title: Tecmo

text: In October 1977, the Imperial Trustee Corporation was renamed "Tehkan Ltd", with the trade name changed as well to "Tehkan". Tehkan is derived from the name "Teikoku Kanza".


title: Tecmo

text: In March 1981, a U.S. division was inaugurated in Los Angeles as "U.S. Tehkan, Inc.". A month later, in April 1981, Tehkan released in Japan its first internally developed arcade video game, titled ""Pleiads"" (which was distributed in America by Centuri).


title: Tecmo

text: On January 8, 1986, Tehkan Ltd officially changed its name to Tecmo Co, Ltd. Tecmo's first internally developed home video game "Mighty Bomb Jack" was released for the Family Computer in April 1986.


title: Tecmo

text: On April 1, 1987, Tecmo Co., Ltd merged with its sister company Tehkan Electronics Corporation. The former's name was retained for the merger but the latter was the actual surviving company.


title: Tecmo

text: By the turn of the decade, Tecmo was firmly in the camp of video game consoles. Though still involved in the arcade industry, much of the success was achieved on the Nintendo Entertainment System with titles such as "Ninja Gaiden", "Tecmo Bowl" and the Japan-only "Tsuppari Ōzumō". When Sony released its PlayStation in the 1990s, Tecmo joined the endeavor which set the tone for series such as "Dead or Alive", "Monster Rancher", "Deception" and "Gallop Racer".


title: Tecmo

text: In January 2006, Junji Nakamura resigns as president of Tecmo, while Yoshimi Yasuda was named his successor.


title: Tecmo

text: On July 18, 2006, Tecmo's founder and chairman Yoshihito Kakihara died of interstitial pneumonia at the age of 67.


title: Tecmo

text: Tecmo entered the second section of Tokyo Stock Exchange in March 2000 and transitioned to the first section in March 2001. It delisted on March 26, 2009 right before the merger with Koei took effect.


title: Tecmo

text: On the June 3, 2008 Team Ninja head Tomonobu Itagaki resigned from the company and filed a 145 million yen ($1.4 million) lawsuit against Tecmo president, Yoshimi Yasuda, for "unpaid completion bonuses" and "emotional distress". This was followed by another lawsuit filed on the 16th of June by two plaintiffs on behalf of Tecmo's 300 employees for unpaid wages amounting to ¥8.3 million.


title: Tecmo

text: On August 29, 2008 Square Enix made plans for a friendly takeover of Tecmo by purchasing shares at a 30 percent premium with a total bid of ¥22.3 billion. On September 4, 2008 Tecmo officially declined the takeover proposal. Tecmo subsequently engaged in talks with Koei about a possible merger between the two companies, and agreed in November 2008 to merge on April 1, 2009 to form Tecmo Koei Holdings.


title: Tecmo

text: On January 26, 2009 the two companies officially announced the merger, and the holding company formed on April 1, 2009 as planned. Tecmo initially continued to be operated as a subsidiary and brandname of Tecmo Koei Holdings. In January 2010, the United States subsidiaries of Tecmo Inc. and Koei America merged to create Tecmo Koei America Corporation.


title: Tecmo

text: Tecmo was effectively declared disbanded in Japan on April 1, 2010, as part of a major international reorganization within Tecmo Koei Holdings. Relevant intellectual properties were slated to be further managed by Koei Tecmo Games.


title: Tecmo

text: On March 15, 2010, and roughly two weeks before Tecmo was dissolved, its internal development studio was spun off as a separate company under the name of "Tecmo Co, Ltd.", a wholly owned subsidiary of Koei Tecmo Games. This new company was initially called "Tehkan" to avoid confusion with the other company that was still operating for another two weeks. When Tecmo disbanded on April 1, 2010, Tekhan was renamed Tecmo. This was short-lived as the new Tecmo along with the new Koei video game developers were both dissolved and merged into Koei Tecmo Games a year later, on April 1, 2011.


title: Tecmo

text: Despite having been dissolved twice as a legal entity, Tecmo continued to appear as a label on video games by Koei Tecmo Games until another corporate reorganization in 2016 abandoned the brand name for good. Video games by Koei Tecmo Games marketed with the Tecmo logotype included "Dead or Alive 5", "" and "".


title: Chris Fowler

text: Chris Fowler (born ) is an American sports broadcaster for ESPN, who serves as the play-by-play announcer for "Saturday Night Football" on ABC and ESPN’s tennis coverage. He is also known for his work on "College GameDay", which he hosted between 1990 and 2014, and for college football.


title: Chris Fowler

text: In 2014, he replaced Brent Musburger as the play-by-play announcer for "Saturday Night Football" on ABC, having him on ESPN's top announcing team alongside fellow College Gameday's Kirk Herbstreit; this meant he would also be selected to announce one of the two College Football Playoff semifinal games and the College Football National Championship.


title: Chris Fowler

text: Fowler grew up in Rockford, Illinois and State College, Pennsylvania where his father, Knox, was a theater professor at Penn State University. When he was a teenager, his family moved back to Colorado and he graduated from General William J. Palmer High School in Colorado Springs in 1980.


title: Chris Fowler

text: Fowler graduated from the University of Colorado in 1985 with a Bachelor of Science degree. While a student, Fowler served as a producer and co-host for a weekly magazine program aired over a cable television system in Boulder, Colorado from 1983 to 1985. He also spent two years as sports director at KAIR-AM, the university's radio station. From 1982 to 1984, he covered high school sports for the "Rocky Mountain News".


title: Chris Fowler

text: Prior to joining ESPN, Fowler spent nearly two years at KCNC-TV, then the NBC affiliate in Denver, as a production assistant, a producer/writer and as a sports reporter. In 1984, he worked for several months at KMGH-TV in the same city as an intern in the sports department.


title: Chris Fowler

text: Fowler joined ESPN in July 1986 as the host/reporter of "Scholastic Sports America", a stint which lasted two years. In 1988, he began serving as a college football sideline reporter for two seasons. While on the college football beat, Fowler conducted an exclusive interview with former star University of Oklahoma quarterback Charles Thompson, who was in prison at the time on drug charges.


title: Chris Fowler

text: He began as host of the "College GameDay" football road show in 1990 and expanded to ESPN's other Saturday college football segments in 1991.


title: Chris Fowler

text: After Charles Woodson won the 1997 Heisman Trophy over Tennessee's Peyton Manning, Tennessee fans blamed ESPN and in particular, Fowler, who had emceed the award ceremony and handed the trophy to Woodson. Fowler received abuse from Tennessee fans (and he described the reaction as "trailer park frenzy" on a radio show), and "GameDay" avoided shooting on the Tennessee campus for several years that followed.


title: Chris Fowler

text: In February 2015, ESPN announced Rece Davis will take over for Fowler as host of "GameDay", but that Fowler will continue his play-by-play role on "Saturday Night Football" on ABC and College Football Playoff games, and as host of the annual Heisman Trophy presentations.


title: Chris Fowler

text: Until 2006, he was also the lead studio host of "College Basketball on ESPN". Fowler has also worked with ESPN's Summer X Games from 1995 to 2000 and the Winter X Games from 1998 to 2000 as well as horse racing broadcasts, including the Breeders Cup World Thoroughbred Championship on ESPN. In addition, he serves as the head play-by-play for tennis tournaments broadcast on ESPN, including Wimbledon, Australian Open, French Open and for the US Open being broadcast for the first year in 2009 on ESPN. In 2010, he anchored, along with Mike Tirico, ESPN's and ABC's month-long coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In 2020, Fowler announced the first game of the "Monday Night Football" Kickoff Week doubleheader alongside Kirk Herbstreit.


title: Chris Fowler

text: He was the host of the Seattle Kraken's expansion draft coverage which was the first ESPN hockey event with the NHL since 2004. During the telecast he would make an regrettable error in calling the Carolina Hurricanes the “Carolina Panthers”. This led to both teams Twitter accounts switching logos mocking him.


title: Chris Fowler

text: Along with fellow College Gameday hosts Lee Corso and Desmond Howard, in 2007 Fowler broadcast College Gameday from Williams College for its homecoming game against Amherst College, the first and only time College Gameday has covered a Division III game. Fowler has called the experience, and Williams' tradition of "The Walk" up Spring Street following a victory over Amherst, "one of the best traditions in college football." Fowler joined the Williams football players in St. Pierre barbershop following the game to celebrate Williams' victory.


title: Chris Fowler

text: Fowler is married to former fitness model/instructor Jennifer Dempster, who appeared on ESPN in the 1990s on the show "BodyShaping".


title: 2020 Eifel Grand Prix

text: The 2020 Eifel Grand Prix (officially known as the Formula 1 Aramco Großer Preis der Eifel 2020) was a Formula One motor race held on 11 October 2020 at the Nürburgring in Nürburg, Germany on the GP-Strecke layout. It was the first Formula One race held at the Nürburgring since 2013. The race was the eleventh round of the 2020 Formula One World Championship and the first running in history of the Eifel Grand Prix. The race was won by Lewis Hamilton from second on the grid. With the win, he equalled Michael Schumacher's record for most Grand Prix wins.


title: 2020 Eifel Grand Prix

text: The 2020 championship was heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the originally planned Grands Prix were cancelled or postponed, prompting the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile to draft a new calendar. This was the first time since the 2013 German Grand Prix that the GP-Strecke layout hosted a Formula One Grand Prix. Up to 20,000 fans were expected to attend the race with social distancing measures in place.


title: 2020 Eifel Grand Prix

text: The drivers and teams were initially the same as the season entry list. Ferrari Driver Academy drivers Mick Schumacher and Callum Ilott were entered to appear in the first practice session, driving for Alfa Romeo Racing in place of Antonio Giovinazzi and for Haas in place of Romain Grosjean, respectively. The first practice session was ultimately cancelled, meaning that Schumacher and Ilott were unable to participate (they would eventually make their free practice debuts separately, with Schumacher making his debut at the 2020 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix for Haas, and Ilott would make his debut at the 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix for Alfa Romeo Racing). Nico Hülkenberg replaced Lance Stroll, as he felt unwell before the third practice session and tested positive for the coronavirus on the day of the race. Hülkenberg would not return until the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix as a substitute for a similarly coronavirus stricken Sebastian Vettel.


title: 2020 Eifel Grand Prix

text: Pirelli supplied their C2, C3, and C4 compound tyres for teams to use in the race, the middle range of compounds available in terms of hardness.


title: 2020 Eifel Grand Prix

text: The first practice session on Friday began at 11:00 CEST (). However, rain and fog prevented the cars from leaving the pit lane as conditions were unsafe for the medical helicopter to fly. With 30 minutes of the session left to go, first practice was abandoned, and no running was completed. The second practice session was due to start at 15:00 CEST on Friday, but was likewise cancelled. Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas was fastest in third practice ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc. Racing Point driver Lance Stroll sat out the session due to COVID-19, and later withdrew from the rest of the weekend. Stroll had previously tested negative and would not test positive until the Monday after the race.


title: 2020 Eifel Grand Prix

text: At the race start, Valtteri Bottas, who had started on pole position, and Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton battled for the lead after Hamilton produced a better start, with Bottas maintaining his position. Renault's Daniel Ricciardo passed Red Bull's Alexander Albon for fifth place, and Ricciardo's teammate Esteban Ocon fell back from seventh to ninth. On lap eight Albon became the first driver to make a pit stop, switching from the soft to the medium-compound tyres. On the following lap, Ricciardo overtook the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc at turn two for fourth place. On lap 11, Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, running in 10th place, spun at turn one during an overtake attempt on the Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi. He returned to the track but the spin dropped him to 13th.


title: 2020 Eifel Grand Prix

text: On lap 13, race leader Bottas locked up his brakes and ran wide at turn one, allowing Hamilton to pass him at turn two. Bottas entered the pits for a tyre change at the end of the lap. On the same lap, Alfa Romeo's Kimi Räikkönen attempted an overtake on the 19th-placed Williams of George Russell at turn one, but understeered into the side of Russell. This caused a puncture and suspension damage for Russell, who was forced to pull over to the side of the track at the exit of turn six and retire from the race. Räikkönen was later issued a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision, which he served during his pit stop. The virtual safety car (VSC) was deployed whilst Russell's car was recovered. Hamilton was able to extend his advantage over Bottas by making his pit stop during the VSC period, as was Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who retained second place after pitting. The VSC period ended on lap 17. AlphaTauri's Daniil Kvyat locked up his brakes and went straight on at the turn 13–14 chicane, allowing Albon to pass him for 10th place; however, Albon made contact with Kvyat's front wing whilst completing the overtake, breaking it off and forcing Kvyat to complete a full lap without it before returning to the pits. Shortly afterwards, third-placed Bottas complained of power loss and fell to seventh place before entering the pits to retire from the race.


title: 2020 Eifel Grand Prix

text: Ocon entered the pits at the end of lap 22 to retire with a hydraulics issue. On the following lap, Albon was issued a five-second time penalty for causing the collision with Kvyat but came into the pits and retired his car due to a damaged radiator. McLaren's Lando Norris began to report power loss on lap 26. Leclerc passed the AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly for seventh place on lap 28, and was later promoted to fourth after cars ahead made their pit stops. He then battled with Racing Point's Sergio Pérez on lap 33, losing fourth place, regaining it on the following lap and then dropping to fifth again on lap 35. At this point, drivers began to make their second pit stops, with Williams' Nicholas Latifi being the first, followed by Haas' Kevin Magnussen, Leclerc, Giovinazzi, and Vettel. Norris, who was running in sixth place, suffered total power unit failure on lap 44 and pulled over to the side of the track after turn six. The safety car was deployed and those drivers who had not yet made a second pit stop did so, with the exception of Haas' Romain Grosjean who was promoted to seventh place. The order of the top 10 was now Hamilton, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Pérez, Sainz, Leclerc, Grosjean, Gasly, Nico Hülkenberg, and Giovinazzi. The safety car remained out until lap 50 to allow lapped cars to pass. Grosjean quickly fell to 9th place after the restart, and Gasly passed Leclerc for sixth place on the following lap.


title: 2020 Eifel Grand Prix

text: Hamilton crossed the finish line to take his 91st race win, equalling seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher's record for most Grand Prix wins. The race left Hamilton leading the drivers' championship on 230 points with teammate Bottas second on 161 and Verstappen third on 147. Räikkönen broke the record for most race starts with 323, held by Rubens Barrichello since the 2008 Monaco Grand Prix. Ricciardo became the first Renault driver to finish on the podium since Nick Heidfeld at the 2011 Malaysian Grand Prix; it was also his first podium since he won the 2018 Monaco Grand Prix. His career's final points finish, Grosjean scored a 9th-place finish for Haas.


title: 2020 Eifel Grand Prix

text: During the post-race interviews, Mick Schumacher gave Hamilton his father's race-worn Mercedes helmet from 2012 as a reward from the Schumacher family for equalling the number of wins. Both Hamilton and Verstappen complained about the length of the safety car period, arguing that it was unnecessarily too long. After the race, Masi said: "There's a requirement in the sporting regulations to wave all the lapped cars past".


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: The Years of Rice and Salt is an alternate history novel by American science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, published in 2002. The novel explores how world history might have been different if the Black Death plague had killed 99 percent of Europe's population, instead of a third as it did in reality. Divided into ten parts, the story spans hundreds of years, from the army of the Muslim conqueror Timur to the 21st century, with Europe being re-populated by Muslim pioneers, the indigenous peoples of the Americas forming a league to resist Chinese and Muslim invaders, and a 67-year-long world war being fought primarily between Muslim states and the Chinese and their allies. While the ten parts take place in different times and places, they are connected by a group of characters that are reincarnated into each time but are identified to the reader by the first letter of their name being consistent in each life.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: The novel explores themes of history, religion, and social movements. The historical narrative is guided more by social history than political or military history. Critics found the book to be rich in detail, realistic, and thoughtful. "The Years of Rice and Salt" won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2003. In the same year it was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, a Hugo Award, and a British Science Fiction Award.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: At the time of publication in 2002, science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson was 49 years old and living in Davis, California. He had conceived of the premise for "The Years of Rice and Salt" in the 1970s while thinking about what alternate history scenario would result in "the biggest change that would still work in terms of comparison to our history". He subsequently developed an interest in China and in Buddhism, which he would study for this project.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Robinson's only other alternate history story prior to this project was the short story "The Lucky Strike" (1984), where the "Enola Gay" crashes in a training exercise and the secondary crew must complete the Hiroshima bombing.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Robinson also wrote an essay titled "A Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions" (1991), comparing different theories of history and laws of science, such as the covering law model, to explain how alternate histories can be arrived at, using "The Lucky Strike" as an example.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: He explored the idea of non-Western influences creating a new culture while working on his Mars trilogy, which involved a heavy Muslim influence in a Martian colony. The Mars trilogy gave Robinson a reputation for quality of writing and a richness of detail comparable to James Michener, as well as winning him a Nebula Award for "Red Mars" (1993) and two Hugo and Locus Awards for "Green Mars" (1994) and "Blue Mars" (1996). Robinson followed the Mars trilogy with the novel "Antarctica" (1997), which won an Alex Award, and two short story collections, "The Martians" (1999) and "Vinland the Dream" (2001), before publishing "The Years of Rice and Salt".


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Book One, "Awake to Emptiness", begins with Bold and Psin, scouts in Timur's army, discovering a Magyar city where all the inhabitants have died from a plague. Timur turns his army around and orders the scouting party executed to avoid the plague, but Bold escapes and wanders through the dead lands of Eastern Europe, encountering only one lone native. Upon reaching the sea he is captured by Turkish Muslim slave-traders and sold into Zheng He's Chinese treasure fleet. Bold befriends a young African slave, named Kyu, whom he cares for after the Chinese castrate him. In China, they are kept as kitchen slaves until escaping and eventually making their way north to Beijing where they find work at the palace of Zhu Gaozhi, heir to the Yongle Emperor. The vengeful Kyu hates the Chinese for what they have done to him and he incites violence between the eunuchs and the Confucian administrative officials.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Book Two, "The Haj in the Heart", begins in Mughal India where a Hindu girl named Kokila poisons her husband's father and brother after discovering their plot to defraud the village. She is executed for her crime, but is reborn as a tiger that befriends a man named Bistami, a Sufi mystic of Persian origin. Bistami goes on to become a judge for Mughal Emperor Akbar, but later falls into his disfavour, being exiled to Mecca. Bistami spends one year in Mecca before travelling overland to the Maghreb and Iberia (Al-Andalus). Bistami then joins a caravan led by Sultan Mawji and his wife, Katima, who seek to leave Al-Andalus and found a new city on the other side of the Pyrenees, beyond the control of the Caliph of Al-Andalus. They build the city of Baraka on the abandoned former site of Bayonne, France, and create a model society in which Sultana Katima is highly influential. Katima seeks to change the Islamic religion to create equality between men and women, by rejecting the Hadiths and relying only on her interpretation of the Quran. She rules the community after her husband dies (something not allowed in normal Islamic practice), but the Caliph of Al-Andalus eventually hears of their "heresy" and sends an army against them. The community flees further to the north, where they build a new city named Nsara (near Nantes, France) and are able to defend it from further aggression in later years.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: In Book Three, "Ocean Continents", the Wanli Emperor launches an invasion against Nippon (Japan) but the huge fleet is swept out to sea by the Kuroshio Current and they are set adrift on the unexplored Pacific Ocean. The fleet hopes to be brought back to China eventually by the great circular currents of the Pacific, but they accidentally discover the New World. The sailors make landfall on the West coast of North America and make contact with the indigenous population (the peaceful Miwok people), but quickly leave once Admiral Kheim discovers they have inadvertently infected the indigenous people with devastating diseases. They take a small girl with them (whom they have taught Chinese and named ""Butterfly"") and sail south where they meet another civilization rich in gold. There they narrowly escape being ritually sacrificed by using their flintlock firearms, something the natives have never seen before. They eventually return to China and tell the Emperor that he could easily conquer this new land and gain its great wealth.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Book Four, "The Alchemist", takes place in Samarkand, in the 17th century. An alchemist named Khalid attempts to fool the Khan into believing that he has discovered the Philosopher's stone, but his fraud is uncovered and his hand is chopped off as punishment. Khalid becomes depressed and disenchanted with alchemy and decides to destroy all his Alchemical books. His friend Iwang (a Tibetan Buddhist mathematician) and son-in-law Bahram (a Sufi blacksmith) instead convince him to test the veracity of the claims in the books and thus see if there is any true wisdom to be gained. They devote themselves to practical demonstrations and experiments that greatly improve knowledge of various aspects of physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, and weaponry, and in the process create the scientific method. Their discoveries create interest (and alarm) amongst the religious madrasahs of the city, many of whom also go along with the new fashion of building and testing scientific apparatuses. But most of all, they catch the eye of the Khan's powerful advisor, who sees in their inventions the possibility of great military technology, to fight the rising Chinese threat to the East.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Book Five, "Warp and Weft", describes how a former samurai, fleeing from Japan (which was conquered by China along with most of the rest of East Asia) to the New World, travels all the way across the continent to meet the Iroquois people. They name him "Fromwest" and make him a chief of their confederacy. He helps organize their society into a larger defensive alliance of all the North American tribes (the Hodenosaunee League) and shows them how to make their own guns with which to resist the Chinese coming from the West and the Muslims coming from the East.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Book Six, "Widow Kang", follows the life of Chinese widow Kang Tongbi during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. She takes in a poor Buddhist monk, Bao Ssu, and his son whom she finds scavenging, but the monk is wrongly implicated in a series of queue cuttings and is killed by Qing magistrates. Later, Kang meets a Hui Muslim scholar named Ibrahim ibn Hasam and together they discover it is possible to remember their past lives. They marry and move to Lanzhou in western China, where they undertake work to try to reconcile Islamic and Confucian beliefs. Kang creates and collects works of proto-feminist poetry and becomes a known writer. There is a Muslim rebellion in the region due to the Qing intolerance of new Islamic sects coming from the west, but the revolt is crushed with massive force.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Book Seven, "The Age of Great Progress", is set during the 19th century and begins during a war between the Ottoman Empire and the Indian state of Travancore. The Indians have previously defeated the Mughals and the Safavids and have developed more modern forms of warfare, emphasising surprise and mobility, they have also invented steam engines and ironclad warships that they sail straight to the city of Konstantiniyye and capture it with the aid of military balloons. The Ottomans are defeated easily. A Muslim Armenian doctor named Ismail ibn Mani al-Dir, who had served the Ottoman Sultan, is captured and sent to Travancore where he learns of the amazing advancements that have been made on the sub-continent such as railways and factories. He happily joins the hospital of Travancore and begins work in anatomy and physiology. Ismail eventually meets their ruler, the Kerala of Travancore, who pursues scientific and philosophical advancement (a kind of Enlightened Despot). The Kerala's aim is to drive the Muslim invaders away and peacefully unify India into a kind of democratic confederation. Later, during the Xianfeng Emperor's reign, in the Chinese colony known as Gold Mountain, major flooding in the Central Valley of California forces the evacuation of Chinese colonial towns and Japanese settlers alike. The Japanese had originally fled to the new world to escape Chinese oppression in their homeland, but find themselves once again under the Chinese yoke. A displaced Japanese slave, Kiyoaki, and a pregnant Chinese refugee, Peng-ti, manage to flee to the great coastal city of Fangzhang. There Kiyoaki joins a secret Japanese freedom movement that is being aided by Travancore, with Ismail acting as a go-between agent.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Book Eight, "War of the Asuras", is set in the 20th century, during the "Long War". The world has become divided into three large alliances, the Chinese Empire and its colonies, the fractured Muslim world (Dar al-Islam), and the democratic Indian and Hodenosaunee Leagues. At the outbreak of war the Muslim states put aside their differences and unite to fight the larger threat of China (whom they fear will soon achieve global hegemony). The Indian and Hodenosaunee Leagues stay neutral at first, but eventually ally with China, as they see the Muslims as their greater enemy, however the Muslims invade northern India all the way down to Burma to stop the Indians and Chinese from linking up. The war drags on for decades causing major changes in the societies involved, with rapid industrialisation, mass conscription and mass casualties (both sides are forced to use women in the fighting to make up for manpower losses). Being the first industrial war, new devastating weapons and methods are employed, such as trench warfare, poison gas and aerial bombing. The story follows Chinese officers, Kuo, Bai and Iwa as they desperately fight in the trenches of the Gansu Corridor, where the ground has been blasted down to bedrock by sixty years of bombardments. The new Chinese government, the "Fourth Assemblage of Military Talent", orders a new offensive against the Muslim lines in Gansu. Kuo, Bai and Iwa are told to use poison gas and then frontally assault the enemy trenches. They do this successfully, but are beaten back by the second line of Muslim defences, losing tens of thousands of soldiers and gaining nothing. They are then told that their attack was merely a diversion for the real offensive, which is being conducted by the Japanese (who have recently been freed by China in exchange for alliance in the war) through Siberia. The Muslims are in retreat but the Japanese get bogged down at the Ural Mountains. In the meantime, Kuo is killed by a shell that penetrates their bunker. Bai and Iwa are ordered to move with their company south through Tibet to support their Indian allies. At a pass in the Himalayas they witness the Muslim artillery blasting the top of Mount Everest down so that the tallest mountain in the world will be in Muslim lands. After extreme difficulties they manage to breach the Muslim defences at the pass and the Chinese army pours through to meet up with the Indians, turning the course of the war in their favour. Bai is plagued by visions of his dead friend Kuo, who tells him that none of this is happening and that he is already dead, killed by the shell earlier. Bai does not know whether he is indeed living real life or is already in the afterlife.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Book Nine, "Nsara", follows the life of a young Muslim woman named Budur and her aunt Idelba in Europe, in the aftermath of the Long War. Budur's family is highly traditional and as there are not enough men left after the war for marriage prospects, she is forced to live in seclusion with her female cousins in the family's compound in Turi, a city in one of the Alpine Emirates. Idelba is an educated woman and was involved in physics research in Firanja before her husband's death, she is just as unhappy in Turi as Budur and wishes to return to her former work. One night, Idelba escapes and Budur follows her. Together they leave the life of captivity in the Alps and move to the more liberal and cosmopolitan city of Nsara (Saint-Nazaire in France). There they stay at a zawiyya, a refuge for women, Idelba restarts her work in physics and Budur enrolls in university where she studies history. The history class is presided over by Kirana, a radical feminist lecturer who questions everything about Muslim society. Budur becomes close to Kirana who opens her eyes to the injustices that women face and how they can seek emancipation and liberation (the two have a brief affair). Life at the university allows for open debate about all issues and Kirana focuses on the nature of history and contemporary events, such as the Muslim defeat in the Long War, which she blames on the failure of the Islamic countries to properly mobilize women for the war effort (something that the Chinese did almost totally). There is also a newfound interest in ancient history as the field of archaeology is taking off (theories about how and why the plague killed off the Europeans centuries before are a popular topic).


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Life in Nsara (and all the Muslim nations) becomes increasingly difficult as they face the effects of defeat in the war. Since casualties were so massive, there is a great shortage of men over women and many men who survived the fighting returned as disabled veterans (Budur volunteers to help veterans blinded by gas at a hospital by reading to them). The Muslims were forced to pay reparations to the victorious countries and to make various humiliating concessions such as allowing Buddhist monasteries to open in their cities. There is a general depression and malaise in post-war Muslim society, made worse by the economic difficulties; hyperinflation, food shortages and strikes. In many counties this leads to governments being overthrown in coups of various kinds. In Nsara itself, order begins to break down as people are near starvation and the military attempts to overthrow the government and impose a police state. However many liberals, including Budur and Kirana start mass street protests against this reactionary dictatorship. Eventually the Hodenosaunee League (who have become very powerful after their victory in the war) intervene by sending a fleet (from their naval base at Orkney) to Nsara, insisting that the military relinquish power, which they do. After this, things slowly start to improve, but most of the Muslim states continue to suffer grave problems. Even in China, a victorious country, there is unrest that turns into civil war.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Throughout this, Idelba has been secretly working on atomic physics and she and her fellow researchers have made some disturbing discoveries. They conclude that it would be possible to make a devastating weapon from nuclear chain reactions and fear that the military will try to create such bombs and restart the war. In order to prevent this, Idelba tries desperately to hide all evidence about her research and contacts concerned scientists in other parts of the world. The government learns of her work however and raids the Zawiyya to get hold of her papers, but Budur manages to hide them. Idelba eventually dies of radiation poisoning from the materials she was working with and leaves all her research to Budur, who keeps her secret and eventually manages to organize an international conference of scientists to discuss the nuclear issue. The meeting is held in Isfahan in Iran (one of the few Islamic nations that has prospered since the war) and scientists from all over the world attend. They agree that none of them will work on the creation of nuclear weapons for their respective countries, no matter what pressure they are put under by their governments and also start a new international scientific movement to break down barriers between cultures in a spirit of reconciliation and friendship (they even create a new scientific calendar to be used by the whole world, with its year zero set from the time of the conference).


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Book Ten, "The First Years", follows Bao Xinhua. Bao is a revolutionary in China, who works under the leadership of his friend, Kung Jianguo. Bao and Kung successfully overthrow the oppressive Chinese government, but Kung is killed on the cusp of their victory. Deeply depressed and disillusioned, Bao leaves China and begins a voyage around the world. Bao marries and raises two children before accepting a diplomatic post in Myanmar. Eventually, Bao's wife dies, and he begins to wander once again. Bao spends time studying with a comrade from his revolutionary years named Isao Zhu, who poses many macrohistorical questions about the world in which they live. In his later years, Bao moves to Fangzhang to teach history and the philosophy of history, and at the end of the novel, he meets a new student named Kali.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: The novel is divided into ten chapters that each act as a short story, linked by the use of a group of people who appear in each story. After spending time in bardo, the group (or jāti) are reincarnated into different times and places. While characters in each story are unique, they share some characteristics with their previous incarnations and are linked, for convenience, by the first letter of their name. The characters whose names begin with the letter "K" are "combative, imprudent and prone to getting himself (or herself) killed" and "striking blows against injustice that typically lead to more suffering". The "B" characters are "more comfortable in the world, meliorist and optimistic" and "survivors, nurturing friends and family through bad times and patiently waiting for something better". The "I" characters are "the ones who care, who follow the other two, and may be necessary if their works are to flourish, but who tend to the domestic and always find the world worth loving." The style of writing also changes every chapter to reflect the style of writing associated with the culture being depicted. For example, the first chapter is written similarly to "Monkey's Journey to the West" and a later chapter incorporates postmodernism. Also, later chapters take on metafictional elements, with characters discussing the nature of history, whether it is cyclical or linear, whether they believe in reincarnation, and feelings that some people are intrinsically linked.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Robinson incorporated utopian themes in his previous works but reviewers were divided on whether "The Years of Rice and Salt" qualified as a utopian story. Those that did call the world described in the story as utopian cited the story's illustration of progress. However, those that wrote "The Years of Rice and Salt" was not a utopian story say that the world history presented is not necessarily better or worse than the real history, just different. Robinson calls himself a "utopian novelist" in that he claims "all science fiction has a utopian element, in that it tends to say that what we do now matters and will have consequences". Several other themes were identified by reviewers. Robinson had previously used the theme of memory (or identity) and incorporates it into this story with characters who are reincarnated versions of previous characters and who only recognize each other while in the bardo, but sometimes feel a connection between themselves while on earth. The reviewer in "The Globe and Mail" identified feminism and "struggles over the nature of Islam" as recurring themes.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: "The Years of Rice and Salt" belongs to the alternate history subgenre of speculative fiction. The novel starts at the point of divergence with Timur turning his army away from Europe where the Black Death killed 99 percent of Europe's population, instead of a third. Robinson explores world history from that point in AD 1405 (807 AH) to about AD 2045 (1467 AH) with Mughal Emperor Akbar being the last character with a real-world counterpart.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Robinson's take on alternate history is that because it "is set in the same lawful universe as ours, its science must be the same [and] because its people have the same basic human needs, their societies resemble ours." Therefore, despite the difference in who specifically is there, "the great majority of humanity [is] doing their work, and that work would tend to forge along at a certain pace as people tried to solve the problems of making themselves more comfortable in this world."


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: While most alternate histories use the Great Man theory of history, focusing on leaders, wars, and big events, Robinson writes more about social history, similar to the Annales School of historical theory and Marxist historiography, focusing on the lives of ordinary people living in their time and place. This is reflected in the title of the novel, "The Years of Rice and Salt", which refers to the everyday chores of raising a family, often performed by women, despite the politics and wars of men.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Reviewers noted this allows for the "history [to be] experienced by readers on a human scale" and "an implicit but thorough rebuke to the kind of war-gaming determinism that most alternate histories embody." The novel has characters that explore subjects like philosophy, theology, history, and scientific theory.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Released in March 2002, the book was published in North America by Bantam Books and in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins. The paperback was released in 2003 along with a Spanish translation. In the subsequent years, other translated versions were published, in French, Polish, Chinese, and Hungarian.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: The novel was well received by critics who variously called it "thoughtful", "realistic", and "rich". In "Publishers Weekly", the reviewers called it a "highly realistic and credible alternate history", and in the "School Library Journal", Christine Menefee called it "an addictive, surprising, and suspenseful novel". The "Library Journal" "highly recommended" it, saying that its "superb storytelling and imaginative historic speculation make [it] a priority choice for all SF and general fiction collections". The critic at "Kirkus Reviews" found it "overlong, but blessed with moments of wry and gentle beauty". Likewise, Roz Kaveney stated that "if there is a weakness in Robinson's work, it is perhaps this; his characters are so intelligent that they never shut up". For "The Globe and Mail", Sol Chrom lauded the epic scope, calling it a "magnificent achievement", and for "The Belfast News Letter", the reviewer called the novel "extraordinary, ambitious, poetic and powerful". Science fiction critic Paul Kincaid concluded that it is "a huge, complex and highly enjoyable book".


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: It won the 2003 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and was nominated for the Hugo Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the British Science Fiction Award.


title: The Years of Rice and Salt

text: Other alternate-history novels where the Black Death was much deadlier in Europe, which was subsequently colonized in whole or part by Muslims:


title: Deirdre O'Connell (actress)

text: Deirdre O'Connell is an American character actress who has worked extensively on stage, screen, and television. She has won a Tony Award and been nominated for Drama Desk Awards, among other awards and nominations.


title: Deirdre O'Connell (actress)

text: O'Connell grew up in Massachusetts. She is the oldest of three children of Anne Ludlum, playwright and actress, and Thomas E. O'Connell, founding president of Berkshire Community College. She attended Taconic High School. O'Connell enrolled at Antioch College in Ohio, but withdrew before graduating.


title: Deirdre O'Connell (actress)

text: O'Connell began her career at Stage One, an experimental theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts. She made her Broadway debut in the 1986 revival of "The Front Page", and was nominated for the 1991 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in the off-Broadway production "Love and Anger". She is the recipient of two Drama-Logue Awards and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for her stage work in Los Angeles.


title: Deirdre O'Connell (actress)

text: O'Connell made her screen debut in "Tin Men". Additional film credits include "State of Grace", "Straight Talk", "Leaving Normal", "Fearless", "City of Angels", "Hearts in Atlantis", "Imaginary Heroes", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "Wendy and Lucy", "What Happens in Vegas", "Secondhand Lions", and "Synecdoche, New York".


title: Deirdre O'Connell (actress)

text: She was a regular on "L.A. Doctors" and has made numerous guest appearances on series such as "Kate & Allie", "Chicago Hope", "The Practice", "Six Feet Under", "", and "Nurse Jackie". From 1994 to 2010, O'Connell appeared on six episodes of "Law & Order", four of them as Dr. Valerie Knight, Anita Van Buren's oncologist in Season 20.


title: Deirdre O'Connell (actress)

text: In 2020, O'Connell received a Special Citation from the New York Drama Critics' Circle for career excellence, including her performance in Lucas Hnath's "Dana H." at the Vineyard Theatre. She also won the 2010 Ovation Award for Featured Actress in a Play for the role of Judy in the Center Theatre Group production of "In the Wake". She received 2020 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Show performance in Lucas Hnath's "Dana H." and Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022.


title: Deirdre O'Connell (actress)

text: O'Connell was given a special Obie Award in 2005 for sustained excellence of performance and was given a Best Actress award in 2020 for her performance in "Dana H".


title: Embarrassingly parallel

text: In parallel computing, an embarrassingly parallel workload or problem (also called embarrassingly parallelizable, perfectly parallel, delightfully parallel or pleasingly parallel) is one where little or no effort is needed to separate the problem into a number of parallel tasks. This is often the case where there is little or no dependency or need for communication between those parallel tasks, or for results between them.


title: Embarrassingly parallel

text: Thus, these are different from distributed computing problems that need communication between tasks, especially communication of intermediate results. They are easy to perform on server farms which lack the special infrastructure used in a true supercomputer cluster. They are thus well suited to large, Internet-based volunteer computing platforms such as BOINC, and do not suffer from parallel slowdown. The opposite of embarrassingly parallel problems are inherently serial problems, which cannot be parallelized at all.


title: Embarrassingly parallel

text: A common example of an embarrassingly parallel problem is 3D video rendering handled by a graphics processing unit, where each frame (forward method) or pixel (ray tracing method) can be handled with no interdependency. Some forms of password cracking are another embarrassingly parallel task that is easily distributed on central processing units, CPU cores, or clusters.


title: Embarrassingly parallel

text: "Embarrassingly" is used here in the same sense as in the phrase "an embarrassment of riches", meaning an overabundance—here referring to parallelization problems which are "embarrassingly easy". The term may also imply embarrassment on the part of developers or compilers: "Because so many important problems remain unsolved mainly due to their intrinsic computational complexity, it would be embarrassing not to develop parallel implementations of polynomial homotopy continuation methods." The term is first found in the literature in a 1986 book on multiprocessors by MATLAB's creator Cleve Moler, who claims to have invented the term.


title: Embarrassingly parallel

text: An alternative term, "pleasingly parallel", has gained some use, perhaps to avoid the negative connotations of embarrassment in favor of a positive reflection on the parallelizability of the problems: "Of course, there is nothing embarrassing about these programs at all."


title: 2002 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election

text: Elections to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly were held in 2002. Following a spell of 56 days of President’s Rule from 3 March to 2 May 2002, Mayawati became Chief Minister on 3 May 2002 for the third time after the BJP extended support to the BSP. BJP state president Kalraj Mishra resigned, and was replaced by Vinay Katiyar, who thought up slogans like "Haathi nahin Ganesh hai, Brahma Vishnu Mahesh hai" to defend the alliance. But the problems kept mounting, and Mayawati resigned in August 2003.


text: On 29 August 2003, Mulayam Singh Yadav was sworn in as the Chief Minister with the support of BSP dissidents and ran the government until 2007. It is said that BJP leaders convinced Vajpayee that Yadav would help in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections — Mulayam did not, however, help, and while the NDA lost power at the Centre. Some BJP leaders continue to believe that Mulayam would have been marginalized had he not been helped in 2003.


title: State Champs

text: State Champs is an American pop punk band from Albany, New York, formed in 2010. They are currently signed to Pure Noise Records and have released three EPs and four full-length albums. They released an acoustic EP titled "The Acoustic Things" in October 2014 and their second full-length album "Around the World and Back" one year later, in October 2015. In May 2017, they released a deluxe version of their album "Around the World and Back", along with a DVD of footage from their last few tours. Their 2013 full-length, "The Finer Things", debuted at number 2 on the "Billboard" Heatseekers Albums chart. Their third album, "Living Proof", was released in 2018. In May 2022, the band released their fourth studio album, "Kings of the New Age".


title: State Champs

text: State Champs formed in the spring of 2010 in Albany, New York by founding members lead guitarist Tyler Szalkowski and lead singer Derek DiScanio. Shortly after forming, they self-released "EP 2010" in August, which was followed by their second self-released EP, "Apparently, I'm Nothing", in January 2011. This EP contained several new songs and "2010 EP" in its entirety. In July, the band toured with The Tired and True and Call It Fiction. In April 2012, interest in a demo of "Critical" helped the band gain a recording contract, a management company and a booking agency. On April 19, it was announced that the band signed to Pure Noise. In mid-June, the group recorded their next EP with Jay Maas at Getaway Recording Studio.


title: State Champs

text: "Critical" was made available for streaming on July 12. In July and August, the band toured with With the Punches and Forever Came Calling on The PropertyOfZack Tour. "Remedy" was made available for streaming on August 9. The band released the "Overslept" EP in September through Pure Noise. In September and October, the band supported Handguns, then supported Citizen the following month. The band toured alongside Hit the Lights, A Loss for Words and With the Punches in December. The group then supported Vanna on their holiday tour, dubbed Home for the Holidays.


title: State Champs

text: Originally, the band was supposed to support Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! on their Pardon My French Tour in March and April 2013; instead Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! went on tour with A Day to Remember, resulting in State Champs supporting Handguns on their Pardon My Angst tour in March. The band finished recording their debut full-length with producer Sam Pura at The Panda Studios and co-producer and former New Found Glory guitarist Steve Klein in Fremont, CA in May 2013. The group supported New Found Glory on their west coast tour in June, before supporting Cartel.


title: State Champs

text: Their debut full-length album, "The Finer Things", was released on October 8, 2013. It debuted at #2 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, selling a little over 3,100 copies in the first week of release. To support the album, the band supported Motion City Soundtrack and Bayside on a fall tour in North America. The band spent a majority of 2014 touring in support of "The Finer Things". The band started their busy 2014 schedule in March with their first full United States tour, opening for We Are The In Crowd, William Becket, Set It Off and Candy Hearts. Shortly after completing this tour, the band headed on tour overseas for the first time to support pop-punk band The Wonder Years and A Loss for Words. The tour routed throughout the UK and mainland Europe.


title: State Champs

text: The band performed on the "Kevin Says" stage for the 2014 installment of the Vans Warped Tour occasionally playing the main "Kia Soul" stage. During the tour, it was announced that the band would also be co-headlining the 2014 Pure Noise Records Tour with Handguns, with support from Forever Came Calling, Front Porch Step, Heart to Heart and Brigades. On October 7, 2014, the band released an acoustic EP titled "The Acoustic Things" which featured acoustic versions of five tracks from "The Finer Things" as well as two new songs.


title: State Champs

text: The band opened for All Time Low on their "Future Hearts" tour in spring 2015, and then opened for 5 Seconds of Summer's "Rock Out With Your Socks Out Tour" in June 2015 in Australia and New Zealand. On July 15, the band announced their second album, "Around the World and Back", would be released on October 16; by November, the album had reached number 30 on the US "Billboard" Top 200 albums chart. The band began a co-headlining world tour in the UK with Neck Deep in February 2016, with support from Creeper and Light Years. The tour continued in the US and Canada in February and March with support from Knuckle Puck and Like Pacific. Official music videos were produced for two of the album's singles, "All You Are Is History" and "Secrets".


title: State Champs

text: While touring with Neck Deep in March, both bands also appeared on the cover of that month's issue of Alternative Press Magazine. After their co-headlining US tour, the band then supported A Day to Remember with Parkway Drive on the Just Some Shows tour in the US during the month of May 2016.


title: State Champs

text: It was then announced that State Champs would once again be joining the 2016 Vans Warped Tour for the entire length of the tour, mainly playing on the Journeys Right Foot Stage. Post Warped Tour, State Champs made an appearance at an intimate acoustic show with Sleeping with Sirens on August 25. The show took place at London's Union Chapel as a warm-up show prior to a festival appearance. That same weekend they then opened the main stage at Reading and Leeds Festivals, in England. In addition to touring and festival appearances, the band also contributed to "Rock Sound Presents: The Black Parade", a compilation of My Chemical Romance covers released in September 2016. Within the album, they contributed a cover of the song "The Sharpest Lives."


title: State Champs

text: On March 21, 2017, the band released the single, "Slow Burn" and announced the release of a deluxe edition on "Around the World and Back" on May 5, with two new songs ("Slow Burn" and "Hurry Up and Wait"), two live songs ("All You Are Is History" and "Elevated") and two acoustic songs ("Secrets" and "Losing Myself"). Also announced was the release of a full-length DVD, directed by Elliot Ingham. Member Tony Diaz took a small break from the band the return to Viper City with Recon.


title: State Champs

text: Around late November 2017, Derek posted a picture on his Instagram with the caption "just finished recording vocals on the last song of the new record". Following this during early March 2018, State Champs posted what looked to be a set for a music video on their Instagram account. On April 11, 2018, the album artwork and track listing for "Living Proof" was leaked on various music websites. Later, on April 19, they released the lead single for the album, called "Dead and Gone", and announced that "Living Proof" would be released on June 15, 2018. On May 6, the band released the second single from the album, "Crystal Ball". On May 24, the group premiered the third single, "Mine Is Gold", on "Billboard"s website. On June 15, the album was released. On March 26, 2020, the band announced that Tony Diaz would be stepping away from State Champs.


title: State Champs

text: On August 25, 2021, the band released the single, "Just Sound", followed by "Outta My Head" on September 8 and a cover of Fall Out Boy's "Chicago is So Two Years Ago" on September 21. On February 23, 2022, following the release of their third single, "Everybody But You", the band announced that their new album, "Kings of the New Age", would be released on May 13 via Pure Noise Records. On April 13, 2022, the band released the fourth single, "Eventually." Months later, they announced they would be going on a nationwide tour with Blackbear.


title: State Champs

text: State Champs' style has been described as pop punk. Their influences include The Starting Line, Blink-182, Sum 41, Fall Out Boy, and Green Day.


title: State Champs

text: "Around the World and Back" was ranked at number 4 in "Alternative Press"s "10 Essential Records of 2015" list. Mackenzie Hall of "Alternative Press" wrote that the band brought "everything you love about old-school pop punk with new-school heart." The album was included at number 8 on "Rock Sound"s top 50 releases of 2015 list. "If I'm Lucky" was nominated for Best Music Video and "Secrets" was nominated for Song Of The Year at the 2016 Alternative Press Music Awards. State Champs won Best Breakthrough Band at the 2016 Alternative Press Music Awards. "Losing Myself" won the award for Best Music Video at the 2017 Alternative Press Music Awards.


title: Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics

text: Sydenham College of Economics is a college located in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is affiliated to the Dr. Homi Bhabha State University. The college offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in management. It was awarded a re-accreditation 'A' grade and 3.42 GPA in the second cycle assessment conducted by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council.


text: Sydenham College was established in October 1913. It was named after the then-governor of Bombay, Lord Sydenham of Combe, K.S. Aiyar acted as first honorary principal of the college. The economist Percy Anstey was appointed Principal in 1914, a position he held until his death in 1920. It was only in 1941, twenty-eight years after the establishment of Sydenham College, that any other institute started offering courses in the subject. Indian Jurist and intellectual Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was a lecturer of the college.


text: On the college's seventy-fifth anniversary in 1988, the Indian Post Office issued a commemorative stamp.


text: In the year 2019, Sydenham college was de-affiliated from Mumbai University and affiliated to Dr. Homi Bhabha State University.


title: Labour in India

text: Labour in India refers to employment in the economy of India. In 2020, there were around 501 million workers in India, the second largest after China. Out of which, agriculture industry consist of 41.19%, industry sector consist of 26.18% and service sector consist 32.33% of total labour force. Of these over 94 percent work in unincorporated, unorganised enterprises ranging from pushcart vendors to home-based diamond and gem polishing operations. The organised sector includes workers employed by the government, state-owned enterprises and private sector enterprises. In 2008, the organised sector employed 27.5 million workers, of which 17.3 million worked for government or government owned entities. The Human Rights Measurement Initiative finds that India is only doing 43.9% of what should be possible at its level of income for the right to work.


title: Labour in India

text: Over 94 percent of India's working population is part of the unorganised sector. In local terms, "organised sector" or "formal sector" in India refers to licensed organisations, that is, those who are registered and pay GST. These include the publicly traded companies, incorporated or formally registered entities, corporations, factories, shopping malls, hotels, and large businesses. "Unorganised sector", also known as "own account enterprises", refers to all unlicensed, self-employed or unregistered economic activity such as owner manned general stores, handicrafts and handloom workers, rural traders, farmers, etc.


title: Labour in India

text: India's Ministry of Labour, in its 2008 report, classified the unorganised labour in India into four groups. This classification categorized India's unorganised labour force by occupation, nature of employment, specially distressed categories and service categories. The unorganised occupational groups include small and marginal farmers, landless agricultural labourers, sharecroppers, fishermen, those engaged in animal husbandry, beedi rolling, labeling and packing, building and construction workers, leather workers, weavers, artisans, salt workers, workers in brick kilns and stone quarries, workers in saw mills, and workers in oil mills. A separate category based on nature of employment includes attached agricultural labourers, bonded labourers, migrant workers, contract and casual labourers. Another separate category dedicated to distressed unorganised sector includes toddy tappers, scavengers, carriers of head loads, drivers of animal driven vehicles, loaders and unloaders. The last unorganised labour category includes service workers such as midwives, domestic workers, barbers, vegetable and fruit vendors, newspaper vendors, pavement vendors, hand cart operators, and the unorganised retail.


title: Labour in India

text: The unorganised sector has low productivity and offers lower wages. Even though it accounted for over 94 percent of workers, India's unorganised sector created just 57 percent of India's national domestic product in 2006, or about 9 fold less per worker than the organised sector. According to Bhalla, the productivity gap sharply worsens when rural unorganised sector is compared to urban unorganised sector, with gross value added productivity gap spiking an additional 2 to 4 fold depending on occupation. Some of lowest income jobs are in the rural unorganised sectors. Poverty rates are reported to be significantly higher in families where all working age members have only worked the unorganised sector throughout their lives.


title: Labour in India

text: Agriculture, dairy, horticulture and related occupations alone employ 41.49 percent of labour in India.


title: Labour in India

text: About 30 million workers are migrant workers, most in agriculture, and local stable employment is unavailable for them.


title: Labour in India

text: India's National Sample Survey Office in its 67th report found that unorganised manufacturing, unorganised trading/retail and unorganised services employed about 10 percent each of all workers nationwide, as of 2010. It also reported that India had about 58 million unincorporated non-Agriculture enterprises in 2010.


title: Labour in India

text: In the organised private sector with more than 10 employees per company, the biggest employers in 2008 were manufacturing at 5 million; social services at 2.2 million, which includes private schools and hospitals; finance at 1.1 million which includes bank, insurance and real estate; and agriculture at 1 million. India had more central and state government employees in 2008, than employees in all private sector companies combined. If state-owned companies and municipal government employees were included, India had a 1.8:1 ratio between public sector employees and private sector employees. In terms of gender equality in employment, male to female ratio was 5:1 in government and government owned enterprises; private sector fared better at 3:1 ratio. Combined, counting only companies with more than 10 employees per company, the organised public and private sector employed 5.5 million women and 22 million men.


title: Labour in India

text: Given its natural rate of population growth and aging characteristics, India is adding about 13 million new workers every year to its labour pool. India's economy has been adding about 8 million new jobs every year predominantly in low paying, unorganised sector. The remaining 5 million youth joining the ranks of poorly paid partial employment, casual labour pool for temporary infrastructure and real estate construction jobs, or in many cases, being unemployed.


title: Labour in India

text: About 7 per cent of the 400 million-strong workforce were employed in the formal sector (comprising government and corporates) in 2000 contributing 60 per cent of the nominal GDP of the nation. The Trade Unions Act 1926 provided recognition and protection for a nascent India


title: Labour in India

text: In 1997, India had about 59,000 trade unions registered with the government of India. Of these only 9,900 unions filed income and expenditure reports and claimed to represent 7.4 million workers. The state of Kerala at 9,800 trade unions had the highest number of registered unions, but only few filed income and expenditure reports with the government of India. The state of Karnataka had the fastest growth in number of unions between the 1950s to 1990s.


title: Labour in India

text: In 1995, India had 10 central federations of trade unions, namely (arranged by number of member unions in 1980): INTUC, CITU, BMS, AITUC, HMS, NLO, UTUC, AIUTUC, NFITU and TUCC. Each federation had numerous local trade union affiliates, with the smallest TUCC with 65 and INTUC with 1604 affiliated unions. By 1989, BMS had become India's largest federation of unions with 3,117 affiliated unions, while INTUC remained the largest federation by combined number of members at 2.2 million. The largest federation of trade unions, INTUC, represents about 0.5% of India's labour force in organised sector and unorganised sector. In 2010, over 98% of Indian workers did not belong to any trade unions and were not covered by any collective bargaining agreements.


title: Labour in India

text: A number of economists (e.g.: Fallon and Lucas, 1989; Besley and Burgess, 2004) have studied the industrial relations climate in India, with a large number of studies focusing on state-level differences in India's Industrial Disputes Act. Some studies (e.g.: Besley and Burges, 2004) purport to show that pro-worker amendments to the Industrial Disputes Act have had a negative impact on industrial output and employment - as well as on poverty.


title: Labour in India

text: Between 1950 and 1970, labour disputes nearly tripled in India, from an average of 1000 labour disputes per year, to an average of 3000 labour disputes per year. The number of labour relations issues within a year peaked in 1973 at 3,370 labour disputes. The number of workers who joined labour disputes within the same year, and stopped work, peaked in 1979, at 2.9 million workers. The number of lost man-days from labour relation issues peaked in 1982 at 74.6 million lost man-days, or about 2.7% of total man-days in organised sector. While the 1970s experienced a spike in labour unions and disputes, a sudden reduction in labour disputes was observed during 1975–1977, when Indira Gandhi, then prime minister, declared an emergency and amongst other things suspended many civil rights including the worker's right to strike.


title: Labour in India

text: Union membership is concentrated in the organised sector, and in the early 1990s total membership was about 9 million. Many unions are affiliated with regional or national federations, the most important of which are the Indian National Trade Union Congress, the All India Trade Union Congress, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, the Hind Mazdoor Sabha, and the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh. Politicians have often been union leaders, and some analysts believe that strikes and other labour protests are called primarily to further the interests of political parties rather than to promote the interests of the work force.


title: Labour in India

text: The government recorded 1,825 strikes and lockouts in 1990. As a result, 24.1 million workdays were lost, 10.6 million to strikes and 13.5 million to lockouts. More than 1.3 million workers were involved in these labour disputes. The number and seriousness of strikes and lockouts have varied from year to year. However, the figures for 1990 and preliminary data from 1991 indicate declines from levels reached in the 1980s, when between 33 and 75 million workdays per year were lost because of labour disputes. In 1999, the government of India recorded about 927 strikes and lockouts, or about half of those for 1990. The number of lost man-days were about the same for 1999 and 1991, even though Indian economic output and number of workers had grown significantly over the 1990s.


title: Labour in India

text: Between 2004 and 2011, India has experienced a decline in unionised labour. The number of labour disputes has dropped to 400 annually over the same period, compared with over 1,000 in the 1990s. The annual number of man-days lost to labour disputes in early 1990s averaged around 27 million; by 2010, while Indian economy has grown significantly and Indian labour force has expanded, the average number of man-days lost has dropped by about 30%. The downward trend continues both in terms of number of disputes and lost man-days per dispute. For example, India experienced 249 disputes in the first 5 months of 2010, and 101 disputes in 2012 over the same period.


title: Labour in India

text: Many issues plague unorganised labour. India's Ministry of Labour has identified significant issues with migrant, home or bondage labourers and child labour.


title: Labour in India

text: India has two broad groups of migrant labourers - one that migrates to temporarily work overseas, and another that migrates domestically on a seasonal and work available basis.


title: Labour in India

text: There has been a substantial flow of people from Bangladesh and Nepal to India over recent decades in search of better work. Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute found that these migrant workers are often subject to harassment, violence, and discrimination during their journeys at their destinations and when they return home.


title: Labour in India

text: Domestic migrant workers have been estimated to be about 4.2 million - (Domestic workers, not domestic migrant workers). These workers range from full-time to part-time workers, temporary or permanent workers. They are typically employed for remuneration in cash or kind, in any household through any agency or directly, to do the household work, but do not include any member of the family of an employer. Some of these work exclusively for a single employer, while others work for more than one employer. Some are live-in workers, while some are seasonal. The employment of these migrant workers is typically at the will of the employer and the worker, and compensation varies.


title: Labour in India

text: Migrant labourers in Kerala, India's southernmost state, are a significant economic force in the state; there were around 2.5 million internal migrants in Kerala according to a 2013 study by the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation. Every year, the migrant worker population in Kerala increases by 2.35 lakh (235,000) people. The study, based on long-distance trains terminating in Kerala,


title: Labour in India

text: does not cover migrants from the neighbouring states who use other modes of transport. Assuming that the estimation is rigorous and extrapolating it, taking into account the net annual addition, possible growth in migration rate, as well as accounting for the migration from the neighbouring states, Kerala is likely to have 3.5 to 4 million inter-state migrant workers in 2017. Despite their importance and despite many of them praising the state for its welfare schemes and environment, they are often ignored in comparison and suffer from comparatively poor living conditions.


title: Labour in India

text: About 4 million Indian-origin labourers are migrant workers in the Middle East alone. They are credited to have been the majority of workers who built many of Dubai, Bahrain, Qatar and Persian Gulf modern architecture, including the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in world's history which opened in January 2010. These migrant workers are attracted by better salaries (typically US$2 to 5 per hour), possibility of earning overtime pay, and opportunity to remit funds to support their families in India. The Middle East-based migrant workers from India remitted about US$20 billion in 2009. Once the projects are over, they are required to return at their own expenses, with no unemployment or social security benefits. In some cases, labour abuses such as unpaid salaries, unsafe work conditions and poor living conditions have been claimed.


title: Labour in India

text: Indian migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic have faced multiple hardships. With factories and workplaces shut down due to the lockdown imposed in the country, millions of migrant workers had to deal with the loss of income, food shortages and uncertainty about their future. Following this, many of them and their families went hungry. Thousands of them then began walking back home, with no means of transport due to the lockdown. Due to the lockdown, more than 300 deaths were reported till 5 May, with reasons ranging from starvation, suicides, exhaustion, road and rail accidents, police brutality and denial of timely medical care. Among the reported deaths, most were among the marginalised migrants and labourers. 80 died while travelling back home on the Shramik Special trains, in the one month since their launch. In response, the Central and State Governments took various measures to help them, and later arranged transport for them.


title: Labour in India

text: Bonded labour is a forced relationship between an employer and an employee, where the compulsion is derived from outstanding debt. Often the interest accrues at a rate that is so high that the bonded labour lasts a very long periods of time, or indefinitely. Sometimes, the employee has no options for employment in the organised or unorganised sectors of India, and prefers the security of any employment including one offered in bonded labour form. While illegal, bonded labour relationships may be reinforced by force, or they may continue from custom. Once an employee enters into a bonded relationships, they are characterised by asymmetry of information, opportunity, no time to search for alternative jobs and high exit costs.


title: Labour in India

text: Estimates of bonded labour in India vary widely, depending on survey methods, assumptions and sources. Official Indian government estimates claim a few hundred thousand labourers are bonded labourers; while a 1978 estimate placed bonded labour in India to be 2.62 million. The 32nd National Sample Survey Organisation survey in India estimated 343,000 bonded labourers in 16 major states, of which 285,379 were located and freed by 1996. The major employment sectors for debt bonded labour include: agriculture, stone quarries, brick kilns, religious and temple workmen, pottery, rural weaving, fishing, forestry, betel and bidi workers, carpet, illegal mining and fireworks. Child labour has been found in family debt bonded situations. In each survey, debt bonded labourers have been found in unorganised, unincorporated sector.


title: Labour in India

text: India enacted Bonded Labour System Abolition Act (1976) to prohibit any and all forms of bonded labour practice, to protect the bonded labour, and to criminalize individuals and entities that hire, keep or seek bonded labour.


title: Labour in India

text: According to data from Census year 2011, number of child labourers is 10.1 million, 5.6 million boys and 4.5 million girls in India. Total of 152 million children, 64 million girls and 88 million boys are estimated to be in child labour globally, for almost one in ten of all children worldwide. Poverty, lack of schools, poor education infrastructure and growth of unorganised economy are considered as the most important causes of child labour in India.


title: Labour in India

text: Article 24 of India's constitution prohibits child labour, but only in factories, mines or hazardous employment. The Indian Penal Code, the Juvenile Justice (care and protection) of Children Act-2000, and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Abolition) Act-1986 provide a basis in law to identify, prosecute and stop child labour in India. Nevertheless, child labour is observed in almost all unorganised, small scale, informal sectors of the Indian economy.


title: Labour in India

text: Scholars suggest inflexibility and structure of India's labour market, size of informal economy, legal hurdles preventing industries from scaling up and lack of modern manufacturing technologies are major macroeconomic factors encouraging demand for and acceptability of child labour.


title: Labour in India

text: The labour laws of India originated and express the socio-political views of leaders such as Nehru from pre-1947 independence movement struggle. These laws were expanded in part after debates in Constituent Assemblies and in part from international conventions and recommendations such as of International Labour Organization. The current mosaic of Indian laws on employment are thus a combination of India's history during its colonial heritage, India's experiments with socialism, important human rights and the conventions and standards that have emerged from the United Nations. The laws cover the right to work of one's choice, right against discrimination, prohibition of child labour, fair and humane conditions of work, social security, protection of wages, redress of grievances, right to organise and form trade unions, collective bargaining and participation in management.


title: Labour in India

text: India has numerous labour laws such as those prohibiting discrimination and Child labour, those that aim to guarantee fair and human conditions of work, those that provide social security, minimum wage, right to organise, form trade unions and enforce collective bargaining. India also has numerous rigid regulations such as maximum number of employees per company in certain sectors of economy, and limitations on employers on retrenchment and layoffs, requirement of paperwork, bureaucratic process and government approval for change in labour in companies even if these are because of economic conditions.


title: Labour in India

text: Indian labour laws are considered to be very highly regulated and rigid as compared to those of other countries in the world. The intensity of these laws have been criticised as the cause of low employment growth, large unorganised sectors, underground economy and low per capita income. These have led many to demand reforms for Labour market flexibility in India.


title: Labour in India

text: India has over 50 major Acts and numerous laws that regulate employers in matters relating to industrial relations, employee unions as well as who, how and when enterprises can employ or terminate employment. Many of these laws survive from British colonial times, while some have been enacted after India's independence from Britain.


title: Labour in India

text: India is a federal form of government. Labour is a subject in the concurrent list of the Indian Constitution and therefore labour matters are in the jurisdiction of both central and state governments. Both central and state governments have enacted laws on labour relations and employment issues. Some of the major laws relevant to India are:


title: Labour in India

text: The Workmen's Compensation Act compensates a workman for any injury suffered during the course of his employment or to his dependents in the case of his death. The Act provides for the rate at which compensation shall be paid to an employee. This is one of many social security laws in India.


title: Labour in India

text: This Act enacted the rules and protections granted to Trade Unions in India. This law was amended in 2001.


title: Labour in India

text: The Payment of Wages Act regulates by when wages shall be distributed to employees by the employers. The law also provides the tax withholdings the employer must deduct and pay to the central or state government before distributing the wages.


title: Labour in India

text: This Act requires employers in industrial establishments to define and post the conditions of employment by issuing so-called standing orders. These standing orders must be approved by the government and duly certified. These orders aim to remove flexibility from the employer in terms of job, hours, timing, leave grant, productivity measures and other matters. The standing orders mandate that the employer classify its employees, state the shifts, payment of wages, rules for vacation, rules for sick leave, holidays, rules for termination amongst others.


title: Labour in India

text: The Industrial Disputes act 1947 regulates how employers may address industrial disputes such as lockouts, layoffs, retrenchment etc. It controls the lawful processes for reconciliation, adjudication of labour disputes.


title: Labour in India

text: The Act also regulates what rules and conditions employers must comply before the termination or layoff of a workman who has been in continuous service for more than one year with the employer. The employer is required to give notice of termination to the employee with a copy of the notice to appropriate government office seeking government's permission, explain valid reasons for termination, and wait for one month before the employment can be lawfully terminated. The employer may pay full compensation for one month in lieu of the notice. Furthermore, employer must pay an equivalent to 15 days average pay for each completed year of employees continuous service. Thus, an employee who has worked for 4 years in addition to various notices and due process, must be paid a minimum of the employee's wage equivalent to 60 days before retrenchment, if the government grants the employer a permission to lay off.


title: Labour in India

text: The Minimum Wages Act prescribes minimum wages in all enterprises, and in some cases those working at home per the schedule of the Act. Central and State Governments can and do revise minimum wages at their discretion. The minimum wage is further classified by nature of work, location and numerous other factors at the discretion of the government. The minimum wage ranges between 143 to 1120 per day for work in the so-called central sphere. State governments have their own minimum wage schedules.


title: Labour in India

text: This law declared numerous key manufacturing industries under its so-called First Schedule. It placed many industries under common central government regulations in addition to whatever laws state government enact. It also reserved over 600 products that can only be manufactured in small scale enterprises, thereby regulating who can enter in these businesses, and above all placing a limit on the number of employees per company for the listed products. The list included all key technology and industrial products in the early 1950s, including products ranging from certain iron and steel products, fuel derivatives, motors, certain machinery, machine tools, to ceramics and scientific equipment.


title: Labour in India

text: This Act seeks to ensure the financial security of the employees in an establishment by providing for a system of compulsory savings. The Act provides for establishments of a contributory Provident Fund in which employees' contribution shall be at least equal to the contribution payable by the employer. Minimum contribution by the employees shall be 10-12% of the wages. This amount is payable to the employee after retirement and could also be withdrawn partly for certain specified purposes.


title: Labour in India

text: The Maternity Benefit Act regulates the employment of the women and maternity benefits mandated by law. Any woman employee who worked in any establishment for a period of at least 80 days during the 12 months immediately preceding the date of her expected delivery, is entitled to receive maternity benefits under the Act. The employer is required to pay maternity benefits, medical allowance, maternity leave and nursing breaks.


title: Labour in India

text: This Act, applies to an enterprise employing 20 or more persons. The Act requires employer to pay a bonus to persons on the basis of profits or on the basis of production or productivity. The Act was modified to require companies to pay a minimum bonus, even if the employer suffers losses during the accounting year. This minimum is currently 8.33 percent of the salary.


title: Labour in India

text: This law applies to all establishments employing 10 or more workers. Gratuity is payable to the employee if he or she resigns or retires. The Indian government mandates that this payment be at the rate of 15 days salary of the employee for each completed year of service subject to a maximum of 10,00,000.


title: Labour in India

text: It is an act to provide for a scheme for the payment of gratuity to employees engaged in factories, mines, oilfields, ports, plantations, shops or other establishments and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.


title: Labour in India

text: Scholars suggest India's rigid labour laws and excessive regulations assumed to protect the labour are the cause of slow employment growth in high paying, organised sector. India's labour-related acts and regulations have led to labour-market rigidity. This encourages shadow economy for entrepreneurs, an economy that prefers to employ informal labour to avoid the complicated and opaque laws. In particular, Indian labour legislation such as the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947 added rigid labour laws and one sided trade union laws. Although the Act does not prohibit layoffs and retrenchments, it does require entrepreneurs and companies to get the permission from government officials to fire an employee for absenteeism, retrench employees for economic reasons, or to close an economically nonviable company. This bureaucratic process can stretch into years, and the government officials have consistently and almost always denied such permission. As a result, the scholars argue that India's inflexible labour laws have created a strong disincentive to formally register new companies and hire additional workers in existing organised sector companies. Unlike China, Indian businesses have avoided substituting India's abundant labour for export or domestic opportunities, or use labour instead of expensive equipment for quality control or other operations. These are reasons for India's weak employment growth.


title: Labour in India

text: More recently, a few scholars have completed a comparative study between states of India with different labour regulations. They compared states of India who have amended labour legislations to grant more flexibility to employers, to those states in India that have made their labour laws even more rigid and complicated to comply with. These studies find that states with flexible labour laws have grown significantly faster. Flexible labour states have been able to take advantage of the export opportunities, and the per capita household income has risen much faster in states with flexible labour laws. States with rigid labour laws have led local entrepreneurs to prefer casual workers or contract workers with finite employment time period; in essence, more rigid and inflexible labour law states see increased informal employment.


title: Labour in India

text: A 2007 article in The Economist finds India to have the most restrictive labour laws in any major economy of the world. India's private sector, including its organised manufacturing sector, employs about 10 million Indians. Manufacturing firms need to obtain government permission to lay off workers from factories, and this permission is usually denied if they have more than 100 staff. This partly explains why most Indian firms are small: 87 percent of employment in India's organised manufacturing sector is in firms with fewer than ten employees, compared with only 5 percent in China. Small Indian firms cannot reap economies of scale or exploit the latest technology, and so suffer from lower productivity than if they scaled up, employed more people and were much bigger companies. This cripples Indian firms ability to rapidly expand or adjust with changes in global economy, both during early opportunity phase and during economic change.


title: Labour in India

text: One exception is white collar jobs, where companies have stronger lobbies and employees are not unionised, so they have managed to operate freely with a much larger workforce and have been able to lay off a significant portion of their workforce without contravening labour laws. In almost all cases white collar employees are forced to resign under threat of negative recommendations and black-listing with industry associations.


title: Labour in India

text: Djankov and Ramalho have reviewed a number of labour studies on developing countries including India. They find, consistent with above criticisms, that countries with rigid employment laws have larger unorganised sectors and higher unemployment, especially among young workers. They also report the rigid, inflexible labour laws are strongly related to low per capita income.


title: Lij Iyasu

text: "Lij" Iyasu (; 4 February 1895 – 25 November 1935) was the designated Emperor of Ethiopia from 1913 to 1916. His baptismal name was Kifle Yaqob (ክፍለ ያዕቆብ "kəflä y’aqob"). Ethiopian emperors traditionally chose their regnal name on the day they were crowned, and since he was never crowned, he is usually referred to as "Lij" Iyasu, "Lij" meaning child, especially one born of royal blood.


title: Lij Iyasu

text: "Lij" Iyasu was born on 4 February 1895 in the city of Dessie, in the Wollo province of Ethiopia. Iyasu’s father was descended from the Muslim rulers of Wollo and was of mostly Oromo descent, while his mother "Woizero" ("Lady") Shoaregga, was a Shewan Amhara and the eldest daughter of Emperor Menelik II. Iyasu's father was "Ras" Mikael, Governor of Wollo and longstanding friend of Menelik. Mikael had been born "Mohammed Ali" and was a Muslim until 1875, when he converted to Christianity.


title: Lij Iyasu

text: Late in his life, Emperor Menelik was confronted with the problem of his succession; if he did not explicitly name an heir before he died, the nation he had built would likely dissolve into civil war and be devoured by European colonial powers. He had four possible heirs. According to the traditional rules of succession, the next direct patrilineal descendant was the grandson of Menelik's uncle, "Dejazmach" Taye Gulilat. His other three heirs were all in the female line. The first of these was his oldest grandson, "Dejazmach" Wosan Seged, son of his daughter Shoaregga Menelik by her first marriage to Wedadjo Gobena. The second heir of the female line was his younger grandson "Lij" Iyasu. Finally, the third heir of the female line was Menelik's elder daughter "Woizero" Zewditu, who was married to "Ras" Gugsa Welle, nephew of the Empress Taitu.


title: Lij Iyasu

text: Menelik refused to consider Taye Gulilat, whom he deeply disliked. Wosan Seged was eliminated from consideration due to dwarfism. In March 1908, at any rate, Wosan Seged was in poor health and dying of tuberculosis. It was clear that the aristocracy would not respect a woman as their leader, so Zewditu was also not seriously considered at this time. On 11 June 1908, Menelik experienced a stroke while on pilgrimage to Debre Libanos. On 15 May 1909 Menelik informed his ministers that Iyasu would succeed him. However, due to Iyasu's youth, Menelik agreed to the suggestion that he appoint a Regent ("Enderase") during the minority of his heir apparent. Until Iyasu came of age, the elder statesman Ras Tessema Nadew would be Regent Plenipotentiary ("Balemulu 'Enderase").


title: Lij Iyasu

text: In May 1909, shortly before the Emperor made this decision, "Lij" Iyasu was married to "Woizero" Romanework Mengesha, the daughter of "Ras" Mengesha Yohannes, granddaughter of Emperor Yohannes IV, and the niece of Empress Taitu. However, that marriage was annulled without having been consummated. Subsequently, in April 1910, Iyasu married Seble Wengel Hailu, the daughter of "Ras" Hailu Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam.


title: Lij Iyasu

text: Not long after his decision that "Lij" Iyasu would succeed him, Emperor Menelik succumbed to further strokes. These eventually left him a mere shell of his once-powerful self, and incapacitated until his death in 1913. During his last years, in a bid to retain power, Empress Taitu intrigued against his choice, intending to substitute either her step-daughter "Leilt" Zewditu or her daughter's husband "Ras" Gugsa Welle (who happened to be Taitu's nephew) for Iyasu. In response to Taitu's intriguing, a number of nobles organized in an ever-closer alliance against her. On 28 October 1909, after a massive stroke, Menelik's choice of Iyasu as his heir was made public with "Ras" "Bitweded" Tessema Nadew as regent.


title: Lij Iyasu

text: The new regent found his authority undermined not only by the still living but paralyzed Emperor Menelik, but also by the Empress. For example, she insisted that questions from the foreign legations in Addis Ababa be directed to her, not to Tessema. Furthermore, Tessema himself suffered from an illness, which left him appearing helpless and apathetic and would take his life within a year. It took a "coup d'état" engineered by a group of aristocrats and the head of the Imperial Bodyguard to convince "Ras" Tesemma and Habte Giyorgis to decisively limit the influence of the Empress. Despite these developments, the imperial government continued to falter: administrators were unwilling to make decisions because Tessema himself might be overthrown, and foreign affairs likewise suffered. Despite this, Harold Marcus notes that the presence of Tessema "did curb ministerial dissensions and intrigues and was a reminder of the existence of central authority."


title: Lij Iyasu

text: With Tessema, Iyasu continued Menelik's program of modernization, including the establishment of the first police force in Addis Ababa. On 10 April 1911, Tessema Nadew died and, when the council met to appoint a successor as "Enderase", "Lij" Iyasu demanded a role in the process. When asked whom he desired in the position, he is reported to have replied, "Myself!" On 11 May, the seal of Iyasu replaced that of his grandfather, although not with the style of Emperor.


title: Lij Iyasu

text: In the first year, he was faced with several serious challenges to his rule. On 31 May, "Ras" Abate attempted a "coup d’état" by seizing the arsenal and its modern weapons in the palace, but was eventually convinced to make a public submission in return for being allowed to depart for his estates in the southern provinces. On 14 July, an attempt was made to poison Iyasu. That same year Menelik's soldiers sent a delegation demanding back pay and regular supplies, which made clear that the government was on the brink of financial insolvency. Intelligence reached Iyasu's father, "Ras" Mikael, of another plot, and he arrived on 14 November in Addis Ababa with an army of 8,000 men. This was only the first of many efforts "Ras" Mikael made to keep his son on the Imperial throne. Mikael established a powerful position behind the scenes.


title: Lij Iyasu

text: At this point, "Lij" Iyasu decided to leave the capital, ostensibly on a military expedition against the Afar, but he simply traveled through eastern Shewa and into Wollo, meeting with the common people. He had promised to return to Addis Ababa in May 1912, but instead visited Debre Libanos, then Addis Alem, before joining "Dajazmach" Kabbada's expedition into southwest Ethiopia. Here "Lij" Iyasu took part in a series of slave raids, in which 40,000 people of both sexes were captured, "half of whom died en route of smallpox, dysentery, hunger and fatigue." Marcus explains this constant journeying beyond the capital by his will "to prove that the government could not function without him and to force the ministers to authorize his immediate coronation."


title: Lij Iyasu

text: Once he finally returned to the capital, he came into conflict with the commander of the Imperial Bodyguard, which was eventually settled by the mediation of Abuna Mattewos. The conflict began when Iyasu expressed his wish to the ministers that the incapacitated Emperor be removed from the Imperial Palace so that Iyasu himself could take up residence there. Trying to please the heir, the ministers asked for an audience with Empress Taitu and suggested that she take the Emperor to Ankober as a change of scene that might be beneficial for his health. Taitu had however been informed that Iyasu was intent on moving into the Imperial Palace, and defiantly refused to move either herself or her husband from the Palace. Informed of this exchange, the commander of the Imperial Bodyguard swore that he would protect the Emperor in his palace with his life. Angrily, Iyasu ordered the palace complex surrounded by his soldiers and only allowed in enough food for the Emperor himself. With Iyasu's soldiers in a tense standoff with the Imperial guard, the situation deteriorated to the point that gunfire was exchanged, and the bedridden Emperor had to be moved to the cellars as his bedroom windows were shattered in the battle. Hearing the guns, the Archbishop rushed to the scene and arranged for a ceasefire. Empress Taitu then emerged from the palace to publicly berate Iyasu as an ungrateful child who wanted to kill his grandfather. She angrily declared that neither she nor the Emperor would be going anywhere and returned to her rooms. Iyasu was thwarted, but demanded vengeance against the commander of the Imperial Bodyguard. Although he had wanted him severely punished, he was convinced to accept a sentence of banishment from the capital. Iyasu indulged in a lavish celebration, which led the European diplomats to conclude "that he was purposely neglecting urgent business and impeding the ministers from carrying out their duties".


title: Lij Iyasu

text: "Lij" Iyasu left the capital after little more than a month, and during this time engaged in a raid upon the Afar, who had reportedly massacred 300 of the Karayu Oromo at the village of Sadimalka on the Awash River. Unable to find the responsible parties, he made a punitive raid upon the general population which provoked a general uprising of the Afar. On 8 April, after repeated messages from his father to return to the capital, he finally did arrive at the city and managed to accomplish nothing. On 8 May, Iyasu left to meet his father in Dessie.