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The early history of Bengali printing

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The early history of Bengali printing

M. Siddiq KhanOctober 12, 2020

The following account is concerned with Bengali printing before 1800, concentrating on the period after the Battle of Plassey in 1757 when the British East India Company established its control of the province.

Historical antecedents 

Although some evidence indicates early native attempts to use Chinese xylographic methods of printing in India, the introduction of printing with movable metal types was a product of European colonizers and missionaries. The Jesuits established a press at the Portuguese colony of Goa in 1556 and subsequently printed also at other Portuguese centers. After beginning with works on Christian doctrine in Portuguese, in 1578 the Jesuits at Quilon printed a book in the Tamil language with Tamil characters. Other European centers in India also showed some interest in printing, and some Indians may have even taken it up. According to some records, Bhimjee Parekh with the aid of the British East India Company established a press at Bombay in 1674-75, but no books survive from it. Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, a Danish missionary [ born in Pulsnitz, Saxony] , established a press at Tranquebar about 1712, which printed with Tamil types. Somewhat later in Rome the Society for the Propagation of the Faith had Sanskrit (Deva Nagari) and Malabar (Tamil and Malayalam) fonts of type cast in 1771 and 1772.

The Portuguese in Bengal

After the Portuguese consolidated their trading and political settlements on the western coast of India, traders and missionaries branched out to other parts of the country. They lost little time in building up a link with Bengal, for its fame as a rich and pleasant land with a large population had spread even in previous centuries from the accounts of Arab and European travelers. Nuno da Cunha, governor from 1529-38, sent an expedition of five vessels to Chittagong (Porto Grande) in 1533. After 1581 a Portuguese trading vessel visited that seaport of Eastern Bengal every year.

Trading colonies and missionary outposts sprang up, including one at Nagori which was associated with the printing of the first three Bengali books.

Several records illustrate the interest of the Portuguese missionaries in Bengali books. On January 3, 1683, Father Marcos Antonio Santucci, the Superior of the Portuguese mission working among Bengali converts to Christianity, wrote from Nolua Cot to the Provincial of Goa: “The Fathers [Ignatius Gomes, Manoel Surayva, and himself] have not failed in their duty; they have learned the language well, have composed vocabularies, a grammar, a confessionary and prayers; they have translated the Christian Doctrine, etc. nothing of which existed until now.” Francisco Fernandes wrote from Sripur in East Bengal to his Jesuit superior in Goa about his compilation of a booklet expounding the fundamentals of the Christian doctrine and a book of catechisms. His fellow missionary, Dominic de Souza, appears to have translated those two books into Bengali. A little catechism in Bengali by Father Barbier was mentioned as early as 1723.

None of the books mentioned above is extant and it is not known whether or not they were printed. Shortly after them, however, some books were printed in Bengali outside India. The most remarkable of these were three books attributed to Father Manoel de Assumpsao, an Augustinian, who came to Bengal about 1734. As rector of the Mission of St. Nicolas of Tolentino he was attached to the Catholic church at Nagori near Bhowal in the district of Dacca about 1742. He wrote books “for the easier instruction of neophytes.”

A second book by Father Manoel was Compendio dos mysterios da fe, printed at Lisbon by Da Silva in 1743. Bengali on the versos, printed again in roman types, faced Portuguese on the rectos. This work is also known as the Cathecismo da doutrinaa ordenando por modo de dialogo em idiome bengalle e portuguez. It has become famous by its Bengali title, Crepar Xaxtrer Orth bhed (“The Meaning of the Gospel of Mercy”).

A third book, Vocabulario em idioma bengalla e portuguez dividido em duas partes, was printed by Da Silva at Lisbon in 1743. In two parts, it includes a Bengali-Portuguese and a Portuguese-Bengali vocabulary. A compendium of Bengali grammar precedes the latter. The book is printed entirely in roman types.

Two other Bengali books were composed by Bento de Selvestre (or De Souza), a one-time Catholic missionary who was converted to Protestantism. His translation of parts of the Book of Common Prayer and a catechism were published in London as Prarthanamala and Prasinottarmala.  Both were printed in roman types.

This missionary publishing led to little perceptible development of indigenous literature. First, such religious and denominational publishing had little appeal to the general public. Second, the Bengalis of that time lacked the education and the type of social organization necessary to realize the potential benefit of printing on their language and literature. Finally, an atmosphere of futility and negation seemed to affect the Bengali literary climate.

Independent and competent observers like Nathaniel Brassey Halhed (1749-1830)  and William Carey (1761-1834), looking for Bengali books in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, recorded an appalling lack of them. Halhed, when

compiling his monumental Grammar of the Bengali Language, complained that despite his familiarity with the works of Bengali authors he could trace only six extant books in 1778. These included the great religious epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. All six, of course, were in manuscript. When later the great missionary, William Carey, an eminent scholar of Bengali and Sanskrit, visited Nabadwip, the cultural and religious center of Bengal, he could unearth after arduous search a mere forty handwritten Bengali works.

The East India Company

On this poverty-stricken literary and bibliographic scene, the stage was being set for more extensive Bengali book production. The factors promoting this advancement were mainly political. At the Battle of Plassey in 1757 the British East India Company gained control of the rich province of Bengal. By 1772, the Company had skillfully employed the sword, diplomacy, and intrigue to take over the rule of Bengal from her people, factious nobles, and weak Nawab. Subsequently, to consolidate its hold on the province, the Company promoted the Bengali language. This did not represent an intrinsic love for Bengali speech and literature. Instead it was aimed at destroying traditional patterns of authority through supplanting the Persian language which had been the official tongue since the days of the great Moguls. Nevertheless, as a result Bengali flourished.

Instrumental in the advancement of Bengali printing was the policy adopted by the Company of teaching Bengali to its employees. Notable English orientalists –Halhed, Carey, and Nathaniel Pitts Forster, for example, stoutly promoted the teaching of Bengali in its pure Sanskritized form. The Islamic languages, including Muslim Bengali, were under attack. The unrelenting efforts of the English champions of pure Bengali, backed by the whole administrative machinery of the East India Company, culminated in the passage of a statute in 1838 whereby the use of Arabic and Persian was prohibited in the law courts established under the jurisdiction of the Company.

Progress in the writing of non-Islamic indigenous languages, however, was rapid. After 1755, public notices in native vernaculars were posted in the Indian bazaars. Warren Hastings, Governor of Bengal in 1772 and Governor-General from 1773 to 1785, showed keen interest in training young English civilians, or “writers,” to do justice to their duties among the Indian subjects of the Company. The learning of Indic languages was an essential requirement and this was emphasized in the curriculum of the Fort William and Haileybury colleges. An active patron of such Indic scholars as Halhed, Wilkins, Gladwin, Jones, and others, Hastings insisted that they produce enough books in the Indic languages for such students.

The objective of encouraging European (and later Indian) scholars to study the Indic languages and to produce books in them was to be even further extended. William Wilberforce, the English philanthropist and politician, proposed in Parliament in 1793, during the governor-generalship of Lord Cornwallis in India, that the East India Company provide more and better facilities for the education of its native subjects. This induced European missionaries and enlightened gentlemen to establish printing presses. Though primarily established for the propagation of the Christian faith and producing a better class of European civilians in India, these presses aimed in part to improve the general educational level. Indirectly at first, they were ultimately instrumental in the development of the Bengali language and literature and in the general spread of education in Bengal.

Two great landmarks in the history of printing in Bengal were the establishment of the Serampore Mission in 1799 and the founding of Fort William College, with the object of “imparting knowledge of the vernaculars to young civilians,” by Lord Wellesley in 1800. In 1816, with the support of the Marquis of Hastings (then governor- general), Butterworth Bailey, William Carey, and others, the Calcutta Book Society was founded.

The Printing Press in Bengal

The first printing press in Bengal was that of a Mr. Andrews at Hooghly in 1778. Halhed’s grammar was printed here. Of this, we know but little more. In 1780, James Augustus Hickey founded the Bengal Gazette Press, publisher of the slanderous Bengal Gazette —known popularly as Hickey’s Gazette. In 1784, Francis Gladwin established the Calcutta Gazette Press, which published the official government gazette and did a good portion of the East India Company’s printing. A little later the government also set up its own printing press with the assistance —and for some time the supervision— of Charles Wilkins, father of Bengali type-founding. Other presses apparently established in the last decades of the eighteenth century were the Calcutta Chronicle Press, the Post Press, Ferris and Company, and Rozario and Company.

A period of censorship and restriction began in 1799. As a wartime measure, the Marquis of Wellesley severely curtailed the freedom of the press by imposing restrictions on printing and publishing at Calcutta and enforcing a cessation of printing outside that city.

This state of affairs continued until 1818 when the Marquis of Hastings restored the freedom of the press. Subsequently a greater number of printing presses were established, including some owned by Indians. By 1825-26, there were about forty presses in Calcutta alone. In addition to the major earlier presses already cited, these included Lavandier’s press at Bow Bazaar, Pearce’s press at Entally, and Ram Mohan Roy’s Unitarian Press on Dhurrumtollah. Baburam’s Sanskrit Yantra at Kidderpore, established at Kidderpore in 1806-7, specialized in the printing of Hindi and Sanskrit books in Deva Nagari types. Other presses were Munshi Hedayetullah’s Mohammadi Press at Mirzapore, the Hindustanee Press, and the College Press.

Early Bengali Letter Founders 

The first types of the Bengali alpha­bet, as were those for most other In­dian scripts, were cut abroad. The first printed Bengali alphabet appeared in a work of the Jesuit Fathers, Jean de Fontenay, Guy Tachard, Etienne Noel, and Claude de Beze. Bearing the title Observations physiques et mathematiques pour servir a l’histoire naturelle …, it was published at Paris in 1692. A second Bengali alphabet was included in a Latin work written by Georg Jacob Kehr, Aurenk Szeb, printed at Leipzig in 1725. This dis­played the Bengali numerals from 1 to 11, as well as the Bengali consonants and a Bengali transliteration of the German name, Sergeant Wolfgang Meyer. These characters were copied by Johann Friedrich Fritz in his Orientalischer und occidentalischer Sprachmeister, printed at Leipzig in 1748.

A Hindustani grammar by Joannes Joshua Ketelaer appeared in Miscellane Oriental, published at Leyden in 1743. This reproduced almost the whole Bengali alphabet, calling it alphabetum grammaticum, including both consonants and vowels. Nothing is known about the casting of these types and they were based on none-too-good models of calligraphy.

English Founders of Bengali Type

In line with English interests in India, English type founders took up the problem of Bengali type. Among the founders engaged in this work was Joseph Jackson. Beginning as a rubber in the Caslon foundry in London, Jackson rose to the exalted position of cutter of punches, a skill learned on his own initiative in the face of the opposition of the Caslons. Establishing his own foundry, he manufactured various oriental types. An inventory of 1773 listed Hebrew, Persian, and Bengali types in his stock. Bengali was called “modern Sanskrit” and explained as “a corruption of the older characters of the Hindoos, the ancient inhabitants of Bengal.” According to Rowe Mores, Jackson received an order for Bengali type from Willem Bolts, the Dutch adventurer in the East India Company’s service, who was “Judge of the Mayor’s Court of Calcutta.”

As part of their program for popularizing the study of Oriental languages, the East India Company had commissioned Bolts to prepare a grammar of the Bengali language. But although Bolts, who was a man of great enterprise and ingenuity, had represented himself as a great orientalist, he ran into difficulties with the Company from 1766 to 1768 which culminated in his deportation from India. He was obviously all at sea regarding the cutting of types in the Bengali script.

Charles Wilkins and Halhed’s Grammar 

The first significant stride in Ben­gali typography, printing, and pub­lication was made in 1778 with the appearance of A Grammar of the Ben­gal Language by Halhed. This historic volume was printed in the press of a Mr. Andrews at Hooghly, a small town about fifteen miles from Calcutta. The tremendous typographical achievement was made possible by the strenuous and unremitting pioneer efforts of Charles Wilkins (1749? -1836), who was dubbed the Caxton of Bengal.

At about the age of twenty-one, Wilkins took service as a “writer” in the East India Company and sailed for Bengal. Like other English civilians in India, he diligently studied Sanskrit and Persian. In addition he experi­mented with the production of types for printing those languages. At this time Warren Hastings was Governor General. Despite his rather checkered career as an administrator, he was a patron of learning—both eastern and western. He had inspired Halhed to compose the treatise on Hindu law and theories of government, published as The Code of Gentoo Law. Encouraged by that success, Halhed had gone on to compile A Grammar of the Bengal Language.

When Halhed had his manuscript ready for printing, he discovered that there was no font of Bengali type avail­able. Jackson’s Bengali font was in­complete and unsatisfactory. In this predicament he turned to Hastings and probably suggested Wilkins, fortunately posted at the Company’s Hooghly fac­tory as a type founder. The result was Wilkins’ Bengali font. “The advice and even the solicitation of the Governor General prevailed upon Mr. Wilkins … to undertake a set of Bengal types. He did and his success has exceeded every satisfaction. In a country so re­mote from all connection with Euro­pean artists, he has been obliged to charge himself with all the various oc­cupations of the Metallurgist, the En­graver, the Founder and the Printer.”He surmounted all his obstacles so well, by dint of personal labor, that he was hailed as a man able to bring single-handed perfection to the kind of task which usually requires decades and the collaboration of many men.

In assessing the nature of Wilkins’ achievement, we must realize that, as contrasted to the smaller number of characters in a roman type font, the average Indian script has over six hundred letters, including vowel signs, combinations, etc. Work on such a font is more arduous and time-consuming and requires greater skill. Stocking a composing room is also more costly. According to Norman A. Ellis, “In hand type-setting a double case of Ro­man characters can do the job for book work, but up to seven cases of a similar size are needed for an Indian script.”

A Grammar of the Bengal Language was a full-sized work using copious extracts from the main Bengali books then extant. Wilkins had to solve most of the problems of Bengali typography to cut types for it. He continued his work in cutting Bengali types at Hooghly until 1786 and later at the Company’s press at Calcutta. This lat­ter press advertised its capacity to print books in Bengali. Examples of Ben­gali books issuing from this press were Jonathan Duncan’s translation of The Regulations for the Administration of Justice in the Courts of Dewanee Adaulat in 1785 and N. B. Edmonstone’s Bengal Translation of Regula­tions for the Administration of Justice in the Fouzdarry or Criminal Courts in 1791.

M. Siddiq Khan (1910 – 1978) was the librarian of the Central Library of the University of Dhaka and the founder of the University’s Department of Library Science.  In March 2004, the Government of Bangladesh posthumously awarded him the Independence Day Award, the country’s highest civil honor.

This is an excerpt of the article titled ‘The Early History of Bengali Printing’ which was originally published in The Library Quarterly in its January, 1962 issue.

The book you must read this year

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The book you must read this year

A peep into a powerful treatise that people in the free market movement need to ponder over

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Few books have gripped me as did Thomas Piketty’s economics blockbuster, Capital in the Twenty First Century. Published in 2015, I took long to read it in large part because everyone was praising it; and I am always suspicious of popular things. But also the first time I opened it, its pages were littered with many equations that turned me off, mistaking the book to be filled with econometric abstractions that mean little in reality. But finally, the devil got into my head and I sat to reading it last year and been re-reading it (actually studying it) these last few weeks.

This is not a review of the book but an attempt to highlight its core message. It is a book that stands most economics teaching on its head. This is largely because Piketty, himself a professor of economics, is very critical of modern economics as is taught in schools. He thinks that in an attempt to construct economics as a science, economists have made economics mathematical. This has divorced it from other subjects like history, politics, sociology and anthropology that influence individual decision-making and public policy.

The most striking thing about it is the depth and extent of his research on income across time and geographic space – largely focusing on the USA and Western Europe. The book therefore makes little reference to other authors because Piketty relies largely (but not entirely) on primary research. Then there is the sweep of history, that unveils many assumptions about how Western societies developed. The breadth of perspective is breathtaking and the analytical depth impressive in terms of its intellectual neatness.

The central message of the book is that capitalism inherently creates income and wealth inequalities – but this can only be observed over the long term. He argues that this is largely because the rate of return on capital tends to grow at a faster rate than the rate of growth of the economy. This process tends to concentrate incomes and wealth to the top, thereby accentuating inequality over time. Now, some economists dispute this; but none of his critics has produced counter evidence. All the criticism I have read relies on theoretical abstractions, not history. But that is debate for another day.

Piketty’s point is that in the absence of major shocks – such as the two world wars of the 20th century, capital will keep growing and concentrating in a few hands. He shows this process in Britain and France from 1800 to 1914 (on the eve of the first world war), when the wealthiest 10% owned almost 90% of all the wealth in these countries. The shocks of the first and second world wars destroyed capital in massive ways and thereby created the first trend of equalising wealth and income. But since the end of the World War 11, there has not been any major war in the rich countries. So the process of concentration has been building up again.

Piketty shows that the USA has the highest income inequality of all the rich countries. One of the main reasons is that while the U.S. fought in both world wars, it did not suffer destruction of its capital because the wars were never fought on her soil. So it avoided this equalising opportunity. Yet USA used to be more egalitarian than Europe. Piketty argues that this was because of land abundance. Migrants had easy access to free land (capital or wealth) as it expanded westward. As expansion ended, this source of capital/wealth was exhausted, so the process of wealth and income concentration began.

On this basis, Piketty proceeds to expose a lot of myths we hold about modern liberal democratic capitalism. There is a belief that liberal democracies are built on economic and professional meritocracy. The institutions that ensure this are the market and education; the agents are entrepreneurs and human skill. Piketty shows that today, like in 1910, most wealth in the world, in some cases up to 90%, is actually inherited, not earned. And it is those with high incomes and wealth that send their children to the best schools and universities. This privilege reproduces itself thereby accentuating inequality.

For Piketty, the wealth and incomes of pioneering entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs and Mark Zukerberg are actually small compared to the wealth that is inherited. Secondly, he argues, even innovative entrepreneurs like Gates stopped working at the companies they founded long ago, yet the rate of growth in their capital has increased in their absence. This means that they are not earning because of present effort or innovation but because of past contributions. He calls this kind of income rent. So today we have few entrepreneurs and many rentiers. He calls this “patrimonial capitalism” and its agents, a “patrimonial middle class.”

Why did modern society think liberal democratic capitalism was egalitarian, leading to the reward of merit as opposed to inherited advantages? Piketty argues that WW2 destroyed capital in Western Europe. Most people lost their capital and their children had little or nothing to inherit. Economic reconstruction led to unusually high rates of growth between 1945 and 1980. Rapid growth tends to reduce income and wealth inequalities.

Piketty’s concern is that concentration of income has political implications. The rich may eventually own the countries they live in or even “buy” others that need their capital. They may use their money to control politics and undermine democratic aspirations. They will increase their influence on parliaments, control the mass media and universities so that legislation and the production of knowledge reflect their particular interests. And their interests may conflict with the social good. This, Piketty argues, may make reform impossible; thereby making revolution inevitable.

What is his solution? Piketty calls for a tax on huge sums of capital and extremely high incomes. He believes this tax can only make sense if it is internationally organised, for this is the only way to stop the rich from hiding their money in offshore accounts. He even predicts that it is possible that without such a policy (heavy taxation of extremely high incomes, huge reserves of capital and a huge inheritance tax and tax on gifts, extreme concentration of income in a few hands may lead to political agitation for expropriation.

Even though he avoids mentioning Karl Marx, and I think this was a smart political as opposed to academic decision, Piketty makes similar warning as the father of communism. Perhaps he feared that quoting Marx a lot would pollute the air and obscure his message. His data, his analysis and his predictions need to be taken seriously.

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Amy Coney Barrett scrutinized over religion vs. law

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Amy Coney Barrett scrutinized over religion vs. law

Second of two parts.

                  Professor <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Amy Coney Barrett</a>, addressing law school graduates at <a href="/topics/notre-dame-university/">Notre Dame University</a> in 2006, delivered a stark admonition to the future lawyers<a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">: She</a> told them a law career was “but a means to an end.”












                  “That end is building the kingdom of God,” she said. “If you can keep in mind that your fundamental purpose in life is not to be a lawyer, but to know, love and serve God, you truly will be a different kind of lawyer.”
















                  As confirmation hearings begin Monday for Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a>’s nomination to the Supreme Court, she will have to answer just how different a lawyer — and judge — her faith has made her.












                  To her detractors, she is a “Catholic judge.” To her supporters, she is a judge who is Catholic.














                  The difference between those views dominated her confirmation hearing three years ago, when she won a seat on the 7th <a href="/topics/us-circuit-court-of-appeals/">U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals</a>. The hearings this week are shaping up like a rerun, with Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a>’s faith the chief question before the Senate Judiciary Committee.




























                  “If you’re asking whether I take my faith seriously and am a faithful Catholic, I am, although I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear in my discharge of duties as a judge,” Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a> told senators in her October 2017 hearings.












                  That answer was unsatisfactory to Democrats, and they peppered Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a> with pointed questions.












                  Republicans said the questioning was so unseemly that it began to look as if they were applying a religious test for seeking a federal office, which the Constitution specifically prohibits.









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                  Democrats countered that the matter wasn’t about Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a>’s faith, but rather how much it affects her public life.










                  “The dogma lives loudly within you,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the committee.

                  The judge opened the door to the issue herself in 1998 with a law review article titled “Catholic judges in capital cases.”

                  She suggested that an “orthodox Catholic” who adhered to the church’s teaching against capital punishment should recuse from signing an execution order.

                  Her critics said she was putting faith above the law. Her backers said she was doing just the opposite: saying faith must give way when the law calls for an outcome.

                  In fact, she was charting a middle ground, where a judge could be faithful to her own beliefs while allowing someone else to carry out the law’s obligation.

                  “Judges cannot — nor should they try to — align our legal system with the Church’s moral teaching whenever the two diverge,” she concluded. “They should, however, conform their own behavior to the Church’s standard.”

                  In a speech last year to Hillsdale in D.C., the Washington campus of Hillsdale College, Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a> delved deeper into the matter by saying it was folly to think only Catholic jurists grapple with their moral codes and their duties to the law.

                  “That’s not a challenge just for religious people. That’s a challenge for everyone,” she said. “I think it’s a dangerous road to go down to say that only religious people would not be able to separate out moral convictions from their duty.”

                  During her 2017 confirmation hearing, she repeatedly declined to give personal opinions on matters such as same-sex marriage. She said it was irrelevant to how she would rule.

                  Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, told Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a> that he rejected that.

                  “I can’t tell you how many nominees have been before us in this panel for the bench, and virtually all say the same: I’m following the precedent, I’m following the law, I’m following the Constitution, don’t worry a thing about who I am, how I was raised, what my religion is, what my life experiences have been. Put it all aside,” he said. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

                  He said decisions in cases that reach upper courts are often close and that’s where personal beliefs come into play.

                  “I don’t think you can divorce yourself from life’s reality at that point. I am going to see things in a certain way based on what I’ve done, what I’ve seen, what I believe in my life, and I’m going to call it the appropriate interpretation of the law,” he said. “So I don’t buy this robot approach, that it’s just so easy, you push the law and the facts on one side and the opinion comes out the other side. Otherwise, every opinion would be a majority or a unanimous decision.”

                  Mr. Durbin, like all but a couple of other Democrats at the time, voted against Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a>’s confirmation.

                  Traci Lovitt, who met Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a> when they clerked at the Supreme Court in 1998, said Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a> did keep her faith separate.

                  “She was not one to bring her religion to work,” Ms. Lovitt said. “I think that is a good sign of how she thinks about these things. She has a personal life and her faith, and she has these difficult legal questions she has to deal with.”

                  <strong>Family attacked</strong>

                  Expect Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a>’s seven children to feature prominently in the confirmation hearings, just as they did during the White House announcement of her nomination.

                  Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a> grew up in New Orleans as one of seven children. Her husband, Jesse, was an only child. They decided they wanted seven children, including two adopted from Haiti.

                  Those adoptions sparked some of the ugliest criticism of the nomination fight so far. Left-wing activists demanded that the Barretts be investigated for “colonialism” or chided them, with no apparent evidence, for not being sensitive enough to transracial adoptions.

                  Megan Edwards, Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a>’s sister, said the Barretts chose to adopt from Haiti because the country is close enough to visit to immerse their children in the culture.

                  News outlets, meanwhile, have invested heavily in coverage of People of Praise, a charismatic Christian organization where Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a> was once listed as a “handmaid.” The Associated Press said that meant she was a high-ranking woman in the community.

                  The judge’s critics have questioned what role the organization may play in her legal approach.

                  Ms. Edwards pushed back on those attacks. “I do feel protective. I hear something, and I definitely feel like I want people to know the sister I know and say that is not true,” she told The Washington Times.

                  Judge <a href="/topics/amy-coney-barrett/">Barrett</a> would be the fifth woman to sit on the <a href="/topics/us-circuit-court-of-appeals/">high court</a> and the first with school-age children.

                  She drives a minivan to and from her courthouse.

                  When the parents travel on work trips, they bring one of their children with them and try to work in visits with family, who are spread across the country, to maintain close relationships.

                  “I honestly don’t know how she does it. Despite her schedule, she has made an effort to — even with her own children — to gift an experience to them,” Ms. Edwards said.

                  Part of how she does it is discipline. She wakes up at 4:30 every morning to get to a fitness class.







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Covid-19 spread: No religion, God call for big celebrations, says Harsh Vardhan

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Covid-19 spread: No religion, God call for big celebrations, says Harsh Vardhan

Oct 12, 2020, 07:49AM ISTSource: TOI.in

With concerns rising over an accelerated spread of Covid during the festival season, health minister Harsh Vardhan has called for extra vigil and said that no religion or God lays down that religious events must be celebrated in an ostentatious manner. The minister on Sunday urged people to avoid large gatherings and warned that the country may head for “big trouble” if precautionary guidelines to prevent the spread of Covid-19 are not followed diligently. “Extraordinary circumstances must draw extraordinary responses. No religion or God says that you have to celebrate in an ostentatious way, that you have to visit pandals and temples and mosques to pray,” Vardhan said during an interaction with social media followers. On emergency use authorisation of Covid vaccines in India, the minister said this would depend on data produced by ongoing trials. “Adequate safety and efficacy data is required for emergency use authorization vaccine approval for ensuring patient safety. Further course of action will depend on the data generated,” he added. Vardhan also said the Feluda test — named after Satyajit Ray’s famous detective — would soon be rolled out to test Covid-19. The test, priced at Rs 500, can deliver a result in 45 minutes. Though active cases have been on the downslide and are less than 9 lakh for the last three days, government experts are worried about an escalation in cases during the festival season along with the onset of winters. Highlighting the possibility of increased transmission of coronavirus during winters, Vardhan said, “These viruses are known to thrive better in cold weather and low humidity conditions. In view of these, it would not be wrong to assume that the winter season may see increased rates of transmission of the novel coronavirus in the Indian context too.” He emphasised on the need to adhere to Covid appropriate behaviour of wearing masks, especially when in public places, regularly washing hands and maintaining respiratory etiquette to contain the spread of the diseases.

Win a personalised book from the ‘Skinny…

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Win a personalised book from the 'Skinny...

Prize provider: Sam Jennings PR 

The Skinny Monkey Series by Mike Molloy

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Closing Date : 10th November 2020

Ultimate page-turner: The Good, the Bad and the Unknown by IPS Raj Tilak Roushan | Review

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Ultimate page-turner: The Good, the Bad and the Unknown by IPS Raj Tilak Roushan | Review

By IBT News Desk

When was the last time you buried your nose in a gripping crime story that has captivated you? If you are all in for some nail-biting crime fiction read, make space for The Good, the Bad and the Unknown on your bookshelves. Written by Raj Tilak Roushan, this book is a fine collection of 18 crime short stories. 

From making it to the list of The Curious Readers for the books to look out for in January 2020 and to being highly recommended for police officers fresh into their jobs, ‘The Good, the Bad and the Unknown’ has garnered love and excellent reviews from readers.

It was at Number one in the list of new releases under ‘True Accounts’ and ‘Anthologies’ categories for more than six weeks after its international release on Amazon India.

About the author:

IPS Officer Raj Tilak Roushan, the Superintendent of Police (SP) Osmanabad, Maharashtra is an IPS officer of the 2013 batch of Maharashtra cadre. The IPS officer hails from Bihar who is also an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur. Soon after his degree, he qualified the Indian Police Service (IPS).

The world of ‘The Good, the Bad and the Unknown’

A collection of short stories, The Good, the Bad and the Unknown takes the reader into the minds of criminals and police officers. Gripping and unputdownable in its storytelling, the collection depicts not only the seedy underbelly of our society but also tries to show what motives people around us and people like us have to take up a life of crime.

So, what makes this crime fiction book stand out from others?  It draws from the experiences of an IPS officer and an IITian, focusing on the subtleties of modern Indian society and human interactions through the lens of crime.


The characters are a broad mix, from the posh and pompous to the snarky and mean and then the downright nasty. It’s the dialogue that brings them alive: broad use of the vernacular, dry humour never far from the lips and the effortless authenticity of the banter. It just feels right.’ – Author Smarak Swain 

Real rural and small-town India in all its paradoxically complex rawness

Sandipan Deb, an Indian author and journalist having worked at key positions in Outlook, OPEN, Financial Express, Swarajya says following about the book, “The stories in RTR’s book are police procedurals. Most of them, if not all, are obviously based on real events. Many of them are disturbing, many don’t have happy endings—in some, there is not even any form of satisfying closure.”

“Justice, in an ideal sense, is not always served. But this is real rural and small-town India in all its paradoxically complex rawness. These are real cases, real ethical and moral questions that our policemen have to grapple with every day and night.”

Việt Nam is continuing its institutional reform commitments made in the historic EU-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) in an aim to boost exports of agricultural products and attract more investment from the EU trading bloc. 

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Việt Nam is continuing its institutional reform commitments made in the historic EU-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) in an aim to boost exports of agricultural products and attract more investment from the EU trading bloc. 


 


Visitors look at an agricultural product display at a conference on boosting exports to the EU under the EU-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement held last week in HCM City. VNS Photo Bồ Xuân Hiệp 


HCM CITY — Việt Nam is continuing its institutional reform commitments made in the historic EU-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) in an aim to boost exports of agricultural products and attract more investment from the EU trading bloc. 


Võ Tân Thành, vice chairman of the Việt Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), said the country has made huge progress in administrative reform and improvement of the business environment.


“After the EVFTA took effect in August, exports to the EU in August and September increased by 4.2 per cent compared to the same period last year. In September alone, exports increased by more than 14 per cent year-on-year,” he said.


However, the EU is a highly demanding market and exporters must meet its food safety standards and management procedures, and provide transparent information about their labour force and working environment, he noted.


European consumers prefer high-quality products, especially those that are organic or fair trade, or have geographical indications, according to Thành. 


He urged farmers to gradually shift from traditional to more sustainable cultivation, and to adhere to food safety and hygiene regulations in the EVFTA and other FTAs.


Exporters must also follow the rules of origin (RO) and engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainable development and environmental protection, said Thành, who spoke at a conference on Vietanmese farm produce exports to the EU under the EVFTA organised last week in HCM City.


Lê Duy Minh, chairman of the Việt Nam Farms and Agricultural Enterprises Association (VFAEA), noted that the EU is the third largest trade partner of Việt Nam and one of the country’s two biggest export markets. Exports of agro-forestry-fishery products to the EU stand at nearly US$5 billion per year.


Phạm Văn Duy, deputy director of of the Ministry of Agricutlure and Rural Development’s Agro-product Processing and Market Development Department, said: “The EU is a choosy market, so meeting the EU’s requirements will help businesses open the door to other markets in the world.”


He said that it was important to protect intellectual property of major agricultural products, and to promote branding, geographical indications, and traceability.


For the past decade, Vietnamese exports of agricultural, forestry and aquatic products grew more than 9 per cent on average each year. 


Việt Nam’s agricultural sector will be one of the biggest winners from the EVFTA, as reductions in tariffs will increase demand and boost exports to Europe’s high-spending consumer market, according to experts.


Trade in agricultural products represents nearly 12 per cent of the total two-way trade between Việt Nam and the EU.


The trade pact abolishes 99 per cent of import tariffs over the next seven to 10 years. 


With a population of more than 500 million and a combined GDP of over $15 trillion, accounting for 22 per cent of the world’s GDP, the EU is the world’s largest exporter and importer with annual trade of $3.8 trillion. — VNS 

Việt Nam continues reform made in the Free Trade Agreement to boost exports and investment from Europe.

By
Newsdesk
-
0
Việt Nam is continuing its institutional reform commitments made in the historic EU-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) in an aim to boost exports of agricultural products and attract more investment from the EU trading bloc. 

Việt Nam continues reform commitments made in EU-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) aiming to boost exports and attract investment from the EU trading bloc.

HCM CITY — Việt Nam is continuing its institutional reform commitments made in the historic EU-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) in an aim to boost exports of agricultural products and attract more investment from the EU trading bloc.

Võ Tân Thành, vice chairman of the Việt Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), said the country has made huge progress in administrative reform and improvement of the business environment.

“After the EVFTA took effect in August, exports to the EU in August and September increased by 4.2 percent compared to the same period last year. In September alone, exports increased by more than 14 percent year-on-year,” he said.

However, the EU is a highly demanding market and exporters must meet its food safety standards and management procedures, and provide transparent information about their labor force and working environment, he noted.

European consumers prefer high-quality products, especially those that are organic or fair trade, or have geographical indications, according to Thành.

He urged farmers to gradually shift from traditional to more sustainable cultivation and to adhere to food safety and hygiene regulations in the EVFTA and other FTAs.

Exporters must also follow the rules of origin (RO) and engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainable development, and environmental protection, said Thành, who spoke at a conference on Vietnamese farm produce exports to the EU under the EVFTA organized last week in HCM City.

Lê Duy Minh, chairman of the Việt Nam Farms and Agricultural Enterprises Association (VFAEA), noted that the EU is the third largest trade partner of Việt Nam and one of the country’s two biggest export markets. Exports of agro-forestry-fishery products to the EU stand at nearly US$5 billion per year.

Phạm Văn Duy, deputy director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Agro-product Processing and Market Development Department, said: “The EU is a choosy market, so meeting the EU’s requirements will help businesses open the door to other markets in the world.”

He said that it was important to protect the intellectual property of major agricultural products and to promote branding, geographical indications, and traceability.

For the past decade, Vietnamese exports of agricultural, forestry, and aquatic products grew more than 9 percent on average each year.

Việt Nam’s agricultural sector will be one of the biggest winners from the EVFTA, as reductions in tariffs will increase demand and boost exports to Europe’s high-spending consumer market, according to experts.

Trade-in agricultural products represent nearly 12 percent of the total two-way trade between Việt Nam and the EU.

The trade pact abolishes 99 percent of import tariffs over the next seven to 10 years.

With a population of more than 500 million and a combined GDP of over $15 trillion, accounting for 22 percent of the world’s GDP, the EU is the world’s largest exporter and importer with annual trade of $3.8 trillion. — VNS

Book Guardians oppose National Library’s plan to get rid of overseas books

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Newsdesk
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Book Guardians oppose National Library’s plan to get rid of overseas books

Wellington.Scoop
Ngā Kaitiaki o ngā Pukapuka/Book Guardians Aotearoa has been formed this month, in response to the National Library beginning to dispose of its precious and priceless Overseas Published Collection of over 600,000 books.

BGA has been advised by former Prime Minister Helen Clark that at no time was it intended that the National Library would or should collect and preserve only New Zealand published materials, and that her government passed the National Library Act in 2003 in order to end the indiscriminate culling of books which occurred in the 1990s.

Former Attorney General Chris Finlayson Q.C. is horrified at this further attack on the national collection, and with BGA Executive Member Dolores Janiewski is seeking an urgent meeting with the National Librarian and the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs to discuss the inadvisability and possible illegality of the current cull, and to advise a halt to any further disposal until the new government and incoming ministers have been properly briefed.

Jim Traue, a former Turnbull Librarian, also supports the BGA’s kaupapa. He made the role of the National Library quite clear in his op ed:

“The National Library, as our one library of last resort, has a responsibility to ensure that no book, once deemed worthwhile by being selected for a library’s collection, will ever disappear from the nation’s bookstock.”

“ We met by Zoom and raised a glass to the memory of the great book collectors and protectors of Aotearoa New Zealand, from Alexander Turnbull to the first National Librarian, Geoffrey Alley, and his successor, Graeme Bagnall”, said BGA Executive Member Christine Dann, describing the launch of Book Guardians Aotearoa.

“ We also vowed to honour their memory by doing our best to ensure that the books they collected and protected in the past are cherished and accessible to all New Zealanders in the present and future.”

“We are also receiving advice from other librarians, historians, writers, researchers, academics and former politicians and civil servants who know why it is wrong to dispose of most of the National Library’s books, and are keen to see it stopped immediately”, said Dr Dann. “Helen Clark thinks this should be an election issue, and we agree with her.”

Newsroom: On the vandals at the National Library

What Barrett, Republicans and Democrats said about religion at her controversial 2017 hearing

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Newsdesk
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What Barrett, Republicans and Democrats said about religion at her controversial 2017 hearing
“You’ve been outspoken about your role and your Catholic faith, and what that plays in your life,” then-Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said. “And you’ve thought and written about the role your faith should play in your profession.”
Grassley offered Barrett, then nominated for a US appeals court seat, an early chance to explain her views on a topic that was bound to be a flashpoint.
This time around, during her confirmation hearings to join the Supreme Court, Republicans say the subject of religion should be out of bounds, and committee Democrats have said they are reluctant to raise the touchy subject. That could prevent questions — and explanations from Barrett — on a recurring theme in her academic writings and presentations related to the relevance of faith in the law.
“Her religion is immaterial, irrelevant,” Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “I am totally focused on what this nominee sitting there as a justice is going to do in striking down the Affordable Care Act. That is what I’m focused on. I will not ask her questions about her religious views. They are irrelevant.”
Among her notable writings, Barrett, a former Notre Dame law professor, co-authored a 1998 law review essay that asserted Catholic judges opposed to capital punishment should recuse themselves, rather than impose a death sentence on a criminal defendant.
In the same piece, Barrett and co-author John H. Garvey referred to Catholic opposition to euthanasia and abortion as well, noting, “The prohibitions against abortion and euthanasia (properly defined) are absolute; those against war and capital punishment are not. There are two evident differences between the cases. First, abortion and euthanasia take away innocent life. This is not always so with war and punishment.”
Today, as President Donald Trump wants to elevate Barrett to the Supreme Court to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, questions about Barrett’s religious views have intensified. But so have accusations from her supporters that publicly exploring Barrett’s religious writings necessarily reflects an anti-Catholic bias.
While Democrats were more scrutinizing of Barrett during the 2017 hearing, to be sure, several Republicans found it constructive to ask, from their general positions of approval, that Barrett explain her approach to law and faith. And Supreme Court justices have, on past occasions, been questioned about how their religious faith might influence their legal thinking.
In 2017, Sen. Ted Cruz was among the committee Republicans who joined in with sympathetic queries related to Barrett’s religious views. But he is also among those who now suggest it should be off-limits. In a statement soon after Trump nominated Barrett on September 26, the Texas Republican asserted Democrats in 2017 had “interrogated Judge Barrett not for her record or her qualifications, but for her faith. It was a shameful exercise of religious bigotry, the likes of which should have long ago been relegated to the history books.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, drew criticism then and now for her statements at the time.
“Why is it that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling that dogma and law are two different things,” Feinstein began. “In your case, Professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for, for years in this country.”
Barrett herself addressed the 2017 line of committee questioning in a 2019 speech hosted by Hillsdale College in Michigan: “It seems to me that the premise of the question is that people of faith would have a uniquely difficult time separating out their moral commitments from their obligation to apply the law. And I think people of faith should reject that premise.”
Barrett remarked that all people with deeply held moral convictions must hold back such personal convictions and preferences.
“The public should be concerned about whether a nominee can set those aside in favor of following the law,” Barrett said. “But that’s not a challenge just for religious people. That’s a challenge for everyone.”
She warned at the Hillsdale College event about any unconstitutional “religious test” imposed on someone who would hold public office.
If Barrett is confirmed to the Supreme Court, she would be the sixth Catholic on the nine-member bench, a phenomenon that reflects GOP presidents’ disproportionately turning to socially conservative Catholics in recent decades. Barrett, a 48-year-old mother of seven children, is distinguished however by her outspokenness on issues of faith and scholarly writing addressing the topic.
Barrett would succeed a strong proponent of a woman’s right to end a pregnancy and join a conservative court majority that if not ready to overturn Roe v. Wade is poised to allow greater state regulation and curtail reproductive rights.
So Democratic senators are likely to explore what factors would influence Barrett as she weighs abortion rights, as well as other religiously and morally charged areas of the law, such as LGBTQ rights.
In 2017, Republican senators gave Barrett an opportunity to clarify whether, as Grassley phrased it, she would put her “religious views above applying the law.”
“Never,” Barrett said. “It’s never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge’s personal convictions, whether they derive from faith or anywhere else, on the law.”
Barrett gave similar answers to Democrats, who used the committee forum to express concern that Barrett’s religious beliefs would indeed shape her legal rulings. Feinstein said she feared that Barrett would undercut the 1973 milestone decision Roe v. Wade, which made abortion legal nationwide.
“You have a long history of believing that your religious beliefs should prevail,” Feinstein asserted.
Barrett insisted throughout the hearing that her position was the opposite. “Any kind of conviction, religious or otherwise, should never surpass the law,” she said at one point.
Until the death of Ginsburg on September 18, the religious make-up of the high court was five Catholics (Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, and Brett Kavanaugh), three Jewish justices (Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan) and one practicing Episcopalian (Neil Gorsuch, who was raised a Catholic).

Death penalty cases

When William Brennan, a Catholic, was nominated in 1956, senators asked him about his faith during his 1957 confirmation hearing, which Barrett and Garvey noted in their law review article on Catholicism and the death penalty.
They quoted Brennan as saying, “What shall control me is the oath that I took to support the Constitution and laws of the United States,” rather than the obligations of his faith. Brennan, who became a leading liberal and served until 1990, declared, “That oath and that alone … governs.”
For their part, Barrett and Garvey added, “We do not defend this position as the proper response for a Catholic judge to take with respect to abortion or the death penalty.”
During her confirmation hearing for the Chicago-based US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, Barrett declined to state her position on abortion. She said that as an appeals court judge she would be bound by 1973 and 1992 Supreme Court precedents guaranteeing women a right to end a pregnancy.
When then-Sen. Orrin Hatch, of Utah, asked if people who take their faith seriously can still be impartial judges, Barrett responded, “Senator, I see no conflict between having a sincerely held faith and duties as a judge.”
As Cruz questioned her about the law review piece, he asked her to elaborate regarding when Catholic judges might sit out death penalty disputes.
“I’ve read some of what you’ve written on Catholic judges in capital cases,” Cruz said. “In particular, you argued that Catholic judges are morally precluded from enforcing the death penalty.”
Barrett cautioned that she had not advocated such a broad prohibition and that the essay, published in the Marquette Law Review, had centered on trial judges, not appellate judges.
“It addressed a very narrow situation,” she told Cruz, when a trial judge who was “a conscientious objector to the death penalty” would be in the position of imposing a death sentence. “We concluded,” Barrett said, “recusal would be the judge’s best course.”
“Is it fair to say,” Cruz asked, “that it is not your intention as a blanket matter to recuse yourself in capital cases?”
“Correct, Sen. Cruz,” Barrett responded.
To Cruz and other senators, Barrett emphasized that the piece was researched more than 20 years ago, when she was a law student at Notre Dame, the “junior partner” on the collaboration. (Garvey is now president of Catholic University in Washington, DC.) Barrett said the essay did not fully reflect her thinking after she became a law professor. But she declined to elaborate on any differences.
Under Democratic questioning three years ago, Barrett reinforced the stance that she would set aside all personal views as she ruled.
To Hirono, Barrett acknowledged that if she were a trial judge, she would refuse to sign an order for an execution. Barrett added, however, as she told Cruz, that when she worked with the late Justice Antonin Scalia reviewing appellate matters, she did not take herself out of death penalty cases.
“When I was a law clerk to Justice Scalia,” Barrett said, “I routinely participated in capital cases.”
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