https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfO-6RP7mko
Indian cinema chain sued by film-goer over lengthy pre-film ads
Court orders compensation to be paid to
30-year-old from Bangalore, saying ‘in the new era, time is considered as
money, each one’s time is very precious’
Hannah
Ellis-Petersen in Delhi
Wed 26
Feb 2025 05.13 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/26/india-pvr-inox-cinema-chain-fine-preview-ads
Abhishek MR, a 30-year-old man from the southern city of Bangalore, had booked a trip to the cinema with friends in December last year to watch wartime drama Sam Bahadur.
But while the scheduled time he had booked the ticket for was 4.05pm, he had to sit through 25 minutes of adverts for upcoming features and commercial items such as homewares, mobile phones and cars before the film actually began.
Having planned to return to work straight after the film, Abhishek MR was angered by what he felt was a costly disruption to his life. He filed a lawsuit against PVR Inox, India’s largest cinema multiplex chain, stating that: “The complainant could not attend other arrangements and appointments which were scheduled for the day and has faced losses that cannot be calculated in terms of money as compensation.”
The lawsuit also accused multiplex cinemas of prioritising advertising revenue over their customers, and forcing them to sit through adverts against their will.
In a ruling in February, the consumer court proved highly sympathetic to Abhishek MR’s case and ordered for the cinema to grant him 50,000 INR (£450) for wasting his time and 5,000 INR (£45) for mental agony, as well as cover his legal expenses.
“In the new era, time is considered as money, each one’s time is very precious,” the court ruling stated. “Twenty-five to 30 minutes is a considerable amount of time to sit idle in the theatre and watch unnecessary ads. People with tight schedules do not have time to waste.”
The cinema had defended itself, arguing it was legally required to show public service announcements. However, it was found that most of the adverts shown before the film had been commercial.
Cinema is seen as a highly effective medium for advertising in India, and its share of the advertising sector is on the rise. Unlike western cinemas, in India, adverts are shown both before the film and during a 15-minute ad break in the middle of the feature.
Task 1. Comment on the
title of the article.
Task 2. Read and translate
the article paying attention to the words and phrases in bold.
Task 3. Find the English equivalents of the following words and phrases:
1) быть юридически обязательным
2) рекламная пауза
3) идти в гору/повышаться, улучшаться
4) суд по защите прав потребителей
5) покрывать юридические расходы
6) судебный процесс по обвинению
7) подать иск против
8) терпеть убытки
9) годовой доход
Task 4. Make up some sentences of your own with the words and
phrases in bold.
Task 5. Act out a dialogue
using the new vocabulary.
Task 6. Read the article a
second time and be ready to discuss in the classroom:
- what was the author’s intention to
tell the general public about
- what is the main idea/ problem raised
- speak on the logical devision
Answer the following
questions:
1.
What was the main reason Abhishek MR decided to file a lawsuit against PVR
Inox?
2.
How long did Abhishek MR have to sit through adverts before the film started?
3.
What compensation did the consumer court award Abhishek MR for his time and
mental agony?
4.
What argument did the cinema chain use to defend their practice of showing
adverts?
5.
How does the advertising practice in Indian cinemas differ from that in Western
cinemas?
Task 7. Write a rendering of the article. Mind the rules of a rendering writing. (second lesson)
London’s first Roman basilica found under office block
Archaeologists hail discovery of near-2,000-year-old remains as among
most significant recent finds in the city
Esther Addley
Thu 13 Feb
2025 14.22 GMT
The remains of London’s earliest Roman basilica have been discovered
under an office block, in what archaeologists have described as one of the most
significant recent discoveries in the capital.
The almost 2,000-year-old structure was part of the forum, the Roman
capital’s social and administrative centre, and built around the late 70s or
early 80s CE, just a few decades after the Romans invaded Britain and 20 years after Boudicca sacked and burned the city in 60CE.
Situated on a high point in the city on a raised platform, the forum was a large open space about
the size of a football pitch, lined with shops and other buildings. The
basilica, at its heart, functioned as a kind of town hall, in which important political and judicial decisions were made.
Intriguingly, archaeologists
believe the excavated section
contains the tribunal, a designated part of the basilica where important
officials would have sat on a raised stage to
adjudicate on the main issues affecting the capital of the new Roman
outpost.
The structure was short-lived, however, being replaced in about AD100 by
a much bigger forum built on the same site.
Describing the find as “one
of the most significant discoveries made in the city in recent years”, Sophie
Jackson, the director of development at Mola, the Museum of London Archaeology,
said: “It’s like discovering the speaker’s chair and chamber of the House of
Commons, 2,000 years into the future. The levels of preservation of the
basilica have far exceeded our expectations, and we have possibly the most
important part of the building.
“Excitingly, we’ve only just scratched the surface of this site’s
potential through our initial investigations.”
The remains were discovered in 2023 as part of the redevelopment of an office building at 85 Gracechurch Street, next to the entrance to the historic Leadenhall market at the heart of the City of London.
Task 1. Comment on the
title of the article.
Task 2. Read and
translate the article paying attention to the words and phrases in bold.
Task 3. Find the English equivalents of the following words and phrases.
1)
разграбить и сжечь город
2) вторгаться в
3) зал для заседаний
4) археолог
5) находка
6) перепланировка
7) выносить решения по основным
вопросам
8) руины
9) принимать политические и судебные
решения
10) Римская базилика
11) раскопанный участок
Task 4. Make up some sentences of your own with the words and
phrases in bold.
Task 5. Act out a
dialogue using the new vocabulary.
Task 6. Read the
article a second time and be ready to discuss in the classroom:
-
what was the author’s intention to tell the general
public about
-
what is the main idea/ problem raised
-
speak on the logical devision
Task 7. Write a
rendering of the article. Mind the
rules of a rendering writing. (second lesson)
Pre-reading part
Task
1. Listening
comprehension.
Task 2. Comment on the statements. Explain
the meaning and say whether they are related to the content of the article.
a) Violence exists with the tacit
consent of society.
While-reading part
Task 1. Read the article and be ready to translate it.
Task 2. Write out the words and phrases given in
bold. Explain the meaning in English. Translate into Russian.
Task
3. Make
up a dialogue/interview using new vocabulary.
Five
people dead, including child, after shooting at Wisconsin Christian school
Police
say suspected shooter is among the dead, and several others injured, at
Abundant Life Christian in Madison
Guardian staff and agencies
Mon 16 Dec
2024 18.50 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/16/wisconsin-school-shooting-madison
Five people, including a child, are dead and several others injured after a shooting Monday at a
Christian school in Wisconsin, a local police chief said.
Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said
the suspect shooter is also among
the dead.
Earlier multiple injuries were
reported Monday in the shooting at Abundant Life Christian school in Madison, the
state capital, police said.
“This remains an active and ongoing investigation,” Madison police
said in a statement. “More information
will be released as it is available. We currently need people to avoid the
area.”
The school has about 390 students,
from kindergarten through high school, according to its website.
It sits on a 28-acre campus that
hosts students from about 200 families in the Dane county area.
Local TV footage of the scene outside
the school showed dozens of police cars, ambulances
and fire service vehicles pulling up
in the streets outside the school.
America has long had an epidemic of
school shootings, on a scale unlike any other country in the world but has
struggled with any meaningful efforts to
curb the phenomenon, especially when it comes to limiting access to
powerful firearms.
Post-reading part
Task 1. Divide the text of the article into logical parts. Make
up questions to each logical part. Provide a summary sentence to each logical
part.
Task 2. What
is the main idea of the article?
Task 3. Does
the author of the article sound objective or subjective?
Task 4. Write a rendering of the article. Mind the rules of a rendering writing.
Task 5. Learn the new
vocabulary from the article be ready to write the dictation-translation.
Библиографические ссылки оформляются как подстрочные примечания со сплошной нумерацией в пределах одной статьи. Для этой цели следует пользоваться стандартными средствами вставки сносок, имеющимися в любом современном текстовом процессоре.
Правила оформления библиографических ссылок
1. Каждая цитируемая работа должна иметь вид:
(a) Если это монография: инициалы, фамилия (или фамилии) автора (авторов). Название работы. Место издания. Год издания. Например: Медведев И.П. Очерки византийской дипломатики. Л., 1988. С. 107; Leonis Diaconi. Historiae libri decem. Bonnae, 1828. P. 151.
(b) Если это статья (глава): инициалы, фамилия (или фамилии) автора (авторов). Название работы // (двойной слэш) Название сборника (журнала, альманаха и т. п.). Место издания. Год издания. Другие выходные данные. Номер(а) страницы (страниц). Например: Laiou A.E. On political Geography: the Black Sea of Pachymeres // The Making of Byzantine History: Studies dedicated to D.M. Nicol. L., 1993. P. 119; Лазарев В.Н. Новый памятник константинопольской миниатюры XIII в. // ВВ. 1952. Т. 5. С. 179.
(c) Если в монографии не может быть указан автор, но дано указание ее издателя, переводчика, составителя или редактора, то ее описание должно иметь вид: Название работы / (слэш) Инициалы, фамилия (или фамилии) издателя (издателей), переводчика или редактора. Место издания. Год издания. Номер(а) страницы (страниц). Например: Культура Византии. Вторая половина VII.XII вв. / Под ред. З.В. Удальцовой, Г.Г. Литаврина. М., 1989. С. 380.
2. Обращаем внимание, что по современным правилам поля библиографического описания принято разделять точками. По этой причине такие сокращения, как С. (страница)
или P. (page, pagina) должны писаться с большой буквы (см. примеры из предыдущего пункта).
3. Инициалы авторов в библиографических описаниях пишутся после фамилии, при этом между самими инициалами пробел не ставится. Напротив, инициалы редакторов и других ответственных лиц, фамилии которых помещаются после символа / (слэш), в силу сложившейся традиции принято писать перед фамилией.
4. Правила оформления сокращений:
(a) К статье обязательно должен быть приложен список сокращений. В этот список вносятся все сокращения, встречающиеся в статье, независимо от того, фигурировали или нет эти сокращения в предыдущих выпусках «Византийского временника».
(b) Возможны ссылки в основном тексте на особо часто цитируемое издание, при этом в сноске дается его полное библиографическое описание.
Pre-reading part
Task
1. Listening
comprehension.
Task 2. Comment on the statements. Explain
the meaning and say whether they are related to the content of the article.
a)
Drive
the nail that will go. b) Impossible
is nothing.
While-reading part
Task 1. Read the article and be ready to translate it.
Task 2. Write out the words and phrases given in
bold. Explain the meaning in English. Translate into Russian.
Task 3. Make up a dialogue/interview using new vocabulary.
Trump is able to ‘look past’ criticisms of him, says
Labour minister
Pat
McFadden say he thinks UK and US governments will ‘get on well’ despite past
comments by senior Labour figures
Eleni Courea Political correspondent
Thu 7 Nov 2024 09.31 GMT
Donald Trump is “capable of looking past” things people have said about him in the past, one of Keir Starmer’s closest allies has said. Pat McFadden, a Cabinet Office minister, said he thought the new US and UK governments would “get on well” despite the history of senior Labour ministers criticising Trump.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said while he was a backbencher in 2018 that Trump was “woman-hating,
neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” and a “profound threat to the international
order”.
Wes Streeting, now the health secretary, previously called the
president-elect an “odious, sad
little man” and Ed Miliband, the environment
secretary, called him a “racist, misogynistic self-confessed groper”.
Presented with some of these
comments, McFadden told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If Donald Trump didn’t
speak to people who have said things like that there’d be a lot of people he
wouldn’t be speaking to.”
McFadden, who is a close ally of the
prime minister, told LBC: “He’s capable of looking past these things. He’s
looked past them before. “Even his biggest backer, Elon Musk, a few years ago
was saying Donald Trump should hang up his hat and walk off into the sunset.
“His vice-president, who’s sitting alongside him in the White House for
the next four years, mused once whether Trump was another Richard Nixon or
America’s Hitler.”
He added: “I think there is a bigger
point that we can miss in reading these things out is that the alliance and the friendship between the
US and the UK is really deep and enduring, and I see it in government on a
practical day-to-day basis on defence, security, intelligence, trade – on lots
of fronts.” McFadden refused three times to say whether he believed Trump had
neo-Nazi or Ku Klux Klan sympathies.
“The relationship between the UK and
America is really important,” he said. “I think there’s another point that we
shouldn’t miss here. Because of the timing of the two elections both being
within a few months of one another we now know the character of the two
governments on both sides of the Atlantic for the next four years.”
Starmer phoned Trump to congratulate him on his victory on
Wednesday night. A Downing Street
spokesperson said the prime minister “offered his hearty congratulations
and said he looked forward to working closely with President-elect Trump across
all areas of the special relationship”.
The two leaders “fondly recalled
their meeting in September, and President-elect Trump’s close connections and
affinity to the United Kingdom”, according to the spokesperson.
Starmer and Trump had a two-hour
dinner in New York in September, which Lammy also attended. The foreign
secretary has sought to build links with
senior Republicans allied with Trump.
Trump and Starmer discussed the
situation in the Middle East but there was no mention of Ukraine in the readout of their call.
The president-elected has said he
wants to end the war in Ukraine quickly and criticised the Ukrainian president,
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for not making more
concessions to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
Post-reading part
Task 1. Divide the text of the article into logical parts. Make
up questions to each logical part. Provide a summary sentence to each logical
part.
Task 2. What
is the main idea of the article?
Task 3. Does
the author of the article sound objective or subjective?
Task 4. Write a rendering of the article. Mind the rules of a rendering writing.
Task 5. Learn the new
vocabulary from the article be ready to write the dictation-translation.
