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apureniallsource · 11 months

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Ahead of new album, The Show, Niall Horan on how he 'lives' for touring, his desire to connect with fans through his songs, and the challenge of going out for chips in his Irish hometown

It’s almost a cliché to call Niall Horan a “super-nice guy”, but really, there’s no getting away from it. He may have named his new album The Show, but Horan feels no need to put one on for a journalist. In fact, the Irish singer-songwriter is so laid-back and likeable when we meet at a smart London hotel – fresh flowers everywhere, bottled water waiting on the table – that I ask how he’s stayed so well-adjusted. “It’s probably a combination of the upbringing I had and the fact I already had enough character at 16 [to deal with it],” he says. “It might have been a different story if I’d started doing this when I was 10.”

Now 29, he has been scarily famous for almost half his life. After auditioning for The X Factor in 2010 as a solo artist, 16-year-old Horan was eliminated at the boot camp stage, then given a spectacular second chance as one fifth of a hastily assembled group called One Direction. He and his new bandmates – Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson – didn’t win that year’s show, but still used it as a springboard to become a chart-topping global phenomenon. By the time One Direction announced an indefinite hiatus in January 2016, they had sold 70 million records and debuted at number one in the US with their first four albums – something not even The Beatles achieved. When asked what he would say to his pre-1D, 16-year-old self, Horan replies: “Get ready. Your life’s about to change on a level that most of the world can’t even quantify.”

Horan says he still speaks to “the lads” on a regular basis, but like all of them, he has worked hard to carve out an identity as a solo artist. If Horan’s individual achievements still feel slightly underrated, that’s probably only because his flashier bandmate Styles is now a stadium-filling superstar. Released in 2017, Horan’s debut album Flicker was a deft blend of soft rock, folk and country that debuted at number one in the US and Ireland. His 2020 follow-up Heartbreak Weather added a dash of swagger to the mix – particularly on the Brit-poppy single ‘Nice to Meet Ya’ – and became his first UK chart-topper. Because it dropped in March 2020, just as Covid-19 was taking hold, Horan never got to take the album on the road. “I haven’t toured since 2018 – that’s wild,” he says. “I love live music and I love touring – I live for it. So, it’s sad that I haven’t done that.”

Happily, a few weeks after this interview, Horan announced The Show: Live on Tour, a 50-date trek across Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand that will keep him busy from February to July of next year. When Horan last toured five years ago, he mainly played large theatres, but now he is aiming to pack out arenas from Birmingham to Brisbane. During our conversation, he hinted that he was ready for the step up. “In my eyes, the bigger the venue, the better, because I fucking love looking out at an ocean of people,” he says. “For me, it feels like the bigger the venue, the better the show is gonna be.”

Horan also makes no bones about wanting The Show to become another UK number one after it drops on 9 June. “There’s nothing better than getting that little statue sent to your house,” he says with an impish grin. At the time of writing, he seems well on course for another express delivery from the Official Charts Company. The album’s breezy lead single ‘Heaven’ cracked the UK Top 20 in February, and its sprightly follow-up ‘Meltdown’ is now climbing the charts. A few hours before this interview, I watch him perform both songs in the Radio 1 Live Lounge. Horan is just as relaxed with his band during rehearsals, but when he spots that his vocals are getting buried in the mix, he quickly and calmly gets it corrected.

Horan began working on ‘The Show’ while holed up at home during the summer of 2020. The album title had come to him earlier in the year, but he “didn’t really know what it meant until the pandemic”. When he sat down at the piano that August, the lyrics that came out seemed to capture the confusion of the Covid era: “If everything was easy, nothing ever broke / If everything was simple, how would we know? / How to fix your tears? How to fake a show?” At this point, Horan says he realised ‘The Show’ was both “a metaphor for life” and an overarching concept he could run with. “When there’s no heartbreak [to write about], you have to come up with a different concept,” he says. “I realised quite quickly that what I wanted to talk about was the ups and downs and good and bad of life. That’s ‘The Show’.”

Having “no heartbreak” is about as much as Horan will say about his personal life. “Keeping that stuff quiet”, he believes, is one reason he remains so grounded. Since 2020, he has been dating Amelia Woolley, a designer shoe buyer who never appears on his work-focused Instagram. But when we discuss ‘You Could Start a Cult’, an idiosyncratic folk ballad from the album, Horan does offer a teasing glimpse into their home life. He says the song’s eye-catching title was inspired by the true-crime series they like watching. “I always try and write weird stuff like that, then see if I can flip it on its head and make the song [itself] not as dark as the title,” he says. In this case, Horan flipped it into a “love song, effectively”, albeit an intense one. “It’s about… not the desperation feeling, but the ‘I think you’re the best fucking thing in the world’ feeling,” he explains. “And if you started a cult, I’d follow you into the fire. You know, that kind of angst, though I don’t know if ‘angst’ is the word I’m looking for!”

Horan spends a lot of time in LA because his record label and producers are based there. His main collaborators on The Show were Joel Little, who he brought in because he liked his work with Taylor Swift, indie artist Noah Kahan, and long-time co-writer John Ryan, a veteran of four One Direction albums. “I think it’s really important first of all to be loyal,” he says of his enduring partnership with Ryan. “And you know, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” Still, working with Little felt just as comfortable, partly because they could pick things up at a moment’s notice. “If I get the green light at the top of my street [in LA], I can be at Joel’s house in less than a minute,” Horan says. “It’s a fucking dream!”

But during the pandemic, Horan was grounded at his main base in southwest London. “I’ve never been fitter in my life because I was cycling 80 or 90 miles around Richmond Park every week – it’s gorgeous out there,” he recalls. Like many of us, Horan has conflicting feelings about the way Covid placed our lives on hold. “I don’t want to say I enjoyed it because I didn’t – it was such a horrible time,” he says. “But I got to a point about two or three months in, where I was like: ‘This is the longest I’ve ever had off.’ He particularly appreciated having to stay in one place for a sustained period of time. “Normally, I’m packing a suitcase every three or four days,” he says. “At Heathrow Airport, the guards at the [security] desk just laugh when they see me coming. They’re like, ‘How do you do this?’”

Having lived in London since he was 16, Horan says “it’s definitely the best city on the planet”. But at the same time, he still regards Mullingar, the Irish market town where he was born and raised, as home. His debut solo single ‘This Town’, a UK top 10 hit in 2016, was incredibly charming because it harnessed his ineffable longing for the place. Horan reckons he returns to Mullingar “seven or eight times a year”, although walking down the high street is pretty tricky. “I can’t just pull up outside the chip shop, run in and get the chips, then run back to the car,” he says. “Everything has to be thought through. Like, where am I going to park? How many streets am I going to have to cross? What am I going to wear?” Horan says all this with no hint of frustration: by now, he knows what is expected of a homecoming hero.

Horan knew he wanted to be a musician from a young age and says he “tried to make this as clear as possible” to his parents. They were “supportive up to a point”, but because the family didn’t have much money and Mullingar wasn’t a creative hub like Dublin, his mother urged him to “get some sort of qualification”. “I still don’t have any,” Horan says with a laugh, “I didn’t do GCSEs or anything like that because I didn’t finish school.” At 16, Horan made the 50-mile journey to Dublin to audition for The X Factor and grabbed hold of the One Direction rocket with both hands.

Did his parents come up with any ideas for a Plan B? “We didn’t get that far. Honestly, I just packed my bag and never came back – that’s the way they look at it,” says Horan. “My father worked in Tesco for 35 years and my mother worked at a pewter genesis company making little bits and pieces – clocks and things like that. They both had very regular jobs.” Horan notes astutely that some kids from a working-class background “like to spread their wings and leave the nest” – as he did, quite spectacularly – whereas others “like to stay in their hometown, or maybe can’t get out”. Horan pauses for a second, perhaps to ponder what might have been. “I don’t know what they would have wanted me to do, but I’m sure it would have been a good life,” he continues. “Like, my parents are having a good time.”

Thirteen years after he left to become a pop star, Horan’s own ambition remains undimmed. “I’ve achieved a lot in my young life, but I’m still fired up to do as much as I can,” he says. “My career has felt so good because it reminds me of everything I thought the music industry would be when I was a kid. I got the good end of the stick [in terms of] travelling the world and playing to millions. And I still want more of that.”

For this reason, the audience is always at the forefront of his mind. “When I’m writing, I ask myself, ‘Have I gone too specific to the point where it only makes sense to me?’” he says. “And then I try and broaden the thought to make it as relatable as possible.” ‘Never Grow Up’ from Horan’s new album was partly inspired by his girlfriend’s parents, who are “still madly in love”, but its lyrics will chime with One Direction fans who, like him, are close to turning 30. “Hope we still drink like we’re back in the pub,” Horan sings. “Hope we grow old, but we never grow up.”

In Horan’s eyes, the songs that fully stand the test of time – from Simon and Garfunkel to Whitney Houston and Adele – are “the ones that really mean a lot to the people”. It’s this kind of universal connection that he is always striving for. “These are the things that go on in my head when I’m writing,” he says. “I don’t want to alienate anyone, and I don’t want to be introspective to the point where I ruin it for everyone. So, if they can connect to it too, then we all get what we want out of this.”

#niall horan #rolling stone uk #01june

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zot3-flopped · 1 year

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So Meltdown is off the Official UK Singles Chart after one week? Like give it up Neil.

No, it's only just debuted today - at #62! 🤣 Niall is definitely in his flop era.

#meltdown

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c-40 · 2 months

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A-T-4 041 Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Frankie's debut single Relax was released in late October 1983, the single had been hovering about the lower end of the charts until FGTH made an appearance on Top Of The Pops in early January 1984, the following week Relax entered the top ten. This led to Radio 1 DJ Mike Read clutching his pearls and refusing to play Relax in a live rant on his show (it'd already been played on the BBC almost 100 times and as I've mentioned they'd performed the song on the BBC's flagship youth show TOTPs). I remember the Mike Read meltdown, it was very funny. The 12” version of The Power Of Love features Chris Barrie doing an impersonation of Mike Read banning Relax on air. Unlike todays BBC the company backed their employee and banned the single (Kid Jensen, Janice Long, and John Peel didn't observe the ban) sending it to number 2 on the singles chart then the following week, 24th January 1984, Relax hit the number 1 spot. Relax was in the UK singles chart for a total of 52 weeks

Here's an interview FGTH's Holly Johnson has with the BBC in 1984

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The fashion statement of 1984 was the “Frankie Say…” T-shirt based on Katherine Hamnett’s slogan T-shirts. From Wikipedia “In 1984, ZTT's Paul Morley designed a series of "FRANKIE SAY..." T-shirts to promote the record label's chart act Frankie Goes to Hollywood (FGTH). Morley has stated that these designs were consciously based on Hamnett's slogan T-shirts: "What persuaded me was reading Katharine Hamnett saying she wanted the T-shirts ripped off, which reminded me of Mark P, saying he wanted Sniffin' Glue to be ripped off. And I mean, I did a fanzine, so when I read that I thought, great, fanzine T-shirts!" The official FGTH designs were particularly successful, and spawned many imitations of their own.”

Mike Reads gift establishing them as liberated right wrong uns worked its magic for all the subsequent singles off of their debut album Welcome To The Pleasuredome. FGTH's second single Two Tribes goes straight to number 1, Relax was still in the charts and headed back into the top ten, at one point Two Tribes is number 1 and Relax is number 2. Two Tribes was the longest-running number-one single in the UK of the 1980s spending 9 weeks at number 1. It has a killer bassline

Two Tribes was heavily promoted. The band were dressed as members of the Red Army which is a stunt Malcom McLaren had tried with the New York Dolls a decade earlier. As I’m mentioned before ZTT’s aesthetic borrowed heavily from Russian Constructivism and Italian Futurism (Zang Tumb Tumb being a sound poem by founding futurist and later co-author of the Italian fascist manifesto Filippo Tommaso Marinetti). Fashion had been flirting with Nazi and Soviet symbolism since the 1970s by the mid 1980s it was kinda mainstream, by then we were seeing socialist realism being reappropriated like it is ‘a little confusingly’ on the sleeve of Two Tribes, well the one that isn’t the screen shot from the video

Two Tribes (Carnage Mix) the one I enjoyed at the time

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Welcome To The Pleasuredome (Pleasure Fix) the single Welcome To The Pleasuredome was released in 1985 but this version can be found on the second 12” of The Power Of Love released late 1984

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#1984 #frankie goes to hollywood #synth pop #liverpool #england #U.K.#80s music

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twnenglish · 5 months

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Everything About The Rapping Sensation- Pitbull Biography

Armando Christian Pérez is one of the most popular rappers and is not just a rapper. Instead, he is a rapping sensation. Woo Woo Woo, Divyanshu, you promised to talk about Pitbull; who is this Armando Christian Pérez? My friend, this is your favorite rapper Pitbull’s real name, but very few people are aware of his real name. It’s ok; I don’t judge for not knowing his real name, even though I came to know about his real name while I was doing research for this article. But this is not the only fact that people are not aware of Pitbull; there are many other factors that you all are not aware of, but don’t you worry, your friend Divyanshu is here to make you aware of each and every detail about your favorite rapper, so grab a coffee, put on reading glasses, and let’s get started.

Pitbull Rapper Biography

Pitbull is a rapper and vocalist from the United States. In the early 2000s, Pérez began his career by recording reggaeton, Latin hip hop, and crunk songs for a variety of labels. In 2004, he released his debut album M.I.A.M.I., which was produced by Lil Jon and published through TVT Records. Pitbull's second album, El Mariel, was published in 2006, while his third, The Boatlift, was released in 2007. Rebelution (2009) featured his breakout smash single "I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)," which reached number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 and fourth on the UK Singles Chart.

Pitbull's album, Planet Pit (2011), contained his first US number one song, "Give Me Everything," after reinventing himself as a pop artist (featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack, and Nayer). The track "Timber" (with Kesha) from his EP Meltdown (also featured in a version of his album, Global Warming) reached No. 1 in eighteen countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. "Feel This Moment" (with Christina Aguilera), the album's next single was a Top 10 smash in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. He sang "We Are One (Ole Ola)" alongside Jennifer Lopez and Claudia Leitte, which served as the 2014 FIFA World Cup's official theme. Pitbull's most recent album, Libertad 548, was released on September 27, 2019.

Pitbull has sold more than 25 million studio albums and more than 100 million singles around the world. As of May 2020, he has over 15 billion views on YouTube. Billboard listed him as the 45th best artist of the decade and the 24th best Latin artist of the decade. Pitbull's other businesses include brand ambassadorship for a variety of companies, Latino American activism and philanthropy, a Sirius XM radio station (Pitbull's Globalization), and ownership of the Trackhouse Racing NASCAR team. Pitbull has 35 Billboard Latin Music Awards as of May 2019.

To Read This Full ARTICLE, Click Here

#pitbullbiography #achievement #grammyaward #businessstartup #newbusinessideas

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niamflopped · 1 year

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The mid week UK chart update is out and Meltdown by Niall Horandog isn't in the top 100!

It's the first time one of his pre album singles hasn't charted in the UK, so he'll be devastated and will probably go on a begging spree.

As It Was is predicted at #7 and Heaven at #31.

#niall horan #meltdown #the show #niall tour

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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The Best Movies on Netflix in India [February 2020]

In its efforts to win Oscars and please its 167 million members, Netflix has been pouring billions into movies recently, including projects from or featuring the likes of Dwayne Johnson, Martin Scorsese, and Michael Bay. One of those — The Irishman — racked up 10 nominations for the streaming service at the 2020 Oscars, though it failed to come away with a single prize. Netflix has also expanded its film efforts in India in the past year, announcing projects from the likes of Shah Rukh Khan and Karan Johar. For now though, the strength of its catalogue is still the acquisitions. With over 3,500 movies, Netflix offers more choices than any other platform in India. To pick the best movies on Netflix, we relied on Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and IMDb ratings to create a shortlist. The last of them was preferred for Indian films given the shortfalls of reviews aggregators in that department. Additionally, we used our own editorial judgement to add or remove a few. This list will be updated once every few months if there are any worthy additions or if some movies are removed from the service, so bookmark this page and keep checking in. Here are the best films currently available on Netflix in India, sorted alphabetically. 12 Monkeys (1995) Inspired by the 1962 French short La Jetée, a prisoner (Bruce Willis) is sent back in time to learn more about the virus that wiped out nearly all of humanity. Terry Gilliam directs. 12 Years A Slave (2013) Duped into slavery on the account of a job, Steve McQueen's adaptation of a free New York black man's (Chiwetel Ejiofor) 19th-century memoir is an incredible true story, and an important watch. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) In Stanley Kubrick's highly-influential sci-fi film, humanity charts a course for Jupiter with the sentient computer HAL 9000, to understand the discovery of a black monolith affecting human evolution. It's less plot, and more a visual and aural experience.

3 Idiots (2009) In this satire of the Indian education system's social pressures, two friends recount their college days and how their third long-lost musketeer (Aamir Khan) inspired them to think creatively and independently in a heavily-conformist world. Co-written and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, who stands accused in the #MeToo movement. 50/50 (2011) Inspired by a true story, a 27-year-old radio journalist (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is diagnosed with spinal cancer and learns the value of friendship and love as he battles the rare disease. Aamir (2008) Adapted from the 2006 Filipino film Cavite, a young Muslim NRI doctor (Rajeev Khandelwal) returning from the UK to India is forced to comply with terrorists' demands to carry out a bombing in Mumbai after they threaten his family. American History X (1998) In a film that's more relevant today than when it was made, a neo-Nazi white supremacist (Edward Norton), who served three years in prison for voluntary manslaughter, tries to prevent his younger brother from going down the same path. American Hustle (2013) In the late 1970s, two con artists (Christian Bale and Amy Adams) are forced to work for an FBI agent (Bradley Cooper) and set up a sting operation that plans to bring down several corrupt politicians and members of the Mafia. Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner star alongside. Andaz Apna Apna (1994) Two slackers (Aamir Khan and Salman Khan) who belong to middle-class families vie for the affections of an heiress, and inadvertently become her protectors from a local gangster in Rajkumar Santoshi's cult comedy favourite. Andhadhun (2018) Inspired by the French short film L'Accordeur, this black comedy thriller is the story of a piano player (Ayushman Khurrana) who pretends to be visually-impaired and is caught in a web of twists and lies after he walks into a murder scene. Tabu, Radhika Apte star alongside. Apollo 13 (1995) Ron Howard dramatises the aborted Apollo 13 mission that put the astronauts in jeopardy after an on-board explosion ate up all the oxygen and forced NASA to abort and get the men home safely. Argo (2012) Ben Affleck directs and stars in this film about a CIA agent posing as a Hollywood producer scouting for location in Iran, in order to rescue six Americans during the US hostage crisis of 1979. Article 15 (2019) Ayushmann Khurrana plays a cop in this exploration of casteism, religious discrimination, and the current socio-political situation in India, which tracks a missing persons' case involving three teenage girls of a small village. A hard-hitting, well-made movie, though ironically, it was criticised for being casteist itself, and providing an outsider's perspective. The Avengers (2012) Earth's mightiest heroes — including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk — come together in this groundbreaking Marvel team-up from writer-director Joss Whedon to stop Thor's adopted brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his alien army from subjugating mankind.

The Aviator (2004) With Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes and Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn, Martin Scorsese dives into the life of the aviation pioneer and film producer, who grapples with severe OCD while his fame grows. Awakenings (1990) Robin Williams and Robert De Niro lead the cast of this drama based on a 1973 memoir of the same name, about a doctor (Williams) who discovers the beneficial effects of a drug on catatonic patients, thereby gifting them a new lease on life. Barfi! (2012) Set in the 1970s amidst the hills of Darjeeling, writer-director Anurag Basu tells the tale of three people (Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, and Ileana D'Cruz) as they learn to love while battling the notions held by society. Beasts of No Nation (2015) With civil war raging across a fictional African nation, this Netflix Original focuses on a young boy who's trained as a child soldier by a fierce warlord (Idris Elba), and the effects it has on him. Before Sunrise (1995) In the first chapter of Richard Linklater's long-drawn-out trilogy, two idealistic twentysomethings, an American man (Ethan Hawke) and a French woman (Julie Delpy), spend the night together walking around in the Austrian capital of Vienna. The Big Lebowski (1998) A guy known as The Dude (Jeff Bridges) seeks payback for his ruined carpet after he's mistaken for a millionaire with the same name in this crime comedy from the Coen brothers. Less about the plot and more about a way of living. The Big Short (2015) Starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt, a look at Wall Street's penchant for self-profit in a vicious loop that caused the 2007–08 global financial meltdown. Birdman (2014) Alejandro G. Iñárritu won three Oscars including Best Picture for this tale of a washed-up superhero actor (Michael Keaton) who struggles to revive his career with a Broadway play. Known for appearing as if it was shot in a single take, it also starred Edward Norton, Zach Galifianakis, and Emma Stone. Blade Runner (1982) One of the most influential cyberpunk films ever made is about a burnt-out cop (Harrison Ford) who reluctantly agrees to hunt down a group of fugitive “replicants”, synthetic humans with a limited life-span who aren't allowed to live on Earth. Blue Valentine (2010) Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams lead this drama that shifts between time periods to depict a couple's courtship and how their marriage fell apart. Das Boot (1981) One of the most authentic war movies ever made chronicles the life of a German submarine crew during World War II, as they go through long stretches of boredom and periods of intense conflict, while trying to maintain morale in a capsule 10 feet by 150 feet hundreds of metres under the surface. The Bourne trilogy (2002-07) Technically not a trilogy, but the first three chapters — Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum — starring Matt Damon in the lead as the titular CIA assassin suffering from amnesia were so good that they changed the longest-running spy franchise of all-time: James Bond.

The Breadwinner (2017) This animated film follows a 11-year-old girl living under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, who disguises herself as a boy to provide for her family after the father is taken away without reason. Uses wonderfully-drawn vignettes to stress on the importance of storytelling. Bulbul Can Sing (2019) Three teenagers battle patriarchy and the moral police as they explore their sexual identities in Rima Das's National Award-winning drama — and pay for it dearly. Das writes, directs, shoots, edits, and handles costumes. C/o Kancharapalem (2018) Set in the eponymous Andhra Pradesh town, this Telugu film spans four love stories across religion, caste, and age — from a schoolboy to a middle-aged unmarried man. A debut for writer-director Venkatesh Maha, featuing a cast mostly made up of non-professional actors. Capernaum (2018) In the award-winning, highest-grossing Arabic film of all time, a 12-year-old from the slums of Beirut recounts his life leading up to a five-year sentence he's handed for stabbing someone, and in turn, his decision to sue his parents for child neglect. Captain Phillips (2013) The true story of a Somali pirate hijacking of a US cargo ship and its captain (Tom Hanks) being taken hostage, which spawns a rescue effort from the US Navy. The Bourne Ultimatum's Paul Greengrass directs. Cast Away (2000) After his plane crash-lands in the Pacific, a FedEx employee (Tom Hanks) wakes up on a deserted island and must use everything at his disposal and transform himself physically to survive living alone. Castle in the Sky (1986) In the first film officially under the Studio Ghibli banner, a young boy and a girl protect a magic crystal from pirates and military agents, while on the search for a legendary floating castle. Hayao Miyazaki writes and directs. Chupke Chupke (1975) Hrishikesh Mukherjee's remake of the Bengali film Chhadmabeshi, in which a newly-wedded husband (Dharmendra) decides to play pranks on his wife's (Sharmila Tagore) supposedly smart brother-in-law. Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan also star. A Clockwork Orange (1971) Set in a near-future dystopian Britain, writer-director Stanley Kubrick adapts Anthony Burgess' novel of the same name, commenting on juvenile delinquency through the eyes of a small gang leader who enjoys "a bit of the old ultra-violence". Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Steven Spielberg's slow-paced sci-fi pic — which spent several years in development, being rewritten over and over — is about an everyday blue-collar guy (Richard Dreyfuss) whose humdrum life turns upside down after an encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO).

Cold War (2018) Jumping either side of the Iron Curtain through the late 1940s to the 1960s, Oscar-winner Paweł Pawlikowski depicts the story of two star-crossed lovers, as they deal with Stalinism, rejection, jealousy, change, time — and their own temperaments. Company (2002) Inspired the real-life relationship between Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan, director Ram Gopal Varma offers a look at how a henchman (Vivek Oberoi) climbs up the mobster ladder and befriends the boss (Ajay Devgn), before they fall out. Dallas Buyers Club (2013) Refusing to accept a death sentence from his doctor after being diagnosed with AIDS in the 1980s, the true story of an electrician and hustler (Matthew McConaughey) who smuggles banned medications from abroad. Dangal (2016) The extraordinary true story of amateur wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat (Aamir Khan) who trains his two daughters to become India's first world-class female wrestlers, who went on to win gold medals at the Commonwealth Games. The Dark Knight (2008) In the second part of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, regarded as the greatest comic book movie ever, Batman (Christian Bale) faces a villain, the Joker (Heath Ledger), he doesn't understand, and must go through hell to save Gotham and its people. Dev.D (2009) Anurag Kashyap offers a modern-day reimagining of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's Bengali romance classic Devdas, in which a man (Abhay Deol), having broken up with his childhood sweetheart, finds refuge in alcohol and drugs, before falling for a prostitute (Kalki Koechlin). Dheepan (2015) Winner of Cannes' top prize, three Sri Lankan refugees — including a Tamil Tiger soldier — pretend to be a family to gain asylum in France, where they soon realise that life isn't very different in the rough neighbourhoods. Dil Chahta Hai (2001) Farhan Akhtar's directorial debut about three inseparable childhood friends whose wildly different approach to relationships creates a strain on their friendship remains a cult favourite. Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, and Preity Zinta star. Django Unchained (2012) Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) helps a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) rescue his wife from a charming but cruel plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). Drive (2011) A stuntman moonlighting as a getaway driver (Ryan Gosling) grows fond of his neighbour and her young son, and then takes part in a botched heist to protect them from the debt-ridden husband.

Dunkirk (2017) Christopher Nolan's first historical war movie chronicles the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the French beaches of Dunkirk in World War II, using his love for non-linear storytelling by depicting three fronts — land, sea, and air — in time-shifted ways. The Edge of Seventeen (2016) In this coming-of-age comedy, the life of an awkward young woman (Hailee Steinfeld) gets more complex after her older brother starts dating her best friend, though she finds solace in an unexpected friendship and a teacher-slash-mentor (Woody Harrelson). End of Watch (2012) Before he made a terrible sci-fi remake of his own film, writer-director David Ayer took a near-documentarian lens to the day-to-day police work of two partners (Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña) in South Los Angeles, involving their friendship and dealings with criminal elements. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) An estranged couple (Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet) begin a new relationship unaware they dated previously, having erased each other from their memories, in what stands as writer Charlie Kaufman's defining work. The Exorcist (1973) One of the greatest horror films of all time, that has left a lasting influence on the genre and beyond, is about the demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl and her mother's attempts to save her with the help of two priests who perform exorcisms. The Florida Project (2017) Set in the shadow of Disney World, a precocious six-year-old girl (Brooklynn Prince) makes the most of her summer with her ragtag playmates, while her rebellious mother tries to make ends meet with the spectre of homelessness always hanging over them. Willem Dafoe stars alongside. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) In John Hughes' now-classic teen picture, a high schooler fakes being sick to spend the day with his girlfriend and his best friend, while his principal is determined to spy on him. Fruitvale Station (2013) Black Panther writer-director Ryan Coogler's first feature offered a look at the real-life events of a young California man's (Michael B. Jordan) death in a police shooting in 2008. Winner of two awards at Sundance Film Festival. Full Metal Jacket (1987) Stanley Kubrick follows a US marine nicknamed Joker from his days as a new recruit under the command of a ruthless sergeant, to his posting as a war correspondent in South Vietnam, while observing the effects of the war on his fellow soldiers.

Ghostbusters (1984) A bunch of eccentric paranormal enthusiasts start a ghost-catching business in New York, and then stumble upon a plot to wreak havoc by summoning ghosts. Gave birth to one of the most iconic song lyrics in history. Gol Maal (1979) A chartered accountant (Amol Palekar), with a knack for singing and acting, falls deep down the rabbit hole after lying to his boss that he has a twin, in this Hrishikesh Mukherjee comedy. Gone Girl (2014) Based on Gillian Flynn's best-selling novel and directed by David Fincher, a confounded husband (Ben Affleck) becomes the primary suspect in the sudden mystery disappearance of his wife (Rosamund Pike). GoodFellas (1990) Considered as one of the best gangster films of all time, it brought Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro together for the sixth time. Based on Nicholas Pilegg's 1985 non-fiction book Wiseguy, it tells the rise and fall story of mob associate Henry Hill, his friends and family between 1955 and 1980. Gravity (2013) Two US astronauts, a first-timer (Sandra Bullock) and another on his final mission (George Clooney), are stranded in space after their shuttle is destroyed, and then must battle debris and challenging conditions to return home. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) A bunch of intergalactic misfits, which includes a talking racoon and tree, come together to form a ragtag team in this Marvel adventure that needs no prior knowledge. Guru (2007) Mani Ratnam wrote and directed this rags-to-riches story of a ruthless and ambitious businessman (Abhishek Bachchan) who doesn't let anything stand in his way as he turns into India's biggest tycoon. Loosely inspired by the life of Dhirubhai Ambani. Haider (2014) Vishal Bhardwaj's Shakespearean trilogy concluded with this modern-day adaptation of Hamlet, that is also based on Basharat Peer's 1990s-Kashmir memoir Curfewed Night. Follows a young man (Shahid Kapoor) who returns home to investigate his father's disappearance and finds himself embroiled in the ongoing violent insurgency. Her (2013) A lonely man (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with an intelligent computer operating system (Scarlett Johansson), who enriches his life and learns from him, in Spike Jonze's masterpiece. Hot Fuzz (2007) A top London cop (Simon Pegg, also co-writer) is transferred to a sleepy English village for being the lone overachiever in a squad of slackers. A blend of relationship comedy and a genre cop movie. Edgar Wright directs. Hugo (2011) In 1930s Paris, a boy who lives alone in the walls of a train station tries to figure out the mystery involving his late father and his most treasured possession, an automaton, that needs a key to function. Martin Scorsese directs.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) In the best of four movies, Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen is forced to participate in a special edition of the Hunger Games, a competition where individuals fight to the death, featuring the winners of all previous competitions. I, Daniel Blake (2016) After a heart attack that leaves him unable to work, a widowed carpenter is forced to fight an obtuse British welfare system, while developing a strong bond with a single mother who has two children. Winner of the Palme d'Or. I Lost My Body (2019) In this animated Cannes winner, a severed hand escapes from a lab and scrambles through Paris to get back to his body, while recounting its past life that involved moving to France after an accident and falling in love. In This Corner of the World (2016) Set in Hiroshima during World War II, an 18-year-old woman agrees to marry a man she barely knows in this animated Japanese film, and then must learn to cope with life's daily struggles and find a way to push through as the war rages on around her. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Directed by Steven Spielberg off a story by George Lucas, an eponymous archaeologist (Harrison Ford) travels the world and battles a group of Nazis while looking for a mysterious artefact, in what is now often considered as one of the greatest films of all-time. Infernal Affairs (2002) Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning The Departed is a remake of this original Hong Kongian film, in which a police officer is working undercover in a Triad, while a Triad member is secretly working for the police. Both have the same objective: find the mole. Into the Wild (2007) Based on Jon Krakauer's nonfiction book, Sean Penn goes behind the camera to direct the story of a top student and athlete who gives up all possessions and savings to charity, and hitchhikes across America to live in the Alaskan wilderness. Iqbal (2005) In writer-director Nagesh Kukunoor's National Award-winning film, a hearing- and speech-impaired farm boy (Shreyas Talpade) pursues his passion for becoming a cricketer for the national squad, with the help of a washed-up ex-coach (Naseeruddin Shah). The Irishman (2019) Based on Charles Brandt's 2004 book “I Heard You Paint Houses”, Martin Scorsese offers an indulgent, overlong look at the life of a truck driver (Robert De Niro) who becomes a hitman working for the Bufalino crime family and labour union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino).

John Wick (2014) In the first part of what is now a series, a former hitman (Keanu Reeves) exits retirement to find and kill those that stole his car and killed his dog. Less story, more action, with the filmmakers drawing on anime, Hong Kong action cinema, Spaghetti Westerns, and French crime dramas. Jurassic Park (1993) It might be over 25 years old at this point but watching the very first Jurassic film from Steven Spielberg — based on Michael Crichton's novel, which he co-adapted — is a great way to remind yourself why the new series, Jurassic World, has no idea why it's doing. Kahaani (2012) A pregnant woman (Vidya Balan) travels from London to Kolkata to search for her missing husband in writer-director Sujoy Ghosh's National Award-winning mystery thriller, battling sexism and a cover-up along the way. Khosla Ka Ghosla! (2006) After a powerful property dealer (Boman Irani) holds a middle-class, middle-aged man's (Anupam Kher) newly-purchased property to ransom, his son and his son's friends devise a plot to dupe the swindling squatter and pay him back with his own money. Dibakar Banerjee's directorial debut. Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) A coming-of-age story of the young titular witch, who opens an air delivery business, helps a bakery's pregnant owner in exchange for accommodation, and befriends a geeky boy during her year of self-discovery. Hayao Miyazaki writes and directs. Lady Bird (2017) Greta Gerwig's directorial debut is a coming-of-age story of a high school senior (Saoirse Ronan) and her turbulent relationship with her mother (Laurie Metcalf), all while she figures out who she wants to be through friendships and short relationships. Lagaan (2001) Set in Victorian India, a village farmer (Aamir Khan) stakes everyone's future on a game of cricket with the well-equipped British, in exchange for a tax reprieve for three years. The Little Prince (2015) Antoine de Saint-Exupery's 1943 novella is given the animation treatment, in which an elderly pilot (Jeff Bridges) recounts his encounters with a young boy who claimed to be an extra-terrestrial prince to his neighbour, a young girl. Rachel McAdams, James Franco, and Marion Cotillard also voice. A Little Princess (1995) Alfonso Cuarón directs this tale of a young girl who is forced to become a servant by the headmistress at her New York boarding school, after her wealthy aristocratic father is presumed dead in World War I. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) Peter Jackson brought J.R.R. Tolkien's expansive Middle-Earth to life in these three three-hour epics, which charts the journey of a meek hobbit (Elijah Wood) and his various companions, as they try to stop the Dark Lord Sauron by destroying the source of his power, the One Ring.

Loveless (2017) A Cannes winner about the social ills of life in modern Russia, told through the eyes of two separated parents who are drawn back together after their 12-year-old child goes missing. From award-winning director Andrey Zvyagintsev. The Lunchbox (2013) An unlikely mistake by Mumbai's famously efficient lunchbox carrier system results in an unusual friendship between a young housewife (Nimrat Kaur) and an older widower (Irrfan Khan) about to retire from his job. Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro (1979) In legendary Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki's feature debut, a dashing master thief enlists the help of a long-time nemesis in the police and a fellow thief to rescue a princess from an evil count, and put an end to his counterfeit money operation. Marriage Story (2019) Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver play an entertainment industry couple going through a divorce, which pulls them — and their young son — from New York to Los Angeles, the two different hometowns of the protagonists. Mary Poppins (1964) Based on P.L. Travers' book series of the same name, a disciplined father hires a loving woman (Julie Andrews) — who he doesn't know is capable of magic — to be the nanny for his two mischievous children. Won five Oscars, including best actress for the debutant Andrews. Masaan (2015) Neeraj Ghaywan ventures into the heartland of India to explore the life of four people in his directorial debut, all of whom must battle issues of caste, culture and norms. Winner of a National Award and the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes. Million Dollar Baby (2004) An overlooked, veteran boxing trainer (Clint Eastwood, who also directs) reluctantly agrees to train a former waitress (Hilary Swank) to help achieve her dreams, which leads to a close father-daughter bond that will forever change their lives. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) With the organisation he works for disbanded and his country after him, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) races against time to prove the existence of the schemers pulling the strings in this fifth chapter. Introduced Rebecca Ferguson to the franchise. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) The legendary British comedy troupe mix their talents with the tale of King Arthur and his knights, as they look for the Holy Grail and encounter a series of horrors. A contender for the best comedy of all-time.

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) Satire so cutting that it was banned for years in the UK and elsewhere, Life of Brian saw Monty Python turning their eyes on more long-form storytelling. The Life of Brian is the story of a young Jewish man born on the same day and next door to Jesus Christ, who gets mistaken for the messiah. Mudbound (2017) A Netflix Original, this World War II drama is set in rural Mississippi, and follows two veterans – one white and one black – who return home, and must deal with problems of racism in addition to PTSD. Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003) After his parents find out he has been pretending to be a doctor, a good-natured Mumbai underworld don (Sanjay Dutt) tries to redeem himself by enrolling in a medical college, where his compassion brushes up against the authoritarian dean (Boman Irani). Co-written and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, who stands accused in the #MeToo movement. My Neighbor Totoro (1988) Set in post-war rural Japan, a heart-warming tale of a professor's two young daughters who have adventures with friendly forest sprits. Hayao Miyazaki writes and directs. Mystic River (2003) Three childhood friends reunite after a brutal murder, in which the victim is one's (Sean Penn) daughter, another (Kevin Bacon) is the case detective, and the third (Tim Robbins) is suspected by both. Clint Eastwood directs. Nightcrawler (2014) Jake Gyllenhaal plays a freelance video journalist with no ethics or morals who will do anything to get the best footage of violent crimes that local news stations love. A feature directorial debut for screenwriter Dan Gilroy. Ocean's Eleven (2001) In this first of Steven Soderbergh's trilogy, which features an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon, Danny Ocean (Clooney) and his eleven associates plan to rob three Las Vegas casinos at the same time. Okja (2017) Part environment parable and part skewer of corporatisation, this underappreciated Netflix Original by Bong Joon-ho tells its story of a young Korean girl and her best friend – a giant pet pig – while effortlessly crossing genres. On Body and Soul (2017) A shy, introverted man and a woman who work at a Hungarian slaughterhouse discover they share the same dreams after an incident, and then try to make them come true.

Only Yesterday (1991) A Studio Ghibli production about a 27-year-old career-driven Tokyo woman who reminisces about her childhood on her way to the countryside to see her sister's family. Isao Takahata writes and directs. Paan Singh Tomar (2012) A true story of the eponymous soldier and athlete (Irrfan Khan) who won gold at the National Games, and later turned into a dacoit to resolve a land dispute. Won top honours for film and actor (Khan) at National Awards. Pan's Labyrinth (2006) In Guillermo del Toro's fantastical version of Spain five years after the civil war, Ofelia – a young stepdaughter of a cruel army officer – is told she is the reincarnated version of an underworld princess but must complete three tasks to prove herself. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) Emma Watson stars in this coming-of-age comedy based on the novel of the same name by Stephen Chbosky, who also wrote and directed the film. Watson plays one of two seniors who guide a nervous freshman. Phantom Thread (2017) Set in the glamourous couture world of 1950s post-war London, the life of a renowned dressmaker (Daniel Day-Lewis), who is used to women coming and going through his tailored life, unravels after he falls in love with a young, strong-willed waitress. Pink (2016) A lawyer (Amitabh Bachchan) comes out of retirement to help three women (Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari, and Andrea Tariang) clear their names in a crime involving a politician's nephew (Angad Bedi). Won a National Award. PK (2014) A satirical comedy-drama that probes religious dogmas and superstitions, through the lens of an alien (Aamir Khan) who is stranded on Earth after he loses his personal communicator and befriends a TV journalist (Anushka Sharma) as he attempts to retrieve it. Porco Rosso (1992) Transformed into an anthropomorphic pig by an unusual curse, an Italian World War I ace fighter veteran now works as a freelance bounty hunter in 1930s Adriatic Sea in the Mediterranean. Hayao Miyazaki writes and directs. Queen (2013) A 24-year-old shy woman (Kangana Ranaut) sets off on her honeymoon alone to Europe after her fiancé calls off the wedding a day prior. There, freed from the traditional trappings and with the help of new friends, she gains a newfound perspective on life. Director Vikas Bahl stands accused in the #MeToo movement.

Rang De Basanti (2006) Aamir Khan leads the ensemble cast of this award-winning film that focuses on four young New Delhi men who turn into revolutionary heroes themselves while playacting as five Indian freedom fighters from the 1920s for a docudrama. Ratatouille (2007) An anthropomorphic rat (Patton Oswalt) who longs to be a chef tries to achieve his dream by making an alliance with a young garbage boy at a Parisian restaurant. From Pixar. Rebecca (1940) Alfred Hitchcock's first American film is based on Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel of the same name, about a naïve, young woman who marries an aristocratic widower and then struggles under the intimidating reputation of his first wife, who died under mysterious circumstances. The Remains of the Day (1993) Made by the duo of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, this based-on-a-book film is about a dedicated and loyal butler (Anthony Hopkins), who gave much of his life — and missed out on a lot — serving a British lord who turns out to be a Nazi sympathiser. Reservoir Dogs (1992) After a simply jewellery heist goes wrong in Quentin Tarantino's feature-length debut, six criminals – Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, and Michael Madsen are a few of the actors – who don't know each other's identity start to suspect each other of being a police informant. The Revenant (2015) Leonardo DiCaprio and director Alejandro G. Iñárritu won Oscars for their work on this semi-biographical Western film set in the 1820s, which tells the story of frontiersman Hugh Glass and his quest for survival and justice amidst severe winters. Roma (2018) Alfonso Cuarón revisits his childhood in the eponymous Mexico City neighbourhood, during the political turmoil of the 1970s, through the eyes of a middle-class family's live-in maid, who takes care of the house and four children, while balancing the complications of her own personal life. Sairat (2016) In a tiny village in the Indian state of Maharashtra, a fisherman's son and a local politician's daughter fall in love, which sends ripples across the society because their families belong to different castes. Currently the highest-grossing Marathi-language film of all time. Scarface (1983) Al Pacino delivers one of his best performances as a Cuban refugee who arrives in 1980s Miami with nothing, rises the ranks to become a powerful drug kingpin, and then falls due to his ego, his paranoia, and a growing list of enemies. Se7en (1995) In this dark, gripping thriller from David Fincher, two detectives – one new (Brad Pitt) and one about to retire (Morgan Freeman) – hunt a serial killer (Kevin Spacey) who uses the seven deadly sins as his motives. Secret Superstar (2017) Though frequently melodramatic, this coming-of-age story – produced by Aamir Khan and wife Kiran Rao – of a Muslim girl from Vadodara who dreams of being a singer dealt with important social issues and broke several box office records during its theatrical run.

Sense and Sensibility (1995) Jane Austen's famous work is brought to life by director Ang Lee, about three sisters who are forced to seek financial security through marriage after the death of their wealthy father leaves them poor by the rules of inheritance. The Shining (1980) Stephen King's popular novel gets the film treatment from Stanley Kubrick, about a father who loses his sanity in an isolated hotel the family is staying at for the winter, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and the future. Shoplifters (2018) Winner of the top prize at Cannes, the story of a group of poverty-stricken outsiders scraping together an under-the-radar living in Tokyo, whose life is upended after they take in a new, young member. Hirokazu Kore-eda writes, directs, and edits. Shrek (2001) A half-parody of fairy tales, Shrek is about an eponymous ogre who agrees to help an evil lord get a queen in exchange for the deed to his swamp, filled with enough jokes for the adults and a simple plot children. A Silent Voice: The Movie (2016) Based on the manga of the same name, a coming-of-age story of a school bully who tries to make amends with a hearing-impaired girl he tormented back in the day, after the tables are turned on him. Silver Linings Playbook (2012) Two people (Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper) with pain and suffering in their past begin a road to recovery while training together for a dance competition, in what becomes an unlikely love story. The Sixth Sense (1999) In writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's best film to date, a child psychologist (Bruce Willis) tries to help a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) who can see and talk to the dead. Snowpiercer (2013) Chris Evans stars in this sci-fi from Bong Joon-ho, which takes place in a future ravaged by an experiment, where the survivors live on a train that continuously circles the globe and has led to a punishing new class system. The Social Network (2010) The tale of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg gets a slight fictional spin, as it explores how the young engineer was sued by twin brothers who claimed he stole their idea, and sold lies to his co-founder and squeezed him out.

Soni (2019) A short-tempered young policewoman and her cool-headed female boss must contend with ingrained misogyny in their daily lives and even at work, where it impacts their coordinated attempts to tackle the rise of crimes against women in Delhi. Spartacus (1960) After failing to land the title role in Ben-Hur, Kirk Douglas optioned a book with a similar theme, about a slave who led a revolt — known retrospectively as the Third Servile War — against the mighty Roman Empire. Won four Oscars and was named as one of the best historical epics. The Stranger (1946) A war crimes investigator hunts a high-ranking Nazi fugitive (Orson Welles, also director) hiding in the US state of Connecticut, who is also duping his naïve new wife. Super Deluxe (2019) An inter-linked anthology of four stories, involving an unfaithful wife, a transgender woman, a bunch of teenagers, which deal in sex, stigma, and spirituality. Runs at nearly three hours. Swades (2004) Shah Rukh Khan stars a successful NASA scientist in this based on a true story drama, who returns home to India to take his nanny to the US, rediscovers his roots and connects with the local village community in the process. Taare Zameen Par (2007) Sent to boarding school against his will, a dyslexic eight-year-old is helped by an unconventional art teacher (Aamir Khan) to overcome his disability and discover his true potential. Talvar (2015) Meghna Gulzar and Vishal Bhardwaj combine forces to tell the story of the 2008 Noida double murder case, in which a teenage girl and the family's hired servant were killed, and the inept police bungled the investigation. Uses the Rashomon effect for a three-pronged take. Tangerine (2015) Shot entirely on iPhones, a transgender female sex worker vows revenge on her boyfriend-pimp who cheated on her while she was in jail. Tangled (2010) Locked up by her overly protective mother, a young long-haired girl finally gets her wish to escape into the world outside thanks to a good-hearted thief, and discovers her true self.

Thithi (2016) In this award-winning Kannada-language film, set in a remote village in the state of Karnataka, three generations of men reflect on the death of their locally-famous, bad-tempered 101-year-old patriarch. Made with a cast of non-professional actors. The Town (2010) While a group of lifelong Boston friends plan a major final heist at Fenway Park, one of them (Ben Affleck) falls in love with the hostage from an earlier robbery, complicating matters. Train to Busan (2016) Stuck on a blood-drenched bullet train ride across Korea, a father and his daughter must fight their way through a countrywide zombie outbreak to make it to the only city that's safe. Tu Hai Mera Sunday (2016) Five thirty-something friends struggle to find a place in Mumbai where they can play football in peace in this light-hearted rom-com tale, which explores gender divides and social mores along the way. The Two Popes (2019) Inspired by real life, the tale of friendship that formed between Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins) and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce), the future Pope Francis, after the latter approached the former regarding his concerns with the direction of the Catholic Church. Udaan (2010) Vikramaditya Motwane made his directorial debut with this coming-of-age story of a teenager who is expelled from boarding school and returns home to the industrial town of Jamshedpur, where he must work at his oppressive father's factory. Udta Punjab (2016) With the eponymous Indian state's drug crisis as the backdrop, this black comedy crime film depicts the interwoven lives of a junior policeman (Diljit Dosanjh), an activist doctor (Kareena Kapoor), a migrant worker (Alia Bhatt), and a rock star (Shahid Kapoor). Uncut Gems (2019) A charismatic, New York-based Jewish jeweller and a gambling addict (Adam Sandler) ends up in over his head in this taut thriller, struggling to keep a lid on his family, desires, business, and enemies. The Untouchables (1987) With mobster Al Capone (Robert De Niro) making use of the rampant corruption during the Prohibition period in the US, federal agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) hand picks a team to expose his business and bring him to justice. Brian De Palma directs. Up in the Air (2009) A corporate downsizing expert (George Clooney) who loves living out of a suitcase finds his lifestyle threatened due to a potential love interest (Vera Farmiga) and an ambitious new hire (Anna Kendrick).

Vertigo (1958) Topping Citizen Kane in the latest Sight & Sound poll of greatest films of all time, Alfred Hitchcock's thriller about a detective afraid of heights who falls for an old friend's wife while investigating her strange activities continued his tradition of turning audiences into voyeurs. Village Rockstars (2017) A young Assamese girl of a widow pines to own a guitar and start her own rock band, but societal norms routinely get in the way. Rima Das writes, directs, shoots, edits, and handles costumes. Visaranai (2015) Winner of three National Awards and based on M. Chandrakumar's novel Lock Up, the story of four Tamil laborers who are framed and tortured by politically-motivated cops in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh. Vetrimaaran writes and directs. A Wednesday! (2008) Neeraj Pandey's film is set between 2 pm and 6 pm on a Wednesday, naturally, when a common man (Naseeruddin Shah) threatens to detonate five bombs in Mumbai unless four terrorists accused in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings case are released. Wonder Woman (2017) After a pilot crashes and informs them about an ongoing World War, an Amazonian princess (Gal Gadot) leaves her secluded life to enter the world of men and stop what she believes to be the return of Amazons' nemesis. Wreck-It Ralph (2012) This Disney animated film tells the story of a video game villain who sets out to fulfil his dream of becoming a hero but ends up bringing havoc to the entire arcade where he lives. Zero Dark Thirty (2012) The decade-long international manhunt for Osama bin Laden is the focus of this thriller from Kathryn Bigelow, dramatised as and when needed to keep a CIA intelligence analyst (Jessica Chastain) at the centre of the story. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, and Abhay Deol star as three childhood friends who set off on a bachelor trip across Spain, which becomes an opportunity to heal past wounds, combat their worst fears, and fall in love with life. Zodiac (2007) David Fincher signed on Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr. to depict a cartoonist's (Gyllenhaal) obsession with figuring out the identity of the Zodiac Killer in the 1960s–70s. Zombieland (2009) A student looking for his parents (Jesse Eisenberg), a man looking for a favourite snack, and two con artist sisters join forces and take an extended road trip across a zombie-filled America, while they all search for a zombie-free sanctuary. Read the full article

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warninggraphiccontent · 4 years

Text

19 June 2020

Appy talk

GOVERNMENT RUNS PILOT SCHEME, DEVELOPS ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION ALONGSIDE, CHANGES COURSE WHEN TRIAL FINDS FAULTS was surprisingly not one of the headlines heralding the government's abandonment of the original NHSX contact tracing app in favour of closer working with Google and Apple (and not just because no self-respecting sub, outside the New York Times, would run a headline that long, with that many commas).

There are undoubtedly questions for the government to answer - why it was so tempted by tech solutionism at the expense of designing a proper test and trace system; why it made the 'world-beating' app the centrepiece of the banquet before demoting it to a mere cherry on the cake; whether it should have pursued the course it did knowing compatibility with Apple's iOS operating system (and to some extent, Android) could be a problem and whether the UK has lost time as a result; why there wasn't more openness about the Isle of Wight trial; and why the data protection impact assessment for test and trace wasn't completed before the service was rolled out, for a start. And it's obviously not encouraging when the government has already u-turned a dizzying number of times in recent days and weeks.

But for all the justified questions and criticisms, some of the government's critics are being somewhat disingenuous. The trade-offs between centralised (as originally pursued by NHSX) and decentralised (Google/Apple) approaches are more nuanced than is being allowed; the UK is not alone in facing problems rolling out an app; and there are some rather big debates to be had about the respective power of democratic governments and technology companies.

In its statement yesterday, the Department of Health and Social Care claimed that their tests had also found problems with the Google/Apple approach (specifically, how well that solution could measure the distance between devices), and they're not the only ones, which points to a more fundamental question: will any of the proposed apps work?

This hasn't really been done before. The Ada Lovelace Institute said at the start of the crisis that there was 'an absence of evidence to support the immediate national deployment' of mooted technological solutions, including contact tracing apps. Has that changed? Can anyone yet point to a country where a contact tracing app has been shown to have worked? Where an app has been a substitute for (or even a significant part of) a well-designed, broader test and trace system and other measures? Whether the UK public would tolerate some of the infringements on privacy associated with tech-based approaches in some other countries?

Given the situation, a change in approach is welcome and sensible. Continuing down this track (as it were) risked damaging public confidence in the system, and it is vital that government maintains public confidence and earns public trust, especially when it comes to how it uses our data. The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation put it well when it said its role was to ensure that 'the speed at which innovation must move doesn’t demand that the values of transparency, privacy, scrutiny and good governance are foregone - compromising the public’s trust in public sector innovation longer term'.

Getting it wrong could have long-term consequences. But let's not pretend getting it right is going to be easy.

Three more things:

I've written a comment piece on the prime minister's call for a new cross-government commission on racial inequality. Maybe start with implementing the recommendations of previous inquiries and follow previous initiatives (including some data-related ones)? And if not, at least give us some more details on what it will look like and what it's trying to achieve, and pledge that its recommendations will be adopted?

The winners of this year's Orwell Prizes will be announced on 9 July. Catch up on the shortlists in the meantime.

And details of the next Data Bites will be going live here very, very soon. See you at 6pm on Wednesday 1 July. Previous events here.

Have a good weekend

Gavin

Today's links:

Tips and tech

Lessons learned from organising the first ever virtual csv,conf (Open Knowledge Foundation)

EXPERIENCES OF FACILITATING ONLINE: INNOVATING, ADJUSTING AND KEEPING THINGS THE SAME (Involve)

Graphic content

Viral content

3 months of a global pandemic (Citizens Advice)

I've mapped Google's excellent mobility data (Dan Cookson)

A warning from South Korea: the ‘fantasy’ of returning to normal life (FT)

You Regress It: Have Masks Prevented 66,000 Infections in New York City? (roadtolarissa)

Brexit Heartlands Pay the Highest Price for Coronavirus* (Bloomberg)

Visualizing COVID-19 (Graphicacy)

Much of the world thinks the response to the pandemic has been poor* (The Economist)

What could a physically distanced UK look like after lockdown? (The Guardian)

When the Coronavirus Outbreak Could Peak in Each U.S. State* (Bloomberg)

Poverty and populism put Latin America at the centre of pandemic* (FT)

Pandemic Travel Patterns Hint at Our Urban Future* (Bloomberg)

Viral content: economic consequences

UK GDP - animated version (Henry Lau)

English shoppers’ return points to a gradual retail recovery* (FT)

How many charity employees have been furloughed? (David Kane)

Four conclusions from latest UK labour market data* (FT)

The geography of the COVID-19 crisis in England (IFS)

#BlackLivesMatter

Black Lives Matter protests prompt millions to search online for race history facts* (The Times)

Unemployment Tracker: Job Losses for Black Workers Are Deepening* (New York Times)

YOU KNOW KAREN (The Pudding)

Cities Grew Safer. Police Budgets Kept Growing.* (The Upshot)

The systemic racism black Americans face, explained in 9 charts (Vox)

Exclusive: Top British firms to pay compensation over founders' slavery links* (Telegraph)

UK politics

Keir Starmer scores the highest satisfaction ratings *ever* of an opposition leader on record (Dylan Spielman, Ipsos MORI, via Lee, Tim and Marcus)

Covid could do for Johnson what the snap election did for May (Matt Smith)

The other reason the government U-turned on free school meals* (New Statesman)

UK government

DfID/FCO merger (IfG - bit more here)

Being updated imminently: civil service staff numbers, freedom of information (IfG)

Ministerial directions (IfG)

US politics

America’s anachronistic electoral college gives Republicans an edge* (The Economist)

Wall Street takes aim at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in party primary* (FT)

House of Lords: Virtual sittings, participation and Covid-19 (House of Lords Library)

Environment

Emissions Are Surging Back as Countries and States Reopen* (New York Times)

Can India chart a low-carbon future? The world might depend on it.* (Washington Post)

Mean annual temperature for Northern Ireland (Department of Agriculture, Environmental and Rural Affairs)

Sport

FootballGeek

Fight for fourth? Data reveals it will be long road for Manchester United* (The Times)

Everything else

Country & Product Complexity Rankings (Atlas of Economic Complexity)

The unluckiest generation in U.S. history* (Washington Post)

Mark Duggan police shooting: can forensic tech cast doubt on official report? (The Guardian)

Fighting in the Sahel has forced 1.7m people from their homes* (The Economist)

Digital News Report 2020 (Reuters Institute)

Leftwing voters lead decline in trust in UK news media (The Guardian)

#dataviz

Truncating the axis (Chad Skelton and others)

Infographics (Government Statistical Service)

When the pie chart is more complex than the data (Junk Charts)

How your colorblind and colorweak readers see your colors (Datawrapper)

What Graphs Reveal (If You Give Them Time) (Math with Bad Drawings)

Slow Reveal Graphs

Survival Analysis in Alteryx and Tableau; or, the survival of biscuits (Gwilym Lockwood)

Meta data

Viral content: Appy talk, keep talkin' appy talk, talk about things you'd like to do

Next phase of NHS coronavirus (COVID-19) app announced (DHSC)

UK virus-tracing app switches to Apple-Google model (BBC News)

Turn it off and on again: lessons learned from the NHS contact tracing app (Ada Lovelace Institute)

Personal data and coronavirus (IfG)

Trinity study confirms accuracy concerns on contact tracing apps (Trinity College Dublin)

What happened to Matt Hancock's coronavirus contact-tracing app? (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism)

Coronavirus: Contact-tracing apps face further hitches (BBC News)

Looking at the recently-released SAGE documents on contact tracing, it's striking how central the app is to the whole plan (Rowland Manthorpe)

You may be wondering what's going on with the contact tracing app... (Rowland Manthorpe)

Bahrain, Kuwait and Norway contact tracing apps among most dangerous for privacy (Amnesty International)

Viral content: oh, the immunity

Plans for coronavirus immunity passports should worry us all (Wired)

Explainer: Immunity certificates (CDEI)

Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation criticised after supporting controversial immunity passports (NS Tech)

Viral content: everything else

Just How Historic Is the Latest Covid-19 Science Meltdown?* (Wired)

Landmark IT deal will provide access to digital tools and save hundreds of millions of pounds for the NHS (NHS Digital)

How Data Became One of the Most Powerful Tools to Fight an Epidemic* (New York Times)

Out of the shadows: The value of data in times of crisis (Ed Humpherson for ADR UK)

Public Health in the Information Age: Recognising the Infosphere as a Social Determinant of Health (Jessica Morley, Josh Cowls, Mariarosaria Taddeo, Luciano Floridi)

The Economy Is Reeling. The Tech Giants Spy Opportunity.* (New York Times)

Data and Covid-19: why standards matter (ODI)

Data in the time of Covid-19 (Understanding Patient Data)

A rapid online deliberation on COVID-19 technologies: building public confidence and trust (Ada Lovelace Institute)

A prototype that compares coronavirus response sites (Public Digital, via Andrew)

AI Barometer (CDEI)

Alternative visions for the future of AI (Nesta)

Everyone’s talking about ethics in AI. Here’s what they’re missing (Fast Company)

Joint Statement from founding members of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (DCMS/Office for AI)

Geospatial awareness

Unlocking the power of location:The UK’s geospatial strategy (Geospatial Commission)

Reviews: Owen, Jeni, Peter, Anna

Geospatial Commission Charter (Geospatial Commission)

Geospatial Glossary (Geospatial Commission)

Parliament

Developer hub (UK Parliament)

Report on Digital Development (Stance for Parliamentary Digital Service, October 2019)

Government

Seeing government, being seen by government. (Alex)

The role of technology in governance: The example of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (Natasha McCarthy and Franck Fourniol for Data & Policy)

NI civil servant voices warning on deleted emails (BBC News)

A question for government data people (James Plunkett)

What we learnt from the first phase of the GovTech Catalyst (GDS)

Everything else

Police in England and Wales dropping rape inquiries when victims refuse to hand in phones (The Guardian)

Mobile phone data extraction by police forces in England and Wales: Investigation report (ICO)

The Mainstream Media Won’t Tell You This* (The Atlantic)

IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon’s face recognition bans don’t go far enough (Fast Company)

TALES FROM THE CRYPTO (Frank Pasquale for Public Books)

Facebook to let users turn off political adverts (BBC News)

The three tests of internet regulation (Heather Burns)

Opportunities

EVENT: Why GovCamp North? (GovCamp North)

EVENT: Shoshana Zuboff meets Margrethe Vestager: A conversation about a future digital Europe - webinar (Danish Society of Engineers)

JOB: Deputy Head, Office for Artificial Intelligence (DCMS/BEIS)

JOB: Economic Advisor - Lead Analyst - Office of Artificial Intelligence (DCMS/BEIS)

JOB: Director of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (NHS Digital)

JOB: Head of Software Development (DfE)

And finally...

Maps

Country names in any language (Arun Ganesh)

Here's the geographical distribution of the 10 most common pub names in Great Britain (Colin Angus)

The topologist's map of the world - a map showing international borders, and nothing else (r/MapPorn)

Everything else

HTTP status codes as emoji .. this might be a good idea? (@francesc)

Chart shows the changing appearance of copper throughout the patina process (via Simon Kuestenmacher)

#registers (via Max Fras, via Oliver)

Won't somebody please...

0 notes

iasshikshalove · 4 years

Text

Daily Current Affairs Dated On 20-June-2019

Daily Current Affairs Dated On 20-June-2019 GS-1 Site of national importance: Why in News? An ancient site with chariots, swords and other objects pointing to the presence of a warrior class around 4,000 years ago in Uttar Pradesh's Baghpat district could be declared a site of national importance soon. Details:  The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has started the process of declaring the site at Sadikpur Sinauli, which is spread over 28 hectares, of national importance, issuing a notification on June 6 seeking objections, if any, from the public for a period of two months.  After taking any objections into consideration, the Union government is likely to proceed with notifying the site as one of national importance. Significance of the site:  The site, where excavation and preservation work is still ongoing after being started in 2018, was deemed to have national importance due to the finds uncovered.  Among the treasures unearthed are three chariots, legged coffins, shields, swords and helmets – all which point towards a warrior class that must have existed around 2,000 BCE, according to an ASI statement.  In an official statement about the excavation earlier this year, ASI said the site, which is 68 km north-east of Delhi, was the “largest necropolis of the late Harappan period datable to around early part of second millennium BCE”.  According to the ASI, a legged coffin with steatite inlays and holding a female skeleton was found in a burial pit, along with jewellery, pottery and an antenna sword near the head.  Remains of four furnaces were found in another part of the site. GS-2 Acute encephalitis syndrome Why in News? Daily Current Affairs Dated On 20-June-2019 Acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur has so far claimed over 110 children. At present, more than 400 children with AES have been admitted to various hospitals. Most of the deaths have been attributed to low blood sugar level (hypoglycaemia). What is acute encephalitis syndrome (AES)?  Acute encephalitis syndrome or AES is a basket term used for referring to hospitals, children with clinical neurological manifestation that includes mental confusion, disorientation, convulsion, delirium, or coma.  Meningitis caused by virus or bacteria, encephalitis (mostly Japanese encephalitis) caused by virus, encephalopathy, cerebral malaria, and scrub typhus caused by bacteria are collectively called acute encephalitis syndrome.  While virus or bacteria cause all the other conditions, encephalopathy is biochemical in origin and hence very different from the rest.  There are different types of encephalopathy. In the present case, the encephalopathy is associated with hypoglycaemia and hence called hypoglycaemic encephalopathy. Is litchi fruit responsible for causing hypoglycaemic encephalopathy?  In 2012-2013, a two-member team headed by virologist Dr. T. Jacob John suspected, and next year confirmed, a toxin found in litchi fruit that was responsible for causing the hypoglycaemic encephalopathy. In 2017, a large Indo-U.S. team confirmed the role of the toxin.  The toxin is called methylene cyclopropyl glycine (MCPG)..  Litchi does not cause any harm in well-nourished children, but only in undernourished children who had eaten litchi fruit the previous day and had gone to bed on empty stomach. Why is the toxin more dangerous to undernourished children?  In well-nourished children, reserve glucose is stored as glycogen (glucose polysaccharide) in the liver.  Whenever glucose level goes down, the glycogen is broken down into glucose and circulated in the blood for use.  But undernourished children lack sufficient glycogen reserve that can be converted into glucose.  Therefore, the natural mechanism in undernourished children is unable to correct the glucose level in blood, leading to hypoglycaemia. Daily Current Affairs Dated On 20-June-2019  Normally, when glycogen reserve in the liver is exhausted or is not sufficient, the body converts the fatty acid (non-carbohydrate energy source) into glucose.  But in the presence of the litchi toxin, the conversion of fatty acid into glucose is stopped midway. As a result, no glucose is generated and the low blood glucose level is not corrected by the body. Can hypoglycaemic encephalopathy be prevented in undernourished children?  Yes, hypoglycaemic encephalopathy can be easily prevented in malnourished children. Making sure that undernourished children do not eat plenty of litchi fruit and ensuring that they eat some food and not go to bed on empty stomach can easily keep hypoglycaemic encephalopathy at bay.  Since 2015, the prevention strategy as recommended by Dr. Jacob John’s team helped in sharply reducing the number of deaths from hypoglycaemic encephalopathy in Muzaffarpur. In 2017, the Indo-U.S. team published their paper corroborating these findings and recommendations. Indian Diaspora: Why in News? The population of Indian-origin people in America grew by 38% in seven years between 2010 and 2017, a South Asian advocacy group has said in its latest demographic report. Findings of Report:  There are at least 630,000 Indians who are undocumented, a 72% increase since 2010, the South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) said in its snapshot.  The increase in illegal Indian-Americans can be attributed to Indian immigrants overstaying visas, it said.  Nearly 250,000 Indians overstayed their visa in 2016 therefore becoming undocumented, it said.  In general, the population of American residents tracing their roots to South Asia grew by 40%. In real terms, it increased from 3.5 million in 2010 to 5.4 million in 2017, SAALT said. Income inequality Daily Current Affairs Dated On 20-June-2019  The demographic snapshot is based primarily on Census 2010 and the 2017 American Community Survey.  According to the report, income inequality has been reported to be the greatest among Asian Americans.  Nearly one per cent of the approximately five million South Asians in the US live in poverty.  SAALT said there has been a rise in the number of South Asians seeking asylum in the US over the last 10 years.  The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained 3,013 South Asians since 2017. US Customs and Border Patrol arrested 17,119 South Asians between October 2014 and April 2018 through border and interior enforcement, it said. Poverty prevails  Nearly 472,000 or 10% of the approximately five million South Asians in the US live in poverty, the report said.  Among South Asian Americans, Pakistanis (15.8%), Nepalis (23.9%), Bangladeshis (24.2%), and Bhutanese (33.3%) had the highest poverty rates, it said.  Bangladeshi and Nepali communities have the lowest median household incomes out of all Asian American groups, earning $49,800 and $43,500 respectively, it said.  Nearly 61% of non-citizen Bangladeshi American families receive public benefits for at least one of the four federal programmes including TANF, SSI, SNAP and Medicaid/CHIP, 48% of non-citizen Pakistani families and 11% of non-citizen Indian families also receive public benefits, the report said.  According to the Current Population Survey (CPS), 49.9% of voting-age Asian American citizens cast a ballot in 2016.  The number of Asian American voters in the last decade has nearly doubled from about two million voters in 2001 to 5 million voters in 2016.  Of these, Indians account for more than 1.5 million, followed by Pakistanis (222,252) and Bangladeshi (69,825), SAALT added. GS-3 Digital Tax: Why in News? Daily Current Affairs Dated On 20-June-2019 The Finance Ministers of the G20 member nations on Saturday called for the creation of a digital tax for multinational technology companies, the details of which will be finalized next year. About the initiative:  The initiative was debated on Thursday during a G20 Ministerial Symposium in the Japanese city of Fukuoka, with the world’s leading industrialized countries coming out in favour of setting up a new tax model that is adapted to the digital economy, .  The representatives from Japan, US, China, France and the UK supported modifying their current regulations that allow digital giants such as Amazon, Google and Facebook to be taxed where they are headquartered, and instead implement taxes based on their revenue and number of users in every market where they operate.  “G20 leaders agreed to work together to seek a consensus-based solution to address the impacts of digitalization on the international tax system.  The G20 ministers committed to working on charting out a “digital tax” by the end of the year and publish a report in 2020 in which the details of the measure are to be finalised, according to the working calendar established by the Organization for the Economic Co-operation and Development. How will it Work?  The initiative would have two fundamental pillars: one based on ending with the principle of taxation according to the physical presence of the country, with the second aimed at stopping the tax competition and companies turning to countries with less tax pressure. Financial Stability and Development Council Why in news? The 20th Meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) was held here today under the Chairmanship of the Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman. Daily Current Affairs Dated On 20-June-2019 About FSDC:  Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) is an apex-level body constituted by the government of India.  The idea to create such a super regulatory body was first mooted by the Raghuram Rajan Committee in 2008.  An apex-level FSDC is not a statutory body.  The recent global economic meltdown has put pressure on governments and institutions across the globe to regulate their economic assets.  This council is seen as India's initiative to be better conditioned to prevent such incidents in future.  The new body envisages to strengthen and institutionalise the mechanism of maintaining financial stability, financial sector development, inter-regulatory coordination along with monitoring macro-prudential regulation of economy.  No funds are separately allocated to the council for undertaking its activities Responsibilities  Financial Stability  Financial Sector Development  Inter-Regulatory Coordination  Financial Literacy  Financial Inclusion  Macro prudential supervision of the economy including the functioning of large financial conglomerates  Coordinating India's international interface with financial sector bodies like the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Financial Stability Board (FSB)and any such body as may be decided by the Finance Minister from time to time.

#ias #ias exams #ias preparation #ias academy #UPSC #upsc exam #upsc preparation #upsc exams #Current Affairs #gocernment

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nhcharts · 11 months

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Chart Update 2023-06-09 02:37 UTC

If You Leave Me:

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The Show:

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Meltdown:

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Heaven:

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#If You Leave Me #Never Grow Up #The Show #You Could Start a Cult #Save My Life #On a Night Like Tonight #Science #Must Be Love #The Show album #The Show Worldwide iTunes Album Chart #The Show Kworb Live iTunes Album UK #Meltdown #Meltdown Spotify Top 200 GB #Meltdown Kworb Live Apple Music UK #Meltdown UK Official Charts #Meltdown UK Official Charts Midweek Update #Heaven #Heaven US Radio Weekly Top 40 #Heaven Kworb Live iTunes UK

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jamieclawhorn · 5 years

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Why I’d shun the Vodafone share price and buy this stock instead

Last year was grim for those holding shares in telecommunications company Vodafone Group (LSE: VOD), at least in terms of their position in the firm’s stock. At today’s 147p or so, the share price has plunged around 36% since last January and the chart tells the story of a steady and relentless meltdown in price.

I’d been concerned about the way the shares seemed to be over-valuing Vodafone for some time. Yet the firm has maintained its dividend over the past few years and the yield is big at around 9%. But there’s no sign of a dividend rise on the horizon, and I like to see a dividend rising a little every year with my investments. Indeed, earnings haven’t covered the dividend payment for some time, but cash inflow just about covers it.

However, Vodafone carries a big load of debt, which needs to be serviced. The money to pay interest on borrowings comes from the same cash inflow that pays the dividend, so there’s competition for the limited amount of cash that flows into the business.

Competition and restructuring

There’s also competition in the market for the type of service Vodafone provides, and the firm mentioned it in the recent half-year report. A new chief executive has switched the firm into what looks like turnaround mode, with cost-cutting initiatives, restructuring, and the like. I reckon the dividend could fall into focus and become vulnerable. So, with the shares falling, I’d watch from the sidelines and would be more inclined to invest in Hays (LSE: HAS) instead.

The recruitment company’s second-quarter update today revealed good trading in all the operating geographies. Overall, like-for-like net fees grew 9% for the three months to 31 December, driven by a strong performance from the company’s extensive international business.

Hays carries a net cash position rather than the big debt-load burdening Vodafone, and I reckon that situation will help the company maintain its chunky dividend payments over the coming years. The firm has a good record of raising the dividend payment a little each year, which I find encouraging.

Cyclical, but trading well

The recruitment sector is known for its cyclicality and you can see in the share-price chart how the stock plunges and rises according to prevailing economic fears of the day. But, over the past six years or so, earnings, revenues and the dividend have been on a steady upward trajectory, with no sign of a wobble. Indeed, City analysts predict robust trading ahead. Meanwhile, chief executive Alistair Cox said in the report “the outlook is good across most International markets.”

On balance, I’d rather risk my capital on Hays than on Vodafone and I’d aim to buy some of its shares when the price had cycled down, such as now. As said, the firm’s operations are cyclical, but the enterprise is growing too. And the dividend income would be useful to collect while holding the shares and waiting for operational progress to deliver capital growth from a higher share price.

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