title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: On 2 October 2011, "The Sunday Times" published an article wherein the chief prosecutor who investigated the murder of Litvinenko, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, publicly spoke of his suspicion that the murder was a "state directed execution" carried out by Russia. Until that time, British public officials had stopped short of directly accusing Russia of involvement in the poisoning. "It had all the hallmarks of a state directed execution, committed on the streets of London by a foreign government," Macdonald added.


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: In January 2015, it was reported in the British media that the National Security Agency had intercepted communications between Russian government agents in Moscow and those who carried out what was called a "state execution" in London: the recorded conversations allegedly proved that the Russian government was involved in Litvinenko's murder, and suggested that the motive was Litvinenko's revelations about Vladimir Putin's links with the criminal underworld. On 21 January 2016, the Home Office published "The Litvinenko Inquiry: Report" into Litvinenko's death.


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: Many publications in Russian media suggested that the death of Alexander Litvinenko was connected to Boris Berezovsky. Former FSB chief Nikolay Kovalyov, for whom Litvinenko worked, said that the incident "looks like the hand of Boris Berezovsky. I am sure that no kind of intelligence services participated." This involvement of Berezovsky was alleged by numerous Russian television shows. Kremlin supporters saw it as a conspiracy to smear the Russian government's reputation by engineering a spectacular murder of a Russian dissident abroad.


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: After Litvinenko's death, traces of polonium-210 were found in an office belonging to Berezovsky. Litvinenko had visited Berezovsky's office as well as many other places in the hours after his poisoning. The British Health Protection Agency made extensive efforts to ensure that locations Litvinenko visited and anyone who had contact with Litvinenko after his poisoning were not at risk.


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: Russian authorities were unable to question Berezovsky. The Foreign Ministry complained that Britain was obstructing its attempt to send prosecutors to London to interview more than 100 people, including Berezovsky.


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: On 5 July 2007, Russia officially declined to extradite Lugovoy, citing Article 61 of the Constitution of Russia that prohibits extradition of citizens. Russia has said that they could take on the case themselves if Britain provided evidence against Lugovoy but Britain has not handed over any evidence. The head of the investigating committee at the General Prosecutor's Office said Russia has not yet received any evidence from Britain on Lugovoy. "We have not received any evidence from London of Lugovoy's guilt, and those documents we have are full of blank spaces and contradictions. However, the British ambassador to Russia, Anne Pringle, claimed that London has already submitted sufficient evidence to extradite him to Britain.


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: On 13 October 2011, Dr. Andrew Reid, the Coroner of St. Pancras, announced that he would hold an inquest into Litvinenko's death, which would include the examination of all existing theories of the murder, including possible complicity of the Russian government. The inquest, held by Sir Robert Owen, a High Court judge acting as the coroner, originally scheduled to start on 1 May 2013, was subject to a series of pre-hearings: firstly, the coroner agreed that a group representing Russian state prosecutors could be accepted as a party to the inquest process; secondly, the British Government submitted a Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificate. Under Public Interest Immunity (PII) claims, the information at the disposal of the British government relating to Russian state involvement, as well as how much British intelligence services could have done to prevent the death, would be excluded from the inquest.


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: On 12 July 2013, Sir Robert, who had previously agreed to exclude certain material from the inquest on the grounds its disclosure could be damaging to national security, announced that the British Government refused the request he had made earlier in June to replace the inquest with a public inquiry, which would have powers to consider secret evidence. After the hearing, Alex Goldfarb said: "There's some sort of collusion behind the scenes with Her Majesty's government and the Kremlin to obstruct justice"; Elena Tsirlina, Mrs Litvinenko's solicitor, concurred with him.


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: On 22 July 2014, the British Home Secretary Theresa May, who had previously ruled out an inquiry on the grounds it might damage the country's relations with Moscow, announced a public inquiry into Litvinenko's death. The inquiry was chaired by Sir Robert Owen who was the Coroner in the inquest into Litvinenko's death; its remit stipulated that "the inquiry will not address the question of whether the UK authorities could or should have taken steps which would have prevented the death". The inquiry started on 27 January 2015. New evidence emerged at first hearings held at the end of January 2015. The last day of hearings was on 31 July 2015.


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: The inquiry report was released on 21 January 2016. The report found that Litvinenko was killed by two Russian agents, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun and that there was a "strong probability" they were acting on behalf of the Russian FSB secret service. Paragraph 10.6 of the report stated: "The FSB operation to kill Mr Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin."


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: The Report outlined five possible motives for the murder: a belief Litvinenko had betrayed the FSB through public disclosures about its work; a belief that he was working for British intelligence; because he was a prominent associate of leading opponents of Mr Putin and his regime, including Mr Boris Berezovsky and Akhmed Zakayev; because his claims about the FSB were "areas of particular sensitivity to the Putin administration", including a plot to murder dissident Boris Berezovsky; and because there was "undoubtedly a personal dimension to the antagonism" between Litvinenko and Putin, culminating in his allegation that Putin was a paedophile.


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: On the release of the report, British Prime Minister David Cameron condemned Putin for presiding over "state sponsored murder". British Labour MP Ian Austin said: "Putin is an unreconstructed KGB thug and gangster who murders his opponents in Russia and, as we know, on the streets of Londonand nothing announced today is going to make the blindest bit of difference." The Kremlin dismissed the Inquiry as "a joke" and "whitewash".


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: The same day, British Home Secretary Theresa May announced that assets belonging to both Lugovoi and Kovtun would be immediately frozen and that the Metropolitan Police were seeking their extradition. The Russian Ambassador was also summoned by the British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and demands were made that Russia cooperate with the investigation into Mr Litvinenko's murder with Foreign Office minister David Liddington asserting that Russia had demonstrated "a flagrant disregard for UK law, international law and standards of conduct, and the safety of UK citizens" However, the government's response to the inquiry's results has been described by "The Economist" as consisting of "tough talk and little action".


title: Alexander Litvinenko

text: In May 2007 Marina Litvinenko registered a complaint against the Russian Federation in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, accusing the Russian state of violating her husband's right to life, and failing to conduct a full investigation. On 21 September 2021, a chamber of the court found Russia responsible for Litvinenko's death and ordered the country to pay 100,000 euros in damages. Russia can still appeal the decision to the Grand Chamber. Commenting on the case, law professor Marko Milanovic thought it was unlikely that Russian government would pay the damages.


title: Lily of the valley

text: Lily of the valley ("Convallaria majalis" (), sometimes written lily-of-the-valley, is a woodland flowering plant with sweetly scented, pendent, bell-shaped white flowers borne in sprays in spring. It is native throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere in Asia and Europe. "Convallaria majalis" var. "montana", also known as the American lily of the valley, is native to North America.


title: Lily of the valley

text: Due to the concentration of cardiac glycosides (cardenolides), it is highly poisonous if consumed by humans or other animals.


title: Lily of the valley

text: Other names include May bells, Our Lady's tears, and Mary's tears. Its French name, muguet, sometimes appears in the names of perfumes imitating the flower's scent. In pre-modern England, the plant was known as glovewort (as it was a wort used to create a salve for sore hands), or Apollinaris (according to a legend that it was discovered by Apollo).


title: Lily of the valley

text: "Convallaria majalis" is an herbaceous perennial plant that often forms extensive colonies by spreading underground stems called rhizomes. New upright shoots are formed at the ends of stolons in summer, these upright dormant stems are often called pips. These grow in the spring into new leafy shoots that still remain connected to the other shoots under ground. The stems grow to tall, with one or two leaves long; flowering stems have two leaves and a raceme of five to fifteen flowers on the stem apex.


title: Lily of the valley

text: The flowers have six white tepals (rarely pink), fused at the base to form a bell shape, diameter, and sweetly scented; flowering is in late spring, in mild winters in the Northern Hemisphere it is in early March. The fruit is a small orange-red berry diameter that contains a few large whitish to brownish colored seeds that dry to a clear translucent round bead wide. Plants are self-incompatible, and colonies consisting of a single clone do not set seed.


title: Lily of the valley

text: In the APG III system, the genus is placed in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Nolinoideae (formerly the family Ruscaceae). It was formerly placed in its own family Convallariaceae, and, like many lilioid monocots, before that in the lily family Liliaceae.


title: Lily of the valley

text: There are three varieties that have sometimes been separated out as distinct species or subspecies by some botanists.


title: Lily of the valley

text: "Convallaria transcaucasica" is recognised as a distinct species by some authorities, while the species formerly called "Convallaria japonica" is now classified as "Ophiopogon japonicus".


title: Lily of the valley

text: "Convallaria majalis" is a native of Europe, where it largely avoids the Mediterranean and Atlantic margins. An eastern variety, "C. majalis" var. "keiskei" occurs in Japan and parts of eastern Asia. A limited native population of "C. majalis" var. "montana" (synonym "C. majuscula") occurs in the Eastern United States. There is, however, some debate as to the native status of the American variety.


title: Lily of the valley

text: Like many perennial flowering plants, "C. majalis" exhibits dual reproductive modes by producing offspring asexually by vegetative means and by seed, produced via the fusion of gametes.


title: Lily of the valley

text: "Convallaria majalis" is a plant of partial shade, and mesophile type that prefers warm summers. It likes soils that are silty or sandy and acid to moderately alkaline, with preferably a plentiful amount of humus. The Royal Horticultural Society states that slightly alkaline soils are the most favored. It is a Euroasiatic and suboceanic species that lives in mountains up to elevation.


title: Lily of the valley

text: "Convallaria majalis" is used as a food plant by the larvae of some moth and butterfly (Lepidoptera) species including the grey chi. Adults and larvae of the leaf beetle "Lilioceris merdigera" are also able to tolerate the cardenolides and thus feed on the leaves.


title: Lily of the valley

text: "Convallaria majalis" is widely grown in gardens for its scented flowers and ground-covering abilities in shady locations. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. In favourable conditions it can form large colonies.


title: Lily of the valley

text: Various kinds and cultivars are grown, including those with double flowers, rose-colored flowers, variegated foliage and ones that grow larger than the typical species.


title: Lily of the valley

text: Traditionally "Convallaria majalis" has been grown in pots and winter forced to provide flowers during the winter months, both for as potted plants and as cut flowers.


title: Lily of the valley

text: Roughly 38 different cardiac glycosides (cardenolides) – which are highly toxic if consumed by humans or animals – occur in the plant, including:


title: Lily of the valley

text: The odor of lily of the valley, specifically the ligand bourgeonal, was thought to attract mammalian sperm. The 2003 discovery of this phenomenon prompted research into odor reception, but a 2012 study demonstrated instead that at high concentrations, bourgeonal imitated the role of progesterone in stimulating sperm to swim (chemotaxis), a process unrelated to odor reception.


title: Lily of the valley

text: All parts of the plant are potentially poisonous, including the red berries which may be attractive to children. If ingested, the plant can cause abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and irregular heartbeats.


title: Lily of the valley

text: In 1956, the French firm Dior produced a fragrance simulating lily of the valley, which was Christian Dior's favorite flower. Diorissimo was designed by Edmond Roudnitska. Although it has since been reformulated, it is considered a classic. Because no natural aromatic extract can be produced from lily of the valley, its scent must be recreated synthetically; while Diorissimo originally achieved this with hydroxycitronellal, the European Chemicals Agency now considers it a skin sensitizer and its use has been restricted.


title: Lily of the valley

text: Other perfumes imitating or based on the flower include Henri Robert's Muguet de Bois (1936), Penhaligon's Lily of the Valley (1976), and Olivia Giacobetti's En Passant (2000).


title: Lily of the valley

text: Lily of the valley has been used in weddings and off-season can be very expensive. Lily of the valley was featured in the bridal bouquet at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Lily of the valley was also the flower chosen by Princess Grace of Monaco to be featured in her bridal bouquet.


title: Lily of the valley

text: At the beginning of the 20th century, it became tradition in France to sell lily of the valley on international Labour Day, 1 May (also called "La Fête du Muguet" (Lily of the Valley Day) by labour organisations and private persons without paying sales tax (on that day only) as a symbol of spring.


title: Lily of the valley

text: Lily of the valley is worn in Helston (Cornwall, UK) on Flora Day (8 May each year, see Furry Dance) representing the coming of "the May-o" and the summer. There is also a song sung in pubs around Cornwall (and on Flora Day in Cadgwith, near Helston) called "Lily of the Valley"; the song, strangely, came from the Jubilee Singers from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.


title: Lily of the valley

text: The plant has been used in folk medicine for centuries. There is a reference to "Lilly of the valley water" in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Kidnapped where it is said to be "good against the Gout", and that it "comforts the heart and strengthens the memory" and "restores speech to those that have the dumb palsey". There is no scientific evidence that lily of the valley has any effective medicinal uses for treating human diseases.


title: Lily of the valley

text: The lily of the valley was the national flower of Yugoslavia, and it also became the national flower of Finland in 1967.


title: Lily of the valley

text: The name "lily of the valley", like its correspondences in some other European languages, is apparently a reference to the phrase "lily of the valleys" (sometimes also translated as "lily of the valley") in Song of Songs 2:1 (). European herbalists' use of the phrase to refer to a specific plant species seems to have appeared relatively late in the 16th or 15th century. The New Latin term "convallaria" (coined by Carl Linnaeus) and, for example, Swedish name "" derives from the corresponding phrase "lilium convallium" in the Vulgate.


title: Disney Princess

text: Disney Princess, also called the Princess Line, is a media franchise and toy line owned by the Walt Disney Company. Created by Disney Consumer Products chairman Andy Mooney, the franchise features a lineup of female protagonists who have appeared in various Disney franchises.


title: Disney Princess

text: The franchise does not include all princess characters from the whole of Disney-owned media, but rather refers to select specific characters from the company's animated films, including protagonists of animated films from Walt Disney Pictures, with 11 characters from the Walt Disney Animation Studios films and one character from a Pixar film. The characters in the franchise consists of Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida, and Moana.


title: Disney Princess

text: The franchise has released dolls, sing-along videos, apparel, beauty products, home decor, toys, and a variety of other products featuring some of the Disney Princesses. Licensees for the franchise include Glidden (wall paint), Stride Rite (sparkly shoes), Mattel and Hasbro (games and dolls), Fisher-Price (plastic figurines), and Lego (Lego sets).


title: Disney Princess

text: Former Nike, Inc. executive Andy Mooney was appointed president of The Walt Disney Company's Disney Consumer Products division in December 1999. While attending his first Disney on Ice show, Mooney noticed that several young girls attending the show were dressed in princess attire—though not authentic Disney merchandise. "They were generic princess products they’d appended to a Halloween costume," Mooney told "The New York Times". Concerned by this, Mooney addressed the company the following morning and encouraged them to commence work on a legitimate Disney Princess franchise in January 2000. Walt's nephew, Roy E. Disney, objected to the creation of the line, as the company has long "avoided mingling characters from its classic fairy tales in other narratives, worrying that it would weaken the individual mythologies."


title: Disney Princess

text: The original line-up consisted of princesses Snow White, Cinderella, Tinker Bell, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Esmeralda, and Mulan. Tinker Bell was removed soon after; she would go on to headline the sister franchise "Disney Fairies". Esmeralda was also removed. This was the first time the characters would be marketed in a separate franchise to their original films. Mooney decided that, when featured on marketing advertisements such as posters, the princesses should never make eye contact with each other in an attempt to keep their individual "mythologies" intact. "[Each] stares off in a slightly different direction as if unaware of the others' presence."


title: Disney Princess

text: In an unconventional manner, Mooney and his team launched the Disney Princess line without utilizing any focus groups and with minimal marketing. By 2001, Disney Consumer Products (DCP) had generated about $300 million, but by 2012, the division had increased revenue to $3 billion, making it the top seller of consumer entertainment products globally. DCP issued princess product licenses to Hasbro for games, Mattel for dolls, and Fisher-Price for plastic figurines in 2000, allowing the franchise to meet the $1 billion mark in revenue in three years.


title: Disney Princess

text: Tiana became the first additional character to the Disney Princess franchise officially on March 14, 2010, taking Tinker Bell's short-lived place as the ninth member. Her "coronation" took place at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Tinker Bell was already heading up another franchise, "Disney Fairies", starting in 2005.


title: Disney Princess

text: Rapunzel was crowned and inducted into the franchise as the tenth member on October 2, 2011 during "Rapunzel's Royal Celebration," a special event in London. Also attended by the other Princesses plus the Fairy Godmother and Flynn Rider, it included a procession through Hyde Park concluding with a ceremony at Kensington Palace in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, a residence used by the Royal Family since the 17th century and whose residents included Diana, Princess of Wales. Disney hosted the event in cooperation with Historic Royal Palaces, a British nonprofit organization that maintains the State Rooms.


title: Disney Princess

text: On May 11, 2013, Disney added the first Pixar character Merida as the eleventh member to the franchise in a coronation ceremony in front of Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World. By March 2019, Moana was added to the line-up as the twelfth member in the franchise without having a coronation ceremony, but rather being included in future merchandise. In August 2022, it was announced that Raya from "Raya and the Last Dragon" would be inducted as the thirteenth member of the line-up during World Princess Week at Disneyland Paris.


title: Disney Princess

text: A line of Disney Fairy Tale Wedding gowns were designed by Kirstie Kelly, based on the Princesses and available in January 2008.


title: Disney Princess

text: In 2012, the princesses were given modern redesigns. While some like Tiana and Rapunzel just had added glitter on their outfits, others like Belle and Jasmine received new hairstyles and modified outfits. The most drastic of these was Cinderella, who was given side-swept bangs and an outfit with sheer sleeves.


title: Disney Princess

text: With Target Corporation as its marketing partner, Disney held the first National Princess Week the week of April 23, 2012. During the week, there was the release of "The Princess Diaries" on Blu-ray and "The Very Fairy Princess" book. Harrods, already having a Disney Store within, followed with their Christmas theme being Disney Princess by having Oscar de la Renta designed dress for the Princess on display. In August, the dress were on display at D23 Expo before being auctioned on November 13 to benefit Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity.


title: Disney Princess

text: Mattel added a Barbie princess-themed line in late 2010 and the fairy tale based "Ever After High" in 2013. With these competing lines and an expiration of the brand license at the end of 2015, Disney offered Hasbro a chance to gain the license given their work on Star Wars, which led to a "Descendants" license. DCP was also attempting to evolve the brand by marketing them less as damsels and more as heroines. In September 2014, Disney announced that Hasbro would be the licensed doll maker for the Disney Princess line starting on January 1, 2016.


title: Disney Princess

text: The June 2013 release of the Disney Princess Palace Pets app from Disney Publishing, led DCP to turn Palace Pets into a Disney Princess franchise extension, with the release of the Palace Pets toy-line in August from licensee Blip Toys. The line was also selected by TimetoPlayMag.com for its Most Wanted List Holiday 2013. In 2015, Disney Publishing released animated shorts series "Whisker Haven Tales with the Palace Pets". The shorts journey to a magical world of Whisker Haven, a secret realm deep in a fairy tale land between the Disney Princess kingdoms.


title: Disney Princess

text: Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media launched the Princess Comics line, which was started with Princess Comics graphic novels by Joe Book, in August 2018 at Target with Hasbro figures and Hybrid Promotions apparel. This expansion featured Belle, Jasmine, Ariel, Rapunzel, and Pocahontas.


title: Disney Princess

text: On April 27, 2021, Disney launched the Ultimate Princess Celebration. This year-long event brought back the princesses' classic designs and included many special events, products, and performances. Despite not being official, Anna and Elsa from the "Frozen" franchise were included in parts of the celebration, such as an ebook called "Tales of Courage and Kindness"; they were removed from their temporary inclusion in the collection at the end of August 2022. When the celebration launched in South Africa on April 29, 2021, Sofia from "Sofia the First" and Elena from "Elena of Avalor" were also included for its territory, though in a lesser capacity than the other princesses.


title: Disney Princess

text: The official canon of Disney Princesses consists of the female protagonists, most of whom have royal ties within their fictional universes, from twelve selected Disney films. They were given an official number in the franchise line-up based on the chronological order in which their films were released, starting with Snow White as the first and original Disney Princess, with Cinderella being the second, followed by Aurora and so on.


title: Disney Princess

text: Currently, all the princesses are available for meet-and-greets at Disneyland Resort in California. Additionally, in 2006, as part of the "Year of Million Dreams" celebration, the Fantasyland Theater began hosting the "Disneyland Princess Fantasy Faire", a show featuring Lords and Ladies that taught young boys and girls the proper etiquette to be a Prince or Princess and featured appearances from the Disney Princesses. In 2010, Rapunzel was given a "Tangled" meet-and-greet location. The Carnation Plaza Gardens bandstand, adjacent to Sleeping Beauty Castle, was closed to be replaced by a new Fantasy Faire area in the Spring of 2013.


title: Disney Princess

text: The Fantasy Faire area at Disneyland officially opened on March 12, 2013, as the permanent home for the Disney Princesses; consisting of a Royal Hall, a Royal Theatre, Maurice's Treats food cart, and a Fairytale Treasures gift shop. The theater features two small shows based on "Beauty and the Beast" and "Tangled". The hall is used for meet and greets with the princesses, which have a rotation schedule with three princesses scheduled to appear at a time.


title: Disney Princess

text: At Walt Disney World, the princesses are available for meet-and-greets in more specific locations. The Cinderella-based character dining and interaction, located at "Cinderella's Royal Table" in her Magic Kingdom castle, as well as "Cinderella's Happily Ever After Dinner" (formerly known as the "Cinderella's Gala Feast Dinner") at 1900 Park Fare in Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa are common places for Cinderella and other Disney characters to appear. The Princesses also can be found at the Princess Storybook meal at Epcot. On September 18, 2013, a new meet-and-greet attraction called "Princess Fairytale Hall" opened at the Magic Kingdom.


title: Disney Princess

text: A Disney Princess meet-and-greet location called Storybook Court is operational and is located at Enchanted Storybook Castle.


title: Disney Princess

text: Hong Kong Disneyland's Castle of Magical Dreams has a meet-and-greet location being The Royal Reception Hall for the Disney Princesses.


title: Disney Princess

text: "Princess Party Palace" (formerly known as "The Princess Power Hour") was a programming block on Toon Disney from 2000 until 2007, where it used to air episodes of "The Little Mermaid" and "Aladdin".


title: Disney Princess

text: The Disney Princesses' television appearances were compiled into the "Disney Princess Collection", a series of compilation VHS cassettes containing episodes from "Aladdin" and "The Little Mermaid" as well as two "Beauty and the Beast" specials. A later DVD series was released, entitled "Disney Princess Stories", featuring content similar to the previous release.


title: Disney Princess

text: Belle had her own live-action television series titled "Sing Me a Story with Belle". The first eight Disney Princesses also made appearances on the animated TV series "House of Mouse". Cinderella, Belle, and Snow White also made cameo appearances in the TV animated series "Mickey Mouse". The television special "The Little Mermaid Live!" starred Auliʻi Cravalho as Ariel.


title: Disney Princess

text: In early 2007, Disney announced "Disney Princess Enchanted Tales", a new series of direct-to-video features that feature new stories for the Disney Princesses. The first film in the series entitled "", was released on September 4, 2007. It is a musical film featuring a new tale about Princess Jasmine and the first new tale about Princess Aurora since the original "Sleeping Beauty". Originally, "Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: A Kingdom of Kindness" was announced as the first film in the series, which contained a different Princess Aurora story, and had a Belle story rather than a Princess Jasmine story. Disney made this change without any sort of notice. The series was cancelled and only "Follow Your Dreams" exists.


title: Disney Princess

text: The TV series "Once Upon a Time", which aired on the Disney-owned ABC, featured live-action versions of Snow White, Cinderella, Belle, Aurora, Mulan, Ariel, Rapunzel, Merida, Jasmine and Tiana. Snow White and Belle were main characters, while the rest made recurring and/or guest appearances. Beginning in season 7, Cinderella, Tiana and Rapunzel were main characters. Many of these characters are patterned after the Disney versions, but a few draw inspiration from older stories.


title: Disney Princess

text: The TV series "Sofia the First" premiered on January 11, 2013, on Disney Junior. Cinderella appeared in the first film, "Once Upon A Princess". Jasmine, Belle, Aurora, Snow White, Mulan, Tiana, and Merida have appeared on the show, and Ariel and Rapunzel appeared in the TV specials "The Floating Palace" and "The Curse of Princess Ivy", respectively. However, Sofia is a minor princess and not in the royal court. She is voiced by "Modern Family" star Ariel Winter. In 2017, the TV series "Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure" debuted with the television film "" serving as the pilot. In December 2020, it was announced that Tiana and Moana would have spin-off TV shows debuting on Disney+ in 2022 and 2023, respectively.


title: Disney Princess

text: In the films "Maleficent" (2014) and "" (2019), Elle Fanning plays Aurora. Lily James portrays Cinderella in the eponymous 2015 film. Emma Watson is seen as Belle in the 2017 film "Beauty and the Beast". Naomi Scott stars as Jasmine in the 2019 film "Aladdin". Liu Yifei appears as Mulan in the eponymous 2020 film. Halle Bailey has been cast to play Ariel in the upcoming 2023 film "The Little Mermaid". Rachel Zegler has been cast to portray the title character in the upcoming 2024 film "Snow White".


title: Disney Princess

text: The Princesses, along with Anna and Elsa, make guest appearances in the 2018 film "Ralph Breaks the Internet". This film marks the first direct interaction between the characters in an animated Disney feature. Rich Moore and Phil Johnston, the directors of "Ralph Breaks the Internet", said that a film focusing on the Disney Princesses could be made depending on the audience's response and "if there's a good story to be told."


title: Disney Princess

text: In 2021, Disney Channel began to air shorts in the "Chibi Tiny Tales" series, a loose follow up to "", based on the Disney Princess franchise. The first episode, "Moana As Told By Chibi," was released on August 27, 2021.


title: Disney Princess

text: In "Kilala Princess", a Japanese fantasy/romance manga produced by Kodansha that debuted on "Nakayoshi" in April 2005, a girl named Kilala and her adventures to find her kidnapped friend with the help of the first six Disney Princesses (Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine). However, Kilala herself is not considered part of the franchise.


title: Disney Princess

text: On February 24, 2016, a "Disney Princesses" anthology ongoing comic book's first issue hit the stands. The series is published by Joe Books. Joe Books expanded Disney Princess to a graphic novel line as an exclusive for Target along with a Hasbro figure line and a Hybrid Promotions apparel line.


title: Disney Princess

text: Disney Princesses have appeared in various other media, such as video games, including "", "", and "". Rapunzel can be found as a character in the 2013 game "Disney Infinity". "" has the addition of Merida and Jasmine. However, Merida is also included with Stitch in the Toy Box Starter Pack. "Disney Infinity 3.0" has the addition of Mulan. Merida can be found as a character via Pixar Family Builds in the 2018 Lego game "Lego The Incredibles". All Disney Princesses are also playable characters in the mobile game "Disney Magic Kingdoms", with Cinderella, Aurora, Pocahontas, and Rapunzel being part of the main storyline, while the rest are limited time characters.


title: Disney Princess

text: In the "Kingdom Hearts" game series, the seven "Princesses of Heart," are young ladies with entirely pure hearts who would open the way to Kingdom Hearts if gathered together. Five of these maidens include the Disney Princesses being Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Belle, and Jasmine. The remaining Princesses of Heart are Alice from "Alice in Wonderland" (despite not being a princess) and game series' heroine, Kairi. While both Ariel and Mulan are not Princesses of Heart, they are instead party members of their respective worlds. The Disney Princesses make various appearances throughout the series:


title: Disney Princess

text: As of , five "Disney Princess" films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant":


title: Golem

text: A golem ( ; ) is an animated, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). In the Psalms and medieval writings, the word "golem" was used as a term for an amorphous, unformed material.


title: Golem

text: The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century rabbi of Prague. Many tales differ on how the golem was brought to life and controlled. According to "Moment" magazine, "the golem is a highly mutable metaphor with seemingly limitless symbolism. It can be a victim or villain, Jew or non-Jew, man or woman—or sometimes both. Over the centuries, it has been used to connote war, community, isolation, hope, and despair."


title: Golem

text: The word "golem" occurs once in the Bible in Psalm 139:16, which uses the word (; my golem), that means "my light form", "raw" material, connoting the unfinished human being before God's eyes. The Mishnah uses the term for an uncultivated person: "Seven characteristics are in an uncultivated person, and seven in a learned one", () (Pirkei Avot 5:7 in the Hebrew text; English translations vary).


title: Golem

text: In Modern Hebrew, is used to mean "dumb" or "helpless" and also to describe an insect in its inactive immature form between larva and adult. Similarly, it is often used today as a metaphor for a mindless lunk or entity that serves a man under controlled conditions, but is hostile to him under other conditions. "Golem" passed into Yiddish as to mean someone who is lethargic or beneath a stupor.


title: Golem

text: The oldest stories of golems date to early Judaism. In the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b), Adam was initially created as a golem () when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless husk". Like Adam, all golems are created from mud by those close to divinity, but no anthropogenic golem is fully human. Early on, the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak. Sanhedrin 65b describes Rava creating a man (). He sent the man to Rav Zeira. Rav Zeira spoke to him, but he did not answer. Rav Zeira said, "You were created by the sages; return to your dust" ().


title: Golem

text: During the Middle Ages, passages from the "Sefer Yetzirah" ("Book of Creation") were studied as a means to create and animate a golem, although little in the writings of Jewish mysticism supports this belief. It was believed that golems could be activated by an ecstatic experience induced by the ritualistic use of various letters of the Hebrew alphabet forming a "" (any one of the Names of God), wherein the was written on a piece of paper and inserted in the mouth or in the forehead of the golem.


title: Golem

text: A golem is inscribed with Hebrew words in some tales (for example, some versions of Chełm and Prague, as well as in Polish tales and versions of the Brothers Grimm), such as the word (, "truth" in Hebrew) written on its forehead. The golem could then be deactivated by removing the aleph (א) in , thus changing the inscription from "truth" to "death" ( , meaning "dead").


title: Golem

text: Rabbi Jacob ben Shalom arrived at Barcelona from Germany in 1325 and remarked that the law of destruction is the reversal of the law of creation.


title: Golem

text: One source credits 11th-century Solomon ibn Gabirol with creating a golem, possibly female, for household chores.


title: Golem

text: The earliest known written account of how to create a golem can be found in "Sodei Razayya" by Eleazar ben Judah of Worms of the late 12th and early 13th centuries.


title: Golem

text: The oldest description of the creation of a golem by a historical figure is included in a tradition connected to Rabbi Eliyahu of Chełm (1550–1583).


title: Golem

text: A Polish Kabbalist, writing in about 1630–1650, reported the creation of a golem by Rabbi Eliyahu thusly: "And I have heard, in a certain and explicit way, from several respectable persons that one man [living] close to our time, whose name is R. Eliyahu, the master of the name, who made a creature out of matter [Heb. "Golem"] and form [Heb. "tzurah"] and it performed hard work for him, for a long period, and the name of "emet" was hanging upon his neck until he finally removed it for a certain reason, the name from his neck and it turned to dust." A similar account was reported by a Christian author, Christoph Arnold, in 1674.


title: Golem

text: As an aside, I'll mention here what I heard from my father's holy mouth regarding the Golem created by his ancestor, the Gaon R. Eliyahu Ba'al Shem of blessed memory. When the Gaon saw that the Golem was growing larger and larger, he feared that the Golem would destroy the universe. He then removed the Holy Name that was embedded on his forehead, thus causing him to disintegrate and return to dust. Nonetheless, while he was engaged in extracting the Holy Name from him, the Golem injured him, scarring him on the face.


title: Golem

text: According to the Polish Kabbalist, "the legend was known to several persons, thus allowing us to speculate that the legend had indeed circulated for some time before it was committed to writing and, consequently, we may assume that its origins are to be traced to the generation immediately following the death of R. Eliyahu, if not earlier."


title: Golem

text: The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century rabbi of Prague, also known as the Maharal, who reportedly "created a golem out of clay from the banks of the Vltava River and brought it to life through rituals and Hebrew incantations to defend the Prague ghetto from anti-Semitic attacks and pogroms". Depending on the version of the legend, the Jews in Prague were to be either expelled or killed under the rule of Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor. The Golem was called Josef and was known as Yossele. He was said to be able to make himself invisible and summon spirits from the dead. Rabbi Loew deactivated the Golem on Friday evenings by removing the "shem" before the Sabbath (Saturday) began, so as to let it rest on Sabbath.


title: Golem

text: One Friday evening, Rabbi Loew forgot to remove the "shem", and feared that the Golem would desecrate the Sabbath. A different story tells of a golem that fell in love, and when rejected, became the violent monster seen in most accounts. Some versions have the golem eventually going on a murderous rampage. The rabbi then managed to pull the "shem" from his mouth and immobilize him in front of the synagogue, whereupon the golem fell in pieces. The Golem's body was stored in the attic "genizah" of the Old New Synagogue, where it would be restored to life again if needed. Rabbi Loew then forbade anyone except his successors from going into the attic. Rabbi Yechezkel Landau, a successor of Rabbi Loew, reportedly wanted to go up the steps to the attic when he was Chief Rabbi of Prague to verify the tradition. Rabbi Landau fasted and immersed himself in a mikveh, wrapped himself in phylacteries and a prayer-shawl and started ascending the steps. At the top of the steps, he hesitated and then came immediately back down, trembling and frightened. He then re-enacted Rabbi Loew's original warning.


title: Golem

text: According to legend, the body of Rabbi Loew's Golem still lies in the synagogue's attic. When the attic was renovated in 1883, no evidence of the Golem was found. Some versions of the tale state that the Golem was stolen from the "genizah" and entombed in a graveyard in Prague's Žižkov district, where the Žižkov Television Tower now stands. A recent legend tells of a Nazi agent ascending to the synagogue attic, but he died, instead, under suspicious circumstances. The attic is not open to the general public.


title: Golem

text: Some Orthodox Jews believe that the Maharal did actually create a golem. The evidence for this belief has been analyzed from an Orthodox Jewish perspective by Shnayer Z. Leiman.


title: Golem

text: The general view of historians and critics is that the story of the Golem of Prague was a German literary invention of the early 19th century. According to John Neubauer, the first writers on the Prague Golem were:


title: Golem

text: All of these early accounts of the Golem of Prague are in German by Jewish writers. They are suggested to have emerged as part of a Jewish folklore movement parallel with the contemporary German folklore movement.


title: Golem

text: The origins of the story have been obscured by attempts to exaggerate its age and to pretend that it dates from the time of the Maharal. Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg (1859–1935) of Tarłów (before moving to Canada where he became one of its most prominent rabbis) is said to have originated the idea that the narrative dates from the time of the Maharal. Rosenberg published "Nifl'os Maharal" ("Wonders of Maharal") (Piotrków, 1909), which purported to be an eyewitness account by the Maharal's son-in-law, who had helped to create the Golem. Rosenberg claimed that the book was based upon a manuscript that he found in the main library in Metz. "Wonders of Maharal" "is generally recognized in academic circles to be a literary hoax". Gershom Sholem observed that the manuscript "contains not ancient legends, but modern fiction". Rosenberg's claim was further disseminated in Chayim Bloch's (1881–1973) "The Golem: Legends of the Ghetto of Prague" (English edition 1925).


title: Golem

text: The "Jewish Encyclopedia" of 1906 cites the historical work "Zemach David" by David Gans, a disciple of the Maharal, published in 1592. In it, Gans writes of an audience between the Maharal and Rudolph II: "Our lord the emperor ... Rudolph ... sent for and called upon our master Rabbi Low ben Bezalel and received him with a welcome and merry expression, and spoke to him face to face, as one would to a friend. The nature and quality of their words are mysterious, sealed, and hidden." But it has been said of this passage, "Even when [the Maharal is] eulogized, whether in David Gans' "Zemach David" or on his epitaph ..., not a word is said about the creation of a golem. No Hebrew work published in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries (even in Prague) is aware that the Maharal created a golem." Furthermore, the Maharal himself did not refer to the Golem in his writings. Rabbi Yedidiah Tiah Weil (1721–1805), a Prague resident, who described the creation of golems, including those created by Rabbis Avigdor Kara of Prague (died 1439) and Eliyahu of Chelm, did not mention the Maharal, and Rabbi Meir Perils' biography of the Maharal published in 1718 does not mention a golem.


title: Golem

text: A similar tradition relates to the Vilna Gaon or "the saintly genius from Vilnius" (1720–1797). Rabbi Chaim Volozhin (Lithuania 1749–1821) reported in an introduction to "Sifra de Tzeniuta" that he once presented to his teacher, the Vilna Gaon, ten different versions of a certain passage in the "Sefer Yetzira" and asked the Gaon to determine the correct text. The Gaon immediately identified one version as the accurate rendition of the passage. The amazed student then commented to his teacher that, with such clarity, he should easily be able to create a live human. The Gaon affirmed Rabbi Chaim's assertion and said that he once began to create a person when he was a child, under the age of 13, but during the process, he received a sign from Heaven ordering him to desist because of his tender age.


title: Golem

text: The existence of a golem is sometimes a mixed blessing. Golems are not intelligent, and if commanded to perform a task, they will perform the instructions literally. In many depictions, golems are inherently perfectly obedient. In its earliest known modern form, the Golem of Chełm became enormous and uncooperative. In one version of this story, the rabbi had to resort to trickery to deactivate it, whereupon it crumbled upon its creator and crushed him.


title: Golem

text: A similar theme of hubris is seen in "Frankenstein", "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", and some other stories in popular culture, such as "The Terminator". The theme also manifests itself in "R.U.R." ("Rossum's Universal Robots"), Karel Čapek's 1921 play that coined the term robot; the play was written in Prague, and while Čapek denied that he modeled the robot after the golem, many similarities are seen in the plot.


title: Golem

text: The golem is a popular figure in the Czech Republic. The 1915 novel by Gustav Meyrink ("The Golem") was briefly popular and did much to keep the imagination about the golem going. Several restaurants and other businesses have names that make reference to the creature, a Czech strongman (René Richter) goes by the nickname "Golem", and a Czech monster truck outfit calls itself the "Golem Team".


title: Golem

text: Abraham Akkerman preceded his article on human automatism in the contemporary city with a short satirical poem on a pair of golems turning human.


title: Golem

text: A Yiddish and Slavic folktale is the Clay Boy, which combines elements of the golem and "The Gingerbread Man", in which a lonely couple makes a child out of clay, with disastrous or comical consequences.


title: Golem

text: In one common Russian version, an older couple, whose children have left home, make a boy out of clay and dry him by their hearth. The Clay Boy (, ) comes to life; at first, the couple is delighted and treats him like a real child, but the Clay Boy does not stop growing and eats all their food, then all their livestock, and then the Clay Boy eats his parents. The Clay Boy rampages through the village until he is smashed by a quick-thinking goat.


title: Golem

text: Golems are frequently depicted in movies and television shows. Programs with them in the title include:


title: Associated Press

text: The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspapers and broadcasters. The AP has earned 56 Pulitzer Prizes, including 34 for photography, since the award was established in 1917. It is also known for publishing the widely used "AP Stylebook".


title: Associated Press

text: By 2016, news collected by the AP was published and republished by more than 1,300 newspapers and broadcasters, English, Spanish, and Arabic. The AP operates 248 news bureaus in 99 countries. It also operates the AP Radio Network, which provides newscasts twice hourly for broadcast and satellite radio and television stations. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, paying a fee to use AP material without being contributing members of the cooperative. As part of their cooperative agreement with the AP, most member news organizations grant automatic permission for the AP to distribute their local news reports. The AP traditionally employed the "inverted pyramid" formula for writing, a method that enables news outlets to edit a story to fit its available publication area without losing the story's essentials, although in 2007, then-AP President Tom Curley called the practice "dead".


title: Associated Press

text: The Associated Press was formed in May 1846 by five daily newspapers in New York City to share the cost of transmitting news of the Mexican–American War. The venture was organized by Moses Yale Beach (1800–68), second publisher of "The Sun", joined by the "New York Herald", the "New York Courier and Enquirer", "The Journal of Commerce", and the "New York Evening Express". Some historians believe that the "New-York Tribune" joined at this time; documents show it was a member in 1849. "The New York Times" became a member in September 1851.


title: Associated Press

text: Initially known as the New York Associated Press (NYAP), the organization faced competition from the Western Associated Press (1862), which criticized its monopolistic news gathering and price setting practices. An investigation completed in 1892 by Victor Lawson, editor and publisher of the "Chicago Daily News", revealed that several principals of the NYAP had entered into a secret agreement with United Press, a rival organization, to share NYAP news and the profits of reselling it. The revelations led to the demise of the NYAP and in December 1892, the Western Associated Press was incorporated in Illinois as the Associated Press. A 1900 Illinois Supreme Court decision ("Inter Ocean Publishing Co. v. Associated Press") that the AP was a public utility and operating in restraint of trade resulted in the AP's move from Chicago to New York City, where corporation laws were more favorable to cooperatives.


title: Associated Press

text: Melville Stone, who had founded the "Chicago Daily News" in 1875, served as AP general manager from 1893 to 1921. The cooperative grew rapidly under the leadership of Kent Cooper, who served from 1925 to 1948 and who built up bureau staff in South America, Europe and (after World War II), the Middle East. He introduced the "telegraph typewriter" or teletypewriter into newsrooms in 1914. In 1935, the AP launched the Wirephoto network, which allowed transmission of news photographs over leased private telephone lines on the day they were taken. This gave the AP a major advantage over other news media outlets. While the first network was only between New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, eventually the AP had its network across the whole United States.


title: Associated Press

text: In 1945, the Supreme Court of the United States held in "Associated Press v. United States" that the AP had been violating the Sherman Antitrust Act by prohibiting member newspapers from selling or providing news to nonmember organizations as well as making it very difficult for nonmember newspapers to join the AP. The decision facilitated the growth of its main rival United Press International, headed by Hugh Baillie from 1935 to 1955.


title: Associated Press

text: The AP entered the broadcast field in 1941 when it began distributing news to radio stations; it created its own radio network in 1974. In 1994, it established APTV, a global video newsgathering agency. APTV merged with WorldWide Television News in 1998 to form APTN, which provides video to international broadcasters and websites. In 2004, the AP moved its world headquarters from its longtime home at 50 Rockefeller Plaza to a huge building at 450 West 33rd Street in Manhattan—which also houses the "New York Daily News" and the studios of New York's public television station, WNET. In 2019, AP had more than 240 bureaus globally. Its mission—"to gather with economy and efficiency an accurate and impartial report of the news"—has not changed since its founding, but digital technology has made the distribution of the AP news report an interactive endeavor between the AP and its 1,400 U.S. newspaper members as well as broadcasters, international subscribers, and online customers.


title: Associated Press

text: The AP began diversifying its news gathering capabilities and by 2007 the AP was generating only about 30% of its revenue from United States newspapers. 37% came from the global broadcast customers, 15% from online ventures and 18% came from international newspapers and from photography.


title: Associated Press

text: The AP's multi-topic structure has resulted in web portals such as Yahoo! and MSN posting its articles, often relying on the AP as their first source for news coverage of breaking news items. This and the constant updating evolving stories require has had a major impact on the AP's public image and role, giving new credence to the AP's ongoing mission of having staff for covering every area of news fully and promptly. In 2007, Google announced that it was paying to receive AP content, to be displayed in Google News, interrupted from late 2009 to mid-2010 due to a licensing dispute.


title: Associated Press

text: A 2017 study by NewsWhip revealed that AP content was more engaged with on Facebook than content from any individual English-language publisher.


title: Associated Press

text: The AP is governed by an elected board of directors. Since April 2017, the chairman is Steven Swartz, president and CEO of Hearst Communications.


title: Associated Press

text: The AP is the only organization that collects and verifies election results in every city and county across the United States, including races for the U.S. president, the Senate and House of Representatives, governor as well as other statewide offices. Major news outlets rely on the polling data and results provided by the Associated Press before declaring a winner in major political races, particularly the presidential election. In declaring the winners, the AP has historically relied on a robust network of local reporters with first-hand knowledge of assigned territories who also have long-standing relationships with county clerks as well as other local officials. Moreover, the AP monitors and gathers data from county websites and electronic feeds provided by states. The research team further verifies the results by considering demographics, number of absentee ballots, and other political issues that may have an effect on the final results. In 2018, the AP has introduced a new system called AP VoteCast, which was developed together with NORC at the University of Chicago in order to further improve the reliability of its data and overcome biases of its legacy exit poll.


title: Associated Press

text: Recognized for its integrity and accuracy, the organization has collected and published presidential election data since 1848. During the 2016 election, the AP was 100% accurate in calling the president and congressional races in every state. After declaring Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 United States presidential election on November 7, 2020, the organization and its methodology came under close scrutiny, as incumbent president Donald Trump refused to concede and claimed the election was "rigged". During the 2016 presidential election, when the AP declared Trump's victory against Hillary Clinton at 2:29AM on Wednesday, November 9, Trump did not contest the results and delivered his victory speech at 2:50AM the same night.


title: Associated Press

text: The AP conducts polls for numerous college sports in the United States. The AP college football rankings were created in 1936, and began including the top 25 teams in 1989. Since 1969, the final poll of each season has been released after all bowl games have been played. The AP released its all-time Top 25 in 2016. , 22 different programs had finished in the number one spot of the poll since its inception. In the pre-bowl game determination era, the AP poll was often used as the distinction for a national champion in football.


title: Associated Press

text: The AP college basketball poll has been used as a guide for which teams deserve national attention. The AP first began its poll of college basketball teams in 1949, and has since conducted over 1,100 polls. The college basketball poll started with 20 teams and was reduced to 10 during the 1960-61 college basketball season. It returned to 20 teams in 1968-69 and expanded to 25 beginning in 1989–90. The final poll for each season is released prior to the conclusion of the NCAA tournament, so all data includes regular season games only. In 2017, The AP released a list of the Top 100 teams of all time. The poll counted poll appearances (one point) and No. 1 rankings (two points) to rank each team.


title: Associated Press

text: The AP began its Major League Baseball Manager of the Year Award in 1959, for a manager in each league. From 1984 to 2000, the award was given to one manager in all of MLB. The winners were chosen by a national panel of AP baseball writers and radio men. The award was discontinued in 2001.


title: Associated Press

text: Every year, the AP releases the names of the winners of its AP College Basketball Player of the Year and AP College Basketball Coach of the Year awards. It also honors a group of All-American players.


title: Associated Press

text: In 1994, London-based Associated Press Television (APTV) was founded to provide agency news material to television broadcasters. In 1998, the AP purchased Worldwide Television News (WTN) from the ABC News division of The Walt Disney Company, Nine Network Australia and ITN London. The AP publishes 70,000 videos and 6,000 hours of live video per year, . The agency also provides five simultaneous live video channels, AP Direct via satellite for broadcasters, and four live channels on AP Live Choice for digital publishers. The AP was the first news agency to launch a live video news service in 2003.


title: Associated Press

text: In 1994, Tina Susman was on her fourth trip to Somalia, reporting for the AP. She was reporting on U.S. peacekeeping troops leaving the country. Somali rebels outnumbered her bodyguards in Mogadishu, dragged her from her car in broad daylight, and held her for 20 days. She told "The Quill" that she believes being a woman was an advantage in her experience there. The AP had requested news organizations including "The New York Times", the "Chicago Tribune," and "The Washington Post" to suppress the story to discourage the emboldening of the kidnappers.


title: Associated Press

text: In September 2002, Washington, D.C. bureau reporter Christopher Newton, an AP reporter since 1994, was fired after he was accused of fabricating sources since 2000, including at least 40 people and organizations. Prior to his firing, Newton had been focused on writing about federal law-enforcement while based at the Justice Department. Some of the nonexistent agencies quoted in his stories included "Education Alliance", the "Institute for Crime and Punishment in Chicago", "Voice for the Disabled", and "People for Civil Rights".


title: Associated Press

text: In 2007, an FBI agent working in Seattle impersonated an AP journalist and infected the computer of a 15-year old suspect with a malicious surveillance software. The incident sparked a strongly worded statement from the AP demanding the bureau never impersonate a member of the news media again. In September 2016 the incident resulted in a report by the Justice Department, which the AP said "effectively condone[d] the FBI's impersonation".


title: Associated Press

text: In December 2017, following a US court appearance, a judge ruled in favor of the AP in a lawsuit against the FBI for fraudulently impersonating a member of the news media.


title: Associated Press

text: In August 2005, Ken Knight, a Louisiana photographer, sued the AP claiming that it had willfully and negligently violated Knight's copyright by distributing a photograph of celebrity Britney Spears to various media outlets including, but not limited to: truTV (formerly CourtTV), America Online and Fox News. The case was settled in November 2006.


title: Associated Press

text: In a case filed February 2005, "McClatchey v. The Associated Press", a Pennsylvania photographer sued the AP for cropping a picture to remove the plaintiff's embedded title and copyright notice and later distributed it to news organizations without the plaintiff's permission or credit. The parties settled.


title: Associated Press

text: In June 2008, the AP sent numerous DMCA take down demands and threatened legal action against several blogs. The AP contended that the internet blogs were violating the AP's copyright by linking to AP material and using headlines and short summaries in those links. Many bloggers and experts noted that the use of the AP news fell squarely under commonly accepted internet practices and within fair-use standards. Others noted and demonstrated that the AP routinely takes similar excerpts from other sources, often without attribution or licenses. The AP responded that it was defining standards regarding citations of AP news.


title: Associated Press

text: In March 2009, the AP counter-sued artist Shepard Fairey over his famous image of Barack Obama, saying the uncredited, uncompensated use of an AP photo violated copyright laws and signaled a threat to journalism. Fairey had sued the AP the previous month over his artwork, titled "Obama Hope" and "Obama Progress", arguing that he did not violate copyright law because he dramatically changed the image. The artwork, based on an April 2006 picture taken for the AP by Mannie Garcia, was a popular image during the 2008 presidential election and now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. According to the AP lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, Fairey knowingly "misappropriated The AP's rights in that image". The suit asked the court to award the AP profits made off the image and damages. Fairey said he looked forward to "upholding the free expression rights at stake here" and disproving the AP's accusations. In January 2011 this suit was settled with neither side declaring their position to be wrong but agreeing to share reproduction rights and profits from Fairey's work.


title: Associated Press

text: In January 2008, the AP sued competitor All Headline News (AHN) claiming that AHN allegedly infringed on its copyrights and a contentious "quasi-property" right to facts. The AP complaint asserted that AHN reporters had copied facts from AP news reports without permission and without paying a syndication fee. After AHN moved to dismiss all but the copyright claims set forth by the AP, a majority of the lawsuit was dismissed. The case has been dismissed and both parties settled.


title: Associated Press

text: In June 2010, the AP was accused of having unfair and hypocritical policies after it was demonstrated that AP reporters had copied original reporting from the "Search Engine Land" website without permission, attribution, or credit.


title: Associated Press

text: In April 2013, the AP stated that it had dropped the term "illegal immigrant" from its AP Stylebook. The AP followed ABC, NBC, and CNN in not using the term. Jose Antonio Vargas commended the AP for its decision.


title: Associated Press

text: Syndicated writer Ruben Navarrette criticized the decision, stating the reasoning behind the decision was political correctness and called the AP's explanation "incomprehensible". Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said of the decision, that she does not get involved in "vocabulary wars" and then stated "They are immigrants who are here illegally, that's an illegal immigrant."


title: Associated Press

text: On April 23, 2013, the AP's Twitter account was hacked to release a hoax tweet about fictional attacks in the White House that left President Obama injured.


title: Associated Press

text: On May 13, 2013, the AP announced telephone records for 20 of their reporters during a two-month period in 2012, had been subpoenaed by the U.S. Justice Department and described these acts as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into news-gathering operations. The AP reported that the Justice Department would not say why it sought the records, but sources stated that the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia's office was conducting a criminal investigation into a May 7, 2012 AP story about a CIA operation that prevented a terrorist plot to detonate an explosive device on a commercial flight. The DOJ did not direct subpoenas to the AP, instead going to their phone providers, including Verizon Wireless. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder testified under oath in front of the House Judiciary Committee that he recused himself from the leak investigations to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. Holder said his Deputy Attorney General, James M. Cole, was in charge of the AP investigation and would have ordered the subpoenas.


title: Associated Press

text: In January 2020, Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate criticized AP for cropping her out of a photo taken at the World Economic Forum that featured her with fellow activists Greta Thunberg, Luisa Neubauer, Isabelle Axelsson, and Loukina Tille. She said in a video uploaded to her Twitter account that it was an example of how non-white voices were being "erased" from the conversation on climate change, and later told "BuzzFeed News" that she was hurt by their decision. Thunberg and Axelsson also criticized AP for cropping her out. AP later replaced the edit with the original, and issued an apology for the error. Director of Photography David Ake said the initial decision to crop the photo was because of tight deadlines, and for composition reasons.


title: Associated Press

text: The AP gave the Nazi regime access to its photo archives for its antisemitic propaganda. AP also cooperated with the Nazi regime through censorship.


title: Associated Press

text: Investigators (chiefly Norman Domeier of the University of Vienna) have in recent years brought to wider attention the deal between the AP and the German government related to the interchange of press photos during the period in which the United States was at war with Germany. This relationship involved the Bureau Laux, run by the photographer Helmut Laux.


title: Associated Press

text: The mechanism for this interchange was that a courier flew to Lisbon and back each day transporting photos from and for Germany's wartime enemy, the US, via diplomatic pouch. The transactions were initially conducted at the AP bureau under Luiz Lupi in Lisbon, and from 1944, when the exchange via Lisbon took too long, also at the AP bureau in Stockholm under Eddie Shanke. Here, as a cover, the Swedish agency, , was involved as an intermediary. An estimated 40,000 photos were exchanged between the enemies in this way.


title: Associated Press

text: The AP in 2017 published an extensive report of its dealings with Germany before and during World War II. The AP conducted an in-depth review of its operations in Nazi Germany, concluding that the news agency acted as "forthrightly and independently as possible." The review also found that the AP handled some situations inadequately.


title: Associated Press

text: The AP review was undertaken following an article that claimed the AP allowed Nazi propagandists to exert some influence over its news photo report in the 1930s by maintaining a photo subsidiary in Germany, registered under a restrictive Nazi press law. The AP's review disputed the claim that the news agency was in any way complicit with the Nazi regime during the years 1933–41, when the agency was present in the country. The AP was kicked out of Germany when the United States entered World War II in December 1941.


title: Associated Press

text: "We recognize that AP should have done some things differently during this period, for example protesting when AP photos were exploited by the Nazis for propaganda within Germany and refusing to employ German photographers with active political affiliations and loyalties," the report said." However, suggestions that the AP at any point sought to help the Nazis or their heinous cause are simply wrong."


title: Associated Press

text: In his book "Broken Spring: An American-Israeli Reporter's Close-up View of How Egyptians Lost Their Struggle for Freedom", former AP correspondent Mark Lavie claimed that the editorial line of the Cairo bureau was that the conflict was Israel's fault and the Arabs and Palestinians were blameless. Israeli journalist Matti Friedman accused the AP of killing a story he wrote about the "war of words", "between Israel and its critics in human rights organizations", in the aftermath of the Israel/Gaza conflict of 2008–09.


title: Associated Press

text: On September 29, 2000, the first day of the Second Intifada, the AP sent out of a photograph of a badly bloodied young man behind whom a police officer could be seen with a baton raised in a menacing fashion; a gas station with Hebrew lettering could also be seen in the background. The AP labelled it with the caption "An Israeli policeman and a Palestinian on the Temple Mount", and the picture and caption were subsequently published in several major American newspapers, including the New York Times and the Boston Globe. In reality, the injured man in the photograph was a Jewish yeshiva student from Chicago named Tuvia Grossman, and the police officer, a Druze named Gidon Tzefadi, was protecting Grossman from a Palestinian mob who had clubbed, stoned, and stabbed Grossman. There are also no gas stations with Hebrew lettering on the Temple Mount.


title: Associated Press

text: The episode is often cited by those who accuse the media of having an anti-Israel bias, and was the impetus for the founding of HonestReporting. After a letter from Grossman's father noted the error, the AP, the New York Times, and other papers published corrections; despite these corrections, the photograph continues to be used by critics of Israel as a symbol of Israeli aggression and violence.


title: Associated Press

text: During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, the Israeli army destroyed the al-Jalaa Highrise, a building housing the AP's Gaza offices and Al Jazeera offices. Israel stated that the building housed Hamas military intelligence and had given advanced warning of the strike, and no civilians were harmed. AP CEO Gary Pruitt released a statement on May 16, stating that he "had no indication Hamas was in the building" and called on the Israeli government to provide the evidence. He said that "the world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today."


title: Associated Press

text: On 17 May, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had not seen any evidence that Hamas operated from the building housing the AP and Al Jazeera, but it is the job of others to handle intelligence matters. Israel reportedly shared intelligence with American officials and U.S President Biden showing Hamas offices inside the building. Journalist Matti Friedman also supported the Israeli government's claim.


title: Associated Press

text: Reporters Without Borders asked the International Criminal Court to investigate the bombing as a possible war crime.


title: Associated Press

text: On June 8, Israeli Ambassador to the US Gilad Erdan met with AP CEO Gary Pruitt and vice president for foreign news, Ian Phillips, to discuss the operation. In coordination with the IDF, Erdan said the site was used by Hamas intelligence officials to develop and carry out SIGINT and electronic warfare operations, targeting both IDF and civilian systems in Israel, including devices to disrupt the Iron Dome. Erdan also said the Israeli government does not believe the AP was aware of the Hamas presence because it was a secret unit. He said the Israeli government was willing to help rebuild the AP's offices and ensure they will be able to bring equipment into Gaza.


title: Associated Press

text: In May 2021, the AP said it would launch a review of its social media policies after questions were raised about the firing of a journalist who expressed pro-Palestinian views on social media. The announcement came after some AP journalists signed a letter expressing concern over the termination of former news associate Emily Wilder, whom the AP said committed multiple violations of the company's social media policy. Wilder was the target of a right-wing online harassment campaign for her activism while at Stanford University. The AP has said that Wilder's previous activism played no role in her termination.


title: Associated Press

text: On 10 January 2022, AP announced it would start selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of their photographs in partnership with a company named Xooa , with the proceeds being used to fund their operations. One of the NFTs they promoted on Twitter on 24 February was an aerial shot depicting an overcrowded migrant boat in the Mediterranean Sea. The tweet received negative backlash from users and other journalists, with AP being accusing of profiting off of human suffering and the picture choice being "dystopian" and "in extremely poor taste". The tweet was subsequently deleted and the NFT, which was to be sold the next day, was pulled from market. Global director of media relations Lauren Easton apologized, saying "This was a poor choice of imagery for an NFT. It has not and will not be put up for auction [...] AP's NFT marketplace is a very early pilot program, and we are immediately reviewing our efforts".


title: Associated Press

text: The AP has earned 56 Pulitzer Prizes, including 34 for photography, since the award was established in 1917. In May 2020, Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan, and Channi Anand of the AP were honored with the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. The choice caused controversy, because it was taken by some as questioning "India's legitimacy over Kashmir" as it had used the word "independence" in regard to revocation of Article 370.


title: Vice President of India

text: The vice president of India (IAST: ) is the deputy to the head of state of the Republic of India, i.e. the president of India. The office of vice president is the second-highest constitutional office after the president and ranks second in the order of precedence and first in the line of succession to the presidency. The vice president is also a member of the Parliament of India as the "ex officio" chairman of the Rajya Sabha.


title: Vice President of India

text: Jagdeep Dhankhar of the Bharatiya Janata Party is the current vice president. He became vice president after defeating Indian National Congress candidate Margaret Alva in the 2022 Indian vice presidential election.


title: Vice President of India

text: Unlike in the case of the president, where a person must be qualified for election as a member of the Lok Sabha, the vice president must be qualified for election as a member of the Rajya Sabha. This difference is because the vice president is to act as the "ex officio" chairman of the Rajya Sabha. At a time the vice president acts in either of two capacities (i.e. chairman of the Rajya Sabha or president of India); he cannot act in both offices simultaneously.


title: Vice President of India

text: The vice president is elected indirectly, by an electoral college consisting of members (elected as well as nominated) of both Houses of Parliament, by the system of proportional representation using single transferable votes and the voting is by secret ballot. The election of the vice president is slightly different from the election of the president as the members of state legislatures are not part of the electoral college but the nominated members of Rajya Sabha are part of it.


title: Vice President of India

text: The nomination of a candidate for election to the office of the vice president must be subscribed by at least 20 electors as proposers and 20 electors as seconders. Every candidate has to make a security deposit of in the Reserve Bank of India.


title: Vice President of India

text: The Election Commission of India, which is a constitutional autonomous body, conducts the election. The election is to be held no later than 60 days of the expiry of the term of office of the outgoing vice president. A returning officer is appointed for the election, usually the secretary-general of either House of Parliament, by rotation. The returning officer issues a public notice of the intended election, inviting nomination of candidates. Any person qualified to be elected and intending to stand for election is required to be nominated by at least twenty members of Parliament as proposers, and at least twenty other members of Parliament as seconders. The nomination papers are scrutinized by the returning officer, and the names of all eligible candidates are added to the ballot.


title: Vice President of India

text: The election is held via proportional representation using single transferable votes by secret ballot. Voters stack-rank the candidates, assigning 1 to their first preference, 2 to their second preference, and so on. The number of votes required by a candidate to secure the election is calculated by dividing the total number of valid cast votes by two and adding one to the quotient by disregarding any remainder. If no candidate obtains the required number of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated and his or her second-preference votes are transferred. The process is repeated until a candidate obtains the requisite number of votes. Nominated members can also participate in the election.


title: Vice President of India

text: After the election has been held and the votes counted, the returning officer declares the result of the election to the electoral college. Thereafter, the returning officer reports the result to the Government of India (Ministry of Law and Justice) and the Election Commission of India, and the government publishes the name of the person elected as vice president, in the Official Gazette.


title: Vice President of India

text: The vice president may resign office by submitting a letter of resignation to the president. The resignation becomes effective from the day it is accepted.


title: Vice President of India

text: All disputes arising in connection with the election of the vice president are petitioned to the Supreme Court of India, which inquires into the matter. The petition is heard by a five-member bench of the Supreme Court, which decides on the matter. The decision of the Supreme Court is final.


title: Vice President of India

text: The Supreme Court inquires into and decides upon all "doubts" and "disputes" arising out of or in connection with the election of the vice president per of the constitution. The Supreme Court can remove the vice president for committing electoral malpractices or upon being ineligible to be a Rajya Sabha member under the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Subject to , Parliament has made applicable rules or procedure to petition the Supreme Court for resolving the "disputes" that arise only during the election process of the vice president but not the "doubts" that arise from his unconstitutional actions or deeds or changing citizenship during his tenure which may violate the requisite election qualifications. The Supreme Court shall also expeditiously decide any doubt raised by which the elected vice president could be ineligible to be a Rajya Sabha member for the unconstitutional acts committed before becoming vice president. Under , it is the responsibility of the Supreme Court to inquire and decide about the so-called unconstitutional acts committed by the vice president such as turning down the notice of the Rajya Sabha members to impeach the chief justice of India and other judges of Supreme Court and High Courts per and Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968.


title: Vice President of India

text: of the Constitution of India provides for the oath or affirmation for the office of vice president as follows:-


title: Vice President of India

text: "I, A.B., do swear in the name of God /solemnly affirm that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established and that I will discharge the duty upon which I am about to enter."The president administers the oath of office and secrecy to the vice president.


title: Vice President of India

text: The vice president holds office for five years. The vice president can be re-elected any number of times. However, the office may be terminated earlier by death, resignation, or removal. The Constitution does not provide a mechanism of succession to the office of vice president in the event of an extraordinary vacancy, apart from re-election. However, the deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha can perform the vice president's duties as the chairman of the Rajya Sabha in such an event.


title: Vice President of India

text: However, when the president dies in office and vice president takes over as president, the vice president can continue serving as the president for a maximum of 6 months within which a new president shall be elected.


title: Vice President of India

text: The Constitution states that the vice president can be removed by a resolution of the Rajya Sabha passed by an effective majority (majority of all the then members) and agreed by the Lok Sabha with a simple majority (). But no such resolution may be moved unless at least 14 days notice in advance has been given. Notably, the Constitution does not list grounds for removal. No vice president has ever faced removal or the chairman in the Rajya Sabha cannot be challenged in any court of law per


title: Vice President of India

text: The Supreme Court can also remove the vice president for committing electoral malpractices and not fulfilling the eligibility criteria for Rajya Sabha while in the office per of the constitution. Per , the Supreme Court also must examine the doubts raised in connection with the conduct of a vice president and remove the vice president if found committing contempt of the Constitution.


title: Vice President of India

text: There is no provision for the salary of the vice president of India in that capacity. The vice president receives a salary in the capacity of the "ex officio" chairman of the Rajya Sabha, which is currently per month (revised from 125,000 in 2018). In addition, the vice president is entitled to a daily allowance, free furnished residence, medical, travel, and other facilities. The constitution provides that when the vice president acts as the president or discharges the duties of the president, the vice president is entitled to the salary and privileges of the president. The pension for the vice president is 50% of the salary. In fact, he is the only official who does not get any salary and emoluments of his designated post (i.e. vice president).


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: The Fundamental Rights in India enshrined in the III (Article 12-32) of the Constitution of India guarantee civil liberties such that all Indians can lead their lives in peace and harmony as citizens of India. These rights are known as "fundamental" as they are most essential for all-round development i.e., material,intellectual, moral and spiritual and protected by fundamental law of the land i.e. constitution.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: These include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, such as equality before law, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of association and peaceful assembly, freedom to practice religion, and the right to constitutional remedies for the protection of civil rights by means of writs such as habeas corpus. Violations of these rights result in punishments as prescribed in the Indian Penal Code, subject to discretion of the judiciary. The Fundamental Rights are defined as basic human freedoms which every Indian citizen has the right to enjoy for a proper and harmonious development of personality. These rights universally apply to all citizens, irrespective of race, place of birth, religion, caste or sex. They are enforceable by the courts, subject to certain restrictions. The Rights have their origins in many sources, including England's Bill of Rights, the United States Bill of Rights and France's Declaration of the Rights of Man.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: Rights literally mean those freedoms which are essential for personal good as well as the good of the community. The rights guaranteed under the Constitution of India are fundamental as they have been incorporated into the "Fundamental Law of the Land" and are enforceable in a court of law. However, this does not mean that they are absolute or that they are immune from Constitutional amendment.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: Fundamental rights for Indians have also been aimed at overturning the inequalities of pre-independence social practices. Specifically, they have also been used to abolish untouchability and hence prohibit discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. They also forbid trafficking of human beings and forced labour. They also protect cultural and educational rights of ethnic and religious minorities by allowing them to preserve their languages and also establish and administer their own education institutions. When the Constitution of India came into force it basically gave seven fundamental rights to its citizens. However, Right to Property was removed as a Fundamental Right through 44th Constitutional Amendment in 1978. In 2009, Right to Education Act was added. Every child between the age of 6 to 14 years is entitled to free education.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: In the case of "Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala" (1973), it was held by the Apex Court that Fundamental Rights can be amended by the Parliament, however, such amendment should not contravene the basic structure of the Constitution.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: The first demand for fundamental rights came in the form of the “Constitution of India Bill, in 1895. Also popularly known as the Swaraj Bill 1895, it was written during the emergence of Indian nationalism and increasingly vocal demands by Indians for self-government. It talked about freedom of speech, right to privacy, right to franchise, etc.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: In the following period attempts were made from quarters asking the British government to grants rights for Indians .These demand were made in resolution


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: In 1919, the Rowlatt Act gave extensive powers to the British government and allowed indefinite arrest and detention of individuals, warrantless searches and seizures, restrictions on public gatherings, and intensive censorship of media and publications. The public opposition to this act eventually led to mass campaigns of non-violent civil disobedience throughout the country demanding guaranteed civil freedoms, and limitations on government power. Indians, who were seeking independence and their own government, were particularly influenced by the independence of Ireland and the development of the Irish constitution. Also, the directive principles of state policy in Irish constitution were looked upon by the people of India as an inspiration for independent India's government to comprehensively tackle complex social and economic challenges across a vast, diverse nation and population.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: In 1928, the Nehru Commission composing of representatives of Indian political parties proposed constitutional reforms for India that apart from calling for dominion status for India and elections under universal suffrage, would guarantee rights deemed fundamental, representation for religious and ethnic minorities, and limit the powers of the government. In 1931, the Indian National Congress (the largest Indian political party of the time) adopted resolutions committing itself to the defence of fundamental civil rights, as well as socio-economic rights such as the minimum wage and the abolition of untouchability and serfdom. Committing themselves to socialism in 1936, the Congress leaders took examples from the Constitution of the Soviet Union, which inspired the fundamental duties of citizens as a means of collective patriotic responsibility for national interests and challenges.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: When India obtained independence on 15 August 1947, the task of developing a constitution for the nation was undertaken by the Constituent Assembly of India, composed of elected representatives under the presidency of Rajendra Prasad. While members of Congress constituted a large majority, Congress leaders appointed persons from diverse political backgrounds to positions of responsibility for developing the constitution and national laws. Notably, B. R. Ambedkar became the chairperson of the Drafting Committee, while Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel became chairpersons of committees and sub-committees responsible for different subjects. A notable development during that period having significant effect on the Indian constitution took place on 10 December 1948 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and called upon all member states to adopt these rights in their respective constitutions.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: The fundamental rights were included in the First Draft Constitution (February 1948), the Second Draft Constitution (17 October 1948) and final Third Draft Constitution (26 November 1949), prepared by the Drafting Committee.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: The fundamental rights were included in the constitution because they were considered essential for the development of the personality of every individual and to preserve human dignity. The writers of the constitution regarded democracy of no avail if civil liberties, like freedom of speech and religion, were not recognised and protected by the State. According to them, "democracy" is, in essence, a government by opinion and therefore, the means of formulating public opinion should be secured to the people of a democratic nation. For this purpose, the constitution guaranteed to all the citizens of India the freedom of speech and expression and various other freedoms in the form of the fundamental rights.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: All people, irrespective of race, religion, caste or gender, have been given the right to petition the Supreme Court or the High Courts for the enforcement of their fundamental rights. It is not necessary that the aggrieved party has to be the one to do so. Poverty-stricken people may not have the means to do so and therefore, in the public interest, anyone can commence litigation in the court on their behalf. This is known as "public interest litigation". In some cases, High Court judges have acted suo moto on their own on the basis of newspaper reports.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: These fundamental rights help not only in protection but also the prevention of gross violations of human rights. They emphasise on the fundamental unity of India by guaranteeing to all citizens the access and use of the same facilities, irrespective of background. Some fundamental rights apply for persons of any nationality whereas others are available only to the citizens of India. The right to life and personal liberty is available to all people and so is the right to freedom of religion. On the other hand, freedoms of speech and expression, and freedom to reside and settle in any part of the country are reserved for citizens alone, including non-resident Indian citizens. The right to equality in matters of public employment cannot be conferred to overseas citizens of India.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: Fundamental rights primarily protect individuals from any arbitrary state actions, but some rights are enforceable against individuals. For instance, the Constitution abolishes untouchability and also prohibits "begar". These provisions act as a check both on state action as well as the action of private individuals. However, these rights are not absolute or uncontrolled and are subject to reasonable restrictions as necessary for the protection of general welfare. They can also be selectively curtailed. The Supreme Court has ruled that all provisions of the Constitution, including fundamental rights, can be amended, but that Parliament cannot alter the basic structure of the constitution. Since the fundamental rights can be altered only by a constitutional amendment, their inclusion is a check not only on the executive branch but also on the Parliament and state legislatures.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: A state of national emergency has an adverse effect on these rights. Under such a state, the rights conferred by Article 19 (freedoms of speech, assembly and movement, etc.) remain suspended. Hence, in such a situation, the legislature may make laws that go against the rights given in Article 19. The President may by order suspend the right to move the court for the enforcement of other rights as well.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: The Right to Equality is one of the chief guarantees of the Constitution. It is embodied in Articles 14–18, which collectively encompass the general principles of equality before law and non-discrimination and Articles 17–18 which collectively encompass further the philosophy of social equality.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: "Article 14" guarantees equality before law as well as equal protection of the law to all people within the territory of India. This includes the equal subjection of all persons to the authority of law, as well as equal treatment of persons in similar circumstances. The latter permits the State to classify persons for legitimate purposes, provided there is a reasonable basis for the same, meaning that the classification is required to be non-arbitrary, based on a method of intelligible differentiation among those sought to be classified, as well as have a rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by the classification.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: "Article 15" prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, and also gender or any of them. This right can be enforced against the State as well as private individuals, with regard to free access to places of public entertainment or places of public resort maintained partly or wholly out of State funds. However, the State is not precluded from making special provisions for women and children or any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens, including the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. This exception has been provided since the classes of people mentioned are considered deprived and in need of special protection.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: "Article 16" guarantees equality of opportunity in matters of public employment and prevents the State from discriminating against anyone in matters of employment on the grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, place of residence or income. It creates exceptions for the implementation of measures of affirmative action for the benefit of any backward class of citizens in order to ensure adequate representation in public service, as well as reservation of an office of any religious institution for a person professing that particular religion.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: "Article 17" abolishes the practice of untouchability in any form, making it an offense punishable by law. The Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 was enacted by Parliament to further this objective.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: "Article 18" prohibits the State from conferring any titles other than military or academic distinctions, and the citizens of India cannot accept titles from a foreign state. Thus, Indian aristocratic titles and title of nobility conferred by the British have been abolished. However, military and academic distinctions can be conferred on the citizens of India. The awards of "Bharat Ratna" and "Padma Vibhushan can be used by the recipient as a title and do not, accordingly, come within the constitutional prohibition". The Supreme Court, on 15 December 1995, upheld the validity of such awards.


title: Fundamental rights in India

text: The Right to Freedom is covered in Article 19 to 22, with the view of guaranteeing individual rights that were considered vital by the framers of the Constitution, and these Articles also include certain restrictions that may be imposed by the State on individual liberty under specified conditions. Article 19 guarantees six freedoms in the nature of civil rights, which are available only to citizens of India. These include the freedom of speech and expression, freedom of assembly without arms, freedom of association, freedom of movement throughout the territory of our country, freedom to reside and settle in any part of the country of India and the freedom to practice any profession. All these freedoms are subject to reasonable restrictions that may be imposed on them by the State, listed under Article 19 itself. The grounds for imposing these restrictions vary according to the freedom sought to be restricted and include national security, public order, decency and morality, contempt of court, incitement to offences and defamation. The State is also empowered, in the interests of the general public to nationalize any trade, industry or service to the exclusion of the citizens.