Smoke, mirrors and Modi: A grand illusion of governance during Covid-19

It is now 41 days since the Modi government told the Supreme Court that there were no migrant workers on the road any more. "They have been taken to the nearest available shelter", and 2.3 million were being fed, India’s Solicitor General told the judges, who — in a now familiar routine — took the government at its word.

It is evident that statement was anything but the truth.

In the absence of jobs, food and transport services, thousands of stoic and weary migrant workers, who once powered India’s economy, continue epic journeys home on cycle or on foot, over hundreds, even 1,000, kilometres. Parents carry children, drag luggage or balance bundles on their heads. The sick and the injured hobble along for as long as they can. Some drop dead of exhaustion or illness, either on the way or, tragically, after reaching home. One group was mowed down while sleeping on rail tracks they thought was empty of trains.

India’s 53-day lockdown, extended in varying measures, was among the world’s toughest, but while it may have slowed the count of known Covid-19 cases, it hasn’t flattened the curve, contrary to government claims, one of which said there would be no new cases by May 16. "What we are seeing is that the cases are increasing at a linear pace," the director of

Russia slams US assertion at UN that it remains party to Iran nuclear deal

Russia slams US assertion at UN that it remains party to Iran nuclear deal

Russia’s UN ambassador slammed the United States on Tuesday as “ridiculous” for arguing it was still a member of the Iran nuclear deal two years after it quit, so Washington could trigger a return of all United Nations sanctions on Tehran.

The US, Russia, China, Germany, Britain and France in 2015 agreed to the deal with Iran that prevents Tehran from developing nuclear weapons in return for sanctions relief. 

The UN Security Council enshrined the deal in a resolution that still names the US as a participant, even though it left. US President

South Korea raises age of consent from 13 to 16 as it seeks to strengthen protection for minors following accusations the existing law on sex crimes was too weak

South Korea raises age of consent from 13 to 16

South Korea has raised the age of consent for sex to 16 from 13 as it seeks to strengthen 

protection for minors following accusations the existing law on sex crimes was too weak, it emerged on Wednesday.

Under the revised law, adults who have sex with those less than 16 years of age will be prosecuted for child sexual abuse or rape regardless 

of any alleged consent.

Previously, teenagers aged 13 or older were held to be legally capable of consenting to sex, resulting in controversial 

As Oklahoma Reopens, Cities Shy Away from Enforcing Restrictions. NEWS

As Oklahoma Reopens, Cities Shy Away from Enforcing Restrictions

Police in some of Oklahoma’s largest cities are electing to use a softer touch, rather than aggressive enforcement, with state and local business restrictions as Oklahoma gradually reopens amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Scores of restaurants, retailers and offices have reopened their doors – or at l

Put distance between your hands and dirty surfaces with CLEANKEY

Door handles, checkout touchscreens, ATM buttons — these are just a few of the surfaces we interact with daily. But there are plenty of invisible microbes on these surfaces that we have no interest in touching. Fortunately, KeySmart has you covered with CLEANKEY, the keychain accessory for interacting with a variety of surfaces.

CLEANKEY ($19.99, originally $24.99; stacksocial.com) is a palm-sized gadget made from an antimicrobial copper alloy. Its purpose: pressing buttons, pulling

The Solar System

The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets,with the remainder being smaller objects, the dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly—the moons two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury. 

Preposition IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Preposition

Prepositions show spacial, temporal, and role relations between a noun or pronoun and the other words in a sentence. They come at the start of a prepositional phrase, which contains a preposition and its object. Examples: up, over, against, by, for, into, close to, out of, apart from.

Conjunction IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Conjunction

Conjunctions join words, phrases, and clauses in a sentence. There are coordinating, subordinating, and correlative conjunctions. Examples: and, but, or, so, yet, with.

Articles and Determiners IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Articles and Determiners

Articles and determiners function like adjectives by modifying nouns, but they are different than adjectives in that they are necessary for a sentence to have proper syntax. Articles and determiners specify and identify nouns, and there are indefinite and definite articles. Examples: articles: a, an, the; determiners: these, that, those, enough, much, few, which, what.

Some traditional grammars have treated articles as a distinct part of speech. Modern grammars, however, more often include articles in the category of determiners, which identify or quantify a noun. Even though they modify nouns like adjectives, articles are different in that they are essential to the proper syntax of a sentence, just as determiners are necessary to convey the meaning of a sentence, while adjectives are optional.

Interjection IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Interjection

Interjections are expressions that can stand on their own or be contained within sentences. These words and phrases often carry strong emotions and convey reactions. Examples: ah, whoops, ouch, yabba dabba do!

How to Determine the Part of Speech

How to Determine the Part of Speech

Only interjections (Hooray!) have a habit of standing alone; every other part of speech must be contained within a sentence and some are even required in sentences (nouns and verbs). Other parts of speech come in many varieties and may appear just about anywhere in a sentence.

To know for sure what part of speech a word falls into, look not only at the word itself but also at its meaning, position, and use in a sentence.

For example, in the first sentence below, work functions as a noun; in the second sentence, a verb; and in the third sentence, an adjective:

• Bosco showed up for work two hours late.
• The noun work is the thing Bosco shows up for.
• He will have to work until midnight.
• The verb work is the action he must perform.
• His work permit expires next month.
• The attributive noun [or converted adjective] work modifies the noun permit.

Learning the names and uses of the basic parts of speech is just one way to understand how sentences are constructed.

Dissecting Basic Sentences IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Dissecting Basic Sentences

To form a basic complete sentence, you only need two elements: a noun (or pronoun standing in for a noun) and a verb. The noun acts as a subject and the verb, by telling what action the subject is taking, acts as the predicate. 

• Birds fly.

In the short sentence above, birds is the noun and fly is the verb. The sentence makes sense and gets the point across.

You can have a sentence with just one word without breaking any sentence formation rules. The short sentence below is complete because it's a command to an understood "you".

• Go!

Here, the pronoun, standing in for a noun, is implied and acts as the subject. The sentence is really saying, "(You) go!"

Constructing More Complex Sentences USING MORE PARTS OF SPEECH IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Constructing More Complex Sentences

Use more parts of speech to add additional information about what's happening in a sentence to make it more complex. Take the first sentence from above, for example, and incorporate more information about how and why birds fly.

• Birds fly when migrating before winter.

Birds and fly remain the noun and the verb, but now there is more description. 

When is an adverb that modifies the verb fly. The word before is a little tricky because it can be either a conjunction, preposition, or adverb depending on the context. In this case, it's a preposition because it's followed by a noun. This preposition begins an adverbial phrase of time (before winter) that answers the question of when the birds migrate. Before is not a conjunction because it does not connect two clauses.

 

NOUN AND ITS TYPES IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

In English grammar, a noun is a part of speech (or word class) that names or identifies a person, place, thing, quality, idea, or activity. Most nouns have both a singular and plural form, can be preceded by an article and/or one or more adjectives, and can serve as the head of a noun phrase.

A noun or noun phrase can function as a subject, direct object, indirect object, complement, appositive, or object of a preposition. In addition, nouns sometimes modify other nouns to form compound nouns. To understand how to recognize and use nouns, it's helpful to learn about the different types of nouns in English.

Common Noun

A common noun names any person, place, thing, activity, or idea. It's a noun that is not the name

English grammar, a pronoun and its types

·         Demonstrative Pronouns

·         Indefinite Pronouns

·         Interrogative Pronouns

·         Reflexive Pronouns

·         Intensive Pronouns

·         Personal Pronouns

·         Possessive Pronouns

·         Reciprocal Pronouns

·         Relative Pronouns

·         Source

 

In English grammar, a pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun, noun phrase, or noun clause. The pronoun is one of the traditional parts of speech. A pronoun can function as a subject, object, or complement in a sentence.

Unlike nouns, pronouns rarely allow modification. Pronouns are a closed word class in English: new members rarely enter the language. To understand how to recognize and correctly use pronouns, it can be helpful to review the types of pronouns that exist in English.

Demonstrative Pronouns

A demonstrative pronoun points to a particular noun or to the noun it replaces. "These pronouns

A verb is the part of speech / A Verb and its types

A verb is the part of speech (or word class) that describes an action or occurrence or indicates a state of being. Verbs and verb phrases usually function as predicates. Verbs can display differences in tense, mood, aspect, number, person, and voice.

There are two main classes of verbs: lexical verbs (also known as main verbs), which aren't dependent on other verbs, and auxiliary verbs (also called helping verbs). As with lexical versus auxiliary verbs, many types of verbs come in opposites, as explained below.

Lexical vs. Auxiliary

Lexical verbs—also called full verbs—convey the semantic (or lexical) meaning 

Distinguishing Between Adverbs and Adjectives / english grammar

Distinguishing Between Adverbs and Adjectives

Sometimes the same word can be both an adjective and an adverb. To distinguish between them, it is important to look at the context of the word and its function in a sentence. 

For instance, in the sentence, "The fast train from London to Cardiff leaves at 3 o'clock," the word fast modifies and comes before a noun, train, and is, therefore, an attributive adjective.

An adverb is a part of speech in english grammar / and adverb and its types

An adverb is a part of speech (or word class) that's primarily used to modify a verb, adjective, or other adverbs and can additionally modify prepositional phrases, subordinate clauses, and complete sentences. Put another way, adverbs are content words that provide information about how, when, or where something happens. Adverbs are also called intensifiers because they intensify the meaning of the word or words they are modifying, notes Your Dictionary.

An adverb that modifies an adjective—as in quite sad—or another adverb—as in very carelessly—appears immediately in front of the word it modifies, but one that modifies a verb is generally more flexible: It may appear before or after—as in softly sang or sang softly—or at the beginning of the sentence—Softly she sang to the baby—with the position of an adverb typically affecting the meaning of the sentence. Adverbs can modify a verb or adjective in several ways, by providing information about emphasis, manner, time, place, and frequency.

Adverbs of Emphasis

Adverbs of emphasis are used to give added force or a greater degree of certainty to