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Mid Day (stylised as MiD DAY) is an afternoon daily Indian compact newspaper. Editions in various languages are published in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Pune (launched on 18 August 2008).

Establishment[link]

It was established in Mumbai in 1979 as a family-owned newspaper. A Sunday edition, Sunday MiD DAY, began in 1981.

Ownership[link]

The newspaper is owned by Mid Day Infomedia Limited, a subsidiary of Jagran Prakashan Limited, a publishing house listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India.

Sections[link]

The Magazine deals with the following sections:

• National/International news
• Lifestyle
• Sex and relationships
• Food and Health
• Travel

and others sections such as puzzles and games aiming to make work fun

The Newspaper by its own admission considers the content ^[1] light-hearted, easy-read, entertaining and mischievous aiming to make work fun].

Operations[link]

It publishes newspapers in three languages – English, Gujarati and an Urdu newspaper, The Inquilab. The Inquilab, the first paper of the group in Urdu, was born in the fervour of idealistic nationalism in 1938.

The Mumbai newspaper publishes two editions: an early-morning and a noon edition. However, since April 2009, only noon editions have been published and the company has dropped printing a morning newspaper, citing positioning issues. Its slogan is "Make Work Fun".^{[citation needed]} It has added a recent supplement ^[2]

^[3]

The Parent company JPL( Jagran Prakashan ) decided to close the Delhi and Bengaluru edition for the tabloid it acquired in May 2010. The reason for the pull out was stated as Escalating break even prices and rising competition, the management now wants to focus on strengthening the Mumbai and Pune additions of the tabloid.

Marketing Activity[link]

Mid Day's Marketing campaigns are considered to be effective. The MiD DAY’s Bollywood Lunch Contest "MiD DAY’s Bollywood Lunch Contest" won at the IFRA award 2008 and at the Asia Multimedia Publishing Media Awards 2009.

It is a contest driven promotion in which the winning person/reader and the entire office of the same gets to meet a star over a lunch date.

The magazine management has defined a specific target audience for its daily. They terms it as the YUMPI - Young Urban Mobile Professionals across India. Thus the games, puzzles and fun elements of the daily are aimed at creating a connect with the YUMPI.

Zing! - The latest section is a section that talks about "style at work". This section is also another such endeavor to connect with the YUMPIs of the cities the daily is in circulation.

Journalists jailed for reports on chief justice[link]

On September 20, 2007, four journalists of Mid Day, including Resident Editor Vitusha Oberoi and City Editor MK Tayal, were sentenced to four months jail on contempt of court charges,^[4] because of a report they had filed on the ex-Chief Justice of India, Y. K. Sabharwal. Whether the charges in the report were true or not was not considered in arriving at the decision.

Many in the legal community feel that in the 2006 Delhi sealing drive, Justice Sabharwal may have had a conflict of interest since his sons own a firm with relations to the Delhi real estate. Former Solicitor General KK Sud had called this behaviour "the height of indiscretion."^[5]

The High Court, however, sentenced the journalists without considering the veracity of the reports, and this led to considerable controversy.^[6] Ex-law minister Shanti Bhushan stated that the Parliament had in 2006 amended the Contempt of Courts Act to say that "if the allegations against a judge were found to be true, then they would not be considered contemptuous." In view of this, the judgment, he said, may be "only aimed at terrifying the media and an attempt to curb truthfulness."^[6]

Awards and other Achievements[link]

• Asia Multimedia Publishing Media Awards 2009 ^[7]
• INMA AWARDS 2008 at California - USAINMA AWARDS 2009 - Miami - USA
• AmsterdamIFRA AWARDS WOW Awards 2008

Senior staff[link]

Jyotirmoy Dey, the Special Investigations Editor of Mid Day was shot dead on 11 June 2011 in Mumbai by unknown assailants.^[8]

See also[link]

	Bangalore portal
	Delhi portal
	India portal
	Journalism portal
	Mumbai portal

• List of newspapers in India

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Corporate website

MID or Mid may refer to:

Computers and electronics[link]

• MapInfo Interchange Format; .mid is also sometimes used as the filename extension for some MapInfo files
• Media Identification Code (MID code), a code indicating the manufacturer of a DVD
• Mobile Internet device, a category of mobile computer
• Molded Interconnect Device, an injection molded thermoplastic part with integrated electronic circuit traces
• Multiple interface declaration, a construct in some computer programming languages
• Musical Instrument Digital Interface: .mid is sometimes used as an alternate filename extension for MIDI files

Medicine and biology[link]

• Multi-infarct dementia, a disease also known as vascular dementia
• Monocyte, a type of white blood cell in the innate immune system of vertebrates

Military[link]

• Maritime identification digits, a 3-digit code identifying the country of a ship/coastal station using communication equipment.
• Mentioned in Despatches, a military award for gallantry or otherwise commendable service
• Militarized Interstate Disputes, conflicts between states that do not involve full-scale wars
• Military Intelligence Division, a former military intelligence branch of the United States Army

Other[link]

• Integration and Development Movement (MID), a political party in Argentina
• Manuel Crescencio Rejón International Airport, with IATA airport code MID
• Measuring Instruments Directive
• Mid vowel
• Midfielder, a position in association football (soccer)
• Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for which MID is a colloquial term

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Water, Rabbit, and Deer: three of the 20 day symbols in the Aztec calendar, from the Aztec calendar stone.

A day is a unit of time, commonly defined as an interval equal to 24 hours.^[1] It also can mean that portion of the full day during which a location is illuminated by the light of the sun, also known as daytime. The period of time measured from local noon to the following local noon is called a solar day.^[2][3]

Several definitions of this universal human concept are used according to context, need and convenience. In 1967, the second was redefined in terms of the wavelength of light, and it became the SI base unit of time. The unit of measurement for time called "day", redefined in 1967 as 86,400 SI seconds and symbolized d, is not an SI unit, but it is accepted for use with SI.^[1] A civil day is usually also 86,400 seconds, plus or minus a possible leap second in Coordinated Universal Time UTC, and, in some locations, occasionally plus or minus an hour when changing from or to daylight saving time. The word day may also refer to a day of the week or to a calendar date, as in answer to the question "On which day?" Day also refers to the part of the day that is not night — also known as 'daytime'. The life patterns of humans and many other species are related to Earth's solar day and the cycle of day and night (see circadian rhythms).

The average length of a solar day on Earth is about 86,400 seconds (24 hours) and there are about 365.2422 solar days in one mean tropical year. Because celestial orbits are not perfectly circular, and thus objects travel at different speeds at various positions in their orbit, a solar day is not the same length of time throughout the orbital year. A day, understood as the span of time it takes for the Earth to make one entire rotation^[4] with respect to the celestial background or a distant star (assumed to be fixed), is called stellar day. This period of rotation is about 4 minutes less than 24 hours and there are about 366.2422 in one mean tropical year (one more stellar day than the number of solar days). Mainly due to tidal effects, the Earth's rotational period is not constant, resulting in further minor variations for both solar days and stellar 'days'. Other planets and moons also have stellar and solar days.

Introduction[link]

Dagr, the Norse god of the day, rides his horse in this 19th-century painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo.

Besides the day of 24 hours (86,400 seconds), the word day is used for several different spans of time based on the rotation of the Earth around its axis. An important one is the solar day, defined as the time it takes for the sun to return to the zenith (its highest point in the sky). Because the Earth orbits the Sun elliptically as the Earth spins on an inclined axis, this period can be up to 7.9 seconds more than (or less than) 24 hours. On average over the year this day is equivalent to 24 hours (86,400 seconds).

A day, in the sense of daytime that is distinguished from night-time, is commonly defined as the period during which sunlight directly reaches the ground, assuming that there are no local obstacles. The length of daytime averages slightly more than half of the 24-hour day. Two effects make daytime on average longer than nights. The Sun is not a point, but has an apparent size of about 32 minutes of arc. Additionally, the atmosphere refracts sunlight in such a way that some of it reaches the ground even when the Sun is below the horizon by about 34 minutes of arc. So the first light reaches the ground when the centre of the Sun is still below the horizon by about 50 minutes of arc. The difference in time depends on the angle at which the Sun rises and sets (itself a function of latitude), but can amount to around seven minutes.

Ancient custom has a new day start at either the rising or setting of the Sun on the local horizon (Italian reckoning, for example) The exact moment of, and the interval between, two sunrises or two sunsets depends on the geographical position (longitude as well as latitude), and the time of year. This is the time as indicated by ancient hemispherical sundials.

A more constant day can be defined by the Sun passing through the local meridian, which happens at local noon (upper culmination) or midnight (lower culmination). The exact moment is dependent on the geographical longitude, and to a lesser extent on the time of the year. The length of such a day is nearly constant (24 hours ± 30 seconds). This is the time as indicated by modern sundials.

A further improvement defines a fictitious mean Sun that moves with constant speed along the celestial equator; the speed is the same as the average speed of the real Sun, but this removes the variation over a year as the Earth moves along its orbit around the Sun (due to both its velocity and its axial tilt).

The Earth's day has increased in length over time. This phenomenon is due to tides raised by the Moon which slow Earth's rotation. Because of the way the second is defined, the mean length of a day is now about 86,400.002 seconds, and is increasing by about 1.7 milliseconds per day every century ( an average over the last 2,700 years. See tidal acceleration for details. The length of one day has been estimated as 21.9 hours 620 million years ago from rhythmites (alternating layers in sandstone). The length of day for the Earth or Proto-Earth before the event which created our moon by an impact is yet unknown.

Etymology[link]

The term comes from the Old English dæg, with its cognates such as Tag in German, and dag in Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and Dutch. "Day" is the 98th most common word in English according to AskOxford.com.^{[citation needed]}

International System of Units (SI)[link]

A day, symbol d, is defined as 86,400 seconds. The second is the unit of time in SI units.

A day on the UTC time scale can include a negative or positive leap second, and can therefore have a length of 86,399 or 86,401 seconds.

The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) currently defines a second as

… the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.^[5]

This makes the SI-based day last exactly 794,243,384,928,000 of those periods.

Decimal and metric time[link]

In the 19th century it had also been suggested to make a decimal fraction (¹⁄_10,000 or ¹⁄_100,000) of an astronomic day the base unit of time. This was an afterglow of decimal time and calendar, which had been given up already for its difficulty to comply with familiar units. The still most successful candidate is the centiday = 14.4 minutes, as a shorter quarter of an hour and also close to the SI target kilosecond and old Chinese ke.

Astronomy[link]

A day of exactly 86,400 SI seconds is the astronomical unit of time (the second is not preferred in astronomy).^[6]

For a given planet, there are three types of day defined in astronomy:

• stellar day - an entire rotation of a planet with respect to the distant stars
• sidereal day - a single rotation of a planet with respect to the vernal equinox
• mean solar day - average time of a single rotation of a planet with respect to the sun as the central star

For Earth, the stellar day and the sidereal day are nearly of the same length and about 3 minutes 56 seconds shorter than the solar day. Relative to the fixed stars, the Earth spins just over 366 times upon its axis during one complete orbit. The Earth's orbit around the Sun reduces (by one) the number of transits the Sun makes across the Earth's sky in a sidereal year.

Colloquial[link]

The word refers to various relatedly defined ideas, including the following:

• 24 hours (exactly)
• the period of light when the Sun is above the local horizon (that is, the time period from sunrise to sunset);
• the full day covering a dark and a light period, beginning from the beginning of the dark period or from a point near the middle of the dark period;
• a full dark and light period, sometimes called a nychthemeron in English, from the Greek for night-day;
• the time period from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM or 9:00 PM or some other fixed clock period overlapping or set off from other time periods such as "morning", "evening", or "night".

Civil day[link]

For civil purposes a common clock time has been defined for an entire region based on the mean local solar time at some central meridian. Such time zones began to be adopted about the middle of the 19th century when railroads with regular schedules came into use, with most major countries having adopted them by 1929. For the whole world, 40 such time zones are now in use. The main one is "world time" or Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

The present common convention has the civil day starting at midnight, which is near the time of the lower culmination of the mean Sun on the central meridian of the time zone. A day is commonly divided into 24 hours of 60 minutes of 60 seconds each.

Leap seconds[link]

To keep the civil day aligned with the apparent movement of the Sun, positive or negative leap seconds may be inserted.

A civil clock day is typically 86,400 SI seconds long, but will be 86,401 s or 86,399 s long in the event of a leap second.

Leap seconds are announced in advance by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service which measures the Earth's rotation and determines whether a leap second is necessary. Leap seconds occur only at the end of a UTC month, and have only ever been inserted at the end of June 30 or December 31.

Boundaries of the day[link]

Sun and Moon, Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

For most diurnal animals, the day naturally begins at dawn and ends at sunset. Humans, with our cultural norms and scientific knowledge, have supplanted Nature with several different conceptions of the day's boundaries. The Jewish day begins at either sunset or at nightfall (when three second-magnitude stars appear). Medieval Europe followed this tradition, known as Florentine reckoning: in this system, a reference like "two hours into the day" meant two hours after sunset and thus times during the evening need to be shifted back one calendar day in modern reckoning. Days such as Christmas Eve, Halloween, and the Eve of Saint Agnes are the remnants of the older pattern when holidays began the evening before. Present common convention is for the civil day to begin at midnight, that is 00:00 (inclusive), and last a full 24 hours until 24:00 (exclusive).

In ancient Egypt, the day was reckoned from sunrise to sunrise. Muslims fast from daybreak to sunset each day of the month of Ramadan. The "Damascus Document", copies of which were also found among the Dead Sea scrolls, states regarding Sabbath observance that "No one is to do any work on Friday from the moment that the sun's disk stands distant from the horizon by the length of its own diameter," presumably indicating that the monastic community responsible for producing this work counted the day as ending shortly before the sun had begun to set.

In the United States, nights are named after the previous day, e.g. "Friday night" usually means the entire night between Friday and Saturday. This is the opposite of the Jewish pattern. This difference from the civil day often leads to confusion. Events starting at midnight are often announced as occurring the day before. TV-guides tend to list nightly programs at the previous day, although programming a VCR requires the strict logic of starting the new day at 00:00 (to further confuse the issue, VCRs set to the 12-hour clock notation will label this "12:00 AM"). Expressions like "today", "yesterday" and "tomorrow" become ambiguous during the night.

Validity of tickets, passes, etc., for a day or a number of days may end at midnight, or closing time, when that is earlier. However, if a service (e.g. public transport) operates from for example, 6:00 to 1:00 the next day (which may be noted as 25:00), the last hour may well count as being part of the previous day (also for the arrangement of the timetable). For services depending on the day ("closed on Sundays", "does not run on Fridays", and so on) there is a risk of ambiguity. As an example, for the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways), a day ticket is valid 28 hours, from 0:00 to 28:00 (that is, 4:00 the next day). To give another example, the validity of a pass on London Regional Transport services is until the end of the "transport day" -- that is to say, until 4:30 am on the day after the "expiry" date stamped on the pass.

24 hours vs daytime[link]

To distinguish between a full day and daytime, the word nychthemeron (from Greek for a night and a day) may be used in English for the former, or more colloquially the term 24 hours. In other languages, the latter is also often used. Other languages also have a separate word for a full day, such as vuorokausi in Finnish, ööpäev in Estonian, dygn in Swedish, døgn in Danish, døgn in Norwegian, sólarhringur in Icelandic, etmaal in Dutch, doba in Polish, сутки (sutki) in Russian, суткі (sutki) in Belarusian, доба́ (doba) in Ukrainian, денонощие in Bulgarian and יממה in Hebrew. In Italian, giorno is used to indicate a full day, while dì means daytime. In Spanish, singladura is used, but only as a marine unit of length, being the distance covered in 24 hours.^{[7][not relevant]}

See also[link]

• 10⁴ s, times from 10 kiloseconds to 100 kiloseconds
• Calculating the day of the week
• Daylight
• Daylight saving time
• Meteorological day
• Season, for a discussion of daylight and darkness at various latitudes
• Synodic day

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Day

Look up day in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Definitions of day, night, twilight (USA navy site)
• Formulas to calculate the length of day and night
• Sunrise and sunset, all year long, anywhere
• Show where it is daytime at the moment

v t e Time Major concepts Time Eternity Arguments for eternity Immortality History Past Present Future Futures studies Deep time Time Portal Measurement and standards Chronometry UTC UT TAI Second Minute Hour Sidereal time Solar time Time zone Metric time Decimal time Hexadecimal time Clock Astrarium History of timekeeping devices Horology Marine chronometer Sundial Water clock Calendar Day Week Month Year Tropical year Gregorian Islamic Julian Intercalation Leap second Leap year Chronology Astronomical chronology Calendar era Chronicle Dating methodologies Geochronology Geologic Time Geological history Periodization Regnal year Timeline Religion and mythology Dreamtime Kāla Kalachakra Prophecy Time and fate deities Wheel of time Philosophy A-series and B-series B-Theory of time Causality Endurantism Eternal return Eternalism Event Perdurantism Presentism Temporal finitism Temporal parts The Unreality of Time Physical sciences Time in physics Absolute time and space Arrow of time Chronon Coordinate time Planck epoch Planck time Proper time Spacetime Theory of relativity Time dilation Gravitational time dilation Time domain T-symmetry Biology Chronobiology Circadian rhythms Psychology Mental chronometry Sense of time Specious present Sociology and anthropology Long Now Foundation Time discipline Time use research Economics Time value of money Time-based currency Time Banking Related topics Carpe diem Duration Space System time Tempus fugit Time capsule Time signature Time travel

v t e Parts of a day Dawn · Twilight–Sunrise · Morning · Daylight · Evening · Sunset–Twilight–Dusk · Night Related articles: Blue hour · Golden hour · Terminator · Forenoon · Noon · Afternoon · Midnight · Daytime · Midnight sun

v t e SI units Base units Ampere · Candela · Kelvin · Kilogram · Metre · Mole · Second Derived units Becquerel · Coulomb · Degree Celsius · Farad · Gray · Henry · Hertz · Joule · Katal · Lumen · Lux · Newton · Ohm · Pascal · Radian · Siemens · Sievert · Steradian · Tesla · Volt · Watt · Weber Accepted for use with SI Dalton (Atomic mass unit) · Astronomical unit · Day · Decibel · Degree Celsius · Degree of arc · Electronvolt · Hectare · Hour · Litre · Minute · Minute of arc · Neper · Second of arc · Tonne Atomic units · Natural units See also SI prefixes · Systems of measurement · Conversion of units · New SI definitions · History of the metric system Book:International System of Units  · Category:SI base units

Kiran Bedi
Bedi at the "Successful Women in Management" (SWIM) conference, 2007
Born	(1949-06-09) June 9, 1949 (age 63)[1] Amritsar, Punjab, India
Nationality	Indian
Alma mater	Panjab University, Chandigarh University of Delhi IIT Delhi
Occupation	IPS Officer (1972–2007) Social activist
Religion	Hinduism[1]
Awards	Suryadatta National Award 2007 United Nations Medal 2004 Ramon Magsaysay Award 1994 President’s Gallantry Award 1979
Website
Kiran Bedi

Kiran Bedi (born 9 June 1949) is an Indian social activist and a retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer.^[1] Bedi joined the police service in 1972 and became the first woman officer in the IPS.^[2] Bedi held the post of Director General at the Bureau of Police Research and Development before she voluntarily retired from the IPS in December 2007.^[3] Bedi was the host and judge of the popular TV series "Aap Ki Kachehri" (English, "Your Court"), which is based on real-life disputes and provides a platform for settling disputes between consenting parties.^[4]

She has also founded two NGOs in India: the Navjyoti Delhi Police Foundation for welfare and preventative policing in 1988^[5] which was later renamed as the Navjyoti India Foundation in 2007, and the India Vision Foundation for prison reformation, drug abuse prevention and child welfare in 1994.^[6] Bedi was awarded Ramon Magsaysay award in 1994 for Government service.^[7]

Early life and education[link]

Kiran Bedi was born in Amritsar, Punjab, India. She is the second of four daughters of Prakash Peshawaria and Prem Peshawaria. Her three sisters are; Shashi, an artist settled in Canada, Reeta, a clinical psychologist and writer, and Anu, a lawyer.^{[citation needed]}

She attended the Sacred Heart Convent School, Amritsar, where she joined the National Cadet Corps(NCC). She took up tennis, a passion she inherited from her father, a tennis player.^[1] She won the Junior National Lawn Tennis Championship in 1966, the Asian Lawn Tennis Championship in 1972, and the All-India Interstate Women's Lawn Tennis Championship in 1976.^[8] In addition, she also won the All-Asian Tennis Championship, and won the Asian Ladies Title at the age of 22.

She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English (Hons.) from the Government College for Women, Amritsar in 1968. She then earned a Master’s degree in Political Science from Punjab University, Chandigarh, graduating at the top of her class in 1970. She later obtained Bachelor of Laws in 1988 from Faculty of Law, University of Delhi. In 1993, she obtained a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the Department of Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi,^[9] where the topic of her thesis was 'Drug Abuse and Domestic Violence'.^[10]

In 1972, Kiran Bedi married Brij Bedi,^[1] a textile machine manufacturer whom she met at the Amritsar tennis courts. Neither of them were particularly religious, so they married in a quasi-religious ceremony at a local Shiva temple.^[1] Three years later, in 1975, they had daughter Saina, who is now also involved in community service. In one of her lectures to a corporate meeting, Kiran Bedi expressed her belief that everyone in society has an important role to play which will enable others to fulfill their duties (or important tasks), quoting the example of her uneducated housemaid whose help in Bedi's daily household work had helped Bedi to complete an important task of writing a book.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

She began her career as a Lecturer in Political Science (1970–72) at Khalsa College for Women, Amritsar. In July 1972, she joined the Indian Police Service, becoming the first woman to do so.^[11] Bedi joined the police service "because of [her] urge to be outstanding".^[12]

She served in a number of tough assignments ranging from New Delhi traffic postings, Deputy Inspector General of Police in Mizoram, Advisor to the Lieutenant Governor of Chandigarh, Director General of Narcotics Control Bureau, to a United Nations delegation, where she became the Civilian Police Advisor in United Nations peacekeeping operations.^[13] For her work in the UN, she was awarded a UN medal.^[14] She is popularly referred to as Crane Bedi for towing the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's car for a parking violation,^[11] during the PM's tour of United States at the time.^[9]

Kiran Bedi influenced several decisions of the Indian Police Service, particularly in the areas of narcotics control, Traffic management, and VIP security. During her stint as the Inspector General of Prisons, in Tihar Jail (Delhi) (1993–1995), she instituted a number of reforms in the management of the prison, and initiated a number of measures such as detoxification programs, Art of Living Foundation Prison Courses,^[15] yoga, vipassana meditation, Murat redressing of complaints by prisoners and literacy programs.^[16] For this she won the 1994 Ramon Magsaysay Award, and the 'Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship', to write about her work at Tihar Jail.^[10]

She was last appointed as Director General of India's Bureau of Police Research and Development.

In May 2005, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Law in recognition of her “humanitarian approach to prison reforms and policing”.^[17]

On 27 November 2007, she expressed her wish to voluntarily retire from the police force to undertake new challenges in life. On 25 December 2007, the Government of India agreed to relieve Bedi of her duties as Director General of the Bureau of Police Research and Development.

Social initiatives[link]

Kiran Bedi along with 17 other police officers set up Navjyoti India Foundation (NIF) in 1987,^[5] NIF started with a de-addiction and rehabilitation initiative for the drug addicts and now the organization has expanded to other social issue like illiteracy and women empowerment.^[5] In 1994 Bedi setup India Vision Foundation which works in field of police reforms, prison reforms, women empowerment and rural and community development.^[18] Her efforts have won national and international recognition, and her organizations were awarded the "Serge Soitiroff Memorial Award" for drug abuse prevention by the United Nations.^{[citation needed]}

Lokpal Movement[link]

Kiran Bedi is one of the prominent members of the India Against Corruption (IAC) along with Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal. IAC has been actively protesting against corruption and is urging the government of India to enact a strong Lokpal Bill.^[19] On August 16, 2011, Key members of the India Against Corruption including Bedi were arrested four hours before the planned indefinite hunger strike by Hazare.^[20] However, Bedi and other activist were later released in the evening same day.^[21] After twelve days of protests and many discussions between the government and the activists, Parliament passed a resolution to consider three points in drafting of Lokpal bill.^[22]

Honours and Awards[link]

Controversies[link]

In July 1994, Kiran Bedi, the then Inspector-General of Prisons of Tihar Jail was pulled up by the Supreme Court of India for ignoring the apex court directives for providing medical attention to a foreign under-trial prisoner by initiating contempt proceedings against her. She escaped from punishment despite being heavily reprimanded, in view of her winning the Magsasay Award, the court exonerating her from further proceedings.^[30] In 1988 Wadhwa Commission criticized Bedi for her role in lathi-charge on lawyers protesting against a colleague’s arrest outside Bedi’s office.^[31] Karan Thapar, host of many popular interview shows published an article on controversies surrounding Bedi after she pulled out of one of Thapar's interview show.^[32]

Bedi was criticized for being a hardliner in the negotiations with government over Lokpal bill.^[33] Later members of parliament proposed to bring a breach of privilege motion against Kiran Bedi and a few other activists for allegedly mocking the parliamentarians during the lokpal bill protests,^[34] however withdrew the notice later.^[35]

Kiran Bedi was alleged to have charged her hosts full fare for air tickets despite her paying discounted fare. She was also alleged to have charged her hosts business class fare while flying economy class.^[36][37]Kiran Bedi was also accused by an NGO of claiming business class fare from Delhi to Mumbai, while her travel intineray communicated to them showed she was flying from nearby Pune.^[38] Kiran Bedi has said that money was not earned for personal gains, but given to her NGO.^[39]

In 1992 Kiran Bedi's daughter was given admission for MBBS course in Delhi's Hardinge College under a quota for student's from North-East. Kiran Bedi was posted in Mizoram at that time. She had defended the move to get her daughter admitted in a reserved seat saying that Central Government employees are entitled to such schemes.^[40]

On 26 November 2011, based on a complaint filed by a Delhi-based lawyer Devinder Singh Chauhan, the additional chief metropolitan magistrate Amit Bansal has directed the crime branch of Delhi police to register a case against Kiran Bedi within 24 hours, for allegedly misappropriating funds meant for her NGOs.^[41] Consequently, Delhi Police has registered a case against Bedi under Section 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 120 b (criminal conspiracy) of IPC.^[42]

In films and literature[link]

A non fiction feature film on Kiran Bedi's life, Yes Madam, Sir, has been produced by Australian film maker, Megan Doneman. This film is being screened in film festivals around the world. Its commentator is an Academy Award winner, Helen Mirren. Kiran Bedi was present during its screenings in Toronto, Dubai and Adelaide, and to address the Q&A sessions at the end of each show.

The documentary has made a clean sweep of the award categories---“Best Documentary” with a cash award of $100,000, the biggest prize for a documentary in any film festival in the US and the Social Justice Award with $2500 at Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Yes Madam, Sir got a unanimous vote from the jury.

In 2006, Norwegian Mpower Film & Media and film maker Oystein Rakkenes released another documentary on Bedi and her prison revolution in Tihar Central Jail, In Gandhi's footsteps. The film was awarded Best Documentary at the Indo-American Film Festival in Atlanta, in November 2006.

Kiran Bedi also became host in 2009–10 on the TV show Aap Ki Kachehri Kiran Ke Saath on Star Plus.

Biographies of Bedi:

• I dare!: Kiran Bedi : a biography by Parmesh Dangwal^[43]
• Kiran Bedi, the kindly baton by Meenakshi Saxena^[44]

Bibliography[link]

• It's always possible: transforming one of the largest prisons in the world (1999) by Kiran Bedi^[45]
• "What Went Wrong?", collection of The fortnightly column written by Kiran Bedi.
• The Motivating Bedi by Kiran Bedi.^[10]
• Government@net: new governance opportunities for India(2001) by Kiran Bedi, Sandeep Srivastava and Parminder Jeet Singh^[46]
• As I see-(2005) by Kiran Bedi^[47]
• Himmat Hai by Kiran Bedi^[48]

See also[link]

• Jan Lokpal Bill

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kiran Bedi

• Kiran Bedi Official Website
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k.d. lang
k.d. lang in 2006
Background information
Birth name	Kathryn Dawn Lang
Born	(1961-11-02) November 2, 1961 (age 50) Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Origin	Consort, Alberta, Canada
Genres	Country, pop
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, record producer
Instruments	Guitar, vocals
Years active	1984–present
Labels	Bumstead, Sire, Warner Bros. Records, Nonesuch, Elektra Records
Website	www.kdlang.com

Kathryn Dawn Lang, OC (born November 2, 1961), known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter and occasional actress.

Lang has won both Juno Awards and Grammy Awards for her musical performances; hits include "Constant Craving" and "Miss Chatelaine". She has contributed songs to movie soundtracks and has teamed with musicians such as Roy Orbison, Tony Bennett, Elton John, Anne Murray and Jane Siberry.^[1] Lang is also known for being a vegan^[2] as well as an animal rights, gay rights, and Tibetan human rights activist. She is a tantric practitioner of the old school of Tibetan Buddhism.^[3] She performed Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" live at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

Early years[link]

Lang was born in Edmonton, Alberta, the daughter of Audrey and Adam Frederick Lang.^[4] She is of English, Irish, Scottish, German, Russian Jewish, Icelandic, and Sioux ancestry.^[5] When Lang was nine months old, her family moved to Consort, Alberta, where she grew up with two sisters and one brother on the Canadian prairie.^[6] Her father was a drug store owner and left the family when she was twelve.^[6]

After secondary school, Lang attended Red Deer College, where she became fascinated with the life and music of Patsy Cline and ultimately determined to pursue a career as a professional singer.^[7] She formed a Patsy Cline tribute band called the Reclines in 1983, and they recorded a debut album, Friday Dance Promenade. Also in 1983, Lang presented a performance-art piece, a seven-hour re-enactment of the transplantation of an artificial heart for Barney Clark, a retired American dentist.^[8][9] A Truly Western Experience was released in 1984 and received strong reviews and led to national attention in Canada. In August 1984, Lang was one of three Canadian artists to be selected to perform at the World Science Fair in Tsukuba, Japan (along with other performing and recording contracts throughout Japan).^{[citation needed]}

Singing at country and western venues in Canada, Lang made several recordings that received very positive reviews and earned a 1985 Juno Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist. She accepted the award wearing a wedding dress and made numerous tongue-in-cheek promises about what she would and would not do in the future, thus fulfilling the title of "Most Promising." She has won a total of eight Juno Awards.

In 1986, Lang signed a contract with an American record producer in Nashville, Tennessee, and received critical acclaim for her 1987 album, Angel with a Lariat, which was produced by Dave Edmunds.

Career rise[link]

Lang's career received a huge boost when Roy Orbison chose her to record a duet of his standard, "Crying," a collaboration that won them the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals in 1989. The song was used in the Jon Cryer film Hiding Out released in 1987. Due to the success of the song, lang received the Entertainer of the Year award from the Canadian Country Music Association. Lang would win the same award for the next three years, in addition to two Female Vocalist of the Year awards in 1988 and 1989.

1988 marked the release of Shadowland, an album of torch country produced by Owen Bradley. In late 1988, Shadowland was named Album of the Year by the Canadian Country Music Association. That year she also performed "Turn Me Round" at the closing ceremonies of the XV Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, and sang background vocals with Jennifer Warnes and Bonnie Raitt for Orbison's acclaimed television special, Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night.

In 1990, Lang contributed the song "So in Love" to the Cole Porter tribute album Red Hot + Blue produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1998, she contributed "Fado Hilário" to the AIDS benefit compilation album Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon produced by the same organization.

Grammy Awards and mainstream success[link]

Lang won the American Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for her 1989 album, Absolute Torch and Twang. The single "Full Moon Full of Love" that stemmed from that album became a modest hit in the United States in the summer of 1989 and a number 1 hit on the RPM Country chart in Canada.

In 1989 she sang a duet, Sin City, with Dwight Yoakam on his album "Just Lookin' for a Hit."

The 1992 album, Ingénue, a set of adult contemporary pop songs that showed comparatively little country influence, contained her most popular song, "Constant Craving." That song brought her multi-million sales, much critical acclaim, and the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Another top ten single from the record was "Miss Chatelaine". The salsa-inspired track was ironic; Chatelaine, a women's magazine, once chose lang as its "Woman of the Year," and the song's video depicted lang in an exaggeratedly feminine manner, surrounded by bright pastel colors and a profusion of bubbles reminiscent of a performance on the Lawrence Welk show.

Lang received a writing credit for The Rolling Stones' song "Anybody Seen My Baby?", whose chorus sounds strikingly similar to "Constant Craving". Jagger and Richards claimed to have never heard the song before and when they discovered the similarity prior to the song's release, were flummoxed as to how the songs could be so similar. Jagger then soon discovered his daughter listening to a recording of “Constant Craving” on her stereo and realized he had heard the song before many times but only subliminally. The two gave Lang credit, along with her co-writer Ben Mink, to avoid any possible lawsuits. Afterwards, Lang said she was "completely honored and flattered" to receive the songwriting credit.

Lang contributed much of the music towards Gus Van Sant's soundtrack of the film Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and also did a cover of "Skylark" for the 1997 film adaptation of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. She performed "Surrender" for the closing titles of the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, having previously worked with Bond composer David Arnold on his album, Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project.

In 1996, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

In 1997, Drag, an album of cover tunes dedicated to 'smoke' (specifically cigarette smoking) was released, although the album cover and booklet photographs show lang in a man's suit, referring to crossdressing as another possible meaning of the word 'drag'. The songs on Drag include "Smoke Dreams," from the '40s, Steve Miller Band's "The Joker," "Smoke Rings," the theme from the cult movie Valley of the Dolls, and 8 other smoke-themed songs.

Lang ranked No. 33 on VH-1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock & Roll in 1999 and No. 26 on CMT' 40 Greatest Women in Country Music in 2002, one of only eight women to make both lists. The others were Linda Ronstadt, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Lucinda Williams, and Emmylou Harris.

In 2003, she won her fourth Grammy Award, this time for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for her collaboration with Tony Bennett on A Wonderful World.

On subsequent tours, critical acclaim continued to come her way. In 2004, Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote: "Few singers command such perfection of pitch. Her voice, at once beautiful and unadorned and softened with a veil of smoke, invariably hits the middle of a note and remains there. She discreetly flaunted her technique, drawing out notes and shading them from sustained cries into softer, vibrato-laden murmurs. She balanced her commitment to the material with humor, projecting a twinkling merriment behind it all."^[10]

In the same year, lang released Hymns of the 49th Parallel, which featured cover versions of songs by iconic English-speaking Canadian singer-songwriters: Bruce Cockburn, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Ron Sexsmith, Jane Siberry, and Neil Young.^[11] According to the Canadian Record Industry Association (CRIA), in April 2006 the album went platinum in Canada selling over 100,000 copies. In December 2007 the album reached double platinum status in Australia selling over 140,000 copies.

Also in 2004, she sang the song "Little Patch of Heaven" for the Walt Disney Feature Animation film Home on the Range.

On July 29, 2006, lang performed her hit "Constant Craving" at the Outgames Opening Ceremonies in Montreal, Canada.

In 2006, lang paired with singer Madeleine Peyroux on a cover of the Joni Mitchell song "River" for Peyroux's album, Half the Perfect World. That same year lang was featured in Nellie McKay's second album, Pretty Little Head, singing with McKay in "We Had it Right". As well, lang sang a version of The Beatles' "Golden Slumbers" for the Happy Feet film soundtrack. She also sang a duet with Ann Wilson on the Heart singer's solo album Hope & Glory covering the Lucinda Williams song "Jackson".

In 2007, she partnered with Anne Murray on a re-make of Murray's hit "A Love Song," to be featured on Murray's CD, Anne Murray Duets: Friends and Legends. The duet was recorded in Los Angeles, and on Murray's official website there is a picture of Murray and lang kneeling behind Murray's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Murray was one of lang's childhood idols.

She released an album of new material, Watershed on February 5, 2008.^[12] It is her first collection of original material since Invincible Summer (2000). An article in which lang is interviewed states: "when she isn’t working, [lang] is mostly a homebody, living quietly with a girlfriend she refers to as “my wife” — they are not legally married — and her two dogs."^[13]

On November 11 the following year, Lang entered into a domestic partnership with Jamie Price, whom she had met in 2003. They separated on September 6, 2011, and Lang filed for a dissolution of the partnership in Los Angeles Superior Court on December 30.^[14]

Lang's first complete greatest-hits collection was released on February 2, 2010, on the Nonesuch label as Recollection.

In 2010, lang was in Nashville, working on a new country album, titled Sing it Loud. The Nonesuch album was released by k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang in a spring 2011 release. The band toured North America in summer 2011.^{[citation needed]}

Film and television appearances[link]

k.d. lang performing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah at the 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremony

In 1988 k.d. lang & The Reclines performed on Austin City Limits. Lang played the lead in the 1991 drama film, Salmonberries, and also co-starred with Ewan McGregor and Ashley Judd in Eye of the Beholder (1999). She had an uncredited role as a lounge singer in 2006's The Black Dahlia. She has also made guest appearances on the sitcoms The Larry Sanders Show, Dharma & Greg, and the famous coming out episode of Ellen. She appeared on the Christmas special of Pee Wee's Playhouse, where she performed the song "Jingle Bell Rock." She also made a guest appearance on the "Garbage" episode of The Jim Henson Hour, and in 2008 appeared on Rove McManus' live hour show, Rove.

Lang performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra for an intimate crowd at 18th century church LSO St Luke's in London on February 3, 2008.^[15] First aired as part of the BBC Four Sessions, the concert was released as a DVD entitled "Live In London" in 2009.

On February 12, 2010, she performed Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" at the Olympics Opening Ceremony in Vancouver, British Columbia. In early May 2010, Lang filled in at the last minute for Susan Boyle at the Australian TV Logie Awards to reprise her Winter Olympics performance of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", receiving an extended standing ovation. In 2010 she sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" with Matthew Morrison in a Christmas episode of Glee, and is featured on Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album.

Activism[link]

Lang performing in Hamer Hall, Melbourne, Australia 2008

Lang, who came out as a lesbian in a 1992 article of the LGBT news magazine The Advocate, has actively championed gay rights causes.

She has supported many causes over the years, including HIV/AIDS care and research. Her cover of Cole Porter's "So in Love" (from the Broadway musical, Kiss Me, Kate), appears on the Red Hot + Blue compilation album and video from 1990 (a tribute to Cole Porter to benefit AIDS research and relief). Her 2010 Greatest Hits album, Recollection, also includes this cover of "So in Love". Lang also recorded the song "Fado Hilario," singing in Portuguese, for the 1999 Red Hot AIDS benefit album "Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon," a traditional fado from Portugal.

She is an animal rights activist. Her "Meat Stinks" campaign created much controversy, particularly in her hometown, in the middle of Alberta's cattle ranching industry.

Lang appeared on the cover of the August 1993 issue of Vanity Fair. The cover featured Lang in a barber chair while model Cindy Crawford appeared to shave her face with a straight razor.^[16] The issue contained a detailed article about Lang which observed that she had thought that she would be ostracized by the country music industry when she came out as a lesbian. However, Nashville was accepting, and her records continued to sell. When she appeared in an ad for PETA however, Nashville was less impressed, owing to the relationship between country music and cattle ranching.^[17]

In April 2008, Lang spent time in Melbourne, Australia, as a guest editorialist for The Age. This was in connection with her support for the Tibet human rights issues. On April 24, 2008, she joined pro-Tibet protesters in Canberra as the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay made its way through the Australian capital.^[18] In 2011 Lang was inducted to Q Hall of Fame Canada in recognition of the work she has done to further equality for all people's around the world.^[19]

Recognition[link]

On June 3, 2008, it was announced that she would receive a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.^[20]

Awards and nominations[link]

Of the multiple Grammy nominations that lang has received, she has won four Awards.

1989

• Grammy Award — Best Country Vocal Collaboration for "Crying" (shared with Roy Orbison)

1990

• Grammy Award — Best Female Country Vocal Performance for "Absolute Torch and Twang"

1993

• Grammy Award — Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Constant Craving"
• Grammy Award nomination — Song of the Year for "Constant Craving"
• Grammy Award nomination — Record of the Year for "Constant Craving"
• Grammy Award nomination — Album of the Year for "Ingenue"

1994

• Grammy Award nomination — Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Miss Chatelaine"

1995

• Grammy Award nomination — Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Moonglow" (with Tony Bennett)

2003

• Grammy Award nomination — Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "What A Wonderful World" (with Tony Bennett)

2004

• Grammy Award — Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for "A Wonderful World" (shared with Tony Bennett)
• Grammy Award nomination — Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "La Vie En Rose" (with Tony Bennett)

Discography[link]

See also[link]

• Academy of Country Music
• Country Music Association
• List of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart
• List of country musicians
• List of number-one dance hits (United States)

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Adria, Marco (1990). "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Cowpunk: K.D. Lang". Music of Our Times: Eight Canadian Singer-Songwriters. Toronto: James Lorimer & Company. pp. 139–44. ISBN 1-55028-315-4. 
• Bufwack, Mary A. (1998). "K.D. Lang". In Paul Kingsbury. The Encyclopedia of Country Music. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 289–90. ISBN 978-0-19-517608-7. 
• Dogget, Peter (2001). Are You Ready for the Country: Elvis, Dylan, Parsons and the Roots of Country Rock. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-026108-7. 
• Feiler, Bruce (1998). Dreaming Out Loud: Garth Brooks, Wynonna Judd, Wade Hayes and the Changing Face of Nashville. Avon Books. ISBN 0-380-97578-5. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kd lang

• Official website
• Shambhala Sun Magazine Interview
• K.D. Lang questionnaire February 2008