title: Issa Rae

text: Rae's web series "Awkward Black Girl" premiered on YouTube in 2011. The show follows the life of J (played by Rae) as she interacts with co-workers and love interests who place her in uncomfortable situations. The story is told through a first-person narrative as J usually reveals how she feels about her circumstances through voice-over or dream sequence.


title: Issa Rae

text: The series eventually went viral through word of mouth, blog posts, and social media, resulting in mainstream media coverage and attention. In an effort to fund the rest of the first season, Rae and producer Tracy Oliver decided to raise money for the series through Kickstarter. On August 11, 2011, they were awarded $56,269 from 1,960 donations and released the rest of season one on Rae's YouTube channel.


title: Issa Rae

text: Rae eventually partnered with Pharrell and premiered season two of the series on his YouTube channel, "iamOTHER". Rae also began releasing other content on her original channel, predominantly created by and starring people of color.


title: Issa Rae

text: In 2013, "Awkward Black Girl" won a Shorty award for Best Web Show. Rae created "Awkward Black Girl" because she felt the Hollywood stereotypes of African-American women were limiting and she could not relate to them:


title: Issa Rae

text: I've always had an issue with the [assumption] that people of color, and black people especially, aren't relatable. I know we are.


title: Issa Rae

text: By using YouTube as her forum, Rae was able to have autonomy of her work because she writes, films, produces, and edits most of her work. Rae's other shows—"Ratchet Piece Theater", "The "F" Word", "Roomieloverfriends", and "The Choir", among others—also focus on African-American experiences that are often not portrayed in the mainstream media.


title: Issa Rae

text: In 2013, Rae began working on a comedy series pilot with Larry Wilmore, in which she would star. The series, about the awkward experiences of a contemporary African-American woman, was eventually titled "Insecure". HBO picked up the pilot in early 2015 and it was subsequently greenlit. Since its release in 2016, the series has received critical acclaim; Eric Deggans of NPR wrote that "Rae has produced a series that feels revolutionary just by poking fun at the life of an average, twenty-something black woman."


title: Issa Rae

text: In 2017, the American Film Institute selected "Insecure" as one of the top 10 Television Programs of the Year. For her acting work on the show, Rae has received two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 2017 and 2018, as well as a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2018.


title: Issa Rae

text: In 2018, at the 77th annual Peabody Awards, "Insecure" was honored for "creating a series that authentically captures the lives of everyday young, black people in modern society."


title: Issa Rae

text: On November 14, 2016, HBO renewed the show for a second season. The second season premiered on July 23, 2017. On August 8, 2017, it was announced that the show was renewed for a third season, which premiered on August 12, 2018. Season five premiered October 24, 2021. The final episode of "Insecure" aired December 26, 2021.


title: Issa Rae

text: Released in 2020, "The Photograph" follows the journey of Issa's character, Mae Morton, and Lakeith Stanfield's character Michael Block, as the two search for the backstory of Mae's mother. The New York Times mentioned this film as “an unabashedly old-school love story”. The Empire said that ""The Photograph" is an African-American romance that, for the most part, feels relatable and true”.


title: Issa Rae

text: Released in 2020, "The Lovebirds" directed by Michael Showalter, Rae played the role of Leilani. The film starred Kumail Nanjiani, who played Jibran, Leilani's boyfriend. Throughout the film, the couple struggles to maintain their relationship and during this, they face an eventful murder.


title: Issa Rae

text: Rae's first book, a memoir titled "The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl", was released in 2015 and became a "New York Times" best-seller. In the book, she chronicles her life through a series of humorous anecdotes and opens up about her personal struggle with not fitting in, and not being considered "black enough" at times.


title: Issa Rae

text: On October 11, 2019, Google announced that Rae would be an additional voice to the Google Assistant. Users could make Google Assistant speak in Rae's voice by saying "Ok Google, talk like Issa." Issa's Voice was available until Friday, October 1, 2021.


title: Issa Rae

text: Also in 2019, Rae, through her newly launched record label "Raedio," partnered with Atlantic Records to produce "Kinda Love" by singer-rapper TeaMarrr.


title: Issa Rae

text: In March 2021, Rae's production company, Hoorae, signed a five-year film and television deal with WarnerMedia. In 2021, , an reality television program created by Rae, was produced as part of this deal.


title: Issa Rae

text: Rae's birth name, Jo-Issa, comes from a combination of the names of her grandmothers: Joyce and Isseu. Her middle name, Rae, is after an aunt, who was an artist.


title: Issa Rae

text: Rae married her longtime partner, Louis Diame, a Senegalese businessman, in a private ceremony in France in July 2021. Rae first wore her engagement ring publicly on the cover of "Essence" magazine's April 2019 issue.


title: Issa Rae

text: Rae has used her platform to bring attention to police violence and brutality against African-Americans. Following the police shooting of Alton Sterling in 2016, she raised $700,000 for the Sterling Family Trust to help pay for the Sterling children to attend college.


title: Issa Rae

text: Rae is an advocate for civil rights and women's rights movements. Her work includes themes of equality and social justice. She works closely with organizations like the ACLU, BLD PWR, and Black Lives Matter.


title: Issa Rae

text: Her show "Insecure" has changed the public perception of the South Los Angeles community by highlighting Black businesses.


title: Issa Rae

text: In May 2015, Rae appeared on the cover of "Essence" magazine's Game Changers issue, alongside Shonda Rhimes, Ava DuVernay, Debbie Allen, and Mara Brock Akil. Rae expressed her desire for more people of color working in production behind the scenes to make a lasting impact in the television industry.


title: Issa Rae

text: On the red carpet at the 2017 Emmy Awards, Rae told reporters, "I'm rooting for everybody Black." The quote went viral and appeared on T-shirts and in the song "Sue Me" by the rapper Wale.


title: Julie Walters

text: Dame Julia Mary Walters (born 22 February 1950), known professionally as Julie Walters, is an English actress. She is the recipient of four British Academy Television Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two International Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Fellowship, and a Golden Globe. Walters has twice been nominated for an Academy Award: once for Best Actress and once for Best Supporting Actress. She was made a Dame (DBE) in 2017 for services to drama.


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters rose to prominence playing the title role in "Educating Rita" (1983), a part she originated on the West End. She has appeared in many other films, including "Personal Services" (1987), "Prick Up Your Ears" (1987), "Stepping Out" (1991), "Sister My Sister" (1994), "Girls' Night" (1998), "Titanic Town" (1998), "Billy Elliot" (2000), the "Harry Potter" series (2001–2011), "Calendar Girls" (2003), "Wah-Wah" (2005), "Driving Lessons" (2006), "Becoming Jane" (2007), "Mamma Mia!" (2008) and its 2018 sequel, "Brave" (2012), "The Harry Hill Movie" (2013), "Paddington" (2014) and its 2017 sequel, "Brooklyn" (2015), "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool" (2017), and "Mary Poppins Returns" (2018). On stage, she won an Olivier Award for Best Actress for the 2001 revival of "All My Sons".


title: Julie Walters

text: On television, Walters collaborated regularly with Victoria Wood; their projects included "Wood and Walters" (1981), "" (1985–1987), "Pat and Margaret" (1994), and "dinnerladies" (1998–2000). She has won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress four times, more than any other performer, for her roles in "My Beautiful Son" (2001), "Murder" (2002), "The Canterbury Tales" (2003), and "Mo" (2010). Walters and Helen Mirren are the only actresses to have won this award three consecutive times, and Walters is tied with Judi Dench for most nominations in the category with seven. For her role in "A Short Stay in Switzerland" (2009), she received the International Emmy Award for Best Actress. In 2006, the British public voted Walters fourth in ITV's poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars.


title: Julie Walters

text: Julia Mary Walters was born on 22 February 1950 at St Chad's Hospital in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, the daughter of Mary Bridget (née O'Brien), an Irish Catholic postal clerk from County Mayo, and Thomas Walters, an English builder and decorator. According to the BBC genealogy series "Who Do You Think You Are?", her maternal ancestors played an active part in the 19th-century Irish Land War. Her paternal grandfather Thomas Walters was a veteran of the Second Boer War, and was killed in action in World War I in June 1915 while serving with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment; he is commemorated at the Le Touret Memorial in France. Walters and her family lived at 69 Bishopton Road in the Bearwood area of Smethwick. The youngest of five children and the third to survive birth, Walters had an early education at St Paul's School for Girls in Edgbaston and later at Holly Lodge Grammar School for Girls in Smethwick. She said in 2014 that it was "heaven when [she] went to an ordinary grammar school", although she was asked to leave at the end of her lower sixth because of her "high jinks".


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters later told interviewer Alison Oddey about her early schooling, "I was never going to be academic, so [my mother] suggested that I try teaching or nursing. [...] I'd been asked to leave school, so I thought I'd better do it." Her first job was in insurance at the age of 15. At the age of 18, she trained as a student nurse at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham; she worked on the ophthalmic, casualty, and coronary care wards during the 18 months she spent there. She decided to leave nursing and went on to study acting at the newly-established Manchester Polytechnic School of Theatre (now Manchester School of Theatre). She worked for the Everyman Theatre Company in Liverpool in the mid-1970s, alongside several other notable performers and writers such as Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Jonathan Pryce, Willy Russell, and Alan Bleasdale.


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters first received notice as the occasional partner of comedian Victoria Wood, whom she had originally met in 1971 when Wood auditioned at the School of Theatre in Manchester. The two first worked together in the 1978 theatre revue "In at the Death", followed by the television adaptation of Wood's play "Talent".


title: Julie Walters

text: They went on to appear in their own Granada Television series, "Wood and Walters", in 1982. They continued to perform together frequently over the years. The BAFTA-winning BBC follow-up, "", featured one of Walters's best-known roles, Mrs Overall, in Wood's parodic soap opera, "Acorn Antiques" (she later appeared in the musical version, and received an Olivier Award nomination for her efforts).


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters' first serious acting role on television was in Alan Bleasdale's "Boys from the Blackstuff" in 1982. She came to national attention when she co-starred with Michael Caine in "Educating Rita" (1983), a role she had created on the West End stage in Willy Russell’s 1980 play. Playing Susan "Rita" White, a Liverpudlian working-class hairdresser who seeks to better herself by signing up for and attending an Open University course in English literature, she would receive the BAFTA Award for Best Actress, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical/Comedy, and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.


title: Julie Walters

text: She performed various comic monologues in "The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog", which was recorded 1982, and broadcast by Channel 4 in 1983.


title: Julie Walters

text: In 1985, she played Adrian Mole's mother, Pauline, in the television adaptation of "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole". Walters appeared in the lead role of Cynthia Payne in the 1987 film "Personal Services" – a dramatic comedy about a British brothel owner. Then she starred with Phil Collins, playing the lead character's wife, June, in the film "Buster", released in 1988. She also appeared as Mrs. Peachum in the 1989 film version of "The Threepenny Opera", which was renamed "Mack the Knife" for the screen.


title: Julie Walters

text: In 1991, Walters starred opposite Liza Minnelli in "Stepping Out", and had a one-off television special, "Julie Walters and Friends", which featured writing contributions from Victoria Wood, Alan Bennett, Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale.


title: Julie Walters

text: In 1993, Walters starred in the television film "Wide-Eyed and Legless" (known as "The Wedding Gift" outside the UK) alongside Jim Broadbent and Thora Hird. The film was based on the book by the author Deric Longden and tells the story of the final years of his marriage to his wife, Diana, who contracted a degenerative illness that medical officials were unable to understand at the time, though now believed to be a form of chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis.


title: Julie Walters

text: In 1998, she starred as the Fairy Godmother in the ITV pantomime "Jack and the Beanstalk". From 1998 until 2000, she played Petula Gordeno in Victoria Wood's BBC sitcom "dinnerladies". In the late 1990s, she featured in a series of adverts for Bisto gravy.


title: Julie Walters

text: In 2001, Walters won a Laurence Olivier Award for her performance in Arthur Miller's "All My Sons". She received her second Oscar nomination and won a BAFTA for her supporting role as the ballet teacher in "Billy Elliot" (2000). In 2002, she again won a BAFTA Television Award for Best Actress for her performance as Paul Reiser's mother in "My Beautiful Son".


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters played Molly Weasley, the matriarch of the Weasley family, in the "Harry Potter" film series (2001–2011). "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" is the only film in the series not to have included Walters. In 2003, the BBC voted her portrayal of Molly as the "second-best screen mother."


title: Julie Walters

text: In 2003, Walters starred as a widow (Annie Clark) determined to make some good come out of her husband's death from cancer in "Calendar Girls", which starred Helen Mirren. In 2005, she again starred as an inspirational real-life figure, Marie Stubbs in the ITV1 drama "Ahead of the Class". In 2006, she came fourth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest Stars, coming four places above frequent co-star Victoria Wood. In 2006, she starred in the film "Driving Lessons" alongside Rupert Grint (who played her son Ron in "Harry Potter"), and had a leading role in the BBC's adaptation of Philip Pullman's novel "The Ruby in the Smoke".


title: Julie Walters

text: In summer 2006, Walters published her first novel, "Maggie's Tree". The novel, concerning a group of English actors in Manhattan and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, was described as "a disturbing and thought-provoking novel about mental torment and the often blackly comic, mixed-up ways we view ourselves and misread each other.". Another reviewer, Susan Jeffreys, in "The Independent", described the novel as "the work of a writer who knows what she's doing. There's nothing tentative about the writing, and Walters brings her experiences as an actress to bear on the page. ... you do have the sensation of entering someone else's mind and of looking through someone else's eyes." Walters starred in Asda's Christmas 2007 television advertising campaign. She also appeared alongside Patrick Stewart in UK Nintendo DS Brain Training television advertisements, and in a public information film about smoke alarms. In June 2008, Walters appeared in the film version of "Mamma Mia!", playing Rosie Mulligan, marking her second high-profile musical, after "". The same year, she released her autobiography, titled "That's Another Story".


title: Julie Walters

text: In 2007, Walters starred as the mother of author Jane Austen (played by Anne Hathaway) in "Becoming Jane". Walters played Mary Whitehouse in the BBC Drama "" (2008), an adaptation of the real-life story of Mrs. Whitehouse who campaigned for "taste and decency on television". Walters commented, "I am very excited to be playing Mary Whitehouse, and to be looking at the time when she attacked the BBC and started to make her name." "Filth" won Best Motion Picture Made for Television, and Walters was nominated for Best Actress in a Miniseries or a Motion Picture Made For Television, at the 2008 13th Annual Satellite Awards.


title: Julie Walters

text: In 2009, she received a star in the Birmingham Walk of Stars on Birmingham's Golden Mile, Broad Street. She said: "I am very honoured and happy that the people of Birmingham and the West Midlands want to include me in their Walk of Stars and I look forward to receiving my star. Birmingham and the West Midlands is where I'm from; these are my roots and in essence it has played a big part in making me the person I am today". Her other awards include an International Emmy with for "A Short Stay in Switzerland".


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters played the late MP and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam in a drama for Channel 4 broadcast in early 2010. She had misgivings about taking on the role because of the differences in their physical appearance, but the result was highly praised by critics.


title: Julie Walters

text: In July 2012, Walters appeared in the BBC Two production "The Hollow Crown" as Mistress Quickly in Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Parts I and II". In the summer of 2012, she voiced the Witch in Pixar's "Brave" (2012). In 2012, she worked with LV= to promote one of their life insurance products targeted at people over 50. Walters was seen in television advertisements, at the lv.com website and in other marketing material helping to raise awareness for life insurance.


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters appeared in "The Last of the Haussmans" at the Royal National Theatre in June 2012. The production was broadcast to cinemas around the world through the National Theatre Live programme. On 18 November 2012, Walters appeared on stage at St Martin's Theatre in the West End for a 60th anniversary performance of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap", the world's longest-running play.


title: Julie Walters

text: In 2014, Walters portrayed Mrs. Bird, the Browns' housekeeper, in the critically acclaimed "Paddington" (2014). Walters reprised her role for the sequel, "Paddington 2" (2017), which has also received universal acclaim.


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters played the part of Cynthia Coffin in the ten-part British drama serial "Indian Summers" aired on Channel 4 in 2015. In 2015, she appeared in the romantic drama film "Brooklyn", a film that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Her performance in the film earned her a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters voiced the Lexi Decoder (LEXI) for Channel 4 during the 2016 Paralympic Games. The graphical system aims to aid the viewing experience of the games by debunking the often confusing classifications that govern Paralympic sport. Set in London during the depression, Walters played Ellen, Michael's and Jane's long-time housekeeper, in "Mary Poppins Returns" (2018).


title: Julie Walters

text: In 2020, Walters starred with Colin Firth in "The Secret Garden" (2020). Also in 2020, Walters featured as the narrator for ITV documentary "For the Love of Britain".


title: Julie Walters

text: On 25 December 2021, Channel 4 aired "The Abominable Snow Baby", in which Walters appeared as Granny, providing her voice for the animated television short film.


title: Julie Walters

text: In May 2022, it was announced that Walters would star in "Truelove", an upcoming drama series from Channel 4. That same month, Walters narrated the BBC documentary "The Queen: 70 Glorious Years", which took a look at the Queen's life in her seventieth year on the British throne.


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters' relationship with Grant Roffey, a patrol man for the AA, began in 1985 after a chance meeting in a Fulham pub, where Roffey admitted to voting Labour. He was invited to repair Walters' washing machine, a whirlwind romance ensued and the couple became parents to their only child, a daughter, who they named Maisie Mae Roffey (born 26 April 1988). The couple delayed marriage until they visited New York City in 1997. The family live on an organic farm operated by Roffey near Plaistow, West Sussex.


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters is a lifelong supporter of West Bromwich Albion Football Club, having been brought up in Smethwick. She is a patron of the domestic violence survivors' charity Women's Aid.


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters was diagnosed with stage III bowel cancer in 2018. Having had surgery and chemotherapy, she entered remission. This meant that she had to be cut from certain scenes in "The Secret Garden" and also had to miss the premiere of "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again". Walters did not announce her illness to the public until February 2020, when she said in an interview with Victoria Derbyshire that she would be taking a step back from acting, particularly from large and demanding film roles. Later that year, however, she stated that she would make an exception for roles that she was 'really engaged' with, including "Mamma Mia 3!", which is currently in development.


title: Julie Walters

text: Walters was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1999 Birthday Honours, Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours, and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to drama.


title: Jio

text: Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, doing business as Jio, is an Indian telecommunications company and a subsidiary of Jio Platforms, headquartered in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It operates a national LTE network with coverage across all 22 telecom circles. Currently, Jio offers 4G and 4G+ services all over India and 5G service in selected cities. Its 6G services are in the works.


title: Jio

text: Jio soft launched on 27 December 2015 with a beta for partners and employees, and became publicly available on 5 September 2016. It is the largest mobile network operator in India and the third largest mobile network operator in the world with over 42.62 crore (426.2 million) subscribers.


title: Jio

text: In September 2019, Jio launched a fiber to the home service, offering home broadband, television, and telephone services. , Reliance Industries has raised by selling nearly 33% equity stake in Jio Platforms.


title: Jio

text: The company was registered in Ambawadi, Ahmedabad, Gujarat on 15 February 2007 as Infotel Broadband Services Limited (IBSL). In June 2010, Reliance Industries (RIL) bought a 95% stake in IBSL for . Although unlisted, IBSL was the only company that won broadband spectrum in all 22 circles in India in the 4G auction that took place earlier that year. Later continuing as RIL's telecom subsidiary, Infotel Broadband Services Limited was renamed as Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) in January 2013.


title: Jio

text: In June 2015, Jio announced that it would start its operations throughout the country by the end of 2015. However, four months later in October, the company postponed the launch to the first quarter of the financial year 2016–2017.


title: Jio

text: Later, in July 2015, a PIL filed in the Supreme Court by an NGO called the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, through Prashant Bhushan, challenged the grant of a pan-India license to Jio by the Government of India. The PIL also alleged that the firm was being allowed to provide voice telephony along with its 4G data service, by paying an additional fee of just which was arbitrary and unreasonable, and contributed to a loss of to the exchequer. The Indian Department of Telecommunications (DoT), however, explained that the rules for 3G and BWA spectrum didn't restrict BWA winners from providing voice telephony. As a result, the PIL was revoked, and the accusations were dismissed.


title: Jio

text: The 4G services were launched internally on 27 December 2015. The company commercially launched its 4G services on 5 September 2016, offering free data and voice services until 31 December, which was later extended until 31 March 2017. Within the first month, Jio announced that it had acquired 1.6 crore (16 million) subscribers and has crossed 5 crore (50 million) subscriber mark in 83 days since its launch, subsequently crossing 100 million subscribers on 22 February 2017. , it had about 13 crore (130 million) subscribers.


title: Jio

text: Jio owns spectrum in 850 MHz and 1,800 MHz bands in India's 22 circles, and also owns pan-India licensed 2,300 MHz spectrum. The spectrum is valid until 2035. Jio also picked up pan-India licenses in the 700 MHz, 3,500 MHz and 26 GHz spectrum bands in the DoT's 2022 5G auction.


title: Jio

text: Jio shares spectrum with Reliance Communications. The sharing deal is for 800 MHz band across seven circles other than the 10 circles for which Jio already owns.


title: Jio

text: Sep 2014 – Acquired undisclosed stake in Airspan Networks for US$5 mn. Deploys Airspan's small cells throughout the network roll out phase.


title: Jio

text: Sep 2016 – Jio signed a pact with BSNL for intra-circle roaming which would enable users of the operators to use each other's 4G and 2G spectrum in national roaming mode.


title: Jio

text: Reliance Jio also partnered with several OSS (Operations Support Systems) & BSS (Business Support System) companies for the deployment of services, like: SAP, HP, IBM, Ericsson, Rancore, Estel Technologies, Subex and Intec Telecom Systems. However, the finalized OSS firms were Ericsson, HP and Friendly Technologies.


title: Jio

text: Sep 2020 – Announces partnership with HFCL to deploy Fiber-optic communication to support the rollout of FTTx services.


title: Jio

text: Summit Digitel Infrastructure (formerly known as Reliance Jio Infratel Private Limited) operates 136,000 telecom sites. This division has been divested to Tower Infrastructure Trust, which is owned by Brookfield Asset Management, for a consideration of .


title: Jio

text: The company launched its 4G broadband services throughout India in September 2016. It was slated to release in December 2015 after some reports said that the company was waiting to receive final permits from the government. Jio offers fourth-generation (4G) data and voice services, along with peripheral services like instant messaging and streaming movies and music.


title: Jio

text: In August 2018, Jio began to test a new triple play fiber to the home service known tentatively as Jio GigaFiber, including broadband internet with speeds ranging from 100 to 1000 Mbit/s, as well as television and landline telephone services.


title: Jio

text: In August 2019, it was announced that the service would officially launch on 5 September 2019 as JioFiber, in honour of the company's third anniversary. Jio also announced plans to offer streaming of films still in theatres ("First Day First Show") to eligible JioFiber subscribers.


title: Jio

text: In the year 2015, the company has a network of more than of fiber optic cables in the country, over which it will be partnering with local cable operators to get broader connectivity for its broadband services.


title: Jio

text: In March 2021, the company has launched connectivity solutions for businesses bundled with services provided by Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail and Office 365.


title: Jio

text: In June 2015, Jio entered into an agreement with domestic handset maker Intex to supply 4G handsets capable of voice over LTE (VoLTE). However, in October 2015, Jio announced that it would be launching its own mobile handset brand named LYF.


title: Jio

text: On 25 January 2016, the company launched its LYF smartphone series starting with Water 1, through its chain of electronic retail outlets, Reliance Retail. Three more handset models have been released so far, namely Water 2, Earth 1, and Flame 1.


title: Jio

text: JioPhone is a line of feature phones marketed by Jio. The first model, released in August 2017 (with public pre-orders beginning 24 August 2017), was positioned as an "affordable" LTE-compatible feature phone. It runs the KaiOS platform (derived from the defunct Firefox OS), and includes a 2.4-inch display, a dual-core processor, 4 GB of internal storage, near-field communication support, a suite of Jio-branded apps (including the voice assistant HelloJio), and a Jio-branded application store. It also supports a "TV cable" accessory for output to an external display.


title: Jio

text: In July 2018, the company unveiled the JioPhone 2, an updated model in a keyboard bar form factor with a QWERTY keyboard and horizontal display. Jio also announced that Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube apps would become available for the two phones.


title: Jio

text: Prior to its pan-India launch of 4G data and telephony services, the firm has started providing free Wi-Fi hotspot services in cities throughout India including Surat, Ahmedabad in Gujarat, and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Indore, Jabalpur, Dewas and Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, select locations of Mumbai in Maharashtra, Kolkata in West Bengal, Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, Bhubaneswar in Odisha, Mussoorie in Uttarakhand, Collectorate's Office in Meerut, and at MG Road in Vijayawada among others.


title: Jio

text: In March 2016, Jio started providing free Wi-Fi internet to spectators at six cricket stadiums hosting the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 matches. .


title: Jio

text: On 24 June 2021, Mukesh Ambani announced the launch of JioPhone Next. It is a fully-featured Android smartphone co-developed with Google as part of its long-term partnership. The budget smartphone was launched in India on 4 November 2021.


title: Jio

text: The Jio Phone Next will be run by the indigenously built Pragati OS based on Android Go Operating System. This phone is classified as an entry-level phone and is aimed at replacing feature phones and providing basic smartphone services efficiently at low specifications.


title: Jio

text: In May 2016, Jio launched a bundle of multimedia apps on Google Play as part of its upcoming 4G services. While the apps are available to download for everyone, a user will require a Jio SIM card to use them. Additionally, most of the apps are in the beta phase. Notable apps include:


title: Jio

text: In September 2016, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) summoned Jio and the country's existing telecom operators like Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea Cellular to meet and discuss an issue regarding the interconnection between the operators. This was a result after Jio complained to TRAI and Department of Telecom (DoT) about other operators not honoring their commercial agreements to let Jio use their network resources. The company further added that the operators are trying to sabotage its entry into the telecom scene. However, DoT dismissed the request and directed TRAI to help settle the dispute amicably. Moreover, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) requested TRAI to include all the operators in the discussion instead of the three.


title: Jio

text: The incumbent operators had previously approached the country's PMO to reiterate their stance they ""are in no way obliged or in any position to entertain Jio's requests for interconnection points as they do not have either the network or the financial resources to terminate the latter's humongous volumes of potentially asymmetric voice traffic."" Responding to this, Mukesh Ambani, owner of Jio, said, ""All operators have publicly said last week that they will provide this (interconnect and MNP). So, we are waiting. These are all great companies. They have their own reputations to protect. I am confident they won't violate the law."" Commenting about number portability, he added, "The number belongs to the consumer. No operator can cause trouble if they want to change operators." However, on 12 September 2016, Idea Cellular agreed to allow Jio to use 196 of its interconnection access points.


title: Jio

text: On 10 July 2017, Jio's customer data was allegedly leaked on the website magicapk.com. The website was suspended shortly after the news of the breach broke out.


title: Jio

text: During the 2020–2021 Indian Farmers' Protest, farmers across multiple states in northern part of India boycotted and vandalized Jio's towers owing to allegations of Reliance Industries's support to controversial farm laws of India. Jio blamed its competitors Airtel and Vodafone for spreading rumours of "Reliance being an undue beneficiary in the farm bills", an allegation both the companies denied. The company saw a loss of around 25 lakh (2.5 million) subscribers in Punjab and Haryana between November and December 2020.


title: Jio

text: In January 2021, several social media posts started circulating linking bird deaths to Jio's 5G network trials. The claims were found to be fake as 5G trials were not yet permitted. The cause of the death of the birds is determined as due to an outbreak of bird flu.


title: Rafe Spall

text: Spall has appeared in films including "Kidulthood" (2006), "A Good Year" (2006), "One Day" (2011), "Anonymous" (2011), "Prometheus" (2012), "Life of Pi" (2012), "The Big Short" (2015), "The BFG" (2016), "The Ritual" (2017), and "" (2018). Spall played the title role of Pete Griffiths in "Pete versus Life" from 2010–2011, and has portrayed characters on the TV series "The Shadow Line" and "Black Mirror". Spall also appeared in the "Men in Black" spin-off film "" (2019).


title: Rafe Spall

text: Spall was born at King's College Hospital in Camberwell, London, the second of three children of Shane ("née" Baker) and actor Timothy Spall. Named after the protagonist in "The Knight of the Burning Pestle", a role his father played in the Royal Shakespeare Company and one he would later play himself, he always had ambitions to act. When he was 14, his father was diagnosed with myeloid leukaemia and spent the next 18 months in treatment.


title: Rafe Spall

text: Rafe was overweight as a teen, which he calls a "painful" experience. Having achieved poor grades at his school, Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College, he left to become an actor and joined the National Youth Theatre at 15. He failed to get into his chosen drama schools, such as RADA, at 17, but worked anyway. After being perennially cast in "fat" roles, he lost 77 lbs (35kg) at age 19, which brought more acting opportunities.


title: Rafe Spall

text: Spall has frequently collaborated with Edgar Wright, appearing in his films "Shaun of the Dead", "Hot Fuzz" and "The World's End" alongside Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Spall was also featured in Wright's segment in the 2007 Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez film "Grindhouse".


title: Rafe Spall

text: In 2007, Spall performed for the first time with his father in the ITV adaptation of "A Room with a View" playing father and son.


title: Rafe Spall

text: In 2012, Spall portrayed Canadian author Yann Martel in the Academy Award-winning drama film "Life of Pi", directed by Ang Lee and starring Suraj Sharma and Irrfan Khan. The film was a critical and financial success, winning four Academy Awards and making over $600 million at the box office. In 2013, he played the newlywed husband in "I Give It a Year", a comedy about the trials and tribulations of a couple during their first year of marriage.


title: Rafe Spall

text: In 2014, Spall appeared in the coming-of-age drama "X+Y", alongside Asa Butterfield and Sally Hawkins, and the seasonal family comedy "Get Santa". In 2015, he played John Hancock in the History Channel three-part series, "Sons of Liberty", alongside Jim Broadbent, and appeared in the Academy Award-winning biographical comedy-drama "The Big Short", alongside Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling and Steve Carell. Also that year, Spall played Harry Price in "Harry Price: Ghost Hunter", ITV's adaptation of Neil Spring's debut novel, "The Ghost Hunters". The film aired on ITV1 on 27 December.


title: Rafe Spall

text: Spall portrayed Eli Mills in "" (2018), the fifth instalment of Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" series, and directed by "The Impossible" helmer J. A. Bayona.


title: Rafe Spall

text: Since 2020, Spall has a leading role in the Apple TV+ comedy series "Trying", opposite Esther Smith and Imelda Staunton. The first season premiered on 1 May 2020. The second season premiered on 12 May 2021.


title: Rafe Spall

text: Spall says he has always struggled with his weight, going up to , but said that he was given so many character parts that he attempted to slim down, losing over . Like his father, he is a keen supporter of Crystal Palace. He is a patron of the Actors' Centre.


title: Rafe Spall

text: In February 2008, Spall met actress Elize du Toit; they were married on 14 August 2010 and live in West Kensington, London. They have three children: a daughter Lena, born 2011, a son Rex, born November 2012 and another son born in 2015.


title: Sentience

text: Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations. The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin "sentientem" (a feeling), to distinguish it from the ability to think ("reason"). In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations. In different Asian religions, the word 'sentience' has been used to translate a variety of concepts. In science fiction, the word "sentience" is sometimes used interchangeably with "sapience", "self-awareness", or "consciousness".


title: Sentience

text: Some writers differentiate between the mere ability to perceive sensations, such as light or pain, and the ability to perceive emotions, such as fear or grief. The subjective awareness of experiences by a conscious individual are known as qualia in Western philosophy.


title: Sentience

text: In philosophy, different authors draw different distinctions between "consciousness" and sentience. According to Antonio Damasio, sentience is a minimalistic way of defining consciousness, which otherwise commonly and collectively describes sentience plus further features of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts about something). These further features of consciousness may not be necessary for sentience, which is the capacity to feel sensations and emotions.


title: Sentience

text: According to Thomas Nagel in his paper "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?", "consciousness" can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or as some philosophers refer to them, "qualia"—in other words, the ability to have states that it "feels like something" to be in. Some philosophers, notably Colin McGinn, believe that the physical process causing consciousness to happen will never be understood, a position known as "new mysterianism." They do not deny that most other aspects of consciousness are subject to scientific investigation but they argue that qualia will never be explained. Other philosophers, such as Daniel Dennett, argue that qualia are not a meaningful concept.


title: Sentience

text: Regarding animal consciousness, according to the Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness, which was publicly proclaimed on 7 July 2012 at Cambridge University, consciousness is that which requires specialized neural structures, chiefly neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates, which manifests in more complex organisms as the central nervous system, to exhibit consciousness. Accordingly, only organisms that possess these substrates, all within the animal kingdom, are said to be conscious. Sponges, placozoans, and mesozoans, with simple body plans and no nervous system, are the only members of the animal kingdom that possess no consciousness.


title: Sentience

text: David Chalmers argues that sentience is sometimes used as shorthand for "phenomenal consciousness", the capacity to have any subjective experience at all, but sometimes refers to the narrower concept of "affective consciousness", the capacity to experience subjective states that have affective valence (i.e., a positive or negative character), such as pain and pleasure.


title: Sentience

text: While it has been traditionally assumed that sentience and sapience are, in principle, independent of each other, there are criticisms of that assumption. One such criticism is about recognition paradoxes, one example of which is that an entity that cannot distinguish a spider from a non-spider cannot be arachnophobic. More generally, it is argued that since it is not possible to attach an emotional response to stimuli that cannot be recognized, emotions cannot exist independently of cognition that can recognize. The claim that precise recognition exists as specific attention to some details in a modular mind is criticized both with regard to data loss as a small system of disambiguating synapses in a module physically cannot make as precise distinctions as a bigger synaptic system encompassing the whole brain, and for energy loss as having one system for motivation that needs some built-in cognition to recognize anything anyway and another cognitive system for making strategies would cost more energy than integrating it all in one system that use the same synapses. Data losses inherent in all information transfer from more precise systems to less precise systems are also argued to make it impossible for any imprecise system to use a more precise system as an "emissary", as a less precise system would not be able to tell whether the outdata from the more precise system was in the interest of the less precise system or not.


title: Sentience

text: The original studies by Ivan Pavlov that showed that conditioned reflexes in human children are more discriminating than those in dogs, human children salivating only at ticking frequencies very close to those at which food was served while dogs drool at a wider range of frequencies, have been followed up in recent years with comparative studies on more species. It is shown that both brain size and brain-wide connectivity contribute to make perception more discriminating, as predicted by the theory of a brain-wide perception system but not by the theory of separate systems for emotion and cognition.


title: Sentience

text: Eastern religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism recognise non-humans as sentient beings. The term "sentient beings" is translated from various Sanskrit terms ("jantu, bahu jana, jagat, sattva") and "conventionally refers to the mass of living things subject to illusion, suffering, and rebirth (Saṃsāra)". In some forms of Buddhism plants, stones and other inanimate objects are considered to be 'sentient'. In Jainism many things are endowed with a soul, "jīva", which is sometimes translated as 'sentience'. Some things are without a soul, "ajīva", such as a chair or spoon. There are different rankings of "jīva" based on the number of senses it has. Water, for example, is a sentient being of the first order, as it is considered to possess only one sense, that of touch.


title: Sentience

text: Sentience in Buddhism is the state of having senses. In Buddhism, there are six senses, the sixth being the subjective experience of the mind. Sentience is simply awareness prior to the arising of Skandha. Thus, an animal qualifies as a sentient being. According to Buddhism, sentient beings made of pure consciousness are possible. In Mahayana Buddhism, which includes Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, the concept is related to the Bodhisattva, an enlightened being devoted to the liberation of others. The first vow of a Bodhisattva states, "Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to free them."


title: Sentience

text: Sentience has been a central concept in the animal rights movement, tracing back to the well-known writing of Jeremy Bentham in "An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation": "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"


title: Sentience

text: Richard D. Ryder defines sentientism broadly as the position according to which an entity has moral status if and only if it is sentient. In David Chalmer's more specific terminology, Bentham is a "narrow sentientist", since his criterion for moral status is not only the ability to experience any phenomenal consciousness at all, but specifically the ability to experience conscious states with negative affective valence (i.e. suffering). Animal welfare and rights advocates often invoke similar capacities. For example, the documentary "Earthlings" argues that while animals do not have all the desires and ability to comprehend as do humans, they do share the desires for food and water, shelter and companionship, freedom of movement and avoidance of pain.


title: Sentience

text: Animal-welfare advocates typically argue that any sentient being is entitled, at a minimum, to protection from unnecessary suffering, though animal-rights advocates may differ on what rights (e.g., the right to life) may be entailed by simple sentience. Sentiocentrism describes the theory that sentient individuals are the center of moral concern.


title: Sentience

text: Gary Francione also bases his abolitionist theory of animal rights, which differs significantly from Singer's, on sentience. He asserts that, "All sentient beings, humans or nonhuman, have one right: the basic right not to be treated as the property of others."


title: Sentience

text: Andrew Linzey, founder of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics in England, considers recognising animals as sentient beings as an aspect of his Christianity. The Interfaith Association of Animal Chaplains encourages animal ministry groups to adopt a policy of recognising and valuing sentient beings.


title: Sentience

text: In 1997 the concept of animal sentience was written into the basic law of the European Union. The legally binding protocol annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam recognises that animals are "sentient beings", and requires the EU and its member states to "pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals".


title: Sentience

text: It is a subject of debate as to whether artificial intelligence can potentially display, or has displayed, the level of awareness and cognitive ability required of sentience in animals. Notably, the discussion on the topic of alleged sentience of artificial intelligence has been reignited as a result of recent (as of mid-2022) claims made about Google's LaMDA artificial intelligence system that it is "sentient" and had a "soul." LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) is an artificial intelligence system that creates chatbots — AI robots designed to communicate with humans — by gathering vast amounts of text from the internet and using algorithms to respond to queries in the most fluid and natural way possible. The transcripts of conversations between scientists and LaMDA reveal that the AI system excels at this, providing answers to challenging topics about the nature of emotions, generating Aesop-style fables on the moment, and even describing its alleged fears.


title: Sentience

text: However, the term "sentience" is not used by major artificial intelligence textbooks and researchers. It is sometimes used in popular accounts of AI to describe "human level or higher intelligence" (or artificial general intelligence).


title: Sentience

text: The sentience quotient concept was introduced by Robert A. Freitas Jr. in the late 1970s. It defines sentience as the relationship between the information processing rate of each individual processing unit (neuron), the weight/size of a single unit, and the total number of processing units (expressed as mass). It was proposed as a measure for the sentience of all living beings and computers from a single neuron up to a hypothetical being at the theoretical computational limit of the entire universe. On a logarithmic scale it runs from −70 up to +50.


title: Sentience

text: a. Quote: "The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates."


title: Sentience

text: b. Quote: "Granted, these animals do not have all the desires we humans have; granted, they do not comprehend everything we humans comprehend; nevertheless, we and they do have some of the same desires and do comprehend some of the same things. The desires for food and water, shelter and companionship, freedom of movement and avoidance of pain."


title: Animism

text: Animism (from Latin: " meaning 'breath, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and perhaps even words—as animated and alive. Animism is used in the anthropology of religion, as a term for the belief system of many Indigenous peoples, especially in contrast to the relatively more recent development of organized religions. Animism focuses on the metaphysical universe, with a specific focus on the concept of the immaterial soul.


title: Animism

text: Although each culture has its own mythologies and rituals, animism is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most indigenous peoples, that they often do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to "animism" (or even "religion"); the term is an anthropological construct.


title: Animism

text: Largely due to such ethnolinguistic and cultural discrepancies, opinions differ on whether animism refers to an ancestral mode of experience common to indigenous peoples around the world, or to a full-fledged religion in its own right. The currently accepted definition of animism was only developed in the late 19th century (1871) by Sir Edward Tylor. It is "one of anthropology's earliest concepts, if not the first."


title: Animism

text: Animism encompasses the beliefs that all material phenomena have agency, that there exists no categorical distinction between the spiritual and physical (or material) world, and that soul, spirit, or sentience exists not only in humans, but also in other animals, plants, rocks, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment: water sprites, vegetation deities, tree spirits, etc. Animism may further attribute a life force to abstract concepts such as words, true names, or metaphors in mythology. Some members of the non-tribal world also consider themselves animists (such as author Daniel Quinn, sculptor Lawson Oyekan, and many contemporary Pagans).


title: Animism

text: Sir Edward Tylor had initially wanted to describe the phenomenon as spiritualism, but he realized that such would cause confusion with the modern religion of spiritualism, which was then prevalent across Western nations. He adopted the term animism from the writings of German scientist Georg Ernst Stahl, who had developed the term " in 1708, as a biological theory that souls formed the vital principle, and that the normal phenomena of life and the abnormal phenomena of disease could be traced to spiritual causes.


title: Animism

text: Earlier anthropological perspectives, which have since been termed the old animism, were concerned with knowledge on what is alive and what factors make something alive. The old animism assumed that animists were individuals who were unable to understand the difference between persons and things. Critics of the old animism have accused it of preserving "colonialist and dualist worldviews and rhetoric."


title: Animism

text: The idea of animism was developed by anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor through his 1871 book "Primitive Culture", in which he defined it as "the general doctrine of souls and other spiritual beings in general." According to Tylor, animism often includes "an idea of pervading life and will in nature;" a belief that natural objects other than humans have souls. This formulation was little different from that proposed by Auguste Comte as "fetishism", but the terms now have distinct meanings.


title: Animism

text: For Tylor, animism represented the earliest form of religion, being situated within an evolutionary framework of religion that has developed in stages and which will ultimately lead to humanity rejecting religion altogether in favor of scientific rationality. Thus, for Tylor, animism was fundamentally seen as a mistake, a basic error from which all religions grew. He did not believe that animism was inherently illogical, but he suggested that it arose from early humans' dreams and visions and thus was a rational system. However, it was based on erroneous, unscientific observations about the nature of reality. Stringer notes that his reading of "Primitive Culture" led him to believe that Tylor was far more sympathetic in regard to "primitive" populations than many of his contemporaries and that Tylor expressed no belief that there was any difference between the intellectual capabilities of "savage" people and Westerners.


title: Animism

text: The idea that there had once been "one universal form of primitive religion" (whether labeled "animism", "totemism", or "shamanism") has been dismissed as "unsophisticated" and "erroneous" by archaeologist Timothy Insoll, who stated that "it removes complexity, a precondition of religion now, in "all" its variants".


title: Animism

text: Tylor's definition of animism was part of a growing international debate on the nature of "primitive society" by lawyers, theologians, and philologists. The debate defined the field of research of a new science: "anthropology". By the end of the 19th century, an orthodoxy on "primitive society" had emerged, but few anthropologists still would accept that definition. The "19th-century armchair anthropologists" argued, that "primitive society" (an evolutionary category) was ordered by kinship and divided into exogamous descent groups related by a series of marriage exchanges. Their religion was animism, the belief that natural species and objects had souls.


title: Animism

text: With the development of private property, the descent groups were displaced by the emergence of the territorial state. These rituals and beliefs eventually evolved over time into the vast array of "developed" religions. According to Tylor, as society became more scientifically advanced, fewer members of that society would believe in animism. However, any remnant ideologies of souls or spirits, to Tylor, represented "survivals" of the original animism of early humanity.


title: Animism

text: In 1869 (three years after Tylor proposed his definition of animism), Edinburgh lawyer John Ferguson McLennan, argued that the animistic thinking evident in fetishism gave rise to a religion he named "totemism". Primitive people believed, he argued, that they were descended from the same species as their totemic animal. Subsequent debate by the "armchair anthropologists" (including J. J. Bachofen, Émile Durkheim, and Sigmund Freud) remained focused on totemism rather than animism, with few directly challenging Tylor's definition. Anthropologists "have commonly avoided the issue of animism and even the term itself rather than revisit this prevalent notion in light of their new and rich ethnographies."


title: Animism

text: According to anthropologist Tim Ingold, animism shares similarities with totemism but differs in its focus on individual spirit beings which help to perpetuate life, whereas totemism more typically holds that there is a primary source, such as the land itself or the ancestors, who provide the basis to life. Certain indigenous religious groups such as the Australian Aboriginals are more typically totemic in their worldview, whereas others like the Inuit are more typically animistic.


title: Animism

text: From his studies into child development, Jean Piaget suggested that children were born with an innate animist worldview in which they anthropomorphized inanimate objects and that it was only later that they grew out of this belief. Conversely, from her ethnographic research, Margaret Mead argued the opposite, believing that children were not born with an animist worldview but that they became acculturated to such beliefs as they were educated by their society.


title: Animism

text: Stewart Guthrie saw animism—or "attribution" as he preferred it—as an evolutionary strategy to aid survival. He argued that both humans and other animal species view inanimate objects as potentially alive as a means of being constantly on guard against potential threats. His suggested explanation, however, did not deal with the question of why such a belief became central to the religion. In 2000, Guthrie suggested that the "most widespread" concept of animism was that it was the "attribution of spirits to natural phenomena such as stones and trees."


title: Animism

text: Many anthropologists ceased using the term "animism", deeming it to be too close to early anthropological theory and religious polemic. However, the term had also been claimed by religious groups—namely, Indigenous communities and nature worshippers—who felt that it aptly described their own beliefs, and who in some cases actively identified as "animists". It was thus readopted by various scholars, who began using the term in a different way, placing the focus on knowing how to behave toward other beings, some of whom are not human. As religious studies scholar Graham Harvey stated, while the "old animist" definition had been problematic, the term "animism" was nevertheless "of considerable value as a critical, academic term for a style of religious and cultural relating to the world."


title: Animism

text: The "new animism" emerged largely from the publications of anthropologist Irving Hallowell, produced on the basis of his ethnographic research among the Ojibwe communities of Canada in the mid-20th century. For the Ojibwe encountered by Hallowell, "personhood" did not require human-likeness, but rather humans were perceived as being like other persons, who for instance included rock persons and bear persons. For the Ojibwe, these persons were each wilful beings, who gained meaning and power through their interactions with others; through respectfully interacting with other persons, they themselves learned to "act as a person".


title: Animism

text: Hallowell's approach to the understanding of Ojibwe personhood differed strongly from prior anthropological concepts of animism. He emphasized the need to challenge the modernist, Western perspectives of what a person is, by entering into a dialogue with different worldwide views. Hallowell's approach influenced the work of anthropologist Nurit Bird-David, who produced a scholarly article reassessing the idea of animism in 1999. Seven comments from other academics were provided in the journal, debating Bird-David's ideas.


title: Animism

text: More recently, postmodern anthropologists are increasingly engaging with the concept of animism. Modernism is characterized by a Cartesian subject-object dualism that divides the subjective from the objective, and culture from nature. In the modernist view, animism is the inverse of scientism, and hence, is deemed inherently invalid by some anthropologists. Drawing on the work of Bruno Latour, some anthropologists question modernist assumptions and theorize that all societies continue to "animate" the world around them. In contrast to Tylor's reasoning, however, this "animism" is considered to be more than just a remnant of primitive thought. More specifically, the "animism" of modernity is characterized by humanity's "professional subcultures", as in the ability to treat the world as a detached entity within a delimited sphere of activity.


title: Animism

text: Human beings continue to create personal relationships with elements of the aforementioned objective world, such as pets, cars, or teddy bears, which are recognized as subjects. As such, these entities are "approached as communicative subjects rather than the inert objects perceived by modernists." These approaches aim to avoid the modernist assumption that the environment consists of a physical world distinct from the world of humans, as well as the modernist conception of the person being composed dualistically of a body and a soul.


title: Animism

text: She explains that animism is a "relational epistemology" rather than a failure of primitive reasoning. That is, self-identity among animists is based on their relationships with others, rather than any distinctive features of the "self". Instead of focusing on the essentialized, modernist self (the "individual"), persons are viewed as bundles of social relationships ("dividuals"), some of which include "superpersons" (i.e. non-humans).


title: Animism

text: Stewart Guthrie expressed criticism of Bird-David's attitude towards animism, believing that it promulgated the view that "the world is in large measure whatever our local imagination makes it". This, he felt, would result in anthropology abandoning "the scientific project".


title: Animism

text: Like Bird-David, Tim Ingold argues that animists do not see themselves as separate from their environment:


title: Animism

text: Rane Willerslev extends the argument by noting that animists reject this Cartesian dualism and that the animist self identifies with the world, "feeling at once "within" and "apart" from it so that the two glide ceaselessly in and out of each other in a sealed circuit". The animist hunter is thus aware of himself as a human hunter, but, through mimicry, is able to assume the viewpoint, senses, and sensibilities of his prey, to be one with it. Shamanism, in this view, is an everyday attempt to influence spirits of ancestors and animals, by mirroring their behaviors, as the hunter does its prey.


title: Animism

text: Cultural ecologist and philosopher David Abram promotes an ethical and ecological understanding of animism, grounded in the phenomenology of sensory experience. In his books "The Spell of the Sensuous," and "Becoming Animal," Abram suggests that material things are never entirely passive in our direct perceptual experience, holding rather that perceived things actively "solicit our attention" or "call our focus", coaxing the perceiving body into an ongoing participation with those things.


title: Animism

text: In the absence of intervening technologies, he suggests, sensory experience is inherently animistic in that it discloses a material field that is animate and self-organizing from the beginning. Drawing upon contemporary cognitive and natural science, as well as upon the perspectival worldviews of diverse indigenous oral cultures, Abram proposes a richly pluralist and story-based cosmology in which matter is alive. He suggests that such a relational ontology is in close accord with our spontaneous perceptual experience; it would draw us back to our senses, and to the primacy of the sensuous terrain, enjoining a more respectful and ethical relation to the more-than-human community of animals, plants, soils, mountains, waters, and weather-patterns that materially sustains us.


title: Animism

text: In contrast to a long-standing tendency in the Western social sciences, which commonly provide rational explanations of animistic experience, Abram develops an animistic account of reason itself. He holds that civilized reason is sustained only by intensely animistic participation between human beings and their own written signs. For instance, as soon as we turn our gaze toward the alphabetic letters written on a page or a screen, we "see what they say"—the letters, that is, seem to speak to us—much as spiders, trees, gushing rivers and lichen-encrusted boulders once spoke to our oral ancestors. For Abram, reading can usefully be understood as an intensely concentrated form of animism, one that effectively eclipses all of the other, older, more spontaneous forms of animistic participation in which we once engaged.


title: Animism

text: Religious studies scholar Graham Harvey defined "animism" as the belief "that the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human, and that life is always lived in relationship with others." He added that it is therefore "concerned with learning how to be a good person in respectful relationships with other persons."


title: Animism

text: In his "Handbook of Contemporary Animism" (2013), Harvey identifies the animist perspective in line with Martin Buber's "I-thou" as opposed to "I-it". In such, Harvey says, the animist takes an I-thou approach to relating to the world, whereby objects and animals are treated as a "thou", rather than as an "it".


title: Animism

text: There is ongoing disagreement (and no general consensus) as to whether animism is merely a singular, broadly encompassing religious belief or a worldview in and of itself, comprising many diverse mythologies found worldwide in many diverse cultures. This also raises a controversy regarding the ethical claims animism may or may not make: whether animism ignores questions of ethics altogether; or, by endowing various non-human elements of nature with spirituality or personhood, in fact promotes a complex ecological ethics.


title: Animism

text: Animism is not the same as pantheism, although the two are sometimes confused. Moreover, some religions are both pantheistic and animistic. One of the main differences is that while animists believe everything to be spiritual in nature, they do not necessarily see the spiritual nature of everything in existence as being united (monism), the way pantheists do. As a result, animism puts more emphasis on the uniqueness of each individual soul. In pantheism, everything shares the same spiritual essence, rather than having distinct spirits or souls.


title: Animism

text: In many animistic world views, the human being is often regarded as on a roughly equal footing with other animals, plants, and natural forces.


title: Animism

text: Traditional African religions: most religious traditions of Sub-Saharan Africa, which are basically a complex form of animism with polytheistic and shamanistic elements and ancestor worship.


title: Animism

text: In North Africa, the traditional Berber religion includes the traditional polytheistic, animist, and in some rare cases, shamanistic, religions of the Berber people.


title: Animism

text: In the Indian-origin religions, namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, the animistic aspects of nature worship and ecological conservation are part of the core belief system.


title: Animism

text: Matsya Purana, a Hindu text, has a Sanskrit language shloka (hymn), which explains the importance of reverence of ecology. It states, "A pond equals ten wells, a reservoir equals ten ponds, while a son equals ten reservoirs, and a tree equals ten sons." Indian religions worship trees such as the Bodhi Tree and numerous superlative banyan trees, conserve the sacred groves of India, revere the rivers as sacred, and worship the mountains and their ecology.


title: Animism

text: Panchavati are the sacred trees in Indic religions, which are sacred groves containing five type of trees, usually chosen from among the Vata ("Ficus benghalensis", Banyan), Ashvattha ("Ficus religiosa", Peepal), Bilva ("Aegle marmelos", Bengal Quince), Amalaki ("Phyllanthus emblica", Indian Gooseberry, Amla), Ashoka ("Saraca asoca", Ashok), Udumbara ("Ficus racemosa", Cluster Fig, Gular), Nimba ("Azadirachta indica", Neem) and Shami ("Prosopis spicigera", Indian Mesquite).


title: Animism

text: The banyan is considered holy in several religious traditions of India. The "Ficus benghalensis" is the national tree of India. Vat Purnima is a Hindu festival related to the banyan tree, and is observed by married women in North India and in the Western Indian states of Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat. For three days of the month of Jyeshtha in the Hindu calendar (which falls in May–June in the Gregorian calendar) married women observe a fast, tie threads around a banyan tree, and pray for the well-being of their husbands. Thimmamma Marrimanu, sacred to Indian religions, has branches spread over five acres and was listed as the world's largest banyan tree in the Guinness World Records in 1989.


title: Animism

text: In Hinduism, the leaf of the banyan tree is said to be the resting place for the god Krishna. In the Bhagavat Gita, Krishna said, "There is a banyan tree which has its roots upward and its branches down, and the Vedic hymns are its leaves. One who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas." (Bg 15.1) Here the material world is described as a tree whose roots are upwards and branches are below. We have experience of a tree whose roots are upward: if one stands on the bank of a river or any reservoir of water, he can see that the trees reflected in the water are upside down. The branches go downward and the roots upward. Similarly, this material world is a reflection of the spiritual world. The material world is but a shadow of reality. In the shadow there is no reality or substantiality, but from the shadow we can understand that there is substance and reality.


title: Animism

text: In Buddhism's Pali canon, the banyan (Pali: "nigrodha") is referenced numerous times. Typical metaphors allude to the banyan's epiphytic nature, likening the banyan's supplanting of a host tree as comparable to the way sensual desire ("kāma") overcomes humans.


title: Animism

text: Mun (also known as Munism or Bongthingism) is the traditional polytheistic, animist, shamanistic, and syncretic religion of the Lepcha people.


title: Animism

text: Shinto is the traditional Japanese folk religion and has many animist aspects. The Ryukyuan religion of the Ryukyu islands is distinct from Shinto, but shares similar characteristics.


title: Animism

text: Kalash people of Northern Pakistan follow an ancient animistic religion identified with an ancient form of Hinduism.


title: Animism

text: In the indigenous religious beliefs of the Philippines, pre-colonial religions of Philippines and Philippine mythology, animism is part of their core beliefs as demonstrated by the belief in Anito and Bathala as well as their conservation and veneration of sacred Indigenous Philippine shrines, forests, mountains and sacred grounds.


title: Animism

text: Anito (lit. '[ancestor] spirit') refers to the various indigenous shamanistic folk religions of the Philippines, led by female or feminized male shamans known as "babaylan". It includes belief in a spirit world existing alongside and interacting with the material world, as well as the belief that everything has a spirit, from rocks and trees to animals and humans to natural phenomena.


title: Animism

text: In indigenous Filipino belief, the Bathala is the omnipotent deity which was derived from Sanskrit word for the Hindu supreme deity "bhattara", as one of the ten avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu. The omnipotent Bathala also presides over the spirits of ancestors called Anito. Anitos serve as intermediaries between mortals and the divine, such as Agni (Hindu) who holds the access to divine realms; for this reason they are invoked first and are the first to receive offerings, regardless of the deity the worshipper wants to pray to.


title: Animism

text: The Old Testament and the Wisdom literature preach the omnipresence of God (Jeremiah 23:24; Proverbs 15:3; 1 Kings 8:27), including the New Testament where the Father is inside all (Ephesians 4:6), and God is bodily present in the incarnation of his Son, Jesus Christ. (Gospel of John 1:14, Colossians 2:9). Animism is not peripheral to Christian identity but is its nurturing home ground, its axis mundi. In addition to the conceptual work the term animism performs, its insight into the relational character and common personhood of material existence.


title: Animism

text: With rising awareness of ecological preservation, recently theologians like Mark I. Wallace argue for animistic Christianity with a biocentric approach that understands God being present in all earthly objects, such as animals, trees, and rocks.


title: Animism

text: Pre-Islamic Arab religion can refer to the traditional polytheistic, animist, and in some rare cases, shamanistic, religions of the peoples of the Arabian people. The belief in jinn, invisible entities akin to spirits in the Western sense dominant in the Arab religious systems, hardly fit the description of Animism in a strict sense. The jinn are considered to be analogous to the human soul by living lives like that of humans, but they are not exactly like human souls neither are they spirits of the dead. It is unclear if belief in jinn derived from nomadic or sedentary populations.


title: Animism

text: Some Neopagan groups, including Eco-pagans, describe themselves as animists, meaning that they respect the diverse community of living beings and spirits with whom humans share the world and cosmos.


title: Animism

text: The New Age movement commonly demonstrates animistic traits in asserting the existence of nature spirits.


title: Animism

text: A shaman is a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who typically enters into a trance state during a ritual, and practices divination and healing.


title: Animism

text: According to Mircea Eliade, shamanism encompasses the premise that shamans are intermediaries or messengers between the human world and the spirit worlds. Shamans are said to treat ailments and illnesses by mending the soul. Alleviating traumas affecting the soul or spirit restores the physical body of the individual to balance and wholeness. The shaman also enters supernatural realms or dimensions to obtain solutions to problems afflicting the community. Shamans may visit other worlds or dimensions to bring guidance to misguided souls and to ameliorate illnesses of the human soul caused by foreign elements. The shaman operates primarily within the spiritual world, which in turn affects the human world. The restoration of balance results in the elimination of the ailment.


title: Animism

text: Abram, however, articulates a less supernatural and much more ecological understanding of the shaman's role than that propounded by Eliade. Drawing upon his own field research in Indonesia, Nepal, and the Americas, Abram suggests that in animistic cultures, the shaman functions primarily as an intermediary between the human community and the more-than-human community of active agencies—the local animals, plants, and landforms (mountains, rivers, forests, winds, and weather patterns, all of which are felt to have their own specific sentience). Hence, the shaman's ability to heal individual instances of dis-ease (or imbalance) within the human community is a byproduct of their more continual practice of balancing the reciprocity between the human community and the wider collective of animate beings in which that community is embedded.


title: Animism

text: Animism entails the belief that "all living things have a soul", and thus, a central concern of animist thought surrounds how animals can be eaten, or otherwise used for humans' subsistence needs. The actions of non-human animals are viewed as "intentional, planned and purposive", and they are understood to be persons, as they are both alive, and communicate with others.


title: Animism

text: In animist worldviews, non-human animals are understood to participate in kinship systems and ceremonies with humans, as well as having their own kinship systems and ceremonies. Harvey cited an example of an animist understanding of animal behavior that occurred at a powwow held by the Conne River Mi'kmaq in 1996; an eagle flew over the proceedings, circling over the central drum group. The assembled participants called out ('eagle'), conveying welcome to the bird and expressing pleasure at its beauty, and they later articulated the view that the eagle's actions reflected its approval of the event, and the Mi'kmaq's return to traditional spiritual practices.


title: Animism

text: Some animists also view plant and fungi life as persons and interact with them accordingly. The most common encounter between humans and these plant and fungi persons is with the former's collection of the latter for food, and for animists, this interaction typically has to be carried out respectfully. Harvey cited the example of Maori communities in New Zealand, who often offer "karakia" invocations to sweet potatoes as they dig the latter up; while doing so there is an awareness of a kinship relationship between the Maori and the sweet potatoes, with both understood as having arrived in Aotearoa together in the same canoes.


title: Animism

text: In other instances, animists believe that interaction with plant and fungi persons can result in the communication of things unknown or even otherwise unknowable. Among some modern Pagans, for instance, relationships are cultivated with specific trees, who are understood to bestow knowledge or physical gifts, such as flowers, sap, or wood that can be used as firewood or to fashion into a wand; in return, these Pagans give offerings to the tree itself, which can come in the form of libations of mead or ale, a drop of blood from a finger, or a strand of wool.


title: Animism

text: Various animistic cultures also comprehend stones as persons. Discussing ethnographic work conducted among the Ojibwe, Harvey noted that their society generally conceived of stones as being inanimate, but with two notable exceptions: the stones of the Bell Rocks and those stones which are situated beneath trees struck by lightning, which were understood to have become Thunderers themselves. The Ojibwe conceived of weather as being capable of having personhood, with storms being conceived of as persons known as 'Thunderers' whose sounds conveyed communications and who engaged in seasonal conflict over the lakes and forests, throwing lightning at lake monsters. Wind, similarly, can be conceived as a person in animistic thought.


title: Animism

text: The importance of place is also a recurring element of animism, with some places being understood to be persons in their own right.


title: Animism

text: In the early 20th century, William McDougall defended a form of animism in his book "Body and Mind: A History and Defence of Animism" (1911).


title: Animism

text: Physicist Nick Herbert has argued for "quantum animism" in which the mind permeates the world at every level:


title: Animism

text: In "Error and Loss: A Licence to Enchantment", Ashley Curtis (2018) has argued that the Cartesian idea of an experiencing subject facing off with an inert physical world is incoherent at its very foundation and that this incoherence is predicted rather than belied by Darwinism. Human reason (and its rigorous extension in the natural sciences) fits an evolutionary niche just as echolocation does for bats and infrared vision does for pit vipers, and is—according to western science's own dictates—epistemologically on par with, rather than superior to, such capabilities. The meaning or aliveness of the "objects" we encounter—rocks, trees, rivers, other animals—thus depends its validity not on a detached cognitive judgment, but purely on the quality of our experience. The animist experience, and the wolf's or raven's experience, thus become licensed as equally valid worldviews to the modern western scientific one; they are more valid, since they are not plagued with the incoherence that inevitably crops up when "objective existence" is separated from "subjective experience."


title: Animism

text: Harvey opined that animism's views on personhood represented a radical challenge to the dominant perspectives of modernity, because it accords "intelligence, rationality, consciousness, volition, agency, intentionality, language, and desire" to non-humans. Similarly, it challenges the view of human uniqueness that is prevalent in both Abrahamic religions and Western rationalism.


title: Animism

text: Animist beliefs can also be expressed through artwork. For instance, among the Maori communities of New Zealand, there is an acknowledgement that creating art through carving wood or stone entails violence against the wood or stone person and that the persons who are damaged therefore have to be placated and respected during the process; any excess or waste from the creation of the artwork is returned to the land, while the artwork itself is treated with particular respect. Harvey, therefore, argued that the creation of art among the Maori was not about creating an inanimate object for display, but rather a transformation of different persons within a relationship.


title: Animism

text: Harvey expressed the view that animist worldviews were present in various works of literature, citing such examples as the writings of Alan Garner, Leslie Silko, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, Daniel Quinn, Linda Hogan, David Abram, Patricia Grace, Chinua Achebe, Ursula Le Guin, Louise Erdrich, and Marge Piercy.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Andrew Stephen Roddick (born 30 August 1982) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. He is a major champion, having won the 2003 US Open. Roddick reached four other major finals (Wimbledon in 2004, 2005, and 2009, and the US Open in 2006), losing to rival Roger Federer each time. Roddick was ranked in the year-end top 10 for nine consecutive years (2002–2010) and won five Masters titles in that period. He was also a crucial player in the U.S. Davis Cup team's successful run to the title in 2007. As of 2022, he is the most recent North American man to win a singles major (2003 US Open), the most recent to hold the world No. 1 ranking, and the most recent to claim the year-end world No. 1 ranking (which he achieved in 2003). Roddick retired from professional tennis following the 2012 US Open to focus on his work at the Andy Roddick Foundation. In retirement, Roddick played for the Austin Aces in World Team Tennis in 2015. He was also the 2015 and 2017 champion of the QQQ Champions Series. In 2017, Roddick was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. He is married to Brooklyn Decker, a swimwear model and actress.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Roddick was born on August 30, 1982, in Omaha, Nebraska, the youngest son of Blanche Corell, a school teacher, and Jerry Roddick, a businessman. Roddick has two older brothers, Lawrence and John, who were both promising tennis players at a young age.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Roddick lived in Austin, Texas, from ages 4 to 11, and then moved to Boca Raton, Florida, in the interest of his brother's tennis career, attending SEK Boca Prep International School, and graduating in 2000. Roddick also took high school classes online through the University of Nebraska High School.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Roddick considered quitting competitive tennis at age 17 when he had a losing streak in the juniors. His coach Tarik Benhabiles talked him into giving tennis four more months of undivided attention. Roddick finished as the No. 6 junior in the U.S. in 1999, and as the No. 1 junior in the world in 2000. He won six world junior singles titles and seven world junior doubles titles, and won the US Open and Australian Open junior singles titles in 2000.


title: Andy Roddick

text: In March in Miami, in the first round, Roddick had his first ATP level victory as he beat No. 41 Fernando Vicente of Spain, 6–4, 6–0. In August in Washington, D.C., he beat No. 30 Fabrice Santoro of France, 4–6, 6–3, 6–3. Roddick played the "Banana Bowl" in the city of São Paulo and won, beating Joachim Johansson in the final. Roddick also won the Australian Junior Open, defeating Mario Ančić in the final.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Entering the pros in 2001 at the age of 18, Roddick quickly showed his promise when he defeated 7-time Wimbledon champion and world No. 4 Pete Sampras in the third round of the Miami Masters 7–6, 6–3. Later that year, he dispatched then World No. 1 Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil, 6–7, 6–4, 6–2, in August. Earlier, at the 2001 French Open, Roddick defeated a French Open champion, Michael Chang, in a five set battle 5–7, 6–3, 6–4, 6–7, 7–5 in the second round. During the ensuing Wimbledon, he further showed potential by taking a set from eventual winner Goran Ivanišević.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Roddick's breakthrough year was 2003, in which he defeated Younes El Aynaoui in the quarterfinals of the 2003 Australian Open. Roddick and the Moroccan battled for five hours, with the fifth set (21–19 in favor of Roddick) at the time the longest fifth set in a Grand Slam tournament during the open era, at 2 hours and 23 minutes. Despite a lackluster French Open, Roddick enjoyed success in the United Kingdom by winning Queen's Club, beating No. 2 Andre Agassi, 6–1, 6–7, 7–6, along the way, and reaching the Wimbledon semifinals, where he lost to eventual champion Roger Federer in straight sets. He avenged that loss in August, beating then No. 3 Federer in Montreal, 6–4, 3–6, 7–6. It is one of three times that Roddick defeated Federer in an official ATP tournament.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Roddick's hard-court record in 2003 included his first Masters Series titles—coming at Canada and Cincinnati—and his only Grand Slam title. At the 2003 US Open, Roddick rallied from two sets down and a match point in the semifinals to beat David Nalbandian of Argentina, 6–7, 3–6, 7–6, 6–1, 6–3. He then defeated No. 3 Juan Carlos Ferrero in the final, 6–3, 7–6, 6–3. At the Tennis Masters Cup in Houston, he defeated No. 7 Carlos Moyá of Spain, and No. 4 Guillermo Coria of Argentina, before losing to Roger Federer in the semifinals. By the end of the year, at age 21, he was ranked No. 1, the first American to finish a year at No. 1 since Andre Agassi in 1999. He also became the youngest American to hold this rank since computer rankings were started in 1973.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Roddick's reign at No. 1 ended the following February, when Roger Federer ascended to the top position, after winning his first Australian Open; the 2004 Australian Open would be the only time in Roddick's career that he was the No. 1 seed in a Grand Slam. In April, Roddick again beat No. 6 Moyá. In June, Roddick advanced to his first Wimbledon final after taking the first set from defending champion Federer, losing in four sets. Roddick was knocked out during the 2004 US Open in a five-set quarterfinal against another big server, Joachim Johansson. In September, he beat No. 9 Marat Safin of Russia in Bangkok. At the 2004 Summer Olympics, Roddick lost to Chilean Fernando González, the eventual bronze medal winner, in the third round. In November he beat No. 7 Tim Henman of Great Britain, No. 4 Safin, and No. 6 Guillermo Coria. Later that year, Roddick teamed up with Mardy Fish and Bob and Mike Bryan on the U.S. Davis Cup team that lost to Spain in the final in Seville. Roddick lost his singles match against Rafael Nadal, who would in the following year win the French Open. Towards the end of 2004, Roddick fired his coach of 18 months, Brad Gilbert, and hired assistant Davis Cup coach Dean Goldfine. Roddick finished 2004 ranked as the world No. 2, U.S. No. 1, and player with the most aces (2,017). In 2004, Roddick saved fellow tennis player Sjeng Schalken and other guests (including close friends Ben Campezi and Dean Monroe) from a hotel fire.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Roddick's first 2005 tournament victory was the SAP Open in San Jose, California, where he became the first to win the event in consecutive years since Mark Philippoussis in 1999 and 2000. The top-seeded Roddick defeated Cyril Saulnier in 50 minutes, the event's first championship shutout set since Arthur Ashe beat Guillermo Vilas in 1975. In March, he defeated No. 7 Carlos Moyá. In April, Roddick won the U.S. Men's Claycourt Championships, reclaiming the title he won in 2001 and 2002. (He lost in 2003 to Agassi, and in 2004 to Tommy Haas.) At the Rome Masters in May, Roddick had match point in the round of 16 against Spain's Fernando Verdasco. Verdasco was attempting to save the match point on his second serve, when the linesman erroneously called the serve out. If this call had held, Roddick would have won the match. Roddick motioned to the umpire, pointing to the clear ball mark on the clay indicating that the ball was in, and the call was consequently changed. Verdasco went on to win the match. At the 2005 French Open, Roddick lost to unseeded Argentine José Acasuso in the second round, and at Wimbledon, Roddick lost to Federer in the final for the second consecutive year. In August, he defeated No. 3 Lleyton Hewitt at the Masters Series tournament in Cincinnati. At the US Open, Roddick was defeated by No. 70 Gilles Müller in the first round. Roddick's most recent US Open first-round loss had been in 2000. At the Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon, Roddick defeated Gaël Monfils to wrap up a tournament without losing a set or getting his serve broken.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Roddick's first ATP event of the year was the Australian Open. There, he reached the fourth round, before being upset by unseeded and eventual finalist, Marcos Baghdatis. At the French Open, Roddick retired in the first round, after sustaining a foot injury during the match. Two weeks later at Wimbledon, Roddick was upset in the third round by British hopeful Andy Murray. This loss caused Roddick to fall below the top 10 for the first time since 2002. After Wimbledon, Roddick began working with a new coach, tennis legend Jimmy Connors. In his first event with his new coach, Roddick reached the final of Indianapolis, before losing to good friend and fellow American, James Blake. His resurgence finally came at the Cincinnati Masters, where he won the event by defeating Juan Carlos Ferrero in the final, making this the first masters event he won since 2004. At the US Open, Roddick easily won his first two matches against Florent Serra and Kristian Pless. He then played a thriller five-set match against Fernando Verdasco, winning 6–2 in the final set. Next, he beat Benjamin Becker, who was coming off a huge win against recently retired Andre Agassi. In the quarterfinals, Roddick beat Lleyton Hewitt, avenging his loss in 2001, 6–3, 7–5, 6–4. Now in the semifinals for the first time since he won in 2003, Roddick played Mikhail Youzhny and beat him, 6–7, 6–0, 7–6, 6–3. In the finals of a Grand Slam for the first time since Wimbledon a year prior, Roddick played No. 1 Federer. He lost, however, 2–6, 6–4, 5–7, 1–6. He then qualified for the year-ending Tennis Masters Cup, where he defeated No. 4 Ivan Ljubičić of Croatia, 6–4, 6–7, 6–1, but lost in the round robin to No. 1 Federer, 6–4, 6–7, 4–6, in a tough three-set battle, despite holding three match points in the second-set tiebreaker.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Roddick entered the 2007 Australian Open as the sixth seed. In his first-round match, he lost a marathon first-set tiebreak 20–18, but eventually won the match in four sets against wild card Jo-Wilfried Tsonga from France. Roddick defeated 26th-seeded Marat Safin in the third round, and ninth-seeded Mario Ančić in a five-set fourth-round match. Roddick won his quarterfinal match against fellow American Mardy Fish. His run was ended in the semifinals by No. 1 Federer, who defeated him in straight sets, making his head-to-head record against Federer 1–13. In first-round Davis Cup action, Roddick helped the US defeat the Czech Republic, winning his singles matches against Ivo Minář and Tomáš Berdych. Roddick reached at least the semifinals of his next two tournaments. He bowed out to Andy Murray in the semifinals of the SAP Open in San Jose, California, a reprise of 2006. Roddick then defeated Murray in the semifinals of the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships and the Cellular South Cup in Memphis, Tennessee, before losing in the final to defending champion Tommy Haas. Reaching the final, however, enabled Roddick to overtake Nikolay Davydenko for the No. 3 position, his first week inside the top three since March 6, 2006. At the first ATP Masters Series tournament of the year, after beating No. 8 Ivan Ljubičić, Roddick reached the semifinals of the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, California, but lost to No. 2 Rafael Nadal.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Roddick then played the Miami Masters, where he gave up in his quarterfinal match against Andy Murray due to a left hamstring injury. Roddick then helped the U.S. defeat Spain and advance to the Davis Cup semifinals, winning his lone singles match against Fernando Verdasco. However, Roddick re-aggravated his hamstring injury during the Davis Cup tie, and was subsequently forced to pull out of the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships in Houston, Texas. Roddick also announced that he would withdraw from the Monte Carlo Masters, citing the injury. His next tournament was the Internazionali d'Italia. After a first-round bye, he won his first match against Gastón Gaudio, where he saved three break points and fired nine aces. However, he was unable to stop Juan Ignacio Chela in the third round. Roddick then withdrew from the Masters Series Hamburg tournament because, according to his website, he needed time to physically prepare himself for the upcoming French Open. Roddick was seeded third at the French Open, but was eliminated in the first round by Russian Igor Andreev in four sets. Roddick was victorious at the Stella Artois Championships for the fourth time, when he defeated Nicolas Mahut in the final. At Wimbledon, Roddick was seeded third and considered one of the pre-tournament favorites behind Federer and Nadal. He reached the quarterfinals after wins against Justin Gimelstob of the U.S., Danai Udomchoke of Thailand, Fernando Verdasco of Spain, and Paul-Henri Mathieu of France. In the quarterfinals, Roddick lost in five close sets to Richard Gasquet of France.


title: Andy Roddick

text: During the summer hard-court season, Roddick played four tournaments in four weeks. Roddick made it to the semifinals of the Indianapolis Tennis Championships, where he was upset by Frank Dancevic of Canada. The next week, however, Roddick claimed his second ATP title of the year by winning the Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Washington, D.C. for the third time, when he beat American newcomer John Isner. He then lost in the quarterfinals of the Rogers Cup in Montreal to Novak Djokovic, and in the third round of the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters tournament in Cincinnati to David Ferrer of Spain. At the US Open, Roddick defeated Gimelstob in the first round. He won his next three matches, one in straight sets and the other two when his opponent retired. In the quarterfinals, Roddick once again lost to Federer, bringing his head-to-head record with Federer 1–14. There were no breaks of serve and only one break point total in the first two sets, that being on Federer's serve.


title: Andy Roddick

text: Roddick then set his sights on the Madrid Masters, but pulled out, citing a knee injury. At his next tournament two weeks later in Lyon, France, Roddick lost in the first round to Frenchman Fabrice Santoro. Roddick then withdrew from the Paris Masters, incurring a $22,600 fine for not fulfilling his media obligations at the tournament. At the season-ending Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai, Roddick defeated No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko in his first round-robin match, and then defeated No. 7 Fernando González in his next match to become the first player to qualify for the semifinals of the tournament. In his third and final round-robin match, Roddick lost once again to Federer for the 15th time in 16 career matches. In the semifinals, Roddick lost to sixth seed David Ferrer, who had won all three of his round-robin matches. This was Roddick's third semifinal finish in five years at the Tennis Masters Cup (he reached the semifinals in 2003 and 2004, withdrew in 2005, and failed to advance to the semifinals in 2006 after a 1–2 round-robin record). Roddick finished the year by helping the U.S. defeat Russia and win the 2007 Davis Cup, its 32nd Davis Cup victory, but first since 1995. Roddick won his rubber against Dmitry Tursunov, before James Blake and Bob and Mike Bryan completed the victory. Having secured the tie with an unassailable 3–0 lead, Roddick decided to sit out his second singles rubber of the tie.