title: Jyoti Basu

text: The new assembly therefore instituted the West Bengal Special Powers Act 1947 modelled on the Defence of India Act 1915; the act gave unchecked power to the bureaucracy and the police to suppress public agitations allowing law enforcement to detain individuals for up to 6 months without trial on reasonable grounds, which was justified on the grounds of maintaining the law and order situation. The bill was inordinately criticised and opposed by Basu who declared that "it seeks to perpetuate (the undemocratic rule)". In 1948, the government sought to extent the act through the West Bengal Security Ordinance which would remove the restriction of "reasonable grounds" for imprisonment. According to Basu, the new ordinance had made it clear that the Congress intended to establish a police state in West Bengal. By this time, the state of West Bengal had already been declared as a "problem province" by the Congress administration and Bidhan Chandra Roy replaced as the new chief minister.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: During the presentation of the ordinance as a bill in the assembly, Basu attempted to oppose it on a clause by clause basis but in vain due to the dominance of the Congress in the assembly, only the two communist legislators Ratanlal Brahmin and Basu along with independent members opposed the bill. Basu argued that while the Congress spoke of "Kisan Raj" (), it had made no progress in abolishing the Zamindari system and had instead developed vested interests with the "Zamindars" () themselves which resulted in the persistence of poor socioeconomic conditions and the employment of repressive tactics against agitations.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the following period the Communist Party was made illegal by the government on allegations of trying to incite on open rebellion and Basu repeatedly arrested as a result; on 24 March 1948, he was imprisoned for a period of three months and released on the orders of the Calcutta High Court. In December 1948, he married a second time, this time with Kamala Devi but soon went into hiding and kept changing residences due to an ongoing crackdown on communist leaders. For a period at the time, he had reportedly lived alongside Indrajit Gupta, who would later become the Home Minister of India. In 1949, Basu had remained as the vice-president of the All India Railwaymen's Federation. In the same year, the federation had held a strike ballot which displayed overwhelming support for a railway strike on 9 March in demand of better wages and working conditions in the Indian Railways. The strike notice was however withdraw by the socialist leadership of the federation to whom the government had shown a reconciliatory attitude but the communist members under the leadership of Basu insisted on proceeding with the strike which resulted in disciplinary action being taken against the communists. Subsequently, the government also decided to crack down on the communist leadership by arresting 118 leaders involved in the railway sector in West Bengal including Basu. In the aftermath, the strike was a failure as the administration mobilised troops and police force to prevent any disruption from communist influenced union members.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: After the adoption of the Constitution of India in 1950, the ban on the Communist Party was lifted on the orders of the Calcutta High Court. In September 1951, Congress attempted to renew the Security Act with the introduction of the West Bengal Security (Amendment) Bill of 1951 which raised criticism in the assembly on the lines of creating an environment of fear and intimidation on the eve of the first elections to the assembly which were to be held in December. Although the bill was passed once again despite Basu's persistent opposition, this time he had garnered the support of a number of Gandhian Congress members including from the former chief minister and architect of the bill, P. C. Ghosh, all of whom had resigned from the party and formed their own Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party by the time of voting. In same year, the Bengali daily organ "Swadhinata" of the Communist Party was resumed and Basu appointed as the president of its editorial board. The legislative assembly elections for 1951 were also held by the Election Commission in March 1952 instead.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the West Bengal State Assembly election of 1952, Basu was elected as the representative of the Baranagar constituency and the Communist Party emerged as the second-largest party in the assembly. Following which Basu was unanimously elected as the legislative party leader of the CPI in West Bengal. In the following year, he was also elected as the secretary of the state committee of the CPI. The ensuing period in West Bengal was marked with the rise of a number of anti-establishment mass movements, in which Basu is described to have played a key role.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Even after the Independence of India, the Calcutta Tramways Company had remained a British-owned company which operated in partnership with the Government of West Bengal. On 25 June 1953, the company announced a fare hike for second class passengers that was to be implemented from 1 July onwards, which was supported by the West Bengal Government. In response to the move, the "Tram and Bus Fare Enhancement Resistance Committee" was formed in which Basu was inducted as the representative of the Communist Party. The Calcutta Tramway Union announced their support for the committee and published statistical data through the "Swadhinata" which displayed that the company was privy to "swelling profits" concluding the fare hike to be "absolutely uncalled for". From the day of implementation of the new fares, the city underwent a series of agitations which began with disobedience to pay the new prices and caused severe losses for the company, culminating into police deployment and arrests of hundreds of disobedient passengers.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Basu was arrested on 4 July alongside Ganesh Ghosh and Subodh Banerjee who were also involved in the agitations, he was bailed out the following day. On 7 July, during a large picketing of the company headquarters at Mango Lane in Calcutta, five Resistance Committee leaders including Basu met with A.C.T Blease who was the agent of the company in India and presenting him with the demands of unilateral withdrawal of the fare hike. On the evening of the same day, 500 citizens including Basu were arrested under the Preventive Detention Act which had been earlier implemented through the Security Act. Over the course of the month the movement faced progressively increased police action and subsequently heightened civil unrest spreading all across West Bengal with general strikes, mass demonstrations, tramway boycotts to hunger strikes from imprisoned agitators and even violent confrontations between the police and agitators on the streets. In the end, the five committee leaders including Basu were released on 26 July, the fare hike scrapped by the Chief Minister Bidhan Chandra Roy on 31 July and the remaining imprisoned agitators released by 2 August.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In January 1954, the Communist party held its third congress in Madurai and Basu was elected as the new Central Committee member during the congress. In February, Basu became involved in the 1954 teachers' agitation in West Bengal. The All Bengal Teachers Association (ABTA) had been called for implementing the recommendations of the Secondary Board for raising the allowances of secondary school teachers. The association was joined in by various labour unions and opposition parties in support of their demand. The government as a result decided to crack down on the leaders of the agitation but Basu escaped custody and took refuge in the West Bengal Legislature. The police force who were trying to arrest him through the Preventive Detention Act were reluctant to enter the assembly to arrest a legislator. In Basu's testimony, he states that it was easier for him support the agitation from inside the assembly by projecting the police action on the movement without getting arrested.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: During the presentation of the recommendation of the States Reorganisation Commission in 1956, a proposal for the merger of Bihar and West Bengal into a single state called Purva Pradesh was floated which was supported by the Indian National Congress. The Communist Party having maintained the stance of supporting linguistic reorganisation of states in India since 1920, was vehemently opposed to the proposal of the merger. The announcement of the proposal caused widespread protests in West Bengal led by students, workers and even peasantry, the Central Committee of the Communist Party held a meeting between 28 January to 4 February protesting the move. Basu and Yogendra Sharma, the secretaries of the state committees of the Communist Party in West Bengal and Bihar respectively issued a joint press statement calling the merger proposal to be "antidemocratic and reactionary".


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Basu is noted to have opposed the proposal from both within and outside the assembly, he presided over the mass meeting at Wellington Square in opposition to the proposal and severely criticised the governor's position in support of the proposal. According to his testimony, the proposal was akin to a conspiracy to annihilate the basic identity of Bengal. Basu presented the idea of the proposal as a poll issue for the by-elections of the year, supporting the candidacy of Mohit Mitra who the Central Committee's secretary for linguistic reorganisation and declared that the results should reflect the people's mandate. In the subsequent by-elections, Mohit Mitra won from the Calcutta North East constituency and Lal Behari Das won from the Khejuri constituency, defeating their Congress counterparts by a margin of over 20,000 in both constituencies which caused the Chief Minister Bidhan Chandra Roy to scrap the merger proposal.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1957, Basu was re-elected as the representative of the Baranagar constituency and the Communist Party returned as the second largest party with an increased representation. As a result, Basu formally became the Leader of Opposition in the assembly. This platform enabled the Communist Party under the leadership of Basu in West Bengal to exacerbate agitations against the prevalent food crisis in West Bengal by acting as the principal opposition on the floor of the assembly, increasing public awareness and providing a united front for agitators to rally around.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Since the beginning of the British Raj, the region of Bengal had suffered from severe food shortages culminating into large-scale famines at times. Following independence of India, the Public Distribution System (PDS) was established and two land reforms were enacted in 1953 and 1955 in West Bengal. However, the implementation of these initiatives and reforms was rife with problems and the agricultural sector had remained in despondency while food shortages continued to afflict a largely impoverished population. The food crisis and general poverty had led to multiple outbursts of public agitations throughout the 1950s which peaked near the end of 1959. The leaders of the Communist Party adopted the twin strategy of organising anti-government mass movements by forming issue based committees to draw public support from beyond party lines and pressurise the government into providing relief measures while also badgering on about food scarcity on the floor of the legislative assembly to draw and retain public and media attention on the issue, Basu played a significant role in the latter with frequent moves for adjournment motions and participation in heated debates.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: By the end of 1958, the Communist Party initiated the formation of the Price Increase and Famine Resistance Committee (PIFRC) in collaboration with the other primarily leftist members of the opposition. Basu became one of the formative leaders of the committee. Food insecurity in West Bengal had reached a critical stage at the time and its persistence was largely blamed on the Food Ministry and the Indian National Congress wherein the Communist Party had continuously asserted that the Congress party had been reduced to the representative party of hoarders, landlords and jotedars and that there would be no solution without direct action and sustained public pressure. Initially the committee principally engaged itself in laying down demands for price control, redistribution of state lands and organising agitations with that in retrospect.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: On 10 February 1959, Basu and other leaders of the PIFRC met with the Chief Minister, Bidhan Chandra Roy who gave them verbal assurances that ration shops will be restocked offering amenable prices but the assurances weren't followed through. On 26 April, Union Food Minister, Ajit Prasad Jain declared that the food situation in West Bengal was "easy, smooth and comfortable". This caused widespread public outrage and led to the intensification of the Food movement of 1959 between May–June as the situation was further aggravated by hoarders attempting to save up stocks in illegal go-downs and warehouses. The persistent refusal of the Government of West Bengal to consider the demands presented also provoked the PIFRC into augmenting the demands to include enactment of ceilings on private land holdings and confiscation without compensation of excessive lands owned by "Zamindars" (trans: Landlords); these were presented in parallel with general strikes and organised direct action endorsed and supported by the committee to locate and force the sale of hidden stocks of rice.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: On 25 June, the PIFRC and over 100 trade unions called a statewide "hartal" (general strike) to protest against the "anti–food" policies of the government. The agitators held an open mass meeting near the Chief Minister's residence where Basu was present among the speakers alongside Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Tridib Chaudhuri and Bankim Mukherjee, who demanded that the government should meet the conditions presented by the PIFRC or resign, otherwise they would organise a mass civil disobedience movement. On 9 July, the "Swadhinata" gave a clarion call through an editorial which stated that "People of West Bengal know quite well that the Congress Government and its food policy are responsible for their destitute condition. They also know that only by hitting hard, time and again, they could be forced to do at least something…" Earlier on 6 July, the PIFRC had issued a press release stating intent to begin the civil disobedience movement by taking preparations to organise volunteers; Basu was among the list of signatories that included Niranjan Sengupta and Nihar Mukherjee. The committee further set the date of 20 August for the beginning of the civil disobedience movement.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In August, the police arrested 35 prominent leaders of the committee including 7 members of legislative assembly through the usage of the Preventive Detention Act and the West Bengal Security Act. The movement however continued with civil disobedience, continuous general strikes and mass demonstrations while Basu was also able to evade arrest. On 31 August 1959, a massive demonstration cum general strike was held in the city of Calcutta which brought the city and its surrounding districts to a standstill and ended with lathi charges and instances of police violence on protesters. This caused an outburst of students protests against police atrocities and led to instances of police firing on student protesters. Over the course of the following days between 2–5 September, civil unrest with large scale participation from students of schools, colleges and universities erupted across the city accompanied by violent encounters with the police, vandalism and mass shootings by the police; in the end around 46–80 civilians were killed. The opposition leaders including Basu accused the government of having turned "authoritarian and ruthless" and reasoned that there was no space for the continuation of a democratic mass movement. In light of the violence, the PIFRC formally withdrew the agitation by 26 September and the committee was disbanded.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the aftermath and over the course of the following years, Basu condemned the "police barbarism" against the agitators, engaging in fiery criticisms against the government and even brought a motion of no confidence, although it was defeated due to a lack of requisite members. The series of events had also heightened public resentment against the Congress government across West Bengal, especially in Calcutta and would set the foundation for latter political activism in the following decade. The food movement would also go on in the form of a number of localised spontaneous agitations over the following years till the next large scale flare up in 1966.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1962, Basu was once again re-elected as the representative of the Baranagar constituency and the Communist Party increased its vote share from 17.81% to 24.96%. In the following period the Communist Party underwent a vertical split with a section of the party including Basu going on to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist). There were several ongoing ideological conflicts between sections within the Communist Party with regards to the nature of the Indian State and the characterisation and method of interaction with the Indian National Congress, with regards to the approach towards the ongoing debate between the Soviet Union and China and with regards to the handling of the border disputes between India and China. These debates were further exacerbated by the food movement in West Bengal and brought to the forefront by the rising border tensions between India and China. The Communist Party had also become the second largest party in the Lok Sabha following the 1962 Indian general election with nearly 10% vote share which is described to have brought prominence to the internal divisions of the party.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: The party was broadly divided into two sections namely the National Front (referred to as the "rightist section") and the Democratic Front (referred to as the "leftist section"). Basu belonging to the latter advocated for radical change to supplant the domination of big landlords, capitalists and monopolists in the Indian polity and opposed any conditional support for Nehruvian policies while denouncing the "revisionist position" taken by the former to support Jawaharlal Nehru on certain issues. The militant food movement in West Bengal also emboldened the leftist anti-Congress section to overwhelm the rightist section which sought tactical cooperation with the Indian National Congress. On the other hand, with the flare up of the Sino-Indian War, the leftist section of the Communist Party was portrayed as "pro–china" by their opponents from both within and outside the party. Before the outbreak of the war, the section had taken the stance that dialogue and diplomatic partnership with the Chinese would resolve the disputes, however Basu himself was more sceptical and advocated for the adoption of a twin strategy of maintaining the border outposts inside Tibet and then engaging in talks using the outposts as a form of leverage ahead of any commencement on a new treaty.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: The leftist section continued to oppose the Chinese stand on the India-China frontier but was also opposed to providing unconditional support to the Nehru government because of its "class character" contrary to the rightist section which had declared outright support for the central government. This stance of the leftist section came as dissatisfactory to the Nehru government which had imposed a state of national emergency and introduced the Defence of India Ordinance, 1962, and henceforth utilised them to imprison various opposition leaders and activists as well as Chinese Indian citizens. Basu was imprisoned among other major communist leaders such as the former chief minister of Kerala, E. M. S. Namboodiripad, the organisational specialist Promode Dasgupta, the founding leader of Communist Party of India (Marxist), Hare Krishna Konar, the Indian revolutionary freedom fighter, Benoy Choudhury, the Telangana revolutionaries, Puchalapalli Sundarayya and Makineni Basavapunnaiah as well as some members of the rightist section such as the trade unionist A. B. Bardhan. Basu reportedly received the news of his father's death during this time in prison. Although, the war ended in November 1962, the detainees were only released in December 1963 after an order from the Supreme Court of India.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: On 11 April 1964, in a landmark incident, 32 members from the "Leftist faction" in the CPI national council including Basu walked out of a meeting in Delhi with the stated intent of forming the "real communist party". The section organised their own conference in Tenali, Andhra Pradesh which concluded with a resolution to form a new party and in the seventh congress held between 31 October to 7 November in Calcutta, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was formally founded. Basu was elected to the first politburo of the new party being one of the nine founding members commonly referred to as the "Navaratnas" (trans: nine gems). On 27 June 1965, Basu also became the founding editor of the English language organ of the new party called "People's Democracy".


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Between February–March 1966, a second and more spontaneous food movement flared up across West Bengal. As a result of price rise of essential commodities, the new chief minister, Prafulla Chandra Sen had suggested that people should shift from their staple of rice–potatoes to wheat–green bananas and subsequently agitations had broken out in the area of Swarupnagar, leading to police firing and death of two participating teenagers on 16 February. Consequently, widespread spontaneous protests broke out over the following months and across the state of West Bengal with more frequent instances of vandalism and violent encounters between the agitators and police than in the previous agitations. This movement while having less organised backing from the opposition parties is described to have been impactful in its political ramifications in the subsequent years; among others, leading to the Indian National Congress losing its absolute majority for the first time and Basu becoming the deputy chief minister of West Bengal in the following year. Civil unrest also peaked during the ensuing period which led to a succession of unstable governments, establishment of armed political cadres, Naxalbari uprising and widespread spontaneous agitations against prevailing conditions of extreme poverty.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1967, fourteen opposition parties contested through two pre-poll political alliances; the CPI-M led United Left Front and the CPI and Bangla Congress (splinter of the Congress party formed in 1966) led People's United Left Front. The CPI-M became the second largest party outstripping its former party, the CPI. Following the election, the two alliances joined forces to form the United Front government in West Bengal. During the negotiations between the two alliances, Basu was denied the position of chief minister due to opposition to the idea from the CPI and Bangla Congress, all of whom eventually settled for Ajoy Mukherjee of the Bangla Congress as the consensus candidate for the position while Basu became the deputy chief minister and in-charge of the finance department. The government however collapsed within a year when the food minister, P. C. Ghosh resigned from the government after facing persistent agitations led by the CPI-M (both part of the same government) against his policy of seeking voluntary measures from landlords and middlemen which were ineffective in resolving the food crisis.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: For the mid term West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1969, the United Front Committee was formed consisting of all the coalition partners of the previous government which agreed upon a pre-poll alliance to contest the election together under a 32-point programme. Under terms of the agreement, if the alliance were to attain a majority then Mukherjee would become the chief minister while Basu would become the deputy chief minister. In addition during the negotiations Basu was able to secure the portfolios of fisheries, food, excise, labour, civil defence and education for the CPI-M as well as the department of general administration and police from the home ministry forsaking the finance ministry which he had previously held. In the election, the United Front won an overwhelming victory with 214 out of 280 seats and as a consequence the CPI-M stood as the first party other than the Congress party to become the largest party in the assembly.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the subsequent second United Front cabinet, Basu became both the deputy chief minister and in-charge of general administration and police. Under Basu, the police were instructed to not intervene in any labour disputes against striking workers. The first six months of the second United Front government as a result experienced a record of 551 strikes and 73 union lockdowns across the state with a participation of approximately 570,000 workers. The labour department headed by Krishnapada Ghosh of the CPIM is also noted to have coordinated with the department of general administration to enable the registration of new trade unions and legalisation of "gheraos" (trans: picketing) as a method of protest. The labour militancy combined with the state policy of non intervention drove an exponential rise in daily wages ranging between a 100–200% increase in the unorganised sector and 100–300% increase in the organised sector. Previously in light of the appalling conditions of agrarian poverty and rural discontent, a radical section of the CPI-M had also split due to the party's involvement in parliamentary politics and subsequently launched a peasant's uprising. Eventually this section known as the Naxalites formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969 under the leadership of Charu Mazumdar calling for the annihilation of the class of "joteodars" (wealthy landlords) and an armed revolution to overthrow the Indian state. Although the previous United Front government had tolerated initial landgrabs by the Naxalites, the police department under Basu launched a campaign of state repression on the movement which continued under succeeding governments. According to Basu, "(The Naxalites), forgetting everything else that the country stood for, followed the China model with disastrous consequences which had no relation to Marxist philosophy."


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In August 1969, Basu was also faced with a protest from the police department itself after the death of a policeman in a clash with the Socialist Unity Centre, one of the member parties of the United Front. The agitation was notably defused by him in person, who permitted a group of dissident police personnel to enter his office in the assembly house during a demonstration and negotiated with them, reprehending them for disorderly behaviour while taking into consideration the grievances raised. The second United Front government however too fell within a short period of time, on this occasion the chief minister Ajoy Mukherjee resigned in March 1970 after facing an aggravated and dysfunctional government where smaller member parties were in confrontation with the CPI-M, the largest among them on various issues. There was also an assassination attempt on Basu on 31 March while he was on a party visit to Patna which resulted in the death of one accompanying party worker; the identity of the assailant has remained unknown til date. The government continued to be operational until the dissolution of the assembly by presidential proclamation on 30 July.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the following West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1971, the parties contested alone but CPI-M remained as the single largest party while increasing its number of seats from 80 to 113. Both the former chief minister Ajoy Mukherjee of the Bangla Congress and the former deputy chief minister Basu of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) contested from the Barangar constituency which ended with Basu winning with a vote share of 57.31% and Ajoy Mukherjee emerging as runners up with a vote share of 42.69%. However, Mukherjee who led the Bangla Congress was able to regained his former position through a post poll coalition called the Democratic Coalition which notably included Indira Gandhi's Congress and was supported by the CPI and Congress (Organisation). The CPI-M stood as the sole opposition party and Basu once again became the leader of opposition. Within 2 weeks of formation of the new government, Basu issued a no confidence motion which stood at exactly 141 in support of the government out of 141 required. Despite surviving the initial motion, the new government too fell within 3 months when the assembly was dissolved on the recommendation of the chief minister.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1972, Congress (I) won an overwhelming majority and Siddhartha Shankar Ray who was previously in the Bangla Congress and later appointed as a specialised union cabinet ministry called West Bengal Affairs Minister became the new chief minister of the state. The CPI-M was only able to secure 14 seats and Basu for the first time lost his seat in the Baranagar constituency to his former associate Shiba Pada Bhattacharjee, who had remained in the CPI after the split in the party. Before the election, the Communist Party of India allied with Congress (I) while a section of the Bangla Congress had also merged with the Congress. The opposing alliance was led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) which included the previous members of the United Left Front alongside the Biplobi Bangla Congress, a splinter of the Bangla Congress.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: The election was marred widespread instances of violence against opposition parties, electoral discrepancies, irregularities in process and consequent allegations of rigging from both Congress (O) and the CPI-M, the press in Calcutta at the time reported that the rigging had occurred in around 50 constituencies. According to the socialist essayist Madhu Limaye, the "black art of booth rigging" was perfected by the Congress in the 1972 election where whole constituencies had been rigged. It was also noted that several constituencies which were known as left wing strongholds had produced massive victory margins in favour of Congress (I) whereas the CPI-M increased its vote share in constituencies which were Congress strongholds; the explanation provided by the CPI-M was that violence and rigging methods were mostly employed at unfavorable constituencies and that elections had been rigged in 87–172 other constituencies. One of the discrepancies pointed at by the CPI-M was that the constituency of Baranagar which had recorded a very high voter turnout despite being subject to section 144 and violent clashes throughout the day which had resulted in the death of one its workers. Basu refused to accept the results and declared that the new assembly was an "assembly of frauds". He also published an open editorial to the "world press" regarding terming the incidents of violence to be "semi fascist terror". The CPI-M boycotted the assembly for the remaining term of the seventh assembly taking the stance that a "massive rigging" had occurred.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In 1975, the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi imposed a national emergency on the premise of internal disturbances suspending elections, legitimising rule by decree and curbing civil liberties. The proposition for the declaration of the emergency and the formal draft of the ordinance were both notably corroborated to have been forwarded by Siddhartha Shankar Ray. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) emerged as one of the primary opposition to the emergency rule of Indira Gandhi. The following period witnessed a succession of authoritarian measures and political repression, which was particularly severe in West Bengal. The members of the CPI-M's labour union became the first subject to political repression and mass arrests while the rest of the members of the CPI-M went underground.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: With the initiation of the Jayaprakash Narayan (JP)'s movement, the CPI-M began providing support to it and went on to participate in discussions for the creation of a united front under the umbrella of the Janata Party. Several of the leaders of the CPI-M were also influenced by JP with Basu noted to be one of his prominent admirers having worked under him in the All India Railwaymen's Federation during the 1940s. The involvement of the Hindutva movement however complicated matters, according to JP the formal inclusion of the marxists who had undergone a splintering and whose organisation was localised in particular region would have been detrimental to the movement as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh members would switch sides if they joined. JP and Basu eventually came to an agreement that the CPI-M would not formally join the Janata Party as it would weaken the movement. After the revocation of the emergency, the CPI-M joined an electoral alliance with the Janata Party in the 1977 Indian general election which resulted in an overwhelming victory for the Janata Alliance.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: For the 1977 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, negotiations between the Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) broke down. This led to a three sided contest between the Indian National Congress, the Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Left Front coalition. The results of the election was a surprising sweep for the Left Front winning 230 seats out of 290 with the CPI-M winning an absolute majority on its own, Basu became the chief minister of West Bengal for the next 23 years until his retirement in 2000. Jyoti Basu was also repeatedly elected as the representative of the Satgachhia constituency from 1977 to 2001.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the first term of the coming to power, the Left Front government under Basu initiated a number of agrarian and institutional reforms which resulted in reduction of poverty rates, an exponential rise in agricultural production and decrease in political polarisation. It also enabled the large scale adoption of technological advancements which had earlier been brought in through the Green Revolution in India in the 1960s. The agricultural growth jumped from an annual average of 0.6% between 1970–1980 to over 7% between 1980–1990 and the state was described as an agricultural success story of the 1980s. During this period, the state of West Bengal moved from being a food importer to a food exporter and became the largest producer of rice outstripping the states of Andhra Pradesh and Punjab which had previously held the status. The Human Development Index was also noted to have improved at a much faster rate than in other states, growing from being the lowest in the country in 1975 to above the national average in 1990.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Between 1977 and 1980, Basu oversaw the identification of nearly 1 million acres of ceiling surplus land and its subsequent redistribution. The number of landless rural households decreased by 35% during this period.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: The Basu government began the process of "democratic decentralisation" in West Bengal by amending and implementing the provisions of the Panchayat Act. On 4 June 1978, local body elections were resumed after 14 years and the first direct elections were held to elect 56,000 representatives from 15 zila parishads, 324 panchayat samitis and 3,242 gram panchayats in West Bengal. By 1993, the number of representatives was expanded to over 71,000 representatives while Basu was credited to have been successful in the introduction of grassroots democracy and self governing units in West Bengal which substantially improved bureaucratic transparency, irrigation work, rural infrastructure and political participation and as a result standards of living. The successful implementation of panchayat raj in the state is also noted to have played an integral part in the identification and redistribution of ceiling surplus land, and played a significant part in the rise of agricultural growth through the 1980s.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Among the more prominent measures initiated by the new government was that of Operation Barga. Introduced in 1978, it was a comprehensive and radical measure for land reforms which was further formalised through two legislation in 1979 and 1980. The operation sough to actively identify and record "bargardars" (trans: sharecroppers) by present occupational status without any reliance on ancestral records, producing official documentation for enforcement of the rights of "bargardars" to crop share from landlords and priority rights to lands in cases of both voluntary sale of land and forced sale of ceiling surplus lands. The number of recorded "bargardars" increased from 0.4 to 1.2 million by 1982, and resulted in the coverage of 50%+ output share concessions towards "bargardars" to increase from 10% to over 50% among registered "bargardars" and over 33% for unregistered "bargardars". The implementation of the operation is noted to have improved the social status and security of tenancy of "bargadars" as well as decreased economic inequality. In addition it accounted for approximately 36% of agricultural growth during the period as a consequence of greater production incentives due to a lack of eviction threat and increased output stake. The operation is also credited to have created a cushion against farmers' suicides in West Bengal by improving the economic stability of farmers.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: The Left Front government also identified 247,000 acres of readily reclaimable lands mostly in the Sundarban area (Ganges Delta) for the resettlement of 136,000 agriculturist refugees from East Pakistan. Under the tenure of Bidhan Chandra Roy, many of the refugees had been relocated to refugee camps in Dandakaranya and the Left Front government had taken up their cause for resettlement in West Bengal. Initially Basu and the Left Front government approved voluntary resettlement in the identified lands by the refugees from the Dandakaranya camps to the extent of actively encouraging them to do so, however the implementation of the resettlement process turned lackluster and was bottle-necked with revised priorities for environmental protection in the Sundarbans. In a significant development between 1978 and 1979, a large group of these impoverished refugees who had returned to Bengal seeking resettlement from Dandakaranya had illegally occupied land on the remote island of Marichjhanpi and refused eviction. In January 1979, following an economic blockade, the government conducted a forcible eviction leading to the death of several refugees in the consequent abuse by police personnel. The incident led to sharp criticism of the government and raised controversy in the media, the opposition as well as from within members of the Left Front coalition. The demand for a formal investigation into the eviction was however denied by the government with Basu convinced that it was greatly exaggerated by the media; in the end the official figure put the deaths at 2 but the lack of an investigation led to various other estimates to circulate on the killing years afterwards.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In 1981, a new amendment was introduced to the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1951 (previously amended in 1953, 1967 and 1970) which sought to plug loopholes in the former legislation; the amendment introduced ceilings on non-agricultural lands such as fisheries and orchards which previously had none and enacted provisions for lands held by trusts to be included in the individual ceiling calculations of its beneficiaries. It also derecognised and redefined lands owned by all religious institutions as "raiyats" (trans: land tenure) with a maximum of 7 standard acres irrespective of any number of declared branches or centers of any such institution.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: The reforms initiated by the Basu government in its first term were continued into its second term, Operation Barga was officially completed in 1986. Basu's front won 174 seats in 1982 West Bengal Elections defeating Siddhartha Shankar Ray led Indian National Congress. He was the one of the most powerful personality of the Left front after becoming the Chief Minister of West Bengal and was known to be the Chief artist of the Communist not only in the West Bengal, but also in the whole India. Ahead of the 1982 assembly elections, the Left Front had gained three new members; the Communist Party of India (CPI), the West Bengal Socialist Party (WBSP) and the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP). In the wake of the 1980 Gorkhaland movement, a poll boycott campaign took place in the Darjeeling hills with the slogan "No State, No Vote". Organizations calling for a poll boycott included the Pranta Parishad and the Gorkha National Liberation Front of Subhash Ghisingh. Voter participation in Darjeeling stood at 59.40%, compared to the statewide 76.96%. CPI(M) emerged as the sole party of relevance in the hills to oppose a separate Gorkhaland state. CPI(M) won three out of the four assembly seats in the Nepali-dominated areas, the fourth going to an All India Gorkha League candidate (contesting as an independent). Some of the older, smaller Left Front constituents were uncomfortable with the expansion of the alliance, claiming that CPI(M) was diluting it politically. There were also disagreements on distribution of ministerial portfolios after the expansion of the alliance. Though due to his irresponsibility in 1971 Bangladeshi refugees his popularity decreased.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the Second term as the Chief Minister of state he gained popularity for his work for the landless peasants and providing them land and also among intelligentsia. The rise of Mamata Banerjee in the 1980s was under the Second Chief Ministership of him and was known to have a good allies with her. And he continued to make a second Chief ministership like the first one by giving the theory of Communism and working in the Land Reforms Act, 1951 and also to complete the demand of the Gorkha, especially in Darjeeling and near by regions. Whilst an accord had been struck between Gandhi and Gorkha National Liberation Front leader Subhash Ghisingh ahead of the polls, violence escalated in the Darjeeling hills. In the run-up to the polls, several policemen were killed in the area which made Basu a great chances being a choice of people of Darjeeling.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In 1987 West Bengal Election in West Bengal, Basu held the office for the third time as the Chief ministers of West Bengal after the win of CPM and their allies. The election was mainly a clash between the Left Front led by Chief Minister Jyoti Basu and the Indian National Congress(I) led by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to make a win in the state. The governing Left Front denied tickets to 62 sitting legislators. In many cases CPI(M), the dominant force in the Left Front, was seeking to rejuvenate the legislature and fielded 35 student leaders as new candidates. The star campaigner was himself Chief Minister Jyoti Basu who had pledged to visit all constituencies where CPI(M) had fielded candidates. During the campaign Basu claimed that the Delhi government discriminated against West Bengal in allocation of resources. Basu's party made the third win by securing a complete majority for third time in Bengal's history, and the Left front secured 187 in the election and defeating Indian National Congress and made his mark to Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: After being sworn in as the Chief Minister Basu continued his work in the major work for which he was elected was that to change the Land Reform and he is said to be one of the best administrators in the history of West Bengal for the work. And he made a main focus on the Students and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was given the main charge for the enhancement of DYFI, the student wing of the CPI(M). Earlier also he gave a notable number of tickets to student leaders and also worked for the Gurkhas who also voted him for his opposition to the Indian National Congress. In 1989, Basu led Left government in a controversial decision, halting the teaching of English language for Primary schools. The controversial decision received protests from intellectuals. The move was later termed as another "historic blunder".


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the 1990s when the government of VP Singh cleared the ways of Mandal Commission there was Mandal Commission protests of 1990 in West Bengal and also the silence of Basu triggered him at that time as there was a big problem as the CPI (M) was popular among both the classes of the society and CPI (M) supported the verdict.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Even after the controversy of Mandal Commission and its protests in 1990 Basu managed to be sworn as the Chief Minister of West Bengal for the 4th time consecutively, setting a record. The term of the assembly elected in 1987 lasted until February 1992, but the West Bengal government asked the Election Commission of India to arrange the election at an earlier date. On 28 November 1991, Basu superseded Bidhan Chandra Roy's 14 - year tenure to become the longest serving Chief Minister of West Bengal, a record which he has held ever since at 23 years, 144 days.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the year 1996 he was elected as Chief Minister five times consecutively in the 1996 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election. Basu seemed all set to be the consensus leader of the United Front for the post of Prime Minister of India. This was Basu's last tenure as the Chief Minister of West Bengal. Basu resigned in the year 2000 forming a legacy as the longest serving Chief Minister of any Indian state, until Pawan Kumar Chamling surpassed his record.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In 1990, following the arrest of Lal Krishna Advani, BJP declined support to the National Front Government led by V. P. Singh. During the political crisis, INC chief Rajiv Gandhi sent proposal to Jyoti Basu to be the Prime Minister of India. But CPI(M) declined it.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: After 7 months, INC declined support to the Chandrasekhar Singh Government. Again Rajiv Gandhi sent a proposal to Jyoti Basu, which was declined for second time.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In the Indian general election in 1996, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee emerged as the largest party, with 161 of 543 seats but the government fell 13 days later, due to unavailability of majority at the parliament. The Indian National Congress (INC), with a substantial 140 seats, declined to head the government.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Consequently, along with Janata Dal as the head, the left parties (i.e. CPI(M), CPI) and other smaller parties like Samajwadi Party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Asom Gana Parishad, Tamil Maanila Congress, and Telugu Desam Party formed the United Front, which was supported by INC from outside. About the selection of Prime Minister from United Front, Vishwanath Pratap Singh from Janata Dal rejected the proposal of being Prime Minister. He suggested that Basu should be made the Prime Minister of the United Front government. RJD's chief Lalu Prasad Yadav also supported the proposal. The CPI also supported the proposal. The proposal was taken to CPI(M) by former CPI(M) General Secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet. The Polit Bureau of CPI(M) met in a meeting. But having no conclusion due to differences, it forwarded the issue to the Central Committee after a voting. Through a meeting in Central Committee on May 14, CPI(M) declined the offer saying the party was still not in a position to dictate its policies and would not be able to get them implemented by a coalition government. They also stated that it would involve joining hands with “bourgeois” outfits like the Congress. Sitaram Yechuri was among the leaders who were against Basu being the Prime Minister. When Surjeet conveyed this to United Front leaders, V. P. Singh again suggested that the CPI(M) should reconsider the decision. From Tamil Nadu House, Surjeet called Prakash Karat to tell leaders to stay back for an emergency meeting. But the Central Committee again turned down that offer. After Basu, the names of late G. K. Moopanar and DMK chief M. Karunanidhi came over but Basu suggested H. D. Deve Gowda for the top post citing his experience as a minister first and Chief Minister of Karnataka and Janata Dal accepted the offer and he was elected as the Prime Minister of India. H.D Deve Gowda personally wrote a letter to Jyoti Basu to be the prime minister which Basu declined again due to party choices.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In 1999, the BJP Government by Atal Bihari Vajpayee fell down. Leaders of third front including Mulayam Singh Yadav and others again suggested Jyoti Basu. This time CPI(M) eventually agreed to the proposal. But INC declined.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Later when asked about the decision of the CPI(M), Jyoti Basu stated that as a "historic blunder". In the words of Basu, "yes, I still think that it was a historic blunder because such an opportunity does not come. History does not give such an opportunity." Noted Congress politician Arjun Singh was also upset due to the CPI(M)'s decision. The CPI said that Jyoti Basu as Prime Minister was ‘worth-trying’.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: The 18th congress of CPI(M), held in Delhi in 2005, re-elected Basu to its Politburo, although he had requested acceptance for his retirement. On 13 September 2006, his request for retirement due to age was turned down by the CPI(M), the general secretary Prakash Karat stated that the party wanted that Basu should continue till at least the 2008 congress. In the 19th congress held in early April 2008, Basu was eventually dis-included from the Politburo, although his membership in the Central Committee was not revoked. He was also granted the designation of Special Invitee to the Politburo, a form of emeritus status within the CPI(M).


title: Jyoti Basu

text: On 1 January 2010, Basu was admitted to AMRI hospital (Bidhannagar, Kolkata) after he was diagnosed with pneumonia. On 16 January 2010, it was reported that he was suffering from multiple organ failure and that his health condition had become extremely critical. Seventeen days after being taken ill, he died on 17 January 2010 at 11:47 am IST. Biman Bose announced with tears,"Jyoti Babu has left us."


title: Jyoti Basu

text: The death was followed by public mourning on an unprecedented scale. Draped in the national flag, Basu's body was escorted through the streets of Calcutta on a gun carriage. However, the time schedule went awry in his last moments as lakhs of people thronged the streets of central Kolkata to pay their last respects. Police and volunteers wore a helpless look as a sea of people poured in from every possible corner of the city. The Army escorted the cortege from the State Assembly to the Maidan through Red Road. At MoharKunj, arrangements for the state Funeral had been made. The army buglers performed the last post as twenty one Gurkha troops fired a 21 volley rifle salute. A day of Mourning was declared nationwide and President Pratibha Patil along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed their condolences.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Basu had pledged to donate his body and eyes for medical research on 4 April 2003 at a function organised by Ganadarpan and Susrut Eye Foundation in Kolkata and not to be burned at a crematorium. His eyes are donated to Susrut Eye Foundation. He is survived by his son Chandan, daughter-in-law Rakhi, grand daughters Payel (Mallika Basu), Doyel (Bithika Basu) and Koyel (Juthika Basu), offspring of his first daughter-in-law Dolly (separated with son Chandan in 1998), and grand son Subhojyoti, offspring of daughter-in-law Rakhi. His second wife Kamala Basu had died on 1 October 2003. Basu's body was kept at 'Peace Haven' for those who wanted to pay their respects. His body was handed over to SSKM Hospital, Kolkata for research on 19 January 2010 around 16:50 pm IST after a guard of honour at the nearby Moharkunja park (formerly, citizens' park). The hospital authority is considering preserving his brain.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Basu's death was reacted with grief across the country and in international. Many famous personalities bade their gratitude and condolences in social media and attended his funeral. Some of their statements are listed below:


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Basu was Chief Minister of West Bengal consecutively 5 times and every time he was Member of Legislative Assembly from the Satgachhia (Vidhan Sabha constituency). Before that he was MLA from Baranagar seat 6 times.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Jyoti Basu was slated to be honoured with Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of India, in 2008. Basu refused to take it. Basu was also given Civilian award in Calcutta Municipal Town Hall on 15 July 2005, but he refused to take it.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: An admirer of Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and Karl Marx, he was one of the most successful politicians in India. His reign of 23 years in West Bengal as the Chief Minister was counted as the longest serving chief minister in India until this record was broken by Pawan Kumar Chamling in 2018.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In 2010, Rajarhat New Town was named after Jyoti Basu as "Jyoti Basu Nagar" in the presence of then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Government of Bangladesh created 201-member "Comred Jyoti Basu Nagarik Sangsad" in the name of Basu, featuring Chief Justice of Bangladesh Supreme Court Muhammad Habibur Rahman as Convener.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: A research institute has been named after Jyoti Basu naming "Jyoti Basu Centre of Social Studies and Research" in Newtown, West Bengal.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: Centre of Indian Trade Unions along with Haldia Regional Committee released an album on Jyoti Basu in 2000.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In 2005, Gautam Ghosh made a documentary film named "Jyoti Basur Sange" (trans. A journey with Jyoti Basu"), which was screened at Nandan on 31 April 2005 and at another auditorium in Memari. The film tracks Basu's childhood days in Bangladesh, student life in London and political career in Calcutta. The writer Goutam Ghose trailed Jyoti Basu for eight years, from 1997 to 2004, across campaigns and countries for making the documentary.


title: Jyoti Basu

text: In 2006, a CD collection was released, based on the interviews with Jyoti Basu, named "Antaranga Jyoti Basu".


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, also known as the Judgment of Paris, was a wine competition organized in Paris on 24 May 1976 by Steven Spurrier, a British wine merchant and his colleague, Patricia Gallagher, in which French judges carried out two blind tasting comparisons: one of top-quality Chardonnays and another of red wines (Bordeaux wines from France and Cabernet Sauvignon wines from Napa, California). A Napa wine rated best in each category, which caused surprise as France was generally regarded as being the foremost producer of the world's best wines. Spurrier sold only French wine and believed that the California wines would not win.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: Blind tasting was performed and the judges were asked to grade each wine out of 20 points. No specific grading framework was given, leaving the judges free to grade according to their own criteria.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: Rankings of the wines preferred by individual judges were based on the grades they individually attributed.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: An overall ranking of the wines preferred by the jury was also established in averaging the sum of each judge's individual grades (arithmetic mean). However, grades of Patricia Gallagher and Steven Spurrier were not taken into account, thus counting only grades of French judges.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: Orley Ashenfelter and Richard E. Quandt analyzed the results of all 11 judges instead of only nine and proposed a slightly different ranking (see below). They also stated that only the scores of the first two wines in their ranking were statistically valid, and that the seven other wines could not be differentiated statistically.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: Some critics argued that French red wines would age better than the California reds, so this was tested.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: The San Francisco Wine Tasting of 1978 was conducted 20 months after the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. Steven Spurrier flew in from Paris to participate in the evaluations, which were held at the Vintners Club.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: Ranking lower were Meursault Charmes Roulot 1973, Beaune Clos des Mouches Joseph Drouhin 1973, and Batard-Montrachet Ramonet-Prudhon 1973.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: Ranking lower were Château Montrose 1970, Château Haut-Brion 1970, and Château Leoville Las Cases 1971.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: Two tastings were conducted by the French Culinary Institute (now called the International Culinary Center) on the tenth anniversary of the original Paris Wine Tasting. White wines were not evaluated in the belief that they were past their prime.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: Steven Spurrier, who organized the original 1976 wine competition, assisted in the anniversary tasting. Eight judges blind tasted nine of the ten wines evaluated. The evaluation resulted in the following ranking:


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: Four of the judges were experts from "Wine Spectator" and two were outsiders. All tasted the wines blind.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: A 30th anniversary re-tasting on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean was organized by Steven Spurrier in 2006. As "The Times" reported "Despite the French tasters, many of whom had taken part in the original tasting, 'expecting the downfall' of the American vineyards, they had to admit that the harmony of the Californian cabernets had beaten them again. Judges on both continents gave top honors to a 1971 Ridge Monte Bello cabernet. Four Californian reds occupied the next placings before the highest-ranked Bordeaux, a 1970 Château Mouton-Rothschild, came in at sixth."


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: "The Tasting that Changed the Wine World: 'The Judgment of Paris' 30th Anniversary" was conducted on 24 May 2006.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: The pearl anniversary was held simultaneously at the museum Copia in Napa, California, and in London at Berry Bros. & Rudd, Britain's oldest wine merchant.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: The panel of nine wine experts at Copia consisted of Dan Berger, Anthony Dias Blue, Stephen Brook, Wilfred Jaeger, Peter Marks MW, Paul Roberts MS, Andrea Immer Robinson MS, Jean-Michel Valette MW and Christian Vanneque, one of the original judges from the 1976 tasting.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: The panel of nine experts at Berry Bros. & Rudd consisted of Michel Bettane, Michael Broadbent MW, Michel Dovaz, Hugh Johnson, Matthew Jukes, Jane MacQuitty, Jasper Morris MW, Jancis Robinson OBE MW and Brian St. Pierre.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: The results showed that additional panels of experts again preferred the California wines over their French competitors.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: Three of the Bordeaux wines in the competition were from the 1970 vintage, identified by the Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB) as among the four best vintages in the past 45 years or more. The fourth Bordeaux was a 1971, described by the Conseil as "very good". Another official French authority, the , rates the 1971 vintage as "excellent".


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: The French wine producers had many years' experience making wine, whereas the California producers typically had only a few years' experience; the 1972 vintage was Clos Du Val's very first, yet it performed better than any of its French competitors.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: Although Spurrier had invited many reporters to the original 1976 tasting, the only reporter to attend was George M. Taber from "Time", who promptly revealed the results to the world. The horrified and enraged leaders of the French wine industry then banned Spurrier from the nation's prestigious wine-tasting tour for a year, apparently as punishment for the damage his tasting had done to its former image of superiority. The tasting was not covered by the French press, who almost ignored the story. After nearly three months, "Le Figaro" published an article titled "Did the war of the cru take place?" describing the results as "laughable", and said they "cannot be taken seriously". Six months after the tasting, "Le Monde" wrote a similarly toned article.


title: Judgment of Paris (wine)

text: "The New York Times" reported that several earlier tastings had occurred in the U.S., with American chardonnays judged ahead of their French rivals. One such tasting occurred in New York just six months before the Paris tasting, but "champions of the French wines argued that the tasters were Americans with possible bias toward American wines. What is more, they said, there was always the possibility that the Burgundies had been mistreated during the long trip from the (French) wineries." The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 had a revolutionary impact on expanding the production and prestige of wine in the New World. It also "gave the French a valuable incentive to review traditions that were sometimes more accumulations of habit and expediency, and to reexamine convictions that were little more than myths taken on trust."


title: Long ton

text: The long ton, also known as the imperial ton or displacement ton, is the name for the unit called the "ton" in the avoirdupois system of weights or Imperial system of measurements. It was standardised in the 13th century. It is used in the United Kingdom and several other Commonwealth of Nations countries alongside the mass-based metric tonne defined in 1799, as well as in the United States for bulk commodities.


title: Long ton

text: It is not to be confused with the short ton, a unit of weight equal to used in the United States, and in Canada before metrication, also referred to simply as a "ton".


title: Long ton

text: A long ton is defined as exactly 2,240 pounds. The long ton arises from the traditional British measurement system: A long ton is 20 long hundredweight (cwt), each of which is 8 stone (1 stone = 14 pounds). Thus a long ton is 20 × 8 × 14 lb = 2,240 lb.


title: Long ton

text: To comply with the practices of the European Union, the British Imperial ton was explicitly excluded from use for trade by the United Kingdom's Weights and Measures Act of 1985. The measure used since then is metric ton, identified through the word "tonne".


title: Long ton

text: In the United States, the long ton is commonly used in measuring the displacement of ships, the volume-to-carrying-weight of fuels, and in trade of baled commodities and bulk goods like iron ore and elemental sulfur. The long ton was the unit prescribed for warships by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 – for example battleships were limited to a displacement of .


title: Long ton

text: The long ton is traditionally used as the unit of weight in international contracts for many bulk goods and commodities.


title: Amy Belle

text: Amy Belle (born 1981) is a Scottish singer who resides in Glasgow, Scotland. She is best known for her duet with Rod Stewart on "I Don't Want To Talk About It" during his concert at the Albert Hall in October 2004.


title: Amy Belle

text: The official Rod Stewart video of the performance has received over 715 million Youtube views (as of 17th December 2022). In addition, another Youtube posting of this event has received over 100 million views.


title: Amy Belle

text: Belle was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, the youngest sibling of three. She started out busking covers of R.E.M. and Alanis Morissette.


title: Amy Belle

text: At 17 she left Glasgow for London to try to make a career in music. In 2001, she was signed to a short-lived manufactured pop-folk group called the Alice Band. In 2004, Belle was spotted by a friend of Stewart's when she was busking outside an underground station.


title: Amy Belle

text: After the duet with Stewart, Belle moved to Los Angeles through contacts she made via Stewart's manager. There she recorded a track with Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek from The Doors, and wrote two songs for Miley Cyrus, "Talk Is Cheap" and "Giving You Up".


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Edmund the Martyr (also known as St Edmund or Edmund of East Anglia, died 20 November 869) was king of East Anglia from about 855 until his death.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Few historical facts about Edmund are known, as the kingdom of East Anglia was devastated by the Vikings, who destroyed any contemporary evidence of his reign. Coins minted by Edmund indicate that he succeeded Æthelweard of East Anglia, as they shared the same moneyers. He is thought to have been of East Anglian origin, but 12th century writers produced fictitious accounts of his family, succession and his rule as king. Edmund's death was mentioned in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", which relates that he was killed in 869 after the Great Heathen Army advanced into East Anglia. Medieval versions of Edmund's life and martyrdom differ as to whether he died in battle fighting the Great Heathen Army, or if he met his death after being captured and then refusing the Viking leaders' demand that he renounce Christ.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: A popular cult emerged after Edmund's death, and he was canonised by the Church. A series of coins commemorating him was minted from around the time East Anglia was absorbed by the kingdom of Wessex in 918, and in about 986, the French monk Abbo wrote of his life and martyrdom.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: During the 10th century, Edmund's remains were translated from an unidentified location in East Anglia to Beodricesworth (modern Bury St Edmunds); they were temporarily moved to London for safekeeping in 1010. Edmund's cult flourished during the Early and High Middle Ages, and he and Edward the Confessor were regarded as the patron saints of medieval England until they were replaced by Saint George in the 15th century. Medieval manuscripts and works of art relating to Edmund include Abbo's "Passio Sancti Eadmundi", John Lydgate's 14th-century "Life", the Wilton Diptych, and a number of church wall paintings.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: The existence of Edmund is known from coins minted by his moneyers, three of whom—Dudda, Eadmund, and Twicga—minted coins for Edmund's predecessor, Æthelweard which suggests that a smooth transition of power occurred. The earliest documentary reference to Edmund is in the 870 annal of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" compiled 20 years after his death. According to the historian Susan Ridyard, Edmund was born and acceded to the East Anglian throne in . Nothing is known of his life or reign from contemporary written sources. The devastation in East Anglia that was caused by the Vikings destroyed all the charters that may have referred to Edmund.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Edmund cannot be placed within any ruling dynasty. The 10th century French monk Abbo of Fleury stated that Edmund was "", which according to Ridyard "was probably Abbo's rather verbose way of saying he was descended from the ancient nobility of his race".


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: A variety of different coins were minted by Edmund's moneyers during his reign. The letters "AN", standing for 'Anglia', appear on the coins of only Edmund and Æthelstan, another 9th century king of the East Angles; the letters appear on Edmund's coins as part of the phrase "+ EADMUND REX AN[GLORUM]" ("Edmund, King of the Angles"). Edmund's later coins read "+ EADMUND REX" ("Edmund, King"). Otherwise, no chronology for his coins has been confirmed.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: For decades after the Viking raid on Lindisfarne in 793, their attacks on England were mainly raids on isolated monastic communities. According to the "Annales Bertiniani" and the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", a larger-scale attack occurred in . By the end of the decade the Vikings had started to over-winter in England. A larger force still, known to the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" chroniclers as the "" (‘Great Heathen Army’), appeared in 865. Three thousand men in hundreds of ships arrived off the east coast of England, probably from bases in Ireland. The army's first winter was spent in East Anglia before they moved on, arriving in Northumbria by 866/867. The Great Heathen Army attacked Mercia by the end of 867 and made peaceful terms with the Mercians; a year later the Vikings returned to East Anglia.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", which generally described few matters relating to the East Angles and their rulers, relates that "here the army rode across Mercia into East Anglia, and took winter-quarters at Thetford; and that winter King Edmund fought against them, and the Danish took the victory, and killed the king and conquered all that land". Where Edmund was killed and whether he died in battle or was murdered by the Danes afterwards is not known. The Great Heathen Army went on to invade Wessex in late 870, where they were confronted by Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, the future Alfred the Great.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Edmund was buried in a wooden chapel near to where he was killed. At a date generally assumed by historians to have been during the reign of Æthelstan, who became king of the Anglo-Saxons in 924, Edmund's body was translated from —the location of which has never been conclusively identified—to "", now modern Bury St Edmunds. In 925 Æthelstan founded a religious community to take care of Edmund's shrine.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Following the death of the Danish Guthrum, king of East Anglia, in around 890, the same moneyers who had minted his coins started to produce money in commemoration of Edmund. The coins, whose design was based upon those produced during Edmund's reign, provide the earliest evidence that he was venerated as a saint. All the pennies and (more rarely) half-pennies that were produced read "SCE EADMVND REX"—'O St Edmund the king!'. Some of them have a legend that provides evidence that the Vikings experimented with their initial design.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: The St Edmund memorial coins were minted in great quantities by a group of more than 70 moneyers, many of whom appear to have originated from continental Europe; over 1800 specimens were found when the Cuerdale Hoard was discovered in Lancashire in 1840. The coins were widely used within the Danelaw. They have mainly been found in the east of England, but the exact location of any of the mints they came from is not known with certainty, although scholars have assumed that they were made in East Anglia.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Edmund's cult was promoted and flourished, but it declined, with the production of St Edmund coins ceasing after around 910. The saint did not reappear in liturgical calendars from the 9th century until the appearance of Abbo of Fleury's "Passio Sancti Eadmundi" three centuries later. In 1010, Edmund's remains were translated to London to protect them from the Vikings, where they were kept for three years before being returned to Bury.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: The Danish king Canute, who ruled England from 1016, converted to Christianity and was instrumental in founding the abbey at Bury St Edmunds. The new stone abbey church was completed in 1032, having possibly been commissioned by Canute in time to be consecrated on the 16th anniversary of the Battle of Assandun, which took place on 18 October 1016. Edmund's shrine became one of the most famous and wealthy pilgrimage locations in England. The abbey's power grew upon being given jurisdiction over the western half of the county of Suffolk by the creation in 1044 of the Liberty of Saint Edmund, established by Edward the Confessor, and a larger church was built in 1095, into which Edmund's relics were translated. After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the abbot planned out over 300 new houses within a grid-iron pattern at a location that was close to the abbey precincts, a development which caused the town to more than double in size. King John is said to have given a great sapphire and a precious stone set in gold to the shrine, which he was permitted to keep upon the condition that it was returned to the abbey when he died.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Edmund's shrine was destroyed in 1539, during the English Reformation. According to a letter (now in British Library's Cotton Collection), the shrine was defaced, and silver and gold to the value of over 5000 marks was taken away. The abbot and his monks were expelled and the abbey was dissolved.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: In 1664, a lawyer from the French city of Toulouse publicized a claim that Edmund's remains had been taken from Bury by the future Louis VIII of France following his defeat at the Battle of Lincoln in 1217. The relics had then been donated by Louis to the Basilica of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse. The first record of this is a relic list for Saint-Sernin of around 1425, which included St Edmund among the church's relics.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: In 1644, after the city was saved from the plague from 1628 to 1631, which the population ascribed to the intercession of a saint known to the church authorities as "Aymundus", who they decided was Edmund. In gratitude for its deliverance, the city vowed to build a new reliquary for the saint's remains. Edmund's cult flourished there for over two centuries. The reliquary, designed by Jean Chalette, was silver and adorned with solid silver statues. In 1644, the relics were verified and catalogued for interment in the newly-completed shrine, by which time the cult's origins had been forgotten. Edmund's shrine was removed in 1794 during the French Revolution. The saint's relics were restored to the Basilica of St. Sernin in 1845 and placed in a new reliquary.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: In 1901 the Archbishop of Westminster, Herbert Vaughan, received "certain relics" from the Basilica of Saint-Sernin. The relics, believed at the time to be those of St Edmund, were intended for the high altar of London's Westminster Cathedral, which was then under construction.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: The acceptance of the relics required the intercession of Pope Leo XIII, after an initial refusal by the church in France. Upon their arrival in England they were housed in the Fitzalan Chapel at Arundel Castle prior to their translation to Westminster. Although their validity had been confirmed in 1874, when two pieces were given to Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, concerns were raised about the authenticity of the Arundel relics by Montague James and Charles Biggs in "The Times". The relics remained at Arundel under the care of the Duke of Norfolk while a historical commission was set up by Cardinal Vaughan and Archbishop Germain of Saint-Sernin. They remain at Arundel. In 1966 three teeth from the collection of relics from France were given to Douai Abbey in Berkshire.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: The feast day of Edmund, King and Martyr in the Catholic Church is 20 November. He is also remembered in the Church of England, with a Lesser Festival on this day of the year. Edmund's particular attributes are the arrow and the sword, being an English king, his attributes include the orb and sceptre. According to the "Oxford Dictionary of Saints", his attribute can also be a wolf.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: A stone cross at Hoxne in Suffolk marks one supposed location of Edmund's death. The monument records that it was built on the site of an ancient oak tree which fell in 1848 and was found to have an arrow head embedded in its trunk. Some fifty-five Church of England parish churches are dedicated to Edmund, perhaps the most notable being the Church of St Edmund, King and Martyr, Lombard Street in the City of London. The Benedictine community of Douai Abbey also has Edmund as its patron.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: In about 986, the monks of Ramsey Abbey commissioned Abbo of Fleury to write Edmund's "", or account of his martyrdom. According to Abbo, St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the source of the story of the martyrdom, which he had heard told long before, in the presence of Æthelstan, by an old man who swore an oath that he had been Edmund's sword-bearer.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: In Abbo's version of events, the king refused to meet the Danes in battle, preferring to die a martyr's death. According to Ridyard, Edmund's martyrdom cannot be proven and the nature of his fate—whether he died fighting or was murdered after the battle—cannot be read from the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle". Ridyard notes that the story that Edmund had an armour-bearer implies that he would have been a warrior king who was prepared to fight the Vikings on the battlefield, but she acknowledges the possibility that such later accounts belong to "the realm of hagiographical fantasy".


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Abbo named one of Edmund's killers as Hinguar, who can probably be identified with Ivarr inn beinlausi (Ivar the Boneless), son of Ragnar Lodbrok. After describing the horrific manner of Edmund's death, the "" continued the story. His severed head was thrown into the wood. As Edmund's followers searched for him, calling out "Where are you, friend?" the head answered, ("Here! Here! Here!") until at last they found it, clasped between a wolf's paws, protected from other animals and uneaten. The followers then recovered the head.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Abbo failed to date these events surrounding Edmund's translation to , although from his text it can be seen that he believed that the relics had been taken to Beodericsworth by the time that Theodred became Bishop of London in around 926. Upon exhumation of the body, a miracle was discovered. All the arrow wounds upon Edmund's undecayed corpse had healed and his head was reattached. The last recorded inspection of the body whilst at Bury St Edmunds was in 1198.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: The resemblance between the deaths of St Sebastian and St Edmund was remarked upon by Abbo: both saints were attacked by archers, although only Edmund is supposed to have been decapitated. His death bears some resemblance to the fate suffered by other saints: St Denis was whipped and beheaded and the body of Mary of Egypt was said to have been guarded by a lion. The English medievalist Antonia Gransden described Abbo's "Passio" as "little more than a hotch-potch of hagiographical commonplaces" and argues that Abbo's ignorance of what actually happened to Edmund would have led him to use aspects of the "Lives" of well-known saints such as Sebastian and Denis as models for his version of Edmund's martydom. Gransden acknowledged that there are some aspects of the story—such as the appearance of the wolf that guards Edmund's head—that do not have exact parallels elsewhere.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Herman the Archdeacon, who was an excellent Latinist, wrote another hagiography of Edmund, the "Miracles of St Edmund", at the end of the eleventh century. His original text does not survive, but a shortened version is part of a book dating to around 1100 produced by Bury St Edmunds Abbey, which is composed of Abbo's hagiography, followed by Herman's. The hagiographer and musician, Goscelin, soon afterwards produced a revised version of Herman's "Miracles", which was hostile to Herman personally. Both versions are printed and translated by Tom Licence.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: "De Infantia Sancti Edmundi", a fictitious 12th-century hagiography of Edmund's early life by the English canon Geoffrey of Wells, represented him as the youngest son of 'Alcmund', a Saxon king of Germanic descent. 'Alcmund' may never have existed. Edmund's fictitious continental origins were later elaborated upon in the 15th century by the poet John Lydgate in his "The Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund". Lydgate spoke of his parentage, his birth at Nuremberg, his adoption by Offa of Mercia, his nomination as successor to the king and his landing at Hunstanton on the North Norfolk coast to claim his kingdom.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Edmund was said to have been crowned by Humbert, bishop of Elmham on 25 December 855, at a location known as ', possibly Bures St Mary in Suffolk. At that time ' functioned as the royal capital. Biographical details of Edmund in the "Catholic Encyclopedia", published in 1913, include that "he showed himself a model ruler from the first, anxious to treat all with equal justice, and closing his ears to flatterers and untrustworthy informers". It was written that he withdrew for a year to his royal tower at Hunstanton and learned the whole Psalter, so that he could recite it from memory.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Edmund may have been killed at Hoxne, in Suffolk. His martyrdom is mentioned in a charter that was written when the church and chapel at Hoxne were granted to Norwich Priory in 1101. Place-name evidence has been used to link the name of Hoxne with Haegelisdun, named by Abbo of Fleury as the site of Edmund's martyrdom, but this evidence is dismissed by the historian Peter Warner. The association of Edmund's cult with the village has continued into modern times. Dernford in Cambridgeshire, and Bradfield St Clare (near Bury St Edmunds) are other possible sites for where Edmund was martyred. In a preface to Lydgate's "Life", in which Edmund's banner—depicting three crowns set on a blue background—is described, the crowns are said to represent Edmund's martyrdom, virginity and kingship.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: According to the folklorist Jennifer Westwood, the ancient wooden church of St Andrew, Greensted-juxta-Ongar, is said to have been a resting place for his body on the way to Bury St Edmunds in 1013.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: Edmund is the patron saint of pandemics as well as kings, the Roman Catholic diocese of East Anglia, and Douai Abbey. England did not ever have a single patron saint before the Tudor period; during the Middle Ages, several saints were considered to have a close association with England and to be nationally important: St Edmund; St Gregory the Great; St Edward the Confessor; St Thomas Becket; and St George. Of these saints, Edmund was the most consistently popular with English kings, although Edward III raised the importance of George when he associated him with the Order of the Garter.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: In 2006, BBC Radio Suffolk radio presenter Mark Murphy and David Ruffley, the Member of Parliament for Bury St Edmunds, failed in their campaign to reinstate Edmund as the patron saint of England.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: In 2013, BBC News reported a new campaign launched by Murphy and the brewer Greene King, which is based in Bury St Edmunds, to reinstate St Edmund as England's patron saint. Supporters of the campaign stated their hopes that a petition could be used to force Parliament to debate the issue.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: The veneration of Edmund throughout the centuries has created a legacy of noteworthy works of art. An illustrated copy of Abbo of Fleury's "Passio Sancti Eadmundi", made at Bury St Edmunds in around 1130, is now kept at the Morgan Library in New York City. The copy of John Lydgate's 15th-century "Life", written for Henry VI of England, is held at the British Library. The Wilton Diptych was painted during the reign of Richard II of England and is the most famous representation of Edmund in art. Painted on oak panels, it shows Edmund and Edward the Confessor as the royal patrons of England presenting Richard to the Virgin and Child. The poet John Lydgate (13701451), who lived all his life in Bury St Edmunds, presented his twelve-year-old king Henry VI of England with a long poem (now known as "Metrical Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund") when Henry came to the town in 1433 and stayed at the abbey for four months. The book is now kept by the British Library in London. Edmund's martyrdom features on several medieval wall-paintings to be found in churches across England.


title: Edmund the Martyr

text: The saint features in a romantic poem, "Athelston", whose 15th-century author is unknown. In the climactic scene of the poem, Edyff, the sister of King 'Athelston' of England, gives birth to Edmund after passing through a ritual ordeal by fire.


title: Kool G Rap

text: Nathaniel Thomas Wilson (born July 20, 1968), better known by his stage name Kool G Rap (or simply G Rap), is an American rapper from Queens, New York City. He began his career in the mid-1980s as one half of the group Kool G Rap & DJ Polo and as a member of the Juice Crew. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential and skilled MCs of all time, and a pioneer of mafioso rap/street/hardcore content and multisyllabic rhyming. On his album "The Giancana Story", he stated that the "G" in his name stands for "Giancana" (after the mobster Sam Giancana), but on other occasions he has stated that it stands for "Genius".


title: Kool G Rap

text: He has also been cited as a major influence to some of hip-hop's most critically acclaimed figures such as The Notorious B.I.G.,


title: Kool G Rap

text: Wilson grew up in the poverty-ridden streets of Corona, Queens, New York City, with legendary producer Eric B. In an interview with The Source he stated;


title: Kool G Rap

text: Around this time, Wilson was looking for a DJ, and through Eric B., he met DJ Polo, who was looking for an MC to collaborate with.


title: Kool G Rap

text: Juice Crew producer Mr. Magic and DJ Marley Marl allowed Polo and Kool G Rap to go to their studio to record a demo, which resulted in the song "It's a Demo." The song was written and recorded in one night, and had Marley so impressed, that he instantly embraced Kool G Rap and DJ Polo as Juice Crew members. In 1986, the duo appeared on Mr. Magic's Rap Attack radio show on 107.5. They eventually released "It's a Demo" as a single with "I'm Fly", along with two more singles. Shortly after this, Kool G Rap appeared on the Juice Crew's classic posse cut "The Symphony" before they released their debut album, "Road to the Riches" in 1989. This album and their two later albums, "" (1990) and "Live and Let Die" (1992), are highly regarded and considered hip-hop classics. Eventually, in 1993, Kool G Rap parted ways with DJ Polo to pursue a solo career.


title: Kool G Rap

text: In 1995, Wilson started his solo career with the album "4, 5, 6", which featured production from Buckwild, and guest appearances from Nas, MF Grimm and B-1. It has been his most commercially successful record, reaching No. 24 on the US "Billboard" 200 album chart. This was followed by "Roots of Evil" in 1998. In 1997, G Rap was featured on Frankie Cutlass' "Politics & Bullshit" album, on a track entitled "Know Da Game" which also featured Mobb Deep.


title: Kool G Rap

text: He then planned to release his next album, "The Giancana Story", on Rawkus Records in 2000. Due to several complications with the record label, the album release date was pushed back several times, and the album was eventually released in 2002. "My Life", the single from the album, featuring Talk Box legend G-Wise, reached No. 6 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Rap singles charts. Kool G Rap and his group 5 Family Click then released a joint album, Click of Respect, on Kool G Rap's own Igloo Ent. record label in 2003, to mild success. There were rumors of Kool G Rap's signing to both Rocafella and G-Unit Records, and at one point Maybach Music Group. In 2007, he released "Half a Klip" on Chinga Chang Records, featuring production from, among others, DJ Premier and Marley Marl. A full LP was released in 2011, "Riches, Royalty, Respect" showcasing his true to form style and lyricism. The promise and prospects of collaboration albums were announced later the next year on his own, newly formed label FullMettle. The first of these new projects came in 2018 with the album "Son of G Rap" with Rochester, New York based rapper 38 Spesh.


title: Kool G Rap

text: In later years, Kool G Rap's interests extended outside hip-hop. He stated in further interviews his desire to begin writing movie scripts, an ambition taken in for a few years as he sought out various collaborators, and as well as his desire to work on a clothing line at one point.


title: Kool G Rap

text: Kool G Rap is regarded as a hugely influential golden age rapper. Music journalist Peter Shapiro suggests that he "created the blueprint for Nas, Biggie and everyone who followed in their path". Kool G is described by Kool Moe Dee as "the progenitor and prototype for Biggie, Jay-Z, Treach, N.O.R.E., Fat Joe, Big Pun, and about twenty-five more hard-core emcees", and Kool Moe Dee also claims Kool G Rap is "the most lyrical" out of all of the artists mentioned. MTV describes Kool G Rap as a "hip-hop godfather", adding that he paved the way for a lot of MCs who we would not have heard of otherwise. "Rolling Stone" says, "G Rap excelled at the street narrative, a style that would come to define later Queens MCs like Nas (who was hugely influenced by G Rap on his early records) and Mobb Deep".


title: Kool G Rap

text: Other artists who have named Kool G Rap as a major influence include The Notorious B.I.G., Eminem, Jay-Z, Tajai of Souls of Mischief, Vinnie Paz of Jedi Mind Tricks, Steele of Smif-N-Wessun, Havoc of Mobb Deep, Rock of Heltah Skeltah, MC Serch, Termanology, Black Thought of The Roots, M.O.P., R.A. the Rugged Man, Bun B of UGK, Rah Digga; RZA, Ghostface Killah, and Raekwon of Wu-Tang Clan; The Lady of Rage, Big Pun, O.C. of D.I.T.C., Memphis Bleek, Kurupt, Pharoahe Monch of Organized Konfusion, Action Bronson, and Twista, among others.


title: Kool G Rap

text: He is also often very highly rated in terms of his technical ability and is often ranked alongside other highly regarded golden age MCs, such as Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, and KRS-One. In Jay-Z's track 'Encore', Jay-Z raps, "hearing me rap is like hearing G Rap in his prime". Allmusic calls him "one of the greatest rappers ever", "a master", and "a legend".


title: Kool G Rap

text: A number of rappers, such as Ice Cube, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Lloyd Banks, and Nas have put him in their lists of favorite rappers. Kool Moe Dee ranked Kool G Rap at No. 14 in his book "There's A God on the Mic: The True 50 Greatest MCs", and MTV gives him an 'Honorable Mention' in their "Greatest MCs of All Time" list.


title: Kool G Rap

text: Kool G Rap is known for using complex multisyllabic rhymes since his debut, and this remains a hallmark of his style, along with his rapid-fire delivery and "superhuman breath control". He is known for rapping with as many multisyllabic rhymes as possible, sometimes all in the same rhyme scheme for a whole verse, such as on Sway & King Tech's "The Anthem".


title: Kool G Rap

text: He has also been cited as one of hip-hop's greatest storytellers, alongside Slick Rick and Notorious B.I.G., with "laser-like visual descriptions", and "vivid narratives". "Rolling Stone" states that, ""Live and Let Die" continued G Rap's reign as rap music's premier yarn-spinner".


title: Kool G Rap

text: Kool G Rap provided the foreword for the 2009 book "How to Rap: The Art & Science of the Hip-Hop MC", also providing insight into his rhyming technique.


title: Kool G Rap

text: Kool G Rap is often credited as the first rapper to infuse his lyrics with mafioso and hardcore street content.


title: Kool G Rap

text: This can be seen as early as 1989 in the song "Road to the Riches" where he makes a reference to Al Pacino (who played Michael Corleone in The Godfather and mobster Tony Montana in the 1983 crime drama movie Scarface) – this was long before albums such as Raekwon's "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…" (1995), and Jay-Z's "Reasonable Doubt" (1996) made such references popular.


title: Kool G Rap

text: Since his debut, he has used various references to mob movies in his lyrics, album covers, and titles. For example, the first line of 'Bad to the Bone' from "" (1990) is, "I'm bad to the bone / with a style like Al Capone", the album "Live and Let Die" (1992) uses samples from the 1987 crime film "The Untouchables", the album cover of "Roots of Evil" (1998) uses elements from "The Godfather" and "Scarface" theatrical posters, and "The Giancana Story" (2002) album title references Mafia boss Sam Giancana.


title: Kool G Rap

text: "Rolling Stone" says, "before Kool G Rap, New York didn't really have the street rap that could hold its own against what artists such as L.A.'s Ice-T and N.W.A were churning out" and that "G Rap excelled at the street narrative".


title: Kool G Rap

text: His take on crime, violence, and the mafioso lifestyle ranges from remorse and contemplation (e.g. 'Streets of New York', described by "Rolling Stone" as "a vivid look inside the misery of the hood"), to glorification (e.g. 'Fast Life' featuring Nas).


title: Deposition (law)

text: A deposition in the law of the United States, or examination for discovery in the law of Canada, involves the taking of sworn, out-of-court oral testimony of a witness that may be reduced to a written transcript for later use in court or for discovery purposes. Depositions are commonly used in litigation in the United States and Canada. They are almost always conducted outside court by the lawyers themselves, with no judge present to supervise the examination.


title: Deposition (law)

text: Depositions by written interrogatories first appeared around the mid-15th century as a procedure for discovery, factfinding, and evidence preservation in suits in equity in English courts. They differed radically from modern depositions in three ways: (1) the party seeking a witness's testimony merely propounded written interrogatories which were read out loud by a master or court-appointed commissioner to the witness in a closed proceeding without parties or counsel present; (2) the witness's first-person oral answers under oath were not recorded verbatim, but were summarized by the master, commissioner, or a clerk appointed by them into a third-person continuous narrative; and (3) the resulting written product (also called a "deposition") was filed with the court under seal and its contents were not revealed or "published" to the parties until shortly before trial.


title: Deposition (law)

text: The modern deposition by oral examination began to develop in New York in the early 19th century when Chancellor James Kent of the New York Court of Chancery allowed masters to actually examine witnesses (that is, pursue lines of questions in real time based on the witness's preceding answers) rather than read static interrogatories (which tended to be broadly worded and resulted in very inefficient depositions). He also allowed parties and counsel to be present during depositions. This meant depositions were no longer secret and led to counsel insisting on taking over the examinations themselves. These developments gradually spread across the United States and Canada.


title: Deposition (law)

text: During the late 19th century, summary narratives by court-appointed examiners were replaced by verbatim transcripts by court reporters. Finally, the merger of common law and equity procedure led to the adoption of live testimony in open court as the default method of taking trial evidence in all trials (equity had used depositions by written interrogatories in lieu of live testimony), which reduced the deposition to its modern role in American civil procedure as a discovery and evidence preservation device.


title: Deposition (law)

text: In Canada, the process is nearly identical to that followed in the United States, but the proceeding is called an examination for discovery. Typically, the questions for the witness will be a mixture of direct questions and cross-examinations on prior statements. While most of the same objections to form are applicable as in the United States, the witness's lawyer may additionally take certain questions "under advisement" as a means of delaying answering the question, without making a formal objection.


title: Deposition (law)

text: The process is considered in Canada to be time-consuming and expensive when conducted without limits. As a result, Rule 31.05.1 of the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure has, since January 1, 2010, limited examinations for discovery to seven hours per party except with consent of the other parties or the leave of the court. British Columbia implemented similar reforms on July 1, 2010, although the new Rule 7-2(2) can be read in two ways, it appears to be that each party can examine each other party for a maximum of seven hours unless the court orders otherwise. The alternative reading is that each party is only to be examined for a maximum of seven hours.


title: Deposition (law)

text: "Deposition" is the preferred term in U.S. federal courts and in the majority of U.S. states. In some unusual situations, depositions can be taken during or even after trial.


title: Deposition (law)

text: In almost all cases pending in United States federal courts, depositions are carried out under Rule 30 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. About 35 states use versions of the FRCP in their state courts. Other states have discovery rules that are set out either in court rules or statutes, and which vary somewhat from one state to another. According to FRCP Rule 30, the number of depositions is limited to ten depositions per side (i.e. plaintiffs and defendants), with deposition of each deponent limited to a single day of no more than seven hours (unless specified otherwise in local rules of the district).