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Agartala, Dec 21 (IANS): Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said that the Union Cabinet recently decided to establish three semiconductor units in the northeast for the development of the semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem which would create 20,000 direct jobs and 60,000 indirect job opportunities. While addressing the 72nd plenary session of the North Eastern Council (NEC), the Home Minister said that one of the three semiconductor units, Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test Private Limited, would be set up in Assam with an investment of approximately Rs 27,000 crore, which would be the largest investment so far. Shah said that keeping this future potential in mind, the Union Ministry of Education is preparing courses in collaboration with universities in the northeast to equip the youth with relevant education and knowledge. He emphasised that this would generate a large number of jobs for the youth in all eight states of the Northeast. The Home Minister said that in the last 10 years, due to the unprecedented development of infrastructure in the northeast, not only has the physical distance been reduced, but Prime Minister Modi has also worked to bridge the distance between the people of this region and Delhi. Shah said that when Prime Minister Modi gave priority to the Northeast himself, it naturally became the priority of the entire central government. Noting that today the northeast region is on the path of development despite much diversity, he said that 10 years ago, more than 200 tribal groups and more than 195 dialects and languages of the region had become our weakness in a way, causing different kinds of conflicts. It is Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has done the work of converting that weakness into strength and power and more than 200 tribal groups, due to their cultural diversity, have become the centre of attraction for the entire world, and over 195 dialects and languages have contributed to making the northeast one of the 36 biodiversity hotspots in the world. The Home Minister said that there are more than 7,500 species of flowers in the northeast alone, along with various types of wildlife and water resources. The Modi government has made significant efforts over the past 10 years to preserve these natural diversities and transform the region into a preferred tourist destination, he added. Shah mentioned that during former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government, the Ministry of DONER (Development of North Eastern Region) was established. Saying that the Modi government has left no stone unturned in preserving the culture of the northeast, he mentioned that it was the Modi government that worked to include most languages from the northeast in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. He noted that now, it is time to give a big push to the country’s efforts to become a 5 trillion dollar economy through the development of the northeast region. Shah mentioned that for this, the ministries of DONER and the North Eastern Council (NEC) are working to implement the mantra of "Act East, Act Fast, and Act First." The Union Home Minister said that over the past 50 years, the NEC has served as an important platform for discussing the aspirations, needs, and potential solutions to challenges, and has worked to become the blueprint for the development of the Northeast. He stated that in the last 10 years, violent incidents in the northeast have reduced by 71 per cent, and civilian deaths have reduced by 86 per cent. He added that nearly 10,574 insurgents have surrendered, and due to several peace agreements, the Central Government has succeeded in establishing peace across the northeast. Shah said that the allocation under the PM-DevINE scheme was approximately Rs 6600 crore, but it would soon be increased to Rs 9,000 crore. He mentioned that for the development of the northeast, more than 111 projects, including roads, power, education, healthcare services, sports infrastructure, and tourism are being implemented. He added that from 2014-15, the budget for the northeast has increased by 153 per cent, and through the Bamboo Mission, the government has set an ambitious goal to make the entire northeast prosperous. Regarding the flood problem in the northeast states, the Home Minister said that by using technology to create pathways in the natural course, the budget for constructing roads could be reduced by at least 30 per cent.BEND, OREGON (AP) — Eliza Wilson is a little nervous as she draws the microphone close, but she is determined to share her life story. “My father was a disabled veteran,” she says. “I first experienced homelessness when I was 5 years old.” Wilson, who’s 36, leads programs focused on unhoused youth. On a recent Saturday, she is addressing a citizen assembly, a grassroots gathering seeking solutions to tough local challenges. Her audience consists of 30 ordinary Oregonians. They are acupuncturists and elk hunters; house cleaners and retired riverboat pilots. None are public policy experts. All the same, these participants have been asked to recommend new strategies for combating youth homelessness — a major problem in this affluent Oregon city and the surrounding rural areas of Deschutes County. This unusual experiment in small-D democracy is underwritten by more than $250,000 in grants from backers such as the Rockefeller Foundation and Omidyar Network. As a key early presenter, Wilson wins rapt attention, clicking through data-rich slides and sharing her story of crisis and recovery. That’s how citizen assemblies should work, says Kevin O’Neil, an innovation specialist at the Rockefeller Foundation. His research shows Americans are frustrated with what they perceive as aloofness and gridlock within civic institutions. “People want to be directly involved in decision-making,” O’Neil says. “They recognize the value of expertise, but they don’t want to delegate decision-making to experts.” Assemblies can help “overcome polarization and strengthen societal cohesion,” says Claudia Chwalisz, founder of DemocracyNext . Her nonprofit, launched in Paris in 2022, champions such assemblies worldwide, hoping they can “create the democratic spaces for everyday people to grapple with the complexity of policy issues, listen to one another, and find common ground.” At least, that’s the theory. To succeed, citizen assemblies can’t settle for a few days of harmonious dialogue among well-intentioned strangers. They need to inspire policy changes or new programs from government and other civic institutions. In Europe, such wins abound. In the United States, results are spottier. The most fruitful U.S. effort to date was a 2021 people’s assembly in Washington State that produced 148 ideas — including more solar canopies and food composting — to combat climate change. More often, progress is challenging. An assembly in 2022 in Petaluma, California, spun up ideas to repurpose a long-time county fairground site. Two years later, the fair still operates under short-term leases; its long-term destiny remains in limbo. In Colorado’s Montrose County , enacting an assembly’s bold ideas for improving rural day care has been “more of a marathon than a sprint,” says organizer Morgan Lasher. Can central Oregon do better? It may take years to know, but evidence so far shows both the assembly system’s opportunities and the challenges. Bend’s local economy is strong, with a jobless rate of just 4.2% and median household income of more than $80,000. As housing costs have skyrocketed, though, the spectacle of people living in tent and trailer encampments has become more common. A January count found more than 1,800 people were homeless in Deschutes County, up from 913 in 2020. In 2023, DemocracyNext and Healthy Democracy , a Portland, Oregon, nonprofit, connected with Bend officials interested in bringing the assembly idea to central Oregon. Josh Burgess, an Air Force veteran, who moved to Bend and became the proverbial “advance man” for DemocracyNext. Operating in a county evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, Burgess built rapport with both liberal and conservative members on the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners. “It took four or five meetings to get there,” Burgess recalls. Organizers decided to focus on homelessness among ages 14 to 24, where opportunities for progress seemed greatest. To pick citizens for the assembly, organizers contacted 12,000 county residents before selecting just 30. Everything was balanced by age, race, gender, and geography – a slow, costly requirement. Even so, advocates such as Michelle Barsa of Omidyar Network says assemblies’ big edge comes from using “an actual representative sample of the community, not just the people who always show up at town-hall meetings and yell into a microphone for three minutes.” At the northern edge of Oregon State’s Bend campus, a few hundred yards from the Deschutes River, is the McGrath Family atrium, a sunlight-drenched space with panoramic woodland views. It feels almost like a spa. As the Bend assembly gets started, black tablecloths at a huge, U-shaped table convey gravity. Name tags identify attendees as “Noelle,” “Dave,” “Alex.” The first few hours go slowly, but everything perks up after lunch. Eliza Wilson takes command, introducing herself as director of runaway and homeless youth services at J Bar J , a social-services organization. Her voice is unfailingly steady, but emotions race fast across her face: hope, frustration, empathy, resolve, and more. “Teens get really good at hiding their homelessness,” Wilson explains. “We don’t share family business outside of the family. I was really fortunate that a high-school counselor pointed me, at age 15, to the first youth shelter that had just opened in Bend. I stayed there for three years, until I graduated from high school. I finally got on my feet at age 21.” As Wilson finishes, questions stream in. “Are there any programs advocating for children to get back to their parents?” one woman wants to know. “Is there open communication between you guys and the school district?” a man asks. Wilson and other presenters respond with a road map of what exists today. They point out how homeless youth are in a precarious but not hopeless situation, counting on allies for a couch to sleep on. Less than 20 percent live outside in encampments. Practically everyone in the audience takes notes. The next day, assembly members strike up conversations with young adults who were once homeless. Chronic problems — and glimmers of ideas about how to address them — tumble forth. Flaws in the foster parent system. The risk of sexual abuse. The unique challenges that LGBTQ youth face. Attendees — who shared their thoughts with the Chronicle on the condition they be identified only by their first name — regarded those conversations as eye-opening breakthroughs in their hunt for policy recommendations. “I’m coming away with a whole different point of view,” Ken told me. He had arrived believing that poor parenting and drug abuse led to homelessness, and that affected families should personally address such challenges. Now, he said, he was interested in broader solutions. Several local officials stopped by to watch the assembly proceedings. Phil Chang, a Deschutes County commissioner, said the broad-based assembly creates “social license for us to do things that the community wants.” Conservative county commissioner Tony DeBone worries that Oregon’s rollback of drug-offense laws has worsened social problems; he also believes that an economic upturn would do the most good. Still, he says, he’s willing to see what the assembly can offer. Ultimately, the assembly’s effectiveness will depend on whether its recommendations can overcome bureaucratic inertia, says Tammy Baney, executive director of the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council . Proposed changes in police interactions with homeless youth could be acted on within a month or two if local law enforcement is receptive, she says. Improving Oregon’s gridlocked foster-care system might be much harder. “It all depends on how much political will there is,” Baney says. George Anders is editor-at-large at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where you can read the full article . This article was provided to The Associated Press by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of a partnership to cover philanthropy and nonprofits supported by the Lilly Endowment. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy .Membership of Britain's upstart anti-immigration Reform UK party has overtaken that of the centre-right Conservative Party for the first time, the party said Thursday, as Tories disputed the numbers. Party leader and Brexit figurehead Nigel Farage hailed the figure as a "historic moment". Immigration was a major issue at the ballot box at the UK's July general election which saw the Conservatives ousted after 14 years in power. The digital counter on the Reform website showed a membership tally ticking past the 131,680 figure declared by the main opposition Conservatives during its leadership election earlier this year. "The youngest political party in British politics has just overtaken the oldest political party in the world," wrote Farage on X. "Reform UK are now the real opposition." Party chairman Zia Yusuf said the milestone showed the long "stranglehold on the centre-right of British politics by the Tories has finally been broken". The last declared Conservative Party tally was the lowest on record and a drop on 2022, when there were around 172,000 members. New Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, however, questioned the figures, accusing Farage of "fakery". She said Reform's counter was "coded to tick up automatically". Farage responded by saying he would "gladly invite" a firm to "audit our membership numbers" if the Tories did the same. Reform won five seats in the 650-seat UK parliament in July, though it received roughly 14 percent of total votes cast. Reform maximised the damage to the Conservatives by splitting the right-wing vote and picking up former Tory supporters in key constituencies. The Labour Party won by a landslide although Prime Minister Keir Starmer has had a bumpy first five months in power. An Ipsos opinion poll this month found that 53 percent of Britons said they were "disappointed" in what the Labour government had achieved so far. British politics has been dominated by the two main parties -- Labour and the Conservatives -- for decades but commentators have warned that major parties have seen irreversible downturns in their popularity in the past. In the years after World War I, a divided Liberal Party found itself supplanted by the Labour Party as the main opposition. The party of 19th-century political giant William Gladstone and World War I leader David Lloyd George never again regained its status as a party of government. Farage, a supporter of US President-elect Donald Trump, said earlier this month that he was in talks with tech billionaire Elon Musk about donating to his hard-right party. har/js

As it turns out, more than just Americans were curious to check out live football games and a Beyoncé peformance on Netflix. The streamer’s big “NFL Christmas Gameday Live” stunt drew a broadcast network-level audience in the U.S., and it prompted subscribers in more than 200 countries to check out some part of the nearly nine-hour telecast, which started with the Kansas City Chiefs at Pittsburgh Steelers followed by Baltimore Ravens at Houston Texans. At the halftime of the latter game, Houston-born superstar Beyoncé performed a short set of tunes from her “Cowboy Carter” album. It was a heavily promoted appearance by Queen Bey designed to draw attention to the fact that the games were on Netflix — making its debut as a NFL live game partner — and to bring more casual viewers to the streamer’s big Christmas Day experience. Netflix cited Nielsen measurement showing that the Ravens-Texans game averaged 24.3 million viewers while the earlier Kansas City Chiefs-Pittsburgh Steelers bout brought in 24.1 million viewers. Those are more than respectable numbers for Netflix’s first outing and on the high end of what CBS, Fox, NBC or ESPN might garner with a highly anticipated NFL or college football game. Those numbers do not include the entirety of Netflix’s coverage, which began at 11 a.m. ET with pregame coverage and ran through the post-game forensics on the Texans’ 31-2 pounding by the Ravens. And the reinging champ Chiefs made quick work of the Steelers with a 29-10 victory. “Bringing our members this record-breaking day of two NFL games was the best Christmas gift we could have delivered,” said Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s chief content officer. “We’re thankful for our partnership with the NFL, all of our wonderful on-air talent, and let’s please not forget the electrifying Beyoncé and the brilliant Mariah Carey.”best Christmas gift we could have delivered,” said Bela Bajaria, Netflix Chief Content Officer. “We’re thankful for our partnership with the NFL, all of our wonderful on-air talent, and let’s please not forget the electrifying Beyoncé and the brilliant Mariah Carey.” “We’re thrilled with our first Christmas Gameday on Netflix with NFL games being streamed to a global audience,” said Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president of media distribution. “Fans in all 50 states and over 200 countries around the world watched some of the league’s brightest stars along with a dazzling performance by Beyoncé in a historic day for the NFL.” Netflix has laid out $150 million to carry Christmas Day NFL games for three years. The deal guaranteed the streamer two two games in year one and at least one game for 2025 and 2026. The agreement is risky for the NFL given the chance for blowback from passionate football fans who don’t have access to Netflix. That sentiment was prevelant on social media during Wednesday’s daylong telecast. But Netflix made it through eight hours-plus of live game coverage as well as pre-and post-game shows without a major tech meltdown, which in and of itself is a victory for the streamer. Netflix is increasingly leaning into live sports and events as its overall business evolves and as sponsorship deals become a priority for the ad-supported tier. At the same time, Netflix offers the NFL easy, uniform access to high-end TV consumers around the world in one fell swoop. The league has invested significantly in recent years in efforts to make American football more popular in Europe, Latin America and other key territories, with a schedule of regular-season games played in such cities as London, Munich, Frankfurt, São Paulo, Mexico City and Toronto in recent years. The global nature of Netflix’s platform and subscriber base makes it hard to compare the audience turnout on Wednesday to other NFL telecasts. Last year, NBCUniversal’s Peacock streamer grabbed about 10 million viewers with its exclusive Dec. 23 telecast of a Buffalo Bills-Los Angeles Chargers game, which aired on a Saturday night with less promotion than Netflix showered on its experiment. More to come Sign up for . For the latest news, follow us on , , and .

Nathan Aspinall explains why big darts names are rockstars and it's down to one man

Eliza Wilson is a little nervous as she draws the microphone close, but she is determined to share her life story. “My father was a disabled veteran,” she says. “I first experienced homelessness when I was 5 years old.” Wilson, who’s 36, leads programs focused on unhoused youth. On a recent Saturday, she is addressing a citizen assembly, a grassroots gathering seeking solutions to tough local challenges. Her audience consists of 30 ordinary Oregonians . They are acupuncturists and elk hunters; house cleaners and retired riverboat pilots. None are public policy experts. All the same, these participants have been asked to recommend new strategies for combating youth homelessness — a major problem in this affluent Oregon city and the surrounding rural areas of Deschutes County. This unusual experiment in small-D democracy is underwritten by more than $250,000 in grants from backers such as the Rockefeller Foundation and Omidyar Network. As a key early presenter, Wilson wins rapt attention, clicking through data-rich slides and sharing her story of crisis and recovery. That’s how citizen assemblies should work, says Kevin O’Neil, an innovation specialist at the Rockefeller Foundation. His research shows Americans are frustrated with what they perceive as aloofness and gridlock within civic institutions. “ People want to be directly involved in decision-making,” O’Neil says. “They recognize the value of expertise, but they don’t want to delegate decision-making to experts.” Assemblies can help “overcome polarization and strengthen societal cohesion,” says Claudia Chwalisz, founder of DemocracyNext. Her nonprofit, launched in Paris in 2022, champions such assemblies worldwide, hoping they can “create the democratic spaces for everyday people to grapple with the complexity of policy issues, listen to one another, and find common ground.” At least, that’s the theory. To succeed, citizen assemblies can’t settle for a few days of harmonious dialogue among well-intentioned strangers. They need to inspire policy changes or new programs from government and other civic institutions. In Europe, such wins abound. In the United States, results are spottier. The most fruitful U.S. effort to date was a 2021 people’s assembly in Washington State that produced 148 ideas — including more solar canopies and food composting — to combat climate change. More often, progress is challenging. An assembly in 2022 in Petaluma, California, spun up ideas to repurpose a long-time county fairground site. Two years later, the fair still operates under short-term leases; its long-term destiny remains in limbo. In Colorado’s Montrose County, enacting an assembly’s bold ideas for improving rural day care has been “more of a marathon than a sprint,” says organizer Morgan Lasher. Can central Oregon do better? It may take years to know, but evidence so far shows both the assembly system’s opportunities and the challenges. Bend’s local economy is strong, with a jobless rate of just 4.2% and median household income of more than $80,000. As housing costs have skyrocketed, though, the spectacle of people living in tent and trailer encampments has become more common. A January count found more than 1,800 people were homeless in Deschutes County, up from 913 in 2020. In 2023, DemocracyNext and Healthy Democracy, a Portland, Oregon, nonprofit, connected with Bend officials interested in bringing the assembly idea to central Oregon. Josh Burgess, an Air Force veteran, who moved to Bend and became the proverbial “advance man” for DemocracyNext. Operating in a county evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, Burgess built rapport with both liberal and conservative members on the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners. “It took four or five meetings to get there,” Burgess recalls. Organizers decided to focus on homelessness among ages 14 to 24, where opportunities for progress seemed greatest. To pick citizens for the assembly, organizers contacted 12,000 county residents before selecting just 30. Everything was balanced by age, race, gender, and geography – a slow, costly requirement. Even so, advocates such as Michelle Barsa of Omidyar Network says assemblies’ big edge comes from using “an actual representative sample of the community, not just the people who always show up at town-hall meetings and yell into a microphone for three minutes.” At the northern edge of Oregon State’s Bend campus, a few hundred yards from the Deschutes River, is the McGrath Family atrium, a sunlight-drenched space with panoramic woodland views. It feels almost like a spa. As the Bend assembly gets started, black tablecloths at a huge, U-shaped table convey gravity. Name tags identify attendees as “Noelle,” “Dave,” “Alex.” The first few hours go slowly, but everything perks up after lunch. Eliza Wilson takes command, introducing herself as director of runaway and homeless youth services at J Bar J, a social-services organization. Her voice is unfailingly steady, but emotions race fast across her face: hope, frustration, empathy, resolve, and more. “Teens get really good at hiding their homelessness,” Wilson explains. “We don’t share family business outside of the family. I was really fortunate that a high-school counselor pointed me, at age 15, to the first youth shelter that had just opened in Bend. I stayed there for three years, until I graduated from high school. I finally got on my feet at age 21.” As Wilson finishes, questions stream in. “Are there any programs advocating for children to get back to their parents?” one woman wants to know. “Is there open communication between you guys and the school district?” a man asks. Wilson and other presenters respond with a road map of what exists today. They point out how homeless youth are in a precarious but not hopeless situation, counting on allies for a couch to sleep on. Less than 20 percent live outside in encampments. Practically everyone in the audience takes notes. The next day, assembly members strike up conversations with young adults who were once homeless. Chronic problems — and glimmers of ideas about how to address them — tumble forth. Flaws in the foster parent system. The risk of sexual abuse. The unique challenges that LGBTQ youth face. Attendees — who shared their thoughts with the Chronicle on the condition they be identified only by their first name — regarded those conversations as eye-opening breakthroughs in their hunt for policy recommendations. “I’m coming away with a whole different point of view,” Ken told me. He had arrived believing that poor parenting and drug abuse led to homelessness, and that affected families should personally address such challenges. Now, he said, he was interested in broader solutions. Several local officials stopped by to watch the assembly proceedings. Phil Chang, a Deschutes County commissioner, said the broad-based assembly creates “social license for us to do things that the community wants.” Conservative county commissioner Tony DeBone worries that Oregon’s rollback of drug-offense laws has worsened social problems; he also believes that an economic upturn would do the most good. Still, he says, he’s willing to see what the assembly can offer. Ultimately, the assembly’s effectiveness will depend on whether its recommendations can overcome bureaucratic inertia, says Tammy Baney, executive director of the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council. Proposed changes in police interactions with homeless youth could be acted on within a month or two if local law enforcement is receptive, she says. Improving Oregon’s gridlocked foster-care system might be much harder. “It all depends on how much political will there is,” Baney says. _____ George Anders is editor-at-large at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where you can read the full article. This article was provided to The Associated Press by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of a partnership to cover philanthropy and nonprofits supported by the Lilly Endowment. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.