, will you change your faith?” It is likely that you will first make sure that nobody is around within hearing distance and ask him, “Will you really give me that much money? Then maybe I need not fuss over my religion and do as you ask me to do.”

Similarly, if someone puts a sword to your or your child’s throat and threatens, “Either change your religion or you (or your child) are dead,” how will you react? You will certainly think, “Let me extricate my neck first, and then think what to do next. I can change my hats any number of times only if my head remains intact on my shoulders.”

You will then tell him, ‘My life is worth millions. I am prepared to change my religion as you wish.” You will also quietly contemplate, “Eventually, as the situation improves I will be back into my fold again.” This you may call a wise decision but you were certainly not faithful to your religion.

In both these cases, it is not the faith but temptation and fear that drive you to act against your faith. Except in such extreme situations, it should be the other way round.

The fourth criterion is that faith sublimates your value judgment, while superstition, on the contrary, debases it.

Whenever I accept something as part my faith, I have to accept its value content too. If Ram occupies an important place in my faith, then the values – truth and constancy (to his wife despite the custom of the day of having several wives) – that he upheld should also be important to me. It would be quite interesting to find out whether those who extol Ram so fervently accept and stick to these two values – truth and constancy – in their personal life.

About truth, the less said the better in this country. “Truth alone triumphs:” is our motto that is engraved on our national emblem. But our everyday experience tells us that untruth generally triumphs.

What we regard as faith, some of them call loyalty. Others describe it as sensible (or shrewd?) faith. The choice of the word aside, what is important is whether you examine your faith or not; whether you tolerate other faiths and do them no violence; whether your faith drives you to action.

The most important, whether your faith makes you a sublime human being or a debased one. So, these are the criteria that help you examine your faith. Insistence on such examination alone brings about human progress. Discourse on faith and superstition therefore is an important matter in the ideological discussions of the MANS (Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti) movement.

Excerpted from the ‘Selected Writings’, Narendra Dabholkar, translated from the Marathi by Suman Oak, in Words Matter: Writing Against Silence, edited and introduced by K Satchidanandan, Penguin Viking.

We welcome your comments at letters@scroll.in.

Source: scrollin