Toronto, March 5, 2020 - With women’s perspectives underrepresented in media, how can journalists increase the gender mix and diversity of their news sources and the experts they quote? This important panel discussion will explore the outcome and ongoing challenges of a dedicated global project to increase the voices of women in news. Initiated and run by United for News, a global coalition founded by Internews in partnership with the World Economic Forum, the project aims to build trust in journalism by making it more representative of its diverse audiences.

 

The conversation features: Deborah Ensor, senior vice-president of technical leadership for Internews, lead of the Reflect Reality initiative, and the Canadian pilot of the project; Melissa Stasiuk, head of programming with The Globe and Mail, a project participant and Evelyn Kwong, social media and audience lead with the Toronto Star, and part of a newsroom committee launched as a result of the project. Shari Graydon, founder of Informed Opinions, a leader in helping bridge the gender gap in Canadian media, will also join the conversation. The discussion will be moderated by Supriya Dwivedi, host of The Morning Show on Global News Radio 640.

The final four uploads.....

  

Or Dover Marine.

 

Or even Dover Admiralty Pier station.

 

It has been all of them. But is now Dover Cruise Terminal.

 

We got news from a friend, Paul, that the station was open on Good Friday, so we went down just after it opened. There were massive queues leading to the Western Docks, and all along Townwall Street leading to the port, was blacked with stationary traffic. A little bit of heading through Market Square, and hoping that the police had kept the roundabout open at the end of York Street, they had, so we were clear to head to the old station.

 

Although the tracks have been filled in with concrete, the rest of the station is pretty complete and in good order, especially after a major refurbishment last year.

 

-------------------------------------------------------

  

This was a large, spacious, and impressive station, located within a maze of lines upon a tight triangular junction between the routes from Folkestone and Dover Priory. The origins of the terminus and general railway expansion in the Dover area derive from a need to cope with ever-increasing traffic, both local and boat services. Indeed, many capacity issues upon both SER and LC&DR networks were properly addressed after the formation of the SE&CR. The SER had initially commenced through running to Dover on 7th February 1844, after an eastward extension from Folkestone, which involved taking the railway along the dramatic coastline of Folkestone Warren. This had witnessed the blowing up of sections of chalk cliff with gunpowder, and boring three tunnels:

 

Martello Tunnel: 532-yards

Abbotscliff Tunnel: 1,942-yards

Shakespeare Tunnel: 1,387-yards

 

The SER ran into what later became known as ‘’Dover Town’’ station, and between here and Shakespeare Tunnel, the double-track line was elevated upon a wooden framework. The SER’s Town station was a large affair, comprising five tracks entering the terminus from the west, all of which were protected by a large twin-span overall roof. Substantial three-storey-high railway offices backed onto the rear of the platform lines, these being constituted of the customary yellow brick, lined at the edges with stone. Extension beyond the terminus took place in 1860, by means of a single track exiting the rear (east) of the layout, veering southwards onto a stone-built pier head. The latter, known as the ‘’Admiralty Pier’’, carried a double-track and allowed trains to come directly alongside steamer boat services to France. In July of the following year, the LC&DR commenced through running between Victoria and Dover Priory. Also in 1861, after the boring of a 684-yard-long tunnel southwards through the Kentish chalk, from Priory station, the ‘’Chatham’’ line was brought closer to the earlier SER station. The LC&DR opened ‘’Dover Harbour’’ on 1st November 1861, which was a terminus affair comprising two platform faces, separated by three tracks, all of which were protected by a single-span triangular-shaped trainshed. Just like the SER’s Town station, Dover Harbour ceased to be a terminus proper when a single-track was taken beyond the original buffer stops, down to the Admiralty Pier. LC&DR services commenced to the pier on 30th August 1864, where separate platforms were provide for both ‘’Chatham’’ and SER companies. The platforms were arranged in an end-to-end fashion along the same section of track, rather than serving their own separate lines upon the pier. The LC&DR’s southward extension from Dover Harbour formed the second side of what would later become a triangular junction – the SER had created the first southern side of the arrangement, as a result of its initial 1860 opening of the short section of line between Dover Town and Admiralty Pier.

 

On 15th June 1881, the SER and LC&DR opened the ''Dover & Deal Joint Line'' – a rare example of the frenetic rivals cooperating. To allow the SER direct access to this line from its trunk route via Folkestone, a double-track spur (the ‘’Hawkesbury Street Curve’’) between Dover Harbour station and the Dover Town approaches came into use on the same day – the triangular junction was now complete. The SER was granted running powers over LC&DR metals through Priory station, and a number of local services now bypassed Dover Town. However, to compensate for this, additional platform surfaces were brought into use upon the connecting spur. The area in-between the two sites was already heavily built up, but early maps suggest that demolition in the locale, to accommodate the spur, was surprisingly modest. At the ‘’Chatham’’ end of the spur, signalling was installed by contractors Stevens & Sons.

 

The formation of the SE&CR Joint Managing Committee on New Years Day 1899 marked the beginning of a new era of railway expansion and improvements on the erstwhile independent networks of the SER and LC&DR. Of prominence during this company’s tenure was the St Johns to Orpington quadrupling works, between 1900 and 1905, which involved physically connecting both Tonbridge Cut-Off and ‘’Chatham’’ main lines in the vicinity of Chislehurst. In the Dover area, alterations began with the closure of the platforms upon the connecting spur between SER and LC&DR lines, in 1903. Subsequently, in 1912, major works began alongside the Admiralty Pier, to create an artificial platform within the water, on which a whole new terminus station was to be built. The latter was to be a spacious affair, dedicated to boat traffic only, and would permit the closure of existing station sites. Creating the platform involved dumping large quantities of chalk into the water immediately east of the Admiralty Pier. As it later transpired, the Admiralty Pier was not demolished, but rather, was absorbed into the new works to become the western side of the sea platform. Construction of the terminus commenced in 1913, and by the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914, the majority of the building work had been completed. A splendid vaulted train shed roof, comprising seven spans of varying widths, had been erected. The station measured 170-feet in width, and at its longest point stretched to 800-feet. The well-covered terminus comprised four 693-foot-long platform faces, arranged in the form of two spacious islands of concrete construction.

 

Wartime economies saw the closure of the ex-SER Dover Town station in 1914, which was never to reopen, but the retention of the ex-LC&DR Harbour and Priory stations, to which all services were now diverted to. The demise of the Town station was coupled with the closure of the three-road engine shed adjacent to the Hawkesbury Street Curve, and the concentration of the area’s locomotive allocation on the depot at Priory. The withdrawal of boat services on the outbreak of war saw that the semi-complete SE&CR terminus had no passenger traffic to serve. Despite its unfinished state, the station was quickly brought into use on 2nd January 1915 for military traffic, initially in the form of ambulance trains. Although the trainshed was virtually complete by this time, a significant feature still lacking was the marvellous stone façade which now graces the structure’s landward elevation. Completion of building works came after the cessation of war in November 1918, and the first passenger boat trains commenced to the terminus on 18th January 1919, the station being christened ‘’Dover Marine’’.

 

Attractive single-storey red brick offices, complete with war memorial, were built upon the platform surfaces, and both platform islands and the exit were linked by a lattice footbridge at the northern end of the terminus, located within the trainshed. The incorporation of the SE&CR’s main war memorial here was unusual, for the other large railway companies erected these at their main termini in London. The layout upon the sea platform had grown to an extensive arrangement of tracks, numerous sidings having been brought into use to handle substantial levels of freight traffic during the war period. Dover Marine was controlled by an SE&CR-designed 120-lever signal box positioned to the west of the station, immediately adjacent to the tracks from Priory. The signal box comprised a substantial brick base and was in fact a much larger version of the signal cabin which still exists at Folkestone Harbour, demonstrating traits of those early Saxby & Farmer products. A 455-foot long enclosed glazed footbridge was suspended above the double-track of the former Admiralty Pier, and this took passengers over the complex approaches from the Folkestone direction. A physical connection was also made between this footbridge and the Lord Warden Hotel. The latter was a four-storey colossus, the main section of which was built upon a floor plan of 130-foot by 120-foot. Originally opened in 1851, the hotel was built on a site immediately behind the SER’s Dover Town station.

 

Locomotive facilities at the site initially comprised just a turntable and cylindrical water tank, located behind the signal box. As previously mentioned, on the closure of Dover Town, the locomotive allocation was concentrated on the existing depot at Priory. However, the inadequacy of the Priory site was emphasised after completion of the SE&CR’s Dover area enlargement works, and a new improvement scheme was soon set in motion after the formation of the Southern Railway. The SR devised a modernisation programme for the Dover area, which included a comprehensive rebuilding of Priory station, the closure of Harbour station, and the building of a new motive power depot. The proposals got underway in 1924, with the confirmation of a 280-foot-long five-road locomotive shed, to be built to the west of Dover Marine, alongside the running lines from Folkestone. As per the construction of the twelve-acre platform for the Marine station, large quantities of chalk were dumped into the sea, beside the former site of the ex-SER’s Dover Town, to reclaim enough land for a spacious complex. The depot came into use during 1928, comprising four eastward-facing dead-end tracks, a single through track, and a sixth line which terminated within an adjacent repair shed. The provision of a 65-foot turntable at the site resulted in the removal of that which resided behind the signal box at Dover Marine, and the water tank there also disappeared. The commissioning of the engine shed, which at 2007 prices cost approximately £7,767,500 to build, allowed the closure of the shed at Priory station, allowing the site there to become part of an enlarged goods yard. Dover Harbour station was subject to closure on 10th July 1927, all local traffic being concentrated at Priory and boat services being served exclusively at Marine station. Other improvements in the Dover area during the SR’s tenure included the rebuilding of the elevated track bed east of Shakespeare Tunnel from wood to concrete, and the laying of coal sidings at the Eastern Docks. Eight freight sidings also came into use alongside the Hawkesbury Street Curve, at Bulwark Street, partially upon the former site of the SER’s Dover Town engine shed. A dock basin for the train ferry, fed by a double-track emanating from the Dover Priory route, came into use during 1936, to the north of the Marine terminus.

 

Before continuing, it is worth examining one of the out-of-the-ordinary boat trains that served Dover Marine. Initially, the French inaugurated the ‘’Flèche d’Or’’ on 11th September 1926, a prestigious boat train running between Calais and Paris. The ‘’Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits’’ (International Sleeping Car Company) ordered twenty British Pullman vehicles to operate the service: fifteen kitchen cars (Nos. 4001 to 4015) were built by the Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company, and fifteen parlour cars (Nos. 4016 to 4030) were constructed by the Metropolitan Carriage, Wagon & Finance Company. The luxury vehicles were delivered new in the now renowned Umber and Crème ‘’New Standard’’ Pullman colours of the British fleet, and were operated as pairs, rather than individual carriages. With reference to the latter, this meant that a kitchen car and a parlour car would be semi-permanently coupled into a pair known as a ‘’Couplage’’, or, if you like, ‘’Linkage’’. Initially, the Flèche d’Or service was operated by two trains, each ten vehicles in length. From 1932 onwards, Pullman vehicles were repainted into the standard colours worn by the rest of the Wagon-Lits fleet: a lighter shade of crème appeared in place of the British colour, and the umber lower half became dark blue.

 

The French’s efforts were matched on the other side of the Channel by an all-Pullman service run by the Southern Railway from Victoria. Colloquially, this was referred to as the ‘’White Pullman’’, because the other Pullman cars on the Eastern Section at that time still wore the crimson lake livery of the SE&CR. Officially, however, the service was called the ‘’Continental Express’’, but it was nevertheless referred to by passengers as the ‘’Golden Arrow’’, the English translation of the French title. This was a sign of things to come, for on 15th May 1929, the SR’s all-Pullman boat train service was re-launched as the ‘’Golden Arrow’’. Significant engineering works occurred on the ex-SER trunk line between Petts Wood Junction and Dover, which involved strengthening bridges to accommodate the heavier engines planned to haul this prestigious service. Maunsell ‘’Lord Nelson’’ 4-6-0 locomotives were selected as the prime motive power, with Urie 4-6-0 ‘’King Arthur’’ engines (later modified by Maunsell) supplementing the fleet.

 

Much of the time, the outward ‘’Golden Arrow’’ from Victoria was booked to arrive at Folkestone Harbour, but the return portion instead started at Dover Marine, which gave rise to some interesting shunting movements. As mentioned elsewhere on the website, the Folkestone Harbour branch has never had a direct connection with the main line, and access to it can only be made by means of a headshunt manoeuvre. This arrangement was implemented as a safety measure from the outset, since the branch descends at a steep gradient of 1 in 30 to the harbour. Thus, the Pullman service would arrive at Folkestone Junction, and initially terminate in the reception sidings positioned to the east of the station there, where the connection with the Harbour Branch was made. An ex-SE&CR R1 Class 0-6-0 Tank would then attach itself to the rear of the train, whilst the ‘’main line’’ engine was detached, and take the Golden Arrow stock down to Folkestone Harbour. This released the ‘’main line’’ locomotive from the headshunt, and consequently, it ran light along Folkestone Warren, to Dover Marine. At the latter, the engine would be rotated, more often than not by means of the triangular junction between the converging lines from Folkestone, Priory, and Marine stations, rather than on the turntable at Dover shed. After rotation, the locomotive would then head back to Folkestone Junction to collect the empty Pullman stock for the return working, which had previously been banked up the steep Harbour Branch incline by as many as four R1 Tanks. The tank engines would usually bring the train out onto the running lines at the Junction station, allowing the express locomotive to immediately couple to the stock. The Pullman vehicles would then be hauled empty to Dover Marine to form the return working to Victoria. This involved some indignity for the engine because for this empty stock movement, it had to run tender-first.

 

The declaration of war on Germany on 3rd September 1939 signalled the beginning of harsh times for the Port of Dover, as it became a prime target for bombing raids. Boat trains and steamer services were suspended immediately, and passenger services to the Marine station ceased. The Marine site was again dedicated to military traffic, just as it had been during World War I, and as a consequence, services along the ex-SER route went no further than Folkestone. Indeed, consistent shelling over the Channel, from France, had made the site unsafe to handle any form of passenger traffic, and even the 1928-opened engine shed had to close during the conflict, all engines being stationed at Ashford for the duration. The attractive Marine station suffered damage to the trainshed roof, but thankfully, this was modest enough to deem it practical and worthwhile to repair, normal service at the station resuming after the conflict. Since the advent of World War II, the prominent Lord Warden Hotel had been used as offices; the Marine Department occupied the building from 1952 onwards, by which time it was known as ‘’Southern House’’.

 

Initially, the British Railways era did not necessarily mean rationalisation for this extensive site, as it did at so many other stations nationwide. Rather, the emphasis was on modernising facilities, to cater for new rail freight boat traffic which, in these pre-Chunnel days, was still important and by no means in decline. Modernisation of the site began in 1953, with the renewal of the five quayside cranes which ran alongside the northern wall of the terminus. This was followed in February 1956 by the approval of the Kent Coast Electrification Scheme. Published within an ‘’Extension of Electrification’’ report of 1957 were the alterations proposed for the Marine station. In early 1959, the station was closed to passengers temporarily to allow modifications to be carried out. These involved the extension of both island platforms westward by 114-feet, beyond the extent of the trainshed, and the installation of canopies above the exposed surfaces. The platform extensions were constituted of prefabricated concrete components, manufactured at Exmouth Junction concrete works; the platform canopies were W-shaped and lacked any form of valance. The latter were virtually enlarged versions of the equally clinical canopies which emerged at the rebuilt Folkestone Central and St Mary Cray stations, and these additions somewhat marred the attractive stone façade of the SE&CR station. Third rail was installed on all platform lines during 1959, as part of the ‘’Chatham’’ line electrification of the scheme’s ‘’Phase 1’’, and these were subsequently energised for the commencement of the full electric timetable via this route on 15th June of that year. An enclosed riveted steel footbridge was also erected across the approach tracks from Dover Priory, linking the main entrance beside the Lord Warden Hotel with the Customs Hall, on the northern perimeter of the Western Docks. Naturally, steam continued to visit the station by means of the ex-SER trunk line from the Folkestone direction until the implementation of a full electric timetable on this route on 18th June 1962. The Golden Arrow had been hauled by E5000 series electric locomotives since 12th June 1961. Colour lights installed at the Marine station during the electrification scheme were of the three-aspect type. Before electrification, the empty stock of arrived services would be shunted out the seaward end of the trainshed, and up along the extent of the old Admiralty Pier, to clear the platform lines. Locomotives would also be required to run-a-round using the Admiralty Pier tracks.

 

The commencement of electric haulage on the Golden Arrow in the June of 1961 coincided with the demise of Dover engine shed. Hitherto, the depot had the responsibility of servicing the Stewarts Lane-allocated steam locomotives which brought the luxurious train down from Victoria. Closure of the sub-shed at nearby Folkestone Junction also occurred, but the site of Dover MPD was put to new railway use, becoming host to a plethora of goods sidings. Closure of goods sidings at Bulwark Street occurred on 15th August 1966, but Archcliffe Junction – at the Folkestone end of the Hawkesbury Street Curve – remained in existence. In the following decade, major works were planned around the Marine station’s peripheral: in 1973, proposals were put forward for the construction of a roll-on-roll-off vehicle shed, and in 1974, planning of a new hoverport at the Western Docks began. After a consultation period spanning 1975 to 1976 inclusive, the hoverport was formally commissioned for operation on 5th July 1978, and replaced a smaller affair situated in the Eastern Docks. Track rationalisation had also occurred beyond the rear of the trainshed, and the ‘’Golden Arrow’’ had ceased between Victoria and the Channel Ports after a final run on 30th September 1972. Since 1969, the number of Pullman cars in the train had been whittled down to five, and the rest of the formation consisted of Second Class BR Mk 1 vehicles.

 

On 14th May 1979, Dover Marine station was renamed ‘’Dover Western Docks’’, and on 31st October of the following year, the ‘’Night Ferry’’ London to Paris train made its final run. This had first operated on the evening of 14th October 1936, between London Victoria and Paris Gare du Nord, via Dover Marine and Dunkirk. The service was unique among the boat trains, because the carriage stock travelled across the Channel with the passengers and ran on both British and French railway networks. Indeed, the vehicles were smaller than standard Continental carriage stock, having been specially built to meet the restrictive loading gauge of the British system. The service had been suspended during the war years, the last train running through to Paris over the night of 3rd/4th September 1939. After the cessation of the conflict, the ‘’Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits’’ (CIWL: International Sleeping Car Co.) found itself engaged in a search and rescue mission over the whole of Europe, to find several missing carriages. Stock of both the ‘’Night Ferry’’ and ‘’Orient Express’’ services had been taken over by the Germans, camouflaged and armoured, and subsequently used as army vehicles. The ‘’Night Ferry’’ service was resumed on 14th December 1947, and this was followed ten years later by the addition of a through sleeping car to Brussels. A sleeping car for Basle, Switzerland, was added to the service in 1967, but this lasted just two years.

 

Over the five years which followed the renaming of the station to ‘’Dover Western Docks’’, truncations of the lines within the trainshed, at their seaward ends, saw a ground level walkway come into use for passengers, behind the new buffer stops (a headshunt did, however, still remain for locomotive-hauled services). The SNCF train ferry continued to handle an abundance of ferry vans, shunted by Class 33/2 locomotives – the latter had been under the auspices of Railfreight Distribution (RfD) since that Business Sector’s formation on 10th October 1988. The ferry itself accommodated a double-track, and to maintain balance on the vessel, wagons on both lines would be loaded and unloaded simultaneously. During 1993, the train ferry shunting duty passed to Class 09 diesels.

 

Channel Tunnel boring began on 1st December 1987, and in light of this, the British Rail Board produced the dreaded report in 1989: the ‘’Proposed closure of Dover Western Docks Station and Folkestone Harbour branch’’. Passenger boat traffic was now seen as a thing of the past, as the advent of the proposed ‘’Eurostar’’ services through the Chunnel would now cater for this, providing a much faster and efficient service. Some of the freight carried upon the ferries could be transferred for haulage through the Chunnel; certain traffic, however, such as chemicals and inflammables, were not permitted through the tunnel, as they were safety hazards. Handling of these goods would therefore transfer to the Eastern Docks, involving the use of road transport, due to the lack of a rail connection there. During 1992, the headshunt facility at Western Docks station was taken out of use, meaning that locomotive-hauled services had to be shunt released – the latter duty was generally undertaken by a RfD Class 33/2. The fateful day was on Saturday 24th September 1994, when 4 CEP No. 1604 departed with the last advertised public departure to Victoria, scheduled for 21:44. The following day, the closure of the station was marked by the visit of ex-BR Pacific No. 70000 ‘’Britannia’’, with ‘’The Continental Farewell’’ rail tour from London Victoria. This had travelled via Balham, Beckenham Junction, and Tonbridge. The locomotive was masquerading as No. 70014 ‘’Iron Duke’’, which was one of two ‘’Britannias’’ formerly associated with the haulage of the famous ‘’Golden Arrow’’ on the South Eastern Division, between the years of 1952 and 1958 inclusive. At Western Docks, the tour met another ex-Golden Arrow locomotive, but of a more modern era: Type ‘’HA’’ E5000 series No. E5001. This locomotive fronted two tours on the same day, taking the excursion stock from Western Docks to Ashford and back, via Folkestone and Canterbury West.

 

It was not the total end of Dover Western Docks – yet. Until 19th November 1994, empty stock movements to and from the station continued to be available to passengers, albeit not advertised in the official timetable. Thereafter, the trainshed became a useful facility for stabling electric units for cleaning, until complete closure came with the decommissioning of the SE&CR signal box on 5th July of the following year. The bulldozers finally moved in at the beginning of 1996, but thankfully, since the main building was protected by Listed Status, demolitions only encompassed those additions made in 1959, as part of the Kent Coast Electrification Scheme. Naturally, the tightly curving track, with its famous crossovers, was also lifted, and as part of the works to convert the trainshed into a cruise liner terminal, the gap in-between the island platforms was in-filled, to provide a continuous floor at the same level. All red brick offices upon the platforms were retained, as was the elongated footbridge towards the Lord Warden Hotel. Even the substantial SE&CR signal box remained on site as office accommodation, but unlike the main station structure, this was not a Listed building. Tragically, the signal box met its end in 2000. The train ferry dock basin of 1936 was in-filled, and today its site is host to a sand operation.

 

The British Rail Board’s original report of 1989 outlined the closure of the Folkestone Harbour branch, but in the midst of the redevelopment at the Western Docks, the renowned steeply graded line continued to enjoy services. Unlike at Dover, where the passenger ferries at Eastern Docks were detached from the railway, Sea Cat sailings continued to operate from the railway pier at Folkestone, even after the opening of the Chunnel. These justified the retention of rail services to the Harbour station, which continued until the transference of the Sea Cat to Ramsgate in 2001.

 

kentrail.org.uk/dover_marine.htm

The British Columbia government is increasing staffing levels in residential care homes to make sure seniors are getting the quality care they need and deserve. By investing $240 million over three years, government will increase the direct care seniors receive to 3.36 hours per-resident day, on average, in each health authority, by 2021. Learn more: news.gov.bc.ca/18116

 

Little River Landcare group is undertaking a Machinery Conversion for Increased Soil Carbon project. This is a photo from a field day to four farms in the Cumnock area of central-west New South Wales.

 

This project is supported by the Little River Landcare Group Inc., through funding from the Australian Government's Caring for our Country.

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BC Minister of State John Yap celebrates with seniors in Richmond that now have increased access to affordable housing at The Maple Residences, a new building providing 144 units of seniors housing, funded by the governments of Canada and British Columbia along with community partners.

 

Through an amendment to the Canada-British Columbia Affordable Housing Agreement, the federal and provincial governments contributed a combined total of almost $4 million for the construction of 30 seniors' rental housing suites within the Maple Residences project in Richmond, a new building providing 144 units of seniors housing. The Government of B.C. also provided approximately $34.4 million in financing. Steveston Unit 284 of the Army, Navy and Air Force Veterans Association provided the land, valued at approximately $8.3 million.

 

I increased a shoe size after my pregnancy with all the extra fluid that I was carrying around. So I needed a new pair of shoes for the winter. I worked out this is my 7th pair of Chucks that I have had in my life.

 

Explored #126.

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Delicious, Easy-To-Make Smoothies For Rapid Weight Loss, Increased Energy, & Incredible Health. Getting into this diet was so easy and the results were so fast. After only 1 week on the Smoothie Diet I weighed myself and realized I had lost 8 pounds! I feel better and more confident than I have in a very long time, I don’t have to suck in my stomach to button my pants anymore and I still have to stop to do a double take everytime I walk in front of a mirror.”

 

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Ayyappan (also called Sastavu, Manikandan or Sasta) is a Hindu deity who is believed to be the son of Harihara, a rigvedic deity fused with both Shiva andVishnu. He is generally depicted in a yogic posture, wearing a jewel around his neck, hence named Manikandan, Literally meaning "With bell around the neck".

By the 20th century, there has been an increase in the number of worshipers of Ayyappan from many different groups, spurred by vast improvements in transport and communication in southern India.[2]

Ayyappan's annual festival is a time of pilgrimage for ever-growing numbers of men from throughout South India. The most prominent and famous Ayyappan shrine is the one at Sabarimala, in the hills of Pathanamthitta in Kerala, with over 30 million devotees visiting it every year,[3] making it one of the largestpilgrimage sites in the world. These devotees fast and engage in austerities under the leadership of a Periya Swami (one who has undertaken the pilgrimage to Sabarimala for 18 years) for weeks barefoot and then travel in groups to the shrine for a glimpse of Ayyappan. Bus tickets are hard to obtain for several weeks as masses of elated men, clad in distinctive ritual dhotis of saffron, black and light blue colors, throng public transportation during their trip to the shrine.[4]

The name "Sri Ayyappan" is used as a respectful form of address in Malayalam and Sanskrit. The equivalent of Sri is "Thiru" in Tamil. The mantra Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa is translated in English as, "Lord Ayyappa, I seek refuge in you".[5]

Contents [hide]

1 Etymology

2 Legends surrounding Ayyappan

2.1

3 In popular culture

4 See also

5 References

6 External links

Etymology[edit]

Ayyappan is known as "Hariharasutan" because he is the son of Hari (Vishnu), the saviour and Hara (Shiva), the destroyer. His most common name is "Manikandan" because when the king Rajasekara Pandiyan of Pandalam found little Ayyappan in a forest there was a "mani" (bell, in Malayalam) tied around his "kanda" (neck, in Sanskrit).[6][7]

As Dharma Sastha, many of them consider him to be born out of the union between Mohini (an avatar of Vishnu) andShiva.[8]

Legends surrounding Ayyappan[edit]

 

An ancient idol of Shasta Dharma, a form of Ayyappan

[edit]

The asura Mahishi was burning up with anger at the trick the gods had pulled on her brother, the asura king Mahishasura. As Mahishasura was blessed with invulnerability to all men, the gods had sent goddess Durga, to fight and kill him. Thus, Mahishi began performing a fearsome set of austerities, and pleased the creator god Brahma. She asked for the boon of invulnerability, but Brahma said it was not possible so Mahishi planned and asked invulnerability to all men except by the son of Shiva and Vishnu (Both are male & no possibility to give birth to any one). He granted her the boon of ruling the universe and being invulnerable except by the son of Shiva and Vishnu. Since such a person did not exist, she thought she was safe and began conquering and plundering the world.

The gods implored Shiva and Vishnu to save them from this catastrophe. Vishnu found a possible solution to the problem. When Vishnu had taken on the KurmaAvatar, he also had to manifest himself as Mohini, the enchantress, to save the nectar of immortality (ambrosia or amrit) from the demons who were not willing to share it with the gods. If he became Mohini again, then the female Mohini and the male Shiva could have the divine child who would combine the powers of Durga as per Brahmand Purana and beat Mahishi. Skanda purana states that Durga took birth in masculine form as Dharamshasta.[9]

Some versions give a slightly more detailed version of the union of Shiva with Vishnu. One version tells that the asura Bhasmasura (Bhasma means 'Ashes') had so pleased Lord Shiva with his austerities that Shiva gave him a boon of anything he wished. So Bhasmasura asked for the ability to burn to ashes anything which he placed his hand over. No sooner had Shiva granted this, than Bhasmasura ran after the god, threatening to turn him to ashes.

Shiva called to Lord Vishnu for help. He hide himself in a peepal tree as Bhasmasura ran here and there searching for the god. Vishnu became aware of the events, and decided that he would take the female form Mohini, "the Enchanting", and try to trump the asura's powers. When Bhasmasura saw Vishnu in this form, he was bewitched by her beauty. He earnestly tried to court her. So Vishnu instructed Bhasmasura to hold his hand over his head, and vow fidelity. With this act, Bhasmasura was reduced to ashes.

Vishnu found Shiva and explained the whole affair to him. Shiva asked if he too could see Vishnu in this female form. When Vishnu appeared thus, Shiva was overcome with passion, and united with her. The two gods thus became "Harihara Murthi", that is a composite form of Shiva and Vishnu as one god.

From this union, Lord Sree Dharma Sastha was born. He combined in himself the powers of Vishnu and Shiva. Lord Ayyappan is an incarnation of Lord Sree Dharma Sastha and Lord Ayyappan is a visible embodiment of their essential identity. Sri Ayyappa belongs to Pandya Royal Community. He was the head of a clan. It is believed Sri Ayyappa merged to sri dharma sastha. Lord Vishnu gifted the new-born deity with a little bejeweled bell necklace, so this god is called Manikantha. He is also Known as Dharma Shastha.

There are many popular stories associated with Him among the devotees. The stories differ, but there are certain common elements:

Ayyappa lived in the Pandalam Palace as the son / savior of the King.

He had super-human or divine knowledge, wisdom, and courage and loved the King and his people.

He protected the King and the kingdom from the attacks of enemies.

At the end of His life in Pandalam, He vanished into the forests and is ever since worshiped at the Sabarimala temple.

The most popular and widely accepted story tells that Lord Ayyappa had His human sojourn as the son of the Raja of Pandalam. At that time, Raja Rajasekhara Pandiyan ruled the kingdom of Pandalam. During one of his hunting expeditions, the Raja was puzzled to hear the wails of a child on the banks of the river Pampa, and was surprised to find a resplendent infant there. The beautiful baby with radiant face wore a bead ('mani') around his neck. The King, though pious, charitable, just, and God-fearing, had no children. He accepted the child as God's gracious response to his fervent prayer for an heir to his throne. Manikandan grew into a boy well versed in academic lore and martial arts. Meanwhile the Rani gave birth to a son. The King regarded Manikandan as his elder son. He decided to crown him as the Yuvaraja. The King's corrupt Minister had a deep dislike for Manikandan, and made the innocent Queen believe that ill would befall her if Manikandan was crowned Yuvaraja and that the kingdom actually belonged to her son.

They conspired to get rid of Manikandan by hook or crook. They bribed the royal physician into becoming an accomplice of theirs. The Rani pretended to be afflicted with severe pain in the stomach, and the physician prescribed the milk of a tigress as the only cure. The King knew that none could be deputed for a mission that was so patently suicidal. However, the youthful and valiant Manikandan stepped forth and volunteered to fetch the milk. Despite the worried protestations of his foster-father, he set out for the fearful forests.

Days later, Manikandan entered the palace precincts riding a fierce tigress and followed by a pack of its cubs. The schemers were frightened into confessing their nefarious plot. They and others now knew that Manikandan was no ordinary being. They were convinced of His divine origins, and prayed to Him to be with them for their own salvation and for the safety of the kingdom. However, Manikandan was now determined to leave the place.

Filled with happiness, grief, fear, wonder and bhakti and self-surrender, the king prayed for the mercy and blessings of Manikandan. He repented he could not fully visualize the truth of the divine powers of the Lord and repeatedly requested Him to forgive him for behaving as if He were only his son. The Lord lovingly embraced the King who continued to pray: " Lord, kindly bless me by freeing me from my egos and the worldly life of birth and rebirth and grant me ' moksha’ (salvation). Kindly continue to be the saviour of my family and stay eternally in my kingdom.” Manikandan then enlightened the King on the path of attainment of 'moksha'. These words of the Lord are contained in ‘Bhuthanathageetha'. To the King who is by now mentally cleansed and completely immersed in 'bhakthi', Lord Ayyappa said: "I am to free you from all worldly sorrows & worries and to grant you 'moksha'. All those who are and would be born in your family shall have my blessings unfailingly. I am always accessible to 'bhakthi' and only 'bhakthi." The Lord told the King that he could construct a temple at Sabarimala, north of the holy river Pampa and install His deity there. Ayyappa also explained how the Sabarimala pilgrimage shall be undertaken, emphasizing the importance of 'vrutham' and what the devotees can attain by His 'darshan'.

The Lord further consoled the King saying that the devotees who held him and his descendants in 'bhakthi' shall happen to be devoted to Him as well. Manikandan then blessed the King and all others assembled there, and vanished. The King duly constructed the temple at Sabarimala, dedicated to Him.

There are various tales connected with Lord Ayyappa: the discovery of the child at Pampa, Manikandan's youthful days in the Pandalam palace, bestowing the power of hearing and speaking upon the deaf and dumb son of His teacher as Guru-dakshina, His friendship with Vavar, bringing the tigress's milk, accomplishing His divinely destined mission of annihilation of the demoness Mahishi, eliminating the forest-thug Udayanan, bestowing moksha on Sabari, blessing His foster-father with moksha and so on. Legend also goes to say that Manikandan was the incarnation of Lord Dharma Sastha. Raja Rajasekhara was in his previous birth a rich and pious 'Brahmin ' by name Vijayan who was a very strong believer and devotee of Lord Dharma Sastha.

Another tale goes like this: Lord Ayyappan as Manikandan born to Pandala Maharaja is set to conquer the King Udayan who is a strong Buddhist and has been harassing the people of Pamba region. Maharaja sends Manikandan to learn martial artsKalari to Cheerappanchira, the Muhamma of today in Alappuzha district. The panicker there trains him of Kalari. It is here where the Guru's daughter Nila falls in love with Lord Ayyappa (Manikandan) but He refuses to marry telling he is a Bhrammachari and has a mission. She offers a sweet made out in a function in their family which Lord likes. This sweet payasam was what turned out to be the Aravanapayasam today.

The 2012 album of P. Unnikrishnan on Lord Ayyappan in Tamil called SABARIMALAI VA CHARANAM SOLLI VA has a song on the Ayyappan temple at Mukkal vettom (Cheerappanchira) where the current priest, of the vamsam of Lord's Guru who trained him Kalari, still performs the poojas for the Lord who poses with the war attire.

A Holy Song that is used to wake up Ayyappan in Sabarimala temple is known as Ayyappa Suprabhatham, an another song which for making ayyappa sleep is the famous song Harivarasanam.

Technopride 5 Anos (Open Air) - São Paulo, Brasil - 23.11.2008

Increased geothermal activity in Hveragerði due to the May 29´th 6.3 earthquake

Sedentarism and physical inactivity is highly prevalent globally, and are associated with a wide range of chronic diseases and premature deaths. The interest in sedentary behaviour is justified by a growing body of evidence that points to a relationship between this lifestyle and the increase in the prevalence of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It has been known throughout history that being inactive is unhealthy, but nowadays almost one-third of the world's population is inactive, thus representing a major public health problem.

 

El sedentarismo y la inactividad física son altamente prevalentes globalmente y están asociados a un amplio rango de enfermedades crónicas y muerte prematura. El interés en la conducta sedentaria está justificado por la creciente evidencia que apunta hacia una relación entre esta conducta y el incremento en la prevalencia de obesidad, diabetes y enfermedad cardiovascular. A través de la historia es bien conocido que ser inactivo no es saludable, pero hoy día casi un tercio de la población del mundo es inactiva, lo que representa un serio problema de salud pública.

 

Many readers will be aware of the dose/response relationship that exists between exercise and health: the greater the physical activity (PA), the better the individual's overall health. However, few studies have focused on the consequences of lack of PA, and this will be the main subject of this article.

 

It is easier to understand the significance of the change in human beings from a nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle by looking back on our evolutionary history.

 

About 3.7 million years ago, one of the first hominids to walk on two feet appeared in Ethiopia: Australopithecus afarensis. Bipedalism allowed these hominids to use their hands to grasp branches and stones as tools or weapons, and to gather food (fruits, seeds, roots, etc.), while their long legs allowed them to travel farther and depend less on trees. In addition, their slightly curved hands, shorter fingers, and arched feet allowed them to climb trees, while the medial arch of the foot allowed them to run after their prey or flee from predators or enemy tribes.1

 

The design of the human organism (encoded in its genes) is known to be the result of millions of years of biological evolution. Nearly all the human genome was formed before the transition from hunting and gathering to farming, and this is believed to have been the optimal genome - the one that enabled us to adapt to the changing environmental conditions faced by our ancestors at each stage of our evolution.

 

In nature, obtaining food always requires high muscle energy expenditure. This is true of both carnivores (running in pursuit of prey) or herbivores (looking for the best foliage and, in smaller animals, watching out for predators). The capacity of our metabolism to adapt to cycles of abundance and food shortage (the thrifty genotype) was a beneficial factor in the evolution of our ancestors.2 When food was abundant, our thrifty metabolism took over, allowing us to accumulate large amounts of energy in the form of fatty deposits and muscle glycogen. Individuals with the thrifty phenotype were less likely to die out during periods of famine, since they were more efficient at using the energy stored in their body. Muscle proteins were conserved, and muscle contraction was more efficient, increasing their likelihood of finding food and surviving the crisis.2

 

It is also interesting to note the impact on the central nervous system, which controls all bodily movements at all time variables, from milliseconds to hours, days, months and years, leading to the evolutionary-induced expansion of certain regions of our cerebral cortex.1 As a result, PA strengthened both muscle and brain cells.

 

Homo sapiens (“wise man”, because he had certain skills absent in his predecessors) appeared in Africa 300,000 years ago and ranged over the continent for 200,000 years before spreading to the rest of the world, even as far as Australia. It was this expansion that sparked a major cognitive revolution about 70,000 years ago, further expanding our ecological niches, defined as the way in which we interact with our environment. In fact, this intellectual “big bang” facilitated the development of amazing cognitive skills, such as the ability to learn, understand and anticipate complex phenomena, memorise a great deal of detail, and establish multiple communications with the environment, particularly with other humans.3 About 10,000 years ago, several human groups discovered ways to produce certain foods, compelling them to create settlements and abandon their nomadic lifestyle.3

 

This summary of our evolution shows that human beings are active by nature. They spent most of their evolutionary history wandering over the land, and only transitioned to sedentary lifestyle about 10,000 years ago, when they became farmers.

 

Even the most ancient civilisations knew that reducing the amount of physical effort made in our daily life causes the organs that govern bodily movement to lower their output and adapt their operative capacity to the lower demands of their social group. However, Hippocrates (377 b.c.) believed in the benefits of PA, and warned that4: “All parts of the body which have a function, if used in moderation and exercised in labors in which each is accustomed, become thereby healthy, well developed and age more slowly, but if unused they become liable to disease, defective in growth and age quickly”.

 

However, reliable scientific evidence of the relationship between physical inactivity and the risk of chronic disease only began to emerge in the mid 1950s5, sparking interest in research into the four basic aspects of the problem6–10:

 

a.

The increased use of technology to accomplish daily tasks, making humans more sedentary.

 

b.

The physiological evidence of specific effects that sedentary behaviour has on our metabolism and health.

 

c.

Instruments, such as accelerometers and questionnaires, can now be used to objectively and reliably measure the time spent physically inactive.

 

d.

The difficulties involved in motivating individuals to become more active and engage in more strenuous PA in order to reduce sitting time. This is the most pressing area of study.

 

The situation is further complicated by the fact that sedentary behaviour does not simply mean less PA, but involves a set of individual attitudes in which sitting or lying becomes the predominant postural form, thus greatly reducing energy expenditure. Furthermore, sedentary behaviour is found in a multitude of places and situations: at work, at school, at home, in our means of transport and our leisure activities, and is accompanied by other harmful habits, such as increased caloric intake or smoking.

 

In recent decades, sedentary behaviour has become a serious problem that has been aggravated over time by the introduction of new technological inventions. These devices, which are designed to make our lives easier, have ultimately increased our immobility, since working, playing, shopping or doing housework no longer requires the same physical effort needed 50 years ago. Today, everything can be done using a computer, a washing machine, a dryer, a car and other devices developed to reduce our muscle activity and increase our sedentary behaviour.The morbidity associated with sedentary behaviour came increasingly under the spotlight in the 1990s, through programmes introduced in several countries to encourage PA and health. These programmes, which were basically devised to disseminate PA and health recommendations, are based on the notion that the general population is unaware of the importance and need for PA, and, therefore, do not engage in such activities.

 

Given the scale of the problem, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report in 2004,11 subsequently updated in 2010,12 that lists sedentary behaviour as the fourth greatest risk factor for mortality (6% of deaths recorded worldwide).

 

A more recent report estimated that physical inactivity is responsible for:13

 

–

6% of the burden of disease from coronary heart disease (CHD).

 

–

7% of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2).

 

–

10% of breast cancer.

 

–

10% of colon cancer.

 

–

Inactivity is responsible for 9% of premature mortality or >5.3% of the 57 million deaths that occurred worldwide in 2008.

 

If inactivity were decreased by 10% or 25%, >533,000 and >1.3 million deaths, respectively, may be averted each year.13 By eliminating physical inactivity, the life expectancy of the world's population is estimated to increase by 0.68 (0.41 to 0.95) years.13

 

Physical inactivity also carries a heavy economic burden. A report published in 2016 with data from 142 countries (93.2% of the world's population) estimated the direct health costs and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for various diseases:14

 

–

Physical inactivity cost health-care systems 53.8 billion international dollars (Int’l$) in 2013.

 

–

Physical inactivity-related deaths contribute to Int’l$ 13.7 billion in productivity losses.

 

–

Physical inactivity was responsible for 13.4 million DALYs worldwide.

 

–

High-income countries bear a larger proportion of economic burden (80.8% of health-care costs and 60.4% of indirect costs), whereas low-income and middle-income countries have a larger proportion of the disease burden (75.0% of DALYs).

 

As for prevalence, a recent study estimates that more than one in four adults (28% or 1.8 billion people) are physically inactive (one in three in some countries)15, and women are less active than men, with more than 8% difference between the sexes (32% in men vs. 24% in women). High-income countries have the highest levels of inactivity (32%) compared to 26% and 16%, respectively, in middle- and low-income countries. These results highlight the urgent need to prioritise actions aimed at creating an environment conducive to increasing PA.

 

Sedentary behaviour as a risk factor

The extent of the problem and the role of PA as a risk factor for disease is outlined in the WHO report published in 2014.16 Briefly:

 

–

The risk of death from any cause is higher among adults with insufficient PA compared with those who practise at least the minimum recommendation of 150minutes of moderate physical exercise per week or equivalent.

 

–

23% of adults aged 18 years or older did not do enough PA. Women were less active than men, and older people were less active than young people.

 

–

Worldwide, 81% of adolescents (aged 11 to 17) did not do enough PA in 2014, with girls being less active than boys; and 84% and 78%, respectively, did not meet the WHO global recommendations on physical activity for health.

 

The clinical consequences of sedentary behaviour on various bodily systems are wide-ranging and inter-related (Fig. 1). They can be summarised as functional and/or organic alterations:8,10,17–28

 

–

Metabolic: obesity, insulin resistance, DM2, dyslipidaemia, metabolic syndrome, hyperuricaemia.

 

–

Cardiovascular diseases: CHD, unstable angina, myocardial infarction, heart failure, stroke, intermittent claudication, atherosclerosis, thrombosis, hypertension, increased arterial stiffness.

 

–

Pulmonary alterations: asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

 

–

Neurological diseases: intellectual dysfunction, dementia, depression, mood disorder and anxiety, Alzheimer's disease.

 

–

Musculoskeletal disorders: osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis and osteopenia, sarcopenia.

 

–

Greater physical frailty, especially in the elderly, which, in turn, increases the risk of morbidity and mortality.

 

–

Quality of life: decreased psychological well-being, psychological frailty, inability to perform activities of daily living and social interactions, functional restriction, loss of balance, flexibility and reaction and sleep irregularities (difficulty falling asleep, frequent waking during the night, or waking up very early in the morning).

 

–

Constipation and changes in the gut microbiota.

 

–

Malignancies, such as cancer of the breast, colon, endometrium, prostate, pancreas and melanomas.

 

–

Shorter life expectancy.

  

In anthropology, sedentism (sometimes called sedentariness; compare sedentarism[1]) is the practice of living in one place for a long time. As of 2025, the large majority of people belong to sedentary cultures. In evolutionary anthropology and archaeology, sedentism takes on a slightly different sub-meaning, often applying to the transition from nomadic society to a lifestyle that involves remaining in one place permanently. Essentially, sedentism means living in groups permanently in one place.[2] The invention of agriculture led to sedentism in many cases, but the earliest sedentary settlements were pre-agricultural. For small-scale nomadic societies it can be difficult to adopt a sedentary lifestyle in a landscape without on-site agricultural or livestock breeding resources, since sedentism often requires sufficient year-round, easily accessible local natural resources.Logically, metabolic and cardiovascular alterations are the most common and the most characteristic of the burden of disease, because once established they gradually progress, despite aggressive treatment. The other alterations, however, can be reversed or improved by exercise programmes and pharmacological therapy, if necessary.

 

A recently identified consequence of sedentary behaviour is the loss of metabolic flexibility,8,29,30 that is, the ability to adapt substrate oxidation rates in response to changes in fuel availability. The inability to switch between the oxidation of lipids and carbohydrates appears to be an important feature of chronic disorders such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Evidence has shown that high levels of physical activity predict metabolic flexibility, while physical inactivity and sedentary behaviours trigger a state of metabolic inflexibility, even in subjects who meet PA recommendations.8,29,30

 

Definition of terms

In their Terminology Consensus Project,31 the Sedentary Behaviour Research Network established and defined the following terms:

 

–

PA: any body movement generated by the contraction of skeletal muscles that raises energy expenditure above resting metabolic rate. It is characterised by its modality, frequency, intensity, duration, and context of practice.

 

–

Physical inactivity: the non-achievement of physical activity guidelines.

 

–

Exercise: a subcategory of PA that is planned, structured, repetitive, and that favours physical fitness maintenance or development.

 

–

Sport: part of the PA spectrum and corresponds to any institutionalised and organised practice, based on specific rules.

 

–

Sedentary behaviours: any waking behaviours characterised by an energy expenditure ≤1.5 METs, while in a sitting, reclining, or lying posture.

 

Table 1 lists some activities with an energy expenditure of less than 1.5 METs, and, therefore, classed as sedentary. These activities should be borne in mind when estimating sedentary behaviour, as patients will not usually consider them to be sedentary.It is important to note that although the terms sedentary behaviour and physical inactivity are used indistinctly, there is a clear distinction between them. Sedentary behaviour involves spending a great deal of time engaging in low-energy-expenditure activities (<1.5 MET), whereas physical inactivity is an almost total absence of PA.16,17

 

It is interesting to note that an increase in the time devoted to sedentary behaviours correlates with an increase in cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors. The effect of sedentary behaviours on these markers is independent of sociodemographic factors, diet, body mass index and PA.17 These findings are important, since they show that the effect of sedentary behaviours on these variables is not modulated by a higher caloric intake, but by a reduction in energy expenditure.17

 

As sedentarism is a learned behaviour of human beings that has increased exponentially during the 21st century, the risk factors or conditions that favour it are not yet known. However, various lines of research have identified the following general factors, particularly in younger individuals:32–35

 

a.

Demographic: demographic factors include sex, age and ethnicity. Numerous publications show that women are less active than men and older children, and adolescents are less active than younger children. Among women, those of African descent are less active than Caucasians.

 

b.

Personal: certain personal factors, such as underlying diseases (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma, chronic orthopaedic diseases) or disability, predispose to sedentary behaviours due to the child's tendency to remain sedentary or to their preference for activities that demand less energy expenditure. Other factors include: self-perceived lack of time, inappropriate relationship with peers and an activity they find boring or unattractive. Individual factors that are positively associated with PA are: self-confidence to engage in exercise, personal ability, positive attitude towards PA, interest in self-improvement and ability to enjoy PA. Age is an important factor in this category, since research has revealed that children up to the age of 8engage in moderate to vigorous PA, but start to become less active from the age of 1136, making this a crucial period for PA interventions.

 

c.

Family: this is perhaps the most important factor, since the preferences and habits of the parents will affect the extent to which the child is encouraged to engage in PA or certain motor activities. Watching TV is more influenced by the parents’ attitude towards this activity than by the number of TVs in the home. Other situations, such as both parents’ growing commitment to their jobs, and single-parent families, may affect the possibility of engaging in extracurricular PA.

 

d.

Social and environmental: the lack of, or difficulty in accessing, green spaces and safe sports facilities in large cities, restrictions on supervision by qualified personnel, education budget limitations, changes in curricular priorities, impoverishment and civil insecurity are some of the many factors that discourage participation in and limit access to PA both during and out of school hours.

 

The “chair effect” and its repercussions on health

As mentioned above, our modern lifestyle reduces the time we spend doing PA. In fact, over the last decade, several studies have shown that excessive sitting time can increase the risk of death, irrespective of whether or not we do exercise.

 

A review published in 201237 used data from 2002 to 2011 to estimate the proportion of deaths attributable to the “chair effect” in the population of 54 countries, with the following results:

 

–

More than 60% of people worldwide spend more than three hours a day sitting (the average in adults is 4.7hours/day).

 

–

Sitting time is responsible for 3.8% of deaths (approximately 433,000 deaths/year).

 

–

Among the territories studied, mortality due to sitting time was higher in countries from the Western Pacific region, followed by countries in Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, America and Southeast Asia.

 

The authors calculated that reducing sitting time by about two hours (that is, 50%) would result in a 2.3% decrease in mortality (3 times less), although there is no conclusive proof of a causal relationship. Even a more modest reduction in sitting time, of 10% or half an hour a day, could have an immediate impact on all-cause mortality (0.6%) in the countries evaluated, and eliminating sitting time would increase life expectancy by 0.20 years in the countries studied.

 

In 2017, the “Termómetro del sedentarismo en España: Informe sobre la inactividad física y el sedentarismo en la población adulta española” [Thermometer of sedentary behaviour in Spain: Report on physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour in Spanish adults] published by the Fundación España Activa [Active Spain Foundation] and the Centro de Estudios del Deporte [Sports Studies Centre] of the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos38 showed an alarming upward trend:

 

–

Physical inactivity is responsible for 13.4% (over 52,000) of deaths per year in Spain. This means that 6.6 people die every hour from this cause compared to 3.7 deaths reported in the meta-analysis carried out by Rezende et al.37

 

–

Nearly half of all Spanish adults do not practise any sport and do not do any exercise or any other physically demanding activity in their spare time.

 

–

The least qualified social classes (lower occupational category) are less active in their free time, while those with higher qualifications are less active during their working hours. In other words, the greater the economic development, the higher the level of sedentary behaviour, and, therefore, the greater the associated health risks.

 

Population impact

Although sedentary behaviour affects all age groups, the extreme age groups are the most affected for the following reasons:13,15,16,39–41

 

a.

Schoolchildren and adolescents: logically, due to the impact on health in adulthood, which increases the risk of obesity, DM2 and hypertension. Because of the size of this age group, more effort is obviously needed to ensure adequate levels of PA in all social classes.

 

b.

Women are the most affected, since inactivity rate among women is 8% higher than in men. This gender gap has widened steadily over the 21st century, perhaps as a result of cultural norms, traditional roles, or lack of social and community support from an early age.

 

c.

The elderly: as older people tend to be more physically inactive, the economic costs of inactivity are likely to increase notably and place a heavy burden on healthcare budgets. In a study conducted in Germany, the potential effects of interventions aimed at promoting PA in the over-65s compensated for the negative effect of ageing and reduced inactivity-related healthcare costs.41 In other words, this single action was doubly beneficial.

 

Cultural differences also affect levels of physical activity. An example of this is Switzerland, where the population is divided into three distinct language groups: French, Italian and German.42 An analysis of regional differences showed that the per capita burden of physical inactivity is nearly double in French and Italian speaking regions compared to the German speaking population, perhaps due to a higher prevalence of physical inactivity, higher per capita healthcare spending, and higher disease prevalence.

 

Of course, the foregoing is also true of the correlation between physical inactivity and social strata or the stage of development of the country. The higher the population density and the human development index (HDI), the greater the percentage of physical inactivity in the population. For example, estimates have shown that in low- and middle-income countries, individuals working in the white-collar industry compared to agriculture were 84% more likely to be physically inactive, and greater economic development in these countries brings about changes in their occupational structure, resulting in increased physical inactivity levels.43,44 Moreover, between 2001 and 2016, the percentage of inactivity in high-income countries (where sedentary behaviour is most harmful) increased from 31.6 to 36.8%. In the same period, inactivity in low-income countries remained at 16%.15

 

Conclusion and recommendations

Sedentary behaviour is increasing rapidly in most countries, and is now a public health problem that will worsen over the coming years. An analysis of the time spent doing PA in five major countries (China, the USA, the United Kingdom, Brazil and India) showed a significant decrease compared to previous years, and this downward trend is expected to increase in the future.45 In the USA, for example, the average sitting time increased from 26hours per week in 1965 to 38hours per week in 2009, and from 30hours per week in 1960 to 42hours per week in 2005 in the United Kingdom.

 

Although public policies and research into PA are much more developed today than they were decades ago, strategies to change sedentary behaviour are timid and only just emerging, and little progress has been made in recent years.

 

The universal recommendation is for adults to engage in moderate-intensity PA for 30minutes per day, preferably most days of the week46, although “usual” PA has now been included as a strategy to reduce sedentary behaviour3,9,16,46.

 

In view of the benefits of PA, physicians should recommend a minimum level of daily exercise. Even a low level of PA, if strenuous, can also be beneficial in reducing cardiovascular risk, especially for those with risk factors or a history of vascular disease. The following are just some of the recommendations published by working groups engaged in promoting PA, both individually and at the community level3,9,16,46:

 

a.

Organise large-scale, intensive campaigns in prominent locations in the community.

 

b.

Encourage people to use the stairs instead of lifts or escalators.

 

c.

Promote physical education/sports in schools and universities.

 

d.

Organise social activities (such as walking groups).

 

e.

Introduce individually-tailored behavioural change programmes; specifically, limit recreational screen time in children and adolescents.

 

f.

Facilitate access to locations suitable for PA.

 

g.

Motivate people to reduce sitting time to two hours or less, with active pauses every hour and short stretching sessions or walks.

 

In summary, in the fight against sedentary behaviour, remember that: “A little PA is better than none. More PA is better than less PA”, and that doctors are under the obligation of setting an example in their community by living a more active, healthier lifestyle, and “walking their talk”.

 

Funding

None.

 

Conflicts of interest

The author declares that this review has received no commercial or financial contributions that could represent a potential conflict of interest.

www.elsevier.es/en-revista-clinica-e-investigacion-arteri...

 

Non-agricultural sedentism requires good preservation and storage technologies, such as smoking, drying, and fermentation, as well as good containers such as pottery, baskets, or special pits in which to securely store food whilst making it available. It was only in locations where the resources of several major ecosystems overlapped that the earliest non-agricultural sedentism occurred. For example, people settled where a river met the sea, at lagoon environments along the coast, at river confluences, or where flat savanna met hills, and mountains with rivers.

 

Forced sedentism or sedentarization occurs when a dominant group restricts the movements of a nomadic group. Nomadic populations have undergone such a process since the first cultivation of land; the organization of modern society has imposed demands that have pushed aboriginal populations to adopt a fixed habitat.

 

At the end of the 19th and throughout the 20th century many previously nomadic tribes turned to permanent settlement. It was a process initiated by local governments, and it was mainly a global trend forced by the changes in the attitude to the land and real property and also due to state policies that complicated border crossing. Among these nations are Negev Bedouin in Jordan, Israel and Egypt,[13] Bashkirs, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Evenks, Evens, Sakha in the Soviet Union, some Kurdish tribes in Turkey, Tibetan nomads in China,[14] Babongo in Gabon, Baka in Cameroon,[15] Innu in Canada, Romani in Romania and Czechoslovakia, etc.

 

As a result of forced sedentarization, many rich herdsmen in Siberia have been eliminated by deliberate overtaxation or imprisonment, year-round mobility has been discouraged, many smaller sites and family herd camps have been shut down, children have been separated from their parents and taken to boarding schools. This caused severe social, cultural and psychological issues to Indigenous peoples of Siberia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedentism

  

dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2012.01.007 | Medline

 

dx.doi.org/10.15310/2334-3591.1061

dx.doi.org/10.5027/reinnec.V1.I1.5

dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2010.06.001

dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12966-017-0636-2

dx.doi.org/10.1152/ajpendo.90920.2008

 

June 27, 2018 - Bronx, NY - Governor Andrew Cuomo signs legislation to increase protections for immigrant children in New York State. Governor signs bill to allow immigrant parents to appoint a standby guardian and signs additional bill to allow parents to identify temporary caretaker for 12 months.

State Senator Carlo Leone speaks with Stamford Police Officer Troy Strauser, who was critically injured while participating in a police chase in May of 2012. The suspect in question later plead guilty to a mere misdemeanor. Today Governor Malloy signed into law increased legal penalties for interference with an officer that results in the death or serious injury of another person.

Air Dolomiti ATR 42-500

 

The first delivery of ATR 42-500 was in October 1995. It was a completely new design with many new improvements for performance and passenger comfort. It had new engines, new propellers, a newly designed cabin and increased weight capacity.

 

The six-bladed propellers turned by PW127E engines rated at 2,400 shp (1,800 kW) for improved hot and high performance and greatly increased cruise speed. Propellers are electrically controlled and are made from composite. It had an increased maximum takeoff weight, allowing for more cargo and greater range (up to 1,500 nm). Due to the six-bladed propellers and better insulation, there was reduced noise level inside the cabin. The latest versions had CATII capability and

dual Honeywell HT1000

Sushi and drinks at the Dragonfish Cafe, Seattle, WA.

From regular to bold by increasing stroke contrast. Work from students from my course Typeface Design 1 as shown at Einblick/Ausblick 2016

From a natural rill at the beginning of the 17th century, the harbour of Seaton Sluice was transformed by Sir Ralph Delaval between 1660 and l690 to satisfy an increasing demand for Hartley coal. Stone walls were raised, piers were built at the north entrance to the harbour and an ingenious system of sluice gates installed, which enabled the tidal waves to scour the bottom of the channel to remove sand and silt which continually built up in the harbour entrance. These early improvements were not entirely successful due to the limited depth of water in the natural harbour and ships had to be part-loaded then taken out into deeper water at the entrance of the harbour to be loaded to their full capacity by keel boats, adding both to the expense and causing delays. Access to the harbour was also extremely difficult when a North-East wind prevailed and the limitations of these early improvements to the harbour, in coping with the ever-increasing trade in coal arid salt, were soon realised.

 

By the middle of the 18th century Sir John Hussey Delaval in conjunction with his brother, Thomas Delaval, had drawn up plans and specifications to cut a new harbour eastward through solid rock. Tenders were invited in August 1761 in the Newcastle Courant and by 1764 the work was completed. A major engineering feat in its day the 'cut, or 'gut' as it is now locally known, was some 270 metres long. 9 metres wide, 15 metres deep. On the 22 August 1764 with Captain Curry at the helm, the 'Warkworth' was the first to sail out of the new harbour with a cargo of 270 tonne of coal. Today, Seaton Sluice has changed into a quiet resort which shows little sign of its industrial past. The bottleworks and shipping have long since gone, and the Seaton Burn trickles gently down into the once busy little harbour where small fishing boats now occupy the moorings. Many of the old inns and pubs of the day have also disappeared, but despite this Seaton Sluice still has many hidden secrets and stories to tell! GCCC57

Arlington National Cemetery is proposing to increase its contiguous acreage by utilizing an area adjacent to the existing cemetery, the former Navy Annex site, now known as the Southern Expansion site. To accomplish this, the Cemetery has been working with the owners and operators of the adjacent road network, Arlington County and VDOT, to pursue a roadway realignment and land exchange agreement. (U.S. Army photo/Patrick Bloodgood)

 

Increased ridership due to the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow meant that a fair amount of "foreign" rolling stock visited Scotland in late July and early August during the course of the Games in order to provide extra capacity. At Edinburgh Waverly station, First Trans-Pennine EMUs (coupled to the London Midland stock in the next shot) await departure time with an extra-long 18.26 Ayr service via Carstairs, Glasgow Central and Prestwick.

Ecovolis program has proven successful in dramatically increasing bicycle use in Tirana, which, formerly, was a city without a developed bicycle culture. Ecovolis program is the first project in Albania that provides low-income adults with commuter bicycles as well as a donating program for children bicycles. The program recently completed two major steps, opening new bike stations in the city of Durrës and integrating Tourist Information Point Service to the bicycles stations' structure.

History

The Tirana Community Bicycle Albania project won financial support from the George Soros Open Society Foundation Albania (OSFA). An even larger contribution came from the US-based Pedal for Progress organization, which donated 450 bicycles. Sixty of these were used road bikes, which were modified and painted by local technicians to serve as public bikes in the Ecovolis scheme. Another portion was set aside to donate to children and to activists and volunteers at PASS. Still another portion were diverted to the project's Eco Bicycle Shop, a social enterprise which sells bikes for USD 50-150 and reinvests profits for the service and maintenance of Ecovolis bicycles. The main objective of the program was to introduce the community to an inexpensive, environmental friendly form of transport -- the bicycle; to sell used bikes at low prices; to donate bikes to the children of needy families and to PASS volunteers; to establish a bike sharing-scheme in the city (Ecovolis); and to employ financially disadvantaged people and young students to operate the bike-sharing scheme.

System

Each Ecovolis station is staffed by two employees in two shifts and contains 30 -- 60 bicycles. In order to use the bicycles it is required to provide a personal identification document (such as passport or ID card) or by subscribing to the Ecovolis membership Card.

The first black and red bicycles, (also the colors of the Albanian flag) were donated from US-organization Pedal for Progress, (which collect and donate used bicycles). As these bicycles were of different types, converting them for safe and comfortable public use took months of work. The price per bicycle varies from 60 US$ to 90 US$ each. The bicycle is equipped with a front bicycle basket, a behind carrier, a comfortable saddle and a public fender with the Ecovolis sign.

The bicycle stations also provide touristic information to the visitors and a list of the city attractions. Moreover, being a non-profit social enterprise, during particular days the program offers free bicycle service, cycling courses, donations of bicycles and helmets for children in need, bike tours and a bicycle recycle program.

Happy 50th anniversary La Silla Observatory

from yours @Spaceholix

with our travelbuddies,

the #SpaceMascots

@PinkLilDragon & houseguest @CamillaSpace

 

Thank YOU for being such a vital part of #TheCreationOfSpaceInspiration - not only for our family!

 

By discovering @ESO on social media back in 2012 during your #ESO50Years contest

YOU -amongst other space and science agencies- daily increased my curiosity and my wish to learn more about things out of my everyday business,

to explore and try things well outside my comfort zone and to #DareMightyThings.

One small step led to another and by nurturing that seed in me, an amazing journey gained speed for the three of us.

 

Thanks to the #MagicPowerOfSocialMedia,

my family and I explored some the most amazing places, met some the most inspiring people ever since, connected with people from all walks of life and from all around our beautiful #BlueDot sharing our passion for #Space and #Science - turning into an ever growing #SpaceFamily.

Thus YOU helped to enrich our lives with numerous unforgettable and often #ForrestGumpLikeMemories.

 

In a few of my entries for your first contest #ESO50Years #GoParanal from 2012 I wrote that I want to inspire my little one and to show him the beauty of our world and our universe and I am happy that -so far- we had many great chances doing so and I am looking forward to the future.

 

Sometimes I am wondering, how this German gal here with no professional scientific background at all did become a certified #AsteroidHunterRookie and #MeteoriteHunterRookie, live tweeted from @CERN‘s #LHC and -together with my family attended many space / science events by ESA and NASA TEDx and SpaceUp conferences traveling around our marble,...

 

... Organizing small space gatherings and sharing my art work and little mementos of our adventures specially designed for many of those events with all attendees AND speakers became a fond tradition in the past 7 years.

And having seen many astronauts, from Mercury and Apollo who flew to and walked on the moon to today’s inhabitants of the #ISS, astronomers, scientists, and our growing #SpaceFamily wearing my badges and lanyards and having them sign our Thank You posters always makes me smile.

And having become a member of the #IAAA (INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ASTRONOMICAL ARTISTS iaaa.org), with my artwork being auctioned off by Apollo astronauts and a painting which will be exhibited under #SpaceShuttle #Atlantis on 21.12.2018 during the #Apollo8 #Earthrise celebration also marking the launch of project #Constellation created by Nicole Passonno Stott, Ron Garan, Anousheh Ansari and Leland Melvin AT Kennedy Space Center in Florida will forever be surreal.

As THIS is the place where I finally fell in love with everything around #Space during watching my 1st of 3 #SpaceShuttle launches of #STS115 back in 2006.

AND from where I sent my very first tweet EVER on July 8th 2011, while watching the final launch of #Shuttle #Atlantis together with @LightspeedLeo on the day he turned 9 months old. What a birthday candle that was.

 

#OneSmallStepForHumankindOneGiantLeapForMe

 

I LOVE it, when things come to full circles ;-)

 

www.constellation.earth/1221

 

simonkregar.com/constellationearthrise

 

I am so looking forward to the day when our now 8 year old son will understand, whom he met since being a toddler and to which places we were invited.

 

So I want to thank all of you around @ESO for inviting the public to #ReachingBeyondTheStars -literally and figuratively and for doing what you do.

 

You all make a difference.

And knowing that OUR story is only one of many inspired by your work is amazing.

 

#SharedMemoriesAreTheBest

 

My thanks also go to:

 

@bethbeck @NASA @NASASocial

@ExploreSpaceKSC @NASA_Johnson @NASAJPL @spacesuitart

@esa @ESA_de @esaoperations @ESA_EAC

@DLR_de @DLR_en @social4space

@CERN @GSI_DE @GSI_en @ScienceTweetup

@ASE_Astronauts @NASA_Astronauts

@Spacefest @ArtOfAstronomy

@SpaceUpConf

@GriffithObserv @VaticanObserv @keckobservatory @LowellObs

@AlanStern @NewHorizons2015 @OneEarthMessage

@NASAHubble @HUBBLE_space

@SGAC @NEOProjectsSGAC

@ESA_Rosetta @Philae2014 @ESA_Gaia

@MeteoriteMen @GeoffNotkin

@Spacerockslive @NSS

 

... and many more ...

 

Twitter @4tuneQkie

Facebook ALeox Neumann

Flickr www.flickr.com/photos/spaceholix/albums

  

The Pakistan Strategy Support Program (PSSP) held the conference, “Increasing Productivity and Unleashing Growth” at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad on May 26-27th, 2012. This conference also marked the final round of the Competitive Grants Program that was launched by PSSP in January 2012 for Pakistani PhD and graduate students studying locally and abroad on economic development issues of Pakistan. The finalists presented in front of the Research Advisory Committee, donor heads, professors and students from local universities. The event also consisted of plenary sessions on Pakistan’s various economic growth issues by renowned academics from all over the world, such as Dr. Jock Anderson, Dr. Regina Birner and Dr. David Spielman.

Pikachu and Ryo-Ohki work to increase bandwidth for work-at-home network customers during this difficult time.

Transfer to CAL FIRE From NASA to increase air fleet

 

I increased vibrancy, clarity, and contrast. I also made the photo warmer with temp. I didn't really know what to do with the smoke in the lower right of the photo, it just looks like a lot of noise,

The Pakistan Strategy Support Program (PSSP) held the conference, “Increasing Productivity and Unleashing Growth” at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad on May 26-27th, 2012. This conference also marked the final round of the Competitive Grants Program that was launched by PSSP in January 2012 for Pakistani PhD and graduate students studying locally and abroad on economic development issues of Pakistan. The finalists presented in front of the Research Advisory Committee, donor heads, professors and students from local universities. The event also consisted of plenary sessions on Pakistan’s various economic growth issues by renowned academics from all over the world, such as Dr. Jock Anderson, Dr. Regina Birner and Dr. David Spielman.

Increasing access for women and girls to physical education and soccer helps them build confidence and a stronger social integration. Involving girls in soccer alongside with boys can help overcome prejudice that often contribute to social vulnerability of women and girls in a given society.

  

Increasing twitter followers is also very interesting task so now you do not need to worry anymore because you can buy twitter followers from us and use it for you. Visit: buyourpromo.com/buy-soundcloud-plays/

Samsung camera pictures

The Pakistan Strategy Support Program (PSSP) held the conference, “Increasing Productivity and Unleashing Growth” at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad on May 26-27th, 2012. This conference also marked the final round of the Competitive Grants Program that was launched by PSSP in January 2012 for Pakistani PhD and graduate students studying locally and abroad on economic development issues of Pakistan. The finalists presented in front of the Research Advisory Committee, donor heads, professors and students from local universities. The event also consisted of plenary sessions on Pakistan’s various economic growth issues by renowned academics from all over the world, such as Dr. Jock Anderson, Dr. Regina Birner and Dr. David Spielman.

Increased traffic and pedestrians, early sunset, a host of distractions and scam artists make parking lots one of the more dangerous places during the holiday season.

The ever-increasing prominence of massage therapy among individuals globally has actually introduced a highly effective and lucrative occupation in the field of massage therapy. Individuals are looking forward to become a massage therapist and give skilled services in this sector. The process of massage therapy can be very excruciating and laborious for a massage specialist yet there is a terrific scope to get popularity and money in this industry. It is recommended to choose a narcotics abuse therapist that after recognizing your trouble will certainly suggest the correct remedy to address your complication of addiction.Visit our site www.wingoodtherapy.com/ for more information on Therapist Irvine

 

should i increase weight/reps on first set if i have to do less weight/reps on later sets (5x5) via /r/strength_training … (via Twitter twitter.com/BestProteinPow/status/694958320860454912)

Prince of Wales Dock

 

Increases in industrial output and in trade in copper, zinc, iron and tinplate combined with the developments in shipping (whereby steamships of greater tonnage were replacing smaller sailing vessels) meant that by the late 19th century Swansea's harbour was in desperate need of expansion. Such improvements were under the domain of the Swansea Harbour Trust and the result was the construction of the Prince of Wales Dock, the first on the east side of the river. It was 'opened' with great ceremony by the Prince & Princess of Wales (later Edward VII & Queen Alexandra) in 1881, but was not in fact completed until 1882. Owing to a continued increase in trade, even greater dock capacity became essential, so a further extension and a deepening of the channel entrance was made. By 1898 the extension had been completed. The whole North Quay frontage was now let to the GWR and the Rhondda & Swansea Bay Railway Company which linked the coalfields directly with the docks. This resulted in major increases in the export of coal from Swansea. During the late 19th century, the dock's heyday, it was one of the largest and busiest in Britain. Image: Thomas Kell, 40 King St., Covent Garden, Swansea Harbour

 

Source:

www.swanseaheritage.net/article/gat.asp?ARTICLE_ID=163&am...

Foster parents, adoptive caregivers, extended family members caring for children and Community Living home share providers will each receive a boost in support payments - the first increase in ten years - to make life more affordable and provide more support to some of BC’s most vulnerable children and adults.

 

Learn more: news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2019PREM0023-000294

Flood Risks in Venezuela Increased by “New Rains” Linked to Climate Change

 

CARACAS (IPS) “The river is reclaiming its place, the water has risen up to here,” says Ana Polanco, crouching down to hold her hand high above her head in the little tin house she shares with her children in El Hueco, one of the communities on the east side of the Venezuelan capital besieged by the polluted and deceptively calm Guaire River.

 

The Pakistan Strategy Support Program (PSSP) held the conference, “Increasing Productivity and Unleashing Growth” at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad on May 26-27th, 2012. This conference also marked the final round of the Competitive Grants Program that was launched by PSSP in January 2012 for Pakistani PhD and graduate students studying locally and abroad on economic development issues of Pakistan. The finalists presented in front of the Research Advisory Committee, donor heads, professors and students from local universities. The event also consisted of plenary sessions on Pakistan’s various economic growth issues by renowned academics from all over the world, such as Dr. Jock Anderson, Dr. Regina Birner and Dr. David Spielman.

The Pakistan Strategy Support Program (PSSP) held the conference, “Increasing Productivity and Unleashing Growth” at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad on May 26-27th, 2012. This conference also marked the final round of the Competitive Grants Program that was launched by PSSP in January 2012 for Pakistani PhD and graduate students studying locally and abroad on economic development issues of Pakistan. The finalists presented in front of the Research Advisory Committee, donor heads, professors and students from local universities. The event also consisted of plenary sessions on Pakistan’s various economic growth issues by renowned academics from all over the world, such as Dr. Jock Anderson, Dr. Regina Birner and Dr. David Spielman.

Ayyappan (also called Sastavu, Manikandan or Sasta) is a Hindu deity who is believed to be the son of Harihara, a rigvedic deity fused with both Shiva andVishnu. He is generally depicted in a yogic posture, wearing a jewel around his neck, hence named Manikandan, Literally meaning "With bell around the neck".

By the 20th century, there has been an increase in the number of worshipers of Ayyappan from many different groups, spurred by vast improvements in transport and communication in southern India.[2]

Ayyappan's annual festival is a time of pilgrimage for ever-growing numbers of men from throughout South India. The most prominent and famous Ayyappan shrine is the one at Sabarimala, in the hills of Pathanamthitta in Kerala, with over 30 million devotees visiting it every year,[3] making it one of the largestpilgrimage sites in the world. These devotees fast and engage in austerities under the leadership of a Periya Swami (one who has undertaken the pilgrimage to Sabarimala for 18 years) for weeks barefoot and then travel in groups to the shrine for a glimpse of Ayyappan. Bus tickets are hard to obtain for several weeks as masses of elated men, clad in distinctive ritual dhotis of saffron, black and light blue colors, throng public transportation during their trip to the shrine.[4]

The name "Sri Ayyappan" is used as a respectful form of address in Malayalam and Sanskrit. The equivalent of Sri is "Thiru" in Tamil. The mantra Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa is translated in English as, "Lord Ayyappa, I seek refuge in you".[5]

Contents [hide]

1 Etymology

2 Legends surrounding Ayyappan

2.1

3 In popular culture

4 See also

5 References

6 External links

Etymology[edit]

Ayyappan is known as "Hariharasutan" because he is the son of Hari (Vishnu), the saviour and Hara (Shiva), the destroyer. His most common name is "Manikandan" because when the king Rajasekara Pandiyan of Pandalam found little Ayyappan in a forest there was a "mani" (bell, in Malayalam) tied around his "kanda" (neck, in Sanskrit).[6][7]

As Dharma Sastha, many of them consider him to be born out of the union between Mohini (an avatar of Vishnu) andShiva.[8]

Legends surrounding Ayyappan[edit]

 

An ancient idol of Shasta Dharma, a form of Ayyappan

[edit]

The asura Mahishi was burning up with anger at the trick the gods had pulled on her brother, the asura king Mahishasura. As Mahishasura was blessed with invulnerability to all men, the gods had sent goddess Durga, to fight and kill him. Thus, Mahishi began performing a fearsome set of austerities, and pleased the creator god Brahma. She asked for the boon of invulnerability, but Brahma said it was not possible so Mahishi planned and asked invulnerability to all men except by the son of Shiva and Vishnu (Both are male & no possibility to give birth to any one). He granted her the boon of ruling the universe and being invulnerable except by the son of Shiva and Vishnu. Since such a person did not exist, she thought she was safe and began conquering and plundering the world.

The gods implored Shiva and Vishnu to save them from this catastrophe. Vishnu found a possible solution to the problem. When Vishnu had taken on the KurmaAvatar, he also had to manifest himself as Mohini, the enchantress, to save the nectar of immortality (ambrosia or amrit) from the demons who were not willing to share it with the gods. If he became Mohini again, then the female Mohini and the male Shiva could have the divine child who would combine the powers of Durga as per Brahmand Purana and beat Mahishi. Skanda purana states that Durga took birth in masculine form as Dharamshasta.[9]

Some versions give a slightly more detailed version of the union of Shiva with Vishnu. One version tells that the asura Bhasmasura (Bhasma means 'Ashes') had so pleased Lord Shiva with his austerities that Shiva gave him a boon of anything he wished. So Bhasmasura asked for the ability to burn to ashes anything which he placed his hand over. No sooner had Shiva granted this, than Bhasmasura ran after the god, threatening to turn him to ashes.

Shiva called to Lord Vishnu for help. He hide himself in a peepal tree as Bhasmasura ran here and there searching for the god. Vishnu became aware of the events, and decided that he would take the female form Mohini, "the Enchanting", and try to trump the asura's powers. When Bhasmasura saw Vishnu in this form, he was bewitched by her beauty. He earnestly tried to court her. So Vishnu instructed Bhasmasura to hold his hand over his head, and vow fidelity. With this act, Bhasmasura was reduced to ashes.

Vishnu found Shiva and explained the whole affair to him. Shiva asked if he too could see Vishnu in this female form. When Vishnu appeared thus, Shiva was overcome with passion, and united with her. The two gods thus became "Harihara Murthi", that is a composite form of Shiva and Vishnu as one god.

From this union, Lord Sree Dharma Sastha was born. He combined in himself the powers of Vishnu and Shiva. Lord Ayyappan is an incarnation of Lord Sree Dharma Sastha and Lord Ayyappan is a visible embodiment of their essential identity. Sri Ayyappa belongs to Pandya Royal Community. He was the head of a clan. It is believed Sri Ayyappa merged to sri dharma sastha. Lord Vishnu gifted the new-born deity with a little bejeweled bell necklace, so this god is called Manikantha. He is also Known as Dharma Shastha.

There are many popular stories associated with Him among the devotees. The stories differ, but there are certain common elements:

Ayyappa lived in the Pandalam Palace as the son / savior of the King.

He had super-human or divine knowledge, wisdom, and courage and loved the King and his people.

He protected the King and the kingdom from the attacks of enemies.

At the end of His life in Pandalam, He vanished into the forests and is ever since worshiped at the Sabarimala temple.

The most popular and widely accepted story tells that Lord Ayyappa had His human sojourn as the son of the Raja of Pandalam. At that time, Raja Rajasekhara Pandiyan ruled the kingdom of Pandalam. During one of his hunting expeditions, the Raja was puzzled to hear the wails of a child on the banks of the river Pampa, and was surprised to find a resplendent infant there. The beautiful baby with radiant face wore a bead ('mani') around his neck. The King, though pious, charitable, just, and God-fearing, had no children. He accepted the child as God's gracious response to his fervent prayer for an heir to his throne. Manikandan grew into a boy well versed in academic lore and martial arts. Meanwhile the Rani gave birth to a son. The King regarded Manikandan as his elder son. He decided to crown him as the Yuvaraja. The King's corrupt Minister had a deep dislike for Manikandan, and made the innocent Queen believe that ill would befall her if Manikandan was crowned Yuvaraja and that the kingdom actually belonged to her son.

They conspired to get rid of Manikandan by hook or crook. They bribed the royal physician into becoming an accomplice of theirs. The Rani pretended to be afflicted with severe pain in the stomach, and the physician prescribed the milk of a tigress as the only cure. The King knew that none could be deputed for a mission that was so patently suicidal. However, the youthful and valiant Manikandan stepped forth and volunteered to fetch the milk. Despite the worried protestations of his foster-father, he set out for the fearful forests.

Days later, Manikandan entered the palace precincts riding a fierce tigress and followed by a pack of its cubs. The schemers were frightened into confessing their nefarious plot. They and others now knew that Manikandan was no ordinary being. They were convinced of His divine origins, and prayed to Him to be with them for their own salvation and for the safety of the kingdom. However, Manikandan was now determined to leave the place.

Filled with happiness, grief, fear, wonder and bhakti and self-surrender, the king prayed for the mercy and blessings of Manikandan. He repented he could not fully visualize the truth of the divine powers of the Lord and repeatedly requested Him to forgive him for behaving as if He were only his son. The Lord lovingly embraced the King who continued to pray: " Lord, kindly bless me by freeing me from my egos and the worldly life of birth and rebirth and grant me ' moksha’ (salvation). Kindly continue to be the saviour of my family and stay eternally in my kingdom.” Manikandan then enlightened the King on the path of attainment of 'moksha'. These words of the Lord are contained in ‘Bhuthanathageetha'. To the King who is by now mentally cleansed and completely immersed in 'bhakthi', Lord Ayyappa said: "I am to free you from all worldly sorrows & worries and to grant you 'moksha'. All those who are and would be born in your family shall have my blessings unfailingly. I am always accessible to 'bhakthi' and only 'bhakthi." The Lord told the King that he could construct a temple at Sabarimala, north of the holy river Pampa and install His deity there. Ayyappa also explained how the Sabarimala pilgrimage shall be undertaken, emphasizing the importance of 'vrutham' and what the devotees can attain by His 'darshan'.

The Lord further consoled the King saying that the devotees who held him and his descendants in 'bhakthi' shall happen to be devoted to Him as well. Manikandan then blessed the King and all others assembled there, and vanished. The King duly constructed the temple at Sabarimala, dedicated to Him.

There are various tales connected with Lord Ayyappa: the discovery of the child at Pampa, Manikandan's youthful days in the Pandalam palace, bestowing the power of hearing and speaking upon the deaf and dumb son of His teacher as Guru-dakshina, His friendship with Vavar, bringing the tigress's milk, accomplishing His divinely destined mission of annihilation of the demoness Mahishi, eliminating the forest-thug Udayanan, bestowing moksha on Sabari, blessing His foster-father with moksha and so on. Legend also goes to say that Manikandan was the incarnation of Lord Dharma Sastha. Raja Rajasekhara was in his previous birth a rich and pious 'Brahmin ' by name Vijayan who was a very strong believer and devotee of Lord Dharma Sastha.

Another tale goes like this: Lord Ayyappan as Manikandan born to Pandala Maharaja is set to conquer the King Udayan who is a strong Buddhist and has been harassing the people of Pamba region. Maharaja sends Manikandan to learn martial artsKalari to Cheerappanchira, the Muhamma of today in Alappuzha district. The panicker there trains him of Kalari. It is here where the Guru's daughter Nila falls in love with Lord Ayyappa (Manikandan) but He refuses to marry telling he is a Bhrammachari and has a mission. She offers a sweet made out in a function in their family which Lord likes. This sweet payasam was what turned out to be the Aravanapayasam today.

The 2012 album of P. Unnikrishnan on Lord Ayyappan in Tamil called SABARIMALAI VA CHARANAM SOLLI VA has a song on the Ayyappan temple at Mukkal vettom (Cheerappanchira) where the current priest, of the vamsam of Lord's Guru who trained him Kalari, still performs the poojas for the Lord who poses with the war attire.

A Holy Song that is used to wake up Ayyappan in Sabarimala temple is known as Ayyappa Suprabhatham, an another song which for making ayyappa sleep is the famous song Harivarasanam.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

 

Some background:

Both Imperial Japanese Army and Navy Aviation (IJA and IJN, respectively) were very aware of the developments of jet engines, esp. through close contact with Germany and mutual exchange of blueprints and even hardware. But it was the IJN which basically drove jet-powered aircraft, e. g. through the Kyūshū J7W2 Shinden or Nakajima J9Y1 Kikka fighters.

 

The IJA was far behind schedule. Its primary jet projects had been conversions of existing, piston-engine-driven bomber types, but the increasing threat through high and fast incoming B-29 bombers, as well as the potential danger of even faster, jet-powered types, stirred the development of fast and agile interceptors with a heavy armament.

 

Since no such indigenous design existed (the IJA rejected the logical option to adapt an IJN types!), German engineers and design had a strong impact on what was to become the Ki-202 - a parallel development to the two-engined, heavier Ki-201 "Karyu", which resembled much the German Me 262.

 

The Ki-202 was developed by the Nippon Kokusai Koku Kogyo in a very short time frame: initial work started in late 1944, and the prototype was ready in summer 1945. The Ki-202 was regarded as a light, dedicated interceptor for spot defence, which should be produced in large numbers and with less investment of sparse resources and work labor per unit than the Karyu.

 

The Ki-202 was a very compact and simple aircraft. Outwardly it bore a striking resemblance to Kurt Tank's Ta 183 "Huckebein" jet fighter that had been under development in Germany since 1942, but the Ki-202 was much more simplified, both concerning construction and aerodynamics, as it was so direly needed and, beyond the jet engine, no big development risk was to be dared.

 

For instance, in order to avoid trouble with swept wings (which had not been incorporated in Japanese aircraft design yet, even though some wind tunnel test results already existed, as well as scientific input from Germany), the Ki-202 featured straight wings with a laminar-flow profile. The tail section was also different from the Ta 183: instead of the Ta 183's highly swept tail fin and a T-tail arrangement, the Ki-202 featured a relatively slender, staright tail boom above the jet exhaust, carrying a conventional stabilizer arrangement with only moderate sweep.

 

The fuselage resembled much Hans Multhopp's Ta 183, with a nose air intake, the pressurized cockpit placed above the air duct. The cockpot featured a frameless bubble canopy with an armored windscreen that offered an excellent field of view. Another novelty for the IJA was a tricycle landing gear that retracted into the lower fuselage. The engine (initially a single Ishikawajima Ne-20 turbojet, rated at 4.66 kN/475 kgf) filled the whole lower fuselage half. It lay between the main landing gear wells, with fuel cells above them and in the wing roots.

 

The aircraft had a rather stubby appearance, but turned out to be easy to handle and highly agile. Its weak spot was the Ne-20 engine, which was based on the German BMW 003 turbojet. Its low power output limited the Ki-202's performance so much that the initial prototypes (two were built) could only take off with reduced fuel - in fact, one of these machines was lost when it overrun the runway and crashed beyond repair.

 

Hence, only basic flight testing without any military equipment on board could be done until April 1945, and after the starting crash the other prototype was actually towed into the air, where it would, at safe height, power up its engine and perform a very limited test program.

When it became available in May 1945, a slightly uprated Ne-20-Kai engine was installed, but this measure hardly made the aircraft suitable to serious military service.

 

Things changed dramatically with the introduction of the much improved Ne-230 and Ne-330 engines. The latter had a thrust rating at 12.75 kN/1.300 kgf of thrust - nearly three times of what the early Ne-20 could deliver and close to the German 2nd generation Heinkel HeS 011 turbojet.

This new engine necessitated a slightly widened exhaust nozzle, and in the course of this modifications many detail refinements on prototypes #3 and 4 were made, including anti-flutter weights on the horizontal stabilizers and small wing fences.

In September 1945 this "new" aircraft eventually entered IJA service as "Ki-202 Kai", officially called 'Goryō' (御霊 - "Vengeful ghost") but also nicknamed 'Nezumi' (ネズミ - "Mouse") by its crews

 

The new type proved to be an immediate success. The Ki-202 Kai had a very good rate of climb, the short wings, coupled with a center-heavy CG due to the compact "pod and boom" layout, offered a very high manouverybility that was on par with contemporary Allied piston-engined fighters. As a bonus, its small size made the 'Goryō' a target which was hard to acquire or hit.

 

On the other side, the aircraft sported a powerful cannon armament (two fuselage-mounted 20 mm Ho-5 cannons, each with 150 RPG, plus two fuselage-mounted 30 mm Ho-155-II cannons, each with 50 RPG), and it was able to carry unguided air-to-air missiles under its wings, or two 150 L (40 US gal) drop tanks on either wing or a pair of 250 kg (550 lb) bombs.

On the downside, the Ne-330 engine had a very high fuel consumption rate, its throttle response was marginal, and its reliability was poor, especially in the initial production batches which suffered from material failures and lack of engineering experience.

  

General characteristics

Crew: one

Length: 8.96 m (29 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 9,74 m (31 ft 10 1/2 in)

Height: 3,69 m (12 ft 1 in)

Wing area: 17.5 m² (188 ft²)

Empty weight: 2,380 kg (5,247 lb)

Loaded weight: 4,300 kg (9,480 lb)

 

Powerplant:

1× Ishikawajima Ne-330 engine with 12.75 kN/1.300 kgf of thrust

 

Performance

Maximum speed: 855 km/h (531 mph)

Stall speed: 140 km/h (92 knots, 106 mph) (power off, flaps down)

Range: 1.250 km (673 nmi, 776 mi)

Service ceiling: 14.000 m (45,932 ft)

Rate of climb: 20,4 m/s (4,020 ft/min)

Wing loading: 196 kg/m² (41 lb/ft²)

Thrust/weight: 0.37

 

Armament

2× 20 mm Ho-5 cannons with 150 RPG

2× 30 mm Ho-155-II cannons with 50 RPG

2× underwing hardpoints for up to 250 kg (551 lb) each

(for racks with unguided missiles, drop tanks or bombs)

  

The kit and its assembly:

A spontaneous project, inspired by a similar build (in French livery, though) on whatifmodelers.com some time ago, and an interim project while I waited for ordered decals for another whif on the bench.

I had a surplus Ta 183 from PM Models in store, and eventually considered it for conversion. When I recently got hands on several PZL TS-11 'Iskra' trainers from Master Craft, I eventually got the inspiration (and parts!) I needed and decided to make a kitbash, retro-fitting the rather futuristic Ta 183 with straight wings and a tail boom.

 

Conversion was rather straightforward, even though little from the Ta 183 was left: just the fuselage halves, air intake, canopy and parts of the landing gear. The Iskra 'donated' its wings and tail, as well as the front wheel.

Main wheels, cockpit interior, exhaust pipe and pilot figure come from the scrap box - noteworthy is the landing gear well interior. The PM kit just has a shallow, blank fairing - I cut that away and inserted parts from a jet engine (from a Revell F-16, the old kit which comes with a truck, trolley and a spare engine as props) - finally got use for these rather crude parts!

 

Some putty work was necessary at the fuselage/tail intersection, as well as at the wing roots, but overall the body work was rather quick and simple.

 

The packs of unguided missiles under the wings actually belong to the Matchbox BAC Strikemaster - I found an illustration of a similar arrangement on a Japanese rocket fighter, and they suit the 'Vengeful Ghost' well.

  

Painting and markings:

By tendency, I rather keep whifs' liveries simple and unspectacular - but I already have built some and want to avoid repetition. So I settled for an improvised camouflage scheme on bare metal, which I kept for the lower sides. AFAIK, such makeshift paint schemes were pretty common, and since no primer was used, quickly deteriorated.

 

To keep things simple I painted the finished model with Metallizer from Modelmaster, with different tones in selected areas (e. g. Aluminum Plate, Steel). After that I applied a thin coat of Humbrol 172 with a soft, broad brush on the upper surfaces, the waterline on the flanks masked with Tamiya tape. The metal below was to shine through, streaks were welcome, so that the finish became willingly uneven (and more interesting). This was later enhanced with some dry-brushed Humbrol 102 on top of that.

 

For more contrast, I added white Homeland Defence bands under the Hinomaru markings on wings and fuselage. These were cut from white decal sheet, not painted, and the Hinomaru placed on top of that. The yellow bands on the wings' ledaing edges are decals, too, a very effective method! The other few markings came from AeroMaster Decals and Microscale sheets.

 

Weathering included, beyond a wash with thinned black ink, a light sand paper treatment on the leading edges and in areas with much external contact, for an even shaggier look, and some grinded graphite was rubbed onto the bare metal surfaces for a worn look and some extra metal shine.

 

Finally, everything was sealed under a coat of semi-gloss acryl varnish.

  

A 'quickie', and the result looks a bit odd, IMHO - like a Saab 29 hatchling, maybe?

 

The Pakistan Strategy Support Program (PSSP) held the conference, “Increasing Productivity and Unleashing Growth” at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad on May 26-27th, 2012. This conference also marked the final round of the Competitive Grants Program that was launched by PSSP in January 2012 for Pakistani PhD and graduate students studying locally and abroad on economic development issues of Pakistan. The finalists presented in front of the Research Advisory Committee, donor heads, professors and students from local universities. The event also consisted of plenary sessions on Pakistan’s various economic growth issues by renowned academics from all over the world, such as Dr. Jock Anderson, Dr. Regina Birner and Dr. David Spielman.

160317-N-ZE250-064 DAKAR, Senegal (March 17, 2016) - The U.S. Naval Forces Europe Band plays during the opening ceremony for exercise Obangame/Saharan Express 2016 in Dakar, Senegal, March 17, 2016. Obangame/Saharan Express, one of three African regional express series exercises facilitated by U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet, seeks to increase regional cooperation, maritime domain awareness, information sharing practices and improve interoperability among participating forces in order to enhance maritime security and regional economic stability. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Weston Jones/Released)