text: From the start of March 2008, rumors that Obama was born in Kenya before being flown to Hawaii were spread on conservative websites, with the suggestion that this would disqualify Obama from the presidency. In April of that year, some supporters of Hillary Clinton circulated anonymous chain emails repeating the same rumor; among them was an Iowa campaign volunteer, who was fired when the story emerged. These and numerous other chain e-mails during the subsequent presidential election circulated false rumors about Obama's origin, religion, and birth certificate.


title: Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories

text: On June 9, 2008, Jim Geraghty of the conservative website "National Review Online" suggested that Obama release his birth certificate. Geraghty wrote that releasing his birth certificate could debunk several false rumors circulating on the Internet, namely: that his middle name was originally Muhammad rather than Hussein; that his mother had originally named him "Barry" rather than "Barack"; and that Barack Obama Sr. was not his biological father, as well as the rumor that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen.


text: In August 2008, Philip J. Berg, a former member of the Democratic State Committee of Pennsylvania, brought an unsuccessful lawsuit against Obama, which alleged "that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya."


text: In October 2008, an NPR article referred to "Kenyan-born" Senator Barack Obama. Also that month, anonymous e-mails circulated claiming that the Associated Press (AP) had reported Obama was "Kenyan-born". The claims were based on an AP story that had appeared five years earlier in a Kenyan publication, "The Standard". The rumor-checking website Snopes.com found that the headline and lead-in sentence describing Obama as born in Kenya and misspelling his first name had been added by the Kenyan newspaper, and did not appear in the story issued by the AP or in any other contemporary newspaper that picked up the AP story.


text: In 2012, the far-right website Breitbart published a copy of the promotional booklet printed by Acton & Dystel in 1991.


text: On June 12, 2008, Obama's campaign responded to the rumors by posting an image of Obama's birth certificate on the ""Fight the Smears"" website.


text: The image is a scan of a laser-printed document obtained from and certified by the Hawaii Department of Health on June 6, 2007. It is a "Certification of Live Birth", sometimes referred to as a short form birth certificate, and contains less information than the longer "Certificate of Live Birth", which Hawaii no longer issues. Asked about this, Hawaiian Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo explained that Hawaii stopped issuing the longer "Certificate" in 2001 when their birth records were "put into electronic files for consistent reporting", and therefore Hawaii "does not have a short-form or long-form certificate". A "record of live birth", partially handwritten and partially typed, was created and submitted in 1961 when Obama was born, and is "located in a bound volume in a file cabinet on the first floor of the state Department of Health". The document was used to create the state's electronic records, and has been examined by state officials multiple times since the controversy began.


text: In releasing the certificate, the Obama website declared that the rumors "aren't actually about that piece of paperthey're about manipulating people into thinking Barack is not an American citizen." The campaign also provided the Daily Kos blog with a copy of the document. Referring to this release, "National Review" columnist Jim Geraghty, wrote on June 12, 2008:


text: Frequent arguments of those questioning Obama's eligibility related to the fact that he did not originally release a copy of his "original" or "long form" birth certificate, but rather a "short form" version that did not include all of the information given on 1961 Hawaii-issued birth certificates. It was claimed that the use of the term "certification of live birth" on the first document means it is not equivalent to a "birth certificate". These arguments have been debunked numerous times by media investigations, every judicial forum that has addressed the matter, and Hawaiian government officialsamong whom a consensus has been reached that the document released by the Obama campaign is indeed his official birth certificate. The director of the state Department of Human Health confirmed that the state "has Senator Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures". The short form is ""prima facie" evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding."


text: The release of the certificate in 2008 resulted in a fresh round of questions. It was asserted that the certificate had been digitally forged with Adobe Photoshop and lacked a stamped seal of the state, which led them to demand that Obama release his "original" 1961 birth certificate. Jerome Corsi, author of the book "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality", told Fox News that "the campaign has a false, fake birth certificate posted on their website... it's been shown to have watermarks from Photoshop. It's a fake document that's on the Web site right now, and the original birth certificate the campaign refuses to produce." This view was rejected by FactCheck.org, which viewed the Obama campaign's hard copy of the Certification of Live Birth and reported that:


text: Corsi continued to cast doubt on Obama's birth certificate as late as March 2019. In a CNN interview, he stated, "I want to see the original 1961 birth records from Kenya, that'll settle it... the State of Hawaii will not show those records to anyone." Corsi's attorney, Larry Klayman, falsely asserted during the same interview, "the birth certificate uses the word 'African-American' in 1961."


text: The director of Hawaii's Department of Health, Chiyome Fukino, issued a statement confirming that the state held Obama's "original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures". Noting "there have been numerous requests for Senator Barack Hussein Obama's official birth certificate," Fukino explained that the department was prohibited by state law from releasing it to "persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record". She said: "No state official, including Governor Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawaii."


text: According to the website TVNewser, CNN's researchers stated in 2009 that the original birth certificate no longer existed, as Hawaii discarded all paper birth records in 2001, and the certification of live birth was the official copy. Contradicting this report, Janice Okubo, public information officer for the Hawaii DOH, said "We don't destroy vital records." The Health Department's director emphasized the assertion:


text: Joshua Wisch, a spokesman for the Hawaii Attorney General's office, stated in 2011 that the original "long form" birth certificatedescribed by Hawaiian officials as a "record of live birth" kept in the archives of the Hawaii Department of Health is "...a Department of Health record and it can't be released to anybody", including President Obama. Wisch added that state law does not authorize photocopying such records.


text: On April 22, 2011, Obama asked Loretta Fuddy, director of the Hawaii Department of Health, for certified copies of his original Certificate of Live Birth ("long-form birth certificate"). Accompanying the letter was a written request from Judith Corley, Obama's personal counsel, requesting a waiver of the department's policy of issuing only computer-generated certificates. Corley stated that granting the waiver would relieve the department of the burden of repeated inquiries into the President's birth records.


text: On April 25, 2011, Fuddy approved the request and witnessed the copying process as the health department's registrar issued the certified copies. The same day, Corley personally visited the department headquarters in Honolulu to pay the required fee on Obama's behalf, and received the two requested certified copies of the original birth certificate, an accompanying letter from Fuddy attesting to the authenticity of same, and a receipt for the processing fee. Fuddy said that she had granted the exception to its normal policy of issuing only computer-generated copies by virtue of Obama's status, in an effort to avoid ongoing requests for the birth certificate.


text: On April 27, 2011, White House staffers gave reporters a copy of the certificate, and posted a PDF image of the certificate on the White House website. The certificate reconfirmed the information on the official short-form certificate released in 2008, and provided additional details such as the name of the hospital at which Obama was born.


text: A claim put forth by the "Drudge Report" that the newly released document was a forgery made with image editing software quickly spread on the Internet. Nathan Goulding, chief technology officer of the "National Review" magazine, dismissed the matter of "layered components" found in the White House PDF by suggesting "that whoever scanned the birth certificate in Hawaii forgot to turn off the OCR setting on the scanner." Nathan added, "I've confirmed that scanning an image, converting it to a PDF, optimizing that PDF, and then opening it up in Illustrator, does in fact create layers similar to what is seen in the birth certificate PDF. You can try it yourself at home."


text: Goldie Taylor, a commentator for the African American news site "The Grio", characterized the demand that Obama provide his birth certificate as an equivalent of making him "show his papers", as blacks were once required to do under Jim Crow laws. Sociologist Matthew W. Hughey has cited many of the claims as evidence of racial "othering" of Obama against the conflation of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) subject as the ideal and authentic American citizen.


text: Some opponents of Obama's presidential eligibility claim that he was born in Kenya and was therefore not born a United States citizen. Whether Obama having been born outside the U.S. would have invalidated his U.S. citizenship at birth is debated. Political commentator Andrew Malcolm, of the "Los Angeles Times", wrote that Obama would still be eligible for the presidency, regardless of where he was born, because his mother was an American citizen, saying that Obama's mother "could have been on Mars when wee Barry emerged and he'd still be American." A contrary view is promoted by UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh, who has said that in the hypothetical scenario that Obama was born outside the U.S., he would be a natural-born citizen, since the then-applicable law would have required Obama's mother to have been in the U.S. at least "five years after the age of 14", but Ann Dunham was three months shy of her 19th birthday when Obama was born.


text: An incorrect but popularly reported claim is that his father's stepmother, Sarah Obama, told Anabaptist Bishop Ron McRae in a recorded transatlantic telephone conversation that she was present when Obama was born in Kenya.


text: The McClatchy newspapers gave an explanation of how the story about Obama's step-grandmother began. The tape is cut off in the middle of the conversation, before the passage in which she clarifies her meaning: "'Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America,' the translator says after talking to the woman... Another response later says, 'Obama in Hawaii. Hawaii. She says he was born in Hawaii.'"


text: Sarah Obama shed more light on the controversy in a 2007 interview with the "Chicago Tribune". In the interview, Obama's paternal step-grandmother stated that six months after Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham were married, she received a letter at her home in Kenya announcing the birth of Barack Obama II, who was born August 4, 1961.


text: In a June 2012 interview at her Kenyan home, Sarah Obama was asked: "Some people want to believe that the president was born in Kenya. Have these people ever bothered you or asked for his birth certificate?" Her response was: "But Barack Obama wasn't born in Kenya."


text: On August 2, 2009, Orly Taitz released and attached to court documents a purported Kenyan birth certificate which she said, if authenticated and shown to be genuine, would significantly narrow and shorten the discovery and pre-trial litigation period in the "Keyes v. Bowen" lawsuit, in which the plaintiffs asked for a judicial order that Obama provide documentation that he is a natural-born citizen of the United States. Legal papers submitted describe the document as an "unauthenticated color photocopy of certified copy of registration of birth".


text: The document was almost immediately revealed to be a forgery. It purports to have been issued by the "Republic of Kenya", when in fact, such a state did not yet exist at the time of Obama's birth as indicated on the document (Kenya was a British Colony until 1963).


text: Subsequently, evidence was unearthed that the alleged Kenyan birth certificate was a modified version of a 1959 Australian birth certificate found on an online genealogy website. The "Washington Independent" website cited an anonymous blogger as having taken responsibility for the forgery and posting four photos substantiating his claim.


text: Despite the existence of Obama's Hawaii certification of live birth, Terry Lakin's attorney, among others, have claimed that anyone, including foreign-born children, could acquire a Hawaiian certification of live birth, and so Obama's possession of such a certificate does not prove that he was born in Hawaii. However, the suggestion that this could have applied to Obama was rejected by Janice Okubo, director of communications for the Hawaii Department of Health: "If you were born in Bali, for example, you could get a certificate from the state of Hawaii saying you were born in Bali. You could not get a certificate saying you were born in Honolulu. The state has to verify a fact like that for it to appear on the certificate." Another fact that refutes this specific claim is that the law allowing foreign-born children to obtain Hawaiian birth certificates did not exist until 20 years after Obama was born, while Obama's published birth certificate says his birth information was recorded four days after his birth in 1961, and explicitly states that he was born in Honolulu.


text: Additionally, some people claim that the information in the birth certificate only has to be based on the testimony of one parent.


text: On July 27, 2009, Fukino issued a statement explicitly stating she has "seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen".


text: Hawaiian Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo elaborated on state policy for the release of vital records: "If someone from Obama's campaign gave us permission in person and presented some kind of verification that he or she was Obama's designee, we could release the vital record."


text: A hospital spokesperson at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children has said that their standard procedure is to neither confirm nor deny Obama was born there, "even though all the information out there says he was born at Kapiolani Hospital", citing federal privacy laws.


text: In 1961, birth notices for Barack Obama were published in both the "Honolulu Advertiser" and the "Honolulu Star-Bulletin" on August 13 and 14, 1961, respectively, listing the home address of Obama's parents as 6085 Kalanianaole Highway in Honolulu. On November 9, 2008, in response to the persistent rumors, the "Advertiser" posted on its web site a screenshot of the announcement taken from its microfilmed archives. Such notices were sent to newspapers routinely by the Hawaii Department of Health.


text: In an editorial published on July 29, 2009, the "Star-Bulletin" pointed out that both newspapers' vital-statistics columns are available on microfilm in the main state library. "Were the state Department of Health and Obama's parents really in cahoots to give false information to the newspapers [...]?" the newspaper asked.


text: It has been suggested that Obama obtained Indonesian citizenship (and thus may have lost U.S. citizenship) when he lived there as a child. As an attempt to prove that Obama was no longer a U.S. citizen (or held dual citizenship), some claim his 1981 trip to Pakistan took place at a time when there was supposedly a ban on United States passport holders entering that country, which would in turn have required him to use a non-U.S. passport. There was in fact no such ban. A "The New York Times" article and U.S. State Department travel advisories from 1981 make it clear that travel to Pakistan by U.S. passport holders was legal at that time.


text: An April Fools' Day hoax email circulated on the Internet starting in 2009. It falsely claimed that Obama applied to Occidental College under the name "Barry Soetoro" claiming to be "a foreign student from Indonesia" in order to obtain a Fulbright scholarship (which does not exist for undergraduate students from Indonesia).


text: Another theory of Obama's ineligibility is that, regardless of his place of birth, he does not meet the constitutional definition of a natural-born citizen.


text: The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States..." According to law professor Gabriel J. Chin, "there is agreement that 'natural born citizens' include those made citizens by birth under the 14th Amendment."


text: Despite this agreement, two similar but distinct theories nonetheless contend Obama, although born in Hawaii, does not qualify as a "natural-born citizen".


text: Some campaigners, such as the Tennessee-based Liberty Legal Foundation, contend that in order for a person to be a natural-born citizen within the meaning of Article II, Section 1, it is necessary that both parents be U.S. citizens at the time of that person's birth. Those who subscribe to this theory argue that since Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen, Obama could not have been a natural-born citizen, and is therefore ineligible to be President of the United States. The Liberty Legal Foundation has cited a passage in the decision on an 1875 voting rights case which came before the U.S. Supreme Court"Minor v. Happersett"in which the court stated there was no doubt that "all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens" were natural-born citizens. This legal theory on Obama's eligibility was unsuccessfully litigated several times, most notably in "Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana" (2008).


text: Others, including New Jersey attorney Leo Donofrio, have falsely claimed that a person cannot be a natural-born citizen if he is a dual citizen at birth. Those who subscribe to this theory argue that because Obama's father was a Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time Obama was born, Obama was born a dual citizen and therefore was not a natural-born citizen.


text: In August 2008, the "Rocky Mountain News" ran an online article asserting that Obama is both a U.S. and a Kenyan citizen. Obama actually was born a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC) under British law, by virtue of his descent from a Kenyan father at a time when Kenya was a British colony, but lost CUKC citizenship and became a Kenyan citizen when Kenya gained independence in 1963. However, Kenya's 1963 constitution prohibited dual citizenship in adulthood; Obama therefore automatically lost his Kenyan citizenship on his 23rd birthday in 1984, by failing to formally renounce any non-Kenyan citizenship and swear an oath of allegiance to Kenya. The "Rocky Mountain News" apologized for the error and published a correction, but the article continued to fuel online rumors about Obama's eligibility for the presidency. The current Kenyan constitution, effective since 2010, permits dual citizenship, but requires those who lost Kenyan citizenship prior to 2010 to complete a registration process to regain it.


text: Notable advocates of the view that Obama may not be eligible for the Presidency include Philip J. Berg, a Pennsylvania attorney and 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Berg describes himself as a "moderate to liberal" Democrat who backed Hillary Clinton for president. Another notable advocate is Alan Keyes, who was defeated by Obama in the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate election, served as a diplomat in the Reagan administration, and is currently a media personality and self-described "conservative political activist".


text: Orly Taitz, a California dentist and attorney who emigrated from the Soviet Union to Israel, then to the United States, and holds dual U.S. and Israeli citizenship, has been called the "queen bee of the birthers", because she is often seen as the face of the movement.


text: Other notable advocates include Andy Martin, a perennial candidate who was "widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign" that Obama is a secret Muslim, and Robert L. Schulz, a tax protester and activist who placed full-page advertisements in the "Chicago Tribune" in December 2008 arguing that Obama had been born in Kenya or had subsequently renounced U.S. citizenship. Larry Klayman, founder of both Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, expressed doubts about Obama's natural-born citizenship. The Constitution Party, a paleoconservative third party, also campaigned for release of Obama's original long-form certificate. In December 2008, Alex Koppelman, a senior writer for "Salon", characterized nearly all of the prominent people promoting the story Obama was not eligible to be presidentincluding Jerome Corsi, Philip Berg, Andy Martin, and Robert Schultzas having a "history of conspiracist thought".


text: The website AmericaMustKnow.com encouraged visitors to lobby members of the Electoral College to vote against Obama's confirmation as President and become faithless electors. Electors around the country received numerous letters and e-mails contending that Obama's birth certificate is a forgery and that he was born in Kenya, and requesting that Obama be denied the presidency. Some of the online campaigners coordinated their efforts with weekly conference calls, in which they discussed the latest news and how to advance the story.


text: The campaign was supported by the conservative "WorldNetDaily" ("WND") website, which sponsored a letter-writing campaign to the Supreme Court. "WND"s publisher Joseph Farah has written a number of editorials arguing that Obama's eligibility needs to be confirmed. "WND" has mounted an advertising campaign, using electronic billboards to ask "Where's The Birth Certificate?"


text: The talk radio hosts Michael Savage, G. Gordon Liddy, Brian Sussman, Lars Larson, Bob Grant, Jim Quinn, Rose Tennent, Barbara Simpson, Mark Davis, and Fred Grandy have all promoted the ineligibility claims on their radio shows. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs have also broached the issue several times on their shows. Savage, during an episode of his nationally syndicated radio show "The Savage Nation", said that "We're getting ready for the Communist takeover of America with a noncitizen at the helm."


text: Some celebrities have promoted or touched upon the ineligibility claims. In August 2009, actor Chuck Norris, while not embracing the eligibility claims, wrote an open letter to Obama urging that he officially release his "original birth certificate", saying, "Refusing to post your original birth certificate is an unwise political and leadership decision that is enabling the 'birther' controversy." In December 2010, Baltimore Orioles baseball player Luke Scott asserted in a Yahoo! interview that Obama "was not born here" and that his birth certificate was never released. "The Huffington Post" reported that, in April 2011 during his stage show, Charlie Sheen said, "For starters, I was fucking born here, how about that? And I got proof! Nothing photoshopped about my birth certificate."


text: According to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, "the birther movement has gained a large following on the radical right... it has been adopted by the most noxious elements out there." Some of those "noxious elements" include a number of avowed white-supremacist and neo-Nazi groups. James Wenneker von Brunn, an avowed white supremacist charged as the gunman in the June 10, 2009, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting, had previously posted messages to the Internet accusing Obama and the media of hiding documents about his life.


text: In March 2017, after Obama was no longer the president, Malik Obama, his paternal half brother, posted on Twitter an image of a fake Kenyan birth certificate, which had been "debunked" in 2009 when it was first presented as part of one of the failed lawsuits that challenged Obama's ineligibility.


text: Donald Trump was a prominent promoter of birther conspiracy theories. This elevated Trump's political profile in the years leading up to his successful 2016 presidential campaign. According to political scientists John M. Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck, Trump "became a virtual spokesperson for the 'birther' movement. When Trump suggested running for president in 2011, his popularity was concentrated among the sizable share of Republicans who thought that President Obama was foreign born or a Muslim or both."


text: In 2010, at the urging of Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, the "National Enquirer" began promoting a potential Trump presidential campaign, and with Cohen's involvement, the tabloid began questioning Obama's birthplace and citizenship.


text: In March 2011, during an interview on "Good Morning America", Donald Trump said he was seriously considering running for president, that he was a "little" skeptical of Obama's citizenship, and that someone who shares this view should not be so quickly dismissed as an "idiot" (as Trump considers the term "birther" to be "derogatory"). Trump added, "Growing up no one knew him," a claim ranked Pants-on-Fire by Politifact. Later, Trump appeared on "The View" repeating several times that "I want him [Obama] to show his birth certificate." He speculated that "there [was] something on that birth certificate that [Obama] doesn't like", a comment which host Whoopi Goldberg described as "the biggest pile of dog mess I've heard in ages". On the March 30, 2011, edition of "CNN Newsroom", anchor Suzanne Malveaux commented on Trump's statements, pointing out that she had made a documentary for which she had gone to Hawaii and spoken with people who knew Obama as a child. In an NBC TV interview broadcast on April 7, 2011, Trump said he would not let go of the issue, because he was not satisfied that Obama had proved his citizenship. After Trump began making his views public, he was contacted by Joseph Farah of "WorldNetDaily", who was reportedly on the phone with Trump every day for a week, providing Trump with a "birther primer", answers to questions, and advice. After Obama released his long-form birth certificate on April 27, 2011, Trump said "I am really honored and I am really proud, that I was able to do something that nobody else could do."


text: On October 24, 2012, Trump offered to donate five million dollars to the charity of Obama's choice in return for the publication of his college and passport applications before October 31, 2012.


text: On September 16, 2016, as the Republican Party presidential nominee, Trump conceded that "President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period." Trump gave himself credit for putting the controversy to rest and also repeated a false claim that Hillary Clinton, his opponent in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and one of Obama's opponents in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, had started the controversy concerning Obama's place of birth in order to harm the candidacy of Obama while boosting her own. While those who did so were Clinton supporters, there is no evidence of Clinton or her campaign questioning Obama's birthplace.


text: Volunteer investigators working under the direction of Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio have asserted that Obama's birth certificate is a computer-generated forgery. Rejecting this claim, an assistant to Hawaii's attorney general stated in July 2012 that "President Obama was born in Honolulu, and his birth certificate is valid... Regarding the latest allegations from a sheriff in Arizona, they are untrue, misinformed and misconstrue Hawaii law." Arizona state officials, including Governor Jan Brewer and Secretary of State Ken Bennett, have also dismissed Arpaio's objections and accepted the validity of Obama's birth certificate. Alex Pareene, a staff writer for "Salon", wrote regarding a May 2012 trip to Hawaii by Arpaio's people that "I think we have long since passed the point at which I'd find this story believable in a fictional setting." In December 2016, Arpaio presented "9 points of forgery" that he said proved that the digital image of Obama's long form birth certificate was not authentic. He said he would submit his evidence to federal authorities.


text: Rep. Matthew Hill, one of a handful of Tennessee General Assembly members widely reported at the time to be birthers, demanded in 2009 that newly-elected president Obama should be compelled to present Hill and other Tennessee state legislators with a certified copy of his Hawaiian birth certificate.


text: Hill interviewed birther conspiracy advocate Orly Taitz at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville for a February 10, 2009, segment podcasted online by the IRN/USA Radio Network. During "The Matthew Hill Show" he stated:


text: We've said on this program many times... we've had people call in and say why are you picking on him? And I've said, "Look it's really simple. If he is a U.S. citizen you produce the papers. If he's not a U.S. citizen, what does he do? He hides them. He's hiding them. We need the truth. We need the documents unsealed. We need to know what's going on.


text: U.S. Senate candidate and former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Roy Moore first questioned Obama's citizenship in 2008, and said in 2016 that he didn't believe Obama had natural-born citizenship.


text: In February 2009, the "Cullman Times", an Alabama newspaper, reported that at a town hall meeting there, U.S. Senator from Alabama Richard Shelby was asked if there was any truth to the rumors that Obama was not a natural-born citizen. According to the "Times" report, Shelby said, "Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven't seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president."


text: On July 28, 2009, Mike Stark approached Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt asking him about the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen. Blunt responded: "What I don't know is why the President can't produce a birth certificate. I don't know anybody else that can't produce one. And I think that's a legitimate question. No health records, no birth certificate." Blunt's spokesperson later claimed that the quote was taken out of context.


text: After giving a speech at the Voice of America Freedom Rally in West Chester, Ohio on September 5, 2009, Republican congresswoman Jean Schmidt replied to a woman who commented that Obama was ineligible for the Presidency, "I agree with you. But the courts don't." Schmidt's office subsequently responded that a video clip of this comment was "taken out of context", and reiterated that her stated position is that Obama is a citizen.


text: She had earlier voted to certify the Electoral College vote affirming his presidency, and had said she believes Obama is a U.S. citizen.


text: In November 2009, then-Representative Nathan Deal replied to a question about whether he believed that Obama "is a native-born American citizen who is eligible to serve as president" with a statement that "I am joining several of my colleagues in the House in writing a letter to the President asking that he release a copy of his birth certificate so we can have an answer to this question." Contrasting the differing fates of Deal, who won the 2010 gubernatorial election in Georgia, and former Democratic Representative Cynthia McKinney, who lost her primary after endorsing 9/11 conspiracy theories, David Weigel of "Slate" noted: "Dipping a toe into the birtherism fever swamp didn't stop Deal from winning a statewide primary."


text: During a December 3, 2009 interview on Rusty Humphries' radio talk show, Humphries asked Sarah Palin if she would make Obama's birth certificate a campaign issue in 2012, should she decide to run. Palin responded, "I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don't have a problem with that. I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers... I think it's a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting recordsall of that is fair game. The McCain-Palin campaign didn't do a good enough job in that area."


text: After news organizations and blogs picked up the quotation, Palin stated on her Facebook page that voters have the right to ask questions, and that she had herself never asked Obama to produce a birth certificate. She likened the questioning of Obama's birth certificate to questions raised during the 2008 presidential elections about her maternity to her son, Trig. This analogy was criticized by Mark Milian of the "Los Angeles Times", who said: "It's not like Barack Obama hosted a radio show and called her a baby faker."


text: Tracey Mann, a candidate running for Congress from Kansas in 2010, stated at a candidate forum that Obama should release his birth certificate to resolve the issue. In a radio interview, he said: "I think the president of the United States needs to come forth with his papers and show everyone that he's an American citizen and put this issue to bed once and for all." In response, on July 21, 2010, "The Hutchinson News", a local paper in Hutchinson, Kansas, withdrew their endorsement of Mann, saying that Mann "questions the citizenship of President Barack Obama despite evidence that is irrefutable to most objective, rational peopleincluding a birth certificate released by the Hawaii secretary of state and birth announcements printed in Honolulu's two major newspapers". Mann responded that he was "disappointed and mystified" by the decision and that they had misunderstood his position, as he was "not interested in pursuing this issue in Congress" and had "never had any interest in spending any time on the matter". Mann was defeated in the Republican primary by state senator Tim Huelskamp.


text: At a townhall meeting in Metairie, Louisiana on July 11, 2010, Senator David Vitter said: "I personally don't have standing to bring litigation in court, but I support conservative legal organizations and others who would bring that to court. I think that is the valid and most possibly effective grounds to do it." His campaign provided no additional comments.


text: On September 11, 2010, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich stated that Obama could only be understood by people who "understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior". While Gingrich did not define this behavior, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs accused Gingrich of "trying to appeal to the fringe of people who don't believe the president was born in this country... You would normally expect better of somebody who held the position of Speaker of the House, but look, it is political season, and most people will say anything, and Newt Gingrich does that on a, genuinely, on a regular basis."


text: In December 2010, Andy Martin (plaintiff in "Martin v. Lingle" and self-described "King of the Birthers") announced his candidacy to seek the 2012 Republican nomination for the President of the United States. In February 2011, Martin's planned appearance at a Republican meeting in Deering, New Hampshire, was cancelled after his anti-Semitic past was discovered.


text: On February 28, 2011, on Steve Malzberg's radio program Mike Huckabee, a 2008 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, falsely claimed that Obama had been raised in Kenya and that "[Obama] probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather." Huckabee, speaking on "The O'Reilly Factor", said that he misspoke and intended to say Indonesia, characterizing his comment as a "verbal gaffe".


text: In March 2011, Representative Michele Bachmann told conservative radio host Jeff Katz: "I'll tell you one thing, if I was ever to run for president of the United States, I think the first thing I would do in the first debate is offer my birth certificate, so we can get that off the table." Previously on "Good Morning America", when asked about Obama's origins, she replied, "Well, that isn't for me to state. That's for the president to state."


text: On May 12, 2012, Mike Coffman, a congressman running for re-election in the Sixth Congressional District of Colorado, addressed a Republican fundraising event in Elbert County. Coffman stated that he did not know where Obama was born, and that Obama was "in his heart... just not an American." Coffman issued an apology on May 16, saying that he had misspoken and that he had confidence in Obama's citizenship and legitimacy as president. In a May 23 "Denver Post" op-ed piece, Coffman described his comment as "inappropriate and boneheaded".


text: In December 2012, three of the eleven electors from Arizona who cast their votes for Mitt Romney raised doubts about Obama's birthplace. One was the chair of the Republican Party of Arizona, Tom Morrissey. Morrissey later insisted that he was not a birther, but said he was not convinced the birth certificate produced by Obama was real.


text: Although claims about Obama's citizenship were evaluated in 2008 by the McCain campaign and ultimately rejected, they became a significant issue among sections of the political right. Activists unsuccessfully lobbied Republican members of Congress to reject the 2008 Electoral College vote and block Obama's election when it came before Congress for certification on January 8, 2009. By mid-2009, the natural born citizen issue was one of the hottest and most lucrative sources of fundraising for organizations on the right that raise funds through direct mail and telemarketing. Online petition sites such as that of Alan Keyes, who has been collecting signatures on the birth certificate issue, are a major source for generating mailing lists of movement conservatives. The web site "WorldNetDaily" published more than 200 articles on the subject by July 2009 and has sold billboards, bumper stickers and postcards asking "Where's the birth certificate?" and similar slogans in an effort which has "already raised tens of thousands of dollars".


text: Moderate conservatives soon found themselves "bombarded with birther stuff". Protesters at the Tea Party protests in 2009 carried signs about the birth certificate issue, some of which were recommended by protest organizers. In an incident that attracted widespread media coverage, moderate Republican Representative Michael Castle was booed and heckled during a July 2009 town hall meeting in Georgetown, Delaware, when he told a woman protesting about Obama's birth certificate: "if you're referring to the president there, he is a citizen of the United States."


text: NBC Nightly News reported that other members of Congress often hear the issue too; an anonymous congressman told the program that he was reluctant to advertise his own town hall meetings for fear of this issue drowning out everything else.


text: A number of Republican legislators have proposed legislation and constitutional amendments at the state and federal levels to address issues raised by the birth certificate campaigners. Some Republicans are said to "want the issue to go away", seeing it as a distraction. Democratic commentators have criticized the reluctance of some Republicans to distance themselves from the proponents of the conspiracy theories, suggesting that "Republican officials are reluctant to denounce the birthers for fear of alienating an energetic part of their party's base." NBC News' "First Read" team commented: "the real story in all of this is that Republican Party has a HUGE problem with its base right now."


text: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele released a statement through his spokesperson saying, "Chairman Steele believes that this is an unnecessary distraction and believes that the president is a U.S. citizen."


text: Political analyst Marc Ambinder of "The Atlantic" and "CBS News" suggests this phenomenon goes to the heart of the dilemma now facing the Republican Party, positing that


text: On July 27, 2009, the House of Representatives passed a resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's statehood. The resolution, containing language recognizing Hawaii as President Obama's birth state, passed by a vote of 378–0.


text: In October 2008, the "Orange County Register"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s OC Political Pulse poll found that a third of responding Republicans believed that Obama had been born outside the United States.


text: As a result of the widespread publicity given to the citizenship controversy, 60% of respondents in an Ohio State University survey carried out in November 2008 had heard of the issue. However, only 10% believed the claims that Obama was not a citizen.


text: A Public Policy Polling survey carried out in August 2009 found that 32% of Republicans in Virginia thought that Obama was born in the U.S., 41% thought he was foreign-born and the remaining 27% were unsure.


text: In Utah, an August 2009 poll carried out for the "Deseret News" and KSL-TV found that 67% of Utahns accepted the evidence that Obama was born in the U.S. The poll found that those who do not believe that Obama was born in the United States, or do not know, are predominantly middle-aged, lower-income Republican-leaning individuals without a college education.


text: A Pew Research Center poll found that 80% of Americans had heard about the Obama citizenship claims by August 2009. The poll found a significant partisan divide in views of the news coverage, with 58% of Democrats saying that the allegations had received too much attention from the media. Republicans were more inclined to say that the allegations had received too little attention, with 39% expressing this view against only 26% saying that the controversy had received too much attention.


text: In a Harris Poll online survey of 2,320 adults conducted in March 2010, 25% of the respondents said they believed that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president". In a July 2010 CNN poll of adult Americans, 16% said they had doubts that Obama was born in the United States, and a further 11% were certain that he was not.


text: The percentage of doubters plummeted after President Obama released the long form certificate in April 2011. A Gallup telephone poll of 1018 adults conducted in May 2011 found that 5% of respondents believed that Obama was "definitely born in another country" and 8% believed he was "probably born in another country", versus 47% believing he was "definitely" and 18% "probably" born in the US. Broken down by political affiliation, the same poll found that 23% of self-identified Republicans, 14% of independents, and 5% of Democrats thought Obama was definitely or probably born in another country.


text: In July 2016, four months before Donald Trump was elected to the presidency, 41 percent of Republicans disagreed that Obama was born in the United States and 31 percent neither agreed nor disagreed, per an NBC poll.


text: A 2015 study found that among individuals who held birther views, they were predominantly conservative/Republican and held anti-Black attitudes. A 2019 study found that "among white Americans, birther beliefs are uniquely associated with racial animus."


text: Because a portion of Republican voters and their Tea Party supporters believed Obama was not eligible to hold public office (see Opinion surveys section), Republicans sometimes found themselves caught in a dilemma between losing support or damaging their credibility. They had "to walk the fine line of humoring conspiracy-minded supporters without explicitly questioning Obama's legitimacy..." Other Republicans, including former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, however, have plainly rejected these claims.


text: An example of these situations was Michael Castle, then Representative for Delaware, who ran in 2010 for the Senate seat vacated by Vice President Joe Biden. At a town hall meeting, Castle was confronted by constituents who jeered him for insisting that Obama is a citizen of the United States. Castle, one of the leading Republican moderates in the House, was later defeated by Tea Party-backed Christine O'Donnell in the Republican primary, who herself later lost the general election to Democratic nominee Chris Coons.


text: Proponents of claims doubting Obama's eligibility have been dubbed "birthers" by their critics, who have drawn a parallel with 9/11 conspiracy theorists or "truthers". Leslie Savan of "The Nation" has compared the so-called "birthers" to other groups as well, including those who deny the moon landing, the Holocaust or global warming; "Teabaggers who refuse to believe they must pay taxes" and creationists who believe the earth is 6,000 years old. MSNBC political commentator Rachel Maddow has defined a "birther" as:


text: A number of conservative commentators have criticized its proponents and their effect on the wider conservative movement. Talk show host Michael Medved has also been critical, calling them "the worst enemy of the conservative movement" for making other conservatives "look sick, troubled and not suitable for civilized company". Conservative columnist Ann Coulter has referred to them as "just a few cranks".


text: An editorial in the "Honolulu Star-Bulletin" dismissed the claims about Obama's eligibility as proposing "a vast conspiracy involving Obama's parents, state officials, the news media, the Secret Service, think-tanks and a host of yet-to-be-uncovered others who have connived since Obama's birth to build a false record so that he could eventually seek the presidency 47 years later." The "St. Petersburg Times'" fact-checking website, PolitiFact.com, concluded its series of articles on the birth certificate issue by saying:


text: In November 2008, commentator and social critic Camille Paglia criticized the "blathering, fanatical overkill" of the topic, but also questioned Obama's response: "Obama could have ended the entire matter months ago by publicly requesting Hawaii to issue a fresh, long-form, stamped certificate and inviting a few high-profile reporters in to examine the document and photograph it," she said. A parenthetical in the same article noted that "the campaign did make the 'short-form' certificate available to Factcheck.org."


text: Factcheck.org noted, "The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department."


text: Writing in December 2008, Alex Koppelman discussed the validity of the common argumentthat Obama should release a copy of his full, original certificate and the rumors and doubts would disappear. Conspiracy theory experts told Koppelman that when committed conspiracists are presented with more data debunking their theory, they refuse to accept the new evidence. "Whatever can't be ignored can be twisted to fit into the narrative; every new disclosure of something that should, by rights, end the controversy only opens up new questions, identifies new plotters," he wrote. Because Obama's release of the short-form had only "stoked the fever of conspiracy mongers", Koppelman predicted that releasing the long-form certificate "would almost certainly" continue the rumor cycle.


text: In response to the notion that Obama's grandparents might have planted a birth announcement in newspapers just so their grandson could some day be president, FactCheck suggested that "those who choose to go down that path should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat." Brooks Jackson, the director of FactCheck, comments that "it all reflects a surge of paranoid distress among people who don't like Barack Obama" and who want the election results to go away. Chip Berlet, a journalist who has studied the spread of conspiracy theories, notes:


text: For some people, when their side loses an election, the only explanation that makes sense to themthat they can cope withis that sinister, bad, evil people arranged some kind of fraud.


text: American political writer Dana Milbank, writing for "The Washington Post", described the Obama citizenship theories of Bob Schulz (chairman of the We the People Foundation, which in 2008 publicly challenged Obama's citizenship) as "tales from the tinfoil-hat brigade". Colorado presidential elector Camilla Auger, responding to lobbying of members of the Electoral College, commented: "I was concerned that there are that many nutty people in the country making depressing, absurd allegations."


text: Some commentators have asserted that racism is a factor motivating the promotion of Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. J. Richard Cohen, the President of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that monitors hate groups and extremism, wrote an e-mail to supporters in July 2009 declaring: "This conspiracy theory was concocted by an anti-Semite and circulated by racist extremists who cannot accept the fact that a black man has been elected president." An academic psychologist commented that a study published in the "Journal of Experimental Social Psychology" supported a conclusion that racism has played a role. Donald Trump's questioning how Obama gained admission to two Ivy-League institutions, as well as his comment, "I have a great relationship with the blacks", led David Remnick, David Letterman and Bill Maher, among others, to accuse Trump of racism, and an increased attention on race with respect to Obama. In April 2011, Marilyn Davenport, a Tea Party activist and member of the executive committee of the Republican Party's local Orange County, California, organization, created a nationwide controversy when she circulated a photograph by email, widely seen as racist, that had been edited to depict Barack Obama as the child of two chimpanzees, and to which she had added the caption, "Now you know why no birth certificate". Following the release of Obama's long-form certificate later that month, "The New York Times" remarked in an editorial that, "It is inconceivable that this campaign to portray Mr. Obama as the insidious 'other' would have been conducted against a white president."


text: The controversy over Obama's citizenship and eligibility for the presidency prompted a number of Republican state and federal legislators to propose legislation aimed at requiring future presidential candidates to release copies of their birth certificates. Some legislators also lent their support to birth certificate-related litigation against Obama, joining as co-plaintiffs.


text: Although Obama was confirmed as president-elect by Congress on January 8, 2009, and sworn in as President on January 20, litigation continued into his presidency. Numerous individuals and groups filed state or federal lawsuits seeking to have Obama disqualified from standing or being confirmed for the Presidency, or to compel him to release additional documentation relating to his citizenship. By mid-December 2008, at least 17 lawsuits had been filed challenging Obama's eligibility in states including North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Connecticut, New Jersey, Texas and Washington. No such suit resulted in the grant of any relief to the plaintiffs by any court; all of the cases were rejected in lower courts. Three post-election suits were dismissed by the Supreme Court of the United States.


text: In April 2011, the Arizona legislature became the first to pass a bill "requiring President Obama and other presidential candidates to prove their U.S. citizenship before their names can appear on the state's ballot". The bill, HB 2177, was vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer on April 18.


text: Obama is not the first President to be the subject of controversy surrounding the location of his birth. Andrew Jackson was the subject of similar claims, although it is not certain that they were raised during his presidency. Some said that Chester A. Arthur was born outside the United States, with his birth records later allegedly falsified to show he was born in Vermont.


text: In May 2012, the Arizona Secretary of State, Ken Bennett, asked Hawaii to verify Obama's Hawaiian birth to ensure his eligibility to appear on the November ballot. After Bennett proved that he needed the information as part of the regular course of official business, Hawaii officially confirmed that the information in the copy of the Certificate of Live Birth for the President matches the original record in their files. Later the same month, the Mississippi state Democratic Party requested Hawaii to verify that the long-form image on the White House website matched the copy on file and they were provided with a certified verification, bearing the state seal and signed by state registrar Alvin T. Onaka, who had certified both released birth certificates.


text: In September 2012, the State Objections Board of Kansas, composed of "three of the state's top elected Republicans", delayed acting on a petition to remove Barack Obama's name from the ballot, requesting information from Hawaii regarding his birth certificate; but later voted unanimously to accept Obama's citizenship and retain him on the state's ballot, despite objections from the floor by Orly Taitz.


text: A common claim among those arguing that President Obama was not born in Hawaii is that all doubt would be settled if Obama released his "long form" birth certificate. However, commentators noted that doing so would be disadvantageous to Obama. First, it would encourage speculation as to why it took so long to release the document. Second, caving in to his political adversaries' demands would embolden them by giving them a victory. Finally, it would open the door to demands for other personal records unrelated to his birth certificate. Despite these concerns, both Obama and his press secretary have responded to reporters' questions about the issue.


text: At the end of the May 27, 2009, press briefing, "WorldNetDaily" reporter Lester Kinsolving asked about Obama's birth certificate. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs replied "It's on the Internet," to which Kinsolving responded "No, no, nothe long form listing his hospital and physician." Gibbs responded as follows:


text: At a July 27, 2009, press briefing, radio talk show host Bill Press asked Gibbs if there was anything he could say to make the issue go away. Gibbs answered, "No. I mean, the God's honest truth is no," because "nothing will assuage" those who continue to pursue what he called "made-up, fictional nonsense" despite the evidence that Obama had already provided.


text: On August 6, 2009, Gibbs commented, "You couldn't sell this script in Hollywood," and summarized the contentions that he considered "totally crazy":


text: At the February 2010 National Prayer Breakfast, Obama commented, "Surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith. Or for that matter my citizenship." He directly addressed the issue in August 2010, in an interview with Brian Williams. Williams asked Obama about the fact that a fifth of the American people do not believe that he is either American born or a Christian. Obama responded that "there is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly." He then added, "I can't spend all my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead."


text: In an April 2011 interview with George Stephanopoulos, Obama said, "I think that over the last two and a half years there's been an effort to go at me in a way that is politically expedient in the short-term for Republicans, but creates, I think a problem for them when they want to actually run in a general election where most people feel pretty confident the President was born where he says he was, in Hawaii. He doesn't have horns. We may disagree with him on some issues and we may wish that you know, the unemployment rate was coming down faster and we want him to know his plan on gas prices. But we're not really worrying about conspiracy theories or... birth certificates. And so... I think it presents a problem for them."


text: On April 27, 2011, referring to "sideshows and carnival barkers", Obama appeared in the White House press room an hour after the release of the long form and said, "I know there is going to be a segment of people for which no matter what we put out this issue will not be put to rest. But I am speaking to the vast majority of the American people, as well as to the press. We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We've got better stuff to do."


text: On several occasions, Obama joked about the conspiracy theories surrounding his birth certificate and citizenship. At the 2010 White House Correspondents' Dinner, Obama said there are few things in life harder to find and more important to keep than love, and then added, "Well, love and a birth certificate."


text: At the 2011 Gridiron Dinner, Obama referred to Bruce Springsteen's song, "Born in the U.S.A.", and commented, "Some things just bear repeating."


text: On March 17, 2011 (Saint Patrick's Day), Obama said, "Now, speaking of ancestry, there has been some controversy about my own background. Two years into my presidency, some are still bent on peddling rumors about my origins. So today, I want to put all those rumors to rest. It is true my great-great-great-grandfather really was from Ireland. It's true. Moneygall, to be precise. I can't believe I have to keep pointing this out."


text: At the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner, following the release of his long-form Hawaiian birth certificate, Obama declared that he would "go a step further" and release his "official birth video"—actually a clip from the opening of "The Lion King" (1994) where Simba is born in the African savanna—after which he defeatedly remarked, "Oh well. Back to square one." He then clarified "to the Fox News table" that he was indeed joking, and that they could contact Disney for the "original long-form version". Later in 2011, Obama's re-election campaign offered for sale mugs with a picture of Obama (captioned "Made in the USA") and the image of the birth certificate. The campaign states, "There's really no way to make the conspiracy about President Obama's birth certificate completely go away, so we might as well laugh at itand make sure as many people as possible are in on the joke."


text: On January 17, 2012, during a televised tribute to actress Betty White on her 90th birthday, Obama taped a segment in which he wrote White a letter saying that, given her appearance and vitality, he not only could not believe she was 90, he "did not" believe her, and requested to see her birth certificate.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: The Purple Line is a part of the Namma Metro metro rail system for the city of Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. As of 2021, the line is 25.7 km and spans 23 stations from Kengeri in the southwest to Baiyappanahalli to the east. The Purple Line is mostly elevated, with 17 elevated stations, 5 underground stations and 1 at-grade station. The Line passes through many prime activity centers of the city including MG Road, Vidhana Soudha and Majestic station, which is an interchange station between Purple and Green Lines. Phase I of the Purple Line was the first underground metro section in South India.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: When Phase II is completed, the Purple Line will have 37 stations between Whitefield in the east and Challaghatta in the southwest, and the length of the line will increase to 42.53 km.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: Civil construction work on Phase I of the line began on 15 April 2007 and was originally scheduled to be completed in 5 years. However, the project faced delays and missed several deadlines. Difficult tunnel boring conditions through a mixed geology with hard rock caused major delays. The first stretch of Purple Line (Reach 1, fully elevated) between Baiyyappanahalli and Mahatma Gandhi Road was inaugurated on 20 October 2011. Reach 2 (fully elevated) between Mysore Road and Magadi Road commenced operations on 16 November 2015. These two sections operated independently until the final section, the underground stretch between Mahatma Gandhi Road and City Railway station was opened on 30 April 2016, thus linking the previously opened stretches and completing Phase I for the Purple Line.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: Costs for the Purple Line were estimated at 4500–5000 crore. The cost of the underground stretch alone amounted to about 1000 crores. Land acquisition for Phase I of the project cost . BMRCL secured through long-term loans and by selling bonds, while the remaining project cost was funded by Central Government and the State Government. Loans were secured from several agencies - from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), from the Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited (HUDCO), from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the rest from a French lending agency. Approximately 10% of the 6500 crore was to be paid as interest by BMRCL each year. The Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI) had estimated that interest payment alone would be . However BMRCL stated that it was not so high but "definitely more than per day".".


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: The tunnels bored using tunnel boring machines (TBMs) are located approximately 60 feet below ground level, have an outer diameter of 6.5 metres and inner diameter of 5.6 metres, and situated are 5 metres apart. Two Japanese TBMs, "Helen" and "Margarita", were used for tunneling work of the Purple Line. Tunneling work began in May 2011 and completed in May 2014. Underground stations (City railway station, Sir M Visvesvaraya, Vidhana Soudha and Cubbon Park) were built by cut-and-cover method which required 10,000 controlled blasts using 50,000 kg of explosives of 125 gm gel nitrate capsules due to hard granite rock. Blasts were carried out daily from 6 am to 7 am from March 2011 to early 2013 (regulations restricted blasting work from being carried out at other times of the day). Preparation for a single blast took approximately 3.5 hours, with the actual duration of a blast being 5 seconds. Approximately, 20,250 truckloads of debris was excavated during construction. Kolar-based National Institute of Rock Mechanics served as consultant for blasting work. There were no injuries during the entire blasting process. A total of 2500 trees were cut down during the construction of both lines of Phase I.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: Reach 1 was originally scheduled to begin operations in March 2010. After missing several deadlines, it was finally opened to the public on 20 October 2011 at 4 pm IST by Union Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath. There was an overwhelming response to the metro at the commencement of operations. As per BMRCL sources within first three days of operations, people used the mass transit system. At the end of the 4th day, about 200,000 passengers had already commuted on Namma Metro. Namma Metro's first 12-day cumulative revenue was . During the first month, about 1,325,000 people traveled by metro. On average, 41,390 people took the train every day, while the average daily revenue was . BMRC earned a revenue of in its first month of operation. However, average ridership during the first six months of operation was just 24,900 after the initial euphoria. BMRC earned a total of during the same period. Namma Metro posted a profit of after almost one year of operating Reach I. BMRCL estimates that nearly 8 million passengers traveled on the system during its first year of operations.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: Reach 2 received clearance to start services (from Satish Kumar Mittal, Commissioner for Metro Rail Safety - CMRS) on 21 September 2015. Reach 2 was opened to the public on 16 November 2015.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: BMRCL applied for safety clearance to open the underground stretch in the third week of March 2016. The Commissioner for Railway Safety (CRS) granted clearance to begin operations on the underground section in the first week of April 2016. The underground section was inaugurated by Union Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and other dignitaries at a ceremony at the Vidhana Soudha on 29 April 2016. The inaugural train through the underground section departed from Vidhana Soudha station at 6:35 PM. Namma metro was first driven through the underground section by Loco-pilot Pavithran. The section was opened to the public from 6 AM on 30 April 2016. Trains ran until 10 PM on the opening day, making 115 trips and transporting about 93,500 passengers, earning BMRCL a revenue of . The following day, 120 trips were operated on the Purple line, transporting about 125,000 passengers. On the first two days of operation, after opening of the underground section, BMRCL collected over 7 million in revenues from the Purple Line.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: In October 2016, the BMRCL began civil work on the west extension of the Purple Line from Mysore Road to Kengeri (8.81 km), later extended to Challaghatta. Construction work on the Purple Line corridor was awarded in two packages for 660 crore. IL&FS Engineering Construction Company bagged the contract for Reach 2A of 3.94 km (Mysore Road to Pattanagere stretch) that includes four stations at 327 crore. Soma Enterprise won the contract for Reach 2B of 4.86 km (Pattanagere to Kengeri stretch, later extended to Challaghatta), including two stations and a depot at Challaghatta at 332 crore. The land needed for the depot at Challaghatta (which is about 1.5 km away from Kengeri station) was already with BMRCL. Later, the line extension included a new station at Challaghatta, close to the depot.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: BMRCL floated tenders for the construction of the 15.5-km elevated stretch from Baiyyappanahalli to Whitefield railway station in December 2016. The tenders for Reach 1A and Reach 1B were floated by BMRC on 1 and 6 December respectively. Reach 1A is an 8.03 km section from Baiyyappanahalli to Sitharama Palya (previously Visveshvaraya Ind. Area). The section includes six new stations and is estimated to cost 670.72 crore. Reach 1B, the 7.21 km section from Kundalahalli to Whitefield, includes seven new stations and is estimated to cost 666.12 crore. Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited (ITD) was awarded the contracts for both packages, for a sum of , in May 2017.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: Around 270 buildings were demolished for the construction of Reach 1A and 1B. BMRC spent an estimated 849 crore to acquire properties. Demolition work began in March 2017. Construction work began in February 2018.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: There are 22 stations on the Purple Line. All underground stations were built using the cut-and-cover method. Most underground stations are 300 metres long and 25 metres wide. The interchange station at Majestic is much larger.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: Initially, there were no toilets at Namma Metro stations. BMRCL eventually heeded to public demands for toilets and the metro's first toilets were opened at Baiyyappanahalli and Indiranagar stations on 21 June 2013.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: In September 2015, it was announced that the proposed Narayanapura metro station would be removed and the proposed Krishnarajapuram metro station would be shifted by 295 metres to the west, due to difficulty in acquiring land in the area. In April 2016, BMRCL revealed that Whitefield metro station, originally proposed to be located 200 metres away from Whitefield railway station, would be shifted so as to be directly opposite the railway station to provide easier connectivity between the metro station and railway station.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: Yellow tactile tiles are used at all stations to guide the visually impaired. The tiles start at the ramp and lead to the staircases and lifts.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: The list of Purple Line stations below includes stations under construction in Phase ll. The section completed in Phase l between Baiyyapanahalli and Kengeri is currently operational.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: BMRC procured 150 metro coaches for fifty 3-car train sets in DMC-TC-DMC formation for Phase l of Namma Metro from BEML - Hyundai Rotem at a cost of ₹1,672.50 crore (₹16.72 billion). Coach specifications were as follows:


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: Dimensions: Length-20.8m, Width-2.88m, and Height-3.8m. Each coach has a seating capacity of about 50 and standing capacity of 306 (basis 8 per sqm). Thus, each train had a capacity of about 1000. Traction was through four 180Kw motors in each motor coach. The trains have a maximum speed of 80 km/h and axle load of 15 tonnes. The trains operate on 750V DC with third rail bottom power collector system. Features include stainless steel body fully air-conditioned coaches, longitudinal bank of wide seats, wide vestibules between coaches, non-skid and non-slip floor surfaces, wi-fi enabled, four wide passenger access doors on each side, wide windows, automatic voice announcement system and electronic information and destination display system.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: Initial operations on the Purple Line began with twenty-one 3-coach trains. As loads increased with increasing ridership, all trains were converted to six coaches. The first six car train was introduced on the Purple Line on 23 June 2018. The additional coaches were supplied by BEML at a cost of Rs 8.8 crore each.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: In September 2009, the consortium led by Alstom Project India Limited were awarded a contract worth to supply control and signalling system for the first phase of the project. The consortium is led by Alstom and composed of Alstom Transport SA, Thales Group Portugal S A and Sumitomo Corporation. Alstom will provide the design, manufacture, supply, installing, testing and commissioning of the train control and signalling system and Thales will provide the design, installing, testing and commissioning of the telecommunication system for Phase I of the metro system. It includes the Urbalis 200 Automatic Train Control system which will ensure optimal safety, flexible operations and heightened passenger comfort.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: The integrated control centre at Baiyyappanahalli has direct communication with trains and stations are CCTV fitted with visual and audio service information.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: The metro service runs from 5 AM and 12 AM daily. The end-to-end travel time on a Purple Line train is 33 minutes. From 7 November 2016, Purple Line trains began running at an interval of every 4 minutes between 9:10 am and 9:58 am to handle rising passenger traffic during morning peak hour. This timing was later withdrawn as the trains were not operating at optimal capacity. From 27 February 2017, the BMRC introduced a new time-table for weekdays. Headway on the line was changed as follows: 4 minutes (08:30-09:10), 7 minutes (07:00-08:30 and 09:10-10:40), 8 minutes (16:00-20:40) and 15 minutes at all other times.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: Metro services have occasionally operated beyond 2200 hours. Services are usually extended on festival days or when an international cricket match is held in Bangalore.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: The system is designed for a maximum train speed of 80 km/h. However, the Research Design and Standards Organization (RDSO) fixed the speed at which trains are allowed to commercially operate at 67.50 km/h on straight sections, 35 km/h on curves, and 45 km/h in stations. The maximum permitted speed on the underground section is 40 km/hr. Purple Line trains usually operate at speeds of 38–40 km/hr. According to metro authorities, the trains require more than 400 metres to accelerate from, or decelerate to a halt. As the inter-station distance on the line is about 1 km, the trains have limited time to run at higher speeds.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: End-to-end fare on the Purple Line is . Commuters who pay using smartcards receive a 5% discount per transaction.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: As of April 2016, 37.59% of commuters on the Purple Line use smart cards, while the rest purchase tokens.


title: Purple Line (Namma Metro)

text: All stations on the line have 4 emergency exits, and Majestic station has 18 emergency exits. Stations have been built to withstand zone III earthquakes. Bangalore is located in a zone II earthquake area. The tunnels are equipped with walkways to enable passengers to disembark from a train and walk to the nearest station in case of a technical failure. The underground section is also equipped with 5 cross-passages that will enable passengers to move between tunnels, in case a tunnel section fills up with smoke. There are three tunnel cross-passages between Majestic and Sir M Visvesvaraya metro station, and one each between Vidhana Soudha and Central College, and Majestic and City Railway station. All stations were built with flame retardant materials, and also have 100,000 litres of water stored on-site for use in case of a fire.


title: People of the Book

text: People of the Book or Ahl al-kitāb () is an Islamic term referring to those religions which Muslims regard as having been guided by previous revelations, generally in the form of a scripture. In the Quran they are identified as the Jews, the Christians, the Sabians, and—according to some interpretations—the Zoroastrians. Starting from the 8th century, later Muslims also recognized other religious groups such as the Samaritans, and even Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains, as People of the Book.


title: People of the Book

text: Historically, the religious communities recognized by Muslims as People of the Book were subject to the legal status known as ('protection'), meaning that they were allowed to practice their faith and to govern their community according to the rules and norms of their own religion, in return for paying a special head tax called the .


title: People of the Book

text: The Quran uses the term in a variety of contexts, from religious polemics to passages emphasizing the community of faith among those who possess monotheistic scriptures.


title: People of the Book

text: In Islamic law, Muslim men are permitted to marry women who are People of the Book; however, Muslim women are prevented from marrying men who are People of the Book. In the case of a Muslim-Christian marriage, which is to be contracted only after permission from the Christian party, Christian women should not be prevented from attending church for prayer and worship.


title: People of the Book

text: The term 'People of the Book' has been reappropriated as a means of self-identification by Jews and by the members of certain Christian denominations.


title: People of the Book

text: When used in conjunction with a person, the term identifies the members of that person's household, including their fellow tribesmen, relatives and all those who share a family background with them. However, it may also be used with place names to refer to people living in a certain locality (e.g., in Quran 9:101, 'the people of Medina'), or with more abstract nouns, as in , 'the people of a certain or school of thought'.


title: People of the Book

text: The word , meaning 'writing' or 'book', occurs very often in the Quran, generally in the sense of a divine rather than a human activity, which consists in writing down and recording everything that is created. More than just referring to a 'book', it conveys meanings of divine knowledge, divine authority, and divine revelation.


title: People of the Book

text: The term , then, refers to those who have been given access to such knowledge and revelation: they are the people to whom God has 'sent down' (see ) his wisdom by means of a prophet, as an act of divine grace. However, the revelations given to the People of the Book, taking the form of the Torah (), the Psalms (), and the Gospel (), were all partial, and it is precisely by already being familiar with the books () previously sent down that the People of the Book were expected to be able to recognize Muhammad as a prophet, and the Quran as the final and most complete revelation.


title: People of the Book

text: Several verses in the Quran are commonly understood as identifying the Jews, the Christians, and the Sabians as People of the Book. Thus for example 5:68–69, which mentions these groups along with the Muslims ("the believers") as being safe from fear and grief:


title: People of the Book

text: The last named group, "the polytheists" (the , ), are the opposite of the first named, "the believers" (the Muslims). What is less clear, however, is the status of the groups mentioned in between, who now also include the "Magi" (), that is to say, the Zoroastrians (who are named only once in the Quran, in this verse). This was a matter of dispute among medieval Muslim scholars, who questioned whether the Zoroastrians had a clear prophet and scripture, as well as whether their doctrines on the nature of God and creation were in accordance with those of Islam and the other religions recognized as having received a revelation. Ultimately though, most Islamic jurists granted the Zoroastrians partial status as a People of the Book, while still disagreeing on the extent to which legal privileges such as intermarriage with Muslims should be allowed.


title: People of the Book

text: The Quran emphasizes the community of faith between possessors of monotheistic scriptures, and occasionally pays tribute to the religious and moral virtues of communities that have received earlier revelations, calling on Muhammad to ask them for information. More often, reflecting the refusal of Jews and Christians in Muhammad's environment to accept his message, the Quran stresses their inability to comprehend the message they possess but do not put into practice and to appreciate that Muhammad's teaching fulfills that message. The People of the Book are also referenced in the "jizya" verse (), which has received varied interpretations.


title: People of the Book

text: The Quran permits marriage between Muslim men and women who are People of the Book (Jews and Christians).


title: People of the Book

text: The Ashtiname of Muhammad, a treaty purportedly made between the Muslims of Muhammad and the Christians of Saint Catherine's Monastery, stated that if a Muslim man wished to marry a Christian woman, marriage could only occur with her consent and she must be permitted to continue attending church to pray and worship. The Ashtiname states that Christians cannot be forced to fight in wars and that Muslims should fight on their behalf; it also states that Christian churches are to be respected and forbids stealing from them. The Ashtiname forbids Muslims to remove Christians from their jobs, including those who serve as judges or monks. Muslims are bound until the Last Judgment to adhere to the treaty or "he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet." The policy of the Ottoman Sultans abided by the Ashtiname.


title: People of the Book

text: During the second caliph Umar's reign (), the Christian community of Najran and the Jewish community of Khaybar were deported to the newly conquered regions of Syria and Iraq. Umar set aside the Christian ban on the Jews and allowed them to pray and reside in Jerusalem. Umar signed a pact with the Christians of Jerusalem, which granted them safety in the region. He also awarded the status of the People of the Book to the Zoroastrians, although some practices contrary to Islam were prohibited.


title: People of the Book

text: At the beginning of the Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia in , the leader of the Mandaeans (one of the religious groups who historically claimed to be the Sabians mentioned in the Quran), Anush bar Danqa, is said to have traveled to Baghdad in order to appear before the Muslim authorities, showing them a copy of the "Ginza Rabba" (the Mandaean holy book), and proclaiming the chief Mandaean prophet to be John the Baptist (known to Muslims as Yahya ibn Zakariyya). Consequently, the Muslim authorities afforded them the status of People of the Book. However, this account is likely apocryphal, and if it took place at all, it must have occurred after the founding of Baghdad in 762. The earliest source to unambiguously apply the term 'Sabian' to the Mandaeans was al-Hasan ibn Bahlul () citing the Abbasid vizier Abu Ali Muhammad ibn Muqla (–940). However, it is not clear whether the Mandaeans of this period already identified themselves as Sabians or whether the claim originated with Ibn Muqla.


title: People of the Book

text: When the Umayyad general Muhammad ibn Qasim (–715) conquered Brahmanabad, he is said to have granted Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains the status of People of the Book.


title: People of the Book

text: Islamic scholars differ on whether Hindus are People of the Book. The Islamic conquest of India necessitated the definition be revised, as most India's inhabitants were followers of the Indian religions. Many of the Muslim clergy of India considered Hindus as people of the book, and from Muhammad bin Qasim in the Umayyad era to the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb in the 17th century, Muslim rulers were willing to consider Hindus as People of the Book.


title: People of the Book

text: "Dhimmi" is a historical term referring to the status accorded to People of the Book living in an Islamic state. The word literally means "protected person." According to scholars, dhimmis had their rights fully protected in their communities, but as citizens in the Islamic state, had certain restrictions, and it was obligatory for them to pay the jizya tax, which complemented the zakat, or alms, paid by the Muslim subjects. Dhimmis were excluded from specific duties assigned to Muslims, and did not enjoy certain political rights reserved for Muslims, but were otherwise equal under the laws of property, contract, and obligation.


title: People of the Book

text: Under sharia, the dhimmi communities were usually subjected to their own special laws, rather than some of the laws which were applicable only to the Muslim community. For example, the Jewish community in Medina was allowed to have its own Halakhic courts, and the Ottoman millet system allowed its various dhimmi communities to rule themselves under separate legal courts. These courts did not cover cases that involved religious groups outside of their own community, or capital offences. Dhimmi communities were also allowed to engage in certain practices that were usually forbidden for the Muslim community, such as the consumption of alcohol and pork.


title: People of the Book

text: Historically, dhimmi status was originally applied to Jews, Christians, and Sabians. This status later also came to be applied to Zoroastrians, Hindus, Jains and Buddhists. Moderate Muslims generally reject the dhimma system as inappropriate for the age of nation-states and democracies.


title: People of the Book

text: In Judaism, the term "People of the Book" (Hebrew: עם הספר, "Am HaSefer") has been reappropriated as a term to designate the Jewish people, in reference to the Torah or to the entire Hebrew Bible. Members of some Christian denominations have also embraced the term "People of the Book" in reference to themselves, foremost among them the Puritans as well as the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Baptists.


title: Thagomizer

text: A thagomizer () is the distinctive arrangement of four spikes on the tails of stegosaurine dinosaurs. These spikes are believed to have been a defensive measure against predators.


title: Thagomizer

text: The arrangement of spikes originally had no distinct name. Cartoonist Gary Larson invented the name "thagomizer" in 1982 as a joke in his comic strip "Far Side", and it was gradually adopted as an informal term sometimes used within scientific circles, research, and education.


title: Thagomizer

text: The term "thagomizer" was coined by Gary Larson in jest. In a 1982 "The Far Side" comic, a group of cavemen are taught by a caveman lecturer that the spikes on a stegosaur's tail were named "after the late Thag Simmons".


title: Thagomizer

text: The term was picked up initially by Kenneth Carpenter, then a paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, who used the term when describing a fossil at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting in 1993. "Thagomizer" has since been adopted as an informal anatomical term, and is used by the Smithsonian Institution, the Dinosaur National Monument, the book "The Complete Dinosaur" and the BBC documentary series "Planet Dinosaur". The term has also appeared in some technical papers describing stegosaurs and related dinosaurs.


title: Thagomizer

text: There has been debate about whether the thagomizer was used simply for display, as posited by Gilmore in 1914, or used as a defensive weapon. Robert Bakker noted that it is likely that the length of the stegosaur tail was much more flexible than those of other ornithischian dinosaurs because it lacked ossified tendons, thus lending credence to the idea of the thagomizer being a weapon. He also observed that "Stegosaurus" could have maneuvered its rear easily by keeping its large hindlimbs stationary and pushing off with its very powerfully muscled but short forelimbs, allowing it to swivel deftly to deal with attack. In 2010, analysis of a digitized model of "Kentrosaurus aethiopicus" showed that the tail could bring the thagomizer around to the sides of the dinosaur, possibly striking an attacker beside it.


title: Thagomizer

text: In 2001, a study of thagomizers by McWhinney et al. showed a high incidence of trauma-related damage. This too supports the theory that the principle function of the thagomizer was defense in combat.


title: Thagomizer

text: There is also evidence for "Stegosaurus" defending itself, in the form of an "Allosaurus" tail vertebra with a partially healed puncture wound that fits a "Stegosaurus" tail spike. The species of stegosaur known as "Stegosaurus stenops" had four dermal spikes, each about long. Discoveries of articulated stegosaur armor show that, at least in some species, these spikes protruded horizontally from the tail, not vertically as is often depicted. Initially, Marsh described "S. armatus" as having eight spikes in its tail, unlike "S. stenops". However, recent research re-examined this and concluded this species also had four.


title: Thagomizer

text: In a 2017 paper, the term thagomizer graph (and also the associated "thagomizer matroid") was introduced for the complete tripartite graph .


title: DVD-Video

text: DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia in the 2000s until it was supplanted by the high-definition Blu-ray Disc. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and an MPEG-2 decoder (e.g., a DVD player, or a computer DVD drive with a software DVD player). Commercial DVD movies are encoded using a combination MPEG-2 compressed video and audio of varying formats (often multi-channel formats as described below). Typically, the data rate for DVD movies ranges from 3 to 9.5 Mbit/s, and the bit rate is usually adaptive. DVD-Video was first available in Japan on November 1, 1996 (with major releases beginning December 20, 1996), followed by a release on March 24, 1997 in the United States—to line up with the 69th Academy Awards that same day.


title: DVD-Video

text: The DVD-Video specification was created by DVD Forum and can be obtained from DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation for a fee of $5,000. The specification is not publicly available and every subscriber must sign a non-disclosure agreement. Certain information in the DVD Book is proprietary and confidential.


title: DVD-Video

text: To record digital video, DVD-Video uses either H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 compression at up to 9.8 Mbit/s (9,800 kbit/s) or compression at up to 1.856 Mbit/s (1,856 kbit/s). DVD-Video supports video with a bit depth of 8 bits per color, encoded as YCbCr with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling.


title: DVD-Video

text: The MPEG-1 Part 2 format does not support interlaced video. The H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 format supports both interlaced and progressive-scan content, and can handle different frame rates from the ones mentioned above by using pulldown. This is most commonly used to encode 23.976 frame/s content for playback at 29.97 frame/s. Pulldown can be implemented directly while the disc is mastered, by actually encoding the data on the disc at 29.97 frames/s; however, this practice is uncommon for most commercial film releases, which provide content optimized for display on progressive-scan television sets.


title: DVD-Video

text: Alternatively, the content can be encoded on the disc itself at one of several alternative frame rates, and use flags that identify scanning type, field order and field repeating pattern. Such flags can be added in video stream by the H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 encoder. A DVD player uses these flags to convert progressive content into interlaced video in real time during playback, producing a signal suitable for interlaced TV sets. These flags also allow reproducing progressive content at their original, non-interlaced format when used with compatible DVD players and progressive-scan television sets.


title: DVD-Video

text: The audio data on a DVD movie can be PCM, DTS, MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (MP2), or Dolby Digital (AC-3) format. In countries using the PAL system standard DVD-Video releases must contain at least one audio track using the PCM, MP2, or AC-3 format, and all standard PAL players must support all three of these formats. A similar standard exists in countries using the NTSC system, though with no requirement mandating the use of or support for the MP2 format. DTS audio is optional for all players, as DTS was not part of the initial draft standard and was added later; thus, many early players are unable to play DTS audio tracks. Only PCM and DTS support 96 kHz sampling rate. Because PCM, being uncompressed, requires a lot of bandwidth and DTS is not universally supported by players, AC-3 is the most common digital audio format for DVDs, and 96 kHz is rare on a DVD. The official allowed formats for the audio tracks on a DVD-Video are:


title: DVD-Video

text: DVDs can contain more than one channel of audio to go together with the video content, supporting a maximum of eight simultaneous audio tracks per video. This is most commonly used for different audio formats—DTS 5.1, AC-3 2.0 etc.—as well as for commentary and audio tracks in different languages.


title: DVD-Video

text: DVD-Video discs have a raw bitrate of 11.08 Mbit/s, with a 1.0 Mbit/s overhead, leaving a payload bitrate of 10.08 Mbit/s. Of this, up to 3.36 Mbit/s can be used for subtitles, a maximum of 10.08 Mbit/s can be split amongst audio and video, and a maximum of 9.80 Mbit/s can be used for video alone. In the case of multiple angles the data is stored interleaved, and so there is a bitrate penalty leading to a max bitrate of 8 Mbit/s per angle to compensate for additional seek time. This limit is not cumulative, so each additional angle can still have up to 8 Mbit/s of bitrate available.


title: DVD-Video

text: Professionally encoded videos average a bitrate of 4–5 Mbit/s with a maximum of 7–8 Mbit/s in high-action scenes. Encoding at less than the max bitrate (like this) is typically done to allow greater compatibility among players, and to help prevent buffer underruns in the case of dirty or scratched discs.


title: DVD-Video

text: Aiming to improve picture quality over standard editions, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment offered "Superbit"—a premium line of DVD-Video titles having average bitrates closer to 6 Mbit/s. Audio quality was also improved by the mandatory inclusion of both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround audio tracks. Multiple languages, angles, and extra audio tracks were eliminated to free up more space for the main title and thereby to ensure the highest data rate possible. In January 2007 the Superbit line was discontinued.


title: DVD-Video

text: Some DVD hardware or software players may play discs whose MPEG files do not conform to the above standards; commonly this is used to support discs authored with formats such as VCD and SVCD. While VCD and CVD video is supported by the DVD standard, neither SVCD video nor VCD, CVD, or SVCD audio is compatible with the DVD standard.


title: DVD-Video

text: Some hardware players will also play DVD-ROMs or CD-ROMs containing "raw" MPEG video files; these are "unauthored" and lack the file and header structure that defines DVD-Video. Standard DVD-Video files contain extra information (such as the number of video tracks, chapters and links to extra features) that DVD players use to navigate the disc.


title: DVD-Video

text: Almost all DVD-Video discs use the "UDF bridge" format, which is a combination of the DVD MicroUDF (a subset of UDF 1.02) and ISO 9660 file systems.


title: DVD-Video

text: The UDF bridge format provides backwards compatibility for operating systems that support only ISO 9660. Most DVD players read the UDF filesystem from a DVD-Video disc and ignore the ISO9660 filesystem.


title: DVD-Video

text: IFO files store control and playback information—e. g. information about chapters, subtitles and audio tracks. They do not store any video or audio data or subtitles.


title: DVD-Video

text: Data structures recorded on a DVD-compliant disc are components of one of the four data groups called domains:


title: DVD-Video

text: Video, audio, subtitle and navigation streams are multiplexed and stored on a DVD-Video disc in the VOB container format (Video Object). VOB is based on the MPEG program stream format, but with additional limitations and specifications in the private streams. The MPEG program stream has provisions for non-standard data (as AC-3, DTS, LPCM or subtitles used in VOB files) in the form of so-called private streams. VOB files are a very strict subset of the MPEG program stream standard. While all VOB files are MPEG program streams, not all MPEG program streams comply with the definition for a VOB file.


title: DVD-Video

text: DVD recorders can use DVD-VR or DVD+VR format instead of DVD-Video. DVD-VR format store multiplexed audiovisual content in VRO containers. VRO file is an equivalent to a collection of DVD-Video VOB files. Fragmented VRO files are not widely supported by hardware or software players and video editing software. DVD+VR standard defines a logical format for DVD-Video compliant recording on optical discs and is commonly used on DVD+R/RW media.


title: DVD-Video

text: DVD-Video may also include up to 32 subtitle or "subpicture" tracks. Subtitles are usually offered as a visual aid for deaf and hearing impaired viewers, displaying translated dialogue into other languages, or displaying karaoke lyrics. They are sometimes used to present additional information about the video being played. Subtitles are stored as bitmap images and therefore can contain any arbitrary text or simple image. They are restricted to a 16-color palette, but are usually implemented with a limit of 4 colors. 16 levels of transparency are also supported to allow blending, but this is also not always implemented. The subtitle tracks are contained within the VOB file of the DVD.


title: DVD-Video

text: DVD-Video may also contain closed captioning material which can only be viewed on a television set with a decoder.


title: DVD-Video

text: DVD-Video may contain chapters for easy navigation, and continuation of a partially watched film. If space permits, it is also possible to include several versions of certain scenes, called "angles." Today, the multi-angle feature is mostly used for internationalization. For example, it can be used to supply different language versions of images containing written text when subtitles would not do (e. g., the Queen's spell book in "Snow White", and the scrolling text in the openings of the "Star Wars" films). Multiple angles have found a niche in markets such as yoga, erotica, animation (e.g. for storyboards), and live performances.


title: DVD-Video

text: A significant selling point of DVD-Video is that the storage capacity allows for a wide variety of extra, or bonus, features in addition to the feature film. These extra features can include audio commentary; documentary features, commonly about the making of the main title; interviews; deleted footage; outtakes; photo galleries; storyboards; isolated music scores; trivia text commentary; simple games; film shorts; TV spots; radio spots; theatrical trailers which were used to promote the main title; and teaser trailers advertising related movies or DVDs.


title: DVD-Video

text: Extra features often provide entertainment or add depth and understanding to the film. Games, bloopers, and galleries provide entertainment. Deleted scenes and alternative endings allow the audience to view additional content which was not included in a theatrical release. Directors cuts allow the audience to see how the director envisioned the main title without the constraints which are placed on a theatrical release.


title: DVD-Video

text: Other extras that can be included on DVDs are motion menus, still pictures, up to 32 selectable subtitles, seamless branching for multiple storylines, up to 9 camera angles, and DVD-ROM / data files that can be accessed on a computer.