title: Billy Squier

text: Despite receiving considerable success at the local rock scene, Piper broke up. Squier signed a solo deal with Capitol Records in 1979 and started working on his solo debut "The Tale of the Tape", which was released in spring 1980. The album provided him with strong momentum, spending three months on "Billboard's" album chart, though peaking only at #169. Squier's first singles "You Should Be High Love" and "The Big Beat" missed the charts but got moderate radio play nationally. Along with Bobby Chouinard, his backing band consisted of Alan St. Jon on keyboards, Cary Sharaf on lead guitar, and Mark Clarke (who previously had short jobs in Uriah Heep and Rainbow) on bass.


title: Billy Squier

text: Following a small but fairly successful summer tour with Alice Cooper in 1980, Squier got in contact with Queen guitarist Brian May and asked him to produce his next album. Due to scheduling conflicts, May declined, but he recommended Reinhold Mack, who had produced Queen's most recent album "The Game." Squier and Mack joined forces to produce "Don't Say No", which earned rave reviews and spawned three hit singles. The first, "The Stroke," became his breakthrough hit, hitting Top 20 in the US and reaching the top five in Australia, as well as charting high in Canada and in Britain, where the song remains his only chart entry. "In the Dark" and "My Kinda Lover" were successful follow-ups. The album also includes "Lonely Is the Night", which became a radio favorite and one of his signature songs, despite not being released as a single (however, in Britain, it was the B-side for "In the Dark"). Squier was also popular on the new MTV cable channel, where his straightforward performance-based videos received heavy rotation. "Don't Say No" peaked at #5 on the "Billboard" 200 and lasted well over two years on the chart, eventually selling over 4 million copies in the US alone, making it Squier's most commercially successful album.


title: Billy Squier

text: Squier was known for being a perfectionist and short-tempered at producers sometimes. He ended his partnership with Mack after disagreements between the two escalated because of artistic differences. Despite the problems, Squier's third album "Emotions In Motion" was released in 1982 and became very successful, although in the long run, it didn't catch its predecessor in sales. Nevertheless, the album hit #5 in both US and Canada, sold approximately 3 million copies, and spawned the successful radio and video hits "Emotions in Motion" and "Everybody Wants You". The latter is notable for being Squier's first #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart and holding the place for six weeks straight, more than any other number one in 1982. During the tour for "Emotions in Motion", Squier and his band served as openers for the North American leg of Queen's 1982 Hot Space Tour and later, he finally became a headliner act for the first time. British newcomer Def Leppard supported him and he helped the band break through in the US, in conjunction with the release of their breakthrough album "Pyromania".


title: Billy Squier

text: Squier began writing songs for his fourth album "Signs of Life" in late 1983 after finishing his first headlining arena tour. He planned to have Robert John "Mutt" Lange as producer. However, Lange was already reserved by The Cars and suffered a breakdown afterward. Squier brought in Jim Steinman, whom he admired for Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell", which he described as "the most passionate and exciting rock record of our time". Steinman showed enthusiasm for the project and he got along well with Squier and his band, despite his role in the studio being significantly smaller than usual. The resulting album was a departure from Squier's typical guitar-heavy hard rock into a more keyboard-oriented style, with hints of Steinman's Wagnerian producing approach.


title: Billy Squier

text: When "Signs of Life" arrived in late July 1984, Squier was at the peak of his career. Fueled by the songs "Rock Me Tonite" and "All Night Long", the album brought his third consecutive platinum certification. The music video for "Rock Me Tonite", which featured Squier dancing in a bedroom wearing a pink tank top, proved a controversial choice by director Kenny Ortega. The 2011 book "I Want My MTV" promoted it as the worst video of all time. Martha Quinn, an MTV VJ when "Rock Me Tonite" was released, commented, "I don’t remember that video being poorly received at the time." Whether it was the video or the shift in music style or other factors, Squier stopped selling out shows. He fired both of his managers and insulted Ortega for misleading and deceiving him. Ortega has denied Squier's accusations.


title: Billy Squier

text: Apart from a few live appearances and a new song, "Shake Down" for the soundtrack of the film "St. Elmo's Fire", Squier stayed out of the spotlight for the majority of 1985, taking some time off and preparing his next album with British producer Peter Collins, who was known for his work with Nik Kershaw, Gary Moore, and Rush. 1986 saw the release of his fifth album "Enough Is Enough", which was carefully crafted, but still a commercial flop. The album spawned a minor hit, "Love Is the Hero", with Freddie Mercury on backing vocals. Mercury also co-wrote and arranged the song "Lady With a Tenor Sax", which also appears on the album. "Enough Is Enough" sold an estimated 300,000 copies. "Love Is the Hero" has usually been singled out for praise. Squier did not embark on a tour in support of the album.


title: Billy Squier

text: Squier spent the next three years working on his sixth full-length album, "Hear & Now", which was released in 1989. The album peaked at #64, but sold only 300,000, the same as "Enough Is Enough". "Don't Say You Love Me" was a modestly successful comeback single and his last Hot 100 hit, which peaked at #58 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went to #4 on the "Billboard" Mainstream Rock chart.


title: Billy Squier

text: Squier's seventh album, "Creatures of Habit", was released in 1991. Both critical and audience reception were mixed; many criticized the album for lacking innovation and being uninspired, mainly on the songwriting side. Some also found the album's polished sound somewhat outdated, since at the time of the album's release, alternative rock and especially grunge began ruling the rock scene. Peaking only at #117 in US, the album became his lowest charting since "Tale of the Tape". However, it contain the radio hits, "She Goes Down" and "Facts of Life". The former is Squier's last Top 5 on the Mainstream Rock charts and his highest charting radio single of the 1990s. "Creatures of Habit" was supported with a tour.


title: Billy Squier

text: In 1993, Squier released his final album with Capitol Records, "Tell the Truth," with different sets of musicians performing the various tracks. Despite Squier himself comparing it favorably to "Don't Say No," Capitol did little to nothing to promote it, which ended up becoming his first album not to chart at all and selling 37,000 US copies, per Nielsen Soundscan.


title: Billy Squier

text: In 1994, Squier's original screenplay "Run To Daylight" was short-listed at the Sundance Film Festival. The film itself was never produced. In 1995, Capitol released "16 Strokes: The Best of Billy Squier".


title: Billy Squier

text: On February 17, 1998, during the initial run of "," a monodrama about the life of Freddie Mercury, Squier debuted a song that he wrote in memory of his friend, titled "I Have Watched You Fly", on stage before a performance of the play. He introduced the song by saying, "I was privileged to know Freddie as a friend. I'm honored to share the stage with him in the afterlife."


title: Billy Squier

text: That same year Squier released independently his last studio album to date, a stripped-down acoustic blues effort entitled "Happy Blue." The album was both stylistically and also sonically a great departure from his typical hard rock sound, with the only musician playing on the album being Squier himself accompanied by acoustic guitar with no overdubs. For this album, Squier reworked his hit song "The Stroke" into an old-fashioned blues number, "Stroke Me Blues".


title: Billy Squier

text: The year 2001 marked the 20th anniversary of "Don't Say No." In the same year, Squier embarked on a concert tour that was his first large one since the 1991 tour for "Creatures of Habit."


title: Billy Squier

text: In 2004, "Everybody Wants You" was remixed with the group Fischerspooner's song "Emerge" and included on the "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" soundtrack. In 2006, Squier joined Richard Marx, Edgar Winter, Rod Argent, Hamish Stuart, and Sheila E touring with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band. A documentary of the tour, including a full-length concert performance, was subsequently made available on DVD. In 2007, Squier appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Ronnie Spector, Mitch Ryder, Tone Loc, Deniece Williams, Dr. Hook, and Tom Cochrane. In 2008, Squier joined Colin Hay, Edgar Winter, Gary Wright, Hamish Stuart, and Gregg Bissonette touring with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band. In 2009, Squier launched a nationwide summer/fall tour with a band that included drummer Nir Z, guitarist Marc Copely, long-time bassist Mark Clarke, and keyboard player Alan St. Jon.


title: Billy Squier

text: Squier played a special acoustic show at B.B. King's in New York on November 30, 2005. Highlights of the show were acoustic versions of "Everybody Wants You," "Nobody Knows," "Learn How to Live," "Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You," and most of the Happy Blue project. VH1 Classic and New York hard rock radio icon Eddie Trunk introduced Squier that night as "one of the greatest singer/songwriters in the history of rock."


title: Billy Squier

text: In May 2010, Squier was part of the Boston Legends Tribute to James Cotton including Magic Dick (J. Geils Band), the James Montgomery Band, Jon Butcher, Sib Hashian (Boston), Michael Carabello (Santana), the Uptown Horns, and James Cotton. Squier accepted Cotton's invitation in June to join him at the "James Cotton's Blues Summit" at Lincoln Center in NYC, along with the legendary Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin (Howlin' Wolf's band), Taj Mahal, and many more. In November, Squier appeared at the Iridium in New York and played a double set that night, "Blues Deluxe," that showcased songs from his blues upbringing and new versions of several of his hits.


title: Billy Squier

text: Shout! Factory released "Don't Say No: 30th Anniversary Edition" on July 27, 2010, marking the first time that this album had been remastered in over 20 years. It was released in collaboration with Squier, who provided two live bonus cuts from his personal collection. Also in that same year, all his albums except "Tell the Truth" and "Happy Blue", became available on digital and streaming. Later on, "Tell the Truth" joined in 2014 and "Happy Blue" in 2020.


title: Billy Squier

text: In October 2011, Squier performed at the third annual "Right to Rock" Celebration at the Edison Ballroom in New York (including Steven van Zandt and Lady Gaga) in support of the Little Kids Rock charity and performed "Lonely Is The Night" with a group of Jersey City students.


title: Billy Squier

text: In May 2012, Squier joined the Li'l Band O' Gold for several shows at the New Orleans Jazzfest. During Memorial Day weekend, Squier made a surprise appearance at the John Varvatos store in Easthampton, NY in support of his friend, rock photographer Rob Shanahan and his new book, "Volume One." In June, Squier performed at the "Industrial Hedgefund Awards Dinner" in New York, in another fundraising effort for 'Little Kids Rock.' In September, Squier appeared as a guest during the set of the James Montgomery Band at the Westport Blues Festival. In December, Squier headlined a fund-raising concert for "The American Revolution," a documentary on legendary rock FM station WBCN at the House Of Blues in Boston.


title: Billy Squier

text: In the summer of 2013, Squier performed his 'Electric Man' show at the Patchogue Music Festival on Long Island. In November, he played the Voodoo Festival in New Orleans. The Stooges, a local brass band (not to be confused with Iggy Pop's band), joined Squier on "The Stroke." At the same time, Eminem released 'Berzerk' which makes use of various samples from "The Stroke." Later, on his 2014 effort, "Shady XV," he sampled "My Kinda Lover."


title: Billy Squier

text: In 2002, Squier married Nicole Schoen, a German professional soccer player. They divided their time between a home in Bridgehampton, Long Island and an apartment in The San Remo on Central Park West in Manhattan, New York City. Squier had been, as of 2016, an active volunteer for the Central Park Conservancy for more than 17 years, physically maintaining of the park, as well as promoting the Conservancy in articles and interviews. He also supported the Group for the East End and its native planting programs on eastern Long Island.


title: Billy Squier

text: In 1985, Squier hired a helicopter from the Prince of Nepal and offered $10,000 in cash to two helicopter pilots to land him on the summit of Mount Everest. They turned him down, saying that it was too dangerous.


title: Arkane Studios

text: Arkane Studios SASU is a French video game developer based in Lyon. It was founded in 1999, and released its first game, "Arx Fatalis", in 2002. Besides the Lyon studio, Arkane Lyon, Arkane Studios operates Arkane Studios LLC (trading as Arkane Studios Austin) in Austin, Texas, since July 2006. The studio is most known for creating the "Dishonored" series.


title: Arkane Studios

text: Raphaël Colantonio had been part of the French offices of Electronic Arts (EA) during the 1990s, as part of the quality assurance and localisation team for some of Origin Systems' titles including "System Shock". In the late 1990s, Colantonio noted there had been a change in EA as with the release of the PlayStation, the company had shown more interest in sports titles and eschewing non-sports titles from companies like Origin. Colantonio left the company, and after a brief time at Infogrames, was able to co-found Arkane with financial help from his uncle, with their first goal to make a second sequel to "". Colantonio was among the eleven founders, of which six were developers, when the company was established on 1 October 1999 in Lyon, France, with an investment of 1,150,000 French francs.


title: Arkane Studios

text: While Colantonio had support from Paul Neurath, one of the original developers of "Ultima Underworld", EA, who owned the rights, would not allow Arkane to make a sequel with their intellectual property unless he accepted some of their provisions. Colantonio refused to accept this and instead had Arkane set out on a game in the spirit of "Ultima Underworld", "Arx Fatalis". Colantonio had difficulty in getting a publisher; with finances nearly exhausted, they had signed one small publisher who had gone bankrupt within the month, but later secured JoWooD Productions for publication, eventually releasing in 2002. While the game was well received, it was considered a commercial failure.


title: Arkane Studios

text: "Arx Fatalis" critical praise gave Arkane the opportunity for them to work with Valve to develop a new title on their Source engine, and Colantonio opted to make a sequel, "Arx Fatalis 2". However, the poor sales of the first game made it difficult to find a publisher; They were approached by Ubisoft and asked to apply the "Arx Fatalis" game engine to their "Might and Magic". This became "Dark Messiah of Might and Magic", released in October 2006. It refined the first-person melee combat of "Arx Fatalis" with a lesser emphasis on role-playing elements. During this time, Colantonio moved from France to Austin, Texas leaving the main studio in the hands of his colleagues while he set up Arkane Austin in June 2006. Over the next several years, most of the development work was done out of the Lyon studio where production costs were cheaper due to beneficial economic conditions, while the Austin studio was used for establishing relationships with other studios as to generate work-for-hire projects to augment Arkane's own projects.


title: Arkane Studios

text: Between 2006 and 2007, the company was working in conjunction with Valve to develop a spinoff game in the "Half-Life" series called "Ravenholm", expanding on work that Warren Spector's Junction Point Studios had done previously. While Arkane and Valve had worked together to produce about nine to ten levels for a playable alpha build, the project was cancelled, believed to be due to lateness and cost of the project to date. On completion of "Dark Messiah", Arkane started development of a new first-person shooter title, "The Crossing" using the Source engine. Colantonio described "The Crossing" as "crossplayer", having principally single-player gameplay but influenced by online multiplayer elements. The title had a budget of around $15 million, which made it difficult to find a publisher that did not include strict rules and requirements in the contract. While Colantonio had finally found one offer that was satisfactory to him, the studio was approached by EA to help work on "LMNO", a game it was developing with Steven Spielberg; as EA's offer was more valuable and more stable, Colantonio decided to cancel "The Crossing" to focus the studio on "LMNO". However, about two years after this, EA opted to cancel "LMNO" as well, forcing Arkane to take up assisting roles for a few years. This including developing the multiplayer component of Activision's "", and helping with "design, animation, and art" for 2K Marin's "BioShock 2".


title: Arkane Studios

text: While trying to grow the Austin studio, Colantonio met with Harvey Smith, a game developer that he had met earlier in his career and kept in contact with. Colantonio and Smith recognised they had several similar talents and initially felt that the two of them working in the same studio would be too troublesome, but they then considered if they were working on the same game together how their talents would mesh well. They quickly devised a "ninja pitch" that would tie into the basis of "Dishonored", and worked out how they would share responsibilities at the studio. Smith formally came on board Arkane in 2008.


title: Arkane Studios

text: Entering into 2010 with no game of their own, and their contract work having started to run down, the studio was preparing to let go of its staff to conserve costs. They were approached by Bethesda Softworks, who had an idea of a stealth-based game set in feudal Japan which they wanted to name "Dishonored", and felt Arkane's talents were ideal for the job and wanted to contract them for the title. According to Colantonio, Bethesda's vice-president of development Todd Vaughn had seen Arkane's work in "Arx Fatalis" and its sequel, and while Bethesda had been interested in these, they did not react fast enough before Arkane had taken another route. Vaughn told Arkane that they were interested in publishing a first-person immersive game, and Arkane was the only option they had. Colantonio recognised Bethesda was the best fit for Arkane, considering the similarities between "Arx Fatalis" and "The Elder Scrolls" games. Arkane worked under contract for a few months but soon were fully acquired by ZeniMax Media, Bethesda's parent, by August 2010, as part of ZeniMax's larger growth after recently acquiring id Software. With financial backing and a parent company that appreciated good game design, Arkane had the time and creative freedom to revamp Bethesda's original concept for "Dishonored" based on the pitch that Colantonio and Smith had earlier developed, and moved the setting from Japan to one inspired by London while retaining the "Dishonored" name and stealth aspects. "Dishonored" was released in 2012.


title: Arkane Studios

text: Smith moved to France to lead the Lyon studio in the sequel "Dishonored 2" which was released in November 2016, while Colantonio stayed at the Austin studio to lead the development of "Prey", a spiritual sequel of both "System Shock" and "Arx Fatalis", that was released in 2017. "Prey" shared its name only with the intellectual property that ZeniMax had acquired from Human Head Studios and their 2005 "Prey" and cancelled "Prey 2" games.


title: Arkane Studios

text: In June 2017, about two months following "Prey"s release, Colantonio announced he was stepping down as president of Arkane. He said in a statement: "It is time for me to step out to spend some time with my son and reflect on what is important to me and my future." Smith took over management of the Austin studio, while Colantonio stayed with the Lyon studio to help transition it to new management.


title: Arkane Studios

text: Arkane assisted other ZeniMax studios as they finished off support for "Dishonored 2" and "Prey"; these included supporting Bethesda Game Studios for "Fallout 76", and MachineGames in level design for "" and "". During Bethesda's E3 2019 press conference, Arkane Lyon unveiled its next game, "Deathloop", a science-fiction based first-person shooter with the player-character stuck in a time loop.


title: Arkane Studios

text: Following the release of "Deathloop", Romuald Capron, head of Arkane Lyon for seventeen years, announced in October 2021 he was stepping down and with Dinga Bakaba, Sébastien Mitton, Hugues Tardif and Morgan Barbe left in charge of managing the studio. Capron stated that he felt "the need to try something new" and "my goal is to keep on helping video game companies, and others, to make their creative vision become a reality, since that’s what I love to do". Bakaba was named as the studio head for Arkane Lyon in November 2021.


title: Arkane Studios

text: In addition to developing with third-party game engines, such as using CryEngine for "Prey", the studio has also developed their own Void Engine based on a heavily modified version of the id Tech 5 Engine, which they used for "Dishonored 2" and "Deathloop". According to "Dishonored 2"s art director Sébastien Mitton, Void uses about 20% of id Tech 5, the rest rewritten to have larger and denser maps.


title: Blood sugar level

text: Glycaemia, also known as blood sugar level, blood sugar concentration, or blood glucose level is the measure of glucose concentrated in the blood of humans or other animals. Approximately 4 grams of glucose, a simple sugar, is present in the blood of a 70 kg (154 lb) human at all times. The body tightly regulates blood glucose levels as a part of metabolic homeostasis. Glucose is stored in skeletal muscle and liver cells in the form of glycogen; in fasting individuals, blood glucose is maintained at a constant level at the expense of glycogen stores in the liver and skeletal muscle.


title: Blood sugar level

text: In humans, a blood glucose level of 4 grams, or about a teaspoon, is critical for normal function in a number of tissues, and the human brain consumes approximately 60% of blood glucose in fasting, sedentary individuals. A persistent elevation in blood glucose leads to glucose toxicity, which contributes to cell dysfunction and the pathology grouped together as complications of diabetes. Glucose can be transported from the intestines or liver to other tissues in the body via the bloodstream. Cellular glucose uptake is primarily regulated by insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas.


title: Blood sugar level

text: Glucose levels are usually lowest in the morning, before the first meal of the day, and rise after meals for an hour or two by a few millimoles.


title: Blood sugar level

text: Blood sugar levels outside the normal range may be an indicator of a medical condition. A persistently high level is referred to as hyperglycemia; low levels are referred to as hypoglycemia. Diabetes mellitus is characterized by persistent hyperglycemia from any of several causes, and it is the most prominent disease related to the failure of blood sugar regulation. There are different methods of testing and measuring blood sugar levels.


title: Blood sugar level

text: The intake of alcohol causes an initial surge in blood sugar and later tends to cause levels to fall. Also, certain drugs can increase or decrease glucose levels.


title: Blood sugar level

text: There are two ways of measuring blood glucose levels: In The United Kingdom and commonwealth countries (Australia, Canada, India, etc.) and ex-USSR countries molar concentration, measured in mmol/L (millimoles per litre, or millimolar, abbreviated mM). In the United States, Germany, Japan and many other countries mass concentration is measured in mg/dL (milligrams per decilitre).


title: Blood sugar level

text: Since the molecular weight of glucose CHO is 180, the difference between the two units is a factor of 18, so 1 mmol/L of glucose is equivalent to 18 mg/dL.


title: Blood sugar level

text: Normal value ranges may vary slightly between laboratories. Many factors affect a person's blood sugar level. The body's homeostatic mechanism of blood sugar regulation (known as glucose homeostasis), when operating normally, restores the blood sugar level to a narrow range of about 4.4 to 6.1 mmol/L (79 to 110 mg/dL) (as measured by a fasting blood glucose test).


title: Blood sugar level

text: Normal blood glucose level (tested while fasting) for non-diabetics is between 3.9 and 7.1 mmol/L (70 and 130 mg/dL). The global mean fasting plasma blood glucose level in humans is about 5.5 mmol/L (100 mg/dL); however, this level fluctuates throughout the day. Blood sugar levels for those without diabetes and who are not fasting should be below 6.9 mmol/L (125 mg/dL). The blood glucose target range for diabetics, according to the American Diabetes Association, should be 5.0–7.2 mmol/L (90–130 mg/dL) before meals and less than 10 mmol/L (180 mg/dL) two hours after meals (as measured by a blood glucose monitor).


title: Blood sugar level

text: Despite widely variable intervals between meals or the occasional consumption of meals with a substantial carbohydrate load, human blood glucose levels tend to remain within the normal range. However, shortly after eating, the blood glucose level may rise, in non-diabetics, temporarily up to 7.8 mmol/L (140 mg/dL) or slightly more. For people with diabetes maintaining "tight diabetes control", the American Diabetes Association recommends a post-meal glucose level of less than 10 mmol/L (180 mg/dL) and a fasting plasma glucose of 3.9 to 7.2 mmol/L (70–130 mg/dL).


title: Blood sugar level

text: The actual amount of glucose in the blood and body fluids is very small. In a healthy adult male of with a blood volume of 5 L, a blood glucose level of 5.5 mmol/L (100 mg/dL) amounts to 5 g, equivalent to about a teaspoonful of sugar. Part of the reason why this amount is so small is that, to maintain an influx of glucose into cells, enzymes modify glucose by adding phosphate or other groups to it.


title: Blood sugar level

text: In general, ranges of blood sugar in common domestic ruminants are lower than in many monogastric mammals. However this generalization does not extend to wild ruminants or camelids. For serum glucose in mg/dL, reference ranges of 42 to 75 for cows, 44 to 81 for sheep, and 48 to 76 for goats, but 61 to 124 for cats; 62 to 108 for dogs, 62 to 114 for horses, 66 to 116 for pigs, 75 to 155 for rabbits, and 90 to 140 for llamas have been reported. A 90 percent reference interval for serum glucose of 26 to 181 mg/dL has been reported for captured mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus), where no effects of the pursuit and capture on measured levels were evident. For beluga whales, the 25–75 percent range for serum glucose has been estimated to be 94 to 115 mg/dL. For the white rhinoceros, one study has indicated that the 95 percent range is 28 to 140 mg/dL. For harp seals, a serum glucose range of 4.9 to 12.1 mmol/L [i.e. 88 to 218 mg/dL] has been reported; for hooded seals, a range of 7.5 to 15.7 mmol/L [i.e. about 135 to 283 mg/dL] has been reported.


title: Blood sugar level

text: The body's homeostatic mechanism keeps blood glucose levels within a narrow range. It is composed of several interacting systems, of which hormone regulation is the most important.


title: Blood sugar level

text: These hormones are secreted from pancreatic islets (bundles of endocrine tissues), of which there are four types: alpha (A) cells, beta (B) cells, Delta (D) cells and F cells. Glucagon is secreted from alpha cells, while insulin is secreted by beta cells. Together they regulate the blood-glucose levels through negative feedback, a process where the end product of one reaction stimulates the beginning of another reaction. In blood-glucose levels, insulin lowers the concentration of glucose in the blood. The lower blood-glucose level (a product of the insulin secretion) triggers glucagon to be secreted, and repeats the cycle.


title: Blood sugar level

text: In order for blood glucose to be kept stable, modifications to insulin, glucagon, epinephrine and cortisol are made. Each of these hormones has a different responsibility to keep blood glucose regulated; when blood sugar is too high, insulin tells muscles to take up excess glucose for storage. Glucagon responds to too low of a blood glucose level; it informs the tissue to produce more glucose. Epinephrine prepares the muscles and respiratory system for activity in the case of a "fight and flight" response. Lastly, cortisol supplies the body with fuel in times of heavy stress.


title: Blood sugar level

text: If blood sugar levels remain too high the body suppresses appetite over the short term. Long-term hyperglycemia causes many health problems including heart disease, cancer, eye, kidney, and nerve damage.


title: Blood sugar level

text: Blood sugar levels above 16.7mmol/L (300mg/dL) can cause fatal reactions. Ketones will be very high (a magnitude higher than when eating a very low carbohydrate diet) initiating ketoacidosis. The Mayo Clinic recommends emergency room treatment above 16.7mmol/L (300mg/dL) blood glucose. The most common cause of hyperglycemia is diabetes. When diabetes is the cause, physicians typically recommend an anti-diabetic medication as treatment. From the perspective of the majority of patients, treatment with an old, well-understood diabetes drug such as metformin will be the safest, most effective, least expensive, and most comfortable route to managing the condition. Diet changes and exercise implementation may also be part of a treatment plan for diabetes.


title: Blood sugar level

text: Some medications may cause a rise in blood sugars of diabetics, such as steroid medications, including cortisone, hydrocortisone, prednisolone, prednisone, and dexamethasone.


title: Blood sugar level

text: If blood sugar levels drop too low, a potentially fatal condition called hypoglycemia develops. Symptoms may include lethargy, impaired mental functioning; irritability; shaking, twitching, weakness in arm and leg muscles; pale complexion; sweating; loss of consciousness.


title: Blood sugar level

text: Mechanisms that restore satisfactory blood glucose levels after extreme hypoglycemia (below 2.2 mmol/L or 40 mg/dL) must be quick and effective to prevent extremely serious consequences of insufficient glucose: confusion or unsteadiness and, in the extreme (below 0.8 mmol/L or 15 mg/dL) loss of consciousness and seizures. Without discounting the potentially quite serious conditions and risks due to or oftentimes accompanying hyperglycemia, especially in the long-term (diabetes or pre-diabetes, obesity or overweight, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, etc.), it is still generally more dangerous to have too little glucose – especially if levels are very low – in the blood than too much, at least temporarily, because glucose is so important for metabolism and nutrition and the proper functioning of the body's organs. This is especially the case for those organs that are metabolically active or that require a constant, regulated supply of blood sugar (the liver and brain are examples). In healthy individuals, blood glucose-regulating mechanisms are generally quite effective, and symptomatic hypoglycemia is generally found only in diabetics using insulin or other pharmacological treatment, and in starvation or severe malnutrition or malabsorption (of various causes), and conditions such as anorexia. Hypoglycemic episodes can vary greatly between persons and from time to time, both in severity and swiftness of onset. For severe cases, prompt medical assistance is essential, as damage to brain and other tissues and even death will result from sufficiently low blood-glucose levels.


title: Blood sugar level

text: Glucose testing in a fasting individual shows comparable levels of glucose in arterial, venous, and capillary blood. But following meals, capillary and arterial blood glucose levels can be significantly higher than venous levels. Although these differences vary widely, one study found that following the consumption of 50 grams of glucose, "the mean capillary blood glucose concentration is higher than the mean venous blood glucose concentration by 35%."


title: Blood sugar level

text: Glucose is measured in whole blood, plasma or serum. Historically, blood glucose values were given in terms of whole blood, but most laboratories now measure and report plasma or serum glucose levels. Because red blood cells (erythrocytes) have a higher concentration of protein (e.g., hemoglobin) than serum, serum has a higher water content and consequently more dissolved glucose than does whole blood. To convert from whole-blood glucose, multiplication by 1.14 has been shown to generally give the serum/plasma level.


title: Blood sugar level

text: To prevent contamination of the sample with intravenous fluids, particular care should be given to drawing blood samples from the arm opposite the one in which an intravenous line is inserted. Alternatively, blood can be drawn from the same arm with an IV line after the IV has been turned off for at least 5 minutes, and the arm has been elevated to drain infused fluids away from the vein. Inattention can lead to large errors, since as little as 10% contamination with a 5% glucose solution (D5W) will elevate glucose in a sample by 500 mg/dL or more. The actual concentration of glucose in blood is very low, even in the hyperglycemic.


title: Blood sugar level

text: Two major methods have been used to measure glucose. The first, still in use in some places, is a chemical method exploiting the nonspecific reducing property of glucose in a reaction with an indicator substance that changes color when reduced. Since other blood compounds also have reducing properties (e.g., urea, which can be abnormally high in uremic patients), this technique can produce erroneous readings in some situations (5–15 mg/dL has been reported). The more recent technique, using enzymes specific to glucose, is less susceptible to this kind of error. The two most common employed enzymes are glucose oxidase and hexokinase. Average blood glucose concentrations can also be measured. This method measures the level of glycated hemoglobin, which is representative of the average blood glucose levels over the last, approximately, 120 days.


title: Blood sugar level

text: In either case, the chemical system is commonly contained on a test strip which is inserted into a meter, and then has a blood sample applied. Test-strip shapes and their exact chemical composition vary between meter systems and cannot be interchanged. Formerly, some test strips were read (after timing and wiping away the blood sample) by visual comparison against a color chart printed on the vial label. Strips of this type are still used for urine glucose readings, but for blood glucose levels they are obsolete. Their error rates were, in any case, much higher. Errors when using test strips were often caused by the age of the strip or exposure to high temperatures or humidity. More precise blood glucose measurements are performed in a medical laboratory, using hexokinase, glucose oxidase, or glucose dehydrogenase enzymes.


title: Blood sugar level

text: Urine glucose readings, however taken, are much less useful. In properly functioning kidneys, glucose does not appear in urine until the renal threshold for glucose has been exceeded. This is substantially above any normal glucose level, and is evidence of an existing severe hyperglycemic condition. However, as urine is stored in the bladder, any glucose in it might have been produced at any time since the last time the bladder was emptied. Since metabolic conditions change rapidly, as a result of any of several factors, this is delayed news and gives no warning of a developing condition. Blood glucose monitoring is far preferable, both clinically and for home monitoring by patients. Healthy urine glucose levels were first standardized and published in 1965 by Hans Renschler.


title: Blood sugar level

text: A noninvasive method of sampling to monitor glucose levels has emerged using an "exhaled breath condensate". However this method does need highly sensitive glucose biosensors.


title: Blood sugar level

text: The fasting blood glucose level, which is measured after a fast of 8 hours, is the most commonly used indication of overall glucose homeostasis, largely because disturbing events such as food intake are avoided. Conditions affecting glucose levels are shown in the table below. Abnormalities in these test results are due to problems in the multiple control mechanism of glucose regulation.


title: Blood sugar level

text: The metabolic response to a carbohydrate challenge is conveniently assessed by a postprandial glucose level drawn 2 hours after a meal or a glucose load. In addition, the glucose tolerance test, consisting of several timed measurements after a standardized amount of oral glucose intake, is used to aid in the diagnosis of diabetes.


title: Blood sugar level

text: Error rates for blood glucose measurements systems vary, depending on laboratories, and on the methods used. Colorimetry techniques can be biased by color changes in test strips (from airborne or finger-borne contamination, perhaps) or interference (e.g., tinting contaminants) with light source or the light sensor. Electrical techniques are less susceptible to these errors, though not to others. In home use, the most important issue is not accuracy, but trend. Thus if a meter / test strip system is consistently wrong by 10%, there will be little consequence, as long as changes (e.g., due to exercise or medication adjustments) are properly tracked. In the US, home use blood test meters must be approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration before they can be sold.


title: Blood sugar level

text: Finally, there are several influences on blood glucose level aside from food intake. Infection, for instance, tends to change blood glucose levels, as does stress either physical or psychological. Exercise, especially if prolonged or long after the most recent meal, will have an effect as well. In the typical person, maintenance of blood glucose at near constant levels will nevertheless be quite effective.


title: Secular state

text: A secular state is an idea pertaining to secularity, whereby a state is or purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion. A secular state claims to treat all its citizens equally regardless of religion, and claims to avoid preferential treatment for a citizen based on their religious beliefs, affiliation or lack of either over those with other profiles.


title: Secular state

text: Although secular states have no state religion, the absence of an established state religion does not mean that a state is completely secular or egalitarian. For example, some states that describe themselves as secular have religious references in their national anthems and flags, or laws that benefit one religion or another.


title: Secular state

text: Secularity can be established at a state's creation (e.g., the Soviet Union, the United States) or by it later secularizing (e.g., France or Nepal). Movements for "laïcité" in France and separation of church and state in the United States have defined modern concepts of secularism, the United States of America being the first explicitly secular nation in Western history. Historically, the process of secularisation typically involves granting religious freedom, disestablishing state religions, stopping public funds being used for religion, freeing the legal system from religious control, freeing up the education system, tolerating citizens who change religion or abstain from religion, and allowing political leaders to come to power regardless of their religious beliefs.


title: Secular state

text: In France, Italy, and Spain, for example, official holidays for the public administration tend to be Christian feast days. Any private school in France that contracts with "Éducation nationale" means its teachers are salaried by the state—most of the Catholic schools are in this situation and, because of history, they are the majority; however, any other religious or non-religious schools also contract this way. In some European states where secularism confronts monoculturalist philanthropy, some of the main Christian sects and sects of other religions depend on the state for some of the financial resources for their religious charities. It is common in corporate law and charity law to prohibit organized religion from using those funds to organize religious worship in a separate place of worship or for conversion; the religious body itself must provide the religious content, educated clergy and laypersons to exercise its own functions and may choose to devote part of their time to the separate charities. To that effect, some of those charities establish secular organizations that manage part of or all of the donations from the main religious bodies.


title: Secular state

text: Religious and non-religious organizations can apply for equivalent funding from the government and receive subsidies based on either assessed social results where there is indirect religious state funding, or simply the number of beneficiaries of those organizations. This resembles charitable choice in the United States. It is doubtful whether overt direct state funding of religions is in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights. Apparently, this issue has not yet been decided at a supranational level in ECtHR case law stemming from the rights in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which mandates non-discrimination in affording its co-listed basic social rights. Specifically, funding certain services would not accord with non-discriminatory state action.


title: Secular state

text: Many states that are nowadays secular in practice may have legal vestiges of an earlier established religion. Secularism also has various guises that may coincide with some degree of official religiosity. In the United Kingdom, the head of state is still required to take the Coronation Oath enacted in 1688, swearing to maintain the Protestant Reformed religion and to preserve the established Church of England. The UK also maintains seats in the House of Lords for 26 senior clergymen of the Church of England, known as the Lords Spiritual. In Canada the "Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms" affords secular freedoms of conscience and religion, thought, belief, opinion and expression, including communication, assembly and association yet the Charter's preamble maintains the concept of "the supremacy of God" which would appear to disadvantage those who hold nontheistic or polytheistic beliefs, including atheism and Buddhism. Italy has been a secular state since the enactment of the Constitution in 1948 (stressed by a Constitutional court's decision in 1985), but still recognizes a special status for the Catholic Church. The reverse progression can also occur, however; a state can go from being secular to being a religious state, as in the case of Iran where the secularized Imperial State of Iran was replaced by an Islamic Republic (list below). Nonetheless, the last 250 years has seen a trend towards secularism.


title: Secular state

text: This is the list of countries that are explicitly described as secular in their constitutions or other official state documents.


title: Bunty Aur Babli 2

text: Bunty Aur Babli 2 is a 2021 Indian Hindi-language crime comedy film written and directed by debutante Varun V. Sharma, based on a story by producer Aditya Chopra, under the Yash Raj Films banner. A sequel to the 2005 film "Bunty Aur Babli", the film stars Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukerji, Siddhant Chaturvedi and debutante Sharvari Wagh.


title: Bunty Aur Babli 2

text: Initially planned for release in June 2020 and then in April 2021, the film was postponed on both occasions due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. It was finally released theatrically on 19 November 2021.


title: Bunty Aur Babli 2

text: Sixteen years have passed since Rakesh Trivedi (Saif Ali Khan) and his wife Vimmi Saluja Trivedi (Rani Mukerji) retired from conning others with the brand "Bunty Aur Babli" for money, having been let go by DCP Dashrath Singh.


title: Bunty Aur Babli 2

text: A businessman named Chaddha (Neeraj Sood), as well as his rich affiliates, decide to invest money in a "party nation" by Chaddha's assistant and his friend. However, it soon turns out that Chaddha and his associates have been conned, and the culprits, revealed to be Kunal Singh (Siddhant Chaturvedi) and Sonia Rawat (Sharvari Wagh), decide to take on the pseudonym "Bunty Aur Babli", having heard stories of the original "Bunty Aur Babli" who were never caught, assuming that they would be able to escape from the clutches of the law, too. Rakesh has since become a railway ticket collector at Phursatganj, Uttar Pradesh and Vimmi, a homemaker who looks after her now grown up son, Pappu. Pretty soon, they are holed up by the police, whence Inspector Jatayu Singh, who previously served as JCP Dashrath's junior, refuses to take their word for it after confronting them with the "Bunty Aur Babli" fiasco, and keeps them under prison surveillance. Despite these efforts, however, Varanasi's Mayor Chutvaa Chaubey is conned by "Bunty Aur Babli" yet again, albeit on a good note for a social cause. Nonetheless, a fuming Rakesh and Vimmi decide to find out whoever is misusing their identity and capture the flag, claiming that they are the real players. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game and, later as the duo discover Kunal's and Sonia's identity, a war between the two con-couples, which culminates in a con job in Abu Dhabi.


title: Bunty Aur Babli 2

text: The film was announced in December 2019 as a spiritual sequel to the 2005 film in December 2019 by Yash Raj Films. Siddhant Chaturvedi and newcomer Sharvari Wagh were chosen as the younger leads of the film. While both Rani Mukerji and Abhishek Bachchan were asked by Yash Raj Films to reprise their roles, Bachchan was unable to confirm, leading to Saif Ali Khan being cast opposite Mukerji.


title: Bunty Aur Babli 2

text: The film was announced on 17 December 2019 and filming started on the same day. Although scheduled for theatrical release on 26 June 2020, the release was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was wrapped up in September 2020. The release was postponed due to Coronavirus second wave. It was released theatrically on 19 November 2021.


title: Bunty Aur Babli 2

text: Upon release, "Bunty Aur Babli 2" received mixed to negative reviews from the film critics. On the review aggregator website "Rotten Tomatoes", the film holds a score of 18% based on 11 reviews and an average rating of 4.75/10.


title: Bunty Aur Babli 2

text: Karishma Shetty of "Pinkvilla" gave the film a rating of 3/5 and wrote, ‘‘"Bunty Aur Babli 2" is a cinematic heist that we didn't sign up for but the scene-stealing cast reels you in and are successfully able to scam you out of your hard-earned money for a one-time movie ticket and popcorn.’’ Monika Rawal Kukreja of "Hindustan Times" described the film as a ‘‘snooze-fest’’ and wrote, ‘‘Rani Mukerji is the saving grace in this snooze-fest, don't watch even if paid for it.’’ She called it a ‘‘terribly-written and poorly-executed film’’ and further wrote, ‘‘"Bunty Aur Babli 2" had all the right ingredients to serve a perfect dish, but too much mixing left it with no great after taste.’’ Shalini Langer from "The Indian Express" gave the film a rating of 2.5/5 and wrote, ‘‘Director Varun V. Sharma doesn’t think Rani Mukherji-Saif Ali Khan are enough to repeat the success of the original, so he keeps falling back on Siddhant and Sharvari, who are not bad but nothing we haven’t seen before. However, his bigger crime is reducing the original Bunty and Babli to colorful, atrocious parodies of their selves.’’ Ronak Kotecha from "The Times of India" gave the film a rating of 2.5/5 and wrote, ‘‘"Bunty Aur Babli 2" had an exciting premise to revive the two iconic characters, but this sequel feels like quite a con-job in comparison with its original.’’ Saibal Chatterjee from "NDTV" gave the film a rating of 2/5 and wrote, ‘‘Comic timing comes easy to Rani and Saif; They are saddled with wisecracks that are devoid of wisdom. Siddhant and Sharvari, who don a variety of guises, make an enthusiastic screen pair; But the script plays spoilsport." Anupama Chopra of "Film Companion" wrote, ‘‘"Bunty Aur Babli 2" has a repetitive plot and forgettable dialogues; Few of the jokes land and the ease with which the cons are pulled off becomes, beyond a point, plain silly.’’


title: Bunty Aur Babli 2

text: "Bollywood Hungama" gave the film a rating of 1.5/5 and wrote, ‘‘"Bunty Aur Babli 2" is a poor show and no way close to the first part.’’ They praised the performances of Chaturvedi and Wagh, but criticized Mukerji and Khan's performance by stating, ‘‘Rani Mukerji is too loud and over the top and is not in sync with her character in the first half; Saif Ali Khan is not in a great form and its pretty shocking since he's known to ace in all kinds of genres. Siddhant Chaturvedi leaves a mark and proves that he's a hero material and Sharvari Wagh makes a confident debut and looks sizzling.’’ Devansh Sharma of "Firstpost" gave the film a rating of 2/5 and wrote, ‘‘"Bunty Aur Babli 2" is sincere in its attempt to keep the brand alive and continue the narrative organically; But it chooses to ignore all the signs, all the red flags, and decides to cover them up under a flashy exterior. It touches upon the pros and cons of conning in the age of internet and social media, but only superficially. It also comments on the unsuccessful attempts at Ganga rejuvenation by the current government, but never takes a dive into it.’’


title: Bunty Aur Babli 2

text: "Bunty Aur Babli 2" earned 2.60 crore at the domestic box office on its opening day and 8.30 crore in its opening weekend.


title: Bunty Aur Babli 2

text: As of December 16, 2021, the film has earned 14.88 crore in India and 7.24 crore overseas, for a worldwide total of crore.


title: Bunty Aur Babli 2

text: The film's music was composed by Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy while the lyrics were written by Amitabh Bhattacharya.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission is a country-wide campaign initiated by the Government of India in 2014 to eliminate open defecation and improve solid waste management. It is a restructured version of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan launched in 2009 and carried out by predecessor Manmohan Singh that failed to achieve its intended targets.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: Initiated by the Government of India, the mission aimed to achieve an "open-defecation free" (ODF) India by 2 October 2019, the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi through construction of toilets. An estimated 89.9 million toilets were built in the period. The objectives of the first phase of the mission also included eradication of manual scavenging, generating awareness and bringing about a behavior change regarding sanitation practices, and augmentation of capacity at the local level.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The second phase of the mission aims to sustain the open defecation free status and improve the management of solid and liquid waste, while also working to improve the lives of sanitation workers. The mission is aimed at progressing towards target 6.2 of the Sustainable Development Goals Number 6 established by the United Nations in 2015.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The campaign's official name is in Hindi. In English, it translates to "Clean India Mission". The campaign was officially launched on 2 October 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is India's largest cleanliness drive to date with three million government employees and students from all parts of India participating in 4,043 cities, towns, and rural communities.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: At a rally in Champaran, the Prime Minister called the campaign "Satyagrah se Swatchhagrah" in reference to Gandhi's "Champaran Satyagraha" launched on 10 April 1916.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The mission was split into two: rural and urban. In rural areas "SBM - Gramin" was financed and monitored through the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (since converted to the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation under the Ministry of Jal Shakti) whereas "SBM - urban" was overseen by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: As part of the campaign, volunteers, known as "Swatchhagrahis", or "Ambassadors of cleanliness", promoted the construction of toilets using a popular method called Community-Led Total Sanitation at the village level. Other activities included national real-time monitoring and updates from non-governmental organizations such as The Ugly Indian, Waste Warriors, and SWACH Pune (Solid Waste Collection and Handling).


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The government provided subsidy for construction of nearly 90 million toilets between 2014 and 2019, although some Indians especially in rural areas choose to not use them. The campaign was criticized for using coercive approaches to force people to use toilets. Some people were stopped from defecating in open and threatened with withdrawal from government benefits.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The campaign was financed by the Government of India and state governments. The former released $5.8 billion (Rs 40,700 crore) funds for toilet construction 700,000 villages. The total budget for the rural and urban components was estimated at $28 billion, 93 per cent for construction and the rest for behaviour change campaigns and administration.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: In 2011, the Census revealed that sanitation coverage as measured by the number of households owning toilets was just 34 per cent in rural India. An estimated 600 million people defecated in the open, the highest of any country in the world. Coverage about open defecation and contamination of drinking and bathing water in India prompted the government to take measures to deal with the problem.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The first formal sanitation programme was first launched in 1954, followed by Central Rural Sanitation Programme in 1986. These were construction-led and achieved very little. The Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) was started in 1999 and Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan in 2012 to generate demand for sanitation, linked to subsidy payments for the construction of toilets by families living below the poverty line.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: A limited randomized study of eighty villages in rural (Madhya Pradesh) showed that the TSC programme did modestly increase the number of households with latrines, and had a small effect in reducing open defecation. Of the 138.2 million rural households in India (a 2001 figure), nearly 3.5 million constructed toilets. However, there was no improvement in the health of children." The earlier "Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan" rural sanitation program was hampered by the unrealistic approach. Consequently, Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan was restructured by Cabinet approval on 24 September 2014 as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The rural household toilet coverage in India increased from 1% in 1981 to 11% in 1991, to 22% in 2001, to 32.7% in 2011. The National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey of India reported that 96.5% of rural households in India had toilets. in a 2019-2020 report the number was reduced to 1.4% or 19 million. Since 2014, the Government of India, has made remarkable strides in reaching the Open Defecation Free targets. 36 states and union territories, 706 districts and over 603,175 villages have been declared open defecation free as of Jan 2020. India has constructed an impressive number of toilets under SBM in just five years.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: Where it achieved a measure of success, SBM built on the earlier sanitation programmes. It refined their approaches and templatised the action plan for districts. From the early 2010s, several district collectors and magistrates from West Bengal to Rajasthan experimented with different methods to engage local people and panchayats in community mobilisation. They selected swachhagrahis, trained them and released them for campaigns on a schedule. They were paid from sanitation funds. In states with strong panchayats these measures bore fruit and the gains of sanitation, that is toilet construction, were backed by usage. In other states, little was achieved beyond toilet construction.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The core objectives of the first phase of the mission were to reduce open defecation and improve management of municipal solid waste in both urban and rural areas. Elimination of open defecation was to be achieved through construction of individual household level toilets (often twin pit pour flush pit latrines), toilets and public toilets. For improving solid waste management, cities were encouraged to prepare detailed project reports that are bankable and have a financial model.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The second phase on the other hand focuses on sustaining gains of the first phase and improving management of the solid and liquid wastes.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: SBM was budgeted at $28 billion. The government provides an incentive of for each toilet constructed by a rural family. An amount of was allocated for the mission in the 2016 Union budget of India. The World Bank provided a loan and $25 million in technical assistance in 2015 for the Swachh Bharat Mission to support India's universal sanitation initiation. This was to be released in installments subject to checks by an independent verification agency but till January 2017, no funds has been disbursed. The programme has also received funds and technical support from several international organizations and private companies as part of corporate social responsibility initiatives, and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan schemes.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The Government appointed CPWD with the responsibility to dispose of waste from Government offices. The Ministry of Railways planned to have the facility of cleaning on demand, clean bed-rolls from automatic laundries, bio-toilets, dustbins in all non-AC coaches. The Swachh Bharat Swachh Vidyalaya campaign was launched by the Minister of Human Resource Development, Government of India by participating in the cleanliness drive along with the school's teachers and students.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Mobile app is being used by people and Government organisations for achieving the goals of Swachh Bharat Mission. For this the government of India is bringing awareness to the people through advertisements.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: In 2017, the national sanitation coverage rose to 65% from 38.7% on Oct 2, 2014 before the start of the campaign. It was 90% in August 2018. 35 states/Union Territories, 699 districts and 5.99lakh (599,000) villages were declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) by 25 September 2019.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The cities and towns which have been declared ODF stood at 22 percent and the urban wards which have achieved 100 percent door-to-door solid waste collection stood at 50 percent. The number of Swachhagrahi volunteers working across urban local bodies rose to 20,000, and those working in rural India rose to more than a 100,000. The number of schools with separate toilet facilities for girls rose from 0.4 million (37 percent) to almost one million (91 percent).


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: Swachh Survekshan, commissioned by Ministry of Urban Development and carried out by Quality Council of India, is an extensive sanitation survey across several hundred cities to check the progress and impact of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and to foster a spirit of competition among the cities. The performance of each city is evaluated on six parameters:


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: According to the dashboards maintained by respective ministries, more than 100 million individual household level toilets have been constructed in rural areas, and 6 million household toilets in urban areas. In addition, nearly 6 million community and public toilets have also been constructed in the urban areas. Consequently, 4,234 cities and more than 600,000 villages across the country have declared themselves open defecation free (ODF).


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: More than 81.5 thousand wards in urban areas now have 100% door to door collection of solid waste and nearly 65 thousand wards practice 100% segregation of waste at source. Of the nearly 150 thousand metric tonnes of solid waste generated in urban areas, 65% is being processed.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: An independent survey released by Quality Council of India in August 2017, reported that overall national rural "household access to toilet" coverage increased to 62.5% and usage of toilets to 91.3%, with Haryana topping the national ranking with 99% of households in rural areas covered and usage of toilets of 100%. According to UNICEF The number of people without a toilet reduced from 550 million to 50 million. The World Bank reports that 96% of Indians who have a toilet use it. The World Health Organization (WHO) has in its report stated that at least 180,000 diarrhoeal deaths were averted in rural India since the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission. According to a survey carried out in 2018 and published in 2019 by National Statistical Office (NSO), 71% of rural households had access to toilets as of 2018. Though this was at odds with the Indian government's claim in 2019 that 95% of rural households had access to toilets, NSO's numbers still indicated a significant improvement over the situation during the previous survey period in 2012, when only 40% of rural households had access to toilets.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: A study by Ashoka University concluded that the construction of toilets under the program led to a reduction in incidence of sexual assault against women.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: Data from the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) demonstrate the increase in access to improved sanitation due to SBM. Post 2015, 3.4% households gained access to better sanitation as compared to just 1.5% earlier


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The mission is noted as the world's largest sanitation program. It claimed to have provided millions of people access to toilet and brought about a change of behavior towards its usage. Many argue that it has not really eliminated open defecation as rapidly as the government claims. However, It significantly did accelerate the pace of decline in open defecation.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The SBM received political sponsorship from Prime Minister Modi who started talking about sanitation even before he was elected as the Prime Minister. He made a call to address the issue in his first address to the nation on the occasion of Independence day in 2014. Throughout the mission period, he continued to promote the mission through his speeches and was seen wielding the broom multiple times to clean the streets. In 2019, he plogged on a beach in Mamallapuram during his morning walk; he was there to attend the informal summit with Xi Jinping, then-General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Other political leaders and public figures including actors and actresses, sports men and women, owners of large business houses were roped in as ambassadors to promote the mission.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: Constructing toilets became the mission's singular focus, even though the core objectives were elimination of open defecation and improving solid waste management. Funds for solid waste management under the mission were diverted towards toilet construction. Allocations for other sectors were also drastically reduced. Though behavioral change is one of the goals of the mission, only 1% of the mission's outlay was spent on education and awareness. Most of the allocation for the category, “information, education and communication”, that was to be used for awareness generation was spent towards print, radio and television advertisements. No part of the Central Government's allocation was spent on awareness generation at the grass roots.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The mission was implemented with a target driven approach; villages, districts, towns and cities and even states declared themselves open defecation free (ODF) based on achievement of construction targets.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: For lack of sewerage systems, most of the toilets constructed under the mission rely on single pit or twin pits or septic systems for containment of faecal sludge. However, their appropriateness for the local context was not considered in the haste of achieving construction targets. For example, most of the 7.85 million toilets constructed at an estimated cost of INR 94,205 million in the 15 extreme flood-prone districts of Northern Bihar become unusable during the annual floods. Besides the toilet itself being inaccessible, the containment structure is also inundated with flood waters making it unusable.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: The SBM does not even acknowledge the issues of the existing sewerage systems and the deaths of numerous sanitation workers caused in cleaning them.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: Even though elimination of open defecation was the core objective of the mission, it was never monitored by either of the Ministries. They both kept a track of toilets constructed and funds spent. Therefore, the reality reported by independent surveys was very different from that reported by Government sponsored surveys. Researchers found divergence between findings of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS); both conducted by the Government only a few months apart.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: By adding millions of on-site sanitation systems and not considering fecal sludge management, it will further add to pollution of the rivers in India.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: There is skepticism about the success of SBM which relates to sanitation workers. The people who make India clean, the sanitation workers, remain "invisible in the participation, process or consequences of this national level movement". In 2015, one year after the launch of the program, hundreds of thousands of Indian people were still employed as manual scavengers in emptying bucket toilets and pit latrines. Many continue to work on contractual arrangements without safety of their job and benefits that would accrue from a government job. The SBM has instead burdened the contractual sanitation workers to keep public places clean while keeping it voluntary for the public to deface public places by urinating, defecating or littering them.


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: A report by WSSCC in 2019 found that the impact of the SBM for the most vulnerable was limited. The report stated that "Barriers due to physical disabilities, social/economic disparities, geography, sexual orientation, gender and caste were not addressed."


title: Swachh Bharat Mission

text: Irregularities with regards to the funds have been reported. In Odisha hundreds of beneficiaries have filed complaints that money has been siphoned off without constructing the toilets. In Madhya Pradesh almost half a million Swachh Bharta toilets have "vanished" in a multi billion rupees scam. In Bihar crores of rupees meant for Swachh Bharat Mission were siphoned off by Government officials in collusion with banks Police complaints were filed against those who have misused Swachh Bharat funds for personal household expenses.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The economy of North Korea is a centrally planned economy, following "Juche", where the role of market allocation schemes is limited, although increasing. , North Korea continues its basic adherence to a centralized command economy. With a total gross domestic product of $28.500 billion as of 2016, there has been some economic liberalization, particularly after Kim Jong-un assumed the leadership in 2012, but reports conflict over particular legislation and enactment. Since the 1990s, informal market activity has increased, which the authoritarian regime has tolerated. These markets are referred to as 'Jangmadang' and were formed as a result of the economic collapse during the 1990s, which made the regime unable to distribute food to its people.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The collapse of the Eastern Bloc from 1989 to 1992, particularly North Korea's principal source of support, the Soviet Union, forced the North Korean economy to realign its foreign economic relations, including increased economic exchanges with South Korea. China is North Korea's largest trading partner. North Korea's ideology of Juche has resulted in the country pursuing autarky in an environment of international sanctions. While the current North Korean economy is still dominated by state-owned industry and collective farms, foreign investment and corporate autonomy have increased.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: North Korea had a similar GDP per capita to its neighbor South Korea from the aftermath of the Korean War until the mid-1970s, but had a GDP per capita of less than $2,000 in the late 1990s and early 21st century. For 2018, the South Korean Bank of Korea estimated the GDP growth as −4.1%. For the first time, in 2021, the North Korean private sector outgrew the public sector.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Estimating gross national product in North Korea is a difficult task because of a dearth of economic data and the problem of choosing an appropriate rate of exchange for the North Korean won, the nonconvertible North Korean currency. The South Korean government's estimate placed North Korea's GNP in 1991 at US$22.9 billion, or US$1,038 per capita. In contrast, South Korea posted US$237.9 billion of GNP and a per capita income of US$5,569 in 1991. North Korea's GNP in 1991 showed a 5.2% decline from 1989, and preliminary indications were that the decline would continue. South Korea's GNP, by contrast, expanded by 9.3% and 8.4%, respectively, in 1990 and 1991.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: It is estimated that North Korea's GNP nearly halved between 1990 and 1999. North Korean annual budget reports suggest state income roughly tripled between 2000 and 2014. By about 2010, external trade had returned to 1990 levels.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The South Korea-based Bank of Korea estimated that over 2000 to 2013 average growth was 1.4% per year. It estimated that the real GDP of North Korea in 2015 was 30,805 billion South Korean won. It has published the following estimates of North Korea's GDP growth:


title: Economy of North Korea

text: This analysis converts production volume estimates into South Korean prices, so is subject to price changes over time of South Korean goods. According to analyst Andrei Lankov, writing in 2017, a significant number of observers believe that the Bank of Korea is too conservative and the real growth rate is North Korea reported that the government budget has been increasing at between 5% and 10% annually from 2007 to 2015. Reported planned capital expenditure, mainly on roads and public buildings, increased by 4.3% in 2014, 8.7% in 2015 to 13.7% in 2016. According to a North Korea economist, the growth rate was 3.7% in 2017, lifting GDP to $29.6 billion in 2018. The Australian government estimated 1.3% growth in 2017, while the South Korean government estimated −3.5%.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: In 2018, North Korea's government budget revenue plan overfulfilled 1.4%, an increase of 4.6% over 2017 year.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Beginning in the mid-1920s, the Japanese colonial administration in Korea concentrated its industrial-development efforts in the comparatively under-populated and resource-rich northern portion of the country, resulting in a considerable movement of people northward from the agrarian southern provinces of the Korean Peninsula.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: This trend did not reverse until after the end in 1945 of the Second World War, when more than 2 million Koreans moved from North to South following the division of Korea into Soviet and American military zones of administration. This southward exodus continued after the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) in 1948 and during the 1950–53 Korean War. The North Korean population as of October 2008 was given as 24 million.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The post-World War II division of the Korean Peninsula resulted in imbalances of natural and human resources, with disadvantages for both the North and the South. In 1945, about 80% of Korean heavy industry was in the North but only 31% of light industry, 37% of agriculture, and 18% of the peninsula's total commerce.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: North and South Korea both suffered from the massive destruction caused during the Korean War. Historian Charles K. Armstrong stated that "North Korea had been virtually destroyed as an industrial society". In the years immediately after the war, North Korea mobilized its labour force and natural resources in an effort to achieve rapid economic development. Large amounts of aid from other communist countries, notably the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, helped the country achieve a high growth-rate in the immediate postwar period.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: In 1961, an ambitious seven-year plan was launched to continue industrial expansion and increase living standards, but within three years it became clear this was failing and the plan period was extended to 1970. The failure was due to reduced support from the Soviet Union when North Korea aligned more with China, and military pressure from the U.S. leading to increased defence spending. In 1965, South Korea's rate of economic growth first exceeded North Korea's in most industrial areas, though South Korea's per capita GNP remained lower than North Korea's.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: In 1979, North Korea renegotiated much of its international debt, but in 1980 it defaulted on its loans except those from Japan. By the end of 1986, hard-currency debt had reached more than US$1 billion. It also owed nearly $2 billion to communist creditors, principally the Soviet Union. The Japanese declared North Korea in default. By 2000, taking into account penalties and accrued interest, North Korea's debt was estimated at $10–12 billion. By 2012, North Korea's external debt had grown to an estimated US$20 billion despite Russia reportedly writing off about $8 billion of debt in exchange for participation in natural resources development. Besides Russia, major creditors included Hungary, the Czech Republic and Iran.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Largely because of these debt problems and because of a prolonged drought and mismanagement, North Korea's industrial growth slowed, and per capita GNP fell below that of the South. By the end of 1979 per capita GNP in North Korea was about one-third of that in the South. The causes for this relatively poor performance are complex, but a major factor is the disproportionately large percentage of GNP (possibly as much as 25%) that North Korea devotes to the military.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: There were minor efforts toward relaxing central control of the economy in the 1980s that involve industrial enterprises. Encouraged by Kim Jong-il's call to strengthen the implementation of the independent accounting system (, "tongnip ch'aesanje") of enterprises in March 1984, interest in enterprise management and the independent accounting system increased, as evidenced by increasing coverage of the topic in North Korean journals. Under the system, factory managers still are assigned output targets but are given more discretion in decisions about labour, equipment, materials, and funds.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: In addition to fixed capital, each enterprise is allocated a minimum of working capital from the state through the Central Bank and is required to meet operating expenses with the proceeds from sales of its output. Up to 50% of the "profit" is taxed, the remaining half being kept by the enterprise for purchase of equipment, introduction of new technology, welfare benefits, and bonuses. As such, the system provides some built-in incentives and a degree of micro-level autonomy, unlike the budget allocation system, under which any surplus is turned over to the government in its entirety.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Another innovation, the August Third People's Consumer Goods Production Movement, is centred on consumer goods production. This measure was so named after Kim Jong-il made an inspection tour of an exhibition of light industrial products held in Pyongyang on August 3, 1984. The movement charges workers to use locally available resources and production facilities to produce needed consumer goods. On the surface, the movement does not appear to differ much from the local industry programs in existence since the 1960s, although some degree of local autonomy is allowed. However, a major departure places output, pricing, and purchases outside central planning. In addition, direct sales stores were established to distribute goods produced under the movement directly to consumers. The movement is characterized as a third sector in the production of consumer goods, alongside centrally controlled light industry and locally controlled traditional light industry. Moreover, there were some reports in the mid-1980s of increasing encouragement of small-scale private handicrafts and farm markets. , however, no move was reported to expand the size of private garden plots.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: All these measures appear to be minor stop-gap measures to alleviate severe shortages of consumer goods by infusing some degree of incentives. In mid-1993, no significant moves signalling a fundamental deviation from the existing system had occurred. The reluctance to initiate reform appears to be largely political. This concern is based on the belief that economic reform will produce new interests that will demand political expression and that demands for the institutionalization of such pluralism eventually will lead to political liberalization.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Beginning in the mid-1980s and particularly around the end of the decade, North Korea slowly began to modify its rigid self-reliant policy. The changes, popularly identified as the open-door policy, included an increasing emphasis on foreign trade, a readiness to accept direct foreign investment by enacting a joint venture law, the decision to open the country to international tourism, and economic cooperation with South Korea.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The main targets of the Third Seven-Year Plan of 1987–1993 were to achieve the "Ten Long-Range Major Goals of the 1980s for the Construction of the Socialist Economy". These goals, conceived in 1980, were to be fulfilled by the end of the decade. The fact that these targets were rolled over to the end of the Third Seven-Year Plan is another indication of the disappointing economic performance during the Second Seven-Year Plan. The three policy goals of self-reliance, modernization, and scientification were repeated. Economic growth was set at 7.9% annually, lower than the previous plan. Although achieving the ten major goals of the 1980s was the main thrust of the Third Seven-Year Plan, some substantial changes have been made in specific quantitative targets. For example, the target for the annual output of steel was reduced by a third: from 15 million tons to 10 million tons. The output targets of cement and non-ferrous metals—two major export items—have been increased significantly. The June 1989 introduction of the Three-Year Plan for Light Industry as part of the Third Seven-Year Plan is intended to boost the standard of living by addressing consumer needs.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The Third Seven-Year Plan gave a great deal of attention to developing foreign trade and joint ventures, the first time a plan has addressed these issues. By the end of 1991, however, two years before the termination of the plan, no quantitative plan targets were made public, an indication that the plan has not fared well. The diversion of resources to build highways, theatres, hotels, airports, and other facilities to host the Thirteenth World Festival of Youth and Students in July 1989 must have had a negative impact on industrial and agricultural development, although the expansion and improvement of social infrastructure have resulted in some long-term economic benefits.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Although general economic policy objectives are decided by the Central People's Committee (CPC), it is the task of the State Planning Committee to translate the broad goals into specific annual and long-term development plans and quantitative targets for the economy as a whole, as well as for each industrial sector and enterprise. Under the basic tenets of the 1964 reforms, the planning process is guided by the principles of "unified planning" (, "ilwŏnhwa") and of "detailed planning" (, "saebunhwa").


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Under "unified planning", regional committees are established in each province, city, and county to systematically coordinate planning work. These committees do not belong to any regional organization and are directly supervised by the State Planning Committee. As a result of a reorganization in 1969, they are separated into provincial planning committees, city/county committees, and enterprise committees (for large-scale enterprises).


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The planning committees, under the auspices of the State Planning Committee, coordinate their work with the planning offices of the economy-related government organizations the corresponding regional and local areas. The system attempts to enable the regional planning staff to better coordinate with economic establishments in their areas, which are directly responsible to them in planning, as well as communicating directly with staff at the CPC. "Detailed planning" seeks to construct plans with precision and scientific methods based on concrete assessment of the resources, labour, funds, plant capacities, and other necessary information.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The plan then becomes legal and compulsory. Frequent directives from the central government contain changes in the plan targets or incentives for meeting the plan objectives.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Although the central government is most clearly involved in the formulation and evaluation of the yearly and long-term plans, it also reviews summaries of quarterly or monthly progress. Individual enterprises divide the production time into daily, weekly, ten-day, monthly, quarterly, and annual periods. In general, the monthly plan is the basic factory planning period.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The success of an economic plan depends on the quality and detail of information received, the establishment of realistic targets, coordination among sectors, and correct implementation. High initial growth during the Three-Year Plan and, to a lesser extent, during the Five-Year Plan contributed to a false sense of confidence among the planners. Statistical over reporting—an inherent tendency in an economy where rewards lie in fulfilling the quantitative targets, particularly when the plan target year approaches—leads to overestimation of economic potential, poor product quality, and eventually to plan errors. Inefficient use of plants, equipment, and raw materials add to planning errors. Lack of coordination in planning and production competition among sectors and regions cause imbalances and disrupt input-output relationships. The planning reforms in 1964 were supposed to solve these problems, but the need for correct and detailed planning and strict implementation of plans was so great that their importance was emphasized in the report unveiling the Second Seven-Year Plan, indicating that planning problems persisted in the 1980s.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: In the mid-1990s, North Korea abandoned firm directive planning, and multi-year plans became more of a long-term economic strategy.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The "Ch'ŏngsan-ni Method" () of management was born out of Kim Il-sung's February 1960 visit to the Ch'ŏngsan-ni Cooperative Farm in South P'yŏngan Province. Influenced by Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward Policy, Kim and other members of the KWP Central Committee offered "on-the-spot guidance" (, "hyŏnji chido") and spent two months instructing and interacting with the workers. The avowed objective of this new method is to combat "bureaucratism" and "formalism" in the farm management system.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The leadership claimed that farm workers were unhappy and produced low output because low-ranking functionaries of the Workers' Party of Korea (who expounded abstract Marxist theories and slogans) were using tactics that failed to motivate. To correct this, the leadership recommended that the workers receive specific guidance in solving production problems and be promised readily available material incentives. The Ch'ŏngsan-ni Method called for high-ranking party officials, party cadres, and administrative officials to emulate Kim Il-sung by making field inspections. The system provided opportunities for farmers to present their grievances and ideas to leading cadres and managers.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Perhaps more important than involving administrative personnel in on-site inspections was the increased use of material incentives, such as paid vacations, special bonuses, honorific titles, and monetary rewards. In fact, the Ch'ŏngsan-ni Method appeared to accommodate almost any expedient to spur production. The method, subsequently, was undercut by heavy-handed efforts to increase farm production and amalgamate farms into ever-larger units. Actual improvement in the agricultural sector began with the adoption of the subteam contract system as a means of increasing peasant productivity by adjusting individual incentives to those of the immediate, small working group. Thus the increasing scale of collective farms was somewhat offset by the reduction in the size of the working unit. "On-the-spot guidance" by high government functionaries, however, continued in the early 1990s, as exemplified by Kim Il-sung's visits to such places as the Wangjaesan Cooperative Farm in Onsŏng County and the Kyŏngsŏn Branch Experimental Farm of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences between August 20 and 30, 1991. Kim Jong-il carried on the tradition, despite having refused to do so before, and even expanded it to the Korean People's Army. Today, Kim Jong-un continues the practices of the method.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The industrial management system developed in three distinct stages. The first was a period of enterprise autonomy that lasted until December 1946. The second stage was a transitional system based on local autonomy, with each enterprise managed by the enterprise management committee under the direction of the local people's committee. This system was replaced by the "one-man management system" (), with management patterned along Soviet lines as large enterprises were nationalized and came under central control. The third stage, the "Taean" Work System (, "Taeanŭi saŏpch'e"), was introduced in December 1961 as an application and refinement of agricultural management techniques to industry. The Taean industrial management system grew out of the "Ch'ŏngsan-ni" Method.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The highest managerial authority under the Taean system is the party committee. Each committee has approximately 25 to 35 members elected from the ranks of managers, workers, engineers, and the leadership of "working people's organizations" at the factory. A smaller "executive committee", about one-quarter the size of the regular committee, has practical responsibility for day-to-day plant operations and major factory decisions. The most important staff members, including the party committee secretary, factory manager, and chief engineer, make up its membership. The system focuses on co-operation among workers, technicians, and party functionaries at the factory level.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Each factory has two major lines of administration, one headed by the manager, the other by the party committee secretary. A chief engineer and his or her assistants direct a general staff in charge of all aspects of production, planning, and technical guidance. Depending on the size of the factory, varying numbers of deputies oversee factory logistics, marketing, and workers' services. The supply of materials includes securing, storing, and distributing all materials for factory use, as well as storing finished products and shipping them from the factory.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Deputies are assigned workers to their units and handle factory accounts and payroll. Providing workers' services requires directing any farming done on factory lands, stocking factory retail shops, and taking care of all staff amenities. Deputies in charge of workers' services are encouraged to meet as many of the factory's needs as possible using nearby agricultural cooperatives and local industries.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The secretary of the party committee organizes all political activities in each of the factory party cells and attempts to ensure loyalty to the party's production targets and management goals. According to official claims, all management decisions are arrived at by consensus among the members of the party committee. Given the overwhelming importance of the party in the country's affairs, it seems likely that the party secretary has the last say in any major factory disputes.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The Taean system heralded a more rational approach to industrial management than that practised previously. Although party functionaries and workers became more important to management under the new system, engineers and technical staff received more responsibility in areas where their expertise could contribute the most. The system recognizes the importance of material as well as "politico-moral" incentives for managing the factory workers. The "internal accounting system", a spin-off of the "independent accounting system", grants bonuses to work teams and workshops that use raw materials and equipment most efficiently. These financial rewards come out of enterprise profits.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: A measure of the success of the Taean work system is its longevity and its continued endorsement by the leadership. In his 1991 New Year's address marking the 13th anniversary of the creation of the system, Kim Il-sung said that the


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Taean work system is the best system of economic management. It enables the producer masses to fulfill their responsibility and role as masters and to manage the economy in a scientific and rational manner by implementing the mass line in economic management, and by combining party leadership organically with administrative, economic, and technical guidance.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Parallel to management techniques such as the Ch'ŏngsan-ni Method and the Taean work system, which were designed to increase output in more normalized and regularized operations of farms and enterprises, the leadership continuously resorts to exhortations and mass campaigns to motivate the workers to meet output targets. The earliest and the most pervasive mass production campaign was the Ch'ŏllima Movement. Introduced in 1958 and fashioned after China's Great Leap Forward (1958–1960), the Ch'ŏllima Movement organized the labour force into work teams and brigades to compete at increasing production. The campaign was aimed at industrial and agricultural workers and at organizations in education, science, sanitation and health, and culture.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: In addition to work teams, units eligible for Ch'ŏllima citations included entire factories, factory workshops, and such self-contained units as a ship or a railroad station. The "socialist emulation" among the industrial sectors, enterprises, farms, and work teams under the Ch'ŏllima Movement frantically sought to complete the First Five-Year Plan (1957–1960) but instead created chaotic disruptions in the economy. This made it necessary to set aside 1959 as a "buffer year" to restore balance in the economy.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Although the Ch'ŏllima Movement was replaced in the early 1960s by the Ch'ŏngsan-ni Method and the Taean Work System, the regime's reliance on mass campaigns continued into the early 1990s. Campaigns conducted after the Ch'ŏllima to speed battles toward the end of a period (such as a month, a year, or an economic plan) to reach production targets to carry out the economic goals of the decade.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the principal source of external support, North Korea announced in December 1993 a three-year transitional economic policy placing primary emphasis on agriculture, light industry, and foreign trade. However, lack of fertilizer, natural disasters, and poor storage and transportation practices the country fell more than a million tons per year short of grain self-sufficiency. Moreover, lack of foreign exchange to purchase spare parts and oil for electricity generation left many factories idle.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The shortage of foreign exchange because of a chronic trade deficit, a large foreign debt, and dwindling foreign aid has constrained economic development. In addition, North Korea has been diverting scarce resources from developmental projects to defence; it spent more than 20% of GNP on defence toward the end of the 1980s, a proportion among the highest in the world. These negative factors, compounded by the declining efficiency of the central planning system and the failure to modernize the economy, have slowed the pace of growth since the 1960s. The demise of the socialist republics in the Soviet Union and East European countries—North Korea's traditional trade partners and benefactors—has compounded the economic difficulties in the early 1990s.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Economically, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of Soviet support to North Korean industries caused a contraction of the North Korea's economy by 25% during the 1990s. While, by some accounts, North Korea had a higher per capita income than South Korea in the 1970s, by 2006 its per capita income was estimated to be only $1108, one seventeenth that of South Korea.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: Experimentation in small scale entrepreneurship took place from 2009 to 2013, and although there continue to be legal uncertainties this has developed into a significant sector. By 2016 economic liberalisation had progressed to the extent that both locally-responsible and state industrial enterprises gave the state 20% to 50% of their output, selling the remainder to buy raw materials with market-based prices in akin to a free market.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: In 2014, the Enterprise Act was amended to allow state-owned enterprise managers to engage in foreign trade and joint ventures, and to accept investment from non-government domestic sources. Under the new rules the enterprise director became more like the western chief executive officer, and the chief engineer had an operational role more like a western chief operating officer. As of 2017 it was unclear if the Taean Work System (described above) still in practice operated to give local people's committees much influence.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: In 2017, Dr. Mitsuhiro Mimura, Senior Research Fellow at Japan's Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia, who has visited North Korea 45 times, described it as the "poorest advanced economy in the world", in that while having comparatively low GDP, it had built a sophisticated production environment. He described the recent rise of entrepreneurial groups through "socialist cooperation", where groups of individuals could start small enterprises as cooperative groups. Managers in state-owned industries or farms were also free to sell or trade production beyond state plan targets, providing incentives to increase production. Managers could also find investment for expansion of successful operations, in a process he called "socialist competition". A state plan was still the basis for production, but was more realistic leaving room for excess production.


title: Economy of North Korea

text: The state budget is a major government instrument in carrying out the country's economic goals. Expenditures represented about three-quarters of GNP in the mid-1980s, the allocation of which reflected the priorities assigned to different economic sectors. Taxes were abolished in 1974 as "remnants of an antiquated society". This action, however, was not expected to have any significant effect on state revenue because the overwhelming proportion of government funds—an average of 98.1% during 1961–1970—was from turnover (sales) taxes, deductions from profits paid by state enterprises, and various user fees on machinery and equipment, irrigation facilities, television sets, and water.