Possitive and Negative Influences on Growth and Development Essay Example for Free

Possitive and Negative Influences on Growth and Development Essay Income is the money that comes into the home. This could be paid through employment, savings, and investments or from benefits that will be paid by the government if a person is unemployed or who have a disability. Expenditure is money spent to provide for everyday living needs, the amount of expenditure is determined through household income. Positive If you have a high income it allows you better choices of housing, diet, education, health services and transport. Having a higher income will lead to a higher expenditure, having this it will lead to a better life style. Accommodation will be more sufficient and there will less chance of health risks, this will amount to a better quality living. Affording to pay for health care such as private care or just being able to afford for medication if you fall ill. If you have a more wealthy expenditure you will have a better source of food and more opportunities for fresh products and less processed foods. More extravagant food such as rich foods and wines are affordable and are a good boost. Being able to afford transport will allow an adult the ability to get to and from places such as further education. A steady income will produce less stress and worry if everything is under control. Negative Being able to afford heating bills will prevent illnesses such as respiratory problems, this will be caused to lack of heating and this will amount to increase in damp. Unnecessary household problems from lack of income can cause debt. More processed foods will be in the diet as they are a lot cheaper than fresh fruit and vegetables for example. Health will plummet dramatically if sufficient heating and health care is not in place. Heart attacks, stress and depression are all part of having an unhealthy life style. Having a low income makes it difficult to get about; using public transport or walking tends to be the only option, so to take part in further education it may be difficult and will put a lot of lower income family off going into further education. Housing Housing is important to every person. It is where you live and a place to make memories.

Brexit: Causes and the Future of Britain

Brexit: Causes and the Future of Britain Abstract A referendum was held on June 23rd 2016, to decide whether the United Kingdom (UK) should leave or remain as a part of the European Union (EU). This vote is commonly referred to as Brexit merging words Britain and Exit. The 4 nations of the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) voted to leave the EU. This paper explores the reasons for the Brexit, its global implications, the current situation and what lies ahead. Keywords:   Referendum, United Kingdom, Brexit, European Union. On June 23rd 2016, a referendum was held to decide whether the UK should leave or remain as a part of the EU, also known as Brexit. The 4 nations of the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) participated in the referendum with leave winning by 51.9% to 48.1%, with almost 30 million people voting (Hunt A. & Wheeler B., 2017). To understand the reasons for the referendum and why the UK voted to leave the EU, a brief history of the relationship between the UK with the EU is studied. The reasons to vote for and against Brexit as also analyzed, along with its global consequences. Finally, the current situation and how much of the Brexit has been implemented is discussed. European Union and its History with the United Kingdom After the end of the Second World War, the European nations wanted to end the frequent and costly wars between neighbors. In 1957, Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed the Treaty of Rome, establishing the European Economic Community (EEC), or ‘Common Market’. (European Union, n. d., para 2). EEC was formed with the goal of economic cooperation between the European nations. The 1960s improved the economy of the EEC members as they started trading without charging custom duties when they traded with each other. On January 1 1973, Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined the EEC. Greece became the 10th nation in 1981, followed by Spain and Portugal five years later. In 1986, Single European Act was signed, with the intent of allowing free flow of trade across EU borders, creating the ‘Single Market’. (European Union, n. d., para 5). The Maastricht Treaty in 1993 established the European Union (EU), of which the EEC was a main component. The EU was formed with the goal of unifying Europe’s nations under one united foreign policy, common citizenship rights, trade rights and a single currency, called euro. (Pruitt S., 2016). Although the UK became a part of the EU in 1973, the relationship between the UK and the EU has been a turbulent one. The UK applied first applied for EEC membership in 1963. But France’s President Charles de Gaulle vetoed its application, on the worry that English would replace French as the main language of the community. But in 1973, UK was finally allowed into EEC under Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath. (The Telegraph, 2016). But within two years, UK was on the verge on leaving the EEC. In 1975, UK voted on the referendum to whether stay or leave the EEC. 67 percent voted to remain in the EEC. Tension again began in 1984, when UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wanted to reduce British payments to the EEC budget. At that time, the UK was the third poorest country of the EEC, but was paying a lot more to the budget due to its lack of farms. At that time, farm subsidies made up 70 percent of total expenditure. The UK, due to its relatively few farms, got a very small share of the farm subsidies. Margaret Thatcher with her tough talks managed to reduce Britain’s contribution to the EEC from more than 20 percent to about 12 percent. The UK also had issues with the EU regarding France’s ban of British beef during â€Å"mad cow† disease outbreak in the late 90’s, to the decision to allow British chocolates to be sold to rest of Europe in 2000, after a 27-year long dispute. Decision to vote for Brexit In 2011, David Cameron became the first UK prime minister to veto a EU treaty. This was done to protect London’s financial sector and stop a levy on banks. In 2013, he made a speech where he outlined the challenges faced by EU and committed to renegotiate UK’s membership with the EU. At the same time, a lot of support began among British people for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which held a hard stance with the EU. An ongoing migrant crisis and an economic unrest in the Eurozone increased anti-Europe sentiments. With the increasing support for the UKIP, David Cameron made a pledge in 2013 that if the Conservatives were in power after the 2015 election, there will be an in/out referendum. (Wright O. & Cooper C., 2016) . After coming to power after the election, Cameron promised the vote by end of 2017. He continued his renegotiation with the EU and had managed to make new deals for Britain, which he said was a strong basis to back a Remain vote. To remove the EU vote from holding headlines in the political agenda, David Cameron set an early referendum date of 23rd June, 2016. Reasons for and against Brexit After the decision for the referendum date was taken, a lot of polarizing took place for both sides of the vote-leave or remain. Campaigns for both leave and remain had contrasting opinions of the issues at large. Views for both leave and remain campaign regarding the important issues are discussed below. Main issues of Brexit A lot of arguments for the leave campaign was based on the fact of economic freedom of the UK from the EU, control of UK border from the migrant crisis and trade deals. Arguments of remain was that the vision of the leave campaign lacked convincing detail. (Buttonwood, 2016). Economic Issues The leave campaign had the view that the UK’s links with the EU meant that it cannot make individual trade links with emerging markets like China or India. Leaving the EU would allow UK to diversify its trade deals. However, the remain campaign pointed the fact the 44 percent of UK’s export goes to the other EU countries. Leaving the free-trade agreement of the EU would hurt UK’s economy and leaving EU would be counterproductive. Remain also argued that leaving the EU will hurt the banking industry in UK as trading advantages of being inside the EU helps the banks make profit. The leave campaign rubbished those fears and believed that London would remain a financial capital outside of EU, and banks would still want to be based in UK due to low tax rates. Immigration and Jobs People for the leave campaign had the view that the UK cannot control their border as long they remained a part of EU. EU gives freedom of movement to other EU citizens and an automatic right to live in the UK. (Smith-Riley B., 2016). The immigration crisis also triggered very polarized views. EU had the belief that aiding the refugees was a moral obligation. (Mauldin J., 2016). But people who wanted UK to leave EU had the viewpoint that immigration was a national issue and each country should have their own say on whom they want to enter their country. Remain campaign were of the view that leaving would not solve the migration crisis, but simply shift border control from France to the UK. Regarding jobs, nearly 2.5 million people are employed in UK due to EU trade, which gives freedom of movement for EU citizens. The remain campaign held the view that closing the borders would result in loss of some of those jobs, raising unemployment in the country. Also, businesses may invest less in the UK as they may have to pay high taxes for import and export, outside of â€Å"free trade†. The leave campaign was of the view that the job loss claims were exaggerated. In fact, jobs may flourish in the UK if they can provide better incentives to new businesses like low corporation tax. Defense and Sovereignty Issues People for the leave campaign had the belief that the UK may have to contribute to a EU army to fight against terrorism and other threats. Such a contribution would take away funds and independence from UK’s own military. Remain campaign argued that countries working together would give the best chance to the EU to counter terrorism threats from ISIS and other countries which wants to undermine the EU. Many people who supported the notion of leaving the EU believed that multinational organizations take away control from the individual nations. There was growing mistrust between the countries, coupled with a simultaneous rise in nationalism. There were calls for further economic integration after the euro crisis, which was opposed by the euro sceptics. Remain campaign argued that in this age of globalization, countries must have common economic goals to sustain a healthy economy benefiting everyone. They argued that it is better to remain a part of EU and help change the rules from inside, rather than leave it altogether and have no say in any new decision makings. What happened on June 23rd 2016? How did UK vote? On June 23rd 2016, over 33 million people of the UK countries of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland cast their vote to either leave or remain in the EU. Leave won by 51.9% to 48.1%. But the voting pattern was different in the 4 countries. While England and Wales voted to leave the EU, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted remain. But the overall vote count had leave have more votes than remain. A breakdown of the vote for leave and remain for the individual countries is given below. Figure 1. Voting pattern for Brexit of the 4 UK countries- in percentages (Hunt A. & Wheeler B., 2017) There was a political fallout as the immediate result to vote for Brexit. Scotland, who had decided to vote to remain in the EU, were forced to leave as the UK voted as a whole. Scotland wanted to go for another referendum to vote and decide whether to remain as a part of the UK, or gain independence and apply to the EU as an independent nation. Prime Minister David Cameron, who led the remain campaign, announced to resign from his position. Theresa May was appointed as the new Prime Minister of UK on 13th July 2016. From the beginning, she was firm in her decision that no attempts should be made by UK to remain as a part of EU or to rejoin it after Brexit. On the other hand, Eurosceptic leaders celebrated as they strongly wanted to withdraw from European Union, or diminish the scope of EU’s legislative influence. There was a political uproar throughout the whole country because people plunged into the phase of uncertainty that could not only affect the global political situation, but also could impact the world economy. Economic & Global impact European single market is a trade bloc, that enables free trade between 28 countries (including UK) that come under the European union. This single market not only enables easy navigation of goods and services between the member countries, and easement of several trading barriers, but also boosts economic growth, helps in effective governance of trade practices, and improves the overall standard of living in the member countries. Brexit will not only hinder smooth trade practices but will also affect the financial markets. Currency Turbulence â€Å"Just a day after Brexit, it had been seen that pound fell sharply against euro. On June 24th, the pound fell to a 31 year low against the dollar.† (Allen K. and Monaghan A., 2016). Sterling also fell against euro. This weaker status of pound against euro brought tension among holidaymakers, tourists, and exporters because pound could then fetch lesser returns and made trading more competitive. Tourists from UK couldn’t travel Europe as comfortably like before as they got lesser money’s worth after Brexit. Reduced Trade The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, popularly known as OECD, which is an association for developed nations, has stated that Brexit would bring a â€Å"major negative shock† in UK. France, Germany and Italy are the stronger members of European Union. They are also key trading allies of UK. But now due to Brexit there will be reduction of trade with these countries due to stringent regulatory policies and lesser labor mobility. UK cannot easily access the European single market. By 2020, GDP would be over 3 percent smaller than otherwise in the U.K.† (Rafal Kierzenkowski et. al., 2016) Domino Effect UK has been the first state to withdraw membership from EU. Since no other state has withdrawn the membership from EU, this could frame a pattern or design that will enable the other member states to increase their momentum of membership withdrawal from EU. In fact, after Britain’s exit from EU, Alternative for Germany (AfD) chairman Bjorn Hocke said I know the German people want to be free of EU slavery.† On the other hand, there can be a different outlook towards exit. â€Å"For instance, Scotland might leave the U.K. to become a stand-alone nation within the EU (like the Republic of Ireland).†Ã‚  (Geewax M., 2016). In a nutshell, Brexit will keep bringing rippling effect that will not only bring disruption in political front or obstruction in the flow of labor, capital and commerce; but will also increase Euroscepticism among the present member states of EU. Brexit’s influence on various industries Housing and commercial property The unreliability and unpredictability of the market after the referendum’s result came out, freaked out the Investors, which also affected the commercial property sector. Estate agents were more affected than house builders. As per Anthony Codling, an analyst at Jefferies, housing sector would be comparatively less affected because government helped the first-time buyers with financial aids. In fact, demand for houses would be vigorous but the cost of construction would keep rising. Building shares kept declining and the most affected housebuilders were Taylor Wimpy, Barkley and Baratt. In FTSE 100, they lost more than 4% in addition to their land securities. (Inman P. and Farrell S., 2016) Retail Retail sector was badly hit, which was already going through a lot of pressure. In fact, before the voting results were even declared, an atmosphere of uncertainty was creeping up. The shopping habits of majority of consumers took a different path. They stopped spending on things that do not come under necessary products. For example, the fashion sales declined drastically and saw the biggest drop in their sales for seven years. As most of the fashion retailers purchase their raw materials from Asia and pay them in dollars, they have been affected more due to the drop in the value of pound.   But some companies have benefitted as well. We know that deflation is the situation in which the supply of money in an economy gets diminished. During this time the purchasing power of money is greater. So, Brexit would help to bring relief to Britain’s supermarkets, which couldn’t earn their desired revenues in last two years due to the deflationary environment. Also, FTSE 100 index is currently at 7343.08 compared to 6338.10 on the day of referendum. This index basically depicted many companies which earned in dollars and not in pounds in UK. Hence, when there was a decline in the value of the pound compared to dollar, their returns multiplied. Telecom â€Å"Vodafone’s announcement that it could  move its headquarters out of the UK  brought one of the most striking impacts of the referendum on corporate Britain.†Ã‚  (Rhiannon B. et. al., 2016).    Since EU has a pivotal role in regulating the telecom sector, Brexit has already put forward many questions against Britain’s own telecom industry. A Spanish telecom company called Telefonica also began their assessment and evaluation of their UK based subsidiary company named O2. An attempt was made to sell O2 to Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison, but that unfortunately got hindered due to concern over competition. Later in October 2016, Telefonica has also renounced their plan of listing O2 in the London Stock Exchange due to the tumult created by Brexit. Also, there could have been rise in the momentum of Vodafone’s merger with the company called Liberty Global, which had taken over British cable group Virgin Media in 2013 to branch out into Europe’s cable market. But due to the turmoil created by Brexit, the valuation of Virgin Media had significantly dropped. Insurance Insurance companies had to mandatorily comply with Solvency II directive of European Union Law. This rule aims in harmonizing EU insurance regulation. Solvency II consists of three pillars, viz., pillar 1, pillar 2 and pillar 3. Pillar 1 states the quantitative requirements and resources that insurance companies need to maintain for meeting the liabilities. Pillar 2 deals with risk management structure, which helps to foresee risk against which capital must be held. Pillar 3 deals with transparency and disclosure of risk and meeting the capital requirements. Lord Turnbull, the former civil service head who served as a board member of Prudential, believed that Brexit would help the global companies who wanted to disassociate themselves from the complex directive of Solvency II. Also, after Brexit investors were in dilemma because of its harm on balance sheets and regular business operations. That’s why insurers had to struggle to minimize the immediate problem of share price fluctuations. Legal & General’s stock declined substantially by 30pc in two days, before it reassured shareholders that its solvency and cash generation were retaining properly. (Williams C., 2016) Energy National Grid and SSE have both urged the Government to ensure Britain remains in the EU’s internal energy market (IEM) that will enable them to perform smooth trading of electricity and gas between UK and the European countries. (Williams C., 2016). Since EU laid an easy pathway for UK to make smooth dealing in regards to receive the utilities and benefits of energy sector, Brexit would bring disruption in the whole process that ran with a continuous synergy. Therefore, the UK consumers will now have to incur more costs for energy consumption because UK’s exit from EU could lead to 500 million pounds rise in the cost of procuring energy as a resource. Transport Airline industry has also been badly hit due to Brexit. Sterling’s sharp depreciation has brought perplexity in the aviation sector because this decline in the value of sterling would reduce the demand to travel. This drop in the value would make traveling more expensive. EasyJet has already speculated that they will have less passengers to travel during summer months, and this uncertainty has forced them to rethink whether they should carry on their business in UK or not. Positive Aspects Pounds weakness would increase tourism in UK. People from all around the world can visit and spend comparatively more than what it used to be before. UK’s hospitality industry can flourish more. Big touristy attractions like Madame Tussauds or Legoland can gain more foot traffic. Even the renowned restaurants and pubs can get more customers. Current Scenario of Brexit’s Implementation Theresa May, the current Prime Minister of the UK has stated that she will trigger Britain’s exit from the EU by end of March, 2017 and begin the two years of negotiations. To begin the negotiations, she must invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, and decide on what deals the UK will make with the EU. According to the deals to be made, people are terming it as either a â€Å"hard† Brexit or a â€Å"soft† Brexit.   Article 50 None of the states have ever left European Union; Britain was the first to do so. This has created a lot of turmoil in global economy. The rules for withdrawal or exit is mentioned in Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon. Lisbon Treaty aimed to make EU more transparent and efficient in functioning. It was a treaty that was agreed by the head officials of EU member countries. But since UK has left the EU, Prime Minister Theresa May would trigger Article 50 by the end of March 2017. Though the decision of the referendum was taken in a day, the process of leaving EU will be time consuming. After Article 50 is triggered, no directives or rules of EU that exercise control over its member states, will be applied to Britain. Britain and EU will then become two individual parties to any contracts or agreements, and will have to take every decision through bargains and negotiations. Many economists believe that creating future trade relationships or agreements on crucial policies like immigration or trade tariffs between UK and EU countries can become more difficult and burdensome. Figure 2. Steps to be taken for UK to leave the European Union (Hunt A. & Wheeler B., 2017) Hard and Soft Brexit A hard Brexit will be an arrangement where the UK will surrender its full access to the single market and customs union along with the EU. (Sims A., 2016). The trade relationship will be based initially on the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. Going for a hard Brexit will give the UK full control of its border, and decide on trade deals on its own. A soft Brexit on the other hand will mirror the current deals the UK has with the EU as much as possible. It will lose having a seat on the European Council, but may keep access to the open trade market of the EU. The leave campaign members are more inclined towards going for a hard Brexit approach, while the remain campaign wants to take the path of a soft Brexit. However, both approaches come with their own pros and cons. International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, has said a hard Brexit approach would benefit the UK by making it a global trading nation. (Sims A., 2016). However, leaving the open market may subject the British goods and services to tariffs, as well as increase bureaucratic checks on goods. If the UK decides to go for a soft Brexit, London’s position as a financial hub may be kept intact if the UK decides to allow the EU rule of free movement of European nationals to work and settle in the UK. Supreme court ruling The latest update of Brexit’s implementation is the Supreme court ruling. Justices ruled that Prime Minister Theresa May cannot use the privilege to trigger  Article 50  of the Lisbon Treaty and begin the two-year process of negotiating the UKs separation from its EU partners. (Telegraph Reporters, 2017). Britain’s Supreme court has also ruled out that the UK government must hold vote in the Parliament before beginning the process of annulment. (Greene Allen R. & Dewan A., 2017). Though UK Government was dissatisfied with this new ruling but they would abide by it. Jeremy Wright, Attorney General of England and Wales, told reporters that they would agree to court’s ruling but would also take every measure to implement Brexit. Theresa May is playing the key role in enacting Brexit and she looks forward to execute all the plans by the end of March 2017, in association with all who voted for leaving EU. References   (1) Hunt, A. & Wheeler, B. (2017) Brexit: All you need to know about the UK leaving the EU. Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887 (2) European Union. (n. d.) The history of European Union. Retrieved from:   https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/history_en#1945_-_1959 (3) Pruitt, S. (2016) The history behind Brexit. Retrieved from: http://www.history.com/news/the-history-behind-brexit (4) The Telegraph. (2016) Britain’s 40-year relationship with the EU. Retrieved from:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/16/britains-40-year-relationship-with-the-eu/ (5) Wright, O. & Cooper, C. (2016) Brexit: What is it and why are we having an EU referendum? Retrieved from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/what-is-brexit-why-is-there-an-eu-referendum-a7042791.html (6) Buttonwood. (2016) Eu Referendum- The arguments for voting remain. Retrieved from: http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2016/06/eu-referendum-2 (7) Smith-Riley, B. (2016) Leave or remain in the EU? The arguments for and against Brexit. Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/16/leave-or-remain-in-the-eu-the-arguments-for-and-against-brexit/ (8) Mauldin, J. (2016) 3 Reasons Brits voted for Brexit. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmauldin/2016/07/05/3-reasons-brits-voted-for-brexit/#1c8d5991f9d6 (9) Allen, K. & Monaghan, A. (2016) Brexit fallout- the economic impact in six key charts. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/08/brexit-fallout-the-economic-impact-in-six-key-charts (10) Kierzenkowski, R., Pain, N., Rusticelli, E. & Zwart, S. (2016) The economic consequences of Brexit- A taxing decision. Retrieved from: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/the-economic-consequences-of-brexit_5jm0lsvdkf6k-en (11) Geewax, M. (2016) Circle June 23. A vote that day in the U.K. could affect your wallet. Retrieved from: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/10/481424109/circle-june-23-a-vote-that-day-in-the-u-k-could-affect-your-wallet (12) Inman, P. and Farrell, S. (2016) Pound hits 31-year low after disappointing service sector data. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/05/pound-hits-31-year-low-after-service-sector-data (13) Rhiannon, B., Dakers, M. & Martin, B. (2016) UK firms mull moves in wake of Brexit. Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/29/uk-firms-mull-moves-in-wake-of-poll/ (14) Williams, C. (2016) What does Brexit mean for the key parts of the UK economy? Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/07/02/what-does-brexit-mean-for-the-key-parts-of-the-uk-economy/ (15) Sims, A. (2016) What is the difference between hard and soft Brexit? Everything you need to know. Retrieved from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-hard-soft-what-is-the-difference-uk-eu-single-market-freedom-movement-theresa-may-a7342591.html (16) Telegraph Reporters. (2017) Brexit ruling: The Supreme Court judgement in full. Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/24/brexit-ruling-supreme-court-judgment-full/ (17) Greene Allen, R. & Dewan, A. (2017) Brexit ruling: UK Supreme Court gives parliament Article 50 vote. Retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/24/europe/brexit-article-50-supreme-court-ruling/ Carmen Opera | Exotic Musical Elements Carmen Opera | Exotic Musical Elements Carmen, as one of the most famous operas in the world, has been performed many times in lots of different troupes. This 4-act opera represents the highest achievement of the 19th century French opera. Before this, there was no composer could put so many elements into one performance: the strong and martial torero, amorous and sly Carmen and ardently spoony Don Josà ©Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦the busy atmosphere and the blatantly passionate mob scene. Bizet, he exhausted all the talent in the opera to pump the numerous smooth, grand and graceful strain. He used his sharp realistic style with the enthusiastic exoticism to compose it. After Bizet died, Carmen finally became the classical performance canonized by the professionals and music fans. George Bizet (1838 1875) was a French composer and Pianist in the Romantic era of music, whose best work is the opera Carmen. He had a talent in music. When he was nine, he went to the Paris Conservatory of Music to learn. His most famous composition was written in 1875, Carmen, which was adapted from the same title novella by the French writer Prosper Mà ©rimà ©e. The initial shows of the opera did not gain a huge success as Bizet expected, and because of the subject and other issues, the first performance was failed. Bizet, known as a wonder kid from his earlier age, could not accept the strike and fell ill for a long time, eventually died 3 months later. However, the luckiest thing is, Carmen was performed again after Bizet died, and achieved one of the best operas and the mostly performed opera in the opera history. In this essay, I will go to look at the opera Carmen through its exotic musical style, from the diversity and identity of the music, the Gypsy and Spanish musical styles in Carmen to the European style of music in the opera. I will identify and analyze these different musical elements in the opera, more importantly, I will compare those styles to the French and orthodox European music. These musical styles will be looked at from the perspective of history and characteristics in order to illustrate their functions in the opera. The word mentalità © is a fabulous expression in French. It is created to express a national or folk conception and perception towards something potentially and acknowledged to some extent. According to Nettl, Turino and Capwell (2008, p.235) that Music may be a part of and serve as a voice for a peoples mentalità ©. Here in this context of musical elements, mentalità © is used to show the accepted perception that music has been a part of our everyday life, more likely, music is a discourse that is well known by most of the people from all over the world. Since music is being part of the mentalità ©, we may find that the music has the identity. However, due to the different cultural and national background, music varies from country to country, which can be considered as the diversity of the music. For example, eastern music and western music are totally different in the styles and characteristics, especially when it comes to the opera. Music sometimes without lyrics can only make people internalize their emotional feeling into the strain. However, opera, with the story and music in one performance, did it better in making people to internalize the show into their feelings. An opera is performing a story about ones life, whether it is a tragedy or a comedy. Through flowing in the storyline, the songs and dances in the opera, the audience can live the characters lives in the theatre. Bizets opera, Carmen, based on the novella of Mà ©rimà ©e, has become the best example of Hegels tragic beauty. Tragedy is the all-time theme of the drama, Drama as an essential dialectical genre is at the same time the exquisite place of the tragic. Theatre after drama, we might thus suspect, would be a theatre without the tragic. This conjecture is fed by Hegels placing of tragedy in pre-modernity (Lehmann, 2006, p.42). Carmen, as our leading lady, is a beautiful, passionate but dissipated Gypsy girl, who loves freedom and has the open mind without any sanction on herself. Carmen, the cigarette girl falls in love with corporal Don Jose, but after she meets the strong torero Escamillo, she abandons Don Jose and falls for the torero. Don Jose is demoted to a normal soldier because he sets Carmen for free, but he loses Carmen at the end. In the final act, Don Jose kills Carmen after he fails for begging her love in front of the people coming out from the abattoir. In the original novella, because of Carmens Gypsy identity and Escamillos profession of being a torero (Spanish torero), there is an exotic atmosphere in the story. Bizet moved the exoticism onto the stage. He added the Gypsy and Spanish styles of music in the opera, as well as the orchestral composition using the graceful European musical elements. Musical exoticism in Carmen is a matter of dramatic structure, not simply of local color. Its function is not to characterize Carmen and her fellow Gypsies so much as to map a change in the relationship between Carmen and Don Jose (Parakilas, 1993, p.33). According to Parakilas, the exoticism in Carmen is to tell the difference of the real life and the dream: fact is something that men cannot test, and escaping from fact to dream will always fall down and prove itself false. However, in the following part of the paper, we will go over the exotic musical styles in the opera and analyze them as the musical elements in the whole composition. By according to Parakilas (p.33), that Carmen has the most Gypsy style pieces of music in the western musical tradition, which is famous in the musical history. There are the Habanera and Seguidilla in act 1, and in act 2, there are the song of 3 Gypsies and Carmens dance for Don Jose. Gypsy style of music is filled in Carmens dance and songs for her identity as a Gypsy girl. In the opera, her dressing style, her ways of singing and dancing are the representation of her characteristics of being passionate, romantic and blatant. Therefore, with her own style of personality, Gypsy music in her songs and dances seemed to be stereotyped into the impression of a passionate, romantic and irresponsible young girl who wants everything in her life but refuses to pay out. To give the numbers a Spanish flavor, Bizet based the melodies on what he took for traditional Gypsy music or folk songs, which lend an obsessive, pulsing beat (Fanelli, 2004, p.182). Gypsy music in Carmen presents to the scenes where Carmen shows her Gypsy character to Don Jose, more precisely, where she shows her love to him. To Don Jose, Carmens Gypsy dancing and rhythms are the temptation which is the representative lifestyle of generosity, enthusiasm and kicking over the traces. This is what he wants. He tries to run away from his rigid soldier life. In order to get the life he aspires after with Carmen, he betrayed his fiancà ©e and fails his mothers expectation for him. He gives up his original life for the Gypsy girl. The Gypsy musical style is the vivid rhythms, without hesitation from the beginning to the end; the lively composition, without any laggard notes in the transition to the next point; the beginning is the climax and the climax is the ending. the songs are diatonic, that is, they do not veer far from traditional harmony, displaying only a spattering of chromatic chords to highlight the tense moments, or as a run-up to some theme (Fanelli, 2004, p.182). The Spanish joined the condemnation of Carmen by denouncing Bizets pseudo-Spanish style as blatant plagiarizing of Spanish music; their argument was based on the scores punctuated rhythms that saturate the Habanera, the Seguidilla, and the Gypsy Dance. Nevertheless, Bizet had no intention of writing Spanish music perse, but rather, his intent was to capture the spirit and exoticism of Spanish song and dance in essentially his own music and style (Fisher, 2005, p.16). According to Fisher, that the pseudo-Spanish style of music in Carmen was not accepted by the Spanish because of the false rhythms in the opera and Bizet was not going to compose the formal Spanish music into the opera due to the music is just the representation of the spirit in Spanish music complex chords and Flamenco. However, Spanish music has been influenced by the Gypsy music deeply, which has the same features with Gypsy music vivid rhythms and lively composition. By referring to Trend (1934, pp.86), the Spanish music in Carmen is derived from the street music in 19th century, which is the most curious thing. Also, for the people who are not from the Spanish world, the Spanish music in Carmen reflects them a Spanish style of life. In the very beginning of the opera, even before opening the curtains, the orchestra is playing the music of Toreadors song from act 4. The music is full of Spanish soul of music, which depicts a scene of bullfighting on the abattoir. It is repeated in act 4 when the toreros enter to show the sense of excitement of the crowds seeing Escamillo. With the brisk Flamenco music, Carmen puts up its features as the Opera Comique the compare of the comedy elements and the tragedy ending in the opera. Over 1,000 years ago, because of some unknown reasons, the Gypsy starts to migrate, they almost left their home silently, and begins the journey of travelling around the world. They travelled all over the Eurasia, to the farthest northern Africa. They do not have their alphabetic characters. Instead, they left many psalms and legends word by word, keeping the memories in the nation as music. They have different characters in different part of the world, they do not have a stable place to stay, always live on the edge of the life, and under the circumstance of being killed, banished, snubbed and sympathized. In the time-space of thousands of year, there are no other nations like the Gypsy, living on the strings, singing the wind and snow. On the way of gipsydom, they communicated, compromised and even fought with them native people in the world, they accumulated rich cultural ideology, including the costumes, narratives, poems, music and dancing, etc. These primitive cultural elements are becoming more and more important, while the Gypsy living status cannot be developed per se. Because of the historical and geography reasons, the Gypsy music keeps their own features and also combines the residential folks music, as well as being influenced by the artistic music, popular music and jazz music to become a complex integrity. The Gypsy music, as same as the Gypsy, is distributing in many countries in the world, including Hungary, Rumania, Spain and Russia. In the earliest time, the Gypsy only use bagpipes, and then they start to add fiddles in the playing. Using one or two violins, a cello and a clarinet can play a performance. It is often to see a performance played by only two or three Gypsies. The instrumental music of Gypsy adopts the Hungarian folk music, as well as the melody. Nevertheless, the Gypsy always extemporizes the music and introduces the cadenza, on the speed as slow fast-very fast- suddenly stop. If these features are applied into other types of music, it becomes the Gypsy musical performance. According to that Dibbell It remained gypsy music: a seductively exotic mix of whatever was at hand and whatever had been picked up along the way (1990, p.12). Afterwards, the Gypsy music borrows from the European traditional music and the urban popular music styles. The Hungarian Gypsy songs usually adopt the monophonic cappella style in the slow-beat and dance-tune. The slow-beat has stronger lyricism and narrative, while the dance-tune is more bright and passionate with a shorter length and can be repeated many times. When the Gypsy performing a dance-tune, they normally will clap, snap the fingers or use a stranger mouth-bassing together to accompany the cantus. When they singing repeatedly, they will also add some yawp into the performance to heat the atmosphere, which usually sang by men. The Spanish music can never be discussed without Gypsy music, because of the historical reasons we talked before that the Gypsy is a nation that has a broad distribution and Spain is one of its residence. The Spanish Gypsy music is as much similar as the Gypsy music in other areas, but has been influenced by the local music. Referring to Smith (2007, p.82) that Far-fetched though it would be to suggest any direct influence of Grellmanns stereotyping of gypsy mores, it is notable that Bizets search for a style with which to represent gypsy music uses many effects that suggest improvisation: the amours of the passersby during Carmens Habanera, and the ornaments of the Chanson boheme and the Seguidille, to name a few. At the same time, Andalusian music has never left the Gypsy. The Spanish music put up a strong multi-cultural character. The familiar Phrygian mode in Spanish music is coming from the Byzantine music; the descending tendency of Phrygian cantus, rich grace notes and the main national instruments guitar, are influenced by the Aerobic music; and the southern Andalusian Flamenco shows the Gypsy elements of music. Flamenco is an integrated art that combined dancing, singing and guitar playing. The passion, heat, cafard of the Flamenco reveal a sense of mourn and sadness. Bizets style during this scene resembles Spanish music perhaps more closely than any of his other exotic numbers. In its sultry introduction, it adopts the descending tetrachord progression often associated with flamenco music (McClay, 1992, p.90). The most typical Spanish music style in Carmen is the intermezzo between act 3 and act 4. The music has the obvious features of Flamenco music. In the beginning of the music, the orchestra plays a series chords imitating the guitar strum, the rhythms of the dance may come from the Fandango or Seguidilla in Flamenco. With that, under the dancing rhythms of Spanish national instrument tambourine, with the accompaniment of imitating the guitar strum by harp and string instruments, then it come the Spanish-Aerobic cantus by oboes and the tune of clarinet and piccolo. This cantus shows a lot in the flamenco music. And in the first act, Habanera sang by Carmen is also a piece of rich Spanish features and dramatic music. Seguidilla as another Spanish music in Carmen is a dance in southern Spain, which is always danced in pairs a girl and a boy, with the complex footstep, and accompanied by guitar and percussion instrument. This song is sang by Carmen when she is seducing Don Jose. And the actress who performs Carmen always sings it with dancing. The strong dancing rhythms and passionate cantus show the ebullience and unconstraint of Carmen following Habanera. The Gypsy style of music in the opera functions significantly. The first piece of music in the act 2 is the Gypsy style. In these Gypsy compositions, Bizet grasped some important features of the Gypsy music. In the Gypsy dance music, the rich cantus and bright passion of the music is played thoroughly by Bizet. Just these characters in the music represent the Gypsy people as Carmen. The opera Carmen tells the story in Spain and uses mass Spanish musical elements, which is still a typical French Opera Comique. The Spanish and Gypsy musical styles just account for part of all the music in the opera. In truth, Bizet used a lot French styles of music. And the representation of the Spanish soul in the opera the Toreadors song performed by torero Escamillo was recomposed from the French folk song. Although that the opera Carmen did not seem to be a nondescript because of combing the 2 different musical styles together. Instead, these styles worked well together in this opera. Bizets Carmen, a work of pure genius, is the climax of achievement in this direction, and much of its fame is due to the fact that everything in it is of a familiar cast. The Toreadors song, the Habanera, and the music of the opening scene in the last act were recognized as Spanish the moment their introductory phrases were heard. (Grew, 1977, pp.235). By comparing the French music and the Spanish or Gypsy music in Carmen, it is clear that the features of the characters in the opera are performed with the exotic music in order to depict their differences with the crowds. Because of the unique historical background of European at that time (19th century during World War I), the soldiers (Don Jose, the killer in the end) emotional feeling towards his country and his duty was completely twisted and false, that is the reason why the exotic theme of the opera is grasped, not only because of the different musical style, moreover, because of the unrealistic expectations towards a different world by way of changing ones own life (Parakilas, 1993, p.43-67). In conclusion, the musical styles in Carmen are diverse, with both national (French) and exotic (Spanish and Gypsy). It keeps the Spanish passion and simple, also combines the French grace and elegance. Even though the opera Carmen was created by Frenchmen and sang in French language, it gave us the Spanish lifestyle in its every second. This will thanks to the original writer Mà ©rimà ©es deep observation to Spain, and Bizet, our brilliant composers research to the Spanish music. The diversity and exoticism of the music in Carmen depicted us the real life at that time in a hopeful and bright way.

Discrimination Against Those with AIDS :: Discrimination AIDS

Discrimination has grown over the years to be a major problem around the world. There are many different issues that discrimination addresses. One of the main issues that it evaluates is HIV/AIDS. Many people who are infected with the disease are discriminated against for something that they cannot control after they are diagnosed. More specifically, insurance companies and employers are one of the big factors in discrimination of these people in the work place. It is very important to them because they need the money in order to live and they need to coverage in order to stay healthy. Many people go through this battle of live with companies in order to survive, like Devin a middle aged man. These are very important issues that needs to be evaluated closely at and also their needs to be a solution for this problem in the world today. The Issue Do insurance companies and employers discriminate against people after they are informed that a person has HIV/AIDS? This is an important question at issue because many people and their loved ones are affected with terminal diseases, such as HIV/AIDS. Also, it is important because they are treated with disrespectful and it is not how any human being should be treated or cared for. They are regular looking and acting humans that happen to be infected with this horrific disease and that is the sole reason that they are being discriminated against. The public is unaware that they will not get the disease by touching the victim or using the same products or utensils as them. The only way that they could catch the disease from anyone is if they have sexual relations with them or if the share needles by taking drugs with someone who is infected with the virus. â€Å"Two decades after HIV first appeared an estimated 30 million people worldwide have contracted the virus; 11.7 million people have dies of AIDS† (Frankowski xi). This deadly virus has continually and rapidly spread to all different people. Around the world this virus is a major problem and is affecting more women and children then ever before. Although when this disease first appeared it was male dominated, but they have passed it on to the women and in which case they pass on to their children when they are in the womb.

Painting Pears and Paula Mandel Essay -- Artist Paintings Art Essays

Painting Pears and Paula Mandel â€Å"I can’t imagine a life without art. I can’t imagine it. It would be so sad. One of the most amazing things in the world is the art we create. It is a view into people’s souls.† -Paula Mandel If, on some sunny Sunday afternoon, you decide to take a drive through the streets of Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, you’d pass by movie theatres, Starbuck’s cafes, shopping malls, and even historical parks. And if you venture on to some of the more remote side streets, you might discover a small, broken-down old strip mall accommodating a mom and pop’s pizza shop and Morninglory, a small bakery and catering company exhibiting a painting of a piece of fruit in the window. A pear, to be exact. Enticed into stepping foot in the bakery, you might peruse the wall of sweets and goodies, find one you like, and buy it. And so you amble on, fruit tart in hand, sun on face, and $1.50 less in your wallet. Later that day, after meeting a friend for lunch, you find it quite fitting to return to the bakery for another treat. On your arrival, you once again are lured into the shop door, ensnared by that splash of color, that painting of a pear hanging in the window, and you once again buy a dessert. This time, however, instead of departing to saunter along in the sun, you feel the urge to stay awhile, scrutinizing that work of art in the window. There is just†¦something about it that captivates you. That pear, those colors, that shape. You smile. You get closer, pressing your nose up against the storefront’s window, trying to see every detail of that painting. You become obsessed. You can’t place your finger on just what it is you find so allur... ...McGraw-Hill, 2002. 184-87. Hillman, James. â€Å"The Poetic Basis of Mind.† Writing the Essay: Art and the World. Ed. Darlene A. Forrest, Pat C. Hoy II and Randy Martin. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 59-80. Jung, Carl G. â€Å"On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry.† Writing the Essay:Art and the World. Ed. Darlene A. Forrest, Pat C. Hoy II and Randy Martin. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 279-98. Mandel, Paula. Almost. 5 May 2003. Artist Statement. Pears. 5 May 2003. < http://paula-mandel.com/cgi-local/ perlshop-paulamandel.pl?ACTION=ENTER&thispage=pea01&ORDER_ID=!ORDERID!> Caress. 5 May 2003. < http://paula-mandel.com/cgi-local/ perlshop-paulamandel.pl?ACTION=ENTER&thispage=pea01&ORDER_ID=!ORDERID!> Personal interview. 13 Apr. 2003.

the cathedral :: essays research papers

At a glance Carver’s writing style of the â€Å"Cathedral† seems simple but after further interpretation of the story one realizes that the â€Å"Cathedral† is about the interactions and epiphanies that regular people have that changes their entire life. This idea is perfectly represented at the end of the â€Å"Cathedral†, throughout the story the husband knew nothing about blind people and wondered how can they live their life without being able to see. He continually made references to the effect of how can he be married and not be able to see his wife, if she had makeup purple slacks and so on he would never know. At the end of the story the husband became closer to the blind man through the drawing exercise and when he asked him to close his eyes so the husband was able to â€Å"see† things as the blind man saw them he realized that being blind wasn’t that bad it was just a different type of life style. Because Carver writes about simpl e commonplace situations this makes the story more affective to the average person. Topics such as loss and drug and alcohol use are things that almost everyone can relate to because it affects almost everyone’s life in one facet or another. Because this is the concentration of Carvers story it allows more people enjoy and relate to the stories; this also leaves the story for more personal interpretation. Each person has their own thoughts about drugs, alcohol and loss and because of these feeling the interpretation of the story is left up to the reader. The husband was amazed at the blind mans ability to smoke a cigarette and eat food as well as he was able to. These are all commonplace objects and task that many people would believe that the blind would have trouble with, but this stereotype was quickly done away with once they began to eat and smoke. Carver is defiantly an optimist, he believes in the ability for people to change and be more acceptable of people that are different, and disabled.

Digi Employee Motivation

INTRODUCTION DiGi is a leading Malaysian mobile and Internet service provider. The company and brand are known for innovation and continue to challenge market norms in efforts to deliver what is relevant and easy to use for customers to enjoy the best deals in the market. DiGi is a primary mobile communications company providing a comprehensive range of affordable, convenient and easy to use wireless services to simplify and enrich the lives of its customers.They create value for their customers by selecting the most appropriate cutting edge technology so that users benefit from products and services that give them choice, convenience and control. DiGi. Com Berhad is recognised in the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia Securities Berhad and is part of the global telecommunications supplier, Telenor Group. They have a well-known presence as a leader in voice and data prepaid services with a number of first that have set industry benchmarks for creativity and innovation.These services are o ffered under the DiGi Prepaid brand name. Their Post-paid services under the DiGi Post-paid brand name delivers high quality voice as well as value added mobile content and data services to both individual and corporate customers. MISSION 1. Provide customers specific solutions to meet individual needs for communications, connectivity, and access to information and security 2. Provide an environment where our employees can grow and be fulfilled 3. Provide superior returns to shareholders 4. Contribute to improving life in Malaysia VISIONTo be seen as stars in excellent customer experience which we think will be one of the few differentiators in the longer term given the rapid commoditization of mobile services. CONTENTS Employee motivation is defined as the key for the effectiveness of an organization as whole. An understanding of the applied psychology within a workplace, also known as organizational behaviour can help to achieve a highly motivated workforce. Frederick Herzberg, a behavioural scientist proposed two-factor theory which is also known as motivator-hygiene theory in 1959.According to Herzberg in hygiene theory, there are some job factors that result in satisfaction while there are other job factors that prevent dissatisfaction. When a hygiene factor is provided to the employees who are not satisfied, it creates a favourable environment for motivation and prevents job dissatisfaction. It is not included as an intrinsic part of a job, but they are related to the conditions under which a job is performed for instance company policy and administration, wages and salaries, quality of inter-personal relations and feelings of job security.If these factors are considered inadequate by employees, then they can cause dissatisfaction with work. The motivation theory shows that this factor motivates the employees for a superior performance which is called as satisfiers. It is involved in performing the job and employees usually find these factors as intrinsi cally rewarding. The factors include status of employee, opportunity for advancement, gaining recognition and responsibility of employee and sense of personal achievement.The motivators symbolized the psychological needs as an additional profit. If they are effective, then they can motivate an individual to achieve above-average performance. Digi’s working environment is built around openness, transparency and flexibility with excellent mobility which verifies that they practise hygiene factor. Previously the organization chart has 12 stages of hierarchy which starts from CEO until the junior technician. This makes the communication and decision making process to proceed in a very slow, tough and unpredictable situation.Hence, the higher positioned employees will have higher benefits such as medical & hospitalisation, travel, personal accident & term life coverage, number of annual leave and bonuses according to their ranking in the organization. Each employee has their own w orking desk to organize their work documents and settle their job. However, the current organization chart has only 6 stages of hierarchy from the CEO to the Engineer. This will enable the company for fast decision making and the communication will more efficient with better reliability.Hence, today, the company are among the most competitive players in the industry. DiGi selected for a flat organisation in order to remain true to its core values of simplicity, innovation and best value. Digi’s reinvention has enabled the organisation to be more transparent and streamlined. All DiGi employees, from top management down to the receptionists, have the same kind of benefits, regardless of level or job title which shows that they are placed in the same flat working environment. It  nurtures more open communications and innovative-thinking.There are no barriers for communication in this new organization chart where by all the employees will be operating in the same place with an open environment. They can always sit wherever they prefer in the office because there is no specific place assigned for each employee. They create a challenging and rewarding work environment for our people to excel to bring out the best in them and to stimulate a high performance culture. The DiGi Technology Operating Centre met the specifications of Green Building to motivate the employees through the hygiene factor.The new sustainable and energy efficient centre will incorporate eco design elements which will translate to significant lifecycle savings with intelligent systems, while providing employees with a healthier and more comfortable work environment. DiGi empower the employees to have a committed sustainable future. Part of DiGi Deep Green programme is to increase employee’s awareness about the impact of climate change with the aim to motivate them to take action, either individually or collectively to reduce their carbon footprint.With increasing awareness of the individual impact, DiGi realised that this sense of responsibility for the environmental satisfaction will slowly, but surely, being entrenched into a smooth management without criticizing the surrounding condition and encouraging employees to take small steps in making some working lifestyle changes. Changing people's mind sets about their lifestyle habits is the biggest hurdle, for instance, carpooling versus personal transport and fluorescent lights versus energy-savings bulbs.DiGi, as a responsible corporation, can only aim to reach out as many of its employees as possible to prompt them to think twice before making a decision that may impact positively on the working environment convenience. So, to reach out and educate its employees about climate change, a 3-week campaign was launched on 30 June 2008. The objective was to grow together with all those we connect with green environment and the work environment for a better future.The aim of Digi Deep Green programme is to create awareness among the employees about the effect of climate changes and encourage them to act individually or in a group to lower the carbon footprint. The other factor that is practised by Digi is motivation factors. The Digi Company has received two Merit Awards in Malaysian Business Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Awards in 2007 which are Best Innovation and the Best Overall Winner in CSR categories. This acknowledgement was received after winning three PM’s CSR Awards in Cultural ; Heritage, Best Workplace Practices and the Best Overall CSR categories in 2006.The employee was inspired by this reward to work even harder and to please the organisation. Educational cultural programs are conducted through workshops, seminars, lectures, training sessions, conference, symposiums and forums where it helps the employees to have a strong relationship between each other no matter what race are they in. They will not critique or misunderstand other cultures or races and they wi ll be able to tolerate and be respectful to each other.These award giving creates employees with higher level of creativity, motivation and productivity which cause them to have drastic changes through their behaviour and the soft skills. Digi was also selected by the Carbon Disclosure Project as the top 5 in Asia and the first company in Malaysia among the other awards in 2011. This is shown by reducing the use of printed bills, where the customer needs to pay an extra fee to get the bills. Customers are also provided with a special place to lend their used mobiles for the recycling purposes.Moreover they have to agree and sign up a code which instructs them to fulfil the environment friendly practices. This will influence the employees to be more responsible towards the goal of this project. FINDINGS In order to obtain data regarding this topic, a short survey was constructed to be specific about the information needed about the Digi Company to identify employee weakness. In this report, there are two types of data used to have a clear picture of the study which are primary data and secondary data. Primary data is the data that is collected for a specific purpose from original sources such as interview and surveys.The survey form and the pictures are attached in the appendix as the evidence. The other source of getting the data to complete this research is from online resources where the websites are cited in reference. Strength Digi D’house in Shah Alam quarters physically shows that it is environmental friendly building. It is because the glass windows are built from floor up to the roof that gives so much natural sunlight but breezy at the same time, allowing them to reduce the power consumption for lights and air conditioners. Dr. Ken Yeang designed the Digi Technology Operations Centre (TOC) which is located opposite the D’house.It is designed in a way that the external walls are covered with green plants to enhance the heat absorbance and increase the air quality inside the building. Lights in the building are controlled by the brightness of the natural lights outside where it will balance the brightness of the internal light of the building. It can also sense the presence of people in the room where it can turn off the light automatically. Digi employees experience balance working life which leads them to provide productive thinking and creativity.For instance, Digi staff mothers who newly delivered baby will have options to extend their maternity leave for almost two months total with the last 2 months at half pay beyond the mandatory 60 days. Nursing rooms are also provided by the management at Digi office to support breast feeding and also for the storage of breast milk. Flexible working time is offered but it depends on the nature of work responsibility. Moreover, important topics for the training are delivered to the employees in 2007 where over 30000 hours were spent to increase the performance level of the e mployees.The common topics used are Intellectual Property (IP) Training, Integrity! Programme, Radio Frequency (RF) Awareness Workshop, Telenor Global Trainee Programme, DiGi Internship Programme and â€Å"Digi Meets† Programme. Weakness Although the Digi Company provides a lot of benefits, some employees still have conflict in the organization’s management which leads to demotivation of employees especially if issues are not resolved properly. If an employee comes from a very good and higher educational background, they will expect appreciations and more benefits such as special working environment than thers who do not have the same education as them. Being treated as same as other employees will cause them to be demotivated. Based on DiGi’s flat organization, all DiGi employees from top management down to the receptionists have the same kind of benefits, regardless of level or job title where they are placed in the same flat working environment. These will ca use them to have dissatisfaction in the working place. When the employee is given more workloads he or she feels it’s too unrealistic. There are times where the employees will have to work more than their usual working hours but are given the same pay.There are now supervisors or managers in a ratio of 1 to 7 employees. The shift schedule is 12:30 pm to 9:00 pm or whenever shipping is done. They used to have a large day shift, but they cut that down and forced most people to work the other shift. Now whether they realize it or not, this has caused a lot of families hardships by not getting to spend time with each other. There is no increase in the pay even though they work for extra hours. In the end, their performance will be below their usual performance levels.When DiGi undergoes mergers, acquisitions, downsizing and retrenchments, they can have many nervous and anxious members of staff who have worked hard for the organization for years and suddenly they are told that the y may not have a job. This can put them in a very negative frame of mind and lead to the employee becoming very disillusioned with his or her current job. There may also be a lot of gossip going around in these organizations and employees may become demotivated out of fear of the unknown. If an employee feels that he or she is likely to lose their job anytime, that is there is job insecurity.Employees need to feel that their organization values them. Poor organizational skills, leading and control by upper management to all levels of employees is another cause of the employee being demotivated. The managers monitor the employees every minute. An employee is only given 30 minutes for lunch. They keep track of every time you are 1 min or more late. Still in the dark ages about how they treat part-time employees. Apart from that, some employees feel that very open communication will cause trouble in decision making process.This is because everybody will tend to give their ideas and whe n their ideas are not taken in count, it will create misunderstanding and distress the employees. Employees will be mentally distracted which will lower down the work productivity. RECOMMENDATION DiGi must treat their employees fairly in all the ways as well. Placing employees according to their educational background and what they deserve can satisfy them and it can even make employees more productive. Employees should be given the opportunity to voice an opinion on the matter and to discuss whether they think the management treating them right or not.There should a suggestion box so that for the employees who feel unfair and unsatisfied with how the management treats them, they can put in their comments, questions, and requests there. Teamwork is the way to go. Instead of giving the workload to one person, they can distribute it to a group of people. When the work is distributed evenly in the organization, the work can be done quicker and much easier without the need to force the employee to work for more hours. For the employee who’s working for more hours should be given extra pay compared to the one did lesser work.Simple praise and words of encouragement for a task well-done are always welcome. Employees should always be informed of changes, and even if they cannot be involved in the decision-making process, procedures should be clearly explained to them to ensure they believe that the decision-making process is fair. Employees who have worked hard for the organization for years should always be appreciated and the company should not just dismiss them from the company without giving them early notice if the company is under crisis. Company should always let people know of their plans and change of plans, if any.This makes life easier and better both for the employee and the organization. More time should be given to the employee to take their lunch. 30 min is too less for the employees. They have been working for hours so at least 1 hour should be given for them to relax their mind and thus they will feel refreshed to continue with their work. Employees should experience job rotation because this can provide them with more knowledge and working skills in different kind of environments. Part timers should not be monitored all the time as this will make them think that they are trusted.Hence, there are high possibilities for them to work better and in a productive way with high self-esteem. CONCLUSION In a nutshell, Digi Company acquires the employee motivation concept to improve their performance level by practising Herzberg Theory. However, employee’s motivation should not only rely on these factors as there are many others factors that promotes to employee motivation. Each manager should understand it clearly and know how to motivate their employee in order to produce better business output performance. Employee motivation is said to be a major factor in the success or failure for Digi Company.DiGi as the industry sh aper, has created many new innovations and more to come in the coming years. Digi is always the smarter choice. REFFERENCE 1. Farezza Hanum, R. (2012, June 5). DiGi spreads green practices among staff, clients. New Straight Times. Retrieved from http://www. nst. com. my/streets/central/digi-spreads-green-practices-among-staff-clients-1. 91120 2. Ching Thut, C. (2008, March  . It all starts from within for Digi. The Star. Retrieved from http://thestar. com. my/starbizicrm/pdf/0668389_2. pdf 3. DiGi’s Workplace – As they see it. (2008, January 16). Retrieved July 17, 2012, from http://www. nugerahcsrmalaysia. org/2008/01/16/winner-workplace-practices-digi/ 4. About DiGi-Careers. (2011). Retrieved July 17, 2012, from http://www. digi. com. my/aboutdigi/careers/index. do 5. Siti Sakinah binti Ab. Rahim (2009, August) . Factors Contribute To Employees Motivations Towards Individual Output Performance In Telco Company. Retrieved fromhttp://etd. uum. edu. my/1755/1/Siti_Sak inah_Ab. _Rahim. pdf APPENDIX EMPLOYEES SATISFACTION SURVEY FORM 1. MaleFemale 2. Permanent staffPart time staff 3. Are you happy with your job overall? If no, state why. Yes No __________________________________________________ . Do you like the policies, rules and the way your company treats you? If no, state why? Yes No __________________________________________________ 5. Are your works very stressful? Yes No ___________________________________________________ 6. Are you paid well for the work you do? Yes No ____________________________________________________ 7. Comments ____________________________________________________ The award ceremony was on Friday, 29 Feb 2008, with guest of honour, Dato' Dr Mohd Taib Hashim, Deputy Secretary-General of the Ministry of Higher Education representing the Minister.Best Overall CSR Winner in 2007, DiGi Telecommunications which had also taken home two awards that night – the Award for best Workplace Practices and the Award for contrib utions to Culture & Heritage preservation. Digi Deep Green 2009 Clean Tech Open  Malaysia became a success. This event has attracted 47 entries and I was made to understand that Clean Tech USA had praised this achievement. D’House, DiGi’s Shah Alam headquarters, is an environmentally sustainable building where natural resources are used efficiently Interview session with one of the employee working in Digi Telecommunication Company.

Themes in Things Fall Apart

In Chinua Achebe's acclaimed novel, Things Fall Apart, there are various themes which make up the complexity and richness of the story. Although it is a work of fiction, Achebe touches upon contemporary issues involving Africa and colonialism. Colonialism is defined as political control over another country. Often this means exploiting its resources and tampering with the precious culture of the people. Post- colonial Africa is still trying to recover, by trying to adapt a mindset of what it truly means to be an African.Achebe explores these issues through his own African roots nd portrays what he believes is the true essence of African culture. One major theme of the novel is language. Language is the most effective and prominently used tool for communicating to other people. It is clear that speech is used in a different form depending on who is addressed. For example, when addressing an Igbo god or an ancestral spirit, one uses a formal tone of speech. This is to show a sign of re spect.Similarly, when people of the tribe approach and speak to Okonkwo, they use a similar tone. They respect Okonkwo for his many feats including beating Amalinze the cat. For this reason, they reflect their feeling in their speech. A significant speech barrier occurred between the Christian Missionaires. In order to communicate with the people they were required to use an interpretor. An interpretor does not always deliver the message precisely, causing severe lines of miscommunication.Eventually, these unclear communication lines could lead to ignorance among the two peoples. Another form of communication in the tribe are the folktales and proverbs. This is the Igbo peoples way of communicating their values to the younger generations. Language plays a very important role in their society, and the loss of their language is a tremendous loss of their culture. Another important theme in the novel is the theme of gender. Gender roles are central to Igbo society. To understand Igbo w orldview it is essential to understand the cultural gender roles.Even the crops are separated by male and female; in example, the yam is said to be a male crop. Males are expected to be masculine in every sense of the word. They should be physically strong and equally as violent. They are not to show emotion because that is considered a sign of weakness. For instance, Okonkwo rarely shows affection towards his children because that would be a weak sign of emotion. Due to this fact, men in the Igbo culture are assigned the role of warriors and hunters.The men do all of the hard labor and interact largely within the public sphere. On the other hand, women are viewed as weak because they do not physically compare to men. In a similar way, woman display emotions which supposedly diminishes their strength. However, women dominate the private sphere. Their role is to raise the family, clean the home, cook, etc. It is a bit ironic that the mportant Job of raising the children is given to t he â€Å"weaker† sex; Achebe touches upon this fact.The character of Okonkwo takes the idealology of masculinity too far. He suffers from patrophobia because he does not want to be like his father who was lazy and weak. For this reason he is cold towards his children and eventually kills his adoptive son Nwoye. Achebe makes it clear that these actions are not acceptable within the community. There must always be a balance between feminine and Additionally, the theme of religion is one prominently discussed within the novel. The Igbo people have a religion that is based upon the earth.Their entire culture revolves around agriculture and the mystery of nature and the seasons; therefore, they worship gods and goddesses which will help them in this dominating aspect of their lives. The people are fearful that if they commit a sin against their god that they will be punished by way of crop elimination or natural disaster. Also, considering the central role of family, ancestral spi rits are extremely important to the Igbo people. It is imperative that the people do not forget their ancestors, for they believe that if they give thanks to them, then they in spirit will reward them in return.The ancestral spirits are respected to the point that Judges in trials (masked elders) represent the ancestors who were wise and Just in decision making. During colonialism, Christian missionaries pushed the idea of a singular monolithic God. This idea was very foreign to the people and seemed irrevelvent to Igbo lifestyle. Some Igbo people accepted this new idea, however others remained firm in their beliefs. This shows the Igbo peoples open-mindedness when it comes to the spiritual world. To demean their spiritual nature would be to degrade their culture.