title: Heinkel He 112

text: When it was clear the 112 was losing the contest to the Bf 109, Heinkel offered to re-equip V6 with 20 mm cannon armament as an experimental aircraft. She was then broken down and shipped to Spain on 9 December and assigned to "Versuchsjagdgruppe" 88, a group within the "Legion Condor" devoted to testing new aircraft and joined three V-series Bf 109s which were also in testing.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: Wilhelm Balthasar, later a Battle of Britain ace pilot used it to attack an armoured train and an armoured car. Other pilots flew it, but the engine seized during landing in July and she was written off.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: For the annexation of the Sudetenland, every flight-worthy fighter was pressed into service. The batch of He 112Bs for the Japanese Navy was taken over, but not used before the end of the crisis and shipped to Japan to fulfil orders.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: The Japanese rejected the He 112 as a fighter but took 30 for training duties and V11 with its DB 600Aa was used for testing.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: The Spanish government purchased 12 He 112Bs. This increased to 19. The He 112s were to operate as top cover for Fiat fighters in the opening stages of the Civil War, the Fiat having considerably worse altitude performance. In the event, only a single kill was made with the He 112 as a fighter and it was moved onto ground-attack work.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: During World War II, when Allied forces landed in North Africa, Spanish forces in Morocco intercepted stray aircraft of both Allied and German forces. None of these incidents resulted in losses. In 1943, one He 112 of "Grupo" nº27 attacked the tail-end aircraft of 11 Lockheed P-38s forcing it down in Algeria after they re-entered French territory having crossed into Spanish Morocco. By 1944, the aircraft were largely grounded due to a lack of fuel and maintenance.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: Like the Germans, Hungary had stiff regulations imposed on its armed forces with the signing of the Treaty of Trianon. In August 1938, the armed forces were re-formed, and with Austria (historically her partner for centuries) being incorporated into Germany, Hungary found herself in the German sphere.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: One of the highest priorities for the forces was to re-equip the Hungarian Air Force (Magyar Királyi Honvéd Légierő or MKHL) as soon as possible. Of the various aircraft being considered, the He 112B eventually won out over the competition, and on 7 September, an order was placed for 36 aircraft. The Heinkel production line was just starting, and with Japan and Spain in the queue, it would be some time before the aircraft could be delivered. Repeated pleas to be moved to the top of the queue failed.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: Germany had to refuse the first order at the beginning of 1939 because of its claimed neutrality in the Hungarian/Romanian dispute over Transylvania. In addition, the RLM refused to license the 20 mm MG FF cannon to the Hungarians, likely as a form of political pressure. This later insult did not cause a problem, because they planned to replace it with the locally designed 20 mm Danuvia cannon anyway.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: V9 was sent to Hungary as a demonstrator after a tour of Romania, and arrived on 5 February 1939. It was test flown by a number of pilots over the next week, and on 14 February, they replaced the propeller with a new three-bladed Junkers design (licensed from Hamilton). While being tested against a CR.32 that day, V9 crashed. On 10 March, a new He 112 B-1/U2 arrived to replace the V9 and was flown by a number of pilots at different fighter units. It was during this time that the Hungarian pilots started to complain about the underpowered engine, as they found that they could reach a top speed of only 430 km/h (270 mph) with the Jumo 210Ea.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: With the Japanese and Spanish orders filled, things were looking up for Hungary. However, at that point, Romania placed its order, and was placed at the front of the queue. It appeared that the Hungarian production machines might never arrive, so the MKHL started pressing for a license to build the aircraft locally. In May, the Hungarian Manfred-Weiss company in Budapest received the license for the aircraft, and on 1 June, an order was placed for 12 aircraft. Heinkel agreed to deliver a Jumo 210Ga-powered aircraft to serve as a pattern aircraft.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: As it turns out, the He 112 B-2 was never delivered; two more of the B-1/U2s with the Jumo 210Ea were sent instead. On arrival in Hungary, the 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine guns were removed and replaced with the local 8 mm (.315 in) 39.M machine guns, and bomb racks were added. The resulting fit was similar to those originally ordered by Austria. Throughout this time, the complaints about the engines were being addressed by continued attempts to license one of the newer 30 L (1,831 in³)-class engines, the Junkers Jumo 211A or the DB 600Aa.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: Late in March, the He 100 V8 took the world absolute speed record, but in stories about the record attempt, the aircraft was referred to as the He 112U. Upon hearing of the record, the Hungarians decided to switch production to this "new version" of the 112, which was based on the newer engines. Then in August, the Commander-in-Chief of the MKHL recommended that the 112 be purchased as the standard fighter for Hungary (although likely referring to the earlier versions, not the "112U").


title: Heinkel He 112

text: At this point, the engine issue came to a head. It was clear that no production line aircraft would ever reach Hungary, and now that the war was underway, the RLM was refusing to allow their export anyway. Shipments of the Jumo 211 or DB 601 were not even able to fulfill German needs, so export of the engine for locally built airframes was likewise out of the question.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: By September, the ongoing negotiations with the RLM for the license to build the engines locally stalled, and as a result, the MKHL ordered Manfred-Weiss to stop tooling up for the production line aircraft. The license was eventually canceled in December. The MKHL turned to the Italians and purchased the Fiat CR.32 and Reggiane Re.2000. The latter would be the backbone of the MKHL for much of the war.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: Nevertheless, the three He 112 B-1/U2 aircraft continued to serve on. In the summer of 1940, tensions with Romania over Transylvania started to heat up again and the entire MKHL was placed on alert on 27 June. On 21 August, the He 112s were moved forward to the Debrecen airfield to protect a vital railway link. The next week, a peaceful resolution was found, and the settlement was signed in Vienna on 30 August. The He 112s returned home the following week.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: By 1941, the aircraft were ostensibly assigned to defend the Manfred-Weiss plant, but were actually used for training. When Allied bomber raids started in the spring of 1944, the aircraft were no longer airworthy, and it appears all were destroyed in a massive raid on the Budapest-Ferihegy airport on 9 August 1944.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: After the licensed production of the He 112B fell through in 1939, the plan was to switch the production line to build a Manfred-Weiss-designed aircraft called the W.M.23 "Ezüst Nyíl" ("Silver Arrow"). The aircraft was basically a He 112B adapted to local construction; the wings were wooden versions of the He 112's planform, the fuselage was made of plywood over a steel frame, and the engine was a licensed version of the 746 kW (1,000 hp)-class Gnome-Rhone Mistral-Major radial.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: It would seem that this 'simplified' aircraft would be inferior to the He 112, but in fact the higher-powered engine made all the difference and the W.M.23 proved to be considerably faster than the He 112. Nevertheless, work proceeded slowly and only one prototype was built. The project was eventually canceled outright when the prototype crashed in early 1942.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: The Imperial Japanese Navy purchased 12 Heinkel He 112B-0 fighters, which it designated both as the Heinkel A7He1 and as the Navy Type He Air Defense Fighter. The Japanese flew the A7He1 briefly during the Second Sino-Japanese War, but phased it out of service before the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 in favor of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. Assuming it still to be in Japanese use, however, the Allies assigned the reporting name "Jerry" to the A7He1 during World War II.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: Germany looked on Romania as an important supplier of war material, notably oil and grain. Looking to secure Romania as an ally, throughout the middle of the 1930s, Germany applied increasing pressure in a variety of forms, best summed up as the "carrot and stick" approach. The carrot came in the form of generous trade agreements for a variety of products and by the late 1930s, Germany formed about ½ of all of Romania's trade. The stick came in the form of Germany siding with Romania's enemies in various disputes.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: On 26 June 1940, the Soviet Union gave Romania a 24-hour ultimatum to return Bessarabia and cede northern Bukovina, even though the latter had never even been a part of Russia. Germany's ambassador to Romania advised the king to submit, and he did. In August, Bulgaria reclaimed southern Dobruja, with German and Soviet backing. Later that month, German and Italian foreign ministers met with Romanian diplomats in Vienna and presented them with an ultimatum to accept the ceding of northern Transylvania to Hungary.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: Romania was placed in an increasingly bad position as its local allies were gobbled up by Germany, and its larger allies' (Britain and France) assurances of help proved empty, as demonstrated by their lack of action during the invasion of Poland. Soon the king was forced from the throne and a pro-German government was formed.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: With Romania now firmly in the German sphere of influence, its efforts to re-arm for the coming war were suddenly strongly backed. The primary concern was the air force, the FARR. Its fighter force at the time consisted of just over 100 Polish PZL P.11 aircraft, primarily the P.11b or the locally modified f model, and P.24E. Although these aircraft had been the most advanced fighters in the world in the early 1930s, by the late 1930s, they were hopelessly outclassed by practically everything.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: In April 1939, the FARR was offered the Bf 109 as soon as production was meeting German demands. In the meantime, it could take over 24 He 112Bs that were already built. The FARR jumped at the chance and then increased the order to 30 aircraft.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: Late in April, a group of Romanian pilots arrived at Heinkel for conversion training, which went slowly because of the advanced nature of the He 112 in comparison to the PZL. When the training was complete, the pilots returned home in the cockpits of their new aircraft. The aircraft, all of them B-1s or B-2s, were "delivered" in this manner starting in July and ending in October. Two of the aircraft were lost, one in a fatal accident during training in Germany on 7 September, and another suffered minor damage on landing while being delivered and was later repaired at SET in Romania.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: When the first aircraft started arriving, they were tested competitively against the locally designed IAR.80 prototype. This interesting and little known aircraft proved to be superior to the He 112B in almost every way. At the same time, the test flights revealed a number of disadvantages of the He 112, notably the underpowered engine and poor speed. The result of the fly-off was that the IAR.80 was ordered into immediate production, and orders for any additional He 112s were cancelled.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: By 15 September, enough of the aircraft had arrived to re-equip "Escadrila" 10 and 11. The two squadrons were formed into the "Grupul 5 vânãtoare" (5th Fighter Group), responsible for the defense of Bucharest. In October, they were renamed as the 51st and 52nd squadrons, still forming the 5th. The pilots had not been a part of the group that had been trained at Heinkel, so they started working their way toward the He 112 using Nardi F.N.305 monoplane trainers. Training lasted until the spring of 1940, when a single additional He 112 B-2 was delivered as a replacement for the one that crashed in Germany the previous September.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: During the troubles with Hungary, the 51st was deployed to Transylvania. Hungarian Ju 86s and He 70s started making reconnaissance flights over Romanian territory. Repeated attempts to intercept them failed because of the He 112's low speed. On 27 August, "Locotenent" Nicolae Polizu was over Hungarian territory when he encountered a Caproni Ca.135bis bomber flying on a training mission. Several of his 20 mm rounds hit the bomber, which was forced down safely at the Hungarian Debrecen airbase – home of the Hungarian He 112s. Polizu became the first Romanian to shoot down an aircraft in aerial combat.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: When Germany prepared to invade the USSR in 1941, Romania joined it in an effort to regain the territories lost the year before. The FARR was made part of "Luftflotte" 4, and in preparation for the invasion, "Grupul 5 vânãtoare" was sent to Moldavia. At the time, 24 of the He 112s were flyable. Three were left at their home base at Pipera to complete repairs, two others had been lost to accidents, and the fate of the others is unknown. On 15 June, the aircraft were moved again, to Foscani-North in northern Moldavia.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: With the opening of the war on 22 June, the He 112s were in the air at 1050 supporting an attack by Potez 63s of "Grupul 2 bombardment" on the Soviet airfields at Bolgrad and Bulgãrica. Although some "flak" was encountered on the way to and over Bolgrad, the attack was successful and a number of Soviet aircraft were bombed on the ground. By the time they reached Bulgãrica, fighters were in the air waiting for them, and as a result the 12 He 112s were met by about 30 I-16s. The results of this combat were mixed; "Sublocotenent" Teodor Moscu shot down one of a pair of I-16s still taking off. When he was pulling out, he hit another in a head-on pass and it crashed into the Danube. He was set upon by several I-16s and received several hits, his fuel tanks were punctured but did not seal. Losing fuel rapidly, he formed up with his wingman and managed to put down at the Romanian airfield at Bârlad. His aircraft was later repaired and returned to duty. Of the bombers, three of the 13 dispatched were shot down.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: Over the next few days, the He 112s would be used primarily as ground-attack aircraft, where their heavy armament was considered to be more important than their ability to fight in the air. Typical missions would start before dawn and would have the Heinkels strafe Soviet airbases. Later in the day, they would be sent on search and destroy missions, looking primarily for artillery and trains.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: Losses were heavy, most not due to combat, but simply because the aircraft were flying an average of three missions a day and were not receiving adequate maintenance. This problem affected all of the FARR, which did not have the field maintenance logistics worked out at the time. On 29 July, a report on the readiness of the air forces listed only 14 He 112s in flyable condition, and another eight repairable. As a result, the aircraft of the 52nd were folded into the 51st to form a single full strength squadron on 13 August. The men of the 52nd were merged with the 42nd who flew IAR.80s, and were soon sent home to receive IAR.80s of their own. A report from August on the He 112 rated it very poorly, once again noting its lack of power and poor speed.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: For a time, the 51st continued in a front-line role, although it saw little combat. When Odessa fell on 16 October, the Romanian war effort ostensibly ended, and the aircraft were considered to be no longer needed at the front. 15 were kept at Odessa and the rest were released to Romania for training duty (although they seem to have seen no use). On 1 November, the 51st moved to Tatarka and then returned to Odessa on the 25th, performing coastal patrol duties all the while. On 1 July 1942, the 51st returned to Pipera and stood down after a year in action.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: On 19 July one of the He 112s took to the air to intercept Soviet bombers in what was the first night mission by a Romanian aircraft. As the Soviets were clearly gearing up for a night offensive on Bucharest, the 51st was then re-equipped with Bf 110 night fighters and became the only Romanian night fighter squadron.


title: Heinkel He 112

text: By 1943, the IAR.80 was no longer competitive, and the FARR started an overdue move to a newer fighter. The fighter in this case was the Bf 109G. The He 112s found themselves actively being used in the training role at last. The inline engine and general layout of the German designs was considered similar enough to make it useful in this role, and as a result the He 112s came under the control of the "Corpul 3 Aerian" (3rd Air Corps). Several more of the He 112s were destroyed in accidents during this time. It soldiered on in this role into late 1944, even after Romania had changed sides and joined the Allies.


title: United Premier Soccer League

text: The United Premier Soccer League (UPSL) is an American soccer league that was founded in Santa Ana in Southern California, with teams in regionalized conferences throughout the United States, and recently Canada and Mexico. The league was founded in 2011 by Santa Ana Winds FC President Leonel López as a regional league for teams in Greater Los Angeles, but expanded to include 400 teams from 41 states as of the 2022 season.


title: United Premier Soccer League

text: Two seasons are played each year, with regional play culminating in a playoff system that crowns a single national champion each season. The league features internal promotion and relegation with up to three levels in some regions; only clubs in the top tier Premier Division are eligible to compete for the national championship.


title: United Premier Soccer League

text: The league is a National Affiliate member of United States Soccer Federation, and a National League within the larger United States soccer league system.


title: United Premier Soccer League

text: The UPSL was formed in 2011 with 10 teams, and has grown to include over 400 member clubs across the nation. Now featuring numerous MLS U19 teams including LAFC, Philadelphia Union and LA Galaxy, the Premier Division is widely regarded as occupying the unofficial 4th tier of US Soccer. Each UPSL team is independently owned and operated. The league consists of two seasons each calendar year, with the Spring season beginning in March and ending with national playoffs in July, and a Fall season with play beginning in September with national playoffs in December.


title: United Premier Soccer League

text: UPSL announced it would begin promotion/relegation system beginning in 2017. Teams will compete in two divisions: Pro Premier and Division One.


title: United Premier Soccer League

text: In August 2017, the league announced that all eleven clubs of the Premier League of America would be joining the UPSL as a new Midwest Conference. The conference will initiate friendlies during the 2017 Fall Season and begin league play in 2018.


title: United Premier Soccer League

text: Former member club PSA Elite is known for reaching the fourth round of the 2014 and the 2015 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup by knocking out higher-level professional teams. Three UPSL teams, La Máquina FC, L.A. Wolves FC, and San Nicolas FC qualified for the 2016 U.S. Open Cup. La Máquina FC advanced to the fourth round (knocking out Portland Timbers U23, Sacramento Gold, and LA Wolves FC) before falling to LA Galaxy. The UPSL's participants in the 2016 US Open Cup altogether defeated teams from the PDL (Timbers U-23), NPSL (Sacramento Gold), and USL (Orange County Blues FC).


title: United Premier Soccer League

text: The UPSL operates in a geographical conference structure with localized Divisions within each Conference. The number of Divisions within each Conference varies based on various geographical factors including distance and population. There is often more than one team within a specific geographical area. More dense Conferences are divided into a promotion/relegation structure with Division I and Division II.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: Jacobinte Swargarajyam () is a 2016 Indian Malayalam-language family-drama film written and directed by Vineeth Sreenivasan. The film revolves around Jacob Zacharia (Renji Panicker) and the struggles faced by his son (Nivin Pauly) to clear his father's debts as his business associate cheats him. The film released on 8 April 2016 in India and later in foreign countries.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: Jacob is a successful businessman settled in Dubai, United Arab Emirates with wife Sherly and their four kids – Jerry, Abin, Ammu, Chris (Gregory, Basil, Merlin, and Chris). Jacob is always respected for his ideas by his colleagues and he had done many businesses before starting a steel business. Then comes global recession and Jacob moves for a lucrative trade through his Pakistani colleague, Ajmal, by taking a total of 8 million dirhams from his investors. Ajmal cheats Jacob and Jacob is left in a debt of 8 million dirhams which he happens to know on his 25th wedding anniversary. Soon Jacob's credibility and trustful way of doing business is lost and is forced to travel to Liberia to get a deal, but doesn't go well and is forced to stay there to avoid arrest. With no other way and continued complaints from the investors especially from Murali Menon, Jerry decides to give his best to solve the problems by stepping into his dad's shoes.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: Jerry, without a trade license or an office, faces many difficulties at first. He decides to go out completely with what his father has taught him about business. He meets a self-made businessman Yusuf Shah and strikes a deal with him, eventually he earns his trust and the business grows. Jerry motivates Abin to start a tours and travel company and they succeed in it. Jerry settles most of the debts and gains trust with them. But investor Murali Menon pressurizes him for full payment, Jerry with his mother tries to close deals and collect money, but they were only able to collect a half of what they owed. Finally Murali moves the case against Jerry in Dubai Court but the case is rejected because the case was against the company and it is registered under Jacob's name. Murali who also is affected by recession is in deep debt, he is forced to agree with Jerry's conditions.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: Jerry expands his company with Yusuf Shah and clears his family's debts. His father is back in Kerala and he goes to visit him after a long time with his girlfriend. Jerry finds hard to communicate with his father, because he isn't anymore the person he knew, a man with full of life and dreams. His mother intervenes and they break the silly tension between them and the family happily goes on with life.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: The film was officially announced on 29 October 2015, which would be the third film collaboration of Nivin Pauly and Vineeth Sreenivasan after the successful films "Thattathin Marayathu" (2012) and "Oru Vadakkan Selfie" (2015). Gautham Vasudev Menon was confirmed in a role in the film, which was to be his acting debut. Later, Menon was replaced by Ashwin K. Kumar. Vineeth explained "...Gautham Menon Sir was supposed to do an important role in our film. We got his dates and the shoot was planned for the first week of December in Dubai.. But then, Chennai Floods happened, airport was shut down and we couldn't bring him in. Rescheduling became impossible after that, due to several reasons,". Vineeth initially planned to essay the lead role of Jerry Jacob by himself beside directing the film. He happened to narrate the plot to Nivin in a casual conversation during the time when they were working in "Oru Vadakkan Selfie" (2015). After which, Nivin showed interest in Jerry but Vineeth was skeptical about casting him, but eventually did. Actor Aju Varghese joined as assistant director in the film.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: Vineeth wrote the screenplay based on a real life incident of a NRI Malayali businessman Jacob Zachariah and his family after a business partner cheated them. Nivin Pauly's character is inspired by Gregory Jacob, Zachariah's son and friend to Vineeth. Beside Nivin, the film has Renji Panicker, Aima Rosmy Sebastian, Lakshmi Ramakrishnan, Sreenath Bhasi and Stacen portraying the family. Filming took place in Dubai, Ernakulam, and Ooty.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: The film's score was composed by Shaan Rahman with the lyrics written by Manu Manjith, B. K. Harinarayanan, Rzee and Ashwin Gopakumar. A single, "Dubai", was released by the music label Muzik247 on 6 February 2016 via iTunes, Saavn, Gaana, and Eros Now. Within hours of its release, the song became the top track on iTunes "Top 200 Regional Indian" chart, a first in Malayalam music history. Vineeth Sreenivasan, Suchith Suresan and Liya Verghese provided the vocals to "Dubai", which begins with the lyrics "Pulari Veyilinaai" describing the beauty of Dubai city. The soundtrack album was released by Muzik247 on 20 February 2016.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: The first video song, "Ee Shishirakaalam", featuring the Jacob family – Nivin Pauly, Renji Panicker, Sreenath Bhasi, Lakshmi Ramakrishnan, Aima Rosmy Sebastian, and Stacen was released on 23 March 2016 on the YouTube channel of Muzik247. The song, penned by Harinarayanan B. K. was sung by Vineeth Sreenivasan and Kavya Ajit. The second video song, "Thiruvaavaniraavu", which released on 24 March 2016, featuring the Jacob family was set in the backdrop of Onam celebration of Dubai Malayalees. Unni Menon and Sithara have sung the song with additional vocals by Meera Scharma. The English track "Home" was written and sung by Ashwin Gopakumar.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: Nelson K. Paul of "Malayala Manorama" listed "Thiruvaavaniraavu" in the top five songs in their "Tunes Weekly" on 1 April 2016. He wrote "'Thiruvaavaniraavu' is a heart-warming melody on Onam, the lyrics of which will make Keralites nostalgic. Unni Menon is the male singer and it feels so good to listen to him after a long time. Sithara is a fine companion to him as the female voice. The pleasant song hits its highs with the "poove poli poove" chorus and the humming by the talented singers. "Thiruvaavaniraavu" is another splendid melody from Shaan Rahman".


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: "Jacobinte Swargarajyam" released in India on 8 April 2016, with 92 screens in Kerala. The film released in 77 screens in rest of India with English subtitles. After few days of release, a special screening was held in Chennai for a selected audience from the Tamil film industry. The film released on 22 April in Asia-Pacific countries Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, and Brunei. The UAE release held on 4 May and followed by Qatar on 5 May.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: The film received positive reviews from critics. Goutham V. S. of "The Indian Express" rated 3.5 stars out of 5 and stated that the director has showed discipline while handling dramatic situations and "has used his observations to good effect as the strong relationship bonds inside Jacob's family members and their informal homely behaviour was captured with shots that impart warmth and positive vibes, like the feel of an early morning coffee". He gave a special mention for the performance of Ahwin Kumar and praised the editing. Padmakumar K. of "Malayala Manorama" wrote "Being a story based on true incidents it could have been told in a more poignant manner. But Vineeth chose to play it safe by arranging the lighter and the turbid moments at regular intervals to make it an arresting narrative rather than delving deep into the heart of the issue" and rated 3 stars out of 5. He praised the performances of Renji Panicker, Lakshmy Ramakrishnan and Ashwin Kumar.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: Gautaman Bhaskaran of "Hindustan Times" awarded 3 out of 5 and stated "The movie stays pretty much focussed – and does not stray into any romantic alleyways (though Jerry has a girlfriend) – except to include a few squabbles which one of Jerry's brothers gets into. These add a certain balance to the film's structure, and with performances by most of the cast members – particularly Pauly, Panicker and Ramakrishnan – disarmingly understated, Sreenivasan's work is captivating (sic)". He appreciated the editing. Akhila Menon of "Filmibeat" rated 3.5 out of 5 and praised the performances of Renji Panicker, Nivin Pauly, and Lakshmy Ramakrishnan. She wrote "The director has perfectly narrated the well-written script, with the right mix of light humour and emotional elements" praising Vineeth Sreenivasan. She also lauded the cinematography, editing and the songs, especially "Thiruvaavaniraavu".


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: Anu James of "International Business Times" awarded 4 out of 5 and mentioned "Although the movie is predictable, the beautiful moments we come across make us feel relaxed, eager to know how the movie progresses. The first half is totally a Renji Panicker show, while the second half belongs to Nivin as the hero". She praised the performances of Renji Panicker and Lakshmy Ramakrishnan, cinematography, editing, and songs. Sanjith Sidhardhan of "The Times of India" stated "Vineeth has taken extra effort to tell this real-life story as honestly as possible, the added attention may have dropped the entertainment quotient a tad. The film, however, makes up with several feel-good moments that accentuate the value of relationships". He praised the casting and performances of Lakshmi Ramakrishnan, Renji Panicker, Ashwin Kumar, and Nivin Pauly, and also cinematography and music. He rated 4 out of 5 stars.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: Mani Prabhu of "NDTV" is written "the first hour of the film, which brilliantly establishes the Jacobs' kind of family, despite baiting us with continuous Vishu movie cliches, superbly spins each of them in tasteful angles", "the second half of the film, which gives all the opportunities for unabashed melodrama and parental sentiments, is surprisingly restrained, refreshing and free of bloat. The romantic track is brushed away confidently with a two-minute exposition. Characters don't go out of their way for the sake of entertainment". He also praised the performances of Nivin Pauly, Renji Panicker, Lakshmy Ramakrishnan, and Sreenath Bhasi. "Sify" described it "Emotional roller coaster" and wrote "...the story has been narrated in a highly conventional manner to the extent that things get a bit predictable at times. But considering this has been a real life story that a family actually went through, it can be justified generally". And appreciated the direction, cinematography, music and performances of Nivin Pauly, Renji Panicker, Lakshmy Ramakrishnan, and Sreenath Bhasi.


title: Jacobinte Swargarajyam

text: The film was made on a budget of . It grossed in the opening day from Kerala box office. The collection was increased to 1.40 crore in the second day. It grossed 9.11 crore in 9 days of release in Kerala indicating a steady collection. Within two weeks, the film grossed 11.54 crore from Kerala. From Kochi multiplexes, it earned 1.53 crore in two weeks. The gross was over 15 crore within three weeks from Kerala. The film grossed from U.S. box office in two weeks. and in its third weekend. The film collected in the 35 days from the Kerala box office alone and earned from Ernakulam multiplexes alone, a record and also earned from U.S. box office during its final run(fourth weekend). The film earned from the United Kingdom-Ireland box office within the final run(third weekend). It grossed at the box office and completed 100 days in Kerala.


title: Lapo Elkann

text: Lapo Edovard Elkann (born 7 October 1977) is an Italian businessman, philanthropist and grandson of Gianni Agnelli, the former controlling CEO and controlling shareholder of Fiat Automobiles.


title: Lapo Elkann

text: A member of the Agnelli family, Elkann was born in New York City, the son of Countess Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen and the American-born Italian writer Alain Elkann. His father is Jewish and his mother is Catholic.


title: Lapo Elkann

text: He is the brother of John Elkann, the current chairman of Fiat and the chairman and CEO of Exor, an investment company controlled by the Agnelli family, which owns Juventus F.C. Elkann is a grandson of Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli and Marella Agnelli. He is nephew of Don Carlo Caracciolo, founder of Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso - owner of the newspaper "la Repubblica", the Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Elkann is also a stepson of Russian nobleman Count Sergei de Pahlen. Elkann also has a sister, Ginevra Elkann, and five half-siblings by his mother's second marriage (Maria, Pierre, Sophia, Anna, and Tatiana). He is also a great-grandnephew of Ettore Ovazza, of the Ovazza banking family, via his grandmother, Carla Ovazza. On October 7, 2021, he married Portuguese rally racer Joana Lemos.


title: Lapo Elkann

text: In 2001, Elkann worked as a personal assistant to Henry Kissinger, subsequently working as marketing associate for Ferrari and Maserati. In 2003, he became Fiat's director of marketing. He coordinated marketing for the Fiat Punto and Fiat 500. Elkann left Fiat in 2005 after being widely reported as having a serious cocaine and heroin addiction, creating Italia Independent, a lifestyle and clothing brand featuring Italian products. In 2007 he founded Independent Ideas, a communication and advertising agency.


title: Lapo Elkann

text: In 2011, Elkann worked with Gucci's creative director, Frida Giannini, on developing the Gucci Special Edition of the Fiat 500 and has consulted with Ferrari, running "Ferrari Tailor Made", which enables customers to customize their car.


title: Lapo Elkann

text: Still in 2011 Italia Independent and ToyWatch of Gianluca Vacchi presented a special edition of 1007 copies of watches called Unique Edition.


title: Lapo Elkann

text: In June 2013 Elkann listed Italia Independent on the Milan Stock Exchange. He and his brother John had to reinvest in Italia Independent in 2017 after its share price plunged from €40 to €4.4 following disappointing sales and mismanagement.


title: Lapo Elkann

text: In October 2006, Mark Seal wrote in "Vanity Fair" that Elkann "had been found naked and unconscious in the apartment of Donato Broco, a 53-year-old transsexual prostitute known as Patrizia." He was brought to the hospital, where he was in a coma for three days. Police investigated him at the time for cocaine use and soliciting prostitution. The Italian photographer Fabrizio Corona attempted to blackmail the Agnelli family for compromising information against Lapo Elkann. Marco Durante, head of LaPresse, an international photographic agency, was hired by the Agnelli family to negotiate with Fabrizio Corona and manage the situation.


title: Lapo Elkann

text: On November 27, 2016 in New York, Elkann was arrested for making a false police report claiming that he had been unlawfully imprisoned. He had previously contacted his family, stating that he would "be harmed" if they did not pay a $10,000 ransom. He was accompanied by a transsexual escort who was also arrested. Charges against the escort and against Elkann were later dropped.


title: Lapo Elkann

text: "Vanity Fair" magazine listed Elkann in its International Best Dressed List in 2008, and added him to its Best Dressed Hall of Fame in 2009.


title: Lapo Elkann

text: Lapo Elkann is an art lover with an impressive collection of contemporary art including original paintings by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Roy Lichtenstein and rising contemporary artists including British artists Teddy McDonald and Ian Berry who made his portrait out of denim.


title: E-democracy

text: E-democracy (a combination of the words electronic and democracy), also known as digital democracy or Internet democracy, is the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in political and governance processes. The term is believed to have been coined by digital activist Steven Clift. E-democracy incorporates 21st-century information and communications technology to promote democracy; such technologies include civic technology and government technology. It is a form of government in which all adult citizens are presumed to be eligible to participate equally in the proposal, development and creation of laws.


title: E-democracy

text: E-democracy encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination.


title: E-democracy

text: The Internet has several attributes that encourage thinking about it as a democratic medium. Electronic voting should be done with a proper purpose and with achieving a common constitutional goal. Most importantly, expanding democracy should help outweigh the advantages of e-voting compared to traditional ballots. E-democracy would contribute to the access to knowledge. The lack of centralized control makes censorship difficult. There are other parallels in the social design in the early days of the internet, such as the strongly libertarian support for free speech, the sharing culture that permeated nearly all aspects of Internet use, and the outright prohibition on commercial use by the National Science Foundation. Another example is the unmediated mass communication on the internet, such as through newsgroups, chat rooms, and MUDs. This communication ignored the boundaries established with broadcast media, such as newspapers or radio, and with one-to-one media, such as letters or landline telephones. Finally, because the Internet is a massive digital network with open standards, universal and inexpensive access to a wide variety of communication media and models could actually be attained.


title: E-democracy

text: Some practical issues involving e-democracy include: effective participation; voting equality at decision stage; enlightened understanding; control of the agenda; and inclusiveness. Systemic issues may include cyber-security concerns and protection of sensitive data from third parties.


title: E-democracy

text: Modern democracies are generally representative democracies, where citizens elect representatives to manage the creation and implementation of laws, policies, and regulations on their behalf, in contrast to direct democracies in which citizens retain that responsibility. They may be referred to as more or less "democratic" depending on how well the government represents the will or interest of the people. A shift to e-democracy would in effect devolve political power from elected representatives to the individual.


title: E-democracy

text: In America, politics have become reliant on the Internet because the Internet is the primary source of information for most Americans. The Internet educates people on democracy, helping people stay up to date with what is happening in their government. Online advertising is becoming more popular for political candidates and group's opinions on propositions. For many the Internet is often the primary resource for information. The reason for this, and especially among younger voters, is that it is easy and reliable when used correctly, thus lowering an individual's workload. The innate usability of search engines, such as Google, results in increased citizen engagement with research and political issues. Social networks allow people to express their opinions about the government through an alias, anonymously and judgment-free. Due to the Internets' size and decentralized structure, any individual has the potential to go viral and gain influence over a large number of others.


title: E-democracy

text: The Internet enables citizens to get and post information about politicians, and it allows those politicians to get advice from the people in larger numbers. This collective decision making and problem-solving gives more power to the citizens and helps politicians make decisions faster. This creates a more productive society that can handle problems faster and more efficiently. Getting feedback and advice from the American population is a large part of a politician's job and the Internet allows them to function effectively with larger numbers of people's opinions. With this heightened ability to communicate with the public, the American government is able to function more capably and effectively as a Democracy.


title: E-democracy

text: The American election of 2016 is an example, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton made good use of Twitter, attempting to shape perceptions on their behalf, whilst using social media to transmit the idea that authorities are also 'normal', and they can communicate through a Twitter account just like everyone does. In other words, nowadays, any ordinary person can research on political causes and events at any time just by searching something on Google. Also, the various different forms of sharing one's political beliefs through interactive chats and online posts on social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, connects people who part one's same views.


title: E-democracy

text: Generation X became disillusioned that even large-scale public protests such as the UK miners' strike (1984–1985) were seen to fail a decade before information technology became generally available to individual citizens. E-democracy is sometimes seen as a remedy to the insular nature, concentrated power, and lack of post-election accountability in traditional democratic process organized mostly around political parties. Tom Watson, the Deputy Leader of the UK Labour Party, said:


title: E-democracy

text: "It feels like the Labour frontbench is further away from our members than at any point in our history and the digital revolution can help bring the party closer together … I'm going to ask our NEC to see whether we can have digital branches and digital delegates to the conference. Not replacing what we do but providing an alternative platform. It's a way of organising for a different generation of people who do their politics differently, get their news differently."


title: E-democracy

text: E-democracy or digital democracy platforms expand the opportunities to exercise voting rights in political elections, but they are also vulnerable to disruption. For instance, digital voting platforms have received attacks that tried to change a political election's outcome. "Cybersecurity threats to the integrity of both electoral mechanisms and government institutions are, quite uncomfortably, more intangible." On the other hand, ballots are the safest ways to approach an election but digital voting gives citizens the advantage to vote electronically and constant innovations and inputs from third parties is needed.


title: E-democracy

text: Digital inclusion is essential for citizen participation in public policy formulation for a healthy digital democracy through equal participation of all sections of society in any democracy irrespective of citizen's income level, education level, gender, religion, color, race, language used, physical and mental health etc. During the elections of 2020, multiple communities created a sense of inclusion through digital forms of communication.


title: E-democracy

text: "E-democracy offers greater electronic community access to political processes and policy choices. E-democracy development is connected to complex internal factors, such as political norms and citizen pressures" and in general to the particular model of democracy implemented. E-democracy is therefore highly influenced by both internal factors to a country and by the external factors of standard innovation and diffusion theory. People are pressuring their public officials to adopt more policies that other states or countries have regarding information and news about their government online. People have all governmental information at their fingertips and easy access to contact their government officials. In this new generation where internet and networking rule everyone's daily lives, it is more convenient that people can be informed of the government and policies through this form of communication.


title: E-democracy

text: E-democracy has, in fact, endorsed a better and faster political information exchange, public argumentation and involvement in decision-making (Djik, 2006, pp. 126). Social media has become an empowerment tool, especially for the youth, who are encouraged to participate in elections. Social media has also allowed the politicians to interact with civilians. A clear example was the 2016 United States presidential elections and how Donald Trump tweeted most of his policy announcements and goals, as most world leaders have Twitter accounts, including Justin Trudeau, Jair Bolsonaro, and Hassan Rouhani. Moreover, some people genuinely believe that the government posting public information online makes them more vulnerable and therefore more evident in people's eyes, which favors surveillance on the part of the public, thus distributing power more evenly among society.


title: E-democracy

text: In Jane Fountain's (2001) "Building the Virtual State", she describes how this widespread e-democracy is able to connect with so many people and correlates it to the government we had before.


title: E-democracy

text: "Fountain's framework provides a subtle and nuanced appreciation of the interplay of preexisting norms, procedures, and rules within bureaucracies and how these affect the introduction of new technological forms... In its most radical guise, this form of e- government would entail a radical overhaul of the modern administrative state as regular electronic consultations involving elected politicians, civil servants, pressure groups, and other affected interests become standard practice in all stages of the policy process (Sage)."


title: E-democracy

text: Cities in states with Republican-controlled legislatures, high legislative professionalization, and more active professional networks were more likely to embrace e-government and e-democracy.


title: E-democracy

text: Following the financial crisis of 2007–08 a number of social networks proposed demonstrations such as the Occupy movement.


title: E-democracy

text: The 15-M Movement started in Spain and spread to other European countries. From that emerged the Partido X (X Party) proposals in Spain.


title: E-democracy

text: During the "Arab Spring," online activists led uprisings in a dozen countries across North Africa and the Middle East. At first, digital media allowed pro-democracy movements to use the internet against authoritarian regimes; however, these regimes eventually worked social media into their own counter-insurgency strategies. Digital media helped to turn individualized, localized, and community-specific dissent into structured movements with a collective consciousness about both shared grievances and opportunities for action.


title: E-democracy

text: On 25 January 2011, mass protests began in Cairo, Egypt, protesting the long reign of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the high unemployment rate, government corruption, poverty, and oppression within society. This 18-day revolution did not begin with guns, violence, or protests, but rather with the creation of a single Facebook page which quickly gained the attention of thousands, and soon millions, of Egyptians, spreading into a global phenomenon. The internet empowered protesters and allowed for anyone with access to the internet be involved in the democratization process of their government. In order to have a democratic, free nation, all information that can be shared, should be shared. Protestors communicated, organized, and collaborated through the use of this technology with real time, real impacts. Technologies played an enormous role on the world stage during this time. Even when the regime eliminated all access to the Internet in a failed attempt to halt further political online forums, Google and Twitter teamed up, making a system that would get information out to the public without having access to the internet. The interactivity of media during this revolution boosted civic participation and played a monumental role in the political outcome of the revolution and the democratization of an entire nation.


title: E-democracy

text: The revolution in Egypt has been understood by some as an example of a broader trend of transforming from a system based on group control to one of "networked individualism". These networked societies are constructed post -"triple revolution" of technology, which involves a three-step process. Step one in the "triple revolution" is "the turn to social networks", step two: "the proliferation of the far-flung, instantaneous internet", and step three: "the even wider proliferation of always-available mobile phones". These elements play a key role in change through the Internet. Such technologies provide an alternative sphere that is unregulated by the government, and where construction of ideas and protests can foster without regulation. For example, In Egypt, the "6 April Youth Movement" established their political group on Facebook where they called for a national strike to occur on 6 April. This event was ultimately suppressed, however; the Facebook group remained, spurring the growth of other activist parties to take an online media route. The Internet in Egypt was used also to form connections with networks of people outside of their own country. The connections provided through Internet media sources, such as Twitter allowed rapid spread of the revolt to be known around the world. Specifically, more than 3 million tweets contained six popular hashtags alluring to the revolt, for example, #Egypt and #sidibouzid; further enabling the spread of knowledge and change in Egypt.


title: E-democracy

text: The Invisible Children's Kony 2012 video was released 5 March 2012, initiating an online grassroots campaign for the search and arrest of Joseph Kony. Invisible Children, the non-profit organization responsible for this video campaign, was founded on the mission to bring awareness to the actions of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), located in Central Africa, and the arrest of its leader, Joseph Kony. In the video, Jason Russell, one of the founders of Invisible Children, says that "the problem is that 99% of the planet doesn't know who [Kony] is" and the only way to stop him is by having enough support from the people to convince the government to continue the hunt for him. So, Invisible Children's purpose for the video was to raise awareness by making Kony famous through the ever-expanding market of social media and to use the technology we have today to bring his crimes to light.


title: E-democracy

text: On 21 March 2012, a group of 33 Senators introduced a resolution condemning "the crimes against humanity" committed by Joseph Kony and the LRA. The resolution supports the continued efforts by the US government to "strengthen the capabilities of regional military forces deployed to protect civilians and pursue commanders of the LRA, and calls for cross-border efforts to increase civilian protection and provide assistance to populations affected by the LRA." Senator Lindsey Graham, a co-sponsor of the resolution stated that "When you get 100 million Americans looking at something, you will get our attention. This YouTube sensation is gonna help the Congress be more aggressive and will do more to lead to his demise than all other action combined".


title: E-democracy

text: India Against Corruption (IAC) is an anti-corruption movement in India which was particularly prominent during the anti-corruption protests of 2011 and 2012, the central point of which was debate concerning the introduction of a Jan Lokpal bill. During that time it sought to mobilize the masses in support of their demands for a less corrupt society in India. Divisions amongst key members of the IAC's core committee eventually led to a split within the movement. Arvind Kejriwal left to form the Aam Aadmi Party, while Anna Hazare left to form Jantantra Morcha.


title: E-democracy

text: In December 2012, after living for seven years in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Qadri returned to Pakistan and initiated a political campaign. Qadri called for a "million-men" march in Islamabad to protest against the government's corruption. On 14 January 2013, a crowd marched down the city's main avenue. Thousands of people pledged to sit-in until their demands were met. When he started the long march from Lahore about 25,000 people were with him. He told the rally in front of parliament: "There is no Parliament; there is a group of looters, thieves and dacoits [bandits] ... Our lawmakers are the lawbreakers.". After four days of sit-in, the Government and Qadri signed an agreement called the Islamabad Long March Declaration, which promised electoral reforms and increased political transparency. Although Qadri called for a "million-men" march, the estimated total present for the sit-in in Islamabad was 50,000 according to the government.


title: E-democracy

text: In 2012, the rising Five Star Movement (M5S), in Italy, chose its candidates to Italian and European elections through online voting by registered members of Beppe Grillo's blog. Through an application called Rousseau reachable on the web, the registered users of M5S discuss, approve or reject legislative proposals (submitted then in the Parliament by the M5S group). For example, the M5S electoral law was shaped through a series of online votes, like the name of the M5S candidate for President of the Republic in Italy. The choice to support the abolition of a law against immigrants was taken online by members of the M5S even if the final decision was against the opinions of Grillo and Casaleggio. The partnership with the UK Independence Party was also decided by online voting, although the given options for the choice of European Parliament group for M5S were limited to Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD), European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and "Stay independent" (Non-Inscrits). The option of joining the Greens/EFA group was discussed, but this option was not available at the time of the voting due to that group's prior rejection of the M5S. When the Conte I Cabinet broke down, a new coalition between Democratic Party and MS5 was approved after 100,000 members voted, with 79.3% approving the new coalition.


title: E-democracy

text: The COVID-19 pandemic has made e-democracy more relevant and influential than ever before. In 2020, COVID-19 forced countries around the world to implement safety measures according to public health officials. The sudden change in society limited social movement activities, leading to a momentary pause in political issues. However, through digital platforms, individuals continue to voice their opinions, create exposure for social movements, and intend to foster change and raise awareness through democracy in social media. According to news analysis firm "The ASEAN Post", the advent of the pandemic, where access to conventional democratic spaces such as public meetings is constrained and limited, has caused Filipinos to turn to social media, digital media, collaborative platforms and the like in carrying out public affairs and exercising "active citizenship" virtually. This change allows for active engagement in social, written, or visual interaction and correcting misinformation virtually.


title: E-democracy

text: E-Democracy is made possible through its role in relevancy of participation, the social construction of inclusiveness, sensitivity to the individual, and flexibility in participation. The Internet provides a sense of relevancy in participation through allowing everyone's voice to be heard and expressed. A structure of social inclusion is also provided through a wide variety of Internet sites, groups, and social networks, all representing different viewpoints and ideas. Sensitivity to the individual's needs is accomplished through the ability to express individual opinions publicly and rapidly. Finally, the Internet is an extremely flexible area of participation; it is low in cost and widely available to the public. Through these four directions, e-Democracy and the implementation of the Internet are able to play an active role in societal change.


title: E-democracy

text: The e-democratic process is hindered by the digital divide between active participants and those who do not participate in electronic communities. Advocates of e-democracy may advocate government moves to close this gap. The disparity e-governance and e-democracy between developed and developing worlds has been attributed to the digital divide. Practical objections include the digital divide between those with access and those without, as well as the opportunity cost of expenditure on e-democracy innovations. There is also skepticism of the amount of impact that they can make through online participation.


title: E-democracy

text: The government must be in a position to guarantee that online communications are secure and that they do not violate people's privacy. This is especially important when considering electronic voting. An electoral voting system is more complex than other electronic transaction systems and the authentication mechanisms employed must be able to prevent ballot rigging or the threat of rigging. This may include the use of smart cards that allow a voter's identity to be verified whilst at the same time ensuring the privacy of the vote cast. Electronic voting in Estonia is one example of a method to conquer the privacy-identity problem inherent in internet voting systems. However, the objective should be to provide equivalence with the security and privacy of current manual systems.


title: E-democracy

text: In order to attract people to get involved in online consultations and discussions, the government must respond to people and actively demonstrate that there is a relationship between the citizen's engagement and policy outcome. It is also important that people are able to become involved in the process, at a time and place that is convenient to them but when their opinions will count. The government will need to ensure that the structures are in place to deal with increased participation.


title: E-democracy

text: In order to ensure that issues are debated in a democratic, inclusive, tolerant and productive way, the role that intermediaries and


title: E-democracy

text: representative organizations may play should be considered. In order to strengthen the effectiveness of the existing legal rights of access to information held by public authorities, citizens should have the right to effective public deliberation and moderation.


title: E-democracy

text: E-democracy has the potential to overcome the traditional trade-off between the size of the group that participates in the democratic process and the depth of the will expression (see Figure). Traditionally, large group size was achieved with simple ballot voting, whereas the depth of the will expression was limited to predefined options (what's on the ballot), while depth of will expression was achieved by limiting the number of participants through representative democracy (see Table). The social media Web 2.0 revolution has shown to achieve both, large group sizes and depth of will expression, but the will expressions in social media are not structured and it is difficult (and often subjective) to make sense of them (see Table). New information processing techniques, including big data analytics and the semantic web have shown ways to make use of these possibilities for the implementation of future forms of e-democracy. For now, the process of e-democracy is carried out by technologies such as electronic mailing lists, peer-to-peer networks, collaborative software and apps like GovernEye, Countable, VoteSpotter, wikis, Internet forums and blogs.


title: E-democracy

text: E-democracy has been analyzed with regard to the different stages of the democratic process, such as "information provision, deliberation, and participation in decision-making.", by the hierarchical level of government, including local communities, states/regions, nations and on the global stage and by its reach and scope of involvement, such as the involvement of citizens/voters, the media, elected officials, political organizations, and governments. As such, "its development is conditioned by such pervasive changes as increased interdependency, technological multimediation, partnership governance, and individualism."


title: E-democracy

text: Social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and Blogspot, are playing an increasingly important role in democratic deliberations. The role of social media in e-democracy has been an emerging area for e-democracy, as well as related technological developments, such as argument maps and eventually, the semantic web. Another related development consists in combining the open communication of social networking with the structured communication of closed panels including experts and/or policy-makers, such as for example through modified versions of the Delphi method (HyperDelphi) to combine the open communication of self-organized virtual communities with the structured communication of closed panels, including members of the policy-community. This approach addresses the question of how, in electronic democracy, to reconcile distributed knowledge and self-organized memories with critical control, responsibility and decision. The social networking entry point, for example, is within the citizens' environment, and the engagement is on the citizens' terms. Proponents of e-government perceive government use of social networks as a medium to help government act more like the public it serves. Examples of state usage can be found at The Official Commonwealth of Virginia Homepage, where citizens can find Google tools and open social forums. Those are seen as important stepping stones in the maturation of the concept of e-democracy.


title: E-democracy

text: Civic engagement includes three dimensions: political knowledge of public affairs, political trust for the political system, and political participation in influencing the government and the decision-making process. The internet aids civic engagement by providing a new avenue to interact with governmental institutions. Proponents of e-democracy believe that governments can be much more actively engaged than presently, and encourage citizens to take their own initiative to influence decisions that will affect them.


title: E-democracy

text: Many studies report increasing use of the internet to find political information. Between 1996 and 2002, the number of adults who reported that the internet was significant in their choices increased from about 14 to 20 percent. In 2002, nearly a quarter of the population reported having visited a website to research specific public policy issues. Studies have shown that more people visit websites that challenge their point of view than visit websites that mirror their own opinions. Sixteen percent of the population has participated in online political culture by interacting with political websites through joining campaigns, volunteering time, donating money, or participating in polls. According to a survey conducted by Philip N. Howard, almost two-thirds of the adult population in the United States has had some online experience with political news, information, or other content over the past four election cycles. They tend to reference the websites of special interest groups more than the websites of specific elected leaders, political candidates, political parties, nonpartisan groups, and local community groups.


title: E-democracy

text: The information capacity available on the Internet allows citizens to become more knowledgeable about government and political issues, and the interactivity of the medium allows for new forms of communication with government, i.e. elected officials and/or public servants. The posting of contact information, legislation, agendas, and policies makes government more transparent, potentially enabling more informed participation both online and offline.


title: E-democracy

text: According to Matt Leighninger, the internet impacts government in two main ways, empowering individuals, and empowering groups of people. The internet gives interested citizens better access to the information which allows them to impact on public policy. Using online tools to organize, people can more easily be involved in the policy-making process of government, and this has led to increased public engagement. Social media sites support networks of people; online networks affect the political process, including causing an increase in politicians' efforts to appeal to the public in campaigns.


title: E-democracy

text: For e-democracy provides a forum for public discussion. An e-government process improves cooperation with the local populace and helps the government focus in upon key issues the community wants addressed. The theory is that every citizen has the opportunity to have a voice in their local government. E-democracy works in tandem with local communities and gives every citizen who wants to contribute the chance. What makes an effective e-democracy is that the citizens not only contribute to the government, but they communicate and work together to improve their own local communities.


title: E-democracy

text: E-democracy is the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to support the democratic decision-making processes. ICTs play a major role in organizing and informing citizens in various forms of civic engagement. ICTs are used to enhance active participation of citizens and to support the collaboration between actors for policy-making purposes within the political processes of all stages of governance.


title: E-democracy

text: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development lists three main factors when it comes to ICTs promoting civic engagement. The first of these is timing; most of the civil engagement occurs during the agenda-setting in a cycle. The second key factor is tailor; this refers to the idea of how ICTs are changing in order to allow for more civic engagement. The last of these factors is integrations; integration is how new ICTs are combining the new technological ways with the traditional ways in order to gain more civic engagement.


title: E-democracy

text: ICT creates the opportunity for a government that is simultaneously more democratic and more expert by creating open online collaboration between professionals and the general public. The responsibility of gathering information and making decisions is shared between those with technological expertise and those who are professionally considered the decision-makers. Greater public participation in the collaboration of ideas and policies makes decision-making is more democratic. ICT also promotes the idea of pluralism within a democracy, bringing new issues and perspectives.


title: E-democracy

text: Regular citizens become potential producers of political value and commentary, for example, by creating individual blogs and websites. The online political sphere can work together, like ABC News did with their Campaign Watchdog effort, where citizens by the polls reported any rule violations perpetrated by any candidate's party.


title: E-democracy

text: In 2000, Candidate's for the United States presidential race frequently used their websites to encourage their voters to not only vote, but to encourage their friends to vote as well. This two-step process, encouraging an individual to vote and to tell his or her friends to vote, was just emerging at that time. Now, political involvement from a variety of social media is commonplace and civic engagement through online forums frequent. Through the use of ICTs, politically minded individuals have the opportunity to become more involved.


title: E-democracy

text: Young people in the USA under the age of 35, or Generation X and Generation Y, have been noted for their lack of political interest and activity. Electronic democracy has been suggested as a possible method to increase voter turnout, democratic participation, and political knowledge in youth.


title: E-democracy

text: The notion of youth e-citizenship seems to be caught between two distinct approaches: management and autonomy. The policy of "targeting" young people so that they can "play their part" can be read either as an encouragement of youth activism or an attempt to manage it. Autonomous e-citizens argue that despite their limited experience, youth deserve to speak for themselves on agendas of their own making. On the contrary, managed e-citizens regard young people as apprentice citizens who are in a process of transition from the immaturity of childhood to the self-possession of adulthood, and are thus incapable of contributing to politics without regulation. The Internet is another important issue, with managed e-citizens believing young people are highly vulnerable to misinformation and misdirection. The conflict between the two faces of e-citizenship is a view of democracy as an established and reasonably just system, with which young people should be encouraged to engage, and democracy as a political as well as cultural aspiration, most likely to be realized through networks in which young people engage with one another. Ultimately, strategies of accessing and influencing power are at the heart of what might first appear to be mere differences of communication styles.


title: E-democracy

text: The Highland Youth Voice demonstrated the attempt to increase democratic involvement, especially through online measures, in Scotland. The youth population is increasingly more prominent in governmental policy and issues in the UK. However, involvement and interest have been decreasing. In 2001 elections in the United Kingdom to Westminster, the turnout of 18- to 24-year-olds was estimated at only 40%, which can be compared to the more than 80% of 16- to 24-year-old who have accessed the internet at some time in their life. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child have promoted and stressed the need to educate the younger population as citizens of the nation in which they live in, and promote the participation and active politics which they can shape through debate and communication.


title: E-democracy

text: The Highland Youth Voice aims to increase the involvement of the younger generation through understanding their needs and wishes for their government, through an understanding of their views, experiences, and aspirations. Highland Youth Voice gives young Scots a chance to influence the decision makers in the Highlands.


title: E-democracy

text: The members age from 14 to 18 and the parliament as a whole is an elected body of around 100 members. They are elected directly through schools and youth forums. Through the website, those involved are able to discuss the issues important to them. The final prominent democratic aspect of the website is the elections for members, which occur every other year. These three contents of the website allow for an online forum in which members may educate themselves through Youth Voice, partake in online policy debates, or experience a model of e-democracy in the ease of online voting.


title: E-democracy

text: Citizens' associations play an important role in the democratic process, providing a place for individuals to learn about public affairs and a source of power outside that of the state, according to theorists like Alexis de Tocqueville. Public policy researcher Hans Klein at the Georgia Institute of Technology notes that participation in such forums has a number of barriers, such as the need to meet in one place at one time. In a study of a civic association in the northeastern United States, Klein found that electronic communications greatly enhanced the ability of the organization to fulfill its mission. The lower cost of information exchange on the Internet, as well as the high level of reach that the content potentially has, makes the Internet an attractive medium for political information, particularly amongst social interest groups and parties with lower budgets.


title: E-democracy

text: For example, environmental or social issue groups may find the Internet an easier mechanism to increase awareness of their issues, as compared to traditional media outlets, such as television or newspapers, which require heavy financial investment. Due to all these factors, the Internet has the potential to take over certain traditional media of political communication, such as the telephone, the television, newspapers and the radio. The civil society has gradually moved into the online world.


title: E-democracy

text: There are many forms of association in civic society. The term "interest group" conventionally refers to more formal organizations that either focus on particular social groups and economic sectors, such as trade unions and business and professional associations, or on more specific issues, such as abortion, gun control, or the environment. Other traditional interest groups have well-established organizational structures and formal membership rules, and their primary orientation is toward influencing government and the policy process. Transnational advocacy networks bring together loose coalitions of these organizations under common umbrella organizations that cross national borders.


title: E-democracy

text: Novel tools are being developed that are aimed at empowering bloggers, webmasters and owners of other social media, with the effect of moving from a "strictly informational" use of the Internet to using the Internet "as a means of social organization" not requiring top-down action. Calls to action, for instance, are a novel concept designed to allow webmasters to mobilize their viewers into action without the need for leadership. These tools are also utilized worldwide: for example, India is developing an effective blogosphere that allows internet users to state their thoughts and opinions.


title: E-democracy

text: The Internet may serve multiple functions for all these organizations, including lobbying elected representatives, public officials, and policy elites; networking with related associations and organizations; mobilizing organizers, activists, and members using action alerts, newsletters, and emails; raising funds and recruiting supporters; and communicating their message to the public via the traditional news media.


title: E-democracy

text: The Internet also plays a central role in deliberative democracy, where deliberation and access to multiple viewpoints is central in decision-making. The Internet is able to provide an opportunity for interaction and serves as a prerequisite in the deliberative process as a research tool. On the Internet, the exchange of ideas is widely encouraged through a vast number of websites, blogs, and social networking outlets, such as Twitter; all of which encourage freedom of expression. Through the Internet, information is easily accessible, and in a cost-effective manner, providing access and means for change. Another fundamental feature of the Internet is its uncontrolled nature, and ability to provide all viewpoints no matter the accuracy. The freedom the Internet provides is able to foster and advocate change, crucial in e-democracy.


title: E-democracy

text: A recent advancement in the utilization of e-democracy for the deliberative process is the California Report Card created by the Data and Democracy Initiative of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society at University of California, Berkeley, together with Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom. The California Report Card, launched in January 2014, is a mobile-optimized web application designed to facilitate online deliberative democracy. After a short opinion poll on 6 timely issues, participants are invited to enter an online "café" where they are placed, using Principal Component Analysis, among users with similar views. They are then encouraged to engage in the deliberative process by entering textual suggestions about new political issues and grading other participants' suggestions. The California Report Card prides itself on being resistant to private agendas dominating the discussion.


title: E-democracy

text: Another example is openforum.com.au, an Australian non-profit eDemocracy project that invites politicians, senior public servants, academics, business people and other key stakeholders to engage in high-level policy debate.


title: E-democracy

text: An alternative to the SOPA and PIPA, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN Act) is supported by Google and Facebook. The OPEN Act website Keep The Web Open provides full access to the bill. The site also incorporates user input, over 150 changes have been made by users.


title: E-democracy

text: The peer-to-patent project allows the public to do research and present the patent examiner with 'prior art' publications which will inform them of the novelty of the invention so that they can determine whether the invention is worthy of a patent. The community elects ten prior art pieces to be sent to the patent examiner for review. This enables the public to directly communicate with the patent examiner. This form of e-democracy is a structured environment which demands certain information from participants that aid in the decision-making process. The goal of the project is to make decision-making process is made more effective by allowing experts and civilians who work together to find solutions. Beyond citizens checking a box that reduces opinions to a few given words, citizens can participate and share ideas.


title: E-democracy

text: Another great hurdle in implementing e-democracy is the matter of ensuring security in internet-voting systems. Viruses and malware could block or redirect citizens' votes on matters of great importance; as long as that threat remains, e-democracy will not be able to diffuse throughout society.


title: E-democracy

text: E-Voting also creates more practical issues that can affect the legitimacy of its use in elections. Electronic voting machines can open themselves up for physical interference as they are often left neglected before elections which allows for the physical machine itself to be tampered with, this led to a last minute decision being made by the Dutch in 2017 for the elections to be counted by hand. In addition the use of 'Direct Recording Electronic' or DRE's, which are used in many US states, are becoming quickly outdated and faulty. In a study by USENIX it found certain DRE's in the New Jersey area had inaccuracy when counting votes and could cast a vote for the wrong candidate without the person knowing. These results they found to be consistent with that specific machine nationally. Although the use of electronic voting has been seen to increase turnout, the lack of a paper trail in DRE's opens up the system to unknown errors which may undermine its use in a digital democracy.


title: E-democracy

text: A lack of participation in democracy may result from a plethora of polls and surveys, which can lead to survey fatigue.


title: E-democracy

text: Through Listserv's, RSS feeds, mobile messaging, micro-blogging services and blogs, government and its agencies can share information to citizens who share common interests and concerns. Some government representatives are also beginning to use Twitter which provides them with an easy medium to inform their followers. In the state of Rhode Island, for instance, Treasurer Frank T. Caprio is offering daily tweets of the state's cash flow.


title: E-democracy

text: A number of non-governmental sites have developed cross-jurisdiction, customer-focused applications that extract information from thousands of governmental organizations into a system that brings consistency to data across many dissimilar providers. It is convenient and cost-effective for businesses, and the public benefits by getting easy access to the most current information available without having to expend tax dollars to get it. One example of this is transparent.gov.com, a free resource for citizens to quickly identify the various open government initiatives taking place in their community or in communities across the country. A similar example is USA.gov, the official site of the United States government, which is a directory that links to every federal and state agency.


title: E-democracy

text: E-democracy leads to a more simplified process and access to government information for public-sector agencies and citizens. For example, the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles simplified the process of certifying driver records to be admitted in county court proceedings. Indiana became the first state to allow government records to be digitally signed, legally certified and delivered electronically by using Electronic Postmark technology.


title: E-democracy

text: The internet has created increased government accessibility to news, policies, and contacts in the 21st century: "In 2000 only two percent of government sites offered three or more services online; in 2007 that figure was 58 percent. In 2000, 78 percent of the states offered no on-line services; in 2007 only 14 percent were without these services (West, 2007)"(Issuu). Direct access via email has also increased; "In 2007, 89 percent of government sites allowed the public e-mail a public official directly rather than simply e-mailing the webmaster (West, 2007)"(Issuu).


title: E-democracy

text: Information and communications technologies can be used for both democratic and anti-democratic ends.(e.g. both coercive control and participation can be fostered by digital technology) George Orwell's in his Nineteen Eighty-Four is one example of the vision of the anti-democratic use of technology.


title: E-democracy

text: Objections to direct democracy are argued to apply to e-democracy, such as the potential for direct governance to tend towards the polarization of opinions, populism, and demagoguery.


title: E-democracy

text: In a nation with heavy government censorship, e-democracy could not be utilized to its full extent. Governments often implement internet crackdowns during widespread political protests. In the middle-east in 2011, for example, the multiple cases of internet blackouts were dubbed the "Arab Net Crackdown". Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, Iran, and Yemen are all countries whose leaders implemented complete censorship of the internet in response to the plethora of pro-democracy demonstrations in their respective nations. These lockdowns were primarily put in place in order to prevent the leakage of cell phone videos that contained images of the violent government crackdown on protesters.


title: E-democracy

text: Additionally, based on Joshua A. Tucker's critics of e-democracy, social media's malleability and receptiveness may allow political parties to manipulate it and implement political desires (Tucker et al., 2017). Through it, authorities are able to spread authoritarianism, firstly by, intimidation; imposing fear on opposers, monitoring private conversations and even imprisoning one who dissents non-desirable opinion. Secondly, flooding; diverting and occupying services with pro-regime messages. Thirdly, detaining; interrupting signals which impedes access to information. Lastly, banning; forbidding globalized platforms and websites (Tucker et al., 2017).


title: E-democracy

text: In a study conducted that interviewed elected officials in Austria's parliament, opinions were widely and strongly against e-democracy. They believed that the citizens were uninformed and that their only way of expressing their opinions should be to vote; sharing opinions and ideas was strictly the job of the elected.


title: E-democracy

text: Alternatively, theories of epistemic democracy have indicated that more engagement of the populace has benefited the aggregation of knowledge and intelligence, and thus permitted democracies to track the truth better.


title: E-democracy

text: Many Internet users believed that Internet democracy was being attacked in the United States with the introduction of H.R. 3261, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), in the United States House of Representatives. A Huffington Post Contributor noted that the best way to promote democracy, including keeping freedom of speech alive, is through defeating the Stop Online Piracy Act. It is important to note that SOPA was postponed indefinitely after major protests arose, including by many popular websites such as Wikipedia, which launched a site blackout on 18 January 2012. In India, a similar situation was noted at the end of 2011, when India's Communication and IT Minister Kapil Sibal((born 8 August 1948) is an Indian lawyer and politician) suggested that offensive content may be privately "pre-screened" before being allowed on the Internet with no rules for redressal. However, more recent news reports quote Sibal as saying that there would be no restrictions whatsoever on the use of the Internet.


title: E-democracy

text: The radical shift from representative government to internet-mediated direct democracy is not likely. However, proponents believe that a "hybrid model" that uses the internet to allow for greater government transparency and community participation in decision-making is on the horizon. Committee selection, local town and city decisions, and otherwise people-centric decisions would be more easily facilitated. The principles of democracy are not changing so much as the tools used to uphold them. E-democracy would not be a means to implement direct democracy, but rather a tool to enable more participatory democracy as it exists now.


title: E-democracy

text: Proponents of e-democracy sometimes envision a transition from a representative democracy to a direct democracy carried out through technological means, and see this transition as an end goal of e-democracy. In an Electronic direct democracy (EDD) (also known as open source governance or collaborative e-democracy), the people are directly involved in the legislative function by electronic means. Citizens electronically vote on legislation, author new legislation, and recall representatives (if any representatives are preserved).


title: E-democracy

text: Technology for supporting EDD has been researched and developed at the Florida Institute of Technology, where the technology is used with student organizations. Numerous other software development projects are underway, along with many supporting and related projects. Several of these projects are now collaborating on a cross-platform architecture, under the umbrella of the Metagovernment project.


title: E-democracy

text: EDD as a system is not fully implemented in a political government anywhere in the world, although several initiatives are currently forming. Ross Perot was a prominent advocate of EDD when he advocated "electronic town halls" during his 1992 and 1996 Presidential campaigns in the United States. Switzerland, already partially governed by direct democracy, is making progress towards such a system.


title: E-democracy

text: Senator On-Line, an Australian political party established in 2007, proposes to institute an EDD system so that Australians can decide which way the senators vote on each and every bill. A similar initiative was formed 2002 in Sweden where the party Direktdemokraterna, running for the Swedish parliament, offers its members the power to decide the actions of the party over all or some areas of decision, or to use a proxy with immediate recall for one or several areas.


title: E-democracy

text: Liquid democracy, or direct democracy with delegable proxy, would allow citizens to choose a proxy to vote on their behalf while retaining the right to cast their own vote on legislation. The voting and the appointment of proxies could be done electronically. Taking this further, the proxies could form proxy chains, in which if A appoints B and B appoints C, and neither A nor B vote on a proposed bill but C does, C's vote will count for all three of them. Citizens could also rank their proxies in order of preference, so that if their first choice proxy fails to vote, their vote can be cast by their second-choice proxy.


title: E-democracy

text: One proposed form of e-democracy is "wikidemocracy", with a government legislature whose codex of laws was an editable wiki, like Wikipedia. In 2012, J Manuel Feliz-Teixeira said he believed the resources to implement wikidemocracy were available. He envisions a wiki-system in which there would be three wings of legislative, executive and judiciary roles for which every citizen could have a voice with free access to the wiki and a personal ID to continuously reform policies until the last day of December (when all votes would be counted). Advantages to wikidemocracy include a no-cost system with the removal of elections, no need for parliament or representatives because citizens directly represent themselves, and ease of access to voice one's opinion. However, there are obstacles, uncertainties and disagreements. First, the digital divide and low quality of education can be deterrents to achieve the full potential of a wikidemocracy. Similarly, there is a diffusion of innovation in response to new technologies in which some people readily adopt novel ways and others at the opposite end of the spectrum reject them or are slow to adapt. It is also uncertain how secure this type of democracy would be because we would have to trust that the system administrator would have a high level of integrity to protect the votes saved to the public domain. Lastly, Peter Levine agrees that wikidemocracy would increase discussion on political and moral issues, but he disagrees with Feliz-Teixeira who argues that wikidemocracy would remove the need for representatives and formal governmental structures.


title: E-democracy

text: Wikidemocracy is also used to mean more limited instantiations of e-democracy, such as in Argentina in August 2011, where the polling records of the presidential election were made available to the public in online form, for vetting. The term has also been used in a more general way to refer to the democratic values and environments offered by wikis.


title: E-democracy

text: In 2011, some in Finland undertook an experiment in wikidemocracy by creating a "shadow government program" on the Internet, essentially a compilation of the political views and aspirations of various groups in Finland, on a wiki.


title: E-democracy

text: “Egora”, or “"intelligent democracy"”, is a free software for political opinion formation and decision making filed under copyleft. Egora is a contraction of “electronic” and “agora”. An agora is an Ancient Greek central public space in city-states. In Ancient Greece, the agora of a town served as the center of public life, where people could socialize, do business, and hold discussions. Egora follows in that Ancient Greek spirit, but its main function is to enable a new form of democratic organization, one that is rational, efficient, and incorruptible. Egora is meant to allow people to develop their own political philosophy out of various ideas, determine which ideas are most strongly supported by the people, organize meetings to examine and deliberate any ideas, and use a simple algorithm to find the true representatives of the public will.


title: Eye in the Sky (song)

text: "Eye in the Sky" is a song by British rock band the Alan Parsons Project, released as a single from their sixth studio album, "Eye in the Sky" (1982), in August 1982. It hit No. 3 on the "Billboard" charts in the U.S. in October 1982, No. 1 in both Canada and Spain, and No. 6 in New Zealand, it was their most successful release. The instrumental piece entitled "Sirius" segues into "Eye in the Sky" on the original recording.


title: Eye in the Sky (song)

text: In 2019, Alan Parsons recorded a version in Catalan, under the title "Seré els teus ulls al camí" ("I'll be your eyes on the road"), for the CD edited by "La Marató de TV3", a telethon devoted to raising funds for the research of incurable diseases.


title: Eye in the Sky (song)

text: On the original recording, the 1:54 minute instrumental piece entitled "Sirius" immediately precedes, and segues into, "Eye in the Sky". On the single release, "Eye in the Sky" appears on its own, with "Sirius" edited out; that was the version usually played on pop radio at the time. However, album-oriented rock and classic rock stations now almost always include the "Sirius" intro.


title: Eye in the Sky (song)

text: Critics in Europe and North America have pointed to similarities between the melody of the choruses of Lady A's 2010 single "Need You Now" and "Eye in the Sky".


title: Voiced pharyngeal fricative

text: The voiced pharyngeal approximant or fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is codice_1. Epiglottals and epiglotto-pharyngeals are often mistakenly taken to be pharyngeal.


title: Voiced pharyngeal fricative

text: Although traditionally placed in the fricative row of the IPA chart, is usually an approximant. The IPA symbol itself is ambiguous, but no language is known to make a phonemic distinction between fricatives and approximants at this place of articulation. The approximant is sometimes specified as or as , because it is the semivocalic equivalent of .


title: Voiced pharyngeal fricative

text: Pharyngeal consonants are not widespread. Sometimes, a pharyngeal approximant develops from a uvular approximant. Many languages that have been described as having pharyngeal fricatives or approximants turn out on closer inspection to have epiglottal consonants instead. For example, the candidate sound in Arabic and standard Hebrew (not modern Hebrew – Israelis generally pronounce this as a glottal stop) has been variously described as a voiced epiglottal fricative, an epiglottal approximant, or a pharyngealized glottal stop.


title: MS Queen Victoria

text: MS "Queen Victoria (QV") is a operated by the Cunard Line and is named after the former British monarch Queen Victoria. The vessel is of the same basic design as other Vista-class cruise ships, including . At she is the smallest of Cunard's ships in operation. Her facilities include seven restaurants, thirteen bars, three swimming pools, a ballroom, and a theatre.


title: MS Queen Victoria

text: Unlike many previous Cunard ships, "Queen Victoria" is not a traditional ocean liner, as she does not have the heavy plating throughout the hull. However, the bow was constructed with heavier plating to cope with the transatlantic run, and the ship has a high freeboard. The had cost approximately $300,000 US per berth, nearly double that of many contemporary cruise ships, so Cunard made the economical decision to base "Queen Victoria" on a modified , and retains the same design with some minor changes. Nonetheless, Ian McNaught, who was "Queen Victoria"s captain in 2009, has asserted that the ship is a liner based on her classic décor.


title: MS Queen Victoria

text: An order for a Vista-class vessel was transferred by Carnival Corporation & plc, parent company to Holland America, Cunard and P&O from its Holland America Line to Cunard with the intent that the vessel would become the "Queen Victoria" Fincantieri laid down the keel in 2003, but Carnival reassigned the hull again to become the P&O ship .


title: MS Queen Victoria

text: The new "Queen Victoria" ordered from Fincantieri in 2004 was longer, 5,000 tons larger, with an increased passenger capacity of 2,000. and features which had proved successful on "Queen Mary 2". The keel was laid on 12 May 2006. Eighty prefabricated steel "blocks", each complete with interior structure, cabling, and ducts, and each weighing 325 tons, were then added. The completed hull with superstructure was floated out on 15 January 2007, after having a bottle of Prosecco smashed against her side by Maureen Ryan, a Cunard employee who has served on all four "Cunard Queens". The ceremony also saw the traditional placing of coins on the mast – in this case a Euro and a gold Queen Victoria sovereign were welded beneath the radar mast.


title: MS Queen Victoria

text: "Queen Victoria" departed the Port of Venice on 24 August 2007 to commence her sea trials, and, after handover to Cunard, arrived in Southampton, United Kingdom, to fanfare and media attention on 7 December; much of the coverage was focused on the ship's superlatives, and represented "Queen Victoria" as "Cunard's most luxurious ship." The same day, the ship was officially named by Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, continuing the tradition of Cunard "Queens" being named by royalty. The bottle of champagne failed to break upon impact with "Queen Victoria"s hull, which according to nautical superstition is a bad omen. However, a backup bottle was immediately successful.


title: MS Queen Victoria

text: Captain Paul Wright was appointed as the first master of "Queen Victoria" in October 2006. Captain Christopher Rynd became secondary master. Captain Ian McNaught briefly commanded "Queen Victoria" before transferring to Seabourn.