Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, October 27, 2015.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Falling by Yuna
News below Aunt Flossie's hairdo . . .
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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Paris climate deal will not include global carbon price, says UN climate chief
By (Reuters via theguardian.com)
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Big multinational companies and investors, and most recently oil majors, have called for a global carbon price to help spur investments in low-carbon energy.
A global carbon price would help to create an incentive for operators of power plants and factories to switch to cleaner fuels such as gas or to buy more energy-efficient equipment.
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“I agree it would be more simple ... but it’s not quite what we will have,” she said, adding that the world would move towards that in the future.
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This month, the leaders of 10 companies that produce 20% of the world’s oil and gas recognised that current greenhouse gas levels were inconsistent with a goal of limiting global warming to 2C over pre-industrial times. But they stopped short of outlining goals to cut their own emissions.
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Labor conditions are awful at chicken plants, according to big report
By Katie Herzog
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Lives on the Line, a new multimedia report from Oxfam America, details the harsh conditions chicken workers face in the U.S. Oxfam interviewed poultry workers in North Carolina, Arkansas, and Mississippi, and found they typically processed between 35 and 45 birds per minute — that’s more than 2,000 chickens an hour and 14,000 chickens in a workday. This type of repetitive labor is hard on the body: A Tyson worker told reporters on a press call that his hands swelled up so badly that he had to wear 3XL gloves. When he sought medical attention from the plant’s infirmary, he said he was told to take ibuprofen, soak his hands in epsom salts, and go back to work. His shifts were as long as 12 hours.
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[Workers] have ten times the rate of repetitive strain from microtasks than the rest of the workforce, seven times the rate of carpal tunnel syndrome, and five times the rate of musculoskeletal disorders generally. Human Rights Watch has found that poultry workers are 14 times more likely to have injuries such as “claw hand,” where their fingers get locked in a curled position, or ganglionic cysts where fluid is deposited under the skin. In a 2013 survey from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), 86 percent of workers reported hand and wrist pain, swelling, or numbness or the inability to close their hands.
They also report being exposed to harsh chemicals, often used to clean up the blood, offal, and grease that flows from the birds. One survey found that every single worker reported being exposed to chemicals on the job, with half exposed to chlorine and 21 percent to ammonia.
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US still isolated at UN General Assembly over Cuba embargo
By (BBC)
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The United Nations General Assembly has almost unanimously voted to condemn the US embargo on Cuba, in the first such resolution since US-Cuban diplomatic ties were restored earlier this year.
The motion won more support than it has done in the past, with 191 members of the 193-member body voting in favour.
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However, the US deputy ambassador to the UN, Ronald Godard, said shortly before the vote that the US would not abstain, as the Cubans had not sufficiently changed the language of the motion.
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Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez told the assembly that the "lifting of the blockade" would "give some meaning" to the progress achieved recently, and "set the pace towards normalisation".
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He says Mr Obama still wants to see the embargo lifted, and behind the scenes, the Castro government has appreciated his support in that endeavour.
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International |
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Aid Group Bombed for the Second Time in Three Weeks
By Max J. Rosenthal
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For the second time in three weeks, a hospital belonging to the international medical aid group Doctors Without Borders has been bombed by warplanes.
The latest attack occurred on Monday night in Yemen, where aircraft from a coalition led by Saudi Arabia attacked a hospital belonging to the aid group, which is also known as Médecins Sans Frontières. While the group said patients and staff were in the hospital at the time of the attack, they did not report any deaths. The Saudi-led coalition has been bombing Yemen for seven months in a campaign against the Houthis, a Shiite rebel group that currently holds power in the country. But Doctors Without Borders says the Saudis were aware of the hospital's location. "We provided [the coalition] with all of our GPS coordinates about two weeks ago,” Hassan Boucenine, Doctors Without Borders' Yemen director, said to Reuters.
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The strike is only a small part of destruction caused by the Saudi-led air campaign, which the United Nations says is responsible for most of the approximately 2,000 civilian deaths in Yemen that have occurred since strikes began in March. The bombings have also leveled historic parts of Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, which had survived years of civil war and rebellion since the Arab Spring revolts hit Yemen in 2011.
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How N.Y.’s Biggest For-Profit Nursing Home Group Flourishes Despite a Record of Patient Harm
By Allegra Abramo and Jennifer Lehman
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State law requires a “character-and-competence” review of buyers before a change in ownership can go through. To pass muster, other health care facilities associated with the buyers must have a record of high-quality care.
The decision maker in these deals is the state’s Public Health and Health Planning Council, a body of appointed officials, many from inside the health care industry. The council has substantial leverage to press nursing home applicants to improve quality, but an examination of dozens of transactions in recent years show that power is seldom used.
Moreover, records show that the council hasn’t always had complete information about all the violations and fines at nursing homes owned by or affiliated with applicants it reviewed. That’s because the Department of Health, which prepares character-and-competence recommendations for the council, doesn’t report them all.
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ProPublica’s review of Health Department and council records did not turn up any nursing home ownership applications within the last five years that were rejected because of lapses in patient care. In most cases, the council — 24 volunteers appointed by the governor — follows the department’s recommendations.
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But the council doesn’t always get a look at the complete record.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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Negative publicity reduces police motivation but does not result in depolicing
By (ScienceDaily)
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Recent negative publicity surrounding police after several shootings of unarmed civilians appears to have diminished some officers' motivation to be in law enforcement but does not decrease willingness to carry out their duties, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association.
"It appears that officers in our sample have been affected by negative 'Ferguson-type' press," said lead author Scott Wolfe, PhD, of the University of South Carolina. "Some officers indicated being less motivated to perform their duties." The study appears in the journal Law and Human Behavior.
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"Little actions can go a long way. Fair treatment from supervisors sends the message to officers that 'we are here for you' regardless of how much the public or the media try to sully law enforcement," said Wolfe. "In addition, we saw that confidence in one's authority as a police officer appears to protect against the negative effects of media coverage of high profile incidents like Ferguson."
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San Francisco to vote on requiring CCTV for gun sales
By (BBC)
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The city's only gun shop has threatened to close rather than subject their customers to surveillance.
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The ordinance would require shops to submit a weekly report to police detailing ammunition sales, type and quantity of ammunition purchased, and identification of the buyer.
It would apply to vendors who are based in or deliver to San Francisco. Store owners would be required to keep all information and video recordings for a year.
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
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B3SCI: I read somewhere that you describe yourself and music as Mary Poppins & Coldplay. In what ways do you relate the two to yourself & artistry?
YUNA: I’d like to think that my music is very positive and quirky – like Mary Poppins! And Coldplay, well they are just amazing in making songs that would go straight to your heart, and I’m always attracted to the idea of making heartfelt music that’s good for the soul. I don’t know. I guess that was what I was thinking about when I wrote that down on my Myspace Music page 7 years ago.
B3SCI: How did you find your sound? You are not a “typical” artist in that you are pioneering a beautiful and rare genre of pop music.
YUNA: Long years of self-discovery! I went through all these different things in my life. Like since I was very little I went for auditions, sending demos to record labels, constantly failing, constantly trying, sang back ups, sang in a group… I did it all. Eventually when you’re tired of trying to be something, all you have left to do is just to be yourself and then you’ll find out what you really, really like and and you’ll figure out your true strength musically.
B3SCI: What music and artists inspire you? Anything that might come as a surprise to fans?
YUNA: Pop, Hip hop, RnB, rock, alternative, punk.. all of it. I guess the one artist that really inspired me to get up and write songs, and perform was Feist. I love Feist!
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B3SCI: “Falling”, the second single from Nocturnal, has the lyrics’, “I wanna forget, All this burden in my past I want to fall asleep, So I don’t have to remember!”. Is there a specific message you are wishing to convey in the song, that you’d like to share? Is their a story about how “Falling” came to be?
YUNA: Falling is a song about wanting some sleep because you just had enough of the day, or of someone, you know? You’re just like so tired and so disenchanted you just wanna take a break from it all and rest your mind, and hopefully the next day you’ll figure things out.
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Indonesia’s huge fires might be the worst climate change crisis on Earth right now
By Tim McDonnell
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Indonesia is in the middle of a public health crisis from forest fire haze. The problem isn’t just deforestation, but how that deforestation is happening. In Indonesia, forests are often cleared out with fire. This can be done legally with a permit, but it’s often carried out illegally as well. This year, forest fires are also being fueled by El Niño-related weather patterns. The combination of El Niño and intentional deforestation has proven incredibly dangerous: The country has experienced nearly 100,000 fires so far this year, the worst since the last major El Niño in 1997. Fire activity typically ramps up in September and October, the end of the dry season, and over the last couple of weeks the conflagrations have grown to crisis proportions — hence Joko’s hasty return. The fires are so big they can be seen from space.
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To make matters worse, more than half of those fires occur on land made of peat, the thick, soil-like material made from decomposed plant matter. Peat is packed with carbon, and fires that occur on peatland can have a global warming impact 200 times greater than fires on normal soil, according to the WRI. Last week, Joko said the government would stop issuing new permits for commercial development on peatland, but that won’t stop the fires that are already burning.
Climate pollution is just part of the problem. Firefighting costs are pushing $50 million per week. The impact of this fire season on Indonesia’s economy could reach $14 billion. And the thick blanket of haze that is stretching from the country across Southeast Asia has caused at least 10 deaths from haze-related illness and 500,000 cases of acute respiratory illness.
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UK, Germany and France lobbying for weakened cap on toxic car pollution
By Arthur Neslen
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Europe’s biggest countries are lobbying for a proposed EU cap on nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution from cars to be weakened in a vote on Wednesday, despite the VW diesel emissions scandal and revelations that 90% of cars do not currently meet pollution standards when on the road.
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Earlier today, MEPs sitting in Strasbourg voted against any exemptions to the EU’s proposed NOx mandate, although their resolution is not binding.
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Some 23,500 people in Britain die prematurely from NOx emissions every year. The UK government is clear that the greatest contributor to illegal levels of NOx is the failure of vehicles to comply with regulations outside the testing lab.
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However, MEPs rejected their position today, passing a resolution by 493 votes to 145 calling for auto-manufacturers to be given no flexibility at all in meeting the 80mg/km NOx limit. The MEPs also appealed for emissions tests to be widened to include pollutants such as particulate matter and sulphur dioxide. An inquiry should be set up into the role played by national authorities in the VW scandal, they said.
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Science and Health |
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A Reptile With No Penis Just Solved a Baffling Scientific Mystery
By Diane Kelly
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The tuatara isn’t actually a lizard. It’s the last survivor of a 250 million year old group of reptiles that mostly went extinct with the dinosaurs. It doesn’t have a penis, and ironically, that’s made it a linchpin for understanding how penises evolved in vertebrates.
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Mammals use cylinders of inflatable erectile tissue. Turtles have a terrifyingly large organ that layers inflatable tissues on top of a stiff tongue-shaped shovel. Crocodilian penises are permanently stiff, pushed out by muscles and pulled back in by bungee-cord tendons. Snakes and lizards have two, which are stored inside-out in their bodies and inflated into females. And then there’s the high-speed flexible madness of waterfowl like ducks.
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The implication is that male tuataras start to grow a penis as an embryo, but reabsorb it before they’re ready to hatch. That means every single amniote lineage has the wherewithal to make a penis. And that suggests a penis is an ancient amniote trait that has diversified in many amazing ways over time.
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The Cohn lab has even seen this sort of penis disappearing act before: in birds like chickens, penis growth starts normally in the embryo, but the organ is eventually destroyed by an expanding wave of self-destructing cells. “It would be cool to test whether the regression of genital buds in the tuatara occurs the same way as it does in birds” said Gredler.
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Coating cancels acoustic scattering from odd-shaped objects
By (SCienceDaily)
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In a new twist, a team of researchers from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the University of Texas at Austin has applied to acoustic waves the concept of "scattering cancellation," which has long been used to systematically cancel the dominant scattering modes of electromagnetic waves off objects.
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"Using a coating that consists of two thin fluid layers, we theoretically demonstrated a significant reduction in scattering strength and confirmed it via 3-D finite element model (FEM) simulations," he explained. "To put the magnitude of this reduction into perspective, in air this is equivalent to going from the level of a 'two-person conversation' down to that of 'rustling leaves.' This effect works even when the coated object is placed next to other objects."
Perhaps the most relevant implications of the team's work are its potential to improve acoustic laboratory measurements. "A fundamental principle of probing and investigating physical systems is that the measurement process can inherently disturb the system -- sometimes referred to as 'the observer effect,'" noted Guild.
At the quantum level, this is quantified by the well-known Heisenberg uncertainty principle. "While the uncertainty principle doesn't restrict macroscopic measurement devices, in practice there are many other real-world limits on the measurements of acoustic waves that can lead to a disruption of the sound field being investigated," he added.
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Technology |
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US Senate passes CISA, a very bad spying bill dressed up as a cybersecurity bill
By Xeni Jardin
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CISA won't make you and I any more secure, and it threatens what's left of our online privacy. The very helpful sounding “Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act” will definitely help the government, though: it'll make it a lot easier for technology companies to share your personal data with the government, and everyone knows that this data never ends up in the wrong hands, so you're fine.
The gaping privacy flaws in CISA didn't stop the Senate from passing it by a wide margin today: 74 to 21. CISA now goes to a conference committee between House and Senate.
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CISA passed the Senate today in a 74-21 vote. The bill is fundamentally flawed due to its broad immunity clauses, vague definitions, and aggressive spying authorities. The bill now moves to a conference committee despite its inability to address problems that caused recent highly publicized computer data breaches, like unencrypted files, poor computer architecture, un-updated servers, and employees (or contractors) clicking malware links.
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Librarian of Congress grants limited DRM-breaking rights for cars, games, phones, tablets, and remixers
By Cory Doctorow
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Every three years, the Librarian of Congress allows the public to request exemptions to a law that makes it a felony to break a digital lock, even on on a device that you own, and which you are breaking for a lawful purpose. For the past year, public interest groups have been spending their scarce money and resources writing petitions to the Copyright Office, arguing that people who own devices with computers in them should have the same property rights as they do in their non-computerized devices: the right to open, change, and improve the things they own in lawful ways.
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The Copyright Office just wrapped up its latest hearings, and it handed some pretty big wins to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other public interest nonprofits, over the howls of companies as diverse as GM, John Deere and pretty much the entire motion picture and video game industries.
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But there's some good news: the rule permitting jailbreaking phones was extended to tablets, something the Copyright Office rejected three years ago. Then it said that it couldn't tell laptops from tablets (raising two important questions: "why not allow jailbreaking on laptops"; and, "if you don't know the difference between a laptop and a tablet, maybe you shouldn't be regulating either of them?"). This year, thanks to EFF, it decided it could finally tell the difference.
Even this good news points out the absurdity of the process. There were 27 petitions at this year's proceedings; as the Internet of Things comes, and brings with it DRM-locked firmware for everything from pacemakers to thermostats, there will be far more petitions in three years -- 100? 500? Each one will have to be written and argued, at great expense, by donation-supported public-interest groups, while the companies that profit by locking you out of the lawful enjoyment of your property get to divert some of those gains to fighting the public interest groups.
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Cultural |
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Where Does Your Time Go?
By Helen Pearson and Nature magazine
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In 1961, when more and more people were buying television sets to go with their radios, the BBC wanted to work out the best times to air its programmes. So its audience-research department decided to ask a sample of people across the United Kingdom to record what they were doing every half hour of the day, and to indicate whether the TV or radio was on.
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Epidemiologists, meanwhile, are mining the diaries to explain how lifestyle changes are contributing to a rise in many chronic diseases. The diaries “were the greatest asset I could possibly have”, says physiologist Edward Archer at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who used the data in a 2013 study of obesity.
Now, the Oxford centre is testing a major update to its 50-year-old methods. In addition to asking people to complete a handwritten diary, it last year began giving them an electronic fitness tracker and a small camera that snaps a stream of pictures of their day (see 'The gadget guinea pig'). “The idea is to be a bit more adventurous,” says Teresa Harms, a sociology research fellow who is leading the project. “Are new technologies better than what we've been doing all these years?”
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Studies in the United States and western European countries have shown similar patterns: little overall change in work time and, at least in some studies and groups, a slight growth in leisure time. All in all, there is little support for the idea that everyone is working harder than ever before. “When you look at national averages of time-use data, it doesn't really show up,” says Oriel Sullivan, a sociologist who now co-directs the centre with Gershuny.
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The diaries have also exposed trends that could affect the health of adults. In his study on obesity, Archer analysed more than 50,000 diary days collected between 1965 and 2010 and divided women's time into paid work, household work, personal care and free time. Then he calculated what that meant for the amount of energy they were burning up. The results showed that women in 2010 were spending around 12 hours less per week on cooking, cleaning, laundry and other domestic work than women in 1965, and that had shifted towards more-sedentary pursuits such as using a computer. As a result, the team estimated that working women today are burning some 130 kilocalories per day less than those in the 1960s, and they proposed that this could be one explanation for the rise of obesity in the United States. (Archer stresses that he is not saying that women should do more housework; rather, the work reinforces public-health advice encouraging more physical activity of any kind.)
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Why Pakistani Hindus leave their homes for India
By (BBC)
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About 1,200 people, who have migrated from Pakistan in the past five years, are housed in three camps in Delhi and many say one of the biggest problems they faced back home was that they were unable to educate their children.
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"Our children don't feel welcome in schools there. Muslims taunt us for being Hindu. Our girls are also sexually harassed," Mr Das says.
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Mala says she is happy to see that Hindus in India can practice their religion openly. "Here Hindus pray without fear in temples and organise religious festivals outdoor. In Pakistan we prayed at home. If we went to temples, we avoided the gaze of our neighbours."
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In a written reply to a BBC query, the Indian government has revealed that more than 1,400 Pakistanis have been given citizenship since 2011 and that an overwhelming majority of them are Hindus.
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |