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Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!

Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (HAHK, ) is a 1994 Indian Hindi-language musical romantic drama film written and directed by Sooraj Barjatya and produced by Rajshri Productions. The film stars Madhuri Dixit and Salman Khan and celebrates Indian wedding traditions by means of a story of a married couple and the relationship between their families; a story about sacrificing one's love for one's family. The basic plot is based on studio's earlier film Nadiya Ke Paar (1982), which was based on Keshav Prasad Mishra's Hindi novel Kohbar Ki Shart. The film features music by Raamlaxman who also composed a 14-song soundtrack, an unusually large number of songs for that period.

Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! released on 5 August 1994, and became the highest-grossing film of the year, having grossed between ₹2 billion (US$63.8 million)  and ₹2.5 billion (US$million) worldwide, It also became the highest-grossing Indian film at the time of its release. It contributed to a change in the Indian film industry, with new methods of distribution and a turn towards less violent stories. It was the first film to gross over ₹1 billion in India, and when adjusted for inflation, is the highest-grossing Indian film of the 1990s and also one of the highest-earning Bollywood films ever. Box Office India described it as "the biggest blockbuster of the modern era."

At the 42nd National Film Awards, Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! won two awards, including the Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. At the 40th Filmfare Awards, the film received a leading 13 nominations, and won five awards, including Best Film, Best Director (Barjatya), Best Actress (Dixit) and Special Award (Lata Mangeshkar for "Didi Tera Devar Deewana"). It also won six awards at the newly-introduced Screen Awards.

Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! is considered as one of the most influential films in the Indian film industry as well as in pop culture. It made a lasting impact on wedding celebrations in India, which often include songs and games from the film. It is credited as being a defining moment in Hindi cinema's box office history, and the beginning of a revolution in the Indian film distribution system.

Plot
Orphaned brothers Prem and Rajesh live with their uncle Kailashnath. Rajesh manages the family business and his family is on the look-out for a suitable bride for him. One day, Kailashnath meets his college friend, Siddharth Chaudhary, who is now a professor, after several years. Siddharth and his wife Madhukala have two daughters named Pooja and Nisha. Siddharth and Kailashnath arrange marriage between Rajesh and Pooja. From their first meeting, Nisha and Prem start bickering lightheartedly with each other and the fun and mischief continue throughout Pooja and Rajesh's wedding.

Prem has an amicable relationship with Rajesh’s warm-hearted sister-in-law Nisha. In time, Pooja and Rajesh realise their love for each other and it is revealed that Pooja is expecting a child. Siddharth and Madhukala are unable to come to Kailashnath's house for the ceremony marking the impending arrival of the baby. They send Nisha instead, who is present at the birth. Meanwhile, Nisha and Prem fall in love with each other, but keep it a secret. Siddharth and Madhukala come over to Kailashnath's house to celebrate the birth of their grandchild. When the time comes to part, their hosts are dejected, especially Prem. He and Nisha promise each other that they will soon reunite forever.

Pooja is invited to stay at her parents' house and Prem takes her there. When they arrive, Pooja learns that Prem and Nisha are in love and gives Nisha a necklace as a token, promising to get them married. Shortly afterward, Pooja accidentally slips, falling down from the stairs, and eventually dies from a head injury. Everybody is shattered by the tragedy.

Nisha takes good care of Pooja and Rajesh's son. Hence, Siddharth and Kailashnath feel that Nisha will be a great mother to the baby. They decide to have Nisha marry Rajesh. Nisha overhears Siddharth and Madhukala talking about her marriage into Kailashnath's family and thinks that they are discussing her marriage to Prem, to which she agrees. Later, at a pre-nuptial ceremony, she finds out that she is actually going to marry Rajesh.

Prem and Nisha vow to sacrifice their love for Rajesh and the son. Moments before the wedding, Nisha asks Prem's dog Tuffy to give Prem the necklace that Pooja had given her, along with a letter. Tuffy exits Nisha's room and instead of taking the letter to Prem, delivers it to Rajesh. Rajesh reads the letter and realises that Prem and Nisha love each other. Subsequently, he confronts both Nisha and Prem. In the end, Nisha and Prem marry each other with the consent of their families.

Production
Director/writer Sooraj Barjatya devoted one year and nine months to write the screenplay of Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!. He spent the first five months trying to write another Maine Pyar Kiya, but then started over after his father Rajkumar Barjatya suggested that he rework one of the family company Rajshri Productions earlier offerings. Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! then became a loose adaptation of their 1982 production Nadiya Ke Paar. Barjatya used musical numbers to avoid treating some situations in a cliché manner, which resulted in so many songs that there were complaints during initial screenings of the film concerning its length and number of songs. Barjayta's grandfather, company founder Tarachand Barjatya, loved the song "Dhiktana" so much that the film was nearly given that title. Barjatya later told India Abroad, "My attempt in this movie has been to re-expose the cinema-going public to the quintessential family life... not to make people feel that they have come to see a movie, but make them feel as if they have come to visit a big joint family that is preparing for a wedding". The story was constructed differently than what was popular at the time. There were no villains, violence, or battles between good and evil. From conception to finished product, the film took four years. Madhuri Dixit was paid a salary of ₹27540000 for playing Nisha.

The producers/distributors exercised a higher than normal level of control over their work. There was a limited release, a new form of television publicity, safeguards against video piracy, and a delay in the releasing of video tapes.

Music
The soundtrack for Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! was composed by Raamlaxman (original name Vijay Patil) who had earlier given music for Rajshri's Maine Pyar Kiya, with lyrics by Ravinder Rawal and Dev Kohli. It was produced under the Sa Re Ga Ma label which at that time was known as HMV (short for His Master's Voice) and featured veteran playback singers such as Lata Mangeshkar, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Shailendra Singh and Sharda Sinha. Raamlaxman had about 50 sessions with the director Barjatya during scripting. The finished soundtrack included an unusually large number of songs at 14 (15, if we count the sad version of the song "Mujhse Juda Hokar" which appears in the movie, but not on the music album), plus the song "Hasta Hua Noorani Chehra" (from the film Parasmani (1963)), that was used when the characters play a game. The track "Didi Tera Devar Deewana" is said to be inspired by Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's song "Saare Nabian". The song became one of the most popular film songs ever, and was on the charts for over a year. The soundtrack was highly successful upon release, becoming the highest-selling Bollywood soundtrack of the year, and one of the top sellers of the 1990s, with 12million units sold. It was ranked at number 29 on the list of all-time best-selling Bollywood soundtracks by Planet Bollywood.

Release
Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! premiered at Liberty Cinema in South Mumbai on 5 August 1994; it eventually ran there for over 100 weeks. The film initially saw a very limited release, also showing at the Regal and Eros theatres, with only 26 prints total. Eventually, it started to appear in many more theatres. When initial viewers complained about the film's length, 2 of the 14 song sequences were removed. These were later restored when film goers were found to enjoy all of the songs. Early reviewers of Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! predicted that it would be a huge flop; hence the industry was stunned when it went on to become the most successful film of all time up to that point.

Box office
Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! is one of the biggest grossers ever in the history of Indian cinema, and is said to have changed film business forever in the country. Made on a budget of around ₹42.5 million (US$million), it grossed over ₹700 million in its first 20 weeks, becoming the highest-grossing film in India up until then. Within 18 weeks, it grossed over ₹10 million in every territory it released, a feat previously achieved by Sholay (1975) and Coolie (1983). It went on to gross an estimated ₹1.75 billion in India, making it the first to gross over ₹1 billion. Box Office India gave it the verdict "All Time Blockbuster", and described it as "the biggest blockbuster of the modern era." Much of the success was due to repeat business. For example, painter M. F. Husain was reported to have seen the film over 60 times. The film's domestic net income was ₹725 million, which adjusted for inflation is equivalent to ₹7.11 billion (US$million), making it the highest-grossing Hindi film in India since Sholay. Hum Aapke Hain Koun sold 74million tickets in India, giving it the highest domestic footfalls of any Hindi film released since the 1990s.

The film was also dubbed into the Telugu-language and released with the title Premalayam and was very successful there, running for more than 200 days in theatres. The film earned about inr 200000000 abroad in overseas markets.

Worldwide, the film grossed over US$63.8 million (₹billion) in its first year, for which it was awarded the Guinness World Record for "Highest grossing Indian movie". By 1996, the film's total worldwide gross had crossed ₹2 billion (US$million), with total estimates going up to ₹2.5 billion (US$million).

Critical reception
India Abroad called it a "cloyingly familial and touchingly sad melodrama replete with typical Indian social situations". Tripat Narayanan of New Straits Times criticised the plot as "paper-thin" and the climax scenes as clichéd, but said Barajiya handled them so well that Shahane's "smiling bride face is immortalised as an epitome of goodness." He appreciated the performances of Dixit and Lagoo, concluding that "what really holds the film together is the editing."

Redo, an Indian Spitz, received favourable recognition as Tuffy the dog. He was included in the "Best Pets in Hindi films" list compiled by Daily News and Analysis. After the film, Redo was reportedly adopted by Dixit.

Accolades
Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. The film received a leading 13 nominations at the 40th Filmfare Awards, and won 5 awards including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actress, making it one of the biggest winners of the year. Lata Mangeshkar, who sang more than 10 songs in the film, had long retired from accepting awards, but the public demand for the song "Didi Tera Devar Deewana" was such that she received the Filmfare Special Award that year. The film also won major awards at the newly-introduced Screen Awards, where it won six awards.

Analysis
Author Kovid Gupta classified Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! as a film that bridges the gap between traditionalism and modernity. He discussed the songs of the films in particular, and the "manifestation of romance under the acceptance and blessings of the family, in specific, the elder sister-in-law". Patricia Uberoi called the film a family film in two ways; it is about family relationships, and it is suitable for the entire family to watch. She said that the film is not about the two leads, but about the family, an ideal family. Tejaswini Ganti has called the film a "paean to filial duty" for how the children are willing to sacrifice their love for the good of their families. The family relationships are also noted for being different from the normal cinematic families of the time due to their mutual civility.

Rediff.com noted that "Though the film was initially dismissed as a wedding video, its success indicated that post-liberalisation, Indian audiences still clung to the comfort of the familiar." Jigna Desai said that the film's popularity was due to interactions of the families around the traditional folk wedding practices. In his study on the response to the film, academic Vamsee Juluri concluded that the celebration of the family is HAHK's "most useful contribution to history".

Legacy and influence
Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! is credited as being a defining moment in Hindi cinema's box office history, and the beginning of a revolution in the Indian film distribution system. When it was released, cinema was in decline in India due to improved cable television, home video, and film piracy. The film was originally released in only a small number of theatres that agreed to upgrade their facilities. Due to widespread demand for the film, many other theatres upgraded in order to get the film. Although ticket prices were raised, the upgraded theatres brought people back who had been lost to television. Also, the film's lack of vulgarity was a sign to middle-class family patrons that they could return to the theatre. This film, in addition to the following year's Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, contributed to an increase in Indian cinema attendance of 40% in just two years.

The film was so successful that it literally gave the term blockbuster new meaning in India. Box Office India said, "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! [...] took business for films released afterwards to another level. To put into perspective how business changed [...] before Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! an all India share of 10 crore for a big film was regarded as blockbuster business but after Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! the blockbuster business figure went to 20 crore."

Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! influenced many subsequent Hindi films. The film was also a trendsetter for glamorous family dramas and NRI-related films, and started Bollywood's "big-fat-wedding-film" trend. In 1998 a theatre company in London, where the film had played for a year, staged a production based on the film titled Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral. Planet Bollywood has noted that no wedding is complete without some songs from this film, and it has been used as a script to design wedding plans. For years afterwards, women wanted to wear a purple sari like the one worn by Madhuri Dixit in the song "Didi Tera Devar Deewana".

It also influenced many filmmakers such as Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar. Karan Johar named it as the one film that changed his life. He said, "After seeing Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! I realized Indian cinema is about values, tradition, subtlety, romance. There is so much soul in it. [...] I decided to go ahead and be a filmmaker only after watching this film." Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! belongs to a small collection of films, including Kismet (1943), Mother India (1957), Mughal-e-Azam (1960) and Sholay (1975), which are repeatedly watched throughout India and are viewed as definitive Hindi films with cultural significance.

On April 24, 2021, production house, Rashmi Sharma Telefilms, announced that they would be remaking the film version into a show version which will air on StarPlus and Hotstar soon. She announced that the storyline will be the same as the film version.

title: Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michelle Carew-Gibson

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was No consensus (kept). -- Jonel | Speak 06:08, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Michelle Carew-Gibson
Another non-notable evictee from the Big Brother (Australian TV series). Any controversy she caused was mere hype originating from the shows producers itself. At best this is a redirect back to the main article. -- Longhair | Talk 18:10, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge to Big Brother (Australian TV series). Sonic Mew 18:14, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge into the BB article or an article about the season. Brighterorange 18:44, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Scimitar's Law: As the number of reality TV show contestants approach infinity, the notability of reality TV show contestants approach zero, as represented by the formula N(notability)= 1/n (number of people). --Scimitar 19:06, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete: There is no importance to this, and there is no brouhaha that will be remembered by most folks longer than a single case of constipation. Geogre 19:09, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, no point merging bio articles of this size. Kappa 19:39, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, no one will want to read about her in a month's, or even a week's time. Not even worth merging. MrHate 00:28, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge with main article. The main claim to fame is whether or not she had sex during her final week on the program. See Capitalistroadster 00:59, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep I can see Kappa's point on this. JamesBurns 07:00, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge per Sonic Mew. Radiant_ >|< 09:36, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete entry, maybe list the name as an early evictee contestant on Big Brother (Australian TV series).--Takver 01:45, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Ambi 07:48, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep It is not a stub and has a bit of information. Would be a waste to delete. — Peter McGinley 09:18, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge, nothing particularly useful that doesn't belong in the main article. Alphax τεχ 06:28, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages.  Please do not edit this page .

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


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La Aldea de San Nicolás

La Aldea de San Nicolás is the westernmost municipality of the island of Gran Canaria in the Las Palmas province of the Canary Islands. Its full name was, until 2005, La Aldea de San Nicolás de Tolentino, and the locals simply call it La Aldea. Its population is 8,228 (2013), and the area is 123.58 km2. Its elevation is about 33m.

La Aldea de San Nicolás is located about 38 km southwest of the island capital Las Palmas. It is situated among forested mountain valleys overlooking the Atlantic, and most families work on the tomato-farms, as well as growing potatoes and other vegetables and fruits, irrigated by reservoirs that collect winter rain. Tourism is also a significant industry, though not as much as in the South of the island.

San Nicolás is the birthplace of Román Rodríguez Rodríguez, President of the Canary Islands from 1999 to 2003.

title: La Aldea de San Nicolás


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Martin Jahn

Martin Jahn (born 21 January 1970) is a Czech economist, politician and top manager. He served as Deputy Prime Minister of the Czech Republic for Economic Policy from August 2004 to December 2005. Since 2006 he has been working in top management positions for Volkswagen Group in various countries.

Career
He graduated from the Faculty of International Relations at the University of Economics, Prague and joined CzechInvest, a governmental agency supporting foreign companies to invest in the Czech Republic. In 1997, he started managing the organisation's office in Chicago, where he studied at DePaul University and received an MBA. In 1999, he became the CEO of CzechInvest. During his time at CzechInvest, the agency had attracted some of the major foreign direct investments, such as the new automotive plant TPCA in Kolin or several IT and shared service centers, such as IBM in Brno and DHL in Prague. Under his leadership, CzechInvest was awarded the European investment promotion agency award.

In the summer of 2004, Jahn was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister for economic policy in the government of Stanislav Gross. After Gross' resignation, Jahn remained in Jiří Paroubek's government at the same position. In May 2005, he proposed a new economic agenda, by which he claimed the Czech Republic could catch up with western countries of the European Union in eight years. The agenda included the liberalisation of the public finance sector and tax policy, and the introduction of fees at universities. In his government function he also served as a chairman of the Council for human resources development and the government council for the support of research, development and innovations. He modernized the government support system, including accelerated depreciation for company investments into R&D.

In 2006, Martin Jahn joined Volkswagen Group. After being the Škoda Auto Board Member for HR Management from 2006 to 2008, he was appointed Managing Director of Volkswagen Group NSC (national sales company) in Moscow, Russia where he was responsible for Group Brand Sales. From 2010 to 2016, he was the Managing Director of Volkswagen Group Fleet International in Wolfsburg, Germany where his key responsibility was to manage the Volkswagen Group’s global corporate sales. In 2016, he moved to Changchun, China to take over as Executive Vice President for Sales & Marketing and Managing Director of the Volkswagen Brand at FAW-VW. With Martin Jahn as Vice President, FAW-VW has built a firm position in China’s SUV market and successfully introduced and developed the Volkswagen brand’s Jetta while promoting numerous business digitisation initiatives.

Personal life
Jahn was made a member of the French Ordre National du Mérite. As well as his native Czech, he also speaks English, German, Russian and French. He is married to his wife Karolina since 1991 and together they have 4 daughters.

authors: Monty Pepper's flying lonely hearts club circus

title: Martin Jahn


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Pêro Vaz de Caminha

Pêro or Pero Vaz de Caminha (c. 1450 – 15 December 1500; ; also spelled Pedro Vaz de Caminha) was a Portuguese knight that accompanied Pedro Álvares Cabral to India in 1500 as a secretary to the royal factory. Caminha wrote the detailed official report of the April 1500 discovery of Brazil by Cabral's fleet (Carta de Pêro Vaz de Caminha, dated 1 May 1500). He died in a riot in Calicut, India, at the end of that year.

Biography
Pêro Vaz de Caminha was the son of Vasco Fernandes de Caminha, a knight of the household of the Duke of Guimarães (later Braganza). His ancestors were among the first settlers of Neiva during the reign of Ferdinand I (r.1367–83). On 8 March 1476, Pêro Vaz de Caminha was appointed mestre da balança (master of the scale) of the royal mint of Porto, one of the many positions held by his father at the time. The appointment letter, which characterized Pêro Vaz as a knight of the royal household, was written from Toro, suggesting that Pêro Vaz had accompanied King Afonso V of Portugal on a campaign against Castile, and probably participated in the Battle of Toro (2 March 1476). In 1497, he was chosen to write, as Alderman, the Chapters of the Porto City Council, to be presented to the Cortes of Lisbon.

In 1500, Pêro Vaz de Caminha, already at an advanced age, was appointed as secretary of the factory projected to be built in Calicut, India, under the designated royal factor Aires Correia. Correia and Caminha sailed aboard the flagship of the 2nd India armada under Pedro Álvares Cabral that set out from Lisbon in March 1500. Charting a wide arc in the South Atlantic, the armada stumbled on the landmass of Brazil on 22 April 1500, and anchored near Porto Seguro, Bahia. After about a week of idling on the beach and interacting with the local Tupiniquim natives, the fleet prepared to resume their journey to India.

Before departing, Cabral instructed Pêro Vaz de Caminha to write a letter to King Manuel I of Portugal, officially reporting the discovery of this new land – or island, as they initially believed. Caminha's letter (Carta de Pêro Vaz de Caminha) gives a detailed report of the expedition up to that point, and of the new land and people they had discovered. Caminha's letter is dated 1 May and signed from the location of "deste Porto Seguro da vossa ilha da Vera Cruz" ("this Safe Harbor of your island of the True Cross"), the name Cabral bestowed in honor of Feast of the Cross (3 May in the liturgical calendar).

Caminha's official report and an additional separate letter by the astronomer-physician Mestre João Faras, were given to one of Cabral's captains (either Gaspar de Lemos or André Gonçalves, sources conflict). who set sail back to Portugal on a supply ship they had brought along. The rest of the fleet left Brazil on 3 May 1500, in the direction of the Cape of Good Hope and then onto India.

Pêro Vaz de Caminha's letter is often celebrated as the "birth certificate" of Brazil, although given the secrecy with which the Kingdom of Portugal has always involved reports of its discoveries, it was only published in the nineteenth century by Father Manuel Aires de Casal in his Corografia Brasílica.

The 2nd Armada arrived on the Malabar Coast of India in September 1500, and the factory was promptly set up in Calicut (Calecute, Kozhikode). Caminha, the factory's secretary, assumed his duties there. However, a conflict soon arose between the Portuguese traders and the established Arab merchant guilds in the city. Finding little vent for their trade goods, the Portuguese suspected the Arabs were colluding to shut them out of the city's spice markets by organizing a boycott. The ruling Zamorin of Calicut refused to intervene, prompting the frustrated factor Aires Correia to take matters into his own hands. In late December 1500, after the Portuguese set about seizing the spice cargoes of Arab boats in the harbor, a riot erupted on the piers. Calicut mobs overran the Portuguese factory, killing every Portuguese they could get their hands on. Some fifty to seventy Portuguese perished in the riot – including the factor Aires Correia and, it is commonly supposed, the factory's secretary Pêro Vaz de Caminha.

In a royal letter dated 3 December 1501, King Manuel I of Portugal appointed Caminha's grandson, Rodrigo d'Osouro, to his grandfather's post at the Porto mint, noting explicitly that Pêro Vaz de Caminha had "died in India".

title: Pêro Vaz de Caminha


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Nicolau Coelho

Nicolau Coelho (c. 1460, in Felgueiras – 1502, off the coast of Mozambique) was an expert Portuguese navigator and explorer during the Age of Discovery. He participated in the discovery of the route to India by Vasco da Gama where he commanded Berrio, the first caravel to return; was captain of a ship in the fleet headed by Pedro Álvares Cabral who landed in Brazil. He died at sea, possibly off the coast of Mozambique, while returning from India in the 5th Portuguese Armada with Francisco de Albuquerque.

Biography
Nicolau Coelho (c. 1460–1502) was presumably born in Felgueiras in northern Portugal. He was the son of Pedro Coelho and either Luísa de Góis or Inês de Ataíde, depending on the genealogical source. He married Brites Rodrigues de Brito sometime before 1495 and had several children: Nicolau, Francisco, Joana, Jorge, and Leonor.

Nicolau Coelho was a Portuguese explorer and one of the three captains (along with Paulo da Gama and Gonçalo Nunes) who accompanied Vasco da Gama in the Discovery of the sea route to India on 8 July 1497. He was the captain of the Berrio during this exploration and had as his navigator, Pêro Escobar. He was the first of Gama's captains to reach Mozambique, and establish contact with the sultan of Quiloa. He was also the first of Gama's armada to arrive in Lisbon, on 10 July 1499 where King Manuel I of Portugal bestowed to him a pension of 50,000 reis per year, 30,000 in interest for his lands and his descendants and a new coat of arms. He was made Knight of the Royal House (Cavaleiro da Casa Real) that same year.

On 9 March 1500 he accompanied Pedro Álvares Cabral in the discovery of Brazil being one of the captains of the fleet of 13 ships. After landing in Brazil, the fleet resumed their voyage east on 3 May 1500, whereupon they were struck by a great storm near the Cape of Good Hope, losing 4 vessels. They continued with stops in modern-day Mozambique, Kenya, and Tanzania before finally reaching Calicut in India on 13 September 1500. The fleet returned to Lisbon on 23 June 1501. Cabral arrived back home with only 4 of the original 13 ships. Coelho left Portugal for a third time on 14 April 1503, as captain of the "Faial" with the armada of Afonso de Albuquerque, but died while returning home to Portugal in January 1504 along with Francisco de Albuquerque, Afonso's cousin, near the shallows of São Lázaro, modern-day Quirimbas Islands, Mozambique.

title: Nicolau Coelho


text:
Talk:Jack Welch

Propose cutting a little
I've reorganized the "LEGACY" segment and added a little sourced matieral to update the thing and add perspective.

The little bit I want to cut is below:

An article from The New York Times highlights the fact that General Electric after the era of Jack Welch is more focused on core businesses after a spin-off of its North America retail finance business. After selling a fraction of its business, Immelt planned, as of 2014, to use the proceeds to build the capital as a "standalone company", resulting in "a boost for shareholders".[90]

Please mention here any objection -- which are fine. 2601:405:4A80:8CE0:0:0:0:8AEE (talk) 01:02, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

NYT
From a couple days ago, I haven't looked at it yet. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/21/business/jack-welch-ge-ceo-behavior.html 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:738F (talk) 12:52, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

 * Just read it. "How Jack Welch’s Reign at G.E. Gave Us Elon Musk’s Twitter Feed; The onetime ‘manager of the century’ paved the way for C.E.O.s to moonlight as internet trolls." By David Gelles, a Times reporter, author of “The Man Who Broke Capitalism.” New York Times, May 21, 2022.
 * This Wikipedia entry is pretty good. This NYT story covers roughly the same material, sometimes confirming and sometimes taking a slightly different perspective -- for example, Gelles says that Welch's proteges at Boeing turned Boeing from an engineering company into a financial company, which resulted in the 737 Max disasters. Welch's critics say that his changes destroyed the culture of American industry, sacrificed workers and the local economies -- and didn't even provide a good return for their investors. --Nbauman (talk) 16:04, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Bad source
Note 17: https://web.archive.org/web/20160315154648/http://jpkc.uibe.edu.cn/jingpin/jpkc2004/courses/eng451j/download/gjswja10.pdf

I don't immediately see what it is, but can see "how" it is. Not reasonable. 2602:252:D6A:B2C0:E4BB:4952:6F37:F702 (talk) 22:45, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Improper deletion?
This was deleted with comment that it was from "non-scholarly source."
 * In 2022, a New York Times business reporter whose book on Welch had recently been published, said, metaphorically, that Welch is "on the Mount Rushmore of men who screwed up this country."

The source citation is a "blog" transcript or whatever, in which Anand Giridharadas interviews David Gelles a NYT reporter and columnist concerning his book “The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Stole the Soul of Corporate America — and How to Undo His Legacy,” published by Simon & Schuster in 2022.

Yeah not a "scholarly" source -- although neither are most other sources cited in this article. 2602:252:D6A:B2C0:7DC2:BE23:796E:4F87 (talk) 17:17, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I see your point; the reversion edit comment is not a good one because a source does not have to be scholarly to be reliable. But I have to agree with the reversion itself. Anand Giridharadas can really publish anything he wants to (true, false, or a mixture) in his blog without anyone fact-checking him and consequently that blog is not, in general, a reliable source for Wikipedia.  The relevant policy is WP:RS and in particular WP:USERGENERATED.
 * Dieter.Meinertzhagen (talk) 04:48, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps that's "fair enough" (although in this actual instance, it's a silly point. I'll substitute comparable material from Gelles book, or from a review of his book published on a non-blog. 2602:252:D6A:B2C0:412:E915:BB18:E5D5 (talk) 21:14, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Long Term Effects of GE Policy and Practice
More attention needs to be focused on the long term economic effects of Welch's management theories. Welch was credited with saying that he supported the working class, but at GE everyone below the rank of department manager were treated like disposable furniture. The elimination of thousands of hourly and non-exempt jobs contributed to the short term misery of many people. Non-management salary exempt employees were at risk as well. This destruction of the working and middle class was the opposite process by which our economy grew after WWII. And when other companies followed GE's example it started a downward spiral from which our economy may not recover. As for improving productivity.

It seems that arbitrarily trimming ten percent of headcount does not cause people to try to excel, but rather to exhibit behaviors which create division and distrust within the organization. Also, decreasing headcount at an arbitrary rate, while it does reduce costs, is like losing weight by cutting off parts of your body. It has been observed that reducing staff and the associated threat caused only a temporary increase in productivity. Until exhaustion overcomes fear. 50.51.247.214 (talk) 02:58, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Runway
i have read that jack welch choose the executives on the basis of runway 110.224.240.66 (talk) 20:17, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Early life
This sentence makes no sense, may have been subject to an edit:

"Welch attended Salem High School, where he participated in baseball, football, and captained the hockey team and became second lieutenant right after graduating."

Second lieutenant of what? Assuming it is some branch of the military it seems very unlikely that he would be given that rank straight out of high school. MyIP19216811 (talk) 17:08, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

 * Concur. Looks like it was added here by a IP in Pakistan in 2022, inserted into the existing high school summary without an additional source. The "Gut" biography material does not mention any military service or "lieutenant" anything - just a passing mention of a possible ROTC scholarship that the Navy declined. I'm going to remove it for now, since the addition was pretty sketchy. No objections if someone has a better source and can re-word it in way that makes sense. Sam Kuru (talk) 17:30, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Jack Welch


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Jazeera Airways

Jazeera Airways K.S.C (طيران الجزيرة) is a Kuwaiti low-cost airline with its head office on the grounds of Kuwait International Airport in Al Farwaniyah Governorate, Kuwait. It operates scheduled services in the Middle East, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Europe. Its main base is Kuwait International Airport. The airline has grown since its launch to become Kuwait's second national airline. Jazeera Airways is one of the largest operators at Kuwait airport, having handled a quarter of all aircraft movements and passengers at the airport during July 2009. According to the July 2009 report issued by Kuwait Directorate General for Civil Aviation's, Jazeera Airways had the largest number of aircraft movement in the month with 1834 take-offs and landings, overpassing the second-largest carrier in aircraft movement by 4%.

History
In 2004 the Kuwait Government permitted the establishment of the non-governmental airline firm, essentially ending Kuwait's 50-year-old dependency on Kuwait Airways. The 2004 Emiree Decree #89 established Jazeera Airways as the first airline to enter this newly liberalized industry. Jazeera Airways raised its capital of KD 10 million (US$35 million) through an initial public offering in Kuwait that was oversubscribed 12 times. The capital was doubled to KD 20 million (US$70 million) in 4Q 2007 by a second offering to existing shareholders. In May 2009, a share distribution of 10% effectively increased the capital to KD 22 million (US$77 million).

About 26% of the airline is owned by two companies affiliated with the Boodai Group: Wings Finance (9%) and Boodai Projects (17%). 6-7% is also held by Jasem M. al-Mousa Trading, a company owned by a former Minister of Public Works in the first Kuwaiti government established after the end of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. About 17.5% is held by two real estate companies, and the rest is publicly held.

Jazeera Airways started operations on 30 October 2005 with a fleet of brand new Airbus A320 aircraft, all leather seats, flying to several destinations in the Middle East.

In Q2 2009, UAE authorities requested the airline to terminate its hub operations in Dubai. This step was seen as a support to Dubai's upcoming launch of its own low-cost airline, FlyDubai. Jazeera changed its operation model by concentrating on its Kuwait hub and trying to launch a second hub somewhere else. By Q2 2010, the new model proved unprofitable as the Kuwait hub suffered from overcapacity. The airline changed its plans by cancelling many stations and parking some aircraft which were later returned to lessor.

Destinations
Jazeera Airways flies to destinations across the Middle East and Europe from its base in Kuwait. Since 2018, the company has expanded its available routes.

In October 2019, Jazeera Airways launched its first flight to London, bringing the first new service from Kuwait to the UK in 55 years. It operates the flight to London Gatwick Airport's South Terminal with its newest A320neo aircraft.

On 24 February 2021, the airline started flying to Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Dedicated terminal
In 2018, Jazeera Airways opened its own dedicated terminal at Kuwait International Airport. The facility is claimed to be the first owned, built and operated by a private airline in the Middle East. It features a dedicated check-in hall for Jazeera passengers, a business class lounge, direct access to Jazeera boarding gates, and a car park with 350 spaces connected by a sky bridge.

Fleet
The Jazeera Airways fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of July 2023):

The last of the A320s was delivered by Airbus on 9 January 2010.

The airline's fleet is powered by CFM56-5B engines. All Jazeera Airways aircraft are fitted with 165 leather seats, and split into two cabins: Jazeera and Jazeera Business. When Jazeera business is offered, six seats are removed to provide 12 Plus seats in addition to 147 Economy seats.

Jazeera Airways ordered 30 Airbus A320s on 18 June 2007. This was announced at the Paris Air Show bringing its total orders up to 35 Airbus A320s.

During 2010, due to the airline's change of operation plans, several aircraft were parked, and eventually, five were returned to lessor Sahaab which subsequently leased them to Virgin America and SriLankan Airlines.

In April 2011, Jazeera Airways canceled 25 of the 40 A320s it ordered in 2007. Jazeera took delivery of four A320s still on order from 2012 to 2014.

In 2018, Jazeera Airways took delivery of the first Airbus A320neo aircraft in the Middle East and employed it on their Dubai route. In September 2019 Jazeera also planned to order the A321LR. They also started their longest A320 family route which is 6 hours from its hub in Kuwait to London Gatwick.

Cabins
The airline offers business and economy class seating. The economy class seating has leather seats and shareable TV screens. Business-class seats have leather seats and personal TV screens and two seats per row.

Jazeera Airways is one of the few airlines which does not serve alcoholic beverages on its flights.

Incidents
On 2 August 2018, Jazeera flight (J9 608) from Kuwait caught fire in its right engine on landing at Hyderabad. All 145 passengers were evacuated safely and the fire was extinguished.

title: Jazeera Airways


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Tsuru University

Tsuru University (都留文科大学 Tsuru Bunka Daigaku, literally Tsuru University of Humanities) is a small municipal university located in Tsuru City, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. The university has around 3,000 students and 85 faculty. The campus rises into the mountains overlooking the 35,000 residents of Tsuru City.

History
The university was first created by Yamanashi Prefecture in 1953 as the Temporary School for Teacher Training.

In 1955, Tsuru City renamed the facility Tsuru Municipal Junior College to reflect the expanded programming being offered. The school curriculum consisted of two courses: Teacher Training for Primary School Education and Commerce. In 1960, the college was reorganized into a four-year university and became Tsuru University. The curriculum emphasized a liberal arts education overseen by a Faculty of Humanities.

Many alumni have gone on to become teachers all over Japan.

Japanese Studies Program
Tsuru University inaugurated its Japanese Studies in Tsuru (JST) Program in 1998 under an agreement with the University of California as a part of bilateral efforts to promote friendly relations and academic exchange between the two universities. This program is administered by Professor Mineko Takiguchi. Every semester, an average of 10 UC students have the opportunity to take classes in Japanese language and culture. In exchange, Tsuru students are able to compete for the chance to study at any of the UC campuses.

The first international contact came about in 1978 when then-student Masanori Sakaguchi (currently retired school principal in Wakayama Prefecture) invited an Asian-American friend to stay with him and to tour the campus. Thus sparked a greater interest by many in the student body in international relations.

Undergraduate courses

 * Faculty of Humanities
 * Department of Teacher Education
 * Japanese Literature
 * English Literature
 * Sociology
 * Comparative Culture
 * Global Education

Graduate courses

 * Graduate School of Humanities (Master Courses only)
 * Clinical Pedagogy
 * Japanese Literature
 * English Literature
 * Sociology
 * Comparative Culture

title: Tsuru University


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User:Knutson

I am model, musicant, writer and probably artists(learning) from Calgary, Canada. It should be said that most of my activity is done in Europe; I do modeling in Milan, writing and music in Amsterdam, and sometimes visiting my family back in North America. I hope to have an article about me here some day, but I have not done anything THAT big yet, so I will be editing other people's article for a while.

My website is under construction but could be I will post a link to my temporary page for while. But note: my parameters are all screwed up there.

title: User:Knutson


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Feeling B

Feeling B was a punk rock band founded in East Berlin in 1983. They started out firmly grounded in the underground punk scene. Over time, Feeling B's popularity grew greatly, and climaxed around the end of the German Democratic Republic.

Frontman Aljoscha Rompe (1947–2000), a Swiss living in East Berlin, supplied the vocals to the band's songs. Rompe, guitarist Paul Landers, and keyboardist Christian "Flake" Lorenz were the only consistent members throughout the band's history. At various times, the band included bassist Christoph Zimmermann and drummers Alexander Kriening and Christoph "Doom" Schneider. Landers, Lorenz, and Schneider later found fame with Rammstein.

First Arsch drummer and future Rammstein singer Till Lindemann participated once with Feeling B for the song "Lied von der unruhevollen Jugend", an interpretation of a Russian communist song, for which he is credited on the album Hea Hoa Hoa Hea Hea Hoa. Landers contributed guitar to First Arsch's 1992 album Saddle Up. Lindemann and Landers, as members of Rammstein, performed this song live in St. Petersburg and Moscow in 2001, during that band's 'Mutter' tour.

On 9 November 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, Feeling B was performing in West Berlin as part of a gig endorsed by the socialist government in order to promote the eastern side. Flake noticed some friends among the crowd that wouldn't normally be able to be there and was informed of the collapse of the wall. The band was unable to return home that night because all the holes through the wall were so crowded.

Feeling B released two albums following the fall of the Wall, Wir kriegen Euch alle in 1991 and Die Maske des Roten Todes in 1993, both more successful than their predecessor, according to Flake.

The group disbanded in the mid-1990s. On special occasions, the band members got together for individual concerts at punk festivals, until Rompe died in November 2000 of an asthma attack at 53 years old. Zimmermann died in a plane crash in 1999. Eventually, Lorenz re-discovered tapes of old and partial unreleased recordings. This unreleased material and remixes of some already known songs were released as Grün & Blau in 2007.

Members

 * Aljoscha Rompe – lead-vocals
 * Christian "Flake" Lorenz – keyboards
 * Paul Landers – electric guitar
 * Alexander Kriening – drums, percussion (1983-1990)
 * Christoph Zimmermann – bass guitar
 * Christoph "Doom" Schneider – drums (1990–1993, 2007)

Discography

 * Hea Hoa Hoa Hea Hea Hoa (1989)
 * Wir kriegen Euch alle (1991)
 * Die Maske des Roten Todes (1993)
 * Grün & Blau (2007)

title: Feeling B


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Leonard Stern

Leonard Stern may refer to:

 * Leonard B. Stern (1923–2011), American television producer, director and writer
 * Leonard N. Stern (born 1938), American business executive
 * Leonard J. Stern, Ohio Supreme Court judge

title: Leonard Stern


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Category:Airlines of Kuwait

See also: List of airlines and List of defunct airlines

title: Category:Airlines of Kuwait


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2005 Parti Québécois leadership election

The Parti Québécois leadership election of 2005 was held from November 13 to November 15, 2005 to elect the new leader of the Parti Québécois, the main sovereigntist and social democratic political party in Quebec, Canada.

It was the second race of its kind in the history of the party, following the leadership election of 1985. It was conducted in two rounds, under a preferential voting system. Former Minister André Boisclair was elected at the first round ballot with 53.7% of votes from party members, making him the first openly gay leader of a major political party in North America, and one of the first in the world.

Background
On June 4, 2005, party leader Bernard Landry announced his intention to resign as leader of the PQ after getting 76.2% in a vote of confidence in his leadership from delegates to the party National Council. The party appointed Louise Harel as its interim leader. Gilles Duceppe, leader of the federal-level sovereigntist political party, the Bloc Québécois, was expected to be a strong candidate if he had decided to run. On June 11, he however announced that he would remain leader of the Bloc despite pressure to make a bid for the leadership of the PQ.

Campaign
After months of pre-campaign, the race officially began on September 15, 2005, the official deadline for entering the race. Soon, Boisclair emerged as a favorite in the polls, with Pauline Marois second, Richard Legendre a close third and Louis Bernard fourth. The validity of these polls, much touted by the media, was however challenged by some candidate organizations since they were conducted on the whole population of Quebec, rather than the actual voter pool, the legal members of the Parti Québécois. Also criticized was the intense media focus on the four candidates leading in these said polls, leaving the ideas of the other candidates in the dark. The later were much less discussed and their opening monologues were even cut for pundit commentary in LCN live broadcastings of the official candidates' debates.

An early, albeit brief issue in the campaign was the so-called Affaire Boisclair. On September 10, 2005, Le Devoir columnist Michel David referred in his column to a relatively unnoticed past article of Le Droit alluding to rumours of André Boisclair having lived a wild younger life and taken cocaine. Boisclair initially recognized a youth of partying and mistakes. Days later, after much media pressure, he admitted to having "consumed". Ironically, this only made his popularity stronger in polling, something credited by pundits to popular sympathy in the face of the weight of the media scrutiny. The fact that Boisclair came out in 2000 on the subject of his homosexuality did not hampered his campaign either. Polls showed that more than 90% of Quebecers were not opposed to a gay Premier of Quebec. On public perceptions, Pauline Marois also raised the theory that her campaign was hurt by the fact that she was female.

Boisclair, being the frontrunner, became the target of many other candidates and their supporters. Adding to the problematic "wild past" reputation the candidate had gained from the Affaire Boisclair, some progressive militants put into question Boisclair's left-wing values. A group of most progressive candidates, Pierre Dubuc, Jean Ouimet, Gilbert Paquette and Jean-Claude St-André, soon grew closer to Marois, not only because of her experience and her safer known past, but also because of perceived stronger progressive values. Shortly before the vote, Paquette withdrew, announcing his support for Marois. The left-wing SPQ-Libre faction of the party asked the Dubuc supporters to vote for Marois as second choice, as did Ouimet. Ghislain Lebel asked his supporters to vote for Boisclair on the second ballot.

Ideas
A number of ideas were put forward by the candidates, especially during the official candidates' debates held across Quebec. Amongst others, André Boisclair expounded a debt reduction plan and spoke of free higher education provided by the state. Richard Legendre talked much of more autonomy for Quebec regions. Pauline Marois spoke of water nationalization in an eventual Eau-Québec, like what was created with Hydro-Québec for electricity during the Quiet Revolution. As part of the struggle against poverty, Dubuc, Marois, Ouimet and Paquette supported a guaranteed minimum income system.

Many candidates focused on public transportation and wind power. Lebel was noted for the humour he brought to the debates. However, his more conservative political beliefs made him a black sheep in the midst of the largely progressive slate of candidates. St-André defended the ideas of the pur et dur party stream, notably that of making gestures of rupture with the rest of Canada, which were sovereign state actions before sovereignty contrary to the Canadian constitution. The strongest consensus between all candidates was that most of these projects were possible only through national independence.

Vote
The voting was conducted by phone from November 13 to November 15, 2005 through a system used for popular votes for the Star Académie television show. The winner of the party leadership election was declared on November 15, 2005. The date was chosen in honour of the anniversary of the first electoral victory of the Parti Québécois on November 15, 1976. The election took place under a system of preferential voting in two rounds.

Public debates
The seven public debates were orchestrated by election president Lyne Marcoux. They were broadcast live via the Parti Québécois official website, pq.org, and the LCN television news channel. In order to allow substantial and orderly exchanges with such a number of people, every occasion was divided into a series of three discussions, amongst three candidates each. Candidate groupings were set at random. Additionally, for every debate, opening and closing speeches were addressed, and selected questions from the audience and the internet were debated. This selection was executed by an impartial panel led by Monique Richard, the party president.

Solidarity and public finances
The debate on solidarity and public finances took place on September 21, 2005 in Sherbrooke. On solidarity, the project of a guaranteed minimum income gathered Dubuc, Marois, Paquette and Ouimet. Boisclair said himself open to a debate on free higher education covered by the state and declared education his priority. He presented a public debt reduction plan. A fierce confrontation occurred between St-André and Boisclair when the former repeatedly challenged the latter to engage himself in fighting corporate tax evasion, which he finally did. Boisclair also defended the Zero Deficit policy of the previous Parti Québécois government of Lucien Bouchard, of which Boisclair was part.

Sustainable development and economy
The debate on sustainable development and economy took place on September 28, 2005 in Montreal. Most candidates focused on public transportation and wind power, with Marois promising water nationalization in the form of an "Eau-Québec" Crown corporation. Richard Legendre clashed with Boisclair over the latter's alleged slowness to trigger a referendum, with Boisclair supporting a referendum launched "as soon as possible during the next mandate" in line with the party's 2005 platform and Legendre advocating one within his first year in power. Legendre also criticized the way Boisclair adopted his moratorium on pigsties while being Minister of the Environment.

Culture
The debate on culture took place on October 12, 2005 in Trois-Rivières. Ouimet underlined that making sure artists never fall into the poverty gap is the way to have a healthy culture in Quebec. Candidates also discussion on the Charter of the French Language.

Sovereignty and leadership
The debate on sovereignty and leadership took place on October 19, 2005 in Quebec City. Since the method and pace of attaining independence was usually hotly debated in the party, media commentators predicted that it would be the most tumultuous of the seven. The debate was ultimately described as surprisingly non-confrontational.

Territory
The debate on territory took place on October 26, 2005 in Rimouski.

Education
The debate on education took place on November 2, 2005 in Saguenay.

Health
The debate on health took place on November 9, 2005 in Gatineau.

Official
Candidates listed have collected at least 1000 signatures from 40 different ridings, with a minimum of 10 signatures per riding. In order of official candidacy, they were:

 * Richard Legendre - Former professional tennis player and former Minister of Sports. He is considered close to François Legault. Puts forward plans of more autonomy for Quebec regions.
 * Louis Bernard - Former Chief of Staff to Parti Québécois Premier René Lévesque and former Secretary general of the Government to Parti Québécois Premiers René Lévesque and Jacques Parizeau.
 * André Boisclair - Former Minister of the Environment and House Leader. Polls show him to be the frontrunner. Notably centers his plans on education (with plans of free, state-provided higher education) and debt reduction.
 * Pauline Marois - Former Minister of Finance, former Minister of Education and former Deputy Premier of Quebec.
 * Ghislain Lebel - Former Bloc Québécois Member of Parliament who quit his seat in 2002. He is more conservative than the other candidates and the party center and advocates a more traditional form of nationalism. Wishes that the party would do more to appeal to voters of the right-wing Action démocratique du Québec.
 * Jean-Claude St-André - Parti Québécois Member of the National Assembly, considered a pur et dur close to Robert Laplante's strategy of gestures of rupture with Canada between an eventual PQ victory and the attainment of independence. Is a harsh critic of corporate tax evasion.
 * Pierre Dubuc - Official candidate of the SPQ Libre left-wing and pro-union political club and editor of the left-wing paper L'aut'journal.
 * Gilbert Paquette - Progressive former minister under René Lévesque.
 * Jean Ouimet - Former head of the Green Party of Quebec and former adviser to Parti Québécois leader Jacques Parizeau. Has plans for sustainable development, wealth distribution (national and international), participatory democracy, the elaboration of a social contract and a party direction through collegiality.

Withdrawals

 * Hugues Cormier - Physician and candidate in the riding of Crémazie in the 2003 election. Controversy brought him to pull out three days after officially entering the race.
 * Gilles Hébert - Former public service union representative.
 * Gilles Paquette - Former Parti Québécois candidate. Did not gather enough signatures in time for the deadline. Had a project of a sovereign Quebec state combining republicanism and monarchy, opposite to most of the final official candidates plans for a Quebec republic.

Declined

 * Maxime Barakat - Militant of the Parti Québécois. Subsequently, supported Pauline Marois.
 * Camil Bouchard - Member of the National Assembly. Threw his support behind Louis Bernard.
 * Jean-Pierre Charbonneau - Former cabinet minister and former President of the National Assembly.
 * Gilles Duceppe - Bloc Québécois leader. He declined, notably to honor his promise of contesting the next federal election at the BQ helm.
 * Joseph Facal - Former cabinet minister considered more centrist than other PQ members. He cited the professional and family commitments that led him to quit the cabinet in 2003. He has since sided with candidate Pauline Marois.
 * Bernard Landry - Former leader. A number of people requested that he become a candidate at the race for his own succession. After a summer reflection, the former Premier declined.
 * Laurent M. Leclerc - Singer and actor.
 * François Legault - Former cabinet minister and past well-known aspirant to the leadership. He cited family commitments.
 * Daniel Turp - PQ Member of the National Assembly and past Member of Parliament for the Bloc Québécois. He declared his support for André Boisclair.

Timeline

 * June 4, 2005 - Party leader Bernard Landry states his intention to resign as leader of the PQ after getting 76.2% in a vote of confidence at the Party National Council.
 * June 5, 2005 - Former Parti Québécois minister Pauline Marois is first to announce her intention to enter the leadership race. The statement is criticized by some militants because of its haste, coming one day after the resignation speech of Bernard Landry.
 * June 13, 2005 - Gilles Duceppe announces that he will not enter the race and will remain at the helm of the Bloc Québécois for the next federal election.
 * June 13, 2005 - The party presents the official rules of the upcoming race.
 * June 15, 2005 - An open letter to Bernard Landry is published in newspapers, including Le Devoir. It implores the former leader to become candidate in the race for his own succession for the sake of the cause of sovereignty. It is signed by over forty people (mostly from minorities), like Bloc Québécois MP Maka Kotto, Bloc Québécois past candidate and president of the PQ Montréal-Ville-Marie organisation Maria Mourani and past Bloc Québécois MP Osvaldo Nunez, notably. This follows the launch of "retourbernardlandry.org", an online petition sharing the same goal.
 * July 11, 2005 - The candidacy of Richard Legendre is officially accepted by the party.
 * July 30, 2005 - The candidacy of Louis Bernard is officially accepted by the party.
 * August 5, 2005 - The candidacy of André Boisclair is officially accepted by the party.
 * August 16, 2005 - Former leader Bernard Landry, after reflexion, ends the uncertainty around a possible candidacy of his to succeed himself. He officially renounces to become candidate and professes in faith in the capacity of the party to find a new leader and renew itself.
 * August 18, 2005 - The candidacy of Pauline Marois is officially accepted by the party.
 * August 19, 2005 - The candidacy of Ghislain Lebel is officially accepted by the party.
 * August 25, 2005 - The candidacy of Jean-Claude St-André is officially accepted by the party.
 * September 1, 2005 - Bloc Québécois MP and former Parti Québécois minister Serge Ménard announces his support for candidate Louis Bernard.
 * September 2, 2005 - Days after official candidacy, psychiatrist Hugues Cormier resigns after being suspended by his employer, the Louis-Hippolyte-Lafontaine Hospital for asking patients to sign his candidacy slip.
 * September 6, 2005 - Bloc Québécois MP Maka Kotto announces his support for Pauline Marois. He had previously favoured a return of Bernard Landry, until the latter's definite refusal of August 16.
 * September 7, 2005 - Louise Harel, the Parti Québécois interim leader, speaks at a Bloc Québécois gathering and states that the PQ leadership candidates should debate, not battle.
 * September 9, 2005 - Former Parti Québécois vice president Marie Malavoy announces her support for Pauline Marois. Référendum: Pauline Marois précise sa position
 * September 9, 2005 - The candidacy of SPQ Libre representative Pierre Dubuc is officially accepted by the party.
 * September 10, 2005 - Le Devoir columnist Michel David refers in his column to a relatively unnoticed past article of Le Droit alluding to rumors of André Boisclair having lived a wild younger life, taken cocaine and having been strongly reprimanded by then Parti Québécois leader Lucien Bouchard for it.
 * September 12, 2005 - The candidacy of Gilbert Paquette is officially accepted by the party.
 * September 13, 2005 - After having been brought to court because of alleged drunk driving, candidate Gilbert Paquette announces to a press conference that he intends to remain in the race.
 * September 15, 2005 - Jean Ouimet becomes the ninth and last official candidate.
 * September 15, 2005 - The deadline for entering the race, with the required 1,000 signatures, is reached, launching officially the race for the party leadership.
 * September 16, 2005 - The party presents the nine official candidates.
 * September 16, 2005 - At the party headquarters, André Boisclair is asked about the rumors surrounding his past. Boisclair denies a reprimand meeting with leader Lucien Bouchard, but admits that he had made "mistakes" in his youth.
 * September 16, 2005 - At a brunch commemorating the 2004 Parti Québécois victory of Elsie Lefebvre in the Parti Libéral du Québec stronghold of Laurier-Dorion, former leader Bernard Landry states his hopes that the accusation excesses will cease, seemingly referring to the scrutiny around Boisclair's past personal life. He also enjoins militants in his speech, his first public speech since his resignation, to rally around the future elected leader, whoever he or she may be.
 * September 18, 2005 - André Boisclair is a guest of the Tout le monde en parle television show.
 * September 19, 2005 - At a Lévis press conference, when asked directly if he had ever taken cocaine, André Boiclair responds "What I want to tell you is I made mistakes, things I regret. Yes, I consumed. I can't be clearer than that."
 * September 19, 2005 - The first official public debate is held at Sherbrooke on the subject of "solidarity & public finances".
 * September 20, 2005 - Richard Legendre receives the support of Elsie Lefebvre and François Gendron, respectively the youngest and oldest Members of the National Assembly.
 * September 28, 2005 - The second official public debate is held at Montreal on the subject of "sustainable development & economy".
 * September 30, 2005 - Ghislain Lebel declares in an interview with Le Devoir that André Boisclair's victory seems unavoidable.
 * October 4, 2005 - Jean Ouimet and Gilbert Paquette hold a common press conference during which they deplore the lack of media attention for the candidates and the importance put by them on population-wide polls that, they say, give wrong impressions, since the actual leadership vote is held only amongst party members. The two also speak of projects like the elaboration of a social contract, wealth redistribution in Quebec and the world and a provisional constitution before independence.
 * October 6, 2005 - The Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste organizes a public debate on "language" at its home office of Montreal, the Maison Ludger-Duvernay. Seven out of nine candidates attend.
 * October 10, 2005 - Corinne Côté-Lévesque, the widow of Parti Québécois founder René Lévesque, announces her support for Louis Bernard. She would succumb to cancer only nine days later.
 * October 12, 2005 - Gilbert Paquette speaks, in a Le Devoir interview, of the possibility of a common candidacy for the four candidates most to the left, Pierre Dubuc, Jean Ouimet, Jean-Claude St-André and himself, saying that four candidates is too much for the most progressive.
 * October 12, 2005 - The third official public debate is held at Trois-Rivières on the subject of "culture".
 * October 14, 2005 - The recruiting period is over, midnight of October 14 being the deadline for new members to become party members and have voting rights for the election. The party organization reports a 60% membership rise, from 71,000 to 112,000.
 * October 14, 2005 - Former Parti Québécois leader and former Premier of Quebec Bernard Landry states that, if he had heard of André Boisclair taking cocaine while under his government, he would have considered the issue serious and launched an inquiry to decide what to do with the situation.
 * October 19, 2005 - A number of public figures publish the manifesto For a clear-eyed vision of Quebec (better known in French as Pour un Québec lucide). It proposes a number of measures like making electricity fees higher to reduce the debt and unfreezing university fees to invest in education. Reactions are mixed. Amongst the Parti Québécois leadership hopeful, André Boisclair agrees on the necessity of debt reduction but not on the university fees issue. Pauline Marois shows herself to be lukewarm. Gilbert Paquette criticizes it harshly at the Quebec City debate.
 * October 19, 2005 - The fourth official public debate is held at Quebec City on the subject of "sovereignty and leadership".
 * October 21, 2005 - In an interview with La Presse, Jean Ouimet speaks of a probable rally of the most progressive candidates, Pierre Dubuc, Gilbert Paquette, Jean-Claude St-André and himself, behind Pauline Marois to defeat André Boisclair, seen as not enough to the political left. Ouimet states that, out of the frontrunners (usually identified as Louis Bernard, André Boisclair, Richard Legendre and Pauline Marois), Marois embodies to him their values the best.
 * October 21, 2005 - At the recording of Larocque-Auger, a political show of the TVA network, Lucien Bouchard reveals that he did not know that André Boisclair had taken cocaine while being a minister under his government.
 * October 25, 2005 - In Campaign Rule 1: Be No More Virtuous Than the Voters, The New York Times examines the case of André Boisclair, the Boiclair Affair and the apparent tolerance of the Quebec people, notably with the flaws of their political figures.
 * October 25, 2005 - On SRC radio, party heavyweight Louise Beaudoin announces her support for Pauline Marois, citing as a reason for her decision Marois' emphasis on an eventual international offensive, a diplomatic plan to prepare the recognition of an independent Quebec. Beaudoin is a former Parti Québécois Minister of International Relations.
 * October 26, 2005 - The fifth official public debate is held at Rimouski on the subject of "territory".
 * November 2, 2005 - The sixth official public debate is held at Saguenay on the subject of "education".
 * November 2, 2005 - Ghislain Lebel declares that André Boisclair will be his second choice on the ballot.
 * November 5, 2005 - Lisette Lapointe, the spouse of former party leader and premier Jacques Parizeau, declares her support for André Boisclair.
 * November 8, 2005 - Pierre Dubuc and the SPQ Libre ask their supporters to vote for Pauline Marois as second choice.
 * November 9, 2005 - The seventh official public debate is held at Gatineau on the subject of "health".
 * November 10, 2005 - Gilbert Paquette withdraws his nomination and asks his supporters to vote for Pauline Marois because of her values that he judges more to the left than those of Boisclair.
 * November 12, 2005 - Both André Boisclair and Pauline Marois state their intention to support the final victor of the race.
 * November 13, 2005 - Voting by telephone begins at 8 a.m..
 * November 15, 2005 - Voting ends at 5 p.m..
 * November 15, 2005 - At first round, André Boisclair is declared victor of the election and the new leader of the Parti Québécois with 53.7% of party member votes. At the Quebec City gathering, he delivers a speech calling for party unity and a future referendum on sovereignty.

Slogans

 * Louis Bernard - Un homme solide, un Québec solidaire - A solid man, a Quebec of solidarity
 * André Boisclair - Ensemble - Together
 * Pierre Dubuc - Indépendant, tout est possible - Independent, everything is possible
 * Ghislain Lebel - Debout avec vous - Standing with you
 * Richard Legendre - En équipe pour le pays! - Teamed-up for the country!
 * Pauline Marois - Pour réussir notre indépendance - To succeed with our independence
 * Jean Ouimet - Souverains... avec un véritable contrat social - Sovereign... with a true social contract
 * Gilbert Paquette - Venez, faisons ensemble du Québec un pays - Come, let us together make of Quebec a country
 * Jean-Claude St-André - L'autre façon de faire! - The other way of doing things!

Results
Former Minister André Boisclair was elected leader of the Parti Québécois at the first round ballot. The turnout was around 76% of party members.

*: Gilbert Paquette withdrew and endorsed Pauline Marois on November 10, 2005.
 * Eligible voters: 137,238
 * Turnout: 76.69%

The results are shown as announced by election officials on PQ website.

Election

 * Election page on the official Parti Québécois website
 * Election page on SRC website
 * News timeline on Canoe.qc.ca


text:
Mujhse Shaadi Karogi

Mujhse Shaadi Karogi is a 2004 Hindi-language romantic comedy film directed by David Dhawan and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala. The film stars Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar and Priyanka Chopra with Amrish Puri, Kader Khan, Satish Shah and Rajpal Yadav in supporting roles. Set primarily in Goa, Mujhse Shaadi Karogi follows the adventures of two men (Khan and Kumar) who try to win a woman's (Chopra) heart.

Wanting to re-invent himself, Dhawan decided to make a film which would deviate from his signature mass-market comedies in look and feel, approaching it as a romantic comedy. The screenplay was written by Dhawan's longtime collaborator Anees Bazmee and Rumi Jaffery. Although the film is set in Goa, it was not shot there. Instead, principal photography was done on two detailed sets created by Sharmishta Roy in Film City and Mauritius. Additionally, several scenes and songs were filmed on-location in Mauritius.

Mujhse Shaadi Karogi was released on 30 July 2004 to positive reviews with praise for its direction, performances, music, cinematography, art direction, costumes and styling. With a box-office gross of ₹565 million, the film became the fourth-highest-grossing Indian film of the year. Mujhse Shaadi Karogi was nominated for three Filmfare Awards. The film received a leading 13 nominations at the 6th IIFA Awards, including Best Film, Best Director (Dhawan), Best Actor (Khan) and Best Actress (Chopra), winning five awards. It received 10 Screen Awards nominations, including Best Film.

Plot
Sameer Malhotra is ill-tempered and has anger-management issues since his parents died during his childhood. The only person who could calm down his temperament was his best friend Arun. When he beats up a group of goons who tried to assault his girlfriend Roma, she breaks up with him because of his temper. According to his horoscope, Sameer is unlucky in love. To escape further similar issues, he becomes a lifeguard in Goa.

On the train, Sameer's co-passenger Suraj makes him think that he is a thief by asking him where he keeps important things (like money) in his luggage. Sameer stays awake all night to avoid being robbed, while Suraj sleeps after conning Sameer into guarding his luggage. Suraj admits this to Sameer the next morning at the station. Sameer learns that Suraj is a security guard at his resort, and puts him on night guard duty for three months. This puts a crimp in Suraj's marriage and, although he apologises, Sameer is adamant.

Sameer meets Rani, an up-and-coming fashion designer, and falls in love with her. After a rough start with her father Jugraj Singh, a former colonel, Rani and Sameer become friends. Sameer's bad luck comes into play; he disagrees with Singh, and Rani becomes angry with him when she overhears him saying bad things about her to Pandit Raj Purohit Jyotshi, an astrologer.

Trouble arrives in the form of Sunny, who shares a room with Sameer. He meets Rani, falls in love with her and decides to capitalise on Sameer's mistakes. This causes friction between the roommates. Sameer anonymously gives Rani the money she needs for a fashion competition, calling himself her "well-wisher". Rani wins the competition and wants to thank her "well-wisher" in person. Sameer, who gave Rani the money he had saved for his grandmother's eye surgery and his sister's wedding, goes to meet her but Sunny gets there first, claims to be the well-wisher and takes her away. Sameer follows on his motorcycle and accidentally injures Singh. Sunny, who takes credit for a painting of Rani by Sameer, kidnaps her dog Tommy and frames Sameer. Sameer buys an identical dog and tells Singh that he has found Tommy. He is exposed when the dog bites Singh after giving it a cold bath and runs away.

Although Sameer is angry, he reconciles with Rani with the help of a magician at a New Year's Eve party. Sunny places a bar dancer in Sameer's room one morning; Rani, who went there to invite him for breakfast, sees the dancer sleeping there and assumes that they had sex. She is also horrified that Sameer is now the leader of the Eagle Gang, a group of bikers who roam the streets of Goa and cause trouble.

Sameer makes another attempt to apologise. When he goes to Rani's house, he is surprised to see Suraj; Suraj is Rani's uncle, who now knows that he loves her. Sameer apologises and takes Suraj off night duty. Sameer's partially-blind grandmother Pushpa mistakes Rani's mother for Rani and tries to persuade her to marry Sameer. Rani's mother tells her daughter to carefully consider whom she loves more: Sameer or Sunny.

Sameer decides to leave Goa, and Sunny taunts him that he got close to Rani through Sameer's mistakes. Sameer says that he has had enough dreaming, and wishes Sunny happiness. Sunny taunts Sameer again, and Sameer loses his temper. He chases Sunny through the crowd at a cricket stadium where India and Pakistan are playing a friendly match. Sameer breaks through security, takes the microphone from the guest of honour Kapil Dev and apologises to Rani and her parents. He asks her to marry him in front of the crowd, and Rani runs onto the field and embraces him, thus reuniting with him.

Sunny reveals that he is actually Arun, who came to Goa to cure Sameer's anger-management issues. He also reveals that he went to visit Sameer after returning from the United States after 19 years and met Pushpa, who told him about Sameer's heartbreak and departure for Goa. Arun decided to help Sameer by posing as his enemy, telling Rani and her parents earlier. Sameer is reunited with Arun, who conducts his and Rani's wedding.

Cast
Credits adapted from Bollywood Hungama:

 * Salman Khan as Sameer Malhotra
 * Akshay Kumar as Arun Khanna / Shani / "Wicked" Sunny
 * Priyanka Chopra as Rani Singh
 * Amrish Puri as Colonel Dugraj Singh
 * Kader Khan as O. B. Duggal
 * Satish Shah as Suraj Prakash
 * Rajpal Yadav as Raj Purohit Jyotshi and Paul
 * Amrita Arora as Roma
 * Vindu Dara Singh as a gang member
 * Supriya Karnik as Rama Dugraj Singh
 * Shashikala as Pushpa Malhotra
 * Upasana Singh as Mrs. Suraj Prakash
 * Shefali Jariwala as Bijili
 * Sajid Khan as himself
 * Kurush Deboo as a dog-seller
 * Rajesh Vivek as Chutki Baba
 * Shyam Sharma as young Sameer Malhotra
 * Rekha Rao as Duggal's Wife

Cricketers made cameo appearances as themselves:

 * Irfan Pathan
 * Javagal Srinath
 * Ashish Nehra
 * Harbhajan Singh
 * Parthiv Patel
 * Kapil Dev
 * Mohammad Kaif
 * Navjot Singh Sidhu

Production
Known primarily for mass-market comedies, David Dhawan wanted to make Mujhse Shaadi Karogi a romantic comedy. Asked about re-inventing himself with the film, he replied: "I have changed with the times. One has to [change]. My trademark style remains unchanged in its basics. Why should I change when my style has kept me going for so many years? I will never change that." Dhawan wanted the make the film different from his earlier releases in look and feel. Anees Bazmee, who collaborated on several films with the director, returned to write its screenplay.

In a Times of India interview, Priyanka Chopra said that she had signed for Dhawan's comedy film co-starring Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar; it was the second collaboration between Kumar and Chopra, after the successful romantic musical Andaaz (2003). Chopra said that her decision was based on "the hilarious script" and Sajid Nadiadwala's reputation as a producer. She described Rani, an aspiring fashion designer, as "very innocent and gullible" and a "girl next door": "Rani gets stuck between two boys. She likes both of them and she doesn't know what to do." In an interview with Rediff.com, Kumar described his character as someone who creates many problems in Sameer's life and compared their dynamics to Tom and Jerry: "I harass him all the time."

Principal photography began in September 2003 on a set in Film City, Mumbai. Art director Sharmishta Roy created a detailed set of Goa; according to Hindustan Times, "The set had become the talk of the industry for its fine detailing." Roy built another large set in Mauritius, where the outdoor scenes, the songs and several other scenes were filmed on a month-long schedule beginning on 9 January 2004. Three hundred people made up the unit for the Mauritius schedule.

An action scene was filmed with a motion-control camera, a first in Indian cinema. Although the producers wanted to keep the film's climax (featuring several cricketers from the Indian team and filmed at a Bangalore stadium in June 2004) a secret, it was revealed in the media. Filming wrapped in July 2004.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack album contains eight songs, seven original songs and one remix. Six songs were composed by Sajid–Wajid and the seventh by Anu Malik. Lyrics for five songs were written by Jalees Sherwani, with one song each by Sameer and Arun Bhairav. The vocals were performed by Udit Narayan, Alka Yagnik, Sonu Nigam, Sunidhi Chauhan, Sukhwinder Singh and Shabab Sabri. With a background score composed by Salim–Sulaiman, the album was released on 31 May 2004.

The soundtrack of the film was well received by music critics, who praised the album's lyrics and vocals. Planet Bollywood rated the soundtrack seven out of ten, calling it a "good album". Bollywood Hungama praised its songs and musical score, highlighting "Rab Kare", "Jeene Ke Hain Chaar Din", "Laal Dupatta" and the title song.

The music topped charts on a number of platforms in India. The soundtrack was one of the best-selling Bollywood soundtracks of the year, with 2 million units sold according to Box Office India.

Marketing and release
Entrances of several theatres in India and abroad were decorated as marriage mandaps (halls) for the film. Sajid Nadiadwala said, "You have to make the entire process of movie-going exciting. Since the title itself talks of marriage, making the entrance of theatres resemble mandaps was the best possible way to attract cinegoers."

The producers sponsored several contests as part of Mujhse Shaadi Karogi marketing campaign, with prizes including a foreign honeymoon trip and wedding clothing by Biba and Neeta Lulla. They released a 64-page, palm-sized book with information about the characters' love triangle, tips about how to woo a woman and pictures of the three main characters. The film was released on 30 July 2004. Zee TV brought its UK distribution rights, the first film distributed by the channel.

Mujhse Shaadi Karogi opened well throughout India, despite poor weather, and did very good business in its theatrical run. The film also opened well in the overseas market, ranking eighth at the UK box office over its first weekend. After a good first week, it prevailed over its second weekend, earning ₹ 35.4 million from 32 screens in the United Kingdom and ₹ 32.9 million from 48 screens in the United States. Mujhse Shaadi Karogi was a major commercial success, earning ₹ 565 million at the box office and thus becoming the fourth-highest-grossing Bollywood film of the year.

Mujhse Shaadi Karogi was released on DVD on 27 September 2004 in all regions on a single NTSC-format disc. Distributed by T-Series, the DVD included deleted scenes, extra songs, a theatrical trailer and TV advertisements. The film's Video CD was released at the same time. A Blu-ray disc was released on 10 July 2010.

Reception
Mujhse Shaadi Karogi was well received by critics, who praised the film's direction, cinematography, choreography, costumes, styling and performances.

Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave it four stars out of five, calling it a "mass entertainer" and an apt example of escapist cinema which "transports you to a world of make-believe". Adarsh praised the chemistry between Khan, Kumar and Chopra and wrote, "Stylishly shot at some panoramic locales of Mauritius, with no double entendres, the film proves yet again that only David can pull off such stories without the cinegoer feeling cheated by an obscure plot."

Subhash K. Jha gave Mujhse Shaadi Karogi a positive review for Indo-Asian News Service, calling the film Dhawan's smartest comedy to date: "This is one laughathon you can enjoy with your family without squirming in your seats." Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com also praised the film: "It's a screwball comedy with gorgeous visuals, crisp editing, and fine performances. David Dhawan gets it right." A review in The Hindu called it "pure entertainment" and praised the clean humour and Kumar's performance writing that "Khan shows more brawn than histrionics, while Kumar displays a real flair for comedy. Some of his expressions are delightfully wicked and effortless."

For India Today, Anupama Chopra found the film "partly fun but mostly exhausting": "Mujhse Shaadi Karogi is pure dazzle. There are clothes of all designs imaginable – from gorgeous embroidered and sequinned Indian outfits to sleek and hip western attire. There are locations of breathtaking beauty from aquamarine seas to quaint churches." She also appreciated many of the film's gags, particularly those derived from the 2000 American film Meet the Parents. Planet Bollywood gave 7.5 out of 10, calling it a "pure entertainment that is high on production value" and a "good escapist cinema" for both masses and classes, writing that "The unexpected and unique climax follows and the audience is pleasantly surprised at the turn of events and revelations with a fitting finale is another version of the title song that brings the house down." Writing for Outlook, Namrata Joshi rated the film two stars, and noted its similarities to the 2003 American film Anger Management.

title: Mujhse Shaadi Karogi


text:
Tom's Midnight Garden

Tom's Midnight Garden is a children's fantasy novel by English author Philippa Pearce. It was first published in 1958 by Oxford University Press with illustrations by Susan Einzig. The story is about a twelve-year-old Tom who, while staying with his aunt and uncle, slips out at midnight and discovers a magical, mysterious Victorian garden where he befriends a young girl named Hatty. The novel has been reissued in print many times and also adapted for radio, television, cinema, and the stage.

Pearce won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's outstanding children's book by a British author. In 2007, for a celebration of the Carnegie Medal's 70th anniversary, a panel named Tom's Midnight Garden one of the top ten Medal-winning works and the British public elected it the nation's second-favourite.

Premise
Tom is a modern boy living under quarantine with his aunt and uncle in a city flat, part of a converted building that was a country house during the 1880s–1890s. At night he slips back in time to the old garden where he finds a girl playmate, called Hatty. Hatty is a princess or so she says.

Plot summary
When Tom Long's brother Peter gets measles, Tom is sent to stay with his Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen. They live in an upstairs flat of a big house with no garden, only a tiny yard for parking. The former grounds of the big house have been sold for building and are occupied by modern houses. The elderly and reclusive landlady, Mrs Bartholomew, lives above them. Because Tom may be infectious, he is not allowed out to play, and he feels lonely. Without exercise he lies awake after midnight, restless, when he hears the communal grandfather clock strangely strike 13. He gets up to investigate and discovers that the back door now opens on a large sunlit garden. However, when Tom checks the back door the following morning, the garden is no longer there.

Every night the clock strikes 13 and Tom returns to the Victorian era grounds. There he meets another lonely child, a girl called Hatty, and they become inseparable playmates. Tom sees the family occasionally, but only Hatty (and as is revealed later in the book, the gardener) sees him and the others believe she plays alone. Hatty is established to be an orphan sent to live with her aunt and three older male cousins after the death of her parents.

Tom writes daily accounts to his brother Peter, who follows the adventures during his recovery – and afterward, for Tom contrives to extend the stay with Aunt and Uncle. Gradually at first, Hatty grows up and passes Tom's age; he comes to realise that he is slipping to different points in the past. Finally she grows up at a faster rate, until she is an adult and is being courted by an acquaintance of hers who is nicknamed "Barty." At this stage in the book, the season in the old garden tends to be winter. Tom ingeniously obtains ice skates by having Hatty conceal her old pair in his room, where he subsequently finds them and joins her skating on the next night.

On the final night before Tom is due to go home, he goes downstairs to find the garden is not there. He frantically tries to find it, but crashes into a set of bins from the present–day courtyard, waking up several residents. He shouts Hatty's name in desperation, before his Uncle Alan finds him and puts the events down to Tom sleepwalking. The following morning, Mrs Bartholomew summons Tom to apologise, only to reveal herself as Hatty, having made the link when she heard him call her name. The events Tom experienced were real in Hatty's past; he has stepped into them by going into the garden at the times she dreamt of them. On the final night, she had instead been dreaming of her wedding with Barty.

After taking Tom home, Aunt Gwen comments on the strange way that Tom had said goodbye to Mrs Bartholomew when he left: he hugged her as if she were a little girl.

Themes and literary significance
The book is regarded as a classic. The final reunion between Tom, still a child, and the elderly Hatty is, many have argued, one of the most moving moments in children's fiction.

In Written for Children (1965), John Rowe Townsend summarised, "If I were asked to name a single masterpiece of English children's literature since [the Second World War] ... it would be this outstandingly beautiful and absorbing book". He retained that judgment in the second edition of that magnum opus (1983) and in 2011 repeated it, in a retrospective review of the novel.

In the first chapter of Narratives of Love and Loss: Studies in Modern Children's Fiction, Margaret and Michael Rustin analyse the emotional resonances of Tom's Midnight Garden and describe its use of imagination and metaphor, also comparing it to The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Researcher Ward Bradley, in his review of various modern stories and books depicting Victorian British society, criticized Midnight Garden for "romanticizing the world of the 19th-century aristocratic mansions, making it a glittering 'lost paradise' contrasted with the drab reality of contemporary lower middle class Britain.(...) A child deriving an image of Victorian England from this engaging and well-written fairy tale would get no idea of the crushing poverty in the factories and slums from where mansion owners often derived their wealth".

Time slip would be a popular device in British children's novels in this period, although this device arguably started with Mark Twain's adult satirical comedy A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889), followed by Rudyard Kipling's children's book Puck of Pook's Hill (1906, with a succession of slips back into Britain's past), and Margaret Irwin's Still She Wished for Company (1924, combining ghosts and time slip), and Elizabeth Goudge's The Middle Window (1935, with a time-slip back to the era of Bonnie Prince Charlie). Time-slip was a popular theme in paranormal discussion, such as the Moberly–Jourdain incident, also known as the Ghosts of Petit Trianon or Versailles. This was an event that occurred on 10 August 1901 in the gardens of the Petit Trianon, involving two female academics, Charlotte Anne Moberly (1846–1937) and Eleanor Jourdain (1863–1924). Moberly and Jourdain claimed to have slipped back to the last days of pre-Revolutionary France, reported in their later book An Adventure (1911).Other successful examples of time-slip in children's books include Alison Uttley's A Traveller in Time (1939, slipping back to the period of Mary, Queen of Scots), Ronald Welch's The Gauntlet (1951, slipping back to the Welsh Marches in the fourteenth century), Clive King's Stig of the Dump (1963, with a final chapter slipping back to the making of Stone Henge), Barbara Sleigh's Jessamy (1967, back to the First World War), and Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (1969, back to 1918).

Allusions
The historical part of the book is set in the grounds of a mansion, which resembles the house in which the author grew up: the Mill House in Great Shelford, near Cambridge, England. Cambridge is represented in fictional form as Castleford throughout the book. At the time she was writing the book, the author was again living in Great Shelford, just across the road from the Mill House. The Kitsons' (in past, the Melbournes') house is thought to be based on a house in Cambridge, near where Pearce studied during her time at university. The theory of time of which the novel makes use is that of J. W. Dunne's influential 1927 work An Experiment with Time.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

 * Dramatised by the BBC three times, in 1968, 1974, and 1988 (which aired in 1989).
 * 1999 Full-length movie starring Anthony Way
 * 2001 Adapted for the stage by David Wood

Publication history

 * 1958, UK, Oxford University Press (ISBN 0-19-271128-8), Publication date: 31 December 1958, hardcover (first edition)
 * 1992, UK, HarperCollins (ISBN 0-397-30477-3), Publication date: 1 February 1992, hardcover
 * 2001, Adapted for the stage by David Wood, Samuel French (ISBN 0-573-05127-5)

2007 recognition
Since 1936, the professional association of British librarians has recognised the year's best new book for children with the Carnegie Medal. Philippa Pearce and Tom won the 1958 Medal. For the 70th anniversary celebration in 2007, a panel of experts appointed by the children's librarians named Tom's Midnight Garden one of the top ten Medal-winning works, which composed the ballot for a public election of the nation's favourite. It finished second in the public vote from that shortlist, between two books that were about forty years younger. Among votes cast from the UK, Northern Lights polled 40%, Tom's Midnight Garden 16%; Skellig 8%. The winning author, Philip Pullman, graciously said: "Personally I feel they got the initials right but not the name. I don't know if the result would be the same in a hundred years' time; maybe Philippa Pearce would win then." Julia Eccleshare, Children's Books Editor for The Guardian newspaper, continued the theme: "Northern Lights is the right book by the right author. Philip is accurate in saying that the only contention was from the other PP. And, it must be said, Tom's Midnight Garden has lasted almost 60 years ... and we don't know that Northern Lights will do the same. But, yes. A very good winner."

title: Tom's Midnight Garden


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