The Indian village where child sexual exploitation is the norm
Poverty and caste discrimination mean that children in Sagar Gram are being groomed by their own families for abuse
Many families in India still mourn the birth of a girl. But when Leena was born, people celebrated.
Sagar Gram, her village in central India, is unique that way. Girls outnumber boys. When a woman marries, it is the groom’s family that pays the dowry. Women are Sagar Gram’s breadwinners. When they are deemed old enough, perhaps at the age of 11, most are expected to start doing sex work.
India officially abolished caste discrimination almost 70 years ago. But millennia of tradition is not easily erased. For most Indians, caste still has a defining influence on who they marry and what they eat. It also traps millions in abusive work. The exploited and trafficked children of Sagar Gram, and dozens of other villages across India’s hinterland, are one of its most disturbing manifestations.
Once we searched Google. Now it searches us
How did we get from Google’s user search of just 20 years ago to an unprecedented form of capitalism that not just predicts, but shapes, user actions in the real world, to profit business customers, not users?
by Shoshana Zuboff
July 2016, a gruelling afternoon. David had directed hours of insurance testimony in a New Jersey courtroom where a power surge had knocked out the air conditioning system. Finally home, the cool air hit him and for the first time all day he took a deep breath, then made himself a drink and headed for a long shower. The doorbell rang just as the water hit his aching back. He ran downstairs, opening the front door to a couple of teenagers waving their phones in his face: ‘Hey, you’ve got a Pokémon in your backyard. It’s ours! Okay if we go back there and catch it?’
A what?’ He had no idea what they were talking about. David’s doorbell rang four more times that evening, all strangers eager for access to his yard and disgruntled when he asked them to leave. They held up their phones, pointing and shouting as they scanned his house and garden for the augmented-reality creatures. They could see their Pokémon prey on their screens but only at the expense of everything else. The game seized the house and the world around it, reinterpreting it in a vast equivalency of GPS coordinates. Here was a new kind of commercial assertion: a for-profit declaration of eminent domain with ‘reality’ recast as unbounded blank space to be sweated for others’ enrichment. David wondered when would this end? What gave them the right? Whom did he call to make this stop?
Avi Loeb on the Mysterious Interstellar Body 'Oumuamua'Thinking About Distant Civilizations Isn't Speculative'
Astronomer Avi Loeb believes that the interstellar object dubbed 'Oumuamua could actually be a probe sent by alien beings. Given the evidence that has so far been gathered, he says, it is a possible conclusion to draw.
Interview Conducted by Johann Grolle
DER SPIEGEL: Professor Loeb, do you have a favorite alien?
Loeb: To be honest, I don't like science fiction personally. I have a problem when the action in a movie violates the laws of physics. In those cases, I cannot enjoy the experience aesthetically.
DER SPIEGEL: If you don't like aliens, why are you exploring the question of intelligent extraterrestrial life?
Loeb: Because it's one of the really big questions. I have always been interested, even as a young kid, in thinking about the big picture. And the most fundamental of all questions is: Are we alone?
In the US South, anti-Confederate protesters face harassment
At least 1,728 Confederate memorials - among them 772 monuments - remained intact as of June 2018, says SPLC watchdog.
A pick-up truck crept past as Jeremy and Tracie Parzen waited for fellow protesters to show up for a rally against a new Confederate monument in Orange, Texas, on November 10. "F*** y'all," the truck's driver screamed before slamming on the gas pedal and rumbling away.
Having been cursed at by motorists in the past, Jeremy and Tracie did not initially pay the incident much mind.
But the driver circled the truck back around, parked in a petrol station and approached them, hollering as he neared. Sensing trouble, Tracie pulled out her telephone and started filming.
Chechnya LGBT: Dozens 'detained in new gay purge'
Activists in Russia say there has been a new crackdown against LGBT people in Chechnya.
The Russian LGBT Network believes about 40 people have been imprisoned since December - two of whom they say have died under torture.
The group has been monitoring alleged abuses in the mainly Muslim Russian republic since 2017 when dozens of gay people were reportedly detained.
A government spokesman has dismissed their latest report as "complete lies".
Cherry blossoms in Japan are predicted to arrive earlier than usual again in 2019
BY MAGDALENA OSUMI
STAFF WRITER
Although some parts of Japan have yet to see this year’s first snowfall, experts say they already know when spring will come.
Residents of Kochi Prefecture in the Shikoku region will be the first to see cherry blossoms this year, as early as March 18, according to a forecast by an Osaka-based meteorological company that predicts Japan’s iconic sakura may bloom earlier than usual.
Last year, spring arrived surprisingly early across the country, with buds starting to appear in Tokyo on March 17.
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