On the eve of a pivotal vote that would deregulate the broadband industry, a fresh survey from the University of Maryland shows that large majorities of Americans – including 3 out of 4 Republicans – oppose the government’s plan to repeal its net neutrality rules for Internet providers.

The results paint the picture of an electorate that is largely at odds with the GOP-led Federal Communications Commission, whose chairman, Ajit Pai, plans to vote Thursday to lift key rules for companies such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon. The move would permit such companies to speed up some websites, and slow down or block others, as Internet providers seek new business models in a rapidly changing media and technology environment.

The survey by the university’s Program for Public Consultation and Voice of the People, a nonpartisan polling organization, concluded that 83 percent of Americans do not approve of the FCC proposal. Just 16 percent said they approved.

Americans in the survey were far less likely to find the FCC’s arguments for repeal persuasive, and far more likely to agree with arguments for keeping the regulations. While 48 percent said they found the government’s case convincing, 75 percent said they found the contrasting arguments of consumer groups and tech companies convincing.

About one in five Republicans said they were in favor of the FCC’s proposal.

The PPC survey highlights a significant consensus between members of both political parties at a time when much of the country is divided on other social and economic issues. It also differs from previous polling on the subject of net neutrality in methodology and approach.

Unlike polls that solicit respondents over the Internet on an opt-in basis – a tactic that polling experts say is problematic because the resulting sample can be unscientific – PPC relied on a focus group of respondents that had been assembled randomly using traditional mail and telephone techniques by the market research firm Nielsen Scarborough.

In addition, rather than asking survey-takers their opinion on net neutrality without much prior context or by phrasing the questions in ways that could affect the results, PPC prepared respondents ahead of time with a policy briefing laying out the case from both sides of the debate. The survey content was reviewed by experts in favor and against the net neutrality rules, including by a government official who represented the administration’s position, according to Steven Kull, PPC’s director.

“We think that’s critical to getting a meaningful response,” said Kull. “I think it’s fine to do a poll that just says, ‘There’s this thing called net neutrality; what do you think?’ That tells you something – it tells you the politics of it. But our orientation is, how do you bring the public to the table in a way that gives them a real meaningful input?”

The FCC cast doubt on the survey results in a statement Tuesday.

“This is a biased survey that, among other things, makes no mention of the role that the Federal Trade Commission will play in policing anti-competitive or unfair conduct by Internet service providers. Earlier polling by Democratic pollster Peter Hart showed that most Americans believe that utility-style regulation of the Internet is harmful, and this is the regulation that the Restoring Internet Freedom order will eliminate,” the statement said.

The Hart poll asked 800 adults in 2015 by telephone whether they thought it would be helpful for the government to “regulate and oversee the Internet similar to how it oversees the electric or gas public utility industry” and found more adults believed this would be harmful than helpful. (Critics of the rules tend to characterize them as direct regulation of the Internet, whereas supporters tend to describe the rules as regulations applied to Internet providers.)

That same study found that 75 percent were unfamiliar with the term “net neutrality” and what it meant. The survey was conducted on behalf of the Progressive Policy Institute, which two months later published a study supporting the broadband industry’s claim that the net neutrality rules have prevented Internet providers from investing in and upgrading their networks.

Public opinion on net neutrality is largely unstudied and can vary widely depending on how the questions are asked, Paul Brewer, director of the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication, was quoted as saying in yet another survey of 901 U.S. adults in 2015 showing that a majority of Americans opposed government regulations to defend net neutrality.

The wording of polling questions is what drove PPC to equip survey-takers with fleshed-out arguments from supporters and opponents of the FCC rules.

In its report, PPC did not outline the full battery of questions it asked of respondents; the other questions, said Kull, dealt with issues such as national monuments and a proposed Senate health care bill. But the arguments for and against the FCC proposal tracked the positions put forward by Internet providers, tech companies, trade groups and consumer advocacy organizations.

One question asked respondents to consider that the rules currently stifle innovation and “hold back the development of the Internet in the United States.” It also made a case that some companies might be better off if they could access faster speeds from their Internet providers than they can today, and that it could lead to lower Internet prices for consumers. And it also argued that as long as Internet providers are required to tell consumers about their network practices, “the market will make sure that the ISPs do not overreach.”

Another question asked respondents to consider that the FCC plan could lead to higher broadband prices for consumers “and make it harder for websites to get the necessary traffic to be profitable.” Large, wealthy businesses would have an advantage over small ones that could not afford to pay for faster download speeds, it said, and that Internet providers could block websites for any reason they liked, including to harm competitors.

Americans in both parties found the latter arguments more convincing than the former – Democrats by a 42-point margin, Republicans by a 13-point margin.

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NEW DELHI – Entertainment continued to fuel India’s Search momentum in 2017 with ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’ topping Google’s trending charts and six other Bollywood movies featuring among the ‘Top 10 Trending’ queries this year, Google said on Wednesday.

Bollywood and cricket remained the top two themes that ruled the charts, according to Google India 2017 Year in Search results.

“After breaking several records at the Box office, India’s most expensive movie also broke the language boundaries attracting humongous search interest from movie buffs across the nation,” the search giant said.

Baahubali 2: The Conclusion was followed by searches around Indian Premier League and searches on ‘Live Cricket Score’. Also making it to the Top 10 list were Bollywood blockbusters Dangal and Badrinath Ki Dulhania.

Among the top trending songs this year, “Hawa Hawa” from the Arjun Kapoor starrer “Mubarakan” held the top spot on the charts, followed by sufi track “Mere Rashke Qamar” originally sung by legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and recreated by vocalist Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.

Songs like “Despacito” and Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” also featured in the top trending tracks.

Sunny Leone once again featured among the top entertainers this year, followed by Big Boss entrant Arshi Khan, Sapna Choudhary and YouTube singing sensation Vidya Vox.

“CBSE results, UP elections, Goods and Services Tax (GST) and Budget featured among the trending news events that witnessed huge interest among Indian users,” Google said.

Indian users were also interested when it came to knowing more about Bitcoin prices or expressing interest about ransomware. India’s historic win at the Miss World ceremony generated much traffic which catapulted Manushi Chhillar to fame.

Among the top ‘What is’ queries this year, GST, Bitcoin, Jallikattu and BS3 vehicle remained the most trending themes.

Other topics like how-to set of queries saw users seeking answers to a range of subjects from ‘How to link aadhaar with PAN card’ to buying Jio phone to removing Holi colour from the face!

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Indian American Nausheen Rahman, 30, of New Springville, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Monday as she had admitted to killing her baby and placing the newborn in the trash.

At the hearing in Supreme Court, Justice Mario F. Mattei imposed three years of post-release supervision.

Rahman has already served two years of time and could be freed in little more than eight years.

According to SILive.com, Rahman made a long and tearful statement asking for leniency, but the judge imposed the negotiated plea for first-degree manslaughter for the death of the baby, a girl, in March 2016.

“Your actions were unthinkable, they were unforgivable, they were callous, and you took a harmless child and put it in a garbage bag as if it was a worthless peace of trash. Today and only today do you show an ounce of remorse, so your sentence is well deserved,” said Mattei, adding that Rahman “started a false narrative” in the immediate aftermath of the crime by not showing remorse and claiming to police that she didn’t realize that she was pregnant.

“You did everything you could to make the child you brought into this world as insignificant as possible. It’s no wonder the child was found in the fetal position, having been assaulted the instant it was born. In fact, you tried to terminate your pregnancy, so in my mind there’s no question that you intended to do what you did on the day the child was born. Your actions on that day showed that this wasn’t a situation where you panicked at the thought of what might happen to your life if this life was allowed to continue,” he added.

In her statement, Rahman told the court that she was sorry along with telling the police that the baby’s father was not willing to support the child and he was not the man she was to be married to, blaming her actions partly on her cultural and religious heritage.

“My actions were an offense against my character and personality as well as an offense against my family and community. Today, for my actions I take full responsibility. What many Americans may not know is that a Muslim woman in the Indian/Pakistani culture is oppressed in her own land,”  Rahman said in her statement.

“When I became pregnant, I was terrified of the response of my father and the cultural backlash that I knew I would experience, so I hid my pregnancy out of fear, fearing condemnation and estrangement from the family and an unspoken terror that would brand me as an evil and wicked person for the rest of my life. Don’t get me wrong, Islam is a beautiful faith tradition and I do honor my mother and father in accordance with the teaching of Islam. However, it is the cultural corruption that places young girls and women under very rigid and unforgiving circumstances,” she added.

SILive.com reported that police say they found the infant’s bloodied corpse in the fetal position, her thumb next to her mouth in a garbage can outside Rahman’s family home on Richmond Hill Road on the morning of March 12, 2016.

The medical examiner determined that the baby was alive when she was born and since Rahman admitted to disposing the newborn, the infant’s death is considered a homicide.

Rahman also told detectives that she had learned of her pregnancy only a few months before giving birth.

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NEW YORK – Indian American college professors Bala and Prabha Swaminathan have created a Tamil professorship at Stony Brook University in honor of Bala’s parents, called the Anandavalli and Dr. G. Swaminathan Endowed Research Professorship.

“Tamil language is more than something to speak. It harbors a culture’s history and traditions, and perpetuates identity and pride. Ultimately, when its wisdom is shared, Tamil language creates better cross-cultural understanding and cooperation,” said Bala.

The University also has a very successful India Studies Center, which recently celebrated its 20th year.

The couple has established the Tamil professorship in the College of Arts and Sciences to leverage interdisciplinary, scholarly research collaborations with linguistics, anthropologists, musicians and sociologists.

“I have a very high regard for Stony Brook’s research capabilities. I expect the professor in Tamil will be an active contributor on campus, publishing many papers, offering Tamil language classes and creating the new knowledge that will perpetuate and celebrate the language that still has so much to teach us,” Bala added.

Bala said that one of Tamil’s oldest texts, the Kural, inspired him as his father “lived by” the text while he was growing up in the South Indian town of Madurai.

The Kural is written by the 4th century BCE poet and philosopher Valluvar and is one of the highly acclaimed texts of secular ethics as well as the most widely translated works in the world.

“Whatever we earn is to provide for others who do not have the same opportunities,” Bala recalls his father saying to him as he used to follow the Kural to help him be generous before becoming a well-known doctor.

Bala founded the New York Tamil Academy for school children and he and Prabha have two sons, Isai Maran and Kavin Mathi.

Bala and Prabha’s decided to create the professorship in Tamil at Stony Brook University to help sustain the language and culture that have served them so well.

“Offering an endowed faculty appointment, such as the Anandavalli and Dr. G. Swaminathan Endowed Research Professorship in Tamil, helps us attract the most talented teachers and researchers,” said Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr.

“We are grateful to Bala and Prabha for their incredible leadership in keeping Tamil and the ideas of the Kural alive for future generations,” he added.

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Apple is spending $390 million to boost production from a maker of laser technology that’s critical for new iPhone X features such as facial recognition.

Apple, whose products can stretch the manufacturing capabilities of suppliers, will invest the money in Finisar Corp. from a $1 billion manufacturing fund announced earlier this year with the aim of creating more American jobs. Finisar will use the funds to reopen a plant in Sherman, Texas, that will employ 500 people. Finisar’s shares surged as much as 32 percent, the biggest intraday gain since 2009. Apple stock rose less than 1 percent.

The design process at Apple balances creating ground-breaking technology against the manufacturing challenge of finding suppliers who can provide the number of components needed to put new features inside hundreds of millions of handsets.

Many of Apple’s new facial-recognition features — including one in which emojis mimic a person’s facial expressions — require lasers that track tiny movements. The technology, which uses vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, is also part of the company’s emerging augmented reality efforts. Apple said it will purchase 10 times more of the technology this quarter than has ever previously been manufactured over a three-month period.

Gene Munster, a longtime Apple analyst who now serves as a partner at Loup Ventures, said the deal gives Apple a competitive advantage for smartphone-based augmented reality products.

“This investment shows the company is doubling down on AR again, and locks down the VCSEL market, which will make it tough for other smartphone players to compete in AR,” he wrote. The deal also suggests Apple will include these sensors in additional products. The iPhone X is currently the only Apple product with a facial recognition sensor. Apple is working on a new iPad with the feature for next year, Bloomberg News has reported.

The deal with Finisar demonstrates Apple’s ability to play king-maker among component suppliers. Finisar share gains on Wednesday helped pare its losses for the year, which stood at 36 percent through Tuesday’s close. A competing maker of 3-D sensors, Lumentum Holdings Inc., fell as much as 15 percent, its biggest intraday drop in more than two years.

“While this investment will likely come across as bad for Lumentum, we do not believe Lumentum’s relationship with the company has necessarily been affected,” Munster said. “Given the limited supply of VCSEL arrays worldwide, as well as the limited manufacturing capacity of Finisar and Lumentum, we believe Apple will need multiple suppliers in order to meet their demand targets.”

Founded in 1988 and with 14,000 employees, Finisar has primarily made components used in networking and the internet, including voice and video communications, storage and television. Its other customers include Cisco Systems Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and Huawei Technologies Co.

With much of the manufacturing and assembly for its products done in China, Apple has faced criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump and others for not creating more jobs in the U.S. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook announced the manufacturing fund in May. Corning Inc., the maker of glass for iPhone and iPad screens, earlier received $200 million for glass processing.

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A former Rutgers University student and two other men pleaded guilty to computer crimes related to the creation, sale and use of the Mirai botnet, a network of infected electronics equipment used to knock major websites offline in massive 2016 cyber attacks.

Paras Jha, 21, pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday to charges involving writing code that allowed him to infect and control devices with Mirai, the Justice Department said on Tuesday.

He also pleaded guilty on Wednesday in federal court in New Jersey to hacking that repeatedly shut down the Rutgers University computer system between 2014 and 2016, paralysing the school’s networks for days at a time.

Two other individuals, Josiah White, 20, and Dalton Norman, 21, also pleaded guilty to charges related to the development and use of Mirai for criminal gain. Jha and Norman also pleaded guilty to a separate online advertising fraud scheme.

The Mirai botnet was used to infect hundreds of thousands of internet-connected devices including webcams, which its creators then turned into bots that attacked websites and internet infrastructure in “denial of service” assaults that knocked them offline.

Those attacks included one in October 2016 on an internet infrastructure firm known as Dyn that disrupted access to dozens of websites across the United States and Europe including ones run by Twitter Inc <TWTR.N>, PayPal Holdings Inc <PYPL.O> and Spotify. Authorities said Jha and his accomplices did not carry out that specific attack, which took place after an individual believed to be Jha published Mirai’s source code online.

U.S. Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard Downing declined to comment when asked during a press call about the status of identifying those responsible for the Dyn attack.

Jha began to create the Mirai botnet in August 2016 to launch powerful denial of service attacks targeting business competitors and others against whom the attackers “held grudges,” prosecutors said in court documents. He owned a service denial mitigation company called ProTraf Solutions, according to his LinkedIn page.

Jha and his co-conspirators also sought financial gain, renting the botnet out to other criminals. Jha attempted to destroy or conceal evidence of his crimes by erasing the virtual machine used to run Mirai and posting the code online to create “plausible deniability,” prosecutors said.

In August 2016, White created the scanner that was part of the Mirai code, which helped the botnet identify devices that could be accessed and infected, charging documents said.

In September 2016, Norman and accomplices expanded Mirai, allowing it to infect more than 300,000 devices, prosecutors said. Court documents did not accuse Norman of creating Mirai but said he helped monetize its use.

In a separate case unsealed on Tuesday, Jha and Norman were charged with leveraging another botnet for a different scheme to generate online ad revenue through fraudulent clicks, a practice known as clickfraud.

Jha admitted to earning about 200 bitcoin, which was valued at $180,000 on Jan. 29, as a result of the clickfraud, prosecutors said. The amount would be worth about $3.4 million today.

Robert Stahl, Jha’s attorney, said his client had been released pending sentencing and has not been a student at New Jersey’s Rutgers University since December 2016.

“Starting when he was just 19 years old, (Jha) made a series of mistakes with significant consequences that he only now fully appreciates,” Stahl said in a statement. “He is extremely remorseful and accepts full responsibility for his actions.”

Attorneys for White and Norman did not respond to requests for comment.

Jha’s name surfaced in January, when the cyber website Krebs On Security reported he may have been behind the online persona Anna-Senpai, who claimed to be the author of the Mirai worm.

Anna-Senpai released the source code of the Mirai botnet online in September 2016, which gave other hackers the opportunity to use it. A month later the massive assault on infrastructure firm Dyn took place, causing swaths of the internet to be temporarily unavailable.

In court on Wednesday, Jha acknowledged his hacks caused Rutgers to lose $3.5 million to $9.5 million, Acting U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick told reporters.

In a statement, Rutgers said no data was compromised and that it had made “substantial improvements” to its technology infrastructure.

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DHAKA – Zulifikar Haider hoped his daughter would live the American dream when she married a fellow Bangladeshi living in the United States, but that dream turned into a nightmare when the family saw pictures of her husband wounded after allegedly trying to set off a bomb in a crowded New York commuter hub.

Haider’s family had been worried when his son-in-law, Akayed Ullah, 27, missed a regular call to his wife on Monday. Their worry only worsened when his wife screamed as she found online pictures of Ullah, down on the ground with apparent injuries to his stomach after the bomb ignited but failed to detonate.

“Even in our worst nightmares, we could not have foreseen this,” Haider, 62, told Reuters on Wednesday evening, following two days of questioning by Bangladesh’s counterterrorism police.

Haider, a jewellery showroom accountant in Dhaka, said his family was stunned by the news that Ullah had been charged by the United States with terrorism offences after he tried to detonate a bomb strapped to his waist in a pedestrian tunnel leading to Times Square, injuring himself and three others. [nL1N1OD26A]

“There was never any indication he would do this. I think it’s a conspiracy. A person who keeps roza (religious fasting in Islam), reads the Koran and goes to mosque five times a day can’t do such a heinous act,” Haider said.

He recalled being elated when Ullah’s family called from the United States in December 2015 asking for the hand of his daughter, Jannatul Ferdous Jui, now 25. The couple wed in Bangladesh the following month. Jui continued to live in Bangladesh while she finished her studies and gave birth to their son, who is now 6 months old.

“We were very excited. I hoped my daughter would go to the United States, and my son-in-law would then help get my son over there,” Haider said, meeting Reuters after evening prayers in the mosque by his house in a middle-class neighbourhood in central Dhaka. “What else do parents want?”

‘ONLY GOD KNOWS’

The white-bearded Haider said he could not understand how Ullah, who had lived in the United States since 2011, could have committed the attack.

“Only God knows what happened to him in America,” Haider said.

U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his call for tougher immigration rules following Monday’s attack, which came less than two months after an Uzbek immigrant killed eight people by speeding a rental truck down a New York City bike path.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the October attack, while Ullah claimed allegiance to the militant group, according to U.S. federal prosecutors.

Haider said he feared Monday’s incident could lead to a backlash against Bangladeshis living in the United States.

Jui finished her bachelor of arts degree in accounting from a Dhaka college in March. When Ullah last came visiting in September after their son was born, they planned to get a passport for her to possibly join him in the United States sometime in 2018.

“He spent most of the time with his 6-month-old son when he came down,” said Haider. “He is not much of a social person. He does not really have friends, not into gossiping. He has never brought any friend to our house.”

Haider’s family has not been able to talk to Ullah since the failed bombing.

Bangladesh police, meanwhile, have questioned Haider as well as his wife, daughter and his 22-year-old son. Their phone call records have been scanned.

Bangladesh’s counterterrorism chief, Monirul Islam, told Reuters they have found no links of Ullah with any militant group in his home country. But the chief added that investigations were continuing and the family was under surveillance. [nL3N1OD2V4]

“I no longer want my daughter to go to America,” Haider said. “I just want our son-in-law back.”

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BENGALURU – As firms’ appetite for the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) grows, a report on Thursday said 68.6 per cent Indian organisations might deploy it before 2020.

The Intel India commissioned report, undertaken by the International Data Corporation (IDC) that surveyed 194 Indian organisations across sectors, said 71 per cent are looking at increased process automation as a key benefit which could drive spike spends on this technology by 2020.

The report also said that nearly 75 per cent of the firms surveyed anticipate benefits in business process efficiency and employee productivity with the use of AI.

While 64 per cent of the respondents believe that this technology can empower them in revenue augmentation through better targeting of offers and improved sales processes, 76 per cent of the companies are or believe that they will face a shortage of skilled personnel to harness the power of AI.

“This research is a small step towards comprehending this knowledge, and enabling companies, such as ours, shape strategy and move ahead in the right direction,” Prakash Mallya, Managing Director, Sales and Marketing Group, Intel India, said in a statement.

Intel currently powers 97 per cent of data centre servers running AI workloads worldwide and has been investing in the development of the ecosystem in India.

“Indian enterprises have been quick to adopt AI in the recent past, with nearly one in five organisations (22.2 per cent) across the four verticals surveyed implementing the technology in some way. This number is anticipated to soar considerably by mid-2019 with nearly seven in 10 firms (68.6 per cent) anticipated to deploy (it),” the company said.

Retail and BFSI organisations are leveraging AI to increase efficiency in their sales and marketing function, which has emerged as the second most popular use case.

Transforming customer experience to improve their loyalty ranks high on the list of benefits for retail and banking organisations with banks leading the innovation journey as far as transformation of customer experience.

Financial services organisations (63.9 per cent) are more focused on improving regulatory compliance and fraud reduction from AI implementation, while retail and automotive organisations are looking at improving consistency in the way decisions are made.

However, concerns around adoption of AI continue with high cost of solutions, acute shortage of skilled professionals, unclear return on investment, and cybersecurity emerging as the key hindrances. Regulatory compliance and lack of quality data are seen as other important challenges.

“As roadblocks in adoption and implementation of AI and fears around AI subside, we can expect a new set of opportunities that India can gain from – ranging from higher business efficiency and revenue augmentation to improved data insights and better customer experiences,” Prakash added.

He said that together these developments will propel evolution of the larger AI ecosystem and its applications in our lives.

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MUMBAI – The Reliance Infrastructure-promoted Mumbai Metro One on Thursday launched the first mobile security product, “SecuCare” app to make commuters more secure.

With the help of this app, a commuter can click pictures or make videos which will get directly transmitted to the Central Security Control Room of the Metro Corporate Centre in DN Nagar, along with the commuter’s train and exact physical location.

“The control centre will immediately call the commuters and solicit details for preliminary investigations, calm and counsel him/her before alerting the security response team at the next station to handle the situation,” said an official spokesperson.

“This pioneering digital application will make the already safe commuting on Mumbai Metro One even safer… It leads the way in providing a safe and secure environment to its commuters,” the spokesperson added.

Currently, Mumbai Metro One has installed baggage scanners and 700 security cameras on its premises, deployed security personnel in uniforms and plainclothes, and receives live camera feeds from the trains for safe and secure commuting.

With the customized SecuCare powered by Eyewatch India, the company will use the digital platform to enhance safety of commuters, especially women, children, senior citizens and differently-abled.

The Mumbai Metro One ferries around 400,000 commuters daily on the 11.40-km stretch on the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar section with 12 stations since its inception around three-and-a-half-years ago.

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LONDON – One of the “Chennai Six” group of ex-British soldiers jailed in India was dragged to a psychiatric hospital and force-fed anti-psychotic tablets during his time in jail, a London court considering whether to extradite Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya was told on Thursday.

Mallya, 61, is wanted in India on fraud and money-laundering charges relating to his defunct Kingfisher Airlines and Indian authorities want to recover about $1.4 billion they say Kingfisher owes.

The businessman, co-owner of the Force India Formula One team, who moved to Britain in March last year, says the case him is politically motivated and is fighting extradition on several grounds including a claim that jail conditions in India are incompatible with British human rights laws.

As part of this, his lawyer quizzed prison conditions expert Dr. Alan Mitchell about a conversation he had had two days ago with one of the former British soldiers who had been held for four years in India on weapons-smuggling charges after the vessel they were working on strayed into Indian waters in 2013.

The soldiers were released from jail in Chennai, eastern India, after a successful appeal and began arriving back in Britain last week.

The ex-soldier, named only as “A”, said he had been grabbed by 15 prison guards and prisoners and taken to a psychiatric hospital because he had been “excessively walking” around the prison, Mitchell told London’s Westminster Magistrate Court.

“While in the psychiatric hospital, he stated he was tied up, gagged, he was beaten and he was forcibly injected. In addition he described being force-fed anti-psychotic tablets that he managed to spit out,” Mitchell said.

Asked by Mallya’s lawyer Clare Montgomery about assurances given over the treatment of Mallya, who she said had diabetes, coronary artery disease and sleep apnoea, Mitchell said the British government had likewise told parliament that the Chennai Six were being well looked after.

“Despite assurances having been given in parliament, ‘A’ was extremely disappointed by what effect the involvement of the High Commission and the UK government had on conditions in which he and his fellow prisoners were held,” he said.

Mark Summers, the lawyer representing the Indian government, said Mitchell’s evidence involved an uncorroborated account which could be used as a “platform for a compensation claim against the UK government”.

He said conditions in Chennai would bear no relation to the jail in Mumbai where Mallya would be held.

Another hearing in the London extradition case against Mallya will be held on Jan. 10 with a decision expected at a later date.

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Walt Disney Co’s deal with Twenty-First Century Fox Inc gives the world’s best-known entertainment company new advantages in India, such as cricket rights and local-language TV shows for the fast-growing media market.

Through the $52.4 billion deal, announced on Thursday morning, Disney would be able to distribute its programming on Star India, operator of 69 TV channels in eight languages, as well as the popular Hotstar streaming service. Disney also would gain global rights to professional cricket.

“It is an amazing opportunity to get into the best developing market in the world,” MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson said, “but it is highly competitive.”

Netflix Inc has been offering its streaming service in India for nearly two years, and Amazon.com Inc’s Prime Video has been courting customers there for one year.

Global expansion is important to Disney because its largest U.S. network, ESPN, has been losing subscribers as audiences migrate from traditional television to digital viewing.

India represents the second-largest subscription TV market in Asia, with 154 million households in 2016, according to consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers, which projected that number will grow to 167 million in 2021.

Mobile video traffic, meanwhile, is booming. KPMG expects it will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 68 percent between 2016 and 2021.

Star India is also flush with cash. Fox projects it will earn $500 million before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization in fiscal 2018, rising to $1 billion in 2020.

“Star India alone is by far the most successful TV network in the fastest-growing country,” Macquarie Research analyst Tim Nollen said.

Star’s TV business could bring in new advertising revenue at a time when U.S. ad spending is growing at a slower pace. In the first fiscal quarter, Fox saw international ad revenue jump 10 percent, fueled by double-digit increases in growth through Star India, while in the United States the company saw 3 percent growth in ad revenue.

EDGE OVER NETFLIX

For Disney, owning Star India could give it an edge over competing content providers in the world’s second-most populous country.

“New entrants like Netflix will need a lot of time to recreate” a service like Hotstar because of its sports rights and head start in producing programming in multiple Indian languages, Barclays analysts said in a research note.

Disney networks including the Disney Channel are distributed now in India but overall the country is “an egregious area of under-exposure” for the company, B. Riley FBR analyst Barton Crockett said in a research note.

Adding Star, which reaches 720 million viewers per month, would vastly expand Disney’s TV presence there. Disney could put its content on the Star channels and Hotstar, said Prem Parameswaran, chief executive of North America for Eros International Plc, a distributor of Indian movies, shows and music that also has an online streaming service.

THE POWER OF SPORTS

Global sports rights, particularly cricket which Fox recently won, should add to Disney’s bottom line, Parameswaran added.

“In India there is religion, there is cricket and there is Bollywood,” he said.

In September, Star paid $2.55 billion for broadcast and digital rights of the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, beating Facebook which also bid.

FILM OPPORTUNITY

The deal also could allow Disney to boost its film business in India, where the vast majority of movies are local Bollywood releases, Parameswaran said.

Disney had produced Bollywood films through its Indian film studio, UTV, but recently has focused instead of promoting its global English-language blockbusters in the country.

With the acquisition of Star, Disney may decide to return to local-language film production through UTV for distribution on TV or streaming, Parameswaran said.

“They could now have the ability to create films and offer them exclusively to their viewers, rather than through the box office,” he said. “There are a lot of synergies here.”

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WASHINGTON – Federal regulators are expected to vote Thursday morning to allow Internet providers to speed up service for some apps and websites – and block or slow down others – in a decision repealing landmark, Obama-era regulations for broadband companies such as AT&T and Verizon.

The move to deregulate the telecom and cable industry would be a major setback for tech companies, consumer groups and Democrats who lobbied heavily against the decision. And it would be a sweeping victory for Republicans who vowed to roll back the efforts of the prior administration, despite a recent survey showing that 83 percent of Americans – including 3 out of 4 Republicans – opposed the plan.

Led by Chairman Ajit Pai, the Federal Communications Commission and its two other GOP members on Thursday are expected to follow through on a promise to repeal the government’s 2015 net neutrality rules, which sought to force Internet providers to treat all online services, large and small, equally. The agency is also expected to go a step further, rejecting much of its own authority over broadband in a bid to stymie future FCC officials who might seek to regulate providers.

The result would be a comprehensive redrawing of the FCC’s oversight powers in the digital age, at a time of rapid transformation in the media and technology sectors.

The move would also be a prominent example of the policy shifts taking place in Washington under President Donald Trump. With Republicans controlling the levers of government, federal policy has swung significantly to the right, in some respects eclipsing what would have been considered middle-of-the-road conservative positions just a decade ago, said Jeffrey Blumenfeld, co-chair of the antitrust and trade regulation practice at the law firm Lowenstein Sandler.

“What we’re seeing now is a dramatic change not just from the Obama administration, but even from the prior Republican administration,” said Blumenfeld.

Under President George W. Bush, the FCC outlined a series of guiding principles that would eventually lead to the 2015 net neutrality rules. Then-FCC Chairman Michael Powell, in a 2004 speech, said Internet users should enjoy four fundamental freedoms: The freedom to access any Web content of their choice, so long as it was legal; the freedom to use any online application; the freedom to use their home broadband connections on any device; and the freedom to get subscription information from their own providers.

Consumer advocates fear that those freedoms could be curtailed in a world where Internet providers are legally permitted to give preferential treatment to sites they own or share commercial relationships with, and to discriminate against apps they do not like.

For example, under the net neutrality rules Verizon was not allowed to favor Yahoo and AOL, which it owns, by blocking Google. In addition, Verizon was not be allowed to charge Google extra fees in order to connect to Verizon customers. Under the new rules, that type of behavior would be legal, as long as Verizon disclosed it. Some analysts say affected content companies could pass any new network costs to Internet users, and that Internet providers will develop new ways to market Internet service that could lead to higher prices.

“You and I and everyone else who uses the Internet for personal use will see some changes in pricing models,” wrote Glenn O’Donnell, an industry analyst at the research firm Forrester, in an email. “For most of us, I expect we will pay more. Service bundles (e.g., social media package, streaming video package) will likely be bolted on to basic transport for things like web surfing and email.”

Internet providers vigorously contest that prediction. They argue there is no financial incentive to penalize specific apps or services, that giving some sites the option of faster service could in fact benefit consumers, and that the new rules allow the Federal Trade Commission to sue carriers that act anti-competitively. Consumers’ daily Internet experience will be the same “next week, next month and next year,” industry officials promised on a conference call Wednesday.

The officials also said the 2015 rules discouraged providers from making broadband faster and more reliable, according to the industry. USTelecom, a trade group representing AT&T, Verizon and others, said that annual broadband infrastructure spending fell from $78.4 billion in 2014, before the rules took effect, to $76 billion in 2016.

With Thursday’s decision, “this country will return to a rational regulatory framework similar to the one that capably governed the Internet for decades,” said AT&T in a blog post Wednesday.

Powell, who now leads a top cable industry trade group, said that the repeal of the FCC’s net neutrality rules is still consistent with the four freedoms he described nearly 14 years ago.

“Our belief at the time was that the Internet needed to retain a light regulatory environment to get broadband moving,” said Powell. “And the companion to those four freedoms was the decision to keep the Internet classified as an information service.” (“Information service” providers face fewer obligations under the FCC’s regulatory structure than do providers of telecom service, a category that covers landline phone companies.)

Under Democratic FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the net neutrality rules took the extraordinary step of reclassifying Internet providers as telecom providers, giving the FCC broad powers to define new obligations for providers on everything from prices to privacy practices.

Advocates hailed the 2015 decision as a victory for consumer protection and a necessary step in light of how differently the Internet now looked compared to its earlier days, when fewer massive companies dominated the space. Meanwhile, industry groups sought to get the regulations overturned in court. They failed, but have escalated the case to the Supreme Court. The Court has yet to decide whether it will hear the case.

Meanwhile, supporters of the net neutrality rules have signaled that they will sue the current FCC in hopes of stopping Pai’s decision.

Some analysts believe the uncertainty surrounding net neutrality provides an opening for congressional legislation to settle the issue once and for all. Republicans on Capitol Hill are optimistic. But their efforts are likely to stall unless they can court Democratic votes, and many Democrats view litigation against the FCC as the preferable course of action.

The sharp divides on net neutrality show that what began as a bipartisan issue has hardened into two distinct sides.

“Tribal partisanship is dominating our public policy debates,” said Marc Martin, a communications lawyer at the firm Perkins Coie. “It wasn’t always this way. First adopted and enforced during the Bush administration, net neutrality began as a noncontroversial policy to protect consumers’ use of online platforms.”

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NEW YORK – Regal Brown, aka Delhi-based singer-songwriter Akshat Kushwaha, and his team, comprising of a group from India and the United States, have released their debut music video in Hindi, titled ‘Zeher.’

The talented Kushwaha, who inflects classical raga style of singing in the melodious pop number ‘Zeher’, and plays the lead role in the video, apart from composing it, has been ably assisted by the trio of director Rohan Yadav, 21, based in Delhi, the Los Angeles-based producer Sudeep Sinha, 21, and Delhi-based dancer Sanya Thomas, 20.

It was the debut music video of Thomas too, who has been training as a dancer for the last 9 years.

“Dance is more than just movement; it’s what comes from within,” Thomas said in a statement, to News India Times.

Sinha, originally from Delhi, is currently working as an assistant engineer for the Grammy- nominated producer Gemini Musiq, who had worked with artists like Justin Bieber, Usher, and Poo Bear, among others.

‘Zeher’ is Sinha’s first Hindi song produced for the Indian music market. He recently worked as a music composer for ‘Pixel Trip’, a game by Free Dominion Studios, which was first released by Apple. He has also worked as a music composer for the new single of Israeli singer Peer Tasi.

Sinha did his Bachelor’s in Recording Arts from Full Sail University, where for two consecutive years he won the 24hous Remix competition.

Watch ‘Zeher’ below:

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NEW YORK – The film ‘Brij Mohan Amar Rahe’ (Long Live Brij Mohan), directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, which had its world premiere at this year’s South Asian International Film Festival, in New York, on Wednesday, is about a man who fakes his own death because he is fed up with his life; his wife only cares about money and he is truly in love with his girlfriend Simmi, who only cares about fooling around with him.

To earn more money for his “beloved wife” who keeps taunting him, Brij, played by actor Arjun Mathur, buys a few Bollywood designer lenghas (the one Sonam Kapoor wore in Prem Ratan Dhan Payo) from a local dress shop owner, to sell in his lingerie shop, and in the process of buying the lenghas from the shop owner, Brij realizes he has no money, so the shop owner sends him to a very stubborn broker who lends him the money.

But Brij soon finds out that he was conned by the shop owner as a new lengha is in the market (Deepika Padukone’s Bajirao Mastani one), thus he has sold none and has no money to give back to the broker.

Meanwhile, his wife has sold all of the furniture they own in their small house, so she can get the money for a weight loss competition she wants to participate in.

Tired of his wife’s constant dialogue, Brij decides to run away to Bangkok with Simmi but must first get out of the money mess he has put himself into.

So he goes to the broker to strike a fair deal with him but ends up killing him by accident which brings upon the idea of using the broker to fake his own death, something he has been thinking of doing for a while. He changes his name to Amar Sethi and takes all the cash he finds at the broker’s house.

Simmi is unaware of the crime that Brij has committed, agrees to run away with him and while awaiting the news of his own death, Brij and Simmi check in to a nearby lodge.

As the days go by, there is no news of Brij’s death and Simmi grows bored and turns on Brij’s iPhone, which he turned off after burning the broker’s body along with his car, to take selfies and in the process finds the bag of money and attempts to run away with half of it until she is caught by Brij, who in an attempt to stop her, kills her.

Unaware that Simmi had turned on his iPhone, Brij is soon caught for stealing his own phone and is eventually convicted of his own murder.

So in a matter of days, Brij Mohan not only gives up his identity but also loses his girlfriend, his wife, the money and his life: a well deserving ending for a guy who isn’t capable of keeping anyone happy including himself.

Amongst a background score of golden songs from the olden days, ‘Brij Mohan Amar Rahe’ is a film which deals with a common man’s dilemma of the love and money he does not earn due to his own untrustworthiness. The lead character doesn’t gain any sympathy, however.

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NEW YORK – Bollywood playback singer Hema Sardesai launched her new international single ‘Power of Love’ on December 11, in New York City, with Indian TV star Mishaal Raheja and producer Tony Mercedes by her side.

“‘Power of Love’ is going to bring the world out of any depression, if it was ever in one, and it is going to make everybody so happy because love is giving and when you give, you receive so much and that is what the power of love says, showering love with your heart and soul and it can never go wrong,” said Sardesai, speaking at the launch.

“Giving makes you happy, you can never be depressed giving selflessly and wholeheartedly,” she added.

The new single features a diverse range of artists, including Raheja of ‘Datta Bhau’ fame,, dancing to the tune of the song, conveying the message that among the hatred which exists in the world today, people have all forgotten how to love each other and one as human beings.

The song is available to view on platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo and has been produced by Mercedes, who has also produced Ed Sheeren’s famous song of the year, ‘Shape of You’.

“I had a guy who worked for me out of Texas named Richard Omar, who kept telling me about this girl named Hema Sardesai. So we talked over the phone and I flew her to Atlanta and when I heard her sing it was as if the angels were speaking to me because her voice was so powerful,” said Mercedes, at the launch.

“I have worked with a lot of artists before but there was something special about her and I didn’t know what to do with it at that time because it was something that was totally different than the world I lived in as I was doing a lot of hip-hop music and here was this Bollywood singer. But none of that mattered because her voice was so dominant and strong that it made you pay attention,” he added.

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An Indian-American cardiologist from Elko, Nevada was arrested Dec. 12, on 39-charges of unlawful distribution of prescription opioids and Medicare and Medicaid fraud, announced U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions along with other law enforcement authorities.

Dr. Devendra I. Patel, aka Devendrakumar I. Patel, 58, of Elko, is charged with 36-counts of distribution of controlled substances such as oxycodone and hydrocodone, and three-counts of health care fraud. Patel is a cardiologist at his medical practice Northeastern Nevada Cardiology. The statutory maximum penalty for distribution of a controlled substance is 10 years in prison and the maximum penalty for health care fraud is 10 years in prison.

An indictment is merely an allegation, and Patel is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

According to the 39-count indictment, it is alleged that, from May 2014 to September 2017, Patel routinely prescribed fentanyl, hydrocodone, and oxycodone for his patients without a legitimate medical purpose and that he fraudulently billed Medicare and Medicaid for medical tests that he did not perform. The indictment alleges that Patel performed EKGs on his patients, so he could then order nuclear stress tests which he did not administer. He allegedly used a poorly calibrated machine and presented his patients with fraudulent X-Rays, in order to deceive his patients into thinking they had coronary issues that needed to be treated by him.

“Dr. Patel is the first person to be charged in Nevada since the formation of the Justice Department’s Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit,” Acting U.S. Attorney Myhre is quoted saying in a press release from the Justice Department.

More than 64,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2016. The majority of these deaths can be attributed to opioids, including illicit fentanyl, the Justice Department press release said.

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NEW YORK – If you don’t know it already, exhausted as you already are with all that extended bouts of late night shopping during Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, sick of hearing about a suicide bomber caught in New York City, a sexual predator lose a Senate bout in Alabama, and shoveling snow already twice this month, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,’ as crooned by the inimitable Andy Williams, running inexorably on every radio station you tune into.

And if you haven’t already made plans for New Year’s Eve in the Big Apple, like some of your glamorous friends already have – and gloating about it, to make your life even more miserable than it was, after you discovered you didn’t clinch that 85 inch smart TV set at the price you really wanted on Black Friday, your only consolation might be that you have probably saved at least $1,160 unlike your braggadocious friends who have plotted dinner and a show on the fourth most popular holiday in the United States, come December 31st.

Yes, that price of $1,160 is the average price a couple spend on dinner and a show in New York City on New Year’s Eve, according to a new study released by personal finance website WalletHub, which evaluated the 100 most populous cities in the US for quality, cost and safety of a night out for New Year’s Eve entertainment. That price is also $680 more, compared to dinner and a show on December 31^st, in Washington, D.C.

New York City ranks #1 in the list for the top entertainment destination in the US for New Year’s Eve – and also the most expensive, according to WalletHub, which found out that after Christmas (78%), Thanksgiving (74%), and Independence Day (47%), New Year’s Eve is the most popular holiday (at 41%). New York City has by far the most number of restaurants, exciting nightlife and luxury shops than any other city.

With 7,000 NYPD officers keeping vigil on New Year’s Eve, the two million visitors who throng Times Square to watch the ball drop (for free, but a Balldrop Party Pass will set you back $229), New York City still manages to get only 9^th spot for events per capita, however. Orlando, Florida (#2), Atlanta, Georgia (#3), Los Angeles (#4), and San Francisco (#5), round off the top five in the study.

While a solid 49% of Americans, 175 million people, plan to celebrate New Year’s Eve at home (23% don’t plan to celebrate it at all and 30% will fall asleep before midnight; while 48% of parents plan to count down the last 10 seconds of 2017 by 9 p.m.), perhaps taking in festivities through the eyes of ‘New Year’s Eve Live’ hosted by Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen (who replaced the wonderfully raucous Kathy Griffin), on CNN, or ‘Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2018’ hosted by Ryan Seacrest, on ABC, with a glass of wine to perk things up, the study found that 54% Americans plan to kiss someone at midnight. For loners and singles, it might be good to keep your dog next to you at countdown.

A total of 83% Americans spend less than $200 on New Year’s Eve, with 18% planning to spend New Year’s Eve at a friend’s house. Talking of those glamorous friends, here’s the deal: 9% of Americans plan to be at a bar, restaurant or organized event, like a cruise, to spice up life.

Needless to say, there will be plenty of revelry on New Year’s Eve, as a total of 360 million glasses of sparkling wine is consumed in the US. Some of all that revelry is also revealed in the fact that an average of 11,974 babies are born on September 30^th – 9 months after New Year’s Eve, as compared to the average of 7,792 babies born on New Year’s Day.

For those who follow the rigors of tradition, it’s recommended to eat 365 black eyed peas for luck, through 2018.

Some sordid facts: New Year’s Eve is the busiest night of the year in the US for illegal ‘celebratory’ gunfire; almost 42,000 people get injured in car crashes that night and the New Year’s Day; and it ranks as the third most popular day for car thefts, only after Halloween and Labor Day. Seems like a lot of burglars have marked New Year’s Eve as their special night out too!

Finally, some New Year’s Day 2018 trivia: 18 million flowers are used to build the floats for the Tournament of Rose Parade, in Pasadena, California; 10,000 people perform in Philadelphia’s Mummers Parade; and inevitably: 67% (optimistic) Americans make a new year’s resolution – 49% on weight loss, 33% financial resolutions, 26% education/career goals, 16% habit changes, like quit drinking, smoking.

Realism hits on December 31^st every year: only 9.2% Americans are successful in achieving their resolution.

As Oprah Winfrey said it: “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”

(Sujeet Rajan is Executive Editor, Parikh Worldwide Media. E-mail him: sujeet@newsindiatimes.com Follow him on Twitter @SujeetRajan1)

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NEW DELHI – India has increased the import tax on dozens of electronic products such as mobile phones and television sets, a government statement said, to help curb supplies from overseas and build up the domestic industry.

The rise in tax from 10 percent to 15 percent on handsets will make imports of phones – including most of Apple’s iPhone models – more expensive at a time the company’s revenue growth is slowing in India’s $10 billion smartphone market.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a flagship Make-in-India program to expand the domestic industrial base, and one of the areas showing success is electronics.

Pankaj Mohindroo, president of the Indian Cellular Association, said on Friday the tax hike will boost domestic manufacturers who are making about 500 million cellphones a year, more than double the output three years ago.

Eight out of 10 phones sold in 2017 have been made locally, data from Counterpoint Research showed.

Samsung Electronics assembles in India most of the handsets it sells in the country.

Apple currently only assembles its iPhone SE models in India and imports its others. The company has sought a range of incentives and tax relief from the government for it to expand its manufacturing in India, but government officials have said they are unlikely to make exemptions for Apple.

Tarun Pathak, an associate director at Counterpoint Research, said the government’s new tax notification, announced late on Thursday, will impact mobile phones companies heavily dependent on imports.

“It will impact Apple the most as the company imports 88 percent of its devices into India,” he said. “Either this will lead to increase in iPhone prices or force Apple to start assembling more in India.”

Aside from cellphones, the government also raised the import tax on video cameras to 15 percent from 10 percent and doubled the one on television sets 20 percent, its statement said.

On Monday, a delegation of Indian telecoms equipment manufacturers met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, seeking government help to promote the domestic industry while he prepares the budget for 2018/19.

India’s goods imports in the seven months ending October rose 22 percent to $256.4 billion from a year earlier, raising concerns among policymakers.

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Here’s a heartwarming plate full of familiar food with an unfamiliar name: koshary. It can be spelled and pronounced different ways and have other things mixed in, but the basics include rice, lentils and pasta. What sets this version apart from the rest, to my mind, is the last-minute drizzle of melted butter with crushed red pepper flakes. When that hits the fresh mint, the humble dish sings.

It’s a cinch to make with leftover rice and lentils. But if you don’t have those around, canned or boxed, cooked lentils and frozen cooked rice work just as well and are easily obtained. (You may be able to score those two ingredients on a supermarket salad bar.)

A second batch created for purposes of the accompanying photo disappeared into my colleagues’ lunch bowls with lightning speed, which is just the kind of affirmation I like.

Koshary

3 to 4 servings

Adapted from “Onions Etcetera: The Essential Allium Cookbook,” by Kate Winslow and Guy Ambrosino (Burgess Lea Press, 2017).

Ingredients
• Kosher salt
• 1/2 cup dried ditalini pasta or macaroni (may substitute 1 cup-ish leftover cooked pasta)
• 1 large yellow onion
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• Leaves from 2 stems fresh mint
• 1 1/4 cups cooked lentils (from one 14-ounce can)
• 1 1/4 cups tomato sauce
• 1 1/4 cups cooked brown rice (may substitute white rice)
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Pinch crushed red pepper flakes

Steps

Bring a medium pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add a generous pinch of salt and then the dried pasta. Cook according to the package directions, then drain.

Meanwhile, cut the onion into 1/2-inch dice. Heat the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Once the oil shimmers, stir in the onion and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden and browned in spots. Chop the mint leaves while the onion is cooking. Drain and rinse the lentils.

Stir the tomato sauce into the skillet; as soon as it has heated through, add the rice and lentils. Cook for a few minutes until heated through, then stir in the pasta. Taste and season lightly with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat and stir in the mint, then divide the koshary among bowls you are keeping warm on the stove top.

Add butter to the now-empty skillet, over medium heat. Once it foams, add the pinch of crushed red pepper flakes, swirling to incorporate. Immediately drizzle some of the hot, spiced melted butter over each portion of koshary. Serve right away.

Nutrition | Per serving (based on 4): 360 calories, 9 g protein, 44 g carbohydrates, 16 g fat, 7 g saturated fat, 25 mg cholesterol, 560 mg sodium, 9 g dietary fiber, 7 g sugar

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It’s a good thing the holiday season overlaps with the darkest weeks of winter. All the parties and edible gifts – the parade of cookies, cakes, chocolates, cheesy dips, bacon-wrapped bites, and grogs and glasses of spirits – lift us up, imparting a warm cheer to what would otherwise be a pretty dreary time of year. But that flood of indulgences, and leaning on them too heavily as a way out of the winter doldrums, can leave us feeling worse – sluggish and uncomfortable in our tightening pants. Getting outside and moving, whether it’s for a brisk walk or a few spins around an ice-skating rink, is one surefire way to feel better, especially if you can manage to do it during mood-boosting daylight hours. But there are foods and drinks that can help, too – those that dish up comfort in a better-for-you way, or allow you to pace yourself to help you get through the season both happily and healthfully.

Spiced Tea

A hot cup of tea hits the spot when you are not truly hungry but crave a little something, a pick-me-up or a break any time of year. Each sip slows you down a bit, allows you to exhale and, if the tea has caffeine, gives you a gentle energy boost. With so many flavor options, it is also a delightful taste experience. During the holidays, a brew of spiced tea such as chai, or any blend with warm flavors such as cinnamon, ginger or a wintry peppermint, gives you the essence of the season on top of all that. And it warms your hands, as a mug of mulled cider or hot cocoa would, but it’s totally calorie-free (unless you add sweetener, of course, but even then a teaspoon of honey is just about 20 calories). Steep tea at home in a decorative pot for an extra-special effect, and stash a few tea sachets in your bag or at work for some holiday flavor whenever you need it.

Pumpkin Puree

Pumpkin has an off-the-charts warm and- fuzzy factor, which is why you find pumpkin-spice everything for sale as soon as the first leaf flutters off a tree in the fall. It also works throughout the winter months to infuse everyday foods that might otherwise feel humdrum with a cozy, comfort-food essence.The ubiquitousoverly sweet seasoning that contains very little of the actual winter squash might be a fad, but real pumpkin puree spiked with cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg is here to stay, providing old-fashioned heartwarming goodness, plus vitamins, fiber and antioxidants. You can roast and puree pumpkin yourself or get it from a can, which is just as nutritious. Stir it into oatmeal, add it to smoothies or use it to flavor your yogurt, along with those warming spices and, perhaps, a drizzle of real maple syrup.

Vegetable Soup

Hardly a week goes by where I don’t make a big pot of vegetable-based soup – chilled ones in the summer and hot the rest of the year. It gets my family through the busy workweek, making for an easy, nourishing snack in a mug or as a full dinner in a bowl with a hunk of whole-grain bread. But there is no time I rely on my big pot of vegetable soup more than during the holiday season. It is easily made ahead and reheatable in minutes in any portion size, so after a day racing around in the holiday crush, I know I have a crowd pleasing, belly-warming dinner on hand for however many hungry people show up. Keeping the soup vegetable-based means it also fills in the gaps from all the holiday parties where produce usually takes a back seat to sausages, cheeses and sweets, if it gets any play at all.

Shrimp Cocktail

Cooked, chilled jumbo shrimp hugging the rim of a cocktail glass or arranged on an elegant platter is a classic that immediately spells c-e-l-e-b-r-a-t-e. When you see it served at a holiday fete, get it while you can, because it usually goes fast. It’s one of those rare party foods that is both festive and healthy in equal measure, packed with lean protein and essential minerals and satisfying with few calories. The same goes for other shellfish, including crab claws and oysters. Pile your plate with those and automatically shift the balance in a healthier direction without feeling the least bit deprived.

Sparkling Water

Sparkling water, which has become the new “it” beverage over the past few years, could be your new holiday party BFF, helping you maximize flavor and fun, while keeping your wits about you. Poured into a wine or cocktail glass with a twist of citrus, the effervescent beverage feels extra festive. Check out some of the exciting flavors like passion fruit and raspberry – and consider bringing a six-pack of that to the party to share – or add a splash of cranberry juice to plain sparkling water for a beautiful blush beverage. You could drink that all night or alternate a glass of sparkling water with each glass of wine or a cocktail to help you pace yourself and stay hydrated.

Mini Candy Canes

When Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole are crooning in the background and there is a dusting of snow outside, you naturally want some holiday treats to complete the picture. Homemade tree-shaped cookies and fruit-studded cakes abound, but if you’ve had your fair share of those and are still hankering for more, a mini candy cane or two could stop you from going back for seconds and thirds. Keeping a couple in your pocket could also help at a crowded mall, taking the edge off your sugar craving enough to steer you away from the gigantic cinnamon buns. The classic red-and-white swirled peppermints are a joyful symbol of the season and make you feel like a kid again. They also take a while to eat, so by the time they’ve melted in your mouth, your sweet tooth – and your urge for nostalgia – will probably be satisfied.

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