title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: Mahal moved to Santa Monica, California, in 1964 and formed Rising Sons with fellow blues rock musicians Ry Cooder and Jessie Lee Kincaid, landing a record deal with Columbia Records soon after. Jesse Ed Davis, a Kiowa native from Oklahoma, joined Taj Mahal and played guitar and piano on Mahal's first four albums. The group was one of the first interracial bands of the period, which may have hampered their commercial viability. However, Rising Sons bassist Gary Marker later recalled the band's members had come to a creative impasse and were unable to reconcile their musical and personal differences even with the guidance of veteran producer Terry Melcher. They recorded enough songs for a full-length album, but released only a single and the band soon broke up. Legacy Records did release "The Rising Sons Featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder" in 1992 with material from that period. During this time Mahal was also working with other musicians like Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Muddy Waters.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: Mahal stayed with Columbia for his solo career, releasing the self-titled "Taj Mahal" and "The Natch'l Blues" in 1968. His track "Statesboro Blues" was featured on side 2 of the very successful Columbia/CBS sampler album, "The Rock Machine Turns You On", giving a huge early impetus to his career. "Giant Step/De Old Folks at Home" with session musician Jesse Ed Davis followed in 1969. During this time he and Cooder worked with the Rolling Stones, with whom he has performed at various times throughout his career. In 1968, he performed in the film "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus". He recorded a total of twelve albums for Columbia from the late 1960s into the 1970s. His work of the 1970s was especially important, in that his releases began incorporating West Indian and Caribbean music, jazz and reggae into the mix. In 1972, he acted in and wrote the film score for the movie "Sounder", which starred Cicely Tyson. He reprised his role and returned as composer in the sequel, "Part 2, Sounder".


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: In 1976 Mahal left Columbia and signed with Warner Bros. Records, recording three albums for them. One of these was another film score for 1977's "Brothers"; the album shares the same name. After his time with Warner Bros., he struggled to find another record contract, this being the era of heavy metal and disco music.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: Stalled in his career, he decided to move to Kauai, Hawaii in 1981 and soon formed the Hula Blues Band. Originally just a group of guys getting together for fishing and a good time, the band soon began performing regularly and touring. He maintained a low public profile in Hawaii throughout most of the 1980s before recording "Taj" in 1988 for Gramavision. This started a comeback of sorts for him, recording both for Gramavision and Hannibal Records during this time.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: In the 1990s Mahal became deeply involved in supporting the nonprofit Music Maker Relief Foundation. As of 2019, he was still on the Foundation's advisory board.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: In the 1990s he was on the Private Music label, releasing albums full of blues, pop, R&B and rock. He did collaborative works both with Eric Clapton and Etta James.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: In 1995 he recorded a record fusing traditional American blues with Indian stringed instruments, "Mumtaz Mahal", accompanied by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt on Mohan veena and N. Ravikiran on chitravina, a fretless lute.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: In 1998, in collaboration with renowned songwriter David Forman, producer Rick Chertoff and musicians Cyndi Lauper, Willie Nile, Joan Osborne, Rob Hyman, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm of the Band, and the Chieftains, he performed on the Americana album "Largo" based on the music of Antonín Dvořák.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: In 1997 he won Best Contemporary Blues Album for "Señor Blues" at the Grammy Awards, followed by another Grammy for "Shoutin' in Key" in 2000. He performed the theme song to the children's television show "Peep and the Big Wide World", which began broadcast in 2004.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: In 2002, Mahal appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation album "Red Hot and Riot" in tribute to Nigerian afrobeat musician Fela Kuti. The Paul Heck produced album was widely acclaimed, and all proceeds from the record were donated to AIDS charities.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: Taj Mahal contributed to Olmecha Supreme's 2006 album 'hedfoneresonance'. The Wellington-based group led by Mahal's son Imon Starr (Ahmen Mahal) also featured Deva Mahal on vocals.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: Mahal partnered up with Keb' Mo' to release a joint album "TajMo" on May 5, 2017. The album has some guest appearances by Bonnie Raitt, Joe Walsh, Sheila E., and Lizz Wright, and has six original compositions and five covers, from artists and bands like John Mayer and The Who.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: In 2013, Mahal appeared in the documentary film on Byrds founding member Gene Clark, 'The Byrd Who Flew Alone', produced by Four Suns Productions. Clark and Mahal had been friends for many years.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: In June 2017, Mahal appeared in the award-winning documentary film "The American Epic Sessions," directed by Bernard MacMahon, recording Charley Patton's "High Water Everywhere" on the first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s. Mahal appeared throughout the accompanying documentary series "American Epic," commenting on the 1920s rural recording artists who had a profound influence on American music and on him personally.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: Mahal's first marriage was to Anna de Leon. He refers to Anna in the song "Texas Woman Blues" with the spoken words "Señorita de Leon, escucha mi canción." That marriage produced one daughter, the novelist and professor Aya de Leon. Taj Mahal married Inshirah Geter on January 23, 1976 and together they have six children. His daughter Deva Mahal appeared on one episode of Dating Around.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: Mahal leads with his thumb and middle finger when fingerpicking, rather than with his index finger as the majority of guitar players do. "I play with a flatpick," he says, "when I do a lot of blues leads." Early in his musical career Mahal studied the various styles of his favorite blues singers, including musicians like Jimmy Reed, Son House, Sleepy John Estes, Big Mama Thornton, Howlin' Wolf, Mississippi John Hurt, and Sonny Terry. He describes his hanging out at clubs like Club 47 in Massachusetts and Ash Grove in Los Angeles as "basic building blocks in the development of his music." Considered to be a scholar of blues music, his studies of ethnomusicology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst would come to introduce him further to the folk music of the Caribbean and West Africa. Over time he incorporated more and more African roots music into his musical palette, embracing elements of reggae, calypso, jazz, zydeco, R&B, gospel music, and the country blues—each of which having "served as the foundation of his unique sound." According to "The Rough Guide to Rock", "It has been said that Taj Mahal was one of the first major artists, if not the very first one, to pursue the possibilities of world music. Even the blues he was playing in the early 70s – "Recycling The Blues & Other Related Stuff" (1972), "Mo' Roots" (1974) – showed an aptitude for spicing the mix with flavours that always kept him a yard or so distant from being an out-and-out blues performer." Concerning his voice, author David Evans writes that Mahal has "an extraordinary voice that ranges from gruff and gritty to smooth and sultry."


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: Taj Mahal believes that his 1999 album "Kulanjan", which features him playing with the kora master of Mali's Griot tradition Toumani Diabaté, "embodies his musical and cultural spirit arriving full circle." To him it was an experience that allowed him to reconnect with his African heritage, striking him with a sense of coming home. He even changed his name to Dadi Kouyate, the first jali name, to drive this point home. Speaking of the experience and demonstrating the breadth of his eclecticism, he has said:


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: Taj Mahal has said he prefers to do outdoor performances, saying: "The music was designed for people to move, and it's a bit difficult after a while to have people sitting like they're watching television. That's why I like to play outdoor festivals-because people will just dance. Theatre audiences need to ask themselves: 'What the hell is going on? We're asking these musicians to come and perform and then we sit there and draw all the energy out of the air.' That's why after a while I need a rest. It's too much of a drain. Often I don't allow that. I just play to the goddess of music-and I know she's dancing."


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: Mahal has been quoted as saying, "Eighty-one percent of the kids listening to rap were not black kids. Once there was a tremendous amount of money involved in it ... they totally moved it over to a material side. It just went off to a terrible direction. ...You can listen to my music from front to back, and you don't ever hear me moaning and crying about how bad you done treated me. I think that style of blues and that type of tone was something that happened as a result of many white people feeling very, very guilty about what went down."


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: On February 8, 2006 Taj Mahal was designated the official Blues Artist of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: In March 2006, Taj Mahal, along with his sister, the late Carole Fredericks, received the Foreign Language Advocacy Award from the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in recognition of their commitment to shine a spotlight on the vast potential of music to foster genuine intercultural communication.


title: Taj Mahal (musician)

text: On May 22, 2011, Taj Mahal received an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He also made brief remarks and performed three songs. A video of the performance can be found online.


title: 1992 NBA draft

text: The 1992 NBA draft took place on June 24, 1992, at Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon. The draft is considered to be one of the deepest in NBA history. The top three picks (Shaquille O'Neal, Alonzo Mourning, Christian Laettner) were considered can't-miss prospects. O'Neal and Mourning are Hall of Famers; O'Neal and Mourning are (individual) player-inducted. Laettner made one All-Star game in his career and was an Olympic Gold Medalist on the 1992 Dream Team, but did not live up to the lofty expectations set for him. The trio would end up playing together on the 2005 Miami Heat. Two other players went on to become All-Stars (Tom Gugliotta once, Latrell Sprewell four times) and several others had solid careers (Jimmy Jackson, Robert Horry, Doug Christie, P.J. Brown, LaPhonso Ellis, Jon Barry, Walt Williams, Anthony Peeler, and Clarence Weatherspoon). Harold Miner, who was given the nickname "Baby Jordan" because of his similarities to Michael Jordan, slipped to number 12 and, other than winning two slam dunk contests, only had a brief, uneventful, and injury prone four-year career.


title: 1992 NBA draft

text: This was the first time the NBA draft was held outside of New York. It is the only draft where the first three picks were centers.


title: Rachel Shenton

text: Rachel Shenton (born 21 December 1987 ) is an English actress, screenwriter, and activist known for playing Mitzeee Minniver on the Channel 4 soap opera "Hollyoaks" (2010–2013), Lily Summers in ABC Family drama "Switched at Birth" (2014–2017), Joanne Scott in BBC2 comedy "White Gold" (2019) and Helen Alderson in "All Creatures Great and Small" (2020–present).


title: Rachel Shenton

text: Shenton attended two high schools, one in Cheadle. After high school Shenton went on to study performing arts at Stoke-on-Trent College (Burslem Campus). In between studying and acting roles, she volunteered at her local charity, Deaflinks.


title: Rachel Shenton

text: Shenton's acting career began with small recurring parts in various television series such as "Holby City" and "Waterloo Road". She also filmed various television commercials for the "Ministry of Defence", "DFS" and "Sega Superstars Tennis" and appeared in two British films. She continued recurring appearances in 2008 appearing in Nickelodeon's series "Genie in the House" and Five's "Sophia's Diary", playing Sofia's wayward sister 'Trisha'.


title: Rachel Shenton

text: In April 2010, it was announced that Shenton had been cast in "Hollyoaks" as Mitzeee Minniver, an aspiring glamour model. Shenton described her character as being the complete opposite of her. Her casting came as part of new producer Paul Marquess' major revamp of the serial. Before her character had appeared on-screen Shenton received media attention for her image, with tabloids reporting on her likeness to Cheryl Cole.


title: Rachel Shenton

text: Shenton described the attention and comparisons as "very flattering". On 20 December 2012, Shenton announced her decision to leave "Hollyoaks". Shenton's final scenes as Mitzeee aired on 15 February 2013, when the character moved to the United States.


title: Rachel Shenton

text: On 28 April 2014, it was announced that Shenton would make her US television debut in season 3 of the ABC Family drama "Switched at Birth", playing young student teacher, Lilly Summers. Shenton went on to shoot season 4 and 5 which was when the show ended. The final season aired in February 2017.


title: Rachel Shenton

text: In August 2017, Shenton appeared in "The Silent Child", a film which she created and co-produced with her husband Chris Overton. The film was based on Shenton's own experiences as the child of a parent who became deaf. The film features profoundly deaf six-year-old first-time actor Maisie Sly as the titular child. British Sign Language (BSL) is used in the film. The film won best short film at the Rhode Island International Film Festival in August 2017. This made it eligible for entry to the Oscars. In December 2017 the film was selected as one of the final ten films in the Live Action Short Film category for the 90th Academy Awards. On 23 January 2018, it was announced that "The Silent Child" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for the 90th Academy Awards, which it then won. Shenton kept a promise that she had made to their young lead actress and signed her acceptance speech.


title: Rachel Shenton

text: In March 2019, Shenton joined the cast of BBC2 comedy series "White Gold" playing motivational speaker turned window saleswoman Jo Scott, alongside James Buckley and Joe Thomas.


title: Rachel Shenton

text: In September 2020, she began appearing in the Channel 5 and PBS adaptation of "All Creatures Great and Small" as Helen Alderson. Significant changes were made from the source material (both the previous television series and the memoir), allowing the role of Helen to be greatly expanded. The programme was renewed for a second series, which aired in September 2021, with a third series broadcast in 2022.


title: Rachel Shenton

text: Outside of acting, Rachel has been delivering screen acting masterclasses to her students at The Midlands Screen Acting School since 2013. Rachel often lines up industry professional guests to attend the sessions. Previously, her All Creature Great and Small co-star Nicholas Ralph has attended a session.


title: Rachel Shenton

text: When Shenton was 12, her father became deaf after undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Following the death of her father, Shenton learned British Sign Language. In 2011, Shenton was made ambassador for the National Deaf Children's Society and she continues to raise awareness of deafness in the UK.


title: Rachel Shenton

text: In March 2011, Shenton completed a skydive in aid of National Deaf Children's Society. In February 2012, Shenton announced that she was due to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in aid of the charity. In May 2011, Shenton helped to launch a social networking website for deaf people named "Viewtalk". In October 2012, she climbed the BT Tower in aid of Action on Hearing Loss. She married Chris Overton in October 2018.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: On August 23, 2020, Jacob S. Blake, a 29-year-old black man, was shot and seriously injured by police officer Rusten Sheskey in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Sheskey shot Blake in the back four times and the side three times after Blake opened the driver's door to his girlfriend's SUV and attempted to reach inside. Sheskey said that he believed he was about to be stabbed, since Blake was holding a knife. Earlier during the encounter, Blake had been tasered by two officers, but the tasers failed to disable him and he continued towards his vehicle.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: Blake had a warrant for his arrest from July, based on charges of third-degree felony sexual assault and trespassing and disorderly conduct for domestic abuse in May. Both Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis and the Kenosha Professional Police Association stated that the officers dispatched on August 23 were aware of the pending warrant for Blake before they arrived on scene; dispatch records confirm this.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: The police shooting was followed by unrest, which included rallies, marches, property damage, arson, and clashes with police. Two people were also fatally shot in a confrontation with an armed civilian, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse. Blake's name was invoked in protests in other cities as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, which resurged in the wake of several high-profile killings by police officers in 2020.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: In January 2021, Kenosha County prosecutors announced that the officers involved in the shooting would not be charged, and Sheskey returned to regular police duty in April 2021. Prosecutors also announced that Blake would not face any new charges, and they dropped previous sexual assault and trespassing charges against Blake in exchange for him pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct for domestic abuse, for which he was then sentenced to two years of probation.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: On August 23, 2020, Kenosha police responded to a 9-1-1 call about a "domestic incident" at approximately 5:11p.m. According to multiple official sources, the female caller referred to Blake as her "boyfriend", said he was not permitted to be on the premises, and that he had taken her car keys and was refusing to give them back. Officers were also informed by the dispatcher that there was a "wanted" alert for someone at the address, indicated by police code 10–99. Blake had a warrant for his arrest from July, based on charges of third-degree sexual assault, trespassing, and disorderly conduct for domestic abuse in May. The woman who called 9-1-1 on August 23 to report that Blake had stolen her keys was the same woman who had previously filed the criminal complaint alleging that Blake had sexually assaulted her. The previous May, the woman alleged that Blake entered a room where she was sleeping near one of her children, thrust his finger into her vagina, pulled it out, smelled it and said, "Smells like you’ve been with other men." The alleged victim also said that Blake had sexually assaulted her approximately twice per year. Both Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis and the Kenosha Professional Police Association stated that the officers dispatched on August 23 were aware of the pending warrant for Blake before they arrived on scene.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: One witness stated that Blake pulled his car up near "six or seven women shouting at each other on the sidewalk" and "Blake did not say anything to the women". According to other witnesses, Blake was trying to intervene between two women who were arguing when police arrived. Officers attempted to subdue Blake, and two officers used tasers on him. A bystander who recorded a video of the incident told reporters that he heard police yelling "drop the knife". The bystander also stated, "I didn't see any weapons in his hands; he wasn't being violent". The police union said that Blake was armed with a knife in his left hand, but officers did not initially see it, and he "forcefully fought with the officers, including putting one of [them] in a headlock", while ignoring orders to drop the knife. "Based on the inability to gain compliance and control after using verbal, physical and less-lethal means, the officers drew their firearms," the police union added. One of Blake's attorneys disputed this version of events, calling it "overblown", and saying that the police officers were the aggressors and immediately became physical with Blake upon arriving at the scene.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: After an initial scuffle, Blake walked to the driver's side of his girlfriend's rented vehicle, followed by officer Rusten Sheskey and another officer with handguns drawn. Sheskey attempted to grab Blake, and when Blake opened the driver's side door and leaned in, Sheskey grabbed him and fired seven shots towards Blake's back. According to Blake's attorney, four of the shots hit Blake. According to Sheskey's attorney, Sheskey saw Blake put a child in the vehicle as he arrived, and heard a woman say, "He's got my kid. He's got my keys"; Sheskey shot Blake believing he was attempting to kidnap the child in the backseat of the vehicle he was entering, and because Blake had a knife in his hand and twisted his body toward Sheskey. In a press conference on August 26, 2020, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said that a knife was recovered from the driver-side front floorboard of the car Blake was leaning into when he was shot in the back. Kaul also said that Blake “admitted that he had a knife in his possession.” The prosecutor who oversaw the investigation said that Blake admitted to holding a knife and that statements from officers and witnesses had indicated that Blake turned towards officer Sheskey with the knife immediately before the shooting.According to Blake, he intended to put the knife in the SUV and then lie on the ground to submit to the police officers and that he "wasn't thinking clearly" and picked up a knife during the altercation, but denied having the intent to use it.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: Blake was flown to Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. His father announced on August 25 that Blake was paralyzed from the waist down and that doctors do not yet know if it would be permanent. He also suffered a gunshot wound to one arm and damage to his stomach, kidney, and liver; he had to have most of his small intestines and colon removed. Blake was initially handcuffed to his hospital bed and guarded by two officers due to an outstanding warrant. The handcuffs were removed and the officers stopped guarding Blake after he posted bond.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: As of August 2021, Blake told in an interview that he was able to take a few steps, "which he compared to sliding his legs through a woodchipper", and that he was suffering from anxiety attacks.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: Kenosha police referred the investigation of the shooting to the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation. The investigation's findings went to district attorney Michael D. Graveley, the local official responsible for deciding whether to bring charges against the officers. Graveley stated on August 25, 2020, that the investigation was in "its earliest stages". On the same day, the United States Department of Justice also announced an investigation into the shooting. The investigation would look into whether Blake's civil rights were violated. In October 2021, the Department of Justice announced it will not pursue federal civil rights charges against the officer, citing insufficient evidence that proves the officer willfully violated federal civil rights statutes.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: Blake's family retained civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who also represented the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, to represent Blake in their civil suit. Crump called for the officer who shot Blake to be arrested, and others involved to be fired.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: On August 26, Wisconsin attorney general Josh Kaul announced that officer Sheskey was the only officer who fired his weapon. All were placed on administrative leave.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: On August 28, the police union said that most narratives about the shooting were wholly inaccurate and purely fictional, including information from Blake's attorneys. It also criticized a statement released by the Wisconsin Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation, which is leading the investigation into the police shooting, as "riddled with incomplete information".


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: On September 4, 2020, Blake pleaded not guilty to the July sexual assault charge, appearing via Zoom from his hospital bed. In November 2020, Blake reached a deal with the prosecution where the charges of sexual assault were dropped in return for his pleading guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. He was sentenced to two years of probation.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: On September 21, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul appointed a former sheriff of Madison, Wisconsin, to review the work of Wisconsin Department of Justice investigators and provide a written report to the Kenosha County District Attorney.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: On January 5, 2021, Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley, the top prosecutor in the county, declined to bring charges against Police Officer Rusten Sheskey. He said that investigators had reviewed 40 hours of video and hundreds of pages of police reports before making the decision.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: In April 2021, it was reported that Sheskey has returned to regular duty and will not face any administrative discipline.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: In October 2021, the US Department of Justice announced it would not be bringing civil rights charges against Sheskey.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: Protests followed, leading Kenosha County to declare a state of emergency overnight on August 24 after police vehicles were damaged, a dump truck set on fire, and the local courthouse vandalized. An officer was knocked down with a brick, and tear gas was deployed. Police urged 24-hour businesses to consider closing because of numerous calls about armed robberies and shots being fired, and the Wisconsin National Guard was deployed to maintain public safety. Up to 200 members were to be deployed. On August 24, the protesters set fires and looted businesses for a second night. On August 25, the protests and fires continued throughout Kenosha, and civilians armed with guns patrolled parts of the city.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: On August 25, two people were killed and a third seriously wounded; on the following day, a 17-year-old male by the name of Kyle Rittenhouse, turned himself in to police in Antioch, Illinois. The youth was charged with first-degree intentional homicide. His defense lawyers argued that the shootings were in self-defense. On November 19, 2021, in a unanimous jury verdict, Rittenhouse was acquitted of all five charges.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: Public protests regarding Blake's shooting occurred in many other cities, including New York, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Atlanta.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: Multiple professional sports teams went on strike in protest, refusing to play their scheduled games. In the NBA Bubble, the Milwaukee Bucks boycotted their August 26 first-round playoff game against the Orlando Magic in protest of the shooting. The team decided not to come out of their locker room minutes before the scheduled start to the game. Later that day, the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Basketball Players Association announced that in light of the Bucks' decision to refuse to play, all NBA games for the day were postponed. This led to other boycotts from other American sports leagues, including the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Hockey League (NHL), and Major League Soccer (MLS).


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers issued a statement denouncing the excessive use of force by police and invoking the names of African Americans killed by law enforcement. Evers said, "While we do not have all of the details yet, what we know for certain is that he is not the first black man or person to have been shot or injured or mercilessly killed at the hands of individuals in law enforcement in our state or our country." Evers called Wisconsin state lawmakers to a special session in order to pass legislation addressing police brutality.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: On August 24, 2020, Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes said the shooting was not an accident, and "This wasn't bad police work. This felt like some sort of vendetta taken out on a member of our community." On the 2021 anniversary of the shooting, Barnes released a statement condemning how "systemic racism continues to ravage communities of color" and remembering how "Jacob Black was shot in the back seven times in front of his children".


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: Former Vice President and 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said "these shots pierce the soul of our nation" and called for an "immediate, full, and transparent investigation". Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris spoke to Blake's father for an hour. On September 3, Biden and his wife Jill met with multiple members of Blake's family at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport for 90 minutes; Blake joined the meeting by phone from his hospital bed. Biden then went to Kenosha to speak with members of the community at a local church. This was his first campaign trip to Wisconsin. Harris spoke to Blake by telephone on September 7.


title: Shooting of Jacob Blake

text: President Donald Trump called the family, but Blake's mother Julia Black later apologized for missing the call, while Blake's father said Trump had not tried to reach out. Trump later said the shooting "was not a good sight. I didn’t like the sight of it, certainly, and I think most people would agree with that." Trump scheduled a trip to Kenosha on September 1 to see the damage caused by the protests and to meet with law enforcement, but Governor Evers and Mayor John Antaramian asked him to reconsider his visit over concerns that his presence would hinder efforts to "overcome division". Trump made the trip, accompanied by U.S. Attorney General William Barr, but he did not meet with Blake's family because, he said, they wanted legal counsel present at the meeting. They held discussions with the county sheriff, the chief of police, and others, and Trump promised financial help to city and state law enforcement, and to businesses which had been burned down. On September 9, Barr contrasted the murder of George Floyd with the Blake shooting, saying, "Floyd was already subdued, incapacitated in handcuffs and was not armed. In the Jacob case, he was in the midst of committing a felony and he was armed."


title: Born to Run

text: Born to Run is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, released on August 25, 1975, by Columbia Records. As his effort to break into the mainstream, the album was a commercial success, peaking at number three on the "Billboard" 200 and eventually selling seven million copies in the United States. Two singles were released from the album: "Born to Run" and "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"; the first helped Springsteen to reach mainstream popularity. The tracks "Thunder Road", "She's the One", and "Jungleland" became staples of album-oriented rock radio and Springsteen concert high points.


title: Born to Run

text: "Born to Run" garnered widespread acclaim on release. Many critics have called it one of the greatest rock albums of all time. On November 14, 2005, a 30th Anniversary remaster of the album was released as a box set including two DVDs: a production diary film and a concert movie.


title: Born to Run

text: The album was remastered again in 2014 by veteran mastering engineer Bob Ludwig, who has worked on much of Springsteen's audio output since 1982, for release as part of "The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973–1984", a boxed set composed of remastered editions of his first seven albums. It was later released in remastered form as a single disc as well.


title: Born to Run

text: Springsteen began work on the album in May 1974. Having been given an enormous budget in a last-ditch effort at a commercially viable record, Springsteen became bogged down in the recording process while striving for a wall of sound production. Fed by the release of an early mix of "Born to Run" to nearly a dozen radio stations, anticipation built toward the album's release.


title: Born to Run

text: Springsteen has noted a progression in his songwriting compared to his previous work. Unlike "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J." and "The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle", "Born to Run" includes few specific references to places in New Jersey, in an attempt to make the songs more identifiable to a wider audience. Springsteen has also referred to a maturation in his lyrics, calling "Born to Run" "the album where I left behind my adolescent definitions of love and freedom—it was the dividing line." In addition, Springsteen spent more time in the studio refining songs than he had on the previous two albums.


title: Born to Run

text: All in all, the album took more than 14 months to record, with six months alone spent on the song "Born to Run" itself. During this time Springsteen battled with anger and frustration over the album, saying he heard "sounds in [his] head" that he could not explain to the others in the studio.


title: Born to Run

text: During the process, Springsteen brought in Jon Landau to help with production, made contractually official on April 13, 1975. Five days later, sessions resumed at The Record Plant, New York City, with Jimmy Iovine as engineer. This was the beginning of the breakup of Springsteen's relationship with producer and manager Mike Appel, after which Landau assumed both roles. The album was Springsteen's first to feature pianist Roy Bittan and drummer Max Weinberg (although David Sancious and Ernest "Boom" Carter played the piano and drums, respectively, on the title track, which was finished August 1974, before they left the band).


title: Born to Run

text: The album is noted for its use of introductions to set the tone of each song (all of the record was composed on piano, not guitar), and for the Phil Spector-like "Wall of Sound" arrangements and production. Springsteen has said that he wanted "Born to Run" to sound like "Roy Orbison singing Bob Dylan, produced by Spector." Most of the tracks were first recorded with a core rhythm section band comprising Springsteen, Weinberg, Bittan, and bassist Garry Tallent, with other members' contributions then added on.


title: Born to Run

text: In terms of the original LP's sequencing, Springsteen eventually adopted a "four corners" approach, as the songs beginning each side ("Thunder Road", "Born to Run") were uplifting odes to escape, while the songs ending each side ("Backstreets", "Jungleland") were sad epics of loss, betrayal, and defeat. (Originally, he had planned to begin and end the album with alternative versions of "Thunder Road".)


title: Born to Run

text: A few original pressings have "Meeting Across the River" billed as "The Heist", and the original album cover has the title handwritten with a broad-nib pen. These copies, known as the "script cover," are very rare and considered to be the "holy grail" for Springsteen collectors.


title: Born to Run

text: The album's release was accompanied by a $250,000 promotional campaign by Columbia, directed at both consumers and the music industry, making good use of Landau's "I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen" quote. With much publicity, "Born to Run" vaulted into the top 10 in its second week on the charts and soon went Gold. "Time" and "Newsweek" magazines put Springsteen on the cover in the same week (October 27, 1975) – in "Time", Jay Cocks praised Springsteen, while the "Newsweek" article took a cynical look at the "next Dylan" hype that haunted Springsteen until his breakthrough. The question of hype became a story in itself, as critics began wondering if Springsteen was for real or the product of record company promotion.


title: Born to Run

text: Upset with Columbia's promotion department, Springsteen said the decision to label him as the "future of rock was a very big mistake and I would like to strangle the guy who thought that up." When Springsteen arrived for his first UK concert at the Hammersmith Odeon, he personally tore down the "Finally the world is ready for Bruce Springsteen" posters in the lobby and ordered that the buttons with "I have seen the future of rock 'n' roll at the Hammersmith Odeon" printed on them not be given out. When the hype died down, sales tapered off and the album was off the chart after 29 weeks. However, the album had established a solid national fan base for Springsteen, which he would build on with each subsequent release.


title: Born to Run

text: The album first charted at number 84 on the "Billboard" album chart in the week of September 13, 1975. The following week, it made an impressive increase, entering the top 10 at No. 8, then spent two weeks at No. 4, and finally, during the weeks of October 11 and 18, "Born to Run" reached its peak position of No. 3. "Born to Run" continued to be a strong catalog seller through the years, re-entering the "Billboard" chart in late 1980 after "The River" was released, and again after the blockbuster success of "Born in the U.S.A.", spending most of 1985 on the chart. It was certified triple-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1986, the first year in which pre-1976 releases were eligible for platinum and multi-platinum awards.


title: Born to Run

text: Columbia first issued the album on CD in Japan in 1982, and in the US in 1984. It has since been reissued several times, including on vinyl. Several limited edition versions on 12-inch vinyl have been released, including a CBS half-speed master version in 1980 as part of its Mastersound audiophile series, a 1999 QUIEX vinyl LP edition, and a 180g vinyl LP edition, from the same masters used for the 2014 boxed set, was issued in May 2015 in conjunction with Record Store Day.


title: Born to Run

text: "Born to Run" received highly positive reviews from critics. In a rave review for "Rolling Stone" magazine, Greil Marcus wrote that Springsteen enhances romanticized American themes with his majestic sound, ideal style of rock and roll, evocative lyrics, and an impassioned delivery that defines what is a "magnificent" album: "It is the drama that counts; the stories Springsteen is telling are nothing new, though no one has ever told them better or made them matter more." John Rockwell, writing in "The New York Times", said that the "solidly rock 'n' roll" album is more diverse than Springsteen's previous albums, while his detailed lyrics retain a universal quality that transcends the sources and myths he drew upon. Robert Christgau of "The Village Voice" felt that he condenses a significant amount of American myth into songs, mostly centered on taking a lover for a joyride, and often succeeds in spite of his tendency for histrionics and "pseudotragic beautiful loser fatalism": "Springsteen may well turn out to be one of those rare self-conscious primitives who get away with it." Langdon Winner was less enthusiastic in his review for "The Real Paper" and argued that, because Springsteen consciously adheres to traditions and standards extolled in rock criticism, "Born to Run" is "the complete monument to rock and roll orthodoxy".


title: Born to Run

text: "Born to Run" was voted the third best album of 1975 in the Pazz & Jop, an annual critics poll run by "The Village Voice". Christgau, the poll's creator, ranked it 12th on his own year-end list. He later wrote that its major flaw was its pompous declaration of greatness, typified by elements such as the "wall-of-sound, white-soul-at-the-opera-house" aesthetic and an "unresolved quest narrative". Nonetheless, he maintained the record was important for how "its class-conscious songcraft provided a relief from the emptier pretensions of late-hippie arena-rock." On the other hand, AllMusic's William Ruhlmann contends that although "some thought it took itself too seriously, many found that exalting."


title: Born to Run

text: According to Acclaimed Music, it is the 16th most celebrated album in popular music history. In 1987, it was ranked No. 8 by "Rolling Stone" in its "100 Best Albums of the Last Twenty Years" and in 2003, the magazine ranked it 18th on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revision and dropping a few slots to number 21 in the 2020 reboot of the list. In 2001, the TV network VH1 named it the 27th-greatest album of all time, and in 2003, it was ranked as the most popular album in the first Zagat Survey Music Guide. The album was also included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". It was voted number 20 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's "All Time Top 1000 Albums" (2000). "Born to Run" was also listed in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry of historic recordings. In December 2005, U.S. Representative Frank Pallone (who represents Asbury Park) and 21 co-sponsors sponsored H.Res. 628, "Congratulating Bruce Springsteen of New Jersey on the 30th anniversary of his masterpiece record album 'Born to Run', and commending him on a career that has touched the lives of millions of Americans." In general, resolutions honoring native sons are passed with a simple voice vote. This bill, however, was referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and died there.


title: Born to Run

text: Songs from "Born to Run" were performed live as early as mid-1974, and by 1975, all had made their way into Springsteen's shows and (with the rare exception of "Meeting Across the River") continued to be a regular staple of his concerts on subsequent tours through 2018. Springsteen and the E Street Band performed "Born to Run" in its entirety and for the first time at a benefit performance at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey, on May 7, 2008. It was again performed during their September 20, 2009, show at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, as well as several other shows on the fall 2009 leg of the "Working on a Dream Tour". During the 2013 spring-summer run of his "Wrecking Ball Tour", Springsteen again began to perform the album in its entirety although a few times its performance was not included in the actual set lists and it was performed as either a surprise or request.


title: Born to Run

text: On June 20, 2013, the full album was performed at the Ricoh Arena, the home of Coventry City F.C. in Coventry, England, and dedicated to the memory of actor James Gandolfini, who died of a heart attack the previous day. On March 2, 2014, the full album was performed at Mt Smart Arena in Auckland, New Zealand for 40,000 fans.


title: Born to Run

text: The cover art of "Born to Run" is one of rock music's most recognizable images. It was taken by Eric Meola, who shot 900 frames in his three-hour session. These photos have been compiled in "Born to Run: The Unseen Photos".


title: Born to Run

text: The photo shows Springsteen holding a Fender Telecaster with an Esquire neck, while leaning against saxophonist Clarence Clemons. That image became famous as the cover art. "Other things happened," says Meola, "but when we saw the contact sheets, that one just sort of popped. During the Born to Run tours, Springsteen and Clemons would occasionally duplicate the pose onstage for several seconds after a song while the stage lights were dim. As soon as the audience recognized and responded to what they were doing, they immediately broke the pose.


title: Born to Run

text: The Springsteen and Clemons cover pose has been imitated often, from Cheap Trick on the album "Next Position Please", to Tom and Ray Magliozzi on the cover of the "Car Talk" compilation "Born Not to Run: More Disrespectful Car Songs", to Kevin & Kell on a Sunday strip entitled "Born to Migrate" featuring Kevin Dewclaw as Springsteen with a carrot and Kell Dewclaw as Clemons with a pile of bones, to Bert and the Cookie Monster on the cover of the "Sesame Street" album "Born to Add". The Spanish band, , also imitated the pose on the cover of the album, "Algo Prestado" in 2015.


title: Born to Run

text: On November 14, 2005, Columbia Records released "Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition" in box set form. The package included a remastered CD version of the original album. ""Born to Run" is the one I've remastered several times; most recently for the box set..." recalled Bob Ludwig. "That's the one that Bruce told me sounded closest to the way he'd imagined it in his head, which is the ultimate compliment."


title: Born to Run

text: The CD is all black (including playback side), with the label side replicating the original vinyl disc, having four bands (the original LP had four tracks per side), and including a modified red Columbia label listing all eight tracks. The DVD included "Wings for Wheels", a lengthy documentary on the making of the album, which later won the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video, with bonus film of three songs recorded live on May 1, 1973, at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. The DVD also included "Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Hammersmith Odeon, London '75", a full-length concert film recorded on November 18, 1975, at the Hammersmith Odeon in London during the brief European portion of their "Born to Run" tours. This live recording was subsequently released as the CD "Hammersmith Odeon London '75". Packages from retailer Best Buy also included a CD single replica of the original "Born to Run" 45 single.


title: Born to Run

text: The box set debuted on the "Billboard" 200 album chart on December 3, 2005, at number 18 with sales of 53,206 copies.


title: Born to Run

text: In November 2014, Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings released "The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973–1984", a boxed set composed of remastered editions of Springsteen's first seven albums recorded and released for Columbia Records between 1973 and 1984. "Born to Run" was one of those seven titles that were released individually on CD, with artwork true to the original LP packaging. Columbia also released it in single CD form in June 2015.


title: Born to Run

text: The cassette version has the song order rearranged to save tape space, which was a common practice amongst the record companies. The track listing for the cassette is as follows:


title: Born to Run

text: Two of those seven, "Linda Let Me Be the One" and "So Young and in Love" were released on the "Tracks" box set. Rough mixes of the unreleased songs "Lovers In The Cold" (Walking in the Street) and "Lonely Night in the Park" surfaced in 2005, when they made their debut on E Street Radio. "Lovers In The Cold'" originally contained the closing musical figure that became the anthemic ending to "Thunder Road". The album sequence as of July 2, 1975 included "Linda Let Me Be the One" and "Lonely Night in the Park", and deleted "Born to Run". However, Mike Appel had a personal talk with Springsteen, and on July 7, 1975, an amended final sequence was issued with the released tracklist. "Janey Needs a Shooter" would later be re-worked by Springsteen and Warren Zevon into the track "Jeannie Needs a Shooter," included on Zevon's 1980 album "Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School". On October 23, 2020, a 2019 recording of the original "Janey Needs a Shooter" was released on the album "Letter to You".


title: Thom Evans

text: Thom Evans (born 2 April 1985) is a Scottish former international rugby union player and model. He last played on the wing


title: Thom Evans

text: for Glasgow Warriors in the Celtic League. Evans's rugby career ended aged 24 on his tenth appearance for Scotland when he suffered a serious neck injury.


title: Thom Evans

text: Evans was born in 1985, the second of two sons, in Harare, Zimbabwe, and educated at Windlesham House School and Wellington College, Berkshire. He earned his first cap for the Scottish rugby union side in June 2008 vs Argentina. He was selected in the pre 6 Nations 30-man squad for the 2008 Six Nations.


title: Thom Evans

text: Evans represented England at U16, U18 and U21 level. He chose to commit to Scotland at A level and at 7's. He could have played for the England 7's team but was ruled out through injury.


title: Thom Evans

text: Evans was a member of pop band Twen2y4Se7en and toured as a support act with McFly, Peter Andre and Westlife throughout 2004.


title: Thom Evans

text: In the Six Nations game against Wales on 13 February 2010, Evans suffered a severe neck injury after colliding with Welsh player Lee Byrne. He was stretchered off the pitch and taken to hospital to receive treatment. He underwent a neck operation that evening, and underwent a second operation to further stabilise his spine later that week. It was revealed that his cervical vertebrae had been knocked so badly out of alignment that he was a millimetre from paralysis or death. After four months of rehabilitation, Evans was forced to retire on 1 July 2010, after accepting medical advice.


title: Thom Evans

text: Evans officially announced his retirement from all codes of rugby after the Wales v South Africa test match in the Autumn Internationals of 2010. After a touchline interview with television presenter Hazel Irvine, Evans outlined his intentions to return to the sprinting circuit, in the hope of other athletic success.


title: Thom Evans

text: In 2012, Evans, coached by Margot Wells, kick-started his athletic campaign competing in indoor competitions and finished fourth in the Scottish Senior Championships with a personal best of 7.20 for the 60m. During the outdoor season, he ran personal bests of 11.26 for the 100m and 23.14 for the 200m respectively. However, by the end of the season, Evans decided that he would not continue with athletics choosing instead to pursue an acting career.


title: Thom Evans

text: In September 2014, Evans was a contestant in BBC's twelfth series of "Strictly Come Dancing" partnered with Lithuanian professional Iveta Lukosiute. He was voted out in the 5th week.


title: Thom Evans

text: In 2016, Evans participated in the first series of the TV show "Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls", with celebrity contestants attempting to survive for 10 days on a remote island. He left the island early citing difficulties dealing with the lack of food.


title: Thom Evans

text: In October 2019, Evans was a contestant in "" as a member of the group, Try Star, alongside Levi Davis and Ben Foden. They were eliminated in the semi-final after landing in the bottom two with V5. However, Try Star received more votes than V5 meaning if the result went to deadlock, Try Star would have advanced to the final and V5 would have been eliminated. They finished in fifth place.


title: Thom Evans

text: Evans's brother Max also played rugby for Scotland and Glasgow Warriors. They are the twentieth set of brothers to play together for Scotland. They are both featured in a nude photoshoot for the 2010 "Dieux du Stade" calendar.


title: Thom Evans

text: In 2011, he appeared on cereal boxes for Scott's Porage Oats along with Chris Paterson and Ross Ford.


title: Thom Evans

text: Evans was romantically linked with actress Kelly Brook. On 16 March 2011, Brook announced, via her Twitter account, that she was pregnant and that she and Evans were expecting a daughter. On 9 May 2011, it was reported that Brook had miscarried. Brook announced on 1 February 2013 via Twitter that she and Evans had broken up.


title: Thom Evans

text: In January 2020, it was reported that Evans was dating singer Nicole Scherzinger, having met on "The X Factor: Celebrity" the previous year.


title: Tanya Ravichandran

text: Tanya S Ravichandran (born as Abbirami Sriram) is an Indian actress who has worked in predominantly Tamil-language films. She had roles in "Nenjukku Needhi" (2022), "Balle Vellaiyathevaa" (2016), "Brindavanam" (2017) and "Karuppan" (2017).


title: Tanya Ravichandran

text: The granddaughter of Malaysian Tamil actor Ravichandran, Tanya was interested in a career in films from a young age after seeing her grandfather's work. Her mother, Lavanya Sriram, is a classical dancer and thus trained both Tanya and her sister Apparajitha in Bharathanatyam, with the pair regularly participating in recitals in Chennai during their teenage years. Before her entry into the film industry, she completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree at M.O.P. Vaishnav College for Women in Chennai and pursued a master's degree at Madras School of Social Work. Tanya first successfully auditioned for a film to be directed by Mysskin in early 2016 and was cast opposite fellow debutant actor Maitreya in the lead role. Mysskin requested her to change her stage name from Abbirami to Tanya for her acting career, which she agreed with. The film was later postponed to allow Mysskin to complete the production of "Thupparivaalan" (2017). Hearing that Tanya had been selected for a film by Mysskin, director Radha Mohan chose to screen test and then sign on the actress to appear in "Brindavanam" (2017) during August 2016. Tanya's first release was however "Balle Vellaiyathevaa" (2016), a rural comedy drama co-starring Sasikumar, which she was offered after the makers saw the promotional stills of "Brindavanam". The film opened to mixed reviews in December 2016, with critics noting that Tanya "has nothing to do" and "sleepwalks through the role".


title: Tanya Ravichandran

text: Her next film, the comedy drama "Brindavanam" was released to positive reviews in May 2017. Set in Ooty, the film narrates the story of a deaf and dumb boy played by Arulnithi and his relationship with the film actor Vivek. Praising her performance, a critic from The Hindu wrote Tanya "walks away with a wonderful performance in the role of Sandhya" and that "the director deserves appreciation for his sketch of the lead female character; someone who is bold, daring and can make individual choices". Likewise, a reviewer from The Hindustan Times wrote Tanya "is a talent to watch out for and she’s in this for the long haul" and a critic from The New Indian Express labelled her performance as "thoroughly effervescent". Tanya then featured in "Karuppan" (2017), a rural drama featuring her alongside Vijay Sethupathi and Bobby Simha.


title: Direct memory access

text: Direct memory access (DMA) is a feature of computer systems and allows certain hardware subsystems to access main system memory independently of the central processing unit (CPU).


title: Direct memory access

text: Without DMA, when the CPU is using programmed input/output, it is typically fully occupied for the entire duration of the read or write operation, and is thus unavailable to perform other work. With DMA, the CPU first initiates the transfer, then it does other operations while the transfer is in progress, and it finally receives an interrupt from the DMA controller (DMAC) when the operation is done. This feature is useful at any time that the CPU cannot keep up with the rate of data transfer, or when the CPU needs to perform work while waiting for a relatively slow I/O data transfer. Many hardware systems use DMA, including disk drive controllers, graphics cards, network cards and sound cards. DMA is also used for intra-chip data transfer in multi-core processors. Computers that have DMA channels can transfer data to and from devices with much less CPU overhead than computers without DMA channels. Similarly, a processing circuitry inside a multi-core processor can transfer data to and from its local memory without occupying its processor time, allowing computation and data transfer to proceed in parallel.


title: Direct memory access

text: DMA can also be used for "memory to memory" copying or moving of data within memory. DMA can offload expensive memory operations, such as large copies or scatter-gather operations, from the CPU to a dedicated DMA engine. An implementation example is the I/O Acceleration Technology. DMA is of interest in network-on-chip and in-memory computing architectures.


title: Direct memory access

text: Standard DMA, also called third-party DMA, uses a DMA controller. A DMA controller can generate memory addresses and initiate memory read or write cycles. It contains several hardware registers that can be written and read by the CPU. These include a memory address register, a byte count register, and one or more control registers. Depending on what features the DMA controller provides, these control registers might specify some combination of the source, the destination, the direction of the transfer (reading from the I/O device or writing to the I/O device), the size of the transfer unit, and/or the number of bytes to transfer in one burst.


title: Direct memory access

text: To carry out an input, output or memory-to-memory operation, the host processor initializes the DMA controller with a count of the number of words to transfer, and the memory address to use. The CPU then commands the peripheral device to initiate a data transfer. The DMA controller then provides addresses and read/write control lines to the system memory. Each time a byte of data is ready to be transferred between the peripheral device and memory, the DMA controller increments its internal address register until the full block of data is transferred.


title: Direct memory access

text: In a bus mastering system, also known as a first-party DMA system, the CPU and peripherals can each be granted control of the memory bus. Where a peripheral can become a bus master, it can directly write to system memory without the involvement of the CPU, providing memory address and control signals as required. Some measures must be provided to put the processor into a hold condition so that bus contention does not occur.


title: Direct memory access

text: In "burst mode", an entire block of data is transferred in one contiguous sequence. Once the DMA controller is granted access to the system bus by the CPU, it transfers all bytes of data in the data block before releasing control of the system buses back to the CPU, but renders the CPU inactive for relatively long periods of time. The mode is also called "Block Transfer Mode".


title: Direct memory access

text: The "cycle stealing mode" is used in systems in which the CPU should not be disabled for the length of time needed for burst transfer modes. In the cycle stealing mode, the DMA controller obtains access to the system bus the same way as in burst mode, using "BR (Bus Request)" and "BG (Bus Grant)" signals, which are the two signals controlling the interface between the CPU and the DMA controller. However, in cycle stealing mode, after one unit (e.g. byte) of data transfer, the control of the system bus is deasserted to the CPU via BG. It is then continually requested again via BR, transferring one unit (e.g. byte) of data per request, until the entire block of data has been transferred. By continually obtaining and releasing the control of the system bus, the DMA controller essentially interleaves instruction and data transfers. The CPU processes an instruction, then the DMA controller transfers one data value, and so on. Data is not transferred as quickly, but CPU is not idled for as long as in burst mode. Cycle stealing mode is useful for controllers that monitor data in real time.


title: Direct memory access

text: Transparent mode takes the most time to transfer a block of data, yet it is also the most efficient mode in terms of overall system performance. In transparent mode, the DMA controller transfers data only when the CPU is performing operations that do not use the system buses. The primary advantage of transparent mode is that the CPU never stops executing its programs and the DMA transfer is free in terms of time, while the disadvantage is that the hardware needs to determine when the CPU is not using the system buses, which can be complex. This is also called ""Hidden DMA data transfer mode"".


title: Direct memory access

text: DMA can lead to cache coherency problems. Imagine a CPU equipped with a cache and an external memory that can be accessed directly by devices using DMA. When the CPU accesses location X in the memory, the current value will be stored in the cache. Subsequent operations on X will update the cached copy of X, but not the external memory version of X, assuming a write-back cache. If the cache is not flushed to the memory before the next time a device tries to access X, the device will receive a stale value of X.


title: Direct memory access

text: Similarly, if the cached copy of X is not invalidated when a device writes a new value to the memory, then the CPU will operate on a stale value of X.


title: Direct memory access

text: This issue can be addressed in one of two ways in system design: Cache-coherent systems implement a method in hardware, called bus snooping, whereby external writes are signaled to the cache controller which then performs a cache invalidation for DMA writes or cache flush for DMA reads. Non-coherent systems leave this to software, where the OS must then ensure that the cache lines are flushed before an outgoing DMA transfer is started and invalidated before a memory range affected by an incoming DMA transfer is accessed. The OS must make sure that the memory range is not accessed by any running threads in the meantime. The latter approach introduces some overhead to the DMA operation, as most hardware requires a loop to invalidate each cache line individually.


title: Direct memory access

text: Hybrids also exist, where the secondary L2 cache is coherent while the L1 cache (typically on-CPU) is managed by software.


title: Direct memory access

text: In the original IBM PC (and the follow-up PC/XT), there was only one Intel 8237 DMA controller capable of providing four DMA channels (numbered 0–3). These DMA channels performed 8-bit transfers (as the 8237 was an 8-bit device, ideally matched to the PC's i8088 CPU/bus architecture), could only address the first (i8086/8088-standard) megabyte of RAM, and were limited to addressing single 64 kB segments within that space (although the source and destination channels could address different segments). Additionally, the controller could only be used for transfers to, from or between expansion bus I/O devices, as the 8237 could only perform memory-to-memory transfers using channels 0 & 1, of which channel 0 in the PC (& XT) was dedicated to dynamic memory refresh. This prevented it from being used as a general-purpose "Blitter", and consequently block memory moves in the PC, limited by the general PIO speed of the CPU, were very slow.


title: Direct memory access

text: With the IBM PC/AT, the enhanced AT Bus (more familiarly retronymed as the ISA, or "Industry Standard Architecture") added a second 8237 DMA controller to provide three additional, and as highlighted by resource clashes with the XT's additional expandability over the original PC, much-needed channels (5–7; channel 4 is used as a cascade to the first 8237). The page register was also rewired to address the full 16 MB memory address space of the 80286 CPU. This second controller was also integrated in a way capable of performing 16-bit transfers when an I/O device is used as the data source and/or destination (as it actually only processes data itself for memory-to-memory transfers, otherwise simply "controlling" the data flow between other parts of the 16-bit system, making its own data bus width relatively immaterial), doubling data throughput when the upper three channels are used. For compatibility, the lower four DMA channels were still limited to 8-bit transfers only, and whilst memory-to-memory transfers were now technically possible due to the freeing up of channel 0 from having to handle DRAM refresh, from a practical standpoint they were of limited value because of the controller's consequent low throughput compared to what the CPU could now achieve (i.e., a 16-bit, more optimised 80286 running at a minimum of 6 MHz, vs an 8-bit controller locked at 4.77 MHz). In both cases, the 64 kB segment boundary issue remained, with individual transfers unable to cross segments (instead "wrapping around" to the start of the same segment) even in 16-bit mode, although this was in practice more a problem of programming complexity than performance as the continued need for DRAM refresh (however handled) to monopolise the bus approximately every 15 μs prevented use of large (and fast, but uninterruptible) block transfers.


title: Direct memory access

text: Due to their lagging performance (1.6 MB/s maximum 8-bit transfer capability at 5 MHz, but no more than 0.9 MB/s in the PC/XT and 1.6 MB/s for 16-bit transfers in the AT due to ISA bus overheads and other interference such as memory refresh interruptions) and unavailability of any speed grades that would allow installation of direct replacements operating at speeds higher than the original PC's standard 4.77 MHz clock, these devices have been effectively obsolete since the late 1980s. Particularly, the advent of the 80386 processor in 1985 and its capacity for 32-bit transfers (although great improvements in the efficiency of address calculation and block memory moves in Intel CPUs after the 80186 meant that PIO transfers even by the 16-bit-bus 286 and 386SX could still easily outstrip the 8237), as well as the development of further evolutions to (EISA) or replacements for (MCA, VLB and PCI) the "ISA" bus with their own much higher-performance DMA subsystems (up to a maximum of 33 MB/s for EISA, 40 MB/s MCA, typically 133 MB/s VLB/PCI) made the original DMA controllers seem more of a performance millstone than a booster. They were supported to the extent they are required to support built-in legacy PC hardware on later machines. The pieces of legacy hardware that continued to use ISA DMA after 32-bit expansion buses became common were Sound Blaster cards that needed to maintain full hardware compatibility with the Sound Blaster standard; and Super I/O devices on motherboards that often integrated a built-in floppy disk controller, an IrDA infrared controller when FIR (fast infrared) mode is selected, and an IEEE 1284 parallel port controller when ECP mode is selected. In cases where an original 8237s or direct compatibles were still used, transfer to or from these devices may still be limited to the first 16 MB of main RAM regardless of the system's actual address space or amount of installed memory.


title: Direct memory access

text: Each DMA channel has a 16-bit address register and a 16-bit count register associated with it. To initiate a data transfer the device driver sets up the DMA channel's address and count registers together with the direction of the data transfer, read or write. It then instructs the DMA hardware to begin the transfer. When the transfer is complete, the device interrupts the CPU.


title: Direct memory access

text: Scatter-gather or vectored I/O DMA allows the transfer of data to and from multiple memory areas in a single DMA transaction. It is equivalent to the chaining together of multiple simple DMA requests. The motivation is to off-load multiple input/output interrupt and data copy tasks from the CPU.


title: Direct memory access

text: DRQ stands for "Data request"; DACK for "Data acknowledge". These symbols, seen on hardware schematics of computer systems with DMA functionality, represent electronic signaling lines between the CPU and DMA controller. Each DMA channel has one Request and one Acknowledge line. A device that uses DMA must be configured to use both lines of the assigned DMA channel.


title: Direct memory access

text: A PCI architecture has no central DMA controller, unlike ISA. Instead, A PCI device can request control of the bus ("become the bus master") and request to read from and write to system memory. More precisely, a PCI component requests bus ownership from the PCI bus controller (usually PCI host bridge, and PCI to PCI bridge), which will arbitrate if several devices request bus ownership simultaneously, since there can only be one bus master at one time. When the component is granted ownership, it will issue normal read and write commands on the PCI bus, which will be claimed by the PCI bus controller.


title: Direct memory access

text: As an example, on an Intel Core-based PC, the southbridge will forward the transactions to the memory controller (which is integrated on the CPU die) using DMI, which will in turn convert them to DDR operations and send them out on the memory bus. As a result, there are quite a number of steps involved in a PCI DMA transfer; however, that poses little problem, since the PCI device or PCI bus itself are an order of magnitude slower than the rest of the components (see list of device bandwidths).


title: Direct memory access

text: A modern x86 CPU may use more than 4 GB of memory, either utilizing the native 64-bit mode of x86-64 CPU, or the Physical Address Extension (PAE), a 36-bit addressing mode. In such a case, a device using DMA with a 32-bit address bus is unable to address memory above the 4 GB line. The new Double Address Cycle (DAC) mechanism, if implemented on both the PCI bus and the device itself, enables 64-bit DMA addressing. Otherwise, the operating system would need to work around the problem by either using costly double buffers (DOS/Windows nomenclature) also known as bounce buffers (FreeBSD/Linux), or it could use an IOMMU to provide address translation services if one is present.


title: Direct memory access

text: As an example of DMA engine incorporated in a general-purpose CPU, some Intel Xeon chipsets include a DMA engine called I/O Acceleration Technology (I/OAT), which can offload memory copying from the main CPU, freeing it to do other work. In 2006, Intel's Linux kernel developer Andrew Grover performed benchmarks using I/OAT to offload network traffic copies and found no more than 10% improvement in CPU utilization with receiving workloads.


title: Direct memory access

text: Further performance-oriented enhancements to the DMA mechanism have been introduced in Intel Xeon E5 processors with their Data Direct I/O (DDIO) feature, allowing the DMA "windows" to reside within CPU caches instead of system RAM. As a result, CPU caches are used as the primary source and destination for I/O, allowing network interface controllers (NICs) to DMA directly to the Last level cache (L3 cache) of local CPUs and avoid costly fetching of the I/O data from system RAM. As a result, DDIO reduces the overall I/O processing latency, allows processing of the I/O to be performed entirely in-cache, prevents the available RAM bandwidth/latency from becoming a performance bottleneck, and may lower the power consumption by allowing RAM to remain longer in low-powered state.


title: Direct memory access

text: In systems-on-a-chip and embedded systems, typical system bus infrastructure is a complex on-chip bus such as AMBA High-performance Bus. AMBA defines two kinds of AHB components: master and slave. A slave interface is similar to programmed I/O through which the software (running on embedded CPU, e.g. ARM) can write/read I/O registers or (less commonly) local memory blocks inside the device. A master interface can be used by the device to perform DMA transactions to/from system memory without heavily loading the CPU.


title: Direct memory access

text: Therefore, high bandwidth devices such as network controllers that need to transfer huge amounts of data to/from system memory will have two interface adapters to the AHB: a master and a slave interface. This is because on-chip buses like AHB do not support tri-stating the bus or alternating the direction of any line on the bus. Like PCI, no central DMA controller is required since the DMA is bus-mastering, but an arbiter is required in case of multiple masters present on the system.


title: Direct memory access

text: Internally, a multichannel DMA engine is usually present in the device to perform multiple concurrent scatter-gather operations as programmed by the software.


title: Direct memory access

text: As an example usage of DMA in a multiprocessor-system-on-chip, IBM/Sony/Toshiba's Cell processor incorporates a DMA engine for each of its 9 processing elements including one Power processor element (PPE) and eight synergistic processor elements (SPEs). Since the SPE's load/store instructions can read/write only its own local memory, an SPE entirely depends on DMAs to transfer data to and from the main memory and local memories of other SPEs. Thus the DMA acts as a primary means of data transfer among cores inside this CPU (in contrast to cache-coherent CMP architectures such as Intel's cancelled general-purpose GPU, Larrabee).


title: Direct memory access

text: DMA in Cell is fully cache coherent (note however local stores of SPEs operated upon by DMA do not act as globally coherent cache in the standard sense). In both read ("get") and write ("put"), a DMA command can transfer either a single block area of size up to 16 KB, or a list of 2 to 2048 such blocks. The DMA command is issued by specifying a pair of a local address and a remote address: for example when a SPE program issues a put DMA command, it specifies an address of its own local memory as the source and a virtual memory address (pointing to either the main memory or the local memory of another SPE) as the target, together with a block size. According to an experiment, an effective peak performance of DMA in Cell (3 GHz, under uniform traffic) reaches 200 GB per second.


title: Direct memory access

text: Processors with scratchpad memory and DMA (such as digital signal processors and the Cell processor) may benefit from software overlapping DMA memory operations with processing, via double buffering or multibuffering. For example, the on-chip memory is split into two buffers; the processor may be operating on data in one, while the DMA engine is loading and storing data in the other. This allows the system to avoid memory latency and exploit burst transfers, at the expense of needing a predictable memory access pattern.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act, 1955 by providing a pathway to Indian citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis or Christians, and arrived in India before the end of December 2014. The law does not grant such eligibility to Muslims from these countries. The act was the first time that religion had been overtly used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian law and attracted global criticism.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the Indian government, had promised in previous election manifestos to offer Indian citizenship to members of persecuted religious minorities who had migrated from neighbouring countries. Under the 2019 amendment, migrants who had entered India by 31 December 2014, and had suffered "religious persecution or fear of religious persecution" in their country of origin, were made eligible for citizenship. The amendment also relaxed the residence requirement for naturalisation of these migrants from twelve years to six. According to Intelligence Bureau records, there will be just over 30,000 immediate beneficiaries of the bill.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The amendment has been criticized as discriminating on the basis of religion, particularly for excluding Muslims. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called it "fundamentally discriminatory", adding that while India's "goal of protecting persecuted groups is welcome", this should be accomplished through a non-discriminatory "robust national asylum system". Critics express concerns that the bill would be used, along with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), to render many Muslim citizens stateless, as they may be unable to meet stringent birth or identity proof requirements. Commentators also question the exclusion of persecuted religious minorities from other regions such as Tibet, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. The Indian government said that since Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh have Islam as their state religion, it is therefore "unlikely" that Muslims would "face religious persecution" there. However, certain Muslim groups, such as Hazaras and Ahmadis, have historically faced persecution in these countries.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The passage of the legislation caused large-scale protests in India. Assam and other northeastern states witnessed violent demonstrations against the bill over fears that granting Indian citizenship to refugees and immigrants will cause a loss of their "political rights, culture and land rights" and motivate further migration from Bangladesh. In other parts of India, protesters said that the bill discriminated against Muslims, and demanded that Indian citizenship be granted to Muslim refugees and immigrants as well. Major protests against the Act were held at some universities in India. Students at Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia alleged brutal suppression by the police. The protests have led to the deaths of several protesters, injuries to both protesters and police officers, damage to public and private property, the detention of hundreds of people, and suspensions of local internet mobile phone connectivity in certain areas. Some states announced that they would not implement the Act. In response, the Union Home Ministry said that states lack the legal power to stop the implementation of the CAA.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The Indian Constitution implemented in 1950 guaranteed citizenship to all of the country's residents at the commencement of the constitution, and made no distinction on the basis of religion. In 1955, the Indian government passed the Citizenship Act, by which all people born in India subject to some limitations were accorded citizenship. The Act also provided two means for foreigners to acquire Indian citizenship. People from "undivided India" were given a means of registration after seven years of residency in India. Those from other countries were given a means of naturalisation after twelve years of residency in India. Political developments in the 1980s, particularly those related to the violent Assam movement against migrants from Bangladesh, triggered revisions to the Citizenship Act of 1955. The Act was first amended in 1985 after the Assam Accord signed by Rajiv Gandhi government, granting citizenship to all Bangladeshi migrants that arrived before 1971 subject to some provisos. The government also agreed to identify all migrants that arrived afterwards, remove their names from the electoral rolls, and expel them from the country.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The Citizenship Act was further amended in 1992, 2003, 2005 and 2015. In December 2003, the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 with far-reaching revisions of the Citizenship Act. It added the notion of "illegal immigrants" to the Act, making them ineligible to apply for citizenship (by registration or naturalisation), and declaring their children also as illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants were defined as citizens of other countries who entered India without valid travel documents, or who remained in the country beyond the period permitted by their travel documents. They can be deported or imprisoned.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The 2003 amendment also mandated the Government of India to create and maintain a National Register of Citizens. The bill was supported by the Indian National Congress, as well as the Left parties, such as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)). During the parliamentary debate on the amendment, the leader of opposition, Manmohan Singh, stated that refugees belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh and other countries had faced persecution, and requested a liberal approach to granting them citizenship. According to M.K. Venu, the formulation of the 2003 amendment discussed by Advani and Singh was based on the idea that Muslim groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan that had experienced persecution also needed to be treated with compassion.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: A very large number of illegal immigrants, the largest numbers of whom are from Bangladesh, live in India. The Task Force on Border Management quoted the figure of 15 million illegal migrants in 2001. In 2004, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government stated in Parliament that there were 12 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants in India. The reasons for the scale of migration include a porous border, historical migration patterns, economic reasons, and cultural and linguistic ties. Many illegal migrants from Bangladesh had eventually received the right to vote. According to Niraja Jayal, this enfranchisement was widely described as an attempt to win elections using the votes of the illegal migrants from Bangladesh.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: Bangladeshi scholar Abul Barkat estimated that over 11 million Hindus have left Bangladesh for India between 1964 and 2013, at a rate of 230,612 annually. The reasons were religious persecution and discrimination, especially at the hands of the post-independence military regimes. An unknown number of Pakistani Hindu refugees also live in India. An estimated 5,000 refugees arrive per year, citing religious persecution and forced conversion.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: India is not a signatory to either the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol. It does not have a national policy on refugees. All refugees are classed as "illegal migrants". While India has been willing to host refugees, its traditional position formulated by Jawaharlal Nehru is that such refugees must return to their home countries after the situation returns to normal. According to the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, India hosts refugees in excess of 456,000, with about 200,000 from "non-neighbouring" countries hosted via the UNHCR. According to Shuvro Sarker, since the 1950s and particularly since the 1990s, the Indian governments under various political parties have studied and drafted laws for the naturalisation of refugees and asylum seekers. These drafts have struggled with issues relating to a mass influx of refugees, urban planning, cost of basic services, the obligations to protected tribes, and the impact on pre-existing regional poverty levels within India.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The "detection, deletion and deportation" of illegal migrants has been on the agenda of the BJP since 1996. In the 2016 assembly elections for the border state of Assam, the BJP leaders campaigned in the state promising voters that they would rid Assam of the Bangladeshis. Simultaneously, they also promised to protect Hindus who had fled religious persecution in Bangladesh. According to commentators, in the context of an effort to identify and deport illegal immigrants, the proposal to grant citizenship took a new meaning. Illegal migrants could be granted citizenship if they were non-Muslim, on the grounds that they were refugees; only Muslims would be deported.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: In its manifesto for the 2014 Indian general election, the BJP promised to provide a "natural home" for persecuted Hindu refugees. The year before the 2016 elections in Assam, the government legalised refugees belonging to religious minorities from Pakistan and Bangladesh, granting them long-term visas. Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals belonging to "minority communities" were exempted from the requirements of the "Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920" and the "Foreigners Act, 1946". Specifically mentioned were "Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis and Buddhists," who had been "compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution". Eligibility for the exemption was made contingent on a migrant having arrived in India by 31 December 2014.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The BJP government introduced a bill to amend the citizenship law in 2016, which would have made non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh eligible for Indian citizenship. The bill stalled in parliament following widespread political opposition and protests in northeast India. Opponents of the bill in Assam and the northeastern states of India stated that any migration from Bangladesh "irrespective of religion" would cause "loss of political rights and culture of the indigenous people". According to Niraja Jayal, while the BJP had promised to grant Indian citizenship to all Hindu migrants from Bangladesh in its election campaigns during the 2010s, the draft Amendment bill angered many in Assam, including its own political allies because they viewed the amendment as a violation of the Assam Accord. That accord promised to identify and deport all illegal Bangladeshi migrants who entered the state after 1971, "regardless of their religious identity". In 2018, as the draft of this Amendment was being discussed, numerous Assamese organisations petitioned and agitated against it. They fear that the Amendment will encourage more migration and diminish employment opportunities to the native residents in the state.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: In parallel to the drafting of an amendment to the 1955 Citizenship Act, the BJP government completed an effort to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state of Assam. The process for creating the NRC had been put in place by the Citizenship rules enacted in 2003, and had been implemented in Assam under Supreme Court supervision as a result of a 2014 Supreme Court ruling. This was mandated under prior peace agreements in northeast, and the Assam Accord in particular. The updated register was made public in August 2019; approximately 1.9 million residents were not on the list, and were in danger of losing their citizenship. Many of those affected were Bengali Hindus, who constitute a major voter base for the BJP; according to commentators, the BJP withdrew its support for the Assam NRC towards its end for this reason. On 19 November 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah, declared in the Rajya Sabha (the Upper House of the Indian parliament) that the National Register of Citizens would be implemented throughout the country.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The BJP government first introduced a bill to amend the citizenship law in 2016, which would have made non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh eligible for Indian citizenship. Although this bill was passed by the Lok Sabha, or lower house of Indian parliament, it stalled in the Rajya Sabha, following widespread political opposition and protests in northeast India.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The BJP reiterated its commitment to amend the citizenship act in its 2019 election campaign. It stated that religious minorities such as Hindus and Sikhs are persecuted in neighbouring Muslim-majority countries, and promised to fast track a path to citizenship for non-Muslim refugees. After the elections, the BJP government drafted a bill that addressed the concerns of its northeastern states. It excluded Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Meghalaya and Manipur, except for non-tribal cities exempted under pre-existing regulations. It also excluded tribal areas of Assam. The Indian government, while proposing an Amendment, said, that its bill aims to grant quicker access to citizenship to those who have fled religious persecution in neighbouring countries and have taken refuge in India.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha on 19 July 2016 as the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. It was referred to the Joint parliamentary committee on 12 August 2016. The Committee submitted its report on 7 January 2019 to Parliament. The Bill was taken into consideration and passed by Lok Sabha on 8 January 2019. It was pending for consideration and passing by the Rajya Sabha. Consequent to dissolution of 16th Lok Sabha, this Bill has lapsed.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: After the formation of 17th Lok Sabha, the Union Cabinet cleared the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, on 4 December 2019 for introduction in the parliament. The Bill was introduced in 17th Lok Sabha by the Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah on 9 December 2019 and was passed on 10 December 2019, with 311 MPs voting in favour and 80 against the Bill.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha on 11 December 2019 with 125 votes in favour and 105 votes against it. Those voted in favour included Janata Dal (United), AIADMK, Biju Janata Dal, TDP and YSR Congress Party.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: After receiving assent from the President of India on 12 December 2019, the bill assumed the status of an act. The act came into force on 10 January 2020. The implementation of the CAA began on 20 December 2019, when Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya gave citizenship certificates to seven refugees from Pakistan.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 amended the Citizenship Act, 1955, by inserting the following provisos in section 2, sub-section (1), after clause (b):


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: A new section 6B was inserted (in the section concerning "naturalisation"), with four clauses, the first of which stated:


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The "exempted" classes of persons were previously defined in the Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2015 (issued under the Foreigners Act, 1946):


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The Act has amended the Citizenship Act, 1955 to give eligibility for Indian citizenship to illegal migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and who entered India on or before 31 December 2014. The Act does not mention Muslims. According to Intelligence Bureau records, the immediate beneficiaries of the Amended Act will be 31,313 people, which include 25,447 Hindus, 5,807 Sikhs, 55 Christians, 2 Buddhists and 2 Parsis.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: Under the act, one of the requirements for citizenship by naturalisation is that the applicant must have lived in India during the last 12 months, and for 11 of the previous 14 years. The bill relaxes this 11-year requirement to 5 years for persons belonging to the same six religions and three countries. The bill exempts the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura from its applicability. It also exempts the areas regulated through the Inner Line Permit, which include Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland. The inclusion of Manipur in Inner Line Permit was also announced on 9 December 2019.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The bill includes a new provision for cancellation of the registration of Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) if there are any violations of any law of India, whether they are petty misdemeanors or serious felonies, however it also adds the opportunity for the OCI holder to be heard before the verdict.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are not offered eligibility for citizenship under the new Act. Critics have questioned the exclusion. The amendment limits itself to the Muslim-majority neighbours of India and takes no cognisance of the persecuted Muslims of those countries. Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh are Muslim-majority countries that have modified their constitutions in recent decades to declare Islam their official state religion. Therefore, according to the Indian government, Muslims in these Islamic countries are "unlikely to face religious persecution". The government says that Muslims cannot be "treated as persecuted minorities" in these Muslim-majority countries. The BBC says that while these countries have provisions in their constitution guaranteeing non-Muslims rights, including the freedom to practice their religion, in practice non-Muslim populations have experienced discrimination and persecution.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: "The Economist" criticised the exclusion by arguing that, the Indian government concern or religious persecution should have been extended to Ahmadiyyas – a Muslim sect who have been "viciously hounded in Pakistan as heretics", and the Hazaras – another Muslim sect who have been murdered by the Taliban in Afghanistan. They should be treated as minorities.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The Act does not include migrants from non-Muslim countries fleeing persecution to India, Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar, Hindu refugees from Sri Lanka, and Buddhist refugees from Tibet, China.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The Act does not mention Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Tamils were allowed to settle as refugees in Tamil Nadu in 1980s and 1990s due to systemic violence from the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka. They include 29,500 "hill country Tamils" (Malaiha).


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The Act does not provide relief to Tibetan Buddhist refugees, who came to India in the 1950s and 1960s due to the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Their status has been of refugees over the decades. According to a 1992 UNHCR report, the then Indian government stated that they remain refugees and do not have the right to acquire Indian nationality.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The Act does not address Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar. The Indian government has been deporting Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The National Register of Citizens is a registry of all legal citizens, whose construction and maintenance was mandated by the 2003 amendment of the Citizenship Act. As of January 2020, it has only been implemented for the state of Assam, but the BJP has promised its implementation for the whole of India in its 2019 election manifesto. The NRC documents all the legal citizens so that the people who are left out can be recognized as illegal immigrants (often called "foreigners"). The experience with Assam NRC shows that many people were declared "foreigners" because their documents were deemed insufficient.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: In this context, there are concerns that the present amendment of the Citizenship Act provides a "shield" to the non-Muslims, who can claim that they were migrants who fled persecution from Afghanistan, Pakistan or Bangladesh, while the Muslims do not have such a benefit. Such a claim may be possible only for people in the border states who have some ethnic resemblance to the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan or Bangladesh, but not to the people of interior states. Muslim leaders have interpreted the CAA–NRC package in precisely these terms, viz., that the Muslims in the country would be targeted (by considering documents as insufficient) as potential foreigners, leaving out all non-Muslims.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: In an interview to "India Today", Home Minister Amit Shah offered reassurance that no Indian citizen needs to worry. "We will make special provisions to ensure that no Indian citizen from minority communities is victimised in the NRC process." But the "Indian Express" said that the purpose of the NRC is precisely to "identify" the Indian citizens. So these references to "Indian citizens" remain unexplained.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: The passage of the Act triggered different types of protests and criticisms. Violent protests erupted in Assam, where the protesters maintained that the new provisions of this Act are against prior agreements such as the Assam Accord, and that they would cause a "loss of political rights and culture". The India-Japan summit in Guwahati, which was supposed to be attended by Shinzō Abe was cancelled. The UK, USA, France, Israel and Canada issued travel warnings for people visiting India's north-east region, telling their citizens to "exercise caution".


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: In other parts of India, political and student activists protested that the law "marginalizes Muslims, is prejudicial against Muslims" and sought that Muslim migrants and refugees should also be granted Indian citizenship per its secular foundations. The protesters demanded that the law should grant Indian citizenship to Muslim immigrants and refugees too.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: Protests against the bill were held in several metropolitan cities across India, including Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Jaipur. Rallies were also held in various Indian states of West Bengal, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Telangana, Bihar, Maharastra, Kerala and Karnataka. 27 people were killed by police firing guns in the whole of India.


title: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

text: Various cities around the world, including New York, Washington D. C., Melbourne, Paris, Berlin, Geneva, Barcelona, San Francisco, Tokyo, Helsinki, and Amsterdam, witnessed protests against the Act and the police brutality faced by Indian protesters.