1 Google beats Apple as world’s top brand (Straits
Times) US search engine Google has overtaken rival technology titan Apple as
the world’s top brand in terms of value, global market research agency Millward
Brown has said. Google’s brand value shot up 40 per cent in a year to US$158.84
billion, Millward Brown said in its 2014
100 Top BrandZ report.
“Google has been extremely innovative this year with
Google Glass, investments in artificial intelligence and a range of
partnerships,” said Benoit Tranzer, the head of Millward Brown France. Google
Glass is Internet-linked eyewear for which the firm has joined hands with
Luxottica, a frame giant behind Ray-Ban and other high-end brands, to sell the
new product in the US.
http://www.straitstimes.com/news/business/companies/story/google-overtakes-apple-world%E2%80%99s-top-brand-survey-20140521
2 New threat to Pakistan’s girl students (Hina
Baloch in Dawn) Recently, all the private schools of Panjgur received a letter
from a previously unheard extremist group called Tanzeem-ul-Islami-ul-Furqan. The
letter, addressed to the owners and administrators of all private schools,
accuses them of corrupting the minds of young girls by exposing them to a
‘western education’.
It goes on to state that ‘all private schools must
immediately disallow girls from seeking an education regardless of them being
at a co-education or an all-girls facility.’ It also includes a message for van
and taxi drivers in the area, ‘warning them of dire consequences if they
continue to transport girls to schools’. The note goes onto warn parents as
well. It asks them to keep their daughters away from English language centers
and schools.
Not surprisingly, their threat warns that ‘the
mujahedeen of Al-Furqan are ready to brace martyrdom to stop the spread of
vulgar, western, education in Balochistan’. The letter ends with a list
featuring names of all prominent owners of private schools in Panjgur. To
assert their writ and spread fear, the group carried an attack on a school
immediately after sending out the letters.
While it is becoming increasingly difficult for
private schools to function in Balochistan (government schools are either
non-existent or non-functional in most parts), the numbers of madrassas
continue to increase exponentially. According to the latest figures there are
2,500 registered and 10,000 unregistered madrassas in Balochistan.
The Balochistan public education scenario reflects a
grim picture and the future outlook, worryingly, remains equally bleak. According
to the latest figures, the current literacy rate in the province stands at 56
percent, this also includes people who can barely write their names. The female
literacy rate, at 23 percent, is one of the lowest in the world. With not much having gone in its way, the last thing
Balochistan needs is to have its girls forced to sit at home instead of the
classroom.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1107512/welcome-to-the-war-on-vulgar-western-education-in-balochistan
3 Getting ‘Congressed’ in India (Saptarishi Dutta in
The Wall Street Journal) Quick, what’s a word that means, I just got totally
clobbered? According to the slang website UrbanDictionary.com, there’s a new
word for that: “Congressed.”
Taking inspiration from the Congress party’s historic defeat in India’s
recent parliamentary election, the website–which allows users to add and define
slang — now features the word “Congressed.” It’s defined as, “Getting fully,
totally, irredeemably screwed. Made popular by the complete decimation of the
India’s Congress political party in national elections.” And here is how one is
supposed to the word in a sentence: “I got badly Congressed at work.”
Urban Dictionary is a popular online repository of
slang and silly definitions — think terms like “frenemy,” “O rly” and
“z0mg.” Anyone can add, edit and rate
words. “Congressed” has 70 thumbs-up ratings, and two thumbs-downs. (Frenemy,
by contrast, has collected 3,251 thumbs-ups.) The word was added to the online
dictionary on May 19, just days after the Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power,
leaving the Congress party to figure out how it managed to get so badly
Congressed.
Until now, the BJP was India’s main opposition
party, and Congress was in power. But in the recently finished federal
election, Congress managed to win just 44 of 543 parliamentary seats, while BJP
won 282. Contributing to the Congress loss was high inflation, allegations of
political corruption and a sluggish economy.
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/05/20/congresss-drubbing-spawns-a-new-word-for-drubbing-2/
No comments:
Post a Comment