title: Higher education in India

text: The new National Education Policy 2020(NEP 2020)introduced by the central government is expected to bring profound changes to education in India. The policy approved by the Union Cabinet of India on 29 July 2020, outlines the vision of India's new education system. The new policy replaces the 1986 National Policy on Education. The policy is a comprehensive framework for elementary education to higher education as well as vocational training in both rural and urban India. The policy aims to transform India's education system by 2021.


title: Higher education in India

text: Shortly after the release of the policy, the government clarified that no one will be forced to study any particular language and that the medium of instruction will not be shifted from English to any regional language. The language policy in NEP is a broad "guideline" and "advisory" in nature; and it is up to the states, institutions, and schools to decide on the implementation. Education in India is a Concurrent List subject.


title: Higher education in India

text: NEP's higher education policy proposes a 4-year multi-disciplinary bachelor's degree in an undergraduate programme with multiple exit options. These will include professional and vocational areas and will be implemented


title: Higher education in India

text: Indian law requires that universities be accredited unless created through an act of Parliament. Without accreditation, the government notes, "These fake institutions have no legal entity to call themselves as University/Vishwvidyalaya and to award ‘degree’ which are not treated as valid for academic/employment purposes."


title: Higher education in India

text: "the right of conferring or granting degrees shall be exercised only by a University established or incorporated by or under a Central Act carlo bon tempo, or a State Act, or an Institution deemed to be University or an institution specially empowered by an Act of the Parliament to confer or grant degrees. Thus, any institution which has not been created by an enactment of Parliament or a State Legislature or has not been granted the status of a Deemed to be University, is not entitled to award a degree."


title: Higher education in India

text: The University Grants Commission has provided guidelines about fake universities/institutions and degrees, including a list of such schools.


title: Higher education in India

text: Accreditation for higher learning is overseen by autonomous institutions established by the University Grants Commission:


title: Higher education in India

text: The institutional framework of higher education in India consists of Universities and Colleges. As reported in 2015, India has 760 universities and 38,498 colleges. There are three types of universities: Conventional Universities, Deemed Universities and Institutions of National Importance. While Conventional Universities are established through Act of Parliament or State Legislatures, Deemed Universities award degrees through the notification of the central government. Institutes of National Importance are those that have been awarded the status by Parliament.


title: Higher education in India

text: The education system of India falls broadly under the Ministry of Human Resource Development(MHRD). Amongst the branches of the MHRD, the Department of Higher Education is responsible for overseeing the growth of the higher education sector. The Department aims to improve quality of and access to higher education for all sections of the population. One of the key objectives of the Department is to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education to 30% by 2020. Some of the other objectives of the department include: expansion of institutional base, greater inclusion of minorities, removal of regional disparities, infrastructural improvement and increased global participation.


title: Higher education in India

text: University rankings are used to measure and compare institutional quality based on a range of indicators related to research, reputation and teaching. Indian government's National Institutional Ranking Framework, or NIRF is the mechanism for measuring quality and also intended to determine funding and world-class university endeavors. While being popular, NIRF rankings have been criticized for being inaccurate and biased. The Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi has criticised NIRF rankings multiple times.


title: Higher education in India

text: The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras was ranked 1st among Overall Institutions in NIRF Overall Rankings 2022 with a score of 87.59, followed by IISc Banglore, IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur and IIT Kharagpur. The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) was ranked 1st among Indian Universities in NIRF University Rankings 2022 with a score of 83.57 followed by Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jadavpur University, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and Banaras Hindu University. The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras was ranked 1st among the Indian Engineering Institutions in NIRF Engineering Rankings 2022 with a score of 90.04 followed by IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur and IIT Kharagpur. The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad was ranked 1st among the Indian Management Institutions in NIRF Management Rankings 2022 with a score of 83.35 followed by IIM Banglore, IIM Calcutta, IIT Delhi and IIM Kozhikode. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi was ranked 1st among the Indian Medical Institutions in NIRF Medical Rankings 2022 with a score of 91.60 followed by PGIMER, Christian Medical College, NIMHANS and Banaras Hindu University. The "Institutions of Eminence (IoE)" initiative by the Government of India aims to build top-ranked Indian universities by providing autonomy and funding (only for public universities) and identified six institutions.


title: Higher education in India

text: The University of Mumbai was ranked 41 among the Top 50 Engineering Schools of the world by America's news broadcasting firm "Business Insider" in 2012 and was the only university in the list from the five emerging BRICS nations (viz. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). It was ranked at 62 in the QS BRICS University rankings for 2013 and was India's 3rd best Multi Disciplinary University in the QS University ranking of Indian Universities after University of Calcutta and Delhi University.


title: Higher education in India

text: Three Indian universities were listed in the Times Higher Education list of the world's top 200 universities — Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, and Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2005 and 2006. Six Indian Institutes of Technology and the Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani were listed among the top 20 science and technology schools in Asia by "Asiaweek". The Indian School of Business situated in Hyderabad was ranked number 12 in global MBA rankings by the "Financial Times" of London in 2010 while the All India Institute of Medical Sciences has been recognised as a global leader in medical research and treatment. The Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings published in 2013 ranked IIT Delhi at number 222 with a 49.4% score, IIT Bombay at 233, and IIT Kanpur at 295. No Indian universities appear in the top 200 worldwide except IISc Bangalore which is ranked at 147.


title: Higher education in India

text: In the last 30 years, higher education in India has witnessed rapid and impressive growth. The increase in the number of institutions is, however, disproportionate to the quality of education that is being dispersed. Unplanned over-expansion is often criticized as one of the biggest downfalls of Indian higher education. Many institutions suffer from subpar quality and a lack of funding. As a result, entry into the top institutions is highly competitive and translates into a contest for higher entrance test scores and better private coaching institutes.


title: Higher education in India

text: Higher education in India faces problems ranging from income and gender disparities in enrolment, to poor quality of faculty and teaching and even to a general lack of motivation and interest amongst students. Industries cite skill shortage as one of the major factors contributing to the mounting number of unemployed graduates. Some of the main challenges faced by the Indian higher education system include:


title: Higher education in India

text: The complex socio-political nature of the education sector in India makes it difficult to implement social reform. As a result, the overall quality of education suffers.


title: Higher education in India

text: While fee regulatory agencies fix a fee that cover expenses incurred by an institution along with a basic surplus, many institutions have been charging a fee that makes the venture profiteering. All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the regulatory body for technical education in India, has called "upon the students, parents and the general public not to pay any capitation fee or any other fee other than that mentioned in the Prospectus of the Institutions for consideration of admission." AICTE also mentions that the fee charged to students, including for programs such as PGDM, has to be approved by the fee regulatory committee of the state, and the institute should mention the fee on its website. As per AICTE norms, the business schools are not meant to charge a fee higher than what is mentioned in the prospectus. Educational regulatory agencies, at the national level and the regional level, have mandated that an institution should include the fee in the prospectus.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Malaysian Indians or Indian Malaysians are Malaysian citizens of Indian or South Asian ancestry. Today, they form the third-largest group in Malaysia after the Malays and the Chinese. Most are descendants of those who migrated from India during the British Malaya era from the early 19th to mid-20th centuries.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: The majority of Malaysian Indians are ethnic Tamils; smaller groups include the Malayalees, Telugus, Sikhs and others. Malaysian Indians form the fifth largest community of Overseas Indians in the world. Within Malaysia, they represent the third-largest group (constituting 6.8% of the Malaysian population), after the ethnic Malay and Chinese. They are usually simply referred to as "Indian" in Malaysia, "Orang India" in Malay, ""Yin du ren"" in Chinese.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Malaysia's Indian population is notable for its class stratification, with a significant elite as well as a large low income groups within its fold. Malaysian Indians make up a disproportionately large percentage of professionals per capita – constituting 15.5% of Malaysia's professionals in 1999. As of a census taken in 1984, up to 38% of the nation's medical professional workforce consists of Malaysian Indians. In 1970, the per capita income of Malaysian Indians was 76% higher than that of the Malay majority, by 2005, this gap had reduced to 27%.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Ancient India exerted a profound influence over Southeast Asia through trade, religious missions, wars and other forms of contact. Pre-colonial Malaysia was part of 'Indianised Kingdoms' such as Srivijaya, Kadaram and the Majapahit, which formed part of a cultural region known as Greater India. There is a possibility that the first wave of migration from India towards Southeast Asia happened during Asoka's invasion towards Kalinga and Samudragupta's expedition towards the South.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: The Arab and Indian traders had travelled this region including the southern tip of South East Asia the peninsula with maritime trade, the Sailendra kings of Java originating from Kalinga were able to take control of the Peninsular and part of southern Siam. The kings welcomed Buddhist missionaries from India, accepting their teaching of the Mahayana sect, which spread through their territories. However, central and northeastern Thailand continued to adhere to the Hinayana teachings of the Theravada sect, which had been introduced by missionaries sent by the emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BC.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Another theory of the introduction of Buddhism after Indian arrived in the peninsula is that after Kalinga conquered lower Burma in the 8th century their influence gradually spread down the peninsula. The ancient Indian Kalinga was located in southeastern India occupying modern day Orissa and northern Andhra Pradesh. In the 7th century an Indonesian kingdom was named Kalingga after the aforementioned Kalinga in India. Chinese sources mention this kingdom ("Holing") as a center for Buddhist scholars around 604 before it was overshadowed by the Sanjaya or Mataram Kingdom. The most famous Kalingga ruler is Ratu Sima.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: There is evidence of the existence of Indianised kingdoms such as Gangga Negara, Old Kedah, Srivijaya since approximately 1700 years ago. Early contact between the kingdoms of Tamilakkam and the Malay peninsula had been very close during the reigns of the Pallava dynasty (from the 4th to the 9th century CE) and Chola dynasty (from the 9th to the 13th century CE). The trade relations the Tamil merchants had with the ports of Malaya led to the emergence of Indianised kingdoms like Kadaram (Old Kedah) and Langkasugam. Furthermore, Chola king Rajendra Chola I sent an expedition to Kadaram (Srivijaya) during the 11th century conquering that country on behalf of one of its rulers who sought his protection and to have established him on the throne. The Cholas had a powerful merchant and naval fleet in the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. Three kinds of craft are distinguished by the author of the "Periplus" – light coasting boats for local traffic, larger vessels of a more complicated structure and greater carrying capacity, and lastly the big ocean-going vessels that made the voyages to Malaya, Sumatra, and the Ganges. In Malacca Sultanate, the Chitty people, played a huge role in Malacca's administration of the local ports such as Raja Mudaliar, Syahbandar (Chief of Port) of Malacca and Bendahara Tun Mutahir, a famous Bendahara of the Malaccan Sultanate.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Following the Portuguese colonisation of Malacca (Malaysia) in 1511, the Portuguese government encouraged their explorers to bring their married Indian women who were converted already to Roman Catholic Christianity, under a policy set by Afonso de Albuquerque, then Viceroy of India. These people were Goan Catholics (Konkani Catholics) and East Indians (Catholics of Marathi descent). Kuparis who were of mixed Samvedic Brahmin, Goan and Portuguese descent also arrived. Their children already intermarried with Malay population, losing their ethnic identities. British acquisition of Penang, Melaka, and Singapore - the Straits Settlements from 1786 to 1824 started a steady inflow of Indian labour. This consisted of traders, policemen, plantation labourers and colonial soldiers (see sepoys). Apart from this there was also substantial migration of Indians to work in the British colonial government, due to their general good command of the English language.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: The establishment of the plantations and the need for cheap labour led to an influx of Indian migrants working under the indenture Kangani system in the 19th and early 20th century. Some, after the Kangani system ended in the early 20th century, also paid for their own passage to Malaya. These migrant workers were primarily Tamils (around 80%), with some Telugus, Malayalis as well as other groups from northern India. The Tamils were primarily non-Brahmin middle-ranking or low-caste Hindus, including Gounder, Kallar, Muthuraja, Pallar, Vanniyar and Paraiyar, the Telugus include Kamma and Reddy, while the Malayali were mostly from the Nayar caste. These workers were distinct from the commercial and educated group of urban Indians, who were often high caste or high and middle class Tamils, Telugus, Malayali, Punjabis, Sindhis, Gujaratis, Marwaris and others. These urban Indians may be Hindus, Christians, Sikhs or Muslims. The Sikhs mainly worked in the police force, while other northern Indians were involved in business. The Malayalees, Ceylonese and Christian Tamils may be involved in government and private white-collar work, the Chettiar in money-lending or finance, while the Vellalar and Muslim Tamils may be in various kind of businesses.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: The Indian population in pre-independence Malaya and Singapore was predominantly adult males who were single or with family back in India and Sri Lanka. Hence the population fluctuated frequently with periods of immigration to Malaya and periods of exodus of people back to India. As early as 1901 the Indian population in the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States was approximately 120,000. By 1931 there were 640,000 Indians in Malaya and Singapore and they even outnumbered the native Malays in the state of Selangor that year.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: However, during World War II many Indian men and women left for Burma as part of the Indian National Army with thousands thought to have perished. As a result, the population of Indians in 1957 had only increased to 820,000. While immigration was a major factor for the increase in population until Independence, the population growth began falling after that as the white collar classes in the civil service and plantations left when British institutions and companies left the country. Since then, lower birth rates and emigration to countries like Singapore, Australia, UK, etc. in search of better educational and economic opportunities meant that Indians continue to see their share of Malaysia's population decline just as is the case with the Chinese. Today, Malaysian Indians account for approximately 7 per cent of the total population of Malaysia (approx. 2 million) and 9 per cent in Singapore (450,000).


title: Malaysian Indians

text: From the 1990s to the present period, there has also been a much smaller wave of Indian nationals into Singapore and Malaysia to work in the construction and engineering industry, restaurants, the IT sector, teaching and finance with many taking up permanent residence in Singapore where they account for nearly a quarter of the Singapore population. The unskilled labour mainly work in Indian restaurants. There are also foreign spouses from the Indian Subcontinent who are married to local Indians.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: There is a close correspondence between the ethnic and occupational divisions of the Indian community, and this is inevitably reflected in the community's geographical distribution in Malaya. The South Indian Tamils were the majority throughout the country, on the rubber estates and railways, though a significant proportion found employment on the docks in Penang and Singapore.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Selangor is the state with the most number of Indians in terms of absolute number whereas Negeri Sembilan is the state with the highest proportion of Malaysian Indians making up the population.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: There are significant differences between Malaysian Indians who are part of the Malaysian working class in plantations and urban middle class or upper middle class professionals.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Many Indians are workers in plantations and attend Tamil language schools. Tamil language primary schools are funded by the Federal Government, but Tamil schools on private lands are not eligible for full government grant. Although Tamil is used as the medium of instruction, Malay and English are taught as compulsory subjects. Tamil schools may range from single classroom where students of varying age and ability are taught by a single teacher, to large schools of a few hundreds students. In plantation estates the schools may be poorly staffed and equipped, and few of their students moved on to higher education. Those Indians who do well in schools are primarily from the urban middle classes.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Indians are well represented in Malaysian medical and legal fraternities. Indians also form a large portion of English language teachers in Malaysia. Law and medicine have traditionally been the preferred career choices in Indian families although more young Indian Malaysians are now venturing into other fields such as engineering, finance and entrepreneurship. Ananda Krishnan and Tony Fernandes are examples of notable Malaysian tycoons of Indian heritage. There are major Indian business districts in Kuala Lumpur (Brickfields, Jalan Ampang and Jalan Masjid India); (Lebuh Pasar) in George Town, Penang; Jalan Tengku Kelana in Klang, Selangor; and Ipoh, Perak.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: There are considerable differences socially and economically between different groups of Indians in Malaysia. They form a significant part of the professional classes in Malaysia; in a census taken in 1999, Malaysian Indians were 15.5% of Malaysia's professional workforce. These include doctors (28.4%), lawyers (26.8%), dentists (21%), veterinary surgeons (28.5%), engineers (6.4%), accountants (5.8%), surveyors (3.0%) and architects (1.5%). However, many Indians are also ranked amongst the most disadvantaged. In 1970, around 39% of Indians in Malaysia were ranked among the poorest of the country. Incidence of poverty (those in the lowest 40% of the national income distribution) in Malaysia was 27.3% Indians. Official figures suggest that the percentage of Indians living below the official poverty line has decreased from 39.2% in 1970 to 1.9% in 2002, but the figures have been criticised as inaccurate. It has been claimed around 40% of Indians are at the bottom rung of the income ladder in 2015.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Many of the early South Indian immigrants such as the Tamils and Telugus worked in the agriculture sector, in particular as workers in plantations. In 1930, 60% of all Indians were in this sector, and by 1970, 45% of Indians were still involved in agriculture in Malaysia. Sri Lanka Tamils mainly occupied the subordinate administrative and technical positions in estates, positions they still dominate to this day. Also in the estates are the Malayalis who hold assistant and managerial positions. Few of these estates however are Indian-owned. Indians are also prominent in the transport and communication sector, either as labourers or as administrative and technical staff.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Many Indians are also involved in business and trade, the majority of the privately owned businesses belong to the Chettiars. The Sikhs and other Punjabis were initially recruited by the British to serve in the police and armed forces, and while in modern times these areas are now dominated by Malays, the descendants of Sikhs and other Punjabi are now found in every sphere of the economy, in particular as professionals, and in the mercantile and money-lending business.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: According to the Ninth Malaysia Plan report of 2006, Malaysian Indians also controlled only 1.2 percent of the corporate wealth in Malaysia, down from the previous figure of 1.5 percent.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: The Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) is the oldest and largest Indian political party in Malaysia. It is a senior member of the Barisan Nasional coalition. The Indian Progressive Front (IPF), another Indian-based party, is affiliated with Barisan Nasional but is not a formal member. The People's Progressive Party (PPP) is technically a multiracial party but its membership is overwhelmingly Indian. It is a member of the Barisan Nasional. The People's Justice Party (PKR) and Democratic Action Party (DAP) have a large Indian membership and have many Indian lawmakers. Both parties are members of the ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition. The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM), a minor opposition party, has a strong Indian presence. The Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) was formed in 2007 to address alleged racial discrimination against Indian Malaysians. It was banned after it staged a large anti-government rally in Kuala Lumpur in 2007. Hindraf's political wing is the Human Rights Party (HRP). The Malaysian Indian Muslim Congress (KIMMA) is a party that represents the interests of the Indian Muslim community. There is the Punjabi Party of Malaysia (PPM) which represents Malaysia's Punjabi community. The Malaysian Ceylonese Congress (MCC) represents Malaysia's Sri Lankan Tamil community who are technically not Indian but often regarded as such by most Malaysians. Other Indian fringe parties include the pro-Barisan Nasional Malaysian Indian United Party (MIUP), Malaysia Makkal Sakti Party (MMSP) and the latest Malaysian Indian Justice Party (MIJP). There was also the Democratic Malaysian Indian Party (DMIP) which has been dissolved.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: In the Malaysian general election held in 2018, sixteen Indians were elected to the Dewan Rakyat. This is the highest number of Malaysian Indians elected to parliament in Malaysian history.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: HINDRAF is a current ally to the present Pakatan Harapan government. This is in addition to DAP and PKR which are multiracial parties with Indian representatives.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: There are currently 1 minister and 1 deputy minister from the Malaysian Indian community in the Cabinet.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Satellite television provider Astro provides several Tamil satellite television channels. Astro Vaanavil and state-owned RTM TV2 broadcast locally produced Tamil shows. India-based channels available in Malaysia are Sun TV, Jaya TV, Chutti TV. Thanga Thirai and Velli Thirai are Tamil movie channels while Astro B4U is a Hindi movie channel. The Malaysian Indian community is an important market for the Tamil film industry Kollywood. There are 2-Tamil radio stations of the state-owned Minnal FM and the privately owned THR Raaga.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: It is also customary for major Malaysian corporations to produce television commercials in conjunction with Deepavali. They generally pay tribute to the contributions of the Indian community to the nation and are well received by Indians of all faiths. The heart-warming Deepavali commercials by the state petroleum company Petronas are especially popular. Indian Malaysians have also contributed to the mainstream Malaysian entertainment industry. The Jayhawkers from Seremban led by one Joe Chelliah was the first non-Malay pop band with only Indian musicians that recorded popular commercial albums in Malay in the mid 1960s itself. More recent notable Indian Malaysian artists with multiracial appeal are Reshmonu, Jaclyn Victor, and Alleycats. Indian Malaysians have also made significant contributions to the Malaysian English theatre scene. Tamil hip hop was started in Malaysia by pioneers like rappers Chakra Sonic, Yogi B and several others, which had since then made its way to Kollywood.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Bharata Natyam, the Tamil classical dance of India, is an important feature of Tamil culture and is hence popular in Malaysia. Ramli Ibrahim and Mavin Khoo are two non-Indian Malaysians who are Indian classical dance performers. The Temple of Fine Arts in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur is an academy that provides training in traditional Indian dance and music. The urumee drums are often played at religious and cultural events. The nadaswaram is a traditional Indian wind instrument often played at Indian weddings in Malaysia.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: The contribution of the Indian community to Malaysian cuisine is enormous. Indian cuisine has had a strong influence on traditional Malay cuisine resulting in the popularity of curries in Malaysia. Indian restaurants are well received by Malaysians from all ethnic and religious backgrounds. They have become an important fixture in everyday Malaysian life and are the venue of choice for watching live televised football matches. Mamak restaurants and stalls refer to eateries owned and staffed by Indian Muslims. The word 'Mamak' is sometimes erroneously used to describe any Indian restaurant. Roti canai, nasi kandar, maggi goreng and pasembur (Mamak rojak) are Indian dishes unique to Malaysia. Nasi kandar is sold exclusively in Indian Muslim restaurants and the recipes are closely guarded secrets. Unlike Indian cuisine in the United Kingdom and other Western countries which tend to focus on North Indian cuisine, Indian cuisine in Malaysia is largely based on South Indian cuisine as the Malaysian Indian diaspora is overwhelmingly Tamil, although some northern dishes such as tandoori chicken and naan bread are common. Southern breakfast delicacies such as idli, vadai and dosa (spelled in Malaysia as 'thosai') are common. The appam is a favourite breakfast dish in Tamil homes. "Idiyappam" is known as putu mayam in Malay and usually sold by mobile motorcycle vendors. Murukku is made to mark Deepavali. Meals of rice with various vegetable and meat dishes along with other condiments are served on banana leaves in restaurants for lunch and dinner, and also in Indian households during special occasions. Mutton (goat meat) is highly favoured and served as either "varuval" (dry curry) or "peratal" (curry with a thick gravy). Fried bitter gourd, banana chips, papadam, rasam, yoghurt and pickles are the usual condiments. Desserts and sweets include payasam, halva, mysore pak, palgoa and ghee balls.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Some Indian foods have been widely adopted and localised. This includes but not limited to Murukku, Adhirasam and Puttu.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: The Indian community which mostly consist of Tamils follow Hinduism as the main faith. Hinduism and Buddhism were brought to the Malay Peninsula from India around the 2nd century AD . The Indian-influenced kingdoms of Kadaram (Old Kedah), and Ilangosagam (Langkasuka) practised Hinduism and Buddhism during the rule of the Malay-Srivijaya and Tamil-Chola kingdoms. The early few Indians arrived and assimilated quickly into the local population through intermarriage.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: The Chola King had also launched an attack via a naval expedition on several Malay Kingdoms. Subsequent to invasion, both Chola kingdom and south east Asian Hindu Buddhist kingdoms went into decline and many would later totally disappear, and kingdoms in Malaysia Indonesia were gradually Islamised. Hinduism is the most practiced religion amongst the Tamils, including both the major Hindu and Tamil pantheon of deities. Tamils of both Indian and Sri Lankan backgrounds practice Hinduism. The majority of the Malayalees and Telugus in Malaysia also practice Hinduism.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Sikhism is practiced mainly by Punjabis. Many Sindhis also worship in Sikh Gurdwaras in Malaysia. Christianity is practiced by a minority of Tamil people. In Malaysia, most of the Indian Christians are either Catholic, Pentecostal, Anglican, Methodist, or Lutheran. The majority of the Malayalee Christians are either Catholic or Syrian Christians. Trade contact with the Tamils predate the Islamic period (c. 570-632 AD), or the birth of Islam. Indonesians and Malays learned of Islam initially through Gujarati merchants and further developed on by the Arab traders. Most of the Indian Muslim community has been absorbed into the larger Malay community due to their common religious background, with a substantially high level of assimilation and intermarriage between the communities. In Malaysia, Tamil Muslims are often referred to as 'Mamaks' while Malayalee Muslims are known as 'Kakas' or 'Malabaris'.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: One of the biggest Hindu festivals in Malaysia is Thaipusam. Thaipusam is dedicated to the God Murugan which occurs on the day in the Tamil month of "Thai" (January–February) when the asterism "Poosam" is on the ascendant. It is celebrated in grand style in the temples of, George Town, Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur for three days.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: In Kuala Lumpur, Thaipusam has become an almost national seat for "Poosam" celebrations. The venue of the Kuala Lumpur celebrations is a picturesque shrine right inside a cave that lies many feet above the ground, and can only be approached by a steep climb. This place, known as Batu Caves, is about eight miles from the city, and a chariot procession carrying the image of the deity to and from the place adds to the color and gaiety of the festival. Crowds from all over the country throng to the cave, including people of all classes and groups. It is above all a day of penance, on which many vows are fulfilled. A 42.7m high statue of Lord Murugan was built at Batu Caves and was unveiled in January 2006, having taken three years to construct.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: One of the most significant rites performed is the carrying of the kavadi, a large wooden decorated arch, as an act of penance. When deities are taken on procession from one shrine to another, they would be followed by a number of these voluntary kavadi-bearers. In other towns and estates, kavadis would be carried for other festivals like "Chittirai Paruvam". Some of the more rigid practitioners would bear spikes, spears, and hooks pierced into their bodies. The "Chittirai Paruvam" festival and festivals to the Tamil deity Mariamman are usually accompanied by a fire-walking ceremony.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Deepavali, popularly known as the 'Festival of Lights', is another major Hindu festival which is celebrated by all Hindu communities. Tamils celebrate Pongal which is a harvest festival usually held from 13–16 January. A similar festival known as Makar Sankranti is celebrated by most other Indian communities while the Punjabis call their harvest festival Lohri.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: The Malayalees celebrate Vishu, the Malayalee New Year which usually falls in the month of April or the month of Medam in the Malayalam calendar. Onam is the most popular festival celebrated by the Malayalee community and is usually observed in the month of August or September. They usually prepare "Sadhya", a lunch feast consisting 16 to 24 vegetarian dishes (without onions and garlics).


title: Malaysian Indians

text: The Telugus celebrate Ugadi, the Telugu New Year which is based on the lunar calendar; unlike Puthandu, the Tamil New Year and Vasakhi, the Sikh New Year which are based on the solar calendar. Makar Sankranti is an important festival for Telugu community also celebrated as Pongal by Tamils.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: The festivals celebrated by Malaysian Indians who profess the Christian faith are Easter, Christmas and All Souls' Day (mainly celebrated by Catholics). Indian Muslims observe Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting; and celebrate Hari Raya Aidilfitri and Hari Raya Aidiladha.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Indian influences could be seen on modern Malaysia as well as on traditional Malay culture. The diffusion of Indian culture includes the following:


title: Malaysian Indians

text: A good number of Tamil inscriptions as well as Hindu and Buddhist icons emanating from South India have been found in Southeast Asia (and even in parts of south China). On the Malay Peninsula, inscriptions have been found at Takuapa, not far from the Vishnuite statues of Khao Phra Narai in Southern Thailand. It is a short inscription indicating that an artificial lake named "Avani-naranam" was dug by "nangur-Udaiyan" which is the name of an individual who possessed a military fief at Nangur, being famous for his abilities as a warrior, and that the lake was placed under the protection of the members of the Manikkiramam (which according to K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, was a merchant guild) living in the military camp.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: An inscription dated 779 AD has been found in Ligor, Malay Peninsula. This refers to the trade relationship between the Tamil country and Malaya. In ancient Kedah there is an inscription found by Dr. Quaritch Wales. It is an inscribed stone bar, rectangular in shape, bears the ye-dharmma formula in South Indian characters of the 4th century AD, thus proclaiming the Buddhist character of the shrine near the find-spot (site I) of which only the basement survives. The inscriptions are on three faces in "Pallava Grantha script". The Ruler Raja Ganga fled from his empire into the forests with his queen and an infant heir. Raja Ganga left traces of hideout on a nearby hill in form of artefacts on stones. All these inscriptions, both Tamil and Sanskrit ones, relate to the activities of the people and rulers of the Tamil country of South India. The Tamil inscriptions are at least four centuries posterior to the Sanskrit inscriptions, from which the early Tamils themselves were patronizers of the Sanskrit language. The Cherok Tokun Ancient Inscriptions were first documented by Colonel James Low, a British army officer, in 1845. In his log, Low recorded his disappointment of not finding a more spectacular ruin, expecting to find an ancient temple ruin. He documented what he made out to be "a group of seven inscriptions". The inscriptions were believed to be in pre-Pallava script and written in Sanskrit. They were attributed to the ancient Kingdom of Kadaaram, which flourished in northern Malaysia in the 5th to 6th centuries. However, according to J Laidlay, who translated the text in 1848, the inscription was in fact written in Pali - another ancient language of the Indian subcontinent.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: An element needed to carry out commercial transactions is a common language understood by all parties involved in early trade. Historians such as J.V. Sebastian, K.T. Thirunavukkarasu, and A.W. Hamilton record that Tamil was the common language of commerce in Malaysia and Indonesia during historical times. The maritime Tamil significance in Sumatran and Malay Peninsula trading continued for centuries and borrowings into Malay from Tamil increased between the 15th and 19th centuries due to their commercial activities. In the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company was obliged to use Tamil as part of its correspondence. In Malacca and other seaports up to the 19th century, Malay terminology pertaining to book-keeping and accountancy was still largely Tamil.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Indians have contributed significantly to the building of Malaysia since the 19th century. The Indian workforce was instrumental in the clearing of land for infrastructure, established rubber plantations, built the roads, set up transmission lines as well as managed early Malayan railways, ports and airports. Indian doctors, chemists and veterinarians formed the bulk of medical personnel in Malaysia - their contributions still persist to present day. Indian civil servants formed the core of the civil service both pre- and post-independence. Indian teachers who were particularly fluent in the English language formed the backbone of Malaysian education, particularly in missionary schools. Indians also pioneered private education in Malaysia.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: A number of Malaysian Indian immigrants are found in Australia, and they tended to be highly qualified and speak English fluently and were therefore highly employable. There is also a small community of Australians of Indian descent on the Australian external territory of Christmas Island who live alongside other Australians of ethnic Malaysian Chinese, Malay and European descent.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Among the notable people of Indian descent in Malaysia are K. Thamboosamy Pillay, a prominent figure of early Kuala Lumpur, and Karpal Singh, V. David and Samy Vellu, all prominent Malaysian Indian politicians.


title: Malaysian Indians

text: Despite the fact that the average income of Malaysian Indians exceeds that of their Malay counterparts, there exists substantial portion of the community who are poor, with 40% of Malaysian Indians claimed to be at the bottom rung of the income ladder. Despite the obvious need of the poor, Malaysian Indians are not eligible for any of Malaysia's affirmative-action programmes, which are reserved for Malays and select indigenous people. What has further added to the challenges faced by the community is religious conflict due to increasing Islamisation, and there were communal clashes between Indians and Malays such as the 2001 Kampung Medan riots, as well as protest over racial discrimination and temple demolitions during the 2007 HINDRAF rally. These factors in part have resulted in the migration of many highly skilled Malaysian Indians abroad, where Indian migrants are largely upwardly mobile. A survey in 2017 found that 42% of Malaysian Indians who had completed their secondary or tertiary education wanted to emigrate.


title: Kelly Cutrone

text: Kelly Cutrone (born Kelly Blanding circa 1965) is an American publicist, television personality and author.


title: Kelly Cutrone

text: Kelly Cutrone was born and raised in Camillus, New York. Cutrone graduated from Syracuse University in 1986, whereupon


title: Kelly Cutrone

text: she moved to New York City. She originally worked for publicist Susan Blond for a year; she followed this with a position as director of communications at Spin magazine for Bob Guccione. Less than a year later, Cutrone founded Cutrone & Weinberg with former Susan Blond intern, Jason Weinberg. Their clients included Eartha Kitt and Mark Ronson.


title: Kelly Cutrone

text: Cutrone has been married twice. At 21, she married artist Ronnie Cutrone, and at 28, actor Jeff Kober. Both marriages ended in a divorce. Cutrone had a daughter, Ava Cutrone, born in May 2002.


title: Kelly Cutrone

text: Having tired of the PR life, Cutrone sold her half of Cutrone & Weinberg to her co-founder and spent a year and a half as a tarot card reader. Cutrone founded People's Revolution in 1996.


title: Kelly Cutrone

text: On September 11, 2002, People's Revolution broke the record for the most shows produced in one day during New York Fashion Week.


title: Kelly Cutrone

text: Cutrone has appeared on three MTV shows: "True Life"; "The Hills", on which she allowed Whitney Port and Lauren Conrad to film in her office; and "The City", where she served as the professional and personal mentor to and consulted on Port's clothing line.


title: Kelly Cutrone

text: In February 2010, Cutrone executive produced Bravo's "Kell on Earth", an eight-episode reality TV show about Cutrone and People's Revolution. The series followed Cutrone as she balanced running her own company and producing Fashion Weeks in New York and London with being a single mother.


title: Kelly Cutrone

text: In February 2010, HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins, released Cutrone's memoir, "If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You". The book is co-authored by Meredith Bryan, and is a "New York Times" bestseller. Cutrone's second book, "Normal Gets You Nowhere", was published on May 3, 2011.


title: Kelly Cutrone

text: Cutrone has spoken at two TEDx events: at the University of Oxford's independent event, TEDxOxford, where she gave an 18-minute talk about her career; and at TEDxAmsterdamWomen, where she spoke about her journey as a woman in business.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick Jones is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Rick has been a sidekick and friend to The Hulk, Captain America, Mar-Vell / Captain Marvel, Rom the Spaceknight, and Genis-Vell / Captain Marvel. He has been an active participant in many significant Marvel Universe story lines including the Kree-Skrull War and the Destiny War. He later acquired powers, causing his learning capabilities to be greatly increased. He decided to direct his new ability towards communications technology, and ended up becoming a hacktivist known as the Whisperer.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick Jones was created in 1962 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and first appeared in "Hulk" #1 (May 1962).


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick Jones was born in Scarsdale, Arizona. He lost his parents at a young age and grew up in an orphanage. Later, he accepts a dare to drive out to a bomb testing ground in New Mexico. As luck would have it, the gamma bomb designed by Dr. Robert Bruce Banner is being tested. Banner pushes Rick into a protective trench saving his life, but absorbing the gamma rays that transform Banner into the Hulk. Rick thus becomes the sole confidant of the Hulk's true identity.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Jones' guilt over causing the incident (and lack of any other place to go) leads him to stay close to Dr. Banner and the Hulk alter ego. In one story, he even gains mental control over Hulk. Eventually, the dangerous unpredictability of Hulk forces Rick to keep his distance.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Later, Rick forms the Teen Brigade, a loose network of teenagers with ham radios throughout the United States. The first Teen Brigade played a role in the origin of the Avengers when the Norse god Loki tampered with the Teen Brigade's radio transmission. Originally, the Teen Brigade intended to bring the Fantastic Four together to battle the Hulk, but instead brought Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp, and Thor together to form the Avengers.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: After the Hulk's departure from the team, Rick becomes an honorary Avenger. He alerted the team to the Hulk's presence when they began searching for Hulk. He becomes close to the recently revived Captain America although his guilt leads him to leave the Avengers and seek out Banner and Hulk on his own.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Captain America rescues Rick from one of Hulk's rampages, and after that Rick becomes Captain America's sidekick, briefly taking the title and uniform of Bucky, Captain America's long-dead junior partner. This was on Jones' own insistence, but Captain America continues to have guilty objections, noting that others have lost partners and it was time to move on. Rick's brief time as Bucky gave him the training to survive around superheroes to this day.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: When Rick believed Hulk to be dead (although Hulk had actually been sent to the future), he revealed the truth of Banner's condition to Col. Glenn Talbot, thus inadvertently making Banner a wanted fugitive by the US Military.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: After being neglected by Captain America, Rick became fed up with the Captain's ego. After talking with Edwin Jarvis, Rick decided to leave the Avengers for good. Rick joined with the Kree Captain Marvel when he finds himself drawn to the mystical Nega-Bands. Donning the Bands, he is immediately linked to Captain Marvel. Once joined, one of the two remains in a protective bubble in the Negative Zone. After either the person not in the Negative Zone strikes the Nega-Bands together or a certain amount of time passes, the two switch places. Rick and Mar-Vell go on various adventures encountering many different heroes, such as the Hulk, Namor, and Captain America.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick and Mar-Vell play a critical part in the Kree-Skrull War. Rick is freed from the Negative Zone through a portal in the Fantastic Four headquarters. Mar-Vell is released from the Negative Zone while Rick is still in the regular world without the use of the Nega-Bands. The bond between the two is broken. At the height of the conflict, the Kree Supreme Intelligence briefly unleashes the Destiny Force from within Rick. Rick uses his new-found ability to summon images of various Golden Age heroes. While at full power, Rick single-handedly stops both the Kree and Skrull fleets long enough to put an end to the conflict. Injuries that Rick sustains lead Mar-Vell to willingly bond with Rick in order to save his life. Shortly after this the Captain Marvel series was re-launched and we found that Rick was not able to contain the energy of Mar-Vell. He was then bombarded with photonic energy, which saved him and enabled him to contain Mar-Vell safely. A consequence of this was that Mar-Vell gained the ability to absorb energy in addition to the nega-band energies to boost his strength and could fly with the photonic energy now.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick and Mar-Vell serve as a duo for several years while Rick pursues his musical career and love life. Eventually, the two are again freed from their bond while aiding the Avengers against the Super-Adaptoid. Rick then parts company with Mar-Vell. Rick begins to spend his time with the Hulk again and briefly forms a new Teen Brigade, after which Rick finds himself again teamed with Mar-Vell, though not merged with him as they deal with a legacy left by the Mad Titan Thanos. Sometime after, Mar-Vell dies of cancer that he received when he was exposed to a deadly nerve gas stolen by the villain Nitro. Note: Mar-Vell collapsed from the gas and was comatose until he was given an antidote to the gas. However, despite the antidote, Mar-Vell still developed cancer and there was some momentary concern that the link Rick shared with him could have caused himself to contract the condition. Rick was at Mar-Vell's bedside when he died.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: After Mar-Vell's death, Rick began to team with the Hulk again. Guilt over causing Banner to be hit with the gamma rays made Rick decide to expose himself to gamma rays in an attempt to become another Hulk-like being that could stop the Hulk. However this plan backfired and Rick was dying of gamma poisoning until Banner cured him. However, this too led to the consequence of Rick developing a form of blood cancer.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick was going to undergo a massive blood transfusion to treat this ailment when the hospital was attacked by monsters created by the Dire Wraiths. Rick was saved by the Spaceknight Rom and began to team with Rom despite the fact that Rick was slowly dying. Upon the final defeat of the Wraiths, Rom banished them all to Limbo and then bade farewell to Rick Jones and Earth. Shortly after Rom left, Rick Jones met the alien called The Beyonder, who cured Jones of his cancer.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Shortly after the encounter with the Beyonder, Rick once again teamed with the Hulk. This time, the Hulk had been split into two beings, Banner and Hulk, but the experiment was a failure and both were dying. General Ross tried to stop the process of remerging the two, and Rick intervened only to be dumped into the chemical nutrient bath that was fusing Banner and the Hulk again. This resulted in Rick somehow becoming a Hulk-like creature of his own and he took off into the desert on a savage rampage. Rick would be human by day and be his own green-skinned near mindless Hulk at night.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: With the Vision's help, Banner and the Hulk are made whole again, but, both are weak and still dying. As a result of a Nutrient Bath developed by Doc Samson, Banner/Hulk is reverted from Green Hulk into the Grey Hulk. During this time, Rick as Hulk battled the Grey Hulk, Zzzax, the Hulkbusters, and the Outcasts. The Grey Hulk is manipulated by Sam Sterns, along with Banner, into siphoning the radiation from Rick into Sterns. Sterns is then turned back into the Leader, drastically altering his appearance, and Rick is cured of his Hulk transformations.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick stays with Banner, the Grey Hulk, Betty Banner, and Clay Quartermain for several months as they travel the country looking for a government supply of gamma bombs. The group splits after the Hulk's apparent death at the Leader's hands. Rick's psionic potential is later released by Moondragon against Atlantean invaders.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick authors the book "Sidekick", an autobiography of his time with super-heroes. While on a book tour, he meets Marlo Chandler without realizing that she had only recently broken up with the Hulk (then acting as a Las Vegas thug with the alias Mr. Fixit). Rick is kidnapped by a Skrull vessel and the Hulk aids in Rick's rescue. This starts another period with Rick and the Hulk, this time with Marlo and Betty.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick came in touch with death in several ways during this time with the Hulk. First, Rick dies at the hands of Thanos, along with half of the universe, when Thanos uses the Infinity Gauntlet to impress Death. Rick and the others are brought back in ensuing events. Rick remembers meeting several deceased rock stars.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick assisted the Hulk many times during his tenure with the Pantheon. During this time, he guns down an insane killer, but is still wracked with remorse. Over time he bonds with Wolfsbane of X-Factor, who also killed another insane murderer during the same debacle; he even ends up inviting her to his wedding.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Another major encounter with death occurs when Jackie Shorr (who is revealed to be a demented serial killer) comes into his life and claims to be his mother. This claim has not been proven, but she insists that those she killed and left mummified in her basement were substitutes for Rick, and that he is her real son. Shorr is discovered to be insane, but not until after she kills Marlo by stabbing her with a kitchen knife. A horrified Rick refuses Reed Richards's offer to carry out a DNA test, saying that he does not want to know, especially if she is truly his mother.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick attempts to bring Marlo back using a resurrection device known as the "deus ex machina" that the Leader developed, but the Hulk, believing that the Leader's efforts are part of a bigger villainous plan, destroys the equipment part way through the process. Marlo is left in a catatonic state. Rick's care eventually helps Marlo return to full health despite the intervention of many other well-meaning friends and family, including Marlo's brothers and Captain America.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Shortly after Marlo is revived, the two become engaged and quickly marry. Neither of them realizes, however, that a portion of Death remains "in" Marlo. This piece of Death attracted many strange visitors to the wedding, including Mephisto and Death herself.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: The married couple soon finds success in a popular talk show, "Keeping Up with the Joneses", but it is cut short when Rick is crippled by a Banner-less Hulk, that made a deal to work for Apocalypse and become his Horseman "War" if he would remove the shrapnel from the Hulk's brain. The injury confines Rick to a wheelchair and the debilitation strains his relationship with Marlo. The strain increases with the death of Betty Banner by radiation poisoning to the point that the couple split shortly thereafter.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick joins Dr. Banner again after he returns to Earth and merges with the separated Hulk. His serious health problems force him to be brought by the Avengers to the now-captive Supreme Intelligence for aid, which marks the beginning of the Destiny War, as Kang the Conqueror's rejection of his apparent destiny to become Immortus results in Rick's access to the mysterious 'Destiny Force' being used to draw in a team of seven Avengers from different points in time to act as his protectors. Over the course of these events, Rick's injury is healed when he is able to channel the Destiny Force into himself, and after the final battle with the powerful Time Keepers, he is joined with Genis-Vell (the recently endowed Captain Marvel and son of Mar-Vell), due to a temporal paradox involving the future Genis-Vell linking with Rick to save his life.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick's bond with Genis works in about the same way as his bond with Mar-Vell. The biggest difference is that the two switch in and out of the Microverse rather than the Negative Zone. Genis-Vell's unique birth and accelerated aging makes him the opposite of Rick: full of power but without experience. They compensate for each other's weaknesses with Rick taking on the role of mentor. He helped Genis learn to control his Cosmic Awareness and accept his role as a superhero. As Rick's confidence grew, he also attempted to rekindle his romance with Marlo.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: It was not until this point that Marlo's connection with Death is finally revealed. Thanos aids in separating the two, but Rick is prematurely aged and loses an arm in the process. He is later yanked back in time to the Destiny War, where he aids his younger self in the conflict leading to his bond with Genis.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Marlo tries to aid the elderly Rick the way he had helped her when she was catatonic. Rick's pride, however, just causes more problems. The Supreme Intelligence attempts and fails to restore Rick to his normal condition, but he is spontaneously restored to his normal age and health shortly thereafter. Rick believes this was divine aid while Genis believes it was a delayed reaction to the Supreme Intelligence's procedure. No definitive explanation has yet been determined.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: For a while, Rick and Genis are yanked back and forth through time. Rick encounters two older versions of himself: one an aging collector surviving under the rule of the Maestro; the other a super-villain named Thanatos. The super-villain Rick was in the process of creating the "ultimate Rick Jones". He is stopped by the elder Rick's ability to wield Thor's hammer, Rick having been judged worthy for things the present Rick had yet to do and things that Thanatos would never achieve.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick and Marlo again split when Marlo becomes romantically involved with Moondragon. Shortly after, Genis goes insane when his cosmic awareness reaches its peak. Rick's attempts to continue as Genis' guide are fairly unsuccessful. Genis becomes a callous, homicidal maniac believing himself a god. Rick's friend even destroys the universe just to rebuild it with Rick and Genis as sole survivors.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: In the rebuilt reality, Genis again loses his mind. Rick develops an ability to mentally attack Genis through their psychic bond (although the pain is reciprocal). For a time, Genis uses this same link to control Rick. He goes as far as 'convincing' Rick to kill himself on a whim. Genis brings Rick right back to life just as easily.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: In part due to Rick's influence, Genis' madness calmed to a point where he was able to maintain a veneer of sanity, albeit with some unpredictability. He creates a recording studio for Rick that allows for fame and fortune at the sake of Internet-based sales of a song written for Marlo. The same song also acts as a catalyst for the two to reunite, with Marlo ending her relationship with Moondragon.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: At the end of the series, it is revealed that Rick has a "comic awareness" that the "Captain Marvel" comic series was coming to an end. He pushed for several of the loose ends of the series to be resolved: Rick and Genis were separated again, and Rick was reunited with Marlo at last report. This ability was primarily created for the needs of this one issue, and it seems unlikely that it will see future usage.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick was revealed to be the mysterious benefactor of Excelsior. The group is composed of former teenage superheroes dedicated to reforming other super-powered kids from following down the same path. Their first targets are the underage Runaways patrolling Los Angeles in the wake of the supervillain power vacuum since the defeat of the Runaways' evil parents, The Pride, who once controlled the city. Rick tells Excelsior that he wanted the Runaways back in foster care because he did not want them to go through the same experiences he went through.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick served as one of the pallbearers at the memorial service for Captain America, along with Ben Grimm, Ms. Marvel, The Falcon, T'Challa and Tony Stark. When Sam Wilson (The Falcon) made his inspirational speech, he mentioned that Rick would know what it's like to have called Captain America a partner. Jones replied by saying "Right on."


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick re-connects with the Hulk during the "World War Hulk" mini-series. He seeks out the Hulk and attempts to talk him down, telling his friend that, while he recognized that the Illuminati had been out of line in their decision to exile him to Sakaar and their apparent involvement with the deaths of thousands of innocent people on that planet, including the Hulk's wife and unborn child, his current blind quest for vengeance was not him, using Hulk's willingness to protect innocent people caught in the fight between him and a Zom-possessed Doctor Strange as proof that the Hulk was still a hero rather than a man blindly seeking vengeance. After the Hulk's climactic battle with the Sentry resulted in him reverting to Bruce Banner, one of the Hulk's associates, Miek (who witnesses and did not prevent the true cause of the deaths on Sakaar which was not the humans), impales Rick through the chest to provoke Bruce into turning back into the Hulk. Rick is seen being loaded into an ambulance.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: In the aftermath of "World War Hulk", a new Red Hulk emerged, brutally beating and then shooting the Abomination to death. After this occurred, Jones escaped from a secret base in Alaska that had been destroyed in a "Hulk-like" manner. Following this, Red Hulk confronts Jones at Gamma Base, where Bruce Banner is being held. In defense, Jones inexplicably transforms into a creature resembling the Abomination, calling himself A-Bomb. During the fight, the base security measures activate, and giant android harpies (with the face of Betty Ross) attack the two, and attempt to remove them from the base. A-Bomb manages to disable one mid-flight, and they both crash to earth, the robot exploding as it does.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: A-Bomb joined with several heroes including the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, She-Hulk and the Hulk to help stop an impending earthquake in San Francisco, which was caused by Red Hulk. After the Red Hulk was defeated, A-Bomb reverted to Rick. He attempted to reveal who Red Hulk really was, but was shot and dragged away by Doc Samson. In "The Incredible Hulk" vol. 2 #600 it is revealed the reason Doc Samson shot Rick Jones is because he now has multiple personality syndrome. It's also revealed that MODOK was involved in Rick's new condition. After Red Hulk drained the gamma energy from Hulk, A-Bomb had enough intelligence to get Bruce Banner to safety. In "The Incredible Hulk" vol. 2 #604, A-Bomb was shown to be fully healed, participating along with Korg as Skaar's sparring partner to prepare him for the time when the Hulk will return. In the same issue, Rick was reunited with Marlo, who was transformed by the Leader into Harpy, whom Bruce mistakes for Betty Ross.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: It was eventually revealed that Rick was transformed into A-Bomb by the Intelligencia under command of the Leader and MODOK. Using the Abomination's blood they changed him to become their weapon, but soon learned that he could not be controlled as easily as they planned. Instead, they gave him one simple command with a certain trigger—kill Bruce Banner. Suspecting this, Bruce was able to trigger Rick at an earlier time of his choosing and talk him down, thus preventing Rick from being triggered in the future when his plans were to be carried out.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: During the "Chaos War" storyline, A-Bomb and Korg assist the Hulks in fighting Abomination, a Zom-possessed Doctor Strange, and the forces of Amatsu-Mikaboshi. It is later revealed that Rick is able to change between A-Bomb and his normal form.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: When a new Hulk persona emerges as the result of an attempt to assassinate Bruce Banner and efforts to save his life using the Extremis virus, this new Hulk, calling himself "Doc Green", decides that gamma-powered superhumans are a threat to humanity that must be eliminated. Deriving a cure for others' gamma mutations from his own physiology, Green seeks out Rick as his first target. Though Rick resists transforming into A-Bomb to defend himself, Green is apparently successful in permanently reverting Rick to human form. Afterward, Rick seeks out Betty (who had been revived from death by Intelligencia and transformed into the Red She-Hulk the same way Rick was transformed into A-Bomb), ostensibly in order to warn her about Doc Green's intentions. When Green arrives and Betty assaults him as the Red She-Hulk, she finds herself reverting to normal involuntarily and realizes that Rick had dosed her with Green's cure during a meal they had shared earlier. Rick admits to anxieties over the possibility of losing control of his transformation, and an addiction to the "rush" of being A-Bomb. However, he was unwilling to aid Doc Green in curing Betty until Doc Green informed him that Betty, acting under orders from a watchdog group called The Order of the Shield, was behind the attempt on Banner's life. Rick is left behind with the equally powerless Betty as Doc Green continues on his mission.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: As a side effect of losing his Hulk abilities, Rick briefly gains the ability to learn any task at lightning speed. He uses this ability to become a master hacktivist known as the Whisperer during the "" storyline and secretly aids the new Captain America. He uncovers a plot by Maria Hill called Project , which uses shattered Cosmic Cube remains to create a new cube. Phil Coulson's group learns about Pleasant Hill and Rick's involvement. Deathlok, Daisy Johnson, and Jemma Simmons investigated Rick' house and discovered a hidden escape route. They follow Rick through the Morlock Tunnels and apprehend him. During an interrogation at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Battlecarrier, the New Avengers arrived to retrieve Jones from S.H.I.E.L.D. It turns out that the New Avengers were contacted by Rick through a pre-recorded video that was to be sent to them in the event that the alien nanobots he ingested noticed him being unconscious. The New Avengers invading the S.H.I.E.L.D. Battlecarrier to retrieve Jones prompts The Pentagon into retaliating by unleashing a monster called the American Kaiju on the New Avengers. In the aftermath of the events that transpired at Pleasant Hill, Steve Rogers offers Rick the chance to join S.H.I.E.L.D. as part of his reparations for his hacktivism.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: During the "Secret Empire" storyline, a hacker named Rashaun Lucas is entrusted with key data by Rick Jones that Jones says will prove the truth about Captain America, who at the time was reprogrammed by Red Skull's clone using the powers of Kobik into being a Hydra sleeper agent. Captain America later sentences a captive Rick Jones to death by firing squad.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: After his death, Rick Jones was buried at Severin Memorial Cemetery. The Immortal Hulk takes Doc Samson there in order to prove that he, Bruce Banner, Betty Ross, and Rick Jones are all connected to one constant theme: resurrection. They find Rick Jones' grave dug up and his body missing. In the U.S. Hulk Operations' Shadow Base Site B, Rick Jones' corpse is used for gamma experiments by scientists led by Charlene McGowan and his whole body is covered in gamma energy, which resurrects him as an Abomination/A-Bomb-like creature with two faces and many finger-like structures surrounding his face called Subject B. Using a camera placed inside Rick's head, the U.S. Hulk Operations dispatched Subject B to Reno, Nevada to draw out Hulk. After Subject B killed two bystanders, Hulk appeared to fight it thinking that it was a form of Abomination. He discovered that it was actually Rick as his two faces spoke short and tortured sentences. Hulk had no other choice but to fight Rick's Subject B form. During the fight, Subject B shot acid at Hulk that dissolved part of his flesh and negated his ability to heal. Upon melting Hulk's limbs, Betty Ross' Harpy form appeared and ripped open Hulk in order to consume his heart. This caused Rick Jones' Subject B to attack Betty Ross' Harpy. Hulk revives enough to regenerate his limbs and punch Subject B. Harpy then continues her attack on Subject B and rips at his stomach to prevent him from emitting acid. During the fight between Subject B and Harpy, Hulk got Jackie McGee to safety as two War-Wagons sent by Reginald Fortean arrive. When in the air, Harpy dropped Subject B onto one of the War-Wagons. After destroying the War-Wagons, Hulk ripped open Subject B's body to discover that it was a shell containing an emaciated Rick in his human form. With Rick in tow, Hulk, Harpy, and Jackie fled the area upon Hulk seeing Gamma Flight approaching. Some days later, Rick was still emaciated and speaking broken words until a burst of energy awakens and restores him. Using what he had learned while being experimented on, Rick directed Hulk, Harpy, and Jackie McGee toward the U.S. Hulk Operations' base at Groom Lake in Area 51. When Doc Samson and Gamma Flight confronted General Fortean at the U.S. Hulk Operations' base, Hulk, Rick, Harpy, and Jackie also show up as both sides see that General Fortean has merged with the Subject B body. While Hulk and Gamma Flight fight General Fortean and the U.S. Hulk Operations' soldiers, Rick assisted Harpy and Jackie McGee where they found the gamma mutate Delbert Frye in a room with scientist and Charlene McGowan who tearfully accepted responsibility for what happened to Rick and Delbert. This caused Rick to spare her life.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Soon after, however, it is revealed that Rick's body is in fact a puppet controlled by The Leader. During Hulk's photo op following the repairs of Georgeville, Iowa which was wrecked during Hulk's fight with the Avengers, Leader controlled Rick Jones into overflowing Hulk with gamma energy to kill him which caused an explosion. Rick protected the people from the explosion, but was mutated into an elongated form with extra arms and legs in the process. Using Rick, Leader watched Hulk's fight with Gamma Flight. When Titania noticed that Rick made an unintelligent comment, Leader controlled Rick into knocking her down causing Absorbing Man to fight Hulk some more. Then Leader allows Rick to be teleported to Shadow Base just as he planned.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick Jones is an athletic man who previously had no powers. He received special training in combat and gymnastics by Captain America, making him a highly skilled martial artist. Rick is also a self-taught folk/rock 'n' roll singer, guitarist, and harmonica player.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: One time, Rick wielded the Destiny Force: a powerful ability utilized during a Kree-Skrull War storyline. With this power through focus, he were able to perform amazing feats, such as pulling various members of the Avengers from past, present and future. Although, its generally random unless another controlling influence, Libra is assisting him.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Rick's latent psionic potential had been once unleashed by the Kree Supreme Intelligence, but he is unable to utilize it at will. He were also able to shift dimensional positions with Mar-Vell, and later Genis-Vell for a time.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: After he was held captive by the Intelligencia and subjected extreme experiments on him, Rick gains the ability to transform into a blue-skinned creature resembling the Abomination with immense physical attributes (even the Red Hulk only causes superficial damage), but stunting his speech patterns similar to the classic Hulk persona. His scales can change color to blend in these surroundings. Following experimentation by MODOK, Rick's human persona became dominant after the price of trapping him in A-Bomb form. Bruce speculates in this second storyline that is actually a deliberate, albeit subconscious, action on Rick's part stemming from his fear of allowing others to get hurt, because he might do more harm than good. The Hulk's encouragement let him to remain as A-Bomb so he would always be ready for more heroics. Thanks to the Hulk, Rick now transforms himself at will while maintaining his full intelligence and personality. Unfortunately, he lost these A-Bomb powers when the Hulk, under a new persona called "Doc Green," decided to eliminate almost all gamma-mutated people. He injected A-Bomb with the dose of his cure, which made Rick completely human once more.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: The consequence of these side effects from his A-Bomb form have affected Rick's brain. According to himself, he can now pick up natural skills lightning-fast. His mind was like a sponge and Rick directed it through communications, thus becoming an expert in security hacking.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: As Subject B, Rick has superhuman strength, enhanced durability, regeneration, fingernail claws, and toxikinesis. This highly corrosive poison from his hands or two mouths could dissolve flesh and negate healing factors. The amount of acid depends on how much he consumes.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: When he got separated from Subject B's body, Rick obtained new powers - gamma manipulation and levitation.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: In the series "Spider-Man 2099", Thanatos first appears in 2099 chasing a confused, amnesiac man known as the Net Prophet. He is later revealed to be an alternate Rick Jones who had stayed with the Supreme Intelligence after the Kree-Skrull War. Thanatos wants to merge various Ricks into an "Ultimate Rick Jones". He is defeated by the Rick Jones of the present and the Rick of the "Future Imperfect" timeline.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: In the dystopian alternate future seen in the miniseries "The Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect", in which the Hulk has become the insane megalomaniac known as the Maestro after two nuclear wars, the elderly Rick Jones is the near-senile and crippled leader of the last bastion of resistance against the Maestro. He lives in a museum of artifacts that had belonged to various deceased superhumans. He uses a time machine to send his followers back in time to recruit the Hulk in order to defeat the Maestro. During the ensuing conflict, Rick is killed, and before the Hulk returns to his own time period, he spreads Rick's ashes over Captain America's shield before throwing it into space.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: In the "House of M" storyline, Private Genis-Vell stumbles upon a tombstone that stated that Rick Jones died at a young age from some unknown tragic accident.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: In the future time period seen in "The Last Avengers Story", Rick Jones has created a super-hero vault to hold important artifacts and information. It is raided by Ultron in a bid to kill the Avengers.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: A young Rick Jones is introduced in "Ultimate Marvel" during "Ultimate Origins", where the Ultimate Watchers announce to the Fantastic Four that they "will now pick a herald to help you with your new world order." They choose young Rick, who develops superpowers in his backyard in Queens.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Six months after "Ultimatum", Rick wakes up in a hospital from a coma induced by the surge of energy given to him by the Watchers. Rick's mother thinks her son is a mutant and confides in her neighbor, May Parker. May tells Peter, Bobby, and Johnny to "suit up" and go talk to Rick. When they confront Rick, he is startled and accidentally uses his newfound powers to teleport himself and Spider-Man to a restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Even more scared, Rick says he wants to go home, at which point he teleports them back to New York. When Bobby tells Rick it is okay to be a mutant, Rick exclaims that he is not a mutant and that he was given his powers by a "floating eye". Johnny recalls over a half a year prior when he and the former Fantastic Four were investigating the appearance of the Watchers. He telss Rick that he must be the herald the Watchers had chosen.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: Learning this, Rick is too upset and reluctant to accept the Watchers' mysterious role and wants to travel to Project Pegasus to demand the Watcher Uatu, who was previously kept there, remove his powers. Despite Johnny Storm's protest, Rick teleports everyone to Project Pegasus and discovers it is being attacked by the Serpent Squad. Rick and his allies fight the Serpent Squad, and Rick successfully controls his powers and defeats the Squad. Returning to New York, Rick realizes that he actually enjoys having superpowers and chooses to take the superhero alias Nova. Rick decides to go on a self-discovery journey to understand what his role is for the world. He would return to duty following the death of Spider-Man.


title: Rick Jones (character)

text: During "Cataclysm/Hunger", a returning Nova teleports to Hala, the next planet the merged Galactus being is attacking. Captain Mahr Vell is fatally wounded by Galactus, and with his last breath tells Rick to use his armor to activate a powerful weapon to finally destroy Galactus. Rick wears the suit and becomes the new Captain Marvel. With his augmented powers, Rick defends the Kree arks. Captain Marvel transports himself and Galactus away and activates the armor's weapon, which should kill the cosmic entity. During the attack, Rick blows a "hole between universes" and appears outside Earth-1610. The Watcher accompanies Captain Marvel and tells him that while the attack did not kill Galactus, who is now heading Earth, it is no longer his problem, and that he will soon see a new threat. He returns with the Future Foundation when they are accidentally teleported to this space between universes. After Iron Man deduces Rick's teleportation abilities are only limited by the locations he can visualize, Rick visualizes Earth, which is enough for them to safely teleport back to their home


title: Brian Conley

text: Brian Paul Conley (born 7 August 1961) is an English actor, comedian, singer and television presenter. Conley has been the host of "The Brian Conley Show", as well as presenting the Royal Variety Performance on eight occasions. In his 40-year television career, he has starred in multiple award-winning television sitcoms including "Time After Time" and "The Grimleys". In the West End, he has played the lead role in musicals such as "Me and My Girl", "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", "Hairspray", "Oliver!", "The Music Man", "Barnum" and "Jolson" for which he was nominated for a prestigious Laurence Olivier Award. As a musician, he has released five albums, including "Brian Conley Sings", "Let the Good Times Roll", and "Stage to Stage". He has won numerous awards in his career including The National Television Award


title: Brian Conley

text: for Most Popular Comedy Performer, Best Live Performer in "Manchester Evening News" and a British Comedy Award.


title: Brian Conley

text: Conley was born on 7 August 1961 in Paddington, London. His father, Colin, was a taxi driver, later working for the BBC in production as a prop man, including for BBC outside broadcast units. His brother, Alan, is a BBC floor manager, including for "Strictly Come Dancing." Conley was brought up in West London and studied Performing Arts at the Barbara Speake Stage School. As a teenager, Conley had a few minor television appearances, including an advert for hot dogs and a small role in a 1977 episode of the science fiction series "Survivors". At the age of 16, by lying about his age, Conley started work as a Pontin's Bluecoat.


title: Brian Conley

text: Conley's first major showbusiness success was fronting a comedy showband called 'Tomfoolery, who performed in pubs and clubs across England and Wales, sometimes as a support act for artists such as Johnny Mathis and the Nolans. The group broke up due to internal disputes when Conley was 19, but his work with the band led to him being talent spotted by agent Bob Voice. As a result of this, Conley started working as a warm-up man for television personalities such as the Krankies, Kenny Everett and Terry Wogan.


title: Brian Conley

text: Conley's career was then advanced by TVS casting director Bill Hatterley, who secured him onscreen appearances on comedy shows such as "Make Me Laugh" (1982), "The Laughter Show" (1984–1985), "Live from Her Majesty's" (1984–87) and "Five Alive" (1987). In 1989, with the support of London Weekend Television (LWT)'s light entertainment controller, Conley starred in his own comedy sketch show, "". This programme was popular, but not hugely successful.


title: Brian Conley

text: After two series of the show, Conley made his first appearance in the West End, playing the lead role of Bill Snibson in a production of "Me and My Girl".


title: Brian Conley

text: In 1992, LWT offered him another opportunity to star in his own comedy programme, with "The Brian Conley Show". At the suggestion of producer and director Nigel Lythgoe, this new show had a variety format rather than being purely sketches. This different format proved popular, and the show became Britain's most-watched light entertainment programme. Conley's next success was a sitcom entitled "Time After Time", in which he played the lead role. The show was named Best ITV Sitcom at the 1994 British Comedy Awards.


title: Brian Conley

text: Conley played the titular role in Jolson at the Victoria Palace theatre from 1995 to its close in 1997. It won the Olivier award for Best Musical in 1996.


title: Brian Conley

text: In 1999 he then went on to play the Doug 'Dynamo' Digby, starring opposite Amanda Holden, Nigel Planer and Noddy Holder in "The Grimleys". He was also given "An Audience with...".


title: Brian Conley

text: Conley recorded a live show in 1996 titled "Brian Conley: Alive and Dangerous", which was televised and featured stand-up plus special Nick Frisby/Larry the Loafer and Dangerous Brian sketches. The show was put on VHS and later on DVD.


title: Brian Conley

text: Around 2000, Conley was given a new show for ITV consisting of chat and music called, once again, "The Brian Conley Show". The show lasted for three series. The show's guests included some major Hollywood names like Kathleen Turner and Leslie Nielsen.


title: Brian Conley

text: Conley also worked at the BBC for a couple of shows. His first being "We've Got Your Number", a game show part of a long series of National Lottery game shows. Conley would later return to the BBC to present "Let Me Entertain You" in 2006.


title: Brian Conley

text: He has done much stage work, including the parts of Buttons in "Cinderella" and Caractacus Potts in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang".


title: Brian Conley

text: In 2006, Conley returned to television, hosting a daytime variety show called "Let Me Entertain You", a Lion TV production for BBC Two where 13-year-old operatic baritone Matthew Crane was the first series champion. On 1 December of the same year, he appeared as a guest presenter on "The New Paul O'Grady Show" on Channel 4, where Larry the Loafer made an appearance in the beginning, and Conley referred himself to "Dangerous Brian" as he was about to enter the "Tank of Doom" as part of a Bushtucker trial.


title: Brian Conley

text: Later in 2007, Conley presented a second series of "Let Me Entertain You" on BBC Two, and presented a gameshow, "Dirty Rotten Cheater" for the BBC. Twenty shows were recorded in May at the Maidstone Studios in Kent.


title: Brian Conley

text: Conley presented the Midweek Lottery show on BBC One in 2008. On 24 April 2008, Brian took over from ill presenter Paul O'Grady on "The Paul O'Grady Show" on Channel 4, where he starred once again as 'Dangerous Brian' and he contested against 'Nearly Dangerous Joyce'. Larry the Loafer also made an appearance. On 22 June 2008, Conley performed a cameo role in "Last of the Summer Wine" as "Boothroyd", Barry's fitness mad neighbour.


title: Brian Conley

text: He appeared as part of Team Ant on "Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway", and took over from Michael Ball in the musical "Hairspray" playing the role of Edna Turnblad at London's Shaftesbury Theatre. He also played the same role in the UK Tour of "Hairspray", sharing the role with Michael Ball and actor Michael Starke, at selected UK venues. He has also partaken in his own live show, "The Best of Brian Conley", which showcases 'the best' of Conley's material from his past shows, interspersed with occasional showreels of either Larry the Loafer, Dangerous Brian (depending on who Brian is about to come on stage as) or a generic showreel of his work. Like the "Brian Conley Show", the stage show invites guests to perform on stage alongside Conley. In 2010, the show went on tour again, covering more areas of the country.


title: Brian Conley

text: He then played Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh's "Oliver!" and also finished a West End run as Edna Turnblad in Olivier Award-winning "Hairspray". His recent stage career has included lead roles in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", "The Music Man" at the Chichester Festival, "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show" (directed and choreographed by Craig Revel Horwood) and Olivier Award-winning "Jolson", in which he played Al Jolson.


title: Brian Conley

text: On 7 November 2012, ITV confirmed that Conley would feature in the 2012 series of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!". On 19 November 2012, Brian left the jungle on medical grounds.


title: Brian Conley

text: In April 2014, Conley was a contestant on CBBC's "Driving Academy" programme. In 2014, he hosted a game show for Challenge called "Timeline" and he presented two series of the daytime BBC show "The TV That Made Me" in 2015 and 2016.


title: Brian Conley

text: On 18 August 2017, it was announced that Conley would be taking part in the fifteenth series of "Strictly Come Dancing". He was partnered with Welsh professional dancer Amy Dowden. Conley and Dowden were voted off the show in Week 5 after their Jive to Tom Jones' "It's Not Unusual". In February 2021, it was announced that he would be joining the BBC soap opera "EastEnders" as series regular Terry Cant, the long-lost father of established character Sonia Fowler (Natalie Cassidy).


title: Brian Conley

text: Conley married Anne-Marie on 4 August 1996, in a ceremony at a Stoke Poges chapel, Buckinghamshire. The couple have two daughters, Amy and Lucy.


title: Brian Conley

text: Conley's appearances on chat shows include "Aspel & Company" (1993), "This Morning" (1993 & 2005), "Open House with Gloria Hunniford" (1998), "The New Paul O'Grady Show" (2005 & 2009), "GMTV" (2005), "Breakfast" (2008), "The Alan Titchmarsh Show" (2009), "The One Show" (2009), "The 5 O'Clock Show" (2010), "The Michael Ball Show" (2010) and "Loose Women" (2007–11, various episodes).


title: Brian Conley

text: Additionally, Conley has appeared as a talking head on many compilation shows and documentaries including: "The 100 Greatest Musicals" (2003), "Bob Monkhouse's Comedy Heroes" (2004), "Who Killed Saturday Night TV?" (2004), "The Story of Light Entertainment" (2006), "100 Greatest Stand-Ups" (2007), "50 Greatest Comedy Catchphrases" (2008) and "The Nolans: In the Mood for Dancing" (2009).


title: AmigaOS

text: AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versions of AmigaOS required the Motorola 68000 series of 16-bit and 32-bit microprocessors. Later versions were developed by Haage & Partner (AmigaOS 3.5 and 3.9) and then Hyperion Entertainment (AmigaOS 4.0-4.1). A PowerPC microprocessor is required for the most recent release, AmigaOS 4.


title: AmigaOS

text: It includes an abstraction of the Amiga's hardware, a disk operating system called "AmigaDOS", a windowing system API called "Intuition", and a desktop environment and file manager called "Workbench".


title: AmigaOS

text: The Amiga intellectual property is fragmented between Amiga Inc., Cloanto, and Hyperion Entertainment. The copyrights for works created up to 1993 are owned by Cloanto. In 2001, Amiga Inc. contracted AmigaOS 4 development to Hyperion Entertainment and, in 2009 they granted Hyperion an exclusive, perpetual, worldwide license to AmigaOS 3.1 in order to develop and market AmigaOS 4 and subsequent versions.


title: AmigaOS

text: On December 29, 2015, the AmigaOS 3.1 source code leaked to the web; this was confirmed by the licensee, Hyperion Entertainment.


title: AmigaOS

text: AmigaOS is a single-user operating system based on a preemptive multitasking kernel, called Exec. AmigaOS provides an abstraction of the Amiga's hardware, a disk operating system called AmigaDOS, a windowing system API called "Intuition" and a desktop file manager called "Workbench".


title: AmigaOS

text: A command-line interface (CLI), called AmigaShell, is also integrated into the system, though it also is entirely window-based. The CLI and Workbench components share the same privileges. Notably, AmigaOS lacks any built-in memory protection.


title: AmigaOS

text: AmigaOS is formed from two parts, namely, a firmware component called "Kickstart" and a software portion usually referred to as "Workbench". Up until AmigaOS 3.1, matching versions of Kickstart and Workbench were typically released together. However, since AmigaOS 3.5, the first release after Commodore's demise, only the software component has been updated and the role of Kickstart has been diminished somewhat.


title: AmigaOS

text: Firmware updates may still be applied by patching at system boot. That was until 2018 when Hyperion Entertainment (license holder to AmigaOS 3.1) released AmigaOS 3.1.4 with an updated Kickstart ROM to go with it.


title: AmigaOS

text: Kickstart is the bootstrap firmware, usually stored in ROM. Kickstart contains the code needed to boot standard Amiga hardware and many of the core components of AmigaOS. The function of Kickstart is comparable to the BIOS plus the main operating system kernel in IBM PC compatibles. However, Kickstart provides more functionality available at boot time than would typically be expected on PC, for example, the full windowing environment.


title: AmigaOS

text: Kickstart contains many core parts of the Amiga's operating system, such as "Exec", "Intuition", the core of "AmigaDOS" and functionality to initialize Autoconfig-compliant expansion hardware. Later versions of the Kickstart contained drivers for IDE and SCSI controllers, PC card ports and other built-in hardware.


title: AmigaOS

text: Upon start-up or reset the Kickstart performs a number of diagnostic and system checks and then initializes the Amiga chipset and some core OS components. It will then examine connected boot devices and attempt to boot from the one with the highest boot priority. If no boot device is present a screen will be displayed asking the user to insert a boot disk, typically a floppy disk.


title: AmigaOS

text: At start-up Kickstart attempts to boot from a bootable device (typically, a floppy disk or hard disk drive). In the case of a floppy, the system reads the first two sectors of the disk (the "bootblock"), and executes any boot instructions stored there. Normally this code passes control back to the OS (invoking AmigaDOS and the GUI) and using the disk as the system boot volume. Any such disk, regardless of the other contents of the disk, was referred to as a "Boot disk" or "bootable disk". A bootblock could be added to a blank disk by use of the codice_1 command. Some games and demos on floppy disk used custom bootblocks, which allowed them to take over the boot sequence and manage the Amiga's hardware without AmigaOS.


title: AmigaOS

text: The bootblock became an obvious target for virus writers. Some games or demos that used a custom bootblock would not work if infected with a bootblock virus, as the code of the virus replaced the original. The first such virus was the SCA virus. Anti-virus attempts included custom bootblocks.


title: AmigaOS

text: These amended bootblock advertised the presence of the virus checker while checking the system for tell-tale signs of memory-resident viruses and then passed control back to the system. Unfortunately these could not be used on disks that already relied on a custom bootblock, but did alert users to potential trouble. Several of them also replicated themselves across other disks, becoming little more than viruses in their own right.


title: AmigaOS

text: Exec is the multi-tasking kernel of AmigaOS. Exec provides functionality for multi-tasking, memory allocation, interrupt handling and handling of dynamic shared libraries. It acts as a scheduler for tasks running on the system, providing pre-emptive multitasking with prioritized round-robin scheduling.


title: AmigaOS

text: Exec also provides access to other libraries and high-level inter-process communication via message passing. Other comparable microkernels have had performance problems because of the need to copy messages between address spaces. Since the Amiga has only one address space, Exec message passing is quite efficient.


title: AmigaOS

text: AmigaDOS provides the disk operating system portion of the AmigaOS. This includes file systems, file and directory manipulation, the command-line interface, file redirection, console windows, and so on. Its interfaces offer facilities such as command redirection, piping, scripting with structured programming primitives, and a system of global and local variables.


title: AmigaOS

text: In AmigaOS 1.x, the AmigaDOS portion was based on TRIPOS, which is written in BCPL. Interfacing with it from other languages proved a difficult and error-prone task, and the port of TRIPOS was not very efficient.


title: AmigaOS

text: From AmigaOS 2.x onwards, AmigaDOS was rewritten in C and Assembler, retaining 1.x BCPL program compatibility, and it incorporated parts of the third-party "AmigaDOS Resource Project", which had already written replacements for many of the BCPL utilities and interfaces.


title: AmigaOS

text: ARP also provided one of the first standardized file requesters for the Amiga, and introduced the use of more friendly UNIX-style wildcard (globbing) functions in command-line parameters. Other innovations were an improvement in the range of date formats accepted by commands and the facility to make a command resident, so that it only needs to be loaded into memory once and remains in memory to reduce the cost of loading in subsequent uses.


title: AmigaOS

text: In AmigaOS 4.0, the DOS abandoned the BCPL legacy completely and, starting from AmigaOS 4.1, it has been rewritten with full 64-bit support.


title: AmigaOS

text: File extensions are often used in AmigaOS, but they are not mandatory and they are not handled specially by the DOS, being instead just a conventional part of the file names. Executable programs are recognized using a magic number.


title: AmigaOS

text: The native Amiga windowing system is called Intuition, which handles input from the keyboard and mouse and rendering of screens, windows and widgets.


title: AmigaOS

text: Prior to AmigaOS 2.0, there was no standardized look and feel, application developers had to write their own non-standard widgets. Commodore added the GadTools library and BOOPSI in AmigaOS 2.0, both of which provided standardized widgets. Commodore also published the "Amiga User Interface Style Guide", which explained how applications should be laid out for consistency. Stefan Stuntz created a popular third-party widget library, based on BOOPSI, called Magic User Interface, or MUI. MorphOS uses MUI as its official toolkit, while AROS uses a MUI clone called Zune. AmigaOS 3.5 added another widget set, ReAction, also based on BOOPSI.


title: AmigaOS

text: An unusual feature of AmigaOS is the use of multiple screens shown on the same display. Each screen may have a different video resolution or color depth. AmigaOS 2.0 added support for "public screens", allowing applications to open windows on other applications' screens. Prior to AmigaOS 2.0, only the Workbench screen was shared. A widget in the top-right corner of every screen allows screens to be cycled through. Screens can be overlaid by dragging each up or down by their title bars. AmigaOS 4 introduced screens that are draggable in any direction.


title: AmigaOS

text: Workbench is the native graphical file manager and desktop environment of AmigaOS. Though the term Workbench was originally used to refer to the entire operating system, with the release of AmigaOS 3.1 the operating system was renamed AmigaOS and subsequently Workbench refers to the desktop manager only. As the name suggests, the metaphor of a workbench is used, rather than that of a desktop; directories are depicted as "drawers", executable files are "tools", data files are "projects" and GUI widgets are "gadgets". In many other aspects the interface resembles Mac OS, with the main desktop showing icons of inserted disks and hard drive partitions, and a single menu bar at the top of every screen. Unlike the Macintosh mouse available at the time, the standard Amiga mouse has two buttons – the right mouse button operates the pull-down menus, with a "release to select" mechanism.


title: AmigaOS

text: Until the release of version 3, AmigaOS only natively supported the native Amiga graphics chipset, via "graphics.library", which provides an API for geometric primitives, raster graphic operations and handling of sprites. As this API could be bypassed, some developers chose to avoid OS functionality for rendering and directly program the underlying hardware for gains in efficiency.


title: AmigaOS

text: Third-party graphics cards were initially supported via proprietary unofficial solutions. A later solution where AmigaOS could directly support any graphics system, was termed "retargetable graphics" (RTG). With AmigaOS 3.5, some RTG systems were bundled with the OS, allowing the use of common hardware cards other than the native Amiga chipsets. The main RTG systems are CyberGraphX, Picasso 96 and EGS. Some vector graphic libraries, like Cairo and Anti-Grain Geometry, are also available. Modern systems can use cross-platform SDL (simple DirectMedia Layer) engine for games and other multimedia programs.