title: Annual percentage rate

text: The discretion that is illustrated in the "sometimes included" column even in the highly regulated U.S. home mortgage environment makes it difficult to simply compare the APRs of two lenders. Note: U.S. regulators generally require a lender to use the same assumptions and definitions in their calculation of APR for each of their products even though they cannot force consistency across lenders.


title: Annual percentage rate

text: With respect to items that may be sold with vendor financing, for example, automobile leasing, the notional cost of the good may effectively be hidden and the APR subsequently rendered meaningless. An example is a case where an automobile is leased to a customer based on a "manufacturer's suggested retail price" with a low APR: the vendor may be accepting a lower lease rate as a trade-off against a higher sale price. Had the customer self-financed, a discounted sales price may have been accepted by the vendor; in other words, the customer has received cheap financing in exchange for paying a higher purchase price, and the quoted APR understates the true cost of the financing. In this case, the only meaningful way to establish the "true" APR would involve arranging financing through other sources, determining the lowest-acceptable cash price and comparing the financing terms (which may not be feasible in all circumstances). For leases where the lessee has a purchase option at the end of the lease term, the cost of the APR is further complicated by this option. In effect, the lease includes a put option back to the manufacturer (or, alternatively, a call option for the consumer), and the value (or cost) of this option to the consumer is not transparent.


title: Annual percentage rate

text: APR is dependent on the time period for which the loan is calculated. That is, the APR for a 30-year loan cannot be compared to the APR for a 20-year loan. APR "can" be used to show the relative impact of different payment schedules (such as balloon payments or biweekly payments instead of straight monthly payments), but most standard APR calculators have difficulty with those calculations.


title: Annual percentage rate

text: Furthermore, most APR calculators assume that an individual will keep a particular loan until the end of the defined repayment period, resulting in the up-front fixed closing costs being amortized over the full term of the loan. If the consumer pays the loan off early, the effective interest rate achieved will be significantly higher than the APR initially calculated. This is especially problematic for mortgage loans, where typical loan repayment periods are 15 or 30 years but where many borrowers move or refinance before the loan period runs out, which increases the borrower's effective cost for any points or other origination fees.


title: Annual percentage rate

text: In theory, this factor should not affect any individual consumer's ability to compare the APR of the same product (same repayment period and origination fees) across vendors. APR may not, however, be particularly helpful when attempting to compare different products, or similar products with different terms.


title: Annual percentage rate

text: Since the principal loan balance is not paid down during the interest-only term, assuming there are no set up costs, the APR will be the same as the interest rate.


title: Annual percentage rate

text: Three lenders with identical information may still calculate different APRs. The calculations can be quite complex and are poorly understood even by most financial professionals. Most users depend on software packages to calculate APR and are therefore dependent on the assumptions in that particular software package. While differences between software packages will not result in large variations, there are several acceptable methods of calculating APR, each of which returns a slightly different result.


title: Windows-1252

text: Windows-1252 or CP-1252 (code page 1252) is a single-byte character encoding of the Latin alphabet, used by default in the legacy components of Microsoft Windows for English and many European languages including Spanish, French, and German.


title: Windows-1252

text: It is the most-used single-byte character encoding in the world (on websites at least). , 0.3% of all websites declared use of Windows-1252, but at the same time 1.3% used ISO 8859-1 (while only 8 of the top 1000 websites), which by HTML5 standards should be considered the same encoding, so that 1.6% of websites effectively use Windows-1252. Pages declared as US-ASCII would also count as this character set. An unknown (but probably large) subset of other pages use only the ASCII portion of UTF-8, or only the codes matching Windows-1252 from their declared character set, and could also be counted.


title: Windows-1252

text: Depending on the country, use can be much higher than the global average, e.g., for Brazil according to website use (including ISO-8859-1), use is at 7.9%, and in Germany at 4.0%.


title: Windows-1252

text: This character encoding is a superset of ISO 8859-1 in terms of printable characters, but differs from the IANA's ISO-8859-1 by using displayable characters rather than control characters in the 80 to 9F (hex) range. Notable additional characters include curly quotation marks and all the printable characters that are in ISO 8859-15 (at different places than ISO 8859-15). It is known to Windows by the code page number 1252, and by the IANA-approved name "windows-1252".


title: Windows-1252

text: It is very common to mislabel Windows-1252 text with the charset label ISO-8859-1. A common result was that all the quotes and apostrophes (produced by "smart quotes" in word-processing software) were replaced with question marks or boxes on non-Windows operating systems, making text difficult to read. Most modern web browsers and e-mail clients treat the media type charset ISO-8859-1 as Windows-1252 to accommodate such mislabeling. This is now standard behavior in the HTML5 specification, which requires that documents advertised as ISO-8859-1 actually be parsed with the Windows-1252 encoding.


title: Windows-1252

text: Historically, the phrase "ANSI Code Page" was used in Windows to refer to non-DOS encodings; the intention was that most of these would be ANSI standards such as ISO-8859-1. Even though Windows-1252 was the first and by far most popular code page named so in Microsoft Windows parlance, the code page has never been an ANSI standard. Microsoft explains, "The term ANSI as used to signify Windows code pages is a historical reference, but is nowadays a misnomer that continues to persist in the Windows community."


title: Windows-1252

text: The following table shows Windows-1252. Differences from ISO-8859-1 have the Unicode code point number below the character, based on the Unicode.org mapping of Windows-1252 with "best fit". A tooltip, generally available only when one points to the immediate left of the character, shows the Unicode code point name and the decimal Alt code.


title: Windows-1252

text: According to the information on Microsoft's and the Unicode Consortium's websites, positions 81, 8D, 8F, 90, and 9D are unused; however, the Windows API codice_1 maps these to the corresponding C1 control codes. The "best fit" mapping documents this behavior, too.


title: Windows-1252

text: The OS/2 operating system supports an encoding by the name of Code page 1004 (CCSID 1004) or "Windows Extended". This mostly matches code page 1252, with the exception of certain C0 control characters being replaced by diacritic characters.


title: Windows-1252

text: There is a rarely used, but useful, graphics extended code page 1252 where codes 0x00 to 0x1f allow for box drawing as used in applications such as MSDOS Edit and Codeview. One of the applications to use this code page was an Intel Corporation Install/Recovery disk image utility from mid/late 1995. These programs were written for its P6 User Test Program machines (US example). It was used exclusively in its then EMEA region (Europe, Middle East & Africa). In time the programs were changed to use code page 850.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Players is a 2012 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film directed by the duo Abbas–Mustan and jointly produced by Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Burmawala Partners. The film features an ensemble cast of Abhishek Bachchan, Bobby Deol, Vinod Khanna, Sonam Kapoor, Bipasha Basu, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Sikandar Kher and Omi Vaidya, while Aftab Shivdasani appears in a cameo. The theatrical trailer premiered on 3 November 2011, and the film was released on 6 January 2012. It is an official remake of the 2003 American film "The Italian Job", which itself is a remake of the 1969 British film of the same name. "Players" employs the same plot as the 2003 version, while making the characters and incidents completely different.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: The story follows a team of players, consisting of a con-man, an automobile expert who doubles up as a seductress, an illusionist, an explosives expert, an expert hacker and an actor turned prosthetic makeup artist, who plan to steal gold worth from a moving train. During the robbery they are double crossed by members of their own team.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: "Players" was named one of the most anticipated Bollywood films of 2012, as it received hype ever since it was announced to be a remake of "The Italian Job", was made on a huge budget, had a multistar cast, was filmed in foreign locations as New Zealand, Russia and even the North Pole—which was a first for a Bollywood film— and was heavily promoted. Upon release the film received mixed reviews from critics. Many praised the action sequences and the performances of Neil Nitin Mukesh, Omi Vaidya, and Bipasha Basu, but also criticized the screenplay, length, pace, music, and Sonam Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan's performances. It opened to a poor response at the box office, despite having a wide release. The shocking failure of the film led to many trade industry analysts reinstating the belief of a jinx in Bollywood that the first-released film of the year always fails at the box office, which happened to the films "Halla Bol" and "My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves" (2008), "Chandni Chowk to China" (2009), "Dulha Mil Gaya" and "Pyaar Impossible!" (2010).


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Mastermind Charlie Mascarenhas (Abhishek Bachchan) and his accomplice Riya (Bipasha Basu) are one of the greatest pairs of thieves in India. Charlie's friend, Raj (Aftab Shivdasani), is killed by the Russian mafia. At Raj's funeral, his wife Shayla hands Charlie a CD containing information about the transfer of gold ingots by a train from Russia to Romania. Charlie decides to rob the train with the help of imprisoned Don and con-artist Victor Braganza (Vinod Khanna). They hire a team of criminals to join them in the robbery. The group includes Spider (Neil Nitin Mukesh), a world-class hacker, an explosives expert Bilal Bashir (Sikander Kher), a prosthetic makeup artist Sunny (Omi Vaidya), and an illusionist Ronnie (Bobby Deol).


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Before the heist, Victor's daughter Naina (Sonam Kapoor) returns to India from Australia to receive Victor when he is released from prison. The group of players devises a plan to rob the Russian train in the sliest way possible. Spider hacks into a Russian satellite system, and Ronnie uses his illusion to trick the soldiers guarding the gold while the rest of the team transfers the gold from the train. The robbery is executed successfully. Charlie calls Victor to inform him of the successful robbery, but Naina overhears the call and realizes Victor broke a promise to her to never return to his life of crime. While the players celebrate their success, Ronnie reveals to the team that he has a daughter who is hospitalized because she got paralyzed during one of his magic performances and hopes to help her recover soon. Spider double crosses the gang and tries to flee with all of the gold. Spider is stopped by Ronnie, who is then shot multiple times by Spider's assassins. The group are chased by the assassins as Ronnie and Riya are killed by Spider. Charlie, Bilal, and Sunny manage to escape after Spider blows up the location and flees with the gold. At the same time, Spider's assassins break into the house and murder Victor. Naina decides to cut off all contact with Charlie. Over the course of a year, Charlie contacts various gold dealers to learn which one has the stolen gold that Spider escaped with.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: In New Zealand, the gang locates a dealer who is in contact with Spider. Charlie explains to Naina that the gang only wanted to steal the gold so they could help achieve Victor's dream of building a big orphanage. Naina understands and teams up with Charlie to exact revenge on Spider. In New Zealand, they discover that Riya is still alive and living there. She explains that she also wants revenge on Spider and provides the gang with the information about Spider's residence. Unaware of her plans, Spider flirts with Naina and takes her to his villa. Spider finds a hidden camera in Naina's dress and realises that she is working with Charlie, who breaks into Spider's mansion in an armored truck to rescue her and tells Spider that he will steal all of the gold within 48 hours. Spider tries to move the gold to another country, but the gang, using three large trucks and by hacking into the traffic system, takes the gold and hides it inside three Mini Coopers. Just as they are about to leave New Zealand, they are caught by Spider and discover that Riya was working with Spider all along.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Spider tries to force the gang to hand over the gold, but the trunks of the Mini Coopers are empty. Spider betrays Riya and threatens to kill her. Before Charlie can reveal the real location of the gold, Riya shoots herself, and Spider stabs Charlie. Spider tries to escape, but Sunny and Bilal stop him and beat him up badly. Naina, who wants revenge for the death of Victor, shoots Spider thrice. It is then revealed that the real Mini Coopers containing the gold are elsewhere. As the four leave the scene, Spider makes a final call to the Russian mafia and tells them that Charlie has stolen Russian gold. The gang takes the real Mini Coopers and leaves for India, but the Mafia stops them to check the cars, and once again, they are found to be empty. It is then revealed that the Mini Coopers were made out of the actual gold itself. In the end, Bilal opens a car dealership business, Sunny becomes a theatre actor, Charlie and Naina open Victor's dream orphanage, and Charlie raises Ronnie's daughter as his own.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Development on the project began in late 2009, when Viacom 18 approached Abbas–Mustan with the idea of remaking "The Italian Job" into a desi Indian version, and bought the remake rights from the original producers Paramount Pictures. At first, Abbas–Mustan were hesitant, but after watching the 2003 remake of "The Italian Job," they decided it would be a good idea to Indianise it. They spent around a year working on the script and making a few tweaks including two new characters, played by Basu and Deol.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Bachchan was the first actor to be signed, along with Katrina Kaif and Neil Nitin Mukesh, to play the roles originally played by Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron and Edward Norton in the original. Mukesh was approached for the negative role, as the directors were impressed by his performance in "Johnny Gaddar" (2007). Rumours circulated of different names being linked and approached including Sonakshi Sinha, who opted out due to date problems, to Anushka Sharma supposedly being called in to replace her. Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra had also been approached to play the leading female roles opposite Kunal Kapoor and Akshaye Khanna. Khanna later claimed he was never approached and expressed disappointment in not being cast. Kapoor left the film out due to her family problems with the Bachchan's. Deepika Padukone was also backed out, as she just like Chopra felt "the female lead does not have a strong part to play". Chopra was eventually dropped in a controversial matter, citing differences with Bachchan and the directors. Later Abbas Mustan claimed that the film was never offered to Chopra.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: At one point the film had no three male leads and no female lead, which caused the directors to panic, after Kaif also backed out due to date problems. As the directors wanted a younger girl she was eventually replaced by Sonam Kapoor. Kapoor walked out of the film, as the director she was working with on another film, "Mausam", asked to concentrate solely on his film. However, she was signed again, as she managed to a lot dates, but due to heavy pressure from both projects, she passed out on the sets of "Mausam".


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Rumours circulated that Mukesh had been dropped, due to the poor commercial business of his "Lafangey Parindey" (2010), although it had been a profitable venture. He later slammed the rumours saying "Arrey issme real ya unreal status ki kya baat hai? (There is no question of real and unreal status) It's sad that I am giving clarification on this when the fact is that I am already preparing for my role. The film is pretty much on and I am also not going anywhere". As Basu was approached, she immediately agreed after she read the script and was "blown away" by it. She had previously worked with Abbas-Mustan in her debut film "Ajnabee" (2001) and in "Race" (2008). Veteran actor Vinod Khanna made a comeback since his cameo appearance in "Dabangg" (2010), and was chosen to play a small but key role as the mastermind of the heist over the likes of other Indian senior actors Amitabh Bachchan, Rishi Kapoor and Dharmendra. Aftab Shivdasani was hired to play a guest cameo appearance.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: It was Abbas Mustan's first time working with all the actors except for Basu and Deol, who they had previously cast together in "Ajnabee". The latter in five films, along with Johnny Lever who has played minor roles in all but two of their films. It was also the second pairing of Bachchan and Kapoor, who reunited after "Delhi-6" (2009). Bachchan had also worked with Basu and Sikandar Kher (son of actors Anupam Kher and Kirron Kher) in "Dhoom 2" (2006) and "Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey" respectively.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Before shooting could begin, the entire cast underwent physical training to the requirement of the roles they were playing. Bachchan was required to tone up the most as he was the lead character and had to perform dangerous train stunts. For her role Kapoor, was required to learn to drive a car, although she had no previous experience. She practised in the small lanes of Juhu and after reassurance from her father Anil Kapoor to the directors, Kapoor drove, only to crash the car. Abbas Burmawalla commented on this "Our action director Allan Amin felt that she should get comfortable zipping around in the Mini Cooper. So about 10 days before we started shooting, Sonam started practicing driving the Mini. However, on the first day, she accelerated while reversing, and banged into a lamppost". Basu was required to wear a bikini during one of the songs, had gained weight during the year and worked with personal trainer Paul Britto, to ensure the perfect body. Her regime included functional training with abdominal exercises, kickboxing, aerobic exercise, stretching and weight training. Shweta Bhardwaj, who was playing a pivotal character in the film, was also required to physically tone up for an entirely different bikini scene.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Filming in India, mainly in Goa, began on 9 November 2010 and continued until the end of December 2010. The song "Buddhi Do Bhagwaan" was filmed on Miramar beach in Goa.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: The second phase of filming began in New Zealand in mid January 2011, in locations across Wellington and Auckland. Wellington City Council closed some areas of the city centre for two weeks so there would be no problems in shooting. Scenes were shot across the City to Sea Bridge, Okarito Lagoon on New Zealand's South Island, Te Papa's Awesome Forces Museum, Cuba Mall and in the Tulsi Indian restaurant. The replication of the "Mini Coopers" scene from the 2003 version of "The Italian Job" was filmed at Wellington Airport, which Bachchan had difficulty with due to his height, as he could not get in and out of the cars quickly. There was some controversy when airport officials refused to give permission for filming when they felt it was dangerous; the scene required a plane to overfly three Minis, which were being driven by Bachchan, Kapoor and Kher, and miss by inches. The traffic jam sequence involving the Minis was also shot in Wellington. Sixth months before shooting had commenced in New Zealand, Abbas Mustan met with the Tourism Board and Film Council in Wellington and they put up LED signs, to notify local residents of the street closure during that weekend. The crew finished shooting and left New Zealand just days before an earthquake hit the country.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: The third schedule of shooting, which was the longest and most important, began on April 2011 in parts of Siberia, St Petersburg and Murmansk. For the shooting in Siberia, the directors had a lot of difficulty acquiring permission. Similarly, they had also faced several problems during the shooting in New Zealand. Describing this ordeal, Mustan Burmawalla said, "We had to seek lot of permissions for a traffic jam scene to be shot in New Zealand and that took a long time. While, in Russia we faced language problem, we appointed about 25 interpreters. We needed them to help us about basic things like where to go to eat etc,". Owing to the difficulty allotting dates, Bachchan had to leave another project by Ram Gopal Varma titled "Department", whom Varma would later blame for the dismal performance of the film at the box office. The sequences involving the train were directed by Filmfare award winning, stunt director Allan Amin. Bachchan refused to have a body double for the scenes and performed all the dangerous stunts himself. During the sequence, he had to balance himself atop two trains which were travelling at approximately 100 km/h. He hit his head on a rod on top of the train, but still managed to complete the scene. During another scene Bachchan was left hanging by a rack on the train for around 20 hours. While filming took place there, a group of Russian soldiers learnt that an Indian film was shooting nearby and joined the crew on the sets and requested to meet all the stars.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Some of the scenes were filmed close to the Arctic Circle, Arctic Ocean and at the North Pole, which was the first time a Bollywood film had been filmed there. However a slight problem arose; no food was available because of the extremely cold climate and everyone had to manage on packets of soups. Shooting in Russia ended in late July 2011. The cast flew back to India, finalised a few last minute shots and songs, before the film went into the post-production stage.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: The release of "Players" was repeatedly delayed; it was initially planned for a Diwali release but the film was not completed in time, as the story demanded extensive filming of action scenes. Hussain Burmawala took six-and-a-half months to complete the editing, which is the longest time taken for any Indian film to be edited. The release was expected on 9 December 2011 alongside "Ladies vs Ricky Bahl" and "Agent Vinod" but was further delayed until 26 December, to make more time for promotions. Bachchan requested that the film was released at a later date as he wanted to avoid a clash with Shahrukh Khan's "Don 2". "Players" was finally released on 6 January 2012, making it the first released Bollywood film of 2012.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Before its release, "Players" garnered a lot of curiosity from Bollywood movie buffs and critics, ever since the first preview which generated a positive response from the audience. The directors Abbas-Mustan, who are known for their adaptations of Hollywood films into Indian-esque classic thrillers, returned to direction after quite some time. They had promised to break the boundaries of the action genre, as the major action stunts and sequences in the film were performed on par with Hollywood by the actors themselves. This is rarely seen or done in Bollywood. Kapoor who had previously played mostly girl next door type roles, brought a completely different look to her previous films, which attracted positive attention and was tagged as "sexy" by the media once the films promo's released. Another reason the film had created curiosity was because none of the actors expect Basu had enjoyed much box office success, while the rest were relative newcomers. Bachchan, who had been in the industry for over 10 years, had endured a series of flops, in spite of this the directors were confident of him.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: "Players" was named as one of the most-awaited films of 2012 by Mid-Day, IBN Live, Hindustan Times, India Today and The Times of India.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: The first look at the film, along with teasers and an extended promo was revealed on 3 November 2011, on "Kaun Banega Crorepati", which featured Abhishek's father, Amitabh Bachchan as the host. Amitabh Bachchan also helped to promote the film on his blog and Twitter feed. The theatrical trailer was also released on 3 November 2011, on the movie's official YouTube channel and Facebook page.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: "Players" had an extended promotion schedule since its release was delayed for an extra month. Promotion for the film was orchestrated by using tactics never seen before. The campaign began at the music launch on 13 December 2011, where the team promoted the film in a first event of its kind, as the lead actors Abhishek Bachchan, Bobby Deol, Bipasha Basu, Sonam Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Sikandar Kher and Omi Vaidya performed live stunts. Deol, who played an illusionist in the film, performed the opening act as he disappeared from two different towers. Kapoor drove an armoured truck through a golden brick wall and then drove around the arena. She was followed by Kher, who according to his role of an explosives expert, set off multiple explosions with a remote control, throwing a car 40 feet into the air before it hit another car, blowing both cars up. Vaidya and Mukesh spoke some dialogues from the film. Bachchan was followed in a car by Basu on a pillion as they both drove through a ring of fire and blew a bus up. Bachchan fractured one of his fingers during the stunt when he drove a car through a sheet of glass and performed the doughnut act and a 360-degree wheelie.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Promotion continued at various airports and railway stations like the Delhi Metro where Bachchan, Mukesh and Kapoor fabricated a train heist similar to the one in the film, after which they travelled inside the Metro, followed by a media interaction and later gave away some merchandise from the film. At Chandigarh Airport, the actors spoke about their characters and signed autographs. "Players" was also promoted elsewhere in India, such as the Ambience Mall and the Inorbit Mall. Kapoor featured as a guest on "Imagine TV's" "Nachle Ve with Saroj Khan" and Bachchan promoted the film on Arjun Rampal's show "Love 2 Hate U", where he met his biggest hater. Kapoor and Mukesh also appeared on reality show "Bigg Boss's" season 5 during the semi-finals, four days before "Players" was released. "Players" was heavily promoted in London with help from the cast of the 2003 remake of "The Italian Job", including Charlize Theron, Mark Wahlberg, Edward Norton and the director F. Gary Gray. The film was released in UK cinemas by "B4U Pictures". The producers of "Players" held "Go for Gold" competitions where the winner would meet the cast and spend a day with them.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: "Players" had its worldwide premiere in Dubai on 4 January 2012. It was held at the "Grand Cineplex" in the Global Village and was attended by Bachchan, Basu, Kapoor and Mukesh. Instead of the traditional red carpet, a golden carpet was used in keeping with the theme of the film. Kapoor caused controversy over the outfit she had worn during the premiere, giving her a busty look and was verbally attacked by Fashion bloggers.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: "Players" received a mixed reception from critics. Joginder Tuteja from "IndiaGlitz" gave it 4 out of 5 stars and said "Fantastic – That's what you end up exclaiming once the last twist of "Players" takes you by complete surprise. Oh yes, there are around half a dozen or more twists in this film, something which was pretty much expected since the men at the helm of affairs are Abbas-Mustan". Subhash K. Jha from "Bollywood Hungama" wrote, ""Players" does a first-rate job of adapting The Italian Job. It's slick and well-written, eye-catching and intelligent, witty and delectable. It beats every other action-adventure flick in recent Bollywood history". "Oneindia.in" also gave a positive review, and said that, ""Players" electrifies movie buffs with its hi-voltage action. The highlights of the movie are wonderful performances by the lead actors, stylised stunts, adrenaline-pumping chases, stunning visuals, Pritam's songs, and comic sequences. But the editing work is a big let down". Nikhat Kazmi of "The Times of India" gave the film a rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Music by Pritam is good while it lasts. Some editing sorely needed, visual imagery quite polished, and the look, as usual, is of new age Bollywood." "Daily Bhaskar" rated it 3 out of 5 and said, "Direction by Abbas-Mustan, cinematography and an edgy plotline are the strong points. Music, dialogues and performances (besides Bipasha and Neil's performance) are the weak points". Piyali Dasgupta from "NDTV" gave it 3 out of 5 stars and said, ""Players" ends up as a fun weekend flick, especially for action buffs. Abhishek Bachchan shows some of the styles of the "Dhoom" series. Neil Nitin Mukesh, largely off the radar after an intense performance. Bipasha, too shows a hint of "Race" with her glamorous role and that red bikini. Sonam Kapoor somewhat redeems herself as an actor playing the good geek Naina. But don't expect much from Pritam's music." "Zee News" gave it 3 out of 5 stars and said, "Abbas Mustan's "'Players"' is a slick, fast paced and racy thriller. Technically the film is brilliant, but when it comes to drama and emotions, the film falls flat on its face. In comparison to "The Italian Job", "Players"’ is long and overstretched. Kaveree Bamzai of "India Today" also gave it 3 out of 5.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: "Players" also received a number of negative reviews. Taran Adarsh from "Bollywood Hungama" gave it 2 out of 5 stars and wrote, "On the whole, "Players" rides mainly on the clout of its credible director duo [Abbas-Mustan], daredevil stunts and stunning visuals. But, most importantly, it is deficient of a captivating screenplay". Rajeev Masand of "IBN Live" rated it 2 out of 5 and wrote, ""Players" is a fastpaced khichdi. Abhishek Bachchan is earnest, and thankfully dials down his trademark smugness to play the ringleader of the team. Neil Nitin Mukesh gets some interesting scenes to sink his teeth into. Bipasha Basu fills out a bikini nicely, but poor Sonam Kapoor changes her costumes and her hairstyle more frequently than her expressions. What could have been a satisfying entertainer doesn't quite achieve its potential. Karan Anshuman of the "Mumbai Mirror" gave it 2 out of 5 stars. Aniruddha Guha from "DNA India" awarded it 2 out of 5 and wrote, "The writing is juvenile, the dialogues a joke, the acting over-the-top, yet everyone seems to be taking themselves so seriously". Sukanya Verma of Rediff also gave the film a rating of 2 out of 5 stars and wrote, ""Players" is lacklustre and unimaginative". Mayank Shekhar of the "Hindustan Times" gave it 1.5 out of 5. Komal Nahta from Koimoi rated it 1 out of 5 and wrote, "Whats good? The train robbery sequence; some comedy in the second half; Omi Vaidya and Neil Nitin Mukesh's acting. Whats bad? The loose and uninteresting screenplay; the poor music; the dull acting of Abhishek, Sonam and Bobby". Yahoo! Movies gave the film a rating of "Game Over" and said that, "the remake of "The Italian Job is definitely a job taken not so seriously".


title: Players (2012 film)

text: "Players" had a wide release of over 2000 prints, but despite the film having an extensive promotion schedule it only opened to around 35–40% occupancy, as it failed to make any headway over the weekend, grossing . Daily collections were on Friday and on Saturday. There was a small rise on Sunday as the film made . On Monday, its revenues decreased as it made .


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Collections decreased throughout the first week. On Tuesday the film grossed , on Wednesday it made and on Thursday , making the total first week revenues . The second Friday was extremely poor; "Players" grossed just 6 million compared to its reasonable first Friday gross of . Over its second weekend, even with a small increase on Saturday, the film only earned , taking its total 10-day collections to around . In its second full week "Players" grossed and in its third week it grossed taking the total three-week revenues to around . "Players" saw a further drop in its fourth week, grossing 800,000, due to the release of "Agneepath". After six weeks "Players" ended its total lifetime collections at . It was reviewed as below average by Boxoffice-India.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: "Players" also failed to make an impact overseas, earning to on its first weekend. Its performance was dismal in Australia and below average in the UK and USA, although it performed respectably in the UAE and Fiji. It was most successful in New Zealand where it had the largest cinematic release of an Indian film in the country. 11 prints were distributed to two of New Zealand's biggest cinema chains, Event and Hoyts. "Players" exceeded the previous record held by "Don 2" (2011), which was released two weeks earlier with nine prints.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: The official soundtrack was composed and directed by Pritam and the background score was composed by Sandeep Shirodkar. The lyrics were written by Ashish Pandit. The music rights were sold to T-Series and released on 30 November 2011. The main track used in the teaser and trailer is "Anti You" from Blue Stahli's eponymous album "Blue Stahli".


title: Players (2012 film)

text: The soundtrack album received positive to mixed reviews. Joginder Tuteja of "Bollywood Hungama" gave it a rating of 3.5 out of 5 and wrote, ""'Players"' delivers what one expected from it. The need of the situation was to have a racy score that complements the fast paced story telling of Abbas-Mustan. The song which has the most potential is 'Dil Ye Bekarar Kyun Hai', others would work as instant coffee that would keep the momentum up for the film's narrative". Satyajit from "Glamsham" gave it 3 out of 5 and said, ""Players", a stylish packed hi-voltage action thriller has cool and reasonably good listening soundtrack to its credit. As anticipated from its huge expectations, it proves to be an above average affair but lacks the zing and zeal of being 'spectacular' or 'earth-shattering' like the composer's previous works in this genre ("Dhoom", "Dhoom 2" and "Race"), which have been big successes in their respective years of release". Vanessa Barnes of "Bolly Spice" awarded it 2.5 out of 5 and wrote, "Pritam has created exactly the type of soundtrack to perfectly fit and complement the material onscreen. I think that in conjunction with visuals, some of which we’ve already had a taste of in the promising, well-received trailer – the songs will be effective. The bad news? I think as a whole, listened to on its own, the album is pretty average – and if you don't like auto-tune, or excessive remixes, steer well clear". Sukanya Verma from "Rediff.com" also gave the album 2.5 out of 5 stars and said, "After four very popular albums this year, "Ready", "Bodyguard", "Dum Maaro Dum" and "Mausam", Pritam dishes out yet another album that is a mix of sure-shot winners and drab space fillers."


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Because the album received mixed reviews from critics, Viacom 18 and T-Series decided that Pritam's score had not lived up to the audience's expectations, as well as Abbas-Mustan's reputation of having hit music in their films. Pritam's last work with director duo in "Race" (2008) had sold well and helped the film's initial run at the box office and they decided to remix the hit song "Jumma Chumma" from Bachchan's father Amitabh Bachchan's hit film "Hum" (1991). However, Abbas-Mustan were not very keen on this, causing tension between them and the producers. There were also plans to remix the song "Tamma Tamma Loge" from Sanjay Dutt's "Thanedaar" (1990), but plans to remix the song were scrapped as there was less than two weeks before the release of the film.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: During the shooting in New Zealand, authorities at an airport refused to give permission to film a scene, having decided it was too dangerous. An aeroplane was to fly a few inches above three cars, which were being driven by Bachchan, Kapoor, and Kher. The stunt directors Mark and Allan Amin rehearsed the scene, and the airport authorities finally gave permission because it was an important scene. The New Zealand Government and the local film crew were also unhappy and claimed the crew of "Players" had disregarded New Zealand laws and cared little for health and safety concerns, took months to pay invoices and damaged some locations. John Key, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, had declared tax breaks for Bollywood films shooting in New Zealand to attract more film-makers. After "Players" did well at the New Zealand box office, laws allowing more film crews and actors to shoot there were to be enacted, causing concerns among the New Zealand people and authorities.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Initially, the way Chopra left the project, was deemed controversial, as it was said that the directors had been directly influenced by Bachchan. Bachchan and Chopra had previously starred together in several films, including one directed by Rohan Sippy, Bachchan's long time family friend. It was reported that Chopra had refused to star in another one of his films, due to this, Bachchan had asked her to be dropped. However Abbas Burmawalla cleared Bachchan's name, saying "The star cast of The Italian Job was finalized long time back. We had signed Abhishek Bachchan, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Katrina Kaif in the first go and Katrina was always our first choice so there was no question of talking to Priyanka Chopra. She was never approached or spoken to for this role so how can Priyanka lose out on a role she was never even considered for?".


title: Players (2012 film)

text: "Players" received a U/A certificate. Controversy erupted regarding the Censor Boards clarification to a scene in which Kapoor is seen making the middle finger gesture, which was clearly visible in the promos of the film. It was initially blurred out but was later approved after appeals from the directors and Kapoor, who stated, "I don't believe in censorship so whether they like it or not, I really don't care about it. I just want people to come and see my film. Showing a middle finger is a part of today's youth". Media criticised her, claiming "For Sonam Kapoor, showing middle finger is no big deal" and the censor board for allowing the scene pass without cuts or blurring; a similar scene in Ranbir Kapoor's "Rockstar" (2011) had also been allowed. The issue was brought to light once again, when cricketer Virat Kohli famously made the gesture at Australian fans (two days before the film's release) during the Australia vs India 2011–12 series.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: After the poor financial performance of "Players", Bachchan's lack of success continued, and he was dropped from his next film role. The unexpected failure of the film led to many trade industry analysts reinstating the belief of a jinx in Bollywood that the first-released film of the year always fails at the box office, which happened to the films "Halla Bol" (2008), "Chandni Chowk To China" (2009), "Pyaar Impossible!" and "Dulha Mil Gaya" (2010). This had been happening for years until 2011 when "No One Killed Jessica" became a "semi hit" supposedly breaking the jinx. The analysts were confident that "Players" would be successful.


title: Players (2012 film)

text: Plans for a sequel to "Players" were scrapped after major disputes began between the directors Abbas-Mustan and producers Viacom 18, who claimed that Abbas–Mustan had made changes to the script without their consent and that the film had gone over budget from to around which had caused them extra losses. Bachchan, who was signed for approximately , forfeited his payment of and claimed he was "happy with the way the film was shot" and he turned down the balance fee owed to him. The film initially recovered most of its cost through theatrical rights, sold for to Ponty Chadha, music rights bought by "T-Series" for , and satellite rights that were sold to "Zee TV" for an approximate . The total loss amounted to around .


title: Flag of Armenia

text: The national flag of Armenia, the Armenian Tricolour, consists of three horizontal bands of equal width, red on the top, blue in the middle, and apricot on the bottom. The Armenian Supreme Soviet adopted the current flag on 24 August 1990. On 15 June 2006, the Law on the National Flag of Armenia, governing its usage, was passed by the National Assembly of Armenia.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: Throughout history, there have been many variations of the Armenian flag. In ancient times, Armenian dynasties were represented by different symbolic animals displayed on their flags. In the twentieth century, various Soviet flags represented the Armenian SSR.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: The meanings of the colors are interpreted in many different ways. The red stands for the Armenian Highlands, the Armenian people's continued struggle for survival, maintenance of the Christian faith and Armenia's independence and freedom. Blue is for the Armenian peaceful skies. And orange represents the nation's talent and hard-work.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: In 2012, the Armenian National Institute of Standards (SARM) issued specifications about the construction and colors on the national flag.:


title: Flag of Armenia

text: Today's tricolor flag bears little resemblance to the earliest Armenian 'flags'. In ancient times, armies went into battle behind carvings mounted on poles. The carvings might represent a dragon, an eagle, a lion or "some mysterious object of the gods". With the advent of Christianity, the Armenian empire adopted many different flags representing various dynasties. The Artaxiad Dynasty's flag, for instance, consisted of a red cloth displaying two eagles gazing at each other, separated by an eight-pointed star which might represent a flower or some mysterious object.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: During the invasion of the Arabs, despite stronger resistance than even the Persian, Armenia came under control Umayyad Caliphate, and on its territory the Armenian Emirate was created, stretching from modern Baku and Derbent in the east to the sources of the Euphrates in the west and from the Terek River in the north to Lake Urmia in the south. The emirate received a flag, which is a black cloth without any additional elements on it.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: In 885, Armenia gained independence and the flag, which is a dark red canvas with the image of a white leopard and a Christian cross on it.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: Now the "Ani leopard" from this flag is also an element of the flag and coat of arms of the second largest city and cultural capital of Armenia - the city of Gyumri. Unlike the flags of Greater Armenia, the flag of Armenian Kingdom was not the flag of the ruling dynasty.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: In 1080, the Kingdom of Cilicia was founded. For almost four centuries, three royal dynasties have changed there, and each of them changed the country's flag to its own, dynastic one.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: After Armenia was split between the Persian and the Ottoman Empires, the idea of an Armenian flag ceased to exist for some time. The Armenian Catholic priest Father Ghevont Alishan created a new flag for Armenia in 1885, after the Armenian Students Association of Paris requested one for the funeral of the French writer Victor Hugo. Alishan's first design was very similar to today's Armenian flag: a horizontal tricolor. However, it looked more like an upside-down variation of the current flag of Bulgaria. The top band was red, symbolizing the first Sunday of Easter (called "Red" Sunday), followed by a green band to represent the "Green" Sunday of Easter, and finally an arbitrary color, white, was chosen to complete the combination. While in France, Alishan also designed a second flag, identified today as the "Nationalist Armenian Flag". It too was a tricolor, but unlike the previous design, this one was a vertical tricolor similar to the French flag. Its colors were red, green, and blue, from left to right, representing the rainbow that Noah saw after landing on Mount Ararat.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: After gaining independence, the First Republic of Armenia adopted the modern Armenian tricolor. Upon Stepan Malkhasyants's appearance in the Armenian National Council, the independent Armenian government selected the colors used during the Lusignan period: red, blue and yellow. An earlier prototype, which was eventually rejected, was the rainbow flag. This prototype can be seen at the Martiros Saryan House Museum in Yerevan, Armenia. They chose to replace the yellow with orange "because it merged better with the other two colors, presenting a more pleasing composition". The flag of independent Armenia then had a ratio of 2:3, but on 24 August 1990, when the Armenian Supreme Soviet adopted it as the flag of the Republic of Armenia, the ratio was changed to 1:2.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: On 29 November 1920 Bolsheviks established the Armenian SSR. An old flag was introduced and fixed in the Constitution, accepted on 2 February 1922 by the First Congress of Soviets of the Armenian SSR. That flag existed only for a month, because on 12 March the Armenian SSR united with the Georgian SSR and the Azerbaijan SSR under the Transcaucasian SFSR (TSFSR). On 30 December 1922 the Transcaucasian SFSR became one of the four Soviet republics that united to form the USSR. The flag of the republic had a hammer and sickle inserted into a star with initials "ЗСФСР" (ZSFSR) written in Russian sans-serif script. These letters stand for "Закавказская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика" ("Zakavkazskaya Sovetskaya Federativnaya Socialisticheskaya Respublika", "Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic"). In 1936, the TSFSR was broken up into its two constituent regions, which were named the Georgian SSR and the Armenian SSR.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: As a republic of the USSR, the Armenian SSR introduced its first flag in 1936. Very similar to the flag of the Soviet Union, it was red and featured a yellow hammer and sickle in the corner. Underneath that, there were "H-Kh-S-H" initials written in Armenian serif script. These initials, in the Western Armenian language, stand for "Haygagan Khorhurtayin Sodzialistakan Hanrabedutyun", or the "Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic". In the 1940s, the flag was altered to use the Eastern Armenian language spoken in the Republic. The initials were changed to "H-S-S-R" meaning "Hayastani Sovetakan Sotsialistikakan Respublika" in the Eastern Armenian pronunciation. In 1952, a new flag was introduced. The initials were removed completely and in their place a horizontal blue stripe was added.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: In late May 1988, amid rising nationalist tensions from "glasnost" and "perestroika", Armenia's new Communist party leader allowed the banned tricolour of the DRA to fly in Yerevan for the first time in over sixty years. A year later, following a Nagorno-Karabakh-themed mass demonstration where the tricolour was flown, he urged its official recognition. This came on 24 August 1990, a day after the Armenian Supreme Soviet declared the republic's sovereignty and renamed the country the Republic of Armenia. At that point, just over a year before Armenia declared its formal independence from the USSR, the tricolour replaced the 1952 flag.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: The 2006 law on the National Flag of Armenia states that the flag has to be raised on the following public buildings:


title: Flag of Armenia

text: The law requires the lowering of the flag to the midpoint of the flagpole on the days of mourning or during mourning ceremonies. A black ribbon needs to be placed at the top of the flag; the length of the ribbon should be equal to the length of the flag. The flying flag has to be raised in its entirety, clean, and unfaded; moreover, the lower part of the flag should be at least 2.5 m off the ground.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: The day of the National Flag of Armenia is marked on 15 June every year. The day is chosen for the reason that the Armenian law on the National Flag of Armenia was passed on 15 June 2006. The day of the Armenian tricolour was celebrated for the first time on 15 June 2010 in Yerevan.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: The daily display of the Armenian flag is encouraged, but legally required only on the following days:


title: Flag of Armenia

text: The national flag is also mentioned in the song "Mer Hayrenik" (Our Fatherland), the national anthem of Armenia. Specifically, the second and third stanzas sing about the creation of the national flag:


title: Flag of Armenia

text: On 2 June 1992, the Republic of Artsakh, a "de facto" independent republic in South Caucasus, adopted a flag derived from the flag of Armenia, with only a white pattern added. A white, five-toothed, stepped carpet pattern was added to the flag, beginning at the two verges of the cloth's right side and connecting at a point equal to one-third of the distance from that side. The white pattern symbolizes the current separation of Artsakh from Armenia proper and its aspiration for eventual union with "the Fatherland". This symbolises the Armenian heritage, culture and population of the area and represents Artsakh as being a separated region of Armenia by the triangular shape and the zigzag cutting through the flag. The pattern is also similar to the designs used on rugs. The ratio of the flag's breadth to its length is 1:2, same as the Armenian Tricolor.


title: Flag of Armenia

text: In addition to the flag of Artsakh, the Armenian flag colors influenced the design of the Pan-Armenian Games flag. In the center of the light blue flag are six interlocking rings, derived from the Olympic rings. The sixth, orange-colored ring, interlocks with the blue and red rings, which symbolize Armenia. Above the rings is a flame in the colors of the Armenian flag.


title: Ewe people

text: The Ewe people (; , lit. "Ewe people"; or "Mono Kple Volta Tɔ́sisiwo Dome", lit. "Ewe nation","Eʋenyigba" Eweland;) are a Gbe-speaking ethnic group. The largest population of Ewe people is in Ghana (6.0 million), and the second largest population is in Togo (3.1 million). They speak the Ewe language () which belongs to the Gbe family of languages. They are related to other speakers of Gbe languages such as the Fon, Gen, Phla Phera, Gun, Maxi, and the Aja people of Togo, Benin and southwestern Nigeria.


title: Ewe people

text: Ewe people are located primarily in the coastal regions of West Africa: in the region south and east of the Volta River to around the Mono River at the border of Togo and Benin; and in the southwestern part of Nigeria (close to the Atlantic Ocean, stretching from the Nigeria and Benin border to Epe). They are primarily found in the Volta Region in southeastern Ghana, southern Togo, in the southwestern part of Benin, and a small population in the southwestern region of Nigeria (most of whom are settled in Badagry). The Ewe region is sometimes referred to as the Ewe nation or "Eʋedukɔ́" region (Togoland in colonial literature).


title: Ewe people

text: They consist of several groups based on their dialect and geographic concentration: the Anlo Ewe, Ʋedome (Danyi), Tongu or Tɔŋu. The literary language has been the Anlo sub-branch.


title: Ewe people

text: The ancient history of the Ewe people is not recorded. they might have migrated from a place called Ketu or Amedzofe in Benin, east of the Niger River, or that they are from the region that is now the border between Benin and Nigeria and then, because of invasions and wars in the 17th century, migrated into their current location. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Ewe people likely had some presence in their current homelands at least as early as the 13th century. This evidence dates their dynamism to a much earlier period than previously believed. However, other evidence also suggests a period of turmoil, particularly when Yoruba warriors of the Oyo Empire ruled the region. Their own oral tradition describes the brutal king Agɔ Akɔli or (Agor Akorli) of Notsie (a formerly walled town in Togo) ruled in the 17th century. The highhandedness of King Agor Akorli culminated in the escape and dispersal of the Ewe to their present locations.


title: Ewe people

text: They share a history with people who speak Gbe languages. These speakers occupied the area between Akan land and Yorubaland. Previously, some historians have tried to tie them to both Akan and Yoruba ethnic groups, but more recent studies suggest these are distinct ethnic groups that are neither Akan nor Yoruba, although they appear to have both influenced and taken influence from the two ethnic groups.


title: Ewe people

text: The Ewe people had cordial relations with pre-slave trade and pre-colonial era Europeans. However, in 1784, they warred with Danish colonial interests as Denmark attempted to establish coastal forts in the Ewe and Yoruba regions for its officials and merchants. Nestled between powerful slave-trading kingdoms like the Asante, Dahomey and Oyo, the Ewes were both victims of slave raiding and trade, as well as sold their war captives to the Europeans.


title: Ewe people

text: After slavery was abolished and slave trade brought to a halt, the Ewes flourished in their major economic activities of Cotton and rice farming, palm oil and copra production and exports. Their region was divided between the colonial powers, initially between the German and British colonies, and after World War I, their territories were divided between the British and a British-French joint protectorate. After World War I, the British Togoland and French Togoland were respectively renamed Volta Region and Togo. The French Togoland was renamed Republic of Togo and gained independence from France on April 27, 1960.


title: Ewe people

text: There have been efforts to consolidate the Ewe peoples into one unified country since the colonial period, with many post-colonial leaders occasionally supporting their cause, but none have ultimately been successful.


title: Ewe people

text: The sophisticated theology of the Ewe people is similar to those of nearby ethnic groups, such as the Fon religion. This traditional Ewe religion is called Vodun. The word is borrowed from the Fon language, and means "spirit". The Ewe religion holds Mawu as the creator God, who created numerous lesser deities ("trɔwo") that serve as the spiritual vehicles and the powers that influence a person's destiny. This mirrors the Mawu and Lisa (Goddess and God) theology of the Fon religion, and like them, these are remote from daily affairs of the Ewe people. The lesser deities are believed to have means to grant favors or inflict harm.


title: Ewe people

text: The Ewe have the concept of "Si", which implies a "spiritual marriage" between the deity and the faithful. It is typically referred to as a suffix to a deity. Thus a "Fofie-si" refers to a faithful who has pledged to deity Fofie, just like a spouse would during a marriage. Ancestral spirits are important part of the Ewe traditional religion, and shared by a clan.


title: Ewe people

text: Christianity arrived among the Ewe people with the colonial merchants and missionaries. Major missions were established after 1840, by European colonies. German Lutheran missionaries arrived in 1847. Their ideas were accepted in the coastal areas, and Germans named their region Togoland, or Togo meaning 'beyond the sea' in Ewe language. Germans lost their influence in World War I, their Christian missions were forced to leave the Togoland, and thereafter the French and British missionaries became more prominent among the Ewe people.


title: Ewe people

text: About 89% of the Ewe population, particularly belonging to the coastal urban area, has converted to Christianity. However, they continue to practice the traditional rites and rituals of their ancestral religion.


title: Ewe people

text: The Ewe people are a patrilineal people who live in towns, cities and villages that contain lineages. Each lineage is headed by the male elder. The male ancestors have Ewe are revered, and traditionally, families can trace male ancestors. The land owned by an Ewe family is considered an ancestral gift, and they do not sell this gift anyhow.


title: Ewe people

text: Ewe people are notable for their fierce independence, and they have supported a decentralization of power within a village or through a large state. Decisions have been made by a collection of elders, and they have refused to politically support wicked kings or leaders, after their experience with the 17th century powerful despot named Agokoli. Despite all their internal conflicts, they come together in times of war and external conflicts. In regional matters, the chief traditional priest has been the primary power. In contemporary times, the Ewes have attempted to connect and build a common culture and language-driven identity across the three countries where they are commonly found.


title: Ewe people

text: While patrilineal, the Ewe women are traditionally the major merchants and traders, both at wholesale and retail level. "They deal in a wide variety of items, many of which are produced by men."


title: Ewe people

text: Another notable aspect of Ewe culture, state ethnologists such as Rosenthal and Venkatachalam, is their refusal to blame others, their "deep distress and voluntary acceptance of guilt" for their ancestor's role in the slave trade. They have gone to extraordinary lengths to commemorate former slaves midst them, and making the ancestors of the slaves to be revered deities as well.


title: Ewe people

text: The Ewes have developed a complex culture of music, closely integrated with their traditional religion. This includes drumming. Ewes believe that if someone is a good drummer, it is because they inherited a spirit of an ancestor who was a good drummer.


title: Ewe people

text: Ewe music has many genres. One is Agbekor, which relates to songs and music around war. These cover the range of human emotions associated with the consequence of war, from courage and solidarity inspired by their ancestors, to the invincible success that awaits Ewe warriors, to death and grief of loss.


title: Ewe people

text: Cross-rhythm drumming is a part of Ewe musical culture. In general, Ewe drums are constructed like barrels with wooden staves and metal rings, or carved from a single log. They are played with sticks and hands, and often fulfill roles that are traditional to the family. The 'child' or 'baby brother' drum, kagan, usually plays on the off beats in a repeated pattern that links directly with the bell and shaker ostinatos. The 'mother' drum, kidi, usually has a more active role in the accompaniment. It responds to the larger sogo or 'father' drum. The entire ensemble is led by the atsimevu or 'grandfather' drum, largest of the group.


title: Ewe people

text: Lyrical songs are more prevalent in the southern region. In the north, flutes and drums generally take the place of the singer's voice.


title: Ewe people

text: The Ewe have an intricate collection of dances, which vary between geographical regions and other factors. One such dance is the Adevu (Ade - hunting, Vu - dance). This is a professional dance that celebrates the hunter. They are meant both to make animals easier to hunt and to give animals a ritual "funeral" in order to prevent the animal's spirit from returning and harming the hunter.


title: Ewe people

text: Another dance, the Agbadza, is traditionally a war dance but is now used in social and recreational situations to celebrate peace. War dances are sometimes used as military training exercises, with signals from the lead drum ordering the warriors to move ahead, to the right, go down, etc. These dances also helped in preparing the warriors for battle and upon their return from fighting they would act out their deeds in battle through their movements in the dance.


title: Ewe people

text: The Atsiagbekor is a contemporary version of the Ewe war dance Atamga (Great (ga) Oath (atama) in reference to the oaths taken by people before proceeding into battle. The movements of this present-day version are mostly in platoon formation and are not only used to display battle tactics, but also to energize and invigorate the soldiers. Today, Atsiagbekor is performed for entertainment at social gatherings and at cultural presentations.


title: Ewe people

text: The Atsia dance, which is performed mostly by women, is a series of stylistic movements dictated to dancers by the lead drummer. Each dance movement has its own prescribed rhythmic pattern, which is synchronized with the lead drum. "Atsia" in the Ewe language means style or display.


title: Ewe people

text: The Bobobo (originally "Akpese") is said to have been developed by Francis Kojo Nuatro. He is thought to have been an ex-police officer who organized a group in the middle to late 1940s. The dance has its roots from Wusuta and in the Highlife music popular across West African countries. Bobobo gained national recognition in the 1950s and 1960s because of its use at political rallies and the novelty of its dance formations and movements. It is generally performed at funerals and other social occasions. This is a social dance with a great deal of room for free expression. In general, the men sing and dance in the center while the women dance in a ring around them. There are "slow" and "fast" versions of Bobobo. The slow one is called Akpese and the fast one is termed to be Bobobo.


title: Ewe people

text: "Agahu" is both the name of a dance and of one of the many secular music associations (clubs) of the Ewe people of Togo, Dahomey, and in the south-eastern part of the Volta Region. Each club (Gadzok, Takada, and Atsiagbeko are other such clubs) has its own distinctive drumming and dancing, as well as its own repertoire of songs. A popular social dance of West Africa, Agahu was created by the Egun speaking people from the town of Ketonu in what is now Benin. From there it spread to the Badagry area of Nigeria, where Ewe Settlement mostly fisherman heard, adapted. In dancing the Agahu, two circles are formed; the men stay stationary with their arms out and then bend with a knee forward for the women to sit on. They progress around the circle until they arrive at their original partner.


title: Ewe people

text: Gbedzimido is a war dance mostly performed by the people of Mafi-Gborkofe and Amegakope in the Central Tongu district of Ghana's Volta Region. Gbedzimido has been transformed into a contemporary dance and is usually seen only on very important occasions like the Asafotu festival, celebrated annually by the Tongu people around December. The dance is also performed at the funerals of highly placed people in society, mostly men. Mafi-Gborkofe is a small farming village near Mafi-Kumase.


title: Ewe people

text: "Gota" uses the mystical calabash drum of Benin, West Africa. The calabash was originally called the "drum of the dead" and was played only at funerals. It is now performed for social entertainment. The most exciting parts of Gota are the synchronized stops of the drummers and dancers.


title: Ewe people

text: "Tro-u" is ancestral drum music that is played to invite ancestors to special sacred occasions at a shrine. For religious purposes, a priest or priestess would be present. There are fast and slow rhythms that can be called by the religious leader in order to facilitate communication with the spirit world. The bell rhythm is played on a boat-shaped bell in the north, but the southern region uses a double bell. The three drums must have distinct pitch levels in order to lock in.


title: Ewe people

text: "Sowu" is one of the seven different styles of drumming that belong to the cult of Yewe, adapted for stage. Yewe is the God of Thunder and lightning among the Ewe speaking people of Togo, Benin, and in south-eastern parts of the Volta Region. Yewe is a very exclusive cult and its music is one of the most developed forms of sacred music in Eweland.


title: Ewe people

text: A key aspect of the Ewe culture is a philosophy about how to interpret and educate oneself through life's events. The Ewe traditionally pass on generational wisdom through proverbs, many of which aim to contextualize the cultural reverence of life-long education. The traditional Ewe proverb which states "knowledge is like the Baobab Tree and no one can wrap the hands fully around it" exemplifies a profound appreciation of continual self-betterment, even if such a process will never realistically conclude within a natural lifetime.


title: Ewe people

text: In the post-colonial era, the Ewe people have become renown among Africans for their pursuit of academia and higher education. Many Ewe people travel across the world to pursue their education at leading institutions following the aforementioned cultural motivations of enhance one's own knowledge base, but also their own status among other Ewe's through doing so. Of those who pursue higher education many Ewe people attain graduate degrees in technical fields such as finance, engineering and law.


title: Ewe people

text: Ewe, also written Evhe, or Eʋe, is a major dialect cluster of Gbe or Tadoid (Capo 1991, Duthie 1996) spoken in the southern parts of the Volta Region, in Ghana and across southern Togo, to the Togo-Benin border by about three million people. Ewe belongs to the Gbe family of Niger-Congo. Gbe languages are spoken in an area that extends predominantly from Togo, Benin and as far as Western Nigeria to Lower Weme.


title: Ewe people

text: Ewe dialects vary. Groups of villages that are two or three kilometres apart use distinct varieties. Nevertheless, across the Ewe-speaking area, the dialects may be broadly grouped geographically into coastal or southern dialects, e.g., Aŋlɔ, Tɔŋú Avenor, Watsyi and inland dialects characterised indigenously as Ewedomegbe, e.g., Lomé, Danyi, and Kpele etc. (Agbodeka 1997, Gavua 2000, Ansre 2000). Speakers from different localities understand each other and can identify the peculiarities of the different areas. Additionally, there is a written standard that was developed in the nineteenth century based on the regional variants of the various sub-dialects with a high degree of coastal content. With it, a standard colloquial variety has also emerged (spoken usually with a local accent), and is used very widely in cross-dialectal contact sites such as schools, markets, and churches.


title: Ewe people

text: The storytellers use a dialect of Aŋlɔ spoken in Seva. Their language is the spoken form and hence does not necessarily conform to the expectations of someone familiar with the standard dialect. For instance, they use the form yi to introduce relative clauses instead of the standard written si, and yia 'this' instead of the standard written sia. They sometimes also use subject markers on the verb agreeing with the lexical NP subject while this is not written in the standard. A distinctive feature of the Aŋlɔ dialect is that the sounds made in the area of the teeth ridge are palatalised when followed by a high vowel. For instance, the verb tsi 'become old' is pronounced "" by the storyteller Kwakuga Goka.


title: Christ of Saint John of the Cross

text: Christ of Saint John of the Cross is a painting by Salvador Dalí made in 1951 which is in the collection of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow. It depicts Jesus Christ on the cross in a darkened sky floating over a body of water complete with a boat and fishermen. Although it is a depiction of the crucifixion, it is devoid of nails, blood, and a crown of thorns, because, according to Dalí, he was convinced by a dream that these features would mar his depiction of Christ. Also in a dream, the importance of depicting Christ in the extreme angle evident in the painting was revealed to him.


title: Christ of Saint John of the Cross

text: , the painting is on loan to The Auckland Project in Bishop Auckland, County Durham to be displayed alongside El Greco's painting of Christ of the Cross, expected to return to Glasgow in 2023.


title: Christ of Saint John of the Cross

text: The painting is known as the "Christ of Saint John of the Cross", because its design is based on a drawing by the 16th-century Spanish friar John of the Cross. The composition of Christ is also based on a triangle and circle (the triangle is formed by Christ's arms; the circle is formed by Christ's head). The triangle, since it has three sides, can be seen as a reference to the Trinity, and the circle may be an allusion to Platonic thought. The circle represents Unity: all things do exist in the "three" but in the four, merry they be.


title: Christ of Saint John of the Cross

text: On the bottom of his studies for the painting, Dalí explained its inspiration: "In the first place, in 1950, I had a 'cosmic dream' in which I saw this image in colour and which in my dream represented the 'nucleus of the atom.' This nucleus later took on a metaphysical sense; I considered it 'the very unity of the universe,' the Christ!"


title: Christ of Saint John of the Cross

text: In order to create the figure of Christ, Dalí had Hollywood stuntman Russell Saunders suspended from an overhead gantry, so he could see how the body would appear from the desired angle and also envisage the pull of gravity on the human body. The depicted body of water is the bay of Port Lligat, Dalí's residence at the time of the painting.


title: Christ of Saint John of the Cross

text: The painting and intellectual property rights were acquired for Glasgow Corporation in 1952 by Tom Honeyman, then the Director of Glasgow Museums. Honeyman bought the painting for £8,200, a price considered high at the time although it was less than the £12,000 catalogue price, and included the copyright, which has earned Glasgow Museums back the original cost many times over.


title: Christ of Saint John of the Cross

text: The purchase was controversial and a petition against it, arguing that the money should be spent on exhibition space for local artists, was presented to the Corporation by students at Glasgow School of Art. The controversy caused Honeyman and Dalí to become friends, corresponding with each other for many years after the original acquisition.


title: Christ of Saint John of the Cross

text: The painting first went on display at the city's Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum on 23 June 1952. In 1961 a visitor attacked the painting with a stone and tore the canvas with his hands. It was successfully restored over several months by conservators at Kelvingrove and returned to public display. In 1993, the painting was moved to the city's St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, but returned to Kelvingrove for its reopening in July 2006. It won a poll to decide Scotland's favourite painting in 2006, with 29% of the vote.


title: Christ of Saint John of the Cross

text: This painting has continued to generate controversy. At the time of its purchase by Honeyman, the verdict by modern art critics was that producing such a traditional painting was a stunt by an artist already famous for his surrealist art. In 2009 "The Guardian" art critic, Jonathan Jones, described it as "kitsch and lurid", but noted that the painting was "for better or worse, probably the most enduring vision of the crucifixion painted in the 20th century."


title: Christ of Saint John of the Cross

text: In May 2013, in BBC Radio 4's "Great Lives", British poet John Cooper Clarke described this image as being utterly different from any other image of the crucifixion, as the angle of view conveys the hanging pain of this method of execution, whilst hiding the ordinarily clichéd facial expressions normally seen in such depictions.


title: Kaun Pravin Tambe?

text: Kaun Pravin Tambe? () is a 2022 Indian Hindi-language biographical sports drama film directed by Jayprad Desai. It is based on the life of Indian cricketer Pravin Tambe. The film stars Shreyas Talpade and premiered on Disney+ Hotstar on 1 April 2022.


title: Kaun Pravin Tambe?

text: This was the last film to be released under the Fox Star Studios name before being rebranded to Star Studios on 27 May 2022.


title: Kaun Pravin Tambe?

text: The film premiered on Disney+ Hotstar on 1 April 2022, in Hindi also dubbed in Tamil as "Yaar Pravin Tambe?" and Telugu as "Pravin Tambe Evaru?".


title: Kaun Pravin Tambe?

text: Devesh Sharma of "Filmfare" rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and wrote "Director Jayprad Desai has given us a pulsating human drama in the guise of a sports biopic". Pallabi Dey Purkayastha of "The Times of India" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "


title: Kaun Pravin Tambe?

text: Unless you are venturing into the sports biopic genre with 'Kaun Pravin Tambe?'—let's be honest here—it will not leave you stupefied." Saibal Chatterjee of "NDTV" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote "It pieces together a fascinating life story that is much more about dour tenacity than about flashy achievements and staggering statistics". Anna M. M. Vetticad of "Firstpost" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote "Few Indian actors are as qualified to take on Pravin Tambe's biopic as the Hindi-Marathi star Shreyas Talpade who first attracted the national spotlight playing a deaf-mute cricketer in Nagesh Kukunoor's 2005 film Iqbal. Rohan Naahar of "Indian Express" rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote "Shreyas Talpade delivers an earnest performance in Hotstar's unmemorable cricket biopic, which feels like reading a dozen editions of the Wisden almanac back-to-back".


title: Garth Brooks discography

text: The discography for American country music singer Garth Brooks consists of 16 studio albums, two live albums and 51 singles. He has sold estimated over 170 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists in history. According to RIAA, Brooks is the top-selling solo artist of all time with 157 million certified albums in the US. American Music Awards honored him the "Artist of the 90s Decade" and iHeartRadio Music Awards also honored him the "Artist of the Decade".


title: Garth Brooks discography

text: Brooks has scored 9 No. 1 albums on "Billboard" 200 and achieved 19 No. 1 hits on Hot Country Songs. Nine of his albums have achieved Diamond status in the United States, the most for any artist ever. "Billboard" lists Brooks as the 20th Greatest Artist of all time while Recording Industry Association of America list him as the 2nd-best selling artist in history.


title: Garth Brooks discography

text: Most of his compact discs were remastered/reissued in 2000, and again in 2007 and 2014 via GhostTunes, Brooks' online music store, on March 3, 2017, GhostTunes was absorbed into Amazon Music. Brooks is currently in a partnership with Amazon Music for digital and streaming services, which he signed in 2016 and again in 2019.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: General elections were held in Indonesia on 17 April 2019. For the first time in the country's history, the president, the vice president, members of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), and members of local legislative bodies were elected on the same day with over 190 million eligible voters. Sixteen parties participated in the elections nationally, including four new parties.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: The presidential election, the fourth in the country's history, used a direct, simple majority system, with incumbent president Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, running for re-election with senior Muslim cleric Ma'ruf Amin as his running mate against former general Prabowo Subianto and former Jakarta vice governor Sandiaga Uno for a five-year term between 2019 and 2024. The election was a rematch of the 2014 presidential election, in which Jokowi defeated Prabowo. The legislative election, which was the 12th such election for Indonesia, saw over 240,000 candidates competing for over 20,000 seats in the MPR and local councils for provinces and cities/regencies, with over 8,000 competing for the People's Representative Council (DPR) seats alone. The election was described as "one of the most complicated single-day ballots in global history". Jokowi's 85 million votes were the most votes cast for a single candidate in any democratic election in Indonesia's history, exceeding the record of his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who won 73 million votes in 2009.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: On 21 May 2019, the General Elections Commission (KPU) declared Jokowi victorious in the presidential election, with over 55% of the vote. Widodo's PDI-P finished first in the DPR election with 19.33%, followed by Prabowo's Gerindra with 12.57%, then Golkar with 12.31%, the National Awakening Party (PKB) with 9.69%, the Nasdem Party with 9.05%, and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) with 8.21%.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Following the election, reports of the more than 7 million election workers, among which 569 had died during the lengthy voting and counting process, surfaced. Prabowo's campaign team claimed that the deaths were linked to fraud that disadvantaged him. As of 9 May 2019, the election commission (KPU) said the dead included 456 election officers, 91 supervisory agents and 22 police officers.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: In the early morning of 22 May 2019, supporters of Prabowo protested in Jakarta against Jokowi's victory. The protest turned into a riot, which left eight people killed by security officers and over 600 injured.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Elections in Indonesia were previously held separately, with a 2008 elections law regulating that presidential and legislative elections be held at least three months apart from one another. Following a 2013 Constitutional Court lawsuit, however, it was decided that the 2019 elections – which would have been the 12th legislative election and the 4th presidential election – would be held simultaneously. The stated intent of the simultaneous election was to reduce associated costs and minimize transactional politics, in addition to increasing voter turnout.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: In the 2014 presidential election, Jakarta governor Joko Widodo defeated former general Prabowo Subianto to become the seventh President of Indonesia. Despite initially having a minority government, Jokowi later managed to secure the support of Golkar and the United Development Party, giving him control of the legislature. In the legislative elections of the same year, former opposition party PDI-P managed to secure the largest share in the DPR, ahead of Golkar and Gerindra.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Despite plans to introduce electronic voting, the DPR in March 2017 announced it would not mandate e-voting in the 2019 elections because of hacking fears and because of the lack of nationwide internet coverage. On 7 April 2017, the KPU, the General Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) and the Ministry of Home Affairs held a meeting with the People's Representative Council's special committee to deliberate a draft law concerning the 2019 elections. The Chairman of the House special committee deliberating the bill, Lukman Edy, announced on 25 April 2017 that Wednesday, 17 April 2019, had been agreed upon as the date for the elections.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Nominations of candidates for the national and regional legislatures as well as candidates for president and vice president were completed in September 2018. The campaign period was from 13 October 2018 to 13 April 2019 followed by a three-day election silence before the voting day on 17 April. The final results were planned to be announced on 22 May, while the inauguration of the president and vice president was scheduled for 20 October 2019.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: The election was regulated by Law No. 7 of 2017. The KPU, a legally independent government body was responsible for organizing the election. In addition, the vote was monitored by the Bawaslu, which also had the authority to rule on violations of election rules (e.g. administrative errors, vote-buying, etc.). Any ethical violations committed by either Bawaslu or the KPU were to be handled by the Elections Organizer Honor Council (Dewan Kehormatan Penyelenggara Pemilu DKPP), which consists of one member from each body and five others recommended by the government.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Voters were given five ballot papers: for the president and vice president, Regional Representative Council (DPD), People's Representative Council (DPR), provincial council, and regency/municipal council ("DPRD Provinsi" and "DPRD Kabupaten/Kota") members. Voters used a nail to poke a hole in the ballot paper indicating which party pr candidate they wish to vote for, and then dip their fingers in ink as a precaution against voter fraud. Tabulation of the votes was done manually on paper. The KPU is legally required to announce the results of the election within 35 days of the vote, i.e., before 22 May 2019.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: To run for the presidency, a candidate had to be supported by political parties totalling 20% of the seats in the DPR or 25% of the popular vote in the previous legislative election. Political parties were allowed to remain neutral if they were unable to propose their own candidate. However, if a neutral party(s) was able to endorse their own candidate, they were required to do so, or face being barred from participating in the next election.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: The voting procedure followed a two-round system, with voters simply choosing one of the candidate pairs. A winning candidate was required to win a majority and at least 20% of the votes in over half of Indonesia's provinces. If no candidate pairs had fulfilled the criterion, the election would have to be repeated with a maximum of two participants.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Members of both the DPR and the Regional People's Representative Councils (DPRD) were elected from multi-member electoral districts through voting with an open list system, and seat distribution is done with the Sainte-Laguë method in contrast to previous elections which utilised the Hare quota. There was a gender quota requiring at least 30% of registered candidates to be female.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: A 4% parliamentary threshold was set for parties to be represented in the DPR, though candidates could still win seats in the regional councils provided they won sufficient votes. There were 575 DPR seats contested – up from 560 in 2014. Nationally, there were 80 DPR electoral districts, with 272 provincial and 2,206 municipal electoral districts. Candidates for the DPD were not allowed to be members of a political party. Four members were elected for each province – a total of 136.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: The voting age for the election is 17, or less if already married. Indonesians living overseas could vote in either the embassies and consulates, mobile polling stations, or by post, with the voting taking place on 8–14 April.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: On 5 September 2018, the KPU announced there were 187 million registered voters – 185,732,093 in Indonesia and 2,049,791 voting abroad. They were to vote at 805,075 polling stations in Indonesia, with mail-in votes and 620 polling stations outside the country. A large number of polling stations (which was updated in April 2019 to 810,329) meant that there was an average of 200 voters per station, compared to 600 in the 2014 election. Around 17 million people are involved in some way in running the election, including the election officers, polling station guards, and registered witnesses from the candidates and parties.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Later on, 670,000 names were removed following complaints of duplicates in the voter registry, lowering the total voter count to around 187.1 million. Further investigations resulted in over 1 million duplicate voters discovered in Papua alone in October, out of the initial voter registry of 3 million. Bawaslu commissioners in early September estimated that there would be around 2 million duplicate voters, while opposition party Gerindra stated that they only had 137 million voters in their internal registry, and claimed that they found 25 million duplicate names in the registry. The figure was later updated to 192.8 million voters, including 2 million overseas.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Due to various logistical issues, namely with the distribution of ballot papers, 2,249 polling stations had to conduct follow-up voting. A repeat vote was also recommended in the Kuala Lumpur embassy due to suspected voter fraud and a follow-up election in Sydney due to the voting station there closing early.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: A total of 27 political parties registered with the KPU to run in the election. On 17 February 2018, the KPU announced that 14 parties had passed the verification precedes and would be eligible to contest the legislative election. The PBB subsequently appealed to the Bawaslu, which ruled it could participate, making a total of 15 parties. The PKPI's appeal to Bawaslu was rejected, but an 11 April ruling by the National Administrative Court ("Pengadilan Tata Usaha Negara") decreed that the party was eligible to contest in the election. A further four parties contested in Aceh only.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: In July 2017, the People's Representative Council (DPR) confirmed that only parties or coalitions with at least 20% of seats in the legislature, or 25% of votes in the previous election, would be eligible to submit a presidential candidate. Requirements for presidential/vice-presidential candidates were similar, with only either Indonesia-born lifelong Indonesian citizens or naturalised citizens who were born abroad and obtained foreign citizenship outside their own will being eligible to run with a minimum age of 40 and a requirement to "have a belief in the One and Only God". If the candidates had spouses, they also had to be Indonesian citizens. A criminal record resulting in over five years of incarceration or an active bankruptcy bar a candidate from running. A term limit of two terms prevented incumbent Vice President Jusuf Kalla from running as a vice-presidential candidate.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Except for the PAN, all parties in the government coalition supported a second term for Jokowi. In total, nine parties running in the legislative election supported Jokowi, with the coalition having met formally by May 2018. Of those nine parties, Perindo and PSI were participating for the first time. Shortly after Ma'ruf was declared as Jokowi's VP candidate, Jokowi's coalition member party PPP leader Muhammad Romahurmuziy stated that the coalition, dubbed "Koalisi Indonesia Kerja" (lit. "Working Indonesia Coalition"), was final, and would not accept any more parties. In total, the coalition gained over 62% of the votes during the 2014 legislative election and controlled 337 of 560 DPR seats.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Aside from Gerindra, parties backing Prabowo did not confirm their support until late: PAN and PKS on 9 August 2018, Demokrat and Berkarya on 10 August, the registration day, though the coalition had existed prior. PAN withdrew from the government coalition, resulting in the resignation of bureaucratic reform minister and PAN member Asman Abnur. The pro-Prabowo coalition was named "Koalisi Indonesia Adil Makmur" (lit. "Prosperous and Just Indonesia Coalition"). There are five parties in the coalition – including Berkarya, a new party – which won 36% of the 2014 legislative vote and holds 223 of 560 DPR seats.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Two parties – PBB (participated in the 2014 election, but did not gain a national legislature seat) and the Garuda Party (a new party) – initially did not endorse either candidate. The latter's secretary Abdullah Mansyuri stated the party was focusing on the legislative elections, while PBB chairman Yusril Ihza Mahendra said neither Jokowi nor Prabowo's camp invited PBB. Later on, however, he would join Jokowi's campaign team as its lawyer. On 27 January 2019, PBB officially endorsed Jokowi. The Aceh Nanggroe Party – which held 3 of the 81 seats in Aceh's provincial council – also endorsed Jokowi in January 2019.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Registration for presidential candidates was opened between 4 and 10 August 2018 at the KPU head office in Jakarta. Neither candidate declared their vice presidential pick until 9 August 2018. Both picks were considered "surprising", with Jokowi selecting senior cleric and politician Ma'ruf Amin despite early reports that former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Mahfud MD would be selected. Prabowo's last-minute selection of businessman and Jakarta vice-governor Sandiaga Uno – close to midnight on that day – was also unexpected. Sandiaga was not mentioned in the early phases of the selection.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Other individuals who expressed an intent, received political support, or were touted as prospective presidential candidates included son of former president Yudhoyono and 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial candidate Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, former MPR Speaker Amien Rais, Governor of Jakarta and former minister of education and culture Anies Baswedan, all of whom subsequently endorsed Prabowo, and incumbent Vice President of Indonesia Jusuf Kalla, who later expressed support for Jokowi.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: The official campaigning period lasted around six months, starting with a "peaceful campaign" declaration on 23 September 2018, and the final day on 13 April 2019. Before the start of the campaign, both parties submitted their campaign teams to the KPU; Jokowi's being led by businessman Erick Thohir while Prabowo's was led by former Indonesian National Armed Forces commander Djoko Santoso.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: The KPU scheduled five debates to be held in 2019, the same number as in 2014. DPR member and PAN Central Committee chairman Yandri Susanto proposed that the debates be held in English, but the KPU decided that the debates would be held in Indonesian. The debate questions from the KPU were provided in advance to the candidates. The Prabowo campaign team criticised it as belittling the candidates.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: The first debate held on 17 January 2019, focused on legal, human rights, terrorism and corruption issues, and was moderated by Ira Koesno and Imam Priyono. Both candidates described their visions during the early stages. Jokowi admitted the difficulty of solving old human rights cases and promising to strengthen law enforcement institutions. Prabowo shared this sentiment and called for an increase in the salaries of civil servants to reduce corruption.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: The second debate was held on 17 February 2019, with topics covering energy, food, infrastructure, natural resources and the environment, and was moderated by news presenters Anisha Dasuki and Tommy Tjokro. This time, both candidates utilised more numbers and statistics. In one segment, Jokowi questioned Prabowo on his stance about unicorn companies, briefly confusing Prabowo and led to internet memes related to the animal unicorn. On the topic of agrarian land reform, Jokowi pointed out Prabowo's ownership of of land. Prabowo stated that he held the land under cultivation rights instead of full ownership and was willing to return it to the state.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: The third debate, involving the vice-presidential candidates, covered education, health, labour, social affairs and culture, and was held on 17 March 2019. On 30 March 2019, the fourth debate was held, which was centred around defence and foreign policy. The fifth and final debate was held on 13 April 2019 and focused on economics, public welfare, industry, trade and investment.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: With millennials making up around two-fifths of Indonesia's population, there were significant efforts by both sides to appeal to the age group. One example of a major social media-centred campaign, dubbed #2019GantiPresiden emerged, initiated by PKS politician Mardani Ali Sera. It included holding rallies in multiple cities until they were disallowed following clashes with Jokowi supporters.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Before the campaign period began, observers had expected rampant hoaxes and fake news coming through social media and WhatsApp. One observer noted that the government was limited in its impact in handling the issue, as it may be framed as favouring the incumbent. One particular case involved activist and Prabowo campaigner Ratna Sarumpaet. She falsely claimed to have been assaulted, initially causing many prominent opposition politicians to voice support. However, she admitted that she had lied following a police investigation. She was prosecuted as a result and forced to resign from the campaign team, and Prabowo personally apologised for spreading the hoax. Both sides formed dedicated anti-hoax groups to counterattacks on social media, with the Indonesian government holding weekly fake news briefings.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: Amid public apathy toward mainstream parties and candidates, a pairing of spoof candidates, "Nurhadi-Aldo" (abbreviated as dildo), gained popularity on social media, with 400,000 Instagram followers within the first month of its creation. The account parodied typical political aesthetics and utilised vulgar acronyms.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: On 23 September, both campaign teams submitted an initial budget. Jokowi's campaign team reported an initial balance of Rp 11.9 billion and Prabowo's team Rp 2 billion. Indonesia Corruption Watch observers deemed the initial numbers "unrealistic" (Jokowi's team spent Rp 293 billion in 2014, while Prabowo's spent Rp 166 billion). Representatives from both teams responded that the balance was just an initial balance, and would increase throughout the campaigning period.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: For the Prabowo Subianto campaign, in particular, Uno paid for the majority of campaign fees, with his contribution comprising 70% of the reported campaign funds (Rp 95.4 billion out of Rp 135 billion). Uno stated in an interview with Bloomberg that he spent around US$100 million on the election.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: By late 2018, Jokowi was ahead of Prabowo in most surveys. The table below gives detailed survey results from a variety of organizations.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: All legislative candidates had to be Indonesian citizens, over 21 years old, senior high school (or equivalent) graduates, and have never been convicted for a crime resulting in a sentence of 5 years or more. In addition, the candidates for the People's Representative Council (DPR) or local legislatures had to be endorsed by a political party and were required to resign from their non-legislative government offices – except for the president and vice president – or their state-owned company positions. Legislators running for reelection or another body through a new political party were also required to resign.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: For the DPR, there were 7,968 candidates – 4,774 male and 3,194 female – contesting the 575 seats for an average of 13.86 candidates per seat available. Just three parties – Nasdem, PAN and PKB – used their entire quota of 575 candidates, with the PKPI registering only 137 candidates. Formappi, an NGO, found that 529 out of 560 (94%) incumbent DPR members were running for reelection.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: The election for DPD members required candidates to be a non-partisan, with a total of 807 candidates competing for the 136 seats. The incumbent speaker, Oesman Sapta Odang, was briefly removed from the candidacy list for not resigning from Hanura, though he was restored when he submitted a resignation letter. Although all provinces were allocated four seats, the number of candidates varied from 10 for West Papua to 49 for West Java. Approximately 245,000 candidates were running for all legislative seats across the country. For example, 1,586 candidates were approved to run for the 120-seat West Java Provincial Council alone.


title: 2019 Indonesian general election

text: The political parties, like the presidential candidates, were required to submit their campaign budgets to the KPU. Aside from donations from sympathizers and members, the parties which participated in the 2014 election also receive money from the government amounting to Rp 1,000 (US$0.071) per vote received. By January 2019, the national political parties have collectively reported campaign donations totalling Rp 445 billion (US$31.6 million).