title: Peace Corps

text: The Peace Corps aims to educate community members on the different illnesses that are present in developing countries as well as what treatments exist in order prevent these illnesses from spreading. Volunteers are also often there in order to teach community members about modern agricultural techniques in order for them to more effectively produce food for themselves and each other (Peace Corps). The Corps is also a proponent of equal education and moves to allow for equal education opportunities for girls in countries like Liberia and Ethiopia. In 2015, the organization partnered with United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to implement First Lady Michelle Obama's Let Girls Learn initiative.


title: Peace Corps

text: The Corps launched its initiative to engage volunteers in malaria control efforts in 2011. The initiative, which grew out of malaria prevention programs in Peace Corps Senegal, now includes volunteers in 24 African countries.


title: Peace Corps

text: The Corps offers a variety of environmental programs. Needs assessments determine which programs apply to each country. Programs include effective and efficient forms of farming, recycling, park management, environmental education, and developing alternative fuel sources. Volunteers must have some combination of academic degrees and practical experience.


title: Peace Corps

text: The three major programs are Protected-Areas Management, Environment Education or Awareness, and Forestry.


title: Peace Corps

text: In "Protected areas management", volunteers work with parks or other programs to teach resource conservation. Volunteer activities include technical training, working with park staff on wildlife preservation, organizing community-based conservation programs for sustainable use of forests or marine resources, and creating activities for raising revenue to protect the environment.


title: Peace Corps

text: "Environment Education or Awareness" focuses on communities that have environmental issues regarding farming and income. Programs include teaching in elementary and secondary schools; environmental education to youth programs; creation of environmental groups; support forest and marine resource sustainability; ways of generating money; urban sanitation management; and educating farmers about soil conservation, forestry, and vegetable gardening.


title: Peace Corps

text: "Forestry" programs help communities conserve natural resources through projects such as soil conservation, flood control, creation of sustainable fuels, agroforestry (e.g., fruit and vegetable production), alley cropping, and protection of biodiversity.


title: Peace Corps

text: Peace Corps Response, formerly named the Crisis Corps, was created by Peace Corps Director Mark Gearan in 1996. Gearan modeled the Crisis Corps after the National Peace Corps Association's successful Emergency Response Network (ERN) of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers willing to respond to crises when needed. ERN emerged in response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. On November 19, 2007 Peace Corps Director Ronald Tschetter changed Crisis Corps's name to Peace Corps Response.


title: Peace Corps

text: The change to Peace Corps Response allowed Peace Corps to include projects that did not rise to the level of a crisis. The program deploys former volunteers on high-impact assignments that typically range from three to twelve months in duration.


title: Peace Corps

text: Peace Corps Response volunteers generally receive the same allowances and benefits as their Peace Corps counterparts, including round-trip transportation, living and readjustment allowances, and medical care. Minimum qualifications include completion of at least one year of Peace Corps service, including training, in addition to medical and legal clearances. The Crisis Corps title was retained as a unique branch within Peace Corps Response, designed for volunteers who are deployed to true "crisis" situations, such as disaster relief following hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions and other catastrophes.


title: Peace Corps

text: Peace Corps has created resources for teachers in the US and abroad to teach 101 languages. Resources vary by language, and include text, recordings, lesson plans and teaching notes.


title: Peace Corps

text: Peace Corps was originally established by Executive Order, and has been modified by several subsequent executive orders including:


title: Peace Corps

text: Federal laws governing the Peace Corps are contained in Title 22 of the United States Code – Foreign Relations and Intercourse, Chapter 34 – The Peace Corps.


title: Peace Corps

text: Public laws are passed by Congress and the President and create or modify the U.S. Code. The first public law establishing Peace Corps in the US Code was The Peace Corps Act passed by the 87th Congress and signed into law on September 22, 1961. Several public laws have modified the Peace Corps Act, including:


title: Peace Corps

text: The Peace Corps is subject to Federal Regulations as prescribed by public law and executive order and contained in Title 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations under Chapter 3.


title: Peace Corps

text: Former members of the Peace Corps may not be assigned to military intelligence duties for a period of 4 years following Peace Corps service. Furthermore, they are forever prohibited from serving in a military intelligence posting to any country in which they volunteered. Former members may not apply for employment with the Central Intelligence Agency for a period of 5 years following Peace Corps Service.


title: Peace Corps

text: Peace Corps employees receive time-limited appointments, and most employees are limited to a maximum of five years of employment. This time limit was established to ensure that Peace Corps' staff remain fresh and innovative. A related rule specifies that former employees cannot be re-employed until after the same amount of time that they were employed. Volunteer service is not counted for the purposes of either rule.


title: Peace Corps

text: Non-supervisory domestic employees are represented by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3548. The Federal Labor Relations Agency certified the Union on May 11, 1983. About 500 domestic employees are members. The current collective bargaining agreement became effective on April 21, 1995.


title: Peace Corps

text: On January 3, 2018, President Donald Trump nominated Josephine "Jody" Olsen as the 20th director of the Peace Corps. Olsen has a long history with the agency, serving as Acting Director in 2009, Deputy Director from 2002 to 2009, Chief of Staff from 1989 to 1992, Regional Director, North Africa Near East, Asia, Pacific from 1981 to 1984, and Country Director in Togo from 1979 to 1981. Olsen also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisia from 1966 to 1968. She left office on January 20, 2021.


title: Peace Corps

text: In April 2022, President Biden nominated Carol Spahn as director to succeed Olsen, and she was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 13, 2022. Spahn was acting director from January 20, 2021, until November 16, 2021, and CEO from November 2021 to November 2022. She had previously served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Romania and susequently returned as Country Director in Malawi, then Chief of Operations for Eastern and Southern Africa, following a career in the NGO and private sectors.


title: Peace Corps

text: The Peace Corps Office of Inspector General is authorized by law to review all programs and operations of the Peace Corps. The OIG is an independent entity within the Peace Corps. The inspector general (IG) reports directly to the Peace Corps Director. In addition, the IG reports to Congress semiannually with data on OIG activities. The OIG serves as the law enforcement arm of the Peace Corps and works closely with the Department of State, the Department of Justice, and other federal agencies OIG has three sections to conduct its functions:Audit – Auditors review functional activities of the Peace Corps, such as contract compliance and financial and program operations, to ensure accountability and to recommend improved levels of economy and efficiency;


title: Peace Corps

text: Critics and criticisms of Peace Corps include former volunteer and country director Robert L. Strauss in "Foreign Policy", "The New York Times," "The American Interest" and elsewhere, an article by a former volunteer describing assaults on volunteers from 1992 to 2010, an ABC news report on "20/20", a "Huffington Post" article on former Peace Corps volunteers speaking out on rapes, and About.com's article on rape and assault in the Peace Corps.


title: Peace Corps

text: In the Reagan Administration, in 1986, an article in the "Multinational Monitor" looked critically at the Peace Corps. On a positive note, the writer praises the Corps for aspects saying that it is "not in the business of transferring massive economic resources. Rather it concentrates on increasing productivity and encouraging self-reliance in villages that are often ignored by large-scale development agencies," and notes the "heavy emphasis on basic education" by the Corps. "Many returned volunteers complain that the Peace Corps does little to promote or make use of their rich experiences once they return ... [A] Peace Corps volunteer is sent in ... [to] relieve ... the local government from having to develop policies that assure equitable distribution of health care ... During the early years there were many failures in structure and programming ... Some critics charge that the Peace Corps is only a somewhat ineffective attempt to counter damage done to the U.S. image abroad by its aggressive military and its unscrupulous businesses ... Many observers and some returned volunteers charge that, in addition to public relations for the United States, Peace Corps programs serve to legitimize dictators ... When he began evaluating the Corps in the 1960s, Charlie Peters found "they were training volunteers to be junior diplomats. Giving them a course in American studies, world affairs and communism ... Although it seems unlikely that the Peace Corps is used in covert operations, wittingly or not it is often used in conjunction with U.S. military interests ... In a review of the Peace Corps in March the House Select Committee on Hunger praised the agency for effective work in the areas of agriculture and conservation, while recommending that the Corps expand its African Food Systems Initiative, increase the number of volunteers in the field, recruit more women, and move to depoliticize country dictatorships."


title: Peace Corps

text: The author suggests that "the poor should be encouraged to organize a power base to gain more leverage with the powers-that-be" by the Peace Corps and that "The Peace Corps is the epitome of Kennedy's Camelot mythology. It is a tall order to expect a small program appended to an immense superpower, to make a difference, but it is a goal worth striving for."


title: Peace Corps

text: In December 2003, a report by the Brookings Institution praised the Peace Corps but proposed changes. These include relabeling Peace Corps volunteers in certain countries, greater host country ownership, reverse volunteers (have volunteers from the host country in the U.S.), and multilateral volunteers. The Brookings Institution wrote that a "one-year service commitment [for the Baby Boom generation] could make the Peace Corps more attractive to older Americans, possibly combined with the option of returning to the same site or country after a three-month break" and customized placement to a specific country would increase the number of people volunteering.


title: Peace Corps

text: In a critique by The Future of Freedom Foundation, James Bovard mixes history of the Peace Corps with current interpretations. He writes that in the 1980s, "The Peace Corps's world-saving pretensions were a joke on American taxpayers and Third World folks who expected real help." He goes on to criticize the difference in rhetoric and action of Peace Corps volunteers, even attacking its establishment as "the epitome of emotionalism in American politics." Using snippets of reports, accounts of those in countries affected by the Peace Corps and even concluded that at one point "some Peace Corps agricultural efforts directly hurt Third World poor." At the end of the article, Bovard noted that all Peace Corps volunteers he had talked with conceded they have not helped foreigners ... but he acknowledges that "Some Peace Corps volunteers, like some Americans who volunteer for religion missions abroad, have truly helped foreigners."


title: Peace Corps

text: The Peace Corps has been criticized for failing to properly respond to the sexual violence that many of its female volunteers face. BoingBoing editor Xeni Jardin describes criticism of the agency's response to assault: "A growing number of ex-Peace Corps volunteers are speaking out about having survived rape and other forms of sexual assault while assigned overseas. They say the agency ignored their concerns for safety or requests for relocation, and tried to blame rape victims for their attacks. Their stories, and support from families and advocates, are drawing attention from lawmakers and promises of reform from the agency". Among 8,655 volunteers there are on average 22 Peace Corps women who reported being the victims of rape or attempted rape each year.


title: Peace Corps

text: At a meeting of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2011, Peace Corps volunteers shared their experiences of violence and sexual assault. At this meeting, it was found that between 2000 and 2009 there have been several cases of rape or attempted rape, and about 22 women are sexually assaulted each year. The case of murdered Peace Corps volunteer Kate Puzey was discussed. The Peace Corps has gained attention in the media and their directors have been attacked for how they handled this situation. Kate Puzey's mother was one of those to make a comment at the meeting about how badly the situation with her daughter had been handled. One woman claimed that her country's director had blamed her for getting raped, while other victims have also been similarly blamed. Criticism of how Peace Corps has responded to sexual assaults against volunteers culminated in the appointment of Kellie Green as the agency's first Director of the Office Of Victims Advocacy in 2011. Green was eventually pushed out of her position in April 2015 for purportedly "creating a hostile work environment". Greene maintains that Peace Corps retaliated against her for pressing agency officials to fully comply with their responsibilities towards volunteers who have been victims of sexual assault. A Change.org petition demanding that Green be reinstated began circulating among former volunteers in December 2015.


title: Peace Corps

text: In 2009, the most recent year reported, 69% of Peace Corps crime victims were women, 88% were under 30, and 82% were Caucasian. Worldwide, there were 15 cases of rape/attempted rape and 96 cases of sexual assault reported for a total of 111 sexual crimes committed against female Peace Corps volunteers. The majority of women who join the Peace Corps are in their mid-twenties. In 62% of the more than 2,900 assault cases since 1990, the victim was identified as being alone. In 59% of assault cases, the victim was identified as a woman in her 20s.


title: Peace Corps

text: Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention have a song named "Who Needs the Peace Corps?" on their 1968 album "We're Only in It for the Money".


title: Peace Corps

text: In popular culture, the Peace Corps has been used as a comedic plot device in such movies as "Airplane!", "Christmas with the Kranks", "Shallow Hal", and "Volunteers" or used to set the scene for a historic era, as when Frances "Baby" Houseman tells the audience she plans to join the Peace Corps in the introduction to the movie "Dirty Dancing".


title: Peace Corps

text: The Peace Corps has also been documented on film and examined more seriously and in more depth. The 2006 documentary film "Death of Two Sons," directed by Micah Schaffer, juxtaposes the deaths of Amadou Diallo, a Guinean-American who was gunned down by four New York City policemen with 41 bullets, and Peace Corps volunteer Jesse Thyne who lived with Amadou's family in Guinea and died in a car crash there. "Jimi Sir", released in 2007, is a documentary portrait of volunteer James Parks' experiences as a high school science, math and English teacher during the last 10 weeks of his service in Nepal. James speaks Nepali fluently and shows a culture where there are no roads, vehicles, electricity, plumbing, telephone or radio. The movie "El Rey", directed and written by Antonio Dorado in 2004, attacks corrupt police, unscrupulous politicians and half-hearted revolutionaries but also depicts the urban legend of Peace Corps Volunteers "training" native Colombians how to process coca leaves into cocaine.


title: Peace Corps

text: In the 1969 film, "Yawar Mallku/Sangre de cóndor/Blood of the Condor", Bolivian director Jorge Sanjinés portrayed Peace Corps volunteers in the camp as arrogant, ethnocentric, and narrow-minded imperialists out to destroy Indian culture. One particularly powerful scene showed Indians attacking a clinic while the volunteers inside sterilized Indian women against their will. The film is thought to be at least partially responsible for the expulsion of the Peace Corps from Bolivia in 1971. Peace Corps volunteer Fred Krieger who was serving in Bolivia at the time said, "It was an effective movie – emotionally very arousing – and it directly targeted Peace Corps volunteers. I thought I would be lynched before getting out of the theatre. To my amazement, people around me smiled courteously as we left, no one commented, it was just like any other movie."


title: Peace Corps

text: In 2016, Peace Corps partnered with jewelry retailer Alex and Ani to create cord bracelets to raise money for the Peace Corps' Let Girls Learn Fund.


title: Monolith Productions

text: Monolith Productions, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Kirkland, Washington. The company has been a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment since August 2004.


title: Monolith Productions

text: Monolith Productions was founded on October 25, 1994 by Brian Goble, Brian Waite, Bryan Bouwman, Garrett Price, Jace Hall, Paul Renault, and Toby Gladwell.


title: Monolith Productions

text: The company is best known for the "Blood", "No One Lives Forever" and "F.E.A.R" series. Monolith developed the LithTech game engine which was used for most of their games starting with "" in September 1998. Between 1997 and 1999, Monolith also published games–some developed by the studio, some by third parties.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: General elections were held in India between 25 October 1951 and 21 February 1952. They were the first elections to the Lok Sabha after independence in August 1947. It was conducted under the provisions of the Indian Constitution, which was adopted on 26 November 1949. Elections to most of the state legislatures took place simultaneously.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: A total of 1,949 candidates competed for 489 seats in the Lok Sabha. More than 173 million people out of an overall population of about 360 million were eligible to vote, making it the largest election conducted at the time. Voter turnout was 45.7%.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: The Indian National Congress (INC) won a landslide victory, winning 364 of the 489 seats and 45% of the total votes polled. This was over four times as many votes as the second-largest party. Jawaharlal Nehru became the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the country.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: India has a parliamentary system of government, where the Cabinet, headed by a Prime Minister, forms the de facto executive. Unlike most countries, the elections are conducted by an independent constitutional body, the Election Commission of India. Sukumar Sen was the first election commissioner of India.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: After the adoption of the constitution on 26 November 1949, the Constituent Assembly continued to act as the interim parliament. The interim cabinet was headed by Jawaharlal Nehru and consisted of 15 members from diverse communities and parties. Various members of this cabinet resigned from their posts and formed their own parties to contest the elections.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: A total of 173,212,343 voters were registered (excluding Jammu and Kashmir) out of a population of 361,088,090 according to the 1951 Census of India. All Indian citizens over the age of 21 were eligible to vote.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: Each candidate was allotted a differently-coloured ballot box at the polling booth, on which each candidate's name and symbol were written. 16,500 clerks were appointed on a contract of six months to type and collate the electorate rolls and 380,000 reams of paper were used for printing the rolls.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: Due to the harsh climate and challenging logistics, the election was held in 68 phases. A total of 196,084 polling booths were set up, of which 27,527 booths were reserved for women. All states except Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir voted in February–March 1952; no polls were held for Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir until 1967. Himachal Pradesh voted in 1951 for the first Lok Sabha; the weather there tends to be inclement in February and March, heavy snow impending free movement. The first votes of the election were cast in the tehsil (district) of Chini in Himachal Pradesh.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: Voters elected 489 members to the lower house of the Parliament of India. These were allotted across 401 constituencies in 25 Indian states. There were 314 constituencies electing one member using the first-past-the-post system. 86 constituencies elected two members, one from the general category and one from Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. There was one constituency with three elected representatives. These multi-seat constituencies were present to fulfill the reservations granted to backward sections of the society by the Constitution. They were later abolished in the 1960s.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: The Constitution at this time also provided for two Anglo-Indian members to be nominated by the President of India.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: A total of 53 parties and 533 independents contested the 489 seats in the election. Two former cabinet colleagues of Nehru established separate political parties to challenge the INC's supremacy. While Syama Prasad Mukherjee went on to found the Jana Sangh in October 1951, first Law Minister B. R. Ambedkar revived the Scheduled Castes Federation (which was later named the Republican Party).


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: Other parties which started coming to the forefront included the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Parishad, whose prime mover was Acharya Kripalani; the Socialist Party, which had Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan's leadership to boast of; and the Communist Party of India. However, these smaller parties were unable to make an electoral stand against the Indian National Congress.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: The speaker of the first Lok Sabha was Ganesh Vasudev Mavalankar. The first Lok Sabha also witnessed 677 sittings (3,784 hours), the highest recorded count of the number of sitting hours. The Lok Sabha lasted its full term from 17 April 1952 until 4 April 1957.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: First Law Minister B. R. Ambedkar was defeated in the Bombay (North Central) (reserved seat) constituency as Scheduled Castes Federation candidate by his little-known former assistant and Congress Candidate Narayan Sadoba Kajrolkar, who polled 1,38,137 votes compared to Ambedkar's 1,23,576 votes. Ambedkar then entered the parliament as a Rajya Sabha member. He contested a by-poll from Bhandara in 1954 in another attempt to enter the Lok Sabha, but again lost to Borkar of Congress.


title: 1951–52 Indian general election

text: Acharya Kripalani lost from Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh as a KMPP candidate, but his wife Sucheta Kripalani defeated the Congress candidate Manmohini Sahgal in Delhi.


title: The Misfits (2021 film)

text: The Misfits is a 2021 American heist action film directed by Renny Harlin and written by Robert Henny and Kurt Wimmer. The film stars Pierce Brosnan, Rami Jaber, Hermione Corfield, Jamie Chung, Mike d Angelo, Tim Roth, Nick Cannon, and Qais Qandil. It was released in South Korea on June 3, 2021, and was released in the United States on June 11, 2021, by The Avenue Entertainment. The film was a box office disaster and received negative reviews.


title: The Misfits (2021 film)

text: According to Harlin, he and Brosnan had "been looking for a project to collaborate on for some time".


title: The Misfits (2021 film)

text: The project was first announced on February 12, 2019 at the Berlin International Film Festival's European Film Market. Filming locations include Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Los Angeles. Principal photography commenced a week later.


title: The Misfits (2021 film)

text: "The Misfits" had its world premiere in South Korea on June 3, 2021. The Avenue Entertainment in association with Highland Film Group distributed the film on June 11, 2021.


title: The Misfits (2021 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval score of 19% based on 26 reviews, with an average rating of 3.70/10. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 25 out of 100 based on 11 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: The Misfits (2021 film)

text: The film has been controversial in Qatar due to some real life negative references to Qatar to "terror" financing and explicit references to the Muslim Brotherhood as "terrorists" with Yusuf al-Qaradawi as their mastermind. The film is financed as well as co-produced by an Emirati production company, and given the involvement of Emirati media in propagating this narrative against Qatar at least since the first Qatar diplomatic crisis combined with "Doha News" reporting anti-Qatar plot elements in the film's content. Initially announced as "Coming Soon" in the Qatari subsidiary of Dubai-headquartered Vox Cinemas, the one half of film exhibition duopoly in Qatar, with the other half being Novo Cinemas which is also Dubai-headquartered but wholly owned indirectly by Doha-based Elan Group (through their ownership of its parent Gulf Film, a regional film distributor across West Asia and North Africa dealing mostly in foreign films, including but not limited to Hollywood releases) lending to this being the speculated factor behind them not picking this film up for exhibition not just in Qatar, but across all of the national markets they operated in, including UAE. As the backlash grew with leaked stills from South Korean release leading credence to discord over anti-Qatar "propaganda" embedded in the film, Emirati-owned Vox Cinemas ultimately shelved the film's planned release in Qatar, with press release confirming the move by 1 July 2021, the previously announced release date.


title: Kayastha

text: Kayastha (also referred to as Kayasth) denotes a cluster of disparate Indian communities broadly categorised by the regions of the Indian subcontinent in which they were traditionally locatedthe Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas of North India, the Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhus of Maharashtra, the Bengali Kayasthas of Bengal and Karanas of Odisha. All of them were traditionally considered "writing castes", who had historically served the ruling powers as administrators, ministers and record-keepers.


title: Kayastha

text: The earliest known reference to the term "Kayastha" dates back to the Kushan Empire, when it evolved into a common name for a writer or scribe. In the Sanskrit literature and inscriptions, it was used to denote the holders of a particular category of offices in the government service. In this context, the term possibly derived from ('principal, capital, treasury') and - ('to stay') and perhaps originally stood for an officer of the royal treasury, or revenue department.


title: Kayastha

text: Over the centuries, the occupational histories of Kayastha communities largely revolved around scribal services. However, these scribes did not simply take dictation but acted in the range of capacities better indicated by the term "secretary". They used their training in law, literature, court language, accounting, litigation and many other areas to fulfil responsibilities in all these venues. Kayasthas, along with Brahmins, had access to formal education as well as their own system of teaching administration, including accountancy, in the early-medieval India.


title: Kayastha

text: Modern scholars list them among Indian communities that were traditionally described as "urban-oriented", "upper caste" and part of the "well-educated" pan-Indian elite, alongside Punjabi Khatris, Kashmiri Pandits, Parsis, Nagar Brahmins of Gujarat, Chitpawans and Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhus (CKPs) of Maharashtra, South-Indian Brahmins including Deshastha Brahmins from Southern parts of India and upper echelons of the Muslim as well as Christian communities that made up the middle class at the time of Indian independence in 1947.


title: Kayastha

text: According to Merriam-Webster, the word "Kāyastha" is probably formed from the Sanskrit "kāya" (body), and the suffix "-stha" (standing, being in).


title: Kayastha

text: As evidenced by literary and epigraphical texts, Kayasthas had emerged as a 'class of administrators' between late-ancient and early-mediaeval period of Indian history. Their emergence is explained by modern scholars as a result of growth of state machinery, complication of taxation system and the "rapid expansion of land-grant practice that required professional documenting fixation". The term also finds mention in an inscription of the Gupta emperor Kumaragupta I, dated to 442 , in which "prathama-kāyastha" () is used as an administrative designation. The Yājñavalkya Smṛti, also from the Gupta era, and the Vishnu Smriti describe "kayasthas" as record-keepers and accountants, but not as (caste or clan). Similarly, the term "Kayastha" is used in the works of Kshemendra, Kalhana and Bilhana to refer to members of bureaucracy varying from () to the ().


title: Kayastha

text: According to Romila Thapar, the offices that demanded formal education including that of a "kayastha" were generally occupied by the ""Brahmins", revenue collectors, treasurers and those concerned with legal matters".


title: Kayastha

text: According to Chitrarekha Gupta, it is possible that Buddhists, in their effort to create an educated non-Brahmin class, strove to popularize the utility of education and fostered those vocations that required a knowledge of writing. This is corroborated in Udāna, where the "lekha-sippa" ('craft of writing'), was regarded as the highest of all the crafts. It is also backed by the fact that the earliest epigraphical records mentioning "lekhaka" ('writer') or "kayastha" have been made in association with Buddhism.


title: Kayastha

text: It is possible that "kayasthas" may have started out as a separate profession, similar to bankers, merchants, and artisans. As suggested in certain epigraphs, they had a representative in the district-level administration, along with those of bankers and merchants. This is also implied in , where a "kayastha" would work for any man who paid his wages on time. Possibly secular knowledge, like writing, administration, and jurisprudence, was monopolised by a non-Brahmin professional elite that later came be referred as "kayasthas".


title: Kayastha

text: The Kayasthas, at least as an office, played an important role in administering the Gangetic plains from the Gupta period. The earliest evidence comes from a Mathura inscription of Vasudeva I, composed by a Kayastha Śramaṇa. From this point we find, the term "kayastha" occurring in the inscription of the Gupta Emperor Kumaragupta I as "prathama-kāyastha," as "karaṇa-kāyastha" in Vainayagupta’s inscription, and as "gauḍa-kāyastha" in an Apshadha inscription dated 672 . The occasional references to individuals of the "Karaṇa" caste occupying high government offices are made in inscriptions and literary works too. Razia Banu has suggested that Brahmin and Kayastha migrants were brought to Bengal during the reign of the Gupta Empire to help manage the state affairs. According to a legend, a Bengali King named "Adisur" had invited Brahmins accompanied by Kayasthas from Kannauj who became an elite sub-group described as Kulin. However, such claims are disputable and even rejected by some scholars.


title: Kayastha

text: From the ninth-century and perhaps even earlier, Kayasthas had started to consolidate into a distinct caste. This is evident from a epigraphic record dated 871 of the King Amoghavarsha that mentions a branch of Kayasthas referred to as "vālabhya-kāyastha". The author of the Sanskrit work "Udayasundarī-kathā" also referred to himself as "vālabhya-kayāstha" and characterized Kayasthas as 'ornaments of the Kṣatriyas'.


title: Kayastha

text: According to Soḍḍhala"," who claimed to be a Kayastha himself, Kayasthas traced their descent to a younger brother of the Maitrika king, identified as "Śilāditya VI or VII", referred to as "Kalāditya". He narrates that "Kalāditya" had besieged Dharmapala of the Pala Dynasty that led to the victory of his elder brother. Subsequently, he was entrusted by Śilāditya to administer his kingdom at the advice of the Goddess "Rāja Lakśmī." Kalāditya has been further described as an incarnation of a "gaṇa" () of Shiva called "Kayastha".


title: Kayastha

text: In Bengal, during the reign of the Gupta Empire beginning in the 4th century, when systematic and large-scale colonisation by Indo-Aryan Kayasthas and Brahmins first took place, Kayasthas were brought over by the Guptas to help manage the affairs of state.


title: Kayastha

text: After the Muslim conquest of India, they mastered Persian, which became the official language of the Mughal courts. Some converted to Islam and formed the Muslim Kayasth community in northern India.


title: Kayastha

text: Bengali Kayasthas had been the dominant landholding caste prior to the Muslim conquest, and continued this role under Muslim rule. Indeed, Muslim rulers had from a very early time confirmed the Kayasthas in their ancient role as landholders and political intermediaries.


title: Kayastha

text: Bengali Kayasthas served as treasury officials and "wazirs" (government ministers) under Mughal rule. Political scientist U. A. B. Razia Akter Banu writes that, partly because of Muslim sultans' satisfaction with them as technocrats, many Bengali Kayasthas in the administration became "zamindars" and "jagirdars". According to Abu al-Fazl, most of the Hindu "zamindars" in Bengal were Kayasthas.


title: Kayastha

text: Maharaja Pratapaditya, the king of Jessore who declared independence from Mughal rule in the early 17th century, was a Bengali Kayastha.


title: Kayastha

text: The "Kayastha" appears as a figure in Act IX of the , where a "sreṣṭhin" and "kāyastha" are shown accompanying a judge ("adhikaraṇika") and assisting him. In Act V there is mention that "Moreover, O friend, a courtesan, an elephant, a "Kayastha", a mendicant, a spy and a donkey—where these dwell, there not even villains can flourish." In , a Kayastha named "Śakaṭadāsa" is a crucial character and one of the trusted men of the Prime Minister of the Nanda King. According to Chitrarekha Gupta, the title "Ārya" added to the name of "Śakaṭadāsa" implies that he was a member of the nobility. Another Kayastha called "Acala" is the scribe of Chanakya.


title: Kayastha

text: In early-mediaeval Kashmir too, the term "kayastha" denoted an occupational class whose principal duty, besides carrying on the general administration of the state, consisted in the collection of revenue and taxes. Kshemendra’s "Narmamālā" composed during the reign of Ananta (1028-1063 ) gives a list of contemporary Kayastha officers that included "Gṛhakṛtyadhipati," "Paripālaka", "Mārgapati", "Gañja-divira", "Āsthāna-divira", "Nagara-divira", "Lekhakopādhya" and "Niyogi". Kalhana’s Rājataraṃgiṇī ('The River of Kings') and Bilhana's "Vikramāṅkadevacarita" ('Life of King Vikramaditya') also mention Kayasthas. It is also mentioned that father of Lalitaditya Muktapida of the Karkota Dynasty, Durlabhavardhan, had held the post of "Aśvaghāsa-kāyastha."


title: Kayastha

text: Kayasthas have been recorded as a separate caste responsible for writing secular documents and maintaining records in Brahmanical religious writings dating back to the seventh-century. In these texts, some described Kayasthas as Kshatriyas, while others often described them as a 'mixed-origin' caste with Brahmin and Shudra components. This was probably an attempt by the Brahmins to rationalize their rank in the traditional caste hierarchy and perhaps a later invention rather than a historical fact.


title: Kayastha

text: During the British Raj, Kayasthas continued to proliferate in public administration, qualifying for the highest executive and judicial offices open to Indians.


title: Kayastha

text: Bengali Kayasthas took on the role occupied by merchant castes in other parts of India and profited from business contacts with the British. In 1911, for example, Bengali Kayasthas and Bengali Brahmins owned 40% of all the Indian-owned mills, mines and factories in Bengal.


title: Kayastha

text: The Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas, Bengali Kayasthas and CKPs were among the Indian communities in 1947, at the time of Indian independence, that constituted the middle class and were traditionally "urban and professional" (following professions like doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, etc.) According to P. K. Varma, "education was a common thread that bound together this pan Indian elite" and almost all the members of these communities could read and write English and were educated beyond school.


title: Kayastha

text: The Kayasthas today mostly inhabit central, eastern, northern India, and particularly Bengal. They are considered a Forward Caste, as they do not qualify for any of the reservation benefits allotted to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes that are administered by the Government of India. This classification has increasingly led to feelings of unease and resentment among the Kayasthas, who believe that the communities that benefit from reservation are gaining political power and employment opportunities at their expense. Thus, particularly since the 1990 report of the Mandal Commission on reservation, Kayastha organisations have been active in areas such as Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Bengal and Orissa. These groups are aligning themselves with various political parties to gain political and economic advantages; by 2009 they were demanding 33 percent reservation in government jobs.


title: Kayastha

text: The Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas of Northern India are named thus because they have a myth of origin that says they descend from the 12 sons of the Hindu god Chitragupta, the product of his marriages to Devi Shobhavati and Devi Nandini. The suffix "-vanshi" is Sanskrit and translates as "belonging to a particular family dynasty".


title: Kayastha

text: At least some Chitraguptavanshi subcastes seem to have formed by the 11th or 12th century, evidenced by various names being used to describe them in inscriptions. Although at that time, prior to the Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent, they were generally outnumbered by Brahmins in the Hindu royal courts of northern India, some among these Kayasthas wrote eulogies for the kings. Of the various regional Kayastha communities it was those of north India who remained most aligned to their role of scribes, whereas in other areas there became more emphasis on commerce.


title: Kayastha

text: The group of Bhatnagar, Srivastava, Ambashtha and Saxena of Doab were classified by various Indian, British and missionary observers to be the most learned and dominant of the "service castes".


title: Kayastha

text: In eastern India, Bengali Kayasthas are believed to have evolved from a class of officials into a caste between the 5th-6th centuries and 11th-12th centuries, its component elements being putative Kshatriyas and mostly Brahmins. They most likely gained the characteristics of a caste under the Sena dynasty. According to Tej Ram Sharma, an Indian historian, the Kayasthas of Bengal had not yet developed into a distinct caste during the reign of the Gupta Empire, although the office of the Kayastha (scribe) had been instituted before the beginning of the period, as evidenced from the contemporary "Smritis". Sharma further states:


title: Kayastha

text: In Maharashtra, Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhus (CKP) claim descent from the warrior Chandrasen. Historically they produced prominent warriors and also held positions such as Deshpandes and Gadkaris (fort holder, an office similar to that of a castellan. Traditionally, the CKPs have the upanayana (thread ceremony) and have been granted the rights to study the vedas and perform vedic rituals along with the Brahmins.


title: Kayastha

text: Karana is a caste found predominantly in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. They are a regional subcaste of Kayastha and traditionally they were the official record-keepers in the royal courts during Medieval times. They represent around 5% of Odia people. The Karanas are a forward caste of Odisha.


title: Kayastha

text: As the Kayasthas are a non-cohesive group with regional differences rather than a single caste, their position in the Hindu varna system of ritual classification has not been uniform.


title: Kayastha

text: This was reflected in Raj era court rulings. Hayden Bellenoit gives details of various Raj era law cases and concludes the varna Kayastha was resolved in those cases by taking into account regional differences and customs followed by the specific community under consideration. Bellenoit disagrees with Rowe, showing that Risley's theories were in fact used ultimately to classify them as Kshatriyas by the British courts. The first case began in 1860 in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh with a property dispute where the plaintiff was considered an "illegitimate child" by the defendants, a north-Indian Kayastha family. The British court denied inheritance to the child, citing that Kayasthas are Dvija, "twice-born" or "upper-caste" and that the illegitimate children of Dwijas have no rights to inheritance. In the next case in 1875 in the Allahabad High Court, a north Indian Kayastha widow was denied adoption rights as she was an upper-caste i.e. Dwija woman. However, the aforementioned 1884 adoption case and the 1916 property dispute saw the Calcutta High Court rule that the Bengali Kayasthas were shudras. The Allahabad High Court ruled in 1890 that Kayasthas were Kshatriyas. Hayden Bellenoit concludes from an analysis of those that Even where the shudra designation was adjudged, the Raj courts appear to have sometimes recognised that the Bengali Kayasthas were degraded from an earlier kshatriya status due to intermarrying with both shudras and slaves ('dasa') which resulted in the common Bengali Kayastha surname of 'Das'. The last completed census of the British Raj (1931) classified them as an "upper caste", i.e. Dwija, and the final British Raj law case involving their varna in 1926 determined them to be Kshatriya.


title: Kayastha

text: Earlier, in Bihar, in 1811–1812, botanist and zoologist Francis Buchanan had recorded the Kayastha of that region as "pure shudra" and accordingly kept them at the par with other producer caste groups like goldsmiths, Ahirs, Kurmis and the Koeris. William Pinch, in his study of Ramanandi Sampradaya in the north describes the emergence of the concept of "pure Shudra" in growing need of physical contact with some of the low caste groups who were producer and seller of essential commodities or were the provider of services without which the self sufficiency of rural society couldn't persist. However, many of these adopted Vaishnavism in the aim to become Kshatriya. In 1901 Bihar census, Kayasthas of the area were classified along with Brahmins and Rajputs in Bihar as "other castes of twice-born rank" According to Arun Sinha, there was a strong current since the end of the 19th century among Shudras of Bihar to change their status in caste hierarchy and break the monopoly of bipolar elite of Brahmins and Rajputs of having "dvija" status. The education and economic advancement made by some of the former Shudra castes enabled them to seek the higher prestige and "varna" status. The Kayastha along with the Bhumihars were first among the shudras to attain the recognition as "upper caste" leaving the other aspirational castes to aspire for the same.


title: Kayastha

text: The Raj era rulings were based largely upon the theories of Herbert Hope Risley, who had conducted extensive studies on castes and tribes of the Bengal Presidency. According to William Rowe, the Kayasthas of Bengal, Bombay and the United Provinces repeatedly challenged this classification by producing a flood of books, pamphlets, family histories and journals to pressurise the government to recognise them as kshatriya and to reform the caste practices in the directions of sanskritisation and westernisation.


title: Kayastha

text: Rowe's opinion has been challenged, with arguments that it is based on "factual and interpretative errors", and criticised for making "unquestioned assumptions" about the Kayastha Sanskritisation and westernisation movement.


title: Kayastha

text: In post-Raj assessments, the Bengali Kayasthas, alongside Bengali Brahmins, have been described as the "highest Hindu castes". After the Muslim conquest of India, they absorbed remnants of Bengal's old Hindu ruling dynastiesincluding the Sena, Pala, Chandra, and Varmanand, in this way, became the region's surrogate kshatriya or "warrior" class. During British rule, the Bengali Kayasthas, the Bengali Brahmins and the Baidyas considered themselves to be "Bhadralok", a term coined in Bengal for the gentry or respectable people. This was based on their perceived refined culture, prestige and education.


title: Kayastha

text: According to Christian Novetzke, in medieval India, Kayastha in certain parts were considered either as Brahmins or equal to Brahmins. Several religious councils and institutions have subsequently stated the varna status of CKPs as Kshatriya.


title: Princess Sophie of Bavaria

text: Princess Sophie of Bavaria (Sophie Friederike Dorothea Wilhelmine; 27 January 1805 – 28 May 1872) was the daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and his second wife Caroline of Baden. The identical twin sister of Queen Maria Anna of Saxony, Sophie became Archduchess of Austria by marriage to Archduke Franz Karl of Austria. Her eldest son Franz Joseph reigned as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary; her second son Maximilian briefly reigned as Emperor of Mexico.


title: Princess Sophie of Bavaria

text: The fourth child of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and Princess Caroline of Baden, Princess Sophie Friederike Dorothea Wilhelmine was born on 27 January 1805 in Nymphenburg Palace, Munich. She was said to be her father’s favorite daughter although she was more attached to her mother, whom she loved dearly. Sophie adored her twin sister Maria Anna and was very close to all her sisters.


title: Princess Sophie of Bavaria

text: On 4 November 1824, she married Archduke Franz Karl of Austria. Her paternal half-sister, Caroline Augusta of Bavaria, had married the groom's widowed father, Francis II, in 1816. Sophie and Franz Karl had six children. Emperor Francis II was truly fond of Sophie. Although Sophie had little in common with her husband she was a caring and devoted wife to Franz Karl who loved and respected her.


title: Princess Sophie of Bavaria

text: Unlike her husband, Sophie was attached to all her children especially Francis Joseph as well as Ferdinand Maximilian who was her favourite son. She had a reputation for being strong-willed and authoritarian by nature but she was also known as familiar and sociable person devoted to her family and the Habsburg empire she married into. She enjoyed court life, dance, art and literature as well as horse riding.


title: Princess Sophie of Bavaria

text: Her ambition to place her oldest son on the Austrian throne was a constant theme in Austrian politics. At the time she was called "the only man at court". During the Revolution of 1848, she persuaded her somewhat feeble-minded husband to give up his rights to the throne in favour of their son Franz Joseph.


title: Princess Sophie of Bavaria

text: Historically, Sophie is remembered for her extremely adversarial relationship with Franz Joseph's wife Sisi, who was also her niece. Elisabeth hated Sophie for being strict and demanding to her but there is no evidence that Archduchess had the same feelings toward her niece since she usually described Elisabeth quite pleasantly in her diary and letters. Nonetheless she had good relationships with her other daughters-in-law and was caring mother-in-law to Archduchess Maria Annunziata.


title: Princess Sophie of Bavaria

text: Sophie kept a detailed diary most of her life, which reveals much about Austrian court life. She was deeply affected in 1867 by the execution in Mexico of her second son Maximilian. She never recovered from that shock, and withdrew from public life. She died from pneumonia in 1872.


title: Princess Sophie of Bavaria

text: She was also noted for her close relationship with Napoleon II, who lived at the Austrian Court as the Duke of Reichstadt. There were rumors of a sexual affair between them. There was even suspicion that Maximilian, born two weeks before Reichstadt's death in 1832, was actually his child. These claims were never verified, but it is certain that they were very good friends and that his death affected her very much. She is said to have turned into the hard, ambitious woman described in fiction after he died.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: Claymore (stylized as CLAYMORE) is a Japanese dark fantasy manga series written and illustrated by Norihiro Yagi. It debuted in Shueisha's "shōnen" manga magazine "Monthly Shōnen Jump" in June 2001, where it continued until the magazine was shut down in June 2007. Following a four-chapter monthly publication in "Weekly Shōnen Jump", the series was transferred to the newly launched "Jump Square", where it was serialized from November 2007 until its conclusion in October 2014. Its chapters were collected in 27 "tankōbon" volumes.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: A 26-episode anime television series adaptation by Madhouse was broadcast on Nippon Television from April to September 2007. A CD soundtrack for the anime and a CD of character songs using its voice actresses were released in July and September 2007, respectively.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: The "Claymore" manga was licensed for English release in North America by Viz Media and released its 27 volumes from April 2006 to October 2015. The anime adaptation was licensed for release in North America by Funimation. Madman Entertainment has licensed the anime for release in Australia and New Zealand and the anime is sub-licensed by Manga Entertainment for UK distribution.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: The series is set on a fictional medieval island where humans are plagued by , humanoid shape-shifters that feed on humans. A mysterious group, known as The Organization, creates human-Yoma hybrids to kill Yoma for a fee. These female warriors wear armored uniforms. The public refer to them as "Claymores", alluding to their claymore swords, or "Silver-eyed Witches", due to their silver eyes.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: Yoma and Claymore warriors alike are powered by a demonic energy, , which allows shape-shifting and extreme strength. When warriors use too much Yoki, they "awaken", becoming a super-Yoma called an Awakened Being. The act of awakening is likened to the feeling of sexual climax, so while both male and female warriors existed in the past only the women proved to be successful warriors and so the creation of male Claymores stopped altogether.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: The island world is divided into 47 districts, with one warrior assigned to each. Claymore warriors No. 1 through 47 are ranked on their baseline Yoki potential, strength, agility, intelligence, sensing and leadership. A warrior's rank rises and falls according to the warrior's strength in relation to other warriors. It is unclear whether the warriors strength comes from training/experience or if the potential lies within the warriors themselves.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: In addition to all having different names, most warriors (usually high in rank) further their individuality by possessing a unique sword technique, fighting style, or Yoki ability. Examples of sword techniques are: twisting the arm around and thrusting for a drill-like strike, unsheathing and re-sheathing the sword faster than the eye can see, or vibrating the sword so quickly the enemy cannot tell where the blade is coming from. A few fighting styles include: stretching the arm, fighting with two blades, and releasing a burst of Yoki for a momentary burst of speed. For Yoki ability, there are several Claymores who can sense Yoki over vast distances and very accurately in close quarters. This appears to be, while not offensive, a very rare and valuable ability and the Claymores in the Organization with this ability are usually highly ranked. In addition, there are four Claymores that have offensive techniques that are Yoki based. The first is Galatea's ability to control her opponents' Yoki for brief periods during battle, usually to cause the enemy's attack to miss. The second is Teresa's: her ability to sense Yoki is so strong that she can sense it moving around her opponents' body and can therefore sense how and when her enemy will attack next, a technique later copied by Clare. The third ability is that of Rafaela who is able to manipulate the vision and movements of other Claymores. She is employed as an anti-training warrior.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: The first arc introduces the protagonist of the series: No. 47, Clare, who saves a young boy, Raki, from a Yoma. The next arc flashes back to the time of Teresa, warrior No. 1 of her era. And the young girl she saves from Yoma—Clare. The arc ends with their tragic encounter with Priscilla.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: Flashing forward to Clare's time, the Slashers arc introduces Miria (No. 6), Deneve (No. 15), Helen (No. 22) and Galatea (No. 3). The Gravestones arc introduces Ophelia (No. 4). The Witch's Maw arc introduces Jean (No. 9), Riful and Dauf. The Northern Campaign arc introduces Flora (No. 8), Undine (No. 11), Isley and Rigaldo. Raki and Priscilla reappear here.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: Written and illustrated by Norihiro Yagi, "Claymore" debuted in Shueisha's "Monthly Shōnen Jump" on June 6, 2001. The magazine ceased its publication on June 6, 2007. Following a 4-chapter monthly run in "Weekly Shōnen Jump" from July 2 to October 6, 2007, the series was transferred to the then brand new magazine "Jump Square" on November 2 of the same year. "Claymore" finished after a thirteen-year-run on October 4, 2014. Shueisha collected its chapters in twenty-seven "tankōbon" volumes, released from January 5, 2002, to December 4, 2014.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: On July 18, 2006, Viz Media announced the serialization of the "Claymore" manga in North America in its "Shonen Jump" manga anthology. Viz released the first volume of the series on April 4, 2006, and the last volume on October 6, 2015.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: An animated TV series adaptation of the manga produced by Nippon Television, D.N. Dream Partners, Avex Entertainment and Madhouse aired from April 4 to September 26, 2007 in Japan. The anime is directed by Hiroyuki Tanaka, with Yasuko Kobayashi handling series composition, Takahiro Umehara designing the characters and Masanori Takumi composing the music. It adapts the first eleven volumes of its source material over the first 24 episodes, then uses an alternate ending for its final two episodes.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: As of February 2008, seven DVD volumes, each containing three episodes of the anime, have been released in Japan by Avex Trax. In addition, four limited edition sets have been released. The first limited edition set contains the first DVD volume, while the other three sets each contain two DVD volumes. The latest limited edition set and volumes were released on January 30, 2008. Two more DVD volumes and one more limited edition set are planned for release on March 26, 2008. On February 15, 2008, Funimation announced that it has acquired the Region 1 DVD and broadcast licenses for the anime, and released the first DVD in North America on October 14, 2008: as of February 2009, three volumes have been released. On February 16, 2010, Funimation released a boxed set containing the complete series in Blu-ray format. Madman Entertainment has licensed the series and Volume 1 released early 2009.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: The series made its North American television debut when it started airing on the Funimation Channel September 6, 2010. Netflix also made "Claymore" available for streaming, but the series has been removed as of April 2012. All 26 episodes are available on Hulu, however, and Funimation via their streaming video service and DVD.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: Two pieces of theme music are used for the episodes: one opening theme and one ending theme. The opening theme is by visual kei rock band Nightmare. The ending theme is J-pop singer Riyu Kosaka's single, . These two themes are used in all twenty-six episodes.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: Two CDs have been released for the "Claymore". The first soundtrack, entitled "Claymore TV Animation O.S.T.", contained tracks from the anime series and was released on July 25, 2007 with instrumental compositions by Masanori Takumi. Spanning 32 tracks, the soundtrack includes the television-sized versions of the opening and ending themes.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: A second soundtrack, entitled , was released on 27 September 2007. It contains ten tracks, one each for ten characters from the series, featuring songs performed by the character voice actresses from the anime adaptation.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: was released by Digital Works Entertainment, 28 May 2009, in Japan. In this Nintendo DS game, the player controls Clare in a similar fashion to side-scrolling "Castlevania" and "Metroid" games. Player can alter the strength of Clare's Yoki by using the touch screen and stylus. Abusing the power results in Clare becoming fully possessed by the Yoma, resulting in a game over.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: In his review of volume 7, Carlo Santos of Anime News Network says about Clare's action scenes that "Clare's fights are nothing short of eye-popping, with page layouts designed for maximum dramatic effect". About the drama, he says that "even the occasional attempts at drama feel oddly distant". About the part in the story where Raki and Clare are separated, he states that it is more like "leave now because that's the obvious next step in the plot". The art of volume 7 is rated A, story C+, and overall B.


title: Claymore (manga)

text: Theron Martin, also of Anime News Network, says in his review of volume 14 that "the series has lost some of its luster, and it seems like less and less is actually happening with each volume". About the action scenes, he says that "the actual fights lack some of the dynamism seen in earlier volumes". As for the art, he states that "as has been true in the past, Yagi's artistry lacks for nothing". He rates the art A− in his reviews for volume eleven, twelve and fourteen. However, in his review of volume sixteen, Theron Marton says that "Yagi is back on track", and that "he provides a good mix of old friends popping back up, new allies, startling revelations, dire threats, and of course good-ol' beatdown action, in the process returning the series to arguably its strongest level since volume 12".


title: Claymore (manga)

text: Theron Martin also gave his thoughts on the first five episodes of the anime. He stated that "while not without some flaws, the first five episodes generally get the series off to a strong start, practically assuring that Funimation has a solid hit on their hands". The rating he gave for the anime is: story A−, animation B+, art A−, music A, and overall A−. In ICv2's list of "Top 50 Manga—Summer 2008", which subjectively ranks manga based on sales and perceived popularity, "Claymore" placed 42nd.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: Ghost Hunters is an American paranormal and reality television series. The original series aired from October 6, 2004 until October 26, 2016 on Syfy. The original program spanned eleven seasons with 230 episodes, not including 10 specials. The series was revived in early 2019 and aired its twelfth and thirteenth seasons from August 21, 2019, to May 27, 2020, on A&E, after which it was cancelled and then revived for its fourteenth season only months later on Discovery+, which started airing on October 31, 2021. Season 15 began October 1, 2022 on Travel Channel.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: The program featured Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, who founded The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) team of paranormal investigators to investigate places that are reported to be haunted. The two worked as plumbers for Roto-Rooter while moonlighting as paranormal investigators at night. For the 12th and 13th seasons, the revived show featured Wilson and a new investigatory team that had no discernible connection to TAPS, although the series still maintained the same format and producers and referenced past episodes. For the fourteenth season, Hawes and the previous TAPS incarnation from 2016 returned, while Wilson and the new team were not featured.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: The series, initially produced for 10 episodes as a docu-soap, had later episodes shift to a more documentary focus. "Ghost Hunters" episodes feature the team going to reportedly haunted locations across the United States, with some investigations in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Canada in earlier seasons. The latter concept led to the show's first spin-off, "Ghost Hunters International", in 2008, which often featured "Ghost Hunters" investigators in lead and guest roles, including Hawes and Wilson. A second spin-off, "Ghost Hunters Academy" (2009–10), had TAPS members Dave Tango and Steve Gonsalves training prospective investigators in a competitive format. Additionally, annual Halloween specials were broadcast live from 2005 to 2011 and featured celebrity guests and interactivity.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: The series popularized paranormal reality television and ghost hunting, and some members of the show have moved on to feature in their own television programs.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, along with other team members who belong to the group they founded, The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), investigate locations of interest by using various electronic equipment, which they believe is capable of detecting paranormal activity. The two originally worked as plumbers for Roto-Rooter as a day job while investigating locations at night.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: When investigating a location, TAPS team members first visit and survey the property with its owners, who describe their experiences at the site. Next, the team sets up electronic equipment in the apparent paranormal hotspots. The TAPS team then spends several hours taking electromagnetic field and temperature readings, recording audio for EVPs, and filming with digital video cameras. Many times, they will even try to verbally coax the ghosts into responding, while recording. Afterwards, the team spends several days analyzing all of the data for evidence of possible paranormal activity.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: A few days after reviewing the information, Hawes and Wilson discuss their findings with the location site owners, offer suggestions for dealing with any apparent activity, and answer any questions the owners may have.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: The TAPS members state that they do not believe that every phenomenon captured is evidence of the paranormal and sometimes provide reasonable explanations such as cold spots which may be drafty windows, strange noises that may be a thumping branch or vermin in the walls, moving objects which may have been accidentally bumped or tugged, or phantom lights which can be reflections of light from a passing vehicle.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: Since the series began airing, TAPS has recorded thousands of hours of audio and video data. Most investigations, according to TAPS, turn up cold with very little, if any, paranormal activity occurring; however, the ghost hunters claim to have several decent recordings of moving objects, mysterious lights, strange mists, and shadowy figures that manifest before the camera and are highlighted at the end of the show.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: Sci Fi initially categorized the program as a docu-soap. In addition to the investigative aspect, the show has also presented personal conflicts and relationships among members of the TAPS team. Portions of some episodes portray Hawes and Wilson involved with their plumbing job or personal lives, but this varies by episode and is not always included. As the series progressed, however, the "behind-the-scenes" and "docu-soap" aspects were reduced, and by the fifth season the show focused primarily on the investigations, with virtually none of the docu-soap material that characterized earlier episodes.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: During investigations, the TAPS ghost hunters team use various equipment, including digital thermometers, EMF meters, thermographic and night vision cameras, handheld and static digital video cameras, digital audio recorders, and laptop computers.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: The team has also experimented, in at least one episode, with a geiger counter during their investigation to see if it would register any anomalous readings.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: Starting around the third season, the team has used the K-2 (or K-II) meter, a type of EMF meter that uses a series of LEDs to measure the strength of an energy field instead of a numerical LCD screen. During the Manson murders investigation, in particular, the team used a K-2 meter in an attempt to get "yes" and "no" responses to verbal questions posed to a supposed entity in a room.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: In the fifth season's "Edith Wharton Estate" case, the team introduced two new pieces of equipment: one is a custom-made geophone, which detects vibrations and flashes a series of LEDs that measure the intensity of the vibration; the second is a new EMF detector that makes a buzzing sound when in the presence of an electromagnetic field, and the stronger the field, the louder it buzzes. In the episode, the geophones were recorded on video flashing to the vibrations of what sounded like footsteps across a floor, even though no one was supposedly in the room.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: Other gear not typically shown on screen are an ion generator, a device that charges the air with electricity and is theorized to help spirits manifest, and the white noise generator, an audio device that makes a static background noise and is theorized to act as a catalyst for assisting entities in making EVPs.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: This list includes former investigators considered part of the crew, and is sorted by tenure and amount of investigations taken part in. Persons after season 1 who made less than 7 appearances are not included.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: During its first run of episodes, aside from guest investigators with connections to The Atlantic Paranormal Society, "Ghost Hunters" utilized connections with other Syfy and NBCUniversal series to feature actors and personalities from those programs, in particular during the live specials and especially those for Halloween:


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: On March 3, 2010, "Ghost Hunters"' 100th episode aired, featuring their investigation of Alcatraz Prison. The two-hour special featured a live studio audience with question and answer segments, hosted by Josh Gates of "Destination Truth". The special also featured the "GHI" crew, the winning contestants of "Ghost Hunters Academy", and Craig Piligian, the creator and executive producer of "Ghost Hunters". On June 2, 2011, Syfy renewed "Ghost Hunters" for an eighth season, marking it as the longest-running reality series to air on the network.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: On February 15, 2012, Grant Wilson announced he would be leaving the cast of "Ghost Hunters" in order to focus on his personal life. In a statement, Hawes responded with, "I will miss working with Grant on a daily basis, and am indebted to the level of dedication and expertise he has brought to our field. I can’t imagine having a better partner through it all — both on the show and off. Grant and I, along with our spouses and children, are all like one big family. While I fully support his decision to move on from the series, this longtime friendship — as well as our business partnership — will continue off-camera for years to come." Subsequently, Wilson also left the "Beyond Reality" radio show and was eventually replaced by JV Johnson, the publisher/editor of TAPS Para-magazine.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: On June 7, 2016, Hawes announced that "Ghost Hunters" would be concluding on Syfy, with season 11 being the last season to be produced. On August 1, Wilson publicly reunited with Hawes for the first time, as a guest on "Beyond Reality".


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: On June 26, 2019, it was announced that "Ghost Hunters" would be revived later that year, with Wilson returning with a new team. The 12th season, initially reported to consist of 20 episodes (later broadcast as 11 with two specials, with a 13th season premiering later), premiered on August 21, 2019 on A&E and ended on October 30, 2019. Lead investigator and producer Grant Wilson confirmed prior to the October 30, 2019 episode that "Ghost Hunters" would return in 2020 for a 13th season of an unspecified number of episodes. On February 18, 2020, it was announced that the 13th season would premiere on April 8, 2020. Brandon Alvis confirmed on October 17, 2020, that the show would not be returning on A&E.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: On May 18, 2021 it was announced that "Ghost Hunters" was sold to Discovery+, and once again revived for its fourteenth season. Wilson and the new team were not featured, instead Hawes, Gonsalves, Tango, and DeBenedetti, who featured as the last cast of the original run of the show (and at the time of the purchase, the cast of "Ghost Nation") returned using the "TAPS" moniker and methods featured previously. It airs on Discovery+ as season 14 of "Ghost Hunters", but uses "TAPS Returns" as a subtitle in marketing. Seasons 1–11, as well as seasons 12 and 13, which aired on A&E, are now subtitled "Ghost Hunters (Classic)".


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: "Ghost Hunters" has garnered some of the highest ratings of any Syfy reality programming. From the start, the show has found an audience for its mix of paranormal investigation and interpersonal drama. It has since been syndicated on NBC Universal sister cable channel Oxygen and also airs on the Canadian cable network OLN.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: In the early shows, TAPS was headquartered in a trailer located behind Jason Hawes' house, and they drove one white van to investigations. Within one season, they had moved the entire operation to a storefront in Warwick, Rhode Island, and acquired several new TAPS vehicles.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: In addition to their successful television venture, TAPS operates a website where they share their stories, photographs, and ghost hunting videos with an ever-growing membership list. Because of the popularity of the show, TAPS cast members have signed contracts with at least two talent agencies, Escape Artistry and GP Entertainment, to manage their appearances at lectures, conferences and public events.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: TAPS also ventured into the venue of radio broadcast with a three-hour weekly show called "Beyond Reality", initially hosted by Hawes and Wilson. The radio show covers topics in a vast array of areas such as cryptozoology, spiritualism, ufology, and ghosts. The show includes guest appearances from other TAPS members and special guests such as John Zaffis, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Chris Fleming, and others who specialize in certain fields. Noted paranormal author Jeff Belanger and "Spooky Southcoast" radio host and author Tim Weisberg served as fill-in hosts. The show also once simulcasted on "Spooky Southcoast", airing from the Mt. Washington Hotel in New Hampshire. New episodes are broadcast every Saturday from 7 pm to 10 pm Eastern Time, though sometimes may skip a week due to the possibility of the hosts being busy with other ventures.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: "Ghost Hunters" helped popularize paranormal television and ghost hunting during its original run. For much of its initial airing on Syfy, it was the top-rated paranormal reality show on television. John Blake of CNN opined in 2013 that "Ghost Hunters" "is to the paranormal field what Sugarhill's 'Rapper's Delight' is to hip-hop..."


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: Hawes, Wilson and "Ghost Hunters" were parodied on the 2009 episode of "South Park" entitled "Dead Celebrities". They have made talk-show appearances on the December 8, 2005 episode of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", the Oct 31, 2006 episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", a 2008 episode of "The View", and the October 28, 2010 episode of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon".


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: "Ghost Hunters" has attracted various critics and skeptics, such as Joe Nickell of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, "Skeptical Inquirer" author Lynne Kelly, James Randi, and Benjamin Radford. The Skeptical Analysis of the Paranormal Society (SAPS) was founded with the intent to recreate and debunk segments of the show.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: In June 2008, "Ghost Hunters" was awarded The Truly Terrible Television (TTTV) Award by Independent Investigations Group for peddling pseudoscience and superstition to its audience.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: During the seven-hour-long, live Halloween show on October 31, 2008, at least two events took place that critics have scrutinized: One occurs when lead investigator Grant Wilson has his jacket collar pulled down by an unseen force three times; all the while one of his hands remained at his side, which led detractors to claim he was pulling a hidden string. This happens again at one point where Hawes touches Wilson's back and his collar moves down again. Another occurs when a supposed disembodied voice tells the hunters, "You're not supposed to be here." Critics have claimed the voice sounded like it was piped in from an external audio source. In regard to the scrutiny, Wilson and Hawes defended themselves, stating that everything in the show is real. In a 2013 interview on "The Reveal", Wilson stated that their television contracts forbade them from faking evidence on the show.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: According to investigator Benjamin Radford, most ghost hunting groups including TAPS make many methodological mistakes. "After watching episodes of "Ghost Hunters" and other similar programs, it quickly becomes clear to anyone with a background in science that the methods used are both illogical and unscientific". Anyone can be a ghost investigator, "failing to consider alternative explanations for anomalous ... phenomena", considering emotions and feelings as "evidence of ghostly encounters." "Improper and unscientific investigation methods", for example, "using unproven tools and equipment", "sampling errors", "ineffectively using recording devices" and "focusing on the history of the location...and not the phenomena." In an article for "Skeptical Inquirer", Radford concludes that ghost hunters should care about doing a truly scientific investigation: "I believe that if ghosts exist, they are important and deserve to be taken seriously. Most of the efforts to investigate ghosts so far have been badly flawed and unscientific — and not surprisingly, fruitless." In a "New York Times" article about "Ghost Hunters" and TAPS, Radford contended that "the group and others like it lack scientific rigor and mislead people into thinking that their homes are haunted."


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: The show's editing has been questioned, such as activity that is not captured on tape and findings that are unsupported by evidence in the show specifically. Tools are used in ways that are not proven effective, or in ways in which they have been proven ineffective, such as infrared thermometers that are claimed to detect cold spots in the middle of rooms when such tools are able only to measure the surface temperature of objects.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: Techniques with thermal imaging cameras, Geiger counters, electronic voice phenomenon, and EMF detectors are used with little or no explanation as to how the techniques have proven to provide evidence of ghosts or other entities. There are concerns that the devices are misused, such as the noting of Benjamin Radford's article for "Skeptical Inquirer": "you may own the world's most sophisticated thermometer, but if you are using it as a barometer, your measurements are worthless. Just as using a calculator doesn't make you a mathematician, using a scientific instrument doesn't make you a scientist."


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: A spin-off series premiered on January 9, 2008, featuring investigators Robb Demarest, Brian Harnois, Donna LaCroix, Andy Andrews, Shannon Sylvia, and Barry Fitzgerald (who appeared in the summer 2007 Ireland episodes of "Ghost Hunters") since the onset, along with other rotating members from the TAPS family. The format is similar to "Ghost Hunters" but features investigations in various locations around the world.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: "Ghost Hunters" producers Craig Pilligan and Tom Thayer released another paranormal investigation "special" titled "UFO Hunters", (not to be confused with the show of the same name which aired on the History Channel), which first aired on January 30, 2008 but only aired for one episode. The episode followed New York Strange Phenomena Investigators (NY-SPI) co-founders Oliver Kemenczky and Ted Davis, along with paranormal researcher Dennis Anderson, as they investigated an alleged alien abduction case in Carteret, New Jersey and a strange fireball sighting in Normandy Beach, New Jersey. The format was similar to a typical "Ghost Hunters" episode, with most of the program dedicated to the investigation and wrapped up with a review of findings and evidence that was gathered. The pilot episode was reformatted and returned on December 13, 2008, as a special called "Ny-Spi Investigates" on Investigation Discovery, but was not picked up as a continuing series.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: On October 23, 2008, "TV Guide" reported that Syfy would launch a spin-off of the show called "Ghost Hunters: College Edition", which would feature "co-eds" in the ghost hunter roles. The show was later named "Ghost Hunters Academy" and began airing November 11, 2009. The series features Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango leading a group of amateur ghost hunters through various investigations.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: TAPS members Adam Berry (also the finalist from "Ghost Hunters Academy") and Amy Bruni left the series in 2014 to start their own program, which was subsequently named "Kindred Spirits", which started airing on Destination America and TLC in 2013 and has aired 6 seasons so far, later moving to Travel Channel.


title: Ghost Hunters (TV series)

text: After the decision to cut ties with Syfy in 2016 and negotiations to start a new "Ghost Hunters" series failed, Hawes, Gonsalves, and Tango eventually came to decide to focus on efforts to help local investigators on a national level and start a new program, "Ghost Nation". The program has aired on Travel Channel since October 2019.


title: Mary Ann Bevan

text: Mary Ann Bevan ( Webster; 20 December 187426 December 1933) was an English woman, who after developing acromegaly, toured the sideshow circuit as "the ugliest woman in the world".


title: Mary Ann Bevan

text: Mary Ann Webster was one of eight children born into a working-class family in Plaistow, East London. She later became a nurse. In 1902, she married Thomas Bevan with whom she had four children. Thomas Bevan died suddenly in 1914.


title: Mary Ann Bevan

text: Bevan started exhibiting the symptoms of acromegaly soon after she was married, around the age of 32. She began to suffer from abnormal growth and facial distortion, which led to her "homely" appearance, along with severe headaches and fading eyesight. After the death of her husband in 1914, she no longer had the income to support herself and her four children. Bevan decided to capitalize on her appearance and entered an "Ugliest Woman" contest which she won.


title: Mary Ann Bevan

text: In 1920, she was hired by Sam Gumpertz to appear in Coney Island's Dreamland sideshow, a form of freak show, where she spent most of the remainder of her life. She also made appearances for the Ringling Brothers Circus until her death. She was interred at Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries.


title: Mary Ann Bevan

text: In the early 2000s, Bevan's image was used on a birthday card in the United Kingdom made by Hallmark Cards. The card made reference to the dating show "Blind Date". A complaint was made by a Dutch physician that it was disrespectful to a woman who had become deformed as the result of a disease. Hallmark agreed that it was inappropriate and went on to stop distribution of the card.


title: Music download

text: A music download (commonly referred to as a digital download) is the digital transfer of music via the Internet into a device capable of decoding and playing it, such as a personal computer, portable media player, MP3 player or smartphone. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyrighted material without permission or legal payment. According to a Nielsen report, downloadable music accounted for 55.9 percent of all music sales in the US in 2012. By the beginning of 2011, Apple's iTunes Store alone made 1.1 billion of revenue in the first quarter of its fiscal year. Music downloads are typically encoded with modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) audio data compression, particularly the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format used by iTunes as well as the MP3 audio coding format.


title: Music download

text: Paid downloads are sometimes encoded with digital rights management that restricts copying the music or playing purchased songs on certain digital audio players. They are almost always compressed using a lossy codec (usually MPEG-1 Layer 3, Windows Media, or AAC), which reduces file size and bandwidth requirements. These music resources have been created as a response to expanding technology and needs of customers who wanted easy, quick access to music. Their business models respond to the "download revolution" by making legal services attractive for users.


title: Music download

text: Even legal music downloads have faced a number of challenges from artists, record labels and the Recording Industry Association of America. In July 2007, the Universal Music Group decided not to renew their long-term contracts with iTunes. This decision was primarily based on the issue of pricing of songs, as Universal wanted to be able to charge more or less depending on the artist, a shift away from iTunes' standard—at the time—99 cents per song pricing. Many industry leaders feel that this is only the first of many show-downs between Apple Inc. and the various record labels.


title: Music download

text: According to research by the website TorrentFreak, 38 percent of Swedish artists support file share downloading and claim that it helps artists in early career stages. Artists, including Swedish rock group Lamont, have profited from file sharing.


title: Music download

text: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) oversees about 85 percent of published music production, distribution and manufacturing in the United States. Their stated goal is to support artists' creativity and help them not be cheated out of money by illegal downloading. The Recording Industry Association of America launched its first lawsuits on 8 September 2003, against individuals who illegally downloaded music files from the Kazaa FastTrack network.


title: Music download

text: Two years after it began, the campaign survived at least one major legal challenge. The RIAA said it filed 750 suits in February 2006 against individuals downloading music files without paying for them in hopes of putting an end to Internet music piracy. The RIAA hopes their campaign will force people to respect the copyrights of music labels and eventually minimize the number of illegal downloads.


title: Music download

text: The Official Charts Company began to incorporate downloads in the UK Singles Chart on 17 April 2005, at which time Radio 1 stopped broadcasting the separate download chart, although the chart is still compiled. Initially this was on condition that the song must have a physical media release at the same time; this rule was fully lifted on 1 January 2007, meaning all download sales are now eligible in the chart.


title: Music download

text: Music downloads have been measured by the Official Charts Company since 2004 and included in the main UK Singles Chart from 2005. As of September 2014, the most downloaded song in the UK was "Happy" by Pharrell Williams, with over 1.8 million downloads.


title: Music download

text: In November 2005, the record for the best-selling downloaded single in the United States was held by Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl", which sold over one million downloads, making it the first song to achieve platinum download status. , the record for the best-selling downloaded single in the United States on the iTunes Store is held by The Black Eyed Peas's "I Gotta Feeling", which has sold over 8 million downloads.


title: Music download

text: Soon after his death in 2009, Michael Jackson became the first artist to sell over one million songs downloaded via the Internet in one week. However, Adele marks the most downloads sold by a single song in a week, with "Hello" selling 1.12 million copies in November 2015.


title: Music download

text: Eminem's seventh studio album, "Recovery" (2010), became the first album to sell one million digital copies.


title: Music download

text: Beyoncé's self-titled fifth studio album became the fastest-selling album within 24 hours in iTunes history after its release in December 2013. Within 24 hours of availability, the album sold 430,000 digital copies. Adele's third studio album "25" became the fastest-selling album in a week in iTunes history after it was released on 20 November 2015. It sold 1.64 million digital copies in its first week (included preorders on the iTunes store since the release of the album's lead single "Hello" in October 2015).


title: Music download

text: In 2006, the Recording Industry Association of Japan began issuing certifications for digitally released music in Japan, compiling data from the early 2000s onwards. The best-selling song is Fukushima-based vocal group Greeeen's song "Kiseki" (2008), which was certified for being legally downloaded four million times between 2008 and 2015, followed by R&B singer Thelma Aoyama's "Soba ni Iru ne" (2008) featuring rapper SoulJa, which was certified for three million downloads between 2008 and 2014. Greeeen's song "Ai Uta" (2007) ranks as the third highest certified song, with 2.5 million downloads tracked between 2007 and 2009. Two more songs have sold more than two million paid downloads: Ayaka's "Mikazuki" (2006) and Kobukuro's "Tsubomi" (2007). The most successful ringtone in Japan is Moldovan-Romanian band O-Zone's "Dragostea din tei" (2003), known locally as , which was certified as having four million units sold.


title: Music download

text: In Japan, only two albums have received digital certifications by the RIAJ. The first was "Songs for Japan" (2011), a charity compilation album raising profits for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which was certified gold for 100,000 downloads in June 2011. The second album was the Japanese language cast recording of the "Frozen" soundtrack, which sold 100,000 copies between its release in March 2014 and January 2015.


title: Music download

text: In South Korea, Gaon Digital Chart has been tracking digital sales since 2009. The most successful song according to their published data is Busker Busker's "Cherry Blossom Ending" (2012), which was downloaded over 7 million times between 2012 and 2017. In 2011, "Roly-Poly" by T-ara was the most successful song of the year, selling 4.1 million digital copies.


title: Music download

text: "Roly Poly" also became the fastest-selling song in Korea's history and the first to reach 4M Downloads in a calendar year (Roly Poly achieved +4M Downloads in 5 months).


title: Local government

text: Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-localised and has limited powers. While in some countries, "government" is normally reserved purely for a national administration (government) (which may be known as a central government or federal government), the term local government is always used specifically in contrast to national government – as well as, in many cases, the activities of sub-national, first-level administrative divisions (which are generally known by names such as cantons, provinces, states, oblasts, or regions). Local governments generally act only within powers specifically delegated to them by law and/or directives of a higher level of government. In federal states, local government generally comprises a third or fourth tier of government, whereas in unitary states, local government usually occupies the second or third tier of government.


title: Local government

text: The question of municipal autonomy is a key question of public administration and governance. Local elections are held in many countries. The institutions of local government vary greatly between countries, and even where similar arrangements exist, the terminology often varies. Common designated names for local government entities include state, province, region, canton, department, county, prefecture, district, city, township, town, borough, parish, municipality, shire, village, ward, local service district and local government area.


title: Local government

text: Local government traditionally had limited power in Egypt's highly centralized state. Under the central government were twenty-six governorates (sing., muhafazah; pl., muhafazat). These were subdivided into districts (sing., markaz; pl., marakaz) and villages (sing., qaryah; pl., qura) or towns. At each level, there was a governing structure that combined representative councils and government-appointed executive organs headed by governors, district officers, and mayors, respectively. Governors were appointed by the president, and they, in turn, appointed subordinate executive officers. The coercive backbone of the state apparatus ran downward from the Ministry of Interior through the governors' executive organs to the district police station and the village headman (sing., ; pl., umadah).


title: Local government

text: Before the revolution, state penetration of the rural areas was limited by the power of local notables, but under Nasser, land reform reduced their socioeconomic dominance, and the incorporation of peasants into cooperatives transferred mass dependence from landlords to government. The extension of officials into the countryside permitted the regime to bring development and services to the village. The local branches of the ruling party, the Arab Socialist Union (ASU), fostered a certain peasant political activism and coopted the local notables—in particular the village headmen—and checked their independence from the regime.


title: Local government

text: State penetration did not retreat under Sadat and Mubarak. The earlier effort to mobilize peasants and deliver services disappeared as the local party and cooperative withered, but administrative controls over the peasants remained intact. The local power of the old families and the headmen revived but more at the expense of peasants than of the state. The district police station balanced the notables, and the system of local government (the mayor and council) integrated them into the regime.


title: Local government

text: Sadat took several measures to decentralize power to the provinces and towns. Governors acquired more authority under Law Number 43 of 1979, which reduced the administrative and budgetary controls of the central government over the provinces. The elected councils acquired, at least formally, the right to approve or disapprove the local budget. In an effort to reduce local demands on the central treasury, local government was given wider powers to raise local taxes. But local representative councils became vehicles of pressure for government spending, and the soaring deficits of local government bodies had to be covered by the central government. Local government was encouraged to enter into joint ventures with private investors, and these ventures stimulated an alliance between government officials and the local rich that paralleled the infitah alliance at the national level. Under Mubarak decentralization and local autonomy became more of a reality, and local policies often reflected special local conditions. Thus, officials in Upper Egypt often bowed to the powerful Islamic movement there, while those in the port cities struck alliances with importers.


title: Local government

text: In recent years, Mali has undertaken an ambitious decentralization program, which involves the capital district of Bamako, seven regions subdivided into 46 cercles, and 682 rural community districts (communes). The state retains an advisory role in administrative and fiscal matters, and it provides technical support, coordination, and legal recourse to these levels. Opportunities for direct political participation, and increased local responsibility for development have been improved.


title: Local government

text: In August–September 1998, elections were held for urban council members, who subsequently elected their mayors. In May/June 1999, citizens of the communes elected their communal council members for the first time. Female voter turnout was about 70% of the total, and observers considered the process open and transparent. With mayors, councils, and boards in place at the local level, newly elected officials, civil society organizations, decentralized technical services, private sector interests, other communes, and donor groups began partnering to further development.


title: Local government

text: Eventually, the cercles will be reinstituted (formerly grouping arrondissements) with a legal and financial basis of their own. Their councils will be chosen by and from members of the communal councils. The regions, at the highest decentralized level, will have a similar legal and financial autonomy, and will comprise a number of cercles within their geographical boundaries. Mali needs to build capacity at these levels, especially to mobilize and manage financial resources.


title: Local government

text: and local government. The country's constitution provides for each local government (which exists in a single tier countrywide), and its development areas and autonomous communities created by individual state legislation to have democratically elected local government heads. There is a ministry (or bureau) of local government and chieftaincy affairs in each state charged with the responsibility of administration at that level. Nigeria has a total of 774 Local Government Areas


title: Local government

text: South Africa has a two-tiered local government system comprising local municipalities which fall into district municipalities, and metropolitan municipalities which span both tiers of local government.


title: Local government

text: Afghanistan was traditionally divided into provinces governed by centrally appointed governors with considerable autonomy in local affairs. There are currently 34 provinces. During the Soviet occupation and the development of country-wide resistance, local areas came increasingly under the control of mujaheddin groups that were largely independent of any higher authority; local commanders, in some instances, asserted a measure of independence also from the mujaheddin leadership in Pakistan, establishing their own systems of local government, collecting revenues, running educational and other facilities, and even engaging in local negotiations. Mujaheddin groups retained links with the Peshawar parties to ensure access to weapons that were doled out to the parties by the government of Pakistan for distribution to fighters inside Afghanistan.


title: Local government

text: The Taliban set up a shura (assembly), made up of senior Taliban members and important tribal from the area. Each shura made laws and collected taxes locally. The Taliban set up a provisional government for the whole of Afghanistan, but it did not exercise central control over the local shuras.