Fastrack Company Essay

Fastrack was launched in 1998 as a sub-brand of Titan. It was spun off as an independent brand of watches targeting the urban youth in 2005. Since then, it has carved a niche for itself with designs that were refreshingly different and affordable. During that time, Fastrack also extended its footprint into eye gear and in the last 4 years has quickly notched up the title of being the largest sunglass brand in the country. Fastrack has now chartered into newer categories – bags, belts, wallets and wrist bands – as part of its vision to become a complete fashion brand for the youth. With enough categories to fill up one cool store, Fastrack has ‘moved on’ to open its own stores for its young consumers. The store is positioned as a complete accessories destination with all Fastrack gear under one roof. The first store was opened in Pune in 2009. With a smart combination of edgy design and value pricing Titan’s Fastrack has managed to keep a firm grasp on the capricious youth market. Not many brands live by what they preach. Taglines are often born out of a creative team’s clever phrasing or a strategy team’s eye on a certain positioning. For Titan Industries’ Fastrack ‘Move on’ is a way of life. From a sub-brand with a fuzzy identity to a bonafide youth brand, Fastrack sure has moved on. The brand, which was conceived in 1998 as a flanker to fend off a competitor and insulate Titan from the fray, now contributes about 25 per cent to Titan Industries watch division’s profits, raking in close to Rs 500 crore. Initially called Titan Fastrack, it was meant to be a brand of cool watches; but it soon became clear that defining cool was far from easy. It started with funky packaging and then with steel bands to make the range look sharp. People into their first jobs were its targets. However, around the same time, Titan Industries was also contemporising the Titan range, with similar metals and communication. â€Å"Fastrack was then just a sub-brand of Titan. It was only in 2005-06 that the brand came into its own,† says Bijou Kurien, who left the company as chief operating officer in 2006, after 19 years with Titan Industries. He is now president (lifestyle) at Reliance Retail. Titan Industries had entered a joint venture with Timex Corporation, leading US fashion watch manufacturer, in 1992, which broke off in 1998. â€Å"Timex had been conceived as a young brand while Titan would focus on premium watch buyers. After the JV ended, there was an opportunity for Fastrack to be launched as the youth brand from Titan,† says Kurien. In 2004, another division called the Accessories and Licensing Business launched sunglasses under the brand name Fastrack. It had already been selling licensed eyewear by FCUK andTommy Hilfiger. But it was only in 2005 that Titan Industries took the decisive call to hive off Fastrack as a separate business unit. â€Å"In 2005, we saw the opportunity of bringing all the divisions under one umbrella,† says Ronnie Talati, vice-president and business head, Fastrack & New Brands. By then, there were all of 1,500 products carrying the Fastrack tag. The total turnover then was Rs 30 crore, from 1.5 lakh watches and 30,000-40,000 sunglasses being sold that year. Sunglasses accounted for about 25 per cent of the sales at that time. Making it happen Kurien recalls, â€Å"We started investing a lot more in the brand, we signed up John Abraham as the celebrity ambassador.† It started with defining the look (stress on design) and the price (introduced lower priced watches) of the products. The company put in place a separate distribution network for Fastrack rather than let the brand piggy ride on Titan’s network of stores and increased counter displays at all Titan showrooms. Then of course, there was the decision to enter other categories, inspired by its successful foray into sunglasses. â€Å"We weren’t willing to run out of options for the youth and wanted to move beyond being a watch brand,† says Kurien of Fastrack’s transition to a full-fledged youth brand. Titan put together dedicated teams for sourcing, marketing and sales for the products sold under the Fastrack umbrella. Talati says, â€Å"We even moved to a new office.† The first year of hiving off Fastrack as a separate busines s unit resulted in a 130 per cent increase in revenues, according to Talati. The brand now sells 3 million watches and 1 million sunglasses a year. Bags, belts and wallets are the latest in the range of accessories launched in 2010. These accessories together account for 40 per cent of Fastrack’s revenues on an average. The year 2005 also saw the brand beefing up its retail muscle. Stores with around 500 square feet of retail space each were added. These stores get half their revenues from accessories. Even though the bulk of Fastrack’s sales (60-70 per cent) still come from multi-brand outlets, the like for like growth in sales at the exclusive stores has been 100 per cent over the last year with a conversion rate of 75 per cent (the total walk-ins at the 63 stores stand at 3,000 per month). Streets near colleges and college towns such as Manipal have appeared on its store map along with high streets in metros and small cities such as Vizag and Kolhapur. Apart from Fastrack stores, each category is available in 1,000 to 3,000 multi-brand outlets. Marketing to the youth is no child’s play. Fastrack realised that when launching itself as an SBU (strategic business unit). It made the logo more energetic, removed the upfront mention of Titan (seen by youngsters as a serious brand) and stopped using the Mozart tune. Dheeraj Sinha, chief strategy officer at Bates 141, says youth brands need a single-minded effort rather than sit on the fence. â€Å"The biggest challenge to build a youth brand is to avoid the trap of defining the audience as between 25-35 years old,† says Sinha. â€Å"There are just too many young-looking brands that talk to them. A youth brand should bite the bullet and let go of such a wide definition. It should be able to exclude all other age groups and look at only young people, talk to them like a 20 year old and not a 35 year old. As a result, the brand might have to say and do things which might shock older generations,† he adds. According to Sinha, brands such as Fastrack, Virgin Mobile and Indian Killer Jeans have managed to stay rele vant to its target audience with edgy imagery. Having said that, Fastrack is now targeting a lower age group than when it started. Earlier the target audience was 25-35 year-olds while now the core group is 18-20 year old. â€Å"We are clear about our core target group. Our sense is that older people want to feel younger and the young want to feel older. We talk to people in their language,† says Ronnie Talati. The communication that followed in the wake of the rebranding in 2005 asked â€Å"How many you have?†. It referred to the urge for variety and constant change in accessories, including watches, among college students. It made way for the next campaign ‘Move On’ (to newer range of accessories) with couples swapping the watches and sunglasses they had gifted each other before breaking up. Next came the series featuring young icons, cricketer Virat Kohli and actor Genelia D’Souza. The campaign highlighted the range of bags Fastrack launched last year, taking a cheeky look at how young people flirted with the opposite gender. The current campaign, which features the same duo in racy ads in the next edition, gives us a take on why the world moved on to automatic contraptions such as auto-pilot, answering machines etc. Of the total ad budget of Rs 40 crore, Fastrack spends half on watches and the rest goes into sunglasses and the new accessories range. Rajiv Chatterjee, vice-president, Lowe Lintas, the agency handling the Fastrack account, says, â€Å"We were clear that we had to attract the young college-goers, and we knew that if we chased this objective, it could possibly get a few raised eyebrows from their parents. Both ‘How many†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ and ‘Move on’ refer to their habits in accessories and also their outlook towards attraction and desirability. We did not want to sound judgmental or tell them what to do. We have said, ‘It is ok’ in a conversational tone that has got the youth to relate to Fastrack.† Staying on top Fastrack has stuck to its pegs of design and variety. Design boundaries have been pushed with different straps (made of denim, metal and synthetic materials), hands of the watches and cases. Themes have spanned bikes, army, beaches, outdoor sports and hip-hop music. â€Å"We need to keep reinventing for the youth. Over the last five years, we have changed our brand ambassadors to keep it fresh. The audience’s attention span is less and hence, we refresh our collections as well,† points out Talati. Sinha adds, â€Å"Fastrack has consistently leveraged the potent insight of young people’s aversion to commitment, be it relationships, jobs or the accessories they flaunt. What has also helped them is the fact that a majority of the Indian youth does not have a penchant for international brands like they do in other countries. They would relate to an interesting brand that is real rather than hanker after a knockoff of an international brand.† While Fastrack has successfully walked the marketing tightrope of speaking exclusively to teenagers, it has also walked the talk of a teen brand by keeping prices firmly in check. Its watches range between Rs 695 and Rs 3,500, sunglasses Rs 695-2,500, bags Rs 595-2,500 and belts Rs 195-1,095. Sinha says, â€Å"There has to be a sweet-spot of aspiration and affordability for the youth.† In effect, Fastrack has come to occupy the sub-Rs 1,500 slot in watches, with just 15-20 per cent of its range priced above it. By virtue of being a stylish but affordable brand in sunglasses, it has filled a gap between the RayBans of the world at the upper end and the unbranded flea-market bargains at the lower end. With bags, belts and wallets, it has eschewed leather goods for materials that help keep the costs low, weather rough use and also look good. Talati says, â€Å"We have kept a check on our costs by ensuring a lean team but one that means business. The average age in our office is 25-26 years. Having a young team helps us feel the youth’s pulse.† While Titan watches would have a strength of over 150 people, Fastrack has 60 people manning the var ious functions, with a brand manager for each category. At the retail front, only 10 stores are company-owned, the rest managed by franchisees. The production of the accessories is outsourced while watches are a mix of in-house and third-party manufacturing. Fastrack also ensures the materials used don’t add to the price of the products but lend themselves to innovative designs. Talati says the brand is the entry barrier for competition. â€Å"It will be difficult to beat the way youngsters relate to our brand,† he points out. â€Å"None of the other brands that operate in the accessories’ space are solely focused on accessories; accessories are just one part of a larger portfolio. So they end up concentrating more on their flagship products such as sports shoes, luggage etc. In contrast, we have separate ad budgets and teams to service these product categories.† Sinha points out a challenge for Fastrack: â€Å"The challenge for Fastrack is to sustain its message of Move On. It has taken one aspect and stuck to it for so long. But how long before its target audience finds it repetitive?† For its part, Fastrack is working on a new line of attack. Next up are helmets and fashion footwear. These could prove to be much more difficult to crack — with helmets offering little in terms of precedents and fashion footwear a problem of plenty. But then who said Fastrack was afraid of changing the rules of the game? Fastrack is a brand of watches from the house of Titan Industries Ltd which is the market leader in the watches category in India. Fastrack was launched in 1998 as a sub-brand of Titan. It was spun off as an independent brand of watches targeting the urban youth in 2005. Since then, it has infiltrated the lives of India’s youth with designs that were refreshingly different and affordable. During that time, Fastrack also jumped headlong into the sunglasses business and in the last 4 years has quickly notched up the title of being the largest sunglasses brand in the country. Fastrack has now pushed past the horizons into newer areas – bags, belts, wallets and wrist bands – as part of its mission to offer the youth everything they need to be cool! Executive Summary Moving over from outsourcing our social media initiative to an in-house program has allowed us to engage and really connect with our audience in typical Fastrack fashion and style. Having college-interns run this Fastrack initiative has been a great step in being able to speak the language of our customers/fans. The essence of the brand being communicated in real-time and in a manner that is acceptable and easily understood by our customers is our constant thought as we go through daily customer queries, feedback, comments, suggestions & brand announcements. Our initiative is focused around the experience we deliver to the fans and both current and potential, driving them toward a better, and more personalized connection with the brand. Background Fastrack is essentially a youth brand, and what better way to get in touch with our target audience of 15-25 year-olds (SEC A,B) than having a presence on the very platforms that they use daily? Social networking is a big part of today’s youth and we have made it a big part of us, extending all our online initiatives to incorporate our social networks and communities. With this step forward we worked on tapping the pulse of the youth by answering queries, getting feedback about the brand and our collections and campaigns, engagement, resolving complaints & doubts and interacting with ‘Fastrack Fans’ daily, 24/7.

Why was Shepherd Wheel successfully built here?

Shepherd Wheel is a water powered grinding workshop located on the River Porter. The site is the earliest industrial building with records going back to the sixteenth century. The grinding workshop was powered by a waterwheel could once house up to ten men grinding blades at the same time. This particular workshop produced edge tools. The key to Shepherd Wheel successfully being built here was that it was built at the right place and at the right time. The workshop relied on local factors and national factors to be run successfully. There are a few local factors in the site itself, such as the River Porter. This river provided a fast, reliable water source from the Peak District. This meant that it was a good source of power all year round. A piece of evidence to prove that this river was a particular constant and reliable one was that it was popular for water wheel powered services because they are workshops built up and down the river. Another local factor to do with the site itself was the L – shaped valley. This made the land easier to build on and was a cheaper way of building because it didn't require excess digging. The steep sides made the river flow faster and the millpond and dam fitted perfectly into the valley floor with no excess digging. A final factor about the site itself is that there is a residential area nearby; Ranmoor. This provided the workshop with workers who became skilled as it was a local job. The quiet, green scenery also encouraged the workers to come to work and increase production. The residential are also provided customers boosting the demand for products and creating a reputation for Shepherd Wheel. Another set of local factors are the resources nearby. For example, wood. There was plentiful supply on the wooded valley slopes for fuel and building. Clay was located by fast flowing rivers, such as the River Loxley and the River Rivelin. It was also located beside the River Porter and was used for lining the millpond to prevent water leaking and a waste of power. Clay also was used to build â€Å"crucible† pots in the Industrial Revolution. Gritstone from the quarries in the Peak District was used for the grinding wheels and maybe used for excess building, such as steps. Another resource was coal nearby. This was located in Eckington, east of Shepherd Wheel. This was used as a key element to make steel. For the other ingredient of steel there was a forge nearby; Forge Dam, which produced Iron for steel. Iron was also located at Eckington. These resources' being so close decreased transport costs and was a constant source of steel for the blades. A final resource was the good transport links. These helped the products to be sent around Sheffield and England to build up a reputation and also to meet growing demands. Shepherd did not only rely on local factors to be built and run successfully in Bingham Park, but also national factors as well. Shepherd Wheel was built in the right place as shown by the local factors and a description of the site, but also at the right time. It was built before the Industrial Revolution but benefited from this time of innovation and inventions immensely. The Industrial Revolution was a time of innovation and inventions. First, the population increased. This provided an increase in workers. It also provided a higher demand for cutlery as there were more people. This lead to production increases and also demands increased. Second, the population started to demand a higher amount of steel products for jobs and personal use. This meant an increase in production, which gained Shepherd Wheel and Sheffield a bigger reputation. Inventions also aided to success of Shepherd Wheel. There were 3 key pioneers of the steel industry were Abraham Darby, Benjamin Huntsman and Henry Bessemer. Abraham Darby found a way to make steel stronger and of a better quality. This lead to production increase and demand increase. This was because the steel was popular, stronger and purer. The steel was produced for personal use, weapons and the basis of other industries. In 1826, Henry Bessemer invented the â€Å"converter† which made up to 20 times more steel. Also he invented the â€Å"Puddling furnace†, which also increased the steels quality. Benjamin Huntsman also helped by inventing â€Å"Crucible Steel Pots† which produced a lot more steel. By this invention Sheffield could now make its own steel and this cut down on transport costs and exportation costs. It also meant that Sheffield could now reach higher demands for steel. Now that Sheffield could specialize in steel, it became well known over the country. Transport was improved to meet demand better and start to export steel globally. This gained Sheffield an enormous reputation and was officially named â€Å"The Steel City†. To conclude, I have proven and explained that Shepherd Wheel relied on local factors and national factors to be built successfully. I believe thanks to the contribution of all these factors Shepherd Wheel was successful. The most important factors were the River Porter and the Industrial Revolution. These two factors fulfilled the theory Shepherd Wheel being built in the right place and at the right time. Thanks to the inventions from the Industrial Revolution pioneers and the layout of the L-shaped valley and surroundings, Shepherd Wheel and in the future Sheffield became a well known and successful place where good quality steel was produced to meet high demands.

Book Summary Essay Example for Free

Book Summary Essay The book I chose to read was â€Å"When I Say No, I Feel Guilty† by Manuel J. Smith. The first thing to stand out to me in this book was it seemed a little outdated. Even though the writing style and the examples appeared to be from a different era, I was still able to see how different points were relevant today and to me personally. This title screamed my name when I was browsing the list of choices because no matter what I am saying no to, I always feel guilty. From the first moment that we can feel and translate emotions, we have been manipulated by others. We have grown up under the sense that we should feel certain ways about particular actions. We forget to a chore when we are young, we should feel guilty. We bring a bad grade home on out report card, we should be scared of getting in trouble. Many activities are labeled either good or bad and we should portray emotions to match. As a manager, you should try to keep commands or statements neutral. A neutral statement is one that doesn’t assign the label of good or bad to a behavior so the recipient will not feel manipulated. Everyday, people try to manipulate you into doing what they want by making you feel nervous, uninformed, or blameworthy. If you let them push you around you will feel frustrated, angry or depressed. When you permit others to control your actions, you renounce your sense of personal responsibility. Smith states that the first step in fixing the situation is to know that â€Å"no one can manipulate your emotions or behavior if you don’t allow it to happen. † Also, following the Bill of Assertive Rights will help lead to non-manipulative relationships in all situations. The rights are the basis for all healthy relationships and are listed as: You have the right to judge your own behavior, thoughts and emotions, and to take the responsibility for their initiation and consequences upon yourself. You have the right to offer no reasons or excuses for justifying your behavior. You have the right to judge if you are responsible for finding solutions to other people’s problems. You have the right to change your mind. You have the right to make mistakes – and be responsible for them. You have the right to say, â€Å"I don’t know†. You have the right to be independent of the goodwill of others before coping with them. You have the right to be illogical in making decisions. You have the right to say, â€Å"I don’t understand†. You have the right to say, â€Å"I don’t care†. The first right is the foundation of all of the remaining rights. When you become your own judge, you help to build a barrier against manipulation. Judgements should be based on your values and not external systems of what is right or wrong. People base their manipulative actions on the belief that you should live up to their rules. If you are accepting of this situation, you open yourself up to a limitless variety of manipulation. Criticism is a common tool people use to get someone to behave according to their standards. Reactions to criticism can be negative with anxiety, denial, and defensiveness. Learning to take criticism in a constructive manner helps to avoid manipulation. Verbal coping methods to help accept criticism effectively are fogging, negative assertion, and negative inquiry. Fogging is when you only agree to the truths in a statement and respond to what someone has specifically stated rather than what is implied. A negative assertion is statement that takes responsibility for something you have done wrong. It takes courage to make a negative assertion and say, I’m sorry. Last, using negative inquiry encourages the critic to reply assertively instead of manipulatively. This tactic is typically used to ask for additional information about a critique. There are also different types of relationships that fall into three categories, commercial, authority, and equality. Basic verbal skills used to minimize manipulation do not change as problems are handled throughout these different relationships. Commercial relationships are clearly defined with a contract. Since this type of relationship follows a defined structure an assertive verbal skill works most effectively. In an authority relationship there is one person in charge while the other is not. Authority based relationships emphasize finding compromises that grow on existing interpersonal dynamic. Both parties are equal in an equality relationship. This relationship is the most informal and tends to have everything open for discussion. Thoughtful open communication reassures people that you will not hinder their decision making, even if you may disagree. The main concept I took away from this book is, it’s my life and what happens in it is completely up to me! I will not cower when I face manipulation. My reactions to particular situations can pave the way for a disaster or a triumph. We must always be in touch with reality to promote our own well-being and happiness. We also have to accept the possibility that changing our mind is completely normal and healthy. Keeping the Assertive Bill of Rights in mind will help to stand up against manipulation and keep our dignity, self-respect, and control over our own behavior. Book Summary. (2018, Oct 21).

Electric and Magnetic Fields Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Electric and Magnetic Fields - Essay Example Electrical charges and magnets are found to exert forces upon distant objects, thereby altering the region of space surrounding them. The altered space becomes the force field  eventually and through this effect, the body is able to respond to its local environment enabling distant objects to react across space by the nature of the forces caused by the fields. A magnet or an electric charge responds to the field made by the objects immediately within its reach. Equivalently, a massive object can establish a  field of gravity upon which distant entities manage a certain degree of exertion. Though magnetic fields  function hand in hand with electric fields, specific properties distinguish one from the other. The notion of field lines and magnetic fields in existence was initially studied by the English scientist Michael Faraday  (1791-1867) then further by  James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), both of whom pioneered remarkable discoveries of electromagnetism in several aspects.  Maxwell proposed that ‘if a changing magnetic field can make an electric field, then a changing electric field, as via an oscillating electric charge for instance, should make a magnetic field’. Under these circumstances, the changing electric and magnetic fields would activate each other and move at a speed approaching the speed of light. Base on such grounds with empirical findings, Maxwell came up with the theory that light  is  an electromagnetic wave which was given proof by the experiments conducted after his time. Figure 1 - Electric Field (Red) and Magnetic Field (Blue) Since the electric power has been of chief significance to living, humans have engaged themselves into conception of possibilities to obtain higher potentials and benefits with electric and magnetic fields given constant exposure to them. Scientists have long understood even during the 19th century that there exists special connection between electrical fields and magnetic fields which may be experienced everywhere on earth. Moving electric charge (electric current) can induce magnetic field. As such, coils of wire can serve as large electromagnets used in car junk yards in the same way that electric motors can be used to start a car engine or spin a computer’s hard disk. This phenomenon explicates as well how ordinary magnets are derived from tiny currents at the atomic level. An electrical current or electric field is formed by an altering magnetic field which creates electromagnetic waves in the process. Power generator manufacturers utilize this principle to have large coils of wire bear the expected capacity of yielding magnetic field whether by falling water, wind, or steam by burning coal or oil, and even by through the heat coming from nuclear reactions whenever feasible. Audio and video tapes and compact disks, similarly, are capable of encoding information in magnetic patterns whereby magnetic directions and magnetic strengths are alternating. When a magnetic disk or tape material happens to pass near wire coils of any size, electrical currents or fields are generated. Because magnetic fields are regions where an object exhibits magnetic influence, the same object acquires the potential to attract or repel a neighboring magnetic body along the magnetic field lines. It must be noted, however, that magnetic forces have nothing to do with  gravity and the amount of gravity depends upon an object's mass whereas magnetic strength is a function

Gucci And Innovation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Gucci And Innovation - Essay Example This paper intends to analyze the employee creativity and innovation as a key focus for most international organizations especially while trying to manage global economic crises in recession. Among other ways through which the multinationals remain strategic and influential in the international, market especially in terms of competition and market segmentation is through organizational processes and products/services differentiation. A key strategy that has been adopted in this regard is through adoption and focus on creativity and innovation. Employees have been very instrumental in ensuring relevance of the international organizations through creativity and innovation. However, the level of innovation and creativity by such employees has been dependent of institutional frameworks and thus organizational leadership becomes very instrumental in empowering the employees for such assignments as designing of products and services for the companies through innovation and creativity (OECD , 2009, p. 5-6). Discussion Innovation is a phenomenon that is socially acceptable, which brings together the ideas of different people and the implementation of the same. Moreover, through innovation, products and services are designed and made through the cooperation of people working together. The success of any organization especially in innovation and creativity requires the collaboration of efforts by the leadership as well as the subordinates. The management/leadership teams within organizations are usually tasked to propel the organization forward with implementation of policies meant for realization of goals and objectives carried on by the organization. In fact, many studies reveal that to many organizations, goals are just one and the same as the performance of the organization itself. However, it is more challenging to realize set goals and there must be some frameworks through which the realization of set goals; short term as well as the long-term goals (Ordonez et al, 2009, p.1-5). The process of driving the international organization towards realization of the set goals entails among other things proper planning and human resource management. International organizations’ management such as is the case with Gucci undertakes the planning in terms of short-term vision as well as long-term vision. Whenever an organization adopts either short-term goals or the long-range vision, continuous improvement is vital in order to realize that long-term objective. Nevertheless, changes in management practices have seen a substantial shift of the management practices from long range planning to much simplified planning structures, which concentrate with very short-term goals that are easy to achieve and evaluate. In order for any business to remain relevant and objective, the periodical evaluation and analysis of performance is critical. Innovation and creativity is such a basic tool that is currently in use in order to realize such goals especially aimed at overcoming the effect o f economic recession that affects the global economy today (Sharma et al, 2010, p. 29-30). In the choice of management practice to adopt, any management team must therefore put profit consideration into perspective. Continuous

Ibtisam Mahameed Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Ibtisam Mahameed - Essay Example She helps them enhance their confidence and then introduce them to peer groups of the three main religions – Christianity, Judaism, as well as Islam (Jerusalem Peacemakers 1). For a number of years, Mahameed has been offering advice to Jewish and Arab women concerning their status in the society. As a religious woman – Muslim, she has worked with religious Druze, Christian and Jewish women on promoting peace through learning about each other’s religions, as well as cultures, and spreading them to other religions. She is currently on the board members of Middleway, a group for promoting a peaceful, non-violence community, and she was instrumental in helping establish the Women’s Interfaith Encounter, a women’s program of the IEA – Interfaith Encounter Association (Jerusalem Peacemakers 1). As we can see, Ibtisam Mahameed is a very influential woman, one that can be contrasted to the likes of Mother Teresa and Wangari Mathai of Kenya due to her work. This paper will dwell on this prominent Arab woman who has gone against all odds to establish herself in a nation that disregards the female race. It will dwell on her background, works, influences and achievements. Background Ibtisam Mahameed is a member of the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel, a group, which lost most of its terrain, assets, rights and freedom, in the Israel’s War of Independence, in 1948. ... She has eight siblings – three brothers and five sisters, and she and her husband, a house painter, have three children. She is currently in her early 50’s. She states that when she was growing up, extremely few girls in the Arab community had schooling rights, but her parents were incredibly supportive, and she managed to complete high school. Since then, she has studied educational administration and management. As a religious woman, particularly Muslim, Mahameed claims that she is obliged to wear traditional garments (Jerusalem Peacemakers 1). Unfortunately, the Israeli community around her associates every religious Muslim with potential terrorism and extremism. Her peace activist work needs her to travel a lot and alone (not with her family members) around Israel and throughout the work. Therefore, she is obliged to spend nights away from her family members, a matter that is very odd in the traditional Arab community (Jerusalem Peacemakers 1). In such a community, the woman is expected always to be at home fending for her family while the husband goes to work. This is why harsh rules are imposed on women and working in the Arab world. In the beginning, Mahameed says that some members of her family found it very hard to accept her association with Jews and Christians, as well as her work for Arab-Jewish co-existence (Global Oneness Project 1). The family members who found that odd even went to the extent of not talking to her, but now support her. She claims that her family pays a social price due to her activism. For instance, her daughter was the main candidate for a teaching job in Mahameed’s home town, but she was denied the opportunity as the village elders felt

Management - Henri Fayol's Management Theories Essay

Management - Henri Fayol's Management Theories - Essay Example The present discussion focuses on identifying and assessing the adoption of Fayol’s principles in contemporary management through distinct examples drawn from modern organizations and their practices. There is no doubt that the contemporary management concepts have evolved from classical theories such as Fayol’s; however, there exists much debate about the influence of classical theories and their application in present management concepts. For instance, Fayol’s principles of management form the core job of managers even today, although the focus is shifted to one or few of these principles at a time. In present-day service industries, the focus usually oscillates between initiative, teamworking, order or efficiency with some other activities such as discipline, equity, division of work etc providing direction to better business management. These focus areas also differ with the type of industry as well as organizational goals. Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939) h ave argued that the contemporary management concepts have profound impact from studies that emerged from behavioral sciences, especially the human relations movement that resulted from Hawthorne experiments (cited in Allen & Gilmore, 1993). Some management scholars refer to Fayol’s principles as the present-day management functions that correspond to planning, organizing, leading, and controlling (Schermerhorn, 2011). In short, Fayol’s 14 principles include division of work, authority, discipline, unity of command, unity of direction, subordination of individual interests to the general interests, remuneration, centralization, scalar chain, order, equity, stability of tenure of personnel, initiative, and esprit de corps (cited in Allen & Gilmore, 1993). From a manager’s perspective, Fayol’s principles seem to be the most apt and provide a comprehensive understanding to any management personnel, with or without experience. However, differing views of manag ement theories emerged, which consider classical concepts as contradictory. Unlike Taylor’s scientific management concepts that focus on the objective of driving maximum prosperity for the employer along with similar outcomes for the employees (Schermerhorn, 2011), Fayol’s principles can be regarded as completely management focused; this could be one of the reasons for argument/debate that subsequent theorists focused upon (Brunsson, 2008). Fayol’s conceptualization is based on the premise that all organizations are similar and hence the managerial duties are also similar. Brunsson (2008) asserts that this conceptualization compliments the fact that managerial talent can be acquired through training. If this premise were to be true, then all organizations would be performing at the same level and all managers within the organization would produce same outcomes. However, management and organizational outcomes are very different within and outside. Moreover, manag ement styles, patterns, policies, practices, etc. are different in different regions or countries, as proven by Hofstede (1980). Hofstede’

History of Commincation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

History of Commincation - Essay Example The Renaissance era was a time with a lot of technological advancements. Communication also had a significant technological advancement including the printing press and also the linear perspective in drawing. There were major artists of the period that had a meaningful communication through their artwork. There are sketchbooks from that period that include books from Leonardo Da Vinci that have valuable insight into the mechanical technology of the time. The late 14th century and the early 15th century saw the use of the arquebus and musket. The printing press that was a significant advancement in technology saw many books and other media messages spread throughout Europe. The spreading of the messages and the books was a great help to enable people to be more conscious of their national identities. Printing that was a significant development during the era was a discovery by Gutenberg. The whole idea was Gutenberg’s invention that saw the printing machine being a movable type . The movable part saw the increase in use and it spread all over Europe. The expanded interest in expressions, designing and building ventures required non-verbal and traceable correspondence record of a more rugged sturdiness than wooden tablets with clay or wax. The material was accessible, yet was excessively costly. Amid the Renaissance paper fabricating, which likely had its creation in China around 100 AD, was beaten and paper plants set up crosswise over Europe. Even before education turns out to be, more broad portrayals and drawings were utilized to communicate.

Question response Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 4

Question response - Coursework Example Interference of the church leader will complicate the decision making process. The opinions of the Church leaders are not public opinion, as they are not legally elected representatives of the people. It is another issue if some political leaders solicit the opinion of the Church leaders on some important social issues like divorce, abortion, single mother parenting etc. to enable the government to address these issues from the moral angle. Moral approach to political matters appears fine in principle. But often Church leaders have conflicting views amongst themselves on moral issues. As such the government leaders would not like to take risk by patronizing any one faction of the Church. â€Å"The Family† is secretive group which articulates Christian fundamentalism. Any sect/group that relies on fundamentalism for spreading the message and for the alleged growth of the religion will end up in doom. Christian fundamentalists have cross on their necks but not Christ in their hearts. The other name for fundamentalism is envy and hatred for other religions. How that could be the trait that contributes to the welfare of humankind? As such the legislators need to be free from religious bias before making policy decisions. Legislators do not represent a particular religion. A legislator is the elected representative of a multi-cultural society as such religion is his private matter. He needs to work for the welfare of

Political scandals and media (Moshe Katsav scandal) Research Paper

Political scandals and media (Moshe Katsav scandal) - Research Paper Example The researcher will then move into analyzing how the media covered this scandal. This paper will then give a comparison of the media coverage of political scandals in other democratic countries, such as France, US, UK, Italy, and Germany. The researcher will then identify the actions that the government took during this period, and the reasons, after which the researcher will give some resolutions on how the government would have made this situation better. Moshe Katzav is an Israeli politician, and he was born in 1945, December. The country of the birth of Moshe Katzav is Iran, but he travelled to Israel in 1951, and lived under an immigrant tent. Mose Katzav was the first born in his family that comprised of eight children. Mose Katzav is a highly educated individual, holding a post graduate qualification from the University of Hebrew (East and Thomas, 2003). At the age of 24 years, Mose Katzav married Gila Katzav, and together they have produced five children. In the same year, he was able to join the Likud party, and there after becoming a mayor of Kiryat Mal’akhi. In 1977, Moshe Katzav become a member of the Knesset, and in 2000, he became the president of Israel, holding office between 2000, to 2007. It is important to understand that Moshe Katzav was the 8th president of Israel. It is important to understand that Israel has a president, who is ceremonial in nature and a prime ministers who holds executive power in Israel (East and Thomas, 2003). The governance structure of Israel is democratic in nature. It is important to denote that the prime minister of Israel is elected by Knesset, and it is this institution that holds legislative power in Israel (East and Thomas, 2003). Israel is one of the few countries in the world that does not have a constitution, but it relies on basic laws, initiated by Knesset for governance. On this basis, the Knesset is a very important institution in Israel, since it determines the

Contributions to Misunderstanding Psychology Essay Example for Free

Contributions to Misunderstanding Psychology Essay Rose (1992) has accused psychology of â€Å"Engineering the Human Soul† (p. 351). This is a very odd statement for a sociologist to make because science, whether hard or social, by definition, requires conclusions to be based on use of the scientific method. Alas, the hypothesis that there is a human soul is one that that the scientific method cannot address because there is no way to provide empirical evidence that either confirms or disconfirms it. Indeed, even the phrenologists Gall and Spurzheim (discussed below), who mapped the brain into areas controlling all sorts of human attributes, found an area for â€Å"spirituality† (Myers, 2004), but not for the soul. Rose is, however, in the company of a medical internist with a Ph. D. from Yale in physical chemistry, i. e. , Collins (2007, as cited in Snyder, 2007), who has claimed there is evidence that â€Å"moral law is implanted in our brains by God† (p. 6). Nonetheless, despite psychology being unable to engineer an entity for which there is no scientific evidence, one purpose of this paper is to argue that Rose (1992), along with other critics of psychological research, has failed to recognize that the continued influence of the studies of individual differences beyond the early part of the last century, mainly the development of tests to measure intelligence, i. e. , IQ testing, has not been on psychology, but on education. Indeed, later psychological research on intelligence and cognitive development has been largely ignored in education (Perlmutter Burrell, 1999). There is no disagreement that IQ testing had and continues to have a negative influence on education, but this paper addresses the waning of the influences of IQ testing within psychology itself not long after the development of these tests. What is psychology? Rose (1992) defined psychology as the study of individual differences, based on a â€Å"paradigmatic technique of . . . the psychological ‘test’ . . . (pp. 358-359). The goal of psychology, according to Rose, is â€Å"the isolation, intensification, and inscription of human difference† (p. 359). This definition is not the same as the one used in most textbooks on introductory psychology, where the discipline is defined as â€Å"the science of behavior and mental processes† (Myers, 2004). While psychological questions have been of interest from the time of the ancient Greek philosophers, psychology as a science did not develop until the latter part of the 19th century (Myers, 2004). Psychologists eventually conducted research in areas that began in other disciplines – and also came to be blamed for the wretched excesses of still other disciplines, notably education. In the early 19th century, phrenologists Gall and Spurzheim mapped out brain areas supposedly controlling attributes from acquisitiveness to sublimity and measured people on these attributes by feeling bumps on their heads (Myers, 2004). Despite the embarrassment phrenology caused scientists, late in the 19th century French and German neurologists, notably Brocca and Wertheimer, provided evidence of left-hemisphere dominance in tasks involving language (Deutsch Springer, 1997). They used autopsy findings of those who suffered language deficits following strokes to areas in the left cerebral hemisphere (the dominant hemisphere for more than 90% and 70% of right- and left-handed people respectively). These findings were followed by further research on deficits in spatial abilities following strokes in the right cerebral (usually non-dominant) hemisphere (Deutsch Springer, 1997). In the next century, researchers studied the performance of those who underwent a surgical procedure where the connecting fibers (the corpus colossus) between the two hemispheres were severed to control the spread of severe seizures (Deutsch Springer, 1999). Later research, using equipment such as evoked potentials, was conducted using samples from the general population. The research provided evidence not that only one hemisphere was activated during performance of most tasks but evidence that one hemisphere was more activated than the other, for example, in language comprehension, the left hemisphere is more activated, but the right hemisphere also is activated in comprehending the emotional, metaphoric, and humorous content of language (Deutsch Springer, 1997). Individual differences also were rare, for example, listening to music results in greater activation in the right than left hemisphere, except there is the reverse pattern for trained musicians (Deutsch Springer, 1999). However, the history of research related to the cerebral hemispheres is an example of psychologists falsely being blamed for the nonsense propagated by those in education that there were left- and right-brained people – and teachers somehow were supposed to adjust their teaching for their right-brained students (Connell, 1990). In outlining the history of psychology, introductory textbooks place its beginnings in Wundt’s establishment of a laboratory in Vienna in 1879 for the purpose of applying the scientific method to the study of human mental processes: â€Å"On a December day in 1879 . . . Wundt was seeking to measure . . . the fastest and simplest mental processes. Thus began what many consider psychology’s first experiment† (Myers, 2004, p. 4). However, those in other disciplines, such as Rose (1992), seem to believe not only that psychology began – and ended with the early work of those studying individual differences, but also that research in psychology actually is used in education. Individual Differences One important difference between the early work of neurologists on the human cerebral hemispheres described above and early work on individual differences is that the former research was based on beginning with basic or shared mental processes. Put another way, the law of parsimony is that main effects are studied prior to interactions (Kirk, 1995). The early work on individual differences in intelligence began prior to research on basic cognitive processing. Galton’s definition of intelligence (White, 2006) was based on an assumption drawn from Darwin’s evolutionary theory of the survival of the fittest, both between- and within-species (1859, as cited in Myers, 2004). Between-species, humans clearly are advantaged with superior intellect. However, if human intelligence had been defined as those characteristics that increase the probability of an individual’s survival, predominant attributes would be those related to the attainment of economic and political power. From the beginnings of civilization, world history has been a struggle for power, with members of prevailing powerful groups inhumanely dominating members of less powerful groups (Braudel Mayne, 2003), a concept perhaps best expressed by John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever as â€Å"everybody always has to have somebody to dump on† (Wexler, 1977). Being powerful certainly does enhance one’s chances of survival, but how did anyone reach the conclusion that power was related to what we usually think of as intellect?

Ant 101 Australian Aboriginals Essay Example for Free

Ant 101 Australian Aboriginals Essay The Australian Aborigines are a nomadic band of people that roam the outback of Australia. They walk for miles a day, rest at night, and then walk some more the next day. The men kill the animals of Australia for food and the women gather what roots and berries that they can find. They travel from place to place according to the seasons. They go where the food is. The Aborigines know that they cannot control the weather or the condition of the land so they learn to live with it. They believe that all plants and animals contain a spirit. They treat nature with respect knowing that the land will provide what they need for their survival. They are a kinship band that has many families. They use the method of general reciprocity to survive. What one male of one family kills for food, they share with the other families in the band, expecting nothing in return. They also use the balanced reciprocity. When they meet other bands they will trade left over food or other items for something of equal value. There are small markets where they can take their belongings and trade for things that they need. The Aborigines believe in the cross-cousins marriage. They marry within the family. Cross-cousins are the children of the opposite-sex siblings. They marry their uncle’s or their aunt’s children. The male will usually move in with his new wife’s family and help to furnish food and other things that they need. Divorce is very easy among the bands because there is no property to divide. It is usually the woman who initiates the divorce. When she gets tired of her mate, or decides that she want Aborigines 4another mate, she leaves him. When a couple no longer sleeps together, then they are considered divorced. When a couple divorces it usually does not affect the family ties. If the woman is breastfeeding then the baby goes with her. The children that are old enough can choose which parent they want to live with. Since they are all in the same family, custody is shared. The men are considered the hunters of the band and the women are the gatherers. The women are the ones who control the population. Because of their constant roaming, their children must be at least 4 years apart. Breastfeeding is a natural form of birth spacing. While a woman is breastfeeding she produces a hormone that stops ovulation and they cannot get pregnant. They cannot carry more than one baby at a time so their other children must be old enough to walk. It is not unusual for a woman to kill or leave a newborn behind to die because of deformity or starvation. They will mostly kill the female and try to keep the male. A Shaman is a healer among the people. They can be male or female, depending on the cultural rules. In some cultures, shamans use their power to cause rather than heal illness. Shamans who make people sick are sometimes said to be using sorcery. Among one Aboriginal community, bad feelings can be caused between groups if it is believed that sorcery has caused someone to die. Religion among the Aborigines is more spiritual. They believe that every living thing has a spirit. Also that a certain totem gave birth to their ancestors in a mythical time and that it holds their spirits. They also believe that the totem controls their health and wellbeing. Their belief is so strong that they will have certain rituals to make sure that the totem is taken care of. Aborigines 5 They believe that Dreamtime is the time that the earth was created. It is what the aborigines live by. Dreamtime has different meanings. They are the source of all spirits, the moral order, ancestral beings and the period of creation. It can all so mean a totem’s spirit. And a certain lay of the land. They believe that their ancestors put certain spirits on the earth during Dreamtime. Also that their ancestors still exist in Dreamtime and they can be used to bridge the natural world with the spiritual world. They believe that the ancestors walked the earth during Dreamtime and marked the territories for all the bands. They also created singlines. They are songs that describe certain mountains and lays of the land so that the bands know what to look for and which way to go in their travels. The Aborigines are adapting to the modern world. They are working with the organizations that are helping them to get ownership of their territories, using dreamtime and songline to point out their boundaries. Aborigines6 Conclusion The Aborigines are a resourceful group of people that get along with nature and know how to survive in the wild. I believe that they will be here for a long time. Aborigines7 Resources Barbara Nowak and Peter Laird/ Cultural Anthropology/ Chapters 3 and 4/ Ashford Libraries.

Analyzing The Journeys End Of Regeneration English Literature Essay

Analyzing The Journeys End Of Regeneration English Literature Essay In the two works that I will be analysing, Journeys End and Regeneration, class refers to the social values that distinguish between the lower, middle and upper class men. The theme of class is central to both of the works and is personified in two predominant characters, Trotter in Journeys End as well as Prior in Regeneration, they will both be fundamental subjects in my essay; in which I will discuss how Sheriff and Barker explore this theme of class, concerning similarities and differences in the various methods employed. Three palpable contrasts between the works should at the outset be mentioned. Firstly Journeys End was written by a man, Sheriff who had firsthand experience of the war, himself being a captain in the East Surrey Regiment. Therefore, we can assume that some events in Journeys End and characters used are most likely influenced by genuine soldiers. Thus themes of class and the harshness of war are even more authentic and realistic; How awfully nice if the brigadiers pleased is a typical, if not sarcastic, response from a proverbial soldier; Stanhope, concerning Osbornes death, showing little respect for those in higher command and also his repression of emotion. Sheriff explores the theme of class through the effects on the characters; how differing people handle the constant stress of war, for Stanhope, it is to drink like a fish, in contrast to Trotters circle drawing, perhaps showing a lack of imagination. On the other hand the writer of Regeneration, Barker is a woman and more im portantly a lot younger than Sheriff with no direct experience of the war. Regeneration seems to focus more on the aftermath, which allows a broader sense of themes such as roles of women and the altered mental states of the class men. You seem to have a very powerful anti-war neurosis, is Rivers reply to Sassoon, who asks if he is mad, it shows the effect of the war, that it can make an educated and brave man question his own sanity. It also explores the theme of class; Rivers and Sassoon immediately create a bond with one another, coming from similar backgrounds and viewpoints, as opposed to the perpetual antagonism between Prior and Rivers. Secondly Journeys End is a play, as opposed to a novel, and Sheriff employs staging. This coupled with the need for a play to be entertaining, does not give Sheriff the luxury of including pages full of background conversation which allow subtle character progression. Barkers work in general could be seen as symbolically internal with the characters thoughts and deep emotions shown through introspection, and thought oh God, its going to be another one of this, this allows the audience to understand the characters in greater detail, to relate to them based on our personal experience, perspective and class. Whereas Sheriffs is driven by actions, and what other characters say. (He puts the box on its side and sits on it. It is too low for the table, and he puts it on its end. It is then too high), When Trotter is first introduced the stage actions show him to be a comical character, at odds with the more serious Stanhope or the hard as nails Osborne, however Trotter is a much more deep individual below the surface, which is shown by the end of the play with his promotion to second in command; Similarly Prior in Regeneration is first introduced as a mute, with a case of dumbness, differing to the other characters, but throughout the novel he conveys himself to be highly intelligent and profound. Another difference between the works is the length, Regeneration is the first part of a trilogy and this represents the more prolonged and indefinite ending, in contrast Journeys End is much shorter and has a very sudden and obvious finish, as implied by its title. This may, in some sense epitomise the theme of class and stereotypes. In Regeneration, events outside of warfare, the battle for an end to bias based on discrimination is long standing and more apparent. In Journeys End it is more ambiguous, and perhaps due to close proximity, extreme events and the over shadowing doom, is triumphed through unity, the war eliminated class divides. There are, however, important similarities between the works. They are both realistic, which is contrasted with Sheriffs use of Raleigh who represents the romantic, idealistic viewpoint; his boyish voice and hesitant speech show him to be nervous and impressionable. Raleigh is a young and inexperienced officer. This leads on to his conversation with Osborne, pages 9-17. The language that the two men use and their topic of conversation rugger and cricket remind the audience of their public school background. Sheriff explorers the theme of class through similarities and differences with characters. Lower class men tend to be employed as comic relief, which is evidenced by the character Mason and his mixed tinned fruit story. Osbornes mock shock at this story, Good Heavens! It must have given you a turn, helps to lighten the waiting game of trench life. These working class individuals, such as Trotter and Prior, deter the audience away from the constant melancholy of warfare. However they are more than simplistic tools for humour, Mason for example, serves as a reminder of the constant passing of time; with his regular meals, and also that normal activities still have to continue despite the war, forcing the audience to not base opinion on the surface, but too look deeper-to sympathise. They are also both from a British perspective, and the events mostly take place in one setting, Criaglockhart in Regeneration and a dug out in Journeys End. Sheriff uses sound and lighting throughout to create a realistic and theatrically effective image of war. The warren-like nature of dugouts with their entrances and exits lend themselves to the stage. Perhaps more importantly the dugout allows Sheriff to present an authentic image of life in the trenches, what he calls a nostalgic journey into the past (No Leading Lady). This relates to class, in the sense that the dire conditions stripped discrimination, it just a simple reminder of the horrible wreckage of their young lives and the futility of their deaths. This cannot be said for Regeneration, in which class, be it rank or treatment, is ever present. The works were also written after the war; which is significant in relation to Journeys End which was written by Sheriff in the post-war era. During the war, people had gone to theatres to forget their troubles and to be amused, but in the 1920s there was a lot of change in the way theatres managed and, in 1926, talking cinema, i.e. films with audible dialogue, started. The class system was also undergoing massive changes and people who in the past would never have been to the theatres started going. This may have resulted in the inclusion of Trotter a character from a lower class who appealed to the new audience. Therefore the theme of class in Journeys End symbolically represents contemporary feelings, a time in which social classes and barriers were being broken down and previous stereotypical upper class values were being appreciated by the masses. Trotter is shown to be more than a stereotype, this is evidenced by his conversation with Osborne about gardening, Oh, I used to do a bit of an evening. Iad a decent little grass plot in front, with flower borders geraniums, lobelia, and calceolaria, Sheriff uses a characters interaction to show that class barriers should be non-existent as the lower class can have similar interests and thought processes to the upper, everyone is not so different. Likewise, Barker makes use of the plot to show that Prior is not so different to the other characters, in fact he is vastly sharp and has knowledge of Freudian theories, I see. A negative transference, Rivers automatic assumption that a man from his background would be ignorant of such things shows how misguided discrimination due to class was, times were changing and a man shouldnt be judged by his birth place. It is ironic that this recurring theme of prejudice is focalized through such an accepting individual, portraying how deep the ro ots of discrimination were entrenched in this lost generation. Sheriff and Barker tackle the problem of class discrimination in similar ways. In Journeys End the unbiased character of Osborne allows the audience to understand Trotter more deeply, much like Rivers in Regeneration. Osborne in some senses is the audiences voice, and the very fact that Osborne can consider Trotter an equal signifies that class barriers are unnecessary, and people should judge in a more meritocratic way, by actions. In Regeneration the discrimination by class is dealt with through intellect. Barker stresses priors intelligence throughout the narrative. Unlike Sassoon, he possesses insight, which is symbolically indicated by his association with the image of the eye. When he finally recalls the traumatic event that triggered his breakdown picking up an eyeball and seeing it resting in the palm of his hand Prior not only regains his memory, but also becomes associated with the concept of vision in general. The recurring image of the eye in the palm of his hand repres ents not only his recovered hindsight, but also his ability to move between varieties of different viewpoints and see both sides. Due to his difference from the other characters, with regards to class background, his opinions and his sexuality, Priors perspective on the war is distinctive, and the source of his unique ability to subject even his own doctor to rigorous and relentless interrogation. In the same way, Trotter also has a different perspective, I reckon e only wanted to keep cheerful, as opposed to Stanhope, Doesnt his repulsive little mind make you sick? Trotter is benevolent, consistent and the voice of reason. He is less emotional and doesnt jump to conclusions, in many ways the other mens faults, such as Hibberts misogyny; help promote a less of a class run society as a lower class mans actions are superior to that of many upper class mens. (Insert relevant quote rivers covers his eyes (motif) refusing to see what he knows war is not worth it) Trotter is the only officer who has obviously not been to public school. He is middle aged and homely looking. He is described as having red

Kids getting lazy, fat and disrespectful Essay -- essays research pape

Kids these days are getting lazier, fatter, and more disrespectful. The baseball and soccer fields are empty, and the parks are empty. Kids are just no where to be seen nowadays. Where have they all gone? Well, if you look in the right places, then maybe you’ll see them. By the right places, I mean in front of our good friends the television, the play station or the computer. Parents should   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Here are some stats from the U.S. Surgeon General’s office. †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Almost half of Americans aged 12 to 21 are not vigorously active on a regular basis. †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  About 14 percent of those same kids reported no recent physical activity. Participation in any type of physical activities decrease dramatically as these kids get older. Kids are getting more sedentary every day and they’re paying the price of this lifestyle with their health. For every effect, there has to be a cause, according to the law of cause and effect. There is a specific reason as to why kids of the current generation are lazier and less active, and that is technology.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As kids are born into the information age, new technology is readily available for their use. Life has gotten easier as the years progress, as new technology is developed it aid us in our everyday errands. Even though is aid is available to us, kids are starting to become over reliant on it, and they are slowly growing dependent on technology to do the...

The Songs and Deaths of Rockstars Essay -- Song Music Musicians Death

The Songs and Deaths of Rockstars   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Music as we know it today is the voice of a generation. It gives us entertainment, and speaks out for a community of people in many ways. Most people listen to at least some sort of music, and serves a purpose in almost every facet of society. Just about any expression can be shared through music, inlcuding ideas and feelings about death. Music is used in various way when pertaining to death, including songs about how a death occurred, or songs at a service mourning a death. Whichever way you look at it, music serves an important purpose, and the songs about death and the death of certain performing artists has a great impact on society, especially the youth of society. It will be interesting to think about some of these songs and musicians, and the effect their short lives and music can have in our society.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  No matter which way you turn your head, your going to hear many different kinds of music. Many artists look to cover as many topics in their music, and death and dying is a topic that everyone in this world will sooner or later deal with, so it is a topic that it is covered. It is interesting when looking at Rap industry, and two artists come to mind right away when speaking about death. The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur are two rap artists who both have died within the last five years, and were both extremely popular. What one may look at is the fact that both seemed to have an idea that they were going to die right before they did, and it was not because of a terminal illness, it was in fact by being murdered.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Tupac Shakur was a very popular artist, whose talents were respected by people who weren't or aren't even rap music fans. He was very young when he passed, at age 25, and there are still people who listen to his music toiday, and there are even some people who question his death even occurred. Many of his albums have thoughts of death and his lyrics represent these thoughts, as he questions how much faith he has left, and how he seems to know his time is coming to an end. One of his songs, titled only God can Judge me, talks about how there is death all around him, and how it is hard to keep positive in the light of friends passing. Now, when dealing with a popular rap artist who makes alot of ... ...point or another in their lives. To the people who have never had someone close to them die, the death of a celebrity can be the next closest way for that person to experience and learn to deal with death. The deaths of the four artists mentioned touched the public in different ways. Brad Nowell was an aspiring artist who was just making it to the top when it all came crashing down. Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. were both already on top and their lifestyles of violence led to their demise. And the Kurt Cobain was a small town guy who didn't want all of the fame and his psyche crumbled as he comitted suicide. Each one of these deaths and the music brought from these artists gives us a sense of what it is like to die the way each of these people did. To alot of fans, when their favorite artist dies, a very small part of them dies, and it brings a rebirth to reality, on how life should be lived and that the industry is only entertainment, and not the way to a fulfulling life. In the end music cannot be a way of life, but it can lead to inspiration towards leading a good life, and gives comfort and hope towards that goal.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  

Death Penalty :: essays research papers fc

1st Negative case You have heard from the affirmative side and you may disagree or agree with some of their points, but the reality is that their plan will not and cannot succeed in today’s society. True, on paper the plan looks very good, but it will not work. Today’s present system, with the death penalty is much better off then without it. The negative side, which my partner and I represent, feels that the death penalty should not be abolished and that today’s system, which allows states to choose if they want to impose the death penalty, should continue to be used. It is true that innocent people have been executed, but that number is miniscule compared to the amount of â€Å"true† criminals that are rightfully executed. There is 28-step procedure necessary before any person can be given a death sentence. By having the process consist of numerous steps and involving many different people, human error is greatly reduced. The death penalty is not raciall y or gender bias, much to the contrary of what the affirmative team believes. The fact is that men commit more crimes, so they will be convicted at a greater rate then women. The ratio of men to women on death row and executed is 68:1 or 3400:50 (NAACP Spring 1996). From 1976-1994, men committed 7 times as many murders as women or a 7:1 ratio (Sourcebook ’94). Therefore, it may be statically shown that men are, by a 70:1 ratio, more likely to be on death row then are women. Like gender bias, racial bias is nonexistent in the rulings involving the death penalty. Whites represent 56% of those executed, and blacks 38% (NAACP Summer of 1996). The other 6% are other minorities. The death penalty is not bias to any race, but by just looking at the numbers it may seem that it is. The total populations of each race will give the illusion of bias, but that is not true. The affirmative side also argues that the cost of life in prison without parole is much cheaper then the cost of the death penalty, but this, like their charge of bias, is also untrue. The death penalty is millions cheaper then life without parole in the long run, but when our numbers are compared to the affirmative’s numbers no right or wrong conclusion can be reached. No one team can give impartial numbers since studies by both sides are bias.

A History of the Architectural Design of Castle Fraser, Aberdeen

As an atmospheric baronial palace that could day of the month back to the 15th century, Castle Fraser was one time the place of the Fraser household. The landscape of Castle Fraser remains overpowering after about 300 old ages, to the people who approach it for the first clip. Visitors to the estate are confronted with ‘one of the most dramatic of the Castles of Mar ‘ , which is the largest and most luxuriant Scots palace. The palace was built on the ‘Z-plan’ design and stands in 140 hectares of beautiful farming area. Following the forest trails, visitants could venture through the palace and up to the unit of ammunition tower, with its bird's-eye positions of the gardens and estate beyond, they have a glance of the life in the medieval to the Victorian period. The chief palace itself was completed around 1636, there were several eighteenth- and nineteenth-century alterations. The name of Fraser initiated in Anjou in France. The history of Castle Fraser could be traced to the center of 14th century, the clip when James II gave the lands around Muchall and Stoneywood to Thomas Fraser as a gift. At the get downing Castle Fraser bore the name of Muchall-in-Mar ( as the castle’s former name until 1695 ) . The edifice work of Castle Fraser was completed between 1575 and 1635. In the 1570s, Michael Fraser decided to construct a larger house for his household, with the name of â€Å" Michael ‘s Tower † , but the palace remained under building at his decease in the terminal of the 1580s. Therefore, his inheritor, Andrew Fraser completed the palace after his decease, to the visual aspect that it has now. After that there have been some little alterations in the early 19th century and a new expansive stairway in Victorian times ( which was demolished after the Second World war ) . In the twelvemonth of 1976, the palace itself and land of 26 estates were gifted to the National Trust for Scotland. At that clip, Major and Mrs Smiley were the last proprietors. Castle Fraser set amidst 120 hectares of beautiful gardens and unfastened forest, merely 16 stat mis from Aberdeen. The design of Castle Fraser ‘s landscape is chiefly done by Thomas White in 1794. Naturally, it is surrounded by the grassland with higher degree. The scope of degree difference within the estate between highest and lowest is 30 metres about. However, sing the country, it is instead smooth and level comparatively. The estate has two easy followed trails go throughing through a mixture of parkland, farming area and forest, with the opening positions of Bennachie. The ancient system of shared agriculture on unfastened Fieldss was replaced by a more profit-driven, agriculturally ‘improved ‘ estate, together with stylish leisure countries and an attractive parkland scene. Castle Fraser. as a well-preserved five-storey tower edifice, was chiefly built from local granite. It a Z-shaped architecture with a rectangular chief edifice and two towers at diagonally opposing corners of it, as an ordinary manner of Scots palace at that clip. It is surrounded by over 300 estates of unfastened wood and farm, with a specially designed walled garden. It is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and is unfastened to tourers during the and is unfastened to tourers in the summer. It is a good topographic point for nuptialss and corporate events as good. Aberdeenshire finest master-masons made a great part to an about perfect Z-plan massing of blocks combined with an antic upperworks as amplification ; Since the clip is near to the extremum of Renaissance Aberdeenshire, the palace was furnished with a prodigious asymmetrical sleeping room stack of six floors which yet trys to do a balance of the whole. Immediately environing the palace, but with a greater extent to the West than the East is an enclosure known as the Cherry Yard, presumptively planted with cherry trees, and beyond it to the West is a larger enclosure, the Ducat Yard. And the Cherry Yard is to the West, as expressed in the map of Policies in 1780. The landscape today of Castle Fraser was established in the eighteenth and early 19th centuries. Former estate programs show that the gardens built following to the palace in typical Scots chateau manner, with the doocot ( dovercote ) and red paces to the West and a big, likely hedged, garden to the E. With its gramd entryway to the palace, the Broad Walk, an avenue of lacewood trees acted as a way and welcome to the courtyard. However, things were different during the eighteenth and early 19th centuries, when the centuries-old community system of joint agriculture on unfastened Fieldss was one time replaced by a profit-driven, agriculturally ‘improved ‘ estate. It is the intentional landscape of this period today. Many of these alterations were carried out by Elyza Fraser, the Laird of Castle Fraser between 1792 and 1814, carried out. She invited a pupil of the celebrated English landscape interior decorator Capability Brown, Thomas White, to plan those betterments to the landscape. It was unusual at the clip for a adult female to play such an active and outstanding function in estate direction. The stallss were built ( to an bing design by John Paterson ) ; a snaky lake, decorated with two swans and a rowing boat, was dug to the south-east of the palace ; and the walled garden was built in 1795. There is a tall cistern and pumphouse of a mechanical H2O pump on the Alton Brae. And it had an of import function of supplying a H2O supply to the palace and estate. It was installed in the early 1900s, and powered by a modern electrical pump now. There is a natural spring here that served as portion of Miss Bristow’s landscaping strategy. It is a re-used triangular rock from above a dormer window, about surely from the palace, and day of the months from the 1630s. The carven initials -LAF- base for Lord Andrew Fraser. The Moses Well House is more cryptic. The beautiful rock panels form portion of one big panel picturing the Old Testament prophesier Moses, surrounded by scenes from his life. They were carved in the mid-1600s, perchance in the Netherlands, and likely for an of import church. The reply of how or when they came to Castle Fraser is yet under outlook. There are tonss of workss in Miss Bristow ‘s Wood besides merely trees. Wildflowers can be seen throughout Miss Bristow’s Wood. Small white flowers of wood oxalis, wood windflowers and wild hyacinths appear in spring, with tall steeples of digitaliss and tap Rhododendron maxima willowherb emerging in the summer. Inside the wood stands the memorial for Mary Bristow, which was set by Elyza Fraser The lettering on it is: Farewell! Alas how much less is the society of others than the memory of thee. There are two chief trails to acquire straightly to the palace. One is in the North and the other is in the West. The earliest estate map to demo the lay-out of the policies could be dated back every bit early as 1788, and likely it keeps a record of an agreement from the the late 17th century. The map shows that the Castle stands at the junction of four great avenues of lacewoods. The chief ocular axis is the avenue to the North – the Broad Avenue – which is the widest 1 as the name suggests, but the most of import entree must hold been from the West Avenue, since it led to the Aberdeen route at Broomdyke It is the Broad Walk of lacewoods that acts as an chief attack to the palace itself. The Broad Walk through Alton Brae one time connected the palace with the old Aberdeen. The trees here were planted more than 200 old ages ago. A squad of cattle one time pulled a large and heavy Big Dipper, and so those long additive ridges in the Alton Brea came into being as remains of mediaeval cultivation rigs. Cereals were grown on top of them. The Alton Brea trail begins in the Fieldss and windbreaks with agricultural usage, and so passes the Alton Brae forests, inside which a big scope of birds exist, treecreepers, longtailed breasts and coal breasts and so on. And the finish of the Alton Brea trail isthe flight Pond. This flight pool is non a outstanding topographic point for wildlife, since it was created at start to pull animate beings for hiting. In the late 17th century, this country around this beautiful pool was divided into topographic points for the laird to feed their animals and so direct them to the market. This mosaic of home grounds at Castle Fraser encourages a big scope of species to come. All in all, The estate’s design achieves practical functionality every bit good as astonishing views. Mary Bristow was the interior decorator of this forest, known as Miss Bristow’s Wood, as a pleasance land full of weaving waies, pleasant clearings and distant positions. Elyza Fraser and Mary Bristow developed these forests from agricultural land. They spent more than ?9,600 ( over ?500,000 today ) between 1797 and 1800 to carry through this task.Miss Bristow’s Trail ( 1.25 stat mis ) is named after Mary Bristow. The trail besides passes interesting archeological characteristics including the Moses Well. Merely to the North of Castle Fraser, there is a traditional walled garden of trees, bushs and herbaceous plantings, a medicative and culinary boundary line and organically adult fruit and veggies. The rectangular walled garden contains 17th-century sundial with complex lectern dial in freestone. The garden depicted on the 1788/9 program is likely to hold been first designed and laid out shortly after the east wing of the palace was completed in 1633/4 ( Fraser 2010 ) and by the clip it was dismantled in 1796 the garden had been in being for over 160 old ages. The Walled Garden on this site was built in this location to replace the walled enclosures to the E and South of the Castle, as expressed in the 1788 map. It is possible that there has been alterations after that, non merely the replacing and remotion of workss and trees, but besides likely alterations in the building of the garden, such as the waies and walls The manner that Walled Garden expressions now could dates from about 1977-78, and it is designed by Eric Robson, the former NTS Head of Gardens. The walled garden provided the palace with fruit, veggies and flowers, and contained a vineyard and two Prunus persica houses. The west portion of the garden is for veggies. The east portion is of assorted boundary lines and lawn. Both of them are separated by violet beech hedges from the cardinal of the garden. An avenue of tree rows stand on the axis of the garden. A pump has been installed inside the garden. One little greenhouse remains on the north wall with the bothy edifice on the exterior of the wall. This is portion 2-storey, portion 1-storey, in unsmooth squared granite blocks with some snecking: in usage as public lavatories and a nurseryman ‘s room. Deserving to advert that in 1959, the south boundary line of the garden replied to one of the design of James Russell in Sunningdale Nurseries. The are assorted bushs and herbaceous workss, with some roses and lilies. By 1978 most of the original workss died. so the boundary line was replanted and redesigned by Eric Robson. The north wall was heated. However, there is lone portion of this system remains low in the wall of the brick arches. It was the ovens ‘ occupation to plug the air through flukes inside the walls. They have to do a batch of work to return the gardens to what they used to be in 18th century. The gardens besides feature the ‘Woodland Secrets’ escapade resort area and trails. Two manner marked walks offer brilliant positions of the local hills. Since 1976, the National Trust for Scotland has farther developed the gardens. The chief regeneration work is between 2003 and 2005. The Woodland Secrets play country was specially designed for amuze the kids. The site known today as the Castle Frazer rock circle is situated about 800 m to the West of the palace in the parish of Cluny. The circle is about 20.4m of diameter and it comprises the seeable remains of the rock circle – seven independent standing rocks, in which two of which have now fallen down. The circle one time was consisted of 11 rocks, merely nine remains now. The Altar â€Å" ( the recumbent slab ) † measures 6’ 9† in length and is 4’ 6† in tallness. The rock at its East terminal is 6’ 7† high and 4’ 6† broad at the base. About 200 gaits due easts are two rocks a few gaits distant from each other and about 7’ high’ . The circle is to some extent guerrilla in form. The ‘Altarstone ‘ is about due south from the Centre. There is a little homocentric circle, 13 pess in diameter, within the larger one, but merely defined at the North and South sides, as shewn in the ground-plan, – by rocks sunk in the land down to the sub-soil and demoing themselves a few inches above land. They touch each other, and demo by and large a level side turned to the Centre of the circle. The whole country of the Circle was found to be paved closely and steadfastly with little bowlders, lying about 6 inches below the surface.

Tourism Development In Sikkim Essay

Tourism development in Sikkim has passed through many phases.At Government level the development of tourist facilities was taken up in a planned manner.The Government took several significant steps. A State Policy on tourism was announced in 1992. Later in 2000,The Tourism formulated a comprehensive plan for achieving a sustainable growth in tourism. In 2001, The Ecotourism and Conservation Society of Sikkim (ECOSS) is a registered NGO and operates out of Gangtok, ECOSS believes in the conservation of biodiversity, local culture, promotion of sustainable livelihoods through community mobilisation and empowerment. It conceptualised and hosted the South Asian Regional Conference on Ecotourism (SARCE 2002) at Gangtok with the International Ecotourism Society (TIES) and the Ministry of Tourism which essentially brought ecotourism into the development profile of the North Eastern States and put Sikkim on the ecotourism map of India. ECOSS has successfully executed the Sikkim Himalayan Hom e stay Project funded by UNESCO under their Cultural & Ecotourism in Mountain Regions of Central and South Asia programme from 2004-2007 for promotion of community home stays in Yuksom, Dzongu, Kewzing and Pastanga through capacity building of ecotourism service providers. ECOSS has been a key player in The Gangtok Water Supply and Sanitation Scheme Project funded by the Australian Government International Development Assistance (AUSAID) Programme under their Community Small Grants Scheme. It has been actively involved in the improvement of water supply, sanitation and solid waste management in Greater Gangtok area covering 55 various schemes and benefiting over 26,000 people.ECOSS has executed the Rural Tourism Cluster Project funded by NABARD for the promotion of community based home stays and ecotourism activities in the villages of Rey Mindu in East Sikkim and Lingee Payong in South Sikkim. ECOSS continues to conduct numerous awareness and capacity building trainings in the ecotourism sector both within Sikkim and in the North Eastern states. ECOSS has conducted a pilot project for the revival of the ancient weaving practice of giant nettle fiber cloth amongst the Lepcha community of Dzongu. It has also provided consultancy services on ecotourism for the ADB funded SASEC Tourism Infrastructure Project in Sikkim In 2011 ECOSS has been instrumental in creating the Vision Document for Quality Elementary Education for the Human Resource Development Department, GoS.  ECOSS is also currently engaged in the JICA funded Sikkim Biodiversity and Forest Management Project covering the North District Definition related to Sikkim Ecotourism 1. Ecotourism: A form of tourism that involves travelling to natural areas with the specific objectives of learning, admiring and enjoying nature and its wild plants and animals as well as local people’s cultural aspects including religious monuments, while conserving the natural and social environment, and improving the welfare of the local people. 2. Ecotourism Activities: Activities coordinated by a qualified nature and cultural interpreter designed to entertain and educate clients. Examples of above mentioned activities are;- a. activities in mountains such as trekking, bird and wildlife watching, hiking, photography, mountaineering etc; b. activities in rivers and lakes such as angling, rafting, kayaking, photography etc; c. participating in cultural and traditional events such as agro-tourism, handicraft making, fairs and festivals and Himalayan folkways. 3. Sustainable Ecotourism Development: Development of ecotourism in the State of Sikkim, which meets the needs and aspirations of the current generation without compromising the ability to meet the needs of future generations. 4. Ecotourism Assets: Natural and cultural features that attract visitors, such as landscapes, endemic or rare flora and fauna, local agricultural products, local culture including festivals, local folktales, history, historical monuments and heritage sites. 5. Ecotourism Products: A combination of activities and services which are sold and managed through qualified ecotour operators including local communities or individuals. 6. Ecotourism Services: Services including transportation, local cuisine, camping, home stay, guiding and interpretation. These services should cause minimum damage to the natural and cultural environment and promote a better understanding of the natural and cultural aspects of an area . 7. Interpretation: Communication that helps visitors to understand and appreciate the community resources. Interpretation includes facts, but also reveals the reason of the importance of those facts so that visitors are able to understand why the resources should matter to the individual visitors. Interpreter is a person who provides interpretation in natural and cultural areas, interpretation center, parks and etc. Sikkim ecotourism council The Sikkim Ecotourism Council will be an autonomous council as outlined in the organizational diagram. The Sikkim Ecotourism Council will have an executing arm which is the Ecotourism Directorate (ED) working under the Forest, Environment and Wildlife Management Department (FEWMD). The Council will have a local village level operational system which incorporates various Community-Based Organizations (CBO) working in tandem with Panchayat, Non Governmental Organisation, Tourism Development Committee (TDC), Self-help Groups (SHG) and other local people’s representative groups. Members of Sikkim Ecotourism Council are as follows. Chief Patron : Chief Minister Two Patrons : Minister of Forest and Minister of Tourism, Chairman : Chief Secretary Member Secretary : PCCF-cum-Secretary, Forest Department (FEWMD) Member : Chief Wildlife Warden Member : Secretary, Tourism Department Member : Secretary, Rural Management & Development Department Member : Secretary, Animal Husbandry, Livestock, Fisheries and Veterinary Services Department Member : Secretary, Home Department Member : Secretary, Sports & Youth affairs Member : Director, Ecotourism Directorate Member : Person of National Ecotourism Expertise Member : National Level NGO Members : Four Local Level NGO and CBO Member : Travel Agent Association of Sikkim (TAAS) Role of ecotourism council a. bring all key stakeholders on a common platform of understanding of ecotourism activities . b. coordinate all key stakeholders to work on the  ecotourism activities carried and reflect their opinion to the activities; c. establish guidelines for ecotourism, and revise them in consultation with the key stakeholders including NGO, CBO, local communities, tour operators, tour agents and relevant government authorities from time to time as per the requirements; d. ensure that the new guidelines are consistent with the Code of Conduct for responsible tourism prepared by the Ministry of Tourism, Govt. of India and adopted by Dept of Tourism and Civil Aviation (Govt. of Sikkim); e. monitor the activities of ecotourism to ensure minimum negative impacts on the biodiversity and ecosystems of Sikkim. Emphasis should be on the carrying capacity of the Protected Areas (PAs) in Sikkim including Khangchendzonga National Park (KNP); f. evaluate the negative impacts brought by ecotourism activities and existing rules and regulations, and review and revise the rules in consultation with the stakeholders which have direct or indirect influence to the ecotourism activities as and when necessary; g. review and finalise a draft ecotourism action plan and a long-term development plan which are prepared by ED; h. monitor the trainings and capacity building carried out by ED; i. monitor and influence the activities of private entities which violate the main principles of Sikkim Ecotourism, through relevant organizations; j. request tour operators, guides and home stay owners to provide information on Sikkim’s ecotourism products and ecotourism services, since this information is needed for planning and monitoring of ecotourism activities; Role of ecotourism Directorate of Sikkim Role of ecotourism council is as follows (A) Planning and Development: i. ensure the implementation and execution of the ecotourism guidelines; ii. coordinate with the Home Department, and other related key government organizations in border sensitive ecotourism sites to ensure the smooth operation of ecotourism activities; iii. implement the strategies described in Sikkim Ecotourism Policy; iv. organize seminars, workshops and international conferences among concerned government officials, NGO, CBO, and other stakeholders, from time to time so as to consider the emerging needs/suggestions etc from all sections of society. (B) Financing: i. monitor the revenue generation and allocation of funds for the development of ecotourism; ii. develop a plough back mechanism with an autonomous status for funds generated for sustainability of ecotourism related activities. (C) Operation and Management: i. work in close collaboration with NGO and state level of CBO to implement the ecotourism activities; ii. collaborate with NGO, CBO, TDC, SHG and other local people’s representative groups to implement the ecotourism activities at the village level; iii. set standards for the carrying capacity in the Protected Areas and other Reserved Areas to prevent damage to the biodiversity and ecosystems; iv. publish newsletters, bulletins, pamphlets, status reports and other information and disseminate important government notifications and rules; v. ensure visitors, tour operators, tour agencies and guides to follow the prescribed guidelines. (D) Monitoring, Evaluation and Research: i. monitor the environmental impacts which are caused by tourism activities and plan/take necessary remedial measures to mitigate the same; ii. enlist ecotourism operators in the state and monitor their activities; iii. facilitate scientific assessment of relatively unexplored ecotourism destinations for their potential and promotion; iv. develop participatory tourism monitoring plans in collaboration with NGO, CBO, SHG, TDC, Panchayat, EDC, PSS and JFMC; v. monitor the training and capacity building programmes that are conducted by various other agencies and provide support and cooperation; Strategies for Sikkim tourism development 1 Strategies for planning, zoning and modelling for the Ecotourism sites and other general tourism sites are a. FEWMD and Tourism Department work together to identify the tourism zones and general tourism zones b. prior to establishment of the tourism zoning, plan consultations with the local NGO, CBO, TDC, SHG and other local people’s representative groups as well as key government organizations such as Rural Management and Development Department on the issue of the ecotourism zoning at each area; c. establish zonings for tourism development sites, which will be called tourism zone hereafter,  and general tourism development zone, and differentiate the two zones in Sikkim; d. select villages from the tourism zone and establish a model from each district and focus on efforts on allocating finance, manpower for capacity building and facilities and equipments, and disseminate the successful cases to the other ecotourism zone; e. make some variation of the tourism zone which has specific objectives such as, tourism zones for trekking, tourism zones for bird watching, tourism zones for flower photography; f. regulate the design and appearance of new ecotourism infrastructures such as, accommodations, view points, footpaths, and restaurants that blend with the landscape; etc Strategies for Training and Capacity Building Strategies for training and capacity building are a. train and build the capacity of local communities including home stay owners, youth and women’s groups who wish to engage on ecotourism activities. The topic of the training and capacity building are specific themes such as, environmental education, home stay management, waste management, computing, finance, ecotour program designing, interpretation, risk management, cooking local cuisine, guides for trekking, bird watching, fauna and flora photography, angling, rafting, religious monuments and languages; b. prepare and provide training materials including training manuals, text books and training courses; c. provide technical capacity building for tour operators, CBO, NGO, frontline staff of FEWMD as well as various stakeholders including STDC, EDC, JFMC, PSS and Panchayat; d. identify village level CBO’s engaging on ecotourism activities, and provide necessary capacity building to them; e. identify and review the existing regulations and bye-laws and other regal is sues related village level ecotourism activities. Support CBO to clarify those issues prior to commence the ecotourism activities; f. plan certificate courses for nature interpreters and ecotour guides for trekking, bird watching, fauna and flora photography and other activities; g. identify low season income generation activities to complement ecotourism such as handicraft souvenirs, food and fruit processing, production, repairing and maintenance of adventure equipments; h. provide training and capacity building to FEWMD staff as well as Tourism Department staff within the state to understand the clear  meaning of ecotourism as an activity supported and monitored by FEWMD to be driven by CBO. Strategies for Benefiting the Economically Disadvantaged People Strategies for Benefiting the Economically Disadvantaged People are a. facilitate self employment opportunities for the economically disadvantaged people in ecotourism enterprises; b. encourage supply of goods and services to tourism enterprises by the economically disadvantaged people; c. facilitate direct sales of local goods and services to visitors by the economically disadvantaged people (informal economy); d. encourage establishment and running of tourism enterprises by the economically disadvantaged people – e.g. micro, small and medium sized enterprises, or community based enterprises (formal economy); e. set up systems of voluntary support by tourism enterprises and tourists to the economically disadvantaged people. Strategies for Safety Strategies for safety are; Ensure to have insurance set by all the tour operators, guides, tour agents whose clients may have accidents and injuries during their trip, and guides to carry first aid kit when they are in the field with their clients; Plan training and issuing certificates system for safety including risk management. The training will focus on methods of risk management avoid problems, medication to save clients and quick rescue operation to all the tour operators, guides, tour agents whose clients may have accidents and injuries caused by the engagement of tourism activities; Plan a system of notifying landslides high risk areas as well as other dangerous places for visitors by ED to the tour operators, tour agents, guides and drivers of vehicles through the related associations on a regular basis; Develop a series of hazardous maps of ecotourism sites (places, characteristics of hazardous, etc.) in Sikkim in sustainable manner and update it regularly; Plan a quick response team for an event of any kinds of accidents related  ecotourism activities; Plan a system of emergency call for medical doctors an event of visitors’ sickness or injuries. Strategies for Certification Strategies for certification are; Plan a committee which includes STDC, TAAS, SAATO, TDC, NGO and CBO to work on certification related to the ecotourism activities (e.g. home stay, tour operators, environmental friendly lodges) ; The certification process has to be transparent based on specific guidelines which are monitored through social auditing;   ED, STDC, TAAS, SAATO, TDC, NGO and CBO work together to identify necessary certification items related to ecotourism activities such as renewable energy, ecotour guide. They will plan further courses for the identified items. Strategies for Finance Strategies for finance are; Plan a mechanism of financial system through banks at reasonable interest rates targeting the local people who wish to engage in tourism activities; Inform the financial system to the people in Sikkim including the local villagers;