title: John Conroy

text: During Victoria's lifetime and after her death in 1901, there have been rumours that Conroy or someone else, and not the Duke of Kent, was her biological father. Historians have continued to debate the accuracy and validity of these claims. In his 2003 work "The Victorians", biographer A. N. Wilson suggests that Victoria was not actually descended from George III because several of her descendants had haemophilia, which was unknown among her recognised ancestors. Haemophilia is a disease that impairs the body's ability to control blood clotting. The most common cause of haemophilia is genetic, and is passed on by X-linked recessive inheritance; in other words, it can be passed on by both males and females, while the symptoms manifest mostly in males. Wilson proposes that the Duchess of Kent took a lover (not necessarily Conroy) to ensure that a Coburg would sit on the British throne.


title: John Conroy

text: Likewise, medical historian W. T. W. Potts considers it a possibility that the Duchess took a lover under pressure from her brother Leopold. He cites the rarity of genetic mutations as evidence, as well as the "remarkable" circumstances surrounding Victoria's conception. Potts makes no mention of Conroy specifically, only that the father would have been a haemophiliac himself or would have had a mutated gene.


title: John Conroy

text: Haemophilia B has been known to arise spontaneously in the children of older fathers, and the Duke of Kent was fifty-one when Victoria was born. Nicholas Wright Gillham proposes that the haemophilia mutation could have first occurred with either Victoria or the Duke of Kent. Gillian Gill and her son Christopher, an infectious disease specialist, also view a genetic mutation as the most likely possibility; Gillian Gill writes that "a few historians in recent years have found it seductive" to doubt Victoria's stated paternity because a random mutation is "an unexciting solution". Helen Rappaport concurs, remarking that "the best and most logical" explanation is that haemophilia first appeared in Victoria as a mutation.


title: John Conroy

text: Alan Rushton adds that no one in the household of the newly married Duchess of Kent, including Conroy, is known to have had haemophilia, and that her probable awareness of the scandals surrounding the behaviour of Caroline of Brunswick and Caroline Matilda of Great Britain would have deterred her from seeking an affair elsewhere. Furthermore, Princess Victoria was said to have borne a strong family resemblance to her father and grandfather George III.


title: John Conroy

text: There is evidence that some of Victoria's descendants did have mild porphyria (although some historians now think it could have been bi-polar disorder), most notably Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen. This disease probably affected her grandfather, George III and this could give credence to Victoria's legitimate birth. There is more reliable documentation that one of her great-great-grandsons, Prince William of Gloucester, was diagnosed with the disease shortly before his death when his aircraft crashed during an air race. Concrete evidence on the origins of the disease and paternity of Victoria could be achieved with a DNA test of her or her parents' remains, but no such study has been sanctioned by the Royal Family.


title: John Conroy

text: Conroy has been portrayed numerous times in film and television. Herbert Wilcox's "Victoria the Great" (1937) depicted Conroy as a "smarmy character" who is not well developed in the film. The baronet was played by Stefan Skodler in 1954's "The Story of Vickie", and Herbert Hübner in "Mädchenjahre einer Königin" (1936). Patrick Malahide played Conroy in "Victoria & Albert", a 2001 TV miniseries that depicted Victoria's early influences. English actor Mark Strong played him in the 2009 film "The Young Victoria". The film depicts Conroy as a maniacal, controlling pseudo-father to the young Victoria during the year preceding her accession, even going so far as depicting him assaulting the princess twice. The film goes on to depict Conroy's expulsion from Queen Victoria's household.


title: John Conroy

text: Conroy also appears in numerous historical fiction novels about Queen Victoria. Writing under the pen names Jean Plaidy and Eleanor Burford, author Eleanor Hibbert published a series of novels in the 1970s and 1980s, which included "The Captive of Kensington Palace" (1972), "The Queen and Lord M" (1973) and "Victoria Victorious: The Story of Queen Victoria" (1985). A. E. Moorat released the parody novel "" in 2009.


title: John Conroy

text: Conroy was descended from the Ó Maolconaire family of Elphin, County Roscommon. The family had been the hereditary "Ollamhs" to the O'Connor Kings of Connacht. He was descended from Maoilin Ó Maolchonaire who was the last recognised Chief of the Sept.


title: Tower defense

text: Tower defense (TD) is a subgenre of strategy games where the goal is to defend a player's territories or possessions by obstructing the enemy attackers or by stopping enemies from reaching the exits, usually achieved by placing defensive structures on or along their path of attack. This typically means building a variety of different structures that serve to automatically block, impede, attack or destroy enemies. Tower defense is seen as a subgenre of real-time strategy video games, due to its real-time origins, even though many modern tower defense games include aspects of turn-based strategy. Strategic choice and positioning of defensive elements is an essential strategy of the genre.


title: Tower defense

text: The tower defense genre can trace its lineage back to the golden age of arcade video games in the 1980s. The object of the arcade game "Space Invaders," released in 1978, was to defend the player's territory (represented by the bottom of the screen) against waves of incoming enemies. The game featured shields that could be used to strategically obstruct enemy attacks on the player and assist the player in defending their territory, though not to expressly protect the territory. The 1980 game "Missile Command" changed that by giving shields a more strategic role. In the game, players could obstruct incoming missiles, and there were multiple attack paths in each attack wave. "Missile Command" was also the first of its kind to make use of a pointing device, a trackball, enabling players to use a crosshair. The innovation was ahead of its time and anticipated the genre's later boom, which was paved by the wide adoption of the computer mouse. Additionally, in "Missile Command", the sole target of the attackers is the base, not a specific player character. For these reasons, some regard it as the first true game in the genre.


title: Tower defense

text: While later arcade games like "Defender" (1981) and "Choplifter" (1982) lacked the strategy element of "Missile Command", they began a trend of games that shifted the primary objective to defending non-player items. In these games, defending non-players from waves of attackers is key to progressing. Parker Brothers' 1982 title "" for the Atari 2600 was one of the first tie-ins to popularize the base defense style. The concept of waves of enemies attacking the base in single file (in this case AT-ATs) proved a formula that was subsequently copied by many games as the shift from arcade to PC gaming began. Players were now able to choose from different methods of obstructing attackers' progress. "Sorcerer's Apprentice" for the Atari 2600 featured Mickey Mouse and was first published in 1983.


title: Tower defense

text: Nintendo's popular 1980s Game & Watch handheld games featured many popular precursors. With their fixed sprite cells with binary states, games with waves of attackers following fixed paths were able to make use of the technical limitations of the platform yet proved simple and enjoyable to casual gamers. "Vermin" (1980), one of the first, had players with defending the garden (a theme followed by many later games) from relentless horde of moles. The following years saw a flood of similar titles, including "Manhole" (1981), "Parachute" (1981), and "Popeye" (1981). 1982 saw multiple titles with the primary object of protecting buildings from burning: "Fire Attack", "Oil Panic" and "Mickey & Donald". The later titles utilized multiple articulating screens to increase the difficulty for players. With two screens these games introduced basic resource management (e.g. oil and water), forcing players to multitask. "Green House" (1982) was another popular two screen game in which players use clouds of pesticide spray to protect flowers from waves of attacking insects. Despite the early rush of archetypal titles, ultimately there was a general decline in fixed-cell games, due to their technical limitations, simplistic gameplay, and the rise of personal computers and handhelds the Game Boy; correspondingly, this genre also declined. A rare exception was "Safebuster" (1988 multi-screen) in which the player protects a safe from a thief trying to blow it up.


title: Tower defense

text: By the mid-1980s, the strategy elements began to further evolve. Early PC gaming examples include the 1984 Commodore 64 titles "Gandalf the Sorcerer", a shooter with tower defense elements, and Imagine Software's 1984 release "Pedro". "Pedro", a garden defense game, introduced new gameplay elements, including different enemy types as well as the ability to place fixed obstructions, and to build and repair the player's territory.


title: Tower defense

text: "Rampart", released in 1990, is generally considered to have established the prototypical tower defense. "Rampart" introduced player placed defenses that automatically attack incoming enemies. In addition, it has distinct phases of build, defend and repair. These are now staple gameplay elements of many games in the genre. It was also one of the first multiplayer video games of its kind.


title: Tower defense

text: While "Rampart" was popular, similar games were rarely seen until the widespread adoption of the computer mouse on the PC. The DOS title "Ambush at Sorinor" (1993) was a rare exception from this era. Tower defense gameplay also made an appearance on consoles with several minigames in the "Final Fantasy" series, including a tower-defense minigame in "Final Fantasy VI" (1994) and the "Fort Condor" minigame in "Final Fantasy VII" (1997), which was also one of the first to feature 3D graphics. "Attack of the Mutant Penguins" for the Atari Jaguar and MS-DOS was released in 1995. "Dungeon Keeper" (1997) had players defend the Dungeon Heart, a gigantic gem at the centre of your dungeon, which, if destroyed, would cause the player to lose the game. A central theme of the 3D first person shooter "" (1998) was to defend Energy Totems against hordes of attackers. "Fortress" was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2001.


title: Tower defense

text: As real-time strategy games gained popularity in PC gaming, many introduced tower defense modes in their gameplay, particularly in multiplayer. In February 2006, the custom maps for "" (2002), "Element TD" and "Gem Tower Defense", which were initially created in "Warcraft III World Editor", almost single-handedly rekindled the genre. These titles would also bring role-playing elements to the genre for the first time.


title: Tower defense

text: Between 2007 and 2008, the genre became a phenomenon, due in part to the popularity of the tower defense mode in real time strategy games, but mainly due to the rise of Adobe Flash independent developers as well as the emergence of major smartphone app stores from Apple and Google. The first stand-alone browser games emerged in 2007. Among them were the extremely popular titles "Flash Element Tower Defense" released in January, "Desktop Tower Defense" released in March and "Antbuster" released in May. "Desktop Tower Defense" earned an Independent Games Festival award, and its success led to a version created for the mobile phone by a different developer. Another significant Flash title released in 2008 was "GemCraft". Handheld game console were not ignored in the boom and titles included "Lock's Quest" and "Ninjatown" released in September and October respectively. "Bloons Tower Defense" was first published in 2007, one of many in a series of balloon themed multi-platform games released.


title: Tower defense

text: The genre's success also led to new releases on PC and video game consoles. Popular 2008 titles included "PixelJunk Monsters" released in January, "" and "Savage Moon" in December. Also released in 2008 were "geoDefense Swarm", "geoDefense", "GemCraft", "Fieldrunners", "" and "Crystal Defenders". "GauntNet" was released in April 2009. "Plants vs. Zombies" released in May 2009 was another highly popular tower defense which became a successful series on mobile devices. Also released that year were "Sentinel", "TowerMadness", "Babel Rising", "Creeper World", "Sol Survivor", "Comet Crash", "", "South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!", "Starship Patrol" and "Trenches".


title: Tower defense

text: With the arrival of Apple's App Store tower defense developers adapted quickly to the touchscreen interface and the titles were among the most downloaded, many of them ported directly from Flash. Among the more notable include "Kingdom Rush", first released in 2011, which sold more than seventeen million copies both on App store and Play store.


title: Tower defense

text: By the end of the boom, most tower defense games were still using side scrolling, isometric, or top-down perspective graphics. "", released in November, 2008 unsuccessfully pioneered the first person perspective shooter with the genre. The awkward combination of experimental tower defense mechanics with 3D graphics was not well received, but later titles refined its execution paving the way for a popular new breed of games. "Dungeon Defenders", released in October 2010, was one of the first tower defense games to bring the genre to the third person perspective. It sold over 250,000 copies in first two weeks of release and over 600,000 copies by the end of 2011. 2010 saw the release of "SteamWorld Tower Defense", "Protect Me Knight", "The Tales of Bearsworth Manor", "Revenge of the Titans", "Arrow of Laputa", "Toy Soldiers" and "".


title: Tower defense

text: The 2011 title "Sanctum", and its 2013 sequel popularized the first person shooter hybrid that was pioneered by these earlier games. "Orcs Must Die!" also integrated the FPS genre into a fully 3D environment and went to have several sequels. "" released in 2011 introduced a variation of gameplay which has been described as "reverse tower defense", "tower attack", and "tower offense". In the game, the player must attack the enemy bases protected by numerous defenses. Sequels and other games have since experimented further with both styles of tower defense. "Tiny Heroes", "", "Iron Brigade", "Rock of Ages" and "Trenches 2" were also released in 2011.


title: Tower defense

text: "Defender's Quest", "Bad Hotel", "Toy Defense", "Strikefleet Omega", "Unstoppable Gorg", "Defenders of Ardania", "Orcs Must Die! 2", "Fieldrunners 2", "Dillon's Rolling Western", "Oil Rush" and "Elf Defense Eng" all came out in 2012. Around this period the genre matured, gaining recognition as a distinct sub-genre of strategy games and returning in numerous upgraded versions. "Chain Chronicle" and "CastleStorm" were released in 2013. "Plants vs. Zombies 2" came out and featured deck-building mechanics. 2014 saw a number of brand new titles including "Space Run", "Dungeon of the Endless", "Island Days", "Final Horizon" and "The Battle Cats" as well the return of "", "Defense Grid 2 and" "TowerMadness 2". "Deathtrap" and "Krinkle Krusher" were first published in 2015.


title: Tower defense

text: More recent titles in the genre include "" (2017) and "Orcs Must Die! Unchained" (2017), "Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers" (2018), "" (2018), "Aegis Defenders" (2018), "Bloons TD 6" (2018), "Arknights" (2019), "Taur" (2020), "Element TD 2" (2020), "Buster's Tower Defense" (2021), and "Path to Nowhere" (2022).


title: Tower defense

text: With the advent of social networking service applications, such as the Facebook Platform, tower defense has become a popular genre with titles such as "Bloons TD" and "Plants vs. Zombies Adventures" making the transition to turn-based play. Recent releases include "Star Fox Guard" and "McDroid" which came out in 2016.


title: Tower defense

text: On the platform Roblox, many Tower Defense games have been created, the most notable being Tower Defense Simulator (2019) as well as the first famous one being Tower Battles (2017). These games are mostly 3D and multiplayer based, with features like matchmaking and elevators to pair users up.


title: Tower defense

text: What distinguishes tower defense base defending games from other base defending games (such as "Space Invaders", or other games where bases are defended) is the player's ability to strategically place, construct or summon obstructive constructions and constructive obstructions in the path of attacking enemies.


title: Tower defense

text: In a tower defense, the player's main character is often invincible, as their primary objective is the survival of the base rather than the player.


title: Tower defense

text: Many modern tower defense games evolved from real-time to turn-based, cycling through distinct gameplay phases such as build, defend, repair, and celebrate.


title: Tower defense

text: Many games, such as "Flash Element Tower Defense" feature enemies that scamper through a "maze", which allows the player to strategically place "towers" for optimal effectiveness. However, some versions of the genre force the user to create the "maze" out of their own "towers", such as "Desktop Tower Defense". Some versions of the genre are a hybrid of these two types, with preset paths that can be modified to some extent by tower placement, or towers that can be modified by path placement, or modifications that can be placed by tower paths.


title: Tower defense

text: Often an essential strategy is "mazing", the tactic of creating a long, winding path of towers (or "maze") to lengthen the distance the enemies must traverse to get past the defense. Sometimes "juggling" is possible by alternating between barricading an exit on one side and then the other side to cause the enemies to path back and forth until they are defeated. Some games also allow players to modify the attack strategy used by towers to be able to defend for an even more tantalizingly reasonable price.


title: Tower defense

text: The degree of the player's control (or lack thereof) in such games also varies, from games where the player controls a unit within the game world, to games where the player has no direct control over units at all, or even no control over the game whatsoever.


title: Tower defense

text: A common theme in tower defense games to have occasional "air" units which ignore the layout of the board (i.e. maze paths or obstructions) and travel directly to the end destination, or enemies which prioritize different targets than their main destination.


title: Tower defense

text: Some tower defense games or custom maps also require the player to not only defend their own board but send out enemies to attack their opponents' game boards (or opponent-controlled areas of a common game board) in return. Such games are also known as tower wars game boards.


title: Tower defense

text: On June 3, 2008, COM2US Corporation was awarded the trademark for the term "Tower Defense", filed on June 13, 2007 – serial number 3442002. The corporation is reported to have started enforcing the trademark: in early 2010, developers of games on Apple's App Store reported receiving messages requiring name changes for their games, citing trademark violation. Adding the phrase "Tower Defense" (in capital letters) to the description of an app submission to iTunesConnect and the app store automatically triggers a warning that the submission is likely to be rejected for use of the term; however, writing the phrase in lower case is still acceptable as "tower defense" is a valid description of a game style.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov (; – 31 August 1948) was a Soviet politician and cultural ideologist. After World War II, Zhdanov was thought to be the successor-in-waiting to Joseph Stalin but died before him. He has been described as the "propagandist-in-chief" of the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1948.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Zhdanov was born in Mariupol (now Ukraine), where his father was a school inspector. His maternal grandfather was the former rector of the Moscow Theological Academy. He studied at the Moscow Commercial Institute. In 1914, he was drafted into the Russian army, graduated from an officers' school and served in the reserves. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1915. In 1917, he was chairman of the Shadrinsk committee of the Bolsheviks. He was a political commissar in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War and was elected chairman of the Tver soviet in 1923. From 1924 to 1934, he was first secretary of the Nizhny Novgorod provincial party committee.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Zhdanov's first major promotion came at the end of the 17th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in February 1934, when he was transferred to Moscow as a secretary of the Central Committee, responsible for ideology. In that capacity, he inserted his protégé, Aleksandr Shcherbakov, as secretary of the Union of Soviet Writers, and gave the opening address to the first Soviet Writers' Congress in August 1934. In his speech, as well as paying tribute to "the guiding genius of our great leader and teacher, Comrade Stalin", he repeated Stalin's famous line that writers are "engineers of human souls". He declared that the only good literature was political:


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Zhdanov's second great promotion followed the assassination of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, when he succeeded Kirov as first secretary of the Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) provincial party and was co-opted as a candidate member of the Politburo. Early in 1935, he and the head of the Leningrad NKVD, Leonid Zakovsky, organised the deportation of 11,702 so-called "Leningrad aristocrats", people who had belonged to the nobility or the middle class before the revolution. They also hunted any current or former party members suspected of having supported Leon Trotsky or the former Leningrad party boss, Grigory Zinoviev.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Zhdanov has been described by J. Arch Getty as a key figure in the Great Purge, who advocated an approach that would make the party a vehicle for political education, ideological agitation and cadre preparation on a mass scale. Zhdanov's encouragement of rank-and-file mobilisation helped create momentum for the Great Terror. Though somewhat less active than Vyacheslav Molotov, Joseph Stalin, Lazar Kaganovich and Kliment Voroshilov, Zhdanov was a major perpetrator of the Great Terror and personally approved 176 documented execution lists.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: On a holiday with Stalin in August 1936, he co-signed the telegram that brought about the dismissal of the head of the NKVD, Genrikh Yagoda, who was accused, among other failings, of having impeded Zhdanov and Leonid Zakovsky in their purge of the Leningrad party organisation. During a Central Committee plenum in March 1937, Zhdanov announced that all provincial party secretaries were to be subject to re-election, a device that was used to remove them. Zhdanov was one of the few provincial party leaders in Russia to remain in post throughout the Great Purge.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: In May 1937, he called leaders of the Leningrad party together to tell them that the long-time second secretary of the provincial party, Mikhail Chudov, and the former Mayor of Leningrad, Ivan Kodatsky, had been arrested. When an Old Bolshevik, Dora Lazurkina, went up to him afterwards to vouch for Kodatsky, Zhdanov warned her that such talk "will end badly for you". She was arrested and survived 17 years in the gulag.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: In September 1938, Zhdanov was appointed head of the reorganised Central Committee Directorate for Propaganda and Agitation, which brought all branches of the news media and arts under centralised party control. He was also Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from July 1938 to June 1947 and from 1938 he was on the military council of the Soviet Navy.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: His rise coincided with the fall of Nikolai Yezhov. At the 18th Party Congress, Zhdanov noted that "other means apart from repression" could be used to enforce "state and labour discipline". Zhdanov gave a key speech in which he proposed "to abolish mass Party purges... now that the capitalist elements have been eliminated". He declared that the purges had been co-opted by "hostile elements" to "persecute and ruin honest people".


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: At the conclusion of the Congress in March 1939, Zhdanov was promoted to full membership of the Politburo. He was still one of four secretaries of the Central Committee—the others being Stalin, Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev, and Georgy Malenkov—but Malenkov was not a member of the Politburo, which meant that Zhdanov had replaced Lazar Kaganovich as Stalin's deputy in the party apparatus and appeared to be his most likely successor.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: On 29 June 1939, he had a signed article in "Pravda" in which he expressed what he called his "personal" view "with which my friends do not agree" that Britain and France did not seriously want a military alliance with the Soviet Union. In retrospect, it was the first public hint of the Soviets signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact three months later.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Zhdanov was very publicly associated with the decision to invade Finland in November 1939. In December, he signed the treaty between the Soviets and Finnish puppet government, headed by Otto Wille Kuusinen. As the Leningrad party boss and the official overseeing the navy, he had an interest in increasing the Soviet presence in the Baltic Sea at the expense of Finland, Estonia and Latvia. The final peace treaty between Finland and the Soviet Union was signed by Zhdanov on 12 March 1940.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: In June 1940, Zhdanov was sent to Estonia to supervise the establishment of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic and its annexation by the Soviet Union. In the United States House of Representatives' 1953–1954 Kersten Committee investigation Zhdanov was one of the accused charged with the 1940 Soviet aggression and forced incorporation of the Baltic states into the USSR.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: The Finnish debacle weakened Zhdanov's political standing. In September 1940 he was removed from direct control of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee, which was taken over by Georgy Aleksandrov, an ally of his rival Malenkov. He was undermined further by the German invasion of the Soviet Union because he had been so publicly associated with the failed pact with Hitler. He was excluded from the State Defense Committee (GOKO), which directed the war effort and was initially controlled by Malenkov and Lavrentiy Beria. According to the historian Anton Antonov-Ovseenko:


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Along with Georgy Zhukov, Zhdanov took a leading role during the Siege of Leningrad in the Second World War. In August 1941, he created a City Defence Council but was ordered by Stalin to disband it. When the siege was lifted, he was not officially given credit for saving the city.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: After the Moscow Armistice between Finland and the Soviet Union was signed on 4 September 1944, Zhdanov directed the Allied Control Commission in Finland to the Paris Peace Treaty in 1947. That meant that he had to spend several months in Helsinki and relinquish his position as head of the Leningrad party organisation, which he had held for nine years, but he was able to leave it in the hands of his ally, Alexey Kuznetsov. In January 1945, when "Pravda" celebrated the lifting of the Siege of Leningrad, it emphasised that Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov had been dispatched to the city in 1941 and implied that they shared the credit with Zhdanov.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Zhdanov made a political comeback during 1946, when his main rival, Malenkov, temporarily lost his position as a party secretary. For the next two years, he was delegated by Stalin to direct the Soviet Union's cultural policy and to handle relations with the Eastern European states under or coming under communist control. He formulated what became known as the Zhdanov Doctrine ("The only conflict that is possible in Soviet culture is the conflict between good and best"). In December 1946, he launched the attack on Anna Akhmatova and Mikhail Zoshchenko, two writers living in Zhdanov's former Leningrad fiefdom. He described Akhmatova, arguably then the greatest living Russian poet, as "half nun, half whore". Zhanov was the founding editor-in-chief of the Agitprop journal "Kultura i zhizn" which he held until 1948.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: In 1947, he organised the Cominform, which was designed to coordinate and control the communist parties around the world. At a famous speech at Szklarska Poręba in September 1947, Zhdanov warned his fellow communists that the world was now split into two hostile camps and that the Cominform was needed to oppose the "frank expansionist programme" of the US.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: In January 1948, he presided over a three-day conference in the Kremlin, to which more than 70 composers, musicians and music critics, including Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian, and Nikolai Myaskovsky were summoned to be lectured by Zhdanov on why they should avoid "formalism" in music. A persistent story is that Zhdanov played the piano during the conference to demonstrate how music should be written, but years later that story was furiously denied by Shostakovich, who attributed it to "toadies". Zhdanov's cultural policy rested on the Soviets' "critically assimilating the cultural heritage of all nations and all times" to "take what was most inspiring".


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: In June 1948, Stalin sent Zhdanov to the Cominform meeting in Bucharest. Its purpose was to condemn Yugoslavia, but Zhdanov took a more restrained line than his co-delegate and rival, Georgy Malenkov. That infuriated Stalin, who removed Zhdanov from all his posts and replaced him with Malenkov. Zhdanov was soon transferred to a sanatorium.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Zhdanov died on 31 August 1948 in Moscow of heart failure. It is possible that his death was the result of an intentional misdiagnosis. Zhdanov was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin's Mausoleum and the Moscow Kremlin Wall.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Despite his bullying of Akhmatova, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and other cultural figures, and the apparent threat that the founding of Cominform posed to peace, Zhdanov is reckoned by many Soviet scholars to have been a "moderate" within the context of the post-war Stalinist regime. The worst events of Stalin's final years, such as the rift with Yugoslavia, the Leningrad affair, the show trials in Bulgaria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and the anti-Semitic Doctors' plot all occurred after Zhdanov was dead. The Leningrad Affair was a brutal purge of Zhdanov's former allies, notably Kuznetsov and Nikolai Voznesensky. The most notable survivor of that purge was future Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: In "Khrushchev Remembers", Nikita Khrushchev recalled that Zhdanov was an alcoholic and that during his last days, Stalin would shout at him to stop drinking and insist on him drinking only fruit juice. Stalin had talked of Zhdanov being his successor, but Zhdanov's ill health gave his rivals in the Politburo Lavrentiy Beria, Georgy Malenkov, and Nikita Khrushchev, an opportunity to undermine him. Stalin would later blame Zhdanov's death on Kremlin doctors and "Zionist" conspirators.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Zhdanovshchina was the emphasis on purified communist ideology developed during the war by Zhdanov. It emerged from his arguments inside the party hierarchy opposing the pragmatist faction of Georgy Malenkov. Malenkov stressed the universal values of science and engineering, and proposed to promote the technological experts to the highest positions in the Soviet administrative elite. Zhdanov's faction said proper ideology trumped science and called for prioritizing political education and ideological purity.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: However, the technocrats had proven amazingly successful during the war in terms of engineering, industrial production, and the development of advanced munitions. Zhdanov sought to use the ideological purification of the party as a vehicle to restore the Kremlin's political control over the provinces and the technocrats. He worried that the provincial party bosses and the heads of the economic ministries had achieved too high a degree of autonomy during the war, when the top leadership realized the urgent necessity of maximum mobilization of human and material resources. The highest priority in the post-war era was physical reconstruction after the massive wartime destruction.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: The same argument that strengthened the technocrats continued to operate, and the united opposition of Malenkov, the technocrats, the provincial party bosses, and the key ministries doomed Zhdanov's proposals. He therefore pivoted to devote his attention to purification of the arts and culture.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Originating in 1946 and lasting until the late 1950s, Zhdanov's ideological code, known as the Zhdanov Doctrine or Zhdanovism ("zhdanovshchina"), defined cultural production in the Soviet Union. Zhdanov intended to create a new philosophy of artistic creation valid for the entire world. His method reduced all of culture to a sort of chart, wherein a given symbol corresponded to a simple moral value.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Zhdanov and his associates further sought to eliminate foreign influence from Soviet art, proclaiming that "incorrect art" was an ideological diversion. This doctrine suggested that the world was split into two opposing camps, namely the "imperialistic", led by the United States; and the "democratic", led by the Soviet Union. The one sentence that came to define his doctrine was "The only conflict that is possible in Soviet culture is the conflict between good and best".


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: This cultural policy became strictly enforced, censoring writers, artists and the intelligentsia, with punishment being applied for failing to conform to what was considered acceptable by Zhdanov's standards. This policy officially ended in 1952, seen as having a negative impact on culture within the Soviet Union. The origins of this policy can be seen before 1946 when critics proposed (wrongly according to Zhdanov) that Russian classics had been influenced by famous foreign writers, but the policy came into effect specifically to target "apolitical, 'bourgeois', individualistic works of the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko and the poet Anna Akhmatova", respectively writing for the literary magazines "Zvezda" and "Leningrad". On 20 February 1948, Zhdanovshchina shifted its focus towards anti-formalism, targeting composers such as Dmitri Shostakovich. That April, many of the persecuted composers were pressed into repenting for displaying formalism in their music in a special congress of the Union of Soviet Composers.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Zhdanov was the most openly cultured of the leadership group and his treatment of artists was mild by Soviet standards of the time. He even wrote a satirical sketch ridiculing the attack on modernism.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Zhdanov's son Yuri (1919–2006) married Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva in 1949. She described the Zhdanov household as imbued with "an inveterate spirit of bourgeois acquisitiveness ... There were trunkloads of possessions ... The place was presided over by Zinaida Zhdanova, the widow, and the ultimate embodiment of this mixture of Party bigotry and the complacency of the bourgeois woman." In 1952, Yuri Zhdanov was raised to membership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as head of its Department of Science and Culture, but was sacked very soon after Stalin's death. That marriage ended in divorce in 1952. They had one daughter, Yekaterina.


title: Andrei Zhdanov

text: Zhdanov's birthplace, Mariupol, was renamed Zhdanov in his honor at Joseph Stalin's instigation in 1948 and a monument to Zhdanov was built in the central square of the city. The name reverted to Mariupol in 1989 and the monument was dismantled in 1990.


title: Aidar Battalion

text: 24th Separate Assault Battalion "Aidar", also known as the Aidar Battalion, is an assault battalion of the Ukrainian Ground Forces.


title: Aidar Battalion

text: The unit took part in the war in Eastern Ukraine and had roughly 300-400 members in 2014. It was named after the Aidar River in the Luhansk region where it was initially deployed. In 2014, Amnesty International reported that members of the Aidar Battalion had committed war crimes during the War in Donbas. It was disbanded in 2015 and reconstituted as the 24th Separate Assault Battalion of the Ukrainian Army, before being absorbed into the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade in 2016. As of October 2018 the battalion lost 130 soldiers killed in action. The Battalion's founder and former commander is .


title: Aidar Battalion

text: Created in May 2014, Aidar was the first Territorial Defense Battalion of Ukraine - a volunteer military detachment subordinate to the Ministry of Defence.


title: Aidar Battalion

text: In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election, former Aidar commander became a member of the Verkhovna Rada representing the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko; he ranked third on the party's election list. The commander of Aidar's second company, Ihor Lapin, was an MP for People's Front after winning a constituency seat in Lutsk in the same election. Neither was reelected in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election (Melnychuk failed to win a seat in an electoral district in Novomoskovsk with 0.31% of the votes and Lapin was not high enough on the election list (placed 49th) of European Solidarity to get elected).


title: Aidar Battalion

text: On 8 August 2014 Ukraine's Defense Minister Valeriy Heletey stated that the battalion would be reorganised, would receive better equipment and would see more combat missions. Melnychuk has described that order as "criminal", but has admitted that most of Aidar's soldiers had demobilized or come under official control by 2015.


title: Aidar Battalion

text: The battalion came to spotlight after several dozen of its members were killed in an ambush south of Shchastia after the announcement of the ceasefire on 6 September 2014.


title: Aidar Battalion

text: Late January and early February 2015 the battalion picketed several government buildings, which escalated into clashes.


title: Aidar Battalion

text: Aidar was formally disbanded on 2 March 2015 "to prevent illegal actions of some representatives of volunteer units" (according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces). After a "careful selection of soldiers", it was then reorganized as the 24th Separate Assault Battalion of the Ukrainian Army. Lieutenant Colonel Yevhen Ptashnik was appointed as commander of the battalion. The 24th Separate Assault Battalion was made part of the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade in January 2016. Later it became a part of the 53rd Mechanized Brigade.


title: Aidar Battalion

text: The Aidar Battalion consisted of volunteers from Lviv, Chernihiv, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Crimea, Kyiv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Donetsk regions. It included a member of the Luhansk Oblast's legislature, a former mayor of Oleksandrivsk, and self-defense activists from the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv. In June 2014, it had around 400 members.


title: Aidar Battalion

text: The Battalion has gained notoriety due to its members' far-right views. Two Swedish neo-Nazis from the Svenskarnas parti joined Aidar in 2013 and 2014 and made headlines in the Swedish and German media, since one of the Nazis was running for a local council in elections, and the same media heavily criticized the Nazi mercenaries. According to Huseyn Aliyev, a political scientist at the University of Glasgow, by 2015 the battalion's radical right-wing ideology had "toned down", and the ideology of it along with other volunteer battalions in Ukraine was best described as "nationalist-patriotic".


title: Aidar Battalion

text: In July 2014, Russia began a criminal investigation of Aidar's commander, Serhiy Melnychuk, for "organizing the killing of civilians". Its volunteer pilot, Nadiya Savchenko, was captured by pro-Russian separatists near Luhansk, transported to Russia and charged with killing two Russian journalists.


title: Aidar Battalion

text: On 8 September 2014 Amnesty International claimed that the battalion had committed war crimes, including abductions, unlawful detention, ill-treatment, theft, extortion, and possible executions.


title: Aidar Battalion

text: On 24 December 2014, Amnesty International reported that the unit was blocking humanitarian aid from Ukraine reaching the population of the separatist-controlled areas. Over half the population in these areas depended on food aid. According to Amnesty International, the Aidar, Donbas and Dnipro-1 battalions said they are blocking the aid because they "believe food and clothing are ending up in the wrong hands and may be sold instead of being given as humanitarian aid". Denis Krivosheev, acting Director of Europe and Central Asia for Amnesty International, stated that starving civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime.


title: Aidar Battalion

text: In April 2015, the Ukrainian government-appointed Governor of Luhansk Hennadiy Moskal stated that Aidar battalion was "terrorizing the region" and asked Ukrainian Defense Ministry to rein in its members after a series of thefts, including ambulances and the takeover of a bread factory.


title: Soo Ae

text: Park Soo-ae (; born 16 September 1979), known mononymously as Soo Ae, is a South Korean actress best known for portraying Kim In-hae in the 2013 film "The Flu" and Oh Soo-yeon in the 2018 film "High Society".


title: Soo Ae

text: Soo Ae began her career on television, but after her breakout role in "A Family" (2004), she became well-known as a leading actress in films, notably in "Sunny" (2008) and "Midnight FM" (2010).


title: Soo Ae

text: She also appeared in the popular television melodramas "Emperor of the Sea" (2004), "A Thousand Days' Promise" (2011), "Queen of Ambition" (2013) and "Mask" (2015). In 2016, she made her romantic-comedy drama comeback in KBS2's "Sweet Stranger and Me".


title: Soo Ae

text: Soo Ae nearly became a member of a K-pop idol group. Fresh out of high school, a record agent approached the young stunner on the street in the trendy Apgujeong area. She spent six months in grueling practice, but in the end had no album to put out. She reminisced in an interview, "I didn't sing well, but the six months I spent with the team was so fun. I was lucky to get into acting."


title: Soo Ae

text: Soo Ae made her small screen debut in 2002 in a one-act drama on MBC, then went on to star in "Love Letter", "Merry Go Round", and "April Kiss". She rose to fame after starring in 2004 hit historical drama "Emperor of the Sea", which was exported to other Asian countries, South America and the Middle East, introducing Soo Ae to a wider international audience.


title: Soo Ae

text: With her classical beauty and innocent, elegant image, Soo Ae gained the moniker "queen of tears" for her well-received takes in melodramas. But she revamped that image in the 2007 romantic comedy "Two Outs in the Ninth Inning" opposite Lee Jung-jin, playing a 30-year-old foul-mouthed, disheveled and jaded single woman struggling with life and love. Soo Ae in reality was known for her a husky, neutral voice, which helped her tomboyish performance feel so natural. But her voice wasn't always a plus. She said, "I've been told many times that my voice would be a detriment to my career. When I first got started, a lot of viewers posted comments online that they changed the channel because of the way I talk. [...] It was odd because I thought of my husky voice as my biggest asset. So I would tell people, "Keep on listening, you'll get to like it."


title: Soo Ae

text: After a successful big screen debut in "A Family", Soo Ae starred opposite Jung Jae-young in the comedy "Wedding Campaign", and Lee Byung-hun in the melodrama "Once in a Summer".


title: Soo Ae

text: In 2008, she was cast as the titular "Sunny" in a film about an ordinary housewife who becomes a "consolatory band" singer in order to search for her husband who has been dispatched to fight alongside American troops in the Vietnam War. Director Lee Joon-ik sought to tell a war story from a female-centric point of view, saying the film deals with the meaning of love and humanitarian as it depicts a long voyage of self-discovery. In a scene where she drinks heavily at a U.S. army base, Soo Ae revealed that she drank more than half a bottle of whisky at the director's criticism that she didn't look convincing enough. As a result of drinking so much alcohol, she became really drunk, adding reality to the scene where she throws up in the toilet and blacks out. Her commitment to the film paid off, and Soo Ae received multiple Best Actress awards for her performance.


title: Soo Ae

text: Her 2009 film "The Sword with No Name" depicted a desperate romance between the last queen of the Joseon Dynasty and her bodyguard. Empress Myeongseong, a forward-thinking advocate of modernity, wields her political influence to further her ideals, but is often at odds with her orthodox father-in-law, regent Daewon-gun. The movie is loosely based on history, with clearly fictional elements. Soo Ae said the role "was something I had always wanted to do from the moment I started my acting career. When I got the screenplay, I said yes without a moment's hesitation. [...] Playing Empress Myeongseong was not easy, because in addition to the mother of the nation, I had to show her womanly and human side, the joy and anguish she felt at being in love." Having to wear heavy wigs and layers of Korean traditional costumes in the steamy hot summer made the job even more difficult. The fact that she had to appear in almost every scene was another challenge. Describing herself as "timid" and "too introverted," Soo Ae credits her co-star Cho Seung-woo for making it easier for her to fully absorb herself in the love aspect of her role, such that it felt "like [they] were actually in a relationship during the shoot."


title: Soo Ae

text: Frustrated by usually receiving melodrama scripts and wanting to take on roles in different genres, Soo Ae next starred in the 2010 suspense thriller "Midnight FM". She said she decided to challenge herself by choosing the role of a strong female character fighting against a villain. She talked about the heightened fear she felt in a confined studio as her radio DJ character receives threatening phone calls from a kidnapper (played by Yoo Ji-tae), as well as the physical difficulty of filming chase and fight scenes in high heels. She tied with Yoon Jeong-hee ("Poetry") for Best Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards.


title: Soo Ae

text: In her return to television, Soo Ae played a cold-blooded double agent in "", undergoing martial arts training to perform her intense action scenes in the spy series.


title: Soo Ae

text: Then in the miniseries "A Thousand Days' Promise" by famed drama writer Kim Soo-hyun, Soo Ae impressed critics and audiences with her unsentimental portrayal of a woman who is slowly losing her memory due to Alzheimer's disease.


title: Soo Ae

text: In 2013, she played an amorally ambitious woman who wants to become the First Lady of South Korea in "Yawang" ("Queen of Ambition"), from the same manhwa artist as "Daemul". This was followed by disaster outbreak film "The Flu", in which she said she played a doctor and single mother who searches for a cure after her daughter is infected. Soo Ae said she is attracted to roles with an "oeyunaegang" quality, which literally translates to "iron fist in a velvet glove," meaning those who appear gentle but are determined and strong.


title: Soo Ae

text: In September 2013, Soo Ae left Star J Entertainment, her agency of 12 years, and joined Management Soop. She returned to Star J Entertainment in January 2015. Soo Ae next played dual roles in "Mask", about a debt-ridden department store clerk who takes on an heiress's identity and marries into a chaebol family. Her performance won her Best Actress at the 28th Grimae Award, an honorable award chosen by directors in every broadcasting station in Korea. She was then cast as a North Korean defector who becomes part of the first South Korean women's national ice hockey team in "Take Off 2", the sequel to the 2009 hit sports drama.


title: Soo Ae

text: Nine years after her last romantic-comedy drama "Two Outs in the Ninth Inning", Soo Ae starred in KBS2's romantic-comedy "Sweet Stranger and Me" in 2016.


title: State media

text: State media or government media are media outlets that are under financial and/or editorial control of the state or government, directly or indirectly. There are different types of state and government media. State-controlled or state-run media are under editorial control or influence by the state or government.


title: State media

text: There is no undisputed definition of state media or government media. The most common definition of state media or government media refers to any media organization that is either directly or indirectly owned or operated by the state. Across 97 countries, the pattern of media ownership was found to be predominantly owned by either the government or by prominent families connected with government entities. It is often associated with authoritarian governments that use state media to control, influence, and limit information. State or government media can range from media outlets that are completely under state control to editorially independent public service media outlets. The term "public media" can be used to refer to state or government media and public service broadcasting (PBS). Although there are differences between them. According to the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, state and government media are directly controlled by the state or government; and PBS are not. According to Facebook, state-controlled media are "partially or wholly under the editorial control of a government". Twitter uses the term "state-affiliated media" and defines it as "outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution." At the same time, "state-financed" editorially independent media are not considered "state-affiliated".


title: State media

text: Its content, according to some sources, is usually more prescriptive, telling the audience what to think, particularly as it is under no pressure to attract high ratings or generate advertising revenue and therefore may cater to the forces in control of the state as opposed to the forces in control of the corporation, as described in the propaganda model of the mass media. In more controlled regions, the state may censor content which it deems illegal, immoral or unfavorable to the government and likewise regulate any programming related to the media; therefore, it is not independent of the governing party. In this type of environment, journalists may be required to be members or affiliated with the ruling party, such as in the Eastern Bloc former Socialist States the Soviet Union, China or North Korea. Within countries that have high levels of government interference in the media, it may use the state press for propaganda purposes:


title: State media

text: Additionally, the state-controlled media may only report on legislation after it has already become law to stifle any debate. The media legitimizes its presence by emphasizing "national unity" against domestic or foreign "aggressors". In more open and competitive contexts, the state may control or fund its own outlet and is in competition with opposition-controlled and/or independent media. The state media usually have less government control in more open societies and can provide more balanced coverage than media outside of state control.


title: State media

text: State media outlets usually enjoy increased funding and subsidies compared to private media counterparts, but this can create inefficiency in the state media. However, in the People's Republic of China, where state control of the media is high, levels of funding have been reduced for state outlets, which have forced Chinese Communist Party media to sidestep official restrictions on content or publish "soft" editions, such as weekend editions, to generate income.


title: State media

text: Two contrasting theories of state control of the media exist; the public interest or Pigouvian theory states that government ownership is beneficial, whereas the public choice theory suggests that state control undermines economic and political freedoms.


title: State media

text: The public interest theory, also referred to as the Pigouvian theory, states that government ownership of media is desirable. Three reasons are offered. Firstly, the dissemination of information is a public good, and to withhold it would be costly even if it is not paid for. Secondly, the cost of the provision and dissemination of information is high, but once costs are incurred, marginal costs for providing the information are low and so are subject to increasing returns. Thirdly, state media ownership can be less biased, more complete and accurate if consumers are ignorant and in addition to private media that would serve the governing classes. However, Pigouvian economists, who advocate regulation and nationalisation, are supportive of free and private media. Public interest theory holds that when operated correctly, government ownership of media is a public good that benefits the nation in question. It contradicts the belief that all state media is propaganda and argues that most states require an unbiased, easily accessible, and reliable stream of information. Public interest theory suggests that the only way to maintain an independent media is to cut it off from any economic needs, therefore a state-run media organization can avoid issues associated with private media companies, namely the prioritization of the profit motive. State media can be established as a mean for the state to provide a consistent news outlet while private news companies operate as well. The benefits and detriments of this approach often depend on the editorial independence of the media organization from the government.


title: State media

text: Many criticisms of public interest theory center on the possibility of true editorial independence from the state. While there is little profit motive, the media organization must be funded by the government instead which can create a dependency on the government's willingness to fund an entity may often be critical of their work. The reliability of a state-run media outlet is often heavily dependent on the reliability of the state to promote a free press, many state-run media outlets in western democracies are capable of providing independent journalism while others in authoritarian regimes become mouthpieces for the state to legitimize their actions.


title: State media

text: The public choice theory asserts that state-owned media would manipulate and distort information in favor of the ruling party and entrench its rule and prevent the public from making informed decisions, which undermines democratic institutions. That would prevent private and independent media, which provide alternate voices allowing individuals to choose politicians, goods, services, etc. without fear from functioning. Additionally, that would inhibit competition among media firms that would ensure that consumers usually acquire unbiased, accurate information. Moreover, this competition is part of a checks-and-balances system of a democracy, known as the Fourth Estate, along with the judiciary, executive and legislature. States are dependent on the public for their legitimacy that allows them to operate. The flow of information becomes critical to their survival, and public choice theory argues that states cannot be expected to ignore their own interests, and instead the sources of information must remain as independent from the state as possible. Public choice theory argues that the only way to retain independence in a media organization is to allow the public to seek the best sources of information themselves. This approach is effective at creating a free press that is capable of criticizing government institutions and investigating incidents of government corruption.


title: State media

text: Those critical of the public choice theory argue that the economic incentives involved in a public business force media organizations to stray from unbiased journalism and towards sensationalist editorials in order to capture public interest. This has become a debate over the effectiveness of media organizations that are reliant on the attention of the public. Sensationalism becomes the key focus and turns away from stories in the public interest in favor of stories that capture the attention of the most amount of people. The focus on sensationalism and public attention can lead to the dissemination of misinformation to appease their consumer base. In these instances, the goal of providing accurate information to the public collapses and instead becomes biased toward a dominant ideology.


title: State media

text: Both theories have implications regarding the determinants and consequences of ownership of the media. The public interest theory suggests that more benign governments should have higher levels of control of the media which would in turn increase press freedom as well as economic and political freedoms. Conversely, the public choice theory affirms that the opposite is true - "public spirited", benevolent governments should have less control which would increase these freedoms.


title: State media

text: Generally, state ownership of the media is found in poor, autocratic non-democratic countries with highly interventionist governments that have some interest in controlling the flow of information. Countries with "weak" governments do not possess the political will to break up state media monopolies. Media control is also usually consistent with state ownership in the economy.


title: State media

text: As of 2002, the press in most of Europe (with the exception of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine) is mostly private and free of state control and ownership, along with North and South America (with the exception of Cuba.) The press "role" in the national and societal dynamics of the United States and Australia has virtually always been the responsibility of the private commercial sector since these countries' earliest days. Levels of state ownership are higher in some African countries, the Middle East and some Asian countries (with the exception of Japan, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand where large areas of private press exist.) Full state monopolies exist in Burma (under the military rule) and North Korea.


title: State media

text: Issues with state media include complications with press freedom and journalistic objectivity. According to Christopher Walker in the "Journal of Democracy", "authoritarian or totalitarian media outlets", such as China's CCTV, Russia's RT, and Venezuela's TeleSUR, take advantage of both domestic and foreign media due to the censorship under regimes in their native countries and the openness of democratic nations to which they broadcast.


title: State media

text: State media often reflects the values of the state it is operated by. This leads to both independent, and very strictly biased media outlets depending on the regime the outlet is operating in. In most western democracies Press Freedom remains an important value for the populace and the state, thus most state media organizations remain editorially independent from the government in question. Compared to most autocratic nations which attempt to limit press freedom to control the spread of information. State-run media organizations are at risk of becoming puppets for the state itself to spread disinformation and cover stories that do not favor their regime.


title: State media

text: "Worse outcomes" are associated with higher levels of state ownership of the media, which would reject Pigouvian theory. The news media are more independent and fewer journalists are arrested, detained or harassed in countries with less state control. Harassment, imprisonment and higher levels of internet censorship occur in countries with high levels of state ownership such as Singapore, Belarus, Myanmar, Ethiopia, the People's Republic of China, Iran, Syria, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Countries with a total state monopoly in the media like North Korea and Laos experience a "Castro effect", where state control is powerful enough that no journalistic harassment is required in order to restrict press freedom. Historically, state media also existed during the Cold War in authoritarian states such as the Soviet Union, East Germany, Republic of China (Taiwan), Poland, Romania, Brazil and Indonesia.


title: State media

text: The public interest theory claims state ownership of the press enhances civil and political rights; whilst under the public choice theory, it curtails them by suppressing public oversight of the government and facilitating political corruption. High to absolute government control of the media is primarily associated with lower levels of political and civil rights, higher levels of corruption, quality of regulation, security of property and media bias. State ownership of the press can compromise election monitoring efforts and obscure the integrity of electoral processes. Independent media sees higher oversight by the media of the government. For example, reporting of corruption increased in Mexico, Ghana and Kenya after restrictions were lifted in the 1990s, but government-controlled media defended officials. Heavily influenced state media can provide corrupt regimes with a method to combat efforts by protestors. Propaganda spread by state-media organizations can detract from accurate reporting and provide an opportunity for a regime to influence public sentiment. Mass protests against autocratic regimes such as those in China, Russia, Egypt, and Iran are often distorted by state-run media organizations in order to defame protesters and provide a positive light on the government's actions.


title: State media

text: It is common for countries with strict control of newspapers to have fewer firms listed per capita on their markets and less developed banking systems. These findings support the public choice theory, which suggests higher levels of state ownership of the press would be detrimental to economic and financial development. This is due to state media being commonly associated with autocratic regimes where economic freedom is severely restricted and there is a large amount of corruption within the economic and political system.


title: Starstruck (2010 film)

text: Starstruck, stylized as StarStruck, is a 2010 American teen musical drama television film starring Sterling Knight and Danielle Campbell that premiered as a Disney Channel Original Movie on February 14, 2010.


title: Starstruck (2010 film)

text: Kalamazoo, Michigan teenager Jessica Olson is annoyed by her older sister Sara's obsession with teen pop idol Christopher Wilde, and is unhappy to have her spring break used visiting her widowed grandmother in Hollywood, California. She is even more disgusted by Sara's plans to drag her along to stalk Christopher. Meanwhile, behind the scenes of celebrity, Christopher has earned a reputation as a "spoiled punk" who often scuffles with paparazzi. He is on the brink of landing a movie deal, despite the director's reluctance to give him the role due to his reputation and celebrity. In order to prove that he is serious about landing the role, Christopher agrees to remain out of the tabloids for a while.


title: Starstruck (2010 film)

text: Sara convinces Jessica to sneak out with her to crash the birthday party of Christopher's girlfriend, famous model Alexis Bender, where Christopher is scheduled to perform. Christopher sneaks in and out of the party to avoid being caught, and hits Jessica with the exit door while she searches for Sara in the crowd. He takes Jessica to a hospital to make sure she hasn't suffered a concussion, then brings her to his Beverly Hills mansion so that he can make an appearance for the film director before taking her home. Jessica allows Christopher to stay in her grandmother's garage for the night when he learns the paparazzi have followed him. The next day, Sara brings Jessica to Malibu in the hopes of finding Christopher there. Jessica recognizes a disguised Christopher on the beach and approaches him, but the two are forced to make a quick exit from the beach when the paparazzi arrive; once they get away, Christopher shows Jessica around Los Angeles.


title: Starstruck (2010 film)

text: While attempting to return to Malibu, they are again spotted by the paparazzi, but manage to elude them by driving off the main road, losing Jessica's grandmother's car in a mud pool quicksand in the process. While walking back to Malibu, they get into a heated argument after Jessica calls Christopher out on his superficiality. Eventually, Christopher confides that he enjoyed hanging out with Jessica because she appreciated him for who he was as a person rather than his fame. They eventually return to the beach, where they almost kiss until Christopher realizes he could be recognized and panics. He tells Jessica that they can never speak to each other again, and that no one can know what happened between them that day. Heartbroken and angry, Jessica returns home to Kalamazoo with her family. Alexis finds out about Jessica and breaks up with Christopher.


title: Starstruck (2010 film)

text: Christopher later finds out that paparazzi have documented his and Jessica's relationship, and is persuaded by his managers to lie and say she was just a fan. Meanwhile, as Jessica is flocked by paparazzi at her house in Kalamazoo, she watches him tell a talk show host that he has never met Jessica. Angry at the way the media has forced Christopher to suppress his real self, she confronts the paparazzi and reprimands them for their dehumanization and objectification of celebrities. Jessica then becomes notorious for supposedly "lying" about having met Christopher. Christopher's best friend, Stubby, encourages Christopher to make his own choices. Christopher then turns down the movie role and fires his parents as his managers.


title: Starstruck (2010 film)

text: Later, Sara takes Jessica to a school dance with her. Christopher makes an appearance at the dance and apologizes to Jessica on stage as well as singing a song he had written for her. When the paparazzi appear at the dance, he confesses that he was the one who lied, and admits his feelings for Jessica. She forgives him and the two agree to go out on a proper date.


title: Starstruck (2010 film)

text: The movie premiere generated 6.0 million viewers, the first to debut on a Sunday night, becoming the channel's most-watched February original movie premiere in Total Viewers, Kids 7-11 and Teenagers. Disney Channel's highest numbers ever in the time period among teens (2.3 million), and second-highest on record in Total Viewers (6.0 million) and Kids 7–11 (2.4 million), behind only the August 19, 2007 encore of "High School Musical 2". There were 987,000 viewers when it premiered in the UK and Ireland on May 14, 2010.


title: Starstruck (2010 film)

text: The soundtrack was released on February 9, 2010 by Walt Disney Records. The soundtrack peaked at number 23 on the U.S. "Billboard" 200. It debuted at #98 on "Billboard" 200 chart with the sales of 8,257 copies. For the week ending of March 6, 2010, the soundtrack faced a surplus in sales, selling 19,058 copies (up 131 percent), it rose from #98 to #23 on Billboard 200 chart. Sterling Knight, who portrays Christopher Wilde in the film, only sings the title track on the soundtrack with the rest of the songs being performed by then Varsity Fanclub member Drew Ryan Scott. Knight stated that the reason for this was because he had joined the film's cast late.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Ralph Meeker (born Ralph Rathgeber; November 21, 1920 August 5, 1988) was an American film, stage, and television actor. He first rose to prominence for his roles in the Broadway productions of "Mister Roberts" (1948–1951) and "Picnic" (1953), the former of which earned him a Theatre World Award for his performance. In film, Meeker is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Mike Hammer in Robert Aldrich's 1955 "Kiss Me Deadly".


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker went on to play a series of roles that used his husky and macho screen presence, including a lead role in Stanley Kubrick's military courtroom drama "Paths of Glory" (1957), as a troubled mechanic opposite Carroll Baker in "Something Wild" (1961), as a World War II captain in "The Dirty Dozen" (1967), and in the gangster film "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" (1967). Other credits include supporting roles in "I Walk the Line" (1970) and Sidney Lumet's "The Anderson Tapes" (1971).


title: Ralph Meeker

text: He also had a prolific career in television, appearing as Sergeant Steve Dekker on the series "Not for Hire" (1959–1960), and in the television horror film "The Night Stalker" (1972). After suffering a stroke in 1980, Meeker was forced to retire from acting, and died eight years later of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker was born Ralph Rathgeber in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 21, 1920, the son of Ralph and Magnhild Senovia Haavig Meeker Rathgeber. He spent his early life in Michigan and Chicago. Meeker attended the Leelanau School in Glen Arbor Township, Michigan, and later was made a member of its hall of fame. He graduated from Northwestern University in 1942, where he majored in music.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker served in the United States Navy during World War II, but was discharged after a few months with a neck injury.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker began his career on stage, appearing in minor roles in the Broadway production of "Strange Fruit" (1946) directed by José Ferrer, which ran for 60 performances.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: He followed it with a minor part in "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1946), starring Ferrer and directed by Mel Ferrer which went for 163 performances.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker then starred on Broadway in "Mister Roberts" (1948–51), directed by Joshua Logan and produced by Leland Hayward. Theatre World said he was one of the 12 most promising actors from the 1947–48 season. He was understudy for Henry Fonda.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker's big breakthrough came when he took over the role of Stanley Kowalski from Marlon Brando in the second year of the original Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire", directed by Elia Kazan. Logan and Hayward had Meeker under personal contract but agreed to release him from "Mister Roberts". He started appearing in June 1949. He played the role until the Broadway run ended in December and then toured on the road with it.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker made his film debut in the Swiss-made "Four in a Jeep" (1951), directed by Leopold Lindtberg. He played a starring role alongside Viveca Lindfors.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker was then signed to a term contract by MGM. which put him in "Teresa" (1951), directed by Fred Zinnemann. Meeker played a support role, a sergeant, and the film was very popular.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: MGM then cast him in the leading role in "Shadow in the Sky" (1952), alongside Nancy Davis, later Nancy Reagan. The studio then tried him in "Glory Alley" (1952), billed above Leslie Caron and directed by Raoul Walsh. Both films flopped.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Paramount borrowed him to play Betty Hutton's leading man in "Somebody Loves Me" (1952), a musical. It was a minor hit.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker's next two MGM films were very popular. He had a supporting role as a misfit ex-cavalryman in the classic Western "The Naked Spur" (1953) directed by Anthony Mann starring James Stewart. He was then in "Jeopardy" (1953), a well-received thriller with Barbara Stanwyck and Barry Sullivan. His final film for MGM was the crime movie "Code Two" (1953), which made a small loss.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: In 1954, Meeker was cast in a Broadway production of William Inge's "Picnic", directed by Logan and also starring Paul Newman and Janice Rule. The play was a critical and commercial success, running for 477 performances. Meeker was awarded the New York Critic's Circle Award in 1954.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: "Picnic" became a classic film in 1955, with William Holden and Kim Novak starring in the roles originated by Meeker and Janice Rule. According to Turner Classic Movies, Meeker turned down the lead role because he did not wish to sign a long-term contract with the production company, and he never was offered a role of similar stature again.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: In perhaps his most-remembered role, Meeker starred as private detective Mike Hammer in the 1955 Robert Aldrich film of Mickey Spillane's "Kiss Me Deadly". Many years later, this film acquired cult status and was seen as an influence on French New Wave directors such as Jean-Luc Godard.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: He then played a member of the French Foreign Legion in "Desert Sands" (1955). He was discussed to star in a Spillane sequel "My Gun Is Quick"


title: Ralph Meeker

text: On television, Meeker starred in the 1955 premiere episode, "Revenge", of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", along with Vera Miles. (He later appeared in three other "Alfred Hitchcock" segments.) He also guest-starred on shows like "Studio One in Hollywood", "Star Stage", "The Alcoa Hour", "Goodyear Playhouse", "Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre", "Studio 57", "Zane Grey Theater", "Playhouse 90", and "The 20th Century-Fox Hour".


title: Ralph Meeker

text: In 1957, he portrayed an ex-convict who kidnaps and then falls for Jane Russell in the romantic comedy "The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown", which failed at the box office.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: That same year, he appeared in Stanley Kubrick's "Paths of Glory", playing a soldier, Corporal Paris, accused of cowardice during battle in World War I.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: He continued to work heavily in TV on such shows as "Climax!", "Wagon Train", "Kraft Theatre", "Pursuit", "Wanted: Dead or Alive", "Schlitz Playhouse", "The Loretta Young Show" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". Meeker was cast with Dorothy Provine in the 1959 episode "Blood Money" of the Western series "The Texan", starring Rory Calhoun. He had the title role in the TV movie "Dillinger" (1960).


title: Ralph Meeker

text: From 1959 to 1960, Meeker had the leading role as Army Sergeant Steve Dekker in the 39-episode television series "Not for Hire".


title: Ralph Meeker

text: In 1961, he starred in the political story "Ada" with Dean Martin, and in Jack Garfein's experimental drama "Something Wild", in which he portrayed a mechanic who saves a young woman (Carroll Baker) from committing suicide, but then holds her captive in his apartment.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker went back to Broadway to replace Eli Wallach in the production of "Rhinoceros" starring Zero Mostel. He was then in "Something About a Soldier" (1962) with Sal Mineo directed by Dore Schary; it ran 12 performances.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: In 1962, Meeker portrayed Jack Slade in the episode "The Crooked Angel" of thee drama series "Going My Way", starring Gene Kelly as a Catholic priest in New York City and loosely based on 1944 film of the same name. He was also cast in 1962 as Barney Swanton in the episode "Walk Like a King" of the Western series "Empire", starring Richard Egan. He was also in episodes of "The United States Steel Hour", and "Route 66".


title: Ralph Meeker

text: In 1963, he appeared as Murray Knopf in "The Bull Roarer" on "Breaking Point", starring Paul Richards and Eduard Franz.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: During the Cold War, he appeared in a 1963 U.S. Department of Defense informational film "Town of the Times", which encouraged the construction of public fallout shelters. He was in the feature film "Wall of Noise" (1963) at Warners.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker guest-starred as Frank Marin in the 1964 episode "Swing for the Moon" of "Channing", co-starring Jason Evers and Henry Jones. He was also in "The Outer Limits", "The Defenders", "Suspense", "The Doctors and the Nurses", and "Kraft Suspense Theatre".


title: Ralph Meeker

text: He returned to Broadway in 1964 for "After The Fall" by Arthur Miller, directed by Kazan and starring Jason Robards Jr. and Barbara Loden. It ran for 208 performances. The play was done in repertory with "But For Whom Charlie", also directed by Kazan with Meeker (and Faye Dunaway), but it was not as successful.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: In 1965 Meeker was in "Mrs. Dally Had a Lover" on Broadway which ran 53 performances. He guest-starred on "The Long, Hot Summer", "Seaway", "The Green Hornet", and "Tarzan".


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker later appeared in the 1967 crime drama "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre", in which he played gangster George "Bugs" Moran.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker was also in the 1967 war film "The Dirty Dozen" as Captain Stuart Kinder, a military psychologist who attempts to analyze the men. Meeker portrayed police officers in "The Detective" (1969) with Frank Sinatra and "The Anderson Tapes" (1970) with Sean Connery.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker also starred in "Gentle Giant" (1967), "A Punt, a Pass, and a Prayer" (1968), and "The Devil's 8" (1968) and guest starred on "Dundee and the Culhane", "The High Chaparral", "The Name of the Game",


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker worked steadily through the 1970s. He was in the TV film "Lost Flight" (1970), the feature "I Walk the Line" (1970), and episodes of "The Virginian" and "The F.B.I.", as well as the TV movie "The Reluctant Heroes of Hill 656" (1971).


title: Ralph Meeker

text: In 1971, he appeared on television as Kermit Teller in the episode "Glory Rider" of the Western "Custer", with Wayne Maunder in the title role.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker was in episodes of "Primus", "Room 222", "Faraday and Company", "Ironside", "Toma", "The Evil Touch", "Police Surgeon", "Cannon", "The Rookies", "Movin' On", "Barbary Coast", "Police Story", "Run, Joe, Run", "Harry O", "Police Woman", "The Eddie Capra Mysteries", and "CHiPs".


title: Ralph Meeker

text: In 1971, Meeker played FBI agent Bernie Jenks in the TV movie "The Night Stalker". He was in TV movies "The Mind Snatchers" (1972), "Birds of Prey" (1973), "You'll Never See Me Again" (1973), "Cry Panic" (1974), "Night Games" (1974), "The Girl on the Late, Late Show" (1974), and "The Dead Don't Die" (1975).


title: Ralph Meeker

text: He made "Love Comes Quietly" (1973) in Holland and did the John Wayne film "Brannigan" (1974). He was second-billed in "Johnny Firecloud" (1975) and had a part in "The Food of the Gods" (1976).


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker was an executive producer on "My Boys Are Good Boys" (1978), which he also appeared in. He had a role in "Winter Kills" (1979).


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker's final screen role was in the independent science-fiction-horror film "Without Warning" (1980), about an alien landing. The film received negative reviews from critics, with Tom Buckley of "The New York Times" calling the film "illogical and predictable."


title: Ralph Meeker

text: Meeker was married three times: his first wife (1964–1966) was actress Salome Jens, and his third was Millicent Meeker.


title: Ralph Meeker

text: In 1980, he suffered a severe stroke, which forced him to retire from acting. His health steadily declined, punctuated by several more strokes. He spent the last year of his life in the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Los Angeles, and died there, age 67, of a heart attack. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles.


title: Pickled herring

text: Most cured herring uses a two-step curing process: it is first cured with salt to extract water; then the salt is removed and the herring is brined in a vinegar, salt, and sugar solution, often with peppercorn, bay leaves, raw onions, and so on. Additional flavourings include sherry, mustard and dill, while other non-traditional ingredients have also begun being included in recent years.


title: Pickled herring

text: Pickled herring remains a popular food or ingredient to dishes in many parts of Europe including Scandinavia, Great Britain, the Baltic, Eastern and Central Europe, as well as the Netherlands. It is also popular in parts of Canada such as British Columbia and Newfoundland. It is also associated with Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, becoming a staple at kiddushes and social gatherings. Pickled herring is one of the twelve dishes traditionally served at Christmas Eve in Russia, Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Pickled herring is also eaten at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve to symbolize a prosperous New Year in Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, and parts of Scandinavia.


title: Pickled herring

text: Pickled herrings have been a staple in Northern Europe since medieval times, being a way to store and transport fish, especially necessary in meatless periods like Lent. The herrings would be prepared, then packed in barrels for storage or transportation. In 1801 Dutch fishermen amongst the prisoners of war in the Norman Cross Prison were sent to Scotland to teach the Scottish herring fishermen how to cure fish using the Dutch method.


title: Pickled herring

text: In the Nordic countries, once the pickling process is finished and depending on which of the dozens of herring flavourings (mustard, onion, garlic, lingonberries etc.) are selected, it is eaten with dark rye bread, crisp bread, sour cream, or potatoes. This dish is common at Christmas, Easter and Midsummer, where it is frequently accompanied by spirits like akvavit.


title: Pickled herring

text: Soused herring ("maatjesharing" or just "maatjes" in Dutch) is an especially mild salt herring, which is made from young, immature herrings. The herrings are ripened for a couple of days in oak barrels in a salty solution, or brine. In English, a "soused herring" can also be a cooked marinated herring.


title: Pickled herring

text: Rollmops are pickled herring fillets rolled (hence the name) into a cylindrical shape around a piece of pickled gherkin or an onion. They are thought to have developed as a special treat in 19th century Berlin, and the word borrowed from the German.


title: Pickled herring

text: Fish cured through pickling or salting have long been consumed in the British Isles. Like jellied eel, it was primarily eaten by, and is sometimes associated with, the working class. Kipper is a dish eaten in Great Britain, Ireland, and parts of Canada. It consists of a split open herring, pickled or salted, and cold-smoked.


title: Pickled herring

text: Red herring is similar to kippers but is whole and ungutted; it is more heavily salted and is smoked for 2-3 weeks. The main UK export markets are Europe and West Africa.


title: Pickled herring

text: Pickled herring, especially brined herring, is common in Russia and Ukraine, where it is served cut into pieces and seasoned with sunflower oil and onions, or can be part of herring salads, such as dressed herring (, , lit. 'herring under a fur coat'), which are usually prepared with vegetables and seasoned with mayonnaise dressing.


title: Pickled herring

text: Brined herring is common in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, perhaps best known for vorschmack salad known in English simply as "chopped herring" and as schmaltz herring in Yiddish. In Israel it is commonly known as "dag maluach" which means "salted fish".


title: Pickled herring

text: Pickled herring can also be found in the cuisine of Hokkaidō in Japan, where families traditionally preserved large quantities for winter.


title: Pickled herring

text: In Nova Scotia, Canada, pickled herring with onions is called "Solomon Gundy" (not to be confused with the Jamaican pickled fish pâté of the same name).


title: Pickled herring

text: "Bismarck herring" (German "Bismarckhering") is the common name for pickled herring in Germany, and is sometimes sold elsewhere under that name. There are various theories as to why the product is associated with Bismarck.


title: Pickled herring

text: Pickled herring is rich in tyramine and thus should be avoided in the diet of people being treated with an antidepressant monoamine oxidase inhibitor.


title: Pickled herring

text: As with fresh herring, pickled herring is an excellent natural source of both vitamin D3 and omega-3 fatty acids. It is also a good source of selenium and vitamin B12. 100 grams may provide 680 IU of vitamin D, or 170% of the DV, as well as 84% of the DV for selenium, and 71% of the DV for vitamin B12.


title: Thordis Brandt

text: Thordis Brandt was born in Germany of Norwegian and German parents. She moved to Canada as a young girl and was raised initially at a farm in St. Norbert, Winnipeg, then moved to a mink ranch in Bella Coola, British Columbia, then to Vancouver in 1958. In 1963, Thordis graduated as a registered nurse from St. Paul's Hospital School of Nursing.


title: Thordis Brandt

text: She moved to Santa Monica, California where she continued to practice her nursing in private duty. One of her jobs in private duty was serving actress Patricia Neal. Ms. Neal recommended Thordis to other actors and actresses and Thordis became known as the "actor's nurse". Thordis began her career as a nurse advisor in "Ben Casey" where she made appearances on the show.


title: Thordis Brandt

text: A bit player for most of her career, she appeared in such TV shows as "Burke's Law", "The Girl from UNCLE", "The Man from UNCLE", "The Green Hornet", "Mannix", "Hogan's Heroes" and an appearance in the 1967 episode of "The Fugitive" - "The One That Got Away". Although she had some speaking parts, Thordis' appearances rarely required her to speak.


title: Thordis Brandt

text: She also appeared in films beginning with "The Last of the Secret Agents?" and "Nevada Smith" (both 1966), then "In Like Flint" (1967) and "Funny Girl" (1968). She appeared in two Elvis Presley films "Spinout" (1966) and "Live a Little, Love a Little" (1968). She has gained minor cult status as the victim of a serial killer in the Made-For-TV movie "Dragnet 1966", and her appearances in the films "The Witchmaker" (1969) and "Up Your Teddy Bear" (1970).


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is a higher education and research institute which is recognized as an Institute of National Importance by the 1959 act of the Indian parliament. It grew out of the Statistical Laboratory set up by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in Presidency College, Kolkata. Established in 1931, this unique institution of India is one of the oldest institutions focused on statistics, and its early reputation led it to being adopted as a model for the first US institute of statistics set up at the Research Triangle, North Carolina by Gertrude Mary Cox.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: Mahalanobis, the founder of ISI, was deeply influenced by the wisdom and guidance of Rabindranath Tagore and Brajendranath Seal. Under his leadership, the institute initiated and promoted the interaction of statistics with natural and social sciences to advance the role of statistics as a key technology by explicating the twin aspectsits general applicability and its dependence on other disciplines for its own development. The institute is now considered one of the foremost centres in the world for training and research in computer science, statistics, quantitative economics and related sciences.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: ISI has its headquarters in Baranagar, West Bengal. It has four subsidiary centres focused in academics at Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Tezpur, and a branch at Giridih. In addition, the institute has a network of units of statistical quality control and operations research at Vadodara, Giridih, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune engaged in guiding the industries, within and outside India, in developing the most up–to–date quality management systems and solving critical problems of quality, reliability and productivity.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: Primary activities of ISI are research and training of statistics, development of theoretical statistics and its applications in various natural and social sciences. Originally affiliated with the University of Calcutta, the institute was declared an institute of national importance in 1959, through an act of Indian parliament, Indian Statistical Institute act, 1959. ISI functions under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) of the government of India.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: Key areas of expertise of ISI are statistics, computer science, mathematics, mathematical economics, operations research and information science and it is one of the few research oriented Indian schools offering courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: ISI's origin can be traced back to the Statistical Laboratory in Presidency College, Kolkata, set up by Mahalanobis, who worked in the Physics Department of the college in the 1920s. During 1913–1915, he did his Tripos in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Cambridge, where he came across "Biometrika", a journal of statistics founded by Karl Pearson. Since 1915, he taught physics at Presidency College, but his interest in statistics grew under the guidance of polymath Brajendranath Seal. Many colleagues of Mahalanobis took an interest in statistics and the group grew in the Statistical Laboratory. Considering the extensive application of statistics in solving various problems in real life such as analyzing multivariate anthropometric data, applying sample surveys as a method of data collection, analyzing meteorological data, estimating crop yield etc., this group, particularly, Mahalanobis and his younger colleagues S. S. Bose and H. C. Sinha felt the necessity of forming a specialized institute to facilitate research and learning of statistics.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: On 17 December 1931, Mahalonobis held a meeting with Pramatha Nath Banerji (Minto Professor of Economics), Nikhil Ranjan Sen (Khaira Professor of Applied Mathematics) and Sir R. N. Mukherjee. This meeting led to the establishment of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), which was formally registered on 28 April 1932, as a non-profit distributing learned society under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860. Later, the institute was registered under the West Bengal Societies Registration Act XXVI of 1961, amended in 1964. Mukherjee accepted the role of the president of ISI and held this position until his death in 1936. In 1953, ISI was relocated to a property owned by Professor Mahalanobis, named "Amrapali", in Baranagar, which is now a municipality at the northern outskirts of Kolkata.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: In 1931, Mahalanobis was the only person working at ISI, and he managed it with an annual expenditure of Rs. 250. It gradually grew with the pioneering work of a group of his colleagues including S. S. Bose, Samarendra Kumar Mitra (Head of the Computing Machines and Electronics Laboratory and designer of India's first computer), J. M. Sengupta, Raj Chandra Bose, Samarendra Nath Roy, K. R. Nair, R. R. Bahadur, Gopinath Kallianpur, D. B. Lahiri, and Anil Kumar Gain. Pitamber Pant, who had received training in statistics at the institute, went on to become a secretary to the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, and was a great source of help and support to the institute.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: The institute started a training section in 1938. In due course, many of the early workers left the ISI for careers in the United States or for positions in the public and private sectors in India. By the 1940s, the ISI was internationally known and was taken as a model when the first institute of statistics was set up in the United States by Gertrude Coxperhaps the only time an institute in a developing country was used as a model in a developed country.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: As asked by the government of India, in 1950, ISI designed and planned a comprehensive socio–economic national sample survey covering rural India. The organisation named National Sample Survey (NSS) was founded in 1950 for conducting this survey. The field work was performed by the Directorate of NSS, functioning under the Ministry of Finance, whereas the other tasks such as planning of the survey, training of field workers, review, data processing and tabulation were executed by ISI. In 1961, the Directorate of NSS started functioning under the Department of Statistics of government of India, and later in 1971, the design and analysis wing of NSS was shifted from ISI to the Department of Statistics forming the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO).


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: J. B. S. Haldane joined the ISI as a research professor from August 1957, and stayed on until February 1961, when he had a falling out with ISI Director P.C. Mahalanobis over Haldane's going on a much-publicized hunger strike to protest the United States pressuring U.S. National Science Fair winners Gary Botting and Susan Brown from attending an ISI banquet to which many prominent Indian scientists had been invited. Haldane helped the ISI grow in biometrics. Haldane also played a key role in developing the structure and content of the courses offered by ISI.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: Until 1959, ISI was associated with the University of Calcutta. By 'The Indian Statistical Institute Act 1959' of the Parliament of India, amended in 1995, ISI was declared an institute of national importance, and was authorised to hold examinations and to grant degrees and diplomas in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Economics, and in any other subject related to statistics as identified by the institute from time to time. ISI is a public university, as the same act also states that ISI would be funded by the Central Government of India.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: ISI had by the 1960s started establishing special service units in New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad to provide consultancy services to business, industry and governmental public service organisations in the areas of statistical process control, operations research and industrial engineering. Additionally, Bangalore had a Documentation Research and Training Centre (DRTC). In the early 1970s, the Delhi and Bangalore units were converted to teaching centres. In 2008, ISI Chennai was upgraded to a teaching centre. In 2011, ISI added a new centre in Tezpur.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: The major objectives of the ISI are to facilitate research and training of Statistics, to indulge in development of statistical theory and in application of statistical techniquesin the scenarios of planning at national level and in theoretical development of natural and social sciences, to participate in the process of data collection and analysis, to operate related projects in planning and improvement of efficiency of management and production.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: The Sanskrit phrase भिन्नेष्वैक्यस्य दर्शणम् (Bhinneswaykyasya Darshanam), which literally means the philosophy of unity in diversity, is incorporated in the logo of the institute, and is the motto of ISI. ISI Kolkata is the headquarter with centres at New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai . Tezpur, the 4th centre of ISI was inaugurated in 2011.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: ISI Kolkata has a campus consisting of six addresses at 201 through 206 Barrackpore Trunk Road, Bonhooghly (Baranagar). These include a house, which was an erstwhile office of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) of India.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: ISI Kolkata campus is eco-friendly, as conceived by Mahalanobis. Hollow bricks that protect from heat and noise were used with minimum use of reinforced concrete, to avoid radiation. There was no use of bitumen-basalt combination at the roads inside ISI campuses. This helps in reduction of radiation and preservation of rain water to maintain equilibrium in ground-water level.


title: Indian Statistical Institute

text: The Kolkata campus offers bachelors level degree course in Statistics (B. Stat), master's degree course in Statistics (M.Stat), Mathematics (M.Math), Computer Science (MTech), Cryptology & Security (MTech), Quality Reliability and Operations Research (MTech) and Quantitative Economics (M.S.). Major divisions and units are: Statistics and Mathematics Unit (SMU), Human Genetics Unit (HGU), Physics and Applied Mathematics Unit (PAMU), Geological Studies Unit (GSU), Advanced Computation and MicroElectronics Unit (ACMU), Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Unit (CVPRU), Machine Intelligence Unit (MIU), Electronics and Communication Sciences Unit (ECSU), Applied Statistics Unit (ASU), Economic Research Unit (ERU), Linguistic Research Unit (LRU), Sociology Research Unit (SRU), Psychometry Research Unit (PRU) and Population Studies Unit (PSU).