YOUTHPRESSEXPRESShttps://www.facebook.com/ypxpress | Noida | 15th May - 31st May 2015 | Vol.1-Issue-4 | Fortnightly | Pages - 4 | Rs. 2.00

Indian press not as free as you may think, lags behind

countries such as Afghanistan and UAE reports

suggest

You may have thought that Indian press is as free as it could be con-

sidering that our press nev-

er shies away from targeting the mightiest personalities and organizations there are in the country, but the re-cent Reporters without bor-ders press freedom index

has ranked India as low as 136 among the 180 coun-tries that were surveyed.Reporters without borders is an International organi-zation based in France that

has a consultant status in the UN. India has surprisingly ranked even below than Afghanistan and UAE who were ranked at 122 & 120 re-spectively. Although despite performing poorly on the global index India is consid-erably better placed than all the neighbouring countries except Nepal and Bhutan which are placed at 105 and 104 respectively. Pakistan is placed at 159, Sri Lanka at 165 & China at 176.The criteria for the survey included factors such as media pluralism, Indepen-dence, freedom & safety of journalists, legislature & institutional and infrastruc-tural environment.

There were a variety of rea-sons as to why India per-formed poorly on the index with certain limitations to the freedom of speech & vi-olent assaults on journalists being key factors.India’s best ever ranking in the annual index was 80 in 2002 and since then it has gone downhill. India for the last 3 years constantly ranked at 140, so 136 this year could be regarded as a little step in right direction but we still have a long way to go in order to be one of the free-est with Scandina-vian countries such as Fin-land and Norway leading the way being 1st and 2nd respectively.

| Mridul Negi

Using WhatsApp for messages meant to be private and confidential? Think againMessaging is now short-

est and cheapest way of communication. Nowa-days messaging is getting easier & easier for smart phone users as an app called WhatsApp is available for free messaging. People pre-fer WhatsApp over normal default messaging in their phones as WhatsApp has many benefits than the nor-mal messaging. Through WhatsApp not only messag-ing can be done but other multimedia messages can also be sent like images, vid-eos and audios for free over the internet. This trend has

led to an increase in sales of internet packs over mes-saging packs. WhatsApp is a Blessing in disguise, but is it really a Blessing or a curse? Recently it was found that the privacy of WhatsApp is not that private as it can be hacked. Don’t worry there is nothing wrong with your phone. Do not attempt to adjust the preferences. They can see it all and hear it all. They can see your pictures, your messages, and your status even when you think your privacy is tight. In February 2014, What-sApp boasted having over 450 million users per

month. In 8 months that number has been increased to over 600 million, making it the most popular end to end encryption messaging application. No their system has not been hacked or in-vaded and there is not mil-lions of user’s private infor-mation missing. This is not a ‘hack’ or ‘exploit’ but it’s broken by design.There is a solution for this, an app called ‘WhatsSpy-Public’ created by Maikel Zweerink a Dutch univer-sity student studying cyber security, an app to expose major exploit issues with the privacy of WhatsApp.

WhatsSpy-Public is a web-oriented application that can track every move of whoever you like to follow. This application is setup as a proof of concept that What-sApp is broken in terms of privacy.Although it does not seem to be a real time tracker, given the simple fact of how freely and openly people display their thoughts and secrets while texting, would it be hard for any other per-son to figure out their life. Once it’s set up, the user can track another user’s status, pictures, privacy setting and messages even if the setting

are topped out at the highest security/privacy level.Such a blatant exploit of se-curity in a major messaging application such as What-sApp with a humongous pool of users can put the security and privacy of its users at risk and can cause troubles to a lot of people worldwide, so the next time you use WhatsApp keep in mind that the messages that are ought to be personal and confidential only seem to be so on the surface, in reality they are even more vulner-able to a breach compared to an email account with ‘password’ as password.

| News Bureau

NEWS2 Youth Press Express | Noida | 15th May - 31st May 2015 | Vol.1-Issue-4 | Fortnightly

Bees are dying at an alarming rate but what happens if all the bees die?| News Bureau

Bees play a crucial role on the Earth- some even claim that if they go ex-

tinct, humanity would be next. So with the dramatic decline in bee population, should we be worried? What happens if the bees all die?Simply put, if a plant produc-es a flower, you can bet that bees help them reproduce. This long-standing, working relationship evolved with flowers being bright and fragrant to attract bees, and the bees fuzzy, Velcro-like bodies helping them to effi-ciently transfer pollen from the male part of the plant to the female part. This seemingly simple mechanism is directly re-sponsible for the production of 70% of fruits, vegetables,

seeds and nuts that we con-sume on the daily basis. 70%! Which translate into al-most $200 billion in global agricultural revenue. This huge responsibility is ac-complished by droves of commercial bees, reared by professional beekeepers for the sole purpose of being transported to farms and orchards to pollinate crops. But since 2006, these hard-working, busy bees have mysteriously disappearing. This Colony Collapse Dis-order has seen an average of 1/3rd of commercial bees abandoning their hives. In fact, some beekeepers have even reported that 90% of their bees have simply buzzed off. In some colo-nies, mites, viruses and par-asites have been to blame, but many are now looking at the class of insecticides

called neonicotinoids. This neurotoxin is used to kill off crop eating insects and pests, but also affects the central nervous systems of bees when they consume contaminated nectar. And since nectar is brought back to hives, the entire colony can be affected leading to mass confusion and disori-entation.On top of this, other factors such as extremely cold and long winters, a lack of genet-ic diversity in commercial bees and lees variable nectar in the fields may be at fault. If the trend continues, entire food chains and web may be at risk. Take almond plants for ex-

ample; the hulls of these nuts are used as feeds for farm cattle and chickens. Fewer bees mean fewer al-monds, which could mean declining livestock, and ul-timately less milk, cheese, eggs and meat production. Not to mention almonds are used in cereal, baking and many other food products. Beef and dairy cows would also be harshly affected by the vanishing alfalfa fields which are used to harvest hay for cattle. Looking for a morning buzz? Considering bees pollinated coffea arabica, whose seeds we grind for coffee, you can count that out. Without bees, our diet would consist

of mostly corn, wheat and rice, as they are wind polli-nated plants. Like your clothes? Not only is cotton the biggest cash crop in the US, it also makes up about 35% of the world’s fibre use. So you can forget those blue jeans, towels, mattresses and high quality paper products. Simply put, we’d be living in a completely different world without bees, not to men-tion suffering a substantial economic strain from their disappearance. So while we may not necessarily go ‘ex-tinct’ should the downward trend persist, a world with-out the buzz of bees would definitely....sting!

Salman Khan granted two days bail after

five years prison sentence

Khan gets short period of relief after Mum-

bai court finds Bollywood star guilty of driving into a group of homeless people and killing one in 2002.Salman khan has been granted interim bail for two days by the Mumbai high court, after his lawyers moved for a bail application following Khan’s sentencing to a five year jail term. The actor, one of India’s most popular movie stars, had been found guilty of killing a homeless man in 2002 in a hit- and - run case that has dragged through the courts for more than 12 years.Khan ran over five men sleeping on a pavement in the up market Mumbai sub-

urb of Bandra West, kill-ing one. Saying that all the charges against the star had been proved, judge DW Deshpande told the actor:“You were driving the car without a licence and you were under the influence of alcohol.”The prosecution told the court that Khan was drunk when the rammed his SUV into a group of people sleep-ing on a road side in Sep-tember 2002, with a num-ber of witness naming him as the driver of the vehicle. One of the labourers injured in the accident he said in his statement to police:“Salman was so drunk he fell. He stood, but he fell again and then he ran away.”

He always denied that he was behind the wheel. In April his driver, Ashok Singh, said that it was he, not the actor, who was driving the vehicle at the time of accident and he lost control of the SUV when one its tyres burst.Khan’s lawyers also claimed that star had been drink-ing water all evening, and he climbed out by driver’s seat after accident because the passenger door was to-tally damaged. They said that victim, Nurulah Moh-bob Sharif was killed during an attempt to move the car, when the bumper fall off and landed on him.

During the sentencing phase Khan’s defence ar-gued against prison, citing the actor had given charity. “We are not running away from responsibility”, but the prosecution said that “fines are not enough” and made an appeal for his punish-ment.Khan has acted in more than 90 Hindi language films, which include the ac-tion- comedies Dabangg and Bodyguard, being in top 10 highest gross Indian films of all time.His case has been closely watched by millions in In-dia and abroad, with huge

crowds gathering outside of his house ahead of the ver-dict. The star, moved into the Being Human charitable trust. In 2003, an ex-girl-friend, former Miss World Aishwarya Rai, blamed his violent behaviour on alco-holism, while in 1998 he spent more than a week in prison.Khan has become the sec-ond big- name Bollywood actor to be imprisoned the past two years. Sanjay Dutt, another star was jailed for possession of weapons that were linked to several bombing in Mumbai in 1993.

| Shivee Bajaj

COMMENTS3 Youth Press Express | Noida | 15th May - 31st May 2015 | Vol.1-Issue-4 | Fortnightly

Justice delayed is justice denied and the denial of justice is itself a crime | Mridul Negi

Party as much as you want and enjoy your life as much as you

can, but there should be a point where you should stop. Partying and enjoying is by no means a crime it-self but running over people and killing them under the influence of booze surely is. Yet it seems if you are rich enough, famous enough and influential enough with a large army of blind support-ers even that is not a crime. By now you should have realized where I’m head-ing and towards whom I’m hinting, yet if you are living under a rock and still don’t have a clue I’ll make it clear. I’m talking about the “Bhai” of the Bollywood Salman Khan.A sessional court passed

a verdict which said that Salman Khan was guilty of driving under the impres-sion of booze and running over a footpath in his luxu-rious car, taking a life in the process, yet the huge out-cry from the public wasn’t the one for justice. A huge army of Salman support-ers showed their support in solidarity suggesting that Salman Khan shouldn’t be punished but why, is the question? Why shouldn’t Salman Khan be punished for the crime he commit-ted? Does being famous give you the right to do anything you want without facing the repercussions for your ac-tions? How can you claim to be in favour of equal-ity when your actions are against it? I heard from a

fan that his good deeds and charitable work should be enough to set him free, but would it be okay if I punch you in the face and then proceed to donate 10 rupees to a beggar? Would that take back what I did to you? Next thing you’ll hear Dawood Ibrahim would be setting up charitable foundations across the globe.Agreed, that Salman’s charitable work has saved the lives of many but that

doesn’t allow him to walk away from taking one. Side-walks aren’t meant for sleep-ing but they aren’t meant for driving either, that too un-der the influence of alcohol. Also those who were sleep-ing there were forced by cir-cumstances whereas the one who ran over them, the less said the better. If your logic is that due to admiration towards him by millions of people should be enough to set him free,

Asaram Bapu would be glad to hear it. Blindly following an individual personality is an effective way of killing rationality and rationality indeed has died in millions of those who are advocating the release of a criminal, just because he is famous.So, the next time a rich young guy runs over some-one close to you, don’t ex-pect justice, not when you yourself were advocating against it.

Who’s Responsible?

| Aviral Tripathi

India is a country where culture is believed to be above all, but it seems now politics have taken over. The death of a farmer from Rajasthan at Aam Aadmi Party’s rally in Delhi depicts exactly that. Although a month has passed since the incident it has already been

side-lined as the hot topic. Still, should the tragedy be only seen from a political point of view? Aren’t those who were present at the rally equally responsible? This is a serious issue and we need to do the so called “AAtma Manthan” over it. If we recall the whole

sequence of events from the start AAP was holding a rally about Land acqui-sition bill that day and a farmer from Rajasthan was climbing a tree nearby. That day Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, party leaders, supporters and various reporters from 31

news and police force were present yet nobody took an action before it was too late. Party leaders contin-ued there speech and police was in a lurch over whether to follow the State govt.’s command or central govt.’s command. Media persons weren’t behind, they had sensed an excellent op-portunity to gather some footage and because of this somebody lost his life.

Although time has passed since this tragedy occurred and we’ve all just about for-gotten it, but did any of us actually tried to see again what it was all about? It’s in India’s culture to glorify those who have passed but it won’t stop another trage-dy like this from occurring. Still we will have countless discussions over whose responsibility it really is.

NEWS4 Youth Press Express | Noida | 15th May - 31st May 2015 | Vol.1-Issue-4 | Fortnightly

Anime & Manga taking roots in Noida| Mridul Negi

Don’t know what those two kids dressed in

orange martial art clothes are reading? Or that young guy over there, wearing a long black coat is watch-ing? Many of us often come across such people with weird habits and some so called adults who still watch the so called “cartoons”. “Itta bada ho gaya, abhi bhi cartoon dekhta hai?” is often the first question we ask them, if they opt to ignore then good if not, you are in for a knowledge trip by your dear friend. “This is not a cartoon, this is anime” they will tell you. So what’s the fuss all about? What is this thing called “anime” and that thing “manga”, if you don’t know it yet you may well be left behind in the manga and anime trend that is kicking in all over india at a massive rate. So, what is Manga and anime? In words of Mayank Rajput the founder of IMAAF (Indian manga and anime fans) “Manga are what comics in Japan are called and their animated coun-terpart are called Anime, just like cartoons could be called animated counter-part of comics.” There is a big misconception among people that manga-comics and anime-cartoons are all the same as there’s a few differences between these

two, “As I see there are few major differences, First and foremost the Style, Anime have sharper character design, bigger eyes, pointed hair, flashy action sequenc-es etc. then the story telling also differs, most animes have one single large plot that finishes in a series, cartoons on the other hand typically have arc based story telling where most of the times the Arcs are independent of each other.” Explained Mayank Rajput.In India Manga and anime are booming, Indians are finding the Japanese style of manga and anime very ap-pealing, the reason behind it might be the cultural similarity between India and japan, both of whom are hierarchal and family oriented societies, which is reflected in the backdrop of most anime and manga. Another thing is like most of our stories Japanese stories are also one single story rather than multiple independent arcs.The recent boom of anime and manga could be at-tributed to multiple things. Initially Cartoon Network broadcasted animes like Dragon Ball Z and Naruto, which exposed Indian audi-ence to anime. Then the advent of Animax further propelled the popularity, then Internet, the age of

piracy and social network created awareness and pro-vided accessibility and cata-pulted the anime manga fandom into real time on ground bodies promoting the medium.One such body promoting manga and anime in India is IMAAF (Indian ANIME and Manga FANS), it was founded in 2013, by six core members namely Mayank Rajput, Abhishek , Vivek ,Kartik ,Sunny and Ruchi. The idea behind IMAAF in words of the core founder Mayank Rajput is “We strongly believe that there is a large uncatered market of anime and manga fans in India. There are millions of anime and manga fans out there in india, we want to create a platform to bring

them together and cater to their needs and we also wanted to create original anime and manga from In-dia which could be shared with a global audience and promote Indian artists and fans at a global scale.”Currently there are 230 art-ists associated with IMAAF, ranging from school kids to professionals who have published their own manga. IMAAF also organizes vari-ous national level art com-petitions gaining participa-tion from all over India and even abroad.IMAAF recently created waves when an anime trib-ute by IMAAF to Sachin Tendulkar on his retire-ment went viral and was used by Indian MNCs like foodpanda in their official

promotion.Anime and manga have particularly flourished in NOIDA evident by the recent ‘Anime CON’ orga-nized by CINEDARBAAR which was held at Marwah Studio, Film City, sector 16 NOIDA. The Anime con attracted some big names such as Production IG, Manga historian Ryan Holmberg and Swiss game developer Mario.The popularity of manga and anime in India has just begun to rise, as more people get access to good quality internet more clubs will begin to form and existing clubs will become even better organized and streamlined. We will see an upsurge in anime manga fandom in India.

Printed, published and owned by Naman Kumar Sharma and printed at Sagar Offset Printer India Pvt. Ltd. , Plot No. 518, Ecotech-3, Udyog Kendra Extn. – 2, Greater Noida and published at A-35, Sector-34, Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Editor – Mridul Negi. RNI No. UPENG/2015/60012