text:
Mar del Plata

Mar del Plata is a city on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It is the seat of General Pueyrredón district. Mar del Plata is the second largest city in Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" is a shortening of "Mar del Rio de la Plata," and has the meaning of "sea of the Rio de la Plata basin" or "adjoining sea to the (River) Plate region". Mar del Plata is one of the major fishing ports and the biggest seaside beach resort in Argentina. With a population of 682,605 as per the, it is the 5th largest city in Argentina.

Economy
As part of the Argentine recreational coast, tourism is Mar del Plata's main economic activity with seven million tourists visiting the city in 2006. Mar del Plata has a sophisticated tourist infrastructure with numerous hotels, restaurants, casinos, theatres and other tourist attractions. Mar del Plata is also an important sports centre with a multi-purpose Olympic style stadium (first used for the 1978 World Cup and later upgraded for the 1995 Pan American Games), five golf courses and many other facilities.

As an important fishing port, industry concentrates on fish processing and at least two large shipyards.

The area is also host to other light industry, such as textile, food manufacturing and polymers. There is a well-developed packaging machines industry, its quality being recognized in international markets. One of these companies was one of the pioneers in the automatic packaging of tea bags, exporting its original machine-designs abroad. Another company also exports its products and has sold royalties to other countries.

During the mid-1980s, Mar del Plata saw the birth of electronics factories, focused mostly on the telecommunications field, with two of them, Nexuscom and DelSat, succeeding in the international market. By the 2010s, a local technology company, PCBOX, was manufacturing and developing personal computers, tablet computers, smartphones and action-cams.

Also during the decade of 2010, the development of the software industry resulted in the formation of 92 companies and 440 microbusiness. One of these companies, Making Sense, opened offices at San Antonio, Austin and Boston, in the United States. Along with the American COPsync, Inc, the company developed in 2013 the software for VidTac, an in-car video system for law enforcement, and the internet landing page application Lander, bought by the Silicon Valley company QuestionPro in 2016.

Since the 2000s, a local company builds and develops oil industry equipment, with customers in the United States, Russia, Oman and Egypt.

Located southwest of the city there are quartzite quarries. The stone is traditionally used in construction. There is a huge area of farms in the rural areas surrounding the city, specialized mostly in the cultivation of vegetables. In 2012, Mar del Plata became a wine-producing area, when a wine company from Mendoza province produced 20,000 lt from a vineyard at Chapadmalal beach from grape varieties such as Sauvignon blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling and Gewürztraminer. Since then, the local winery turned into a tourist attraction. Microbeweries flourished during the 2010s, amounting by 2016 to one third of the national production.

Although the area had suffered from a high rate of unemployment from 1995 to 2003, Mar del Plata has seen 46,000 new jobs created from the third quarter of 2003 to the third quarter of 2008, representing an increase of 22%.

The 2008 Davis Cup Final was held in Mar del Plata. After being shut for a decade, the Gran Hotel Provincial (one of the largest hotels in Argentina) was reopened by the Madrid-based NH Hotels, in 2009.

Mar del Plata continues to lead Argentina's room availability: of 440,000 registered hotel rooms nationwide in early 2009, the city was home to nearly 56,000 (5,000 more than Buenos Aires).

Transportation

Mar del Plata is served by Astor Piazzolla International Airport (MDQ/SAZM) with daily flights to Buenos Aires served by Aerolíneas Argentinas and weekly flights to Patagonia served by LADE.

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, flights were reduced just to two daily flights to Buenos Aires served by Aerolineas Argentinas.

Highway 2 connects Mar del Plata with Buenos Aires and Route 11 connects it through the coastline, ending at Miramar, 40 km south of Mar del Plata. Route 88 connects to Necochea and Route 226 to Balcarce, Tandil and Olavarría.

The city has a bus and train station serving most cities in Argentina. There are two daily trains to Buenos Aires' Constitución station using new trains operated by Trenes Argentinos. These services are part of the General Roca Railway, owned by the government company Nuevos Ferrocarriles Argentinos.

 * Notes
 * (1) Its tracks were extended to connect with the bus terminal opened in 2009, also building new train platforms.
 * (2) Operated as the bus terminal of the city until 2009.

History

Pre-Spanish era: The region was inhabited by Günuna Kena nomads (also known as northern Tehuelches). They were later (after the 11th century) strongly influenced by the Mapuche culture.

1577–1857: First European explorers. Sir Francis Drake made a reconnaissance of the coast and its sea lion colonies; Don Juan de Garay explored the area by land a few years later, in 1581. In 1742, during the War of Jenkins' Ear, eight survivors of HMS Wager (1739), part of Admiral Anson expedition and led by midshipman Isaac Morris, lived through a ten-month ordeal before being decimated and captured by the Tehuelches, who eventually handed them to the Spaniards. After holding the Englishmen as prisoners, they returned Morris and his surviving companions to London in 1746. First colonization attempt by Jesuit Order near Laguna de los Padres ended in disaster (1751).

1857–1874: The Portuguese entrepreneur José Coelho de Meirelles, taking advantage of the country's abundance of wild cattle, built a pier and a factory for salted meat near Cabo Corrientes, but the business only lasted a few years.

1874–1886: Patricio Peralta Ramos acquired the now abandoned factory along with the surrounding terrain, and founded the town on February 10, 1874. Basque rancher Pedro Luro bought a part of Peralta Ramos land for agricultural production. First docks also erected around this time.

1886–1911: The railway line from Buenos Aires, built by the Buenos Aires Great Southern reached Mar del Plata in 1886; the first hotels started their activity. The upper-class people from Buenos Aires became the first tourists of the new born village. They also established a local government that reflected their conservative ideals. Build-up of a French style resort. On 19 July 1907, the provincial legislature approved a bill that declared Mar del Plata as a city.

1911–1930: The residents, mostly newly arrived emigrants from Europe, demanded and obtained the control of the Municipality administration. The socialists were the mainstream political force in this period, carrying out social reforms and public investment. The main port was also built and inaugurated in 1916.

1930–1946: A military coup reinstated the Conservative hegemony in politics through electoral fraud and corruption, but at local levels they were quite progressive, their policies viewed in some way as a continuity of the socialist trend. In 1932, the construction of National Route 2 was completed, which connected Mar del Plata to Buenos Aires. Before this, a dirt road connected Mar del Plata to Buenos Aires using a different route, required almost two days to travel by car. The seaside Casino complex opened in 1939, was designed by architect Alejandro Bustillo, dates from this period.

1946–1955: Birth of the Peronist movement. A coalition between socialists and radicals defeated this new party by a narrow margin in Mar del Plata, but by 1948 Peronism came to dominate the local administration. The massive tourism, triggered by the welfare politics of Perón and the surge of the middle class marked a huge growth in the city's economy.

1955–1970: After the fall of Perón, the socialists regained the upper hand in local politics; the city reached the peak in activities like construction business and building industry. There was massive emigration from other regions of Argentina.

1970–1989: Slight decline of tourism demand, counterbalanced by the increase of other industries such as fishing and machinery. General infrastructure renewal under the military rule. The centrist Radical Civic Union becomes the main political force after the return of Democracy in 1983.

1989–2010: Though the Peronism replaced the radicals in central government amid a national financial crisis, the latter party continued to rule in Mar del Plata. Some resurgence of mass tourism in the early '90s was followed by a deep social crisis in town, with an increase of poverty, jobless rates and emigration. By contrast, the first decade of the 21st century shows an amazingly quick recovery in all sectors of the ailing economy.

In November 2005 the city hosted the 4th Summit of the Americas.

Culture

Mar del Plata is the most popular destination for conventions in Argentina after Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata has a wide range of services in this sector. The summer season hosts over fifty theatrical plays.

Interreligious Circuit
The city has, for those who do religious tourism, an interesting interreligious circuit that includes a visit among Catholics, in addition to the Cathedral, the Schoenstatt Sanctuary, the “Christ” of the South Jetty, a replica of the Lourdes Grotto, the Chapels of Stella Maris and Santa Cecilia, of other cults is the Russian Orthodox Church of Mar del Plata. The Muslim community opens the doors of the Sunni Mosque of the Muslim community. For its part, the Jewish community offers visits to the Gabriel Temple.

Shows and festivals

 * The Mar del Plata International Film Festival, the only A class accredited film festival in Latin America.
 * The Fiesta Nacional del Mar ("National Sea Festival") with the election and coronation of the Sea Queen and her princesses, which takes place in December as the official inauguration of the summer season.
 * The Premios Estrella de Mar ("Sea Star Awards") which honor the best stage plays and shows of the season.
 * The Valencian Falles week, a local reenactment of the Valencian event conducted by the Valencian community.
 * The Mar del Plata Fashion Show, along with a number of fashion parades that gathers the best haute couture designers.
 * The Fiesta Nacional de los Pescadores (National Fishermen's Festival), a colourful display of seafarers' tradition and cuisine.
 * Mar del Plata has also hosted the 1995 Pan American Games, the 2001 Rugby World Cup Sevens, the 2003 Parapan American Games, the 2005 FIBA Under-21 World Championship, and co-hosted the 1978 FIFA World Cup and the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship.
 * Since 1987 Mar del Plata annually hosts the Mar del Plata Marathon, in early December.
 * The 38th and 53rd International Mathematical Olympiad was held in Mar del Plata in 1997 and 2012.
 * The Festival Internacional de Poesia del Atlantico International Poetry Festival of the Atlantic, is an international poetry festival. It began in 2013 and for its second edition in 2014 it gathered more than 210 poets from Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Iran, Chile, Peru and Cuba. It's part of the Moviento Poetico Mundial World Poetry Movement.
 * The Prosa Mutante is a cycle of literary experiences and arts collective established in January 2013 that takes place since then every Thursday from 20:00 at Piano Bar in which stage over 100 local, national and international artists have performed.

The local Government sponsors a Symphonic Orchestra.

Nightlife
Mar del Plata has a wide variety of clubs located by district: the area of Escollera Norte (known for its quantity of pubs and nightclubs) and Constitution Avenue.

Museums

 * The Juan Carlos Castagnino Municipal Museum of Art.
 * The Museum of the Port of Mar del Plata Cleto Ciocchini.
 * The Museum of Contemporary Art MAR.
 * The Museum of Natural Science Lorenzo Scaglia, specialized in Paleontology of the Quaternary species around the region.
 * The Mar del Plata Museum of the Sea, which included one of the most complete collections of sea snails of the World. The museum has been closed to the public since September 2012.
 * Villa Victoria, a vintage wooden house, the former residence of the late writer Victoria Ocampo, now a place for art expositions and classical music.
 * The Submarine Force Museum, located close to the Mar del Plata Naval Base.

Notable people

 * Gabriel Amato (born October 22, 1970), former international soccer player. Former forward of Boca Juniors, River Plate, Rangers FC and Grêmio.
 * Inés Arrondo (born November 28, 1977), field hockey player, winner along with the national team of an Olympic silver medal in Sydney 2000, the bronze medal in Athens 2004 and the World Cup in 2002.
 * Héctor Babenco (1946–2016), movie director of Hollywood films such as Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ironweed. Raised in Mar del Plata.
 * Mario Benedetti (1945), electronics engineer, the main Argentine scientist involved in the Large Hadron Collider project. He is also the owner of Tío Curzio, one of the most fashionable restaurants in the city.
 * Erica Vanessa Bibbó (1985), the first female commander of a naval unit in the Argentine navy.
 * Amado Boudou (born November 19, 1962), former Vice President of Argentina.
 * Alberto Bruzzone (1907–1994), painter, was born in San Juan but chose Mar del Plata as his home city.
 * Germán Burgos (born April 16, 1969), former goalkeeper who played two World Cups. Currently, he is oriented to music.
 * Macarena Achaga (born March 5, 1992), actress, model, and singer.
 * Homero Cárpena (1910–2001), actor, playwright and filmmaker.
 * Juan Carlos Castagnino (1908-1972), painter.
 * Francisco Comesaña, tennis player
 * Juan Curuchet (born February 4, 1965), former road bicycle racer and track cyclist, winner of the Men's Madison gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics along with Walter Pérez.
 * Martin Donovan (not to be confused with American actor Martin Donovan), Hollywood screenwriter and producer, co-author of the screenplay of movies like Death Becomes Her  and Loving Couples.
 * Laura Echarte, agricultural engineer, researcher in crop physiology studies, winner of a 2007 L'Oréal-Unesco international fellowship for Women.
 * Juan Eduardo Esnáider (1973), international soccer player. Former forward of Espanyol de Barcelona, Atlético de Madrid, Juventus and River Plate.
 * Nacha Guevara (1940), singer and actress.
 * Carlos Enrique Díaz Sáenz Valiente (1917–1956), shooter, silver medalist at the 1948 Summer Olympics and World Champion in 1947.
 * Jorge Lanata (born September 12, 1960), journalist and writer.
 * Mariano Mignini (born 1975), Argentine footballer.
 * Maria Gabriela Palomo, marine biologist, also winner of the L'Oréal-Unesco junior award in 2003 for her works on port-areas environmental pollution.
 * Ástor Piazzolla (1921-1992), composer and musician.
 * Ricardo Piglia (1941–2017), writer born in Adrogué but raised in Mar del Plata.
 * Alfonsina Storni (1892-1938), poet.
 * Auro Tiribelli (1908–2006), architect, the main representative of the Mar del Plata style.
 * Guillermo Vilas (1952), top-ten international tennis player, popularizer of the between-the-legs tweener shot, also called the Gran Willy after him.
 * Selem Safar (1987), professional basketball player.
 * Emi Buendía (1996) Footballer currently playing for Aston Villa F.C.
 * Sergio Torres (1981), former player and player assistance manager for Eastbourne Borough in National League South.
 * Romina Malaspina (1994) Model, reality star, showgirl, influencer, television host, vedette, actress and journalist.
 * Emiliano Martínez (1992), Football player for Aston Villa F.C.
 * Franchu Feuillassier (1998), Football player for SD Eibar
 * Shaiel Peters (2003) Archer, South American índoor Senior Champion, Argentinian Índoor Senior Champion and récord holder.
 * Milton Martinez (1991), professional skateboarder and 2019 Thrasher Magazine Skateboarder of the Year.
 * Marcos Siebert (1996), racing driver
 * José Luis Di Palma (1966), racing driver
 * Christian Ledesma (1976), racing driver
 * Milagros Menéndez (1997), football player
 * Roberto Mieres (1924–2012), racing driver

Architecture

The development of the city as a seasonal summer resort in the early 20th century led upper class tourists from Buenos Aires to build a European-inspired architecture, based mainly on the picturesque and later on the art deco styles. This gave Mar del Plata the nickname of the Argentine Biarritz. The building industry became the main non-seasonal activity of the town by 1920.

During the 1930s, 1940s, and beyond, local architects and builders, like Auro Tiribelli, Arturo Lemmi, Alberto Córsico-Picollini and Raúl Camusso recreated and transformed the picturesque values into a middle-class scale, marking the beginning of a vernacular architecture, called Mar del Plata Style, consisting in small samples of the luxury-laden summer residences of high society, built for the summer visitor as well as for the local resident.

These chalets were built with stone façades, gable roofs covered with Spanish or French tiles, prominent eaves and front porches. This gives the town some distinctive urban character compared with other Argentine cities, despite the fact that the growing mass of tourists in the '60s imposed the construction of large apartment buildings and skyscrapers as the predominant architectural style downtown.

Climate
Mar del Plata has an oceanic climate (Cfb, according to the Köppen climate classification), with humid and moderate summers and relatively cool winters, although polar air masses from Antarctica are frequent. The average daily mean temperature in January is 20.4 °C. It is 7.5 °C in July. The West-Southwest winds can take the temperature below 0 °C between mid May and early October, while the Southeast ones (the so-called Sudestada) are stronger, producing coastal showers and rough seas, as well as strong squalls, but the cold is much less intense. There is fog in the last days of fall, and springtime is often marred by sea winds and sudden temperature changes.

The city's summer maximum temperatures fluctuate broadly around the average of 26 °C: while there are many days between 30 °C and 35 °C (although less than in other areas of the Pampas region), strong on-shore or southerly winds can also keep temperatures closer to 20 °C, and nights can sometimes be very cool even in midsummer (falling below 10 °C sometimes). However, the summer nights are usually cool to pleasant, with values between 12 °C to 16 °C. Traditionally, Easter is seen as the "last" weekend to go to the beach on the Argentine Atlantic Coast, and average maximum temperatures are around 22 °C at that time. While some years can have the last few days of about 30 °C around that time, it is also possible to experience daily highs of 15 °C. Winter temperatures average 13 °C during the day and 4 °C at night; they sometimes climb to 22 °C especially in August, but there are also days where highs stay below 6 °C and temperatures fall some degrees below 0 °C at night.

Spring brings the most variable weather, with heat waves bringing highs of more than 30 °C followed by highs of 10 °C to 15 °C and perhaps a late-season frosty night all perfectly possible in October and November.

There are about six days of frost each year in the city center, and almost 27 recorded at the airport. The average dates for the first and last frost are May 23 and October 4 respectively. Snowfall is not uncommon, but snow accumulation on the ground is rare, a phenomenon that takes place every six years or so, according to the last 40 years of data. Among the best known such occurrences in the last decades were the 1975 and 1991 snowstorms, but there were also snow accumulations in 1994 and 1997 in the highest hills area of Sierra de los Padres, in 1995 along the southern coast; the other two during the first hours of July 10, 2004 and July 15, 2010, and again in Sierra de los Padres and the southern coast on September 11, 2015. There were flurries in September 1986, June 2007, July 2011 and August 2013.

The record high is 42.4 °C on January 14, 2022 while the record low is -9.3 °C on July 6, 1988. The wet season occurs between October and April, especially in summer (December to March), with values over 90 mm in each of those months. The average annual rainfall is 926.1 mm.

Government

Mar del Plata is the head of the department of General Pueyrredón. The current Mayor of the city and department is Guillermo Montenegro, of the Juntos por el Cambio party.

The town council has some legislative powers. The term of office for both the Mayor and council members is four years.

In 1919, Mar del Plata became the first town in South America to have a Socialist Mayor, a son of Italian Immigrants, Teodoro Bronzini. The Socialist Party would dominate the city political landscape for most of the 20th century.

Mar del Plata has had 109 Mayors and Commissioners from 1881 to the present.

There is a work by the American political scientist Susan Stokes about the democratic process in Mar del Plata since 1983 in comparison to other regions of Argentina. One of the main thesis of her articles is that the social and economic development of Mar del Plata was quite atypical, with a strong prevalence of middle-class values that discouraged the policy of clientelism that is the common background in other urban environments of Argentina.

Education
The area has many Schools and Universities, some of these are private or public. It once had a German school, Johann-Gutenberg-Schule. There is a wide variety of schools dedicated to the education of art:
 * Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMdP): Public university with various majors.
 * Escuela de Artes Visuales Martín A Malharro: A Higher education school based on modern visual arts, it counts with graduated departments of Graphic Design, Photography, Illustration, Teacher education, Freelancer Artist, Scenography and Film.
 * Polivalente de Arte (Escuela de Educación Secundaria Especializada en Arte Nº 1): School of Secondary education that also works as a vocational school in the fields of Art, Music or Dance.

Also, there are two Conservatories (Classical and popular music), a Vocational School of Art, and a Municipal School of Classical and Modern Dance.

Television

 * Channel 10, Mar del Plata

Sport

Mar del Plata's most popular football (soccer) teams are Aldosivi, Alvarado and Kimberley. Aldosivi plays in Primera Nacional, Alvarado and Kimberley in the Torneo Argentino B.

Peñarol and Quilmes de Mar del Plata are the most popular basketball teams. Peñarol have won eight official tournaments (Súper 8, FIBA Americas League, five National Leagues, InterLigas, and Copa Argentina). Mar del Plata hosted the 2011 FIBA Americas Championship, where the city's basketball fans supported Argentina's national basketball team to win the gold medal. All games were played in the 8,000 seat Polideportivo Islas Malvinas.

For many years, the city hosted a strong international chess tournament.

Mar del Plata hosted six matches in the 1978 FIFA World Cup at the Estadio José María Minella, which was built for the sporting event. It also hosted 6 games in the 2002 FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship at the Polideportivo Islas Malvinas.

The city also hosted the 1995 Pan American Games, the 2001 Rugby World Cup Sevens, the 1969 World Wrestling Championships, the 1998 Padel World Championship, the 1996 Artistic Skating World Championships and 6 editions of the Inline Speed Skating World Championships (1966, 1969, 1975, 1978, 1983, 1997).

The city is home to Argentine Bandy Union.

In 2003 Mar del Plata hosted the 2nd Parapan American Games that featured 1,500 athletes from 28 countries competed in nine sporting events. This was the last Parapan American Games that was not tied to the Pan American Games.

The 20th World Transplant Games were held in the city from 23 to 30 August 2015.

Mar del Plata was the starting point for the 2012 Dakar Rally.

Twin towns – Sister cities
Mar del Plata is twinned with:

title: Mar del Plata


text:
Canoeing

Canoeing is an activity which involves paddling a canoe with a single-bladed paddle. Common meanings of the term are limited to when the canoeing is the central purpose of the activity. Broader meanings include when it is combined with other activities such as canoe camping, or where canoeing is merely a transportation method used to accomplish other activities. Most present-day canoeing is done as or as a part of a sport or recreational activity. In some parts of Europe canoeing refers to both canoeing and kayaking, with a canoe being called an open canoe.

A few of the recreational forms of canoeing are canoe camping and canoe racing. Other forms include a wide range of canoeing on lakes, rivers, oceans, ponds and streams.

History of organized recreational canoeing

Canoeing is an ancient mode of transportation. Modern recreational canoeing was established in the late 19th century. In 1924, canoeing associations from Austria, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden founded the Internationalen Representation for Kanusport, the forerunner of the International Canoe Federation (ICF). Canoeing became part of the Olympic Games in the summer of 1936. The main form of competitive sport was canoe sprint using a sprint canoe. Others include canoe polo, whitewater canoeing, canoe marathon, ICF canoe marathon, and playboating.

More than 170 national canoe associations and federations are members of the ICF, including the American, Canadian, British, Scottish, and Welsh.

Recreational canoeing
Most present-day canoeing is done as or as a part of a sport or recreational activity. In some parts of Europe, canoeing refers to both canoeing and kayaking, with a canoe being called an Open canoe. A few of the recreational forms of canoeing are canoe camping and canoe racing such as canoe sprint and canoe marathons. Other forms include a wide range of canoeing on lakes, rivers, oceans, ponds, and streams. The summer Olympics include canoeing competitions. Canoe slalom (previously known as whitewater slalom) is a competitive sport with the aim to navigate a decked canoe or kayak through a course of hanging downstream or upstream gates on the river rapids in the fastest time possible. It is one of the two kayak and canoeing disciplines at the Summer Olympics and is referred to by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as Canoe/Kayak Slalom. The other Olympic canoeing discipline is the canoe sprint.

In his lifetime, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, Verlen Kruger paddled the most miles (over 100,000 miles) of anyone in the sport.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Canoeing


text:
Tren Urbano

The Tren Urbano (English: Urban Train) is a 10.7 mi automated rapid transit system that serves the municipalities of San Juan, Guaynabo, and Bayamón, in Puerto Rico. The Tren Urbano consists of 16 stations operating on 10.7 mi of track along a single line. In, the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of.

The Tren Urbano complements other forms of public transportation services in the San Juan metropolitan area such as the Metropolitan Bus Authority, the Cataño Ferry, taxis, and shuttles. The entire mass transportation system is operated by the Integrated Transit Authority (ATI), The Tren Urbano system is operated by Alternate Concepts, Inc. (ACI). Tren Urbano is also the Caribbean's first rapid transit system.

History

In the late 19th century, while the island was under Spanish rule, regional rail systems were begun in Puerto Rico. The railroad continued to be in use under American rule for most of the first half of the 20th century and played a key role in the transportation of people and goods throughout the island. The railroad systems of the period also played a vital role in the sugarcane industry.

From 1901 to 1946 San Juan had a street tramway network, known as the “Trolley” de San Juan, and was operated by the Porto Rico Railway, Light and Power Company with more than 20 mi of tracks and ran between San Juan and Santurce. During its heyday, it was the most modern electric streetcar system in Puerto Rico, rivaled New York and Toronto, and transported nearly 10 million passengers a year.

During the 1950s, an industrial boom, partly from development programs such as Operation Bootstrap, led to the downfall of agriculture as the principal industry on the island. Automobiles became more widely available, and more efficient roads and highways and the closure of sugarcane mills displaced the need for rail transportation. Soon, it was realized that an alternative means of mass transportation was needed to complement the public bus system to alleviate the severe traffic situation that was being created, especially in the San Juan metropolitan area.

Proposals

In 1967, proposals were made for the construction of a rapid rail transit system to serve the city of San Juan. In 1971, the major T.U.S.C.A. study, funded jointly by the Puerto Rico Planning Board and the US federal government, recommended an islandwide elevated transit system and new community development program. That proposal would have crossed and served the San Juan Metro Area by connecting it with the rest of the island without the necessity of highway construction. However, it was not until 1989 that the Puerto Rico Department of Transportation and Public Works (Departamento de Transportación y Obras Públicas, or DTOP in Spanish) officially adopted a proposal to begin design and construction of a rail system for the San Juan metropolitan area. The ridership demand for such a system had to be forecast by using a mathematical model prepared by a team of transportation planners and engineers. By 1992, various alignments of the proposed system were considered, but the final design chosen served only certain parts of the metro area and not Old San Juan. The name "Tren Urbano" (Urban Train) was chosen for the system. In 1993, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) selected it as a Turnkey Demonstration Projects under the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. In 1996 and 1997, seven design-build contracts were awarded for different segments of the Tren Urbano Phase 1 system.

A number of companies shared the tasks for building the Tren Urbano including Siemens AG, which was granted a concession to design and build the line and its rolling stock and to operate it for the first five years. The company won a contract, which was a "first" for North America in the scope of the work that it involved; it was awarded in July 1996.

Construction
The construction project was plagued by delays, contractual disputes between the government and companies involved in the undertaking, and investigations into possible mismanagement of funds. The project cost was US$2.28 billion.

Free service
The rail system was officially inaugurated on December 19, 2004. Free service was then offered on weekends until April 2005, when weekdays were added to the free service. Popularity grew quickly, and by the end of the free period, 40,000 people were using the train on a daily basis. By late 2005, however, ridership had fallen to 24,000, less than one third of the 80,000 projection and well below the projection of 110,000 for 2010.

Paid service
Paid fare service started on June 6, 2005. In 2006, average weekday boardings stood at 28,179 and in 2007, ridership decreased to 27,567. By the third quarter of 2008, average weekday ridership had increased to 36,500.

Issues and concerns
The Tren Urbano has no service to Old San Juan, Santurce, the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport or to many other parts of Guaynabo, Bayamón, and San Juan, and it does not serve important suburbs like Cataño, Toa Baja, Toa Alta, Carolina, Trujillo Alto, Canóvanas and others, which helps to explain low ridership. Some question the viability of the system for additional reasons, such as the lack of an island-wide public-transportation system, such as the T.U.S.C.A. system proposed in 1971. The inner-city public bus transportation system, the Metropolitan Bus Authority (AMA), which operates in the Greater San Juan Metro Area, is considered unreliable by most people, and it does not have a regular schedule. Integration with public mass transit systems, such as the AMA and the AcuaExpreso (an urban ferry), was initially poor and remains a challenge for the DTOP.

COVID-19 crisis
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Puerto Rico, services on the Tren Urbano were halted by executive order to try to stop the spread of the virus. Service has since resumed.

Route
Tren Urbano is made up of a single rapid transit route. It consists of 16 stations, ten of which are elevated, four at grade or in open cuttings, and two underground. It goes mostly through suburban areas. All stations are designed to handle three permanently-coupled pairs (6 cars). The stations in the system are:

 * Sagrado Corazón (Sagrado Corazón)
 * Hato Rey (Golden Mile / José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum)
 * Roosevelt (Roosevelt Ave. and Ponce de León Ave.)
 * Domenech (Hato Rey)
 * Piñero (Hato Rey)
 * Universidad (University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras)
 * Río Piedras (Río Piedras)
 * Cupey
 * Centro Médico (Puerto Rico Medical Services Administration and University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus)
 * San Francisco (535 parking spaces)
 * Las Lomas
 * Martínez Nadal (1,200 parking spaces)
 * Torrimar (Guaynabo) (45 parking spaces)
 * Jardines (128 parking spaces)
 * Deportivo (Juan Ramón Loubriel Stadium and Coliseo Rubén Rodríguez)
 * Bayamón (Bayamón) (400 parking spaces)

Each station boasts unique a artwork and architectural style.

A maintenance depot and operations control center are halfway along the route, between Martínez Nadal and Torrimar stations.

Fares
A single trip costs $1.50 ($0.75 if customers transfer from an AMA bus), including a 1-hour bus transfer period. If a customer exits the station and wants to get back on the train, the full fare must be re-paid; there is no train-to-train transfer period. Students and seniors (aged 60–74) pay 75 cents per trip. Senior citizens older than 75 and children under 6 ride for free. Several unlimited-ride passes are also available.

A stored-value multi-use farecard may be used for travel on buses and trains. The value on the card is automatically deducted each time that it is used. The system is similar to the MetroCard system used in New York City.

Rolling stock
Tren Urbano's fleet consists of 74 Siemens, stainless steel-bodied cars, each 75 ft long. Each vehicle carries 72 seated and 108 standing passengers. Trains have a maximum speed of 62 mph and average 20.6 mph, including stops. All cars operate as married pairs, and up to three pairs run together at any given time. Tren Urbano operates 15 trains during rush hours, and the remaining cars stand at the yards or serve as spares if a train experiences problems. The rolling stock was assembled at the Siemens plant in Sacramento, California.

Power is provided by AC traction motors, which were chosen over DC by containing fewer moving parts and requiring less maintenance. The trains share many characteristics with the stock built by Siemens for Boston MBTA's Blue Line route (700 series). The system is electrified by third rail at 750 V DC.

Air-conditioning systems have been specially designed to cope with the hot and muggy conditions that are commonly experienced in the metropolitan area.

A yellow powered flat car is visible at the maintenance facility. Some metro cars have been used to transport material when they are not in service.

Tren Urbano facilities
Rolling stock for Tren Urbano metro cars are stored at the Hogar del Niño Operations and Maintenance Building, near the exit to PR-21 from PR-20 and a short distance from Martínez Nadal station.

The metro cars are stored on outdoor tracks. Also, there is a large maintenance building for servicing the fleet.

Both Bayamón and Sagrado Corazon terminal stations have dead-end tracks at the end of their respective station that can store two train sets.

Bus terminals
The bus system in the San Juan metropolitan area has been designed around the Tren Urbano. Five train stations also serve as bus terminals: Sagrado Corazón, Piñero, Cupey, Martínez Nadal, and Bayamón.

Expansion plans
The infrastructure of the Tren Urbano, with stations built for six–car train sets and a minimum headway of 90 seconds, has a maximum capacity of 40,000 passengers per hour per direction, compared to 3,000 passengers per hour per direction for the current peak hour 8 minute headway and 4-car trains and to an actual daily ridership of roughly 40,000 commuters. The train system is thus working at 13.33% capacity, also well under the 110,000 rail passengers planned by 2010.

In addition, with a fleet of 74 rail vehicles in the local yard to cover at least double the 10.7 miles (17.2 km) system length and with all of the basic facilities and capital equipment needed for the functioning in place, it is indispensable for the train to be extended, as it was originally intended to include higher-density areas of the central district for it to be operationally successful and sustainable.

The Puerto Rico's Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTPW) plans include:

Phase 1A

 * Phase 1A of the project includes the extension of the original line westward from the current terminal at Sagrado Corazón (Sacred Heart) through a medium to high density corridor in two stations: San Mateo to a new terminal at Minillas at the heart of Santurce, a distance of 1,500 meters, with a possible transfer from Minillas to a future tram line from the historic district of Old San Juan to the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport. Phase 1A was approved by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
 * By the end of fiscal 2008, the legislature identified federal funds for the expansion of the train in its second phase. It was expected that during fiscal year 2009, the legislature would begin to issue bonds for that purpose., there are no plans to expand the Tren Urbano.

Phase 2

 * Upon opening of the Tren Urbano, there were further proposals to extend the rail system to other municipalities such as Carolina. A two-way tunnel, 136 ft (42 meters) long, south of the Río Piedras Station is already built for a future expansion along the heavily-transited 65th Infantry Avenue.
 * In 2012, the government informed that it had no plans to expand the Tren Urbano in the future and that it was moving to other alternatives to help alleviate traffic.

Phase 3

 * In 2016, Tren Urbano contracted ACI-Herzog, a joint venture of ACI and Herzog, to improve the reliability and performance of their propulsion system. ACI-Herzog then successfully collaborated with AmePower to achieve this goal by conducting a modernization of 74 Tren Urbano train cars using Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) technology. The project was completed on March 2017.

Other projects
There are several projects to improve public transport connectivity:

 * Also being considered (2008) is a tramway from Sagrado Corazón station to colonial Old San Juan in Puerta de Tierra, where many of Puerto Rico's state government buildings are located. It would run partially on an existing right-of-way on Fernández Juncos Ave. The first line of the tramway would be built by the Municipality of San Juan (MSJ) and will be known as the Sistema de Asistencia, Transportación y Organización Urbana (System of Assistance, Transportation and Urban Organization) (SATOUR).
 * There is a proposal to build a second tram line to Carolina, possibly with a station at the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport.
 * The extension of a line to Caguas by the existing Urban Train from the Centro Médico or Cupey stations is considered.
 * A second plan for the development of a line to Caguas with a new "Light regional railcar" network system would have future extensions throughout the island.

title: Tren Urbano


text:
Neutral country

A neutral country is a state that is neutral towards belligerents in a specific war or holds itself as permanently neutral in all future conflicts (including avoiding entering into military alliances such as NATO, CSTO or the SCO). As a type of non-combatant status, nationals of neutral countries enjoy protection under the law of war from belligerent actions to a greater extent than other non-combatants such as enemy civilians and prisoners of war. Different countries interpret their neutrality differently: some, such as Costa Rica have demilitarized, while Switzerland holds to "armed neutrality", to deter aggression with a sizeable military, while barring itself from foreign deployment.

Not all neutral countries avoid any foreign deployment or alliances, as Austria and Ireland have active UN peacekeeping forces and a political alliance within the European Union. Sweden's traditional policy was not to participate in military alliances, with the intention of staying neutral in the case of war. Immediately before World War II, the Nordic countries stated their neutrality, but Sweden changed its position to that of non-belligerent at the start of the Winter War. Sweden would uphold its policy of neutrality until the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. During the Cold War, former Yugoslavia claimed military and ideological neutrality from both the Western and Eastern Bloc, becoming a co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement.

There have been considerable changes to the interpretation of neutral conduct over the past centuries.

Terminology

 * A neutral country in a particular war, is a sovereign state which refrains from joining either side of the conflict and adheres to the principle of the Law of Neutrality under international law. Although countries have historically often declared themselves as neutral at the outbreak of war, there is no obligation for them to do so. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907.
 * A permanently neutral power is a sovereign state which is bound by international treaty, or by its own declaration, to be neutral towards the belligerents of all future wars. An example of a permanently neutral power is Switzerland. The concept of neutrality in war is narrowly defined and puts specific constraints on the neutral party in return for the internationally recognized right to remain neutral.
 * Neutralism or a "neutralist policy" is a foreign policy position wherein a state intends to remain neutral in future wars. A sovereign state that reserves the right to become a belligerent if attacked by a party to the war is in a condition of armed neutrality.
 * A non-belligerent state is one that indirectly participates in a war by politically or materially helping one side of the conflict and thus not participating militarily. For example, it may allow its territory to be used for the war effort. Contrary to neutrality, this term is not defined under international law.

Rights and responsibilities of a neutral power
Belligerents may not invade neutral territory, and a neutral power's resisting any such attempt does not compromise its neutrality.

A neutral power must intern belligerent troops who reach its territory, but not escaped prisoners of war. Belligerent armies may not recruit neutral citizens, but they may go abroad to enlist. Belligerent armies' personnel and materiel may not be transported across neutral territory, but the wounded may be. A neutral power may supply communication facilities to belligerents, but not war materiel, although it need not prevent export of such materiel.

Belligerent naval vessels may use neutral ports for a maximum of 24 hours, though neutrals may impose different restrictions. Exceptions are to make repairs—only the minimum necessary to put back to sea —or if an opposing belligerent's vessel is already in port, in which case it must have a 24-hour head start. A prize ship captured by a belligerent in the territorial waters of a neutral power must be surrendered by the belligerent to the neutral, which must intern its crew.

Recognition and codification
Neutrality has been recognised in different ways, and sometimes involves a formal guarantor. For example, Switzerland and Belgium's neutrality was recognized by the signatories of the Congress of Vienna, Austria has its neutrality guaranteed by its four former occupying powers, and Finland by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The form of recognition varies, often by bilateral treaty (Finland), multilateral treaty (Austria) or a UN declaration (Turkmenistan). These treaties can in some ways be forced on a country (Austria's neutrality was insisted upon by the Soviet Union) but in other cases it is an active policy of the country concerned to respond to a geopolitical situation (Ireland in the Second World War).

For the country concerned, the policy is usually codified beyond the treaty itself. Austria and Japan codify their neutrality in their constitutions, but they do so with different levels of detail. Some details of neutrality are left to be interpreted by the government while others are explicitly stated; for example, Austria may not host any foreign bases, and Japan cannot participate in foreign wars. Yet Sweden, lacking formal codification, was more flexible during the Second World War in allowing troops to pass through its territory.

Armed neutrality
Armed neutrality is the posture of a state or group of states that has no alliance with either side of a war but asserts that it will defend itself against resulting incursions from any party, making the benefit to a belligerent of entering the country by force not worth the cost.

This may include:
 * Military preparedness without commitment, especially as the expressed policy of a neutral nation in wartime, and the readiness to counter with force an invasion of rights by any belligerent power.
 * Armed neutrality is a term used in international politics for the attitude of a state or group of states that makes no alliance with either side in a war. It is the condition of a neutral power during a war to hold itself ready to resist by force, any aggression of either belligerent.
 * Armed neutrality makes a seemingly-neutral state take up arms for protection to maintain its neutrality.

The term derives from the historic maritime neutrality of the First League of Armed Neutrality of the Nordic countries and Russia under the leadership of Catherine the Great, which was invented in the late 18th century but has since been used only to refer to countries' neutralities. Sweden and Switzerland are independently of each other famed for their armed neutralities, which they maintained throughout both World War I and World War II. The Swiss and the Swedes each have a long history of neutrality: they have not been in a state of war internationally since 1815 and 1814, respectively. Switzerland continues to pursue, however, an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. According to Edwin Reischauer, "To be neutral you must be ready to be highly militarized, like Switzerland or Sweden."

In contrast, some neutral states may heavily reduce their military and use it for the express purpose of home defense and the maintenance of their neutrality, while other neutral states may abandon military power altogether (examples of states doing this include Liechtenstein). However, the lack of a military does not always result in neutrality: Countries such as Costa Rica and Iceland replaced their standing army with a military guarantee from a stronger power or participation in a mutual defense pact (under TIAR and NATO respectively).

Leagues of armed neutrality

 * The First League of Armed Neutrality was an alliance of minor naval powers organized in 1780 by Catherine II of Russia to protect neutral shipping during the American Revolutionary War. The establishment of the First League of Armed Neutrality was viewed by Americans as a mark of Russian friendship and sympathy. This league had a lasting impact of Russian-American relations and the relations of those two powers and Britain. It was also the basis for international maritime law, which is still in effect. In the field of political science, this is the first historical example of armed neutrality, however, scholars like Carl Kulsrud argue that the concept of armed neutrality was introduced even earlier. Within 90 years before the First League of Armed Neutrality was established, neutral powers had joined forces no less than three times. As early as 1613, Lubeck and Holland joined powers to continue their maritime exploration without the commitment of being involved in wartime struggles on the sea.
 * The Second League of Armed Neutrality was an effort to revive this during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was an alliance with Denmark-Norway, Prussia, Sweden and Russia. It occurred during 1800 and 1801. The idea of this second league was to protect neutral shipping from the British Royal Navy. However, Britain took this as the alliance taking up sides with France, and attacked Denmark leading to the Battle of Copenhagen (1801) and the taking of Copenhagen by the British. The alliance was forced to withdraw from the league.
 * A potential Third League of Armed Neutrality was discussed during the American Civil War, but was never realized.

Peacekeeping
For many states, such as Ireland, neutrality does not mean the absence of any foreign interventionism. Peacekeeping missions for the United Nations are seen as intertwined with it. The Swiss electorate rejected a 1994 proposal to join UN peacekeeping operations. Despite this, 23 Swiss observers and police have been deployed around the world in UN projects.

Points of debate
The legitimacy of whether some states are as neutral as they claim has been questioned in some circles, although this depends largely on a state's interpretation of its form of neutrality.

European Union
There are three members of the European Union that still describe themselves as a neutral country in some form: Austria, Ireland, and Malta. With the development of the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy, the extent to which they are, or should be, neutral is debated.

For example, Ireland, which sought guarantees for its neutrality in EU treaties, argues that its neutrality does not mean that Ireland should avoid engagement in international affairs such as peacekeeping operations.

Since the enactment of the Lisbon Treaty, EU members are bound by TEU, Article 42.7, which obliges states to assist a fellow member that is the victim of armed aggression. It accords "an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in [other member states'] power" but would "not prejudice the specific character of the security and defense policy of certain Member States" (neutral policies), allowing members to respond with non-military aid. Ireland's constitution prohibits participating in such a common defence.

With the launch of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in defense at the end of 2017, the EU's activity on military matters has increased. The policy was designed to be inclusive and allows states to opt in or out of specific forms of military cooperation. That has allowed most of the neutral states to participate, but opinions still vary. Some members of the Irish Parliament considered Ireland's joining PESCO as an abandonment of neutrality. It was passed with the government arguing that its opt-in nature allowed Ireland to "join elements of PESCO that were beneficial such as counter-terrorism, cybersecurity and peacekeeping... what we are not going to be doing is buying aircraft carriers and fighter jets". Malta, as of December 2017, is the only neutral state not to participate in PESCO. The Maltese government argued that it was going to wait and see how PESCO develops to see whether it would compromise Maltese neutrality.

Neutrality during World War II
Many countries made neutrality declarations during World War II. However, of the European states closest to the war, only Andorra, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland (with Liechtenstein), and Vatican City (the Holy See) remained neutral to the end.

Their fulfillment to the letter of the rules of neutrality has been questioned: Ireland supplied important secret information to the Allies; for instance, the date of D-Day was decided on the basis of incoming Atlantic weather information, some of it supplied by Ireland but kept from Germany. Ireland also secretly allowed Allied aircraft to use the Donegal Corridor, making it possible for British planes to attack German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic. On the other hand, both Axis and Allied pilots who crash landed in Ireland were interned.

Sweden and Switzerland, surrounded by possessions and allies of Nazi Germany similarly made concessions to Nazi requests as well as to Allied requests. Sweden was also involved in intelligence operations with the Allies, including listening stations in Sweden and espionage in Germany. Spain offered to join the war on the side of Nazi Germany in 1940, allowed Axis ships and submarines to use its ports, imported war materials for Germany, and sent a Spanish volunteer combat division to aid the Nazi war effort. Portugal officially stayed neutral, but actively supported both the Allies by providing overseas naval bases, and Germany by selling tungsten.

The United States was initially neutral and bound by the Neutrality Acts of 1936 not to sell war materials to belligerents. Once war broke out, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt persuaded Congress to replace the act with the Cash and carry program that allowed the US to provide military aid to the allies, despite opposition from non-interventionist members. The "Cash and carry" program was replaced in March 1941 by Lend-Lease, effectively ending the US pretense of neutrality.

Sweden also made concessions to the German Reich during the war to maintain its neutrality, the biggest concession was to let the 163rd German Infantry Division to be transferred from Norway to Finland by Swedish trains, to aid the Finns in the Continuation War. The decision caused a political "Midsummer Crisis" of 1941, about Sweden's neutrality.

Equally, Vatican City made various diplomatic concessions to the Axis and Allied powers alike, while still keeping to the rules of the Law of Neutrality. The Holy See has been criticized—but largely exonerated later—for its silence on moral issues of the war.

List of countries proclaiming to be neutral
Some countries may occasionally claim to be "neutral" but not comply with the internationally agreed upon definition of neutrality as listed above.

title: Neutral country


text:
Tata Consultancy Services

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is an Indian multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company headquartered in Mumbai. It is a part of the Tata Group and operates in 150 locations across 46 countries. In March 2024, TCS reported that it had 601,546 employees worldwide. TCS is the second-largest Indian company by market capitalization, the most valuable IT service brands worldwide, and the top Big Tech (India) company. In 2012, it was the world's second-largest user of U.S. H-1B visas.

As of 2021, it was ranked seventh on the Fortune India 500 list. In September 2021, TCS recorded a market capitalization of US$200 billion, making it the first Indian IT tech company to do so. In 2016–2017, parent company Tata Sons owned 72.05% of TCS and more than 70% of Tata Sons' dividends were generated by TCS.

1968–2005
Tata Consultancy Services Limited, initially started as Tata Computer Systems, was founded in 1968 by a division of Tata Sons Limited. Its early contracts included punched card services to sister company TISCO (now Tata Steel), working on an Inter-Branch Reconciliation System for the Central Bank of India, and providing bureau services to Unit Trust of India.

In 1975, TCS delivered an electronic depository and trading system called SECOM for Swiss company SIS SegaInterSettle; it also developed System X for the Canadian Depository System and automated the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. TCS associated with a Swiss partner, TKS Teknosoft, which it later acquired.

In 1980, TCS established India's first dedicated software research and development center, the Tata Research Development and Design Centre (TRDDC) in Pune. In 1981, it established India's first client-dedicated offshore development centre, set up for clients Tandem.

In anticipation of the Y2K bug and the launch of a unified European currency (Euro), Tata Consultancy Services created the factory model for Y2K conversion and developed software tools which automated the conversion process and enabled third-party developer and client implementation. Towards the end of 1999, TCS decided to offer Decision Support System (DSS) in the domestic market under its Corporate Vice President and Transformation Head Subbu Iyer. The company also registered its first tagline "Beyond the Obvious" in 1999.

2005 to 2016
On 25 August 2004, TCS became a publicly listed company.

In 2005, TCS became the first India-based IT services company to enter the bioinformatics market, and in the same year TCS changed the tagline from "Beyond the Obvious" to "Experience Certainty". In 2006, it designed an ERP system for the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation. By 2008, its e-business activities were generating over US$500 million in annual revenues.

TCS entered the small and medium enterprises market for the first time in 2011, with cloud-based offerings. On the last trading day of 2011, it overtook RIL to achieve the highest market capitalization of any India-based company. In the 2011–12 fiscal year, TCS achieved annual revenues of over US$10 billion for the first time.

In May 2013, TCS was awarded a six-year contract worth over inr 11000000000 to provide services to the Indian Department of Posts. In 2013, the firm moved from 13th position to 10th position in the League of top 10 global IT services companies and in July 2014, it became the first Indian company with over inr 5000000000000 market capitalization.

In January 2015, TCS ended Reliance Industries Limited's 23-year run as India's most profitable firm.

2017 to 2023
In January 2017, the company announced a partnership with Aurus, a payments technology company, to deliver payment solutions for retailers using TCS OmniStore, a first-of-its-kind unified store commerce platform. In the same year, TCS China was associated as a joint venture with the Chinese government.

In March 2018, Tata Sons sold stocks of TCS worth $1.25 billion in a bulk deal.

TCS received the 2019 American Business Awards from Four Stevies.

On 8 October 2020, TCS surpassed Accenture in market capitalization to become the world's most valuable IT company with a market capitalization of $144.73 billion. On 25 January 2021, TCS again surpassed Accenture briefly in market capitalization to become the world's most-valuable IT company with a market cap of $170 billion. The same day, TCS became India's most valuable company, surpassing Reliance Industries with a market capitalization of inr 12550000000000. In 2021 Tata was also one of the largest job providers in India, hiring 43,000 individuals in H1 FY22. In October 2021, N Ganapathy Subramaniam, the COO of TCS, stated that its platforms and products business is worth approximately $3 billion. The company's platforms and products business includes TCS' SaaS-based platforms, and according to Subramaniam, between October 2020 and October 2021, 95% of the deals won by TCS have been for its cloud platforms and SaaS platforms. Also, in 2021 TCS got a millennial makeover. Under the leadership of Rajashree R, TCS Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), the company changed the tagline from "Experience Certainty" to "Building on Belief".

In May 2021, alongside consortium partner Neurotechnology, TCS was selected by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to provide biometric technology for the Aadhaar digital ID program. The Aadhaar program has been described by the World Bank Chief Economist Paul Romer as the "most sophisticated ID programme in the world" owing to the existing database of over 1.3 billion citizens.

Services

 * Cloud
 * Cognitive Business Operations
 * Consulting
 * Cybersecurity

Operations
As of September 2023, TCS had a total of 51 subsidiary companies and operated in 55 countries.

Locations
TCS has operations in the following locations:

India:

Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Baroda, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore ,Delhi, Gandhinagar, Goa, Gurugram, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam,Bhopal, Indore, Jamshedpur, Kalyan, Thane, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, New Delhi, Mumbai, Nagpur, Noida, Nashik, Patna, Pune, Thiruvananthapuram, and Varanasi.

Asia (excluding India):

Bahrain, China, Israel, UAE, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Qatar.

Oceania:

Australia

Africa:

South Africa, Morocco (closed)

Europe:

Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

North America:

Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

South America:

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Uruguay.

TCS BPS
TCS BPS (Business Process Services) is the third-largest India-based IT outsourcing company (after Capgemini). The BPS division had revenues of US$1.44 billion in FY 2012–13, which was 12.5% of the total revenue of TCS. TCS BPS has more than 45,000 employees who serve over 225 million customers across 11 countries. The rate of attrition in the BPS division during the financial year 2012–13 was 19.5%. The firm has also opened a business process outsourcing facility in the Philippines.

Life Sciences and Healthcare
Since 2006 TCS signed multi million contracts from american biopharma giants Pfizer, Eli Lilly etc for providing clinical research-data management, biostatistics, and medical writing services. TCS also provides services to european biopharma giants such as Roche, Novartis etc in the areas of clinical data management, biostatistics, clinical programming, pharmacovigilance, and RWE support towards global drug development efforts.

Tata Research Development and Design Centre
TCS established India's first software research centre, the Tata Research Development and Design Centre, in Pune, in 1981. TRDDC undertakes research in software engineering, process engineering, bioinformatics, and systems research. Researchers at TRDDC also developed MasterCraft (now a suite of digitization and optimization tools), a Model-driven Development software that can automatically create codes based on a model of a software, and rewrite the codes based on the users' needs. The research at TRDDC has also resulted in the development of Sujal, a low-cost water purifier, that can be manufactured using locally available resources. TCS deployed thousands of these filters in the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster of 2004 as part of its relief activities. This product has been marketed in India as Tata Swach, a low-cost water purifier.

Innovation labs
In 2007, TCS launched its co-innovation network, a network of innovation labs, start-up alliances, university research departments, and venture capitalists. In addition, TCS has 19 innovation labs based in three countries. TCS' partners include Collabnet and Cassatt, and academic institutions such as IITs, Stanford, MIT, and Carnegie Mellon, and venture capitalists like Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins.

Employees
TCS is one of the largest private-sector employers in India, and the fourth-largest employer among listed Indian companies (after Indian Railways, Indian Army, and India Post). TCS has crossed more than 600,000 employees as of 8 July 2022. The number of non-Indian nationals was 21,282 as of 31 March 2013 (7.7%). The employee costs for the FY 2012–13 were US$4.38 billion, which was approx. 38% of the total revenue of the company for that period. In the fiscal year 2012–13, TCS recruited a total of 69,728 new staff, of whom 59,276 were based in India and 10,452 were based in the rest of the world. In the same period, the rate of attrition was 10.6%. The average age of a TCS employee is 28 years. The employee utilization rate, excluding trainees, for the FY 2012–13 was 82%. TCS was the fifth-largest United States visa recipient in 2008 (after Infosys, CTS, Wipro, and Mahindra Satyam). In 2012, the Tata Group companies, including TCS, were the second-largest recipient of H-1B visas.

Subramaniam Ramadorai, the former CEO of TCS, has authored an autobiographical book about his experiences in the company called The TCS Story...and Beyond.

Former CEOs of TCS

 * F. C. Kohli, co-founder and first CEO and MD of TCS from 1968 to 1996, known as "Father of Indian IT Industry"
 * Subramaniam Ramadorai, CEO and MD of TCS from 1996 to 2009, and Vice - Chairman till 6 October 2014
 * Natarajan Chandrasekaran, COO, Executive Director, and CEO of TCS from 2009 to 2017
 * Rajesh Gopinathan,CEO and MD of TCS from 2017 to May 2023
 * K. Krithivasan, CEO and MD of TCS from June 1 2023

Sponsorships
TCS is the title sponsor for Toronto Waterfront Marathon, London Marathon, Amsterdam Marathon, Mumbai Marathon, Lidingöloppet, and New York City Marathon and one of the sponsors of City2Surf, Australian Running Festival, Berlin Marathon, Chicago Marathon, and Boston Marathon. In India, it is the title sponsor of World 10K held in Bangalore every year. TCS has been a sponsor of the Indian Premier League team Rajasthan Royals since 2009. It also provides the team with technology to help in the analysis of player performance, simulation, and use of RFID tags for tracking the players’ fitness levels and for security purposes in the stadiums. TCS sponsors an annual IT quiz for high school students called TCS IT Wiz. TCS IT Wiz is the largest quiz in India, attracting students who are studying between class 8 and class 12. This quiz is hosted by Giri Balasubramanium.

TCS also currently sponsors Jaguar Racing in Formula E and Nakajima Racing in Super Formula.

Controversies
On 14 February 2006, US law firm Lieff Cabraser filed a nationwide class action lawsuit against Tata. In July 2013, judge Claudia Wilken of the US District Court, Northern District of California in Oakland, California, granted final approval to the settlement of the lawsuit on behalf of all non-US citizens employed by TCS within the state of California from 14 February 2002 to 30 June 2005. The workers claimed that they were forced to sign over their federal and state tax refunds to their employer, as well as stating their Indian salaries were wrongfully deducted from their US pay.

On 22 February 2013, the company agreed to settle for a sum of inr 1620000000, this class-action suit filed in a United States court on payment to employees on deputation.

A US grand jury has slapped two companies of India's Tata Group – Tata Consultancy Services and Tata America International Corp – with a US$940 million fine in a trade secret lawsuit filed against them. Epic Systems had accused TCS and Tata America International Corp, in a lawsuit filed in October 2014 in US District Court in Madison, which was amended in January and December 2015, of "brazenly stealing the trade secrets, confidential information, documents and data" belonging to Epic. This Epic Systems lawsuit against TCS was completed in November 2023 with TCS agreeing to pay US$125M.

In 2019, an employee filed a complaint with the Kancheepuram labour court alleging that Tata Consultancy Services' internal complaints committee mishandled a sexual harassment case, and the case was approved. Over four years later the worker's case has not progressed, with the worker accusing the company of holding up investigations. Over the years she has also reported unexplained transfers and other alleged workplace retribution, including in performance reviews.

On 20 October 2023, Tata failed to deliver digital exams to candidates applying to the University of Oxford. Some sources state that due to inadequate preparation, a technical glitch caused the exams to be delayed by more than 2 hours, and even completely cancelled in some cases.

title: Tata Consultancy Services


text:
Peace symbols

A number of peace symbols have been used many ways in various cultures and contexts. The dove and olive branch was used symbolically by early Christians and then eventually became a secular peace symbol, popularized by a Dove lithograph by Pablo Picasso after World War II. In the 1950s, the "peace sign", as it is known today (also known as "peace and love"), was designed by Gerald Holtom as the logo for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), a group at the forefront of the peace movement in the UK, and adopted by anti-war and counterculture activists in the US and elsewhere. The symbol is a superposition of the semaphore signals for the letters "N" and "D", taken to stand for "nuclear disarmament", while simultaneously acting as a reference to Goya's The Third of May 1808  (1814) (aka "Peasant Before the Firing Squad").

The V hand signal and the peace flag also became international peace symbols.

Classical antiquity

The use of the olive branch as a symbol of peace in Western civilization dates at least to 5th century BC Greece. The olive branch, which the Greeks believed represented plenty and drove away evil spirits, was one of the attributes of Eirene, the Greek goddess of peace. Eirene (whom the Romans called Pax), appeared on Roman Imperial coins with an olive branch.

The Roman poet Virgil (70–10 BC) associated "the plump olive" with Pax and he used the olive branch as a symbol of peace in his Aeneid:

High on the stern Aeneas his stand, And held a branch of olive in his hand, While thus he spoke: "The Phrygians' arms you see, Expelled from Troy, provoked in Italy By Latian foes, with war unjustly made; At first affianced, and at last betrayed. This message bear: The Trojans and their chief Bring holy peace, and beg the king's relief."

The Romans believed there was an intimate relationship between war and peace. Mars, the god of war, had another aspect, Mars Pacifer, Mars the bringer of Peace, who is shown on coins of the later Roman Empire bearing an olive branch. Appian describes the use of the olive-branch as a gesture of peace by the enemies of the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus in the Numantine War and by Hasdrubal of Carthage.

Later representations

Poets of the 17th century associated the olive branch with peace. A Charles I gold coin of 1644 shows the monarch with sword and olive branch. Throughout the 18th century, English coins show Britannia with a spear and olive branch.

The Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, contains an allegorical painting by James Thornhill, Peace and Liberty Triumphing Over Tyranny (1708–1716), depicting King William III and Queen Mary (who had enacted the English Bill of Rights) enthroned in heaven with the Virtues behind them. Peace, with her doves and lambs, hands an olive branch to William, who in turn hands the cap of liberty to Europe, where absolute monarchy prevails. Below William is the defeated French king, Louis XIV.

In January 1775, the frontispiece of the London Magazine published an engraving of Peace descending on a cloud from the Temple of Commerce, bringing an olive branch to America and Britannia. In July that year, the American Continental Congress adopted the "Olive Branch Petition" in the hope of avoiding a full-blown war with Great Britain.

On the Great Seal of the United States (1782), the olive branch denotes peace, as explained by Charles Thomson, Secretary to Congress: "The Olive branch and arrows denote the power of peace & war which is exclusively vested in Congress."

Christianity
The use of a dove as a symbol of peace originated with early Christians, who portrayed baptism accompanied by a dove, often on their sepulchres.

The New Testament compared the dove to the Spirit of God that descended on Jesus during his baptism. Christians saw similarities between baptism and Noah's Flood. The First Epistle of Peter (composed around the end of the first century AD ) said that the Flood, which brought salvation through water, prefigured baptism. Tertullian (c. 160) compared the dove, who "announced to the world the assuagement of divine wrath, when she had been sent out of the ark and returned with the olive branch, to the Holy Spirit who descends in baptism in the form of a dove that brings the peace of God, sent out from the heavens".

At first the dove represented the subjective personal experience of peace, the peace of the soul, and in the earliest Christian art it accompanies representations of baptism. By the end of the second century (for example in the writing of Tertullian) it also represented social and political peace, "peace unto the nations", and from the third century it began to appear in depictions of conflict, such as Noah and the Ark, Daniel and the lions, the three young men in the furnace, and Susannah and the Elders.

The dove appears in Christian inscriptions in the Roman catacombs, sometimes accompanied by the words in pace (Latin for "in peace"). For example, in the Catacomb of Callixtus, a dove and branch are drawn next to a Latin inscription NICELLA VIRCO DEI OVE VI XIT ANNOS P M XXXV DE POSITA XV KAL MAIAS BENE MERENTI IN PACE, meaning "Nicella, God's virgin, who lived for more or less 35 years. She was placed [here] 15 days before the Kalends of May [17 April]. For the well deserving one in peace." In another example, a shallow relief sculpture shows a dove with a branch flying to a figure marked in Greek as ΕΙΡΗΝΗ (Eirene, or Peace). The symbol has also been found in the Christian catacombs of Sousse, Tunisia (ancient Carthage), which date from the end of the first century AD.

The Christian symbolism of the olive branch, invariably carried by the dove, derives from Greek usage and the story of Noah in the Hebrew Bible. The story of Noah ends with a dove bringing a freshly plucked olive leaf (Hebrew: עלה זית alay zayit), a sign of life after the Flood and of God's bringing Noah, his family and the animals to land. Rabbinic literature interpreted the olive leaf as "the young shoots of the Land of Israel" or the dove's preference for bitter food in God's service, rather than sweet food in the service of men. and neither represented peace in Jewish thought, but the dove and olive branch acquired that meaning in Christianity.

Before the Peace of Constantine (313 AD), in which Rome ceased its persecution of Christians following Constantine's conversion, Noah was normally shown in an attitude of prayer, a dove flying toward him or alighting on his outstretched hand. According to Graydon Snyder, "The Noah story afforded the early Christian community an opportunity to express piety and peace in a vessel that withstood the threatening environment" of Roman persecution. According to Ludwig Budde and Pierre Prigent, the dove referred to the descending of the Holy Spirit rather than the peace associated with Noah. After the Peace of Constantine, when persecution ceased, Noah appeared less frequently in Christian art.

In the fourth century, St. Jerome's Latin Bible translated the Hebrew "alay zayit" in the Noah story as "ramum olivae", ("olive branch"), possibly reflecting the Christian equivalence between the peace brought by baptism and peace brought by the ending of the Flood. By the fifth century, St Augustine confirmed the Christian adoption of the olive branch as a symbol of peace, writing that, "perpetual peace is indicated by the olive branch (Latin: oleae ramusculo) that the dove brought with it when it returned to the ark."

Medieval illuminated manuscripts, such as the Holkham Bible, showed the dove returning to Noah with a branch. Wycliffe's Bible, which translated the Vulgate into English in the 14th century, uses "a braunche of olyue tre with greene leeuys" ("a branch of olive tree with green leaves") in Gen. 8:11. In the Middle Ages, some Jewish manuscripts, which were often illustrated by Christians, also showed Noah's dove with an olive branch, for example, the Golden Haggadah (about 1420).

English Bibles from the 17th-century King James Bible onwards, which translated the story of Noah direct from Hebrew, render the Hebrew 'aleh zayit as "olive leaf" rather than "olive branch", but by this time the association of the dove with an olive branch as a symbol of peace in the story of Noah was firmly established.

Secular representations

 * Late 15th century In the late 15th century, a dove with an olive branch was used on the seal of Dieci di Balia, the Florentine committee known as The Ten of Liberty and Peace, whose secretary was Machiavelli; it bore the motto, "Pax et Defencio Libertatis" (Peace and the Defence of Liberty).
 * Late 18th century In 18th century America, a £2 note of North Carolina (1771) depicted the dove and olive with a motto meaning: "Peace restored". Georgia's $40 note of 1778 portrayed the dove and olive and a hand holding a dagger, with a motto meaning  "Either war or peace, prepared for both."
 * Early 19th century The Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace, also known as The London Peace Society, formed on a Quaker initiative in 1816, used the symbol of a dove and olive branch.
 * Early 20th century A German war loan poster of 1917 showed the head of an eagle over a dove of peace in flight, with the text, "Subscribe to the War Loan".
 * Mid 20th century Picasso's lithograph, La Colombe (The Dove), a traditional, realistic picture of a pigeon, without an olive branch, was chosen as the emblem for the World Peace Council in Paris in April 1949. The dove became a symbol for the peace movement and the ideals of the Communist Party and was used in Communist demonstrations of the period. At the 1950 World Peace Council in Sheffield, Picasso said that his father had taught him to paint doves, concluding, "I stand for life against death; I stand for peace against war."   At the 1952 World Peace Council in Berlin, Picasso's Dove was depicted in a banner above the stage.  The dove symbol was used extensively in the post-war peace movement. Anti-communists had their own take on the peace dove: the group Paix et Liberté distributed posters titled La colombe qui fait BOUM (the dove that goes BOOM), showing the peace dove metamorphosing into a Soviet tank.

Broken rifle

The broken rifle symbol is used by War Resisters' International (WRI) and its affiliates but predates the foundation of WRI in 1921. The first known example of the symbol is in the masthead of the January 1909 issue of De Wapens Neder (Down with Weapons), the monthly paper of the International Antimilitarist Union in the Netherlands. In 1915 it appeared on the cover of a pamphlet, Under det brukne Gevær (Under the Broken Rifle), published by the Norwegian Social Democratic Youth Association. The (German) League for War Victims, founded in 1917, used the broken rifle on a 1919 banner.

In 1921, Belgian workers marching through La Louvrière on 16 October 1921, carried flags showing a soldier breaking his rifle. Ernst Friedrich, a German who had refused military service, founded the Anti-Kriegs Museum in Berlin, which featured a bas-relief broken rifle over the door. The Museum distributed broken-rifle badges, girls' and women's brooches, boys' belt buckles, and men's tie pins.

White poppy
In 1933, during a period in which there was widespread fear of war in Europe, the Women's Co-operative Guild began the practice of distributing white poppies as an alternative to the red poppies distributed by the Royal British Legion in commemoration of servicemen who died in the First World War. In 1934 the newly formed Peace Pledge Union (PPU), which was the largest British peace organization in the inter-war years, joined in distributing white poppies and laying white poppy wreaths "as a pledge to peace that war must not happen again". In 1980, the PPU revived the symbol as a way of remembering the victims of war without glorifying militarism.

Roerich's peace banner

Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947), a Russian artist, cultural activist, and philosopher, founded a movement to protect cultural artifacts. Its symbol was a maroon-on-white emblem consisting of three solid circles in a surrounding circle. It has also been used as a peace banner. In 1935 a pact initiated by Roerich was signed by the United States and Latin American nations, agreeing that "historic monuments, museums, scientific, artistic, educational and cultural institutions" should be protected both in times of peace and war.

According to the Roerich Museum,

"The Banner of Peace symbol has ancient origins. Perhaps its earliest known example appears on Stone Age amulets: three dots, without the enclosing circle. Roerich came across numerous later examples in various parts of the world, and knew that it represented a deep and sophisticated understanding of the triune nature of existence. But for the purposes of the Banner and the Pact, Roerich described the circle as representing the totality of culture, with the three dots being Art, Science, and Religion, three of the most embracing of human cultural activities. He also described the circle as representing the eternity of time, encompassing the past, present, and future. The sacred origins of the symbol, as an illustration of the trinities fundamental to all religions, remain central to the meaning of the Pact and the Banner today."

Peace symbol
The symbol now known internationally as the "peace symbol" or "peace sign", was created in 1958 as a symbol for Britain's campaign for nuclear disarmament. It went on to be widely adopted in the American anti-war movement in the 1960s and was re-interpreted as generically representing world peace. It was also used by activists opposing nuclear power in the 1980s, although the Smiling Sun image ["Nuclear power? No thanks!]" predominated.

Origin
The symbol was designed by Gerald Holtom (1914–1985), who presented it to Direct Action Committee on 21 February 1958. It was "immediately accepted" as a symbol for the movement and used for a march from Trafalgar Square, London, to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire on 4 April. Holtom's design was adapted by Eric Austen (1922–1999) to ceramic lapel badges. The original design is in the Peace Museum in Bradford, England.

The symbol is a super-imposition of the flag semaphore for the characters "N" and "D", taken to stand for "nuclear disarmament". This observation was made as early as 5 April 1958 in the Manchester Guardian. In addition to this primary genesis, Holtom additionally cited as inspiration Francisco Goya's painting The Third of May 1808 :

"I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it."

Ken Kolsbun, a correspondent of Holtom's, says that the designer came to regret the symbolism of despair, as he felt that peace was something to be celebrated and wanted the symbol to be inverted. Eric Austen is said to have "discovered that the 'gesture of despair' motif had long been associated with 'the death of man', and the circle with 'the unborn child'.

The symbol became the badge of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and wearing it became a sign of support for the campaign that argued for British unilateral nuclear disarmament. An account of CND's early history described the image as "a visual adhesive to bind the [Aldermaston] March and later the whole Campaign together ... probably the most powerful, memorable and adaptable image ever designed for a secular cause".

International reception

Not copyrighted, trademarked or restricted, the symbol spread beyond CND and was adopted by the wider disarmament and anti-war movements. It became widely known in the United States in 1958 when Albert Bigelow, a pacifist protester, sailed a small boat fitted with the CND banner into the vicinity of a nuclear test. Buttons with the symbol were imported into the United States in 1960 by Philip Altbach, a freshman at the University of Chicago. Altbach had traveled to England to meet with British peace groups as a delegate from the Student Peace Union (SPU) and, on his return, he persuaded the SPU to adopt the symbol.

Between 1960 and 1964, they sold thousands of the buttons on college campuses. By 1968, the symbol had been adopted as a generic peace sign, associated especially with the hippie movement and opposition to the Vietnam War.

In 1970, two US private companies tried to register the peace symbol as a trade mark: the Intercontinental Shoe Corporation of New York and Luv, Inc. of Miami. Commissioner of Patents William E. Schuyler Jr, said that the symbol "could not properly function as a trade mark subject to registration by the Patent Office".

In 1973, the South African government tried to ban its use by opponents of apartheid.

Interpretations
Gerald Holtom had originally considered using a Christian cross symbol within a circle, but he was dissuaded by several priests who expressed reservations towards using the cross on a protest march. Holtom's symbol was nevertheless compared to the Christian cross symbol, as well as to the death rune (the inverted ᛘ rune associated with death in early 20th century esotericism).

In 1968, the anti-Communist evangelist Billy James Hargis described the symbol as a "broken cross", which he claimed represented the antichrist. Hargis' interpretation was taken up by a member of the John Birch Society, Marjorie Jensen, who wrote a pamphlet claiming the symbol was equivalent to "a symbol of the devil, with the cross reversed and broken" supposedly known as "the crow's foot or witch's foot". In June 1970, American Opinion, the journal of the John Birch Society, published an article which compared the symbol to a supposed "broken cross" claimed to have been "carried by the Moors when they invaded Spain in the 8th century". The newsletter of the National Republican Congressional Committee of 28 September 1970 on its question page made the comparison to a design of a "death rune" in a wreath published by the German Nazi party as representing (heroic) death, in 1942. Time magazine in its 2 November 1970 issue made note of these comparisons, pointing out that any such resemblance was "probably coincidental".

Rainbow flag

The international peace flag in the colours of the rainbow was first used in Italy on a 1961 peace march from Perugia to Assisi organized by the pacifist and social philosopher Aldo Capitini (1899–1968). Inspired by the peace flags used on British peace marches, Capitini got some women of Perugia hurriedly to sew together coloured strips of material. The march has been repeated many times since 1961, including in 2010. The original flag was kept by Capitini's collaborator, Lanfranco Mencaroni, at Collevalenza, near Todi. In 2011, plans were announced to transfer it to the Palazzo dei Priori in Perugia.

The flag commonly has seven rainbow-colored stripes with the word PACE (Italian for "peace") in the center. It has been explained as follows: "In the account of the Great Flood, God set the rainbow to a seal the alliance with man and nature, promising that there will never be another Flood. The rainbow thus became a symbol of Peace across the earth and the sky, and, by extension, among all men."

The flag usually has the colours violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red from top to bottom, but some have the violet stripe below the blue one (as in the picture at the right) or a white one at the top. A picture of Capitini's first peace flag, carried by Anna Capitini and Silvana Mencaroni, shows the colours red, orange, white, green, violet, indigo, and lavender.

In 2002, renewed display of the flag was widespread with the Pace da tutti i balconi ("Peace from every balcony") campaign, a protest against the impending war in Iraq planned by the United States and its allies. In 2003, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported leading advertising executives saying that the peace flag had become more popular than the Italian national flag. In November 2009, a huge peace flag, 21m wide by 40m long, was made in Lecce, Salento, by young members of "GPACE – Youth for Peace – Give Peace a Chance Everywhere".

Predator and prey lie down together

The imagery of a predator and prey lying down together in peace is depicted in the Bible:

"The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them."

One of the first coins to be minted was the croeseid. It depicted the Lydian Lion and Hellenic Bull, representing the peaceful alliance between Croesus and the dynasty of Agamemnon enthroned in Cyme. This alliance had been sealed through two royal marriages, Hermodike I c. 800 BC to the Phrygian king Midas and Hermodike II c. 600 BC to Alyattes of Lydia. Alyattes was Croesus' father and Hermodike II was likely his mother. When he came to power, Croesus minted the first coin depicting two animals. The roaring lion – symbol of Lydia – and the bull – symbol of Hellenic Zeus (from the Seduction of Europa ) – are facing each other in truce; Note that hunting lions attack from the rear, not face-to the horns. The imagery of a predator and prey lying down together in peace is reflected in other ancient literature, e.g. "...the calf and the lion and the yearling together..." c. 700 BC (Isaiah 11:6, see above). The croeseid symbolism of peace between the Greeks of Asia Minor, Lydians and later Persians (under Cyrus the Great) persisted long after Croesus' death – until Darius the Great introduced new coins c. 500 BC.

The union of Phrygia and Lydia with Aeolian Greeks resulted in regional peace, which facilitated the transfer of ground-breaking technological skills into Ancient Greece; respectively, the phonetic written script and the minting of coinage (to use a token currency, where the value is guaranteed by the state). Both inventions were rapidly adopted by surrounding nations through further trade and cooperation and have been of fundamental benefit to the progress of civilization.

V sign

The V sign ( in Unicode) is a hand gesture, palm outwards, with the index and middle fingers open and all others closed. It had been used to represent victory during the Second World War. During the 1960s in the US, activists against the Vietnam War and in subsequent anti-war protests adopted the gesture as a sign of peace.

Paper cranes

The crane, a traditional symbol of luck in Japan, was popularized as a peace symbol by the story of Sadako Sasaki (1943–1955), a girl who died as a result of the atomic bomb exploding over Hiroshima in 1945. According to the story, popularized through the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, in the last stages of her illness she started folding paper cranes, inspired by the Japanese saying that one who folded a thousand origami cranes was granted a wish. This made an impression in people's minds. As a result, she is remembered on every 6 August, which is an annual peace day for people all over Japan.

Japanese Peace Bell

The Japanese Peace Bell is a United Nations peace symbol. Cast on 24 November 1952, it was an official gift of the Japanese people to the United Nations on 8 June 1954. The symbolic bell of peace was donated by Japan to the United Nations at a time when Japan had not yet been officially admitted to the United Nations. The Japanese Peace Bell was presented to the United Nations by the United Nations Association of Japan.

Shalom/salaam
A wordmark of the three words, Hebrew word shalom (Hebrew: ), together with the Arabic salaam (Arabic: ) and the English word peace has been used as a peace symbol in the Middle East. Shalom and salaam mean peace and are cognates of each other, derived from the Semitic triconsonantal of S-L-M (realized in Hebrew as Š-L-M and in Arabic as S-L-M). The symbol has come to represent peace in the Middle East and an end to the Arab–Israeli conflict. Wall plaques, signs, T-shirts, and buttons are sold with only those words.

title: Peace symbols