Indian-origin girl in Britain grows beard

February 19, 2014

Britain_grows_beardLondon, Feb 19: An Indian-origin girl in Britain, who has been suffering from a rare condition causing excessive hair development on her face and body, has decided to stop cutting her hair after being baptised as a Sikh.

A beard first started to appear on Harnaam Kaur's face when she was just 11 years old due to a medical condition called polycystic ovary syndrome, the Daily Mail reported Monday.

The hair quickly spread to her chest and arms, and that made her the victim of taunts at school and on streets.

Kaur, who is now 16, even received death threats from strangers over the internet.

Earlier, Kaur was so ashamed of her beard that she used to wax twice a week, and also tried bleaching and shaving.

Her hair became thicker and spread which made her feel so low that she refused to leave her house.

But she decided to get baptised as a Sikh and stop cutting her hair. In Sikhism cutting body hair is forbidden.

"I would never ever go back now and remove my facial hair because it's the way God made me and I'm happy with the way I am," Kaur was quoted as saying.

"I feel more feminine, more sexy and I think I look it too. I've learned to love myself for who I am nothing can shake me now," she said.

Stating that she was badly bullied in school, she said she was called a "beardo" "shemale" and "sheman".

"I can laugh about it now, but back then it affected me so badly that I began to self-harm because it felt better than all the abuse I was getting," Kaur said.

Despite all the opposition, she took the step to bear her beard.

Kaur said her mother and father did not want her to sport a beard as they thought she would not be able to live a normal life if she had a beard.

"They worried I wouldn't be able to get married and that I'd never get a job. But I wanted to make my own decisions and live for myself -- not anyone else. I'd had enough of hiding," she said.

There is no cure for the condition, but medicine is available to treat excessive hair growth and fertility problems. Most women with the condition can get pregnant.

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Agencies
June 10,2020

US dictionary Merriam-Webster will update the meaning of the word "racism" after being contacted by a Missouri black woman, who claimed the current definition fell short of including the systematic oppression of people of colour, according to media reports.

"A revision to the entry for racism is now being drafted to be added to the dictionary soon, and we are also planning to revise the entries of other words that are related to racism or have racial connotations," according to a statement of the 189-year-old dictionary shared by Kennedy Mitchum, a recent graduate of Drake University in Iowa, on her Facebook.

Mitchum, 22, emailed the dictionary last month, following the death of African American George Floyd in the custody of four Minneapolis police officers, Xinhua news agency reported.

"I kept having to tell them that definition is not representative of what is actually happening in the world," Mitchum told CNN. "The way that racism occurs in real life is not just prejudice, it's the systemic racism that is happening for a lot of black Americans."

Merriam-Webster's first definition of racism is "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."

"It's not just disliking someone because of their race," Mitchum wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. "This current fight we are in is evidence of that, lives are at stake because of the systems of oppression that go hand-in-hand with racism."

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March 14,2020

New Delhi, Mar 14: Excise duty on petrol and diesel was on Saturday hiked by ₹3 per litre as the government looked to mop up gains arising from fall in international oil prices.

Special excise duty on petrol was hiked by ₹2 to ₹8 per litre incase of petrol and to Rs 4 incase of diesel, an official notification said.

Additionally, road cess on petrol was raised by ₹1 per litre each on petrol and diesel to ₹10.

The increase in excise duty would in normal course result in a hike in petrol and diesel prices but most of it would be adjusted against the fall in rates that would have necessitated because of slump in international oil prices.

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February 26,2020

Unnao, Feb 26: Ever heard of someone wishing a 'bright future' for the dead? In a bizarre incident in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district, a village head issued a death certificate with the wish for an elderly man who had died last month.

The incident took place in the Sirwariya village in Asoha block where an elderly person Laxmi Shankar died after a prolonged illness on January 22.

His son went to the village head Babulal and requested him to issue a death certificate that he needed for some financial transactions.

Babulal not only issued the death certificate, but also 'wished' 'a bright future for the deceased' on the document.

The village head wrote in the death certificate -- "Main inke ujjwal bhavishya ki kaamna karta hoon (I wish him a bright future)."

The letter went viral on the social media on Monday after which the village head apologised for the error and issued a new death certificate.

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