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An ambassador and trained facilitator under Eco Femme (a social enterprise working towards menstrual health in south India), Sanjina is also an active member of the MHM Collective- India and Menstrual Health Alliance- India. She has conducted Menstrual Health sessions in multiple government schools adopted by Rotary District 3240 as part of their WinS project in rural Bengal. She has also delivered training of trainers on SRHR, gender, sexuality and Menstruation for Tomorrows Foundation, Vikramshila Education Resource Society, Nirdhan trust and Micro Finance, Tollygunj Women In Need, Paint It Red in Kolkata.

Now as an MH Fellow with YKA, shes expanding her impressive scope of work further by launching a campaign to facilitate the process of ensuring better menstrual health and SRH services for women residing in correctional homes in West Bengal. The campaign will entail an independent study to take stalk of the present conditions of MHM in correctional homes across the state and use its findings to build public support and political will to take the necessary action.

Saurabh has been associated with YKA as a user and has consistently been writing on the issue MHM and its intersectionality with other issues in the society. Now as an MHM Fellow with YKA, hes launched the Right to Period campaign, which aims to ensure proper execution of MHM guidelines in Delhis schools.

The long-term aim of the campaign is to develop an open culture where menstruation is not treated as a taboo. The campaign also seeks to hold the schools accountable for their responsibilities as an important component in the implementation of MHM policies by making adequate sanitation infrastructure and knowledge of MHM available in school premises.

Read more about his campaign.

Harshita is a psychologist and works to support people with mental health issues, particularly adolescents who are survivors of violence. Associated with the Azadi Foundation in UP, Harshita became an MHM Fellow with YKA, with the aim of promoting better menstrual health.

Her campaign #MeriMarzi aims to promote menstrual health and wellness, hygiene and facilities for female sex workers in UP. She says, Knowledge about natural body processes is a very basic human right. And for individuals whose occupation is providing sexual services, it becomes even more important.

Meri Marzi aims to ensure sensitised, non-discriminatory health workers for the needs of female sex workers in the Suraksha Clinics under the UPSACS (Uttar Pradesh State AIDS Control Society) program by creating more dialogues and garnering public support for the cause of sex workers menstrual rights. The campaign will also ensure interventions with sex workers to clear misconceptions around overall hygiene management to ensure that results flow both ways.

Read more about her campaign.

MH Fellow Sabna comes with significant experience working with a range of development issues. A co-founder of Project Sakhi Saheli, which aims to combat period poverty and break menstrual taboos, Sabna has, in the past, worked on the issue of menstruation in urban slums of Delhi with women and adolescent girls. She and her team also released MenstraBook, with menstrastories and organised Menstra Tlk in the Delhi School of Social Work to create more conversations on menstruation.

With YKA MHM Fellow Vineet, Sabna launched Menstratalk, a campaign that aims to put an end to period poverty and smash menstrual taboos in society. As a start, the campaign aims to begin conversations on menstrual health with five hundred adolescents and youth in Delhi through offline platforms, and through this community mobilise support to create Period Friendly Institutions out of educational institutes in the city.

Read more about her campaign.

A student from Delhi School of Social work, Vineet is a part of Project Sakhi Saheli, an initiative by the students of Delhi school of Social Work to create awareness on Menstrual Health and combat Period Poverty. Along with MHM Action Fellow Sabna, Vineet launched Menstratalk, a campaign that aims to put an end to period poverty and smash menstrual taboos in society.

As a start, the campaign aims to begin conversations on menstrual health with five hundred adolescents and youth in Delhi through offline platforms, and through this community mobilise support to create Period Friendly Institutions out of educational institutes in the city.

Find out more about the campaign here.

A native of Bhagalpur district Bihar, Shalini Jha believes in equal rights for all genders and wants to work for a gender-equal and just society. In the past shes had a year-long association as a community leader with Haiyya: Organise for Actions Health Over Stigma campaign. Shes pursuing a Masters in Literature with Ambedkar University, Delhi and as an MHM Fellow with YKA, recently launched Project (Alharh).

She says, Bihar is ranked the lowest in Indias SDG Index 2019 for India. Hygienic and comfortable menstruation is a basic human right and sustainable development cannot be ensured if menstruators are deprived of their basic rights. Project (Alharh) aims to create a robust sensitised community in Bhagalpur to collectively spread awareness, break the taboo, debunk myths and initiate fearless conversations around menstruation. The campaign aims to reach at least 6000 adolescent girls from government and private schools in Baghalpur district in 2020.

Read more about the campaign here.

A psychologist and co-founder of a mental health NGO called Customize Cognition, Ritika forayed into the space of menstrual health and hygiene, sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights and gender equality as an MHM Fellow with YKA. She says, The experience of working on MHM/SRHR and gender equality has been an enriching and eye-opening experience. I have learned whats beneath the surface of the issue, be it awareness, lack of resources or disregard for trans men, who also menstruate.

The Transmen-ses campaign aims to tackle the issue of silence and disregard for trans mens menstruation needs, by mobilising gender sensitive health professionals and gender neutral restrooms in Lucknow.

Read more about the campaign here.

A Computer Science engineer by education, Nitisha started her career in the corporate sector, before realising she wanted to work in the development and social justice space. Since then, she has worked with Teach For India and Care India and is from the founding batch of Indian School of Development Management (ISDM), a one of its kind organisation creating leaders for the development sector through its experiential learning post graduate program.

As a Youth Ki Awaaz Menstrual Health Fellow, Nitisha has started Lets Talk Period, a campaign to mobilise young people to switch to sustainable period products. She says, 80 lakh women in Delhi use non-biodegradable sanitary products, generate 3000 tonnes of menstrual waste, that takes 500-800 years to decompose; which in turn contributes to the health issues of all menstruators, increased burden of waste management on the city and harmful living environment for all citizens.

Lets Talk Period aims to change this by

Find out more about her campaign here.

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A former Assistant Secretary with the Ministry of Women and Child Development in West Bengal for three months, Lakshmi Bhavya has been championing the cause of menstrual hygiene in her district. By associating herself with the Lalana Campaign, a holistic menstrual hygiene awareness campaign which is conducted by the Anahat NGO, Lakshmi has been slowly breaking taboos when it comes to periods and menstrual hygiene.

A Gender Rights Activist working with the tribal and marginalized communities in india, Srilekha is a PhD scholar working on understanding body and sexuality among tribal girls, to fill the gaps in research around indigenous women and their stories. Srilekha has worked extensively at the grassroots level with community based organisations, through several advocacy initiatives around Gender, Mental Health, Menstrual Hygiene and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) for the indigenous in Jharkhand, over the last 6 years.

Srilekha has also contributed to sustainable livelihood projects and legal aid programs for survivors of sex trafficking. She has been conducting research based programs on maternal health, mental health, gender based violence, sex and sexuality. Her interest lies in conducting workshops for young people on life skills, feminism, gender and sexuality, trauma, resilience and interpersonal relationships.

A Guwahati-based college student pursuing her Masters in Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bidisha started the #BleedwithDignity campaign on the technology platform Change.org, demanding that the Government of Assam installbiodegradable sanitary pad vending machines in all government schools across the state. Her petition on Change.org has already gathered support from over 90000 people and continues to grow.

Bidisha was selected in Change.orgs flagship program She Creates Change having run successful online advocacycampaigns, which were widely recognised. Through the #BleedwithDignity campaign; she organised and celebrated World Menstrual Hygiene Day, 2019 in Guwahati, Assam by hosting a wall mural by collaborating with local organisations. The initiative was widely covered by national and local media, and the mural was later inaugurated by the events chief guest Commissioner of Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) Debeswar Malakar, IAS.

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Opinion: Megalomaniacs Want To Cut Down On Critics And Control The Internet - Youth Ki Awaaz

A coalition of news organizations and press freedom groups, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, announced Wednesday that they plan to challenge the RCMPs restrictions on media access at Fairy Creek watershed in court.

The coalition includes the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), National Observer, The Narwhal, Capital Daily, Ricochet Media, The Discourse, and IndigiNews.

Over the past week, weve repeatedly seen the RCMP shift the goal posts on how it plans to allow journalists access in order to cover this important public interest story, said Brent Jolly, CAJ president, in a statement.

The B.C. Supreme Court on April 1 granted an injunction to Teal-Jones Group following weeks of blockades by protesters and activists seeking to prevent the company from conducting old-growth logging in the Fairy Creek watershed.

However, the BC RCMP only started enforcing the injunction on May 17 and has set up a number of checkpoints leading to the Fairy Creek watershed in an effort to control and restrict access.

Media are allowed to observe enforcement of the injunction and subsequent protests although access is tightly controlled and journalists are required to register with the RCMP.

Since enforcement began, over 112 individuals have been arrested the majority of whom were arrested for breaching the injunction including a journalist who was not on the RCMPs list of accredited media.

According to the CAJ, the RCMP has denied journalists entry into the area of enforcement through a broad use of exclusion zones and whenever access is granted, journalists are restricted in ways that prevent them from doing their job.

Every day is a new day with new excuses from the RCMP about why access is limited. Enough is enough, said Jolly.

The announcement comes less than a week after the CAJ called on the court system to limit the RCMPs power when granting injunctions and less than 24 hours after they sent a letter to the RCMP requesting that media be provided fair access to the Fairy Creek watershed.

Journalists are not participants in the protests, or advocates for the protesters against whom the injunction is being enforced. It is not our intention to interfere with police operations in lawful execution of a court order. Our role is to serve democracy by documenting activities and conveying that information to the public, the letter reads.

READ: Journalist arrested after refusing to leave Fairy Creek checkpoint

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Media organizations to take legal action against RCMP over lack of access at Fairy Creek - CHEK

Syrian President Bashar Assad and his wife, Asma, vote at a polling station during the presidential election Wednesday in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus. Hassan Ammar/AP hide caption

Syrian President Bashar Assad and his wife, Asma, vote at a polling station during the presidential election Wednesday in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus.

It was a decision as symbolic as the Syrian presidential election itself.

On Wednesday morning, Syrians woke to local television footage of President Bashar Assad and the first lady, Asma Assad, casting their ballots. The pair were not in a loyalist stronghold but in Douma, the satellite town of Damascus whose residents proved some of the staunchest opponents to Syria's authoritarian regime.

In the early days of Syria's decade-long civil war, people from Douma formed some of the first armed groups against the regime. Civilians there also held mass protests, risking live bullets from government soldiers to call for an end to the regime.

They paid a heavy price. In 2013, the regime placed Douma and other satellite towns in these eastern suburbs of Damascus under a tight siege, blockading food, medical equipment and aid supplies. For five years, civilians survived on mostly scraps and some starved. The regime and its ally Russia hit the area with airstrikes and shellfire that rights groups say targeted homes, bakeries and hospitals.

A chemical weapons attack on Douma prompted then-President Donald Trump in 2017 to take the most concerted direct action of the war against the regime with airstrikes in government-held Syria.

Now, with Assad back in control of large parts of Syria, Wednesday's presidential election was a chance for the regime demonstrate the extent of its power.

"Assad casting his ballot in Douma is sending a message telling the opposition that we are celebrating through your demise. We are in power here, we are in control," says Danny Makki, a Syrian British journalist and analyst in Damascus. "It's a message about who is top dog within Syria."

This show of strength is visible in Damascus, where giant posters of Assad daub the walls of high-rise buildings, roundabouts and roadsides. In recent weeks, dinners and dances have been held in support of the Syrian president's campaign.

Many of these events are organized by Syrian businessmen and other citizens who see this presidential election the first in seven years as a way to ingratiate themselves with the regime. Assad's government, with its sprawling security apparatus, once again tightly controls almost every aspect of Syrian life from whom you can do business with to what you can say.

The U.S., along with Britain, France, Germany and Italy, released a joint statement calling the Syrian presidential election "neither free nor fair" and voicing support for civil society and Syrian opposition groups who have condemned the process.

Assad's two challengers in the presidential race are Abdallah Saloum Abdallah, a former deputy Cabinet minister, and Mahmoud Ahmed Marei, who leads a small opposition party approved by the government.

Meanwhile, known political opponents to Assad remain in exile, or are among the tens of thousands of people that the United Nations says have been arrested, tortured and disappeared into regime prisons since the start of the conflict in 2011.

The presidential candidates in this election have lacked both the funds and time to campaign. That means they have been unable to mount any significant challenge to Assad, whose family has ruled Syria with an iron fist for some five decades.

Makki says Syrian law allowed the candidates only 10 days to campaign, so many Syrians barely knew who Assad's challengers were. Instead of a serious presidential race, he says, the run-up to the election has been a "celebratory kind of pro-Assad great spectacle that has been played and replayed in every part of the country."

This fealty was also seen at the polls, with some voters pricking their fingers with needles at polling stations so that they could sign their support for the president with their blood. This was often coupled with the popular pro-Assad chant: "With our blood and soul we sacrifice our lives for you Bashar."

The vote took place only in parts of Syria that are back under government control. It excluded the millions of citizens living in the rebel-held province of Idlib and in the northeast of Syria that is controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, which together make up almost a third of the country.

After 10 years of war, more than half of Syria's population has fled the country or been internally displaced. The war in Syria has left an estimated half a million people dead and has devastated entire cities.

Just as Syrians try to start to piece back together their lives in government-held parts of the country, they have been sent back into spiraling poverty by an economic crisis caused by the war, Western sanctions and the effect of the economic collapse in neighboring Lebanon.

In regime-held Syria, now mostly home to loyalists or people who lack the political or economic freedom to leave, it was expected that most of those going to the polls would cast ballots for Assad.

"The people inside Syria right now believe that the best solution for them is the current president," a Syrian businessman in Damascus tells NPR, asking not to be named because he fears that speaking with Western media could upset the regime.

He says Syrians want to use this election to be a starting point to "build a better Syria," and are desperate for stability and a new era of peace, even if it means living under the current regime. "People want hope."

The election result is a foregone conclusion, and does little to build relations with Western governments. But it is a useful tool for the Syrian regime to project legitimacy with governments in the region.

There are new signs of rapprochement between Syria and Saudi Arabia, which backed opponents of Assad in the war. Saudi's intelligence chief reportedly met with his Syrian counterpart in Damascus this month. Syrian state media say the country's tourism minister, Muhammad Rami Martini, is visiting Saudi Arabia for the first time in what is reportedly the first trip there by a Syrian regime minister in a decade.

Beyond the pomp and demonstrations of support for Assad, there are other Syrians for whom the election is symbolic of everything they have lost.

"The regime stole our lives. They destroyed our lives," a Syrian from the city of Homs tells NPR from the U.K., where he now lives. He fled there in 2011 after seeing his friends killed and arrested in government crackdowns on peaceful demonstrators.

He didn't want NPR to use his name for fear it could endanger his family members who still live in Syria.

"If you look at Syria's cities, they are in ruins, and these are really the ruins of our lives and dreams and hopes," he says. "People just wished for a better future to live in dignity, freedom and justice."

He says the regime has won at the cost of the country. In this collapsed economy, his family in Syria, like so many others, struggles even to put meals on the table. "The regime turned Syria into a society that is built on despair."

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Syrian Election Shows The Extent Of Assad's Power - NPR

The 2021 NASCAR Salutes Together with Coca-Cola campaign is more than just a military appreciation platform its a campaign that salutes heroes next door. Each week, NASCAR.com will highlight multiple individuals who have made a difference with their service both in the military and to their communities.

In the latest profiles, NASCAR.com is highlighting three 2020 USO Service Members of the Year: SGT Mary Ehiarinmwian (USO Soldier of the Year), PO2 Andrew J. Fleming (USO Coast Guard Guardsman of the Year and Sgt Nolan P. McShane (USO Marine of the Year).

RELATED: Learn more about NASCAR Salutes | Archer, Rahmans actions save lives

SGT Ehiarinmwian was driving to conduct Physical Readiness Training (PRT) at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. On her way to PRT, she was unknowingly driving behind a vehicle of a soldier from the same unit when that vehicle suddenly lost control and rolled over several times before coming to a rest, upside down, on a steel property gate almost impaling the driver.

She pulled her vehicle over and rendered assistance, seeing if the driver was injured before pulling the driver from the smoking vehicle and getting him to safety. Ehiarinmwian stayed with the driver until medical assistance arrived on site. She currently serves with the U.S. Armys 523rd Engineer Support Company and is from St. Robert, Missouri.

PO2 Fleming was conducting on-water booming operations off the coast of Georgia in his role as a marine science technician when a report of a capsized recreational finishing vessel came over his radio. He quickly directed his workboat to respond to assist in the recovery of two mariners from the capsized vessel. Upon his arrival at the scene, Fleming was able to pull the mariners from the water. One was unconscious and he successfully performed CPR and was able to resuscitate. While everyone was en route to Station Brunswick, he noticed the second mariners was showing signs of hypothermia and shock. Fleming moved quickly to remove the mariners soaked outer clothing and wrapped him in his own jacket to retain body heat as they made their way to the station.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fleming led the efforts to establish protocols for Sector New Yorks remote facility inspection program. This helped to safeguard branch personnel from exposure to the virus and planned operations to ensure that the 200 facilities within the area of responsibility remained compliant with protocols. He serves in the U.S Coast Guards Sector New York and is from Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Sgt McShane (pictured above) was honored for his quick thinking during a training exercise in Twentynine Palms, California. In the course of the exercise, a Marine become severely wounded and McShane moved quickly to control the chaotic site, while confirming tourniquet placement and inspecting the pressure dressings on the wounded Marine. His calmness, leadership and tactical knowledge were vital in stabilizing the Marine prior to the air medical evacuation to the local hospital. He currently serves with the U.S. Martine Corps 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion and hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The details of the honorees brave actions were provided by the USO.

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Trio of USO Service Members of the Year go above and beyond - NASCAR

The campaigns set up the possibility that politicians who have taken steps to undermine faith in the American democratic system could soon be the ones running it.

Someone who is running for an election administration position, whose focus is not the rule of law but instead the ends justifies the means, thats very dangerous in a democracy, said Bill Gates, the Republican vice chair of the Board of Supervisors in Maricopa County, Ariz. This is someone who is trying to tear at the foundations of democracy.

The secretary of state campaigns will also be tests of how deeply rooted Trumps lies about the election are in the Republican base. Sixty-four percent of Republican-leaning voters in a recent CNN poll said they did not believe Biden won enough votes legitimately to win the presidency.

Hice and Marchant are running to replace sitting Republican secretaries of state, while Finchem and Karamo are seeking the GOP nomination in states with Democratic incumbents. None of the four campaigns responded to interview requests.

Trey Grayson, a former Republican secretary of state in Kentucky, said there are two ways to look at the risk posed by the campaigns: Theres a symbolic risk, and then theres functional risk.

Grayson noted that, depending on the state, secretaries of state often play ministerial roles in election certification and vote counting, with more direct oversight of the process falling to local county and city election clerks. That means that functional risk of electing pro-Trump election truthers as secretaries of state could be lower than many perceive.

But the symbolic risk could be much higher. Any secretary of state who is a chief elections official is going to have a megaphone and a media platform during the election, Grayson said. A lot of the power is the perception of power, or that megaphone.

As candidates and officials, the quartet of Republicans have used their megaphones to promote claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Finchem, the Arizona state representative, has been a major proponent of the audit of the results in Maricopa County. The Republican-run state Senate is running the process in the states largest county, which Biden narrowly won. The audit has been a lightning rod, attracting heavy criticism from GOP officials in Maricopa County who say the auditors are doing shoddy, conspiracy-fueled work but nevertheless building up hope among Trump supporters who believe that he won the election.

Finchem appeared on the Twitch stream of Redpill78 which The New York Times reported promotes the QAnon conspiracy theory earlier this month, and said he has talked to Trump about the 2020 election. The mainstream media keep[s] using this term baseless, Finchem said on the Redpill show. I hate to break the news to you, but just in case you news people havent been paying attention, theres a lot of evidence thats already out there. Weve got the proof, weve got the receipts, he continued, calling the press a propaganda machine.

His appearance on the show was first reported by the Arizona Mirror, which also previously reported that Finchem had marched to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Finchem has also frequently promoted claims of fraud on social media. They won by cheating, now they want to make cheating legal. WTH this Stalinization of America has to come to an end, he wrote on Parler, the social media site popular on the right. Former Vice President Mike Pence now cares about election integrity? This reveals that he must acknowledge that there was fraud, he wrote on Gab, another site that caters to the far-right.

A screenshot of a Parler post from Mark Finchem is pictured. | POLITICO

Last week, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors which includes Gates and is controlled 4-1 by Republicans lashed out at the Arizona state Senate over the audit, calling it a sham that has rented out the once good name of the Arizona State Senate to grifters and con-artists. The supervisors were flanked at a press conference by various county officials, including Sheriff Paul Penzone, a Democrat, and Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican who was recently elected the countys chief elections officer.

Unprompted, Richer closed the press conference by tearing into Finchem, mocking the false conspiracy theories that voting machinery from the company Dominion Voting Systems was used to change election results.

Mark Finchem is running for secretary of state. Process that, he said. If the election was completely fraudulent, as he says, why would you run for secretary of state? What, do you think Dominion is going to rig it in your favor this time?

Why are you running if you do not believe in these elections? he closed. I would suggest that his actions speak a lot louder than his words.

In a subsequent interview with POLITICO, Richer analogized it to revealed preference, an economics theory: All these people, their true preferences and their true beliefs regarding the election system are more readily determined by their actions, which is to continue to run, he said, suggesting that if people really thought it was rigged, they wouldnt bother to run.

When asked whether he was considering a run for secretary of state in 2022, Richer quickly and flatly gave a one-word answer: No.

The most prominent candidate in the group is likely Hice, who is challenging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican whom Trump has repeatedly attacked for defending the 2020 election as free and fair.

In a recent letter circulated to conservatives in Georgia and obtained by The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Hice wrote that the election was full of systemic voting irregularities and fraud, and that he was running to stop Democrats before they rig and ruin our democracy forever.

He is running his campaign with Trumps endorsement: Jody will stop the Fraud and get honesty into our Elections! Trump proclaimed the day Hice launched his campaign. Raffensperger is facing significant anger within his own party, but he recently reaffirmed that he would run again.

The danger is youre lying to either yourself or to millions of people when you try to run for these large, statewide elected offices, Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican, said of the false electoral fraud claims.

Duncan, a vocal critic of Trump and other Republicans who push the election fraud myth, recently announced he would not seek reelection and instead focus on his GOP 2.0 initiative. He said a fixation on it will only hurt Republicans in the long term.

There is a vacuum of leadership, and folks wanting to put themselves into even higher leadership positions, continuing to carry on with the lies and misinformation, continues to create an even bigger vacuum around our party, he said.

Duncan, who was in Washington D.C. last week to take meetings about GOP 2.0 (he declined to say with whom) said he believed the party would come around: Theyre just going to get tired of losing. Theyre going to get tired of running people out there that just are unelectable.

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They tried to overturn the 2020 election. Now they want to run the next one. - POLITICO