Achebe portrayed Ekwefi(TM)s relationship Essay Example

Achebe depicted Ekwefi(TM)s relationship Paper The connection among Okonkwo and his second with Ekwefi run over in different sections of the books; scraps of their relationship make a more clear picture as the novel advances. Taking a gander at Achebes language decisions and story perspective their relationship shows a blend of both displeasure and caring which comes clear in the couple of scenes where Okonkwo lets his gatekeeper down around her. The clench hand look at their relationship is an adverse view as we see Okonkwo beating at that point taking shots at his significant other for going out Okonkwo heard it and ran frantically into his space for the stacked weapon, ran out again and focused on her Okonkwo is effectively maddened this is clear in the entirety of his associations with individuals yet it likewise give Ekwefi a feeling of character, solid willed as the spouse who had quite recently been beaten mumbled something about firearms that never fired demonstrating a rebellious streak on the other hand reemerges when she goes to search for her little girl and demonstrating when she should be she have a blazing soul. We will compose a custom paper test on Achebe depicted Ekwefi(TM)s relationship explicitly for you for just $16.38 $13.9/page Request now We will compose a custom article test on Achebe depicted Ekwefi(TM)s relationship explicitly for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Recruit Writer We will compose a custom article test on Achebe depicted Ekwefi(TM)s relationship explicitly for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Recruit Writer Regardless of this we realize there was a solid bond between them numerous years back when she was the town excellence Okonkwo had won her heart a couple of years after the fact she fled from her significant other and came to live with Okonkwo It appears there absolutely was a common inclination between them as time has passed we see that it isn't as clear. Okonkwos notoriety as a cold and courageous warrior has an enormous impact of his obvious separation from Ekwefi and as such we get the feeling that he couldn't care less about her significantly anyway uncommon minutes in the book give an elective thought. In part 11 when Enzima is taken and Ekwefi tails we see Okonkwo come to discover her tears of appreciation filled her eyes. Okonkwo has consistently believed demonstrating feeling to be powerless however this gives us that underneath his outside he cares. The story characterizing their relationship is to some degree broke; exchanging between the over a wide span of time day. Achebe clues that Okonkwo has the nearest bond with Ekwefi contradicted to his different spouses he realized it should just be Ekwefi. Of his three spouses Ekwefi was the one in particular who might have the dauntlessness to slam against his entryway consequently putting forth a valiant effort. The two characters are genuinely similar in unobtrusive manners put across by Achebe Ekwefi had become an exceptionally unpleasant lady. Was the main individual in the cheerful organization who went about with a cloud on her temple while Okonkwo portraying his dad his adoration for talk had developed with age and disorder. It attempted Okonkwos tolerance amazing Both have gotten to some degree critical of others and it tends to be a typical establishing point in their lopsided relationship. Their relationship was established upon physical closeness even in those days he was not a man of numerous words. He just conveyed her into his bed and in the obscurity started to look about her abdomen for the remaining detail of the material Achebe utilizes this to recommend their relationship has gotten progressively angry with age as Okonkwo has taken more spouses and kids and in a few examples essentially lashes out at her somewhat more I said a bit. Is it true that you are hard of hearing? Okonkwo thundered at her. Achebes account strategy is more observatory than judgemental telling there relationship without inclining for either, without obfuscating the issue and as such Achebe gives a crude and legit sense to there relationship; seeing both the awful side and the great. Achebes portrayal of their relationship gives a more clear comprehension of the characters as people through how they act towards each other both caringly and forcefully and as such is an investigation into the Ibo culture itself. Ekwefi is Okonkwos second spouse. When a town wonder, she fled from her home and spouse to wed Okonkwo. She was stricken with Okonkwo when he beat the famous Cat in an unbelievable wrestling match. In spite of the fact that its sort of sentimental the Ekwefi fled and ran off with Okonkwo, it turns out hes not Prince Charming. Ekwefi, as Okonkwos other two spouses, endures significantly under his compelling and forceful guideline of the family unit. At a certain point, since he was feeling terrible, Okonkwo beat Ekwefi gravely and even took steps to murder her with his weapon. In any case, Ekwefi is the most lively of Okonkwos spouses and as often as possible faces him and argues. Ekwefis life has been brimming with bitterness. She has misfortune with bearing youngsters; in spite of bringing forth ten kids, just one has endure. Along these lines, she sustains a profound bond with her single little girl, Ezinma. Achebe paints Ekwefi as an incredibly committed mother. Her agony and harshness in losing nine other kids drives her to love her one little girl even above life itself. She gushes over and ruins her youngster, permitting her treats illegal to other kids and building a profound relationship of trust. Ekwefis history of misfortune and harshness renders her a resilient lady, fit for withstanding a lot of agony and disillusionment. This likewise prompts a feeling of intensity in her, a fairly unfeminine trademark that occasionally pesters Okonkwo. She has the dauntlessness to thump on his entryway around evening time and to nitpick him when he blames her for killing a banana tree. In any case, she additionally takes her discipline with gritted teeth and without protest. This sort of solidarity and intensity has something manly about it, which develops considerably more emphatically in her girl, Ezinma. Despite the fact that not expressly expressed, we think Ekwefi may be Okonkwos most loved spouse, much the same as Ezinma is his preferred little girl. Achebe has depicted the connection among Okonkwo and second spouse, Ekwefi, all through different parts in the novel. Achebe utilizes a few language highlights to underline their relationship or absence of it at times. Achebe utilizes story perspective and decision of language to help show the balance of outrage with adoration and fondness they share between them.

Phrasal Verbs - English Definitions for ESL Students

Phrasal Verbs - English Definitions for ESL Students There are four sorts of phrasal action words. Phrasal action words can be divisible or indivisible and they can take an item or not. Here is a manual for the nuts and bolts of phrasal action words. Phrasal Verbs which Take Objects Phrasal action words which take objects are known as transitive phrasal action words. These action words can be distinct or indistinguishable: Divisible phrasal action words can stay together when utilizing an article that is a thing or thing phrase. I got Tom. Or on the other hand I got Tom.They put their companions up. Or on the other hand They set up their friends.My companions surrendered bowling. Or on the other hand My companions surrendered bowling.â Divisible phrasal action words: get, set up, surrender Divisible phrasal action words MUST be isolated when a pronoun is utilized: We got him the station. NOT We got him at the station.They put them up. NOT They set up them.She thought it up a day or two ago. NOT She concocted it the other day.â Detachable phrasal action words: get, set up, brainstorm Indistinguishable phrasal action words consistently stay together. It has no effect if a thing or pronoun is utilized. We set off for the sea shore. /We set off for it.They are caring for the kids. /They are caring for them.The educator required the appropriate response in class. /The instructor called for it in class. Indistinguishable phrasal action words: set off, care for, call for Phrasal Verbs which Dont Take Objects Some phrasal action words don't take objects. Action words that don't take objects are otherwise called intransitive action words. These phrasal action words are ALWAYS indivisible. The criminals got away.The transport separated while in transit to work.She rose early. Intransitive phrasal action words: escape, separate, get up In the event that you are uncertain about whether a phrasal action word is distinct or indivisible, ALWAYS utilize a thing or things express and DO NOT separate. As such, you will consistently be right! Divisible Phrasal Verbs: raise, take off They raised their youngsters to regard others.She removed her coat before she started the lesson.The supervisor put off the gathering until one week from now. Indistinguishable Phrasal Verbs: search for, set off, keep at She was searching for her books when he arrived.They set off for a magnificent occasion in Hawaii.You should keep at your schoolwork for in any event an hour.â Three-word Phrasal Verbs A few action words are trailed by two relational words (or qualifiers). These phrasal action words are ALWAYS indivisible. Im anticipating meeting John. Or on the other hand Im anticipating meeting him.They didnt continue ahead with their mom. Or on the other hand They didnt continue ahead with her.Peter thought of an extraordinary thought. Or on the other hand Peter thought of it.â Three-word phrasal action words: anticipate, continue ahead with, think of Phrasal Verb Type Quiz Check your comprehension by distinguishing each phrasal action word as transitive or intransitive and detachable or indistinguishable. For example:â My companion got me the air terminal. - get: transitive, divisible We set off at six oclock in the morning. Tom anticipates meeting you next week.Unfortunately, the criminals got away.He revealed to me that he had surrendered cigarettes last year.I got up and went to work.Jennifer thought it up during the meeting. I was so worn out after the race I split down.He brought the subject up during class yesterday.Ill care for your mutts while youre away on vacation.She concocted an extraordinary thought. Test Answers set off: intransitive/inseparablelook forward to: transitive/inseparableget away: intransitive/inseparablegive up: transitive/separableget up: intransitive/inseparablethink up: transitive/separablebreak down: intransitive/inseparablebring up: transitive/separablelook after: transitive/inseparablecome up with: transitive/indivisible Keep Learning Phrasal Verbs This phrasal action words reference rundown will kick you off with short meanings of roughly 100 of the most widely recognized phrasal action words. Educators can utilize this acquainting phrasal action words exercise plan with assistance understudies become progressively acquainted with phrasal action words and begin building phrasal action word jargon. At last, there are a wide assortment of phrasal action word assets on the site to assist you with learning new phrasal action words.

Things I enjoyed reading this year

Things I enjoyed reading this year I’ve never really done a year-ender blog post, and I don’t really have plans to. I’m also not the kind of person to have new year’s resolutions. But I couldn’t come up with anything else to post, and I wanted to share some cool things I read with y’all, so I guess I’m writing this. Things I read for class All of these things I read for 21W.022, Reading and Writing Autobiography. We read a lot of things in that class, and here are my favorites: Sea Urchin (892 words). A short article about trying sea urchins for the first time and adolescence. It’s a short, satisfying five-minute read. But theres nothing. Im too obviously desperate, utterly hopeless. Instead, it seems, I can eat. Ive always liked food, but now Im bent on trying everything. As it is, the days are made up of meals, formal and impromptu, meals between meals and within meals; the streets are a continuous outdoor buffet of braised crabs, cold buckwheat noodles, shaved ice with sweet red beans on top. The Empathy Exams (9783 words). A powerful, moving essay about medical acting, empathy, and the human desire for being understood. Worth every minute I read it, and worth every minute I read it again. Definitely in the top three of things I’ve read all semester. Empathy means realizing no trauma has discrete edges. Trauma bleeds. Out of wounds and across boundaries. Sadness becomes a seizure. Empathy demands another kind of porousness in response. My Stephanie script is twelve pages long. I think mainly about what it doesn’t say. Unnecessary Burden (Ëœ800 words). A lot of the essays we read in the class were student essays from previous intro writing classes, and this was one of my favorites. It’s a short graphic essay about education. “You know Abigail, right? She KNOWS that I’m applying to liberal arts colleges, so WHY does she ask a recommendation letter from the ENGLISH teacher? She’s applying to MIT! Now he wouldn’t write a letter for me. Ugh, Abigail is such a selfish jerk!” Educated (100k words). We had to do a book review for the class, and I chose this book. The author talks about her experiences growing up with survivalist, religiously fanatic parents, and her struggles of leaving them to educate herself. I enjoyed the book, not only because I related to the author’s upbringing, but because it shows a portrait of abuse, trauma, and growth. It’s a gripping narrative of how abuse can affect someone so deeply, even years after the event. It’s a story that masterfully wraps itself around the shape of trauma, of knowing the patterns well enough to impose its emotions on a reader who may not have experienced it before. Reading about the author growing from all of that was so satisfying. I think it deserves all the hype it’s gotten. Tyler stood to go. “There’s a world out there, Tara,” he said. “And it will look a lot different once Dad is no longer whispering his view of it in your ear.” I turned to Mother, waiting for her to add her voice to mine, but she was silent. Her eyes were fixed on the floor as if Dad and I were not there. There was a moment when I realized she would not speak, that she would sit there and say nothing, that I was alone. I tried to calm Dad but my voice trembled, cracked. Then I was wailingâ€"sobs erupted from somewhere, some part of me I had not felt in years, that I had forgotten existed. I thought I might vomit. Fiction Pedantique’s Proposal (Ëœ4000 words). Content warning: abuse, torture, death. To read Pedantique’s Proposal, open the link, read the first few paragraphs, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the link with CODE NAME: Pedantique. A piece of interactive fiction set in the SCP universe. The SCP Wiki is a collaborative writing website about the fictional SCP Foundation, a secret worldwide organization that aims to contain anomalous and supernatural objects and keep them hidden. In-universe, the website is a database containing descriptions of these objects, which are given numbers like SCP-3999 or SCP-137. Pedantique’s Proposal is an interpretation of what SCP-001 could be, and it’s my favorite. Item #:  SCP-001 Object Class:  [DATA EXPUNGED] Special Containment Procedures:  [DATA EXPUNGED] Description:  [DATA EXPUNGED] Ra (Ëœ130k words). Hard science fiction fantasy exploring magic-turned-physics. I loved its worldbuilding, and its fully developed, internally consistent magic system, which means that there’s a lot of magibabble, but it’s magibabble that makes sense. It’s mixed with exciting action that raises the stakes with every other chapter. If you decide to read only one of the novels I mention, my first recommendation is this. The first magic spell is spoken by a 90-year-old retired Indian physicist named Suravaram Vidyasagar on 1st June 1972. It is one hundred and seventy-nine syllables long, comprising equal parts Upanishadic mantra and partial differential equation. The effect of Vidyasagars spell is nothing at all. If you have the slightest recollection of whats happened to you in the last five-and-a-half weeks youll recognise this as Vidyasagars First Incomplete Field Equation, which I showed you on the first day of the course. You will also remember that when I showed it to you, I told you it has three errors in it. I corrected the first error right away. Can somebody tell me what that was? Czarneckis tone of voice indicates that he wants this answer fast. Pi should be two pi, shouts a voice from the mid-left of the theatre. Homestuck Epilogues: Candy  (Ëœ95k words). Homestuck is an epic, eight thousand page webcomic. It’s hard to explain what Homestuck is quickly, but some of its themes are coming of age, silliness, reality and canonicity, friendship, and identity. It’s a creation myth, a fantasy story with several fun magic systems, and it’s also just a story about being a kid is hard and no one understands. Homestuck is, hands down, one of my favorite pieces of media. Candy is half of the Homestuck Epilogues, an interesting conclusion to Homestuck that deals with largely the same themes, but revolves around adulthood and responsibility. It’s kind of hard to enjoy without reading the original, and I’m not sure I can convince you to read Homestuck in two paragraphs. Really, I’m just including it here so that I can shove you these great excerpts. JOHN: i dunno. it doesn’t seem responsible, really to dedicate my life to something so important when i’m in a place where i can’t even find the energy to think that getting out of bed in the morning is “important.” JOHN: in fact, it seems like it would be a pretty fucking selfish thing to do. JOHN: what if i get distracted because i’m sad? JOHN: what if i fuck up by staring too tragically into the distance on an important mission, and i get killed in a stupid way? DAVE: mr president DAVE: you said… DAVE: i reminded you of the adult dave from your timeline [] DAVE: anyway no offense but DAVE: are you really sure i remind you of him DAVE: there are a lot of times where i dont feel like im at all living up to that guys example DAVE: a lot of times i feel like im just going along with shit DAVE: like my buddy organizes a badass rebellion and im just like duh yeah alright DAVE: sounds cool guess ill scout around the jungle and rig a bunch of shitty statues of liberty to explode if those are the orders [] DAVE: but compared to that guy i apparently turned out to be DAVE: i dunno DAVE: i feel like DAVE: a lesser version of myself somehow DAVE: not lesser maybe just like DAVE: i somehow ended up as the version of me who didnt stay as true myself as i could have DAVE: like DAVE: i entered this world already considered a god DAVE: already famous DAVE: already celebrated as a genius DAVE: what was there left to achieve DAVE: i still did a lot of incredible and stupid shit that i guess im pretty proud of DAVE: idk DAVE: something feels hollow about a lot of what ive done the last bunch of years DAVE: or i guess about a lot of stuff in general The Unbearable Lightness of Being (84k words). Philosophical musings turned novel, in both the “book” sense of the word and “new” sense of the word. The book is about many things, like kitsch, metaphors, tyranny, romance, and decisions. The beginning and middle felt rather slow to me, and it’s hard to read at times, but the end was redeeming enough that I consider it good enough to mention. When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of heaviness. We say that something has become a great burden to us. We either bear the burden or fail and go down with it, we struggle with it, win or lose. And Sabinaâ€"what had come over her? Nothing. She had left a man because she had felt like leaving him. Had he persecuted her? Had he tried to take revenge on her? No. Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being. Until that time, her betrayals had filled her with excitement and joy, because they opened up new paths to new adventures of betrayal. But what if those paths came to an end? One could betray one’s parents, husband, country, love, but when parents, husband, country, and love were goneâ€"what was left to betray? Sabina felt emptiness all around her. What if that emptiness was the goal of all her betrayals? Mono no Aware (6396 words). I realized that all of the favorite works I’ve mentioned so far were novel length, so I’m including this, which is one of my favorite short stories I’ve read. It’s a science fiction short story, but it’s less about the science and more about getting in touch with a culture you’ve lost. Deeply moving. Lots of Ken Liu’s short stories are great, by the way; if you liked this, you might like “The Paper Menagerie”. Between the two boys is a nineteen-by-nineteen grid of straight lines. A handful of black and white stones have been placed on the intersections. Once every two weeks, I have the day off from my regular duties monitoring the status of the solar sail and come here to teach the children a little bit about Japan. I feel silly doing it sometimes. How can I be their teacher when I have only a boy’s hazy memories of Japan? But there is no other choice. All the non-American technicians like me feel it is our duty to participate in the cultural-enrichment program at the school and pass on what we can. Not fiction One more time (2700 words). An interesting article about how repetition is linked to musicality. Definitely try listening to the demos in the article; they’re pretty cool. The illusion begins with an ordinary spoken utterance, the sentence ‘The sounds as they appear to you are not only different from those that are really present, but they sometimes behave so strangely as to seem quite impossible.’ Next, one part of this utterance â€" just a few words â€" is looped several times. Finally, the original recording is represented in its entirety, as a spoken utterance. When the listener reaches the phrase that was looped, it seems as if the speaker has broken into song, Disney-style. Sums of periodic functions (1290 words). Of all the math articles I’ve read this year, this is the one that surprised me the most. It’s probably not interesting to a general audience, oops. But it has some pretty cool results about periodic functions and their sums. Sums of periodic functions can be peculiar indeed. In fact, we can prove the following astonishing theorem: If    is a polynomial function of a real variable, and the degree of    is  , then    is the sum of    periodic functions. You Construct Intricate Rituals Which Allow You to Touch The Skin of Other Men (523 words). Probably my favorite poem of all the ones I’ve read this year. shake his hand. look him in the eye and smile. but dont tell him youve been moisturizing with Dove peach-mango lotion. How the ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Color Wheel Explains Humanity (7300 words). I was originally going to link to Nuts Bolts, a series of articles where head designer Mark Rosewater explains how they design Magic the Gathering sets, and the surprising amount of complexity and thought involved in the process of making something as simple as a piece of cardboard. And while I like the Nuts Bolt series more than this article, I still think this article is pretty good, and it’s more accessible if you don’t know anything about Magic. I don’t actually play Magic the Gathering, but I do follow new card releases and read about the philosophy of Magic, and it still amazes me how well thought out it all is. While I don’t agree with the article entirely and I think it’s pretty silly, I think it’s at least interesting to think about. A white character who’s depressed is going to want to do exercise routines and contracts-to-call. A blue one is going to want to talk it over and figure out exactly what’s wrong. A black one is going to want to take actionâ€"to regain locus of control. A red one is going to want fewer constraints, and permission to just feel. And a green one is going to be looking for ways to let go of the pain. To make peace with the parts of the situation they’re not going to be able to change. The key recognition is that all of these ways of being are okay. They’re all good, they’re all evolved and refined, they’re all adaptive and workable. Excellent Sheep (74k words). A thought-provoking read about about aspiration and elite education. While I think it’s disorganized at times, and while I don’t agree with all of what’s written in the book, there’s a lot of good parts that are individually well-written. It’s enough that I think it’s worth reading at least the first third of the book, if only for reading things to think about. The irony, then, is this. Elite students are told that they can be whatever they want, but most of them end up choosing to be one of a few very similar things. Whole fields have disappeared from view: the clergy, the military, electoral politics, teaching, even academia itself, for the most part, including basic science. It is true that today’s young people appear to be more socially engaged, as a whole, than kids have been for several decades: more concerned about the state of the world and more interested in trying to do something about it. It is true, as well, that they are more apt to harbor creative or entrepreneurial impulses. But it is also true, at least at the most selective schools, that even if those aspirations make it out of collegeâ€"a very big “if”â€"they tend to be played out within the same narrow conception of what constitutes a valid life: affluence, credentials, and prestige.

Definition and How to Handle an Adjustment Letter

An adjustment letter or a claim adjustment letter is a written response from a representative of a business or agency to a customers claim letter. It explains how a problem with a product or service may (or may not) be resolved. How to Handle the Response If your business has received a claim letter from a customer, youll want to handle your response diplomatically and with the proper  you attitude  to quickly and effectively repair or prevent any damage to your reputation. Even if the complaint cant be resolved exactly as the customer wishes or you have to give bad news, you want to still take a positive, professional tone.   Andrea B. Geffner illustrates further: An  adjustment letter  should begin with a positive statement, expressing sympathy and understanding. Near the start, it should let the reader know what is being done, and this news, good or bad, should be followed by an explanation. The letter should end with another positive statement, reaffirming the companys good intentions and the value of its products, but  never  referring to the original problem.Whether or not your company is at fault, even the most belligerent claim should be answered politely. An adjustment letter should  not  be negative or suspicious; it must  never  accuse the customer or grant any adjustment grudgingly. Remember, your companys image and goodwill are at stake when you respond even to unjustified claims.​ (How to Write  Better  Business Letters, 4th ed. Barrons, 2007) Be careful to never promise something your company cant deliver (or a deadline you cant meet), or that will only compound the problem. Convey to your customer that you do have his or her interest in mind, and keep the door open to keep their business and for better success in the future. Even as times change, some things remain true. Good business advice hasnt changed in the last 100 years, as evident from advice given by O.C. Gallagher and L.B. Moulton in Practical Business English, from 1918:   Any showing of ill-feeling or anger in your adjustment letter will defeat its purpose. Indifference toward the customers complaint or delay in answering it is likewise fatal to further business relations. The you, not the I, attitude will put the offended customer in good humor, and open the way for a pleasant settlement of the complaint. An adjustment letter characterized by the  you attitude  becomes a sales letter. Dealing With Internet Complaints The same type of advice also applies to dealing with complaints or poor reviews levied against businesses on the internet or via social media. You still need to be diplomatic in your response. Speed in diffusing a complaint is of the essence—but not hastiness. Remember that anything you type in an electronic message or post can be copied and forwarded for the world to see, and its really difficult to completely delete something after posting it online or hitting send.Have someone proofread it and check for cultural sensitivity or other potential pitfalls before putting it out there.Cut to the chase—keep the public-facing text short and to the point.  Always have a cool head when responding to criticism online or else the problem can spiral. Any text online affects your brand and reputation. A successful resolution to a complaint or claim also has the ability to spread far and wide, though likely not as fast or widely as a poor review or complaint, unfortunately.   Sources Gerald J. Alred, Charles T. Brusaw, and Walter E. Oliu, The Business Writers Handbook, 10th ed. Macmillan, 2011. Philip C. Kolin, Successful Writing at Work, 9th ed. Wadsworth Publishing, 2009.

The Tried and True Method for Samples of Leadership Essay in Step by Step Detail

The Tried and True Method for Samples of Leadership Essay in Step by Step Detail No matter the qualification and educational merit, everyone can develop into a leader. A leader ought to specify a performance program. An excellent leader has to be confident both facing the subjects and other individuals. He must also make sure that he or she not only communicates the appropriate information to the team, but also that everyone understands it. The Ultimate Samples of Leadership Essay Trick Students lead busy lives and frequently forget about a coming deadline. Leaders have the duty of guiding people to realize certain objectives or agendas. The leaders may also bring understanding amongst workers to give a peaceful environment at work. Rarely are you going to locate an ideal individual. The person who's a leader must possess decent communication abilities and must be the very best orator too. As a rule leadership is directed at encouraging individuals to attain common targets. Secondly, ethical leadership entails plenty of communication with one's subordinates as well as some other colleagues. The Ugly Secret of Samples of Leadership Essay There are a lot of characteristics which seem to be more important than others even though it is tricky to isolate only a couple. Before you begin attempting to consider the specifics or the structure of your leadership essay, you will need to understand a bit more on the topic of the leadership characteristics you've got. There are specific circumstances that need a strong concentrate on the distinctive traits of a person's character to be able to reveal the potential that the person holds. Much more can be added on the topic of the value of leader's individual traits. Leadership is an ability to lead men and women in order to attain specific objectives. Goals in an organization need to be achieved through a practice. Even though a teacher has an obligation to inspire learning, a CEO has the duty to lead and execute a corporation's strategies, and get the long-term objectives. Leadership is the procedure together with the capability of a leader to lead in a team to be able to attain a typical endeavor. It is mostly confused with management. They have to have high moral value and ethics if we are to have a better world. They have an important role within an organisation related to its success, productivity and the performance of the employees. Samples of Leadership Essay Fundamentals Explained Top-quality essay writing help is provided to the students at a really nominal cost by the expert essay helpers. The software becomes increasingly better during its job as a growing number of essays are being entered and can eventually offer specific feedback almost instantly. Introduction of the essay Writing an introduction is a significant step because it will determine how folks react to it. Writing a leadership essay isn't as complex as it appears. At the exact same time, a completely free sample of leadership essays for a scholarship is also offered for the graduates to allow them to understand the fundamentals of essay writing. Unlike your teacher who must read your essay to supply you with a grade, admissions staff don't need to read anything they don't need to. If you are searching for assistance with your essay then we provide a comprehensive writing service offered by fully qualified academics in your area of study. So as to be nice and efficient leader an individual must have to create many built-in skill One can't be effective as a leader without developing leadership abilities. A leader must be active and equally capable of all of the regions of leadership to play his role successfully. He also needs to respect his or her subordinates. Therefore, he gets the ability of acting confidently while inspiring trust in the members of the team. Therole of the leader isn't to know everything, yet to coordinate the actio ns of men and women who do. Remember which you don't need to be someone's superior to be a leader. An excellent leader doesn't sit back and observe what's happening, but rather they need to be the one making the decisions and making certain that the remainder of the team sees them through. It's very obvious that somebody who is behaving as a fantastic leader in politics may also lead a business with similar beauty.

Counterterrorism vs Civil Liberties Free Essays

The fall of Hussein’s regime marked the dawn of the advocacy towards counterterrorism. The war between the United States and the former Iraqi government had really severed the relationship of the two states (Davis, 2002). The war ended with the US as the victor. We will write a custom essay sample on Counterterrorism vs Civil Liberties or any similar topic only for you Order Now Yet the true battle has not been started yet. There are still potential forces that are really capable of destroying the world order again. Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda group are not yet captured. Hence, there are reasons for US not to take its eyes off on the possibility of another outbreak may be it in the Middle East or any place in the globe. What Counterterrorism Is? Counterterrorism pertains to the techniques and strategies that are geared against terrorism (Howard Sawyer, 2005). Counterterrorism does not limit itself from solely being formed and employed by a particular government. It includes all groups and sectors of the society. It is impossible to make the advocacy towards counterterrorism without needing the help of other agencies such the business sector. Certainly, the citizens of the state must be well-informed about the scope and limitations of such campaign so as to get their perspectives regarding it. The campaign for counterterrorism starts with a plan. In the formulation of the plan, various strategies, tactics, and techniques are also developed to respond to terrorist attacks. The plan normally includes â€Å"special forces† and teams that are directly responsible for the implementation of particular strategies against the terrorists (Howard Sawyer, 2005). In this contemporary period, campaigns for counterterrorism are becoming prevalent not only in the Western regions but also in the Eastern and Southern regions. The United States has started to solicit support form its allied countries to materialize its plan of combating terrorism. US Policy on Counterterrorism As mentioned in the introduction, the great efforts of the US to strengthen its position against terrorism started after the September 11 bombing which put the whole of US in big indignity. The US drafted a national as well as international policy against terrorism. The US Counterterrorism Policy states that it strongly espouses a war against terrorism and all other forms of it. The policy stressed that the US shall vigorously act so as to defeat terrorist attacks against the state and the citizens (Naftali, 2005). According to the policy, the US government including all its major departments and agencies shall put great effort so in order to reduce the vulnerabilities of the US on terrorism (Naftali, 2005). All the departments and agencies mentioned in the policy shall see to it that the counterterrorism campaign of the state is given the highest priority. Such that it shall secure that all of their areas of responsibility are protected from terrorist attacks (Davis, 2002). In addition, the policy states that its implementation shall be appropriately and effectively employed by all US departments and agencies by shouldering all the costs of its implementation as well as developing efficient and useful technologies that can really contribute in countering terrorism (Naftali, 2005). The US Counterterrorism Policy is not only limited in the state’s national territory. In fact, its policy extends even outside US. It requires that countries who house particular terrorist groups shall be able to cooperate with them. It is clearly stated in the policy that the US government will be using all means to get terrorist groups from their host country no matter if the latter agrees or not. And those countries that refuse to do so would be labeled as advocates of terrorism thus they shall be treated as enemies of the state. Such is the scope of the US policy on counterterrorism (Howard Sawyer, 2005). Counterterrorism vs. Civil Liberties The former or the traditional surveillance in the US has been developed into something that which is superior in terms of its strict implementation. Yet, as we all know, everything that exceeds the normal is evil. In US, people are said to be more secured and protected against any forms of violence particularly by terrorism (Darmer Baird, 2004). This is due to the fact that the US government gives priority to the enforcement of the anti-terrorism or counterterrorism policy. As consequences, people are confident enough of their safety wherever they are in the globe. However, such strictness in the counterterrorism policy implies the curtailment of certain civil liberties of its citizens. As mentioned earlier, all US departments and agencies have been instructed to do their very best and to prioritize the campaign against terrorism. By doing so, people would not really be able do their thing as how they do it before. This means that they have to sacrifice their some of their freedom (i. e. privacy) just to ensure that the policy on counterterrorism is not being obstructed by anyone or anything (Darmer Baird, 2004). This seems to be problematic especially for those advocates of human rights. By implementing the policy, the government has given a direct authority over the citizen’s life so as to secure that there are no threats of terrorism. It may seem beneficial to all because they are being protected by the state. Yet people may also experience severe interference and intervention from the government (Howard Sawyer, 2005). And these things are not really good for the government inflicts pointless suffering on its citizens. As reported, there are increasing numbers of human rights victims in the US whose grievances are caused by the policy on counterterrorism. Furthermore, it undermines the welfare of the people in the sense that it gives more priority (i. e. higher subsidy for military) to the campaign against terrorism than giving more funds for education, and social and heath services (Darmer Baird, 2004). References: Darmer, M. K. , Baird, R. M. (2004). Civil Liberties Vs. National Security In A Post 9/11 World . Prometheus Books . Davis, P. K. (2002). Deterrence and Influence in Counterterrorism: A Component in the War on Al Qaeda. RAND Corporation . Howard, R. D. , Sawyer, R. L. (2005). Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding the New Security Environment, Readings and Interpretations (2nd ed. ). McGraw Hill/Dushkin. Naftali, T. (2005). Blind Spot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism . Amazon Remainders Account . How to cite Counterterrorism vs Civil Liberties, Papers

Radio Station Research Essays - Radio Formats, Target Corporation

Radio Station Research Radio Station Research Table of Contents Introduction 2 Scope of the Study 3 Methods Used 3 Results 5 Age 5 Time of Day 6 Location 8 Recommendations 10 Target Format 10 Target Location 11 Bibliography 12 Introduction Music is a general love of almost every college student. Many develop their personalities, profiles, and various other tastes based on their listening choices. In general, many college students acquire the same spectrum of listening values. If a radio station, one that wishes to target the college student population, can discover the musical preferences of the general population of students, they will be able to grow within the specific market. Since the target market is of a personality of the student, generally a crowd that has the same likes and dislikes as his/her peers; the target musical format should be fairly easy to determine. Unlike the 25-33 crowd or 40 and up crowd, where their musical preferences range far and wide, each college student has almost the same understanding of their values. Possible reasons for this may be peer pressure or self-morale gains, yet it still exists among the college crowd. Thus, a common format may be simpler for a station targeting the college format. The station will be able to gain knowledge for its possible advertisers by analyzing its target population's needs and wants. Plus, they will be able to acknowledge the possible locations of the students, where they go and what they do. The ultimate goal is to find out where the students are spending their money, so advertising can be solicited into purchasing radio time. Advertisers wish to have some "concrete" data when analyzing which station they wish to spend their money on through airtime. The purpose of this study is to give the possible clients the facts placed in front of them as well as educate them as to where our target is going and the possibilities of gathering our target audience to their place of business. Consumer behavior will come into play in the study, since part of the goal is to gather information on the needs and wants of the consumer, or radio listener. Analysis of behavior is more difficult to determine, because the data collected is based on values and personal judgment. Little data collected will be concrete, since the student will be revealing based on opinions, not facts. However, opinions sometimes hold strong enough to reach a borderline to fact. Scope of the Study The study was a descriptive design with an emphasis on the listening preferences of college students. Data was acquired as to which brand of music, or radio format, is most appealing to college students, such as alternative, rock, country, RB, etc. Also, data was collected regarding the basic needs of the students as well as the distances they wished to travel to acquire their needs. Other gatherings included the desired radio format, amount of interest in the radio, impact of personalities, and several shopping tastes the student has. Analysis of the location of the target, how often they listen to the radio, what time they listened to the radio, and traveling distance, both overall and for necessities, were acquired to gain a general knowledge of the target market. Methods Used The main source of the study was through conducting a survey. A survey was offered randomly to college students on the campus of the University of Nevada-Reno. The sampling was nonprobability-random, because of the nature of the issuance of the surveys. However, coverage was broad, because the survey was issued to students ranging from freshman to senior. After the survey was conducted, a total of 57 surveys were collected. The information from the surveys included questions such as their listening preferences, time of day they listen to the radio, amount of time spent listening to the radio, and where they spend the most amount of time listening to the radio, such as in their car, at home, at work, or at school. Next, students were asked several questions in regards to their favorite radio formats. Such questions included were their favorite morning show, type of morning show they most desire, and how much of an impact the radio personality, or disc jockey, placed on the student. These questions were used to determine the students' tastes in format as well as how much of an impact the format places on them. Also, demographics of the students, age, marital status, gender, and ethnicity, were collected. The data collected will help determine a possible correlation between the student and the other categorical questions. Another important factor placed on the survey was the location of the student. If one can determine the general concentrated population area of most students, they will be able

The Effects of Watching TV essays

The Effects of Watching TV essays Watching television is one of the most popular pastimes in the world. Almost all children do so; some even take the liberty of slipping out of bed unnoticed at night just to watch a show that they like. However, what most people do not realize is that television can ruin your eyesight, cause lack of concentration and can also inculcate many bad habits, especially in young ones. Most shows shown on the television nowadays involve bright color. According to the media, the brighter the picture, the better it is. But doctors feel the contrary. Almost all the latest movies and cartoons shown on television use a variety of special effects. Most of these involve explosions and gun fights (in the case of movies) and flashes of lightning and bursts of color at times of animated violence (in the case of cartoons). These sudden and intermittent flashes of light are capable of causing serious damage to the eye and can cause temporary blindness and migraine if a person watches television excessively. This was the case with the recent popular Japanese cartoon show, Pokemon, where certain animals with special powers emitted balls of lightning or fire when prompted; many children suffered from headaches as a result of watching the show and complaints are still being issued against the show for the same reason. Another very common problem noticed in people who watch too much of television is their lack of concentration. This is caused as a result of the combination of visual and auditory media which alert most of the senses of the viewer. These senses are heightened to a great extent as a result of which perception of sounds improves. However, this poses as a disadvantage as even the smallest of noises or disturbances can divert ones attention from the task at hand. This is especially seen in the case of people who normally study in the close vicinity of an operational television set. This can cause lots of other added problems; restlessness ...

Stereographic Photography

Stereographic Photography Stereographs were a very popular form of photography in the 19th century. Using a special camera, photographers would take two nearly identical images which, when printed side by side, would appear as a three dimensional image when viewed through a set of special lenses called a stereoscope. Millions of stereoview cards were sold and a stereoscope kept in the parlor was a common entertainment item for decades. Images on the cards ranged from portraits of popular figures to comical incidents to spectacular scenic views. When executed by talented photographers, stereoview cards could make scenes appear extremely realistic. For example, a stereographic image shot from a tower of the Brooklyn Bridge during its construction, when viewed with the proper lenses, makes the viewer feel as if they are about to step out on a precarious rope footbridge. The popularity of stereoview cards faded by about 1900. Large archives of them still exist and thousands of them can be viewed online. Many historic scenes were recorded as stereo images by noted photographers including Alexander Gardner and Mathew Brady, and scenes from Antietam and Gettysburg can seem particularly vivid when viewed with the proper equipment that shows off their original 3-D aspect. History of Stereographs The earliest stereoscopes were invented in the late 1830s, but it wasn’t until the Great Exhibition of 1851 that a practical method of publishing stereo images was introduced to the public. Throughout the 1850s the popularity of stereographic images grew, and before long many thousands of cards printed with side-by-side images were being sold. Photographers of the era tended to be businessmen fixated on capturing images that would sell to the public. And the popularity of the stereoscopic format dictated that many images would be captured with stereoscopic cameras. The format was especially suited to landscape photography, as spectacular sites such as waterfalls or mountain ranges would appear to jump out at the viewer. In typical use, stereoscopic images would be viewed as parlor entertainment. In an era before films or television, families would experience what it was like to see distant landmarks or exotic landscapes by passing around the stereoscope. Stereo cards were often sold in numbered sets, so consumers could easily buy a series of views related to a particular theme.   Its apparent by viewing vintage stereoscopic images that photographers would try to choose vantage points which would emphasize the 3-dimensional effect. Some photographs that might be impressive when shot with a normal camera can seem thrilling, if not terrifying, when viewed with the full sterescopic effect. Even serious subjects, including very grim scenes shot during the Civil War, were captured as stereoscopic images. Alexander Gardner used a stereoscopic camera when he took his classic photographs at Antietam. When viewed today with lenses that replicate the three-dimensional effect, the images, especially of dead soldiers in poses of rigor mortis, are chilling. Following the Civil War, popular subjects for stereoscopic photography would have been the construction of the railroads in the West, and the construction of landmarks such as the Brooklyn Bridge. Photographers with stereoscopic cameras made considerable effort to capture scenes with spectacular scenery,   such as Yosemite Valley in California. Stereoscopic photographs even led to the founding of the National Parks. Tales of spectacular landscapes in the Yellowstone region were discounted as rumors or wild tales told by mountain men. In the 1870s stereoscopic images were taken in the Yellowstone region and they were shown to members of Congress. Through the magic of stereoscopic photography skeptical legislators could experience some of the grandeur of Yellowstones majestic scenery, and the argument to preserve the wilderness was thereby strengthened. Vintage stereoscopic cards can be found today at flea markets, antique stores, and online auction sites, and modern lorgnette viewers (which can be purchased through online dealers) make it possible to experience the thrill of 19th century stereoscopes.   Sources: Stereoscopes.  St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, edited by Thomas Riggs, 2nd ed., vol. 4, St. James Press, 2013, pp. 709-711. Brady, Mathew.  UXL Encyclopedia of World Biography, edited by Laura B. Tyle, vol. 2, UXL, 2003, pp. 269-270.   Photography.  Gale Library of Daily Life:  American Civil War, edited by Steven E. Woodworth, vol. 1, Gale, 2008, pp. 275-287.

Maya Angelous cultural impact, and her treatment in the media Essay

Maya Angelous cultural impact, and her treatment in the media - Essay Example legacy precedes her as the most successful visible woman autobiographer, and autobiographical voice of her time since all her life seemed like her work. Maya brought diversity to literature and theatre through her writing changing the course of society for the better in her profession, as depicted by Pulitzer Prize, Emmy Award, Tony Award, and inclusion in The National Women’s Hall of Fame. In all, Maya left a legacy of the legendary poet, tireless activist and a writer despite struggles in her life. Criticism of Maya’s books and writings were both negative and positive depending on the point of view of the critique. Maya’s critics included positive reviews by Elsie Washington saying, "the black womans poet laureate" after reciting, â€Å"On the Pulse of Morning† in President Clinton’s inauguration. Another positive review was by Younge, who said Maya had been able to blend poetry, conversation, and song through merging her talents to create an art performance that results in social uplift and issue a personal message. Negative criticism to Maya were on the use of her life in her writing to which she said she was in agreement to black and white writers saying she writes for money. Other negative criticism came from parents owing to her depiction of pornography, lesbianism, violence, and premarital cohabitation. Other criticism included language use, sexually explicit scenes, and irrelevant religious

First native women Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

First native women - Essay Example The basis for Lavell and Bedard for their claim of discrimination was how Aboriginal women would lose their Indian status when a non-Indian or a non-registered Indian married them. In addition, it meant that Lavell’s children would be deprived of their Indian status. Lavell argued that Section 12 (1) (b) discriminated the women gender, and the sections should be repealed, in relation to the 1960 Bill of Rights (5). Lavell’s case was the first that dealt with discrimination because of sex. Because of these discriminatory sections, many Indian women were denied their heritage, and not by the will, but because of an archaic law. Lavell did not like how the acts that were set to govern the Indian reserves were being operated, whereby it stated who is not and who is acknowledged as an Indian. Lavell was furious about how the Indian Act allowed the male Indian, who happened to marry out retained their status and were able to pass it on to their non-Indian wives and to their c hildren. The male Indian wives, even though they sometimes did not have First Nation ancestry; they were entitled to full status. The result of the discriminatory sections was the practical ostracism of more than ninety thousand women, their children and their spouses from their societies and traditional homelands (Lavell 7). It caused great emotional, psychological and economic suffering to the affected people. Lavell was not pleased with this outcome because when she married she was sent a notice submitting that she was no longer identified as an Indian as stated in Section 12 (1) (b) of the Indian Act. It is because she was a no native who had married David Lavell a native. These grave effects for enfranchised First Nation women made Lavell go to court to challenge the Indian Act. Lavell’s claim was supported by Bedard, who joined her in 1973 when she appealed for her case after losing it at trial. Lavell had lost her case on the basis that the Canadian Bill of right

Nation As A Myth Is India A Myth History Essay

Nation As A Myth Is India A Myth History Essay The dictionary definition of Nation is: A group of people who share the same culture, ethnicity and language, often possessing or seeking its own independent government. When one looks at this definition and then re-thinks about it for the Indian prospective, The first thing that come to the mind is either there is something remarkably wrong with the definition, as India has is a combination of a plethora of cultures, ethnicities and languages or hence is a complete misfit for being termed as a Nation or there is something wrong in the way with the way the world understand what a Nation is. Basically the whole concept of nation is an imaginary concept. Its never possible that people will be influenced by the same likes of culture or ethnicity. A human mind tends to deviate from what normal around it to explore new things, when a group of people live together by the will or by virtue its called a society. Each member of the society is unique, He might not be there purely because of his will to be there, But might be compelled to be there because of various factors. This might be financial, Social, And Family or lack of other options. We cannot interpret that the individuals staying in the society are part of the culture or adhere to the same ethnicity. The chances of them being there by choice is as good as for them being there by choice. Now taking the concept of a society to a broader target, it gives us a few foundation pillars towards the concept of a Nation. Although people might be a part of it, but its not necessary they want to be there. They mostly are there, because either the decision to be there was taken on their behalf by their Elders (in case of a partition or plebiscite), by their Leaders (Again a leader is not one which represents everyone but a majority) or they belonged to the land from birth. The concept of Nations is elaborated as expressed more much more complex than it was ever thought to be. As put in new literature by many writers, Nations is an imaginary concept and hence should be distinguished in the way they are imagined. The fact is, the concept of a nation is more of an idea; its an idea of people from a common culture and values, their desire and will towards freedom. We had been reading from the text books for ages that Unity in Diversity is what India stands for as a nation. But the whole idea of India as a nation is been criticized much because of its failure to become a single unified Nation state in the likes of Germany (after the East Germany and West Germany) and Japan. One can also claim that India has done much better in terms of keeping the minor states together, unlike the rest of Europeor the far gone USSR which are now divided into various small states. The Indian nation reflects the counter of the Europe small countries that were homogeneous when considered in terms of population and culture, England, Germany and France to name a few. Even Islamic nations like Iran, Iraq or Saudi Arabia were let down when it came to a concept of Nations and ended up in military dictatorship or medieva l style monarchies. India as a Nation: The nation state idea never worked for India, because of it size and diversity. For others like Europe, they had to work hard to suppress their divisions and prejudice the idea of nationhood. India also fails to stand as a nation unlike other Nations is because India set out for a democratic model, whereas the other nations were on imperialistic rule and not an integrated culture encompassing the subcontinent. Diversity in India adds to the failure of idea of the Indian Nation: India with it diversity has failed as a nation right from the formation of India as an independent country. Firstly the formation of the Islamic nation of Pakistan, Then the Issue of Kashmir, The North-East, The khalistan Movement, The recent show downs from Telangana, Gorkhanland etc. India had been suffering at the hands of the minor states, and in order to maintain a nationwide feel, has been dealing with them by avoiding the issue till the very last stage when any further push will result in a crack in the complete National structure and then bending down to the demands. Not to mention after a heavy disrupt and unnecessary bloodshed. The idea of the Nation of India chronologically speaking has never been a single State. History has its records that all those who tried to keep India as unified states failed in their endeavours weather it may be the King Ashoka or Alexander. What these great rulers identified in this land was that the diversity of its origin and existence is not only trivial to capture but to keep united in public interest is a herculean task. Yet, India emerged as a golden bird in the early 16th Century and attracted a lot of unwanted attention from other Nations. The British came to India for trade and sighted an opportunity to take charge as the nation was spread in forms of small princely states rather than as a Nation. It took our leader decades in the struggle for freedom, And the first thing that was set to harbinger the lack of National interests post independence was the partition of Pakistan and the formation of East and West Pakistan. The Indian political leaders had sleepless nights try ing to put a map in place for the unified princely states in India. Pivotal role of Indias Freedom: When the labour party in England won the elections, their chief agenda of decision of discontinuation of the British Empire in India, Different communities in India started demanding of India as a free state or as a State of States. It was for the United National Congress will that they 562 princely states became a part of India. But not all the states were happy for this, As a result of this political decision, there were riots between Hindus and Sikhs and Hindus and Muslims. The demand for Hindu State from the Hindu Mahasabha, The demand for Sikh State in Punjab, The Dravidians in South India, The Tamil State and the issue with Hyderabad and Kashmir who cited independence. All the demands for separate states were demands from the political parties as they saw an opportunity to have the power of the land and also to gain maximum benefits for themselves and their followers from the same. The formation of Pakistan, Added fuel to the already heated demands for separate States, and the feeling of discontent with India as a Nation started to fade even before it was established. India then was ruled by Indian National Congress and Pakistan was governed by The Muslim League. Whereas the other stated were pleased by giving them individual power in their own regions. A total of 25 states were created post independence to feed the political hunger of those regions. This set out the lifeless frame of the Indian Nation which was more of a compromise of State wise governing rather than a nationwide government. The other discontent states in the likes of Telengana, Gorkhaland, Kashmir and others were still left unanswered. And since then the issues have been kept avoiding till the time when avoidance resulted in further blows to the so called nationalism in the country. India has never been in a nationalistic phase, the fragmentation in India occurs due to the political will. Where a particular political party keeps fragmentation or demand for a separate ruling state as an agenda to come to power. And its not related to some minority areas which have a low impact on India, But India faces the pull from all directions and every corner with a demand for a separate state. In 2002 the then in power political party had to make way for three more states in order to fulfil the political appetite of the political parities of the concerned regions. But the government always fails to find a solution to the problem; In 2002 the government took the steps to avoid any more drama on the topic but indirectly ignited the sentiments of the political parties from other regions who have been fighting for a separate state. The Gorkhas with their issue for Gorkhaland, The Telangana issue which has been hot for a long time now, the demand for Bundelkhand, The demand for Saurashtra etc. Were reignited and the political parties got afresh agenda to create havoc. History and Social Issues of India as a Nation: This political view is not just challenged on the basis of Region, But also on the basis of Religion, Caste, Race and Language. With the political drama in Maharastra for the Marathi Manus has been a nuisance. Which is nothing more than a agenda to capture vote bank in the political parties there. The essence being, the parties capitalize of the fact that the people there have a lack of view of nationality and have a clearer picture and identification in their own culture and language. And believe that they first are Marathis, (or Tamils or Gorkhas for that sake) then Indians. Apart from the political views clash on basis on Regionalism and Language, issues which shake the will of India as a nation have been as pity as Interstate disputed over Water and Territorial boundaries, Caste Related violence, Naxalism are a few to name. Partition of Pakistan: Taking the case of The Myth of India as a nation has been punctured right from the formation of India post independence, ending up with two different countries, India and Pakistan (East and West). Till date it remains to be a major issue and the scars of which continue to haunt us in the form of the battle for Kashmir which started in 1947 and continues till date with no solution in site. Both the involved parties believe its a part of their territory because they believe that its more closer to their culture and hence should be a part of their territory. But what they fail to see is that the case of plebiscite never came to discussion. India and Pakistan both have been having a hard nut with their own internal issues, Pakistan with the disputes and killing between the Shia and Sunni tries in the name of superior race, On the other hand India with the issues like Marathis and Biharis, Hindus and Muslims , Hindus and Sikhs etc. Both are not able to handle either existing states and wi sh to take another disputed state to their bag. The idea for India and Pakistan was not from the people of the respective groups but were driven by the political leaders of the groups. These leaders made the people belief that the only way of growth and progress of their community is via a separate nation only. A decision which they all repented later in life. At the time of partition when Indians started the quest for India to have and nationality was more than a requirement, and ended up being a matter of pride. This was the time when the Hindus and Muslims started having a desire for a nation. The sense of nationality could have existed without the desire for having a separate nation. North East: The North Eastern states face a similar issue when it comes to the sense of Nationality. They are a part of India, But how often have there been uprising from the North East fronts in demand for a separate land, The ULFA in Assam, The Gorkhas in the regions around Darjelling etc. The reasons why these states have always been a trouble for the centre is because of the lack of importance that the North Western Indian front is given over the decades. The political parties in order to control the vote bank gave citizenship to immigrants from Bangladesh, Which further boiled the anger of the region. These regions have never thought of India as a country but as a power at Centre which is to be followed. Hence to the North East the concept of nation comes from chance and not by choice. The mudslinging continues as the nation says that these states dont tend to treat them as part of India and the states believe that they are treated as foreigners in India, So why not be a separate nation. Rest of India they dont believe in North Eastern as Indians: They are often referred as Chini or Chinkis and are treated as foreigners. The Nagas in Nagaland believe they are a separate nation and consider rest of Indias as foreigners and always believed they were included in India against their will. Arunachal Pradesh has been confused which country they do belong to India or China. And as both the countries have been fighting on this front, Arunachal Pradesh believe they need a solution to their long standing problem now. This is just as big as the Kashmir issue but is never addressed. Khalistan Movement: The Sikhs wanted a land of their own right from the India freedom struggle. These unmet demands were outburst in the form of the state of Punjab during the Khalistan movement. The demand for a separate state by Bhindranwala, the ironic leader who demanded a separate land for Sikhs lead to further shows of why the concept of Indian nation is a political will rather than a cross culture believe. Telangana: Again when the case of Telangana was addressed, the issue that the political leaders brought up to the surface was the suffering and they believe they had nothing to lose in the battle. But a battle? With their own country, their own motherland, well this is because of the fact that for them the mother land in Telangana and not India. The leaders and the followers believe that since their issues are not addressed by the Indian government, its better to be on their own. The factor that the political parties capitalise to come to power is that they assure the formation of a new state in case they come to power. They capitalise on the vote bank, and then to gain more direct power and control follow their promises to ask for a separate state. This is negotiated till the time the elasticity permits. With the regionalism of politics, race and language, there are other sectors also that get affected. The long standing delusion of patriotism is now being replaced by the new found jingoism. This is not only evident from the uproars of the states but can easily be read even from the number of TV channels for specific states. Various Incidences in recent times: Attacks as the one triggered by MNS and Shiv Sena on the North Indian candidates for the All India Railway recruitment board entrance in West region in Mumbai shows how much politics goes into everything. The plot was to dent the feeling of India as a nation to Marathis, and to reinforce the power of Marathis in the state of Maharastra over the feeling on India as a nation. The anti Tamil riots in Karnataka in 1991, the attacks which mainly took place in Bangalore and Mysore was to show the disrespect against the orders of the Cauvery Water Tribunal appointed by the Government of India. Again a matter where Region over Nation. The various other cited examples include The attack on North Indians in Maharastra and the referring on Biharis as outsiders in Delhi by the Chief Minister of Delhi are clear depictions that the integrity is more towards regions rather than nations. So what is the point then of being in the essence of a nation? The answer is simple, To keep a central authority. Which also comes from a combined political view, But as we have seen from time to time, This tends to dilute and the comfort of regionalism overpowers the feel of nationalism. The being of India as a nation is more of a will from the political fronts, where the views of nationalism are intact only till the point when it does not clashes with any other major interest. The interest may be related to religion, region, caste or other social issues. As soon as a political agenda is created out of the same, the skeleton of India is ruptured. These ruptures not only make a mark at the time of the impact but also leave significant scars which are exploited time and time again based on the political requirements of the regional or nationalist parties The Failure of the State: The idea of India as a nation is clashes with the regional identity, Any political demand for statehood, or sub-statehood, when demonstrates identifiable support from masses clearly state the lack of Indian nationalism. The emergence of the various ethnic nations in India e.g. Bengali, Sikh, Gujarati, Manipuri, or Tamil have taken shape and protect their ideology with stronger support for their regions rather than the nation. The support is derived from the followers who put their region first to their Nation. And for them being a part of India is just a mere way of recognition till the point they get a identity of their own. The regional and sub regional accommodation of identity in India have served to weaken the bases of political secessionism and secessionism and separatism while not defeating the principle of internal self determination of nation. The concept of India as nation was never there in the essence of purity; It lacked the vigour and desire, and came into being as a way out of the then impossible structure of princely states structure. But, the political figures try to hold it together, and time and again, are faced by the protest when people decide that their individual or community interest is superior to that of the nation. This individualistic feeling of superiority than the nation has always been into India, right from when the states were asked to join in the Union of India. The existence of India as a nation in itself a myth, If given a chance, there will be a handful who will not be willing to have a state or sub state like the Europe or former USSR. Europe failed through history in uniting as a subcontinent, though some attempts in this direction were made (for example, Napoleon).   The only country of comparable size that has better succeeded than India through history in maintaining its unity as a country is China. But even China never had so much diversity as India. But still India is better off from the modern Europe with their nationalistic phase, when every Indian state will start functioning as different countries or starts regarding them as different nations all together. The foreign ruler ship prevented this from happening. Hopefully Indian political will would keep the Indian national interest at priority for a more stable time to come and help India avoid the European nationalistic phase.

Proposal for Family Life Education Essay

Studies show that the national average for an adolescent’s first sexual intercourse encounter is seventeen years old. Despite this number being very close to the average age in other industrialized countries, the United States holds a higher percentage of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (STD) contraction than those countries (Harper et al, 2010, p. 125). It’s becoming evident that while a majority of the nation’s youth is sexually active, they are not doing so with the appropriate knowledge to keep themselves and others healthy. It’s been proven that if parents were to educate students about sex education, healthy sexual behaviors might increase. Many parents, however, refuse to do this because they feel that talking about sex with youth will make them have sex, ignoring the fact that whether the youth are talked to or not, they are having sex. It has even been stated that some teens prefer to get the information from their parents, as opposed to other educators (Zamboni & Silver, 2009, p. 58 – 59). Unfortunately, if the parents refuse to talk to the students about sex, they become sexually active without this crucial information. As the rates of STDs and teenage pregnancies rise in our country, youths between the ages of 12 and 20 years old could definitely benefit from the introduction of a family life education program focused on teaching the difference between healthy and unhealthy sexual behaviors. A program known as Youth Understanding Sexual Health (YUSH) would be the perfect venue for doing just this. A program developed for teens in middle and/or high school, YUSH is a seven week program that seeks to ensure that these youths realize the difference between healthy and unhealthy behaviors, the consequences and results of participating in both, and how to make sure that they avoid negative, harmful, and otherwise unhealthy sexual behaviors. By instilling this information into the children at early ages before or soon after they have begun to participate in sexual behaviors, the program will meet several crucial goals. First, it will get these students in to a routine of practicing healthy sexual behaviors that they can take with them well into adulthood. Not only will this maintain their own sexual health, but it will protect their other potential sex partners. Second, the new knowledge that the teens will gain from the program will allow them to pass on information to their peers that may not be allowed to participate in the program, be too embarrassed or shy to seek information, or been unable to attend the program sessions for any other reason. Other aspects of society reach popularity in similar manners, including music, movies, video games, dances, or slang, so this information can be expected to spread in a very similar manner. According to Powell & Cassidy (2007), when developing an effective family life education program, its important make sure that they needs of the audience are appropriately addressed (p. 79 – 80). Of the three needs, felt, ascribed, and future needs, both felt and ascribed needs can be determined before the program has started. In order to effectively determine these needs, the appropriate assessments must be taken. Prior to the start of the program, certified family life educators (CFLEs) will conduct an assessment by using focus groups and questionnaires from potential program attendees within the target audience. Since the target audience is composed of students that attend local middle and high schools, the CFLEs will send home two things to the parents of all of the potential students: a letter requesting permission for the teens to participate in the program, which details the material that will be discussed and the extent of the programs, along with a questionnaire for the student and parent to complete together which addresses the information that both parties feel should be addressed in such a program. In order protect confidentiality; the questionnaire will be a two part survey with one aspect for parents and one aspect for the students to fill out. Using the questionnaires from the parents and information from the schools and community, CFLEs will be able to determine the ascribed needs of the program. The information obtained from the students’ surveys will reveal the felt needs of the program. The final category of needs, future needs, will be addressed throughout the duration of the program and will be met through a combination of student comprehension and effective facilitation by CFLEs. If YUSH seeks success, another thing that Powell & Cassidy (2007) suggest is well trained and effective educators. CFLEs will undergo extensive training in which they will learn to fully accept their roles as facilitators, exhibit effective listening skills and communication skills, and how to encourage the youth to participate in the program’s discussions and activities (p. 92 – 112). The National Council of Family Relations (NCFR) (2011) explains that there are certain requirements necessary before an individual can be a CFLE and this involves either graduating from an approved program or taking the CFLE exam. In addition to that certification, and in order to specialize in sexual health, YUSH facilitators will be trained to have a complete understanding of the material and how to appropriately present the information to the teens by means of seminars, training kits, and manuals. Qualified facilitators and understanding of the appropriate needs of the target audience are only two aspects of ensuring that YUSH is a successful program. A location and time for the program’s meeting must be established, as well as the frequency of meetings. When choosing a location, it’s important to make sure that there will be privacy, comfort, and no distractions. The location must be appropriate for the size of the group. With such a large target audience, it will be necessary to have several different groups. The groups can be separated by grade, with about 20 – 25 students in each group. These groups would meet during their health classes during school hours, but without regular teachers and/or administrators in the rooms, so that the adolescents feel comfortable. The curriculum of the YUSH program takes place once a week for seven weeks, with approximately 1 ? hour sessions each week. Each week will have a different topic to focus on with the schedule as follows: Week 1: Introduction to Sexual Health, Opening Questions and Concerns Week 2: Sexual Myths Week 3: Decision-Making, Abstinence Week 4: Protecting Yourself/Contraceptives Week 5: Sexually Transmitted Diseases Week 6: Risky Sexual Behaviors, Sexual Violence Week 7: Re-Cap, Evaluations, Final Concerns During the first session, YUSH facilitators will lead the youth in icebreakers to introduce themselves to one another as well as complete opening surveys that address what each student expects to take away from the program. Also, within this session, there will be questions posed by students to be asked at that time or at the end of the program. Rules of the program will be explained, including maintaining respect for others and their privacy. Participation should be encouraged and questions welcomed (Powell & Cassidy, 2007, p. 103 – 105). YUSH presenters will use a variety of presentation methods in each of the courses including a formal method or informal. Using Week 5’s topic of STDs as an example, the formal method would involve a lecture format with handouts, notes and power point presentations. CFLE would have teens identify what they have learned through this information with quizzes and tests. The quizzes, which would be a combination of fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice answers, will address the different types of STDs, how to contract them, how they are spread, the symptoms of each and how to treat them. This method would also involve the distribution of pamphlets and brochures to sum up the week’s discussion. An informal method of presenting the information involves using games and scenarios to enhance the teens’ understanding of STDs. A Jeopardy format in which youth match symptoms to disease might also be an effective means of presenting the information. YUSH facilitators would also have the option of using various scenarios and role play models to show the ways that STDs are spread, contracted and treated. The Department of Public Health of Seattle and King County (2011) suggests an interactive activity for showing the ways that STDs spread by using several small cups of water, one cup with a water/vinegar mixture, and several pH paper slips. During several different rounds, students will mix the contents of their cups with other students. At the end of the activity, students dip their test strips to see who might be potentially â€Å"infected. † After someone has interacted with the vinegar mixture, or someone else who has interacted with that mixture, they are more than likely infected. The activity shows that even though it may not be visibly noticeable (because the vinegar mixture is still clear like the water); it’s easily spread if no protection is used. The fact that some students may have noticed the vinegar smell shows that though sometimes the symptoms may be noticeable, they can still be overlooked by others (p. 2 – 8). Another informal method of presenting the topics of the week would be via interactive methods such as projects, guest speakers, and field trips which exemplify that week’s information. Guest speakers would be extremely effective during Week 4’s discussion of protection and contraceptives. In this example, guest speakers would come from various family planning centers to show students the various contraceptives options that they can choose from and explain how to decide which ones best fit their lifestyles. Finally, the reasons for supporting and bringing this program to life will be evident in the evaluations of the program’s effectiveness, determined in the last week of YUSH and in the weeks afterwards. According to Powell & Cassidy (2007), the best way to determine the effectiveness of a family life, more specifically sexual education program, is to witness the changes in behaviors and attitudes (p. 185). As rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs decrease in areas that will have adopted the YUSH program, it will be very apparent that the program has worked and that youth were paying attention in the courses. Furthermore, surveys and questionnaires will be distributed on the last day of the program which will seek to determine how participants and parents feel about the knowledge gained in the program. The last day of class will also be used to wrap up the course by answering questions that haven’t been answered thus far and taking suggestions about any necessary aspects of the program. As a follow-up to the program, CFLEs will send additional newsletters to participants as well as invite them back to be program assistants at the next session of YUSH. References Department of Public Health: Seattle & King County (2011, January 1). STD Risks. Family Life and Sexual Health. Retrieved April 3, 2011, from http://www. kingcounty. gov/healthservices/health/personal/famplan/educators/FLASH. aspx Harper, C. , Henderson, J. , Schalet, A. , Becker, D. , Stratton, L. , & Raine, T. (2010). Abstinence and Teenagers: Prevention Counseling Practices of Health Care Providers Serving High-Risk Patients in the United States. Perspectives on Sexual & Reproductive Health, 42(2), 125-132. Retrieved April 3, 2011, from the EBSCO database. National Council on Family Relations. (2011, January 2). CFLE Certification. NCFR. Retrieved April 3, 2011, from http://www. ncfr. org/ Powell, L. H. , & Cassidy, D. (2007).

The Uses And Misuses Of Derivatives Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 22 Words: 6534 Downloads: 6 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Compare and contrast essay Did you like this example? Hedge funds are pools of investment that invest in almost any opportunity in any market where they foresee impressive gains at reduced risk. Hedging refers to implementing strategies that manage or protect against an identified risk exposure. They take leveraged positions in publically traded equity, debt, foreign exchange and derivatives. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Uses And Misuses Of Derivatives Finance Essay" essay for you Create order The primary aim of most hedge funds is to reduce volatility and risk while attempting to preserve capital and deliver positive returns under all market conditions (Friedland., 2008). Derivatives provide institutions the opportunity to break financial risks into smaller components and then to buy or sell those components to manage risk. Hedge funds hold a number of assets; they use derivatives to protect against the adverse price movement of these assets. Hedge funds play more of the role of speculators than of hedgers. They use derivatives when buying and selling assets and by putting long-short positions, they seek to hedge themselves against broad market moves while profiting from changes in the relative value of the instruments they go long or short. Hedge funds offer a variety of unique strategies to utilize when investing in hedge funds, these are called hedging techniques. These include Market Neutral Strategies, Event Drive / Special Situations Strategies, Long Short , Global Macro, Sector and Country, Dynamic Strategies, Funds of Funds, Funds of Funds of Funds etc. (https://www.global-derivatives.com) Market Neutral Strategies are used in Market Neutral Funds. They tend to take positions which offset each other through both a long and short position simultaneously to reduce their risk exposure. These strategies include Long Short and Convertible Arbitrage. Long-Short methodology attempts to reduce market risk by taking both long and short positions in the market. This can be done by taking a long position in undervalued assed and a short position in overvalued ones. In these funds, it is anticipated that the undervalued assets will increase in value than any losses incurred from the overvalued assets, or vice versa. Convertible arbitrage is a relatively more complex strategy. In this convertible securities such as convertible bonds which can be converted into normal shares or bonds are bought, to take advantage of any price discrepancies be tween the convertible security and that of the exchangeable underlying. A position can be taken for buying convertible security or selling the underlying asset to realise any difference in prices. (https://www.global-derivatives.com) Event Driven / Special Situations Strategies intend to make profit from events related to particular companies. Event Driven funds take a bet that something in the future will happen which will affect the company and its assets in a particular way. These funds include Distressed Securities and Merger/ Risk Arbitrage; these securities include debt and equity of companies undergoing reorganization or bankruptcy, it is hoped that companies will recover and increase in value. These securities have very low value and can be given to the management of a company during the restructuring process. Merger/Risk Arbitrage funds tend to analyze companies which are potential takeover or merger targets by taking two positions. An example of it would be to buy the s tocks of a company that is being acquired with hope that its prices will rise and to sell stocks of the company that is acquiring, in anticipation that its value might fall. (https://www.global-derivatives.com) Long Short is another strategy which includes buying and selling a security based on the sentiments in the market or of a company. It includes short selling, long, and growth fund. Short selling occurs when a person anticipates that the price will fall in future and sells a stock which it does not possess, through borrowing. If the price really falls in future, they buy the lot from the market at a lower price and return it to the one they borrowed from earlier at lower price, thus making a profit. Long is another strategy in hedge funds, it is a fixed income instrument that benefits from the rise in the price of the held asset. They often utilize leveraged positions to maximize returns. Global Macro is an economics based strategy which intends to benefit from shifts i n global economic conditions such as inflation, interest rates and other macro-economic factors; a common example of it is the use of interest rate derivatives for speculative purposes, they give profit from economic movements within particular countries. Sector and Country strategies include sector funds and emerging markets. Sector funds are hedge funds that specialize within a particular industry for example technology, textile etc. these investments consist of long or short positions in stock, debt, or even derivatives on the stocks. Emerging markets include funds that emphasize on emerging markets with less-developed economies and aim to profit from market growth which influence the securities positively. Securities in these hedge funds include sovereign debt or corporate securities with the anticipation that their prices will rise with economic growth. Dynamic strategies include elements such as market timings and opportunistic. Strategy of market timing involves the rig ht timing of the market. It includes making profit based on the correct timing of investments across markets by moving between various asset classes depending upon the view of the manager regarding the market environment. Opportunistic strategy involves switching across asset classes, they use a number of strategies mentioned above depending upon the managers discretion, and the reason for switching strategies is to make the most profit. (https://www.global-derivatives.com) Funds of funds is the strategy of hedge funds to invest in other hedge funds in order to diversify the risk and exposure. The success of these funds depends upon the managers way of handling the funds rather than the performance of the actual investments. Funds of funds of funds or F3s is a new concept to hedge the risk exposure in terms of investments by reducing the volatility of the funds itself. They are good for high risk-averse investors willing to invest in the hedge funds industry. (https://www.glob al-derivatives.com) Amaranth Advisors LLC (Amaranth) Formation and Background Amaranth comprises of Amaranth LLC and Amaranth Advisors LLC. It was founded by Nick Maounis (Maounis) in 2000 as a multi-strategy hedge fund with a special focus on convertible arbitrage (selling (short) equity stocks and at the same time buying (long) convertibles of the same company creating a delta neutral portfolio), with its headquarter in Greenwich, Connecticut and with approximately $600 million in capital. Maounis experience was in managing a number of various arbitrage accounts in the US, Japan, Europe and Canada. The aim was to make profits from the small discrepancies in prices of stocks and bonds, through its structure of three principal funds Amaranth Partners LLC, Amaranth Capital Partners LLC, and Amaranth International Limited and the 27 investment professionals. It sought to employ a group of arbitrage trading strategies particularly featuring convertible bonds, stocks of merging companies and utilities. However, Over the years, the trading activity of Amaranth expanded into merger arbitrage (making a riskless profit by purchasing individual stocks of two merging companies and selling them together), leveraged loans (loans given/extended to individuals or companies that already have large debts on their books), blank-check companies (developing companies) ,volatility trading arbitrage (buying or selling an option on an underlying instrument and selling or buying a varying percentage of the underlying instrument this to gain from the difference between the implied volatility of an option and forecasted future probable volatility of the corresponding underlying instrument), long/short equity, and energy trading. (ICMR, 2010) Strategy As noted above, at the time of formations and throughout its term, the firm emphasized that it was a multi-strategy hedge fund, but as it could be noted in the aftermaths that most of the firms investments and losses were in natural gas derivatives. Amaranths basic strategy comprised of trading in the Natural Gas market; the firm took a long position in winters, with hope that the prices will rise, especially when the demand for natural gas exceeds the supply and storage capacity due to the cold season. Its winter months were November, December, January, February and March. Amaranth used to take a short position in summers when it anticipated that the prices will fall. Part of its strategy also included taking short position in April and long position in March. Moreover, another strategy was to purchase call options on winter months and put options on non-winter months. Amaranth used to bet that natural gas prices will rise, and the spreads in March and April prices will rise as well. Nature of Natural Gas Market By nature, the natural gas market is very risky and volatile. Majorly because there is a commercial need for the commodity. This situation creates a need for an institution to control its supply and storage. In America, there has been inadequate storage capacity of natural gas for peak the winter season demand. Therefore the price of natural gas is higher in winters; firstly due high demand and secondly due to increase the incentives to store natural gas. These factors raise the prices of winter natural gas contracts to an all time high level. Apart from that, the market of natural gas is also volatile because the natural gas production in America is lower than the rise in the demand for natural gas. U.S. Natural Gas markets are shielded from the global energy factors because a very small amount of US natural gas need are met by imports of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG). Commodities trades require less margin money (collateral) than other markets. On the main exchanges, trades p ost 10 percent of their positions value, whereas in the stock market, 50 percent is common. (Davis, Sender, Zuckerman, 2006). After gaining credit from banks, it is very easy for commodity hedge funds to get highly leveraged quickly. Traders of natural gas have a number of options. The largest exchange for trading natural gas is the NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange) which has standardized futures contracts up to few delivery months up to 5 years that are traded on the exchange. Traders can also use ICE (Intercontinental Exchange) which is an over-the-counter market for trading natural gas futures contracts. There has been a lot of debate if hedge funds have an impact on energy trading. According to Gary Gensler (a former Goldman Sachs banker and treasury department official and chairman of the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC) the chief regulator for energy futures energy trading said I believe that excessive speculation in commodity futures can cause sudde n or unreasonable fluctuations or unwarranted changes in commodity prices,. He also expressed his opinion that the rapid growth of commodity index funds and increased hedge fund allocation to commodity assets contributed to the bubble in commodity prices. (Delamaide, Jan 11, 2010) Performance The founders original expertise was in convertible bonds (Till, 2006). The firm later specialized in leveraged loans, blank-check companies and in energy trading. Till June 30th 2006, energy trades accounted for about half of the funds capital and generated about 75% of their profits. (Till, 2006) In 2002 Amaranth started trading with JP Morgan Chase, in energy commodity trading. The winters of 2003 were exceptionally cold and lasted till February, this raised the prices of natural gas manifolds, and this in turn gave huge profits to Amaranth due to its long position in winters. By 2004-5 Amaranth shifted most of its investments into energy trading. The company used to make huge profits from placing spread trades and placing bullish bets on energy in 2005. In the same year America was severely hit by Hurricane Katrina, which adversely impacted it natural gas and oil production and refining capacity. This raised the price of natural gas and Amaranth reaped huge profits out of it. The accounts of Amaranth LLC showed robust performance by the company since its inception. The compound annual return for the period September 2000-November 2005 according to media reports was 14.72 net of all costs. (Gupta Kazemi) The chart below shows Amaranths returns till May 2005. The chart compares the Amaranths returns against CISDM Equal Weighted Hedge Fund Index and CISDM Convertible Arbitrage Index. Amaranth had gained a noteworthy position in May 2005, in CISDM Equal Weighted Hedge Fund Index. The chart show the volatility Amaranth was facing in May 2005, this volatility had brought high returns in the past but things then started taking the turn towards the wrong side. Amaranths returns; source: (Gupta Kazemi) NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange) noticed Amaranths considerable open interest of 51% in Aug 2006 in September natural gas futures contract, which would expire at the end of the month. NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange) brought its concerns i nto notice to Amaranth. Amaranth not only reduced their September but also Octobers positions, as per the directions of NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange). Alongside Amaranth increased their positions in October and September positions under ICE contracts, thus escalating their overall positions in natural gas. (Gupta Kazemi) According to US Securities and Exchange Commission filings, investors in Amaranths funds included a number of Wall Street banks including Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse Group and Deutsche Bank AG. (Burton Leising, 2006) Amaranth was marketing energy and commodities fund to open in December 2006 of about $5 billion. The fund was to be managed by Hunter and Jeff Baired, co-head of Amaranths Global energy and commodities business. But unfortunately the events that followed didnt allow it to happen. (Burton Leising, 2006) Collapse and Beyond Amaranth used to bet that natural gas prices will rise, and the spreads in March and April prices will rise as well. However in 2006, so did not happen and gas prices began to decline due to rising inventories leaving Amaranth on the wrong side of the market trend and consequently reducing its portfolio value of $9.2 billion by less than half. Headed by Brian Hunter, it seemed that Amaranth had not anticipated the rise in the natural gas storage capacity, and the weather pattern bringing a warmer winter. It was in a weeks time that Amaranth lost 65% of its $9.2 billion assets. On September 14 alone, the fund lost $681 million from its natural gas exposure. On September 20th 2006, Amaranth sold its entire energy trading portfolio in a flurry to J.P. Morgan Chase and Citadel Investment Group. It did so at significant discounts to the portfolios then mark-to-market value. (Till, 2006) At the time of liquidation of Amaranth, the spread on gas future declined. The spread on positions held by Amaranth were $2.85 in late August, but after the liquidation had reached below $0.75. (MORGENSON ANDERSON, September 20, 2006). This indicates the lower price expectations in both the bid and ask price for every $1 invested in Amaranths holdings. When Amaranth Advisors LLC announced that it had suffered losses just as big as LTCMs, markets did not respond for Amaranth the way as they did for LTCM (Long Term Capital Management). New York Fed did not hold summit meeting for a bailout plan; but JP. Morgan Co. and Merrill Lynch Co started selling off Amaranths portfolio of natural gas futures. The co-founder of Energy Hedge Fund Centre (which tracks 520 energy funds) said, There is not systematic risk. The market can absorb this. (Mufson, 2006). The reasons for such a reaction were that, firstly Amaranth (although was doing rash trading) but borrowed less heavily and had less leverage than LTCM (Long Term Capital Management); secondly its positions were small er and focused in natural gas futures. LTCM s failure threatened the stability of banks, whereas Amaranths failure only hurt imprudent investors in the natural gas market who hadnt done any research before investing. Amaranths co-founder and chief executive, Nicholas Maounis, said in his letter to investors that the fund was aggressively reducing our natural gas exposure to meet payments to creditors. The said that there was large scale fluctuations in the value of the fund, which was up sharply in August, would be down 35 percent for the year after the sell-off. Later Maounis said that the conditions in the natural gas market deteriorated and market liquidity dried up so quickly that the fund was unable to unwind its energy positions. He said it became clear that we couldnt trade out of it. Amaranth had no choice but to sell its positions at a huge loss because the fund was faced with margin calls and couldnt borrow anymore because of the liquidity problem that emerged once news of its losses hit the market. Maounis apologized to the institutional investors, pension funds and wealthy individuals who lost money as a result of the bad trades. He said We feel bad about losing our money. We feel even worse about losing your money. (CBC-News, 2006) Officially at Amaranth desperately tried to sell the fund to Citigroup. But despite the extensive talks and negotiations, Citigroup decided to walk away from making any deal. (Taulli, Sep 29th 2006 ) On July 25, 2007, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) charged Amaranth and head energy trader Brian Hunter with Attempted Manipulation of the Price of Natural Gas Futures including making false statements to the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has also charged Amaranth and its traders with market manipulation. Amaranth filed a lawsuit against JP Morgan claiming US$ 1 billion in damages, on the grounds that the bank interfered in the companys work to make a deal with Goldman Sachs and Citadel Investments. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) later announced a settlement with Amaranths defendants. However Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) did not withdraw its charges on Amaranth and on August 12, 2009, the federal court ordered Amaranth to pay a $7.5 million civil monetary penalty. The court also enjoins Amaranth from violating the anti-manipulation provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act. (Release, 2009) Amaranth then sued Touradji and his employees (Touradji Capital Management LP), by filing a complaint on September 18, 2006 in New York Supreme court in Manhattan, seeking at least $350 million for claims including breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. Amaranth says that Touradji Capital Management LP breached two contracts agreed to in September 2006 regarding the transfer and purchase of Amaranths base-metals portfolio. According to the official documents, Touradji Capital Managem ent LP used the information to recover profits obtained by defendants through improper trading practices and misuse of plaintiffs propriety and confidential information. Maounis, through a spokesman, refused to comment on the Touradji Capital Management LP suit (Chanjaroen, 2006). However in September 2009, Amaranth withdrew the summon it filed against Touradji Capital Management. Neither of the parties made a payment of any kind due to the withdrawal of notice. After the fall of Amaranth, Goldman Sachs was quick to come into action, and struck a deal to take over hedge fund manager of Amaranth Advisor LLCs lease at Greenwich America. Goldman occupied about 124,000 square feet at the property, which had served at Amaranths headquarters before the company was wound up in September. Amaranths lease was to expire in at the end of 2015 and had a rate of about $35 per square foot. (Ambroz, April 10, 2007) Internal control or Management of Amaranth Maouniss original expertise was in convertible bonds. In mid 2004 Maounis hired Brian Hunter (Hunter) an energy trader who was working for Deutshe Bank energy trading desk. Calgary-based Hunter was Amaranths head energy trader, who was given a free hand to trade the commodity market, due to his past experience of taking huge positions and making huge profits in the natural gas market. Maounis was impressed that Hunters made hundreds of millions of dollars (around 1 billion) for the firm in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina sent natural gas prices soaring, made the 32-year-old Canadian a co-head of commodities trading. Maounis let Hunter increase the size of his natural gas positions so that they became more than half of the entire firms exposure. This was against Amaranths claim of maintaining a multi-strategy fund. Before Hunters arrival, all commodities positions made up about 20 percent of Amaranths portfolio with natural gas having roughly 7 percent share. Amaranths partners h ad a confidence built on past success and they thought that they had a fool-proof strategy (taking long position in winters and short in summers); the company had reaped huge profits in 2002-2005 from this strategy. Amaranths website said moving nimbly and effectively within an ever-changing investment landscape and said that its employees possess fearlessness with respect to complexity, learning, as well as invention, and continuously strive for perfection. Maounis, said he had chosen the companys name, which means unfading in Greek. According to the wall street journal, Brian Hunters had so much success in trading natural gas futures, or bets, on the future prices of the commodity, that Amaranth allowed him to work from his home in Calgary, where he drove a Ferrari in summer and a Bentley in winters. (Hedge fund: a gamble too far, 2006, September 20). Analysts estimate that in order to fund his positions, Hunter was borrowing $8 for every $1 of Amaranths own funds. When the bet went in his favour, he could pay back the debt and keep the rest of the profit for Amaranth. As the bets started to go against him September 2006, his borrowing amplified his losses. (Hedge fund: a gamble too far, 2006, September 20). It is commonly believed that hedge funds improve the efficiency of the financial markets by introducing liquidity and innovation (Hedge fund: a gamble too far, 2006, September 20). However Amaranths collapse shows that the hedge fund managers earn for their lavish salaries only and not for the investors who have put up their earnings and savings in their funds. Operational risk is the risk associated with the internal management of the company and the probability of making wrong decisions that might harm the performance of the firm. Amaranth seemed to be suffering highly from operational risk. Hunters had a target of making $2 billion for the year at the end of August 2006. Analysts comment of such a target that Hunters must have had an unconsci ously large position for this market, One of the biggest players in the energy markets, such as Goldman Sachs Group, would take up positions less than a tenth as big as Hunters, traders said. Hunter was involved in rash trading in the market as his positions were often twice as big as the next biggest. It is also said that in Amaranth, there was an exclusive risk manager for every trading book, who sat with the risk takers on the trading desk. (https://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Finance/Collapse-Amaranth%20Advisors-Case%20Studies.htm#Risk_Management)The risk managers were well qualified and had advance degrees. Paul Touradji, founder and managing partner of Touradji Capital Management, said was obvious about risk control and not about commodities. Touradji admitted that he exited the natural gas market for a year because Amaranth had entered the market, comparing its presence with that of well-financed poker player sitting down with poorer players and making big b ets. I cant think of a right counterstrategy other than to say, I am going to be at the bar until youre done, Touradji said. (https://www.hedgefundintelligence.com/Event.aspx?ProductID=7035ElementID=4983, 2006) Problems Diversification is the key element of all investment portfolios. It reduces the unsystematic risk of instability in any part of the economy. Amaranth specialized in the natural gas industry so much that it failed to realise that if it took any incorrect venture at any point in time, it would not have to face severe consequences. This is counted as a factor of poor risk management. One of the biggest issues with hedge funds is that there is lack of transparency for investors and they have no idea as to what the fund is doing with their money. Most hedge funds make money with the performance fees that are generated when the fund achieves larger gains; the bigger the gains the larger the fees for the hedge funds. If the funds stays still or falls, the performance fee is exactly the same. This type of fee structure can force hedge fund traders to implement exceedingly risky strategies. Much of the blame for what happened to Amaranth is being put on Brian Hunters, although he had a strategy, experience and understanding in the natural gas market; which worked well with various weather shocks, but the fund manager failed to take into account the rise in storage capacity of natural gas. The arrival of a relatively warm winter did not raise the demand of natural gas as much as in the previous years. These factors did not increase the price of natural gas as much, thus creating problems for Amaranth which has a long position. Amaranth was operating on a high leverage. As told earlier, Amaranth was operating on an 8:1 of debt to equity ratio. This amplified the credit problems for Amaranth because once it started facing liquidity problems; it ran out of cash to maintain its cash flows. After its collapse but before liquidating, Amaranth placed restrictions on its investors to withdraw holdings of cash. That is, they were allowed to withdraw for certain number of days but were required to submit the amount before the end of the term because inability to do s o resulted in a penalty. Investors were not allowed their savings beyond 7.5% of their savings. (MORGENSON ANDERSON, September 20, 2006). The bankruptcy of funds causes damage to a number of individuals and companies that have their stake with them. In the Case of Amaranth, Morgan Stanley, invested $126 million, or about 5 percent, of its $2.3 billion funds of hedge funds in Amaranth. Even New York Fed Governor Timothy F. Geithner warned that hedge fund failures could hurt market participants other than those investors and lenders who have chosen to do business directly with those funds. (Mufson, 2006). This is because the instability created in the market (because of the bankruptcy of the company and the loss of a lot of people) can result in a systemic risk, which influences other sectors as well. It is commonly said that Amaranths systems did not measure risks correctly and did not take steps that would reduce the risk. The risk models that were employed by hedge funds use historic data, but the natural gas markets in 2006 were more volatile than any other year since 2001, making models less useful. A managing director of Lyster Watson Co, an advisory firm that invests in hedge funds for clients but not with Amaranth said, It was a total failure of risk control to put your entire business at risk and not seem to know it. They were more leveraged than they realised. (Davis, Sender, Zuckerman, 2006). Lessons to be learnt Derivatives as we know are risky sources of investments, and there a number of lessons that one can learn from the incident of Amaranth. Before making an investment (esp. in sector fund) it is important to analyze the performance of the sector relating to the profits and losses, during the past few years. A monthly sector analysis reveals that a -24% monthly loss is normal and the monthly volatility of the energy strategies was around 12% (Till, 2006), therefore due consideration should be made by investors before investing in such an industry. The second factor that fund managers should consider is of marketability or liquidity, which is the ease with which the contracts can be sold into the market again. The exchange traded futures market of natural gas contracts is way smaller than the over-the-counter natural gas positions. This should put the question in investors minds that in case the market of natural gas declines so how will they sell their contracts and liquidate their position. The strategy of Amaranth did not include an exit strategy. The following case of MotherRock also proves this point. Before the fall of Amaranth, on August 2, 2006 MotherRock, a natural-gas-oriented hedge fund had announced that it was shutting down, its losses had reached up to $300 million; it had made a wrong short position and was therefore forced to liquidate due to mounting losses. This should have sent alarming bell to the investors in Amaranth to secure their position in the market and they make sure that the dont face liquidity risk in near future (liquidity risk explained later). All successful investors have an exit strategy as part of their main strategy; liquidity is one of the four core factors to consider when investing in the market, these factors are risk, return, liquidity and maturity. Liquidity risk includes the risk that liabilities cannot be met when they fall due and can only be met at an uneconomic price. This risk can be accounted for by wide ning the bid/offer spread. An institution might lose liquidity if its credit ratings fall, it experiences sudden unexpected cash outflows or some other event that causes the counterparties to avoid trading with or lending to the institution. A firm can also be exposed to liquidity risk if markets on which it depends are subject to loss of liquidity. Liquidity risk tends to compound other risks. If a trading organization has a position in an illiquid asset, its limited ability to liquidate that position at short notice will compound its market risk. Suppose a firm has offsetting cash flows with two different parties on a given day. If the counterparty that owes it a payment defaults, the firm will have to raise cash from other sources to make its payment. Should it be unable to make its payment, it will default too. Here liquidity risk is compounding credit risk. A position can be hedged against market risk, through diversification of the portfolio by including assets with different unsystemic risks, but still has liquidity risk. Amaranths investments were high-risk funds that lacked liquidity due to the nature of the natural gas futures market. They did not have any counter party to take their position under a week, when they needed it most. One reason that can explain this liquidity problem is that the counter parties had already locked their position in the forward contracts relating to production or storage. It seemed that due to their past experience, of success in assuming long position in winters and short position in summers, Amaranth failed to anticipate the liquidity risk they were getting into by being unable to find a counter party. (Till, 2006). This was the job of the funds risks managers to employ scenario analysis based on this past events. Taking all the factors mentioned above proves that Amaranth was taking immense risk with respect to liquidity. Amaranth was giving the natural gas comodity market a service by providing liquidity to the participants who could lock in the value of future production or storage contracts. However the scale of its services was way larger than its capital base; that is, Amaranth was operating on very high leverage. One of the most important lessons to be learnt from this incident is that risk management can look good and sound well yet still be very weak. After the collapse of Amaranth, Nicholas Maounis, told his investors that Amaranths risk management gurus thought it was highly remote that Amaranth would lose the natural gas bet. He defended the full-time, well-credentialed and experienced risk professionals who were modelling and monitoring the energy portfolios risks. Sometimes, even the highly improbable happens. That is what happened in September. (ANDERSON, 2006) On the other hand, a number of analysts thought that Amaranth failed to notice the changes in weather and the less likelihood of a natural disaster in the near future. Kent Bayazitoglu, head quantitative analyst wit h Gelber Associates, an energy consulting firm said, Given the bearish conditions, there was a more than 50 percent likelihood this would happen. The question was when. (ANDERSON, 2006). The Amaranth Advisors outcome is a classic case that demonstrates the pitfall of a quantitative approach to risk management. Companies that use quantitative approach to risk management, based on analysing data to control risk is an out dated and useless method. In the world of today, there is a need to adopt a more forward looking approach ERM Enterprise Risk Management includes the best practices and scenario based approach for a more balanced and comprehensive view of risk. According to Steven Minsky, who is the CEO of LogicManager, ERM is a process comprised of a series of iterative and sequential steps to enable continuous improvement in decision making and performance with regards to the reduction of uncertainty within an organization. ERM formalizes risk tolerance to acceptable levels. This approach addresses the root cause of potential future problems rather than monitor transactions for historic symptoms. He tells that the Amaranth Advisors acted in a very brash manner and took steps being over confident on their quantitative and historic methods of calculating risk, which eventually proved outdated. (Minsky) The episode of Amarant halso shows that mutual funds in comparison, are actually a good investement. They provide diversification and low cost (hedge funds have high fee structures). Mutual funds are more transparent and provide investors with more information about the number, type and trade in stocks. Timeline of Amaranths collapse Source: (Chincarini, 2006) Regulatory control during that time In hearing about Amaranth before various House and Senate committees as well as at the CFTC itself, it became clear, at least to many lawmakers, that contracts on unregulated trading venues can influence prices. This case was so straightforward that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to flex its new post-Enron mandate to stop manipulation of energy prices by pursuing disciplinary action against Amaranth. (Delamaide, Jan 11, 2010) Amaranth was registered as a commodity pool operator with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), is a member of the National Futures Association and counted among the its affiliates two SEC-registered broker dealers who are members of the National Association of Securities Dealers and one investment counsel and portfolio manager registered with the Ontario Securities Commission. And at least on paper, Amaranth did devote significant resources to regulatory compliance and was subject to many compliance obligations. (Amaranth, Hedge Fund R isk Management and Pensions, 2006) The trading of natural gas derivatives on hedge funds provides a level of predictability in the natural gas market. Traders can access these markets through New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), for exchange-traded contracts; and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) for over-the-counter contracts. As told earlier that when NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange) noticed Amaranths open interest of 51% in Aug 2006 in September natural gas futures contract, which would expire at the end of the month. NYMEX brought its concerns into notice to Amaranth. As a result Amaranth reduced their September and Octobers positions, as per the directions of NYMEX; but increased its positions in October and September positions under ICE contracts, thus escalating overall positions in natural gas. The collapse of Amaranth could have been avoided if ICE (Intercontinental Exchange) had the same authority as NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange) to limit Amaranths open interest. NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange) had the authority to direct Amaranth or any other company to reduce its open interest in NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange). However ICE did not have the authority to do so. The agency that regulates commodities market is called Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). This commission collects daily information on trades and positions from the clearing firms that operate on NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange). It demands traders with large positions to report their holdings and can demand disclosure if it finds an anomaly during surveillance. Amaranth started trading on ICE, which is an over-the-counter market; as a result Commodity Futures Trading Commission (C.F.T.C.) got limited information about the hedge funds trading and holdings. Traders with large positions on NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange) and other large futures exchanges only are required to disclose their position to the regulators. According to the Commod ity Futures Modernization Act 2000, the authority of regulators to collect information on over-the-counter markets is limited. (MORGENSON ANDERSON, September 20, 2006) After the collapse of Amaranth Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had filed the lawsuit Amaranth and two of its traders- Matthew Donhoe (Donhoe) and Brian Hunters (Hunters) , alleging that they had manipulated natural gas market prices through their trading activities in February and April 2006. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had originally charged US $20 million and FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) had sought US $ 291 million in fines from Amaranth and its traders. These charges were later settled at a total of $7.5 million. Moreover it was found that Amaranth was exploiting the gap between the regulatory regimes of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). FERC (Federal Energy Re gulatory Commission) alleged the following in their case order: Amaranth and its traders intentionally manipulated the settlement price of the NG Futures Contract knowing that the NG Futures Contract settlement price is explicitly used to price a substantial volume of Commission-jurisdictional natural gas transactions (namely, physical basis transactions, described below, and the various monthly indices that are calculated using physical basis transactions). Accordingly, the Respondents intentionally or recklessly manipulated prices in connection with Commission-jurisdictional transactions, and thus violated the Commissions Anti-Manipulation Rule (https://www.dykema.com/publications/docs/EnergyLaw360.pdf) Mr. Hunter is still not exempted from the charges on him. According to an analysis, it was found that the price movements of Amaranth were consistent with the manipulative scheme alleged by FERC. Mr. Hunter has claimed that there was no abnormal price fluctuation; however, t here is significant evidence that prices were driven downward and subsequently recovered, consistent with the alleged manipulation. There are also evidences that Amaranths trading behaviour during the issue time periods of contracts was unusual when compared with the behaviour of other market participants and Amaranths own historical records. Nine of ten Amaranths defendants agreed to pay $7.5 million. The case then proceeded against the sole remaining defendant, Mr. Hunter. (Dr.King). On the other hand Hunters attorney Michael Kim of Krobe Kim LLP told Reuters Friday, When the case is fully examined, we are confident that Brian Hunter will be vindicated. (Levin, May 27, 2008) Legislation brings more visibility to the market and strengthening the hands of regulators will ensure that hedge fund activity in the energy markets will be more closely monitored and limited. These are some of the most relevant information from news papers and other sources. 1 By September 22, 2 006 the NAV of the fund has decreased 65% month-to-date and 55% year to date.  [1] 2 On September 14, 2006 the funds experience roughly $560 million in trading losses on natural gas positions.  [2] 3 By February 28, 2006 approximately 39% of the funds capital was allocated to energy and commodities portfolio.  [3] 4 Amaranth sometimes held positions to buy or sell tens of billions of dollars of commodities.  [4] 5 Amaranths overall fund gained around 6% in June, was roughly flat in July, and rose 6% in August according to investors.  [5] 6 It had $9 billion at the start of September  [6] 7 Spreads and options are of their very nature instruments allow the user to capture upside with a much clearer understanding with respect to downside exposure.  [7] 8 Mr. Hunter sometimes held 100,000 positions in a single contract  [8] 9 People familiar with the trades say he bet prices for near-by month contract would fall and winter contracts would rise.  [9] 10 Some of Amaranths trades wagered that prices for natural gas futures contracts for March 2007 would be much higher than those for April 2007  [10] 11 UBP officials said 80% of Amaranths performance last year and most of its performance this year was driven by energy investments suggesting there might not be much else  [11] 12 The New York Mercantile Exchange told Amaranth LLC that the natural gas bets were too big a month before the trades led to a $6 billion loss  [12] Source: (Chincarini, 2006)