https://youtu.be/uXUNJFkFN0E?si=QyugcmyQm7VUqyMp
Transformative liberalism vs Transactional liberalism.

 Jorg Haider to Geert Wilders :  Far-right Normalised in Europe https://www.newsclick.in/jorg-haider-geert-wilders-far-right-normalised-europe
18/12/2023 subhash gatade A new Europe is emerging, ready to give space to ethnonationalism and exclusivist agendas.Studies tell us that “in several countries, support for the far right is growing fastest among younger voters,” The Guardian pointed out.

But the youth has not suddenly become exclusivist. There is a growing housing and healthcare crisis, and life is increasingly precarious without regular jobs. Slogans that promise to ‘make the country great again’ are bound to appeal to younger voters.

An editorial in The Hindu newspaper warns that rising ethnonationalism is a wake-up call for the establishment parties in the West. “Establishment parties should have a clear economic agenda and political vision to arrest the rising tide of far-right politics, which echoes Europe’s dangerous and not-so-distant past,”

Writing in The Wire, Aurelien Mondon, a senior lecturer at the University of Bath, notes, “We cannot pretend to stand against the far right while referring to its politics as ‘legitimate concerns’. We must stand unequivocally by and be in service of every one of the communities at the sharp end of oppression.”

This applies in South Asia, too, where parties have repeatedly demonstrated political naiveté by aligning with retrograde forces, such as under the name of “fighting corruption”. It has, ultimately, facilitated the ascent of the right to the echelons of power.

https://thewire.in/world/look-to-the-mainstream-to-explain-the-rise-of-the-far-right

in the media or academia, populism is generally used carelessly as a key defining feature. Using “populist” instead of more accurate but also stigmatising terms such as “far-right” or “racist” acts as a key legitimiser of far-right politics. It lends these parties and politicians a veneer of democratic support through the etymological link to the people and erases their deeply elitist nature – what my co-author Aaron Winter and I have termed “reactionary democracy”.

the mainstreaming process has involved platforming, hyping and legitimising far-right ideas while seemingly opposing them and denying responsibility in the process...We too often view the far right as an outsider – something separate from ourselves and distinct from our norms and mainstream. This ignores deeply entrenched structural inequalities and forms of oppression core to our societies. ..

YouTuber beware! Broadcast bill is coming! Ravish Kumar Official Dec 24, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67ahixFQeoE

Is the government preparing to nab YouTubers also? After strangling the media, you have seen the bleating of the Godi media. In response to these, some journalists and some creators on YouTube are commenting on the government and today's situation in various ways. All of them are being dressed in a pajama named Broadcaster. Not only journalists, comedians will also come under its purview. Even those people who make and post videos on road and train conditions while walking. Even those who while cooking pulses in cookery shows tell that pulses and oil are becoming expensive. This bill covers every person who is making any kind of comment on the internet. Platforms like YouTube are the place of independent voice in today's time, if these also disappear then what will you be left with? Why is the Broadcast Bill being called a threat to YouTubers? The conversation about this cannot and should not be small. We have spoken to journalist Meghnad to understand this bill. He has read this bill closely and has presented its dangers to you in simple language. The government is seeking suggestions and comments from the public on this bill till January 15.

Hate slurs ensure a discriminated citizen: India’s Muslim voices speak up, 2023 A glimpse at daily life for Muslims living in India? https://cjp.org.in/hate-slurs-ensure-a-discriminated-citizen-indias-muslim-voices-speak-up-2023/ 19, Dec 2023 the Hindutva brigade executes both a social and political project of ensuring the permanent construct of an antagonist picture of Muslims. Be it as a violent race, intolerant, aggressive, traitorous or unclean, the doppelganger to these prototypes is the meat consuming, lascivious, male Muslim who is responsible for the insidious rise in Muslim population. Using repetitive propagandist methods of stigma, these forces have fine-tuned this hate-letting to minute detail, harnessing technology and even music for far reach.

In India itself latest reports indicate an alarming 500% surge in cases filed under India’s hate-speech law over the past seven years, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). There were 255 incidents of hate speech documented at gatherings that targeted Muslims in the first half of 2023 alone. The report further exposes that a staggering 80% of hate speech events transpired in states governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Several incidents, including those involving top official leaders such as Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, have been recorded over the year.

Poet and writer, Hussain Haidry reflects on how firmly entrenched and pervasive propaganda and otherisation of Muslims has become.

“What has happened is that the otherisation is pretty much complete. Now it is very difficult to not be spotted as a Muslim under any circumstance, in any room. Today, I couldn’t pass off (without my identity). Identity is obvious.

“Secondly, while there may not be physical violence, because my class capital and social capital afford me some protections. But, this also exposes you (me) to online attacks, which can easily translate into real life by harming your career and lead to social and economic ostracisation. There may not be an imminent physical threat as such, but online attacks can also affect and attack my career since my livelihood is dependent on that.

J&K: Anger in Poonch After Videos Allegedly Show Torture of Three Civilians In Army Questioning https://thewire.in/rights/anger-in-poonch-after-videos-show-three-dead-after-alleged-army-questioning After videos showing the alleged torture of detained civilians spread online, their death has triggered massive protests in Srinagar. News agencies say the internet has been shut down in the district

. “I have served in the forces for 32 years, my brother’s death is the reward for my loyalty” says Noor Ahmed, brother of a civilian who was among the eight people reportedly picked up by the Army for questioning on Friday (December 22).“My younger brother Safeer has suffered violence; my faith is shaken. Top officials have visited our homes, given us compensation, assured justice, but will we ever get it? My 43-year-old brother has left behind four children, who will raise them?” he told The Wire.

Ahmed also said, “I have served across India, have been a part of the intelligence services; if this can happen to us, how can anyone else be safe?”

Mehmood Ahmed, the village’s sarpanch, said that all three civilians belonged to poverty-stricken families and lived hand to mouth. 

कश्मीर पर चुप क्यों सरकार? | Govt's silence on kashmir https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXWy6TgnaAY कश्मीर से दो ख़बरें आई हैं। बारामुला में आतंकवादियों ने पुलिस के एक पूर्व SSP शफी मीर की हत्या कर दी है। दूसरे मामले में सेना पर FIR हुई है कि सेना की कस्टडी में तीन लोगों की मौत हुई है। आज के इस वीडियो में हमने विश्लेषण किया है कि किस तरह हिंदी प्रदेश के अख़बारों ने दूसरी ख़बर पर पर्दा डालने का काम किया है। एक ही ख़बर को अलग अलग संस्करणों में अलग अलग पन्नों पर छापा जाता है। इस वीडियो को दोबारा चला कर देखिएगा, आपको पता चलेगा कि बहुत लोगों को अभी तक अख़बार पढ़ना भी नहीं आता था। कितना कुछ गायब कर दिया जाता है, कितना कुछ हल्का कर दिया जाता है और उन बातों को अब प्रमुख नहीं बनाया जाता जिनसे मोदी सरकार पर कोई आंच आए। ख़बरों का काम अब मोदी सरकार को बचाना हो गया है। हिरासत के भय से पत्रकारिता भी दम तोड़ चुकी है। इसकी जांच कोई नहीं करेगा। सब कुछ प्रचार है, पत्रकारिता का अचार है। 
Ravish Kumar Official

Security Council adopts key resolution on Gaza crisis https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/12/1145022

The Council demanded that the parties “allow, facilitate and enable” the immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip. It also requested the UN Secretary-General to appoint a Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator with responsibility for “facilitating, coordinating, monitoring, and verifying” in Gaza, as appropriate, the humanitarian nature of all relief consignments to the enclave provided through States that are not party to the conflict.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZmSVxTp0Rk The U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution Friday calling for immediately speeding aid deliveries to hungry and desperate civilians in Gaza but without the original plea for an “urgent suspension of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas.

The long-delayed vote in the 15-member council was 13-0 with the United States and Russia abstaining. The U.S. abstention avoided a third American veto of a Gaza resolution following Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attacks inside Israel. Russia wanted the stronger language restored; the U.S. did not.

https://twitter.com/tparsi/status/1738259729443385434  Biden managed to delete the call for suspension of hostilities as well as the establishment of a robust UN inspection mechanism in Gaza.

RBI Report में क्या हैं चौंकाने वाले आंकड़े? MoneyCentral  https://youtu.be/ZdZ0Pu_dZXs?start=123&end=403 21st Dec, 2023 What is the compulsion to import pulses? Mainly due to Climate Change Sowing for Rabi season affected..

Semantic Decoder: Meta Just Achieved Mind-Reading Using AI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiGl6oF5-cE  ColdFusion Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from non-invasive brain recordings  
  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01304-9   Jerry Tang, Amanda LeBel, Shailee Jain & Alexander G. Huth
Nature Neuroscience  Currently, however, non-invasive language decoders can only identify stimuli from among a small set of words or phrases. Here we introduce a non-invasive decoder that reconstructs continuous language from cortical semantic representations recorded using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Given novel brain recordings, this decoder generates intelligible word sequences that recover the meaning of perceived speech, imagined speech and even silent videos, demonstrating that a single decoder can be applied to a range of tasks.

Toward a real-time decoding of images from brain activity October 18, 2023  https://ai.meta.com/blog/brain-ai-image-decoding-meg-magnetoencephalography/   Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), a non-invasive neuroimaging technique in which thousands of brain activity measurements are taken per second, we showcase an AI system capable of decoding the unfolding of visual representations in the brain with an unprecedented temporal resolution.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/01/ai-makes-non-invasive-mind-reading-possible-by-turning-thoughts-into-text  The achievement overcomes a fundamental limitation of fMRI which is that while the technique can map brain activity to a specific location with incredibly high resolution, there is an inherent time lag, which makes tracking activity in real-time impossible
The lag exists because fMRI scans measure the blood flow response to brain activity, which peaks and returns to baseline over about 10 seconds, meaning even the most powerful scanner cannot improve on this. “It’s this noisy, sluggish proxy for neural activity,” said Huth.
However, the advent of large language models – the kind of AI underpinning OpenAI’s ChatGPT – provided a new way in. These models are able to represent, in numbers, the semantic meaning of speech, allowing the scientists to look at which patterns of neuronal activity corresponded to strings of words with a particular meaning rather than attempting to read out activity word by word.

Using AI to decode speech from brain activity
Studying the brain to build AI that processes language as people do
This AI system can be deployed in real time to reconstruct, from brain activity, the images perceived and processed by the brain at each instant. This opens up an important avenue to help the scientific community understand how images are represented in the brain, and then used as foundations of human intelligence. Longer term, it may also provide a stepping stone toward non-invasive brain-computer interfaces in a clinical setting that could help people who, after suffering a brain lesion, have lost their ability to speak.

 How come the BJP keeps winning elections despite poor governance : Dr. Ajay Gudavarthy.. https://youtu.be/j1ltmEcJOKY?t=149