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9 questions about North Korea you were too embarrassed to askTensions between the US and North Korea are heating up. Here’s how we got to this point — and where we might be headed.Updated by Alex Wardon September 20, 2017 9:50 amTWEETSHARENorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un salutes at a parade in Pyongyang, North Korea, on October 10, 2015.AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, FileThe news about North Korea sounds, and is, pretty scary.North Korea now has an intercontinental ballistic missile that is theoretically capable of hitting major US cities including Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC. And the US military now believes North Korea has the capability to “miniaturize” a nuclear weapon and fit it onto that missile.President Trump is openly threatening North Korea with apocalyptic language, warning on August 8 that North Korea “best not make any more threats to the US. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” And at the United Nations on September 19, Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if Pyongyang continued to threaten the US or its allies.Why is all of this happening? Why are we talking about a possible war with a tiny, desperately poor country on the other side of the world? It’s a long, complicated story that goes back decades — all the way back to the Korean War in the early 1950s. It’s a story of diplomatic failures, madcap dictators, and tricky geopolitical maneuvering.So for those of you who are confused, don’t sweat it — we’ve got you covered. Here are answers to some of the most basic questions about North Korea that will help you get up to speed on where we are in the conflict, how we got here, and where we’re likely headed.1) What is North Korea?North Korea, known officially as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a small country sandwiched between China and South Korea in Northeast Asia. It is home to an estimated 25 million people, nearly 3 million of whom live in the capital city of Pyongyang.Since 1948, it has been run by the Kim family. The first leader was Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, who was in power from 1948 to 1994. He was treated like a god in both life and death. He is still known today as the “Great Leader” and the “Eternal President,” and monuments glorifying his reign are everywhere in the country.Kim Il Sung’s cult of personality really began to take root in 1950, when he led the Soviet-backed invasion of South Korea, kicking off the Korean War. The United States intervened in the war on behalf of South Korea, and China later intervened on behalf of the communist North. It was a bloody war that ultimately killed some 5 million soldiers and civilians.At the war’s end in 1953, the two countries became separated by a demilitarized zone, or DMZ, and remain so to this day. Technically, both sides are still at war, since an armistice (truce) was signed, not a peace treaty.After the deal was signed, South Korea — with heavy US financial and security support — began to slowly transform itself into what is now one of the world’s wealthiest, best-educated, and most technologically advanced societies.The North also briefly flourished because of support from the Soviet Union and China, but those good times didn’t last. Mismanagement, crippling debt, and a series of devastating droughts and floods demolished the North Korean economy and set off what would eventually become lingering food shortages in the country.At the same time, the Soviet Union was suffering its own economic troubles, causing its leaders to pull back on aid to North Korea. When the Soviet Union finally collapsed in the early 1990s, the North Korean economy went into a dramatic downward spiral, culminating in a horrendous famine that killed between 600,000 and 1 million people.Yet through all of this, Kim Il Sung cultivated a powerful cult of personality. North Koreans were inundated with propaganda branding Kim as the country’s benevolent father figure who was transforming the country into a glorious socialist utopia through his unique brand of ideology, known as “juche.” Translated as “self-reliance,” juche stresses total independence in all facets of national life, from foreign policy to economics to national defense.When Kim died at the age of 82, the Korean Central News Agency, the country’s official news organization, published a glowing seven-page announcement that said "he turned our country, where age-old backwardness and poverty had prevailed, into a powerful Socialist country, independent, self-supporting and self-reliant.” He was, as the news agency concluded, the “sun of the nation.”Since Kim’s death in 1994, his son and grandson, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un, respectively, have carried on his legacy, aiming to run the country exactly like he did. They purposefully demonstrate in their own propaganda how closely they hew to Kim Il Sung’s style of governance. Kim Jong Un even goes out of his way to look as much like his grandfather as he possibly can.Despite some modest reforms to the economy under the two younger Kims, the country is still far, far behind the rest of the world. The CIA ranks North Korea as the 215th-poorest country out of the 230 it tracks, and its people live on about $1,700 a year.North Korea is almost solely reliant on China as a trading partner, with most of its money coming from the millions of tons of coal it exports to China every year. It also sends iron ore, seafood, and clothing to the Chinese. This is why the news that China had suspended its coal imports from North Korea back in February was such a big deal, even though China’s overall trade with North Korea has increased.2) Is life for the average North Korean as bad as they say?Yeah, it is.As Human Rights Watch notes in gruesome detail:North Korea remains one of the most repressive authoritarian states in the world. …Kim Jong-un continued to generate fearful obedience by using public executions, arbitrary detention, and forced labor; tightening travel restrictions to prevent North Koreans from escaping and seeking refuge overseas; and systematically persecuting those with religious contacts inside and outside the country…[G]ross human rights violations committed by the government included murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortion, and other sexual violence, and constituted crimes against humanity.Nothing exemplifies these violations like the gulags, or forced labor camps, run by the state. Usually, detentions there end in death — and not just for the imprisoned person. North Korea abides by the “three generations of punishment” rule. Basically, if the government thinks you committed a crime, you, your children, and your grandchildren have to suffer the consequences too.Some North Koreans still find ways to live dignified and relatable lives despite the horrid conditions. In fact, in many ways, life in North Korea can be normal. Subway trains fill with people during rush hour in the capital city, Pyongyang. The city also now suffers from traffic jams, as more people have cars and want to get around on their own. Fashionable Western clothes are available in North Korean stores, and some North Koreans are even getting plastic surgery, despite the procedure’s illegality.North Koreans also enjoy surfing the country’s intranet, but their choices are very limited with fewer than 30 sites on offer. There, citizens can find a selection of North Korean recipes and films. Of course, there is also a big section that allows Kim Jong Un to show off what he is doing throughout the day.The few superrich North Koreans — who usually work in the government, the military, or state-run businesses — aren’t too dissimilar from superrich people anywhere else. They lead fairly cosmopolitan lives, frequenting an elite area of the capital nicknamed “Pyonghattan.” They wear designer clothes, eat at fancy restaurants, and go on vacations.But of course, that is not the norm. Out in the rural areas, “life is little more than a daily struggle to find enough food to stay alive,” Alf Evans, a British aid worker who spent time in rural North Korea in 2013, told the Telegraph. “Every scrap of earth that can be used to grow something is being used,” he continued.3) Why is the US-North Korea relationship so fraught?North Korea and the US have been at odds ever since the US backed South Korea in the Korean War. Today, the US has 23,500 US troops stationed in South Korea. That country is also America’s sixth-largest trading partner (about $112.2 billion total in two-way trade during 2016), underscored by the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement that went into effect on March 15, 2012 (something President Donald Trump may to “terminate”).For these reasons, North Korea is not a fan of the United States. North Korean propaganda portrays America as an evil imperialist aggressor hell-bent on subjugating the Korean people. There is an entire museum dedicated to alleged American atrocities during the Korean War.America isn’t exactly thrilled with North Korea either. There are many reasons why, but the main one is that North Korea won’t stop developing its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.For years, North Korea has tried to develop a nuclear weapon that it can put on a missile and hit its enemies. Most experts believe the country wants nukes as a deterrent so that no foreign country (like, say, the United States) would dare attempt to remove the Kim regime from power.While some think Kim Jong Un is an irrational, “crazy fat kid” — as Senate Armed Services Committee Chair John McCain labeled the North Korean leader — experts see his actions to ensure the survival of his family’s rule as rational.The theory is that the Kims have seen what happened to leaders who don’t have nuclear weapons. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein persuaded much of the world that he had restarted his country’s nuclear weapons program; he hadn’t, but the boasts helped spark the 2003 invasion that drove him from power. In Libya, Muammar Qaddafi gave up his program to build closer ties to the West, but was eventually ousted from power and killed by a mob.The Kim family wants to survive, and having a credible nuclear weapons program is one way to ensure that it does.North Korea has accelerated its nuclear program to the point where it can now produce a new bomb every “six or seven weeks.” And it now has an intercontinental ballistic missile that is theoretically capable of hitting major US cities including Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC, with a nuke.4) How come China hasn't dealt with North Korea yet?Trump has repeatedly pushed the ideathat China, because of its economic influence, has the ability to rein in North Korea if it wants to. Specifically, the US wants China to cut off oil shipments to North Korea and either sharply limit or entirely halt broader trade with the country. However, after Chinese President Xi Jinping explained the complexity of the issue to Trump during a meeting in April, Trump said he “realized it’s not so easy” after only 10 minutes.So what are the things that make it “not so easy” for China to control North Korea?First, China uses North Korea as a buffer. If the Koreas were to unify, which remains an extremely thin possibility right now, then for at least some period, American troops would be stationed in a country that borders China. For Beijing, that’s a no-no.Second, should the Kim regime fall, the whole country would fall with it. Having that kind of instability, with millions of refugees flocking to the border, would not make the Chinese government happy. After all, China prides itself on stability in all its forms.Finally, having America, Japan, and South Korea worried about North Korea takes the focus off China. China has many objectives in the region, and having its adversaries’ heads turned as it makes moves in the South China Sea and elsewhere is helpful to its cause.All of these are reasons why China chooses not to be too hard on the Kim regime. China’s leaders may not like the Kim regime or want it to keep developing nuclear weapons, but they prefer that to the alternative scenario of a failed state on their Southern border or, perhaps even worse, an American-controlled state on their Southern border.Even if China did more, of course, there’s no guarantee that North Korea — a proudly nationalist, nuclear-armed nation — would listen.Trump, meanwhile, has lost his patience with China and appears to no longer rely on its help.5) Is there any way to solve this?The best outcome would be for North Korea to just decide to give up its nuclear weapons program. But that’s probably never going to happen. On the other side, the US could just accept that North Korea is going to have nuclear weapons capable of hitting the US homeland. That probably won’t happen either.So what to do?There are no easy answers, and this situation has confounded presidents and skilled national security officials from both parties. The Trump administration’s current approach, according to a joint statement issued in late April by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, is “to pressure North Korea into dismantling its nuclear, ballistic missile, and proliferation programs by tightening economic sanctions and pursuing diplomatic measures with our Allies and regional partners.”In an interview with NPR, Tillerson put it more bluntly, stating that the goal is “a denuclearized North Korea” by way of a negotiated agreement.But here’s the thing: We’ve tried this before, and it hasn’t worked yet. This is essentially the same policy the Obama administration pursued for the past eight years, to no avail.Indeed, America and others have been trying to come to some sort of negotiated agreement with North Korea since 1985. And we’ve gotten really close twice. In 1994, the US and North Korea signed the Agreed Framework, in which the North agreed to freeze its plutonium weapons program in exchange for aid. However, the agreement collapsed in 2002, and by January 2003 the North had resumed its nuclear program.Then in August 2003, the international community launched the so-called “Six Party Talks,” which were designed to get North Korea to halt its nuclear program through negotiations with five other countries: China, the United States, South Korea, Japan, and Russia.In September 2005, it looked like the talks might work — North Korea formally agreed to abandon “all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs” in exchange for energy assistance from the other countries. But in 2009, amid disagreements over technical details related to verification, North Korea walked out on the talks. It says it will never return to the talks and maintains that it is no longer bound by their agreements. And it has been ramping up its nuclear and ballistic missile programs ever since.The hope is that the administration’s “maximum pressure and engagement” strategy will lead to a diplomatic solution. But if it doesn’t — and the Trump administration refuses to allow North Korea to have a nuclear weapon that can hit the US mainland — then the only other option that seems to be on the table is a military strike targeting the North’s nuclear facilities. In other words, war.6) What kind of relationships do other countries have with North Korea?North Korea does not have many friends.It has China and, to a lesser degree, Russia, both of which oppose unilateral American military strikes on sovereign countries. The two countries believe that any US move would destabilize the region and harm their own interests. North Korea borders China and Russia, and any crisis on the peninsula would add extra strain to those borders.(Fun fact: Did you know that if you want to drive from Finland to North Korea, you could drive only through one country? Yeah: Russia is that large.)On its own, Russia also helps North Korea with its economic woes. Russian Railways is in discussion with the government in Pyongyang to expand the rail connections between the two countries. Moscow also invests heavily in North Korea’s energy sector and gives Kim’s regime hard currency, which it needs to purchase foreign goods. There are also around 10,000 North Koreans in Russia as part of a guest worker program providing cheap labor to Russia.But North Korea’s cordial relations with other countries basically stop there. It understandably has a bad relationship with South Korea. It’s also hostile toward Japan, which Pyongyang has threatened to nuke many times. The most recent animosity stems from Japan’s harsh colonial rule of Korea from 1910 to 1945.“Japan pushed Koreans to assimilate, requiring them to speak Japanese, take Japanese names, and worship at Shinto shrines,” writes Robert S. Boynton in the New Yorker. “Men were forced to labor in Japanese factories and mines, and some women were dragooned into sexual slavery.” The period of Japanese colonialism understandably left many Koreans with a deep animosity toward Japan, and the Kim family has continued to perpetuate this hostility in its official propaganda.In addition, Japan, like South Korea, has been backed by the United States since the end of World War II, where America wanted to make its relationship with Tokyo a centerpiece of its postwar strategy in Asia.Essentially, North Korea is alone in the world, with very few exceptions. But so far, it doesn’t seem to care all that much — at least, not enough to change its ways.7) This is starting to get pretty bleak. Can we pause for a musical break?Sure thing, especially since you made it this far. Here’s your North Korean jam, “Footsteps”:Catchy, right? By the way, the version here has subtitles — you’re welcome — but it’s worth your time to watch a North Korean chorus sing it live with an orchestra at a big national December concert.No doubt this song is propagandatastic. It’s not a complicated song to understand: The Kim family’s message is “stepping with vigorous energy throughout this land.” In other words, the Stalinist ideology championed by the Kims in the 1950s is now the operating system of the whole country and may spread further and further.North Korea, it’s fair to say, is a world-class innovator when it comes to propaganda. This country continues to roll out new messages and slogans, including 300 to mark the 70th anniversary of its founding in 2015. Here’s a shortened list the BBC provided:"Let us turn the whole country into a socialist fairyland by the joint operation of the army and people!""Serve the country and people! Aid the people! Let the wives of officers become dependable assistants to their husbands!""Let this socialist country resound with Song of Big Fish Haul and be permeated with the fragrant smell of fish and other seafoods!""Scientists and technicians, stand in the vanguard of the struggle to build a thriving country that is developing, civilizing and advancing at a fast pace! Build 'gold mountains' and 'treasure mountains' with brilliant scientific and technological achievements!""More stylish school uniforms and quality school things for our dear children!""Let us raise the status of our country to that of a sports power at an earliest date possible! Play sports games in an offensive way, the way the anti-Japanese guerrillas did!"A lot of North Korean propaganda comes in music form, as we’ve seen. It’s a tool the state uses and blasts over the loudspeakers throughout the day, including the song “We are the Happiest in the World,” which I’m going to guess is untrue.But as you can see, a lot of these slogans are about the Kim family, the improvement of mundane things like school uniforms, and the desire for scientific improvement. They are meant to cover nearly every aspect of North Korean life. But…8) How much do the North Korean people believe the propaganda?Given how little access outside journalists and academics have to North Korea, it’s really hard to know with any certainty how many North Koreans truly believe the regime’s propaganda and how many just pretend to believe it in order to survive. But North Korean defectors estimate that only about 20 to 50 percent of North Koreans today buy what the regime is selling.This steady loss of support has been going on since the Great Famine of the 1990s that starved around 23 million North Koreans and killed around 10 percent of the population. The country was and remains an agricultural society. The problem is North Korea’s climate is tough: It’s a mountainous region with harsh winters. Plus, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and with it the help it provided North Korean farmers.As a result, farm yields dwindled, and the government asked its citizens to “eat only two meals a day!” (Yes, with an exclamation mark.) It also didn’t help that in 1995, a big flood took out about 15 percent of North Korea’s arable land. As the food went away, so did a lot of the support for the government’s propaganda.New technologies have also begun to play a role. As NK News reports:[A]s new media technologies have emerged over the past decade or so – simultaneous to increasing numbers of defectors leaving North Korea – the effectiveness of the Pyongyang propaganda is increasingly coming into question. A combination of foreign DVDs, USB drives and defector-run radio stations are all slowly chipping away at the propaganda that Pyongyang monopolized for so long.So while the propaganda is still prominent, there are clear signs that the Kim family’s grip on information is starting to slip. That’s a big development, and one that needs to be watched in the years to come.9) How big of a threat is North Korea actually?We now know that North Korea appears capable, based on tests it has carried out,of firing a long-range missile that could reach the eastern seaboard of the United States. And the US military believes North Korea has the capability to “miniaturize” a nuclear weapon and fit it onto that missile, though questions remain about how accurate their targeting is and whether a nuclear bomb would be able to survive reentry into the earth’s atmosphere using their current ICBM design.Experts are more confident that if North Korea wanted to strike South Korea and Japan with a nuclear weapon, it could very likely do so. And any nuclear strike on those countries would put American troops stationed there directly in harm’s way.This is partially why the United States has decided to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea to defend against certain missile strikes and why America is conducting missile interception tests with Japan.But while the nuclear and missile programs get all the attention, a seriously underappreciated threat comes from North Korea’s arsenal of conventional weapons, including the world’s largest artillery force. And a third danger comes from the country’s elite special operations forces that could magnify the impact of a North Korean strike on South Korea.South Korea’s capital city, Seoul, is a so-called “megacity” with a whopping 25.6 million residents living in the greater metropolitan area. It also happens to be within direct firing range of thousands of pieces of North Korean artillery already lined up along the border, also known as the demilitarized zone. Around 70 percent of North Korea’s ground forces are within 90 miles of the DMZ, presumably ready to move south at a moment’s notice.Simulations of a large-scale artillery fight between the North and South produce pretty bleak results. One war game convened by the Atlantic back in 2005 predicted that a North Korean attack would kill 100,000 people in Seoul in the first few days alone. Others put the estimate even higher. A war game mentioned by the National Interest predicted Seoul could “be hit by over half-a-million shells in under an hour.”Those results don’t bode well for one of Washington’s closest allies, or for the tens of millions of people living in Seoul. And they raise the stakes in the most important question of all: What happens next?That, unfortunately, is the question we don’t have an answer for.Watch: The North Korean nuclear threat, explainedNote: the video below was made before the ICBM testNEXT UP IN WorldA German court just ruled that Kuwait’s national airline can refuse service to IsraelisISIS just lost its last town in IraqTrump can't start a nuclear war by himself, but there's not much stopping himSaudi Arabia’s anti-corruption purge is all about life after oilThe Pentagon mistakenly retweeted a tweet calling for Trump to resignReport: the US-led war against ISIS is killing 31 times more civilians than claimedBack to top ↑Terms of Use / Privacy Policy© 2017 Vox Media, Inc. 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This in-depth and impartial article by the Indian Express should answer your question.In the 49 days they ruled in 2013-14, they were walking a tightrope, and walking it fast. The AAP government was in a minority, existing because of the tenuous support of a unwilling partner.There was this constant sense that Arvind Kejriwal and his 28-MLA show was living on borrowed time. So they tried to make the most of it. At a frenetic pace, one decision followed another. Power and water were subsidised, with much controversy surrounding the decisions.And soon, residents of Delhi were armed with sting operations and an-anti corruption helpline. There were other decisions as well, but with strong disagreements on the Lokpal Bill with the Congress, Kejriwal chose to resign. The end, tumultuous as it was, was only symbolic of the tenure.A little over a year later, Kejriwal has returned, and with an unprecedented number in the House. The decisions have largely been the same. Cheaper power and water and now the anti-corruption helpline. But the pace, backed by the knowledge that they are here to stay for five years, has been more measured.Things have been considerably easier in the Delhi Assembly, with an opposition in name only. With the opposition coming from within the party itself, governance has become of utmost importance. The AAP and Kejriwal will be acutely aware that with many questioning the credentials of transparency they once bore, there is no room for error in governance.Pragya Kaushika and Mayura Janwalkar put together 49 things that the second AAP government has done or is trying to do:1. Electricity: Within two weeks of starting its second innings in Delhi on February 14, the AAP government fulfilled one of its top poll promises by cutting electricity tariff by half. But the largesse came with a rider — the cut was only for households consuming less than 400 units a month. Any units above this threshold would attract charges for the entire number of units consumed. The government believes that 36.06 lakh families or 90 per cent of domestic consumers in Delhi will benefit. An estimated amount of Rs 1,427 crore has been set aside for this financial to pay for the subsidy.2. Water: When the AAP was in power for 49 days last time, it gave free 20,000 litres of water to every household per month. This time too, the same has been implemented. And there is an extra benefit too. Sewerage charges too have been waived off for the families availing the subsidy. This would cost the state exchequer Rs 250 crore per annum. Around 18 lakh families would benefit from the free water allowance.3. Unauthorised colonies: AAP has promised to give property rights and civic amenities to those living in unauthorised colonies. Boundaries of such colonies will be finalised and sent to the corporations for a layout plan. This, however, is a task with a history of legal and administrative complications. Attempts in the past by BJP and Congress have failed.4. Resettlement colonies: It was high on the agenda during the campaign. The government has announced opening of freehold for the city’s 45 resettlement colonies. Original allottees will receive ownership of their plots for just Rs 10,000. Those who bought later will get ownership rights for Rs 50,000. The move has impacted owners of 25 to 80 sq yard plots. These owners were either allotted on lease or evicted following the 1975 Emergency and 1984 Sikh riots.5. Controlling price rise: The government has sought help of NAFED to secure 10,000 metric tonnes of potatoes and onions from other states and store it in those states. The manifesto, however, promised a reduced rate of all vegetables. The government has so far been a failure on that front.6. Anti-corruption helpline: Like last time, a topper on AAP’s to-do list. The government has taken its time to start the helpline no. 1031. “It needed some tweaking,” said a senior official. The helpline was finally launched on Sunday. Apart from this, the government has planned a mobile application to do stings on corrupt officials.7. Free WiFi: This was a loud promise but it was always going to take time and come with riders. With Adarsh Shastri in charge, discussions have started on how to make city-wide WiFi possible and how much of it can actually be free. Shastri has set February 2016 as a possible start date.8. Parliamentary secretaries: Arvind Kejriwal has appointed 21 Assembly members as parliamentary secretaries to his six ministers. These secretaries will not be eligible for any remuneration or perks from the government, meaning no burden on the exchequer.9. Women’s safety: The government has asked the Delhi Police for a list of dark spots across the capital. With few marshals in the city, the government may need to recruit more and double the capacity of home guards if they were to be deputed as marshals. The government is also planning to recruit people in civil defence and post them as marshals.10. Education: The education department issued notices to 200 private schools for charging “exorbitant” fees. For safety, the government claims to have started installing CCTVs in schools.11. Sewage: Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia claims all PWD roads measuring 1,200 km will be inspected and mapped for sewage. The department has demanded Rs 60 crore for the project.12. Old-age pension: The government claims to have done verification of more than 50,000 old-age pensioners. Out of these, 30,000 would get the pension soon, Sisodia said.13. Aanganwadi: The government maintains that Aanganwadi centres are not being run professionally. It has decided to pick up food grain from FCI and not from open market to save money and give students fruit for mid-day meal.14. Forensic lab and a prison: A forensic lab will be set up in Rohini. Mandoli prison will be handed over to the government in October.15. E-ration card: A first in the country, the government has put ration cards online. Intended beneficiaries will now be able to either print it or get someone to take a print-out for them, cutting red tape.16. E-rickshaws: About 19,000 learner’s licences were issued to e-rickshaw drivers in special camps held by the Delhi government at 13 motor licensing offices across Delhi. The main thrust of these camps was to facilitate the issuance of e-rickshaw learning licenses along with receiving of applications for issuance of PSV badges.17. Health facilities for the poor: All private hospitals will have to ensure that beds are available for the poor. For this, the government has planned to deploy its own officials in private hospitals to ensure that EWS patients routed through government hospitals would get beds and facilities there.18. Traders: The Delhi government has decided to allow “carry forward” of refund (input tax credit) of VAT and extend the date of filing R9 Form. Stamp vendor licence will now be online.19. Environment: Little progress on this critical issue. In name of checking air pollution, all it has dome is conduct 66 surprise checks at pollution control centres, in which 18 were found to be not working properly. Despite regular meetings and directions from the NGT, the department has only deflected blame and called for meetings with NCR states.20. Compensation: Rs 1 crore in compensation will be given to uniformed services personnel who lose life in the line of duty. The payout will also cover the families of uniformed personnel killed on duty outside Delhi, but whose families reside in the capital.21. Higher minimum wage: Labour Minister Gopal Rai raised the minimum wage for workers in the unorganised sector by about 5 per cent. Dilli Swavlamban Yojana has been revived with the aid of central government to register construction workers in Delhi.22. Wakf board: The Delhi government has sought a report on the functioning of the Wakf board. Several complaints had been received alleging that representatives appointed to the Wakf Board have committed violations of rules.23. BRT corridor: The government is examining the feasibility of the BRT corridor in South Delhi. Five MLAs including former transport minister Saurabh Bhardwaj have written to the chief minister to scrap the corridor that has caused major inconvenience to residents of the area and has also seen a number of accidents. Although the government is not opposed to the idea of a BRT corridor, it is reviewing the implementation of the project.24. Hawkers or vendors: The Urban development department ordered civic bodies and the police not to oust any hawkers or vendors from places that they have been carrying out their business in for several years. The government, however, said the authorities concerned must make sure that no new hawkers enter no-hawking zones in Delhi.25. Budget by people: Kejriwal announced his government’s plan to start a pilot project in five or 10 Assembly constituencies involving the people there in making the government’s budget this year. Kejriwal said that the government will seek direction from the people about where the government must channel its funds. The constituencies are in the process of being identified.26. Meritocracy: Postings of bureaucrats in various departments will be driven by “honesty and efficiency” and no recommendations or lobbying will fetch an officer a plum posting anymore, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said. Bureaucrats will now have to compete to get a department of their choice. He said that his government will undertake an experiment with transfers and postings of heads of various departments.27. Hospital land: Health Minister Satyendra Jain has written to the Union Ministry of Urban Development seeking the cancellation of the land allotments made to private companies for construction of hospitals at 18 sites in the capital. The plots of land stretching over approximately 50 acres in different parts of the city, had been allotted to the private players 15 to 44 years back but no construction was undertaken.28. West Delhi connectivity: After surveying three under-construction projects in the city, the Delhi government has directed that the work of constructing a 12 km road between Wazirabad and Swarup Nagar and another between Wazirabad and Vikaspuri will be completed by December 31, 2015. The PWD is also planning to construct a skywalk for the last mile connectivity between Mukandpur Metro station and the Mukandpur colony.29. No demolition: Sisodia met Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu following which the two agreed that the demolition drive being carried out along railway tracks in Delhi “would be put on hold for the time being”. The state government will work with the railways to chalk out a plan to resettle the residents of these slums. Officials of the Delhi government have been asked to work with their counterparts in the Railways to identify the necessary measures that need to be taken.30. Bawana power plant: Power minister Satyendra Jain inspected the Bawana gas-based power plant a day after there was a blast at the plant on March 24. After inspecting the power plant, the minister directed the department of power to conduct an inquiry to ascertain the reasons behind the blast.31. Hospital checks: The government in March directed the medical superintendents of Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital Rohini and Babu Jagjivan Ram Hospital Jahangir Puri to explain the reasons for “pathetic state of affairs in their respective hospitals”.32. District committees: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has appointed 11 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs as district committee chairpersons in 11 districts. The chief minister has also asked his MLAs to hold weekly public meetings in their Assembly constituencies to hear people’s grievances. The government is trying to streamline the process of grievance redressal. MLAs will hold public meetings in their constituencies and try to resolve them at their level. The complaints that need the government’s attention will be brought the chief minister’s office.33. Ambedkar Nagar Hospital: The Delhi government announced the government’s decision to expand the Ambedkar Nagar Hospital, that is currently under construction, from a 262 bed hospital to a 600-bed hospital. The government will incur an additional cost of Rs 45 crore to increase the hospital’s capacity by 338 beds. The 262-bed hospital was commissioned in 2010 and is being constructed on a 2.47 acre plot at a cost of Rs 117 crore.34. White paper: The Delhi government appointed former chairman, Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC), Bijendra Singh as the one-man committee to bring out a white paper on the power sector. The white paper, that will be a study of the various aspects in the power sector in Delhi since 2002, will be brought out in three months and will be made public. The white paper the Delhi government will bring out and the discom audits undertaken by the CAG are two separate things.35. Delhi Dialogue Commission: The Delhi Dialogue Commission announced the appointment of 21 task forces to work on various subjects of governance including women’s security, electricity, clean water, clean Yamuna, neat and clean Delhi, education, health, Delhi rural, trade, jobs and job-security, pollution, transport, unauthorised colonies, Jhuggi Jhopadi clusters, price-rise, traffic, speedy justice, mobile par sarkar (government on mobile), wi-fi and CCTV and tax reforms.36. Swine flu labs: In February, while there was a spurt in the number of swine flu cases across the country, the government said it would set up two more labs for swine flu testing in addition to the three government labs already conducting tests. Health minister Satyendra Jain also said that the government had granted licence to 40 more drug stores to sell Tamiflu tablets for treatment of swine flu.37. Coal blocks: The Delhi government made a formal request to the Centre seeking allocation of a coal block to enable a private player to set up a plant to supply electricity to Delhi. The allocation is expected to be made by June.38. Job security: The government directed that the services of no government employee on contract will be terminated until the government completes a review of the existing policy on the status of contractual employees engaged in various government departments and organisations.39. Ban on demolitions: The government issued directions to various government agencies not to carry out any demolitions of residential premises and slums.40. Power to the slums: The power minister told discoms that there should be no load-shedding this summer. However, should Delhi face load-shedding, it should not be limited to slums and all areas must take turns to face the interruption in power supply that should not exceed one hour at a time.41. Salary for cleaning staff: Days after the city’s streets were lined with garbage piles after safai karmcharis from the East Delhi Municipal Corporation called a strike, the Delhi government decided to release funds to the cash-strapped civic bodies to enable them to pay the salaries of the sanitation workers.42. Graft-free schools: The government’s Anti Corruption Branch arrested the principal of a government school on alleged charges of financial embezzlement of funds running into over Rs 27 lakh in Nithari area of north-west Delhi. The accused Ashok Kumar Singh was the principal of Government Senior Secondary School Nithari near Sultanpuri.43. More pay: The labour department increased the minimum wage of Rs 8,632 to Rs 9,048 in the unorganised sector. Similarly wages of semi-skilled, skilled and graduate workers were increased from Rs 9,542, Rs 10,478 and Rs 11,414 to Rs 10,010, Rs 10,998 and Rs 11,986 respectively.44. Waste management: Following a day-long conference on Solid Waste Management (SWM) organised by the Delhi Dialogue Commission, the commission sought proposals from C Srinivasan, project director at the Indian Green Service, who spoke about the “Vellore model” of waste disposal adopted by many states in India and Dr S R Maley, a Mumbai-based scientist who has worked extensively in the fields of agronomy, biotechnology and environment with a special focus on solid waste management.45. Health camps: The government’s labour department organised health camps for industrial workers on Tuesday in at GT Karnal Road Industrial Area and Udyog Nagar Industrial Area, Peera Garhi and a camp at Okhla Industrial Area, Naraina Industrial Area and Mayapuri Industrial Area.46. RTI reports: The administrative reforms department held a workshop for all government officials asking them to file Right to Information (RTI) quarterly reports.47. Freedom fighters: In a spot decision taken on March 23, the government announced that all its 70 MLAs will make contributions from their salaries towards erecting busts of freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev on the Assembly premises.48. NCR pollution meet: Environment minister Asim Ahmed Khan has written to the Ministry of Environment to call for a meeting of all NCR states to jointly take measures to control the alarming pollution levels in Delhi. Improvement of air quality in Delhi, Khan said, will require “comprehensive, coordinated and integrated efforts”, while accounting the emissions from the neighbouring states and from Delhi to understand the causal relationship between emissions.49. School fees: The government brought private schools under its scanner as the administration decided to “look into” the fee structure of these schools to ensure that the fees charged are not exorbitant. The government will examine the fees charged by various schools depending on complaints received.- Arvind Kejriwal government: 49 days, 49 steps

Three powerful quotes about Africa.There is a lot of good news coming out of Africa that is not spoken and yet all we do is to highlight the negatives. Because if Africa is in the gutter, you are put in the gutter6—Anonymous.The white man picks out the cream of his own and endows the remainder with all the good qualities of this portion. Inversely, he picks out the worst of the Negro and measures the good by the conduct of the bad—Joel Augustus Rogers 1880/3–1966).One thing blocking a fuller perception of Africa's progress may be implicit racism. There is a historic framework that by definition sees Africa ... and Africans as inferior and negative and makes most stories about the continent negative. By contrast, China has problems, but we see and hear other things about China. Russia has problems, yet we see and read other things about Russia. That same standard should apply to Africa."—Charles Stith, former US ambassador to Tanzania……Your question is all about Afro-pessimism.Afropessimism | Encyclopedia.comAFROPESSIMISM. Afropessimism refers to the perception of sub-Saharan Africa as a region too riddled with problems for good governance and economic development. The term gained currency in the 1980s, when many Africanists in Western creditor countries believed that there was no hope for consolidating democracy and achieving sustainable economic development in the region. The earliest use in print of the word was in a 1988 article from the Xinhua News Agency in which Michel Aurillac, France 's minister of cooperation, criticized the prevailing pessimism in the West about Africa's economic development and cautioned against what he referred to as an "Afro-pessimism" on the part of some creditors. Depiction Many writers have given different expressions to the phenomenon of Afropessimism. Attempts to explain the concept include both cogent studies (Ayittey, 1992, 1998; Jackson and Rosberg; Kaplan, 1994) and polemical and shallow travelogues (Richburg). In general, one virtue of Afropessimist writings is that they do not whitewash Africa's problems. Further, they correctly refuse to excuse the outrages of some African dictators on the basis of political ideology or racial identity. In particular they refuse to use colonial exploitation to mask postcolonial kleptocracy, the personalization of state power, and the politics of prebendalism. The writers mentioned above (excepting Richburg and Kaplan) do not reject the hope that Africa can develop or that it is capable of overcoming its political and economic problems. In this sense they are not themselves pessimistic about the future of Africa but rather are simply describing the phenomenon of Afropessimism. The real Afropessimists are writers who call for abandoning, or worse, recolonizing the continent (Johnson; Kaplan, 1992, 1994; Michaels; Hitchens). While generally the writers in the first group merely denounce postcolonial African leadership by pointing out its weaknesses, those in the latter tend to conclude that Africans are incapable of self-rule. However, a common characteristic of the two modes of Afropessimist writings is imbalance. They all tend to highlight the horrors of a few African countries and ignore the advances of many other countries at various times. The unscientific establishment of doomsday conclusions about Africa characteristic of studies in this genre (see, in particular, Richberg) are usually not warranted by the limited sample of African countries discussed in the narratives. The unintended result is that Africa is given a blanket negative portrayal. (There are, by contrast, prominent works that for the most part decry Africa's image in the West — see, for instance, Hammond and Jablow; Hawk.) The resultant foreboding and ominous image in Western media and the academy weakens the continent in the global competition for foreign investment and tourism (see Onwudiwe, 1996). This is an economic effect of Afropessimism. African Rebirth Still, the conditions that merit pessimism forhttps://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/afropessimismAFROPESSIMISM.Afropessimism refers to the perception of sub-Saharan Africa as a region too riddled with problems for good governance and economic development. The term gained currency in the 1980s, when many Africanists in Western creditor countries believed that there was no hope for consolidating democracy and achieving sustainable economic development in the region. The earliest use in print of the word was in a 1988 article from the Xinhua News Agency in which Michel Aurillac, France's minister of cooperation, criticized the prevailing pessimism in the West about Africa's economic development and cautioned against what he referred to as an "Afro-pessimism" on the part of some creditors.DepictionMany writers have given different expressions to the phenomenon of Afropessimism. Attempts to explain the concept include both cogent studies (Ayittey, 1992, 1998; Jackson and Rosberg; Kaplan, 1994) and polemical and shallow travelogues (Richburg). In general, one virtue of Afropessimist writings is that they do not whitewash Africa's problems. Further, they correctly refuse to excuse the outrages of some African dictators on the basis of political ideology or racial identity. In particular they refuse to use colonial exploitation to mask postcolonial kleptocracy, the personalization of state power, and the politics of prebendalism. The writers mentioned above (excepting Richburg and Kaplan) do not reject the hope that Africa can develop or that it is capable of overcoming its political and economic problems. In this sense they are not themselves pessimistic about the future of Africa but rather are simply describing the phenomenon of Afropessimism. The real Afropessimists are writers who call for abandoning, or worse, recolonizing the continent (Johnson; Kaplan, 1992, 1994; Michaels; Hitchens). While generally the writers in the first group merely denounce postcolonial African leadership by pointing out its weaknesses, those in the latter tend to conclude that Africans are incapable of self-rule.However, a common characteristic of the two modes of Afropessimist writings is imbalance. They all tend to highlight the horrors of a few African countries and ignore the advances of many other countries at various times. The unscientific establishment of doomsday conclusions about Africa characteristic of studies in this genre (see, in particular, Richberg) are usually not warranted by the limited sample of African countries discussed in the narratives. The unintended result is that Africa is given a blanket negative portrayal. (There are, by contrast, prominent works that for the most part decry Africa's image in the West—see, for instance, Hammond and Jablow; Hawk.) The resultant foreboding and ominous image in Western media and the academy weakens the continent in the global competition for foreign investment and tourism (see Onwudiwe, 1996). This is an economic effect of Afropessimism.African RebirthStill, the conditions that merit pessimism for the future of Africa are not manufactured by Afropessimists; such conditions are empirically verifiable. Since the end of the Cold War, important African leaders such as Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, and Maître Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal have come to recognize this and have resolved to do something about it. As a result, there has been an honest effort on the continent to address the important issues of good political, economic, and corporate governance and the professionalization of the army in order to diminish chances for destabilizing military coups. These efforts had led the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to found a new institution, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), charged with the responsibility to provide a vision and strategic framework for Africa's renewal. NEPAD attempts to provide African interventions with regard to issues of relative underdevelopment and marginalization. NEPAD's formation and other historic African transformative actions have been referred to as African renaissance.ImpactIn the donor countries of the West in the 1980s, Afropessimists were found in the government, media, and academia. The prevailing view that votes for Africa's stabilization and development were a waste of scarce resources was fanned by conservative politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, and scholars. This quickly led to an era of strained relationships between Western donor countries and African recipient countries in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Donor countries complained that progress was being slowed by bad governance, corruption, and mismanagement of funds, creating disillusionment and donor (or aid) fatigue. African countries in turn complained of unfulfilled promises and unwarranted intrusiveness in domestic policies by donors. The net result was a reduction in the volume of development aid from Western to African countries.ExplanationsTwo explanations have been put forth for the conditions that produced the phenomenon of Afropessimism. One is the apparent inability of postcolonial African leaders to practice good governance. Since the 1960s, when most countries in Africa south of the Sahara regained political independence from European colonialists, the standard of living in Africa has fallen below expectations. The achievement of political self-rule naturally came with raised expectations of the good life for Africans who had been subjected to exploitation and subjugation by colonial tyranny. In the exuberance of the freedom moment, the new indigenous leaders of Africa promised their fellow citizens a brighter future. However, by the 1980s, more than twenty years after independence, the African condition (especially for the masses) had fallen far below the continent's potential. For the most part, bad leadership was responsible for the disappointing performance. Independence ushered in an era of political instability, military dictatorships, and gross mismanagement of natural resources by very corrupt African leaders. By the 1980s all these conspired to drive down the standard of living in most African countries, forcing an otherwise resource-rich continent to become severely dependent on foreign aid and foreign debt.Another school of thought locates the source of Africa's social and economic downfall on the international political environment. According to this school, Africa regained self-rule during the era of the Cold War, when the relationship between the countries in the Eastern bloc led by the Soviet Union and countries of the Western bloc led by the United States was marked by a state of military competition and political tension. The rivalry stopped short of actual war between the two superpowers, but it forced Africa to become a surrogate terrain for the hot war between the two camps. In the process, African countries, most of them weak and dependent on the Western or Eastern ideological blocs, became little more than client states. Under this new dispensation, Africans lost the power to choose their own leaders. Africa's dependent dictators owed their offices to the economic and military support of Cold War powers. For the most part they put the interests of the foreign powers on which they were dependent ahead of their own national interests. This situation, which was as exploitative and impoverishing as colonialism, became known as neocolonialism and is blamed for the postcolonial impoverishment of Africans that fueled the fires of Afropessimism in the 1980s. Consequently, with the end of the Cold War, some Africanists came to believe that if the detrimental international conditions it imposed were ultimately reversed, then conditions in Africa would improve through good governance. Those who believe in this are known as Afro-optimists. Challenging the view that sub-Saharan Africa has only regressed since independence, they advance examples of postcolonial triumphs achieved by Africa's political leadership despite the prevailing problems identified by Afropessimists. They argue that the energy and perseverance of African peoples portend hope for the future of the continent.A Middle GroundThe truth about Africa's impoverishment lies somewhere between the analyses of Afropessimists and Afro-optimists. There is no doubt that corrupt and uncourageous leadership has been the bane of socioeconomic development of sub-Saharan Africa in the postcolonial period. These leaders stunted democratic processes with force in order to preserve a system of one-person rule with no accountability. They awarded overpriced contracts to foreign companies in exchange for large kickbacks deposited in personal accounts in foreign banks. Their conspicuous consumption, cult of personality, nepotism, and naked abuse of political power encouraged a culture of greed, military coups, and instability, which reduced Africa's competitiveness for foreign investment. Governments borrowed billions in the name of the nation and cronies squandered the money, thereby saddling the people with debt.It is also true that in the same period, global political and economic policies reinforced the legacy of colonialism and exacerbated Africa's problems of self-rule. Apartheid South Africa sponsored destabilizing wars in the southern African region, and a cycle of Cold War–surrogate wars and conflicts ravaged Angola and Mozambique. These wars claimed millions of African lives and devastated the economies of the warring countries. Economic adjustment policies of the World Bank forced African countries to cut spending in health, education, and infrastructure in order to save money to service foreign debts. Low international prices of commodities produced by Africans caused African countries to lose about $50 billion in the 1980s and early 1990s, the same period of the most virulent Afropessimism. These externally induced problems combined with internal inefficiencies to stunt Africa's political and economic growth and give rise to Afropessimism. However, by the turn of the twenty-first century sub-Saharan Africa's fortunes seemed to have turned markedly for the better.…This is Afro-optimism.The African Century: Afro-Optimism and InnovationThese young people are digitally savvy, with 79% believing that wi-fi access should be a fundamental human right, and 81% stating that technology will change the fortunes of Africa. This understanding of the necessity of technology, combined with their self-starter mindset, puts Africa’s youth in a strong position to face the technologically advanced future with confidence. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) that is now reshaping the world will require young people with determination to take control of their own lives, create their own jobs, and invest in the digital economy by embracing innovation and research and development (R&D). They will need to know how to adapt new technologies to fit the economic and social context of tomorrow’s Africa. Africa’s youth population is the largest in the world, with 60% of the continent’s population under the age of 25. While that has its present challenges – three in five of the continent’s unemployed are in the youth category, and 72% of young people live on less than US$2 a day, according to the International Labour Organisation – it has great future potential. Over the next two decades, Africa has the opportunity to benefit from a demographic dividend, in which the large percentage of working-age population lowers the dependency burden of supporting the continent’s children and elderly. If the potential of Africa’s young people is harnessed in the right way, particularly through the transformative powers of technology, they may be responsible for rewriting the economic and social structure of the continent. While Africa trails other countries on some indicators – only 24% of Africans have access to the internet, for example, according to ITU, the United Nations specialised agency for information and communication technologies – internet usage is high among youth. Where Africa lags in technology, the youth now have the opportunity to avoid the expensive roll-out of outdated technologies and leapfrog straight to the latest innovations. The continent has already led innovation in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector in mobile digital financial services. The region had nearly half of global mobile money accounts in 2018 and will see the fastest growth in mobile money through 2025, according to American research group Brookings Institution. Artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain are also attracting interest in Africa. In West Africa and Kenya, for example, blockchain has enabled efficient verification of property records and transactions, and expanded access to credit in some previously informal sectors of the economy. Africa is well known for its myriad small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which drive jobs and help boost economic development. The Youth Survey found that 76% of young Africans want to start a business in the next five years, while more than 60% already have an idea for a business or social enterprise. Technology is often crucial in making a success of these SMEs,https://honoris.net/the-african-century-afro-optimism-and-innovation/21st century skills, Fourth industrial revolution by Honoris Staff WriterIn stark contrast to global stereotypes and outdated narratives, the African Youth Survey 2020, the most comprehensive survey of its kind involving thousands of interviews across 14 countries, reveals a rising Afro-Optimism among the continent’s youth. Driven by a strong sense of individual responsibility, entrepreneurialism, and confidence in a shared identity, these young people believe that the 21st century will be the African Century.These young people are digitally savvy, with 79% believing that wi-fi access should be a fundamental human right, and 81% stating that technology will change the fortunes of Africa. This understanding of the necessity of technology, combined with their self-starter mindset, puts Africa’s youth in a strong position to face the technologically advanced future with confidence.The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) that is now reshaping the world will require young people with determination to take control of their own lives, create their own jobs, and invest in the digital economy by embracing innovation and research and development (R&D). They will need to know how to adapt new technologies to fit the economic and social context of tomorrow’s Africa.Africa’s youth population is the largest in the world, with 60% of the continent’s population under the age of 25. While that has its present challenges – three in five of the continent’s unemployed are in the youth category, and 72% of young people live on less than US$2 a day, according to the International Labour Organisation – it has great future potential.Over the next two decades, Africa has the opportunity to benefit from a demographic dividend, in which the large percentage of working-age population lowers the dependency burden of supporting the continent’s children and elderly. If the potential of Africa’s young people is harnessed in the right way, particularly through the transformative powers of technology, they may be responsible for rewriting the economic and social structure of the continent.While Africa trails other countries on some indicators – only 24% of Africans have access to the internet, for example, according to ITU, the United Nations specialised agency for information and communication technologies – internet usage is high among youth. Where Africa lags in technology, the youth now have the opportunity to avoid the expensive roll-out of outdated technologies and leapfrog straight to the latest innovations.The continent has already led innovation in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector in mobile digital financial services. The region had nearly half of global mobile money accounts in 2018 and will see the fastest growth in mobile money through 2025, according to American research group Brookings Institution.Artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain are also attracting interest in Africa. In West Africa and Kenya, for example, blockchain has enabled efficient verification of property records and transactions, and expanded access to credit in some previously informal sectors of the economy.Africa is well known for its myriad small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which drive jobs and help boost economic development. The Youth Survey found that 76% of young Africans want to start a business in the next five years, while more than 60% already have an idea for a business or social enterprise.Technology is often crucial in making a success of these SMEs, from harnessing social media for marketing to using mobile money platforms to provide short-term loans. Being skilled in cutting-edge technologies will give Africa’s youth a headstart to success.Education will be crucial to ensuring that young people in Africa will not be left out of the knowledge economy and can benefit from new technologies. Educational institutions across the continent are already boosting entrepreneurship and R&D through innovation labs, such as at Honoris United Universities institution The Moroccan School of Engineering Sciences (EMSI).The school has set up three innovation and development labs covering mathematics and computing, electrical engineering, physical science, and management and finance: SMARTiLAB in Rabat, set up in 2015, was the first private laboratory in Morocco dedicated to research, development and innovation; LPRI in Casablanca; and LAMIGEP in Marrakesh.Teams of student engineers from EMSI recently won medals at the most important innovation show in Asia, AsianInvent Singapore 2020, which was held online in May. The winning inventions were a Smart Micro Wind System for Auxiliary Electrical Energy Production, Micro Hydro-Aeolian Production for A Position Energy Building, and an Intelligent, Efficient and Digital Hospital Management Ecosystem.REGENT BUSINESS SCHOOL in South Africa also unlocked the potential of Africa’s youth by mobilising its innovation hubs, iLeadLABs, in Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Students produced Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) in the form of reusable protective face shields and splash protection masks using 3-D printed parts to be distributed, at no cost, to public healthcare facilities.Educational institutions – both private and governmental – like these that invest in innovation and R&D are not only finding solutions and boosting skills, but building a talent pipeline for the future. Harnessing the demographic dividend through investments in Africa’s youth will release the continent’s enormous promise and help to realise its economic and social potential.Afro-Optimism: Perspectives on Africa's AdvancesAfro-Optimism: Perspectives on Africa's Advanceshttps://www.amazon.ae/Afro-Optimism-Perspectives-Advances-Ebere-Onwudiwe/dp/027597586XThe view that Africa regressed the moment that colonial governments left its shores is widespread. This volume is a counterpoint to the orthodoxy. Here 13 scholars with specializations ranging from literature and history to philosophy and economics argue that Africa has advanced since colonialism and is poised to march forward in spite of setbacks and disappointments. The contributors to the book contend that development is about human beings, so they do not rely exclusively on statistical estimates and projections.Afro-Optimism is a book with a simple thesis: Africa is marching forward, even if at times haltingly and at a different pace from the rest of the world. A common view among journalists and academics alike is that African conditions declined the moment colonial governments left its shores. The chapters in this book cover Africa's progress in health, agriculture, transportation, cultural innovation, and economic advancement. The contributors to the book contend that development is about human beings, so they do not rely exclusively on statistical estimates and projections.The essays in this book discuss the advances African states have made in spite of, and at times because of, their experiences of European colonial rule. The contributors argue that in all facets of development, Africans had to overcome colonial obstacles or had to build on meager colonial foundations. Although the authors acknowledge Africa's disappointing performance in various respects, they stress throughout that exclusive concentration on African failures creates new and reinforces existing negative perceptions of contemporary Africa.